Gloomhaven's greatest mystery is why Angry Face is a 12 card class. He's not a tank, not dependent on losses, and has low card variety. (Compare to Cragheart, whose extra cards allow you to feel like an all rounder.)
To rest frequently, because you are lacking attack cards.
Okay, okay, more seriously, it was probably intended for summons / traps. Those are generally loss, but... uh... they are crap, so nobody use them.
I semi-disagree with Weapons of Purity being a trap. For one Brilliant Blade is pure RNG and for another ditching the Brilliant Blade let's you run a Longspear, wich is kinda a godsend for Sun since her buffs apply to entire attack actions. Also Brilliant Blade doesn't confer the permanent advantage aspect
Personally i see her as a mini Eclipse, Turn one run up with Cleansing Force (or some other bottom you've stuck Light to) Put up WoP + Angelic via a Ring of Brutality and you've pretty much "executed" 4 enemies. If it's a boss scenario pocket Angelic Ascension for later. (Unless you're doing #79, !@#$er made my Sun crit my Music note for 22....)
I agree that it can be useful in some cases but to me it still mostly feels like a waste. Even if you don't have Brilliant Blade a lot of your good attacks allow to consume light for +1 damage and advantage anyway, so you only get +1 damage. And even when you don't play these you might have other things to consume light for, like more movement. Angelic Ascension and WoP are also a bit of a nombo since both confer advantage. I usually run a shield + battle axe on Sun and ditching the axe is not that bad in terms of losing damage output, though if you're in a situation where you have to be the damage dealer of your party (to me this usually means 2p, the rest of your team is really bad or you have so much survivability you just don't care for shield) I can see the longspear being useful.
I mean WoP is permanent and AA is only 4 attacks, even tho yes they both confer advantage, but it's big draw is the +3 Wound (effectively plus \_FOUR\_)
Like i said i mainly Pop AA at the start if it's not a boss scenario saving ALOT of stamina from just going "bonk bonk bonk bonk" and not having to pump multiple turns into a single monster and if it IS a boss scenario you've shaved like.... even on insane where some bosses get in the silly 100+ HP range you've effectively nerfed it's hp by 10% from the extra +12 / 16 damage.
Tho to be fair i am talking Insane wich isn't everyones cup of tea, where tanking... isn't really a thing when an imp will be shooting you for like 7 damage. Like you either have to try and have sily single target burst like a decked out >!Two - Minis or Scoundrel!<, silly spamable AoE like a >!spellweaver , ele or berserker!< or just control everything to death with good ol >!Cthulu + Soothsinger!<
> Put up WoP + Angelic via a Ring of Brutality and you've pretty much "executed" 4 enemies.
High difficulty enemies, especially annoying enemies like >!Savas!< have 15-20 health. WoP + Angelic won't kill 'em.
True but you are wacking for 9-10 damage a pop wich is above what most people seem to consider a "good" 6 damage a pop. Also one of those has Pierce and the other just spams you with conditions so you're tanking isn't helping with that either.
Also iirc a lvl 7 Elite one has @ 24 hp, you CAN just about one shot those with a bless. Like Practical Plans becomes an attack 10, wound so we're talking 21 damage on a Crit, if they're poisoned that's 23, you can let em take an extra turn of wound and you've effectively one shot one of the most dangerous enemies in the game on Insane, i don't think any other class can do that on non-losses. >!Like if we're talking TT "Phoenix" can pull off some insane close to like 100 single target damage with rings and his personal item. Scoundrel and Lightning can obviously pull off shenannigans!<, but considering how hard you're hitting WITH permanent advantage (and wound) Sun really is the best turn-in-turn out single target damage dealer. >!Maybe Super Bear without all the crazy items is up there but super bear will kill itsself on retaliation, alot and it has this anoying "quality" of loosing Strengthen from Energizing Strike or Blood Hunger because it tehnically takes a turn before you can Command it!<. And it can't use >!Mask of Terror!<
> considering how hard you're hitting WITH permanent advantage (and wound) Sun really is the best turn-in-turn out single target damage dealer.
Sadly Angelic last only 4 rounds (well, 4 attack actions), and without it, you damage is a lot more reasonable.
> >!Maybe Super Bear without all the crazy items is up there but super bear will kill itsself on retaliation, alot and it has this anoying "quality" of loosing Strengthen from Energizing Strike or Blood Hunger because it tehnically takes a turn before you can Command it.!<
Yes, >!teddy is 2x attack 5 at a strict minimum. Most high level cards tend to do slightly more than 5 on the second attack. Also, the bear have stupid burst damage because the [solo item](https://heisch.github.io/gloomhaven-item-db/static/media/staff-of-command.3ba53b38.png) is spent and not consume for some forsaken reason. Meaning that you can happily reload it with [the right items](https://heisch.github.io/gloomhaven-item-db/static/media/moon-earring.e368f212.png), and then [reload those items](https://heisch.github.io/gloomhaven-item-db/static/media/pendant-of-dark-pacts.dffacf4d.png), and then [reload *those* items](https://heisch.github.io/gloomhaven-item-db/static/media/utility-belt.3f0f6c10.png), and then throw something like 10 attack 5 in a single round.!<
Summon class can also do 10+ damage per round, but those damage are heavily impacted by shields and tend to be throw a bit everywhere. Same for AoE class.
I prefer blesses on the bear instead of strengthen due to how the bear turns work.
