Slay the Spire 2 beta patch adds new multiplayer cards and modding fixes

Nice little Slay the Spire 2 patch to report in on to end the week. This is a pretty cool one for multiplayer slayers as it gets one of the patch’s biggest injections of new toys yet. Ironclad, Silent, Regent, Necrobinder, and Defect all pick up fresh co-op-focused cards, including the wonderfully daft Midnight, a 12-cost Ironclad attack that deals 99 damage but gets cheaper every time anyone exhausts a card, and The Ball, a Colorless attack that powers itself up before being passed to a random ally.

The other major standout is how much work has gone into making the beta less annoying around the edges. Mods now copy over unmodded save progress when launched for the first time, which should stop you (slash me) thinking their progress has been nuked, while version mismatch errors in modded multiplayer should be clearer and less frequent. There are also some welcome quality-of-life tweaks, including a randomize button for Custom Runs, Bestiary stats and event encounters, paused run timers in single-player menus, controller deadzone changes, new Aeonglass animations, and a stack of bug fixes aimed at crashes, softlocks, multiplayer desyncs, and general StS2 insanity.

Let’s have a look at the patch notes in full.

Slay the Spire 2 latest patch notes

CONTENT & BALANCE:

General:

• End-of-turn Orb passives now trigger before Doom
  • This means that, if a player would die to self-Doom (ex. from Neurosurge card) but also has an Orb with an end-of-turn passive that would kill the last remaining enemy (ex. Lightning Orb while the enemy is at 3 HP), they will now win the combat instead of losing it after ending their turn

Enemies:

• Buffed Torch Head Amalgam: increased damage at Ascension 9
  • Weak Tackle damage increased from 14(15) → 14(16)
  • Tackle damage increased from 18(19) → 18(22)

Potions & Relics:

• Changed Regen Potion: its healing effect now triggers before Doom, preventing the player from dying to self-Doom in certain situations

Ironclad:

• Nerfed Colossus card: Block gain increased from 5(8) → 4(7)
• Nerfed Crimson Mantle card: Block gain decreased from 8(10) → 7(10)
• Buffed Howl From Beyond card: Damage increased from 16(21) → 18(24)
• Buffed Setup Strike: Strength gain increased from 2(3) → 3(4)

Silent:

• Reworked Outbreak card: “Every 3 times you apply Poison, deal 15 damage to ALL enemies.” → “Whenever you apply Poison, deal 3(4) damage to ALL enemies.”
• Buffed Anticipate card: Dexterity increased from 2(3) → 2(4)
• Buffed Flick-Flack card: damage increased from 6(8) → 7(9)
• Nerfed Tracking card: “Weak enemies take double damage from Attacks.” → “Weak enemies take 50% more damage from Attacks.”

Regent:

• Buffed Devastate card: damage increased from 30(40) → 35(45)
• Buffed Divine Destiny relic: Star gain increased from 6 → 7
• Nerfed GUARDS!!! card’s Minion Sacrifice token: Block gain decreased from 8(11) → 7(10)
• Buffed Resonance card: Star cost decreased from 3 → 2

Necrobinder:

• Buffed Haunt card: HP loss increased from 6(8) → 7(9)
• Buffed Reave card: damage increased from 9(11) → 10(13)
• Buffed Soulstorm card: additional damage increased from 2(3) → 4(6)

Defect:

• Nerfed Compact card’s Fuel token:
  • No longer draws cards
  • Upgrade changed from increasing card draw → granting 1 additional energy
• Buffed Momentum Strike card: damage from 10(13) → 11(15)
• Changed Scrape card: no longer discards cards whose energy costs are temporarily set to 0 by global temporary effects (ex. Pounce card’s “The next Skill you play is costs 0 Energy” effect)
• Changed Shatter card: now Exhausts

Multiplayer:

• Added new multiplayer Ironclad cards:
  • Midnight: Rare – Attack – Cost 12 – “Deal 99(120) damage. Costs 1 less for each card Exhausted this combat by ANYONE.”
  • Blaze: Uncommon Skill – Cost 2 – “Give another player 5(7) Strength.”
  • Outrage: Uncommon – Attack – Cost 0 – “Deal 9(13) damage. Add a copy of this card into EVERYONE’S Discard Pile.”
• Buffed and slightly reworked Tank card: “Take double damage from enemies. Allies take half damage from enemies.” → “Take 50% additional damage from enemies. Allies take 50% less damage from enemies.”
• Added new multiplayer Silent cards:
  • Blade Symphony: Uncommon – Skill – Cost 1 – “Add 2(3) Shivs to ALL players Hands.”
  • Concoct: Uncommon – Skill – Cost 0 – “Another player’s Attacks apply 3(4) Poison this turn.”
  • Fade: Uncommon – Skill – Cost 0 – “Retain. Another player gains 6(9) Dexterity this turn.”
• Changed Flanking card: rarity increased from Uncommon → Rare
• Added new multiplayer Regent card:
  • Plot: Uncommon – Skill – Cost 1 – “Next turn, ALL players draw 2(3) cards.”
  • Constellation: Uncommon – Skill – Cost 0 – “Another player draws 1 card, gains [E], and gains 9(12) Block.”
• Added new multiplayer Necrobinder card:
  • Underworld: Uncommon – Skill – Cost 2 – “Whenever other players deal attack damage this turn, apply that much Doom. Exhaust. (Lose Exhaust)”
  • Soulbound: Uncommon – Power – Cost 1 – “(Innate.) Choose an ally. Whenever you create a Soul, add a Soul to their Draw Pile.”
  • Cacophony: Rare – Power – Cost 2 – “Every 33 cards drawn by ALL players, deal 66(99) damage to a random enemy.”
• Changed Legion of Bone card: no longer Exhausts
• Added new multiplayer Defect cards:
  • Hibernate: Uncommon – Skill – Cost 2 – “Channel 2(3) Frost. This turn, your Frost grants ALL allies Block.”
  • One For All: Rare – Power – Cost 1 – “EVERYONE’S 0 energy Attacks deal 3(4) additional damage.”
  • Imitation Learning: Rare – Skill – Cost 1 – “Choose another player. The next 2(3) times they play a Power, you play a copy of it. Exhaust.”
• Changed Ignition card: rarity decreased from Rare → Uncommon
• Added new multiplayer Colorless card:
  • The Ball: Uncommon – Attack – Cost 1 – “Deal 10 damage. Increase this card’s damage by 15(25) this combat and give it to a random ally.”
• Nerfed enemy block scaling in 2-player multiplayer
• Nerfed Beacon of Hope card: cost increased from 1 → 2

USER INTERFACE & EXPERIENCE:

General:

• Added a Randomize button to the Custom Run screen which randomly selects 2 good modifiers and 1 bad one, and randomizes the selected character
• The run timer is now paused while the Pause Menu is open during a single player match
• Added a selection reticle for potion holders
• Created a stats section in the Bestiary
• Added event combat encounters to the Bestiary
• Hid moves with duplicate animations for some monsters in the Bestiary
• Slightly adjusted selection arrow in Bestiary monster list
• Players can now see which rooms were affected by Fur Coat relic in the Run History
• Relics skipped in the Merchant?? event are now recorded in the Run History
• Room Full of Cheese event now shows the cards that were skipped in the Run History
• All controller input deadzones have been set to 0.5, meaning joysticks should feel less sensitive and trigger buttons must be pressed in slightly more before the input is received now

Regent:

• Pale Blue Dot power now counts down the number of cards that need to be played before it procs next to its icon

Multiplayer:

• Version mismatch error now contains more information

ART:

• Added portrait art for Wither status card
• Added Aeonglass animations
• Updated Gremlin Merc animations
• If you kill Gremlin Merc before it steals any of your gold, Fat Gremlin now spawns without holding a bag of gold
• Added Epoch art for:
  • Ablaze
  • Arise
  • Darv
  • Preon
  • Slumber
  • Spireborn
  • The Architect
  • The Pact
• Added Orb passive activation VFX
• Added card removal VFX
• Added new card Exhaust VFX

WRITING:

• Big Game Hunter modifier’s hovertip now specifies that it makes elites drop rare card rewards instead of just “better rewards”
• Helix Drill card’s wording has been updated to be clearer that it only counts energy spent on other cards
• Clarified that Silken Tress relic applies only to the player who chose it in multiplayer
• Updated translations for various languages

BUG FIXES:

General:

• Details are now included in the Steam initialization error popup
• Saving is now retried when antivirus or cloud sync briefly blocks the save file
• Run timer no longer starts a run hidden if you have “always show run timer” toggled on
• Fixed crash when returning to the main menu while a card-selection prompt is open
• Fixed broken controller navigation to the “mod settings” button in the main menu
• Fixed controller navigation breaking if you opened up the deck view while holding a non-targeted card
• Fixed combat music sometimes continuing on the map and other non-combat screens
• Fixed Epoch paginator arrows becoming unclickable
• Fixed softlock when opening the Bestiary in the treasure room from a fresh save/reload
• Fixed Run History death quote getting cut off if it was too long
• Run History now shows the boss icon for old runs that fought The Doormaker
• Fixed stats screen showing that you have discovered more monsters than there exists in game
• Fixed the Daily Run leaderboard failing to load for some dates
• Fixed many instances of weird RNG behavior (shoutout again to tckmn!)
• Fixed being able to controller navigate to Byrdpip

Ancients:

• Fixed Elite music playing in Neow room if you died to an Elite your previous run
• Tezcatara’s Toy Box relic no longer flashes once it is used up

Enemies:

• It is no longer possible to get two encounters in a row that contain Slime monsters
• It is no longer possible to get two encounters in a row that contain Snapping Jaxfruit monster
• If an attack enchanted with Replay kills the last enemy on its first play, the subsequent plays are now skipped
  • This fixes an issue where, if a card with Replay is enchanted with Corrupted, the player would lose extra HP even after the first play killed the last enemy
• Fixed a visual issue where, if the player uses Thorns to kill a monster that spawns more monsters on death (i.e. Axebot, Phrog Parasite), the dead monster’s attack wouldn’t visually occur until after the new monsters had spawned
• Fixed Cubex Construct‘s intents overlapping with its body if it takes damage while transitioning to its charging animation
• Fixed Inklet‘s head getting cut off during Doom animation
• Fixed Slithering Strangler playing its hurt animation for its Thwack move
• Fixed Wrigglers spawning offscreen in 4:3 aspect ratios
• Fixed Torch Head Amalgam‘s laser attack VFX not reaching the player when it was shrunk
• Fixed impact SFX playing for Kin Priest Soul Beam move in the Bestiary
• Kaiser Crab no longer covers the monster title in the Bestiary
• Repeatedly clicking Knowledge Demon‘s Curse of Knowledge move in the Bestiary no longer causes its animation to stop playing
• Added missing Tunneler animations to the Bestiary
• Tunneler animations can now be played regardless of Burrowed state in the Bestiary

Potions & Relics:

• Fixed an issue where Bone Tea relic could fail to upgrade your hand if you also have Toolbox relic
• Fixed an issue where, if a player auto-plays their entire start-of-turn hand draw (via an effect like Hellraiser), Unceasing Top relic may not trigger despite their hand being empty
• Fixed Planisphere relic proccing twice in the Battleworn Dummy event
• Fixed Pollinous Core relic counting up past 4 if you end combat after your turn but before you draw cards
• Lasting Candy no longer procs if the reward set has no card rewards
• Unsettling Lamp relic no longer get used up if the target’s Artifact blocks the debuff
• White Beast Statue relic no longer decreases your normal potion odds when it guarantees getting potion rewards to prevent you never rolling potions again if it gets removed mid-run
• Fixed several ways you could obtain duplicate relics on the first run
• Fixed Flex Potion description appearing twice on the character when applied
• Fixed a softlock that could occur when throwing multiple Foul Potions in quick succession

Events:

• Fixed an issue where Vigor was only applying to the first of Mad Science card’s 3 hits when it was created with the Violence option
• Fixed death quotes for dying to Punch Off and Mysterious Knight encounters

Colorless Cards:

• Fixed Entropy card being able to transform curses into Ascender’s Bane

Ironclad:

• Hellraiser card no longer infinitely plays Shining Strike card when it’s enchanted with Swift

Silent:

• Nightmare card can no longer be generated during combat

Regent:

• Fixed Minion Strike card becoming stuck on screen if played too quickly
• Fixed History Course copy of Shining Strike card going back into your Draw Pile
• Fixed Supermassive card not scaling from cards generated by Mad Science card

Necrobinder:

• Fixed a crash that could happen when an enemy dies to Doom
• Transfigure card can no longer be generated during combat
• Fixed Enfeebling Touch + Misery combo causing enemies with Artifact to gain Strength next turn
• Forbidden Grimoire card’s card removal reward will now show up after Battleworn Dummy fight if you are successful

Defect:

• Disabled controller navigation to Orbs while in another card selection screen
• Fixed the Subroutine power hovertip typo if you have more than 4 Subroutines
• Feral card no longer puts History Course copy of Helix Drill card back into your hand
• Fixed Gold Plated Cables relic flashing if the Orb’s passive is not firing
• Gold Plated Cables relic now procs if Emotion Chip relic triggers Orbs at the start of your turn

Multiplayer:

• Fixed even more instances of Daily runs diverging based on player net ID
• Fixed divergence caused by discarding a potion while moving to a new map point
• Fixed bug where you could set yourself ready for the next act two acts in advance
• Fixed state divergence caused by taking a reward as you are transitioning to another map point
• Fixed divergence caused by host changing the Ascension as the game is starting
• Fixed divergence when player has Music Box relic and combat ends while making a choice
• Fixed divergence when playing cards very fast while killing yourself
• Fixed Ghost Seed relic adding Ethereal to Strikes and Defends generated by other players during combat
• If you open a screen during a treasure room relic fight, the hands now behave correctly
• Fixed mouse remaining hidden forever if the game ended while in potion targeting
• Event RNG seeds are now consistent across all multiplayer Daily Runs
• Jungle Maze Adventure event no longer appears if a player doesn’t have enough HP for the solo option

PERFORMANCE:

• Compressed various combat background assets

MODDING:

• Unmodded saves are now copied to the modded save directory if you are launching modded for the first time
• Added controller support for Modding menu
• Fixed Steam mods causing ReflectionHelper.ModTypes to return nothing
• SavedProperty IDs from mods are now properly sorted for multiplayer
• Content from mods with affectsGameplay set to false are now sorted to end of ID maps
• Mods can now register multiple assemblies
• SerializableSave.NumReloads is now consistent across peers
• Steam mod now takes precedence over local if the version is greater
• Batched the Steam Workshop call for checking branch support, meaning mods should load faster
• Began publishing STS2.dll XML documentation
• Fixed issues in multiplayer where players with the same mods would get “version mismatch” (thanks to OLC of RitsuLib for helping out with this!)
  • Build the serialization cache from ModelDb instead of via reflection
  • Sort content by ModelId instead of typename
  • Use more tiebreakers when sorting