two "Genetics of the Unconscious" and one damage ID-Kard is a break

Ah, an infinite combo that's fairly easy to assemble; dunno how that one got past me. :P
Thanks for the heads up, I'll see what I can do to nerf it.

I've only played her once so far but frozen eye + whimsy + ephemeral dream draw power deck is kinda wack. Having no downsides side from increasing your cards played this round to cycle cards for intangible stacks kinda no-sells a lot of the harder hitting threats. The cards that cost HP to add stacks / cards that make you instantly intangible are too trivial in cost for what they provide, with it easily being recovered by some terror stacks.

So far I really like the mod though, I find it really fun to play and her kit isn't troublingly complex and is comfortable to use. The combos blend nicely and feel good to execute, just some tweaks like not having almost all her powers get innate + some management on the intangible spam I reckon.

Mind Control should prevent enemies from running away.

@Nisa Good to hear you're having fun! I tried to make sure to give the character very few 0 cost cards that aren't powers/don't exhaust to help prevent Intangible spam from the starter relic alone, and I slightly reworked a couple of cards that helped contribute to that in the latest update.

As for a lot of her powers upgrading to innate, well, it's just 4 powers, and while that is probably more than base game, I try to do it only on powers that make sense/have combo potential by doing so.

As for Terror offsetting the cost of the HP loss Intangible cards, that was supposed to be a deliberate synergy between the archetypes. With the proper cards, I think it's fine if the HP loss becomes trivial since not every run will have the tools to do so and I'm leery of increasing the HP costs even more since the character's base HP is already quite low.

@Dragonfox Since the whole theme of the Mind Control effect is to redirect effects in a way that is beneficial to you rather than outright nullifying those effects, I don't think such a change is necessary.

So far I've gotten games where I've got heart attack to hit for 250+ dmg, games where I get 10+ intangible stacks. I feel like intangible as a status and how easy it is to achieve is pretty cheesey for most fights. Currently only on ascension 4 so it might just be the game being easy too, will have to see again once I hit ascension 15+.

At the moment the builds I think are most powerful right now are intangible spam > id > terror, it feels like she is mostly balanced around terror at the moment, but a few of the right relics and cards can make her ludicrous and trivialise a lot of supposedly difficult fight.

*also meant fleeting phantom instead of ephemeral dream in the previous post, had a slight brainfart there.

I definitely agree with your assessment of the relative power level of the archetypes. Not too sure how I can tone down the Intangible archetype without destroying it completely since most of its cards are already understatted to compensate, so if you have any suggestions I'd be happy to hear them out.

If you need to tone down Intangible by just a tiny bit, you could double the Ephemeral needed to become Intangible to 30 and adjust the starting relic to give 2 per card played. Or higher. Then you can tune the numbers down more finely at the cost of making the math a bit harder for the player.

I don't know about Intangible's balance myself, but I found Id a way too powerful and polarized archetype. Because it's hard to control when you pay for Id cards (at least without that rare Ego power), you can't pick too many of them in a deck not specialized for it or you die from having no energy and getting hit. In the face. Taking just one of the 2-energy Id cards can ruin you if you don't have any extra energy.

The only Id card that's worth picking up by itself for a non-Id deck is Unconscious Uprising, because it's cheap and better than average block. If you draw it, unlike most of the other Id cards, you won't die from getting hit in the face.

...But if you have a small deck and pick up Idle Whim and Rorschach in Danmaku, you can be functionally immortal against most enemies. Just Idle Whim and Unconscious Uprising or two is good enough to survive too. The rest, the enemies that do non-attack damage (ie. status cards) are solved by Untouchable. Id cards don't even trigger things like Heart's Beat of Death or Time Eater's clock thing. If you have Untouchable and Whim + Rorschach, you can quite literally just click on end turn until the boss dies from incidental thorns or other Id cards.

Reflex Radar is the worst. It's draw 2 (3) for 0, in a common card, for no drawback whatsoever for Id decks. Without it, it's hard and you need to pick cards carefully, transform or remove basic cards, but still functional. Asc. 1 Heart was tough but doable without any cheatlike 0 energy draws.

I keep trying to make other archetypes, but... Every time I build for terror, I get offered an Idle Whim and then it just devolves into stacking the good Id stuff.

Honestly, Id feels like a problem. It's too easy to build something that stacks obscene block, damage, thorns, and draw. And if you don't then the cards will kill you because you picked/transformed into Id. Both problems, I think, stem from the fact that they just loop forever in your deck. Maybe Id cards should exhaust when they're played for less energy than they cost? Then have a relic that makes them not exhaust.

