There have been a proliferation of threads on the AotA maps, but I just wanted to share the build I used for the most recent loot fairy occurence. I use a single build for the first two maps, then switch out the wizard to anti-armor for dragon. I use a 1/1/1 race team only because those are what I've leveled up. Level 19 Elf Warrior - Obliterating Bludgeon and armor Level 19 Human Priest - Impenetrable Nimbus and Touch Of Death Normal FS/Runestone Wizard Level 20 Dwarf Wizard - spam firestorm, WoW enemies/allies as needed, create buffers or deal damage with Wall of Fire. A single Volcano will take out all the totems on map #2 in just two rounds. Dragon Anti-Armor Wizard Level 20 Dwarf Wizard - Staves are for dealing damage, especially to Blackhammer before he gets close. Spam nimbus to protect whoever needs it. Spam anti-armor at the dragon to provoke blocks and remove armor. Then, smash. Equip only parry so that you don't waste blocks on the low-damage frost attacks. Hole up with the wizard in the corner square furthest to the left. The priest should stand in the next square up/right along the wall. The warrior should stand directly right (diagonally in board-space) from the priest, one square off from each wall. This arrangement prevents the dragon from landing near any character except the warrior, who will draw the most armor/blocks. The wizard needs to be most protected, because he's got all the anti-armor. Sometimes you have to take a retry because you don't draw armor/nimbus/blocks/attacks when you need it, but I don't usually need more than two retries.
Actually, I primarily used Punishing Bolt against Blackhammer. By the time you've stripped off all the armor and blocks, the dragon has already unloaded any attacks on the warrior and is just holding 2-3 Fly. I don't think I ever dealt more than 8 damage via Punishing Bolt.
Never been in Black Plume Mountain before. So I gave it a shot today: Turns out 2 Warriors (Elf + Dwarf) and one Priest (Elf) worked like a charm. I am lucky to own 2xRiptides and 2xDragonslayer Swords, Sundering Strike and a few good block cards and you can to face Blizenkripper head on. Just avoid the dragon, stack enough damage and oneshot Blackhammer first. There is no way this wasn't just me getting lucky but it really felt very easy compared to The Troll Tyrant. On a side note its really hard to beat the Totem encounter without a wizard. Thank god I had Stormward Pauldrons or it would have been impossible without Resistant Hide or Volcano.... Guess next time I'll bring my wizard with Mordecai's Staff Of Magma just for them.
Thanks for this thread. I was on the right way with my builds, changed a few items on all characters though. However, the positioning tip was key for me.
Necroing this because there was a lot of complaining in world chat about Black Plume today. It's actually pretty easy, but you need to take the right gear along. Some of the prime items are epics and legendaries, so new players are going to find this a little annoying, but I'm certain after a couple of months of loot fairy/league/etc., you'd be able to get your hands on most of what you need. Party: a mage makes things very easy. You could go 2 x war, 1 x mage, but I prefer 1/1/1, which has better flexibility to counter the variety of monsters you'll face. I went dwarf war / human priest (running double leadership all three levels) / dwarf wiz, although the warrior can be any race, really. They all have their virtues (elven maneuvres on the elf, all out attack on the human). Level 1 Cave of Confusion: very straightforward. The lava spitters spit lava, and the umber bulks maze you, and keep you on the tiles. This is where a Priest comes in handy: pack on as much cleansing as you can, especially cleansing ray. Your Mage should be packing damage for the lava spitters; they're soft targets with no blocks or armour. Fire + firestarter paradoxically works really well on them. Carry a single akon's and keep the three remove armour cards until you're ready to start picking off the umber bulks - they only draw a resistant hide once in a while. Control cards are very important, too, if you have them. Winds, gusts and telekinesis move your fighter and the umbers together, without triggering maze. The Warrior just needs to pack some big attacks. I was lazy and took triple flashing longspear, but anything will work, really. Level 2 Totem Maze: because the totems can't move, the