Are there any good Battle Scars?

[Redvenge]

They seem to be either "meh" (such as Natualist or Zealot) or a death sentence, like Pyromaniac, Convetous or Hard Head. I would actually prefer to disable Battle Scars if I could. They detract from the game more than add to it.

[Inkie]

You can turn them off in the options menu, then you will be safe from them in the campaign. However, you will keep getting them in the new Trophy Trial mode. Can't escape the Scars.

And yes, most all Scars are bad. Even the "good" scars, when they don't match your build, are bad. The ones giving you the wrong ability points just bloat your deck with cards you don't want.

Oh, as for good scars, Flesh Wound is not bad in Final Stage, Fountain Addict is insanely good in final stage, Hard Headed is great in most builds. The ones that give you ability points are sadly only good if you get the exact ones you want.

[Fishling]

Punch Drunk [Final] is amazing. Stupidity cards turn into a universal blocker. Yes, please! Also, I usually choose Crone's Blessing for +1 starting hand so a Stupidity card isn't that big a deal for some of the other scars.

[Myll_Erik]

There are a good mix of bad and good ones - alternatively, you can aslo turn off Battle Scars via the options menu if they aren't your thing.

[Redvenge]

Originally posted by Myll_Erik:

There are a good mix of bad and good ones - alternatively, you can aslo turn off Battle Scars via the options menu if they aren't your thing.

So, which ones are the good ones? They all seem terrible.

[Inkie]

Originally posted by Redvenge:

Originally posted by Myll_Erik:

There are a good mix of bad and good ones - alternatively, you can aslo turn off Battle Scars via the options menu if they aren't your thing.

So, which ones are the good ones? They all seem terrible.

There is no easy answer to that question. It depends on too many things. Scars can be good or bad, depending on what you are playing. Are you doing TT or campaign? What class are you playing? What type of build are you aiming for? (which abilities do you try to raise?) If you are doing TT, what Fate and Blessing do you have. All those things would matter.

Most of the time, I feel like 2/3 of the scars will be bad for your char, and 1/3 of the scars will be good. I don't know if this is a "good mix of bad and good ones". When I used to play campaign I would suicide my chars every time I got scars I didn't like. Which wasn't the ideal way to play, but I wanted the good ones.


Lets look at one example and see what scars are good:

Ranger in campaign mode.

Flesh Wound - Neutral in final stage, Bad in early stage
Fountain Addict - Good in final stage, Bad in early stage
Gullible - Neutral, getting some lower level loot can be favorable, and getting more gold is good.
Hard Headed - Neutral (good when it keeps you alive in early fights. Bad if you have no cards that let you draw more cards. Bad if you have stupidity cards)
Hubris - Bad, it has caused me to run towards a chasing boss.
Hulking - Bad in final stage, stupidity is usually worse than +1HP, Good in early stage
Paranoid - Bad in final stage, Good in early stage
Punch Drunk - Bad, Ranger already has 1 block cards, this just waters down the deck
Pyromaniac - Bad, terrible really, better chance for you to die when you have a bad draw
Scounger - Bad in final stage, very bad actually. You can no longer keep bad cards out of your deck
Tricksy - Neutral, it helps to get loot, but this is the campaign so you want gold
Agile - Good, you are probably going for swift cards with ranger
Mystical - Neutral, a draw card is not horrible
Naturist - Bad, you get a lvl 1 card you don't want
Scarred - Good, lets pretend you want to get crush cards in addition to swift cards
Veteran - Bad, watering down your deck
Zealot - Bad, watering down your deck

Final result: 3 Good, 9 Bad, 5 Neutral


It would be a lot more fun, if there were more scars that start bad, but are better in the final stage. The scars that start good, but end bad, are no fun.

[Redvenge]

Ah, Scrounger. That's the one. For some reason, I got it confused with Covetous.

