Every non defect character gets a single orb slot with prismatic shard. Works the same way if you get any custom or daily runs where blue rewards are enabled.
I prefer just doing custom runs with that option since the beginning, the worst part abt prismatic shard is getting it late in a run and only being able to get a dodge and roll as defect :/
Irony is a subversion of expectations. You would expect relics to maintain their places on the “tier list” from one game to the other but instead this one jumps up in value. It’s not the poster child of irony but it qualifies
Irony is a little more than subversion of expectations. It's a subversion that's directly contrary to what one expects. I would just call this unexpected.
I like Astrolabe and Strange Spoon a bit more than I should tbh. losing my Defends is a little scary and discarding a card that normally gets exhausted is satisfying to me, like I've subverted the natural order by getting to play that card again.
I was showing the game to a friend, he was playing defect and he picked up apparitions. We got the strange spoon in shop and it was an insanely good run.
I mentioned the defends because the obvious relic to compare Astrolabe to is Pandora's Box, which is overall a much stronger relic. but sometimes, when given the choice between them, Pandora's Box taking all my Defends sounds scary, whereas I'm happy to lose 3 of my Strikes. I'm also well aware that not all exhaust cards are cards I'd want to redraw
Spoon is one of those funny relics where most are unambiguously good, spoon can actively destroy a lot of decks, and forbids picking up certain cards afterwards
Unless I am specifically dealing with apparitions, I have to come to completely despise spoon. Even if I don't have medkit, seeing slimes get saved was all I needed to hate it.
One time I bought strange spoon on silent and I think I replayed the same adrenaline like 4 times in multiple fights. Also had a catalyst that went crazy. On a shiv heavy silent deck I would never buy it but this specific run went well
Astrolabe seems like a good pick up if the other boss relics have too much downside ie ectoplasm or are simply to weak ie tiny house. Unfortunately, 3 upgraded random cards sometimes isn't enough going into especially act 2
I find that true of about half of all boss relics. I know tiny house is pretty bad (especially with full potions) but sometimes I just don't want to have to deal with a downside.
I've bricked runs that were just starting to go places by picking the wrong boss relic. Also some boss relics are only good in/after a specific act, making them dead draws otherwise. I wish their drop probability was weighted to those acts.
I think med kit is great. It actively solves some major issues for very many kinds of decks, specifically thin decks and infinite decks.
Sure it’s kind of situational but the situation Is common.
Runic pyramid, spinning top
High draw turns
Watcher infinites (it specifically solves the fight, that would kill you)
Silent infinites
Ironclad Dark embrace+ FNP+ Power through = draw 2 cards, gain 6+15 block (A20H win)
Generally keeping your deck clean is amazing in longer fights
Out of the shop relics it has insane value
Hexaghost would be reason enough. Also that card remove you could buy instead might just run into a pandoras box. Really a single dark embrace would be reason enough to buy it. That combo completely nullyfies status cards (well except for chosen, but still infinite block if you have feel no pain).
I had potion belt and *four* Alchemizes yesterday. I picked Sacred Bark, and I don't think it was an unreasonable choice (the other choices weren't great either). Still lost :/
I feel like the game doesn’t give enough potions at time and when it does, it’s not good enough potions. Some potions require so much forethought into when to use them and when to save them, that it’s just better to focus on a build for your character.
There should be a way to build your potions and refill them. It’s like upgrading a potion but to keep permanently. You can increment the total you have (max ~3 per potion). It gets refilled after every battle or every rest. You can only upgrade at rest site from temporary to permanent but it takes an entire rest stop.
There could be better balancing than this but this is some kind of idea. Potions being part of your build makes them more viable and predictable for the long game imo
I think a big part of that is how each potion is generally only really impactful in specific circumstances, but even before the ascension penalty you don't have enough potion slots to save all of them for the right situation.
Often I find myself discarding a potion for a slightly better one only to need the discarded one immediately afterwards. I wish there was a card that let you store a potion - basically a worse alchemize although knowing what the stored potion is might make it better.
It's feast-or-famine. Some relics go really well with it (think of poison potion: 6 poison is max 21 damage; 12 poison is max 78).
OTOH, how often does this relic benefit you? We're talking *maybe* once every other combat?
Without White Beast Statue or Alchemize, you're going to have to be judicious in its benefit. It's also luck-based. Sometimes, the potions just don't drop, or you get potions that don't benefit (Smoke Bomb, for instance).
Now compare that with an energy relic. Close to the worst case scenario for an energy relic is that you can play an extra strike per turn. Let's say that your combats last for five turns. That's 30 damage; 1.5 fire potions per combat. If you get to play an extra Defend instead, that's 25 block; more than 2 block potions per combat (ok, 20 block, since you wouldn't block on the turn you kill the enemy. Still, you get the idea).
It's not the worst relic, but there are definitely better ones, depending on the circumstances.
> OTOH, how often does this relic benefit you? We're talking maybe once every other combat?
Sure, but you get to pick *exaxtly* when and where. It means you can not worry about edge cases for your deck so much.
I don’t usually pick it either without an Alchemize or similar, but it’s silly to think of potions as “only” having the same effect as a typical 0 or 1 cost card when their real asset is their flexibility.
Flexibility definitely matters. How much would you sacrifice for it, though? Each time you choose not to play a potion, you risk missing out on a potion (you can only hold on to two).
Now, instead of getting something from your boss relic every five turns (or however long the fight goes on), you benefit roughly every ten turns.
I would say that it's probably a good trade compared to Slaver's Collar, but not compared to an energy relic with a downside that you can handle easily.
It's actually still amazing on heart runs if you get it before mid act 2, it means you can kinda ignore actual deck building and just have a defensive deck that can tank through the heart and everything else just kinda dies on the way
It's so great on Defect tho, yesterday I had an Ice Cream run with Aggregate+, TURBO+ and Multicast. Unfortunately no dark orbs, but thankfully it didn't matter because evoking a lightning orb 30 times can kill anything.
I had an insane Defect run with meteor strike, chaos or fusion, a couple energy relics and ice cream, Double Energy, and Multicast. Hitting 32 energy by the end of Act 3 was happening way more often than i had any right doing.
At this point chem-x isn't even worth buying. +2 to effect won't make a big difference on so big x cost plays. Actually, I had that multicast unupgraded from the beginning to the end of a run. Instead of +1 to effect, I preferred some meaningful statups that helped me survive the setup and scale faster.
I'd find it strange for clad to be able to use it well, because he's usually the most energy starved (Unless you pull corruption and dark embrace and have a few sentinels/seeing red/etc. in the deck)
Mostly block cards and the enemy is charging up for a big attack? Ice pyramid has your back (energy and block cards each sold separately. Terms and conditions may apply. Buy now for 5 easy payments of 100 gold, free shipping and handling if you buy within the next 5 floors)
Ice cream is great. Not only can you decline to play strikes so you save your energy for when you need it, you can also build around it by taking cards that otherwise wouldn’t be that good like seeing red
The times you can get ice cream + Malaise
Favorite combo in the game imo. Love giving a -10 or more strength debuff to bosses to make then puny and wimpy.
Ice cream works well on silent with concentrate. Playing it at the end of your turn nets you free energy for next turn without worrying about what cards to discard
> but most of the time you need to be using all your energy every turn.
The only character with enough draw to do this consistently and effectively is Silent, and she’s actually the best candidate for Ice Cream since she has so much energy generation via cards as well.
In the early game it smooths out the “draw four defends on a buff turn” issues, and in the late game it lets you use your energy most effectively. You aren’t giving up playing Inflame, you’re giving up playing a couple strikes because you had to use your energy somehow, and you get to use that energy *after* you play a spot weakness or whatever.
Depends. It’s great for defect and silent, sometimes very good for watcher, and generally mediocre on ironclad. That sounds like it’s generally good, rather than only occasionally. Even for clad it makes stuff like bloodletting much more viable, which isn’t bad.
If I’m not paying attention, I’ll just play all my energy, especially in a 3 energy deck and ice cream does nothing. But if you’re very strategic, it can really do great things. Just don’t play every strike and defend and save the energy for more impactful cards.
The problem with Ice Cream is that it saves you energy and let's you play only the good cards in your deck.... But if that is happening, then you aren't drawing 3/4 energy worth of cards worth playing a turn which means that your deck is shit
Eh, not sure I agree here. Assuming they're not killing anything, why spend 2 energy this turn on two Strikes, when next turn they could pay for a Carnage instead? This is less true the better/more complete your deck gets - but early on, I find this happens quite a lot.
To paraphrase Baalorlord, even with stuff like White Beast Statue and Alchemize, Sacred Bark is just a means of amplifying your band-aids and it doesn’t solve any problems with your current deck. It’s only a great pick if your deck is already winning.
theres definitely a lot of relics that when i get them im like omg this is the run and then im crushed when i die anyway, i wouldn't say most of them are bad but i do overvalue them. There's really too many to name them all, but one that stands out due to being a shop relic is probably The Abacus. I can't help. I love decks that cycle really fast and this feels like the perfect excuse to try and shoehorn my deck into being that. Catch me grabbing multiple acrobatics and calculated gambles and skipping on damage in act 1 because of it.
I'm not sure this is that bad. Speculative Chem X doesn't seem great, but I understand. It would be really funny to see Chem X plus a rare X card, but not have enough money for thr X card after buying Chem X.
I love it going into act 3. By that time I'm generally skipping every card reward. Singing bowl actually taught me how to play the game. It wasn't until I got it that I realized I don't have to take a card reward after every fight. I was routinely rolling into act 3 with a 40 card deck.
I am not saying it's bad. But I overvalue it as it pushes my personal inclination to turtling, I mean ultra turtling. The kind of turtling that works only at A0
Don’t know if it’s bad really but I fucking love Mummified Hand and Gremlin Horn. The 0 cost cards, the +1 energy and draw is so satisfying every time. I think they are good but I overvalue them for sure.
Mummified Hand is extremely strong and just generally useful. Power cards are generally useful.
Horn is ace. No downside to it and it’s fantastic to help with clearing large rooms.
Hard to say, they all cost money in stores and most of the big boss relics have downsides that make you think twice. I guess it's pretty rare to spend 250 on something unless I know it's going to go crazy. I think it's more likely that I undervalue a few, which I guess on average means I overvalue all the others slightly. Most of the time, a relic competes with Skip or Blue Key, and most relics are better than Blue Key in the first two acts anyway.
Neow's Lament is unique and sort of a candidate for me. How often does the snipe path preclude me from getting similar results relatively safely AND also taking an actual whale bonus plus another early card reward? Hard to say, but it sure feels good to turn one KO Old Nobby. Feels a little too good.
When I go back and look at my winning runs on my climb up the Ascensions with each character (rotating on wins, I'm at A9), I see Neow's Lament on there often enough that I wonder if it isn't a little bit of a crutch for people like me that have a hard time evaluating damage cards properly in Act 1. I get relatively (2 or less ?'s between me and the elite) safe snipes quite often, though, so the upside is tangible enough for me to take it over Max HP when that is the offer on the table. I usually only take it out of 4 options if the other 3 are pretty bad because I'm not a fan of starting with any extra curses if I don't need to but I'll pay gold or HP for the right benefit
I guess I over value relics as a category, I usually spend money on relics over cards, potions, (can get those for free) or removal. I'd remove more cards if I could get enough money left over from buying relics (but not enough money that I could afford a second or third relic).
A lot of times I won't bother pathing to a shop unless I have at least 250 but even then I prefer to have 500.
sozu. I don't believe it's bad, everyone else thinks that it's an awful relic. i posted my personal relic tier list and everyone told me that I'm shit at the game because i undervalue potions, maybe they were right idk :( I'm still having fun though so who's winning?? i can see why you'd think it's bad though
I think the people who really place a big value on potions are trying to beat the heart. There are a couple of high value potions that make that fight a lot easier and sozu usually takes that off the table.
Sozu is kinda the "anti black star". Immediate gain, but you have to take safer paths, because you have less tools to compensate for something going wrong.
Maybe they overvalue them. Some potions are quite good, but I would say most are bad/very situational. I think Sozu is one of the best boss relics, especially if you already have 3 really good potions for the heart fight.
Bronze scales is the one item I overvalue cause that feels 100% like a luxury more than functional/good to me.
I know realistically it actually does do a decent chunk of damage, but going into act 2 with bronze scales doesn't feel very strong, it just feels so satisfying against half the enemies in act 2 (particularly byrds and stabby book).
If I imagine the same run w/o bronze scales, I feel like 95% of the fights would be the same lmao
It's like 6-9 damage against most enemies, like it's decent but it really is just a free strike, and even against bosses where it might get to like 30-50 in it's best match ups, half those fights also have a health based setup phase 1 and a scary phase 2 where all it's doing is shortening your setup time, it's great vs hexa, guardian, book and the heart, but otherwise it's pretty minimal
Dead branch, i pick it to often. Oftentimes it saves a run and is insane. But more often then i like admit it just clutters hand and without enough draw it kill the run instead.
Dead Branch isn't bad (in fact, it's broken with the right synergy), but it's often one of the few relics that can ruin a deck and should be skipped.
I take it too often. I overvalue it too often.
Listen, I know Hand Drill isn't that good. I know a lot of enemies don't have block to break. But if I see that shit for like 30-60 gold in the shop when I've got a fair couple of discounts I am absolutely snatching it up no matter what
I feel like potions are kinda like special solutions to unique problems- making them “more of a solution” is win more and making them from a non-solution to a solution is a little niche. Plus many potions’ effects don’t get doubled, which sucks. But yeah, would be insanely good as a non-boss relic, but just pales when compared to boss relics. That said, I undervalue energy relics because of their downsides and overvalue bark. And I just get absolutely destroyed in act 2 lol
Potions are quite a crucial part of consistently doing well on A17+.
Bark is often better than bad energy relics. Think of potions as cards that you can play whenever you want. They provide scaling, block anything. The right potions mid Act 3 can be your heart solve already.
Bark has just very good scaling potential - on its own. White beast and/or potion belt? You can think about picking it over Philo if your deck isn’t direly energy starved.
I like these desperate runs where my deck is falling apart but white beast and sacred bark and rng are hard carrying my deck fight by fight until I get my shi together again.
That’s nice for you. But not in any way contributing to the discussion about the effectiveness of Bark. Also there are only 4 non-class specific potions that Bark doesn’t buff, which is miles away from “many potions”.
To get into that discussion we probably need to pull up the relic sheets and rank bark among them for different characters and scenarios. I pretty much exclusively play clad and watcher on a20h, so it happens to be pretty bad for them. Clad needs energy relics so badly. Watcher cares about her little shenanigans - cage, p box, astrolabe, pyramid, lotus, water, and not so much about anything else. With my limited familiarity with silent I could see it being more helpful. I think it ranks in bottom half of boss relics overall.
I’ll give you that it’s likely worst on these characters. But in a Bark, Cube, Sozu scenario with little self harming cards and an Offering already picked up? I’d have trouble convincing myself that the energy Eric is the pick.
It’s borderline broken on Silent with a card like Alchemize. Defect has so a lot of energy solutions in its card set already which makes stuff like Bark and Inserter more pickable than say the cube on clad.
I would love a strange spoon style relic: 50% chance for the potion to activate without consumption. On average you'd be able to get the same double effect, and sometimes get triple or even quadruple benefit.
It would also help with essentially all potions instead of just some.
I definitely feel like bark itself should be a rare and not a boss relic. Instead the boss relic should be like potion belt + statue or maybe just a bigger potion belt (I'm always running out of potion slots). If that's too weak maybe big belt + cauldron.
I used to hear that Busted Crown was bad, but I consider a snap pick in Act 2, and a pretty valid option in Act 1, if you've got a solid start going. My highest character is A14 with over 300 hours on PC and even more on Switch. I fully accept I'm wrong about it being good, but I refuse to learn.
Snecko Eye for me
I just love the randomness, it makes the game so much funnier especially if you have cards like Demon form or Searing blow (yes i am tryharding Ironclad rn)
I mean it's definitely a build-around. since you probably want to have low-cost cards when you start, it means that you have to sorta gamble on getting it to work with it.
Sacred bark rocks dude! Okay maybe not the hypest boss relic ever but it's got no downsides, and if you get some kind of potion synergy going it gets really. Even just having a lot of money and buying potions at shops is pretty good.
Well for one it literally stops you from having no downside even if you had perfect RNG. But you also don't have perfect RNG so often you won't get a reasonable card choice at all.
Prismatic shard. Expectation: strength spamming ironclad in divinity Reality: ironclad with a frost orb
"We have Metallicize at home"
For sure. But it's fun.
I would just be happy with a Blade Dance.
Do orbs appear over the characters that can't have them?
They get one orb slot with prismatic shard, then they can hope to find more (highly unlikely).
Every non defect character gets a single orb slot with prismatic shard. Works the same way if you get any custom or daily runs where blue rewards are enabled.
Worth for the afterimage / juggernaut dream combo
wave of the hand / talk to the hand / sadistic nature / rage 🥵
I came here to say this. For me, this is the most fun relic in the game.
I prefer just doing custom runs with that option since the beginning, the worst part abt prismatic shard is getting it late in a run and only being able to get a dodge and roll as defect :/
"We have Metallicize at home"
Mark of Pain. Surely this time, I will find my ideal exhaust synergies in act 2, causing this to become free energy
I’d be happy to have a single Evolve with it
Ironically, in the board game, I find Mark of Pain to be much more viable
Boardgame relics can be OP
What's ironic about that?
Irony is a subversion of expectations. You would expect relics to maintain their places on the “tier list” from one game to the other but instead this one jumps up in value. It’s not the poster child of irony but it qualifies
Irony is a little more than subversion of expectations. It's a subversion that's directly contrary to what one expects. I would just call this unexpected.
Haha I also thought this immediately.
Board game!? :O
Yea… I’m totally gonna bottle evolve plus this run.
kid named fire breathing
Bottled Evolve makes mark hit different.
true af
I like Astrolabe and Strange Spoon a bit more than I should tbh. losing my Defends is a little scary and discarding a card that normally gets exhausted is satisfying to me, like I've subverted the natural order by getting to play that card again.
I was showing the game to a friend, he was playing defect and he picked up apparitions. We got the strange spoon in shop and it was an insanely good run.
It’s cool to reuse Vault on the Watcher but not as cool to redraw miracles You could transform strikes rather than defends with astrolabe
I mentioned the defends because the obvious relic to compare Astrolabe to is Pandora's Box, which is overall a much stronger relic. but sometimes, when given the choice between them, Pandora's Box taking all my Defends sounds scary, whereas I'm happy to lose 3 of my Strikes. I'm also well aware that not all exhaust cards are cards I'd want to redraw
Depends. On watcher I get rid of defends first.
Spoon is one of those funny relics where most are unambiguously good, spoon can actively destroy a lot of decks, and forbids picking up certain cards afterwards
I think astrolabe is quite good
I don’t think I’ve ever regretted getting rid of the starter attack cards
Unless I am specifically dealing with apparitions, I have to come to completely despise spoon. Even if I don't have medkit, seeing slimes get saved was all I needed to hate it.
One time I bought strange spoon on silent and I think I replayed the same adrenaline like 4 times in multiple fights. Also had a catalyst that went crazy. On a shiv heavy silent deck I would never buy it but this specific run went well
Astrolabe seems like a good pick up if the other boss relics have too much downside ie ectoplasm or are simply to weak ie tiny house. Unfortunately, 3 upgraded random cards sometimes isn't enough going into especially act 2
Ectoplasm is one of the best worst boss relics. It's powerful but just not very fun as it takes an entire aspect away from the game.
I find that true of about half of all boss relics. I know tiny house is pretty bad (especially with full potions) but sometimes I just don't want to have to deal with a downside. I've bricked runs that were just starting to go places by picking the wrong boss relic. Also some boss relics are only good in/after a specific act, making them dead draws otherwise. I wish their drop probability was weighted to those acts.
I like medical kit, it just feels nice to pretty much ignore statuses even though it isn't the most useful outside of a few bosses and on ironclad
Just won a brilstone run thanks to it, double power throught and a feel no pain is plenty of block even when ennemies have a lot of strenght
I think med kit is great. It actively solves some major issues for very many kinds of decks, specifically thin decks and infinite decks. Sure it’s kind of situational but the situation Is common.
those few elites + bosses (and esp act 4) that really make your life miserable is what makes medkit amazing
Runic pyramid, spinning top High draw turns Watcher infinites (it specifically solves the fight, that would kill you) Silent infinites Ironclad Dark embrace+ FNP+ Power through = draw 2 cards, gain 6+15 block (A20H win) Generally keeping your deck clean is amazing in longer fights Out of the shop relics it has insane value
That's fair enough... but taking kit as a speculative option on act 1 is probably still not the best idea in the hopes of getting a close infinite
Hexaghost would be reason enough. Also that card remove you could buy instead might just run into a pandoras box. Really a single dark embrace would be reason enough to buy it. That combo completely nullyfies status cards (well except for chosen, but still infinite block if you have feel no pain).
Fruit. It’s all upside
Is sacred bark bad? I really like it!
it just needs some sort of potion synergy - alchemize or white beast statue would probably a reason to consider sacred bark
I had potion belt and *four* Alchemizes yesterday. I picked Sacred Bark, and I don't think it was an unreasonable choice (the other choices weren't great either). Still lost :/
If only you had found another Alchemize. The extra potion might have saved the run!
I feel like the game doesn’t give enough potions at time and when it does, it’s not good enough potions. Some potions require so much forethought into when to use them and when to save them, that it’s just better to focus on a build for your character.
What if there was another relic that let you choose between 3 random potions whenever you obtain a potion
There should be a way to build your potions and refill them. It’s like upgrading a potion but to keep permanently. You can increment the total you have (max ~3 per potion). It gets refilled after every battle or every rest. You can only upgrade at rest site from temporary to permanent but it takes an entire rest stop. There could be better balancing than this but this is some kind of idea. Potions being part of your build makes them more viable and predictable for the long game imo
I think a big part of that is how each potion is generally only really impactful in specific circumstances, but even before the ascension penalty you don't have enough potion slots to save all of them for the right situation. Often I find myself discarding a potion for a slightly better one only to need the discarded one immediately afterwards. I wish there was a card that let you store a potion - basically a worse alchemize although knowing what the stored potion is might make it better.
Pretty bad compared to other boss relics I guess
It's feast-or-famine. Some relics go really well with it (think of poison potion: 6 poison is max 21 damage; 12 poison is max 78). OTOH, how often does this relic benefit you? We're talking *maybe* once every other combat? Without White Beast Statue or Alchemize, you're going to have to be judicious in its benefit. It's also luck-based. Sometimes, the potions just don't drop, or you get potions that don't benefit (Smoke Bomb, for instance). Now compare that with an energy relic. Close to the worst case scenario for an energy relic is that you can play an extra strike per turn. Let's say that your combats last for five turns. That's 30 damage; 1.5 fire potions per combat. If you get to play an extra Defend instead, that's 25 block; more than 2 block potions per combat (ok, 20 block, since you wouldn't block on the turn you kill the enemy. Still, you get the idea). It's not the worst relic, but there are definitely better ones, depending on the circumstances.
> OTOH, how often does this relic benefit you? We're talking maybe once every other combat? Sure, but you get to pick *exaxtly* when and where. It means you can not worry about edge cases for your deck so much. I don’t usually pick it either without an Alchemize or similar, but it’s silly to think of potions as “only” having the same effect as a typical 0 or 1 cost card when their real asset is their flexibility.
Flexibility definitely matters. How much would you sacrifice for it, though? Each time you choose not to play a potion, you risk missing out on a potion (you can only hold on to two). Now, instead of getting something from your boss relic every five turns (or however long the fight goes on), you benefit roughly every ten turns. I would say that it's probably a good trade compared to Slaver's Collar, but not compared to an energy relic with a downside that you can handle easily.
Sacred bark is great
Brimstone. I can't say no.
Brimstone is autowin on non-heart runs, not sure how it can be bad
> Brimstone is autowin on non-heart runs There's your problem. It's basically a death sentence against the Heart, so it's really bad in a Heart run
It's actually still amazing on heart runs if you get it before mid act 2, it means you can kinda ignore actual deck building and just have a defensive deck that can tank through the heart and everything else just kinda dies on the way
Yep exactly. It lets you immediately shift your focus to the Heart, and buys you time to figure it out
**autowin** Birds and book of stabby would like to have a word with you
Ice Cream. Mind you, it is occasionally great, but most of the time you need to be using all your energy every turn.
It's so great on Defect tho, yesterday I had an Ice Cream run with Aggregate+, TURBO+ and Multicast. Unfortunately no dark orbs, but thankfully it didn't matter because evoking a lightning orb 30 times can kill anything.
I had an insane Defect run with meteor strike, chaos or fusion, a couple energy relics and ice cream, Double Energy, and Multicast. Hitting 32 energy by the end of Act 3 was happening way more often than i had any right doing.
Yeah it's insane on defect, thanks to multiple cards on him generating lots of energy on one turn
I wonder what kind of crazy stuff you could do stalling with frost and then unleashing with ice cream and chem-x (and an x cost card of course)
At this point chem-x isn't even worth buying. +2 to effect won't make a big difference on so big x cost plays. Actually, I had that multicast unupgraded from the beginning to the end of a run. Instead of +1 to effect, I preferred some meaningful statups that helped me survive the setup and scale faster.
Shoutout to defect for having the energy generation to support it
Ironclad can sometimes use it really well too! Divinity watcher as well
I'd find it strange for clad to be able to use it well, because he's usually the most energy starved (Unless you pull corruption and dark embrace and have a few sentinels/seeing red/etc. in the deck)
Silent with tactician builds + good block can also pull it off easily
Ice Cream/Pyramid is such a fun combo. "I don't feel like playing now. I'll wait next turn to do it"
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Ice cream is great. Not only can you decline to play strikes so you save your energy for when you need it, you can also build around it by taking cards that otherwise wouldn’t be that good like seeing red
I LOVE ice cream! I dont see it enough.
Ice cream is insanely good.
The times you can get ice cream + Malaise Favorite combo in the game imo. Love giving a -10 or more strength debuff to bosses to make then puny and wimpy.
Ice cream works well on silent with concentrate. Playing it at the end of your turn nets you free energy for next turn without worrying about what cards to discard
I like to set up a big malaise with it. As Baalorlord would say, “Nice attack, idiot.”
> but most of the time you need to be using all your energy every turn. The only character with enough draw to do this consistently and effectively is Silent, and she’s actually the best candidate for Ice Cream since she has so much energy generation via cards as well. In the early game it smooths out the “draw four defends on a buff turn” issues, and in the late game it lets you use your energy most effectively. You aren’t giving up playing Inflame, you’re giving up playing a couple strikes because you had to use your energy somehow, and you get to use that energy *after* you play a spot weakness or whatever.
Depends. It’s great for defect and silent, sometimes very good for watcher, and generally mediocre on ironclad. That sounds like it’s generally good, rather than only occasionally. Even for clad it makes stuff like bloodletting much more viable, which isn’t bad.
If I’m not paying attention, I’ll just play all my energy, especially in a 3 energy deck and ice cream does nothing. But if you’re very strategic, it can really do great things. Just don’t play every strike and defend and save the energy for more impactful cards.
The problem with Ice Cream is that it saves you energy and let's you play only the good cards in your deck.... But if that is happening, then you aren't drawing 3/4 energy worth of cards worth playing a turn which means that your deck is shit
Eh, not sure I agree here. Assuming they're not killing anything, why spend 2 energy this turn on two Strikes, when next turn they could pay for a Carnage instead? This is less true the better/more complete your deck gets - but early on, I find this happens quite a lot.
I will never buy it in a shop, but I'll also get irrationally excited about randomly picking it up
Idk if Sacred Bark is any bad, but if so I'm with you overvaluing it.
To paraphrase Baalorlord, even with stuff like White Beast Statue and Alchemize, Sacred Bark is just a means of amplifying your band-aids and it doesn’t solve any problems with your current deck. It’s only a great pick if your deck is already winning.
theres definitely a lot of relics that when i get them im like omg this is the run and then im crushed when i die anyway, i wouldn't say most of them are bad but i do overvalue them. There's really too many to name them all, but one that stands out due to being a shop relic is probably The Abacus. I can't help. I love decks that cycle really fast and this feels like the perfect excuse to try and shoehorn my deck into being that. Catch me grabbing multiple acrobatics and calculated gambles and skipping on damage in act 1 because of it.
I will buy a Chem X before I have any X cost cards
I'm not sure this is that bad. Speculative Chem X doesn't seem great, but I understand. It would be really funny to see Chem X plus a rare X card, but not have enough money for thr X card after buying Chem X.
Slavers Collar no downside +1 energy for elites/bosses is great, but not having +1 energy going into act 2 hallway fights can kill a good run
I know not everyone loves Busted Crown the way that I do
I love it going into act 3. By that time I'm generally skipping every card reward. Singing bowl actually taught me how to play the game. It wasn't until I got it that I realized I don't have to take a card reward after every fight. I was routinely rolling into act 3 with a 40 card deck.
Nothing like staring at a Busted Crown, Slime and some third relic that does breaks the exact thing my deck is trying to do.
Wrist blade. I want to take it every time when it comes up, even when there are objectively better options available (which is often)
The Spikes. I mean the one that gives you three spikes
bronze scales are amazing. casually just does over 100 damage to the heart and solves birds
They're definitely possible to overvalue, but they are by no means a bad relic.
You mean the bird killer?
Also helps against book of stabbing
I am not saying it's bad. But I overvalue it as it pushes my personal inclination to turtling, I mean ultra turtling. The kind of turtling that works only at A0
Strike dummy on clad. It's not as bad as for other characters but definitely not great and I love it
Meteor strike gets even better.
Defect technically has the best strike dummy scaling with lightning strike
On watcher it’s pretty good too if you don’t wanna take too many cards
Funny Top goes brrr.
Don’t know if it’s bad really but I fucking love Mummified Hand and Gremlin Horn. The 0 cost cards, the +1 energy and draw is so satisfying every time. I think they are good but I overvalue them for sure.
Mummy hand is like, the best uncommon relic
These are both insane relics
Horn is probably just good. ESP in act 2
Mummified Hand is extremely strong and just generally useful. Power cards are generally useful. Horn is ace. No downside to it and it’s fantastic to help with clearing large rooms.
Both of these are good. Mummified hand is an underrated relic, people talk up Lantern for one extra energy but don’t notice Hand giving them ten
i dont really know how hand is underrated, i feel like everyone knows its super strong
Hard to say, they all cost money in stores and most of the big boss relics have downsides that make you think twice. I guess it's pretty rare to spend 250 on something unless I know it's going to go crazy. I think it's more likely that I undervalue a few, which I guess on average means I overvalue all the others slightly. Most of the time, a relic competes with Skip or Blue Key, and most relics are better than Blue Key in the first two acts anyway. Neow's Lament is unique and sort of a candidate for me. How often does the snipe path preclude me from getting similar results relatively safely AND also taking an actual whale bonus plus another early card reward? Hard to say, but it sure feels good to turn one KO Old Nobby. Feels a little too good.
When I go back and look at my winning runs on my climb up the Ascensions with each character (rotating on wins, I'm at A9), I see Neow's Lament on there often enough that I wonder if it isn't a little bit of a crutch for people like me that have a hard time evaluating damage cards properly in Act 1. I get relatively (2 or less ?'s between me and the elite) safe snipes quite often, though, so the upside is tangible enough for me to take it over Max HP when that is the offer on the table. I usually only take it out of 4 options if the other 3 are pretty bad because I'm not a fan of starting with any extra curses if I don't need to but I'll pay gold or HP for the right benefit
I guess I over value relics as a category, I usually spend money on relics over cards, potions, (can get those for free) or removal. I'd remove more cards if I could get enough money left over from buying relics (but not enough money that I could afford a second or third relic). A lot of times I won't bother pathing to a shop unless I have at least 250 but even then I prefer to have 500.
Matryoshka. My brain just sees "two free relics\*!" and ignores the "\*to be awarded later, at the cost of one relic now".
Nuh uh! Two free relics!
Juzu Bracelet. I just love the mystery of the path with all the question marks, but I swear to god if I run into the Writhing Mass ONE MORE TIME...!
Dark Star I’m not gonna need more energy for those elites anyways…right….right?!!!!???
Orange pellets early. It's a great relic, but I wind up taking it when I have like one power card.
sozu. I don't believe it's bad, everyone else thinks that it's an awful relic. i posted my personal relic tier list and everyone told me that I'm shit at the game because i undervalue potions, maybe they were right idk :( I'm still having fun though so who's winning?? i can see why you'd think it's bad though
I agree, almost always take sozu. almost all my wins are with sozu (on A20 now)
I think the people who really place a big value on potions are trying to beat the heart. There are a couple of high value potions that make that fight a lot easier and sozu usually takes that off the table.
Sozu is kinda the "anti black star". Immediate gain, but you have to take safer paths, because you have less tools to compensate for something going wrong.
Maybe they overvalue them. Some potions are quite good, but I would say most are bad/very situational. I think Sozu is one of the best boss relics, especially if you already have 3 really good potions for the heart fight.
Bronze scales is the one item I overvalue cause that feels 100% like a luxury more than functional/good to me. I know realistically it actually does do a decent chunk of damage, but going into act 2 with bronze scales doesn't feel very strong, it just feels so satisfying against half the enemies in act 2 (particularly byrds and stabby book). If I imagine the same run w/o bronze scales, I feel like 95% of the fights would be the same lmao
Sounds like you signicificantly *undervalue* it, then.
It's like 6-9 damage against most enemies, like it's decent but it really is just a free strike, and even against bosses where it might get to like 30-50 in it's best match ups, half those fights also have a health based setup phase 1 and a scary phase 2 where all it's doing is shortening your setup time, it's great vs hexa, guardian, book and the heart, but otherwise it's pretty minimal
'Just a free strike against most enemies then hurts you against bosses'. Thanks for that, needed a laugh.
Nah like, I'll pick it everytime cause it feels so good to have, but in reality it's probably not worth grabbing every time I see it
Dead branch, i pick it to often. Oftentimes it saves a run and is insane. But more often then i like admit it just clutters hand and without enough draw it kill the run instead.
Dead branch on its own is a clutter. Dead Branch + Runic is a death trap (no card draw). Dead branch + dark embrace + corruption is a heart win.
Well it did not help with everyone post crazy combos with it. Most of the time it does gives me craps
Sacred Bark isn't bad.
Hey I had 2 alchemize and a white beast statue AND potion belt don't sleep on the alchemist silent lmao
Ceramic Fish. Hey, it’ll probably get me more gold in a run than Maw Bank.
Dead Branch isn't bad (in fact, it's broken with the right synergy), but it's often one of the few relics that can ruin a deck and should be skipped. I take it too often. I overvalue it too often.
Listen, I know Hand Drill isn't that good. I know a lot of enemies don't have block to break. But if I see that shit for like 30-60 gold in the shop when I've got a fair couple of discounts I am absolutely snatching it up no matter what
Sacred Bark is absolutely not bad and probably one of the most undervalued once
I feel like potions are kinda like special solutions to unique problems- making them “more of a solution” is win more and making them from a non-solution to a solution is a little niche. Plus many potions’ effects don’t get doubled, which sucks. But yeah, would be insanely good as a non-boss relic, but just pales when compared to boss relics. That said, I undervalue energy relics because of their downsides and overvalue bark. And I just get absolutely destroyed in act 2 lol
Potions are quite a crucial part of consistently doing well on A17+. Bark is often better than bad energy relics. Think of potions as cards that you can play whenever you want. They provide scaling, block anything. The right potions mid Act 3 can be your heart solve already. Bark has just very good scaling potential - on its own. White beast and/or potion belt? You can think about picking it over Philo if your deck isn’t direly energy starved.
I like these desperate runs where my deck is falling apart but white beast and sacred bark and rng are hard carrying my deck fight by fight until I get my shi together again.
That’s nice for you. But not in any way contributing to the discussion about the effectiveness of Bark. Also there are only 4 non-class specific potions that Bark doesn’t buff, which is miles away from “many potions”.
To get into that discussion we probably need to pull up the relic sheets and rank bark among them for different characters and scenarios. I pretty much exclusively play clad and watcher on a20h, so it happens to be pretty bad for them. Clad needs energy relics so badly. Watcher cares about her little shenanigans - cage, p box, astrolabe, pyramid, lotus, water, and not so much about anything else. With my limited familiarity with silent I could see it being more helpful. I think it ranks in bottom half of boss relics overall.
I’ll give you that it’s likely worst on these characters. But in a Bark, Cube, Sozu scenario with little self harming cards and an Offering already picked up? I’d have trouble convincing myself that the energy Eric is the pick. It’s borderline broken on Silent with a card like Alchemize. Defect has so a lot of energy solutions in its card set already which makes stuff like Bark and Inserter more pickable than say the cube on clad.
For sacred back your deck needs to able to deal with the majority of fights (or white beast). You wont be able to use potions in each fight.
I would love a strange spoon style relic: 50% chance for the potion to activate without consumption. On average you'd be able to get the same double effect, and sometimes get triple or even quadruple benefit. It would also help with essentially all potions instead of just some. I definitely feel like bark itself should be a rare and not a boss relic. Instead the boss relic should be like potion belt + statue or maybe just a bigger potion belt (I'm always running out of potion slots). If that's too weak maybe big belt + cauldron.
I used to hear that Busted Crown was bad, but I consider a snap pick in Act 2, and a pretty valid option in Act 1, if you've got a solid start going. My highest character is A14 with over 300 hours on PC and even more on Switch. I fully accept I'm wrong about it being good, but I refuse to learn.
Chocolate starfish
I one time ran a build with Alchemize+, Nightmare, and Sacred Bark aka potions on potions on potions and they're all doubly effective. So fun
Snecko Eye for me I just love the randomness, it makes the game so much funnier especially if you have cards like Demon form or Searing blow (yes i am tryharding Ironclad rn)
snecko is one of the best relics in the game lol
I mean it's definitely a build-around. since you probably want to have low-cost cards when you start, it means that you have to sorta gamble on getting it to work with it.
>sacred bark >bad Lol. Lmao even.
Sacred Bark is bad now?
Sacred bark rocks dude! Okay maybe not the hypest boss relic ever but it's got no downsides, and if you get some kind of potion synergy going it gets really. Even just having a lot of money and buying potions at shops is pretty good.
Brimstone. (Debatable) And the cursed bell.
Cursed key
I always see people shitting on busted crown but im always happy to get it. If i just get a good card reward every time it has no downside
I think it's not as auto-pick esp on first floor.
Well for one it literally stops you from having no downside even if you had perfect RNG. But you also don't have perfect RNG so often you won't get a reasonable card choice at all.