i just dont get it

[rAaR]

i'm currently sitting at 10 victories with 211 losses, i've watched streamers and watched you tube videos, watched guides and builds to figure out this game, but yet i cant even kill the heart on normal, never even ascended. i pretty much only play the silent. i've had perfect poison build decks, amazing shiv build decks, block decks, yet whenever i get a boss the game seems to just change the way my cards are drawn. oh boss is attacking? heres literally all your attack cards, oh hes casting? heres all your defense cards you dont need. I've tried small and large decks. like what the ♥♥♥♥ am i missing i just dont understand

[Zu]

You don't pick runic pyramid very often, do you? Piercing wail is a big fan.

Then again, if you keep reaching the heart consistently, you've technically been winning, so all that'd be left to figure out is some nice hard counters like the aforementioned retained wail.

[Khor]

Originally posted by Zu:

Then again, if you keep reaching the heart consistently, you've technically been winning

And you`re doing better than 40% of the playebase!

[rAaR]

i'm definitely in no way reaching the heart consistently, far from it, some rounds i dont even make it to the first boss, but thats me thinking i have a good start and take on to many elites. i dont know i just feel like all my wins were luck and im no closer to actually understanding much about it or ever being able to do ascension. like i love the game, but i dont think i have the understanding or skill to do much with it, like hearts of iron 4

[SundownKid]

IMO Ironclad is the easiest to learn how to play the game, so play as him. He's very forgiving in non-Ascension mode due to his HP regen.

With Ironclad winning is pretty easy, just unlock his cards and then make a Strength scaling deck with Spot Weakness/Limit Break+ and Heavy Blade+. Add in a Whirlwind for multiple enemies and it's hard NOT to lose.

If you find yourself getting only attack or defense cards you probably have no card draw. Cards like Battle Trance/Shrug it Off for Ironclad help you get the cards you want. Half of Silent's cards have an additional draw effect.

Card removal is also important. You want to get rid of your Strikes and Defends somehow. If you can't remove them, you should Transform them, Pandora's Box works wonders there.

[Zu]

At the risk of posting a bideo you've seen yet, this is a solid hour about what problems cards solve, why you'd want them, and even why you think you need them even though you don't.

It's virtually entirely about Ironclad, but these sorts of fundamentals translate to understanding Silent and Defect as well. Like, you'll stop thinking about some arbitrary archetypal poison deck and figure out that a card doesn't necessarily serve the same purpose as another card just because they both have poison written on them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8IP7zkYurk


Disclaimer:
Even if there is such a thing as a perfectly balanced deck which solves all problems equally well, there will be times where you draw like trash, in part because you don't need to be solving all problems all the time, so a card that was great last fight is now gonna get in the way. Don't let it get to you. In most cases, bad draws are not the primary reason why a run ends in death.

[bulbatrs]

it's impossible to say what your problem is, the best thing to do in your case is just to forget all the youtube etc staff and just focus on things that seem to work for you the best and take time on your turns, think about what can happen next.

[VisionofFire]

@rAaR
If you want actual constructive advice, post a bunch of your runs on spirelogs, and link your profile or the runs, preferably with the seeds listed here(as spirelogs often doesn't show seed). If you'd prefer to stay mostly anonymous, just create a new acct (email is not mandatory) there as that will help group the runs.

If you're suffering from low winrate, it's very likely that you're not constructing your decks properly and are not evaluating cards correctly. As spirelogs runs show which cards were offered/picked/skipped, it should be possible to point out any glaring errors. Also, it will give us a good idea of how you path.

If you're curious about how to build a generic Ironclad deck for ascension 0,
https://spirelogs.com/pages/profile.php?user=AnonIronchad
These are not well built decks, but they're good enough to win, and the logic behind constructing them is fairly simple.

[Zammy]

Originally posted by Zu:

Disclaimer:
Even if there is such a thing as a perfectly balanced deck which solves all problems equally well, there will be times where you draw like trash, in part because you don't need to be solving all problems all the time, so a card that was great last fight is now gonna get in the way. Don't let it get to you. In most cases, bad draws are not the primary reason why a run ends in death.

