AKA 'An Arcane Aura Burfft Build' Spoiler: Some Backstory This is the more serious build I was using prior to 'Cult of the Bejeweled'. It uses the default party composition of a dWar, hPri, and eWiz. The backbone of the team is the Elf Wizard, and this proved effective enough to stabilize its rating around 1550. The only other explanation for this is that a Dwarf Warrior with a Vibrant Pain is powerful enough to carry an entire team of three. Spoiler which might explain a lot about some of the higher ranked builds. But anyway... I hereby submit the build for your review. Look at this face. This is the face of death. A common complaint of Elf Wizards is that they are squishy and die easily. This assessment is correct. At 17 HP, an Elf Wizard is the squishiest character in the game. Squishy enough, in fact, that it is common to point out how easy it is to put 17 damage behind a single attack, one-shotting the wizard. However, this phenomenon is not exclusive to our friend the elf, and is analogous to saying our wizard is OP for being able to deal a net-33 points of damage with a single attack - possible, but rather unlikely. A more modest net-14 damage spark is more in line with the numbers our elf tends to see, just as it is more often than not that she does not get wiped off the board by overzealous warriors. Or, let me put it another way. Generally speaking, the difference between an elf and a dwarf is 8 hit points. That's almost a 50% increase. And I know that sounds like a lot, but that is only one attack. Those 8 hit points are only one turn of standing in lava, or one step attack from a dwarf, or one potshot from our elf, delivered from 7 squares away. If you can leverage that extra 2 move into being just one attack over your opponent, then your elf has done its job. To that end, one of your biggest allies is range. With that in mind, let's meet our wizard. Spoiler: The Elvish Bombard Narya Elf Wizard Blue Destruction Oxha's Sparkspreader 4xArmorbane Pendant Cotton Wizard's Robes Ulalia's Boots Superb Mobility Focused Electromancy I admit, the staffs are rather high on the rarity scale. You could switch them out for some of the uncommon electric staffs and still have a pretty decent support wizard. The single-target damage on those are a bit higher. However, this entire team is built around amplifying and exploiting that multi-target damage. On the plus side, though, since all the damage-boosting cards are on your wizard, she can function even without a priest for support, making for extra flexibility when swapped into other decks! Your main strategy here is to draw the damage boosting cards Arcane Aura and Spark Generator, then smack anyone who's clustered together to multiply your damage even further. There have been numerous occasions where I have been rushed by warrior groups, and still came out ahead by just plain out-damaging them. Once you start drawing arcane auras, even your single target damage becomes a force to be reckoned with, turning even a Dissolve Armor into a moderately dangerous attack. Speaking of Dissolve Armor, let's discuss one of my favorite arcane items. And it's a tokenless common, too! The Armorbane Pendant not only gives you armor removal, it also gives you Memory Loss. IMO, this is one of the best discarding cards for how controlled it is. By targeting the oldest card, it not only doubles as armor removal, it hits whatever your opponent is trying to keep. That's the 13 damage attack that warrior rushed up to deliver, or the parry you were supposed to charge into, or the move that was supposed to get behind your meatshields. And if your oppenent has no cards left, you can hit them with it next turn to burn off their racial move. Sure, sometimes it hits a dud, but you still come out ahead, because each Armorbane Pendant also comes with a handy-dandy trait! Spoiler: about that do resist the urge to buff your wizard even further, or if you must, switch out the racial skill. this elf is up to 4 traits already, but it's usually not a problem. the bigger issue is that the arcane auras are incompatible with buffing, since cards like unholy wellspring and savage curse have a tendency to discard your auras. However, between your low hp and your flagrant combustibility, your biggest threat is not high-damage warriors, but enemy wizards. They should set off alarms when you see one. They can knock off your auras. A single glob of flame can kill. Your best defense is range. Your bursts are range 6, and can strike from behind cover. Your sparks are range 8, and can outdistance everything but a fireball. Your dissolves are a mighty range 10! Your biggest cause of death is being taken by surprise, so if nothing else, send in your dwarf as bait, that your opponent might reveal how their characters are built. Spoiler: a note on information gathering If you really need to know what an enemy is running, you can turn on 'pause enemy cards' from the options menu. If you can recognize the item name on the cards, it will tell you what else is in their deck. You can also look through the battle log at the end of the turn to see what they're discarding. I generally don't do these, as I feel they slow the game too much, but they can provide some crucial insight during those first few turns. Rushing is your enemy. The longer the game runs, the more auras you draw, and the more devastating your attacks become. Don't be afraid to let your opponent have the victory points, then bombard them to death while they sit on the shiny yellow squares like ducks. Of course, since you want to draw those tasty damage boosters as soon as possible, and being an elf is akin to having a giant sign that says 'target', it helps to have someone backing the wizard up. Let's meet our support priest! Spoiler: The Drawbot Aleena Halaran Human Priest 2xSacrificial Axe Aegis Of The Defender Cintxotl Mail Sticky Slippers 3xAmulet Of Inspiration Perfect Tactics Focused Piety Things get far less interesting from here on out. The main idea is helping set up the wizard, since