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Yeah, back when I was new to the wiki, revising Spelunky was one of the first things I did (First CRT ever, if you ignore a minor one that kinda died off). Predictably, since I was so inexperienced, and the verse had no other supporters, I screwed up a bit. While the P&A aren't too bad if lacking in scans, the tiers were all over the place. From 4-C, possibly 4-A to 9-A, 8-C with certain weapons to 8-C | High 8-C to just High 8-C to High 8-C | High 8-C+, it had a lot of revisions, I was simply not sure of how to scale stuff like this, especially since Spelunky scaling is a bit messy at the best of times. So, with that out of the way, now that I've got a bit more experience under my belt, let's try and fix that, shall we.
As such, let's cut that scaling down. Anything that deals less damage than a bomb does not scale to the bomb in AP, and anything that cannot survive a bomb does not scale to the bomb in durability. Nice and simple. The backup feat is... well, it's in the blog already, destroying a single Mothership tile is a Building level feat, and one that can be performed with the Mattock, a weapon that deals 1 hp, tying it with the MC's basic attacks and a lot more for the weakest in the game, as well as by some fodder enemies. This 8-C calc scales to just about everything, since this is a roguelike where the characters have canonically died a bunch and have special responses to being killed by just about any enemy, it would even scale to random foes.
And if you think that's silly, just you wait. Hou Yi's Bow is a weapon whose description says "With this simple but refined bow, Hou Yi shot down the nine suns that scorched the Earth". While the weapon is actually pretty weak, it's implied it is not at its full power without the Arrow of Light, a special, glowing arrow born of the Moon (Which is implied to be the boss Tiamat by some lore that isn't really important here since it doesn't scale to her). The Arrow of Light is obtained very late into the game, can only be used with Hou Yi's Bow (any other bow will break if attempting to shoot it) and deals 10 damage, one-shotting anything but the final boss Hundun, who you are clearly not meant to hurt with the bow since it only fires horizontally and if you are horizontal to Hun Dun you are probably half a second away from unavoidable spike-based impalement and will 100% lose the arrow (which is actually meant to be shot at him after he dies to create a portal into a special level). So, possibly Star level with this weapon seems fine to me.
The Downgradin'
Currently, Spelunky characters are being scaled to the force of their bombs for both games, which is a Large Building level+ feat, but while the feat is legit, it is wrong to scale characters to it. since bombs kill them in one hit at base health (Characters start at 4 hp, bombs deal 10 while power pack bombs deal 15). My original reasoning for scaling them to this explosion was that bosses with enough health to survive bombs could still be killed by weaker weapons rapidly. And while that is true, I don't think it's enough to scale someone to something that'd one-shot them twice over, just because they can chip down someone who wouldn't befall the same fate.As such, let's cut that scaling down. Anything that deals less damage than a bomb does not scale to the bomb in AP, and anything that cannot survive a bomb does not scale to the bomb in durability. Nice and simple. The backup feat is... well, it's in the blog already, destroying a single Mothership tile is a Building level feat, and one that can be performed with the Mattock, a weapon that deals 1 hp, tying it with the MC's basic attacks and a lot more for the weakest in the game, as well as by some fodder enemies. This 8-C calc scales to just about everything, since this is a roguelike where the characters have canonically died a bunch and have special responses to being killed by just about any enemy, it would even scale to random foes.
The Upgradin'
Now that the verse isn't in a weird, "everything scales to everything" state, some feats that I previously considered outliers can be used again. Firstly, Kingu's Bestiary entry states that "Her mighty shell once withstood the impact of a comet". Kingu is a nearly unbeatable foe whose shell can only even begin to be cracked by ten explosions, which are among the strongest attacks in the game, and unlike just about anything else, is completely impenetrable to weaker attacks before that crack happens (and when it does, 200 damage needs to be inflicted, putting her far above anything else in the game in terms of HP). There is one exception to this, however, the sword Excalibur will crack Kingu's shell with a single swing, and make short work of her afterwards. Excalibur gibs almost all enemies and kills just about any other boss in two or three shots if that, so again, no outliers here. I have calculated the KE of a comet, and it is a Large Country level feat.And if you think that's silly, just you wait. Hou Yi's Bow is a weapon whose description says "With this simple but refined bow, Hou Yi shot down the nine suns that scorched the Earth". While the weapon is actually pretty weak, it's implied it is not at its full power without the Arrow of Light, a special, glowing arrow born of the Moon (Which is implied to be the boss Tiamat by some lore that isn't really important here since it doesn't scale to her). The Arrow of Light is obtained very late into the game, can only be used with Hou Yi's Bow (any other bow will break if attempting to shoot it) and deals 10 damage, one-shotting anything but the final boss Hundun, who you are clearly not meant to hurt with the bow since it only fires horizontally and if you are horizontal to Hun Dun you are probably half a second away from unavoidable spike-based impalement and will 100% lose the arrow (which is actually meant to be shot at him after he dies to create a portal into a special level). So, possibly Star level with this weapon seems fine to me.
The Concludin'
Here's how the existing Spelunky profiles should scale now.- Guy Spelunky's base stats are downgraded to 8-C, though his durability with items remains up to High 8-C | up to High 8-C+ as you can obtain enough health (up to 99) to let you withstand multiple bombs/power pack bombs. As for his AP with equipment, the weapons that scale above the bombs are the Crysknife (99 damage), the Plasma Cannon (Basically shoots bombs but with an extra 10 damage on top). As discussed before he will also be High 6-B with Excalibur and possibly 4-C with Hou Yi's Bow + Arrow of Light. His statistics as a ghost are downgraded as the Ice Beam doesn't actually inflict damage, it just allows you to shatter frozen enemies which is duraneg.
- Tiamat's AP goes down to 8-C, she can't inflict more than 1 hp of damage at a time, though her summons go up to High 8-C in power as they include UFOs that explode with the same range and power as bombs. Durability stays High 8-C+, she has 40 hp.
- Hundun's AP goes down to 8-C (most damage he can inflict is 2) but dura stays High 8-C+ (25 and 30 hp for his heads)
- Olmec's stats stay the same as it is completely invulnerable and can one-shot a player with 99 hp. Its summons however go down to 8-C for the first key (summons random weak enemies) and "from 8-C to High 8-C" for the second key" as he summons UFOs whose regular attacks are 8-C, but again, explode like bombs. Speaking of bombs, second key's bombs should be listed on their own as AP, scaling to High 8-C since they are literally the same bombs as the MC's.
- The Ghost's High 8-C rating is removed for the same reasons as the MC ghosts's.
- Vlad's stats all go down to 8-C as he inflicts 1 hp of damage and has 10 hp, meaning a bomb one-shots him.
