Creating a character in Erannorth starts by choosing your Race & Class.

This is a very important decision as it will define:

Your starting Attributes

Your starting attributes are the sum of your Race base attributes & Class attribute modifiers. You can further increase or reduce them by spending points up to 18 and down to 8 before you start playing, and during your level up after you start playing.

You get 8 attribute points + 1 at 30, 60, 90, 120, 240... and then every +120 points of combined mastery, till you reach the cap of 25 starting points.

For instance your 120 Mastery Lycanthrope / 120 Mastery Mercenary has a 240 points of mastery and thus you'll have 8+5=13 points of attribute points to assign. But so will your 30 Mastery Fay / 210 Mastery Illusionist. etc.

Pro Tip: Increasing an attribute over 16 at level up costs 2 points instead of 1. So if you plan on let's say have two attributes at 16, it will be more cost-efficient in the long run if you set one at 15, and the other at 17. Then at level up you can spend 1 point instead of 2, to make your 15 a 16.

Your starting Deck

Your starting deck usually contains 12 class cards and 8 race cards, but you can change it as long as it doesn't have less than 20 cards. Advanced and expert classes have a higher min Deck requirement but may offer you more powerful cards or more starting ally slots in return etc. Different Game modes like Draft may force a different Deck Limit. For example in Draft you pick 12 cards to build your starting deck regardless of the archetype's Deck limits. While in Agent you need to have a deck with at least 30 cards etc.

The main problem you will face at this point, is that you don't have access to any additional cards or skills. So your starting deck cards will make your life easier or harder.

Your starting Skills

Your starting skill cards consist (usually) of 12 Racial Skills & 18 Class Skills. Which you can freely add as cards to your deck up to 3 copies at any time as long as your Deck count isn't above 60. Or remove as long as your deck count doesn't go below 12. Some game modes like Drifter or Draft remove all the Skill from the Player. While some more advanced archetypes come with less or no skills at all.

Your starting Equipment

Your starting equipment consist of either a main or an offhand weapon from your class or race. Then as you play you can find both Racial, Class or Generic Equipment.

Equipment are special cards that you can consistently use once per turn. All Equipment slots are optional. Equipment is divided in active and passive. i.e You choose when to use your Main and Offhand and they keep coming back each turn. Whereas there are Armor and Accessories that always trigger automatically at the start of your turn.

Pro Tip: Trigger order for synergies is Echo Actions => Armors => Accessory => Ring => Amulet => Cloak => 1st Card you Play. If any of your equipment is marked as active, instead you draw it in your hand after the Draw Step.

The Perks you can access and which further Disciplines you can learn

Your Race & Class each has access to a different set of perks you can learn by spending Perk Points. Having a class & race fully compatible with each other can enhance your strengths, but it will also not mitigate any of your weakness and may offer you similar choices in terms of growth.

In addition to those some perks are Universal and all characters can pick them up to diversify their strategies.

Your starting resistances & affinities

There are 11 damage sources in ER. Having a positive resistance of +x means that you receive x less damage from that damage source. While -x means that you are vulnerable and receive x more damage from that damage source.

Resistances can only be acquired from your Archetypes, Perks & temporarily from Cards you play or have equipped.

Affinity is how effectively you can use a damage source. +x means that your cards of that damage source deal +x max damage. While -x that they deal -x max damage. Your damage range is then always max/2 to max.

For instance if you go to the Card Collection without having any class or race ie. at game boot. You'll notice that x card deals 0 to 1 Piercing damage, and another y card 2-4 Astral etc.

This means that your affinity will make these cards stronger or less powerful. In the first example if my character has +3 Piercing that x card now deals 2 to 4 damage. But if they have -2 Astral that same y card will now deal 1 to 2 damage.

Pro Tip: Mind your affinities!

Affinities are acquired by your Race, Class, Perks, Attributes & temporarily from Cards you play or have equipped. This will make some combinations easier or harder to begin with, but at the end how each one will go can vary based on your perk, attribute, and card choices.

Updated 21/07/21

Attributes are really important as they determine your damage source affinities and also other secondary attributes. Like initial HP, AP and Handsize.

