Slay the Spire - Catch all

Started another this morning. Got a relic for "At the end of turn 7, deal 52 damage to ALL enemies" on my Defect at the first ? room.

So looks like I need to build up some defense and just sit back and wait. Could be a fun run when I get back to it later.

Well remember it only happens once but yeah as Defect, frost deck uber defence and then coupled with some blizards or what ever they are called. Then watch as all you get is claws to choose from

Stele wrote:

Started another this morning. Got a relic for "At the end of turn 7, deal 52 damage to ALL enemies" on my Defect at the first ? room.

So looks like I need to build up some defense and just sit back and wait. Could be a fun run when I get back to it later.

onewild wrote:

Well remember it only happens once but yeah as Defect, frost deck uber defence and then coupled with some blizards or what ever they are called. Then watch as all you get is claws to choose from ;)

Dammit. All the way to 3rd boss again but came up short. A different boss this time of course so no idea what I was doing.

I didn't actually use the turn 7 card much, except on EB or boss, didn't get there most times. But it did help my push my deck a certain way.

I also got the upgrade all strikes and blocks event. So my deck ended up bloated around 30 cards. I maybe should have taken the innate card I saw that let your do damage equal to your draw pile.

Got a good relic that gives plasma at every battle start so having that and lightning orb every time was good. Another relic that made one random card free every time I played another type of card. Between that and the plasma I was rolling in energy, often ending turns with 1 left unused.

Felt like it was going to be the run but had a tough draw with no block or debuffs and boss hitting big and just couldn't last.

Maybe tomorrow

If you get +energy relics like that then start prioritizing big cost cards, and ignore zero cost cards unless they let you draw a card. The turn 7 bomb is an interesting card but not that good for bosses because they have a lot more health and by the time you get to the end you can often do more than 50 damage on a regular turn anyway.

When you get a chance, remove cards from your deck. Like at the shop one of the priorities should be to remove a card and try to get all of those basic strikes and defends out of your deck as they are the worst cards, unless you have a curse of course then remove that. Like if you have already picked up some other attack cards then remove a strike to balance it out.

I think most of my runs in around 20-25 cards in my deck, it just depends on the strategy that time. I have had 30+ decks like on the Silent with a lot of card draw and churn.

With the defect my favorite strategy when the relics and cards cooperate is to go lightning. I like 'passive' damage decks like that which just deal damage every turn automatically. Why I like poison decks on the Silent too.

If you want to watch someone who is amazing at Slay the Spire and great to watch stream, check out LethalFrag. He plays some other games and is good at all of them. I think it's called Steamworld Dig (the one where you are a miner and collect gems, go to different levels, etc ... Super Meat Boy, a couple others. He explains a lot about the games and his strat when playing also.

Another guy at work got the game over the weekend too so we spent most of lunch talking about it.

Can't wait to get home. Until I beat the 3rd area at least once this game has its hooks in me. Probably will push to finish with all characters though honestly. Each has been fun in different ways.

Did you guys do a lot of daily challenges before beating the game or save that until later? I tried one or two so far but thought I should stick to the basics and keep learning strategy.

I didn't touch daily challenges until I had beat the run with both characters (3rd character wasn't available at the time). I just bought switch version and unlocked The Silent today

Finally won one with the Defect.

31 cards, a bit high, but I had relic for "play power card and another card in hand costs 0". Also Storm+ which channels lightning for every power card, Machine Learning to draw an extra card, 2 copies of Buffer+ (prevent damage 2x), and one Electrodynamics (aoe lightning, also power card). So I was cycling through with lots of free cards and firing off damage. Also a couple of the attacks that channel lightning and was able to dump some basic attacks and blocks this time. Just a steamroll once I got going and my channeled lightning would just evoke and evoke.

Had some other nice relics, like a free plasma each combat, a thorns relic, and two other relics that added a bonus energy at battle start or after cycling the deck to keep my attacks fueled. Also a relic to dig for other relics at bonfires, so I did a lot of that to get some of the nice benefits.

Beat the Guardian, the Bronze Automaton, and the Time Eater for my 3 bosses. After the first floor on the 3rd area, I took no damage at all the last 7 fights of the game. I healed on the last bonfire for no reason, haha. Should have upgraded another card or dug for a relic. Great stuff.

Also fought that Transient enemy a couple turns from the end, where he has 999 health and you have to hold out for 5 turns. Not only did I take no damage, but I took him down to ~620 health before he ran away. That was fun.

Screenshot of run:

Spoiler:

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D80mezrUIAAI4HI?format=jpg&name=large)

So is act 3 the endgame? Have I actually been that close?

Yes and no.

Apparently there's more after you beat the game with all 3 characters.

