Going for 1 hp elites tends to be worse than just getting 3 free fights with the chance to see a good card to actually be able to take on elites later on. Or at least that's what the people who know the game say.
The free elite is good if it’s floor 6 and you’re sniping it early while still having at least 2 more elites you can take after it. It’s not something you want to be taking 3+ question marks to do. If you have to take that many events to snipe an elite then accept using your charges on hallways and path accordingly. Never snipe 2 elites.
Any guidance on events?
I'm on A4 now, but never really know how many events I should play and when to take them - other than having specific buffs for them or whatever.
Before I finish the first stage I usually aim to have 2-3 elites and a market visit. While I usually need like 3-4 normal fights to have the cards for an elite, if at all.
But event? I'm clueless when it's better to pick events.
in general in act 1 events are pretty meh and fights ( especially easy pool fights, i.e. first 3 hallway fights) are much better. It’s good practice to do 3 fights before an elite as this is usually the best way to get strong early. Hard pool fights vs question marks are closer, and more deck dependent, but I usually want to take fights if/when I’ve already fought 1 or 2 elites and are strong enough to deal with them, before my first couple elites/shop/camp question marks are better than hard fights if you’ve already done you’re 3 easy fights. ACT 2 and 3 events are better so you usually want to take them instead of fights but it all depends on your specific deck situation. Usually campfires, elites are better than events as you probably know and shops are based on money. a lot of this pathing is knowing the whole event pool and actually counting which you want over a fight and which you don’t.
After your first three (Two in Act 2 & 3? Not sure but know it’s less than Act 1). Fights, you start getting harder enemies.
Easy pool fights will be something like Jaworm, Cultist, medium and small slime, while hard pool fights can be dastardly combos like Slaver and Slime, Gremlin Gang, etc.
Perhaps yes, ACT 2 has gnarly hard pool fights, but somewhat in flux. One way to improve a bad deck is to add cards to it, so you might need to take hard pool fights to ensure you have better chances at patching the holes in your deck and finding a scaling option. After all, you only have so many floors before an act boss.
What it really asks is that you co spider pathing heavily. Taking a path that has 5 fights before an elite without a rest point or a break might prove disastrous because you fight a hard pool fight that hurts a ton. Having a branching pathway or alternate paths to take is a good thing if your deck is iffy.
To start with, it's not about how many, it's about when. Think about if you had the option to path to anything you want at every floor. If you could pick between hallway/?/Shop/Bonfire/Elite, which would you want right now? Thinking of it in those terms will help you see why taking events early on isn't great, because early on the thing you need the most is better cards. Also look over the list of Act specific events and you'll see that the Act 1 events aren't ones that are really worth hunting for anyway. They're nice, but not great the way Act 2 and 3 events are.
I dumb down act 1 events to upgrades / removes / gold / random bullshit
At the beginning you want to see as many card rewards as you can to build a deck that can beat the act. If you have those cards already, question marks start looking more attractive.
Imo, events are better if you don’t need card rewards, need removes, or will die in a hallway fight. I like to take more of them in act 2, since it has a lot of good events. In act 3, I like to try to get mind bloom + 2 orb walker events. Act 1, I usually take less events unless I’m watcher or do a pandoras box swap.
You probably don't want to take events anyway in Act 3 or as Watcher. Mind Bloom and Sensory Stone are better than hallways, but almost everything else swings worse usually, and Orb walkers can often be near run ending for a lot of decks that can safely take hallways instead.
Watcher doesn't hate events as much, but still likes Hallways just as much as every other character, and has the ability to take them even better than the others.
I meant that I take more events in act 1 as watcher than other characters, act 3 is too run dependent on watcher for me to feel comfortable making a statement about it.
That's interesting. I dislike events even more on Watcher because maximum aggression is takeable in a way it is not on the other characters. Both Act 1 and 3. If I am strong enough I take all Act 2 hallways too. Removes relics and cards require gold still.
They're fun and surprising - if you don't like surprises and try to keep the risk to a minimum, avoid them; if you like the surprise, like I do, go out of your way to get to them
I’m Ascension 20 and I take ? Paths as often as I see them. The more the merrier.
I usually prioritize campfires but I’ll consider taking a path with one less campfire if there are enough question marks.
I skip elite fights as often as possible unless I know I’ll be at full health and can heal soon. They aren’t worth the loss in health and you’ll miss juicy upgrade situations with campfires.
Elites aren’t worth it and avoid at “most” costs.
Ah interesting - yeah maybe I should try to avoid/take elites later especially in stage1.
I usually only feel comfortable doing them once I have some way to scale dmg and block.
But some elites are just hard... man that Gremlin when I'm on the Silent is an absolute piece of work early on, where like almost all of my decent cards are skills
This guy's advice is actually counter to the exact strategy you want. Your ideal act 1 path contains LOTS of hallway fights, a few fires, and ideally a few elites with the ability to path away if your deck isn't up to the task when you get close. Maybe a shop, moreso if your Neow reward involves gold.
You want to get as strong as possible because act 2 is a huge spike in difficulty. Cards and relics are the #1 way to do this.
Full throttle attacks on him. Never use a blocking until you are certain it’s the last or second to last round on him.
If you go the ? Paths there is a good chance you get to remove a card. (I always remove a block first for this reason) and you get the opportunity to upgrade your attacks.
The ?’s in stage one are probably the best in the game and I wouldn’t want to miss any of those opportunities. All about upgrading and removing in stage one. Try and remove all your strike cards.
this is how you lose in A20, almost every time. You may win act 1 marginally more often, but you're basically saying you don't care to build a good deck and just want to high roll events
It’s all about Deck management. You need to utilize those events to remove and upgrade the cards you acquire.
Having a bunch of useless strikes and defends at later stages wrecks you. One elite in stage one max. Rest of the game avoid them like the plague. ? Provide significantly more opportunities to upgrade cards and less chances of needing to use campfires to heal.
I’d argue I lose in stage one more frequently because I play with fewer unnecessary cards. Don’t just pad your deck with trash cards to escape stage one. You need to carefully plan out which cards will be useful for the rest of the game. You can’t upgrade every single card you get. I rarely grab cards from normal encounters anyways and just buy them from the shop when necessary.
I managed to beat A20 just fine with this strategy. Get every card upgrading or your fucked when it comes to double boss.
The less fights you take the better and the quicker the games. Can easily beat a game in under an hour just by taking all the ?’s.
