Best Bosses in Slay the Spire!

[@gokenrocks]

Time Stamps: *ACT ONE BOSSES* Guardian 1:02 Hexaghost 7:03 Slime boss 13:41 *ACT TWO BOSSES* Broze Automaton 20:31 Collector 25:34 The Champ 30:58 *ACT THREE BOSSES* Time Eater 37:37 Awakened One 46:11 Donu & Deca 53:03 *The Heart* 57:35

[@PieInTheSky9]

You're a legend

[@republicanhaircutman]

I’d love to see a similar analysis of the elites!

[@SporkRevolution]

Act 2 elites are the bane of a lot of my runs. Because I can always tell how I will do in act1 vs each elite, but by act two I am not so sure, and deck needs to be more fleshed out than it usually is. If I make it to act 3, I can often take a lot more elites a lot easier.

[@benro6564]

@@SporkRevolution slavers and book of stabbing ruin my day so many times, especially with brimstone runs

[@nateputerbaugh5709]

@@SporkRevolution I feel like Act 2 Bosses need the Elites factored in to the difficulty spike. One bad opening hand with something like Slavers and your run went for great to, well Champ's killing me instantly

[@ricpad8871]

Book of stabbing harder than any act 2 bosses

[@friendlyfire2374]

@@ricpad8871 book of stabbing??? How about desling with the red ogre that enrages attack while he teams up with the slavers??? 😬😬😬😬

[@wyrmh0le]

Despite all the times I've faced the heart I was not familiar with their 5th buff. I had a defect run with lots of focus, lots of frost orbs, and calipers. It was slow on damage but by the end of act 3 was able to generate hundreds of block pretty quick. I thought I was sitting pretty on the heart even when the damage started to ramp up. I was a turn away from the kill when that 72x15 attack popped up and I just laughed out loud.

[@eddyhypnotizer2481]

I have 2 100% files and i didnt know that LOL

[@ergii]

imo hexgost is way harder than slime boss, but im a very defensive player so that makes sense. slime boss is quite easy of you get it to just above splitting hp, then tank the crush with a bunch of block and then get their health as low as possible before the split so the smaller slimes dont have a lot of hp.

[@lizzzylavender]

I honestly find I struggle more with Collector than any of the act 3 bosses. Maybe it’s just because it’s very possible to get to the act 2 boss without your deck coming together enough, but if you make it to the act 3 boss you’re much more likely to have a solid build.

[@Monstrosity993]

I find collector the easiest boss in act 2 maybe even easier than hexaghost imo

[@captaincodypotato8386]

When time eater shows up I know I gotta play a mini game of chess in the spire. Thanks for all the strats.

[@SporkRevolution]

For me Donu and Deca is the easy boss of Act3. Basically the one I am hoping for on both Ironclad and Silent. I don't play the other's too too much. And I am not to A20 on those either.

[@NixViche]

@bruhskyy ssbu you typically only need one or two aoe cards in your deck, then you want a decent block profile and some for of scaling damage

[@olserknam]

@@shaunhayes3072 They were the hardest boss for me by far as Silent. Their buffs do matter when you can't always reliably block them.

[@gravitydragon1904]

They can be a pain with Defect since he tends to scale slower than the other characters.

[@Zorua3]

Corpse Explosion is a cheat code against those two.

[@beanburrito4405]

Hexaghost is really aesthetically pleasing to look at personally, which makes it my favorite

[@SkateFallen1424]

your pfp is aesthetically pleasing

[@pradeepkarthikeyan8553]

The way it turns on and music coming on is really cool

[@tym6217]

I think Hexaghost deserves a special mention for being, in my opinion, by far the most threatening of the 3 Act 1 bosses if you encounter it with the Act 3 event to fight an Act 1 boss. This is particularly the case if you have a build that scaled its health really high over the course of the game. The Hexaghost damage scaling attack on turn 2 has the potential to be faaaaar more threatening that either of the other two Act 1 bosses can possibly muster against the average late game deck. I've gone into the fight confident and at full health before and came out of it with less than half just because of that turn 2 attack. Neither other Act 1 bosses can do something even close to that.

