**************************************************************************************** Work in Progress! This will hopefully function as a complete guide to Boots in the near future! For now, please help add to the list of Boots and contribute to the discussion! **************************************************************************************** Boots By now on your card-hunting adventure you have probably amassed quite a large collection of footwear without even realizing it. You also may not have realized how important your shoes are to your success in the game. You aren't going to get very far if you don't use the right ones. I'm going to try and list them in groups, along with explanations and comparisons with similar items. This list isn't meant to be exhaustive but it should cover the main types available. Some boots are better for one class than another, but it also can depend on your team too. In a meta where the most common encumber effect is Encumber 2, having good (high) movement cards can be helpful. What cards do you want from your boots? Quick Step Cantrip gives you priority at any time. Quick Run Cantrip gives you priority, and with 3 move points it is very versatile for making a combo. Flanking Move Cheap, useful card. Can give priority in most situations, and can combo with ranged and step attacks. Dangerous Maneuver High movement for a low cost. Damage is easily avoided or negated. Cautious Sneak Useless or limiting on some maps, no problems on others. May be better for dwarves than other races. Charge Limiting in close quarters, but rather high movement in straight lines. Hard To Pin Down Very useful block, which gives you a Move 3 before you even act. Wild Run Cheap, and not altogether bad in the right circumstances. Sprint Will always allow you to move, potentially very, very far. Team Shift/Team Run Very good cards. Expensive, but allows you to move your whole team. Violent Spin Being able to push allies and enemies out of your way before moving (potentially onto a VP) is very useful. Muscle Through Limited movement, while Free Move, and can shuffle characters around slightly. Not so great for the cost. Scuttle Scamper Spin Around Costs you a turn, but can change facing and draw one card. Escaping Run Good strategic card. Not only does it Move 3, but if you play tactfully you draw one card too. Energizing Move Energizing Move will reveal itself when another move is played but can be played at any time to move 4, which is quite far. Rushing Aura Rushing Aura gives a big +2 movement boost but reveals itself, can be knocked off by damage, and can't be played. Flight Aura Immovable One of the best passive effects in the game, and having this trait on your boots means you will draw one more card from your deck right away. Lunging Bash/other attacks? Lunging Bash in particular is a useful card to have. Use it knock allies and enemies into position. Shimmering Aura When it comes to stopping magic damage this card is as good as Reliable Mail, although luck-wise it is not reliable at all. That being said, it does nothing against common melee attacks. Reliable Mail Fantastic armor card, can never fail. Good at absorbing multiple, smaller attacks. Officer's Harness Officer's Harness does NOTHING, except maybe prevent some damage, unlike an Attack or Assist or Move card which can do something more useful. However, in a situation where you can't utilize more than 2 of your cards at the end of turn, Officer's Harness won't hurt you. Leather Harness/Chain Harness/Enchanted Harness While exceptionally legendary, you can get boots with these Harnesses on them. As long as your character holds that Harness you can add to ALL of your armor rolls. Having Harnesses on Boots gives you many options for the class you are going to equip with them. Enchanted Harness in particular is difficult to utilize because of it's cost, but when combined with the right armor cards (and their respective items) it can become far more valuable than a simple Reliable Mail. /////////////////////////////////////////// Token-free The cheapskate station. Now, don't be fooled, this is probably the single-most important section for cheap warriors, poor priests and stingy wizards alike. Trait-ers Ah, traits. Traits on your boots will fuel the cards used in the rest of your deck. And if you go cheap on the Boots you can spend your tokens on something good. Right? Possessed Shoes/Goat Boots Free Immovable is handy, although Shuffle and Weakened Armor are rather poor cards. Glimmer Boots Squeamish doesn't do much, and you get Run + Hardy Mail? All-around it's pretty good boots, although maybe not for a warrior. Toad Boots Cowardly may seem scary, but the momentary lapses in aggression might be worth the benefit. Hard to Pin Down and Dangerous Maneuver together could be worth your while. A priest may benefit most from these boots. Reckless Boots If you have experience with Wild Run then you might now how valuable it is. On your first turn you can ditch your racial move to snag the victory location or just blitz across the map. It can cost you an important card later on in the game, but if you have no cards then it has no cost! On top of that you get Sprint. These boots are ideal for a dwarf, although