Lurker > transience

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xyzzy

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xyzzy

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xyzzy

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xyzzy

https://i.imgur.com/0FyO1yk.png

now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to go play the lottery

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xyzzy

Emeraldegg posted...

What in your opinion is the ascension level that leads to the greatest jump in difficulty from the last one?

it's probably... 17 or 18?, when the enemies level up a second time. that's so huge. my second place would probably ascension 10 or so when you start having to deal with Ascender's Bane every single fight. yuck.

ScepterOfLove posted...

Got any Time Eater lore?

I think Watcher gets some unique dialogue when she faces him!

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xyzzy

Apotheosis is the obvious one. it's probably the best card in the game and can get you through act 1 without even really needing to take anything else.

Hand of Greed is really good early on. it's crazy that it doesn't exhaust. you can farm some of the beginning enemies and end up with like 500 gold through act 1 without taking any events. it falls off a little later but it's still a good card about equivalent to something like Carnage or Predator for the same cost.

beyond the obvious, I really like Flash of Steel and Finesse. they're really flexible cards that are essentially free - no cost to either energy or card draw since they draw a card. they're great for any scaling up, whether that's increasing strength/dex with shuriken or kunai, or if you've already got those buffs and the card scales on its own. things like After Image or Watcher's Duality relic work great with it. if you're Ironclad and have 6 strength, suddenly Flash of Steel is a free 9 damage. the only downside is for things like Time Eater or the heart's beat.

Panacea is good if you've got Biased Cog or Wraith Form, and if not, artifact charges are still super valuable. you can do cool things like play Panacea and drink a flex or dex potion and retain the 5 str/dex for the fight.

I like Panache on Silent with a shiv deck a lot. there are some nice 0 cost cards like Master of Strategy or Secret Weapon that are objectively good but I wouldn't drop 200 gold on them pretty much ever. they are really useful for getting your deck going though.

The Bomb is cute and seems incredibly good at first but is too slow for my tastes. decent for act 1 though, and not so much after that.

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xyzzy

oh you don't have to be safe! for me it's not necessarily that floor, it's every floor thereafter that I have to deal with his nonsense

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xyzzy

Colegreen_c12 posted...

Most impactful card upgrades

If you're measuring purely as an improvement from unupgraded card to upgraded card, then I'd go with Fission+ being the biggest upgrade. evoking vs. removing is such an obvious upgrade. I don't love Fission+ all the time but it's wayyyy better.

other cards that are really good upgraded:

Defragment+
Catalyst+
Loop+
Wraith Form+
Talk to the Hand+
After Image+
Hologram+
True Grit+
Limit Break+
Armaments+
Burst+

but these cards are all pretty great. here are some cards that go from being kinda okay to legit good:

Crippling Cloud+
Mental Fortress+
Rage+
Entrench+
Flame Barrier+
Whirlwind+
Neutralize+
Eruption+
Noxious Fumes+
Envenom+

(some of those are more than "kinda okay", but you get what I mean)

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xyzzy

I agree with you. Watcher is the one class where nothing is really bad. Simmering Fury is okay! it's just, if you gave me the choice between taking that or Crescendo I would take Crescendo. I feel like it should be a 0 cost card when upgraded instead of drawing one more card.

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xyzzy

it just doesn't do that much damage. you need to summon like 15 frost orbs to make it worth it and all the while it's cycling through your deck like a curse.

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xyzzy

SirBinro posted...

Transforming cards

It's almost always good! I recommend it.

There's a debate to be had on the Transform vs. Remove vs. Upgrade event but my general logic is Transform > Remove because I almost always get that event in the first few floors of act 1 and I just want something that's not a strike or a defend. But, if I have a curse I'll probably go with remove.

edit: oh, and it's good to remember that if you have one of the egg relics, any card that you receive of that type will be upgraded. This goes doubly true for Pandora's Box.

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xyzzy

SSBM_Guy posted...

catalyst

A monster card that can deliver a finishing blow. I used to pick it early in act 1 without any poison cards because it's that good once you start layering on poison.

