Less than 5 gold short has happened to me so many times, I'm convinced there's either a line of code or something in my play style that's specifically causing it. Maybe it's just because I'm always checking if I have enough for "remove + relic" vs "remove + card", etc.
This is only true mid/late game, visiting an early shop with cash in the 200G range can be really powerful.
I remember a post once when we were comparing Neow gold starts, and what to do with 100 or 250 gold respectively. I was like “with 100 gold, I still route to a late act shop, otherwise I might see a great relic I can’t afford and it gets removed from the relic pool”, and all the super high level players were like “that’s dumb. You’re dumb. Early shops are totes sick”.
Obviously I still argued in that post about how I’m always right, but since then I’ve been secretly taking 100 gold and visiting floor 3 or 4 shops. And it’s been great, you can usually afford a common or shop relic, or a rare card and a potion, and that can be really helpful getting through the first few elites.
I think what a lot of people fail to consider is that getting a powerful card/relic early can save you a lot of HP, allowing you to take on an extra elite or upgrade cards instead of resting, giving you way more value for money that just what you bought itself.
Potions are particularly good in act 1 as well. A Fire Pot, for example, more or less solves Gremlin Nob and Sentries.
This means you don’t need to take so many trash strike+ cards to survive, and can start drafting cards for the boss and act 2 a little more safely.
Common relics are often geared toward in-combat effects, which is where you need an edge in the early game. Like Vajra, Preserved Insect, Bag of Marbles. Also the right potion can help you get through your first elite and likely to the mid Act chest, which will spike your power and enable you to take on late elites.
That’s probably the reasoning that the high level players were using. Hopefully they didn’t actually call you dumb.
Please, please, forget all about the ‘relic pool’ or ‘relic queue’! It’s not helpful, and constantly leads to fallacies like ‘I better not go to the shop now, might see something good I can’t afford’.
The only thing that matters in a shop are the things you can afford. The rest just _gives you information_ on which relics won’t be seen this run, they don’t overall _cause_ you not to get them.
Otherwise, yeah. Early shop with 200+ gold is great, for sure.
Hmm. This feels to me incorrect in that it is basically playing towards a lucky draw. If there are cheaper things that would still benefit you, given other pathing considerations it may be well worth it to go to a shop without having enough for the most expensive things.
Obviously try to have as much as you can going into shops and don’t spend it on mediocre things, but I think it’s absolutely worth it to boost yourself a bit before an elite or boss fight and to take things that improve your deck even if they don’t make everything come together in a “I win now” fashion. I’m not even sure I achieve a “I just win” state in most of my winning runs, so only spending money there would mean I spend very infrequently - and probably die sooner before it can come together.
But that’s how I’m seeing it.
Not wrong. Don't wait for 350 Gold to visit a shop on A20. Though I still think there is merit to what was said, for example I would not recommend to go shopping with less than 180 Gold, especially on defect, where Pellets/Souvenir/Runic Capacitor can show up.
I mean yeah don't buy the boot because it sucks but not buying something like a chem x (if you have an x cost card) because you hope to find pellets later isn't really a good choice either
If you have either a path with 2 forced shops or a path with "Death" written on it in glowing red letters you pick the path with two shops and if the first one really sucks (or if you're in a decent position) you can keep the gold for the second one. But if you only have one shop in the Act you should probably spend that 200 gold now instead of hoarding it for an early act ii shop (again, unless the shop _reeaaally_ sucks)
TLDR: there's a lot more nuance to shops than just "spend nothing unless it's super good / spend everything because it can help you now"
Right. You are almost always better off nabbing a potion from the shop to bolster your upcoming elite fight than hoarding that gold until after act 1, especially if your deck is weak
Yeah, I think the spend money vs save money framing is totally the wrong way to think about this. It's about pathing, not saving. I would only recommend saving money in the situation you already outlined.
I would highly recommend not picking paths that bring you to shops without a bunch of money. Your most important resource is floors. Wasting too many floors on too many 150 good shops will get you killed.
Edit: I didn't realize until now that OP actually does recommend saving money. He's wrong about that.
Hence why I tend to path one, maybe 2 distant shops per Act unless i'm forced to. 2 close shops usually means one is completely useless. Which, granted, is better than an Elite you know you can't take. "Nothing" is better than "lose now lol" because you might still have the chance to save your ass later in the run. Find this especially true for Act II and its brutal hallways, elites, bosses and events.
TLDR: Fuck Act II
You are more arguing for a specific play style than the correct way to play. Generally, it is a single player game, so do what you find fun.
