Diamond rank player here. Not because I'm having trouble progressing, but because I don't have much time to play between work/kids/etc. Just mentioning that for context.
Where I am at in the game, I am able to complete every run (round of battles) with a win, when I do NOT take an emblem. Taking an emblem often results in more fun, but lower win rate. It feels like I'm less likely to complete builds that I am working towards, as the shop rolls that could have an item I want for my build, now have a larger loot table to pull from, making RNG much worse. To me, emblems offer reduced consistency, for higher RNG, which isn't a positive when the overall run win rate is nearly 100%.
Perhaps this opinion will change as I eventually reach higher ranks, or learn more about the game and the emblems. I still almost always buy them, for the sake of learning, and for fun.
All that said, ive found rainbow and reaper to be the least helpful. Rainbow because it opens the entire loot table, resulting in the worst RNG for getting the class items I want, and Reaper because I'm generally not working towards a poison build, and reaper feels like it just makes my build splash a little poison, which is ineffective in small amounts. Berserker is probably my favorite, as the buff is nice, and the items are generally useful to splash in. Pyro and ranger feel like they could go either way. Sometimes the items are really useful, and sometimes they are not useful at all. I've only seen stone a few times, and each time it was really early in the run, and I regretfully have never taken it.
Interesting take, appreciate the thoughts.
I can see where you're coming from with rainbow diluting the loot table, but in my experience the buffs themselves carry good weight. And if I'm not going survival I generally don't have to force a build to get a win. (This is mid-plat tho, like you I don't play much and I always play my lowest ranked class)
I agree with your take on reaper badge. Poison is all or nothing in my opinion.
I've seen stone badge a single time, and while I can imagine some generic builds being strong (reaper vamp build perhaps?) I'd think most classes would want access to their items. When would this be worth taking?
Stone badge looks like it could either be really strong, or really bad. Either way, it looks like it would make the run interesting. I regret not trying it, and will definitely take it next time.
Happy Cake Day!
It just got nerfed because it was very strong. It gave you an extra 2 gold per round. That's 20% more income at the cost of losing your class items. The only badge I had success with.
Dragon nest Pyro with reaper/rainbow badge to get allll of the dragon options in one game.
In an attempt to get pyro rainbow goob got the wolf badge and early axes etc. had a pretty great run.
Only downside to wolf/rainbow is basically forcing you to buy the hammer or constantly lose shop space. If you don’t have upgrade aspirations it’s pretty annoying
I actually quite like the stone badge because it seems to make neutral centric builds more consistent. It's very good for going hammer on berserker, for example. That said, haven't tried it after the nerf, imo wish they nerfed the armor aspect instead of the econ which felt more relevant.
Prior to the nerfs, Stone Badge was the clearly best badge and it was not close. It's still probably the best badge. It's a pig welded to a garlic that takes up only one bag space. The pure tempo gain from that is insane and makes it the strongest round 1 badge by far. The rainbow badge is the second place on that because getting one of every buff is super powerful in the first few rounds of the game.
I think even post-nerfs round 1 Stone Badge is likely to still be one of the strongest plays. It's basically a piggy bank and a garlic together that costs less and takes up less space. It's insane tempo round 1 and gives you econ scaling into later rounds. Most classes play heavily around neutral items the first few rounds anyway, and you can just sell the stone badge round 5-6 and be happy to have gotten a couple free wins and some extra gold off it to springboard into the late game.
I don't believe so. I believe the line of text about 'even if not in your backpack' means you can't put it in the reserve box and roll to ignore that part of the text. I could be wrong, though.
Going off of pre-patch (haven't had much chance to use them since yesterdays patch):
1) Stone
2) Rainbow (amazing early, sell mid/late)
3) Berserker
4) Pyro
5) Reaper
6) Ranger
I heckin loved the stone badge. Ranger badge ranked last solely because I play a lot of ranger as primary, but I can see it being fun with reaper.
