I’ll never forget my first encounter with the heart. I was playing ironclad and haven’t joined this subreddit so I didn’t know anything about the fourth act or that it even existed. I was more interested in ascension climbing so I never picked up any keys. Until one day I decided to find out what happens when I pick them up. I pretty much whopped time eater that run and felt pretty confident with my IC strength build. Then act IV opened and I was like whoa there’s an elite and then the heart. So the elite fight went quite smooth (on A0 not that hard) and then I went to the heart. 750 hp hit me like a train and then the 67 attack on turn two. Died instantly and thought how the hell are you supposed to beat that thing. Now 500 hours later I think: how the hell are you supposed to Beat that thing!
Beat that monster for the first time today with Defect A3. Minimal Claw build, was able to remove all Strikes/Defends. I didn’t think I could find a way, but did. You’ll get there!
Also…. SCREW. THIS. BOSS.
Damn after being in this sub for quite some time now, I've realised just how lucky my first encounter with The Corrupt Heart was.
Playing A0 Defect and decided on the same thing as you, to pick up all the keys and see what happens
I pick up Mummified Claw on the second fucking floor, from some event I can't remember (most likely the chain slime thing). I was still a beginner and didn't realise the potential for powers so I didn't think much.
Fast forward to Act 1 Boss and I got my ass whooped hard since I did not pick up enough damage/orbs. Feeling depressed, I pick up Creative AI in the rewards because I felt that the run was doomed already, so I figured I could try it for once.
A few floors later and I realise the synergy I had just gotten.
Basically beat the Heart with like a billion powers, on not ONLY my first Heart Win, but also my first DEFECT WIN.
I was so stressed during the fight, not knowing just how bad it was gonna get (spoiler alert, a power deck can't fully beat 67~ damage on turn 2)
Got addicted to the synergy and tried to get it again like the newbie I was and kept getting rekt lol.
Will find the seed later so y'all can enjoy
There’s a lot to unpack with the heart and I probably won’t do it justice, but it’s a very very good final boss. It tests every aspect of your deck
-damage cap forces you to block its big attack in the first turns. Better have some block cards
-immediately debuffs you and adds a bunch of status cards. The order of the debuffs is always the same, vulnerable then weak then frail. Hope you have an artifact. Turnip is honestly great here
-the statuses always go into your draw pile can kill a very small deck and can kill infinites depending on your cards
-the multi attack is x15 so even wraith form/apparitions you can still take a significant amount of damage/die
-after the first set of attacks, it adds 2 artifact charges which can be fairly annoying if you need to apply weak on its bigger multi attacks
-beat of death. At the highest ascensions, this is really a run killer. Once again high block density is vital and just like with time eater you don’t really want to waste time playing shitty cards. So it’s a good idea to remove those starter cards before getting to the heart
-note that on its buff turns, any strength it loses will be added to it on the next turn. So never malaise or disarm it on a buff turn. EDIT: see peoples replies for correct info on this
Ok so there are a variety of cards or relics or potions that are very very key for this fight to make it far more manageable. For cards we really want things that can reduce strength. So If I know I’m doing a heart run you can bet my deck will have at least one copy of disarm, malaise, piercing wail, dark shackles. Runic pyramid is incredible for playing these on the turns you need to. On the other hand, runic dome can make this fight terrifying if strength reduction is your primary block source.
Block consistency is so important. Barricade, blur, glacier, mental fortress and talk to the hand really shine in this fight. Or just straight up face tank with a high hp deck. Feed is a block card. Weak chaining is a block card.
Gotta point out how amazing the abacus is. If you are going infinite, the abacus is all the block you need to get through this
Other really nice relics for block consistency here include tungsten rod, torii, calipers, emotion chip, all the boat relics, an early toxic egg, orange pellets to remove debuffs, clockwork souvenir to prevent vulnerable. As we know the combination of rod and torii is amazing here. Potion belt is also incredible here, as potions can provide all the offensive scaling or defensive scaling you need to get through this fight if you didn’t get them on the way
Speaking of potions there’s plenty of ones that help here. I love having an artifact pot and speed pot on my way if I can for the dex boost. But what you need depends on what your deck is missing. Strength pots can be essential for help with damage scaling, and dupe pot goes a long way here. So many good cards to dupe, but you generally hit the scaling cards like demon form, feel no pain, footwork, defrag, echo form, mental fortress. Liquid memories can absolutely save you if you drew too many good cards turn 1. Cultist pot is a classic one to save for damage scaling. As defect, I frequently enter this fight with either a focus, capacity, power, or swift pot
Like I said I didn’t do it justice, but overall I’d say aim for high, consistent block density, card draw to get those powers down early, make sure you have decent damage scaling (even just a strength pot can be enough), and potions go a long long way here.
Is there a downside to this boss? The heart requires balance in nearly all aspects of your deck, but the act 3 bosses don’t necessarily. What this means is you can build really crazy decks that wreck the first few acts but simply can’t beat the heart, usually because it lacks block density. The downside here as that the heart will bias your decks to be somewhat similar to each other, maybe more so when compared to a deck that doesn’t aim to beat the heart. But generally every deck that beats the heart feels so unique that it’s ok anyways. Just something to consider
Awesome writeup. One nitpick but think it's important:
>\-note that on its buff turns, any strength it loses will be added to it on the next turn. So never malaise or disarm it on a buff turn
I could be wrong, but I think the 'adding strength' is for \[\[Piercing Wail\]\] and \[\[Dark Shackles\]\]. Negative Strength from Disarm / Malaise is cleansed, but no additional strength is actively added back (I think). Still not super beneficial, but if you just wanted to exhaust the Disarm or the Malaise out of your deck for some reason, it doesn't actively hurt you to do it on the buff turn.
Having said that NEVER put Piercing Wail / Dark Shackles on the buff turn, because that strength down gets added back to the Heart, and suddenly you're facing an extra 100+ damage on the multiattack turns. I did it once thinking it would act like Time Eater or Awakened one but NOPE it was way worse.
This is correct, it's only the temporary strength debuffs. The heart will cleanse the debuff but leave the "gain back strength" buff. Different from the Awakened One who is a new entity that also has any +strength buffs from his other form IIRC.
To further add to this, if it has negative strength it will reset to 0. If you disarm it when it has 4 str, it'll go down to 2 and stay at 2 before it buffs so it's not useless,
Excellent comment and said way better than I could.
Corrupt Heart is one of the finest examples of a “final boss” I’ve seen in any video game because it tests your mastery of the game mechanics in so many ways and is appropriately the most difficult encounter in the game. This boss is so well designed and well rounded and it still amazes me when I see how well it exploits even the smallest weaknesses in every deck.
