Broken Hero Sword is overpowered.

[AlexRubashkin]

Final form of Broken Hero Sword completely trivializes the game. Worse, you can make it almost every run without sacrificing too much of other aspects of your build.

[Stanis23]

You can kill MD in 5-10s with any decent legendary weapons and builds.

Full AP Sorc with Dark Wiz Staff can shotgun nuke MD and deleted an entire bar before he can even teleport. Same for full stack ex Mortis and Bibles etc etc.

Now while Hero Sword does solve RNG issue and makes sure you will always have a strong weapon, it also comes with its own package of issues. Namely sacrificing starting items (5 bombs / breads is mega huge in Cinder 12-16), locking inventories, wasting two rooms of boss rewards (which means even lesser resources), etc etc. Furthermore it is not even guarantee to get Whetstone on high cinder.

Also fun fact, it is already quite nerfed compared to OG PTR one. As of now it is just a barely better Excalibur.

For low cinders there are too many things that can auto-win as is without the need of Hero Sword, something like No Pain No Gain alone can trivializes everything due to 3 Death Defy per room (before Berserker comes in).

[KianaSuperCute]

How do you guarantee to upgrade Hero sword pass 12 cinder? I don't have enough resource to even evolve once before 3F or even 4F. Am I suppose to fight 1-3F with my starting gear and put all the loot into gold? I am having great trouble getting pass cinder 12 and have no idea how to unlock cinder 16 after that.

[zverozvero]

You cant. Guaranteed wetstone is only cinders 1-4 (or is it 0-4?). At higher cinder it takes hunt for giftbox rooms, genie lamp or Santa with even more gold.

[KianaSuperCute]

Publicado originalmente por zverozvero:

You cant. Guaranteed wetstone is only cinders 1-4 (or is it 0-4?). At higher cinder it takes hunt for giftbox rooms, genie lamp or Santa with even more gold.

maybe I just need to git gud, but upgrading hero sword seems like a pain in the ass.

[Stanis23]

^Pretty much this
At low cinder with guarantee whetstone from knight in tavern getting +4 is just a matter of time, once it is removed it becomes a complete different story.

[HeraldOfOpera]

Publicado originalmente por KianaSuperCute:

Publicado originalmente por zverozvero:

You cant. Guaranteed wetstone is only cinders 1-4 (or is it 0-4?). At higher cinder it takes hunt for giftbox rooms, genie lamp or Santa with even more gold.

maybe I just need to git gud, but upgrading hero sword seems like a pain in the ass.

It is, which is why it's also comically easy win once you do.

[zverozvero]

Gitgut may help with resources but chance for Stone to randomly drop or Lamp event to spawn are both low. If you can go on resourceless diet through bigger half of run you could use those along the way and crush game just as well.
Restoring sword is akin to alternative game mode where one exerts through run but gets across finish line few floors earlier when restoration is complete. Or dont (on Cinder 5+ ) and keeps on with 2 less backpack slots, mediocre purple weapon and floors worth of wasted opportunities.

[Ben]

Publicado originalmente por AlexRubashkin:

Publicado originalmente por pi73r:

3/4 of the stuff in this game is overpowered, you will have to play full cinder

No, not as much as Broken Hero Sword. This is basically guaranteed early legendary, and one of the most powerful (if not THE most powerful) to boot.
In fact, I'm playing full Cinder (I have 100% achievements already). With proper build and BHS you can kill bosses almost instantly even with Cinder 16.

Just wondering, do you use the campfire tree upgrades ?
Because if full cinder 0 upgrade, it would be more than overpowered...

[Dlanor]

If you want the game to be difficult at all you really just must play using Cinders. One of the hidden effects Cinders have is that on Cinder 4 and below, the Knight in the Tavern will give you a Blacksmith's Whetstone (aka the item to get your Hero Sword to level 4 to transform it), but on cinders above 4 you get different items instead.

[KianaSuperCute]

Publicado originalmente por HeraldOfOpera:

Publicado originalmente por KianaSuperCute:

maybe I just need to git gud, but upgrading hero sword seems like a pain in the ass.

It is, which is why it's also comically easy win once you do.

I have tried it yesterday, I think hero sword is not broken at all. The effort you put into getting the final hero sword make the early game extreme dangerous. Most of my run fail at 4-5F which the material just not appearing in boss room, and others like I don't have enough gold to upgrade the sword or I can't find the item to upgrade the hero sword to lv4.
Alongside with you losing the starting boost and sacrificing 1 item slot. hero sword just not good enough to be broken, especially under high cinder.

[Skl3ros]

I would maybe agree with you on lower cinders but you also don't have to pick this startup. At higher cinders I completely disagree. The requirements to get it are quite steep when you consider all the costs:

1) no beneficial startup item (this one is huge on higher cinders)
2) having to collect and invest 120 gold
3) 1 less inventory slot
4) 2 less boss rewards
5) a whetstone which you are not guaranteed to get at all

While I agree that it is gamewinning once you get it, at higher cinders it is not even worth the trouble imo. Much easier to dodge all the costs and win with one of the many other good weapons than to gimp your already hard run and make the early game a living hell. Besides if you were able to invest all the costs to fully repair the sword than you likely would have finished the run anyways.

So no on higher cinders I don't think the sword is gamebreaking at all.

[HeraldOfOpera]

Publicado originalmente por Skl3ros:

I would maybe agree with you on lower cinders but you also don't have to pick this startup. At higher cinders I completely disagree. The requirements to get it are quite steep when you consider all the costs:

1) no beneficial startup item (this one is huge on higher cinders)
2) having to collect and invest 120 gold
3) 1 less inventory slot
4) 2 less boss rewards
5) a whetstone which you are not guaranteed to get at all

While I agree that it is gamewinning once you get it, at higher cinders it is not even worth the trouble imo. Much easier to dodge all the costs and win with one of the many other good weapons than to gimp your already hard run and make the early game a living hell. Besides if you were able to invest all the costs to fully repair the sword than you likely would have finished the run anyways.

So no on higher cinders I don't think the sword is gamebreaking at all.

Which in turn is why half the variations just got a buff.

[sinsorrow1]

Publicado originalmente por AlexRubashkin:

Final form of Broken Hero Sword completely trivializes the game. Worse, you can make it almost every run without sacrificing too much of other aspects of your build.

Why do you think it's called BROKEN hero sword?

[KianaSuperCute]

Just completed cinder 16, really a true painful experience. Need some real RNGesus blessed for me to beat it. At cinder 16 broken hero sword for me it just literally trash. The greatest challenge is to get pass the first 3 level with a decent gear, which broken hero sword just completely off the table.

In my experience, it is only like ~20% chance to upgrade the hero sword to epic at 3F, which mean you have to face the hardest part of a 16 cinder run and save research for a potential upgrade. It just make it way harder compare to just bring others starting item instead. There also is chance the 2nd material only appear in late or even 10F, which just make it completely lose the purpose of using the hero sword on high cinder run.

If you are looking for a broken weapon, it should be the Thunder Wand (Kugelblitz wand), which is just a rare weapon yet it is more powerful than most of the legendary.

[Skl3ros]

Publicado originalmente por KianaSuperCute:

If you are looking for a broken weapon, it should be the Thunder Wand (Kugelblitz wand), which is just a rare weapon yet it is more powerful than most of the legendary.

I didn't want to mention it anywhere on the forums because I enjoyed abusing it but I completely agree. This was the weapon that I used for my cinder 16 run as well. It's also one of the few weapons I would always take no matter what even if it had a negative trait because it just carried any of my runs whenever I got it.