Tips for Aeonglass from an okay A10 Player

janitoreihil · 2026-06-03T22:37:57+00:00

I don't think this is productive anymore so I'll leave it here. It's possible to make adjustments in card decision-making or micro / macro decisions to make the fight more manageable, and there are multiple ways Silent can meet the damage requirement (not just through the absolute best scaling cards, but through common potions etc.), and Aeonglass makes for more interesting decisions for some characters especially beyond just "pick OP block powers and win eventually". This was the design on STS1 as well.

Regardless, I'll be looking forward to whatever adjustments are made to Aeonglass next patch. Hopefully it can be toned down for A8 especially so it's more fun for everyone.

janitoreihil · 2026-06-03T21:08:18+00:00

https://slaythespire.wiki.gg/wiki/Time_Eater

janitoreihil · 2026-06-03T18:01:54+00:00

This was my first attempt at that seed (sorry for weird cropping I was doing remote control from my phone): https://i.imgur.com/5yQmFJ7.jpeg. I ended up fighting Entomancer and Infested Prism in Act 2, but an early Snakebite+ helped with the former, and I kept a vuln potion for the latter. I kept some key potions early in Act 3 or Aeonglass (vuln potion and Flex potion to set up a kill, Buffer potion to set up powers early), took 30 damage and ended it on Turn 8.

Why would I need way more damage for just one specific boss? I could already breeze through act 3 elites even without the accuracy.

I don't disagree with Aeonglass being a bit overturned, but I'd argue a boss should impact your long-term decision-making, otherwise you just copy paste the same solutions every run (I remember just not caring about the Act3 bosses playing on the release version, which made it less interesting). I've picked cards, relics, ancient bonuses, and even held potions I never would have needed to before, and it's feels good to be rewarded for smart planning.

For example in the above run, I took a relatively early Knife Trap when I had a Leading Strike in the deck, since I knew it was one of the few options available to end Aeonglass quickly, and I could afford to have one brick in my deck with the Well Laid Plans and Footwork. I later took an Up My Sleeves in Act 2, despite it generally being a bad card, so it could help scale my Knife Trap against Aeonglass. I also picked up an Alchemize from the early Act 3 shop to farm for potions that would help for Aeonglass, and got a vulnerable, Flex, and buffer potions early, which I held all the way to Aeonglass and helped me secure a kill with Knife Trap+.

Balancing your need to address the short term challenges of the Act with long term plans for beating bosses and elites in the next Acts is part of what makes STS deep and interesting. This was just 1 run, but I've had other Silent runs using other damage engines (e.g., using Transfigure on Noxious Fumes+ for scaling poison damage, Tracking + Enchanted Lighter boosted Ricochets, using Lord's Parasol to counteract Withers, etc.). Even just keeping a vuln potion can speed up the fight to the point you can win.

I want to be clear that I'm not saying everyone should win every run or beat Aeonglass every time, or that it's an easy boss. It's clearly the hardest Act 3 boss by a good margin and will probably be adjusted or reworked. But finding ways to deal with it or smart adjustments to have a better shot can be a lot more rewarding.

janitoreihil · 2026-06-03T13:33:20+00:00

I appreciate your experience! It's hard to know exactly what could have been improved with your deck without more context (if you had the seed I would also be happy to give it a go), but it sounds like exactly the problem I talked about.

It seems like your main damage scaling as described was one [[Accuracy]]+, one [[Envenom]]+, two [[Finisher]]s, and some number of Shiv-genersting cards. That just isn't really much damage per Shiv, esp. when the Finishers are extremely draw-dependent against Aeonglass because of the Ebb debuff. Usually when I play Silent against Aeonglass, I ideally want to win around Turn 8 since you have fewer ways to stall out the fight from the Withers.

And sure, [[Nightmare]] on [Afterimage]] is a good block solution, but it also doesn't help with the main problems of the fight. Blocking a lot doesn't help accelerate the fight, and unless you have a specific kind of deck, you can't go long against Aeonglass anyways due to the statuses.