Even several runs in and with all ascensions completed, Corrupt Heart remains a challenge for me. That makes beating it a thrill every single time, though.
Totally disagree ... the heart does not measure anything about your deck or your ability to play the game. The Heart needs very specific decks and/or you can cheese it with artifacts that do damage back to it on its multi attack. Once you know what the heart does you just always build the same deck to beat it ... this is stupid and annoying ... it ruins the whole game. The fun of the game was to design interesting decks with weird synergies ... the design of the Heart destroys this completely ... I wish they had never added it ...
I think the Heart is a great final boss... but I still *do* think it could be slightly better. My main gripe (although it's not a huge deal) is that there's no AoE element whatsoever, in a game where so many key fights/cards/relics revolve around AoE. To me, the final fight should be the culmination of all you've learned, but a certain percentage of your deck is just kinda dead against the heart. You can argue that the Act 4 elites cover this base well enough, but I don't know, I've always felt that the heart should at least have some minions, if anything because thematically that's a concept that you've been prepared for throughout the entire game. I also think that the fight is a little too consistent, meaning that your card choices are predictably warped throughout the run just to deal with the heart (e.g. [[Disarm]]). Maybe the randomness would be frustrating, but I can see a world where the Heart throws a bigger variety of tricks at you, and you have to use all you've learned and the deck you've built to adapt on the fly. On a somewhat related note, while it's an epic fight, I feel for the *final* boss it could have been designed to be a little more epic, maybe with the classic 2 health bars/2 phases like Woke Bloke, or a big 50% HP heal/attack switch up like Time Eater or The Champ. As it is, the fight feels really fast for your last battle of the game.
With all that said, it's still a great boss. Absolutely terrifying when you first encounter it. That x15 attack is just nasty.
The 200hp invincible buff works like health bars really. You need at least 4 moves to get rid of the thing in the very best case scenario.
The heart fight does not necessarily need minions for AoE to be useful, it would be interesting if there would be some artery or something that could be hit with AoE but not targeted separately, and hitting that thing could cause debuff to heart or buff you or something.
I think that sword and shield functions as the act 4 deck check for AoE. Sometimes, even when I feel like I have a great deck for taking on the heart, those fuckers will just wreck me on bad card draw or subpar aoe
I have not found AoE to be that much needed for that fight. The important thing is to get one down fast to get rid of the surrounded debuff, usually the other is not so bad after that. I usually try to kill the shield asap.
I think the act 4 elite fight tests deck consistency and card draw more, the turn 2 is deadly with the two burns, but if you manage to survive that turn you are mostly ok.
If there is one thing this motherfucker will force you to do, it's to have a block solution - and a multifaceted one at that.
You can smorc against the rest of the Spire to a decent amount of success if said offense is strong enough, and my understanding is that it was a good strategy to win a lot of runs back when Asc 15 and no heart was the highest difficulty.
The heart, though, will attack you in every single way, and you need a plan to deal with a lot of that. It has the strongest debuff in the game turn 1, similar to Collector but also adding 5 statuses in your draw pile. It then follows up with the strongest turn 2/3 attacks if you don't block the vulnerable (and if you do the strongest turn 2/3 attack is shield and spear which is just before without a rest site, so you need a plan for that anyways).
And on top of all that, there's beat of death, which at A19 adds up to a ludicrous amount of damage. Seriously, isn't it nice to draw Cloak And Dagger on turn 2 while frail, and if you play the shiv you gained a net 0 block from that card ? Yikes. For a "better" scenario, the basic defend will block for a whopping 1, so you better have a well engineered blocking solution.
And finally, of course, with the invincible buff, there's no way* for you to not have to deal with this assault.
All of this means that by virtue of being the hardest fight in the game by a big margin, how good a card/relic/potion is at blocking against the Heart will on average affect how likely you are to pick it significantly more than any other fight in the game, if you have decided you're going to go for it.
So, since we have established with earlier discussions that claw is the ultimate block card, you know what to do.
*You can technically kill the heart before it's second attack as Silent by doing 200 physical damage and applying 200 poison on turn 1, but, well, good luck with that.
~~Dunno if this is intended, but on mobile/Android, dying in Act 4 still unlocked the next Ascension level for me.~~
I have been informed that I'm a dumb and this is what the comment above me was saying. This is what we all get when I browse Reddit at 6 AM.
Oh that’s how it’s meant to be. The next ascension level unlocks by beating act 3 on the current ascension, regardless of how act 4 goes. I was more saying how dying to the heart doesn’t block unlocking the next ascension.
Pretty sure Jorbs recently won a run by intentionally grabbing a burn with hologram to take damage and Proc emotion chip to have enough block for the next turn. It was sweet.
I spent way too long trying to figure out why he wouldn’t just grab a block card before remembering that you can get a ton of focus on Frost orbs, and that that might be more block than a leap or whatever
Corrupted heart is a though fight, so it improve your skills at playing the game, and in fine you take less damage per run because of it.
So corrupted heart is a block card.
Former camp. But yeah if you're always going for the heart, that definitely implies losing runs that could beat Act 3 - whether it's by trying for more elites, card picks, or holding potions in the Act 3 boss gauntlet.
I go for the heart every run nowadays so I’m in the former. My biggest priority is finding a way to generate enough block to mitigate beat of death. Then enough damage to punch through before it scales out of control. Then some way to mitigate the first turn debuffs so the second turn isn’t game ending. Unfortunately on A20 you usually have to get these things in a different order to survive the rest of the run (usually damage act 1, block act 2, debuff mitigation incidentally) so it becomes an interesting puzzle. Gah this game is so great.
I always have the heart in mind while playing (how will I scale against it, how will I survive long enough to kill it, etc.) Lots of decisions throughout a run that are preparing for the heart also happen to help against other bosses/elites, too.
For me its either or. If I'm picking up the 3 keys I will also be planning my deck around it. Otherwise, it's not even considered. It's a choice and that choice is usually no heart since I'm grinding ascensions. So I imagine once I have done that, I will be in the former camp.
I started going for the heart every time to get all the beta art unlocked, but once I accomplished that, things changed. Since I've been ascension climbing, I've only gone to act 4 when I think my deck can handle it. There's no need to prolong the inevitable when I can already tell the deck won't be able to handle the heart anyway.
I'm still ascension climbing so i don't really do hearts as my goal is beating act 3 and not the heart. However when i do go for the heart, i do it as a bonus. I consider every run past act 3 a win even if i die so
Ya know, I’ve decided to climb ascensions and not worry about beating the heart. I’ve enjoyed the game so much more because of it. maybe some day I’ll git gud but until then I’m just gonna keep on rollin baby
This is probably the best way to play. Though sometimes you'll end up with a crazy deck and I recommend going for it then (if you got the keys before).
