Slay the Spire

Slay the Spire

The Railgun
Aphid 16 Feb, 2020 @ 11:43am
Character balance feedback;
Overall power level of the character: 'low'.
While her starting relic allows her to quite easily beat early hallway fights and elites, her pretty awful card pool means she has to rely on some luck in obtaining one of the few useful cards in it. Thus, if she does not obtain any of these, then you're stuck with a deck of strikes and defends, and this dies quickly usually in early Act 2, especially at asc20.

I'd estimate right now she's quite a bit weaker than the regular characters.

One thing that I find clear is that this character's card set seems created by someone who does not understand the concept of card advantage. Essentially, a card itself has a cost. Even a card that costs [0] has a cost, namely, the card itself. You only draw 5 cards a turn. If those cards are more expensive cards, you have more choices on what to do each turn. You could see it as each card basically having the text 'discard 1 card'.

Then, to follow up on that, discarding is bad, drawing is good. Hence, a discard should gain you something, while a draw should cost something. Typically for the 'draw' cards to be worth considering they also need to give some value for money; e.g. more than just trading 1 for 1. So you would often see about a 1:2 trade to be fair enough (so 1 energy to draw 3 cards would be balanced: see the silent' Acrobatics, which draws 2(3) for 1 and cycles 1). Similarly the discard cards should give you more value, e.g. they should be better than the average card at blocking, attacking, scaling, whatever other effect they have. Either this, or your character needs to have a 'discard package' like the Silent has: cards and relics that benefit off of discarding things.

This character is not fun to play. There's a couple highlights, but most cards just are not interesting enough. Her starting relic also rewards 'not' playing cards, in a game that is about playing cards. There are two main issues: first; you cut off quite a big part of your 'design space' by converting energy to damage at a 1:8 ratio. Then, you do not give yourself enough design space by not really having many keywords and interactions within the card set. Basically, this character needs to do something else besides 'lightning orbs'. It's own new thing, keyword, unique interactions, and so on.

Take a look at other, more complex slay the spire custom characters like Slimebound, Disciple, Administrix and see what they've done: These characters are far more interesting because they have some new, unique mechanics.

I suggest you change the starting relic to allow more of the cards to be useful.

Examples of things you could do;
"Whenever you channel a lightning orb, deal 3 damage to a random enemy"
"Every 3 attacks, channel a lightning orb"
"Whenever you draw or discard cards, channel a lightning orb"

There's also nothing that interacts with the orbs, which makes them less meaningful overall. By not having any focus, no way to gain orb slots, no other orb types, and few cards that interact with orbs besides counting (and you'd have two almost all the time anyway) you're left with them basically being just 8 damage to a random enemy. That makes for a shallower experence than the default Defect, who has way more orb interactions in its cards.

Another major issue here is cards that are 'strictly better than' others. When is this true? A is strictly better than B iff:
1) A has the same energy cost as B.
2) A does the same useful things B does.
3) A has the same drawbacks as B, or less of them.
4) A has some extra effect beyond this.

Here's how I like to rate cards.
I place them into one of seven buckets. I think (most) every card should be in A thru D. I judge cards based on how often I'd see myself picking it up over alternatives.

Last edited by Aphid; 16 Feb, 2020 @ 11:43am
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Aphid 16 Feb, 2020 @ 11:44am 
S This card is too strong period. It's an autopick, and not only that, but without much help it obviates a large part of the card pool and/or enemies.
A (Almost) always useful. Top-tier cards such as corruption or feed or footwork.
B Average rare card power.
C Average uncommon card power level.
D Average common card power level.
E About as good as strike or defend
F Useless. (much) worse than strike and/or actively bad. Please consider buffing these cards at least.

I also rate the upgrades of cards, where these should really be around the 'C' mark for all cards. Here I consider an upgrade an 'F' if upgrading a strike or defend actually nets you more value overall.

