The Watcher feels bland

[K E N N I]

I've played quite a few games with the new character and to me it feels like playing the Ironclad, or maybe even a dumbed down version of him. Literally the only way to do damage is to hit things with your staff. Using stances is necessary, but doesn't add much depth. You enter Wrath if you have lethal or the enemy is not attacking. You enter Calm to exit Wrath or store energy for later. You enter Divinity if you can, or if you have lethal with Blasphemy. It's all just about counting. The most meaningful decision I seem to make in a fight is when to use my Miracle lol.

It seems to me that a few of the cards were meant to be "interesting", but just didn't turn out as planned. Blasphemy is the epitome of what I just pointed out. Fasting could enable some sick combos, but there is literally no Watcher card that synergizes with it, correct me if I'm wrong. Wreath of Flame is just meh. What are your thoughts on this topic?

[DJDiceZ]

Messaggio originale di Khor:

Also, what`s wrong with mod characters? There some workshop stuff that`s definitely more interesting than the Watcher:conwayshrug:

Nothing, i'm not dissing modded characters in general. They can be fun or well made, although often there's a certain lack of polish and balance that you'd find from a professional dev team and such, and they usually have differing design philosophies from the base game. I feel like some lack coherence between the cards and such, which is also kind of how i felt about the Watcher at first.

[gwaihirj]

Re rare cards, I got a deck that turtled and plinked before finishing up with judgement* to time eater before I died to stupid mistakes. I am no good at playing the watcher anyway, but it felt like judgement was a card you could build a winning deck around.

*Much aided by gremlin horn

[billy bastard]

Messaggio originale di gwaihirj:

Re rare cards, I got a deck that turtled and plinked before finishing up with judgement* to time eater before I died to stupid mistakes. I am no good at playing the watcher anyway, but it felt like judgement was a card you could build a winning deck around.

*Much aided by gremlin horn

I think Judgement is very, very strong against random opponents, but ballast against bosses

[1.2M | Missingno.]

There's a fair amount of dud rares, but a few more I like that I think you're overlooking. Judgment, Vault, Wallop, and Lesson Learned are nice.

[K E N N I]

Messaggio originale di billy bastard:

I completely agree: The Watcher feels bland
And I know it's still in beta and missing art and all, but I feel that the character needs more than just optimisation.

I did quite a few runs on ascension levels 4 and 5 trying to test different deck builds. Experimenting. But the only deck builds with which I beat the game, they contain either:
- Adaptation (infinite calm combo)
- or Establishment (retain, divinity)
My conclusion. It's extremely hard to beat the game without 1 of these cards in the deck. And yes, it bugs me.

Another thing that bugs me is the rares. The only rares I really want are Master Reality, Brilliance and Flow State. These are the only rares that empower the strongest deck builds (or exhaust what you cant use). Then there's a few that I would usually pick up when they come along (Deva Form, Unravellng, Deus ex Machina). But most of the rares I would not even consider playing. In any build.

Scry seems like a nice to have. When you have room for nice to haves. Which is almost never.

But maybe it's just me and there's people out there having lots of fun with deck builds that I did not think of (managed to build a scry deck???) .
Anyway. I would be interested to know.

It seems people have found some fancy combo with switching stances which I'm not aware of. Maybe there is still hope for the Watcher. I wrote that she feels like dumbed down Ironclad because that's how I play her - I hit things really hard and/or block with simple cards. My most trusted rares are Deus ex Machina, Signature Move, Omniscience, Master Reality and Wallop.

Don't get me wrong, with my 200 IQ strat the character feels pretty strong. I got up to A7 quite easily. I guess it's time to try this Adaptation combo. A scry deck sadly can't exist, because there are no synergy cards for it. Or alternatively you could call every deck with Omniscience a scry deck, that card is nuts.

[billy bastard]

@Okay,
Managed to beat the game with those?

-Vault doesn't seem to harm any deck, but does not seem to help much either.
-Wallop needs retain before I would play it.
-Lesson Learned is awesome on level 1 but needs to be sold somewhere late level 2.

[1.2M | Missingno.]

Scry isn't something to build a deck around, I'm not even sure what it would look like if it was, but it's a decent accessory to add to almost any deck to improve its consistency. Card manipulation is always nice to have.

I'm actually curious how you're building Adaptation-less decks, because to me I kinda almost feel like this is the win condition Watcher has to build around and no other strategy is half as good.

Edit: Yes, I've won with those rares. They're not win conditions, they're not Adaptation, but I see them as helpful accessories to toss in on the side. Vault is fantastic for not dying, generally you don't want to die. Wallop needs extra energy, but when you have your engine going the stance retain cards will set it up for you, I don't think Wallop needs to also have retain. I tend to build my decks thicc enough that Lesson Learned remains useful all the way through Act 3 and I don't really mind leaving it in there, I could see it being riskier if you like small decks though.

