Tainted Grail – Ultimate Wyrdhunter Class Guide

Definitive Guide to Wyrdhunter

All credit goes to Ninjaneer!

Hunter’s Mark and Vulnerable Status

It’s important to understand the mechanics of the Wyrdhunter’s initial Passive ability and Ultimate ability. Each hit inflicted by the Wyrdhunter has two effects, in addition to the effects of the specific attack card that is played; these two effects are (a) to place a Hunter’s Mark on the target and (b) to add one charge to the Ultimate ability.

Hunter’s Mark is a stacking effect; once a given target has four Hunter’s Marks applied, the target becomes Vulnerable – meaning every attack made to them does +100% additional damage.

There is a Passive called Precise Hits that lowers the number of Hunter’s Marks required to achieved Vulnerable status from four to three – make this Passive a priority!

Hunter’s Marks carry over from one turn to the next, but Vulnerable status does not. So your goal should be to get as many Hunter’s Marks on a target as you can, short of hitting Vulnerable status, end your turn, and then make the target Vulnerable the next turn and hit it with massive attacks.

For this build, we’re also going to be prioritizing cards inflict Stunned status, and Passives that punish Stunned enemies by making them Vulnerable, and susceptible to increased damage. Long story short:

• Stunned = Vulnerable = Massive Damage

Wyrdhunter’s Ultimate

As described earlier, the Wyrdhunter’s Ultimate gains charges with each inflicted Hit. It doesn’t matter how much damage the Hit inflicts as long as it’s damage to the target’s health bar (Barriers negate the hit and it does not add an Ultimate charge). When used, the Ultimate inflicts massive attack damage on a single target (more on this later), depending on how fully charged the Ultimate is.

• 1-5 charges: 10% more damage per charge
• 6-10 charges: 15% more damage per charge
• 11-15 charges: 20% more damage per charge
• 16 or more: 25% more damage per charge

The Ultimate also benefits from any other damage multiplier that you have via runestones, cards or abilities. For example the card Broad Reach adds 100 percent damage to the next attack, which could be a card, a runestone, or an Ultimate ability. If you play this card right before using your Ultimate, you double its damage.

Deck Recommendations

The Wyrdhunter’s starting deck is really weak, and this makes the first few character levels a frustrating challenge, particularly when faced with hordes of enemies using multiple attacks, or enemies with barriers and/or the ability to ignore low-damage attacks (yeah, I’m lookin’ at you, Perverted Lifeforces…).

You can remove cards from your deck a number of ways: the Master at Arms in town can be upgraded to remove cards at the cost of gold. Various encounters outside of town also give you an option to remove cards, such as:

• Erratic Seamstress (remove one card at no cost).
• Elderly Archer (remove one or two cards at no cost).
• Mysterious Witch (remove five cards at significant cost to you max. health – I do not recommend!).
• Armed Wanderer (remove one card for 100 gold).
• Bard (song of forgetting).
• Each area boss (remove one card, but this will not allow you to fight the True Boss).

Of the cards in your starting deck the only one I’d hold on to is Broad Reach (+100% damage on next Attack); this card, along with the various attack damage boosts you’ll accumulate in this build, will enable your Ultimate (or some high damage Attack cards) to inflict thousands of points of damage.

I’d recommend that you try to get rid of your Block cards first, followed by your standard Attack cards. Later in your run, if you still have the ability to remove cards, I’d suggest you get rid of your Small Strikes, Onslaught and Stun cards – this assumes you’ve been lucky enough to get your hands on some of the following cards:

Stance cards

• Broad Reach (+100% damage to next attack)
• Trap (+50 armor, inflict Stun on any enemy that hits you) – you don’t mind getting hit with this card because you’ll end up with a nice lineup of Stunned enemies. Remember, Stunned = Vulnerable, and Vulnerable = susceptible to massive damage.
• Double Block (gain one block, plus one block next turn) – replace a standard block with this.
• Deep Breath (gain one block, next turn draw one extra card at -1 energy) – replace a standard block with this.
• Stun (stun one enemy for one turn) – this is fine until you unlock passives and attacks that inflict Stun, at which point you’ll want to consider dumping this card.