But beating act 3 counts as a victory. And then it teases you with a trophy of the 3 characters. So pretty obvious you need to beat it with all. Don't think it's a spoiler.

Congrats Stele on your win! I love Electrodynamics too.

Act 3 is the end of the 'normal' game and was all there was for a long time. They added a super hard boss fight at the end you can unlock to give people something else to strive for. That and the daily challenges and achievement chasing are the 'end game' content to pursue, besides Ascension levels of course which are the real challenge.

Probably best this isn't mobile. I'm thinking about it at work all day and would be tempted.

This reminds me of FTL the way it for hooks into me. Probably another 100 hour game eventually.

It was also surprisingly easy to play while with my daughter last night. Could squeeze in a few turns between entertaining or tending to her diaper, food, etc. Much better drop in/out play than most games.

Had a few playthroughs with The Silent on my Switch. Love the ability to be curled up on my couch or play a few rounds while waiting to leave for work, in between meetings, etc.

Made it to the final boss on Act 3 2/3 times but arrived to the party very damaged and didn't last very long. Still have yet to construct a deck I feel good about.

Dammit.

One turn from winning with the Silent against Awakened One.

I had blur to keep block up another turn, and a crapton of poison cards. DoT was built up, had done the explosion off his minion and over 100 damage that turn. Just need to survive one barrage and didn't get enough block and/or debuff. Ugh.

After bouncing off Outer Wilds, decided to give this a shot after all the praise. It definitely let me mind rest after everything that's going on in my life.

How many levels of the tower is considered a completed run? I made it to the boss of the second level but kind of halfheartedly was making my way through that level as I needed to go to bed.

You can stop and pick up later, it automatically saves your progress after every floor (room). There are three levels for a total of 50 floors.

Oh cool. I was very tired and just saw "Abandon Run" and didn't realize I could quit and come back.

Pretty encouraged that I can make it almost 2/3 through on my first ever run. I'm not huge into deck building but I like what they are doing here.

Pause menu has a save and quit option. But as mentioned it auto saves.

I had one game crash after changing some options. I was scared I would lose progress but when I restarted the game it had the continue run right from the stage I was on before .

After taking a break for a couple of weeks I came back tonight and finally got the All Commons achievement on my first try! I played Ironclad and got lucky with card picks and ended up with 7 Clashes, which is a card I like. Also 4 Perfect Strike and 4 Pommel Strikes. Close run in the end, but I am glad that one is done.

Lost another as Silent, this time vs donut.

I had an even better deck than last time with poison and block. Rolled the 2nd boss. Then I took a relic that gave bonus energy but you had to discard 2 cards. Seemed fine on the opener but then it was every turn. And I had a ? stage where I got to transform then upgrade 3 cards. And a couple other spots where I got rid of basic strikes and blocks. So I was always getting rid of good cards.

I never should have taken that relic and I probably would have won with a nice low 20s deck. Ugh.

You definitely want to have good card draw if you pick the kite for an energy relic. Stuff like backflip, acrobatics and expertise. Otherwise most turns you've got extra energy that goes to waste. There are also some rare Silent relics you can find that synergizes with discard- one will give 3 block every time you discard, one will do 3 damage to a random enemy for every discard. In those cases it could be worth taking Kite, but most other times I hope I've been offered something else better to choose from.

Also, it's worth mentioning that just like you can skip card rewards, you can also skip relic rewards. It's rare, but sometimes not taking a relic may be better than taking it. (example, if you have the relic that gives +1 strength for every curse in your deck, and some ways to mitigate those curses you may actually want to add more curses. So if you're offered the relic that negates your next two curses you might want to skip it.)

Yeah I could have taken that negate curse artifact actually. Probably would have won. Alas.

I'm going to beat this damn thing again this weekend with either Silent or Ironclad

Stupid awakened one. 50+ poison damage but he gets to respawn and waive all of it, plus not take damage from corpse explosion (x4 or so by that point). I've seen it do double damage before, not sure if it stacks higher. But anything would help.

That's 4 straight runs to the 3rd boss with Silent and failing every time. Think I'm going back to Ironclad for a while.

Stele wrote:

Probably best this isn't mobile. I'm thinking about it at work all day and would be tempted.

You know, the Switch is portable.... Also, laptops are portable....

I’ve thought about bringing my laptop to work and playing for an hour during lunch. Like you said, I think that might be a bad idea in the long run.

Pull it up during a long and boring meeting...I don’t need to pay attention...

FYI, if you’re *close* to beating a boss, you can save and exit in the middle of a run. Then when you reload it you’ll be back at Turn one and start over. It’s been really useful when I play some cards in the wrong order. Or you can plan your card sequence a little better knowing what’s coming up. Usually when I’ve got a moderately strong deck and I’m on the the 3rd level is where I’ll use that feature most. I’ve already put an hour plus into it and I’m just looking to beat the boss so I can make it to the next Ascension level.

