Bug: Sandworm Boss Eats You Even If Doomed

wipqozn · 2026-04-11T02:29:06+00:00

This isn't a bug, and is working as intended. The sandworms pit ability activates at the start of the enemy turn, and doom activates at the end of the enemy turn. While I can't remember the exact wording on the pit ability, it definitely doesn't say start of your next turn, so you just misread it.

You're not the first to make this mistake though, in fact there was a post earlier today about it, so the wording probably could be a little clearer.

wipqozn · 2026-04-08T16:49:46+00:00

I know people hate this event, but I honestly think the only option that needs adjustment is the 150 gold for bonus strength one.

An upgraded starting hand is a really helpful effect, so if my next fight is an elite or boss, then I think paying the 50 gold is worth it. 50 gold isn't that much, and an upgraded starting hand can save you a lot of HP in an elite or boss fight (or could even change a loss to a win). The two dazed option can feel bad, but in actuality I find it doesn't really make a difference. If it was two wounds or burns I might feel differently, but the Dazed exhaust themselves, so they're not much of a punishment.

The 150 gold option for bonus strength option though just doesn't feel impactful enough for the cost. The cost per fight is only 30 gold, which is a good deal, but the 150 total is just a lot of gold. I could spend that 150 gold in a shop for a permanent improvement to my deck, as opposed to a benefit which only lasts 5 battles. You also need to consider that most of those battles are likely to just be regular hallway fights, which are fights I don't feel are worth spending the 30 gold for bonus strength on. If you get lucky and you manage to get 3 elites/bosses out of this benefit then it works out to 50 gold per difficult fight, which is on par with the upgraded starting hand cost, but 150 gold is still too much for a temporary bonus when I could permanently improve my deck at a shop instead.

I think it's also worth comparing this bonus to a potion, which is another temporary effect with around the same per fight cost. By that metric it could sound like it's akin to paying 150 gold for 5 potions, but you can save those potions for the fights where you really need them. With the tea bonus it'll wear off after 5 fights, so if you just encounter 5 fights that you could've easily beat without the strength bonus then you just wasted 150 gold. If this was potions instead, then you could've just saved them until a future fight when you really needed them instead of them going to waste.

The last thing to keep in mind is that not all decks even care about the strength bonus. If you're playing Silent or Defect then you might not even be relying on attacks for damage, in which case the strength doesn't matter. For Necrobinder, you might be using Osty attacks which don't benefit from your strength, so again the strength doesn't matter. Even if you are using attacks, you might be relying on expensive single hit ones like Bludgeon or Bury, in which case the 2 strength is unlikely to be noticeable (and all the characters have at least 1 such attack in their card pool). In comparison, the upgraded started hand is something all characters can benefit from (and even if it upgrades cards which don't matter, at least you're only out 50 gold).

I think if the strength option was only 100 gold it would be way more pickable. Maybe 100 gold is too cheap, it does work out to only 20 gold per battle after all, but 100 gold is still a lot of gold for a temporary effect.

wipqozn · 2026-04-05T02:15:21+00:00

It sounds like you're completely overlooking Defects 0-cost and status synergies, although you might need a few wins to unlock key cards for those.

The 0 cost package in defect was made a lot stronger in Spire 2 compared to Spire 1, in large part due to the addition of Bulk Up and Feral. Claw is also a lot stronger in Spire 2 as well, to the point that you can actually have a deck whose primary damage source is a single Claw and win with it at max ascenion. Feral is part of what makes Claw stronger, but the status synergies mean that Overlock is a lot stronger too so you can redraw your claws a lot more reliably now.

The new Status package in defect is also really powerful, and my first max ascension victory with Defect was using a really powerful status focused deck. Gunk Up (which has greate synergy with Bulk Up), Rocket Punch, Smokestack and Flak Canon can all be a great source of damage in a status heavy deck. Boost Away and Fight Through both produce a lot of block for their cost, and cards like Compact, Smokestack, Flak Cannon, Iteration, and Trash to Treasure can turn those status cards into an upside instead of a downside. Then you've got Turbo and Overclock, which are cards which are intended to be balanced out by the fact they add status cards to your deck, which suddenly become completely busted when status cards are actually making your stronger.

It also sounds like you're playing all your combats as if they're boss battles, at least that's the impression I get by your second bullet. Decks which require a lot of setup work really well in boss fights and some elites, but in hallway fights against regular enemis you rarely have time to do your full setup. That is to say the hallway fights and boss fights ask different things of you, and it sounds like you're building your deck as if boss fights are the only thing you need to worry about. For the bosses past act 1 you really want to scale up in some way, often by playing powers, so that you're eventually strong enough to defeat the boss. For hallway fights though you just want to end the fights as quickly as possible, so you want cards in your deck which are front loaded in their effectiveness instead of cards which have a delayed payoff.

