Yeah, I’d like to come back to it some time (though considering my idiotically huge backlog, who knows?) but that experience dumped a cold bucket of water all over my enthusiasm for it.
I change relics with Silent. With the others l like to get an extra relic if possible. If not I’ll probably trim a card.
Ironclad has the best starting relic; for the other two, I tend to trade for a boss relic when possible, especially on the Defect (as most of the best build archetypes don’t care about that initial lightning orb, long term it’s the worst of the three, even if it helps up front). Otherwise I remove cards whenever possible.
I play as ironclad a lot. I tend to do remove card from deck, upgrade card, increase max hp, get a random relic.
Maybe this is the key for this game, and why I’m not liking it as much as other people here. Improving in a game feels kind of nice for me but… not that rewarding, not to play a game one and another and another time. I guess that’s why I’m also not into hard games like Dark Souls or Celeste.
I can understand this sentiment, although for me, it’s not related to my general dislike of games with a high level of difficulty. Perhaps for both aspects, you have to really appreciate the gameplay and not be too focused on a typical progression method (e.g. story, levels, points), but instead simply enjoy the natural flow of the game as it plays out.
I love tackling Slay the Spire in small chunks at a time, an hour here, an hour there, and it has proven to have significant longevity. I keep playing each class through various levels of Ascension and look forward to examining mods someday.
If I had hit a hard endgame cap and/or didn’t really enjoy the strategy and overall gameplay, I’d have bailed a long time ago.
This game is aggravating sometimes.
i am learning to hate the Nemesis enemy (applies intangible every other turn, then hits hard on the other turn) because I had a beautiful deck as ironclad, with demon form * 1 and inflame * 2 and lots of power through which would have been enough to kill it several times over, except I was drawing my attack cards on the same turn as her intangible, or when I needed defence.
With Silent (not talking about the Nemesis here) i had another nice deck, which wqas noxious fumes *3, one apply poison card, one corpse explosion.
If you lucked out and got the noxious fumes played early in combat, then all you had to do was defend.
I had it in one combat where it was both normal noxious fumes plus an upgrade played, giving me + 8 poison per turn, on all enemies… and one corpse explosion.
That was rather fun.
Picking whether to farm or avoid elite monsters on the first and third floor (on the second floor, they are just there for our pleasure) is often one of the toughest call to me, especially because there is that luck of the draw depending on your deck if you aren’t confident you can take all of them.
I probably mostly avoid them on the third floor — excepting for dailies, where score is the only goal.
I have a love hate relationship with this game. I play it way more than I should, and overall I enjoy it…but I can’t seem to get very far in it (which is frustrating). I think I’ve gotten to level 3 once.
I’ve unlocked most of the cards on all characters (I think I have 1 unlock on the defect and silent, and 2 on ironclad). Maybe I’ll actually get good at the game one of these days?
I think the biggest non-obvious thing that can help is the fact that you don’t have to take rewards after combat. If you take a card that is less usable than any of current cards in your deck then you’ve made the deck worse. You may have 1 damage card, a small deck with useful talents and “draw more cards” cards and obliterate everybody. And when you can remove any card and don’t have any curses to remove - ditch basic attack/defense cards, there are plenty of 1 mana cards that deal the same damage or give same defense but do something else in addition.
The thing that worked for me was overvaluing upgrades on resting points. Even if it looks like you can manage you should still rest if you’re below 2/3 of HP - unless, of course, you have other ways to restore HP which you probably don’t.
I had a perfect tempo deck as silent. I had that artifact that gives you a new card each time your hand is empty, I had mana flow, shivs flying, each with poison.
And each time this glorious deck gets to act 3 there’s Time Eater in there. He doesn’t want me to end turns on my own, he gets strength. Perhaps focusing on defense more would work but it’s enough for other enemies in the game except that bastard with 999 HP who dies on his own.
This game feels like an extract of my nostalgic memories of old Final Fantasy boss battles. It’s great. I hate it.
Also, when you enter the act you can look ahead and see who the boss will be and build accordingly. I’ve entered act 3 facing timeeater at the end where I then knew to try and pick up some chunkier cards for the boss fight. Still tough, but can push your win percentage a couple of ticks.
NOT picking a card you say? What a novel concept. I, um, totally knew you could do that. (OK, I guess i actually did, but it never occurred to me that it might be better. Currently playing through as the ironclad and I just got past act 3. It feels like I’m doing better, but we’ll see)
Thanks for the tip!
Yeah, it’s not obvious. Of those three cards at least one would look like something you’d use but you have to remember that it takes valuable space. Great players complete game with very small decks - they can be sure that they get the card they need at the point they need it. You don’t have to go for it intentionally now cause it requires some deeper knowledge of the game.
Same for not picking relics but there’s little reason to do so. Usually you only get something detrimental after boss fights and there you can usually get something without bad effects. I’m not sure if the game is programmed to always have at least one “safe” relic but it feels that way.
Another advice I’d give is timing your visits to merchant. I recommend trying to find a merchant closest to boss and in first few acts you should go for as many battles as possible to get money and initial cards. Then when you visit your first merchant you’ll know what will work with your deck. If you get curses you may want to visit merchant more often cause he can only remove 1 card per visit. “?” rooms will often have dangerous encounters or benefits that are useless to you, like removing curse. So I wouldn’t visit too many of them. By the act 3 you’ll probably have most of the cards you need and enough money so “?” rooms might be more attractive offering upgrades for gold.
Has anyone ever killed him?
Wait, what?
I see this the opposite way, ? rooms have little downside, an the events are almost always interesting and with useful rewards.
And you can usually escape/decline if the reward is no good.
My best run yet had me in a ? room and thrown into the arena, and I beat both encounters and got some juicy relics for it :).
It depends on the mood of the moment, but I’d go scavenging question marks for their potential goodies over visiting a fight tile. Excepting for some daily mods, or you trying to push your luck through some event, the encounters there aren’t any more dangerous that standard fights on that floor. And it all depends on the current state of affair: early on, if I have an incoming unavoidable elite fight and my cards consist only of my base deck for instance, I’ll definitely go get a card in a fight instead.
Yeah that makes sense…
Of course people had killed that 999 bastard. There’s an achievement for killing a boss in 1 turn.
Those ? rooms often have downsides, unexpected effects or bonuses that you don’t need. Fights, meanwhile, are guaranteed gold and card. Thus my point is that by the time you don’t care about gold or cards as much ? rooms become preferable to fights. Of course, I wouldn’t actively avoid them but the fact that they’re indeed interesting may make a new player miss the fact that they aren’t as useful as they look.
Plus, they can still have damage or just throw you in a fight so it’s dangerous to see them as a “safe” option alternative to fight.