Direct Damage Leadership Wizards

Discussion in 'Deck Building' started by tiwx, Jan 20, 2016.

  1. tiwx

    tiwx War Monkey

    Spark 1
    Human Wizard

    Spark 2
    Human Wizard

    Frost
    Human Wizard


    This may be an all wizard party, but in some ways it has more in common with bejeweled than it does with your average burrft team. Instead of relying on buffs or multi-target effects to make up for attacks that are individually weak, these wizards simply use high damage attacks to begin with. Unfortunately, while wizards can get attacks nearly as powerful as Powerful Hack, they cannot obtain them in the quantities a warrior could. No staff has more than three 7+ damage attacks, and the cards found alongside such attacks are fairly useless.
    Trait cycling helps mitigate this a bit, but Leadership turns it into a viable strategy. Weak Strike is a lot more palatable once you cycle it into an Obliterating Spark. The same min/max approach is used on the defensive side as well. Force Field protects better than any armor, and Leadership helps you draw it despite only having two in your deck.
    Rounding out the build are some miscellaneous utility spells which help ensure that your few attacks can be used to the fullest effect, either by stripping away the opponent's defenses or moving them into range.

    Peasant Version (almost)
    Spark 1 & 2

    Level 20 Human Wizard
    Frost
    Level 20 Human Wizard
     
    Last edited: Feb 6, 2016
  2. Flaxative

    Flaxative Party Leader

    Looks awesome. How good is it?
     
    Master Goo likes this.
  3. gulo gulo

    gulo gulo Guild Leader

    Sounds gross.
     
  4. Sir Veza

    Sir Veza Farming Deity

    You betcha! It's like beer. Why have a 12 pack if you can have a gross? cheers.gif
     
    visak13, Happenstance, Reint and 3 others like this.
  5. tiwx

    tiwx War Monkey

    It seems to be stable around the low 1700s.
     
  6. Deepweed

    Deepweed Thaumaturge

  7. tiwx

    tiwx War Monkey

    No. Flash Of Agony simply does not work well in this deck.
    The key to this deck is the ability to focus your entire team's damage output onto a single target. All three wizards must remain close to each other in order for this to be effective. In this context Desperate Block is preferable to FoA, and the extra spark damage on Overloaded Staff is enough to make up for the Weak Strikes.
     
  8. wazzur

    wazzur Kobold

    why so many armorbanes? I think more control would be better in this deck.
     
  9. Deepweed

    Deepweed Thaumaturge

    Well if it works, it works. I still am of the opinion that you'll get a lot of screw games with the current format, though.
     
  10. tiwx

    tiwx War Monkey

    The trait cycling helps draw out the big attacks that this build relies on. Sensate's Ring has control and a cycling trait, but it also has a dead card. Squeamish is also an actual handicap in a direct damage deck.
    This is acceptable on the frost wizard since he has fewer dead cards from his staffs, and Squeamish is more manageable for him. The spark wizards are at the limits of what can be managed through Leadership.
     
    ParodyKnaveBob likes this.
  11. c4rnivean

    c4rnivean Orc Soldier

    This is almost a peasant build, without even trying! Is there any epic or lower card I could substitute for Spector's Raygun ? Maybe Command Stone? Ixtli Amulet is a big step down.

    Edit: I think this actually could be made into a peasant build without cutting too many corners. Explorer's Force Suit x3 maybe?
    I can't overstate how big publishing a peasant 3wiz build would be. It could singlehandedly shift the meta enough to rebalance 3 elf warriors without any nerfs. The reason 3 elf warriors is so common is that it's a viable peasant build, which means it gives new players access to multiplayer but is also the only good option for many.
    A 3 wiz peasant build would be the biggest thing to happen to this game since cult of the bejeweled.
     
    Last edited: Feb 6, 2016
  12. tiwx

    tiwx War Monkey

    You can't quite make it a peasant build, since there is no substitute for Shielding Warp Boots, but you can get pretty close:
     
    Obernoob and Sir Veza like this.
  13. Obernoob

    Obernoob Hydra

    Nice build.
    It looks much like my farming team for the level 14 - 15 adventures. In single player I prefer the cycling of Raging Rock over the potential cycling of Advanced Flexibility and since Flash Of Agony is great while Desperate Block beeing useles in single player, I play Mindsplinter Staffs over Overloaded Staffs.

    In my experience leadership builds, like Double-edged Swords together with Officer's Harness, lack consistency. I can't speak for multiplayer, but in single player I get sometimes hands with 6 Obliterating Sparks and sometimes I have 6 Memory Losses.

    Maybe I try this build out. It is kind of back into the old days, where I used low budget electricity mages together with Whirlwinds.
     
  14. Master Goo

    Master Goo Ogre

    I tried this build in previous month's map pool and had zero success though some battles were close, gotta try it with current map pool also (might be much more productive). Inspite of my results it was interesting to play this way, thanks for sharing.
     
    Last edited: Feb 7, 2016
    ParodyKnaveBob likes this.
  15. Pyrious

    Pyrious Hydra

    Tiwx asked me to try this build out, but I didn't have all the items required, so I made some substitutions. This is what I've been using:

    Torque
    Level 8 Human Wizard

    Jolt
    Level 1 Human Wizard

    Flux
    Level 17 Human Wizard

    I definitely feel the absence of Shielding Warp Boots when I'm faced with a Fireball wizard and 2 of my mages are Combustible, but this build can usually get the job done.

    The first match that I played in Ranked with this build was against Cardotron2000, and I got blitzed. Then I lost the next 3 games. However, by now I feel that I've adjusted to this build and I'm going about 50-50 (in the 1500s). In my last game I finally got a rematch with Cardotron2000, and this time he got blitzed. :)

    I can see how a better player than me could take DDL Wizards to 1700+.
     
    Last edited: Feb 7, 2016
    ParodyKnaveBob and visak13 like this.
  16. Magic Elves

    Magic Elves Thaumaturge

    Sounds like a really fun deck! I'm going to have to try playing it sometime, though I'm not too sure how it'd do on the current map rotation.
     
  17. Master Goo

    Master Goo Ogre

    On current maps this build is very interesting. I played a lot of games with this setup and definitely want to say thx to the auther for the funny time i'm having=) Thanks!
     
  18. visak13

    visak13 Ogre

    Grounding Plates equipped!
     
    ParodyKnaveBob and Master Goo like this.

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