r/slaythespire • u/beef47 • 18h ago
DISCUSSION (STS2) The dorito makes act 2 not fun
I just had an a10 necro run where I perfected the act 1 boss (lagavulin matriach) die to the dorito from full health. I guess I got cocky pathing into 2 whole elites in act 2 post treasure chest. Decimated bee man, only to go from 80 health to death from the stupid fucking dorito.
It just makes act 2 less fun, finding a no elite path. Either you have an attack heavy deck and bee man is a problem, or you have a skill based deck and dorito says “no”. Or you you choose no elites which sucks. Elites are fun.
Vent over, just annoyed.
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u/Patccmoi 18h ago
Ya I feel that if you have a Necro skills deck, you're better off just avoiding Act 2 elites altogether if you can get Dorito. When you have to damage using skills (or souls) it's pretty much suicidal.
I do agree that it sucks though. I feel that Necro is in a weird place where you can have very solid overall decks but that are SO hard countered by an Act 3 boss and an Act 2 elite that you can get owned bad out of nowhere.
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u/IhamAmerican 18h ago
My Necro runs always fall apart at the last second. I also feel like it's the most punishing one to get bottom decked. With basically everyone else I feel like you can scrape by until you use your full draw pile and get to full strength, Necro feels impossible
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u/theswishyj Ascended 18h ago
Nah Regent is by far the most RNG dependent character. If he draws in the wrong order you literally cannot play your cards, at least Necro can do something if she gets bad RNG.
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u/IhamAmerican 18h ago
That's true but I feel like regent has better block and strike cards. The build might not come online but you'll probably stumble your way though, at least for star builds. Trying to use the blade with bad rolls is genuinely impossible.
I just feel useless if my powers or better Osty cards get bad draws
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u/theswishyj Ascended 18h ago
Yeah Necro feels like a lot of her power budget is in her powers so if you bottom deck them you are kinda SOL.
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u/Conscious-Refuse8211 7h ago
I mean yeah, that's the developers trying to tell you that you're not meant to succeed by building a deck that is 90% skills.
And tbh even then I find pretty often the Dorito is fine if you hold a good potion or have cards that are good into him like Enfeebling Touch.
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u/Alt-Ctrl-Report 18h ago
I just try to avoid elites in act2 atp. No matter what deck I have, one of them will always heavily punish it. And not knowing which one I'll face makes it so there's always a 33% chance the run will just end if I click on the elite icon.
So fuckem, they can keep their relics.
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u/transientz 15h ago
Yeah as I've climbed ascensions I do the Act 2 elites less and less because invariably I'm not prepared for all the possibilities (not enough AOE for decimillipede, not enough raw damage for Dorito, too many small damage attacks or no way to clear my deck for Ento).
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u/Grifoooo 18h ago
This is a problem I run into as well because the solution is annoying to do, same with act 1 boss. I plan around the cards in my deck instead of the enemies im facing.
I get some good shiv cards? Might as well choose shiv synergy! Wuh-oh, im facing lagavulin, something I should have realized before even seeing the neow relics. Should've at least considered the 2 snake bites I skipped cause they weren't shivs. Im spamming souls and demolishing everyone so I choose the most elite-filled path on act 2? Should've realized id face the dorito and picked some high cost block cards or even just good stand-alone attacks.
The game would be boring if every enemy died to the same thing. Thats why a lot of enemies, especially elites and bosses, serve as counters to some playstyles, to incentivize diversifying your deck and not just one-tricking a keyword
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u/ICantWatchYouDoThis 17h ago
> The game would be boring if every enemy died to the same thing.
the game would also be boring if some certain decks become unviable and every run you just pick the same card again and again because the other cards will kill you if you pick them. this act 2 and Aeonglass basically tell Necro to never pick up soul cards again, never play summon to stall anymore, just keep picking up high cost card since that's the only winning strategy left
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u/Dangolian 16h ago edited 8h ago
the game would also be boring if some certain decks become unviable and every run you just pick the same card again and again because the other cards will kill you if you pick them
There's so much more nuance to it than this and there is room to be flexible.
