It's funny to hear you say that since I generally considered cursed key to be the easiest +energy relic to mitigate and have won a lot of my runs with it. XD
(But I'm still somewhere around A11/12/9 for the three classes, so I know nothing)
As I've mentioned before, I think Cursed Key's perceived value corresponds directly with how much you like Ironclad.
Cursed Bell is real bad unless you have Blue Candle. Cursed Key is likewise awful - Curses SUCK to have in your deck, and giving up relics to avoid getting curses really hurts. Ectoplasm and Sozu are pretty painful too, but not the worst - Sometimes your deck really needs the four energy.
Disagree on Cursed Key. Cursed Key is good for the same reason that Cursed Bell is bad: because a bunch of random relics is nowhere near as good as getting an extra energy.
The one caveat being that you'll forget about the key and open the chests anyway like 90% of the time.
for the record I have a ton of block in this deck, I just can't get to it because my hand is full of 3 cost cards. And I did manage to cycle a few cards with recycle -> skim, and draw 3 potion, but no direct damage or block came up.
Oh hey guess what I got for beating the act 1 boss again.
I've been playing ironclad the whole time I've been complaining about missing playable +1 energy relics.
I think I'd take the cage there
I did. Died to the champ.
Time to try again I GUESS.
If you want advice or such, feel free to post more info on your runs. I (and others I'm sure) would be happy to provide as much detail as you want. Card choices, how much health you have after the fights and how much you're entering the boss with, what your campfire/store choices were, etc. Whatever you think would be fun/helpful.
RNG can make things easier or harder, but you can improve your skill and decisions at the game to make it to Act 3 90% of the time, and beat it probably 75+% (on A0 or thereabouts). If that's something you want.
How to beat act 1 as the silent: Just kill 5 elites, it's easy right?
(And my starting bonus was 100g!)
Edit: Make sure to then nearly die to slimeboss (Because Footwork and Noxious Fumes+ were literally the last two cards in your twnety 24 card deck), and then be offered Empty Cage, Calling Bell and Cursed Key. Because the game is a right jerk.
And killed by book of stabbing because i bought the wrong things at store. Wingboots were NOT the play. (And dammit, i wish i'd been able to buy the bronze scales back in the store in act 1)
Oh hey guess what I got for beating the act 1 boss again.
I've been playing ironclad the whole time I've been complaining about missing playable +1 energy relics.
I think I'd take the cage there
I did. Died to the champ.
Time to try again I GUESS.
If you want advice or such, feel free to post more info on your runs. I (and others I'm sure) would be happy to provide as much detail as you want. Card choices, how much health you have after the fights and how much you're entering the boss with, what your campfire/store choices were, etc. Whatever you think would be fun/helpful.
RNG can make things easier or harder, but you can improve your skill and decisions at the game to make it to Act 3 90% of the time, and beat it probably 75+% (on A0 or thereabouts). If that's something you want.
Thanks for the offer. I'm mainly trying to rank up my ascension level with ironclad. It'd be nice if the game generated replay files because I don't have much of an idea what to ask about.
My final run tonight was going fine - I got an energy relic from act 1, had a nice well-upgraded deck going including 3 upgraded apparitions, and then died late in act 3 to something like 50 incoming damage on a turn where I drew no apparitions, no block, and no card draw. It happens, I guess. edit: I remember looking at the remaining 18 cards in my deck after I drew the 5 for my turn and noting that drawing any one of 13 of them would have saved me. That meant I drew 5 cards from a 23 card deck, hoping to hit any one of 13 cards, and missed all of them. That turn had less than a 1% chance (about 0.7%) of going wrong.
I'm still struggling to kill the Heart with the Ironclad. I get there in most runs, but i just can't absorb 50+ damage on turn 2 in two fights in a row with most decks. It is infuriating how often I end up on act 3 with no defensive options but defend cards!
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cptruggedI think it has something to do with free will.Registered Userregular
The relic that other people seem to make work that seems to be a huge detriment to me every time is the Pyramid that lets you always retain your hand. I end up with just a hand full of strikes and defends and not being able to draw to my best cards.
Runic pyramid is an amazing relic that changes you card evaluation. You can't just pick like you would pick normally. Suddenly 0 cost cards become amazing, and draw's value becomes hard to quantify. The power of extra energy cards go through the roof, and so does exhaust. 2+ energy cards drop like a rock. It's kinda like a reverse Sneko's eye when you think about it.
For example, fiend fire goes from really good to beyond amazing.
The relic that other people seem to make work that seems to be a huge detriment to me every time is the Pyramid that lets you always retain your hand. I end up with just a hand full of strikes and defends and not being able to draw to my best cards.
If you are playing Ironclad, anything that lets you exhaust other cards would help you there. For Silent you have discard instead (though they can already get Well Laid Plans so less need for the Pyramid). Defect doesn't have that great options for either which makes the Pyramid a bit more risky to take.
The relic that other people seem to make work that seems to be a huge detriment to me every time is the Pyramid that lets you always retain your hand. I end up with just a hand full of strikes and defends and not being able to draw to my best cards.
