Raiders of the Tomb of Savings

Discussion in 'Deck Building' started by Frostguard, Sep 23, 2016.

  1. Frostguard

    Frostguard Thaumaturge

    The time is upon us again. Once more the Loot Fairy resides in the Tomb of Savings, tempting us all with the treasure that might lie within but demanding disproportionate amounts of frustration and restarted battles as payment.

    We have good news, however! @vitreo84 and, in a quite less significant part, myself might have stumbled upon a method that can cut down your expenses gravely. And you don't even need too much. A few epics, though regrettably a legendary or two, albeit not necessary, are more or less required to make this go much smoother. As you'll find out soon enough!

    That said, keep in mind that this hasn't been tested too extensively. Still, we're both past a few runs and in our opinion it works; better yet is that while I've only had limited feedback, that feedback has been invariably positive. That's what prompted me to consider making a topic.

    Let's get on to the point, then!

    The First Steps

    For this you'll need two wizards. We used dwarf wizards, and I'm sure they work best, but oddly enough only by a narrow margin. Both dwarf and elf go down in two Mighty Bludgeons anyway.

    The first battle, I feel, does not deserve a chapter, or maybe not even a paragraph. Just put four Shifting Bangles on each wizard and you're about done. None of the other equipment truly matters.

    However, that lone victory square, from which you oh-so-conveniently shoved that Guillotine Trap away to walk onto it unscathed, leads to the pit of despair and agony known as The Battle whose name I don't remember as it's not on the wiki and I'm done with it for today. So...

    The Grave Issue

    I don't have exact statistics at my fingertips but I'd be willing to bet one of my heads that this is the part that deters most people from playing this module, even if the loot fairy happens to have deviously enchanted it. Before the summer balance update, most people apparently did it with Flash of Agony. Since then it still looks like something that can be made to work, but it needs much more than just your friendly flashes now. It makes you think there must be an alternative, no...? Well, yes, the good news is that there is!

    I'll get straight to the point first, and I'll comment on the choices later in case anyone's interested.


    Darur
    Level 22 Dwarf Wizard

    Darur
    Level 22 Dwarf Wizard

    Since this happened in co-op, both the characters here are my wizard, with slightly different equipment each time. But don't let that confuse you. (I made this post long after I completed the adventure, so I couldn't go back and get the code for the party I was using.)

    Well, there's a lot of Punishing Bolt, right? It sounds counterproductive at first, but trust me, it's not. It works wonders. I dare say it's the biggest deviation from other attempts I've seen, and possibly one of the most successful ones. Just look at the hands of those Tombstones at the beginning of a round. They're huge. A good Punishing bolt can remove a good chunk of their health right away, but still falls short of finishing them off by a relatively wide margin. And while that might be a bad thing on other maps and in other modules, it's just what we need here. The icing on the cake is that unlike other, possibly more abundant and widely accepted sources of damage, it doesn't care much about Ancient Statue, which relieves the wizards of having to remove them all the time.

    Force Cone is vital. You need to stay alive. I found that the best thing to do is moving to the walls, to one of the little recesses where the roads end, and stay there. They're the ideal spot as they have one of your sides covered, too, while the other side should be guarded by the other wizard. Force Cone can keep all of them at bay. All of them. In the meantime it has damage that's low enough that even the Tombstones tattered by Punishing Bolts are unlikely to be accidentally killed by it, and it can remove Toughness or check for Ancient Statue. If there's a jackpot to this map, Force Cone is it.

    And there's our good old buddy Firestorm. Don't be fooled that there are only two. You won't need more. They're not your primary source of damage, but the card to finish them all off when the time has come. The first rule about them is simple: Never, ever discard a Firestorm. You have few, as having more would decrease the efficiency of the deck, but you will need them. Keep them around and you should be fine. Always check for armour before using it, too.

    Winds Of War might not be as effective as it generally is against other opponents, due to the sheer number of foes, but it'll happen often that only one Tombstone gets close enough to you. Winds of War is handy in those cases, not to mention the rare times when they somehow manage to crawl into positions from which Force Cone can't really dislodge them. Besides, it comes in a great little package with Squeamish, which almost certainly won't affect your wizards in any way, and...

    Wall Of Fire? Am I insane or what, you may ask? These guys and even their little dogs draw Ancient Statue pretty often. Well, yes, but the deal is that most of their decks are made up of the gold-quality Mighty Bludgeons and the emerald-quality Staggering Blows, disregarding Toughness. Gary being Gary will not think twice about discarding that Ancient Statue even if the Tombstone in question is standing on lava at the moment. Trust me. I've seen it enough. Wall of Fire is a very potent way of damaging the Tombstones who were left out of all the Punishing Bolt funtimes. It works well with Winds of War, too.

    Boiling Armor and Dissolve Armor are also sort of emergency cards that you'll feel grateful for when you're ready to Firestorm. Therefore I also find it a good idea to keep at least one Boiling Armour in hand, and therefore I'd suggest giving one wizard the Firestorms and the other Akon's Amulet. That way they can share the burden.

    Now that we've gone over the essential cards, some of the item choices still may or may not look curious. I'll explain a few:
    Robes Of Lightness: With all the damage these guys are packing, no amount of armour (well, armour available to wizards, at any rate) will help you. Ditch them and thin your deck. It'll serve you better.
    Advanced Toughness: I need to make up my mind! Just a moment ago I said you need to thin your deck, and then I'm spending a token to deviate from Raging Battler. Well, sure, but considering that you'll need to keep those Firestorms and Boiling Armours in your hand, Blind Rage is a bad idea and not worth the cycling. Advanced Toughness, on the other hand, comes with a pretty Toughness (who would've thought) and two Jarring Blocks. You have a bunch of Pushback Parries, too, a courtesy of Chask and his handy little staff. Those cards together give you plenty of breathing space should something go awry.