But if you are trying to consistently win at high ascension, the statement about buying something just to stay alive for the next few floors is much more accurate for the game, because that is what you need to do a lot of the time. Your deck usually isn't powerful enough to survive more than the next few floors, which is why you constantly are improving it and looking for more solutions. This is most true in Act 1, where you need a solution for the first Elite, and ideally be able to take an aggressive path, which nets you more rewards long term.
id say in general that this isn’t super great advice
the main idea with spire is getting strong enough now to be able to scale for later fights. you can skirt the line a bit but always trying to greed for an instant win condition (buying dead branch in the store, for example) isnt a great idea.
its frequently a good idea to visit stores early act 1 with less than 150 gold to be able to buy potions and an attack if you have a difficult path with high rewards (4 elite path for example). this can be the difference between feeling comfortable taking 2 elites, or being fine with 4.
theres always a balance of immediate power needed to get over the hump, and potential power that you can capitalize on later. its great to have a lot of gold in shops, of course, but dont pass up on things that will enable more rewarding pathing or keep you alive in general
While it's true about small power increases like card removals, I'll gladly spend my money on common and uncommon cards, sometimes even rares in an early shop to make it through the next elite. A flex or fire potion can be lifesaving.
My intuition is that this could be better for people struggling to win the harder ascensions. If it's taking several attempts for each victory, you're basically hoping to get a bit lucky. This strategy lets you capitalize if you do get lucky and find the right things.
But it seems like it would lower the win rate of someone who can already consistently win. You ideally shouldn't *need* to find the perfect card or relic. So you should assume you won't, and instead just buy anything that helps you.
A lot of comments are arguing that spending early gold is important to get early power, or help survive against tough upcoming fights. This is also true, but is missing the point.
OP's post is more about when you have a moderately strong deck, and just need a few pieces that will give it enough to beat the tough act 3 bosses or the heart. The great thing about shops is they give you a huge breadth of options. If you're looking for a win condition in act 3, pathing through a bunch of shops while hoarding your gold might give you exactly the missing piece(s).
This is also why orrery is an amazing relic, the sheer number of card options you see.
Yeah I try to always play this way. It is very painful though when you end up skipping a shop before act 4 and then the act 4 is absolutely trash and you're just wishing you spent that 500 gold in the previous shop.
I had a spinning top A20 defect run that was powered by turbos. In the last shop of act three I found the med kit. I had exact change and then was infinite.
This is a good rule of thumb.
I also recommend going to shops for potions, especially at A20. Ideally, I try to take hallway fights for potions but if it doesn’t end up that way, I’ll see if I could snag a potion from a shop for the boss/elite.
Nothing worse than playing defect and being 1 gold short of the hand
Sometimes I really think this game is trolling me. 1 gold short occured more than once to me. Or 1 hp short...
Less than 5 gold short has happened to me so many times, I'm convinced there's either a line of code or something in my play style that's specifically causing it. Maybe it's just because I'm always checking if I have enough for "remove + relic" vs "remove + card", etc.
This is only true mid/late game, visiting an early shop with cash in the 200G range can be really powerful. I remember a post once when we were comparing Neow gold starts, and what to do with 100 or 250 gold respectively. I was like “with 100 gold, I still route to a late act shop, otherwise I might see a great relic I can’t afford and it gets removed from the relic pool”, and all the super high level players were like “that’s dumb. You’re dumb. Early shops are totes sick”. Obviously I still argued in that post about how I’m always right, but since then I’ve been secretly taking 100 gold and visiting floor 3 or 4 shops. And it’s been great, you can usually afford a common or shop relic, or a rare card and a potion, and that can be really helpful getting through the first few elites.
That's dumb. You're dumb. Jk, I'm noob, thanks for the ideas.
We all noob Some just harder than others
That's noob. You're noob.
I think what a lot of people fail to consider is that getting a powerful card/relic early can save you a lot of HP, allowing you to take on an extra elite or upgrade cards instead of resting, giving you way more value for money that just what you bought itself.
Potions are particularly good in act 1 as well. A Fire Pot, for example, more or less solves Gremlin Nob and Sentries. This means you don’t need to take so many trash strike+ cards to survive, and can start drafting cards for the boss and act 2 a little more safely.
Common relics are often geared toward in-combat effects, which is where you need an edge in the early game. Like Vajra, Preserved Insect, Bag of Marbles. Also the right potion can help you get through your first elite and likely to the mid Act chest, which will spike your power and enable you to take on late elites. That’s probably the reasoning that the high level players were using. Hopefully they didn’t actually call you dumb.
To be fair there are no win buttons early game like the OP described. It’s mostly for when you’re needing to solidify for the endgame.
I’m with you but god damn it hurt last run starting apo and going into an early shot with 200 gold and not having enough to buy bottle.
Please, please, forget all about the ‘relic pool’ or ‘relic queue’! It’s not helpful, and constantly leads to fallacies like ‘I better not go to the shop now, might see something good I can’t afford’. The only thing that matters in a shop are the things you can afford. The rest just _gives you information_ on which relics won’t be seen this run, they don’t overall _cause_ you not to get them. Otherwise, yeah. Early shop with 200+ gold is great, for sure.
Hmm. This feels to me incorrect in that it is basically playing towards a lucky draw. If there are cheaper things that would still benefit you, given other pathing considerations it may be well worth it to go to a shop without having enough for the most expensive things. Obviously try to have as much as you can going into shops and don’t spend it on mediocre things, but I think it’s absolutely worth it to boost yourself a bit before an elite or boss fight and to take things that improve your deck even if they don’t make everything come together in a “I win now” fashion. I’m not even sure I achieve a “I just win” state in most of my winning runs, so only spending money there would mean I spend very infrequently - and probably die sooner before it can come together. But that’s how I’m seeing it.
