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Patrick Spens posted:I think Ironclad is tricky to learn, because your first win with him is often some Barricade + Entrench thing, and those are actually pretty marginal cards, and that combo is pretty tricky to pull off. So it's very easy to develop bad habits around him. Close enough, this was my first game of spire: 
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Sep 7, 2021 00:59
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John Murdoch posted:Oh, and of course, the all time classic "gently caress you Time Eater, now time for Act 4....wait...why did I face plant?" because I blanked out and forgot to Recall at the last fire like a dumbass I did this AGAIN aaaaghghh  But then this happened:   I went into the Heart with two duplication pots, too. 
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Sep 7, 2021 02:09
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John Murdoch posted:I did this AGAIN aaaaghghh You got an early Searing Blow and dumped every single upgrade into it, I guess? Is it worth it?
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Sep 7, 2021 06:40
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You have to give up upgrading every other card and go without resting, but in return it eventually becomes all the offense and scaling that you need to win. The difficulty is getting through the first half of the game, when the first couple of upgrades do very little and it's not strong enough to kill a Sentry or Slaver in one hit. Searing Blow 12 will 1-hit kill Spire Shield, and at 13 with Vulnerable will damage cap the Heart.
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Sep 7, 2021 08:43
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Dr. Video Games 0069 posted:You have to give up upgrading every other card and go without resting, but in return it eventually becomes all the offense and scaling that you need to win. The difficulty is getting through the first half of the game, when the first couple of upgrades do very little and it's not strong enough to kill a Sentry or Slaver in one hit. Ahh, I looked it up in the wiki now, I never tried it so I didn't know it had quadratic scaling with upgrades, I thought it would be linear. That makes sense. NihilCredo fucked around with this message at 09:01 on Sep 7, 2021 |
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Sep 7, 2021 08:57
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I didn't know that too! Time to do Ironclad runs until it all comes together...
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Sep 7, 2021 09:04
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NihilCredo posted:Ahh, I looked it up in the wiki now, I never tried it so I didn't know it had quadratic scaling with upgrades, I thought it would be linear. That makes sense. Specifically, each upgrade increases damage by 1 more than the last. So it goes (IIRC) 12, 16, 21, 27 and so on. Total damage is 12+4x+((x-1)^2+(x-1))/2).
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Sep 7, 2021 09:32
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NihilCredo posted:You got an early Searing Blow and dumped every single upgrade into it, I guess? Is it worth it? This run is a loving blast: https://youtu.be/JY4fe-jQEyA
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Sep 7, 2021 10:43
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Also worth remembering that Armaments + Searing Blow = happy times.
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Sep 7, 2021 11:09
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John Murdoch posted:Also worth remembering that Armaments + Searing Blow = happy times. Never thought about this, I've started out recently and love all the interactions like this that aren't as obvious
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Sep 7, 2021 12:43
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I've never successfully pulled off a searing blow run at high ascension but the few that I've watched succeed seem to keep their decks as slim as possible. Like, low teens total card count slim.
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Sep 7, 2021 14:30
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Cpt_Obvious posted:I've never successfully pulled off a searing blow run at high ascension but the few that I've watched succeed seem to keep their decks as slim as possible. Like, low teens total card count slim. Also worth noting that, as is often the case, you'll likely need multiple "things" going on at once with your deck. Searing Blow is the clickbait and star of that Jorbs video, but he's also using Feed as often as possible and gets well over 100 max HP, and he has Corruption and multiple Feel No Pains for block (and being able to draw Searing Blow frequently). Shine fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Sep 7, 2021 |
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Sep 7, 2021 19:24
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Shine posted:Also worth noting that, as of often the case, you'll likely need multiple "things" going on at once with your deck. Searing Blow is the clickbait and star of that Jorbs video, but he's also using Feed as often as possible and gets well over 100 max HP, and he has Corruption and multiple Feel No Pains for block (and being able to draw Searing Blow frequently). Man, how the gently caress do you pull off feeds when your primary source of damage is a single card? Jorbs is so much better than I'll ever be.
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Sep 7, 2021 19:31
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The best ironclad block based runs dont even use barricade because you don't need it, and spending the energy on it slows down your block generation engine too much to be worth it, even if you don't get calipers. I feel like unless you've got the right sort of deck already its not a very good card at high ascensions. Definitely my favorite character and the one I had by far the easiest time reaching A20 with I like that people have mentioned all these Ironclad routes to victory without mentioning my favorite, which is just killing everyone with dropkick on turn 1. :V (if you're building an exhaust deck, throw dropkick in and you might even stumble into going infinite!) GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Sep 7, 2021 |
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Sep 7, 2021 19:55
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For that to work you need 2 Dropkicks or a Flash of Steel.
