Lagavulin... why... please change....

[VinTJ]

Defect early run : Removed Zap from my deck, picked Glacier, White Noise, and Consume.

Chooses to fight Act 1 Elite for Emerald key (is this wrong? shouldn't emerald key only be obtained on Act 1 since it has the easiest elite? or does it depend on deck condition? anyways...)

>Meets Lagavulin using the above deck.
>White noise+ gives Capacitor, 5 orb slots
>Used Consume Twice, 3 orb slots
>Leaves me with 8x3 defense (3 freeze orbs)
>Strike whenever I can
>Lagavulin decreases my strength and block

Now I can deal 0 damage. gaining 0 block. But I can't die.


WHY IS THIS POSSIBLE TO HAPPEN?

please... if you wanna make an enemy that can make your attack dmg decrease by one, make an extra condition in the code so that our attacks always deal Minimum 1 dmg to that specific enemy...

something similar also happened with Ironclad the other day. I tried sciencing run multiple times (save and quit, come back to it) and tried the most offensive play I could make and no defense... also got to a point where my attacks deal 0 damage... then I died shortly after...

a flaw in game design, IMO.

[Burdpal]

Lagavulin is an early test of your frontloaded damage. With Defect, an early Streamline can help with large damage dealing. By principle, you simply cannot stall Lagavulin - your dexterity and strength will diminish so the best solution is just to hit hard and hit fast. Taking damage to end the fight early is usually safer than doing a standard frost setup for Defect.

If you're having trouble on Ironclad, same rules apply: get good frontloaded before encountering. Carnage on it's own will be good if you applied vulnerable early on with Bash. If you got strength skills like Flex, Inflame or Spot Weakness, then using skills like Sword Boomerang and Twin Strike can help considerably.

[DaBa]

So you removed your best offence from your deck, went with purely defensive deck, and then complain that you lost to an elite that is a damage race before it scales you down? You got exactly what you deserved. You removed Zap from your deck, and had no way to kill the elite because of that. It's not a flaw with the game, it's a flaw with the deck and how you play the game. You made this fight unwinnable for yourself, YOU did and not the game.

For the record, I never had this happen. Probably because I was never silly enough to cut zap from my deck so early...

[VinTJ]

well, I guess it is my fault then.

I know the fact that players are supposed to NOT be TOO IDEALISTIC about ARCHETYPES and simply pick cards that work with other cards or relics, but I figured "one day RNG will give me a run that aligns with the frost archetype" and kept trying multiple times.

glad we got that sorted out then. Never thought of elites as "tests", as in, "if your deck is good enough, then you can pass since you might stand a chance in Act 2". that helps.

[Yxklyx]

I think I only removed Zap when I was going for Minimalist in 858 hours with all ascensions completed.

[DaBa]

It's a good advice in general, don't remove zap. I would even prioritize upgrading it, having two zero cost cards that give you a powerful synergy (dual cast and zap) is one of the greatest assets of defect. Removing it relaly hinders you, especially early in the game.

I would only consider removing it if you haven't upgraded it yet and it's so late in the game it no longer gives you enough benefit, or if your deck is already so consistent that zap is only making it worse.

Originally posted by VinTJ:

Never thought of elites as "tests", as in, "if your deck is good enough, then you can pass since you might stand a chance in Act 2"

A lot of things in this game are like this in fact. Gremlin Nob will kill you if you decide to make a skill deck without enough offence. Slime boss will overwhelm your defence and trash your deck if you don't have a good way of splitting it with damage (unless your defence is broken at this point already). Second act fights, elites, and bosses will give you trouble in general if you don't have AOE in your deck. Act 3 is the most obvious, especially bosses. Time Eater is designed specifically to kill decks that rely on playing too many cards, Awakened one will kill decks that rely too much on powers, and Donu and Deka are just a fast scaling fight that give you a lot of HP to go through. Elites as well are designed to kill you if your deck does not have answers to them.

You need to include some tech against enemies, you can't just go all in on the archetype, it's not a viable way to play. Unless your archetype is so OP it doesn;'t matter, you will usually encounter some enemy that either kills you or wrecks your face enough so something else kills you. Always diversify, always include alternative win conditions when possible, always take some cards specifically to counter enemies and give you outs in case you encounter them. That is the go to strategy, especially in high ascension.

[Zu]

Dw OP. There's a foreigner who swears by removing zap over strikes. You still have time to learn while dat boi's bias is seemingly set it stone by now.

[twins10]

in act 1 you are extremely unlikely to be able to defensively beat the elites without massive hp loss , all act1 elites are built to heavily punish a long fight.

in act 1 you need to get a good attack before your first elite, doesnt matter if the attack is one that will be bad later on, doesnt really matter usually if you have to skip an excelent card for a meidocre offensive one.

in your example you picked absolutely no offense and removed your only offensive card that is semi-viable against langluvin, you got 'lucky' that your defesive scaling was just enough.

the goblin nob would probably also have brutalized you for having a deck where you can only scratch and keep popping skills.

in low ascensions you might eventually luck out and manage to get given cards to make the exact deck you want soon enough to survive but as you noticed it's not a fun a way to play and if you try to climb in the ascensions it would be really unfun.