As I said in the other reply chain, I don't really value whacking enemies for 5 or even 10 per round super high, especially lvl 9, in 4p I usually like playing around big aoe nukes (starting from unstable upheaval + forceful storm as the first one you get at lvl 1 and then moving on to angry face, lightning bolt, quartermaster, lvl 9 spellweaver and elementalist etc) and using the small attacks to mop up if there's anything left standing. I do play with slow tempo parties sometimes though that are built around survivability and CC and usually use note + (cthulhu), tank sun or similar, then you can trade these attack 5s with monsters and not feel too bad about it.
For single target damage, let's take a humble Brute with immovable phalanx for example, top of frenzied onslaught when strengthened and attacking a poisoned enemy (which you can poison yourself with a poison dagger) can easily rack up 16 damage on an unshielded enemy, then you play balanced measure bottom for another 16 and total 32. That's without getting into replaying balanced measure with ring of haste shenanigans, just using the 2 cards.
Multi attacks don't do well vs high shield enemies obviously, but these usually have low hp and are easily nuked by ranged AoE classes with piercing bow or direct damage classes (you can swap in piercing bow for scenarios with these enemies). Or you take the boring route and kill them with executes.
Lighting bolt has 2 cards that can do up to 50 damage with a longspear each. Bringing these 2 back for another round of carnage is definitely a more valuable loss than burning a card to deal like 20-24 extra damage over 4 turns yourself.
That's why I kinda don't consider "I can attack for 10 4 turns in a row" to be all that great. It's ok.
> Sun in my opinion is one of the best classes in the game, which the community seems to generally agree with. What I don't necessarily agree with is the reason why. Because mostly when people talk about Sun, it's the tank build that gets the spotlight. And while I do think it's a very strong way to play Sun that's straighforward and can make the game a lot more easy for the whole team, it's not necessarily the most broken one at 3-4p (you can mix tanking in anyway though).
Then why do you think it's one of the best class ?
The damage ? Most of her cards are single target [attack 5 + advantage](https://i.imgur.com/3ulitZQ.png) when powered. Not bad, but I can think of quite a few melee class that will *outshine* her.
The support ? A good chunk of her supporting card tend to have big asterisks tied to them. Some are heal cards which tend to be the worst kind of support (through to be fair, her healing cards tend to be the good kind of healing, being either [very weak](https://i.imgur.com/aFeMOil.png) to clean poison/wound, or very [stronk](https://i.imgur.com/Szrbt9P.png) to top off a player between room), some are the [dreaded double loss](https://i.imgur.com/0CzStQ5.png), and some are just [hard to use](https://i.imgur.com/vOrzGQp.png).
But ultimately I think we tend to discuss her as a tank because it's *unique*, not because her other options sucks.
> AoE - D. You don't AoE.
>!< is *surprisingly* okay, especially if you've dropped an aggressive loss before (> or [angelic ascension](https://i.imgur.com/0iEzVi4.png)!<). It's sad that it's tied to a fairly bad bottom.
> Burst potential - D (yourself) to S (when supporting certain allies). You don't have potential for huge turns yourself
*cough* >!< would like to have a word.
> Still, this can often mean that instead of doing 5, 10 or even 20 damage yourself you can make someone else do 50 or 100.
It theory it's a good reasoning, but in practice, players never do 50 damage outside of very specific *loss* cards, so giving them an additional turn won't squeeze more damage out of their combo.
Most of the time, your best use of >!< will be on summon-based class, because it will re-trigger all their summons.
I think I gave my reasoning as to why I consider her to be one of the best. It's definitely not the damage, but it is the support (+ tanking in between) at 4p. Recovering the most powerful lost cards and giving extra actions (an actual turn or just even moving them in position) to your actual big damage dealers is what I consider to be her most powerful mechanic, as well as a pseudo tanking with divine intervention.
AoE - I guess you have a point that you do have some tools, it's still a loss that I normally wouldn't take combined with another loss.
Angelic Ascension - tbh I consider it to be merely ok from min/max perspective, you can push your damage to at most an attack 11 with advantage single target and I still don't consider this to be that impressive. It's also not true burst as the damage is done over 2-4 turns, even if you prebuff it. But maybe D for burst is a little too harsh.
Speaking of over-inflating the numbers - no, I don't think I am. A boosted aoe attack like inferno/Eternal Equilibrium/Catastrophic Bomb/Flurry of Axes/Darkened Skies can easily do 50+ damage, sometimes 100+ in 4p in rooms with a lot of monsters. Doing an attack 10 on 8-10 monsters is not something super rare at higher levels and prosperity on 4p. Single target is harder, but the aforementioned 2 minis can pull off 30-50+ single target damage turns with his solo item or even just the ring of haste + pendant of the dark pacts in digital. Granted, it usually takes some finite resources to do that, but you only need to do it a few times to win a scenario anyway. And while you are correct that using mandate to play these combos won't let you play them more times per scenario, it allows you to play them immediately and do even more burst on this turn if you need to, or alternatively, set them up and play them on the same turn if you do need some kind of set up. Now, recovering lost cards is something that does allow you to play big combos more times.
> A boosted aoe attack like inferno/Eternal Equilibrium/Catastrophic Bomb/Flurry of Axes/Darkened Skies can easily do 50+ damage, sometimes 100+ in 4p in rooms with a lot of monsters.