Remove more strikes and defends.
and I wonder about my neighbors even though I don't have them
but they're listening to every word I say
Runic Pyramid is amazing but creates new problems you have to manage, for sure
For example, you need a plan to deal with cloggers. Suddenly, Evolve+ isn't a solution, and those six Wounds are just sitting there taking up space every turn (along with all the strikes and defends...) and you're drawing one card each turn. Ideally you get some discard or exhaust, or a way to get a lot of energy to cycle more cards.
Runic Pyramid + Ice Cream is a knockout punch, basically
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ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
edited January 2019
It's sort of weird to see how far I've come. I was trying to do the 5-card deck achievement with Defect (I wasn't going to make it - I didn't get enough chances to remove cards or any relics to gain extra money for traders), but still had an 11-card deck that pretty consistently generated 30-40 block a turn. The run was actually breezy other than the giant head, which kinda fucked me. The deck's damage was 1x Zap, 3x [Whatever the cold strike + frost orb is], and an upgraded Blizzard. It just didn't scale fast enough to get through that without eating a shitload of damage, and then I got unlucky in the next fight and died to an exploder when I couldn't muster enough block. Alas.
Still, that's an 11-card deck that was slaughtering most of the tower. I remember early runs being like "EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE!" :P
I picked the game up again a week or two ago after a long hiatus, and started watching some streams on twitch and looking at spirelogs stats to try an improve my play. Since doing so my win rate with the Silent and Defect has gone up significantly - I'm on a three-game win streak at low ascension with the Defect since watching joinrbs's Overexplained run, before that I think I had three wins with the class in total. Weirdly, my win rate with the Ironclad has dropped like a rock. It was my best class by a mile when I was playing months ago (low bar to clear, to be fair) now it seems like I can't buy a win.
Oh hey guess what I got for beating the act 1 boss again.
I've been playing ironclad the whole time I've been complaining about missing playable +1 energy relics.
I think I'd take the cage there
I did. Died to the champ.
Time to try again I GUESS.
If you want advice or such, feel free to post more info on your runs. I (and others I'm sure) would be happy to provide as much detail as you want. Card choices, how much health you have after the fights and how much you're entering the boss with, what your campfire/store choices were, etc. Whatever you think would be fun/helpful.
RNG can make things easier or harder, but you can improve your skill and decisions at the game to make it to Act 3 90% of the time, and beat it probably 75+% (on A0 or thereabouts). If that's something you want.
Thanks for the offer. I'm mainly trying to rank up my ascension level with ironclad. It'd be nice if the game generated replay files because I don't have much of an idea what to ask about.
My final run tonight was going fine - I got an energy relic from act 1, had a nice well-upgraded deck going including 3 upgraded apparitions, and then died late in act 3 to something like 50 incoming damage on a turn where I drew no apparitions, no block, and no card draw. It happens, I guess. edit: I remember looking at the remaining 18 cards in my deck after I drew the 5 for my turn and noting that drawing any one of 13 of them would have saved me. That meant I drew 5 cards from a 23 card deck, hoping to hit any one of 13 cards, and missed all of them. That turn had less than a 1% chance (about 0.7%) of going wrong.
If you look at the summary of the run in your run history, you can mouse over the icons for each floor and it will tell you a decent amount of details of what happened. What card you picked, I think what cards you didn't pick, what Relics you bought/got, what the enemies were that you fought and how much health you lost, etc. That can help a bit. It doesn't help with what cards you played in combat or what Relics/cards you passed up in shops, but still a lot.
Demon Form+ and three Heavy Blades will do it lol. Congrats!
Snecko eye too. I found myself upgrading lower-power cards (see the 4x defend+'s I had) toward the end to make sure all my cards would have some usefulness, since you don't get to choose which ones will be playable on any given turn. I know that's not the best thing to do from an expected value viewpoint but I was playing from a risk averse perspective, especially because I had the relic that gave +1 energy if you had full health.
Also I looked it up: This was my tenth attempt at ascension 3 with ironclad, so I think some of my bitching above was justified.
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ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
FWIW, despite how in the early days I found Ironclad the easiest class to play, I 100% now find it the hardest to be at all consistent with. Even though I've hit a higher ascension level with him than the Defect, I've learned a lot more about playing the Defect on the way because it's taken longer, and usually I can get much closer to success. I still fall down in Act 1 with Ironclad with some regularity.
@Marty81 one thing you could do is show us screenshots of your run history, so we can see the seed - I could do a run through on the seed and show what i'd do and explain why. Might help?
GoodKingJayIIIThey wanna get mygold on the ceilingRegistered Userregular
I’m back into this game after about 6 weeks of frustration. I’m still losing a lot more than winning but just feeling good about it again.
I notice act 2 is where I trip up the most. If I can get past the A2 boss I’m usually pretty good for the whole run. But even the basic enemy encounters can be brutal, and sometimes I just get utterly fucked by the elites.
But a lot of times it just feels like my decks are two slow and/or not defensive enough for the a2 bosses, who ramp up real hard.
Act 2's crazy. The elites are rough, and in some ways the normal fights are EVEN WORSE. (Fragile armored plant fungus thing + fungus rat is just WHY. WHAT DID I DO TO YOU ACT 2. WHY)
And even the events like to stab you in the guts!
The good thing is that all the elites are pretty solvable, so if you CAN take on act 2 elites, you can route for as many of them as possible to dodge as many normal fights.