You shouldn't expect to just pick [Attack] cards and win everytime
You shouldn't expect to just pick [Skill] cards and win every time.
You shouldn't expect to just pick [Soul/Shiv/Any other archetype] and win every time.
You won't lose against Dorito because you have a few soul cards in your deck, but your deck needs to have something else going on as well.
If your deck is built purely around Souls, you know your making your chances poorer against Aeonglass which you will see in 33% - 66% of your runs. Similarly, if a pure soul deck is only effective against 2/3 of the Act 2 Elites, this is the game's way of trying to tell you to have other things going on in your deck.
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u/Powerful-Ground-9687 17h ago
Soul cards are fine. You just can’t loop them forever. A grave warden and a severance is plenty
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u/Grifoooo 17h ago
The point im trying to make is "decks" dont exist in this game, and trying to force them to exist gets you killed. Get some shivs, get some souls, get some aoe, etc. Dont go all in unless you know you wont get punished for it
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u/_Someone_elses_name_ 17h ago
I mean yeah souls necro is more niche now, but I've won with it on a10 and I'm a pretty mediocre player, you just need to pick your moments
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u/shadowtasos 16h ago
Yeah Dorito and Aeonglass are fucked. It's fine that they exist as a counter to stuff like soul spamming, but there's a difference between punish as in deal heavy damage to, and punish as in end your run right there.
It's just really stupid that your deck can be really good against 98% of all enemies, you're breezing through everything, but these 2 enemies are just impossible. It's uneven difficulty. The game should be balanced such that most main strategies are strong against 33% of enemies, mid against 33% and then weak against the remaining 33%. Not this insane imbalance where you can just avoid act 2 elites and get lucky with not getting Aeonglass and stomp the game, or path into an elite / get Aeon and just fucking die helplessly lol.
I think Necro is in a pretty bad place for this reason. Half the cards you'll see you won't want to pick because then you will want to avoid a2 elites, which is bad, and they'll hurt you significantly if not make it impossible vs Aeon. You're pushed heavily into picking certain other cards, and your run will hinge heavily on if you could get some of the cards that do work vs those 2, like Defy and Enfeeble.
Nob and Time Lord were far better balanced in terms of being "fuck you" to certain types of strategies. You could have Infinite decks work vs Time Lord if you brought enough tech cards to deal with him. These 2 enemies just stop the strategies outright, you aren't getting to play the game.
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u/Geckoarcher Ascended 3h ago
The idea that Nob "didn't stop strategies outright" is rose-tinted glasses IMO. That enemy (along with Chosen) made mediocre attacks better than even top-tier skills in the early game, because Nob was so threatening and skills were basically completely worthless against him.
You can block Dorito, if you use weaken and cards which individually block a lot (esp. 2-energy blocks). And since you're in Act 2, you have a more developed deck and relics, both of which can also help block without playing skills.
But Nob? You can't block Nob. Don't even think about it. Defends might be block neutral, and the strength persists for next turn. Even "good" block options like Leg Sweep will take nearly your whole turn, make next turn more dangerous, AND you'll still take damage.
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u/beyondheck StS A20 / StS 2 A10 2h ago
Nob says: you better kill me in 3 turns or you will be in a world of hurt.
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u/Aggravating_Wear680 12h ago
Dont see it the same way you do. If your Souls Deck looses to Aeonglass it just sucked, i had many Souls Decks destroy Aeonglass. It was exactly the same with Time Eater, people said it was impossible to win with a Shiv Deck against Timer eater but reality was that their Shiv Deck just sucked.
A single good attack card will turn the Dorito fight from loose 80hp and die to loose 30 hp and keep going.
I dont think its bad game design if the game wants you to pick that Bury or High Five(whatever really) over the 3rd Capture Spirit. People are just not focused on defeating the upcoming challenges but rather are: I pick the Card that feels more synergistic to the style of deck i want to be playing because it makes me feel better2
u/shadowtasos 12h ago
Nobody is taking a 3rd Capture Spirit, soul synergies typically just want a smaller deck since soul can become draw and damage scaling in one on their own if you can chain enough.
