One piece of trivia. When the heart was first added to the beta, invincible only capped each instance of damage to 100, you could still otk it. In fact, the first time Jorbs reaches the heart (on stream, you can find the video on youtube), he otk's it while the devs were watching. Next patch, invincible now caps damage per turn.
Other fun fact: Extra damage from the boot used not to count for invincible, so you were still technically able to otk it with a really low damage infinite + boot. The only time boot will ever be useful
wait, does it still caps the instances of damage? i've managed to get past 1k damage on a strenght build with a lot of limit breaks and a heavy blade, but i wasn't going for the heart that tim, would it not dealt the full damage against the heart?
You forgot my least favorite lose condition, "the game shuffles your otherwise very strong deck into an order that guarantees you die to the first salvo of attacks"
Me: "Okay, I just need to draw this one card by turn 3 and I'm practically guaranteed to win the fight." Frozen Eye: "Hey check out what's at the very bottom of the draw pile!"
Defect with ice barriers and seek card favorite of mine for this reason. A guaranteed cushion every turn is so valuable. Doubly so with static discharge/thorns.
@@lemonzealdao6360 the first run where I beat the heart used this exact strategy. I had like four upgraded defragments or something nutty like that as well as an inserter, a glacier and a couple copies of coolheaded, and then claw and all for one. Took a large break immediately afterwards and haven't won a run since returning, sadly.
Loved this video! I think FTL's final boss, the Rebel Flagship, does a lot of similar things to the heart in this game. It forces you to have multiple kinds of defense, uses every system in the game throughout its 3 phases to test your resilience to everything the game has (boarding your ship with drones, cloaking to interrupt big weapon combos and dodge crucial attacks, mind controlling your crew and making them fight each other, etc). Basically, your ship has to be able to handle every worst-case scenario by the time you get there, or there's a much higher chance you lose. Or at least handle it well enough for you to squeek out a victory. I figured it's probably not worth a video since it's so similar to the heart, but the similarities lead to an overall design philosophy for roguelike bosses that could maybe be explored in a video. Analyzing other roguelikes and how they handle their final bosses could be a very fun topic!
Even though I've been playing FTL on and off since I was a kid and have 200+ hours in it that flag ship still kicks my ass most of the time even on easy. Much like slay the spire you're forced to think about the final fight the whole run and how you can deal with all the bullshit it throws at you. Pretty much any strategy can work, it just requires planning and good play. It's also always so intense, especially when the power surges start and bullets start flying everywhere. I can't count the amount of times I've barely won with 3 or less health to spare, or the times the flagship has done the same to me.
even more fun is those times when you max out in one aspect like firepower and then upgrade doors. suffocate the invaders while blasting down their weapons. its great
FTL is very fun, though, the Rebel Flagship has a bit of an easy to exploit weakness, fire weapons. Use fire to kill all the crew, except for the gunner of the laser burst cannon (the weapon that fires 3 laser shots). Doing that lets you disable every other system, meaning if you have 3 shields the Flagship cannot damage you. Fire Beam, shield breaking weapons, Stealth, good engines (50+ evasion), and good shields (3 bars) should be enough to take down that annoying ship.
The difference is that with FTL, getting there is the only real challenge After the first time, you'll know that you'll need maxed out shields and cloak, and at that point you can kill it relatively easily by dodging the missiles and the super attacks. I love the flagship, but it suffers from being at the end of an OP ship without anything to prevent instant destruction
If you can have a bad draw on more than just one hand then your deck probably isn't that good - especially since the most important turns for all fights are 1 and 2
This is something I wish the video had gone over. Card draw is extremely powerful in StS, and it's the one thing you can build for every run to some extent while insuring yourself for the final two fights. I say the final two fights, because Spire Elites Turn 2 is often the hardest turn in the entire run. Kinda surprised the video brushed off the spire elites, because that 4x10 damage + two burn cards on turn 2 is just brutal. Sometimes you just get bad luck and can't block in that turn, and that puts you at a significant disadvantage for the Heart fight (if it doesn't kill you outright). Bringing a card draw potion or a gambler potion specifically for that Spire Elites Turn 2 can save your entire run at Ascension 20. I probably sound hyperbolic, but Spire Elites Turn 2 really is that important. I'd wager to say that too much of the run hinges on that Spire Elites Turn 2, actually, since this is a problem universal to any build. As for the Heart itself, It's alright. It's basically a litmus test for how well your deck deals with every kind of encounter in the game, barring AoE fights. As such, it feels more like a victory lap at times. Not an easy victory lap, of course, but one that feels more like a relief after getting through double Act 3 bosses right beforehand.
@pleasegoawaynowpleas I made it to the boss as the defect last night running a defense frost build and died. I did the same today running a hybrid lightning frost deck and won. I thought my deck I died with last night was a lot better, but that's the one that lost.
5:15 on high ascensions, spire spear puts the burns at the top of your deck. It becomes so much more bs and dangerous that way, since you are essentially only able to draw 3 useable cards.
Hexaghost was always interesting for me. His first attack is dependent on your current hp, and if you come in fight with full health, you will be lovered to around half. It's an interesting feat, forcing you into a bad situation.
@@pflaumi123 to a point, it still hits for a total of 44 over 6 turns before the second big damage burst. If the upgrade helps burn it down and you can block the regular damage then yes.
After learning that I actually like seeing Hexaghost in Act 1 now. It becomes a relatively easy boss if you go in with low HP, which lets me play "riskier" leading up to the fight and reap the rewards with less punishment for it.
Something else I really like about the heart is that if you're on a run that goes to it, even if you die in act 4 you will still unlock the next ascension level. You aren't punished for going for a bigger challenge, even if you fall short (besides the process of getting the keys that is). Makes the whole thing quite approachable for being the most difficult boss in the game.
The Heart is why the Tungsten Rod is the single most powerful relic IMO. Nothing sucks more than getting an OP build to your final campfire and realizing you missed a key somewhere along the way.
Me when I got my first ever watcher infinite and it could consistently generate block, but I forgot one of the keys. Now if I want that beta art I need to play Watcher again :(
Just be careful if you're running ironclad self damage procs as that can negate the damage you're getting from stuff like brutality, pain, combust, etc. basically, cards you use to get your damage procs for stuff like rupture, runic cube, and self forming clay and those only do 1 damage so with tungsten, it will negate that. I've actually passed on a tungsten when it came up when I was running a deck like that.
That -1 damage really does a lot more than you'd expect. That saves precious HP on every single partial block, Ironclad's self damage, and the surprising number of enemies throughout the game that use multihits. Hard countering the Heart fight is just icing on top of this already being a great relic.
I like the heart because its sort of a litmus test for your deck. It holds you a mirror and shows it where it is strong and where it is weak. I very much like it as an optional test for your build. Like its a dynamic grading system of how well you did.
Same could be said of all the other bosses, no? What makes this so unique? Like examples of how it shows your deck's strength and weakness that is unique to the other bosses?
@@lorenzomizushal3980 You need a fairly balanced deck to not suffer through the heart. You can have a deck that would destroy any fight on the first turn in a couple of seconds that wouldn't stand a chance against the heart. Or the opposite, a deffensive build that easily holds against any fight until it eventually kills them with little damage or by building scaling power like strength, poison, focus or mantra. As stated on the video, there are decks that rely on playing lots of cards, but without some defensive plan, you won't be able to get through the fight. If this isn't already enough, you need to bear in mind that you just fought a really difficult and unique Elite fight prior to this without the chance to heal with a campfire or even upgrade an extra card. Now make it harder by going with Ascension 20. Beat of death on 2 damage is brutal. Not to mention you already lost the chance to a relic and a campfire to get the keys, plus a harder Elite fight. You simply need to be really prepare for it while you survive everything else.
@@RanetaCroak you really don’t though. You totally can go all in on one aspect and beat the heart with potions. Also no deck of the watcher has little damage it’s just some decks don’t have lethal turn one vs bosses and actually have block mechanisms and some just grab a bunch of vaults maybe a lizard tail and can easily do 300 damage every turn before they die if they wanna face the heart. While some decks have alternatives styles that fair better vs the heart ( like body slam decks that can manage to maintain block and body slam in same hand without barricade) those decks are less more balanced less focused on defense in defense decks for example and just better. Turns out getting 40 block playing a dual wielding and doing 120 damage and using deck manipulation to consistently get that is just better then trying to use barricade taking damage to get it up and then spending time setting up block to then use a body slam to do 300 damage many turns in on every fight and also less risky to try to get up for your ascension 20 run. It’s not really barricade being a less balanced but more doubled down form of body slam when in pretty much every fight it’s worse and is a very risky card to take where as body slam has so many natural partners and is also an upgrade to base deck even unupgraded
I beat the heart the first time I fought it, happened to have a super poison deck, with massive amounts of draw more card, cards and the keep your cards artifact. Gave em 20 poison and used 3 upgraded catalysts on it and just waited.
