How the heck do I heal more often outside of bonfires?

[Rich Mahogany]

Health is always an issue for me. They don't give you much to start out with, and seemingly outside of the occasional random event or a few relics, I have to hit a ton of bonfires throughout the run. I'm never upgrading at bonfires. I've only played about 5 hours or so and I'm new, but I've already gotten to the third act and the end of the second multiple times, so I have some idea of what I'm doing now as far as suitability. But I feel like there must be something I'm missing. Even a way to increase your total HP consistently. I get to the bosses and they have 5x the HP I have and regularly attack for half my HP (before reductions). I know in roguelikes it's highly dependent on what you get, but in this one more so than others I have played, I find myself going "there is literally nothing I could have done this run."

[Banzai]

I guarantee that there were things you did wrong, but it tends to be a gradual incremental thing in this game as opposed to one bad fight.

Bad card/relic picks will make you take more damage as you progress further. Sub optimal plays in corridor fights will do the same. These bad choices mean you wont be able to upgrade cards at bonfires (since you are having to heal) which means your deck will be weaker as you progress onwards.

Raising your HP is always nice but shouldnt be a priority when there are better options and healing at bonfires shouldnt be necessary very often unless playing at higher ascension levels.

As people always recommend, try and build your deck around what you get and not what you want. Your first few picks will often dictate the sort of deck that you should be building towards. Also, dont despair. Its not an easy game and certainly takes some time to get good at. The challenge is part of the fun :)

[LHGreen]

You may want to learn how to block.

[Nibbie]

Ideally you never use a bonfire to heal, just upgrade cards. You get a full heal when you kill a boss, so the old card game adage comes into play: the only health point that matters is the last one. I have gone into the act 1 boss at <20 HP and still upgraded, because I was confident my deck/relics/potions would be able to beat that boss without dying, and thus maximized my future chances.

If you need to be constantly healing, especially at the starting difficulty, you are doing many, many things wrong, you just don't have the experience to notice them yet. You can try reading or watching beginner guides, or watching an experienced player do a run and seeing what they are doing differently than you. For more personal advice, you could post a video or even just the seed of a run you did, where felt like there was no winning that run, and we can say what we would have done to improve it your chances.

I have about a 95% winrate across all four characters at base difficulty, which isn't to brag since I am far from the best player of this game and rarely play the vastly harder top difficulty, which some people can even beat consistently. It is to demonstrate that the game can be learned and beaten consistently, as you gain the knowledge required to make better decisions.

[1.2M | Missingno.]

Health is a resource. Spend it for power and momentum, because the only hit point you need is the last one. Foregoing upgrades because you're trying to keep your health maxed out just results in falling behind the power curve, and that may be what gets you killed in the long run. One way to look at it is that if you're resting, you're losing.

The best source of healing in this game is defeating a boss. If you're close to full health at the end of an act, that's actually a sign you weren't aggressive enough.

[Aldehydra]

Originally posted by Rich Mahogany:

...I find myself going "there is literally nothing I could have done this run."

Then the problem was likely that you got into such a situation in the first place. You shouldn't have any unwinnable fights if you've built a reliable deck. Upgrading can be a big part of that, as many cards become much stronger when upgraded. For example, you're much less reliant on getting a weakening card during the right turn if you have upgraded your weakness card to last two turns. In the long run, that's going to preserve more health than any bonfire can restore.

[BootyHunter]

Make sure early in the run you upgrade your damage ASAP. It's really important to start out runs strong. So you want to have enough damage to fight the elites for relics which can give strong permanent upgrades and you want to maintain enough health to be able to almost always upgrade a card at a bonfire. Having your damage plan sorted out is the best way to get your runs off the ground. It's extremely hard to block enemies in act 2 being able to do a lot of damage is the best way to get through it. It's good to use your potions in fights that are difficult or if there is a turn that you could use a potion and save a lot of health.

Eventually you want a deck with a damage plan, a way to scale damage where you can get stronger during the fight so you don't get destroyed by bosses, energy, draw and block.

It's all an intricate balance when it comes to making a good deck and it'll be learned through experience. Too much block you're not going to have enough damage so you'll be taking damage unnecessarily, too little and you'll die in the late game.

