Slay the Spire is a pretty cool game

[Goral]

I still think that consistent winning is near impossible.

With The Watcher it's not that hard, with the rest I have some problems.

My recent run with Ironclad:

 

[prodigydancer]

My recent run with Ironclad

Yes, str-based deck seems to be the best bet most of the time. Defensive builds are possible with Barricade but they require a lot of synergy, and you need to build most of that synergy early.

I'm starting to understand such things. E.g. poison is often the best bet for Silent - it effectively negates too many enemy mechanics (raw damage that ignores block, not affected by Weak, doesn't proc Thorns, very energy efficient, and upgraded Catalyst is just plain broken).

With The Watcher it's not that hard

Others say so too, but I'm still struggling with Watcher. I've had a couple successful runs but it's a very complex class and mistakes are costly.

 

[Goral]

I'm starting to understand such things. E.g. poison is often the best bet for Silent - it effectively negates too many enemy mechanics (raw damage that ignores block, not affected by Weak, doesn't proc Thorns, very energy efficient, and upgraded Catalyst is just plain broken).

Yeah, that's how I've beaten the game at 20 ascension but it was still extremely hard, especially at the beginning. I'm playing Custom games (don't have the patience to go level by level) and there is no bonus from the blue whale at the start and I have only 59 HP. As a result taking on any elite is just suicide (especially Lagavaulin, it quickly decreases my attacks to 0 unless I go poison, Silent just doesn't have any other powerful attacks, maybe besides a couple of gold cards which at the start are very uncommon). And with so little HP even normal enemy may be the last (there are many with huge block or massive damage and again, if not for poison it would be impossible to defeat them in time).

Anyway, I now understand what you meant by broken, I've dealt over 2000 damage at one time (and with proper cards I could have gone to over 9000) and it was also great against bosses, although some of them nullified poison after a couple of turns (e.g. the knight boss from second city or the 12 turns clock boss from the last one or blobs from first city where once they multiply everything resets). In the end, I've defeated "last" boss #1 (12 clock) losing only 3 HP overall and the last boss #2 (that crow with crows that has another form after defeating him once) with only 3 HP left. I had had to preserve catalyst card for his second form, otherwise I wouldn't be able to defeat him.

All in all I consider The Silent the weakest even though it has the strongest attacks (and by attacks I mean it deals highest damage and by far). Getting the right relics and cards is crucial (of course at this level at ascension), otherwise you might as well restart. The ironclad is a bit better, Defect significantly better but The Watcher is by far the best IMO. Reaching the second boss is rather easy no matter the relics or cards you get, it's just so versatile hero and deals massive amounts of damage even with starting cards.

 

[prodigydancer]

After losing 15 runs with Watcher I completely at a loss as to why people say it's such a great class. The class is trash:
1) You have no easy ways to build str. You have no passive sources of damage. To do enough damage you need to be in the correct stance which isn't always possible (no, scrying doesn't really counter randomness).
2) Your defensive options suck. Even Spirit Shield is objectively just unreliable garbage.
3) Killing Time Eater is near impossible without good defense. Burning down 450+ HP in 12 cards is impossible and you simply have no tools to survive more than a few turns.

Here's an example. A lean deck, OK cards, a good collection of relics. The run actually went very well but the moment I entered act 3 and saw TE, I knew it was over. I completed the run only to prove my point:

For comparison: I'm on A8 with Silent with 8/16 wins now. Same with Defect. With Watcher I can't even beat A3.

 

[Pope Amole II]

Lean 25 card deck, lul. And dead branch as Watcher - as potent as that can be for the other classes, it is the utter, deadly trash for her.

Let's see, Ragnarok is bad in your deck as you can't use wreath of flame and you don't have akabeko. Battle Hymn is trash, Foresight is whatever, Reach Heaven is utter trash, you have, basically, 5 0-cost cards but only one source of card drawing, whereas they should be proportioned 1 by 1. Tranquility is awful but I guess you have no other choice here. And not enough defends or strikes removed.

The only thing that you have going for you is the amount of relics. Your deck is jank with neither idea nor plan, you have nothing that can kill high-level enemies but that's not the Watcher's problem - that is yours problem.

 

[flyingjohn]

Your deck is jank with neither idea nor plan, you have nothing that can kill high-level enemies but that's not the Watcher's problem - that is yours problem.

 

[prodigydancer]

Ragnarok is bad in your deck as you can't use wreath of flame and you don't have akabeko. Battle Hymn is trash, Foresight is whatever, Reach Heaven is utter trash, you have, basically, 5 0-cost cards but only one source of card drawing, whereas they should be proportioned 1 by 1. Tranquility is awful but I guess you have no other choice here. And not enough defends or strikes removed.

