It took me three attempts to beat the 'speed climber' achievement and the first two attempts were both less than 3minutes away from the 20min challenge.
(All three attempts were with ironclad and all three also gave me a whirlwind, which sounds like cheating)
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AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
Beat it (well, act 3 anyway) with Defect and unlocked the second round of Defect cards. All three of the newly unlocked cards seem worse than what I already had unlocked but maybe there's some synergies waiting to be unlocked later.
ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
I mean, I'm no expert, but Turbo and Sunder have paid off quite well for me. I swear I see screenshots here of people with Meteor Strike, but I've never actually had it in a deck that could either successfully play it, or had Recycle, so ... it's not my favourite either. :P
Sunder's pretty great, though it's definitely an act-1 pick (Or any act if you have snecko). Turbo is... iffy? It's very easy to screw yourself with it (Flood yourself with status/otherwise hamper your draw.) Meteor strike is amazing if you can reliably play it, but the key word there is "reliably". It's completely degenerate in Snecko decks (and the number of times i have skipped picking it only to then be offered snecko eye is frustrating as all hell). If you cant, it's a curse.
Meteor Strike is good if you have any other plasma generation, because it will tend to evoke the plasma and give you a couple more energy to play with. I think it's a good component of an "endless turn" kind of build
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AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
After some warm-up the last few times I opened Slay the Spire (including a casual victory over the Heart with Dead Branch / Corruption Ironclad on my second go at it), I got back into trying to clear the last few Silent Ascensions, though I have yet to delve into 16+ - if that has to unlock, how?
I still like Silent least, but if it's going to serve me up the following, I can't really complain:
Noxious Fumes off the first pickup and the early Shuriken made steering this easy, but it just got meaner and meaner with every unlock! Double Backstab + Bottled Neutralize was pretty silly.
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ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
edited January 2019
Several mean Ironclad runs today have got me a bit down. I don't feel like I ever picked up much in the way of useful relics (like, multiple tiny chest/courier sorts of things, and nothing to make me better at combat), and it seems insistent on throwing me no reliable damage. I just got picked apart by the goblin elite in act 2 because all I ever got were Clotheslines and no group damage.
Of note was the fact that I got an early Kunai and a late Shuriken and getting an entire three dexterity off the Kunai and zero strength out of the Shuriken. Poison is completely ridiculous if you happen to have a deck that looks like this:
Noxious Fumes immediately after picking up the Frozen relic to upgrade it for free. Funnel immediately after to give me up front scaling. Early Krane made the weakens I had that much stronger and the deck was okay, mostly scaling damage until I could catalyst for a safe kill. After that everything just slowly fell into place. Well-Laid Plans is one of the strongest powers in the game. Enabled me to play whatever card I wanted when I wanted to and taking a second one from a late shop seemed like a no-brainer when I had Tactician, Bullet Time, Wraith Form, and Malaise all sitting in in my deck to go with the two and then third Catalyst.
I'm a little sad I didn't make any attempt to go for the Heart, I'm fairly convinced I could have done it. Would be a matter of getting poison to x9 over two hundred damage and then coast off the defensive options until I win. All I needed to do was draw into my victory and I had multiple ways to accelerate my win conditions.
I also picked up a Regal Pillow and figured that would be a good way to keep me healthy with sixty max health but I don't think I ever actually rested after picking it up - I didn't have access to all of my draw or the second Well-Laid Plans until after that fact. Any damage I wound up taking was healed up through gold pickup thanks to bloody idol so I just upgraded everything.
I am getting kind of frustrated with this game. I have lost like fifteen times in a row, because I am not seeing how to generate block with any characters anymore except the Defect. It feels like the Ironclad gives me almost all draws for attack cards and exhaust cards, every game, so I just can't absorb damage.
When the card pool was smaller, I could expect a balance of defensive and offensive cards, but the game is just rolling over me and I don't get why. I have ended up on the fourth floor with no defense except for 4 Defends multiple times.
It doesn't feel like the Heart is beatable without lucking into a very strong synergy
I don't think the Heart is intended to be easy and I don't think it should be.
I feel like key go-to-Heart cards are stuff like Feel No Pain, Afterimage, and Loop (all for up-front block mid-turn), plus anything with Weak you can muster.
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ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
Well, while my Ironclad games were awful, this Defect run probably could have succeeded on a much higher ascension level than I was at. Killed the Timelord before he regenerated. :S
I had both Sunders after the 4th floor, I think. Fucking rolled with it.
