Temple of Dawnbreaker

[RomeoXero]

I recently used this in a priest book against my buddy's water wizard, and after a crazy long game I won. Turns out I've never really thought much about ToD. It just kinda sat there to boost temple of light. And in many cases i see most books abandon it all together.  But I think the priest benefits much more from ToD as he's likely to be taking more hits. Re rolling damage dice can be huge even if you dont have  defence.
So I wonder what the limit to its utility would be, it's obviously not replacing HoBS for pre erratta spamability. But the cost is low for a thing that lets you re roll a defence, that's super useful. Even the damage re roll can be clutch.
I'm thinking about a force master opening that drops 2 of these first turn in starting zone and adjacent one. Then puts on an extra defence and grabs her buddy or her Galvitar (haven't decided on everything yet). The temples can keep you safe and they are about the same mana investment as a big spawnpoint would be, my fear is that they rely too much on chance and that you could get totally burned with bad re rolls.
Out of school i dont think ive ever seen it played. Its 4 sp for non priests, thats not a huge investment. its not that squishy either, and i dont believe it required LOS to work (please correct me if im wrong here).
I'm starting to ramble, what do you think about this potentially awesome temple?

Edited for clarity* I was on my phone previously.

[echephron]

ive done it with forcemaster and a devoring jelly. i was underwhelmed, but it was ok.

[Sailor Vulcan]

Priest using two temple of the Dawnbreaker's and a guardian angel avenger? Nice! Plus hand of bim an tower of light...A circle of light and a dancing scimitar would also help there.

Anvil throne warlord using forge, dwarf panzer guards and temple of the Dawnbreaker's...?

Forcemaster: temple of the dawnbreaker is a somewhat more defensive play.
Forcemaster is usually an in your face kind of mage. The time and magic she used to cast the extra temple could be spent more efficiently. You can only use one defense per attack after all. That being said, she does have excellent access to the tools for a longer tanking strategy, it's just that she does in your face even better. Maybe when the alt Forcemaster comes out he'll have more defensive options. Right now I've only ever been able to make one defensive forcemaster, and she only turtles if my opponent rushes.

[echephron]

i never thought of anvil thrones 5+defense with the temple. thats practically a sure thing. my shielded reflex boots get disolved every single game already.

[Coshade]

Hey there,
I've been making a holy mage book that uses 4 Temple of Dawnbreakers. I've been leaning towards the priest with the book, but I am not sure if that is the right choice. TODs are awesome! it's like a reverse Akiro's Favor. Since the Holy school has a ton of defense creatures and tend to have decently armored creatures, it really helps out a lot. (it also combos with the crown of protection decently well). The biggest problem with running them is the mana investment. If you look at it like an enchantment that affects all your creatures though it's easy to justify it. I also tend to rely on the Temple of Light instead of bringing out attack spells since you can deal a lot of damage and have a decent chance to daze/stun.

I haven't actually played a game that uses all 4 TODs though. It could be that I was playing the priest (or perhaps people tend to rush Asyra Temple builds).

[jhaelen]

I recently used this in a priest book against my buddy's water wizard, and after a crazy long game I won.

I'm curious: How long is crazy long?

[Sailor Vulcan]

With a defense of 8+ and only two temples of the dawnbreaker, you have about an 80% chance of successfully avoiding an attack. With four temples it's 93% chance of success.

But even if you get out that many temples, you need a way to deal with enemy using more than 2 attacks. Temples are zone exclusive, and so are suppression orb and mordok's obelisk.

Plus, there won't be room for temple of light.

Priestess has a lot of access to healing and daze/stuns.

I recently made a tanking forcemaster AND a tanking priestess playing a rather similar strategy in two different ways:

Priestess doesn't have access to forcefield, and doesn't rely on defenses as much as forcemaster because she has access to healing, extra attacks from Temple of Light, and dazes/stuns. If you play her as a tank, she WILL take some damage, and that's okay, because your dazes/stuns and temple of light's attack will buy you time to use your action or quickcast action for healing.

The forcemaster of course relies on enchantments, like forcefield and mind control. When forcefield is down she still has defenses. Her extra actions come from her use of cheetah spy eed, ballista and dancing scimitar. And when her forcefield goes down, she still has defenses. A single temple of the dawnbreaker is useful here. The priestess probably only needs two.

The forcemaster build is working pretty well for me right now. I have yet to test the priestess. I'll probably post them both on here eventually.

[iNano78]

Regarding that comparison, the Priest(ess) also has cheap access to a lot of good guards, many of which have their own Defenses  (e.g. knights, Guardian Angel).  And when they aren't guarding, they give action advantage.  The Forcemaster... not so much. 

I think I'd rather have 1x ToD and 2x guards with built-in Defenses in play rather than 4x ToD and a bunch of equipment granting Defenses for the mage herself.  That said, if building around ToD, it's probably wise to have 1 or 2 equipments/enchantments that grant Defenses just in case you run out of (or get separated from your) guards.

[Sailor Vulcan]

So then I'd probably want to replace the second ToD with a guardian angel. Opening would be something like:

1. Guardian angel and ring of Asyra
2. Move and guard with guardian angel, move mage and cast tower of light in NC and a hand of bim shalla in corner.

At some point you'll want to bring out staff of Asyra to attack enemy mage. Since she starts out slower than Forcemaster tank because of angel, she's going to want ways of stopping enemy mage from getting away. Tanglevines, force holds stumbles, hindering and divine intervention for this. You could also use your teleport, but that's better for escaping enemy tanglevines.