Slay the Spire - Catch all

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I just picked this game up and wow does it push all my buttons. It is a FTL rogue-like except combat is done through card battles. You start the dungeon with the same 10 cards in your deck each time and you add to your deck as you move through the dungeon (if you have ever played Dominion it is very similar). It is really great when things fall your way just right and you can build a deck of doom.

It looks right down my alley but I've been waiting for it to come out of early access before jumping in. How close to complete is it?

It is a complete game. There is a good variety of card and a number of viable building strategies. Absolutely worth picking up now if it sounds like sonething you'd like

Good to know, thanks. Will pick it up once I've cleared a few more games from the backlog.

I picked this up, on Friday, (Steam says 0 hrs) and I have probably close to 10 hrs into it. I'm loving it!

My very first run, I got right up to the last boss (3rd), and died - I went all in to kill it, but it was "unawakened"... I didn't have much health-pool left when the f***er woke up for round 2

Every run after that, I've been using The Silent, and have yet to get that far... I had one run where I gambled away his/her starting relic, and ended up with the Snecko Eye - start combats "confused" (drawn card-costs are randomized) - that really messes with your usual strategies. That relic made me choose the most "expensive" cards - I figured, why not, it's going to have a chance to be cheaper, anyway. It was fun.

(I'm getting too close to finishing Dark Souls 3, and I bought Fallout 4 during the sale... haven't touched FO, but playing the sh*t outta this game.)

This game looks pretty flipping great. Tagging into the thread as a contemplate purchase. If it is early access but also complete, what is missing? How responsive / frequent are updates?

There are 2 playable characters, atm. Both of their "decks" feel complete, and balanced. The third hasn't been released, yet (likely a wizard-themed character).

I've been having a lot of fun with it.

I got to one of the of Bosses of Act 3 for the first time a couple nights ago...

Spoiler:

I encountered the Awakened One, a creature summoned by all those cultists encountered earlier in the game. I was doing really well, took out its minions, and did an epic final blow to knock him to 0!
But then another turn occured. I never even thought resurrection to a stage 2 form was even a remote possibility, so I slammed the creature with a ton of attack cards without even thinking. Next thing I know he is completely healed and attacking at the same strength as before. With a little more patience I could have easily began developing a defense the previous turn, but I was fool hardy and victory was my only focus. I perished soon after with supreme disappointment.

Lesson learned. Haven't come close to a run like that since but I think I'm beginning to learn the deck and identify specific synergies.

I love this game.

Yup, that was the first "final boss" I ran into - on my very first run with the Ironclad. I was... unsuccessful.

It has yet to make another appearance. I've since encountered - Donu & Deca, and the Timekeeper (I feel like there's another) multiple times, but never the Awakened... I was starting to think they'd taken it out.

This looks fun! I've added it to my wishlist.

Wink_and_the_Gun wrote:

Yup, that was the first "final boss" I ran into - on my very first run with the Ironclad. I was... unsuccessful.

It has yet to make another appearance. I've since encountered - Donu & Deca, and the Timekeeper (I feel like there's another) multiple times, but never the Awakened... I was starting to think they'd taken it out.

Donu & Deca were number two. Much easier, I was pretty OP against those guys and I never dropped below 50% HP. Finally beat the game??

I grabbed this during the most recent sale. It's a load of fun. It has me bringing my laptop up to bed with me so I can get a few more battles in before bed.

I made it to the final boss with The Silent, but I was ill prepared. I had a burst damage build going but not enough defense. I've started a new run with the Ironclad and I'm going defense heavy and trying to keep the size of my deck down. We'll see how it turns out.

I also picked this up in the latest sale. Having a lot of fun with it, although I apparently suck. So far I've only played the Ironclad and I've made it to the final boss twice out of ump-teen attempts. The second time I was feeling really good about my deck- I had barricade (block doesn't expire at the end of a turn), a card that gives 40 block and then exhausts, and body slam (deal damage equal to your block). On my run up to the boss, I was building over 50, 75, 100 block- never getting hurt and dealing massive damage when body slam appeared. When I reached the boss... only attack cards for many rounds, while it outdamaged me every round until I was dead.