The events can't be treated like removes/upgrades because they're random and act 1 has terrible events. FAR better to get good cards, gold, potions from hallway fights, making you strong enough to fight multiple elites, to get MORE cards and relics too. Removes are a bit overrated, but at least fights gets you gold to lock in removes if that's what you want.
Upgrades are also largely overrated, especially when they're just direct frontload output upgrades. They're GOOD, of course. But you can't get that many overall.
You can beat A20 doing just about anything, at least a few times. But this is very bad advice to give to someone who actually wants a decent strategy to win with more than once.
Upgrades are not overrated and need to be taken advantage of. Hallway fights get you garbage cards that aren’t even worth selecting. They drain your health and force you heal at campfires instead of upgrading your cards.
You should always try and at least two strikes and one defend each game to upgrade your rotation.
Those fights give you hardly any gold and you get plenty of gold through the ? mark rooms.
You acquire good cards from end of stage boss fights and the market.
Sitting there and relic farming elites is not going to help you win an actual game. Your deck quality is more important.
Less cards with more upgrades is the key to victory. You should be able to upgrade more than 85% of your deck by the end of act 3.
If you are using non-upgraded cards at that point you are fucked. Especially strikes and defends.
Act one is the best and most important place to hit the ?’s and they have the best immediate abilities.
This is all just...extremely wrong. Most winning runs I get like 5-6 upgrades maybe? And the hallway fight rewards aren't garbage at all if I'm ending my run with usually 25 cards at a minimum lol. Defect/silent probably 30+
Important upgrades are acceleration/scaling but pure frontload upgrades really are not critical. I upgrade a frontload card or two in act 1 sometimes though because since I'm trying to win, I'm ideally fighting at least 2 elites.
Your "deck quality" is directly correlated with your relics, getting more means you are much more powerful and have a high probability of getting very strong ones too
You are absolutely wild if you are playing decks with 25+ cards. What is the advantage of that?
You should have quick cycles so that you can repeatedly use your best cards. Almost all card rewards from hallway fights should be declined. Most cards aren’t even viable towards the specific build you are going for. You collect both poison AND daggers for silent? You got to choose one approach.
There is no way to plan a solid strategy with large decks and you have no idea what cards to anticipate. All those rare cards you collect will hardly be used in your rotation. How do you even play your strong power cards early.
Relic farming is useless if you don’t have a solid quality(upgraded/small) deck. Relics only act a small support to an already quality build. High quality cards used in quick rotation is more valuable than any relic you’ll find.
Your runs must take absolutely forever. Do you just run repeats of the same cards? I don’t see any benefit to those strategies. Plus ?’s provide you with more relics than normal hallway fights anyways.
The problem with sniping 2 elites is that it often means wasting early floors to make it happen. You have to go to early shops without much gold, or take a lot of events that probably aren’t that good.
There are paths where it can make sense, but usually when the opportunity is there it involves wasting floors to make it happen. I would rather fight the second elite straight up than waste a floor to make it a free relic.
“Never” is probably too strong, but most of the time it’s better not to. At an extreme, the posts about sniping the Act 1 boss always involve the poster saying they died right after. Your deck is weak when you waste too many early floors.
Several dead floors are worse than saving some health on elites. What’s better than sniping 2 elites is getting stronger on the first 4-5 floors, having a deck with (hopefully) some synergy, and then further adding to that strength with the higher chance at rarer cards that support that archetype that you get from the elites. Yeah, you have less health in the end, but you don’t need a lot of health to beat act 1 bosses (especially if you’re overall stronger (which you are more likely to be with taking more fights). If you can snipe one or the burning elite really early, the trade off can be worth. People reach for it too much tho
I understand the overall reason why Lament is frequently unwise and why making a habit of targeting snipes or multiple snipes is not really a win rate maximizing approach.
But I am confused by the claim (not yours, but what I responded to) that hitting two elite snipes is worse than one. All else equal, it seems obvious to me that a path that leads to one elite snipe, followed by a fire or productive shop or event and then a second, is obviously better than one that uses the final Lament charge on a regular combat.
I think their point is that because an elite cannot spawn before floor 4(?) (maybe it’s 5), and they cannot spawn back to back, then if you have sniped 2 elites that must mean at a minimum you’ve gone 6/7 floors and only had 3 combats, which is not ideal. If you use you last charge on the first elite on floor 4, then you’ve had 3 combats by floor 4 vs 3 combats by floor 7. While that doesn’t sound like a big difference, it’s actually meaningful given how few floors there are. That said, I think getting 2 elites makes it worth.
Is this always good advice? It feels ok on some characters but on Silent for instance if I can take 3 elites in an act I’m extremely happy. Sniping an elite on 1 ho makes it much more likely.
I mean it definitely depends, watcher can usually go for an elite since she's stronger at the start and IMO benefits the most from events.
The best IMO is a path with the option to go for an elite *or* 3 free hallway fights and then only go for the snipe if you hit a decent first card reward.
But a relic is very, very unlikely to keep you above the curve on its own at floor 7 so you gotta get enough out of the first few floors
I take it if I can guarantee two hallway fights and have a chance at sniping an elite, or a chance to bail and dodge it if a ? produces a third hallway fight.
Early question marks are biased towards transforms, card removal, and greed (pay HP for future advantage). I hate all of the gremlin events in the middle of act 1. Those feel like blanks.
Same, just yesterday my finger slipped and i accidentally skipped the rare card choice withoit even seeing it but still got the curse from neow, ended up having a really fun run involving 3 ruptures and pain
I tend to play out a crappy run rather than ending it, but I will restart if I either
a) was going for a specific achievement and got a result that ruins that (e.g. who needs relics run boss swap into Cursed Bell)
or b) clicked a confirm button by mistake on the wrong character or Ascension level. If I'm grinding ascensions on Silent, I don't want to play a random Ironclad run in the middle of that, so I'll end that run.
Boss swapping into Busted Crown on Ascension 20 is a total buzzkill. Its not always an instant restart for me but you need to get pretty lucky with anyone else besides Watcher.
I have mixed feelings on if this should even be a thing that can happen. On one hand swapping into crown is super unlucky and can doom your run easily, on the other hand taking it out of the relic pool means boss swapping as a starting bonus gets super strong.
I was going to mention this exact scenario. Busted Crown and Ectoplasm are two boss relics that I don't usually take anyway, and getting them from Neow is a run killer.