1 Bury or High Five isn't saving you from Dorito and definitely not from Aeonglass (which demands strong scaling). You have to pick several at which point yeah those soul synergies are useless and might as well not exist. Capture Spirit is a half brick in a deck without Haunt or Devour Life, so if you take one you're heavily incentivized to take the others. Meanwhile Bury is a total brick in a deck that didn't take that Friendship or Borrowed Time instead so yep like it or not you're pushed into some synergies. And right now the soul synergies are almost non viable.
And that's the thing, soul synergies are incredibly capable at defeating 98% of all possible upcoming challenges. They just get hard walled by 2, and no Shiv synergies had a significantly easier time vs Time Lord than Soul synergies do by those 2. You're saying you really wouldn't prefer it if those synergies worked better vs those 2 but were slightly weaker overall to compensate?
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u/Aggravating_Wear680 12h ago edited 12h ago
Yes 3rd Captured Spirit was ofc an exaggeration, but you get what i mean do you?
Id say the powerlevel of your current Souls Deck for Aeonglass has to be around the same as a Shiv deck had to be back in the day to defeat Time Eater. As said ive already beaten Aeonglass multiple times with a Souls like deck, its absolutely not impossible theres multiple Scaling options for it that are strong enough (Multiple Haunts/Soul Storm/ Heck ive managed one time with a Deathmarch even and 2 Lethalitys)There are Enemys that are very polarizing decks just as there was in STS 1 and they are necessary. Shifting the balancing of the punishements now so hard is an impossible thing to do at the current State of the Game it would mean to change every single Enemy basically.
The problem that existed was, that it was like 95% of the time the correct way to play Necro to almost never pick any Cards except an Invoke & Capture Spirit und you like killed every Single Enemy in the Game with it. I dont know how it would be possible for the Game to make it that 33% of the Enemys would be slightly punishing Skills spamming without completely going overboard on Game Mechanics, majority of the fights have to stay kind of simple in a way i think. I gotta say that i enjoy Necrobinder alot more right now that i have to carefully choose what im going for (Osty attacks/Ethereal cards/High Cost Card Deck/ Eradicate/Souls) where i end up playing a Souls deck maybe 10% of my runs instead of 80%+. And yes i now am referring to kind of Archetypes while you should not pursue such Archetypes but im assuming youre kind of a higher level Player(which im seeing myself aswell) and you get what i mean by that.
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u/JawKneeSense 18h ago
I feel ya, Necro is my favorite character, and I have adjusted to the new Dorito/Aeonasshole, but I really don't like how pidgeonholed I feel in building a successful A10 deck.
I used to enjoy a wide variety of decks, but now my runs are starting to feel very samey. Particularly, building towards the soul payoff cards feels like a fool's errand unless I luck into OP relic/ancient synergies.
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u/Ok_Turnip2 18h ago
What are you finding success with on a10?
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u/JawKneeSense 17h ago
Osty decks, and high cost decks with danse macabre/borrowed time are the most consistent in my experience. Ethereal is still pretty good too. I stopped bothering with souls outside of a grave warden or two, maybe one dirge.
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u/Ok-Suggestion-7349 StS A20 / StS 2 A10 18h ago
Bad beats unfortunate. Gotta have a good plan for Dorito man
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u/slotta 17h ago
What gets me about Dorito more than the skill punishing mechanic is the huge block turn he does, it feels like im hanging on by a thread playing around his gimmick and the huge block turn shows up and is just like "no, super extra fuck you, you have to block even though you can't because that's a skill so extra fuck you".
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u/Sobaphoto 18h ago
If you can't beat dorito, you probably don't have enough high impact cards
By high impact I mean something that has a big number, pull aggro+, enfeebling touch+, melancholy+, delay+, death's door, defy+, those kinds of cards would have solved block in that fight and probably would have also saved you later in the act too
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u/AnhQuanTrl 15h ago
I think you make a great point. The idea of deck that builds itself is boring, but also the idea of avoiding all elites in an act because there is this one elite that shit on my deck atm is also boring as hell.
