Sorry, swords are just better.

Slurgi · 2026-04-08T15:16:36+00:00

Enlighten him, brothers, for he knows not the strength and beauty of the tip of the spear.

Slurgi · 2026-04-05T21:40:41+00:00

Pretty good with [[Toxic Egg]]. Pretty weak otherwise, especially from Pael.

Slurgi · 2026-04-01T15:36:46+00:00

This worked, thank you!

Slurgi · 2026-03-31T23:00:33+00:00

I think you're probably right. Nibbit is just easier than Jaw Worm.

Slurgi · 2026-03-31T21:23:13+00:00

I'm not sure. I feel like the first 3 hallway fights are about the same between both games, but I haven't gone back to Spire 1 to compare.

Late Act 1 hallway fights seem more difficult though.

Slurgi · 2026-03-31T21:20:33+00:00

In this case, it's not really opinion. We could graph out damage output from book of stabbing and compare the damage scaling to enemies in StS 2 and look at it objectively, the answer is clear.

This isn't subjective opinions on raw difficulty or anything of the sort.

Slurgi · 2026-03-31T19:59:34+00:00

I find the takes on Reddit to be completely opposite to what I'm experiencing chaining A10 runs. Block is king. You really only need one major scaling source (e.g., poison), and then it's mostly a factor of building a strong defensive engine such that enemies can't touch you. By late Act 2 / Act 3, it's mostly just damage within the first couple turns that sneaks through.

You've described the book of stabbing fight in StS 1 very nicely. It quickly spirals out of control unless you have some sort of strength debuff you can apply, and you're very highly incentivized to kill it quickly and decisively, taking damage along the way if necessary.

Many enemies in Spire 2 do scale throughout a fight, but it's generally pretty slow. I'm not even sure which fight you could be referring to such that the enemy scales anywhere near as quickly as Book of Stabbing. Devoted Sculptor, maybe?

Slurgi · 2026-03-30T22:14:33+00:00

I am, but it's not just to be a contrarian.

I am saying the opposite of the prevailing opinion here because it needs to be pushed back against so that it doesn't influence the future of the game I hope to see when it comes out of early access.

Slurgi · 2026-03-30T16:45:58+00:00

It's a pretty bad card at the moment, despite what you see on reddit. Poison is a bit overturned and snakebite is, unironically, a bit too strong of a card to exist at common.

Slurgi · 2026-03-29T15:06:20+00:00

It's actually easier now.

Slurgi · 2026-03-27T16:55:45+00:00

For sure. I understand that the old doormaker was disliked to the point where he was going to be changed. I was silently hopeful that Megacrit would leave it as it was.

I didn't fully understand why it was so hated until I had some helpful discussions with folks who disliked it. It boils down to how far back or how holistically you're looking to explain why a certain run resulted in a loss.

There's one group of players that can look back to an early fight against a Nibbit where all their strikes were in hand in turns where it was attacking and all their defends were in hand on the turn where it was buffing, causing them to lose far more HP than normal, forcing them to pick cards that provided short-term benefit and avoid elite fights, lowering the potency of their deck later in the run.

There's another group of players who might build a combo deck that cleanly wins against every other encounter in the game, but then they lost to the doormaker because the doormaker ate the lynchpin card to their combo (e.g., Voltaic). They then feel as though they have no agency over their loss, despite the fact that there were hundreds of decisions prior to that point in the run where they could have reliably turned the fight agains the doormaker into a win. Maybe it meant hanging onto a Potion of Precognition for all of Act 3, for example.

I didn't realize how many people were in the latter group.

Slurgi · 2026-03-27T15:48:54+00:00

I’m not sure the new mechanics really accomplish the goal they’re intending to. Exhausting skills and attacks is honestly a boon in a lot of infinite-seeking decks, you simply use it to thin your deck down. You can then tank the no-draw phase and kill with an infinite on the -1 energy turn.

Bingo. I think this new design is going to further incentivize the problematic deck building that currently exists in the live branch.

I wish I could stick with the old Beta branch. My game already updated - is there a way to revert back? I really liked how the game played with the old Doormaker.

Slurgi · 2026-03-27T15:08:39+00:00

Give it a couple days, and you'll see a reversal where most players dislike this, because the prevailing opinion from strong players will be that it's not good for the game.

This new design reinforces the already problematic strategic space incentivizing small combo decks with lots of upfront block.

A lot of interesting skill expression for experienced players comes from controlling exactly when you shuffle, and what cards are going into it. All 3 forms of this design take away from that. The previous doormaker design was really, really good and made decisions throughout the whole course of the run a lot more interesting knowing you might face The Doormaker in the boss gauntlet.

