Tips?

[Semperfiredog]

I'm looking for tips to get to Ascension 20 (currently at 6) and also looking to beat the Heart. I've seen it done but can never manage to get there or get him down when I DO get there. I like the Defect but have won more with the Warrior guy (forget his name off the top of my head.) Thanks ahead of time!

[LHGreen]

I'm already AT A20, and if anyone can figure out what I did right, please, let me know, too.

As for the Heart, it helps to have some kind of retaliation damage, like a thorns potion, and some way to get a stack or two of artifact, or immunity to debuffs. Also, try to have a way to deal with or take advantage of status cards, and have a lot of really BIG defense and a way to weaken it or lower the damage it does on those horrible multi-hit attacks.

[Lucik]

s

[Corlindale]

The way I did it is that I first focused on just climbing Ascension levels and only afterwards started going for the Heart, but your mileage may vary. Others would argue you might as well try for the Heart on each run because you can climb Ascensions just by beating Act 3 in any case. My path was 1) Beat A20 with all characters. 2) Go back to A1 and beat the Heart with all characters (surprisingly easy at that point) and 3) Beat the Heart on A20 with all characters (hard).

LHGreen already offered some advice about countering the Heart. As for climbing the Ascensions the picture is more complicated, and it's hard to give very specific advice without knowing how you play and which mistakes (if any) you tend to make. So here's just a semi-random assortment of tips that helped me improve my own play as I was climbing.

- In Act 1, you mostly want to prioritize regular fights over events. You need to add quality cards to your deck fast, and many events in Act 1 are not that good. Some require you to sacrifice more than you gain. In Act 2 it's the opposite. Many of the regular fights are nasty or have mechanics that can really hurt you if you don't have the answer to them, while some of the events offer really potent benefits. In Act 3 I usually go for a mix of events and fights, also depending on how well-rounded my deck is at that point.

- Try to fight at least 2 elites per Act (sometimes more if you're feeling powerful or want to leverage Black Star as much as possible). But try to aim for a flexible path so you can find a campfire or avoid the next elite if something hurts you more than expected. A single path with multiple elites and no campfires in between is a risky play, so you want to be fairly confident in your deck before you attempt it.

- I usually try to have at least 200 gold before hitting a shop, and preferably 300+. Hate it when I see that key relic/card just out of reach. There are exceptions here, of course. Like if I urgently need to remove something nasty, or if my shops are doubling as pseudo-campfires with Meal Ticket. If I'm using Cursed Key I try to find a path where there's a shop relatively soon after the chest, in case I get something really bad like Normality.

- There may be some cards/relics you are currently undervaluing, so it pays off to experiment with things you don't normally pick, just to get a feel for how they play. There are very few cards I'd rate as decidedly bad, most have their use. Some that look bad at first glance are actually really good. For the longest time I avoided Wraith Form because I looked at its drawback and went "Uuh, no thanks!". But now I recognize it as one of the strongest tools in the Silent's arsenal, and I pick it almost every time I see it and make it a priority upgrade.

- A similar story with the boss relics that give energy in exchange for a drawback. I avoided many of them at first, but gradually I came to realize just how powerful that extra energy is. Often the benefit of extra energy outweighs the drawback. Some of the drawbacks can also be mitigated (or even leveraged to your own advantage in niche cases). Coffee Dripper is an easier pick if you have alternative means of healing (Eternal Feather, vampirism, Meal Ticket, Bird-Faced Urn, etc...), Fusion Hammer ditto if you have alternate means of upgrading (like Eggs) or other value actions to perform at campfires (like Shovel).

- The general piece of advice that everyone gives at some point: Don't think in terms of builds, and don't convince yourself you 'need' particular cards to succeed. That's setting yourself up for failure. Instead, try to think about what you already have and how the offered cards fit in, or whether you need specific tools to handle the challenges ahead. Remember you can always see the boss fight ahead of time, and at this point in your StS career you should also know which three elites lurk in each Act. For example, early Act 1 you want to focus your card picks on strong damage cards, because all Act 1 elites are damage races in one way or another. In Act 2 you will start needing AoE attacks more, as 2 out of 3 elites and 2 out of 3 bosses involve multiple enemies. Further along you will also want some form of scaling of either your defense or offense, so you can handle the higher hp and damage numbers you will see from later enemies.