Without solid sources of damage I wouldn't even get that far. Ragnarok and Reach Heaven are trash because Watcher is trash. It doesn't mean there are better options. Battle Hymn isn't trash with Deva Form - I have enough energy to use the Smites (just not enough survivability). The point about card drawing is moot because I died when TE was at about 80% HP. No amount of card drawing or anything could have saved me.

The only thing that you have going for you is the amount of relics. Your deck is jank with neither idea nor plan, you have nothing that can kill high-level enemies but that's not the Watcher's problem - that is yours problem.

I have to work with what the game offers me. And I have no problem winning with other classes. With Ironclad I tend to get greedy and I still win 40% of my runs, not 15% like on Watcher.

On my last run with Silent I got The Bomb from Neow. I knew it was a victory before the run even started. Because you can build Silent perfectly around such cards. You can't build Watcher around anything because it's a shitty class that has zero synergy with anything. Seriously, the only mechanic defining the entire fucking class is burst damage from attacks. Then you hit something you can't burst down quickly enough and it's game over.

 

[Pope Amole II]

Look, you clearly don't know how to play the class. Why are you even trying to argue? What facts can you present?

Here's how a good watcher deck looks like:

That's how "lean" actually looks like and it reliably winds into an infinite combo one way or another, with the first-turn kill possibility. While you can play her thicker than that, Watcher is a combo class and this is what you should be aspiring for.

In fact, because of the one-shot potential, you can say that Watcher is the easiest class to score asc 20 with (heart kill too if you're into that - infinite damage doesn't care). Mind you, this approach may not be to good in terms of streakability, but in 2-3 tries you can clean each and every level of ascension easily.

 

[prodigydancer]

Oh, FFS. Am I saying that you can't win as Watcher at all? No. I win sometimes as Watcher, but sometimes is the key word.

And before anyone says that Mantra deck is better - no it's not:

And finally: no, I'm not denying that it's maybe possible after investing hundreds of hours to learn to achieve some kind of somewhat acceptable performance with Watcher. But the point of the discussion was that it's the strongest class. Which is laughable. It's the weakest and least forgiving of all classes.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

I’m terrible with Watcher too, but “It’s my worst class, therefore it’s THE worst class!” is an... ah... interesting argument.

 

[prodigydancer]

I’m terrible with Watcher too, but “It’s my worst class, therefore it’s THE worst class!” is an... ah... interesting argument.

Let's try again:
- There's a game with four character classes.
- You try all of them and find out that three of them are relatively easy to master and have diverse and very powerful tools in their arsenal. The fourth is an extremely specialized glass cannon that fails every time the glass part is exposed.
- People keep telling you that the fourth class is actually the strongest, but try as you might, it never quite works. Meanwhile, you keen beating the game with other classes shrugging off the negative modifiers from the higher difficulty levels.

Conclusion? Oh yeah, git gud. I know. Except the whole git gud thing is simply an euphemism for "you need to invest more time in mastering Watcher because it's inferior to other classes".

 

[Zombra]

So I ruined my keyboard last night and checked my library for mouse-only games. Finally gave this a spin. It's pretty darn good.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

So I ruined my keyboard last night and checked my library for mouse-only games. Finally gave this a spin. It's pretty darn good.

You should try Monster Train as well. Not quite as good (and nowhere near as balanced) as STS perhaps, but better art, and it adds a Tower-Defense inspired mechanic that works waaaaaay better than you would ever think it could. Also playable mouse-only.

 

[Berekän]

So I ruined my keyboard last night and checked my library for mouse-only games. Finally gave this a spin. It's pretty darn good.

better art

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

So I ruined my keyboard last night and checked my library for mouse-only games. Finally gave this a spin. It's pretty darn good.

better art

? Not like it’s a high bar. Monster Train is definitely going for the cutesy post-WoW Blizzard look, but it executes on that quite well. Slay the Spire, while still the superior package overall, is pretty drab looking.

 

[Tigranes]

I mean, STS is a completely bland looking game, so I guess so-

Eww.

That said, graphics really does not matter for a game like this. If it's half as good as STS then it's a good deal.

 

[CaffeineConquistador]

I mean, STS is a completely bland looking game, so I guess so-

Eww.

That said, graphics really does not matter for a game like this. If it's half as good as STS then it's a good deal.

Oh come on, it's not that bad.

Not with this passing as a legit game:

Dream Quest. Stick figures.

 

[Goral]

A friend has recently started playing this on gamepass and it triggered me to go back to it. This is the result (2934 points):

I've defeated last boss with no damage taken (donuts were a bit harder to beat) and I've still had resurrection potion left. I've also got record amount of money.