Bottled Echo Form with 2x Boot Sequence let me play it quite safely every fight, and from there doubling whatever power I wanted in a given turn put the pedal to the metal. I know it was discussed recently that Static Discharge isn't great, and I agree it's not exactly a power you want to fire often, but when you're channeling 4 lighting when you get hit, evoking both frozen orbs you're sitting on and generating more block in the middle of the enemy attack, it's got some interesting utility in addition to straight damage.
Static Discharge is good when you can control the amount of block you have so that you can take just a point or two of damage and then trade that off for a bigger payout. Alternatively, if you have the event to give Intangible paired with it then you just stop blocking while intangible and do mean things.
It's probably a deck setup where having Self-Repair reduces failure since you're intending to actively take damage.
I downloaded The Disciple. I am far too stupid to play this class.
I downloaded The Marisa. All I know how to do is charge up and then fire a laser for 300 damage. I am okay with this.
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ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
edited January 2019
You made me curious so I also downloaded the Disciple. I find her base design somewhat interesting, but really, really boring. I actually just quit out before the end of act 1.
[Edit]
The Mystic is a fair bit more enjoyable, but it also seems like they're a sad combination of "lots of great cards" and "borrowing a lot from the base game card pool." Still, mechanically, it's a nice extra layer of maximizing the order you play your cards.
You made me curious so I also downloaded the Disciple. I find her base design somewhat interesting, but really, really boring. I actually just quit out before the end of act 1.
[Edit]
The Mystic is a fair bit more enjoyable, but it also seems like they're a sad combination of "lots of great cards" and "borrowing a lot from the base game card pool." Still, mechanically, it's a nice extra layer of maximizing the order you play your cards.
It seems fair to assume that DLC classes are going to need several iterations before they work as well as the base ones; there've been a lot of revisions to those 3 already.
Finally beat the heart, using the most obnoxious, grinding possible build: Silent blockspam + noxious fumes. I got the Runic Pyramid and two Footworks, so that really clinched it.
I don't see how any non-block build could survive that fight. Even super damage burst builds need to survive 3+ rounds. I guess an infinite loop deck could do it.
You made me curious so I also downloaded the Disciple. I find her base design somewhat interesting, but really, really boring. I actually just quit out before the end of act 1.
[Edit]
The Mystic is a fair bit more enjoyable, but it also seems like they're a sad combination of "lots of great cards" and "borrowing a lot from the base game card pool." Still, mechanically, it's a nice extra layer of maximizing the order you play your cards.
It seems fair to assume that DLC classes are going to need several iterations before they work as well as the base ones; there've been a lot of revisions to those 3 already.
Also, these aren't official. Whatever lessons and skills the StS makers have is only tangentially related
So, would anyone be interested in me posting some thoughts on a hypothetical character and giving feedback on refining that some? I'd like to figure out modding a character in (...assuming i actually get to it), but hey, game design practice is game design practice. )
I don't think the colored card pool has changed at all minus balance passes or fundamental changes in the case of something like Corpse Explosion. The colorless card pool has gotten significantly larger though.
I was sure they'd added more cards over time, but I've been playing for quite a while. I think there was only an Ironclad when I first started?
I recall being essentially assured of shrug it offs, rages, and barricades in every run (which was too easy, tbh)
It could also be that I have gotten worse, as my disgusting human body decays
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mysticjuicer[he/him] I'm a muscle wizardand I cast P U N C HRegistered Userregular
The game does change quite significantly once you have all of each class' card pool unlocked. In a good way, imo. Lots more strategies to try, and a lot more card drop RNG to mitigate.
I don't think the colored card pool has changed at all minus balance passes or fundamental changes in the case of something like Corpse Explosion. The colorless card pool has gotten significantly larger though.
Colorless card pool got larger, relic pool got larger, and potions got larger, too.
I rarely take colorless cards, that's probably why I haven't noticed
It is easy to underestimate them but man, they can make a run
Trip and Blind are nuts when upgraded. Apotheosis lets you ignore rest spaces or freely take the relic that doesn't let you smith. Enlightenment and Panache can be the centerpieces of entire decks. Forethought+ and enough card draw can easily lead to infinite cycles, I think.
Yea I buy and upgrade apotheosis at every opportunity.
I wish healing cards/relics were more common to provide an alternative to stacking block.
If they plan to do DLC, and I really hope they do, the obvious next character is a cleric who focuses on healing, I think--they already have fighter, mage and thief
I guess it could be a bard or something. Maybe a psychic, or a ranger, etc.
