Gorge

[kidgoat2027]

Gorge with damage shield was the best choice ive made. had the guy that copies the morsals behind him and had the artifact that triggerred gorge twice. the last battle when the boss reached the 2nd floor i had 119x4 damage with around 40 damage shields.

[Eagle_of_Fire]

The life steal gorger is actually tons better, but for the same reasons. As long as your gorger don't die in one turn he'll never die, period.

The damage shield is less interesting because an attacker with multi strike will kill those shields way faster.

[kidgoat2027]

Originally posted by Eagle_of_Fire:

The life steal gorger is actually tons better, but for the same reasons. As long as your gorger don't die in one turn he'll never die, period.

The damage shield is less interesting because an attacker with multi strike will kill those shields way faster.

I can never decide between the life steal and shield, in my head shield seems better but i see your point about the multistrike. last fight i think boss had x2 or x3 but luckily with the double gorge+ a few other op cards i was able to stack up enough shields.

[Zeel Ara]

Lifesteal is many times better. Only ever take shield if you absolutely have to in order to get your deck going. You only need enough HP on it to not get one-shot, and then enough attack to heal to full every turn. Easily done with +25 hp and +10 attack upgrades, and the buffs from morsels. It's one of the universal cheese strategies, on par with frost shark stacking, and spiky regen boy before the regen nerf.

Get that setup going and all boss fights are solved. The remaining challenge is building another floor that allows you to clear the waves, since they'll just march right past lifesteal boy and beat up your pyre.

[gonzo191]

Despite what the others have said here, I find Damage Shield Gorger better/more reliable than Life Steal Gorger. Life Steal becomes utterly useless if something can deal your health's worth in damage and at later covenants/levels enemies usually do. The +25HP is fine but I really just prefer multi-strike but can't as it cannibalises life steal triggers. With that said, whichever you take, just enjoy it.

A reliable winning combo with Damage Shield Gorger is Multi-Strike upgrade, Morsel Master and Maker, Feed and Shroud Mitosis (additional (for jokes): Gorge x2, Making of a Morsel). Set and forget on 3rd floor and the son of a gun becomes a WALL that outscales enemy multi-strike.

But forget both of them and always take Overgorger with multi-strike

[Eagle_of_Fire]

I just lost a run by about a hundred HP on the final boss because I kept refusing to take the shield gorger until I had absolutely no choice (about the third time they popped up in a row instead of the other one).

Had I have the life steal unit I would have won without even wondering if I was about to survive.

[Ichthyic]

"Life Steal becomes utterly useless if something can deal your health's worth in damage "

also if you are sapped, or the enemies have stealth.

but overall, the life drain one is better for most things I have found. not as much better as most people seem to think, but better on average.

[kidgoat2027]

i dont think and enemy doing enough damage in 1 go is enough to kill the life steal if youve made sure to give it morsals that add health. Stealth is a good point though, that would kill you pretty quick with no way to prevent it

[Eagle_of_Fire]

But the whole point of those boss killing floors is to build them on the third floor. Certainly I'm not the only one who see the benefits to that as you have more time to gorge and make the unit actually able to stop the boss, right?

As such, stealth is a complete non issue in this discussion.

[Gentlest Giant]

Originally posted by Eagle_of_Fire:

As such, stealth is a complete non issue in this discussion.

While the general idea that stealth is something you can realistically find many ways to deal with is true, this is trivializing it too far.
You can't expect to successfully set up top floor every game. You can't expect to set up surviving decoys in floor 1/2 every game. Sometimes things just go wrong for whatever reason, and it's frequent enough to be very much relevant.

You don't need to remove stealth from the consideration in order to conclude that lifesteal is almost universally superior.

[Eagle_of_Fire]

This discussion is about gorge units. If you can't set up your gorge units to gorge then there is no point to having said gorge units because they are very subpar unless they actually gorge since that's their whole point. This has nothing to do with the lifesteal gorger in itself. If you have the shield gorger you still need it to gorge to do anything. Add the same for any other gorger unit here.