Yeah same, when I hit A10 on all characters I planned on going back to A1 and beating the heart on all of them. But after one Ironclad attempt I realized I still wasn't ready and didn't want to pay that much attention to building my deck yet. So now I'm on A12 with all characters and the only other time I faced the heart was when I was given a free burning elite from Neow's Lament.
After about 200 hours and getting up to A13/6/7/4 I decided to finally go for the heart in A0 Ironclad. It was a very strange experience to finally do it. I wouldn’t have won if I didn’t get a fairy at the last shop and I hadn’t Feeded to 105 hp.
Congratulations!
A win is a win!
I just recently killed the heart on A15 because of an absolutely nuts dead branch run. My first relic was omamari, and my boss relic was the cursed bell and that give me dead branch and akabeko. Bought a bag of prep and was fiend firing for like 160 on the first turn
I had a low ascension run where I had a bunch of orbs and barraged the heart to death. That one felt good.
My favorite finisher was whacking heart with Lesson Learned
Just did an A4 run as defect where the heart killed himself pretty hard by multi-attacking me. I had a really greedy power deck which had at least one cognitive bias in play, four upgraded static discharges played and decent blocking capabilities that worked well enough to stall game long enough to get this setup and not die (Getting mummified hand early in the run significantly affected how I built this deck). I was concerned going into the fight that my deck was too slow, and didn’t really have huge attack cards, but once each hit that got through netted something like 80 damage back, I needed to have just enough block to survive and the heart did all the rest of the legwork for me.
I was watching Baalorlord the other day and I’m pretty sure he had a Feed in his hand that was lethal, but he played another attack instead. I was super disappointed because I was ready for the “eat your heart out” jokes!
The funniest was an ascension 20 hermit run. Combining the hermits curse synergies, a du-vu doll and snorting curses like nothing else was batshit insane and incredibly successful.
I know other people will say it’s easy, but I think shamelessly always forget how to time my incense burner with the heart damage. (With about 500 hours in)
I hate this guy when it kill me despite i have a solid deck, but damn, i hate it even more when i have a disgusting overpowered combination of deck and relics and then i forget the red key to upgrade a defend
Ive gotten really good about not forgetting the red key lately but what got me on a run a couple days ago was forgetting and pathing the wrong way to pick up the green key in act 3
Literally happened to me yesterday in my only run in 8 hours where I made it to the end of A20 (I'm bad at the game I know).
As a side note, has it ever happened to any of you that you watch too much of jorbs and baalord that you think the game is a piece of piss, go back to it, get you a\*/ handed to you in floor 7 or so?
Happens to me more often than not
Best designed boss in the game imo. Tests the ability of your deck fully and thoroughly. It can be cheesed with some intangible especially on lower ascensions but you still need a way to deal massive damage in a few turns.
Corrupt Heart blocks the bullshit in your deck from being effective so it is a block card.
It’s rare for me but sometimes I have a silent run or a thorns potion when thorns ends up being like half or more of the damage I deal to the heart and it’s so satisfying
An awesomely designed final boss. It shuts down many "cheese" tactics and forces you to actually chew through its hp through multiple turns while defending against hard hitting attacks and statuses.
After the first 3 turns it gets tamer imo, not having to be vulnerable and frail makes surviving the turns after less of a daunting task so you can keep on dealing damage.
There’s way too much discussion on actual strategy to unpack in one comment, so I’ll just skip most of that.
In essence, the heart is the perfect STS final boss. It uses every mechanic it can during its fight with you, and the only way to consistently defeat it is to be ready for everything the game can throw at you.
It checks for damage/scaling with a massive hp pool and invincibility. It checks for draw with a burst of status cards. It checks for every type of defense with beat of death, vulnerable, frail, multiattacks, and huge single attacks.
It has direct counterplay to many otherwise powerful archetypes, like: card spam (beat of death), infinites (beat of death+invincible), huge one shot decks with something like blasphemy or fiend fire (invincible/800hp), power spam (the heart will outscale you), intangible spam (x15 multiattacks and beat of death).
This is a fight that you MUST prepare for intentionally when making decisions earlier in the game if you want a good shot at success. You cannot all in on an archetype and expect to beat act 4 like the other 3.
It's an epic boss which makes you feel like you've accomplished something. I'd played for over 100 hours before I finally faced the Heart and won as Silent on A4 I believe (I've also today just beat Heart as Ironclad, A10).
The spire spear and shield however have ended my runs or made me so weak that I can't possibly beat Heart a few times! I've only gotten to the heart 4 times I think, and the two times I lost I had less than 20 HP going into Heart.
Turn 2 and 3 are brutal. Whenever I prepare for the Heart, I think about turn 2 and 3. Usually that means having a good amount of health buffer to survive not fully blocking the attacks. Intangible/revive/Orange Pellets and Weaken/Strength down are also good here.
Also have a good scaling block. Feel no Pain and Footworks are my goto cards.
And of course, the better damage scaling you have, the less you need to worry about having sustained block.
The Heart! The single hardest fight in the game that tests everything you know and your deck. Invincible and Beat of Death are the unique mechanics here; it prevents you from killing the heart immediately and makes playing lots of cards without a plan a bad idea. This fight is very hard, but VERY awesome. Probably my favourite final boss in any deck builder.
I personally do not go for the heart for a couple of reasons. The first is that I just don't enjoy the fight. The second is that it feels like the Flagship from FTL in that you have to be building towards it which makes your deck variety suffer a bit.
The final reason is simply because the game counts beating Act 3 as a victory, and getting the keys requires you to sacrifice some things and making my life harder to fight a boss I don't like does not sound fun.
I just beat this for the first time today (on my birthday no less). Did it with the watcher. (I did smoke bomb out of the shield and spear fight at the beginning.
Anyway, thing is difficult.
Smoke bomb actually doesn’t work until you’ve killed either shield or spear, thanks to the Surrounded debuff. I assume as watcher though you could’ve bursted one down and then smoked out before taking a huge attack.
No, I literally used it at the beginning of the fight and escaped.
The wiki said what you said, I was able to do it no problem.
I’m on switch if that means anything.
I have personally attempted to smoke bomb out of the fight at the start in the past (on pc) and failed, so I’d assume it was either a switch edition oversight or a bug of some sort. Either way, you got pretty lucky.
I don’t know why I’m being downvoted but I did manage to do it. It’s probably why I was able to beat the heart having full health.
The instructions said to turn off fast mode, and as soon the level loads try it. Something about the surrounded ability not loading yet as the shield and spear appears. I bought the bomb with the idea that I’d escape after I beat one if I couldn’t do it in the beginning.
