If you think Bludgeon (or especially Sunder) is unplayable with three mana that's a playstyle issue.
It is and it's not - while I've had plenty of success with hit-hard Ironclad in particular, the card gets a lot less playable in tiers 2 and 3 than it was in tier 1, unless you've picked up extra energy or something that lets you cheat it.
I think a hard look at the cost / benefit of a lot of the higher-energy cards would be a good idea, especially if they're going to keep chipping away at the better ones like Glacier and Leg Sweep.
Some other thoguhts re: Silent, just as a competley different track to the rest of hte thread...
I think the big issue you run into Silent with, and epseically with Shivs, is Scaling.
Like, Iornclad? It's not hard to get strength scaling of some kind (chances that you dont find a Spot Weakness, Inflame, or Demon Form is pretty low...), and you start with Bash (and Vuln on the target means that having 2 strength is like having 3, and it only gets worse form there...).
Defect? Focus scaling is nuts, and even without that you get a lot of good card draw/energy options to make up the throughput.
But silent's only real inbuilt form of scaling is Poison - and that really requires Noxious Fumes to be "true" scaling. To a lesser degre, Finisher, Envenom or Thousand BLades (do 2 damage aoe whenver you play a card) also provide some scaling.
Still, it's much harder to find scaling options i think, or at least weave a deck that scales well.
If you think Bludgeon (or especially Sunder) is unplayable with three mana that's a playstyle issue.
You’re just as likely to start the game with bludgeon as you are demon form, one of those will carry you and the other is a dead draw for an entire floor.
If you think Bludgeon (or especially Sunder) is unplayable with three mana that's a playstyle issue.
It is and it's not - while I've had plenty of success with hit-hard Ironclad in particular, the card gets a lot less playable in tiers 2 and 3 than it was in tier 1, unless you've picked up extra energy or something that lets you cheat it.
I think a hard look at the cost / benefit of a lot of the higher-energy cards would be a good idea, especially if they're going to keep chipping away at the better ones like Glacier and Leg Sweep.
They're nerfing the good two cost cards because they are too strong for a cost of two.
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AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
If you think Bludgeon (or especially Sunder) is unplayable with three mana that's a playstyle issue.
It is and it's not - while I've had plenty of success with hit-hard Ironclad in particular, the card gets a lot less playable in tiers 2 and 3 than it was in tier 1, unless you've picked up extra energy or something that lets you cheat it.
I think a hard look at the cost / benefit of a lot of the higher-energy cards would be a good idea, especially if they're going to keep chipping away at the better ones like Glacier and Leg Sweep.
They're nerfing the good two cost cards because they are too strong for a cost of two.
That's a reasonable position to take, but I don't think either was too strong in a vacuum or because of their base block - the secondary effects are at least as important to those cards' value. They're also both Uncommon, which seems in StS to allow for a slightly-higher power than you could get at Common or by combining two Commons. Neither was exactly crippled, but I'd rather have seen some of their competition get better than them get worse.
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mysticjuicer[he/him] I'm a muscle wizardand I cast P U N C HRegistered Userregular
If you think Bludgeon (or especially Sunder) is unplayable with three mana that's a playstyle issue.
You’re just as likely to start the game with bludgeon as you are demon form, one of those will carry you and the other is a dead draw for an entire floor.
But Demon Form is also massively helpful with boss fights, while Bludgeon is... I mean it's not BAD for bosses, but it's definitely way less good than Demon Form.
I’m still of the opinion that the base energy for all classes should be 4, and the frequency of energy relics should be rarer.
This has two effects. First, if you are trying to build a deck around a 3-cost card, you can still play that card in the early game without completely screwing any one turn. So this punishes expensive decks less, and you can actually build with expensive cards in mine from the beginning.
Second, it decreases the overall focus on energy. Almost any deck in any class needs at least 4 energy to function at full capacity. Not all, but most. And that % gets larger as you climb ascension ranks and the list of viable decks gets shorter. Base 4 energy opens options at all levels of play.
I think this would have the effect of making the first zone a bit easier, but likely the second and third zones about the same, or even harder depending on the rarity balance of energy relics.
The overall idea is to decrease the focus on energy at the early stages of the game and limit the ability in the late game to trivialize card costs.
Three energy is fine. There are multiple cards per character that shift energy or gain energy for a turn. With Ironclad, I have Berserk, Dropkick, Seeing Red, Bloodletting, Offering if I need energy. Sentinel too if I play exhaust. There are ways to generate. It's not as consistent, sure. But they give you options to work around having just three energy.