[@jmatt440]

Yeah, I had no idea that hexaghost's turn 2 attack was based on your health, I just thought it was designed to simply hit like a truck

[@babies1238]

Damage Race: Hexaghost, Collector (kinda), Deca and Donu Timer: Slime Boss, Bronze Automaton, Time Eater (technically) Deal Enough Damage at the Right Time: Guardian, Champ, Awakened One All of the Above: Corrupt Heart

[@keep3339]

It would be so cool if you ranked every card based on how much its worth it to upgrade them

[@Ratatosk80]

Honestly for me I think champ is perhaps the act2 boss I die to most too. Sometimes you just don't get offered the right cards and his damage becomes very hard to manage after he enrages. Just had a defect run that breezed through everything pretty much, hardly lost any HP for most fights. However was down to like 3 or something against champ. Had never been offered the powerful block cards so was trying to make do with 2xstack. edit: finished watching the video. Very true about how StS is about selecting cards to deal with upcoming threats not creating a particular style deck. That's probably the biggest learning curve coming into the game I think. Used to play MtG and when I started with StS I tried to create "perfect one style decks" like in MtG. Also avoided selecting stuff that was long term bad like -max hp. -max hp is something I choose frequently now.

[@jamesbrincefield9879]

I was about to make this same comment. Of all the bosses in the game, I feel like he’s the one I’ve lost to the most. Sometimes your deck just hasn’t sufficiently come together by the end of Act 2 depending on bad card rewards, the path you took, etc. and I feel like he’s the least forgiving when that happens. I can generally squeeze out a win against the other two no matter what my deck looks like. I’m normally not one to complain about RNG, but sometimes a run just seemingly refuses to give you anything useful.

[@elim9054]

I've one-turned Slime Boss twice before, each time with a Skewer buffed by like 3 different things at once. He's definitely Silent's worst act 1 matchup, but that card is nuts against him.

[@ses2029]

where is jaw worm in this list

[@keithmccormack7848]

😂

[@nickbarlow4270]

😂😂 Seriously...

[@jody4210]

power spamming as defect with multiple copies of creative ai against the awakened one is weirdly fun to me. like i wanna see how far this could go

[@sickman9124]

I know the feeling. Ignoring Storm so you don't zap him to death, while also making sure you have some buffers in case he somehow gets past your block

[@blueangels111]

2:54 haha the chubbyemu music caught me off guard. I know its not actually his, but the first time ive ever heard it without "jb is a 17 year old male, presenting with acidemia. Acid, meaning acid, and emia, meaning presence in blood"

[@anthonythetophatter2834]

hello guys welcome to my Smash or Pass tier list of Slay the Spire bosses---

[@josephhawkins7974]

I mean, smash and pass is what you do pretty often with ironclad and watcher

[@SashaS-s2z]

I succeeded at Ascension 20 Heart for the first time - with an Ironclad deck heavily geared towards Fire Breathing (two copies of). Most of my attacks were adding status cards into the draw pile, with Corruption and Dark Embrace making sure I will keep drawing them.

[@TRex-fu7bt]

Did he mention that Vault as the 12th move against Time Eater feels awesome?

[@benjaminmeusburger4254]

or finished after stacking up with 9 shivs He was down in the 2nd turn since everything went perfect (~AC08)

[@jacobobos]

I'm the moat surprised about the fact that you managed to on average commentate a boss for 10 minutes

[@aaankms4450]

I think you mean 6 minutes. But yes, that's still impressive.

[@nickbarlow4270]

I'm most surprised how bad your maths is 😂

[@jacobobos]

@@nickbarlow4270 what do you mean, hour has 60 minutes, there are 10 boses. That's clearly 10 minutes per boss. 77+33 is 100 too

[@Halfcertified]

It’s Baalorlord what do you expect, him to be fast?

[@braves4life25]

@@jacobobos oh my…

[@bacchus9389]

Such an informative and helpful video! This will help my play a lot, and I’d love if you did this for elites, way better than most tier lists of things I’ve seen on KZbin

[@meganlynch532]

As a mainline Watcher player I’ve consistently found the Guardian and Slime Boss difficulties to be literally reversed in terms of difficulty. There are occasional runs where I trivialise Guardian, but it’s been a while since Slime Boss damaged me.

[@bernardosax]

A man watched 3 hours of baalorlord straight, this is what happened to his win rate.

[@blueangels111]

I'M SO GLAD SOMEONE ELSE NOTICED IT. This is the best reference ever

[@Math.Bandit]

As someone who plays primarily Defect, I would encourage people to take Baalor's "Don't play cards" even further against Time Eater. I'd say at least 40% of my A20 Time Eater fights on Defect are won by reaching permablock through Frost where I can hit End Turn 20+ times and wait for a Dark Orb to charge, a Lightning Orb to kill, or even something as small as Hourglass or Bronze Scales to kill. If you can play 23 total cards or less to setup, Time Eater becomes the only Act 3 boss that just essentially doesn't scale at all.