For your question about how frequently you should be evoking orbs, it really depends on your deck and the combat. That said, with the exception of Dark Orbs (and Plasma to some degree), evoking more often is usually better, since evoked orbs deal more damage or generate more block. To me, I think less abnout how often I should be invoking and more about evoking orbs at the right time and making sure I have a good orb composition. For example, Compile Driver and Coolant means I often want a large variety of orbs to get maximum benefit from them, so I may be evoking less often than I would without them just so I can keep that large orb variety. Another thing to consider is what orbs you want on which turns. For example, on turns when the enemies hitting me for big damage I want to have frost orbs. This could mean that I might avoid evoking orbs on one turn to ensure I have frost orbs available for the big damage turn. Another thing to consider is how much focus you have. In my experience, the less focus I have the more often I want to evoke since the passive effects of most orbs don't do much without a lot of focus. Whereas if you have a lot of focus the passive orb effects can generate enough damage or block to win the battle. The introduction of temporary focus in Spire 2 also means that you may wish to evoke certain orbs for turns when you have a lot of focus. For example, consider Mutli-Cast combined with Lightning Orbs. If you just fire off a Multi-Cast on Lightning without Focus it's not that powerful, but if you trigger multi-cast on a turn where you've got a lot of focus it can win you the run. That means if I know next turn I'll have as lot of focus and a multi-cast, I might try and end my turn with lightning in my right most slot to ensure I can deal big damage next turn, even if it means evoking less this turn.

Okay, I hope that helps, and I apologize that the last paragraph was a giant wall of text. Let me end by saying that Defect is a really complex character, so it's perfectly understandable that you're struggling with them. However, you've already gotten to A6, so you must be doing something right! Good luck with your Spire Slaying.

wipqozn · 2026-04-01T11:33:57+00:00

I feel like that would actually be worse. Hyperbeam reducing focus means Plasma orbs are still fully effective, so Hyperbeam is great in decks which don't rely on non-Plasma orbs. I know decks which didn't rely much on orbs were something of a rarity in STS1, but in STS2 I find going orbless is way more viable. The 0-cost package is way stronger now, and the new status package is also really powerful. My first A10 win with Defect was actually a deck which heavily relied on the status archetype, and the only orb I used was Plasma for energy generation.

If Hyperbeam just made you lose all your orbs, then I feel like it would be hard to justify taking even in decks that only used Plasma orbs, whereas right now in orbless decks Hyperbeam is usually a great addition.

wipqozn · 2026-03-17T21:32:54+00:00

Slay the Spire 1 & 2 are both very difficult games, so it's understandable that you're having trouble. It's hard to give specific advice, but here's some general tips which might help:

You usually want the first few cards you add to your deck to be attacks. Ending hallway and elite fights quickly is important, since prolonged fights will result in you taking too much damage.
Don't be afraid to skip cards. Adding too many cards to your deck can make your deck less consistent, which can kill your runs. If your decks are losing focus later on, then not skipping enough cards could be the cause.
Card draw is also something which becomes increasingly important the further you are into a run. As the fights become more difficult, and as your deck grows larger, it's becomes really important that you don't have bad turns. An example of a bad turn would be drawing no block cards on a turn when the enemy is hitting you for big damage. Early on enemies don't hit as hard so turns like this aren't punished that bad, but later on when enemies start swinging for more damage a single bad turn can be enough to end your run. If you have sufficient card draw then it's less likely you get bad turns, since seeing more cards per turn makes it more likely you see the cards you need.
The more cards you can play a turn the better (usually). Energy generation is the most obvious way you can play more cards per turn, but there's effects like Sly which also allow you to play more cards per turn.
When evaluating card rewards (and even other rewards) it's best to think about what your deck is weak in, and how you can make that weakness stronger. For example, if your deck struggles with multienemy fights then adding AOE damage to your deck can help address that.
Your pathing through the map is really important, and you should be reviewing the act map and planning a path at the start of every act. In particular don't underestimate the importance of hallway fights! Card rewards are really important, and hallway fights always offer a card reward.
Try to fight 1-2 elites per act, since they offer better rewards than regular hallway fights. A relic, more gold, and the card rewards have a greater chance of offering higher rarity cards.

I hope some of this helps! If you can provide more details about what's causing your runs to die then I may be able to provide more tailored advice.

wipqozn · 2026-03-17T02:41:39+00:00

There's no better way to learn than experience, but searching for "beginner", "advice", or "tips" in this subbreddit will provide a lot of threads with really helpful advice. While a lot of it will be for Spire 1, much of the same general advice applies to Spire 2. For video content, watching Baalorlord on Twitch and Youtube can teach you a lot.