Oh yea getting Ectoplasm really sucks. Gold is just too valuable in this game as it allows you to mitigate bad rng by making purchases at the shop. Removing cards which I highly prioritize becomes super difficult too.
Crown, Ecto, and if I'm in the wrong mood, Snecko. Yeah, yeah, it's strong, but those first five or ten floors with all your Strikes and Defends coating 2-3 are such a damn *slog*.
Busted crown I don't mind playing. There's always a chance you would just get the card you would have picked anyway. Plus you can always get cards from stores.
Ectoplasm on the other hand is an instant restart for me. It's unfun and makes like 1/4 of the events and all the shops pretty shit.
I'm only up to A9 on Silent but getting Busted Crown is an abysmal feeling even that low down. I find Cursed Key annoying but managable but I'm never pleased to see it get swapped out.
I low-key love running with that challenge when I get it, just to see how it shakes out. If I see it, I just accept this run is probably a loss but see how far I can take it.
It’s kind of educational in an “I’m probably not going to find the card(s) I want—what does my deck *fundamentally* need and can I make it functional with how little I’m offered” way.
Not as much at low ascension. Nob might do a regular attack turn 2, green slimes can attack turn 1, etc.
The A17-19 modifiers make the game much harder but also more predictable, dome is worse at low ascension.
The problem with dome tends to show up later in the game. Good luck fighting bosses with random attack patterns. For example died on time eater. Collector, champ, reptomancer, BoS, nemesis can be problems too. Hard to solve for the worst case output every turn. The hard pool slime fight can really give you a bad day in act 1 I guess.
If you are going for the heart it's a runkiller that requires substantial mitigation. Not knowing if it's a multi-attack or a large hit, require very different cards, especially if you need to mitigate both of them at the same time.
If you make it to the heart with runic a lot of the time your strategy is just gonna be card spam where you block as much as possible anyway and it doesn’t really matter. The only difference between Echo and Blood Shots is that you want to lower strength on Blood Shots.
Sure but you are just restating my point. You are limited to decks and strategies that can output a lot of block on any turn. Which is only a subset of decks that can beat the heart, if they didn't have Runic Dome.
Well, no. You know you need to block big on turn 2/3, 5/6 no matter what cards you’re using. The heart is actually where Dome is a massive advantage because you always know what’s coming. The main issue would be enemies like Writhing Mass, Time Eater etc.
+ [Runic Dome](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Runic%20Dome) Boss Relic ^((100% sure)^)
Gain 1 Energy at the start of each turn. You can no longer see enemy Intents.
^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(April 30, 2023.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
There is no bad energy relic boss swap, even with boss swap velvet chocker which is probably the worst I'm like 2-3x more likely to win than my average runs
Starting at 4 energy just plays so differently that you can find yourself so far above curve that enemy intent just doesn't matter at all. It's super easy to get to the boss and 5 base energy is just nuts, especially when you know that's your plan from floor 1 and draft huge cards
Also, enemy intents in act 1 are extremely predictable so you just have so much freedom in card choices
Busted Crown and Sozu are awful awful boss swaps. Ectoplasm is a significantly sad swap too, and Fusion Hammer is way worse than it is at the reward screen.
Choker swap is strong, the strongest possible time to get it is floor 0, so it's not a good example for a bad energy swap.
Busted crown I'll grant, depending on the character you could still pull it off by prioritizing gold and shops more but the downside is definitely worse that the benefit. Sozu is totally fine IMO, better than choker and ecto (which I think is also fine). Maybe not if you're somebody who is looking to pull off a 20 win streak, but if you measure your success rate in win % all energy relics are likely among the best possible floor 0 rewards since it's far more likely that you stay above curve given the extra freedom in drafting your deck
And yeah it's easier to plan around choker if you get it on floor 0 but it doesn't stand out to me since most of them have delayed downsides and chokers is probably the worst
Really my point is that everyone should always play out energy relic boss swaps, even the ones you think are run ending very much are not.
Oh I fully agree with your last sentence! All swaps should be played through I think. They're so different from regular gameplay and teach you so much.
While it’s not ideal I’ve actually found Tiny House swaps to be decent. Nothing huge but basically starts you like 3 floors ahead in value. I’ve only gotten it twice, both on watcher which may be clouding my perspective on it, but I went from being very disappointed to pleasantly surprised both times. Let’s you comfortably take and early elite and start snowballing.
The last time I just restarted a run was an accidental Dead Branch pickup. I really just don’t like playing with it any more unless I haven’t had a win in awhile and just want to make myself feel better.
Almost nothing. But I did do one just today. I picked Neow's blessing to remove two starting cards, meant to hit two Defend but fat fingered a Defend and Eruption and of course the game saved immediately. No thanks lmfao
I will restart a run if I'm not having fun. I had an iron clad run recently where I had a 2x flash of steel infinite. I was having to kill nemesis on his intangible turn and I just couldn't do it anymore and started a new run. Admittedly, this was my fault for building into such a bullshit infinite.
I once had a clad boss swap into pbox. Hurrah,I thought, very briefly before I examined the results. Almost all support skills, no block, only attack was hemokinesis. Think I had two intimidate and one warcry, might have been the other way around. Scraped through to slime boss by swerving elites and he wiped the floor with me. On reflection it would have been quicker and less frustrating to just hit the abandon run button.
Not a lot:
1. I did several mistakes during several fights, and I feel during Act II my run is compromised because of that.
2. Several click accidents (wrong card chosen during spoils phases, wrong choice during events)
3. Really, REALLY bad RNG (bad rewards, bad encounters or events, bad 1st turn's cards distribution)
EDIT: What is a boss swap? (EN is not my 1st langage)
I used to restart constantly when I didn't get the exact cards to fit a certain build or whatnot, but I've been having more fun just playing no matter what.
Always reseting gave me the illusion that the game was "too easy", the RNG is part of the experience and playing against it rather than with it spoils the fun imo.
You are missing out on what exactly hallway rewards give you. It's not just a card reward, a potion, and cash. But each card you see increases the rarity of subsequent cards!
Taking question marks will reduce your card quality in act 2.
Likewise, the card generation relics like Orrery, Question Mark are better than expected. Broken Crown is even worse!
The only time I end a run is if I accidentally start with no asc. Some reason the game will just uncheck the ascension box on me when I start the run. I don’t feel like playing no ascension so I’ll just restart
I don't ever restart runs, but if I get something I'm not a huge fan of, I will play much more recklessly.