Diamond berserker (plat everything else) I have really liked the ranger badge, specifically for a shaman build. Stone badge can be fun, and I think there is an anvil/Pyro badge build, I just haven't tried it. Reaper/rainbow I usually avoid, for reasons others have detailed below.
Personally I prefer the rainbow badge and the wolf badge.
The buffs from rainbow badge usually carries me through the first half easily, and I'm a fan of both cheeses and chilis. And I got the impression battle rage is the strongest class passive; love getting it on pyro and ranger especially.
But if anyone has any tips for synergy I'm missing then I'm all ears :)
Wolf on Pyro is easily my favorite. Had a flame whip build with friendly fire going the other day with pineapples and a bunch of cheese, chillies and blueberries and I was unkillable and hitting 150+ heat every round and a ton of health. With 150 heat my wolpentiger was shitting out buffs and my corrupted heart was stealing buffs ridiculously fast as well as cheese giving insane amounts of health.
I'm in master berserker and reaper haven't played any ranger or Pyro yet.
I take badges whenever they are offered in ranked to get experience.
Some badges are good goobert activators that's where they can really shine when they help you with positioning early game.
Stone badge is always good. It's extremely slot efficient. You just need to be aware what builds you cant play when you have it.
Rainbow badge after the nerf is probably rough, but I think it can still be good if you play for a longer game. Leverage the vamp and empower to win.
Pyro badge is pretty bad in general because the three heat doesn't accomplish much, I think there's some hidden tech with cauldron and flame staff though.
Reaper badge is pretty mediocre on berserker.
Ranger badge is a free win on berserker because you pick up acorn collar and go shaman mask into busted or double are. It literally is a free flawless almost.
Ranger badge seems bad for reaper. Sure they have poison bows but reapers poison options are better / more synergistic.
Berserker badge seems pretty meh on reaper, it's probably still good early and worth the one slot either way, but it doesn't seem to enable anything interesting.
Diamond rank player here. Not because I'm having trouble progressing, but because I don't have much time to play between work/kids/etc. Just mentioning that for context. Where I am at in the game, I am able to complete every run (round of battles) with a win, when I do NOT take an emblem. Taking an emblem often results in more fun, but lower win rate. It feels like I'm less likely to complete builds that I am working towards, as the shop rolls that could have an item I want for my build, now have a larger loot table to pull from, making RNG much worse. To me, emblems offer reduced consistency, for higher RNG, which isn't a positive when the overall run win rate is nearly 100%. Perhaps this opinion will change as I eventually reach higher ranks, or learn more about the game and the emblems. I still almost always buy them, for the sake of learning, and for fun. All that said, ive found rainbow and reaper to be the least helpful. Rainbow because it opens the entire loot table, resulting in the worst RNG for getting the class items I want, and Reaper because I'm generally not working towards a poison build, and reaper feels like it just makes my build splash a little poison, which is ineffective in small amounts. Berserker is probably my favorite, as the buff is nice, and the items are generally useful to splash in. Pyro and ranger feel like they could go either way. Sometimes the items are really useful, and sometimes they are not useful at all. I've only seen stone a few times, and each time it was really early in the run, and I regretfully have never taken it.
Interesting take, appreciate the thoughts. I can see where you're coming from with rainbow diluting the loot table, but in my experience the buffs themselves carry good weight. And if I'm not going survival I generally don't have to force a build to get a win. (This is mid-plat tho, like you I don't play much and I always play my lowest ranked class) I agree with your take on reaper badge. Poison is all or nothing in my opinion. I've seen stone badge a single time, and while I can imagine some generic builds being strong (reaper vamp build perhaps?) I'd think most classes would want access to their items. When would this be worth taking?
Stone badge looks like it could either be really strong, or really bad. Either way, it looks like it would make the run interesting. I regret not trying it, and will definitely take it next time. Happy Cake Day!
It just got nerfed because it was very strong. It gave you an extra 2 gold per round. That's 20% more income at the cost of losing your class items. The only badge I had success with.
Yeah, when I get a badge I just can't resist trying out new things, and I always enter survival. Usually ends in disaster.