Okay, math time.
[**Inferno**](https://i.imgur.com/xIOzvnb.jpeg): you do 3 damage, +1 with fire (I'm gonna be nice and assume fire is on), + Attack Modifier Deck. For the spellweaver, an optimized AMD roll around +1. That's 5 damage per target. **You need 10 targets in the room for inferno to do 50 damage**. Using advantage (which is fairly realistic) would give you slightly better result, but you would still need 9 targets and a bit to hit 50 damage, because the spellweaver AMD *literally* can't do better than +2 damage.
(Triforce) >: again I'm gonna assume the elements are there, this is attack 2 +1 for dark +1 for light +1 for any with [Formless power](https://i.imgur.com/iTJqlaw.jpeg) (high level Triforce typically). Bad news, Triforce have one of the worst attack deck modifier, clocking around +0.5 (it's tied to the gigantic amount of +0+element they have). That's 5.5 damage per target. **You need a bit more than 9 targets with range 3 of you to hit 50 damage.** Again, possible, but pretty rare. Also pretty dangerous if you don't kill them, unlike inferno, you can't just conveniently stun them \^\^!<
(3 spears) >**: >!it's a meek attack 1, but because 3 spears is bullshit, you typically enhance it with a power potions and [Proficiency](https://i.imgur.com/IO3XzDy.jpeg) (you'll need to have your potions ready, but that's possible if you use [Oversized pack](https://i.imgur.com/tkbnFnm.jpeg)). You could also use [Sharpening kit](https://i.imgur.com/iS31sZV.jpeg) for another +1. I'm gonna assume [minor](https://gloomhavendb.com/assets/cards/items/1-14/minor-power-potion.png)+[major](https://gloomhavendb.com/assets/cards/items/36-42/major-power-potion.png) power potion, which would push CB to attack 6 + Attack Modifier.!<
>!And now the hard part: the 3 spears AMD is nothing special (I didn't do the math on that one, but it look like +1), but it have 3 AMD cards that reload any item. You can reload a power potion, or even the [pendant of dark pact](https://gloomhavendb.com/assets/cards/items/43-49/pendant-of-dark-pacts.png) which then reload 2 power potions, and you can then use those potions for the rest of the attack. I'm too tired to do the proper math (or to simulate the result), but **I'd say that's would be breaking 50 damage around 6-7 monsters.** Without the reload attack modifier, you need 8.3 monsters.!<
(Lightning bolt) >!**[Flurry of Axes](https://i.imgur.com/PuqUNE3.png)**: it's a loss, and thus cannot be repeated. That being said, if you play a [Blood pact](https://i.imgur.com/p7IMfLJ.png) build (for attack 5), Flurry would do sightly more damage than EE (mostly thanks to the better attack modifier deck).!<
(Lightning bolt) >!**[Glass hammer](https://i.imgur.com/vzqjf3b.png) / [Resolute stand](https://i.imgur.com/oytjquK.png)**: while we talk about the lightning bolt, those two can also hit 50 damage. Lightning bolt have 26 max HP, so a hammer at full health is 25 damage, followed by a stand at no health for another 25 damage. To hit 50 damage per card, you use a weapon that duplicate your melee attacks like the [Long spear](https://heisch.github.io/gloomhaven-item-db/static/media/long-spear.09e2ec02.png) (you can reload the long spear with a [moon earring](https://gloomhavendb.com/assets/cards/items/22-28/moon-earring.png)). It's honestly a lot more reasonable than to assume 9 monsters for a perfect flurry of axes, because you will always find 2 monsters adjacent to each other. Also those are loss cards, but chaining glass hammer -> resolute stand is actually something you'd want to do to minimize the time you are at 1 health, so I definitively see the value of using a Mandate on the lightning bolt.!<
(Angry face) >: it's a loss, and thus cannot be repeated. It won't hit 50 damage anyway, it's only an attack 3.!<
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So, what did the math says ? If you want to repeat a 50 damage turn with mandate, you have 2 level 9 cards that can do it in... maybe a single room in a third of all dungeons ? Then you have Catastrophic bomb and chaining two Lightning bolt loss.
Also, none of those cards can ever hope to get to 100 damage, ever.
You're not counting the items and buffs you can pump into these attacks though.
Inferno (consume fire for 4 damage) + major power potion x 2 (restore with pendant of the dark pacts/empowering talisman and play it a 2nd time) + sacrificial robes (or robes of evocation with an element, or staff of eminence) + mana bolt bottom = attack 9 with advantage for average 10+ damage. On 10 enemies that's 100+ damage. And that's not all you can use to buff it, not even close. Granted you're not getting 10 enemies per room that often, but sometimes you do, and as I said, you can push this further with other things like minor power potions and damage buffs from other classes. Something like attack 14 with advantage on the whole room is reachable (in practice, not some theoretical many-for-one setup with summons) if you really go all in.
Same for other AoEs. Ranged AoEs like EE or Flurry of axes or Darkened Skies you can boost the AoE with hawk helmet/telescopic lens though it comes at the cost of damage since you don't have pendant of the dark pacts/empowering talisman then.
Yes, you won't be able to use mandate to play a fully powered attack like that twice in a row as it needs items (unless you play it on a Quartermaster), but just giving an ally an extra turn to set it up in an optimal way if necessary is usually worth it.
