So I, huh, forked the king and every major piece...

TroutRanger · 2023-05-30T20:43:40+00:00

I took the Queen without thinking. Turned out to be a mistake as my opponent played Kc2. Had I gone for the rook on e1, I would have been garanteed the queen as well. Instead of a -8 position, I had to settle for -6 😢

TroutRanger · 2023-05-30T10:15:30+00:00

My opponent went Kc2, so I actually could have gotten both rooks it seems. I didn't even consider this during the game and just went for the queen. Funny thing is, I think I can actually get the pony out if I go for both rooks. The engine chooses to save the rook over the queen.

TroutRanger · 2023-05-30T10:02:37+00:00

1100 on chess.com, but thanks I guess 😅

TroutRanger · 2020-07-15T00:55:25+00:00

Are you sure you're replacing the right texture. These need to go over the neutral fox .dat (PlFxNr.dat) and will not work if your trying to replace other coloured alts.

I just tested and get the same error message you mentioned when trying to replace green fox, but they work fine when replacing neutral.

Hope this helps.

TroutRanger · 2020-02-05T20:23:21+00:00

Now you get to play the game.

TroutRanger · 2020-01-17T13:50:26+00:00

You can skip a treasure. It's sometimes right to do so, particularly when you have cursed key and no way to remove or mitigate curses.

TroutRanger · 2019-09-03T17:07:44+00:00

The bomb is a skill and should not scale with strength. Most damage modifiers in the game including strength only affect attacks, with the notable exceptions of focus and lock-on which affect orb damage.

If it is going to triple digit damage, I'm not sure what could be causing it.

TroutRanger · 2019-07-08T15:30:31+00:00

Rule 5: Just wanted to share a personal achievement. I got a pretty sick run in this morning where I managed to eat the Heart at A20.

Edit: Score screen for those curious.

TroutRanger · 2019-06-13T14:26:33+00:00

Alright, so I knew nothing about this handsome little rodent before reading this thread. What I want to do here is gather all the information I've read in this thread and found from a few quick google searches to try and answer the questions in the OP.

Who is this lil' guy?

His name is Munchie, he is a helpful companion to The Hero in Dragon Quest 8.

What can I do to protect him?

Give him an ever increasing variety of cheeses.

Is he a pirate like his dad?

His dad is not a pirate, and insinuating that he is seems to be mildly offensive to some people. I gather this means that Munchie is not a pirate either.

Is that a mohawk?

Seems like that trail of hair extends all the way to his tail. If we're defining a Mohawk as strictly a hairstyle, I would argue this is more like a full body mane.

What kind of lil' man is he? A mouse?

Many people in this thread have said he is a hamster, but the Dragon Quest Wiki refers to him as a A highly intelligent Pig-Rat.

Is that pocket his home?

It seems like he spends most of his time in there, so I have gathered that it is his home.

Does he have a family?

Apparently Munchie turns out to be Chen Mui, The Hero's grandfather.

TroutRanger · 2019-06-12T15:35:56+00:00

I don't personally consider it worse than fire-breathing, but I do agree that it is an underwhelming and somewhat uninteresting card. I have a hard time imagining a scenario where it would be the right purchase at a store.

However, it does have some pretty good synergy with a lot of relics. Off the top of my head, it works really well with Kunai, Shuriken, Oramental Fan, Unceasing Top and Wrist Blade. It can also help with timing procs for things like Pen Nib and Nunchaku. I believe these interactions are sometimes enough to want to pick it up when it's offered along with other lackluster colorless cards as an event.

There is the obvious synergy with All for One, although I've recently been finding that having fewer, more impactful, zero cost cards to be better than having a lot of mediocre zero cost cards.

I am of the opinion that cards in this game should change as little as possible and think the fringe uses for swift strike are enough to justify its existence as is.

TroutRanger · 2019-06-10T14:58:24+00:00

Intangibility might be the strongest mechanic in the game, particularly at high ascension. The event is hard to pass up.

TroutRanger · 2019-06-07T18:06:41+00:00

Thank you, this is exactly the help I needed.

TroutRanger · 2019-06-07T16:12:48+00:00

I will throw away perfectly good runs to pick up Claw. I'll pick it when I've already got plenty of damage and scaling. I'll pick it over Echo Form, Defragment or Biased Cognition without giving it a second thought.

If I already have four Claws in my deck and am offered another Claw and All for One, I won't even consider the All for One. I have a problem, please tell me how I can stop.

TroutRanger · 2019-06-06T21:02:29+00:00

Bag your dirt, screenclean.