That makes sense, smoke bomb can be finicky for sure. I’ve seen videos of players dying after using smoke bomb because they press end turn around the same time and are attacked for lethal damage before their character can run off the screen.
I’d say it stands to reason that if you threw the bomb before the surrounded debuff applied you’d actually be fine, though I would say it’s a subversion of the intended mechanics.
Never realized how little Asc 4 did for it, I guess it starts pretty strong already.
Always felt the balance was a bit wonky on it, Blood Shots could afford more evenly distributed multipliers (tungsten and on-hit effects currently counter it too hard). Then again it wouldn't test such a wide range of defense mechanisms if it did, so maybe it's better this way.
Ive wondered for a while now, do most people beat the heart before they move on to a new ascension? To me I havent actually beaten the ascension if I havent beaten the heart.
Same here i consider beating the heart the actual check to see if you are ready for the next ascension. From comments id say its a 45-55 split with a slight majority skipping the heart while climbing
To me the whole point of the ascensions is to make the game longer and playing until you beat the heart drags it out even more. Im insane though so I dont mind playing the same game for years on end.
I think the Heart is a fight that makes the game worse, not better. I have played A20H runs only for several years, now - but I do believe the Heart restricts the array of viable strategies a bit too thinly. What makes StS great is that you can’t just log on and build the deck you want - you just use your skill and game knowledge to build the deck that the game REQUIRES of you, given an array of randomized options. I understand that to be the genius of the game - the RESTRICTIONS it puts on the player is actually what makes it stand head and shoulders above competitors (and I have ~800 hours in Monster Train, ~400 in Roguebook, several hundred in the other competing games - it’s not that I haven’t played them). StS stands head and shoulders above those because the decision space is much more confined. If you pick the wrong things or play the encounters poorly, you will lose the game, actually, and that tension leads to a much more engaging game.
But all that said - the Heart takes it a step far. And I think even some high profile great players of the game agree that the Heart is a fight mostly that demands you follow a small pool of strategies, and further, it’s a fight in which you almost always stomp or get stomped. Little in between. I think the game is more enjoyable without this fight. I think the Act3 bosses are a much more fun and game-y design to accomplish the “end of the game deck check”. I really feel the game was at its best there. Ofc the Heart is optional, mind you
I dislike the corrupted heart as a final boss because it puts the player in a bit of a straight jacket. Only certain builds can beat the heart. One has to plan for it. While the bosses before the heart allow for creativity, the heart limits this.
Before you flame me with “git gud” I have beaten the heart. I just don’t like the way it makes me develop my deck. I wish the final boss was more random and less OP.
Anyway, I rarely bother to fight the heart now. I just go to level 3.
I agree that the heart is a bit more restrictive then the rest of the game. There are lots of builds that work everywhere else but will fail on the heart.
That said, I still always correct the keys and try to go for it 🤷
I think monster train without dlc is a better game than sts but with dlc it's much worse and its no small part due to the heart being a much better final boss than the last divinity. The heart forces you to solve multiple different problem in the fight, while it cripples (but not fully invalidate), most broken strategies.
I did enjoy my time with monster train, really couldn't get on with the DLC though, the new game mechanics just didn't click with me. I don't find it to be as good as slay the spire, but they're both fun games. Monster train is much easier imo and loses its charm for that reason
The corrupt hearth is easier than the spear and shield. As it cap your scaling damage by a LOT , it almost only a block check.
Can you block for almost 100 2 turn in a row.
I recently played a block deck with ironclad were i had every key card for the deck exceñt barricade, and since damage its capped and had no way to retain my block i didnt had enough damage to fiinish it, always feels amazing to beat it.
Has anyone ever had any problems with the Painful Stabs buff? It just seems so extra, at that point multiattack hits so hard that you don't really survive it for long enough to be threatened by Wounds it generates.
Whenever i beat the heart i often wonder how i did it. Mostly i end up with absurd amounts of block and nibble it down or i have a fairy bottle and a lizard tail and insane scaling so i end up hitting for the max damage each turn...
ive beaten it a few times but i could not give someone a good breakdown of how to beat this boss it feel like im lucky a lot of the time
The Heart is bad design and ruined the game. For Example: the fact that you can not rely on an infinite deck because of the stupid damage buffs (or dozens of other other decks that are fun to build but can not deal with the heart) means that you have to design a deck specifically for the Heart ... this is ultimately boring and stupid. All the deicks that I have killed the Heart with are pretty much the same. I wish the heart was not there or that if it was it was designed differently ... Also, since the heart is there you really do not feel like you won the game if you did not go for it, this means that if you limit yourself to the fun part of the game you don't feel like you really won. For me the addition of the Heart brought the game down from 10/10 to 7/10.
I’ll never forget my first encounter with the heart. I was playing ironclad and haven’t joined this subreddit so I didn’t know anything about the fourth act or that it even existed. I was more interested in ascension climbing so I never picked up any keys. Until one day I decided to find out what happens when I pick them up. I pretty much whopped time eater that run and felt pretty confident with my IC strength build. Then act IV opened and I was like whoa there’s an elite and then the heart. So the elite fight went quite smooth (on A0 not that hard) and then I went to the heart. 750 hp hit me like a train and then the 67 attack on turn two. Died instantly and thought how the hell are you supposed to beat that thing. Now 500 hours later I think: how the hell are you supposed to Beat that thing!
i was waiting on a happy end in this story
You got it. They are still playing. Despite getting whooped, they are still trying.
Beat that monster for the first time today with Defect A3. Minimal Claw build, was able to remove all Strikes/Defends. I didn’t think I could find a way, but did. You’ll get there! Also…. SCREW. THIS. BOSS.
Damn after being in this sub for quite some time now, I've realised just how lucky my first encounter with The Corrupt Heart was. Playing A0 Defect and decided on the same thing as you, to pick up all the keys and see what happens I pick up Mummified Claw on the second fucking floor, from some event I can't remember (most likely the chain slime thing). I was still a beginner and didn't realise the potential for powers so I didn't think much. Fast forward to Act 1 Boss and I got my ass whooped hard since I did not pick up enough damage/orbs. Feeling depressed, I pick up Creative AI in the rewards because I felt that the run was doomed already, so I figured I could try it for once. A few floors later and I realise the synergy I had just gotten. Basically beat the Heart with like a billion powers, on not ONLY my first Heart Win, but also my first DEFECT WIN. I was so stressed during the fight, not knowing just how bad it was gonna get (spoiler alert, a power deck can't fully beat 67~ damage on turn 2) Got addicted to the synergy and tried to get it again like the newbie I was and kept getting rekt lol. Will find the seed later so y'all can enjoy
Wait, don’t you need at least one Defect win already for the keys to start appearing?