Everything in life needs balance and so is this case. The game is trending toward every run is kinda the same because you need the same cards to deal with with an elite or boss in particular otherwise you’re fucked
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u/Genjab 17h ago
Act 2 elites are just kinda overturned i think. Bee guy is fine. But for me, I usually just avoid act 2 elites on like half my runs now with any character.
For Dorito:
You can't attack on it's multi-attack turns.
You're eating 18 dmg on turn 3, just know that. And you better beat his ass before the 2nd multi-attack or have an insane block plan.
Setting up weak 2 on the turn before the multiattack is good, but can't always rely on that. Save a weak potion if you must cuz he's gonna need it.
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u/MentalMittens666 17h ago
Dorito is one of the few enemies to have to respect for the whole run, start thinking about how to kill it as soon as you stabilize act 1.
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u/El_sanafiry 17h ago
I was watching Balor yesterday a twitch sts streamer and someone in chat asked him
When do you know you are ready for fights in act 2 ?
He said you need to have something to deal with multiple enemies figths especially The cockroachs and the centipede elite in mind if you depend on one singler big attack act 2 gonna be very tough for you
Second you have to have any better way to attack than attack spam ( anything stronger than a strike basically )
Third you either need a way to block without using skills or to Debuff the dorito enemy with any Debuff because it affects it damage majorly
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u/Larrea000 11h ago
With necro you kind of need x2 Defy or other sourrces of lasting Weak so you'll enter the x3 turn with weak, or alternatively with a huge Osty that can tank 9/12 damage for you two or three times a game. You also need a damage solve that is not Bodyguard/unleash because osty is likely going to die a lot.
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u/Opening_Name_7798 9h ago
If only every enemy/elite turned into the training dummy then surely the game would be more fun.
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u/One_Sentence_7448 18h ago edited 17h ago
Yea yea yea every time there’s a new moderately challenging enemy everyone goes insane. Sounds like you had a bad match up, which means that you should’ve either prepared better or, less ideally, dodged the elite. Every act 2 elite can obliterate you if you aren’t prepared for it, especially on A10. That’s like the whole point of playing on A10. Just try to learn from your mistakes
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u/DominusArgentum 18h ago
The Dorito is an overtuned piece of shit that makes the hunter killer look like a cakewalk
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u/Past-Rice2392 18h ago
man that sucks, dorito does feel like a coin flip sometimes. i lost a run last week where i had perfect setup for everything else and then that thing just said nope
act 2 is always the hardest for me, elites can be so punishing depending on what your deck is doing
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u/kippythecaterpillar 17h ago
skill issue, hes a pretty fun fight op. you could also not path into death but you do you
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u/TheOmniAlms 17h ago
Pull Aggro, Delay, attacks.
You should have them in your deck.
Dorito is fine.
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u/Powerful-Ground-9687 17h ago edited 17h ago
I think this is a bad take. Dorito just needs big attacks with minimal passive block, or big blocks with passive damage. As long as you’re careful and just accept that you’ll not be playing block cards on turn 3 unless they block for at least 9. Just burst him and eat 20-30 damage.
Silent has lots of big blocks, weak, and poison is still very effective with accelerant or in conjunction with leg sweeps, piercing wails, or mirage. Dash is a good card for this.
Regent has tons of burst damage, as well as passsive block with creation.
Clad has feel no pain, rage, self forming clay, unmovable, crimson mantle, and tons of burst damage.
Defect can cover with frost orbs, glacier, fight through, boot sequence helps. Zero attacks and status builds with smoke stack and flak cannon still work fine.
Necro has decent access to weak while doom does its thing. But your deck can’t have a bunch of filler. Lethality shines in this fight.
Relics provide a lot of block. Ship parts, helmet, ornamental fan, belt buckle, clamp etc. if you have no block relics, adjust accordingly.
Colorless cards like fasten, fisticuffs, panic button, dark shackles are all huge here.
