Question about difficulty for experienced players

[Quicken Loans]

I played pre-1.0 and reached solo tier 20. I'm currently on tier 13, and I do think the difficulty scaling is too high. Most of the discussions I see are people complaining the difficulty is too hard at tier 0 (I disagree with this). I'm curious if other players, who have experience with the game, agree that balance changes need to be made post tier 10.

Side note: After experimenting with a ton of different builds and strategies, I've found that taking the Blessing of Misplaced Nobility trinket (-25hp and +5 shielding) to give me the most success. Having free shield on every turn gives you so much room, and it feels unbalanced compared to the other trinkets. What strategies/trinkets have you found the most success with on 1.0?

[goiflin]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Quicken Loans:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Gifts Ungiven:

If you "just do those things", you will win more than you lose. You will never win 100% of the time when playing at the difficulty that best aligns with your expertise. Most options in the game are perfectly viable and worth incorporating into your build.

If you are struggling with that, reassess your grasp of those fundamentals or try and be more specific in the elements you find most lacking. Generalized feelings of "meh, ♥♥♥♥ don't work" aren't good for more than a vibe check at best, but if you think there's a specific set, augment, binding, etc that is out out proportion, that would lead to much more fruitful conversation and theorizing.

Fair enough. To be clear, all of what I'm going to say is not from the perspective that it's impossible to beat the game at tier 20 or that it's highly unlikely. It's that, because of the high degree of specificity needed to win with the added high level of RNG, it isn't worth trying or isn't fun, i.e. the game has unbalanced difficulty.

For aspects, the magma miner, obelisk, chain breaker, and star captain suffer greatly at higher tiers. I don't believe that you are winning almost every tier 20 run on these aspects.

For bindings, I would argue that blink, pilfer, grasp, and quicken are complete garbage and never worth taking at higher tiers. When you account for 16 pickable bindings, this is 1/4 of your choices. Restoration, cultivate, jinx, shocked, and frostbite are "ok" in some scenarios, but never feel that great.

Vestiges have tons of issues. Let's start with ambusher set. The set 10 bonus is ridiculous to chase for what you'd be giving up along the way. Even getting the set 6 bonus is most likely never worth it. I'll just list all the sets that I don't think are worth chasing at high tiers because you're giving up too much damage/defense/utility. Ambusher, kwilling, expert binder, ancient wisdom (yes, even this isn't worth chasing because of everything else you're passing), haunted (I think haunted is awesome in theory, and I love blur, but going to 6 stacks is lacking so much damage), shocked, startwalker (7), mythos, curious, frostfire, and fabled. Again...not saying you can't use these or you can't win runs using them. They're just so undertuned. Adding in the "any aspect can win any seed at tier 20 almost 100% of the time" is just extremely difficult to believe unless you're an artificial intelligence.

The point the previous poster made about Slay the Spire is 100% true. This game just needs to balance a few of the systems/classes to make runs feel a bit more malleable...that you actually CAN play with what the game throws at you.

See this is really interesting to me because I consider Blink, Pilfer, and Grasp to be pretty high tier at 20, and Obelisk and Magma Miner feel a lot more easy to win with on 20 for me as well. But this is coop perspective so I'm sure it's different solo. I also disagree with your assessment of some of the set bonuses. Starwalker 7/Expert Binder/Haunted/Mythos/Curios/Frostfire/Fabled do feel like whatever sets that you're mostly just getting as a nice bonus, not something you build towards. The rest are ranging from legitimate win conditions to reasonable enough splashes in a build to shore up weaknesses or deal with specific circumstances.

As far as what StS does is concerned, StS isn't really about builds, hence the malleability. This game is about builds. It's going to be inherently more constrained through this function of sets. You take a blade dance floor 1 every time on silent when it's offered on a20 because that is what you do in StS. You don't "build shivs" because you did this, you did it to give yourself some frontloaded damage. If you find a kunai, cool. That gives you +1 dex every time you use it. Does it mean you draft a bunch of blade dances? Only if you need the dex. Perhaps you've come across nightmare/wraith form by this point and no longer give a ♥♥♥♥ about kunai. Maybe you're getting blue key instead at that point. You can't really design Inkbound like this at this point in time. It's too tied to sets, vestiges, and many, many other considerations that StS doesn't have.

Despite the games having similarities they are really quite different at their core. You can't really compare them at all.

[Solarson]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Quicken Loans:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Gifts Ungiven:

If you "just do those things", you will win more than you lose. You will never win 100% of the time when playing at the difficulty that best aligns with your expertise. Most options in the game are perfectly viable and worth incorporating into your build.

If you are struggling with that, reassess your grasp of those fundamentals or try and be more specific in the elements you find most lacking. Generalized feelings of "meh, ♥♥♥♥ don't work" aren't good for more than a vibe check at best, but if you think there's a specific set, augment, binding, etc that is out out proportion, that would lead to much more fruitful conversation and theorizing.