I don't do that anymore, mostly because of the buffs to Silent in v2.2 now make poison less of a necessity, but also because I just don't like the idea of picking up the finisher before getting the building blocks. It's like choosing Finisher before getting 3 Blade Dances or something like that.

Anyway, Catalyst is a monster card that can really wreck fights, especially if you pair it with a corpse explosion. One thing to note is that there's not really a need to drop more than 100ish poison on an enemy, especially the heart because of that obnoxious damage limit. The only exception here is Time Eater or Champ because if you play it right, you can cut right through their cleansing powers at half health.

Oh, and upgrade it.

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xyzzy

Watcher

1. Simmering Fury - I need my Watcher to be as risk-free as possible and I don't want to chance it with this card. I guess if you had a transquility that it would be decent but ehhhh. I just don't see a need to have this in my deck.
2. Windmill Strike/Perseverance - Watcher is a glass cannon that blows things up very quickly. These cards would be alright on someone slower like Defect or Silent but they feel misplaced on Watcher. I had a heart kill today with Watcher where I removed Perseverance in the act 4 store because it was just clogging up my hand.
3. Alpha - This also feels misplaced on Watcher. When I first started playing Watcher, this + a really thin deck (~10 cards) was my go-to, and if you go that extreme, it kinda works? You still need like 15 turns to kill the heart that way, and the energy cost to get it into play is more than I'd like. Put it on Defect with a frost orb setup going and you can just click end turn and win, but that's not Watcher's style.
4. Like Water - Kinda nice for act 1. Adding 5/7 block in act 3 when things are hitting you for 50, not so much.
5. Signature Move - I used to think this card was great! If you're in divinity it can really mess things up. Watcher just has so many ways to play an endless amount of cards with stance switching and scry, and amazing cards like Talk to the Hand don't benefit from this card. I feel similarly about Reach Heaven. Signature Move is good early on but once again, as things scale up that damage isn't really what you need.

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xyzzy

Defect

1. Reprogram - there are ways to utilize Reprogram, like a claw deck with Hyperbeam, Hologram and the other 0 cost cards. I just can never risk my focus being garbage. Even if you have something like Orange Pellets to clear the debuff, the most focus you're going to be at is neutral. If this card was like Fasting and gave 3-4 str/dex then that would be a different story.
2. Thunder Strike - It's probably okay with Snecko Eye. If I'm channeling like 15 lightning to make this card worth it, I'm probably going to be able to kill some other way.
3. Blizzard - ditto for Blizzard.
4. Overclock - Ironclad has cards like this but he can also Exhaust them or play something like Fire Breathing/Evolve to benefit from them. For burns, you'd probably need a recycle. Defect is bad with card draw but even with that I'd rather grab a Skim or a Compile Driver or an FTL if you need it to be 0 energy.
5. Hello World - I talked about this earlier. This card's pretty useful when you're coming up to the first elite, but by the time you're into act 2 it's basically a curse or it's clogging up your deck with mediocre cards.

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xyzzy

Silent

1. Grand Finale - lol this card. You can make it work! It's usually just not worth building an entire deck around it. By the time you get to act 3 (and even some of act 2), 50/60 damage just isn't that good.
2. Doppelganger - I just do not like this card. Silent has so many good uses for energy and I rarely have the time to just throw 2-3 energy into getting more energy and cards next turn. I often play it at 0 energy just to exhaust it. Why is this card rare?
3. Eviscerate - it can have its uses, say, if you get a Prepared+ or something like that. But like, why not just get Skewer? You have to draw it along with the right cards to make it work. If you have a Tools of the Trade in play or something like that, sure, maybe this works. I rarely play it right.
4. Expertise - I just never want to sacrifice energy for cards. Plus, you have to have a low number of cards to make it worth it.
5. Setup - I had a crazy situation in a Dead Branch run where I played Setup on Wraith Form, draw it the next turn for 0 energy, and then got Nightmare which I played for 3 0 cost Wraith Forms on turn 3. I'll never get that lucky again.

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xyzzy

Lolo_Guru posted...

10 most worthless cards.

hmmm. we'll do a bottom 5 for each class, exclude strikes/defends and leave the colorless ones alone.

