I liked old Fission better because it was a 2nd way to get more orb slots, rather than having to rely entirely on the Auto-Loader relic or that one Power.
Like I said I do think your deck has to be situated to take advantage, but it’s very easily an energy neutral or positive card. In addition it draws 2-3 cards so I think it has potential.
It’s not a Must Have card but I think it can turn a good orb deck into a great one.
I disagree. I think it's a neutral card, but not a beneficial one. For each orb you lose, you get a card and an energy. So:
Plasma Orb - neutral energy gain on turn, net loss over multiple turns or compared to channeling the orb.
Darkness Orb - All darkness growth is wasted. Otherwise same as lightning and frost.
Lightning and Frost Orbs - loss of passive, loss of chance to roll over for free channel.
The problem is that many cards only give a single orb and the few cards that give multiple (Rainbow, Channel) require multiple energy. And you're not guaranteed to pull those cards, as you may hit defensive cards or your old strikes/defends, which aren't as useful as the orbs would be in most circumstances.
To me that math is more like
Glacier + fission + glacier = 14 block, two draw, and two frost orbs for two energy
Or more likely, glacier on a previous turn, fission + glacier = 7 block, two draw, and two frost orbs for zero energy
(Really, I think I probably only like it in frost orbs decks...)
I finally beat A12 with the Silent! Snecko Skull and Noxious Fumes+ were my sources of damage, and everything else was block focused. Got a bit unlucky getting the Awakened One, but went ahead and fed him my 3 Powers. Was able to outlast him with lots of Block and x2 Blur and x1 Dodge and Roll to prep up the next turn.
That puts me at A13 for Ironclad and The Silent and A11 for The Defect. Not sure I'll be able to climb to A20 with all the struggles I'm facing post A10. We'll see.
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I recommend spending some time at a15/16 and getting comfortable with it before pushing into 17 and 18.
The difficulty jump there is really frustrating and almost put me off the whole game.
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mysticjuicer[he/him] I'm a muscle wizardand I cast P U N C HRegistered Userregular
Ascension 13 down with the Defect with a kind of weird All For One deck. I started the run with the "remove two cards from your deck" choice from Neow, and after picking two Streamlines fairly early, just aggressively removed stuff from my deck, and got two Beam Cells and Reinforced Bodies for defence. The Runic Pyramid meant I could sit on stuff as needed, and the small size of the deck meant I cycled for Streamlines and stuff really consistently and aggressively.
Honestly I should have put a few more cards in it, because I cycled so often I didn't always have as good an All For One set-up as I could have.
I don't even understand how you guys can get to A15 or beyond. I'm stuck at A4 with all 3 characters.
In my case, mostly recognition of which cards and relics fit an archetype and doing my best to read where I was being pointed during the first floor, plus (except during the odd heavy-offense Ironclad run) making a point of not getting worn down in the early going.
I don't even understand how you guys can get to A15 or beyond. I'm stuck at A4 with all 3 characters.
Without watching you play, it's going to be hard to give specific advice, but here are some things that I've been paying more attention to at higher ascension.
1. Better routing
I try to pick a route with a late shop. Shops are the only time you get to actually choose a relic, rather than relying on RNG to give you something, so I try to have as much money as I can (ideally around 350 to guarantee a relic pick-up) when I hit one. In Act 1 specifically, try to pick a route to maximize the benefit from Neow, and vice versa. For example: if there's an option for "your next 3 enemies have 1 HP" then I'll see if there's a route that could get me a 1 HP Elite. If there's a gain 100 coins and get a curse/take damage, I'll see if there's an early/mid-shop. Try to pick a route that gives you the option of fighting an Elite, but will allow you to avoid it if you get there and don't have a deck/potion/relic set-up to take it with confidence. If you have to take an Elite, see if you can take a route that has a rest before it or after it.
This may just be personal opinion, but generally, you want to avoid '?' spots in Act 1. They're not great events, and you mostly want to be taking as many normal and elite encounters as possible with the goal of building an effective deck. I would avoid '?' in Act 2 as well, until I feel like my deck is performing well.
2. Elite management
Try to take as many Elite fights as is safe. Generally I try to get an Elite or two in Act 1, avoid them like the plague in Act 2, and mostly avoid them in Act 3. Just like you want to keep in mind the boss you'll be facing in your current Act throughout your climb, you want to shape your deck to the mix of Elites you may face. In Act 1, Gremlin Nob punishes Skills and Powers, Lagavulin does two turns of high damage and one turn of debuff, and Triple Sentry grinds you down with low consistent damage while filling your deck with junk. A good rule of thumb is to avoid Act 1 Elite fights entirely if you're at 30HP or less.
