How often do you pitch your starting relic for a random boss relic?
Never. While I'm generally a fan of variance is just way too high variance for me. That and all the starting relics are incredibly strong
Massive grain of salt, but I've had fantastically successful Ironclad and Defect runs trading in the starting relic and getting something that just worked out better. Off the top of my head, I've had good Ironclad runs with the collar and with the feather that heals you when you enter rest sites (the healing obviously isn't as good overall, but it's nice to basically guarantee every campfire is an upgrade spot). The time or two I did it with Defect I don't recall as clearly, but these all would have been done between A6 and A8, which obviously isn't as taxing as the higher difficulties.
As with others, Silent I probably do it a solid half the time at least. :P
You can get completely screwed over from trading in your relic too. Getting the cage can be terrible because suddenly you can't do damage or block effectively, made even worse if you get an event that removes a card. Same goes if you happen to get the kite on Silent. You won't draw enough cards past your first turn to spend all of your energy.
Not being able to pick up gold is bad too because gold can be crucial in this game. Picking up a Chemical X to go with your Malaise suddenly makes multi hit attacking enemies useless and you can't do that without starter gold.
Even missing out on a potion early on can be enough to cause a run to fail. Some potions aren't great at certain times - Liquid Bronze won't do much to two of the act 1 elites but a fire potion can save you from a Gremlin Nob heavy hit.
I think if I was to ever trade in starter relic it would be on Silent but eventually it gets to a point where having the extra cards on your first turn helps with strong opening turns.
ED: My last run, I was offered the "choice" between the Kite, the +Energy / No Gold relic (fuckin' what?), and Runic Dome (fuck that). What a shitty way to make a decent run come to a screeching halt.
How often do you pitch your starting relic for a random boss relic?
Never. While I'm generally a fan of variance is just way too high variance for me. That and all the starting relics are incredibly strong
Massive grain of salt, but I've had fantastically successful Ironclad and Defect runs trading in the starting relic and getting something that just worked out better. Off the top of my head, I've had good Ironclad runs with the collar and with the feather that heals you when you enter rest sites (the healing obviously isn't as good overall, but it's nice to basically guarantee every campfire is an upgrade spot). The time or two I did it with Defect I don't recall as clearly, but these all would have been done between A6 and A8, which obviously isn't as taxing as the higher difficulties.
As with others, Silent I probably do it a solid half the time at least. :P
Totally fair! THis is just like my personal line on variance. (Colourless cards are the other ones i avoid - you can roll HARD on them, like an early Sadistic Nature, Hand of Greed, Apothesis, Mayhem... but you can also whiff so so hard)
Generally my favourite Neow options are Random Common Relic, Gold, or Max hp. For Ironclad, Random Rare is a big bonus (Immolate wins you act 1 by itself, Bludgeon is right behind it in value), for Defect Upgrade a Card is amazing (Zap is possibly the best upgrade in the game, at least for act 1. Poison Dagger for a close second). I really like Neow's Lament as well - it is high on the variance, but 3 safe fights can be really beneficial. ANd of course elite/double elite snipes with it are always fun.
LIke, remember htis is not a solved game? at all? Find what works for you, at the difficulty level you have fun playing at. For @Jookie and I, we're crazy madmen who like A20 and dealing with an obnoxious overgrown organ with delusions of grander (Other hearts are content with /bodies/, Spire. Grow up already!)
That might not be you, and that's okay! The only person you're competing with in this game is all your previous corpses.
ED: My last run, I was offered the "choice" between the Kite, the +Energy / No Gold relic (fuckin' what?), and Runic Dome (fuck that). What a shitty way to make a decent run come to a screeching halt.
Decks where Kite is strong are absurd though. Having good card draw to back it up negates the discard; Backflip is a common. Acrobatics is a common. A deck with Tough Bandages or Tingsha have no problem adding Kite on top of it because hey six free damage or hey six free block every turn AND energy.
It's fucking god awful in decks that don't have ways to add to your hand because it's nice having four energy but if you can only spend three it doesn't matter. I've made the mistake before it's not a good feeling.
I'm sure that combining it with Runic Pyramid would allow for some pretty solid setups though. One extra energy and you just hold all your cards so you discard the two that help the least and call it a day. Runic Pyramid plus Kite and a Concentration means you can spend three energy manipulating cards and still wind up with three energy to play on good cards and still have four in your hand to keep.
