Default Strategy?

[Mr_Shaky]

What are your guys default strategy for this game? Are you finding it better to try and force an archetype (flow/trinity/kunai/ect) or just choosing the best card you can every time? My best run so far was getting limit break early, removing all my other spells, upgrading it 4 times, and getting some lucky synergistic artifacts.

[Tasslehoff_B]

About half my runs I think about what cool thing I want to try this time, get offered an Anubis after one of my first four fights, and then switch both my foci to Miseri.

[Mr_Shaky]

I've only been playing as Saffron and haven't figured out what focuses I should be using. I also didn't know about focuses for my first batch of runs. Some of the characters seem to be predisposed to certain focuses (Phalanx for Reva for example) but I haven't been able to get a good feel for anything on Saffron.

[mickomoo]

Wave + Flame and thunder to finish.

[Tomo]

"Shield&Mana" build is generally steady.
Focus on Convergence&Phalanx, then spamming shield spell.

[RustyRed]

Spell Machine Gun.

- Character -

Gunner (Manafire)

- Spell Focus -

Pick up as many spells as you can so long they don't have anchor or ones that lock you into a animation. You general focus should be as follows:

- Mana, to keep your fire rate up. You want to get boomerang and mana steal as soon as possible.
- Cheap 1-2 cost. This is essensially your 'ammo'. The more you get of these spells the larger your 'clip' that you can fire before you're forced to reshuffle.
- Mana Reduction Upgrades. These let you fire bigger spells that normally would drain you of mana too quickly.

- Artifact Focus -

You generally want artifacts that do the following:

- Getting more mana, and max mana. Blue Blood is a must for instant dps. Amethyst helps keep up the pace.
- Spell Usage. Hit Seeker, laser pointer, Ruby and Baz's Whip are great damage multipliers. Bismuth and Heart of the Cards are great for survival.
- Shuffle Speed. This is important as you need to eliminate any down time. Flash Loader and Speed Loader is good.

- How to play -

- Rapidly push A and B together to throw out each and every spell you have. Mana spells and Gunner's weapon will compensate the firing speed. You generally do enough damage that you can get flawless victories in nearly every fight.
- Anyone who stands still alot you can easily demolish. Violette especially. You can destroy her extremely quickly.
- Reva and Saffron are you worst enemies. Saffron especially, since her 'voodoo' doll she likes putting out will seriously harm you as you generally will have thrown out about 2-3 spells before you can react.

[Kitsunin]

Originally posted by Mr_Shaky:

I've only been playing as Saffron and haven't figured out what focuses I should be using. I also didn't know about focuses for my first batch of runs. Some of the characters seem to be predisposed to certain focuses (Phalanx for Reva for example) but I haven't been able to get a good feel for anything on Saffron.

That's kind of the point for Saffron. Her Default and Chrono loadouts can both compliment any build, while the other characters are all heavily predisposed.

[dead god boogaloo]

Originally posted by Mr_Shaky:

I've only been playing as Saffron and haven't figured out what focuses I should be using. I also didn't know about focuses for my first batch of runs. Some of the characters seem to be predisposed to certain focuses (Phalanx for Reva for example) but I haven't been able to get a good feel for anything on Saffron.

Saffron pretty much works decently with everything. Not great, decent. That's why she's the starter character.

[nvmvoidrays]

Miseri + Phalanx with a sparkling of Anima for Flame.

[Just Life]

I like Reva Shield Throw. Just stack and use as many cards that grants shield and use Shield Throw to send out your shield for a nice burst damage. If you hit a target, you get your shield back! Early on it hit hard and later on it makes a great back up attack. Only bad thing is if you miss, you are kinda doomed.

[Regolant]

I usually play modded so my strategy is always focused on shield + mana regen.
And then spam like crazy

[talonj256]

Originally posted by RustyRed:

Spell Machine Gun.

The manafire gun helps (alot, even), but this strat is viable on more than just gunner. I beat the game with Saffron this way as well. Anchor spells aren't even that bad, at least the shorter projectile ones.

Building for a specific deck is fun, though even if actually trying to use that deck in the heat of battle is usually less effective.

[Kitsunin]

Originally posted by Just Life:

I like Reva Shield Throw. Just stack and use as many cards that grants shield and use Shield Throw to send out your shield for a nice burst damage. If you hit a target, you get your shield back! Early on it hit hard and later on it makes a great back up attack. Only bad thing is if you miss, you are kinda doomed.

Throw in some Root cards so you'll never miss the throw (which is disastrous) and this is the strategy that got me my first win!

[Helsgarde]

Honestly I feel kind of bad about it, but cards that require real setup seem so much less useful than cards that are linear and can just be spammed with little thought. The main thing is to learn basic enemy patterns so that you can reduce damage taken and know when you're able to unload damage. There are very few cards that seem to be able to make up the difference of carefully playing cards vs just spamming them since the dps that you get from spamming cards is so high.

I just grab any card that can hit something whenever they pause between steps or attacks, usually something linear that just hits straight ahead for ease of use. Trinity, flow, or consume doesn't really matter much but some synergy obviously boosts damage. The moment you have a second or two you just unload and spam all the spells you can and then dodge attacks. You don't need to even think about what spell you have, just cast it because in the end it's just damage.

Things like mana regen, mana gain, spell power, faster shuffle, etc are all helpful to further fuel the spamming of spells. Cards that give shield, cards that get consumed but give hp, and artifacts that heal or give shield help with the little mistakes.

The faster you kill things means the less time you have to make mistakes means the less damage you take in the long run. This is a common situation for games like this where you can take a lot of damage in a short amount of time. The less times you have to go through an attack that you have a hard time dealing with the better. Which is why I find cards that are based off of actual setups such as structures seem so bad relatively.

[Lapinoire]

Eternal Cannon, Doublecast. Run shields up with +Flow Upgrade, or Earthen Armor. Rock Tumbler artifact advised.
Let the game fire for you automatically, and infinitely stack bullets and shield.

VERY LETHAL against Reva, however. Would advise being extra careful when fighting Reva with a build like this

Basically this build has a simple idea behind it: by letting 2 bullets multiplied by the number of cannons used, and only have shield cards, you can focus entirely on defense, while still letting damage come out without having to think. It's a very autopilot setup, you just need to get lucky with getting Eternal Cannon.

[Mr_Shaky]

Just beat the game with the spell spam strategy. It worked really well, the only problem I ran into was that I couldn't consistently save hostages who were in front of crystals.