Ironclad

1. Clash - One of the easiest ways to tell how good someone is at STS is to ask them their opinion of Clash. Once you get to a decent enough ascension level, this card is pretty much unplayable in most hands thanks to all the status cards. Ironclad has tons of cards that even add status cards, and even has two power cards that encourage you to get them. Whenever I end up with Clash, it feels more like a curse than a tangible benefit, and when I get to play it I'm a little surprised. Even when you do, 12/16 damage isn't THAT good when you could have spent that energy/card draw not playing every skill/power card you had.
2. Brutality - I dunno, I like card draw but not like this. It might be OK when you get into later acts and just need to draw a ton, but ehhhh. Maybe if you had tungsten rod?
3. Thunderclap - like, this card isn't *bad*, but 4 damage to all? It's so mediocre. Its best use is probably removing artifact charges from multiple enemies at once, which is basically just the sentries and the act 4 elite. You aren't often in a position to do a whole lot with this card. I'd rather have Cleave which doesn't need a good situation to work out. Vulnerable is great and all but it only lasts one turn, even upgraded. If Thunderclap's upgrade was 4 damage/2 vulnerable then yeah, I'd be down.
4. Havoc
5. Warcry - Both of these cards just feel kinda useless. Havoc could maybe be good if you were trying to get rid of a bad card or had some kind of exhaust synergy going - feel no pain, dark embrace, juggernaut, dead branch, something like that - but it just feels so situational. Warcry is only good if you draw an expensive card that you can't play along with it.

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xyzzy

also, I have a horrible tendency to not use my potions and end up having to discard them when I'm full. I should probably stick to things like block potions because they're so concrete, but things like the +5 dex potion just end up going unused because I always think there's going to be some magic time to use it and there never is.

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xyzzy

Paratroopa1 posted...

Like, on Silent I just really like to try to carry at least one intangible potion into act 4 if I can, and not being able to do that makes me very sad

okay speaking of which talk about Sacred Bark, do you take it (I do sometimes!)

I need a tangible reason to take it, and in my mind there's really only two, maybe three: white beast statue, alchemize and maaaaybe potion belt. it's awesome when it hits, but you can't use it every fight, let alone every round. some potions, like the upgrade one or elixir or entropic brew, don't have any effect.

but if you've got 2-3 potions banked on the heart, it's awesome. I just probably won't make it there because I'm rocking 3 energy in act 2 and getting whipped by gremlin leader or whatever.

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xyzzy

I'm not sure if this is 100% right but I'm going with it. only regular relics listed here, no boss or event relics and nothing class-specific either



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xyzzy

Paratroopa1 posted...

Rank/tier the best and worst +1 energy boss relics

this is super situational - when are you getting these relics? what do you have? is it a boss relic swap or are you getting them on act 1, act 2? but, trying to put all of that aside..

sozu (potions) > cursed key (curse for opening a chest) > ectoplasm (gold) > fusion hammer (smithing) > velvet choker (6 cards) > busted crown (1 card reward) > slaver's collar (bosses and elite only) > philosopher's stone (+1 strength to enemies) > runic done (can't see enemy intents) > coffee dripper (cannot rest)

having done this, I feel like it's actually a fairly useless ranking because you can't judge anything. velvet choker, for example, depends super heavily on your deck, and if you're playing silent you shouldn't even consider it unless you're just dumping poison like crazy. busted crown is a better reward after act 1 than if you boss relic swap, where you're pretty much done. slaver's collar is a pretty good act 2 relic but not a great act 1 because you really want 4 energy to deal with act 2's rough multi-target common encounters. I don't have a real issue with avoiding enemy intents because for half of them I don't need it at all.. but there are some enemies that are a little more randomized and it can really screw you up. it all depends.

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xyzzy

Defect feels like the least skilled run since the difference between good and bad just comes down to what you're offered. there's more to the character than just that one thing but there's no doubt that extreme focus scaling is a clear win button.

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xyzzy

I fight them 99% of the time. the other day, I had Ectoplasm and had 2 gold left, so I decided to skip it. later on that run, I found the red mask in an act 3 event, which I didn't even know about because I always either have the mask or die.

that's another act 2 fight that's multitarget. if you kill Bear turn 1 then you'll be just fine. it's his debuff that wrecks you.

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xyzzy

Nemesis doesn't scale. he can be a pain if you draw poorly into the intangible turns, but if you're on act 3 you should be working on some form of scaling and you can do that on his off turns.

Gremlin Leader.. well, in general, act 2 is all about AOE damage. the birds, the 3 cultists, gremlin leader and the slavers are all really rough if you only focus on single target damage. that can extend to automaton and the collector as well. if you let Gremlin Leader's minions stick around then you're going to be in real bad shape against him. if you plan appropriately, he's tolerable.

Slavers are rough because their first turn can do like 30 damage, and book of stabbing scales up quicker than Gremlin Leader. it all depends on who you're playing as. I think Defect has the hardest act 2 by a good bit because his orbs are all inherently single target. Electrodynamics is such a huge card for surviving act 2 because of that.

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xyzzy

yeah, it's one of the achievements. the easiest way is to dump a boatload of poison on him with multiple catalyst+'s. Watcher has some crazy stuff she can do too and there's no reason to ever really leave wrath (outside of maybe to generate energy).

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xyzzy

I'd sooner rank elites in terms of difficulty. that's suuuuper dependent on character, let alone deck, but let's go with

act 1: Gremlin Nob > Sentries > Lagavulin
act 2: Slavers > Book of Stabbing > Gremlin Leader
act 3: Reptomancer > Giant Head > Nemesis

this is for ascension 20, I'm not sure what they look like on lower levels at this point. well, I have an idea, but not the experience of dealing with them on a regular basis

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xyzzy

Emeraldegg posted...

Snecko and where it ranks on your list of worst enemies in the game

not in the top 5, I don't think! let's make a top 5, from 1 to 5:

https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/Snake_Plant
https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/Writhing_Mass
https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/Spire_Growth
https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/Shelled_Parasite
https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/Shapes

(Snecko might be 5, but on high ascensions the spikers can be real pains)


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xyzzy

well, that's that. thanks for joining me, and see you all in another 2ish years!

100. portal
99. uniracers
98. dragon warrior
97. world of goo
96. spelunky 2
95. binding of isaac
94. mega man 3
93. ace attorney 5
92. p1 select
91. castlevania: dawn of sorrow
90. half-minute hero 2
89. dragon quest builders 2
88. zelda: link to the past
87. monument valley
86. papers, please
85. zelda: majora's mask
84. god of war 2
83. crystalis
82. great ace attorney 2
81. wolfenstein 2: the new colossus
80. dragon warrior monsters 2
79. final fantasy 7
78. golf story
77. we love katamari
76. etrian odyssey 5
75. super smash bros ultimate
74. mike tyson's punch out!!
73. dragon quest 3
72. holedown
71. shadow hearts 2
70. bleed
69. super hexagon
68. shadow complex
67. hades
66. final fantasy 9
65. persona 4 golden
64. zelda 1
63. mega man 11
62. metroid fusion
61. ace attorney investigations 2
60. desert golfing
59. crypt of the necrodancer
58. street fighter 2
57. brothers: a tale of two sons
56. persona 5
55. geometry wars 2
54. castle crashers
53. tales of maj'eyal
52. xenoblade
51. actraiser
50. castlevania: portrait of ruin
49. ace attorney
48. etrian odyssey 4
47. ace attorney 6
46. the messenger
45. final fantasy 6
44. life is strange
43. ikaruga
42. dicey dungeons
41. inside
40. fantasian
39. dragon quest 11
38. shadow hearts
37. final fantasy 4
36. suikoden
35. banished
34. final fantasy 10
33. tactics ogre: let us cling together
32. street fighter 4
31. super mario odyssey
30. bleed 2
29. outland
28. chrono trigger
27. final fantasy
26. persona 3 portable
25. the walking dead
24. dragon quest 8
23. vvvvvv
22. mega man 2
21. ori and the blind forest
20. final fantasy tactics
19. mega man 9
18. dragon warrior monsters
17. f-zero gx
16. spelunky
15. cave story
14. zelda: breath of the wild
13. am2r
12. final fantasy 5
11. ace attorney 3
10. xenosaga 3
9. ori and the will of the wisps
8. metroid dread
7. tetris
6. super metroid
5. metroid: zero mission
4. n++
3. slay the spire
2. celeste
1. xenogears

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xyzzy

Colegreen_c12 posted...

I don't think I realized you get different events in each act.

Also the thing I'm curious about is how you treat shops. Do you go for them a lot or only when you have a ton of gold. I typically hit 2 maybe 3 shops a run total.

it depends on what I have and what I need. one thing I'd recommend to you is to focus on removing strikes. I don't often buy potions unless I'm heading into the heart fight, just because I like to horde my money on other things like relics and power cards. I generally don't go to a shop unless I have more than ~170ish gold so I can buy a relic if it pops up. nothing drives me crazier than seeing something I need and being like 15 gold short. (I wish you could sell cards!)

I've also had times where I've died on the act 3 boss with like 1100 gold, so yeah, I can be bad at this too.

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xyzzy

Chemical X

I always never buy it, but it can really do wonders in the right situation! on Ironclad, Whirlwind (and especially Whirlwind+) can pretty much clean up act 2, especially the slavers fight which can be mega dangerous. for Silent, you've got Skewer and Malaise, and Malaise especially can really nerf the right boss (sup guardian, awakened one, time eater, heart). Defect gets a free 14/18 block from reinforced body and 2 lightning which is pretty good, and Watcher can get free miracle+'s and have a legit expunger which can be used for some gigantic damage, especially when paired with Talk to the Hand.

so, I'd say it's good, but you have to be bought in. it's hard to buy chemical x without having the right card, and I don't often take x cards. Malaise and maybe Whirlwind is the only one I really try to get, and Whirlwind is for the possibilities with strength scaling as much as anything. I'd rank it as a good relic, but it's a shop relic so you have to be willing to invest. with shop relics, I usually only buy them when I have excess money, or if it's going to break the run wide open. I'm conservative that way.

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xyzzy

Not Dave posted...

What's the best choice for the J.A.X. event?

it depends! usually it's transform 2 cards.

• if you have the artifact relic, you retain your 3 strength from the relic, so that's probably objectively better than jax in all cases
• some classes (silent, watcher) benefit from strength a lot more than others (ironclad, defect). watcher's damage is essentially doubled/tripled in wrath/divinity per point of strength and silent loves those shivs, not to mention other multi hit cards like riddle with holes.
• being able to remove 2 strikes can often be more valuable than what you get. even if you get, say, compile driver and leap, that's a nice improvement to your deck.
• I struggle with cards that damage you in classes where you don't have a way to heal, so I'm often scared of taking jax. but it's a great way to scale in fights where you might need it.

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xyzzy

Aecioo posted...

How do I get better to slay the spire

Granted I've only played a handful of hours but have only had real success with the first class

suffer for dozens of hours like the rest of us

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xyzzy

150 gold vs. Doubt

What I'm going to say here probably goes for similar events as well, e.g. the one where you get 50 gold vs. 275 gold and regret, or the event where you can upgrade a card vs. getting the upgrade relic + pain.

The first thing I look at is where the next shop is. You can get a net of 75 gold for removing doubt, and doubt itself isn't the worst curse if you're not reliant on attack cards (see: poison, orbs). If it's a long way to go, I probably won't take it, though sometimes if I see a sea of ? rooms on my path I might go there and hope I get one.

But overall, I don't love this event because removing a curse means I can't remove a strike. I probably turn it down a lot of the time, but I also have a sunk cost fallacy going on sometimes where not taking it means that I went through a room with nothing to show for it, and the spire isn't kind to those who don't improve their deck. But, you could make the same argument to say that skipping a card is the same thing, and obviously there are many times where skipping is the right move. So yeah, definitely a fallacy.

Oh, and if you've got some of the curse relics like onomori or du-vu doll or that one that increases max hp, then go for it. This is usually an early act 1 relic though so chances are you don't have that unless you got it from neow.

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xyzzy

? mark rooms

I don't really have a strategy for ? vs. monster rooms unless I can think of a specific purpose:

• if I take the first 3 enemies have 1 HP reward from the starting event, I'll go ? hunting for an elite path. (I used to think this event was a waste but being able to get through half of act 1 for free is pretty good, and it lets you be a little bit riskier. +6/7 hp isn't really all that great.)
• one important thing is that you get enough decent cards to balance out your strikes/defends before you hit the act 1 elites, especially gremlin nob. a card like Headbutt isn't great or anything but it's better than a strike when dealing with lagavulin's debuffs.
• if I get cards that offer bonuses in battle like: feed, alchemize, self repair, genetic algorithm, wish, lesson learned, hand of greed, etc then I'll prioritize encounters.
• if I have toxic egg, I might hit more ? in act 2 to see if I can get the apparition event, since they'll be upgraded. I guess the same is true for the bites but bites are really situational and I've usually removed 2 or 3 strikes by then anyway.
• various relics like tiny chest or whatever can offer some more value for ? events.
• my HP dictates a lot, so if I have like 8 hp and a campfire is coming, maybe hit the ? events.

but outside of those very situational uses, I'm not really picky. I just do whatever I feel like at that moment. if I thought about it, I might say that act 2 ? events are overall better than 1/3 because of stuff like the apparitions or that event where you can get jax or transform 2 cards. but I dunno.

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xyzzy

Paratroopa1 posted...

My issue with it is that if you see it in drafts in act 2 or later it's just dead... you could MAYBE start using it if you draft it in act 2 but honestly, that's rough, it's a dead card for a while and act 1 is really the last time you can be fucking around

I guess I think of it like a common card at that point. I'm not going to take, say, sweeping beam or iron wave on act 2/3 pretty much ever but they don't bother me when they show up.

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xyzzy

A Note for Yourself

I've actually only encountered this event once and it blew my god damn mind. You only encounter it up to ascension 14 and only if you've beaten the ascension before. I always just played the highest ascension until I beat it and then moved on, so it wasn't until I did an endless run that I came across it.

I can't think of too many galaxy brain uses for this event, except maybe storing searing blow after it's upgraded a few times? That's so situational though. In reality I would probably just store a strike to get it out of my hand and then ignore the event (assuming you can?). I dunno. There are a lot of good act 1-2 cards like Dash, Conclude, Anger, etc that might be good for the event since you can get it out of your hand and pick it back up at the beginning of another run. That's about all I've got?

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xyzzy

Claw

Oh boy. Buckle in.

Everyone has an opinion on claw. Some people think it's great, some people think it's awful, and it's got this reputation as a meme card. I think claw is... okay? By which I mean, claw can be good if you have the right deck. But you have to really go all in to make it good.

The right claw deck is something like: 2 or maybe 3 claws (but not more), as many hologram+'s as you can get, rebound, skim, all for one and, ideally, some good focus and frost building. You can play with scrape and go for the eyes and beam cell too, depending on what you have.

If you get all that in a nice row, your deck is... good but not great? Claw scales so slowly that you're never going to be amazing. Maybe you get claw to 30 damage, which is great but how much did you have to do to get there? I really wish Claw+ scaled by 3 instead of 2, instead of just starting at 5 damage instead of 3.

My favorite claw decks have unceasing top, shuriken/kunai, and cards to help out your deck like machine learning or recycle. You want to be able to play as many cards as you can and to scale in ways besides just the claw card itself. The biggest problem with a claw deck is.. let's say you make it to the heart. Are you going to be able to deal with the beat and its damage while you spam a billion claws? It's tough.

But claw can be useful when you're not going all in and just using it for some moderate damage. It's great for things like procing Orange Pellets or if you've got a thin deck and have your frost orbs sorted out. If you can't be hurt, claw can scale as slow as it wants and you'll have no problem.

This card isn't easy to play and takes some specific decisions, but it's also really fun to just poke at enemies with claw until it becomes godlike. Cool card and cool concept, and it's alright. I tend to pick it if I see it by floor 5 or so, but not usually after that because if I'm going claw, I want to refine my deck with it in mind as much as possible. That's the thing with claw: you can't just add it for funsies.

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xyzzy

I listened to that as it was happening. I chat with those guys every once in a while. stingers even joined in the other day.

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xyzzy

Hello World

This card's kinda great on act 1! The common cards it gives you are almost objectively better than Strikes and Defends. Compile Driver does more damage and hopefully draws 1+ cards, and Sweeping Beam hits everyone. Leap is obviously better than Defend. Beam Cell, Claw and Go for the Eyes are no cost cards that don't detract from your draw.

But on your second cycle through your deck, you're now dealing with randomness, and that can be killer, especially once you get towards the end of act 2 and into act 3. Does your lean Claw + frost orb deck really want a bunch of random Stacks and Steam Barriers? If you just decide not to play this, then you can treat it like it's a wound or a curse. It's a good candidate for just removing it as you get to the act 4 store or whatever. But it can really carry you through the early parts of the run, and that's not unlike a lot of other cards in this game. For example, Streamline might not be a great card, but it'll help you with a small deck and needing to find damage to finish off Hexaghost!

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xyzzy

Spire Sword and Shield

One thing that's really important to recognize with act 4 is how fundamentally different the sword and shield are from the heart. They're basically two different skillsets: the heart is all about scaling up to deal with the big attacks that are to come, while the sword and shield are about burst damage. On turn 2, you're looking at 10x4 damage (at least on A20, not sure what the numbers are on lower ascensions). Turn 3 is often 57 damage from the shield. They lower your attack/focus and they have artifact charges, both things the heart doesn't do.

You can think of these guys as a heat check for the heart. Okay, you made it past the act 3 boss, but are you REALLY ready for the heart? But also, because they're such different skillsets, these guys can sometimes be harder than the heart. Defect, for example, loves getting capacitor and loop and frost orbs galore and just outsurviving you. That ain't gonna work on the sword and shield unless you're really fast with it - biased cognition, glacier, echo form, etc. You might have a Watcher deck that's based around Talk to the Hand and lots of 0 damage attacks, like Weave or whatever. That'll work wonders on the heart, but not here!

Another important thing with these guys is how much a bad turn 1 can wreck you. If you don't have a way to cycle through your deck to find the right cards to play, these guys will mess you up quick. These jerks putting two burns into your deck on turn 2 only exacerbates the problem. Turn 1 Foresight with Watcher is a must! It isn't the 2 damage that's the problem, it's only getting 3 cards to play. Better hope you get a Skim or a Battle Trance, because otherwise that 5 energy build you've got going won't really do you much good.

One of the harder things for me to recognize is when to use my potions on the sword and shield instead of the heart. The heart is the main event but sometimes the sword and shield are worse!

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xyzzy

1.



The GOAT. Xenogears just hits different. Its earnest way of storytelling wins me over big time. Xenogears is so sincere in everything that it does. It tells a mega serious story but also goofs around all the time in the dialogue in super charming ways. Its characters get developed to an extreme degree. I especially like how all the villains are basically trying to one-up each other.

Its music and sound design are second to none. This game has very identifiable flaws, no doubt about it, but I can accept that for a game with this kind of scope and heart. Xenogears is far from perfect but I just love everything about it.

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xyzzy

Not Dave posted...

This level (back in Ultimate C-19) is ridiculous and I love it: https://youtu.be/teO-6cE8ATE?t=122

what a game

haha yes! I have such strong memories of this one. I spent so long trying to cheat this level before resigning myself to doing exactly what you did. it's such a good level but god damn!

n+ on 360 had a similar level and there was online play (!), but the rockets would glitch out after like 30 seconds and just insta-kill you. it made one of the co-op levels impossible! it's probably part of the reason why n++ didn't have it.

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xyzzy

yeah, that's the one! god, I hate the ghosts in n++. I had the same strategy of just hanging out until they finally stop spawning.

that last jump has to be so stressful!

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xyzzy

Genetic Algorithm

This card is really hard to assess. You have to really invest in it because it's utter garbage when you start. You also ideally want to pick it up in act 1 because it's just too late later on. Sometimes you draw it on a turn where the enemy isn't attacking, and do you play it anyway at the expense of doing damage or hope you can cycle your deck again? It's hard.