I do feel like the heart has one very strange weakness though, in that thorns obliterates it, especially if you are playing the long game, as the heart will do the 15x attack several times, dealing 45 or higher damage to itself multiple times
While thorns is super strong against the heart, the damage still is capped per turn including thorns damage. And 45 damage every other turn isn't enough to take out the heart. You still have to have your own damage and ways to block the large single strike. I know you can stack more than 3 thorns, but that's a lot of resources for a single fight, even if that single fight is the heart.
@@fma0420the problem with caltrops is that it’s essentially a curse for every other fight, if it see it in the act 4 shop or elite I might take it, but much like catalyst, it’s useless against the act 2 floor 1 Avocado slamming me for 21
Thorns alone does not do enough to the heart to make it a feasible plan. Even if you get 14+ thorns to hit the 200 cap, you'll be around for 4 cycles if you don't have another plan. You either need impecible defence or another offence option. It's almost as if the 15x attack makes thorns useful without breaking the fight
Nice video. One thing that hit me while watching was that slay the spire is one of few games where you really have to learn to sometimes just tank a hit and either buff yourself, or SMorc because the enemies don't wait around, and they might even outscale you. Take the cultist for example, his first attack hits for 6, 1 more than a normal block, so if you wanna full block, you will miss out on damage, and suddenly the next turn he will hit even harder and so on. There are few times that I ever feel that STS is pulling a fast one on me, it's a fair game that keeps beating my ass.
Oh wow! With this level of presentation and production I thought this was a well established channel. Awesome work! Only a small nitpick thou, putting some of the soundtrack of the game through out the video play at a low volume would enhance it.
I was about to comment this as well. Such a great explanation and it's a cool topic. but I found my attention drifting without something in the background.
The absolute best thing about the heart, and one I really miss in other games, is that it is an unreasonably hard but optional final boss. The Heart is not balanced to be a final boss, it is balanced for when the final boss isn't a challenge. For example, in Across the Obelisk you have a lot more control over your decks and builds, and can very often reach a point in the second act where you just know you are going to win the run no problem. You can't just quit because then why are you playing, but there isn't really a point to finishing either when there is no risk of losing. The solution to this would be an optional final boss that is way too hard to have as the final boss, which serves as a secondary objective to keep your entertainment once you've become too strong to be engaged by the balanced final boss. The solution is the heart. Roguelikes all have this problem, and a heartlike boss would fix it in near every single one.
Disagree, it isn't an optional unreasonably hard boss like in a final fantasy game or similar rpg, it's just the "actual" final boss. It's completely balanced, the game is over 50% winnable with perfect play on ascension 20 against the heart. I mean you can play however you like but the whole game is definately sculpted around and balanced for it
@@joelwestman8809 Well, I don't consider it a win unless you beat it :P Also going by the lore of the game, you don't actually slay/escape the spire unless you kill the heart. Stopping short you fall asleep and must start over
Nice to see the showcase of footage from Slay the Spire content creators. Though I only realized that was happening once I saw Frost Prime on the screen. It would be good to put the name of who the video is from on the screen somewhere, probably in a corner or along one of the edges.
This is an amazingly well worded explanation of the heart and I'm looking forward to more from the channel. one thing I wish STS did is display the names attacks have in the files when they use each one to make attacks and their patterns more memorable. Have a great Christmas and new year.
im pretty sure theres something that displays attack names (maybe its when the attacks are used? also maybe its disabled on fast mode??), since i know ive seen the game say the names for some of them
I think it's important to note. When The Heart buffs itself it isn't clearing debuffs, it is specifically clearing negative strength, so while cards like Piercing Wail and Dark Shackles are absolute beasts in the fight, using them on the wrong turn is actually a death sentence since The Heart doesn't cleanse the Shackled debuff and gains 15 strength the following turn.
What I love about the heart is that it is consistent in a game where every run can be wildly diferent. It's funny how you can get the comfort of the familiar on the most challenging fight of the game. Great analysis! I would recommend taking a look at the Metroid Prime series. Each installment has a memorable final boss for different reasons, but the titular Metroid Prime is my favorite of them.
One of my favorite facets about the Heart fight is that, every once in a while, you string together the *perfect* set of deck and relic syngergies such that even the most difficult fight in the entire game becomes an absolute cakewalk. I had a Prismatic Shard Ironclad run once, where I got Dual Wield, Juggernaut, Talk to the Hand, and Barricade - I was generating so much block each turn and dealing such an obscene amount of damage that I ended the fight before I even finished setting up my block scaling by infinitely copying Talk to the Hand with Dual Wield. It was glorious.
Great concept for a series, I look forward to seeing more! You may want to do something about your echo from your mic btw, there are a lot of really simple hacks to mitigate the effect of sounding like you're in a big empty room, I personally put curtains up on each of my walls but I'm sure you could find other options too.
Long story short: - In a game all about buffs and debuffs the most uses said skills. - challenging but ot impossible. - has anti cheese protection while allowing for some hard to assemble strategies to work against it. - devs made sure the battle ends by adding a fair time limit that will kill the player no matter what.
Great analysis! The only thing i want to add is how amazingly they build up to it in the scarce narrative. The first time you beat the game, you encounter this thing and die at the ending after beating act 3, seeing damage measure how good your run was. Then you play the other characters and slowly unlock keys for each and get confused on what they are. As you test the new mechanic and unlock all of them, you dont die for the first time - and then the MUSIC of act 4 plays and the word "the ending" comes to the screen. Just 4 rooms. Rest, shop, elite, boss. And then you struggle past a unique fight with directional mechanics, brutal on its own and then you face the heart thats been mysterious and invincible the whole time... And hear that MUSIC swell with the violin beating alongside a actual heartbeat. Then the first turn it inmediate inflicts the most crippling debuff the entire game inflicting every status, with 2 oppressive passives with cool names. Narratively and with the music, part of what makes the heart so good is the sheer buildup and presentation of it as the ultimate challenge. The difficulty is perfect as you described but what makes it over the top is just.. how perfect the presentation of the heart is. That music is still my favourite.
A lot of people dislike time eater, but allow me to to attempt to defend it as a well designed boss. Time eater punishes low average card quality, while the other two act 3 bosses do not. Time eater means an infinite combo deck that takes a long time can't beat all the bosses. Also, you can see Time Eater at the start of act 3 if it's your boss, so you can plan accordinly. By the time you're doing A20s double boss, you learn to always expect it. Yes, spammy play 100 cards a turn decks ARE really fun, but time eater keeps them from being too powerful. A small price to pay for a balanced game.
I started playing this game two months ago. After 300 hours I finally got the platinum trophy ( completed ascention 20 with the defect ), and even though usually I'd be more than looking forward to move on and play another game after all that time, slay the spire still has an incredible draw that shows no sign of wearing off. Now I'm thinking of completing ascention 20 with all characters. They are all so different and unique, and fun to play with for different reasons. What an amazing game.
Im in the same boat. I haven't gotten the platinum but have over 300 hours of gameplay. I managed to beat ascension 20 with defect and silent so far. Never beat the heart at ascension 20 tho, only on no ascension. Honestly though, I've learned so much about the game since i first beat the heart that I'm sure i could kill it on ascension 20. I just find the game relaxing and a lot of fun.
Thanks to frost prime i beat the asc 20 aeound 200-230 hours in the game, benn playin fo a few months. Defenitely recommend watcher next, silent is waaaay too easy if you know what you're doin and watcher is fun to learn and master and is the most broken character)
I'm glad this vid popped up in my recommendations, watched your other vids as well, solid work all around! I hope you to see another vid from you in the future, have my notifications on and everything :) Keep being awesome!
In the solo deck-builder game Friday (not a video game), you start each game drawing two random pirate ships that will be the boss fights at the end of the game. It would be like Slay the Spire telling you before your first which act III bosses you'd be fighting. Because it's played with a single pre-made deck, this gives players a way to meaningfully focus their build differently each game. Many are simply a couple of numbers, but a few have special effects that really change how you build your deck. The two biggest outliers either make drawing extra cards cost more health (making cards that would otherwise be neutral very negative) or on that is weakened by every card in play (making otherwise neutral cards very useful). Facing both in the same fight sucks.
