Slay the spire 2

[mortal loom]

Tough run, only won b ecausae my attack potion agaisnt Test subject contained a AfO

[mortal loom]

Pfew.

that queen fight was hell

Literally my speculative Ashen Strike pick + getting Beaten remant saved the run

[plain leaf]

a holy themed strenght character could be interesting

I've not seen veilpiercer, that is very good

[rocky stone]

Its a pretty good card

It's her last card unlock

[plain leaf]

considering how we got an official downfall expac for the boardgame I wonder if we might see the hermit as an official character in the future, maybe as post launch dlc

[rocky stone]

It's Veilpiercer, Sculpting Strike and Banshee's Cry I think?

[plain leaf]

I know that watcher isn't as popular as the original 3 slayers for various reasons, if they were to appear in slay 2 what changes would people like to see for them?

[oblique raft]

I'd like to see my card rewards for them be better-

[manic kestrel]

watcher in 1 was way too strong imo

[patent geode]

God, would just need a heavy revamp centred around nerfing Wrath especially, and maybe(?) Calm

Watcher is the least popular of the classes IIRC (been a while since I saw the statistics) because she genuinely is just that much better than the rest.

[shrewd vault]

while simultaneously getting you killed horribly if you don't manage wrath well

[oblique raft]

I think thats part of the reason she was less popular is she has a much more punishing style to her gameplay than the other three

[shrewd vault]

(officially Necrobinder is Pink, not Purple, so she technically doesn't conflict with Watcher there)

[rocky stone]

Watcher is unpopular because she's considered too strong

she has easy infinites to build into

and Wrath is also very polarizing both ways yeah

[shrewd vault]

I don't know what changes I'd make to her, but it's a fun game looking at the cards in 2 that look like adapted Watcher cards. Like, there's a Wish but it's totally different, Fisticuffs is Wallop-mini, etc.

[oblique raft]

Colors they could use for more ascenders off the top of my head: purple, yellow, brown, white, definitely another shade of green

[plain leaf]

oh huh, you are right looking at things my bad

another str-esq class could be neat
A giant monster or a paladin/holy class could both be interesting niches

[oblique raft]

I think they should add a dude with a gun

[plain leaf]

that's the hermit from the downfall mod
however downfall got an official expansion to the board game so him showing up as an official character is a highly unlikely, but not impossible scenario

[shrewd vault]

nah, you're good, it's such a fiddly thing. and on a branding level they might be close enough that you wouldn't want both in the same game

[shrewd vault]

photorealistic duke nukem

[patent geode]

One of those times where you can legitimately say it was on the player, since the requirements for a stance swap deck were minimal considering what you started out with.

God Watcher was strong.

[oblique raft]

I'm no game designer but the image I'm rotating in my head has an energy counter stylized as a revolver chamber where you start the encounter out at 6/6 and you only regain a certain amount each turn because your energy is bullets and you need to reload

[shrewd vault]

oh, yeah, definitely a skill issue. but it's interesting how she can be problematic in opposite ways depending on skill level.

[oblique raft]

So you have an x cost spell to fan the hammer, you have 0 energy reload cards for more energy, the like

[rocky stone]

you need a 1 cost Wrath, a 1 cost Calm, a Rushdown, and the ability to hold your entire deck in hand at the same time

and Eruption+ is already 1 cost Wrath and damage

[patent geode]

Yeah no I get that, it's funny since it's relatively rare for me to come across folk who played her much at A20 unless you were going for winstreak runs.

[patent geode]

That's a fair more specific components than was my experience. Moreso you could kinda just grab random calm cards, and upgrade eruption ofc, and the rest would be easy.

Rushdown is really nice but wasn't 100% necessary for a win.

[rocky stone]

there's definitely more ways, but that is the most reliable I'd say

[patent geode]

Eh I would disagree on the point that reliability comes from flexibility, and the flexibility was in that the base calm and wrath card meant that pretty much any additional stance swapping support could win you the run.

[shrewd vault]

yeah. definitely nice that your generic best deck can easily pivot into an infinite, though

[patent geode]

Mm, I'm just not a particularly big believer in infinites in A20 especially due to both Time Eater and the heart.

Though the semi-infinite of watcher tends to be good enough that if one is looking for winstreak hunting, chances are it's the wincon you'll go for.

Though I also kinda misinterpreted what was being said, since in truth it's that picking up rushdown and any source of calm lets you play through your deck consistently if you don't add much else..

Whilst I thought they meant with runic pyramid and such, which requires more moving parts.

[cloud crane]

I personally love doing Necrobinder because soul cards are so helpful

[swift hedge]

https://old.rxddit.com/r/slaythespire/comments/1skb2eh/im_in_purgatory/?ref=share&ref_source=link

[mortal loom]

Re: Watcher coming back... She'd need a heavy rework of her stances. More emphasis on her card chaining stuff, card creation stuff - which Regent already has, so she'd probably need a different focus

At the very least, I'd probably make her stances be one time effects - you go into wrath, your next attack gets a bonus and exits wrath. You go into calm, your next skill gets a bonus, etc

[shrewd vault]

Hmm. That'd also need a different buff from calm, and something to distinguish it from vigor. It kind of loses the mini game of getting out of each stance (to benefit from calm and to not die in wrath)

Maybe she could get a combo mechanic? Have some cards build combo for a turn, others spend it?

[oblique raft]

Lean into mantra, her energy production, Combo chains

[patent geode]

Defeating doorkeeper on Silent is consistently my biggest hurdle on A10 with her.

Think I need to learn what cards/build to hunt for there, and accept that I'll need to go in with full hp prolly.

Ironically it would've been far easier were it not for the first turn being a set-up ;p.

[mortal loom]

...Just forgot that i had a foul potion, despite avoiding elties to use it

so i missed 100g worth of purchases

and have a foul potion for Doorkeeper/Queen

@patent geode this is how you do it, honest.

[patent geode]

Burst into bullet time and prepared, got it

[mortal loom]

@patent geode Look at the exhaust pile 😛

[patent geode]

My issue in this case was honestly moreso that my primary defensive tool was the ancient version of neutralise, which I believe has innate.

Which, well

[mortal loom]

...yyyyeah

[patent geode]

So I couldn't use it against the actual fight, and the deck had too little consistent defense outside of that.

Silent defense on non-sly builds is probably what I could improve the most at in terms of evaluation tbh.

Though having no dexterity and only 3 energy did contribute to the struggle there.

[mortal loom]

Very normal deck size for Silent

Driftwood +

The hunt kinda encoruages you tot take everything

Very nice on the crab since i got to see 4 boss rewards

[mortal loom]

That is an Awful set of trades

[honest glade]

too late in the run for egg?

[mortal loom]

Very much so.

Ugh, 24 hp to clear Test subject into doormaker

chat, i dont think i'm gonna make it

Okay, got through test subject

15/67 hp to beat doormaker

Holy shit

did it!

5 in a row again

[patent geode]

I guess if it's too late in the run for Egg, then giving up White Star shouldn't be too bad?

[mortal loom]

I was planning to fight two-three elites and had War Hammer

objectively, giving up white star was a terrible idea

i gave up pen nib to get Frozen egg, on grounds of it at least syngerized with White Star

and might do someting

it got me a black hole+ whyich kinda helped?

[patent geode]

That does change the calculus.

[placid dirge]

just got a silent run so cracked it stopped being fun

4 copies of accuracy
upgraded fan of knives
like 5 blade dances
phantom blades
master planner, up my sleeve, and a billion discards

[patent geode]

Honestly it's been so long since I saw Accuracy that I forgot that it was a card.

My big struggle with shiv builds has been (and this is a very specific issue) lacking the defense to survive Door; admittedly that's a me issue.

[placid dirge]

I just waited till second turn and genuinely killed it before it could do anything to me because of my deck

also a little luck

[patent geode]

At A8+, or?

Though having accuracy does help lol. My struggle was relying on an inmate weak card.

[plain leaf]

did two runs (necro and regent) and won with both

was doing like 300 damage with the celestial blade

had two copies of forge as well as ancient falling star and double hit power

also conqueror but I think I got that off once on experiment phase 2

[placid dirge]

okay true I was only on like

A4

I don't know what's past that yet

I was honestly moreso annoyed at getting such a good deck at a low ascension

[patent geode]

||more health in the case of A8||

[mortal loom]

More health on a8, new moveset (can just b e higher numbers, but sometiems has twists) on a9

and A10 is the "hjahahha, screw y ou" modifier

||Double act 3 boss||

[mortal loom]

very normal very sensible Necrobinder things are happening

[stark junco]

Very normal

[mortal loom]

..>my fucking routing, lol

Where i am on the map

Who i'm fighting

Heheheh.

Funny Number.

