Progression Charon Fix, Timelost Sanctum Rebalance, Garroth Overhaul

I think the Underworld Crypt as a whole has been in a good spot difficulty-wise ever since I started playing back in 2020. Devs seem to agree since it's been nearly completely unchanged since. Except for the obvious part: Charon, who is no longer a plants versus zombies minigame, and was overhauled to a proper boss fight. When this was first released, I was a huge fan! I though it was a bit overtuned, but he had some pretty cool abilities, and it was a very fun fight overall, even with its difficulty.
So... what happened?? Why does he just walk forward and cast multi-hit now?? Is this unintentional?? Even the wiki seems confused, mentioning all the cool things he used to do.

I don't really remember the reasoning for replacing Lost Sanctuary, I personally liked the dungeon, and scaling that big tree in the middle. But that's not to say that Timelost Sanctum is a huge jump in quality, with its build, music, dungeon gimmick... but it also definitely has some balancing issues because of that very gimmick...

• Cathedral: Pathetically easy no matter what state you approach it in, just beat up the anchor for a couple seconds.
• Courtyard: A fair challenge in 1st or 2nd dungeon phase, rough but doable in 3rd, absurd spell and projectile spamming in 4th if you don't take out all enemies immediately as they spawn.
• Observatory: I'd like to think the progression of this one works in reverse; the longer you take to get around to it, the cooler a parkour section you get as a reward. Obviously always save for last.
• Research Lab: Ridiculous. Because of it's placement in the central room, this is probably going to be the one that many players save for last. Well over half of those players are going to be immediately swarmed by projectiles and die. Getting to this one first is basically mandatory if you're approaching the dungeon at the level it suggests.

I really like what they went for here, but I feel like it really needs some balancing. There shouldn't really be an optimal route (Lab, Yard, Cath, Obs) that is this blatant, as it takes away from the gimmick being there at all, and turns it into a punishment if you deviate from the route. Also the survival section is fine, well balanced, gives enough space and time to keep up with the buffed destroyed variant enemies.

All of this dramatic time anchor nonsense culminates into a battle with... a stationary projectile and spell turret, that occasionally teleports around. Melee classes have fun tanking 50 shots trying to get in and deal damage. I think they need to give this guy the 2.0.1 Charon treatment, go wild, make him do time shenanigans, give everyone a -999% move speed and jump height buff to do a dramatic pause time gimmick, something cooler than shooting ender pearl graphics !!! Keep the funny phase transition attack too.

okay those are my thoughts thanks

 

Didn't fit the lore or the region it was apart of. Had pretty terrible gameplay of just doing the same task 5 times in a row.

it was made before the new AI and ability system, so yes. It's like the vast majority of bosses pre-2.1.

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Your complaints for both Garoth and Charon seem to just be that ... they're outdated, so they're not as cool.

 

But what I'm saying is 2.0.1 Charon was cool, but then, I'm not entirely sure what happened since then, but he got simplified to basically a single attack. Timelost Sanctum was 2.0.3, meaning it was added after cool Charon.

And either way (afaik) these are some of the only Dungeon Bosses that didn't recieve an update for Rekindled? Probably because they were also most recently added, but compared to what they're surrounded by now, they feel due for a glow up sometime in the future, maybe a return of a Garoth lore quest too?

 

All corrupted dungeon bosses, underworld crypt, timelost sanctum, galleon's graveyard

 

Both of the targets you have to attack first are positioned in areas that have plenty of room for cover from the mobs. I've found on pretty glassy classes with builds that I don't think were very good that this is totally manageable as long as you use the big pillars to your advantage to but off mobs so they can't hit you with projectiles and take longer to reach you. I guess the potential problem is that new players may not know to do this, but Time Valley stuff overall is already absurdly difficult for beginner players (think the Time Trouble fights and the normal mobs, especially "Bloom" type mobs with rapid projectiles; I find Time Valley to be the most difficult area to just survive in at-level in the game) I think a lot of Time Valley content including this dungeon is probably meant to be more challenging content that's balanced more for players on second or third playthroughs who are more experienced, and I think the later rooms of this dungeon do that well.
I do agree that if there is an optimal order for the rooms that is obvious across classes then that should be fixed, but I think I'd rather them fix that by buffing Cathedral than by nerfing Lab or Courtyard given the aforementioned difficulty of Time Valley stuff in general and that I think they should be scaled similarly. I think Time Valley stuff right now is very fun to do overall on repeat playthroughs as it gives a chance to do more difficult content with the mana restrictions and mechanics of lower level content and I'd rather it not be made easier.

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Please learn to strafe. If this is a problem here it's probably a problem for every ranged mob in the game, unless there's something about this fight I forgot.
I do remember the fight being pretty unremarkable apart from the phase transition. It was sort of a typical older boss with pretty standard spell combos that didn't do that much interesting. I'd argue he should be made more difficult as well as more unique. I'd like if the boss was a bit harder than most of the previous stuff in the dungeon whereas I normally feel like I'm having to focus way more during the earlier parts like the later rooms and survive section than during the boss fight.

 

I should point out Timelost Sanctum is meant to be hard side content. The boss is significantly higher level than you, and the dungeon is far harder than the others similar in level.

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Originally Garoth was level 70.