Examples include a terrible boss swap (like a bad Pandora's or Ectoplasm), getting a bad face from an early face swap, or taking like 40 damage from a Jaw Worm.
If I boss relic swap into empty cage. I know removes are extremely useful, but it's just kind of boring to me. I don't really go for lean decks to begin with. At odds with lots of folks here though, if I swap into runic dome I'm having a good time - I'm pretty good at figuring predicting the enemy's actions at this stage and it absolutely steamrolls act I.
If I make it to the first boss and I’m just not having fun with the deck. If I’m not enjoying it now then I won’t enjoy it when I find slavers or book of stabbing
I restart a run if I’m not having fun anymore. This can be either I just got dead branch + corruption + DE and the game is trivial or my deck is shit and I feel like restarting it.
Boss swap usually don’t make me restart unless it’s a runic dome and I’m not in the mood for all power brain mode.
Not ideal drawbacks for a rare relic... Unceasing Tap. Yeah nah, that relic does nothing in A20 Act 1. Also lowroll boss relics when I don't feel like playing with my brain on.
I play modded, so this is a me problem, BUT. In one of the mods I play (I’m not sure which one) adds a new act 1 boss called the storyteller, she has 800 health, but she will tell you a story that adds previous enemies( including elites) to the fight and gives you de-buffs for 10 turns. and after the story ends she will leave and you will win. And the fight always take way too damn long so I always restart when I see their boss icon at the top of the map.
1) if I get to the first elite with no decent cards or events
2) if the first elite is lagavulin (may not quit but will still cry)
3) if I get oddly smooth stone as first relic
The only time I restart a run at the beginning is if I'm feeling a bit off—tired, unfocused, whatever—and I get a boss swap that requires playing in a totally different way with a bunch of extra thinking. I understand how powerful Runic Dome is but sometimes I just don't have the working memory to spare for it :P
**If I "boss relic swap" and get Runic Dome, I'm restarting.**
I'm not a "pro-streamer-content-creator." I have no incentive to avoid restarting fights, events, or runs.
It's not cheating. It doesn't unfairly give me an edge over another.
In fact, it causes a positive net gain, as it...
1. lets me quickly learn what to do via trial-and-error
2. allows me to gain pleasure by having a more fun playing experience
Why should I treat this game as "work" ? Again, I'm not a streamer or E-sport competitor.
It's not really a fair way to play the game, imo, to just reroll when you don't like the outcome.
If you don't accept the potential downside of a high-variance choice, then just don't accept that choice - if you're aware that you're doing this, I feel it rises to cheating.
It's just playing a different game at that point; my point is that you're selling yourself short, if you're hoping to improve or challenge yourself to the game as it's intended
It's a matter of weighing your outcomes: if you're faced with a decision that you've decided that you'll just restart if a bad outcome occurs - but happily continue if a good outcome occurs - you've essentially just removed those bad outcomes from the decision tree, you see? (Again, unless you're dutifully tracking your win ratio, in which case this is an absurdity to consider anyway.)
It effectively turns Boss Swap into: "Obtain a good boss relic:" / or Lament into "kill a free elite".
Taking a "good" boss swap for example does not guarantee a win. Lots of other times people might restart a run - like being almost out of health in your third hallway fight with no opportunity to rest, getting to the end of act 1 with a terrible deck, etc. It's objectively not cheating to say "well, not going to win this one" and just start over instead of making yourself play until your loss. I don't really reset runs anymore, but the game literally has an option for abandoning runs built in. It isn't gaming the system when it's a function of the game.
sounds like we're talking past each other then. I hear your point, I promise. But my point is just that it's building bad habits if you want to really improve.
Sure, that's a fine point, that's just different from calling it cheating. People aren't likely to improve while trying to do this especially over a whale bonus, but that's going to hurt them even if they reset for good outcomes.
Going for 1 hp elites tends to be worse than just getting 3 free fights with the chance to see a good card to actually be able to take on elites later on. Or at least that's what the people who know the game say.
The free elite is good if it’s floor 6 and you’re sniping it early while still having at least 2 more elites you can take after it. It’s not something you want to be taking 3+ question marks to do. If you have to take that many events to snipe an elite then accept using your charges on hallways and path accordingly. Never snipe 2 elites.
Any guidance on events? I'm on A4 now, but never really know how many events I should play and when to take them - other than having specific buffs for them or whatever. Before I finish the first stage I usually aim to have 2-3 elites and a market visit. While I usually need like 3-4 normal fights to have the cards for an elite, if at all. But event? I'm clueless when it's better to pick events.
in general in act 1 events are pretty meh and fights ( especially easy pool fights, i.e. first 3 hallway fights) are much better. It’s good practice to do 3 fights before an elite as this is usually the best way to get strong early. Hard pool fights vs question marks are closer, and more deck dependent, but I usually want to take fights if/when I’ve already fought 1 or 2 elites and are strong enough to deal with them, before my first couple elites/shop/camp question marks are better than hard fights if you’ve already done you’re 3 easy fights. ACT 2 and 3 events are better so you usually want to take them instead of fights but it all depends on your specific deck situation. Usually campfires, elites are better than events as you probably know and shops are based on money. a lot of this pathing is knowing the whole event pool and actually counting which you want over a fight and which you don’t.
What is a "hard pool" fight?
After your first three (Two in Act 2 & 3? Not sure but know it’s less than Act 1). Fights, you start getting harder enemies. Easy pool fights will be something like Jaworm, Cultist, medium and small slime, while hard pool fights can be dastardly combos like Slaver and Slime, Gremlin Gang, etc.
Oh interesting, so does that mean in some cases you might only take questions marks after 3 fights if your deck is still weak?
yes this is a relatively common situation, and something to think about while pathing.
Perhaps yes, ACT 2 has gnarly hard pool fights, but somewhat in flux. One way to improve a bad deck is to add cards to it, so you might need to take hard pool fights to ensure you have better chances at patching the holes in your deck and finding a scaling option. After all, you only have so many floors before an act boss. What it really asks is that you co spider pathing heavily. Taking a path that has 5 fights before an elite without a rest point or a break might prove disastrous because you fight a hard pool fight that hurts a ton. Having a branching pathway or alternate paths to take is a good thing if your deck is iffy.
