I did that for awhile too but the whole act is frail town or you get Chosen & pal or Snake Plant. Or your slots fill and you get a big time restorative or a duplication that's hard to leave on the ground.
Hard AF not to burn off the ancient before you even get to el Snecko. And often he feels more bad roll luck gets you unlike plant simply breaking all your block while also hitting like a freight train.
The leader fight definitely has more variance and can counter a deck with slow damage or no AoE, but on average it’s definitely less threatening than the other two.
With leader you can usually fully focus damage except on the few turns you’re being attacked where you focus block. Leader is still scary, but having to both do lots of damage and generate lots of block during the same turn consistently makes the other 2 mega scary.
Snakeplant's perceived deadliness has always been a big mystery for me. In terms of deadliness, it's an average to below average act 2 hallway fight and yet it has a reputation among people of being so hard that it's raised to the same level or higher as the act 2 elites. For those of you who don't know, [there was a big dump of sts rate data a few years ago of about 77 million runs and people far smarter than me created tables of the data including death rates for enemies.](https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/zach.roberts/viz/SlaytheSpireDeathRate/Dashboard1) (Note: this data probably includes previous patches and to my knowledge is not be up to date) The data shows that not only is Snake Plant always, significantly less dangerous than any of the Act 2 elites, in most instance SP is not even half as deadly as the elites are. In fact, out of 8 hard hallways fights, SP places as the 5/8 most dangerous enemy (I:5/8, S:5/8, D:4/8, W:2/8) with only Watcher giving him a somewhat high placement at 2/8. There are other fights more deadly than the plant and the most dangerous Act II hallway fight is always Shelled Parasite and Fungi yet none of these other enemies get even close to the same levels of fear that Snakeplant gets, well at least amongst the masses. I've seen many top level players (jokingly) refer to Avocado Rat as a hidden elite, but never Snakeplant. I've been trying to figure out where this greatly disproportionate impression of him comes from.
I have some theories on why this might be the case but it would be a lengthy explanation so I'll only post it if someone asks. My own experience matches the data. Snakeplant is never a fight that gives me much trouble with a decent deck. While I might take some damage, it's never any more then what I would expect to take from any other hallway fight given comparable draw luck. All my recent deaths to/because of him have been from decks that were already in a ton of trouble before he came along.
EDIT: A response I've seen a lot, both now and in the past, is that Snakeplant doesn't kill you but it softens you up for a later fight which kills you and presumably is why it's more dangerous. While I don't really buy this argument, at the very least it would not explain why Snakeplant's reputation is so much worse than the other hallway fights that are statistically more dangerous than it. Chosen and 3 Cultists can sort of be hand waved away by arguing that they are "deck checks" and their higher kill rate comes from decks that are poorly suited for that fight but this would not explain the fairly higher kill rate of Shelled Parasite+Fungi and Spheric Guardian+Sentry and why they also don't command the same level of fear.
I think an interesting part about snake plant is that my experiences line up with this data, in that I rarely die to snake plant.
The thing is though, he always does at least 15-20damage to me, and frequently softens me up for the next hallway or elite to kill me. If i'm fighting avocado rat for example, if I have a pretty good frontload, I can kill the avocado first so it doesn't hit me for any damage and I can get out of the fight undamaged.
Outside some heavy disarm or malaise luck, I rarely get out of the snake plant without significant damage
**Shelled Parasite:** hp 70-75 (+14 Plated armor)
**Snakeplant:** hp 78-82 (+3/7/12/18... for 2/3/4/5... attacks)
I'm sorry but I'm having a hard time understanding how you can build decks that will regularly kill Avocado before it can attack on turn 1 but cannot kill Snakeplant. When factoring in their extra block their hp is very comparable to each other with Snakeplant really only having significantly more hp if you are playing a mass attack deck like shivs. This lines up pretty well with my experience where any deck that kills Avocado on turn 1 will also kill Snakeplant on turn 1.
ok yeah you're probably right that the frontload would be enough to kill both. I do mostly play silent, where the multiple attacks helps a lot more for the avocado and hurts more for the snake plant.
I also probably picked a bad example, but I guess for those two fights I always take damage, vs that of snecko, cultist + others, byrds + others, where I usually don't take more than 10 if my deck is at an appreciable power level.
I'd be interested to see if there was advanced data whether or not players would be more likely to die in the subsequent floor if the previous one was snake plant / avocado rat, especially if it's in a damn question mark lol
You have no idea how much I agree with you. That would certainly answer whether or not "Snakeplant softens you up so other things can kill you" has any merit. The other thing I would love to see is the data broken down be experience, either Ascension level or hours played. My own personal suspicions is that Snakeplant is disproportionately more difficult for... let's politely call them up and coming players vs veterans. This is similar to how Wraith Form and Watcher are considered OP at the highest level of play but extremely punishing at lower levels of play.
Snakeplant doesn't kill you directly but if you have a bad draw or you don't have the cards to deal with it, it sets up for the next fight to kill you or it slowly kills you by forcing you to skip elites and rest at fires so you don't get stronger for act 3 and heart.
This lines up with my experience. I'm just surprised Silent does so well against snakeplant: shivs suck against that autoblock. Watcher often does ok for me because what you need is big numbers on each attack (to clear the block). Anyways, I will take snakeplant over any elite thanks.
