santa water(?)

[Icedfate]

am I missing something here?
i have been at this 72 hours. just got the final achievement and barely ever used santa water.

i'm always seeing people say "santa water is the best!" , but King bible is what carried me through most of my runs.

the santa water just drops small puddles and even evolved, it's hard to control where they go, while the bible just forms a continuous repel shield, way better than garlic. .
I love garlic IRL, but in this game, it bottom tier garbage, the first thing i sealed, next to the birds.


edit : for the record, i never sealed the water, as it actually often ends up being the filler item for my 6th slot as i'm almost always taking attractorb and once i have all my other weps evolved, i just pick santa water to fill the slot and usually evolve it at 2 Days To Retirement, so yeah, i use it, but barely

[AN]

It's for the evolution, and you have to build your accessories around it entirely, but when you do the damage is around the highest you can get from a base game weapon, along with the ridiculous area and consistency giving you incredible safety. Once it's online it puts the bible to shame as a defensive tool, on top of the SSS tier offense.

[MISO4EVER]

The real question is why is it called 🎅 water ?

[Prof. N. Euge-Boren]

Not Santa as "Santa Claus". It's spanish - like the ship Santa Maria - for Holy. So "Holy Water"

[Zygfryd]

Frankly I had Santa Water and Bible sealed way before 72 hours, once I got SpellStrom and Victory Sword, and evolutions for Laurel and Clock there was little reason to look back, until the adventures came out.

[Mormacil]

Originally posted by Izzythecat:

The real question is why is it called 🎅 water ?

Santa for Saint, as in holy. Most names are Italian puns.

[Icedfate]

I know this game was made by an Italian guy and a lot of the words are Italian. I'm Sicilian myself.
the question mark was me expressing my incredulity, not understanding why Santa Water is rated so highly.

my core build that i usually go for on just about every run is the whip + vento sacra (which i'm guessing means "holy wind" or "sacred wind" or something)
and then i evolve them into the fuwaloowaloo (which is a reference to an npc in another game. . .that never even came out in America. . )

i also take bible and spellbinder at the earliest opportunity and then hold out for the empty tome and attractorb.
attractorb seems not so great, but just being able to grab the xp crystals more easily put that essential in my book. if i have only one slot left to choose attractorb or spinach, i'll take attractorb every time

and then i'm going for the spelltrom in the other 3 slots or the twin guns if i get tiramisu early


so by the time i have gotten all those things evolved, it's near the 20-25 minutes mark and i now have free slots, so i grab the santa water because why not, and it usually ends up being the last thing i upgrade.

[MISO4EVER]

Originally posted by Icedfate:

I know this game was made by an Italian guy and a lot of the words are Italian. I'm Sicilian myself.
the question mark was me expressing my incredulity, not understanding why Santa Water is rated so highly.

my core build that i usually go for on just about every run is the whip + vento sacra (which i'm guessing means "holy wind" or "sacred wind" or something)
and then i evolve them into the fuwaloowaloo (which is a reference to an npc in another game. . .that never even came out in America. . )

i also take bible and spellbinder at the earliest opportunity and then hold out for the empty tome and attractorb.
attractorb seems not so great, but just being able to grab the xp crystals more easily put that essential in my book. if i have only one slot left to choose attractorb or spinach, i'll take attractorb every time

and then i'm going for the spelltrom in the other 3 slots or the twin guns if i get tiramisu early


so by the time i have gotten all those things evolved, it's near the 20-25 minutes mark and i now have free slots, so i grab the santa water because why not, and it usually ends up being the last thing i upgrade.

My family is from calabritto and I don’t speak a lick of Italian I was born in the USA i am American. But when I hear Santa I think of the fat jolly man.

[Icedfate]

lol, i do too. like I imagine some website selling "Santa Water (TM) : guaranteed bottled straight from the source, new and improved! now with 30% less elf water mixed in! "

[MISO4EVER]

Originally posted by Icedfate:

lol, i do too. like I imagine some website selling "Santa Water (TM) : guaranteed bottled straight from the source, new and improved! now with 30% less elf water mixed in! "

Yeah the sad part is it’s just an asset flip
Of holy water from castlevania. I like the game but the asset flips is what was a bit off putting in the beginning. I’m glad they stated to add their own unique assets and weapons.

