Acolyte of the Dice Gods
I would like to introduce to everyone, my faithful and humble servant of the Dice Gods, my Priest. I don't know what it is that first brought me to the temple of these fickle deities. I've always preferred aggressive builds, and the Priest was originally sold to me as a more aggressive Priestess. However it came to pass, I was eventually drawn into their service and am now ready to spread word of their gospel.
What does one get for serving the Dice Gods?
An Introduction to the Priest
34 Life: Adherents to the faith can enjoy an average life expectancy. They are neither fragile nor exceptionally resilient.
9 Channeling: Service to the Dice Gods is very taxing. In addition to a reduced channeling rate, Priest's will want to leave 1 Mana available to activate Malakai's Fire (see below) almost every round. This leaves you with only 8 Mana to spend per round usually, the lowest of any Mage.
Hand of Purification: In addition to giving our Melee Basic Attack a fancy name, the Dice Gods have transformed it in the following ways as well. It is now Ethereal, giving it a boost in certain situations. As is typical of their benefits, the gods also give a random benefit in the form of a 33% chance to Daze. Finally it's damage has been increased.
Wait, you say I only deal 2 dice of damage compared to your Mage's 3 dice? Silly heathen, you are not looking at the big picture. My Hand of Purification deals Light damage and will Burn your Mage with the righteous wrath of Malakai's Fire!
Malakai's Fire: Possibly the biggest benefits to adherents of the faith are the purifying flames of Malakai's Fire. Each time our Mage deals Light damage they may pay 1 mana to Burn their enemies. Again, like most benefits of our Lords, this provides a random benefit of possibly doing more damage. Displease the Dice Gods and you will never see anything come from these Burns. However, if they show you their favor, you may enjoy infinite damage! Some have calculated the benefit of each Burn to be a little over 2 points of Direct Damage on average, but one should never expect their Gods to play according to the rule of averages.
Holy Avenger: Finally, if you so choose, the Dice Gods shall bless you with a Holy companion, ready to unleash their wrath upon your enemies. This Avenger is primarily a defensive buff, set in place to make your enemies regret attacking. It gives them the difficult choice of attacking a creature that is now much harder to kill with +5 Life, or suffering 2 extra dice of damage with Piercing +1.
Mission of Faith
Design Goals of this Build
I originally approached the Priest with the idea of doing a Beatdown build as a Holy counterpart to the Lord of Terror Warlock. He did very well against slower Mages. His Burns stacked up and they were sacrificed to his deities. However, against other aggressive Mages, he found out that he just could not compete. While Malakai's Fire is better than Battle Skill on average, and Holy Avenger is a really nice buff, the Priest's magical training just wasn't intended for an ultra aggressive approach.
He is trained in Holy magic and weak in Dark magic. Holy spells tend to be defensive in nature and prolong the game, while Dark magic tends to be much more aggressive and punishing. With this setup, he just is not as efficient at dishing out damage as quickly as other aggressive mages.
So, if he's not as aggressive as other mages, and not as defensive as the Priestess, what then is his role in the Arena? Well, as far as I can tell, the Priest is intended to favor the Mid Game and walk the line between offense and defense. When facing aggressive opponents, he wants to utilize his defensive abilities to slow the game down to a pace he's comfortable with and they're not. Meanwhile, against slower more defensive opponents, he can pile on the hurt and end the game before they pull off their plans. He just has to figure out what he's up against and play accordingly.
To that end, I'd like to call my final build "Disruptive Aggro." It still focuses more on the offensive side of things, but has some key defensive abilities meant to slow down other aggressive mages. In keeping with the favor of the Dice Gods, I'm relying on random luck to be on my side with these abilities as well. Daze and Defense rolls are his bread and butter when it comes to controlling an aggressive foe, with the occassional Stun thrown in.
Spellbook
My Actual Build
--- Attack ---
4x Pillar of Light (4 Points)
2x Fireball (8 Points)
--- Conjuration ---
1x Temple of the Dawnbreaker (2 Points)
2x Hand of Bim-Shalla (2 Points)
2x Tanglevine (4 Points)
1x Battle Forge (4 Points)
--- Creature ---
1x Samandriel, Angel of Light (5 Points)
1x Knight of Westlock (3 Points)
3x Asyran Cleric (3 Points)
1x Brogan Bloodstone (4 Points)
--- Enchantment ---
1x Force Sword (2 Points)
2x Bear Strength (4 Points)
2x Falcon Precision (4 Points)
2x Mongoose Agility (4 Points)
1x Cheetah Speed (2 Points)
2x Decoy (2 Points)
3x Nullify (6 Points)
1x Regrowth (2 Points)
--- Equipment ---
2x Staff of Asyra (4 Points)
2x Deflection Bracers (4 Points)
1x Dawnbreaker Ring (1 Point)
1x Regrowth Belt (2 Points)
1x Eagleclaw Boots (2 Points)
1x Dragonscale Hauberk (2 Points)
1x Storm Drake Hide (2 Points)
1x Enchanters Ring (2 Points)
1x Leather Boots (1 Point)
--- Incantation ---
1x Battle Fury (2 Points)
3x Dispel (6 Points)
2x Dissolve (4 Points)
2x Force Push (4 Points)
1x Lay Hands (3 Points)
2x Purify (2 Points)
2x Shift Enchantment (4 Points)
2x Teleport (8 Points)
2x Heal (4 Points)
Strategy and Tactics
After all my games, and scouring the forums to try and improve, I have to be honest that I'm still a bit weak in coming up with an actual game plan and adapting to my opponent. Though I would appreciate advice on changes to my spellbook, I'd appreciate even more getting advice on how to
RUN my spellbook, lol. With that said, here are my current Tactics.