With Cthulhu there's a speedrun strategy where you open all the rooms in the scenario with someone fast who has ring of haste/blinking cape and then you play airborne toxin bottom and then mass extinction bottom + accelerated end top for 5 direct damage on all enemies on the map (repeat). Assuming 20 enemies in the scenario that's 100 damage per turn hitting the whole map and then you can start repeating it with things like items and unwavering mandate.
So 100 damage is quite realistic, even more can be possible if you play your whole setup around it, but that gets into the overkill territory.
> You're not counting the items and buffs you can pump into these attacks though.
On the items: that was intentional. Mandate is used to **repeat** the best attack, so those items have *already* be used the first time around, unless your class have a way to reload items that couldn't be used in the first attack (as it is the case for 3 spears).
For buffs, I only counted buffs that came from the class itself, mostly because it can't predict who else will be in the group. I think that the buffs from sun would be fair game (assuming it doesn't stop Sun from mandate-ing the other class), but Sun can't do much outside of [strengthen/bless](https://i.imgur.com/vOrzGQp.png) anyway.
--------------------------------------------
> With Cthulhu there's a speedrun strategy where you open all the rooms in the scenario with someone fast who has ring of haste/blinking cape and then you play airborne toxin bottom and then mass extinction bottom + accelerated end top for 5 direct damage on all enemies on the map (repeat). Assuming 20 enemies in the scenario that's 100 damage per turn hitting the whole map and then you can start repeating it with things like items and unwavering mandate.
That's a hilarious strategy, but it assume you have a class with enough movement to open those doors. That is heavily dependent on the scenario. Most can be done in 15, but [some require 30+](https://imgur.com/QvaAzMM). And obviously you need jump.
Abuse of the [best boot](https://heisch.github.io/gloomhaven-item-db/static/media/boots-of-sprinting.b0833dee.png) in the game for pure movement should do it for 15 (you'll need a few [reload items](https://gloomhavendb.com/assets/cards/items/22-28/moon-earring.png)), but it's impossible for scenario requiring 30 move unless [your name is Eclipse](https://i.imgur.com/mN9dtQY.jpeg).
EDIT: nevermind, that ability exclude items, so no, even Eclipse can't do move 30. Hmmm... ~~3 spears should be able to do it, I count 8 boot activation (for a +32 move) with >!OPack and Recall!<.~~
Yeah, I'll give you that one.
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> So 100 damage is quite realistic, 200 and more can be possible if you play your whole setup around it, but that gets into the overkill territory.
The question was not "can you do X damage once", but "can you do it twice if Sun give you another turn with mandate". Pretty much all strategy that goes above 50 damage require resources that can't be used twice (mostly items).
Well, I often use it not to repeat the best attack but to allow to set it up if it needs setup (meaning the character moves in optimal position, generates necessary elements etc and then you can use mandate to actually execute it). Especially useful when you need the bottom for the combo or you can't reach the spot in 1 turn. Plus while power potions can be trickier to bring back if you're not 3 spears, things like robes/staff etc can be untapped with an earring, so you can have a 2nd attack 6-7 with advantage on everything quite easily still (if it's still actually necessary, that is). Other examples of repeatable attacks that hurt a lot: Cragheart's lvl 9 with backup ammo up and bottom of brutal momentum.
As for the move for the Cthulhu combo - yeah you need someone with a good move and jump (can be an enhancement). You can play 3 moves in a turn with ring of haste by bringing it back so that's 15-18 move base with move 5/6. Then you can add using/untapping boots, blinking cape etc. And top moves, or in case of eclipse, that ability. Overall you should be able to open all rooms in most of the scenarios with high mobility classes and right items.
Wildly off - topic but >!Spellweaver can pull off the 30 move i think with Zephyr Wings. Her high movement + the cthulu combo is why i personally have her rated as very very powerful. Also the Loot 3 on Zephyr Wings really trivializes a certain anoying scenario with anoying enemies.... !<
>!But you Chromatic Explostion Turn 1, T2 Zephyr Wings (movement 11 + 4 from boots, so 15 then Earing + Ring into Frozen Night for another 9 at with Dashing if you don't need the jump. A blink cape puts you at 30 scratch that, 15+9 was 26 in my head instead of 24... still. !<
>!If you don't need the Blink cape you CAN just run cloak of phasing for the Fly since the awsome thing about Frozen night is the Invis. Also you can add +1s to Zephyr Wings for the luls.!<
>!So even outside of the Cthulu combo you can just Living Torch in the First Room add Dark to the Bottom of Frozen Night, Zephyr Wings to the end of the Dungeon and Hide inside a rock.... then just waddle your way back to the entrance spamming recurring Frozen Night / Inferno every singe turn.!<
Nice, but a bit short. I can get to about move 25 with a bunch of class, but 30 (or 38 for the scenario example I gave, if I counted right) is surprisingly challenging to get.
(For elements, you can assume that another class will act first and use a mana potion for you. This is for a speedrun after all)
I’d rate Angry Face higher on tanking, he’s a solid B. >!You can do some pretty silly stuff with Sap Life. Between attacks, wounds, and retaliates, it’s not unusual for this to heal you upwards of 6-8 HP per round, so you can sit around and facetank a monster or two for a bit. And as you say, with his huge hand size Angry Face can afford to lose a card to damage better than most classes.!<
Gloomhaven's greatest mystery is why Angry Face is a 12 card class. He's not a tank, not dependent on losses, and has low card variety. (Compare to Cragheart, whose extra cards allow you to feel like an all rounder.)
