Watcher tips?

[lufia22]

I cannot for the life of me beat the game once with her. I feel like she relies a lot on luck to get cards that synergize well, otherwise you end up with a really limp ♥♥♥♥ deck that's doing tons of different things that don't benefit one another.

My best run so far was a Mantra deck where I played really defensive until I hit mantra stance and played cards like windmill and ragnarok. I got pretty far in the third floor, but made a stupid mistake entering Wrath and died.

Wrath feels like a real trap. It has gotten me killed too many times. Unfortunately, it feels like the most reliable strategy to build around since it's partially baked into your starting deck.

I wish there were more ways to enter calm. They all feel REALLY inefficient and rare to come by.

[Omegatherion]

I usually try to take a Tranquility and a Crescendo to have better control over when to switch stances. You just don't want to switch too often and need to know the moveset of an enemy to know when you can safely go Wrath without risking a heavy blow next turn.

Windmill is not that good anyways, as it only starts to deal significant damage after retaining it for a while. And most hallway fights are usually over before you hit that point. Good combinations are Smite generation cards like Battle Hymn or Carve Reality in combination with Establishment. They let you set up for a big turn very comfortably. Throw in some Protects and Deceive Reality and you have an amazing set that melts everything. That's just one example what kind of deck can work.

Watcher relies on a thin deck even more than the other characters i feel. So think twice before you take a card.

Overall i feel like the Watcher is the easiest char so far. With the other chars i have something around a 20% win rate, while with the watcher i have a whopping 50%.

[aidanfilson25]

Originally posted by lufia22:

wish there were more ways to enter calm. They all feel REALLY inefficient and rare to come by.

I hard disagree with this, not counting the starting calm card there are 4 others and all of them are pretty efficient, if anything the starting one sometimes feels bad to play imo

and if you get the cards for it you can ignore wrath stance entirely and go mantra instead, getting it to where I could divinity every turn was fun

study, evaluate, and cut through fate can help with drawing what you need

[liam.miller2012]

Only go wrath when you can end the fight in 1-2 turns. Try stacking up smites with something like battle hymn then go all in. Stacking mantra / divinity also works well with battle hymn.

[Dantes]

Same. I've just beater 4 and 5 upraise lvls with warrior and assasin. But I cannot make a single run with Watcher.

[DJDiceZ]

Originally posted by Omegatherion:

I usually try to take a Tranquility and a Crescendo to have better control over when to switch stances. You just don't want to switch too often and need to know the moveset of an enemy to know when you can safely go Wrath without risking a heavy blow next turn.

Windmill is not that good anyways, as it only starts to deal significant damage after retaining it for a while. And most hallway fights are usually over before you hit that point. Good combinations are Smite generation cards like Battle Hymn or Carve Reality in combination with Establishment. They let you set up for a big turn very comfortably. Throw in some Protects and Deceive Reality and you have an amazing set that melts everything. That's just one example what kind of deck can work.

Watcher relies on a thin deck even more than the other characters i feel. So think twice before you take a card.

Overall i feel like the Watcher is the easiest char so far. With the other chars i have something around a 20% win rate, while with the watcher i have a whopping 50%.

Windmill can be interesting if it's paired with Establishement and is upgraded. After a turn, it has higher value than the average attack card with Establishement. Without it it becomes a 2 cost Sands of Times in the time Sands of Times even gets down to 2 cost. Then it keeps going. So the card has some merit in retain decks.

Also, i feel like there's a simple notion that seems to easily be and very often missed/disregarded by almost every players, good or bad, new or old. It's okay for a card to be bad in some fights if it makes some others go smoothly.

Otherwise i approve of having a Tranquility and a Crescendo. Can be nice to have a non exhaust stance card of each stance too, especially if you're gonna dance with the stances.

Watcher does prefer having less cards compared to other character i've noticed. That being said, that doesn't necessarily mean you need to go for a 5 cards deck. 30 cards is perfectly fine.