Clicking on the help icon, next to attributes will tell you this:

Physical & Mental Attributes affect how well your character performs in situations and skill checks that require them.


Strength:

Grants bonus to Slashing [xx], Bludgeoning [xx] & Piercing [x] Damage.

Agility:

Grants bonus to Slashing [x] & Piercing, Poison [xx] Damage and to your Initial actions [x].

Resilience:

Grants bonus to Bludgeoning [x] Damage and to your Initial Health [xxx].

Willpower:

Grants bonus to Fire, Water, Earth & Air [x], Light & Dark [xx] Damage and to your Initial Actions [x].

Intellect:

Grants bonus to Fire, Water, Earth & Air [xx], Astral, Poison [x] Damage and to the Initial Hand Size [xxx]. (Hand size can never exceed 7 regardless of Intellect bonus or Perk Benefits.)

Charisma: Grants bonus to Astral [xx], Light & Dark [x] Damage.

Overall xx means that value is multiplied 2, x means that is multiplied by 1, then the result is added and divided by 3. This gives the value to get the bonus from. xxx doesn't mean what you think :P it means that this attribute is the only one governing this affinity or secondary attribute.

That's all nice and cool, but it's not what you needed this guide. Let's talk formulas ;)


Slashing Affinity
= (2x Strength + Agility) / 3

Piercing Affinity
= (Strength + 2xAgility) / 3

Bludgeoning Affinity
= (2x Strength + Resilience) / 3

Poison Affinity
= (Intellect + 2xAgility) / 3

Elemental Affinity (Fire, Air, Earth, Water)
= (2x Intellect + Willpower) / 3

Karma Affinity (Light & Dark)
= (Charisma + 2xWillpower) / 3

Astral Affinity
= (2x Charisma + Intellect) / 3

'Initial HP'
= Base Race HP + Base Class HP + Retroactive Resilience Bonus (see below)

'Initial AP'
= Base Race AP + Base Class AP + Retroactive Perk Bonuses + Retroactive Attribute Bonus of (Agility) + Retroactive Attribute Bonus of (Willpower)

Retroactive means, that if in any level your attribute increases ie. if in Level 3 your Agility increases, so will your Initial AP.

Pro Tip: Even if you have a penalty instead of a bonus ie. due to negative attributes, your Initial AP won't drop below [Base Race AP + Base Class AP].

AP Pool
= 'Initial AP' + ((Level - 1) x 3)

These are the total AP you have at your current level.

AP/Turn
= (Initial AP / 2) + (Level * Mult) + 1;
Mult=0.5 by default. And can be set on a game mode basis.

Hand size
= 4 + (Intellect Bonus - 1) + Perk Bonus/Penalty
* Intellect Bonus - 1 can go only down to 0
* This result is capped at 7

We then take this result to calculate the bonus

i.e Piercing Affinity Bonus is then = BONUS OF(Piercing Affinity)

Let's say Piercing Affinity = (Strength + 2xAgility) / 3 returned 24, then the Piercing Affinity Bonus according the table below is +5.

Result =

• 0,1,2,3,4,5 -> Penalty -5
  
• 6 -> Penalty -4
  
• 7 -> Penalty -3
  
• 8 -> Penalty -2
  
• 9 -> Penalty -1
  
• 10 -> No Bonus/Penalty
  
• 11,12,13 -> +1
  
• 14,15,16 -> +2
  
• 17,18,19 -> +3
  
• 20,21,22 -> +4
  
• 23,24,25 -> +5
  
• 26,27,28 -> +6
  
• 29,30,31 -> +7
  
• 32,33,34 -> +8
  
• 35,36,37 -> +9
  
• 38,39,40 -> +10
  
• 41,42,43 -> +11
  
• 44,45,46 -> +12
  
• 47,48,49 -> +13
  
• 50+ -> +15

Pro Tip: To see exactly how much your Race & Class combination affects your Affinities, set all your Attributes to 10. Then adjust your attributes from there.

Examples

Let's I have 10 Charisma & 12 Intellect, I can then find my Astral Affinity: 32/3 ~ 10 which translate to no bonus or penalty. While a 12 Charisma & 10 Intellect would be 34/3 ~ 11 which is a +1 bonus.