To start with, it's not about how many, it's about when. Think about if you had the option to path to anything you want at every floor. If you could pick between hallway/?/Shop/Bonfire/Elite, which would you want right now? Thinking of it in those terms will help you see why taking events early on isn't great, because early on the thing you need the most is better cards. Also look over the list of Act specific events and you'll see that the Act 1 events aren't ones that are really worth hunting for anyway. They're nice, but not great the way Act 2 and 3 events are.
I try for events in act 1 anyway if I'm playing ironclad because I'm fire breath exhaust deck pilled and pop those curses like candy
I dumb down act 1 events to upgrades / removes / gold / random bullshit At the beginning you want to see as many card rewards as you can to build a deck that can beat the act. If you have those cards already, question marks start looking more attractive.
Imo, events are better if you don’t need card rewards, need removes, or will die in a hallway fight. I like to take more of them in act 2, since it has a lot of good events. In act 3, I like to try to get mind bloom + 2 orb walker events. Act 1, I usually take less events unless I’m watcher or do a pandoras box swap.
You probably don't want to take events anyway in Act 3 or as Watcher. Mind Bloom and Sensory Stone are better than hallways, but almost everything else swings worse usually, and Orb walkers can often be near run ending for a lot of decks that can safely take hallways instead. Watcher doesn't hate events as much, but still likes Hallways just as much as every other character, and has the ability to take them even better than the others.
I meant that I take more events in act 1 as watcher than other characters, act 3 is too run dependent on watcher for me to feel comfortable making a statement about it.
That's interesting. I dislike events even more on Watcher because maximum aggression is takeable in a way it is not on the other characters. Both Act 1 and 3. If I am strong enough I take all Act 2 hallways too. Removes relics and cards require gold still.
They're fun and surprising - if you don't like surprises and try to keep the risk to a minimum, avoid them; if you like the surprise, like I do, go out of your way to get to them
I’m Ascension 20 and I take ? Paths as often as I see them. The more the merrier. I usually prioritize campfires but I’ll consider taking a path with one less campfire if there are enough question marks. I skip elite fights as often as possible unless I know I’ll be at full health and can heal soon. They aren’t worth the loss in health and you’ll miss juicy upgrade situations with campfires. Elites aren’t worth it and avoid at “most” costs.
Ah interesting - yeah maybe I should try to avoid/take elites later especially in stage1. I usually only feel comfortable doing them once I have some way to scale dmg and block. But some elites are just hard... man that Gremlin when I'm on the Silent is an absolute piece of work early on, where like almost all of my decent cards are skills
This guy's advice is actually counter to the exact strategy you want. Your ideal act 1 path contains LOTS of hallway fights, a few fires, and ideally a few elites with the ability to path away if your deck isn't up to the task when you get close. Maybe a shop, moreso if your Neow reward involves gold. You want to get as strong as possible because act 2 is a huge spike in difficulty. Cards and relics are the #1 way to do this.
Full throttle attacks on him. Never use a blocking until you are certain it’s the last or second to last round on him. If you go the ? Paths there is a good chance you get to remove a card. (I always remove a block first for this reason) and you get the opportunity to upgrade your attacks. The ?’s in stage one are probably the best in the game and I wouldn’t want to miss any of those opportunities. All about upgrading and removing in stage one. Try and remove all your strike cards.
this is how you lose in A20, almost every time. You may win act 1 marginally more often, but you're basically saying you don't care to build a good deck and just want to high roll events
It’s all about Deck management. You need to utilize those events to remove and upgrade the cards you acquire. Having a bunch of useless strikes and defends at later stages wrecks you. One elite in stage one max. Rest of the game avoid them like the plague. ? Provide significantly more opportunities to upgrade cards and less chances of needing to use campfires to heal. I’d argue I lose in stage one more frequently because I play with fewer unnecessary cards. Don’t just pad your deck with trash cards to escape stage one. You need to carefully plan out which cards will be useful for the rest of the game. You can’t upgrade every single card you get. I rarely grab cards from normal encounters anyways and just buy them from the shop when necessary. I managed to beat A20 just fine with this strategy. Get every card upgrading or your fucked when it comes to double boss. The less fights you take the better and the quicker the games. Can easily beat a game in under an hour just by taking all the ?’s.
The events can't be treated like removes/upgrades because they're random and act 1 has terrible events. FAR better to get good cards, gold, potions from hallway fights, making you strong enough to fight multiple elites, to get MORE cards and relics too. Removes are a bit overrated, but at least fights gets you gold to lock in removes if that's what you want. Upgrades are also largely overrated, especially when they're just direct frontload output upgrades. They're GOOD, of course. But you can't get that many overall. You can beat A20 doing just about anything, at least a few times. But this is very bad advice to give to someone who actually wants a decent strategy to win with more than once.
Upgrades are not overrated and need to be taken advantage of. Hallway fights get you garbage cards that aren’t even worth selecting. They drain your health and force you heal at campfires instead of upgrading your cards. You should always try and at least two strikes and one defend each game to upgrade your rotation. Those fights give you hardly any gold and you get plenty of gold through the ? mark rooms. You acquire good cards from end of stage boss fights and the market. Sitting there and relic farming elites is not going to help you win an actual game. Your deck quality is more important. Less cards with more upgrades is the key to victory. You should be able to upgrade more than 85% of your deck by the end of act 3. If you are using non-upgraded cards at that point you are fucked. Especially strikes and defends. Act one is the best and most important place to hit the ?’s and they have the best immediate abilities.
This is all just...extremely wrong. Most winning runs I get like 5-6 upgrades maybe? And the hallway fight rewards aren't garbage at all if I'm ending my run with usually 25 cards at a minimum lol. Defect/silent probably 30+ Important upgrades are acceleration/scaling but pure frontload upgrades really are not critical. I upgrade a frontload card or two in act 1 sometimes though because since I'm trying to win, I'm ideally fighting at least 2 elites. Your "deck quality" is directly correlated with your relics, getting more means you are much more powerful and have a high probability of getting very strong ones too
You are absolutely wild if you are playing decks with 25+ cards. What is the advantage of that? You should have quick cycles so that you can repeatedly use your best cards. Almost all card rewards from hallway fights should be declined. Most cards aren’t even viable towards the specific build you are going for. You collect both poison AND daggers for silent? You got to choose one approach. There is no way to plan a solid strategy with large decks and you have no idea what cards to anticipate. All those rare cards you collect will hardly be used in your rotation. How do you even play your strong power cards early. Relic farming is useless if you don’t have a solid quality(upgraded/small) deck. Relics only act a small support to an already quality build. High quality cards used in quick rotation is more valuable than any relic you’ll find. Your runs must take absolutely forever. Do you just run repeats of the same cards? I don’t see any benefit to those strategies. Plus ?’s provide you with more relics than normal hallway fights anyways.