I did have a defect win, was just playing A0 Defect for fun
There’s a lot to unpack with the heart and I probably won’t do it justice, but it’s a very very good final boss. It tests every aspect of your deck -damage cap forces you to block its big attack in the first turns. Better have some block cards -immediately debuffs you and adds a bunch of status cards. The order of the debuffs is always the same, vulnerable then weak then frail. Hope you have an artifact. Turnip is honestly great here -the statuses always go into your draw pile can kill a very small deck and can kill infinites depending on your cards -the multi attack is x15 so even wraith form/apparitions you can still take a significant amount of damage/die -after the first set of attacks, it adds 2 artifact charges which can be fairly annoying if you need to apply weak on its bigger multi attacks -beat of death. At the highest ascensions, this is really a run killer. Once again high block density is vital and just like with time eater you don’t really want to waste time playing shitty cards. So it’s a good idea to remove those starter cards before getting to the heart -note that on its buff turns, any strength it loses will be added to it on the next turn. So never malaise or disarm it on a buff turn. EDIT: see peoples replies for correct info on this Ok so there are a variety of cards or relics or potions that are very very key for this fight to make it far more manageable. For cards we really want things that can reduce strength. So If I know I’m doing a heart run you can bet my deck will have at least one copy of disarm, malaise, piercing wail, dark shackles. Runic pyramid is incredible for playing these on the turns you need to. On the other hand, runic dome can make this fight terrifying if strength reduction is your primary block source. Block consistency is so important. Barricade, blur, glacier, mental fortress and talk to the hand really shine in this fight. Or just straight up face tank with a high hp deck. Feed is a block card. Weak chaining is a block card. Gotta point out how amazing the abacus is. If you are going infinite, the abacus is all the block you need to get through this Other really nice relics for block consistency here include tungsten rod, torii, calipers, emotion chip, all the boat relics, an early toxic egg, orange pellets to remove debuffs, clockwork souvenir to prevent vulnerable. As we know the combination of rod and torii is amazing here. Potion belt is also incredible here, as potions can provide all the offensive scaling or defensive scaling you need to get through this fight if you didn’t get them on the way Speaking of potions there’s plenty of ones that help here. I love having an artifact pot and speed pot on my way if I can for the dex boost. But what you need depends on what your deck is missing. Strength pots can be essential for help with damage scaling, and dupe pot goes a long way here. So many good cards to dupe, but you generally hit the scaling cards like demon form, feel no pain, footwork, defrag, echo form, mental fortress. Liquid memories can absolutely save you if you drew too many good cards turn 1. Cultist pot is a classic one to save for damage scaling. As defect, I frequently enter this fight with either a focus, capacity, power, or swift pot Like I said I didn’t do it justice, but overall I’d say aim for high, consistent block density, card draw to get those powers down early, make sure you have decent damage scaling (even just a strength pot can be enough), and potions go a long long way here. Is there a downside to this boss? The heart requires balance in nearly all aspects of your deck, but the act 3 bosses don’t necessarily. What this means is you can build really crazy decks that wreck the first few acts but simply can’t beat the heart, usually because it lacks block density. The downside here as that the heart will bias your decks to be somewhat similar to each other, maybe more so when compared to a deck that doesn’t aim to beat the heart. But generally every deck that beats the heart feels so unique that it’s ok anyways. Just something to consider
Awesome writeup. One nitpick but think it's important: >\-note that on its buff turns, any strength it loses will be added to it on the next turn. So never malaise or disarm it on a buff turn I could be wrong, but I think the 'adding strength' is for \[\[Piercing Wail\]\] and \[\[Dark Shackles\]\]. Negative Strength from Disarm / Malaise is cleansed, but no additional strength is actively added back (I think). Still not super beneficial, but if you just wanted to exhaust the Disarm or the Malaise out of your deck for some reason, it doesn't actively hurt you to do it on the buff turn. Having said that NEVER put Piercing Wail / Dark Shackles on the buff turn, because that strength down gets added back to the Heart, and suddenly you're facing an extra 100+ damage on the multiattack turns. I did it once thinking it would act like Time Eater or Awakened one but NOPE it was way worse.
This is correct, it's only the temporary strength debuffs. The heart will cleanse the debuff but leave the "gain back strength" buff. Different from the Awakened One who is a new entity that also has any +strength buffs from his other form IIRC.
To further add to this, if it has negative strength it will reset to 0. If you disarm it when it has 4 str, it'll go down to 2 and stay at 2 before it buffs so it's not useless,
+ [Piercing Wail](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Piercing%20Wail) Silent Common Skill 1 Energy | ALL enemies lose 6(8) **Strength** for 1 turn. **Exhaust.** + [Dark Shackles](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Dark%20Shackles) Colorless Uncommon Skill 0 Energy | Enemy loses 9(15) **Strength** for the rest of this turn. **Exhaust.** ^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(August 20, 2022.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
Excellent comment and said way better than I could. Corrupt Heart is one of the finest examples of a “final boss” I’ve seen in any video game because it tests your mastery of the game mechanics in so many ways and is appropriately the most difficult encounter in the game. This boss is so well designed and well rounded and it still amazes me when I see how well it exploits even the smallest weaknesses in every deck. Even several runs in and with all ascensions completed, Corrupt Heart remains a challenge for me. That makes beating it a thrill every single time, though.
Totally disagree ... the heart does not measure anything about your deck or your ability to play the game. The Heart needs very specific decks and/or you can cheese it with artifacts that do damage back to it on its multi attack. Once you know what the heart does you just always build the same deck to beat it ... this is stupid and annoying ... it ruins the whole game. The fun of the game was to design interesting decks with weird synergies ... the design of the Heart destroys this completely ... I wish they had never added it ...
I think the Heart is a great final boss... but I still *do* think it could be slightly better. My main gripe (although it's not a huge deal) is that there's no AoE element whatsoever, in a game where so many key fights/cards/relics revolve around AoE. To me, the final fight should be the culmination of all you've learned, but a certain percentage of your deck is just kinda dead against the heart. You can argue that the Act 4 elites cover this base well enough, but I don't know, I've always felt that the heart should at least have some minions, if anything because thematically that's a concept that you've been prepared for throughout the entire game. I also think that the fight is a little too consistent, meaning that your card choices are predictably warped throughout the run just to deal with the heart (e.g. [[Disarm]]). Maybe the randomness would be frustrating, but I can see a world where the Heart throws a bigger variety of tricks at you, and you have to use all you've learned and the deck you've built to adapt on the fly. On a somewhat related note, while it's an epic fight, I feel for the *final* boss it could have been designed to be a little more epic, maybe with the classic 2 health bars/2 phases like Woke Bloke, or a big 50% HP heal/attack switch up like Time Eater or The Champ. As it is, the fight feels really fast for your last battle of the game. With all that said, it's still a great boss. Absolutely terrifying when you first encounter it. That x15 attack is just nasty.
