I don't think it's particularly unfair or arbitrarily difficult because most of the powers have mirror effects that can be used to the player's own advantage.

Hmm, so far I've seen it cleared two ways and more-or-less confirmed that you aren't going to be beating it with certain approaches. Possibly because the last boss feels a bit too puzzle heavy--the best way to beat it is always going to be multi-hit attacks that take most advantage of strength.

Katanagatari + Martial Artists: very good survival, and you get a lot of multi-hit attacks to throw at the boss. This seems super critical.
Saitama (saw a friend's results) + support. You could probably get the same effect with a deck using the Katanagatari UR.

What didn't work and I'm not sure reasonably COULD work: anything with an orb focus. I could get to the final boss, but there's no way to focus orb damage, so you ARE going to kill the dolls first. This was with Boros and double Ainz, so that was racking up intangible and focus as much as I could. Ultimately fell short by 200 but nearly all the damage came from Jibril and Schwi's cooldown.

And obviously any deck riding on Augmentable is not going to have a good time of it once you hit act 5. Gilgamesh might be able to claw back a bunch of the damage in the deck itself, but once again it's more going to be strength boosts.

What does beating the fifth act do? I'm not sure if it was a bug or not, but it cut straight to the ironclad victory screen when I beat the boss. I also didn't get any trophies for the class I was using (kataganari).

Imo the best way to defeat the last boss is with Ainz, or a combination of defensive/scaling powers like Boros, Gazel, Ferid, Hitei, etc. Ainz makes the fight super easy, you can just stall and buff yourself up to infinity or kill the dolls & cheese with intangible spam.

But ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, the fights leading up to the final boss are no joke; I lost 2 runs by getting 100-0'd to an elite and a regular encounter. You probably just want to pick the path with the least encounters, since there's no telling if you'll run into a Giant Head-type enemy or the ones that start hitting you for 50+ on turn 2.

I don't think you need a perfectly optimized deck to win, but if you wanna attempt Act 5 on a higher Asc level, you might need to strategize your run a bit. Like, taking astrolabe, orrery, even empty cage instead of an energy relic, getting rid of -all- your strikes/defends and not taking curses, buying Peace Pipe, buying strong shop cards, and maybe not drafting too many on-kill cards (since the upgrades reset). Also, any card that gives temp hp is good, since a lot of Act 5 enemies deal piercing damage and/or apply burning.

And I think the first Act 5 energy relic is the best, the one that gives 2 energy per turn & +1 str when you play a power or smth.

I'm going to try for this act again with a specialized deck and on a lower ascension level. My first attempt was at asc. 20 and... well, I gave up on the fourth floor after realizing it was impossible with my current deck. I have to say that the loss of all your startup power is really harsh, and the fact that enemies gain strength so fast doesn't help you mitigate damage. Trying to block 60 damage on the first turn when you can only get 7 block/energy just isn't sustainable... But it was probably hubristic of me to make the first attempt on ascension 20 to begin with.

On the positive side, I like the enemy design and I'm really excited to see the rest of the act.

Thank you for all your work on this mod! It really is what keeps me coming back to StS.

@Alcolm
Did it not unlock the large trophy either? Was it a standard run?

@Raineh Daze
This was my attempt with orbs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGJwBfk702s&feature=youtu.be

I admit I didn't test the whole act too much on higher ascension since it was taking too long and I just wanted to release it asap. I'll try to reduce the damage scaling per ascension level, and I will also increase the drop rate for the potions.

And most of the damage came from Aisha getting 10 hits with +100 str on each one. Sure, the orbs help, but my point was more that anything but straight-up massive damage isn't viable for finishing the act. This can be seen as good or bad, but in general, any strategy to actually beat this seems like you're relying on the strength--hence the puzzle aspect.

I tried poison and it hit a double problem--one there's a lot of regeneration added and two... poison is really REALLY good at keeping the enchanted armour value high.

But why wouldn't you have Aisha or Ain in an orb deck?
Also, you don't need a card with 10+ hits, aisha was quite an overkill in that fight. You can win with just 1 multi hit card, just for the final phase, but it's still not something necessary

Probably because I was unlucky enough to go the entire way without having either of them show up in card rewards. I tried to make do as best I could by pumping focus up (having Ainz active four times helped), but it meant not having as many orb slots.

Phew! After playing it at asc. 0, I have a bit more to say about the new act.

Personally, I like it. I do think it requires you to build your deck more carefully, but in stark contrast to my first attempt, I never felt like it would've been impossible even if my deck had been a bit more random. I think you can reasonably expect to win it most of the time (at low ascension anyway), and that's actually impressive because it feels much more challenging than the Heart, which is a welcome addition. A few of the crystals/cubes/wisps etc might need a little nerfing, primarily because of how quickly they stack constrict and strength, but if you have a few medallions you can afford their inevitable HP drain.
For the boss, I didn't realize how the enchanted armor stacking worked at first, and it nearly timed me out - but I got lucky with my card drops, and having two Ainz Oal Gowns and Saitamas gave me the victory on that one.

As for things I think could use a second look, I already mentioned the crystals/cubes/wisps. But more importantly than that, I agree with Birp - encounters are not rewarding in this act. They're fun to try a few times so we can play against the new enemies, but if you choose to take on act V you've probably already got your deck set up the way you want it, so the chance for another card pick doesn't make up for the increased danger they represent.
This goes double for the elite fights. Medallions have two genuinely useful effects, but they're primarily useful for getting to the boss fight rather than winning it. It feels wiser to avoid the elites entirely than to take on one or two or five in the hopes that you can heal your HP for the boss fight, especially since the HP you'd be healing was probably lost to the elites in the first place. Upgrading cards is certainly helpful, but if you've got the Apotheosis card or a couple Scars then it's pretty much a moot point.

One idea to make Act V encounters more rewarding would be to add an increased chance for UR cards in final act drops, or for regular enemies to let you upgrade a card after battle. Just as ideas.

@Raineh Daze
This is a poison deck attempt instead
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEm0v6ioYEg

I won the final phase thanks to the strength buff, but I think that's fine, the focus of the deck was still poison and I got through the whole act using poison.

@Sir Slush
Thanks for the feedback, I'll try to think of some additional reward

Or maybe an alternative could be to have a fixed path

Tie some sort of buff or debuff on the final boss to the number of medals? Get excess healing as temporary HP?

That could work, but for the moment I have changed the layout of the map, I'll try to add something else later

Just won with OPM, the SR makes it pretty trivial to get to the boss.
There seems to be a bug when you enter the Act that causes scrolling to not work until you restart, not sure how you managed that.
Also, nice cheeky bit with Light Yagami.

The real final boss is the Perfect Cube, runner up is the triple crystal fight.

For the Unnamed fight, I feel the boss should have smth like higher max hp, an invincible buff, or deal ~10% as piercing damage, since it's really easy to rush the boss down after killing the dolls for +60/90/120 str.