There are no such things as bad draws!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1750884708

[rAaR]

Originally posted by VisionOfFire:

@rAaR
If you want actual constructive advice, post a bunch of your runs on spirelogs, and link your profile or the runs, preferably with the seeds listed here(as spirelogs often doesn't show seed). If you'd prefer to stay mostly anonymous, just create a new acct (email is not mandatory) there as that will help group the runs.

If you're suffering from low winrate, it's very likely that you're not constructing your decks properly and are not evaluating cards correctly. As spirelogs runs show which cards were offered/picked/skipped, it should be possible to point out any glaring errors. Also, it will give us a good idea of how you path.

If you're curious about how to build a generic Ironclad deck for ascension 0,
https://spirelogs.com/pages/profile.php?user=AnonIronchad
These are not well built decks, but they're good enough to win, and the logic behind constructing them is fairly simple.

do i need to create an account with an email i don't use? i just created an account and not quite sure how to share my profile without it showing my email address

edit: nvm im stupid, made my username my email rofl

[VisionofFire]

@rAaR
Your run
https://spirelogs.com/viewrun.php?run=599989

My version of the run
https://spirelogs.com/viewrun.php?run=600010

Thoughts on run comparison:
Besides the difference in cards, you can see how I was able to play a great deal more aggressively, while simultaneously avoiding having to rest at all. Pathing wise Act I, I went for the triple Elite path. If you get the potion seller event, it can definitely be worth buying the potions if Elites are coming up, as your'e essentially trading a potion or two (20 or less gold each), for a relic (considering buying a shop relic costs 100-200+). On the regular non-ascension difficulty, you really want to get used to the idea that instead of playing fair and recovering damage by resting, you can use offensive potions to kill enemies a turn early, preventing them from dealing damage. Defensive potions can block for large amounts of damage, effectively healing you for 12 in the case of a block potion, or more (Ghost in a Jar).

The comment you're probably going to get from a lot of posters is your card choice is questionable, especially if you've been reading guides. Distraction is a fun card, but it's very unreliable. As Zu and others have mentioned in the recent "Are elites worth fighting" threads, the standard A1 strategy is to load up on some damage cards then go after the Elites. In my case, my deck was subpar for hunting elites, but the potions bought made up for it quite handily.

You also need to reassess your card pick / upgrade priority. The biggest advantage Silent has defensively over Ironclad and Defect is she has easy access to Weakness. Neutralize tends to be a very high priority upgrade, unless you got another killer upgrade, like Glass Knife or something. If you check your upgraded stats, you're only upgrading neutralize 16% of the time (7 of 43). Weakness that lasts across turns is good because it's effectively generating block for your next turn(s), and also scales up as energy damage gets higher.

On the flipside, you're also picking up situational power cards too often. Accuracy is a power that often doesn't make the cut, because it only affects Shivs, and most of your deck/attacks are not Shivs. Besides Cloak and Dagger, you really only want to pick up the Shiv cards if you have a relic that supports it, (i.e. Kunai, Shuriken, etc.). Cloak and Dagger when used to support synergies often is upgraded as well, whereas you have it at a low upgrade %. Blade Dance, the other common Shiv card, is bad value unless you have something that synergizes with it. You're paying 1 energy for 8 damage, or 12 upgraded. Compare it to Dagger Spray where you have 8/12 damage to all targets. Infinite Blades is also not a high pick early, especially if you have to spend gold to acquire it. Unlike poison it effectively deals a flat amount of damage per round, the effect never stacks. Buying and burning an upgrade on it early was a definite waste of resources.

Also from your stats, I can see you've only picked Malaise once. I'm pretty sure you've been offered Malaise more than that, Malaise is a stupid strong card. While it's not nearly as good in Act I, it shuts down some key encounters in the game, including 2 of the 3 Act III bosses.

