Frostburn landed on 27\u00a0August and rewrote the deck. If you are running a build from a July guide, at least four of its jokers no longer do what that guide says: one\u2026<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4800,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[840],"tags":[],"blog_tag":[],"class_list":["post-4801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-far-far-west"],"acf":{"redactor":[{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":"
Frostburn<\/a> landed on 27 August and rewrote the deck. If you are running a build from a July guide, at least four of its jokers no longer do what that guide says: one changed rarity, one gained a hard cap, one moved to diminishing returns, and the undisputed damage king lost a third of its ceiling. Worse, the rule that priced every unique joker is gone.<\/p> This is what the rarities are worth now, what slot costs mean after the change, and which cards still carry a run.<\/p>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":" Start with the structural change, because it re-prices every build you have. Unique jokers no longer cost a mandatory five slots.<\/strong> Each one now takes an amount based on how strong it is, and that number is printed on the card.<\/p> Three uniques got cheaper in the same patch: Fanning Ace<\/strong> and Mark Ace<\/strong> both dropped from five slots to three, and Rush Blast<\/strong> from five to four. Fanning Ace also had its spread angle cut from 5 to 2.5, which the patch notes describe as a 3.5× accuracy improvement. A unique that used to eat a whole weapon is now something you can build around.<\/p>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"title","heading":"The six rarities, and what each one is actually for","tag":"h2"},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":" Jokers come in six tiers, and the patch notes label them Common, Fine, Prime, Mythic, Legendary and Unique. The Frostburn notes call the lowest tier Common; the current in-game and service naming uses Normal \u2014 the same tier under two names.<\/em> The tier is not a quality score \u2014 it is a rough measure of how far a card bends the run.<\/p> Four nerfs matter enough to invalidate a build sheet.<\/p> Speedster<\/strong> was, in the developer's own words, the undisputed king of damage jokers. It converted bonus move speed into damage and attack speed at +1% per 2% speed, capped at +55%. It now converts at +1% per 3% speed, capped at +40%. Both halves got worse: you need half again as much speed to feed it, and the ceiling is 15 points lower. Evil Raptor put a figure on it in the notes \u2014 “about a -28% loss in efficiency overall”<\/em>, deliberately leaving it strong but no longer automatic.<\/p> Battlemage<\/strong> moved up from Mythic to Legendary \u2014 the tier went up, which in this game means it costs you more to run \u2014 and its effect was halved, from 1% to 0.5% spell-cooldown reduction per kill. The notes are explicit that Battlemage, Wisp and Rain together formed a horde-clearing trifecta that outclassed every other spell build.<\/p> Stonks<\/strong> is the interesting one, because it was buffed and nerfed in the same line: chest-joker chance up from +15% to +20%, but now on diminishing returns. The reason given is Uranium \u2014 stacking Stonks through the Copy Press used to be limited by the Gold it cost, and Gold is no longer the in-mission currency.<\/p> Cheapskate<\/strong> kept its rate of +1 HP per 20 Gold carried, and gained a hard cap of +15 HP. Same logic: with nothing to spend Gold on during a mission, the joker would otherwise pay out at full value every run.<\/p>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"title","heading":"Nerfs and buffs at a glance","tag":"h2"},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":" Every row below is quoted from the Frostburn patch notes. Where the notes do not state a number, the row is not here.<\/p>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"table","headers":[{"header_text":"Joker"},{"header_text":"Rarity"},{"header_text":"Before"},{"header_text":"After"}],"rows":[{"cells":[{"cell_text":"Speedster"},{"cell_text":"Legendary"},{"cell_text":"+1% dmg\/atk speed per 2% move speed, cap +55%"},{"cell_text":"+1% per 3% move speed, cap +40%"}]},{"cells":[{"cell_text":"Battlemage"},{"cell_text":"Mythic \u2192 Legendary"},{"cell_text":"\u22121% spell cooldown per kill"},{"cell_text":"\u22120.5% spell cooldown per kill"}]},{"cells":[{"cell_text":"Stonks"},{"cell_text":"Prime"},{"cell_text":"+15% chest joker chance"},{"cell_text":"+20%, now on diminishing returns"}]},{"cells":[{"cell_text":"Cheapskate"},{"cell_text":"Prime"},{"cell_text":"+1 HP per 20 Gold, uncapped"},{"cell_text":"+1 HP per 20 Gold, capped at +15 HP"}]},{"cells":[{"cell_text":"Lucky Strike"},{"cell_text":"Prime \u2192 Fine"},{"cell_text":"Prime rarity"},{"cell_text":"Fine rarity"}]},{"cells":[{"cell_text":"Fanning Ace"},{"cell_text":"Unique"},{"cell_text":"5 slots, spread 