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Subject: Help me choose my character... 
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- I'm starting this game Monday with three other friends. I know a little bit about the game and my first decision is picking which character class to start with. For those that started the game, can you give me a few sentences about your experience with the class you chose? For example, What can they do special that other classes can't do? What makes that character fun ( or not fun) to play? Thanks!
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Spellweaver - ranged aoe damage dealer that can do some healing. She has good interactions with the elemental table.
Cragheart - a little bit of everything. Can be a tank, or a healer, or ranged aoe, or battlefield control, or a melee damage dealer. Depends on how you build him.
Brute - Pretty standard tank. Use defensive abilities, hit hard.
Mindthief - Weird. Totally cool, but the least straightforward of all the starting classes. Might be worth reading up on it before you play it.
Tinkerer - Largely heals, kinda slow. Can deal damage but is best on the back line.
Scoundrel - I still haven't played her.
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To expand a bitmournful wrote:Spellweaver - ranged aoe damage dealer that can do some healing. She has good interactions with the elemental table.Boom.... then Boom again.Quote:Cragheart - a little bit of everything. Can be a tank, or a healer, or ranged aoe, or battlefield control, or a melee damage dealer. Depends on how you build him.Create and destroy obstacles, create and use nature, "accidentally" hurt your alliesQuote:Brute - Pretty standard tank. Use defensive abilities, hit hard.Can also be built to hit very hard but less predictable than Speallweaver and Scoundrel.Quote:Mindthief - Weird. Totally cool, but the least straightforward of all the starting classes. Might be worth reading up on it before you play it.Buff yourself to be more defensive or more offensive, some status effects, and moderate damage.Quote:Tinkerer - Largely heals, kinda slow. Can deal damage but is best on the back line.Also a few useful summons.Quote:Scoundrel - I still haven't played her.Hits hard, hits fast, moves fast. Hits harder than anything with cooperation from allies. Limited self-healing.
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- Last edited Wed Mar 22, 2017 6:23 pm (Total Number of Edits: 1)
- Posted Wed Mar 22, 2017 6:23 pm
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Mindthief - Adaptable to any party but squishy at first. Has many different ways to play his cards once you begin leveling up a bit more. Can be a summoner, a status effect applier, a damage dealer, or a bit of a jack-of-all-trades.
He is not meant to tank by himself (though if you set him up right, he has quite a bit of sustain). Mixed ranged and melee attacks, but ranged attack do not benefit from his 'augments' (which are his class specialty). His ranged attacks do tend to have other effects though. Only consumes and generates frost and darkness infusions.
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- Definitely include Tinkerer, the most versatile character.
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From a gain standpoint:
Spellweaver: levels fast, collect loot fast.
Tinkerer: levels fast, collects loot slow.
Mindthief: Levels slow, collects loot fast.
Cragheart: Levels slow, loots ok.
That's all the basic classes we've played.
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My opinion on the order of complexity going from most complex to least:
Mindthief
Cragheart
Spellweaver
Tinkerer
Scoundrel
Brute
I could have easily swapped Tinkerer and Spellweaver, but I think the Spellweaver has slightly more nuanced decisions.
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- Scoundrel: Massive single target melee damage dealer. Best one against bosses. Our nearly onehitted two bosses. Very fast and very good loot-abilities.
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Listed in order of how much fun I have had playing them:
Scoundrel: My favorite starting class so far. She has multi-target ranged attacks, hard-hitting single-target melee attacks, fast initiative, trap removal, and lots of movement. But most importantly for my style of play, she can thin her attack modifier deck down so that it is almost all positive outcomes. This makes her a killing machine.
Brute: My second favorite. He charges into combat, pushes enemies around, and soaks up hits so that the more squishy folks in the party don't die.
Tinkerer: A solid asset to the party. He has quite a bit of healing capability to keep everyone else going, some good ranged attacks for when he is needed to "step up", and some fun summons to get beat on instead of the party.
Spellweaver: She attacks multiple targets at range and can generate quite a bit of damage. She also has some healing and summoning sprinkled in, if you choose to use it.
Cragheart: It has a little of everything in its deck (ranged, melee, healing, push/pull), plus some unique abilities like pushing monsters into obstacles to damage them. It is a little trickier than other classes to play because it has actions that can damage allies in some situations.
