Do any of you actually consistently beat act 4 like say 50% of the time or more? I can't even see how.

[Rich Mahogany]

I'm able to beat act 1-3 fairly consistently with many different types of builds, but act 4 seems different to me. It seems like to beat the heart you just outright have to have a couple of abilities or you have no chance. I was able to beat the heart once with ironclad, and it required strength scaling to be able to do 100+ dmg per turn. That's fine, but I've been playing for over 50 hours now and there seems to be only like 1 card (demon form) that gives you that, and then another than doubles your strength. For the silent I haven't been able to do it yet but I would think you just need an ungodly amount of poison inflict with multiple cards that double or triple the poison. Basically you need some way of inflicting 700 damage in like 5-8 turns. Even when I had 130HP with ironclad and multiple revive potions, I didn't even come close without huge strength scaling. With the defect I suppose you could have 6-9 ice orbs adding a ton of block, but again your run will depend on getting relics or cards that add orb slots, and I frequently go several runs without gaining more slots. Oh and the other ability that seems borderline mandatory is the one that takes 5 damage down to 1 so his multi-hit attacks get nullified. But again, how many items actually do that?

So basically do any of you think you can reasonably and regularly win act 4 without high strength scaling on ironclad, without tons of poison on silent, or without 6+ orb slots on defect? again i'm fine if you have to do those things, my issue is that you can't seem to consistently get runs with relics or cards that give you ENOUGH of those things.

[Zu]

I'd have to check my run history but it's pretty doable before A18. (That's when it gets brutal.) The biggest hurdle is the insane upfront damage. One solution that tends to get overlooked is that ironchad can stall for feed (+armaments) and go in with a huge health pool to tank with his face, maybe get value off self-forming clay, and maybe even recover with reaper later (including ways to duplicate / reuse them).

[mldb88]

It's definitely possible at lower to mid ascensions (I don't really play lower ascensions consistently enough to really give personal experience but high level player being able to do it at A20 should mean it's at least POSSIBLE at lower ascension). I think the main thing is you're overlooking a LOT of options here. You're tunnel visioning on Demon Form/Limit Break as the only two "viable" options which really isn't the case. Are the options more limited than the other acts? Sure, but they're still there. Let's go one by one:

Ironclad - Not counting the two cards mentioned, Spot Weakness and Inflame also do a solid job of scaling, especially if you have more than one. Combine that with relics that also increase strength, or if you're REALLY confident in your defenses (or did the apparitions event and got the cards that give intangible), Brimstone can be a SUPER risky option that scales fast, but is a lot more specific in what actually works with it. You also have things like Flame Barrier and Bronze Scales to turn that multi-hit into TONS of damage for you as long as you have the health pool for it (and that's definitely doable with things like Feed as mentioned earlier). Having some exhaust synergies also can help if you feel like the statuses are bogging you down, or making sure you consistently repeatedly hit the cards you need. As jank as it can be, Perfected Strike with Necronomicon or Snekko Eye and Double Tap can do massive work also. As for the block options, self forming clay if you can tank most of the multi-hit with health will basically set you up to block the chunky hit after if he uses that one first.

Silent - Blur and weak are your friend. Poison is an ok option but choke or finisher with playing a TON of cards also works well, as well as having the card that gives block when playing a card to negate the beat of death (forget the name offhand). Wraith Form can buy you a TON of time (especcially if you have multiples or nightmare it in a deck designed to cycle quickly), and Phantasmal Killer can skyrocket damage potential also. Caltrops is also incredible since it kind of serves the same purpose and bronze scales and flame barrier. Also don't sleep on Piercing Wail, it basically says "The Heart's Multi-Hit does jack this turn". Discard synergies with things like Eviscerate or Sneaky Strike (don't build your ENTIRE deck around it but if you have some good cycling stuff or gambler's chip it can really pay off) work well too. Also Malaise works well for one cycle until it cleanses all the debuffs.

Defect is not really my strong suit, but he does have some options. Buffer is amazing, and Seek is pretty much a no-brainer as it lets you hunt down whatever answer you need. As for scaling block and damage, static discharge is great, as is just general orb cycling with things like rainbow. You can also use the double energy card (forget the name offhand) to use the X cost block card if need be, or as you mentioned just have some good frost orb synergies and tank an early hit cycle just getting set up to unkillable levels of defense. Honestly I prefer to have less slots on defect because I tend to work more around well timed cycling rather than just building up a million orb slots unless I get some REALLY good ways of getting orb slots.

Watcher - Hit it really ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hard? Idk, watcher doesn't really have many 'Heart Counters' as I like to call them, but her raw damage should be enough where you don't specifically need them if your deck is on point. The biggest problem is the 300 damage cap and being forced to survive a few rounds against it.

[erich1986]

i'd recommend checking out baalorlord and jorbs on youtube, they regularly beat the heart on ascension 20. they've both got a lot of advice videos in addition to posting full runs.

[LHGreen]

On A0-A1, sure. On A20, I'm trying to get a win streak of 3 in a row with all characters in Act 4, which I've so far managed to do with Defect and no one else. I'm currently on Ironclad.

Beating the heart does require having a plan, though, and being on the lookout for stuff.

[hebe]

Beauty of sts lies exactly in the plane where you dont need "high strength scaling on ironclad, tons of poison on silent, or 6+ orb slots on defect" in particular or else. You, in fact, have to be prepared to face THE heart, but there are sooooo many ways to do that, so many tools that suits (and dont) your exact deck in any given moment, so many ways to scale besides strength, dexterity, focus etc, that sometimes you cant even recognize that you had already missed crucial little piece of a puzzle from previous card reward. And its super fine, because learning and expirience are scaling too.

[Corlindale]

I only play A20 these days and definitely don't beat the heart all the time (prob. less than 10%, although I'm still improving) , but I found that when I first reached A20 and then went back to A1 to try beating the Heart there it was surprisingly easy to get the win with every character. I remember succeeding within 1-2 runs.

You 100% don't need poison with the Silent, both of my A20 Heart wins were heavily shiv-based. It's really important to avoid tunnel vision if you want to improve at this game. No single card/relic is a must for the Heart, though some are of course more helpful than others.

[1.2M | Missingno.]

On A0/A1, I can win damn near 100% of the time.

A20? I'm, uh, far from a top player.

[asdf]

There are a lot of ways of doing damage. If you think there's only 1 or 2 ways, then the problem is that you're trying too hard to force a specific strategy to work instead of trying to adapt to what you have to work with.

With ironclad for instance, I've beaten it with demon form before sure.. but I've also beaten it with the doubling your shields + the card that lets you keep your shields between turns (+ optionally body slam, it's not strictly necessary but it does make it a lot faster), or with the 2x dropkick infinite combo (exhaust most of your cards, keep 1x rage, 1x the bash that you start with, and 2x drop kick and you can just use drop kick to draw drop kick over and over again - flash of steel works too instead of dropkick, or 1x of each works too, but it's more rare, and you can get infinite armor from rage while you're at it). I've also once done it with a weird janky deck where I had the cards that dealt 7 damage whenever you gain armor, gain 3 armor whenever you exhaust a card, and draw a card whenever you exhaust a card with a bunch of exhaust cards. There are probably a bunch of other strategies that can work too.