Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
drrockso20
May 6, 2013

Has Not Actually Done Cocaine
Of the three characters I can use so far(since obviously I can't use Watcher until I actually beat a run), Ironclad is the one that feels the most complex to run which is kind of funny cause on paper he seems like the simplest character, as his powers and skills feel the most transformative in how much they can change up how he plays

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Bad Video Games
Sep 17, 2017


My A8 win against the Heart was 3 base energy, though I had Happy Flower and Lantern. Silent has so many cheap and free powerful attacks, especially Backstab, Endless Agony, Blade Dance/Cloak & Dagger and the power that gives shivs. I took Pandora's in Act 1 and Wrist Blade in Act 2. 48 damage for 2 energy goes a long way with Blade Dance+, Accuracy+ and Wrist Blade. Also Silent makes the single best use of Kunai/Shuriken/Ornamental Fan and the relic that gives you 3 Shiv+ on turn 1.

rchandra
Apr 30, 2013


drrockso20 posted:

Of the three characters I can use so far(since obviously I can't use Watcher until I actually beat a run), Ironclad is the one that feels the most complex to run which is kind of funny cause on paper he seems like the simplest character, as his powers and skills feel the most transformative in how much they can change up how he plays

I'm on A20 and I also find Ironclad hard, in particular I'm never sure when I should be taking defensive cards vs trying to go straight through things.

Cpt_Obvious
Jun 18, 2007

rchandra posted:

I'm on A20 and I also find Ironclad hard, in particular I'm never sure when I should be taking defensive cards vs trying to go straight through things.

Learning when you have enough damage and picking block is a very important skill in act 1 because you'll need it in act 2. Just be aware that you start with access to vulnerable and don't be scared to grab a shrug or true grit or ghost armor on low floors if you aren't offered anything better. Metallicize is a great act 1 pick. They'll help against 2/3 elites at the least.

OctaviusBeaver
Apr 30, 2009

Say what now?
I've started picking up the Seeing Red and Bloodletting more often in act 1 as Ironclad as a hedge against not getting an energy relic.

droll
Jan 9, 2020

by Azathoth

Cpt_Obvious posted:

Learning when you have enough damage and picking block is a very important skill in act 1 because you'll need it in act 2. Just be aware that you start with access to vulnerable and don't be scared to grab a shrug or true grit or ghost armor on low floors if you aren't offered anything better. Metallicize is a great act 1 pick. They'll help against 2/3 elites at the least.

Whats better than shrug? Block and card draw seems p cool? What block cards are you going for here besides the rare 30 exhaust one?

Zore
Sep 21, 2010
willfully illiterate, aggressively miserable sourpuss whose sole raison d’etre is to put other people down for liking the wrong things

droll posted:

Whats better than shrug? Block and card draw seems p cool? What block cards are you going for here besides the rare 30 exhaust one?

On low floors you usually want to prioritize damage over everything is the idea I think. All of those cards are good and most people will add some to their deck, the advice is to not get blinders on the 'must pick up damage to beat elites' in the earliest floors and consider picking them up if you don't get the good damage options.

NihilCredo
Jun 6, 2011

iram omni possibili modo preme:
plus una illa te diffamabit, quam multæ virtutes commendabunt

droll posted:

Whats better than shrug? Block and card draw seems p cool? What block cards are you going for here besides the rare 30 exhaust one?

I would pick Power Through over Shrug, and Iron Wave if it counts, but yeah that's about it.

Cpt_Obvious
Jun 18, 2007

Zore posted:

On low floors you usually want to prioritize damage over everything is the idea I think. All of those cards are good and most people will add some to their deck, the advice is to not get blinders on the 'must pick up damage to beat elites' in the earliest floors and consider picking them up if you don't get the good damage options.

yah, sorry. This is what I meant.

teethgrinder
Oct 9, 2002

Ugh went for the alternative start/boss relic after people talking about it here, A19 Silent ... and got the Coffee Dripper.