(Specially you need turn 1 burst to beat tri slavers, rapid damage ramp to outdo Book of Stabbing, and AoE to burn Gremlin nob). Though those are "broad" approaches, there's other ways.
Then all the Act 2 bosses are basically variations on "Have you found a way for your deck to scale aggressively Yes/No"?
one thing you could do is show us screenshots of your run history, so we can see the seed - I could do a run through on the seed and show what i'd do and explain why. Might help?
Grats on beating A3 though!
Ah yes, posting the seeds! Of course, that makes sense. Here's one I remember getting frustrated with on Ironclad Asc3: 1MU7SK4194V0J
one thing you could do is show us screenshots of your run history, so we can see the seed - I could do a run through on the seed and show what i'd do and explain why. Might help?
Grats on beating A3 though!
Ah yes, posting the seeds! Of course, that makes sense. Here's one I remember getting frustrated with on Ironclad Asc3: 1MU7SK4194V0J
Depending on when we diverged, not super sure how helpful this will be. But anyways, I played the seed on A3, here's how it went in excruciating detail!
Act 1
I grabbed a Random Common Relic, that's good enough for me with no downside. Got Art of War from it, so we'll see if I can get extra energy from that. I decided to go left-ish through Act 1, because it gives me the opportunity of 3 Act 1 Elites if I want them.
No damage and a Carnage off the first fight. Also had options of Pommel Strike and Shockwave, and tbh I like them all! 1 damage and Armaments off the second fight. I'm going to prioritize upgraded that Armaments ASAP, since it makes further upgrades less urgent. There was also an Uppercut, which I considered, but ended up passing.
Full health at the end of the third fight, and I passed. Searing Blow is bad, Body Slam is nice later in the run, and I don't like Twin Strike (although I almost picked it).
Got 4 different Gremlins for the 4th fight. Ugh, they are annoying. I had to be patient, but got out without using a potion at 72/80. Acceptable. Grabbed Wild Strike, since it's great early on and upgrades for above-average efficiency. Passed up Headbutt (which I think is good but I'm not skilled at it) and Clothesline, which is a fine card as well. Took Heavy Blade off the next fight. No synergy yet, but it can be my win condition in the future. Upgraded Wild Strike, and now heading into the first Elite!
Gremlin Nob, fun. Took one hit, 16 damage, and healed 6 at the end of the fight. Acceptable. Got myself an Oddly Smooth Stone and Feel No Pain. Again, no real synergy with Feel No Pain, but I'm hoping! If I get the triple-laser-guys as one of the Elites up here, it'll be free block.
Missed lethal and took a bit of extra chip damage at the next floor fight . Grabbed a Cleave (over Rampage and Twin Strike) for AOE. Darkstone Periapt from a chest (I'd probably even just skip this if I was going for the heart). Next Elite is Lagavulin, entering with 61/80. Probably going to use one of my 3 potions here, so I'll go with Poison to start. Ate a full hit of damage, ugh, so ended at 42/80 after healing. Got a Letter Opener and Reaper (considered Uppercut here, but decided to go for the healing so I can be riskier :P ). Got an Uppercut from a fight, Med Kit from a store, Upgraded Armaments (which I forgot last time :P ), and heading into the last Elite of the Act.
Nob again. Used an attack potion at the beginning to get a Fiend Fire to start the fight off OK. Took a full hit though, so leaving the fight 38/80. Got a Preserved Insect... maybe I'll try some Act 2 Elites then? And Shrug It Off from the card.
Boss is Hexaghost, so I won't heal and upgrade Uppercut. Used my Power Potion right away for Inflame, and ended with 4 HP. Easy :P :P. I had some misplays, but since you heal to full it doesn't really matter. Saved my Fire Potion too!
Bludgeon, Double Tap, or Barricade. Ugh, not really what I wanted. I don't take it often, but gonna take Double Tap here. I've already got 4 2-mana attacks, so should get value. Runic Dome, Empty Cage, and Tiny House Relics. Sad. I'll grab the cage and remove two Strikes.
Act 2
Right-ish path has ? Events, optional Elites, and Campfires, so I'll go there.
77/80 off the first fight, not ideal but eh. Got a Disarm, too, which I like. Next is double thieves, and I didn't do too well against them. Used my Fire Potion but still let the back one get away. 69/80, too. Grabbed Burning Pact+ for card draw and Exhaust synergy. Winged Boots from the next event. Don't have plans for it much, but we'll see. Question Card from the next event, which is great because I still need something to tie this deck together. Boss is the Champ, should have checked earlier probably.
Grabbed a Flex just for the heck of it (passed Burning Pact, Anger, Headbutt), and took some chip damage. Not an ideal floor. Not healing and going to upgrade.... Disarm, see if we can luck out with an Elite here. Slavers, eh. With Preserved Insect this will hopefully be OK. Took a bunch of damage, ended at 16/80 after healing. But got a Pen Nib, which is great, and grabbed Seeing Red (passed Body Slam, Iron Wave, Second Wind), and I know I have a campfire on the next floor to heal because of the route I took. Got a Lantern from a chest. Nothing from the next fight, just healed a bit.
Entering the Gremlin Leader Elite at 51/80. Beat it at 58/80, so that went well! Grabbed Regal Pillow and Battle Trance+, very happy for both of those. I think I'm actually going to take a store and do one more Elite before the Champ. Not a good store. Last Elite here is Book of Stabbing, which hopefully should be OK. Wounds don't do much to me. Ended at 55/80, so yeah, was fine. Got a Singing Bowl, which is fine I guess (much better earlier in the run), and a Shrug it Off.
