I mostly just pick action cards and mana cards (wisdom, inspiration) that draw a card and have enough mana to do light casting (ideally poison) while finishing with dice or backstabbing. I seem to find Staff a lot on first level with Assassin, it's like a better great bow for them, and I'll try to set it up with Skewer if I can get it. That plus Vanish + Heal and Murder has a pretty good shot of getting me to late floor 2 or 3. If I want to take a shot at Dream in a poison game I'll use conduit or archmage at 10 and spam Blight (which is my only success strategy for killing him so far). Niesgild - I know you can't rely on getting an awesome draw, but I usually will take an equipment slot if I've got nothing better going on, even if I have nothing to fill it with currently. Great equipment seems to be a critical piece for my wins, and I'd rather risk losing faster and have the potential to win it all then take a card that will probably help in the short term but will weaken me later.
Circle is a card that is never ever bad. It is a cantrip. Replaces itself in your hand and replaces its own cost as well as plus one card next turn. Even wizards could use it. It's only a bad card if you're at zero actions. That said, copying it? Eh. It's not that good. I would only copy amazing equipment or holy strikes. Circle is great but it doesn't actually fill any of the objectives of the game: reducing the enemy health or increasing your own. It's not an answer to any of the problems that monsters offer either. That said I always have an awful thief run when I don't get it. I would usually much rather take the card pack perks on level two or a blind equipment slot buy. I will continue to argue that mana shield is a freakishly strong card for the assassin who has a good green engine and their spells aren't too ambitious. Especially if you can pair with Archmage.
The thing about Circle is that it is one of very few cards in the game that gives card advantage with no resource loss (though, as noted, if you have no actions at all it becomes a dead card). The key is not so much the turn you play it, but rather the following turn where you have extra actions and cards. I'd say most would agree that Boots of Speed is one of the best cards in the game - Circle can put it to shame after the first turn of the fight if you have even 2-3 of them in your deck. My best thief deck had four of them, and routinely drew the entire deck after the first turn of the fight; I only died because my third floor boss was the Lich, and despite having a massive ward from Shield Wall, he killed me with 100+ piercing damage at once by casting his heal with only about 23 health remaining. I think I got one Circle from a store, one from a chest, copied another with my 2nd floor talent, and copied the fourth with the mushroom quest on the third floor. No regrets, but I'd agree that more often than not, you won't get that kind of result.
Circle is my favorite card in the game. Depending on what I think I need, I don't always use the floor 2 talent to copy it, but that is definitely a reasonable thing to do in my book.
I finally beat it for the second time, and this time actually reduced him to 850 health (precisely 850 in fact). I was the assassin, and the key was Darting Daggers/Vampire Sword/Gauss Hourglass/Sidestep. Oh, and 9 (9!) actions. Every turn I didn't draw Sidestep I'd just skip my turn and do 18 damage and draw double cards for next turn. On turns where I did draw one of my two Sidesteps I'd unload my hand then end my turn. With Sidestep, doing 36 (sometimes more) and gaining life from Vampire Sword. I had Fire Shape and Storm to handle the resistant enemies. It also helped that the non-equipment portion of my deck only had 12 cards in it.
Thinking about the patch: Technically, much smoother. Thanks for that. From a game balance perspective, it seems like the player is getting progressively weaker. The Penance and Blight nerfs really hurt the best tools for taking out the dreamer. It's kinda like a mean DM from the tabletop games of my youth. I'd like to see some increased power in other areas to compensate.
Don't think the player got weaker last patch. Blight is a nerf, though only in the context of killing the dreamer. Penance is a real nerf, but penance as a card was so strong it was suffocating every other viable priest strategy. In exchange the priest (and other penance-standard classes) picked up a bunch of little buffs - mana cost reduction on late game spells, a couple of new cards (one of which is very good, the others I'm less sure on power level-wise), better cards at their mid level-ups, buffs to a handful of other cards that are now quite strong, and a couple other behind-the-scenes buffs (card spawn rate and the like). I have no doubt at all that these buffs are, in total, much more than the penance nerf - penance-standard classes are both in a more fun to play place and also somewhat stronger. Also, penance is still a good card, which tells you something about how far off it was before. It was definitely not my intent to nerf the player. If you've played some games with classes where you usually got a couple of penances (try priest, specifically), let me know how they feel. That said, I don't really take "beating the dreamer" into account with balance decisions - I want to make sure everyone can do 250 or so (which hasn't changed), but actually beating him isn't really meant to be a thing. That achievement is there more on the off-chance that you manage to do it rather than as a real objective - there's a reasonable argument that it should have been a hidden achievement or something to not tease the player. I think I'd be pretty sad though if I somehow beat the boss and there wasn't some kind of achievement for it. It is still doable, just very, very hard...
