Feedback after my first clear

[Catgirl (male)]

Throw, Grapple, and especially the two healing cards need nerfs real bad. Currently, movement and pushing are way more powerful than everything else. As for Throw, not being able to throw certain enemies means nothing with regards to the fact that it neutralizes the enemy for the entire following turn. That card has carried me through the no-push boss over and over again.

Throughout my runs, a common trend seems to be that overwhelming damage is nowhere near as reliable as push and movement abilities. I consider the Aggressive deck to be bad and the Head Smash card to be drop-worthy for this reason.

Super niche cards like grapple synergy and stun synergy are total noob traps for now. The synergizing parts are too rare, especially because no deck starts with them. Those cards make me wish there were game modifiers or different classes/characters to change the card pools, because I've never once used them and they seem really cool.

The fact that you only find said niche cards starting from the ninja levels makes this problem quite a bit worse. Stuff like Front Kick, Grapple, and Slip are amazing in the first place, but they're even harder to pass up when you have no reason to want the more niche cards. Maybe make those cards anti-synergize more severely with other archetypes or something?

One last thing--Shove's upgrade doesn't work.

[Danceofmasks]

Hmm. Very interesting that you've found your playstyle in the non-aggressive meta.
Seems like the majority thinks that the aggressive deck is the best.
Personally, I think the Balanced deck is the most reliable, because it starts with both a Slip and a Shift. Once you remove the rest of the movement cards, you become very difficult to hit.

(BUG) I agree that Shove+ does not do damage as advertised.

Throw is a great card, especially against auto turning, auto attacking foes.
Personally, I prefer stun for CC.
With a tiny deck that contains a Ponder, Jumping Punch+ is an incredible card. 30 damage bomb, 1-2 range, stuns, no momentum cost. Just got to maintain a combo meter of 5.

Head Smash is pretty bad unless used as a 12 damage hit while the combo meter is empty (such as using a better card to end the combo). Had some success using it to change enemy facing before moving away, so that they blast their friends.

I prefer decks that maintain a high combo meter without ever ending it. Cards that hit multiple times, or just a Jolt+, activates combo cards very quickly. Slip+ and Shift+ are also the best movement cards because they don't reduce the combo meter.

In such a deck, Hammer Fist+ is an incredible card. Being able to drop massive damage at either range 1 or 2 (avoiding melee auto attacks and counters) is so satisfying. Wall Kick+ hits even harder and also doesn't end the combo, but requires more careful positioning to use effectively.

[fri_freeman]

I regularly reached the last level but never cleared it, and I also find trickster to be more consistent, though agressive isn't bad. Trickster deck starts with a lot of life-saving cards that I think is less consistent find, while damaging cards are easier to find. Also it start with one extra momentum which is godsend.

Really, the worst deck is balanced, even counter deck is better, for one reason. Balance deck starting cards are all over the place, and you can't have enough money to remove the ones you don't want to focus on one strategy. Like, sure, block is underwhelming right now, but counter deck is full of them and you can focus on upgrading them and getting more block cards, but for balance deck? The starting damage cards are weak and full of combo ending card AND it's also filled with block cards that's useless if you don't focus on them AND it has step and dash that you also want to remove.

[vfig]

throw needs a nerf? throws suck in general. you cant do anything to an enemy the turn after you throw them (unless you filled your deck with the terrible only-affects-downed-enemies cards, AND happened to draw them this turn), so you cant chain other attacks that move the enemies around afterwards. and you cant get the thrown enemy to attack anyone else. and another enemy can go stand on top of the thrown one, preventing them from getting up, and making you waste another turn (and so probably lose out on fight rewards).

counter throw is even worse, because in the counter deck youre relying on enemies hitting you so you can counter-attack, but after counter-throw they remain down for the next entire turn, wasting 2 whole turns.

yes, a throw is useful against the riflemen, if you can get up to them safely in the first place. but a good stun is better (Jumping Punch is perfect against them), and i would take almost any other type of attack card over any throw.

[Quirk]

> Really, the worst deck is balanced

Nonsense. It has more of the cards you actively want to pick up than the defensive or aggressive deck. Slip and Shift, Front Kick, Quick Kick and Push.

Aggressive has Slip and Front Kick, but then Left Spin Kick is just inferior Shove. Steel Self is good. After that's it's mostly mediocre, situational cards like Wall Jump Punch and Jumping Back Kick, poor quality momentum scaling like Jab and Hook Kick, and remove-at-once rubbish like Surprise Attack and Pull.

I've cleared with all the decks, some more than once, and feel fairly confident I can do so at will now. Defensive with counters can work but not drawing enough block late game can be very bad for runs; the other decks you want to remove the block ASAP.

The key to reliable victory is removing your bad starting cards i.e. ones that don't reliably reposition you or an enemy. Repositioning is both how you guarantee survival and how you kill enemies with ridiculous HP.

Anyway, with regard to the topic, Throw is okay, but I generally don't bother with it now. It doesn't help with ring outs, it doesn't do much damage, and I largely don't have problems with getting hit. Front Kick, Grapple and Slip are top tier. Healing gets less relevant as enemy damage ramps up - a card that takes three fights to repair the damage done in one is not as good as dodging the blow in the first place.