My personal suggestions would be Azathoth from Persona 5 Royal, or Yozora from Kingdom Hearts 3. Azathoth feels like it’s built specifically for Royal’s mechanics and gives a super unique experience with a ton of ways to handle it, along with preventing you from relying on the same strats throughout the fight. Yozora almost plays like a puzzle, with a ton of super creative openings, and has tons of moments where I went “ah-ha!” after finding out what I was supposed to do against a given attack. There’s a ton to talk about with both of these fights but they’re both absolutely fantastic.
Azathoth is such a good boss. You can go into it with a group with the highest raw power you an imagine, but you still have to think. I went in with my whole party at max level, and Joker with a 99 Magic, 99 Agility Shining Arrows Kaguya build that could basically 1-shot anything, and I still had to work around the boss' mechanics. That's what a good final boss should do. You have to design it knowing that the player will potentially coming in with the highest stat numbers imaginable, or they might come in at a reasonable level for that point in the game. The boss fight can't just come down to "set the numbers high to challenge the strong players", since that ruins it for the "weak" players. It has to challenge both groups equally with its mechanics.
The issue with that boss is that he can easily be hard countered due to only having 4 different damage types (he also only has 3 in each phase) and the one damage type that can’t be negated always has a very obvious tell that lets you know to guard. I believe he also has an instakill move but it’s extremely rare to the point I’ve never found footage of it and only happens after a very, very long number of turns.
The insane mode Necromancer Is the ultimate skill check in any game I've ever played , the boss itself is roughly as strong you are but that's not why I'd say that he's the ultimate skill check , the enemies he revives during wave 2 specifically challenge you to learn how to do all variants of Juggling your enemy due to the 3 weigh classes and the beefies actively punish you for trying to hide in the sky , wave 1 is hard as well but it is so easy to die to this boss because the enemy's move very fast and hit so hard , this is much harder during wave 2
Good job on the video man! It's fascinating how the heart encourages strategies while still testing your resolve. You do a great job going through it. I know you already know about Jorbs, but he has created a bunch of videos going into detail on each and every card and I recommend it as bonus material to watch. I found it fascinating. I'm playing Kena right now and it's an interesting example of bosses both done right and wrong. Some bosses fit the game super well, while others are Elden Ring levels of bad. I'll probably create videos on both games as well, but I think you'd enjoy Kena!
10:00 I would heavily disagree with your comment on time eater, the time eater punishes infinites and decks that play a lot of cards, absoloutely, but the only playstyle Time Eater completely invalidates is not playing enough cards on your turn. 12 cards each turn (especially if they're effective enough to mitigate the hearts crazy damage) is almost always enough to outdo timeeater, the decks timeeater really punishes are the ones that play 9 or 10 cards a turn, and are therefore then left with only 2-3 cards to play next turn, which is almost never enough to save yourself unless they're really high value cards. Essentially what I'm saying is my main tip for time eater and possibly making him more fun is to do the math, and if you can't play all 12 cards, play six instead to maximise your chances of playing enough cards next turn!
Great video! I love Slay The Spire and while I'm not that good at it, I do enjoy seeing it be covered by others. I think an interesting boss you could look at is V2 from ULTRAKILL, either the first fight, the second fight or both, seeing how it flips the combat very much on its head by pitting you against what is effectively yourself.
As a suggestion for another video: "Thunderjaw in Horizon Zero Dawn". I know its not technically a boss, but its such a great encounter. And as a nice bonus: The fight against the Thunderjaw was the first thing that got "done", before even the rest of the game got developed.
The heart is so daunting and I love it. Died so many times to it over and over. Finally killed with a deck focusing on card draw and thorns- with enough thorns up the heart eats its own HP with that multi-attack. I could hardly believe when it really went down, I half expected it to pull out a second HP bar just to spite me.
The heart is such a massive, game warping difficulty spike compared to a player who can fairly consistently manage to reach it that it honestly just, made me give up and not want to play the game at all. I'll admit to not being great at slay the spire but as a new player once you get a gew runs there and they all just collapse almost immediately without feeling like I stood a chance/ could do anything, I didn't want to play anymore.
Destructive force from gravity rush 2. A great final boss in theme, visual and esecution. Its literally the incarnation of the BLACK SEA OF DEATH thath was the focal point of the game and his prequel. Its a tought and long fight after a gauntlet. Its fucking beautiful and give a sense of hopelessness before the final victory. And the crowd literally cheer for you singing your song.
If you still need a video idea, I'd probably suggest The Rebel Flagship from FTL: Faster than Light - it's such an amazing bossfight that composes itself into the game super well, and its design choices are pretty amazing imo
i remember the first time i played slay the spire on my brothers computer with his help, i beat heart first try with an infinite defense build and body slam. i recently came back to the game and have managaed to beat a0 on ironclad, now im trying to do it on watcher, then ill try at getting a heart kill maybe edit: i think you should do one on the final boss in hollow knight, the radiance, a very well crafted and climactic fight at the end of either the true ending of the game, or the gauntlet of hell that is the pantheon of hallownest, they are quite similar so you might be able to do both, or just analyze absolute radiance (the pantheon of hallownest one) and draw connections and subversions of the normal radiance, i think it would make for a really cool breakdown.
I would love to see your take on the trope of the "roaming elite enemy in a beginner zone" like the black knights in dark souls. Bosses that test your knowledge on a first playthrough and make repeat playthroughs extra interesting
My most distinct memory of this fight was watching one of my friends reach it, with a defensive Defect deck focused on weathering hits while slowly dealing damage, stacking up Powers with Hello World to win a slow fight. Then the Corrupt Heart buffed strength by 50 (to like +65?) and went for the 24 strike attack. it was really funny
That attack is my favourite part about heart It's like the heart tell you "Yeah those Turns are nice , catch these 65×12 won't you?" Making some slow deck (by slow i mean EXTREMELY SLOW) mostly dead against it
I love the way The Spire is designed compared to other bosses. You may have had a good deck to get to it, but it being good enough isn't a heart killer. It might kill if you are lucky and keep getting good draws but you need those draws to be consistent and you can't just monkey brain or turn it off. One mistake can just end your entire run.
I still remember my first time beating the heart. It wasn't some cheesy combo I put together or anything like that, it was a silent run that I constantly felt on the backfoot of and that I was going to lose at every fight. I got pretty good RNG all things considered but very few games give that same rush of dopamine from everything coming together at the final moment. It was only on Acension 17 so definitely not the biggest achievement, but I'm still fond of that run and very few games ever come close to that level of hype and adrenaline from beating one of the hardest, but fair, skill checks in games.
Hey there! Loved the vid and the insight! Just a thought for future videos, music of some kind would be nice to fill in some dead space in between lines, I think. Great analysis either way!
I'd love to see a cover of Hollow Knight's final boss/bosses. Hollow Knight's THK and Radiance combo fight is incredibly memorable and functions in a similar way to Slay the Spire's shield and spear leading into the heart fight
I wouldn’t say THK is similar to Spear and Shield, because you get fully healed before Radiance, while by default you get no healing between SS and Heart, unless you’re Ironclad in which case you heal 6 by default.
12:18 - The heart is one of the most powerful enemies in the game in terms of damage it can deal, because these 72x15 damage are already more than the player can block even having 999 block.
Hey, awesome video, I'm a big StS fan and the Heart is one of my favorite bosses of all time. My recommendation is Charon from Hades. Charon is available at all stages of the game via chance visiting his shop, and he is a beast and a half. He hits like a truck, is immune to effects like weak and deflect, and has lots of long range attacks as well as melee. All things considered though, he is very balanced and feels good to fight against as though he has lots of attacks and hits like a truck, the attacks have big blind spots, and the ranged ones are easy to dash through. He is a lovely fight and a lovely boatman, Charon is the best 👌
The heart makes me motivated to get even better at the game tbh. My latest run that went to the heart I lost to because I didn't have enough power to defeat it before it outpowered me (it was a juggernaut-centered deck)
I never did beat this boss when I was playing the game. I made it there a few times with builds where I was confident I would win, but then got beat by something I didn't account for. I felt like the boss fight was challenging, but fair and I think that's the sign of a good final boss fight.