Now for fun, with my Wing Boots I'm going to go grab just one more Elite . Regal Pillow means I get bonus to healing at the next floor, the campfire before the boss, so it should be fine. Gremlin Leader again. I had a fantastic Reaper turn to get me up to 70 HP, but then drew no Block the next turn haha. So ended at 45/80. Bag of Prep, which is fine, but no card (+2 HP instead of Bloodletting, Blood for Blood+, Second Wind, Combust). I will still heal, and off to the Champ!
Drank my Power card, and decided to go for Barricade. 0-mana turn one Barricade could be big. Don't really have another plan here though... We unfortunately didn't get the Strength we wanted. Blocked like crazy and Exhausted to filter my deck, and ended up beating him without taking any damage and 40 extra block. Didn't even turtle really. Juggernaut, Exhume, Feed, and Double Tap.... I guess Juggernaut? I dunno, I don't like these but I hate passing Boss cards. Relics are Astrolobe, Orrery, and Fusion Hammer. Well.... I don't want to skip Smithing, so I guess I don't get 4 mana. I have a few conditional mana Relics so that's OK I guess. I think I'll take Orrery. It's bad, but I need to find some Strength beyond Flex. Worst case it's +10 Max HP :P. So there are some solid cards, but I really don't need much, it'll just dilute my deck. Grabbed a Shockwave, then just +8 HP.
Act 3
Boss is Time Slug, which... should be OK? Ugh if I could just get a Demon Form or something.
I'm mostly going to be skipping cards now unless they give Strength, especially since I can get Max HP. Grabbed a True Grit+ though, can't hurt to have that. Got a Ginger from an event (by beating up the Hexaghost again), and Evolve+ too.
The Maw wrecked me pretty hard for some reason. Low on Block a bit? So decided to rest after that to go back to full basically.
It's going to turn out that I don't Smith at all this Act and should have just grabbed the Hammer haha. Decided against any Elite fights here too. I don't need Relics, I need Strength cards lol. One Inflame from the last Shop. Ugh. I have an Artifact Potion so I can cheat out a bit more strength from a Flex. Anyways, I'll upgrade the Inflame and go into Time Slug at 75/100, good luuuuck!
Woosh, that was tense! A few misplays there, but beat the slug at 26/100.
Aaaand oops. Forgot to use my two Steroid Potions with Heavy Blade+. Haha my bad :P.
Summary:
Biggest differences I see from your run?
Elites. When I hit the Champ, I had taken 4-5 more Elites than you. We also took totally different cards, which changes how things run a lot of course.
one thing you could do is show us screenshots of your run history, so we can see the seed - I could do a run through on the seed and show what i'd do and explain why. Might help?
Grats on beating A3 though!
Ah yes, posting the seeds! Of course, that makes sense. Here's one I remember getting frustrated with on Ironclad Asc3: 1MU7SK4194V0J
Oh, this is a fun thing. I might do terrible!
Aping Kime slightly for consistent formatting >_>
Act 1:
Curse and rare card! Juggernaut beats out Limit Break and Brutality, and I get a Shame (ha ...) for the trouble
Rightmost - Cultist - fire potion - Infalme beats Pommel Strike and Anger - 80/80
Left - Jaw Worm - Cleave beats Anger and Infernal Blade - 78/80
? - 2 Louse - Poison Potion - Thunderclap beats Body Slam and Anger (I don't love Anger, and as Kime said, I'm not really in a position to be taking Body Slams yet, although it would be nice with Juggernaut) - 75/80
? - Gremlins - Armaments/Clothesline/Wild Strike is tough. I want any of these, but I kind of want Armaments because I'll be compelled to play it along with Juggernaut. It's not perfect, but ... - 68/80 (ow ...)
Right - Merchant - I can't afford Molten Egg or Medical Kit, so I am very sad. Remove the curse.
Camp - smith Armaments
Elite - Gremlin Nob - Ouch. Not what I want when I intend to play blocks, and I get my cards in kind of a bad order. Wind up using the fire potion so I don't eat 35 damage. - Art of War is a decent get with Juggernaut, as long as I start finding some block cards - I'm tempted to take no cards between Armaments/Fiend Fire/Cleave, but take the FF figuring it has some deck thinning, even if inconsistently. Plus it goes well with some other powers I might find. - 55/80
Slaver - Attack Potion - I grab a second Inflame here. - 61/80
Chest - Oddly Smooth Stone is great~ Makes my bad blocks less bad while looking for better ones.
