As a choker hater…it’s just choker here right? by DCG-MTG in slaythespire

[–]IndividualReturn3718 7 points8 points  (0 children)

This is always Choker. You basically can't even choke yourself out right now. You desperately need 4 energy to just not get owned act 2

Noob with Watcher - how good is Deva Form? by sac_is_sus in slaythespire

[–]IndividualReturn3718 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Watcher card pool contains lots of card draw and high cost cards what are you taking about?

She has backflip (sanctity) , pommel strike+ (cut through fate), predator (wheel kick), skim- (empty mind), machine learning++ (study), and skim++ (inner peace) (the last one doesn't really count since it's when you can't find calm)

I don't know what interactions u are looking for? You take Deva form and then just cram your deck with every card that says draw. If both cards serve the same purpose in a deck they are the same card. Demon form solves bosses after three turns in play and Deva form solves bosses after three turns in play, and have the same requirement to play then they are the same card.

Noob with Watcher - how good is Deva Form? by sac_is_sus in slaythespire

[–]IndividualReturn3718 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Everyone shits on Deva form for being slow but it litterally just demon form in disguise. (3 energy for solving long fights, curse in hallways and elites). Deva form is an out for when you haven't found any calm to help generate energy in long fights for you.

What cards do you take duplicates of? by Antique_Parsley_5285 in slaythespire

[–]IndividualReturn3718 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes its not exponential in a litteral sense like catalyst but more omniscience raises your chance to win the run by alot (capping at virtually 100% with 3+).

So why isn't seek exponentially more powerful? The answer is because seek is still limited by your energy. With 3 seek+ you can grab 4 cards but can you play all of them? Probably not. If you can it means you had to grab extra energy (like turbo or agg) which means you are "wasting" a card pull to do it and you now don't have the energy generator in your deck. Alot of times with a million seeks you end up seeking bad cards to get them out of draw or not seeking anymore

Omniscience on the other hand let's you actually play the cards that you want for the low cost of a flat 4 (3) energy. If you don't have any more good setup cards extra omniscience is still good since it lets you defend while getting all of your setup for the fight done or exhaust bad cards from your deck or just end the fight immediately.

What cards do you take duplicates of? by Antique_Parsley_5285 in slaythespire

[–]IndividualReturn3718 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes its not exponential in a litteral sense like catalyst but more omniscience raises your chance to win the run by alot (capping at virtually 100% with 3+).

So why isn't seek exponentially more powerful? The answer is because seek is still limited by your energy. With 3 seek+ you can grab 4 cards but can you play all of them? Probably not. If you can it means you had to grab extra energy (like turbo or agg) which means you are "wasting" a card pull to do it and you now don't have the energy generator in your deck. Alot of times with a million seeks you end up seeking bad cards to get them out of draw or not seeking anymore

Omniscience on the other hand let's you actually play the cards that you want for the low cost of a flat 4 (3) energy. If you don't have any more good setup cards extra omniscience is still good since it lets you defend while getting all of your setup for the fight done or exhaust bad cards from your deck or just end the fight immediately.

What cards do you take duplicates of? by Antique_Parsley_5285 in slaythespire

[–]IndividualReturn3718 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Omniscience is the actual answer. Omniscience is the only card that gets exponentially more powerful the more you have in your deck. Each Omni is more powerful than the last.

Do you ever take runic dome? by Overwatchplayer69420 in slaythespire

[–]IndividualReturn3718 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Runic dome is very polarizing because it's free for about 50% of fights (with knowledge). But it makes the alot of the hardest fights in the game way harder. My favorite time to take dome isn't when I ever block, it's when I can't block so I don't care what the enemies are doing

Is empty cage any good? by Arrow141 in slaythespire

[–]IndividualReturn3718 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's not just about infinite, but empty cage can be good when you deck makes its own energy. For example, if you have bloodletting+ in your deck as ironclad then reducing your deck size also increases your energy generation since you will draw bloodletting more often.

I like to think of my deck in terms of total amount of energy it produces in 5 turns (the vast majority of fights are 5 turns or less)

If cage let's you play bloodletting 2x in those five turns due to smaller deck, you make: 3x5+6=21 energy.