[Sunraku]

Personally Bible is one of the weapons I'd put in the lowest tiers. The damage and zone are both bad, needs projectile speed to be useful but projectile speed is the least useful stat unless you're building the square thing that bounces.

Best case scenario is to use it WITH garlic, as garlic helps keeping the enemies in Bible's range, while you build your higher dps weapon that is less reliable early, often due to random projectiles, so you have to pick defensive items while you build .... your build.

[Nonexistinghero]

Originally posted by AN:

It's for the evolution, and you have to build your accessories around it entirely, but when you do the damage is around the highest you can get from a base game weapon, along with the ridiculous area and consistency giving you incredible safety. Once it's online it puts the bible to shame as a defensive tool, on top of the SSS tier offense.

I'm pretty sure the crimson cape with a good setup is the most damaging weapon in the game.

[Moonbane]

Originally posted by Kurokawa Cyan:

Personally Bible is one of the weapons I'd put in the lowest tiers. The damage and zone are both bad, needs projectile speed to be useful but projectile speed is the least useful stat unless you're building the square thing that bounces.

Best case scenario is to use it WITH garlic, as garlic helps keeping the enemies in Bible's range, while you build your higher dps weapon that is less reliable early, often due to random projectiles, so you have to pick defensive items while you build .... your build.

Agreed, the Bible have fallen behind, I never use it anymore. Its area of effect is just too low now. Plus Spellbinder is a bad passive.

A much more powerful spell is Four Seasons.

[Porp]

if i remember correctly, the reason why santa water/la borra was the best is because of it's ridiculous scaling with the bogaloo of illusion arcana AND chaos in the dark night.

La borra would scale off of projectile speed (which somehow also makes la borra's size grow massively) and covered up the whole entire screen, killing about everything. But unfortunately it was heavily nerfed, and it doesn't scale off of projectile speed as much.

[Zephyr]

Santa water, unevolved, isnt that great. But it does tick damage, and a lot of it, to anything walking into it, so it amounts to a lot more damage, than say, the whip, daggers even when they fire fast, or the garlic. It also create a zone in which you can stay and catch a breather if need be, and that's safer than the garlic. So overall, a better DPS and safe zones, compensated by a lack of control of the falling zone, and pretty small AOEs in general.

Upgraded, things change, you have a bunch of splashes that move light searchlights instead of remaining in place, are larger, and can amount for a pretty large amount of damage to anything moving to get you and getting caught under it.

Now, is it an "endgame" weapon? Certainly not. But among the starter weapons, so to speak, it is probably among the best ones. The whip, even when twice evolved, is pretty bad. The garlic severely underperform at that point. The knife was never good. Cross may be even worse. Runetracer is bad enough people even forget it exists. Axe is too slow, and even upgraded, it doesn't do the job nearly as well as others options. Fire wand is also too slow. Bible is okay, but not great, and only upgraded. Only decent ones are the wand because it's continuous fast firing DPS, and the lightning ring because it strikes stuff out of the screen, which becomes an important thing at that point.
Now, while the Santa Water is decent, it can't really be your main weapon, and you need an other one to support it, or it just plain won't be enough. As such it's something to take in addition to something else, rather than something to rely on early.

Compared to that, weapons that are fantastic are:
-Pentagram, to evolve it quickly and get an xp syphon that happens a regular intervals.
-Greatest Jubilee to generate light source, and fuel your disco of gold arcana
-Luminaire to increase the value of pick-ups
-Victory Sword for the "The more I kill, the stronger I get" effect.
-The duo of usual suspects that are the laurel and clock lancet to get their evolved forms, of Infinite Corridor to simply cut enemies'HP to half, making it probably the strongest weapon of the game, and the cape to deal revenge damage and making sure you get a lot of armor keeping you alive in most situations.

Then, you add to that anything you can snag on the map and evolve if possible.

And to cap it all, with the candy box you take one more weapon you can evolve, usually Song of Mana if possible, but Flames of Mispell are good too as it scales with curse. Shadow Servant is also a strong contender. With the turbo candy box, you can pick the Vicious Hunger to try to further maximise gold earning, or something devastating of your own choice.