Just have to figure out how to actually beat the queen with this deck =x

Because right now it seems like she kinda hard counters it, and that sucks

Okay, 22 hp for test subject =x

[mortal loom]

That took forever, but i foudn the winning line vs test subject

knew the deck could do it, just had to figure out exaclty how to play things

Queen is some hot bullshit sometimes =x

You would think as much draw as is loaded into this deck, she'd be fine

but no, she bricks basically all the draw and this deck relies on play all the cards

Arright game

Gimme a flak cannon and no one gets hurt

None of these are flak cannon, wtf game

[plain leaf]

dang failed ironclad

[mortal loom]

Seven in a row.

[delicate solar]

wow im bad at this game

theres a lot that goes into it that i feel like im not understanding

[plain leaf]

got to escalation four as ironclad
the more i play them the more I find that I end up going with similar builds each team; typically hellraiser or self damage

I've yet to run a succesfull exhaust build and have only run a bodyslam build once but that went well

and they always have vuln support

[plain leaf]

I wonder if we'll get a final boss in future thats a triple fight

I feel like the higher in ascension I go the more I realize how important card draw is

as well as having good defensive cards

instead of just trying to hit as hard as you can for as much energy as you have

[mortal loom]

Do you want advice?

[mortal loom]

God, poor test subject

[delicate solar]

uh, theres so much i feel like i dont know it would be tough to give advice

just macro in general?

map/card/shop choices

[mortal loom]

a: YOu don't need to take every card you're offered. Less is more.
b: Elites are the most rewarding floors. If you're loosing a lot, hunt more elites - and if you're dying to elites, ask yourfself whats killing you in elites, and work from there
c: solve the game one floor at a time. Ask yourself what's coming, and what you can draft that helps with it - do you need more aoe? do you need more single target damage? Are your defences too fragile? Is your deck too slow to draw everything? Does it not do enough on the second draw through of hte deck?
d: Don't think in terms of "I am a shiv deck" or "I am a poison deck". Think about point c. Trying to force a build just gets you killed. BUt going "Okay, i have this card and this card... oh, that's a couple of etheral cards, that probably makes pull from below good". Or "Hey, i have Minutrized cannon, some extra strength... i don't have much etheral right now, but i could draft some after i take this pull from below, and that solves my damage"
e: Pay attention to your relics. Playing into what they're doing can be a big power boost - despite what reddit would tell you, relics are incredibly good in this game
f: Don't listen to the sts reddit, they are bad at the game.
g: You don't need infinite damage. "This did 300 damage and one shot the boss" is indeed, very funny, but it's not actually very useful most of the time. (There are exceptions, like the NEcrobinder's Scythe is somethign you scale up over the entire game ideally, and the fact it pays off by being able to just delete bosses is a big deal). You just need "Enough" damage, and you'd be shocked how low "enough" is.

[delicate solar]

ok

im mainly curious on what to take as like, first card reward and stuff

and then build from there

[mortal loom]

The best card for the next challenges

Like, that sounds like useless advice

but there's never "This is the best card"

[delicate solar]

i see

[mortal loom]

Like here's my floor 1 as Regent.

Relevantly, i've removed 2 cards already, which cost me a bunch of health

and i'm at 35 hp after the fight

and my boss is Soul Fysh.

so right out: REsonance isn't helping me much right now. It's expensive, and slow

I don't have the stars or energy to do much with it, it doesn't block for a lot (There's not a lot of multi-hit enemies in the docks that it'll be helpful for), and i don't have anything that works well with Str right now (My own multihit cards)

So... Cloak of Starsi s very attractive. Spoils of battle lets me build up a big nuke while drawing a lot, and drawing is good while i've got such a small deck

so i'm probably taking Spoils of Battle.

Cloak of Stars would be safer.

but i think Spoils pays off better if i survive

and then the next floor i took patter -which ddoesnt do a lot offensively (the 2 vigor is bascially w/e with this deck), but it's 9 block for 1 energy, oops

and the 2 vigor isn't irrelvant

[cloud tapir]

9 block for 1 energy

[mortal loom]

Good catch <.<

And then this is where i'm at 5 floors in.

[cloud tapir]

we would agree though, patter is quite a good splash of block, though it isn't unlocked right away

[mortal loom]

It's not great, but i have a couple of ways to scale up my damage for dramatic big hits (Soverign blade, lots of draw for Kingly Punch)

otoh, i'm at 20 hp.

and i have to go hard hallway fight, campfire, elite, campfire

so i'm probably f*d.

[honest glade]

spoils of battle feels kind of incredible after its buff

[mortal loom]

A good example of the patter paying off.

and so post elite, here's where i'm at

I had to burn my gigantifaction and weak potions

gigantication potion hurts, that's a boss killer

but the reflect i took before hand helped me do a lot of damage to the phanstmal gardeners

and the Hidden Cache will help me play Reflect more often.

and i got a Brozen Scales, whcih does damage to things attacking me, which goes well with the reflect and patter

And then here's where i am post boss

Got the cheese event, which let me score Astral Pulse (aoe, good with my Void Form), and Begone (a way to thin my deck, and very, very, very good for Soul Fysh, since it lets me delete the nasty statuses it gives me)

i also got Void Form, which is... hard to play at the moment, but very powerful if i can get it into play

and if i don't need it for a battle, it deletes itself, sweet!

Took Make it So! for my rare card, because i'm good at playing lots of skills

which means this keeps landing in my hand and lets me shoot things in the face

[honest glade]

make it so my beloved

[mortal loom]

and i bought a toolbox from the shop, becuase getitng a choice of 1 of 3 colorless cards at the start of each battle is incredibly strong

and tehn boss choices. I dont think i want to take Pael's tooth here - while i have a lot of good ugprades, i don't think i really wanna remove those 5 cards and get them back upgraded one at the time.

The stuff that jumps out to me is Pael's Tears (makes it much easier to play void form, as long as i don't draw it turn one), or Pael's Legion (creates an incredible amount of block across a run)

So all things considered, ithink Pael's Legion is a gimme.

[honest glade]

so the thing about pael's tears

is that iirc if you dont spend all your energy on the last turn of a fight, you get the energy turn 1 of the next fight

its an incredible relic

[mortal loom]

Wait, wtf.

Seriously? that sounds like a bug

well i wish i'd taken it to test that now

anyway, i took pael's legion and that was playing 1 block card.

[honest glade]

i mean itd be the same as stuff like pen nib

[mortal loom]

Bahahahaha

i love attack potion

Enter into the centipede fight

"Man, this doesnt look great. Okay, Radiate for 9...., attack potion"
Attack potion: HAVE YOU CONSIDERED SEVEN STARS
Regent: Make it so.

and that's a turn 1 victory XD

[honest glade]

attack potion really does just go "ok but have you considered winning" sometimes

skill and power potion do too tbh

depending on the character

[stark junco]

"I'm going to make a shiv deck!"
f i v e m i n u t e s l a t e r
"Is this... still a shiv build? I... guesssss???"

[honest glade]

eah thats still shivs

[stark junco]

blade of ink + strangle +afterimage just told me to keep spamming shivs until the enemy fell over

[mortal loom]

annnnnd then i died to The Wurm

[patent geode]

Blade of ink and afterimage is goated as they say

[mortal loom]

becuase that guy is a jerk and i just drew really poorly

(also i lost way too much hp in act 2)

that's probablyu the other thing @delicate solar - learn to anaylze why you lost. It's very rare that "There was nothign i could do" is the truth

like in the case of The Wurm, i took a more offensive path in the act, and i lost a lot of hp, and if i'd instead pivoted to a shop and events, i'd probably have been fine

because "Have a ubnch of hp for getting punchedi nthe face with"

is a valid answer to "Deck draws unreliably"

so like, did i get a bad draw order? YUP. were there things i could have done about this? also yup!

[spare shoal]

I played a few custom games the other day and ironclad+silent cards is really funny

with all the exhaust sinergies plus shivs

[shrewd vault]

so I want to emphasize that Penguin's advice is both thorough and excellent, but the simplest answer to this question is frequently going to be "whatever gives you the most damage." The first thing you need to solve in a run is surviving hallway fights, which will let you scale up over the first act into elites, bosses, etc.

so cards that deal a lot of damage (you can compare the damage/energy ratio to your strikes) end up being really important at the start, because they let you end fights faster and avoid damage. And expensive cards are often better than they look here because 1) you get more damage (or impact generally) per draw and 2) you usually get proportionally more per energy. 3 energy is a lot more than 2 energy, though, and 4 energy is basically twice as much as 3 energy, so you want to pay a lot of attention to when those work and when they don't.

[mortal loom]

Aww, thanks ❤️

But also, yes, that - you'll usdually see me slam damage commons in teh first ocuple of floors

and that's bewcause Strike is the worst card in the game

[delicate solar]

i see

[mortal loom]

Like my first floor rewards here -Araments+ is actualyl a damage card.