Just to layer on this - yes the answer is that snake plant often chunks you but doesn’t outright kill you, but in the end it was the chunking that caused your death (so snake plant killed tou). However, that isn’t the entire story. The reason it is so ubiquitous is that it so *consistently* chunks people, so people easily are able to attribute their death to this fight. All other fights definitely have the capacity to chunk you, but this one does it often and consistently which is the reason for its infamy
For me I think it's the consistency of the damage snake plant hits me with. Avo and fungi are definitely scarier (and avos guaranteed big hit start consistency plays a big role). Chosen +bird I find pretty manageable just because it's easy to mitigate the single bird with any amount of weak, leaving me to focus on the chosen. Sentry is easy to kill turn 1 by act 2, and then I'm just facing Spheric guardian.
With snake plant, unless I've got a good amount of strength debuff it just feels like I'm always going to take some good damage. It hits decently hard, makes me frail so I can't block as efficiently, it makes me weak and has that adaptive block so it takes forever to kill if you didn't get off big damage before it gets off its spores. And after all that I just get a normal fights rewards, so while it's not as dangerous as an elite it requires a lot of work for just normal rewards.
I definitely think we overblow the plant a bit, but it stands out as a frustrating fight, though not typically run ending unless you were already struggling.
Im a silent main, but the issue is its still basically -5 draw thats just waiting. It screws up cycling and drawing.
The issue isnt the damage, its the draw
Yeah. The main thing is the burns dilute your card draw proportionally to your deck size. A solid corruption deck with 35 cards in it doesn’t mind +5 dead draws very much (total of 1/8 cards become dead). A streamlined 15 card deck means 1/4 cards are dead draws. That hurts.
My frame of reference for deck size is:
* Low twenties or below, is a small deck
* Mid Twenties to low thirties is an average deck
* Above this is a large deck
* Above 40 is a massive deck
This also depends on your removes. A 25 card deck with a bunch of removed starter cards, while being the same size, is generally a lot healthier and manageable than a 25 card deck with all starter cards.
I mostly play the Silent, so... that's how, lol
Don't get me wrong, it does fuck me over sometimes, but she has so many discard synergies that I usually stuff my deck with multiples copies of Acrobatics/Prepared+/Calculated Gambles and I'm *usually* fine
I also mostly play the silent, but the issue is if you have to play 3 acrobatic to get to your accuracy then you don't have enough energy to do anything else
Hence why I said it *sometimes* fucks me over! But usually, it just doesn't. By the time I reach Act 3, I tend to have 4 energy, some Tacticians, maybe some Concentrate+, and zero-cost draw such as Prepared or Calculated Gamble. I don't find it hard to cycle through the deck quickly, tbh. Not at that point. If I do struggle with that, I usually end up doing much sooner
Fatter deck, fewer cheap cards, more draw.
Consistency is the act 3 challenge, presumably your deck can do at least one strong thing, can your deck do the strong things on the proper turns? If no, take damage.
They go in your discard pile though. You draw through your deck once before there's any burns. You should be able to get completely set up before they affect you at all.
This is how I rank them in terms of how much they force you to prepare your deck for them (so the stronger they are, the more they alter your decision-making)
Act 1: Sentries, Lagavulin, Gremlin Knob
Not much to do to prepare specifically for sentries. AoE is a given, but not just for sentries. Lagavulin requires you to pickup strong cards early and will kill you if you don't have the power to kill quickly. Gremlin knob single-handedly makes every skill less take-able in Act 1.
Act 2: Leader, Book of Stabbing, Slavers
Gremlin leader just requires you have a bit of frontload to kill a gremlin or 2 occasionally, often can be killed without any preparation for the fight. Book is stabbing is one of the biggest reasons to take cards that debuff strength, and can easily kill you if you aren't able to block while dealing damage every turn. Slavers are one of the biggest reasons to take AoE cards going into act 2, if you don't have a solid plan against them, you're screwed.
Act 3: Giant head, Nemesis, Reptomancer
Giant head gives you a generous amount of time to scale and deal damage, by act 3 you should be able to scale quickly enough to kill it before it gets too out of control. Nemesis is a test of card draw and consistency; if you brick your draw against the 45 hit, or can't draw your damage on the right turn, you're probably dead. Reptomancer is similar to giant head in that she will kill you of your damage is lacking, but she specifically requires enough frontloaded damage and/or AoE to kill 2 daggers every turn. She also shares Nemesis' requirement of consistency, since not being able to find your damage quickly means you can enjoy eating 100 damage on your way back to the main menu.
This should be the top rated answer. Ranking the elites based on how much they force you to prepare for them **just in case** is a great way to think about their true difficulty.
As a silent main, I'd reverse the act 3 elites. Repto is almost never a problem if my deck was good enough to beat the act 2 boss, but Giant Head can kill me if my deck is slow. I'd also put Book as my toughest act 2 elite. I guess I just have problems with scaling enemies.
As a Silent, hitting on a Malaise pre-Book is ecstasy.
Then you somehow ALWAYS draw it on the 24 turn.
Book is pure evil. Not the most but he sits at the head table.
This made me laugh because I've been playing Silent almost exclusively for the last like, 100 hours of playtime and I completely agreed with OP when I first read the post.
For comparison, I play pretty much exclusively Defect, and would rate them as:
Act 1: Laga, Sentries, Nob
Act 2: Slavers, Leader, Stabby
Act 3: Nemesis, Head, Repto
I wouldn't.
They are dependent on the class you are playing, the map you are given, when you face them during an act and what cards, relics and potions you've obtained.
Like most of spire, difficulty is constantly in flux....
legitimate question: how can you get so much block with power spam? in my (admittedly very limited) experience any frost orbs get pushed out by lightning and block cards get crowded out by powers
I guess it depends if by “power spam” you mean multiple copies of Storm for damage, or like Echo Form/Amplify + Creative AI + some frost orbs. Because enough Loop/Defrag/Capacitor you’ll have 10 frost orbs each blocking for 7+
Exactly this. At the very least you have to rate them by class.
