Not bad. Somewhat more balanced, in that it’s more feasible to win with more than one kind of build. Still pretty unbalanced, but substantially better. Will probably need more tuning over time.
I love the change to not combine scrolls, thank you. That’s especially true if I get multiple Scriptoriums in a row.
Do items have a minimum cooldown? If not, my next goal is to try to get a cat with 0 cooldown. :)
Damage is more fun to take into the endgame. It’s still a die roll, as it gets hard-countered by certain builds. But it’s not as much of a die roll as it used to be. (My first 10-0 with a damage rush build came after a number of builds that got unlucky in matchups and got hard-countered.)
Poison is still best. I had a great damage-rush build with an upgraded cat that had 90+ damage and I’d gotten it down to ~3s cooldown, along with an upgraded axe and a bunch of multi-hit items. Sold all of it to purchase Poisonous Blade and Slowing Bow from the same shop, which was easily the right choice. Got Poison Portal the round after, and that was the game.
Those three together, ideally along with one cheap “use at start of battle” item that does rush or slow, will win 90+% of matchups. The ones they lose to are usually either the same build but faster, or a combo that takes more pieces so it shows up less often (e.g. the bomb and all rush items, or a damage-enchanted ).
Also, aside: I continue to find Meat Cleaver by far the most fun item to find in the early game. Finding it means I’ll have at least twice as much money over the course of the game, not counting compounding effects.