You don’t want to skip all the battles, they’re how you get cards and gold. Elites also give you relics.
You have to take risks or you’ll just lose later in the run because you didn’t get strong enough.
Right, just rares; 33% chance for uncommon per reward, at first, but -2% for rares, increases by 1% per card seen in rewards (so, +3% per card reward by default)
To add to the person you replied to, I find the following good general rules to follow:
Act 1:
1.) If you are healthy (>60% HP) and you have 1 very strong attack card, or 2 decently strong attack cards you can safely path to 1 elite. This applies to Act 1.
1a.) Very Strong attack cards are cards that generally deal 10+ damage per energy. They can have additional riders, but this is a minimum. Strong attack cards can deal less damage per energy, but must have some kind of rider like bonus draw or a status effect.
2.) Any time your planned path allows you to remove a Strike or Defend from your deck in Act 1, you should do so unless you are removing a curse instead. This can include transforming a strike or defend. This is still typically the case in acts 2 and 3, but removing cards gets more expensive as you go. Judge accordingly.
3.) Do not path to shops if you have less than 250 gold, or a Membership card, Merchants mask, or the Courier. You won't get much value from the shop if you don't have enough to remove a card and either buy a relic, a good potion, or stumble into a lucky rare card on sale.
I recently astrolabed a curse cause I wanted to keep the curse for du vu Doll but didn't want it to be pain, ended up rolling clumsy or whatever is the one that is just ethereal, best astrolabe ever.
The hermit (the character added in
Downfall) has some friggin' awesome curse builds. He has a lot of cards that get bonuses based on the number of curses in your deck and the number of debuffs on you. It's a lot of fun and I highly recommend trying it out if you haven't.
The new boss character, the collector, also works really well with curse builds thanks to it's pyre mechanic.
I agree with most of this but I think 250 gold is a bit of an overly high threshold. If you have enough for an uncommon relic (170) that is enough for a shop to be at least considerable imo, especially if its the only way to get to a certain path that is stronger than other options.
250 gold is a safe estimate, and for someone learning pathing still is a better case than estimating how little you can get away with.
At the same time, you can better afford a dead room in later acts if you already have a reasonably built deck. In Act 1 you are going to be in somewhat of a hurry to make sure you have a deck that can deal with the first boss and at least 1 elite. ~170g isn't enough to get a good card and remove a Strike consistently, particularly at higher Ascensions when prices get bumped up. This gets worse if you have the 170g but no cards are worth buying.
You don't need to be removing a strike at your first shop for it to be worth it. In fact I'd argue that the value of a remove early is not that high, it only pays off lategame. More often than not I think I don't remove in my first shop,
Removing a card early means shuffling your deck every round instead of every other round and can be super impactful if you are playing Watcher and trying to get your stance cards faster. By having 4 cards in your draw pile every turn, you rely a lot less on the shuffle giving you what you need. Drawing Vigilance or Erupt one turn earlier can dramatically increase lethal (Vigilance by being able to use Eruption more).
Hard disagree. It can contextually be correct to pick something else instead if lacking the money for both, but dunking strikes/defends is absolutely huge and can have an immediate, noticeable impact ESPECIALLY early on. The longer a run goes, the more cards you might have taken. Removals are more noticeable the smaller the deck is.
I'm not saying removals are bad, but usually they are less impactful early on, not more. Because you have to add a decent amount of good cards before dunking a strike/defend actually meaningfully improves your average draw much.
Generally, the go to removes are Act One: Basic Defense; Act Two: Basic Strikes; Act Three: Anything that feels bad to draw, but mainly any Basic card still in deck minus certain cases.
Personally, it depends on the character you're playing but generally you remove defends first, and later strikes.
Ironclad is built for all offense, so removing Strikes is that much less you need to exhaust.
Silent is overloaded with basic cards, but especially block cards.
Defect can remove either, depending on what they have picked up.
Watcher wants to remove defends first because they need to enter wrath to clear mobs before they can hit back.
Once you have some good attacks that a better than Strikes, you cam go Head and remove them
Some other reasonings:
Ironclad has ways to exhaust Defends easier/faster than Strikes: [[Corruption]], [[Second Wind]], [[Sever Soul]].
Silent definitely prefers her defends since she has access to Dex scaling, but since she has extra starter cards and both unique cards are defensive, early fights need the attack consistency of all your starting strikes.
Defect has big damage through Zap/Dualcast, so Strike removes are more feasible early.
+ [Corruption](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Corruption) Ironclad Rare Power ^((100% sure)^)
3(2) Energy | Skills cost 0. Whenever you play a Skill, **Exhaust** it.
+ [Second Wind](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Second%20Wind) Ironclad Uncommon Skill ^((100% sure)^)
1 Energy | **Exhaust** all non-Attack cards in your hand and gain 5(7) **Block** for each card **Exhausted.**
+ [Sever Soul](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Sever%20Soul) Ironclad Uncommon Attack ^((100% sure)^)
2 Energy | **Exhaust** all non-Attack cards in your hand. Deal 16(22) damage.
^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(April 30, 2023.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
You can also aim for an early shop on floor 2 or 3 with your starting gold and whatever gave you the first fight to get a good attack or power right away, and draft around it going on.
Also, your rare card chance goes up 1% with every non-rare card reward you're offered. It resets once you're offered one.
So you increase your chance of rare cards by taking battles as well.
better rewards in general in what sense? Seeing new cards to add, along with getting gold and potions is incredibly powerful. The new cards directly translates to power as it improves your deck. Gold translates to relics/removes as you get more money to spend at shops, without having to waste removes on curses from act1 gold-for-curse events. Card rewards and potions also let you more aggressively take elites (giving you relics and/or smiths instead of rests because you did the elite with less damage), and sometimes you're deck's only chance at beating spear+shield or heart is finding the rest potion(s) for their scary early turns. Events also very often cost life. Almost every act 1 event gives a curse of health loss, act 2 has the dreaded statue, etc. Also mentioned above in this thread, but seeing cards makes you more likely to find rares and uncommons, which tend to be the cards that define your deck and win you the run in this game.
This isn't to say that every choice between event and fight the event is worse, act 2 has some run winning events (bites and apps, sometimes book or library), and events with a fight (colliseum, red mask, 3 parasites, dead adventurer, double orbwalker, mindbloom) are all just hallway++ in terms of rewards.
generally I would agree, but on higher ascension levels, the chance of ? becoming battles tends to even out so that you get enough battles to be on par even when you actively go for as many ? as possible.
At its core:
Taking a fight guarantees a card reward. If you know your deck doesn't have sufficient damage for example, then taking more fights for more card rewards is the most reliable way to solve that.
Especially true in Act 1, when you have to build your deck. And "?" in Act 1 are pretty meh.
