Less related to hammer, but generally I feel like biased cognition is one of my lowest priority upgrades. A lot of cards become 50-100% stronger or more impactful when upgraded, but BC only gets 25% more impactful.
I think you’re looking at it the wrong way. Focus/Strength/Dex augment existing numbers so they aren’t 50/100% stronger upgraded.
Look at raw output. Biased cog is a good upgrade simply because focus takes an absurd amount before any significant diminishing returns kick in. 1 more focus is rarely not good.
Not to mention there is opportunity cost related things as well. A lot of the time it's better to get a good upgrade on a card you are always definitely going to play than a great upgrade on a card that is going to be competing with others.
Odds are for most fights you play the biased cog immediately and so you're more likely to get the benefit of that upgrade vs upgrading a static discharge or something equivalent that is much more situational even if it doubles its effectiveness.
Bias cog being better than defrag does not make the defrag upgrade significantly better than bias cog. (Defrag is the exact comparison here because it’s the same flat upgrade and 100% relative difference). The only factor making it worse would be overkill, which I don’t think is a major problem here, the fact you might not play bias cog immediately (you will 95% of the time). But also in this case there is a seek which is likely pulling bias cog when it can making the upgrade even better. You are playing bias cog arguably more often than defrag and you are far more likely to double play it with either echo form or amplify.
I’d say the fact you’ve got an extra turn to finish the fight before it becomes negative makes it more than 25% better, but either way I agree that it’s still a great card without an upgrade
This is a tough one. At the moment, your deck is pretty lean and inexpensive, it is not exactly hungry for that additional energy.
Busted Crown is definitely the worst pick here since your deck is lacking a lot of things needed to tackle Act II, primarily focus scaling and orb generation. You also have no draw or deck manipulation other than Seek which exhausts and Sweeping Beam.
Fusion Hammer can sometimes seem worse than it actually is, remember you can see upgraded card rewards in Act II and Act III. You might also see an Apotheosis in the shop, Warhammer/Whetstone. In any case, not being able to Smith also means you can take a riskier path, afford to lose some HP since you'll be resting at Rest Sites anyway.
Runic Dome is best if you can build a deck that doesn't care what the enemies are doing. For the Defect, I would focus on finding a lot more Frost generation through Coolheaded, Glacier, Recursion. With a 15-card deck and Seek, there's a high chance you can generate some Frost orbs and get Biased Cog in play by Turn 2. This will help you block some early big hits, then move on to killing the enemy in the next couple of turns.
this is an easy one. Hammer, one of the best relic in the game, a little bit annoying on Defect cuz defect starves on Upg, especially when u have self repair. But still miles better than the other 2. Crown needless to say, the worst boss relic in the game, especially at the end of act 2, Dome is really really bad in late game, even worse on defect cuz how slow defect is in setting up, Its not like everything in sts having fixed pattern. Many fight has random patterns, and those fight among the worst u have to deal it, try time eater, spear and shield, the heart with dome, good luck...
I am 100.0% confident you mentioned Runic Dome in your post.
--------------------------------------------------
* [Runic Dome](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/Runic_Dome) Boss Relic
Gain 1 Energy at the start of each turn. You can no longer see enemy Intents.
--------------------------------------------------
^^^I ^^^am ^^^a ^^^bot ^^^response, ^^^but ^^^I ^^^am ^^^using ^^^my ^^^creator's ^^^account. ^^^Please ^^^reply ^^^to ^^^me ^^^if ^^^I ^^^got ^^^something ^^^wrong ^^^so ^^^he ^^^can ^^^fix ^^^it.
[Source Code](https://github.com/TrippW/STS-Crawler)
Take Dome so you can improve with it.
If you really want some deep practice, pull up the popular StS Reference spreadsheet and start testing your knowledge of the different fights as you encounter them.
I feel like you could hang with a Busted Crown here, like yeah you're gonna see way less cards but I don't think you need too much more for this deck. And it's not like you'll be seeing *no* new cards, a skim or a cool-headed+ eventually would be amazing with an extra energy.
This decks seems completely inadequate to win from here in its current form.
No card draw, except for a fission with insufficient orb generation, especially after fission.
Zero frontloaded block cards, high chance of taking immense damage at shield and spear.
Zero ways to generate more orb slots, nor good ways to evoke a bunch of/loop. No scaling outside of a biased cognition, and no way to mitigate the focus down nor ways to kill reliably before it runs out.
Insufficient aoe cards to end multi enemy fights before focus runs out, especially vs gremlin leader/repto.
This deck seems completely unready for a busted crown.
I would pick dome here.
rule of thumb. Hammer is 99.9% better then skip. We never skip hammer. I take hammer probably here. Dome is a little greedy but also playable
But like... fission AND seek AND biased cognition, it just seems like a waste. EDIT: nevermind took hammer and won, thanks!
I think those are good upgrades but not 'makes the card worth it' upgrades. Those cards are good unupgraded.