Also can't you just skip the boss relic if you really want to? No gold I would consider in Act 3 but would probably pass after first boss. Knowing my luck a run that I take Ectoplasm also means the next two relics are Maw Bank and Old Coin plus a bunch of events that give gold. Or the gambling one where you're guaranteed to not make money. Also the thief fights means bye bye dosh you will be missed.
Runic Dome is one I'm probably not smart enough to take. I can remember most enemy patterns that adhere to one and have a good idea of how much damage each one is supposed to do but honestly I don't want to put my memory through that kind of stress.
I don't think you can skip a boss relic ... Plus, skipping out on the boss relic basically kills the run anyway, I'd imagine, given the huge power swing you just turned down ...
In that particular run I had a poison-heavy Silent run, and just wasn't offered much in the way of draw; I had, I think, 1 copy of the attack-draw-discard card and that was pretty much it (and that doesn't even really count as draw). I played two more fights past picking the Kite, and then just ended the run before whatever I was fighting could win.
Runic Dome basically ruins the game for me; I have no particular desire to memorize enemy patterns because I find the fun in the game in trying to navigate through the enemies' intentions, so taking that away means I don't see any reason to bother.
The game is very boring to play when it's not A20.
(...Look, i may have been playing it too long, okay? Send help)
You're not alone, all of my runs have become A20 Heart runs only. Minus the two that I forgot to go for the special elite they don't count I was uh...tired.
I know I've had some decks that had to have been on the verge of being capable but I had to have misplayed just because I've had some really powerful synergies in place but so far it's all been in futility.
Not even a single Dead Branch pickup. ]=
I've concluded that A15 is where it's at. If I lose on A15 it's my own fault. If I lose on A20 there's a large chance the game was actually just impossible. Or maybe it wasn't impossible if I was interested in making optimal plays that I don't find particularly fun like spending five minutes to determine whether playing an attack or a block has a higher chance of saving HP in an encounter when you take into consideration enemy AI patterns and the attack ratio of cards remaining in my draw pile, or stalling a fight for five turns to maximize a Reaper heal, or playing twenty 0 cost Holograms while frail to fully mitigate an attack.
That and almost every single Act 2 encounter is an absolute nightmare with the AI buffs. Except like the Knight+Cleric fight which is still usually not particularly dangerous but it will take ten minutes to finish because there is so much healing.
0
ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
How often do you pitch your starting relic for a random boss relic?
Never. While I'm generally a fan of variance is just way too high variance for me. That and all the starting relics are incredibly strong
Massive grain of salt, but I've had fantastically successful Ironclad and Defect runs trading in the starting relic and getting something that just worked out better. Off the top of my head, I've had good Ironclad runs with the collar and with the feather that heals you when you enter rest sites (the healing obviously isn't as good overall, but it's nice to basically guarantee every campfire is an upgrade spot). The time or two I did it with Defect I don't recall as clearly, but these all would have been done between A6 and A8, which obviously isn't as taxing as the higher difficulties.
As with others, Silent I probably do it a solid half the time at least. :P
Totally fair! THis is just like my personal line on variance. (Colourless cards are the other ones i avoid - you can roll HARD on them, like an early Sadistic Nature, Hand of Greed, Apothesis, Mayhem... but you can also whiff so so hard)
Generally my favourite Neow options are Random Common Relic, Gold, or Max hp. For Ironclad, Random Rare is a big bonus (Immolate wins you act 1 by itself, Bludgeon is right behind it in value), for Defect Upgrade a Card is amazing (Zap is possibly the best upgrade in the game, at least for act 1. Poison Dagger for a close second). I really like Neow's Lament as well - it is high on the variance, but 3 safe fights can be really beneficial. ANd of course elite/double elite snipes with it are always fun.
LIke, remember htis is not a solved game? at all? Find what works for you, at the difficulty level you have fun playing at. For @Jookie and I, we're crazy madmen who like A20 and dealing with an obnoxious overgrown organ with delusions of grander (Other hearts are content with /bodies/, Spire. Grow up already!)
That might not be you, and that's okay! The only person you're competing with in this game is all your previous corpses.