[Twelvefield]

Originally posted by vfig ◙◛◙:

throw needs a nerf? throws suck in general. you cant do anything to an enemy the turn after you throw them (unless you filled your deck with the terrible only-affects-downed-enemies cards, AND happened to draw them this turn), so you cant chain other attacks that move the enemies around afterwards. and you cant get the thrown enemy to attack anyone else. and another enemy can go stand on top of the thrown one, preventing them from getting up, and making you waste another turn (and so probably lose out on fight rewards).

counter throw is even worse, because in the counter deck youre relying on enemies hitting you so you can counter-attack, but after counter-throw they remain down for the next entire turn, wasting 2 whole turns.

yes, a throw is useful against the riflemen, if you can get up to them safely in the first place. but a good stun is better (Jumping Punch is perfect against them), and i would take almost any other type of attack card over any throw.

If you aren't worried about money and you have your perfect deck, it makes no difference how many turns you take. A throw does damage against armoured opponents. Those turns you wait for them to wake up, they aren't damaging you. Then you throw them again. Rinse, repeat.

For me around a third to about halfway into the game, the rewards are all pointless. All I need to do is grind my way to the end. I'm a strong non-aggressive player, though. If you've got your sights set on maxing out damage, then maybe it's different for you. a hundred point single punch kills as effectively as twenty-five four-point throws.

[Catgirl (male)]

Originally posted by fri_freeman:

Really, the worst deck is balanced, even counter deck is better

I didn't realize it was opposite day.

Balanced has the most push and movement of any deck, and far fewer bad cards than Aggressive or Trickster.

[Catgirl (male)]

Originally posted by Quirk:

Healing gets less relevant as enemy damage ramps up - a card that takes three fights to repair the damage done in one is not as good as dodging the blow in the first place.

The thing is, in this game there's essentially no punishment for "wasting" a turn on healing instead of dealing damage. So any time you manage to use the heal, it's free healing and then it goes away instead of continuing to clog up your hand.

[fri_freeman]

I guess I might be too harsh on balanced. Sure, it got a lot of good card like front kick and slip and shift, but on my last time using that, I keep drawing things I don't want and keep failing to do the challenges to get money. I'm curious, what would you remove first from balanced deck?

[Catgirl (male)]

Originally posted by fri_freeman:

I guess I might be too harsh on balanced. Sure, it got a lot of good card like front kick and slip and shift, but on my last time using that, I keep drawing things I don't want and keep failing to do the challenges to get money. I'm curious, what would you remove first from balanced deck?

Long Strike and Quick Block. Hammer Blow also needs to be upgraded or ditched.

[fri_freeman]

wouldn't you want to get rid of block and counter as well? they're kinda unsynergized with other cards except if you specifically build for counter deck. I keep drawing block and counter when I need to attack.

Then it's kinda preferential, but I don't like head smash since you need to be near wall, you turn the opponent toward you, and you lose all your combo.

[Danceofmasks]

You don't need cards to synergise. Having a single Counter+ as the only blocking card in the whole deck works just fine. If you intend to build combo for finishers or Hammer Fist+, being able to stand in the face of an auto attacker and punch then counter him is worth 2 hits.
The riot baton guys in particular, can be Counter-farmed for +2 to the combo meter in a single turn, as 6 damage auto then end of turn attack will both be countered.

Counter+ is good for saving time. Moving decreases your combo meter, and as early game Head Smash is best used immediately following Combo Finisher, having the option to negate damage without moving means you can activate Combo Finisher again sooner.

My preferred opener is, at the first gym:
With 140 I'll upgrade Counter and remove Step.
With 110 I'll upgrade Slip and remove Step.
By the end of the first mission, I'll want to also remove Block and upgrade Front Kick.
If I roll a free upgrade in an event, it goes on Hammer Fist.

I usually remove Dash, then Head Smash, then Quick Block, but it depends on what I roll for the upgraded card offerings.
Shift upgrade can wait until after Head Smash is gone .. if I'm still ending combos early, I can often zero the meter before shifting away, so the meter loss isn't that bad.

Late game, I tend to also remove Long Strike and Quick Strike, once I have other attack cards to replace them.

[Quirk]

It will be much more apparent which decks and cards are good if you begin with the starting deck and go straight to the last round. You will likely lose after a few tediously long-drawn-out fights, but you'll swiftly realise that late game some cards are cards you really want to see, and some cards are cards you don't want to see.

Block cards are cards you don't want to see ever. Counter cards barely work if you spend the entire game upgrading them. Both are among my first removes unless I'm playing Defensive and trying to make it work - it can but you need a critical mass of upgraded counters. When all opponents are hitting you for over 20 damage, most block cards are pretty useless by themselves.

All the non-pushing damage cards in the balanced deck are pretty bad. Aggressive deck isn't much better for damage overall in terms of what you need late game and is worse for push, but Steel Self is great once upgraded. Generally Punch-Kick Combo (3x8 -> 3x12) is my late game goto for beatdown along with some sort of damage scaling - damage scaling x 3 is so much better than damage scaling x 1.

Upgrades that increase damage usually aren't very useful unless you can get at least 10 average damage out of the upgrade, upgrades that decrease cost are great.