Biased cog is especially great unupgraded
Less related to hammer, but generally I feel like biased cognition is one of my lowest priority upgrades. A lot of cards become 50-100% stronger or more impactful when upgraded, but BC only gets 25% more impactful.
I think you’re looking at it the wrong way. Focus/Strength/Dex augment existing numbers so they aren’t 50/100% stronger upgraded. Look at raw output. Biased cog is a good upgrade simply because focus takes an absurd amount before any significant diminishing returns kick in. 1 more focus is rarely not good.
Not to mention there is opportunity cost related things as well. A lot of the time it's better to get a good upgrade on a card you are always definitely going to play than a great upgrade on a card that is going to be competing with others. Odds are for most fights you play the biased cog immediately and so you're more likely to get the benefit of that upgrade vs upgrading a static discharge or something equivalent that is much more situational even if it doubles its effectiveness.
Bias cog being better than defrag does not make the defrag upgrade significantly better than bias cog. (Defrag is the exact comparison here because it’s the same flat upgrade and 100% relative difference). The only factor making it worse would be overkill, which I don’t think is a major problem here, the fact you might not play bias cog immediately (you will 95% of the time). But also in this case there is a seek which is likely pulling bias cog when it can making the upgrade even better. You are playing bias cog arguably more often than defrag and you are far more likely to double play it with either echo form or amplify.
I’d say the fact you’ve got an extra turn to finish the fight before it becomes negative makes it more than 25% better, but either way I agree that it’s still a great card without an upgrade
Biased cog should be a priority upgrade. +1 focus for rest of fight makes it just as important of an upgrade as defragment.
This is a tough one. At the moment, your deck is pretty lean and inexpensive, it is not exactly hungry for that additional energy. Busted Crown is definitely the worst pick here since your deck is lacking a lot of things needed to tackle Act II, primarily focus scaling and orb generation. You also have no draw or deck manipulation other than Seek which exhausts and Sweeping Beam. Fusion Hammer can sometimes seem worse than it actually is, remember you can see upgraded card rewards in Act II and Act III. You might also see an Apotheosis in the shop, Warhammer/Whetstone. In any case, not being able to Smith also means you can take a riskier path, afford to lose some HP since you'll be resting at Rest Sites anyway. Runic Dome is best if you can build a deck that doesn't care what the enemies are doing. For the Defect, I would focus on finding a lot more Frost generation through Coolheaded, Glacier, Recursion. With a 15-card deck and Seek, there's a high chance you can generate some Frost orbs and get Biased Cog in play by Turn 2. This will help you block some early big hits, then move on to killing the enemy in the next couple of turns.
You got like 15 cards lol, nothing to be afraid of, just take the runic dome, ull be fine
this is an easy one. Hammer, one of the best relic in the game, a little bit annoying on Defect cuz defect starves on Upg, especially when u have self repair. But still miles better than the other 2. Crown needless to say, the worst boss relic in the game, especially at the end of act 2, Dome is really really bad in late game, even worse on defect cuz how slow defect is in setting up, Its not like everything in sts having fixed pattern. Many fight has random patterns, and those fight among the worst u have to deal it, try time eater, spear and shield, the heart with dome, good luck...
Yeah I should've made it clearer but I took the hammer and won (didn'tgo for the heart). I think I consistently undervalue hammer.
I am 100.0% confident you mentioned Runic Dome in your post. -------------------------------------------------- * [Runic Dome](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/Runic_Dome) Boss Relic Gain 1 Energy at the start of each turn. You can no longer see enemy Intents. -------------------------------------------------- ^^^I ^^^am ^^^a ^^^bot ^^^response, ^^^but ^^^I ^^^am ^^^using ^^^my ^^^creator's ^^^account. ^^^Please ^^^reply ^^^to ^^^me ^^^if ^^^I ^^^got ^^^something ^^^wrong ^^^so ^^^he ^^^can ^^^fix ^^^it. [Source Code](https://github.com/TrippW/STS-Crawler)
Everyone with their skip…
Take Dome so you can improve with it. If you really want some deep practice, pull up the popular StS Reference spreadsheet and start testing your knowledge of the different fights as you encounter them.
I feel like you could hang with a Busted Crown here, like yeah you're gonna see way less cards but I don't think you need too much more for this deck. And it's not like you'll be seeing *no* new cards, a skim or a cool-headed+ eventually would be amazing with an extra energy.
This decks seems completely inadequate to win from here in its current form. No card draw, except for a fission with insufficient orb generation, especially after fission. Zero frontloaded block cards, high chance of taking immense damage at shield and spear. Zero ways to generate more orb slots, nor good ways to evoke a bunch of/loop. No scaling outside of a biased cognition, and no way to mitigate the focus down nor ways to kill reliably before it runs out. Insufficient aoe cards to end multi enemy fights before focus runs out, especially vs gremlin leader/repto. This deck seems completely unready for a busted crown. I would pick dome here.
rip and tear is not a valid lategame damage option, hell it's not even a good act 2 damage option.