The Juggle
The Juggle is an organo-mechanical robot character for Slay the Spire.
Similarly to the Defect, the Juggle uses orbs. Their method for handling orbs, though, is very different: where the Defect has a magical queue of orbs, the Juggle throws orbs from one position to the other to get their effects.
Under normal circumstances, the Juggle has exactly three orb slots, each filled with an orb. Their orbs come in three different flavours, each with its own effects. In general, the Juggle needs one of each type of orb to be effective. Fortunately, the Juggle innately starts with one of each orb.
In contrast to the Defect, only one of the orbs does something at the end of your turn. This is called its "Mid-Air" effect, and it is triggered only for the orb which is in the central position.
Orbs also have an effect when they are ‘caught’, which happens as a result of playing cards that ‘Throw’ or ‘Catch’ an orb.
Glass Ball
This orb will deal damage to all enemies at the end of your turn, when Mid-Air.
When a Glass Ball is caught, you will get a temporary power called "Wind-up", which will strengthen your next attack. You lose all Wind-up at the end of your turn, so better use it before you lose it!
Iron Ball
This orb will give block at the end of your turn, when Mid-Air.
When an Iron Ball is caught, you will get a temporary power called "Block-up", which will strengthen your next block card. Similarly to Wind-up, you lose your Block-up at the end of your turn.
Powder Ball
This orb will give Focus at the end of your turn, when Mid-Air. Focus increases the Mid-Air effects of your other orbs.
When a Powder Ball is caught, you get a power called "Grip". Grip increases the ‘Catch’ effects of your other orbs. So the more you catch your Powder Ball, the harder you will catch your Iron and Glass Balls.
One caveat, you lose half of your Grip at the end of your turn (rounded down).
Each orb has two values:
– its Mid-Air effect value. This is displayed above the orb, and is increased by your Focus.
– its Catch effect value. This is displayed below the orb, and is increased by your Grip.
What happens when you Throw an orb? The basic principle of 3-ball juggling is as follows: there is one ball in the air, and two in your hands at all times. When the mid-air ball falls towards your right hand, you throw the ball that’s in your right hand, and catch the falling ball with the same hand.
The Juggle does exactly that. At any time, there is one Mid-Air ball (the central one) and two balls in their Left and Right orb slots. When you play a card that says "Throw Right", you will Throw the orb in the Right slot, and Catch the orb that was in the Central slot. This leaves the thrown orb in the Central slot, and the caught orb in the Right slot. You will trigger the "Catch" effect of the orb you just caught.
This sounds complicated, but in practice it will become second nature. Just remember, whenever you throw, you will always Catch your Central orb!
In contrast, when a card lets you Catch an orb, its Catch effect happens, but the positions of your orbs does not change.
The play of the Juggle is centred around making the most effective use of your orbs. There’s a puzzly element of deciding on the best order of throws, to leave the right ball in the air (for it’s passive effect), and to combine the right catches with cards that can benefit. There’s also a lot of natural scaling built in (your Powder Ball is essentially your whole scaling engine!), but it takes thought and cards to make it consistently effective.
One word of warning: the Juggle only knows how to properly juggler 3 balls, and has no ways of changing this amoung. If you are to change the amount of orb slots (with a Prismatic Shard for example) the effects may be a little strange. I’ve safeguarded against crashes, and added a few fun exceptions for 2-ball juggling, but in general it’s not recommended to change your orb count.
The Juggle is feature complete, with 75 cards, 9 relics and 1 potion. Obviously it is compatible with Googly Eyes.
I do expect there will be balance patches, so feel free to give reasoned feedback on potential problems. Of course, if you find any bugs, please let me know!
Required items:
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BaseMod — Steam Workshop
ModTheSpire — Steam Workshop