Yoshi Wins
Jul 14, 2013

It's unforgiving, but with enough experience to make good predictions about how much health you'll lose in critical fights, Dripper is considered one of the stronger energy relics. It's pretty highly favored by players like Lifecoach and Baalorlord, who have very high win rates. It is pretty normal to eat a lot of poo poo with it for the first ~1000 hours though. You just have to give your life over to the spire, and then you'll be happy to see it from Neow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8mgqsdEJ3E

This boss relic tier list was specifically oriented around how good he considers each one as a starter relic. He put Dripper at 5th.

Bad Video Games
Sep 17, 2017


Speaking of Baalorlord, this is just to troll the rest of us.

If you're not clicking, he does a boss swap into Pandora's Box abd gets 7 meteor strikes and wins on A20. Act 4 is just unfair.

Jedit
Dec 10, 2011

Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

Walla posted:

Speaking of Baalorlord, this is just to troll the rest of us.

If you're not clicking, he does a boss swap into Pandora's Box abd gets 7 meteor strikes and wins on A20. Act 4 is just unfair.

That was a seeded run. If you want to do something similar yourself, there's a list of all the mined Pandora seeds (including five with eight Meteor Strikes) here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1A3oW0tgInXa3h5azNoES4PQsTy-VdLFvDmn_CIUrbJE/edit#gid=0

the holy poopacy
May 16, 2009

hey! check this out
Fun Shoe

Walla posted:

Speaking of Baalorlord, this is just to troll the rest of us.

If you're not clicking, he does a boss swap into Pandora's Box abd gets 7 meteor strikes and wins on A20. Act 4 is just unfair.

The very first shop he foregoes a Mayhem to buy an 8th meteor.

Jedit
Dec 10, 2011

Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

the holy poopacy posted:

The very first shop he foregoes a Mayhem to buy an 8th meteor.

I think he says he didn't realise he could afford it.

Kheldarn
Feb 17, 2011



Walla posted:

Speaking of Baalorlord, this is just to troll the rest of us.

If you're not clicking, he does a boss swap into Pandora's Box abd gets 7 meteor strikes and wins on A20. Act 4 is just unfair.

That was disgustingly hilarious!

Target Practice
Aug 20, 2004

Shit.
This available on EA Play and I started it while I wait for BF2042. I have quickly become addicted to a game I would have otherwise not looked twice at. It owns.

headcase
Sep 28, 2001

Man, I am stuck on A20 on all 4 characters. I've gotten to the 2nd act 3 boss twice, but it is a lot to ask for. I think the best bet is to get lucky with a broken IC or silent thing. The normal high value non-gimmick deck building thing isn't getting me there.

I think there is a level of nuanced decision making, that i'm not willing to learn.

droll
Jan 9, 2020

by Azathoth

headcase posted:

Man, I am stuck on A20 on all 4 characters. I've gotten to the 2nd act 3 boss twice, but it is a lot to ask for. I think the best bet is to get lucky with a broken IC or silent thing. The normal high value non-gimmick deck building thing isn't getting me there.

I think there is a level of nuanced decision making, that i'm not willing to learn.

Same. I barely beat the act 3 bosses on a19 so I've been stuck on a20 for a while now. I'm just not smart enough for this game, so going to wait for an insanely lucky run.

Dr. Video Games 0069
Jan 1, 2006

nice dolphin, nigga
Build towards and in anticipation of getting the game breaking thing. As in, pretend that you will get it at some point and build around that. But also, play safe enough to last until it happens

Ironclad - corruption and dead branch, snecko if possible
Silent - get the apparitions event, buy spoon to increase your apps, try to see a lot of rare cards so you see wraith form and nightmare. If you can do any damage, especially poison, you can probably outlast the bosses in intangible.
Watcher - Don't take any cards except Talk to the Hand, Mental Fortress, Tantrum, Rushdown, a 1 energy calm, and maybe 1 or 2 block or damage cards to get through act 1. Prioritize card removal (defends first), get Abacus and Sundial, and save a potion to get through the Heart turn 2 case you get clogged by statuses.
Defect - frost orbs and focus, idk

A Moose
Oct 22, 2009



Whenever I'm stuck on an ascension, I'm never SO stuck that Sneko Eye can't get me through it. My winrate is loving trash, but my winrate with Snecko Eye is loving top tier. Snecko Eye is a disgusting relic.

