Nightmare Guide - The Intoxicated Apothecary

How to beat the game playing as Apothecary on Nightmare difficulty.

ABILITIES

[PUBLISHED: 06-11-2020]

Check out my other guides here:

• Part 01 - The Impetuous Witch
  
• Part 02 - The Impenetrable Fortress Knight
  
• Part 03 - The Devious Magician
  
• Part 05 - The Hybrid Nun
  
• Part 06 - The Infuriated Werewolf
  
• Part 07 - The Audacious Ranger

Golden touch: Transform a card into gold. CD: 6 combats
IN COMBAT
Refine: Draw 2 cards. Double the effect of spell cards you draw. CD: 2 combats
Quick-acting Potion: Choose 30 health/20 mana/3 Action. CD: 3 combats

• Use Golden Touch to get rid of weak or unwanted cards in your deck: 1 DMG Basic Attack, Prank Card, Freeze Card ...
  
• Use Refine to draw 2 extra cards, and with luck gain X2 effects of the spell cards you draw.
  
• Use Quick-acting Potion mostly to heal yourself or gain a huge MP boost. You rarely use it to get 3 AP.

BLESSINGS

"Don't do drugs, it will be bad", they said. Well, this ain't real life baby.


Mid to late game when your deck is strong enough, the extra +1 for all side effects (burned, chilled, poisoned) the enemies received is brutal.


+2 equipment slot is way too good to be true with the way we build this deck. -1 less card at the start of each combat is not such a big deal, since you still have your Refine to draw 2 extra cards if needed.


+1 Effective means that the potion you are using will increases +1 stats for each effect in its description.
-> For example: 3 STAR Fire Potion has the following effect: Deal 3 FIRE DMG, enemy suffers 3 BURNED DMG.
-> +1 Effective with this card means: it deals 4 FIRE DMG, enemy suffers 4 BURNED DMG.
-> use cards that increase your EFFECTIVE if possible.

I also want to talk about how BURNED & CHILLED work so those who never play this class before can understand.

• BURNED: everytime you use a card, you will take the corresponding BURNED DMG. If you receive 11 BURNED, you will lose 11+9+7+5+3+1=36 HP (if you use 6 cards and have no ARMOR, the number decreases by 2 POINTS everytime you use a card)
  
• CHILLED: it's easier to understand, for example: 20 CHILLED means the next 20 DMG you deal to the enemy will be nullified.

The same rules are also applied to the enemies, so if you have BURNED CARDS & CHILLED CARDS in your deck, by combining them, you can make the enemies burned to the ground while dealing 0 DMG to you. This plus the increased EFFECTIVE makes your life a whole lot easier.


In case you didn't know, this blessing also gives you free 4 MP everytime you use it, which is extremely useful since your deck mostly consists of 1 MP SPELL CARDS. The random potion you receive each turn is always helpful (I don't remember picking up any negative bonus potion at all). This makes your deck even more dangerous to deal with.

EQUIPMENT

Just from seeing Primitive Law X Occult Device together, you can clearly see how they are meant to be together.

Rather than talking about the OP duo, let's take a look at Blend Beaker.
What does "Blend potions you played" mean?
Here is the descriptions from Night Of Full Moon fandom, I added some other extra info as well:

• Potions you play will get Exiled (removed from deck, you can't play them again in this combat)
  
• Each Potion you play will increase a counter (normal Potions by 1; +X Potions by X+1).
  
• At the end of your turn, you will get a X+1 Potion, based on the counter. Counter is reset.
  
