Im playing Hard mode right now, and Skeletal guardians/conjurers have 750 HP and do 120+ damage. Orc Wardrummers have 1500 HP and up to 250 damage.
I can kill orcs, boars, bees, snakes in melee combat, but its quite painful (what I expect at level 7), but trolls, corpses and steel warriors (archer in Abby) do more than 70 damage per hit against my level 7 character with 100 Vitality. I still have yet to clear the last battle in the Catacombs because Im afraid of multiple 750+ vitality skeletal lords that can kill me in 1 hit. I might be level 9 by then, but thats only 30 more Vitality or so if I dont find several +30 Vit items first.
I feel the standard monsters are appropriately challenging, but its the tougher versions of these that may require Death Scorpians, or archery for 4 minutes running around, unless I can figure something else out <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/disagree.gif" alt="" /> I really dont want to resort to scorpians. Any Advice? Has anyone here gone far in HARD mode with a melee character?
