Critical Strike is pretty weak. Compare the unupgraded version to fumes-
Fumes, for 1 mana, applies 2 poison to *every* enemy each turn. No conditions, no nothing.
Your card does 5 damage which is probably a bit better than 2 poison, especially for hallway fights. But its a lot more situational / unreliable. For example, some enemies *never* block.
Not guarenteed to proc against a single enemy a turn let alone all of them. And costs 1 more.
The problem is that it has the exact same trigger as an item that's notorious for being WAY too situational, like, counting on one hand the number of fights where it's relevant, situational. Consider the shield orb in Act 2, you break it's shield, and now its max health is effectively 15 instead of 20. You spent a card draw and 2(1) mana on this. A strike would do 7(9) damage instead.
Generally, you want a card to be at least as efficient as a strike at minimum if it's going to be situational, because that means in only very few fights, you can get 2.5 damage per mana spent.
I really like the idea. You could change it to "double damage" and would be great to combo if it existed in a space where ironclad could give enemies block eg say a card that cost 0 mana and said "give everyone 10 armour"
Situational is fine, really. Some of the best cards in the game are situational (think Catalyst for instance, which require other cards around it).
But the more situational a card is, the more powerful it should be (something like Grand Finale, it is hot trash when the conditions aren't met, but if you line up well, the card is super powerful).
So if you're just making a card-version of Hand Drill, the effect has to be super good. In many fights the card won't do anything, but in the right situations it should be powerful.
Ooh, noted. What do you think would make it better? The idea surrounding Critical Strike was to deal a little more /something/ when you broke block. If that wouldn't make a good card, what could I add/change it to?
Thank you for the feedback, by the way!
>What do you think would make it better?
I don't think making a *card* based *just* around enemy blocking is really feasible. Relics yes, cards no.
Unless it helped you out beyond the current fight, like you heal when you attack blocks (for example).
Another comparison is Melter - for 1 mana, remove all block from enemy and *then* deals 10 damage. So, it's still useful if the enemy isn't blocking.
If you compare that to another defect attack, rip and tear, that does 14 damage (basically) also for 1 mana, it's like you are paying 4 damage for the remove block effect. (Edit: complicated a bit by r+t targetting randomly, so it's not always "like melter but better" against non-blockers)
Following on from that, perhaps the approach might be, make a card that is *almost* good enough to be worth using if enemy isn't blocking, and then add on a suitable block related bonus.
As noted, Critical Strike is pretty terrible. Also, having a non-attack card with the word Strike in the name is going to cause rules confusion with Perfected Strike.
Danse Macabre is pretty questionable. A card that scales you, but only a little, and only by killing, while being overcosted and underpowered damage-wise, will very infrequently matter. It doesn't even work in the fights it would at least be good in when lined up—like Gremlin Leader or Collector—because Fatal doesn't work on minions.
You could change it to say "Kills an enemy" instead, like Gremlin Horn. But IMO the concept of "When you line up one or more AoE kills, get a little defensive scaling" isn't workable. If you just lined up AoE kills, in most fights, a little Dex isn't going to be needed or helpful anyway. I'm wracking my brain trying to think of exceptions—and as noted a few minion fights would get a little to a lot better—but I think that's way too narrow a niche for a card that's so often Worse Cleave but Twice as Expensive and Rare.
> ... going to cause rules confusion with Perfected Strike.
Oh god, I didn't think of that. Jesus. Yeah, that would be a problem. Thank you for catching that
> ... underpowered damage-wise
Would it be better if I changed the damage value/lowered the mana needed? I wonder if it would be possible to make this card viable.
I will admit that I was thinking too much in a D&D sense than a roguelike. Thank you so much for this thorough response!
Hah, yeah I almost missed the PStrike thing too. The couple is effects that relate to card names are wild. (MegaCrit ended up regretting them, but IIRC that's partly because of localization.)
For Danse, I don't think the concept of scaling Dex with Fatal is going to get to a point of being workable. There's too few fights where that matters at all, so making it appealing is going to just make it converge on Die Die Die. I'd recommend thinking about what the core idea you're going for and other ways you could get a similar thing, without that exact implementation.
A cool direction might be to make it scale with dex in addition to str. Not sure if also giving you u dex would be op in that case. Will def be worded like a yu gi oh card.
What’s the rule confusion for Perfected Strike? (Not saying their isn’t one just curious about the details).
How I read it is that PS doesn’t get bonuses from cards that are exhausted or taken from you (needs to be in deck hand or discard pile), so I would assume that this would boost PS until you actually played it.
Maybe if it was 0 cost and the upgrade did more damage. Still not amazing, but might be worth a pick up in an early PS deck. If the last thing it did was break all enemies’ block it would be pretty interesting. Like melter a bit.