Fair enough. To be clear, all of what I'm going to say is not from the perspective that it's impossible to beat the game at tier 20 or that it's highly unlikely. It's that, because of the high degree of specificity needed to win with the added high level of RNG, it isn't worth trying or isn't fun, i.e. the game has unbalanced difficulty.

For aspects, the magma miner, obelisk, chain breaker, and star captain suffer greatly at higher tiers. I don't believe that you are winning almost every tier 20 run on these aspects.

For bindings, I would argue that blink, pilfer, grasp, and quicken are complete garbage and never worth taking at higher tiers. When you account for 16 pickable bindings, this is 1/4 of your choices. Restoration, cultivate, jinx, shocked, and frostbite are "ok" in some scenarios, but never feel that great.

Vestiges have tons of issues. Let's start with ambusher set. The set 10 bonus is ridiculous to chase for what you'd be giving up along the way. Even getting the set 6 bonus is most likely never worth it. I'll just list all the sets that I don't think are worth chasing at high tiers because you're giving up too much damage/defense/utility. Ambusher, kwilling, expert binder, ancient wisdom (yes, even this isn't worth chasing because of everything else you're passing), haunted (I think haunted is awesome in theory, and I love blur, but going to 6 stacks is lacking so much damage), shocked, startwalker (7), mythos, curious, frostfire, and fabled. Again...not saying you can't use these or you can't win runs using them. They're just so undertuned. Adding in the "any aspect can win any seed at tier 20 almost 100% of the time" is just extremely difficult to believe unless you're an artificial intelligence.

The point the previous poster made about Slay the Spire is 100% true. This game just needs to balance a few of the systems/classes to make runs feel a bit more malleable...that you actually CAN play with what the game throws at you.

WHAT? Bro, you are so clueless about the bindings, they are probably the most balanced aspect in the whole game.

Blink is ALWAYS a good pick because you can get Extraction Blink as an Epic which is basically 1 free Orb per turn, not only that but Blink allows you to avoid certain bosses area attacks completely or take significantly less damage, in higher ranks when you already have reduced movement this is an amazing Binding. The other bindings are also all good, I'd say from the ones you mentioned, Pilfer is probably the weakest but if you get Chalice (Omni Damage when Using potions in Combat) and get the Ascencion for Pilfer to Spawn potions in Combat it's ridiculously strong. Grasp is amazing for inflicting Marked and in Co-op is one of the best support Bindings. Quicken gives you movement and reduces Cooldown, it's basically Blink except you don't move as much but it reduces all your Cooldowns.
Jinx is an absolute carry Binding, if you're struggling with damage you can have this skill on the backpocket and destroy everything, most people don't know how to use it properly but it's amazing. Shocked is Top Tier in Co-op and amazing on aspects like Magma Miner; Restoration is very useful, just has to be used at the right time, also better in Co-op.

I'll agree with the general statements about the Vestige Sets that you made but not all of them are weak like you claim to be. The ones i'd consider weak are: Ambusher, Fabled, Frostfire, Mythos & Haunted. Some of them need to be reworked or removed but apart from that the game is in an amazing spot.

[Quicken Loans]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Solarson:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Quicken Loans:

Fair enough. To be clear, all of what I'm going to say is not from the perspective that it's impossible to beat the game at tier 20 or that it's highly unlikely. It's that, because of the high degree of specificity needed to win with the added high level of RNG, it isn't worth trying or isn't fun, i.e. the game has unbalanced difficulty.

For aspects, the magma miner, obelisk, chain breaker, and star captain suffer greatly at higher tiers. I don't believe that you are winning almost every tier 20 run on these aspects.

For bindings, I would argue that blink, pilfer, grasp, and quicken are complete garbage and never worth taking at higher tiers. When you account for 16 pickable bindings, this is 1/4 of your choices. Restoration, cultivate, jinx, shocked, and frostbite are "ok" in some scenarios, but never feel that great.

Vestiges have tons of issues. Let's start with ambusher set. The set 10 bonus is ridiculous to chase for what you'd be giving up along the way. Even getting the set 6 bonus is most likely never worth it. I'll just list all the sets that I don't think are worth chasing at high tiers because you're giving up too much damage/defense/utility. Ambusher, kwilling, expert binder, ancient wisdom (yes, even this isn't worth chasing because of everything else you're passing), haunted (I think haunted is awesome in theory, and I love blur, but going to 6 stacks is lacking so much damage), shocked, startwalker (7), mythos, curious, frostfire, and fabled. Again...not saying you can't use these or you can't win runs using them. They're just so undertuned. Adding in the "any aspect can win any seed at tier 20 almost 100% of the time" is just extremely difficult to believe unless you're an artificial intelligence.

The point the previous poster made about Slay the Spire is 100% true. This game just needs to balance a few of the systems/classes to make runs feel a bit more malleable...that you actually CAN play with what the game throws at you.

WHAT? Bro, you are so clueless about the bindings, they are probably the most balanced aspect in the whole game.

