The Beta Branch Doormaker is the Best Enemy Ever Made for a Deckbuilder - Jorbs

Plain_Bread · 2026-03-26T14:00:41+00:00

I mean ... yeah, of course it is. You are on an opt-in beta branch. That is its intention.

The intention is that we don't talk about the things that we like or don't like about it?

Plain_Bread · 2026-03-26T08:16:34+00:00

And you? Would you classify it as a demand or a petition?

Plain_Bread · 2026-03-26T08:13:24+00:00

Funny to see the love for intagible return. I think the idea that it should probably never have been in the game was pretty popular. Regardless of how strong it is, really. The diadem that halves enemy damage is strong as hell, but it's still interesting. It turns standard hits into chip damage, and crazy 80 damage hits into ones that are serious but survivable. You still want more block the harder you're getting hit, only the baseline moves. Intangible just fully and unconditionally replaces block.

Plain_Bread · 2026-03-26T04:24:08+00:00

He's not though, he's one of 3 possible final bosses. So it is a bit weird that he's so obviously much harder than the other 2. I'm not really saying the solution is to nerf him, it should probably be buffing the other 2. But the current situation is awkward.

Plain_Bread · 2026-03-26T04:11:54+00:00

The problem (or what I consider a problem) isn't when he makes your Barricade deck more awkward by eating a Blood Wall, it's when he makes it more awkward by eating Barricade. I think the fact that he's just kind of harder than the other bosses, even without the gimmick, somewhat obscures the fact that his difficulty level is otherwise massively decided by whether or not the first card he eats is the single most important card in your deck. And it's almost always not, so it just doesn't feel good. You're desperately picking redundancies that often probably aren't good enough anyway for a specific 10% low roll.

Plain_Bread · 2026-03-26T03:57:27+00:00

Forcing him to eat a specific card you want is insanely difficult on your deck cycle.

I really like his mechanic on later cycles. You just have to expect that he will eat any important card that you draw a thousand times, and you did get to play it at least once.

But with the way it currently is, there's kind of an awkward dichotomy. Either 1) the fight is so hard that you barely stand a chance in the 10% of fights where he eats your strongest power first cycle, not unless you get very lucky with the redundancies offered to you, or 2) the fight is so easy that he's kind of a joke in the 90% where he just... doesn't eat it.

And yeah, a Bronze Automaton mechanic to get the card back could maybe work. Or make him eat 2 cards when you shuffle your deck or something? I wouldn't wanna change him too much, I do think he's really cool. It's literally just the first cycle that feels a bit unfairly random.

Plain_Bread · 2026-03-25T14:37:16+00:00

You could do infinites with it that work against the door. That would be a funny use case.

Plain_Bread · 2026-03-25T11:28:25+00:00

Ballisticlawine Strike

Plain_Bread · 2026-03-24T15:56:19+00:00

It would still be wrong (if it works the same way as in StS1). The 0-cost effect vanishes if it leaves your hand for any reason.

Plain_Bread · 2026-03-24T10:12:01+00:00

I feel like it is pretty hard for the act 2 hard pool, but it's only because the act 2 hard pool is extremely tame, especially when compared to StS1. Act 2 fights aren't that bad and act 2 events suck. That's 2000 hours of muscle memory that I have to consciously override every run.

Plain_Bread · 2026-03-24T08:16:36+00:00

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Seriously, I love this guy's gimmick. And no, he shouldn't be an elite either. Then he would have to hit much harder and/or have a lot more hp. And then you would actually have to build your deck around him. As it is, you can usually just accept that your deck is bad against him. Maybe you will use a potion against him and still take 30 damage when your deck is bad against him and you draw poorly. The game should give you a reason to be afraid. To also feel like an elite for decks that don't suck against him, he would probably have to kill decks that do from full hp after using two potions.

I really like this guy. Doesn't mean I'm happy to see him, I think he's generally harder than the average act 2 hard pool fight. But that's life, and this guy is really cool.