Mindthief: I know some people love this character, but I found her the most difficult to play. She is a melee character with the hit points of a mage (i.e, the lowest in the game). She can summon things to shield herself, has some interesting mind control abilities, and she can buff in a couple of different ways, but she still seems fragile to me.
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- Last edited Wed Mar 22, 2017 7:31 pm (Total Number of Edits: 2)
- Posted Wed Mar 22, 2017 6:29 pm
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Gevaudan wrote:From a gain standpoint:
Spellweaver: levels fast, collect loot fast.
Tinkerer: levels fast, collects loot slow.
Mindthief: Levels slow, collects loot fast.
Cragheart: Levels slow, loots ok.
That's all the basic classes we've played.
I mostly agree with the above. My slightly adjusted take and addition to those not included:
Leveling:
Scoundrel: Moderate-to-fast
Brute: Slow-to-moderate
Cragheart: Depends on group composition. Generally slow.
Looting
Tinkerer: Slow to moderate.
Cragheart: Slow
Scoundrel: Fast-to-did that money even touch the ground?
Brute: Slow-to-... slower?
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P0isson wrote:Gevaudan wrote:From a gain standpoint:
Spellweaver: levels fast, collect loot fast.
Tinkerer: levels fast, collects loot slow.
Mindthief: Levels slow, collects loot fast.
Cragheart: Levels slow, loots ok.
That's all the basic classes we've played.
I mostly agree with the above. My slightly adjusted take and addition to those not included:
Leveling:
Scoundrel: Moderate-to-fast
Brute: Slow-to-moderate
Cragheart: Depends on group composition. Generally slow.
Looting
Tinkerer: Slow to moderate.
Cragheart: Slow
Scoundrel: Fast-to-did that money even touch the ground?
Brute: Slow-to-... slower?
My Mindthief leveled very fast compared to the Tinkerer and Spellweaver I was playing with. I think varies based on playstyle. Just my 2 cents.
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ZombieDad2 wrote:I'm starting this game Monday with three other friends. I know a little bit about the game and my first decision is picking which character class to start with. For those that started the game, can you give me a few sentences about your experience with the class you chose? For example, What can they do special that other classes can't do? What makes that character fun ( or not fun) to play? Thanks!
I've been playing the Cragheart and he is pretty fun.
The coolest thing about him is that he can mess with obstacles. Creating them, destroying them, etc. As he levels up, he can do even more cool things with them. Or you can make him into a really solid ranged attacker.
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soakman wrote:P0isson wrote:Gevaudan wrote:From a gain standpoint:
Spellweaver: levels fast, collect loot fast.
Tinkerer: levels fast, collects loot slow.
Mindthief: Levels slow, collects loot fast.
Cragheart: Levels slow, loots ok.
That's all the basic classes we've played.
I mostly agree with the above. My slightly adjusted take and addition to those not included:
Leveling:
Scoundrel: Moderate-to-fast
Brute: Slow-to-moderate
Cragheart: Depends on group composition. Generally slow.
Looting
Tinkerer: Slow to moderate.
Cragheart: Slow
Scoundrel: Fast-to-did that money even touch the ground?
Brute: Slow-to-... slower?
My Mindthief leveled very fast compared to the Tinkerer and Spellweaver I was playing with. I think varies based on playstyle. Just my 2 cents.
I completely agree. Party composition has a strong influence on which cards you'll be able to use and where you position yourself relative to the loot.
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cbrua wrote:
Mindthief: I know some people love this character, but I found her the most difficult to play. She is a melee character with the hit points of a mage (i.e, the lowest in the game). She can summon things to shield herself, has some interesting mind control abilities, and she can buff in a couple of different ways, but she still seems fragile to me.
Two things I am finding out about mind thief:
1. She REALLY benefits from using initiative effectively. Going dead last one turn to get into position, then using blinding fast initiative on the next turn and ripping something in half.
2. Learn to use invisibility WELL - and consider getting an invisibility cloak and stamina potion too. Think an assassin or rogue mentality - slash, then fade away. Then do it all over again. and again. and again...
