The Daily Deal

Berian's Locket
Peon's Prescription for Prodigious Multiplayers
Berian's Locket is an oasis in a desert of crappy tokenless arcane items. Everywhere you look there's an Ember Spray or Maze staring back at you. While Glob Of Flame and Stone Spikes are great cards in a vacuum, there just aren't many wizards that want both of them at the same time. A burning wizard would rather have Azgul's Orb and a control wizard would rather have Asmod's Telekinetic Chain or Rod Of Palver Pree. Berian's Locket goes best on a wizard that wants extra kick from arcane items and isn't relying on Firestarter, so most likely a spark or burst wizard. Even then, Telekinesis type cards are usually preferable as insurance against getting rushed or moving an enemy character back onto freshly spiked ground. Would not purchase.

Peon's Perspective for Penny-Pinching Singleplayers
What are you doing fooling around with Berian's Locket? Go pick up some flowers and a box of chocolates and beg Firestorm to take you back. Would not purchase.

Substitutes
Rod Of Palver Pree (E)

Cinetotl's Robes- Mystical Drakehide looks cool but the majority of attachments you face in multiplayer are burning attachments which Resistant Hide handles with ease. In singleplayer, only discarding the attachment 50% of the time makes it too unreliable considering the low quality cards that usually get paired with it.
Emperor's Plate- The benefits of Arrogant Armor rarely outweigh the inability to buff up. Emperor's Plate also suffers from being worse than Bern's Untouchable Mail and more token restrictive than Impervious Panoply.
White Katana- Great combination of armor removal and mobility. It rarely does more than a couple damage but be careful about stockpiling attacks when you have Ouch! in your deck.

Notable Rares
Focused Teleportation- Dimensional Traveler can come in handy for avoiding damaging terrain and fleeing melee characters at the beginning of turns. It is hard to pass up on the tokenless Electroporter Novice though.
Superb Evasion- With Team Run gone Elvish Scamper is the next best thing, sometimes even better if difficult terrain is involved. It is obviously not so great if you expect to be facing a lot of elves but you will usually only see elven warriors and vamp priests that need to get close to you anyways.

 

Hand Of Melvelous
Previously reviewed

Gleaming Glaive- Polearm Slash is not worth running 3 awful stab attacks.
Pirate's Rapier- Very tricky weapon but incredibly low damage. This is not for the average warrior. Certainly not going to fulfill the number one job of wizard killing or the 14 attack quota.
Xander's Boots- I would rather run Ulalia's Boots both for the cheaper token cost and the extra cantrip move.

Notable Rares
Marmot Boots- Wild Run can be a pain if you draw it late but these give boots give a lot of movement at no tokens.
Slippery Shield- Nowhere near as powerful as it once was but a great option for increasing mobility if you have a limited collection. Make sure you use Hard To Pin Down as soon as possible if you need it for the movement when you are facing ranged characters.

 

I'd like to try something with this, but post-Dodge nerf, I'm not quite sure this is worth running. If I'm running low damage weapons, I'd rather do something like Spear Of Dancing. Then again, if you want to get Impaling Stab without spending a major token on a weapon, your options are this, Oversized Pick (hahahahaha) or Assegai (hmmm, there's an item to consider in Arrogant Armor builds, even if Fumble is terrible)

 

St. Hongjin's Soulstone
Peon's Prescription for Prodigious Multiplayers
St. Hongjin's Soulstone has 3 powerful cards and would go fine on a vamp with no buff support but you're basically paying for a glorified Shuddering Relic. If you want a real Mass Frenzy item you will want to look out for just about anything Bleneth. Whether it's Bleneth's Frenzy Medallion, Bleneth's Frenzy Tome, or Bleneth's Frenzy Pocket Protector why pay for only 1 Mass Frenzy when you could have 2 instead? Even Bleneth's Frenzy Charm gives you the same buffing power for the low low price of no tokens. There's nothing wrong with St. Hongjin's Soulstone but it has big shoes to fill. Would not purchase.

Peon's Perspective for Penny-Pinching Singleplayers
Sometimes it's correct to spread out your character's roles in multiplayer where people tend to go after one character so that you aren't stranded with a buffer with few attacks or a wimpy vamp. In singleplayer that all goes out the window. It's rare that the AI will go after one character and when it does happen you just need to re-position a bit so that it will go back to attacking the closest character. Go with streamlined decks and you will draw what you need when you need it. Do not settle for the cheap Bleneth knockoff. Would not purchase.

Substitutes
Shuddering Relic (R), Dworia's Soulstone (E)

Flashing Longspear- The best penetrating weapon out there. Double-Edged Sword is a little more versatile due to the step attacks but if you've got mobility covered Flashing Longspear is a strong option.
Vinorkin's Boots- Jump Back is way too unreliable to play. You need to have the squares behind you unoccupied, it doesn't give you the option to stand your ground like Dodge, and the 2 square jump usually moves you out of range for a counterattack for melee characters. It could be interesting for a wizard on an open map but you'll probably get cornered eventually.
Wlakwa's Boots- Very powerful high end but I like Sliding Boots better with the power level more evenly spread out.

Notable Rares
Sticky Slippers- A control wizard's worst nightmare. Great option for reducing deck size too.
Stormward Pauldrons- One of the best options for pairing with Enchanted Harness type cards. Even alone it will prevent a ton of damage but you may want to steer clear for dwarves.

 

Lots of players are going crazy over shuddering relic like "oh why buy Bleneth's Skull when you can have Shuddering Relic" - in my eyes i can see where they are coming from but Enervating Touch will be a dead card in your hand because you would want to keep your priest away from the enemy and behind blked terrain if vs mages because of Vulnerable.

 

I think the love for Shuddering Relic is more than anything a judgment of what items are viable as no-token options. Think about it this way - in MP you must take 4 no-tokens, 4 minors, and 4 majors. If you are building a non-vampire priest, how will you allocate these? Well, lets start at Divine Weapons. If you want to leave empty tokens on your weapons at all, you have no-token or single options only. Among those probably Vampire's Blade and Sacrificial Axe rise to the top... both of which are pretty dangerous to you and provide no buffing/utility cards. Maybe some other odd items are playable that I can't think of? You can get deck thinning for sure, but I expect most players will view the available or less Divine Weapons as unplayable and take some combination of 2 weapons that require 4 tokens. That leaves 8 token slots yet on your priest, with 4 required to be empty; Shield, Divine Armor, Boots, 3x Divine Item, Racial, Divine Skill. If you don't want any tokenless Divine Items, then 4 of the 5 other slots must be no-token. If I decide I want both Aegis Of The Defender and an upgraded racial, it means I have to field 1 no-token Divine Item. More than that if I upgrade more of those other things, like my boots maybe. The field of useful tokenless Divine Items isn't very big, and unless you have some key high-rarity items that leaves Shuddering Relic as the best option most of us are likely to have. Some of the slots I mentioned are fairly easy to leave without tokens - Glowing Hide Armor and Trained Cleansing come to mind - but I usually want 2 or more upgrades at shield, boots, and racial, which basically guarantees I play 1 or 2 Shuddering Relic until/unless I ever find better no-token priest items to replace them. Aegis, Wlakwa's Boots, and various upgraded racials are among my better Priest options right now - should I really leave 2 of those at home so I can take a more costly Divine Item instead of Shuddering Relic? Aegis, Wlakwa's, and high-end racials are enough better than the tokenless options I have in those slots to make me play Shuddering Relic, which as a no-token compares far more favorably to the best items in its slot than the shield, boot, and racial no-tokens that I have. I expect that idea, or some similar one, is why so many of us love Shuddering Relic right now; it's easily among the leaders in doing the least damage to your Priest build by trading down to it instead of a more costly token item. Some high-rarity things do better, but unless you've got 'em the Relic is where it's at.

 

When i thought i wrote too much about how i dont like shuddering relic...

ok ok i understand that you love shuddering relic (i will read through all of that in 2 hours and i hope i dont wast 30 mins of my life reading it for no reason

 

I know that for me, using Shuddering Relic is a habit leftover from when it was a better item. Using 2 or 3 of them was great when Vulnerable was only +1 damage, and Mass Frenzy was +3 melee. But now that the drawback is actually a drawback, I try not to run more than 1.

 

Shuddering was much better before Vulnerable got changed to 2 points instead of 1.
For 0 token divine weapons Vigun's Blessed Blade and St. Amarack's Cudgel are both pretty good, Vigun's the Sure Strikes are hit or miss and for St. Amarack's it is nicew for the Mass Frenzy, but nothing special otherwise and neither have any traits.
Bleneth's Frenzy Charm is a fun lil' tokenless and obviously Iljin's Savage Skull is great if you are playing with Mages.
There are other good tokenless it is really a matter of what you want to do. Of course the "vamp" items still can be used for a priest that doesn't go full Vamp.

 

Isn't St. Portia's Maul hecka good?

For tokenless divine items, I'm actually returning to Demon Charm Of The 2nd Circle. It used to be ridiculously good; then it got nerfed to hell... but with the changes to assists, I think it's one of the better divine items again.

 

Good tip. I like the 7th circle (Wellspring) but for a Yellow token it is expensive (if irreplaceable) but i might need to look at the 2nd circle again. Of course it is the Demon charm not demonic.

 

Sure the penalty for deck thinning with it is a little steeper now. How you value it depends on what you think about trading some potential extra damage on you in order to make your deck smaller. The value of a trait increases as the quality of what you're likely to draw from it increases, so it's probably true that decks built to be thin and players with more cool toys will both get better mileage from it.