I cannot believe you are actually suggesting to let your other two floors completely open every fight. That's simply impossible for any even remotely successful runs. As such, the only way you can really expect to have stealth have an impact on your gorger is if for any reason you decide not to set up that gorger floor on the third floor. And I cannot think of any reason for this really.

There is also the fact that there is a grand total of a single boss in this game who actually is built around stealth and his minions aren't actually that strong. Let's say that I do entertain the thought that I would not set up my gorger on the third floor... Then why would I not set it up on the third floor for this particular fight knowing I'd be best to shave off every possible turn of stealth on the boss before it get to my boss killing floor?

Even on normal runs in which I usually set up my hero unit on the first floor, on this particular fight I usually set it up on the second floor simply to make sure I don't have to deal with the units with stealth one. That's simply basic strategy and reacting to what is in front of you.

All in all, there is no logic in what you are suggesting. Or at least I don't see any. It seems to me that you are saying "sometimes things don't go as planned" like "sometimes you just die because you did it on purpose"... As such I do find it trivial.

[Gentlest Giant]

Originally posted by Eagle_of_Fire:

I cannot believe you are actually suggesting to let your other two floors completely open every fight. That's simply impossible for any even remotely successful runs. As such, the only way you can really expect to have stealth have an impact on your gorger is if for any reason you decide not to set up that gorger floor on the third floor. And I cannot think of any reason for this really.

Well, while there would be good reasons that you can not believe I suggested to leave two floors completely open, I never did such a thing and have no idea how it could be interpreted as such.
Sometimes, despite your very best efforts, your units die before the boss. Simple as that.
As for reasons to not set up third floor, sometimes your third floor gets hit by the floor space and you need all 5 slots for whatever reason. It happens. Sometimes you took the invasion trial and ended up needing to put your gorge unit somewhere else. This is quite far-fetched, but plausible. The game is complicated enough to allow that to happen.

Genrally speaking, this ties in to the overall chaos inherent to complex systems like this game. You can't predict it, and thus can't make blanket statements like "never consider this possibility."

In another thread you said you were still playing on covenant 10 or so? If this is still true, please consider that the game is much more complicated from my perspective.
You can also assume that I perfectly understand the nuances of the strategies of " reacting what's in front of you." I'm beyond the basics.

Edit: This discussion is kind of pointless since we essentially agree that stealth is a very minor problem for a lifesteal gorger to solve.

[Eagle_of_Fire]

I am certainly willing to accept that you might experience situations way more complicated than I do... However, bringing far-fetched discussions (as you say it) to the table, which don't even remotely represent the general idea of normality, simply make the post you are trying to make laughable. Which is how I interpreted it.

"Yes, but what about that 1.2% chance to happen situation?" don't make a very good argument.

[Ichthyic]

Originally posted by Gentle Giant:

Originally posted by Eagle_of_Fire:

As such, stealth is a complete non issue in this discussion.

While the general idea that stealth is something you can realistically find many ways to deal with is true, this is trivializing it too far.
You can't expect to successfully set up top floor every game. You can't expect to set up surviving decoys in floor 1/2 every game. Sometimes things just go wrong for whatever reason, and it's frequent enough to be very much relevant.

You don't need to remove stealth from the consideration in order to conclude that lifesteal is almost universally superior.

plus, a lot of us are going for high scores. to get the highest scores, you need to save as many floors as possible. lifesteal is MUCH more valuable on the first floor compared to damage shield... less so on the third floor where you get a chance to build up a lot of damage shield.

I far prefer to put gorge units on the first floor if i can, except for umbra gorger champ, which I almost always put on the second floor and then use cave in or collapse to put it on the first floor the turn before the boss starts his run.

but otherwise... lifesteal gorger, overgorger, the gorger that deals damage and heals on gorge... all best on the first floor from my perspective.

[Ichthyic]

Originally posted by Eagle_of_Fire:

I am certainly willing to accept that you might experience situations way more complicated than I do... However, bringing far-fetched discussions (as you say it) to the table, which don't even remotely represent the general idea of normality, simply make the post you are trying to make laughable. Which is how I interpreted it.

"Yes, but what about that 1.2% chance to happen situation?" don't make a very good argument.

what were you saying about trolls the other day?

uh, yeah....