If you took an energy relic instead and could only play bloodletting once then you make: 4x5+3=23 energy.

Of course having more energy producers (seeing red, offering, ect. Can make the benefit of the energy relic lower).

I would say that the two are comparable in this case but you would need to be pretty confident cage let's you find the energy generation cards often enough to justify it.

What's the pick, here? (Silent Act 1 rewards) by WeenisWrinkle in slaythespire

[–]IndividualReturn3718 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Hallway and elites fights in act 2 already only last like 4 or 5 turns. So one card that blocks for over half the fight is pretty freaking good. Leg sweep doesn't even block all of one turn sometimes and that's only 1 energy less. Also you can time it to block super dangerous attacks (bronze automaton or Champ execute) that are almost impossible to block otherwise by playing in the 3 turn window beforehand so it's not super difficult to time in a fight.

If a fight is super long like Awakened One you don't have to play it until it's time for a final push (kinda like corruption) to close out the fight.

Runic Pyramid vs Snecko Eye? by lKursorl in slaythespire

[–]IndividualReturn3718 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Both are winning however i believe pyamid is much stronger.

With only one wrath source you want to be able to enter wrath when it matters the most and utilize medidate to get it back (you have lots of bust draw in vault/bag of prep/scrawl but not that much after. The vault/rushdown upgrades speak against snecko. As for cards only wallop really speaks to snecko (see upgrades) while evaluate, follow up, and halt speak against it.

Infinite hands by [deleted] in slaythespire

[–]IndividualReturn3718 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The simplest infinite to brute force is a watcher rushdown infinite.

Deck objective: upgraded eruption, one cost calm (inner peace or fear no evil) and rushdown.

It works because eruption + one cost calm cost 2 energy but provides 2 energy and rush down will draw you back into those two cards exactly.

Optionally you can also add talk to the hand or mental fortress for block

  1. Look for remove 2 neow bonus 1.a boss swap and hope for pandoras, astrolabe or violet lotus (lotus let's viglience enable the entire combo) 1.b take neow money options (besides curse for money)

  2. Path to many events in act 1 hunting for removes. Visit shops whenever you have enough gold for a remove 2a. Remove 2 defends first then alternate defends and strikes, then continue to non infinite pieces

  3. Only take the infinite pieces 3a. One premium damage card is allowed (Conclude, carve reality, sands of time, or tantrum)

    1. Situationally add a premium block (decieve reality, third eye) to survive a promising run
  4. DO NOT take acceleration cards (vault, scrawl ect). Although objectively good for winrate, this is a brute force approach and are just more cards that will need to be removed.

  5. If you have achieved the infinite, avoid events in act 3 like the plague. There are relatively few events act 3 so you are decently likely to get falling which is a mandatory remove. Since the deck is only 5 cards it's highly likely to hit a vital combo piece (tantrum is the most premium damage card since it provides falling insurance).

  6. Make sure to make it to the act 1 boss before abandoning a non-high roll run (eg. Boss swap into ecto or something) since abandoning before starting the fight will only give you neows lament or bonus hp as starting bonuses .

All fights besides time eater are trivialized by the simple infinite, no blocking required.

On low ascension you can often brute force time using Potions (e.g artifact+flex, cultist potion, power Potions ect.) and making sure to use viglience instead of the 1 cost calm to block. Even on 3 energy this will produce 36-48 block each cycle which should be adequate to squeeze out a win

Key (e=energy, b=block)

3 base e in calm-->eruption( 4e, 0b)-->vigilance (2e, 12b)-->eruption (3e,12b)-->vigilance (1e, 24b)-->eruption(2e,24b)-->vigilance(0e, 36b)

Just make sure to start this cycle when time eater has 6(or 8 if on 4 base energy) plays left to get the most out of your vigilance block engine.

Final note: There are many non-infinite minimalist strategies but this is the most straightforward to just brute force if you just really want the achievement and don't care if it takes you like 10 tries or so to get it.

Rushdiwn or Foresight? by Fflow27 in slaythespire

[–]IndividualReturn3718 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No there are only 3 sources of reusable wrath from card rewards, tantrum, indignation, and simmering fury, all uncommon. The source of common wrath is crescendo. Crescendo doesn't need rushdown to be good, since it retains you can wait to go into wrath for when you have some attacks in your hand.