Mage's volcanos break this level. You just need to draw it, which is tough if you're a new player and only have 4 volcs on your arcane items. If this is the case, turn your Priest into a drawspam: accelerated thought, inspiration, etc. Oh, and leadership. If you can't get the volcs to work, consider Mage attacks that hit things without exposing you: laser beacons and burst. The Warrior again engages the umbers, while the other two move to and hold the VPs. Level 3 Blizzy's Lair: looks tough, yeah? But Blizzie is a pussycat if you handle him right. And the right way to handle him is cushioning armour on the Warrior. Xek's Nanocarbon Plate is an epic, and once you draw cushioning, Blizzy has no way to knock it off you. edit 1: yeah, forgot about perfect block (see Pawndawan's post below). Blizzy has 1 x PB in a 24 card deck, so always lead with the Mage's spells - the mage losing spells/armour is much better than the Warrior losing cushioning! I packed the Mage with path of knives and Cinnabar Rings, a great mix of armour removal and control. The Priest gets some heavy-hitting weapons, and some heavy hitting healing - as good as you can arrange (I used double Darkforce Nunchaku, but that's a bit of a luxury). edit 2: Blizzy has 2 x massive jaws in a 24 card deck (see Kalin's post below), so healing is important for your tank. My setup had 2 x greater heal, 3 x healing pulse and 3 x heal weak, which was enough to keep up with Blizzy's damage on the tank. First things first. Blackhammer is dangerous, but susceptible to spells. Get a path of knives onto him, and keep controlling him away, and he'll do the dirty work for you. The Warrior really needs to draw a cushioning, and this can require a restart, but my 8 trait warrior has a 44% chance of drawing one in the first three rounds from Xek's Plate, and a 59% chance of drawing one from The Softener (not counting any of his 3 parries being triggered). You want to lure Blizzy away from your other characters with the cushioned warrior, even limping a single square at a time. That way, the Mage and the Priest can attack from behind, causing Blizzy to turn, so that the Warrior can backstab as well. edit 3: the reason for this is reflecting block. Only 1 in Blizzy's deck, but not too much fun if it reflects a big attack back onto your warrior. Boiling armour and dissolve armour takes care of the wyrmhide, then attach a path of knives (causing Blizzy to trigger his toughness whenever he moves), and keep bashing away with the flashing longspears, while the Priest heals and hits as well (Pungent Incense is great, as long as Blizzy is out of blizzard breaths, which will remove the wellspring). If you can't arrange path of knives, terrain attacks work really well, but draw out Blizzy's moves by limping the Warrior away from him.
You still have to watch out for Perfect Block, which can get rid of any armor or other card if it's the oldest. If you don't need Leadership, running three dwarves is good option, since Advanced Ferocity provides good cycling and War Cry to get rid of Blizzy's blocks. If you don't have tank warrior, you can hide behind Flash Flood. If you don't split your party, Healing Beacon works great for healing.
You only need to draw one, and it's okay if it takes a few rounds before you get it. Remember that Blizzy has some 8 damage penetrating attacks that will ignore Cushioning, so you'll need some healing as a backup. I also use a lot of Parry here. I never try to get behind the dragon, instead I stay at the entrance and let my warrior Parry all the big attacks. I can't find a screenshot anywhere of my positioning, but the wizard is all the way in the corner against the board edge, priest is next to him against the north wall, warrior is diagonal adjacent to priest. If you use Nimbus, don't cast it until after Blizzy uses his breath.
Give it a shot, it worked really well for me. Spreading the party (warrior one side, priest the other, mage behind priest) meant that I never triggered reflecting block, and because the warrior had plenty of moves (3 x team walk), even moving 1 square away meant that path of knives took care of Blizzy's 2 x toughness when he followed me, allowing the warrior free swings with the big attacks.
This was the only thing that worked for me too. If I didn't have evil hourglass, I don't think I could have beat the dragon. toughness + perfect block + reflecting block negates a lot of damage.