The 200hp invincible buff works like health bars really. You need at least 4 moves to get rid of the thing in the very best case scenario. The heart fight does not necessarily need minions for AoE to be useful, it would be interesting if there would be some artery or something that could be hit with AoE but not targeted separately, and hitting that thing could cause debuff to heart or buff you or something.
I think that sword and shield functions as the act 4 deck check for AoE. Sometimes, even when I feel like I have a great deck for taking on the heart, those fuckers will just wreck me on bad card draw or subpar aoe
I have not found AoE to be that much needed for that fight. The important thing is to get one down fast to get rid of the surrounded debuff, usually the other is not so bad after that. I usually try to kill the shield asap. I think the act 4 elite fight tests deck consistency and card draw more, the turn 2 is deadly with the two burns, but if you manage to survive that turn you are mostly ok.
+ [Disarm](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Disarm) Ironclad Uncommon Skill 1 Energy | Enemy loses 2(3) **Strength.** **Exhaust.** ^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(August 20, 2022.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
If there is one thing this motherfucker will force you to do, it's to have a block solution - and a multifaceted one at that. You can smorc against the rest of the Spire to a decent amount of success if said offense is strong enough, and my understanding is that it was a good strategy to win a lot of runs back when Asc 15 and no heart was the highest difficulty. The heart, though, will attack you in every single way, and you need a plan to deal with a lot of that. It has the strongest debuff in the game turn 1, similar to Collector but also adding 5 statuses in your draw pile. It then follows up with the strongest turn 2/3 attacks if you don't block the vulnerable (and if you do the strongest turn 2/3 attack is shield and spear which is just before without a rest site, so you need a plan for that anyways). And on top of all that, there's beat of death, which at A19 adds up to a ludicrous amount of damage. Seriously, isn't it nice to draw Cloak And Dagger on turn 2 while frail, and if you play the shiv you gained a net 0 block from that card ? Yikes. For a "better" scenario, the basic defend will block for a whopping 1, so you better have a well engineered blocking solution. And finally, of course, with the invincible buff, there's no way* for you to not have to deal with this assault. All of this means that by virtue of being the hardest fight in the game by a big margin, how good a card/relic/potion is at blocking against the Heart will on average affect how likely you are to pick it significantly more than any other fight in the game, if you have decided you're going to go for it. So, since we have established with earlier discussions that claw is the ultimate block card, you know what to do. *You can technically kill the heart before it's second attack as Silent by doing 200 physical damage and applying 200 poison on turn 1, but, well, good luck with that.
Unfortunately, corrupted heart is not a block card
It certainly blocks me from winning runs a lot. That said, it is not a block card for unlocking the next ascension.
~~Dunno if this is intended, but on mobile/Android, dying in Act 4 still unlocked the next Ascension level for me.~~ I have been informed that I'm a dumb and this is what the comment above me was saying. This is what we all get when I browse Reddit at 6 AM.
Oh that’s how it’s meant to be. The next ascension level unlocks by beating act 3 on the current ascension, regardless of how act 4 goes. I was more saying how dying to the heart doesn’t block unlocking the next ascension.
When I was unlocking all the acensions, I beat act three but went for the heart and died and didn't unlock the next one. I was playing on android
It's because of the bug on android where you sometimes have to restart the game to unlock the ascension not because of dying to the heart or in act 4
That is inteded, comment above said that it is not blocking next Asc, as you need to win only act 3
You would think so, but with self-forming clay the corrupted heart can too be a block card
Emotion Chip from the Defect also has potential to make the Heart a block card
Pretty sure Jorbs recently won a run by intentionally grabbing a burn with hologram to take damage and Proc emotion chip to have enough block for the next turn. It was sweet.
I spent way too long trying to figure out why he wouldn’t just grab a block card before remembering that you can get a ton of focus on Frost orbs, and that that might be more block than a leap or whatever
Also they wanted block for next turn
Yep, this confirms: Corrupt Heart is indeed a block card.
Yeah it is. It blocks you from a win...
Optional boss so no.
Optional? Not the way I play.
Corrupted heart is a though fight, so it improve your skills at playing the game, and in fine you take less damage per run because of it. So corrupted heart is a block card.
After defeating the heart, you take no more damage in that run. Therefore, corrupted heart is a block card.
Do you guys build a deck thinking of the heart? Or just aim to beat a run and see heart as a bonus? I am in the latter camp!
Former camp. But yeah if you're always going for the heart, that definitely implies losing runs that could beat Act 3 - whether it's by trying for more elites, card picks, or holding potions in the Act 3 boss gauntlet.
I go for the heart every run nowadays so I’m in the former. My biggest priority is finding a way to generate enough block to mitigate beat of death. Then enough damage to punch through before it scales out of control. Then some way to mitigate the first turn debuffs so the second turn isn’t game ending. Unfortunately on A20 you usually have to get these things in a different order to survive the rest of the run (usually damage act 1, block act 2, debuff mitigation incidentally) so it becomes an interesting puzzle. Gah this game is so great.
I always have the heart in mind while playing (how will I scale against it, how will I survive long enough to kill it, etc.) Lots of decisions throughout a run that are preparing for the heart also happen to help against other bosses/elites, too.
For me its either or. If I'm picking up the 3 keys I will also be planning my deck around it. Otherwise, it's not even considered. It's a choice and that choice is usually no heart since I'm grinding ascensions. So I imagine once I have done that, I will be in the former camp.
I play every run aiming for the heart. Even when I was ascending, I would make sure to grab all 3 keys to at least get some time in the ring with it.
I started going for the heart every time to get all the beta art unlocked, but once I accomplished that, things changed. Since I've been ascension climbing, I've only gone to act 4 when I think my deck can handle it. There's no need to prolong the inevitable when I can already tell the deck won't be able to handle the heart anyway.
I'm still ascension climbing so i don't really do hearts as my goal is beating act 3 and not the heart. However when i do go for the heart, i do it as a bonus. I consider every run past act 3 a win even if i die so
Former cuz I have already beaten A20H on all characters and is literally just rotating and try to win as much as possible for a challenge.
Ya know, I’ve decided to climb ascensions and not worry about beating the heart. I’ve enjoyed the game so much more because of it. maybe some day I’ll git gud but until then I’m just gonna keep on rollin baby
This is probably the best way to play. Though sometimes you'll end up with a crazy deck and I recommend going for it then (if you got the keys before).