So yeah, in terms of card evaluation picking alone, you've definitely got some work to do.
Back to the run itself. Being on 4 energy vs 3 energy is generally a pretty big deal. If you're on 3 energy, you really want to be looking out for cards or relics that generate that extra energy, or otherwise cheat value into play. If you compare the damage we took against Dual Thieves, Snecko, Cultist & Chosen, you can see that my deck bled very little, and a large part of that comes from being able to output more damage/defense. Orrery is generally a low tier pick for a Boss Relic, as you need to be very careful about bloating your deck on 3 energy.

[rAaR]

Originally posted by VisionOfFire:

@rAaR
Your run
https://spirelogs.com/viewrun.php?run=599989

My version of the run
https://spirelogs.com/viewrun.php?run=600010

Thoughts on run comparison:
Besides the difference in cards, you can see how I was able to play a great deal more aggressively, while simultaneously avoiding having to rest at all. Pathing wise Act I, I went for the triple Elite path. If you get the potion seller event, it can definitely be worth buying the potions if Elites are coming up, as your'e essentially trading a potion or two (20 or less gold each), for a relic (considering buying a shop relic costs 100-200+). On the regular non-ascension difficulty, you really want to get used to the idea that instead of playing fair and recovering damage by resting, you can use offensive potions to kill enemies a turn early, preventing them from dealing damage. Defensive potions can block for large amounts of damage, effectively healing you for 12 in the case of a block potion, or more (Ghost in a Jar).

The comment you're probably going to get from a lot of posters is your card choice is questionable, especially if you've been reading guides. Distraction is a fun card, but it's very unreliable. As Zu and others have mentioned in the recent "Are elites worth fighting" threads, the standard A1 strategy is to load up on some damage cards then go after the Elites. In my case, my deck was subpar for hunting elites, but the potions bought made up for it quite handily.

You also need to reassess your card pick / upgrade priority. The biggest advantage Silent has defensively over Ironclad and Defect is she has easy access to Weakness. Neutralize tends to be a very high priority upgrade, unless you got another killer upgrade, like Glass Knife or something. If you check your upgraded stats, you're only upgrading neutralize 16% of the time (7 of 43). Weakness that lasts across turns is good because it's effectively generating block for your next turn(s), and also scales up as energy damage gets higher.

On the flipside, you're also picking up situational power cards too often. Accuracy is a power that often doesn't make the cut, because it only affects Shivs, and most of your deck/attacks are not Shivs. Besides Cloak and Dagger, you really only want to pick up the Shiv cards if you have a relic that supports it, (i.e. Kunai, Shuriken, etc.). Cloak and Dagger when used to support synergies often is upgraded as well, whereas you have it at a low upgrade %. Blade Dance, the other common Shiv card, is bad value unless you have something that synergizes with it. You're paying 1 energy for 8 damage, or 12 upgraded. Compare it to Dagger Spray where you have 8/12 damage to all targets. Infinite Blades is also not a high pick early, especially if you have to spend gold to acquire it. Unlike poison it effectively deals a flat amount of damage per round, the effect never stacks. Buying and burning an upgrade on it early was a definite waste of resources.

Also from your stats, I can see you've only picked Malaise once. I'm pretty sure you've been offered Malaise more than that, Malaise is a stupid strong card. While it's not nearly as good in Act I, it shuts down some key encounters in the game, including 2 of the 3 Act III bosses.

So yeah, in terms of card evaluation picking alone, you've definitely got some work to do.

TY

[VisionofFire]

@rAaR
What will probably help you more are focused questions. I would recommend you pick out some runs that you remember being interesting, link them, and ask some specific questions to this forum. Even something as simple as just focusing on Act I, and the card choices available to see if other players might've picked something else, as well as hearing the players reasoning on why, will probably be more helpful to you than just reading a guide or watching a stream, without interaction. Getting your specific questions answered will probably be of more help to you.

I'll try to take a look at a bunch of your runs later, and try to pull together a few points for you to try to focus on later. Probably not tonight, but sometime in the next few days.

@Zu / Khor / whoever else
If you guys spirelogs profiles (or are willing to create a throwaway one), uploading a bunch of Silent runs would be nice for raAr, as being able to see the pick rate/upgrade rate of another player can serve as a rough guide to other players, and would probably be useful.