Aww yeah I think I read that. Would be worth trying one more time at least.

I actually used that on a run tonight for a ? room. I chose the 999 gold option but forgot I had a relic preventing me from earning gold. I closed the game before selecting my next path and when I loaded it let me choose the ? options again. But later didn't dawn on me I could use it to restart a fight.

I switched to Ironclad after tonight's failure. Hadn't played him in 5 days probably. Beat the whole thing no problem. Great strength build with a couple of those double cards and relic for gains on every turn. Last boss healed 150 or so then I did 220ish damage with one hit my next turn haha.

Ironclad victory:

Spoiler:

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D9HjMEcUcAAgnz7?format=jpg&name=large)

Woke up and won with the Silent. All 3 victories finally.

Got rid of some basic cards early with a transform and had 2 glass knife cards early. Some really nice relics too, after getting the one that made epic fights have a 2nd relic. I'll try to post the screenshots later.

Silent victory:

Spoiler:

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D9HjY8GUIAAZvp7?format=jpg&name=large)

What's your priorities for card acquisition for Silent? My typically is poison > Defense > Cycle/discard. I'm questioning my choices.

Yeah mostly poison. As you can see I had 3 Glass Knife+ (12x2 dmg), 3 Piercing Wail+ (all enemies -8 strength), and 3 Poisoned Stab+ (6 dmg, 4 psn). Those were all 1 point cards I was tossing in like crazy. Caltrops and the relic that started me with a block were nice. Plus the other relic that gives you 6 block if you don't have any, just in case.

Dumped all but 3 of the starting strike/block cards, which was good for me. But still I probably took too many cards at 34. But hell, when I got the chance for extra glass knife cards already upgraded I couldn't say no.

I got that terror 99 vulnerable card right before the last boss so figured I might as well take it for that.

When I got Noxious Fumes, Envenom was the other choice. Both are supposed to be good, but I had to choose.

Early on I had a choice at a shop for a relic that did something like +3 damage for any 0-cost attack cards, but I only had one at the time, and no shiv/knife cards. Then later I got a relic maybe that started the fight with 3 or 4 shivs. Wish I had taken that relic then but it was a gamble to take so early without anything to use it on. Could have been really deadly with opening salvo then. Oh well.

Just completed an Ascenion 9 run with the Silent, and it was one of the few non-poison runs. My first time with Mayhem actually. I’ve been too scared to pick it up before.

I’d had a failed run earlier where I picked up Shuriken (3 attacks in a turn = +1 strength), which seems great for a Shiv deck, but I was already collecting poison cards. Couldn’t turn the deck around in the middle.

The winning run had just one Shiv card (Shiv Master), which turned into a +1 strength every time it appeared, which was pretty cool. What really made it a winning deck was Phantasmal Killer / Apotheosis / Mayhem.

The typical recommendation is to remove as many strikes / defends as you can. But there just isn’t enough shops to really do that. Maybe you get lucky with a ? room or Pandora’s Box relic. Apotheosis makes them tolerable. Mayhem plays a card for free. That worked out pretty well as it’s free energy. Hardest part was trying to figure out what card it just played.

My strategy for the Silent has been to collect as much block as possible. The enemies / bosses ramp up quickly and there isn’t enough campfires to keep up. So I want dexterity and block cards/ relics like Footwork, Blur, Deflect, etc. Footwork + Apotheosis made all my Defends a +11 so I had a chance of surviving the hard hits of Floor 3. I’ll add in things like Prepared, Adrenaline, or Acrobatics so I can recover from bad draws.

Silent isn’t a hard hitter like Ironclad, so I’ve been relying on poison to win. Noxious fumes (usually multiple), Catalyst, and Burst so I can apply it twice. Tripling a poison twice is usually an instant win if you’ve let Noxious Fumes build it up enough.
I haven’t found Envenom to be that useful for Silent. My poison decks are built around lots of block, power cards, and only a few attacks.Noxious Fumes adds poison every turn to every enemy. So even rounds where you’re scurrying for block it still applies poison. Maybe with a shiv deck it could outperform Noxious Fumes.

Terror is one of my favorite cards, definitely a must purchase and must upgrade ASAP.

Had my first complete run last night. Was with the Silent. Took the advice here and focused on getting a tonne of block cards and poison. A big factor was getting something like 85 gold on all ? floors, no combat on ? floors, and Hermès Shoes. Was able to bounce around and rack up an obscene amount of gold then buy up all the relics at the shops. When I beat the last boss I didn’t even realize it was the last floor of act 3.

I’m struggling to wrap my head around the Defect. I get it’s mechanics but I’m not sure how to utilize them best.