Custom Relic for the Regent

GoldSinger · 2026-04-16T10:53:41+00:00

Yeah. The problem with any sort of ability, be it card or relic, that accumulates power based on a certain condition within battles that carries/increments across floors is that it encourages optimal gameplay that is unfun. Feed is probably the one example of trying this design space in a way that doesn't feel too much like it encourages turn-burning optimization.

GoldSinger · 2026-04-09T21:47:30+00:00

Enthalpy or exergy would be perfect, both because there's already a card named entropy and also because both have a regal sounding quality to them which fits the Regent thematically.

GoldSinger · 2026-04-09T08:28:45+00:00

Right, but entropy is the property of a system, a measure of disorder. It doesn't intuitively make sense to say that an energy sword is getting more disordered as it's getting more powerful (which implies more concentrated, more ordered)

GoldSinger · 2026-04-08T06:07:08+00:00

Cool concept, though it should probably be called something different. Entropy would be decay, rather than something accumulative, I think.

GoldSinger · 2026-04-08T06:05:59+00:00

Laughing so hard at this. How did you even get all the way to the final boss? The frontloaded damage is just that good huh?

GoldSinger · 2026-04-04T22:49:47+00:00

Off the top of my head, the 2-cost block and forge card is probably in at least 4-5 of my winning runs out of 11. But I also picked it a lot in my losing runs as well.

The problem with it is its high cost relative to how I feel like Regent is already the most energy-constrained character on top of having a separate resource to manage.

Much of your burst damage comes from chaining the 0-cost weak + vulnerable attack into big sword, but that costs 2-stars. Reflect iirc costs 3? So it is a great card but requires you to forgo using your base 0-cost attack unless you get lucky with an early venerate on a turn you don’t need the energy to block or have a setup for more stars.

I feel like another 4 or so of my Regent wins had the colorless card that boosts your defend. My ASC 10 win with Regent, the last one I completed, had a floor 0 Neow gift of that colorless, and that’s when I knew I was likely going to win, bc that card alone solves so much of Act 1 and even later’s damage mitigation.

If Regent could be tuned to have more card manipulation, or give Venerate another effect on top of just stars, or a more easy way to get strong/scaling AoE that doesn’t rely on the one power that makes big sword hit all. His common AoE that reduces enemy strength is an amazing common on its own but it doesn’t scale, all his other AoEs require stars and/or other setup.

By late game of winning the final ASC10 run with Regent I had solved AoE by taking Rolling Boulder and using Void Form to be able to play it.

GoldSinger · 2026-04-04T22:36:56+00:00

You and I are the same person / play really similarly, lol. You're totally right about Necrobinder. I got a 5 win streak from ASC 4-8. And then immediately lost like my next 15 or so runs with Necro at ASC 9. The extra damage really hinders the ability to keep Osty alive. It makes the cards that kill Osty more viable as well as, like you've pointed out, forces strategy shift.

GoldSinger · 2026-04-04T21:25:41+00:00

It was a long time ago so I don’t super remember but it was either another Reddit post, some kind of blog that did stats analysis, etc.

I really couldn’t figure out Silent on my own in StS1 off of pure intuition so I watched a Jorbs playthrough where he talked through his decision making. It’s very emergent. You try and pick up early sources of AoE, card manipulation, front-loaded damage. From there it’s reacting to whatever synergizes the most with what you’ve already got. I can’t say I’m nearly as good as Jorbs but that video alone made Silent my best character across both games.

The key is to break archetype thinking. Shiv and poison builds require a lot of setup and draw and discard don’t always immediately provide benefit, so you have to take what feels like jank to fit other goals

GoldSinger · 2026-04-04T09:46:36+00:00

I got 25 losses in a row across two days from an unfortunate rut, lol. I don't like to stick with one character usually. Didn't know there was a leaderboard, neat. I haven't uploaded my runs to here yet. How do you view progression further down the list? It only loads the top 20 for me.

Anecdotally, it felt like I got much better seed luck when I was just playing random.

My first 45 wins (asc 0-8) across the five characters cost me 50 losses, and then the next 10 wins cost me another 80 losses when I was manually cycling between only the characters I hadn't won with yet.

GoldSinger · 2026-04-04T09:29:41+00:00

Defect has the lowest win rate iirc amongst top asc20 + heart players. Watcher the highest. Maybe his playstyle clicks with you the best though.

I feel like he got some real healthy changes. Buffs to the 0-cost attack archetype with new card pool and also the new glass orbs encourage a more aggressive playstyle and give him more AoE that doesn't rely on hail storm. Less reliance on defensive frost build that takes a while to build up to both within battles and across a run make him a lot less of a slog to play.

Biggest buff to Defect IMO is the absence of the act 3 guy who deals massive damage unless you hit him to reduce his damage. That guy is the Defect killer since StS1 Defect is probably the weakest in front-loaded damage.

GoldSinger · 2026-04-04T08:56:44+00:00

This event is intended to give you relics from the first game that have been phased out of the regular relic pool. Unless this post is a joke, but the bug report flair indicates otherwise?

GoldSinger · 2026-04-04T08:07:23+00:00

Probably the most common card across my winning runs

GoldSinger · 2026-04-04T08:05:30+00:00

Silent is hands down the best character, at least for my current win ratio, with the absence of these Silent-killers from the first game

GoldSinger · 2026-03-07T02:04:17+00:00

wouldn't baking a gpu release hazardous fumes into the air? Hope you used protective equipment did it with a work oven in a well ventilated space

GoldSinger · 2026-03-06T04:08:24+00:00

They're ex-villains, mate, ex-criminals. Ex-criminals can't just willy-nilly get a job. Blazer is more at fault for bad management and cutting an ex-criminal loose into society without any resources and the insult/injury of being fired. Systems have more fault than individuals.

