(EDIT: 12/19/15: 10 months later, fixed what was clearly wrong. Happy Holidays!) Hi. First post. Decided to try and contribute to the community because I’ve played this game too much without giving back. (All of my opinion is up for discussion). This post is for newer players and with multiplayer in mind. This post is about class specializations. In general there are certain roles a certain unit can play. A wizard can be a damage wizard, a control wizard, or anything in between. That damage wizard can be either a burst wizard, a lightning wizard, or even a short range/ melee wizard. Of course, these different roles can be mixed and matched to your liking and benefit, but it’s important to understand specializations if you don’t have a base knowledge. If you mix and match too much your deck will ultimately suffer against sleeker and more focused decks so it’s recommended to only use between 2-3 different types of cards on a specific character. Additionally, though your team’s chemistry is ultimately more important than how you build a single character, this post hopes to serve as a discussion and starting point for deck building. WIZARDS Burst: Burst wizards make extensive use of the following spells: ember burst, arcane burst, and fireball. They can hit enemies hiding behind barriers, hit multiple targets at once, and are generally a pest to deal with. They also tend to rush on the first turn to allow primary positioning on your starting position. It’s hard to feel completely out of range against burst wizards. Because burst wizards have low base damage they may carry Arcane Aura or are coupled with buffing priests who stack them with a combination of frenzies, savage curse, and unholy wellspring. They are also typically coupled with inspiring priests who allow them to draw more cards. Armor such as resistant hide and reliable mail work well against them. New shields such as Auto Blocks are great too. Top staves: Searing Pain, Blue Destruction, Staff of Embers/Million Embers Races: Generally dwarves, sometimes humans, rarely elves Burning / Firestorm: Unlike burst wizards who do their damage more immediately, burning wizards take a little bit more time to set up and they play more defensively. They can sit back and wait for their better cards and traits as they don’t rely as much on their enemy being bunched up. They can also play the passing game with their opponent if their opponent likes to camp. The most important trait for them is Firestarter which adds 2 burning damage to all of their burn cards. This adds up very quickly with spells such as flame jet and glob of flame which last for 3 turns each. Instant Burn adds even more damage as it allows a wizard to deal a round of burning damage instantly. Firestorm is used as a finisher to catch out of sight enemies. Please note: good burning wizards require lots of items, there are plenty of burning cards but the common ones that use the different sprays (magma, fire, ember) are more trouble than they are worth. (Races: Dwarves or humans, rarely elves) Volcano: If you’re fighting against a three-wizard party and they continually pass their turn suspiciously, there’s a good chance you’re fighting against a volcano deck. They may wait for you to expend your movement cards so that they can volcano and then move to safety. This gets trickier against wizards who draw Dimensional Traveler, Hover, or Resistant Hide, as they are immune to their own volcanoes. Combined with some control cards, volcano wizards shift allies out of volcano spots and enemies into them. Volcano is typically used after the action for a turn seems over, but it can also be used as an initiator to force movement. This works particularly well against opponents who camp, hide, and wait for the enemy to make the first move. It also works in combination with combos such as Winds of War and Path of Knives as you can force much more movement than desired. If you are fighting against a volcano deck be prepared to hold onto some move cards. (Races: Humans or dwarves, rarely elves). Lightning: Relatively rare in multiplayer, lighting wizards are the purest damage dealers of the wizards. They do not need specialized priests behind them to buff them as they can do plenty of damage when coupled with Spark Generator and Arcane Aura. However, they require a direct line of sight and the damage often isn’t enough to persuade any melee with armor to hide instead of charging. There are also armors such as Resistant Hide that grant immunity against them (though other armor such as Grounding Plates are relatively rare). Other than superceding popular blocks such as parries, the only advantage that lightning mages really have in multiplayer is that they are unexpected. No one expects to get shocked by an obliterating spark as a finisher. Top Staves: Deadly Deadly, Mighty Sparkping, Mindsplinter Races: Generally humans, rarely dwarves or elves Control: All mages should carry at least some sort of control. Positioning is the only thing that keeps mages alive. Outside of pushing away enemies directly next to you, a specialized control mage can puppet the flow of a game through the positioning of both his/her allies and enemies. They can be used as a substitution for move cards allowing your warrior to spend less on step moves and spears. They can also be used to ***** victory points and win a defensive battle. The top control cards include Winds of War, Gusts of War, Telekinesis, and Jump Soldier. Each has their situational use and none of those spells is clearly better than the others. Winds of War has the best range (slide 3 versus slide 2 is mostly negligible), Gusts of War can move two characters (make sure you hold ctrl so you can target and move the right character first), Telekinesis can teleport others over terrain, walls, and enemies, and Jump, Soldier is a controllable quick step or block probe. Weaker control cards include Force Bolt, Force Cannon, Force Cone, and the whirlwinds. Terrain attachments and frost cards also classify as control because they manipulate how and where an enemy can move. Popular items include Ring of Appropriation and staves such as Notable Arcane Items: Ring of Appropriation, Luke's Iron Hand, Smoke Pin Notable Staves: Whiterune, Peawood, Yoloxti’s Races: Humans or dwarves, rarely elves Melee / Short Range: Very rare. Practically only used by dwarf mages. Popular items include Staff of Chask, Heartripper, and the different Magus Staves. The best tactic with these mages is to not do anything, wait for your enemy to rush you, and then parry away their attacks and blast them with Punishing Bolts on the next turn. This works especially well because it goes through melee blocks. These mages are like landmines. You can die very quickly if you don’t give them respect, but if they are left as a last target they are dispatchable by range. (Races: Generally dwarves, rarely humans or elves). WARRIORS: Pure Damage: Step Warrior: Spear User: Tank: Control: PRIESTS: Vampire Buffer Healer Tank Inspiring TO BE CONTINUED... SUGGESTIONS RECOMMENDED.