This would make the combo more rare, while making Id cards a more manageable threat. They could still screw you over, but you could try to adjust mid-fight by trying to spend your last energy on drawing out the Heart Attack to cast it for 0 so it doesn't ruin your life later. Also, it would make Id cards interact with the Strange Spoon and Dead Branch relics in an interesting fashion.


Here's my runs that beat the Heart, in case you want to see the decklists:

• https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1844065017 Ascension 1. Through the power of 4 reflex radars and the rest exhausting or being a power, this run basically did 300 damage to the Heart every turn.
  
• https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1844064916 Ascension 2. 5 reflex radars. I had Untouchable so I didn't even bother getting rid of Parasite. I never go for the don't see intents +1 energy relic usually because I'm not good enough for it, but this deck doesn't care.
  
• https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1844064823 Ascension 3. 2 radars, same stuff.
  
• https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1844064723 Ascension 1. 3 radars, a lot of jank because I was going for a terror deck but then got Idle Whim after picking up Unconscious Uprising. Bought a Purity to get rid of most of them.
  
• https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1844064636 Ascension 1. No radars! Not even a Rorschach or Last Remotes. I ended up not being able to play all of my junk because of lack of energy, but potions were enough to smooth the bumps and beat the Heart.

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In other news, I have card-specific concerns:

• Reflex Radar is too powerful as it is. Losing 0 energy is not a drawback at 0 energy. You could solo most of the Spire with Flash of Steel and a Reflex Radar or two if your deck is small enough. It should either have a notable drawback, (like the Defect's Overclock does of adding garbage to your deck) exhaust, or be bumped up to Uncommon or maybe all the way to Rare.
  
  
• Genetics of the Unconscious is a better Seek at Uncommon. Sure, it only tutors from your discard pile, but unlike Seek, it works even if your discard pile is empty. It's not especially overpowered, but consider bumping it up to Rare, because it's one of those cards that every deck is better with.
  
  
• Last Remote is reminiscent of Dropkick and Heel Hook, but instead of being a net loss in energy when played without the effect, it's neutral on energy, and +1 energy when the effect is enabled, or if you reduce the cost. Energy is more valuable than a card, this feels too powerful. Consider making it cost 0 and only regain energy if you've drawn an Id. Maybe reduce the damage by one in that case too.
  
  
• Mass Hysteria+ does too much damage at 1 energy, especially to groups, even if it's inconsistent. Furthermore, it bypasses block. I'm not sure how it could be changed while preserving what it does. Maybe ditch the "combined" part so the damage doesn't exponentially scale with enemies. Or maybe it should remain at 2 energy but deal half damage unupgraded.
  
  
• Rorschach in Danmaku makes you immortal and upgrading it does practically nothing. You could argue it helps against status cards and Frail, but if you draft Rorschach your deck needs to have other things going for it like draw or untouchable, otherwise you die from spending 2 energy to do nothing. I don't know what to do with this. You certainly can't make it cost 1.
  
  
• Conditioned Teleport this is an awkward card to have in a boss fight with Unceasing top. Consider making it playable to no effect during a boss fight, even if that means it disappears from your deck.
  
  
• Mind Stellar Relife this card is overtuned. The HP loss increases way sharp, especially with multiple enemies. Consider tuning it down to loses 12 (15) hp and an additional 3 (5) hp.
  
  
• Rupture Mind this card is overtuned. It does too much damage at one energy for a card that doesn't exhaust in addition to its other effect. Consider making it exhaust, toning it down to 8 (11) damage and 2 (3) stacks, or simply increasing the cost to 2 (1 upgraded, no other effects).
  
  
• Untouchable this card is way overtuned. Exhausting all your Status and Curse cards makes many encounters much easier. The Heart, two act 3 bosses, two act 1 bosses, and most elites shuffle junk into your deck, which this card gets rid of. Every turn, before drawing. And it gives 1 artifact, and it's innate when upgraded so on turn 2 all the curses in your deck disappear. This card has no business costing 0. It needs to cost 2, 3, or be reworked. Maybe by only cleansing your deck once and switching innate for retain.

Finally, I think it's annoying that the relic Teeth and Claws renders Orichalcum useless. Consider changing it to "At the end of your turn, if you applied a debuff, gain 6 block" instead. Or would that be too powerful? I dunno I just like card games too much and write long serious posts about them on the steam workshop forums. Thanks for reading.

