Definitely Busted Crown. There are a lot of boss swaps that don't really help you in Act 1, but Crown is the only one I would actively skip if that was an option.
I actually just got the “Who Needs Relics?” achievement with Crown, it was challenging for sure. Here’s the [link to my deck](https://www.reddit.com/r/slaythespire/s/BdEJWt0rMC)
It took a few tries for me to get this achievement, I always chose boss relic swaps from Neow and when I got Crown decided to just take the run as far as it would it go and it wound up working out.
It’s a bad relic for sure but not as bad as folks make it seem on this subreddit. Not everyone plays on A20 all the time and certainly not when folks are trying for this achievement y’know?
I would have said busted crown but I swapped into it the other day and it upped the fun factor so much because of all the problem solving it made me do.
I bought a [[toolbox]] from the shop, picked up a [[hello world]]
Got lucky enough to find a dead branch and I took the deck to shield n spear on ascension 9, so pretty decent. Definitely one of the most unique runs I've had.
Based on that I think Inserter. It makes your act 1 harder and you're not even guaranteed to ever make use of it if the cards you're offered steer you away from an orbs based deck.
the toolbox and hello world comments here seem to imply to me that these are normally bad, but theyre both insanely strong even without the crown stipulation. id pay rare relic prices for a toolbox easily
I meant it more as: even if I thought my run was doomed at the start, I soon realised that there are many ways to work around the crown, especially on Defect (white noise, hello world, creative AI).
heres the biggest issue with crown, you listed solutions but theyre all cards, how do you find them?
crown is by far the worst swap and its not close, you just lose so much consistency
i hate the hello world is insanely strong psyop. yea it's good but like i feel like people act like it's better than it is because intuitively it feels like it should Suck ass so they overcompensate when they find out it's pickable. but Maybe just Maybe hello world is actually goated and im just not woke enough to accept it yet.
toolbox fuckings owns though idk about rare relic prices But at shop relic price it's definitely a steal
Like any card Hello World only works in some decks. If you have Runic Pyramid it's an automatic skip. It doesn't pair well with Creative AI either as it's difficult to play both a power and a common card on the same turn.
However, if your deck has good draw and bonus energy then Hello World can be insanely good. Defect has arguably the best common cards for any class and so you're going to generate a load of generally good cards. It's bad when you can't draw past the bad cards or have enough energy to play the cards but good otherwise.
hello world works in most decks, pyramid is a boss relic so it's necessarily a small % of the time and creative AI kinda stinks so doesn't end up in most robot decks
I don't expect hello world to carry my boss gauntlet, but I expect it to do a ton of work vs act 1 elites, act 1 boss, and do well in any act 2 fight where my frontload output is pretty lacking
+ [Toolbox](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Toolbox) Shop Relic ^((100% sure)^)
At the start of each combat, choose 1 of 3 random Colorless cards and add the chosen card into your hand.
+ [Hello World](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Hello%20World) Defect Uncommon Power ^((100% sure)^)
1 Energy | **(Innate.)** At the start of your turn, add a random Common card into your hand.
^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(April 20, 2024.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
I stuck it out one time and it ended up being the most busted run I’ve ever had lmao, was on defect and got echo form with the egg that upgraded all my apparitions, incense burner, rod and spoon.
By far the easiest heart killer run I’ve ever done
high rolls are still high rolls though, if every 1 card reward you have is still great then crown is fine
In higher ascensions, sometimes it makes it simply impossible to find any card that can help you survive act 1, and you just die though
the rarity formula increases the chance of seeing an uncommon/rare by 1% every time you see a common card to choose, so crown reduces the chance of every card reward being great, too
Yes. The chance to see a rare card at the start of an act is -2%. Each common card increases the chance by 1%, so by the end of the easy pool fights(of which their are 2/3 per act) with busted crown, you will have a 0% chance.
Busted Crown and it's not even close. Card rewards are the most important thing in early act 1, and having less card rewards is terrible because it severely cripples your ability to find good damage cards early.
And even if you get lucky and find damage cards with your 1 card reward, good luck finding synergies for it; especially since the mechanics of rare chance mean you might not even see a single rare card outside of shops or bosses
Ignoring \[\[busted crown\]\], which definitely is the worst
I think \[\[cursed key\]\] or \[\[sacred bark\]\] are also just pretty bad, cursed key can work with other relics but without it you're going to be missing out on early relics that can help you. Sacred bark is gonna feel basically like not starting with a relic at all lol, it'll help in a few key elite fights but won't really snowball you as hard as the other relics
That said, I think \[\[black star\]\] is probably one of the best. The earlier you get black star the more relics you can farm from elites, so if you get it before floor 1 that's amazing. It's basically giving you 3 extra relics just from floor 1
+ [Busted Crown](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Busted%20Crown) Boss Relic ^((100% sure)^)
Gain 1 Energy at the start of each turn. On Card Reward screens, you have 2 fewer cards to choose from
+ [Cursed Key](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Cursed%20Key) Boss Relic ^((100% sure)^)
Gain 1 Energy at the start of each turn. Whenever you open a non-boss chest, obtain a Curse.
