It's really hard to make a Wave build on the shark character

[Teteh]

Wave only seems to become good once you reach a critical mass of wave cards:
- You need enough cards that apply waves to reliably build some on ennemies
- You need enough cards that consume wave to capitalize on it, as the base effect of wave is too weak and straight up useless on single enemy battles

I think Wave dices should either be significantly buffed (Wave applying ones really don't need several Corruption faces when applying Wave does so little without another dice with an effect to consumes said waves for an effect like drawing a die or activating half the wave stacks)
Alternatively I think the shark character should have Wave starter dices to make getting to that critical mass of useful wave cards a little easier

[Sador]

I've been wondering whether waves should do something like % of wave done as purification to the target that has it each round, or something similar. Would make sense thematically as a sort of drowning thing, would make it more useful both on lower quantities and against single enemies and give it some decision making between continuing the passive damage or bursting it for the AoE effect.

[Quizer]

Don't start by putting a die in your deck that just applies wave. Go for a wave build if you see a wave payoff early, such as Forceful Stream or a blessing that works with wave, or if you happen to get a Forge Wave die early on, which lets you replace all bad faces on dice with wave, which is neutral at worst, and lets you get that critical mass over time as long as you have things that benefit from wave.

[supercardproman]

It's feasible but you have to get Wave++ and High Tide++ dice to have a big Wave count on ennemies but mot importantly, Maelstrom Impact is really required for solo fights and bosses. If you don't get those at the start of the run on Tainted Riff, don't hesitate to change build, the waves always gives nice bonus and interesting effects even at low value. For example, have a few waves with Tidal Wave dice give a really huge boost when you go for an Empower build.
Also here's how going full wave for a run looked like for me.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3042572562

[Teteh]

You are all correct, I am not arguing that it is not possible to make a successful Wave run, but that getting any kind of Wave build going is very hard and very rare

You realistically want dices to apply some wave every turn, and dices that benefit from wave (like the one that draw more dices when used on a waved enemy, the one that trigger half the wave stacks immediately, or the one that deals x damage for each stack of wave on target) all before the end of Act 1

You could slowly get the dices you need by Act 3 but you wouldn't have a functionnal build until then and I don't see that being doable at all; in practice many of my attempts at a Wave run end when I failed to obtain sufficient wave synergy by the first boss and end up at the start of Act 2 with a broken deck that does nothing

What makes this even worse is that if you start your run getting the blackhole blessing that makes your Wave trigger once you have more stacked than the enemy has remaining health, at the cost of giving yourself 2 doom, it makes all your starter Shark Strike (or whatever they are called) dices be close to dead draws, as they'll consistently deal lethal amount of damage to yourself

Hence why I think it would be great if the shark character had some wave synergy dices in their starter deck, or if wave dices were a bit stronger (maybe having a Wave dice that has 3 faces that apply wave, and 3 faces that have a wave synergistic effect)

[Quizer]

I don't think it's true that getting Wave to work is hard. A pretty large part of Cellarius' dice pool is dedicated to it - probably 30%-40% of his unique dice. But it's probably not advisable to try to force it.

This is a general pitfall about drafting in games - trying to force a specific strategy can backfire and lead to mediocre / bad decks. You're supposed to wait and see what your first picks are and find something to build around.

Forceful Stream works all by itself and enables you to take any Wave dice to support it. If I'd recommend any way to start going for Wave, it's an early Forceful Stream.

Forge Wave let's you turn bad dice faces into Wave, which is probably honestly good enough just as a method to fix your risky dice, but it also enables you to take all payoff dice for Wave if you stumble upon it. If you have a Forge die, it may be worth stalling a little in some early fights that don't scale in order to fix more die faces, though that can be kinda slow.

The blessing that makes Wave trigger when it is equal or higher than the enemy's corruption basically turns all wave dice into damage dice. I didn't realize it gave Doom as its drawback, though (I didn't get it in my Wave run). Maybe that's also not the way to start a Wave build.

Some of Cellarius' Wave dice and blessings are only unlocked as he levels up. I don't know how far along you are, but if you are having trouble finding support for the Wave archetype, this may be why.

Honestly, I don't want Wave in Cellarius' starter dice, since they'd be dead draws if you end up going for another archetype.