Personal reccomendation Something from furi. There is alot of argument over what the best one is but my money is on the song as her design and theme really tells the story very well
I'm not personally a big fan of the Corrupted Heart fight but mostly cause I like making a (usually gimmicky) build that is fun to use. The Corrupted Heart feels VERY much like you have to build a deck specifically for them, so something that might've been fun to use up to the act 3 boss, suddenly becomes completely useless. Not even the Spire Shield/Spear fight does this, and I dont think I'm just trying to make braindead builds either, as I still need to figure out what cards to play in the right order with the cards I've gotten in order to win each fight. In comparison, Time eater, while a bit annoying, I dont have as much of a problem with. You just have to decide what the last card you want to play on a turn is regardless of your energy resource, and even keeping in mind how many cards you can play next turn helps. Its annoying, but it still feels like you can make a build in a bad match-up work despite the passive. That being said, I dont think what you're saying is wrong; its just we're playing the games differently. You see the strategy of needing to build up to the specific boss fight fun, while I like trying stupid or gimmicky builds to see how well I can get them to work. Might also be worth noting i'm, at most, on ascension 3, and I have beaten the heart before; Its just not a fun time for me. If you want a suggestion for a good boss fight to look at, I'd say look to Granblue Versus. Almost every single Fighting game barring Smash bros doesnt have a good boss fight imo, and yet GBVS has multiple that feel engaging without boiling down to "normal character thats buffed", or "overpowered character that input reads you so you just cheese them" or "Block, then attack cause none of your combos work against them"
No offense, just a funny note, that on 6:48 i believe you could have survived that turn with 1 HP if you just played Defend, Piercing Wail and Malaise without anything else
This is such a sick concept. I hope he dives into the armored core series. NineBall, White Glint. Tons of great mythos and boss design in armored core and fellow Ravens would appreciate it.
Sekiro's final 2 bosses (sword saint ishin & the hidden boss demon of hatered) should be really cool to analyze, they are essentially the final version of two types of challenges the game has to offer (the refined swordfights of sekiro vs the more movement oriented feel that you would find in dark souls)
Most of the time, I could tank the heart’s opening attacks if there was at least one elite like spire shield/spear. The heart’s difficulty comes from lack of general game knowledge compared to when you can fight it. A similarly hard boss in Isaac is gated behind having to beat the game MANY times (I compare the heart to Mother from Isaac, and you need 14+ wins to fight it, so you’ve experienced a lot of hard patterns already. Shield and spear are so annoying, not because they’re hard, but because the mechanic is new and unrelenting
I'd go one step further and so most of Isaac's big chest run ending bosses (plus hush) fall into the "knowledge gap" category as they're generally patten-based bullet hell bosses. Hard to know in advance about tells like Mega Satan's laser, Dogma's re-aiming of their static laser, Hush's continuum bullet spam, or even moves with no tell that you just have to know to avoid like Lamb's homing ipecac shotgun.
tbh shield and spear are still pretty dangerous even when you know exactly what they do on A20, the burns the spear gives you go on the _top_ of your deck, meaning you have 3 non-burn cards to deal with about 56 incoming damage (40 from the spear, i dont remember how much the shield does but its probably at least 16) and then right after that you have to block roughly 60 damage incoming (and this is AFTER turning towards the shield)
I mean to be fair game knowledge gap was me the first time into act 4 I didn't realize how outclassed I was and it made me happier I even got that far nevermind not seeing the heart till like the 3rd time in I got to act four and then I got beat down on its first attak cause I still wasn't good enough and this was Asc 0 too
As for a fight you could do for a future video, I was always very impressed with the final swordfight against Ganon in Twilight Princess; it's a unique take on a bossfight that requires you to do a single combo long enough to expose him for the final blow. Of course, I could see how that might be annoying for some players...
"Sometimes you miss that one key piece that would have taken you to the moon." Ah yes, Tungsten Rod, I remember. Ah yes, Toril, I remember. Ah yes, Bronze Scales, I remember. No but seriously if you get those three Relics the Heart is basically a cakewalk no matter what else you have on your character and build is as long as you did well in the Elite Battle beforehand.
Video suggestion: Memes aside, the Sans encounter in Undertale has to be my all-time favorite boss fight. It's just an incredibly clever and inventive fight, somehow managing to surprise even at the end of a game that was filled to the brim with subversive mechanics. Couple that with its brutal (but fair) difficulty, the emotional impact of the moment and a killer soundtrack, and I think the fight well earns its notoriety.
Probably a skill issue on my part, but just hearing about any ascension over 10 makes my heart race, I'm still not even above 3 yet, although that is probably also because I keep playing at ascension one because I want to fight the heart and keep dying
I absolutely loved this video! I have a couple of recommendations for future analyses as well, so if you see this, take that into consideration. Instantly subscribed, hope you keep this going! Borderlands 2's Raid Bosses (especially Voracidious the Invincible) Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess' Bosses (especially Stallord, Zant, and Ganondorf) Dicey Dungeons' Lady Luck Alice: Madness Returns' Final Boss Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (any boss, really, though Valravn stands out to me)
There’s a bug that lets you skip them and another separate bug that lets you use them to skip heart both involving smoke bomb. The first is if in slow mode it’s possible to smoke bomb before their surrounded debuff procs and the second is a bug everywhere else where if you smoke bomb at the same time you kill them it skips heart (don’t know if you smoke bomb before or after the killing hit I’ve never used the bug).
One piece of trivia. When the heart was first added to the beta, invincible only capped each instance of damage to 100, you could still otk it. In fact, the first time Jorbs reaches the heart (on stream, you can find the video on youtube), he otk's it while the devs were watching. Next patch, invincible now caps damage per turn.
Other fun fact: Extra damage from the boot used not to count for invincible, so you were still technically able to otk it with a really low damage infinite + boot. The only time boot will ever be useful
@@TheLethargicWeirdo985 i’ll always have boot’s back even if no one else does. one day riddle with holes will be meta babeyy
wait, does it still caps the instances of damage? i've managed to get past 1k damage on a strenght build with a lot of limit breaks and a heavy blade, but i wasn't going for the heart that tim, would it not dealt the full damage against the heart?
@@San-lh8us 7:52
@@erazure. i don't think that answers my question man, he is talking about beat of death, not if the game limits each instance of damage
13:20 "losing a run here can be heartbreaking"
Winning a run here is pretty "heartbreaking" too, don't you think :P
Marry me
@@solarwolf1336 Let me officiate it.
@@andrewcarroll3722 - Fuck it I’ll marry you too
What about me ?
@@mightymorphin2472 Yes.
You forgot my least favorite lose condition, "the game shuffles your otherwise very strong deck into an order that guarantees you die to the first salvo of attacks"
Me: "Okay, I just need to draw this one card by turn 3 and I'm practically guaranteed to win the fight."
Frozen Eye: "Hey check out what's at the very bottom of the draw pile!"
drawing only defensive cards turn one and only offensive cards turn 2 moment
Defect with ice barriers and seek card favorite of mine for this reason. A guaranteed cushion every turn is so valuable.
Doubly so with static discharge/thorns.
@@lemonzealdao6360 the first run where I beat the heart used this exact strategy. I had like four upgraded defragments or something nutty like that as well as an inserter, a glacier and a couple copies of coolheaded, and then claw and all for one. Took a large break immediately afterwards and haven't won a run since returning, sadly.
@Brass319 Turn 1: Shrug it off. The enemy is buffing himself
Turn 2: Bludgeon. The enemy intends to do 10×6 damage this turn. (You're vulnerable)
Loved this video! I think FTL's final boss, the Rebel Flagship, does a lot of similar things to the heart in this game. It forces you to have multiple kinds of defense, uses every system in the game throughout its 3 phases to test your resilience to everything the game has (boarding your ship with drones, cloaking to interrupt big weapon combos and dodge crucial attacks, mind controlling your crew and making them fight each other, etc). Basically, your ship has to be able to handle every worst-case scenario by the time you get there, or there's a much higher chance you lose. Or at least handle it well enough for you to squeek out a victory.
I figured it's probably not worth a video since it's so similar to the heart, but the similarities lead to an overall design philosophy for roguelike bosses that could maybe be explored in a video. Analyzing other roguelikes and how they handle their final bosses could be a very fun topic!
