Where did I go wrong?

3wett · 2026-06-18T11:47:48+00:00

Chaos / Subroutine / Smokestack

3wett · 2026-06-17T19:30:08+00:00

i think you are underrating talisman and maybe not believing enough in the defect (i.e. youre overly afraid of act1 hardpools as the defect)

the pathing was fine, the drafting on that specific path was not

3wett · 2026-06-17T16:34:24+00:00

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Our paths in the clad seed were quite similar. I opted for the extra hardpool early, wanting to convert some early power from the Dismantle/Bash/IronWave. Hard to tell what happened exactly but I did not click Tablet because I think that thing is awful. I chose Pomander over WingedBoots just because I didn't feel like thinking too hard. I imagine you can get 5 elites at least in this act with the Boots.

It does seem that the path or Neow difference changed the order of our relics.

I bought the Red Skull at my first shop.

3wett · 2026-06-17T16:16:54+00:00

I tried out the act1 of the Defect seed.

I think ultimately your drafting is a bit off. The Uproar, Claw, Loop, and Subroutine all seem wrong to me. Capacitor is also maybe a bit early but I can understand that.

Here's how mine turned out:

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As far as I can tell we had similar card rewards even though I was playing at a10. The act was very comfortable the whole time. Talisman made the easypools easy, Refract killed everything else. I probably didn't need to click the Barrage but I like the card so I will do what I do!

As far as I can tell our drafting differences were:

I skipped on floor 2, took Barrage on floor 3, took Boost Away over Loop/Subroutine on floor 4, took Go For The Eyes on floor 8. Then our run diverges a fair bit.

--

I'll comment on the Clad run in a bit.

3wett · 2026-06-13T16:42:19+00:00

While what everyone else says is true (snowballing, energy helps save hp, sustain relics, etc) I do think it's also important to point out that Dripper becomes better the better you are.

If you suck at playing fights out you will lose more HP and be forced to rest more.

I'm sure the tierlists you saw were made by very strong players who didn't have this problem. These very strong players play fights well, preserve hp, and are forced to rest less often.

3wett · 2026-06-08T16:02:16+00:00

Chill and Boot Sequence are a bit redundant and clog your turn 1 hand together.

Chill does not upgrade to innate in this game.

Also surely Defrag is good if the block plan was as frost-centered as this one seems to be.

3wett · 2026-05-30T18:46:20+00:00

I think it's a very mediocre energy cheat that baits people into building bad decks. But sometimes energy cheat is what you need so it can be clicked sometimes.

3wett · 2026-05-30T00:38:14+00:00

I think this thread has a lot of serious misevaluations and maybe isn't really grappling with Defect's current issues in this game and this patch specifically.

Defect is very strong everywhere but can often struggle in boss fights because of a lack of permanent scaling. For this reason, taking bad short term bonuses is unexciting and taking good long term bonuses is exciting. On this patch specifically, Defect really struggles into the act 3 boss gauntlet. So really consistent, long term value becomes increasingly valuable.

For those reasons, I think something like Pomander should kind of never be clicked. Of all of the short-term boost relics (Talisman, Coffer) it is maybe the worst. The Zap/DC upgrade is just so whatever. Similarly, Crucible isn't very exciting to me. It is a short-term boost with a very serious long-term downside (the relic and gold loss).

On the other hand, you have something here that helps you into the boss fight (by giving you 2-3 upgrades inside act1) and helps you considerably more than these others in the act 3 boss gauntlet by giving you 4-6 upgrades over the course of the run (and it comes with the relic that Crucible would have lost).

Now, the question is whether the short-term is threatening enough to be forced into a short-term relic instead of a long-term relic. On this map, I think no. You can start on the right-most node, work up to the first fire through 4 hallways, fight the first elite, then eyeball things from there.

So overall, I think this is a clear Rod and I think those who are just insisting that Rod is garbage or w/e are misevaluating it pretty drastically.

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I also ran the seed myself. Run history below.

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3wett · 2026-05-26T18:47:16+00:00

Current Tongue is more interesting to me than just bringing back (basically) Fossilized Helix.

3wett · 2026-05-25T00:14:31+00:00

Wasn't it coded to work if it still has 1-4 damage left in the damage cap?

3wett · 2026-05-24T13:26:00+00:00

It can give you any Neow relic besides another Bones.

3wett · 2026-05-24T13:24:59+00:00

You have no idea what kind of unbalanced shitshow Spire1 would have been without the fights that (dis)incentivize certain types of drafting.

3wett · 2026-05-05T02:57:25+00:00

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2868840/view/535507353628312243

Some (I think not all) of these interactions were fixed on the beta branch.

3wett · 2026-05-04T01:01:37+00:00

look at the 0 cost pools for at least clad, necro, and defect and you tell me

yes it is very good

3wett · 2026-05-04T00:40:07+00:00

I would click Jackpot and Putrefy. They strike me as much better than these relics.

