Your favorite deck? (+ hero Tier list)

[Frostfeather]

Mine is Pierre with just Hearts of Winter (+% Chill on next cold card) and Blizzards. The Blizzards wreck all weaker enemies (with Potent just in case) and Hearts of Winter apparently stack exponentially.

4 or 5+ Hearts of Winter + Blizzard literally does 5,000-200,000+ Chill on the first enemy, depending on your level & setup. In boss fights, you just clear the adds then wreck the boss with it. Can literally do 100,000 Chill at level 20, lol.

What about you? Found any unexpected interactions or unexpectedly high stacking that makes for an op deck?

[Frostfeather]

Adding another Pierre deck: Firestorm + Una's Visage (helm that gives Wisdom of the Lands) + Double/Triple Casts. Optionally, add a Twinkle ring for automatic Guard on top of that, but it's likely not necessary.

Breaks the game. You get enough channel back on each Firestorm cast to let you cast one after another, from Double/Triple Cast. Then, just Incinerate/Explode bosses. I don't even bother with Balefire since you need to use Evocation III nodes on Firestorm or Triple Cast.

If the fight is going to be long, just only use the Temp versions of Firestorm so you're not Expending the originals and can keep re-drawing them.

I refuse to run a group without Pierre because he's got so many busted options, lol.

[Frostfeather]

Another Heart of Winter strat that's a bit unfair:

You have Frostwind, which takes effect at the start of combat and uses any exponentially stacking Hearts of Winter in your starting hand (make Frostwind Intrinsic with a Memory Rune if needed). Then, when it's Pierre's actual turn, use the tier II talent "Adaptive Strategy" and you get to redraw a full hand again... basically playing considerably more cards in a turn than you should be able to.

Try to get as much card draw as possible for more Hearts of Winter. This can literally "oneshot" bosses before anyone ever even gets a turn. Or at least start them with so much Chill you can finish them in 1 round.

[hihatss]

Thanks for the build ideas.
I have had a lot of fun on realms normal mode with Lucius. A straightforward build:
- diving spike for AoE
- Flaying spike for big damage
- Solid defenses for huuuuge Block
- The heal card with expend from warrior uncommon deck.

For skills get
As much card draw, card removal, extra AP, two handed gain might, +50% might and +100% might .

It's pretty solid damage, diving spike will one shot 4 mobs and Flaying spike will deal 700+ to two targets in a lane.

[Frostfeather]

Sounds fun. I haven't used Lucius as much yet. Been trying the ranger guy's turrets, the rogue's traps, the bard's Int-based support, many different cleric and druid decks, and more. But nothing seems to compare to Pierre for me in terms of power and versatility throughout all stages of the game.

Though Kudo's Frost Beam is pretty bonkers and looks really cool. I'm not a huge fan of his starting decks, but once you get to the tier III cards, he's quite good. Same with Ida's Volcano and/or Thunderbolt. Those two are some of the best after Pierre's overpoweredness.

[Frostfeather]

Got another one, a duo this time: Catherin and Naran. Can work with others besides Naran, but you need a Ranged Attack ability that simultaneously hits all enemies and Naran starts with one that only costs 1 AP.

Each one of Catherin's Precise Bolts triggers on every enemy when Naran uses Scatter Hit. Buff Naran with crit (Verse of Vigor, Empower, etc) and that damage applies to every enemy for Scatter HIt, too. Make multiple Precise Bolts Intrinsic with Memory Rune so you can do this the first turn before enemies act.

So if Catherin has 6 Precise Bolts, that's 6 Debilitating Bolts *per enemy* on top of huge crit-boosted Scatter Hit damage. Super easy combo to obtain since they're low rank cards, and super easy combo to execute... and super fun to watch everything chain.

Then later, add Catherin's Divine Form to recast *every single* Debilitating Bolt. With a lot of enemies, that's literally 50-100+ Bolts that go off. Both ridiculous and fantastic for boss fights with adds, since the boss will likely be the only target left for all the bolts when you use it.

[Frostfeather]

Going to soon be done with the game for now. Just to record my thoughts in case I come back, though: here's my tier ranking list for the heroes, considering all stages of the game.


S+: Pierre
He makes every battle at every level a breeze and he's got several ways of doing it. Some are ridiculously overpowered, like oneshotting bosses before anyone acts or on the first turn with Mana Burn or Hearts of Winter + Blizzard. Also clears trash quickly and easily. And he can Guard the group with Greater Barrier. Just an absolutely fantastic character.


S: Naran
Broken starting decks, especially Bard and Sonneteer. Bard wipes trash from level 1 with Verses of Vigor + Scatter Shot. And helps anyone with an Empowered skill and/or Finisher wreck single target by boosting base damage with - again - Verses of Vigor. Sonneteer is one of the only decks in the game to start with a tier III card, Chorus of Evocation, and it can be very strong early on. Only reason she's not S+ is because her tier III cards are a bit lackluster.


A+: Kudo, Catherin
Catherin has a fantasic early game since you can pick up Righteous Flame and/or Tempest Bolt immediately and they start strong. Precise Bolt is abuse-able (see previous post). What holds her back is mediocre and supportive tier III cards and a power curve that doesn't scale into the end game as well as others.

Kudo has some terribly awkward early cards, so ditch them quickly. He synergizes with others very well though, especially Pierre, which makes him a very desirable character. Any group with high debuff damage wants Kudo's Eternal Pain. Any group using lots of Burn/Chill/Shock/Poison benefits from Kudo's contribution to that. Any group with crit-boosting cards benefits from Kudo's Frost Beam and/or Void Orb.


