Is Night Mare a bit op? It reliably does ~50 damage, and given the right set up, it can do upwards of 200 damage to every enemy. It's one weakness is not being so effective against armor. Love the mod. It's fast and chaotic. Kinda hard to keep track of everything that's happening. Human Form seems like a liability to have. I couldn't come up with a strat that uses it better than not having it. Maybe if its upgraded form had Grave? Even then, I wouldn't pick it up.

I have reduce the damage of Night Mare from 8(11) to 8(10). I also swapped the genes, making it harder to get a Centaur gene from it.

I agree that Human Form changes the way you play the character a lot but I don't think it should be overlooked. In Human Form the Plant genes give you 1 energy immediately, Harpy draws 2 cards, Beast gives 4 rage... While it does block the Form effects it does give you something in exchange.

I don't know what Ascension you tuned this for, but on A0 it's pretty busted. I breezed through all three floors with barely a scratch on me... perfected 3 elites, 2 bosses, never once used a campfire to heal. Lust with the Succubus is probably the worst offender... it's effectively -2 strength per application, and it's super easy to apply. Strength down cards are good already, and they're mainly balanced by Exhaust... the exception being Disarm on the Ironclad, which is probably busted on its own. And you can Disarm++++ every single turn with a Succubus build.

I'm on AC20 currently, I haven't beaten it yet. I haven't played a Succubus-focused deck in a long time.

What kind of deck do you have in mind? What size is it, what are its outstanding cards?

Originally posted by tuti250:

I'm on AC20 currently, I haven't beaten it yet. I haven't played a Succubus-focused deck in a long time.

What kind of deck do you have in mind? What size is it, what are its outstanding cards?

Here was my deck: https://ibb.co/HrgkThc
The relics snowballed it, but only because I wiped the floor with every elite I met. In particular, I think Charm+ is pretty crazy for a common (it's a single target Piercing Wail that doesn't exhaust, gives a ton of Vulnerable if you're running the Succubus build it's designed for, and gives you an "orb" that applies even more Piercing Wail every turn), but it was Absorption plus Loyal Companion+ that tipped me over... I rolled Succubus on Loyal Companion, so I started every fight with a Succubus, then used Absorption to apply Lust every single turn in addition to whatever I had in my Genes.

Lust is actually better than Shackled, since Shackled lasts for one turn while Lust lasts until an attack. This meant I could stack it to high heaven on a debuff turn, then stack it even more on the next attacking turn, until they were doing a consistent 0 damage. One easy nerf would have it go away every turn, I think.

FWIW, the Chimera cards also seem pretty weirdly balanced... they're the equivalent of something like the Socket cards over in the Downfall Guardian character, but they ramp up much, much faster. It never feels like a sacrifice to absorb a Gene, since they're ridiculously easy to get back, and having them dropped directly back in the draw pile means I could consistently get to 4-6 effects even in hallway fights. Maybe lower the amount they can absorb, or else put them in discard and make the gene they absorb more powerful? I dunno.

Take my advice with a grain of salt... I'm not a modder and not particularly good at STS. But even if I got lucky that run (and I likely did), waltzing through the whole game doesn't seem right.

Thanks for sharing! That run looks strong but also all over the place. One thing I notice is that the Apparitions probably let you set up the Chimera more easily and the Pandora's Box probably made it easier to keep getting orbs. I don't see a particular focus on Succubus, there are only 3 Succubus cards in the deck (excluding Loyal Companion, Gene Mastery and Crystals), that means you're probably right and there's something wrong with them. I'm surprised you didn't mention the three Stampede, that seems like something that easily solves hallway fights with Apparitions.

How should we evaluate Charm? I usually compare Channeling an Orb to activating its Evoke effect, meaning Charm applies either 3 Lust + 2 Vulnerable or 5 Lust. This Lust will eventually reduce the damage you take, we can compare it to Block or Temp HP. The amount of damage it prevents varies if you're Vulnerable, it the enemy is Weak or if it is multi-attacking. In most Act 1 fights 3 Lust will only prevent 3 damage. In Act 2 there are more ennemies that are multi-attacking or making you Vulnerable or Frail, 3 Lust is probably worth 5 Block and often 9 or more (Snake Plant, Book of Stabbing, Gremlin Leader). In Act 3 it falls off a bit but it's still easily worth 5 Block. Overall I think we could compare Charm to a card that reads "Gain 5(8) Block. Gain more Block in difficult fights. Apply 2(3) Vulnerable or gain 3 more Block." When we look at it this way it does look OP.
I think I would change it to always apply 2 Vulnerable, reduce the Lust applied to 2(4) and add "Gain 1 Block". This will make the upgrade less powerful and will make the card less strong in the situations where it is OP and still the same when it isn't.