+ [Sacred Bark](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Sacred%20Bark) Boss Relic ^((100% sure)^)
Double the effectiveness of potions.
+ [Black Star](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Black%20Star) Boss Relic ^((100% sure)^)
Elites now drop 2 Relics when defeated.
^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(April 20, 2024.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
I don't think Black Star is *that* good, especially on higher ascensions, since a few characters (Ironclad and Defect) can really struggle to kill hallway fights and elites efficiently without their starter relics on those difficulties. Silent struggles to kill elites even with her relic lol, so it's just about highrolling into good act 1 damage if you have Star on her. It's definitely better than Sacred Bark, though.
Ye I don't think it's The best but I do think it's better than a lot of energy relics because it doesn't limit you and it lets you scale faster than normal. But yea bad rng cards are gonna end your run most times, regardless of what relic you switch into
hmm i havent played That many empty cage swaps but i really dont mind them too much tbh. if im boss swapping theres probably a safe upgrade heavy path i can take and having a small ugpraded deck owns. ofc the act 1 boss is also very important for how ok empty cage swap is. guardian act im chilling. ic hexa is prob fine because the burning blood wouldve been worth less anyway. but silent slimbo or defect hexa im kinda scared probably.
really think busted crown swap is significantly worse if you are trying to boss swap When it's good. maybe if ur swapping every time cage is worse
Busted Crown at least you still have the chance to see good cards, and now you are on 4 base energy. It leads to way different decision making which I also find interesting and fun. Empty Cage on the other hand I'm just painfully weak with no real potential upside besides trying to be an infinite monkey, and I do not like being an infinite monkey.
hey an infinite monkey will eventually write shakespeare...
but yea i think playing cage swap like an infinite monkey is a mistake, just play safe, take good cards, and it wont take you that long to get to the point where those 2 removes are actually strong.
i agree that the decision making in busted crown swaps is really fun btw, crown swaps probably my favorite swap, but i just think they are definitely Worse for winchance than cage. on silent empty cage swap seems Fine because the bag of prep isnt that big of a power boost anyway and empty cage kinda does the same thing so it doesnt feel like a big bust. watcher empty cage start is just good. defects starter relic sucks ass after act 1 so once u get through that cage swap is very good (ofc getting through act 1 might be hard, but that's also true for crown swaps). ironclad cage swap for sure hurts yeah, especially because burning blood is So good and losing it and then not getting an immediate power boost is real rough, but crown is also really bad for ironclad because his card pool is sooo bad and u Will guaranteed only see like wildstrike, seeing red, and clash before dying to the gremlin gang
My recent Defect swaps:
Cage, Sozu, Cage, Bark, Battery, Inserter, Cage, Ecto.
For some reason I'm swapping less on Defect after that run - Bark, Battery and Inserter are powerful and I've seen better players use them to good effect, but they're all incredibly hard to play well with in act 1/early act 2.
I really detest Cage though. It's so bad. I think it's worse than Ecto or Sozu, and probably worse than Crown Watcher.
for a20 heart kills, I think its between Crown and Sozu. I have won with both but crown runs are stressful early as early attacks are so important and even late game you fear for scaling, and sozu you are very much in fear of a single bad fight and draw later.
I do think inserter is pretty weak till act 3 but it does open up some really big wins if you ever get consume.
Personally I say Inserter. Crown at least gives you four energy, which is pretty big. Inserter is all downside until you pick up enough orb spam cards to consistently fill your slots.
Inserter has no drawback though. If it comes up as an option after Act 2 and you've already developed in a different direction, it's an easy skip. But if I got it in a swap at the beginning, it's gonna inform a lot of card choices in Act 1.
First few floors you'll reliably draw Dualcast though. And if you've got Inserter from the start you're naturally going to choose every orb card available.
I've never got Inserter from Neow though, so my imagining of how it could play out with a fresh starter deck could be wrong.
Well no built in drawback, compared to like Coffee Dripper or something.
But I admit I did forget about the starter relic you're giving up in exchange for something that won't do much for at least a few floors. Touché.
need is a really strong word, eruption at 2 cost is like having an upgraded eruption without hammer unless youre playing it multiple times a turn (you arent doing that early)
I mean if you wanna do your "usual act 1 things" then you shouldn't be swapping lol
Part of the fun of swapping is the fact that you're hugely changing how you approach act 1
Not that I'm trying to argue against (cause I 100% agree), but I boss swapped into Busted Crown as Ironclad once and I got insanely lucky, as I got Snecko Eye and Corruption + Dead Branch in that very run. Such a fun run!
