Hello dungeon crawlers 👋
Back again with some progress and some hard learned lessons. This week we are diving into the third city Caelum and my experience so far. Plus a little breakdown on skills because… yeah… I totally missed that part at first 😅
Let’s get into it.
So I finally made my way into the 3rd city.
I honestly thought… this is it. I’m here now. Time to thrive. Time to level like crazy. Harvest those Caelum cores and boom… easy progress.
Well… I was wrong.
I have been here for three days now and let me tell you Caelum hits different.
Every city has its own vibe. That is obvious of course. In the first two cities you get a nice balance between items and monsters. My biggest struggle there was stamina. Always just needing a bit more STM to keep pushing.
But Caelum is mainly monsters. And even though I almost instant kill most of them… the counter attacks are brutal.
I often find myself suddenly low on health and needing to slow down. It even got me killed a few times.
And here is lesson number one.
Be careful with your buffs.
I just ate an Emberfruit for that sweet +50 percent stamina boost. First monster… counter attack… dead. Gone stamina. Gone health. That one hurt.
To make it worse food is not widely spread in this city. So you actually need a strategy. I do not want to buy too much food from the shop because it is just too expensive. So maybe slowing down play time in Caelum is the smarter move for now.
Another thing. The chests.
I have been here for three days and only found one chest. Now I understand why they are so expensive in the shop. Supply and demand at its finest.
Caelum really makes you work for everything.
Small rant moment 😄
When you get counter attacked on the last blow you need to see that clearly on the screen. That info is too important to miss.
Another thing. In this city I am gathering resources for keys in the 4th city. But I have no clue anymore what I actually need to collect. It would be great if we could at least see the key requirements and filter by city. I do not mind that I cannot craft them here. I just want to know what to focus on.
That would help a lot with planning runs.
When you enter the 4th city it is for now my DR farm city 😄
It feels much more balanced. More items. Fewer monsters. And the DR gain is solid.
I often go there just to farm DR and have an easier time. Then I slowly try to level some floors. But honestly finishing that city will take a long time.
Slow and steady.
Okay confession time.
I knew skills existed. I just never really looked at them. I did not even know properly where to find them.
When you are inside the dungeon you can see your skills and level them up. That is when it finally clicked for me.
These are the skills I have discovered so far:
There are active and passive skills.
At first I did not realize active skills cost stamina. So I was just using them every attack. Big mistake. I burned through stamina way too fast.
Right now I actually do not use the active skills in Caelum. They feel kind of worthless here compared to the stamina cost. Maybe that changes later in higher cities.
The passive skills are the ones I really want. But I cannot unlock them yet. I assume it is level locked but I am not fully sure what level is required.
You can start spending your mana stones in the skill tree and assign skills to your slots for battle.
My honest opinion.
The skill tree is cool. I think at higher levels or in later cities it might become crucial. For now I am mostly ignoring active skills and slowly leveling towards the passive ones.
If you take one thing from this post let it be this.
Be very careful with your health in the 3rd city.
Today I learned something important about counter attacks. The percentage damage is calculated based on the amount of attack damage you deal. I always thought it was based on your max health. Turns out that is not the case.
So the harder you hit the harder they can hit back.
I am still not fully sure what I think about that mechanic. It feels a bit strange to see such a tiny monster on the screen suddenly slap you for 40 percent of your health. Mentally it just does not match the visual sometimes 😅
But mechanics are mechanics so we adapt.
Here is the counter attack table so you understand what you are dealing with:
| Rank | Counter Attack Damage |
|---|---|
| F | 5 to 10 percent |
| E | 7 to 14 percent |
| D | 10 to 20 percent |
| C | 14 to 28 percent |
| B | 19 to 38 percent |
| A | 25 to 50 percent |
| S | 30 to 60 percent |
| SS | 35 to 70 percent |
| SSS | 40 to 80 percent |
| R | 50 to 100 percent |
If that R rank hits you hard you are basically done.
Even when you feel strong because you are one shotting monsters the counter damage can stack up quickly. Especially now that we know it scales with your own attack damage. Big crits can mean big punishment.
If you are low on health or playing risky after eating a stamina buff things can go downhill very fast.
So slow down. Watch your HP bar. Respect the counter attack.
So that was my weekly progress rambling from Caelum.
It is tougher than I expected. Less loot. More monsters. Harder counter attacks. Expensive chests.
But that also makes it interesting.
Hope this helps some of you survive the third city a bit better than I did 😄
Happy crawling and see you next week.
Beaker signing off 👋
If you want to jump into the action yourself check out the links below.
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See you in the dungeons 🔥