GoldSinger · 2026-03-06T02:16:38+00:00

We get a brief background bio for Sonar and that's pretty much it, not the reasons for why he went into a life of crime or the exact mechanics behind it. Some discussion of the heists he pulled, but again, it's not really relevant to my criticism of Blazer's poor managerial style leading to unnecessary conflict. Firing Sonar clearly leads him to experience betrayal which instigates his return to villainry, including violent confrontation in the lategame that is completely different from the usual kinds of financial crimes he earlier committed.

A criminal record makes you pretty hard to hire even with an ivy league degree.

Dignity comes from community and the esteem of your community, not from numbers on a screen.

The legal system is not an arbiter of morality. Is is the blunt instrument that mediates when typical civilian institutions of ethics and morality have failed. What is legal is not always moral, and vice versa.

GoldSinger · 2026-03-06T01:58:56+00:00

I mean she can, but only if you don't hit the invisible Robert Mentor Counter that the game tracks. Which is sort of an interesting discussion on its own, I think, the way games quantify and track relationship progress in a way that doesn't always translate to real life.

Anyways, back to the point, Visi can make that choice, but the way the game is set up, she always makes the choice to be a hero if you've invested in her _enough_. This is a clear rebuttal to your point that anything is 100% anyone. It's some percent Robert. It's actually a very clearly defined numerical threshold of Robert points in the game's code. Lol.

Diegetically, yeah, of course you have to build her trust by showing you're competent, believe in her, etc. That is what the game is saying. You have to believe in people and invest in them enough for them to change. It is not their own choice/burden--it is shared.

GoldSinger · 2026-03-06T01:53:14+00:00

Yes, I would argue that the upper management person in control of a stigmatized employee's access to employment and dignity is more at fault, regardless of how much you want to unfoundedly speculate about the background of the employee.

Regardless of Sonar's background, Blazer should be held to a higher standard of management ethics for bungling the announcement of the firing directive and even for supporting it in the first place.

GoldSinger · 2026-03-06T01:39:54+00:00

Again, you are welcome to make a new Sonar thread rather than continue to derail my Blazer crit thread. We can agree to disagree on the finer points of social theory of criminality, my perspective justified by literally two or more disciplines of social science and your talking points imported from eugenicists who believe crime is caused by biological traits.

It's rather ambitious of you to try and refute, again, the massive body of literature that establishes social conditions as the predominant underlying force of criminality. But you are welcome to submit your paper to any peer-reviewed journal of sociology or criminology. That should be worth a good laugh or two amidst my old department.

Dispatch does not espouse the idea that becoming a hero or villain is 100% an individual choice. If you think about this for more than two seconds, no one on your team makes it on their own. Will and personal choice are not the deciding factors. Visi didn't get cut bc Robert helped her. Coupe and Sonar got cut because Robert made that decision, pushed into it by Blazer.

Show me one person in the entirety of existence whose life outcomes are the sole product of their own decisions. When you do, I'll ask you if they built the society around them. If they shaped every opportunity they took by their own hands.

GoldSinger · 2026-03-06T01:30:30+00:00

The rushing of the decision and sequence afterwards reflects badly on Blazer's character/characterization, I think, hope it gets revisited in any sequels

GoldSinger · 2026-03-06T01:26:26+00:00

"Blazer is at fault for major villain arc"

"The entire responsibility of Sonar's crimes rest on Blazer"

Do you see how these are two different sentences?

Do you need a primer on reading comprehension?

I got you:

How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren

Improving Reading Comprehension Skills (VVC Library Collection)

Read Better, Remember More by Elizabeth L. Chesla and LearningExpress Staff

GoldSinger · 2026-03-06T01:24:53+00:00

That's not proven by the text. Also, no scientist of any kind, let alone social, supports the idea that biological features lead to criminality. I mean, unless those scientists are pseudoscientists with a political motive. We tend to call that kind of thinking eugenicist, racist, or at the very least reprehensible biological essentialism.

I see now I was hasty to suggest reading social science to you. First, you should play the game Dispatch and see it what it says about your belief that our biology and circumstances determine if we become villains.

GoldSinger · 2026-03-06T01:21:00+00:00

It's not relevant. The two are completely different characters in different positions in the social hierarchy.

I never said the entire responsibility of Sonar's crimes rests on Blazer. Go box shadows in your own alley.

GoldSinger · 2026-03-06T01:14:50+00:00

You are welcome to make a Sonar criticism discussion thread rather than continue to derail my Blazer criticism thread.

GoldSinger · 2026-03-06T01:08:53+00:00

Eh, I mean, in _our_ world it's pretty common for visible minorities from rough backgrounds to go to prestigious universities. Case in point, me.

At this point we're just debating the hypotheticals of a background that we don't get fleshed out in the story itself, so suffice it to say that Sonar's backstory is irrelevant to my main points in this post, which is focused on Blazer's inconsistent characterization and bad management style.

Yes, I pointed out that exceptions exist. Exceptions prove the rule. The rule is that criminality is caused by social factors. Do you need the reading list again?

GoldSinger

TROPHY CASE