Armello – Definitive Guide to Griotte and Gold Cycling

I’ve often observed other players under-utilizing Griotte or even passing her off as being not worth the effort to achieve victory with. The truth is, Griotte can be an incredibly vicious force if you know what to do with her. I have over a thousand hours of gameplay experience and I’ll share with you my tried and true strategy/build for Griotte that I’ve held on to for a long time now.

Griotte and Gold Cycling Guide

Please note: all credit goes to Fuyuhiko!

Setting Your Goal for Victory

Griotte is an incredibly versatile and controlling hero to play as if you can set her up right. Of the four win conditions, this strategy has her geared to meet three of them; Spirit Walker, Prestige Leader, and Kingslayer. Her drawback is that she should never be touching rot. I will explain why.

Griotte is married to the deck of tricks. This deck has absolutely no cards in it that give you rot, save for plague bearers, which must kill you to give you the rot that the card promises. As such, if you can, it’s in her best interest to avoid taking on any infection. Obviously players can still infect you with spells of their own, the raven’s beak dagger, tremolite, et cetera, and banes can give you rot if you are defeated by one, so circumstances can lead to unfavourable rot gain whether you like it or not. But again, IF you can help it, avoid infection at all costs and keep Griotte as clean as you can.

Corruption is also unnecessary for Griotte if you play her abilities correctly, since this strategy can see to her having plenty of gold and an excessive amount of dice at night to basically corrupt without corrupting, save for kills giving you +1 health of course.

So as you advance in the game, gauging your circumstances and the goals of the other players, you have three win conditions to choose from. Remember to be flexible and to change your strategy when necessary. Grand Heist can see to it that Griotte can take spirit stones from other heroes, and perils are everywhere, so stopping to collect spirit stones/get them from quests is perfectly viable.

Prestige Leader is the natural goal for Griotte since her reliance on trickery makes it easy for her to control the board and her opponents.

However, if something happens and she is forced to king slay as her only remaining avenue of victory, she is also fully capable of that too. If you’re able to challenge the king at night, her ability can give her a serious upper hand.

TL;DR – You’ll want to aim for prestige leader first, spirit walker if possible, king slayer as a last resort.

What Ring/Amulet to Choose? What Stats to Quest for?

Often I will observe players building Griotte with the Cat’s Eye ring – while on the surface this ring appears to be made for her, this ring is trash. It gives her a discount on exactly one card each turn before it becomes useless for the remainder of the turn. Do not cave into the temptation of this ring, for the gain it gives you is incredibly short term.

The real money is in Tanzanite. This ring will grant Griotte +2 gold for every peril she successfully defeats. This, paired with the amulet Watch will be the foundation of Griotte’s gold cycling strategy and is highly effective in ensuring that Griotte always has the funds that she needs to execute her diabolical plans.

As for stats, I usually quest in this order: Wits, Body, Spirit, and then whatever I feel is necessary, either based on the quest reward or the stat that most needs patching. Either Fight or Wits is a good choice for the last quest in this case, but more Body can definitely work well for her as a Kingslayer.

So What Is Gold Cycling?

Trickery cards cost money to play, but are discounted based on the amount of settlements that are under your control. Playing enough trickery cards every day to bring Griotte above +2 clan affinity dice every night can be tricky if you don’t manage your finances correctly.

Enter Tanzanite and Watch, a pairing that will ensure this rat always has the cash that she needs.

Plenty of trickery cards can be played as perils, and while perils are great for intercepting your enemies and making the board more hazardous in general, Griotte can take advantage of this in a different way by playing perils directly in front of her and walking into them. I’m sure you can see where this is going.

Griotte loves perils. With her naturally high wits and decent enough spirit, she can bust plenty of perils all on her own. Watch can help ensure that the first symbol of every peril is met, and if this symbol is a wyld, she gets a free explode.

Should she complete the peril, she will receive +2 gold, which gives her even more funds to play her cards. This is gold cycling, spending money to make even more money by busting your very own perils. With this method combined with some other strategies that I will be detailing in this guide, I’ve been able to get her clan affinity bonus to +10 and beyond.

This is significantly more sustainable and flexible than Cat’s Eye, which as I have mentioned, only gives you a discount one whole time. If you’re ever tight on cash, all Griotte has to do with this method is walk into the nearest peril and exploit it for gold, which can ensure a stable income at any point in the game if you’re resourceful enough.

Equipment/Followers That Griotte Likes

As a peril buster and a rat who cycles gold, Griotte benefits from equipment that aids in peril busting and followers that provide gold to her/aid with perils.

For equipment, she really likes the Leather Armor. This armor costs 3 gold and provides +1 shield to every peril she faces. This armor paired with watch can occasionally cause her to match two symbols before she even rolls her dice or has a chance to burn cards. For the palace, this will cause her to match one wyld (exploding in the process) and one shield automatically, leaving her to match only two other symbols – the wyrm and the sword. This armor essentially acts as extra assurance that a peril be defeated, and doubles down by providing her with defences in combat.