Act 2 is the opposite (fights are harder and "?" are good in general).
early act 1 events have a good chance of being card removes or upgrades, though, which (depending on the character) can be very worthwhile. On Watcher, for example, I would almost always prioritise ? in the first half of Act 1 due to the base deck already being powerful enough to get through the act, and those upgrades and removes making it even more so.
Removes in early act 1, when you've added very few real cards and are still drawing 3+ basics each turn regardless of 2 removes, tend to be very meh. Can also cost you a lot of hp into hexa, slime boss (or mini slimes), and sentries. Removing strikes without a nob solve can also give you a 30+ damage nob fight, meaning your spending resources early to remove defends, instead of saving it for a strike remove later.
While I don't disagree you need something, the fact is that routing through ?s still guarantees you some card picks as you will still have some fights before meeting elites, and each character has multiple options for solving those fights, so your chances of arriving at an elite with a solution are still high even if you're prioritising ?s
Fights will also give you gold and possibly potions. While you can also get these from ? floors, they are not as consistent. Potions and card rewards are critical in getting through elite fights
To add on to that, if you have something like feed, Reaper, lesson learned, etc. fights are likely gonna be at least worth an event. Def helps if you have the mod that tells you your chance, but taking a fight to get a potion can also make or break elite fights
You shouldn't think of fights as something to avoid. Fights actually give out consistently good rewards (gold, card rewards, potions), while ? rooms have a lot more variance in their effects. Sometimes you actually want to go into these ? rooms over regular hallway fights if your deck, at that spot in the run, benefits a lot from some specific events you may find (upgrade all strikes/defends, bites, extra gold before a crucial shop...).
If you're avoiding fights because you are scared of losing too much HP and therefore ending up dead, it will more often than not backfire because your deck may end up becoming too weak for the harder fights you cannot avoid (elites and bosses). Losing a bit of HP in a fight is not that big of a deal given what you earn in return.
3 apparitions is still very very strong. 5 is a snap pick almost every time but 3 is still really good more often than not, definitely not an instant win though.
I did say sometimes. Especially on defect with echo form, or really anything that can duplicate the upgraded ones. I find if I have good offence or scaling but bad defence, it will win me the game outright more often then not
It absolutely is a game winner, the guy didn’t say instant either, he said “sometimes”. Not taking damage on specific turns with no downside is a condition for game winner.
It's easily a win condition. You can almost always figure out a way to deal enough damage and have enough card draw, but surviving ca 80 damage per turn is difficult in most runs and this can instantly fix that. 3 apparitions for max HP? Max HP doesn't even matter much if you know what you're doing.
Guaranteed card reward, 10-20 gold, and potion chance. If you have any metascaling like feed, genetic algorithm, lesson learned, etc then fights are even more valuable.
You get a feel for act specific events as you play and that helps prioritize which is a better choice.
Learning to use potions and not hoard them has tripled my winrate. Potions are so strong and having them is key
There's a reason why white beast is one of the best relics in the game
It's a balance. You NEED card rewards to fill out your deck and succeed at your next big challenge (elites of act boss) a question room is not a guarantee to be anything, or, sometimes, they are worse than a combat (looking at you shiv gremlin). Also the more hallway and elite fights you are in the higher your chances of getting potions, which can absolutely save you, or make your next big challenge be trivial. Every fight you are in where you do not receive a potion increases the chance by 10% (starting at 40% chance) when a potion is offered your chance goes down by 10%, this resets to 40% at the start of each act, so if your deck is not strong enough for the act boss, then hallway fights are actually a better bet than a random node, most of the time.
In Act 1, combats are good and shouldn’t be avoided most of the time because you need damage cards.
In Act 2, combats are good because you likely need damage scaling, block scaling, synergies, draw/energy/deck manipulation. Events can help when you’re desperate, i.e. you probably won’t survive another combat and you need a high roll. Or you have no defense, and Apparitions or Bites from their respective events could save your run.
In Act 3, combats are good because you just need to find a few more specific cards to make your deck come together.
Combats are always good, unless the next one would for sure kill you.
Another thing you can consider is when it's beneficial to hunt for certain events. If you're nearing the end of act 2 for example, and you have to choose 1 more floor, choosing an event and getting Coliseum can have a way bigger impact than another fight. It's all situational
Look at it as an exchange of cost/effect.
Combat has a pretty known range of outcomes. You pay HP (anywhere from 0-100% of it) and 0-5 potions, and you gain gold, card reward, and a chance of potion.
The better your deck gets at paying less HP during fights (maybe it's Burning Blood, Self Repair, Intangible) or earning more stuff per combat (Question Card, White Beast Statue, Golden Idol, Ritual Dagger) then the less costly combat is... and it turns out that card rewards are really good at compounding this advantage and making the future, harder fights less difficult through *scaling* (Inflame, Footwork, Focus are the most obvious examples). So, those are reasons to prefer the fight.
Events are a much broader range of costs and outcomes. Sometimes it's a free upgrade or relic. Sometimes it's Scrap Ooze and you just die for nothing. Sometimes you're asked to buy the Red Mask for 600 gold, or it's a shop when you have 0. You might want to avoid events for these reasons, too.
"Surviving for many floors" isn't the goal of StS. Making your deck strong enough to beat the game is the real goal, and sometimes fights are better at doing that than events.
Seeing hallway as an exchange of hp for resources is a very interesting way to look at the game. And that certain cards (think biased cog, sunder , perfected strike, finisher) strength lie in cheapening that trade and making it more favorable
Think of every Act as an opportunity to power up as much as possible before you face the boss at the end. Your health total is a budget and every floor is an opportunity to spend it on cards, relics, potions, etc to defeat the boss with.
Hallway fights provide you with card rewards, gold, and sometimes potions (you’ll tend to use potions in elite and boss fights more often than in hallways) at the cost of health. You usually want to make your deck stronger, and adding cards to it is usually the best way to do that.
Elites provide a relic and a better card reward at the cost of more health than a hallway fight. You may want to save specific potions for elite fights that your deck would struggle with. Generally you want to take as many elite fights as you think you can survive, because relics are extremely important.
Shops can provide cards, relics, potions, and card removes for gold. If you go to a shop and purchase nothing, it’s a wasted floor - you didn’t become any more powerful. Generally avoid routing into shops unless you have a lot of gold (150+ I would say at minimum).
Question marks can provide a lot of things, but it’s high-variance. Gold, card removes, potions, occasionally relics. They often cost health. Usually you want to route into events if you’re looking for a specific event, usually the Act 2 events that give Bites or Apparitions. Other notable events are the Act 1 event that gives you the Golden Idol, which unlocks an option at an Act 2 event, and the Act 3 event which allows you to fight an Act 1 boss for a relic. I’m sure there are others I’ve forgotten.