Blink is ALWAYS a good pick because you can get Extraction Blink as an Epic which is basically 1 free Orb per turn, not only that but Blink allows you to avoid certain bosses area attacks completely or take significantly less damage, in higher ranks when you already have reduced movement this is an amazing Binding. The other bindings are also all good, I'd say from the ones you mentioned, Pilfer is probably the weakest but if you get Chalice (Omni Damage when Using potions in Combat) and get the Ascencion for Pilfer to Spawn potions in Combat it's ridiculously strong. Grasp is amazing for inflicting Marked and in Co-op is one of the best support Bindings. Quicken gives you movement and reduces Cooldown, it's basically Blink except you don't move as much but it reduces all your Cooldowns.
Jinx is an absolute carry Binding, if you're struggling with damage you can have this skill on the backpocket and destroy everything, most people don't know how to use it properly but it's amazing. Shocked is Top Tier in Co-op and amazing on aspects like Magma Miner; Restoration is very useful, just has to be used at the right time, also better in Co-op.

I'll agree with the general statements about the Vestige Sets that you made but not all of them are weak like you claim to be. The ones i'd consider weak are: Ambusher, Fabled, Frostfire, Mythos & Haunted. Some of them need to be reworked or removed but apart from that the game is in an amazing spot.

Saying I'm clueless is a bit harsh. I have 100 hours in the game - it's just my opinion. You agree that pilfer is weak, but your counter argument is "if x and y and z line up, it's great!" You're proving my point - if you read through the thread, I've never said that certain things can't work or can't be strong. It's that they are very unreliable - having to rely on certain augments to show is not good. Also, you make comments about co-op. As stated about a dozen times in the thread, this is about solo play. Those comments distract from the flow of conversation. I do stick by Blink not being worth taking at higher tiers - NOT that you can't win with it or make it viable.

I will agree the game is in a great spot (I'd give it a 9/10 in it's current state). I'm merely pointing out how I believe it could be even better with simple and minor balance changes.

[Gifts Ungiven]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Quicken Loans:

Fair enough. To be clear, all of what I'm going to say is not from the perspective that it's impossible to beat the game at tier 20 or that it's highly unlikely. It's that, because of the high degree of specificity needed to win with the added high level of RNG, it isn't worth trying or isn't fun, i.e. the game has unbalanced difficulty.

For aspects, the magma miner, obelisk, chain breaker, and star captain suffer greatly at higher tiers. I don't believe that you are winning almost every tier 20 run on these aspects.

For bindings, I would argue that blink, pilfer, grasp, and quicken are complete garbage and never worth taking at higher tiers. When you account for 16 pickable bindings, this is 1/4 of your choices. Restoration, cultivate, jinx, shocked, and frostbite are "ok" in some scenarios, but never feel that great.

Vestiges have tons of issues. Let's start with ambusher set. The set 10 bonus is ridiculous to chase for what you'd be giving up along the way. Even getting the set 6 bonus is most likely never worth it. I'll just list all the sets that I don't think are worth chasing at high tiers because you're giving up too much damage/defense/utility. Ambusher, kwilling, expert binder, ancient wisdom (yes, even this isn't worth chasing because of everything else you're passing), haunted (I think haunted is awesome in theory, and I love blur, but going to 6 stacks is lacking so much damage), shocked, startwalker (7), mythos, curious, frostfire, and fabled. Again...not saying you can't use these or you can't win runs using them. They're just so undertuned. Adding in the "any aspect can win any seed at tier 20 almost 100% of the time" is just extremely difficult to believe unless you're an artificial intelligence.

The point the previous poster made about Slay the Spire is 100% true. This game just needs to balance a few of the systems/classes to make runs feel a bit more malleable...that you actually CAN play with what the game throws at you.

I asked you for specifics, so I'll try and address them all here for you. You're definitely undervaluing most of the things you're doggin' on though.

Blink is an S+ tier draft binding, you're not even in the realm of reasonable on your take otherwise. Quicken is one of the best ways to completely break your action economy and cooldown limitations, and is never a bad pick either. Both of them are mobility bindings with powerful cooldown resets + orb and will generation, and they only become more valuable in higher Ranks due to the negative mobility-per-turn malus that you have to start working around.

Pilfer is secretly a mobility binding as well, on top of being another way to get ahead of the power scaling curve. Sometimes, in some battles, you won't get to use Pilfer and that's ok. Most of the time though, it earns you a decent enough chunk of kwillings that then gives you the freedom to make other choices during your island selection without having to worry about having enough to spend at the Carver for the high-tilt vestige shop or the 15HP blood pool. Pilfer also has absolutely ridiculous Ascensions and Epic Augments, making it a good candidate to save un-augmented until the end of Book 2 (or if you get lucky up-rarity rolls) to turn it into a perpetual orb & money machine.