Originally posted by lufia22:

I cannot for the life of me beat the game once with her. I feel like she relies a lot on luck to get cards that synergize well, otherwise you end up with a really limp ♥♥♥♥ deck that's doing tons of different things that don't benefit one another.

My best run so far was a Mantra deck where I played really defensive until I hit mantra stance and played cards like windmill and ragnarok. I got pretty far in the third floor, but made a stupid mistake entering Wrath and died.

Wrath feels like a real trap. It has gotten me killed too many times. Unfortunately, it feels like the most reliable strategy to build around since it's partially baked into your starting deck.

I wish there were more ways to enter calm. They all feel REALLY inefficient and rare to come by.

Nah, she doesn't require luck to make a good deck, it's like every other characters at first, you need to get a feel for what works and what doesn't on her. Wrath is a powerful tool, but yes, also one of her biggest trap if you're careless and use it just because you can.

Do use wrath.

Do NOT use wrath if you can't go back into calm before the enemy attacks, even if it isn't this turn. If you aren't sure the enemy won't attack next turn and/or you aren't guaranteed to see a calm card next turn, you just don't use wrath. Unless you can kill them next turn. Otherwise you use normal attacks (she has wrath but she doesn't have to use it to deal damage), and block as much as you can while setting up a good damage turn until the opportunity presents itself. Think of it as a watered down Blasphemy. Next turn you die. But you're probably gonna use it when you can kill the enemy. If you don't have a calm card the next turn (or won't be attacked/can finish the fight), your Eruption might aswell be a Blasphemy.

She has plenty of solid calm options otherwise. Tranquility, cheap, exhaust, retain, everything you could want in a free get out of jail card. Meditate, powerful card that has hidden synergies and helps you set up the strong turns you need to afford to enter wrath. Inner Peace, calm when you need calm, draw when you have calm, which is perfect to make use of calm's properties. Fear No Evil deals damage, it's a great finisher attack to leave wrath, but if you don't need to leave wrath because no one is attacking, you won't go back in calm, which can be exactly what you want. It's like an unupgraded Go For The Eyes. Yeah, it's conditional, but even if it applied the weak on a turn the enemy attacks, it wouldn't do anything for this turn or the next turns. It'll work when you need it to most of the time. She also has Like Water.

But if you need to exit Wrath you have even more options. You can go into divinity. Or you can use Empty Fist/Body/Mind which are all nice cards you should have. They are fairly common on top of that. If you're scared of not being able to leave wrath or you don't want to, you can pick amazing cards like Halt or Wallop. Your options are large and in many forms.

I miss her card that made you go from calm to wrath or wrath to calm though.

[aidanfilson25]

I mean I take gambles sometimes, like if 3/15 of my remaining cards will let me exit wrath, not neccessary just sometimes I take risks that can end with me taking less damage overall

helps if you have something like gambler's brew though so you have a way out if you get a bad hand

[eskatonia]

I was doing terrible with the wat5cher until I focused on using scry and getting card draw. Once you've got those to ensure good cards it makes the stance dance much more reliable. Grab mental fortress and you almost eliminate the need to use block cards.

[DuckSonata]

Originally posted by aidanfilson25:

I mean I take gambles sometimes, like if 3/15 of my remaining cards will let me exit wrath, not neccessary just sometimes I take risks that can end with me taking less damage overall

Yes! People who never do this are really sleeping on wrath stance, and honestly on the Watcher in general. The key, of course, is to try to build your deck so that it's possible. If you take no wrath exits, you won't have any outs in this situation so it would be correct to pass up the damage. If you have outs, it becomes an acceptable risk that often pays off even when you don't draw them.

Usually, job one at the beginning of the game is to build up your damage, but for the Watcher it's just as important to add that first wrath exit card.