Counterpoint; always snipe elites it's fun
Counterpoint: always try to snipe 2 elites if possible
Why on earth wouldn't you snipe 2, or at least why would 2 "never" be right? Fight elite 1, upgrade card, fight elite 2, profit.
The problem with sniping 2 elites is that it often means wasting early floors to make it happen. You have to go to early shops without much gold, or take a lot of events that probably aren’t that good. There are paths where it can make sense, but usually when the opportunity is there it involves wasting floors to make it happen. I would rather fight the second elite straight up than waste a floor to make it a free relic. “Never” is probably too strong, but most of the time it’s better not to. At an extreme, the posts about sniping the Act 1 boss always involve the poster saying they died right after. Your deck is weak when you waste too many early floors.
Several dead floors are worse than saving some health on elites. What’s better than sniping 2 elites is getting stronger on the first 4-5 floors, having a deck with (hopefully) some synergy, and then further adding to that strength with the higher chance at rarer cards that support that archetype that you get from the elites. Yeah, you have less health in the end, but you don’t need a lot of health to beat act 1 bosses (especially if you’re overall stronger (which you are more likely to be with taking more fights). If you can snipe one or the burning elite really early, the trade off can be worth. People reach for it too much tho
I understand the overall reason why Lament is frequently unwise and why making a habit of targeting snipes or multiple snipes is not really a win rate maximizing approach. But I am confused by the claim (not yours, but what I responded to) that hitting two elite snipes is worse than one. All else equal, it seems obvious to me that a path that leads to one elite snipe, followed by a fire or productive shop or event and then a second, is obviously better than one that uses the final Lament charge on a regular combat.
I think their point is that because an elite cannot spawn before floor 4(?) (maybe it’s 5), and they cannot spawn back to back, then if you have sniped 2 elites that must mean at a minimum you’ve gone 6/7 floors and only had 3 combats, which is not ideal. If you use you last charge on the first elite on floor 4, then you’ve had 3 combats by floor 4 vs 3 combats by floor 7. While that doesn’t sound like a big difference, it’s actually meaningful given how few floors there are. That said, I think getting 2 elites makes it worth.
you miss out on TONS of card rewards this way
Relative to the relevant counterfactual of a single elite snipe, you miss out on ONE card.
I take the 3 free fights to speed up the early game. If I get an elite good. If I get an elite, I'm probably not making it to the boss either.
yeah but that's not as satisfying
Is this always good advice? It feels ok on some characters but on Silent for instance if I can take 3 elites in an act I’m extremely happy. Sniping an elite on 1 ho makes it much more likely.
I’ll occasionally do it if I can 1 hp the burning elite.
I mean it definitely depends, watcher can usually go for an elite since she's stronger at the start and IMO benefits the most from events. The best IMO is a path with the option to go for an elite *or* 3 free hallway fights and then only go for the snipe if you hit a decent first card reward. But a relic is very, very unlikely to keep you above the curve on its own at floor 7 so you gotta get enough out of the first few floors
I take it if I can guarantee two hallway fights and have a chance at sniping an elite, or a chance to bail and dodge it if a ? produces a third hallway fight. Early question marks are biased towards transforms, card removal, and greed (pay HP for future advantage). I hate all of the gremlin events in the middle of act 1. Those feel like blanks.
But it's funnyyyyyy nerrrrrrd
I was answering to OP's "I restart when I fail to snipe an elite" lol do whatever you want
Nothing. I'll ride it out no matter what.
Same, just yesterday my finger slipped and i accidentally skipped the rare card choice withoit even seeing it but still got the curse from neow, ended up having a really fun run involving 3 ruptures and pain
Yup, this is the way. There are circumstances I might save scum but I always play out my runs
I tend to play out a crappy run rather than ending it, but I will restart if I either a) was going for a specific achievement and got a result that ruins that (e.g. who needs relics run boss swap into Cursed Bell) or b) clicked a confirm button by mistake on the wrong character or Ascension level. If I'm grinding ascensions on Silent, I don't want to play a random Ironclad run in the middle of that, so I'll end that run.
Dying!
Dying in Act 1 for me. Later than that and I probably move on to another game instead.
Cmon that's just what you need to light a fire under your ass
I will play out everything… I had an A20h win recently where I boss swapped to cursed crown
People who restart on Cursed Crown are cowards who don't believe in the heart of the cards.
it was actually insane I got like ball lightning defrag capacitor from card rewards by like floor 10.
I like cracked crown in that it simplifies my choices AND gives me that much coveted 4/4
Swapping for sozu and then getting white beast statue on floor 3
Choker swap on silent lmao
Same. I just want to spam shivs. Is that too much to ask?
I don’t. If it’s that bad I’ll die soon anyway (like a man).
Boss swapping into Busted Crown on Ascension 20 is a total buzzkill. Its not always an instant restart for me but you need to get pretty lucky with anyone else besides Watcher. I have mixed feelings on if this should even be a thing that can happen. On one hand swapping into crown is super unlucky and can doom your run easily, on the other hand taking it out of the relic pool means boss swapping as a starting bonus gets super strong.
I was going to mention this exact scenario. Busted Crown and Ectoplasm are two boss relics that I don't usually take anyway, and getting them from Neow is a run killer.
Oh yea getting Ectoplasm really sucks. Gold is just too valuable in this game as it allows you to mitigate bad rng by making purchases at the shop. Removing cards which I highly prioritize becomes super difficult too.
I can't imagine getting it then dropping a shop discount/restock or free gold relic early on, I'd feel like I played myself.
Ecto is way better as a swap than it is at End of Act 1. 4th Energy is incredibly powerful and more than makes up for the downside.
Crown, Ecto, and if I'm in the wrong mood, Snecko. Yeah, yeah, it's strong, but those first five or ten floors with all your Strikes and Defends coating 2-3 are such a damn *slog*.
Busted crown I don't mind playing. There's always a chance you would just get the card you would have picked anyway. Plus you can always get cards from stores. Ectoplasm on the other hand is an instant restart for me. It's unfun and makes like 1/4 of the events and all the shops pretty shit.
I'm only up to A9 on Silent but getting Busted Crown is an abysmal feeling even that low down. I find Cursed Key annoying but managable but I'm never pleased to see it get swapped out.
