Bees stands for Boring Elves Eat Shorties (aka Dwarves)! I'm currently rated 1753, although ~30 of these points came from a brief 4-game stint with Firestorm. But yeah, elves in the 1700s! whee Here's the build, I'll talk about stuff after: SRC_Shabrys Level 20 Elf Warrior Double-edged Sword Bejeweled Shortsword Lochaber Axe Spiked Tlahuiztli Twisting Shield Crusty Helm Goat Boots Superb Mobility Superb Impaling 2 x Dancing Cut 3 x Vicious Thrust 1 x Weakened Armor 1 x Elven Maneuvers 1 x Hardy Mail 1 x Reliable Mail 1 x Ouch! 1 x Slippery 2 x Pushback Parry 1 x Potent Stab 1 x Elvish Insight 1 x Barbed Platemail 3 x Nimble Strike 3 x Powerful Hack 1 x Unreliable Block 2 x Impaler 1 x Weak Chop 1 x Dangerous Maneuver 1 x Mail 1 x Backbiting Strike 1 x Immovable 3 x Impaling Stab 1 x Powerful Bludgeon 1 x Obvious Maneuver 1 x Hard To Pin Down SRC_Titanomachia Level 2 Elf Priest Huetotl's Firebrand Whiteglow Flail Mail Of The Martyr Rusty Buckler Naradoc's Boots Shuddering Relic Shuddering Relic Shuddering Relic Risky Trickery Focused Piety 1 x Elven Trickery 2 x Nimble Strike 1 x Dodge 3 x Flanking Move 3 x Enervating Touch 3 x Altruism 5 x Mass Frenzy 2 x Fiery Stab 3 x Martyr Blessing 1 x Triple Heals 4 x Vulnerable 1 x Boosted Heal 1 x Immovable 1 x Horned Plates 2 x Parry 1 x Sundering Strike 1 x Impenetrable Nimbus 1 x Barge SRC_Guillotine Level 1 Elf Warrior The Bludgeonator Bejeweled Shortsword Lochaber Axe Spiked Tlahuiztli Slippery Shield Crusty Helm Goat Boots Risky Trickery Savvy Attacker 1 x Hardy Mail 3 x Vicious Thrust 1 x Weakened Armor 1 x Strong Bludgeon 1 x Flanking Move 1 x Team Run 1 x Ouch! 3 x Able Bludgeon 1 x Slicer 1 x Reliable Mail 1 x Barbed Platemail 3 x Nimble Strike 3 x Powerful Hack 1 x Unreliable Block 1 x Impaler 1 x Elven Trickery 1 x Weak Chop 1 x Dangerous Maneuver 1 x Vulnerable 1 x Mail 1 x Obvious Maneuver 1 x Immovable 1 x Powerful Bludgeon 2 x Obliterating Bludgeon 3 x Hard To Pin Down As you can see, I use basically the same items as other high-rated players. Good combination of damage+step attacks on the weapons, traits on the non-weapons for consistency, etc. The only thing that makes this somewhat unique is that I'm running 3 elves. I was very fortunate to have 2 Risky Trickeries, but even 1 would be enough - the warrior with Risky Trickery could have Cautious Mobility (though in that case I'd probably run Double-Edged Sword, or a second Bejeweled with some other equip shuffling). Both Risky Trickery and Superb Mobility should be obviously excellent items, and those cards have all won me many games. Elven Trickery is a no-brainer. Slippery lets you sneak behind an enemy and smack them for a lot; Elven Maneuvers is basically a free Martyr's Blessing, and Elvish Insight lets you plan your attack perfectly. Very standard (and boring) Mass Frenzy Priest. I should probably change Rusty Buckler to Twisting Shield, freeing up a token for Bleneth's Frenzy Medallion, as (surprise surprise) Mass Frenzy makes the team extra deadly. I really like playing with this team. It's stressful at times, but winning is super fun. I can also pretend to be special because not too many other people run elves, haha. I actually switched to 3 elves when the Gladius maps rotated in earlier this season. Before then, I was running 2 elves and 1 dwarf (hit ~1670), and the dwarf getting stuck behind difficult terrain really, really sucked. My main complaint with Dwarves is their stupid Walk. You're incredibly dependent on step attacks to go anywhere, and if you don't get any (or if a Wizard Frost Jolts you, or the annoyingly popular WW/WWE), you have a stranded, useless character. This team seems effective against most teams, including Firestorm. Against FS, you can get in on the enemy team faster, and start piling on damage! And they're hurting themselves too, which sorta makes your job easier. I don't play much, but I haven't lost to someone below 1500 in my last 60 games (which was probably when I was in the 1500s, myself). Indeed, winning streaks are very beneficial for raising your rating and not losing to people. These are highly recommended, and are much better than the alternative. Might have more to say later! But this seems ok for now.