A: Ida, Stroud
Ida has a somewhat awkward early game but a very strong late game. Her tier III cards are fantastic, so you might wait to swap her in until you're around that point. Volcano, Thunderbolt, and/or Tornado just wreck everything, and her pets are a little awkward but effective.

Stroud is weird. His deck manipulation cards are too expensive considering you can already easily manipulate your deck without spending AP. His crit boosting Insight is probably his best card (and has fantastic Int scaling), and therefore pairs well with Naran for crit-boosted Scatter Shot on everything. Naran can Chorus of Evocation his Searing Wrath to good effect, too. If not using Naran, Stroud can kind of "replace" her Vigor cards with his Insight. His many "push enemies into square formation" cards are useful for Pierre, Catherin, and others with strong square AoE's.


B: Lucius, Alphonse
Both solid characters, but have to work 2 or 3 times as hard to do what the above characters can. Personal favorites are Tactician Lucius and Saboteur Alphonse for buffing allies and trapping incoming waves of enemies, respectively. Poison Alphonse is pretty solid too, especially with Kudo in the group. Alphonse also has dagger build potential, but takes a more cards/time to come online vs others.


B-: Jendaya
Very awkward character who is hampered by starting with twice the cards, so she'll never be as strong or focused as the others. Having another controllable ally in Rocky is great, but doesn't outweigh the negatives. The rock skills are very awkward and as a combo they need to work 4 times as hard to achieve what the S-A rank characters do. Probably works well as a solo character, but she's not interesting enough to me to even try.


C-: Bertram
What a shame. Turrets have *so* many issues and Alphonse is better at traps. Turrets are somewhat buggy, sometimes considered "Allies" and sometimes not, sometimes targetable by other other heroes and sometimes not. The turret buffs generally don't stack, usually only affect the first hit (not the second), and some quite literally make the turret's attack worse by replacing it. The kicker, which is *crippling*: many turret cards including the turrets themselves cannot be modified with Runes since they lack a compatible Keyword. Almost everyone else can use runes to quickly modify decks better vs turret Bert. Takes a lot of experimentation to figure out exactly how the turret buffs work and even if you play perfectly (and don't have them blow up on you) you're still worse vs the above characters overall. I'd go with the archery deck if using him.



Probably the most absolute min/max group I could come up with would be Blizzard & Hearts of Winter Pierre, Frost Beam Kudo, and Verse of Vigor Naran (all with high Initiative). Vigor buffed Frost Beam wrecks anything that's not a boss, with Blizzard follow-up in case a little more area damage is needed. And multiple Hearts of Winter + Blizzard oneshots bosses, but Eternal Pain the Chill if it doesn't.

Scatter Shot, Void Nova, and Void Orb provide alternative damage types but shouldn't be necessary. All fights over round 1 with no damage taken.

You can also easily swap Kudo with Stroud, Ida, or Catherin, particularly Insight/Searing Wrath Stroud, Thunderbolt/Tornado Ida or Tempest Bolt Catherin so you're not canceling Chill/Burn. Ida and Pierre have one of the best duo Synergies in the game, too.

Or swap Kudo with Jendaya to stack crit on Rocky to blast all enemies & have Jen feed Pierre cards and AP for Mana Burn.

[hihatss]

Thanks for the writeup. Have you played solo realms? It really give the characters a new dimension. It might change your tier list. I'm really having a blast on nightmare solo is just soon much fun!

[Frostfeather]

I've done some of the solo stuff in Adventure mode, the area fight thing.

I think for the most part, my rankings would be about the same except Naran is slightly worse due to a general lack of good single target damage without a teammate to buff. Ida is slightly better since her summons can easily carry her until the rank III cards. And Jendaya & Bertram are slightly better due to Rocky & turrets feeling better without teammates.

Overall though, a single character's deck just isn't quite interesting enough for me so I prefer 3 character play. Most characters besides Pierre become a bit tedious to play solo for very long... and there's a huge imbalance in early game power that makes many heroes just painful to start with by themselves.

[hihatss]

But that's what's interesting about solo realms, the early game is really wild :). Once you hit Act 4 your deck is mostly done and smooth sailing. The constraints of having to clear crowds, high single target damage, have enough defense/healing and scaling for bosses all on the same character are really satisfying to figure out. How you can make each character work.
I personally find it tedious to manage 3 heroes and I start dreading level ups. I once had about 23 skill points just floating there on Bertram since I couldn't be bothered to mess with his grid haha .

To each his own!

[Frostfeather]

Originally posted by hihatss:

But that's what's interesting about solo realms, the early game is really wild :). Once you hit Act 4 your deck is mostly done and smooth sailing. The constraints of having to clear crowds, high single target damage, have enough defense/healing and scaling for bosses all on the same character are really satisfying to figure out. How you can make each character work.
I personally find it tedious to manage 3 heroes and I start dreading level ups. I once had about 23 skill points just floating there on Bertram since I couldn't be bothered to mess with his grid haha .

To each his own!

I may give that a shot after my current run.

One thing that might help using a group though: think of everything as part of a single thing mostly decided on beforehand. A single group working together, and keep each deck relatively simple with repeated cards from Mirror runes and Clones. Upgrade each hero with only the one or two things they're bringing to the whole to keep that focused so you don't have to spend much time on it.