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GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
Got an insane deck last night that combined the necromonicon, runic cube, blue candle and rupture, plus plenty of card draw, five bloodlettings... and oh yeah, all my strikes got replaced by bites! Basically meant that at any point I could trade 1 life to get 2 strength and draw a card, infinitely, and nearly every attack healed me for 2hp anyway

I dont think I'm ever going to get a deck that reliably finished every battle in the game by turn two, with max life, at ascension 16+, again, but god drat that was amazing

Even if I did get a dead branch later on that nearly hosed everything up - even that, greatly reducing the efficiency of the deck ,still let me beat the heart in four turns without ever being at risk

GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 13:46 on Jul 26, 2021

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GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!

EconDad posted:

Just starting to really think about these colorless cards. They must have value if they’re available across every character, but until very recently I didn’t start really considering them as important. Maybe they aren’t? Something makes me think that they are, though.

Hand of Greed is hands down my favorite. It does good damage for its price, making it much easier to use as a finished than something like Feed, and you can make a LOT of money with it - which you can then use to trim down your deck and make it much stronger. I also play ironclad a lot so it synergizes well with strength builds (where it can kill things with ease) and block builds (where you can survive easily enough that its trivial to wait until you have it to finish the enemy off).

I also think Bandage Up is really nice, it doesn't heal for much but it adds up for removing chip damage in a defense heavy or self-harming deck, especially if you've got other cards that let you play it multiple times. Enlightenment is incredible if you build your deck around high cost cards (works really well getting the plasma going for defect in my experience). Madness and metamorphoses are great if you can keep your deck thin (they synergize quite well with a small Hand of Greed deck or a Blockade/Entrench/Shrug Off deck).

GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Jul 26, 2021

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
I feel like Mayhem can be really really good, but it's also high risk because it might play garbage or something actively harmful so its very deck dependent. But if your deck is suited for it, its very powerful. It's honestly one of my favorites to get early so I can build around it a bit.

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
I think I probably like bandage up because I tend to take it either on heavy decks where I almost never play more than three cards from my hand anyway (so a few free cards are nice to sprinkle in, and compared to the other free cards I think it is pretty good) or self harm decks where I have a ton of card draw anyway and something to offset the self harm is really appreciated, and finally in exhaustion decks where a zero cost card that exhausts is always nice. And all three of those types of deck are common for me. Its a lot better than a strike or something 90% of the time, at least it doesnt eat up AP which tends to be my limiting factor by a large margin.

I definitely don't take it in decks that are already marginal, or reaper decks, or vampire decks, or even body slam decks, because those decks you really dont have spare cards to play with most of the time.

I might also (probably am) just making bad choices! :V

GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Jul 26, 2021

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
I really love making decks that run on curses. Its so goddamned satisfying.

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
I still hate the gremlin nob the most. He almost never kills me, but he frequently fucks over my runs so bad something else does

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
Now that youve finished a run with each character, for a full win before trying ascensions beyond level 1. The "shiny" elites are one per floor and hold one of the three items you need to actually beat the game.

Ascension level 1 actually makes the game easier, imo, since it lets you accumulate more relics. Just means you need to be a bit more careful picking your path and avoid the one with three elites in a row and no campfires

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
God drat, I am one run away from being "done" with the game (I tell myself, even though I know I'll find something new to do) but I can NOT win this loving A20 with the ironclad. I had an incredible deck I absolutely SHOULD have won with but I screwed up a good thing by making a predictably dumb decision.

Feels like I'm never gonna pull this off, I dont see myself getting that lucky again.

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!

Tenkaris posted:

You could have save scummed that one decision by backing out and restarting the fight from the beginning maybe. Unless that violates your personal ethical code, of course! Just something to consider if you really don’t want to waste a strong contender run on one dumb mistake.

Unfortunately, not all dumb mistakes can be save scummed because some of them kill you, and for some of the ones that can you don't realize the terrible thing you've done until you get to the next floor.

Picking up a tungsten rod for your rupture/necro/blue candle/reaper deck is one of those mistakes. Picking up dead branch in your infinite deck that requires some card exhaust to get going, or on your shiv deck, is another one. That spoon in your exhaust deck. Using an offering when you only have five health left, or a blood when you only have two. Forgetting the enemy has an 11 thorn stack and deciding to use your 5-hit pummel.

I have done all of these, but this PARTICULAR time it was the far simpler forgetting to keep track of the Time Eaters card count and playing an attack first instead of my entrench. When the bastard was guaranteed to die the following round if I survived.

GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Aug 9, 2021

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
And there we go, I got lucky and got an A20 infinite dropkick deck going and DIDNT get the timeeater (though I probably could have beat him if I did, it was a very good, very tight deck even beyond the infinite dropkick)

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
Defect defensive skills are good, but they aren't Entrench, and Entrench is by far the best defensive skill in the game.

Also the best skill for maximizing damage dealt. :v:

What other card can give you +499 block and +499 damage for a single energy?