If you have useful potions, make sure to spend them on Elites! If you're like me, your instinct is to hoard potions as if they give you bonus points at the end of the run or something. In Act 2 or 3, you want to save them for the bosses as often as possible, but in Act 1, you should spend them to farm relics off Elites. Fire Potion (20 DMG to 1 enemy) is a really useful one against all three Elites, but especially against Nob and Lagavulin.
Generally, if you have kind of a middling deck, you'll be fine to take on the Sentries. Just make sure you prioritize the 1st or 3rd Sentry at the start. Once that initial Sentry is down, you'll have one doing damage and the other feeding you Dazes each turn, which you should be able to handle with any class without taking run-ending amounts of damage.
For the Nob, you'll get one turn to use any useful Powers or Skills to give yourself passive block (Metalicize or Frost Orbs) or generate passive damage (Poison or Lightning Orbs), and then you're pretty much just playing as many attacks as possible each turn. Attacks that give Weak are helpful. Otherwise you just want energy and card efficient damage. Only use skills to block when you're very likely to have lethal on the next turn.
For the Lagavulin, you have three turns to play any Powers or Buffs/Debuffs you may have. So long as you don't deal it any actual damage to its HP while it's sleeping, it will not wake up. Use this time to set up any useful Powers, and get a head start against it. If you get Demon Form on turn 1, just sit back for maximum scaling before they awaken.
3. Card selection
This is the skill that took me the longest to develop, and it's really hard for me to put into words a general strategy for card selection. At the end of the day, just play more and you'll develop this skill as you do. That said, some general rules of thumb.
Only pick cards that improve the quality of your deck as it exists at that moment. Don't pick up Anger as Ironclad because you might get Unceasing Top later. Don't pick Reflex or Tactitian as the Silent unless you already have a deck that is consistently able to discard a card every turn.
Only pick cards that improve the quality of your deck as it exists at that moment. That means you're going to run into card rewards where the best option is to skip all of them. This took me a really long time to learn, and I can't really explain what threshold cards have to miss, but it does exist and you need to work on fine tuning your sense for it. Maybe the best approach to take is to come at card reward screens with the intention of not taking anything, and then allowing yourself to be convinced to pick something (rather than going in with the intention of picking something, and then debating about which cards to reject).
Some cards are too good to pass up. If you get offered Catalyst on floor 1 Act 1, take it. If you never get offered another Poison card, that's one dead card out of 15 to 30. If you get any poison, you already have a chance at a run-making build. Same with the Ironclad "double your strength" card.
Take a long time when picking cards. No, longer than that. Don't pick anything until you can articulate to yourself why this card is going to help you win. Think through the Elites you're likely to encounter. Think through the boss encounter for this Act. Think through the common mobs in this and the next Act. Take your time.
Watch this guy's videos, specifically for his card valuation. He usually does a good job of talking through what he's picking, and if he just picks something without thinking about it, it's probably because it's the obvious choice. You will eventually notice that he makes a ton of mistakes in card choice, but that'll just be a sign that you've internalized the decision making process you need to succeed at higher ascensions. You'll also notice that he succeeds on runs in spite of those mistakes. No run hinges on making 0 errors, even at Ascension 15.
Don't pick cards that are AWESOME when you upgrade them if they're MEH when they're not. Especially if you already have a bunch of those cards in your deck, vying for your attention at the next Smithing point.
If you don't already have any, pick up at least a card or two that deal with multiple enemies (Whirlwind, Cleave, Corpse Explosion, All Out Attack, etc.). Higher damage output is best, but even some AoE is better than no AoE, so don't reject Cleave holding out for a Whirlwind you may never get.
Act 2 has a lot of enemies that attack multiple times - Weakness and Strength debuff effects (especially permanent ones like Malaise or the Ironclad uncommon skill) are very helpful in this Act, though they become less useful in Act 3.
Early on, you will have more cards in hand than the energy required to play them, so pick a few 2 energy cards that are better than 2 strikes or 2 defends. I never used to pick up Predator, and now I almost always do in Act 1, because it's just better than 2 Strikes. That Silent card that gives you 10 block and deals 10 damage is godlike in Act 1.
Pick anti-boss cards. Demon Form isn't great against most mobs, but it can single-cardedly win you the fight against the Champ and other bosses.
Remove strikes aggressively - better attacks literally grow on trees. Replace your defends with better blocks if you can.