Also, if you've beaten Ascension 19, you can beat 20. Especially if you're getting TO the 2nd last boss. You've made it that far, you've done most of the hard part already, you've already gotten past everything else you ever got stuck on!

After beating ascension 20 on Silent, I'm now having trouble with Defect on 17 right now. Act 1 is absolutely brutal compared to the other characters, considering your starting deck has ok damage, but no block outside of normal defends and no relic that heals you after each fight. And you have to prioritize attacks anyway because your lightning orbs are only ok against the Nob and garbage against Sentinels, so now you have to prioritize good attacks AND all the block you're missing. A single bad fight or bad relic swap in Act 1 (like, maybe the floor 1 jaw worm's heavy attacks dodge all your defends or you gave up your free lightning orb for a slaver's collar) means you can only get 0-1 elites instead of 1-2 which sets you behind for act 2.

And even if you get enough raw damage to blast through act 1, you're setting yourself up to get wrecked by the 2nd or 3rd fight in act 2 when you definitely don't have enough block and if you have ANY frost orbs you also need focus because 3 fights into act 2 is about where un-buffed frost orbs start being completely useless unless you're evoking multiple every turn. Also enemies have too much health to just burst down with ball lightning and dual cast. Focus gets so important so fast. I feel like there needs to be like, 1 more card that gives focus. There's so many uncommons that are so powerful too. Like there should be some kind of guaranteed way to get defragment or glacier or reinforced body or to a lesser extent, capacitor. I feel like if you don't get one of those fairly early your run is kinda doomed.

If you make it to act 3, you probably have Echo Form or Creative AI and end up with max orb slots and 4+ focus so you just kind of ignore everything with massive frost orbs.

Edit: to be clear, there's almost definitely something I'm doing wrong, since I play Silent by far the most, since I beat asc 20 while my next highest was like, 16

A Moose fucked around with this message at 14:52 on Sep 17, 2021

John Murdoch
May 19, 2009

I can tune a fish.
Baalorlord has been doing all manner of challenge runs lately and his most recent one was beating A20 while needing to take the absolute minimum # of Elites. While it led to some really wacky decks and he had help from some lucky specific relic finds (Runic Pyramid) I think it proves to some degree that missing out on an Elite kill here or there isn't that big of a setback.

droll
Jan 9, 2020

by Azathoth
I did it. Actually I did two things. I beat ascension 20 with a Claw deck proving that Claw is the best card.

Artelier
Jan 23, 2015


Nice!! I have never successfully done a Claw run! Every time I pass up Claw I see it like 5 times. Then I take Claw and NO MORE CLAW gently caress YOU

droll
Jan 9, 2020

by Azathoth
bag of prep, 2x early all for ones and kunai kind of helped. I don't want to post the post-run stats because I am embarrassed by the dumb decisions I make.

Murgos
Oct 21, 2010

Walla posted:

Speaking of Baalorlord, this is just to troll the rest of us.

If you're not clicking, he does a boss swap into Pandora's Box abd gets 7 meteor strikes and wins on A20. Act 4 is just unfair.

This was so dumb it got boring after a while. Will probably run the seed though.

Cpt_Obvious
Jun 18, 2007

Life coach has started doing 2 hour "turtle speed runs" making him actually watchable. Anyone who wants to get better at IC I highly recommend these.

teethgrinder
Oct 9, 2002

Started playing with the alternative starting relics again. I was so excited get the Wrist Blade ... and then no shivs or anything else compatible through all of act 1 lol.