Hey Ferret, I get that about the Dreamer. The way he is configured now, playing a long defensive game against him is just about impossible (maybe, maybe against madness Dreamer if you have a Periapt and he doesn't destroy it), so the game's offensive / defensive creature balance doesn't apply there. I do think the ability to kill the Dreamer is diminished massively in this build, which is only frustrating because it comes with the same build that helps stabilize crashes in that battle. Long Priest/Prayer discussion to follow: I played 8 games with the Priest today and didn't get past floor 2. Edit: Made it to 3 once in about 14 games when I took Sorcerous and happened to find a Soulfire on level 2. This is not to say there may not be a learning curve I need to pick up post-Penance. Colossus smash was welcome, Drain Life was cheaper and more prevalent, and Haste seemed very common. I did not find the new Priest card so I can't speak to its balance. I did miss old Penance, which basically allows a Priest to drop it and then focus heavily on defense. I also didn't find a single copy of the new Penance, so it's hard to say how the new one balances. I think at this time Prayers are really unsupported by any significant synergy, which really hurts the Priest. Action builds have insane synergy with multiple cards that replace both the card and the action used to activate it, and these play smoothly into finishers like Backstab, Dice, and Jer's Kris. Attacks are upgradeable, have intense equipment support in all sorts of weapons, and have War Cry and Wrath of God as action or spell dips with huge upsides for attack builds. Spells have some of the most powerful effects in the game, also have great item support in the Jasra's gear, Pendant, and Staff, and early spell picks still have use in the late game - for example, Shock's draw function is as good at level 10 as at level 1, and you'd love to set up Freeze with a Frost Bolt. Prayers don't really hold up. They are awkward to use effectively - for the obvious "choose an ideal timing" perspective, but also because the offensive prayers go off at the beginning of your turn, which robs the player of a chance to use the healing cards they have in their hand. Also, and this is a pure peeve, it's maddening to have an enemy Cower out of a 4-turn Prayer of Violence. Piety is the only Prayer synergy I've found, and it isn't always available in a given game. There are, as far as I can tell, no Equipment pieces that help Prayers. In a later build, I'd like to see Prayers have some support items (at a minimum, something that spammed Piety every round, maybe around the same cost as Flamebrand), upgradable Prayers (maybe 3/4/5 for Violence and Life, 5/7/9 for Wrath), and offensive Prayers going off at the end of the Player's round instead of the beginning. I'd still like some sort of cascade effect - maybe a Prayer going off removes one counter from the next lowest Prayer, or even a full Piety effect, although that could clearly get out of hand quick... but then, so does Circle, and I've heard from Plaid Hat games that in playtesting they'd rather make an effect too strong and then scale back for final version rather than make it too weak and figure out how to strengthen it later. Regardless of what it is, there needs to be something that generates a strong synergy between Prayers and made low level Prayers still valuable in the late game. Still, I get that there's an information traffic jam at some point and you're leery for further complicating Prayers. Maybe Piety could become a keyword attached to all Prayers instead of a card in its own right (the "remove a counter from each of your Prayer cards", not the 3 mana part)? I really, really like this game. Given the choice of playing Watch Dogs or playing Dream Quest, I've chosen the latter almost exclusively, which is why I've played enough to have all the achievements. Please don't take the critique as dislike.
I just bought Master Thief. It's clear beating Dreamer isn't meant to be something you do (see Crush Everything). Any build which can amass 40 penance and 100 poison already has the game in hand. Phoenix is meant to be a giant MAGES GO HOME sign, isn't it? You have to do really fast burst damage but it's immune to fire and poison can't harm the egg and it does gangbusters burn dmg. Thanks chief. Doesn't help that I haven't seen more than ONE Periapt since I posted here as to what a fantastic card it is. I think the RNG heard me
Hot Damn Tamale! I just finally beat the dungeon as a thief, and even got the Lord of the Dream down under 750 for the first time as well. For what it's worth, I did pick equipment slot for my floor 2 talent (immortality and elemental resist for my floor 3 and level 10 talents). It's a shame you can't bring up your deck at the defeat screen; I didn't screenshot it. In brief, 4 circles (I did copy one with the mushroom quest), 4 sidesteps, jeremiad's kris and bracer, dodge and avoid, plus various replaceable draws and a little poison, plus an Evasion I got a couple monsters before the floor 3 boss (a rather unimpressive [under the circumstances] Magmadon which I killed in 2 turns). I've never had Jeremiad's Bracer before combined with reliable dodging - it's really remarkable how good it becomes, frequently drawing 2-3 cards or more on each opponent turn. The Kris and Dice were my main methods of killing. Man, this damn game. It's pretty great.
