Despite boosting leadership effects for willpower or some lore character alone, spirit is the sphere specialised in willpower.

I wanted to build a deck focused in spirit willpower, without Eowyn, and i noticed this: Eowyn is the only hero focused in willpower. The only hero avalaible! Well Rossiel now could work, but she also has combat effects (defense). Lets see:

Frodo: 2 wp and his effect is about combat after all

Dunhere: no comments

Eleanor: dont make me laught

Dwarves: they are designed for decreasing threat - Dwalin, Nori (Oin, well the last dwarf was for combat - becoming tactics and adding +1attack)

Glorfindel: he is designed specialy for keeping low threat, so witout valinor is not a good quester after all

Theoden: he is not a pure quester, he is leader of rohans making his play easier

Idraen: she is the most eligible for questing, but his 2 wp is not so much. She can keep also for combat, specially first round, when no active locations in play.

Fatty: he has a good effect for quest phase, but he is not a quester guy

Merry: seems better for decreasing threat than for commiting

Pippin: he seems better in combat (avoiding fighting), than for questing, but ok, not bad after all

Caldara: 2 wp is not enough for name a hero 'quester hero'

Galadriel: with nenya, well ok. But specially she is good to bring courage to the allies and players.

Conclusion: spirit heroes are not questers. 2 wp is not enough. And all his effects are not for boosting wp. Only Eowyn.

Consequences: i want at least 1 more spirit hero with boosting wp effects!!! (Like Rossiel, but foccused only in wp, and not so situational than Rossiel -she needs share locations traits-)

What do you think? ^^

To be honest, I have used the Galafriel - Glorfindel combo and it works very well. I just include all three copies if light of Valinor and Nenya, preferring the ring on my opening hand. Put beside them Merry and you can have a very good spirit deck I guess with a starting threat of 20 which can get lower easily either with Merry or events

I feel the difference when Eowyn is not in my spirit deck so she does feel sort of auto-include.

I want to branch out from my usual Galdriel, Eowyn, Caldara but its so hard! I'm especially curious about spirit Merry but don't have him yet.

I have a Lore/Spirit deck that quests well, location controls very well, and stands up to some enemy scrutiny - Elrond, spirit Glorfindel, and Idraen.

I think the thing is that the true questing power of Spirit comes from all the cheap allies with good willpower. As you say, there aren't actually a ton of Spirit heroes that are just outright willpower beasts outside of Eowyn. That being said, I haven't really felt like I've had trouble getting willpower going with a dual or mono Spirit deck. I wouldn't mind seeing another strong questing Spirit hero in the future though.

The fabric of the game is questing biased which makes it Spirit biased as a result. And you want to give Spirit more higher Willpower heroes? Can't agree.

The fabric of the game is questing biased which makes it Spirit biased as a result. And you want to give Spirit more higher Willpower heroes? Can't agree.

Agreed. Spirit has enough toys as it is.

Most of those spirit heroes mentioned above already have high willpower(2 and higher). Compared to Tactics whose heroes usually have just 1 wp (some have 2 wp), Spirit has more than plenty of heroes good for questing. Now, if the player decides not to commit them to a quest, for whatever reason, then that's not the fault of the spirit heroes, nor would that be an indication that Spirit sphere needs more 3+ wp (or 'dedicated') questing heroes. Take Glorfindel (Spirit) for example. He has 3 WP! Now, if you decide not to commit him to quest, (for whatever reason) then it's your decision not to make good use of his 3WP, regardless of whether Light of Valinor is present or not.

This is a game of 'trade offs' -- we cannot have everything we want. We must decide how to allocate the limited 'assets' we have to achieve whatever ends the game puts in front of us. This is the beauty of the game. Without this limits, the game losses its challenge and fun.

I think the OP just wanted a little variety. Glorfindel, Galadriel, or Eowyn is pretty much an auto-include in every spirit deck because if you don't have one (or more) of those you just aren't doing what you're supposed to do .

The fact of the matter is that questing has gotten hard recently. It's not just the enemies that have ramped up in difficulty, the questing has gotten crazy. Quest stages with a million quest points, locations with 5+ quest points and 3+ threat, nasty travel effects abound, hordes of cards that deal damage to each character on the quest, immune to player card locations, and stages that limit the amount of progress that can be put on them no matter how well you do... What is this noise?!

To be honest, we haven't gotten a lot of new tools for the job. Most of the standbys are old, OLD cards. Eowyn, Glorfindel, Asfaloth (lore), Northern Tracker, West Road Traveller, Faramir (ally -Ld)... A little bit of respite with Galadriel and Galadriel's handmaiden, but lets face it, the handmaiden is pretty much the same as West Road Traveller. Galadriel was sweet though.

Still, wouldn't it be nice to have more heros who had the quest as their focus? Why not a hero who can exhaust to place progress tokens? This mechanic has been in the game forever, I can't believe we havent seen it on a hero yet. Honestly the real reason I am still running Glorfindel isn't because of Glorfindel. It's because of Asfaloth. Asfaloth is just too good, too almost necessary in some quests to pass up. Nothing else in the game does what Asfaloth can do for location control. The Riddermark's finest isn't repeatable, Tracker is expensive and slow, Expert Trackers also isn't repeatable, Ride to Ruin isn't repeatable. Lorien guide is pretty good but only works on the active location. Legolas only works on the active location -also a terrible sphere for a quest-centered deck.