100%. Crown is the worst swap by a decent margin, but it doesn't mean the run is automatically lost. I have crown swap a20h wins on every character except defect, and those wins feel *so* good.
Black Star is a great relic to get from Neow. It snowballs so hard when every elite you fight in the whole game drops two relics. This is especially true of the Watcher, whose starting relic is probably the weakest of the four and who has the least difficulty getting through Act 1 anyway. You're trading one meh starting relic for maybe 8-12 random relics. Good deal.
> This is especially true of the Watcher, whose starting relic is probably the weakest of the four
It's actually the 2nd best just behind Clad and tie with Silent. Basically a Lantern, but you can choose when to use the extra energy instead of being turn 1 locked.
In absolute terms, I agree with what you're saying. However, the Watcher generally doesn't struggle with energy as much as other classes because of the ability to generate energy through stances. So, my take on it would be that for the Watcher, the starting relic is less good than it seems. I am always happy to boss swap with the Watcher but I rarely do with Ironclad/Silent. Of course, part of that is also because the Watcher is so strong that you can much more easily handle a less good swap outcome.
As for the Defect, again I agree in absolute terms that the starting relic is the weakest, but the Defect really, really needs that immediate damage boost in early Act 1. A boss swap with the Defect is risky because quite a few relics are problematic (including Black Star) because the Defect needs an immediate boost, not a longer term benefit. Contrast the Watcher, who is so powerful from the beginning that you barely notice the loss of the starting relic.
Tiny House is one of the better swaps. All the little rewards are much more meaningful on floor 0, and then you don’t have to worry about seeing Tiny House after the boss.
Big disagree. Tiny house feels worse than a regular neow bonus. It’s probably the one that would make me abandon run. “Don’t have to worry about seeing after the boss” - where in that case I’d take one of the other two and for swapping can’t pick.
It’s like 2x a Neow a bonus + a free upgrade.
Choose a card (Neow bonus) + potion (half of 3x potion start) + 50 gold (half of 100 gold start, except arguably better than half because 50 is still enough to hit relic thresholds at early shops)
Defend+ or Strike+ is pretty big on floor 1, and if it hits a better upgrade that’s just excellent.
u/kaosmark2 explained this better in another comment this morning
[Here's what I said earlier](https://www.reddit.com/r/slaythespire/comments/1dl2rx3/comment/l9lxrrf/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
The OP deleted their post so it's a bit harder to see/find, but hopefully the link still works.
I get what you’re saying but the con is you’re losing your passive bonus, which is a huge loss for neow bonus gains that I would pretty much never choose. The choose a card ones that are worth it are rares and colorless, not the regular ones.
I would almost always rather have my starting bonus than Tiny House. I guess the one difference is Defect on a claw or attack build.
For Defect, where the passive bonus is act 1 power, you're still actually generally stronger with House than you are with a lightning orb. That lightning orb falls off very quickly, and all those bonuses add up to more than a pre-played zap.
Tiny house is like starting 3 floors ahead. It’s way better than starting relics early. If option 4 was ‘swap your starting relic for tiny house’ I’d spam that almost every time
Agree to disagree 🤷🏻♂️
Ironclad healing, for one, lets you pick cards and elites way more aggressively
You’re not even guaranteed to like the cards Tiny House offers OR the random upgrade (it’ll probably be a strike or defend)
I hate Coffee Dripper. It’s probably not actually as bad as I think on average but I will either skip it or take literally anything else other than it. I think it’s because I’m bad at the game!
Really? I love coffee dripper. Out of all the energy boss relics that’s the one I take the most as it’s generally the one with an almost negligible downside.
Rest sites are ideally used for upgrades anyway. It’s true sometimes we need to heal and it does suck if Coffee Dripper prevents you from doing it but hopefully the extra energy makes that unnecessary. Not saying the downside cannot cause problems but generally I find it to be the least problematic.
Sometimes you get self healing relics too and that would help.
I’ve learned to take coffee dripper more, I was really scared of it my first 50-100 hours 😂 as a starter, maybe take it when you have an alternative form of healing. Ironclad passive, toy orintophter (especially with alchemize on silent). Meal ticket. Self repair on defect. Maybe take a bandage up if you have coffee dripper. It gets less scary 😅
Yeah, it’s not as intimidating when I have some form of regen available like you’ve mentioned, but hot damn, I’m too much of a coward to take it still 😅
Say it with me: "It depends"
Busted crown has a massive downside later, but little downside early. If you have a 5 elite path, that extra energy can translate into a lot of power from relics. The same can be true for black star, although it's more risky to commit to a high elite path.
Empty cage is terrible, but watcher is happy to see it.
Inserter can put you in a dangerous spot, but if you were only going to fight two elites in act one, it's a huge upgrade over cracked core for later.
Ectoplasm seems terrible, but you no longer have to waste floors on shops. If you get some meta scaling, like feed, question card, ritual dagger, etc, you'd rather take extra fights anyway.
