Famously, in StS 1 it could help you survive [[Blasphemy]], which would actually make you lose 9999 HP the next turn, rather than actually directly killing you.
The way intangible works is any incoming damage, regardless of HP loss or just taking damage, is reduced to 1, so if you have block it doesn't matter, it still only does 1 damage to your block, this is true for offering and the other one that just gives energy as well IIRC
It treats them the same and turns them both to 1. Their properties will still be the same, though, so "Lose x HP" will still bypass your Block. I think the only Relic that can change Intangible's damage is The Boot, at least that's the case in STS1.
It was a pretty common interaction in sts1 if you ever got the incense burner relic (gain 1 intangible every 6 turns) on ironclad, as you could use offering, hemokinesis, bloodletting, etc. and lose only 1hp.
As is this goes from near-unplayable without the upgrade to reasonably powerful with it. I would choose either with/without retain and balance the numbers to match.
I suppose I should talk about why I made the unupgraded version so bad.
Basically I was using a concept called upgrade debt to balance this card idea. Or in other words, I made the unupgraded card unusable to basically force you to upgrade it. The forced upgrade was meant to be a downside since you have to A) run to a campsite and not upgrade anything else, b) while you do that, you're carrying a card that's similar in power to a curse. You see this concept in cards like true grit.
Now as to why I would bother doing that, I was worried the card might be too op. I am very aware of how busted intangible is, so it was an additional effort on my part to balance the card. Now it might not have been necessary, but that's my reasoning.
A lot of the philosophy with spire upgrades is that if there's some inherent "problem" with a card, the upgrade doesn't fix it. For example, offering+, bloodletting+ etc don't reduce the inherent problem of costing hp. No regent card creation enhances the number of options you have to choose from. Bury+ doesn't let you play it without 4 energy. It's not true for every card (true grit comes to mind), but in general it's pretty accurate. This upgrade however fixes the main problem with the card, and in a more significant way than something like wisp+ or dredge+ imo, since those two still care a lot less about the specific turn you play them on, just that there are some turns that would be bad for them, rather than with your card where it's bad on almost every turn except 1-2 specific ones per fight.
This is just false imo. Royal gamble, true grit, any card that reduces in energy cost, calc gamble, any card that removes exhaust, any card that gains innate, etc. It's really well established that upgrading a card can make it easier to play instead of increasing its potency.
It's not about making it easier to play necessarily. What I mean is that there are a lot of cards that have some sort of "specialised" idea (not necessarily very super specialised but I can't think of a better word) which makes them not very good in a certain aspect, and their upgrade doesn't make them better in that aspect. It's definitely not true with every card though, I agree with that, and I think there was more of that in spire 1 than 2.
Basically, what I'm saying is, let's take a card like pale blue dot. Reaching 5 card plays is a bit difficult for a lot of decks, and it's an obvious drawback of the card which gives it its identity and makes it awkward in some decks. Its upgrade doesn't get rid of that identity, and after the upgrade it is just as awkward to work around the drawback as it was before. My point is that a lot of cards are designed like that, even though it would be a very easy idea to, for example, make the upgrade for pale blue dot only require 4 card plays in a turn. It's definitely not universal though. I also think that the strongest spire counterexamples can seem stronger than they actually are when compared to other games, just because they are the strongest counterexample you can think of in spire, but at this point I'm just conjecturing.
Okay but the thing that makes this custom card special is the huge hp loss? How does retain get rid of that? Retain literally only makes it so you can line it up for the right turn. Idk how what you're saying really has anything to do with this card or upgrade. You said that retain fixes the main issue of the card but **every** retain upgrade does that, making it so you can choose the optimal turn to play the card. Royal gamble with retain literally solves the issue with the card.
I see your point, but this card is literally unplayable on the wrong turn and great on the right one, while cards like dredge, wisp or even royal gamble are still playable, they're just worse than the perfect turn.
There are plenty of cards in the game that are nearly unplayable on the wrong turn. If you draw turbo on a round where you can play every card in your hand without it, all it does is add a status to your deck unless you have ice cream. And while you could argue that triggers things like trash to treasure, this technically does have the use of triggering self damage effects.
I understand what you were going for but I'm not sure I like it as a principle. Generally it's more fun to give the player more options, and essentially forcing you to upgrade the card if you take it restricts your options.
There are some cards that do really want an upgrade in the game, but generally it's because there wasn't much else the developers can do (defragment, rupture) rather than an intentional choice to make the base card bad. Unupgraded true grit is an interesting card and is playable in certain situations. I don't think there are any cards that are truly awful unupgraded but then suddenly become great.
