Current Events > Slay the Spire's Downfall expansion* comes out today

(+) Yeah! (+)

You get to play as the bosses and fight the player characters. Additionally, there's a new playable character, the Hermit. Hermit might be my favorite character to play as across numeous mods.

*not official but it has its own steam store listing

StS is great. Ill check this out for sure.

I'm usually hesitant over anything unofficial but I've put 500 hours into this game so.... I'll be checking it out

bump

It's out now go go go go go

First 2 bosses were very fun, playing Hexaghost now

Just came to make a topic about this. Haven't played it yet, but I'm downloading the game again right now. Will be nice to take a bit of a break from Monster Train

imo (just from a first run)
Hermit > Champ > Slime Boss > Guardian > Gremlins > Hexaghost > Snecko > Bronze Automaton

Hexaghost with a lot of afterlife and bring back afterlife cards seems kind of OP. Maybe I just got lucky, but I was able to beat the secret act and true final boss on my first try with the Hexaghost.

Okay, going to start up my first run soon. Do I need to do anything to make it work?

KayfabeTactics posted...

Okay, going to start up my first run soon. Do I need to do anything to make it work?

As long as you have Slay the Spire on Steam, you can download the expansion (it is technically a separate game).

YellowSUV posted...

As long as you have Slay the Spire on Steam, you can download the expansion (it is technically a separate game).

No, I get that. What I mean is do I need to find the Mod page or something in the game and turn it on? Or can I just start it up after I've downloaded it? I'll find out soon, I'm just not at my PC yet

KayfabeTactics posted...

No, I get that. What I mean is do I need to find the Mod page or something in the game and turn it on? Or can I just start it up after I've downloaded it? I'll find out soon, I'm just not at my PC yet

If you have the expansion from the Steam Store, you don't have to mess around with the mod page. You just start up Downfall like a normal game.

God damn, I forgot how f'n terrible I am at this game. Like, it's legit one of the worst games I'm at, yet I love playing it. I'm pretty sure I'm missing something HUGE that people clearly see because I have no fucking idea why I'm so bad.

As someone who win streaks ascension 20 + act 4 with the base characters, is this worth my time if I'm looking for well-designed characters? Or are these characters that have really stupid stuff like chainable stuns, decks that exhaust to an infinite on turn 1 pretty regularly, too many cards that are unusable without support, and a lot of the other problems I run into with modden content and Watcher?

the_rowan posted...

As someone who win streaks ascension 20 + act 4 with the base characters, is this worth my time if I'm looking for well-designed characters? Or are these characters that have really stupid stuff like chainable stuns, decks that exhaust to an infinite on turn 1 pretty regularly, too many cards that are unusable without support, and a lot of the other problems I run into with modden content and Watcher?

As long as you don't have Dead Branch, no character seems extremely broken. Only Hermit has a Stun card and it's not very abusable. Every mechanic has plenty of support as well, at least from what I've played.

Sure the fuck doesn't help that it doesn't let you confirm the end of your turn. One miss click and you skip the whole thing. Wouldn't be an issue if it wasn't the OTHER button on the Switch, lol. Speaking from at PlayStation POV - On the PC it's the Triangle button and on the Switch it's Square. So I keep hitting the wrong button to get up to my potions and skipping my turn

^ That's what I'm talking about. You two act like the game is super easy and broke, but I legit have over 300 hours into the game and have one beaten it once with The Watcher, or whatever the 4th character was. The one with the Stance changes. The other characters I have a few wins with

the_rowan posted...

As someone who win streaks ascension 20 + act 4 with the base characters, is this worth my time if I'm looking for well-designed characters? Or are these characters that have really stupid stuff like chainable stuns, decks that exhaust to an infinite on turn 1 pretty regularly, too many cards that are unusable without support, and a lot of the other problems I run into with modden content and Watcher?

The trick with watcher is getting lots of scry cards. Cut through fate is arguably her best card and it's common

haloiscoolisbak posted...

