I lost another character to a Skeleton Knight today. It was in Twin Falls while fighting the shrine. That guy that summons Skeleton Knights is pure BS. He even heals, that MF!
The damage of Skeleton Knights is so obnoxiously high, that it’s simply not possible to play a melee character. Okay I guess it’s possible when you have enough damage to one shot everything.
As a ranged character you can kite them. But as a melee character, there is simply no counter play. You can’t even tell when they do the attack, so you can’t time it. It sucks.
Yes, they received a nuke attack at some point in the past. Would have been fine if delayed/properly telegraphed, but they just reused a normal attack animation/speed. So going near them, especially on Veteran while still levelling, is extremely dangerous without very high vit and especially bleed resists. Even then, the numbers are so far outside of other regular monster damage numbers, it still hurts even when at 80/80.
It is kind of funny how they hit way harder than bosses on Veteran now and a first encounter with a Skeletal Knight is probably the single largest difficulty spike in the game when just playing through the regular campaign.
Also doesn’t feel right to me, but doubt it’s going to get changed. Later difficulties are not really an issue, as most builds are just exploding entire screens in seconds now anyway, but is very noticeable in Veteran.
I’m okay with what Z did to them. Not everything should be a cakewalk and there should be some threats of death to keep things lively, in my opinion.
Skeletal Knights don’t deal Vitality Damage, but they do have a castable 15% Reflect Damage buff that has Piercing Retaliation on it.
Also, they deal huge flat Physical Damage and massive Bleeding with their Blade Arc like attack. It’s not very well telegraphed but you figure out to at least get some Bleeding Resistance by that time.
Imo, after recent(-ish) nerf skeletal knights are okay, at least getting 2 of them use their special attack at the same time doesn’t send you to town/main menu anymore, unless you’re rocking less than (your lvl * 100) hp. They’re still scary, but feel rather fair now. Big punch attack definitely could use some special animation though.
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