Since then, I haven't seen barricade once, in several attempts.

EDIT:
Another run up to the final boss. Another defeat. This time I was able to get my Barricade on. Got the boss down to about 60 HP. In my final round I had 45 block (thanks to Barricade) and 20 HP and the MF'er hit me for 66 damage. Damn it.

I might have won if I had paid more attention to this boss's power and didn't waste a turn early on: Time Eater spoiler

Spoiler:

Every 12th card you play immediately ends your turn and he gets +2 strength. The first time it happened to me, I was setting up for a powerful round with a bunch of 0 energy attack cards in my hand. My turn ended abruptly after playing Flex to boost my strength for the turn. I didn't know what had happened until I took a closer look to the enemy's status effects.

Also, I don't know if it's intended or not, but I found a nice unexpected card combo:

Spoiler:

Flex gives you +2 strength (+4 when upgraded) at the start of your turn, that expires at the end of your turn.
Limit Break doubles your strength.

Play Flex first, then Limit Break. You get to keep the strength added by Limit Break even after Flex wears off. (Example: Say you have 2 strength at start of turn. You play Flex and get +2 for a total of 4. Limit Break doubles it to 8. At the end of the round, Flex expires for 2 points, and you now have permanent 6 strength.

Tscott wrote:

Since then, I haven't seen barricade once, in several attempts.

Don't hunt for barricade too hard. It's very winnable without it. Manage your deck size and look for synergies to abuse.

For your 2nd spoiler, probably intended.

Finally had a victory. This time I got Feed (if you kill an enemy with it get +3 max HP) as my random starting bonus and used it early on. Later got a relic that gave +6 max HP for each curse you got, and then an encounter that gave 3 relics and 3 curses. Had a max HP of over 140 by the end. Also made use of Perfected Strike (adds damage for every "strike" card in your deck) - had 4 of them and used them every chance I got.

Some nice Ironclad decks:
Strength builders with Heavy Blade+
Barricade, Metallicize, Entrench, Body Slam+
Thunderclap and Dropkick - especially with Paper Frog (Vulnerable takes +75% instead of 50%) and Champion's Belt (applying Vulnerable also adds 1 Weak)

So far my most successful Silent decks are all Poison (Noxious Fumes, etc, plus Poison Explosion)... I've had some wins with Shivs, but they really rely on synergistic cards.

Slay the Spire is pretty great, just won with the first class. I thought there were 6 levels for some reason so I was kinda sad when it ended after 3. I enjoyed getting new cards, leveling them up, discovering new artifacts. The enemies seemed nice and varied too with the different abilities. Not nearly as much grinding as Monster Slayers, which is a good thing even though I liked Monster Slayers a lot.

I still haven't won with The Silent yet, but have had another win with The Ironclad. This time I got the relic that gives 6 block at the end of your turn if you don't have any block. I used that with a few Metallicized to get a guaranteed 16 block at the end of every turn while focusing my card plays on strength, debuffing and damage.

That, plus the relic that basically gives you a free life (heal to 50% the first time you receive fatal damage) got me a win against The Awakened One.

Finally got a successful win with the Silent. Had a lot of fun with the deck I built. It was focused on shivs and I got the Shiroken relic that gives +Strength every time you get 3 attacks in the same turn- which was pretty easy to get almost every turn. In the end, I won pretty easily against The Awakened One (although one bad hand could have ended me as I finished with 17 HP).

Played and won my first daily challenge. It was a lot of fun. Seems like the developers are using the modifiers to test the limits of the game and see if they can break things.

And I guess they broke it today. One of the modifiers was that for every card you got, you got 3 copies of it and apparently ending a game with over 120 cards (I ended with well over that) in your deck currently marks you as a cheater which affects the score and if you earn it twice you'll never be uploaded to the leaderboards again. Luckily they know about it and a hotfix is coming, and all cheater flags that were activated by this daily will be removed. http://steamcommunity.com/app/646570...

So heads up if anyone's doing the daily climbs. It should be all good in the end but it gave me a fright to see that reflected in my score.

