Slay the Spire

[xRECKONERx]

apparition is honestly what won me my last two ascension runs

that event is real good

[implosion]

I'll probably finish silent ascension at some point (I'm at 10 I think, finished ironclad like a month ish ago) but I've been enjoying the dailies a LOT since they made them not incredibly boring.

Yesterday was so lovely. 2nd and 3rd relics to show up were spinning top and ice cream. Had one with the 50-card starting deck + taking a card gives you 3x copies and I took like 6 perfected strikes (aka, like 18 perfected strikes). Many more great ones that I'm forgetting.

[GreyICE]

And again. I'm getting confident I know enough about Silent to get pretty far. Definitely have to gamble for relics more, but there's a lot of ways you can get paid off. Also didn't expect to win a "trade your starting relic" run when I got goddamn feather.

Spoiler: Asc15 deck

[GreyICE]

So so far I've determined I'm very good with the shiv deck, but I must have some fundamental misunderstanding of how poison decks work, because they keep falling apart at some point. It's hard to do when Cloak & Dagger is broken while Deadly Poison just doesn't feel anywhere near as good.

Backstab is rapidly rising in the evaluations, it's just so good at avoiding damage against hallway trash.

[xRECKONERx]

holy
fucking
shit

[xRECKONERx]

got bottled storm on corruption+ and just fucking demolished

[Klick]

I stopped playing for a while, came back and there's more stuff! I'm only on like Ascension 3 with both classes, does it get significantly harder or is it basically the same? I'm having fun, I've had some great decks but I don't know how they compare to the ones posted lately. I'm just waiting for that one dream deck to post here.

[xRECKONERx]

each level adds more difficulty

i think for me it started getting really difficult when it added in "no more healing to full off of boss fights". like ascension 6 or 7 maybe?

[GreyICE]

I stopped playing for a while, came back and there's more stuff! I'm only on like Ascension 3 with both classes, does it get significantly harder or is it basically the same? I'm having fun, I've had some great decks but I don't know how they compare to the ones posted lately. I'm just waiting for that one dream deck to post here.

The big break points are 5 (less healing off boss fights), 11 (potions suck), and 15 (events suck) in terms of difficulty. The rest are just kind scaling - more HP on monsters, more power on monsters, less gold, less max HP, etc.

Only one of my Asc 15 wins was a "dream deck" the rest were just pretty good. Getting a dream deck gets much tougher as the ascension levels rise.

[xRECKONERx]

i started this silent run, picked the wrong thing at Neow and said "fuck it" and just randomly picked stuff bc i assumed i was gonna lose

then i cleared asc7 on silent so... oops?

[GreyICE]

Pandora's Box with Toxic Egg, that's got some really high EV if it hits. Looks damn fun to play, even if your second boss relic is Tiny House. What'd it spit out, House, Bell, Star?

[xRECKONERx]

it was uhhh

house, bell, and astro

[GreyICE]

Wow, usually I love Astralobe. Buuuut after you removed your junk with Pandora's Box, that's just gotta sting. Ouch.

I've got to say, I just cannot get into Ironclad at all. The entire thing annoys me. But Silent remains great.

\

This was weird because I didn't really know where I was going. I got doubt for gold, planning to remove it at a shop (netting 175 gold) but then got Molten Egg. So I ran with doubt all the way through, well, the end of the game. Granted the Blue Candle pickup had a LOT to do with that. Ended with 507 gold, which I thought was going to screw me, but managed to beat the Awakened One. He's TOUGH. Turns out if you never play a single power he's much more managable. I played Footwork+, then malaised all the strength away, and he was not very difficult.

Hmm, still think the worst boss in the game is Champ. He wrecks face.

[xRECKONERx]

champ doesnt bother me

the act 3 "lol fuck your whole strategy" bosses bother me because you have no way of planning for that shit

[GreyICE]

Eh, Champ does base 60 damage on his first buff attack, and that's without the ascension bonuses. He hits for 70+ very frequently on Ascension 15. And he'll spam that. It makes Hyperbeam look like a tickle.

I honestly don't have any problems with any of the act 3 bosses at this point. The thing is, all of them fuck with your strategies, but you can adapt to them. Well except Donu and Deca, if you deck doesn't scale faster than them they'll just beat you flat. At this point I've lost more Ascension 15 runs to Champ than I have to every act 3 boss combined. I'm not even joking, he might be just about my least favorite thing ever.