Take energy relics unless doing so means you lose. So, stay away from Philosopher's Stone and the Coffee Cup, but think hard before passing up the rest.
Build with the current Act boss in mind. Once you're confident you have a build that can beat them, start building towards the next Act's boss if you can.
4. During Combat
Play slower. Look for lethal before blocking out of habit. Play slower. PLAY SLOWER.
I don't even understand how you guys can get to A15 or beyond. I'm stuck at A4 with all 3 characters.
Without watching you play, it's going to be hard to give specific advice, but here are some things that I've been paying more attention to at higher ascension.
1. Better routing
I try to pick a route with a late shop. Shops are the only time you get to actually choose a relic, rather than relying on RNG to give you something, so I try to have as much money as I can (ideally around 350 to guarantee a relic pick-up) when I hit one. In Act 1 specifically, try to pick a route to maximize the benefit from Neow, and vice versa. For example: if there's an option for "your next 3 enemies have 1 HP" then I'll see if there's a route that could get me a 1 HP Elite. If there's a gain 100 coins and get a curse/take damage, I'll see if there's an early/mid-shop. Try to pick a route that gives you the option of fighting an Elite, but will allow you to avoid it if you get there and don't have a deck/potion/relic set-up to take it with confidence. If you have to take an Elite, see if you can take a route that has a rest before it or after it.
This may just be personal opinion, but generally, you want to avoid '?' spots in Act 1. They're not great events, and you mostly want to be taking as many normal and elite encounters as possible with the goal of building an effective deck. I would avoid '?' in Act 2 as well, until I feel like my deck is performing well.
I know there's been some significant event rebalancing in the last few updates, but this was not my experience / system when I was playing Slay the Spire more actively. The good ? events in Act 1, like Dead Adventurer / Golden Idol / Living Wall / Sserpent, can be as good or better than a card choice and lead you to pretty good results. I notice a lot of the recently-changed ones live in Act 2, so I'd judge that as the worse set at the moment.
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mysticjuicer[he/him] I'm a muscle wizardand I cast P U N C HRegistered Userregular
That's fair! I've been avoiding events in Act 1 since very early Ascension, so at this point it's just a habit. I should actually have a look and see what the possibilities are in Act 1... I know there are a few that let you remove cards from your deck, which are always good. So maybe taking some later events would help me out, once my deck already has a shot against the Act 1 boss.
Maybe the best approach to take is to come at card reward screens with the intention of not taking anything, and then allowing yourself to be convinced to pick something (rather than going in with the intention of picking something, and then debating about which cards to reject).
That's fair! I've been avoiding events in Act 1 since very early Ascension, so at this point it's just a habit. I should actually have a look and see what the possibilities are in Act 1... I know there are a few that let you remove cards from your deck, which are always good. So maybe taking some later events would help me out, once my deck already has a shot against the Act 1 boss.
I do think the ?s are pretty OK in Act 1, but I haven't thought about it too much. Definitely prioritize fights early on, you need some card choices as fast as possible so that you can start doing more interesting things like Elites.
That's fair! I've been avoiding events in Act 1 since very early Ascension, so at this point it's just a habit. I should actually have a look and see what the possibilities are in Act 1... I know there are a few that let you remove cards from your deck, which are always good. So maybe taking some later events would help me out, once my deck already has a shot against the Act 1 boss.
I do think the ?s are pretty OK in Act 1, but I haven't thought about it too much. Definitely prioritize fights early on, you need some card choices as fast as possible so that you can start doing more interesting things like Elites.
Just to be clear, if anyone was reading it that way, I was not saying "seek out ? events," just that it's not worth trying to avoid them on Act 1. Especially if you hit a relic, upgrade, or pile of gold, they can be a big boost.
Auralynx on
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mysticjuicer[he/him] I'm a muscle wizardand I cast P U N C HRegistered Userregular
Ah, okay, yeah, I realize that I expressed that in a confusing way. I agree with you - there's no need to change your routing to avoid events in Act 1, but after optimizing for shops/elites/camps, I would prefer a route with more fights at the start over an equivalent route that had more events at the start.
My big routing thing is shops, I still don't really value those appropriately. I like the idea of picking a route that has a shop near the end.
Not sure about the "gain 100 gold and a curse" plan, mystic. If you're planning on an early shop to remove the curse, then you really only gain like 25 gold? Maybe less than that since subsequent removals are now more expensive. That doesn't seem worth the trade.