    The amount of Runestones and Sander's Force Mirrors isn't set in stone, keep in mind. More Runestones may speed up the battle a bit, but at the expense of safety. With some tweaking, I believe it could possibly be made somewhat faster; I haven't played around with that too much yet, anyway.

    I think that's about it. Oh, another important bit. About discards. I've mentioned what you definitely need to keep in hand. Blocks, handy as they are, are expendable in the later stage of the battle (once you've reached the end of the road). Moves are, too. Keep your Force Cones, rather, if you don't need to use them.

    Celebratory Phylacteries

    Time to celebrate! Well, almost. All that stands between you and your sweet, sweet loot is a crazed lich, a horde of Phylacteries and two Tombstones. Well, almost anything works here. My recommendation is ample amounts of Shimmering Aura, Smoke Bombs, Boiling Armour and basically anything you can use to deal damage to the soul jars quickly. This one's not difficult, if you're at it you're past the true horror. Congratulations! Some more patience and the loot is yours.

    In case you want to thank someone, don't thank me, thank @vitreo84.

    Thanks for reading, and I hope it helps!

    Edit: I've just noticed that I messed up (as usual) and started this topic in the wrong category. I'm sorry about that and while I don't know what can be done about it, I hope it's not too much trouble.
     
    Last edited: Sep 23, 2016
  2. vitreo84

    vitreo84 Goblin Champion

    I have to add that punishing bolt help the use of force cone. Because with force cone you will sometime kill a tomb that will respawn full life but you can damage it back. :)
     
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  3. Rohndil

    Rohndil Hydra

    As once again the Fairy visited the Tomb of Savings I'm bumping this. It works really, really well; I've now run this setup 3 times with @Frostguard and we always went No Death (and few turns) on map 2.

    My only suggestion is switching a Staff Of Chask with Painful Flashstaff if you have it, a couple of Flash Of Agony can speed things up a little.
     
    ParodyKnaveBob likes this.
  4. Frostguard

    Frostguard Thaumaturge

    Once more Tomb of Savings, and a good point from @Xvim is that unlike other items with two Force Cones and a third card, Makhail's Cruel Hand is a really good alternative for Sander's Force Mirror if you don't have enough (sadly still legendary, though). Considering that the fight is probably going to go on for a few rounds, the Ancient Grudge can deal considerable damage later on. It's like one more Punishing Bolt.
     
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  5. Christofff

    Christofff Guild Leader

    For those after more budget-friendkly builds,

    You can also do it with a 1/1/1 setup.

    First round - like Frostguard says, Teleport self is nice to have on wizards. Also, i find whirlwind can be fun once you've gotten over the other side.

    Second round - ct5 has a nice video of this and the final round. I used something similar but with a bashing warrior to keep tomstones away, violent spin and jump back are nice to have {is there such an item with both?}. I didn't have enough shielding tokens so went with a silver healing ring. Actually, silver healing ring is nice in case you've damaged one tombstone too much, just heal it back.

    Basic strategy is to chip away at their health until you have a turn where you can flash of agony twice, watching out for toughness, and KNOW that they will all die in that round. Again, having at least one teleport self is a must so your wiz can stay away from the tombstones. Also, pass and wait til they shuffle to you, THEN move. Otherwise if you move first, you make their shuffles more effective.

    Third Round - I didn't change much from last round. Besides, good armor for the Lich's regular burst, then boiling armor / sunder strike for the Urns, while keeping tombstones atr arms length. Just focus the urns. Don't use boiling armor until the urns have at least two armor, its a waste. Also, ct5 used infused greatclub its great for one-shotting urns.

    Doable and enjoyable adventure!
     
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  6. ParodyKnaveBob

    ParodyKnaveBob Thaumaturge

    Ahh, this explains why my co-op comrades have recently been bringing Punishing Bolt. I thought it was a weird coincidence...

    (Well, while I'm here, just a quick note. I thought I'd never use Rotting Club -- until this adventure came along! On my 1/1/1 original adventuring party, Rotting Club x3 with a Defensive Helm gives a warrior lots of cycling and safe melee control, letting you decide how much damage each one should get. $E^ J heheh Plus, three extra Blocks, yay. Only a (minortoken) each! P.S. Never sell the junk items; you never know when they'll come in handy after all. P.P.S. Meanwhile, I generally bring a support priest in co-op. Root the Rock, plus Fly; Nimbus and Bash the Tombstones; Sunder Phylacteries and Purge Lichard's curses.)
     
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  8. Drakkan

    Drakkan Ogre

    Hi guys,

    I found out this build works great on Tomb of Savings. Its a 10 min map with it ..

    Build is 3 dwarw wiz.

    Map1. Just put 4x Shifting Bangle on each wiz, teleport and gusts of war or kill that thing on VS and gg.

    Map2. Use build bellow - just a bunch of Flash Agony .. move to one side of map .. with careful violent spins and fore cone you shouldn't have much problems .. then one turn you'll get enough Flash Agony to finish all creatures single turn.
    Just test / discard armor first. With some practice its really easy..

    Map3. get 3 flash, remove armor and gg.


    Note. It might work even better with more Flash Agony, Staff Of The Misanthrope - I havent tested it.. (EDIT. Tested 5x Staff of Misanthrope - I think its even better)

    Marazzak
    Level 24 Dwarf Wizard

    Barazzah
    Level 20 Dwarf Wizard

    Garazzak
    Level 21 Dwarf Wizard
     
    Last edited: Dec 22, 2018
    Pawndawan and gurel2 like this.

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