Attack cards

There are a lot of good options here that can inflict multiple hits (and thus multiple Hunter’s Marks and Ultimate charges) but I prefer the ones that allow me to control which target I’m hitting as opposed to those that target random enemies; my favorites are:

• Stunning Shout (inflicts Stunned status on all targets) – this becomes less valuable at higher difficulties as enemies start off with Armor, so unless you invest in Armor reduction abilities this card isn’t as valuable.
• Stunning Strike (inflicts Stunned status if target intends to attack you).
• Wyrd Freak (inflicts one attack at 100% for every bar of Wyrd candle, up to five attacks).
• Two Strikes (two attacks at 100% damage).
• Repeated Hits (one attack at 100%, Returns to hand; next use inflicts two attacks, etc).
• Heavy Cyclone (200% damage and -10 armor to all enemies).
• Executioner’s Strike (one attack for 175% damage, triple to stunned enemies).
• Whirlwinde (hit all enemies for 75% damage) – each hit counts as a Hunters Mark and an Ultimate Charge.

Passives

Passives can make or break this build, both in terms of WHEN you get them or IF you get them. The following Passives should be considered mandatory for this build:

• Precise Hits (only three Hunters Marks to inflict Vulnerable).
• Intimidation (killing an enemy makes all other enemies Vulnerable).
• Shock (Vulnerable enemies become Stunned).
• Momentum (+50% damage to Vulnerable enemies).
• Sardonic Wrath (double damage to Stunned enemies).

The next set of Passives make this build much more efficient and deadly but are secondary priorities:

• Desire to Fight (+2 Energy in first combat turn).
• Haste (killing an enemy then draws two cards each at -2 energy).
• Killing Spree (begin combat with 10 Ultimate charges).
• Acceleration (killing an enemy grants 10 Ultimate charges).
• Combat Flow (play three cards, gain +100% damage and draw one card).

Lastly, these Passives are very helpful particularly in early runs when you haven’t unlocked the full deck:

• Body of Steel (+25 armor).
• Well-maintained body (heal 25% missing life after victory).
• Cleaving (Ultimate gains Cleave effect – Cleave inflicts 20% damage to all other enemies).

Note: each opponent hit by Cleaving gets a Hunter’s Mark and adds one Ultimate charge.

Remember you can upgrade the Seamstress in town to sell random passives; it isn’t cheap (400 gold for first one, then 800, then 1200, etc) but it is worth it!

Masteries

At level 10 I’d recommend Manifested Ire (Ultimate only consumes half charges when used)

At level 20 you can choose any of the three based on how your Passives have worked out. For example, if you got the Cleaving passive, then your Ultimate now can inflict cleave so I would choose the Wind Up mastery (Ultimate inflicts 250% damage), but if you don’t have Cleaving then choose the Stonebreaker mastery (Ultimate targets all enemies). Aggression (each hit awards 3 Ultimate charges instead of 1) is also good, but honestly Ultimate charges build super fast with this build so it’s probably the worst choice of the three.

Runestones

Runestones drop from fallen enemies at the end of combat. They can be slotted into either your weapon slot(s) or armor slot(s). The Blacksmith can be upgraded to unlock a second weapon or armor slot, and the treasure guardians in each area have a chance to offer either.

Three matching Runestones can be combined to upgrade its quality and effect. Three cracked become one polished, and three polished become one flawless.

Weapon runestones

For this build, Weapon runestones are flexible. Calc is great for the reduced cost cards in the first turn(s); Tir is also a good choice to maximize your burst damage in the first 1/2/3 rounds (by the time this build hits level 10, you should be destroying just about everything in the first two rounds). There are also a couple of fantastic rare runestones that work well in this build, most notably Wyn (+50/100/150% damage to Stunned enemies) or Lor (First hit each turn provides Lifesteal equal to 10/18/30% of damage dealt by first hit).