(Because strike may be a bad card, but strike+ and bash+ are actually quite solid)

here i skipped damage again, but i got a fire potion (That's like having a damage card), and Stone armor+ makes so much block

and then the next two floors i imeddiately jam a Whirlwind and a Unrelenting+ into my deck

Followed by upgrading the whirlwind at the first campfire (Whirlwind is prettyyu bad e/damage unless it's aoe, but whirlwind plus is actually solid)

and well

Please note this boss has nearly 600 hp and you can't do anything to him on turn 1.

The otehr htign with that early whirlwind is it;'s really good if i get lots of energy

...say, if i have the Very Hot Cocoa (+4 energy turn 1)

Oh look

[shrewd vault]

it's also worth getting in the habit of looking at the map before you even pick your Neow blessing. Do you want gold for an early shop? Can you use an immediate power buff to take on more elites? Paths with multiple branches are really good, because if something goes wrong (or very right) you may want to pivot (e.g. take too much damage -> rest instead of fighting an elite)

basic fights let you get the bread and butter cards that improve your deck (almost anything will be better than strikes and defends), and the first three fights in each act are easier than later fights.

elite fights are rewarding, but punishing. Pay attention to what elites are in each act, and ask whether your deck is good against them or hard countered. e.g. Eels in the underdocks like AOE and non-attack damage. The Entomancer kills shiv builds.

camp fires let you heal up, but if you can afford to upgrade a card instead then that'll end fights faster/safer.

chests give relics, which may (or may not) give you an immediate power bump or reward changes in pathing (e.g. gold for shops, benefits on resting).

shops reward you proprotional to your gold: ~60-70 gold can get you a potion to make an elite or boss easier. 75+ gold (increasing time) can remove a card to make your better cards show up more (or remove curses). 25-150 can get you cards, which might fill in holes in your deck (pay attention to the colorless cards!), but as usual you don't want to take cards if you don't need them. 250-350 can get you a relic, which as mentioned can be build-defining.

Events are highly variable, and while a lot better than StS1 they reward you having cards (to upgrade) and money/hp to spend. They can also reward you with health and HP, or cards, or inflict curses, so it's hard to tell what you'll come out with.

[radiant plaza]

the decimillipede is a motherfucker

[mortal loom]

a bunch of fights that ended turn 1 because i drew whirlwind and dumping all my energy on turn 1 into it killed everything

[radiant plaza]

what a tool

[mortal loom]

One habit i have with the map is if i have Campfire -> Chest -> Campfire, i often upgrade or do something else at the first campfire

Because the chest might contain something like regal pillow

that makes my rests better

(of course, if i'm then going into double elites, i might double rest anyway because i need the hp)

this btw is why stone hudimifier is actually a very strong neow relic

"Just rest the entire game and o into the final boss with over 150 max hp" wins a lot of stuff

[shrewd vault]

yeah. or, conversely, with camp -> elite -> camp if you're just on the edge of having a comfy amount of HP you might gamble on an upgrade to make the fight smoother, just in case you get something like pillow from the elite.

[radiant plaza]

stone humidifier has the great benefit of making rest a function that does more than delay losing

instead it also makes you win more eventually

[mortal loom]

That's actually anotehr hting @delicate solar - Your hp is a resource. Use it.

"Get punched inteh face a lot" is an entirely valid way to win

Ironclad infamously is known for buiodls where he just gets incredibly fat (Think over 130 max hp)

and it turns out when you have that much hp, it's really hard to loose

[radiant plaza]

holy fuck playing some shivs as Defect and I just picked up Shuriken as my first relic

we're going to the moon boys

[stark junco]

new character idea: Jonathan Lancer

time to mech

[mortal loom]

StarVaders immediately sues

(though if you like Lancer and you like Slay the Spire, def check out StarVaders)

[stark junco]

hmmmm yes

If you were going to put a size 1 mech to put in StS which would you pick?

[placid dirge]

Some of silent's new cards feel so fucked

[mortal loom]

Atlas.

[oblique raft]

The girl reading this

[placid dirge]

Fan of knives, knife trap, up my sleeve

[mortal loom]

Punch everybody and give no shits

I still don't think I've actually used Fan of Knives properly

[stark junco]

I used fan of knives once from a power potion

[placid dirge]

Finisher feels so much better with so much shivs access

[oblique raft]

Fan of knives feels strange sometimes but I do like it

[placid dirge]

I got it once in my deck and I used it like 3 times and it was beautiful

[oblique raft]

Aoe shivs are nice when you need them and when you dont it's just kinda like

[placid dirge]

5 free shivs

[oblique raft]

"Okay this is another shivmaker"

[placid dirge]

Still nice to have just to be sure you can get more shivs

[oblique raft]

Which isnt bad. I like having shivs

[placid dirge]

Shivs + finisher... my beloved...

[oblique raft]

It just makes the card feel like the most specific shiv card in the world

[mortal loom]

Yeah, I just haven't done a lot with shivs as it feels like silent has a bunch of better ways to do damage than shivs currently

[placid dirge]

Fair

[placid dirge]

Maybe, shivs is my favorite and most consistent rn though

[mortal loom]

Like cool, finisher is very funny, but I could just snakebite and turtle with defends

[placid dirge]

It's what I'm used to and most flexible with

[mortal loom]

Or kill everything with Speedster

Or noxious fumes

[oblique raft]

Picture this: shiv silent with Ashen Strike

[mortal loom]

Okay, yes, that is funny

[placid dirge]

I'm still like

Bad at slay the Spire after like 90 hours in 1 and about 7 hours in 2

So I just play things I think are funny and making 1000 knives appeals to me

[oblique raft]

It's not an easy game!

[patent geode]

Yeah, the world record A20 winstreaks last I checked in StS1 were for example 24 for Ironclad, 27 for Silent, 29 for Defect, and 30 for rotating.

And then 71 for Watcher, but I'm not going to count Watcher

Suffice to say, that is pretty damn low all things considered.

[mortal loom]

Yeah. I have 6.5k hours in StS 1, and far to many already in StS2, and my best rotating win streaks is currently... 8

In StS2, on the beta, that's currently generally agreed to be too easy

[plain leaf]

I've definetly found taht being able to take a few elite fights for the extra relics is important for the runs that win

[stark junco]

I just encountered the endless belt of food

I spent all my money

[plain leaf]

I don't think I've encountered that event

[stark junco]

It's strong if you have money to spend

It gave me a random card upgrade, max HP, two random colourless cards... so good

[radiant plaza]

see, initially my reaction to that event was "free card upgrade why would I not"

but if you have hella cash to burn on it? it's sauced

[stark junco]

I mean the first option it gave me was "upgrade for money, or free upgrade"

so I upgraded for cash and it just kept going

[oblique raft]

Specially if you hit the free money one multiple times

Thats two free hits

[stark junco]

ah darnit

[plain leaf]

had another defect run get to the end but couldn't keep up, big issue with many of my builds is maintaining defense while keeping up with the damage

[stark junco]

I know the feeling. Going blizzard feels like it's the strongest thing you can do

[placid dirge]

finished A4 silent

[cloud crane]

I tried doing a sly build last night and honestly that shit is painful, took me till 3rd act to actually get any and by then I had made some Frankenstein shield and draw build

[plain leaf]

I'm clicking with the ironclad, still haven't done defect solo or regent a1 yet thoug

[plain leaf]

sly really needs yyou to get lucky with the right cards offered

shivs have felt both really strong and really easy to set up

[shrewd vault]

kind of? you want to be careful adding sly cards before you have discard, but a lot of the enablers are common. and then there's alternatives like bullet time and pounce to work in a pinch

[plain leaf]

the enablers are great, the math for the discard/draw card is really good (unless you end up with giant)

but you can have runs where flick flack and bouncing just don't show up

[sweet crown]

i mean if you're just trying to win you shouldn't be forcing any specific "build"
you just take advantage of whatever synergies you can find to solve the problems every deck needs to solve (single target damage, AoE damage, and defense; frontload and scaling)
sly is strong bc silent's discarding cards are already generically good -- acro and prepared are draw, hidden daggers keys into shivs, dagger throw is a solid damage common, etc.
sly just lets you do extra stuff on top of the cards you already wanted to take anyway

[cloud crane]

Naturally I do whatever it takes to win, I just like to try and do certain things and explore the depths of what I can do with a character

[plain leaf]

I liked that ironclad build I won 5 on since it waws just so different than my usual ones. I normally avoid exhaust cards but this one really showed off how good they can be. Brand and evil eye did a lot of work

and with all the card draw I could try to fish for whirlwind which could often deal a good 100 damage

I'm constantly feeling like I'm just damage trading on ironclad and wasting too many rest sites on healing early on, and I feel like the deck isn't going to work. Then it gets to act 3 and it pulls it through

[plain leaf]

I feel like ironclad has the weakest starting deck

It only has one unique card and bash is awkwards to use

[rocky stone]

he also has one less Defend

[spare shoal]

he has the same defends as everyone else

what he has is an extra strike

[rocky stone]

oh I thought it was five base, but it's only four

[spare shoal]

everybody gets 10 cards, and most of the time its 4 strikes, 4 defends, and 2 special cards

I think I'm with you in that bash costing 2 makes it awkward to use, but its starting relic compensates it imo

[rocky stone]

Blood is very good yeah

I think Bash is pretty fine mostly, especially with Vulnerable also having more synergy now

[radiant plaza]

I think I am getting better at StS2

cleared all A2s, now I can move on to A3 and go broke

[cloud tapir]

the black witch feels like it has a lot of space to play in

[shrewd vault]

Hydra would be fun. Drone minions.

