The Daily Deal

St. Gwendolyn's Armor

Spoiler: Previously Reviewed

Multiplayer
Any one of the cards on St. Gwendolyn's Armor brings down the playability of an item. Shimmering Aura is only good against wizards. Soothing Darkness is too slow. Mind Worm can be annoying to play against but it doesn't have an immediate effect on the game and has the potential to do nothing. Hopefully St. Gwendolyn didn't quit her day job because she wasn't going to win many battles with armor like that.

Singleplayer
Just about the same here. Shimmering Aura does get better when you know the mobs are exclusively using magic and projectiles but there are better options.

Peon's prescription for prodigious players- Would not purchase St. Gwendolyn's Armor. Wouldn't even stare at it too long, you may spontaneously combust.

Substitutes
St. Bernard's Armor, Cardboard Cuirass, Hefty Hefty Hefty Bag
The Daily Deal

Did Peon Buy It?
Nope, though I am a little paranoid that these cards will get a massive buff and St. Gwendolyn's Armor suddenly becomes OP. They sure could use the help right now.

Colossal Hammer- Infused Greatclub that costs a major token for Barge. Not particularly worth it.
Staff Of Blazing Sparks- The poor man's Mordecai's Staff Of Magma. Volcano is rare and powerful enough that I'd would buy the epic while you're waiting for the real deal.
Staff Of Chask- Great anti-melee staff but awful against anything ranged.

Notable Rares
Chaos Hammer- Most of the cards are fantastic but something about Chaos Hammer just rubs me the wrong way. At the very least your games will be interesting.
Disruptive Warp Pistol- Solid arcane item for Accelerate Time.
Rod Of Falling Cinders- Great for a fledgling Firestorm farmer. Your waddling dwarf wizards will be grateful for the Gusts Of War lift.
Shielding Token- Best Impenetrable Nimbus divine item.

 

Bendolth's Pauldrons - an awfully useless armor. Toughened Hide Armor prevents 1 damage on average, which isn't enough to keep it, or heals 2 damage to you, which isn't enough to play it Barge isn't good enough to play it (the Pauldrons, not Barge). The only good thing I can say about it is it's tokenless.
Rating: 2/2

Atlatl Of Zuma. My favorite tokenless divine weapon for low-level SP farming. All attacks have range 2, all are vampiric - what's not to like here? There is even some healing.
Rating: 3/5
Red Shaman's Blade A very decent divine weapon for . especially if you want a lot of attacks. There are five attacks here, including two Avenging Touches, which are very imteresting with Mass Frenzy and Blind Rage. The Blade has absolutely no bad cards, which is rare for that price.
Rating: 4/4
Sliding Boots Probably the best boots for . You have both a mass move card and Sparkling Cloth Armor here. And the third card is good too!
Rating: 5/5

Notable rares: Perfect Command.

 

LOL. The Toughened Hide Strips is directly better than Reliable Hide Armor by giving you 2 health when you discard it. The Barge isn't good unless you are playing with geomancers because it is like an able bludgeon with a mini winds of war effect(push) and only costs a silver which is less than a simple winds of war.

 

Ehm... So what? It isn't the worst card, yes, but that doesn't make it good.

Just one thing: are you going to move your CLERIC to the enemy warrior just to Barge him? Especially a cleric without any decent armor???

 

Who says I need to move to him, warriors like to move toward their target and I just have my priest conveniently placed or I have a parry or 2.

 

Bendolth's Pauldrons

Spoiler: Previously Reviewed

Peon's Prescription for Prodigious Multiplayers
Barge is a fantastic control card, especially on a character that you don't want enemies to hassle. Unfortunately, being a melee attack pretty much guarantees it will run into a block. Being a tokenless armor is a huge plus. While no other divine armor has controlling cards like Barge, there are plenty of decent tokenless options that don't bust the piggy bank. I could see equipping Bendolth's Pauldrons if you happen to come across one in a chest but would not purchase for essentially one copy of Barge.

Peon's Perspective for Penny-Pinching Singleplayer
Barge is never dead but it there it doesn't have much value aside from the damage. There are fewer maps with victory squares and if you just want another attack you can equip Glowing Hide Armor. Would not purchase.

Substitutes
Dark Chain Shirt (E), Glowing Hide Armor (C), Ritual Straps (R), Rusted Angel Mail (U): tokenless
The Daily Deal

Did Peon Buy It?
Nope. There are plenty of tokenless divine armors, some of which I'd play over Bendolth's Pauldrons anyways.