I think that part of the problem is that 2 and 3 cost cards are often only barely worth it unless you have 4+ energy or a relic synergy. If I were to buff them I'd go after their anti-synergy with powerful relics like Kunai and (less so) pen nib.
2 and 3 cost cards are pretty universally amazing. Sure, you can't always play them, but the number of cards that you can always play is incredibly short. Their value is in providing you with more "effective" card draw in the sense that with those 5 cards in hand you're more likely to be able to reach for the damage you want with a Bludgeon or the block you need with a Leg Sweep, as opposed to hoping that you draw three 1-cost cards. With more value consolidated in a single card, you can run a thinner deck, improving consistency, and improving the value you get from upgrades.
'Barely worth it' means that it is still 'worth' taking. My problem is that if I ending getting too many bad 1 cost options, I'm going to start filling up on 2 cost options. Most 2 cost options are kinda-good-not-great until you get 4 or 5 energy.
Side note, cleared ASC5 with Ironclad. Traded my class relic for a Runic Pyramid, got two Spot Weaknesses and an upgraded Limit Break before the first boss. My shining moment was using Reaper to heal for 180+ on shapes with Pen Nib.
Tried out the new wrist blade trinket tonight in my run that turned out absurd without it.
I don't think what basically amounts to an accuracy is worth a boss trinket. However, getting to storm of steel + tough bandages a full hand, and having them all do 9 damage was pretty cool.
Today I learned that you only need about 5 cards. Burst, corpse explosion, catalyst, bouncing flask and bullet time.
I had these and gambling chip and very few cards on the daily. If having chip into exactly them and kill everything I'm 1 or 2 turns.
This is because corpse explosions explosion effect can be applied like a multuplier. Burst makes it applied to do 2 times total health damage to everything.
and I wonder about my neighbors even though I don't have them
but they're listening to every word I say
Tried out the new wrist blade trinket tonight in my run that turned out absurd without it.
I don't think what basically amounts to an accuracy is worth a boss trinket. However, getting to storm of steel + tough bandages a full hand, and having them all do 9 damage was pretty cool.
Remember it's not just Shivs. It's every 0 cost card you have - this includes neturtlize. It's also a power you dont have to draw, nor spend the energy to cast.
It's still weaker than a fourth energy, but as we've been discussing previously, 4 energy is crazy strong
Silent run was really weird. Was able to snag a Chemical X but didn't get any X cards. Popped an attack potion on final fight and grabbed an skewer that one me the match.
I think wrist blade also works on attacks discounted to 0? So that neutral card that shuffles three attacks into your deck that cost 0, having the mummified hand to turn powers into discounts of attacks in your hand and Bullet Time all give this good value
Hmm, relatively smooth daily today. Completed run with The Silent. Those free cards that gave more energy really helped.
I used bottled flame on skewer. Then I picked Pandora' s box and got a bunch more 0 costs. Upgraded all the adrenaline cards after I upgraded skewer. And I was able to buy 2 more upgraded adrenaline cards. I was able to finish most combats before they got a turn. I think I took about 3 hits all game and unfortunately one was at the end against the boss. He only had 10 hp left and hit me for 1 damage.
People must really be gaming the scores on the first page. Not the ones that are like 4000 which are clearly glitched but the ones that are 1500. There must be some real min max score strategy.
and I wonder about my neighbors even though I don't have them
but they're listening to every word I say
Beta branch, ascension up to 20 now. Seems several of them make enemy patterns tweaked to be more difficult. Mostly stuff like the timers of the Transient and Giant Head being longer and shorter respectively.
Yesterday's daily started me out with 5 adrenaline. I was in draw heaven.
Ended up with 4 or 5 cloak and dagger, and 2 accuracy for a first turn kill of everything save for the wokebloke and a few elites.
My first a16 win turned out to be a strength deck WITHOUT limit break.
Grabbed a relic from the start, it was Maw bank.
Used that to get the 'start with an artifact' relic, from there just get an upgraded flex, and just before the Ancient one, bottle that sucker. Getting mummified hand, bird urn AND frozen egg made me wish I was playing defect. Only managed to get 2 inflame and 1 metalize and 0 demon forms. 2 feeds got me to over 100 max HP.
Lizard Tail kept me alive through the transition, and that's all she wrote.
Alright I just shared one, but this one is too good. I traded my starting relic on the silent, and got saddled with wrist blade. Fine, let get some cloak and daggers or something. Maybe I can make it work. Then the game says, "how would you like kunai on floor 1? I would like it a lot I said.
You know a Silent deck is broken with you are happy to grab calipers.
My first a17 win. Silent with 2x after image and 3x footwork vs time eater.