[Lady Lambdadelta]

Second try at the daily. First try was not that great, but this time I got a fuck ton of innate cards and just abused the fuck out of them. By the end, my deck was 100 some cards but I only ever saw the same like.... 15 or so?

[implosion]

I think Champ is harder for silent than ironclad. Silent has a tougher time bursting him the turn after he buffs, because silent generally has lower damage output per turn unless you get a very heavily combo-y deck (e.g. shuriken). Poison and 99 vulnerable builds also suffer from his un-debuffing. Ironclad strength builds are capable of just killing him the next turn, since ironclad has ways to apply vulnerable that aren't exhausted, and because options like limit break and demon form can sometimes just let you power through it. You also have a bigger health pool to begin with which is very relevant if you wind up needing to tank a single 24 x 3 attack before you can kill.

[xRECKONERx]

GOD i love dead branch



holy fuck this deck was bananas

[GreyICE]

Really starting to move closer to 50% on wins for Asc 15 Silent. The biggest death sentences are Act 2 elites, followed by Champ. Post-nerf Ascended one isn't bad, all the Act 3 bosses are actually just kind of fair for where they are.

[Sudo_Nym]

I'm having a lot of trouble getting past Ascension 4 with either class. I felt like I was doing well with Ironclad, but I seem to have hit a wall with the "thin deck" strat. My winrate with Silent has improved since I started playing more defensively, but it seems like my last few runs have petered out because I can't get Noxious Fumes in my rewards to actually capitalize on defense, so I just block until I get a bad hand and get wiped.

[xRECKONERx]

solution: play until you get a dead branch run on ironclad

[GreyICE]

I'm happy to offer Silent help, I think I can state with some confidence I know what I'm doing on Silent.

You might be overfocused on Noxious Fumes, it's just one way to scale, and not even the best one. Terror, Skewer, Burst & Malaise, all perfectly viable methods of getting there.

Mind posting some decks?

[Sudo_Nym]

I'm happy to offer Silent help, I think I can state with some confidence I know what I'm doing on Silent.

You might be overfocused on Noxious Fumes, it's just one way to scale, and not even the best one. Terror, Skewer, Burst & Malaise, all perfectly viable methods of getting there.

Mind posting some decks?

I'll try to remember next time I play Silent, but my general strategy with Silent is to load up on cards like Backflip, Caltrops, and Noxious Fumes, and try to turtle up and wittle away. I'll pick up attacks like Dagger Spray that hit everything or hit multiple times, or Cloak and Dagger that can do good block while also damaging, and I'll go in on Shivs if I can get an Accuracy in the first zone. It's generally good enough to get me to the third zone, but then I usually peter out against a third zone elite.

Ironclad, my strategy is usually just to try and keep my deck thin, and then cycle through as many high damage cards as quickly as I can. That tends to either win the run, or die in zone 1, depending on how well I'm doing mental math in that span.

[implosion]

I did all my ascensions on ironclad with fat decks. Just taking goodstuffs when offered, pretty much.

[GreyICE]

I'm happy to offer Silent help, I think I can state with some confidence I know what I'm doing on Silent.

You might be overfocused on Noxious Fumes, it's just one way to scale, and not even the best one. Terror, Skewer, Burst & Malaise, all perfectly viable methods of getting there.

Mind posting some decks?

I'll try to remember next time I play Silent, but my general strategy with Silent is to load up on cards like Backflip, Caltrops, and Noxious Fumes, and try to turtle up and wittle away. I'll pick up attacks like Dagger Spray that hit everything or hit multiple times, or Cloak and Dagger that can do good block while also damaging, and I'll go in on Shivs if I can get an Accuracy in the first zone. It's generally good enough to get me to the third zone, but then I usually peter out against a third zone elite.

Ironclad, my strategy is usually just to try and keep my deck thin, and then cycle through as many high damage cards as quickly as I can. That tends to either win the run, or die in zone 1, depending on how well I'm doing mental math in that span.

If you can log into run history and post some failed ones, I'll probably grasp the problem. It sounds like you've focused on too defensive though. Make sure to hit elites! The more relics the better. There's a lot of ways to win, and you can give yourself opportunities. Hit shops with enough gold to grab relics like Snecko Skull, Shuriken, Kunai, things you can build around and win the match with.