[Quizer]

Some of my impression about the different Wave dice:

- Wave: This is fine to take if you already have plenty of Wave synergies and want to run a thick deck, or if you are starting out and already have your Wave payoff(s). It's unnecessary to take if you have a Forge Wave die, and it's not the way to start a Wave build.

- Forceful Stream: This is one of the best Wave payoffs, if not the best, and the best way to start a Wave build. This works fine without any additional Wave synergies, but enables you to take Wave generators as you would damage-dealing dice. Get the Safe version that has Forceful Stream on all six sides.

- Surf: This is great if you have Forge Wave and can replace the other faces (except the unforgeable ones), but too diluted otherwise. I would not take it if I wasn't planning on improving the die.

- Geyser Uppercut: I haven't been too impressed by this. It's a fairly slow way to spin your wheels and chip away at the enemy while slowly depleting your Wave stacks. It becomes much better with access to Serenity or blessings that improve each hit. I suppose it's a way to go infinite if you are building a very small deck.

- Marine Offering: This one isn't great unless you are specifically looking for resilience against Hex Dice or other bad die faces. Again, if you have access to Forge Wave, it seems unnecessary.

- Wave Crasher: This is a way to scale your damage if you have lots of Wave generation, but it seems unnecessary if you have Forceful Stream. You probably want this if you don't have Forceful Stream and need a way to convert your Wave stacks into damage. I'd again look to improve the die faces, or take it as an Epic Die. I'd probably not take the Safe version without already having Forge Wave.

- Maelstrom Impact: This seems like the superior option compared to Wave Crasher. The scaling is better, and if you kill the enemy, you get the AoE effect anyway. The Balanced version actually seems fine to take even without fixing up the die.

- Tidal Jet: This requires Wave, but doesn't actually fit into the archetype that well. The damage doesn't scale, so I'd stick to other Wave payoffs unless it's offered to you early and you need it badly.

- High Tide: Haven't played with this yet. This seems like a good wincon die if you want to use Wave for a small deck build. If you have the blessing, you can just cycle this over and over until you win. In a larger deck, it might not pull its weight, but if you can forge away the undesirable die faces, it's probably fine to take.

- Refreshing Headbutt: Haven't had the opportunity to play with this in my Wave runs, but having a copy of this seems worthwhile. Seems like it only appears at Balanced, and 4 faces that refresh your Virtues and also deals a bit of damage seems great.

- Forge Wave: This is a great enabler for the Wave strategy. You still need at least one payoff, but if you have that, you can use this to really focus your dice, making sure every die face either generates Wave or takes advantage of it. I'd look to take a second one so they can fix each other. It's fine to leave them in your deck until the end, since they also work great as a defense against Hex Dice.

[Moomoo]

Did a few Wave builds with Cellarius and it was pretty good. Like, even, really strong, I one-shot a Anomaly 6 or 7 run with him recently. Forceful Stream is very very good in lower difficulties, but I found myself have trouble when ennemies hit for at least 6 every turn because of the 2 additional damage. It's a pretty good boss killer though.

Recently I did a Refreshing Headbutt build with Wave, Maelstrom Impact, and High Tide. If you can get a fun black hole blessing like Miasma Cloak, it's very very good early and later in the game. Thing is, if you manage to have a bit of draw, and a relatively small deck, you can Reroll multiple times a turn in addition to dishing out 20 to 30 damages every time you refresh your virtues and you also get access to maelstrom impact and high tide more often allowing you to build up stacks and damages very high on the final boss. Wave is also very good to avoid deaths linked to Death Bomb if I'm not mistaken.

Also as mentionned previously, wave dices are common. My current problem with for instance Sothis is that their dices are all over the place and it's hard to get a coherent build during stage 1 if you're unlucky. Cellarius often doesn't have this problem, and will have a relatively easy time both in stage 1 and final stage.

I tried the blessing that transforms wave into instant death when it reaches a threshold (the trident I think) but honestly I don't remember the drawback but it was not worth it, since it basically less effective than forceful wave or maelstrom impact. It sounded very good but the wave dices are already better, and it's pretty easy to get 1 or 2 epic dices a run with a wave-related effect. Be it 10 to 15 wave stack, High Tide, Maelstrom Impact, Surf, etc.