Slay the Spire is a pretty cool game

[Damned Registrations]

If we're on the subject of similar games...

https://store.steampowered.com/app/493080/Card_Quest/ - Much more static encounters (you select various areas and branching paths, each with sets of enemies and a single boss) but I feel like the quality of the actual combat is higher. More interesting concepts spread between the classes. Pretty much no generic cards, and cards come in partial sets. For example the archer will have a 'bow' set of cards, a 'quiver' set of cards, and a 'defense' set of cards. The bow slot can be either a heavy dwarven crossbow, or a quick shortbow, or a creepy skeleton/bone bow, etc. and each bow will give you a particular set of 5 cards. Mixing and matching stuff as you unlock it and finding the right kit for each area and paths among areas is lots of fun. Highly recommend.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/930780/Blood_Card/ - Closer to Slay the Spire, with a couple quirks; the first is that encounters have a soft enrage timer where the reaper appears to kill both sides after a while. You can kill him as an alternate win condition but then he'll be stronger in every run afterwards, sort of like ascensions in StS. The other quirk is that your deck is also your health pool, which gets replenished to full for every battle. I think it has good gameplay but not nearly enough card variety; I unlocked almost all the cards very quickly and the classes weren't enoguh variety to keep me going without new cards.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/919370/Overdungeon/ - Crazy weeaboo StS. It has an 'rts' element to it, though the units all just mindlessly plow forwards so it's really on deciding when and where to put them or a fireball or whatever. It has some good variety in both the cards, classes, and enemies. There's multiple game modes too, and they're all pretty well done, from the basic mode that apes StS, to the puzzle/challenge mode where you face off against a single really powerful enemy deck using a deck you've won with before, to the 'endless' mode where you can gather a bunch of permanent talents and stat buffs and fight increasingly difficult dungeons. The thing that sets it apart even more than the RTS aspect though is how crazy it gets- broken mechanics are a dime a dozen and it's quite likely you'll find one of the many, many ways to deal infinite or near infinite damage on a 'normal' easy run without any of the difficulty modifiers that restrict things a bit. The great thing about it is that unlike StS, it's not always the same shit like stacking x3 poison or getting a tight deck that draws and plays infinitely. There's a lot of niche ways to go crazy. My one big gripe about the game is performance; 95% of the time it's totally fine, but if you do make a build where you draw 50 cards each turn or created an army of dozens of units that each spawn more units every few seconds, it's going to lag, potentially very badly. There's some settings now to mitigate that with unit caps and such but it should honestly just run better.

 

[Goral]

Jesus H Christ, finally got my own ascension 20 win. That was nervewracking. Didn't even really leverage the shuriken much, it was mostly just abusing the everloving fuck out of intangible.

I also managed to do it, didn't think it would be possible to win even against 1 final boss, let alone 2. I've managed to reach final boss once but got easily destroyed, the second time was now and I've barely managed to defeat him since I got the one with 12 cards limit and my build relied on 0 cards + divinity mode. The second bosses were those 2 blobs with 265 HP, if not for conjure blade and lucky draws (and some cheesy tactics) I wouldn't have managed to win.

Also, if not for the 2 last relics (Singing Bowl and Orrery) I would most likely lose too because I would have like 4-8 HP too few for the bosses since Watcher is a glass cannon.

Eyestabber
I have to admit that the game is enjoyable, although playing at lower levels is just too easy and at lvl 20 ascension the end often impossible (had I chosen more fights so that I would get more relics I would most likely not survive). IMO they could add a (cheat) mode where we could choose relics each time we would get relics (like after boss fights but with more relics to choose from) just to check things out.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Also, if not for the 2 last relics (Singing Bowl and Orrery) I would most likely lose too because I would have like 4-8 HP too few for the bosses since Watcher is a glass cannon.

So in other words, those two relics combined are almost as good as the pear, which is just as common as the bowl? What a glowing endorsement.

 

[Goral]

The difference is that I got to choose which cards I would get and took +2HP only when cards I was getting were average (got +8 HP all in all). The truth is that the most powerful weapon in StS are cards (and the right order we get them) not relics, if you get subpar cards in the beginning you might as well restart.

Anyway, I've played 64 hours, wasn't interested in playing anything other than 20 lvl ascension after I've unlocked custom mode. Thus I didn't get on the leaderboard even though I got 1984 points which is one of the highest scores that I've seen (although there are some people who have 10k, WTF?).

 

[Jasede]

If you're tired/done with Slay the Spire, check out https://store.steampowered.com/app/1102190/Monster_Train/

It's a deck-builder that works like reverse Slay the Spire, and it has a lot of potential. The demo is very content-rich, it features an Ascension mode and I would say content is comparable to early access STS when it first was made available. The game releases in a week fully.