Most did it with ice cream + Malaise shenanigans. Put him a -15 STR in the first phase and just rolled over energy until after his heal.
Just barely blocked what he threw each turn, Only attacked with poison damage and caltrops. Was super tense since giant head ate my lizard tail half way though floor 3.
Next level is harder elites, so my strategy of just taking on all the elites I can since they aren't much worst than hallway fights is going to have to be reworked again.
Newo give me a Searing Blow, and I just kept upgrading it. This was my first ever real searing blow deck, and learned fairly late into the run that Armaments works with Searing Blow :biggrin:
Defect
Was worried because I pulled the woke bloke with a power heavy deck. But echo form + buffer+ was enough to carry me.
Silent
Silent run was saved by a really good pandora box that gave me three backstab, which allowed me to go for a necromonicon.
I finally broke through Ascension 5 with Silent last night. Came close a bunch of times, but the kicker in this run is that while I already had a good mix of draw and some discard, then I got the bandage (I think?) that gives you like 3 block for every card you discard. Which was pretty crazy since it let me pretty consistently get like 20 damage and 20 block a turn, by running tools of the trade, backpacks, and underhanded strikes (always free as long as I had one tools played) and eviscerate. Then towards the end I got a storm of steel, which was kinda ridiculous with the pyramid, since my hand would start to fill up, then I just discarded it all for like 30 block and a handful of shivs.
I mean, you guys probably are better players than I am (again only passed ascension 5 on Defect and Silent, 4 for Ironclad) but I wouldn't say that 2 cost have to be bonkers to get played, but they do need to synergize in with the artifacts/cards you have. I tend to be very hesitant to get 2+ cost in the first act unless they are good enough to just play by themselves (like as silent I usually pick up dash if its available). But like in act 2, if I have the discard or artifacts to work with something like underhanded strike, I tend to pick them up then.
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. ~ Terry Pratchett
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mysticjuicer[he/him] I'm a muscle wizardand I cast P U N C HRegistered Userregular
edited August 2018
Hoooooo boy! Finally got Ascencion 5 done with the Defect. Really fun deck to pilot too, and a great showcase of the Yellow Pellets relic (play an Attack, Skill, and Power in the same turn to clear all negative status effects). I was offered a discounted Capacitor in an early shop, and then chose Darkness and Glacier on the way to the Act 1 boss. Ended up picking up a Core Surge on the way, which gave me the push to grab Biased Cognition off the boss. Early Act 2 shop had Yellow Pellets, and after waffling for a really long time about whether to take it, I ended up going for it.
At that point, the only goal was to get more Frost, and more Biased Cognitions.
I chose Runic Pyramid off the 2nd boss, and then fretted about it screwing me over all through Act 3, but it ended up working out, with only a single encounter with the strength scaling spheroids that give you wounds really putting me in danger. Wokebloke is no match for "just enough focus with just enough ice orbs" and I finished him with a huge Dual Casted Dark orb.
Really took my time to think through every turn and card selection on this run, and felt really in control throughout. Felt nice to break the losing streak with a Focus-based deck that I haven't had a chance to play before!
edit: I think this deck was going to lead to an auto-win against either wokebloke or the snail. The shapes would probably have given it the most trouble, since they scale the most aggressively, and this deck has a hard cap on how much block-per-turn it could generate. May have been fine on Ascension 5, since I had both Lizard's Tail and Fairy Potion going into the last boss, so I essentially had +2 turns, but I'm not sure.
The Escape Goatincorrigible ruminantthey/themRegistered Userregular
I tried my first few runs in a while on Ironclad 15. Two got ended on first floor elites (curbstomped by Megalovin twice), and then the third was a weird sort of a deck that would get like twenty strength but only after three turns of setup and I was a turn to slow to beat Time Eaterm my coup-de-gras left it at like 35 health :c
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mysticjuicer[he/him] I'm a muscle wizardand I cast P U N C HRegistered Userregular
And that's Ascension 5 done with the Silent as well. Can't remember the exact sequence, but I chose Unload out of 3 rares from Neow, and then just tried to pick stuff that didn't suck, and wound up with a very cycle heavy deck off the back of a few Dagger Throws, a Tactition, and an Reflex. That worked okay for mobs, but I ended up getting Ice Cream and Skewer, which turned into the boss-encounter carries.
I feel like I spent much more time thinking through things, but I also got offered some really powerful stuff. Of the 12 relics I ended up with 5 were rare, and 4 were uncommon, with the single common relic being a Pen Nib that I bought in the last shop of the run.
Game already has basically all the features they promised, they could launch it tomorrow and call it a day. Not entirely sure what they are still planning to do, probably some more art/animations, fine-tuning for the new ascension levels and such.
Hmm, this most recent daily felt really trivial, what with the 3 innate cards that do damage based on how many cards you have in your draw pile....and one of the challenges is that you can't discard cards. So eventually the cards get stronger and stronger, and there are tons of cards so that you can unload 3 in one turn, devastating most enemies.
Game already has basically all the features they promised, they could launch it tomorrow and call it a day. Not entirely sure what they are still planning to do, probably some more art/animations, fine-tuning for the new ascension levels and such.
This is one of the rare examples nowadays when the devs actually put themselves into finishing the product to its value since the initial release. I agree with you, it feels balanced now.
I do hope to see some DLC with some alternative ascension tree or somewhat similar stuff, you know.. But right now i'd call it a full release
Game already has basically all the features they promised, they could launch it tomorrow and call it a day. Not entirely sure what they are still planning to do, probably some more art/animations, fine-tuning for the new ascension levels and such.
This is one of the rare examples nowadays when the devs actually put themselves into finishing the product to its value since the initial release. I agree with you, it feels balanced now.
I do hope to see some DLC with some alternative ascension tree or somewhat similar stuff, you know.. But right now i'd call it a full release
Devs have talked about adding more characters after release so those are potential DLCs/post-launch free updates.
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mysticjuicer[he/him] I'm a muscle wizardand I cast P U N C HRegistered Userregular
The climb continues! The last two runs featured the first time I've ever removed powers from a deck in Act 3, just to minimize the amount of dead draws vs wokebloke. Ascension 6 now done with the Defect, with a pretty thin version of a Lightning build. Beat pretty much every boss with just 10 HP left.
Posts
It is and it's not - while I've had plenty of success with hit-hard Ironclad in particular, the card gets a lot less playable in tiers 2 and 3 than it was in tier 1, unless you've picked up extra energy or something that lets you cheat it.
I think a hard look at the cost / benefit of a lot of the higher-energy cards would be a good idea, especially if they're going to keep chipping away at the better ones like Glacier and Leg Sweep.
I think the big issue you run into Silent with, and epseically with Shivs, is Scaling.
Like, Iornclad? It's not hard to get strength scaling of some kind (chances that you dont find a Spot Weakness, Inflame, or Demon Form is pretty low...), and you start with Bash (and Vuln on the target means that having 2 strength is like having 3, and it only gets worse form there...).
Defect? Focus scaling is nuts, and even without that you get a lot of good card draw/energy options to make up the throughput.
But silent's only real inbuilt form of scaling is Poison - and that really requires Noxious Fumes to be "true" scaling. To a lesser degre, Finisher, Envenom or Thousand BLades (do 2 damage aoe whenver you play a card) also provide some scaling.
Still, it's much harder to find scaling options i think, or at least weave a deck that scales well.
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You’re just as likely to start the game with bludgeon as you are demon form, one of those will carry you and the other is a dead draw for an entire floor.
They're nerfing the good two cost cards because they are too strong for a cost of two.
That's a reasonable position to take, but I don't think either was too strong in a vacuum or because of their base block - the secondary effects are at least as important to those cards' value. They're also both Uncommon, which seems in StS to allow for a slightly-higher power than you could get at Common or by combining two Commons. Neither was exactly crippled, but I'd rather have seen some of their competition get better than them get worse.
But Demon Form is also massively helpful with boss fights, while Bludgeon is... I mean it's not BAD for bosses, but it's definitely way less good than Demon Form.
'Barely worth it' means that it is still 'worth' taking. My problem is that if I ending getting too many bad 1 cost options, I'm going to start filling up on 2 cost options. Most 2 cost options are kinda-good-not-great until you get 4 or 5 energy.
Side note, cleared ASC5 with Ironclad. Traded my class relic for a Runic Pyramid, got two Spot Weaknesses and an upgraded Limit Break before the first boss. My shining moment was using Reaper to heal for 180+ on shapes with Pen Nib.
I don't think what basically amounts to an accuracy is worth a boss trinket. However, getting to storm of steel + tough bandages a full hand, and having them all do 9 damage was pretty cool.
I had these and gambling chip and very few cards on the daily. If having chip into exactly them and kill everything I'm 1 or 2 turns.
This is because corpse explosions explosion effect can be applied like a multuplier. Burst makes it applied to do 2 times total health damage to everything.
but they're listening to every word I say
Remember it's not just Shivs. It's every 0 cost card you have - this includes neturtlize. It's also a power you dont have to draw, nor spend the energy to cast.
