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Survival advice?

AuthorMessage
Delver
Jan 18, 2013
230
I am a very defensive player, I use jade gear and have 82 universal resistance. My whole character (storm) is set up for survival, gear and deck. The other day in the arena I found a situation I couldn't defend myself against made possible with the new Aquila gear. This is not a complaint or a rant I just want to see your advise on how you could survive this?

I went up against another storm wearing the new crafted Aquila gear. I found out after the battle that he had 103% extra storm damage and 39 pierce.
He went first and dark wind went up on the first turn(I couldn't replace it because I was storm as well)
I summoned a minion and he took it out straight away with enchanted lightning bats, I gave up on this right away as it was 1 of his power pips to my 2.
He then put up a 20 piercing infallible so I put up fortify and kept it up the whole time.
At this stage he was cutting me down to only 23 resistance
Next came a wave of wild bolts and krakens, I would only shield if he trapped me or bladed. He figured this out pretty quickly and would only blade once then attack before I had a chance to shield. He would take off my shields with a storm wand spell and attack me when I was wide open(easy to do from first). This was ok because I could still heal myself faster than he was doing damage.
Eventually he bladed then used wild bolt before I could shield. The wild bot went critical and got through my block even though it is 60% and did a hit of 5600!
That is enough to take out even the most defensive ice wizard in one hit.

Is there anything I could have done to defend myself against this? Or was I just really unlucky?
Please don't just say kill him before he kills you. But if it turns out there is no way to save yourself from this I might just adopt the same strategy, it works very well.

Defender
Jul 26, 2009
168
Well, The two highest ranks in the boards at the moment are balance and storm. Storms run around with 550 critical and ~30-45% pierce.

You can most likely defend against a balance wizard for a decent amount of time and possibly win, however storm wizards are going to counter you with their pierce. keep a shield up and a weakness on. From the sounds of your stats, you are probably using heart steel, i would switch it to something with heal boost like the cl rings.

As a storm, you are going to want to keep an attack down (Lots of bolts) and likely keep a storm owl as a finisher.

Delver
Jan 18, 2013
230
Actually now that I think about it. Even if I continuously shielded or used weakness he could just keep taking them off with his wand spells until he had 5 power pips or more and then just wait for a moment when I run out and are wide open to hit me with storm owl or leviathan. Even without any blades or traps he could take me out in one hit as long as I didn't block his critical. And unlike wild bolt these spells guarantee 1000+ damage making it a lot more likely that he will actually kill me.

Mastermind
Jan 23, 2011
320
Ghost stone on Oct 13, 2013 wrote:
I am a very defensive player, I use jade gear and have 82 universal resistance. My whole character (storm) is set up for survival, gear and deck. The other day in the arena I found a situation I couldn't defend myself against made possible with the new Aquila gear. This is not a complaint or a rant I just want to see your advise on how you could survive this?

I went up against another storm wearing the new crafted Aquila gear. I found out after the battle that he had 103% extra storm damage and 39 pierce.
He went first and dark wind went up on the first turn(I couldn't replace it because I was storm as well)
I summoned a minion and he took it out straight away with enchanted lightning bats, I gave up on this right away as it was 1 of his power pips to my 2.
He then put up a 20 piercing infallible so I put up fortify and kept it up the whole time.
At this stage he was cutting me down to only 23 resistance
Next came a wave of wild bolts and krakens, I would only shield if he trapped me or bladed. He figured this out pretty quickly and would only blade once then attack before I had a chance to shield. He would take off my shields with a storm wand spell and attack me when I was wide open(easy to do from first). This was ok because I could still heal myself faster than he was doing damage.
Eventually he bladed then used wild bolt before I could shield. The wild bot went critical and got through my block even though it is 60% and did a hit of 5600!
That is enough to take out even the most defensive ice wizard in one hit.

Is there anything I could have done to defend myself against this? Or was I just really unlucky?
Please don't just say kill him before he kills you. But if it turns out there is no way to save yourself from this I might just adopt the same strategy, it works very well.
Idk lol ever since the Aquila gear came out I've seen wizards with over 500 critical and 30% base armor pierce. Maybe you shouldn't use your jade gear anymore and like you said adopt to that strategy.
Luke Thunderflame lvl 90

Mastermind
Mar 05, 2011
362
Ghost stone on Oct 13, 2013 wrote:
I am a very defensive player, I use jade gear and have 82 universal resistance. My whole character (storm) is set up for survival, gear and deck. The other day in the arena I found a situation I couldn't defend myself against made possible with the new Aquila gear. This is not a complaint or a rant I just want to see your advise on how you could survive this?