? - Scrap Ooze event - I search 4 times and get a Darkstone Periapt. - 43/80
Fungi beasts - Entrench/Power Through/Flex ... Well, I'm really bad at using Entrench, and I kinda love Power Through, so this one is nice and easy. - 49/80
3 Louse - Huzzah, Shrug It Off appears~ - 47/80
Camp - I want to fight this elite in front of me, but I don't love being around half health, and I'd rather the chance to upgrade whatever card I find after it, so I rest. - 71/80
Elite - Lagavulin - I've gotten lucky twice now where I have Bash + Fiend Fire after an Art of War turn. I absolutely smoke him. - Preserved Insect is always welcome - Havoc/Anger/Pummel is mediocre, but with 2x Inflame and Armaments+, Pummel can be really solid damage if I sit on it, so I take it - 77/80
Camp - Upgrade Bash for consistency (I don't like playing the card much in its base form as it's expensive and the debuff doesn't last long enough)
Hexaghost - I eat some damage, but otherwise clobber him and finish the fight with 47/80. Fiend Fire reminds me it's great when I exhaust a wound and two burns with it. - Regen Potion - Brutality/Reaper/Bludgeon ... Like Kime said, I don't really want any of this right now. While I'd maybe take Bludgeon in a different deck, Reaper makes some sense with my sources of +strength. - I also take Empty Cage and axe two Strikes. Since I've had no opportunity to thin my deck, I'm pretty happy for this one.
.
Act 2:
I start on the right because I want to make my way through at least one of the merchants along the way
Chosen - Wild Strike/Perfected Strike+/Disarm I honestly want none of these. Skip.
Left - ? - We Meet Again! event - All of my options are bad, because I want my gold for the merchant, but I'm willing to lose the poison potion because I'll likely find another potion soon. - Obtain Winged Boots (this is going to make my chosen method of formatting harder ...)
? - Looter/Mugger - My deck coughs up cards in an unfortunate order. I defeat them both before they can flee, but I take some damage for it. - Card choice between a second Power Through and Burning Pact+ is actually hard. I'm going with the second Power Through just to get the chunkiest block I can, but I really hope to find something to help me out with the wounds I'm going to accrue. - 62/80
Merchant - no really great cards, though I will grab a Shrug It Off because I can. Tough choice between Kunai and Mercury Hourglass. Opt for Kunai as it sort of gives my deck an ebb and flow with Art of War. Maybe a terrible choice ... :P I also remove another Strike and leave 5 gold to my name.
Snake Plant - OW. No block in my opening hand against 24 damage. This puts a damper on my plan to try and fight both elites in the next two floors with the wing boots. - Ancient Potion - Iron Wave over Body Slam and Sword Boomerang because it feeds into both Kunai and Juggernaut. - Forgot to record my life ...
Winged Boot jump to non-empowered elite - Slavers - Can kill one in the opening turn - take a bit of damage, but not too bad. Letter Opener is great with my desire to block. - Ponder taking Intimidate+, as it plays into this well, but feel like I can skip it and my deck is already kind bigger than I want it to be. - 44/80
Winged Boot jump to rightmost elite - Gremlin Leader + pals - I'm a bit worried and maybe chug the Regen potion earlier than needed, but I do alright - Pen Nib is always welcome - I rarely seem to have the luck others do with Whirlwind, but I'm getting enough block cards this Body Slam is a good find (at a baseline, it's 16 damage [Smooth Stone] with Power Through)
Camp - I want to fight at least one more of these elites, so I rest, even though I really want to upgrade that body slam I just got.
Middle chest - Lantern is a-okay for opening hands where I get a bunch of setup cards~
? - red masks - I don't have a lot of gold (100), but it's enough to matter, so I don't REALLY want to give it up. The mask itself is also decent since, again, it helps with bad first turns. If it goes really poorly I can try and bail to the far right. - Opening hand lets me kill Pointy, but then I get worst case scenario as I draw 3 of my great block cards on the followup turn. After killing Bear, I get killed by Romeo after leaving him on 1HP ...
Act 3:
Lulz, I'm dead. This is just so you don't know I lost before you started reading~
Summary:
I feel like I just got greedy, though I'm sure a few of my card choices was probably bad too. I would have loved to see a Metalicize or Evolution to help strengthen the core ideas of the deck. Not getting any True Grit was a blow as well, as it pairs well with Power Through. My camp on the first floor was unnecessary and cost me one card upgrade, though I don't think I could have picked anything at the time that would have saved me overall. Fiend Fire paid off A TON by the end of my run, while Reaper - mostly due to poor timing - barely got played and probably only gained me 10 life. Most of my ?s were fights, which certainly didn't help, but there's not much to say there besides "them's the breaks!"
In the seed I posted that y'all are playing I think I remember not having consistent enough block and having to rest more often than I'd like. Maybe I'll try it again and see how it goes.
By the way I've only done one run since I last posted: First try on A4 with ironclad, ez win.
Took Storm of Steel on Floor 12, and basically never looked back. Shame i never got to upgrade it, but it was an all star. Calculate Gamble+ was a super important upgrade, even if late game it didn't get used THAT often.
And yes, i actually took Accuracy. Horrifying, i know. (it was a super late pick, but when all my damage was coming from setting up and then using big SoS turns, it made sense). Shuriken and Envenom also really helped to solve the scaling issues the deck was having. (Snecko Skull just helped break said scaling - Shivs were doing a minium of twelve damage +2 poison. 9 raw, 3 discard, then envenom)
Crushed donu and deca (1 damage in 9 turns), and limped past Awoken One.
Also a good example of some alternate approaches to defense - i intentionally avoided footworks in this deck. Would have happily taken extra Calculated Gambles, if i ever saw them, as well as reflex (Side note - Reflex+ with Calculated Gambles+ is a potential infinite, so that would have cool in this deck!)