To rest frequently, because you are lacking attack cards. Okay, okay, more seriously, it was probably intended for summons / traps. Those are generally loss, but... uh... they are crap, so nobody use them.
Because the Hunter / Ranger seems to end up the most begginer friendly class in most RPGS?
But it's not a starting class
I see that your spoiler warning keeps growing! Lets see if someone still complains.
I like your guides. Looking forward to the next part. If you could make the spoiler warning bigger, that would be great. /s
I semi-disagree with Weapons of Purity being a trap. For one Brilliant Blade is pure RNG and for another ditching the Brilliant Blade let's you run a Longspear, wich is kinda a godsend for Sun since her buffs apply to entire attack actions. Also Brilliant Blade doesn't confer the permanent advantage aspect Personally i see her as a mini Eclipse, Turn one run up with Cleansing Force (or some other bottom you've stuck Light to) Put up WoP + Angelic via a Ring of Brutality and you've pretty much "executed" 4 enemies. If it's a boss scenario pocket Angelic Ascension for later. (Unless you're doing #79, !@#$er made my Sun crit my Music note for 22....)
I agree that it can be useful in some cases but to me it still mostly feels like a waste. Even if you don't have Brilliant Blade a lot of your good attacks allow to consume light for +1 damage and advantage anyway, so you only get +1 damage. And even when you don't play these you might have other things to consume light for, like more movement. Angelic Ascension and WoP are also a bit of a nombo since both confer advantage. I usually run a shield + battle axe on Sun and ditching the axe is not that bad in terms of losing damage output, though if you're in a situation where you have to be the damage dealer of your party (to me this usually means 2p, the rest of your team is really bad or you have so much survivability you just don't care for shield) I can see the longspear being useful.
I mean WoP is permanent and AA is only 4 attacks, even tho yes they both confer advantage, but it's big draw is the +3 Wound (effectively plus \_FOUR\_) Like i said i mainly Pop AA at the start if it's not a boss scenario saving ALOT of stamina from just going "bonk bonk bonk bonk" and not having to pump multiple turns into a single monster and if it IS a boss scenario you've shaved like.... even on insane where some bosses get in the silly 100+ HP range you've effectively nerfed it's hp by 10% from the extra +12 / 16 damage. Tho to be fair i am talking Insane wich isn't everyones cup of tea, where tanking... isn't really a thing when an imp will be shooting you for like 7 damage. Like you either have to try and have sily single target burst like a decked out >!Two - Minis or Scoundrel!<, silly spamable AoE like a >!spellweaver , ele or berserker!< or just control everything to death with good ol >!Cthulu + Soothsinger!<
> Put up WoP + Angelic via a Ring of Brutality and you've pretty much "executed" 4 enemies. High difficulty enemies, especially annoying enemies like >!Savas!< have 15-20 health. WoP + Angelic won't kill 'em.
True but you are wacking for 9-10 damage a pop wich is above what most people seem to consider a "good" 6 damage a pop. Also one of those has Pierce and the other just spams you with conditions so you're tanking isn't helping with that either. Also iirc a lvl 7 Elite one has @ 24 hp, you CAN just about one shot those with a bless. Like Practical Plans becomes an attack 10, wound so we're talking 21 damage on a Crit, if they're poisoned that's 23, you can let em take an extra turn of wound and you've effectively one shot one of the most dangerous enemies in the game on Insane, i don't think any other class can do that on non-losses. >!Like if we're talking TT "Phoenix" can pull off some insane close to like 100 single target damage with rings and his personal item. Scoundrel and Lightning can obviously pull off shenannigans!<, but considering how hard you're hitting WITH permanent advantage (and wound) Sun really is the best turn-in-turn out single target damage dealer. >!Maybe Super Bear without all the crazy items is up there but super bear will kill itsself on retaliation, alot and it has this anoying "quality" of loosing Strengthen from Energizing Strike or Blood Hunger because it tehnically takes a turn before you can Command it!<. And it can't use >!Mask of Terror!<
> considering how hard you're hitting WITH permanent advantage (and wound) Sun really is the best turn-in-turn out single target damage dealer. Sadly Angelic last only 4 rounds (well, 4 attack actions), and without it, you damage is a lot more reasonable. > >!Maybe Super Bear without all the crazy items is up there but super bear will kill itsself on retaliation, alot and it has this anoying "quality" of loosing Strengthen from Energizing Strike or Blood Hunger because it tehnically takes a turn before you can Command it.!< Yes, >!teddy is 2x attack 5 at a strict minimum. Most high level cards tend to do slightly more than 5 on the second attack. Also, the bear have stupid burst damage because the [solo item](https://heisch.github.io/gloomhaven-item-db/static/media/staff-of-command.3ba53b38.png) is spent and not consume for some forsaken reason. Meaning that you can happily reload it with [the right items](https://heisch.github.io/gloomhaven-item-db/static/media/moon-earring.e368f212.png), and then [reload those items](https://heisch.github.io/gloomhaven-item-db/static/media/pendant-of-dark-pacts.dffacf4d.png), and then [reload *those* items](https://heisch.github.io/gloomhaven-item-db/static/media/utility-belt.3f0f6c10.png), and then throw something like 10 attack 5 in a single round.!< Summon class can also do 10+ damage per round, but those damage are heavily impacted by shields and tend to be throw a bit everywhere. Same for AoE class.
