Was telling a friend of mine about a crazy fun Defect run I was having. For the first time I managed to put together a strength focused build. He asked me to record fight against the heart, which I did. Posting it here too, in case anyone wants to see how it can work.

If my plays appear really sub optimal it's because they are. Throughout the run I was playing much slower than this. I'd guess a quarter the speed seen here. However, I was also aware that lengthy periods of inaction with no accompanying sound while my slow brain tries to make sense of what I need to do next would be super boring for my mate to watch, so I tried to speed things up. Fortunately deck was strong enough that I could make quite a few errors and still win.

Yea it can only take 200 damage per turn, so at this point was just using energy for damage and block scaling

https://youtu.be/EQgbV9Dc6bQ

So it doesn't matter what path you take? The relics will come in the same order regardless?

Hmm, that's disappointing. I'm not sure why it matters but it seems wrong.

I wasn't getting anywhere earlier on ascension 5. Then I started a run where I swapped relics and got the snecko eye. I never usually choose that as I thought it was a bit of a joke or one for experts, but it's turned out to be an insanely powerful build. I've sailed through the first 2 acts in no time. Even better when I later got the boss relic that randomly transformed all my base strike and block cards.

Still got act 3 to go, but it seems like an unstoppable run.

I was exactly the same. Snecko Eye is insanely powerful as long as you aren’t playing a lot of 0 cards. I found it very good with Silent and Defect.

Just went back and finished it. Destroyed act 3 without needing to heal at all. The donut lads didn't stand a chance. That was with Silent.

Dark Soldier wrote:

Best relic in the game alongside Dead Branch.

I'd more call them the most frequently overpowered relics. I think the 'best' has to be orange pellets or frozen eye.

I've taken it in the hope of getting Apotheosis mid battle, it's worked a couple times for me, but yeah it's pretty pants.

Trying and failing to get Watcher to Asc8. I keep just falling short in act 3 and always seem to be missing some vital piece of my deck/relics.

My Tier list:
1.Silent
2.Defect
3.IC
4.Watcher

Aye, Silent really is pick of the bunch eh?
That cumulative poison thing works every time. Get her defense and poison abilities up, get dead branch and you're unstoppable.

Watcher is almost certainly the strongest class by a mile imho, no other character has access to such a high amount of on demand damage or mitigation. The amount of runs I needed to clear asc 20 with her compared to the other classes felt waaaaay lower.

My tier list:

Watcher
Ironclad
Defect
Silent

I find Silent really inconsistent, but that's probably on me, I'm really bad at taking advantage of the draw mechanics she can use to cycle realty quickly. I find poison started getting really difficult to use well at higher difficulties because it's quite tough to either get the poison going fast enough or get enough damage mitigation going against the enemies at that point, unless you have a very well tailored deck.

Yeah just the ability to stock up your hand with wrath/divinity and retained big damage cards and use them on the turn when they're most effective is nuts compared to every other class.

Edit: I think it's the mana boost that makes it so silly. Getting +2/+3 energy on the turn you also start doing double/triple damage is bonkers.

Double Edit: Makes me feel like I'm in Fist of the North Star, at least.