Opener(10 Mana) Round 1 (+9)
(19 Mana) Cast Enchanter's Ring (-2)
(17 Mana) Cast an Enchantment (-1)
This is generally my opener every game. Mainly because it's cheap and I need all the mana I can get in the next few rounds. It's also adaptable. If I think I'm going up against a defensive player, I put on Cheetah Speed or Bear Strength to ensure I'm dishing out the damage (or Falcon Precision vs Forcemaster). If I judge them to be an offensive player or I'm not certain what to expect then I put on Forcesword or Regrowth. I also normally move 1 zone to get out of the corner, though not always.
I then have 2 different routes that I go down, and I'm not sure which is better. They basically differ in how I utilize Holy Avenger.
Holy Templar(16 Mana) Round Two (+9)
(25 Mana) Cast Knight of Westlocke and make Holy Avenger (-17)
(8 Mana) Enchant Knight (-1)
(7 Mana) Round Three (+9)
(16 Mana) Cast Staff of Asyra (-9)
(7 Mana) Cast/Reveal Enchant or Burn???
The point of this strategy is to turn both my Knight and my Priest into a threat so that my opponent is punished whichever one he decides to ignore. If he attacks me, he's taking a 7 Dice attack with Piercing +1. Possibly 9 Dice with Bear Strength. Meanwhile, if he attacks the Knight he is fighting through 3 Armor and 15 Life with a 42% Miss chance, one of the hardiest creatures possible. His one weakness is the Lightning +2, more because of it applying Daze/Stun than the damage it deals.
Speaking of Daze/Stun, Staff of Asyra is really an amazing weapon. It's almost as good as Galvitar in my oppinion, at least with a Priest wielding it. Against someone with no armor I'm doing an average of over 6 damage (Including Burn Damage) +67% chance to Daze/Stun with it (Galvatar does an average of 8 Damage with no Effect). If my foe has 2+ armor, then I'm dealing about the same damage as Galvitar (Since >2 of my damage is direct damage with Burn) and I still have the 67% chance to Daze/Stun. The only reason Galvitar wins out for best weapon in the game atm is because it's a Cantrip and has the Sweeping option to break guards.
Thus
Staff < Galvitar against Multiple Targets (No multi-target option)
Staff = Galvitar against Unarmored Single Target? (I'll trade less than 2 damage for a Stun/Daze)
Staff > Galvitar against Armored Single Target. (Same Damage + Daze/Stun)
Archangel(16 Mana) Round Two (+9)
(25 Mana) Cast Samandriel, Angel of Light (-21)
(4 Mana) Enchant Samandriel (-1)
(3 Mana) Round Three (+9)
(12 Mana) Cast Asyran Cleric and make Holy Avenger (-7)
(5 Mana) Reveal Enchant or Pillar of Light???
The plan for this route is similar to the first one, I have a big baddie in Samandriel coupled with buffing my Priest up. I choose to delay equipment and further buffs on the Priest though in favor of a really cheap and efficient Holy Avenger. Unfortunately the Holy Avenger buff is not enough to keep the little guy alive for ever in this case, and my foes know it. Thus they usually attack the Cleric and he's little better than a speed bump. I still think he's worth it though. that is 11+ damage that I'm not taking. And if I really want to, I can set Samandriel to guard to provoke BOTH a counter attack and extra damage from my Holy Avenger Cleric.
Not having my staff equipped right away kinda sucks, especially since I might have to focus on Defense for a little while if my opponent is aggressive, but Samandriel's attack can also Daze/Stun which makes up for it. Once I do get the Staff out, it's a 84% chance I'm Dazing/Stunning somebody each round which is really sweet.
Although Samandriel is not vulnerable to any kind of damage like Brogan is, and she has flying keeping her out of danger most times, she does have one glaring flaw. If she is put to sleep, my priest can NOT wake her up short of a Fireball. All of his damage is light damage. That's another reason for the Holy Avenger Cleric as back up.
Both BuildsAs of Round 3 my goal becomes the same for both builds. I want to attack with my Priest every round and apply as much burn as possible (One of the reasons for the Pillar of Light in the Archangel route is that I otherwise can't attack round 3; it gives me the ability to Burn and a 75% chance to Daze/Stun). Each round I either prepare 1 spell aimed at buffing myself or my big baddie, or a Pillar of Light to help ensure Daze/Stun gets applied. My second spell is an "oh no" spell to deal with whatever I think my opponent will do.
Final Thoughts
As I said earlier, I'm still not sure about my general strategy, but it so far it's been fun to play. I've been playing the Priest exclusively for a couple weeks now, and this final build has won 2 out of 3 games (all 3 against the same opponent). It is a very random and chaotic build that relies heavily on chance, but with the odds in your favor I think. Between Burn Rolls, Daze Rolls, and Defense Rolls, you will be praying to the Dice Gods quite often. I now invite the community to give me feedback and criticism.
