Slay the Spire 2 devs say the Doormaker boss that sparked so many negative Steam reviews is actually "slightly weaker than the other Act 3 bosses"

The first major update for Slay the Spire 2 sparked a huge wave of negative Steam reviews, many of which skewered revisions to the Act 3 boss Doormaker, who now rotates through phases that Exhaust anything you play, prevent you from drawing additional cards on your turn, or subtract an additional point of mana anytime you play a card, even a zero-cost one. Clearly aware of the feedback, developer Mega Crit addresses the boss in its latest beta patch notes, suggesting the Doormaker is not the statistical outlier it may seem to be.

"We are currently monitoring the Doormaker and looking at a combination in-game feedback, social media posts, and metrics," Mega Crit says. "We want to give players time to adjust a bit, otherwise we'll be balancing around kneejerk reactions. Currently, from looking at millions of runs, Doormaker's overall difficulty/winrate is in a good place (slightly weaker than the other Act 3 bosses both in kill rate and damage dealt). However, we do want to ensure that its mechanics aren't too abrasive against certain playstyles."

I am honestly surprised to hear this. Doormaker has by far been the most lethal Act 3 boss in my 80 hours of experience. But I don't doubt the devs, and this report does make sense in that it highlights the difference between something feeling difficult and that thing actually being more difficult.

Compared to other Act 3 bosses, which might promote drafting card draw or severely punish lower damage output, the Doormaker has the highest potential to completely counter your build. If you're playing a Soul-heavy deck on Necrobinder, which wants to create a bunch of 0-cost draw Skills in order to cycle through a ton of cards, the Doormaker can shut you down entirely. Your key combo pieces will vanish if you play them during the Exhaust phase, and all your Souls are dead weight during the draw and mana phases.

This happened to me on an Ascension 8 run just the other day, and the problem is not exclusive to Necrobinder, as Silent fans can tell you. Consequently, these strategies and their related cards can feel like bad picks for every run. I'd wager this is the type of matchup-specific punishment that Mega Crit is alluding to when it mentions "certain playstyles," and it's definitely something that many recent Steam reviews have mentioned.

Even if the Doormaker is ending fewer runs, the runs it is ending can feel terrible, as if everything building up to that final turn didn't matter at all. More to the point, the way you built your deck in Acts 1 and 2 may feel like a mistake as soon as you discover that your Act 3 boss is the Doormaker. The other bosses, even counting The Queen's hand-locking chain of binding, just don't impose the same restrictions on what you can do each turn. Given this, not to mention the wealth of feedback, I'd be very surprised if the Doormaker isn't changed.

New Slay the Spire 2 patch makes some terrible cards and relics actually good, Mega Crit agrees the game "is quite hard" and wants lower Ascensions to be "more accessible."