Finally a good run w/ The Silent

[Krondelo]

Crazy run, it started out rough and I just kept expecting to die. Finally learned to be taking far less cards. I used every single shop I could to remove cards. (Still had a deck of like 21, and maybe even 29 at the end I don't recall). I had a good combo of relics, so I always had 5 energy, and one level 3 I had one that gave 2 energy every 3 turns. This combo'd with the "Do 10 damage X times" I was doing 50 to 70 damage frequently. The rest of the build was focused on inflicting poison and I had 2 Bane cards. I also got lucky and didn't have to upgrade much cards because I had Apotheosis +. I also had Adrenaline + and ended up duplicating it. %15 Heal on rest, and +25 HP on Boss start.

Just wow, I barely even beat the last boss with 12 HP (Donut and Diamond shaped guy) but here is the kicker. I had the explode corpses card so I just used it on the diamond dude and focused on him so it instant killed the other one. If it weren't for that card I would have lost for sure!

Anyway sorry that's my story, it was just enthralling.

[Blood Flowers]

Silent is my personal favorite so it's heartening to see others enjoying playing as her.

Some advice:
-You don't necessary need to take less cards, just take cards that you need/round out your deck. It is definitely advisable to skip cards sometimes though.
-Skewer is not a very good card for the Silent without some other sort of synergies. This typically does NOT include energy as a synergy (for instance, Skewer+ with 10 energy only deals 100 damage... very lackluster compared to other things that can be done on 10 energy). Skewer is an alright pickup in Act 1 for certain elites/bosses when lacking front-loaded damage. It scales significantly worse by the time you reach Act 3 where the bosses and elites have ~300-500 heath. You typically want to pick up synergies for Skewer (such as shuriken + shivs) to make Skewer a better card though.
-Rarely is it worth getting 2 bane cards (especially un-upgraded). Having 1 bane is plenty for most decks as the damage is lackluster past Act 1/early Act 2.
-If you do not have corpse explosion (or some other method to simultaneously kill the other one), it is advisable to focus down Donu (donut shaped) first as it buffs both bosses for +3 STR (effectively 6 damage since they hit twice) every other turn.
-If you remove a card at every shop, you are probably wasting your gold on removing rather than more useful relics. Removing cards (other than curses) is a luxury, not a necessity. 5 strikes in a deck of 20 is 25% of the deck. 5 strikes in a deck of 40 is only 12.5%. If you remove say 1 (maybe 2) strike(s) and have sufficient card draw, you should have very little issue with drawing into those strikes.

[LHGreen]

You had all that and still barely beat Deca and Donu? Okay, so just what happened? Did you have zero defense cards or something? You gotta keep plenty around, you can't just remove them from your deck and attack non-stop. The Silent isn't The Ironclad or The Defect. And slimming your deck isn't automatically a good thing, either, at least not in this game. There's a number of enemies that actually punish you for trying to do just that. Personally, I usually grab whatever cards I feel like that I think will work well in a given run and very rarely pass them up without a good reason to do so. I almost always get the 25 bonus points for having 35+ cards in my deck, and I don't have too much trouble beating the game when I do this no matter what character I use. Of course, I also believe in being cheap, and cheesy, and just generally using every underhanded and dirty trick that stops short of actually cheating to win, so my approach may not necessarily work for someone else. But still, I've heard that the advanced players don't necessarily focus on slimming their deck in every run.

Anyway, you're lucky you didn't move on to the final act. The elite there would have destroyed you, to say nothing of the final boss.

Originally posted by Blood Flowers:

-Skewer is not a very good card for the Silent without some other sort of synergies.

Yeah, I generally avoid skewer altogether, myself, unless I have a lot of strength to use to amplify the power.

[Krondelo]

Yeah I hear all that, I'm still very new to the game and learning. And I did have some good defense cards, mainly sweep for damage and usually 14 block. I really only removed 1 curse I got from the whale for apotheosis, and removed 2 block and 2 strike to draw my other cards more frequently. I didnt need to spend money on relics because they were usually crap and I earned relics from ? Marks and 2 elites. Anyway I'll keep learning thanks for the tips guys.

Also, you get a bonus for having 35+ cards?? I didn't know that

[Zu]

I'd be surprised if you exceeded 35 cards for the express purpose of artificial bragging rights.

That third neow starting boon you mentioned tends to be iffy btw, especially if the price is a curse or raw damage (in an act where you could fight 3 elites).

As for removing basics, strikes first unless you run the risk of lacking damage in act 1. At least defends interact with footwork and corruption later, when scaling damage matters, unlike those strikes that benefit once from strength / vulnerable and do nothing else.

[Blood Flowers]

Originally posted by Zu:

As for removing basics, strikes first unless you run the risk of lacking damage in act 1.

There's a few exceptions to this rule I'd like to add though: If you have the starting bonus to remove 2 cards (or re-rolled for empty cage), it may be more valuable to remove a strike and a defend rather than 2 defends. Bad RNG on a jaw worm fight with 3 strikes 5 defends might make you lose like >20 health.

[Khor]

Originally posted by Blood Flowers:

There's a few exceptions to this rule I'd like to add though: If you have the starting bonus to remove 2 cards (or re-rolled for empty cage), it may be more valuable to remove a strike and a defend rather than 2 defends. Bad RNG on a jaw worm fight with 3 strikes 5 defends might make you lose like >20 health.

I`d say that qualifies as "lack of damage"
"Remove Two" is a sketchy starting bonus, especially for Silent who isn`t going to find better Block x Energy cards

[Blood Flowers]

Originally posted by Khor:

Originally posted by Blood Flowers:

There's a few exceptions to this rule I'd like to add though: If you have the starting bonus to remove 2 cards (or re-rolled for empty cage), it may be more valuable to remove a strike and a defend rather than 2 defends. Bad RNG on a jaw worm fight with 3 strikes 5 defends might make you lose like >20 health.

I`d say that qualifies as "lack of damage" :conwayshrug:
"Remove Two" is a sketchy starting bonus, especially for Silent who isn`t going to find better Block x Energy cards :conwayshrug:

Yeah, I typically avoid trading my starter relic for a boss relic AND the remove two option (as I find the first too variable and the latter doesn't seem to actually help much). But IF I were to hit Empty Cage or misclick on the remove two...

I play like half my runs never finding a footwork (no idea why... just bad luck I guess) so I value the starter defends even less. Having less than 4 front-loaded damage cards (even if they are just strikes) in the early part of Act 1 is actually kind of painful.

[fractal9091]

Originally posted by Blood Flowers:

I play like half my runs never finding a footwork (no idea why... just bad luck I guess) so I value the starter defends even less. Having less than 4 front-loaded damage cards (even if they are just strikes) in the early part of Act 1 is actually kind of painful.

Yeah, Strikes are lower value later in the game, but they're pretty hard to get rid of at the beginning unless there's likely to be enough time to replace them with better attacks before harder fights come along.