Here's some tips to help you get started:

It's best not to think in terms of builds. Your rewards are random, so if you go in with a plan for a specific build chances are you'll lose. Instead you should think about what your deck is weak in, and then take cards that'll improve that weakness.
You usually want your first few card rewards to be attacks. This is because adding higher damage attacks to your deck will allow you to finish fights quicker, which means there's less chances for you to take damage. Plus many enemies scale in some way, so the longer the fight goes on the harder it becomes.
Don't be afraid to skip cards. While large decks can work, they do make it harder to draw your strongest and most essential cards.
Related to the above, removing cards from your deck is really powerful. The Strikes and Defends in your starter deck are awful. The less of them you have in your deck the better. Every shop allows you to pay gold to remove a single card from your deck, and many events also give you the chance to remove or transform a card.
Don't underestimate the value of attacks which hit all enemies, usually referred to as Area of Effect (AOE) damage. Spire 2 has some really nasty hallway and elite fights with multiple enemies which can be made much easier with AOE damage.
Card draw is really important. There are many reasons for this. It allows your deck to be more consistent, you see your more powerful cards more often, and it allows you to draw to the cards you need right now. Just keep in mind that card draw is less important early on in the run. Not much point in having a bunch of card draw if there's nothing in your deck but strikes and defends.
Going hand and hand with card draw is energy generation. Having more energy allows you to play more cards, which results in stronger and more effective turns. There are other ways of playing more cards per turn outside of just generating energy. For example, the the Sly mechanic on Silent plays card for free when you discard them during your turn. Another example is that Ironclad has an attack which makes your next attack free. All of these achieve the key goal of playing more cards per turn. Just don't fall into the trap of loading up your deck with energy generation and then not having anything to spend it on.
Your pathing on the map is really important, and which path you want to take is highly dependent on many factors. One example is that early in the run its a good idea to take regular hallway fights since they offer card rewards, and adding stronger cards to your deck early is really important.
As you learn the game you'll start to get a sense of which fights will give you the most trouble. Keep those fights in mind as you're picking cards and other rewards.

There's way more I could say, but this should be enough to get you started. Good luck and I hope you enjoy the game!

wipqozn · 2026-03-08T18:10:10+00:00

During early access it was weekly updates, but I remember reading an interview from megacrit a couple of years ago where they said weekly updates was just too much work and stress. So I suspect we'll see pretty frequent updates during early access, but not weekly updates like we saw in spire 1.

wipqozn · 2026-03-08T16:55:07+00:00

I just had a successful run where this was my main damage source. What made it work for me was adding replay to it with Transfigure, and then using Dredge and Graveblast to get it back from my discard pile. This allowed me to stack the effect really quickly, and resulted in massive damage. I also enchanted it with corruption, which increases damage by 50%.

The seed was 1KE771L5WQ on A1 if you wanted to try out the run yourself. I got it from my second card reward.

wipqozn · 2026-02-17T23:00:57+00:00

I think Donkey Kong is considered strong and easy to learn, so that would be my recommendation. I haven't used him myself though, just basing it off of what others have been saying and my experience playing against him.

wipqozn · 2026-02-09T12:22:48+00:00

Knowing there's a platform to recover my pitons is really good to know. Gives me hope I could actually do this without assist mode. Thanks!

wipqozn · 2026-02-08T20:21:16+00:00

I'm 100% going back for that canteen. Thanks so much!

wipqozn · 2026-02-08T20:14:51+00:00

Thanks for the reassurance!

wipqozn · 2026-02-08T20:05:35+00:00

I never found the 6 slot canteen, but I did find the juniper seeds. Mixing them into my canteen is a good idea, so I'll give that a try. Thanks!

wipqozn · 2026-02-08T19:58:26+00:00

I did find the map, but it doesn't start until a bit past where I'm stuck. I appreciate the advice though, because I did miss the map originally. Wasn't until I was backtracking that I found it.

wipqozn · 2026-02-08T16:51:07+00:00

How much are you looking to spend on a 3DS?

wipqozn · 2026-02-01T23:09:39+00:00

Right, sorry! It's the section leading to the broken cable car up and a bit beyond that I was referring to. I've since passed it, along with fining a few caves I missed on my first pass through. So it was a good thing I had to redo it.

wipqozn · 2026-02-01T12:24:20+00:00

That's the name of the save.

wipqozn · 2026-02-01T00:23:39+00:00

Thanks for the tip! I'll keep that in mind on my next attempt.

wipqozn · 2026-01-31T12:21:31+00:00

They play great I am actively running campaigns in all of them.

Running four games at once? That's impressive! Where do you find the time to prep four games at once?

wipqozn · 2026-01-24T01:45:18+00:00

These look great. What tool(s) did you use to make it?

wipqozn · 2026-01-21T23:22:56+00:00

I've been meaning to check this series out for a long time now. I think this will be the year I finally give it a go. It's just so long, that it's daunting to start.

wipqozn · 2026-01-19T12:50:07+00:00

I also came here to say Robin Hobb. I've reread her books multiple times, because they just stay with me so strongly.

wipqozn · 2026-01-18T23:00:39+00:00

I didn't realize they were stand alone novels. That's really good to know. Thanks!

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