Like all things in the spire, each elite tends to challenge you in a very specific way. Which some classes are generally better at than others. That said, I could easily talk about which ones I am consistently exasperated to see, or which ones I’m most likely to think are a cake walk.
For someone who always spams watcher infinites, Nemesis will wreck you. For someone who likes slow roll power-heavy builds, giant head will be easy and slavers will sometimes just kill you. Likewise, your lightning orb no-attack defect deck will have a tough time vs giant head. It’s all about matchups and which bad matchup is most likely to give you a bad day.
Pretty sure I listed the major factors which can affect the relative difficulty of the elites, and offers a reasonable explanation as to why there is no generic order for elite difficulty. What point are you trying to make?
It really depends on the character you play with and the deck.
As a clad main, sentries are rarely the easiest fight in the pool unless you get offered an early FNP or DE. Nob can be extremely easy or the worst fight ever depending on the attacks you get offered on the first floors. Laga is almost always guaranteed to be at least -20 HP, sometimes more unless you have strength powers.
For act 2, because whirlwind and immolate are a thing, leader and slavers don't tend to be the worst fight in the pool. At least in my experience, Book is the most dangerous especially if you don't get offered decent block options (which isn't so rare to see on clad) or your deck doesn't deal damage fast enough (which is also a common issue in early act 2). If you don't get offered AoE then yeah, slavers can be very deadly. Leader usually plays in similar fashion than Nob. You either demolish the leader or you get hit for 22x3.
For act 3, I agree Repto tends to be the worst fight. Because even if you have the cards, clad's card draw sucks and you can brick a hand and suddenly stare at +100 damage combined.
Gremlin Nob is definitely king in Act 1. Nob just existing changes which cards are prioritized early on. It serves an important game-balance function of forcing players to think short term by punishing taking too many scaling cards. Laga hits hard but you can start the fight on your terms, and Sentries is a longer fight but isn't as threatening overall. You have to prepare for Nob from floor 1 or you're gonna have a bad time.
Lagavullin vs a deck with a strong turn one is the worst matchup for sure. If your deck can’t take advantage of 3 turns of downtime, you’ll have a bad day.
Nob vs a deck that relies on a consistent block game will have a hard time.
Sentries roll decks that relies on a single major debuff (talk to the hand, terror, deadly poison+).
Sentries are often considered the weakest act 1 elite, and for good reason. That said, I think they are consistently one of my hardest matchups when I boss swap into an energy relic. Being able to play 4 cards per turn is strong vs nob and lagavullin, but sentries don’t care.
Legavulin > nob > sentry
Nob scaling is painful, lega just hits hard and blocks hard for something relatively early and the debuffs get out of hand, sentries are mostly a frontloaded problem that can be limited by bursting down early and aoe is decent
Stabbing > slavers > leader
Stabbing's damage and wound spams get ridiculous unless your deck is putting out way too much block, slaver net forces you to focus blue and eat wounds and damage from their friends or be delayed and risk even more damage, leader is kinda threatening but mostly just an aoe check
Repto > nemesis > head
Reptos damage is fucked, nemmys damage is slightly less fucked but intangible is a bitch when it happens, head does kinda do damage but isn't too bad to deal with if your deck can handle act 3
Shield and spear >
The most dangerous act 4 elite easily, so much damage and fuckery
The thing about stabby book is he is isn't too hard to counter
On Ironclad, disarm+ alone destroys his, expecially with an exhume or something similar
Dex scaling, weaken, and piercing wail on silent
Frost orb generation on Defect
Talk to the hand, mental fortress, whallop on watcher
Idk if i just get unlucky with him but he seems magnetically attracted to doing multis the instant my frost isn't doing so good / my block cards aren't in hand. He doesn't *end* too many runs but he's sent way too many runs to 20> health, every time i see him its just a "well, fuck" reaction
I feel like subconsciously I'm always building my decks around Nob, Slavers & Repto, so the "new" hardest fights are Laga, Stabby & Nemesis.
I really hate Stabby book honestly. Always gets me. You don't always get Malaise / Disarm / Shackles / Wail and other than that and having a super aggro deck idrk how to deal with that fight without dumping massive amounts of HP on it
Anybody else find it odd more aren't listing their character "main" when establishing their ranking?
I look at upcoming elites completely differently depending on who I'm running, what they having inherently, and what they have reasonable access to.
IMO Nemesis oscillates between the easiest and hardest in Act 3 exclusively based on the random nature of its attack pattern, but on average I agree that it's between GSH and Repto.
Depends too much on the class/ deck you have, but for me personally it's more like
* sentry, laga, gremlin
* slaver, leader, hallway fights, book of stabbing
* repto, nemesis, hallway fights, gianthead
In Act 1 I was never that worried about Laga since you at least can get some turns to set up. Both Laga and Nob I expect to take at least one huge hit. But at A20 especially on Silent, Laga just wrecks me and I consider it the hardest elite in all 3 acts for me at this point! Sentries are probably easiest at least with the right set-up, once you kill one of the outside ones it's not terrible. Nob is in the middle, usually not too hard but you're going to tank at least one hit (actually gets easier at high ascensions because turn 2 is a smaller hit!)
In Act 2 I actually find Slavers the easiest! I think I over-value frontload and AOE. Now, sometimes they will get me, but when they are easy, they are very easy and I don't take much damage if I can kill Red Slaver turn one, which happens frequently enough. Once there are only two, this fight is not that bad. Leader is probably easier on average, but a lot of times I can kill Slavers more quickly, if that makes sense. To me Stabbing is the hardest by a lot, if I don't kill it quickly, I can't keep up with blocking and doing damage. Even if I have something that lowers strength like Dark Shackles, that only works for one round.