Ah, okay, yeah, I realize that I expressed that in a confusing way. I agree with you - there's no need to change your routing to avoid events in Act 1, but after optimizing for shops/elites/camps, I would prefer a route with more fights at the start over an equivalent route that had more events at the start.
That's where we diverge, to which I was sort of alluding in my response: if you get into difficulty or are trying for multiple elites on Act 1, ?s value goes way up, because there's some bad luck recovery potential and a lot more mitigation than another fight might be to them. Even if you ignore the giant "Take the ? events," pointer from the 1 HP Gift and just use it to improve your deck while staying at high health to tackle an elite - a totally valid (and sometimes unavoidable) approach if you get that gift - the risk / reward on ?s can still be worth it afterwards to improve the loot you got or otherwise continue building up.
Definitely don't chase the maximum number of ?s, though. You really do need the cards / relics.
E: Just to throw out an example I know I've hit with - if you pick up an early Immolate or (especially) Searing Blow as Ironclad, fishing through ?s and campfires to upgrade it can be a better plan than trying to build a deck around it.
My big routing thing is shops, I still don't really value those appropriately. I like the idea of picking a route that has a shop near the end.
Not sure about the "gain 100 gold and a curse" plan, mystic. If you're planning on an early shop to remove the curse, then you really only gain like 25 gold? Maybe less than that since subsequent removals are now more expensive. That doesn't seem worth the trade.
I really like to just bank gold for all of Act 1 and open Act 2 at a shop. YMMV!
Keep in mind your energy economy. 2-cost cards are generally better than 2 1-cost cards. Even so most turns will be spend not using 2-4 of the cards you draw, so having some 0 cost cards to give you bonus free damage is a good use of bonus draw. You will want to be careful with drawing the Slice as Silent when you wanted that extra defend.
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mysticjuicer[he/him] I'm a muscle wizardand I cast P U N C HRegistered Userregular
My big routing thing is shops, I still don't really value those appropriately. I like the idea of picking a route that has a shop near the end.
Not sure about the "gain 100 gold and a curse" plan, mystic. If you're planning on an early shop to remove the curse, then you really only gain like 25 gold? Maybe less than that since subsequent removals are now more expensive. That doesn't seem worth the trade.
You’re right, what I said was bad. I was thinking of the Ssserpent event and got my wires crossed with the gain money-lose HP Neow choice. Thanks for the catch.
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mysticjuicer[he/him] I'm a muscle wizardand I cast P U N C HRegistered Userregular
I’ll have to try a more event/elite heavy approach with the Silent. I just haven’t found the events in Act 1 to be all that helpful when I’ve hit them. I’m probably just not valuing them as well as I could though.
I’ll have to try a more event/elite heavy approach with the Silent. I just haven’t found the events in Act 1 to be all that helpful when I’ve hit them. I’m probably just not valuing them as well as I could though.
Thanks for the advice Auralynx!
FWIW, I find that Silent's dynamics are different from both Ironclad and Defect in that a lot of the unmistakably good choices in the early going, like Dash or Footwork, aren't really part of any of her systems / builds but "just" strong individual plays. Compare to Ironclad / Defect, who get good cards in Glacier and Shrug it Off that can serve as jump-off points for a Focus build or a Barricade build, respectively. I have a lot of trouble with Silent and never did get her to A15, unlike the other two!
The first 3 hallway fights in act 1 are guaranteed to be "easy", from the 4th on, you can get the harder versions of the fights. I do my best to not take the first four spaces as hallway fights in a row because it can lead to taking a ton of early damage without much to show for it.
This is where ? spaces can come in handy.
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AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
The first 3 hallway fights in act 1 are guaranteed to be "easy", from the 4th on, you can get the harder versions of the fights. I do my best to not take the first four spaces as hallway fights in a row because it can lead to taking a ton of early damage without much to show for it.
This is where ? spaces can come in handy.
I didn't know it was locked in like that, but that makes a lot of sense going over past experience.
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mysticjuicer[he/him] I'm a muscle wizardand I cast P U N C HRegistered Userregular
edited September 2018
I've definitely struggled the most with Silent past the early levels. I feel like non-Poison/Block Silent builds are just really hard to build into if you're following a "pick the card that will marginally improve your build the most" strategy. You really have to be offered cards and relics in a pretty set order in a lot of ways. Like, a Poison build can come together in pretty much any order - it doesn't much matter if you get Toxic Fumes or Deadly Poison or Bouncing Flask first or last. So long as you get some of them, and find a Catalyst or two, and some Footworks and blocks you've probably got a run.
