Critical mode moonlord down! can confirm critical is possible to beat, though it took a lot of cheesing/hiding from enemies. finished off at level 93 with 25 Phys and 18 fort which is like 3500 hp 1800+ defense while buffed
critical mode was about as difficult as expected (minus EoC being too easy imo and WoF being extremely hard for melee), hardmode was a piece of cake after i got some bananarangs. And once i cheesily-farmed a fetid baghnakhs, my dps just shot through the sky and everything was a joke up to golem, who was kinda difficult, but then very easy after getting vampire knives.
Then i hit lvl 25 phys and got leeching strike..goodbye vampire knives...the heal from this combined with fetid baghnakhs makes everything a joke, i can face tank almost everything...i repeat; almost everything, which brings me to cultist and beyond..the jump in difficulty from golem to cultist/pillars/moonlord is just unreal lol, im not saying its too hard (in fact it was kinda refreshing to feel the wrath of critical mode again) but maybe im saying golem is too easy? it just felt weird to have slight trouble with something, beat it, then the boss/enemies immediately after have the difficulty skyrocket
couple things i wanted to note:
- leeching strike: doesnt work on target dummies(for obvious reasons i take it you made it this way?) BUT if you use fetid baghnakhs to dps the dummies, the healing does come through and makes cheese healing possible, i avoided doing this cuz thats just dangerously cheesy lol
- stat reset price: maybe im just bad at making money, but i couldnt even reach half the price, i could easily farm the money now, since almost every boss is a joke, but at the first point of finding the wizard? not a chance lol
- after defeating moonlord: the exp gained by everything is extremely high, is this on purpose? to maybe make it easy to hit 100 after beating the game?
everything i say is based on melee playthrough only, so im not sure how difficult it would be for other classes, but seeing as how they have no leeching strike, and probably have way less defense and i gotta say....good luck to any other build on critical lol. i cant imagine its a fun time. you will die a LOT, probably more than a melee tank with lifesteal.
in conclusion, critical is very fun, difficult and balanced for the most part, but the difficulty is short lived, leveling up a few times and getting better weapons/armor here or there changes things from frustratingly hard to laughably easy in a quick hurry