Gear guide for different builds?

Discussion in 'Deck Building' started by HunterMike, Jul 23, 2015.

  1. HunterMike

    HunterMike Mushroom Warrior

    After playing for 2 weeks and reading as much as I can between taking care of 1 and 3 year old, the plethora of gearing options is just staggering at times. I have both expansions, which has made it even worse, lol. I hear a lot of talk about Firestorm or Volcano builds and such, but that it takes specific gear to pull off. Help please!

    Is there a guide anywhere as to which cards you want most for character builds? I mean, I realize you want sapping cards for a vamp priest, but which are higher rated? I have gotten some ideas from Peon in the Daily thread, but that's up to the daily sales gods.

    I am focused mostly on SP, though I suppose a lot of it can also help with MP?

    Really looking for opinions or past guides on the best items/cards to get for builds like:

    firestorm wizard (how to use this and not kill yourself or team)
    volcano wizard (I find it so hard to time this...any gear that helps set things up?)
    control wizard (what cards are best for control?)
    vamp priest (how to keep an elf vamp alive in the 15-20 range)
    slow dwarf warrior who needs to actually get to the target while maintaining enough attack cards ('nuff said)

    Other popular builds for a 1/1/1 team would also be appreciated. I have stuck to a DWa/EP/HWi and love it thus far. At level 15 right now.
     
    Last edited: Jul 23, 2015
  2. Bandreus

    Bandreus Thaumaturge

    The wiki is your best friend! You can check every card and item in the game there.

    As for your specific questions, I'd advice patience. CH is a fairly complex game, it does take quite some time to get to know how all the different cards work and interact with each other.

    Try different stuff around, experiment with cool items you find along the road, spectate MP matches between high-rating players, etc. Also, the Deck Building subforum is full with threads dissecting tons of different builds. The Adventure Discussion and Strategy subforum on the other hand is more heavily focused on tips and builds for deafeating all the different SP module, so that's a cool source of info about how to build wildly different sorts of teams too.

    In short, don't be too eager to go for the most optimized stuff just yet, but rather focus on understanding all the ins and outs of the game.

    As for your specific questions:

    Firestorm: space out your guys in order to avoid hitting your whole team. Also armor helps you minimize the damage intake.
    Volcano: try and use it after the enemy has used up his moves. Control spells help you reposition enemies which might slip.
    Control Cards: Winds Of War / Gusts Of War / Teleport would be the most prominent, though other options are available.
    Vamps: I'm not a huge vamp expert. You basically want to maximize the effectiveness of Talented Healer. As long as you're capable of dealing good damage with draining attacks, you're vamp is gonna be extremely hard to take down. Armor among the biggest enemies of vamps, so be sure to have some way for dealing with it if need be (this is very important in some modules).
    Dwarf Warrior: step attacks and team movement are your biggest friends here. Some movement boosting cards (Energizing Move, Quickness Aura) can also help your dwarf be much nimbler. Lots of options available.

    1/1/1 is great for newer players, as it offers the most versatility and allows you to easily experiment with lots of different tactics. Dwarf War/Elf Priest/Human Wiz sounds like a great team to me ;)
     
  3. Pawndawan

    Pawndawan Champion of Cardhuntria

    There are many Firestorm builds in the forum: http://forums.cardhunter.com/threads/farming-pre-ettsc.7032/ + http://forums.cardhunter.com/threads/farming-decks.6441/ But basically you want to draw Resistant Hide (Firehide Robes) and/or 1-2 Reliable Mails (Bertha's Big Clogs, Kerrick's Steel Boots) to reduce the self damage.

    Additionally you can use your priest to cast Impenetrable Nimbus (Shielding Token, Duality Mace) and/or trigger Holy Armor (Holy Breastplate) with friendly fire. EttSC bought Shielding Warp Boots which can be used instead of Kerrick's.

    For Volcano builds, start and learn to pass at the start of the round and use cone attacks etc. that don't necessarily need to target anyone to delay the volcano even further. Team moves, Impenetrable Nimbus and control cards (Telekinesis, Gust Of Wind, Winds Of War) help here too. Hover or Dimensional Traveller help too.

    Cheapest control item is Runestone, Ring Of Appropriation & Rod Of Palver Pree are nice.
     
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  4. Scarponi

    Scarponi Moderator

    The trick here is not to care if you kill your team, just make sure their last one dies before your last one does. FS will often take out one or more of your guys, but with dwarf wiz (and/or a healing priest) you can often have more HP than the mobs you're facing.
    Pass, pass, pass. Most of the time you can just pass until the AI is out of move cards. Then start playing. If you can burn a couple actions at that point to check to see if they have a hidden move card that helps too. Dimensional Teleporter and Hover are also your friends in this strategy.
    Rarely useful for SP play. But generally slide, slide back and push effects as well as encumber and damaging terrain.
    Elves make great vamps in MP because you need mobility, in SP the mobs will come to you (with the few range only monsters being the exception), thus switch to a dwarf.
    Don't chase, let them come to you. Against range mobs, bring control cards and use them to move your warrior in. Also, step attacks like crazy!
     
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  5. HunterMike

    HunterMike Mushroom Warrior

    Thanks for the help, so much great info here! On a side note, the Wiki is unbearably slow for me every day, even with 100-150mbp cable speeds...
     