In the seed I posted that y'all are playing I think I remember not having consistent enough block and having to rest more often than I'd like. Maybe I'll try it again and see how it goes.
By the way I've only done one run since I last posted: First try on A4 with ironclad, ez win.
Yeah Block was a pretty limiting factor, I ended up with a much higher Attack ratio than I normally have. The lack of consistent Block definitely brought me low a few times, but I really banked on the full-heal after boss and
some later Relics, like Regal Pillow, really helped me be brave
Posts
As I've mentioned before, I think Cursed Key's perceived value corresponds directly with how much you like Ironclad.
WELP. 85 damage on turn 2, OK, gg.
I had Charon's Ashes, Corruption, and Barricade, great deck! But none of that matters on Turn 2 haha.
3DS Friend Code: 3110-5393-4113
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Disagree on Cursed Key. Cursed Key is good for the same reason that Cursed Bell is bad: because a bunch of random relics is nowhere near as good as getting an extra energy.
The one caveat being that you'll forget about the key and open the chests anyway like 90% of the time.
Energy relics are really good.
I've been playing ironclad the whole time I've been complaining about missing playable +1 energy relics.
I think I'd take the cage there
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I did. Died to the champ.
Time to try again I GUESS.
for the record I have a ton of block in this deck, I just can't get to it because my hand is full of 3 cost cards. And I did manage to cycle a few cards with recycle -> skim, and draw 3 potion, but no direct damage or block came up.
If you want advice or such, feel free to post more info on your runs. I (and others I'm sure) would be happy to provide as much detail as you want. Card choices, how much health you have after the fights and how much you're entering the boss with, what your campfire/store choices were, etc. Whatever you think would be fun/helpful.
RNG can make things easier or harder, but you can improve your skill and decisions at the game to make it to Act 3 90% of the time, and beat it probably 75+% (on A0 or thereabouts). If that's something you want.
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(And my starting bonus was 100g!)
Edit: Make sure to then nearly die to slimeboss (Because Footwork and Noxious Fumes+ were literally the last two cards in your twnety 24 card deck), and then be offered Empty Cage, Calling Bell and Cursed Key. Because the game is a right jerk.
And killed by book of stabbing because i bought the wrong things at store. Wingboots were NOT the play. (And dammit, i wish i'd been able to buy the bronze scales back in the store in act 1)
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Thanks for the offer. I'm mainly trying to rank up my ascension level with ironclad. It'd be nice if the game generated replay files because I don't have much of an idea what to ask about.
My final run tonight was going fine - I got an energy relic from act 1, had a nice well-upgraded deck going including 3 upgraded apparitions, and then died late in act 3 to something like 50 incoming damage on a turn where I drew no apparitions, no block, and no card draw. It happens, I guess. edit: I remember looking at the remaining 18 cards in my deck after I drew the 5 for my turn and noting that drawing any one of 13 of them would have saved me. That meant I drew 5 cards from a 23 card deck, hoping to hit any one of 13 cards, and missed all of them. That turn had less than a 1% chance (about 0.7%) of going wrong.
For example, fiend fire goes from really good to beyond amazing.
If you are playing Ironclad, anything that lets you exhaust other cards would help you there. For Silent you have discard instead (though they can already get Well Laid Plans so less need for the Pyramid). Defect doesn't have that great options for either which makes the Pyramid a bit more risky to take.
Remove more strikes and defends.
but they're listening to every word I say
For example, you need a plan to deal with cloggers. Suddenly, Evolve+ isn't a solution, and those six Wounds are just sitting there taking up space every turn (along with all the strikes and defends...) and you're drawing one card each turn. Ideally you get some discard or exhaust, or a way to get a lot of energy to cycle more cards.
Runic Pyramid + Ice Cream is a knockout punch, basically
Still, that's an 11-card deck that was slaughtering most of the tower. I remember early runs being like "EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE!" :P
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
If you look at the summary of the run in your run history, you can mouse over the icons for each floor and it will tell you a decent amount of details of what happened. What card you picked, I think what cards you didn't pick, what Relics you bought/got, what the enemies were that you fought and how much health you lost, etc. That can help a bit. It doesn't help with what cards you played in combat or what Relics/cards you passed up in shops, but still a lot.
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Snecko eye too. I found myself upgrading lower-power cards (see the 4x defend+'s I had) toward the end to make sure all my cards would have some usefulness, since you don't get to choose which ones will be playable on any given turn. I know that's not the best thing to do from an expected value viewpoint but I was playing from a risk averse perspective, especially because I had the relic that gave +1 energy if you had full health.
Also I looked it up: This was my tenth attempt at ascension 3 with ironclad, so I think some of my bitching above was justified.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
Grats on beating A3 though!
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I notice act 2 is where I trip up the most. If I can get past the A2 boss I’m usually pretty good for the whole run. But even the basic enemy encounters can be brutal, and sometimes I just get utterly fucked by the elites.
But a lot of times it just feels like my decks are two slow and/or not defensive enough for the a2 bosses, who ramp up real hard.
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And even the events like to stab you in the guts!
The good thing is that all the elites are pretty solvable, so if you CAN take on act 2 elites, you can route for as many of them as possible to dodge as many normal fights.
(Specially you need turn 1 burst to beat tri slavers, rapid damage ramp to outdo Book of Stabbing, and AoE to burn Gremlin nob). Though those are "broad" approaches, there's other ways.