For sure~
It's more that, as a general statement, I think it's sort of reassuring to tell people that it's worth experimenting - especially if they're struggling - and not to fall into the mindset that there are always correct choices. One of the things I think gets said fairly often here, but tends to be quite subtle when it's said, is that sometimes you just take a hard gamble, and that can make or break runs. There are absolutely a bunch of boss relics that can make your life shitty at the outset, but they're also a lot easier to mitigate on lower ascension levels, and they'll force you to play with constraints that will help you make better choices in later runs. But I might just be a bit much of a stickler for toughing things out over reading how others find consistent success. I believe the term there is masochist ... :P
Also can't you just skip the boss relic if you really want to? No gold I would consider in Act 3 but would probably pass after first boss. Knowing my luck a run that I take Ectoplasm also means the next two relics are Maw Bank and Old Coin plus a bunch of events that give gold. Or the gambling one where you're guaranteed to not make money. Also the thief fights means bye bye dosh you will be missed.
Ectoplasm can't drop from Act 2 boss, it's strictly Act 1 boss relic.
Also can't you just skip the boss relic if you really want to? No gold I would consider in Act 3 but would probably pass after first boss. Knowing my luck a run that I take Ectoplasm also means the next two relics are Maw Bank and Old Coin plus a bunch of events that give gold. Or the gambling one where you're guaranteed to not make money. Also the thief fights means bye bye dosh you will be missed.
Ectoplasm can't drop from Act 2 boss, it's strictly Act 1 boss relic.
You sure on that? I'd swear i've seen it from Act 2 bosses.
Also, this deck. Defintely could have taken and crushed the heart (I thiiiink? I'm tempted to replay the seed, but that dosent seem fun), but some idiot took Bronze Scales instead of the Blue Key.
Beyond Perfect though. Turns out a deck that can potentially create 12 buffer stacks and a truly stupid amount of frost orbs and focus is PREDDY GOOD.
Also dark orbs, plasma orbs and lighting orbs because who cares, it's a party in here! A rare party, i dont think I've ever had a deck with THAT many rare cards. 11/35 cards were Rare.
The only boss it lost hp to was Hexaghost, and that was only 4. Turns out resting before the champ while at 38hp was a fucking waste, i mean who knew? Should have upgraded another thunder-strike.
In conclusion: Take Snecko Eye, kids! It'll lead you down the path of fun PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER
To give a slightly more useful summary though:
Floor 1 it took a Consume (Gamble, but Consume is real good. It was a very speculative pic though - that early, Consume may as well be a curse). Floor 2 netted it a Ball Lighting, and Floor 7 (First Elite) offered a choice between Thunder Strike and Tempest as the notable pics. Thunder strike was taken on the logic i could make Lighting orbs at a decent rate, and it's a pretty strong scaling option - a choice that paid off hard in the first boss fight. It was also taken on the knowledge that if i did find snecko eye, i'd slam it with both that and Consume in my deck.
Scoring Echo Form+ and Snecko Eye off the Hexaghost set the deck up for greatness, act 2 normal fights kicked the crap out of it (First three fights were Triple Byrds, Shelled Parasite, Triple Cultists in a deck with no aoe at that point). But that got Aoe (Doom and Gloom), the first Elite from act 2 gave up a Data disk. Things started to snowball out of control from there - By the time act 3 rolled around, i lost hp on one fight (Giant head. 6 of it...)
One choice that might be a bit counterintuitive, but worth mentioning is i took Capacitor over Glacier at one point. Glacier is "Better" with Snecko from a pure cost perspective, but the upside to having more orb slots is huge - I absolutely would have taken inserter in this deck over an energy relic. and with Coolheadeds, i was mass producing frost orbs anyway.
Also for fun: Guess which attack i bottled, and why?
Also can't you just skip the boss relic if you really want to? No gold I would consider in Act 3 but would probably pass after first boss. Knowing my luck a run that I take Ectoplasm also means the next two relics are Maw Bank and Old Coin plus a bunch of events that give gold. Or the gambling one where you're guaranteed to not make money. Also the thief fights means bye bye dosh you will be missed.
Ectoplasm can't drop from Act 2 boss, it's strictly Act 1 boss relic.
You sure on that? I'd swear i've seen it from Act 2 bosses.
Also can't you just skip the boss relic if you really want to? No gold I would consider in Act 3 but would probably pass after first boss. Knowing my luck a run that I take Ectoplasm also means the next two relics are Maw Bank and Old Coin plus a bunch of events that give gold. Or the gambling one where you're guaranteed to not make money. Also the thief fights means bye bye dosh you will be missed.
