Slay the Spire 2 just received its chunkiest beta patch yet, and while there are numerous balancing changes, bug fixes, and new pieces of content to go over, fans are only currently interested in one big change patch 0.105.0 brings: the Doormaker is dead.
In case you missed the context behind the controversial Doormaker boss, the first beta branch patch for Slay the Spire 2, all the way back at the end of March, made some big changes to the Act 3 fight. Doormaker was completely overhauled, adding a new mechanic that saw it swap between three phases that permanently exhausted your cards, limited your card draw, and made cards more expensive.
This change did not go down well with fans—or, at least with fans in China. Slay the Spire 2 was review-bombed twice because of Doormaker: once when the initial change was added to the beta branch, and a second time when the change was pushed to the main branch. It was also review-bombed for a third time yesterday, but you can blame the chuds for that one.
But considering that developer Mega Crit previously stated that Doormaker was, based on their own metrics, actually the easiest Act 3 boss fight in the game, could it be argued that they’re relenting to negative reviews by removing it from Slay the Spire 2? According to the v0.105.0 patch notes, Mega Crit had a different reason for the change: “While Doormaker had interesting micro decisions in the fight, he was over the complexity threshold of what we want and had lingering issues. We decided that starting over fresh will let us hit what we actually want for an Act 3 boss.”
So, this new boss, Aeonglass, what’s their deal? I’ve only fought against it once so far, but eh, it’s fine? Its unique mechanic is that it adds a “Wither” status card to your deck every time you play your fourth non-status card. Withers retain, cost 1 energy to play, and deal 2 damage to you if they’re in your hand at the end of your turn. Alongside this, Aeonglass will switch between applying the Ebb debuff (which reduces your strength and dexterity) and buffing its own strength.
Personally, I found it kind of a cakewalk to beat, even on Ascension 10. Also, I kinda think that characters like Defect and Regent, who can take advantage of having status cards in their deck, will absolutely dogwalk this boss. But, as Mega Crit stated themselves, this is a “fresh start.” I’m sure they’ll tweak Aeonglass in ways that make the fight more interesting in subsequent patches.
As far as character-specific changes are concerned, Defect and Regent received the most attention. Regent received a mix of buffs and nerfs, nothing too huge, but my boy Defect is the real winner of this patch. Hyperbeam jumped from 28 damage to 36, Shatter now evokes all your orbs two times, and Tesla Coil now also triggers your lighting orbs twice. Oh, and Silent’s Blade of Ink got nerfed from +2 damage to +1, but that card is still nuts regardless.
And, Mega Crit finally added the Bestiary! Sort of. While you can now actually open the Bestiary and have a look at the artwork, the monsters are lacking both animations and flavor text—although Mega Crit stated that these will be added in later updates.
Overall, I think it’s a great patch, but…I kinda liked the Doormaker fight. I hope that it returns in some form in the future, even if it’s been completely reworked by that point. But most of all, I just hope that Mega Crit continues to block out all the noise from the complainers. I wanna play the Slay the Spire 2 that Mega Crit wants to make, not the Slay the Spire 2 that was voted on by committee.
