How in the hell am I supposed to beat sword and shield and have enough HP left for the heart?

[Rich Mahogany]

Of course yet again I get a terrible seed and have zero blocking ability when one of them does a 40hp attack. Boom that's it. Even though I smash them quickly after that, I have to go into the heart with 30 HP and I've got no chance.

[mldb88]

I doubt that you were offered zero blocking ability throughout the entirety of 3 full acts. Might be more an issue of undervaluing certain cards. Also note that the one you’re facing away from deals double damage, so attacking to face it might be a better use of resources (so if one is doing 20 and another is doing 2x6 base, the one you face away from gets doubled). Sometimes you just have to take suboptimal block options just to have something that’ll mitigate damage for you. Depending on character sometimes other defensive options are better to mix in along with block like weaken and strength loss. A well placed uppercut or clothesline+ can be enough with chad to shave off enough damage to take less with what block you have left you can use than just trying to brute force block the whole thing

[Rich Mahogany]

Originally posted by mldb88:

I doubt that you were offered zero blocking ability throughout the entirety of 3 full acts. Might be more an issue of undervaluing certain cards. Also note that the one you’re facing away from deals double damage, so attacking to face it might be a better use of resources (so if one is doing 20 and another is doing 2x6 base, the one you face away from gets doubled). Sometimes you just have to take suboptimal block options just to have something that’ll mitigate damage for you. Depending on character sometimes other defensive options are better to mix in along with block like weaken and strength loss. A well placed uppercut or clothesline+ can be enough with chad to shave off enough damage to take less with what block you have left you can use than just trying to brute force block the whole thing

I just can't believe the sudden spike in difficulty. Every other boss you get a bonfire before except for the hardest one? I feel like I'm missing something. Bloody hell I'm never gonna beat this game. I've gotten good enough that I can pretty consistently get to act 4, but then I just get rocked. I really thought this last one was the run because I got my ironclad able to do 100+ damage after a few buildup rounds, plus I had a heal 40% potion. but once again the block cards in my deck just didn't align with the big attacks. i didn't know about the back attack damage on S&S though so thank you.

[Zu]

Originally posted by Rich Mahogany:

I got my ironclad able to do 100+ damage after a few buildup rounds

There you have it, don't you? You have exactly one single turn to prepare before dem elites go super saiyan. That's why it's so important to stall against the prior boss to set incense burner to either 3 or 4.

The heart itself is similar in this regard, but at least you can just save an artifact pot or buy clockwork.
Still, as cool as it is to cheese phase 1 awakened for 10 minutes while exhausting your deck down to 6 cards, stuff like that is just not fast enough for act 4.

Meanwhile, imagine if that run of yours was winnable by proccing feed a few more times.
(I pretended for the sake of argument that you had feed just to illustrate that even seemingly small decisions add up and can make all the difference in the end. See the examples above involving relics and potions.)

[LHGreen]

I ask myself that question every time I have to deal with them. And every time I manage to do it successfully and defeat the Heart, I have no idea why it worked that particular time.

Originally posted by Rich Mahogany:

I just can't believe the sudden spike in difficulty. Every other boss you get a bonfire before except for the hardest one? I feel like I'm missing something. Bloody hell I'm never gonna beat this game. I've gotten good enough that I can pretty consistently get to act 4, but then I just get rocked. I really thought this last one was the run because I got my ironclad able to do 100+ damage after a few buildup rounds, plus I had a heal 40% potion. but once again the block cards in my deck just didn't align with the big attacks. i didn't know about the back attack damage on S&S though so thank you.

You should see them on A20. It's a whole different beast. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ brutal. But at least you get a relic and a card after killing them. As for dealing with them, it helps to have a source of extra draw that you can access in the first 2 turns, some form of thorns or spikes or some way to damage any enemy that hits you (also very helpful for the heart), and some real BIG block cards. Big damage and high scaling can help too. At least, that's what I've noticed. But I've never fully understood the fight or gotten a handle on them, so I'm not the best source.