Now that we calculated the attribute effect in Astral Damage, we add any racial or perk modifiers to finally reach at the value displayed in the character sheet.

The value you then see in there is what is added to or subtracted from the card base (Max) damage, to finally come up as the Max/2 to Max range.

So if you wonder why or how Primary & Secondary attributes being primary and secondary have an impact. Let's find out.

Question. how much I need to increase my Charisma to get an Astral bonus of +2 from +1?

To find out you'll have to reverse the equation like so. As long as you have 1 unknown x you are good to go:

Astral Affinity = (2x Charisma + Intellect) / 3
3xAF = 2x Cha + Int
(3xAF - Int) / 2 = Cha

Let's say you have Intellect 13.
You need Astral Affinity of at least 14 for the +2 Bonus so (3 x 14) - 13 = 29 / 2 = 14.5 (Floor up)
So the minimum possible Charisma value that can get you to +2 is 15.

Let's see if that's true: 2 x CHA (15) + INT (13) = 30 + 13 = 43 / 3 = 14.3 (Floor Down)

Yup. If you have Intellect 13, you need Charisma of 14+ to reach the +2 bonus.

So Intellect 13 and Charisma 14 = +2 Astral Affinity Bonus

And what about +3? You need AF of at least 17 for the +3 Bonus. So let's say we now have 16 intellect. so 3x17 - 16 = 35 / 2 = 17.5

(Decimals are floored down in the original formula so we need to floor them up as we are reversing the equation. But either way make sure to verify your results. )

So 16 Intellect & 18 Charisma = +3 Astral Affinity Bonus

Let's see if that's true: 2 x CHA (18) + INT (16) = 36 + 16 = 52 / 3 = 17.3 (Floor Down) which gets to +3.

Let's do the reverse example:

Astral Affinity = (2x Charisma + Intellect) / 3
3xAF = 2x Cha + Int
3xAF - 2xCha = Int

You need AF of at least 17, and you have 16 Charisma.

3 x 17 - 2 x 16 = INT = 51 - 32 = 19

So Intellect 19 & Charisma 16 will get you to +3 Astral Affinity.

With 16 Charisma we need 19 Intellect. But with 16 Intellect you need 18 Charisma. This because Charisma has a slightly higher contribution to the equation.

The bottom line here is that I have this math to satisfy your academic curiosity or in case anyone wants to make a level up tool. YOU DON'T NEED to know these math to play the game. Our character sheet knows them for us. But the take away should be that you need both your primary and secondary attributes.

Sure give priority to the primary, but don't ignore the secondary. ;)


You can further increase your Initial Attributes by spending LP (Level up Points). You gain 1 LP in each Level up, and you can reserve & spend them whenever you wish. Increasing Attributes lower than 16 costs 1 LP/point, while increasing Attributes higher than 16 costs 2 LP/point.


You can increase your Affinities by increasing your attributes or unlocking relevant perks. The higher an affinity the deadlier that damage source will be.

Updated 21/07/21

First let's get out of the way that you need [Current Level] * 50 XP to gain a new Level. Once you do your XP are back to 0. So starting from 0 XP:

• To reach Level 2 I need +50xp
  
• To reach Level 3 I need +100xp
  
• To reach Level 4 I need +150xp
  
• To reach Level 5 I need +200xp

etc.

• Your HP increase and they become:
  'Initial HP' + (Level - 1) x (4 + Resilience Bonus).
  Additionally you restore half this much HP.
  
  
• Your Max AP increase and they become:
  Initial AP + ((Level -1) x 3)
  Additionally you replenish half this much AP.
  
  
• You get +1 LP to spend increasing an attribute of your choice. This amount can change on a mode by mode basis.
  
  
• You get +(20 x Level) PP to spend in Perks. This amount can change on a mode by mode basis.
  
  
• You gain access to that level's (unlocked) Skills, Perks & Equipment

Your Cards though don't become stronger, unless increasing an Attribute does the trick (see previous chapter). And you can't access Skills you haven't unlocked yet through mastery.


Perks have all sort of wacky, utility or power boosting effects.

