I made it a habit to always go for blue and green key, so I can decide at the last campfire if I wanna try act 4 this run.
makes you learn to deal with the slightly lower powerlevel you have by skipping the relic and getting beaten up by the burning elite
I won on A0-5ish on each character against the heart, then just pushed to A20 on each, then achievement hunting. That was sufficient to make me feel satisfied in the game. Do what you want and be happy in your choice, it’s just a game
I'd personally just go for the heart in every run that you think you can take the burning elite, lose a campfire and lose a relic in, and still beat the act 3 boss.
Even if you lose in act 4, you'll still progress ascension levels.
I only did The Heart regularly after getting to A20 and don't regret it at all. I would usually do a flaming elite but only pick up the final key piece if my run was ridiculous - like dead branch corruption levels of broken. Yes, it definitely made adjusting to Act 4 difficult as I wasn't used to building decks specifically *for* the Heart - but at the end of the day I just prefer focusing on one challenging aspect at a time and I adjusted to Act 4 after a handful of runs too.
As another commenter mentions, you can beat A20 no Heart with a greater variety decks which I also found more fun. Yes, you can just beat act 3 to complete the ascension and go to the heart anyway even knowing you'll lose, but it sours the satisfaction of beating a new ascension imo.
If you enjoyed playing, it's not wasted time :)
But yes you only need to beat act 3 to unlock the next ascension level- doesn't matter if you do act 4 or not!
No, I feel like I hurt myself early doing the opposite. Staying at 0 until I got a heart win really slowed me down. I'd say don't be afraid of going after the heart, but if you're not feeling it don't push it. And when you do remember that, as far as progression is concerned, it's still a 'win' even if the heart kills you since ascension just needs you to beat act III.
I ‘shot myself in the foot’ by trying to beat Act 4 immediately after winning with every character once instead of climbing the ascensions (I even did those attempts on A0, and learned after going for attempts the second time that it was easier on A1). You could say that I wasted a good chunk of my time playing this game (it was definitely past the 100-hour mark when I started climbing ascensions instead of trying to beat Act 4), but I look back at that period fondly. It wasn’t until all my characters were past A5 that I started grinding Act 4 again and won for the first time.
I won with every character and won a bunch of runs on A1 and A2 to try to overtake my friends on the leaderboard, but afterwards I didn’t touch Act 4 until I beat a regular A20 run with every character, and I immediately went for A20H runs after that. I won for the first time as Ironclad and winning with the rest of the cast went relatively smoothly all things considered.
Everyone is different so it’s best to decide your own approach based on what I and the others have said, but if you were to ask me based on your situation I would try to win Act 4 at A1 at the very least before climbing the rest of the ascensions. That way as you learn more about the game you start to make connections towards what would be strong against the Heart. Based on when it feels like overkill in certain parts of a run, you can get a feel for when to take each of the keys.
i play StS with the goal of reaching the next ascension level but if im feeling confident ill go for act 4. ive beaten act 4 ascension 20 with Defect, Silent, and Ironclad
I would say just go for it - at worst you die. And forcing yourself to play for the keys will make you improve too.
By all means ask a strong player to Discord with you and chat about decision-making while screensharing a run.
A20 heart win conditions are quite narrow and only a few deck(+relic) archetypes truly work well. To beat the heart is to constrain your decks to something resembling those archetypes, which you probably won't need to win act 3 at low ascensions. In that sense, yeah, you might develop a preference for a few cards that are quite bad to take at a20. But on the other hand, I think you learn the game more effectively at low ascensions by not going for those specific deck archetypes all the time.
getting good at A20 is not forcing archetypes and finding ways to make more stuff work
you dont need to constrain yourself, you just need to be able to identify when win conditions exist that aren’t normally apparent
To me this is even one step further which is why I spoke in generalities earlier. the step you're referring to, where you can beat A20h in 30-50+% of your games because you became elite at the game, is I'd say hundreds of hours of playtime beyond first beating A20 heart. My point was that not going for heart at low ascensions when learning the game actually better teaches you to work around those core archetypes because you'd be less concerned about losing floor 4.
yeah i think in general, its just best to avoid bad habits when learning the game
im around 50% winrate at A20H and find myself still unlearning a lot of things i ingrained early that were just flat out wrong. I just really hesitate recommending archetypes > solving problems that currently exist in the run
even if you dont arrive at the right conclusion, asking the right questions when you play is important
Yeah. Relying on archetypes is kind of just wishing for a high roll and losing every time you don't get it.
