This working in the live branch and in the current PTB.
Guide to Tyr v1.14 Cinderthorn Madness Build
By Mihealsick
Cinder is one of the most powerful strategies right now because it eliminates most marquee threats while also boasting top-tier damage output.
This Tyr Cinderthorn build leverages Cinder’s power for offense, and for defense you will use a powerful interaction using Madness potions so that when you attack yourself, you steal your own armor and then regain it multiplied it by your armor%. This interaction results in a massive wall of armor between you and your enemies.
For talents, you’ll want to head down the Cinderthorn path, then take armor% so you can access the two Armor Steal nodes behind it.
Early Early Game (Floors 1-5)
Tyr can be tricky to get through the early game. I recommend using Poverty // Silver // Turtle to help you get past the hump.
Tyr might not have a weapon, but he can still attack. Even so, we’re going to minimize our attack output with this build, so focus only on defensive stats for now (armor more than hp).
Poverty set keeps the Goblins out of our pockets while Silver provides decent armor and cleanses. If you can survive til floor 3 and equip Turtle boots, you can start skipping every turn to take 94% less damage. This should be more than enough to keep you alive and thriving.
Just let Blackthorn set take the wheel and do your damage for you.
Early Game (Floors 6-15)
As enemies scale up, you’ll want more armor than Silver set can provide. I recommend dropping Silver for Orion set (or Ancient Ice) just for the better scaling.
A critically important note here: do NOT dismantle any different types of damage than magic. No sparkle, no electricity, no malice, no toxicity (Yes, really, no sparkle)!
For Kotyas, just don’t attack into them. That’s probably not a problem since you should be passing most turns at this point.
Mid Game (Floors 16-21)
As soon as you can safely swap out of Orion, go ahead and make the change to Celestial // Magma // Turtle.
Celestial has the best flat armor value in the game, so it should let you make the swap fairly early.
Your Cinder damage will be puny early on until you get your dismantles rolling, but at this stage your Blackthorn damage should still be plenty. Celestial would let you scale up your magma damage, but you’re probably still passing a lot to mitigate damage with Turtle set, so that’s not really gonna work too well yet.
- For Magma Golems, your Cinder damage strikes first and should kill them before they can hit you. Before your Cinder damage is fully online, you have some elemental resistance in this outfit just to help out.
- For Jupiters, don’t attack into them. Just pass. They’re not a threat, and Cinder/Blackthorn will take them out.
Endgame (Floors 22+)
When Saturns show up on 21, you’ll need to pivot to your endgame strategy, where you’ll stay in park for the rest of the run. Passing the turn and waiting for enemies to attack into you means that you’ll just get your armor broken by Saturns. From here, you’ll swap to Magma // Celestial // Swift.
You’ll want to start dismantling more aggressively for Magma damage at this point, since Blackthorn damage is a little too late for some fights.
This is also the part of the game where your Madness Armor Steal combo will come online. For this combo, you’ll need a Tome of Arcanum and a Madness potion, plus as high an attack count as you can get. I recommend Pantaloons + Swift set for attack count because the Parries from Warrior set actually stop Cinderthorn from triggering.
To run the combo, just set your Tome and Potion to auto. You’ll cast Barrier on yourself, then target yourself with your attacks (which should be just plain magic damage and absolutely no other effects). Since you’re attacking with only magic damage into your own Barrier, you won’t break the barrier and you’ll take no damage from your own attacks. Each attack lets you steal 16% armor from yourself, which is then multiplied by your armor%. Additionally, each time you attack yourself, you trigger Cinderthorn, which hits all enemies for Cinder damage.
Another big part of this strategy is Zephyron’s Tome for silence. Cinder takes a while to get fully ramped up as a damage source, and you’ll need a stopgap for Saturns in the meantime. Silencing them works beautifully, but multiples might require a Tears of Iron and/or a Demonic Blood to steal the armor back on a counterattack.
For Suns, these are a pain. For the live branch, you’ll need Moonflower Extract or else everything will dodge your Cinder damage. For the PTB, Blindness doesn’t stop Cinder damage, but it does stop you from hitting yourself. For that reason, you’ll need to make sure your starting armor stays high enough to survive the first round even if you’re not able to run your armor steal combo.
For Iron Golems, you can usually just kill these conventionally once your cinder engine is online. In the late game, remember you can just attack these normally and steal their armor the good old-fashioned way. Blackthorn should take care of the rest.
For Perfect Slave and Death, stealing your own armor puts you far out of reach. These can’t possibly outrace you.
Dismantle Rotation
You care most about hp, hp%, armor, armor%, and elemental power%. The divine items in this image are items you should dismantle every chance you get, while the cosmic are items you should dismantle every once in a while.
Faith is very relevant to this build. With one Holy Water, you can cleanse the Madness buff at the end of the first turn, which allows you to fully benefit from your Grace multiplier for the rest of the fight. That said, don’t dismantle so much faith that you get hit with diminishing returns–just get enough for a nice juicy 100x multiplier or so.
Do not dismantle the X’d items! Remember, you do not want any kinds of damage that will make you break your own Barrier, so avoid sparkle, electricity, toxicity, and malice. I’d also recommend you stay away from Thronglers–even though the hp is nice, you don’t want to switch to physical damage by accident.