[placid dirge]

I'm sorry for ever doubting you Regent this sword sage shit goes insane-o mode

[stark junco]

Four different paths: aggressive venting and burn, drones, control, and dakka

[placid dirge]

holy SHIT regent is fun

[plain leaf]

Regent is very much the big boom character

[oblique raft]

3-cost blades hurts me

[placid dirge]

?

[rocky stone]

on the beta, Sword Sage doesn't increase cost anymore

[oblique raft]

Oh beautiful

[plain leaf]

Sage increased cost, why
It’s a archetype with some bad matchups if it’s your main package

The more I play the more I appreciate the power of the 7 block plus upside commons

Oh right shrug is 8
Man is shrug good

What the heck
Patter is a card

Ive not sen tha one

[rocky stone]

block commons are important cards

[plain leaf]

I don’t like true grot though

[rocky stone]

True Grit is mostly something you gotta upgrade asap

[placid dirge]

true grit is good if you upgrade it yeah, exhaust on Ironclad can be good

[rocky stone]

but even with the random exhaust, you just have to play things in the right order and it can mostly work out

[plain leaf]

I'm still learning how to run exhaust, it suffers from so many of your big payoffs being uncommon though
evil eye and ash strike can be great (a pair of upgraded ash strikes carried my 5a run) but at uncommon they aren't guaranteed to show

I had brand and pummel as my main exhaust cards, with a couple pommel strikes, dark pacts, and shrug offs to enable consistency

[rocky stone]

Pummel is really good

[plain leaf]

pommel, shrug off and dark pact are probably the best commons for ironclad, extremely effective in enabling most builds with card draw while also having really solid on rate effects

[slender forge]

I had a run with pummel and I learned that the music box ancient relic works really well with it

[plain leaf]

oh how did I forget thunderstrike and breakthrough

oh battle trance is uncommon, missed that up

thats what I meant when I said dark pact, which isn't a card but does sound like something ironclad could have

[slender forge]

Isn't dark pact the draw on exhaust card

Wait that's dark embrace

[plain leaf]

yeah I got names mixed up
never ran a dark embrace deck yet

[slender forge]

It's not really something you build around it's more like a spice to existing strategies

[cloud crane]

Regent star builds are a CIA psychological operation

[plain leaf]

had a seven strike build that cleared a1 today

[mortal loom]

True Grit is a way to self-trim your deck

it's something that needs an upgrade or you take for things like Soul Fysh

[mortal loom]

Sir you are being exterminated

[stark junco]

Bonk

[mortal loom]

Things happened

Including a really big boulder

[plain leaf]

I’ve avoided parasol

[radiant plaza]

parasol is a weird relic

[plain leaf]

Jewelred mask and blood saoked earrings are the ones I usually grab

[oblique raft]

the mask is nice for having minimal downside

[mortal loom]

iirc, the other options here were the bottled fog - andi 'd already taken big hug

and the "Get one more energy, you have a must be played 2 energy card"

which... would have been utter shit at the state my deck ws in before the parasol

Post parasol, i had 3 orbits in my deck

And it probably would have been fine

[rocky stone]

that one is also pretty good mostly I feel

[mortal loom]

Yeah, it was just shit in the context of the deck at the time

[radiant plaza]

card creation Regent is such a weird gimmick

[slender forge]

Parasol is cute when you have one of those piles of good stuff decks

Like if you get a power deck working with defect adding like 7 random cards to it won't ruin you most of the time

[mortal loom]

It's fun, and imho, quite powerful. I'm glad they iterated on the watcher idea

[placid dirge]

fuuuuck my payment dispute refunded StS 2

so now I have to wait until like may 13th to re-buy it because I don't wanna have to call my bank and steam and stuff

[light garden]

silver lining: save file will still be there

[plain leaf]

that one definetly feels designed to encourage larger deck sizes, I actually used it on a a5 run that succeeded but man is that a problem sometimes

and you have to exhaust it unless you have some of the regentss minion dive bomb cards

[placid dirge]

yeah, and by then there'll be more updates I think

[mortal loom]

We are getting weekly patches currently

On the beta branch at least

ndext one should bei n 24 hours or less

[dry glacier]

Transform/card gen decks are pretty neat

Crash Landing gets so meaty with Arsenal and Supermassive, easy as hell Strength printer

[plain leaf]

thats the archetype I've struggled the most with with regent so far
particularly since its so much less modular than his others, you can't slot it into builds with a wincon from anther archetype as easily as others, although I find regent has an issue with that in general with his archetypes

status card defect has a similar issue

[dry glacier]

Honestly if you grab the card transform ones it ends up... relatively easy to get off? Especially so if you have something like the block card that just prints out a colorless card

Basically the same thought process as Anger there of having something to freely eat for Exhausting (or in this case Transforming)

[shrewd vault]

Status defect is helped by so many of its status generators being generically good. Overclock and turbo are amazing, boost away is great, even gunk up is a good damage common. The payoffs are sketchy without the setup, but half of them are good against enemy status gen

[patent geode]

@mortal loom I kinda followed your instructions (well it was how I was already playing lol, though what I did change was going in with two power potions, a duplication potion, and full hp).

Nice to have all characters at A10 now, since I had been lazy with Necro.

[patent geode]

I still need to accept that I should pick Overclock more often, but yeah the status enablers are consistently really good.

The only payoff I'm tbh iffy on though, assuming I have enablers already, is Compact. It can be okay, but it feels like it desperately wants retain and without it Compact is too dependent on the draw IME.

Compared to for example Flak Cannon or Rocket Punch (or technically the powers after you play them), which don't require you to have both your statuses and the payoff in hand at the same time.

Mind you I could be wrong about compact, but I like the other payoffs more.

God, rocket punch is silly with how easy it is to enable.

[rocky stone]

Compact is weird yeah

it's really good when it works, but feels so inconsistent

[patent geode]

Mm, it's that there isn't a good tool for having status cards and it in hand simultaneously which does it for me.

Technically there's Hologram, but you can do much else with hologram. As such Compact IME is more a tech card for specific fights (Entomancer in Act 2 most notably).

[rocky stone]

Defect also doesn't have any adding status to hand directly either, right?

[patent geode]

Nope, they all go to your discard pile.

Which means you're typically waiting for your second turn cycle for Compact to get any potential value beyond being a block card.

Assuming you haven't built god's weirdest Hologram deck.

[rocky stone]

even Fight Through adds them to discard now, unlike the old Ironclad version

[patent geode]

I do wonder if Fight Through's art implies that Defect stole Ironclad's lunch.

But yeah

Overall the status package for Defect is quite good, since it offers some consistently good value in its enablers and payoffs that are overall rather easy to work with.

Compactor is the only awkward one to me, even if I don't pick Smokestack that often either.

[stark junco]

my current deck is what I'm calling "Burnout"

[patent geode]

Rocket punch!

My beloved!

[stark junco]

Firing on all cylinders with free cards giving me a mass of statuses then firing off a flak cannon to burn all of my status cards to do damage

[plain leaf]

I want to try doing a defect status build, that seems fun

[plain leaf]

imagine if you got flak canon then kingly kick through cross class effects

[stark junco]

or that crash one that gives you a ton of debris

[plain leaf]

right thats the one I'm thinking of

crash landing

horrible card, since it will often add 3-5 debris which is just not worth it for the damage output

[stark junco]

I've also got free strikes thanks to the pumpkin lady

[plain leaf]

you need some enablers to make it work and rares that need so much build around to even be useful are just not great

collision course can be decent though

[stark junco]

oh god I'm using hologram to pull overclock back to my hand so I can just keep on drawing and drawing while stacking burns so I can then flak dump them

[oblique raft]

simply always enchant it so it has Retain

[stark junco]

yummy yummy I am full of *P A I N *

[radiant plaza]

fuck yesssssss swordgent victory for ascension #3

starting to get the hang of this game I think

[stark junco]

Hell yeah

Get that big ass sword

Question chat:
Apotheosis?

unicorn mommy is offering it to me

[rocky stone]

good if you need uprades and can afford to play it first turn

[stark junco]

like out of these three choices what you think?

[rocky stone]

can you reliably play four cards each turn?

[stark junco]

yeah I have a ton of free cards

my main problem is I have so many free cards that I'm not sure the scarf is worth it

[radiant plaza]

I had a really terrifying, close Experiment fight where the first phase I came within single digit HP of dying

and then I played Hegemony -> Sword, Summon, Sword three turns in a row and killed all three phases

[stark junco]

beautiful

I'm gonna try Apotheosis...

or should I get 999 gold and just shop binge?