  6. Jarmo

    Jarmo Snow Griffin

    The wiki is on a slow server. It's paid for by a fan out of his own pocket, so I don't have the heart to complain about it.
     
    Sir Veza, timeracers, Drakkan and 2 others like this.
  7. HunterMike

    HunterMike Mushroom Warrior

    I was trying to use one of each race since I started with 3 humans and got to level 13 before realizing I wanted to try the dwarf and elf tokens. I bought 2 level 10s to add diversity and went 1/1/1 with mixed races from there. Given the race-specific tokens I see, it does seem that an all dwarf or elf team might be nice too. Might switch to all dwarf for survivability in SP.
     
  8. Bandreus

    Bandreus Thaumaturge

    You can pretty much play all the SP content with any sort of team, as long as you put some thought into how you build your decks. Elves (especially wizards) can be tricky because of the extremely low hp, but you can still be very effective with them if you keep that in mind and know what you're doing.

    As I'm pretty sure you noticed, the game sort of expect you do change your strategy around according to the enemies and threats each module puts against you. This gets way more noticeable in the higher level scenarios. In that regard, the campaign does an awesome job of gently introducing you to the most important concepts of the game, until it finally tests your deck building skills with some of the harder missions and challenges.

    So yeah, feel free to play with whatever kind of party strikes your imagination the most, and don't be afraid of trying out different builds and races. It can be heaps of fun!
     
  9. timeracers

    timeracers Guild Leader

    If you don't want to deal with wiki's slow server you could(not recommended unless the server is down or something) use Google's archives of it. I had to use it once to get around the fact that the wiki's server was down or something. But the archives may be out-dated of course.
     
  10. Deepweed

    Deepweed Thaumaturge

    I might make a guide on how to build and play wizards, but that will depend on the number of people who I notice are willing to learn wizards for MP.
     
    Sir Veza likes this.
  11. I feel like I have enough wizard gear to make them at least somewhat competitive, but often feel that I'm making it up as I go along. A guide would be very welcome. ☺
     
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  12. Sir Veza

    Sir Veza Farming Deity

    Even though I don't play much MP, it's always good to add to the knowledge base. I hope you'll write the guide! :)
     
  13. Sir Veza

    Sir Veza Farming Deity

    As stated before, use dwarves. (I've also used elves, but the trick there is having the enemy in the center and wizards on the edges so they don't burn each other. I really don't recommend this method.) I started by adding firestorm items to my wizard in my initial 1/1/1 build. I suspect this is how most players do it.
    A true firestorm build (one with firestorm as the primary attack) doesn't usually work well until you get a fairly high concentration of them in your deck. For the impatient, you can help things along by using Staff Of The Inferno and single firestorm items. Both of these can be farmed at the lowest adventure levels. Until you get Firehide Robes (it took me 7 months on my first account, and about an hour on my second, so YMMV) use anything with resistant hide. Emberfloat Mantle is also an option. Hover is an extra cycler that helps, as does the firestorm. Load up with cyclers such as Goat Boots, Glimmer Boots, Sticky Slippers (the best if you have the token available), and Electroporter Novice. A dwarf skill with traits is also good if you have it. If combustible is drawn, this model will die of it's own damage after casting the third firestorm (up to about level 8) unless armored or healed. This is usually enough to clear the map at lower levels.
    As a rule, don't start popping firestorms until all your foes are in range.
    Once you can build one or two of these, add a dwarf priest with healing, buffs, and armor. Vamp attacks help too, because the priest's job is to be alive at the end of the battle. Any frenzy will get your firestorms above the threshold of weak blocks, which is important on some levels. Savage Curse will double the strength of each firestorm, which can help if your firestorms are few. It can really backfire if your enemy can block it, so be careful.
    If you only have one mage equipped, add a fighter, but don't give him Blazing Shortswords.
    All the advice Scarponi and Pawndawan gave is great.
    As you've noted, passing is good when it works, but the AI randomly passes too. The cone attacks Pawndawan mentioned are highly useful because they don't require a target. I use a Greenspark Staff in the kobold mines because the attacks are useful even I don't draw volcano. Range 2 vamp attacks on my cleric sometimes help keep the AI busy until it's moves are gone. The items vary at higher levels, but the concept remains the same. Keep juking the AI until it's out of moves. If you can't juke, pass and hope.
    Note: I don't recommend volcano on any maps that have draw monkeys (servants, Stafford, etc.) still alive.
    The cards previously mentioned are go-tos, but much depends upon the map and the objective. The third map in Defense of Woodhome is basically keep-away, and Force Cannon works great. It's also very good in Swamp King in conjunction with Path of Knives because the maps are open, and the foes unarmored.
    Also pay attention to items instead of just cards. Runestones (lvl 15, common, (minortoken)) have both Winds of War and Wall of Fire. They also have Squeamish, which rarely comes into play and is a great deck thinner.
    1. See this thread.
    2. Maintain separation until you close for attack. (Preferably a kill.)
    3. Keep your health up. (A given, I know, but...)
    4. Have an escape plan.
    I use movement buffs, specifically Quickness Aura (which is a Keep armor, but subject to armor removal), and Energizing Move (which can be played as a move in a pinch). Often two of each if I have the tokens, because they can't work unless I draw them. They do have to be kept in hand, but really help in avoiding (or leaving) combat until you draw the cards to deal with it.
    Having a human or two with team pushes is another option.
     
    Last edited: Jul 26, 2015
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