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ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
edited January 2019
Maybe I'm alone in this, but I definitely wouldn't consider the Defect a mage. I'm annoyed at myself for saying this, but the Silent is also much more a Rogue than a thief. :P
The thing about healing is that functionally isn't not really different from block. The only differences are it's technically worse for when enemies benefit from actually dealing damage, and it's technically better for when you trigger an effect for taking damage, and you can't front-load it so you have to survive an attack to recover from it rather than just stop it to begin with. Not that it can't be done or made fun, because you can build support cards around the concept, but again, fundamentally it wouldn't be much different from a class that got bonuses for generating block.
The main difference is it's not effected by weakness, and the effect is "permanent", eg a turn where you a block +healing surplus can undo the damage from a prior turn with a deficit.
Yeah, there are some significant enough differences that it would play distinctly, I think. You could do more post-battle healing, but that's kind of the Ironclad's thing. In fact he's almost a dark paladin archetype.
It's true that the Defect is barely a "mage," and the orbs are barely "spells"--I think if we see a cleric kind of character, there will be a significant twist on the concept
So, would anyone be interested in me posting some thoughts on a hypothetical character and giving feedback on refining that some? I'd like to figure out modding a character in (...assuming i actually get to it), but hey, game design practice is game design practice. )
Well, i'm going to take all the awesomes on this post as a yes then!
So, here we go. Super rough, this is more about outlining concepts and figuring out how they could click together to build a whole. Aim here is outlining rough archtypes - like you could sum up the Silent as "Poision, Shivs, Discard, Hand Manipulation, Multi-attacks" or Ironclad as "Heavy Hits, self-inflicted statuses, Exhaust syngeries, self-harm, strength-scaling"
The Priestess
Conceptually, she's aimed at being a martial arts monk meets cleric. Debuff manipulation, graveyard shenanigans, prayers and a new resource. More details below the spoiler block
I'd be aiming her to end up somewhere in the Ironclad/Silent sphere of things, i guess? Those are my favourites to play, so ideally i'm going to make something that reminds me of these
Her major card themes would be:
Essence - a new buff/debuff. When it's put on foes, it acts like a debuff - each stack of Essence adds 1 damage to an attack against that foe. Pseudo-strength, in other-words. Slight poison hybrid in that it would fall off by 1 each turn, just like Poison. When she has it, it adds one block per stack at the end of her turn (and again, falls off like poison). Open to alternate ideas here, but i like this as it seems balancable, while providing interesitng gameplay tension
Graveyard Use: limited-to-no card draw - think worse than ironclad coupled with strong graveyard manipulation ("Resurrecting" things - i.e exhaust them form the graveyard for extra effects, put them back into your hand like hologram, or ontop of your deck like headbutt). Potentially as a sub theme, payoffs for exhausting statuses out from your graveyard? Suspect what card draw she does have would work like Deep breath - shuffling your discard pile back in, and then drawing cards as it's cost (already a heavy penalty most of the time, and probably worse for her with the right balance)
Debuff manipulation - Heavy emphasis on throwing debuffs out, attacks that do more if foes have specific debuffs on them, cards that put debuffs on her in return for debuffs on others (For instance, a card that generates block and shackles the foe, but also shackles her for the turn), ways to move debuffs from her to opponents, or from foes to her, or from foe to foe. Hypothetical Form card: Plague Form (Power, 3). At the start of your turn, Inflict 1 Vulnerable & 1 (2) Essence to each foe. More access to Artifact than other classes too, to let her break "Fair" effects. I wonder if the game supports giving enemies dex down, and if so, what does that do? Probably niche, but that could be interesting in some cases.
Prayers: Cards that either do nothing this turn, but pay-off with a powerful effect at the next turn (or a couple of turns), or give you a powerful effect now in return for a nasty cost the next turn (Think get one intangible this turn, then next turn become vulnerable, weakened & shackled). I'd like to figure out tying in prayers with her graveyard manipulation too - think in the vein of Sentinel. Does one thing normally, and another thing if you pull it out of the graveyard with another card.
Limited amount of powers - Her scaling would come through manipulating essence and debuffs, not from stacking up powers. Thus i'd aim her to have the least powers of any character. This would also be aimed at helping her feel like she's constantly acting - i.e a skill that generates essence for her, rather than powers that passively generate. To compensate, she'd probably have a higher than usual amount of 0-cost cards, or cards that can somehow cheat cost/generate energy, or chain together. So skills/attacks that have breakpoints when she has a certain amount of essence, or foes have a certain amount of debuffs, etcera - imagine an attack that does say, 9 damage for 1 energy, but draws you a card and gives you an energy if you have 10 or more essence - or does triple damage if the foe has more than X debuffs, etcera.
