The Daily Deal

Mokad's Unholy Tome
The Daily Deal

Heavy Mace
Red Shaman's Blade
Zazhetl's Gray Blade

 

In the Rares, Excellent Rapier is well named and Oversized Pick is the only item in the game with 5 handicap cards.

 

I have a couple of those picks, cannot see why anyone would pick them. MP especially.

 

Mokad's Unholy Tome 1/1. Way too underpowered for a legendary, especially for a token.

Heavy Mace 3/3. Nothing spectacular here. Yes, you save the token, and that's all.
Red Shaman's Blade 2/2. There is some tech, but the weapon is very unfocused, and the healing/buffing card are quite weak.
Zazhetl's Gray Blade 3/4?. This is at least interesting. A weapon for dealing 42 damage total in 5 attacks. It isn't better than Infused Greatclub, but at least it can be used for "handicap only" quests, even at the low levels.

 

I compared this to the Maquah of the ancient Blood, for the extra token it doesn't add up. I guess I am min-maxing here a bit, but for an epic it is critical to get the best value, since you only have just so much gold and so few slots to equip. Unless you prefer Fumble to Ouch.

 

Bloody Stoutness
Multiplayer
In the interest of avoiding another 3 page "discussion" I will just say that Bloody Stoutness is a fine item. If you like sticking more blocks into your deck you could do a lot worse than Duck and Bloodied Block. If you'd like to see two perspectives on this item click here. Warning, not for those with weak constitutions or the faint of heart.

Singleplayer
Bloody Stoutness gets a lot better against the AI. You are much more likely to block something that matters when attacks are dished out at random. That said, you are giving up running Toughness and an extra copy of Blind Rage you can get from other dwarf skills.

Peon's prescription for prodigious players- Would not get Bloody Stoutness. If I really want a more defensive dwarf I will bite the bullet and spend a major token for Perfect Toughness or Solid Rock. If a major token is unavailable I'd rather use Advanced Toughness, especially for wizards that get no use out of Blind Rage. This is only my opinion. If you think you will get a lot of mileage out of Bloody Stoutness feel free to disregard everything I said. I will not revoke your membership to the Prodigious Players Club. You'd have to do something dastardly like running more than 13 attacks on a warrior for that.

Substitutes
Advanced Toughness (U) , Raging Rock (E) , Perfect Toughness (C) , Solid Rock (C) , Superb Stoutness (E)

Bahoxl's Maul
Mouse Boots- Great tokenless source of Flanking Move.
Unbalanced Doloire

 

I don't even wanna talk about Bahoxl's Maul. Prior to the step attack nerf, I farmed the heck out of the Level 12 adventures, looking for a Lochaber Axe. Instead, I got four of those Mauls. Ugh.

Maybe useful against the Geomancers?

 

Well with the popularity of Volcano, it's not terrible. obviously you would rather have a cleansing burst most of the time, but if you do cleanse a tile you get to draw a card. Pressing bash is good for overtaking victory squares and I'm never sad to have an 8 damage attack. With that said I don't think I've ever equipped this item since I usually am more concerned with buffs and purges for my priests.

Oh and in my humble opinion Mouse boots are the best tokenless boots, especially for wizards and stabbing (range 2 attacks) warriors.

 

I'm saving my cash so I can buy all the Christmas items I'm missing (need 6K), and the Loot Fairy just handed me an epic treasure I already owned so I only need 2K more, and if I have extra cash I'll buy duplicates, and--
OMG Azgul's Orb!!!
-- and now I only need 4.5K to buy what I'm missing....

 

I'm not the first to celebrate the Orb, alas

Azgul's Orb 5?!/5! This is the best tokenless item for the burning wizard, period. There are alternatives, but they are obviously worse. Is it an instant buy? Only if you really want to build a burning wizard. The burning wizard needs as much burning spells as possible, and here we have all three burning cards. Firestorm is much worse for that build compared to Flame Jet and Glob Of Flame, but that's the best mix of burning spells you can get without paying a token, and you will want the different burning cards to attach them all and watch the enemy dying.

Aataabulous Boots. 2/2. Tooo weaak foor a yeeloow tooken.
Dorimer's Boots 3/3. These are better, but still no match to the Team Run boots. Especially for a yellow token.
Staff Of Glowing Coals 2/2. A very strange and unfocused staff. Too many weak cards to be playable. You can even bash with it!

Notable rares are: Blackeye Hammer - really nice one-token weapon, especially with Crusher; Diamond Moccasins - all three cards are good, especially SCA; Staff Of Winter - the only way to attach encumbrance and still deal some damage. Don't buy Trained Stoutness, it's worse than Advanced Toughness, and they both are much worse than Bloody Stoutness.