I really appreciate the extensive write up; feedback is always great for a newish modder like me :P

I'm a bit leery of doubling the numbers for Ephemeral just so I can fine tune them a tiny bit since arbitrarily big numbers just seem . . . off to me. I might take a look at some of the more powerful cards instead.

As for Id cards, I did have my initial reservations about how well they would function as an archetype when I first designed them, but I decided to try to make them work for thematic purposes.

Rorschach is definitely on my list of cards to nerf/rework, and Untouchable is on there too. Reflex Radar I'm thinking of changing to something like Exhaust(No exhaust) so the player would have to spend an upgrade to make it spammable,

Genetics of the Unconscious is fine, I think, since it's much closer to Hologram than to Seek in my opinion.

Last Remote is kind of in a weird spot since the main archetype it's in doesn't care about energy all that much - I could probably nerf the damage a little, but I think it's effect is fine for use in a hybrid or Ego build.

Mass Hysteria is definitely powerful when drawn at the right moment, but I think it's inconsistent enough that the wasted draw and energy is enough to counter the moments where it does truly shine.

I agree with your assessments on Conditioned Teleport, Mind Stellar Relief, and Rupture Mind - I've made the appropriate changes in the latest update.

Finally, I think it's fine that Teeth and Claws immediately gives block since players tend to forgot relic effects if the effects aren't immediately apparent; there's a few other similar relics like Ornamental Fan and Tough Bandages anyway.

Thanks for taking the feedback well and considering my suggestions. After posting, I noticed it came out a lot longer than I thought.

I had an idea about away of nerfing the Ephemeral mechanic that would also make the archetype's identity stronger. Because of the way the starting relic works, even without any Ephemeral cards at all there is a lot of Intangible going around.

What if, instead of getting a stack of Intangible immediately after you hit 15 (or 20 with the flower relic) stacks of Ephemeral, you needed to play an Ephemeral card to activate it?

This would necessitate one of the starting cards to be reworked, or the starting relic does nothing. Provoke comes to mind, simply because I think the current effect is too powerful for a starter card, and making certain enemies intents unchangeable would harm the other intent-changing cards.

Changing Ephemeral to work through activating cards instead of triggering passively should have the following effects:

• Reduces the defensive capabilities of Id archetype decks, because most cards with Ephemeral cost energy to play, and Id-heavy decks need energy-adding cards to play anything above 0 cost. After a change to Rorschach, this could mean more variance in Id decks. As it is, a functioning Id deck destroys everything and a dysfunctioning one destroys you, with barely any ground between.
  
  
• Reduces the power level of the starting relic in late game for decks that don't draft into the Ephemeral archetype. Currently, the relic doesn't have time to do much in the early game outside of boss and elite fights. But in the later stages of the game as you have more energy and cards to play it becomes a better and more controllable Incense Burner. Even without Id shenanigans, I estimate a decent deck in Act 3 becomes Intangible once every three turns or so.
  
  
• Sort of makes the effect more controllable, but not really. It's of course thematically appropriate that Koishi can't control going Intangible, but you can do it as it is by just not playing cards when at high stacks. For Ephemeral archetype decks, this means easier control as they could hold off with the Intangible effect by playing non-Ephemeral cards and be confident that they'll draw an Ephemeral card next turn. For non-Ephemeral decks, this would mean they can spend that last energy they have on a Strike while hoping to draw the starter card next turn, instead of doing nothing with the energy and playing any card later as they do now.
  
  
• Gives a reason to draft some of the less-powerful Ephemeral cards. I don't ever pick the 7 block 1 Ephemeral card because there are better ways to gain Ephemeral stacks. If I needed to trigger the Intangible effect with a card, I would consider drafting it if I also needed block.
  
  
• Increases design space. Maybe you could even separate the trigger into a different keyword and take that off some of the more powerful Ephemeral cards to make them less powerful.

A few other things:

Untouchable could be a balanced card maybe even at its current cost if it only exhausted one status or curse card, as most bosses shuffle more than one card at a time. The Awakened One is an exception, but you can't have it all. This would also give a reason to grab more than one of them.

With the relic Unceasing Top and the card Fading Memory, if your deck has any Id card that deals damage, you will eventually deal a limitless amount of damage and gain an arbitrary amount of Ephemeral (and as such, Intangible) stacks. If you also have the Id card that gives terror stacks you may be able to regain full health too.

• The same combo can be achieved through other ways of building a deck that exhausts your cards, but Fading memory is the simplest as it accelerates itself and costs no energy. It also can get rid of your curses and statuses.
  
