Tips for act 1 elites?

[JustSmile]

How do you beat Goblin Nob as a skill-heavy deck, or Sentries as a thin deck, without losing a great deal of health? I'm not completely without game experience and skill, 5/6th ascension without playing too much, but a bad roll of luck on act 1 elites is sometimes a death sentence.

If I am assembling a poison deck and already managed to remove some strikes/add some poison skills to my current Silent deck? Well, if that Nob dies it'll be after I'm down to quarter health or less - and that's with luck. Alternatively, when I got "lucky" with Watcher and removed 5 cards from my deck before running into Sentries? Hoooo boy, this fight took a literal eternity, bonus points for key fragment giving them metallicize. Sometimes I had more than one turn in a row with nothing but statuses in my hand.

Do I just take rolling a bad elite with an inappropriate deck in act 1 as a RNGeezus curse and go to my next run? I honestly don't think there's much that can be done with some matchups, regardless of skill.

[DJDiceZ]

This seem to just be mostly about Silent so (logic is applicable to all characters though):

For Nob, even if you're going to play a poison deck, you'll HAVE to add a few decent attacks like dagger spray. No way around it. Something like Dash would be ideal. Predator, Choke, Skewer, Backstab, just get 2~3 decent attacks like those. I'd recommend avoiding clogging the deck with some of the less good attacks/situational attacks and powers like Infinite Blade, Riddle With Hole, Skewer or Sucker Punch, but sometimes you have to.

Sentries: The dagger spray you picked up for Nob? It'll help here too. So will the other frontloaded attacks. There's a reason it's often suggested to get frontloaded attack for Act 1. Regardless you're gonna need some aoe, even if it means picking up an All Out Attack, but Die Die Die is one of the best obviously. If you happen to have Corpse Explosion, easy fight, don't bother with aoe for the rest of the run. Calculated Gamble can be useful. Dodge and Roll is an especially good block card for this fight. Draw will help. Adrenaline especially.

Poison will excell only against Lagavulin. You can probably get away using a poison card or two on Nob though, but usually your best bet is just blindly throwing every attacks you have in hand at him, and not playing your skills. Definitely get that Leg Sweep, it's so good you can even afford to use it for Nob half of the time. But it'll kick elite ass otherwise.

Noxious Fumes is alright though, you can have it in just about any elite fight, even if it's way too slow for Nob. If you can get them early, powers like Well Laid Plans, Footwork, Wraith Form (stronk), A Thousand Cuts/Envenom (kinda on the eh side though), After Image and all that stuff will still provide some decent utility for the rest of the fight.

To conclude, no, you don't accept a bad deck vs an act 1 elite being bad luck, but bad deck building instead. In act 1, you should add cards that will help you get through those elite fights, which are the most important fights of the run. Don't tunnel vision on what you want your deck to be, take the cards that are "just decent/good, anytime" aswell. And keep in mind that sometimes you have to trade some health for those relics. It's worth it. Just don't get too greedy with that 3rd/4th elite. Also, removing strikes is good, but a bit overrated, if you do it too much, too early, you might be in for a bad time...

[Timbermaw]

I think you need to focus on attacks for act 1 elites, especially those attack and shield yourself at the same time type of cards

[K E N N I]

Prepare for every possible elite. For Gremlin Nob, pick only the best skills you are offered and look for some high damage attacks. In case of Sentries, you shouldn't have a very thin deck at this point unless you highrolled like crazy. I guess you prioritize card removal in shops, but in act 1 it's much better to buy cards, relics or even potions.

[JustSmile]

It's just sometimes that Nob comes before I find good attacks, but after I find good skills/powers. Good enough I can destroy anything act 1... except Nob. -.-

As for Watcher - yes, I highrolled WAAAY to hell. IIRC 2 card removal for initial blessing, 2 card removal ? encounters, and one shop removal. Also the elite was somewhat early, with barely any fights before thanks to a large number of ?s in a row. That one fight then took as long as the rest of the run combined.