I'm hitting a shop in 3

[radiant plaza]

imo apo only worth it if you have lots of cards and they would be improved significantly by +ing them all

signet ring just kinda fucks you get to buy a cool 2-3 relics and any cards you REALLY need

[stark junco]

29 cards and only 4 are upgraded

[radiant plaza]

yeah you might want apo

I mean

are they cards that upgrading is actually good for

are you playing 0 cost Defect

[stark junco]

It's a bunch of free cards and it turns even more to free

It's a weird burnout 0 cost build

[radiant plaza]

ok followup question do you have All For One

[stark junco]

Not yet

[radiant plaza]

okay

[stark junco]

I'm looking for it so hard

[radiant plaza]

if you already had it then apotheosis would be must take

as it stands it's still probably +like a billion gold

[oblique raft]

ring's just almost always useful

[radiant plaza]

the question is, is it more than Literally 999 Gold

[stark junco]

I'm trying apotheosis, wish me luck

[radiant plaza]

make sure to smith it ASAP lol

apo+ really really really good

[stark junco]

Oop, all good, found myself a boot squence so I can make sure to reliably protect myself turn 1 and apotheosis

[plain leaf]

All fir one claw seems fun but I’ve never got more than one claw in a run

[stark junco]

I finally got a second claw!

Yeeeey

this stupid chud mecha knight keeps lighting me on fire but jokes on HIM because I WANT to be on fire

[stark junco]

Follow my build! You too can become the equivalent of a shaking, trembling, overheated burn machine barely held together with a bunch of dodgy welds and well-timed reboots

[patent geode]

Calling the adorable pilot a chud to their face

For the mere crime of trying to kill you.

[stark junco]

I am 13 on fire

13

because of their stupid flamethrower move

They get what they deserve

[radiant plaza]

StS2 is weird in that the base value of cards is pretty competitive with all but the most intensive and repeatedly invoked synergies

Like Bulwhark is a great card but mostly because it has fucking 16 block written on it

[stark junco]

I love the fact that most decks have quite a lot of overlap in what you're doing

though the regent struggles with this at times

[radiant plaza]

It’s mostly because there’s no cards that properly unite star generation with card creation as archetypes

[stark junco]

There's barely any forge and star generation at the same time either

Or they're very rare

[radiant plaza]

No but there is good synergy for star with forge stall

Star is really good at blocking and can gas up The Smith and Particle Wall and Neutron Aegis

Which is good because Forge is bad at dealing damage until Exodia is ready to rock

[stark junco]

yeah it's just kinda rough to actually gain those stars at times

[radiant plaza]

Eh

Genesis is great, Gather Light is a really good generic block replacement

Big Bang exists ig

But if there was an Uncommon that polluted your hand with Debris in return for generating aggressive amounts of Star I think it would be really good for the right deck

Like (1): gain ⭐ ⭐ ⭐, add 2 Debris to your hand

[stark junco]

yeah, that would be nice, specially if you also had those CHARGE!! cards to turn debris into minion sacrifices and the like

[radiant plaza]

Yeah

You turn the Debris into minions and chuck em at your enemies, Arsenal scales, Heirloom Hammer stonks, etc

Then you drop Celestial Might or Stardust on em and win

The only problem(?) would be a card creation / star generation card would solo enable Arsenal Radiate or Arsenal Stardust as wincons

There are harder Uncommon win conditions in the game though

Like (Demon Form or Rupture or Dominate) Whirlwind

[stark junco]

They need a little something something. A little regent love.

[radiant plaza]

See

There’s already an insane win condition with Monologue, CHARGE!, and any multi hit combo piece like Stardust or Radiate or whatever

[stark junco]

Also Luna do try my Burnout deck, it was hilarious just to run. I kicked down the door of the door guy on turn one because I just somehow kept on cranking that shit out.

[radiant plaza]

Draw your entire deck, turn it into 0 cost little guys, toss them at your enemies until they beg for mercy

[stark junco]

my little guys

my chumps

[radiant plaza]

My Arrakis…

My Dune…

[stark junco]

We call that deck "This game's an RTS right?"

where you throw minions at shit

MOBA time motherfucker take this minion to the face

[plain leaf]

gather light is super good

you also have the 10 damage spells that gives two stars but that also puts itself on top of yourr deck which can hurt some decks

[manic kestrel]

shining strike is so mid imo

[patent geode]

It's quite nice for consistent star generation, which can be real nice.

You're probably not going to use it to kill anyone with stars, not by itself at least, but it does help you consistently play the frankly silly star-block cards regent has such as Reflect.

[plain leaf]

its good for decks that need quick star generation, like a seven strike or big x star cost card

[patent geode]

For those I like Hidden Cache amongst others more personally

Though I'd defer to the real good players on it

[oblique raft]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2868840/view/526499614836129817

Small hot fix patch

But more relevantly, beta changes are coming to the main branch soon

[mortal loom]

Hey, congrats! Now get streaking

[mortal loom]

RADIATE AGGRESSVIELY

[ivory birch]

Someone likes being Dazed

[mortal loom]

AGGRESIVE RADIATING

[mortal loom]

Read the damage numbers again

12 x 13 is a lot more than 72 😛

[ivory birch]

Still 26 Dazes

[mortal loom]

...This doesnt matter if hte fight is dead

NO SURVIVORS

'

[spare shoal]

Scary

[ivory birch]

That is a terrifying build

[mortal loom]

It 2-turned the queen <.<

Or three turned

[spare shoal]

That's not Radiate, thats Radiation

HOW DO YOU GET 42 STARS IN ONE TURN???

[mortal loom]

AGGRESIVELY

The answer can be found in my decklist

(Decisions, Decisions -> Royal Gambit, as well as various glows and Venerates)

I transformed into seven stars and alignment, so i had an early game plan "How the fuck do i make enoguh stars to cast Seven Stars reliably"

Decisions, Decisons was my first boss reward, so now i have a good plan: Get that into play and use it to hit my various star cards. Found a Royal Gamble, upgraded that asap, because that's a primo Decisions, Decisions target and retain makes it very easy to hit - or i can just use it to get Decsions, Decisons into play, since playing any skill multiple times is generally gonna do something good

And then that late store in act 2 i saw the Radiate and was like, yup, i'm taking this, i make a monster amount of stars already and having a way to do damage that isn't competing with Seven Stars - and in fact, likes all the stuff that makes seven stars good

[mortal loom]

lol, lost a run because i miscaulted damge, and missed being able to throw a potion shaped rock to kill

whcih woiuld have saved me enough hp to survive hte queen's next attack

[mortal loom]

I am finally living hte dream

Bread with hot cocoa.

[mortal loom]

And then i literally nearly ran out of damage in the Doormaker fight which was V. funny

down to 2 cards left and only 1 did damage

[mortal loom]

Quite literally the worst bad luck has ever been for me

It hit me in every single fight

I did get to squeeze the test subject for some nearly 300 damage though

[plain leaf]

I used pandora's box and now have three necrosurge in my deck

[shrewd vault]

casual 9 doom/turn

[plain leaf]

flawless victory

[manic kestrel]

3 neurosurge is pretty busted

just go one shot everything

[plain leaf]

yeah I had a number of fights over on one turn, even mini bosses

I picked on up early from a mini boss then got pandora's box to randomize all my strikes/defends and got two out of sheer luck

[oblique raft]

When Pandora hits she fuckin hits

But when she whiffs

Hoo

[plain leaf]

yeah I've had some that where just awful rolls

like having only an rage and taunt for block

[plain leaf]

I'm liking necro more I play her, she feels very modular for the combos you can assemble
still not huge on doom though

and while her starting osty package is amazing it really does encounrage you to go down that route
I'd say she has one of the strongest starting decks

[warm wadi]

the slots fill with potions every combat

[plain leaf]

That’s a fun combo, never got it but it seems great

[warm wadi]

it's so good

technically I've also got petrified frog, but that's not very relevant anymore

[patent geode]

She's got a bit of an unstable early game but does tend to scale very well.

[plain leaf]

I find shes got a great starter deck, a solid and synergistic osty package that can quickly be fine tuned into something that pulls weight even into act2.
Ironclad is the one I find struggles a bit, you really need to accept taking some acratch damage and just healing through it

[patent geode]

Think I've finally figured out one of my bigge hurdles at A10, which is that if you're facing Doormaker you have to accept that you'll need to go in with max hp.

[plain leaf]

Ironclad’s vuln package is very modular but the rest of his archetypes really want commitment to maximize value

[patent geode]

Overall Ironclad benefits from the one-two punch of Shrug Off especially being one of the best block cards in the game (outdone primarily by stuff like Necro's ethereal block card which weakens), as well as just having a lot of big attacks.

