Is Poison underpowered or are shives just way overpowered.

[frazone009]

I finally beat Slay the Spire today with my favorite charecter the silent useing a shive build, and it's left me with the impression that poison just dousn't compete with shivs. Thematicly I much prefer poison, but after playing the silent so many times Shives are just much easir to use and more consisent, with greater card and relic synergy.

To ilistrate the point lets compare what I consider to be the mainstay of each build Bouncing flask and Cloack and dagger. Bouncing flask+ is 2 energy for 4x4 poison on random enemies. Cloack and Dager+ 1 Energy for 6 block and 2 shives. Each shive has a base damage of 4 but it's very easy to boost that damage. A single cloack precison+ will boast each shivs damage to 9. So with 1 presicsion a Cloack and Dagger will do more damage then a Single bouncing flask will giving you block has well, and you can use two For the price of one Bouncing flask.

I think this is the main highlight has to the Disparity between Poison and Shivs. Although Poison has an unlimited damage rampup Shivs reach their maximum damage output faster alowing for more consistency. Their are also no Poison cards that provide block while also adding poison to the enemy. This is whitout mentioning that shivs have greater sinergy with powers and relics then poison.

I had five presision cards in the deck I beat the game mean each shive did about 25 damage. I also had the Kunie so each 3 attacks in a single turn gave me a dexterity and nunchucks so every ten attacks gave me an extra energy. This deck managed to brught force it's way through the time lord, a boss that should counter it. There are several powers that work well in a shiv deck, and I only know of one that's good in a poison deck (noctious fumes), hell envenoom works better in a shiv deck then a poison deck, and several relecs that synergise with a shiv deck, and not many for poison.

In the end I think the balance should be looked at here. Bouncing flask is probably too exensive at 2 energy, Cloak and dager is probably too cheap at 1. I would just like to see poison get a few more options added to it. Some extra synergy and probably a bit of protection becuse your in their for the long haul with poison. Poison is my prefered way to play the Silent, but it just feels very overshadowed by Shivs.

By the way I just adore the game, great job guys!

[Ghin]

You haven't unlocked most of the poison cards yet.

[Rio]

A problem is that shiv build can easily get block. Poison really doesn't. Like today I got recked by the reptile sword spawning elite. She did 30+ damage and I had no block cards.

If I was shiv I'd have had cloak and dagger and stuff.

[frazone009]

Ghin a écrit :

You haven't unlocked most of the poison cards yet.

Okay had to look this up since it's been so long since I actually unlocked all the cards. The only poison cards the silent unlocks are Bane, Catalist, and Corpse explosion. Catalist is undoutably amazing. Corspe explosion I can see being good but it's expensive and in my option would be better if it exaustid becuse I can't see myself wanting to use it more then once in any fight. Bane is good damage but the silents problem isn't damage it's sustain.

[BBB]

Noxious fumes?

[Scary_Turtle]

You are forgetting burst upgraded doubles 2 skills and catalyst upgrade is triple poison.

1x upgraded poison = 7 poison
if its burst 14 poison.
Then burst catalyst 14 x 3 = 42 poison
Then 42 x 3 = 126 poison
This all for 3 energy

Try get 126 damage onto an enemy for 3 energy with a shiv build. Even with the holy grail shuriken, kunai and ornamental fan its still gonna take you time to build up to 126 damage.

Also try fighting the heart with a shiv build, if you don't have 4x after images its a lost cause.

The silent has a great little card called footwork upgraded 3x dex, get one or two of these in your deck and you can pretty much block through anything with a little bit of weakness. Then you just put a little poison and wait for things to die.

[Bishop]

The idea of poison build is not really about spamming poisons (most of poison cards are bad anyway). Its about stacking def while poison mostly stacks itself, then just triggering it with catalys at some point.

[frazone009]

BBB a écrit :

Noxious fumes?

Okay then. Noxius fumes is the one power card the silent has for a poison build (envenom dousent count because it works better in a shive build). It inflicts 3 poison on every enemy at the start of your turn. Let's compare that to the powers that go with shive builds.

There are three main powers that really benefit a shive deck. Precision+ boosts the damage of shives by 5. Considering that your likely to play more then four shives a turn in a shive build, that's a conservative 20 extra damage a turn from 1 card. Add to that in my experience presision is the most common power silent will have acsses to and getting multiple is very possible. In the run where I finally beat the game I had four presisions boosting a single Shiva damage up to 24!

The other two are blur which gives 1 block for every card played, and a thousand cuts which inflicts 2 damage and on each enemy for every card played.

The shive powers either rack up their damage much faster then noxtius fums, or help the silent with her shaky defence.

My point in this discussion isn't that poison is unplayable, just that shive is much strong AND more consistent. With exampels such has this with more powers that are in many ways just better then the one poison altunative.