It's true that Defect's stuff is less conditional on getting a good deck though.

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
But a decently built shiv deck absolutely wrecks the time eater.

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
A shiv deck isn't an infinite deck, and 12 cards a turn is perfectly reasonable for one to work very well against an otherwise fairly weak enemy. And a decent shiv deck will be maxing out his ability every round, meaning you never have to worry about getting a bad turn where you don't have enough plays left to hit your important cards, which is where the Time Eater does the most damage.

Shiv decks are one of my favorite builds, and I've beaten time eater a number of times with them without any more difficulty than he offers any other character. If you're building a "play a million cards" shiv deck instead of an "exhaust and discard and attacks-stack-other-poo poo" shiv deck, I suppose you'd run into trouble, but then you aren't building a decent shiv deck to begin with in that scenario.

GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Aug 13, 2021

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!

BurningBeard posted:

e: n/m lol. What does a good discard-based shiv deck look like? Keeping in mind I don’t have all the Silent cards unlocked yet but probably will after the run I’m on now, maybe?

Personally I like to run my shiv decks light on everything except powers, which means throwing in a couple cards that give you draw/discard and comboing with the cards that give you draw/ap work pretty well. But imo the right way to build a shiv deck either relies on synergizing with the golds and relics you get early on, or just stacking as many accuracies as possible

GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Aug 14, 2021

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
I'll take eviscerate if Ive already got decent discard going because because why not, but the rest of the time its a hard pass. Still, 21/27 damage for 2 energy, which is a 1 discard situation, is still decent? And a basic discard deck is gonna be averaging at least two discards a turn right?

GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Aug 15, 2021

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
Discard decks are very fun but you do need to get lucky to pull them off. I honestly feel like thats true of a lot of the silent decks. Beating A20 with ironclad had a bit of luck but it seems like its possible to do reliably, Silent feels very... luck based in comparison. Not that you dont need all the skills, just that on higher ascensions its easy to do everything right and still get your rear end kicked. Or at least thats what it feels like to me.

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
Thats literally my most common reason for save scumming! So long as you haven't gone to the next room, it will reset the chest.

God drat I loved the silent deck I got just a bit ago. Swear to god, 3 calculated gambles and like 3 each of the "discard to draw" and "discard to gain energy" cards. Also two bullet times for the hell of it even though they were probably a detriment overall.

It wasn't quite good enough to go infinite even then, lots of other garbage, but it still carried me to a win just off discard synergy of those cards.

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
Has anyone here ever found a way to make grand finale not absolutely worthless?

Feels like yet another example of a card that relies on synergies to work (stuff like havoc, that drains the draw pile without reshuffling it) that the silent doesn't actually have in their deck!

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
Okay, y'all were right. I tried a grand finale & eviscerate deck and holy loving poo poo I just chewed through EVERYTHING once it got small enough. Had a few close calls early on by halfway through floor two pretty much every combat ended in one round. I took 3 more damage over the remained of the run.

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
Whoops wrongish thread

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!

Yoshi Wins posted:

It doesn't. Similarly, Rupture will not proc if you take 0 damage because of Rod.

Related pro-tip of the day: If you have Tungsten Rod and you have Fossilized Helix (or you have played the power Buffer), and Rod would turn 1 damage into 0 damage, you still lose the buffer. The buffer procs first. Very important to remember this against the Heart, where Beat of Death consuming buffer can cost you 60+ hp against the first big attack.

If it's like other stuff of the sort, it depends on which artifact you got first because they process from left to right, right? Or is it right to left...

Patch 35 explicitly states: "Buffer is no longer lost when hit by 0 damage attacks." so you definitely shouldn't be losing it if the tungsten rod processes first, whichever order that happens in.

GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 20:49 on Aug 26, 2021

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
Its weird how long it spends "syncing" on startup before letting you do anything, but other than that I haven't had any issues at all. very good port. Honestly feels better than on the computer, aside from the fact that some of the controls are under my phone's stupid popover bars. Not really the games fault though.

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
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

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
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.

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!

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.

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
That "if you can survive them" is important though, on higher ascensions you often can't.

Also, perfected strike in particular is a "big deck" card, where you load up on perfected strikes, twin strikes, pommel strikes and Wild Strikes IN ADDITION TO adding some sort of scaling and block. Ironclad is great at running small decks, but you'd never ever take perfected strike in a small deck build - and favouring small decks, I skip it regularly! It's one of the few attack cards for a standard ironclad run I just say no to.

Of course the ideal Ironclad deck is to load it down with as many cards as possible, including curses, using those cards to create status effects to bog your deck down even more, and then burn the gently caress through it so quickly that by turn 5 you're down to like 5 cards and have triggered your infinite :v:

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
I know you dont get rewarded for it in anyway, but I really love the mode where you can pick your starter deck. For all its wonder, I kinda hate how little choice you really get in this game sometimes. Obviously the choices you do make (which cards to take, what to play) matter a fuckton, but it also feels like a lot of stuff is too pure random

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
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I like playing sealed deck + endless + blight chests. Just a brutal endurance run, see how long I can go before I lose.

