Plink seems like a nice little card

[Doctor Gitgud]

I hated shadesplitter, probably the worst card in the game, but Plink actually seems like the best of the starter cards. Rounds out yellow which had issues with direct damage, helps you get the coin angels when they spawn on the top row, can kill two enemies at once, scales nicely with upgrades since it hits twice. I can actually win regularly with yellow now. I had a run with the +15 magic power artifact and it was ridiculous having this card hit for 16x2 before even getting upgrades.

[The_Technomancer]

That's funny. I'd go as far to say it's one of if not the worst starter card. It takes the randomness of shadesplitter, which was already kinda bad but luckily gorge doesn't care too much about what kind of morsel it eats, and gives even less control of what kind or how many morsels you get. It's nice on a couple early fights and does do well with that 20 spell power and consume upgrade, but I'd rather have access too 1 guaranteed morsel over the chance of 0-2 any day of the week. Luckily primordium is best morsel and can make up for everything.

[Zeel Ara]

Yea I'd definitely nominate it for the top five of aggressively bad cards. I suspect it may work decently at low covenants, where squishy enemies stay at 1 max hp the entire run, but at cov 25 Plink becomes a 100% dead draw halfway in, unless you throw money after upgrading it into "Unreliable and low damage, but if you're lucky it can be useful one out of ten times" status. And that would then be money you are *not* spending on upgrading actual good cards.

[HouseOfTheRat]

It seems pretty underwhelming to me too, except when it is my only option to help clear a room from low health mobs, in which case I love it... temporarily. But yeah you can do all sorts of things like upgrade and duplicate and it's a different story.

[DJDiceZ]

From my experience aswell, plink has been much more bad than good.

Sure you may hit two 1 hp units from time to time, or you may manage to pair it with a magic power buff/artefact to make it somewhat viable. Those are rare or situational instances. If you manage to put 10+ damage on it or something it's... okay. But just okay. You'd rather have the upgrade for another spell anyway. Though a 20mp+consume upgrade is acceptable.

So yeah most of the time it'll be even worse than a torch as you might not even get the 1~2 hp target you want, and you won't get a morsel out of it most of the time... on a clan that relies heavily on getting morsel. It's too inconsistent and takes too much space in your deck to be called good.

I don't see myself ever picking plink as a secondary starter unless i'm with stygian or really want something different to switch things up.

[HouseOfTheRat]

If you plan to use Morselmaker, or to not go for heavy capacity build, or if you want to use just one Umbra unit or even none at all, in all those cases Shadesplitter sucks and there are much better ways to get morsels so Plink is automatically the better choice. That is regardless of what your main clan is. If you are spell heavy, Plink makes even more sense. It is all situational, and there are situations that favor one card or the other.

[Khor]

I won`t go as far as calling it nice, but it`s generally better than Shadesplitter

Both are pretty bad mid-game onward, but at least Plink is useful for the first 2/3 maps.
Afterward, it can be upgraded with +20 SP and Consume, making it less of a brick

[HouseOfTheRat]

I can't call Shadowsplitter bad - it is what it is. It does something very specific so if I need it, I take it. If not, I take Plink. As for Plink I won't lie I would enjoy a small buff but it might be easy to go overboard. Maybe give it pierce? But it might still be too much when upgraded, idk.

[DuckSonata]

I don't know what you guys are complaining about. Each Plink is 2/5 of an Icestorm, plus an on kill effect. Since you have 5 of them, that's 2 whole Icestorms. That's just math. Who wouldn't want to start with 2 Icestorms? It's practically a free win with just 1999 easy stacks of spell weakness.

[HouseOfTheRat]

lol

[The_Technomancer]

Originally posted by faceplant712:

I don't know what you guys are complaining about. Each Plink is 2/5 of an Icestorm, plus an on kill effect. Since you have 5 of them, that's 2 whole Icestorms. That's just math. Who wouldn't want to start with 2 Icestorms? It's practically a free win with just 1999 easy stacks of spell weakness.

Well when ya put it like that...

[Zeel Ara]

Originally posted by faceplant712:

I don't know what you guys are complaining about. Each Plink is 2/5 of an Icestorm, plus an on kill effect. Since you have 5 of them, that's 2 whole Icestorms. That's just math. Who wouldn't want to start with 2 Icestorms? It's practically a free win with just 1999 easy stacks of spell weakness.

You actually had me until that last sentence. Well played :D

[The_Technomancer]

Man, plink got dunked on in this thread. I'd like to take this time to tell OP that if you like plink then you like plink and there isn't really anything wrong with that.

[DuckSonata]

In an honestly, I actually agree with that first sentence I wrote. Like, it's a starter card, of course it's going to suck compared to real cards. Of course it's going to suck late game. What you really want out of your starter cards is to be of nonzero use in the first few circles. If they help you save pyre damage or take an extra challenge, they've done their job.

Plink can do good work as long as there are still waves with multiple 1HP enemies, of which there are quite a few in the first few circles. Of course, when you get the beefcake heavy compositions, Plink might suck worse than Shadesplitter. But when it's good, it's really good because it fits into a gap in Umbra's early game, the lack of sweep units and direct damage spells. It lets you wreck Clergyman-heavy makeups as well as Mark of Invasion challenges, and sometimes lets you tell conduits to go eat a ♥♥♥♥, which are not things you are always able to do early on with Umbra.

[Zeel Ara]

Issue is that the early fight where Plink has a function are already guaranteed wins. Best case scenario, you are able to take 1 bonus objective you'd otherwise have to skip. But that extra draft or artifact has to be REALLY good to offset that you have 5 extra deadweights in your deck for the part of the run that's actually difficult.

[HouseOfTheRat]

It's not like you can choose to not take it lol. Shadowsplitter is a way worse choice if you don't want it, as it has no other function except generating morsels. Plink can kill backline enemies or remove shields, that isn't bad at all for a "useless" card. It can make all the difference. It is also upgradaeble to pack a real punch and on top of that it is a secondary source of morsels as well. So yeah if you see it as a direct damage spell it sucks but of course that is the wrong way to see it. I said myself that I would like to see it get a small buff but let's not ignore what it actually does, it does a lot.

As for guaranteed wins, winning one fight isn't the only thing that matters, how you win matters a lot for the overall run. Being able to handle trials without hurting your core early on makes an insane long term difference, as does feeding your persistent units. That isn't limited to Plink, having a strong early game is always a good strategy. You might use some cards that are good early and don't scale very well but you are using them to get late game advantages in other places.