Vibrant Pain - Best Weapon In The Game

Tried this for a bit last night*

Spoiler

So much pain
[SRC]The Pain
Level 21 Elf Warrior

Vibrant Pain
Vibrant Pain
Troll's Ire
Cuirass Of Froth
Yvette's Buckler
Captain Cedric's Helm
Corian's Boots
Cautious Mobility
Sharp Bashing

1 x Penetrating Cut
1 x Quick Step
2 x Elven Maneuvers
2 x Frenzy Aura
1 x Reliable Mail
1 x Scouting Run
4 x Officer's Harness
1 x Bruiser
1 x Ill-fitting Armor
1 x Impaler
2 x Sundering Strike
1 x Defender's Block
2 x Blind Rage
2 x Strong Hack
1 x Surging Shield Block
12 x Nimble Strike
1 x Subtle Parry
​

[SRC]Is so
Level 21 Elf Warrior

Vibrant Pain
Vibrant Pain
Troll's Ire
Cuirass Of Froth
Ichabod's Buckler
Captain Cedric's Helm
Corian's Boots
Cautious Mobility
Sharp Bashing

1 x Penetrating Cut
1 x Quick Step
2 x Elven Maneuvers
2 x Frenzy Aura
1 x Reliable Mail
1 x Scouting Run
4 x Officer's Harness
1 x Bruiser
1 x Defender's Block
1 x Impaler
2 x Sundering Strike
2 x Wounded Block
2 x Blind Rage
2 x Strong Hack
12 x Nimble Strike
1 x Ill-fitting Armor
​

[SRC]Vibrant
Level 21 Human Priest

Huetotl's Firebrand
Purging Mace
Ritual Straps
Aegis Of The Defender
Sliding Boots
Bleneth's Skull
Bleneth's Frenzy Charm
St. Bethan's Charm
Advanced Flexibility
Novice Ablution

1 x Toughened Hide Strips
4 x Purging Burst
1 x Triple Heals
1 x Slowed
1 x Flanking Move
1 x Sundering Strike
1 x Predictable Stab
1 x Sparkling Cloth Armor
2 x Defender's Block
2 x Holy Presence
1 x Lifesaving Block
1 x Purge
1 x Team Walk
1 x Team Heal
2 x Fiery Stab
1 x Weak Chop
2 x Unholy Frenzy
2 x Leadership
2 x Purging Strike
1 x Help The Weak
7 x Mass Frenzy
​

I found myself waiting around for Frenzy Aura or elven maneuvers which really makes the build go so I loaded up on officer's harness to combo with leadership when I was ready to engage. It's nice to know that a nimble strike is almost certainly coming. I found myself using them for escape quite often.
One thing that surprised me was how much I used the purges. Seems like there are a lot of mass frenzy, unholy wellspring, nimbus builds running around at 1400 so the purges were useful.

*build may require multiple legendaries and could result in cries of "CHEESE!"

 

Also Blind Rage, Burning Atks, all kinds of annoying traits and attachments. Purge/Purge Burst rarely ends up being a dead card in basically every match-up.

 

I would like to take full credit for the 2VP 1 Troll's Ire build if it is working and disavow the build if it is not working blaming it clearly on the choice to go fo Elf.
Oh and what's the nice way to say F U for having 4 VPs? Hmmmm guess it's too late right?

But on a serious note why go with Sharp Bashing? It increases the likelihood of getting 2 different traits making it more likely to lose a frenzy attachment.

Oh and really 4VPs? You can go fly away now.

 

I'd go for the classic "Your father smelt of elderberries!" But the kids these days usually choose "4VP and sub 1400? n00b!"

I don't think I ever had both sharp bashing traits drawn the same round and I'm sure they never pushed something else off. In general, I like lots of traits so I can stack them in the order I want. If you would rather use something else, be my guest.

As for actual tactics, I often ended up drawing out blocks with a nimble strike, so I could follow up with a sundering. I might try this with a Dangerous Club in place of the troll's ire.