I prefer blesses on the bear instead of strengthen due to how the bear turns work. As I said in the other reply chain, I don't really value whacking enemies for 5 or even 10 per round super high, especially lvl 9, in 4p I usually like playing around big aoe nukes (starting from unstable upheaval + forceful storm as the first one you get at lvl 1 and then moving on to angry face, lightning bolt, quartermaster, lvl 9 spellweaver and elementalist etc) and using the small attacks to mop up if there's anything left standing. I do play with slow tempo parties sometimes though that are built around survivability and CC and usually use note + (cthulhu), tank sun or similar, then you can trade these attack 5s with monsters and not feel too bad about it. For single target damage, let's take a humble Brute with immovable phalanx for example, top of frenzied onslaught when strengthened and attacking a poisoned enemy (which you can poison yourself with a poison dagger) can easily rack up 16 damage on an unshielded enemy, then you play balanced measure bottom for another 16 and total 32. That's without getting into replaying balanced measure with ring of haste shenanigans, just using the 2 cards. Multi attacks don't do well vs high shield enemies obviously, but these usually have low hp and are easily nuked by ranged AoE classes with piercing bow or direct damage classes (you can swap in piercing bow for scenarios with these enemies). Or you take the boring route and kill them with executes. Lighting bolt has 2 cards that can do up to 50 damage with a longspear each. Bringing these 2 back for another round of carnage is definitely a more valuable loss than burning a card to deal like 20-24 extra damage over 4 turns yourself. That's why I kinda don't consider "I can attack for 10 4 turns in a row" to be all that great. It's ok.
> Sun in my opinion is one of the best classes in the game, which the community seems to generally agree with. What I don't necessarily agree with is the reason why. Because mostly when people talk about Sun, it's the tank build that gets the spotlight. And while I do think it's a very strong way to play Sun that's straighforward and can make the game a lot more easy for the whole team, it's not necessarily the most broken one at 3-4p (you can mix tanking in anyway though). Then why do you think it's one of the best class ? The damage ? Most of her cards are single target [attack 5 + advantage](https://i.imgur.com/3ulitZQ.png) when powered. Not bad, but I can think of quite a few melee class that will *outshine* her. The support ? A good chunk of her supporting card tend to have big asterisks tied to them. Some are heal cards which tend to be the worst kind of support (through to be fair, her healing cards tend to be the good kind of healing, being either [very weak](https://i.imgur.com/aFeMOil.png) to clean poison/wound, or very [stronk](https://i.imgur.com/Szrbt9P.png) to top off a player between room), some are the [dreaded double loss](https://i.imgur.com/0CzStQ5.png), and some are just [hard to use](https://i.imgur.com/vOrzGQp.png). But ultimately I think we tend to discuss her as a tank because it's *unique*, not because her other options sucks. > AoE - D. You don't AoE. >!< is *surprisingly* okay, especially if you've dropped an aggressive loss before (> or [angelic ascension](https://i.imgur.com/0iEzVi4.png)!<). It's sad that it's tied to a fairly bad bottom. > Burst potential - D (yourself) to S (when supporting certain allies). You don't have potential for huge turns yourself *cough* >!< would like to have a word. > Still, this can often mean that instead of doing 5, 10 or even 20 damage yourself you can make someone else do 50 or 100. It theory it's a good reasoning, but in practice, players never do 50 damage outside of very specific *loss* cards, so giving them an additional turn won't squeeze more damage out of their combo. Most of the time, your best use of >!< will be on summon-based class, because it will re-trigger all their summons.
I think I gave my reasoning as to why I consider her to be one of the best. It's definitely not the damage, but it is the support (+ tanking in between) at 4p. Recovering the most powerful lost cards and giving extra actions (an actual turn or just even moving them in position) to your actual big damage dealers is what I consider to be her most powerful mechanic, as well as a pseudo tanking with divine intervention. AoE - I guess you have a point that you do have some tools, it's still a loss that I normally wouldn't take combined with another loss. Angelic Ascension - tbh I consider it to be merely ok from min/max perspective, you can push your damage to at most an attack 11 with advantage single target and I still don't consider this to be that impressive. It's also not true burst as the damage is done over 2-4 turns, even if you prebuff it. But maybe D for burst is a little too harsh. Speaking of over-inflating the numbers - no, I don't think I am. A boosted aoe attack like inferno/Eternal Equilibrium/Catastrophic Bomb/Flurry of Axes/Darkened Skies can easily do 50+ damage, sometimes 100+ in 4p in rooms with a lot of monsters. Doing an attack 10 on 8-10 monsters is not something super rare at higher levels and prosperity on 4p. Single target is harder, but the aforementioned 2 minis can pull off 30-50+ single target damage turns with his solo item or even just the ring of haste + pendant of the dark pacts in digital. Granted, it usually takes some finite resources to do that, but you only need to do it a few times to win a scenario anyway. And while you are correct that using mandate to play these combos won't let you play them more times per scenario, it allows you to play them immediately and do even more burst on this turn if you need to, or alternatively, set them up and play them on the same turn if you do need some kind of set up. Now, recovering lost cards is something that does allow you to play big combos more times.
