Hi there.

I have been having a blast with this game so far and I am in the process of beating difficulty 10/6 with every character.

I just beat 10/6 with Cellarius using a wave + forceful stream build and wondering if anybody has come up with a Cellarius build that is both viable on high anomaly and does not depend on heavy wave.

First things first: I consider wave builds to be "the" viable option because of the following factors:

1 - Most wave applying dice are immediately useful and come with barely no drawbacks, so they might be picked up early in the run.
2 - Wave effects are slow to tear the enemies down, but they don't trigger retaliation mechanics, beat shadow mantle, and can't be messed up with by effects such as superposed/confused/dizzy or whatever have you.
3 - Wave effects don't need Cellarius to harm himself nearly as much. This might be a drawback in that you get to use virtues less often, but this advantage cannot be overstated.
4 - If you throw some wave relic into a wave dice pool you are just going to cut through any encounter with two or three enemies as if they weren't there.

The main drawback, that prevents the wave strategy from being actually OP, is that payloads either reduce wave (ie stuff like Tidal Jet) or cause other setbacks. King of the lot seems to be Wave + Forceful Stream, whose drawback is Forceful Stream will cause you damage just before the enemies go. Therefore, a wave build of this kind needs both Wave, Forceful Stream and some heavy defense mechanism to counter the self-harm.

This makes it so this build is viable, but it certainly does not feel crazy, game breaking strong the same way as, say, Moonie with Selenic Domination, Manipulate and Noctuan Comprehension (seriously, with that one you are going to infinite through your deck and make all the enemies hit themselves and heal you at the same time).

The issue I have with Cellarius (and the reason why I am posting) is I have no ideas for a different way to run this character. Things I have tried and feel that they should be workable, but never scored me a 10/6 victory:

* Empowerment heavy builds, with things like straight Hammerhead Will or just plain Empower. I find them a bit inconsistent because 1) in early game fights, you need to roll empowerment effects ASAP, so if you don't roll them in the first two turns you are already late 2)they are based on risky dice that have a non trivial probability of self-destructing Cellarius, so early game is hell because you still don't have the shards to forge those dice. 3)Enemy encounters that penalize you for re-rolling dice or cause confusion destroy this build.

* Purging anchor builds. This one rocks but you need to get a purging anchor very early in the run for it to build up, and you might need to stall fights in order to ensure your purging anchor gets boosted after every fight, so it is hard to pull off.

* A build around shark dice with shark payback. This one feels extremely strong, because shark dice damage you and then you use that damage to crush all opposition with your shark payback. The problem is that with this build gets badly messed up by enemies that penalize you for using your virtues (because it is harder to heal yourself) and confusion effects make some shark dice effectively suicidal. As some enemies that break this build are unavoidable, this is a problem.

Things I have tried and are garbage tier for 10/6:

* Sea Requiem is a nice finisher but it does not build up fast enough. Also, the dice is bugged - damage is supposed to be "unblockable" but shadow mantle blocks it.

* Sharpen Fin. Total trap. Pityful purification and you get an empowerment every three times you cycle the dice.

I guess the idea with these is that you have multiple copies of the same dice and some way to cycle fast through them, but I never pull that one.

So, what are your thoughts? Which are your non-wave Cellarius builds for 10/6?

Hello all.

I managed to make a Purging Anchor build work as follows:

First dice pick I got in the run was a Purging Anchor (balanced die). This die receives a permanent power upgrade each time you defeat an enemy with it, so if you find it early and try to ensure every foe you run into is purified with it you can make it absurdly strong. Mine was dealing more than 80 purification by the end of the game.

Building up the power of the die is not easy at first because the die itself starts very weak and, in the beginning, cycling through your deck in battle is too slow. I found that foes that spawn corrupted sentinels (ie. Corrupted Assembler) were nice because you could farm the spawns with your Anchor.

Since when you are playing Purging Anchor you are trying to use a payload consisting on a single die, you need your deck to be very small. You also need some way to draw more and more dice in order to cycle through your deck faster. The idea is to draw your good die as often as possible, and the rest of the deck should either contribute to keeping you alive or help you draw the Anchor.

I found that forging Draw 2 and Astral Rebound on an Incorruptible++ was quite good for defensive use. Right before the end of Act 2 I had some duplicates of it (and an Epic Incorruptible too). The draw effects help cycling through the deck, while Astral Rebound ensures you can throw your Anchor at the enemy and recover it the next turn. Since you are not getting any corruption whatsoever, you need not fear opponents that penalize you for using your virtues, and you don't need to devote actions to purify yourself unless you really want to.

Copycat dice turned out to be incredible support assets. Since you are not getting corrupted, you cannot use your reroll virtue easily. What do you do, then, if you roll a couple Incorruptible dice but none of them fall on the correct face? The answer is simple: just copy the dice! It has a reasonable chance on scoring an Incorruptible result. Once your Anchor is powerful enough (say, 60 to 70 purification power) you may stop farming. Copycat is then useful to produce copies of your empowered Anchor for awesome damage. Forging an Incorruptible side on your Anchor is also great as a defensive backup plan.

This build benefits from blessings that let you draw extra dice per turn and I dare say they are pretty much required. Since you are supposed to be applying Incorruptible to you in a reliable way, you may pick up blessings with dangerous effects quite liberally. You don't care if you get Shadow Mantle of if your enemy gets Hidden as long as you have draw enough to shovel up Incorruptible dice and some Copycats with them.

Good sentinels for this strategy turned out to be Adapted Courier (for extra selective draw) and Stasis Clock. The Void Seek action from the Adapted Courier is wicked because you can hurl your Anchor at a foe and then use the Courier to pick it up and hit with it again. This can easily pile up to 150 damage in just three actions. The Stasis Clock was a bit of a luxury, but the extra Incorruptible it carries can be used to prevent your foes from corrupting themselves or protect your other sentinel. In fact, during some fights I managed to apply Incorruptible on every single creature on the screen during some turns, which was kind of crazy.

The final fight against Astrea is a piece of cake with this build, because you can defeat her without using a virtue ever (and therefore you never get her state changed). In fact I dare say the battle against her Avatar felt a bit more dangerous, because this build is not that good against multiple opponents. Keep in mind that you have a single die that packs real damage, it cannot one-shot the really tough foes, and you depend on Copycats or Void Seek in order to leverage its effect more than once per turn.

All in all, this build is crazy fun, but I think it only works if you find a Purging Anchor very early and devote to it as soon as possible.

If anybody has more builds to contribute, I want to read any ideas they are willing to contribute!