  
• This is a problem, because only three enemies can stop it: the little thorns guy in act 3 (solved by an Id card that gives block in the mix), the Heart (solved by block again), and your past decisions (The Necronomicon Curse cannot be exhausted in your hand, so the combo stops working)

The base game also has some powerful combos that can deal limitless damage when they get going, especially with Unceasing Top, but they require delicate deckbuilding. They also aren't completely unstoppable because of enemies like Time Eater and the Heart's Beat Of Death which traditionally ruin cycling. Consider changing Id so that Id cards played trigger at least the Time Eater's clock so this combo doesn't completely beat everything.

Your idea for reworking the Intangible archetype is interesting, and I may try something similar when I have the time. I do agree that the starter relic is in a bit of a weird spot since it's fairly weak in Act 1 but ramps up later once you've gotten more energy/better cards and I think your idea for keeping it in line holds promise.

I was actually thinking of reworking Untouchable into a skill that was essentially a one-time cleanse, although I suppose simply nerfing the effect is on the table as well.

To be honest, I completely forgot that Unceasing Top existed when I designed the Id archetype :P. I don't think it's TOO big of a deal since the combo requires you to find a specific rare relic AND a specific rare card (Dead Branch + Corruption on the other hand is a rare relic and an UNCOMMON card). If it really does become a problem, I suppose I could patch the relic out for this character.

A pretty fun mod, while not so balanced for now. 15 Ephemeral is way too easy to stack up, plus enemy-manipulating, every round is usually completely safe, either from being Intangible or manipulating enemy into not attacking.

You also have Terror as HP regen, all these makes this character pretty safe from any situation.

I am a noob in card games, but here are some of my ideas, hope they can help you construct better plans from these thoughts:

1. More risk
If she gotta be strong, you can give the player more punishment when they slip.
Lower health (like 20),
Higher Ephemeral need(something like 30 or more would make it takes more than 1 round to build up Intangible, so to not be instantly buffed every round),

2. Nerf cards improvements/abilities
To me, since it's usually safe in any battle, I always smith in camps. Hence I quickly get powerful improvements for all the cards, like non-Exhaust for the ones manipulating all enemies into attacking/non-attacking, while they have Retain since beginning. Initially Innate for 0-cost Terror cards also makes them too ideal; Retain for Sakuya is also making it too perfect.

3. Character relic?
For now, playing cards and drawing Id cards both provide Ephemeral, which is one of the reason Intangible is easily always on. Id cards still cost energy and they can't be played freely, hence it's fine if they give Ephemeral; but playing card itself shouldn't provide Ephemeral.

For instance, there's a card gives 2 Ephemeral with 1 hp as cost. By the way, 1 hp is almost nothing for this character with Terror; if enemy's state(attacking or not) becomes the premise of playing this card, it might be more interesting since it emphasizes more on the character's logic of mind-manipulating. Nonetheless, with the play-card-get-Ephemeral thing along, they'd be still too powerful, 3 Ephemeral from one 0-energy card is too much. I think if playing cards, the behaviour solely, doesn't give Ephemeral, or maybe 1 Ephemeral for every [amount] cards played, then the balancing would be fixed a lot.

Overall, I think that this character is a great idea, but currently being too perfect, character-wise and card-wise. Intangible, Terror, Mind-manipulation. I understand these are the specialities of the character, but maybe if you put the character's focus more heavily on solely one aspect, it will help balancing, while building the character more uniquely.

I really like this character. Hope to see more updates in the future!

Ruptured Mind + Mind control cards kinda locks bosses out of ever damaging you again.You can just keep stacking Mind control forever and win without ever attacking. except for Ruptured Mind. Maybe make it where it where mind control doesn't get added when you use Ruptured Mind on the enemy.

Okay so..., i was fighting an act one boss and i actually got stuck in an (almost) infinite "id" loop where i would draw my 2 "cost one energy: id + next turn draw 4 cards" and automatically play them and so the next turn i would draw almost ALL my deck, including 3 "id" cards (the two same draw cards and another one who gave me block) so the game would spend automatically all my energy and play 0 attacks ... maybe in one out of 4 turns i could actually play something...

It happened in my first run so i had (and still have) no experience with this character but i feel like it's something that should not happens (by the way, i didn't ended the fight cause the game crashed because of external problems so i can't give you any precise information)

1 attack Id card + 1 defense Id card + Unceasing Top + Medical Kit/Blue candle = autoplay.
You know what I mean..