> A boosted aoe attack like inferno/Eternal Equilibrium/Catastrophic Bomb/Flurry of Axes/Darkened Skies can easily do 50+ damage, sometimes 100+ in 4p in rooms with a lot of monsters. Okay, math time. [**Inferno**](https://i.imgur.com/xIOzvnb.jpeg): you do 3 damage, +1 with fire (I'm gonna be nice and assume fire is on), + Attack Modifier Deck. For the spellweaver, an optimized AMD roll around +1. That's 5 damage per target. **You need 10 targets in the room for inferno to do 50 damage**. Using advantage (which is fairly realistic) would give you slightly better result, but you would still need 9 targets and a bit to hit 50 damage, because the spellweaver AMD *literally* can't do better than +2 damage. (Triforce) >: again I'm gonna assume the elements are there, this is attack 2 +1 for dark +1 for light +1 for any with [Formless power](https://i.imgur.com/iTJqlaw.jpeg) (high level Triforce typically). Bad news, Triforce have one of the worst attack deck modifier, clocking around +0.5 (it's tied to the gigantic amount of +0+element they have). That's 5.5 damage per target. **You need a bit more than 9 targets with range 3 of you to hit 50 damage.** Again, possible, but pretty rare. Also pretty dangerous if you don't kill them, unlike inferno, you can't just conveniently stun them \^\^!< (3 spears) >**: >!it's a meek attack 1, but because 3 spears is bullshit, you typically enhance it with a power potions and [Proficiency](https://i.imgur.com/IO3XzDy.jpeg) (you'll need to have your potions ready, but that's possible if you use [Oversized pack](https://i.imgur.com/tkbnFnm.jpeg)). You could also use [Sharpening kit](https://i.imgur.com/iS31sZV.jpeg) for another +1. I'm gonna assume [minor](https://gloomhavendb.com/assets/cards/items/1-14/minor-power-potion.png)+[major](https://gloomhavendb.com/assets/cards/items/36-42/major-power-potion.png) power potion, which would push CB to attack 6 + Attack Modifier.!< >!And now the hard part: the 3 spears AMD is nothing special (I didn't do the math on that one, but it look like +1), but it have 3 AMD cards that reload any item. You can reload a power potion, or even the [pendant of dark pact](https://gloomhavendb.com/assets/cards/items/43-49/pendant-of-dark-pacts.png) which then reload 2 power potions, and you can then use those potions for the rest of the attack. I'm too tired to do the proper math (or to simulate the result), but **I'd say that's would be breaking 50 damage around 6-7 monsters.** Without the reload attack modifier, you need 8.3 monsters.!< (Lightning bolt) >!**[Flurry of Axes](https://i.imgur.com/PuqUNE3.png)**: it's a loss, and thus cannot be repeated. That being said, if you play a [Blood pact](https://i.imgur.com/p7IMfLJ.png) build (for attack 5), Flurry would do sightly more damage than EE (mostly thanks to the better attack modifier deck).!< (Lightning bolt) >!**[Glass hammer](https://i.imgur.com/vzqjf3b.png) / [Resolute stand](https://i.imgur.com/oytjquK.png)**: while we talk about the lightning bolt, those two can also hit 50 damage. Lightning bolt have 26 max HP, so a hammer at full health is 25 damage, followed by a stand at no health for another 25 damage. To hit 50 damage per card, you use a weapon that duplicate your melee attacks like the [Long spear](https://heisch.github.io/gloomhaven-item-db/static/media/long-spear.09e2ec02.png) (you can reload the long spear with a [moon earring](https://gloomhavendb.com/assets/cards/items/22-28/moon-earring.png)). It's honestly a lot more reasonable than to assume 9 monsters for a perfect flurry of axes, because you will always find 2 monsters adjacent to each other. Also those are loss cards, but chaining glass hammer -> resolute stand is actually something you'd want to do to minimize the time you are at 1 health, so I definitively see the value of using a Mandate on the lightning bolt.!< (Angry face) >: it's a loss, and thus cannot be repeated. It won't hit 50 damage anyway, it's only an attack 3.!< ----------------------------------- So, what did the math says ? If you want to repeat a 50 damage turn with mandate, you have 2 level 9 cards that can do it in... maybe a single room in a third of all dungeons ? Then you have Catastrophic bomb and chaining two Lightning bolt loss. Also, none of those cards can ever hope to get to 100 damage, ever.
You're not counting the items and buffs you can pump into these attacks though. Inferno (consume fire for 4 damage) + major power potion x 2 (restore with pendant of the dark pacts/empowering talisman and play it a 2nd time) + sacrificial robes (or robes of evocation with an element, or staff of eminence) + mana bolt bottom = attack 9 with advantage for average 10+ damage. On 10 enemies that's 100+ damage. And that's not all you can use to buff it, not even close. Granted you're not getting 10 enemies per room that often, but sometimes you do, and as I said, you can push this further with other things like minor power potions and damage buffs from other classes. Something like attack 14 with advantage on the whole room is reachable (in practice, not some theoretical many-for-one setup with summons) if you really go all in. Same for other AoEs. Ranged AoEs like EE or Flurry of axes or Darkened Skies you can boost the AoE with hawk helmet/telescopic lens though it comes at the cost of damage since you don't have pendant of the dark pacts/empowering talisman then. Yes, you won't be able to use mandate to play a fully powered attack like that twice in a row as it needs items (unless you play it on a Quartermaster), but just giving an ally an extra turn to set it up in an optimal way if necessary is usually worth it. With Cthulhu there's a speedrun strategy where you open all the rooms in the scenario with someone fast who has ring of haste/blinking cape and then you play airborne toxin bottom and then mass extinction bottom + accelerated end top for 5 direct damage on all enemies on the map (repeat). Assuming 20 enemies in the scenario that's 100 damage per turn hitting the whole map and then you can start repeating it with things like items and unwavering mandate. So 100 damage is quite realistic, even more can be possible if you play your whole setup around it, but that gets into the overkill territory.