I've been playing the demo a lot and it's the next best thing after Slay the Spire. In fact, I might like it more, because the way you can upgrade spells and units leads to some really strong combinations - which you will need because the game pushes your shit in.

 

[Goral]

My recent victory on lvl 20 ascension:

Spoiler

This build was the most powerful by far. My one attack combo could deal over 500 damage and with ice cream relic and deva card most fights were easy. This is the ultimate build, at least for a watcher.

I've had another 200+ run0 before (plus one with over 1700 score, although there I lost to the part two of the last boss) but the one above required the least thinking and yet was the most powerful.

Spoiler

 

[Theodora]

Nice work, Goral.

Ironclad and Silent come so natrually, but Defect and Watcher (theoretically the type of gameplay I find more interesting) feel like such a big gamble when I play them, where picking incorrectly earlier on means just not having the firepower to win at the bosses. Maybe I'm just missing something?

(Ping AdvancedHero? You sounded like you wanted to rant about StS on shoutbox the other day.)

 

[Goral]

OK, I think I've pretty much mastered the Watcher build, next time I would have to use a handicap or try another hero. Another over 2000 run:

Second last boss I've defeated in 1 turn and yet I still got less points than for my last successful run (I've won on ascension lvl 20, then had 3 failed attempts and this one is fourth).

 

[prodigydancer]

As recommended by pro players, I try to build a well-balanced deck that is theoretically good for any situation. Needless to say that all my runs go perfectly... until I die.

3/20 victories so far on ascension 0. How do people get win streaks if you're guaranteed to die in act 2 unless by pure luck you snatch some god tier relics/cards in act 1? The amount of incoming damage in act 2 even in non-elite encounters is crazy.

In one of my successful runs I received 5 cards that negate all damage from an event. OK, on a Barricade Ironclad it's an insane synergy that makes you nigh invulnerable. In another run I bought Prismatic Shard and started to add cards like Adrenaline to an already good deck. Killed the act 3 boss with 1 HP left. It's all cool, but you can't count on such things. The starting cards are outdated once you hit act 2 and you never know what you'll get in act 1. Which makes consistent survival problematic.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

As recommended by pro players, I try to build a well-balanced deck that is theoretically good for any situation. Needless to say that all my runs go perfectly... until I die.

3/20 victories so far on ascension 0. How do people get win streaks if you're guaranteed to die in act 2 unless by pure luck you snatch some god tier relics/cards in act 1? The amount of incoming damage in act 2 even in non-elite encounters is crazy.

In one of my successful runs I received 5 cards that negate all damage from an event. OK, on a Barricade Ironclad it's an insane synergy that makes you nigh invulnerable. In another run I bought Prismatic Shard and started to add cards like Adrenaline to an already good deck. Killed the act 3 boss with 1 HP left. It's all cool, but you can't count on such things. The starting cards are outdated once you hit act 2 and you never know what you'll get in act 1. Which makes consistent survival problematic.

You get better at remembering and planning for stuff that kicks you in the balls. Like AoE is dramatically more important heading into act 2 than it is in act 1, so as you're wrapping act 1 up you probably should start valuing just about ANY AoE card more. Similarly you almost always want to take every opportunity to remove strikes and blocks you can. I'm not a big winstreaking pro but as you keep playing you do get dramatically better at judging when certain cards are important.

 

[prodigydancer]

I'm not a big winstreaking pro but as you keep playing you do get dramatically better at judging when certain cards are important.

I had a successful run yesterday as Silent. My first legit win probably, meaning that it wasn't pure luck. Poison-based deck seems really strong and counters a lot of enemy mechanics. I'll try again today.

Also for some reason losing in this game doesn't make me ragequit (and I'm often prone to ragequitting).

 

[Goral]

Ascension lvl 20 win, this time as Defect. Defect has higher damage potential than the Watcher thanks to chemical X and Multicast but it's also less reliable IMO. Watcher build is much more flexible and isn't as reliant on luck, you can deal a lot of damage even with shitty cards whereas Defect can have difficult time against Gremlin (red devil) for example.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Another noob question, how does one prepare for the snecko? I've gotten up to Ascension 4 on Silent now, and I lose far, far more often to the Snecko than even most elites, and when I do beat it it's generally just because I lucked out on the RNG of confused or drew a 1st hand that effectively OTK'd him.

 

[Goral]

<3sRichardSimmons
You need a good build for this, some very powerful attacks that will kill it quickly. Having ability to draw many cards in one turn and relic(s)/cards that increase your energy and having cards which cost much energy (so 3-5) also helps since you will always have their cost reduced to 2 or less.