As someone else has already said in response to you, the drafted bindings and their augmented/ascended potential are legitimately all powerful and pickable. Sometimes they can be the centerpiece of your entire build, with Jinx being a classic win-con for more support-oriented Weavers, or Shock often being the best thing you could possibly draft on Star Captain. Other times these bindings unlock vestige synergies you'd otherwise not be able to utilize, with Grasp being the most direct way to get Marked bonuses on non-Mosscloak classes. I absolutely assure you that you could never re-roll your options and win with any 2 bindings that you select.

The only class I felt was a real toss-up until recently would be Chainbreaker. His kit gets really stupid once he starts picking up Augments to decrease Will costs, or gets similar vestiges, but he has a play pattern that can only press forward. His success is highly dependent on whether you're hitting proper DPS breakpoints during Book 1, so you needed to make some really tight plays and tighter dice rolls to get your there. I haven't played him since the patch today, but I'm sure he's stronger now.

As for vestiges, you really need to stop tunnel-visioning yourself into thinking you have to complete every set. These bonuses are more akin to a system like "Teamfight Tactics", if that helps you with better perspective. Some sets with really high reqs will have equally high payoffs, but that doesn't need to be your goal to find a winning build. It's a fun little dopamine high-roll when 10x Ambusher does happen, but you can still get value out of those vestiges with their turn 1 effect, let alone their 2 // 3 turn effects. Most battles don't last much more than 3 turns anyways if you're getting powerful upfront burst to complete them ASAP, and you can grind or discard those once better options appear.

Expert Binding, Starwalker, and Ancient Wisdom are all incredible. Starwalker of course loses any value if you drafted damage bindings, but is really good for that Blink and Restoration you took earlier. Ancient Wisdom 4 is really easy to get in Book 1, as there are a bunch of green vestiges with the set, so two of them and two grinders get you there. Two grinds + a Sea Trickle, and now you have Ancient Wisdom 5 with an extra little chance for more.

Mythos and Curio are weird, but you can usually just ignore them since they're often attached to otherwise great vestiges to carry. Similar to Ancient Wisdom, you can get either one to 4 pretty easily in Book 1 if you decide to make that a priority. This is usually a decision that you'll make when the very first few common drafts up-rarity roll one of the vestiges with Curio or Mythos, you grind it for 2Set in the first grinder, go back and open + re-roll for a 2nd copy, and pitch it to the very next grinder. These set bonuses are just little treats, but don't worry if you don't ever take a bite.

I'll still stand by my statement that you can start with any one set of resources and find a winning path by selecting from the random options you're given. Of course some builds will be better than others, but you can solve the dmg/def/will/cooldown puzzle in many different ways and configurations.

[Solarson]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Quicken Loans:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Solarson:

WHAT? Bro, you are so clueless about the bindings, they are probably the most balanced aspect in the whole game.

Blink is ALWAYS a good pick because you can get Extraction Blink as an Epic which is basically 1 free Orb per turn, not only that but Blink allows you to avoid certain bosses area attacks completely or take significantly less damage, in higher ranks when you already have reduced movement this is an amazing Binding. The other bindings are also all good, I'd say from the ones you mentioned, Pilfer is probably the weakest but if you get Chalice (Omni Damage when Using potions in Combat) and get the Ascencion for Pilfer to Spawn potions in Combat it's ridiculously strong. Grasp is amazing for inflicting Marked and in Co-op is one of the best support Bindings. Quicken gives you movement and reduces Cooldown, it's basically Blink except you don't move as much but it reduces all your Cooldowns.
Jinx is an absolute carry Binding, if you're struggling with damage you can have this skill on the backpocket and destroy everything, most people don't know how to use it properly but it's amazing. Shocked is Top Tier in Co-op and amazing on aspects like Magma Miner; Restoration is very useful, just has to be used at the right time, also better in Co-op.

I'll agree with the general statements about the Vestige Sets that you made but not all of them are weak like you claim to be. The ones i'd consider weak are: Ambusher, Fabled, Frostfire, Mythos & Haunted. Some of them need to be reworked or removed but apart from that the game is in an amazing spot.

Saying I'm clueless is a bit harsh. I have 100 hours in the game - it's just my opinion. You agree that pilfer is weak, but your counter argument is "if x and y and z line up, it's great!" You're proving my point - if you read through the thread, I've never said that certain things can't work or can't be strong. It's that they are very unreliable - having to rely on certain augments to show is not good. Also, you make comments about co-op. As stated about a dozen times in the thread, this is about solo play. Those comments distract from the flow of conversation. I do stick by Blink not being worth taking at higher tiers - NOT that you can't win with it or make it viable.

I will agree the game is in a great spot (I'd give it a 9/10 in it's current state). I'm merely pointing out how I believe it could be even better with simple and minor balance changes.

That's not what I said. lol

Every binding is usable from the get-go and you can make all of them work on any character and in Solo, I have Rank 20 in Solo and in Co-op, I almost always just go with what the game gives me, the only things I avoid picking is DoTs if I'm not doing a build for it. Everything else is fair game, you just build around it.
I was just giving you an example of when Pilfer absolutely shines. Pilfer is still good in general just to get kwillings and allow you to re-roll stuff more heavily or even use the health pools.