I'm now also going to add a design score, how interesting I think this card is. As follows:

A: Fascinating
B: Interesting
C: Uninteresting.
D: Small design problems (e.g. 'this should really exhaust' or 'this should be a skill, not a power'.)
E: Big design problems (example: this card is strictly better/worse than another card).
F: Unworkable (example; a card effect like this breaks the game in some way)

Overall, especially the rarer cards should mostly have high design scores, to allow you to build decks around them. Overall though, there should be some uninteresting 'plain damage' cards to take as well. That gives the player some more choices and a way to benchmark more complex card combinations (e.g. do I beat just using some basic damage cards with this combo?)
Last edited by Aphid; 16 Feb, 2020 @ 11:44am
Aphid 16 Feb, 2020 @ 11:45am 
Common cards;

Defend: E+
Strike: E-

Sort of your standard defend and strike. However, since strike's damage is lowered, you would almost never use it. The only scenario is where there's a very low hp enemy in a multi-enemy scenario. Otherwise, dealing 8 damage using orbs for that one energy is better.

Aerial Shot: F(C)
Upgrade: E
Design: E

Only useful if you have one of the 'magnetic' cards. While getting over twice the damage that 'needle' has seems amazing, it does require you to draw and play your magnetic first. And, as these don't stack, you tend to have only one in the deck. Meaning, this can be a dead draw half the time, meaning it's only very slightly better than Needle, iff you have a specific rare card.

This card has a design issue. Rare cards are, well, rare, so a lot of the time this is a dead card that you would not even consider. To solve it I suppose the [magnetic] effect should be on more cards. I suppose you could for example generalize the two existing cards with a [magnetize] keyword. {Cannot play while magnetized. Become magnetized. If you become demagnetized, lose this effect}. Then you could have cards that interact with it in more meaningful ways, such as for example consuming the effect, gaining or losing power from it, and so on. You could e.g. have a magnetize card that gains you strength. Another thing this would interact with is artifact: as when you magnitize something else, an artifact charge would allow you to keep the strength.

Charge: E
Upgrade: A
Design: C

I typically would only pick this card up if it can be upgraded. Otherwise, why use a card and an energy on something that your starting relic gives you for an energy and no card?

Circuit Breaker: F(~C as read).
Design: B
Upgrade: B

The problem with this card is that it plain does not work. Circuit breaker does not swap the stats if they are both bigger than 0. I can't really say much more about it as it's more complicated to use. I can see it being somewhat useful. Unfortunately I don't get why this has to be a Power. It would be far more useful as a plain Skill.

Coin Flip: E
Design: C
Upgrade: B

I don't see myself picking this up. Coin flip draws too few cards for its cost. A lighting orb typically just means 8 damage for this character. That makes this a 2-cost strike+ that draws a card.

Crack: F
Design: C
Upgrade: F

Hilariously bad. Even iff this is the last card played in the combat, the best possible scenario for this is 2 energy for 15 damage. So at best you're getting something about as efficient as a strike. On every other turn though this mostly just means 5 damage for 2 energy and a card.

Crackle: F
Design: C
Upgrade: A

Getting two lightning orbs with this character is rather easy. So Crackle+ is about as good as Twin Strike+ (ironclad), with a few downsides. One is that this character doesn't have the same level of strength scaling, two is that it doesn't have the 'strike' interaction mechanic with other cards. But why does regular crackle cost 2 energy? I would pick this up if there's nothing useful to upgrade at a campfire. Since you however start with 3 upgrade-able cards, this is quite rare: by the point where you would consider picking this up you're typically already beyond the point in the game where you would want attack commons.

Discharge: F(B if upgraded).
Design: C
Upgrade: S

Footwork is a good card. Essentially discharge+ is a footwork as a skill, so reusable but unupgraded. The base card is pretty bad though. Why doesn't the base card just have +1 dexterity on it?

Gekota Phone: F
Design: C
Upgrade: E

The base set has a card called Purity. It exhausts itself, and 3(5) other cards for 0 energy. Even then, it's taken quite rarely. Why would I want to exhaust only 1 card for 2 energy?

Iron-Dust Field: S
Design: B
Upgrade: B

This is Mikasa's best card. Everything else she has is almost irrelevant: After getting past Gremlin Nob, grab every copy you can, always. Even before him, still do that. I've rated a card in the Illya mod which does about the same thing with the same rating. Here it bears repeating: For powers or power-like effects, you typically want around 3 turns of 'payback time', or it should take 3 turns for a power to give about as much value as a regular damage card. Here, that number is about 1. In addition, powers should exhaust, while this does not. Also, powers typically do not scale themselves, for otherwise you get quadratic effects, and those get out of hand very quickly.