[x_equals_speed]

Aim to hit an early fireplace and upgrade your Eruption. The reduction in cost to 1 mana is a huge boon. It gives you a 33 damage hand when you get eruption and two strikes which will flat out kill a lot of act 1 encounters on ascention 0. It also makes it easier to do meaningful damage before having to calm again.

Consider using vigilance over two blocks even if you take a point or two of damage. The extra mana when you hit eruption could be the difference between ending the fight there and then or easily getting back into calm.

Remember to take wrath into account when figuring your attacks because the game won't do it for you. Against a couple of the shielding bugs in act one often the best move is to eruption one that's increasing its strength and strike the other one because the 12 damage will kill it before it raises its shields.

Similarly figuring when you have lethal and can afford to wrath without being able to get back into calm.

Remember that you can click on the deck on the bottom left of the screen to see what cards are left in your deck. If there are less than five and one of them lets you enter calm you'll be able to get out of wrath next turn. This helps when deciding when to wrath and when to pass.

[Omegatherion]

Originally posted by DJDiceZ:

Watcher does prefer having less cards compared to other character i've noticed. That being said, that doesn't necessarily mean you need to go for a 5 cards deck. 30 cards is perfectly fine.

No, for sure. You don't need to go minimalistic. But with Silent i sometimes end up with 40+ cards and i'm completely fine. With Watcher i pick way more carefully and usually try to stay below 30. I can't bring myself to do that with any other char^^ Probably one reason why i lose too many runs.

[Cheesus]

Honestly, the easiest way I've found to beat the heart as Watcher is to become bipolar. AKA deny most cards except for rushdown, halt, and inner peace. If you thin your deck down enough and get enough card draw on your first turn, you can have 0 cards in your draw pile. Then its a simple combo of inner peace eruption+ for infinite energy and infinite card draw, assuming you've used rushdown. If you manage to find a second rushdown you can add halt to your combo to give you infinite block as well. It should be relatively simple to reach and beat the heart if you can do this, assuming the heart doesn't ♥♥♥♥ you over with those status cards. I also found violet lotus to be very nice for extra energy generation to play an occasional 4th card like lesson learned.

[Prometheus]

Watcher is easily my best character. She has so many solid defensive strategies and many of them line up with offensive strats.

I recently wrecked my way through with a Nirvana deck that had 3 Cut Through Fate and 3 Just Lucky. Those cards were the foundation of my deck and made it work. Its just 6 commons and 1 uncommon so hardly difficult to set up or replicate. You can add anything to this. Weaves are obvious. However just a general setting up a big hit like Windmill or Sands with a properly timed Wrath will do. You get it all going reliably fast due to all the Scry and all the Scry gives reliable block from the Nirvana.

Talk to the Hand can carry any deck with multihit. Tantrum, Flying Sleeves, Followup, Just Lucky, Ragnarok and Conjure Blade all synergize with it.

[Omegatherion]

Here's a beautiful example how the game gits you a win with the Watcher.

Neow gave me Devotion, i transformed a strike into Brilliance on Floor 3, picked up 2 Prostrates and Damaru and the win was secured. Wish and Shuriken gave me even some Strength scaling and Time Eater stood no chance. I probably could have beaten the heart with that deck as well.

https://imgur.com/a/YsJvy3Z

[Fortytudo]

Almost have beaten the Heart on 1st try with her, did it on 3rd without using a particular build or even divinity. Easily the strongest character out of the 4. Altho I got lucky with the 5 Intangible, they are too broken on her. My damage cards were tantrum/ragnarok+wreath of flame. If you can get at least some str like I did with Girya, these cards can melt anything even without divinity.

[lufia22]

I finally beat it with the below deck.

https://i.imgur.com/pJdP9I1.png

Basically abuse exiting calm with Violet Lotus and using Inner Peace/Scrawl to get the cards you need, or just save the good attacks with Runic Pyramid until I could wrath.

It definitely could have been tuned better. Another wrath source would have helped, and better attacks.

Rushdown would have helped, as Cheesus mentioned, but I did not find one.