[Bishop]

Shiv requires something like kunai and very specific set of cards to make it work against end game bosses. And no, accuracy is uncommon card and there's a decent chance you don't get any of them at all in a single playthrough.
Poison on he other hand just works. You can play it without noxious fumes as long as you have envenom and some poison sources, you can play it without envenom it just requires to stay alive longer. There's no relics that are mandatory to play posion either (snecko skull obviously good but not required).

It mostly goes like this for me at least: if you get all right combo pieces to start with shiv build (at least single accuracy early), go for shiv. Otherwise posion just safer choice in general.

[frazone009]

Scary_Turtle a écrit :

You are forgetting burst upgraded doubles 2 skills and catalyst upgrade is triple poison.

1x upgraded poison = 7 poison
if its burst 14 poison.
Then burst catalyst 14 x 3 = 42 poison
Then 42 x 3 = 126 poison
This all for 3 energy

Try get 126 damage onto an enemy for 3 energy with a shiv build. Even with the holy grail shuriken, kunai and ornamental fan its still gonna take you time to build up to 126 damage.

Also try fighting the heart with a shiv build, if you don't have 4x after images its a lost cause.

The silent has a great little card called footwork upgraded 3x dex, get one or two of these in your deck and you can pretty much block through anything with a little bit of weakness. Then you just put a little poison and wait for things to die.

I did beat the heart with a shive build without any after images. Thanks to four presisions and the kuni. It quickly stakes up to where a single cloack and danger gave 20 block, and each shive was doing 24 damage.

And yes Catalist is very strong, but it's a rare card I've done many full silent runs without seeing at all. A single very rare card almost needed in poison builds.

[Zu]

Thought this was gonna be a satire thread, but then OP is seriously praising accuracy of all things. Well, keep prioritizing frontloaded damage (and that one hilarious excuse of scaling) and see where that gets you once bois have more health, you have an ascender's bane, and you don't get the sick relics each time (which you reasonably evaluated to be fair).

[Xiander]

You compare a combination of three upgraded cards to what you can do with one upgraded card, and decide that the three cards are better?

On top of that you forget to account for the fact that poison will do dammage on the following turn.
Two cloak and daggers+ with one precission plus is 36 dammage for three energy. One bouncing flask does 16 dammage on the first turn, then 15, then 14 and so on. (It is a little worse agains multiple opponents but still..)

If poison is not working for you, your strategy needs ajustment, not the poison cards.

[Loomi]

While shivs certainly kick ass if you can get a kunai or shuriken, without one of these relics a shiv build will fall flat very quickly. Poison on the other hand depends much less on relics and is therefor often the better, or at least safer, choice.

[km_md60]

Poison kills through block. Shiv requires certain relics/cards to actually shine.

I would say that shiv deck is great (except you accidentally grab velvet choker) but poison is more reliable.

[空.明]

Time lord stopped my shiv deck and killed me :( (and I even have an unceasing top shiv build! LOL!)

[Nibbie]

I have had a lot of fun with both builds, but I can echo most people here and say poison was more powerful more consistently. Without a Fan, Kunai, or at least a couple After Images, shiv decks have a lot of trouble blocking effectively. Cloak and Dagger is only 6 block, and shiv decks have to spend mana to deal damage, every turn. A poison build only has to front load their energy spendature on damage, then they can focus all their energy on blocking while still making progress, I think poison also has easier access to weak, with Crippling Cloud being a card and with Leg Sweep being a better use of energy when you aren't "wasting" energy on not killing them. You also have fewer turns where you draw a bunch of block when they aren't attacking and have to pass your turn, since even on those turns poison keeps ticking. Poison damage has inherent scaling, Shivs don't (again, without the relics that make it insane).
Also, you mention Catalyst is a "rare" card so you may not get it (and you say it is almost required, but that is far from true. Just did the "only commons" achievement with poison, literally just a few upgraded deadly poisons were more than enough to carry a game), but it is the same rarity as your beloved Accuracy. It is also way better when stacked than Accuracy is, which can be done with additional copies or with Burst, which is something you can't do to Accuracy. Poison also hard counters some enemies, something Shiv doesn't really do outside of what, the byrds?. Shiv also gets countered by more things than poison, especially in act 3, with thorns and malleable (along with the intent switching of the writhing mass).
Lastly, I wouldn't consider Bouncing Flask a "mainstay" of poison. Its high cost and random nature make it mediocre, especially without Snecko Skull. Even against a single target, 2 energy for 12 poison is only ok. I would consider Deadly Poison more core than Bouncing Flask, since it is 7 poison for 1 energy, making it more effecient energy-wise and more flexible. Your comparison in the OP also randomly decided that one side gets a another card to set it up and the other doesn't. Even with your random Accuracy buff, two Cloak and Daggers deal 36 damage. Bouncing Flask alone deals 12+11+10+9+8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1= 78 damage. While it is over many turns (though it went over Cloack and Dagger on just the fourth tick), it also stacks with other poison sources, including itself. Another two Cloak and Daggers do the same damage as the first one, another Bouncing Flask will deal more since it freezes the tickdown for one of them for a while.