Add 3 Iron-Dust field+ and 3 discharge+ to the base deck and the game is suddenly trivial.
I suggest toning down the plated armor: Have it be 2/4 plated armor and 2 thorns, and add [exhaust].

Edit: Oh, and please remove the benefit from dexterity. This card doesn't need it to still be good.

Negative Field: D
Design: C
Upgrade: C

This card has a problem: Negative Field+ is strictly worse than charge+ against all enemies but Gremlin Nob. It's too simple: this should have some secondary effect.

Positive Field: C
Design: C
Upgrade: C+

Positive Field+ is equivalent to Discharge+. However, Discharge+ can be reused, making it almost always strictly better (Gremlin Nob is again the only exception).
This is a design issue: the two cards are too similar.

Pull: F,
Design: C
Upgrade: F
Pull does nothing when upgraded (basically a wound). The base version actively harms you when you use it (costs an energy and gives you nothing): you would have drawn the 1 card anyway had you not put pull in your deck.

Push: F.
Design: C
Upgrade: F
Push actively harms you by being drawn instead of something useful, unless you, at that particular turn, have a curse you want to discard that harms you more than you can mitigate by playing a diffrent card. Which happens almost never. I'm not sure why there's two commons that are basically curses.

Spark: F
Design: B
Upgrade: F
Deals 8 damage for 2 in the best case scenario. May I remind that Strike+ deals 9 for the default characters?

Static: E(A if upgraded).
Design: C
Upgrade: S

Upgraded Static is a great damage card. Besides Needle the only useful attack common in the set. Base static just does too little for its cost. I suggest having the base version cost 0 or having the base version deal 6 damage as well.

Stun-Shock: E
Design: B
Upgrade: B
You're only getting one vulnerable and weak. Sucker Punch isn't considered good, and it has 2 weak, more damage, and does not need upgrading to cost 1. However, as it is just about your only source of Weak, I would consider it over your base strikes, esp. if it can be upgraded. If none of the 3 good commons were offered, this might be okay to use vs gremlin nob, mostly for the Weak, if it ends up being that he is almost dead if you don't (e.g. a 80 hp nob taking 14,30,30 from pass,pass,pass would be left at 6 hp and deal 8+24 = 32, while when using stun-shock it would do 8+18=26 while taking 14,30,14 would leave it at 22hp. So Stun-Shock is useful against Gremlin Nob when it has between 80 and 88 hp. ). I think it's just a bit too expensive for what it does.

Perhaps it should give 2 vulnerable and weak on upgrade and always cost 1?

Thunderbolt: F
Design: C
Upgrade: B
Why do I get basically 16 damage for 3 energy? Just by not using the energy I get 24? Sure I can't focus 6 of this damage. Doesn't seem worth it.

Thundershock: F
Design: C
Upgrade: C
This card has a design flaw: Thundershock+ is exactly the same card as Thunderbolt+. There shouldn't be carbon copies of cards in a set.
The same things apply: The damage on this card is just way too low for its cost.

Zap: D
Design: C
Upgrade: E
Now Zap is a card I can get behind. Unlike Thundershock or Thunderbolt, playing Zap actually gets you more damage than not playing it. Compared to the above two, it's 3 less damage for half the cost. I would say that its upgrade is rather lackluster, only getting two damage when the average upgrade of a 1-cost card should give about ~4-5 for a character like this. (Which means that Thunderbolt+/Thundershock+ would be fair at 1 energy. Seems logical, just look at Ball lightning: it's at 7(10) damage!)

