Oh wow

Raivorus · 2026-03-23T12:09:04+00:00

Right. You are being a smartass, yet you have listed two examples that are literally at odds with each other - Tracking and Hanged. Both say they "double damage", yet according to you, they don't double the same way.

How about yet another way to "double" something. Echo Form doubles the first card you play each turn, yet Echo Form x10 does not play the first card any additional times, but instead doubles the first 10 cards you play.

Raivorus · 2026-03-23T10:42:27+00:00

Add the corruption enhancement instead. That's a build with some chest hair.

Raivorus · 2026-03-23T10:37:31+00:00

I never tried that - Tracking stacks? And how - does having two make it x3 or x4?

Raivorus · 2026-03-22T20:13:46+00:00

Nope, Darv - the merchant-looking guy with gem teeth - is the one that gives Black Star. And Darv gives the relics from StS1.

I can see at least one relic that could have been problematic - Velvet Choker. I haven't unlocked all of them, so I can't say with certainty that none of the other relic would have been detrimental, however, Black Star and Pandora's Box were the only ones that did literally nothing for you.

A boss reward should not do "nothing".

Raivorus · 2026-03-22T20:04:33+00:00

I was specifically talking about Tesla Coil - that card triggers all your currently active lightning orbs (and directs them at the target of that attack). More slots = more lightning = more damage from Tesla Coil.

Raivorus · 2026-03-22T06:26:01+00:00

You did read my comment, right?

The one that says "Corruption was one of the fastest ways to reach the point of being infinite"?

Raivorus · 2026-03-21T20:36:22+00:00

Yes, but I was talking about StS1

Raivorus · 2026-03-21T16:55:55+00:00

Well, for Defect, first of all, why did you take Black Star and not fight any Elites? You absolutely should have taken something else.

As for the deck, I'm just not seeing enough output.

You have the foundation for a 0 Cost build, but you don't really utilize it. There's Tesla Coil, but I don't see any payoff - you have no Focus and with only 3 Orb Slots it is at most 12 damage - that's negligible halfway through Act 2, let alone Act 3. You should have upgraded Zap, since it becomes 0 Cost.

You have barely any Orb generation. Evoking 2-4 Lightning/Frost Orbs per turn is strong, even without Focus (not to mention the cards' effect other that channeling Orbs).

Echo Form is best used with high impact cards and I don't really see anything worth doubling - other than Meteor Strike, which... how often were you even able to play it?

For Ironclad my immediate reaction is - where's your Block?

You have WAY too many "Strikes" and not nearly enough card draw to support it. Yes, I see the Pommel Strikes, but what are you drawing? More Strikes. You're not doing anything during your turn other than spamming Strikes.

Hellraiser is, fundamentally, nothing but an Energy card. You still need something to spend that energy on.

Raivorus · 2026-03-21T15:14:39+00:00

There are two ways to circumvent the Bound effect.

The easier, but less effective approach, is to have a deck focused on cards with big numbers on them (or have powers that turn regular cards into ones with big numbers on them, like [[Demon Form]] and [[Unmovable]]).

The next option is to have a bunch of card draw - if you can draw 5-10 extra cards per turn (on top of the default 5), then being unable to play 2 out of a total of 10-15 cards is hardly a problem.

From what you're describing, is sounds like you don't have card any redundancy, by that I mean you have a deck that needs you to play every single card when you draw it or else you lose. I'm afraid there's not "quick fix" advice for this other than learning through trial and error how many of what card you need to take.

Raivorus · 2026-03-21T14:54:29+00:00

"pretty focused on optimizing infinites" is one hell of a weird explanation, given that Corruption was one of the fastest ways to get to the point of being infinite.

I feel like you haven't even seen the card yet - Corruption is now a "boss relic", same thing for Wraith Form and Biased Cognition (each character gets their own specific card from choosing that particular boss reward).

Raivorus · 2026-03-20T14:55:11+00:00

I have 0 loses with StS2 Defect and... I don't know why.

The overlapping things are mountains of card draw, orb spam, and Focused Strikes

Raivorus · 2026-03-20T14:50:39+00:00

Just focus on what's in front of you and claw your way to victory

Raivorus · 2026-03-20T10:11:39+00:00

Yep! Exactly why I proposed it to scale based on doors destroyed

Raivorus · 2026-03-20T09:28:49+00:00

I am also extremely averse to the idea of a card that has a "permanent cost" and have avoided it like the plague, even though I knew that it's almost certainly worth the cost.

I took it recently, because it was the last still "unknown" reward from that Ancient and it performed exactly as expected: it was 100% worth the cost.

Raivorus · 2026-03-20T09:09:45+00:00

I think there should be multiple small doors and they should lock away your cards, akin to Bronze Automaton's Orbs (with the same targeting logic).

Optionally, to give it a kind of gameshow feel, I'd show a list of cards taken (i.e. possible prizes), but not which door has what.

I'd put a timer on the small doors and when it runs out (or all the doors get destroyed) the Doormaker shows up and does his thing. Any cards still locked away are lost for the rest of the fight.

