Skull

Skull
A strong marauder in a bulletproof vest, armed with grenades and a pistol. Inspired by Reddit user u/Ginho_Blaster
Main Stats
Health 48 Ranged Damage 46 Melee Damage 2
Explosive Damage	180
Crit. Chance	0%
Speed	6
Rage Drop	3
Behavior Stats
Agility	60
Aggression	25
Detection Range	200
Agility Penalty	80%
Aggression Penalty	80%
Morale Stats
Charisma	64
Valor	200
Charisma Radius	80
Abilities
Ability Cooldown	15-20s
Ranged Data
Ammo Capacity	5
Firing Period	N/A
Reloading Period	N/A
Range	200
Bullet Spread	40°
Resistances
Bullet	70%
Knockback	50%

Skull is an infected marauder who carries a large-caliber pistol and a handgun, dressed in black body armor, a military helmet with a skull insignia, a grenade belt and dirty grey pants. Bloodstains are present on his face and hands, the latter of which have turned green from infection.

Overview

Skull is a marauder that acts as a combination of Robber and Grenadier.

He fires his single-action at a slow speed up to five times before performing a relatively quick reload. If approached suddenly or without ammo, he does a quick melee attack.

Once he chooses a target, Skull will throw a grenade in their direction. It behaves similar to Grenadier's explosives, and has a cooldown that randomly fluctuates between 15 and 20 seconds.

As a human, he is able to move towards closest detected enemies, is susceptible to fear, and can navigate around fire pools. He will attack Generator and Turret when he is near them, but will ignore any other stationary items.

Skull possesses resistances to bullet damage and knockback. Some time after dying, he turns into an Undead.

Strategy

Skull is a rather annoying enemy to fight for early players due to a combination of 90% bullet resistance and devastating ranged attacks, being a significant threat in any of his appearances. His handgun can deal heavy damage at a distance to units that lack bullet resistance, and if that wasn't enough, his inaccurate grenade throws can also cripple if not destroy them outright. This directly invalidates a wide variety of ranged units, who have no hopes of defeating Skull on his own, and while melee units can yield extra consistency, things can compound when other threats arrive, as Skull is likely to stay behind them.

Builder and Grenadier can both be serviceable counters, as they are accessible units with 90% bullet resistance, easily dismissing Skull's handgun to approach him, though support is needed to fight off other enemies that tag along. Grenadier's toss isn't very consistent either, but when used well can take out Skull in one hit and do heavy damage to other foes caught in the blast. Explosion resistance matters less, as timing allows many units to avoid Skull's grenades. Most support items aren't useful, but the one aspect they have in common is their full explosion immunity to such explosions. Red Barrel and Molotov in particular are strong counters, as Skull does not resist melee/fire/explosive damage and is somewhat frail. They can additionally torch his corpse, preventing him from returning as an annoying Undead. In the worst case, you can use Empty Barrel, which will leave the enemy with just a fraction of its health or even kill it if the barrel is at least 3 levels higher.

Bugs

• Currently, Skull's ranged attacks do not scale with his level.

Trivia

• Unlike Lubber, Skull doesn't have his unique death sprite, and immediately turns into a collapsed Undead when slain.