Become The Hype: A Beginner's Guide to Zeke

A basic overview of the Shoutcaster, how to build for him, and which skills and traits work best for his particular playstyle.

Introduction

Zeke is a bit of a departure from the other characters - he sits at a peculiar intersection between Reina's slower strategic approach and Kingsly's aggressive, kill-them-before-your-health-rolls-to-zero style. While you won't exactly be able to wear away your enemies like the former or KO them before your health has rolled 3 places like the latter, with good situational awareness and decent reflexes you can handle just about anything nearly as well as either of them, if not better.

There are three key things to keep in mind when starting a run as Zeke:

Timed Hits

Zeke's core attack skill uses the Timed Hit mechanic - if you can consistently land Great and Perfect hits with them then you'll be largely set as far as your offense is concerned. On the other hand, if you can't, then you're probably going to want to focus on status effects for your damage output instead.

Quantity over Quality

When chosing to add cards to Zeke's deck, high thru-put is king. You want to throw out as many cards as you can in a turn in order to build Hype - the damage boost Analyze gets from Hype is incredibly powerful, and the Dodge stacks provided by Shout will save your life.
This is further explained in the Skills section.

Take (Some) Damage

Two of Zeke's Traits are designed to encourage you not to try to block everything, at least in the opening rounds - even taking 1 damage is enough to pick up a stack of Spikes. Getting these early will help immensely in shortening some encounters.

Talents

Zeke's core skill set centers around Timed and Critical Hits, Pure Damage, and chaining together lots of low-cost cards in order to build up Hype.

Starting Talents

Hype Man

Gain 1 Hype after using any Skill.

The Talent that defines Zeke's play style - Zeke's Core Skills both have very potent effects when they consume 10 Hype.
At the start, you'll only be able to hit 10 hype on turn 3 at the earliest - with the right set-up you can get that down to Turn 2 fairly easily, or even Turn 1 if you get a particularly crazy set-up.
Doing well as Zeke depends largely on your ability to generate enough hype to empower a use of Analyze or Shout, and then appropriately deploy one or the other according to what the situation demands.
As an example, if you know a big attack is coming then you can use a Hype'd Shout prophylactically, enabling you to wail on your opponent freely instead of having to scramble for enough block to save yourself.

Smooth Talker

If your Sanity is 60 or higher, health decreases more slowly when damaged.

Probably the most subtle of the Sanity-based Starting Talents - Smooth Talker acts to give a bit more breathing space when Shout inevitably fails to cover all incoming damage. This is most helpful early on, but falls off as Drained becomes more widely employed and Sanity Damage ramps up.

Quick Wit

Gain 1 Thorns each time you take damage (does not trigger if you have more than 10 Thorns).

Importantly, this triggers on any amount of damage - this means that you can deliberately hit enemies with Thorns to trigger the effect at the very start of the fight.
Sadly, since the effect caps at 10 this means that the effect is more limited when used with other effects that grant Thorns.

Other Useful Talents

Talents are listed in (roughly) how they ought to be prioritized.
I haven't included most of the +1 <Insert Buff Here> skills, since their utility is going to depend on where your priorities are.

Energizer

Gain an additional 1 Energy on your turns.

Being able to play an additional card a turn is a big deal for any character.
Being able to get at least one more hype per turn is an even bigger deal for Zeke in particular.

Guarded

Retain up to 10 Block at the end of your turn.

With how Block and Dodge interact - using one means not using the other - Zeke gets quite a bit of mileage out of this one. It also means you can use Shout on turns where the enemy isn't attacking in order to prepare for the turns when they will, which matters a lot more for Zeke.

Critical Thinking

Gain 5 block whenever you land a Critical Hit.

Not only does this play to Zeke's natural ability to land Critical Hits (especially later in long fights, when getting more Block is even more important), but it also helps to mitigate Shout's low base Block rate.

Perfect Timing

Your first damage dealt each turn with a Timed Hit is guaranteed to Crit.
"Perfect" Timed Hits deal more damage.

Pretty substantial buff to Analyze - it also pairs very nicely with Critical Thinking.

Pure Power

Pure Damage Skills and Talents deal 50% more damage.

Considering that Mic Drop and Analyze's Hype bonus are both hefty chunks of Pure Damage, this one's a no-brainer.

Multitasking

20% chance to deal 4 Pure Damage to a random enemy each time you Cycle a Skill.

Since this effect triggers on using a Skill as well as Rethinking, and since the Pure Damage benefits from Purist, Multitasking fits neatly into Zeke's core game plan.

Creative

Gain 1 random buff every 3 turns.