The Adventurer’s Kit certainly doesn’t hurt to have in the early game. If you have it in your hand, you might as well equip it, although later on it becomes a little unnecessary.

The Chainmail Armor is fantastic no matter what hero you’re playing as.

The Lord’s Scepter is another item that’s downright decent to equip if you don’t have anything else to equip – again, I’d say this item is good in the early game for getting a head start, but later on you won’t need it anymore.

As for treasures, Griotte loves the Masquerade Mask (+1 wits during the day, +1 spirit at night), the Helm of Heroes (which provides her with +1 wits and a shield), and the Moon Scythe (obtained rarely in stone circles when you ‘meet the ancients’, provides +2 explode pool at night and moons explode). Those treasures are the best ones to have, although perhaps not all at once. It’s incredibly important to have enough shields to cover herself in combat.

Swords are nice as a bonus in combat, but consider that whenever you roll the dice, you have a 3/6 chance to roll an attack (sun during the day, moon at night, sword, wyld if uncorrupted, wyrm if corrupted, resulting in 3 potential results being an attack at any given time) but only a 1/6 chance to roll a shield, unless you have an item like the Royal Shield which turns missed suns and moons in to defences or the beloved Chainmail Armor which turns your first rolled miss into a reflect. That being said, utility is essential, but so is defence, so it’s usually best to have one equipment slot reserved for utility and the other two left for defence.

A treasure like the Helm of Heroes is fantastic because it covers both defence AND utility for Griotte, as does the Leather Armor. If you can get both of these, you can consider yourself lucky.

As for followers, Griotte loves the Coin Master (+2 gold for every unspent action point), the Bard (+1 prestige for every peril defeated), the Diplomat (counts as a claimed settlement), the Brilliant Fool (+2 dice in perils, but you can outgrow this one in favour of the others), the Trader (+2 gold every night), and the Alchemist (+1 to a random stat every turn).

By far the best followers to have all at once would be the Coin Master/Bard, Trader, and Diplomat, but the Alchemist is an all around good follower for literally any hero and the Brilliant Fool, like the Adventurer’s Kit, certainly does not hurt to have around at all.

How to Juggle Cards

Playing cards when it is not your turn is just as important as setting perils for Griotte to walk into on her own turn. If you draw some trickery cards at night and save them for the following morning, you can play them before your turn begins to empty your hand and add on to your ability. Say you have 4 trickery cards to play before your turn begins – play them when the sun rises.

If you go first, you can play these cards after the king asks the prestige leader to pick a declaration and before the guards finish their turns. You’ll have to be quick in this case. If you go second, third, or forth, you can take it a little slower if you want. Getting rid of those 4 trickery cards before your turn begins will leave you with an empty hand that you can fill once again with trickery cards. If your wits are high, then you can potentially have at least six or seven more trickery cards to play with that day. If you can play them all, then you’ll find that her clan affinity dice total will be quite high.

Griotte’s dependency on the deck of tricks makes her an excellent control hero. While she sits back and proliferates her wealth, taking any settlement she can along the way, she can use her trickery cards to slow down or even kill other heroes, steal equipment or followers from them, steal spirit stones, and even steal prestige from them. The deck of tricks is excellent for those trying to gain plenty of prestige, which is why Griotte is a good prestige leader first and foremost.

What to Do With All of Those Dice?

Griotte needs to control the board to keep herself in power. She can be pretty aggressive and dominating in this sense. At night, her enormous dice total can be used to ensure an even greater chance at busting perils, resulting in even more gold and access to the board, or it can be used to punish and predate on other heroes nearby to slow their progress down and claim the prestige for yourself.

Griotte’s playstyle is cutthroat. Any pacts that she forms with other heroes will be entirely self serving – even if they’re gaining prestige along with you with Allies Pact, you will know for yourself that you are merely using this pact for the clout and gain.

You want to slow other’s progress to a complete halt, similar to Elyssia with her settlement monopoly. Using her deck of tricks, Griotte is a hero of control and dominance.

During the day, slinging trickery cards this way and that is a great way to ensure this control, while at night the dice bonus that she gets from having done so can make her a fearsome opponent who can even best the King and claim for herself a Kingslayer victory.

Proliferate, Control, Abuse

Taking advantage of other players and slowing them down is Griotte’s mantra. The glory and gold must all belong to her. As she goes from quest to quest, it is important that she take as many settlements as she can along the way, using her gold earned from peril busting and the discount from her settlements claimed to put other heroes at her mercy.

Griotte is adaptable and is able to turn perils into a treat for herself, gambling with the odds in her favour until she is sitting on a mountain of gold.

If played like this, she can be one of the most inconvenient and threatening heroes on the board.

Egor Opleuha
About Egor Opleuha 8080 Articles
Egor Opleuha, also known as Juzzzie, is the Editor-in-Chief of Gameplay Tips. He is a writer with more than 12 years of experience in writing and editing online content. His favorite game was and still is the third part of the legendary Heroes of Might and Magic saga. He prefers to spend all his free time playing retro games and new indie games.

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