[billy bastard]

@Okay, @Patryk
Here's some pointers on the Adaptation and Establishment decks.

Adaptation - Keep deck size small. Count the cards without exhaust/power, there should be less than 11. You will be looking for:
- Fear no Evil, Meditate, Flow State (probably 2 more or 3 more when you cut Vigilance)
- Empty Mind (could be substituted with Empty Body/Fist if you can not find it - probably 2x)
- Nice to have Mental Fortress / Flurry of Blows
- You can't go infinite with more than 11 cards, but Meditate and Brilliance can be used to remove cards from the deck.

Establishment - You will probably want to combine this with a strategy to get Divinity. Sit back for a few turns and let Establishment do it's job (=permanent enhancement:). Make sure you are calm before going Divine. You will have 8 mana, 0-cost cards and a huge damage bonus. So kill the bad dude in a single turn.
- Worship, Devotion (go divine - do not use Mantra, the uncs are way better, you need just 1)
- Sands of Time, Protect, Master Reality, Carve Reality, Deceive Reality
- Evaluate / Metaphysics (could be substituted with Empty Mind, but you'll probably want card draw - I suggest just 1)
- This deck is vulnerable turn 1 and 2, which is why I suggest you try and find Deceive Reality. If you find more, play them all. Establishment helps with Safety, but this is your best option in turn 1 and 2. As always, Brilliance will help you remove ballast.

[SpearOfLies]

Messaggio originale di billy bastard:

I completely agree: The Watcher feels bland
And I know it's still in beta and missing art and all, but I feel that the character needs more than just optimisation.

I did quite a few runs on ascension levels 4 and 5 trying to test different deck builds. Experimenting. But the only deck builds with which I beat the game, they contain either:
- Adaptation (infinite calm combo)
- or Establishment (retain, divinity)
My conclusion. It's extremely hard to beat the game without 1 of these cards in the deck. And yes, it bugs me.

Another thing that bugs me is the rares. The only rares I really want are Master Reality, Brilliance and Flow State. These are the only rares that empower the strongest deck builds (or exhaust what you cant use). Then there's a few that I would usually pick up when they come along (Deva Form, Unravellng, Deus ex Machina). But most of the rares I would not even consider playing. In any build.

Scry seems like a nice to have. When you have room for nice to haves. Which is almost never.

But maybe it's just me and there's people out there having lots of fun with deck builds that I did not think of (managed to build a scry deck???) .
Anyway. I would be interested to know.

What you mean by beating the game? Killing act 3 boss or killing the heart? Adaptation is good even without going infinity. Is a very handy draw engine that is hard to refuse. I manage to beat the heart with cleanse evil devotion deck(no establishment) and reach heaven scrawl deck(there was also metaphysics and wish as other rare). They don't draws a lot of cards with adaptation but that 1 extra card during divinity and wrath turn was always handy.

I'm not even play so well. I keep feeling I'm doing a lot of mistake. I keep dying against Lagavulin because I mess how should I wake him up with the watcher.

I agree that scry feel more like plus than something to build you deck around.

[gwaihirj]

Messaggio originale di billy bastard:

Messaggio originale di gwaihirj:

Re rare cards, I got a deck that turtled and plinked before finishing up with judgement* to time eater before I died to stupid mistakes. I am no good at playing the watcher anyway, but it felt like judgement was a card you could build a winning deck around.

*Much aided by gremlin horn

I think Judgement is very, very strong against random opponents, but ballast against bosses

Yeah, and if all other cards in it suck against bosses, someone's doing it wrong.

[1.2M | Missingno.]

Adaptation is just an amazing card all around. Going infinite is one obvious way to use it, but even without going infinite you'll still get a ton of mileage of it just by packing a couple copies of stances cards and exit cards. I kinda hate infinites so I've just been doing the latter.

As for Judgment, it may be dead weight against some bosses, but even then it's still strong against any boss with minions! And one dead draw against some bosses is well worth living to fight those bosses to begin with, or just being able to play the Act more aggressively and have more health/better relics/etc coming into the boss.

[billy bastard]

@SpearofLies
Nice. Sounds like I should probably try a cleanse evil devotion deck.
Reach heaven I found to be a very good card on early levels, but underwhelming later on.
@Okay,
I never meant to say Judgement is a bad card. And I kinda like the design. But I do think that you should be very careful around such cards. And as a boss rare I quite often find myself not picking the card.