 

[prodigydancer]

I just found out that Defect with Inserter (relic, +1 orb slot every 2 turns), Capacitor (power, +3 orb slots), Defragment (power, +2 Focus) and Consume (skill, +3 Focus, -1 orb slot, reusable) quickly outscales anything. Block and damage snowball to ridiculous amounts after a few turns. You can literally outblock str-gaining elites without resorting to potions. This combo is totally broken.

Another noob question, how does one prepare for the snecko?

There's a potion that gives 1 Artifact (Artifacts negate debuffs). There's also a relic that gives you 1 artifact in every fight. Very useful to counter Sneko and other nasty unique debuffs.

 

[Tigranes]

As recommended by pro players, I try to build a well-balanced deck that is theoretically good for any situation. Needless to say that all my runs go perfectly... until I die.

3/20 victories so far on ascension 0. How do people get win streaks if you're guaranteed to die in act 2 unless by pure luck you snatch some god tier relics/cards in act 1? The amount of incoming damage in act 2 even in non-elite encounters is crazy.

In one of my successful runs I received 5 cards that negate all damage from an event. OK, on a Barricade Ironclad it's an insane synergy that makes you nigh invulnerable. In another run I bought Prismatic Shard and started to add cards like Adrenaline to an already good deck. Killed the act 3 boss with 1 HP left. It's all cool, but you can't count on such things. The starting cards are outdated once you hit act 2 and you never know what you'll get in act 1. Which makes consistent survival problematic.

I'm no pro, I'm just Ascension 5-7 on all the characters, but I hugely favour smaller decks where I know what I'll get. E.g. Watcher, there's a massive difference between having a Signature Strike in a 15-card deck where you can use Insight/etc to cycle through the whole deck in 2 turns, or having it in a 30-card deck where you just get it at some point and maybe can't even use it because of other attacks in hand.

Same goes for Snecko - a Watcher can usually kill him in 1 or 2 turns even when RNG fucked, if at that point you've set up a damage routine through Ragnarok or Signature or Divinity. Or you can take an Artifact card/potion, I suppose.

You don't want to be a total one-trick pony for obvious reasons, but I prefer builds that have a clear one trick and then diversify, because otherwise you're even more vulnerable to dying by a thousand cuts or simply not having enough damage to overcome a threshold. For me the easiest pipelines in the very first wins were poison stacks (with the triple poison card), body slam stacks (you don't always need barricade or the 2x block card either), and power card spam defect (i.e. stacking bonuses like mummified hand).

 

[prodigydancer]

For me the easiest pipelines in the very first wins were poison stacks (with the triple poison card), body slam stacks (you don't always need barricade or the 2x block card either), and power card spam defect (i.e. stacking bonuses like mummified hand).

Poison is great when you can get the cards (on my last Silent run I couldn't get anything decent at all and died on Gremlin Nob in the middle of act 1). Body Slam works sometimes but I've also had some success with Heavy Blade (x5 str damage bonus is insane if you can get 15-20 str). For the same reason Brilliance is great on Watcher if you can spam enough Mantra.

I still can't reliably work around the randomness of rewards but I'm starting to understand the basics.

 

[Tigranes]

Sure, sometimes you just get shafted on cards, or you're building up to something but lacking key cards and then get jumped on by something dangerous and get fucked. I still get plenty of Act 1 deaths, it's part of the game (maybe the 20 Ascension pros don't). At some point, after a couple dozen runs with any given hero, I feel like I have enough memory of the drops - e.g. it's not great if your entire build depends on that one rare card spawning, whereas poison builds can be a bit safer because Catalyst is only an uncommon drop (it's not hard to get two upgraded Catalysts), and poison itself can come from a variety of sources, and you can still invest in defense.

The point is to know what your guy's bread and butter is - with a Watcher for example there's a variety of ways to ensure dude can easily do 100+ damage in a turn by end of Act 1. Decided to play around with Expunger just now and got through Ascension 6, nothing special. Killed the donuts in three turns, but I could see how with a bit better build (e.g. if chemical X had dropped) it could be two - one to setup Expunger then one to use it. I've not used the +x cards much but Goral's post has me thinking more about them.

 

[Tigranes]

OK, got something nice going for Defect, only on Ascension 5 but it was a cakewalk:

Setup with Storm, Echo Form, Panache
Every first card per turn played twice, every power card triggers lightning orb, every 5th card is 14dmg to all enemies

Throw in two Biased Cognitions (if each fires twice, +20 focus), then Loop = easily 50+ or even 100+ damage every round passively just while playing power cards
Then Frozen Core for often 20, 30 armour passively each turn; Buffer played twice = 4 complete damage cancels waiting on reserve
When bored, Thunder Strike, if played twice, easily 200+ damage on its own.