Edit:

Edit:
https://imgur.com/a/Bnyy3n1 3402

Edit 2:
https://imgur.com/a/slBkb0f 3327

 

[Alpan]

So I have 110 hours in StS as of now. In that time I've beat A20 with The Watcher, A15 on the Silent, and A10 on the Defect. It is a lot of fun playing the game and I plan to beat A20 with all characters eventually (currently climbing with the Silent). The game somehow manages to feel fresh every time and I don't really think I'll ever get bored of playing it. I'll probably check out the Downfall mod after I'm done with Ascension climbing too.

Here's my question to the fellow Codexers frequenting this thread. Presumably you are here because you enjoy this game: Are there any other deckbuilders that you feel are as replayable and dynamic as Slay the Spire? I will check of Trials of Fire due to Lacrymas' review but am interested to know about more good games of this type. It is a very generous design space and I feel just good playing these games.

 

[tripedal]

Monster Train is worth checking out. It's less "well balanced" than StS and mostly revolves around building completely broken combos, which has its own charm but also gets old a bit quicker.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Griftlands is also not bad if you’re fiending for card-builder roguelikes. Not nearly as good as StS, and probably Klei’s worst game, but still not bad.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Are there any other deckbuilders that you feel are as replayable and dynamic as Slay the Spire?

Nope. It's unfortunate, but StS is head and shoulders above the rest. Monster Train like Tripedal mentioned is probably the closest competitor, mechanically it sounds like it should be dramatically different (Drafting and placing units on various floors to fight enemies) but the actual feel of it is closest to StS. The rate you're offered cards, the value of skipping cards, the importance of removing cards, etc. Most other deckbuilders I've tried have been at least decent (Like Richard Simmons mentioned Griftlands, Erannorth Reborn, Nowhere Prophet) but Monster Train's the closest to StS, you specifically mentioned replayable and dynamic and Monster Train's quite replayable (Every game you pick two of the factions to use, and have a wide variety of starting heroes on top of all the regular card drafting and relic finding going on) and dynamic... Fairly. High ascension StS has more fine decisions going on where you might take some basic shit just to shore up weaknesses while Monster Train typically rewards going all-in on your strongest synergy so there's less thinking on your feet in that regard, but that also only becomes more of a focus once you reach the point of having a game-winning synergy and you can steer things based on card picks/shop finds/unit upgrades/etc.

 

[Reality]

Looking at Steam I pretty much beat Monster Train's covenant 25 at 55 hours (I never played the DLC)

It's fun but I think you have TOO much control relative to StS (especially in terms of deck thinning and "clone copies of my best cards) which kinda increases the problems that the weaker enemy design has to begin with.

The enemy does have variety but because the game basically revolves around setting up broken stacking/other combos from even the first area, you mostly treat all enemies as the exact same in practice and don't need to react to them most of the time.

Good if you want more StS, but won't last long.

 

[Alpan]

Are there any other deckbuilders that you feel are as replayable and dynamic as Slay the Spire?

Nope. It's unfortunate, but StS is head and shoulders above the rest. Monster Train like Tripedal mentioned is probably the closest competitor, mechanically it sounds like it should be dramatically different (Drafting and placing units on various floors to fight enemies) but the actual feel of it is closest to StS. The rate you're offered cards, the value of skipping cards, the importance of removing cards, etc. Most other deckbuilders I've tried have been at least decent (Like Richard Simmons mentioned Griftlands, Erannorth Reborn, Nowhere Prophet) but Monster Train's the closest to StS, you specifically mentioned replayable and dynamic and Monster Train's quite replayable (Every game you pick two of the factions to use, and have a wide variety of starting heroes on top of all the regular card drafting and relic finding going on) and dynamic... Fairly. High ascension StS has more fine decisions going on where you might take some basic shit just to shore up weaknesses while Monster Train typically rewards going all-in on your strongest synergy so there's less thinking on your feet in that regard, but that also only becomes more of a focus once you reach the point of having a game-winning synergy and you can steer things based on card picks/shop finds/unit upgrades/etc.

Very helpful, thanks. I will check out Monster Train after all. Also you identified the core appeal of StS very well: The fine decision-making esp. in higher Ascensions when a single misplay can cause consequences with the potential to doom you. The game just does an excellent job changing the context around many decisions with each run. I'm not sure how the StS guys managed it except through sheer inspiration and relentless playtesting, and I suspect the high amount of random "levers" inherent in each run, but any similar game that fails to pull this off may indeed become stale very quickly.

 

[Latelistener]

Nope. It's unfortunate, but StS is head and shoulders above the rest.

What about this? Has anyone tried it already?