how are you supposed to beat giant head?

[Not gay but a dollar is a dollar]

he just killed me for the first time and i have NO idea how i was supposed to beat him
i ran massive hand poison deck because i managed to find two 3 poison per tick cards, and it looked like i was going to win this run, and you know what happened next

even if you had a deck with only bouncing flask (best poison card) and +1 energy you still wouldn't have enough dps to beat him in time, and thats assuming you had enough health not to block any attacks

if you had ANY block focused build you would lose instantly

how are you even meant to do this? is getting him just game over? the only way i can think of is a lucky starting hand and a LOT of shivs

[bulbatrs]

a lot depends on the type on deck you have and amout of damage you can output, the first time I met him with silent I had a good cycle (0 shivs) deck so I murdered him in 3 turns before he could do anything but lost 2 times with silent afterwards purely because I had either too slow poison scaling deck or no finishing high damage cards.

[NotMana]

I ran into Giant Head only once so far. Was running as the Silent doing a Mummified hand Powers deck with a mix of poison, shiv, carry over block, and weakness. Killed him turn 6 or 7. I suspect it's a dps race as his damage output scales per turn.

I didn't have trouble with him probably because I had 2 of the power that gives +1 armor when a skill is used and had an acceptable amount of draw. Barely took any damage against him.

[Pixel Peeper]

It's a "kill it before it kills you" encounter. Focus on damage early on; if taking a few 9-damage hits early in the fight will save you from taking 40-damage hits later, the trade is well worth it.

Poison decks are slow. If you don't have Catalyst to speed things up, you're likely not going to win encounters that are all about killing the enemy before the enemy kills you.

Really, the big thing in this game is just to know the level 3 encounters and not build decks that get hard-countered by them.

[bulbatrs]

Originally posted by Tripoteur Ventripotent:

It's a "kill it before it kills you" encounter. Focus on damage early on; if taking a few 9-damage hits early in the fight will save you from taking 40-damage hits later, the trade is well worth it.

Poison decks are slow. If you don't have Catalyst to speed things up, you're likely not going to win encounters that are all about killing the enemy before the enemy kills you.

Really, the big thing in this game is just to know the level 3 encounters and not build decks that get hard-countered by them.

the head does not really hard counter any decks, poison can most definatelly kill the head. I lost with mine purely because it was kinda forced weak poison deck and I did like 400 dmg defore dying. with some powerfull poison cards this encounter can be very easy. I don't think "hard counres" exist in this game. you might lack powerfull type of cards needed to beat the encounter, but that's because you never got them and probably went for wrong type of deck for that run.

[Zadown]

I've beaten him several times with poison decks, either by having so defensive deck that I could tank his later huge hits or by being fast enough with Catalysts that he died before his damage got unmanageable. Noxious Fumes is an awesome card but you can't just rely on that to win harder fights. If your deck can't kill the giant head the 3rd floor bosses will kill you in any case.

[Pixel Peeper]

Originally posted by bulbatrs:

Originally posted by Tripoteur Ventripotent:

It's a "kill it before it kills you" encounter. Focus on damage early on; if taking a few 9-damage hits early in the fight will save you from taking 40-damage hits later, the trade is well worth it.

Poison decks are slow. If you don't have Catalyst to speed things up, you're likely not going to win encounters that are all about killing the enemy before the enemy kills you.

Really, the big thing in this game is just to know the level 3 encounters and not build decks that get hard-countered by them.

the head does not really hard counter any decks, poison can most definatelly kill the head. I lost with mine purely because it was kinda forced weak poison deck and I did like 400 dmg defore dying. with some powerfull poison cards this encounter can be very easy. I don't think "hard counres" exist in this game. you might lack powerfull type of cards needed to beat the encounter, but that's because you never got them and probably went for wrong type of deck for that run.

Yes, with a couple bouncing flasks and a Catalyst, a poison deck could easily beat the head.

Without Catalyst, you'd need some serious hybridization to get through the encounter without taking tons of damage.