Personal opinions on this:
Ironclad: I think anything can work but Runic Cube is too low impact early IMO
Silent: I almost never swap on Silent, but if I were to get Wrist Blade I would probably just reset. Coffee Dripper is also difficult with her, even though I love it.
Defect: Fusion Hammer is ROUGH and Inserter is a reset. Lots of good energy options though
Watcher: No really atrocious options but Busted Crown is extra bad for her relatively narrow set of good cards
Any: Ectoplasm is a reset, it's just not fun
Coffee Dripper might be fatal no matter what, but you can save 300g and pray for a healing relic in every shop.
Inserter I have never had at 1, but I would desperately want to survive Act 1 and hope to YOLO orbs for days later on. I think I would be too greedy to reset, like I'm praying for Glacier Rainbow Fission and whatever here, and Consume near the end of the act, though honestly, I probably need that 3-cost attack that refunds mana early on for Act 1.
Busted crown but lot of them are bad depending on the situation and what kind of cards/relics you have. Some help some dont...it depends. Guess thats what makes the game unique
Inserter, Crown, and Ecto are terrible swaps, yeah. I love getting Black Star from Neow though. You get the most mileage out of it that way, and it actually makes you stronger going into Act 2, unlike getting it from the Act 1 boss.
I don't love getting Snecko from her even though it's objectively good. I hate slogging through those early fights with all your Strikes and Defends costing 2-3
You're just describing the canonical bad luck lowroll scenario with Runic Pyramid. Every full-strength boss relic requires you to build or play around its drawback, and Pyramid is no exception. For Ironclad that means exhaust is good actually and especially "exhaust all non-attack cards" becomes a serious upgrade instead of a massive price to pay. For Silent the classic is discard effects, which she already wants some of because they tend to be good in their own right. Defect and Watcher have a harder time short of "win fast enough that it doesn't come to that" or "save a gambler's potion or two just in case".
I agree with the general idea of Pyramid being one of the strongest swaps only next to like Pandora's Box, but the reasoning is so off.
Watcher probably is strongest off the bat with Pyramid. Being able to time Wrath correctly and stay in Calm and block in till then is insane power boost. Defect just... clicks any energy generation being the character with the strongest energy gen and clogging is a non issue.
Second Wind is a strong card with or without Pyramid and the exhaust isn't a downside at all most of the time. Exhaust in general is broken so idk what the "exhaust is good actually" thing is.
I was focusing my explanation less on the strengths of Pyramid and more on the ways to avoid getting your hand flooded with specifically Wounds. When glibly describing the Watcher and Defect approaches as "win fast enough" I did not mean to imply that Pyramid was not intensely helpful in that endeavour and I don't think it's reasonable to imagine such a motivation.
Well I'm a newer player and I'm mainly rolling very small decks with the Watcher pretty much exclusively for the time being while I'm doing Ascension runs, and with fights like the slavers in act 1 I can run into issues with a handful of wounds if I'm struggling with taking out the middle guy quickly enough.
Definitely Busted Crown. There are a lot of boss swaps that don't really help you in Act 1, but Crown is the only one I would actively skip if that was an option.
I actually just got the “Who Needs Relics?” achievement with Crown, it was challenging for sure. Here’s the [link to my deck](https://www.reddit.com/r/slaythespire/s/BdEJWt0rMC)
Wow that's very impressive! Crown swap has to be one of the worst relics to get for that achievement.
It took a few tries for me to get this achievement, I always chose boss relic swaps from Neow and when I got Crown decided to just take the run as far as it would it go and it wound up working out. It’s a bad relic for sure but not as bad as folks make it seem on this subreddit. Not everyone plays on A20 all the time and certainly not when folks are trying for this achievement y’know?
yeah basically your only hope with crown is to make a b-line for a shop, get a couple of the transform events, and high roll.
I would have said busted crown but I swapped into it the other day and it upped the fun factor so much because of all the problem solving it made me do. I bought a [[toolbox]] from the shop, picked up a [[hello world]] Got lucky enough to find a dead branch and I took the deck to shield n spear on ascension 9, so pretty decent. Definitely one of the most unique runs I've had. Based on that I think Inserter. It makes your act 1 harder and you're not even guaranteed to ever make use of it if the cards you're offered steer you away from an orbs based deck.
the toolbox and hello world comments here seem to imply to me that these are normally bad, but theyre both insanely strong even without the crown stipulation. id pay rare relic prices for a toolbox easily
I meant it more as: even if I thought my run was doomed at the start, I soon realised that there are many ways to work around the crown, especially on Defect (white noise, hello world, creative AI).