Zip: D-(C if upgraded).
Design: C
Upgrade: B
The basic card does nothing. However, the upgrade, at 2 lightning orbs, is 16 damage. It being a skill means it's balanced against Zap by being worse vs certain mobs (Gremlin Nob and Chosen, for example). Still, it doesn't work well with the starting relic: it's a dead draw until it's upgraded because of that relic.
Last edited by Aphid; 16 Feb, 2020 @ 11:48am
Aphid 16 Feb, 2020 @ 11:45am 

Uncommon cards;
This class only has 19 uncommon cards. A typical character has 35-40 of them. This kind of shows itself in the gameplay: you tend to get the same cards a bit too often. This isn't helped by many of the cards being too similar to one another.


Battery pack: C
Design: C
Upgrade: C
Given the starting relic and the large energy cost of most cards, I tend to take Battery Pack. After all, if you want to use the starting relic, you basically have 0 energy with this character from the start, making any energy cards a lot more valuable. So even though this would be low-powered in other characters, it seems okay for Misaka.

Biribiri: D
Design: C
Upgrade: B
About fair for its cost. Does not run into the design issue of Positive/Negative Field as there is no exactly equivalent skill. The high cost also means it becomes better with say Snecko.

Circuitous: F
Design: F
Upgrade: F
Why would you ever want to do this? There's no enemies in the game with Dexterity!

Electric Fence: E
Design: B
Upgrade: A
Compare this to a basic Defend. Sure, you're typically getting 3 damage too, but that for 2 energy? It's about as good as your bog standard 5 damage and defend for 1 energy, so I really don't see why this should cost 2. The upgrade is essentially required, and after upgrading you've got a card that's worse than an attack common, while not being an attack.

Electrical Fire: E
Design: C
Upgrade: B
Not playing it will typically get you more damage. The upgrade is mandatory, and when upgraded it's a poor man's version of Cleave. Which is considered a bad card.

Gekota Keychain: F
Design: D
Upgrade: F
Typically completely useless. The 2 energy and 1 card cost is typically far more than any curse is going to cost you.
There's also a bit perhaps of a design issue: A card like this would be far more interesting if there were more things in the card pool that interacted with curses (ex; giving you curses in exchange for more powerful effects).

Heroinism: C
Design: B
Upgrade: B
While the base card is hard to fit in and takes quite a while to pay off, the upgrade makes it more fair. Even so, you would not take this that often. Seems okay for its cost.

Hypercharge: D
Design: C
Upgrade: B
I wouldn't typically take this unless in a specific situation:
a: I don't have many/any draw cards.
b: I've got some of the OP card in the deck (Iron-Dust field(s))
c: I didn't get any better way of playing more Iron-Dust.
Which sort-of sets the tone for this: In this specific character, because most of the cards are useless, Hypercharge ends up being played. However, were the cards more in balance, Hypercharge would be pretty bad. Reminder: Silent gets to draw 3, discard 1, and 1 less cost, on a common. This would be okay as a 0-cost.

Iron-Dust Shield: E
Design: C
Upgrade: C
Defend tends to offer about the same value. The thorns on the upgraded version makes it a bit better, but not enough that you would actually take this. I suppose you could take this if you were forced to take bad attacks against gremlin nob. Overall, I'd say this is okay-ish if a bit underwhelming.

Iron-Dust Sword: B
Design: C
Upgrade: C
Rated so highly basically because there's no alternative. This essentially is about your only good way of dealing lots of damage.
Iron-Dust sword can be combined with cards like Rewiring to get enough attack to take on many of the scarier enemies, while mitigating damage at the same time. It's a good combo, but still not game-winning as it doesn't work against enemies that scale without gaining strength. I like this card as it is. Yes, it's currently got a high rating, but basically only because most of the cards are so bad, there's really not many ways to win.

Iron-Dust Vial: D
Design: C
Upgrade: A
The base card is excessively expensive for what it does. However, this is Mikasa's second-best card draw card, really about her only useful way of drawing cards you'll see often enough. Hence, if you have 1 or 2 copies of Overload, I'd pick up Iron-Dust vials each time I could upgrade one.

Recharge: D
Design: A
Upgrade: C
This is the first card that gets me genuinely interested. It's got a great design. Usefulness depends on what your deck is like, maximum gain is not too much, while with the starting deck it's kind of useless. What I would perhaps do to make it a bit better to start with is to have the 0 cost be on the base card and have removing the [exhaust] be the upgrade.