Or an ability à la Elrond. Something like "Response: after any number of progress tokens is placed on a location by a card effect, place one progression token on that location", an expert scout ability. Could give more flexibility in location control than relying on Asfaloth all over again.

There is a still unrevealed Spirit hero in the current cycle, if I'm not mistaken. Maybe he will turn the tide.

Lore was mentionned : Treebeard hero with dammages can quest for a lot; if you add Protector of Lorien to Eowyn, plus her ability, you can quest for 8 WP in one turn!!!

And Treebeard + Eowyn + Rossiel can all quest for up to 19 WP in one turn!!!!! AM-O-ZING!!!

Gandalf hero has also 3 WP and can be used as a second Spiriti hero.

I broke down the heroes that we have available so far:

Spirit Lore Leadership Tactics

Average Threat 8.07 9.35 10.0 10.13

Average WP 2.07 1.88 1.86 1.40

Average AT 1.50 1.76 2.07 2.47

Average DF 1.43 1.88 1.71 1.87

Average HP 3.43 3.59 4.21 4.41

For example, there is 2 heroes boosting attack: Eomer (+2 when ally discarded) and Bard (-2 defense enemy when is ranged - i see this effect like a boosting attack-)

Also, there are 2 heroes boosting defense: Beregond (4 defense and 4 hit points to me is boosted, despite by not extra effect) Erkenbrand (to cancel a shadow effect also is a way to boost a good defense)

However, there is only 1 hero boosting willpower: Eowyn. There is not other hero without 4 start willpower or with effect that increase his own willpower. (Barbol? ok, but only 1 time, you can't do it more often if you dont have healing, and it also can boosting attack, so not really pure willpower boosting).

A good way to boost a willpower hero: for example, 3 start willpower and his effect could be 'each location just revealed gets -1threat till end of the round, when X (himself) is commited'. I'd consider it a quester hero.

Here are my thoughts (some have already been mentioned by others)

1. Eowyn is the best pure questing hero in the game. Even if there were other good questing heroes they have to compete with her. She alone makes Spirit the strongest questing color.

2. Glorfindel and Galadriel also provide huge wp with available attachments. You do not need off color to get those attachments, therefore it is not valid to just dismiss them, as you can with, say, Elrond's high wp, because LoV is off color for him. Those two heroes make spirit ridiculously powerful in questing. Sorry.

3. The other thing about spirit heroes is the low threat cost. In blue you get wp at a significant bargain. Only Sam and tactics Merry compete with spirit on wp at a low price. While you can get high wp outside of blue you have to pay for it. That is important.

4. Spirit is the best questing color because it has the best questing allies. The shipwright, for instance, is a better quester than most heroes, and his gondor trait with visionary leadership makes him even better. When sword than comes out he can quest for even more. Whatever lacking there is in spirit heroes is more than compensated for with there OP allies.

5. It takes more than high wp to make a good questing hero. You also need good passive abilities or abilities that work while exhausted. Tactics Merry, for instance, is a great questing hero for tactics but is rarely used that way because he is actually better for combat (a flaw with tactics theoden because that problem is common in red). Grima or Lore Pippen, in contrast, are regularly used as dedicated questing heroes because they have 2 wp and passive abilities. With that in mind spirit also has a hero like Frodo, who can absorb unblocked attacks while exhausted, and Idrean, who can quest and ready herself for combat. Both are also good questing heroes because of this.

Conclusion, spirit is doing just fine.

If you have a few dwarves, Dain as a hero, Farmir as an ally, and someone equipped with Narsil, leadership is hard to beat. Yes that's a bit Voltron, but it's really not too hard to assemble. Leadership is the boosting sphere and its questing power takes over in the late game, but Spirit gives the best early game questing.

duke:

1. sure.

2. again, sure, although Asfaloth is off color.
3. not sure what you mean. You mean points of willpower per threat cost? I guess... yeah? But that's sort of what spirit does. So what?
4. Shipright is good in pure spirit. If you want Sword that was Broken or Visionary leadership you have to go off color- and I thought we were dismissing that. Also, if you're playing anything other than pure spirit (perhaps spirit/ld) you weaken the shipright right off the bat to 2wp instead of 3wp. So you have to have Visionary to just get him right back to where he otherwise would have started.
5. Celeborn is a great questing hero, so is Sam, and Dain. Aragorn (core) isnt bad either if you have the resorces to spend (steward). Ld has great questing potential in general because of Visionary Ld and Sword that was Broken and Faramir. They can easily outdo spirit for questing once they are set up, but they don't tend to have it to start the game with.

Frodo is pretty good if you're running that sort of deck. Idraen is fun and I enjoy experimenting with her, but after a lot of use I am sorry to say.... she's a weak hero.