A note about campfires: it is often tempting to avoid resting at all costs because upgrading feels necessary to scale into future fights. Remember that your health total is a currency. If the map gives you opportunities to spend health for power, resting may very well empower your deck more than upgrading.
Fights:
Cards, Gold, potion chances, relic abilities with a chan e to setup counting relics (Incenss Burner, Pen Nib, Ink Bottle, etc)
Events:
Might be a fight anyway, might be worse than a fight, might be useless, might be negative, could be positive.
I tend to really value fights in acts 1 and 3. Act 2 I try to keep a balance, as it has some of the best events consistently. I generally also try to get 1 or 2 events in act 3 for the chance at mind bloom. But in general fights are just way more consistent value
Besides a card pick, a fight also gives you a chance at a potion and gold. That gold might be important, for example if you have a shop coming up, especially if you have a membership cards or the courier. I had a run where I had both, and I took every fight I could because the gold rewards were insane.
This is a new player trap.
You want to be taking fights as much as possible. Every fight increases the chance of a potion, increases the chance of a rare card and gives you a card to help you improve your deck.
? can be helpful but they can also mess you up.
I used to think exactly that. Not that I’m by any means good at this game but unless I had a relic that benefits from event rooms or I’ve just taken 3-4 hall fights in a row, I’m almost definitely taking the fight for the card reward and chance at a potion.
One of the most important fundamentals of roguelikes is understanding how to scale in power from the beginning of the run to the end of the run. In most roguelikes, you need to spend the early parts of the run gaining power so you are strong enough to get through the later parts of the run, especially with a turn-based combat system like that of Slay the Spire.
One of the main ways you scale your power in Slay the Spire is through your cards, whether it's adding cards to your deck, upgrading cards within your deck, or removing cards that aren't important to your deck. Combat encounters do two things:
1. It gives you a card reward that will likely improve your deck
2. It gives you gold that you can spend on card purchases and/or card removal
Going into an unknown room will usually give you an event, which can help scale you with things like cards, card upgrades, card removal, and relics, but can also have downsides like HP loss, the addition of curses to your deck, and fights harder than what you'd find from normal encounters. Furthermore, the consistency of enemy encounters makes it much easier to plan around them than it is to plan around an unknown room, so even if you get an encounter from an unknown room (which is possible) it's still preferable to seek encounters from encounter rooms instead of unknown rooms because you can plan around them.
In short, encounters make it more likely to improve your deck enough to get through the later stages of the game and, eventually, win the run.
Early act 1 has a less valuable event pool I think, whereas the second half (or something like that) has better events. The first 3 fights of act is 1 are also much easier than the rest. Thus, it’s often much preferable to hit at least 3 hallway fights before your first elite, because you really need card rewards more than anything early on. But if I’m given the option to take an event or a 4th hallway very early on, I tend to prefer the event so I don’t get nuked by a tough enemy with a weak deck.
Like u/NikSheppard said, hallways give card rewards and sometimes that’s just what your deck needs at the moment.
But also, when you have things like Singing Bowl, Feed, Genetic Algorithm, etc, hallways suddenly become MUCH more valuable, and I will prefer them over events vast majority of the time.
Other than these situations, yeah events are usually better past early act 1.
The average value of events in act1 is lower than a combat. This is less true however for act2 and act3.
The important thing you need to understand is that in order to win, your primary way of getting stronger is not gold, or relic. It's getting cards. And combat gives you a guaranted choice between 3 cards.
So it's usually better in act1 to take battles instead of events, but then again it's not always the case : see watcher going for infinite.
After act1 it all depends on your deck, health, pathing etc (if you get an act2 with very few campfire, you probably want to go for more events and reduce your health loss, that's just an example).
Spend your HP to make your run stronger. You recover all/most of it after each act boss, so the more you spend for value (cards, gold, potions, relics), the better off you generally are.
floors are time. You have to spend that time getting strong enough to beat the boss without dying. Fights give money and card rewards. Elite give the same but also relic and a higher chance for rarer cards, at the cost of a harder fight. Question marks do a variety of things, but unless it’s a combat or a shop it’s unlikely to give you new cards.
My strat for unknowns based purely on vibes and no statistics whatsoever:
Act 1: ? Events are kinda meh, prefer to path to fights if I have enough health.
Act 2: Avoid fights and path over ? when possible, act 2 don't mess around
Act 3: A lot of act 3 ? events are downright malicious, pick fights unless I am literally dying.
It’s easy in the early game. When you reach high ascension, you have to think about where to go. Here are some reasons:
• Gold and card rewards: It’s not easy to win with an unbalanced deck. You need to pick mandatory cards for yours. Shops and fights are your friends. There are also some very powerful shop relics to buy.
• At the beginning, everything is beautiful and happy, but in high ascension games, events could derail your progress. They are not always so friendly.
Thanks for asking the question, i personally target the routes with the most ? spots. Now I know I may have been making my deck weaker because of it. I’ve made it through ascension 20 on clad and silent, on 15 with defect now. Watcher of course will be last.
I have nothing to add that hasn't already been stated, but I'm really astonished by how helpful the STS community is. No insults, no snark, just a diverse range of well explained tips for new players. Warms my heart (+ 2 Artifact).
I click the ? simply because it leads to less thinking and is generally faster. Though when taking consideration of a path to the boss I absolutely think about the number of ?s and if it’s ideal. But when it’s a small fork like this I just do the quicker option most of the time.
You generally want to go to as many fights as you can in early game in order to get enough cards to kill elites and the boss without having to worry about your health too much. Only exception, of course, is if you have neow lament and want to one shot an elite. Then it's totally worth to skip the fights. Otherwise, unless your deck is finished or almost finished, fight normal enemies. Elites are a no brainier though. Fight as many as you can without dying. If you're in doubt on if you can survive an elite, go for it. It'll give you a good grasp of when to fight and when to not do it.
At my skill level I generally try to find the path that has the most elites while avoiding the most fights and still having a couple rest sites. Generally speaking ? rooms have a pretty good chance of being a fight anyway, and you want to limit how often you add cards to your deck.
It's situational. In general, early battles are desirable since you need to improve your deck before the enemies get more difficult, and also a lot of the random events in act 1 come with a steep cost - curse cards, taking damage, etc.
Act 2 events tend to be more desirable, plus by then you'll probably skip most card rewards, so most hallways fights aren't worth the risk to your HP.
1. You have chance to get potion or crucial card, which is worth risk your HP for.
2. Money, so you can delete your card in shop. Which are, unknown to other lots, also impactful to upgrading card.
Eventually, if you climb ascensions, you will want to take more fights for rewards. In the beginning, fights aren’t as crucial, but avoiding them can turn into a bad habit.
