There appears to be quite the derth in regards to updated information for people, like yours truely, who are thinking about getting into PvP but have absolutely no idea what items are the "must haves" and what the current meta is. So I implore you; o' you who have been playing since the great long-long ago, please do pity me and fellow returning players/newcommers and share your secrets with us. Although, if I have to be honest, I don't really care for Warriors and Priests myself and only really want hints for dual- and tri-wizard builds. But I'm certain that people with poorer taste than me would relish the opputunity to get some information as to what cards to hunt in Cardhunter's world of cardhunting. EDIT: Come to think of it, this might not have been the right place to put this. Also, first post on these forums from yours truely.
Welcome back! This looks like the right place for your post, and I hope you get some good replies. (I haven't played pvp in years, so won't pretend to know the meta, or even the map rotation.) In the meantime, you might spectate some games and/or seek guidance on MP chat. Good luck, and good hunting!
I'm not one of the top players, so my advice is probably mediocre. The curresnt map rotation is pretty wizard friendly. Big maps with little blocked terrain to hide behind. I think having "Teleport self" is very good on a couple of the current maps. My favorite item with "Teleport self" is "Evasive Disruptor" since it also has "Boiling armor" a very good card, and "Laser Beacon" an OK card. Since you're likely to be facing a lot of wizards on these maps, the cards "Smoke bomb" "Resistant Hide" and "Counterspell" might be good. There is a new cards for warriors and priests called "Vengeance" that lets people move if they suffer enemy damage. If you are playing wizard it is a very hard card to face. The card "Telekinesis" is good against it since you can move the enemy without hurting him. Good boots for wizards are "Hawkwind's Moccasins" "Cursed Gumshoes" and maybe "Boots of Safety". Good arcane items are "Asmod's telekinetic chain" and "Rod of Palver Pree". A good robe is "Robes of Lightness". It might not look so good, but keep in mind that traits allow you to draw a card. It is easy to underestimate how good traits are. If you are playing dward wizards "Robe of the Geomancers" is useful to give your characters mobilty. Good Dwarf Skills for wizards are "Lucky Thougness" and "Solid Rock" and maybe "Perfect Toughness". A good human skill is "Advanced Flexibilty." Wizard skills depeneds on what kind of tactic you are using. "Focused Pyromancy" is good if you're using burning cards. "Focused Electromancy" is good for electric attacks. If you are plaing Volcano wizards you might want to use something with Dimensional Traveler. If you are not using any of these tactics maybe go with "Novice teleportation". Staffs: Fireball is a good card. It is on "Staff of the Fire God" which I like and "Searing Pain." which many people like. Ember Burst is a good card. It is on "Staff of Embers" and "Staff of a million embers" "True Silver" seems to be extremely good, I have not tried it. I've heard "Staff of Chask" is supposed to be good, I have not tried it. If you want to play a cold wizard, "Staff of winter" is pretty good. Maybe also "Sub-zero staff." Many people use "Deadly, Deadly staff"
Sir Veza gives good advice. Others can give better advice than I, I expect, but I just thought I'd give you an unfortunate warning. It's a lot harder to build for a wizard than for a warrior. Priests can be hard to build for, but for different reasons. See, warriors, usually, run up and smash stuff, and they can use all manner of common-to-legendary items for a variety of stuff-smashing. Priests, well, they can be built in so many different ways, it can just be hard to balance what you're putting on a priest and why. Wizards, on the other hand, can often have pretty focused and varied goals to shoot for in building, but they're SO legendary-heavy, usually, that's why I say they're hard. That said, some old stand-by items, just off the top of my head: Armorbane Pendant - common Asmod's Telekinetic Chain - legendary Ring of Appropriation - epic Rod of Palver Pree - epic Staff of Chask - epic Heartripper - legendary Runestone - common iirc Blue Destruction - legendary Deadly, Deadly Staff - legendary Staff of a Million Embers - legendary White Flame - legendary Red Flame - legendary Runestone (I think is the name .. Winds of War, Wall of Fire, Squeamish) - common iirc Akon's Amulet - common iirc And some new neat things: Dynamic Staff - common Rust Creature Gland (Rust Creature's Gland?) - rare Malevolent Robes - rare Corrupted Feystaff - uncommon Lucky Toughness - common - Dwarf Skill Dainty Silversmith - uncommon - Elf Skill Focused Silversmith - rare - Elf Skill True Silver - legendary (although it should be cheaper .. bug in the formula .. bah) Silverwood Staff of the Magus - epic iirc Supercooled Laser - epic iirc Instant Snowman - epic? Plenty of other good stuff, too, of course. Just more niche or insane -- like Tasty, Tasty Staff (legendary) or Staff of the Inferno (epic). $;^ b Before I could post that above, Vlamona came along, mentioning some good boots. That's a good topic, and not necessarily as rarity-dependant, although Hawkwind's are great for a dwarf especially. (Little did I know when I first started, ha.) Depending whether you're looking for lots of movement, lots of armor, lots of traits, or even lots of heals, there are many good options here, yeah. Some people will make up for a dwarf's slow movement by packing extra speed here, whereas others will accentuate the dwarf's staying power with more armor/Immovable. Most people won't play an elf, but some of those who do will make up for the squishiness by packing strong armor (and/or Immovable) or healing, whereas others will bank on a speedy elf not getting hit in the first place and accentuate better movement options here. Also, if using traits on the racial, then making up for it with good moves on the boots might be wise. Humans? Not boring by any means, but their middle-ground-ness gives their options plenty of wiggle room. Using the excellent Subtle Positioning skill? More moves on boots might be wise. Using Lasers, Unstable Bolts, etc.? Perhaps more armor here instead. As has been said elsewhere on this forum (re: Macizo's parties), one key to great building is to make sure your party does something very well, and that each character does a job well, too (whether all doing the same job or all doing rather different jobs). Anyway, didn't plan to type anything more than "be warned, usually wizards are costly to build," thus I'll end here. $E^ J Fortunately, Castle Mitternacht did give some more (cheap) wizard options. (Unfortunately, about half its items include Boo! which got nerfed so hard after testing, that it's nigh unplayable outside some neat niche uses and/or one-off surprises -- meaning a lot of new decent-costing items never really seeing play, aww.) Hopefully someone better'll come along and guide ya. $:^ ] And, welcome to the forum! heheheheh
Seems like there are very strong arguments to be made in favor of maybe (just maybe!) either changing the rarities of certain Wizard items or creating more substitutes for the "must haves" with more reasonable rarities in the future. But that's an entirely different discussion for an entirely different thread. I'll have a look for some of the recommended items, although my main goal remains a The Twins focused build; because I've always had a soft spot for Magic Missile, no matter the medium. While we are on the subject of "must have" items, what would you recommend for people with a thing for Warriors and Priests?
"Sundering Strike" is a very important card for armor removal for both warriors and priests (unless you have wizards on your team). Shields: Parrying Buckler. Aegis of the Defender. Particularly good on a priest that are mostly to support rather than fight. Warriors Weapons: Bejewled Short Sword; Final Sword, Snitrick's Last Stand, Sundersong, Blocking Mace, the Strongarm. Many people like Vibrant Pain. Heavy Armor: Tom Ravager's Hide, Volkov's Impenetrable Hide. Maybe Spaceproof Carapace. Maybe Spiked Forcemail. Maybe Gauntlets of the Giant. Maybe Sturdy Armor. Helmet: Maybe Bubble Helmet, Belowing Helm can be good in some builds, I like Necalli Cap not sure if others do, Solid Iron Helmet, Impeccability. Martial Skill: Focused Lycanthropy, Howling Lycanthropy. Human Skill: If you have a warrior on your team, Make Haste can be a good item for the other characters so they can use Delagate on the warrior. Priests If you are playing a vampire priest (a priest that are using attacks that also heal the priest) good items are Hand of Melvelous, Flax's Thirsty Vial and Wuuna's Vampirc Shroud (these items have the same cards. It's weird.) Relic of the First Vampire, Maybe Kristoph's Scull, Glowing Hide Armor, Darkforce Nunchaco, maybe Vampire Knight's Embrace. You'll probably want a Divine Skill that uses Talented Healer. Divine Weapon: Healing Hand Mace, Evensong, St. Olf's Fiery Pike, Dark Drewg's Mace. Divine Item: Maybe Medical Kit, Maybe Ring of Majestic Healing, St. Ulrich's Bones, Tome of the Martyr, maybe Flawed Healing Ring. Divine Armor: Stargod's Railment, Glowing Hide Armor is pretty good even if you're not playing a vampire priest. Divine Skill: Altruism is usually a great card, though it depends on what other card your priest have. Use Advanced Piety, Novice Piety or maybe Focused Piety.