[Khor]

Man... here i was nearly praising you about how nice and helpful you are..... and you go and try to make me help

Anyway, i ended up uploading the latest 50 Silent`s which turned out being 50 random (so it`s actually 41 A20 and some climb stuff)
https://spirelogs.com/pages/profile.php?user=KSilent

[Fluffy Bunny]

I've lost 45 games with The Silent in a row, so I'm feeling about the same as you do at the moment.

[Zu]

Originally posted by Zammy:

There are no such things as bad draws!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1750884708

, Zammy says with 6/86 hp on turn 3 despite turnip, probably cuz rip potions and somehow only 19 cards despite act 2 toxic egg and act 3 question card, and various other reasons. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

PepeHands , fren, but the point was that stuff like this isn't the biggest reason why you died.

Originally posted by VisionOfFire:

spirelogs boii

I like side by side comparisons more. First impression after loading up dat seed: What a dissatisfactory act 1 all around. LUL Tbh I let myself get influenced by your ballsiness of fighting an early burning elite on a gauntlet of hallway fights cuz I was like "Eh, entropic brew will carry." No way in hell I would've survived after a floor 6 A18 Lagavulin+, but maybe I just suck. LUL

https://spirelogs.com/viewrun.php?run=600067

The log's incomplete but here's extremely rushed and therefore not very helpful commentary anyway (cuz busy). Might revise this later for a more comprehensive look:

Pathing) Normally I think I would've taken one of the paths to the right because the order of floors looked better. If I had a better sense of A18 elites, I might've traded my starter relic before making this decision.

F0) Already forgot what the other blessings were. Random common is great. Maw bank didn't do anything until the end of the act where I got an event store, but hey, it made way for other stuff.

F1) There's an argument for slice. I chose to wait for something better.

F2) Potion event was crap besides the entropic brew, but it was enough to make me gamble.

F3) Yay, crappy damage common. CnD tends to be better way later so I didn't pick it here. Found ghost in a jar. Good stuff.

F4) Log's not showing that I picked skewer and thorns pot. Sinking all your energy into damage is decently helpful even if inefficient.

F5) Deadly poison's bad vs sentries, polarizing vs nob, but great vs lagavulin and tons of other stuff, and I was still banking on entropic containing damage. Make of this what you will. There are arguments for backstab too.

F6) Yeh, got debuffed thrice. -6 in comparison to -3 is like gg ez. Probably should've ghost potted and entropic brewed earlier. It also just occurs to me the log's further broken and isn't showing potion drops from fights. Well whatever. Bottling neutralize was probably another stupid thing cuz it does nothing vs gremlin nob, guardian, and other stuff (unless upgraded) but at least clears an artifact vs sentries for deadly poison. Pros n cons I guess.

F7) More shrooms. Didn't feel like I wanted another crappy damage card. Found dex pot.

F8) Shoehorned myself into upgrading neutralize. Many others would've upgraded either deadly poison or caltrops I reckon, or even skewer.

F9) Useful lantern. Wouldn't have this by now with different pathing.

F10) Ok nob kill. I think this is where I popped a dex pot and entropic brew just to see if I could kill him faster. Not sure anymore. Probably would've died at A18 here cuz lol turn 4 nob. Fiery vision picked more attacks until this point and thus got a turn 3 nob kill. Just goes to show the difference a few choices made. More hallways and 50:50 sentries ahead, so I was feeling the backstab.

F11) Had no aoe whatsoever but act 1 was almost over and I didn't feel like resting vs guardian so I skipped. Just A0 things, you know?

F12) Lagavulin rising revengeance. Great turn 1. Upgraded neutralize let me take way less damage. Had absolutely nothing to nightmare yet for cheese later, so I skipped. Egg's nice. It upgraded the sucker punch I found next floor. Found essence of steel. All these free potions.

F13) It's not even a great card to pick at higher ascensions even if preupgraded, but I like it.

F14) Backflip on sale. Even more attractive cuz I was worried about 3 energy act 2 and there was art of war. Log's not showing I removed a strike.

F15) Needed more backloaded damage so hello deadly poison+.