[SpearOfLies]

Messaggio originale di billy bastard:

@SpearofLies
Nice. Sounds like I should probably try a cleanse evil devotion deck.
Reach heaven I found to be a very good card on early levels, but underwhelming later on.
@Okay,
I never meant to say Judgement is a bad card. And I kinda like the design. But I do think that you should be very careful around such cards. And as a boss rare I quite often find myself not picking the card.

I'm very open mind with my playstile. I found what seem work with my current deck.I started with the idea to try some wrath scenanigans. I found scrawl and had I general idea to try with some 0 and 1 cost attack card. Instead I found reach heaven so I think why not. Then I found necronomicon so I decide that I can also get a second reach heaven (over a three cost wallop ps it's two cost now). In all this I end up with eruption as my only wrath card. I had two devotion so I had more offensive turn(but regreted not picking wallop).

The idea behind cleanse evil devotion deck is you often overflow mana during your divinity turn so you mind as well spend your mana over cleanse evil so your next divinity turn is stronger. At least this is you battle plan against bosses. I also had a judgment as random rare card from newt and instantly upgrade it to help me against normal fight. It broken in act 1 and it help a lot against a couple of annoying fight in act 2. (sphere guardian, birds and slaves elite, the collector boss's minions) There also some fight act three that it help (darkling, shapes, sphere guardian, jaw worm, reptomancer's dagger).
Anyway card as caved reality and sands of time helped for the rest.
I had two sactity as draws card. You really don't want to use empty mind to exit from your divinity. One empty mind is still fine. Deceive reality is easy one of the strongest defensive card if you need it. I didn't find it but I got master reality as my defensive tool.

From all I wrote seem like Establishment would help this deck. The thing is energy is not the problem for a devotion deck. Is using it.

General tips for a devotion deck:
-Get one devotion.
-Upgrade it as soon as you can.
-Pick prostrate. Doesn't matter if it's upgrade or not. You are most likely to draw it before 4 turns of devotion. It make divinity every 4 turns into divinity every 3 turns. Speed up you game plan is always nice. It's 0 mana skill so it help trigger sactity if needed.
-Pick another devotion. You don't need to upgrade this one.
-Profit(?) You get divinity every two turns.

Worship is over kill. You can still pick it. Preferable upgraded so you can use it when mantra is around 5 or 6. Prostrate is actually more valuable.


My plans always involve trying killing the heart. I'm going to push my deck building creativity to see what work and doesn't work. I try to make a stance deck without adaptation but it's very high low rolling. Often you end up with more mana that you cannot consume or you fail to change stance. Even if my deck had only wrath and vigilance and two exit stance card and I have no intention to pick more stance change card, I still going to pick adaptation. The extra card from exiting the calm stance can be used for the extra mana. The card you get from the wrath stance, you can found more or better attack cards. Divinity especially need cards to dumb his energy.

[Neon Black Interactive]

I strongly disagree, personally I found the Watcher more interesting than both the Ironclad and the Defect. To really understand her you need to go back to the StS fundamentals and think of the character in terms of packages. A successful StS deck needs to assemble a workable front loaded damage package asap, then put together a decent defensive package very soon after the act 1 boss, and finally build a back loaded damage package before the act 2 boss.

The Watcher starts with very high front loaded damage compared to the other characters due to Wrath so you don't need to invest quite as much into it. Some premium front loaded damage cards include judgment, conclude, and bowling bash. If you can't find these then some of the mediocre commons will have to do the job.

The defensive and back loaded options however are where the watcher gets interesting. She has a defensive retain package including cards like protect and perseverance, the defensive swap package centered around mental fortress, if you're really lucky you can wish for a deva form and in any package you can use vault to get through bad turns.

There are 2 back loaded damage packages that stand out to me. By far the strongest in my opinion is just using a single alpha. Alpha is the entire back loaded damage package all by it self. Having all of your back loaded damage come from a single card that ultimately exhausts is huge. The second strong one I believe is the divinity retain package. This package uses divinity in conjunction with cards like sands of time and the 2 cost kick that retains whose name I forgot. You hold your attacks, let them build up in power then enter divinity to unload them for a huge burst of damage in the late game. There are few others that exist however these 2 are the ones I've had the most success with.

I also need to mention scry because it seems like a lot of people want more "payoffs" for scry though I don't think that makes much sense. Scry isn't a build around mechanic, you don't build a "scry deck". Rather, scry is more like a glue that holds the rest of the deck together. Scrying doesn't need a payoff, scrying is the payoff.

[Robin]

Exept I think the watchers packages always feel the same. With most other characters you got some hugely different ways to slap it into your build. Watchers' frontload damage will always be stance + some mediocre attack card. the scaling will mostly be stance + some mediocre retain cards plus some powers.

Idk I feel the most interesting choice you make each run is which power you pick to use and then build a bit around that, but the rest always blands into the same thing more or less so far