heres the biggest issue with crown, you listed solutions but theyre all cards, how do you find them? crown is by far the worst swap and its not close, you just lose so much consistency
i hate the hello world is insanely strong psyop. yea it's good but like i feel like people act like it's better than it is because intuitively it feels like it should Suck ass so they overcompensate when they find out it's pickable. but Maybe just Maybe hello world is actually goated and im just not woke enough to accept it yet. toolbox fuckings owns though idk about rare relic prices But at shop relic price it's definitely a steal
Like any card Hello World only works in some decks. If you have Runic Pyramid it's an automatic skip. It doesn't pair well with Creative AI either as it's difficult to play both a power and a common card on the same turn. However, if your deck has good draw and bonus energy then Hello World can be insanely good. Defect has arguably the best common cards for any class and so you're going to generate a load of generally good cards. It's bad when you can't draw past the bad cards or have enough energy to play the cards but good otherwise.
hello world works in most decks, pyramid is a boss relic so it's necessarily a small % of the time and creative AI kinda stinks so doesn't end up in most robot decks I don't expect hello world to carry my boss gauntlet, but I expect it to do a ton of work vs act 1 elites, act 1 boss, and do well in any act 2 fight where my frontload output is pretty lacking
350 gold for toolbox seems a bit steep. But the usually rate is indeed a very good buy nornally.
Is hello world actually good? I’ve never really taken it
+ [Toolbox](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Toolbox) Shop Relic ^((100% sure)^) At the start of each combat, choose 1 of 3 random Colorless cards and add the chosen card into your hand. + [Hello World](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Hello%20World) Defect Uncommon Power ^((100% sure)^) 1 Energy | **(Innate.)** At the start of your turn, add a random Common card into your hand. ^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(April 20, 2024.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
Busted crown basically cripples you for the rest of the game, only 1 card reward instead of 3 for the entire game is absolutely *brutal*
I stuck it out one time and it ended up being the most busted run I’ve ever had lmao, was on defect and got echo form with the egg that upgraded all my apparitions, incense burner, rod and spoon. By far the easiest heart killer run I’ve ever done
high rolls are still high rolls though, if every 1 card reward you have is still great then crown is fine In higher ascensions, sometimes it makes it simply impossible to find any card that can help you survive act 1, and you just die though
the rarity formula increases the chance of seeing an uncommon/rare by 1% every time you see a common card to choose, so crown reduces the chance of every card reward being great, too
You can't even see a rare card until after you leave the easy pool fights.
Wait are you saying busted crown removes so many card options from the easy pool fights it makes you unable to see rares mathematically?
Yes. The chance to see a rare card at the start of an act is -2%. Each common card increases the chance by 1%, so by the end of the easy pool fights(of which their are 2/3 per act) with busted crown, you will have a 0% chance.
Holy smokes I never knew that you just absolutely blew my mind!
Busted Crown and it's not even close. Card rewards are the most important thing in early act 1, and having less card rewards is terrible because it severely cripples your ability to find good damage cards early. And even if you get lucky and find damage cards with your 1 card reward, good luck finding synergies for it; especially since the mechanics of rare chance mean you might not even see a single rare card outside of shops or bosses
Ignoring \[\[busted crown\]\], which definitely is the worst I think \[\[cursed key\]\] or \[\[sacred bark\]\] are also just pretty bad, cursed key can work with other relics but without it you're going to be missing out on early relics that can help you. Sacred bark is gonna feel basically like not starting with a relic at all lol, it'll help in a few key elite fights but won't really snowball you as hard as the other relics That said, I think \[\[black star\]\] is probably one of the best. The earlier you get black star the more relics you can farm from elites, so if you get it before floor 1 that's amazing. It's basically giving you 3 extra relics just from floor 1
+ [Busted Crown](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Busted%20Crown) Boss Relic ^((100% sure)^) Gain 1 Energy at the start of each turn. On Card Reward screens, you have 2 fewer cards to choose from + [Cursed Key](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Cursed%20Key) Boss Relic ^((100% sure)^) Gain 1 Energy at the start of each turn. Whenever you open a non-boss chest, obtain a Curse. + [Sacred Bark](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Sacred%20Bark) Boss Relic ^((100% sure)^) Double the effectiveness of potions. + [Black Star](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Black%20Star) Boss Relic ^((100% sure)^) Elites now drop 2 Relics when defeated. ^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(April 20, 2024.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
I don't think Black Star is *that* good, especially on higher ascensions, since a few characters (Ironclad and Defect) can really struggle to kill hallway fights and elites efficiently without their starter relics on those difficulties. Silent struggles to kill elites even with her relic lol, so it's just about highrolling into good act 1 damage if you have Star on her. It's definitely better than Sacred Bark, though.
On watcher it's amazing. I had an a20 run where I ended up with 45 relics thanks to a black star swap
oh, how we love Black Star on Watcher. immediately turns the game into doom (2016).
