Rate my Randimar's Rarities

Question for whoever would be willing to take the time to share their thoughts:

I'm a (somewhat new) casual player who very much enjoys the game but I don't have the time/interest to farm gold out of SP. It means I know my purchases are going to have to be judicial and I shouldn't necessarily buy items just because it's the best item at Randimar that week because I probably won't have the gold to buy for another couple weeks after that. I have no problem being patient - my problem is I don't know what items I should be targeting. I play both SP and MP (though in the campaign I've finished all the standard battles, all the "no deaths" quests and all the "only drawback items" quests). In y'all's opinions, what are the must-have items that I should watch for in Randimar to finish the quests and be able to compete/advance in MP? Thanks!

Edit: Grammar

 

Vibrant Pain, Lochaber's Axe

Anything else I'd just post on here as your randimar's updates each saturday evening and see what people think

 

Staff Of Winter, Shielding Token, Slippery Shield, and basically anything with Nimble Strike on it.

Also good are items with Flanking Move, Firestorm, Team Run, etc, etc.....

This week Randimar has graced me with a Lochaber Axe and Mouse Boots. Finally!!! Sold.

But the question is that there are a few other items available to me. We have Ogre Plate, Ripping Mace,Reaper's Scythe, Forval's Teak Staff, and Duncan's Leather Cap. I am particularly interested in the Reaper's Scythe but that will clean me out unless I earn a ton of gold this week. I also do like Forval's Teak Staff. Hehe...

 

Randimar hooked me up with Bewlin's_Baffling_Bauble this week, so I'll need no help there. I have some cash left over, though and the epics I am considering whether or not to buy include:
Angry Jack's Helmet (already have 1)
Bloody Shield
Boots Of The Foolish
Coruscating Mail (already have 2)
Unbalanced Doloire (already have 1, and it's nice for low level SP quests, but don't know if I'd use 2)

 

Don't like Coruscating Mail, or anything with Shimmering Aura for that matter. That is why I (probably) won't buy the Ogre Plate.
Bloody Shield is neat but probably not worth the token.
Boots of the Foolish are nice to have, but not much better than Chestnut Boots, which I prefer anyways.
You're probably fine with just 1 Unbalanced Doloire.
However, it's an eccentric mix of attacks, and it would be cool to equip 2 or 3 of them at once.

 

Poor news for me... Randimar brought mostly crap this week
Clowen's Boots - crap. I have some great epic boots... heck, even some common boots are better! No group moves, no blocks, nothing special here, but still needs a token.
Dianon's Staff - looks nice, 29 damage total, but Able Bludgeon for a wizard? Actually, Mighty Sparkping Staff is better, though it deals only 27 damage total. All its attacks have range 6, all are electrical, so Spark Generator will provide awesome damage. On the other hand, Dianon's Staff doesn't require a yellow token. Would you buy it for 2500 gold?
Mokad's Unholy Tome - I just cannot evaluate its usefulness, but paying 2500 for it?
Yvette's Buckler - looks like a nice shield, especially Defender's Block, but the rest are worse. I have a lot of great shields and prefer Slippery Shield, though it requires a yellow token. Would you buy Yvette's Buckler for 2500 gold?
Agility looks nice if you need Elvish Insight, but Dangerous Maneuver is worse than the regular elven move...
Frennik's Soulstone - utter crap.
Roaring Staff - finally something decent... One of the best Firestarter staves I guess, dealing 42 damage total without buffs and impressive 66 damage total with Firestarter. Mother may I buy it?
St. Ulrich's Bones - yes, I have it from the dungeon, as everyone does. Should I buy the second one? It's the only item with Bless in the game, and all its cards are pretty decent. If I ever build a Priest-Wiz-Wiz deck, Bless would be uber-powerful there, and I would be able to play Cleansing Ray on my own unneeded terrain improvements just to cycle the card.
Trained Toughness - no, I don't like it. Toughness is good, but the other cards aren't. What do you think?
Untrained Tactics - ouch. Is there a worse epic skill in the game?

So, I have 4 Legendaries and 6 Epics this week, but most of them are crappy. Would you buy anything from this list and why?

 

Dianon's Staff
Great Staff for certain builds, if you have plenty of gold, get one.
Roaring Staff
Not good for the tokencost.
St. Ulrich's Bones
Get another one, you have it already planned it in some kind of build.

