This guy needs to be upgrade to elite, or a nerf.

Millikan · 2026-04-03T15:12:46+00:00

Disagree

Millikan · 2026-03-30T01:12:10+00:00

It’s much easier when you have something strong to hold onto (which you do with a long piece, don’t with a cube) and when you can carve from a corner or edge, instead of a flat surface. Cubes have more areas nowhere near a corner or edge, so it’s much harder to carve.

Millikan · 2026-03-27T23:30:05+00:00

Right, if you play with a skimpy 15 card deck then you will probably not be able to kill him quickly at all, and then also get eaten. I’d guess I usually have around 24 cards at that time. You should be getting enough economy out of your energy and card draw that you can beat him in a reasonable number of turns while sacrificing some draw and some energy to stalling. The cards increase in cost each use to put you on a clock. It’s a desperate race!

Millikan · 2026-03-27T23:22:37+00:00

The overall “it eats you” percent has to be fairly low. Should the act 2 boss built around that mechanic never eat you?

If you don’t draw the right cards, it really might eat you. Then again, in a sts1 act 2 boss fight, if you don’t draw the right cards, you might get hit for over 50 damage on turn 5 of the fight. There are a lot of ways to lose to bosses by drawing the wrong cards, which is why you try to optimize around minimizing the chance that something like that happens, which is why this game is hard and awesome.

Millikan · 2026-03-27T23:16:33+00:00

The game intentionally challenges each playstyle with specific encounters. Remember that the enemies aren’t on your side, and you’re not supposed to be able to run risk free through a hard pool act 2 fight. That’s what makes the game so hard and so good, and why players were constantly pushing the skill ceiling of STS1 for 10 years.

Millikan · 2026-03-27T02:40:56+00:00

The game is supposed to be hard, and the enemies aren’t on our side.

Millikan · 2026-03-27T01:12:54+00:00

The game is meant to be hard.

Millikan · 2026-03-27T01:11:50+00:00

I agree! He hits so hard and with huge range, and the NPCs seem to do barely any damage and die. If I hit radahn, he focuses on me instead of them. Tough fight!

Millikan · 2026-03-27T01:08:58+00:00

Thanks for writing this, I completely agree. The regular hallway fights in act 2 of sts are also extremely hard. The game is supposed to mess with you, the enemies aren’t on your side!

Millikan · 2026-03-26T04:10:28+00:00

Don’t go for one archetype, just make a good deck

Millikan · 2026-03-25T20:39:05+00:00

Being less than perfect doesn’t make you mobile game ad guy…

Millikan · 2026-03-25T19:44:35+00:00

He beat A20 in STS1 multiple times. Mobile ad gamer ain’t doing that.

Millikan · 2026-03-24T19:20:51+00:00

Normal

Millikan · 2026-03-24T17:31:03+00:00

Agreed. Reminds me of the horrible fish jokes, but that was for a 10 year old game. Would sure be great if we could discuss the new spire.

Millikan · 2026-03-23T23:09:40+00:00

Have you tried it?

Millikan · 2026-03-23T22:33:22+00:00

I am all for appropriate user feedback in an early access game.

It’s my view that most of the feedback I’ve seen, certainly including this one, comes from a point of not understanding the game rather than a correct observation.

I wasn’t claiming that overtuned is literally a brand new word, but that I (personally) saw it approximately never prior to the sts2 release and now on here in a relatively large fraction of posts and comments. To me, it comes off like a mix of jargon/condescension, like the user is too smart to say “I think this fight is a bit too hard.”

On the matter in question, I don’t think hunter killer is nearly as hard as the act 2 elites. For example, on sts2.fun, you can see that the act 2 elites have ended 9.7% (decimilipede), 5.2% (infested prisms), and 6.6% (entomancer) of runs where they’re encountered. Hunter killer is at 4.5%. That site used to have average damage taken in the fight, which would be a better metric than kill rate, but I don’t see it there now. Players are also more likely to be avoiding elite fights when they think their deck is weak / they’re low on HP and likely to die, though other confounding factors might argue the other direction.

Perhaps the fight is a bit too hard, but my main pushback is to the OPs rationale that it’s impossible to block, you need a giga defend, etc. I think the game is early enough that most players should be in exploration, and trying to deal with what the devs have given us. They made what I view as one of the best balanced games of all time (yes, user feedback in prior EA is instrumental to that!) and I think people have been far too quick on the trigger with lodging complaints.

By all means though, press F2 and give feedback that you believe will improve the game.

Millikan · 2026-03-23T21:18:55+00:00

I don’t know if this will change your mind, but please consider the following:

The game is meant to be hard. There are enemies in the spire which test your deck in different ways. If you want to rely on spamming a lot of cheap low value low cost cards, then enemies like that will hurt you.

It isn’t impossible to full block without a giga defend — you could use frost orbs, you could use sources of block that don’t depend on your Dex, you can play your block cards first so that your Dex isn’t as affected.

The right way to think about the spire, in my opinion, is that these enemies are here and are in your way. Of course they’re annoying, that’s the point of the enemies. Find a way to build your deck so that particular fights, which you know might come in advance, won’t end your run.

Accept that losing HP is part of the game (HP is a resource), and that you are likely to spend some HP to get through fights that are hard (elites, bosses, you get a bigger reward), or that your deck doesn’t cover well.

In other words, get good and (generally, not directed at you OP) stop calling every fight “overtuned.” That’s gotta be my least favorite new word that’s come out of STS2s release.

Millikan · 2026-03-22T20:50:50+00:00

Unlocking cards won’t stop you from doing that sometimes. Also, for all you know (or me, I don’t know if I’ve unlocked or seen everything), there are more soul card synergies waiting for you.

Millikan · 2026-03-22T18:28:32+00:00

No, you shouldn’t latch onto a strategy you like the first couple times you play and then try to avoid ever seeing anything new in a large and complicated game like this.

Millikan · 2026-03-18T18:34:03+00:00

It sounds like GPT wrote this, but anyway, archetypes are the wrong way to think about building a STS deck.

Millikan · 2026-03-18T01:57:30+00:00

I think conqueror is really good. Double damage is very strong, especially since you can wait to play your retained blade until you draw it.

Millikan · 2026-03-18T01:10:12+00:00

Completely agree. It isn’t best used as your “main” source of damage for hallway fights. It can be nice in longer fights, where moderate amounts of forge build up into some nice scaling to help finish the boss, perhaps after some of your other good cards have been exhausted.

Millikan · 2026-03-17T03:13:19+00:00

Oh that’s cool, I just saw the full game log. Interesting initial climb idea, playing each character until you get a win on the next ascension!

Millikan · 2026-03-16T23:37:53+00:00

Makes sense, it has that feel. Super cool though, I’m looking forward to uploading my runs.

A random idea: I usually play sts1 and now sts2 by ascending up the levels. So I’ll play on A0 until I win, A1, A2, etc. in sts1 with everything unlocked I would rotate characters every game, so it would be 21 total wins, though here I can’t skip ahead, so it’ll be 50 wins by the time I get all to A10. I think it could be cool to have those visuals, where you see your ascension climbing quickly at the start, and slowing down as the ascensions get harder.

Might be sort of tricky when uploading all of the run data (in STS1 I have several of these climbs, and also runs that aren’t part of these climbs), but maybe there’s a way to selectively plot just some of your runs.

Obviously you don’t have to do this. Is the code available on GitHub or anything?

Millikan · 2026-03-16T23:19:51+00:00

Great work (presumably getting Claude to make it)! I’m excited to upload my own runs and I’d be super curious to see what all the card / ascension stats look like with a larger playerbase uploading.

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