This is pretty much how I end up building anything, bar some rare exceptions when I will run gemini builds for characters with predispositions to that. You adjust depending of what's readily available on the map, and snag map items once you're done filling your slots.

Arcanas depends a bit of what character you're running and how well they can survive early on. If their survivability is a bit shaky, it's blood astronomia, if they are super safe, it's wicked season. Then it's always disco of gold second. Third depends, but it's usually sarabande of healing to turn your healing into an actual weapon(and you heal a LOT from disco of gold alone), or things that will make your weapon collection shine depending of what you have. Alternatively on some map which have a bunch of items hidden in zones you can't reach, you start with mad groove to pull them all to you.

You only take the 3 revives arcanas on a character who is almost certain to die, but that's a losing strategy on most characters who don't naturally generate revives(and even on them it's not even that good).

On adventures, things are obviously different as you don't get all those fancy weapons and options. Blood Astronomia is king for Poe's adventure. Meanwhile, the second, Light and Dark, makes an incredibly strong case for Iron Blue Will, as you will get both wands in most maps and those 3 bounces can absolutely melt stuff. Seriously, give it a try. For the third adventure, Sarabande of Healing is formidable if you're using the starting character. But it isn't good for Menya who is usually quite prone to dying, and in his case, yes, the 3 revives end up being a good idea just to manage to win a 30 minutes map with him. After that, you take what you can get, because let's face it, you don't have money to spend on rerolls in adventure, as everything is put into growth, magnet, cooldown, might, mobility, omni and greed(with a slight hint on regen for safety, and a few points in defang because defang is cheap and useful).
On adventures, Santa Water is pretty good, and it has the advantage of being easy to evolve as playing without Attractorb is pain and misery(which is why it's extremely important on adventure 2 to reach level 80 on the first map so you can purchase the attractorb and an axe, due to having early access to the candelabrador).

[Icedfate]

i pretty much cleared all the content and unlocks using mostly my strat. the santa water never impressed me.
early game, king bible can be clutch, especially on chars with terrible starting weapoms.

the whip, i agree is not good, but bloody tesr is a huge upgrade and then fuwaloo tears through everything if i have the empty tome, which i always take.
without tome, i'm gonna have a bad time.
king bible, one i get spellbinder and a couple of duration upgrades and a cooldown upgrade can be used continuously and once it evolves, that circular shield kills practically everything, even on inverse mode. yeah, there's the gap in beween , if enemies sneak past, it's troublesome, but repositioning works, as opposed to garlic and holy water which seem to rely on the player standing still and they can't kill bosses.

unholy bible can kill blsses, garlic can not.

i also seal/banish knife, axe, wand, fire wand, axe runetracer, garlic, peachome and ebony.

i liked wand and knife in the early game, because of then rapid fire, but their damage is too small for the endgame.


however, i did get appreciation for peachome and ebony in Poe's adventures because at first, that's pretty michnall he has, is garlic and the birds, and i couldn't have completed the first map wothout the birds.
once evolved, they do huge damage and if i have the tarot that increases might and speed based on empty weapon slots, and some lomkt breaks, i was able to have the evolved birds shooting constantly.

my favorites are fuwaloo, unholy bible, the fierrhea guns, the "spell" weapons.

i have also been experimenting with single weapom limit break challenges, going in with 1 weapon on inverse and seeing if i can get a win

i did whip, kmife, axe, garlic, cross, wand, fire wand.
fire wand and cross, i couldn't even last 2 minutes.
whip, wand, bible and knife i was able to win with.

santa water is just too unreliable unevolved. .

i dunno, someone above me said i nees "a specific" arcana and "specific upgrades" and a "specific build" to make it viable and that makes it "bad" in my opinion.

i mean, yeah, every weapon has a "specific" set of upgrades that make it better.

my ng now is to start off with divine bloodline and just kill the first waves with retaliation and then use a revive with several hundred hp. and since i broke the economy with sammy, i always have plenty of gold to buy the extra card pick and all the rerolls from the merchant.

i try not to buy eggs. only did that with sammy and toasty, but that breaks the game completely wide open and makes it boring AF. also sammy with eggs wreaks havok on my framerate. . .