I used to think I was really good with the Silent, but that was at low Ascension. Nowadays I'm having a much harder time, though I have managed some discard-based stuff. But for discard... okay, so early you can grab the Deadly Stab, or... whatever, deal 9, draw 1, discard 1. And you start with Survivor. But that's not really enough to warrant a Tactician or Reflex. And Acrobatics is kind of crap at 3 energy. Prepared is pretty good once it's upgraded, if you have some draw too. And the one that gives you energy for discarding 3 cards is kind of crap in the opposite direction. And you can't really take the Kite if you don't have the draw to compensate, or you've already found Ice Cream + Skewer... It's so rickety in comparison.
I'm Asc 10 with Silent, but only 6-ish for both Ironclad and Defect. The Silent is just so much easier for me :P. Poison and Shiv builds just seem to work really well no matter how complete they are.
Yeah, I should make Shivs my "generically good" plan rather than discard, probably.
...BUT THE DISCARD DREAM, IT ALLURES ME SO!
Oh you are actually trying to make that work? lol good luck! Like I said, I like The Silent, but not sure I've ever had a successful discard deck. That one requires a lot of synergy, really hard to put together.
Discard went from "pretty good sometimes" to "way too hard to put together" because of the sheer number of relics in the game now. It used to be you get tough bandages and go nuts on the discard, but I hardly ever see that relic anymore.
Basically the best use for discard is to use tools of the trade and then put in 1 or 2 reflexs or tactitions and maybe an underhanded strike. This way can you activate them every single time they come up. every time I see tools of the trade I just wish it was well laid plans though.
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mysticjuicer[he/him] I'm a muscle wizardand I cast P U N C HRegistered Userregular
Yeah, I should make Shivs my "generically good" plan rather than discard, probably.
...BUT THE DISCARD DREAM, IT ALLURES ME SO!
Oh you are actually trying to make that work? lol good luck! Like I said, I like The Silent, but not sure I've ever had a successful discard deck. That one requires a lot of synergy, really hard to put together.
Silent getting very common versions of the “play three attacks for X” and “every time you discard do X” relics would do wonders for her consistency in those builds.
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mysticjuicer[he/him] I'm a muscle wizardand I cast P U N C HRegistered Userregular
Oh my goooood. Absolutely obliterated the Spire with this Defect run on Asc 16. That's a 4 run winstreak from Asc 13 to 16! :bzz: More importantly, this was my first successful run using Hyperbeam!
Random rare from Neow gave me Hyperbeam, so it was time to hunt Elites. If I could upgrade Hyperbeam before any Elites, I could basically 1-shot the Sentries, and Hyperbeam isn't shabby against Lagavulin or Gremlin Nob. First fight I picked Hologram to be able to Hyperbeam more consistently. Second fight I took Claw, since that worked well with Hologram and didn't rely on Orbs. Happened to hit the Living Wall event, so I got my Hyperbeam+ wish, and end up taking 3 Elite fights, two of which were 0 or 2 damage affairs. Pick up Lantern and All for One off the first Elite, so we're REALLY cooking now.
The rest of Act 1 is just filling out the All for One package with more 0 cost cards and things to make Claw and Hyperbeam more effective: Beam Cell, FTL, another Hologram. I pick up a Fission, which is just a nice little source of draw and energy, and the boss gives me Seek for more consistency. Can't remember what relics I picked from, but I chose Broken Crown. The first Act basically gave me all the cards I really needed, so it wasn't going to hurt me to have my choices restricted. The main cards that would improve my deck further were going to be more Claws, Holograms, Go for the Eyes; all commons.
And... that's basically all she wrote! The high damage AoE of Hyperbeam (made more consistent with a Bottled Flame) meant I could take on Act 2 mobs and Elites and the multi-enemy Act 3 mobs confidently. The many, many Holograms and All for One meant my damage scaling with Claw was enough to take on any bosses. The only real weakness the deck had - its middling defensive cards - were covered by Pantograph and Meat on the Bone, and eventually Anchor and Kunai.
I had a thought that I was gonna run by everyone here. Would any of you be interested in a forum seed run event? Basically, I'd start a run and share the seed number here. Anyone who'd want in would simply plug in the seed and give it a shot.
Once your run is complete, regardless of how far you got, you'd post some pictures/details of your Neow gift, path choices, card selections, purchases, and so forth. I think it would be a fun way to compare notes and see how other people would do things similarly or differently from you. Definitely a cool teaching tool for folks struggling to climb the Ascension ladder.
I could easily do one a week or maybe x3 a week (one for each character). The only thing I don't know is if you can participate in a seed at a higher Ascension level than you currently have unlocked.
