okay. this game is borderline unplayable to me anymore. the fact that cleavers now take 2 energy and the amount of new enemies and difficulty spikes are so bad, i haven't gotten a run past magma core in 13 different runs.
they were nerfed for a reason, they were busted. archery is still pretty good despite also being nerfed, block/spike is still pretty good for getting past magma, and there's still plenty of synergies.
i have tried both archery and block/spike and nothing works for me. i even had the gold lil' buckler shield and knight's shields but i just die to poison.
Cleavers are still very usable, all you need is a shield and the shield spirit relic and they're effectively back to costing 1 energy! I have a run rn with a cleaver build at floor 41 and still going strong