The trick with watcher is getting lots of scry cards. Cut through fate is arguably her best card and it's common

The trick with Watcher is that you win the run trivially easily with infinites at like an 80% rate or more at ascension 20 + heart kill. People literally get to the 20s with win streaks with her. Not winning with Watcher is a feat in itself.

the_rowan posted...

The trick with Watcher is that you win the run trivially easily with infinites at like an 80% rate or more at ascension 20 + heart kill. People literally get to the 20s with win streaks with her. Not winning with Watcher is a feat in itself.

By people do you mean jorbs and frost prime?

Racking up large win streaks with any character at ascension 20 is something I feel less than 1% of players can do. Too much can randomly go wrong

the_rowan posted...

The trick with Watcher is that you win the run trivially easily with infinites at like an 80% rate or more at ascension 20 + heart kill. People literally get to the 20s with win streaks with her. Not winning with Watcher is a feat in itself.

Yet I can win zero times with it

So are we playing different games

Watcher is pretty broken mostly because of how easily you can build infinites yeah. if you try to play them like a normal deck instead of insta-skipping 90% of cards they feel a lot more balanced <__<

KayfabeTactics posted...

Sure the fuck doesn't help that it doesn't let you confirm the end of your turn. One miss click and you skip the whole thing.

there's a setting somewhere that makes it so you have to hold end turn for a second or so to end instead of just a quick press. one of the first things I turned on and I loved it since I alo kept accidentally ending my turn

haloiscoolisbak posted...

Racking up large win streaks with any character at ascension 20 is something I feel less than 1% of players can do. Too much can randomly go wrong

I mean, I lost all of one run climbing ascension to 20 with Watcher (with heart kills every run), and it was to the run being so won otherwise that I was not even paying attention while talking to someone and forgot Time Eater ends your turn.

The character is just stupidly broken, but off the backs of a tiny portion of her card pool. Rushdown, Talk to the Hand, Mental Fortress generate such absurd engines that she can play the dumbest, most one-dimensional strategies and beat everything with them at all difficulties. If she doesn't find those (despite them not being rares), she still has solutions like Omniscience (for scaling or turn 1 nuking everything) pseudoinfinites/huge turns (with Deva Form, Vault, Empty Mind, etc.), Blasphemy + Ritual Dagger, etc. which kill basically everything but the heart so easily that you don't have to worry about anything but pathing for the route that gives you the most chances to see a way to block against the heart (like speed pot + artifact pot or Duality, to block with Halt/Just Lucky and card draw, or Incense Burner).

I honestly need StS 101 here

First question! What's the best thing to do against the mini-boss that's red, has a huge sword, and gets stronger when you use Skills? If I can't Block and have to tank hits, then I'll run out of most of my HP because I never have good enough cards on the first Floor to quickly beat it down.

KayfabeTactics posted...

I honestly need StS 101 here

First question! What's the best thing to do against the mini-boss that's red, has a huge sword, and gets stronger when you use Skills? If I can't Block and have to tank hits, then I'll run out of most of my HP because I never have good enough cards on the first Floor to quickly beat it down.

Before the first elite on act 1, try and assume you'll be up against gremlin nob and try and grab at least one heavy hitting attack card in the first few combats

The other 2 Act 1 elites, you can beat with a way wider range of cards so don't need to plan as hard

KayfabeTactics posted...

I honestly need StS 101 here

First question! What's the best thing to do against the mini-boss that's red, has a huge sword, and gets stronger when you use Skills? If I can't Block and have to tank hits, then I'll run out of most of my HP because I never have good enough cards on the first Floor to quickly beat it down.

Gremlin Nob is one of the biggest run-killers there is. Get as many damage commons as you can, tank the hit and don't use Skills unless you know you can get the kill this turn or the next, and generally pray.

haloiscoolisbak posted...

try

So, random?

Yet people keep talking about how easy it is, and this is the first floor and zero heat. How is it, "easy," at 20 Heat?

KayfabeTactics posted...

So, random?

Yet people keep talking about how easy it is, and this is the first floor and zero heat. How is it, "easy," at 20 Heat?