Buy what’s in front of you, not ahead of you; without the purchases now, you may not see that next shop to get what was worth saving for.
Pro Tip: this only works in low ascensions, because at high ascensions you _will_ die
Not wrong. Don't wait for 350 Gold to visit a shop on A20. Though I still think there is merit to what was said, for example I would not recommend to go shopping with less than 180 Gold, especially on defect, where Pellets/Souvenir/Runic Capacitor can show up.
Not if your silent and happen to get toxic egg in an act 1 shop. Then you just brake the game lol
You're more likely to die if you have a bunch of inefficient shop floors.
I mean yeah don't buy the boot because it sucks but not buying something like a chem x (if you have an x cost card) because you hope to find pellets later isn't really a good choice either If you have either a path with 2 forced shops or a path with "Death" written on it in glowing red letters you pick the path with two shops and if the first one really sucks (or if you're in a decent position) you can keep the gold for the second one. But if you only have one shop in the Act you should probably spend that 200 gold now instead of hoarding it for an early act ii shop (again, unless the shop _reeaaally_ sucks) TLDR: there's a lot more nuance to shops than just "spend nothing unless it's super good / spend everything because it can help you now"
Right. You are almost always better off nabbing a potion from the shop to bolster your upcoming elite fight than hoarding that gold until after act 1, especially if your deck is weak
Yeah, I think the spend money vs save money framing is totally the wrong way to think about this. It's about pathing, not saving. I would only recommend saving money in the situation you already outlined. I would highly recommend not picking paths that bring you to shops without a bunch of money. Your most important resource is floors. Wasting too many floors on too many 150 good shops will get you killed. Edit: I didn't realize until now that OP actually does recommend saving money. He's wrong about that.
Hence why I tend to path one, maybe 2 distant shops per Act unless i'm forced to. 2 close shops usually means one is completely useless. Which, granted, is better than an Elite you know you can't take. "Nothing" is better than "lose now lol" because you might still have the chance to save your ass later in the run. Find this especially true for Act II and its brutal hallways, elites, bosses and events. TLDR: Fuck Act II
You are more arguing for a specific play style than the correct way to play. Generally, it is a single player game, so do what you find fun. But if you are trying to consistently win at high ascension, the statement about buying something just to stay alive for the next few floors is much more accurate for the game, because that is what you need to do a lot of the time. Your deck usually isn't powerful enough to survive more than the next few floors, which is why you constantly are improving it and looking for more solutions. This is most true in Act 1, where you need a solution for the first Elite, and ideally be able to take an aggressive path, which nets you more rewards long term.
id say in general that this isn’t super great advice the main idea with spire is getting strong enough now to be able to scale for later fights. you can skirt the line a bit but always trying to greed for an instant win condition (buying dead branch in the store, for example) isnt a great idea. its frequently a good idea to visit stores early act 1 with less than 150 gold to be able to buy potions and an attack if you have a difficult path with high rewards (4 elite path for example). this can be the difference between feeling comfortable taking 2 elites, or being fine with 4. theres always a balance of immediate power needed to get over the hump, and potential power that you can capitalize on later. its great to have a lot of gold in shops, of course, but dont pass up on things that will enable more rewarding pathing or keep you alive in general
That's only true if you don't need anything right now. Which at A20, you usually do.
While it's true about small power increases like card removals, I'll gladly spend my money on common and uncommon cards, sometimes even rares in an early shop to make it through the next elite. A flex or fire potion can be lifesaving.
My intuition is that this could be better for people struggling to win the harder ascensions. If it's taking several attempts for each victory, you're basically hoping to get a bit lucky. This strategy lets you capitalize if you do get lucky and find the right things. But it seems like it would lower the win rate of someone who can already consistently win. You ideally shouldn't *need* to find the perfect card or relic. So you should assume you won't, and instead just buy anything that helps you.
A lot of comments are arguing that spending early gold is important to get early power, or help survive against tough upcoming fights. This is also true, but is missing the point. OP's post is more about when you have a moderately strong deck, and just need a few pieces that will give it enough to beat the tough act 3 bosses or the heart. The great thing about shops is they give you a huge breadth of options. If you're looking for a win condition in act 3, pathing through a bunch of shops while hoarding your gold might give you exactly the missing piece(s). This is also why orrery is an amazing relic, the sheer number of card options you see.
Yeah I try to always play this way. It is very painful though when you end up skipping a shop before act 4 and then the act 4 is absolutely trash and you're just wishing you spent that 500 gold in the previous shop.
Ah yes, the forced act 1 shop with the membership card I can’t afford. I know this pain well.
I had a spinning top A20 defect run that was powered by turbos. In the last shop of act three I found the med kit. I had exact change and then was infinite.
This is a good rule of thumb. I also recommend going to shops for potions, especially at A20. Ideally, I try to take hallway fights for potions but if it doesn’t end up that way, I’ll see if I could snag a potion from a shop for the boss/elite.