There definitely are very very hard counters in this game. Infinite cycle decks will not work against the Time Eater, tiny Clash decks will not work against enemies that put trash into your deck unless you get the unceasing top and can pull off the infinite combo on the first turn, heavy Power decks cannot beat the Awakened One... if you overspecialize, the RNG might simply kill you.

[Korvo]

I've never actually lost to the head. It is definitely a stranger fight but any deck should be able to kill it by playing a bit smart -- as Silent you get the 1 energy vulnerability card, or as Ironclad the 2 energy vulnerability for 3 turns card -- and by using your low cost low-damage (or no damage) cards first you should be able to rack up the "SLOW" debuff the head has to deal more damage with whatever you have that hits hard. IIRC you shouldn't really block his early attacks at all unless you have nothing else to attack with or are about to win quite soon because of his damage ramps up.

So again:
-don't block
-apply your vulnerability/buffs early
-use your low cost and non-damaging abilites first in the turn
-the higher damage an ability deals, the later you use it in your turn
-wail on him like a crazed psycho

[KyotoKyoshi]

ive lost to the head with a poor silent poison deck but back when venomology was in the game it was possible to kill him with poison only maybe they will add it back in so you can really stack it up

[Lyrin]

I beat it with a lot of burst damage, Perfected Strikes and Blood for Bloods, with some cycles and 0 Energy cards like Flexes. Seems like it'd be pretty dang hard with a low damage deck.

[Pixel Peeper]

Originally posted by KyotoKyoshi:

ive lost to the head with a poor silent poison deck but back when venomology was in the game it was possible to kill him with poison only maybe they will add it back in so you can really stack it up

If they add it back, it'll probably do something very different. Before they removed it, it did the exact same thing as Noxious Fumes except weaker because it required enemies to already be poisoned.

[KyotoKyoshi]

Originally posted by Tripoteur Ventripotent:

Originally posted by KyotoKyoshi:

ive lost to the head with a poor silent poison deck but back when venomology was in the game it was possible to kill him with poison only maybe they will add it back in so you can really stack it up

If they add it back, it'll probably do something very different. Before they removed it, it did the exact same thing as Noxious Fumes except weaker because it required enemies to already be poisoned.

it had innate or i was just really lucky and always got it in my starting hand which is really important really really really important

[Mr.RED]

This is a good discussion.
But I wanted to say: if you go into that encounter with less than 40 hp, you have a slim chance of winning, no matter WHAT your deck is.

Cause I went into that big head fight with about 30 hp and yeeeeah, I tried it 5 different times and it wasn't happening with my (Ironclad) deck. It wasn't that it was unwinnable, but in that situation with my health that low it might as well have been over before it even began. I guess what I was supposed to learn from that is: On Act 3, you may not want to choose a path that has an elite after 2 other battles.

[bulbatrs]

Originally posted by Mr. Red:

This is a good discussion.
But I wanted to say: if you go into that encounter with less than 40 hp, you have a slim chance of winning, no matter WHAT your deck is.

Cause I went into that big head fight with about 30 hp and yeeeeah, I tried it 5 different times and it wasn't happening with my (Ironclad) deck. It wasn't that it was unwinnable, but in that situation with my health that low it might as well have been over before it even began. I guess what I was supposed to learn from that is: On Act 3, you may not want to choose a path that has an elite after 2 other battles.

you had a bad deck, you can kill it easy with close to 0 damage taken with an average deck

[duder]

The relic that makes weakness reduce damage by 50% instead of 25% allowed me to beat him last night. That relic actually carried me through the whole run after I picked it up at an early merchant.. Paper Crane, I think its called.

The other two times I ran into him were dismal failures lol

[[Linux] Zelte]

I won my first encounter with him as The Silent. It was hilarious. The build I had was able to create 70-80 defense each turn si I killed him in like 10-15 turn losing only 3 Hp in the fight. But on that run I got the Awakened One as final boss and I utterly destroyed him, so it was really strong. I've never got the eater of time, but my deck sound like the kind of deck that he would have countered.