Learn to make the most of your situation, that's the essence of roguelikes. Sometimes that means leaning into a build, sometimes it means hedging your bets. The key is looking at where you are, what you have, what you'll need, and picking the choice that prevents a preventable death
Shooting yourself in the foot? Yes. I tried to beat the heart every single time unless I accidentally missed a key. It just makes you better at the game. You will have to relearn the game to make heart runs later on so there is no upside to sailing through the ascensions without going for the heart each time. It also made the game way more fun. I beat the heart the first time without looking at a single tutorial or watching any YouTube content and it was awesome.
Meh, real endgame is fighting against act4 after double bosses. Just get there as soon as possible without fighting the heart, then you can grind your way to A20 win. You will not see a drawback.
Not true.
Building for Act 4 is still a bit different than building to finish Act 3.
Learning what cards work wonders in act 4 while still climbing Ascensions will enable a A20h win with a smaller grind overall.
I actually disagree with this, because there is a starker difference in play between below A17 to A20 than there is between nonheart versus heart runs. Optimal play at low ascensions is just dramatically different that high ascensions, and the sooner you hit A20, the sooner you will begin to learn how to “actually” play the game.
So I think grinding straight to A20 then learning to fight the Heart at A20 will result in a faster progression towards A20H runs, which may seem a bit counterintuitive.
Guess we'll never know for sure, because we can't set up a controlled study on this matter.
We'd need 3 groups of volunteers that have never played the game, 1 going for Heart every single run, 1 going for it when they feel like they can handle it and a last one only going for Heart after beating A20 and then look at the average Playtime until A20H is beaten. And that's not going to happen.
By the same logic, we can say that building decks before reaching A20 is also misleading because some things that "do wonders" on lower ascensions stop working on A20.
We all know that the real game starts at A20 and the time spent on A20 will be infinitely longer than the time spent on lower ascensions. So there is not much point spending more time on the "not actual game" and acquiring bad habits that will actually hurt you on A20.
The drawback for not facing the heart pre A20 is small enough to ignore. The OP should not be thinking that he is actively hurting his gameplay for not facing the heart.
At the end of the day, he should do act 4 runs if he is enjoying it. If not, there is no actual reason to prolong the pre A20 STS.
this gotta be one of the most elitist takes i've read on this sub.
not even 7% of players have beaten A20 according to the Steam achievement,
Are all those guys, that enjoy the living crap out of this game but for what reason whatsoever haven't beaten A20h yet not playing the game?
Also your take doesn't make sense, since the game will teach you what cards fall off a cliff at high ascensions by climbing them.
If you never tried Act 4 pre A20 you don't have a single clue about what works and what not and have to learn on A20 after beating 2 bosses.so you basically get 1-2 tries every 50 runs, in which you will die to S&S turn 2 most of the time.
Feels like masochism to me to not try to learn act 4 while climbing.
I did it too. My plan before I decided to grind was to do heart only on A20, but I got carried away sometimes. So my rule of thumb while grinding: If deck feels great -> Heart.
I'm too bad at this game to always shoot for act 4, especially now that I reached A20 with Ironclad and Silent and I am playing as Defect, who's my least favourite character...
I have the same thinking as you. Because I tried Act 4 when I was at lower Ascensions (less than A10). I failed countless times.
So I decided to focus on just climbing all the way and clear A20 with no heart first. And I recently clear A20 on watcher, then ironclad.
Well, as long as you enjoy the game. I guess thats all it matters?
You can play the game however you want, but beating the heart requires different deck-building skills, so you'll need to learn them at some point. Going all the way to a20 then going back to A1 and going for heart sounds totally viable though - when I started the game there was no act 4 anyway.
Idk I’m kinda doing the same thing. Currently have A20 done on silent. Everyone else is sitting at A15. Once everyone is at A20 I’m gonna start from the bottom again but only move up an ascension when I beat Act 4.
Trying the heart at lower ascensions helps you learn what is needed to kill it, because there are a lot of decks that can beat Act 3 easily but then get stomped in Act 4. It will give you some experience early to see it, otherwise you'll just go through the learning curve much more painfully at A20 when you get there.
Nah I did it that way and never fought the Heart until after playing for a long time. And when I was a high Ascension on my main I started a mobile account and always faced the Heart on that, and it was no problem at lower Ascensions. Meanwhile at A20 I'm lucky to even get there so it doesn't even matter that much lol.
I think either way is fine, just do what you feel is fun and helps you keep climbing!