NihilCredo
Jun 6, 2011

iram omni possibili modo preme:
plus una illa te diffamabit, quam multæ virtutes commendabunt

I dislike Snecko Eye and very rarely pick it, in large part because I highly value efficiency - you get at least 5 cards every turn, but only 3-5 energy to play them at best. And over half the time, 1-2 of that energy will be "booked" for blocks.

For me to pick a 2-cost card, it needs to either be fine if it's the only card I play that turn (Power Through, Dash), or to pay off well and quickly (Rainbow, Reaper). And a 3-cost card needs to basically win me the game when I play it, like the X Form powers, to make up for the times they're curses.

Am I correct in not picking Snecko Eye if my deck has less than ~5 cards costing 2+, which is the vast majority of the time? And should I pick expensive cards more aggressively?

the holy poopacy
May 16, 2009

hey! check this out
Fun Shoe

NihilCredo posted:

I dislike Snecko Eye and very rarely pick it, in large part because I highly value efficiency - you get at least 5 cards every turn, but only 3-5 energy to play them at best. And over half the time, 1-2 of that energy will be "booked" for blocks.

For me to pick a 2-cost card, it needs to either be fine if it's the only card I play that turn (Power Through, Dash), or to pay off well and quickly (Rainbow, Reaper). And a 3-cost card needs to basically win me the game when I play it, like the X Form powers, to make up for the times they're curses.

Am I correct in not picking Snecko Eye if my deck has less than ~5 cards costing 2+, which is the vast majority of the time? And should I pick expensive cards more aggressively?

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "efficiency" but it doesn't seem like a particularly useful concept. If you have 5 cards and three of them cost 2+ energy, but one of them is exactly what you need at that moment, then you had a great hand. Those other expensive cards are there to give you options for different situations where you might have needed something else. Having a good spread of card costs is important but you shouldn't worry about trying to play your whole hand every turn; if nothing else, if your cards are cheap enough that you can play your whole hand on most turns then some turns you will wind up with energy left over that you can't spend and that's arguably worse than having cards you can't play.

Snecko is generally very powerful unless you have more than a couple 0-cost cards, although the correct play is to refuse it every time on principle.

Dyz
Dec 10, 2010

NihilCredo posted:

I dislike Snecko Eye and very rarely pick it, in large part because I highly value efficiency - you get at least 5 cards every turn, but only 3-5 energy to play them at best. And over half the time, 1-2 of that energy will be "booked" for blocks.

For me to pick a 2-cost card, it needs to either be fine if it's the only card I play that turn (Power Through, Dash), or to pay off well and quickly (Rainbow, Reaper). And a 3-cost card needs to basically win me the game when I play it, like the X Form powers, to make up for the times they're curses.

Am I correct in not picking Snecko Eye if my deck has less than ~5 cards costing 2+, which is the vast majority of the time? And should I pick expensive cards more aggressively?

Snecko is also really powerful with draw cards since you can basically up your odds of finding cards by playing them, as well as burn through your deck that much faster thanks to the increased hand size.

Zore
Sep 21, 2010
willfully illiterate, aggressively miserable sourpuss whose sole raison d’etre is to put other people down for liking the wrong things

NihilCredo posted:

I dislike Snecko Eye and very rarely pick it, in large part because I highly value efficiency - you get at least 5 cards every turn, but only 3-5 energy to play them at best. And over half the time, 1-2 of that energy will be "booked" for blocks.

For me to pick a 2-cost card, it needs to either be fine if it's the only card I play that turn (Power Through, Dash), or to pay off well and quickly (Rainbow, Reaper). And a 3-cost card needs to basically win me the game when I play it, like the X Form powers, to make up for the times they're curses.

Am I correct in not picking Snecko Eye if my deck has less than ~5 cards costing 2+, which is the vast majority of the time? And should I pick expensive cards more aggressively?

You're undervaluing the extra card draw from Snecko eye pretty massively. 40% increase in hand size is pretty huge.