Co-op is part of the game, of course it will be mentioned here and there; every binding you said was weak works really well in Solo as well but of course some of them are bound to be a little bit stronger in Co-op like Grasp, Restoration, Afterimage etc.

The fact that you keep insisting that Blink is not worth taking is giving me low rank player vibes because that's generally accepted as one of the most all-round Binding picks regardless of your Aspect.

[Quicken Loans]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Solarson:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Quicken Loans:

Saying I'm clueless is a bit harsh. I have 100 hours in the game - it's just my opinion. You agree that pilfer is weak, but your counter argument is "if x and y and z line up, it's great!" You're proving my point - if you read through the thread, I've never said that certain things can't work or can't be strong. It's that they are very unreliable - having to rely on certain augments to show is not good. Also, you make comments about co-op. As stated about a dozen times in the thread, this is about solo play. Those comments distract from the flow of conversation. I do stick by Blink not being worth taking at higher tiers - NOT that you can't win with it or make it viable.

I will agree the game is in a great spot (I'd give it a 9/10 in it's current state). I'm merely pointing out how I believe it could be even better with simple and minor balance changes.

That's not what I said. lol

Every binding is usable from the get-go and you can make all of them work on any character and in Solo, I have Rank 20 in Solo and in Co-op, I almost always just go with what the game gives me, the only things I avoid picking is DoTs if I'm not doing a build for it. Everything else is fair game, you just build around it.
I was just giving you an example of when Pilfer absolutely shines. Pilfer is still good in general just to get kwillings and allow you to re-roll stuff more heavily or even use the health pools.

Co-op is part of the game, of course it will be mentioned here and there; every binding you said was weak works really well in Solo as well but of course some of them are bound to be a little bit stronger in Co-op like Grasp, Restoration, Afterimage etc.

The fact that you keep insisting that Blink is not worth taking is giving me low rank player vibes because that's generally accepted as one of the most all-round Binding picks regardless of your Aspect.

That's what this conversation is about...trying to understand from experienced players what is working for them. My experience with Blink has always been bad, but two people say it's amazing, so now I'll revisit it! I will guarantee there are mechanics in the game that I've been successful with that you haven't. You're attacking me for no reason by saying I give you low rank vibes - it's not necessary, and no need for a superiority complex.

As with the co-op statement - I didn't say co-op shouldnt be discussed. But that's not the topic of this discussion lmao. Popping in and just throwing opinions about certain aspects of the game that aren't being discusses and applying them to other aspects of the game isn't helpful.

[Quicken Loans]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Gifts Ungiven:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Quicken Loans:

Fair enough. To be clear, all of what I'm going to say is not from the perspective that it's impossible to beat the game at tier 20 or that it's highly unlikely. It's that, because of the high degree of specificity needed to win with the added high level of RNG, it isn't worth trying or isn't fun, i.e. the game has unbalanced difficulty.

For aspects, the magma miner, obelisk, chain breaker, and star captain suffer greatly at higher tiers. I don't believe that you are winning almost every tier 20 run on these aspects.

For bindings, I would argue that blink, pilfer, grasp, and quicken are complete garbage and never worth taking at higher tiers. When you account for 16 pickable bindings, this is 1/4 of your choices. Restoration, cultivate, jinx, shocked, and frostbite are "ok" in some scenarios, but never feel that great.

Vestiges have tons of issues. Let's start with ambusher set. The set 10 bonus is ridiculous to chase for what you'd be giving up along the way. Even getting the set 6 bonus is most likely never worth it. I'll just list all the sets that I don't think are worth chasing at high tiers because you're giving up too much damage/defense/utility. Ambusher, kwilling, expert binder, ancient wisdom (yes, even this isn't worth chasing because of everything else you're passing), haunted (I think haunted is awesome in theory, and I love blur, but going to 6 stacks is lacking so much damage), shocked, startwalker (7), mythos, curious, frostfire, and fabled. Again...not saying you can't use these or you can't win runs using them. They're just so undertuned. Adding in the "any aspect can win any seed at tier 20 almost 100% of the time" is just extremely difficult to believe unless you're an artificial intelligence.

The point the previous poster made about Slay the Spire is 100% true. This game just needs to balance a few of the systems/classes to make runs feel a bit more malleable...that you actually CAN play with what the game throws at you.

I asked you for specifics, so I'll try and address them all here for you. You're definitely undervaluing most of the things you're doggin' on though.

Blink is an S+ tier draft binding, you're not even in the realm of reasonable on your take otherwise. Quicken is one of the best ways to completely break your action economy and cooldown limitations, and is never a bad pick either. Both of them are mobility bindings with powerful cooldown resets + orb and will generation, and they only become more valuable in higher Ranks due to the negative mobility-per-turn malus that you have to start working around.