This gives them a fairly consistent early game, and with Act 1 and Doormaker being the two most difficult parts of the game rn a good early game lets you transition into a win.

I say Doormaker is the most difficult in part because I just finished a run where Door almost killed me (as they're want to do), and then Test Subject C only really dealt me damage twice, the first time due to a slight misplay (cost me 1 whole hp), and the second time because it helped close out the fight.

[plain leaf]

Shrug off and pommel are some of the best commons in the game

[patent geode]

They are indeed, plus stuff like Cinder lets you just deal a chunk of damage.

I am happy they gave Ironclad some ability to regain hp during combat though, since that was part of the fun in the last game.

[plain leaf]

I’ve been wary of cinder

[patent geode]

The random exhaust can bite you, but honestly you play it because it's 17/22 damage.

That's pretty much it.

Ashen Strike is the raw damage card I have been the most consistently impressed by, but with Ironclad early on you just want damage.

[plain leaf]

Ashen strike is great but I never seem to get it offered

Had some runs that would’ve loved it

[patent geode]

Much of the game ends up being about building a deck which can not only survive but reliably pivot towards win-conditions for what you may face.

Japanese Export as well as Jorbs are two decent resources for it. I've enjoyed the former lately myself.

[stark junco]

Chathew, what do I do with this?

[honest tundra]

Souls!

[pliant current]

Also seems like a good way to exhaust a hand of terrible cards

[plain leaf]

Japanese export?

[dry glacier]

I've talked to some folks on the STS discord, the Intangible is 100% bait, use it basically as a deck clearer since you'll only ever get a full hand consistently if you get like 50 billion souls.

[patent geode]

A guy on youtube/twitch who is rather good at the game.

Also, this hang deck was quite good

Didn't get too many copies of Hang, but it still worked out.

[plain leaf]

hang is good, got lucky with two copies in my cracked triple neurosurge deck

that decks was comically lucky

I think the biggest lesson I've learned to get better is that you can't just avoid the elites to dodge the damage, you have to risk them to try and get rarer cards and relics and if you can't take a couple elite your build won't take a boss

also increasingly shifting to the idea that upgrading a crad at rest sites is a reward rather than healing being a punishment

[patent geode]

The gap in difficulty between the elites and the hard fights is notably also not that big, so after your first three mob encounters you'll likely want to be vying your first elite if your deck can beat 'em.

[plain leaf]

hunter killer for instance
although hive has some tough elites

[patent geode]

As for healing, I've found the Act 1 Boss fights as well as Doormaker tend to ask you to have a lot of hp.

Both consistently doing 40-60hp worth of damage to me even when I win.

You can't really go into the act 1 boss with low hp and a good deck the way you could in StS1 IME.

[plain leaf]

doormaker can hit hard
I've also learned with him that when you have a big combo deck you have to trust your combo and let it go off on hunger turns because his other phases just don't let you do it

[patent geode]

Overall you kinda brute force them I find and hope your deck is good enough.

[cloud crane]

Hunter Killer I have no idea why it isn’t an elite fight tbh

[mortal loom]

It's an expensive way to d elete 9 cards, and sometimes you get to be invulknerable out of it

[plain leaf]

that seems bad tbh

way too much work for an effect that can be weak in many situations (like attacks that are 4x10 or something)

[mortal loom]

Patch is out

FOr non-beta folks

also, ah yes, the classic regent deck: Hullo World, Spectrum Shift Supermassive

[mortal loom]

Just tested this, you are flat out wrong

[honest glade]

damn.

coulda sworn it worked like that

[mortal loom]

I suspect you got bamboozled by an ancient tea set

[mortal loom]

Pffft

figuring out how i win a turn

finally get to playing my super massives

"Oh, these just do 132 and 112 damage each. okay."

[cloud crane]

Type of dumb fucking horse piss my friends get up to meanwhile I can’t get a single sly card before act 3 or get a star build to save my life 😭 😭 😭 😭 😭

[mortal loom]

Guys

I think the doormaker isi n trouble

[oblique raft]

They had to know what they were doing with that sprite right

[manic kestrel]

if they knew it would have a ring

[mortal loom]

Very glad i finally found a deck Crash Landing was good in

[honest glade]

omg no yknow what it was
i got hot cocoa'd

[mortal loom]

Ayup, that'd do it.

...but wait, how did you have hot cocoa and pael's tears???

[honest glade]

...

ok it must notve been hot cocoa???

how did this happen

honestly atp

i think im just misremembering

[mortal loom]

That would also make sense, lol

[plain leaf]

what were they doing?

[manic kestrel]

😬

[mortal loom]

they're implying that it's an early internet meme called Goatse, which was a shock porn thing of someone pulling their anus open.

[manic kestrel]

very old internet

[swift wind]

first run on the new patch, also first A10 victory

got banshee's cry immediately out the gate, but ultimately this was a defile run

so many energy relics

diadem is insane with ice cream, pael's tears and art of war

don't play cards and win anyway

[cloud tapir]

tbf 40 damage getting reduced to 10 is still really good

[plain leaf]

I don't use pael's tears much, its hard to find the breathing room for it. I do like pael's legion though since my decks often have defensive issues

picture taken by a friend during a recent multiplayer run

I got cruelty and paper frog

as the ironclad, and we had a lot of vuln generation, was hoping for one of the cards that cares about it because of that but never found one
our damage outpute was obscene

[cloud tapir]

pael's tears mostly pay for themselves once you get it going

not that they'll always be the best option, but if you just sac 1 energy turn one, you can play like you have a normal energy relic for the rest of the fight

[patent geode]

The tear is largely worse ice cream, which makes it a decent relic still

[swift wind]

I was dubious about diadem but I realized that with lethality only my first attack matters and with half damage I don't need to block much either

[patent geode]

It also doesn't really restrict you from going over the limit during the turns you want to.

[spare shoal]

used misery to get the stun thingie on both of them

[stark junco]

Oooo tasty

[spare shoal]

I got clone on Sleight of Flesh

wish me luck

[patent geode]

Clever

[mortal loom]

Okay the bit where i imbued Not Yet is either genius or really dumb

So far it's leaning towards "Genius"

[spare shoal]

immortality

[mortal loom]

it is no joke working pretty well

...

LOL

You see the problem

(Ashen Strike hits *even harder8

[patent geode]

Ashen strike really gets so randomly good.

Just casual 30+ damage from seemingly nowhere..

[mortal loom]

There's nothnign random about it,i t scales really harsd

sadly, this build died to test subject

ripped queen apart fine, but needing to get vuln on each pahse of test subject, and bsasically being entirely damage orintated

...plus drawing all of my damage for the first phase

not good =x

I think i was supposed to upgrade Feed asap when i got it, and priotize getting the feeds off?

[honest glade]

pael's tears is like... i think its more productive to think of it as like Bread, personally

it is almost a direct upgrade to bread

(basically the only way it isnt is that if you use an x card it resets)

[patent geode]

I mean the main way it isn't is if you have a fairly safe turn 1 that doesn't mind the energy loss, which some decks do. As such I wouldn't call it a direct upgrade.

[honest glade]

bread and paels tears are very comparable tho

[patent geode]

Since bread will net you 1 mana per turn after the first (though the -2 on the first is a notable downside), whilst tears will always have a net 0 gain. It just happens to be that concentrating your mana for specific turns is a huge boon.

[honest glade]

paels tears gives you 2 on the next turn, it's not neutral

like fundamentally it is still doing the "less energy turn 1, more energy every other turn" thing

[patent geode]

Ah yeah true, that's me misremembering for a second

[honest glade]

paels tears is so comfy

you're not forced to use it but if you can get it online its exceptionally potent

the trick is that its way easier to have leftover energy if you have 5 energy at turn start than if you have 3

[patent geode]

I've still found it overall to play more like Radiant Pearl though (aside from the first turn, where RP has an advantage), in that part of Tear's appeal is the ability to have selectively big turns (and in a pinch spend all 3-5+ energy to prevent a big attack).

Blood, claw, and eye though are quite silly from Pael.

[honest glade]

fair

[patent geode]

But yeah you were right with the bread comparison, I just misremembered how tears worked.

[swift wind]

this is a little silly

do they both get used if I die?

[patent geode]

Don't believe so no

They get used one at a time I think?

[pliant current]

They were used one at a time in 1, I don’t think they would change that

[swift wind]

I didn't die also I discarded one because I had alchemize and reptile trinket lol

[plain leaf]

alchemize is decent

[patent geode]

Turns out 4 prepared, Master Planner, and Reflex is quite good.

[mortal loom]

FIRE EVERYTHING

Or just shoot em with a crossbow

[mortal loom]

Juggle juggle juggle~

Ayup.

[manic kestrel]

nerf this

[honest glade]

saw someone arguing that beta branch doormaker was Bad because he forces you to build your deck with him in mind

[manic kestrel]

thats good though...