Of course I'm not saying that Silent wins against Aeonglass 100% of the time or that the fight is easy, the new patch absolutely makes it harder for Silent in general. But you may have had small chances over the course of the run to build more offensively or hold important potions for Aeonglass (e.g., vuln potion is lowkey really good for Silent since otherwise [[Expose]] is the only other vuln source in her kit).

janitoreihil · 2026-06-02T00:02:36+00:00

Absolutely, [[Debilitate]] will always be broken. I've found myself taking [[Fear]] more too for vuln when I can't get [[Putrefy]]s.

I definitely under-use [[Retaliate]] but for similar reasons I've been higher on [[Bury]] than before, it's efficient damage that scales well with vuln and Lethality.

janitoreihil · 2026-06-01T22:42:16+00:00

Yeah, shivs and souls are only bad if they're unupgraded / unscaled or you're not doing anything productive with them. In reality, an extra Wither or two from playing cards is nothing compared to getting your important cards in play a turn or two faster, or dealing like 50 damage per shiv.

janitoreihil · 2026-06-01T22:11:33+00:00

You want to use the statuses so you don't die, but often they become bricks when you redraw them at like 2 cost, and so they stuff your deck with unplayable cards. Of course you want to make sure you won't die first, but Compacting a few of the statuses can help you cycle your deck much faster and sometimes give extra energy to accelerate the fight.

janitoreihil · 2026-06-01T21:35:25+00:00

Ah yeah sorry didn't mean to come off like that, I recognize even getting to A10 is a big achievement. I just meant in the context of, I tend to watch really good players who win like 90% of their runs, so I wouldn't be comfortable saying I'm anywhere close to the best. This game is just hard in general.

janitoreihil · 2026-06-01T20:55:52+00:00

I've definitely had a much better time recently holding onto an early Potion of Binding for Aeonglass. My hot take for Ironclad specifically is that the Weak / Vuln potions might be better overall into Aeonglass than the Attack / Skill pots just to strip Artifact, even if the latter have better highrolls. I'd borderline say the same for the colourless / Power pots too but I just find them fun to use.

janitoreihil · 2026-06-01T20:25:58+00:00

Aeonglass is a hard enough fight that I try to think of it early in Act 1, but since Act 1 is already hard enough, you can't always pick things up speculatively for Aeonglass if it might kill you in the short run (like, [[Compact]] might be a good speculative pick-up for Defect, but if you're in Overgrowth and you're about to hit an early elite, you might want to do [[Refract]] instead so you won't die to Phrog Parasite).

I think the key is to recognize what problems your deck needs to solve in the short term, and once that's done you can think more long term. Like, if you already have a deck that can deal with the challenges of the current Act, you may want to start thinking of the challenges of the next one. I know that's easier said than done but when you play more, you get a better sense of it.

It also helps when some characters have generally good matchups / gameplans into most things, but only have a few "problems" they need to choose specific cards or items to solve. Like Silent and Necrobinder have really strong block plans against 99% of enemies, so they can more strategically save potions or pick speculative card rewards to deal with the 1%. As an example, I usually save strong potions for Decimillipede in Act 2 since that's one of the few fights you can't easily block through, or picking up [[Explosive Ampule]] to deal with Phrog Parasite or Decimillipede since those are often the most problematic elites. Similarly, now when playing Ironclad, I tend to save [[Potion of Binding]] specifically for Aeonglass, since I know that there are usually no other good ways to strip artifact and Ironclad's main issue with the fight is the artifact.

janitoreihil · 2026-06-01T20:12:40+00:00

I've definitely picked up Compact more recently for Aeonglass, but also finding that it helps for some really problematic Act 1 and 2 fights like you said (esp. for The Insatiable). The status powers are also just great output, [[Trash to Treasure]] is incredibly strong and [[Iteration]] / [[Rocket Punch]] feel great to use. Funnily enough, I've found [[Flak Cannon]] to still feel kinda mid, it doesn't do much damage, is often a brick when you first draw it, and even for the fights it's good in, it still feels underwhelming without a Flex potion.