Rewiring: A
Design: A
Upgrade: B
This is a very well designed card
I'd pick up one or two copies in a heartbeat. I'm not sure why this is a Power, but okay. It's also not great against every enemy, but does save your hide against quite a few.

Sister Network: F
Design: E
Upgrade: C
Most fights have you fighting one or two enemies. This usually just ends up being another Wound in your deck.

Sister Noise: C
Design: C
Upgrade: C
Similar to, but not the same as Battery pack. Sister's Noise requires you to have some energy before playing it (making it somewhat worse) but its upgrade ends up being more focused on gaining you one specific resource, making it typically better again in other respects. Overall, I think that having these exist side-by-side seems fine. I also see myself picking this up reasonably often, but not too many of them, making it an okay card.

Taser: C
Design: A
Upgrade: D
This is a very cool design. Non-Boss means you can't just trivialize certain bosses to a big extent (the Heart, Time Eater most notably), and even further, certain enemies are best left with their buffs (looking at you, Giant Head and you, Transient). There's a few bugs with it. Most notably tasering Darklings does not do what you'd expect: they still continue resurrecting.

It also won't stop most enemies that gain strength over time, only reset them. Overall, I like this design. I also think it's power level, because it's so situational, is okay as well. If you want to push the use as this is one of the most interesting cards, perhaps you could have it cantrip (draw a card).

Teleporter: E+
Design: C
Upgrade: E
To me, it seems like this should be a Common, not an Uncommon. It's basically a slightly worse Blade Dance. Perhaps 3 Needles? Or, keep it uncommon, and add a secondary effect?

Thunderjolt: F
Design: E
Upgrade: C
You can have at most 2 orbs. That means this could deal say 6 damage for 3 energy. That just seems rediculously low. Also, compare to Thundervolt, which would only be worse if you had 21 energy. 21!

Token Collection: E
Design: B
Upgrade: C
If you have Iron-Dust field in the deck, you could pick this up to play that more. Overall though, the high cost makes this a less interesting card. If you can upgrade it and have one or two Sister's Noise, you can negate the cost a fair bit. But, as it's discard seek, that makes this a more limited tutor overall even, so I'm not sure why it needs to cost this much. If it weren't for the balance disparities, I would not pick this up often if at all.
Aphid 16 Feb, 2020 @ 11:46am 
Rare cards.

Electrical Storm: B
Design: A
Upgrade: C

An elegant description here, I like this card's design, it tries something new: using an X without having you pay it. It's a bit unclear to the player what the X is though. I suggest adding "where X is your current Energy". It's also fascinating that the upgrade makes is AoE, which is sometimes quite welcome, and other times you upgrade something else (already having gotten your AoE from something else).

Gekotamania: C
Design: E
Upgrade: F

This card has a bit of a design problem; It usually just draws you a full hand and overdraws you a bunch. Players typically accrue quite a few relics! That being said, with the high cost the full draw is still kind of balanced. It does invalidate the other card draw cards a bit by its existence because those too cost [2]. But, if the other draw cards cost [1] at base I can see this being fine really.

One main issue is the upgrade, you really can't upgrade the cards drawn, that typically does not do anything. Perhaps add block or some other minor effect. I would not reduce the energy cost as the existence of the other draw options in that cost range would mean creating strictly-better-than situations again.

Judgement Officer: B
Design: B
Upgrade: S

The large amount of cards given means you may have some trouble creating hand space for it. Though it can apply to the full effectiveness in the base deck, making this an amazing early game damage option if you happen to get it. It works a lot like a Bludgeon. Also interacts favourably with strength.
I'm not sure why the upgrade needs the energy cost reduction. It seems plenty to add 12 damage. Perhaps up it to 7 needles but remove the energy cost reduction. (You then get 28/42 for 3 instead of 24/36 for 3/2).

Level 6: A
Design: B
Upgrade: A

This card is difficult to use just because of its high energy cost. However, if you can cast it, you should always pick it up. I actually think it's a bit too strong as worded on the card. Then again, by upgrading it, it becomes only a [4] cost card.

This card does suffer from a bug though: It does not work properly if you have existing strength, energy, or dexterity. If this is intended, the rating should be adjusted downwards quite a bit, perhaps to a [C] or so level.

