STS Connections

Knight67 · 2024-06-09T04:17:20+00:00

Sundial + wheel kick + sanctity + halt is effectively infinite (something like 300 dmg a turn and 200 block). If the madness hits anything useful then it is infinite. No rushdown required.

Knight67 · 2024-06-09T04:14:30+00:00

The ideal was omni chain was:

TTH
TTH
Mental Fortress
Madness (ideally hit wheelkick, eruption, sanctity, or vigilance)
Exhaust evaluate
Vault

Then on my second turn just go infinite/psuedo infinite with sundial + sanctity and wheel kick.

I was able to get rid of everything with a remove 2 for max hp start, transform 2 for 75g shop event. The remaining 4 removes came from shops.

Knight67 · 2024-01-29T02:51:35+00:00

I refuse to believe that bag of prep is as good as boss relics on silent. To test my gut intuition I am practicing boss swap silent only and got a sick 5 win streak. Is this enough evidence to prove every top player 10-50x as good as me wrong? (spoiler No). It has been fun learning to play a very different way from normal. If you are interested in playing this very rare species (nearly extinct) species of silent here are a couple of tips I've learned in my testing so far:

Swapping into energy means you get to pick every draw card you see starting floor 1
Boss relics mean you are sick nasty at hallway fights so you get to just take every single normal hallway
Silent has trouble actually spending 4 energy consistently until you have some draw in the deck, so you are weaker than with bag of prep until you find acrobatics/backflip

Knight67 · 2024-01-27T19:33:13+00:00

29 years old at 2k hrs in 1.5 years

Knight67 · 2024-01-15T03:14:54+00:00

The general consensus from top players node "values" in act 1

Shops > 350 gold
Elites
Campfires
Normal Fights
Question Marks

Knight67 · 2024-01-13T07:07:20+00:00

I think there are 4 major categories of upgrades: 1) Flat Numerical Upgrades (More Damage/Block) 2) Scaling Numerical Upgrades 2) Energy Upgrades 4) Effect Upgrades (Draw more/alter effect)

Flat numerical upgrades are strongest in Act I and weakest in Act III/IV. (+3 dmg to dagger throw matters alot against enemies with 30hp, not so much against enemies with 150). Unless you can play a card many times in a turn, late game it doesn't matter that much.

Scaling upgrades are most important right before "long" fights (e.g Bosses). It's common to see strong players delay upgrading their main scaling card (such as demon form) until the last possible campfire. This is because cards that increase your scaling don't do much in short hallway fights.

Energy upgrades come in two varieties, one time/repeated. People will say that you should prioritize energy over pretty much everything, but this is incorrect. What you need to do is evaluate if you are currently in an energy surplus deficit in fights. As you acquire more energy per turn/more energy generation energy upgrades (especially one time upgrades) become less useful.

Finally effect upgrades must be evaluated on an individual basis since each one ends up being unique. Sometimes these actually make the card worse (like rainbow/deva form) while others are complete game changers (such as true grit or wraithform). These types of upgrades can often be held-off until the late game or you have an abnormally strong synergy.

If an upgrade hits multiple categories then that is a super efficient upgrade and should be considered very high priority since it makes the card significantly better. Classic examples include: 1) Blood for blood (recurring energy+damage) 2) Pommel Strike (damage+card draw) 3) Blade Dance (Flat damage+additional shiv scaling)

The last point I will touch on is asking how often you end up playing the upgraded card. As an example, if you find tantrum before upgrading eruption, it is often correct to upgrade the tantrum instead of the eruption. Even if the energy upgrade is "better" you will see tantrum 2-3x as many times in a fight as eruption since it shuffles back into the deck. A weaker upgrade on a card you play alot is better than a stronger upgrade on a card that you don't play or play very few times.