Pilfer is secretly a mobility binding as well, on top of being another way to get ahead of the power scaling curve. Sometimes, in some battles, you won't get to use Pilfer and that's ok. Most of the time though, it earns you a decent enough chunk of kwillings that then gives you the freedom to make other choices during your island selection without having to worry about having enough to spend at the Carver for the high-tilt vestige shop or the 15HP blood pool. Pilfer also has absolutely ridiculous Ascensions and Epic Augments, making it a good candidate to save un-augmented until the end of Book 2 (or if you get lucky up-rarity rolls) to turn it into a perpetual orb & money machine.

As someone else has already said in response to you, the drafted bindings and their augmented/ascended potential are legitimately all powerful and pickable. Sometimes they can be the centerpiece of your entire build, with Jinx being a classic win-con for more support-oriented Weavers, or Shock often being the best thing you could possibly draft on Star Captain. Other times these bindings unlock vestige synergies you'd otherwise not be able to utilize, with Grasp being the most direct way to get Marked bonuses on non-Mosscloak classes. I absolutely assure you that you could never re-roll your options and win with any 2 bindings that you select.

The only class I felt was a real toss-up until recently would be Chainbreaker. His kit gets really stupid once he starts picking up Augments to decrease Will costs, or gets similar vestiges, but he has a play pattern that can only press forward. His success is highly dependent on whether you're hitting proper DPS breakpoints during Book 1, so you needed to make some really tight plays and tighter dice rolls to get your there. I haven't played him since the patch today, but I'm sure he's stronger now.

As for vestiges, you really need to stop tunnel-visioning yourself into thinking you have to complete every set. These bonuses are more akin to a system like "Teamfight Tactics", if that helps you with better perspective. Some sets with really high reqs will have equally high payoffs, but that doesn't need to be your goal to find a winning build. It's a fun little dopamine high-roll when 10x Ambusher does happen, but you can still get value out of those vestiges with their turn 1 effect, let alone their 2 // 3 turn effects. Most battles don't last much more than 3 turns anyways if you're getting powerful upfront burst to complete them ASAP, and you can grind or discard those once better options appear.

Expert Binding, Starwalker, and Ancient Wisdom are all incredible. Starwalker of course loses any value if you drafted damage bindings, but is really good for that Blink and Restoration you took earlier. Ancient Wisdom 4 is really easy to get in Book 1, as there are a bunch of green vestiges with the set, so two of them and two grinders get you there. Two grinds + a Sea Trickle, and now you have Ancient Wisdom 5 with an extra little chance for more.

Mythos and Curio are weird, but you can usually just ignore them since they're often attached to otherwise great vestiges to carry. Similar to Ancient Wisdom, you can get either one to 4 pretty easily in Book 1 if you decide to make that a priority. This is usually a decision that you'll make when the very first few common drafts up-rarity roll one of the vestiges with Curio or Mythos, you grind it for 2Set in the first grinder, go back and open + re-roll for a 2nd copy, and pitch it to the very next grinder. These set bonuses are just little treats, but don't worry if you don't ever take a bite.

I'll still stand by my statement that you can start with any one set of resources and find a winning path by selecting from the random options you're given. Of course some builds will be better than others, but you can solve the dmg/def/will/cooldown puzzle in many different ways and configurations.

I appreciate the lengthy explanations. I'll definitely take all of this into consideration and revisit some of the bindings that I've previously had trouble with. This is essentially what I was seeking from the get-go, so it's extremely helpful.

I would like to ask you about seeds and the statement "almost every seed is winnable." Are you testing this? Are you replaying seeds to better your play/strategy? If so, I would like to do the same. How do you replay seeds?

[Solarson]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Quicken Loans:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Solarson:

That's not what I said. lol

Every binding is usable from the get-go and you can make all of them work on any character and in Solo, I have Rank 20 in Solo and in Co-op, I almost always just go with what the game gives me, the only things I avoid picking is DoTs if I'm not doing a build for it. Everything else is fair game, you just build around it.
I was just giving you an example of when Pilfer absolutely shines. Pilfer is still good in general just to get kwillings and allow you to re-roll stuff more heavily or even use the health pools.

Co-op is part of the game, of course it will be mentioned here and there; every binding you said was weak works really well in Solo as well but of course some of them are bound to be a little bit stronger in Co-op like Grasp, Restoration, Afterimage etc.

The fact that you keep insisting that Blink is not worth taking is giving me low rank player vibes because that's generally accepted as one of the most all-round Binding picks regardless of your Aspect.

That's what this conversation is about...trying to understand from experienced players what is working for them. My experience with Blink has always been bad, but two people say it's amazing, so now I'll revisit it! I will guarantee there are mechanics in the game that I've been successful with that you haven't. You're attacking me for no reason by saying I give you low rank vibes - it's not necessary, and no need for a superiority complex.

As with the co-op statement - I didn't say co-op shouldnt be discussed. But that's not the topic of this discussion lmao. Popping in and just throwing opinions about certain aspects of the game that aren't being discusses and applying them to other aspects of the game isn't helpful.