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
The problem with the Silent relic is that Silent also has some really good card draw cards, which means an extra energy will let you net you many more draws per battle if you nab some of it, which you should. One card on one turn, even the first turn, just can't compare to that, and an extra energy often means you get to draw MORE cards turn one than the relic alone would let you. And if you really need something other than turn draw right this moment, you can use it for that instead!

Ironclad relic is really good, but also getting an extra energy for ironclad early on is so loving amazing for just crushing Act 1 on higher ascensions.

I honestly really like the "enemies to 1hp" boon a ton though, on higher difficulties, if I can get even a single elite fight in. Getting multiple rooms in and a relic before taking any damage is just... really nice at taking a bunch of pressure off.

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
I dont really like snecko eye, but thats usually because by the time I'm offered it my deck is either really good and consistent in which case why take the risk of a bad turn, or I have so much energy generation it doesn't matter.

Swapping into it at the beginning is incredible though.

My shiv builds are pretty much all combination shiv/discard builds. Because you just can't play enough shivs with one hand and one turns worth of energy.

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
Demon Form is one of the weaker Ironclad cards, imo. It requires commitment to use since its expensive and takes several turns (sometimes many turns if you aren't building a deck around it) to be worth it, and doesn't scale as quickly or effectively as many other ironclad builds, and it really requires you to have a decent block engine going on top of it.

It gets a lot better once you get an upgraded limit break, but even then its still a super slow way to scale damage - entrench and blockade are a for more reliable way to quickly cap out your damage per attack, even if it is only for the one attack.

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
I will say tht even though I think demon form is fairly weak in general, pairing it with reaper is incredibly fun and good

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
Sometimes the best defense is 8 meteor hammers

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
I will never actually be good at this game because I refuse to do math, make plans, or learn enemy patterns, but even I've managed to beat A20 so I'm pretty sure everyone can

Edit: And I'm still seeing nee stuff apparently, I don't think I've ever gotten this "Champion Belt" relic before, it seems very nice.

GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 13:40 on Sep 25, 2021

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
I'm trying to get a headbutt/draw/rampage deck to work and it keeps feeling SO loving CLOSE and then I drop the ball.

Might have to try a lower ascension lvl than A20 to pull it off :(

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
And then you're just better off using body slam.

Anyway, I went down to a10 and got the rampage deck working just fine first try - but by the time I beat the heart, I wasn't using the rampage anymore. Whoops! Turns out the stuff that makes rampage work well makes other stuff work better :v:

GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 14:41 on Sep 29, 2021

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
I'm gonna second Into The Breach. Same fundamentals - short strategy game where as you play you get to accumulate new tools for your arsenal by selecting them from a random subset and hopefully run into situations where they will be useful, where you have to carefully think about what to use on your turn, and where you unlock new stuff by playing that you can use on future runs.

And its just very very good.

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
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Wouldnt you want to path through shops at that point to maximize your chance of block and possibly get more than one?

Edit: Also share the seed that sounds fun

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
While I love these kind of games I really hate that ascension grinding has become the standard approach to increasing difficulty because it sucks and they should really start doing it Hades-style instead.

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GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!

Murgos posted:

8RRMZ3FJT3H3

Ironclad NEOW swaped relic.

Slain on floor 23 by book of stabbing.

Bludgeon+ did a lot of work.

Holy poo poo this is a fun seed, thank you! I see now why the shops didn't help you, they're all at the beginning and none of them offer blocks. But hey, having demon form, upgraded enflame ad spot weaknesses by the first treasure is still very nice, when you start with a pummel and a sword boomerang and then get offered a heavy sword right after. Combined with the Feed you start with and I'm just gonna pray to god I get a Reaper and then who loving needs block lol.

Also apparently Ipad and Android version are the same, lucky me.

Edit: My first chest relic was a question card, plus an event frozen egg, and I keep getting more pummels. I LOVE THIS SEED.
Edit 2: Ooh, second shop on a question mark, and they have a metallicize! Nice, some passive ongoing block.
Edit 3: Why yes, I would love to kill a Goblin Nob on turn three and be rewarded with a Bottled Flame so I can start every battle off with an upgraded Bludgeon if I so choose...
Edit 4: Next two card rewards are an Impervious and a Rage. I think those will work fine, that's enough defense for this deck right?
Edit 5: First boss funking dunked on.
Edit 6: I'm assuming this is the book of stabbing that killed you. I'm at only 35hp, so time to do or die! Lets loving go!
Edit 7: And I died, but boy what a loving run that was. I shouldn't have gone for the elite, I didn't have to, I just wanted to try my luck and I was punished for it but GOD drat so much fun.

Note: I'm running A20 right now, and this is still absurd. I'm absolutely gonna die in act 2 but I'm gonna love every second of getting there.

GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Sep 29, 2021

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