It's still weaker than a fourth energy, but as we've been discussing previously, 4 energy is crazy strong
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Defect
Silent
Silent run was really weird. Was able to snag a Chemical X but didn't get any X cards. Popped an attack potion on final fight and grabbed an skewer that one me the match.
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People must really be gaming the scores on the first page. Not the ones that are like 4000 which are clearly glitched but the ones that are 1500. There must be some real min max score strategy.
but they're listening to every word I say
Send help.
...excuse me?
Ended up with 4 or 5 cloak and dagger, and 2 accuracy for a first turn kill of everything save for the wokebloke and a few elites.
Grabbed a relic from the start, it was Maw bank.
Used that to get the 'start with an artifact' relic, from there just get an upgraded flex, and just before the Ancient one, bottle that sucker. Getting mummified hand, bird urn AND frozen egg made me wish I was playing defect. Only managed to get 2 inflame and 1 metalize and 0 demon forms. 2 feeds got me to over 100 max HP.
Lizard Tail kept me alive through the transition, and that's all she wrote.
You know a Silent deck is broken with you are happy to grab calipers.
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HRRRNNNGGGGG
It feels like the biggest single jump in difficulty since "no full heals after bosses".
It makes hallway fights so fucking scary, I'm going to have to redo my thinking. dodging elites is not longer the conservative play.
Most did it with ice cream + Malaise shenanigans. Put him a -15 STR in the first phase and just rolled over energy until after his heal.
Just barely blocked what he threw each turn, Only attacked with poison damage and caltrops. Was super tense since giant head ate my lizard tail half way though floor 3.
Next level is harder elites, so my strategy of just taking on all the elites I can since they aren't much worst than hallway fights is going to have to be reworked again.
Ironclad
Defect
Silent
Silent run was saved by a really good pandora box that gave me three backstab, which allowed me to go for a necromonicon.
I mean, you guys probably are better players than I am (again only passed ascension 5 on Defect and Silent, 4 for Ironclad) but I wouldn't say that 2 cost have to be bonkers to get played, but they do need to synergize in with the artifacts/cards you have. I tend to be very hesitant to get 2+ cost in the first act unless they are good enough to just play by themselves (like as silent I usually pick up dash if its available). But like in act 2, if I have the discard or artifacts to work with something like underhanded strike, I tend to pick them up then.
Hoooooo boy! Finally got Ascencion 5 done with the Defect. Really fun deck to pilot too, and a great showcase of the Yellow Pellets relic (play an Attack, Skill, and Power in the same turn to clear all negative status effects). I was offered a discounted Capacitor in an early shop, and then chose Darkness and Glacier on the way to the Act 1 boss. Ended up picking up a Core Surge on the way, which gave me the push to grab Biased Cognition off the boss. Early Act 2 shop had Yellow Pellets, and after waffling for a really long time about whether to take it, I ended up going for it.
At that point, the only goal was to get more Frost, and more Biased Cognitions.
I chose Runic Pyramid off the 2nd boss, and then fretted about it screwing me over all through Act 3, but it ended up working out, with only a single encounter with the strength scaling spheroids that give you wounds really putting me in danger. Wokebloke is no match for "just enough focus with just enough ice orbs" and I finished him with a huge Dual Casted Dark orb.
Really took my time to think through every turn and card selection on this run, and felt really in control throughout. Felt nice to break the losing streak with a Focus-based deck that I haven't had a chance to play before!
edit: I think this deck was going to lead to an auto-win against either wokebloke or the snail. The shapes would probably have given it the most trouble, since they scale the most aggressively, and this deck has a hard cap on how much block-per-turn it could generate. May have been fine on Ascension 5, since I had both Lizard's Tail and Fairy Potion going into the last boss, so I essentially had +2 turns, but I'm not sure.
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
Switch: 0293 6817 9891
I feel like I spent much more time thinking through things, but I also got offered some really powerful stuff. Of the 12 relics I ended up with 5 were rare, and 4 were uncommon, with the single common relic being a Pen Nib that I bought in the last shop of the run.
Slay the Spire is releasing on the Nintendo Switch in January 2019. This means two things:
1. The game should be out of Early Access on PC before then.
2. The porting of StS means a future iOS version isn’t far away. So long free time.
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This is one of the rare examples nowadays when the devs actually put themselves into finishing the product to its value since the initial release. I agree with you, it feels balanced now.
I do hope to see some DLC with some alternative ascension tree or somewhat similar stuff, you know.. But right now i'd call it a full release
Devs have talked about adding more characters after release so those are potential DLCs/post-launch free updates.