Holy cow the daily challenges can sometimes be a blast! I just finished an insane run where I killed all 3 bosses and 4 elites without ever taking damage. The modifier where you get 3 copies of every card you pick up (but can't remove cards in shops) can lead to some very overpowered decks.

Spoiler:

I bought Mindblast in an early shop (does damage equal to the number of card in your draw pile), promptly upgraded all 3 copies to make them innate (they show up in your first hand) and got really lucky on the third floor to get an event that allowed me to duplicate a card. Giving me a starting hand of 6 Mindblasts each doing 100+ damage each. In the final fight, Donu and Deca were dead on turn one.

Really love this game. Have been playing a ton over the last month.

I finally beat Ascension 15 on The Silent. It felt like the hardest gaming challenge I've faced in a long time. While it was often arbitrary and frustrating (and arbitrarily frustrating), I really loved the climb.

I'm up to Ascension 10 on The Ironclad. I find him less fun to play, hence why I did the Silent ladder first. He's a lot more straightforward than Silent and thus has less interesting deck-building possibilities.

I had my first 'normal' victory! I had a bit of a weird deck starting out. It started off as a block-heavy deck, but I picked up a limit break (double your strength) and went heavy on the strength cards after that. I ended up with THREE Limit breaks, 3 Heavy Blades, and a bunch of cool relics.

The last boss died in 2-3 hits. It was amazing.

Now onto The Silent! Gosh, I'll be playing this for a very long time. What a perfect little game!

Fiend Fire + Dead Branch... Holy sh*t...

According to this week's patch notes, the "focus was on tasks to ensure a smooth launch for character three into the beta branch next week" (emphasis mine)

I know nothing about what the 3rd character may be, but I'm excited to find out.

I've heard the design was some kind of clock-work... I'm gonna say "bird"... no idea what the cards are though.

Great game but you all know that.
I want to recommend Meteorfall On iOS. Similar mechanics to Slay the Spire but. Bit simplified. You only fight one enemy at a time and you draw one card at a time from a deck you customize along the way. Like Reins, you swipe right or left for either stamina refresh or to undertake the card’s action. 4 playable classes and NO in app purchases. It’s a great compliment to Slay the Spire and a bit shorter to win a run.
Highly recommended.

It is indeed fantastic. I'm in love with the visual design! It's all the good bits of Adventure Time, but slightly more mature.

I've been playing it off and on. I love the simplicity of it! The controls are perfect. My only gripe is that it's quite difficult to remove cards from your deck. Otherwise, it's one of the best ways to spend some pocket change.

Just had an awesome run with the ironclad. Things just fell into place. I was able to generate a lot of block and got barricade. I had several costly cards like demonic form (I think that is what it’s called) and bludgeon and then I got enlightenment. I beat the third boss and now get to play ascension mode.

I picked this up over the weekend and am really enjoying it so far. Everything I look for in a game these days—easy to learn and play, but with lots of depth, strategy, and progression...and then add in a "save anywhere" feature and the ability to play in short blocks of time. Perfecto.

I'm picking up some basic strategies as I go and seem to do fine (on most runs) until I get to the boss fight on the second spire, The City. Then I just get crushed. How am I supposed to prepare to face off with a boss that does huge damage multiple turns in a row? Upgrading Block cards? Increasing Max HP? Potions? Or do I just need to hope I gather the right set of Relics over a run to counter?

I imagine the answer is "a little of all of that," but I'd appreciate any tips on getting over that hump.

After hundreds (thousands?) of runs, I can firmly say that the 2nd spire is the hardest part of the game. The game ramps up the difficulty and you (generally) don't have a fully-realized deck to deal with it. This is multiplied by a billion in higher ascension.

It's hard to give generalized advice because a lot of it depends on your deck and the boss you face. The Champion is very different from The Collector.

Assuming you're playing Ironclad (and not The Silent), then you should probably try and build a defensive deck. Look for Barricade, Body Slams, and Shrug it Offs. Upgrade them in that order. 1 Barricade, 1 or 2 Body Slams is fine. You can have as many Shrugs as you want. I've ended runs with 10!

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