[honest tundra]

Probably implied of “more than other bosses”

[manic kestrel]

the a3 bosses are bad because I dont think of them at all

[radiant plaza]

either I will overpower the boss with sheer force of my combo being bullshit, or I will mald

[patent geode]

You can make an argument about them being centralising to a greater extent than the other two Act 3 bosses, but I can't comment on what the person said when I only know of it secondhand.

[mortal loom]

Eh, even then

like queen will aboslotuey Brick certain decks.

So will Test Subject!

in fact both of those tend to brick decks more

Doormaker is mostly "have a big deck, or have a way to keep playing your reliable damage"

[spare shoal]

Tes subject's first phase my beloathed

[mortal loom]

It's not even that - the fact he dies and comes back twice is a huge issue for any debuff based build

I literally lost an ironclad run yesterday because i needed things to be vuln, and i didn't have enough reliable vuln applciators to mkake it work against him

(I was coasting off the Red Lamp and molten fisting stuff)

and his third phase is also brtual, as it severly punishes "You have one big boom of damage" unless you have a way to relaibly access that.

Both of these, imho, are great things

ui think he's a great fight

[patent geode]

Mm, I think for me be difference so far is that both of them have felt more elegant in their designs in how a little accomplishes a lot, which considering that neither has undergone significant change during early access (other than the second phase of Test Subject getting a more aggressive attack pattern) does check out.

[mortal loom]

That's turn 3, just for the record

[mortal loom]

Oh that's dumb. Conquerer just exnteds the time of the buff, not multip[lies it 🙁

[spare shoal]

the friendship power build on the regent is very fun

getting hammer time + conqueror on multiplayer. Everybody gets a sword, they deal double damage against this guy, KILL THIS GUY IN PARTICULAR

[mortal loom]

Blegh, screwed up a perfectly good regernt run by taking the mirror

Kinda failed to realzie my deck's defnesive output was coasting on playing bulwark a lot

and having less aacess to bulwark was bad

[mortal loom]

Very funny discovery; Soot is a Created status card, so it triggers Smokestack.

[dry glacier]

That's honestly super good to hear, I've been meaning to make use of Soot eventually but haven't found a good sitch for it

[mortal loom]

I mean, it's just... generally v. good

People are over scared of it

the math is heavily in favor of it

(like it dramticalyl accelrates your deck ,and it takes a lot of cycles for it to actually be net negative - we're talking 5+ cycles)

and that's before you have ways to deal with the soots too, which... Only silent really struggles with, and she's still queen of discard/draw

[stark junco]

The defect even enjoys getting status cards in some decks

[mortal loom]

I have discovered a small but signifanct problem with my "Imbue Cascade" in my deck

I have fiend fire.

I tthink that interaction ahs ltierlaly just killed me

which is hilarious

[mortal loom]

I survived

and i'm a genius

not only have i gotten the "Play your first played card twice" relic

so now i get TWO cascades

I have ghiven Fiend Fire ROYALLY APPROVED

so it's always in my opener and can't be hit by the cascades

I'm still going to losoe this run i think because tha;'ts about the only good thign the deck does

but at least i loose in a funny way

Ayup

This is a stupid ideda and i refuse to belive it';s good

but i'm going to do it anyway

Clone Mayhem.

[patent geode]

The amount of stuff classified as a status in this game is funny yeah. Be careful with playing Flak Cannon against insatiable.

[mortal loom]

Oh, i have done that

It's fine

[mortal loom]

The specific bit of this interaction that's interesting is that it's you who makes the status

since Smokestacks only trigger off you creating a status

[patent geode]

Definitely later on in the fight, though maybe not on turn 2 lol.

[patent geode]

Yup, which makes sense as it's an artifact.

[shrewd vault]

It might be too good if defect's status powers (besides iteration) triggered off of enemy status, but I kind of wish they would just for consistency

[patent geode]

Would lead to a lot of orbs being created against Entomancer.

[mortal loom]

Died to Test subject

but i think maybe if i dont clone one last time

i acutally win?

Worked better than i expected tbh

If i find game piece, i also just win

[mortal loom]

Okay

Chat

How do i kill doormaker?

OR

The world's biggest drill

STARS FROM ABOVE

whioh is funnier?

[patent geode]

Clone instead of heal and then died due to not going in at max hp?

[shrewd vault]

Gurren Lagann or assault bae 🤔

[patent geode]

Or not clone for some other reason?

[mortal loom]

We can either do 45 x 58

or 58 x 22

[rocky stone]

Drill

[mortal loom]

either way he is very dead

[patent geode]

I never get to see the drill be the star so go for it .

[mortal loom]

There was also a sword i wasnt paying atteiton to

[patent geode]

Stardust gets to be the champ so often

[mortal loom]

that was probably 'Big"

[patent geode]

Have you considered playing the snakebite in hand too?

[mortal loom]

?

I am confused by what you mean there

[mortal loom]

Don't clone so my i don't brick on block due to having 60 something mayhems to go through beforei get to play non mayhem cards.

(also yes, healing would have been nice)

[patent geode]

Just a joke about folk loving to play their snakebites

[patent geode]

Lmao, yeah that'll do it.

[mortal loom]

I mean, to be fair, every mayhem played also did aoe damage

and that actually was doing a lot

it just wanst quite enoguh vs Doormaker into Test Subject and coming out with hp

and i forgot, i went in at max hp

but 58 max hp is not much

[patent geode]

Mm, I just struggle to see a fight where 30 mayhems wouldn't do it but 60 would

[mortal loom]

Yeah, i think that was my mistake was getting too greedy on clones

It was very funny though

[patent geode]

Oof, yeah no I tend to assume Doormaker alone will generally do some 60hp worth of damage

[mortal loom]

and i am totally cool with yeeting a run because it meant i died in a funny way

[patent geode]

Even if my deck is good against door

[rocky stone]

If a Mayhem gets played off the top, does it trigger that same turn or only on the next one?

[mortal loom]

Skill issue.

[patent geode]

I'd presume the next one by virtue of Penguin being dead.

[mortal loom]

Also skill issue.

(Not seen, the times doormaker killed me that i'm conveintly ignoring just so i can be rude to Orange)

😛

[patent geode]

Generally does have exceptions ;p.

[mortal loom]

Though actually, now i'm starting to wonder about your decks looking at my doormaker kills

There's a lot more kills than losses to door maker here

aand most of them are like this

[patent geode]

But yeah Doormaker, ironically, feels like it's more about surviving the onslaught than the gimmick than the other two.

[mortal loom]

Like this one died admtiedlly

but that was more test subject killing me

and it taking time to catch up

than it was Doormaker killing me

[patent geode]

So I've been able to more consistently play against the others at low hp, but that's with the biases of my play style.

[mortal loom]

Aha, here's one where i actually took a bunch of damage

and then anotehr 17 damage fight...

Yeah, werid, i generally don't take a lot of damage to doormaker

and if i do, it's usally fatal.

[patent geode]

There's also just the plain ol' bias that these are heuristics from me since I don't have my computer in front of me rn.

[mortal loom]

That's fair too!

[patent geode]

Too busy listening to Mr. Beast accidentally yet repeatedly creating very uncomfortable gameshows

[mortal loom]

It looks like my average survaible doormaker fight is around 30 damage

Why would you ever give that man views D:

[patent geode]

I'm not: https://youtu.be/2ubYGdMCQTA

[mortal loom]

Oh dear.

[patent geode]

Have had this on in the background.

[mortal loom]

Mr Beast lowkey terrifies me

Just everything i've heard about him, like the dude has an addiction and it's the creepiest addicton -Youtube metrics

[patent geode]

He's honestly just a deeply uncritical person, which manifests as the motivational equivalence of object impermanence; that which he cannot behold cannot motivate him, and thus he chases numbers for their own sake.

But that's not Slay the Spire admittedly, just a guy with a critical eye having a gander at something bereft of thought

[mortal loom]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2868840/view/511862186617867796 Neows letter confirms there's a sixth character comming

Very interested to see if it is Watcher again

[rocky stone]

interesting breakdown on the choice events

[radiant plaza]

Sleight of Flesh / Oblivion is a devious combo

[rocky stone]

Sleight of Flesh is pretty nice with a lot of things

Reaper Form also amazing with it

[patent geode]

Damn, wondering what's going on with the 12% of runs which unlocked the chest

[stark junco]

sleight of flesh is great but ow expensive

[spare shoal]

Sleight of Flesh with clone is really funny

[mortal loom]

Honestly if you have reaper form, you probably don't need Sleight of Flesh.

Though I'm not convinced Reaper Form is all that great, it's pretty awkward. SoF is genuinely very strong though

[plain leaf]

my brother was asking for tips about getting better and shared this with me, my immediate thoughts were that his deck was too big and he didn't cut enough strikes and defends (I think he was trying to force a hellraise/perfected strike build) but wanted to see if I missed anything

[radiant plaza]

so like

[shrewd vault]

You can't really count on removing strikes/defends, but I see three curses I would've tried to take out.

