Do people take relics?

[Zerzsil]

Ok so I look at most of these relics I am finding and I almost never take them. They just take so much of my max health that almost none of them are worth it. There just doesn't seem to be enough gain on a bunch of them. Like 5% to insta kill is never gonna be worth it to me for the price. I do like the fire damage one, but what does everybody else think? Do you people take them?

[ThatGuyCDude]

Messaggio originale di alpnorman:

Messaggio originale di tindelljk:

Coeus' Shell is the best relic in the game hands down.

It is now, yes. But they did a major change to it this expansion, and I'm pretty sure they took it out entirely in Arcane Hollows.

Yeah, they had to remove it during Arcane Hollows because it was eating resolve (it was counting as 3 relics and charging full price for the lot of them). The new Coeus Shell is fantastic; it's the kind of relic that should be the standard in that category.

I don't like the Achilles relic (which requires max HP to work), though the Zealot Ring is okay (same premise, but for MP). Gnawed Bone's been bad for two patches now; it either needs to not have a three-use limit or it need to not require max HP to work... it's not like it can be stacked to circumvent the relic drawbacks like earlier patches (now that Resolve is a thing).

Boxing Bell is great. Relics that modify the player's weapon are generally great, actually. The Mushrooms are also top shelf. Serrated Handle is still too detrimental to use, but that's sort of its point.

[Rhadamante]

I'm not sure why that old thread was revived, but yeah, Achilles' shield and Gnawed Bone are two relics whose max HP requirement works against their effect.

In both cases, if you're good enough to stay at max HP, you probably didn't really need them anyway. and if you can't reliably stay at max HP, the relics become a lot more useless so you can skip them entirely.

The max MP one work because you can more easily get to max MP and if your spell is a high damage one, you get a lot more out of it.

For Gnawed bone I had suggested to remove the max HP requirement, and instead make the max hp % increase dependent on current hp %. The lower your hp when you next take some meat, the higher max HP you gain.
That way it benefits bad players (or those that choose to play risky) the most. The stacks can stay at 3 and the highest increase can be around 15.

[Ellis_Cake]

I like the drums alot, and any that gives even more damage output.
(and also the new one to wager surviving 10 enemy kills without being touch to get some resolve back)

[Rhadamante]

Messaggio originale di Ellis_Cake:

I like the drums alot, and any that gives even more damage output

If you haven't beaten Naamah and you have a War Drum, I'm pretty sure the 3 lilies of the valleys count as relics for its effect. If so, +15% damage for 15 resolve is great.

[Hikkichaos]

Gnawed Bone is great - get the bone - go to first biome - get the meat >max HP+
then return to your last biome/beat the boss.

Works good for me.

[Seig]

The explosion radius on the sporeburst from the mushroom is too small to be worth the price in most situations, although the boxer can make use of it since they can knock enemies into each other.

In general a lot of the relics are only useful in highly specific cases. The Achilles relic is useful if you're a vampire for instance. There's also a weird number of mp-related relics.

[Omegatherion]

I almost always take the bone. Especially in the early areas. Got my Knight to 2.5k HP that way and with the apple tree.
It's great to get one or two extra hits against a boss you might have trouble with.

Sporeburst is a must take whenever i find it and i have Resolve leftover. Great for crowd control.

The knife (double damage) is only good in low NG cycles. Later on it's basically suicide to take it.

[tindelljk]

They must have put Coeus' Shell back because I've found it a number of times recently.

[ThatGuyCDude]

I think Achilles' Shield needs to work like the gears that boost magic damage for kills (with reset on hit). In other words, it would gather stacks that increase physical damage, and reset on taking damage.

I'd also like to see more relics that replenish Resolve like Pandora's Box (not to the same intensity, but with a drawback and a feat goal). For instance, "Cool Shades" (or a much more appropriate non-anachronistic alternative) that apply the Diva screen effect until the player picks up 5 mana potions, a Curse of Greed that puts a cooldown on all actions until the player picks up <Max Health / 10> gold coins... that sort of thing.

[Chad "The King" ThunderCuck]

ive only found a handful of them to be useful, most were plopped in so they can say "oh look we have more relics now", but arent actually very helpful. some are outright harmful to nearly any playthrough. sometimes you get lucky though, and get all the big attack boosters and a double attack boost per relic. i always ignore the one that makes enemies drop meat, it says 8% chance but it feels like a 0.5% chance. the same goes for bonus max hp when eating at full hp, this one USED to be good, but then they capped it to what, 4 or 5 times? yeah. not so good anymore. glowing ember is extremely good with the barbarian, but virtually worthless with everything else, and the fire damage is never worth getting. the DOT it does is so low youre better off getting an actual damage boost relic. the heavy stone is one i always pick up, its especially useful for the (cant remember the name) brawler? when combined with glowing ember and serated handle. the one that gives you 3 bonus smaller jumps is also usually a good pick, provided you dont have the trait that makes you jump to the top of the screen. boxing bell on a barbarian = DPS monster whenever you jump. if you find a double wardrum, grab it. a single? pass it up.

[Tanoomba]

I love the relics system. While a lot of the time the relics I find are not ones I would consider useful, I generally only have enough resolve to get 2 or 3 before having to take a hit to max HP so I don't mind holding off until I find something better. The one that adds burning damage over time is great, allowing weaker characters to get an attack in and retreat while the burn does the rest of the work. Love the spore burst too, especially in a room with a crowd of enemies who all simultaneously burst when I kill one of them. The increase in meat drop rate is a must for me, as is the one that adds to my max HP per meat eaten at full health. I actually like the serrated knife a lot. It does make things a lot more risky, but since I'm going to dish out a lot more hits than I'm going to take, it seems worth it if I'm doing a money-grinding run.

The relics add a very welcome layer of variability to my runs and can often make a big difference in how a run goes. Definitely a great addition.

[The Old Song]

im honestly surprised how much people would skip relics, due to a max hp loss.
If your hp is down and you lack a good source of healing, which you do, you aren't getting your hp back up anyway, so the max lowering isn't even a detriment.
I rarely see meat drops, with both healing runes I still heal for approximately zero on kills, so if I'm not at max hp when I find a relic room, I take one, and suffer no negative, because my hp didn't get lower and it was never going to go back up enough for the effect to be noticed.

[clemons75]

I'm sure most of you know this already, but you don't lose max HP until your resolve drops below 100%. If you wear light-ish armor and take resolve upgrades/runes, you can start a run with well over 200% resolve. Don't underestimate reducing the resolve cost of relics, either. Expensive but worthwhile.

I love taking relics, they add a ton of options and replayability. Pandora's Bargain (I think?) adds 50 resolve..... after you kill ten enemies without taking a hit. I have a hard time ignoring this one; its killed several promising runs.

[Tanoomba]

Messaggio originale di clemons75:

I love taking relics, they add a ton of options and replayability. Pandora's Bargain (I think?) adds 50 resolve..... after you kill ten enemies without taking a hit. I have a hard time ignoring this one; its killed several promising runs.

Ha ha same here! It's hard to pass up that sweet, sweet resolve bonus.

[Tanoomba]

Has anybody been able to check if the Lily of the Valley are compatible with the War Drum?
If they are maybe the devs should consider allowing you to collect them even after defeating the boss. That's a decent damage increase for a relatively small resolve cost.