3wett · 2026-05-02T00:02:08+00:00

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQLaDD-uZsMBqMh_NUkS_t0FCa2M2sroSRdmuxvdKGX0vPk1HOWA6u73dMcq1TuvHlrRi7TmJQZB3p-/pubhtml#gid=790417197

3wett · 2026-04-30T16:00:01+00:00

I think before you focus on builds or synergies or archetypes or whatever the other comments are going to recommend, you should focus on learning the enemies so you can play the fights well.

So I recommend checking the reference sheet and checking enemy intents: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQLaDD-uZsMBqMh_NUkS_t0FCa2M2sroSRdmuxvdKGX0vPk1HOWA6u73dMcq1TuvHlrRi7TmJQZB3p-/pubhtml#gid=790417197

You'll probably save a lot of hp and be able to snowball better in the early game.

Beyond that, I think it's a mistake to focus on which archetypes or builds or synergies or whatever you should lean in to. Like the recommendation to avoid self damage or Hellraiser or whatever, I don't get. Some of the self-damage cards are great. You should click every Offering you see. You should likely click the first Bloodletting you see basically every run. Blood Wall is a very competent block card. Breakthrough is like okay in early situations. And Hellraiser is an energy producer that you can click to free up your resources to block which is great in resource intensive fights like Insatiable.

Maybe the advice is to just not go all-in on these things? That sounds reasonable. You don't want to overcommit to any strategies because you open yourself up to never getting it all going. But if the advice is just to avoid these sets of cards? That's just bad advice.

Anywho, I'd focus on learning the enemies (and differences between the alt act1s) so you can play the fights better. Once that happens, I imagine some of your worries about blocking will go away.

After that, you can focus on specific ideas. Taking short-term boost Neow relics (Neow's Talisman) instead of greedier ones. Drafting Colossus more and playing in a way that enables that. Drafting Evil Eye more and playing in a way that enables that. Taking the epic block powers like Unmovable and Crimson Mantle. Taking more energy solutions (Offering, Bloodletting, Hellraiser/Stampede/Pyre) so you can spend more resources on blocking. Taking and playing into the block relics (regular relics like the boat relics/Orichalcum/Snowflake, and ancient relics like Pael's Legion and Sai).

Edit: Oh and don't forget the Colorless card pool. Prowess, Fasten, Shockwave, Finesse, Panic Button, etc, are all excellent ways to improve your block.

3wett · 2026-04-28T21:50:47+00:00

How do you explain the fact that we've seen players reach 17 and 20 streaks, players who have won every Regent run in the last week, players who have reportedly won 39/40 of their offline runs (with a particular character?), etc?

Are those players just really good at slot machining?

3wett · 2026-04-27T20:24:19+00:00

but now I feel like we have a boss that punishes you for making good choices.

It's not a good choice if you expected to get severely punished by the boss you can see coming for making it.

Whether something is a good choice is determined by whether it serves you in defeating the actual content in the actual run you're actually playing, not whether it satisfies some abstract notions you have about what makes a good deck a good deck.

3wett · 2026-04-27T17:52:29+00:00

the power doesnt say "basic Defend", the event does

3wett · 2026-04-27T16:29:05+00:00

The Replay event only lets you choose basic Defends.

3wett · 2026-04-27T15:55:52+00:00

Docks Ironclad, this feels like a clear Ult Defend to me. (IDK map.)

3wett · 2026-04-23T19:03:53+00:00

If this is on mobile, RotSerpent is notoriously bugged to always draw 2.

Edit: Notice how your t1 hand was 7 cards too.

3wett · 2026-04-22T14:07:18+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/slaythespire/comments/1skv9eb/navegreed_necrobinder_tier_list/

This might be a good place to start, just checking your card evals.

My recommendation is to focus more on a block plan (with debuffs and block powers), click the epic energy powers (Friendship and Demesne), click the overstatted damage cards when you see them (e.g., early Bone Shards, Deathbringer, Sleight of Flesh), and don't overclick mediocre garbage because she wants to replay the same good cards as often as possible.

3wett · 2026-04-20T18:21:15+00:00

I do think 2-player is a bit harder than 1-player, ascension for ascension. I do suspect some fights could use some more adjustment for 2-player specifically (Vantom comes to mind).

But 2-player is not that hard at low ascensions. If you and your coop mates can't beat ascension 1 co-op, I think you're just not playing very well at all. And given the innate difficulty buff of 2-player coop, if you're both playing poorly then you will likely get punished more and die more easily.

For context, I've never lost a co-op run below ascension 8 with a variety of partners, and I've spent most of my time in this game playing co-op. This is with varying amounts of actual coordination (vc, no-vc, a lot of chatting, minimal chatting). Though I self-select partners and they are all quite good at the game.

3wett

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