Welcome to the party
The most interesting and promising new additions to Slay the Spire 2 thus far are the new characters. The Necrobinder has become an instant favorite for me, thanks in large part to Osty, the ambulatory skeletal hand that fights alongside him. At first, Osty seems to act primarily as a secondary health bar, absorbing any unblocked damage before it can get through to the Necrobinder. Since Osty is automatically resummoned right after dying and retains any health-point boosts between turns, simply pumping and protecting Osty seems like an obvious early strategy.
Osty also comes with its own attack cards, which can stack on each other for cost decreases or build in power alongside Osty’s own ballooning health. With the right build, keeping Osty alive doesn’t just help keep you alive, but also gives you a powerful alternate attack outlet that can get around some of the most common enemy-inflicted debuffs.
I love that goofy little skeleton hand so dang much.
Credit:
MegaCrit
I’ve also become quite fond of the Necrobinder’s Doom mechanic, which lets certain cards and powers add to an accumulating Doom count on enemies, finally killing them when they have less HP than Doom (before they get off one final attack, that is). These Doom effects tend to build on each other in an almost exponential way, resulting in aggressive builds that can sandwich the enemy’s health bar from both sides to quickly squash them in a very satisfying pincer movement.
The Regent is a bit more complicated to play, relying heavily on a second basic resource, called Stars, that can be used alongside or in place of your basic Energy to play certain cards. Managing your Star count means balancing the often weak cards that add Stars with the usually extra-powerful cards that convert them into devastating attacks or shields. If you run low on Stars, though, those powerful cards become useless hand-fodder that just gets in the way of an effective strategy.