[@ethankibbey1976]

@bruhskyy ssbu I just built up a super scaled frost tank deck against the awakened one where I was scaling 70+ block thru multiple focus buffs/6x Loop/Calipers to maintain block and then it was just chipping away. It was a blast to play with.

[@jimmorrison8370]

I do not understand why everyone hates slime boss. I never found terribly difficult to deal 40 damage on turn 3. Even with my armor up Ironclad decks.

[@Ghorda9]

splitting him isn't the hard part, it's dealing with everything else after.

[@friendlyfire2374]

Its a hit or miss. If you get the slime boss in act 1 and all of your cards are butt cheeks(Because cards are RNG ofcourse.) then yeah you’re going to have a bad time.

[@TimTim3000]

As long as you plan out your damage I find him to be the easiest boss. Always happy to see him when I first open the map.

[@soirism]

Most of the time I find it's worth just tanking the 35 upfront just to get a better split.

[@jmatt440]

@@soirism Yeah, especially since you heal between acts

[@SporkRevolution]

See this fact about Awakened one. That you can temp debuff and kill first phase. I only learned that after beating A20 10+ times. I've yet had a chance to use this knowledge, but it is defo an information you can miss. And something very good to keep in mind.

[@ErikTheHighlander]

they should have made it so that The Champ raises his HP to 690 in AC9+

[@calveras86]

I scream Whirlwind is truly a barbarian ironclad move

[@8butsideways295]

I would love to see a video where you talk about how to play the defect like you did a video for the watcher i tried yo look for other characters but i didn't find one

[@williambrinkmeier1772]

New achievement kill time eater only using mercury hourglass for damage

[@NotDalesDeadBug]

That's a lot of block

[@Laezar1]

that's probably doable with a barricade + double block card (forgot the name) deck. Since you only need to spend a lot of cards in the initial setup, after that you can just sit there spending one card every 499 damage it does to you. Some defect frost deck can probably also just generate the block needed without having to play. Silent and watcher would likely struggle.

[@syndicategaming1668]

To me act 2 is easily the most difficult act in the game

[@Laezar1]

I'd say it's the most inconsistent more so than difficult. ACT 1 is designed so you just need starter cards and a few good commons. ACT 3 requires you to go through ACT 2 so your deck have to be decent to even see it, and the fights are designed to go really hard on one aspect of the deck checking you don't have a big weakness or hole in your strategy rather than being generically difficult. ACT 2 your deck might not be fully formed yet and the fight tends to challenge you with straight up high numbers (thinking of the three slaver fight in particular here), so it will crush any deck that is still relying on basic strike/defend strategy with just higher numbers. On the other hand if you've got something powerful going you can trivialize the act. Meanwhile act 3 always feel at least somewhat dangerous to me, there is always at least one fight I don't want to see. I'd say act 1 kill you if you're too greedy with your picks and pathing, act 2 kills you if you've been too conservative with it or plain unlucky and act 3 kills you if you've neglected some important aspects.

[@sickman9124]

I think the heart should've had 2 tiny changes (1) The invincible timer should reset between it's turn and yours. If you get it to hurt itself badly on Flame barrier or thorns, you should be rewarded instead of having that damage go towards the cap of your upcoming turn (2) The Heart should add one of every curse to your deck. Seems weird that a random non-elite in act 3 is the only enemy in the game that has the ability to do this

[@Ghorda9]

except normality will just kill you.

[@sickman9124]

@@Ghorda9 It would be a chance for the heart to check your ability to find a way to exhaust it. Maybe even by using blue candle or an exhaust potion. (Or normality wouldn't be one of the curses)

[@Ghorda9]

@@sickman9124 but now you're forcing the player to have exhaust available on the turn they draw normality, it also doesn't help that ironclad is the only one that can exhaust with cards.

[@Sylvia_Corvidev]

I highly disagree with the placement of The Guardian. I feel like it's easily the hardest act 1 boss. The Hexaghost is basically a free win. I literally have a counter of the amount of times I've died to HG because of how easy it is - it's 4. And actually, it was 2, but for some reason I was playing really fast and thus badly yesterday (idk why I played so fast even, I wasn't in a rush or anything) and died twice more to it. It's the only boss that punishes you healing, and essentially, means you almost always get an upgrade from the campfire. And it's just really weak aswell - feels more like an elite than a boss. Slime boss is definitely harder. The splitting mechanic is something you have to play carefully around, as if you split too early, you could make the fight near impossible. And if you don't do damage fast enough, the slime cards can destroy your deck, especially if it's a small one. That said, I still feel I win more to it than I lose. If I see the guardian however? I honestly have to completely change how I play, and even then I might just die. It has extremely high damage, the thorns are horrible to half of the builds in the game, and its gimmicks I feel are by far the least easily avoidable. You have like... barely any opportunity to attack this guy when balled up. I easily die to this guy more than I win. The rest of this list I more or less agree with though.