[Zu]

Originally posted by JustSmile:

It's just sometimes that Nob comes before I find good attacks, but after I find good skills/powers. Good enough I can destroy anything act 1... except Nob. -.-

and slime accompanied by red slaver, and thief before he runs away with your purse, and gremlin wizard protected by fat gremlin shield gremlin while 10 damage backstabbin gremlin's harassing you, I dare suspect.

So, next time you're on the early floors and you see something like dagger throw vs dodge n roll, consider taking the unimpressive damage common. Helps get rid of a corner sentry too.

[DJDiceZ]

Originally posted by Zu:

Originally posted by JustSmile:

It's just sometimes that Nob comes before I find good attacks, but after I find good skills/powers. Good enough I can destroy anything act 1... except Nob. -.-

and slime accompanied by red slaver, and thief before he runs away with your purse, and gremlin wizard protected by fat gremlin shield gremlin while 10 damage backstabbin gremlin's harassing you, I dare suspect.

So, next time you're on the early floors and you see something like dagger throw vs dodge n roll, consider taking the unimpressive damage common. Helps get rid of a corner sentry too.

But dodge and roll is great for sentries! Why can't i pick all of them?

[1.2M | Missingno.]

You shouldn't have a skill heavy deck already at the start of act 1. First priority should be drafting attacks, specifically because of those elites. And during the fight you pretty much have to tank
at least some damage in order to end the fight faster, especially on Gremlin Nob where playing Defends may cost more damage than they save anyway - unless you are absolutely certain you can end the fight next turn, just don't play Defends at all, and for bigger block cards do the math to determine if they're worth.

Just like Act 1's events mostly follow a theme of trading health for resources, so too do the elites. Go in expecting to take damage in exchange for a shiny relic.

[Zu]

Originally posted by DJDiceZ:

But dodge and roll is great for sentries! Why can't i pick all of them?

I think nob and post-syphon lagavulin have a say in this too. LUL

[Dusk_Army]

I just want to point out, Predator is great against the Sentries. The extra card draw can help you cycle through the Dazes faster, which you might need if you don't get something else that kills them faster.

But the main takeaway you should get from this thread is, "Don't have skill heavy deck, always have at least one good attack card."

[Spawnling]

Originally posted by JustSmile:

Alternatively, when I got "lucky" with Watcher and removed 5 cards from my deck before running into Sentries? Hoooo boy, this fight took a literal eternity, bonus points for key fragment giving them metallicize. Sometimes I had more than one turn in a row with nothing but statuses in my hand.

Why would you fight a Super Elite (for a key fragment) this early, if you don't have a deck that's extremly good against all act 1 elites? You can fight a super elite on one of the following floors.

[sandman25dcsss]

If you remove 5 cards, don't remove 5 strikes. Remove 3-4 strikes and 1-2 defends, unless you already have 2-3 great attacks.

[Bopple]

Don't challenge elites if you have a weak deck.

[dholland]

Even if you're probably going to need a strong poison element in your deck for Act 3, you need to take attacks to survive the elites. Here's an example of what can happen if you don't get poison in Act 1. Upgrade at least one of the attacks in Act 1 and don't take common skills early. I continued to add poison and diversify the deck in Act 2. This is one of the situations when you're more or less forced to have a thick deck, because of a lot of resting so you have few upgrades. If you keep killing a decent number of elites it's okay.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1994482259

Edit: Another time I took Finisher in Act 1 and it killed Gremlin Leader in Act 2 for me when I still didn't have enough poison. Silent can attack too, and not just with shivs. You're trying to build a deck that can do different things in different situations to be good in different fights.

[bc]

Want to kill elites in act 1? Pick cards that kill elites, block cards rarely do that.

[JustSmile]

So the TL;DR advice summary is "don't try to overspecialise your deck that early". I guess finding fumes(or similar) in one of first choices/shops skews my later picks too heavily.