Atlatl Of Zuma- Sapping Spear and Healing Pulse are too weak to consider playing. Vamps would rather play Vampire's Blade. Quad Loner can be risky but painful cycling traits are still preferable to weak cards.
Red Shaman's Blade- When it comes to double minor token divine weapons the bar is set pretty high. St. Olf's Fiery Pike for melee/mixed class parties and Darkblood Glaive for wizards. Red Shaman's Blade is attack heavy, which doesn't fit any of the best priest archetypes.
Sliding Boots- The best Team Walk boots but the major token cost is harsh.

Notable Rares
Focused Cleansing- Great skill to use when you are running mostly non-Holy/non-heal cards. Removing handicaps is also a huge plus now.
Perfect Command- If you're wondering why you see so many human support priests this is it. Honorable mention goes to Advanced Flexibility.

 

OK, are you really going to build a Barge cleric with Bendolth's Pauldrons? Having 2 Parry in your deck doesn't guarantee that you will have one when you'll need it.
I like the discussion for the discussion's sake myself, but looks like you've gone too far here

 

Next thing you will be saying is that Reliable Mail is bad because it only prevents 2 damage on average. So do you think Reliable Mail is bad?

 

Please don't try to make a fool of me: you're very bad at this, and you're only making fool out of yourself. Everybody knows that preventing 2 damage on average is nearly the best score an armor can have; Heavy Armor provides more (2.5 on average), but you have to encumber your character.

 

You completely ignore 1 fact, the rating. Items that have high rating cards pay by also having low rating cards or by using power tokens. I think Toughened Hide Strips is good because at 0 rating it giving you 1 average damage reduction and a couple health when discarding.

 

Legendary
Bolg's Club Of Evasion

Spoiler: Previously Reviewed

Peon's Prescription for Post Patch Procrastinating Multiplayers
Dodge builds used to be able to accumulate two copies and annoy the heck out of melee attackers with a 75% success rate. With the updated Dodge, that rate goes down to 55.56%. Because of this, I think it's better to think of it now as a value card rather than a complete strategy. It's ok to replace blocks in the shield slot since they serve similar functions. However, now that you can't rely on it as much, the value of replacing attacks with Dodge goes way down. As much as it pains me to say it, and you know that I love me some 13 attack warriors, the kind of build Bolg's Club of Evasion was meant for isn't feasible anymore. Would not purchase.

Peon's Perspective for Postponing Purchasing Singleplayers
Warriors are either killing machines or damage sponges in the campaign. Those in the former don't want to skimp on attacks. Those in the latter would rather be Impenetrable Nimbused since it always works and isn't useless against ranged mobs. Heck, everyone wants to be Nimbused up. You get a Nimbus! And you get a Nimbus! Everybody gets a Nimbus! Would not purchase.
The Daily Deal

Did Peon Buy It?
Yes, but back before the Dodge nerf. This was before Dodge was considered OP too. I'm a sucker for cool items.

Epics
Morbo's Pendant- Not useful enough to consider purchasing for Firestorm farming purposes.
Starknife- Very nice weapon. I prefer the utility of Nova Axe but I could see Starknife getting played too.
Vinorkin's Boots- I love using these on wizards. Jump Back isn't too painful for ranged characters and between that and Violent Spin, you will prevent a ton of damage.

Notable Rares
Diamond Moccasins- One of the best minor token boots, particularly for chasing down ranged characters.
Sticky Slippers- Hoses control cards and trait cycles. Good for Elven Maneuvers too if you're looking to lower your movement count.

 

Great review, peonprop! Seriously, I like it. Not that I'm agree with everything, but there's almost nothing to add! I just want to say some words about the epics.