So that's the outline. Thoughts, comments? No i have to figure out a: designing the card pool, and b: how the beep do you get this stuff in game (So quite honestly, this may go nowhere, but it's fun to think about if nothing else. I have zilch programming experience)
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How long is a typical successful run for you vets? My run yesterday was like 2 or 2.5 hours, but I was overstrategizing and reading every card.
40-80 minutes, with Ironclad runs being the fastest and Defect runs are slowest.
It took me three attempts to beat the 'speed climber' achievement and the first two attempts were both less than 3minutes away from the 20min challenge.
(All three attempts were with ironclad and all three also gave me a whirlwind, which sounds like cheating)
I think Silent might be my slowest overall but otherwise this checks out.
Also I should go to bed now.
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http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/The_Defect
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
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I still like Silent least, but if it's going to serve me up the following, I can't really complain:
Noxious Fumes off the first pickup and the early Shuriken made steering this easy, but it just got meaner and meaner with every unlock! Double Backstab + Bottled Neutralize was pretty silly.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
Of note was the fact that I got an early Kunai and a late Shuriken and getting an entire three dexterity off the Kunai and zero strength out of the Shuriken. Poison is completely ridiculous if you happen to have a deck that looks like this:
I'm a little sad I didn't make any attempt to go for the Heart, I'm fairly convinced I could have done it. Would be a matter of getting poison to x9 over two hundred damage and then coast off the defensive options until I win. All I needed to do was draw into my victory and I had multiple ways to accelerate my win conditions.
I also picked up a Regal Pillow and figured that would be a good way to keep me healthy with sixty max health but I don't think I ever actually rested after picking it up - I didn't have access to all of my draw or the second Well-Laid Plans until after that fact. Any damage I wound up taking was healed up through gold pickup thanks to bloody idol so I just upgraded everything.
When the card pool was smaller, I could expect a balance of defensive and offensive cards, but the game is just rolling over me and I don't get why. I have ended up on the fourth floor with no defense except for 4 Defends multiple times.
It doesn't feel like the Heart is beatable without lucking into a very strong synergy
I feel like key go-to-Heart cards are stuff like Feel No Pain, Afterimage, and Loop (all for up-front block mid-turn), plus anything with Weak you can muster.
Bottled Echo Form with 2x Boot Sequence let me play it quite safely every fight, and from there doubling whatever power I wanted in a given turn put the pedal to the metal. I know it was discussed recently that Static Discharge isn't great, and I agree it's not exactly a power you want to fire often, but when you're channeling 4 lighting when you get hit, evoking both frozen orbs you're sitting on and generating more block in the middle of the enemy attack, it's got some interesting utility in addition to straight damage.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
It's probably a deck setup where having Self-Repair reduces failure since you're intending to actively take damage.
I downloaded The Disciple. I am far too stupid to play this class.
I downloaded The Marisa. All I know how to do is charge up and then fire a laser for 300 damage. I am okay with this.
[Edit]
The Mystic is a fair bit more enjoyable, but it also seems like they're a sad combination of "lots of great cards" and "borrowing a lot from the base game card pool." Still, mechanically, it's a nice extra layer of maximizing the order you play your cards.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
It seems fair to assume that DLC classes are going to need several iterations before they work as well as the base ones; there've been a lot of revisions to those 3 already.
I don't see how any non-block build could survive that fight. Even super damage burst builds need to survive 3+ rounds. I guess an infinite loop deck could do it.
Also, these aren't official. Whatever lessons and skills the StS makers have is only tangentially related
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I think the Heart is tuned very well, but I feel like as the card pool has expanded the game has become a bit more vulnerable to RNG
It's also possible the small card pool made me lazy and set in my ways, I won't deny it
Side question: do you need to beat the Heart for ascension levels to be completed?
Has the card pool really gotten all that much larger? Possible I've just not paid much attention to it...
You don't need to beat the Heart to rank up Ascension.
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I recall being essentially assured of shrug it offs, rages, and barricades in every run (which was too easy, tbh)
It could also be that I have gotten worse, as my disgusting human body decays
Colorless card pool got larger, relic pool got larger, and potions got larger, too.
3DS Friend Code: 3110-5393-4113
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It is easy to underestimate them but man, they can make a run
Trip and Blind are nuts when upgraded. Apotheosis lets you ignore rest spaces or freely take the relic that doesn't let you smith. Enlightenment and Panache can be the centerpieces of entire decks. Forethought+ and enough card draw can easily lead to infinite cycles, I think.