Very Interesting choice of shields according to your weapons, as your warriors aren't even. I haven't seen much Slippery Shield recently, as most are using Parry and Dodge, but it makes sense using something like The Bludgeonator. Get in with NS or DC, hit your opp or remove blocks, block his attack with Htpd and then attack from behind with OB. It's even better if your first attack is from behind with dwarves, so you can remove Toughness from them and then it doesn't surprise you when you're using your OB from behind the target. One thing I would change: another Savvy Attacker instead of Superb Impaling. Impaling Stab is great and Impaler makes sense having 3 stabs, but Team Run is just one of the best and more versatile cards of the game, crucial when you're facing WW, no matter how many step attacks you have. And Savvy also has an Impaler as a bonus. Maybe you're trying to compensate a bit because that warrior doesn't have big attacks like the other, but with MF is more than enough I think. Also, why Crusty Helm, if I may ask? Obvious Manouver is very bad, it creates instant card advantage (not in number of course, I'm talking about revealed cards) for your opponent, the same way Elvish Insght creates it for you. Weakling's Helm, with Wimpy, is much more harmless. Besides, you already have 2 Ouch! with those armors, which means you're revealing cards more often than not. Anyway, well done! It's not easy to get to 1700 using elves in the current meta, and you've done it. You're earning merits for inheriting the Sorcerer's Guild
If he's already revealing the hand with 2 other cards in deck then there's less damage Obvious M. can do
That makes sense, although you'd have to draw both traits at the same turn with the same character to make Obvious Manouver more harmless. Otherwise it would still be worst than Wimpy imo.
Crusty Helm vs Weakling's Helm has been a really interesting topic for me. I used to favor Weakling's, because I agree that showing your hand is bad. However, the most frustrating thing for me was when Wimpy would push off one of my own attachments. Sometimes the damage reduction was relevant, too, but pushing off attachments hurt a lot more. Anyways, top rated players at this time were running Crusty, so I tried it out. Obvious Maneuver actually isn't too bad! I mean, Nimble Strike and Dash let you go wherever you need go, and then ideally you can dump your hand of attacks and everyone's happy. Sometimes you'll have another trait in hand too, which is always a nice bonus. I dunno, I like it. I think it works. Funny thing is, now it looks like all the top-rated players have switched back to Weakling's! Team Run probably is overall better than Impaling Stab. Having movement options never hurts. Impaling Stab has been so good for me though. It can 1. keep me out of range of other warriors, 2. as an elf, I can easily position myself to threaten an attack on two characters, and 3. helps me punch through Dwarves with Reliable Mail. Chalk this one up to either personal preference (or just me being stubborn). Remember, elves have an easier time recovering from an unlucky Whirlwind! I think? (And mayhaps can better capitalize on a favorable Whirlwind! I don't play with WW in ranked, so /shrug)
Interesting concepts. I do remember than Crusty Helm was the main helmet some months ago, and I didn't really get that, I was one of the only players using Weakling's back then (and I keep using it). But I understand that it can really hurt to lose a MF or a Martyr's Blessing because of Wimpy, I guess I hadn't thought about it since when playing WWe you don't have many worthy traits other than Inmovable maybe. And the Impaling Stab also makes sense, maybe it doesn't do much on its own, but with MF a 12 (Even 13 with Impaler) damage penetrating and range 2 attack is very good. About elves having it easier to recover from a WWe I'm not so sure though. A good player uses WWe mainly when the opp has used at least 2 moves, so the racial Dash doesn't make that much of a difference with human and dwarves.
I tend to favor Weakling's Helm when I have other damage buffs like Blind Rage or Mass Frenzy. How bad Obvious Maneuver is is dependent on how smart your opponent is. It's great when it comes up against players who don't think about their moves too much, but can be a huge disadvantage against more cautious players. I agree with Jacques though, I wouldn't have crusty -and- Tlahuiztli.
WTF I can't beleive Superb Mobility is a Common... Ranks right up there BSS. I agree with the Weakling/Crusty choice as I am starting to think that the vulnerable lasting for more than 1 round is worse than 1 round of cards being revealed (minus the replacement card), but I am on the fence. This might get me to use Crusty's when I am not using Necalli Cap spending the token for the movemenet and AoA. I wish I had a Huetotl's Firebrand, in the test server I immediately picked this as my favorite Priest weapon and who couldn't use a second loch (pre-nerf)? If you have a Bleneth's Frenzy Charm (not as good as the skull overall), but for no token you get 1 MF and 2 Unholy Frenzy which are a nice addition as they allow you to stack with MF and give a +5 for a couple of rounds. I love being frezied out with 2 or 3 frenzies at once.