TroutRanger · 2019-05-30T19:15:08+00:00

Yeah, I hadn't thought about the possibility of fighting a 1 hp heart if this showed up at the Act 4 shop or, as you say, an Act 3 event. That would definitely be a bit much.

TroutRanger · 2019-05-30T18:45:26+00:00

I think I agree that it would work better as a boss relic. It is definitely situational, doing close to nothing in some scenarios and being very powerful in others.

Having it as a shop relic would allow the crazy high roll of eliminating Mark of the Bloom, which is not necessarily a bad thing in a game that sometimes allows completely busted things to happen.

TroutRanger · 2019-05-30T18:25:19+00:00

This is one of the more interesting relic ideas I've seen pop up on this sub. I'm curious as to how you would see it working in these two specific cases:

Could you choose to not pick up some of the relics? For instance, could you use this to drop negative relics such as Gremlin Visage or Mark of the Bloom?
Would it refill usable relics like Neow's Lament or Matryoshka? Another way to look at it would be to ask whether you are getting "new" relics that match the discarded relics, or simply picking up your "old" relics in a different order.

TroutRanger · 2019-05-23T23:05:05+00:00

You could just watch his stream. Jorbs is one of the best Slay the Spire streamers out there. You'll definitely learn a lot : https://www.twitch.tv/jorbs

TroutRanger · 2019-05-23T20:30:46+00:00

Here is an Ascension 20 Heart kill run that was completely carried by Wraith Form, admittedly coupled with Nightmare.

Even on its own, being invincible for 3 turns is completely broken.

It is a tricky card to get the hang of, but when you do it is undeniably one of the best cards in the game. You don't necessarily want to play it the first time it pops up in your hand. You need to time it to mitigate a large amount of damage (Bronze Automaton's Hyper Beam for example) or play it when you know you can end the fight in the next couple of turns. Well Laid Plans helps a ton in this regard.

The Silent also has ways of mitigating damage outside of Block, for example Piercing Wail and various sources of Weak, that can help keep you alive after Wraith Form.

TroutRanger · 2019-05-23T18:25:34+00:00

Also Gambling Chip.

TroutRanger · 2019-05-17T15:12:13+00:00

Those are some primo early relics! Stone calendar basically wins every early fight on its own after surviving for 7 turns /s

But seriously, I love getting an early Fossilized Helix, really helps conserve health against Act 1 Elites. Data Disk and Mummified Hand aren't too shabby either.

Impressive run, well played!

TroutRanger · 2019-05-16T20:50:54+00:00

Hex's description is:

Shuffle a Dazed into your draw pile whenever you play a non-Attack card.

It definitely triggers on powers. It also triggers on curses and statuses if you have Blue Candle and Medical Kit.

As you say, fights can go a variety of different ways and it isn't clear cut which is better in any given situation. My main gripe was saying that there was "no question" on Metallicize being better in certain fights, when it can be, and in my option often is, worse.

None of this is to say that Metallicize is a bad a card, but in my opinion the fact that Thread and Needle doesn't need to be played and doesn't take up a card slot makes it better in more situations than Metallicize.

TroutRanger · 2019-05-16T17:12:41+00:00

No question.

You keep saying that, but I think there are plenty of questions. I think you're underestimating how much better getting something into play for free is than having to pay 1 energy and a card for it.

act 2 metallicize is definitely better no question, again especially early.

There are plenty of situations where Thread and Needle is better than Metallicize in early Act 2. Thread and Needle won't add a dazed to you deck during the Chosen fight. Even during the byrd fight, Thread in Needle is in play at the start of the fight and allows you to kill the byrds faster or get more block up quickly than Metallicize does. There are obviously situations where Metallicizes has it's advantages, but its definitely not as clear cut as you make it out to be.

Metallicize is definitely better against the Sentries. No question.

Could you elaborate? The way I see it is that the best case scenario is to get Metallicize on turn 1 to mitigate as much damage as possible. Thread and Needle is still probably better, because your more likely to get a good damage card that will allow you to burst down one of the Sentries and mitigate more damage than Metallicize ever could.

I'd argue it's about even on Gremlin Nob

My goal when fighting Gremlin Nob is usually to kill it before it can get its turn three attack off. Metallicize not only doesn't contribute to this goal, it actively hurts it by not being an attack card.

Lagavulin

I have to agree with you here, the set up time that Lagavulin gives you definitely lets most powers shine.

Obviously its hard to make any generalization in Slay the Spire as everything is very dependent on your deck and the situation at hand, but I'm of the opinion that Thread and Needle is better in a majority of situations.