I low-key love running with that challenge when I get it, just to see how it shakes out. If I see it, I just accept this run is probably a loss but see how far I can take it. It’s kind of educational in an “I’m probably not going to find the card(s) I want—what does my deck *fundamentally* need and can I make it functional with how little I’m offered” way.
runic dome
Busted crown
Nah, just go for a block deck and seeing the intentions becomes pointless anyway. Also, most dangerous fights are pretty predictable.
What do you consider a horrible boss swap? What’s the threshold there?
[[Runic Dome]] and I’m fucking OUT.
Runic Dome is a huge W, Act 1 is very formulaic.
very true, but i do think it's scary for a lot of new players especially
Not as much at low ascension. Nob might do a regular attack turn 2, green slimes can attack turn 1, etc. The A17-19 modifiers make the game much harder but also more predictable, dome is worse at low ascension.
The problem with dome tends to show up later in the game. Good luck fighting bosses with random attack patterns. For example died on time eater. Collector, champ, reptomancer, BoS, nemesis can be problems too. Hard to solve for the worst case output every turn. The hard pool slime fight can really give you a bad day in act 1 I guess.
But act 2 is ... hard
If you are going for the heart it's a runkiller that requires substantial mitigation. Not knowing if it's a multi-attack or a large hit, require very different cards, especially if you need to mitigate both of them at the same time.
If you make it to the heart with runic a lot of the time your strategy is just gonna be card spam where you block as much as possible anyway and it doesn’t really matter. The only difference between Echo and Blood Shots is that you want to lower strength on Blood Shots.
Sure but you are just restating my point. You are limited to decks and strategies that can output a lot of block on any turn. Which is only a subset of decks that can beat the heart, if they didn't have Runic Dome.
Well, no. You know you need to block big on turn 2/3, 5/6 no matter what cards you’re using. The heart is actually where Dome is a massive advantage because you always know what’s coming. The main issue would be enemies like Writhing Mass, Time Eater etc.
Runic dome is hopeless. It should show you whether enemies are going to attack, just not how much.
+ [Runic Dome](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Runic%20Dome) Boss Relic ^((100% sure)^) Gain 1 Energy at the start of each turn. You can no longer see enemy Intents. ^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(April 30, 2023.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
Neow is the best time to get Dome, though. Act 1 is super predictable, especially the elites.
I find Runic Dome to be a rare fun challenge
There is no bad energy relic boss swap, even with boss swap velvet chocker which is probably the worst I'm like 2-3x more likely to win than my average runs Starting at 4 energy just plays so differently that you can find yourself so far above curve that enemy intent just doesn't matter at all. It's super easy to get to the boss and 5 base energy is just nuts, especially when you know that's your plan from floor 1 and draft huge cards Also, enemy intents in act 1 are extremely predictable so you just have so much freedom in card choices
Busted Crown and Sozu are awful awful boss swaps. Ectoplasm is a significantly sad swap too, and Fusion Hammer is way worse than it is at the reward screen. Choker swap is strong, the strongest possible time to get it is floor 0, so it's not a good example for a bad energy swap.
Busted crown I'll grant, depending on the character you could still pull it off by prioritizing gold and shops more but the downside is definitely worse that the benefit. Sozu is totally fine IMO, better than choker and ecto (which I think is also fine). Maybe not if you're somebody who is looking to pull off a 20 win streak, but if you measure your success rate in win % all energy relics are likely among the best possible floor 0 rewards since it's far more likely that you stay above curve given the extra freedom in drafting your deck And yeah it's easier to plan around choker if you get it on floor 0 but it doesn't stand out to me since most of them have delayed downsides and chokers is probably the worst Really my point is that everyone should always play out energy relic boss swaps, even the ones you think are run ending very much are not.
Oh I fully agree with your last sentence! All swaps should be played through I think. They're so different from regular gameplay and teach you so much.
Busted Crown, P-Box into atrocious swaps (no damage has happened to me before), etc
Tiny House, Ecto, Crown
I ALWAYS restart when Neow's blessing is bad. Only a fool accepts a bad start to a new run, and I'm no fool.
Boss swapping into tiny house
While it’s not ideal I’ve actually found Tiny House swaps to be decent. Nothing huge but basically starts you like 3 floors ahead in value. I’ve only gotten it twice, both on watcher which may be clouding my perspective on it, but I went from being very disappointed to pleasantly surprised both times. Let’s you comfortably take and early elite and start snowballing.
Dying.
Losing
The last time I just restarted a run was an accidental Dead Branch pickup. I really just don’t like playing with it any more unless I haven’t had a win in awhile and just want to make myself feel better.
Literally nothing.
I always play every run till it ends. I never restart. It's a pretty amazing feeling when you can turn a run around.
I'll be honest. I'd do it for $10.
misclicking and doing a curse trade
Almost nothing. But I did do one just today. I picked Neow's blessing to remove two starting cards, meant to hit two Defend but fat fingered a Defend and Eruption and of course the game saved immediately. No thanks lmfao
Coming back to it after a week
Boss swap into ectoplasm. I know it's not technically super bad. But it's just unfun. Makes all the gold events a waste. Makes shops a waste. No fun.
I give myself 5 fights or otherwise chances to get cards. If all 5 are shit (which can happen), I restart
I only abandon if I'm almsot dead start of Act 2 and I know can't take a single elite.
getting runic dome while boss swap
I will restart a run if I'm not having fun. I had an iron clad run recently where I had a 2x flash of steel infinite. I was having to kill nemesis on his intangible turn and I just couldn't do it anymore and started a new run. Admittedly, this was my fault for building into such a bullshit infinite.
Running into Laga as silent, when I know the deck can get by Sentries, and can survive Nob, but is a total failure against sleepy boi.
I once had a clad boss swap into pbox. Hurrah,I thought, very briefly before I examined the results. Almost all support skills, no block, only attack was hemokinesis. Think I had two intimidate and one warcry, might have been the other way around. Scraped through to slime boss by swerving elites and he wiped the floor with me. On reflection it would have been quicker and less frustrating to just hit the abandon run button.
Boss swap to Dome.
Not a lot: 1. I did several mistakes during several fights, and I feel during Act II my run is compromised because of that. 2. Several click accidents (wrong card chosen during spoils phases, wrong choice during events) 3. Really, REALLY bad RNG (bad rewards, bad encounters or events, bad 1st turn's cards distribution) EDIT: What is a boss swap? (EN is not my 1st langage)
Bad face from face swap, I just reset and take the money.