So would anyone be interested in giving it a go?
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Capacitor.
To me that math is more like
Glacier + fission + glacier = 14 block, two draw, and two frost orbs for two energy
Or more likely, glacier on a previous turn, fission + glacier = 7 block, two draw, and two frost orbs for zero energy
(Really, I think I probably only like it in frost orbs decks...)
That puts me at A13 for Ironclad and The Silent and A11 for The Defect. Not sure I'll be able to climb to A20 with all the struggles I'm facing post A10. We'll see.
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The difficulty jump there is really frustrating and almost put me off the whole game.
Honestly I should have put a few more cards in it, because I cycled so often I didn't always have as good an All For One set-up as I could have.
Just keep at it. There are some people that can’t reach A1.
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In my case, mostly recognition of which cards and relics fit an archetype and doing my best to read where I was being pointed during the first floor, plus (except during the odd heavy-offense Ironclad run) making a point of not getting worn down in the early going.
the Bounty Hunter group is complete bullshit unless you're specifically geared for it.
Without watching you play, it's going to be hard to give specific advice, but here are some things that I've been paying more attention to at higher ascension.
1. Better routing
I try to pick a route with a late shop. Shops are the only time you get to actually choose a relic, rather than relying on RNG to give you something, so I try to have as much money as I can (ideally around 350 to guarantee a relic pick-up) when I hit one. In Act 1 specifically, try to pick a route to maximize the benefit from Neow, and vice versa. For example: if there's an option for "your next 3 enemies have 1 HP" then I'll see if there's a route that could get me a 1 HP Elite. If there's a gain 100 coins and get a curse/take damage, I'll see if there's an early/mid-shop. Try to pick a route that gives you the option of fighting an Elite, but will allow you to avoid it if you get there and don't have a deck/potion/relic set-up to take it with confidence. If you have to take an Elite, see if you can take a route that has a rest before it or after it.
This may just be personal opinion, but generally, you want to avoid '?' spots in Act 1. They're not great events, and you mostly want to be taking as many normal and elite encounters as possible with the goal of building an effective deck. I would avoid '?' in Act 2 as well, until I feel like my deck is performing well.
2. Elite management
Try to take as many Elite fights as is safe. Generally I try to get an Elite or two in Act 1, avoid them like the plague in Act 2, and mostly avoid them in Act 3. Just like you want to keep in mind the boss you'll be facing in your current Act throughout your climb, you want to shape your deck to the mix of Elites you may face. In Act 1, Gremlin Nob punishes Skills and Powers, Lagavulin does two turns of high damage and one turn of debuff, and Triple Sentry grinds you down with low consistent damage while filling your deck with junk. A good rule of thumb is to avoid Act 1 Elite fights entirely if you're at 30HP or less.
If you have useful potions, make sure to spend them on Elites! If you're like me, your instinct is to hoard potions as if they give you bonus points at the end of the run or something. In Act 2 or 3, you want to save them for the bosses as often as possible, but in Act 1, you should spend them to farm relics off Elites. Fire Potion (20 DMG to 1 enemy) is a really useful one against all three Elites, but especially against Nob and Lagavulin.
Generally, if you have kind of a middling deck, you'll be fine to take on the Sentries. Just make sure you prioritize the 1st or 3rd Sentry at the start. Once that initial Sentry is down, you'll have one doing damage and the other feeding you Dazes each turn, which you should be able to handle with any class without taking run-ending amounts of damage.
For the Nob, you'll get one turn to use any useful Powers or Skills to give yourself passive block (Metalicize or Frost Orbs) or generate passive damage (Poison or Lightning Orbs), and then you're pretty much just playing as many attacks as possible each turn. Attacks that give Weak are helpful. Otherwise you just want energy and card efficient damage. Only use skills to block when you're very likely to have lethal on the next turn.
For the Lagavulin, you have three turns to play any Powers or Buffs/Debuffs you may have. So long as you don't deal it any actual damage to its HP while it's sleeping, it will not wake up. Use this time to set up any useful Powers, and get a head start against it. If you get Demon Form on turn 1, just sit back for maximum scaling before they awaken.
3. Card selection
This is the skill that took me the longest to develop, and it's really hard for me to put into words a general strategy for card selection. At the end of the day, just play more and you'll develop this skill as you do. That said, some general rules of thumb.
Only pick cards that improve the quality of your deck as it exists at that moment. Don't pick up Anger as Ironclad because you might get Unceasing Top later. Don't pick Reflex or Tactitian as the Silent unless you already have a deck that is consistently able to discard a card every turn.