Morbo's Pendant is actually worth buying, if you would ever need both Firestorm and Teleport Self. I can imagine even a special Firestorm/Teleport Self build that could excel in the maze maps. Firestorm works through the walls, and Teleport Self isn't very common, especially without the bad cards. I'd probably use just the Pendants and Mercury Stones, and my wizard is likely to be an elf. It would be very funny (even if not very practical) to equip Boots Of Etzicatl and charge enemies through the walls
Starknife deserves a long discussion. There are at least three weapons with two Laser Thrusts: Starknife, Nova Axe and Laser Rapier. While I agree that Nova Axe offers better tech now, as everybody plays the attachments, this may change. And if this really changes, Penetrating Cut and Flaring Laser would be better than just 3-damage attacks.
The Starknife has 3 Penetrating attacks out of 4, which is very good, especially with the expected rise of armor, and Blind Rage would be valued by non-dwarves who lack good racial skills with it. Overall, the Starknife is better suited for non-dwarves IMHO, since it has less movement than the alternatives, and the dwarves are slow.
Laser Block is obviously fantastic: a 2+ block any that generates card advantage??? If you fight with an enemy warrior, it will help you a lot. If you need to chase a wizard, Disorienting Block would generally be better, unless the wizard has few HPs, and you can kill him with the card provided by Laser Block

 

Elf wizards and Firestorm go together like peanut butter and Vaseline. A human wizard maybe but it seems like a lot more trouble than just playing Volcano. Morbo's Pendant isn't bad. I personally don't think it's that great but obviously there are others that think otherwise. If you like it buy it.

I can only think of one race/class combination that doesn't rely on attachments and that's human warriors. Everything else has juicy targets to knock off so unless you come across triple human warriors Purge effects will always be useful. Penetrating Cut would be better as a regular attack without penetrating. You are most likely going to run into a Reliable Mail in which case Penetrating Cut does as much damage as a 5 power attack. However, when your opponents doesn't have armor the regular attack is clearly better. There would need to be a heavy Enchanted Harness stacking metagame for Penetrating Cut to come out on top and even then it is still an insignificant 3 damage. If you're comparing Penetrating Cut to Purging Strike, then I would rather knock off attachments and do no damage than do a guaranteed 3 damage. Starknife is still a great weapon so again, if you like it buy it.

 

Robes Of Foz

Spoiler: Previously Reviewed

Peon's Prescription for Prodigious Multiplayers
Dangerous Maneuvers is not an awful card...when you find them on boots. If you've ever cursed at your screen because you drew another dang movement card instead of a business card then you know that it is not a good idea to dilute your deck with cards that don't matter. Movement matters of course but much less so on wizards and the best way to go about adding movement to your deck is to make sure it does something else on the side. In this respect, wizards have relatively few options. You have Reflexive Teleport which is overcosted and hard to come by, cards like Surging Bolt which come on awful staves and skills, and Short Perplexing Ray, by far the most playable option for increasing mobility without watering down your build. You can also play slide cards like Telekinesis to avoid close range enemy attacks and double as movement cards for the rest of your team. Reliable Mail is great but not worth adding two relatively useless cards to your deck. Would not purchase.

Peon's Perspective for Penny-Pinching Singleplayers
Reliable Mail is always welcome but it is fairly easy to position your characters so that your wizard is least likely to be the target of attacks. Firestorm or Volcano wizards, the most efficient farming wizards, would much rather have Resistant Hide for immunity to their own attacks. Everyone else should look to use the robe slot for trait cycling like Robes Of Lightness or additional spells like Rockshard Robes. Would not purchase.

Substitutes
Thin Sparkling Cloak (C), Forceful Robes (R), Ironcurse Robes (R)
The Daily Deal

Did Peon Buy It?
Nope. I usually wind up using Forceful Robes, Rockshard Robes, or Firehide Robes on my wizards though there are some tokened robes worth considering now too.

Epics
Advanced Footwork- Smashing Spin is Walk with minor upside. Only elf wizards and support priests would want it but those are very common combinations. When they do see play, it's to accommodate an exciting racial skill which Advanced Footwork is not.
Spiked Shield- Worse than Wedge Shield.
Trained Toughness- There are better minor token Toughness skills.

Notable Rares
Yolotli Armor- Oh how the mighty have fallen. Still pretty good but with all these new major token items to try out Yolotli Armor won't be seeing much play.

 

St. Hongjin's Soulstone

Spoiler: Previously Reviewed

Peon's Prescription for Prodigious Multiplayers
St. Hongjin's Soulstone has 3 powerful cards and would go fine on a vamp with no buff support but you're basically paying for a glorified Shuddering Relic. If you want a real Mass Frenzy item you will want to look out for just about anything Bleneth. Whether it's Bleneth's Frenzy Medallion, Bleneth's Frenzy Tome, orBleneth's Frenzy Pocket Protector why pay for only 1 Mass Frenzy when you could have 2 instead? EvenBleneth's Frenzy Charm gives you the same buffing power for the low low price of no tokens. There's nothing wrong with St. Hongjin's Soulstone but it has big shoes to fill. Would not purchase.