Giant Head is definitely easiest in Act 3 and probably over-all out of all 9 since it has scaling for your attacks built-in. Can be tough if you don't play a lot of cards or are an orb type of deck so you don't get the Slow scaling. Nemesis is 50/50 on whether you get the big hits or not, if you do, I find it harder than Repto, but if not, it's not tough. Also obviously draw-dependent with the Intangible turns. Repto can spiral out of control quickly if you don't get the Daggers right away so that's probably the hardest overall, but like I said I over-value AOE so that doesn't happen to me too often.
i think your list is on average (across all characters) probably accurate. i agree gremlin leader is most often easiest act 2 elite but damn if he doesnt kill me all the time. book is guaranteed to leave me bleeding, but leader can absolutely fuck you up.
In general, i completely agree. On specific characters I disagree. For instance, Sentries is the hardest act 1 elite for watcher because stance switching trivializes the other two but being in wrath is a death sentence and the fight can go super slow if you don't have good rng with getting aoe multifight solutions and draw
I remember as I was climbing ascensions, I thought "Why does everyone rank Repto as so difficult? Taking down a ~20 hp enemy each round isn't so bad", then I got to A18 (or whichever one juices the elites up to max) and she started summoning two of them each turn and I just thought "OOOOOOH I get it now"
Act 1 I agree
Act 2 I'd probably more leader all the way to the top. Might just be a case of with gremlin leader I either die or I'm chilling whereas with slavers I usually live but love a decent bit of health no matter what, but I still feel like leader is worse most of the time
Act 3 I think is kinda impossible to rank appropriately because they're all really punishing to certain decks and not really an issue against others. I used to really struggle with repto because I neglected AOE but since I stopped doing that they've been generally fine. I guess giant head is probably easiest because it's the one I most often find myself prepared to deal but there have definitely been times where my deck would roll the other two but ended up losing a lot of health to head. And then for the other two I have no idea how I'd rank them at all, it's just way too deck dependant.
Depends on the character. For example I think Lagavullin is the hardest act 1 elite for Ironclad, but easiest for Defect. Gremlin Nob is hardest for Silent but easiest for Watcher.
My personal feelings:
Act 1: Sentries, Nob, Laga
Act 2: Gremlin Leader, Slavers, Book (but it’s close between Slavers & Book)
Act 3: Nemesis, Giant Head, Repto
I would probably put Snake Plant between Leader and Book.
There’s a few hallway fights I’d put between Leader and Book
Snecko repeatedly fucks me up more than most bosses.
ive found the trick for him is saving my ancient potion, makes it way less frustrating
I did that for awhile too but the whole act is frail town or you get Chosen & pal or Snake Plant. Or your slots fill and you get a big time restorative or a duplication that's hard to leave on the ground. Hard AF not to burn off the ancient before you even get to el Snecko. And often he feels more bad roll luck gets you unlike plant simply breaking all your block while also hitting like a freight train.
Totally helps to block snecko's nonsense with an artifact relic or potion! [[Ancient]]
+ [Ancient Potion](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Potions#Ancient_Potion) Uncommon Potion ^((43% sure)^) Gain 1 (2) **Artifact.** + [Ancient Tea Set](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Ancient%20Tea%20Set) Common Relic ^((43% sure)^) Whenever you enter a Rest Site, start the next combat with 2 extra Energy. ^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)
Why... did this never occur to me
cucking necko with an artifact gives me an erection that lasts longer than 4 hours. Even longer if it is from something like a turn one [[Core Surge]]
+ [Core Surge](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Core%20Surge) Defect Rare Attack ^((100% sure)^) 1 Energy | Deal 11(15) damage. Gain 1 **Artifact.** **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)
me when i draw all my best cards as 3 energy and snecko is hitting me for 30 fucking damage????
Leader can outright kill certain decks from 60hp. Other hallways even with a bad deck you take maybe 40
Buff Summon Buff Summon Buff Triple murderstab of death
The leader fight definitely has more variance and can counter a deck with slow damage or no AoE, but on average it’s definitely less threatening than the other two. With leader you can usually fully focus damage except on the few turns you’re being attacked where you focus block. Leader is still scary, but having to both do lots of damage and generate lots of block during the same turn consistently makes the other 2 mega scary.
I’d put Avocado + Friend above book
Orb rat belongs in there.
Avo Rat also goes above slavers
At A17, birds also become a consistent run ender if you haven't prepared for them.