Absorption is meant to be equivalent to Loop. When I compare the two I can't help but think Absorption is worse since Evo doesn't have Focus. You could also compare it to Metalicize, Toxic Fumes and A Thousand Blades depending on the Gene you absorb, it doesn't seem overly powerful.

The chimera cards are meant to start weak and become strong as the fight gets longer. The orbs they consume are easily replaced but the real cost is playing a weak 7 damage card with the effect of an orb you would have Evoked anyways.
Two cards you could compare the Chimera cards with are Streamline and Rampage. Those get stronger as you play them and get more strong than the Chimeras, but they require other cards to be played multiple times per deck cycle. Streamline with 2 plays becomes a 0-cost 15 damage whereas Chimera Strike needs 2 Plant and 2 Lavafolk to achieve the same effect. Rampage deals 8(+4) damage where adapting Chimera Strike with Lavafolk deals only 7(+4). Granted the Chimeras are MUCH more flexible but for that you have to select the genes you want.
If I were to change the Chimera cards I'd first try to reduce their base effect by 1 or their Adaptation cap to 3(5). I don't want to remove them shuffling back in the draw pile, that's what makes the cards fun.

TL;DR:
- Charm is probably too strong. I'd reduce its Lust by 1, remove the upgrade of Vulnerable and add "Gain 1 Block".
- Absorption seems fine to me
- Chimera cards could start weaker or have lower ceiling but I don't want to remove shuffling in the draw pile.

I think the evokes from insect form are a little too good relative to other evoke effects. There are tons of relics and powers (both in the base game and in mods--including your mod) that combo with spamming a lot of small cards, to compensate the fact that (without a combo) shiv-type effects are mostly numerically worse than regular attacks.

A single point of dexterity gives it the same block as merfolk form, a single point of strength gives it the same damage as lavafolk form (but targeted), and having beast form gives each drone the effects of 3/4 of a lavafolk AND 2/3 of a merfolk. Except that you get to choose whether you need block or attack this turn. And it's easy to generate them in bulk with the right cards. And it's easy to find yourself with multiple points of strength/dexterity.

I'm not sure there's a simple way to change this since the numbers are so low that changing them by 1 point would be drastic. Saying something like "Every 3rd insect evoke doesn't generate a drone" wouldn't be very fun. If you changed it to be unplayable and let you choose between the attack and block effects when it exhausts, that would at least get rid of some spam-card combos (like shuriken) and make your hand size a limiting factor.

I'm climbing the Ascension very, very fast with this mod (in terms of win/loss; I'm actually very slow in actual gameplay). I'm at level 14 with 3 losses.

The two starter cards are very, very powerful. They pretty much trivialize the first Act; you can go for as many Elites as the act will allow. The fact that they exhaust doesn't matter this early and is a positive later in the run.

Toxin is insane if you can get it to go off. Angel Form (I don't remember the name. I mean the card that lets you ignore restrictions) plus 2 Toxin is almost enough to hit the damage cap every turn. You can substitute Aphrodisiac for the second Toxin. It's not as good, but it's still 80+ damage and doesn't exhaust.

Dark Embrace is surprisingly good, too. I thought the 2 cost would make it unplayable (lol, why not just use Sadistic Nature? It costs 0 and does more damage), but debuffs form such a major part of this character that it's actually amazing. I just finished a run with five of them, and I just tore everything apart.

Drowning is quite good. It's like Wallop on steroids. It's also one of the few ways that the character can handle Spikers without taking a gazillion damage (the other major way is poison). Is it supposed to deal damage before the enemy can attack?

Human Form really is pretty decent. It gets much better with a second copy, as long as you can afford the energy. It's pure upside after the first copy. That said, I think it's fine. Not too weak or too strong. My only issue with it is that it does its thing so quickly that it's hard to see exactly what it did. I have the same issue with Ritual, though I admit that this might be a "me" problem.

Photosynthesis seems to be the strongest of the adapt cards. I quite like it, especially with Chemical X. Adaptation, on the other hand, seems pretty weak. Let's say you use it to consume 3 lizards. That's 6 poison. You spent 3 energy on a Deadly Poison that might not hit the target of your choice. And since you have empty orb slots, it's actually much worse: it does nothing on the turn you play it and then reduces your output until you fill those slots again. If you play Adaptation for 0 every time after that, you get a zero cost DP. That's kind of nice, but you need to do that two times just to catch up with DP in terms of cost, and you still haven't caught up in terms of damage. Do the same analysis with Mermaids, and it looks even worse. Now we're comparing it to Defend. Oddly, Lavafolk compare somewhat favorably to Rip and Tear. You don't get the strength bonus, but it'll split the damage in a more controllable way.