I don't know why Fountain Addict is considered "good". Bad fountains are usually a death sentence for my Dungeoneers. I have yet to attribute a win to a Good faountain. I guess it's considered "good" because it does not clog up your deck?

I don't agree that Hard Headed is Neutral. Anything that reduces your hand size is terrible. Especially since many "chapter 2" or higher enemies have cards that reduce your hand size. No amount of HP is worth the loss of flexibility. It's more likely to get you killed.

[Inkie]

Four of my chars, all #1 on the TT leaderboard have Hard Headed as a scar. (Mime, Snowitch, Artificer, and Cartomancer) You can watch the replays even. Hard Headed is not hurting those chars. Having a smaller hand size in the beginning of a level is no big deal if your char has drawing cards, or if you plan on getting loot items that give you drawing cards (almost every class needs some drawing cards at some point)

Fountain addict is bad in the early stage, but I don't think you know the final stage.
The final stage of Fountain Addict makes it so None of the bad fountains affect you. You can place fountain tiles endlessly for endless good buffs. You can run into the bad fountains and have nothing bad happen. This is very powerful.

[Redvenge]

Originally posted by Inkie:

Four of my chars, all #1 on the TT leaderboard have Hard Headed as a scar. (Mime, Snowitch, Artificer, and Cartomancer) You can watch the replays even. Hard Headed is not hurting those chars. Having a smaller hand size in the beginning of a level is no big deal if your char has drawing cards, or if you plan on getting loot items that give you drawing cards (almost every class needs some drawing cards at some point)

First, lets look at those classes:

1. Snowitch, who uses Fate to muck around with the other guy's deck.
2. Artificer, a Tier 3 class with really strong cards
3. Cartomancer. The most broken class in the game, since it can draw cards almost every time it takes damage. Seriously, I've beaten all of chapter 2 and 3 with the same Cartomancer. You would need a Pyromancy battle scar or something similar to slow down a Cartomancer.

Congrats on the Mime, though. With it's eclectic selection of cards, I would hesitate to use it with a reduced hand size.

Originally posted by Inkie:

Fountain addict is bad in the early stage, but I don't think you know the final stage.
The final stage of Fountain Addict makes it so None of the bad fountains affect you. You can place fountain tiles endlessly for endless good buffs. You can run into the bad fountains and have nothing bad happen. This is very powerful.

Fair enough. There is ONE good battle scar.

I'm still not convinced Hard Headed is "good" or even "neutral". Outside of the level 3 and 4 cards, the majority of "draw" cards are just spending an action for the "opportunity" to have an "opportunity". This shifts into a "battle of attrition", which usually does not go in the player's favor. Better to start strong and finish the fight sooner. I readily admit, this is only an issue for the first couple of fights on a floor, but I prefer to not have a handicap when I need my cards the most.

[Inkie]

Originally posted by Redvenge:

First, lets look at those classes:

1. Snowitch, who uses Fate to muck around with the other guy's deck.
2. Artificer, a Tier 3 class with really strong cards
3. Cartomancer. The most broken class in the game, since it can draw cards almost every time it takes damage. Seriously, I've beaten all of chapter 2 and 3 with the same Cartomancer. You would need a Pyromancy battle scar or something similar to slow down a Cartomancer.

Congrats on the Mime, though. With it's eclectic selection of cards, I would hesitate to use it with a reduced hand size.

I could go far with literally any class, using Hard Headed. If I get Hard headed in a TT run, I say "cool, that's fine". This is why it shows up in 4 of my top listings. If i get a debilitating scar, I would immediately abandon the run. Hard Headed does nothing like that. Bad scars would actually stop me from going on.

Its just not a debilitating scar. *shug*

Err, I should say, that it Can actually stop a certain type of TT dungeon run. One where I use the Maniac Fate. Those require a big starting hand for damage bonuses. So Hard Headed would end that run instantly.

[Myll_Erik]

Inkie with the amaaing help :) Thank you!