[radiant plaza]

30 card decks actually win in StS2 huh

also Necrobinder is so cracked lmfao

[plain leaf]

mid 20s is where mine usually land

[mortal loom]

Easily

I regularly win with 40. Card decks, without mirror or clone

[patent geode]

Yeah, I'm not wholly sure what to aim for rn for various archetypes in terms of card count, but unless you're going infinite having large decks helps with Door especially I think.

And isn't particularly hindered by the other two Act 3 bosses.

[plain leaf]

you know I don't think I've ever gotten the ice cream relic

[patent geode]

Don't think it's in the game, is it?

Can't remember seeing it.

And the relics from the past event has overall rather mid relics.

[plain leaf]

it is, the run my brother posted that I reposted above had it

[mortal loom]

So, without knowing his routing etc it's harder.

His whale bonus is dog shit. The worst possible bonus, does nothing to improve your act 1, and the payoff is awful.

He has hellraiser,
But no real card draw. Hellraiser scales with card draw in a very direct fashion.

The strategy of the deck is also all over the place, that's a problem. Not removing normality is insane, that will literally brick your run. Inferno is a problem, unrelenting isn't doing a lot of favors...

[mortal loom]

It is

[mortal loom]

Nah, they're all quite good. Helix drill is legit useful these days

[plain leaf]

I don't hate lave rock, prefer it to large capsule

[patent geode]

Mid doesn't mean awful but rather fine to be clear..

[mortal loom]

Large capsule is so much better than lava rock it's not funny

Like an extra strike is a hefty penalty (an extra defend is fine, Fasten exists and it's pretty easy to get)

[patent geode]

They probably won't win you the run, but they're not the worst either. Though the 6 max hp per curse one being locked to act 1 is a small buff.

[mortal loom]

But two relics immediately is a huge boost

[patent geode]

Huh, I must've just missed it then

[mortal loom]

Lava rock does nothing for the point where the game is hardest and you deck is weakest

And the impact of two relics post boss is a lot more limited

Now if it was garunteed to give you a common, uncommon and rare relic? Okay, that's starting to get spicy

But it'd still be a win more bonus when you can't really afford to win more and instead need win now

[mortal loom]

a: You don't need to take every card you're offered. Less is more.

b: Elites are the most rewarding floors. If you're loosing a lot, hunt more elites - and if you're dying to elites, ask yourfself whats killing you in elites, and work from there

c: solve the game one floor at a time. Ask yourself what's coming, and what you can draft that helps with it - do you need more aoe? do you need more single target damage? Are your defences too fragile? Is your deck too slow to draw everything? Does it not do enough on the second draw through of the deck?

d: Don't think in terms of "I am a shiv deck" or "I am a poison deck". Think about point c. Trying to force a build just gets you killed. But going "Okay, i have this card and this card... oh, that's a couple of etheral cards, that probably makes pull from below good". Or "Hey, i have Minutrized cannon, some extra strength... i don't have much etheral right now, but i could draft some after i take this pull from below, and that solves my damage"

e: Pay attention to your relics. Playing into what they're doing can be a big power boost - despite what reddit would tell you, relics are incredibly good in this game

f: Don't listen to the sts reddit, they are bad at the game.

g: You don't need infinite damage. "This did 300 damage and one shot the boss" is indeed, very funny, but it's not actually very useful most of the time. (There are exceptions, like the Necrobinder's Scythe is somethign you scale up over the entire game ideally, and the fact it pays off by being able to just delete bosses is a big deal). You just need "Enough" damage, and you'd be shocked how low "enough" is.

These are my "I can win steak on a10 fairly reliably" tips

[patent geode]

Damn, I'm stuck with bread on A10 still.

[mortal loom]

The more I look at your bridges deck list, the more it looks like he's falling a foul of point F and point c

[plain leaf]

what advice is the reddit known for giving?

[mortal loom]

He seems to have taken everything with "strike" in it's name without really thinking about it

[plain leaf]

yeah thats the impression I got as well

[mortal loom]

That relics are weak. But also it's just a consensus hive mind, and your going to get advice from a lot of shitty players by dint of there being a lot of players.

So you get nonsense like relics are weak, when stuff like parrying shield or minuterized cannon exist and can win you the game

[plain leaf]

there's definetly a lot of low impact relics but you only need a couple really good ones to make up for it

[mortal loom]

Mmm, I don't even agree there's a lot of low impact ones

[shrewd vault]

I dunno about f, he's still hitting three elites act 1 and 3, and two in act 2

[mortal loom]

The advantage from relics is huge

I meant point g, actually, not f.

His deck is stupid damage heavy, but in very awkward ways

Like what are inferno, juggernaut, spite etc doing in there?

[shrewd vault]

One point in support of "don't take every card" and "relics are good, actually," is the pro streamers beating asc 0 with starter decks

[mortal loom]

You have hellraiser.

[patent geode]

Mm, Reddit ultimately has a transient tone to it which means anyone can come in and out of it with ease, and opinion is more consensus.

[mortal loom]

You don't actually need aoe at that point, you just need card draw

[patent geode]

And being blunt, me and Jorbs amongst others are not on the same level.

[plain leaf]

hive and underdocks are the main aoe checks in my experience

[patent geode]

But Reddit is a platform which with comments presents us as being.

[mortal loom]

Yeah, like, I'm fucking good at this game

I'm really fucking good

[plain leaf]

I'm only asc5

[patent geode]

So good you won steak

[mortal loom]

I'm still nowhere near Jorbs or the big streamers

[mortal loom]

Ugh, I missed autocorrect doing that

Couldn't figure out why you were talking about bread

[patent geode]

My jokes are obscure and far reaching

[mortal loom]

And as good as I am at the game, I think I have p plenty to learn and try out. Which is also why you will see me do stupid shit like "let's try cloning mayhem"

[patent geode]

Only way to learn is to try.

[mortal loom]

Exactly

If I wanted to winstreak exhaustively... Ugh

Gods that sounds horrible

Exclusively* not exhaustively.

[patent geode]

I know it's allegedly easier than StS1, but yeah no you're not going to see me try for 10+ winstreaks

I'm happy with my skills plateauing a bit lower.

[mortal loom]

I mean, no heart

My best in StS1 is a 4 win rotating streak, sans watcher I think? (Because I stopped playing watcher because she's boring)

If I don't have to deal with act 4 and don't have to give up resources to get the keys... Yeah, I could almost certainly get a 10 steak I think

I'd have to focus a lot though, and mmm no

Imma keep playing fast and loose and do things because they seem fun or interesting or weird

Which is how I get to keep coming here and posting silly wins or here's me vaporizing Doormaker yet again

[mortal loom]

The fact the egg is even is so fascinating to me

Because pretty much every high asc player I know just eats the egg every time

[plain leaf]

egg is fun but needing to spend a rest is harsh

love the bird buddy

[mortal loom]

Need to spend a rest and carry a curse

And your reward is a pretty weak attack in the long run

While seven Max HP is a whole arse uncommon relic

And it's a seven HP heal, and every rest after this event will heal you more, as will boss fights

[rocky stone]

yeah hatching the egg doesn't seem great

[shrewd vault]

If you get it early enough, I could see an argument that 0 cost 14 (?) damage is better than upgrading some common attacks. But I don't think you want to go to event rooms that early, and it's often not that much better

[radiant plaza]

run fast throw hard

[rocky stone]

it's an okay attack, but not worth the effort

when it clogs up your deck and then takes up a rest site

[mortal loom]

Depends. I generally wanna hit enough events that by my first campfire I've only fought 3 normal hallways

Hard hallways are so much worse and I want an upgrade in my deck for them

Or some relics

(if you look at my winning runs you can usually see I route to avoid hard hallways pretty aggressively)

[shrewd vault]

There's probably a...not exactly sturgeon's law thing, where the majority of players aren't playing close to optimally. Plus the first time you get the event I bet you're more likely to pick hatch, since it's a mystery box

[rocky stone]

I definitely did it the first time, just to see what it did

[mortal loom]

Big issue with it is that 0/14 is like number big, but even midway through act 1 that's starting to fall off

[plain leaf]

me and my friends had a run where we had triple birds once
they all get different hairdos

[mortal loom]

(like defile is right there, and yes, it costs 1, but it has ethereal)

And outside of af0 it doesn't really fit into any synergy space

[rocky stone]

it's 0 cost for Defect I guess

but yeah

[mortal loom]

And even then, like... I could just not have it, and then my hand has more space for my claws and turbos, and I have 7 more max HP to survive until claws kill everything

[rocky stone]

yeah I did the egg once, and I probably won't again

[mortal loom]

If it was like hit 3 times, you gain 1(2) strength... Okay, yeah, that's genuinely interesting

Every character likes strength in this

[plain leaf]

here's another run he just did
he's definetly dodging elites here, and while he's going for the block deck direction it does feel rough but in a way thats hard to properly vocalize