3DS Friend Code: 3110-5393-4113
Steam profile
I wish healing cards/relics were more common to provide an alternative to stacking block.
If they plan to do DLC, and I really hope they do, the obvious next character is a cleric who focuses on healing, I think--they already have fighter, mage and thief
I guess it could be a bard or something. Maybe a psychic, or a ranger, etc.
The thing about healing is that functionally isn't not really different from block. The only differences are it's technically worse for when enemies benefit from actually dealing damage, and it's technically better for when you trigger an effect for taking damage, and you can't front-load it so you have to survive an attack to recover from it rather than just stop it to begin with. Not that it can't be done or made fun, because you can build support cards around the concept, but again, fundamentally it wouldn't be much different from a class that got bonuses for generating block.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
It's true that the Defect is barely a "mage," and the orbs are barely "spells"--I think if we see a cleric kind of character, there will be a significant twist on the concept
Well, i'm going to take all the awesomes on this post as a yes then!
So, here we go. Super rough, this is more about outlining concepts and figuring out how they could click together to build a whole. Aim here is outlining rough archtypes - like you could sum up the Silent as "Poision, Shivs, Discard, Hand Manipulation, Multi-attacks" or Ironclad as "Heavy Hits, self-inflicted statuses, Exhaust syngeries, self-harm, strength-scaling"
The Priestess
Conceptually, she's aimed at being a martial arts monk meets cleric. Debuff manipulation, graveyard shenanigans, prayers and a new resource. More details below the spoiler block
Her major card themes would be:
Essence - a new buff/debuff. When it's put on foes, it acts like a debuff - each stack of Essence adds 1 damage to an attack against that foe. Pseudo-strength, in other-words. Slight poison hybrid in that it would fall off by 1 each turn, just like Poison. When she has it, it adds one block per stack at the end of her turn (and again, falls off like poison). Open to alternate ideas here, but i like this as it seems balancable, while providing interesitng gameplay tension
Graveyard Use: limited-to-no card draw - think worse than ironclad coupled with strong graveyard manipulation ("Resurrecting" things - i.e exhaust them form the graveyard for extra effects, put them back into your hand like hologram, or ontop of your deck like headbutt). Potentially as a sub theme, payoffs for exhausting statuses out from your graveyard? Suspect what card draw she does have would work like Deep breath - shuffling your discard pile back in, and then drawing cards as it's cost (already a heavy penalty most of the time, and probably worse for her with the right balance)
Debuff manipulation - Heavy emphasis on throwing debuffs out, attacks that do more if foes have specific debuffs on them, cards that put debuffs on her in return for debuffs on others (For instance, a card that generates block and shackles the foe, but also shackles her for the turn), ways to move debuffs from her to opponents, or from foes to her, or from foe to foe. Hypothetical Form card: Plague Form (Power, 3). At the start of your turn, Inflict 1 Vulnerable & 1 (2) Essence to each foe. More access to Artifact than other classes too, to let her break "Fair" effects. I wonder if the game supports giving enemies dex down, and if so, what does that do? Probably niche, but that could be interesting in some cases.
Prayers: Cards that either do nothing this turn, but pay-off with a powerful effect at the next turn (or a couple of turns), or give you a powerful effect now in return for a nasty cost the next turn (Think get one intangible this turn, then next turn become vulnerable, weakened & shackled). I'd like to figure out tying in prayers with her graveyard manipulation too - think in the vein of Sentinel. Does one thing normally, and another thing if you pull it out of the graveyard with another card.
Limited amount of powers - Her scaling would come through manipulating essence and debuffs, not from stacking up powers. Thus i'd aim her to have the least powers of any character. This would also be aimed at helping her feel like she's constantly acting - i.e a skill that generates essence for her, rather than powers that passively generate. To compensate, she'd probably have a higher than usual amount of 0-cost cards, or cards that can somehow cheat cost/generate energy, or chain together. So skills/attacks that have breakpoints when she has a certain amount of essence, or foes have a certain amount of debuffs, etcera - imagine an attack that does say, 9 damage for 1 energy, but draws you a card and gives you an energy if you have 10 or more essence - or does triple damage if the foe has more than X debuffs, etcera.
So that's the outline. Thoughts, comments? No i have to figure out a: designing the card pool, and b: how the beep do you get this stuff in game (So quite honestly, this may go nowhere, but it's fun to think about if nothing else. I have zilch programming experience)
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
Switch: 0293 6817 9891