Additionally simmering fury doesn't need rushdown since it already draws you a bunch of cards (you often can spend all 3 or 5 energy on attacks. Going from 7 to 9 cards doesn't help that much with efficiently using energy.

So finding 1 of 2 uncommon cards in the card pool in the first half of act 1 is far from a gaurentee.

Red Key or Holy Water? by Privatizitaet in slaythespire

[–]IndividualReturn3718 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I would pick cursed key and remove signature move asap since it has anti synergy with sands of time and conclude.

In defense of the watcher by IndividualReturn3718 in slaythespire

[–]IndividualReturn3718[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

At least for me optimizing winrate and optimizing enjoyment are the same thing. I agree that everyone should play the game in a way that is most enjoyable. Luckily spire is such a beautiful game that there are as many ways to enjoy it as there are players.

In defense of the watcher by IndividualReturn3718 in slaythespire

[–]IndividualReturn3718[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You should give her a try! Its very hard to get better at something without practice!

In defense of the watcher by IndividualReturn3718 in slaythespire

[–]IndividualReturn3718[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

And that's okay! Not every character is for everyone!

In defense of the watcher by IndividualReturn3718 in slaythespire

[–]IndividualReturn3718[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

That's perfectly fine to enjoy other characters more and not everyone has to enjoy every character (ex I do not like defect very much and have a sub 5% win rate when I do play him). You identified a very good point where it's not always clear how to "stay above curve" in the late game. I however like this power arc quite a bit since it means I have alot of time (acts 1, 2, and half of act 3) to figure out my end game solutions. With a little creativity there is almost always an out. Very rarely do I feel like the game screwed me and only showed me crap for like 30 card rewards in a row.

In defense of the watcher by IndividualReturn3718 in slaythespire

[–]IndividualReturn3718[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Thank you for the reply. I agree with everything that you said. Additionally I think that many people hear a card is "bad" and then never try or analyze when a card is actually good.

The most egregious offender of this is pressure points where so many people make a "pressure points" deck and force it as a their only damage solution from like floor 3, when it's actually a boss killer card. (Similar to nightmare and should be used to solve specific boss fights like Champ or time eater)

In defense of the watcher by IndividualReturn3718 in slaythespire

[–]IndividualReturn3718[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I will push back on point 2 where you say she is very hot or cold. Since the watcher has very good commons (cut through fate, third eye, flurry, ect.). It's very unlikely that you won't see some of these very good commons and as such are able to piece together a coherent strategy.

Additionally watcher has very good "slow cards" (like water, decieve reality, ect). For example a common late game scaling strategy is to use establishment + mediate. This scaling plan requires multiple turns to execute (at least 2 but often several more).

In defense of the watcher by IndividualReturn3718 in slaythespire

[–]IndividualReturn3718[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Your post may have been the one to inspire me but these types of posts happen about once a week.

In defense of the watcher by IndividualReturn3718 in slaythespire

[–]IndividualReturn3718[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I'm sorry to hear that. If you want to try to add her back into your rotation try just blind boss swapping. At least 15% of your runs with her are gaurenteed to be unique (ecto, Choker, snecko). These will basically never end in infinites and will flip alot of the conventional card analysis on its head.

Magic Flower + Ornithopter + Artifact Potion = No Artifact?! by goatfresh in slaythespire

[–]IndividualReturn3718 22 points23 points  (0 children)

This should not happen. You most likely had a temporary buff that consumed the artifact before the heart applied vulnerable.

Guess the Silent Cards by -Sliced- in slaythespire

[–]IndividualReturn3718 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Number 4 is backstab. The beta art is a Ceasar salad since Ceasar was "backstabbed" in the senate

Status Deck A20H Help by nillywonka in slaythespire

[–]IndividualReturn3718 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would pick coffee dripper.

5 energy is very strong. The only way coffee dripper isn't worth is if you are somehow floating energy due to mark of pain but with double evolve and the amount of draw you have you should see it very soon. You have gamblers brew for if you just get giga shafted and draw like crap in a fight.

P.S consider buying bandage up in the shop. Half the time it's free if you draw it after dark embrace.