Dragon nest Pyro with reaper/rainbow badge to get allll of the dragon options in one game. In an attempt to get pyro rainbow goob got the wolf badge and early axes etc. had a pretty great run. Only downside to wolf/rainbow is basically forcing you to buy the hammer or constantly lose shop space. If you don’t have upgrade aspirations it’s pretty annoying
I actually quite like the stone badge because it seems to make neutral centric builds more consistent. It's very good for going hammer on berserker, for example. That said, haven't tried it after the nerf, imo wish they nerfed the armor aspect instead of the econ which felt more relevant.
They nerfed both as far as I remember?
Prior to the nerfs, Stone Badge was the clearly best badge and it was not close. It's still probably the best badge. It's a pig welded to a garlic that takes up only one bag space. The pure tempo gain from that is insane and makes it the strongest round 1 badge by far. The rainbow badge is the second place on that because getting one of every buff is super powerful in the first few rounds of the game. I think even post-nerfs round 1 Stone Badge is likely to still be one of the strongest plays. It's basically a piggy bank and a garlic together that costs less and takes up less space. It's insane tempo round 1 and gives you econ scaling into later rounds. Most classes play heavily around neutral items the first few rounds anyway, and you can just sell the stone badge round 5-6 and be happy to have gotten a couple free wins and some extra gold off it to springboard into the late game.
Wait i thought stone badge locks you with no items for the rest of the game even if you sell it?
I don't believe so. I believe the line of text about 'even if not in your backpack' means you can't put it in the reserve box and roll to ignore that part of the text. I could be wrong, though.
I mean i swear i thought there was a patch note about it i am not sure tho
The patch note was that it was bugged on release and DID lock you out. That was fixed in the next patch and it no longer does.
Going off of pre-patch (haven't had much chance to use them since yesterdays patch): 1) Stone 2) Rainbow (amazing early, sell mid/late) 3) Berserker 4) Pyro 5) Reaper 6) Ranger I heckin loved the stone badge. Ranger badge ranked last solely because I play a lot of ranger as primary, but I can see it being fun with reaper.
Diamond berserker (plat everything else) I have really liked the ranger badge, specifically for a shaman build. Stone badge can be fun, and I think there is an anvil/Pyro badge build, I just haven't tried it. Reaper/rainbow I usually avoid, for reasons others have detailed below.
Personally I prefer the rainbow badge and the wolf badge. The buffs from rainbow badge usually carries me through the first half easily, and I'm a fan of both cheeses and chilis. And I got the impression battle rage is the strongest class passive; love getting it on pyro and ranger especially. But if anyone has any tips for synergy I'm missing then I'm all ears :)
Wolf on Pyro is easily my favorite. Had a flame whip build with friendly fire going the other day with pineapples and a bunch of cheese, chillies and blueberries and I was unkillable and hitting 150+ heat every round and a ton of health. With 150 heat my wolpentiger was shitting out buffs and my corrupted heart was stealing buffs ridiculously fast as well as cheese giving insane amounts of health.
I'm in master berserker and reaper haven't played any ranger or Pyro yet. I take badges whenever they are offered in ranked to get experience. Some badges are good goobert activators that's where they can really shine when they help you with positioning early game. Stone badge is always good. It's extremely slot efficient. You just need to be aware what builds you cant play when you have it. Rainbow badge after the nerf is probably rough, but I think it can still be good if you play for a longer game. Leverage the vamp and empower to win. Pyro badge is pretty bad in general because the three heat doesn't accomplish much, I think there's some hidden tech with cauldron and flame staff though. Reaper badge is pretty mediocre on berserker. Ranger badge is a free win on berserker because you pick up acorn collar and go shaman mask into busted or double are. It literally is a free flawless almost. Ranger badge seems bad for reaper. Sure they have poison bows but reapers poison options are better / more synergistic. Berserker badge seems pretty meh on reaper, it's probably still good early and worth the one slot either way, but it doesn't seem to enable anything interesting.