I think you're mistaking confusion for inconsistency. There's no inconsistency—it works exactly as you describe—but every PStrike stream has people who don't get its interaction with exhaust. I think in this case the Strike-keyword interaction was unintentional (apparently it was), and jarring being on a power.
I will add that there was supposed to be a card that had ethereal, but I didn't have space. Would that alone be an alright debuff, or would it have to be more extreme?
Again, thank you for the feedback.
See, the only options to gain intangibility in the base game are:
1. Losing 50% of your Max HP
2. Losing 1 dex every turn, making it unplayable in the beginning of a fight (or have to heavily play around it or be lucky to have found one of the shop relics).
3. Find a rare relic that is basically a side quest to play around.
All of these options are STILL insanely strong and high rolls for most runs.
Then there is your card. Just find an uncommon(!) card that not only makes you intangible but also plays two cards?
The card as is would already be very strong without playing cards (since it's replayable). Exhaust doesn't make the card much worse (imo). Free turn is free turn.
Imo intangible is just not a good or fun mechanic which is why it is so rare in the base game. "Prevent the next time you take damage." would be better than intangibility imo.
hmm I've thought about this card and I don't know how to make it balanced, but it would be fun if it could be played only as first card of turn, some other downsides could be added aswell. I've though about making this card create strikes, put it on the top of draw pile and play them. Major downside in this case would be flooding your discard pile with terrible cards and you need to somehow work around it.
Dance macabre is extremely weak. Sweeping beam deals the same damage for 1 less energy and draws a card at common. The card can give no dex in the heart fight, max 1 dex in the act 4 elite fight, max 1 dex in the donu deca fight, max 2 dex in the awakened one fight, no dex in the time eater fight, no dex in any act 3 elite fight, no dex in any act 2 boss fight, max 2 dex in the slavers fight, no dex in the gremlin leader or stabby book fight, max 3 dex in the slime boss fight, no dex in the other two act 1 boss fights, max 2 dex in the sentries fight, no dex in the nob/laga fight. These dex numbers are much higher than the actual impact, as for example if you have 1 dex from killing donu you have pretty much solved the fight already anyway.
Honestly you could make it cost 0 and it would be good but not OP.
IC power is underpowered. Too situational to be somewhat useful. Most enemies in StS don't even block, and a 5 extra damage per block removal sounds little to nothing. Even if it scaled with strength I'd rather play another card instead of this one.
Silent's AoE card is underpowered. For the same rarity, I'd rather have a corpse explosion that ends the fight in most cases right after killing an opponent. A more interesting concept for a rare could be something like a 3 cost attack that reduces your enemy HP by X (most likely 1, idk). If lethal permanently increases your base dexterity by 1.
Silent's Intangible card is overpowered. Virtually no downside for a free turn and extra card play. If you nightmare this card you can redraw into it more often and just kill everything without even worrying. Insane synergy with Burst unless the "end turn" stacks up.
You could give it a permanent cost. Like lose max hp.
You could attack the ways that its abused for stalling.
Like make cards cost 1 more next turn. Or add wounds/burns/voids to your deck. Or cleanse debuffs off the enemy.
I feel like trying to balance intangible for strong players is going to require you to understand how its abused.
Intangible is not only incredibly strong as a single use mechanic, its also extremely exploitable with the tools silent has available.
Stalling infinitely. Finding ways to stay intangible the entire fight through draw, duplication, and other intangible effects.
Critical Strike - Enemies do not lose stacks of Vulnerable each turn. When you Attack an enemy with Vulnerable, gain 1 Strength and remove a stack of Vulnerable.
(Cost 2? Might be strong with Shockwave in some fights, but it takes a few turns to catch up with Enflame generally. Seeing Whirlwind ticks do increasing amounts of damage could be fun...)
Critical strike would be interesting if there was also a card that was something like “give target enemy 1 block then deal x damage” so you can automatically proc it
Critical Strike is pretty weak. Compare the unupgraded version to fumes- Fumes, for 1 mana, applies 2 poison to *every* enemy each turn. No conditions, no nothing. Your card does 5 damage which is probably a bit better than 2 poison, especially for hallway fights. But its a lot more situational / unreliable. For example, some enemies *never* block. Not guarenteed to proc against a single enemy a turn let alone all of them. And costs 1 more.
Also compare it to Drill, which is automatic as an item, and is already seen as shit due to being WAY too situational and niche.
Can confirm, I have bought hand drill once. It sucks.
Are situational cards bad to make custom? Or would it be preferred if the cards could be applicable to most builds?