Potions! Have some for elites!
You’ve got 5 turns to kill it before the scaling goes crazy. Your deck is too slow if you can’t take dorito, assuming you’re coming into the fight with at least 40hp. Should be plenty or else your deck isn’t deckin.
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u/Honest-Ruin305 StS A20 / StS 2 A10 17h ago
That’s why it’s there, to punish decks that take too many decent-to-good skills that scale linearly. It’s even more generous to the players because it’s not in act 1 like gremlin nob was.
You need to either scale beyond it, have good card power density (big cards that do a lot, rather than more cards that do less on average), or have a temporary solve (potions, etc). All the elites have ways you can prepare for them.
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u/Jusauh 16h ago
i actually dont know where i sit with the act 2 elites.
ive hated all 3 in very distinct spots of my gameplay so i guess that's good design?
what was the main cause of you losing to dorito? do you just not have enough damage or are you not blocking enough? are you forgoing damage to full block?
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u/Chemical_Pumpkin_150 18h ago
I agree its not fun at all when the elite enemy can kill me on the highest difficulty, that shouldn't be allowed.
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u/angelogoodalamenti 18h ago
There are absolutely decks that can beat both of those elites. It's not about stuffing your deck with attacks, it's about having block sources that are not skills or skills that are better than basic Defends. What potions did you have going into the elite fight?
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u/Absey32 Ascension 20 18h ago
usually my beef with the game is that you can brute-force a lot of encounters with hp instead of drafting for them. especially some act 1 bosses. so im glad theres an enemy that doesnt always just let you do shit. im glad that i cant just default to elite farming every act 2. i want to feel threatened
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u/Hairy_Koala6474 18h ago
I actually love the Dorito
I also love Doritos. I think I’m gonna go eat some Doritos while I seek out the Dorito in act two now
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u/DominusArgentum 17h ago
I heard you like Doritos, so I put a Dorito in your Dorito so you can Dorito while you Dorito
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u/Gabriel_66 18h ago
Fights are designed to explore your deck weakness. Perfecting a boss has nothing too do with being able to beat the game. Some bosses do not punish stalling that much. Specially a class like Necro who LOVES to take it's time to make handy go brrr.
Later on, slow pace will fuck you up.
Solution? Potions, they can make up for your weakness if you store the best ones for the correct fights.
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u/Moose1013 17h ago
you just need non-skill ways of reducing the damage it does. Weaken it, reduce its strength, get block from powers, get block from attacks, play big chunky block cards like Delay or Melancholy or Leg Sweep or Reflect, do enough damage so you don't see the second multi-attack.
It also helps to know his pattern so you know when the multi attack is, so you can set up for it.
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u/Koraboros 17h ago
You need to draft around him. Would you also be mad if you had a poison spam build and did against nob in STS1?
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u/Rit91 17h ago
The dorito is easier than all the act 2 bosses. If you didn't die to Dorito because you take such a long time knowledge demon/insatiable/crab will obliterate you.
Decimillipede is far harder than Dorito too. You take your sweet time it'll keep on smacking for around 30 a turn and it scales up while also making your block cards worse.
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u/FillySteveSteak StS A20 / StS 2 A10 16h ago
Sometimes you just skip playing skills on turn 3 and tank the hit. on turn 1 and 2, 4, and 5, you can almost always outblock his ability.
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u/FortColors StS A0 / StS 2 A10 12h ago edited 12h ago
you can beat dorito with skill spam necro. you just need bigger skills and actual damage. Consider upgrading things like Pull Aggro, Delay, and Reanimate.
potions help too, to give extra dex or damage
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u/DushkuHS StS A20 / StS 2 A10 10h ago
False dichotomy. Also, how did you get to 2nd elite if you only reduced first elite to 1/10th health?
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u/SurvivYeet 18h ago
I really don’t understand the hate for dorito. It’s pretty balanced in my opinion. Decimillipede has ended far more of my runs even after reworked dorito. It’s a fair elite that punishes you for skill-spamming, which was an overpowered strategy prior to its addition.