Ectoplasm can't drop from Act 2 boss, it's strictly Act 1 boss relic.
You sure on that? I'd swear i've seen it from Act 2 bosses.
Also, this deck. Defintely could have taken and crushed the heart (I thiiiink? I'm tempted to replay the seed, but that dosent seem fun), but some idiot took Bronze Scales instead of the Blue Key.
Beyond Perfect though. Turns out a deck that can potentially create 12 buffer stacks and a truly stupid amount of frost orbs and focus is PREDDY GOOD.
Also dark orbs, plasma orbs and lighting orbs because who cares, it's a party in here! A rare party, i dont think I've ever had a deck with THAT many rare cards. 11/35 cards were Rare.
The only boss it lost hp to was Hexaghost, and that was only 4. Turns out resting before the champ while at 38hp was a fucking waste, i mean who knew? Should have upgraded another thunder-strike.
In conclusion: Take Snecko Eye, kids! It'll lead you down the path of fun PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER
To give a slightly more useful summary though:
Floor 1 it took a Consume (Gamble, but Consume is real good. It was a very speculative pic though - that early, Consume may as well be a curse). Floor 2 netted it a Ball Lighting, and Floor 7 (First Elite) offered a choice between Thunder Strike and Tempest as the notable pics. Thunder strike was taken on the logic i could make Lighting orbs at a decent rate, and it's a pretty strong scaling option - a choice that paid off hard in the first boss fight. It was also taken on the knowledge that if i did find snecko eye, i'd slam it with both that and Consume in my deck.
Scoring Echo Form+ and Snecko Eye off the Hexaghost set the deck up for greatness, act 2 normal fights kicked the crap out of it (First three fights were Triple Byrds, Shelled Parasite, Triple Cultists in a deck with no aoe at that point). But that got Aoe (Doom and Gloom), the first Elite from act 2 gave up a Data disk. Things started to snowball out of control from there - By the time act 3 rolled around, i lost hp on one fight (Giant head. 6 of it...)
One choice that might be a bit counterintuitive, but worth mentioning is i took Capacitor over Glacier at one point. Glacier is "Better" with Snecko from a pure cost perspective, but the upside to having more orb slots is huge - I absolutely would have taken inserter in this deck over an energy relic. and with Coolheadeds, i was mass producing frost orbs anyway.
Also for fun: Guess which attack i bottled, and why?
You bottled Meteor Strike because it's always energy positive with the relics you have.
ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
Unrelated, I don't understand how I'm so inconsistent. I had my A13 victory with Silent on my first try. I died twice in Act 1 last night with her, trying an A0 heart run. I don't understand how I consistently do so much worse on the easier difficulty ... :S
Damnit I had a chance to get the +5 health when you potion, alchemize, and white beast statue on Ironclad. Maybe I'll play this seed again and see how silly it can get.
edit: finally got past asc3 ironclad with a super aggro deck. My first turn would regularly do 100+ damage. Started with the +1 energy relic that prevents healing at bonfires but the heal at shops, meat bone, blood vile, and the +50% healing with 2 reapers managed to keep me full most the time.
Got dead branch early in act 1 and committed hard to shivs. Took down all of Act 4 without taking damage. Still had the buffer from Helix at the end of the Heart. With 1 bottled After Image and 1 bottled Blur, I blurred and After Imaged and after that Beat of Death was countered. Before it doubled, I shiv-branched into a second one and was actually gaining a block every card play. I started hunting elites in the second half of act 3 and was rewarded with a Kunai, which made my dexterity scale to 26 or 27 by the end of the heart fight.
Heart kill and a heart loss (But posting because it's a cool deck).
Heart kill:
This was basically just Raw Power to achive the kill. Came down to being dead to the heart's attack, no attacks in hand... but able to get flame barriers into play to trigger 13 damage per every received attack. Which killed the heart while i was on 9 hp remaining! Yay!
Heart loss:
So you kill awoken one by giving it 23 strength, right? That's definitely how to play this game. Came out of the A4 elite on max hp, having lost 53 hp during the fight. Unfortunately vs the heart, my first two power rolls off Echo'd Creative AI were Heatsinks. While facing down a 67 damage attack.