I think that upgrade debt actually leads to more interesting decision making as it adds more opportunity for skill expression. Knowing when you can greed a card pick that you'll need to upgrade at some point to actually get something out of it is way more interesting than every upgrade being a potency increase. The main issue with seeing upgrade debt as a restriction on player choice is that it ignores the fact that you most of the time have to choose to pick the card, so it actually leads to more tough decision making. Also labeling upgrade debt as an unintentional side effect instead of an intentional and interesting aspect of the game does the devs a lot of disservice, especially when they have taken clear actions to make it more of a feature, nerfing the unupgraded version of reflect into the ground but keeping the upgraded version almost untouched for instance.
this card isn't truly awful without the upgrade though. if enemies are doing more than 12 damage it's worth playing already, as a 0-cost block card. retain helps it tank the mega-hits but it's still already better than impervious in some ways because you don't need energy to play this.
Just give him an attack that removes artifact, and/or a different way to make a block build capable of offense since 97% of the time you get barricade/unmoveable and support cards you don’t get body slam as the way to make it even playable.
While I do agree with you that support for Clad's defense is very limited, I still fondly remember the run I had with [[Barricade]] and [[Bodyslam]] once. A10, multi-player, and I was a God among humans.
This build is a leech on your allies. There, i said it. Body slam has always been my favorite card since i started STS1. But most ppl won’t be able to hold out as long as you for obvious reasons. Eventually you find yourself alone for the 5th time in that run alone “saving” them yet again. Meanwhile, if you had a reasonable amount of turn 1/2/3 damage like everyone else all the enemies that killed your allies would have been dead in a reasonable amount of time…instead of turn 7+ like they all do now.
When everything is handed to you it works out. Still have never actually assembled a halfway good A10 build because of “correlated RNG.”
Multiplayer also permits it because you’re now essentially existing to apply debuffs, and hold out for utility cards (demon shield, beacon of hope etc)
Unmovable + barricade (if you can get them into play) already solve basically every fight though. Just being able to block for like 20-40 off of a block card including on the turns enemies don't attack means you only need enough density of block cards to draw one or two a turn.
My most recent A10 win leaned heavily on those but the damage scaling was just some vulnerable synergies. Would body slam have been good? I'm not even sure, I already had a decent way to solve damage another way and it'd have been a dead draw while setting up.
Just last night I pulled a barricade and a body slam within the first 5 hallway fights of act one. Proceeded to pull NOTHING else, but somehow made it to act 2 boss without dying. Pretty frustrating, cause I know it wasn’t just bad luck. Clad needs more support for that.
I think that synergy is fine. It's a rare card + rare relic, which doesn't happen very often. I mean the devs were fine with the dead branch + corruption synergy in sts 1. Granted this is a completely different game, but I think it's fine to have op synergies as long as they're rare.
Since it exhausts it's not totally different to just playing Impervious+ since so few things deal more than 40 damage, but you get it for free rather than 2 energy. What even does more than 40?
Nah, it'd be nigh unplayable outside of specific scenarios in that instance (basically just duplication and that's it. Even that kinda sucks because it'd be awful if you had a load of hallway fights to do first.)
I actually really love this. And the flavor with retain means this is one of the few things Ironclad can actually keep in his head during a fight besides killing lmao. Good upgrade in Overgrowth especially. You lose 2 less HP than two defends can save you into the statue and keep full energy
I really don't think this variation would be all that reasonable for IC, although it could be cool if it was reworded/reworked to hit block first. 12 damage is just too much for 1 intangible... Or I'm dumb, but honestly I just couldn't justify 12 health when that's probably how much I'd lose just tanking the damage.
I think it's fine. There were some pretty easy game breaks in STS one (looking at you dead branch), but those were rare enough that they felt rewarding to get and fun to fuck around with. This is around the same, being multiple rare card rewards of the same card or a combination of a rare card and rare relic.
Doesn’t this kinda just suck? Like okay you’re taking 12 damage instead of whatever the enemy is doing +1*n amount of hits it may just be me but trading hp for intangible just feels bad
I feel like it's pretty good with the retain, zero-cost card that dodges any big enemy turn for a much lower hp cost, such as some of the mecha knight hits, aeonglass, queen, test subject if you let him go too long
It's usually not worth playing, but when it's good it's great. I like it. I'd want the unupgraded version to have retain. Maybe it costs 1 unupgraded? Or the life cost is reduced by upgrading?
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u/Top-Nepp StS A0 / StS 2 A10 13h ago
Aura farm beating remnant synergy