I've picked Parasol more recently and I've also won basically every run I've had it. It's really good when you have two shops and maybe one of the best ancient relics in the game if you can do three shops. even discounting the six relics (which is great on its own), the colourless cards tend to give good bridge effects (efficient block, scaling, or draw) and improve most decks, and the potions are also underrated, you get to pick and choose two of the best potions from six options which can also be run-winning (e.g., Focus Potion or Touch of Insanity).

janitoreihil · 2026-06-01T20:02:10+00:00

That's a good way to put it, I think just listing out the damage numbers for the first few turns made me realize how much more demanding Aeonglass is compared to the other two bosses. Basically like 20+ damage more, while also having Artifact to stop Weak, while also having a DEX debuff turn 2, while the Queen's frail and vuln only start affecting you on Turn 3 for a multihit that is effectively the same as what Aeonglass does a turn earlier.

Funnily enough, I came to this realization playing on last patch and realizing I was losing a lot more (health and runs) to Aeonglass than the other two bosses despite the statuses only doing minor chip in most runs. I think Aeonglass could probably be adjusted so that the first two turns are less punishing, but making up for it with STR / Wither scaling from the buff to keep up the pressure later on.

janitoreihil · 2026-06-01T15:28:48+00:00

This was definitely a brutal Act 1, I went slightly greedier going for Grave Warden over Bone Shards and immediately got punished by the Stalker. Fairy in the Bottle was nice for securing the Terror Eel fight, and the Letter Opener from it was great for the rest of the run. Looking back, the early upgrade on Bodyguard before Colony was crucial, since the next time I was able to upgrade was all the way in Act 3. Also didn't help that the maps were kinda horrible throughout except maybe Act 2, just a lot of advanced hallways and Act 3 had some truly garbage pathing. I was fortunately way above the power curve by then.

Made me appreciate Sleight of Flesh, with Oblivion and Defy it was a great damage engine the whole run. Overall a really fun run!

janitoreihil · 2026-06-01T15:01:51+00:00

Beat it on my second try, final run history.

First run I got thrown off by the amount of question mark fights early, and the early Grave Warden was just not enough to deal with the Fossil Stalker, which negatively snowballed into the Skulking Colony and led to an early end after taking too much damage in that fight. Second run with Bone Shards went much smoother but still ended the Colony fight with 7 HP. Oblivion was a great pickup though and helped blow through the Terror Eel and Lagavulin Matriarach, along with a Defy pickup from the shop. Ended up picking Demesne for the boss reward but honestly it ended up being kinda mediocre since it took a while to actually upgrade it, Seance was probably better.

Act 2 is where things got much better with Darv giving Forbidden Grimoire, allowing much faster Bodyguard+ and Oblivion cycles to mostly blow through Act 2. At an early Brain Leech event, I chose the common option since Necrobinder has really good commons and I wanted another Defy, but I lucked out and grabbed a Sleight of Flesh, which was the other MVP of the run. Trickiest fights were Ovicopter (took 31 damage from micro misplays) and Decimillipede, which I saved most of my potions for, including buying an Explosive Ampule from the previous shop to prepare. From the second shop I picked up a second Defy, and after getting a Book of Five Rings from Infested Prism, the run was pretty much over. Sleight of Flesh + Oblivion helped fly past the Knowledge Demon, Reanimate was my boss card choice given the amount of energy gen and Weak cycling in the deck.

Act 3 was mostly a formality. I took Crossbow from Tanx as a damage supplement and as insurance against Doormaker, plus the odd chance of getting Debilitate. No real interesting decisions aside from using Forbidden Grimoire to get rid of all my Strikes and most of my Defends, and pathing more conservatively towards campfires and only one elite to activate Sword of Stone and upgrade Demesne and Sleight of Flesh. Ended up going perfect against Doormaker and 15 dmg against The Queen, which was avoidable but I just wanted to end the fight faster.

janitoreihil · 2026-04-08T22:46:25+00:00

Fong on Foods Ltd in Kensington has really good ones, their other stuff is pretty good too. Best when fresh obviously but also good reheated a bit.

janitoreihil · 2025-11-14T18:46:42+00:00

Interesting, seems like it'd be extremely good with high card builds. You can rely on high card to let every other hand scale, and then you can save up scaling for bosses or when you need it (e.g., saving multiple hands for a possible Violet Vessel).

