Barricade vs. Juggernaut

[LAUGHING MAN]

Having a hard time choosing between these two at the end of Act I. 87 Health. Relics are Astrolabe, Odd Mushroom, Maw Bank, and Strawberry. Deck is: 4 Shields, 1 Bash, 1 Battle Trance+, 1 Entrench+, 1 Inflame+, 1 Pommel Strike, 1 Body Slam, 1 Anger+, 1 Headbutt, 1 Deep Breath, 2 Armaments, 1 Dropkick.

[Zu]

Tricky.

On the one hand, your plan is to entrench body slam a lot, so you'd think that barricade makes sense, but considering your other ways to gain block are 4 defends and 2 armaments, it'll take a while to reach safe levels of turtling.

So then you could argue that juggernaut could make sense for some damage scaling while you always barely block for enough, but you don't have anything to get more out of it than like 15 damage per turn.

Idk. You could prolly just take barricade and ignore elites since your matchup against 2 of 3 is already not in your favor. Then you hope for some exhaust shenanigans and that the act 3 boss isn't the donut.

PS:
This is a rather peculiar spot you maneuvered yourself into at the end of act 1. Like, was there just 1 elite or did you take the blue key? What about the third rare? What about the other Neow options that prompted you to boss swap in the first place?

[LHGreen]

I'd say Barricade, or the third option, or skip. Barricade can eventually be useful in that setup, but Juggernaut would take a lot of pivoting no matter what you do. Like, it can help, but it's marginal, especially since it's best used in fights with a lot of turns (or when you gain block a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ during a turn) against a single enemy, which usually means elites and bosses. And in Act 2, 2 elites and 2 bosses are a fight against multiple enemies. Juggernaut is basically a late game damage supplementing card more than anything else, unless you already have a lot of ways to stack up small amounts of block early on. It's a VERY niche card, more so than Barricade, imo. But all of this is just my assessment, and I could be wrong about some of it.

So yeah, with that setup, you're probably gonna want Barricade, eventually, anyway. That's less likely (not saying it won't happen, mind you) with Juggernaut. And either choice has no impact on the priority of your pathing at the start of Act 2, anyway, so might as well take it. So, you're gonna want to avoid (most) elites in act 2, and try to find MUCH better sources of block from mobs, events, and shops. And probably upgrade those Armaments and buy relics.

Although, tbh, I don't see that setup winning on any Ascension level higher than, like, A1. You have no block, and your only source of "Big Swingin' ♥♥♥♥" damage depends on it.

[Salty Waffles]

You don't have enough block generation to make Barricade work, but I'd argue you don't have enough block to make Juggernaut work either. That said, it's possible you'll get the block generation going from cards in Act 2, so either could be made to work.

With only 3 energy, though, you'll be hard pressed. Your deck is kind of a mess, lacking an engine for scaling, and Barricade and Juggernaut are not going to work with what you have nw.