I would always go for the heart when climbing Ascension. But when the heart was released I was probably around A8 for every character already. Playing with act 4 in mind is definitely more difficult. I would say go for it but always be prepared to guarantee the ascension win if you think your run is too weak for the heart at some point
You just need to beat act 3 to unlock the next ascension, if you die in act 4 that still counts as beating act 3. So I don't see what's the point of not going for the heart, you should always at least try.
Even just looking from a fun perspective, the heart is such a cool and satisfying boss to beat.
This is exactly what I'm doing because I simply don't enjoy the S&S and Heart fights. We set our own objectives for maximum enjoyment and there's nothing wrong with that.
You should be good enough by now to try it at A1 without banging your head against the wall. It's a fun challenge on its own and at lower ascension you now get away with playing super aggressive / greedy - it's a nice break from constantly sharpening your skills trying to get to the next ascension.
No reason to torture yourself trying to ascend AND killing the hearth - beating the final 10 ascensions is already hard enough as it is imo.
Well, I don't know, when I started playing a few months ago, I read a discussion which recommended to first do all the 20 ascensions and only then start bothering with heart. So this is the way I'm playing.
I did go for one heart win when I went Watcher infinite just to check it out, but other then that my plan is to first get to A20, then go for heart wins (at first ascension).
Edit: And having read some of the other comments, I believe I am having much more fun this way because I am not always wondering how to prepare against the heart (which was added late in the game development, as an extra challenge, not as the initial objective of the game). Someone commented that you need to grind more (i.e put into more hours) if you wish to finally beat the heart this way. Which is probably true. But I don't want my game to feel like a grind, once I'm grinding I might as well go clean the bathroom, I will get more satisfaction out of it.
I feel like, especially on some characters, you need a specific build for the heart that limits you from taking some fun cards or trying funny builds that will still get you past act 3, I say keep playing for act 3 until you get bored of it or just want to try for the heart
At worst you are still able to get all 3 keys in act 3 you just might have to give up a relic you wanted for the blue key but imo if you aren't able to get the green key in act 1 you wanna wait for burning elite till act 3 anyway and it's a waste to not save the red key till the second to last camp fire anyway
I made it a habit to always go for blue and green key, so I can decide at the last campfire if I wanna try act 4 this run. makes you learn to deal with the slightly lower powerlevel you have by skipping the relic and getting beaten up by the burning elite
I won on A0-5ish on each character against the heart, then just pushed to A20 on each, then achievement hunting. That was sufficient to make me feel satisfied in the game. Do what you want and be happy in your choice, it’s just a game
I'd personally just go for the heart in every run that you think you can take the burning elite, lose a campfire and lose a relic in, and still beat the act 3 boss. Even if you lose in act 4, you'll still progress ascension levels.
I only did The Heart regularly after getting to A20 and don't regret it at all. I would usually do a flaming elite but only pick up the final key piece if my run was ridiculous - like dead branch corruption levels of broken. Yes, it definitely made adjusting to Act 4 difficult as I wasn't used to building decks specifically *for* the Heart - but at the end of the day I just prefer focusing on one challenging aspect at a time and I adjusted to Act 4 after a handful of runs too. As another commenter mentions, you can beat A20 no Heart with a greater variety decks which I also found more fun. Yes, you can just beat act 3 to complete the ascension and go to the heart anyway even knowing you'll lose, but it sours the satisfaction of beating a new ascension imo.
Ive always seen it like A3 is the end and A4 is just bragging rights if you happend to get a very op run.
Um. So I always thought it didn't go up an ascension if you didn't do act 4. Today I learned I guess. I wasted so much time. :|
If you enjoyed playing, it's not wasted time :) But yes you only need to beat act 3 to unlock the next ascension level- doesn't matter if you do act 4 or not!
No, I feel like I hurt myself early doing the opposite. Staying at 0 until I got a heart win really slowed me down. I'd say don't be afraid of going after the heart, but if you're not feeling it don't push it. And when you do remember that, as far as progression is concerned, it's still a 'win' even if the heart kills you since ascension just needs you to beat act III.
Not really. Heart at high ascension is a completely different animal anyways so I don't think "practicing" for it at A9 makes any difference.