Only pick cards that improve the quality of your deck as it exists at that moment. That means you're going to run into card rewards where the best option is to skip all of them. This took me a really long time to learn, and I can't really explain what threshold cards have to miss, but it does exist and you need to work on fine tuning your sense for it. Maybe the best approach to take is to come at card reward screens with the intention of not taking anything, and then allowing yourself to be convinced to pick something (rather than going in with the intention of picking something, and then debating about which cards to reject).
Some cards are too good to pass up. If you get offered Catalyst on floor 1 Act 1, take it. If you never get offered another Poison card, that's one dead card out of 15 to 30. If you get any poison, you already have a chance at a run-making build. Same with the Ironclad "double your strength" card.
Take a long time when picking cards. No, longer than that. Don't pick anything until you can articulate to yourself why this card is going to help you win. Think through the Elites you're likely to encounter. Think through the boss encounter for this Act. Think through the common mobs in this and the next Act. Take your time.
Watch this guy's videos, specifically for his card valuation. He usually does a good job of talking through what he's picking, and if he just picks something without thinking about it, it's probably because it's the obvious choice. You will eventually notice that he makes a ton of mistakes in card choice, but that'll just be a sign that you've internalized the decision making process you need to succeed at higher ascensions. You'll also notice that he succeeds on runs in spite of those mistakes. No run hinges on making 0 errors, even at Ascension 15.
Don't pick cards that are AWESOME when you upgrade them if they're MEH when they're not. Especially if you already have a bunch of those cards in your deck, vying for your attention at the next Smithing point.
If you don't already have any, pick up at least a card or two that deal with multiple enemies (Whirlwind, Cleave, Corpse Explosion, All Out Attack, etc.). Higher damage output is best, but even some AoE is better than no AoE, so don't reject Cleave holding out for a Whirlwind you may never get.
Act 2 has a lot of enemies that attack multiple times - Weakness and Strength debuff effects (especially permanent ones like Malaise or the Ironclad uncommon skill) are very helpful in this Act, though they become less useful in Act 3.
Early on, you will have more cards in hand than the energy required to play them, so pick a few 2 energy cards that are better than 2 strikes or 2 defends. I never used to pick up Predator, and now I almost always do in Act 1, because it's just better than 2 Strikes. That Silent card that gives you 10 block and deals 10 damage is godlike in Act 1.
Pick anti-boss cards. Demon Form isn't great against most mobs, but it can single-cardedly win you the fight against the Champ and other bosses.
Remove strikes aggressively - better attacks literally grow on trees. Replace your defends with better blocks if you can.
Take energy relics unless doing so means you lose. So, stay away from Philosopher's Stone and the Coffee Cup, but think hard before passing up the rest.
Build with the current Act boss in mind. Once you're confident you have a build that can beat them, start building towards the next Act's boss if you can.
4. During Combat
Play slower. Look for lethal before blocking out of habit. Play slower. PLAY SLOWER.
I know there's been some significant event rebalancing in the last few updates, but this was not my experience / system when I was playing Slay the Spire more actively. The good ? events in Act 1, like Dead Adventurer / Golden Idol / Living Wall / Sserpent, can be as good or better than a card choice and lead you to pretty good results. I notice a lot of the recently-changed ones live in Act 2, so I'd judge that as the worse set at the moment.
This is a great mindset imo.
I do think the ?s are pretty OK in Act 1, but I haven't thought about it too much. Definitely prioritize fights early on, you need some card choices as fast as possible so that you can start doing more interesting things like Elites.
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Just to be clear, if anyone was reading it that way, I was not saying "seek out ? events," just that it's not worth trying to avoid them on Act 1. Especially if you hit a relic, upgrade, or pile of gold, they can be a big boost.
Not sure about the "gain 100 gold and a curse" plan, mystic. If you're planning on an early shop to remove the curse, then you really only gain like 25 gold? Maybe less than that since subsequent removals are now more expensive. That doesn't seem worth the trade.
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That's where we diverge, to which I was sort of alluding in my response: if you get into difficulty or are trying for multiple elites on Act 1, ?s value goes way up, because there's some bad luck recovery potential and a lot more mitigation than another fight might be to them. Even if you ignore the giant "Take the ? events," pointer from the 1 HP Gift and just use it to improve your deck while staying at high health to tackle an elite - a totally valid (and sometimes unavoidable) approach if you get that gift - the risk / reward on ?s can still be worth it afterwards to improve the loot you got or otherwise continue building up.
