Across the Obelisk – Conditions Guide
Conditions suck. That’s just what they’re supposed to do, though. You can use most of them against the enemies as well, but (for now at least) it seems Insane doesn’t work for us, only against us.
This guide is mostly a listing of cards and equipment that can help mitigate or eliminate the various conditions. First, though, we need to understand what it is each condition does.
Conditions
First, a listing of conditions in the game:
- Bleeding – Causes a loss of health at the beginning of the turn equal to the number of stacks (5 bleed stacks, 5 health loss)
- Burning – Causes damage at the beginning of the turn equal to the number of stacks (5 burning stacks, 5 damage)
- Chill – Increases cold damage by 1 per 3 stacks and lowers speed by 1 per 6 stacks (3 Chill stacks, +1 cold damage. 6 Chill stacks, -1 speed, and +2 cold damage)
- Crack – Increases bludgeoning damage by 1 per stack (5 stacks of crack, +5 damage from bludgeon attacks like Punch)
- Dark – Increases shadow damage taken by 1 per 3 stacks. Upon reaching 24 stacks, the target explodes, takes 48 shadow damage, and deals 26 to neighboring targets.
- Daze – Decreases speed by 6 for 1 turn per stack. This is the antithesis of Haste, and both are mutually exclusive, dispelling the other.
- Decay – Reduces heal received when healed by 50% (does not affect regeneration)
- Disarm – Prevents you from playing attack cards (melee attacks or ranged attacks) for 1 turn per stack. Does not prevent hostile actions, like Small Weapons or damaging spells, nor non-hostile actions such as Defence or Intercept.
- Fatigue – Reduces energy you gain at the start of your turn (currently only Adrenaline and Stanza 3 stacks wearing off seem to give this, I don’t know how this stacks)
- Insane – Increases Mind damage taken by 1 per 3 stacks. Increases all card costs by 1 per 9 stacks (6 Insane stacks, +2 Mind damage. 18 Insane stacks, +2 energy costs and +6 Mind damage)
- Mark – Increases all damage taken by 1 per stack, as well as counteracting Stealth stacks (5 Mark stacks, +5 damage from any sources before resistances apply. 5 Mark stacks also counteracts 5 Stealth stacks)
- Poison – Causes a loss of health at the end of the turn equal to the number of stacks (5 poison stacks, 5 health loss)
- Sanctify – Heals the attacker for 1 per stack, then reduces the stack size by 1.
- Shackle – Reduces speed to 0. This overrides any bonus speed buffs.
- Sight – Reveal 1 card in “hand” per stack for 1 turn per stack (5 Sight stacks, reveal up to 5 cards). This is exclusively used against enemies.
- Slow – Decreases speed by 3 for 1 turn per stack. This is the antithesis of Fast, and both are mutually exclusive, dispelling the other.
- Spark – Increases lightning damage taken by 1 per 3 stacks. Will also deal damage to neighboring enemies (even if a dead enemy leaves a space) equal to the Spark stacks (3 Spark stacks, +1 lightning damage taken, and 3 damage to neighboring enemies)
- Vulnerable – Decreases ALL resistances by 10% per stack, for 1 turn per stack (3 Vulnerable stacks, -30% resist all for 3 turns, then 20% for 2 turns, etc.)
- Weak – Reduces the amount of damage and healing done by the target by 50% for 1 turn per stack.
- Wet – Increases lightning damage taken by 1 per stack, as well as counteracting Burn stacks 1:1 when suffered afterward. Wet is the antithesis of Burning and removes ALL Burn stacks when applied.
An imposing list, to be sure. There are a lot of things that can go wrong. But the counter to any and all of these is the simple word Dispel.
Dispel removes any condition starting from the top row, left side of your buffs/debuffs under your character. If it says Dispel 2, you remove the left most two stacks of conditions, whatever they are.
If it says Dispel with an icon, you remove just that condition wherever it is on your list of conditions. So Dispel with a Burning icon will remove all burns from you. Dispel obliterates all charges of a stack, whether it’s 3 Bleeding or 30.
There is another option, however: Consume. This is far less common. It does much the same thing as Dispel; only it always has an icon next to it. The difference here, though, is that Consume can also apply to boons, like Block. This is commonly associated with an effect that builds off of the stacks of the chosen icon, like Blood Feeding, which heals based on the number of stacks of Bleeding you have. One of the upgraded versions has Consume Bleeding as an effect.
Warriors
Warrior options for getting rid of conditions are kind of limited, mostly to Bleeding, but they do have a flat Dispel option as well.
Battle Shout – Dispels Daze
Blood Feeding – The gold version will consume Bleeding, but has vanish
Blood for Blood – Upgraded versions consumes Bleeding.
Burning Blood – Turns Bleeding into Burning
Charge – Gain Fast, which dispels Slow
First Aid – Dispels Bleeding
Helping Hand – Dispels Slow. Upgrades also dispel Daze or Insane.
Repair Armour – Dispels Crack and Mark
Shake It Off – Dispel 2 or dispel 3
Scouts
The list of Scout cards that can deal with conditions is very limited by comparison to others.
Chant of initiative – Grants 1 Fast and 1 Haste, which dispel Slow and Daze
Healing Serenade – Has Dispel 1 or Dispel 2. Requires stanza 2 to use.