While Zeke would rather not be stuck in prolonged battles, there are some situations (namely bosses) where it's unavoidable.
Creative is a decent way to help Zeke keep up with the situation when prolonged battles occur.

Defensive Mechanism

If your health is rolling at the start of your turn, gain 5 Block.

This can be extremely helpful, but at the same time there are a surprisingly large number of enemies that alternate between attacking you and buffing themselves, which limits somewhat how useful this Talent is.
Still, it's a good way to help to cover for Shout, especially if you've already got Guarded.

Critical Eye

Critical Hits do 50% more damage.

Given Zeke's ability to accumulate Crit Chance (as well as some synergies with other useful Skills and Talents) this is a good choice for pushing a build over the top, but probably less critical (harr!) than certain other choices.

Salvager

Retain 1 unspent Energy for next turn

In a perfect world you'll never have to use this Talent.
If you opt to try to make use of Flow State, however, this is a very helpful (though not essential) Talent for preserving energy that might have otherwise been wasted.

Skills

Core Skills

Analyze

1 Energy
1 Damage (+2-8 from Timed Hit)
If you have 10 or more Hype, consume it to deal 16 Pure Damage

With decent timing you'll be able to manage 8 damage pretty consistently - this means that Zeke's is, hands down, the strongest basic attack in the game in terms of raw damage - and although Reina's Conditional Check will quickly outstrip it if played from the center space, the secondary effect of Hype can enable Zeke to close out fights just as fast if properly applied.

Shout

1 Energy
5 Block, +1 Crit
If you have 10 or more Hype, consume it to gain 1 Dodge

In contrast with Analyze, Shout is somewhat weaker than Block or Retreat - 5 block isn't going to be enough to deflect most attacks, and the crit bonus on its own may seem like next to nothing.
The important things to remember are that Zeke gains spikes every time he takes damage, and that the +1 crit, while barely noticeable on its own, lasts for the rest of the fight - meaning that the longer the battle goes on, the higher the chance of a critical hit.
That said, you will need to supplement it with something stronger by the end of Floor 2 - Dodges are best used to negate damage that you'd otherwise have no hope of ever blocking, and attacks at that scale become more and more frequent the further into a run you get.

Mic Drop

3 Energy
Deal 15 Pure Damage to all enemies.
If you have 10 or more hype, consume it to apply 6 burn to all enemies.
Upgrade: 19 Pure Damage, 8 burn

The weakest component of Zeke's base kit - while it deals a lot of Pure damage (allowing it to get around those pesky Dodge and Armor buffs), the cost is so steep that under normal circumstances you're only ever going to use it to close out a fight. Admittedly this probably is the most thematic appropriate way to end a battle, but if you want to bring the skill to its full potential you'll need another couple of steps.
It's also worth noting that the additional burn isn't worth the Hype expense unless you're specifically trying for a Burn strategy.

Critical Supplemental Skills

These are listed in (roughly) the priority they should take when deciding what to add.

Corporate Speak

1 Energy
Reduce Target's Armor by 1, then cycle to Buzzword (0 Energy, deals 5 damage)
Upgrade: Buzzword cycles twice

Hands down the most useful skill you can add to Zeke's deck - while his emphasis on Pure Damage means the armor damage is less valuable than it might be otherwise, the fact that you can get 2-3 hype off of 1 energy massively improves his ability to exploit his core skills' hype effects.

Flow State

2 Energy
Reduce Energy cost of all other skills by 2 until the end of turn.
Cannot reduce cost to below 1 Energy.
Upgrade: Costs 1 Energy

Where Corporate Speak enables you to get multiple Hype from 1 energy, an upgraded Flow State is essential for being able to use higher-cost skills without sacrificing Hype generation. This is necessary both for starting skills and for a couple of the other high-priority targets below.

Rest

2 Energy
Gain 13 block and 1 Dispel.
If your health is rolling from taking damage, heal 2 HP.
Upgrade: Gain 18 block and 1 Dispel, heal 3 HP

Rest works very well in Zeke's kit - it can be used to mitigate damage taken for the sake of gaining Spikes (especially if Smooth Talker is active) helps offset the lower blocking power of Shout, and has good synergy with Flow State. You may want to use Rest as a replacement for Relax, particularly if you can get a Dispel effect on Shout.

Smash

2 Energy
Deal 18 Damage.
If this attack does Critical damage, gain 1 Energy
Upgrade: Deal 26 damage.

While this card is alright on its own, combining it with the Crit bonus provided by Shout and the cost reduction from Flow State can result in a 0-cost, heavy damage attack on top of the free hype. This utility is heavily dependent on already having Flow State, however.