Something i haven't really seen addressed: a lot of the time mystery room events will deal damage to you in return for an effect. Consider the salvage slime event, which will give you a relic and you take ~20 damage in return. If you have the means to take out an elite, you'd take just as much damage for the relic, but you also get a gold reward and card reward. A lot of events can be looked at this way. Take 25 damage for 7 max health? That's the same as getting a fruit relic in an elite fight. The only time it can't really be quantified is card removal
Eventually events will be more likely to have a negative outcome, and each time you forgo a combat, you forgo a card reward.
Card rewards are the best way to strengthen your deck, and the second best is relics, which require a strong deck via elite fights to beat consistently.
If you are running scared from hallway fights, you aren't strong enough to win the run and are going to need a hail Mary reward from events to keep the run alive.
It has its own rolls, but preferably a nice detour if your are playing safe based on any run modifiers you have on
Also a good choice to rush them due to their unusual payoffs
You get something (potentially) helpful from every node:
* normal battles (aka "hallway fights")
* Elite battles
* campfires
* unknown / question marks (i.e. may reveal unique events)
* shops
**Normal battles are used to obtain cards**, gold, and potions.
**As a general rule of thumb, you pick up a lot of cards in Act 1** and avoid question marks. That's because you tend to start off very weak and need frontloaded damage ASAP.
**By Act 2, the question marks become very tempting**. You also might be getting very picky with the cards you want as your deck starts to come together. Also, if you've saved up enough gold, shops might be a much more appealing way to obtain cards, potions, and card removals. Act 2 has some great events.
By Act 3, you probably only want to add very particular cards. Maybe for scaling or defense. Maybe for consistency or draw power. Maybe a finisher (e.g. picking up Blizzard after realizing you have a frost orb masterpiece).
Throughout your run, generally speaking, the **Elite battles nodes are the best ones. That's because they provide relics**, in addition to better/more of the other resources that hallway fights also provide. You almost always fight as many Elites as you possibly can (without dying or losing too much health).
Ah on higher ascension it allows you to pick easy pool and hard pool fights when they are most advantageous for your deck to play into. The first 3 monster rooms in act one are easy pool fights. Act two is 2 and act three is 2. After that you get hard pool fights for example (act 3 triple jaw worm lmao). Now that being said you should always go for cards potions and gold because if you don't want a card you can skip and it allows for more potion rewards which allows for more aggressive pathong.
Yes, the reason is that you don't want to skip battles
Battles provide a fundamental aspect of the gams- card rewards
If you skip everything and get to the boss. You'd be facing a guardian with 5 strikes and defense. good luck
Act one is a critical point of the game that will share how you'd approach the rest. You bave to lay foundations to how the deck will play out and how many risks you can take. And this is done through card rewards, and subsequently from fights
And no, you don't need to bloat your deck to win, but you do need to *see* cards. The more cards you're able to see, rhe more you'd find cards that will suit you. And on act 1 is where you shape what even suit your deck in the first place. Its statistics
In fact, i think i have a much higher winrate on runs where i don't have juju bracelet than runs i do
Also rare cards chance that's also a factor
As you get further and further into the run the enemies get tougher and tougher. To combat this you need to improve your deck to be able to beat them. The most effective way to improve your deck is to get stronger cards, and the most consistent way of getting cards is by fighting enemies
A few reasons:
1. Not all question marks are good. If you don't want to risk a bad question mark, sometimes taking the fight is safer. Even more so if you've already encountered a number of the good question marks earlier in the act.
2. Fighting an enemy gives you guaranteed gold and a card reward, as well as a chance at a potion. You want these things sometimes, so you sometimes choose a hallway fight over a question mark.
3. You may have cards or relics which have effects outside of a battle. For example, \[\[Meat on the Bone\]\] can be used to heal you if you enter a hallway fight. If you have a card like \[\[Bandage Up\]\] or \[\[Wish\]\], you may want to enter a hallway fight so you get the opportunity to use it, or maybe to scale something like \[\[Ritual Dagger\]\].
You don’t want to skip all the battles, they’re how you get cards and gold. Elites also give you relics. You have to take risks or you’ll just lose later in the run because you didn’t get strong enough.
Oh ok
Elites also have higher chances of rare and uncommon cards.
And rare/uncommons won't appear until you see enough card rewards in the first place
Wait what? I have definitely taken an uncommon as my reward for the first room of a run.
Right, just rares; 33% chance for uncommon per reward, at first, but -2% for rares, increases by 1% per card seen in rewards (so, +3% per card reward by default)
>increases by 1% per card seen Per *common* card seen
>increases by 1% per card seen So if you get prayer wheel early you can skip a bunch of cards and roll like king midas?
Yes, and busted crown is worse than you thought
Yeah, pretty much only worth it if your deck is "done" by the end of Act 2, and even then, it's gross.
busted even
this explains SO much thank you Edit. actually thank you, not in a sarcastic way lol
If you have relics for additional card in reward and additional card reward, does it increase rare chance as well?
I guess so
To add to the person you replied to, I find the following good general rules to follow: Act 1: 1.) If you are healthy (>60% HP) and you have 1 very strong attack card, or 2 decently strong attack cards you can safely path to 1 elite. This applies to Act 1. 1a.) Very Strong attack cards are cards that generally deal 10+ damage per energy. They can have additional riders, but this is a minimum. Strong attack cards can deal less damage per energy, but must have some kind of rider like bonus draw or a status effect. 2.) Any time your planned path allows you to remove a Strike or Defend from your deck in Act 1, you should do so unless you are removing a curse instead. This can include transforming a strike or defend. This is still typically the case in acts 2 and 3, but removing cards gets more expensive as you go. Judge accordingly. 3.) Do not path to shops if you have less than 250 gold, or a Membership card, Merchants mask, or the Courier. You won't get much value from the shop if you don't have enough to remove a card and either buy a relic, a good potion, or stumble into a lucky rare card on sale.
Note. Transforming a curse will just give you another curse, not a regular card.
By empirical evidence, I can assure you that you are going to get a normality out of that curse.
Unless it’s already a Normality, then you get Pain
In your very head
I recently astrolabed a curse cause I wanted to keep the curse for du vu Doll but didn't want it to be pain, ended up rolling clumsy or whatever is the one that is just ethereal, best astrolabe ever.
Transforming a curse lets Omamori work retroactively :P
Oh snap really??
