The Corrupt Heart, the final boss found in Act 4, is at the top of the tower and is pumping foul blood about the eponymous peak of Slay the Spire. To pierce this huge organ of hatred and dominance, one will first need to know what it does in order to counter its great might. Following that, the player can then develop a strategy based on their preferences, the character that they are using, and the kind of luck they get in their next run.
While there are plenty of tactics that could be used to take down this end-game boss, some are simply more viable and easy to pull off than others. However, as mentioned before, one must first know their enemy in order to defeat them.
Updated on September 18, 2021, by Reyadh Rahaman: Deciding on a unique strategy for each character in Slay the Spire is often the best way to achieve success against the final boss. Each character has different strengths and weaknesses that should be emboldened or negated respectively before or during the confrontation with the Corrupt Heart.
Whether one takes a defensive or offensive approach will depend heavily on the cards one can acquire as the player rises through the various rooms of The Spire. However, with some characters (and a bit of luck), it's possible to assemble truly overpowered builds.
The Corrupt Heart's Attacks & Powers
Powers
- Beat of Death: Every time the player plays a card, they take 1 damage
- Invincible: Sets a cap on the maximum amount of damage that the Corrupt Heart can take in a single turn to 300
Attacks
- Debilitate: Applies 2 Vulnerable, 2 Frail, and 2 Weak while also shuffling 1 Dazed, 1 Slimed, 1 Wound, 1 Burn, and 1 Void card into the player's draw pile
- Blood Shots: Deals 2 damage 12 times
- Echo: Deals 40 damage
Buff
While the Buff counts as an Attack, it is quite complex and warrants greater attention. Here are its effects that differ for the first 5 times it is used; following the 5th use, the effects do not change again. Furthermore, each time this Buff is used, it removes all Strength debuffs from the Corrupt Heart as well as gives the boss +2 Strength.
- 1st Time: Gives the boss +2 Artifact (each stack of Artifact prevents 1 debuff)
- 2nd Time: Beat of Death increases by 1 stack, meaning that its effect is now doubled so that the player takes 2 damage every time they play a card
- 3rd Time: Applies Painful Stabs to the player, which spawns a Wound card in their deck each time they take unblocked damage
- 4th Time: Increases the Corrupt Heart's Strength by 10
- 5th Time & onwards: Increases the Corrupt Heart's Strength by 50
How To Counter The Corrupt Heart's Attacks & Powers
Power Counters
- Beat of Death counter: the Tungsten Rod rare relic & the After Image green power card totally negate the beat of death's effect by decreasing all incoming damage by 1 (Tungsten Rod) or gaining 1 block (before the effect of Beat of Death occurs) every time a card is played (After Image)
- Invincible acknowledgment: No way around this one, though since the Corrupt Heart has 750 HP, the 300 damage cap per turn means that the fastest that the player can slay the great organ is 3 turns, which isn't that restrictive even for the more aggressive strategies
Attack Counters
- Debilitate counter: All the debuffs and status cards that get thrown at the player here are brutal, however, multiple stacks of Artifact can help prevent some of them and the Medical Kit shop relic can be used to exhaust the status cards
- Blood Shots counter: This is an excellent attack to use against the Corrupt Heart by utilizing cards and relics that activate every time one takes damage, particularly ones that deal counter damage like the Thorns effect or that of the Flame Barrier red skill card
- Blood Shots negation: Dropping the Corrupt Heart's Strength (the Piercing Wail green skill card and the Dark Shackles gray skill card are great for this) can completely neutralize the damage of this attack, as the base damage is technically only 2, albeit launched many times; therefore simply decreasing the Heart's Strength by 2 will result in the damage being 0
- Echo counter: Applying Weak (decrease attack damage dealt by 25%) to the boss will soften this heavy blow, however, the effects of Intangible (reduces all damage taken to 1) and Buffer (prevents the next time the player would lose HP) can help to significantly dull this fierce attack's impact
Buff Counters
- Using much of the tactics to counter the Corrupt Heart's Attacks and Powers, one can deal with the Buff for the first 4 times it is used, however, after the +50 Strength application, things will be close to impossible to deal with, making it essential for the player to defeat the final boss before this great buff happens
How To Hurt & Kill The Corrupt Heart
Depending on the character chosen, one's strategy will be different, however, a good rule of thumb for players seeking to kill the Corrupt Heart is to balance countering the boss's Attacks and Powers while also trying to add on as many passive damaging effects as possible, for these can be built up to great effect on a single foe with high health.
Ironclad
Fire Breathing power card: An excellent way to deal automatic damage to the boss upon drawing status cards and can pair very well with attack and skill cards that add more status cards into the draw pile, such as the Power Through skill card and the Reckless Charge attack card.
Silent
Poison cards: Stacking up poison upon this boss (the Deadly Poison skill card and the Noxious Fumes power card are ideal for this) is a great way to deal incrementally greater damage each turn that can help the player defeat the Corrupt Heart ridiculously fast if one uses multiple upgraded Catalyst skill cards (the regular version doubles the enemy's total poison and the upgraded version triples it).
Defect
Lightning cards: Using power cards like Static Discharge (channel 1 lightning orb each time the player takes damage) and Storm (whenever the player plays a power card, channel 1 lightning orb) can allow one to deal constant damage via repetitive evocation of lightning orbs that can occur passively many times and pairing these effects with the Thunder Strike attack card (deals 7 damage [9 if upgraded] for each lightning orb channeled in combat) can result in bigger and bigger shocking attacks with short intervals.
Watcher
Calm cards: This character is easily the best to use as the base for an impregnable defensive build. Entering the Calm stance will allow many other cards to trigger with excellent synergy for a ton of block points. The Like Water purple skill card is a great choice for a defensive Calm build as it grants 5 block points (or 7 if upgraded). It's important not to bother entering the Wrath stance, as the effect of taking double damage will not warrant the doubled damage output and will only result in the player dying quicker.
Passive damage skill cards: When it comes to the offense with this defensive tactic, the Alpha and Pressure Points purple skill cards work the best, as the former will eventually allow one to play the powerful Omega grey power card, which will deal a passive 50 damage (60 if upgraded) to all enemies every turn. As for Pressure Points, using multiples of this card to trigger the Mark effect that gets built-up on foes by using it will allow one to snowball Mark effect damage for consistent and increasing returns.
Slay the Spire is available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC, iOS, and Android.