I've literally never went off-topic. You are asking for opinions of experienced players and I gave it to you. Not my fault you're taking things as "personal attacks", it's just the reality that if someone can't get Rank 20 in current season then they are probably less experienced or don't have a full grasp on how everything works. You can win pretty much every run by utilizing what the game gives you to the best potential (unless you're playing Solo Chainbreaker) so when you claim certain things are bad and have yet to reach the highest difficulty in the game then ofc you'll get questioned.

The whole point of the topic was to gather opinions and you're defensive when they're here. I suggest you simply join Inkbound's Discord server since Steam forums is not the best place to discuss this type of stuff and there's a lot of experienced players on the Discord that can help with any questions.

[Gifts Ungiven]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Quicken Loans:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Gifts Ungiven:

I asked you for specifics, so I'll try and address them all here for you. You're definitely undervaluing most of the things you're doggin' on though.

Blink is an S+ tier draft binding, you're not even in the realm of reasonable on your take otherwise. Quicken is one of the best ways to completely break your action economy and cooldown limitations, and is never a bad pick either. Both of them are mobility bindings with powerful cooldown resets + orb and will generation, and they only become more valuable in higher Ranks due to the negative mobility-per-turn malus that you have to start working around.

Pilfer is secretly a mobility binding as well, on top of being another way to get ahead of the power scaling curve. Sometimes, in some battles, you won't get to use Pilfer and that's ok. Most of the time though, it earns you a decent enough chunk of kwillings that then gives you the freedom to make other choices during your island selection without having to worry about having enough to spend at the Carver for the high-tilt vestige shop or the 15HP blood pool. Pilfer also has absolutely ridiculous Ascensions and Epic Augments, making it a good candidate to save un-augmented until the end of Book 2 (or if you get lucky up-rarity rolls) to turn it into a perpetual orb & money machine.

As someone else has already said in response to you, the drafted bindings and their augmented/ascended potential are legitimately all powerful and pickable. Sometimes they can be the centerpiece of your entire build, with Jinx being a classic win-con for more support-oriented Weavers, or Shock often being the best thing you could possibly draft on Star Captain. Other times these bindings unlock vestige synergies you'd otherwise not be able to utilize, with Grasp being the most direct way to get Marked bonuses on non-Mosscloak classes. I absolutely assure you that you could never re-roll your options and win with any 2 bindings that you select.

The only class I felt was a real toss-up until recently would be Chainbreaker. His kit gets really stupid once he starts picking up Augments to decrease Will costs, or gets similar vestiges, but he has a play pattern that can only press forward. His success is highly dependent on whether you're hitting proper DPS breakpoints during Book 1, so you needed to make some really tight plays and tighter dice rolls to get your there. I haven't played him since the patch today, but I'm sure he's stronger now.

As for vestiges, you really need to stop tunnel-visioning yourself into thinking you have to complete every set. These bonuses are more akin to a system like "Teamfight Tactics", if that helps you with better perspective. Some sets with really high reqs will have equally high payoffs, but that doesn't need to be your goal to find a winning build. It's a fun little dopamine high-roll when 10x Ambusher does happen, but you can still get value out of those vestiges with their turn 1 effect, let alone their 2 // 3 turn effects. Most battles don't last much more than 3 turns anyways if you're getting powerful upfront burst to complete them ASAP, and you can grind or discard those once better options appear.

Expert Binding, Starwalker, and Ancient Wisdom are all incredible. Starwalker of course loses any value if you drafted damage bindings, but is really good for that Blink and Restoration you took earlier. Ancient Wisdom 4 is really easy to get in Book 1, as there are a bunch of green vestiges with the set, so two of them and two grinders get you there. Two grinds + a Sea Trickle, and now you have Ancient Wisdom 5 with an extra little chance for more.

Mythos and Curio are weird, but you can usually just ignore them since they're often attached to otherwise great vestiges to carry. Similar to Ancient Wisdom, you can get either one to 4 pretty easily in Book 1 if you decide to make that a priority. This is usually a decision that you'll make when the very first few common drafts up-rarity roll one of the vestiges with Curio or Mythos, you grind it for 2Set in the first grinder, go back and open + re-roll for a 2nd copy, and pitch it to the very next grinder. These set bonuses are just little treats, but don't worry if you don't ever take a bite.

I'll still stand by my statement that you can start with any one set of resources and find a winning path by selecting from the random options you're given. Of course some builds will be better than others, but you can solve the dmg/def/will/cooldown puzzle in many different ways and configurations.

I appreciate the lengthy explanations. I'll definitely take all of this into consideration and revisit some of the bindings that I've previously had trouble with. This is essentially what I was seeking from the get-go, so it's extremely helpful.

I would like to ask you about seeds and the statement "almost every seed is winnable." Are you testing this? Are you replaying seeds to better your play/strategy? If so, I would like to do the same. How do you replay seeds?

