Across the Obelisk: All 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 which can help to mitigate or eliminate the various conditions. First though, we need to understand what it is each condition does.

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 and takes 48 shadow damage and deals 26 to neighbouring 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 neighbouring enemies (even if there’s a space left by a dead enemy) equal to the Spark stacks (3 Spark stacks, +1 lightning damage taken and 3 damage to neighbouring 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 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.

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 consume 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

The list of Scout cards that can deal with conditions are 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 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. 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 amount of stacks of Burning you take on subsequent turns. This is important for certain fights (like against Ignidoh, the volcano boss) who build off of 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 by far has the most generic options to deal with conditions. Many cards have 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 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 just 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

Pretty much every item which will help with conditions is a piece of armour or an accessory.

Armour

• 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 which you acquire when you’re done with the area in which those conditions are most prevalent.

Far and away the conditions that most people suffer under are bleeding, burning, poison, and spark. Happily, some of these are straight forward 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.

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Poison and Bleeding shows 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.

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Burning shows up mostly in the volcano area, but also 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.

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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.

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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 resist from armours and jewelry, or from Insulate boons such as from Elemental Ward.