People were telling me to get lost when I had 2VPs before the nerf.

 

I've suggested having an "Envy" button next to the "Like" button for each post.

 

Well 4VPs now is about the same as 2 pre-nerf... you do realize you will lose a frenzy attachment to Basher now that you've said something.

Oh and N00B you'll never reach my L33T rating of 1420!

I've given up on trying to reach my goal of a 1600 rating. Got as high as 1584 without a VP pre-nerf and then fell apart. I've made a few good builds but with the recent quick changes to map rotation it messed me up for a little. Post-anniversary I was enjoying my Pulverizing Thundercats build which I have abandoned for a few different Burft builds which has seen me into the 1500s but really I seem to be a 1400s playa' right now.

My biggest problem is I am typically playing when I am tired or intoxicated, which probably loses me enough games to keep me from ever taking off. But I've won a couple of cheapies this week (2 quick resignations when I did not yet have the game in hand) so it probably balances out, even if I miss playing Cardotron for cheap wins. But enough about me... good luck with the flying elves.

 

I'm not really sure what conclusion should be drawn from that. What I can tell you is, for over a month now I've been playing my war-pri-wiz build, which remained largely unchanged from since before all the balance changes back in november (I've stayed away from CH and MP for quite some time).

While I do regard my build as a pretty average one (although flexible), I managed to maintain my mid/high 1.4K rating without much of a problem. I even hit low 1.520 yesterday before experiencing a severe losing streak (lost 2 times vs cheat0tron too =\) which sent me back to my comfort zone. Oh well...

In my (admitedly limited) MP experience, I don't regard VP as strictly needed in order to hit high rating. What I do strongly believe though, is the fact you need a very mobile warriors team (either 2war-1whatever or full balls-out 3warriors).

Burst teams can look scary, but I think you'll still have a really rough time when facing very aggressive, war-centric builds (which happens a lot, at high 1.5k+ rating). Can you inflict serious amounts of damage before the enemy beasts manage to jump at your wizards' necks? My guess is you would at least need some amount of control or other shenanigans (nimbus, mobility of your own, toughness, etc) in order to survive longer. Which would likely also lower your overall dmg output capabilities, meaning your opponent has even more chances to draw a good hand and finally dispatch your damage dealers.

Maybe you can confirm/deny my assumptions?

 

VP isn't needed. It never was (it was NS that was needed before). Right now VP is a niche item. It does well in Flax's build due to all the buffs and due to the map rotation and increased use of Defender's Block. However, I constantly see 1600+ builds with no VP. There are a ton of good weapon choices out there -- Bejeweled Shortsword, Double Edged Sword, Sword of the Winds, Eixocl's, Strongarm, Blazing Shortsword, etc.

Mobility is important due to the fact you have to get into combat to hit them, but you can generally use reach attacks to reduce the mobility you need. Been seeing more and more Impaling Stab builds for warriors.

 

Right now 1-1-1 builds are back in vogue as far as I have seen. My problem with my Burft build is I only have one 6 burst staff (1 BD and using either Barnum's with 4 Embers or Searing pain) so I am not getting the consistancy I need. Aggression is the enemy of this type build as it usually takes a round and a half to get set up and on each of the four maps presents different difficulties to manage. But I am enjoying it. After a long time using the same 2 war 1 priest high mobility build (or variations) I got bored of it and was having a lot of issues with 3 dwarf wiz teams, even when I could get to them it took a lot to kill them. What I find is the burft build I have been using can drop crazy damage quick but once I am dealing with a counterstrike if I lose one of my guys I am going to struggle to win if I haven't already put some serious hurt and builds with lots of healing wrecks it as often i deal a lot of distributed damage (7-10 points on 2 or 3 characters) instead of being able to get a quick kill on one person. I just switched to a 1-1-1 keeping the burst wizard but swapping a 2nd damage/buff priest for a well rounded warrior (good D, some extra movement, a mix of step, stab and damaging attacks (1 BSS, 1 Double Edge and 1 Maquah Ancient Blood). went 2-0 after but that is way too small of a sample size.
A lot of this game still comes down to being able to knowing how to read your opponent and act accordingly. As you go up and down the rankings you tend to be matched more and more with people who are at a similar level in the combination of skill and build. Once you find the equilibrium it is a matter of either adjusting the build (which many like to do, including me) or adjusting play (which few like to do) in order to get better. I used to suffer from being too aggressive and forgoing movement or defense in my kill, Kill, KILL! strategy which was all about I can hit you harder than you can hit me. As I have played more, it really seems like the people who do the best understand how to get card advantages and minimize functional deck size so they wind up with more cards that have maximum impact, are the best players which is why i don't think anyone has called out priests as the weak class lately since they can do the most to gain card advantage.
I could go on, but I got to go.