Let's see an example:

Assuming we are level 2 and have 20 (from Level 1) + 40 (from Level 2) = 60 PP in total to spend.

1) I could spend 40pp to get Strong: You gain +1 Strength & deal +1 Bludgeoning Damage.
2) Or perhaps 40pp to get Tenacious: You gain +10 HP and +2 Resilience.
3) Or 40pp to get Mobility: Your Defend & Retribution effects increase by +1.

But then my PP will go to 20, so at level 3 I'll get +60, and I'll have 80PP to invest.

Perhaps I could wait till I am level 3, where If unspend by then my PP would be 20+40+60 = 120 pp and I can get a higher level perk.

Whether to wait or invest in Perks right away is your choice. But keep in mind that some perks have requirements, so make sure to check the perks you want to acquire early on and decide on your build as early as possible. ;)

Some game modes might offer you a different PP/Level progression. Check how many PP you got at the first level. So if you got 35 for example at level 1 then at level two you'll get +70, ath level 3 +105 etc.

Note: The perk descriptions above may have changed ever since I wrote this guide, but you get the point ;)

I already mention these in the in-game Rulebook, but let's go over them once more with a few more details.


a) Discard Phase

If your custom game mode has one you discard randomly cards down to x. X is specified by the Game Mode. Most Vanilla modes don't use this phase.

b1) Negative Statuses apply on Player

DoTs like Bleeding, Feeblemind, Burning etc. are applied on the player. Hex Ward will mitigate as many points of these effects as it can, and you will suffer the effects of any unmitigated DoTs.

b2) Debuff Phase A - non-Defensive Bonuses (Resources/Offense)

Resource Buffs defined in the Game Mode as Decaying are reduced by -1.
Loyalty, Blood Surge, Amplify & Empower Bonuses Debuff.

c) Echo Phase

All Echo Actions are re-casted as if you had them in your hand targeting the same targets (of course only if they exist) and in the exact same order you played them. If they don't Ignore Synergies they absorb / trigger any Active synergies.

d) Aura Effects trigger (Aura of Light or Aura of Darkness)

e) Enemies Main Phase

Enemies attack or use an AI response in the order they appear. You can respond to their attacks but only by dragging cards on them, yourself or your allies. You can drag and drop Allies on Enemies to attack them after or before they Act.

f) Reinforcement Phase.

If reinforcement rules are active, enemy reinforcements will appear now. All vanilla modes have this rule active, but some have a restriction on how many waves of Enemies can appear, while others will pit you against harder waves each time reinforcement arrive.

g) Debuff Phase B - Defensive Bonuses

Resistance, Concealment & Retribution bonuses Debuff.


a) Fleeting, Cursed, Mutate & Unravel effects trigger

b) Refresh Equipment Phase

You discard all unused equipment & draw your currently equipped weapon or offhand.

c) Draw phase

You draw cards up to your handsize. You draw x additional cards for each card you already drawn through echoing actions. If a custom Draw Phase is active, instead you Draw x cards.

d) Passive/Activable equipment trigger

Your passive equipment triggers in this order Armor=>Accessory=>Ring=>Amulet=>Cloak & Any Activable equipment is added to your hand. As each piece triggers it will absorb/trigger any Active Synergies. This can turn otherwise harmless Actions into harmful.

If you are the Target, and any of these could harm you, instead they are ignored but you also lose their positive benefits. That can happen whenever you advance to a new node, as Enemies aren't there yet.

Otherwise harmful Actions are directed to the first enemy or to the Enemy you set as the preferred Target with their 'Dagger' icon.

e) Your allies Reactivate.

f) Main Phase

You can cast spells, attack with allies, and generally do anything you like. Only allies with 'Counter Attack' can act during this phase and only if you target them with a non-Ranged Action or a non-Ranged morale Ability. Clicking 'End of Turn' starts this cycle anew.


Some of these phases are optional (ie. can be turned on/off in the Game Mode rules or altered by the Game Mode Rules. During your Turn, you can press the '+' key to activate/toggle the Verbose mode in the Combat Log. This will also show you the various Phases as they unfold along with additional/more detailed output on your Actions.

One of the game core concepts is Survival.

You may think that when presented with a certain encounter that optimal choice is to kill everyone, or failing that as many of them as you can. But in most cases this will turn out bad for your long term survival.


For instance for most Class & Race combinations managing your AP is more crucial than managing your HP.

But Raven, if I run out of HP I'll die! Yes, in most cases the same is true if you run out of AP. Remember your AP refill at a fixed rate. And if you have Passive Equipment like accessories or armors, they take up some of these precious AP.


Perhaps you have both the cards and AP to clean the area. But just because you can doesn't mean it's always a good choice. If the AP you'll end up spending, are more than the damage you'll get it's not worth it.

If you have the choice between preserving AP at the cost of receiving 1 or 2 damage and you have go for it. (That is if that damage isn't lethal or leave you truly exposed.)


If you face many tough opponents you can't kill without spending all your cards and AP, or even worse just can't kill more than half even after spending all your resources, it's preferably to kill one and force the remaining 3 to heal, rather than kill 2 and spend all your AP.

This way you have one less opponent to deal, exhausted their healing capacity for a couple of turns, and saved yourself some serious damage.

How to know that an enemy will heal?

All Enemies with the Healing tactic, will try to Heal if you drop them below 1/3 or Use a defensive tactic if you just dropped them below 1/2 of their initial HP.


Learn from your mistakes. Experiment. Observe your enemies.

Study Subject No 1: Con Artist

For example the Con Artist has 'Healing, Hex, Concealment & Illusory Copy' as his tactics. You can click on him to view that. He can do those things, but he won't pick randomly. He'll use his common sense and will choose from them based on his state when his turn arrives.

If unharmed will try to do the Illusory Copy (His best offensive Tactic) which can create an 1-level-less clone of him.

Enemies can only use Illusory copy once.

Then switch to attacking you. Dropping his HP at 1/2 (half) will make him go for his best defensive option, which is Concealment: Chance to avoid all damage.

Enemies can get up to 3 Concealment counters. Then he'll resume attacking you.

Dropping his HP at 1/3 will instead force him to Heal.

After Healing an Enemy can't heal again till all the healing counters are gone.

Study Subject No 2: Novice Infiltrator

Has Healing, Poison & Concealment. My guess is that she will Apply Poison (Best offense) & keep attack till harmed (dropped below 50% HP).

Ok, she done exactly that. Next I drop her down to 1 HP.

Do you think she will Heal or use Concealment? 1 HP means she is below 1/3 so no time to be elusive but instead cautious. (So yes, she will Heal.)

The 1st turn they choose to Heal enemies, won't attack you! So its a good way to remove them from the equation. But make sure they actually have the healing tactic and that you can drop them below 1/3 ;)

Study Subject No 3: Bounty Hunter

Healing & Defensive Stance. Easy right? Attack if unharmed (no offensive tactic), Defensive Stance at 50%, Healing at 33% of original HP. Next.

Study Subject No 4: Order Hydromancer

Healing & Dispel. Anyone? Dispel if unharmed (has offensive tactic), Healing at 33% of original HP. Next.

Study Subject No 5: Centaur Animist

Healing, Gallop, Animal Ally. Both Gallop & Animal Ally are defensive tactics. So unless dropped to 50% this one will attack us.

At 1/3 HP, she will always favor Animal Ally over Gallop. Then won't be able to summon more allies as long as she has the summon counters.

If still at the same HP, At her next turn she will then Gallop +2 Max damage & 10% chance to avoid all damage. And while there keep attacking, alternating with Animal Ally summons if possible. If dropped further (less than 1/3) will instead Heal.


Which simply means don't restart. Keep observing your enemies till your char's last breath. They'll have the same behavior next time around. And you'll show them ;)

So recapping the Enemy AI can be broken down into Offense, Defense, Survival.

Specific patterns in the examples may change by the time you read this guide, but the theory is the same. Study your enemies to learn their mondus operandi and you can't go wrong. It's state based decision making, not RNG and we (as Human observers) have the ability to deduce what will happen at any given moment ;)

(Or how they play awesome together)

Perhaps the most versatile and powerful effects in the game, and probably quite complex to grasp for anyone unfamiliar with how exactly they work.

