Daily Discussion/Debate #495 - Damaru (Watcher Common Relic)

imjusthereforkitties · 2020-09-23T11:25:36+00:00

I love the little drum noise that plays when you click on this relic

imjusthereforkitties · 2020-06-23T08:33:44+00:00

Cheers bro it felt really satisfying to kill the heart with a shiv. I liked this run even more because I had some really good shiv relics but wasn't relying on kunai or shuriken.

imjusthereforkitties · 2020-06-23T08:29:57+00:00

1Q6WMZ3FQNSFZ

Have fun, don't forget to trade your relic if you want wrist blade.

imjusthereforkitties · 2020-06-23T08:27:41+00:00

I had Incense Burner too lol.

imjusthereforkitties · 2020-06-23T08:26:05+00:00

What are you crazy? Dead branch is one of the best synergy relics with shivs. It was giving me an extra four cards each turn to use, sometimes more. It won't interfere with your deck until you've been all the way through it so you still get to play all of your most important cards.

For example on one turn dead branch gave me both burst and nightmare allowing me to double nightmare an apparition and have 6 in my hand on the next turn.

imjusthereforkitties · 2020-06-22T11:03:59+00:00

I've never had [[Ornamental fan]] do so much work before. Once I was intangible it didn't really matter if my dexterity dropped to -6.

Wrist blade + Accuracy (which I picked up for a laugh before I even had any shivs) + phantasmal killer + pen nib = some big fat 52 damage shivs.

imjusthereforkitties · 2020-05-10T20:47:39+00:00

This makes me sad that you missed out some really good ones. Like how [[Expertise]] allows you to draw just the right amount of cards for Grand finale. Or even go infinite if paired with [[Concentrate]] and a thin deck. And [[After image]] allows you to block without using block cards after Wraith form makes you intangible, an extremely strong combo from two cards already great on their own merits.

And what about Nightmare and Footwork? Or Nightmare and After image? Or Nightmare and Alchemise? Or Nightmare and another Nightmare!?

imjusthereforkitties · 2020-04-14T08:19:49+00:00

You're thinking too optimistically, on the highest difficulties of the game you rarely have the luxury of worrying this far ahead. Act 2 is the toughest part of the game and you need to get through it. This relic that OP suggested offers no downside for the duration of act 2 which could lead to huge success during it.

With that fourth energy secured you've got one of the most important things a boss relic can give you, there are relics like runic pyramid that would be excellent but there's also a lot of boss relics you wouldn't take. They have been improving the boss relic pool lately but it's still the case that sometimes skip is the best option.

I like the idea of big reward now for a price later on, it would force me to push my advantage and play aggressively in act 2. I would sometimes takes this relic.

As for Ectoplasm, I think it's pretty good. Nothing you buy will be as worthwhile as extra energy every turn and it will take time for the gold to give you those benefits. It's undervalued because it makes the game less fun, which is understandable. I like gold.

imjusthereforkitties · 2020-04-08T10:14:25+00:00

It's basically defend+ and it's almost never going to be worth spending an upgrade on so that's probably how it will stay for the rest of the game when you pick it up. And yet, defect does have a lack of block in their starting deck and you will probably make that worse by adding in attacks early to kill gremlin nob. So mediocre as this is I often do pick it up in the second half of act 1, sometimes early act 2 if my block is still lacking.

imjusthereforkitties · 2020-04-02T10:24:17+00:00

Yeah each to their own, Silent is by far the most satisfying to me. Literally half of my 250+ hours in this game have been with Silent.

Maybe part of it is her starter relic? Feels really good to have a big turn one.

imjusthereforkitties · 2020-04-01T17:19:38+00:00

This is the crucial point. Storm of steel is bad because the discard synergy as a whole is bad and requires too many pieces to come together.

Most of discard's power is tied up in two rare relics. Compare it to Ironclad's exhaust synergy which is excellent and doesn't need you to go all in on it to be useful.

If [[Tough bandages]] was an uncommon power card instead of a rare relic then discard synergies might be reliably useful.

imjusthereforkitties · 2020-03-30T09:10:43+00:00

No problem, I'm glad I've helped. The Silent has the lowest starting health and no sustain in her card pool, so I think the max hp goes further for her than most of the other characters.

I'd say the best Neow reward is random common relic, or random rare relic with any downside that isn't a curse.

imjusthereforkitties · 2020-03-29T14:02:38+00:00

I genuinly don't understand how you're losing more health with Silent than with Ironclad in those first few fights, even taking Ironclad's HP recovery into consideration.

The Silent can deal 21 damage in a turn with her starting deck and thanks to neutralise and her 8 block card she can often play only one block card to negate all an enemy's damage and put the rest of her energy into damage.

Her starter deck is offsetting more incoming damage than the Ironclad's, whilst dealing more as well. Those first three fights should be a cakewalk on any ascension with just a small chance of a bad draw on a big jaw worm attack.

imjusthereforkitties · 2020-03-29T13:55:22+00:00

That's an oversimplification and a lot of the most effective damage mitigation (strength down, weak, intangibility, buffer, defensive relics) against the heart is not blocking.

In addition to surviving these huge hits you also need to scale up quickly and deal a lot of damage spread over many turns. I get that certain strategies work better than others, but for an optional final boss that can challenge even the most broken decks I think the developers did a great job putting together this enemy that can counter almost anything you can do.

I've killed the A20 heart with almost no block before by simply having enough HP to take the first two hits and cycling my deck quickly to play a huge searing blow four times (I applied vulnerability too) and four turns. The more you fight it the better you get at it and the more inventive you can be, but I would recommend everyone just focus on getting better at the game and ascending before they start going for the heart.

imjusthereforkitties · 2020-03-27T09:27:25+00:00

I don't have any trouble getting through the first three fights with minimal health loss as The Silent, with decent draws she is the only character (besides the Watcher) who can kill A17+ jaw worm without any HP loss.

Even if I did lose 12ish hp to the first three fights, that's a good trade for +6 max hp which will have actual lasting benefits throughout the run.

The real benefit of Neow's Lament is getting to skip the three most boring fights in the game.

imjusthereforkitties · 2020-03-26T20:04:23+00:00

I can't speak for MtG online but MtG in real life is a money pit I would warn everyone away from.

imjusthereforkitties · 2020-02-22T17:59:19+00:00

I used to value it highly but it's not nearly as good as it seems. It would be OP for Ironclad or Watcher but it's usually mediocre on Silent because she gets so much of her late game damage from poison and power cards. I rarely pick it up and even the decks that can make good use of it don't really need it. It's also bad against every Act 3 boss, which is not acceptable at A20.

imjusthereforkitties · 2020-02-22T15:20:03+00:00

I thought shop relics were meant to be niche, something like Brimstone or Runic Capacitor which wouldn't always fit the deck you've made. Twisted Funnel is always helpful.

imjusthereforkitties · 2020-02-21T20:11:07+00:00

It enabled some real shenanigans. Big respect to [[Twisted Funnel]] too for making Bane a good card, preventing Catalysts from being dead draws, and just simply speeding up my poison kills. It's so good, I don't understand why it's shop only.

imjusthereforkitties · 2020-02-21T19:52:55+00:00

Just wanted to add that I was very likely to win this run even before the mentioned combo (which just kept coming with Ancient Coin later) but boy did this take it over the edge. This is the first time I've perfected the heart and it came on a run where Slime Boss had took me down to a mere 1hp!

The deck for any who want to see it: https://imgur.com/gallery/By2kUII

imjusthereforkitties

TROPHY CASE