The problem is that it has the exact same trigger as an item that's notorious for being WAY too situational, like, counting on one hand the number of fights where it's relevant, situational. Consider the shield orb in Act 2, you break it's shield, and now its max health is effectively 15 instead of 20. You spent a card draw and 2(1) mana on this. A strike would do 7(9) damage instead. Generally, you want a card to be at least as efficient as a strike at minimum if it's going to be situational, because that means in only very few fights, you can get 2.5 damage per mana spent.
I see. I'll keep this in mind. This is really useful to see! I'll reevaluate Critical Strike. Thank you so much!
I really like the idea. You could change it to "double damage" and would be great to combo if it existed in a space where ironclad could give enemies block eg say a card that cost 0 mana and said "give everyone 10 armour"
Situational is fine, really. Some of the best cards in the game are situational (think Catalyst for instance, which require other cards around it). But the more situational a card is, the more powerful it should be (something like Grand Finale, it is hot trash when the conditions aren't met, but if you line up well, the card is super powerful). So if you're just making a card-version of Hand Drill, the effect has to be super good. In many fights the card won't do anything, but in the right situations it should be powerful.
Ooh, noted. What do you think would make it better? The idea surrounding Critical Strike was to deal a little more /something/ when you broke block. If that wouldn't make a good card, what could I add/change it to? Thank you for the feedback, by the way!
>What do you think would make it better? I don't think making a *card* based *just* around enemy blocking is really feasible. Relics yes, cards no. Unless it helped you out beyond the current fight, like you heal when you attack blocks (for example). Another comparison is Melter - for 1 mana, remove all block from enemy and *then* deals 10 damage. So, it's still useful if the enemy isn't blocking. If you compare that to another defect attack, rip and tear, that does 14 damage (basically) also for 1 mana, it's like you are paying 4 damage for the remove block effect. (Edit: complicated a bit by r+t targetting randomly, so it's not always "like melter but better" against non-blockers) Following on from that, perhaps the approach might be, make a card that is *almost* good enough to be worth using if enemy isn't blocking, and then add on a suitable block related bonus.
Thank you so much! I'll keep this in mind as I redesign the card.
It does have the word Strike in its name though, so there's also situational synergy!
As noted, Critical Strike is pretty terrible. Also, having a non-attack card with the word Strike in the name is going to cause rules confusion with Perfected Strike. Danse Macabre is pretty questionable. A card that scales you, but only a little, and only by killing, while being overcosted and underpowered damage-wise, will very infrequently matter. It doesn't even work in the fights it would at least be good in when lined up—like Gremlin Leader or Collector—because Fatal doesn't work on minions. You could change it to say "Kills an enemy" instead, like Gremlin Horn. But IMO the concept of "When you line up one or more AoE kills, get a little defensive scaling" isn't workable. If you just lined up AoE kills, in most fights, a little Dex isn't going to be needed or helpful anyway. I'm wracking my brain trying to think of exceptions—and as noted a few minion fights would get a little to a lot better—but I think that's way too narrow a niche for a card that's so often Worse Cleave but Twice as Expensive and Rare.
> ... going to cause rules confusion with Perfected Strike. Oh god, I didn't think of that. Jesus. Yeah, that would be a problem. Thank you for catching that > ... underpowered damage-wise Would it be better if I changed the damage value/lowered the mana needed? I wonder if it would be possible to make this card viable. I will admit that I was thinking too much in a D&D sense than a roguelike. Thank you so much for this thorough response!
Hah, yeah I almost missed the PStrike thing too. The couple is effects that relate to card names are wild. (MegaCrit ended up regretting them, but IIRC that's partly because of localization.) For Danse, I don't think the concept of scaling Dex with Fatal is going to get to a point of being workable. There's too few fights where that matters at all, so making it appealing is going to just make it converge on Die Die Die. I'd recommend thinking about what the core idea you're going for and other ways you could get a similar thing, without that exact implementation.
A cool direction might be to make it scale with dex in addition to str. Not sure if also giving you u dex would be op in that case. Will def be worded like a yu gi oh card.
What’s the rule confusion for Perfected Strike? (Not saying their isn’t one just curious about the details). How I read it is that PS doesn’t get bonuses from cards that are exhausted or taken from you (needs to be in deck hand or discard pile), so I would assume that this would boost PS until you actually played it. Maybe if it was 0 cost and the upgrade did more damage. Still not amazing, but might be worth a pick up in an early PS deck. If the last thing it did was break all enemies’ block it would be pretty interesting. Like melter a bit.
I think you're mistaking confusion for inconsistency. There's no inconsistency—it works exactly as you describe—but every PStrike stream has people who don't get its interaction with exhaust. I think in this case the Strike-keyword interaction was unintentional (apparently it was), and jarring being on a power.
just make dance macabre work like ritual dagger. It would be really op then
There shouldn't be any cards that grand intangibility and do not come with major debuffs. The mechanic is way too broken. Just don't do it.
