Slay the Spire: B&B GOTY 2018, 2020, 2021, and Forum Pariah 2019 - The Bear and Badger

mistercrayon

I think if you’re happy to bin runs frequently then waiting for good draws is fine but I think you’re more likely to get to the first boss in decent shape (both health wise and with some kind of decent deck for the future) if you avoid the elites.

Tempy

Yeah, you generally always want to be fighting elites in act 1, the benefits of early relics are brilliant. Generally take a path that has a bonfire before or after so you can either upgrade your best card, or heal up after. I’ve been playing IC lately, a good 2 cost card or a Bash upgrade will see you through.

Tempy

mistercrayon wrote:

I think if you’re happy to bin runs frequently then waiting for good draws is fine but I think you’re more likely to get to the first boss in decent shape (both health wise and with some kind of decent deck for the future) if you avoid the elites.

Think it's rare to bin runs on A1 elites, as setting up for them is quite easy, you can generally get by with a good common, a decent uncommon.

SpaceGazelle

Tempy wrote:

Yeah, you generally always want to be fighting elites in act 1, the benefits of early relics are brilliant. Generally take a path that has a bonfire before or after so you can either upgrade your best card, or heal up after. I’ve been playing IC lately, a good 2 cost card or a Bash upgrade will see you through.

My route planning in A1 is basically find the first elite with a bonfire before it.

hylian_elf

I seem to do best when I die early and get offered 3 enemy encounters where they have 1hp.

Facewon

So you can't get past 4 encounters. Amirite?

Facewon

I'm trying to get back into defect mode. Ac19. Really rusty. Some synergies and tactics are coming to me, but man, never mind missed opportunities I can't even see, I'm missing stuff and immediately noticing what I should have done, a lot.

Still making headway, but haven't seen much act 3 for a while.

Ed_Flanders

Finally beat the heart with the ironclad. I found ascension 1 a bit easier than the regular mode because there were more elites to choose from.
Body slam plus the card that attacks whenever you block (forgot the name) carried the run for me.
It's incredible how the game sometimes seems impossible but after a while everything clicks...

Facewon

Nice one. Heart at any level is a mofo.

I got within a turn of beating ac19 with Defect. Straight Lighting OPness nearly carried the day.

SpaceGazelle

Yeah asc 1 is easier then asc 0 once you've beaten the act 3 boss and got your bearings.

Facewon

ac19 with Defect done.

As per usual, when it goes right with Defect, it's a bloodbath.

Snecko, all the good lightning stuff, Echo form. Donut and co didn't stand a chance.

pantyfire

fuck.
My iPad screen is unresponsive today, iv'e tried everything and I think I've killed the display.
But it's ok because I have a iPad Pro.... but all STS progress is saved locally and I have to start from fresh on the iPad Pro.

SpaceGazelle

You'll rip through it. You'll be amazed at how much you've learnt.

hunk

Just realised you can bail out of a losing battle by save/quite/resuming the game. Last battle will reset so you can have another go. Free infinite continues whoop!

Also, the watcher's difficulty level is brutal. By far the hardest character to learn. With the other characters you can sometimes accidentally 'break' the game. Not so with the watcher, with her you have to work for your wins.

mistercrayon

That’s cheating.

Facewon

hunk wrote:

Just realised you can bail out of a losing battle by save/quite/resuming the game. Last battle will reset so you can have another go. Free infinite continues whoop!

Also, the watcher's difficulty level is brutal. By far the hardest character to learn. With the other characters you can sometimes accidentally 'break' the game. Not so with the watcher, with her you have to work for your wins.

Waht.

hunk

Idc I:heart:it

Tempy

Watcher is absurdly powerful, probably the most powerful class in the game. If you think you can’t accidentally break the game with her you’ve not had one of her game breaking blasphemy or divinity runs. You gotta stop having these declarative takes like three runs into a character!

hunk

She's absurdly powerful yet also absurdly vulnerable. One reckless mistake with an elite/ boss can kill you outright easily. But agreed, mastering her stances are the key together with divinity.

Margin for error is even smaller than Silent due to her vulnerability in Wrath.

Roujin

Watcher is the easiest class to win with imho. Her wrath stance doesn't take that long to learn how and when to use and unlike the rest of the cast, the vast majority of her cards have very easy synergies to get going.

