Hey All,

Let's just say that my group, having played Descent almost weekly for the last year and half, has gotten very good at finding and maximizing roles on both the hero and overlord side.

After a break of a month or so, we'll be starting up another campaign, and looking for a new challenge, I've thought about using a sub-optimal hero. That also got me thinking about sub-optimal overlord decks too.

So, let's hear it, what do you think are the worst heroes and classes, alone or in combination? What are the merely sub-optimal heroes that are "almost there" but that you can find better options for?

The spiritspeaker, while powerful when used correctly, has a high fatigue/action cost for hero skills. This can make it hard to choose over something like the disciple, or even the apothecary.

The hexer is also rather situational. I very much enjoy playing with it.

I don't know why I'd recommend the stalker over one of the other scout classes.

I haven't met a warrior I don't like.

Just when I think something isn't very good or even weak, I find a way to make something happen with it. Currently I'm playing geomancer as high mage quellen. A few missions in I was like "Wow I do no damage this isn't working out." Then I get the ability to place a 3rd stone and oooooohh my goodness the ways I keep screwing with the overlord's large monster movement is hilarious...

He also chose valyndra as his lieutenant, so his relationship with large monster is now... complicated... ha...ha..ha..

In all seriousness though that's the fun of this game, you can make anything work if you focus on a plan. If you want to try something interesting and thematic, try like a "no magic" approach with 2 warriors/2 scouts. Take someone like Lindel so you can still cover attribute tests for knowledge and willpower, but see how you manage on health pots and careful stamina management too keep you alive.

The spiritspeaker, while powerful when used correctly, has a high fatigue/action cost for hero skills. This can make it hard to choose over something like the disciple, or even the apothecary.

I am willing to give the spiritspeaker another go, however he will HAVE to be in a team that will allow a lot of fatigue regeneration to happen. If done right i am sure the spiritspeaker could potentially be even better than the disciple. We did not have too many options for heroes and classes with just the base game for fatigue regen but now we definitely have more options to allow the spiritspeaker to keep up with the fatigue he uses.

The first thing that pops to mind is knight who once per turn allows a hero adjacent to him to recover a fatigue when someone uses a valor token.

To be honest i have not fully looked into this just yet, but it might be a viable option after taking some time to crawl through the class decks and hero cards looking to milk every bit of fatigue regeneration out of them.

Sadly i want to try out the bard class before i try this approach though, but we will see.

The necromancer is the weakest, IMO

The class has a problem since it does not really depends on the weapon, and the reanimate power will really decrease in act 2.

I never saw a necromancer player having fun and not regreting his choice.

The saboteur overlord class is not doubt the worst. Except the uthuk demon trap, all other cards are weak and/or situationnal. And the curse of the monkey god needs to much requirement to be usable.

for the heroes, Sir Valadir is no doubt the worst warrior, Landrec for the mage, brother glyr for the healers (so lol how slow he is). Not sure for the scout, but Arvel is strange, and I don't any cool way to play her

The necromancer is the weakest, IMO

The class has a problem since it does not really depends on the weapon, and the reanimate power will really decrease in act 2.

I never saw a necromancer player having fun and not regreting his choice.

The saboteur overlord class is not doubt the worst. Except the uthuk demon trap, all other cards are weak and/or situationnal. And the curse of the monkey god needs to much requirement to be usable.

for the heroes, Sir Valadir is no doubt the worst warrior, Landrec for the mage, brother glyr for the healers (so lol how slow he is). Not sure for the scout, but Arvel is strange, and I don't any cool way to play her

Web trap is not weak or situational, it's insanely good.

I usally don't use cards that needs test.

Between a card that would have a direct effect, and 100% sure, and one that can miss, my choice is made.

Ah, but all the game is probability, and it's easy to calculate how likely a given outcome is and plan around it's success and failure. The effects that require tests are generally stronger than those that don't, meaning that if you only ever go for guaranteed effects, you are weakening your overall potential. That's not a terrible approach necessarily, but it doesn't speak to the quality of the cards, just your preference.

different point of view I suppose ...

So, give us your weakest overlord class, then

Some of the cards you noted are rather weak. I consider cards that are strongly conditional to be weak, like poison dart or curse of the monkey card. Poison Dart is weak specifically because it has triggers that only occur a few times per map, and also requires a test, and also allows the target to remove the condition without an action. As it's not a class, I'll move, but you get the idea.

Dark Resilience (universal) is on the weak side as it's limited to your turn. It can be useful on important lieutenants, but it's very situational and takes up important space in the deck. Explosive Runes is a bit on the weak side, but sometimes does a fair amount of damage so it isn't awful. Price of Prevention (Punisher) is decent but a little on the weak side, as it puts power and decisions in the hands of the heroes and has a similar benefit to a variety of other cards.

Nerfed Unholy Ritual (Magus) is not particularly strong. Useful for hand manipulation, but not very good. Word of Pain(Magus) is very weak because of the timing you have to play it (end of the overlord turn), and 1 damage to each hero is not a particularly powerful effect. Overwhelm (Basic 2) is an awful card as well.

As for the rest of them, it depends largely on the party group makeup.

I usally don't use cards that needs test.

Between a card that would have a direct effect, and 100% sure, and one that can miss, my choice is made.

I see why you would do this! However webtrap is soooo good its insane, i highly recommend spending 1xp on one of them and giving it a go when your heroes have low xp and you will consider otherwise. I would rate it one of the best OL cards in the game.

Dark resilience i believe is a good card, great for keeping hallways clogged up and any quest that has a lieutenant you need to keep alive. Also remember in final quests the heroes have to often kill the "boss" char, this card is perfect for the quest that decides the outcome to the entire campaign !

I just finished a campaign today (Labrynth of ruin) and i purchased the demon trap card midway through act 2 and never got a chance to use the **** thing. Overlord: 7 Heroes: 2

I don't think the same at all

Dark resilience is THE card you need when you play Agents, and I'm really disapointed that there's only one, and since i'm playing really often agents, I need this card

Overwhelm is really cool and has always an effect, whatever the hero pass or not the test.

Sign of weakness is the first card I remove from the deck,

I consider agents to be a weak choice overall vs. spending that threat on other overlord cards, so there's just no use for it. Given that it's situational in that there needs to be a monster damaged worth playing it on (and the dice roll might suck too), I just don't see the purpose most of the time. Sure, occasionally it's useful, but there are a lot of more powerful and potent cards to use.

Sign of weakness is a fairly weak card for the most part, I agree. The only good part about it is the consolation prize if it fails.

Overwhelm requires there to be 4 adjacent monsters to a single hero, which is, most of the time, difficult to obtain. If you're using big monsters it's harder. If you're using ranged monsters it's harder (and a bad idea to boot). Given that monster groups usually start away from each other and the bigger the group is, the weaker the monsters are, it's usually pretty easy for the heroes to kill a few before you get to surround one target.

The requirement is so situational that it's just not worth using.

Many agents are more fun than usefull, but Splig, Verminous and Rylan are really good ones.

And for Bento, spending 1 xp on web trap, and not spend any other xp on the class does not worth the price. Having only one web trap is useless, too much situationnal, and break the possibility to have the 2-3xp cards. Never a good choice I think, rather prefer take a good monster that could deal immobilize like arachyura