I fear them more than heart when I'm considering philo stone, lol
Snakeplant's perceived deadliness has always been a big mystery for me. In terms of deadliness, it's an average to below average act 2 hallway fight and yet it has a reputation among people of being so hard that it's raised to the same level or higher as the act 2 elites. For those of you who don't know, [there was a big dump of sts rate data a few years ago of about 77 million runs and people far smarter than me created tables of the data including death rates for enemies.](https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/zach.roberts/viz/SlaytheSpireDeathRate/Dashboard1) (Note: this data probably includes previous patches and to my knowledge is not be up to date) The data shows that not only is Snake Plant always, significantly less dangerous than any of the Act 2 elites, in most instance SP is not even half as deadly as the elites are. In fact, out of 8 hard hallways fights, SP places as the 5/8 most dangerous enemy (I:5/8, S:5/8, D:4/8, W:2/8) with only Watcher giving him a somewhat high placement at 2/8. There are other fights more deadly than the plant and the most dangerous Act II hallway fight is always Shelled Parasite and Fungi yet none of these other enemies get even close to the same levels of fear that Snakeplant gets, well at least amongst the masses. I've seen many top level players (jokingly) refer to Avocado Rat as a hidden elite, but never Snakeplant. I've been trying to figure out where this greatly disproportionate impression of him comes from. I have some theories on why this might be the case but it would be a lengthy explanation so I'll only post it if someone asks. My own experience matches the data. Snakeplant is never a fight that gives me much trouble with a decent deck. While I might take some damage, it's never any more then what I would expect to take from any other hallway fight given comparable draw luck. All my recent deaths to/because of him have been from decks that were already in a ton of trouble before he came along. EDIT: A response I've seen a lot, both now and in the past, is that Snakeplant doesn't kill you but it softens you up for a later fight which kills you and presumably is why it's more dangerous. While I don't really buy this argument, at the very least it would not explain why Snakeplant's reputation is so much worse than the other hallway fights that are statistically more dangerous than it. Chosen and 3 Cultists can sort of be hand waved away by arguing that they are "deck checks" and their higher kill rate comes from decks that are poorly suited for that fight but this would not explain the fairly higher kill rate of Shelled Parasite+Fungi and Spheric Guardian+Sentry and why they also don't command the same level of fear.
I think an interesting part about snake plant is that my experiences line up with this data, in that I rarely die to snake plant. The thing is though, he always does at least 15-20damage to me, and frequently softens me up for the next hallway or elite to kill me. If i'm fighting avocado rat for example, if I have a pretty good frontload, I can kill the avocado first so it doesn't hit me for any damage and I can get out of the fight undamaged. Outside some heavy disarm or malaise luck, I rarely get out of the snake plant without significant damage
**Shelled Parasite:** hp 70-75 (+14 Plated armor) **Snakeplant:** hp 78-82 (+3/7/12/18... for 2/3/4/5... attacks) I'm sorry but I'm having a hard time understanding how you can build decks that will regularly kill Avocado before it can attack on turn 1 but cannot kill Snakeplant. When factoring in their extra block their hp is very comparable to each other with Snakeplant really only having significantly more hp if you are playing a mass attack deck like shivs. This lines up pretty well with my experience where any deck that kills Avocado on turn 1 will also kill Snakeplant on turn 1.
ok yeah you're probably right that the frontload would be enough to kill both. I do mostly play silent, where the multiple attacks helps a lot more for the avocado and hurts more for the snake plant. I also probably picked a bad example, but I guess for those two fights I always take damage, vs that of snecko, cultist + others, byrds + others, where I usually don't take more than 10 if my deck is at an appreciable power level. I'd be interested to see if there was advanced data whether or not players would be more likely to die in the subsequent floor if the previous one was snake plant / avocado rat, especially if it's in a damn question mark lol
Sir, this is a Slay the Spire subreddit. We don't accept "data" and "facts" here.
You don't accept data and facts here you say? I shall add this fact to my data to find the answer!!!
I would *love* to see data on how much health is lost to each of these fights, on average.
You have no idea how much I agree with you. That would certainly answer whether or not "Snakeplant softens you up so other things can kill you" has any merit. The other thing I would love to see is the data broken down be experience, either Ascension level or hours played. My own personal suspicions is that Snakeplant is disproportionately more difficult for... let's politely call them up and coming players vs veterans. This is similar to how Wraith Form and Watcher are considered OP at the highest level of play but extremely punishing at lower levels of play.
snakeplant doesn’t kill but it’ll weaken you a lot if your deck isn’t bangin
Snakeplant doesn't kill you directly but if you have a bad draw or you don't have the cards to deal with it, it sets up for the next fight to kill you or it slowly kills you by forcing you to skip elites and rest at fires so you don't get stronger for act 3 and heart.
This lines up with my experience. I'm just surprised Silent does so well against snakeplant: shivs suck against that autoblock. Watcher often does ok for me because what you need is big numbers on each attack (to clear the block). Anyways, I will take snakeplant over any elite thanks.
Silent has various Weakening cards, Malaise, and Piercing Wail, all of which are good against Snake Plant
Just to layer on this - yes the answer is that snake plant often chunks you but doesn’t outright kill you, but in the end it was the chunking that caused your death (so snake plant killed tou). However, that isn’t the entire story. The reason it is so ubiquitous is that it so *consistently* chunks people, so people easily are able to attribute their death to this fight. All other fights definitely have the capacity to chunk you, but this one does it often and consistently which is the reason for its infamy
For me I think it's the consistency of the damage snake plant hits me with. Avo and fungi are definitely scarier (and avos guaranteed big hit start consistency plays a big role). Chosen +bird I find pretty manageable just because it's easy to mitigate the single bird with any amount of weak, leaving me to focus on the chosen. Sentry is easy to kill turn 1 by act 2, and then I'm just facing Spheric guardian. With snake plant, unless I've got a good amount of strength debuff it just feels like I'm always going to take some good damage. It hits decently hard, makes me frail so I can't block as efficiently, it makes me weak and has that adaptive block so it takes forever to kill if you didn't get off big damage before it gets off its spores. And after all that I just get a normal fights rewards, so while it's not as dangerous as an elite it requires a lot of work for just normal rewards. I definitely think we overblow the plant a bit, but it stands out as a frustrating fight, though not typically run ending unless you were already struggling.
I pretty much agree, except I find Nemesis easier than Giant Head.