[@TimTim3000]

Guardian you can mostly take your time with though as long as you have decent block, whereas the other two can become increasingly difficult or impossible if they go on too long or you make a misstep.

[@NotDalesDeadBug]

Dude I'm the exact opposite guardian is basically free slime boss annoys me to no end

[@VitaEmerald324]

The Sharp Hide is not Thorns, it’s closer to a Beat of Death that only triggers for attacks. So you want to opt for higher damage numbers if you’re in a tight spot and need to lay a quick smackdown. I learned this after being pleasantly surprised when I dropped a Ragnarok on him and only took 3 damage back.

[@BedrockBlocker]

This video shows why Watcher is the strongest Character: She doesn't struggle with bosses very much. I think she doesn"t do the best agaist the heart, since blocking much consistently isn't her strong suit, but it is still very doable.

[@VitaEmerald324]

Kunai/Ornamental Fan with 3+ Weave in a Scry deck or 3+ Flurry of Blows in a stance dance deck as well as a helping of other block sources (Nirvana or Mental Fortress depending on build, and Talk To The Hand on either) can provide some seriously chunky block numbers, helped more if you also pull Duality.

[@BedrockBlocker]

@@VitaEmerald324 Sure, but you need to find those cards /relics. If you don't you might have to bloat your deck with protect/deceive reality

[@HamLover17]

I'm a total casual at this game but I feel like my experience is so different. Like to me slime boss is probably the easiest act 1. Never gives me problems. Maybe it's just the way I like to build decks

[@justinthyme5263]

Now all that’s left is colorless cards tier list

[@yeast51]

The jawworm is the hardest boss to kill

[@marcoebli8100]

good video! what is the name of the track playing in the backround at 20:04 ?

[@jdblick1002]

New player here; What is the eye button that sometimes appears to the far left of the screen (horizontal to your character) and what do I do with it/how can I make use of it?

[@minhangkhong523]

You mean the snecko eye boss relic? This relic gives you 2 more additional cards draw per turn. The downside is all of the cards in your hand are randomly costed form 0-3. For example, the strike can cost 3 energy or the shield can cost 0, ect. They are totally ramdom - generated.

[@jimmy7004]

It allows you to look at either your draw or discard pile, there is also one for cards that youve exhausted that combat

[@adambobella6230]

I think you’re referring to the contextual prompt to hide UI overlays so you can see your character, the enemies, buffs & debuffs, etc. If something brings up the option to select one of a few random cards (e.g., a power potion, toolbox relic), that eye button will let you hide those option so you can see everything else going and don’t have to pick blindly. Not sure how it works on other platforms, but on Switch at least it’s not perfect, since it sometimes gets stuck showing the card you were hovering over before, blocking some info for stuff like buffs/debuffs.

[@nickbarlow4270]

"the eye button that sometimes appears to the far left of the screen (horizontal to your character)"- how is this anything to do with snecko eye? 🤣

[@aCavemanNamedJaR]

That's funny for act 3 I find the Awakened one hardest and Time Eater easiest. I mainly play the Defect and Ironclad

[@baconsir1159]

Time Eater is only really difficult as Silent, but he fucks over Silent pretty bad

[@tylermarvets8543]

​@@baconsir1159😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊0😊0😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊

[@tylermarvets8543]

​@@baconsir1159😅😊

[@lukewu4444]

I consider the slime boss one of the easiest tbh

[@d1rachir]

This Video was insanely helpful! THank you! I remember I once defeted time eater with a full on shiv deck and went ape shit on him and I once killed the awekened one with like 12 activated powers which was brutal XD

[@MrBadem]

defect freeze orb build :D

[@zeratulrus142]

idk man, for me the first three bosses are in the exact opposite order for any class. Maybe I just subconcoiusly judge them by how agressive they look instead of my actual sucess, but I don't think it's the case.

[@HardxCorpsxKali]

Honestly the heart isn’t nearly as hard to me as any of the act 2 bosses… if I make it to the heart I am very strong and beat it most of the time. Now the act two bosses… if you put them in the hearts act is probably still die to them. They’re so hard to kill…. All 3 of them too! Like champ you can’t get below half health unless you’re ready to kill him because he hits like a truck two turns after that.. bronze tomato has that hyper beam… collector isn’t as bad guy keeps summoning those minions. I die to them often in fact if I ever make it past them I usually win the run.