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A couple of additional comments:
The Tinkerer has a ton of flexibility. I played him primarily as a ranged damage dealer and rarely ran with healing cards. The rest of our party had some small healing tactics, so we didn't really need a healer. As a damage dealer, he's very interesting. It's really about timing your big attacks to be as effective/deadly as possible while realizing that you have to be careful about playing those big cards early. The in between times were filled with making this other small actions count. Eventually, I enhanced a couple of non-lost cards that really increased my damage dealing. I leveled pretty fast, but looting was often a little slower.
The Cragheart is awesome and also very flexible. He's great for guys with Shields because he had a lot of auto damage attacks. He seemed to level slow initially, but things picked up as his deck grew. Being able to literally change the shape of your battle field always made games more interesting. Our Cragheart went Ranged, but he also could've gone Melee.
Our Mindthief seems to be the fastest in terms of leveling, although he's also being played by one of the more experienced players. He's fragile, but he has some great persisting buffs that help him transition from great damage to healing. He had a few big attacks that can put down big damage of other players soften the target up with Conditions.
I'm not loving the Spellweaver, but all of her games thus far have been 2p...so fewer elements and fewer targets. I'm not the one playing her, so maybe the player just needs to be more aggressive, but her deck just seems to be full of straight forward moderate AoEs. Nothing big, and not a lot of combo potential. Still withholding judgment though.
The Brute is typical tank, but I still think he's fun to play with. He has some very helpful high level cards.
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ZombieDad2 wrote:I'm starting this game Monday with three other friends. I know a little bit about the game and my first decision is picking which character class to start with. For those that started the game, can you give me a few sentences about your experience with the class you chose? For example, What can they do special that other classes can't do? What makes that character fun ( or not fun) to play? Thanks!
In addition to the excellent comments so far, some additional resources:
https://boardgamegeek.com/article/24833919#24833919
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1732837/iconic-cards-each-s...
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- One thing about the Tinkerer that is unique is that ALL of your xp comes from losing your cards. This definitely takes some getting used to and can make it hard to get xp if you don't explicitly try. That being said, he is really fun to play and he's really a bag of tricks with all of his abilities. He's also got lots of healing (the most of any starting class I believe) so your teammates can really come to count on you. The variety of neat things he can do with his cards is very cool and thematic as he's got traps, bombs, nets, a decoy, and more. He's also all ranged.
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soakman wrote:
My Mindthief leveled very fast compared to the Tinkerer and Spellweaver I was playing with. I think varies based on playstyle. Just my 2 cents.
Same. Mindthief can be built for XP. I checked this in the FAQ, because it seemed so good: With an augment in play, you can play another augment, ignoring the augment part, and still get the (usually) Attack 1, 1xp.
Mindthief can get XP on many turns.
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Zottelmonster wrote:Scoundrel: Massive single target melee damage dealer. Best one against bosses. Our nearly onehitted two bosses. Very fast and very good loot-abilities.
Yep. I haven't found anyone to be able to do close to the damage she does. 20+ damage in one turn or pull and kill in another make her a wrecking machine for bosses and demons high HP enemies. Plus she is invisible half the time.
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mournful wrote:soakman wrote:
My Mindthief leveled very fast compared to the Tinkerer and Spellweaver I was playing with. I think varies based on playstyle. Just my 2 cents.
Same. Mindthief can be built for XP. I checked this in the FAQ, because it seemed so good: With an augment in play, you can play another augment, ignoring the augment part, and still get the (usually) Attack 1, 1xp.
Mindthief can get XP on many turns.
Exactly. But to get the experience you are usually sacrificing a generic attack 2 for an attack 1 (while ignoring the augment), so it's usually up to the player to decide if it is worth the 1 damage or not.
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I've thoroughly enjoyed playing as the Tinkerer, but having played alongside the Cragheart, Spellweaver, mindthief and scoundrel I think I would be very happy playing any of them. They're all quite unique and best of all just retire and switch them out.
The Tinkerer is a very versatile class and can be very opportunistic with looting as most attacks are ranged and makes very little use of elements so easy to predict your actions.
Mindthief is an interesting take on a melee class as it has low hp but can do fun "mental" powers to boost itself.
The brute is your standard run up and smash them.
Spellweaver probably makes the most use of the elemental infusions which can be fun to make use of for boosts but involves forethought of planning.