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Sep 7, 2021 21:39
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This pandoras
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Sep 7, 2021 22:06
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Searing Blow can solve the Champ fight if you have an armaments and some exhaust so I'll pick it up for that sometimes if I'm in mid Act 2 without some other scaling solution. Same with Dual Wield and basically any power.
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Sep 7, 2021 22:15
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I use barricade at A20 to great effect. sure, you need a way to generate block but IC has some of the most efficient and powerful block cards in the game. The key is to ask yourself, "do I regularly generate more block than I can use every turn?" and if the answer is yes the it's probably a good pick. Energy concerns are definitely a problem tho, so I can definitely understand any hesitation in taking it act 1. However, can also think of barricade as an investment in future turns. For example, let's say that you have barricade up and drop an impervious+ (an upgrade you would prioritize because). That's 40 block for 2 energy which will probably cover two turns of defense for you. Or think off all the times you draw power through and nobody is attacking. poo poo, play it anyway!
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Sep 8, 2021 00:18
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Walla posted:For that to work you need 2 Dropkicks or a Flash of Steel. Not always. You can build infinites with Sundial and Pommel Strike+ (triggers Sundial twice if drawing two cards shuffles your draw pile twice)
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Sep 8, 2021 01:45
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Me after reading thread: I'm gonna do an IC run tonight and finally do a build not based on block game: here have 3 metallicize and a barricade
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Sep 8, 2021 02:08
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I appreciate the different Ironclad tips. I got a bunch of block/intangible relics in my latest run so I built a deck around Demon Form + Inflame, building up strength behind the block and then unleashing big numbers when it ran out. Honestly it was one of the most fun decks I've done with IC so far and got to unlock a new ascension for him too 
Pikestaff fucked around with this message at 03:17 on Sep 8, 2021 |
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Sep 8, 2021 03:12
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 Paaaaaaain. 
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Sep 8, 2021 04:53
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God drat, that hurts. Hopefully you had two armaments and could afford to get rid of one, then you just have to waste an upgrade on the other to get back up to almost-par.
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Sep 8, 2021 05:18
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Deckit posted:
Sometimes the game really do just say gently caress you.
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Sep 8, 2021 21:58
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Just had an overconfident run end very quickly against metallicize slavers. Would not recommend.
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Sep 9, 2021 04:48
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Just started giving this an honest try recently. I play a lot of MTG so StS was never a priority on my list. On my second ever run of this game I got to the heart. Did some goodstuff deck of 25+ cards with barricade plus rage and anger, along with demon form and perfected strike to bide my time until I can unleash massive hits. Now I'm trying to actually learn the game, focusing on a specific archetype per run, like perfected strike and max 15 cards, and I have not been able to get to act 3 again lol but dammit I'm hooked. The collector keeps kicking my rear end with the debuff plus massive attacks, I should think more of how to tune my build to beat specific bosses.
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Sep 9, 2021 18:38
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You had it right the first time! Making big decks is better than in most deckbuilding games (for a variety of reasons - weak starting deck, extreme difficulty of act 2 being the main ones) and 25+ card decks is how very experienced players usually play the game when trying to win.
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Sep 9, 2021 18:46
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Yeah, small decks tend to be gimmicks. Thinking of how to tailor your deck to answer specific bosses is an extremely valuable practice but the answer is usually to add more stuff rather than trying to come up with a perfect 15 card deck that somehow handles everything.
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Sep 9, 2021 18:48
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Yeah, especially when there are so many late game fights that add status effects to bloat your deck. Not a huge problem if you have a bigger deck but they can absolutely swamp tiny ones unless you've built a good infinite combo that can go off before they lock it.
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Sep 9, 2021 18:53
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A couple not-that-obvious reasons why big decks are better than people expect: 1. Many late game enemies shuffle status cards into your deck, and you will draw these statuses more often with a smaller deck. 2. Many powers do very little or even nothing on the turn that you play them, but they can make you very strong when you're all set up. Similar to the situation with status cards, you don't usually want to draw all your powers at once. It's safer to take more powers in a larger deck, mixing them in with the frontloaded cards you need to take out a minion or block a big attack while you're getting set up.
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Sep 9, 2021 18:53
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Man Replay The Spire and Reliquary are some great addons after youve done the base game 100s of times. Some absolutely busted deck builds can be had and with more different type of cards for main chars it really freshens things up. You can create some super busted decks if rng allows 🙃
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Sep 9, 2021 19:27
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AlphaKeny1 posted:Just started giving this an honest try recently. I play a lot of MTG so StS was never a priority on my list. On my second ever run of this game I got to the heart. I was asking myself if you could even get to the heart on your second run when I realized what you meant, hah. I tend to shrink my decks pretty aggressively (always some lovely card to get rid of), but its usually balanced or surpassed by my growing them.