Being a glass cannon is a problem, but she's only made of glass while being big mad, except with cards like Wallop and Halt if you get those off and can stay in wrath, most fights are pretty much over. Or with stuff like tranquility or meditation or empty fist, you can very easily modulate your damage output so you end turns in neutral stance.

Gremill

Up to Asc5 on all characters now. Just won it with Watcher after many, many failed runs. I'd been trying to balance my block cards out with all the attacking stuff but I wasn't getting anywhere - tried to do both and got neither to any effect.

Ended up going supper aggressive instead with quite a wide variety of attacking cards and relics (kunai, shuriken, bronze scales, molten egg, enchiridion, strike dummy (along with a full deck of upgraded attacks), akabeko and pen nib amongst others). Demolished everyone.

hunk

Roujin wrote:

Watcher is the easiest class to win with imho. Her wrath stance doesn't take that long to learn how and when to use and unlike the rest of the cast, the vast majority of her cards have very easy synergies to get going. Being a glass cannon is a problem, but she's only made of glass while being big mad, except with cards like Wallop and Halt if you get those off and can stay in wrath, most fights are pretty much over. Or with stuff like tranquility or meditation or empty fist, you can very easily modulate your damage output so you end turns in neutral stance.

Aye, that's the key. The game likes to deny you those calm cards though fucking up your run. Perhaps managing the size of the deck is essential keeping your options more focussed.

Gremill

Perhaps...

Roujin

hunk wrote:

Watcher is the easiest class to win with imho. Her wrath stance doesn't take that long to learn how and when to use and unlike the rest of the cast, the vast majority of her cards have very easy synergies to get going. Being a glass cannon is a problem, but she's only made of glass while being big mad, except with cards like Wallop and Halt if you get those off and can stay in wrath, most fights are pretty much over. Or with stuff like tranquility or meditation or empty fist, you can very easily modulate your damage output so you end turns in neutral stance.

Aye, that's the key. The game likes to deny you those calm cards though fucking up your run. Perhaps managing the size of the deck is essential keeping your options more focussed.

It'll never catch on.

Edit: Also there are loads of calm cards, you always get offered them, tranquility is a common card iirc and stays in your hand as soon as you draw it and your deck starts with that block card that puts you in calm.

Tempy

A winning deck is never too big, nor too small, it is merely the size it wishes to be.

hunk

Cheers for the feedback lads. Will give it another go later.

SpaceGazelle

Still slugging through heart asc levels. Up to 7 with silent but it's tough.

hunk

Roujin wrote:

Watcher is the easiest class to win with imho. Her wrath stance doesn't take that long to learn how and when to use and unlike the rest of the cast, the vast majority of her cards have very easy synergies to get going. Being a glass cannon is a problem, but she's only made of glass while being big mad, except with cards like Wallop and Halt if you get those off and can stay in wrath, most fights are pretty much over. Or with stuff like tranquility or meditation or empty fist, you can very easily modulate your damage output so you end turns in neutral stance.

Aye, that's the key. The game likes to deny you those calm cards though fucking up your run. Perhaps managing the size of the deck is essential keeping your options more focussed.

It'll never catch on. Edit: Also there are loads of calm cards, you always get offered them, tranquility is a common card iirc and stays in your hand as soon as you draw it and your deck starts with that block card that puts you in calm.

This. Winning tactic.
The act3 healing wolf boss is an evil bastard though. Have yet to beat him, grrrr....

hunk

Ok, I was wrong with the watcher.
If and when you master her stances she practically becomes a Goddess! Donu was annoying but not a match. Divinity is key to doing damage. That last pincer boss after the heart killed me in the end alas...

Edit:
You know when she's ascended to boss level when you can reach divinity in 1-2 turns plus grow energy every turn.

Roujin

Divinity is nice but I wouldn't specifically chase it on a Watcher run, unless I was offered one of the cards that increases mantra early in a run where I hadn't seen any other damage card yet.

I find wrath a bit more reliable and consistent as you can hold a crescendo for the turns where you get your damage cards or if you stack a few of the retained damage cards in hand. Whereas with Divinity because it cycles in and out, it just lacks that bit of fine control over when you choose to go for it. Nothing worse than having your divinity turns lining up with the Act 3 elite Nemesis when he's on his intangible turns, for instance.

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