This game doesn't have a lot of situations where there is nothing the player could have done. There is usually enough choice to allow players to always have a chance. But it's a really deep game so it's easy to go well there's nothing I could have done there because it's hard to understand the intricacies enough to understand the things that went wrong to lead you to the situation you were in.

If you want an easy way to improve understanding there's a lot of really good educational youtubers out there. Jorbs and Baalord explain the game really well.

[pitiflauticus]

Each time you heal at a bonfire, at least at lower difficulties, you are taking a step back on power both in the short and long term. This will not be super noticeable in the first acts but it will make you arrive at the third act unprepared.

Think about this: using your first bonfire to upgrade a defend car, which is one of the worst options. You will block for 3 more each time you play it.

Let's say you play it twice per combat for 4 combats and then you arrive to your next bonfire. Voila, you have prevented the loss of 24HP, at least the same you would have healed at that first bonfire, Now you can use that second bonfire for another upgrade instead of resting. And so on. Your deck keeps improving, and your HP count is still the same.

That's using the example of a very bad upgrade. Better upgrades generate an even better yield.

Some times you NEED to rest to not die, which is fair, or because by resting, you can kill an extra elite, which is a great trade off because elites give more gold, better cards rewards, and a relic. Generally speaking, unless you need to heal to not die immediately after the bonfire, upgrading at bonfires will make you stronger in the short AND long terms.

"There is literally nothing I could have done this run." - this statement is coming from lack of experience. Experienced players will win ALL runs at the starting difficulty level. Literally all. Very good players can consistently win close to 50% at the MAX difficulty level, which is extremely unforgiving. And the *best* players have won more than a dozen games in a row at that max difficulty.

So revisit your assumptions and enjoy the learning curve!

[Rich Mahogany]

Thanks everyone for the good feedback. I was watching one of the tips videos on youtube and I think the biggest issue I was having was not enough relics, and not intentionally going after elites. The run I'm on now I went for the elites, got back to The Champ who wooped me before, and I wooped him. Now I'm on the third act boss and unfortunately it's the bastard that has two phases. This one might be too much...damn.

[trial_by_fire]

Sometimes a good offense is the best defense.

If you arrive at a fire with 50% or more of your health, you probably shouldn't be resting.

Sometimes the best choice is not picking a reward.

You should probably use potions more than you think. If you die and you still have unused potions, consider why.

Sometimes you shouldn't spend any gold at the first two or so shops that you come to. Wait until there is something worth buying.


And lastly: If you are not playing as Defect, you might have chosen the wrong character to play.

[LHGreen]

Originally posted by Rich Mahogany:

Thanks everyone for the good feedback.

Everyone? I'm part of that "everyone"! That includes me and my nugget of advice! Yay!

[Khor]

Originally posted by LHGreen:

Originally posted by Rich Mahogany:

Thanks everyone for the good feedback.

Everyone? I'm part of that "everyone"! That includes me and my nugget of advice! Yay!:happystar2022:

Do I hear another Jester incoming?

[Banzai]

Originally posted by Rich Mahogany:

Thanks everyone for the good feedback. I was watching one of the tips videos on youtube and I think the biggest issue I was having was not enough relics, and not intentionally going after elites. The run I'm on now I went for the elites, got back to The Champ who wooped me before, and I wooped him. Now I'm on the third act boss and unfortunately it's the bastard that has two phases. This one might be too much...damn.

Nice. From struggling you are now getting to the last boss in act 3. Good job :)

As you realised, it tends to be a good idea to fight as many elites as you are able to* since the relics will often massively improve your deck and will also sometimes give you a reason to focus on a particular strategy.

Best of luck on act 3 :)

* Act 2 bosses can be a pain so caution advised there.

[Spawnling]

Originally posted by Aldehydra:

Then the problem was likely that you got into such a situation in the first place. You shouldn't have any unwinnable fights if you've built a reliable deck.

There are some rare situations where rng can show you the middle finger and end your run.
Just thinking of Nemesis, Snake Lady, Slavers or Snecko high rolling your deck.

But most of the times you put yourself in that situation.

[LHGreen]

Huh. People are weirdly mad at my little quip. It's not like it's even bad or irrelevant advice.

[Khor]

Originally posted by LHGreen:

Huh. People are weirdly mad at my little quip. It's not like it's even bad or irrelevant advice.

Yeah, block?? shame on you!
We had a whole thread with hundreds of replies about that...
Did you learn nothing?