Let's amend that, by start by explaining a bit more how each effect works. ;)


An action with Echo x lasts for x Turns. So if we are the target we reap the action benefits for x turns without paying the cost again or incurring fatigue. Cool. If the enemy is the target they also reap their damage or negative stati, as long as they are alive.

But that's not what happens. What happens is that at every EoT, before your enemies act, you get to re-cast (for free) all Echo Actions in their original order to the original target, till the target dies, or an Echo counter becomes 0.

I bet you liked the first explanation more. But what does it really mean that you get to recast the action for free. Hmm. Let's keep that question in the back of our head.


An action with Multicast x or all, affects the first x or all enemies. Hmm. RNG? Nope. You can drag and drop to reposition and reorder the enemies precisely as you want. So always do that ;)

But again that's not what happens. When you cast a Multicast Action, it literally splits into x copies and they are cast in succession in each target.

Again, I bet you liked the first explanation more. But you'll be happy it's not the case when will start analyzing what this really means in practice.


An action with Synergy [Effect]: x, injects the effect into your next action. X is the base value. As a modder would declare it while creating a new card. It's affected by the next card's upgrades, affinity, empower etc. It inherits the next cards level, damage type etc.

Why this is cool?

Case Study 1: Bypassing Resistances

Let's say your enemy is total immune to Dark. But weak to Fire. And damn! You have several Dark cards but one of them gives Damage Synergy and a Fire Card that doesn't deal any damage at all. Solution: Give Damage Synergy to the Fire Card. And use it on your Enemy instead of your Self. Watch them go down in a Blaze of Fire. (Well not literally, you should know by know I despise the time wasting vfx, even if they do look cool let's say the first two times)

Case Study 2: Overcoming Level Resistance

No matter how hard you try your Level 1 Action can't stun that Level 3 enemy. Even though they aren't immune. Why? Your caster + action level is too low. So the action lacks the Potential.
You do have a Level 3 card, but it can't stun. Damn! Well if you can synergize Stun, from even a Level 0 card, into your Level 3 card. Then Stun will resolve as an at least Level 3 effect. Meaning you actually now have a chance to stun that pesky enemy.

Case Study 3: Taking advantage of Higher Affinities or Amplify bonuses

Synergizing Damage into cards you have higher affinty or amplify bonuses, will increase your damage output.

Let's say we have +3 Damage Synergy card.

I also have a card that Deals 2-4 Dark Damage. And another one that doesn't deal any damage but I have Astral affinity +8 and it happens to be a Tier 5/Level 3 Astral card. Hmm. Guess which one I should use on my enemy ;)

Precisely. Synergy will add 3 Base damage to my Astral Card. Which my Astral Affinity will boost by +8, and its 3 levels by +3. Let's count:

The Dark card will end up dealing 4 +3 = 7 (3 to 7) Dark Damage
The Astral card the one without any damage before? will end up dealing 3 + 8 + 3 = 14 (7 to 14) Astral Damage. Cool huh.

Case Study 4: Having fun with Multicast

So what do you think will happen if you add an Amplify +2, Damage +2 Synergy in a Level 0 Fire Card with Multicast 3 that all it does is giving Vulnerable 2? (I have +2 Fire Affinity)

Those who said that all the enemies will get Vulnerable 2, and take 3-6 fire damage are wrong.

Remember I am casting 3 copies in succession.

1st Copy / 1st Enemy: Vulnerable 2, I get +2 Fire Damage, Card Deals 3-6 (+ 2 vulnerable) fire damage
2nd Copy/ 2nd Enemy: Vulnerable 2, I get +2 Fire Damage (+4 Total), Card Deals 4 -8 (+2 vulnerable) fire damage. Fire Damage bonus drops by 25% (-1 rounded down)
3rd Copy/ 3rd Enemy: Vulnerable 2, I get +2 Fire Damage (+5 Total, lost 1 before), Card Deals 4 - 9 (+2 vulnerable) fire damage. Fire Damage bonus drops by 25%.

Can you imagine? We just delivered a devastating AoE effect with nothing but toy cards.

What about a Mass Stun? By adding Synergy Stun to the exact same card?