Even though I've been playing FTL on and off since I was a kid and have 200+ hours in it that flag ship still kicks my ass most of the time even on easy. Much like slay the spire you're forced to think about the final fight the whole run and how you can deal with all the bullshit it throws at you. Pretty much any strategy can work, it just requires planning and good play. It's also always so intense, especially when the power surges start and bullets start flying everywhere. I can't count the amount of times I've barely won with 3 or less health to spare, or the times the flagship has done the same to me.
Or just have 3-5 vaults
even more fun is those times when you max out in one aspect like firepower and then upgrade doors. suffocate the invaders while blasting down their weapons. its great
FTL is very fun, though, the Rebel Flagship has a bit of an easy to exploit weakness, fire weapons. Use fire to kill all the crew, except for the gunner of the laser burst cannon (the weapon that fires 3 laser shots). Doing that lets you disable every other system, meaning if you have 3 shields the Flagship cannot damage you. Fire Beam, shield breaking weapons, Stealth, good engines (50+ evasion), and good shields (3 bars) should be enough to take down that annoying ship.
The difference is that with FTL, getting there is the only real challenge
After the first time, you'll know that you'll need maxed out shields and cloak, and at that point you can kill it relatively easily by dodging the missiles and the super attacks. I love the flagship, but it suffers from being at the end of an OP ship without anything to prevent instant destruction
I think the most frustrating thing is when you have a good deck make it to the heart, get bad card draw on the first couple hands and die.
If you can have a bad draw on more than just one hand then your deck probably isn't that good - especially since the most important turns for all fights are 1 and 2
@@pleasegoawaynowpleas that's not always true, but I do see what you are saying
This is something I wish the video had gone over. Card draw is extremely powerful in StS, and it's the one thing you can build for every run to some extent while insuring yourself for the final two fights. I say the final two fights, because Spire Elites Turn 2 is often the hardest turn in the entire run. Kinda surprised the video brushed off the spire elites, because that 4x10 damage + two burn cards on turn 2 is just brutal. Sometimes you just get bad luck and can't block in that turn, and that puts you at a significant disadvantage for the Heart fight (if it doesn't kill you outright). Bringing a card draw potion or a gambler potion specifically for that Spire Elites Turn 2 can save your entire run at Ascension 20. I probably sound hyperbolic, but Spire Elites Turn 2 really is that important. I'd wager to say that too much of the run hinges on that Spire Elites Turn 2, actually, since this is a problem universal to any build.
As for the Heart itself, It's alright. It's basically a litmus test for how well your deck deals with every kind of encounter in the game, barring AoE fights. As such, it feels more like a victory lap at times. Not an easy victory lap, of course, but one that feels more like a relief after getting through double Act 3 bosses right beforehand.
@@IMMAOILMAN A18+ t2 spear is so broken i hate it. topdecking the burns is just… ugh
@pleasegoawaynowpleas I made it to the boss as the defect last night running a defense frost build and died. I did the same today running a hybrid lightning frost deck and won. I thought my deck I died with last night was a lot better, but that's the one that lost.
5:15 on high ascensions, spire spear puts the burns at the top of your deck. It becomes so much more bs and dangerous that way, since you are essentially only able to draw 3 useable cards.
Hexaghost was always interesting for me. His first attack is dependent on your current hp, and if you come in fight with full health, you will be lovered to around half. It's an interesting feat, forcing you into a bad situation.
well it's mathematically designed to do so, with the first attack's damage being coded to be (your current hp/12) six times
So choosing to do a meaningful upgrade over healing is actually good.
Of course I knew that. *cough*
@@pflaumi123 to a point, it still hits for a total of 44 over 6 turns before the second big damage burst. If the upgrade helps burn it down and you can block the regular damage then yes.
After learning that I actually like seeing Hexaghost in Act 1 now. It becomes a relatively easy boss if you go in with low HP, which lets me play "riskier" leading up to the fight and reap the rewards with less punishment for it.
Ohhh, thats why it does random damage on its opening attack
Something else I really like about the heart is that if you're on a run that goes to it, even if you die in act 4 you will still unlock the next ascension level. You aren't punished for going for a bigger challenge, even if you fall short (besides the process of getting the keys that is). Makes the whole thing quite approachable for being the most difficult boss in the game.
The Heart is why the Tungsten Rod is the single most powerful relic IMO.
Nothing sucks more than getting an OP build to your final campfire and realizing you missed a key somewhere along the way.
Me when I got my first ever watcher infinite and it could consistently generate block, but I forgot one of the keys. Now if I want that beta art I need to play Watcher again :(
Just be careful if you're running ironclad self damage procs as that can negate the damage you're getting from stuff like brutality, pain, combust, etc. basically, cards you use to get your damage procs for stuff like rupture, runic cube, and self forming clay and those only do 1 damage so with tungsten, it will negate that. I've actually passed on a tungsten when it came up when I was running a deck like that.
That -1 damage really does a lot more than you'd expect. That saves precious HP on every single partial block, Ironclad's self damage, and the surprising number of enemies throughout the game that use multihits. Hard countering the Heart fight is just icing on top of this already being a great relic.
Nah man. Kunai is so strong on silent or defect it's not even funny. Agree that the rod is one of the best.
Torii + rod = no damage on heart multiattack
"Behold the heart of the world! Progenitor of life, Father and Mother, Alpha and Omega! Our creator ... and our destroyer."
Come unto your maker
Heart of Darkness from Darkest Dungeon sounds like a good content material for this guy
Gets one shot by a fucking clown.
My 2 upgraded catalysts in the bottom of my deck :
I like the heart because its sort of a litmus test for your deck.
It holds you a mirror and shows it where it is strong and where it is weak.
I very much like it as an optional test for your build.
Like its a dynamic grading system of how well you did.
Same could be said of all the other bosses, no? What makes this so unique? Like examples of how it shows your deck's strength and weakness that is unique to the other bosses?
@@lorenzomizushal3980 You need a fairly balanced deck to not suffer through the heart. You can have a deck that would destroy any fight on the first turn in a couple of seconds that wouldn't stand a chance against the heart.
Or the opposite, a deffensive build that easily holds against any fight until it eventually kills them with little damage or by building scaling power like strength, poison, focus or mantra.
As stated on the video, there are decks that rely on playing lots of cards, but without some defensive plan, you won't be able to get through the fight.
If this isn't already enough, you need to bear in mind that you just fought a really difficult and unique Elite fight prior to this without the chance to heal with a campfire or even upgrade an extra card. Now make it harder by going with Ascension 20. Beat of death on 2 damage is brutal. Not to mention you already lost the chance to a relic and a campfire to get the keys, plus a harder Elite fight.
You simply need to be really prepare for it while you survive everything else.
@@lorenzomizushal3980 No, many bosses don’t test every aspect of your deck and/or is too cheesable with a power potion or something dumb
@@RanetaCroak you really don’t though. You totally can go all in on one aspect and beat the heart with potions. Also no deck of the watcher has little damage it’s just some decks don’t have lethal turn one vs bosses and actually have block mechanisms and some just grab a bunch of vaults maybe a lizard tail and can easily do 300 damage every turn before they die if they wanna face the heart. While some decks have alternatives styles that fair better vs the heart ( like body slam decks that can manage to maintain block and body slam in same hand without barricade) those decks are less more balanced less focused on defense in defense decks for example and just better. Turns out getting 40 block playing a dual wielding and doing 120 damage and using deck manipulation to consistently get that is just better then trying to use barricade taking damage to get it up and then spending time setting up block to then use a body slam to do 300 damage many turns in on every fight and also less risky to try to get up for your ascension 20 run. It’s not really barricade being a less balanced but more doubled down form of body slam when in pretty much every fight it’s worse and is a very risky card to take where as body slam has so many natural partners and is also an upgrade to base deck even unupgraded
I beat the heart the first time I fought it, happened to have a super poison deck, with massive amounts of draw more card, cards and the keep your cards artifact. Gave em 20 poison and used 3 upgraded catalysts on it and just waited.
I do feel like the heart has one very strange weakness though, in that thorns obliterates it, especially if you are playing the long game, as the heart will do the 15x attack several times, dealing 45 or higher damage to itself multiple times
While thorns is super strong against the heart, the damage still is capped per turn including thorns damage. And 45 damage every other turn isn't enough to take out the heart. You still have to have your own damage and ways to block the large single strike.
I know you can stack more than 3 thorns, but that's a lot of resources for a single fight, even if that single fight is the heart.
One common relic and one copy of caltrops for 8 thorns. That’s a pretty tiny amount of investment for 120 damage to the heart per multi attack.