The rest is not worth it.

 

That made me jealous I have Larkin's Orb, Farzil's Perplexing Horn and Axander's Twisted Circlet, but all three SPR... I'd happily buy two Baubles
As for the rest items, I wouldn't buy them. There are much better alternatives, often cheaper.

 

Thanks a lot for your reply, but could you be a bit more specific? What are the "certain builds" where Dianon's Staff is great? I don't need the full deck lists, just the idea.
Why Roaring Staff isn't good for the token cost? The only staff dealing more damage with Firestarter is Sabo's Flamespit Staff, and it's obviously great for its token cost (2 blue), but it's legendary. I wish I had two of them! Surely, Glob Of Flame is better than Flame Spit, but there are no staves with it, only trinkets.

 

-A firestorm build which needs direct damage because from level 8 onwards you need higher concentrated damage for certain enemies, this is only a point if you like to grind.
-The best damage staff for 2 blue tokens, especially combined with the usual Electroporter Novice.
-A high damage weapon with a drawback card is always welcome if you want to finish some quests.

In theory dots with additional damage from traits sound great but in reality they aren´t worth it because certain things must come together.
Like, the active trait, a firespell, enemies with no armor, enemies which live more than 2 rounds and the usual blocks.

 

Oh my God! I've always thought that Unstable Bolt doesn't qualify as a drawback! I've even bought two Staff Of Freezing Fire specially for the quests. Holy crap, I didn't believe you and tested a staff with Unstable Bolt, and it qualifies Thanks a lot, sir! Looks like I've got one playable legendary card at last

Yes, you're right, a combo is needed, but it can be assembled. Focused Pyromancy provides a good chance of drawing Firestarter, and I already have it. Getting a lot of fire attacks isn't very difficult - the same Firestorm comes to mind, and I've got Avakiria's Cup. Armor is a problem, right, but can be solved with acid terrain or Short Perplexion Ray which is needed anyway to defend against close combat characters. Note that many players use Combustible since nobody plays the fire spells now Plus, the dreaded trees in SP scenarious are Combustible too.

 

While you are correct in recognizing that Roaring Staff has fire attacks that combine well with Firestarter, this item is just inferior to a couple of tokenless staves: Trembling Staff and Staff Of The Inferno. At rare and epic, respectively, they are a bit tricky to collect, but well worth their tokenless costs. They have drawback cards that help you draw into that all-important Resistant Hide sooner. When putting together a lean & mean Firestorm deck, these items will be your staves over anything else. You may want to put in a Staff of Winter to keep your foes at bay, but Firestorm decks thrive off of the card draw engendered by running lots of drawbacks (Vulnerable, Squeamish, Combustible). It's nice softening your opponent up from 10 squares away with a Sizzling Bolt, but it's even nicer to be comfy inside your Resistant Hide thanks to filtering through your deck.

 

I don't have enough Firestorms to make that deck yet. I have one Trembling Staff (yes I know that it's good, though initially three black cards scared me), but no Staves of the Inferno.
I am trying to build a different deck now: two wizards and a priest with St. Ulrich's Bones. The priest will provide card draw, one wizard will be packed with Frost/control things, the other will be a pyromaniac with Focused Pyromancy. Firestorm is great to kill the masses of low-HP enemies, but it isn't as good in MP, where you have to draw your Resistant Hide, and your wizards generally have less HP and less armor cards than enemy warriors. Firestarter makes much more for Sizzling Bolt and Flame Spit than for Firestorm, since they have longer duration. And you don't need to draw any Resistant Hides. There are drawbacks too, of course: you have to target enemies with your attacks, which can be risky (Flame Spit has range of 4, for instance).
A hidden advantage of the deck should be a LOT of different cards attached to the enemy which should discard his own attachments. Each wizard can attach 2-3 cards per turn, and 3 cards on a char is a maximum. Is there a better staff for this theme than Roaring Staff? Maybe, Sabo's Flamespit Staff, but it lacks the long-ranged attacks and its "attachment-killing factor" is weaker due to identical cards.

 

If I ever see a Torching Staff I would pick it up. Tokenless, drawbacks, not bad.
I would go after any staff with lots of Ember Burst. It's just too easy to hit (multiple) targets with, including around corners.
For the record, I dislike St. Ulrich's Bones. One dropped for me a while back, and I must have seen it at Randimar's three times since. I probably should have bought all of them so I could spam Bless... now that's broken... no wait it isn't.... I hate that stupid card.