not so great in tandem with draw effects if equipped to a Warrior or Wizard since you may draw Fright with a large hand. ///////////////////// Movement Boots So you want to use your boots to get move cards? OK, sure. Some boots are made for walking but others are made for running! Chestnut Boots/Boots Of The Foolish What's that? Chestnut Boots? These are some of my best shoes. Both of these provide you with the ever-useful Quick Step, and a Dangerous Maneuver. The difference is in Cautious Sneak instead of Wild Run and 400 gold. It's a simple question of which card works better and which boots you actually have. Chestnut is a good investment IMO. Mouse Boots*/Red Jon's Boots (ANY 2X Flanking Move tokenless) I'm sure most people can attest that Mouse Boots, and several Legendaries with 2X Flanking Move, are better than Red Jon's Boots. Still, you use what you got. The most important thing is, adding 2X Flanking Move to your deck adds a lot of flexibility to any class, especially wizard. Armored **Bertha's Big Clogs (Reliable Mail/Officer's Harness) Here we have some Epic Footwear that doesn't do... much. The delightful purple clogs provide Reliable Mail/Officer Harness, which are great armor cards to have, in moderation. May not be the most supportive footwear for dwarves, or warriors for that matter. However, it is an excellent tokenless option for wizards and priests that want armor. **Corian's Boots (2X Officer's Harness/Quick Step) These excellent boots are your only tokenless source of two Officer's Harness. Add on a Quick Step and you have some very nice, if somewhat slow shoes. Vira's Shoes/Iberial's Boots (ANY 2X Shimmering Aura tokenless) Vira's Shoes have Shimmering Aura, which is much more limited in use since they essentially only protect against Magic- excluding terrain effects like lava. Shimmering Aura may be quite useful if your party is using a lot of Firestorm or Flash of Pain. Otherwise it is entirely dependant on your enemies. Bad Boots: Chadwick's Clogs (Level 9, costs one token) The only improvement from Vira's Shoes is Run instead of Walk. Given the choice you would have to be mad (or just wasteful) to pick these clods. //////////////////////////////////// Level up: Blue Boots And now we break into the midling threshold where tokens preside. Which is great because now we have access to bigger and better boots, so to speak. Lovat Boots (Team Shift/ Lunging Hack/Mail) Marhsall's Boots (Team Shift/Lunging Thrust/Dash) Basically a poor man's Rhood's Boots. Team Shift is better than nothing right? Team Run (Rhood's Boots/Salazar's Sandals/Kelharin's Clogs/Captain Cedric's Boots) Team Run is one, amazing card. We all know that. The question is in the other 2 cards. -Captain Cedric gives you two Flanking Move - making it very versatile. -Kelharin gives you two Officer's Harness, which is neither useful nor bad at all. -Rhood gives you the unplayable, unpredictable Rushing Aura and a Wild Run. -Salazar gives you Rusty Armor and Energizing Move. Rusty Armor will sit in your hand doing nothing until it is discarded. Traitz ***Sticky Slippers (Immovable, Immovable, Wild Run) These suckers, er slippers, are one of a kind. They are quite exceptional. No other footwear provides two traits, none! And these traits are Immovable, to boot, backed up by a Wild Run. Granted, some people may prefer Dangerous Maneuver or something else, but in this case if you want the trait power you will have to use the Wild Run, which isn't altogether bad in the right circumstances. With these slippers equipped, you can't be pushed and you can Wild Run through Encumber. Of course, the greatest benefit is consistency- you can draw more cards from the other parts of your deck! Since no other boot has two traits, every player should have these. Naradoc's Boots/Ulalia's Boots/Captain Cedric's Boots/ (2X Flanking Move +) So why would you use these instead of Mouse Boots? Well, for starters you can get some excellent, excellent cards here for a blue token. Team Run, Arcane Aura, and Immovable, to be precise. Immovable gives you a new card, Arcane Aura boosts magic damage, and Team Run... is just awesome. There is nothing wrong with having a little extra Flanking Move in your deck! Crazy Fast Boots (Sprint, Sprint, Trip) Well maybe you don't run these for the Trip. But still, having two Sprint outweights having one Trip right? Infernal Boots (Demonic Revenge, Quick Step, Violent Spin) OK so taking a little Unpreventable damage grants you Quick Step and Violent Spin? Assuming you can keep your HP above 5, these boots are pretty good! Azure Boots (Quick Step, Hard to Pin Down, Dangerous Maneuver) I am pretty sure very few people have even heard of Azure Boots, let alone use them. But this I believe is another diamond in the rough. All three cards here are good- especially Hard to Pin Down- and on a Warrior, between that and Quick Step, you are much closer to landing that all-important Bludgeon. Argo's Boots (Hard to Pin Down, Officer's Harness X2) The big brother to Corian's Boots, you might be asking yourself why/when you would ever use these. The answer is, whenever you like. HTPD is a great card for any character, and Officer's Harness can be great sometimes. Ephraim's Crazy Boots (Quick Run, Dangerous