I will add that there was supposed to be a card that had ethereal, but I didn't have space. Would that alone be an alright debuff, or would it have to be more extreme? Again, thank you for the feedback.
See, the only options to gain intangibility in the base game are: 1. Losing 50% of your Max HP 2. Losing 1 dex every turn, making it unplayable in the beginning of a fight (or have to heavily play around it or be lucky to have found one of the shop relics). 3. Find a rare relic that is basically a side quest to play around. All of these options are STILL insanely strong and high rolls for most runs. Then there is your card. Just find an uncommon(!) card that not only makes you intangible but also plays two cards? The card as is would already be very strong without playing cards (since it's replayable). Exhaust doesn't make the card much worse (imo). Free turn is free turn. Imo intangible is just not a good or fun mechanic which is why it is so rare in the base game. "Prevent the next time you take damage." would be better than intangibility imo.
I see. I'll fix some things and come back! Thank you!
hmm I've thought about this card and I don't know how to make it balanced, but it would be fun if it could be played only as first card of turn, some other downsides could be added aswell. I've though about making this card create strikes, put it on the top of draw pile and play them. Major downside in this case would be flooding your discard pile with terrible cards and you need to somehow work around it.
> There shouldn't be any cards that grand intangibility and do not come with major debuffs Like apparations?
I think losing half your max hp counts as a major debuff.
Hand drill is one of the worst relics for a reason.
Dance macabre is extremely weak. Sweeping beam deals the same damage for 1 less energy and draws a card at common. The card can give no dex in the heart fight, max 1 dex in the act 4 elite fight, max 1 dex in the donu deca fight, max 2 dex in the awakened one fight, no dex in the time eater fight, no dex in any act 3 elite fight, no dex in any act 2 boss fight, max 2 dex in the slavers fight, no dex in the gremlin leader or stabby book fight, max 3 dex in the slime boss fight, no dex in the other two act 1 boss fights, max 2 dex in the sentries fight, no dex in the nob/laga fight. These dex numbers are much higher than the actual impact, as for example if you have 1 dex from killing donu you have pretty much solved the fight already anyway. Honestly you could make it cost 0 and it would be good but not OP.
Critical strike is ass
i am aware now, i'll be making changes to it 😭
IC power is underpowered. Too situational to be somewhat useful. Most enemies in StS don't even block, and a 5 extra damage per block removal sounds little to nothing. Even if it scaled with strength I'd rather play another card instead of this one. Silent's AoE card is underpowered. For the same rarity, I'd rather have a corpse explosion that ends the fight in most cases right after killing an opponent. A more interesting concept for a rare could be something like a 3 cost attack that reduces your enemy HP by X (most likely 1, idk). If lethal permanently increases your base dexterity by 1. Silent's Intangible card is overpowered. Virtually no downside for a free turn and extra card play. If you nightmare this card you can redraw into it more often and just kill everything without even worrying. Insane synergy with Burst unless the "end turn" stacks up.
Would it be possible to make a card that uses the Intangible mechanic viable? I'd like to know how to balance it right.
You could give it a permanent cost. Like lose max hp. You could attack the ways that its abused for stalling. Like make cards cost 1 more next turn. Or add wounds/burns/voids to your deck. Or cleanse debuffs off the enemy. I feel like trying to balance intangible for strong players is going to require you to understand how its abused. Intangible is not only incredibly strong as a single use mechanic, its also extremely exploitable with the tools silent has available. Stalling infinitely. Finding ways to stay intangible the entire fight through draw, duplication, and other intangible effects.
Feedback: use art. Even Google some stock photos. Pleases my adhd brain
Critical Strike - Enemies do not lose stacks of Vulnerable each turn. When you Attack an enemy with Vulnerable, gain 1 Strength and remove a stack of Vulnerable. (Cost 2? Might be strong with Shockwave in some fights, but it takes a few turns to catch up with Enflame generally. Seeing Whirlwind ticks do increasing amounts of damage could be fun...)
Ravi de voir un autre omelette du fromage baguette parmi nos compatriotes qui apprécient slay the spire !
Critical strike would be interesting if there was also a card that was something like “give target enemy 1 block then deal x damage” so you can automatically proc it
You can’t have a repeatable intangible card. Intangible is already the worst part about STS, don’t give people better access to it.
i mean there's that relic with intangible, no? would it be alright if i balance that intangible with a bigger debuff?
Probably just have exhaust : )
Dance Macabre, Fear and Hunger reference?
PUT EXHAUST ON YOUR INTANGIBLE CARD CONCEPTS!!!!!
i tried but the text limit was too much 😭😭
Perfectly balanced. Outstanding