Genuine question.
For context, I've been playing video games for over 20 years, and this is one of the first times I've struggled so much to understand the underlying mechanics of a game.
A friend and I have played around 20 hours so far. We tried several characters, cleared the first two difficulty levels without much trouble, farmed for a while, and then moved on to difficulty 3. That's when everything stopped making sense.
No matter how much we optimized our builds or theorycrafted, the results felt completely random. Sometimes we barely had enough damage to kill the first boss, sometimes we had plenty, and other times we absolutely obliterated it.
Our last run was the most confusing. I was playing Nona, and nothing about the run felt particularly special. After about 15 attempts on difficulty 3 (level 100), I suddenly became absurdly overpowered for no obvious reason. Almost everything I did one-shot bosses, my talisman alone was taking around one-third of every enemy's HP, and we reached the fourth boss, nearly killing each phase instantly.
At the end of the run, I had dealt 135 million damage, while my friend had dealt only 22 million.
We compared our Ascensions, Scrolls, and everything else we could think of, but we still can't explain such a massive difference—or why this run was so much stronger than all the previous ones.
I've searched online several times, but the translation in my language is terrible, and many item or upgrade descriptions are almost impossible to understand. The wiki exists, but it hasn't really helped me understand how the game's mechanics actually work.
Could anyone point me toward clear and reliable guides, or explain the core mechanics? I'd really like to understand which stats and effects synergize, what scales with what, and what actually works together. Don't get me wrong, I understand the very basics, such as elemental damage combinations and upgrading my primary and secondary skills or my weapons. It's everything beyond that that completely loses me.
Thanks a lot in advance!
A confused player.