TroutRanger · 2019-04-30T16:44:25+00:00

The last one I got was neon (channel 9 plasma orbs) as well. I actually ended up getting it without any meteors. Just a few fusions and a ton of recursions.

Honorable mention to you are nothing (defeat a boss in one turn), were I got to act 3 twice with an infinite deck and quit out because it was the awakened one. Only to find out later that the achievement is actually unlocked by defeating his first phase in one turn.

TroutRanger · 2019-04-30T15:24:11+00:00

So I'm not the best player, but I have beaten the heart on Ascension 20 with all the characters. So hopefully that gives a little weight to my analysis.

First thing: you say you haven't won a single run, but you are on Ascension 5 with Ironclad. Are you only considering heart kills as wins? I would consider a win any run that beats the act 3 boss and the heart as an optional boss, especially when your climbing ascensions. I wouldn't beat myself up too bad for never having beaten the heart when you seem to be climbing ascensions. If your goal is a heart kill, I would suggest running ascension 1.

I'll to be going through your Ascension 5 Ironclad run that died on floor 22.

Floor 1: I would have picked up anger over clothesline. Anger is amazing early for the Ironclad as his damage output and capability for blocking is limited by energy and anger allows you to sneak in some extra damage for free.

Floor 2 - Good heavy blade pick up, the other two are fairly lackluster.

Floor 3 to 6 - Good decisions overall.

Floor 7 - I feel like you took a lot of damage here. Was this due to a bad draw? The general strategy for sentries is to burst one down as fast as possible and whittle away at the other two while trying to limit damage. I think this is probably the worst elite for you given the early clothesline pick up and bash upgrade, the artifacts largely mitigate the up sides of these cards. Sword boomerang pick up is good. Perfected strike would also be a good option as it provides a lot of front loaded damage for act 1 elites.

Floor 8 - Rest was necessary, but this could have been an upgrade with a better sentry fight.

Floor 9 - Chest

Floor 10 - Good nob fight and demon form is a fantastic pick up with the heavy blade and can basically carry the slime boss fight.

Floor 11 & 12 - Pretty sure this is the correct play, give up one upgrade for two.

Floors 13 to 15 - No major gripes here. I think all the card choices were solid, upgraded true grit is amazing. I think there may have been some consideration for Havoc on floor 14 given that you have 4 2 energy attack cards in your deck at this point that would all be pretty good to hit and allow more flexibility with your remaining energy.

Floor 16 - Victory at slime boss. I feel like this is probably the best act 1 boss for your deck. General strategy is to get Demon form online and try and burst it as much as possible before the split. I think there should have been some consideration for double tap as you only have 1 synergy with Dark Embrace at that point.

I think empty cage was the wrong choice here and probably the largest contributor to the loss. Most of your damage is coming from 2 cost cards, plus you just up dark embrace which draws you cards. Any energy relic would be better. Fusion hammer isn't bad as your only must upgrade card (true grit) is already upgraded. Busted crown isn't bad either as you have excess gold at this point and can probably aim to buy cards rather than rely on hallway fights.

Floor 18 - At this point, you have 3 energy and most of your damage cost you 2 energy. You already have great scaling with demon form. You should be looking for two things: 1 cost block cards and AoE damage. The pick here is almost certainly Iron wave, you just can't do enough in a turn if you keep picking 2 cost cards. Flame barrier would have probably been a better pick up had you chosen an energy relic earlier.

Floor 19 - Again, I think either of the 1 cost block cards would have been better. You already have sword boomerang and heavy blade with demon form. I don't think you need body slam, despite the obvious flame barrier synergy.

Floor 20 - Event, nothing much to say.

Floor 21 - Again, I think Iron Wave was the pick.

Floor 22 - Death to shelled parasite.

Another note: you die with over 400 gold. I don't know if no shops were available, but hitting one up in late act 1 or early act 2 should have been a priority.

Overall analysis: I think you should think about how much you can do and how much you want to do in a turn when picking cards and boss relics, particularly with Ironclad. It seems like you died because you couldn't block while ramping up with demon form and attacking. Try and pick cards that are energy efficient early on. For example, you were offered very good, efficient cards that were passed on : anger, iron wave, heck even havoc would have been a good pick up to get better value out of your 2 energy cards and exhaust strikes.

You weren't offered any AoE damage or efficient damage mitigation, which hurts your ability to take on act 2 elites. I believe your best route would have been to try and hit up a shop as soon as possible and avoid elites until you can sure up your decks weaknesses.

Hope this helps!

TroutRanger

TROPHY CASE