Corrupt heart always claps my watcher

[Varpushaukka]

First, some backstory: when I began playing StS, as someone who previously played a lot of Yugioh, I focused too much on trying to go for specific builds, so I struggled a lot initially (it took me 4 attempts to get my first win, which was probably more down to luck), but eventually, I got to a point where I could win act 3 roughly 80% or more of the time.

At that point, I thought I was good enough to aim for getting heart kills on each character, and to my surprise, it worked well: with the ironclad, I almost died, but got the kill on first try with just 7hp remaining, and immediately to follow were back-to-back heart kills with the silent and defect, which went much more smoothly. With just the watcher remaining, I felt so confident that it, too, would be fairly simple.

Wrong; this is where the downfall began, because even though I have been able to beat the first 3 acts (plus the act 4 elite room) with the watcher consistently (sometimes with a cakewalk and sometimes taking a more rough path there), when I get to the heart itself, the deck just noodles by turn 3, and I'm sent back to square one.

Since this is just on ascension 0, I must be doing something wrong and it's not just RNG, and I think it's an issue with scaling, because typically my turn 1 on the heart consists of doing around 50 chip damage and that's pretty much it. For some reason I have a hard time getting power cards with the watcher, especially those that would actually help my current deck at the time, and otherwise, any combos that worked well up to that point, simply fall flat at the heart.

This is mostly me just venting my frustration because I don't know where else to do it, but if someone has some advice that they think might help, I'm listening.

[Varpushaukka]

Only now noticed that I accidentally typed "warden" instead of watcher in the title, sorry about that, corrected it...

[mldb88]

Honestly the Watcher is probably the hardest one 'conceptually' to prepare for the heart with. Most other classes have some kind of card that turns his multi-hit against him for big damage. Chad has flame barrier, Silent has caltrops, Defect has static discharge, Watcher.... hits it really ♥♥♥♥♥♥ hard? That's not to say that Watcher CANT have a good run at the heart, but with her there's no real shortcuts (outside of just going infinite). You just have to have a balanced deck that can hit high damage numbers and know the heart's pattern well enough to anticipate when to swap between stances and not get totally clapped. She was the hardest one for me as well.

I also recommend trying on A1 rather than A0, the extra elites actually make it EASIER thanks to more opportunities for relics.

[Banzai]

Agree with the above about it being maybe the hardest vs The Heart. You can absolutely stomp your way through the earlier parts of the game at times with Watcher but you need some sort of plan built into your deck that maybe isnt optimal for the earlier parts to deal with the final boss. Alpha (to Omega) is one decent option (really not a fan in general but its very effective at the end if you can block your way to getting it triggering). Some artifacts or random event cards for intangibles work well but its going to be luck of the draw as to whether you hit them on your run.

You arent alone anyway with this issue. Its certainly possible to beat The Heart but its really not easy.

[overmage]

The answer, as with most Watcher decks, is Mental Fortress and/or Talk To The Hand with stance dancing. You ramp up block very quickly.

[Varpushaukka]

Originally posted by mldb88:

Honestly the Watcher is probably the hardest one 'conceptually' to prepare for the heart with. Most other classes have some kind of card that turns his multi-hit against him for big damage. Chad has flame barrier, Silent has caltrops, Defect has static discharge, Watcher.... hits it really ♥♥♥♥♥♥ hard? That's not to say that Watcher CANT have a good run at the heart, but with her there's no real shortcuts (outside of just going infinite). You just have to have a balanced deck that can hit high damage numbers and know the heart's pattern well enough to anticipate when to swap between stances and not get totally clapped. She was the hardest one for me as well.

I also recommend trying on A1 rather than A0, the extra elites actually make it EASIER thanks to more opportunities for relics.

Yeah, funnily enough I did once have an infinite block combo with the watcher, but it was on a keyless run, and it might have been shut down by the status card spam the heart does on the first turn anyways ;p

I might try going A1 though, originally I wanted to complete A0 fully with all characters first, but now that I think about it, I may have downplayed the importance of relics when it comes to heart runs, since they aren't as necessary for completing the first 3 acts.

Originally posted by Banzai:

Agree with the above about it being maybe the hardest vs The Heart. You can absolutely stomp your way through the earlier parts of the game at times with Watcher but you need some sort of plan built into your deck that maybe isnt optimal for the earlier parts to deal with the final boss. Alpha (to Omega) is one decent option (really not a fan in general but its very effective at the end if you can block your way to getting it triggering). Some artifacts or random event cards for intangibles work well but its going to be luck of the draw as to whether you hit them on your run.

You arent alone anyway with this issue. Its certainly possible to beat The Heart but its really not easy.

I would love to get the Apparition card random event, but it never seems to proc for me when playing as the watcher, instead the game keeps offering me bites by spamming the vampires-event practically every run :s

On the other hand, Alpha I see quite regularly, but I'm hesitant to take it because it often doesn't synergize with the rest of the deck, I guess I could give it a try though. It just doesn't solve the issue of not getting enough block to survive the necessary amount of turns for Omega to start running its course.

Originally posted by overmage:

The answer, as with most Watcher decks, is Mental Fortress and/or Talk To The Hand with stance dancing. You ramp up block very quickly.

Ironically, on my latest run, I had both of these, and my deck was a mix of scrying and stance dancing, but MF didn't even show up during the combat, and TTTH wasn't able to generate enough block in time...

Anyways, thanks for the replies everyone, I got some new ideas and, along with some other research, I think I identified a couple other issues with my game plan, so I'll just keep trying ;p

[LHGreen]

Originally posted by Varpushaukka:

now that I think about it, I may have downplayed the importance of relics when it comes to heart runs, since they aren't as necessary for completing the first 3 acts.

Getting those bronze scales or that kunai or the fan or the abacus (for thinner decks, which honestly aren't recommended for the heart because of stat cards, but if you can make it work, then you do you) or the boat-themed set or several other things can really help with the heart.

Originally posted by Varpushaukka:

On the other hand, Alpha I see quite regularly, but I'm hesitant to take it because it often doesn't synergize with the rest of the deck, I guess I could give it a try though.

Many of the relics I mentioned would help with that, but even then, I honestly wouldn't recommend using Alpha. It works great in, for example, smaller decks with a ton of scry and draw, and where you have a lot of energy, so that you can potentially use it on your first or second turn. But outside of that, it can really be a burden more than an investment, costing 6 energy in total and probably several turns before you even start to see any benefit. Even Demon Form has better returns than that. It's VERY situational, and a detriment to most decks.

Originally posted by Varpushaukka:

TTTH wasn't able to generate enough block in time...

It's more to mitigate the effects of Beat of Death while you smack the heart. Used together with Wallop, stance-dancing and few stacks of vulnerable+strength, it can get you there.