Am I the only one that thinks fishing rod is the worse neow bonus in the game?
It provides near zero help to get you through act 1, and its long term payoff is extermly weak when compared to other long term relics like lava rocks or stone humidifer.
On top of that its design feels so contraditory
it makes you WANT to path more shops and events to remove your starter cards, increasing the chance it hits something actually useful, saving you a campfire, BUT doing so decreases its value since it activates alot less
it WANTS you to path agressively, to not only get it to activate more but to use your increased density of upgraded cards to get an extra elite or 2, BUT doing so makes it activate LESS since its effect doesnt activate on elites or bosses
so what we have is a relic that wants you to remove low value cards from your deck to maximize the odds of it hitting something good, but it ALSO wants you to path elites to get value from said upgraded cards, but it ALSO ALSO doesnt wants you to path to many elites or shops so you can actually get it to activate
my problem is that this thing can never be used effectively as it is leaves the player confused on what to actually do with it, on average it activates only twice mabye thrice if your lucky in act one but most of the cards it would upgrade would be basic strikes or defends making it basically worthless for late and early game
My suggestion? make it give you an ancient card similar to lesson learned
make it do the damage of a strike and make its damage competely unalterable so you want to be getting as much from it as possible in act one, before it falls of in act 2 and 3
(this is a beta branch relic if anyone is confused)