So that was gamer over! Not too surprise though - This deck's scaling was reliant on either: Generate a lot of lighting, cast Thunder strike, or Generate a ton of frost, cast Blizzard. Which.... required getting there first. Creative AI needed to either roll Buffer (which ideally got hit by Warped Tongs), or Biased Cog (and have Glacier in hand to give me the frost orbs).
Neither of which happened, so that's game. Sozu was honestly the killer - a power pot, or Artifact + Speed Pot easily would have saved the run. I thiiiiink i got offered Coffee Dripper and should have taken that? But i'm unsure.
Edit: So, generally i dislike Defect's energy gain cards. Aggerate's fussy to use/leverage, Double Energy needs an upgrade, and being the first card you cast and Turbo can be effective, but tends to flood your deck with statues (Which can really kill you fast). Recycle+ though? Recycle+ is real good. Amazing with X cost cards (You'll gain X energy, whatever your energy is when you cast X), with Creative Ai (just feed whatever excess powers you get to Recyle!). It's also really good in Snecko decks, as you get whatever energy the card's cost currently is.
I'm not mentioning Fusion because i think that's trickier to value as a pure energy gain card, due to orb management being it's own whole... thing
So this run was... going okay, i think is how i'd frame it. It had enough power to punch through the hallway fights, and dunk on the act 2 bosses (4 back-stabs & Dead branch will do that. Perfect collector in 5 turns). But that was about all it was really doing. Good relics, good power, not... really anything to actually get it through Act 3 bosses.
Solution? Take Black star and go elite slaughtering. Which paid off hard on floor 49 - Kunai? And Varja? Hell yes. (Okay, so Varja was basically nonsense, but Kunai?!). Literally saved the run.
Torii thanks to Mind Bloom was also super relevant - as long as the heart's multiattack is 5 damage per hit or lower, you'll only loose 15 hp to it. Which given it blocked over 30 damage at one point, and i came out at 9 hp... Yeah.
Mummified Hand made things extra nonsense. Do wish i'd skipped Thousand Cuts from the act 2 boss though. Basically a curse.
Finally got a win with the Silent and at the end they showed like a colored lock that lit up. I don't remember this when I got my Defect win. Do I have to win with Defect again for it to count?
Finally got a win with the Silent and at the end they showed like a colored lock that lit up. I don't remember this when I got my Defect win. Do I have to win with Defect again for it to count?
Probably, yeah. That's the start of getting Act 4 content available, and wins before the patch when that was released don't count.
Also, A18 is hard. Stuck there with both Defect and Silent. Haven't put too many attempts into it, but I'm just getting wrecked.
Beat the Heart last night for the first time. Did a poison build on Silent, lucked into both Catalyst and Nightmare, killed the heart in like 4 or 5 turns with over 1400 poison stacked on it.
I want to do some A4 attempts. Would people do Ascension 0 or 1 I was thinking 1 for more elites
Either works. I'm a wimp so I do Asc0 so I can dodge all elites in Act 3 if I want to but doing Asc1 makes sense too. I still need a Defect heart win but my last try was so miserable I couldn't even kill the act 3 boss. Quite sad. :?
Finally got a win with the Silent and at the end they showed like a colored lock that lit up. I don't remember this when I got my Defect win. Do I have to win with Defect again for it to count?
Yup. I had at least a couple wins with every class during early access, but stopped playing before that patch landed and had to win again with each to unlock the Act 4 content. It took me until a couple days ago to get to the heart - I'm 0 for 2 at this point - because I was on a miserable losing streak with the Ironclad that I finally broke on Thursday.
Also, A18 is hard. Stuck there with both Defect and Silent. Haven't put too many attempts into it, but I'm just getting wrecked.
I'm in the same spot. I've managed A18 with Silent, but it felt like lucking into good relics more than anything.
17+18 are the levels where it really ramps up and crushes your soul. Which is nice because once you can get past them 19 and 20 are no biggie.
You generally want your deck to do something broken by act 2 because it is brutal. Or by later act 1 if you are a stupid enough idiot to fight the imp gang or the slime gang.
This is definitely the point where even if gambles like taking Limit Break or Catalyst with no support aren't universally optimal (I don't watch or play enough A20 to have an idea of what level of risk taking is ideal for consistency), I'd recommend it for most players just trying to get a win.
Act 4 completed on all characters. Was able to clear on the first try with silent and defect.
A1 increase in elite was totally the right call for me.