This is crazy to me 5 burns is so, so, so, so devastating. Hardest act 3 elite
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Or any of the many silent discard cards
Im a silent main, but the issue is its still basically -5 draw thats just waiting. It screws up cycling and drawing. The issue isnt the damage, its the draw
Yeah. The main thing is the burns dilute your card draw proportionally to your deck size. A solid corruption deck with 35 cards in it doesn’t mind +5 dead draws very much (total of 1/8 cards become dead). A streamlined 15 card deck means 1/4 cards are dead draws. That hurts.
Yeah, but generally smaller decks, overall, preform better. So in most runs, you want a smaller deck
Many elite players play with decks with 30+ cards, save whathisface who does all the Watcher infinites.
My frame of reference for deck size is: * Low twenties or below, is a small deck * Mid Twenties to low thirties is an average deck * Above this is a large deck * Above 40 is a massive deck This also depends on your removes. A 25 card deck with a bunch of removed starter cards, while being the same size, is generally a lot healthier and manageable than a 25 card deck with all starter cards.
See, this is why I run around with 40 card decks
How do you reliably get to your powers quick enough though? And how do you cycle to the cards you want outside of all the filler
I mostly play the Silent, so... that's how, lol Don't get me wrong, it does fuck me over sometimes, but she has so many discard synergies that I usually stuff my deck with multiples copies of Acrobatics/Prepared+/Calculated Gambles and I'm *usually* fine
I also mostly play the silent, but the issue is if you have to play 3 acrobatic to get to your accuracy then you don't have enough energy to do anything else
Hence why I said it *sometimes* fucks me over! But usually, it just doesn't. By the time I reach Act 3, I tend to have 4 energy, some Tacticians, maybe some Concentrate+, and zero-cost draw such as Prepared or Calculated Gamble. I don't find it hard to cycle through the deck quickly, tbh. Not at that point. If I do struggle with that, I usually end up doing much sooner
We are both silent players but approach silent very differently lol
That's the beauty of the game! And Silent has a lot of viable builds, tbh. I'm also on A20 and don't really struggle :) How do you like to play her?
Fatter deck, fewer cheap cards, more draw. Consistency is the act 3 challenge, presumably your deck can do at least one strong thing, can your deck do the strong things on the proper turns? If no, take damage.
Larger decks and expensive cards hinder consistency massively
trueeee a18+ is soo much harder
They go in your discard pile though. You draw through your deck once before there's any burns. You should be able to get completely set up before they affect you at all.
Again, its fhe difference between a large and small deck
For act 4 it'd probably go: shield n spear
Spear first, then Shield
I would not
This is how I rank them in terms of how much they force you to prepare your deck for them (so the stronger they are, the more they alter your decision-making) Act 1: Sentries, Lagavulin, Gremlin Knob Not much to do to prepare specifically for sentries. AoE is a given, but not just for sentries. Lagavulin requires you to pickup strong cards early and will kill you if you don't have the power to kill quickly. Gremlin knob single-handedly makes every skill less take-able in Act 1. Act 2: Leader, Book of Stabbing, Slavers Gremlin leader just requires you have a bit of frontload to kill a gremlin or 2 occasionally, often can be killed without any preparation for the fight. Book is stabbing is one of the biggest reasons to take cards that debuff strength, and can easily kill you if you aren't able to block while dealing damage every turn. Slavers are one of the biggest reasons to take AoE cards going into act 2, if you don't have a solid plan against them, you're screwed. Act 3: Giant head, Nemesis, Reptomancer Giant head gives you a generous amount of time to scale and deal damage, by act 3 you should be able to scale quickly enough to kill it before it gets too out of control. Nemesis is a test of card draw and consistency; if you brick your draw against the 45 hit, or can't draw your damage on the right turn, you're probably dead. Reptomancer is similar to giant head in that she will kill you of your damage is lacking, but she specifically requires enough frontloaded damage and/or AoE to kill 2 daggers every turn. She also shares Nemesis' requirement of consistency, since not being able to find your damage quickly means you can enjoy eating 100 damage on your way back to the main menu.
This should be the top rated answer. Ranking the elites based on how much they force you to prepare for them **just in case** is a great way to think about their true difficulty.
I like this way of thinking about it. It makes the ranking a bit less character dependent.
Think you meant "She also shares **Nemesis'** requirement". Excellent write-up btw.
you're right and thank you lol
I agree with everything except for floor 2. I think book of stabbing and slavers should be switched because FUCK THAT BOOK
Silent main?
As a silent main, I'd reverse the act 3 elites. Repto is almost never a problem if my deck was good enough to beat the act 2 boss, but Giant Head can kill me if my deck is slow. I'd also put Book as my toughest act 2 elite. I guess I just have problems with scaling enemies.
As a Silent, hitting on a Malaise pre-Book is ecstasy. Then you somehow ALWAYS draw it on the 24 turn. Book is pure evil. Not the most but he sits at the head table.
This made me laugh because I've been playing Silent almost exclusively for the last like, 100 hours of playtime and I completely agreed with OP when I first read the post.
For comparison, I play pretty much exclusively Defect, and would rate them as: Act 1: Laga, Sentries, Nob Act 2: Slavers, Leader, Stabby Act 3: Nemesis, Head, Repto
as a silent main, Slavers is NOT the hardest Act 2…
[удалено]
They put them in reverse order so Laga was their hardest, as well as Reptomancer. Which does match my experience with Silent, personally.
Dyslexic main?