Lightning Speed: D
Design: C
Upgrade: B
Seems buggy: the Damage dealt by lightning orbs and card effects is not increased. Assuming that gets fixed: this card seems like a late-game only tradeoff. It's a bit of a problem to have so many rares be this way: the 'gain a random rare card' bonus from the whale ends up being actively bad. Overall, this is a rare I'm somewhat less excited about, but I can see the appeal in specific situations.

Lightningbolt: C
Design: E
Upgrade: A
This card suffers from a design issue: It obviates, by being strictly better than, the cards Thunderbolt and Thundershock. Overall it usually is worse than Judgement Officer, but there's a few fights where you'd want to play less cards and this ends up better there.

Magnetic Flight: A
Design: A
Upgrade: B
This is a really interesting power. It's perhaps a bit powerful, especially at early ascension. I still think it's fair, since it needs some other components to make it really shine. For example, Torii works wonders with it, reducing any hit of 10 or less to 1, giving you a whole new way to mitigate damage. I wish there were more cards that interacted with it in the set.

Magnetic Movement: B
Design: D
Upgrade: C
Perhaps a bit too similar to Magnetic Flight. Most damage in this game is from Enemies, so this just feels like getting the "weaker version", which isn't great. It really just needs a diffrent, but also interesting, effect.

Mental Out: S
Design: D
Upgrade: A

This card is fundamentally broken. It needs to [exhaust]. Any card that totally stops enemy damage does so in the base game, for good reason.

Oneesama: D
Design: D
Upgrade: C

A worse version of Infinite Blades. To me, it seems like this shouldn't be a Rare, perhaps a common or uncommon?

Overload: A
Design: A
Upgrade: B
Perhaps a powerful effect, I do like the design a lot. The drawback is pretty steep too though, so I think it's okay. Overload will pay itself back very quickly, and having two usually means going infinite if they're combined with some card draw. It gives you an alternative win condition that is pretty hard to fulfill while, whilst still incomplete, still being helpful if risky.

I think it's okay for a card with an interesting design like this to be a bit powerful.

Additionally, the 5 'damage' is really 'hp loss'. It's not stopped by block. I think this is intended (this would be an S card otherwise, definitely!). Thus the description should be changed to read "Lose 5 HP at the end of your turn".

Railgun: C
Design: B
Upgrade: A

To be honest, the titular card seems a bit mundane, having no real new effect on it. It's usually just a shockwave+ on one enemy with some damage attached. I'm more excited to try out Overload or Magnetic Flight or Level 6 than this card.

Scatter Railgun: D(E)
Design: C
Upgrade: C

I would not pick this up often. The number on it is just a bit low. There's very few multi-enemy fights with block in the game at all. All of these are in act 3 as well, where you're typically not looking for this card. The way it's worded also seems to me that damage is dealt first, before removing the block. That would mean this card is even less powerful. It doesn't seem intended, but if it is, then it'd be rated E.

Supercharge: C
Design: F
Upgrade: B

This does the exact same thing Apotheosis does. It does not seem appropriate to use up a rare slot for something you can already get anyway.

Thunder: D
Design: C
Upgrade: C

The main problem with Thunder is again the starting relic. It gives you the effect anyway, so only Chemical X can make you pick up Thunder. Yet chemical X is a shop relic, and there's no good non-rare X cards, so it ends up being useful quite rarely because of this.

Thundervolt: B
Design: D
Upgrade: A

This ends up being a better Bludgeon with an easy requirement. I'm not sure why the unupgraded version has to cost 4. It seems fine enough as a 3-cost; at the start of the game it has the serious drawback of not being usable on turn 1 anyway, and you would still prioritize the upgrade for the respectable 10 damage increase on it.









Randoom 21 May, 2024 @ 10:32am 
68 strengh on a 4 energy card ? + 6 energy and 8 dexterity .. it's not a 'b level card' it's a stupidly broken card ...
Bapphic 6 Oct, 2024 @ 12:26pm 
What the ♥♥♥♥ are you smoking to call this character weak? You find like 2 good cards and go infinite
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