Cragheart is a fun class to make use of the features around you, creating, moving and destroying obstacles on top of general heavy hitting (but slow initiatives)
The Scoundrel is opportunistic with attacks moving quickly to take advantage of isolated enemies with boosts to melee attacks and unmatched looting.
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Mindthief - Everyone has mentioned that the Mindthief is the most difficult to play. The Mindthief is the most self reliant single-target damage dealer of the starting 6. She also has the highest utility with multiple crowd control cards that are not lost and a set of cards that control enemies. Her strength is putting out single target damage. Her weakness is AOE damage. Her uniqueness and difficulty comes from the ability to grant allies extra actions and control enemy actions.
Scoundrel - The Scoundrel is the best at looting. If you want to be rich, you want to be a Scoundrel. The Scoundrel is also good at single target damage but a lot of her highest damage attacks require allies to be close to the enemy. So the positioning of your team and the enemies can be a blessing or a source of aggravation. The Scoundrel is the worst at prolonged fights. She has 9 cards and will frequently be the first one exhausted.
Brute - The Brute is the tankiest member of the starting 6. The Brute's main downside is that being a tank in this game is hard and really requires items and experience. People who say the Brute is the simplest class to play often overlook this fact. Without nuanced positioning and card play, the Brute can often feel useless as he finds himself almost dead, constantly losing cards to damage and having to heal more often than not.
Spellweaver - The Spellweaver is the AOE queen. She has a huge amount of AOE spells at her disposal. She can do decent single target damage too but the only other starting class that can approach her AOE abilities is the Cragheart. She also gains experience very fast. The Spellweaver is actually tankier than you would think. The biggest weakness of the Spellweaver is crowd control. She just doesn't have that many options for stunning or immobilizing enemies.
Tinkerer - The Tinkerer is the best healer of the starting 6 classes. She also has a lot of utility, able to give allies cards back, extra attack and extra shields. She is the support player with a lot of tools to affect the battlefield. She's also not bad at putting out damage in a pinch. Plus with 12 cards (highest in the game afaik) she will outlast almost everyone else. But as people have mentioned, all of her experience comes from lost cards. That high card count does come at a price.
Cragheart - This guy is truly the jack of all trades. Good ranged damage, good AOE damage, automatic damage, good heal options, lots of CC. He is a very useful member to have in the party. The downside is that he is by far the slowest and most immobile of the starting 6 classes. He lacks low initiative cards and he doesnt get a decent top action move until level 8. What do you expect? You're basically a rock.
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- Last edited Wed Mar 22, 2017 11:09 pm (Total Number of Edits: 1)
- Posted Wed Mar 22, 2017 11:07 pm
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- THank's for all the great posts! I'm leaning toward the scoundrel or tinkerer, based on what classes others choose. I think both sound fun! Glad to get some insight!
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- Last edited Thu Mar 23, 2017 1:00 am (Total Number of Edits: 1)
- Posted Thu Mar 23, 2017 12:59 am
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These are great. We should share these with the group on Monday. I am so torn on what to play. Every class just sounds interesting. I was leaning towards Tinkerer, Brute, or Scoundrel, but now Cragheart sounds cool. Really the only reason I want to play the scoundrel is because I'm afraid they are going to get all the loot and I don't want to be missing some.
Has anyone experience with a Scoundrel in the group been "great the Scoundrel gets everything again". I just would be kinda upset if the scoundrel got to loot everything. But seeing as how they seem to get exhausted quickly maybe they need the loot.
I'm afraid about playing the Mindthief now. Pat as already claimed the spellweaver. He's been trying to play a mage like class in a few games and they al kinda turned out differently than expected. Brimstone withe the Preacher, and Warhammer Quest card game.
I was kinda thinking about just doing my class randomly. Maybe picking one I don't want to play. Then randomizing the others.
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- Last edited Thu Mar 23, 2017 12:52 pm (Total Number of Edits: 2)
- Posted Thu Mar 23, 2017 12:47 pm
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ZombieDad2 wrote:I'm starting this game Monday with three other friends. I know a little bit about the game and my first decision is picking which character class to start with. For those that started the game, can you give me a few sentences about your experience with the class you chose? For example, What can they do special that other classes can't do? What makes that character fun ( or not fun) to play? Thanks!
You'll find some helpful info here:
https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1737844/starting-charac...
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