having more attacks doing more damage against more targets leads to absurd damage output. She'll mainly be screening for the wizard and using inspiration to help the wizard draw, or else cycle her own deck if you don't have altruism up, or in certain cases draw more cards onto the dwarf if you're trying to assassinate a wizard. The drawing should be straightforward enough, so now I'll discuss some other parts of her deck. The weapons: Sacrificial Axes are great for cycling your deck, and since she's not meant to engage the enemy, the vulnerables shouldn't matter too much. The pressing bashes are the main appeal, as they provide a lot of utility. Besides just knocking enemies away to deal damage and buy time and reposition, they can be used on your own warrior for an extra point of movement in a pinch. They help place enemies in range of each other so your bursts get more mileage. They can even be used to knock your elf out of range in an emergency. The Triple Heals: are not just for healing. They can trigger altruism. They can block-check opponents with full health. They can do all three at once, letting you heal, and draw out a defender's block, and draw a card of your own. Far more versatile than one might think at first glance. The Worst Case Scenario: If all else fails, the priest has some function as a last resort. Turning all her drawing power on herself, she has an effective deck size of 14-16. (how do you count Inspirational Thinking, anyway?) Two of those are armor, including a Barbed Platemail. Two are Strong Hacks, four are Pressing Bashes, and two are Defender's Blocks. She's not as vicious as a vampire, but as far as support priests go, she's not as helpless as some of the other builds I've made. However, with all that Area Damage, your opponent will probably split up their characters after the first attack! That's going to be a problem, right? Spoiler: The Obligatory FlaxClone Azaghal Dwarf Warrior Vibrant Pain Crazy Sal's Halberd Double-Edged Sword Shield Of The Frog Crusty Helm Perilous Ringmail Sticky Slippers Raging Battler Novice Impaling Actually, since they're all split up, why don't you go hunting down some of those unsupported peeps? Before that, though, I'd like to point out the synergy between the two legendary weapons, here. Crazy Sal's is a great weapon. Three stabs that double as armor, and three traits that not only buff your attacks, but make your deck that much thinner. The downside is that if you try stockpiling those attacks, you'll be in for a lot of hurt. You may be tempted to just tank the damage, but at 3 dmg per attack per turn, it adds up. Only two of those and your hp won't be much better than an elf's. Vibrant Pain is unique in that it is the only weapon with more than three Step 2 attacks. In fact, it has six. This not only gives dwarves a much welcome boost in mobility, but also lets you burn excess attacks so that they are not sitting in your hand, or worse, discarded. Without the Pain, I found I would be sitting out of range with extra attacks burning away my hp. Without the Crazy, those nimble strikes just don't do enough damage. If you combine the two, you get a potent mixture of mobility and murder. The double-edged is mostly just to preserve the balance between 'step' and 'stab'. You could run three of them and still come kind of close to the same thing, but I'd probably switch it for another halberd if I had one. That being said, the main purpose of this character is to help counter the biggest threats to the wizard. High-mobility Step-warriors Matchstick Mages All of the armor you're packing will leave you crippled if you ever get hit by a Sundering Strike, but makes you especially dangerous to these low-damage high-volume builds. Beyond that, he also contests the VP if it's not too dangerous, and takes attacks of opportunity if they pop up. For example, that dwarf wizard sitting in the back while the elf warrior dashed on ahead. You can cover a lot of ground in a turn, and can do a lot of damage by making your opponent play Whack-a-Mole. As for some of the other item selections: Sticky Slippers: Wild Run is great for huge repositionings, ambushing enemy wizards and rushing to claim victory points. Beyond that, Immovable is great for cycling and a nightmare for control wizards. Shield Of The Frog: Perhaps the most unique part of this warrior; that its cards can also be used as moves is only half of its appeal. Cards such as Dodge and Reflexive Teleport are probably the closest thing you're getting to a reusable block. Jump Back does about the same thing, but works on a 3+ as opposed to a 5+. The fact that you need empty space behind you is mitigated by the large number of step attacks in your deck, allowing you to optimize your position for dodging, as well as bounce back after a successful dodge. That the rest of your attacks are mostly stabs also means that you don't always need to move back to range 1 to counterattack. And those are the characters that got me past 1500 for the first time. My Campaign Heroes, that I have played with all the way from level 1! I hope their adventures have proved interesting, or at the very least, mildly informative. And with that, I wish you Happy Hunting!
Shield of the Frog! I love your style. I also use an elf wizard in my burfft build, mainly for Evasion
Man, I was rocking Shield of the Frog before it was cool. Yet another day I wish I had one of those crazy halberds...
Been messing around with jumpback in co-op since I read this and all I can say is you gotta try this out. I only have 1 Vp so im using a tango spear but I guess crazy sals would be nice. Wish I had one of them too Level 1 Elf Warrior Vibrant Pain Vibrant Pain Excellent Rapier Cuirass Of Froth Antler Shield Crusty Helm Bouncing Boots Cautious Mobility Novice Impaling You need to be very aware of positioning and the potential of hidden enemy move cards that might flank you. Frenzy Aura is just amazing when you don't get hit. Mass Frenzy or some other damage buffs will really help with the low base damage.
