Cycle

[zenK]

What does cycle means in this game?

[Draken]

It's basically the difficulty.

The game is balanced for cycle 1.
But if you want to challenge yourself, you can go higher.

Just a quick warning, some build quickly become infeasible on higher difficulties.

[JackThejil]

Eh... infeasible doesn't apply to much, really? Most things are possible high cycle, it's just some things are much, much less consistent. Doing silly or less effective stuff dies a... lot. A lot, a lot. But you can still get just the right run and push through some remarkably janky stuff.

... some stuff, though, yeah. You're probably not going to manage a powerless naked run in cycle 32, heh. Cycle 1, more possible. All things are permitted in 1st cycle :V

[Draken]

Originally posted by JackThejil:

Eh... infeasible doesn't apply to much, really? Most things are possible high cycle, it's just some things are much, much less consistent. Doing silly or less effective stuff dies a... lot. A lot, a lot. But you can still get just the right run and push through some remarkably janky stuff.

... some stuff, though, yeah. You're probably not going to manage a powerless naked run in cycle 32, heh. Cycle 1, more possible. All things are permitted in 1st cycle :V

Fair, though I would call a build where I had to do 50+ runs for one win to be infeasible to my fun. :P

I was mostly talking about things like using non-familiar summons to deal damage, or low speed builds, or builds that work off of getting attacked by the enemy.
All those just stop working well or at all on higher cylces. At least in my experience.

[JackThejil]

I've had... entirely too much luck with low speed high cycle ones. My first 32nd cycle win was sub 30, one of my next ones was hard capped at like 13 speed (and may have won the game thanks to a retaliation damage proc hitting for a few times the king's max health, ha) :V

I've came pretty close with Yu builds a couple times already, too. King's ate a couple,* basically, fairly sure it's doable if you luck out with the right king or actually try to build around it instead of doing really stupid stuff like trying to build a life chant focused uhrata off it (I've gotten that to the king, it's weirdly effective just kind of in general, there's just particular enemies that will absolutely delete it so avoid those).

Summons actually hitting stuff, though, uh... yeah, that mostly stops working as a primary carry thing. Using non-familiars as a vehicle for something else still works just fine (repulsion paragon rocks 32nd cycle pretty easily), but them actually whacking something on their own just doesn't work that well.

... retaliation's actually pretty spicy, too, it's just really really bad until pretty late in the game. Very tough to get off the ground, when you're spitting out damage spikes in the tens of millions when something tries to touch you things start going better, ahaha.

E: *As an example: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3421305370

It's actually pretty smooth sailing (for 32nd cycle, heh). Neat tech with uhrata and master entangle, you can start the level off hitting yourself for the self damage on prayer to trigger the entangle stacks and start ramping it with Yu. Remarkably helpful getting off the ground sometimes in later levels.

... though looking at it again, that build's, like... literally all three of those things you mentioned. It was actually clearing a number of levels by just spamming jade critters at things until the sickness procs they put out killed something particularly dangerous to get hit by. Hard capped at speed 5, living on retaliation damage and non-familiar minion attacks, ha!

[Draken]

Originally posted by JackThejil:

I've had... entirely too much luck with low speed high cycle ones. My first 32nd cycle win was sub 30, one of my next ones was hard capped at like 13 speed (and may have won the game thanks to a retaliation damage proc hitting for a few times the king's max health, ha) :V

I've came pretty close with Yu builds a couple times already, too. King's ate a couple,* basically, fairly sure it's doable if you luck out with the right king or actually try to build around it instead of doing really stupid stuff like trying to build a life chant focused uhrata off it (I've gotten that to the king, it's weirdly effective just kind of in general, there's just particular enemies that will absolutely delete it so avoid those).

Summons actually hitting stuff, though, uh... yeah, that mostly stops working as a primary carry thing. Using non-familiars as a vehicle for something else still works just fine (repulsion paragon rocks 32nd cycle pretty easily), but them actually whacking something on their own just doesn't work that well.

... retaliation's actually pretty spicy, too, it's just really really bad until pretty late in the game. Very tough to get off the ground, when you're spitting out damage spikes in the tens of millions when something tries to touch you things start going better, ahaha.

E: *As an example: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3421305370

It's actually pretty smooth sailing. Neat tech with uhrata and master entangle, you can start the level off hitting yourself for the self damage to trigger the entangle stacks and start ramping it with Yu. Remarkably helpful getting off the ground sometimes in later levels.

Interesting, thanks for the tip.

And with low speed I mean those 5 speed builds. I found those just too frustrating to get working at higher cyles.
But it does look like I should take a second look at retalitory ones.

[JackThejil]

Yeah, the big weakness I've been finding with the retaliatory stuff is they kinda' need some space to ramp up, so either piles of chump blockers to slow stuff down or luck with the spawning point. If a king is slapping you in the face on turn one you're probably gon' die. If you have time to build up enough of the relevant stacks, it's probably going to pop like a particularly cheap balloon. It's an oddly engaging way of building but even more RNG reliant than normal.

But yeah, Yu/sub-10 speed high cycle is... it's doable. But it's definitely an exercise in frustration if you're not building in very specific ways, and generally pretty frustrating even when you are, heh.

[JackThejil]

And by doable I mean https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3422488012

gonna' give a bit better rundown over in the yavt thread, the run was wild.