I'm the person who said ascension 20 is very hard lol. Read my earlier posts?

But okay, I'll rephrase. Assume the first elite will be gremlin nob and pick your cards accordingly

Garioshi posted...

Gremlin Nob is one of the biggest run-killers there is. Get as many damage commons as you can, tank the hit and don't use Skills unless you know you can get the kill this turn or the next, and generally pray.

"As many as you can" is possibly too many (as having many attacks is really bad late in the run) and also possibly not enough to take an elite. The goal is 86 damage (90 on ascension 8+) in three turns so you take just one hit, or four turns if you're willing to take about 30 damage. Figure out about how much damage you do per turn and keep making it go up until you get to that level. Generally you can afford to take about one block card and one power that doesn't add to damage in act one if you're not seeing the damage cards you're looking for (as they are very useful against the other fights and elites), but any more than that can mean that you don't draw enough damage per turn.

haloiscoolisbak posted...

I'm the person who said ascension 20 is very hard lol. Read my earlier posts?

But okay, I'll rephrase. Assume the first elite will be gremlin nob and pick your cards accordingly

I need the cards to pick, right?

And this isn't about you, this is honestly about TC, lol. TC has been talking to me about this game for like two years now and is ALWAYS saying how easy everything is, and I'm always like, ". . .um, what?!" I ask them for help and they're always like, "lol, just get the right cards!"

Watch jorbs and frost prime play runs on YouTube. You'll absorb plenty of information and tips and they're quite entertaining streamers, they're very smart at the game at the very least
Even just watching their card tier list vids for each character will change everything for you

tried the slimeboss out of this mod and it was super easy, I basically just steamrolled everything without ever being in any danger. still, it was neat seeing all the events reframed from the opposite point of view, the boss design is an extremely cool concept, and just all the little clever touches added here and there

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/1/0/AAOx38AADE82.jpg

KayfabeTactics posted...

I need the cards to pick, right?

And this isn't about you, this is honestly about TC, lol. TC has been talking to me about this game for like two years now and is ALWAYS saying how easy everything is, and I'm always like, ". . .um, what?!" I ask them for help and they're always like, "lol, just get the right cards!"

I've told you before what cards you need to look out for, but you aren't always going to get what you want, and you have to adapt. If you record and post a run here, I'd be happy to look it over for you.

tried hexaghost and guardian, they also seem pretty strong. it might just be the result of me palying on asc0 but I'm just kinda bumbling around with no idea what's going on and all 3 runs have been very easy so far. but the characters are super cool and all play very differently from any of the original StS characters which is impressive.

I think the bosses are harder than the original game too. less predictable and do more damage / weird effects

the_rowan posted...

Or are these characters that have really stupid stuff like chainable stuns, decks that exhaust to an infinite on turn 1 pretty regularly, too many cards that are unusable without support

I will say though that I don't feel like any of the characters have any of these. well, no guarantee, since I could be missing something, but I really don't think so. their power comes from just having a lot of generally good value cards and strong card synergy. even when I got powerful it didn't feel like the gameplay was degenerate or anything

tried the rest of the characters, except collector(??) which didn't unlock for some reason

they all feel relatively powerful except for snecko who is probably the most awkward mod character I've ever played and doesn't even gain anything good to go along with that awkwardness

kirbymuncher posted...

tried the rest of the characters, except collector(??) which didn't unlock for some reason

It's Gremlins, whose gimmick is that there are 5 of them with 1/5 the HP each, and they get bonus effects depending on which one is leading.

is there some special unlock condition for them? the mouseover just says to win with the automaton, which I did, but it's still locked

kirbymuncher posted...

is there some special unlock condition for them? the mouseover just says to win with the automaton, which I did, but it's still locked

I actually lost with Automaton and it unlocked so idk lol

Garioshi posted...

I've told you before what cards you need to look out for, but you aren't always going to get what you want, and you have to adapt. If you record and post a run here, I'd be happy to look it over for you.

Yeah, yeah.. . .lol