There is no way to select prior seeds or customize seeds like you could in Monster Train at the moment. I'm simply saying that I've yet to have a game where it felt like I could not have won the runs I lost through making alternative decisions along the path. Sometimes the route to victory for that run is less obvious, or might take some 45% dice rolls, or just come down to that extra little bit of dmg you squeezed in / HP you saved through pixel-hunting during combat, but I've never felt like the game was lost from the start.

[Quicken Loans]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Solarson:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Quicken Loans:

That's what this conversation is about...trying to understand from experienced players what is working for them. My experience with Blink has always been bad, but two people say it's amazing, so now I'll revisit it! I will guarantee there are mechanics in the game that I've been successful with that you haven't. You're attacking me for no reason by saying I give you low rank vibes - it's not necessary, and no need for a superiority complex.

As with the co-op statement - I didn't say co-op shouldnt be discussed. But that's not the topic of this discussion lmao. Popping in and just throwing opinions about certain aspects of the game that aren't being discusses and applying them to other aspects of the game isn't helpful.

I've literally never went off-topic. You are asking for opinions of experienced players and I gave it to you. Not my fault you're taking things as "personal attacks", it's just the reality that if someone can't get Rank 20 in current season then they are probably less experienced or don't have a full grasp on how everything works. You can win pretty much every run by utilizing what the game gives you to the best potential (unless you're playing Solo Chainbreaker) so when you claim certain things are bad and have yet to reach the highest difficulty in the game then ofc you'll get questioned.

The whole point of the topic was to gather opinions and you're defensive when they're here. I suggest you simply join Inkbound's Discord server since Steam forums is not the best place to discuss this type of stuff and there's a lot of experienced players on the Discord that can help with any questions.

Oh my lol. I'll take these 1 by 1.

1) You did veer off the flow of conversation in the thread. I had specified multiple times that this was only concerning solo play. If it's too much to read the thread, then refrain from commenting (probably in ANY discussion, here or elsewhere).

2) Calling someone clueless is personally attacking them. Saying that I'm giving off low rank vibes is strange...lmao. Should I take that as a compliment? Also, you said that I kept insisting that Blink is not worth taking, hence low rank player vibes. I NEVER insisted that. I said it 1 time in my initial thoughts - if you disagreed, then just state it as another poster did. I IMMEDAITELY said that I would take that into consideration and have been overlooking it.

3) I never said that I "can't get to tier 20." You're gravely mis-characterizing the statements I've made. I'm slowly working my way up. I have time to play maybe 1 run a day. It's very probably that I'm further along than you were at my hours played. Just because you've already beaten tier 20 on 1.0 doesn't give right to talk down to people. It's extremely strange. If this thread, this game, is where you need to feel superior by talking to me that way, then I guess be my guest.

4) I'm not being defensive - read Gifts Unforgiven's reply and read my response. I took all his suggestions, and I didn't argue with one of them. It's quite literally exactly what I was looking for with this post. I am, however, agitated at your emotional responses to my statements and trying to create a dialogue.

5) Joining the discord server is a great suggestion.

Don't take this as a personal attack, but you come off as a bit of a d-bag who's trying to 1-up instead of just assist. I'm probably worse at the game than you. Hence....me posting. Hence....asking for suggestions.

[Gifts Ungiven]

Ha @Solarson, wasn't me this time! 😹

@Quicken Loans, I'm trying to be a reformed Spicy Boi, so trust me that we're all just passionate about a fun af game we're all playing, and that any shade is bound to be coming from a place of love even if it'd be better for us all to check our thoughts before we let jet-lag and/or cattiness get the best of us.

[Quicken Loans]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Gifts Ungiven:

Ha @Solarson, wasn't me this time! 😹

@Quicken Loans, I'm trying to be a reformed Spicy Boi, so trust me that we're all just passionate about a fun af game we're all playing, and that any shade is bound to be coming from a place of love even if it'd be better for us all to check our thoughts before we let jet-lag and/or cattiness get the best of us.

Yea, I get it man. Been there. I don't think he's intentionally trying to be malicious. I get the natural thinking pathway that if someone is complaining about balance, they just suck and need to get good. Which, on a simplified level, is true lol. I do need to just get good. It's more of the quality of the discussion that helps me get there.

Anyway, appreciate the back and forth.

[El Mythical 23 k.s.c.]

Just unlocked tier 14 solo. I'm finding maga miner with Clips of Extraction trinket is basically unstoppable. I've made infinite spike and money binding, fire builds, poison builds, shield builds, used marked. I just ended a prey build with 450+ omni dmg to combat pacifism.

I think the game as been a little to easy. However, I haven't spanned out much from this less complex of all characters. I'm trying to get to 20 first, do dailies for rando classes. But I feel like everything is viable just by having a small amount of orb generation.

Edit: by no means am I saying git gud. I'm just saying I've felt wide open in my 26+hrs(including EA) working on getting to T20.

[Baronatron]

I've now tried a few solo runs and it does seem a lot harder than multi.

[Mani]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Baronatron:

I've now tried a few solo runs and it does seem a lot harder than multi.

It is. I played co-op only once in a daily and decided to just stick to solo, you need a lot more planning.