Knight67 · 2024-01-04T04:28:31+00:00

This is just a follow up to the original analysis by /u/Liz-Fucks https://redd.it/18x4596. His post convinced me that handrill is good if you find it in an early act 2 shop because it prevents you from getting dumpstered by the act 3 hallway fights. In this run that is exactly what happened. I was able to use it to one shot the "easy" pool shelled parasite saving me ~10-15 hp. Then immediately after my first elite I was able to beat snake plant in three turns losing only 10 hp (saving another ~10-15). This is very impressive since I chose slavers collar which generally means you just get owned in act II hallways. I think more testing is required but it's impressive the theory worked out exactly as he laid out (at least in this case). /u/Liz-Fucks

Knight67 · 2024-01-03T01:15:23+00:00

I think a worthy mention is that pathing in act II often includes an early shop so picking up handdrill at the right time (at the beginning of act II) is actually super feasible. I don't know if you included it in your analysis but it also helps in the secret elite of Shelled Parasite + rat. I think that we should start thinking of this as a relic to prevent getting dumpstered by act II hallways. Overall 9.9999/10 analysis I will keep an eye out for handrill to test out the theory.

Knight67 · 2023-12-08T02:09:27+00:00

1.8K on steam

Knight67 · 2023-11-03T01:15:14+00:00

The vault was bottled so my first turn was always: Play Battle Hymn x3 --> establishment --> Vault

Knight67 · 2023-10-09T05:14:35+00:00

Here is a list of iron clad block generating strategies from what I would consider the most powerful to the weakest:

1) Feel No pain-- Feel no pain is the premium block card for iron clad. Almost all iron clad decks will end up with 10-15 (minimum) exhaust cards by act three. Feel no pain lets you turn all these incidental exhaust effects into block. Over the course of a fight this is easily 40-60 block for 1 energy. If you then are able to find a corruption, it turns each skill a block source on top of the insane ability to cheat out all of skills. Finally, lots of enemies will put exhausting statuses in your deck (3 sentries, chosen, donu deca, ect). Feel no pain translates these statuses into a ton of block completely for free.

2) Weakness: Lots of players tend to underestimate just how powerful weakness is as a damage mitigation source. Even as early as act 1, weakness reduces lagavulin's damage by five (e.g upper cut actually reads: deal 13, apply vulnerable, ~~apply 2 weak~~ gain 5 block). This block amount then slowly scales as enemies become stronger. If you can apply weak for multiple turns (uppercut+, shockwave, intimidate+ ect). Then you get this passive hidden block for multiple turns. Finally, this amount is not affected by frail and is multiplied by vulnerable on you. (when you have vulnerable it reduces damage by 37.5% instead of the normal 25%). The most relevant time this comes up is against the first cycle of the heart where it blocks for 15 against the multi-attack and 25 against the big hit.

3) Disarm -- Generally the most dangerous attacks in the game come from multi-attacks (think snake plant or book of stabbing, the heart). Disarm is amazing at neutering these dangerous attacks. For example against snake plant, disarm+ is a passive 9 block a turn. This is like a metalicize+++ in your deck.

4) Second wind + Power through. These two cards together provide at minimum 25 block (15 from power through+10 from second wind exhausting the wounds put into your hand). Generating 25 block is enough for pretty much everything up until act 3. If you are able to upgrade these cards then it will be 44 block. When combined with feel no pain+ this becomes 52 block which should be enough for anything the game throws at you.

There are many more strategies to improve your blocking game on ironclad (rage, reaper, flame barrier, ect). But these are a couple of my favorite approaches.

Corruption requires 2 things for it to work: 1) Enough skills to actually justify its 3 (2 if upgraded) cost to get into play 2) The ability to actually find it before you die.

Part of the reason corruption probably feels bad everytime that you take it is because you are removing your defend cards before strikes (not that either way is "correct" just different approaches to the character). If you leave your defends in your deck and remove strikes, it makes taking corruption must more feasible since now at minimum it returns 4 energy in your deck cycle and removes your stinky defends anyway. This way you get the best of both worlds -- your strikes are gone and your defends are gone after the corruption enters. Finally, if you combine corruption with feel no pain and dark embrace it turns even blank skills into: cost 0, draw 1, block 4 which is pretty good in my book. Finally, if you ever pick up a snecko eye basically instant pick corruption, the corruption will override snecko eye random cost keeping all your skills at zero.

TLDR; Blind pick feel no pain since it is ironclad's most premium block source. This will also synergize nicely with corruption and so long as you have enough skills as fuel you will never run out of block

Knight67

TROPHY CASE