Maneuver, Wild Run) So here we have the tokened counterpart of Boots of the Foolish. It has Quick Run instead of Quick step. You could also say that this is akin to Azure Boots, where it has Quick Run/Wild Run instead of Quick Step/Hard To Pin Down. Anyways, this is the boot for you if you want Quick Run and Wild Run. Otherwise there are surely better options. Foley's Footwear (Violent Spin, Wild Run, Shuffle) These shoes are cool. But not the best distribution of cards- level 9 items are not so good. Footwear Failure. Any card except Shuffle could have been used and would make this item a whole lot better. Oliver's Booots (Shimmering Aura/Escaping Run/Rushing Aura) An unusual combination. Vinorkin's Boots (Jump Back, Violent Spin, Officer's Harness) Jump Back, Violent Spin, Officer's Harness. An eclectic mix for an eclectic character. Lewin's Boots (Violent Spin/Dangerous Move/Dangerous Move) An interesting Legendary. D. Move is useful but for the token cost it could be better. Eadrik's Boots (Violent Spin/Leather Harness/Leather Harness) Another interesting item with potential. Would have been nicer with Chain though. Og's Boots Of Peril (Enchanted Harness/Wild Run/ Dangerous Move) A little Odd. Another example of a cool name but a poor choice of cards. Escaping Run would have been a good choice. Then again, for the Enchanted Harness, maybe it is worth it? Major token Boots What's all this then? You want to blow a major token on boots? Well let's take the best of the best! Zachary's Boots/Pergop's Slippers (Violent Spin X2) While it may seem a little odd, Violent Spin is a nifty, if costly move card, and the only way to get 2 on boots is to cough up a big token. Unfortunately the third card is always going to be a rather bad armor card. Black Iron Boots (Immovable, Quick Run, Hardy Mail) This is a solid, reliable source of Quick Run and an Immovable Trait. The Hardy Mail is decent too. Bniff's Boots (Immovable, Scuttle, Escaping Run) Immovable is good, Escaping Run is good, Scuttle is.... good? Dorimer's Boots (Escaping Run, Quick Run, Flanking Move) Quick Run and Flanking Move are here, and an Escaping Run can be handy too. Aataabulous's Boots (Scamper/Scuttle/Shimmering Aura) Awkward Name What is this I don't even Taz Boots (Team Shift, Violent Spin, Weak Chop) Rusty Plated Shoes (Team Shift, Scamper, Rusty Armor) Magic Monkey Boots (Team Shift, Scamper, Dangerous Maneuver) Wlakwa's Boots (Team Run/Violent Spin/Shuffle) Your last and only major token source of Team Run. No dead weight here, although Shuffle isn't very useful, and Violent Spin may not always be useful either. Still, if you have the token to spare and don't need extra movement, why not? Xander's Boots (Escaping Run/Flanking Move/Arcane Aura) Why a warrior would need Arcane Aura is beyond me. Also, inferior to Ulalia's Boots? Nasrum's Moccasins (Enchanted Harness/Enchanted Harness/Dangerous Maneuver) Section for notable Legendary boots? Section for terrible boots? Too many common ones, but maybe legendary/epic? ****Work In Progress, will be edited soon! **** Let me know if any links are broken!
Nice job here man. Personally, most of the times I try to choose something with inmovable, as it's such an useful trait in the current meta. Let's try to organize it by classes: For warriors: usually, it's Sticky Slippers if I can afford the token, or Goat Boots if I can't. As they should move using their step attacks, movement cards are not very useful for warriors, that is why we don't see much cards like Sprint in the meta. The exception is if you play with OB or some similar big attacks, then you may consider some boots with Quick Run on it. The same if you like using All Out Attack. For priests: as you said, priests are not so affected by traits like Fright or Cowardly, unless it's a Vampire priest. So, Toad Boots and Reckless Boots are nice tokenless boots for them. For vampire priests, something with Quick Run, like Black Iron Boots or Dorimer's Boots. For wizards: depends a lot on what is your build: 3dc wizards: Greenguard Boots are the common pick here, but Naradoc's Boots are excellent, specially if you like using Cone of Cold. They are also great for warriors and priest with stab attacks. wwe wizards: as wizards don't get to choose Savvy Attacker, some boots that provide Team Run, like Wlakwa's Boots or Kelharin's Klogs, are a solid choice. FS wizards: They don't need much movility, but they do need armor, so anything with two Shimmering Aura, like Chadwick's Clogs or Ozerian's Boots, or with two Reliable Mail, like Kerrick's Steel Boots are good for them. For any: Captain Cedric's Boots. The best boots imo, unless you are very into trait-cycling, in which case Sticky Slippers are the clear option.
The problem with Spin Around is that it costs an action. Sticky Slippers are way better for a minor token, if you want cycling.
Not cheaper (the 3 of them cost a minor token), but more common. I was assuming most of the players have them since a rare item is not hard to find. But if you don't have the Sticky, it's true that those 2 could be a (worse) substitute.
I obtained some Hawkwind's Moccasins. Pretty sure they will work well to replace my tokenless warrior boots. But who knows, I'm wrong all the time.