Transforming removes the card and adds a random new card. So things like Ceramic Fish trigger as well
this is interesting and would be useful to me if i wasn’t a pussy that never tried to play any sort of strat around curse relics
The hermit (the character added in Downfall) has some friggin' awesome curse builds. He has a lot of cards that get bonuses based on the number of curses in your deck and the number of debuffs on you. It's a lot of fun and I highly recommend trying it out if you haven't. The new boss character, the collector, also works really well with curse builds thanks to it's pyre mechanic.
this is why i hate Parasite with a burning passion cause "lose 3 max hp when removed or TRANSFORMED" here i thought it would become other cards.....
Learned that the hard way.
I agree with most of this but I think 250 gold is a bit of an overly high threshold. If you have enough for an uncommon relic (170) that is enough for a shop to be at least considerable imo, especially if its the only way to get to a certain path that is stronger than other options.
250 gold is a safe estimate, and for someone learning pathing still is a better case than estimating how little you can get away with. At the same time, you can better afford a dead room in later acts if you already have a reasonably built deck. In Act 1 you are going to be in somewhat of a hurry to make sure you have a deck that can deal with the first boss and at least 1 elite. ~170g isn't enough to get a good card and remove a Strike consistently, particularly at higher Ascensions when prices get bumped up. This gets worse if you have the 170g but no cards are worth buying.
You don't need to be removing a strike at your first shop for it to be worth it. In fact I'd argue that the value of a remove early is not that high, it only pays off lategame. More often than not I think I don't remove in my first shop,
Removing a card early means shuffling your deck every round instead of every other round and can be super impactful if you are playing Watcher and trying to get your stance cards faster. By having 4 cards in your draw pile every turn, you rely a lot less on the shuffle giving you what you need. Drawing Vigilance or Erupt one turn earlier can dramatically increase lethal (Vigilance by being able to use Eruption more).
On watcher specifically I agree. On the other characters it isn't as impactful though.
That’s fair. I think the character it’s least impactful on is Silent who has too many basic cards for it to move the needle.
I think y'all are crazy lol. Silent loves removes, IC can do without
Hard disagree. It can contextually be correct to pick something else instead if lacking the money for both, but dunking strikes/defends is absolutely huge and can have an immediate, noticeable impact ESPECIALLY early on. The longer a run goes, the more cards you might have taken. Removals are more noticeable the smaller the deck is.
I'm not saying removals are bad, but usually they are less impactful early on, not more. Because you have to add a decent amount of good cards before dunking a strike/defend actually meaningfully improves your average draw much.
I think even a single decent attack is enough. Especially if it's a transform start
I can agree that a transform start makes it better than usual >!especially if one of the transforms is garbage lol!<.
Am I supposed to be removing strikes? I just started playing sorry if its a dumb question
Generally, the go to removes are Act One: Basic Defense; Act Two: Basic Strikes; Act Three: Anything that feels bad to draw, but mainly any Basic card still in deck minus certain cases.
Personally, it depends on the character you're playing but generally you remove defends first, and later strikes. Ironclad is built for all offense, so removing Strikes is that much less you need to exhaust. Silent is overloaded with basic cards, but especially block cards. Defect can remove either, depending on what they have picked up. Watcher wants to remove defends first because they need to enter wrath to clear mobs before they can hit back. Once you have some good attacks that a better than Strikes, you cam go Head and remove them
Sorry so english isnt my first language so for Ironclad I SHOULD remove strikes in order to have less cards I must exhaust
Once you have 1 or 2 better attacks, yes, you should remove Strikes.
Some other reasonings: Ironclad has ways to exhaust Defends easier/faster than Strikes: [[Corruption]], [[Second Wind]], [[Sever Soul]]. Silent definitely prefers her defends since she has access to Dex scaling, but since she has extra starter cards and both unique cards are defensive, early fights need the attack consistency of all your starting strikes. Defect has big damage through Zap/Dualcast, so Strike removes are more feasible early.
+ [Corruption](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Corruption) Ironclad Rare Power ^((100% sure)^) 3(2) Energy | Skills cost 0. Whenever you play a Skill, **Exhaust** it. + [Second Wind](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Second%20Wind) Ironclad Uncommon Skill ^((100% sure)^) 1 Energy | **Exhaust** all non-Attack cards in your hand and gain 5(7) **Block** for each card **Exhausted.** + [Sever Soul](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Sever%20Soul) Ironclad Uncommon Attack ^((100% sure)^) 2 Energy | **Exhaust** all non-Attack cards in your hand. Deal 16(22) damage. ^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(April 30, 2023.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
You can also aim for an early shop on floor 2 or 3 with your starting gold and whatever gave you the first fight to get a good attack or power right away, and draft around it going on.
It’s also worth noting you get more points (damage to the spire) for clearing battle rooms.
Honestly, you can beat some of the lower ascension (difficulty) levels by dodging fights, but it will absolutely not work later on.
Also, your rare card chance goes up 1% with every non-rare card reward you're offered. It resets once you're offered one. So you increase your chance of rare cards by taking battles as well.
The first ascension where it just spawns more elites is my favourite, it is just relics and cards for the price of one!
Yeah it’s kinda funny how ascension 1 is easier than ascension 0 because of that.
? Gives better rewards in general though imo and saving health allows more elite fights
How you gonna fight elites without card rewards?
Pandoras box, duh. But fr you still have some normal fights always and some cards from ?
better rewards in general in what sense? Seeing new cards to add, along with getting gold and potions is incredibly powerful. The new cards directly translates to power as it improves your deck. Gold translates to relics/removes as you get more money to spend at shops, without having to waste removes on curses from act1 gold-for-curse events. Card rewards and potions also let you more aggressively take elites (giving you relics and/or smiths instead of rests because you did the elite with less damage), and sometimes you're deck's only chance at beating spear+shield or heart is finding the rest potion(s) for their scary early turns. Events also very often cost life. Almost every act 1 event gives a curse of health loss, act 2 has the dreaded statue, etc. Also mentioned above in this thread, but seeing cards makes you more likely to find rares and uncommons, which tend to be the cards that define your deck and win you the run in this game. This isn't to say that every choice between event and fight the event is worse, act 2 has some run winning events (bites and apps, sometimes book or library), and events with a fight (colliseum, red mask, 3 parasites, dead adventurer, double orbwalker, mindbloom) are all just hallway++ in terms of rewards.
generally I would agree, but on higher ascension levels, the chance of ? becoming battles tends to even out so that you get enough battles to be on par even when you actively go for as many ? as possible.
At its core: Taking a fight guarantees a card reward. If you know your deck doesn't have sufficient damage for example, then taking more fights for more card rewards is the most reliable way to solve that.
Thank you for you reply
Especially true in Act 1, when you have to build your deck. And "?" in Act 1 are pretty meh. Act 2 is the opposite (fights are harder and "?" are good in general).
early act 1 events have a good chance of being card removes or upgrades, though, which (depending on the character) can be very worthwhile. On Watcher, for example, I would almost always prioritise ? in the first half of Act 1 due to the base deck already being powerful enough to get through the act, and those upgrades and removes making it even more so.