5"},{"cell_text":"3 slots, spread 2.5"}]},{"cells":[{"cell_text":"Run & Gun"},{"cell_text":"Fine"},{"cell_text":"Max 8 equipped"},{"cell_text":"Max 6, softer diminishing returns"}]},{"cells":[{"cell_text":"Run & Reload"},{"cell_text":"Fine"},{"cell_text":"Max 8 equipped"},{"cell_text":"Max 6, softer diminishing returns"}]},{"cells":[{"cell_text":"Clutch"},{"cell_text":"Fine"},{"cell_text":"Max 1 equipped"},{"cell_text":"Max 2 equipped"}]},{"cells":[{"cell_text":"Destroyer"},{"cell_text":"Prime"},{"cell_text":"First 25% of clip +15% damage"},{"cell_text":"First 25% of clip +20% damage"}]},{"cells":[{"cell_text":"Weak Link"},{"cell_text":"Prime"},{"cell_text":"Weakspot +35%, regular \u221235%"},{"cell_text":"Weakspot +35%, regular \u221220%"}]},{"cells":[{"cell_text":"Chad"},{"cell_text":"Fine"},{"cell_text":"Could be dropped and shared"},{"cell_text":"No longer droppable"}]}],"size":"default"},{"acf_fc_layout":"title","heading":"The shield jokers are the real new build","tag":"h2"},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":" Frostburn added melee weapons, and with them a shield system: Shield Points sit above your HP bar, take damage first, decay when you stop gaining them, and cap at 100. That single mechanic is what most of the new jokers are built around, and it is where the current carries live.<\/p> The damage line is All Mighty<\/strong> (Legendary): +1% damage per shield point, up to +80%. Feeding it is Double Down<\/strong> (Legendary, +30% shield from all sources), Last Bastion<\/strong> (Prime, +50 shield at 25% HP on a 60-second cooldown) and Tin Man<\/strong> (Mythic, overheal converts to shield up to +15 SP). Death's Dance<\/strong> (Mythic) slows the decay by 30%, which is what keeps the stack alive between fights.<\/p> On the melee side, Berserker<\/strong> scales up to +50% melee damage as your HP drops and Bloodlust<\/strong> stacks +5% melee speed per kill up to +50%. Cold Blooded<\/strong> (Mythic) freezes on melee hits at a cost of 3 shield points per enemy \u2014 it converts the shield pool into crowd control rather than damage, so it competes with All Mighty rather than supporting it.<\/p>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"title","heading":"The HP formula changed, and it matters more than it looks","tag":"h2"},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":" Before Frostburn, jokers that touched HP each did their own arithmetic. The patch notes are blunt about why that ended: \u201cWe previously had different calculations for different jokers affecting HP, which was a mess both for you and for us.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Every HP joker now runs one formula:<\/p>\n The formula, as written by the developer<\/p>\n Max. HP = (base + sum of flat bonuses) \u00d7 product of multipliers<\/strong><\/p>\n Your max HP is your base HP plus every flat bonus, and only then multiplied by every multiplier affecting you.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The order is the whole point. Flat bonuses are summed before<\/em> the multipliers apply, which means a flat +HP joker is worth more the more multipliers you are already running \u2014 and worth least on a build with none. Multipliers, in turn, compound against each other rather than being averaged.<\/p>\n Practically: a survivability build wants its flats first and its multipliers last, and mixing one weak flat into a stack of multipliers now pays better than it looks on the card. It also means two builds that used to reach the same HP by different routes no longer do.<\/p>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"title","heading":"Uranium replaced Gold, and that changes how you farm","tag":"h2"},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":" Buying, copying and refining jokers no longer costs Gold. That happens in Uranium now \u2014 a currency that exists only inside a mission, so spending it never competes with your lobby unlocks. Leftover Uranium converts to hero and weapon XP at the end of the run.<\/p> The part that changes how you farm: you can break a joker you do not want and get Uranium for it<\/strong>, and the Frostburn notes add punching as a way to do it. The payout scales with the broken joker's rarity, and dropped jokers give nothing. Uranium also comes from elite kills, secondary objectives, quests, secrets, lighthouses and the flying balloons.<\/p> Lighthouses are the other half. They spawn in every mission, are marked on the mini-map, and completing the minigame at the top reveals the map along with its unique locations \u2014 including the Copy Press, which is what you need if you are stacking a specific card.<\/p> If you would rather not grind a rarity tier at all, that is what our Far Far West joker services<\/a> are for: the tiers are sold as they exist in game, from Normal through Unique.<\/p>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"title","heading":"Sources and confidence","tag":"h2"},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":"