Then all the Act 2 bosses are basically variations on "Have you found a way for your deck to scale aggressively Yes/No"?
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Ah yes, posting the seeds! Of course, that makes sense. Here's one I remember getting frustrated with on Ironclad Asc3: 1MU7SK4194V0J
without about half hp!
the boss killed me in like 2 turns, and I had what I thought was a really strong deck!
Then I went for the empowered elite on Act 2, and it was a book of stabbing with a +3 strength buff.
It did not go well.
Depending on when we diverged, not super sure how helpful this will be. But anyways, I played the seed on A3, here's how it went in excruciating detail!
No damage and a Carnage off the first fight. Also had options of Pommel Strike and Shockwave, and tbh I like them all! 1 damage and Armaments off the second fight. I'm going to prioritize upgraded that Armaments ASAP, since it makes further upgrades less urgent. There was also an Uppercut, which I considered, but ended up passing.
Full health at the end of the third fight, and I passed. Searing Blow is bad, Body Slam is nice later in the run, and I don't like Twin Strike (although I almost picked it).
Got 4 different Gremlins for the 4th fight. Ugh, they are annoying. I had to be patient, but got out without using a potion at 72/80. Acceptable. Grabbed Wild Strike, since it's great early on and upgrades for above-average efficiency. Passed up Headbutt (which I think is good but I'm not skilled at it) and Clothesline, which is a fine card as well. Took Heavy Blade off the next fight. No synergy yet, but it can be my win condition in the future. Upgraded Wild Strike, and now heading into the first Elite!
Gremlin Nob, fun. Took one hit, 16 damage, and healed 6 at the end of the fight. Acceptable. Got myself an Oddly Smooth Stone and Feel No Pain. Again, no real synergy with Feel No Pain, but I'm hoping! If I get the triple-laser-guys as one of the Elites up here, it'll be free block.
Missed lethal and took a bit of extra chip damage at the next floor fight
Nob again. Used an attack potion at the beginning to get a Fiend Fire to start the fight off OK. Took a full hit though, so leaving the fight 38/80. Got a Preserved Insect... maybe I'll try some Act 2 Elites then? And Shrug It Off from the card.
Boss is Hexaghost, so I won't heal and upgrade Uppercut. Used my Power Potion right away for Inflame, and ended with 4 HP. Easy :P :P. I had some misplays, but since you heal to full it doesn't really matter. Saved my Fire Potion too!
Bludgeon, Double Tap, or Barricade. Ugh, not really what I wanted. I don't take it often, but gonna take Double Tap here. I've already got 4 2-mana attacks, so should get value. Runic Dome, Empty Cage, and Tiny House Relics. Sad. I'll grab the cage and remove two Strikes.
Act 2
77/80 off the first fight, not ideal but eh. Got a Disarm, too, which I like. Next is double thieves, and I didn't do too well against them. Used my Fire Potion but still let the back one get away. 69/80, too. Grabbed Burning Pact+ for card draw and Exhaust synergy. Winged Boots from the next event. Don't have plans for it much, but we'll see. Question Card from the next event, which is great because I still need something to tie this deck together. Boss is the Champ, should have checked earlier probably.
Grabbed a Flex just for the heck of it (passed Burning Pact, Anger, Headbutt), and took some chip damage. Not an ideal floor. Not healing and going to upgrade.... Disarm, see if we can luck out with an Elite here. Slavers, eh. With Preserved Insect this will hopefully be OK. Took a bunch of damage, ended at 16/80 after healing. But got a Pen Nib, which is great, and grabbed Seeing Red (passed Body Slam, Iron Wave, Second Wind), and I know I have a campfire on the next floor to heal because of the route I took. Got a Lantern from a chest. Nothing from the next fight, just healed a bit.
Entering the Gremlin Leader Elite at 51/80. Beat it at 58/80, so that went well! Grabbed Regal Pillow and Battle Trance+, very happy for both of those. I think I'm actually going to take a store and do one more Elite before the Champ. Not a good store. Last Elite here is Book of Stabbing, which hopefully should be OK. Wounds don't do much to me. Ended at 55/80, so yeah, was fine. Got a Singing Bowl, which is fine I guess (much better earlier in the run), and a Shrug it Off.
Now for fun, with my Wing Boots I'm going to go grab just one more Elite
Drank my Power card, and decided to go for Barricade. 0-mana turn one Barricade could be big. Don't really have another plan here though... We unfortunately didn't get the Strength we wanted. Blocked like crazy and Exhausted to filter my deck, and ended up beating him without taking any damage and 40 extra block. Didn't even turtle really. Juggernaut, Exhume, Feed, and Double Tap.... I guess Juggernaut? I dunno, I don't like these but I hate passing Boss cards. Relics are Astrolobe, Orrery, and Fusion Hammer. Well.... I don't want to skip Smithing, so I guess I don't get 4 mana. I have a few conditional mana Relics so that's OK I guess. I think I'll take Orrery. It's bad, but I need to find some Strength beyond Flex. Worst case it's +10 Max HP :P. So there are some solid cards, but I really don't need much, it'll just dilute my deck. Grabbed a Shockwave, then just +8 HP.