+2
AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
Start with Random Common Relic > Here, have a Shovel pretty much blessed the run. Then Ice Cream, and Runic Pyramid, and Torii, and Kunaii. I would have been very disappointed with my self had this been a loss.
Though, Dolly's Mirror allowing me to duplicate a Caltrops+, in retrospect, did mean I did +160 more damage to the Heart which otherwise would have killed me if I didn't have that.
Posts
you're a monster!
Never. While I'm generally a fan of variance is just way too high variance for me. That and all the starting relics are incredibly strong
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
Switch: 0293 6817 9891
Massive grain of salt, but I've had fantastically successful Ironclad and Defect runs trading in the starting relic and getting something that just worked out better. Off the top of my head, I've had good Ironclad runs with the collar and with the feather that heals you when you enter rest sites (the healing obviously isn't as good overall, but it's nice to basically guarantee every campfire is an upgrade spot). The time or two I did it with Defect I don't recall as clearly, but these all would have been done between A6 and A8, which obviously isn't as taxing as the higher difficulties.
As with others, Silent I probably do it a solid half the time at least. :P
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
Not being able to pick up gold is bad too because gold can be crucial in this game. Picking up a Chemical X to go with your Malaise suddenly makes multi hit attacking enemies useless and you can't do that without starter gold.
Even missing out on a potion early on can be enough to cause a run to fail. Some potions aren't great at certain times - Liquid Bronze won't do much to two of the act 1 elites but a fire potion can save you from a Gremlin Nob heavy hit.
I think if I was to ever trade in starter relic it would be on Silent but eventually it gets to a point where having the extra cards on your first turn helps with strong opening turns.
What a shitty relic.
ED: My last run, I was offered the "choice" between the Kite, the +Energy / No Gold relic (fuckin' what?), and Runic Dome (fuck that). What a shitty way to make a decent run come to a screeching halt.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Totally fair! THis is just like my personal line on variance. (Colourless cards are the other ones i avoid - you can roll HARD on them, like an early Sadistic Nature, Hand of Greed, Apothesis, Mayhem... but you can also whiff so so hard)
Generally my favourite Neow options are Random Common Relic, Gold, or Max hp. For Ironclad, Random Rare is a big bonus (Immolate wins you act 1 by itself, Bludgeon is right behind it in value), for Defect Upgrade a Card is amazing (Zap is possibly the best upgrade in the game, at least for act 1. Poison Dagger for a close second). I really like Neow's Lament as well - it is high on the variance, but 3 safe fights can be really beneficial. ANd of course elite/double elite snipes with it are always fun.
LIke, remember htis is not a solved game? at all? Find what works for you, at the difficulty level you have fun playing at. For @Jookie and I, we're crazy madmen who like A20 and dealing with an obnoxious overgrown organ with delusions of grander (Other hearts are content with /bodies/, Spire. Grow up already!)
That might not be you, and that's okay! The only person you're competing with in this game is all your previous corpses.
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
Switch: 0293 6817 9891
It's fucking god awful in decks that don't have ways to add to your hand because it's nice having four energy but if you can only spend three it doesn't matter. I've made the mistake before it's not a good feeling.
I'm sure that combining it with Runic Pyramid would allow for some pretty solid setups though. One extra energy and you just hold all your cards so you discard the two that help the least and call it a day. Runic Pyramid plus Kite and a Concentration means you can spend three energy manipulating cards and still wind up with three energy to play on good cards and still have four in your hand to keep.
Also can't you just skip the boss relic if you really want to? No gold I would consider in Act 3 but would probably pass after first boss. Knowing my luck a run that I take Ectoplasm also means the next two relics are Maw Bank and Old Coin plus a bunch of events that give gold. Or the gambling one where you're guaranteed to not make money. Also the thief fights means bye bye dosh you will be missed.
Runic Dome is one I'm probably not smart enough to take. I can remember most enemy patterns that adhere to one and have a good idea of how much damage each one is supposed to do but honestly I don't want to put my memory through that kind of stress.
In that particular run I had a poison-heavy Silent run, and just wasn't offered much in the way of draw; I had, I think, 1 copy of the attack-draw-discard card and that was pretty much it (and that doesn't even really count as draw). I played two more fights past picking the Kite, and then just ended the run before whatever I was fighting could win.