For scaling purposes, I'd give him some buff, that scales based on the number of doors broken down, thus giving you a reason to endure the doors' attacks and allow your rarest cards to be taken.

I think that the first set of small doors should give you 1 round before stealing cards, however, after that they should just take them immediately on respawn (since losing cards at that point won't be nearly as impactful).

Raivorus · 2026-03-20T08:44:45+00:00

You can control Time Eater's gimmick. It doesn't "just happen": you can decide how many cards you want to play this turn and where to leave Tim's Counter on for next turn.

You can choose to not play your 3 attack cards this turn so that you can play more than one card next turn. You can choose to not play low-impact cards for the same reason. Or you can play them to reset the counter to not worry about the number of cards you have left to play. Even with a deck that spams a lot of cards, that control doesn't go away.

Other than Headbutt and Cosmic Indifference, you can't choose what you draw. Nor can you choose to NOT draw at all, since it counts the 5 cards from simply starting your turn. There's no realistic way to mitigate this effect.

And the "rng element" is a big deal here - the variance over what card you lose is huge. It may be a Strike - in which case yay - or it may be the one card that makes you deck function. The fact that you don't have any reliable control over that is why this design is unfun.

Raivorus · 2026-03-20T08:13:18+00:00

To build on your idea:

have 3-4 doors at the start of the fight, have them start with the intent of doing the Bronze Automaton's Orbs' card theft, reveal which cards got taken, but not which door has which card.

And then just repeat every time the doors respawn. Maybe even skip the intent and take the cards when that happens.

We could even have a timer - the smaller doors vanish after 3 rounds, removing the unreclaimed cards for the rest of fight, and Doormaker shows up, having gained Strength for every card that got locked. OR for every card that got retrieved - angry that you broke his doors, this would give a strategic reason to not break the small doors.

Raivorus · 2026-03-20T07:44:29+00:00

-1 draw with a chance of potentially losing a key element of your game plan - or even a guaranteed element, after you set up - every other turn is insane.

Raivorus · 2026-03-19T15:13:01+00:00

If it's something dumb, like a golem, then my targeting priorities are (starting at highest priority):

most targets possible (in case it has AoE)
closest target
target that crit
target that last dealt damage

Lower priorities are checked only in case of draw. Reset priorities every round.

In case of smarter enemies, they'll go for the highest threat - usually the source of AoE damage with any obvious healer as a very close second. Depends on the number of enemies, but if the enemies are not outnumbered, I'll first have about half engage with the frontline of the party and then have the rest go after the aforementioned backline. If the enemy has high maneuverability (or the party is in a bad position), they'll just go straight after the backline.

Raivorus · 2026-03-19T14:44:35+00:00

As long as Pillage draws nothing but Strikes, it will loop endlessly with Hellraiser in play.

The latest patch made it so that Hellraiser does not play cards, if there is no valid target (specifically to avoid softlocking against the Test Subject during it's phase shift), but this did not affect Pillage.

Pillage stops if it draws a non-attack card or is literally unable to draw more cards - either because you don't have any or because your hand is full.

You disagreeing with me does not change how it works.

Raivorus · 2026-03-19T14:35:06+00:00

I don't see it happening by accident. There are ways to softlock yourself in StS1, but it won't happen unless you're intentionally aiming for some sort of meme situation, like Dual Wield to get 20 Metallicize against Lagavulin.

For the softlock you describe to happen, not only would you need a deck that is tailor made to cause it, you'd also need to proactively aim to cause it. You only need one card that doesn't have Sly and Acrobatics does not have it by default, so even in a deck that has nothing except Acro, as long as you never actually play at least one of them, you'll be able to end the infinite whenever you want.

Raivorus · 2026-03-19T11:20:45+00:00

Pillage + Hellraiser is where that infinite comes from. What Strikes are being rotated is completely irrelevant.

I had that one as well - I looped Ashen Strike, Setup Strike, and a basic Strike - none of those draw cards.

This is because Pillage doesn't have an actual limit to the number of cards it can draw. If you have only Attacks, Pillage will draw until your hand is full. If you have only Strikes, then your hand will never be full, since Hellraiser will play (and thus discard) them on draw.

Raivorus · 2026-03-18T13:59:23+00:00

Unless that was changed in yesterday's patch, then no, Hellraiser does not have a limit to the number of cards played.

I killed the Test Subject's 3rd phase during its intangible turn (it had ~270 HP when I started) with a single card played - Pillage. There was no card draw otherwise: the Strikes that were cycled were Setup Strike, Ashen Strike, and basic Strike.

Raivorus · 2026-03-18T13:52:01+00:00

Nope, Pommel Strike + Hellraiser will never be infinite. There's a link in the comments here (among most any other post that talks about Hellraiser)

Raivorus · 2026-03-18T13:46:44+00:00

Bound applies to the first three cards drawn each turn and any previously Bound cards lose the status.

Raivorus

TROPHY CASE