Definitely don't chase the maximum number of ?s, though. You really do need the cards / relics.
E: Just to throw out an example I know I've hit with - if you pick up an early Immolate or (especially) Searing Blow as Ironclad, fishing through ?s and campfires to upgrade it can be a better plan than trying to build a deck around it.
I really like to just bank gold for all of Act 1 and open Act 2 at a shop. YMMV!
You’re right, what I said was bad. I was thinking of the Ssserpent event and got my wires crossed with the gain money-lose HP Neow choice. Thanks for the catch.
Thanks for the advice Auralynx!
FWIW, I find that Silent's dynamics are different from both Ironclad and Defect in that a lot of the unmistakably good choices in the early going, like Dash or Footwork, aren't really part of any of her systems / builds but "just" strong individual plays. Compare to Ironclad / Defect, who get good cards in Glacier and Shrug it Off that can serve as jump-off points for a Focus build or a Barricade build, respectively. I have a lot of trouble with Silent and never did get her to A15, unlike the other two!
This is where ? spaces can come in handy.
I didn't know it was locked in like that, but that makes a lot of sense going over past experience.
I used to think I was really good with the Silent, but that was at low Ascension. Nowadays I'm having a much harder time, though I have managed some discard-based stuff. But for discard... okay, so early you can grab the Deadly Stab, or... whatever, deal 9, draw 1, discard 1. And you start with Survivor. But that's not really enough to warrant a Tactician or Reflex. And Acrobatics is kind of crap at 3 energy. Prepared is pretty good once it's upgraded, if you have some draw too. And the one that gives you energy for discarding 3 cards is kind of crap in the opposite direction. And you can't really take the Kite if you don't have the draw to compensate, or you've already found Ice Cream + Skewer... It's so rickety in comparison.
That may change at 10+, though, we'll see.
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...BUT THE DISCARD DREAM, IT ALLURES ME SO!
Oh you are actually trying to make that work? lol good luck! Like I said, I like The Silent, but not sure I've ever had a successful discard deck. That one requires a lot of synergy, really hard to put together.
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Basically the best use for discard is to use tools of the trade and then put in 1 or 2 reflexs or tactitions and maybe an underhanded strike. This way can you activate them every single time they come up. every time I see tools of the trade I just wish it was well laid plans though.
In unrelated news, I’ve had a bunch of defect runs that don’t get past the first zone because I get nothing but really shitty card choices.
Random rare from Neow gave me Hyperbeam, so it was time to hunt Elites. If I could upgrade Hyperbeam before any Elites, I could basically 1-shot the Sentries, and Hyperbeam isn't shabby against Lagavulin or Gremlin Nob. First fight I picked Hologram to be able to Hyperbeam more consistently. Second fight I took Claw, since that worked well with Hologram and didn't rely on Orbs. Happened to hit the Living Wall event, so I got my Hyperbeam+ wish, and end up taking 3 Elite fights, two of which were 0 or 2 damage affairs. Pick up Lantern and All for One off the first Elite, so we're REALLY cooking now.
The rest of Act 1 is just filling out the All for One package with more 0 cost cards and things to make Claw and Hyperbeam more effective: Beam Cell, FTL, another Hologram. I pick up a Fission, which is just a nice little source of draw and energy, and the boss gives me Seek for more consistency. Can't remember what relics I picked from, but I chose Broken Crown. The first Act basically gave me all the cards I really needed, so it wasn't going to hurt me to have my choices restricted. The main cards that would improve my deck further were going to be more Claws, Holograms, Go for the Eyes; all commons.
And... that's basically all she wrote! The high damage AoE of Hyperbeam (made more consistent with a Bottled Flame) meant I could take on Act 2 mobs and Elites and the multi-enemy Act 3 mobs confidently. The many, many Holograms and All for One meant my damage scaling with Claw was enough to take on any bosses. The only real weakness the deck had - its middling defensive cards - were covered by Pantograph and Meat on the Bone, and eventually Anchor and Kunai.
Bonkerssss!
Once your run is complete, regardless of how far you got, you'd post some pictures/details of your Neow gift, path choices, card selections, purchases, and so forth. I think it would be a fun way to compare notes and see how other people would do things similarly or differently from you. Definitely a cool teaching tool for folks struggling to climb the Ascension ladder.
I could easily do one a week or maybe x3 a week (one for each character). The only thing I don't know is if you can participate in a seed at a higher Ascension level than you currently have unlocked.
So would anyone be interested in giving it a go?
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Don’t worry I fixed the typo for you.