Hit and Run – Grants 1 or 2 Fast, which dispels Slow
Poisonous Blood – Changes Bleeding into Poison
Shadowstep – Grants 1 or 2 Fast, which dispels Slow
Song of Celerity – Grants 1 Fast, which dispels Slow.
Song of Quickness – The gold version has Dispel Shackle
Sprint – Grants 1 or 2 Haste, which dispels Daze
Sweet Melody – Has Dispel 1 or Dispel 2. Requires stanza 1 to use.
Vanish – Dispels Bleeding and Poison
Poisonous Blood may seem like an odd inclusion. This is mostly because poison happens at the end of the turn, which can cause someone (like an almost dead healer) to survive the start of their turn to do something about their situation, but also works with card combos (like Dilute) to deal with poison.
Mages
Mages have very few options as well. All of them are related to elements, and most apply to monsters only (which doesn’t help us).
Cauterise – Has Consume Bleeding by default. It can be upgraded to Consume Burning (which is odd)
Heat Wave – Dispel Wet and Chill in all forms. The gold version upgrades to heroes only version, which is beneficial, rather than applying burning to everyone to do this task
Icy Veins – Convert Bleeding stacks into Chill stacks.
Rain – Applies Wet to everyone.
Scroll of Speed – Grants 1 Fast base, which dispels Slow. Upgrades grant 2 instead, or 1 Fast and 1 Haste which also dispels Daze.
The important one to note is Rain. Because any amount of Wet stacks applied to a target removes all Burning stacks, this is a great way to douse an entire battlefield and reduce the number of stacks of Burning you take on subsequent turns. This is important for certain fights (like against Ignidoh, the volcano boss) who build off Burning stacks on the field. Rain can work against you, though, as it increases the amount of lightning damage you take. As long as you aren’t facing someone that does that, no big deal.
Healer
Healer, by far, has the most generic options to deal with conditions. Many cards have to Dispel on them, with quite a few being a numbered dispel.
Baptism – Convert all wet stacks into blessing stacks.
Clarity – Purge all fury (which is a boon that generates bleed stacks), dispel all insane and dazed stacks.
Dawnlight – Dispel the darkness
Dilute – Converts poison into wet stacks
Dispel Magic – Has “Dispel 2” or “Dispel 3” on it
Healing Rain – Applies wet to everyone, which dispels all burn stacks. One upgrade now dispels burn without causing wet on heroes.
Mass Dispel – Has “Dispel 2” or “Dispel 3” on it (vanishes on the 3s)
Panacea – Has “Dispel 2” or “Dispel 3” on it
Ray of Hope – Dispels dark
Equipment
Pretty much every item which will help with conditions is a piece of armor or an accessory.
Armor
Bloodguard – Immunity to Bleeding
Ignis Cloak – Immunity to Burning
Stainless Cuirass – Dispel 1 every turn
Titan Gauntlets – Immunity to Disarm
Accessories
Four Leaf Clover – 35% chance per turn to Dispel 1
Hydra Egg – Immunity to Poison
Ignidoh’s Core – Every 2 turns get 1 Heat Assimilation put into your hand (consumes all Burning stacks globally)
Lucky Paw – 60% chance per turn to Dispel 1
Shackles of War – Immunity to Shackle
Many of these items are acquired through quests or boss completion. Particularly Ignidoh’s Core and the Hydra Egg you acquire when you’re done with the area in which those conditions are most prevalent.
Tactics to Deal With Conditions
Far and away, the conditions that most people suffer under are bleeding, burning, poison, and spark. Happily, some of these are straightforward enough to deal with. As with all rogue-lites, you need to work at your unlocks to ensure you have access to these cards. This can be frustrating, as you’ll find your first few runs can be dictated by whether you get access to these cards or not.
Poison and Bleeding show up the most in the swamp area. Spiders and mosquitos cause copious amounts of stacks to appear in just a few turns. And if you’re fighting the crocs earlier near the town, they also apply a good amount of bleeding. Bleeding can be mitigated by Cauterise, and Poison can be mitigated by Dilute (a common card). Dispel Magic (also a common card) is also highly effective in these cases.
Burning shows up mostly in the volcano area but is somewhat problematic (especially in the early runs) in the forest of Senethia when encountering the dryads and Ylmer (the boss of the first act). Your best bet against burning stacks is Rain and Healing Rain, as well as the previously mentioned Dispel Magic. You’ll have access to Rain and Healing Rain right from the start, as they are a part of Evelyn and Reginald’s starting decks. Both of these apply Wet to everyone, which completely wipes out all Burning stacks. These cards, unfortunately, have vanish, which strips them from your deck for the rest of the fight. This means you should save them for when the stacks start to get too high or if you need the heal badly enough. Happily, most fights rarely last more than 8 turns, and your odds of going through 4+ of these two cards combined (depending on whether you bought or acquired extra copies) is slim as long as you aren’t using them to get rid of 1 or 2 stacks of Burning.
Unfortunately, there is no current way to deal with Spark besides generic Dispel options. This means the majority of your Spark removal will be from your healer using the likes of Dispel Magic.
Remember the important distinction of “loss of health” versus “damage” on the conditions. Spark and Burning deal damage, which you can counter most readily with Block. This also means you can mitigate the damage taken by these with resistance, such as with all resistance from armors and jewelry, or from Insulate boons such as from Elemental Ward.