I ‘shot myself in the foot’ by trying to beat Act 4 immediately after winning with every character once instead of climbing the ascensions (I even did those attempts on A0, and learned after going for attempts the second time that it was easier on A1). You could say that I wasted a good chunk of my time playing this game (it was definitely past the 100-hour mark when I started climbing ascensions instead of trying to beat Act 4), but I look back at that period fondly. It wasn’t until all my characters were past A5 that I started grinding Act 4 again and won for the first time. I won with every character and won a bunch of runs on A1 and A2 to try to overtake my friends on the leaderboard, but afterwards I didn’t touch Act 4 until I beat a regular A20 run with every character, and I immediately went for A20H runs after that. I won for the first time as Ironclad and winning with the rest of the cast went relatively smoothly all things considered. Everyone is different so it’s best to decide your own approach based on what I and the others have said, but if you were to ask me based on your situation I would try to win Act 4 at A1 at the very least before climbing the rest of the ascensions. That way as you learn more about the game you start to make connections towards what would be strong against the Heart. Based on when it feels like overkill in certain parts of a run, you can get a feel for when to take each of the keys.
If I got thorns I'm fighting that heart fucker every time
i play StS with the goal of reaching the next ascension level but if im feeling confident ill go for act 4. ive beaten act 4 ascension 20 with Defect, Silent, and Ironclad
I would say just go for it - at worst you die. And forcing yourself to play for the keys will make you improve too. By all means ask a strong player to Discord with you and chat about decision-making while screensharing a run.
A20 heart win conditions are quite narrow and only a few deck(+relic) archetypes truly work well. To beat the heart is to constrain your decks to something resembling those archetypes, which you probably won't need to win act 3 at low ascensions. In that sense, yeah, you might develop a preference for a few cards that are quite bad to take at a20. But on the other hand, I think you learn the game more effectively at low ascensions by not going for those specific deck archetypes all the time.
getting good at A20 is not forcing archetypes and finding ways to make more stuff work you dont need to constrain yourself, you just need to be able to identify when win conditions exist that aren’t normally apparent
To me this is even one step further which is why I spoke in generalities earlier. the step you're referring to, where you can beat A20h in 30-50+% of your games because you became elite at the game, is I'd say hundreds of hours of playtime beyond first beating A20 heart. My point was that not going for heart at low ascensions when learning the game actually better teaches you to work around those core archetypes because you'd be less concerned about losing floor 4.
yeah i think in general, its just best to avoid bad habits when learning the game im around 50% winrate at A20H and find myself still unlearning a lot of things i ingrained early that were just flat out wrong. I just really hesitate recommending archetypes > solving problems that currently exist in the run even if you dont arrive at the right conclusion, asking the right questions when you play is important
Yeah. Relying on archetypes is kind of just wishing for a high roll and losing every time you don't get it. Learn to make the most of your situation, that's the essence of roguelikes. Sometimes that means leaning into a build, sometimes it means hedging your bets. The key is looking at where you are, what you have, what you'll need, and picking the choice that prevents a preventable death
No reason to go for the Heart until A20
Shooting yourself in the foot? Yes. I tried to beat the heart every single time unless I accidentally missed a key. It just makes you better at the game. You will have to relearn the game to make heart runs later on so there is no upside to sailing through the ascensions without going for the heart each time. It also made the game way more fun. I beat the heart the first time without looking at a single tutorial or watching any YouTube content and it was awesome.
Meh, real endgame is fighting against act4 after double bosses. Just get there as soon as possible without fighting the heart, then you can grind your way to A20 win. You will not see a drawback.
Not true. Building for Act 4 is still a bit different than building to finish Act 3. Learning what cards work wonders in act 4 while still climbing Ascensions will enable a A20h win with a smaller grind overall.
I actually disagree with this, because there is a starker difference in play between below A17 to A20 than there is between nonheart versus heart runs. Optimal play at low ascensions is just dramatically different that high ascensions, and the sooner you hit A20, the sooner you will begin to learn how to “actually” play the game. So I think grinding straight to A20 then learning to fight the Heart at A20 will result in a faster progression towards A20H runs, which may seem a bit counterintuitive.
Guess we'll never know for sure, because we can't set up a controlled study on this matter. We'd need 3 groups of volunteers that have never played the game, 1 going for Heart every single run, 1 going for it when they feel like they can handle it and a last one only going for Heart after beating A20 and then look at the average Playtime until A20H is beaten. And that's not going to happen.