Vigun's? Do folks actually play that? I personally evaluated it to be sub-par and would easily pick Sacrificial Axe over it any day. It's probably because I don't like Surestrike.
St. Amarack's feels very scattershot to me - doesn't excel at any clear thing, and lacks the focus to fit well in most builds. I can't see myself looking at St. Olf's or Huetotl's next to it and deciding to not pay up to switch out St. Amarack's. It's so behind in both attacks and buffs.

2x Unholy Frenzy vs Enervating Touch + Vulnerable. Frenzy Charm is better, but not by a wide margin in my estimation. I say use it if you have it, but I won't be ponying up 2500 any time soon just to get the marginal improvement over Shuddering.

Probably best for the build it makes. If you're trying to buff up some mages, you can hardly do better for 0 tokens. Wish I had some if for no other reason than SP farming.

For being a beatstick that's solid. Value depends how much you want your priest to do that. If I want beatdown I usually make a warrior, so I tend to value melee attack as a secondary stat on priest gear since it's not the reason I picked a priest in the first place. Sort of a "anything you can do I can do better" moment for team-building, I guess.

Intriguing. More of the same principle that makes Vulnerable good - pay your life to get cards. Cards on whomever you target are even better than cards that have to go on you, though. It's definitely worth a look.

 

I'll just point out that it has the same net hp difference as Strongarm (42), but 3 of the attacks are stabs that synergize with Talented Healer.

 

I've never seen the word "hecka" before, but if it means what I suspect, I'd say yes. I liked running vamps with a St. Portia/Vamp Blade combo. Chain drains, and finish with a bludgeon.

 

Hand Of Wicna

Spoiler: Previously reviewed

Angry Jack's Helmet- If you're going to spend a token on a helmet it's good to get a bit angry. Bonus points if your name is Jack. Walk, Team! on a non-human character can really catch people off guard, especially now that Team Walk usage is so low.
Helm Of Reinforcement- The poor man's General Jelom's Helm. Using major tokens on armor is not very popular since it takes away from your weapon options. You also usually only have 1 copy of marquee armor like Barbed Platemail to draw into though getting 2 Enchanted Harnesses in hand is basically the same as 2 Reliable Mails barring Bad Luck shenanigans. If you pick it up I would pair it with Yolotli Armor for the bonus damage and extra Enchanted Harness or Stormward Pauldrons for the 3 high armor value cards to buff.
Necalli Charm- Inferior to pure vamp items.

Notable Rares
Skipping Boots- Very nice pair of tokenless starter boots to hold you over till you get more powerful options.
Smoke Pin- Smoke Bomb is almost useless against any non-wizard party and your own wizard gets shut down too. However, it is practically a free win against any wizard that needs line of sight. Chit Of Choking Smoke is worse than Smoke Pin as you won't be able to target people with Glob Of Flame when there is an active Smoke Bomb on the field. Telekinesis at least repels attackers that try to get next to your wizard.

 

Instead of linking previously legendaries,how about quoting the previous review instead? That sound much more handy.

Also, is Angry Jack's Helmet worth buying? I been using Tough Leather Cap when I spend a token on helmets.

 

Sure, I can do that. I like Angry Jack's Helmet a lot more than Tough Leather Cap. It's not totally necessary but I bought the copies I own and still use them in some builds.

 

Thanks! Gonna buy it.

 

Surestrike is a lot of fun but it requires patience, you need to build around it a bit but if you are going for an AoA build it is pretty awesome. The patience comes in when using it as it kinda announces I have a killer attack in hand run away. Overall it is still a low level card which is why you can get it on a no-token item. As St. Amarack's well why wouldn't you trade up for a better weapon? But the idea was the need for 0 tokens. But as for Vulnerable it is pretty debilitating in my experience. Unless you can duck away for 2 turns you just put a giant bull's eye on your character and it is too often a death sentence, which is why I just don't see the appeal of Sacrificial Axe in the long run. But I am always focused on MP since I haven't seen your name before either we play off hours from each other or more likely you rarely play MP, since you don't see Vulnerable as much of a threat since the mobs are pretty terrible at adjusting to the game state (e.g. attacking a character with nimbus).
Personally I really miss Shuddering as a go to item. I got a Bleneth's Frenzy Charm pretty early on so it has been a mainstay in many builds in the past year.

 

re: Vigun's, I still just don't see it. If I have to take a no-token divine weapon, it's true I'd take Sacrificial Axe over it. That said, I would not really want to play either one in MP unless it was some specialized build that took great advantage of how small Sacrificial Axe can make your deck. So far the only 0-token divine weapon mentioned that'd I'd be okay playing generally in MP is St. Portia's Maul, which while it doesn't do any cool buff stuff, does pack a pile of damage for a 0-token. Given that it's legendary, that puts us in the same basic place I was explaining before - unless you own particular high-rarity items, your potential 0-token picks on a priest are really limited. If you have none of the best in slot items, it's easy to be in a place where Shuddering Relic is among your 4 best no-token things, especially if you have some cool boots / shields / racial skills competing for your tokens.