Long rest kills my mercs?

[SheckyS]

I'm really new to this game, but this has happened to me 3 times in a row now, every time I try to use Long Rest. I click on Long Rest with two playable cards in my hand. The game asks me to pick one to burn, which I do. And then my character crumbles and dies (exhausts).

What am I missing here? Why am I dying from a rest?

[dbemont]

You say that you have two playable cards in your hand. But how many were in your discard pile?

When you rest (long or short) one of the cards in your discard pile is burned, and the rest are returned to your hand of playable cards. So I am unclear as to the the game asking for you to pick one of your playable cards to burn.

However, if you are down to two total unburned cards, and then you rest, yes, you would burn one and then be exhausted as a result.

[scott_smart2000]

You have to have more than 2 cards total (discard and hand) at the end of the rest to survive. If you're long resting with only 2 cards, you're dead as soon as the rest happens, long or short, but at least you can take a hit or two before your long rest happens.

[SheckyS]

I guess I am confused about what "discarded" and "burned" means.
Don't think I've even seen any discarded cards. I have cards that I can choose from in the selection phase, and then the rest are all burned.

Why am I dying when I long rest with only 2 unburned cards? One of them gets burned and I still have the other, right? So I still have one playable card. That's not enough? You need 2 to stay alive?

[Fringehunter7719]

Originally posted by SheckyS:

I guess I am confused about what "discarded" and "burned" means.
Don't think I've even seen any discarded cards. I have cards that I can choose from in the selection phase, and then the rest are all burned.

There's a brief explainer you can read from the game's Main Menu. Choose Extras -> How to Play:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2700180575

Burned cards are shown with a red outline and are gone for the rest of the scenario (barring a couple of particular cards that restore them on a very limited basis for some classes), discarded cards come back on a rest at the cost of burning one card.

Burning cards makes your characters exhaust much, much faster than discarding them and the intention is you use burns sparingly. Since the cost is higher the earlier you burn, typically you hold off till later if the choice is available.

Originally posted by SheckyS:

Why am I dying when I long rest with only 2 unburned cards? One of them gets burned and I still have the other, right? So I still have one playable card. That's not enough? You need 2 to stay alive?

You need two cards to play a turn, one top and one bottom. Alternatively you can rest if you have two cards in your discard. If you can't do either of those, you exhaust. So yes, you need either two cards in hand or two in discard.

ETA: It's worth bearing in mind that all cards can be played for a default move 2 bottom or a default attack 2 top to avoid burning them.

[scott_smart2000]

Originally posted by SheckyS:

I guess I am confused about what "discarded" and "burned" means.
Don't think I've even seen any discarded cards. I have cards that I can choose from in the selection phase, and then the rest are all burned.

Why am I dying when I long rest with only 2 unburned cards? One of them gets burned and I still have the other, right? So I still have one playable card. That's not enough? You need 2 to stay alive?

Burned cards are the ones that have the flaming card symbol on the bottom right. When you select those, they're gone from the game forever unless you're the Spellweaver who has a card that returns all of them back just once (it burns forever so the Tinkerer can't bring it back which is the other way to get a burnt card back). You should use them incredibly sparingly because your deck is finite.

When you play cards normally aka don't play a burn card, they go to the discard pile. Whenever you rest, one of your discarded cards is then burnt with the rest going to your hand so you can play them all again. You always have to have two cards in your hand or 3+ in your discard, or you will exhaust after you rest because you have to have at least 2 cards to be able to play in a round. Note: Active cards like the Mindthief's Augments that are at the very top of your deck list after play DO NOT count towards your card total.

Burnt cards are at the very bottom of your deck list and have a red outline. Your discarded cards are above that in kind of a faded shade. Then your cards in your hand are above them not faded out. You have to have 2 cards since you play 2 cards per turn (top and bottom). So, if you've burned through your deck, you'll exhaust. Whenever you get down to only 2 cards left, you'll exhaust once they end up in the discard pile and you rest.

[SheckyS]

Thanks. Lots of good info here. I see my mistake now. I was doing a LOT of short rests and burning a whole lot of cards. But I guess I need to think more carefully and use Long Rests instead a lot of the time, so I get more from it and can choose which card to burn.

[Syrris]

It sounds like long-vs-short is less of an issue than simply resting too often. You should (usually*) play through the entire available hand before you use either.

* There are specific cases where you might want to do it a turn early, either because you know that you're going to have to burn a lot of cards to block damage, or you want to make absolutely sure that you don't lose a crucial one, like the Spellweaver's special.

[Mike Garrison]

My general rule is to always play as long as I can before resting, even though it means not getting my best cards as often. I also almost always long rest.

However, with experience, you get to understand when resting early is advantageous. And also when to short rest.

Typically, it's the final room where you might want to short rest quickly and get your best cards back right away, but in order to do that you have to have not burned them up by taking rests too quickly earlier.

There is one downside to using all your cards and then long resting, which is that if you get attacked while you are resting, and you have to burn cards, now you have to burn two cards instead of one for every hit you absorb.

[scott_smart2000]

Originally posted by SheckyS:

Thanks. Lots of good info here. I see my mistake now. I was doing a LOT of short rests and burning a whole lot of cards. But I guess I need to think more carefully and use Long Rests instead a lot of the time, so I get more from it and can choose which card to burn.