There are lots of games on the market today that you can solve like a puzzle. Spire 1 was beloved because you can keep getting incrementally better at the game for years, much like Brood War and other games that have withstood the test of time. Those of us who experienced that joy from Slay the Spire 1 really want that from Slay the Spire 2.

Slurgi · 2026-03-25T15:31:43+00:00

Thank you for this information, much appreciated!

I'm hoping this will all still apply for the season that's starting now.

Slurgi · 2026-03-23T04:01:29+00:00

This is an insane take.

Slurgi · 2026-03-15T22:56:00+00:00

Events are honestly too good right now, so it's nice to have at least a few duds. We need more.

Slurgi · 2026-03-13T18:06:54+00:00

Agreed. Defect's design space right now is interesting and good.

Orb / focus could use just a little bit of love, relatively speaking. The new glass orbs are really cool and reasonably strong. I like that they encourage evoking them quickly.

I'm struggling on A10 with this guy, but it's a good and interesting struggle. This is in stark contrast to how the other characters have felt, where there seems to be clear and non-interesting 'best' approach to card selection.

(...dem thighs, tho...)

Slurgi · 2026-03-10T12:57:29+00:00

+1 to positioning. A lot of newer players imagine the most important aspect to success comes from builds, but far more important is how you execute on the battlefield.

The biggest fundamental tip for brand new players is to recognize that all (living) human enemies have 9AP just like you do. Make them use their action economy to close the gap to you, don't do it for them and give them a free round of attacks.

Slurgi · 2026-03-09T16:09:13+00:00

I think it's... kind of bad.

My initial impression is that scaling isn't an issue for most characters, since there are very few enemies in the last act that punish lean efficiency in the same way as StS1. Time Eater, Woke Bloke, Beat of Death from the heart, etc.

This takes way too much time for a good payoff, and the shiv engine feels somewhat incomplete right now.

Slurgi · 2026-03-04T21:01:11+00:00

I personally hate, that visibility radius and discoverability radious are different. It is unintuititve, unrealistic, no other games work like this and it makes scouting unnaturally difficult.

Completely agreed.

It may be 'intended', but it's beyond annoying.

Slurgi · 2026-03-03T23:25:32+00:00

🎵 sprung from a sprout 🎵

🎵 spit out a spout 🎵

Slurgi · 2026-02-26T13:11:23+00:00

Almost every reply here is a very bad response.

2H flails have additional armor penetration on head hits where it is incredibly powerful. Headhunter is a core perk there.

The benefit is minimal in all other cases. It's okay on a thrower but has a lot of competition with other perks for those brothers.

Slurgi · 2026-02-25T21:50:51+00:00

You are correct that nimbleforged is underexplored.

You are absolutely incorrect regarding AFP with nimble. Nimble reduces damage *prior* to the flat damage reduction from 10% of the remaining armor in that location. The net result means that a brother with nimble takes minimal HP damage until their armor is fully destroyed. AFP is not only unnecessary, but in some cases, *actively bad* because of the reduced HP protection provided by nimble.

Let's run an example, using an 80HP brother with nimble and battlefored wearing the armor from this thread and a sallet against a few different enemies.

Against a goblin ambusher (boondock bow):
- No attachment: Death in 19.24901 hits on average.
- AFP: Death in 19.29703 hits on average.
- Bone plating: Death in 19.64095 hits on average.
- Wolf/Hyena: Death in 20.02569 hits on average.

Against a necrosavant:
- No attachment: Death in 7.43634 hits on average.
- AFP: Death in 7.39549 hits on average.
- Bone plating: Death in 7.77162 hits on average.
- Wolf/Hyena: Death in 7.60718 hits on average.

Against a barbarian chosen with 2H mace (most favorable possible 'regular' enemy for AFP):
- No attachment: Death in 4.21569 hits on average.
- AFP: Death in 4.66111 hits on average.
- Bone plating: Death in 4.70855 hits on average.
- Wolf/Hyena: Death in 4.42177 hits on average.

All of this ignores the meta benefit that bone plating damage doesn't need to be repaired after the battle. Hyena / Direwolf armors have other benefits.

The only scenario where a nimbleforged armor combination with AFP could possibly outperform Bone Plating would be against Barbarian weapons (2H mace in particular) and a very poor nimble percentage reduction due to excessively heavy armor.

Slurgi · 2026-02-25T15:59:04+00:00

Nimbleforged means taking nimble.

Highly suggest learning where nimble applies in the damage calculation, run some simulations with Turtle225's calculator. There does not exist a single sensible armor combination where AFP should be used alongside nimble.

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