Took about 2 damage in all of Act 3.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

I'm definitely beginning to see the virtues of smaller decks (12-18 cards seems to be the sweet spot); they make Acts 2 and 3, much much easier from what I've seen (aside from the aforementioned dreaded snecko), but I also haven't fallen into the perfect tempo for shedding strikes and defends while also accruing decent cards in Acts 1.5. Another question for those far better at this game than me: what is the ratio of foes : ?s you strive for for each act? I have taken to actively seeking out as many elites as possible (which has dramatically improved my game), but I always hem and haw on a path to take, particularly in Act 2, and I'm curious if anyone has a golden rule. I generally find that on my best runs I know I have a very solid deck by halfway through Act 2, and will skip cards unless offered something that synergizes very well or is something that I'm very obviously lacking. Once I have a deck that I know is pretty rock solid I try to prioritize Elites>?rooms>foes=merchants. Am I yet again missing something woefully obvious to the more experienced deck-builders?


Also I am ashamed to admit that I did not realize artifact would cancel out confused (of course it does!). I miss so much obvious shit like this in modern games and it makes me pine for the days when I could just RTFM!

 

[Reality]

How do you get the seed of a Daily Climb again?

I found this one to be a blast (Silent + Chimera + Blue Cards + Terminal )

I was carried hard by double potion relic - Shivs with the wrath starting card and Multiple strength potions in same turn are fun stuff.

 

[CyberWhale]

I've read the title as Slav the Spire so being disappointed afterwards was a natural outcome of events.

 

[prodigydancer]

I still think that consistent winning is near impossible.

Example: you play Defect, get so-so cards but also some events to increase max HP which, in theory, should be good enough. You have Repair so your run goes really well... until you hit Reptomancer and get a really bad draw. You eat 100 damage in one turn and survive even that, but there's no recovering from such HP loss. Of course, Reptomancer is a joke against a good deck. The problem is that you have no control over the quality of your deck.

Winning sometimes is easy. Always winning is another thing entirely.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Well, define 'consistent.' I'm pretty sure the top players can win like 2/3rds of the time on the highest ascension. Probably varies a lot by class, mind you and I'd imagine beating heart is harder. But you don't need a good deck, or a good set of artifacts, you just need some sort of combination that will win, and there are many such possible combinations. And you've got plenty of control, most people just piss it away on trying to make an awesome deck that will crush everything if they get lucky later on instead of settling for what they can barely win with even with really shit luck.

 

[Tigranes]

I'm definitely beginning to see the virtues of smaller decks (12-18 cards seems to be the sweet spot); they make Acts 2 and 3, much much easier from what I've seen (aside from the aforementioned dreaded snecko), but I also haven't fallen into the perfect tempo for shedding strikes and defends while also accruing decent cards in Acts 1.5. Another question for those far better at this game than me: what is the ratio of foes : ?s you strive for for each act? I have taken to actively seeking out as many elites as possible (which has dramatically improved my game), but I always hem and haw on a path to take, particularly in Act 2, and I'm curious if anyone has a golden rule. I generally find that on my best runs I know I have a very solid deck by halfway through Act 2, and will skip cards unless offered something that synergizes very well or is something that I'm very obviously lacking. Once I have a deck that I know is pretty rock solid I try to prioritize Elites>?rooms>foes=merchants. Am I yet again missing something woefully obvious to the more experienced deck-builders?


Also I am ashamed to admit that I did not realize artifact would cancel out confused (of course it does!). I miss so much obvious shit like this in modern games and it makes me pine for the days when I could just RTFM!

A really fun recent run was when my starting gamble was the Astrolabe and 3 Strikes turned into Signature Move & two other good attack cards. Lose the other Strike at the first shop and you're basically running lean able to Wrath & Sig Move for 80 damage every turn in Act 1.

On paths, IMO I don't like elite hunting in Act 3, I don't think it's worth the resource drain. Sometimes, if I feel that I've got my sweet combo sorted early, I'll go for maximum rest spots in Act 2 & 3 rather than elites, ending up with a fully upgraded deck. Keep in mind that ?s have a fair chance of getting you enemies anyway without Juzu, and sometimes a confirmed rest spot or shop that you're looking for + 2 enemies can be more valuable than 3 question marks. The point is that maybe there is no straight formula.

Anyway prodigy boy the whole point is that you adapt to the situation every run, which is what keeps it fun after hundreds of runs. You shouldn't expect to clear the Spire consistently.

And yeah, there are times when I realise that I was so fixated on X build that I run the build into a dead-end, or where being greedy and picking up a couple of unnecessary cards means the difference between easy win and a shock loss halfway.