Shadow confuses me. I use it for a source of weak on all enemies. I struggle to see it form a major part of my deck at any point. Is this a scaling attack?

Anyway, I feel that this is a very interesting character, with a lot to recommend it. I especially appreciate the original artwork. Thanks for making this mod.

Really enjoying it! The cards I haven't found a use for yet are some of the more niche double-requirement cards (E.g. fire ants, salamander) and the cards that are in the "bad but have good Centaur synergy" category (double kick, pegasus descent).

I think i've played most what this mod can offer and I must say I really love it. Here are a few things I noticed. I will go over the rare

Adapt cards are good. Strong with genes you normally only channel on of like beast, succubus, harpy or lymean. Still good with the other genes. They need a bit of investment each fight but can become quite powerful.
Trigger-Shifts are great.

Photosynthesis is truly powerful and scales to the heavens if your deck is small and the fight is prolonged. I would say it is one of the stronger cards of this character if not the strongest.

Human form is really hard to play even if you have an energy relic but becomes more powerful the more you have of it and scales really well with most other power cards especially with Godly Power or Dark Desires. In most cases I rather take another rare at the boss than Human Form because it makes deck building complicated.

Drowning is really strong in block and merfolk decks and meh in decks without much block.

Absorption is nice for powering up genes where you don't channel more than one gene of the same type like succubus, lymean, beast and harpy. But good enough for other genes.

Broodmother is really good in insect decks (duh) but useless in decks without drones.

Eruption is really strong in lavafolk decks and in combination with phoenix and 1-2 salamanders it goes hard.

Grow is generally better than Shrink but Shrink is useful if your deck is more dependent on cycling genes than triggering conditional effects.

Lifesteal is cool in a succubus deck and becomes funny if combined with centaur bonus damage but it is one of the rare cards I rarely take.

Ritual is bad because you generally want to focus on a few genes that synergize but then have to adapt this with each genes and you can only adapt it once with each gene. Not worht the effort.

Stalker is strong in lizard decks and useless in other decks.

Stampede is strong in centaur decks and ok in other decks but there are better rare cards.
The Future is Now is meh. You have to have a lymean gene to make it ok. Becomes infinitely better with chemical x.

The Night is strong in shadow decks but useless in other decks.

Frenzy is good in beast decks, ok in centaur decks but its conditional effects is not very good. It gives rage AFTER you play it so the following attacks give 2 block each but you want to play other attacks BEFORE Frenzy. Technically it gives you flexibility but I still don't like it. Great if you have a few drones at hand after playing it.

The genes are all decent but some are better than others.
Lizard: good with merfolk (Sea Serpent is nice) and secretly busted with Dark Desires.
Merfolk: ok in itself, good with Drowning otherwise needs to be played with other genes for damage if you don't get Drowning.
Plant: Really powerful, strong synergies. Nothing more to say.
Succubus: Hit or Miss. The randomness of application can be a real problem against multiple enemies. Needs Dark Desires to become good or must be paired with other genes for damage.
Beast: Meh. You get a bit of block for attacking with a beast gene but even though you get refunds it is not that good.
Lavafolk: I really like lavafolk. You need a few power cards to make it truly good but if you get salamander 1 to 2 times and one or two phoenixes you deal tons of damage. Good Synergies.
Insect: You get Broodmother then your great, get a Spider Bite too? Then even better. A Symbiote with a few plant genes? Oh boy. Generally need a bit of investment and luck but good nonetheless.
Centaur: Hard to play. High Damage and high cost. You generally want to play on centaur card each turn for maximum damage and then look at surviving. Nightmare is the strongest centaur card in my opinion.
Harpy: Discard and draw cards. Almost completely support with Feather Storm as a notable exception. Nice if you want to cycle through your deck fast. Needs other genes to do damage or block.
Lymean: A support gene, similar to harpy. Choose what you want to draw, making it easier to control the battle. Also Antidote to remove status cards is really nice. Better than harpy in my opinion. Still needs other genes for damage and block.
Shadow: High damage spikes and an everlasting weak status for enemies? With Dark Desires, The Night and Nightmare you can do preposterous damage.

tl;dr: Love the mod. I think it has good balance even though some genes are better than others.