This card is best with Echo Form since you can get the bonus twice, and I like it with Hologram because I can call it on command. If you put in the effort, you can get like 50 block on the heart which is one of the few ways Defect can block its attacks besides frost orbs. I usually don't go for it but if I can't find a frost orb card I might pick it up. The problem is, you need to get it early so you probably don't know if you're going to have a good block machine going yet. Sometimes you have to sacrifice playing Electrodynamics or Storm in order to get it in, and that cost-benefit analysis is something you'll have to constantly do.

It feels like it isn't worth it until you hit the sword and shield on turn 3 and you're staring at 57 damage and suddenly it's all justified. But you still have to draw it on the right turn, you know? The answer to this card, as always: it depends.

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xyzzy

maybe I should do that

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xyzzy

Dr_Football posted...

Do you feel like there are any cards you have to have for beating the heart?

Ill also ask do you finish every run no matter what or do you get halfway, know you are missing necessary stuff and just end it there?

Not really, though I do feel like it's hard to beat the heart with Defect without focus. You can do it, but on higher ascensions you really need to be able to build up that block. Ironclad can do it with Feel No Pain, Silent can use Footwork or After Image and Watcher has stuff like Nirvana or Mental Fortress, or Talk to the Hand. Defect? It's kinda tough to deal with the beat without things like high focus, Loop, Capacitor, etc.

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xyzzy

Storm of Steel

So much better after v2.2. The card itself goes from 2 cost to 1 cost which is huge of course, but even more than that is the Shiv buffs. Blade Dance giving you 3/4 shivs instead of 2/3 and Accuracy increasing damage by 4/6 means that you really go for those cards, and they make SoS so much better as a result. With the right deck, this can do like 100 damage for 1 energy!

It also synergizes heavily with some relics. Shuriken/Kunai are obvious, but also Ornamental Fan or even Silent specific things like Tingsha/tough bandages because it discards your whole hand.

Oh, and this card is crazy with Dead Branch. Use 1 energy, do a ton of damage and get a whole new deck! It's like opening pandora's box.

This card can be a little dangerous though because you might want to play your block cards and then play Storm of Steel which can get you like... 4 damage. SoS is best in act 2/3 when you have 4 energy, and ideally some draw cards like Acrobatics. SoS is a really interesting card with a lot of uses, but you can't just pick it up and use it without considering your deck. Some cards are like that - Wraith Form is always good, for example. but SoS, not so much.


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xyzzy

Mummified Hand

Gotta be a top 5 relic in the game. I had a silly Defect run recently where I had almost all power cards, mummified hand and Heatsinks. I would play like half my deck on turn 1 and the other half on turn 2. Awakened One was trying to hit me for like 100 and it didn't matter because I would block for like 300 a turn by turn 3 or 4.

if you play your cards right, you can discount some really strong cards. Being able to scale quickly is super important in STS and Mummified Hand is one of the easiest ways to do that. When I have Mummified Hand, sometimes I pick up mediocre powers like Machine Learning or Combust just to use the interaction. Great relic.

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xyzzy

WiggumFan267 posted...

How awesome/stressful it was to get that one achievement/trophy to beat a boss in one turn (since it pretty much has to be the 3rd level boss I think for your deck to be good enough). If you got it. I did and it was a ton of fun but scary (though tbf I wasn't ashamed to reload and start over from the start of the battle when I messed it up)

I have all of the achievements! I got this on Slime Boss with Watcher. I think it was Eruption + Carve Reality + Ragnarok + Flurry of Blows. It was a really lucky draw. I think the best way to get this is with the act 3 event where you fight an act 1 boss but I got it naturally on act 1. I think this was the last one I got. it's probably the toughest besides maybe the 5 card deck.

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xyzzy

Class rankings

1. Watcher
2. ...Silent
3. Ironclad
4. Defect

The only thing I'm sure of is Watcher is first. The other three are just about equal which is part of the joy of STS.

If you get a dead branch/corruption run with Ironclad then it's an easy win, or shuriken/kunai on Silent, or mummified hand/bird faced urn on Defect. I don't think there's really much there. Silent used to be the worst but the buffs that came with v2.2 made her a lot better. (I'm generally better with Silent and Defect than Ironclad, but I do think peak Ironclad is as good as any character. It isn't easy to get one of those decks though.)

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xyzzy