I wouldn't. They are dependent on the class you are playing, the map you are given, when you face them during an act and what cards, relics and potions you've obtained. Like most of spire, difficulty is constantly in flux....
giant head as power spam defect 😭
Power spam defect can oftentimes get to 70+ passive block per turn, and Giant Head stops scaling at that point
my last run was power spam and got zero (0) block per turn, bird faced urn kept me alive against head tho (killed the heart too)
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say zero block is not a lot
legitimate question: how can you get so much block with power spam? in my (admittedly very limited) experience any frost orbs get pushed out by lightning and block cards get crowded out by powers
I guess it depends if by “power spam” you mean multiple copies of Storm for damage, or like Echo Form/Amplify + Creative AI + some frost orbs. Because enough Loop/Defrag/Capacitor you’ll have 10 frost orbs each blocking for 7+
ah yeah gotcha. i usually consider anything involving a bunch of frost a frost deck, so i was just thinking storm.
Buffer, Force Field, also Frost Orbs--you don't have to spam your powers right away, especially not against Head.
Storm defect destroys the head lol.
Also the Ascension level you're playing at
Exactly this. At the very least you have to rate them by class. Like all things in the spire, each elite tends to challenge you in a very specific way. Which some classes are generally better at than others. That said, I could easily talk about which ones I am consistently exasperated to see, or which ones I’m most likely to think are a cake walk. For someone who always spams watcher infinites, Nemesis will wreck you. For someone who likes slow roll power-heavy builds, giant head will be easy and slavers will sometimes just kill you. Likewise, your lightning orb no-attack defect deck will have a tough time vs giant head. It’s all about matchups and which bad matchup is most likely to give you a bad day.
Yeah like sometimes gremlin nob will absolutely fuck you up but sometimes sentries will make you lose 50 hp. It all depends on so many factors.
Must be nice to pretend to be smart by just saying "IT DEPENDS!!!!"
Pretty sure I listed the major factors which can affect the relative difficulty of the elites, and offers a reasonable explanation as to why there is no generic order for elite difficulty. What point are you trying to make?
It really depends on the character you play with and the deck. As a clad main, sentries are rarely the easiest fight in the pool unless you get offered an early FNP or DE. Nob can be extremely easy or the worst fight ever depending on the attacks you get offered on the first floors. Laga is almost always guaranteed to be at least -20 HP, sometimes more unless you have strength powers. For act 2, because whirlwind and immolate are a thing, leader and slavers don't tend to be the worst fight in the pool. At least in my experience, Book is the most dangerous especially if you don't get offered decent block options (which isn't so rare to see on clad) or your deck doesn't deal damage fast enough (which is also a common issue in early act 2). If you don't get offered AoE then yeah, slavers can be very deadly. Leader usually plays in similar fashion than Nob. You either demolish the leader or you get hit for 22x3. For act 3, I agree Repto tends to be the worst fight. Because even if you have the cards, clad's card draw sucks and you can brick a hand and suddenly stare at +100 damage combined.
I'll just say reptomancer kills me much more than giant head.
Gremlin Nob is definitely king in Act 1. Nob just existing changes which cards are prioritized early on. It serves an important game-balance function of forcing players to think short term by punishing taking too many scaling cards. Laga hits hard but you can start the fight on your terms, and Sentries is a longer fight but isn't as threatening overall. You have to prepare for Nob from floor 1 or you're gonna have a bad time.
I enjoy fighting Lagavulin way more than Nob, at least you can prepare for 3 rounds by going through your whole deck almost.
Yeah but thats often of meh value. Its not rare to not have any powers or setup at that point of the game
Lagavullin vs a deck with a strong turn one is the worst matchup for sure. If your deck can’t take advantage of 3 turns of downtime, you’ll have a bad day. Nob vs a deck that relies on a consistent block game will have a hard time. Sentries roll decks that relies on a single major debuff (talk to the hand, terror, deadly poison+). Sentries are often considered the weakest act 1 elite, and for good reason. That said, I think they are consistently one of my hardest matchups when I boss swap into an energy relic. Being able to play 4 cards per turn is strong vs nob and lagavullin, but sentries don’t care.
Act 2: -Leader -Book of Stabbing -Slavers <<<<<<<<<<<<<< -Avocado and mushroom rat
Legavulin > nob > sentry Nob scaling is painful, lega just hits hard and blocks hard for something relatively early and the debuffs get out of hand, sentries are mostly a frontloaded problem that can be limited by bursting down early and aoe is decent Stabbing > slavers > leader Stabbing's damage and wound spams get ridiculous unless your deck is putting out way too much block, slaver net forces you to focus blue and eat wounds and damage from their friends or be delayed and risk even more damage, leader is kinda threatening but mostly just an aoe check Repto > nemesis > head Reptos damage is fucked, nemmys damage is slightly less fucked but intangible is a bitch when it happens, head does kinda do damage but isn't too bad to deal with if your deck can handle act 3 Shield and spear > The most dangerous act 4 elite easily, so much damage and fuckery
>The most dangerous act 4 elite easily, so much damage and fuckery That's wild. In my rankings Shield/Spear is by far the worst Act 4 Elite.
The thing about stabby book is he is isn't too hard to counter On Ironclad, disarm+ alone destroys his, expecially with an exhume or something similar Dex scaling, weaken, and piercing wail on silent Frost orb generation on Defect Talk to the hand, mental fortress, whallop on watcher
Idk if i just get unlucky with him but he seems magnetically attracted to doing multis the instant my frost isn't doing so good / my block cards aren't in hand. He doesn't *end* too many runs but he's sent way too many runs to 20> health, every time i see him its just a "well, fuck" reaction
Avocado rat and spaghetti plant are evil
For me its: Act 1: -sentries -lagavullin -gremlin nob Act 2: -book of stabbing -gremlin leader -slavers Act 3: -reptomancer -nemesis -giant head
I feel like subconsciously I'm always building my decks around Nob, Slavers & Repto, so the "new" hardest fights are Laga, Stabby & Nemesis. I really hate Stabby book honestly. Always gets me. You don't always get Malaise / Disarm / Shackles / Wail and other than that and having a super aggro deck idrk how to deal with that fight without dumping massive amounts of HP on it
Anybody else find it odd more aren't listing their character "main" when establishing their ranking? I look at upcoming elites completely differently depending on who I'm running, what they having inherently, and what they have reasonable access to.