Runic Dome basically ruins the game for me; I have no particular desire to memorize enemy patterns because I find the fun in the game in trying to navigate through the enemies' intentions, so taking that away means I don't see any reason to bother.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Wow awesome
Congrats!
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I've concluded that A15 is where it's at. If I lose on A15 it's my own fault. If I lose on A20 there's a large chance the game was actually just impossible. Or maybe it wasn't impossible if I was interested in making optimal plays that I don't find particularly fun like spending five minutes to determine whether playing an attack or a block has a higher chance of saving HP in an encounter when you take into consideration enemy AI patterns and the attack ratio of cards remaining in my draw pile, or stalling a fight for five turns to maximize a Reaper heal, or playing twenty 0 cost Holograms while frail to fully mitigate an attack.
That and almost every single Act 2 encounter is an absolute nightmare with the AI buffs. Except like the Knight+Cleric fight which is still usually not particularly dangerous but it will take ten minutes to finish because there is so much healing.
It's more that, as a general statement, I think it's sort of reassuring to tell people that it's worth experimenting - especially if they're struggling - and not to fall into the mindset that there are always correct choices. One of the things I think gets said fairly often here, but tends to be quite subtle when it's said, is that sometimes you just take a hard gamble, and that can make or break runs. There are absolutely a bunch of boss relics that can make your life shitty at the outset, but they're also a lot easier to mitigate on lower ascension levels, and they'll force you to play with constraints that will help you make better choices in later runs. But I might just be a bit much of a stickler for toughing things out over reading how others find consistent success. I believe the term there is masochist ... :P
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
Ectoplasm can't drop from Act 2 boss, it's strictly Act 1 boss relic.
You sure on that? I'd swear i've seen it from Act 2 bosses.
Also, this deck. Defintely could have taken and crushed the heart (I thiiiink? I'm tempted to replay the seed, but that dosent seem fun), but some idiot took Bronze Scales instead of the Blue Key.
Beyond Perfect though. Turns out a deck that can potentially create 12 buffer stacks and a truly stupid amount of frost orbs and focus is PREDDY GOOD.
Also dark orbs, plasma orbs and lighting orbs because who cares, it's a party in here! A rare party, i dont think I've ever had a deck with THAT many rare cards. 11/35 cards were Rare.
The only boss it lost hp to was Hexaghost, and that was only 4. Turns out resting before the champ while at 38hp was a fucking waste, i mean who knew? Should have upgraded another thunder-strike.
In conclusion: Take Snecko Eye, kids! It'll lead you down the path of fun PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER
To give a slightly more useful summary though:
Floor 1 it took a Consume (Gamble, but Consume is real good. It was a very speculative pic though - that early, Consume may as well be a curse). Floor 2 netted it a Ball Lighting, and Floor 7 (First Elite) offered a choice between Thunder Strike and Tempest as the notable pics. Thunder strike was taken on the logic i could make Lighting orbs at a decent rate, and it's a pretty strong scaling option - a choice that paid off hard in the first boss fight. It was also taken on the knowledge that if i did find snecko eye, i'd slam it with both that and Consume in my deck.
Scoring Echo Form+ and Snecko Eye off the Hexaghost set the deck up for greatness, act 2 normal fights kicked the crap out of it (First three fights were Triple Byrds, Shelled Parasite, Triple Cultists in a deck with no aoe at that point). But that got Aoe (Doom and Gloom), the first Elite from act 2 gave up a Data disk. Things started to snowball out of control from there - By the time act 3 rolled around, i lost hp on one fight (Giant head. 6 of it...)
One choice that might be a bit counterintuitive, but worth mentioning is i took Capacitor over Glacier at one point. Glacier is "Better" with Snecko from a pure cost perspective, but the upside to having more orb slots is huge - I absolutely would have taken inserter in this deck over an energy relic. and with Coolheadeds, i was mass producing frost orbs anyway.
Also for fun: Guess which attack i bottled, and why?
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Yes, I'm sure.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
edit: finally got past asc3 ironclad with a super aggro deck. My first turn would regularly do 100+ damage. Started with the +1 energy relic that prevents healing at bonfires but the heal at shops, meat bone, blood vile, and the +50% healing with 2 reapers managed to keep me full most the time.
forgot to post the deck
[Edit]
Unsurprisingly, that deck coasted through the rest of the act. I almost 1-turn killed Donu and Deca. :P
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
Heart kill:
This was basically just Raw Power to achive the kill. Came down to being dead to the heart's attack, no attacks in hand... but able to get flame barriers into play to trigger 13 damage per every received attack. Which killed the heart while i was on 9 hp remaining! Yay!