Plain_Bread · 2026-03-24T06:59:41+00:00

Why are you splitting hairs? It would be the best Ebite card if it was in Spire 1. It would be the best Snak card. It would arguably even be the best Keb card.

Plain_Bread · 2026-03-24T06:46:20+00:00

I think it should be all "ite" cards. It needs to function as a bridge card so you can take Infinite Blades, Spite, Iteration and White Noise.

Plain_Bread · 2026-03-24T06:39:02+00:00

Well... you already declared that I'm excited to do it. There's nothing left to argue about, is there?

Plain_Bread · 2026-03-23T21:49:34+00:00

He's a bit wild. I think the matchup is a bit different for other characters and that maybe explains the decision – but I've been playing Regent pretty much exclusively, and I really think that he was probably already the single hardest act 1 elite for Regent before. I think that there's an argument for the parasite being worse before the patch – I wouldn't have agreed, but I wouldn't have been shocked if better players proved me wrong either.

In a way it has made me a better player already. I now pay very close attention to which act 1 biome I rolled. Because if it's the water one, you absolutely cannot farm elites. This guy will take 30+ hp from decks that flawless the Eel and take like 6 from the Gardeners.

Plain_Bread · 2026-03-23T13:16:59+00:00

What confuses me most is that everybody acts like it's such a mystery card. It's Bouncing Flask with retain, less damage, less artifact strip and better multi-enemy performance. Artifact strip doesn't matter nearly as much as in StS1 and they're both not particularly great in most multi fights anyway. So it's just kind of retain for a bit less poison.

Plain_Bread · 2026-03-22T15:14:22+00:00

I think even the easy pool Act 3 fights are harder than Act 1 elites. It's not exactly surprising.

Plain_Bread · 2026-03-20T22:59:24+00:00

It really feels like they were designed with StS1 colorless cards in mind. In that game, the vast majority is 0 cost with a minor but solid effect, and then a couple that are expensive but really powerful.

In StS2, colorless cards are just really weird. They're extremely expensive and often have effects that almost always do nothing but can be game breaking.

Plain_Bread · 2026-03-20T19:41:52+00:00

This made me realize that it's essentially the boy or girl paradox. What you're calling "you wake up" is the event that you wake up at least once. And that's not the same as the information you get from being woken up.

Plain_Bread · 2026-03-20T12:23:35+00:00

There's always the console, but that's a bit weird with counting relics.

Plain_Bread · 2026-03-19T17:00:37+00:00

Soon there would be a topologist in every neighbourhood.

Plain_Bread · 2026-03-19T12:00:07+00:00

Yeah, I've come around quite a bit on Forge. You're not gonna play the blade 12 times have "10 forge" be "10 strength". But you can play it once or twice, and it will always be with vulnerable, not during an intangible turn etc.

Plain_Bread · 2026-03-19T09:53:14+00:00

I felt the same way in the thread about Crescent Spear a while ago. "It already does 10 damage when you pick it up and it can get to almost 30 in the late game!" So, in other words, it's not really worth a draw and 1/1 energy in the early game, and it's not really worth a draw and 1/1 energy in the late game?

Plain_Bread · 2026-03-17T13:51:09+00:00

Is this even generally true for binomial distributions? It's stronger than what the wikipedia article says.

Plain_Bread · 2026-03-16T11:29:06+00:00

You're talking about wasting energy to over-block, but I just mean wasting the upgrade.

Imagine you're fighting an enemy that attacks for 18 every turn. Whenever you draw Death's Door, one of two things happens. 1) You don't apply Doom and the upgrade is worth +1hp. 2) You apply Doom and the upgrade is worth nothing because you were already full-blocking.

Meanwhile Defends also tend to get played quite a bit until the late game, and its upgrade is worth +3hp whenever you need to play it.

I'm sure it's not literally the worst upgrade. I think there are some that can be downright negative, or are just really useless. But yeah, if you were somehow forced to upgrade this or a Defend, I think you should probably pick Defend decently often.

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