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.

13:20 "losing a run here can be heartbreaking" Winning a run here is pretty "heartbreaking" too, don't you think :P

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!

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.

"Behold the heart of the world! Progenitor of life, Father and Mother, Alpha and Omega! Our creator ... and our destroyer."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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"

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.

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

this is a great analysis of an often overlooked boss, fantastic video!

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.

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.

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!

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.

Cant wait for this channel to take off. Very well made video! Keep it up.

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.

Really high quality vid man!!! Good analysis and amazing vid structure. Keep it up bro!!!!

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

This channel is awesome, keep it up

You're only a new channel, but I can almost taste the potential. Keep up the great work!

This is a really interesting series and I hope you continue! :)

Amazing video man, keep it coming!

I know you haven't posted in a while but this is quality, please keep it up :)

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.

I think a boss from Hollow Knight would make a good topic, I'm not going to say what bosses in case anyone reading this comment has somehow not played it and doesn't want spoilers. Great video by the way, I found this channel today and I already love it. Keep up the good work.

superb vid! you're an underrated channel 😭

great idea for a channel and super high quality video, easy sub

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

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!

Would love to see something about the final bosses from Risk of Rain/Risk of Rain 2. Great work with this video!

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.

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.

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 might be a year late but this video is astoundingly well made! Fantastic job my friend.

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.

Great video!!!

Great video keep it up

solid vid, good break down.

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.

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.

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)

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.

Idk what happened to this channel but would love to see it come back, great video

I'm so surprised that this channel isn't at like 100k. The quality of this channel vastly exceeds its viewcount.

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

Good luck see you again at 100k subscribers

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

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 👌

I thoroughly enjoyed this, and can't wait to see more! I personally would love to see something from hollow knight, please and thank you!

Don't forget... The music is an absolute BANGER!

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"

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...

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.

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.

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.

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

The final boss of Across The Obelisk feels heavily inspired by the Heart, and could be a cool analysis

The algorithm gods have blessed this video, go! Go!

Also Heart's theme is super epic

Great video! Would've liked some background music or ambiance or something.

I love a series analyzing boss quality across different games!! I would mostly recommend Souls bosses, but they sort of get talked about to death. Here are some others from games I like: The Overseer from ARK Survival Evolved is an awesome end to the games Island map. It is very difficult (basically needing a dinosaur army to defeat) with an amazing setting, soundtrack, and build-up. Raging Brachydios from Monster Hunter World Iceborne is an awesome fight with an explosive brute of a wyvern that all culminates in an amazing clash in the deepest parts of its locale. The Rat from Enter the Gungeon is a brutal hidden boss that has some of the game’s most challenging bullet hell moments. But learning his patterns and conquering him is very satisfying due to his sly stealing of free items during your run! The Plasm Wraith from Pikmin 3 is a great final battle against such an eerie amorphous foe that’ll test your skills with all of the game’s pikmin types. All the while, the battle gets more hectic the further you get in! Definitely interested in seeing more for this series!!

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)

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 the bossfight of all time in the best way possible, surprised you didn't mention how it cleanses debuffs and gives artifact during buff

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.

Hey you should analyze The End from MGS3. Specifically the one with the original camera. The subsistence camera made the overall game better but also completely nerfed him. The End with the Snake Eater camera is one of the most tense, difficult, and interesting boss fights I’ve ever played.

I would vote Fatalis from monster hunter world. As a massive souls fan I've seen many different incredibly crafted and incredibly difficult bosses but somehow I believe Fatalis is the hardest but most fair fight I've played. Great vid and I always love running into the heart mostly because of how fantastic the music is as well as the fight

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

A game I would recommend you cover is Titan souls, I haven’t played a lot of it but the game is entirely focused on bosses so you could probably find a good one to cover.

"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:

There's nothing quite like killing the heart with an all offense build after using relics and 2 feeds to get 300 hitpoints XD

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.

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.

My first (and only) heart kill was with a classic infinity block build with body slam for damage

This video is fantastic and I really like the points you're making, however you may benefit from slowing down your footage to highlight the abilities you are discussing, or show screenshots of the tooltips. I've played this game enough to know it all without thinking, but it could be confusing to a larger audience.

Huh, not sure why, but I was half-expecting this to be a bait-and-switch about Time Eater.

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

9:50 yes it absolutely does. limiting your damage to 300 is the very definition of not going infinite

Great video, might I recommend some background music behind your voice? Empty air doesn't feel right.

Please do a video on The Rebel Flagship - FTL: Faster than Light

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.

Nice presentation. Maybe you can pull one from the Pokemon series

I got out of bed to play slay the spire while listening to this

I'd love to listen to your take on Mars 1 from Pokemon Platinum, the hardest early game battle in Pokemon in my opinion.

Checking out the Flagship from FTL would be neat.

I would sugest for the series Alatreon from MHW Iceborne, it's a hard boss in standart terms, but what really makes it dificult is is elememtal damage gimmick: if you don't do enought elemental damage in a certain period, he will do an attack called The Excaton Judgment that WILL kill you; this means that you can't judge dodge and chug potion you have to do damage and you have to do it FAST.

tbh my favorite deck ive ever built was Juggernaut and a shit ton of defense cards. with exhume to keep getting some of my exhausts cards back

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.

Lots of good candidates for this series, but my nomination is the second to last boss of the original guacamelee, Jaguar Javier. Absolute banger of a fight.

As a Souls fan I definitely appreciate a tough but fair boss, especially one that challenges the mettle of most build types and I feel bosses like the Corrupted Heart are lacking in the other Rogue-like card games I’ve played and makes me think that design choices like the Heart are one of the reasons Slay The Spire is a premiere example of deck building roguelikes

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 love the heart fight, I'm still preatty new to the game, but every time I face him is tense, today I had a defect run were I had a good build, but it took time to get going, I got to like 12 HP playing as best as I could when I finally got my engine going and them I almost jumped from the chair, I got like 1000 armor by the end of the fight

I think The heart of Darkness from darkest dungeon would be pretty cool

hmmm frostprime in my slay the spire video YesYes