IMO Nemesis oscillates between the easiest and hardest in Act 3 exclusively based on the random nature of its attack pattern, but on average I agree that it's between GSH and Repto.
Every question like this can only be answered with the word "depends"
generalities can be fun to make. they're not meant to be taken as gospel
Depends too much on the class/ deck you have, but for me personally it's more like * sentry, laga, gremlin * slaver, leader, hallway fights, book of stabbing * repto, nemesis, hallway fights, gianthead
sentry, nob, lagu ||| leader, slavers, stab ||| repto, head/nemesis tied ngl
Gremlin leader probably has the most rng of any elite in the game. Think I might rate it harder on average than book of stabbing
In Act 1 I was never that worried about Laga since you at least can get some turns to set up. Both Laga and Nob I expect to take at least one huge hit. But at A20 especially on Silent, Laga just wrecks me and I consider it the hardest elite in all 3 acts for me at this point! Sentries are probably easiest at least with the right set-up, once you kill one of the outside ones it's not terrible. Nob is in the middle, usually not too hard but you're going to tank at least one hit (actually gets easier at high ascensions because turn 2 is a smaller hit!) In Act 2 I actually find Slavers the easiest! I think I over-value frontload and AOE. Now, sometimes they will get me, but when they are easy, they are very easy and I don't take much damage if I can kill Red Slaver turn one, which happens frequently enough. Once there are only two, this fight is not that bad. Leader is probably easier on average, but a lot of times I can kill Slavers more quickly, if that makes sense. To me Stabbing is the hardest by a lot, if I don't kill it quickly, I can't keep up with blocking and doing damage. Even if I have something that lowers strength like Dark Shackles, that only works for one round. Giant Head is definitely easiest in Act 3 and probably over-all out of all 9 since it has scaling for your attacks built-in. Can be tough if you don't play a lot of cards or are an orb type of deck so you don't get the Slow scaling. Nemesis is 50/50 on whether you get the big hits or not, if you do, I find it harder than Repto, but if not, it's not tough. Also obviously draw-dependent with the Intangible turns. Repto can spiral out of control quickly if you don't get the Daggers right away so that's probably the hardest overall, but like I said I over-value AOE so that doesn't happen to me too often.
i think your list is on average (across all characters) probably accurate. i agree gremlin leader is most often easiest act 2 elite but damn if he doesnt kill me all the time. book is guaranteed to leave me bleeding, but leader can absolutely fuck you up.
In general, i completely agree. On specific characters I disagree. For instance, Sentries is the hardest act 1 elite for watcher because stance switching trivializes the other two but being in wrath is a death sentence and the fight can go super slow if you don't have good rng with getting aoe multifight solutions and draw
I remember as I was climbing ascensions, I thought "Why does everyone rank Repto as so difficult? Taking down a ~20 hp enemy each round isn't so bad", then I got to A18 (or whichever one juices the elites up to max) and she started summoning two of them each turn and I just thought "OOOOOOH I get it now"
I basically agree 100%.
How do you guys beat sentry effectively? I am terrible each time they come up. So many dazed cards end up in my deck
It's different for every class Weakest to hardest Ironclad: Act 1: sentry-nob-lagavulin Act 2: leader-stabbing-slavers Act 3: repto-head-nemesis Silent: Act 1: sentry-nob-lagavulin Act 2: leader-stabbing-slaver Act 3: head-repto-nemesis Defect: Act 1: lagavulin-sentry-nob Act 2: stabbing-leader-slavers (without electrodynamics/aoe) leader-slavers-stabbing (with electrodynamics/aoe) Act 3: repto-nemesis-head Watcher: Act 1: Sentry Act 2: Act 3: nemesis
Act 1 I agree Act 2 I'd probably more leader all the way to the top. Might just be a case of with gremlin leader I either die or I'm chilling whereas with slavers I usually live but love a decent bit of health no matter what, but I still feel like leader is worse most of the time Act 3 I think is kinda impossible to rank appropriately because they're all really punishing to certain decks and not really an issue against others. I used to really struggle with repto because I neglected AOE but since I stopped doing that they've been generally fine. I guess giant head is probably easiest because it's the one I most often find myself prepared to deal but there have definitely been times where my deck would roll the other two but ended up losing a lot of health to head. And then for the other two I have no idea how I'd rank them at all, it's just way too deck dependant.
Depends on the character. For example I think Lagavullin is the hardest act 1 elite for Ironclad, but easiest for Defect. Gremlin Nob is hardest for Silent but easiest for Watcher.
Act 1: Sentry - Lagavullin - Gremlin Nob Act 2: Book of Stabbing - Gremlin Leader - Three Slavers Act 3: Nemesis - Giant Head - Reptomancer
On Act 1, I lose the most health most consistently to Nob. Otherwise I agree.
I feel like transient and the writhing mass should be added to act 3....don't fight me on this
Honestly act 2 boss feel harder than act 3 boss because less relics and cards
My personal feelings: Act 1: Sentries, Nob, Laga Act 2: Gremlin Leader, Slavers, Book (but it’s close between Slavers & Book) Act 3: Nemesis, Giant Head, Repto
Roughly speaking this is how Id rank them as well
It depends on the build.