Ok, skipping a bunch of good items here. ? means I'm not sure it is actually that good Weapons: The strongarm Myrthril aegisblade? Mad centaur spear? maquah of ancient blood Rageblood dagger Troll's ire Lochaber axe? Eixocl's hammer? Double-edged sword Howling pain Stolen torch Blocking mace Whirling flail? Slice and dice? White katana? Nova axe Starkinfe snidrick last stand Bejeeveled shortsword Brutal flail? Powerpike? Shield Quinn buckler Unreliable heirloom shield hexagon shield bullseye shield? Rook? Parrying buckler Yvette's buckler? Throon's quick laser shield? Aegis of the defender Hawlic's surging shield? Armor: snarlcub hide spiked tlahuiztli perilious ringmail cuirass of froth Bronzebottom cuirass The softener Helmet Crusty helm Chateau of the afflicted artist? galvanized zombie helm? Tough leather cap Angry's jack helmet Commander cap bellowing helm? Bubble helmet Impeccability? Warrior skill Reckless lycantropy Novice impaler Delicate dervish? Superb impaling Sawwy attacker Angry attacker? Focused dervish? Twirling dervish? Blistering dervish? Priest Sacrifical axe Vampire mace Flail of fury True strike spear? Dark dweng's mace? Purging mace Inquisitor morningstar St. xarol mace St. olf's fiery pike Bynzer's black spear? Vampire knight's embrace? Knife of st. blenko huetotl's firebrand axe of dark souls? Eversong Glinting eye hammer? Monsterbane axe? Healing hand mace? Glowing laser baton? divine armor: Ghoul rags? expulsive greaves? Dark chain shirt? Sanctified shroud? cleansing shroud inspirational mail? Stargod raiments Mail of the martyr? divine item hand of melvelous Fingerbone of st. ob? Ravenna's incense? Greasy tome? tome of the martyr st. bethan's charm? shielding token? incense of roiled air amulet of inspiration xlaka's sacred boundle st. urlich bones vampiric console? medical kit? bleneth skull? divine skill: novice piety untrained piety? focused piety manifold healer Advanced piety Focused healer Staves Trog melter? Red jon staff? Mullik blisterstaff? Staff of peril? Staff of chask Corrupted feystaff overheated staff Painful flashstaff? white flame? illusion barnum staff staff of embers Feysentry staff? Subzero staff? Staff of winter? Supercooled laser Deadly, deadly staff Heartripper perimeter staff Prankster feystaff Staff of millions embers? Pearwood staff? Electro-laser?
Fwiw, Delegate is insanely powerful. Delegate wins games. Doesn't much matter on whom you use it; it's a "here, have a whole extra round" card. Also, vampires (not talking about Vampiric Form) usually do best with Focused Healer, although Manifold Healer can do in a pinch. Likewise, supporting Holy priests usually use Novice Piety because Altrusim x2 + Minor Heal is worth it for tokenless -- but if you find yourself hoarding an extra minor for some reason, then upgrading that Minor Heal for another Altruism or for Greater Heal might be your goal. Since Hello World put a question mark next to Impeccability, lemme just say all four Ready to Strike helmets are pretty great in the right builds. Aloyzo did a bang up job, crafting that new card, and itemizing it as such to where all its options are usable yet do not overshadow all other helmets. Beautiful.
Getting sweet items for three wizards can also be hard to get. So maybe consider how you want to spread your items amongts your party. Certain commons / uncommons which are easy to get can also take the place in the meantime of higher rarity items. There are also many wizards builds mentioned here on forums. But to be honest i think its better to go for discovering the best build for yourself, more fun, you get more familiar with the build as you craft and refine it, and it feels original. Also keep in mind that rarer does not always mean better. Items like runestone, have been, and will be, excellent.