Short Resting should be a last resort (excluding that one battle goal which isn't a good option either btw but some are worse). Not only do you not get to pick the card you burn, and the game has a real habit of picking that one best card, but your equipment that refreshes doesn't. You should only short rest in rooms where there are a lot of enemies left so you need everyone attacking that round, and you're completely out of cards (or have just 1 for those mercs that have odd number starting decks).

I always long rest before opening a door unless I luckily managed to obliterate one room in a turn or 2 and/or didn't use any of my equipment. You never want to start a room with only half your deck because you'll be short-resting which likely will screw up your next room too.

[Merlin]

Originally posted by scott_smart2000:

Originally posted by SheckyS:

Thanks. Lots of good info here. I see my mistake now. I was doing a LOT of short rests and burning a whole lot of cards. But I guess I need to think more carefully and use Long Rests instead a lot of the time, so I get more from it and can choose which card to burn.

Short Resting should be a last resort (excluding that one battle goal which isn't a good option either btw but some are worse). Not only do you not get to pick the card you burn, and the game has a real habit of picking that one best card, but your equipment that refreshes doesn't. You should only short rest in rooms where there are a lot of enemies left so you need everyone attacking that round, and you're completely out of cards (or have just 1 for those mercs that have odd number starting decks).

I always long rest before opening a door unless I luckily managed to obliterate one room in a turn or 2 and/or didn't use any of my equipment. You never want to start a room with only half your deck because you'll be short-resting which likely will screw up your next room too.

While all of this is mostly true for Normal or Easy diffuculty, higher difficlties will change your approach. Short Rests are a must at +2, +3 difficulty since you often will find yourself in a pressing situation, where you can't ignore any of the monsters. Also Short Rests may help to sinchronize tempo for the caharacters with different hand size or after a few burns. Long Rests can also be used to draw agro away from a character, or to ensure invisibility is used to the full potential. There's a certain strategic deep when you choose between those two and mastering it will come in handy for both new and seasoned players.

[scott_smart2000]

Originally posted by Merlin:

Originally posted by scott_smart2000:

Short Resting should be a last resort (excluding that one battle goal which isn't a good option either btw but some are worse). Not only do you not get to pick the card you burn, and the game has a real habit of picking that one best card, but your equipment that refreshes doesn't. You should only short rest in rooms where there are a lot of enemies left so you need everyone attacking that round, and you're completely out of cards (or have just 1 for those mercs that have odd number starting decks).

I always long rest before opening a door unless I luckily managed to obliterate one room in a turn or 2 and/or didn't use any of my equipment. You never want to start a room with only half your deck because you'll be short-resting which likely will screw up your next room too.

While all of this is mostly true for Normal or Easy diffuculty, higher difficlties will change your approach. Short Rests are a must at +2, +3 difficulty since you often will find yourself in a pressing situation, where you can't ignore any of the monsters. Also Short Rests may help to sinchronize tempo for the caharacters with different hand size or after a few burns. Long Rests can also be used to draw agro away from a character, or to ensure invisibility is used to the full potential. There's a certain strategic deep when you choose between those two and mastering it will come in handy for both new and seasoned players.

That's true, but you shouldn't have to be short resting a ton because you long rest before opening a door, which is why that one battle goal about always having an enemy on the field is the absolute worst one in the game. If you're constantly having to short rest because you can't clear the field, you're going to have a really bad go of it, but my advice is mainly for newer players who think you have to play all of your cards before resting so they barge in with only 4 cards and have to short rest pretty much immediately.

[Mike Garrison]

Originally posted by scott_smart2000:

my advice is mainly for newer players who think you have to play all of your cards before resting so they barge in with only 4 cards and have to short rest pretty much immediately.

If I have enough health to be fairly certain I don't have to burn cards, I've found long resting even in the middle of a battle is often safe. It all depends on the situation, but when you long rest the enemies don't tend to target you (initiative 99). As long as you aren't long-resting the entire party at once, it's often pretty safe. Of course, you can't deal any damage, which might be a problem.

If you do get caught long-resting and have to burn cards to stay alive, however, it's really painful. Two or three hits while you have to burn two cards each time will really hurt even the highest-stamina characters.

[Mike Garrison]

Originally posted by Merlin:

Long Rests can also be used to draw agro away from a character, or to ensure invisibility is used to the full potential.

Yeah, non-loss invisibility plus long rest is a great way to avoid any hits for two turns, and heal up, and refresh your cards and items. Even an invisibility cloak will for for this, but obviously only once.

[DeathAxe]

Stamina potions can help as you can reclaim discarded cards but the skill is in holding off resting as long as you can even if it means you have to go with a late initiative.

In some cases going late can be very useful, take the mindtheif or scoundrel both have some very low initative cards BUT if you go last you can run in do an attack and then the next turn go early do another attack and run off.

The game is easyish to play but spotting the subtler mechanics can be difficult.

Over Xmas we did one scenario and although one char exhausted the tinkerer made ovee 16 turns to complete as resting was done very late.

[LFA]

You can also cancel any Active cards by clicking its icon on your merc's face at top of screen. This is especially useful for Spellweaver if you want to get your Mystic Ally back immediately before playing Reviving Ether. The same trick is useful for Mindthief augments if you want to get an even number of cards after resting, or in combo with Tinkerer, etc.