Heart loss:
So you kill awoken one by giving it 23 strength, right? That's definitely how to play this game. Came out of the A4 elite on max hp, having lost 53 hp during the fight. Unfortunately vs the heart, my first two power rolls off Echo'd Creative AI were Heatsinks. While facing down a 67 damage attack.
So that was gamer over! Not too surprise though - This deck's scaling was reliant on either: Generate a lot of lighting, cast Thunder strike, or Generate a ton of frost, cast Blizzard. Which.... required getting there first. Creative AI needed to either roll Buffer (which ideally got hit by Warped Tongs), or Biased Cog (and have Glacier in hand to give me the frost orbs).
Neither of which happened, so that's game. Sozu was honestly the killer - a power pot, or Artifact + Speed Pot easily would have saved the run. I thiiiiink i got offered Coffee Dripper and should have taken that? But i'm unsure.
Edit: So, generally i dislike Defect's energy gain cards. Aggerate's fussy to use/leverage, Double Energy needs an upgrade, and being the first card you cast and Turbo can be effective, but tends to flood your deck with statues (Which can really kill you fast). Recycle+ though? Recycle+ is real good. Amazing with X cost cards (You'll gain X energy, whatever your energy is when you cast X), with Creative Ai (just feed whatever excess powers you get to Recyle!). It's also really good in Snecko decks, as you get whatever energy the card's cost currently is.
I'm not mentioning Fusion because i think that's trickier to value as a pure energy gain card, due to orb management being it's own whole... thing
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So this run was... going okay, i think is how i'd frame it. It had enough power to punch through the hallway fights, and dunk on the act 2 bosses (4 back-stabs & Dead branch will do that. Perfect collector in 5 turns). But that was about all it was really doing. Good relics, good power, not... really anything to actually get it through Act 3 bosses.
Solution? Take Black star and go elite slaughtering. Which paid off hard on floor 49 - Kunai? And Varja? Hell yes. (Okay, so Varja was basically nonsense, but Kunai?!). Literally saved the run.
Torii thanks to Mind Bloom was also super relevant - as long as the heart's multiattack is 5 damage per hit or lower, you'll only loose 15 hp to it. Which given it blocked over 30 damage at one point, and i came out at 9 hp... Yeah.
Mummified Hand made things extra nonsense. Do wish i'd skipped Thousand Cuts from the act 2 boss though. Basically a curse.
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Probably, yeah. That's the start of getting Act 4 content available, and wins before the patch when that was released don't count.
Also, A18 is hard. Stuck there with both Defect and Silent. Haven't put too many attempts into it, but I'm just getting wrecked.
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I'm in the same spot. I've managed A18 with Silent, but it felt like lucking into good relics more than anything.
Either works. I'm a wimp so I do Asc0 so I can dodge all elites in Act 3 if I want to but doing Asc1 makes sense too. I still need a Defect heart win but my last try was so miserable I couldn't even kill the act 3 boss. Quite sad. :?
Yup. I had at least a couple wins with every class during early access, but stopped playing before that patch landed and had to win again with each to unlock the Act 4 content. It took me until a couple days ago to get to the heart - I'm 0 for 2 at this point - because I was on a miserable losing streak with the Ironclad that I finally broke on Thursday.
17+18 are the levels where it really ramps up and crushes your soul. Which is nice because once you can get past them 19 and 20 are no biggie.
You generally want your deck to do something broken by act 2 because it is brutal. Or by later act 1 if you are a stupid enough idiot to fight the imp gang or the slime gang.
This is definitely the point where even if gambles like taking Limit Break or Catalyst with no support aren't universally optimal (I don't watch or play enough A20 to have an idea of what level of risk taking is ideal for consistency), I'd recommend it for most players just trying to get a win.
A1 increase in elite was totally the right call for me.
Start with Random Common Relic > Here, have a Shovel pretty much blessed the run. Then Ice Cream, and Runic Pyramid, and Torii, and Kunaii. I would have been very disappointed with my self had this been a loss.
Though, Dolly's Mirror allowing me to duplicate a Caltrops+, in retrospect, did mean I did +160 more damage to the Heart which otherwise would have killed me if I didn't have that.
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Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12