@@fma0420the problem with caltrops is that it’s essentially a curse for every other fight, if it see it in the act 4 shop or elite I might take it, but much like catalyst, it’s useless against the act 2 floor 1 Avocado slamming me for 21
@@yourboi5492It’s decent with hexa and book but yea not the strongest
Thorns alone does not do enough to the heart to make it a feasible plan. Even if you get 14+ thorns to hit the 200 cap, you'll be around for 4 cycles if you don't have another plan. You either need impecible defence or another offence option.
It's almost as if the 15x attack makes thorns useful without breaking the fight
Nice video. One thing that hit me while watching was that slay the spire is one of few games where you really have to learn to sometimes just tank a hit and either buff yourself, or SMorc because the enemies don't wait around, and they might even outscale you.
Take the cultist for example, his first attack hits for 6, 1 more than a normal block, so if you wanna full block, you will miss out on damage, and suddenly the next turn he will hit even harder and so on. There are few times that I ever feel that STS is pulling a fast one on me, it's a fair game that keeps beating my ass.
Oh wow!
With this level of presentation and production I thought this was a well established channel. Awesome work!
Only a small nitpick thou, putting some of the soundtrack of the game through out the video play at a low volume would enhance it.
Love to see some nice feedback, I agree totally.
I was about to comment this as well. Such a great explanation and it's a cool topic. but I found my attention drifting without something in the background.
The absolute best thing about the heart, and one I really miss in other games, is that it is an unreasonably hard but optional final boss. The Heart is not balanced to be a final boss, it is balanced for when the final boss isn't a challenge.
For example, in Across the Obelisk you have a lot more control over your decks and builds, and can very often reach a point in the second act where you just know you are going to win the run no problem. You can't just quit because then why are you playing, but there isn't really a point to finishing either when there is no risk of losing. The solution to this would be an optional final boss that is way too hard to have as the final boss, which serves as a secondary objective to keep your entertainment once you've become too strong to be engaged by the balanced final boss. The solution is the heart.
Roguelikes all have this problem, and a heartlike boss would fix it in near every single one.
Disagree, it isn't an optional unreasonably hard boss like in a final fantasy game or similar rpg, it's just the "actual" final boss. It's completely balanced, the game is over 50% winnable with perfect play on ascension 20 against the heart. I mean you can play however you like but the whole game is definately sculpted around and balanced for it
@@johnk6757 then why is it considered a win if you don't beat it? It's because it's optional.
@@joelwestman8809 Well, I don't consider it a win unless you beat it :P
Also going by the lore of the game, you don't actually slay/escape the spire unless you kill the heart. Stopping short you fall asleep and must start over
Nice to see the showcase of footage from Slay the Spire content creators. Though I only realized that was happening once I saw Frost Prime on the screen. It would be good to put the name of who the video is from on the screen somewhere, probably in a corner or along one of the edges.
This is an amazingly well worded explanation of the heart and I'm looking forward to more from the channel. one thing I wish STS did is display the names attacks have in the files when they use each one to make attacks and their patterns more memorable. Have a great Christmas and new year.
im pretty sure theres something that displays attack names (maybe its when the attacks are used? also maybe its disabled on fast mode??), since i know ive seen the game say the names for some of them
I think it's important to note. When The Heart buffs itself it isn't clearing debuffs, it is specifically clearing negative strength, so while cards like Piercing Wail and Dark Shackles are absolute beasts in the fight, using them on the wrong turn is actually a death sentence since The Heart doesn't cleanse the Shackled debuff and gains 15 strength the following turn.
What I love about the heart is that it is consistent in a game where every run can be wildly diferent. It's funny how you can get the comfort of the familiar on the most challenging fight of the game.
Great analysis! I would recommend taking a look at the Metroid Prime series. Each installment has a memorable final boss for different reasons, but the titular Metroid Prime is my favorite of them.
this is a great analysis of an often overlooked boss, fantastic video!
One of my favorite facets about the Heart fight is that, every once in a while, you string together the *perfect* set of deck and relic syngergies such that even the most difficult fight in the entire game becomes an absolute cakewalk. I had a Prismatic Shard Ironclad run once, where I got Dual Wield, Juggernaut, Talk to the Hand, and Barricade - I was generating so much block each turn and dealing such an obscene amount of damage that I ended the fight before I even finished setting up my block scaling by infinitely copying Talk to the Hand with Dual Wield. It was glorious.
Iron Clad should have learned martial arts instead of making a deal with the devil! :P
Great concept for a series, I look forward to seeing more! You may want to do something about your echo from your mic btw, there are a lot of really simple hacks to mitigate the effect of sounding like you're in a big empty room, I personally put curtains up on each of my walls but I'm sure you could find other options too.
Long story short:
- In a game all about buffs and debuffs the most uses said skills.
- challenging but ot impossible.
- has anti cheese protection while allowing for some hard to assemble strategies to work against it.
- devs made sure the battle ends by adding a fair time limit that will kill the player no matter what.
Great analysis! The only thing i want to add is how amazingly they build up to it in the scarce narrative.
The first time you beat the game, you encounter this thing and die at the ending after beating act 3, seeing damage measure how good your run was.
Then you play the other characters and slowly unlock keys for each and get confused on what they are.
As you test the new mechanic and unlock all of them, you dont die for the first time - and then the MUSIC of act 4 plays and the word "the ending" comes to the screen.
Just 4 rooms. Rest, shop, elite, boss. And then you struggle past a unique fight with directional mechanics, brutal on its own and then you face the heart thats been mysterious and invincible the whole time...
And hear that MUSIC swell with the violin beating alongside a actual heartbeat. Then the first turn it inmediate inflicts the most crippling debuff the entire game inflicting every status, with 2 oppressive passives with cool names.
Narratively and with the music, part of what makes the heart so good is the sheer buildup and presentation of it as the ultimate challenge.
The difficulty is perfect as you described but what makes it over the top is just.. how perfect the presentation of the heart is. That music is still my favourite.
A lot of people dislike time eater, but allow me to to attempt to defend it as a well designed boss. Time eater punishes low average card quality, while the other two act 3 bosses do not. Time eater means an infinite combo deck that takes a long time can't beat all the bosses. Also, you can see Time Eater at the start of act 3 if it's your boss, so you can plan accordinly. By the time you're doing A20s double boss, you learn to always expect it. Yes, spammy play 100 cards a turn decks ARE really fun, but time eater keeps them from being too powerful. A small price to pay for a balanced game.
Some times I want time eater as my boss because the other two will smash my head in to the pavement.
I started playing this game two months ago. After 300 hours I finally got the platinum trophy ( completed ascention 20 with the defect ), and even though usually I'd be more than looking forward to move on and play another game after all that time, slay the spire still has an incredible draw that shows no sign of wearing off.
Now I'm thinking of completing ascention 20 with all characters. They are all so different and unique, and fun to play with for different reasons. What an amazing game.
Im in the same boat. I haven't gotten the platinum but have over 300 hours of gameplay. I managed to beat ascension 20 with defect and silent so far. Never beat the heart at ascension 20 tho, only on no ascension. Honestly though, I've learned so much about the game since i first beat the heart that I'm sure i could kill it on ascension 20. I just find the game relaxing and a lot of fun.
Thanks to frost prime i beat the asc 20 aeound 200-230 hours in the game, benn playin fo a few months. Defenitely recommend watcher next, silent is waaaay too easy if you know what you're doin and watcher is fun to learn and master and is the most broken character)
I'm glad this vid popped up in my recommendations, watched your other vids as well, solid work all around! I hope you to see another vid from you in the future, have my notifications on and everything :) Keep being awesome!
Cant wait for this channel to take off. Very well made video! Keep it up.
You're only a new channel, but I can almost taste the potential. Keep up the great work!
In the solo deck-builder game Friday (not a video game), you start each game drawing two random pirate ships that will be the boss fights at the end of the game. It would be like Slay the Spire telling you before your first which act III bosses you'd be fighting. Because it's played with a single pre-made deck, this gives players a way to meaningfully focus their build differently each game. Many are simply a couple of numbers, but a few have special effects that really change how you build your deck. The two biggest outliers either make drawing extra cards cost more health (making cards that would otherwise be neutral very negative) or on that is weakened by every card in play (making otherwise neutral cards very useful). Facing both in the same fight sucks.