I've always had an easy time with the Pheonix as a mage -- the mage has really good burst damage (especially with fire and lightning schools), and the level 6 in-combat fight makes the pheonix vulnerable to all the elements! Dealing double damage with all your spells is pretty awesome. It is a shame that conflagaration will only hit on the one turn, but the bird should be cooked anyway. If you're having trouble, maybe be more careful about sending him to egg state? Wait until you can either have him die on his turn (poision) or can kill him with your first spell of the turn. Then light him up and go to town!
Ah, when I was thinking mages, I was thinking necromancers who I have been furiously struggling to get an 850 run on. I forgot the wizard gets that elemental vulnerability power.
Speaking of mages, I'm having some challenges with Wizard now that I've moved on from whatever absurd number of thief games it took for me to get my win. Wow, very different deck style and approach. It's hard to get a sense of how much mana I need vs. spells, and what spell combinations are worth exploring. I tend to lean towards fire/air decks so far - my best one of those just got me to the third floor for the first time as a wizard. I've had some games with a bunch of water in the past, but not in this recent stretch of games. I liked poison a lot with Thief, but I feel like it's harder to stay alive as a Wizard while the poison does its work; I'll generally grab Ward when I see it, but maybe I should get Salve too? I'm kind of tempted to go back to Ranger for a while since it was everything I like about Thief, but better, and I still need my <850 achievement with it.
Took me a while to succeed with the wizard. I was successful with mainly electrocute and some poison cards, but mainly electrocute with lots of mana does the trick even without healing.
Mana 1s are worse than Attack 1s. I would rather get kicked in the jimmy than draw one. Even upgraded they are pathetic compared to better magic. Your wizard can't really specialize. The game doesn't allow it. You can't be a poison wizard as you need blight at level 3 to kick that into overdrive. Elemental immunity on a boss is almost guaranteed. My tips are to take the fewest cards on floor 1 as you can. Wisdom and static charge are exceptions for being free roughly. Only ice magic combos. Otherwise, level 1 spells suck for anything beyond the first enemy of floor 2. A higher starting mana just fuels the first cast. You should still be taking hp at lemonade. Ward is nice but 8hp is 1.5 enemy cards at floor 2 and 3. Defense is nice but you do not have the card pool to tank. Still, phys resist is pretty cool. It's a swingy class. Just keep at it.
I'm glad to hear you say don't take anything from floor 1. I had given up on wizard (just that and priest left to beat). My impression is the same as yours, the only spells I want from floor 1 are ice. Between that, the fact that it is common to get totally shut down by something with the right elemental immunity, and extreme fragility he was too frustrating for me. But with a little encouragement I'll probably try to get back to him after getting priest and buying some more achievements that might help.
I agree, I've found mage and priest to be really 'swingy' as RollingSkull pointed out. I frequently die on the first floor with both classes; by comparison, I almost always make it to to the 3rd floor with paladin. It seems like for both Mage and Priest, you're really dependent on some good card spawns. I've never made it to third floor with either class. (Also, love your username @HumbleSloth! )
I'm also having trouble syncing. When I upload from my iPad nothing seems to happen. When I try downloading onto the iPhone there's nothing listed. I'm using the same username on both.
Which is why Peter recommends Cowardly on a Mage. Use it first turn to mulligan bad hands. I'm especially fond if it on a defensive character to enter battle, heal, and then runaway before your opponent can act. Would agree that Fireball is no good. Poison blends well with ice to buy time and sort of form a composite specialty. Shock, however, is diesel. It really plays well with the lightning philosophy of mana overkill but lets you "spell fix." You can specialize late in the game if you have the Sublime talent.
I have a super secret friends-with-the-developer tip for wizards which is: The more cards of a particular magic school you have in your deck, the more likely you are to be offered cards of that school on level up and in shops and chests on future floors. This includes the elemental mana cards. For example if you want to focus heavy fire, picking up a flame charge and a fireball or two early on will help you get there. On an unrelated note, I think fireball is actually a pretty decent card. It's not exactly the best scaling, but having one in your deck will basically carry you through floor 1.