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Sep 9, 2021 19:47
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I only read a few "beginner tips" articles and some of them said to keep a smaller deck because then you're more likely to draw the key cards of your archetype which made sense. But yeah after doing it about half a dozen times I'd notice glaring holes in my build. Despite doing 43 damage perfected strikes every 3ish turns I still couldn't nuke down act 2 bosses. I would literally try to lose Bash as quickly as possible because it didn't fit my gimmick, and skipping on a lot of loot cards. I'll change up my general strategy and try to go wider.GlyphGryph posted:I was asking myself if you could even get to the heart on your second run when I realized what you meant, hah. Yeah I know literally nothing about the overall game/story. I beat the act 3 boss on my second run and got a storied event with a heart which I am going to assume is one of the ultimate bosses after I unlock/do something??
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Sep 9, 2021 20:19
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Bash should be one of the first things you upgrade as an IC.
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Sep 9, 2021 20:23
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"Keep a smaller deck" is good advice to the extent that card removal is generally valuable and you should occasionally use the skip button on card rewards, but it's not usually a goal in and of itself.
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Sep 9, 2021 20:31
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Ideally I try to balance my deck size based on card draw. Ideally being the big keyword in this game 
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Sep 9, 2021 20:36
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AlphaKeny1 posted:Despite doing 43 damage perfected strikes every 3ish turns I still couldn't nuke down act 2 bosses. I would literally try to lose Bash as quickly as possible because it didn't fit my gimmick, and skipping on a lot of loot cards.
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Sep 9, 2021 20:37
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Yeah, even going for Perfected Strike you basically always will still want to remove a base strike over Bash. Vulnerable is a really good status and worth a lot more than keeping around a lovely 6 damage card that marginally powers up another one. Act 2 Bosses are also all about checking if your deck has some form of scaling. For Ironclad scaling usually comes in a few different ways, through strength (Spot Weakness, Demon Form, Inflame, Limit Break), Block engines (Barricade, Feel No Pain, Juggernaut) or Ironclad's amazing ability to exhaust cards (Feel no pain, Corruption, Fiend Fire) which can cut your 40 card deck down to 3 and enable infinites (easiest infinite in the game is 2 dropkicks and a bash) or just generally do bursts of poo poo-tons of damage/block. Successful decks are also almost never about forcing any kind of 'pure' archetype like you might do if you're building a MTG deck or whatever. You'll pick up a bunch of cards early that won't be good later and sometimes skip cards that are great late game because they're just a curse if you pick them up early in Act 1. Generally deck building priorities go Act 1- Find damage so you can reliably kill Elites. This often means taking several damage commons that aren't great in the late game but without them Lagavulin and Gremlin Nob are gonna eat you for lunch. Act 2- Find some kind of scaling because all the Act 2 bosses are designed to ramp up after the halfway point and kill you if you try to play 'fair' ie without some way to increase your damage through powers or scaling engines in battle. Act 3- Adapt to your Act 3 boss fight. Time Eater forces a turn over whenever you play 12 cards (counter sticks between turns) which means you can't kill it with a low damage infinite, Awakened One powers up every time you play a power in its first phase, has regen and a second phase, Donu and Deca alternate buffing and attacking and just need decent scaling and a way to get through artifact charges etc. Then there's Act 4 which you'll unlock after you clear the game with the Ironclad, Silent and Defect. It requires you to pick up some keys during gameplay which are tradeoffs (One elite fight per act is marked as a 'super-elite' with a fire outline and has an additional buff to deal with to get the green key, you need to pick up the red key at a campfire instead of resting or upgrading and the blue key is gotten by choosing it at a chest instead of a relic) and then you get a very difficult short act that a lot of decks that trivialize the rest of the game are going to slam right into and die at.
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Sep 9, 2021 20:47
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Finally got my first Ascension 20 win ever! I played Silent and cheesed it with: Snecko Eye 2x Wraith Form+ Nightmare Burst+ Catalyst+ Now I feel like I have to go and do it again for it to count
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Sep 9, 2021 21:48
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the holy poopacy posted:"Keep a smaller deck" is good advice to the extent that card removal is generally valuable and you should occasionally use the skip button on card rewards, but it's not usually a goal in and of itself. Meanwhile i finished a 62 card deck run as Defect 
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Sep 9, 2021 22:29
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