History YMMV / DeadCells

** The DLC areas are also considered much more difficult than the base game's ones, whether it's the Arboreum (with its plants, spikes and Yeeters/Jerkshrooms), the Morass of the banished (with its Blowgunners), the Cavern (with Demons that attack from unusual angles, Arbiters, Slammers or the highly resilient Ground Shakers), the Fractured Shrines (for its traps and heavy platforming more than for its enemies) or the Undying Shores (for its ''highly'' damaging Clumsy Swordsmen, compulsive Gravediggers, Dastardly Archers or failed Homunculi, all of which can be revived indefinitely by nearby Apostles). The infested shipwreck has its own challenges with floors breakable by enemy attacks and enemies like the armored shrimp. Andd the Lighthouse is frantic race to the top above the flames.

*** Dracula's bat swarm, which he uses in both phases. Like in ''Order of Ecclesia'', you need precise positioning to dodge it, and if you stays within its area of effect, your health will be depleted ''extremely'' fast.

** Rempart, a Survival shield whose effect is to grant ''invincibility'' for a short duration after a successful melee parry (and the duration of the invincibility remains the same even if you don't go for a Survival build), allowed players to simply facetank everything in the game. While its effect remained, the invincibility was nerfed to two-thirds of how long it initially lasted (from 3 seconds to 2,5 to 2).

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: The King. Was he really a tyrant, just incompetent at his job, a WellIntentionedExtremist who completely lost control of events, or did the Malaise drive him crazy? [[spoiler:This especially comes into question given TheReveal that the Beheaded is the King's mind and that he doesn't approve of what he's done. Furthermore, the Giant expresses sorrow over the King's brutal methods by mentioning that he was "a model for all of us", implying that he might not have been that bad in the past. There's also mention of the Malaise "doing a number on [the Beheaded's] body". If one reaches the Queen while wearing the King's outfit, her dialogue implies he was always something of a selfish prick, but how much of one is unclear.]]

** '''''The Lighthouse!''''' It's a frantic boss level that requires you to climb your way to the top of a burning lighthouse. Simple enough, except the Servants are taking potshots at you the entire time. The closest thing to a breather you get is the rooms where you fight the Servants as boss fights. And more of them will join the fray the higher up you go. Calliope's Wrecking Ball has a huge range, does lots of damage, and seems designed to punish you if you try to make use of ladders, as her upward swing will tag you every time. Euterpe is far and away the most annoying, as she makes use of her Gilded Yumi to fire at you from a distance, or detonate explosive barrels near you. She's also the most irritating in the actual boss fights, as she likes to stay far away from you and fly overhead while firing arrows at you. Kleio is the most straightforward of the three and the least dangerous during the climb due to the short range of her attacks, but the boss fights are another story due to her aggressive combos and the fact that she spends much of the fight spin attacking into you. The only mercy you get is the presence of food items before the second and third fights (and if you're lucky they'll be big food items that restore half your health), but it's still one of the hardest challenges in the game. [[ThatOneAchievement Good luck getting the achievement that requires you to finish the whole thing without taking damage!]] To add insult to injury, they didn't add a way to practice the boss fight when the DLC first came out.
* TierInducedScrappy:
** Typical Survival Based builds are seen as less optimal due to fast kills being advantageous, enemy damage being such that a higher HP doesn't amount to much, and the boss damage cap means the damage per hit is rather moot. It becomes more pronounced at higher boss cells with the spikes in enemy damage and Malaise control being based on fast kills.
** Inversely Tactics builds' tendency for high DPS via weaker but fast attacks, and allowing for more agility is seen as very effective as the boss damage cap isn't an issue and the lower HP is a moot point with general enemy damage and ability to dodge easier. Certain tactic Mutations are powerful in ranged builds. Effective to the point of making most Brutality builds pale.
** Shields in general suffer from this. Packing a shield takes one of your two weapons slots, meaning you'll be without a ranged weapon (requiring you to move into harm's way against every enemy) or a melee weapon (meaning that tougher enemies can soak up all your ammo and leave you in a tight spot). Most Mutations that reward shield use put heavy emphasis on parrying, basically amounting to playing chicken with enemies and being punished pretty severely if you lose. All of this is compounded by the game rewarding kill streaks without taking damage and the fact that you already have a roll button to thwart enemy attacks.