I went up against another storm wearing the new crafted Aquila gear. I found out after the battle that he had 103% extra storm damage and 39 pierce.
He went first and dark wind went up on the first turn(I couldn't replace it because I was storm as well)
I summoned a minion and he took it out straight away with enchanted lightning bats, I gave up on this right away as it was 1 of his power pips to my 2.
He then put up a 20 piercing infallible so I put up fortify and kept it up the whole time.
At this stage he was cutting me down to only 23 resistance
Next came a wave of wild bolts and krakens, I would only shield if he trapped me or bladed. He figured this out pretty quickly and would only blade once then attack before I had a chance to shield. He would take off my shields with a storm wand spell and attack me when I was wide open(easy to do from first). This was ok because I could still heal myself faster than he was doing damage.
Eventually he bladed then used wild bolt before I could shield. The wild bot went critical and got through my block even though it is 60% and did a hit of 5600!
That is enough to take out even the most defensive ice wizard in one hit.

Is there anything I could have done to defend myself against this? Or was I just really unlucky?
Please don't just say kill him before he kills you. But if it turns out there is no way to save yourself from this I might just adopt the same strategy, it works very well.
It is very very hard to defend against. I gave up high level PvP, partially cause I like mid level more (25-50ish) and partially because I didn't like mega critical. But I still have high levels with some rank. I haven't yet found a way to defeat it. So it works very well, until you run into someone else using your strategy.

Best of luck,
Wolf Skullslinger

Geographer
Aug 28, 2010
958
Ghost Stone,

Your posting seems to support the posting by Bran4971, where he states "Jade Gear no longer gives easy wins".
Not only has Storm started using Critical at extreme ratings (400+), so is Fire and Balance now.
Everyone complained on Jade Turtles and I think the Aquila gear was KI's answer.
Based on the charts, Storm and Balance are doing very well, so the Aquila gear seems to have been the answer to topple the Jade Empire.

My first Wizard was an Ice, so I still play ver defensive, just as you do. I'm not sure that we can do that anymore, as I have started to lose more and more 1v1 matches since Aquila. If the cards had a bad
shuffle, I normally have little chance in winning. I seem to have a chance if the cards show up when I need
them. On the other hand, if all my heals are in the last half of the deck, I usually go down and lose.

I'm beginning to believe that the days of the defensive deck is gone, and maybe even the control deck.
After being pounded into the ground several times, maybe it's time for you and me to switch over to a more
agressvie set of gear..... and let the critical wars begin.

justanoob.

Delver
Jan 18, 2013
230
Veracity8 on Oct 15, 2013 wrote:
Ghost Stone,

Your posting seems to support the posting by Bran4971, where he states "Jade Gear no longer gives easy wins".
Not only has Storm started using Critical at extreme ratings (400+), so is Fire and Balance now.
Everyone complained on Jade Turtles and I think the Aquila gear was KI's answer.
Based on the charts, Storm and Balance are doing very well, so the Aquila gear seems to have been the answer to topple the Jade Empire.

My first Wizard was an Ice, so I still play ver defensive, just as you do. I'm not sure that we can do that anymore, as I have started to lose more and more 1v1 matches since Aquila. If the cards had a bad
shuffle, I normally have little chance in winning. I seem to have a chance if the cards show up when I need
them. On the other hand, if all my heals are in the last half of the deck, I usually go down and lose.

I'm beginning to believe that the days of the defensive deck is gone, and maybe even the control deck.
After being pounded into the ground several times, maybe it's time for you and me to switch over to a more
agressvie set of gear..... and let the critical wars begin.

justanoob.
I realise that jade gear was over powered defensive gear. It's sad that they over compensated instead of making it more balanced. Not even the most defensive wizards can stand up to this new onslaught.

It looks like I'm just going to have to switch gear and start pounding. Convenient that I'm already storm.

Squire
Mar 07, 2011
520
My feeling is that the PvP department has gone too far into the extremes on too many fronts, at least in Promethean PvP.
  1. Too much resist
  2. Too much critical
  3. Too much of a Pierce requirement to win now
  4. Too much healing boost
  5. Guardian Spirit needs a max number or resurrections
The all out Attack Or Die strategy holds no interest for me. I enjoyed PvP more when you could utilize more subtle strategies, having more than one pathway to victory depending on the game situation, and usually one hit kills were very difficult to pull off successfully.

I wonder if this isn't why the whole Glendemming PvP gear was released, to give us die hard PvPers a new place to play until they figure out how to re-balance high level PvP.

Delver
Oct 26, 2010
236
Yea well, with 82 resistance under your belt, I am on the other storm's side. Your resist is UNFAIR. His damage and pierce is FAIR. If you cannot defend against a strategy, take off your crowns-bought gear and go for gear that people use that takes them months to craft, or months to earn as a drop.