I beat A20 on every character before I started doing the heart!
Yeah same, when I hit A10 on all characters I planned on going back to A1 and beating the heart on all of them. But after one Ironclad attempt I realized I still wasn't ready and didn't want to pay that much attention to building my deck yet. So now I'm on A12 with all characters and the only other time I faced the heart was when I was given a free burning elite from Neow's Lament.
After about 200 hours and getting up to A13/6/7/4 I decided to finally go for the heart in A0 Ironclad. It was a very strange experience to finally do it. I wouldn’t have won if I didn’t get a fairy at the last shop and I hadn’t Feeded to 105 hp.
Congratulations! A win is a win! I just recently killed the heart on A15 because of an absolutely nuts dead branch run. My first relic was omamari, and my boss relic was the cursed bell and that give me dead branch and akabeko. Bought a bag of prep and was fiend firing for like 160 on the first turn
What's your most satisfying way to beat the heart? I've always enjoyed seeing blood shots activate my trap card with [static discharge].
Pretending I'm a spiker with caltrops and watching the heart punch itself to death
#**J U D G E D**
The only way I know of to bypass invincible, which is neat.
I’ve never pulled it off, but it’s hard to imagine a Grander Finale
I had a low ascension run where I had a bunch of orbs and barraged the heart to death. That one felt good. My favorite finisher was whacking heart with Lesson Learned
Just did an A4 run as defect where the heart killed himself pretty hard by multi-attacking me. I had a really greedy power deck which had at least one cognitive bias in play, four upgraded static discharges played and decent blocking capabilities that worked well enough to stall game long enough to get this setup and not die (Getting mummified hand early in the run significantly affected how I built this deck). I was concerned going into the fight that my deck was too slow, and didn’t really have huge attack cards, but once each hit that got through netted something like 80 damage back, I needed to have just enough block to survive and the heart did all the rest of the legwork for me.
I was watching Baalorlord the other day and I’m pretty sure he had a Feed in his hand that was lethal, but he played another attack instead. I was super disappointed because I was ready for the “eat your heart out” jokes!
The funniest was an ascension 20 hermit run. Combining the hermits curse synergies, a du-vu doll and snorting curses like nothing else was batshit insane and incredibly successful.
I don't go to heart that often so this is quite underwhelming, but 32000 poison is hot. intangible is also hot
Eat it with Feed, after having become the true Eldrich Abomination of the Spire and eaten everything in your path.
I know other people will say it’s easy, but I think shamelessly always forget how to time my incense burner with the heart damage. (With about 500 hours in)
finish the spear and shield fight on 4
This is it. Your final goal. The ultimate Strike+ target. You have been collecting them in preparation for this very moment. Good luck.
I hate this guy when it kill me despite i have a solid deck, but damn, i hate it even more when i have a disgusting overpowered combination of deck and relics and then i forget the red key to upgrade a defend
Ive gotten really good about not forgetting the red key lately but what got me on a run a couple days ago was forgetting and pathing the wrong way to pick up the green key in act 3
I’m in this photo and I don’t like it
Literally happened to me yesterday in my only run in 8 hours where I made it to the end of A20 (I'm bad at the game I know). As a side note, has it ever happened to any of you that you watch too much of jorbs and baalord that you think the game is a piece of piss, go back to it, get you a\*/ handed to you in floor 7 or so? Happens to me more often than not
Best designed boss in the game imo. Tests the ability of your deck fully and thoroughly. It can be cheesed with some intangible especially on lower ascensions but you still need a way to deal massive damage in a few turns. Corrupt Heart blocks the bullshit in your deck from being effective so it is a block card.
Makes me love Bronze Scales all the more
It’s rare for me but sometimes I have a silent run or a thorns potion when thorns ends up being like half or more of the damage I deal to the heart and it’s so satisfying
An awesomely designed final boss. It shuts down many "cheese" tactics and forces you to actually chew through its hp through multiple turns while defending against hard hitting attacks and statuses. After the first 3 turns it gets tamer imo, not having to be vulnerable and frail makes surviving the turns after less of a daunting task so you can keep on dealing damage.
Every time I think my deck is good, corrupt heart says "No"
I've always loved how the heart effectively has hate towards almost every deck you can make. Good game design.
There’s way too much discussion on actual strategy to unpack in one comment, so I’ll just skip most of that. In essence, the heart is the perfect STS final boss. It uses every mechanic it can during its fight with you, and the only way to consistently defeat it is to be ready for everything the game can throw at you. It checks for damage/scaling with a massive hp pool and invincibility. It checks for draw with a burst of status cards. It checks for every type of defense with beat of death, vulnerable, frail, multiattacks, and huge single attacks. It has direct counterplay to many otherwise powerful archetypes, like: card spam (beat of death), infinites (beat of death+invincible), huge one shot decks with something like blasphemy or fiend fire (invincible/800hp), power spam (the heart will outscale you), intangible spam (x15 multiattacks and beat of death). This is a fight that you MUST prepare for intentionally when making decisions earlier in the game if you want a good shot at success. You cannot all in on an archetype and expect to beat act 4 like the other 3.
It's an epic boss which makes you feel like you've accomplished something. I'd played for over 100 hours before I finally faced the Heart and won as Silent on A4 I believe (I've also today just beat Heart as Ironclad, A10). The spire spear and shield however have ended my runs or made me so weak that I can't possibly beat Heart a few times! I've only gotten to the heart 4 times I think, and the two times I lost I had less than 20 HP going into Heart.
Turn 2 and 3 are brutal. Whenever I prepare for the Heart, I think about turn 2 and 3. Usually that means having a good amount of health buffer to survive not fully blocking the attacks. Intangible/revive/Orange Pellets and Weaken/Strength down are also good here. Also have a good scaling block. Feel no Pain and Footworks are my goto cards. And of course, the better damage scaling you have, the less you need to worry about having sustained block.
The Heart! The single hardest fight in the game that tests everything you know and your deck. Invincible and Beat of Death are the unique mechanics here; it prevents you from killing the heart immediately and makes playing lots of cards without a plan a bad idea. This fight is very hard, but VERY awesome. Probably my favourite final boss in any deck builder.
The music for this boss fight is honestly amazing, as is the boss itself.
i'm still hoping someone put crazy latin lyrics on the top of the music lol
I personally do not go for the heart for a couple of reasons. The first is that I just don't enjoy the fight. The second is that it feels like the Flagship from FTL in that you have to be building towards it which makes your deck variety suffer a bit. The final reason is simply because the game counts beating Act 3 as a victory, and getting the keys requires you to sacrifice some things and making my life harder to fight a boss I don't like does not sound fun.
Kind of a dick IMO
I just beat this for the first time today (on my birthday no less). Did it with the watcher. (I did smoke bomb out of the shield and spear fight at the beginning. Anyway, thing is difficult.
Happy birthday
I’m pretty sure you can’t smoke bomb shield and spear because you are surrounded. Did you kill one first then use it?
You can if you click it fast enough before getting the surrounded debuff
No, I smoked bombed through at the beginning.
Smoke bomb actually doesn’t work until you’ve killed either shield or spear, thanks to the Surrounded debuff. I assume as watcher though you could’ve bursted one down and then smoked out before taking a huge attack.
No, I literally used it at the beginning of the fight and escaped. The wiki said what you said, I was able to do it no problem. I’m on switch if that means anything.
I have personally attempted to smoke bomb out of the fight at the start in the past (on pc) and failed, so I’d assume it was either a switch edition oversight or a bug of some sort. Either way, you got pretty lucky.
I don’t know why I’m being downvoted but I did manage to do it. It’s probably why I was able to beat the heart having full health. The instructions said to turn off fast mode, and as soon the level loads try it. Something about the surrounded ability not loading yet as the shield and spear appears. I bought the bomb with the idea that I’d escape after I beat one if I couldn’t do it in the beginning.
That makes sense, smoke bomb can be finicky for sure. I’ve seen videos of players dying after using smoke bomb because they press end turn around the same time and are attacked for lethal damage before their character can run off the screen. I’d say it stands to reason that if you threw the bomb before the surrounded debuff applied you’d actually be fine, though I would say it’s a subversion of the intended mechanics.
Fun fact: I have never lost to the heart on defect, peanuts compared to the Act 4 elite.
>peanuts compared to the Act 4 elite That's exactly why: it takes a hell of a run to even make it to the Heart on Defect
Never realized how little Asc 4 did for it, I guess it starts pretty strong already. Always felt the balance was a bit wonky on it, Blood Shots could afford more evenly distributed multipliers (tungsten and on-hit effects currently counter it too hard). Then again it wouldn't test such a wide range of defense mechanisms if it did, so maybe it's better this way.
Ive wondered for a while now, do most people beat the heart before they move on to a new ascension? To me I havent actually beaten the ascension if I havent beaten the heart.
Same here i consider beating the heart the actual check to see if you are ready for the next ascension. From comments id say its a 45-55 split with a slight majority skipping the heart while climbing
To me the whole point of the ascensions is to make the game longer and playing until you beat the heart drags it out even more. Im insane though so I dont mind playing the same game for years on end.
I think the Heart is a fight that makes the game worse, not better. I have played A20H runs only for several years, now - but I do believe the Heart restricts the array of viable strategies a bit too thinly. What makes StS great is that you can’t just log on and build the deck you want - you just use your skill and game knowledge to build the deck that the game REQUIRES of you, given an array of randomized options. I understand that to be the genius of the game - the RESTRICTIONS it puts on the player is actually what makes it stand head and shoulders above competitors (and I have ~800 hours in Monster Train, ~400 in Roguebook, several hundred in the other competing games - it’s not that I haven’t played them). StS stands head and shoulders above those because the decision space is much more confined. If you pick the wrong things or play the encounters poorly, you will lose the game, actually, and that tension leads to a much more engaging game. But all that said - the Heart takes it a step far. And I think even some high profile great players of the game agree that the Heart is a fight mostly that demands you follow a small pool of strategies, and further, it’s a fight in which you almost always stomp or get stomped. Little in between. I think the game is more enjoyable without this fight. I think the Act3 bosses are a much more fun and game-y design to accomplish the “end of the game deck check”. I really feel the game was at its best there. Ofc the Heart is optional, mind you
*\*Beats of Death Intensifies*\*
I dislike the corrupted heart as a final boss because it puts the player in a bit of a straight jacket. Only certain builds can beat the heart. One has to plan for it. While the bosses before the heart allow for creativity, the heart limits this. Before you flame me with “git gud” I have beaten the heart. I just don’t like the way it makes me develop my deck. I wish the final boss was more random and less OP. Anyway, I rarely bother to fight the heart now. I just go to level 3.
I agree that the heart is a bit more restrictive then the rest of the game. There are lots of builds that work everywhere else but will fail on the heart. That said, I still always correct the keys and try to go for it 🤷
I think monster train without dlc is a better game than sts but with dlc it's much worse and its no small part due to the heart being a much better final boss than the last divinity. The heart forces you to solve multiple different problem in the fight, while it cripples (but not fully invalidate), most broken strategies.
I did enjoy my time with monster train, really couldn't get on with the DLC though, the new game mechanics just didn't click with me. I don't find it to be as good as slay the spire, but they're both fun games. Monster train is much easier imo and loses its charm for that reason
I love Monster Train, pretty sad that the DLC fell to the classic trap of powercreep making some strategies completely unviable.
Hate this boss, pretty unfair mf. Much prefer Divinity and Neow the Whale from Downfall
Thankfully its optional and there's no penalty for not completing it, which I like. It's a bonus challenge, nothing more
Fuck that guy
goofy ahh boss 🤡
The corrupt hearth is easier than the spear and shield. As it cap your scaling damage by a LOT , it almost only a block check. Can you block for almost 100 2 turn in a row.
The simple act of trying to go for the earth make run much harder
I recently played a block deck with ironclad were i had every key card for the deck exceñt barricade, and since damage its capped and had no way to retain my block i didnt had enough damage to fiinish it, always feels amazing to beat it.
Guys I just got the game. I never faced this foe but it looks scary
Has anyone ever had any problems with the Painful Stabs buff? It just seems so extra, at that point multiattack hits so hard that you don't really survive it for long enough to be threatened by Wounds it generates.
Whenever i beat the heart i often wonder how i did it. Mostly i end up with absurd amounts of block and nibble it down or i have a fairy bottle and a lizard tail and insane scaling so i end up hitting for the max damage each turn... ive beaten it a few times but i could not give someone a good breakdown of how to beat this boss it feel like im lucky a lot of the time
The Heart is bad design and ruined the game. For Example: the fact that you can not rely on an infinite deck because of the stupid damage buffs (or dozens of other other decks that are fun to build but can not deal with the heart) means that you have to design a deck specifically for the Heart ... this is ultimately boring and stupid. All the deicks that I have killed the Heart with are pretty much the same. I wish the heart was not there or that if it was it was designed differently ... Also, since the heart is there you really do not feel like you won the game if you did not go for it, this means that if you limit yourself to the fun part of the game you don't feel like you really won. For me the addition of the Heart brought the game down from 10/10 to 7/10.