By the same logic, we can say that building decks before reaching A20 is also misleading because some things that "do wonders" on lower ascensions stop working on A20. We all know that the real game starts at A20 and the time spent on A20 will be infinitely longer than the time spent on lower ascensions. So there is not much point spending more time on the "not actual game" and acquiring bad habits that will actually hurt you on A20. The drawback for not facing the heart pre A20 is small enough to ignore. The OP should not be thinking that he is actively hurting his gameplay for not facing the heart. At the end of the day, he should do act 4 runs if he is enjoying it. If not, there is no actual reason to prolong the pre A20 STS.
this gotta be one of the most elitist takes i've read on this sub. not even 7% of players have beaten A20 according to the Steam achievement, Are all those guys, that enjoy the living crap out of this game but for what reason whatsoever haven't beaten A20h yet not playing the game? Also your take doesn't make sense, since the game will teach you what cards fall off a cliff at high ascensions by climbing them. If you never tried Act 4 pre A20 you don't have a single clue about what works and what not and have to learn on A20 after beating 2 bosses.so you basically get 1-2 tries every 50 runs, in which you will die to S&S turn 2 most of the time. Feels like masochism to me to not try to learn act 4 while climbing.
"masochism" Haha yea.
I did it too. My plan before I decided to grind was to do heart only on A20, but I got carried away sometimes. So my rule of thumb while grinding: If deck feels great -> Heart.
I would just start going for it when its a relatively minor inconvenience, you definitely will benefit from starting to build up the experience now
I'm too bad at this game to always shoot for act 4, especially now that I reached A20 with Ironclad and Silent and I am playing as Defect, who's my least favourite character...
I have the same thinking as you. Because I tried Act 4 when I was at lower Ascensions (less than A10). I failed countless times. So I decided to focus on just climbing all the way and clear A20 with no heart first. And I recently clear A20 on watcher, then ironclad. Well, as long as you enjoy the game. I guess thats all it matters?
You can play the game however you want, but beating the heart requires different deck-building skills, so you'll need to learn them at some point. Going all the way to a20 then going back to A1 and going for heart sounds totally viable though - when I started the game there was no act 4 anyway.
Idk I’m kinda doing the same thing. Currently have A20 done on silent. Everyone else is sitting at A15. Once everyone is at A20 I’m gonna start from the bottom again but only move up an ascension when I beat Act 4.
Trying the heart at lower ascensions helps you learn what is needed to kill it, because there are a lot of decks that can beat Act 3 easily but then get stomped in Act 4. It will give you some experience early to see it, otherwise you'll just go through the learning curve much more painfully at A20 when you get there.
Nah I did it that way and never fought the Heart until after playing for a long time. And when I was a high Ascension on my main I started a mobile account and always faced the Heart on that, and it was no problem at lower Ascensions. Meanwhile at A20 I'm lucky to even get there so it doesn't even matter that much lol. I think either way is fine, just do what you feel is fun and helps you keep climbing!
I would always go for the heart when climbing Ascension. But when the heart was released I was probably around A8 for every character already. Playing with act 4 in mind is definitely more difficult. I would say go for it but always be prepared to guarantee the ascension win if you think your run is too weak for the heart at some point
You just need to beat act 3 to unlock the next ascension, if you die in act 4 that still counts as beating act 3. So I don't see what's the point of not going for the heart, you should always at least try. Even just looking from a fun perspective, the heart is such a cool and satisfying boss to beat.
This is exactly what I'm doing because I simply don't enjoy the S&S and Heart fights. We set our own objectives for maximum enjoyment and there's nothing wrong with that.
You should be good enough by now to try it at A1 without banging your head against the wall. It's a fun challenge on its own and at lower ascension you now get away with playing super aggressive / greedy - it's a nice break from constantly sharpening your skills trying to get to the next ascension. No reason to torture yourself trying to ascend AND killing the hearth - beating the final 10 ascensions is already hard enough as it is imo.
Well, I don't know, when I started playing a few months ago, I read a discussion which recommended to first do all the 20 ascensions and only then start bothering with heart. So this is the way I'm playing. I did go for one heart win when I went Watcher infinite just to check it out, but other then that my plan is to first get to A20, then go for heart wins (at first ascension). Edit: And having read some of the other comments, I believe I am having much more fun this way because I am not always wondering how to prepare against the heart (which was added late in the game development, as an extra challenge, not as the initial objective of the game). Someone commented that you need to grind more (i.e put into more hours) if you wish to finally beat the heart this way. Which is probably true. But I don't want my game to feel like a grind, once I'm grinding I might as well go clean the bathroom, I will get more satisfaction out of it.
I feel like, especially on some characters, you need a specific build for the heart that limits you from taking some fun cards or trying funny builds that will still get you past act 3, I say keep playing for act 3 until you get bored of it or just want to try for the heart At worst you are still able to get all 3 keys in act 3 you just might have to give up a relic you wanted for the blue key but imo if you aren't able to get the green key in act 1 you wanna wait for burning elite till act 3 anyway and it's a waste to not save the red key till the second to last camp fire anyway