*** His "grab and choke" attack (named ''"Soul Steal"'' in ''Order of Ecclesia''). While it can be dodged, it comes quite quickly, has a fairly large hitbox and, if it touches, does absurdly high damage (enough that even dedicated Survival builds, supposed to be the tankiests in the game, ''die to it from near-full health'') ''and'' heals Dracula. To add insult to crippling injury, the way the damage is dealt not only bypasses the HPToOne mechanic of the game, but also the Disengagement Mutation, supposed to help prevent exactly these kind of things. [[spoiler:The Queen has a near-identical move (that ''also'' bypasses the HPToOne and Disengagement), but her version of it is more forgiving due to inflicting nowhere near as much damage and being more telegraphed]]. It was so bad that within days a patch was released that made it easier to dodge, greatly lowered its damage and made the Disengagment mutation work properly with it.

*** His "grab and choke" attack (named ''"Soul Steal"'' in ''Order of Ecclesia''). While it can be dodged, it comes quite quickly, has a fairly large hitbox and, if it touches, does absurdly high damage (enough that even dedicated Survival builds, supposed to be the tankiests in the game, ''die to it from near-full health'') ''and'' heals Dracula. To add insult to crippling injury, the way the damage is dealt not only bypasses the HPToOne mechanic of the game, but also the Disengagement Mutation, supposed to help prevent exactly these kind of things. [[spoiler:The Queen has a near-identical move (that ''also'' bypasses the HPToOne and Disengagement), but her version of it is more forgiving due to inflicting nowhere near as much damage and being more telegraphed]].

* AnnoyingVideogameHelper: Biters, mushroom Boy and the Leghugger can suffer from this depending on your build. Biters can alert enemies you didn't want to and can be targeted by enemy attacks, causing them to attack a different spot from where you normally expect them to, and the Leghugger and mushroom boy can't be targeted by enemies, but they can stagger them, which can mess with parry/dodge timings.

** Wolf Traps are one of the few items that go through ContractualBossImmunity, and boost damage done to trapped enemies to boost; for particularly evasive Elites or bosses such as Conjunctivitis they can eliminate that element of challenge. Plus, each use drops two traps, and with clever use of certain mutations they will become active again before the previous traps are done.
** "Invisibility", or "Makes you invisible after 5 seconds without attacking." is a potential amulet affix considered to snap the difficulty of the game in half, provided [[RandomNumberGod you're lucky enough to get an amulet with it]] It makes it so you can avoid almost every single enemy in the game, can choose when to fight, will not be taken by surprise, and so on.

* Rampagers. Insane speed, can jump to the player through walls and floors, and their four-hit combo ''will'' take out most of your health bar if you don't roll through it. They don't show up until 3BC for a good reason.

** Life Drinker (restore about 4% max hp per melee attack on a bleeding enemy) is another powerful aspect in that with the right effect, weapon, or mutation (anything that inflicts bleed), you can keep yourself healthy rather easily with melee attacks.
** The Armadillopack mutation, which makes it so that rolling with a shield in your backpack triggers a parry. Being able to parry while moving is already super powerful, but what really breaks the ability is that it allows you to effectively use all three weapon types at once, meaning that the entire aspect of managing which two types to use is completely negated. Not to mention that rolling in the face of imminent danger is already muscle memory by time you unlock it!

*** His "grab and choke" attack (named ''"Soul Steal"'' in ''Order of Ecclesia''). While it can be dodged, it comes quite quickly, has a fairly large hitbox and, if it touches, does absurdly high damage (enough that even dedicated Survival builds, supposed to be the tankiests in the game, ''die to it from near-full health'') ''and'' heals Dracula. To add insult to crippling injury, the way the damage is dealt not only bypasses the HPToOne mechanic of the game, but also the "Disengagement" Mutation, supposed to help prevent exactly these kind of things. [[spoiler:The Queen has a near-identical move (that ''also'' bypasses the HPToOne and "Disengagement"), but her version of it is more forgiving due to inflicting nowhere near as high damage]].

** Shields in general suffer from this. Packing a shield takes one of your two weapons slots, meaning you'll be without a ranged weapon (requiring you to move into harm's way against every enemy) or a melee weapon (meaning that tougher enemies can soak up all your ammo and leave you in a tight spot). Most Mutations that reward shield use put heavy emphasis on parrying, basically amounting to playing chicken with enemies and being punished pretty severely if you lose. All of this is compounded by the game rewarding kill streaks without taking damage and the fact that you already have a roll button to thwart enemy attacks.
** However should one master parrying, Sheilds can become powerful tools in a build, but this is not an easy task.