I recommend a Lor, Tir, and Wyn – in that order, depending on how many weapon slots you have.

Armor runestones

While Ethel is a good choice to get your base armor up, I have to say the Gar runestone is your flat-out best choice in all armor slots. Each Gar rune adds a free hit that does 5/8/15 damage. The amount of damage is not important – by putting a Gar rune in each armor slot you get extra hits that count as Hunter’s Marks (to inflict Vulnerable status) and as Ultimate charges. So like I mentioned before, leave your target one Hunter’s Mark short of Vulnerable, end your turn, and by the time your next turn starts you’ll have a Vulnerable target, and if you’ve been lucky with your passives, Vulnerable targets become stunned (unless immune), so you start your next turn with a bunch of statues to destroy!

Also, it isn’t super-important to upgrade your Gars, but it is nice. The key is to have at least one Gar in every Armor slot. Once you’ve done that, go ahead and upgrade them, as long as you can keep at least one Gar in each slot at all times. Remember you can use the Blacksmith to buy, exchange, or transmute runes, so you should be absolutely swimming in Gars.

So in summary: Gar.

Yes. Gar.

Gameplay

Every visit to town: Depending on how much gold you have, purchase a Passive from the Seamstress, or buy runes (GAR!!) from the Blacksmith, remove cards at the Master at Arms.

First area

After killing off the stray enemies, your strategy against the hordes in this area will be to use your Block and Stun cards to fend off attacks while you slowly build up Hunter’s Marks and Vulnerable status, one enemy at a time, until you win each fight.

Hopefully you’ll get lucky with the passives and card selections, and can start adding some of the cards listed in the Deck section above. Try to remove less-desirable cards from your deck so that your better cards are drawn every turn. Remember, if you don’t see a card that you need in a given draw, you don’t have to take a bad card, just hit the Skip button.

This is a slow, deliberate area and you’re as vulnerable here as you’re ever going to be so take your time.

Second area

By now you will probably have some nice attack cards, passives, and runes and will start to notice how quickly you can control mobs via Stun, and destroy the Vulnerable ones with massive damage.

Keep removing bad cards from your deck as you find beneficial cards. As you collect runestones, don’t automatically combine them unless you need the dust to upgrade the Smith – I saved them to transmute into Gars, Tirs and Lors.

Third area

By now you should be able to completely control hordes with Stun, and doing repeated, massive damage that can end fights in one or two turns. The thing I found that you have to be careful about here is the odd, un-stunnable mob that can dish out damage in the hundreds – which may be enough to one-shot you if you aren’t careful with your blocks. By the time i get to the boss in this area, I was able to kill it and its minions in the first turn.

The True Boss

Bring as many armor-reducing combat items as you can to keep his armor down, and be dish out as much damage as you can. If you have all the right passives and runestones per this guide, you will be keeping the boss stun-locked the entire time and the worst thing you’ll have to suffer is the cards he inserts into your deck. If you can’t keep him stunned, then have some barriers ready to fend off his attacks, and time the use of your Ultimate and/or high damage attacks (along with the Lor runestone) to heal yourself.

Miscellaneous Tips

• Pied Piper: I usually use the song that provides two blocks.
• Famished Prisoner: choose to increase attack damage 5% every turn.
• Florist: I usually pick the Amaryils bouquet that provides one block plus draw a card next turn at -1 energy cost.
• Scientist: I’d recommend Shielding (+10 armor) over the additional life or damage.
• Wyrdcandles: Try to enter each combat with your Wyrd candle at Ultra or Very High to maximize the impact of the Tainted card (and synergize nicely with the Wyrd Freak attack card)

Throwing knives add a Hunter’s Mark and an Ultimate Charge.