Awp832: Your post has a debate like tone (which is fine) but I wasn't really responding to the points you made. I was only responding to the idea from the original post that "spirit heroes are not questing heroes". I wasn't "dismissing" off color or arguing that purple is bad at questing. Certainly, leadership has the highest ceiling when it comes to questing. Believe me, sword that was broken is one of my all time favorite cards. I was just trying to say that the idea that spirit has some newly recognized weakness in questing is kind of silly. That is all.

Oh, and also, I was trying to say that the different colors have different flavor in how they quest. Spirit is not necessarily the high power questing color (as that is purple) but they are the low cost color. That just has to be taken into account.

I would call Spirit a "burst" willpower, while Leadership is a "snowballing" willpower.

I'm happy ^^:

Idraen is fun and I enjoy experimenting with her, but after a lot of use I am sorry to say.... she's a weak hero.

In the sense that Eowyn is already perhaps the "perfect" questing hero, with a flat willpower of 4 and a reliable way to boost it, I agree with some of the comments here.

In another sense, though, I feel you; I would love to see another 3-willpower spirit hero or two with some questing related trick ability. Idraen, however, besides the 2 willpower, is exactly that, utilizing spirit's progress manipulation and "direct" progress abilities to get some action advantage. That is SO much more in-sphere and interesting than Unexpected Courage, for example. Her ability is questing related in trigger and not in effect, though, as the extra actions cannot be used to quest (although you can think of it as enabling you to quest with here every turn as a secondary quester, beside said Eowyn).

Idraen is fun and I enjoy experimenting with her, but after a lot of use I am sorry to say.... she's a weak hero.

She may be my favorite hero and the one I've most abused. Not many spirit heroes are anywhere near as good as her in combat either. Great stats and cool keywords along with an ability that can trigger multiple times in one turn. She's a beast.

Hm, really? Glorfindel and Theoden both have her attack power and easy access to a 1 cost attachment to ready themselves after questing (or not exhaust for questing in Glorfindel's case), which somewhat mimics Idraens ability.

If you build your deck that way, you can occaisonally ready Idraen multiple times per turn, but so what? One big problem I have found with Idraen is giving her something to do. She can quest, sure, she can ready, and then sometimes you're stuck. She doesn't have an ability to exhaust her to do something. I tried Ranger Bow but it's terrible. Healing Herbs is better but it's limited. Expert Trackers is okay, but often she'll ready again and you'll be in the same situation. She doesn't have ranged, or sentinel, and it's hard to give her them while maintaining a solid quest deck that can explore locations. That's Idraen's weakness.

She might be better to pair with Leadership than Lore because Leadership you can make use of all the Signals to give her Ranged and such, but you lose all the tools in Lore to help her ready.

If you have better ideas on how to make Idraen work I'd love to hear them, or see a deck list.

Idraen is fun and I enjoy experimenting with her, but after a lot of use I am sorry to say.... she's a weak hero.

She may be my favorite hero and the one I've most abused. Not many spirit heroes are anywhere near as good as her in combat either. Great stats and cool keywords along with an ability that can trigger multiple times in one turn. She's a beast.

Hm, really? Glorfindel and Theoden both have her attack power and easy access to a 1 cost attachment to ready themselves after questing (or not exhaust for questing in Glorfindel's case), which somewhat mimics Idraens ability.

If you build your deck that way, you can occaisonally ready Idraen multiple times per turn, but so what? One big problem I have found with Idraen is giving her something to do. She can quest, sure, she can ready, and then sometimes you're stuck. She doesn't have an ability to exhaust her to do something. I tried Ranger Bow but it's terrible. Healing Herbs is better but it's limited. Expert Trackers is okay, but often she'll ready again and you'll be in the same situation. She doesn't have ranged, or sentinel, and it's hard to give her them while maintaining a solid quest deck that can explore locations. That's Idraen's weakness.

She might be better to pair with Leadership than Lore because Leadership you can make use of all the Signals to give her Ranged and such, but you lose all the tools in Lore to help her ready.

If you have better ideas on how to make Idraen work I'd love to hear them, or see a deck list.

Unlike Glorfindel or Theoden, she doesn't need an attachment and is thus not subject to the whims of your player deck (OK, the encounter deck has its own whims, but in multiplayer the odds are pretty favourable of getting locations). In the case of Expert Trackers, if she readies again you just engaged an enemy, what do you think Idraen's going to do with that action? Glorfindel and Theoden don't have Ranged either. Theoden has Sentinel, but there are better defenders out there, more often you want him to attack. There's nothing particularly complicated to explain about using Idraen, just extra actions are good. Having more actions than you need is generally a good problem to have.

I think Idraen can be good in certain situations but it's mainly because of her attack. With her and Glorfindel you can have a mono spirit deck that's hitting for 6 from the start, and that's crazy.

What bothers me about her is her ability. It rewards you for regularly clearing locations, which is a sign that you're in a good position. I like my hero abilities to provide their benefit when I'm in a bad position and need the help. Same reason I don't really like Faramir (Lore). He's at his strongest only when you're not in any danger.