Act 3
I'm mostly going to be skipping cards now unless they give Strength, especially since I can get Max HP. Grabbed a True Grit+ though, can't hurt to have that. Got a Ginger from an event (by beating up the Hexaghost again), and Evolve+ too.
The Maw wrecked me pretty hard for some reason. Low on Block a bit? So decided to rest after that to go back to full basically.
It's going to turn out that I don't Smith at all this Act and should have just grabbed the Hammer haha. Decided against any Elite fights here too. I don't need Relics, I need Strength cards lol. One Inflame from the last Shop. Ugh. I have an Artifact Potion so I can cheat out a bit more strength from a Flex. Anyways, I'll upgrade the Inflame and go into Time Slug at 75/100, good luuuuck!
Woosh, that was tense! A few misplays there, but beat the slug at 26/100.
Aaaand oops. Forgot to use my two Steroid Potions with Heavy Blade+. Haha my bad :P.
Summary:
Biggest differences I see from your run?
Elites. When I hit the Champ, I had taken 4-5 more Elites than you. We also took totally different cards, which changes how things run a lot of course.
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Aping Kime slightly for consistent formatting >_>
- Curse and rare card! Juggernaut beats out Limit Break and Brutality, and I get a Shame (ha ...) for the trouble
- Rightmost - Cultist - fire potion - Infalme beats Pommel Strike and Anger - 80/80
- Left - Jaw Worm - Cleave beats Anger and Infernal Blade - 78/80
- ? - 2 Louse - Poison Potion - Thunderclap beats Body Slam and Anger (I don't love Anger, and as Kime said, I'm not really in a position to be taking Body Slams yet, although it would be nice with Juggernaut) - 75/80
- ? - Gremlins - Armaments/Clothesline/Wild Strike is tough. I want any of these, but I kind of want Armaments because I'll be compelled to play it along with Juggernaut. It's not perfect, but ... - 68/80 (ow ...)
- Right - Merchant - I can't afford Molten Egg or Medical Kit, so I am very sad. Remove the curse.
- Camp - smith Armaments
- Elite - Gremlin Nob - Ouch. Not what I want when I intend to play blocks, and I get my cards in kind of a bad order. Wind up using the fire potion so I don't eat 35 damage. - Art of War is a decent get with Juggernaut, as long as I start finding some block cards - I'm tempted to take no cards between Armaments/Fiend Fire/Cleave, but take the FF figuring it has some deck thinning, even if inconsistently. Plus it goes well with some other powers I might find. - 55/80
- Slaver - Attack Potion - I grab a second Inflame here. - 61/80
- Chest - Oddly Smooth Stone is great~ Makes my bad blocks less bad while looking for better ones.
- ? - Scrap Ooze event - I search 4 times and get a Darkstone Periapt.
- 43/80
- Fungi beasts - Entrench/Power Through/Flex ... Well, I'm really bad at using Entrench, and I kinda love Power Through, so this one is nice and easy. - 49/80
- 3 Louse - Huzzah, Shrug It Off appears~ - 47/80
- Camp - I want to fight this elite in front of me, but I don't love being around half health, and I'd rather the chance to upgrade whatever card I find after it, so I rest. - 71/80
- Elite - Lagavulin - I've gotten lucky twice now where I have Bash + Fiend Fire after an Art of War turn. I absolutely smoke him. - Preserved Insect is always welcome - Havoc/Anger/Pummel is mediocre, but with 2x Inflame and Armaments+, Pummel can be really solid damage if I sit on it, so I take it - 77/80
- Camp - Upgrade Bash for consistency (I don't like playing the card much in its base form as it's expensive and the debuff doesn't last long enough)
- Hexaghost - I eat some damage, but otherwise clobber him and finish the fight with 47/80. Fiend Fire reminds me it's great when I exhaust a wound and two burns with it. - Regen Potion - Brutality/Reaper/Bludgeon ... Like Kime said, I don't really want any of this right now. While I'd maybe take Bludgeon in a different deck, Reaper makes some sense with my sources of +strength. - I also take Empty Cage and axe two Strikes. Since I've had no opportunity to thin my deck, I'm pretty happy for this one.
.Act 2:
Act 3:
Summary:
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
By the way I've only done one run since I last posted: First try on A4 with ironclad, ez win.
Took Storm of Steel on Floor 12, and basically never looked back. Shame i never got to upgrade it, but it was an all star. Calculate Gamble+ was a super important upgrade, even if late game it didn't get used THAT often.
And yes, i actually took Accuracy. Horrifying, i know. (it was a super late pick, but when all my damage was coming from setting up and then using big SoS turns, it made sense). Shuriken and Envenom also really helped to solve the scaling issues the deck was having. (Snecko Skull just helped break said scaling - Shivs were doing a minium of twelve damage +2 poison. 9 raw, 3 discard, then envenom)
Crushed donu and deca (1 damage in 9 turns), and limped past Awoken One.
Also a good example of some alternate approaches to defense - i intentionally avoided footworks in this deck. Would have happily taken extra Calculated Gambles, if i ever saw them, as well as reflex (Side note - Reflex+ with Calculated Gambles+ is a potential infinite, so that would have cool in this deck!)
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Yeah Block was a pretty limiting factor, I ended up with a much higher Attack ratio than I normally have. The lack of consistent Block definitely brought me low a few times, but I really banked on the full-heal after boss and
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