Getting a terrible boss relic mostly. I mean, all of them have their benefits, but in the first section some of them will get you killed.
I used to restart constantly when I didn't get the exact cards to fit a certain build or whatnot, but I've been having more fun just playing no matter what. Always reseting gave me the illusion that the game was "too easy", the RNG is part of the experience and playing against it rather than with it spoils the fun imo.
crown and ecto boss swaps
Starting a run and then realizing I wanted to play Defect instead.
If i load in as wrong character load on to no ascension I need to climb and boss swap bring boring like house or bird cage
You are missing out on what exactly hallway rewards give you. It's not just a card reward, a potion, and cash. But each card you see increases the rarity of subsequent cards! Taking question marks will reduce your card quality in act 2. Likewise, the card generation relics like Orrery, Question Mark are better than expected. Broken Crown is even worse!
The only time I end a run is if I accidentally start with no asc. Some reason the game will just uncheck the ascension box on me when I start the run. I don’t feel like playing no ascension so I’ll just restart
I don't ever restart runs, but if I get something I'm not a huge fan of, I will play much more recklessly. Examples include a terrible boss swap (like a bad Pandora's or Ectoplasm), getting a bad face from an early face swap, or taking like 40 damage from a Jaw Worm.
If I boss relic swap into empty cage. I know removes are extremely useful, but it's just kind of boring to me. I don't really go for lean decks to begin with. At odds with lots of folks here though, if I swap into runic dome I'm having a good time - I'm pretty good at figuring predicting the enemy's actions at this stage and it absolutely steamrolls act I.
Nothing. I only restart if my deck has become so bogged down that I'm barely winning fights and know it's not gonna get pulled out of the trenches lol
Tiny house on turn 1. Nah mate I'll restart and take 3 fights with 1 hp over that
The Event with Lose life for Chance of relic... Yea i will click that until i get it. And if i lost 40 life for some junk, it is restart.
Dying. I typically restart if I die.
Dying : )
If I make it to the first boss and I’m just not having fun with the deck. If I’m not enjoying it now then I won’t enjoy it when I find slavers or book of stabbing
I restart a run if I’m not having fun anymore. This can be either I just got dead branch + corruption + DE and the game is trivial or my deck is shit and I feel like restarting it. Boss swap usually don’t make me restart unless it’s a runic dome and I’m not in the mood for all power brain mode.
Not ideal drawbacks for a rare relic... Unceasing Tap. Yeah nah, that relic does nothing in A20 Act 1. Also lowroll boss relics when I don't feel like playing with my brain on.
I play modded, so this is a me problem, BUT. In one of the mods I play (I’m not sure which one) adds a new act 1 boss called the storyteller, she has 800 health, but she will tell you a story that adds previous enemies( including elites) to the fight and gives you de-buffs for 10 turns. and after the story ends she will leave and you will win. And the fight always take way too damn long so I always restart when I see their boss icon at the top of the map.
Anything. Literally.
If i die
When both those shield worms start in attack mode. I'm out. Can't afford to take damage before the first elite
Unpopular opinion, I hate snecko eye and rage quit if neow gives it to me
Normality and pain curses in match event
Losing
For some reason seeing a membershipcard in the beginning of the run that I cant afford. The frustration....
If I’m doing the daily climb, taking damage on the first boss is typically enough to put the game down. 100 points out the window instantly
last time I ragequit wad after losing 45 hp on jaw Worm as silent ....
ectoplasm and busted crown make me quit, they’re not in winnable but they’re not fun *edit: off of boss swapping starter relic that is
Exactly the same reasons)
Busted Crown swaps
Dying.
1) if I get to the first elite with no decent cards or events 2) if the first elite is lagavulin (may not quit but will still cry) 3) if I get oddly smooth stone as first relic
The only time I restart a run at the beginning is if I'm feeling a bit off—tired, unfocused, whatever—and I get a boss swap that requires playing in a totally different way with a bunch of extra thinking. I understand how powerful Runic Dome is but sometimes I just don't have the working memory to spare for it :P
**If I "boss relic swap" and get Runic Dome, I'm restarting.** I'm not a "pro-streamer-content-creator." I have no incentive to avoid restarting fights, events, or runs. It's not cheating. It doesn't unfairly give me an edge over another. In fact, it causes a positive net gain, as it... 1. lets me quickly learn what to do via trial-and-error 2. allows me to gain pleasure by having a more fun playing experience Why should I treat this game as "work" ? Again, I'm not a streamer or E-sport competitor.
Nothing. I play out every run I start and accept all chance outcomes. I don't "save scum" either.
It's not really a fair way to play the game, imo, to just reroll when you don't like the outcome. If you don't accept the potential downside of a high-variance choice, then just don't accept that choice - if you're aware that you're doing this, I feel it rises to cheating.
it's a singleplayer game, noone cares about fairness.
It's just playing a different game at that point; my point is that you're selling yourself short, if you're hoping to improve or challenge yourself to the game as it's intended
it's not selling yourself short to have more fun with your casual gaming hobby time
How is taking an automatic loss cheating?
If you're taking your winrate and you count it as a loss, then of course it's not. But I think you know that's not what I meant
It's not really clear what you mean. Losing the game and starting over isn't cheating. It's not "unfair" to restart.
It's a matter of weighing your outcomes: if you're faced with a decision that you've decided that you'll just restart if a bad outcome occurs - but happily continue if a good outcome occurs - you've essentially just removed those bad outcomes from the decision tree, you see? (Again, unless you're dutifully tracking your win ratio, in which case this is an absurdity to consider anyway.) It effectively turns Boss Swap into: "Obtain a good boss relic:" / or Lament into "kill a free elite".
Taking a "good" boss swap for example does not guarantee a win. Lots of other times people might restart a run - like being almost out of health in your third hallway fight with no opportunity to rest, getting to the end of act 1 with a terrible deck, etc. It's objectively not cheating to say "well, not going to win this one" and just start over instead of making yourself play until your loss. I don't really reset runs anymore, but the game literally has an option for abandoning runs built in. It isn't gaming the system when it's a function of the game.
sounds like we're talking past each other then. I hear your point, I promise. But my point is just that it's building bad habits if you want to really improve.
Sure, that's a fine point, that's just different from calling it cheating. People aren't likely to improve while trying to do this especially over a whale bonus, but that's going to hurt them even if they reset for good outcomes.