I’m with you, there. After getting Arcanist and Hunter to the point where I’ll win easily on normal and have a slim chance on difficult I switched to working on my rogue and it’s a rough class. My favorite build this far has been a charm build where I slowly build charm but then get a huge chunk of HP back every victory. I can cruise to the final boss with the build but it is completely worthless against him since he just cleanses my charm every turn.
Finally!
Managed to get the rogue using Cutlass and Daggerstorm and Alchemy weapon.
Halfway through it was going badly until I realised that there are no melee actions at blue or above.
So I pivoted to thinning and getting max out of evasion and melee actions. Cut the support stuff.
MVP was probably the enchanted that gives you a free arrow with every point of evasion!
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Alrighty, after whacking my head against a brick wall in the next difficulty level, I think I am done for this game.
It is super fun, but i am not going to get much further. I will probably pull it out to do a run when bored, but otherwise I shall thank it for its service.
Or maybe I should complete the story colour wheel first…
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Yeah, the difficulty spike between normal and difficult is probably a bit too much. The only way I was able to win a few on difficult was to grind my classes to their max level and at that point I could breeze through normal with my eyes closed.
I can’t even fathom what the point of the yet higher difficulties are.
I’m getting to the point where there are a few builds which feel reliable enough for me that I’m on the verge of bumping up from Difficult, just to see how it goes. But it does feel like that makes me nervous about trying new things, which is kind of a bummer.
I’m moving off of Dawncaster for a bit to give Monster Train a bit of time. Dawn caster is a very solid game in the genre and I’m glad I gave it the time I did. Now to see if Monster Train lives up to the hype or if I return for just “one more” run in Dawncaster.
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My initial impressions of Monster Train are that it is a bit messy. Now, this could be because I enjoy card games where it is daily clear what the mechanics are and everything is fairly clear. Monster Train is more icon-based and thus far I feel like I’m missing some of the mechanics. The 3-lane gameplay is neat and I’d be willing to bet that some lame manipulation will come into play as I unlock more advanced cards.
My biggest issue so far, though, is the number bloat. Perhaps there is a valid reason and I will get used to it but when I’ve got units doing 50 damage with 50 health and 20 armor going against bosses with 200+ health, I’m just seeing a whole bunch of large numbers being tossed around and I feel like I’ve missed out on some calculations somewhere, if that makes sense.
I also haven’t found a ton of card synergy, but again, it’s early.
It’s a neat game and I’m going to give it a bunch of time but it also hasn’t wowed me out of the gates like some others in the genre have. I do understand that sometimes in this genre it takes a few plays and some unlocks to finally see the potential of the game.
I played the original up to the max ascension level at tye time, for all the colour combos.
It was good, but I felt like I got powerful in unknown ways.
I loved eating the morsels and getting a mega hero going.
The expansion never clicked for me.
Well I’m absolutely loving Monster Train, and I can’t even work out if it’s more than or about the same as Slay the Spire, but I guess that means it’s right up there for me. It’s just different to all others with the tower defense part and the fact that you deploy Monsters and their positioning really does matter.
I found that the gameplay can be obscurely deep, for lack of better way of putting it.
For instance for some strategies it works well to let your hero hang out at the top and buff up, while others it’s best to have the hero down the bottom right at the front to buff up on revenge etc. but then again you need to be sure you won’t lose that hero early. On top of that I’ve then had runs where I’ve purposely had to move my hero backwards part combat in order to make sure they get their multistrikes off while using some other minion to soak up the initial damage. (Buffed the hero in the early round of combat, then moved it back to be sure it survived / got its hits off).
StS doesn’t have the positional play factor, so MT is bringing something new.
The number bloat thing I get. Can clearly see that, but for me the numbers could be anything. They could be X, they could be Y. They serve the same purpose, but I do get that it seems unnecessary.
I think there’s plenty of synergy in the cards, it just needs to be found. And the game really seems to allow you to play heavily in to the strengths of how your deck started out. I just find there’s more flexibility. Being able to literally restock artefact shops for instance, for a chance at a more suitable artefact offer.
The game also pushes for efficiency in your build. This is the part where you can “really pump those numbers up”. Slay the Spire has this of course, but I’m finding MT offers it as well and excitingly. I’m constantly having to decide whether a card reward offer (for instance) really helps my build or whether I’m better off skipping. StS has this of course but it just seems to be there a lot for MT which is great.
The app looks and sounds great. But that said I’ve found some gripes, such as not being able to view your deck when in the reward screen after combat. Hopefully things like this get patched out.
Super glad to have this native finally on mobile device. It’s a superb game to take on the go, or even for hours at home.
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Yeah, I’m starting to see more synergies. I just needed more play time.
The numbers bloat thing still rubs me the wrong way, though, especially because it leads to a lot of guesswork. When you get to the final wave where the boss or mini-boss just attack nonstop until they are defeated I find that it devolves into guesswork and hope on my part. I hope that I’ve buffed my attacks enough to finish him off before he get to my forge but I just have to let it play out and see. It’s just different from the numbers crunching that I am used to in tighter card games.
I remember an early Monster Train review mentioning that it threw a bunch of stuff together and get it works, so I understand the “loose” feel of the game. Huge fan of being to jump between my iPad and iPhone to play, for sure.
I’m looking forward to getting into Monster Train - but isn’t it totally broken at the moment when you can’t select the Boss for spell attacks?
Haven’t hit that issue on my iPad; have yet to play a boss fight on my phone.
I had the problem on my iPad. Not all bosses - just the ones who stay off to the side.
I have been playing on an iPhone 12 and haven’t had any issues. I definitely want to switch over to the bigger screen and cloud saves are great!
Regarding guesswork and hoping to have enough to defeat a boss, just wanting to make sure you’re aware that within the settings there is a toggle called “Combat Preview”. This shows how much damage will be done, or places an “x” for a defeat.
This doesn’t remove guesswork in getting to that point, but still it certainly shows you upfront what’s about to happen in that round.
Also, and most importantly, you will find a setting toggle for “googly eyes”.
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So….
Turns out I did ply this game a bit…
Never won a run with the shell people, but I also wouldn’t drop difficulty down from 25… so partly my fault 
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Long long time lurker. First time poster… Patch has just been released for Monster Train allowing the bosses for IPad users to be directly targeted. Still can’t see their health bar fully though but definite 100% improvement. Not that it makes me any better though…
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Welcome!
Does anyone have any quick and dirty tips for Slay the Spire? I’ve only managed to get to the heart with the Ironclad and I can’t get past Ascension 2. The progress in this game isn’t such that I’m changed all that much from run to run so clearly I’m approaching the game completely wrong.