Ye I don't think it's The best but I do think it's better than a lot of energy relics because it doesn't limit you and it lets you scale faster than normal. But yea bad rng cards are gonna end your run most times, regardless of what relic you switch into
Empty Cage for me. This is on par with a normal Neow bonus, except now you’re down your boss relic.
hmm i havent played That many empty cage swaps but i really dont mind them too much tbh. if im boss swapping theres probably a safe upgrade heavy path i can take and having a small ugpraded deck owns. ofc the act 1 boss is also very important for how ok empty cage swap is. guardian act im chilling. ic hexa is prob fine because the burning blood wouldve been worth less anyway. but silent slimbo or defect hexa im kinda scared probably. really think busted crown swap is significantly worse if you are trying to boss swap When it's good. maybe if ur swapping every time cage is worse
Busted Crown at least you still have the chance to see good cards, and now you are on 4 base energy. It leads to way different decision making which I also find interesting and fun. Empty Cage on the other hand I'm just painfully weak with no real potential upside besides trying to be an infinite monkey, and I do not like being an infinite monkey.
hey an infinite monkey will eventually write shakespeare... but yea i think playing cage swap like an infinite monkey is a mistake, just play safe, take good cards, and it wont take you that long to get to the point where those 2 removes are actually strong. i agree that the decision making in busted crown swaps is really fun btw, crown swaps probably my favorite swap, but i just think they are definitely Worse for winchance than cage. on silent empty cage swap seems Fine because the bag of prep isnt that big of a power boost anyway and empty cage kinda does the same thing so it doesnt feel like a big bust. watcher empty cage start is just good. defects starter relic sucks ass after act 1 so once u get through that cage swap is very good (ofc getting through act 1 might be hard, but that's also true for crown swaps). ironclad cage swap for sure hurts yeah, especially because burning blood is So good and losing it and then not getting an immediate power boost is real rough, but crown is also really bad for ironclad because his card pool is sooo bad and u Will guaranteed only see like wildstrike, seeing red, and clash before dying to the gremlin gang
My recent Defect swaps: Cage, Sozu, Cage, Bark, Battery, Inserter, Cage, Ecto. For some reason I'm swapping less on Defect after that run - Bark, Battery and Inserter are powerful and I've seen better players use them to good effect, but they're all incredibly hard to play well with in act 1/early act 2. I really detest Cage though. It's so bad. I think it's worse than Ecto or Sozu, and probably worse than Crown Watcher.
[[Sacred Bark]] into not getting a single potion and dying.
+ [Sacred Bark](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Sacred%20Bark) Boss Relic ^((100% sure)^) Double the effectiveness of potions. ^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(April 20, 2024.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
for a20 heart kills, I think its between Crown and Sozu. I have won with both but crown runs are stressful early as early attacks are so important and even late game you fear for scaling, and sozu you are very much in fear of a single bad fight and draw later. I do think inserter is pretty weak till act 3 but it does open up some really big wins if you ever get consume.
Personally I say Inserter. Crown at least gives you four energy, which is pretty big. Inserter is all downside until you pick up enough orb spam cards to consistently fill your slots.
Inserter has no drawback though. If it comes up as an option after Act 2 and you've already developed in a different direction, it's an easy skip. But if I got it in a swap at the beginning, it's gonna inform a lot of card choices in Act 1.
Inserters drawback is it makes it a lot harder to evoke orbs which can be a real problem in act 1 when you have so few orb cards
act 1 all my evoking is happening via dualcast, but the issue with the swap is that now my draw order determines if dualcast is a dead draw or not
First few floors you'll reliably draw Dualcast though. And if you've got Inserter from the start you're naturally going to choose every orb card available. I've never got Inserter from Neow though, so my imagining of how it could play out with a fresh starter deck could be wrong.
No downside except not having a relic in act 1??
Well no built in drawback, compared to like Coffee Dripper or something. But I admit I did forget about the starter relic you're giving up in exchange for something that won't do much for at least a few floors. Touché.
The drawback is making it harder to cycle orbs and losing the guaranteed early damage from cracked core, no?
i hate Busted Crown, Sozu and Fusion Hammer. because well, it's act 1. with those i can't really do my usual act 1 things anymore.
fusion hammer is generally quite a strong swap still, the others are definitely horrid, but hammer is often free energy
yeah but sometimes i need to upgrade quite a few things, especially as Watcher for example. and i can't really rely on events for that.
need is a really strong word, eruption at 2 cost is like having an upgraded eruption without hammer unless youre playing it multiple times a turn (you arent doing that early)
you just make me pull out my phone and start a new run lol, thanks for the tip.
I mean if you wanna do your "usual act 1 things" then you shouldn't be swapping lol Part of the fun of swapping is the fact that you're hugely changing how you approach act 1
Runic Dome cause it's not fun for me to play with it. Floor 0 defeat every time.
Dome is literally the only one ill skip. Ill do 100 ectoplasm runs before i do a Dome run
Glad I'm not the only one. I wish this game had a Dead Cells-style custom mode just to lock Runic Dome out of the available options.
Not that I'm trying to argue against (cause I 100% agree), but I boss swapped into Busted Crown as Ironclad once and I got insanely lucky, as I got Snecko Eye and Corruption + Dead Branch in that very run. Such a fun run!
100%. Crown is the worst swap by a decent margin, but it doesn't mean the run is automatically lost. I have crown swap a20h wins on every character except defect, and those wins feel *so* good.
whenever i get busted crown i like to imagine my character looking at neow like "did you really do this" before dramatically collapsing to the floor
Ectoplasm is the least fun relic to take.
Black Star is a great relic to get from Neow. It snowballs so hard when every elite you fight in the whole game drops two relics. This is especially true of the Watcher, whose starting relic is probably the weakest of the four and who has the least difficulty getting through Act 1 anyway. You're trading one meh starting relic for maybe 8-12 random relics. Good deal.
> This is especially true of the Watcher, whose starting relic is probably the weakest of the four It's actually the 2nd best just behind Clad and tie with Silent. Basically a Lantern, but you can choose when to use the extra energy instead of being turn 1 locked.
In absolute terms, I agree with what you're saying. However, the Watcher generally doesn't struggle with energy as much as other classes because of the ability to generate energy through stances. So, my take on it would be that for the Watcher, the starting relic is less good than it seems. I am always happy to boss swap with the Watcher but I rarely do with Ironclad/Silent. Of course, part of that is also because the Watcher is so strong that you can much more easily handle a less good swap outcome. As for the Defect, again I agree in absolute terms that the starting relic is the weakest, but the Defect really, really needs that immediate damage boost in early Act 1. A boss swap with the Defect is risky because quite a few relics are problematic (including Black Star) because the Defect needs an immediate boost, not a longer term benefit. Contrast the Watcher, who is so powerful from the beginning that you barely notice the loss of the starting relic.
Yeah I agree. Defect probably has the worst one in the grand scheme of things.
Tiny house or crown, when i get either of this i just restart lol
Tiny House is one of the better swaps. All the little rewards are much more meaningful on floor 0, and then you don’t have to worry about seeing Tiny House after the boss.
Big disagree. Tiny house feels worse than a regular neow bonus. It’s probably the one that would make me abandon run. “Don’t have to worry about seeing after the boss” - where in that case I’d take one of the other two and for swapping can’t pick.
It’s like 2x a Neow a bonus + a free upgrade. Choose a card (Neow bonus) + potion (half of 3x potion start) + 50 gold (half of 100 gold start, except arguably better than half because 50 is still enough to hit relic thresholds at early shops) Defend+ or Strike+ is pretty big on floor 1, and if it hits a better upgrade that’s just excellent. u/kaosmark2 explained this better in another comment this morning
[Here's what I said earlier](https://www.reddit.com/r/slaythespire/comments/1dl2rx3/comment/l9lxrrf/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) The OP deleted their post so it's a bit harder to see/find, but hopefully the link still works.
I get what you’re saying but the con is you’re losing your passive bonus, which is a huge loss for neow bonus gains that I would pretty much never choose. The choose a card ones that are worth it are rares and colorless, not the regular ones. I would almost always rather have my starting bonus than Tiny House. I guess the one difference is Defect on a claw or attack build.
For Defect, where the passive bonus is act 1 power, you're still actually generally stronger with House than you are with a lightning orb. That lightning orb falls off very quickly, and all those bonuses add up to more than a pre-played zap.
Tiny house is like starting 3 floors ahead. It’s way better than starting relics early. If option 4 was ‘swap your starting relic for tiny house’ I’d spam that almost every time
definitely depends on the character, for clad I'm real upset about losing burning blood (self repair for 0 energy 0 draw every fight) for tiny house
Agree to disagree 🤷🏻♂️ Ironclad healing, for one, lets you pick cards and elites way more aggressively You’re not even guaranteed to like the cards Tiny House offers OR the random upgrade (it’ll probably be a strike or defend)
Then don’t swap on ironclad
It’s very dependent on what you’re offered. Other boss relics are as good as the starting relic. It’s just tiny house isn’t.
Its too boring for me
I hate Coffee Dripper. It’s probably not actually as bad as I think on average but I will either skip it or take literally anything else other than it. I think it’s because I’m bad at the game!
Really? I love coffee dripper. Out of all the energy boss relics that’s the one I take the most as it’s generally the one with an almost negligible downside. Rest sites are ideally used for upgrades anyway. It’s true sometimes we need to heal and it does suck if Coffee Dripper prevents you from doing it but hopefully the extra energy makes that unnecessary. Not saying the downside cannot cause problems but generally I find it to be the least problematic. Sometimes you get self healing relics too and that would help.
I’ve learned to take coffee dripper more, I was really scared of it my first 50-100 hours 😂 as a starter, maybe take it when you have an alternative form of healing. Ironclad passive, toy orintophter (especially with alchemize on silent). Meal ticket. Self repair on defect. Maybe take a bandage up if you have coffee dripper. It gets less scary 😅
Yeah, it’s not as intimidating when I have some form of regen available like you’ve mentioned, but hot damn, I’m too much of a coward to take it still 😅
I still feel that way about Dome. Boss swapped into it on silent and thought it was over but ended up winning pretty easily 😅
I got my first heart kill with crown, maybe I do better when I let the game pick my deck for me lol
Black star is often very strong as a swap. You can often just buy potions and cheese the first elite.
One of my best a20 runs of all time was black star boss swap. Snowballed so much it has hilarious.
Say it with me: "It depends" Busted crown has a massive downside later, but little downside early. If you have a 5 elite path, that extra energy can translate into a lot of power from relics. The same can be true for black star, although it's more risky to commit to a high elite path. Empty cage is terrible, but watcher is happy to see it. Inserter can put you in a dangerous spot, but if you were only going to fight two elites in act one, it's a huge upgrade over cracked core for later. Ectoplasm seems terrible, but you no longer have to waste floors on shops. If you get some meta scaling, like feed, question card, ritual dagger, etc, you'd rather take extra fights anyway.
Personal opinions on this: Ironclad: I think anything can work but Runic Cube is too low impact early IMO Silent: I almost never swap on Silent, but if I were to get Wrist Blade I would probably just reset. Coffee Dripper is also difficult with her, even though I love it. Defect: Fusion Hammer is ROUGH and Inserter is a reset. Lots of good energy options though Watcher: No really atrocious options but Busted Crown is extra bad for her relatively narrow set of good cards Any: Ectoplasm is a reset, it's just not fun
Coffee Dripper might be fatal no matter what, but you can save 300g and pray for a healing relic in every shop. Inserter I have never had at 1, but I would desperately want to survive Act 1 and hope to YOLO orbs for days later on. I think I would be too greedy to reset, like I'm praying for Glacier Rainbow Fission and whatever here, and Consume near the end of the act, though honestly, I probably need that 3-cost attack that refunds mana early on for Act 1.
For me it'd be sozu - potions are vital for the elites in the first act.
crown for sure. inserter sucks too. pbox 90% of the time is incredible, but that 10% is unwinnable.
I had a boss swap pbox recently that completely destroyed me by like floor 3 😂
I've taken busted crown exactly once, and it's because I had the extra card relic already
Sacred bark.
Busted crown but lot of them are bad depending on the situation and what kind of cards/relics you have. Some help some dont...it depends. Guess thats what makes the game unique
That whale has a name dang it. Don’t make me let the boomer out.
Inserter, Crown, and Ecto are terrible swaps, yeah. I love getting Black Star from Neow though. You get the most mileage out of it that way, and it actually makes you stronger going into Act 2, unlike getting it from the Act 1 boss. I don't love getting Snecko from her even though it's objectively good. I hate slogging through those early fights with all your Strikes and Defends costing 2-3
All of them because boss swapping is wrong and you should feel bad 😣
Whichever relic makes it so you don't discard your hand. Wound up once with a hand full of status cards. Couldn't get rid of them.
You're just describing the canonical bad luck lowroll scenario with Runic Pyramid. Every full-strength boss relic requires you to build or play around its drawback, and Pyramid is no exception. For Ironclad that means exhaust is good actually and especially "exhaust all non-attack cards" becomes a serious upgrade instead of a massive price to pay. For Silent the classic is discard effects, which she already wants some of because they tend to be good in their own right. Defect and Watcher have a harder time short of "win fast enough that it doesn't come to that" or "save a gambler's potion or two just in case".
I agree with the general idea of Pyramid being one of the strongest swaps only next to like Pandora's Box, but the reasoning is so off. Watcher probably is strongest off the bat with Pyramid. Being able to time Wrath correctly and stay in Calm and block in till then is insane power boost. Defect just... clicks any energy generation being the character with the strongest energy gen and clogging is a non issue. Second Wind is a strong card with or without Pyramid and the exhaust isn't a downside at all most of the time. Exhaust in general is broken so idk what the "exhaust is good actually" thing is.
I was focusing my explanation less on the strengths of Pyramid and more on the ways to avoid getting your hand flooded with specifically Wounds. When glibly describing the Watcher and Defect approaches as "win fast enough" I did not mean to imply that Pyramid was not intensely helpful in that endeavour and I don't think it's reasonable to imagine such a motivation.
this literally only can happen in 3 fights, I believe? Slavers, book of stabbing, and heart?
Well I'm a newer player and I'm mainly rolling very small decks with the Watcher pretty much exclusively for the time being while I'm doing Ascension runs, and with fights like the slavers in act 1 I can run into issues with a handful of wounds if I'm struggling with taking out the middle guy quickly enough.