But if you're in Act 1 and get offered Snecko its often worth it to pick it unless you've gone heavily in on 0-cost cards already. As Ironclad especially its basically a slam pick for me after Act 1 regardless of what my deck looks like, Ironclad has a lot of fantastic 2+ cost cards with mediocre card draw and it synergizes incredibly well with Corruption.

Person Dyslexic
Jul 23, 2007
Doing a watcher run on A17 and had a great, cheap deck going. Smoked the champ in 3 turns and got offered snecko eye… died to the giant head two floors later because it JUST KEPT MAKING EVERYTHING COST 3.

Relying heavily on weave and just lucky it was absolutely a bad pick but I know I’ll insta-grab it again the next time I see it though.

Zore
Sep 21, 2010
willfully illiterate, aggressively miserable sourpuss whose sole raison d’etre is to put other people down for liking the wrong things
Watcher's basically the only character I think Snecko is almost never the right choice. She's powerful and consistent enough at base that Snecko is usually a downgrade by adding in too much inconsistency, especially if you're trying to stance-dance. Especially since so many powerful Watcher decks are carried by 0 cost cards like Flurry of Blows etc.

IMO Snecko is fantastic on Ironclad, great on Silent, good on Defect and mediocre on Watcher.

Yoshi Wins
Jul 14, 2013

I would say Snecko is great on poison Silent and mediocre on Shiv silent. It definitely completely whips rear end on IC almost always.

A Moose
Oct 22, 2009



Snecko is amazing on Silent because it lets you do incredibly dumb stuff like Nightmare on Wraith form while still playing the Wraith Form and also playing bouncing flask

Yoshi Wins
Jul 14, 2013

Yeah, it's amazing with Nightmare and Wraithform. I'd be a lot happier to take it on a Shiv deck if I have those cards.

Edit: And then Leg Sweep is another core card that's always good with Snecko. Maybe "mediocre" is a little too harsh. I don't think it's great because most of the core shiv cards get more expensive. After Image, Blade Dance, Accuracy, Cloak & Dagger are all 1-cost. Envenom can be nice with shivs, but it's still not that great unless you have Snecko Skull. There just aren't core shiv cards that get discounted on average by Eye. With poison, it's so great that Corpse Explosion, Crippling Cloud, and Bouncing Flask all get discounted on average.

Yoshi Wins fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Sep 17, 2021

Kiranamos
Sep 27, 2007

STATUS: SCOTT IS AN IDIOT
My last run was random Act 1 Bullet Time and then Snecko Eye, so :getin:

Bad Video Games
Sep 17, 2017


I think half of my Ironclad wins have been Corruption and Snecko. Add in FnP and it's basically impossible to lose.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Patrick Spens
Jul 21, 2006

"Every quarterback says they've got guts, But how many have actually seen 'em?"
Pillbug

NihilCredo posted:

I dislike Snecko Eye and very rarely pick it, in large part because I highly value efficiency - you get at least 5 cards every turn, but only 3-5 energy to play them at best. And over half the time, 1-2 of that energy will be "booked" for blocks.

For me to pick a 2-cost card, it needs to either be fine if it's the only card I play that turn (Power Through, Dash), or to pay off well and quickly (Rainbow, Reaper). And a 3-cost card needs to basically win me the game when I play it, like the X Form powers, to make up for the times they're curses.

Am I correct in not picking Snecko Eye if my deck has less than ~5 cards costing 2+, which is the vast majority of the time? And should I pick expensive cards more aggressively?

I think you are really underestimating how good two cost cards are. Twin Strike's a fine card, but drawing one + a bunch of defends when you aren't being attacked sucks. Drawing Carnage + defends is almost always a good draw, because you can choose to invest two energy into damage, or play a bunch of defends.

2 costs also make great upgrade targets. Upgrading Carnage gets you +8 damage, which is like upgrading two twin strikes, but only costs you one campfire.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply