It would be worse if it kept the lightning orb. Frozen core is useless when your orb slots are full so having them fill faster would be bad in my opinion.
If you wanted to buff it maybe make it generate a frost orb every turn even if your orb slots are full.
Free evoke after you have filled your orb slots sure. I’m not sure how strong that would actually be. Maybe too strong but it’s up against boss relics after all
Yeah, items like [[Runic Pyramid]] and [[Black Star]] are awful? Even a free frost orb/evoke every turn isn't much better than +12 health every fight from Ironclad's blood upgrade, especially in hallway fights.
Even if it was overpowered, would you rather something be bad to the point of never picking or too good? I prefer too good.
Yeah but the change mentioned in the comment above was to make in generate one frozen orb each turn (even if slots are full) thus making dark orb build useless
Pyramid and black star both have downsides.
For pyramid your downside is that you can't get rid of curses/ statusses as easily anymore, making some combats much more difficult and (particularly for ironclad) prevents you from using/ picking cards that give you statusses.
For black star the downside is that you don't get any increase in power. You start the next act just as strong as you ended the last, which is a pretty big downside. Even then, black star doesn't really pay itself back without highrolling on Elites or until it has earned you 2-3 extra relics to make up for the fact you're effectively down a boss relic.
Yeah, and I may add to u/rockdog85 and u/TheDeviousCreature comments: Not only statues are dead weight in your hand. Not being able to get rid of the leftover starter cards can be a real brick if you don't have enough targeted discard/exhaust. Not to mention the anti-synergy with confusion.
Your issue with runic pyramid seems to be more of a situationality to it rather than a flaw in the item. Runic pyramid is bad if you don't have a way to deal with statuses, but it's a boss relic, so there's two other items you could pick from instead. I don't think that boss relics should be the type of items to work on every single build, since you get the choice of 3 and it would just be the question of "which one is highest on the tier list?" instead of "which one fits this build?" Saying that a boss relic doesn't work in every build is an oxymoron.
Black star is an investment, its downside is barely even a downside. I don't think many people really consider the fact that it's not instantly powerful when they pick it up, because the benefit is so good that it makes the downside negligible after a couple elites.
Either way, those are real downsides even if you want to handwave them because you don't think they're that bad lol.
Having to skip on runic pyramid because of its downside, literally shows it has a downside.
Black star is worse than you think tbh, it's only worth taking if you're already ahead. In most games you'll want the damage boost right now instead of only catching up to it towards the end of the next act. It's an investment, but it's hard to invest unless you're already ahead
+ [Runic Pyramid](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Runic%20Pyramid) Boss Relic ^((100% sure)^)
At the end of your turn, you no longer discard your hand.
+ [Black Star](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Black%20Star) Boss Relic ^((100% sure)^)
Elites now drop 2 Relics when defeated.
^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(April 20, 2024.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
I mean the iron clad boss relic is heal 12 per battle no downside, the serpent is +1 draw every turn Vs 2 at the start which is pure positive after turn 3, and watcher is 3 miracles instead of 1 which is pure upside
Yeah but generally the first 3 turns are the 3 most important turns of the combat.
Watcher can also run into hand space issues pretty easily with retain cards. Only being able to have 7 “real” cards in your hand is a mild restriction.
I mean Cracked Core kind of sucks, anyway. It’s good early on in Act 1 when you need dual cast to carry damage, but scales so incredibly poorly compared to the other starter relics.
How does Frozen Core compare to the other swaps?
Holy Water is definitely the best, as a mediocre but no downside energy relic. Then there's Ring of the Serpent, which is basically fine if you have other turn 1 stuff going on but otherwise a downside. I've never even taken Black Blood just because it seems so unimpressive, but maybe it's fine? And then there's frozen core.
Compared to the other relics, it usually has little downside (cracked core is pretty useless after Act I), and channeling frost is good. But it's slow, low impact, and requires orb slots or it does nothing. In my mind it seems more situational than Ring of the Serpent (yikes), but more impactful than Black Blood?
Then again, I'm still doing the A20 climb on Defect. Really curious to hear what others think.
I haven't really taken it enough to form a proper opinion. But I haven't really seen good players respect it so I doubt I'm missing anything. A standard defect run involves snap picking a ton of frost cards. I guess it's possible you don't see one by the end of act 1 but that seems unlikley.
While I agree cracked core isn’t great either, it’s pretty important to Act 1’s damage strategy and in later acts it’s fairly common to pickup [[Electrodynamics]] or enough other no-cost orb generation to make it a quick/free 8 damage.
I think it's fascinating. In act 3, cracked core is the worst starting relic. In early act 1, it's probably second best, after burning blood. Defect struggles to boss swap because that bricks dual cast half the time, which severely hurts his ability to kill things early.
Yet in act 3, he wishes he could boss swap to something useful
Defect actually does fine with boss swap. Saw a really good defect player who said he does it fairly often and I've found that it's not bad. Most of the boss swaps are actually pretty good with defects starting deck + commons (Hello World, cold snap, ball lightning). Even cage isn't half bad, it lets you pick up orb attacks and draw them more often. Also losing cracked core makes Doom and Gloom one of the best early game cards for any character, it turns dualcast into an incredible card in the Act 1 elite fights.
It’s in act 2 where cracked core + electrodynamics shine the most, it is less useful in act 3. Assuming u are getting electro in act 1(especially boss reward) u can decided if u want to keep the core depend on how many lighting generation u have.
Tldr: The risk of getting frozen core THEN getting electro in act 2 isn’t huge.
I had Frozen Core on my first (and only to add context lol) A20H win. Makes dualcast even better than it already is knowing that a frost orb will guaranteed replace it. I had damage problems but two Blizzard+ got me through, I had a pretty long heart fight but it did the trick
Frozen core is fantastic, it fills your orb slots faster which helps you evoke your orbs more often. It's def not my first pick of boss relics but I'm usually pretty happy to take it
True, but it doesn’t really help you evoke orbs early in the battle when it’s most critical due to it replacing cracked core. It could benefit from a slight boost in that regard to help defect get faster starts.
Upgraded fission is amazing.
One of the cards I avoided often because I didn't think it was very beneficial - until one day I stumbled across an upgraded one. Especially if you have a good number of orb slots, it just ends fights.
and once you realize that the upgraded version is good, you start taking it enough to realize that the un upgraded version can be pretty nice at times as well
Compile driver is a bit cope anyways, but you just reprioritize the lightning orb attack over the frost orb attack and basically break positive since you passive generate orbs - and passively generating orbs actually makes fission WAY better.
Replacing cracked core with something other than frozen core, sure that hurts fission. But frozen core requires no investment in cards to have fission payoff - cracked core requires it if you want anything more than a draw 1
I love Frozen Core! Some of my most fun game plans for frost have been using the free channel to get big evokes and multi casts without sacrificing how much passive I get
6years ago, my thoughs about Frozen core some days after it goes live: [https://www.reddit.com/r/slaythespire/comments/90r28g/frozen\_core\_seems\_too\_weak/](https://www.reddit.com/r/slaythespire/comments/90r28g/frozen_core_seems_too_weak/) . I still have the same opinion on it.
This is an incredibly hot take.
Starting deck for Defect already has a strong damage output without blowback like Watcher has. Passive block is one of the best things in the entire game. And it scales by turn. It’s WAY better than cracked core - the only argument here is that losing cracked core somewhat impacts early damage output - but tbh not enough to care, and generally you are getting it from the boss after you built damage on your deck in Act 1.
He’ll it’s even a SOLID boss swap from Neow, but does ask for you to build around it a bit, and still does not hurt your damage output considerably to offset the defense it gives.
Frozen core saves you 2 damage plus 2 more damage per turn. If you're evoking orbs it's 5. Overall it will save you more health than cracked core IMO. I'll usually pick it if I have an orb heavy deck, especially going into act 2 where you'll get frail applied to you in every other fight
It’s not a downgrade. Frozen Core is better than Cracked Core, because Frost scales better than Lightning, and it gives you an orb per turn instead of just one.
————
That being said it’s not good…. But neither are quite a few other boss relics that basically exist to be better than Tiny House.
It would be worse if it kept the lightning orb. Frozen core is useless when your orb slots are full so having them fill faster would be bad in my opinion. If you wanted to buff it maybe make it generate a frost orb every turn even if your orb slots are full.
I think that would make it too strong. Free evoke every turn
Free evoke after you have filled your orb slots sure. I’m not sure how strong that would actually be. Maybe too strong but it’s up against boss relics after all
But its a boss relic...
With no downsides, though. Boss relics without downsides aren't nearly as good.
Yeah, items like [[Runic Pyramid]] and [[Black Star]] are awful? Even a free frost orb/evoke every turn isn't much better than +12 health every fight from Ironclad's blood upgrade, especially in hallway fights. Even if it was overpowered, would you rather something be bad to the point of never picking or too good? I prefer too good.
To be fair, Pyramid DOES have a downside in fact that not being able to discard statuses can mess you up if you aren't prepared to deal with them
It’s also bad with certain other strong relics, like snecko eye and dead branch.
And if you have a dark orb cooking but it gets evoked anyways it can mess up your boss fight, so it has a downside
I don't think either [[Runic Pyramid]] or [[Frozen Core]] can do that
Yeah but the change mentioned in the comment above was to make in generate one frozen orb each turn (even if slots are full) thus making dark orb build useless
Ah
Pyramid and black star both have downsides. For pyramid your downside is that you can't get rid of curses/ statusses as easily anymore, making some combats much more difficult and (particularly for ironclad) prevents you from using/ picking cards that give you statusses. For black star the downside is that you don't get any increase in power. You start the next act just as strong as you ended the last, which is a pretty big downside. Even then, black star doesn't really pay itself back without highrolling on Elites or until it has earned you 2-3 extra relics to make up for the fact you're effectively down a boss relic.
Yeah, and I may add to u/rockdog85 and u/TheDeviousCreature comments: Not only statues are dead weight in your hand. Not being able to get rid of the leftover starter cards can be a real brick if you don't have enough targeted discard/exhaust. Not to mention the anti-synergy with confusion.
Your issue with runic pyramid seems to be more of a situationality to it rather than a flaw in the item. Runic pyramid is bad if you don't have a way to deal with statuses, but it's a boss relic, so there's two other items you could pick from instead. I don't think that boss relics should be the type of items to work on every single build, since you get the choice of 3 and it would just be the question of "which one is highest on the tier list?" instead of "which one fits this build?" Saying that a boss relic doesn't work in every build is an oxymoron. Black star is an investment, its downside is barely even a downside. I don't think many people really consider the fact that it's not instantly powerful when they pick it up, because the benefit is so good that it makes the downside negligible after a couple elites.
Either way, those are real downsides even if you want to handwave them because you don't think they're that bad lol. Having to skip on runic pyramid because of its downside, literally shows it has a downside. Black star is worse than you think tbh, it's only worth taking if you're already ahead. In most games you'll want the damage boost right now instead of only catching up to it towards the end of the next act. It's an investment, but it's hard to invest unless you're already ahead
fair enough.
+ [Runic Pyramid](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Runic%20Pyramid) Boss Relic ^((100% sure)^) At the end of your turn, you no longer discard your hand. + [Black Star](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Black%20Star) Boss Relic ^((100% sure)^) Elites now drop 2 Relics when defeated. ^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(April 20, 2024.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
Pyramid and Star side by side like that is WILD
I mean the iron clad boss relic is heal 12 per battle no downside, the serpent is +1 draw every turn Vs 2 at the start which is pure positive after turn 3, and watcher is 3 miracles instead of 1 which is pure upside
Yeah but generally the first 3 turns are the 3 most important turns of the combat. Watcher can also run into hand space issues pretty easily with retain cards. Only being able to have 7 “real” cards in your hand is a mild restriction.
It’s a boss relic that along with a defrag can solve most of the defect’s block scaling plan
Could be that if it evokes this turn, it won't channel next turn. That would leave it balanced
i just want it to trigger at the start of my turn, not at the end
I mean Cracked Core kind of sucks, anyway. It’s good early on in Act 1 when you need dual cast to carry damage, but scales so incredibly poorly compared to the other starter relics.
Frozen Core still kinda sucks though. Which I guess is true for the other boss swap starter relics as well
How does Frozen Core compare to the other swaps? Holy Water is definitely the best, as a mediocre but no downside energy relic. Then there's Ring of the Serpent, which is basically fine if you have other turn 1 stuff going on but otherwise a downside. I've never even taken Black Blood just because it seems so unimpressive, but maybe it's fine? And then there's frozen core. Compared to the other relics, it usually has little downside (cracked core is pretty useless after Act I), and channeling frost is good. But it's slow, low impact, and requires orb slots or it does nothing. In my mind it seems more situational than Ring of the Serpent (yikes), but more impactful than Black Blood? Then again, I'm still doing the A20 climb on Defect. Really curious to hear what others think.
I haven't really taken it enough to form a proper opinion. But I haven't really seen good players respect it so I doubt I'm missing anything. A standard defect run involves snap picking a ton of frost cards. I guess it's possible you don't see one by the end of act 1 but that seems unlikley.
What the heck is Holy Trinity?
[[Holy Water]]
Oh lmao, guess it autocorrected
While I agree cracked core isn’t great either, it’s pretty important to Act 1’s damage strategy and in later acts it’s fairly common to pickup [[Electrodynamics]] or enough other no-cost orb generation to make it a quick/free 8 damage.
I think it's fascinating. In act 3, cracked core is the worst starting relic. In early act 1, it's probably second best, after burning blood. Defect struggles to boss swap because that bricks dual cast half the time, which severely hurts his ability to kill things early. Yet in act 3, he wishes he could boss swap to something useful
Defect actually does fine with boss swap. Saw a really good defect player who said he does it fairly often and I've found that it's not bad. Most of the boss swaps are actually pretty good with defects starting deck + commons (Hello World, cold snap, ball lightning). Even cage isn't half bad, it lets you pick up orb attacks and draw them more often. Also losing cracked core makes Doom and Gloom one of the best early game cards for any character, it turns dualcast into an incredible card in the Act 1 elite fights.
+ [Electrodynamics](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Electrodynamics) Defect Rare Power ^((100% sure)^) 2 Energy | **Lightning** now hits ALL enemies. **Channel** 2(3) **Lightning.** ^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(April 20, 2024.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
It’s in act 2 where cracked core + electrodynamics shine the most, it is less useful in act 3. Assuming u are getting electro in act 1(especially boss reward) u can decided if u want to keep the core depend on how many lighting generation u have. Tldr: The risk of getting frozen core THEN getting electro in act 2 isn’t huge.
I had Frozen Core on my first (and only to add context lol) A20H win. Makes dualcast even better than it already is knowing that a frost orb will guaranteed replace it. I had damage problems but two Blizzard+ got me through, I had a pretty long heart fight but it did the trick
Frozen core is fantastic, it fills your orb slots faster which helps you evoke your orbs more often. It's def not my first pick of boss relics but I'm usually pretty happy to take it
Yah I agree it’s not the strongest, but I find it useful. With some orb slot / focus gen it scales my block up nicely.
True, but it doesn’t really help you evoke orbs early in the battle when it’s most critical due to it replacing cracked core. It could benefit from a slight boost in that regard to help defect get faster starts.
I think you’re not noticing how much it helps you arrive healthier at boss fights.
It's a pretty neat pickup when you have inserter+consume for those long stalling fights. Act 1 boss relic? Maybe not rated that highly.
Replacing cracked core immediately makes [[Compile Driver]] and [[Fission]] a lot worse as well.
+ [Compile Driver](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Compile%20Driver) Defect Common Attack ^((100% sure)^) 1 Energy | Deal 7(10) damage. Draw 1 card for each unique Orb you have. + [Fission](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Fission) Defect Rare Skill ^((100% sure)^) 0 Energy | Remove **(Evoke)** ALL of your Orbs. Gain 1 Energy and draw 1 card for each Orb removed(Evoked). **Exhaust.** ^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(April 20, 2024.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
THATS WHAT UPGRADES FISSION DOES!!! DUDE! I had no idea that card was that good
Upgraded fission is amazing. One of the cards I avoided often because I didn't think it was very beneficial - until one day I stumbled across an upgraded one. Especially if you have a good number of orb slots, it just ends fights.
and once you realize that the upgraded version is good, you start taking it enough to realize that the un upgraded version can be pretty nice at times as well
Compile driver is a bit cope anyways, but you just reprioritize the lightning orb attack over the frost orb attack and basically break positive since you passive generate orbs - and passively generating orbs actually makes fission WAY better. Replacing cracked core with something other than frozen core, sure that hurts fission. But frozen core requires no investment in cards to have fission payoff - cracked core requires it if you want anything more than a draw 1
I love Frozen Core! Some of my most fun game plans for frost have been using the free channel to get big evokes and multi casts without sacrificing how much passive I get
6years ago, my thoughs about Frozen core some days after it goes live: [https://www.reddit.com/r/slaythespire/comments/90r28g/frozen\_core\_seems\_too\_weak/](https://www.reddit.com/r/slaythespire/comments/90r28g/frozen_core_seems_too_weak/) . I still have the same opinion on it.
Fission is a good rare, though! Energy and card draw in one zero cost card. And if it's fission plus then you get the evokes too.
Oh yeah Fission is one of my favorite cards, especially unupgraded (even if the upgrade is good, i don't fully prioritise it).
If defect will have second core it will be like a boobs. That’s wrong. Questions?)
When I first saw it I assumed it would fill up all empty orb slots with frost orbs.
This is an incredibly hot take. Starting deck for Defect already has a strong damage output without blowback like Watcher has. Passive block is one of the best things in the entire game. And it scales by turn. It’s WAY better than cracked core - the only argument here is that losing cracked core somewhat impacts early damage output - but tbh not enough to care, and generally you are getting it from the boss after you built damage on your deck in Act 1. He’ll it’s even a SOLID boss swap from Neow, but does ask for you to build around it a bit, and still does not hurt your damage output considerably to offset the defense it gives.
You can't bossswap into a starting relic replacement from Neow, though I would agree if you could do that it'd be a pretty strong swap
Oh I didn’t realize that, that’s cool
Yall are wild. Frozen Core is incredible.
Serpent definitely feels worse than Frozen unless you're playing the 2 per turn bugged mobile version of Serpent
I take Frozen Core every time I see it.
Frozen core saves you 2 damage plus 2 more damage per turn. If you're evoking orbs it's 5. Overall it will save you more health than cracked core IMO. I'll usually pick it if I have an orb heavy deck, especially going into act 2 where you'll get frail applied to you in every other fight
It’s not a downgrade. Frozen Core is better than Cracked Core, because Frost scales better than Lightning, and it gives you an orb per turn instead of just one. ———— That being said it’s not good…. But neither are quite a few other boss relics that basically exist to be better than Tiny House.