Or fill the battlefield with fireworks by Synergizing an AoE effect in each of our copies ;)

Case Study 5: Having fun with Echo

When you synergize an effect to an Echo card, it will resolves at the time of the casting. Then will keep echoing as the original copy. But if an Action has both Echo & Synergy, Synergy passes to the next card, which can be another Echo Card, or your Armor or your Accessory.

Trigger Order is Echo=>Armor=>Accessory=>Ring=>Amulet=>Cloak.

For example I am back in the corner. Without much AP to use Actions. I have an Echo in effect that gives +7 Healing synergy for 3 more Turns. But several expensive cards and an Echo card that deals 1-2 Slashing Damage to an enemy for 3 Turns. What you think is my play?

I use the 1-2 Damage dealing card on *Me*. True for the next 3 turns, I get 1-2 Slashing Damage, but the previous Action in the stack will keep passing on that precious +7 Healing effect.

Unless there is a beefy enemy of course that won't die on me while my combo lasts. In that case we can put the card on them, and damage them, while our health is restored. (Heal is in Cyan, which means that it will affect you, even if you target an Enemy. And an Ally if you target an Ally.)

So in a sense I got myself a free 3-turn regeneration system, that will keep me alive while replenishing my AP and hoping for better draws.

That's just 5 possibilities of what you can do by combining these effects together. Looking forward to hear of your crazy & wacky combos. ;)

Shields are perhaps the easiest Enemy ability to get around as it's something you can do without any specialized cards by timing alone. And even easier if you prepare an effective sideboard.

Timing is of essence

Shield is a Defensive ability. So Enemies will only trigger them if they are halfway of their max HP. This means firstly you can control whether they trigger them in the first place. If your 5-10 damage attack can't kill them, but risks putting the enemy in the Shield threshold, then don't play this card this turn.

Once Shielded Enemies can't buff their Shield further. This means you should also control when it will break. For example if you dropped it at 2 points, but your next action won't kill them stop damaging them this turn. And be prepared to deal some serious damage in the next turn. etc.

Sideboard

Immobilize, Freeze, successful Entangled and Bewitch can all prevent enemies from Shielding up. After you finish damaging the enemy, any of this effects can prevent them from acting thus healing, shielding and using their various defensive abilities. Or any ability for that matter.

Venom, Bleed & Burn stacks can all damage and kill shielded enemies.

There are also Shield dispelling cards ie. bombs which can dispel (you need to pass the dispel check) or adjust the Enemy shield. If they are consumables you probaly want to keep them in your Backpack and fetch them once they are needed through the backpack button.

Otherwise don't hesitate to add side board cards in your deck or switch deck completely *after* playing your hand.

Making the most of Bewitched Enemies

Bewitched enemies can bypass their ally shields but they can also trigger them.

So move Bewitched enemies before their allies if their attack can't drop their allies halfway (risk of shielding when they act) or it can kill them outright.

or move Bewitched enemies after their allies if this attack can bring them halfway but can't kill them outright. This way their ally will drop halfway, but won't be able to act and shield up. Giving you an additional chance to finish them up.

Appendix: Still frustrated?

If you put everything we discussed above to practice you shouldn't really be, and probably will want to use the techniques described below to boost enemy shields.

But anyway if everything else fail and you still have a hard time dealing with shields while learning: Shield magnitude like everything in the game can be fully adjusted on a game mode basis ie. you can have enemies shield for 1/level or 10/level or anything instead of the vanilla mode values. For example in Casual that value in the latest patches is 2/level and in Normal 3/level, but in most modes defaults to 5/level.

So before starting your Conquest run:

a) F10
b) ModifyGM Conquest=>EnemyShieldPerLevel=>3

Which will permanently modify Conquest enemies to shield at 3 points/level.

To undo set this value to 0. Which will set it back to 5/level.

Note: This guide nowadays is less relevant, as each Enemy can use their (own) shield tactic only once. (They can still get a Shield benefit from a benefactor ally.) But you may still find some of the tactics described here useful.

That's all for now!

If you have any questions, suggestions, or ideas on what you'd like me to explain further let me know!

Note: As the game evolves, parts of this guide may get outdated or less relevant. Always expect the unexpected ;)