My personal suggestions would be Azathoth from Persona 5 Royal, or Yozora from Kingdom Hearts 3. Azathoth feels like it’s built specifically for Royal’s mechanics and gives a super unique experience with a ton of ways to handle it, along with preventing you from relying on the same strats throughout the fight. Yozora almost plays like a puzzle, with a ton of super creative openings, and has tons of moments where I went “ah-ha!” after finding out what I was supposed to do against a given attack. There’s a ton to talk about with both of these fights but they’re both absolutely fantastic.
Azathoth is such a good boss. You can go into it with a group with the highest raw power you an imagine, but you still have to think. I went in with my whole party at max level, and Joker with a 99 Magic, 99 Agility Shining Arrows Kaguya build that could basically 1-shot anything, and I still had to work around the boss' mechanics. That's what a good final boss should do. You have to design it knowing that the player will potentially coming in with the highest stat numbers imaginable, or they might come in at a reasonable level for that point in the game. The boss fight can't just come down to "set the numbers high to challenge the strong players", since that ruins it for the "weak" players. It has to challenge both groups equally with its mechanics.
The issue with that boss is that he can easily be hard countered due to only having 4 different damage types (he also only has 3 in each phase) and the one damage type that can’t be negated always has a very obvious tell that lets you know to guard.
I believe he also has an instakill move but it’s extremely rare to the point I’ve never found footage of it and only happens after a very, very long number of turns.
I'm so surprised that this channel isn't at like 100k. The quality of this channel vastly exceeds its viewcount.
Seems to have been abandoned sadly, because the videos did poorly on release
The insane mode Necromancer Is the ultimate skill check in any game I've ever played , the boss itself is roughly as strong you are but that's not why I'd say that he's the ultimate skill check , the enemies he revives during wave 2 specifically challenge you to learn how to do all variants of Juggling your enemy due to the 3 weigh classes and the beefies actively punish you for trying to hide in the sky , wave 1 is hard as well but it is so easy to die to this boss because the enemy's move very fast and hit so hard , this is much harder during wave 2
Would love to see something about the final bosses from Risk of Rain/Risk of Rain 2. Great work with this video!
Hey, this is supposed to be a series on GOOD bosses.
@@ieToastie Yes, the ROR bosses are LEGENDARY and wouldn't fit the series
@@teabow.as long as you’re not talking about Voidling. Fuck the Voidling
The risk of rain bosses are fun to fight I suppose but they just don’t have a lot of planning put into them unlike the boss covered in this video
Good job on the video man! It's fascinating how the heart encourages strategies while still testing your resolve. You do a great job going through it. I know you already know about Jorbs, but he has created a bunch of videos going into detail on each and every card and I recommend it as bonus material to watch. I found it fascinating.
I'm playing Kena right now and it's an interesting example of bosses both done right and wrong. Some bosses fit the game super well, while others are Elden Ring levels of bad. I'll probably create videos on both games as well, but I think you'd enjoy Kena!
Really high quality vid man!!! Good analysis and amazing vid structure.
Keep it up bro!!!!
Wildfrost's final game (obviously at 22 overcranked bells)
I know you haven't posted in a while but this is quality, please keep it up :)
10:00 I would heavily disagree with your comment on time eater, the time eater punishes infinites and decks that play a lot of cards, absoloutely, but the only playstyle Time Eater completely invalidates is not playing enough cards on your turn.
12 cards each turn (especially if they're effective enough to mitigate the hearts crazy damage) is almost always enough to outdo timeeater, the decks timeeater really punishes are the ones that play 9 or 10 cards a turn, and are therefore then left with only 2-3 cards to play next turn, which is almost never enough to save yourself unless they're really high value cards.
Essentially what I'm saying is my main tip for time eater and possibly making him more fun is to do the math, and if you can't play all 12 cards, play six instead to maximise your chances of playing enough cards next turn!
Love the concept of your channel, I hope you make more videos!
Great video! I love Slay The Spire and while I'm not that good at it, I do enjoy seeing it be covered by others.
I think an interesting boss you could look at is V2 from ULTRAKILL, either the first fight, the second fight or both, seeing how it flips the combat very much on its head by pitting you against what is effectively yourself.
This channel is awesome, keep it up
This is a really interesting series and I hope you continue! :)
As a suggestion for another video: "Thunderjaw in Horizon Zero Dawn". I know its not technically a boss, but its such a great encounter. And as a nice bonus: The fight against the Thunderjaw was the first thing that got "done", before even the rest of the game got developed.
hope this channel isn’t dead, great vid!! would love to see the heart of the world from darkest dungeon and/or mithrix from ror2
9:50 yes it absolutely does. limiting your damage to 300 is the very definition of not going infinite
The heart is so daunting and I love it. Died so many times to it over and over. Finally killed with a deck focusing on card draw and thorns- with enough thorns up the heart eats its own HP with that multi-attack. I could hardly believe when it really went down, I half expected it to pull out a second HP bar just to spite me.
Amazing video man, keep it coming!
The heart is such a massive, game warping difficulty spike compared to a player who can fairly consistently manage to reach it that it honestly just, made me give up and not want to play the game at all. I'll admit to not being great at slay the spire but as a new player once you get a gew runs there and they all just collapse almost immediately without feeling like I stood a chance/ could do anything, I didn't want to play anymore.
mhm, for me it helped that you still gain an ascension level when losing to the heart.
> be new player
> oo secret super strong boss lemme beat that rq
> i died 10 times this game sucks
5:07 exuse me why do you have so few relics
great idea for a channel and super high quality video, easy sub
72x15, good luck with surviving that
Destructive force from gravity rush 2. A great final boss in theme, visual and esecution. Its literally the incarnation of the BLACK SEA OF DEATH thath was the focal point of the game and his prequel. Its a tought and long fight after a gauntlet. Its fucking beautiful and give a sense of hopelessness before the final victory. And the crowd literally cheer for you singing your song.
If you still need a video idea, I'd probably suggest The Rebel Flagship from FTL: Faster than Light - it's such an amazing bossfight that composes itself into the game super well, and its design choices are pretty amazing imo
"it's a perfectly balanced fight that's designed to be beatable, without letting any build walk all over it"
brimstone/limit break with apparitions:
THE CLUTCH IN THE LAST CLIP IS INSANE
The algorithm gods have blessed this video, go! Go!
i remember the first time i played slay the spire on my brothers computer with his help, i beat heart first try with an infinite defense build and body slam. i recently came back to the game and have managaed to beat a0 on ironclad, now im trying to do it on watcher, then ill try at getting a heart kill maybe
edit: i think you should do one on the final boss in hollow knight, the radiance, a very well crafted and climactic fight at the end of either the true ending of the game, or the gauntlet of hell that is the pantheon of hallownest, they are quite similar so you might be able to do both, or just analyze absolute radiance (the pantheon of hallownest one) and draw connections and subversions of the normal radiance, i think it would make for a really cool breakdown.
I might be a year late but this video is astoundingly well made! Fantastic job my friend.
9:14 peglin poglin
I think it's really funny that the one clip you have of Frost Prime is the day he wore a dress, likely from losing Slay the Streamer
I would love to see your take on the trope of the "roaming elite enemy in a beginner zone" like the black knights in dark souls. Bosses that test your knowledge on a first playthrough and make repeat playthroughs extra interesting
Bro dropped 3 vids then dipped wtf
My most distinct memory of this fight was watching one of my friends reach it, with a defensive Defect deck focused on weathering hits while slowly dealing damage, stacking up Powers with Hello World to win a slow fight.
Then the Corrupt Heart buffed strength by 50 (to like +65?) and went for the 24 strike attack.
it was really funny
That attack is my favourite part about heart
It's like the heart tell you "Yeah those Turns are nice , catch these 65×12 won't you?" Making some slow deck (by slow i mean EXTREMELY SLOW) mostly dead against it
I love the way The Spire is designed compared to other bosses. You may have had a good deck to get to it, but it being good enough isn't a heart killer. It might kill if you are lucky and keep getting good draws but you need those draws to be consistent and you can't just monkey brain or turn it off. One mistake can just end your entire run.
I definitely feel like biggest make or break when fighting the heart is how the turn 2 goes.
Idk what happened to this channel but would love to see it come back, great video
superb vid! you're an underrated channel 😭
I still remember my first time beating the heart. It wasn't some cheesy combo I put together or anything like that, it was a silent run that I constantly felt on the backfoot of and that I was going to lose at every fight. I got pretty good RNG all things considered but very few games give that same rush of dopamine from everything coming together at the final moment. It was only on Acension 17 so definitely not the biggest achievement, but I'm still fond of that run and very few games ever come close to that level of hype and adrenaline from beating one of the hardest, but fair, skill checks in games.
