Marleybone, Your Gear Don't Matter None!

Dear Marleybone,

I do now hereby declare with as much attitude as an Angus Unicornpants can muster, "YOUR GEARZ ARE OVERRATED!!" Why? For Angus has bested your Meowiarty with no clothes on!


It's true! Angus beat Meowiarty last night in an epic struggle lasting many many minutes. How many minutes? pffft, that don't matter none. Minutes don't matter none! It's the win that counts, right? When you're soloing 3 vs. 1 with nothing more than what the good headmaster gave ya (as Tipa put it), it's going to be a longer fight.

I learned a few things along the way my friends, so let me see if I can't break a few of those things down for you:

1- There's a wall in Big Ben around the seventh level. I'm not talking about a wall wall, I'm talking about a wall of a fight: an ice caster thug backed by two life casting spiders. It's a three vs. one fight against casters who like to heal and shield, but what I found is that self-sacrifice can definitely lead to a win. You see, if you concentrate all your attacks on one of the spiders and do nothing more than take him out before the other two slaughter you where you stand, then you've won on the second battle because that life spider will not respawn. The same applies for the Meowiarty fight. You need to take out that golem life caster ASAP. Defeat is almost certain, but it's better to be defeated and take out the golem so that when you run back up to the top, it'll just be a 2 v 1 fight instead.

2- Don't get impatient. The third floor from the top has a couple of storm casting iron golems. They only have 545 hitpoints, but don't let these guys fool you as they can pack an incredible punch for a guy like Angus . . . with or without storm shields. Patience is extremely valuable with this playstyle. When you're playing with no gear on, you've got to always consider the amount of damage those mobs in front of you *could do* and always play it safe. heal. Don't even think about it unless you're holding a tempest treasure card with 100% accuracy and you're not debuffed with a weakness. I can't stress this enough. ALWAYS . . . PLAY . . . IT . . . SAFE! Patience is a virtue and moreso when the odds are against you. I'm pretty sure there's a life lesson in there ala tortoise and the hare.

3- Know thy enemy. Balance golems in Big Ben like to cast life spells. surprise! pack some life shields. I've been asked what Angus's secondary school is. If I was to describe a secondary school for Angus it would be called "Defense." Angus owns every single -80% shield available (you know, from sabrina in the fairgrounds of the commons?). Angus also went up life to sprite, grabbing the -70% death and myth shields as well (and reshuffle of course). It's good to know what things can cast against you. Although I didn't use wikia, this style of play is especially given to know what arsenal you're up against. btw, did you know Meowiarty can cast bladed stormsharks as a myth boss? Surprise! It took a few deaths to figure that one out.

4- Storm prisms win. The abundance of balance mobs in Big Ben also are fond of casting the -50% elemental shield spread. Storm prism after that series of shields is played will convert your damage to myth, which gives you a nice little boost against them as well.

5- The storm minion is your best friend, but only after five or six rounds. I would not have been able to win Big Ben without minion. Minion is an amazing tank. Although he's not always predictable, 50% of the time he plays like this: sprite on himself, elemental shields, taunt all enemies, sprite on himself, elemental shields, storm trap . . . and when he has three pips spirit armor. Some times he'll cast the shields, sprites, and even that beautiful spirit armor on you. Storm minion takes some time to warm up, but once he has their attention, you are free to do things like break those nasty debuffs off of you and possibly get off a heal if he's got enough taunt.

6- get pips fast. My treasure deck consists mostly of three cards. Golem Minion from the myth class, the sap power treasure card (gives 5 pips and kills minion -- not the 4 pip variety), and an accuracy card of some sort. If you use these treasure cards, you have to realize that a battle like this costs you around 1,400 gold. In a previous thread someone said jokingly, "Angus don't care none about gold!" noooooo, Angus LOVES gold. Gold = treasure cards. luckily both sap power and golem minion are in abundance at the bazaar. BTW, did you know that sap power no longer will use a storm blade, BUT it will get rid of weakness? Anyway, in three rounds you can have a seven pip tempest ready to roll OR you can have a few heals worth of pips at your disposal. Either way, getting pips fast rocks especially since with this style of play you don't get the benefit of using a wand that gifts you a pip at the beginning of the round. Every pip counts. I'm sure there's a life lesson in that somewhere: keep a coin jar, kids (and don't play those stupid claw games at Walmart, would ya'? They're SUCH a ripoff.)

7- Low and slow . . . like you're cooking steaks out on the grill. It took a few turns to wake myself up to what my deck needed to look like. The winning deck was three legend shields (-70% myth/death), three storm shields (-80% storm), three fairies, a storm minion, two reshuffles, a blade, a trap, a prism, and a tempest. I shielded up, healed, minion, reshuffle, continued to shield myself until minion had agro, and then I shielded minion with legend shields and storm shields. Then I reshuffled and built pips. In the end, our defense was definitely our strongest offense. minion had elemental shields, legend shields, storm shields, and spirit armor while casting sprites and storm traps a plenty. You wanna know what won Meowiarty? one pip spells from my starter wand. I couldn't do much else . . . Meowiarty kept shielding against storm AND with my low mana, it was actually safer to cast wand spells than tempest spells, a couple of fizzles on a fully charged Tempest, and I would have ran out of mana before winning (minion don't care none about doing damage, he's a tank). In retrospect I should have had a storm snake spell in my deck instead of one of the other spells. Meh.

Here's the last few minutes of the fight for y'all YouTube style. :)



SO YES, it is now onward to Mooshu and all the joys therein. Next major challenge? Those pesky oni's. Wish me luck. I'm gonna need it.

OH YEAH! And before I forget, here's the next item of the day: It's the Samoorai Bust. Hidden in a fire in Hametsu Village, you'll find this little doorstop just waiting to be picked up. ;-)


Happy Dueling!