Escaping Run is a very good card for all classes (easy to move behind someone and also get a card if already at point blank range), the extra maneuvers can also be useful if you don't have so many steps. Those shoes are pretty sweet being tokenless. If you're fortunate enough to grap these babies though...Suvv's Boots Of Escape
My favorite tokenless boots by far are mouse boots. If I had more nimble strikes, I could see goat boots for warriors being a better option.
I didn't know those boots, they are very nice. This is an interesting debate about the blue token boots with Team Run. If we leave out the Cedric's Boots (there's no doubt it's the best one between these), which one is the best? Rhood's Boots, Salazar's Sandals or Kelharin's Clogs? I asked myself that question because I was using Wlakwa's Boots on my wwe wizard, but then decided to use the gold token elsewhere. As I wanted to keep a Team Run and I don't have the Cedric's Boots but I do have the other 3, I had to make a choice, and eventually I decided for the Kelharin's Clogs, not because I care too much for those Officer's Harness, but for another reason among all: revealed cards. Both Rhoods's Boots and Salazar's Sandals have one card (Energizing Move and Rushing Aura) that get revealed to the opponent when you move, and that is putting yourself in disadvantage. It's worst in the case of the Rhood's Boots, because Rushing Aura is a dead card (that is also revealed), while you can still use Energizing Move as an escape or reposition yourself from a difficult situation (let's say it's not such a dead card, but close). To make my point clear: I believe that those cards that reveal themselves, and especially Rushing Aura, are even worse than Rusty Armor, because Rusty Armor only gets revealed if you get hit, while the other two become revealed simply when you move. And you spend much more time moving than getting hit, I think. If you have Rusty Armor in your hand (the same with Officer Harness, the other cards in the Khelari's Clogs), at least you have the chance to bluff, making your opponent believe you have something else, while you can't do this with the other 2 cards, unless you decide not to move for the entire round. Plus, Officer's Harnes offer some (limited) help in an almost armorless wizard, specially againt 3DC and FS.
That's a good point. On the other hand, Officer's Harness is also "revealed" to the opponent when the round ends if you have more than two cards left on that character. As she will keep three or more cards the opponent will know that one or more of them are Officer's Harnesses. This unfortunately makes the choice between Kelharin's Clogs and the other boots harder.
There is an important difference: at that point the round has already finished and you get new cards. There is no disadvantage there, because the one it gets "revealed" (Officer's Harness) is not anymore a card you just drew, but an extra card that you were able to keep along with the other 2. So it really doesn't matter if the opponent knows that you have it, because you are no longer in a card disadvantage situation (with card disadvantage I mean, in this case, having some card/s revealed, not fewer). This can never happen with Rushing Aura or Energizing, as you can't keep them as an extra card at the end of the round, so you have to discard them or keeping them as one of your 2 allowed cards. Apart from that, Officer's Harness isn't always revealed, as you could keep only 1 or 2 cards in your hand at the end of the round along with that card.
Good discussion going on here! Now, I feel that Scuttle /Muscle Through/Scamper are all overvalued. Same deal with Flight Aura. In theory it may be useful but in practice 2 move points isn't enough. Thoughts?
Another good point. Looks like Kelharin's Clogs is the go-to choice in blue token Team Run boots, then. Unless you want the extra movement from the other cards on the other boots and are willing to pay the price of the revealed/dead cards. Yes, I tried to cover this with "when the round ends if you have more than two cards left on that character".
I think we can all agree with that Jarmo. Basically, Cedric>Kelharin> Rhood~Salazar. The question is, what's better? Rhood or Salazar? Also given the simple choice to use Wlakwa's instead of either of those two, would you pick them?
They are way overvalued. That is why nobody plays them. And flight Aura not only is an overvalued card, but also has the same problem than Rushing Aura. Is a dead and revealed card for your opponent. I also just realized that Muscle Through is supposed to be better than Teleport Self, just look at these 2 items: Greenguard Boots and Bully Boots. Both has htpd, and a negative trait, but the Greenguard have the almost invisible Squeamish while the others have the much more negative Fright. That means that the devs, while designing the cards, thought that Muscle Through was a better card than Teleport Self! Amazing. Between those two, I would choose the Salazar's because of what I said about Rushing Aura. And there's no doubt I would choose the Wlakwa's boots over those two, Violent Spin is a great card, and at least Shuffle doesn't get revealed.
The movement from Energize Move and Rushing Aura are more useful for dwarves and diminishing returns apply as you move up to elves. Sure, the other races still get the extra movement, but it is not as useful compared to what they had already vs the situation for a dwarf. I personally prefer to use Salazar's over Rhood's or Wlakwa's for my dwarf priest.
Same here. I like to keep Energize Move on my dwarves until they get where they're going, or there is a good reason to discard it.