• Playing only 1 Potion in a turn will return that same Potion to your hand
  
• Having 2 Blend Beaker equipped will increase the counter twice as fast (play a +X Potion, increase counter by 2X+2) (this is only possible if you decide to use a blessing, a card effect to COPY Blend Beaker,since this is a unique card)
  
• You will receive a Potion of the same kind as the last one you played (including number of stars, so play your strongest Potions last)
  
• +X Potion means, the potion effect will get triggered X additional times
  
• Temporary Potions (e.g. recycled Thunderstorm Potion) don't increase the counter

=> For example, in my 2nd turn, I use FIRE POTION, CHILLED POTION, DRAINING MAX HP POTION -> The Counter is: 3+1=4 (3 is the numbers of potions I use in the 2nd turn)

- At the end of 2nd turn, I will get a 4 Stars Potion (in game, it will only show you the 3 STARS CARD, you can see it's the UPGRADED version since the effects have been increased and the card is glowing yellow). Then the counter is reset back to 0. It means every turn, you should use as many potions as possible to stack up on the BONUS EFFECTIVE before the end of your turn.

- "The potion you received is of the same kind as the last one you played". Back to my example, if I use FIRE POTION last, I will receive ANOTHER FIRE POTION with UPGRADED effects ready to be used in my 3rd turn.

- "+X Potion means, the potion effect will get triggered X additional times" -> after 2nd turn, I receive 4 STAR FIRE POTION, its effect is now: Deals 4+3 FIRE DMG, enemy suffered 4+3 BURNED DMG. Your EFFECTIVE will also be added in here if you have increased them before receiving this BONUS POTION.

- "Temporary Potions don't increase the counter" -> any potions with the word "RECYCLED" in them will not be counted towards the COUNTER.

CARDS

- Useful when starting the game, after that, swap it with Primitive Law or Occult Device


- Born to be with Primitive Law & Occult Device


- Each Effective Brewing gives you 1 EFFECTIVE


- The bonus effect is nice


- There are 5 potions which work with Cocktail:
Fire Potion,Ice Potion,Thunderstorm Potion,Shadow Potion,Sticky Potion

• Only one potion of each type is triggered.
  
• Potion you own means potion you have in your deck before starting a fight.
  
• If you own multiple potions of a type, Cocktail will use the most upgraded one.
  
• If you have Thunderstorm Potion, it will add another temporary Cocktail to your hand (AP cost remains the same)

- The AP cost should have been higher, this is not balanced


- Minor healing is still better than none


- Refine's long lost twin brother


- Dark Dawn is way too good with Primitive Law & Occult Device


- Unlock from A close call (Defeat any boss when you have only 1 health). If unlocked, you get 1 copy in the starter deck of Apothecary.


- Looking real smooth, works wonder, 1st class spell card


- Too bad I don't have enough money to buy it in this run


- Does exactly what it said


- Fire x Ice Combo






- Reinforcements with low cost




- I should have bought it




- Only 1 level though





- The Wrath Of Thor


- If I have it, the battle is over in the first 2 rounds

• Have a 32% chance of disabling the card played on level 1
  
• Each level increases chance by 2%
  
• You can't excess 50% chance of disabling cards
  
• After playing a card stuck is reduced by 2
  
• Removed at the end of the turn, unless influenced by an effect

RECYCLED CARDS

TIPS

When leveling up and using the Witch Apothecary:

• You don't need HP since you have Secret Drug Of Hermit.
  
• Increases your Equipment slot, initial MP.
  
• 2 initial AP should be enough.

=> Sit back and enjoy the throwing potions animation. For better experience, throw those cards as fast as you can to simulate the way you will behave if someone steal your food you've been saving up for the weekend. Yeah, teach them a lesson boys.

END GAME

Bad Boy Spirit is back at it again with another broken passive


I don't see how you can deal with this BS passive if you don't have enough HP to sustain through the rounds. At max, I think you will barely make it to the 6th round, defeat him 1st time and start cursing when the 2nd phase starts.

Instead, let's turn Little Red into Bisky (yeah, that Biscuit Krueger from Hunter X Hunter). Lol, I think that's exactly how Little Red will become if she keeps on drinking more EFFECTIVE potions.

As usual, check out the video if you are stuck somewhere:

[Namey]

Annihilation with Selected Recipes really just made damage absurd with the Apothecary, especially if you have Randomization or Genetic Modification(having both is the only time the game really starts to lag from my experience).

[HeraldOfOpera]

Selected Recipes is pretty hilarious too. You end up chaining a zillion plays togethers, especially with Man in a Flask.