Peon's Perspective for Penny-Pinching Singleplayers
Sometimes it's correct to spread out your character's roles in multiplayer where people tend to go after one character so that you aren't stranded with a buffer with few attacks or a wimpy vamp. In singleplayer that all goes out the window. It's rare that the AI will go after one character and when it does happen you just need to re-position a bit so that it will go back to attacking the closest character. Go with streamlined decks and you will draw what you need when you need it. Do not settle for the cheap Bleneth knockoff. Would not purchase.

Substitutes
Shuddering Relic (R), Dworia's Soulstone (E)
The Daily Deal

Did Peon Buy It?
Nope. I have all the Bleneth items already.

Epics
Inkdark Halberd- Not enough spells and the attacks aren't too great.
Major's Helm- Fine if you want to play Sprint, Team! and don't have any of the legendary helmets yet. Just be sure your other 2 characters can take advantage of it or you're paying for an over costed Sprint.
Untrained Tactics- No, just no.

Notable Rares
Crusty Helm- One of the best tokenless helmets. Obvious Maneuver takes a huge hit in singleplayer but Crusty Helm is still better than most there too.
Focused Teleportation- Works well with Volcano.
Stormward Pauldrons- Grounding Plates is incredibly useful against wyverns and wisps. All the armors are decent Enchanted Harness targets which is rare.

 

God's Rage

Spoiler: Previously Reviewed

Peon's Prescription for Prodigious Multiplayers
Discarding your oldest card to Controlled Overswing is a massive drawback. Between armor, blocks, and spells that you don't want to use immediately you will often have an important card that locks you out of playing it. You can play Controlled Overswing as the last card in hand but again, this is a rare occurrence.Twin Heals is ok as heals go and being able to draw out blocks on full health opponents is a bonus. Blind Rage may as well be anything that cycles if your priest has few attacks. In the end, the unreliability of Controlled Overswing is the biggest factor holding God's Rage back. Would not purchase.

Peon's Perspective for Penny-Pinching Singleplayers
Priests should primarily be healing and buffing, possibly vamping if you're feeling frisky. God's Rage has a heavy focus on damage dealing. Spending two cards to deal 10 damage should be low on your priority list. Your priest did not spend all that time in seminary school just so you could have him or her do a warrior impression. Would not purchase.

Substitutes
Cudgel Of Healing Light (E) , Xipes's Maquah (E)
The Daily Deal

Did Peon Buy It?
Nope. Looking back I went really easy on God's Rage. Cudgel Of Wrath and Dark Drewg's Mace are both far superior and tokenless to boot. God's Rage is an embarrassment at two minor tokens.

Epics
Blackhammer- Strong attacks but I would avoid it unless you specifically want Wings Of Faith, a narrow and potentially dead card on a lot of maps.
Bloody Shield- Potentially drawing a card is not worth spending a token on over Underdog's Shield.
Vira's Shoes- I'm embarrassed to say that I bought this way back in the day for a Firestorm party. It didn't take many melee attacks to beat some sense into me. Kerrick's Steel Boots if you've got the token, Bertha's Big Clogs if you don't.

Notable Rares
St. Xarol's Axe- Great for mowing down lower level mob swarms.

 

I believe you meant St. Xarol's Axe (rare), instead of his Mace (legendary).

 

Korenchkin's Tactical Tunic:
Only way for wizards to get Adaptable, and one of the few level 21 items in the game. Has anyone used this yet?

 

I think Adaptable is a bad way to lose all the attachments you actually want on a mage, and most mage builds need all four yellow tokens in staffs/items. Would be okay against a pair of fire mages, but so is Reliable Mail / Purge. By the time you adapt to a standard warrior's piercing and slashing, you're going to be nearly dead. Would be semi-useful against Blesscano, I suppose, but Hover and Dimensional Traveller are much cheaper. I was going to buy it before I thought about it.

Edit: haha, I'm a big fat liar, I bought it anyway. Peon kinda convinced me - how often will this roll around, it might be a laugh to play.

 

I used it during testing. Like Resistant Hide, you can only get one copy of Adaptable per deck. It can be very useful in SP if you manage to draw it and if you're facing opponents with few (or a single) attack types. If you can set the attachments with weak attacks of the type your enemy is using, all the better. This application is really pretty niche.
As Happenstance stated, I doubt it would work very well in MP.