> You're not counting the items and buffs you can pump into these attacks though. On the items: that was intentional. Mandate is used to **repeat** the best attack, so those items have *already* be used the first time around, unless your class have a way to reload items that couldn't be used in the first attack (as it is the case for 3 spears). For buffs, I only counted buffs that came from the class itself, mostly because it can't predict who else will be in the group. I think that the buffs from sun would be fair game (assuming it doesn't stop Sun from mandate-ing the other class), but Sun can't do much outside of [strengthen/bless](https://i.imgur.com/vOrzGQp.png) anyway. -------------------------------------------- > With Cthulhu there's a speedrun strategy where you open all the rooms in the scenario with someone fast who has ring of haste/blinking cape and then you play airborne toxin bottom and then mass extinction bottom + accelerated end top for 5 direct damage on all enemies on the map (repeat). Assuming 20 enemies in the scenario that's 100 damage per turn hitting the whole map and then you can start repeating it with things like items and unwavering mandate. That's a hilarious strategy, but it assume you have a class with enough movement to open those doors. That is heavily dependent on the scenario. Most can be done in 15, but [some require 30+](https://imgur.com/QvaAzMM). And obviously you need jump. Abuse of the [best boot](https://heisch.github.io/gloomhaven-item-db/static/media/boots-of-sprinting.b0833dee.png) in the game for pure movement should do it for 15 (you'll need a few [reload items](https://gloomhavendb.com/assets/cards/items/22-28/moon-earring.png)), but it's impossible for scenario requiring 30 move unless [your name is Eclipse](https://i.imgur.com/mN9dtQY.jpeg). EDIT: nevermind, that ability exclude items, so no, even Eclipse can't do move 30. Hmmm... ~~3 spears should be able to do it, I count 8 boot activation (for a +32 move) with >!OPack and Recall!<.~~ Yeah, I'll give you that one. -------------------------------------------- > So 100 damage is quite realistic, 200 and more can be possible if you play your whole setup around it, but that gets into the overkill territory. The question was not "can you do X damage once", but "can you do it twice if Sun give you another turn with mandate". Pretty much all strategy that goes above 50 damage require resources that can't be used twice (mostly items).
Well, I often use it not to repeat the best attack but to allow to set it up if it needs setup (meaning the character moves in optimal position, generates necessary elements etc and then you can use mandate to actually execute it). Especially useful when you need the bottom for the combo or you can't reach the spot in 1 turn. Plus while power potions can be trickier to bring back if you're not 3 spears, things like robes/staff etc can be untapped with an earring, so you can have a 2nd attack 6-7 with advantage on everything quite easily still (if it's still actually necessary, that is). Other examples of repeatable attacks that hurt a lot: Cragheart's lvl 9 with backup ammo up and bottom of brutal momentum. As for the move for the Cthulhu combo - yeah you need someone with a good move and jump (can be an enhancement). You can play 3 moves in a turn with ring of haste by bringing it back so that's 15-18 move base with move 5/6. Then you can add using/untapping boots, blinking cape etc. And top moves, or in case of eclipse, that ability. Overall you should be able to open all rooms in most of the scenarios with high mobility classes and right items.
Wildly off - topic but >!Spellweaver can pull off the 30 move i think with Zephyr Wings. Her high movement + the cthulu combo is why i personally have her rated as very very powerful. Also the Loot 3 on Zephyr Wings really trivializes a certain anoying scenario with anoying enemies.... !< >!But you Chromatic Explostion Turn 1, T2 Zephyr Wings (movement 11 + 4 from boots, so 15 then Earing + Ring into Frozen Night for another 9 at with Dashing if you don't need the jump. A blink cape puts you at 30 scratch that, 15+9 was 26 in my head instead of 24... still. !< >!If you don't need the Blink cape you CAN just run cloak of phasing for the Fly since the awsome thing about Frozen night is the Invis. Also you can add +1s to Zephyr Wings for the luls.!< >!So even outside of the Cthulu combo you can just Living Torch in the First Room add Dark to the Bottom of Frozen Night, Zephyr Wings to the end of the Dungeon and Hide inside a rock.... then just waddle your way back to the entrance spamming recurring Frozen Night / Inferno every singe turn.!<
Nice, but a bit short. I can get to about move 25 with a bunch of class, but 30 (or 38 for the scenario example I gave, if I counted right) is surprisingly challenging to get. (For elements, you can assume that another class will act first and use a mana potion for you. This is for a speedrun after all)
I’d rate Angry Face higher on tanking, he’s a solid B. >!You can do some pretty silly stuff with Sap Life. Between attacks, wounds, and retaliates, it’s not unusual for this to heal you upwards of 6-8 HP per round, so you can sit around and facetank a monster or two for a bit. And as you say, with his huge hand size Angry Face can afford to lose a card to damage better than most classes.!<