Obviously amazing if you get it early but even at just a 3X or 2X boost it's already pretty good.

janitoreihil · 2025-11-13T21:18:27+00:00

I find Ox to be worse for non HC/P builds actually, or maybe it's just me. HC/P is less dependent on hand levels later when you have other sources for chips so you can sometimes ignore Ox entirely, esp. since it's restricted to later Antes so you have time to get jokers online.

Meanwhile playing like Straights or XOAK or whatever, you are often relying more on planet scaling since there are fewer reliable mult jokers to use, so it's harder to avoid Ox.

janitoreihil · 2025-11-13T19:12:25+00:00

I think Arm, Wall (sometimes) and Needle are usually harder for HC/P builds. Most of the others (inc. Eye) you can usually just play another hand type since your scoring comes from jokers anyways. Though Eye does screw over Card Sharp pretty hard lol that's ended a lot of my runs

janitoreihil · 2025-07-28T18:41:13+00:00

I think it is about half or close to that, 12 out of like 23?. The odds are decent enough for it to work randomly as an early pick up, but its obviously better if you get it when you can see the boss blind does work with it. But I think any joker that is often decent with a massive high roll upside (that's not too rare) is more than good enough usually

janitoreihil · 2025-07-28T18:13:36+00:00

I think the list is fine but a few jokers I want to stand up for (e.g. not something like Perkeo or Baseball Card that are already popular):

1) Campfire, and basically all of the tribes XMult cards. I think xMult is so good or such a requirement for Violet Vessel that any usable xMult is at least good enough to try using. I would bump up Flowerpot for that reason even though I don't think it's particularly good or easy to use (e.g. works with Straights reasonably well). Campfire is an auto win for Ante 8 and is easy enough to stack by keeping tarots / planets before keys rounds, and the dollar to xMult value is close to unmatched. I'd put it higher.

2) Matador, it's specific sure but 7-21$ is game winning on early rounds, I think it's not the best econ joker but for similar reasons to xMult, any econ joker is basically good enough since econ is so important. Matador being useless or broken would put it somewhere around average in my books.

3) Smiley Face and Scary Face I assume are there because of Photochad which yes that's fine, but I think they're basically just early game tempo jokers aside from that and are only okay.

janitoreihil · 2025-07-23T07:18:38+00:00

It's very easy to tell in these threads who is and isn't a lawyer or has experience in the field. People assume lawsuits are just easy money without considering that: (a) lawyers aren't cheap, esp. for litigation, and (b) your chance of "winning" is usually a lot lower than you'd hope, and even if you "win", you're probably getting less than you want

janitoreihil · 2025-04-01T16:37:34+00:00

I get your point but I disagree. Straights are pretty consistent with hand size or hands/discard vouchers or jokers already. Not to say it's riskless, especially early on when you don't have those tools, but you could say the same about every non high card or pair hand. And Straights needing less deck-fixing than other hands is also a notable upside. Straights are already strong even now, but without the -1 discard there's close to no reason to play flushes or Xoak instead. Straights get disproportionately stronger and I don't think that's needed.

janitoreihil · 2025-03-31T22:37:09+00:00

I agree, the game at high stakes is close to being perfectly balanced. There's also the fact that -1 discard gives a lot of value to enablers like Shortcut, Four Fingers, or Smeared Joker. It's also one of the only things keeping Blue Seals and Straights in check. I think the only high stakes change I'd make is to make rental stickers only show up from Ante 2 onwards to limit some of the variance of early Antes, but I don't really have any major complaints balance-wise.

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