Seriously, if you stay still for long enough you are probably dead (with most builds).
I can see how it would be nice to combo with firestorming or some kind of armor/block build. But for the most part... it's just dead to me.
I'm gonna play Card Hunter a little bit extra this week and *hopefully* drop enough rare treasure for the Reaper's Scythe.

 

Lesser Furnace Staff has 3 types of burns. 2 are short range, which is a reason Escaping Run is good for wizards. I use it in several of my fire builds.
What I like least about Torching Staff is the short attack ranges. It works well on constricted maps, though.

 

I really like the Reaper's Scythe, and it is an exception to my "don't play weapons without 6 attacks unless the missing ones are all traits" rule. Too many turns with no attacks drawn have made me institute this policy. Reaper's Scythe is so good that I had to break my rule. You do shrink the number of red cards in your deck by playing it, but you get one trait, and I love Dodge. You may have to trim your deck a bit and incorporate more traits and black cards to play this weapon, but all the cards on it are solid. It is also perhaps the coolest looking weapon.

 

Yeah it looks waaay cooler than the Reap The Whirlwind that dropped for me a few months back. I was so mad.... XP
Reaper's Scythe combines 3 high damage attacks with low-cost Dodge and more Rage. Susurrus, after (ab)using Bolg's Club Of Evasion in SP, I would recommend that you add that to your exception list, it's pretty great and usable for the majority of campaign.
It does really annoy me that when you want your warrior to have 90% attacks you always have those 4-6 armor cards showing up.
I just love Dodge shenanigans. Although, I beat someone a few minutes ago with Improved TK since it's not an attack and the Dodge didn't work. XD
Perilous Ringmail, Crusty Helm, and Sticky Slippers. That is how you amp up your warrior's attack ratio. Even higher ratio with a Dwarf, thanks to their awesome trait-heavy card-generating skills.

 

Absolutely great staff for my theme, thanks. I'd happily buy two, but currently don't have even one...

"Any" staff with Ember Burst is at least epic I have Charring Staff, which is quite nice compared to most alternatives, but Wall of Fire doesn't combo with Firestarter. I would happily buy Barnum's Staff, but Randimar refuses to bring it for me.

Bless isn't broken, it's just very, very good in a right deck. If you can freeze your opponents and teleport them away, you can stay on the victory squares long enough (2 turns) without having a lot of armor/blocks. Good news: you don't have to stay at all, even if you play Bless as your last card for the turn, you will still get enough of the card. Finally, Bless can replace opponent's terrain which can be game-breaking.

How do you grind that rare treasure? At the Diamond mines?

 

I'm sorry but I strongly disagree. Well, I can't argue that Bless is a good card. But Bless is not "very very good", it is situationally good at best. Also it is not "game-breaking" by any means. I'm sure you think that it is useful, since you can replace that lava underneath your feet with Blessed Terrain. Chances are though that by sheer volume of means to replace that Blessed Terrain (or move your characters) that the moment you play Bless as your last card for the turn, your opponent will be waiting with a counter of their own. I mean, what, you are going to run 1-4 Bless on one priest against like 10-20 copies of things (per wizard) that will yank that Blessed Terrain right out under your feet? Sheesh. Bless isn't that great.

Actually, no. The Diamond Mines are the best place to farm common/uncommon treasures.

It's kind of annoying that all of the best Fire attacks (Flame Jet, Ember Burst, even Glob of Flame and Flame Spit) are exceedingly rare. I guess it just means that it would take a long time to make a decent fire deck that isn't just Firestorm or lava.

 

I've played a lot versus control wizards, and I have one such wizard myself. The terrain effects aren't their primary cards. Primary cards are Cone of Cold/Frost Jolt, Short Perplexion Ray and Winds of War/Whirlwind Enemies. Thus, they rarely have more than 2-4 terrain cards, and I will almost never encounter more than one such card in a round. If I will have enough Immovable, they will be unable to move my chars or spoil my terrain.

There are no cards that always turn the game to your side - that would be overpowered. But there are cards that do that quite often, and Bless is one of them. Just one card removes enemy terrain, heals your chars and provides extra cards.

I'm not sure whether St. Ulrich's bone worth a yellow token, though. It would be great if it had two Bless cards. One is too little.