Hey there! Loved the vid and the insight! Just a thought for future videos, music of some kind would be nice to fill in some dead space in between lines, I think. Great analysis either way!
A truly voluptious enemy, always happy to see it.
I'd love to see a cover of Hollow Knight's final boss/bosses. Hollow Knight's THK and Radiance combo fight is incredibly memorable and functions in a similar way to Slay the Spire's shield and spear leading into the heart fight
I wouldn’t say THK is similar to Spear and Shield, because you get fully healed before Radiance, while by default you get no healing between SS and Heart, unless you’re Ironclad in which case you heal 6 by default.
Imagine playing Slay the Spire while listening to this, couldn't be me.
I got out of bed to play slay the spire while listening to this
12:18 - The heart is one of the most powerful enemies in the game in terms of damage it can deal, because these 72x15 damage are already more than the player can block even having 999 block.
Hey, awesome video, I'm a big StS fan and the Heart is one of my favorite bosses of all time.
My recommendation is Charon from Hades. Charon is available at all stages of the game via chance visiting his shop, and he is a beast and a half. He hits like a truck, is immune to effects like weak and deflect, and has lots of long range attacks as well as melee. All things considered though, he is very balanced and feels good to fight against as though he has lots of attacks and hits like a truck, the attacks have big blind spots, and the ranged ones are easy to dash through.
He is a lovely fight and a lovely boatman, Charon is the best 👌
The heart makes me motivated to get even better at the game tbh. My latest run that went to the heart I lost to because I didn't have enough power to defeat it before it outpowered me (it was a juggernaut-centered deck)
Great video!!!
Don't forget...
The music is an absolute BANGER!
Huh, not sure why, but I was half-expecting this to be a bait-and-switch about Time Eater.
I never did beat this boss when I was playing the game. I made it there a few times with builds where I was confident I would win, but then got beat by something I didn't account for.
I felt like the boss fight was challenging, but fair and I think that's the sign of a good final boss fight.
Personal reccomendation
Something from furi. There is alot of argument over what the best one is but my money is on the song as her design and theme really tells the story very well
I'm not personally a big fan of the Corrupted Heart fight but mostly cause I like making a (usually gimmicky) build that is fun to use. The Corrupted Heart feels VERY much like you have to build a deck specifically for them, so something that might've been fun to use up to the act 3 boss, suddenly becomes completely useless. Not even the Spire Shield/Spear fight does this, and I dont think I'm just trying to make braindead builds either, as I still need to figure out what cards to play in the right order with the cards I've gotten in order to win each fight.
In comparison, Time eater, while a bit annoying, I dont have as much of a problem with. You just have to decide what the last card you want to play on a turn is regardless of your energy resource, and even keeping in mind how many cards you can play next turn helps. Its annoying, but it still feels like you can make a build in a bad match-up work despite the passive.
That being said, I dont think what you're saying is wrong; its just we're playing the games differently. You see the strategy of needing to build up to the specific boss fight fun, while I like trying stupid or gimmicky builds to see how well I can get them to work. Might also be worth noting i'm, at most, on ascension 3, and I have beaten the heart before; Its just not a fun time for me.
If you want a suggestion for a good boss fight to look at, I'd say look to Granblue Versus. Almost every single Fighting game barring Smash bros doesnt have a good boss fight imo, and yet GBVS has multiple that feel engaging without boiling down to "normal character thats buffed", or "overpowered character that input reads you so you just cheese them" or "Block, then attack cause none of your combos work against them"
You’re gimmick thing not gonna pan kut on ascension 17+.
No offense, just a funny note, that on 6:48 i believe you could have survived that turn with 1 HP if you just played Defend, Piercing Wail and Malaise without anything else
This is such a sick concept. I hope he dives into the armored core series. NineBall, White Glint. Tons of great mythos and boss design in armored core and fellow Ravens would appreciate it.
The real final boss isn’t 9 ball it’s difficult platforming with a bad camera
Sekiro's final 2 bosses (sword saint ishin & the hidden boss demon of hatered) should be really cool to analyze, they are essentially the final version of two types of challenges the game has to offer (the refined swordfights of sekiro vs the more movement oriented feel that you would find in dark souls)
Most of the time, I could tank the heart’s opening attacks if there was at least one elite like spire shield/spear. The heart’s difficulty comes from lack of general game knowledge compared to when you can fight it. A similarly hard boss in Isaac is gated behind having to beat the game MANY times (I compare the heart to Mother from Isaac, and you need 14+ wins to fight it, so you’ve experienced a lot of hard patterns already. Shield and spear are so annoying, not because they’re hard, but because the mechanic is new and unrelenting
I'd go one step further and so most of Isaac's big chest run ending bosses (plus hush) fall into the "knowledge gap" category as they're generally patten-based bullet hell bosses. Hard to know in advance about tells like Mega Satan's laser, Dogma's re-aiming of their static laser, Hush's continuum bullet spam, or even moves with no tell that you just have to know to avoid like Lamb's homing ipecac shotgun.
tbh shield and spear are still pretty dangerous even when you know exactly what they do
on A20, the burns the spear gives you go on the _top_ of your deck, meaning you have 3 non-burn cards to deal with about 56 incoming damage (40 from the spear, i dont remember how much the shield does but its probably at least 16)
and then right after that you have to block roughly 60 damage incoming (and this is AFTER turning towards the shield)
I mean to be fair game knowledge gap was me the first time into act 4 I didn't realize how outclassed I was and it made me happier I even got that far nevermind not seeing the heart till like the 3rd time in I got to act four and then I got beat down on its first attak cause I still wasn't good enough and this was Asc 0 too
solid vid, good break down.
Shame the channel is dead
As for a fight you could do for a future video, I was always very impressed with the final swordfight against Ganon in Twilight Princess; it's a unique take on a bossfight that requires you to do a single combo long enough to expose him for the final blow.
Of course, I could see how that might be annoying for some players...
Time eater doesn't completely stop infinite combos, you just have to make sure that you can do enough with 12 cards to not die to his attacks.
"Sometimes you miss that one key piece that would have taken you to the moon."
Ah yes, Tungsten Rod, I remember.
Ah yes, Toril, I remember.
Ah yes, Bronze Scales, I remember.
No but seriously if you get those three Relics the Heart is basically a cakewalk no matter what else you have on your character and build is as long as you did well in the Elite Battle beforehand.
Great video! Would've liked some background music or ambiance or something.
Video suggestion: Memes aside, the Sans encounter in Undertale has to be my all-time favorite boss fight. It's just an incredibly clever and inventive fight, somehow managing to surprise even at the end of a game that was filled to the brim with subversive mechanics. Couple that with its brutal (but fair) difficulty, the emotional impact of the moment and a killer soundtrack, and I think the fight well earns its notoriety.
Probably a skill issue on my part, but just hearing about any ascension over 10 makes my heart race, I'm still not even above 3 yet, although that is probably also because I keep playing at ascension one because I want to fight the heart and keep dying
Most of the early changes aren’t too bad, the hardest changes all start around a17
I absolutely loved this video! I have a couple of recommendations for future analyses as well, so if you see this, take that into consideration. Instantly subscribed, hope you keep this going!
Borderlands 2's Raid Bosses (especially Voracidious the Invincible)
Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess' Bosses (especially Stallord, Zant, and Ganondorf)
Dicey Dungeons' Lady Luck
Alice: Madness Returns' Final Boss
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (any boss, really, though Valravn stands out to me)
I enjoyed the video. Have you played Monster Train? I think Seraph is a fantastic final boss for a run. He is consistent yet variable.
The heart kicks my ass more than 9 out of 10 times.
I really hate finding a solid video on a channel that I'm excited to possibly subscribe to only to find out it's long dead.
oh wait
I think, put simply, you could describe the Corrupt Heart as a test. It tests you on all aspects of your skill. It is essentially a skill check.
Small trivia about the Shield and Spear: You cannot dodge them with smoke bomb without killing at least one of them.
There’s a bug that lets you skip them and another separate bug that lets you use them to skip heart both involving smoke bomb.
The first is if in slow mode it’s possible to smoke bomb before their surrounded debuff procs and the second is a bug everywhere else where if you smoke bomb at the same time you kill them it skips heart (don’t know if you smoke bomb before or after the killing hit I’ve never used the bug).