[@SomeguyImade-c7f]

I know it was a stream but... HOW TF DID THIS GUY MAKE RANKING 10-11 BOSSES AN HOUR+ VIDEO?!?!

[@smugcat6938]

Deca&Donu and slime boss are two of the easiest imo.D&D I mostly just tend to win without trying lol and slime boss you just need to get it to split decently below half health and the rest of the fight is as easy as a normal encounter

[@fellzer]

Is this Bait? I've never had trouble with slime on any character

[@ljlk8583]

I often have more trouble with guardian than the other act 1 bosses. I'm guessing it's a deck building problem, but I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing wrong. What are some ways I can improve?

[@Baalorlord]

Hexaghost and Slime Boss both demand high damage output from you, but against Guardian, you need consistent block. If your act 1 boss is guardian, you need to make sure you can defend yourself, which is quite different from how you'd play against the other two boss and also somewhat contrary to the regular advice of "take damage cards early" (which you still should). So, after you pick up a few good attacks in the first couple fights, try to make sure you have a block plan in place next if you're going to face Guardian. -Tomagathericon, Baalorlord Community Manager

[@s1nnergy]

Are you ranking them by hardest to easiest or best to worst? Your video says both and contradicts itself

[@sutfolsemaj]

If you watch the video, the tiers explain themselves. :)

[@raiccoon13]

Can we get a tier list for elites too?

[@kpeleent]

heyhey. just a little thing: your mic is distorting quite a bit. you should lower the input gain a little, then it will be fine. i'm sure most people wont notice, but as a sound engineer this drives me crazy :D other than that, love your educational videos!

[@reductosmash2483]

Am I the only one who thinks slime boss is a cakewalk??? Why is it possibly in the difficult tier??

[@Laezar1]

Are you playing at ascension 20? slime boss is definitely the one that scales the most with ascenscion I'd say.

[@reductosmash2483]

@@Laezar1 yeah...I posted this when I was ascension 4. I'm now ascension 19 and I understand the ranking now haha

[@Larryboy2701]

…act four?

[@numenical]

Dustforce soundtrack! \o/

[@datadude295]

time eater should be right up there with heart and donu and deca should be down there with guardian

[@VitaEmerald324]

One hidden boon of the Stasis effect is the card enters your hand once freed, meaning you can forms strategies based on which cards get taken.

[@mirandakeith8108]

Wait but where's Snake Plant though?

[@thegreatgario3478]

last time i fought time eater i had an infinite involving a small deck, recycle, glacier, and meteor strike, with the unceasing top it was... entertaining.

[@Quantum_Embroilment]

Are those arms on Donu or uhhhhh... nvm XD

[@gizel4376]

i thought donu and deca were the easiest boss of the game, i mean all act3 boss are quite easy, i always fell like the only challenging boss were the act2 ones and the heart

[@fulowa]

hmm, i find slime to be easiest on watcher at least

[@SephonDK]

I'm a noob. Even on A20, I find the heart very managable. The problem is the elites before it, really. They should kind of be considered part of the boss, tho.

[@alexmartin628]

Hexaghost is my dad.

[@Questioningbasics]

Is that Baalor in the thumbnail?

[@emu7344]

i think he looks different because of a different camera/lighting and he’s not wearing glasses

[@WCIIIReiniger]

No, this is Patrick.

[@G4mer_D4d]

You look more bald without glasses

[@artsyvids2563]

oh good i wasnt crazy slime shoudl be NERFED!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@Pookatdino]

Random note but... thanks so much for the liberal use of they/them pronouns rather than defaulting to he/him for every non-femme thing. As an enby person that made me feel really comfy and I appreciate seeing it a lot

[@mojtaba3334]

Hype

[@Opadei]

slime boss is the easiest boss ever.

[@sickman9124]

@bruhskyy ssbu ignore him, his experience is from playing Watcher on A0 lol

[@friendlyfire2374]

@bruhskyy ssbu the slime boss is a hit or miss in most cases. But he isn’t hard.

[@ghostoftaramasou3120]

the waffle house has found it's new host

[@ichibancho]

The singular "they" is hurting my ears.

[@FaunoDufaux]

are you sure you played this game a lot? this list doesn't make much sense, at least not in a20

[@uyeah1234]

Did you just ask baalord if he play this game a lot?

[@FaunoDufaux]

I like to be thorough, especially when somethings don't add up @@uyeah1234