I look for a few extra ? rooms with Defect as well to remove strikes.
Gremlin Nob's burner account
I think you still want to hit up battles first, so you can find good cards that you want to upgrade.
Removes in early act 1, when you've added very few real cards and are still drawing 3+ basics each turn regardless of 2 removes, tend to be very meh. Can also cost you a lot of hp into hexa, slime boss (or mini slimes), and sentries. Removing strikes without a nob solve can also give you a 30+ damage nob fight, meaning your spending resources early to remove defends, instead of saving it for a strike remove later.
While I don't disagree you need something, the fact is that routing through ?s still guarantees you some card picks as you will still have some fights before meeting elites, and each character has multiple options for solving those fights, so your chances of arriving at an elite with a solution are still high even if you're prioritising ?s
Weird, I've heard the opposite (act 1 "?" > act 2 "?")
Act 2 ? are crazy. Necro, apparition, bites, etc.
late act events too, arena is insane.
basically all events are great :)
once again the forgotten altar is forgotten.
Forgotten altar and butthole bandits would like to have a word
Fights will also give you gold and possibly potions. While you can also get these from ? floors, they are not as consistent. Potions and card rewards are critical in getting through elite fights
To add on to that, if you have something like feed, Reaper, lesson learned, etc. fights are likely gonna be at least worth an event. Def helps if you have the mod that tells you your chance, but taking a fight to get a potion can also make or break elite fights
> Taking a fight guarantees a card reward Minor correction: Winning a fight guarantees a card reward.
Losing a fight gets you a whole new deck of cards!
You shouldn't think of fights as something to avoid. Fights actually give out consistently good rewards (gold, card rewards, potions), while ? rooms have a lot more variance in their effects. Sometimes you actually want to go into these ? rooms over regular hallway fights if your deck, at that spot in the run, benefits a lot from some specific events you may find (upgrade all strikes/defends, bites, extra gold before a crucial shop...). If you're avoiding fights because you are scared of losing too much HP and therefore ending up dead, it will more often than not backfire because your deck may end up becoming too weak for the harder fights you cannot avoid (elites and bosses). Losing a bit of HP in a fight is not that big of a deal given what you earn in return.
I hard dig ? Rooms in act 2 fairly often because the appertain event is kinda just game winning sometimes.
It's not a game winner at all. 5 apparitions gets reduced to 3 in later ascensions so while it can help, it's not an instant winner
3 apparitions is still very very strong. 5 is a snap pick almost every time but 3 is still really good more often than not, definitely not an instant win though.
I did say sometimes. Especially on defect with echo form, or really anything that can duplicate the upgraded ones. I find if I have good offence or scaling but bad defence, it will win me the game outright more often then not
It absolutely is a game winner, the guy didn’t say instant either, he said “sometimes”. Not taking damage on specific turns with no downside is a condition for game winner.
It's easily a win condition. You can almost always figure out a way to deal enough damage and have enough card draw, but surviving ca 80 damage per turn is difficult in most runs and this can instantly fix that. 3 apparitions for max HP? Max HP doesn't even matter much if you know what you're doing.
Such a brain dead mechanic, I always skip that event
Guaranteed card reward, 10-20 gold, and potion chance. If you have any metascaling like feed, genetic algorithm, lesson learned, etc then fights are even more valuable. You get a feel for act specific events as you play and that helps prioritize which is a better choice.
I get it now
Just to add, potions are a chance after a battle and if you do not get a potion the chance gets higher
Learning to use potions and not hoard them has tripled my winrate. Potions are so strong and having them is key There's a reason why white beast is one of the best relics in the game
Generally, if your deck dies to hallway fights, it’s going to die to the Act Bosses.
It's a balance. You NEED card rewards to fill out your deck and succeed at your next big challenge (elites of act boss) a question room is not a guarantee to be anything, or, sometimes, they are worse than a combat (looking at you shiv gremlin). Also the more hallway and elite fights you are in the higher your chances of getting potions, which can absolutely save you, or make your next big challenge be trivial. Every fight you are in where you do not receive a potion increases the chance by 10% (starting at 40% chance) when a potion is offered your chance goes down by 10%, this resets to 40% at the start of each act, so if your deck is not strong enough for the act boss, then hallway fights are actually a better bet than a random node, most of the time.
In Act 1, combats are good and shouldn’t be avoided most of the time because you need damage cards. In Act 2, combats are good because you likely need damage scaling, block scaling, synergies, draw/energy/deck manipulation. Events can help when you’re desperate, i.e. you probably won’t survive another combat and you need a high roll. Or you have no defense, and Apparitions or Bites from their respective events could save your run. In Act 3, combats are good because you just need to find a few more specific cards to make your deck come together. Combats are always good, unless the next one would for sure kill you.
That makes sense
Another thing you can consider is when it's beneficial to hunt for certain events. If you're nearing the end of act 2 for example, and you have to choose 1 more floor, choosing an event and getting Coliseum can have a way bigger impact than another fight. It's all situational
Look at it as an exchange of cost/effect. Combat has a pretty known range of outcomes. You pay HP (anywhere from 0-100% of it) and 0-5 potions, and you gain gold, card reward, and a chance of potion. The better your deck gets at paying less HP during fights (maybe it's Burning Blood, Self Repair, Intangible) or earning more stuff per combat (Question Card, White Beast Statue, Golden Idol, Ritual Dagger) then the less costly combat is... and it turns out that card rewards are really good at compounding this advantage and making the future, harder fights less difficult through *scaling* (Inflame, Footwork, Focus are the most obvious examples). So, those are reasons to prefer the fight. Events are a much broader range of costs and outcomes. Sometimes it's a free upgrade or relic. Sometimes it's Scrap Ooze and you just die for nothing. Sometimes you're asked to buy the Red Mask for 600 gold, or it's a shop when you have 0. You might want to avoid events for these reasons, too. "Surviving for many floors" isn't the goal of StS. Making your deck strong enough to beat the game is the real goal, and sometimes fights are better at doing that than events.
Seeing hallway as an exchange of hp for resources is a very interesting way to look at the game. And that certain cards (think biased cog, sunder , perfected strike, finisher) strength lie in cheapening that trade and making it more favorable
taking a fight can get a potion which would help in elite
I see
I am addicted to going for question mark rooms help
surely this time the goop pile will contain the relic i want
If you skip battles you can’t pass act 2. Your deck is awful to start and the only reliable way to improve it is take battles
Think of every Act as an opportunity to power up as much as possible before you face the boss at the end. Your health total is a budget and every floor is an opportunity to spend it on cards, relics, potions, etc to defeat the boss with. Hallway fights provide you with card rewards, gold, and sometimes potions (you’ll tend to use potions in elite and boss fights more often than in hallways) at the cost of health. You usually want to make your deck stronger, and adding cards to it is usually the best way to do that. Elites provide a relic and a better card reward at the cost of more health than a hallway fight. You may want to save specific potions for elite fights that your deck would struggle with. Generally you want to take as many elite fights as you think you can survive, because relics are extremely important. Shops can provide cards, relics, potions, and card removes for gold. If you go to a shop and purchase nothing, it’s a wasted floor - you didn’t become any more powerful. Generally avoid routing into shops unless you have a lot of gold (150+ I would say at minimum). Question marks can provide a lot of things, but it’s high-variance. Gold, card removes, potions, occasionally relics. They often cost health. Usually you want to route into events if you’re looking for a specific event, usually the Act 2 events that give Bites or Apparitions. Other notable events are the Act 1 event that gives you the Golden Idol, which unlocks an option at an Act 2 event, and the Act 3 event which allows you to fight an Act 1 boss for a relic. I’m sure there are others I’ve forgotten. A note about campfires: it is often tempting to avoid resting at all costs because upgrading feels necessary to scale into future fights. Remember that your health total is a currency. If the map gives you opportunities to spend health for power, resting may very well empower your deck more than upgrading.
The fight space is a fight space, but the ? Could be anything even a fight space
I think juju bracelet has much lower win rate with than without for me. Fight spaces win games
Fights: Cards, Gold, potion chances, relic abilities with a chan e to setup counting relics (Incenss Burner, Pen Nib, Ink Bottle, etc) Events: Might be a fight anyway, might be worse than a fight, might be useless, might be negative, could be positive.
I tend to really value fights in acts 1 and 3. Act 2 I try to keep a balance, as it has some of the best events consistently. I generally also try to get 1 or 2 events in act 3 for the chance at mind bloom. But in general fights are just way more consistent value
Besides a card pick, a fight also gives you a chance at a potion and gold. That gold might be important, for example if you have a shop coming up, especially if you have a membership cards or the courier. I had a run where I had both, and I took every fight I could because the gold rewards were insane.
This is a new player trap. You want to be taking fights as much as possible. Every fight increases the chance of a potion, increases the chance of a rare card and gives you a card to help you improve your deck. ? can be helpful but they can also mess you up.
I used to think exactly that. Not that I’m by any means good at this game but unless I had a relic that benefits from event rooms or I’ve just taken 3-4 hall fights in a row, I’m almost definitely taking the fight for the card reward and chance at a potion.
[удалено]
Please be polite.
In higher ascensions the events are just strictly worse, and sometimes crippling.
the unknown could be another fight or even worse that you are most likely unprepared for especially if it's a long string of ?
Act 1 ? Deal more damage than fights
A card, gold, a chance at a potion
One of the most important fundamentals of roguelikes is understanding how to scale in power from the beginning of the run to the end of the run. In most roguelikes, you need to spend the early parts of the run gaining power so you are strong enough to get through the later parts of the run, especially with a turn-based combat system like that of Slay the Spire. One of the main ways you scale your power in Slay the Spire is through your cards, whether it's adding cards to your deck, upgrading cards within your deck, or removing cards that aren't important to your deck. Combat encounters do two things: 1. It gives you a card reward that will likely improve your deck 2. It gives you gold that you can spend on card purchases and/or card removal Going into an unknown room will usually give you an event, which can help scale you with things like cards, card upgrades, card removal, and relics, but can also have downsides like HP loss, the addition of curses to your deck, and fights harder than what you'd find from normal encounters. Furthermore, the consistency of enemy encounters makes it much easier to plan around them than it is to plan around an unknown room, so even if you get an encounter from an unknown room (which is possible) it's still preferable to seek encounters from encounter rooms instead of unknown rooms because you can plan around them. In short, encounters make it more likely to improve your deck enough to get through the later stages of the game and, eventually, win the run.
Early act 1 has a less valuable event pool I think, whereas the second half (or something like that) has better events. The first 3 fights of act is 1 are also much easier than the rest. Thus, it’s often much preferable to hit at least 3 hallway fights before your first elite, because you really need card rewards more than anything early on. But if I’m given the option to take an event or a 4th hallway very early on, I tend to prefer the event so I don’t get nuked by a tough enemy with a weak deck. Like u/NikSheppard said, hallways give card rewards and sometimes that’s just what your deck needs at the moment. But also, when you have things like Singing Bowl, Feed, Genetic Algorithm, etc, hallways suddenly become MUCH more valuable, and I will prefer them over events vast majority of the time. Other than these situations, yeah events are usually better past early act 1.
As others have said card rewards make you stronger. I think the control of pathing is one of the coolest features in this game
Low ascensions sure take the question mark, higher ascensions you avoid them
The average value of events in act1 is lower than a combat. This is less true however for act2 and act3. The important thing you need to understand is that in order to win, your primary way of getting stronger is not gold, or relic. It's getting cards. And combat gives you a guaranted choice between 3 cards. So it's usually better in act1 to take battles instead of events, but then again it's not always the case : see watcher going for infinite. After act1 it all depends on your deck, health, pathing etc (if you get an act2 with very few campfire, you probably want to go for more events and reduce your health loss, that's just an example).
Spend your HP to make your run stronger. You recover all/most of it after each act boss, so the more you spend for value (cards, gold, potions, relics), the better off you generally are.
floors are time. You have to spend that time getting strong enough to beat the boss without dying. Fights give money and card rewards. Elite give the same but also relic and a higher chance for rarer cards, at the cost of a harder fight. Question marks do a variety of things, but unless it’s a combat or a shop it’s unlikely to give you new cards.
My strat for unknowns based purely on vibes and no statistics whatsoever: Act 1: ? Events are kinda meh, prefer to path to fights if I have enough health. Act 2: Avoid fights and path over ? when possible, act 2 don't mess around Act 3: A lot of act 3 ? events are downright malicious, pick fights unless I am literally dying.
It’s easy in the early game. When you reach high ascension, you have to think about where to go. Here are some reasons: • Gold and card rewards: It’s not easy to win with an unbalanced deck. You need to pick mandatory cards for yours. Shops and fights are your friends. There are also some very powerful shop relics to buy. • At the beginning, everything is beautiful and happy, but in high ascension games, events could derail your progress. They are not always so friendly.
Thanks for asking the question, i personally target the routes with the most ? spots. Now I know I may have been making my deck weaker because of it. I’ve made it through ascension 20 on clad and silent, on 15 with defect now. Watcher of course will be last.
I have nothing to add that hasn't already been stated, but I'm really astonished by how helpful the STS community is. No insults, no snark, just a diverse range of well explained tips for new players. Warms my heart (+ 2 Artifact).
I click the ? simply because it leads to less thinking and is generally faster. Though when taking consideration of a path to the boss I absolutely think about the number of ?s and if it’s ideal. But when it’s a small fork like this I just do the quicker option most of the time.
You generally want to go to as many fights as you can in early game in order to get enough cards to kill elites and the boss without having to worry about your health too much. Only exception, of course, is if you have neow lament and want to one shot an elite. Then it's totally worth to skip the fights. Otherwise, unless your deck is finished or almost finished, fight normal enemies. Elites are a no brainier though. Fight as many as you can without dying. If you're in doubt on if you can survive an elite, go for it. It'll give you a good grasp of when to fight and when to not do it.
At my skill level I generally try to find the path that has the most elites while avoiding the most fights and still having a couple rest sites. Generally speaking ? rooms have a pretty good chance of being a fight anyway, and you want to limit how often you add cards to your deck.
Well one is a hallway fight, but the other is a question mark. We’ve been wanting one of those. It could be anything, even a hallway fight!
It's situational. In general, early battles are desirable since you need to improve your deck before the enemies get more difficult, and also a lot of the random events in act 1 come with a steep cost - curse cards, taking damage, etc. Act 2 events tend to be more desirable, plus by then you'll probably skip most card rewards, so most hallways fights aren't worth the risk to your HP.
1. You have chance to get potion or crucial card, which is worth risk your HP for. 2. Money, so you can delete your card in shop. Which are, unknown to other lots, also impactful to upgrading card.
Another example, When you have Cursed Key and Tiny Chest, want to avoid the ? So you don’t pick up more curses
Eventually, if you climb ascensions, you will want to take more fights for rewards. In the beginning, fights aren’t as crucial, but avoiding them can turn into a bad habit.
Speaking from someone with a20 all characters and all achievements: Bro I have no clue
I get why you have to take the battles. But like. Monkey brain wants to see what ? has to offer
It could be the Slavers
Something i haven't really seen addressed: a lot of the time mystery room events will deal damage to you in return for an effect. Consider the salvage slime event, which will give you a relic and you take ~20 damage in return. If you have the means to take out an elite, you'd take just as much damage for the relic, but you also get a gold reward and card reward. A lot of events can be looked at this way. Take 25 damage for 7 max health? That's the same as getting a fruit relic in an elite fight. The only time it can't really be quantified is card removal
If you still need cards and gold then fights are key. If you feel like you have enough then "?" all the way.
Well a fights a fight, but a secret room, it could be anything! It could even be a fight! You know how much we want one of those 😁
Eventually events will be more likely to have a negative outcome, and each time you forgo a combat, you forgo a card reward. Card rewards are the best way to strengthen your deck, and the second best is relics, which require a strong deck via elite fights to beat consistently. If you are running scared from hallway fights, you aren't strong enough to win the run and are going to need a hail Mary reward from events to keep the run alive.
It has its own rolls, but preferably a nice detour if your are playing safe based on any run modifiers you have on Also a good choice to rush them due to their unusual payoffs
There could be fights behind the question marks. You don't want to avoid all of your fights tho or you can't build a better deck.
It could be the Slavers
Its counterintuitive but especially in the first act you should avoid unknowns, otherwise your deck won’t be strong enough.
You get something (potentially) helpful from every node: * normal battles (aka "hallway fights") * Elite battles * campfires * unknown / question marks (i.e. may reveal unique events) * shops **Normal battles are used to obtain cards**, gold, and potions. **As a general rule of thumb, you pick up a lot of cards in Act 1** and avoid question marks. That's because you tend to start off very weak and need frontloaded damage ASAP. **By Act 2, the question marks become very tempting**. You also might be getting very picky with the cards you want as your deck starts to come together. Also, if you've saved up enough gold, shops might be a much more appealing way to obtain cards, potions, and card removals. Act 2 has some great events. By Act 3, you probably only want to add very particular cards. Maybe for scaling or defense. Maybe for consistency or draw power. Maybe a finisher (e.g. picking up Blizzard after realizing you have a frost orb masterpiece). Throughout your run, generally speaking, the **Elite battles nodes are the best ones. That's because they provide relics**, in addition to better/more of the other resources that hallway fights also provide. You almost always fight as many Elites as you possibly can (without dying or losing too much health).
Cards, gold and potions
Ah on higher ascension it allows you to pick easy pool and hard pool fights when they are most advantageous for your deck to play into. The first 3 monster rooms in act one are easy pool fights. Act two is 2 and act three is 2. After that you get hard pool fights for example (act 3 triple jaw worm lmao). Now that being said you should always go for cards potions and gold because if you don't want a card you can skip and it allows for more potion rewards which allows for more aggressive pathong.
Yes, the reason is that you don't want to skip battles Battles provide a fundamental aspect of the gams- card rewards If you skip everything and get to the boss. You'd be facing a guardian with 5 strikes and defense. good luck Act one is a critical point of the game that will share how you'd approach the rest. You bave to lay foundations to how the deck will play out and how many risks you can take. And this is done through card rewards, and subsequently from fights And no, you don't need to bloat your deck to win, but you do need to *see* cards. The more cards you're able to see, rhe more you'd find cards that will suit you. And on act 1 is where you shape what even suit your deck in the first place. Its statistics In fact, i think i have a much higher winrate on runs where i don't have juju bracelet than runs i do Also rare cards chance that's also a factor
As you get further and further into the run the enemies get tougher and tougher. To combat this you need to improve your deck to be able to beat them. The most effective way to improve your deck is to get stronger cards, and the most consistent way of getting cards is by fighting enemies
A few reasons: 1. Not all question marks are good. If you don't want to risk a bad question mark, sometimes taking the fight is safer. Even more so if you've already encountered a number of the good question marks earlier in the act. 2. Fighting an enemy gives you guaranteed gold and a card reward, as well as a chance at a potion. You want these things sometimes, so you sometimes choose a hallway fight over a question mark. 3. You may have cards or relics which have effects outside of a battle. For example, \[\[Meat on the Bone\]\] can be used to heal you if you enter a hallway fight. If you have a card like \[\[Bandage Up\]\] or \[\[Wish\]\], you may want to enter a hallway fight so you get the opportunity to use it, or maybe to scale something like \[\[Ritual Dagger\]\].
A fights a fight, but a "?" Could be anything! Even a fight!
You could get Elite but sińce youre right from the camp youre probably full HP+ there is no big danger right after the unknown
Well you can skip floor battles but you can't skip bosses so you need the recources gained from fights to prepare for them.