F16) Preupgraded glass knife. Nice for hunting act 2 elites. Wraith form's more broken. Sorta ironic I passed up nightmare earlier, but whatever.

F17) Going blind can totally kill you at higher difficulties, but I didn't feel like banking on orrery.

Act 2 pathing) Champ ahead and no way to cheese. Good at fighting elites though, so there was a chance at another nightmare from them and a catalyst or footwork somewhere on the way, or heck, kunai shuriken even though I wasn't good at proccing them.

F18) Don't want more crappy damage. Dagger throw has utility but still.

F19) Event store. Goodbye strike 2.

F20) Brilliant. Vampires just after removing my second strike. Skip. Not a fan of this event. Others probably would've handled stores differently and benefited from this event here, especially due to molten egg.

F21) Backflip+ with 4 base energy? No-brainer.

F22) CnD+ is also nice, but I was worried about consistency so I picked dem plans. Found a speed pot. Spoiler: This with an artifact pot lead to 0 damage taken vs heart but I can't seem to find the floor where I got the artifact pot.

F23) Easiest book of stabbing of my life tbh. Didn't have a thorns pot anymore but whatever. (Used that super early in act 1 in a tough hallway fight.) No footwork or anything yet, so the deflect+ looked ok despite 4 base energy.

F24) Felt like I wanted more frontloaded damage vs slavers. Plans was a consideration too.

F25) Abused gremlin leader ai by keeping minions at bay. Some max hp. Sure.

F26) Top tier relics. Thx Gaben.

F27) Still bad at dealing backloaded damage so one more deadly poison. Maybe not the smartest pick but I was more confident due to the relics n cards I got recently.

F28) Casually doubling plan's effect. Deadly poison was a consideration too.

F29) Ez slavers. Turns out glass knife n skewer are good at dealing frontloaded damage. Corpse explosion was probably better for act 3 and the act 4 elite, but I just got a win condition vs champ in the form of ice cream skewer, so I wanted to stall better with leg sweep.

F30) Didn't see the need for dagger spray+ with all this strong single-target damage. Probably dumb cuz A18 reptomancer ends runs on turns 2 or 3.

F31) Annnd happy flower to make the cheese even easier. At this point it's worth pointing out that the extra elite I fought in act 1 would've made no difference for this champ cheese.

F32) Stalling intensifies.

F33) Burst leg sweep memes intensify. (Also deadly poison. Can't kill the heart with skewer.)

F34) Had enough energy. Got greedy for relics.

Act 3 pathing) Shoehorned myself into hunting as many elites as possible.

F35) Oh hey, scaling damage.

F36) Way too much cash for mask here. LUL

F37) Nothing amazing here.

F38) Membership card was probably unnecessary but whatever. Some extra defense with after image was welcome. One more strike gone since it's absolute trash now.

F39) Deck wasn't big enough for another well-laid plans imo, unupgraded no less.

F40) 15 damage 9 energy skewer vs giant head. OMEGALUL Hourglass helped vs upcoming reptomancer and courier helped a bit in the act 4 store (unnecessary probably).

F41) Felt like doing more unfair things with burst shenanigans.

F42) Preupgraded escape plan with after image and no time eater? Sure. Omamori did nothing like in so many runs before but it could've blocked a spaghetti curse, right?

F43) Blue key tm.

F44) Made my backloaded damage scaling better.

F45) Blur seemed reasonable cuz well-laid burst+.

F46) Another free backflip+.

F47) Begone skewer. You have done your part. We'll remember your deeds.

F48) Super late frozen egg but it upgraded a few things in the act 4 store.

F49) Red key tm.

F50) Zero damage dnd I think? Ye.

F51) Transition.

F52) Felt like turn 1 after image was appropriate.

F53) Frozen eye'd wraith form and footwork. Twisted funnel to remove artifacts. Crippling cloud same deal. Shackles for the elite and 50:50 situation vs heart (cuz lol blind).

F54) I don't even think the backflip+ made a difference vs heart. Turnip did though.

F55) Gg heart. Didn't even have malaise or piercing wail for you, but enough other strong stuff. I still can't remember where I picked up the artifact pot for my speed pot though. :T