My rating shows only the power/cost ratio of the item in the right build (not necessary in yours!) '?' means the need of a special build (or a special map). '!' means the best item for its cost, in its category or essential for the build.

 

Azgul's Orb
Multiplayer
Dedicated Firestorm builds have gone the way of the dodo. A Firestorm wizard needs to get close to the enemy to do anything which is the opposite of what wizards want to do. So why is everyone going crazy over Azgul's Orb? It is the only arcane item with 3 burning attacks that aren't crappy low range cone spells like Fire Spray. A dedicated burning wizard will most likely have spent 4 tokens on staves and 3 tokens on arcane items. If you want to spend a token on Focused Pyromancy you will need a tokenless arcane item. Your other option is to run Novice Pyromancy but the downgrade of Firestarter to Ember Spray is massive when compared to Flame Jet/Glob Of Flame to Firestorm.

Singleplayer
Firestorm. Enough said.

Peon's prescription for prodigious players- Would get Azgul's Orb if you want a tokenless arcane item for a burning wizard, like the smell of burnt kobolds in the morning (aka killing things in the campaign blisteringly fast), or know in your heart of hearts that Firestorm is going to make a comeback tour in multiplayer.

Substitutes
Gaudekki's Orb (E): Zap is awful but I'd still prefer this item over ones with burning cone spells.

Aataabulous's Boots
Dorimer's Boots
Staff Of Glowing Coals- The worst item with Volcano. One copy for 2 minor tokens is a ripoff.

 

If you want a burning wizard, Focused Pyromancy is automatic choice, it's the main item in the build. Without Flamestarter you're dealing damage too slowly, and you'd better build an electro wizard, a Volcano wizard or something else. So you will need at least one Azgul's Orb for sure. Moreover, if you want to spend a token on Robes Of White Wylla or Ulalia's Boots, you will want a second Azgul's Orb, since nothing can replace it.

 

Focused Pyromancy is the most popular choice but that doesn't mean it's automatic. Right now Purge effects are fairly common as a counter to Impenetrable Nimbus. If you expect buffs to be wiped off regularly you'd probably be better off with the safer more consistent attacks from a 4th token arcane item. Personally, I'd go with the traits since I don't mind running a few Firestorms as finishers but people shouldn't go into autopilot when deck building.

 

Rod Of Palver Pree in today's DD is one of my favourite tokenless arcane items. Three very useful cards when 95% of similar items have at least one duff card to balance out the stronger ones. Almost a compulsory pick in SP and very handy for control wizards in MP.

 

I don't see that in my daily deal.

Edit: my daily deal just took a few hours to load for whatever reason.

 

I have exactly 2500 gold, and want to make a burning wizard in the future. Should I get Azgul's Orb rather than something like Staff Of A Million Embers or White Flame?

 

I'm pretty new to burning wizards, but I would go for White Flame first and then try to fill in the gaps later. Nothing else can replace White Flame for Instant Burn. That being said, I had the White Flame before I tried to build a burning wizard, and I would LOVE an Orb to go with it.

 

Oskar's Pine Shield
Multiplayer
Defender's Block is one of the most sought after blocks. The ability to block anything for anyone within 3 and draw a card on top is too good to pass up. Catch Arrow and Weak Parry may look like narrow blocks that are good against completely different builds but just look at all the Nimble Strike/Whirlwind parties out there. What's that, this isn't 5 months ago? Yeah right, now you're going to tell me Brazil won't make the World Cup finals.

Singleplayer
Shields are usually one of the last things people spend token on since getting great attacks takes priority. If you can spare the token and you know you will be facing a combination of melee and magic/projectile attacks then Oskar's Pine Shield is superb. This shield can come in handy against anything from slimes to chess pieces or even those damn dirty apes.

Peon's prescription for prodigious players- Getting Defender's Block is great but not at the cost of having dead cards in many situations. If you are going to have narrow blocks, go with block melees. Most builds in multiplayer and mob setups in the campaign have some sort of melee attack. What you are really after is that Defender's Block and there are a decent amount of general use options available. Ichabod's Buckler with two block any Wounded Blocks for instance is a much better buy in my opinion. Would not purchase Oskar's Pine Shield.

Substitutes
Buckler Of Protection (R) , Defensive Buckler (R) , Aegis Of The Defender (E)

Cudgel Of Healing Light
Eych's Amulet
Rod Of Palver Pree- One of the few tokenless arcane items with no awful cards.

 

I think Magma Spiral is worth mentioning. It's helped me a lot in singleplayer. A cone with burning 3 does really well against hordes, especially with Firestarter.