 

Oh I totally agree that VP is no longer a needed item and that NS was the key card pre-nerf, but having a VP pre-nerf was ALWAYS an advantage over not having one unless you were a dedicated wiz player.
I would say there are about 15 weapons I have tabbed as ones to consider. Lately I've been trying to play with Sword of the Lion and Tango Spear as alternatives to Bejeweled or Double-edged. I like Blazing SS but clumsy chop is wack (I need a Strongarm) Eixocl's is nice, I just got a troll's Ire and there are 3 or 4 good 1 token weapons (my fav is the maquah of ancient blood, Blackeye hammer is nice (better in SP where the punishing is more effective) and the Beater is obviously good (although a poor man's strongarm), I still want a Dangerous club and Porior's Nimble Mace. Rageblood Dagger is interesting, even if raging strike is too variable in when it is a liability. There are a few more that I am forgetting like the lunginator.

 

That's a really great post, @doog37. Further discussing some of the points you bring up might be very interesting, but I don't want to derail this thread.

What I would say though, is the fact CH still is a relatively unexplored game. Considering how large the game space is vs. how long (or how short) dedicated players have been studying/playing it.

As the community's knowledge about the game grows, more effective strategies and builds get discovered, and a good portion of the players get access to rare items in good amount and variety, I can easily see the focus of good players drifting from a "let me build the most optimized possible build together" approach to a "let me really refine all facets of my play, so that I can deal with all sorts of opponents as efficiently as possible"one.

This is not too different from what happens with other, really deep/complex strategy games. Even in the case of games which are very different from CH, like RTS games, you often see similar trends growing/dieing at various point over a game's life-cycle.

Ofc, having a strong CCG component to it, CH's meta and balance is periodically altered in major ways by new cards and mechanics (i.e. expansions), on top of the occasional big round of balance changes. In this sense, I'm not sure we will ever get to a point where the game's space has been fully explored. But, in the near future, I do expect more and more players to put greater emphasis on reading your opponent, adjusting one's play and mind-games.

 

Yep.

Yep.

 

got -16 HP nimbus strike

 

You're doing it right.

 

Nuh uh! 18 damage with Unholy Wellspring is doing it right!

I'm having pretty mixed results with the build. Have about 20 to 30 games under my belt with it now and as much as I think it is good, I guess Blind Rage is against my super passive (and super passing) playstyle. That and teams that run Nimbus and Martyr and get all these armor / block draws have been stomping me lately.

 

It's already off the rails... okay it never really had rails... okay you're right we shouldn't derail... Okay I still think derailing is cool... Okay derailing is uncool... Okay I'm done.... okay I'm not done.... Okay... okay... o k a y... and done

 

For the record my ratio of tired to intoxicated is about 5-1 usually when I'm intoxicated I stick to chasing the loot fairy and Quick Draws. It's the whole having a full time job with a long commute thing that is slamming my rating.

 

Well it sounds like you know what you need to change in your life!

 

I tried that once, being broke is WAY lame.

 

I feel,

Vp isn't as good generally as a bejewelled or double-0edged.

This thread should be renamed to "vibrant pain is the best weapon in the game, if you're one of the best players of the game"