True ending boss fight is ridiculously over-tuned *spoilers inside*

[Neki]

The true ending boss is ridiculous, I think it's way too over-tuned. They have massive amounts of health along with basically punishing every mechanic you'd want to do in the game. You can't move until you've killed a certain add, another add does barrage down a line and another add just infinitely scales 2 attack on 2 counter and the last add just scales off every card that is destroyed. Not being able to move is probably the biggest offender since the whole game-play loop revolves around shuffling on the field to absorb and shift damage and the true boss just completely negates that until you've burned through a 50+ health add.

Getting the true boss fight is also RNG because you need both vase items and the best way to do that is through shops. You can get it through card rewards but it's almost insulting to waste a card reward to get a vase piece because ifit's offered you have to take it if you want to get the true ending fight. Getting to the heart fight in Slay the Spire is deterministic compared to here and because there is so many encounters in Slay the Spire, you aren't punished compared to wasting gold or a card reward. (edit: found out vase pieces are always in glowing areas on the map so that's better but still sucks losing a whole card reward.)

So far the closet I've gotten to actually killing it is stacking snowman cards so you can lock down 3 of them and then needing to have massive damage to kill one lane bu it's still awful to do.

I have problems with the final boss with against your old team but at least that fight doesn't throw out all the mechanics you've been building up to for the sake of difficulty.

I'd like to see how play-testers or the devs actually beat the true boss consistently because I'm honestly clueless how anyone could think this was anywhere near balanced.

[Uli Minati]

When I first encountered the final boss, I got destroyed - no counter to the Barrage and Aimless enemies, my allies were all low max health with high healing output, which didn't help. It also *seems* ridiculous, just looking at the 90-60-30 health levels
Second time I won, with a summon boosting and burn team (today)

You can rearrange crowns in between the two boss battles
12 Snow item to disable the boosting fast attacker for the entire fight
Yank to focus fire the Barrage and Aimless enemies (unless you have full Barrage team). Hook is very common
Summoning new allies into occupied spots allows you to push allies around *despite* the Jailer, which means you can even move them out of harms way. (Or use Ink.) Works best with shades and clunkers
Most of the enemies are slow. Consider belling early to hunt for specific items/allies to set up your combo

[Lyrin]

I'm currently at a 3 win streak going for the secret last boss. It is not *that* different than how you would build a run before that, you know the last boss, this is the only certainty you have from the start of the run to the end.

My current strat involves 3 basic ideas:
1. Damage output
You need damage, to eventually kill the enemies... this can take many forms. I've had a couple Yuki runs now where I had one or more snow cakes. I had a run where I used the new version of Soulbound Skulls to great effect with sacrificing Jun Juns. Most damage options that work in normal runs work here... they just need to be able to output more.

2. Survival
Shellbo is great, especially if you can get some form of Noomlin on it, paired with the Lumin Vase it's kinda absurd. Pinkberry Juice can also work wonders (again bonus for noomlin and/or Lumin Vase). Berry Sis can do work, especially with some healing back-up. This aspect can be somewhat less emphasized in normal runs since you can often build enough damage to just take them down early... less of an option here for most runs.

3. Crowd control
Snow is great, obviously. Even just your basic snow sticks can help stall some of the nastier offensive units. I rarely run the gnomes but I imagine ink could do wonders as well. A snowcake or two, a snoffel, even a charmed frost bell can help quite a lot.

Belling early is a great idea, it's way better than just playing through cards because it'd "waste" a turn. If you get nuked or lose a key unit early it came make it difficult to impossible to come back after that with how much damage the enemies output.

I'm not gonna say that I think the secret last boss is easy, but it's definitely surmountable. Just takes some adjustment.

[swolblu]

I think the worst part about it is the Frost Jailer. You can't move your units until you kill it. But moving your units is integral to you even getting to it in the first place. It doesn't make sense to me to lock out a core mechanic like this for a huge portion of the fight.

I've personally only beat it once, and that was with a 2x Blaze Bom + Lumin Vase + Durian & Bom Charm + Plinker combo. So the mechanic didn't matter - I just killed the jailer the first turn anyway and then played as normal. To need that much DPS to even play normally sucks and kills a lot of builds.

[Luckyways]

Hey guys, i'm on a 30 3 bells vanquish streak, i think the final final boss is definitely beatable quite consistently. The Slay the Spire Heart on ascension 20 is WAAY harder than this.
The devs published the roadmap with an eventual difficulty upgrade so ascension 20 and current wildfrost 3 bells difficulty might not be comparable.

Anyway i'll share some tips and strategies that worked for me.

1. Snowdwellers>Clunkmasters>Shadowmancers. Snowdwellers are the most consistent, followed by the gnomes and their op INK, avoid shadowmancers unless you truly master them or you might have a headache in the final fight.

2. Snoffel + lumin vase + any kind of way to make him act faster or multiple times. This can solve 4/6 enemies you have in the final fight.
Example: Snoffel+ Lumin Vase(on Snoffel)+ Krono = everybody but barrage dude and lancer is permafrozen from turn 4(even faster with a sun rod). Just need something else to deal with barrage guy and aimless lancer(maybe some sustain HP/BLOCK/just kill them faster than they kill you) (ALL TRIBE CAN USE THIS CHEESE)

3. The God himself Shelbo. This card can win you the game alone with the right charm. Always pick it because if you find a moko charm(-2 attack + frenzy) you can cheese the game by having almost infinite hp. Moko Shelbo + Lumin Vase is 20 block for everybody on a row....yeah. (SNOWDWELLERS ONLY)

4. Soulbound skull cheese. Soulbound skull with frenzy(+aimless +frenzy charm or +consume +frenzy charm) can cheese you a win if you hit the right targets. Just remember to play your sacrifice before your leader. (SHADOWMANCERS ONLY)

5. Spark charm/Moko Totem/Fast unit HIGH DPS cheese. You need the big chili pepper for 7 spice, and depending on your charms (critical charm is good) with lumin vase and spice stones you can try to burst the jailor down instantly. Without the jailor the fight is more manageable but it's not an auto win unless you keep the spice with Spice Banner.(SNODWELLERS ONLY)

And there's obviously many more combinations that can get you to a vanquish win, Snowcakes spam help a lot, big Yukis, Ink is amazing, etc.

If you want to see the footage of this 30 streak you can find it on https://www.twitch.tv/luckyways (all of my vods are saved so you can watch them at any time). I also stream every day continuing the streak, who knows when it will stop.
I will upload the vods on youtube eventually if you dislike the twitch player.

Hopefully you got something useful from this, good luck on your runs and enjoy this amazing game!