Jump to content

Frost cards tier list (PvE)


Recommended Posts

At this point it might actually be worth to create a list with examples where juice tank is a good card to play. The list will not be very long of course but it does have its few niche chases where playing without it is just worse in my opinion. We are obviously not talking about best play, but 1. that is also not the point of the card and 2. noone calles someone out for playing shamans in PvE (which are most of the time far from optimal).
I know I'm pretty far up when it comes to unresonably playing juice tank in almost any situation, however I honestly do think many players would be surprised how useful it can be in very specific situation. 
 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Juice Tank is a fail safe.

You invest energy early that will make it less likely you lose later down the line after you already invested more time into a map. You don't need it if you routinely beat the map anyway. But if you aren't sure about a map or deck you can build it to make sure you don't get into a situation where you are 30 minutes in and start to run on fumes because you lack energy.

Mathematically inferior under more optimized gameplay conditions. A safety net when you (have to) play the marathon and don't want to gas out.

Or if you dedicate yourself to a low-econ role, unsure what the others will do if left to their own devices. For example, on BH I sometimes like to just lock down the base from Pos1 and support the other players on their jobs with spells while taking very little to nothing until the very end. Juice Tank ensures I can make the most out of what little resources I claim for myself.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/11/2022 at 11:35 AM, Donaar said:

S-Tier cards satisfy one of the two following conditions:

1) [...]

2) cards that circumvent rules of the game by warping the gameplay [...] or by simply giving the player more power (Breeding Grounds, Resource Booster and Construction Hut).

Juice Tank S-Tier confirmed? 🙃

Dallarian and Hrdina_Imperia like this
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Metagross31 said:

Juice Tank S-Tier confirmed? 🙃

I think by those criteria, Juice Tank is S tier but is clear Donaar doesn't think so. Violin apparently disagreed on this but I certainly think in many maps where you aren't racing against the clock for map objectives, you can get a a point where you have a good enough defense and then you can use Juice Tanks then wait for an overwhelming power advantage to win. Yes, to get maximum benefit, you should Juice Tank power wells for full duration but there is no need for that (every ~2min/60 power per well you get about ~1min/30 power extra per well) so you can in fact Juice Tank power wells late or destroy Juice Tank early if you used it early. With that, Juice Tank is MVP/S tier (yes, at cost of drawing out map).

 

So how about this... what about in a pure Frost budget deck (I don't know, maybe 500 BFP or below)? Maybe others will show budget decks that in fact still don't need Juice Tank. 🙂

Edited by Lans
Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, Volin said:

If you want to play a certain card just for the sake of playing it: Totally fine, that is the core of any card game. But please don't run around and tell people above.

 

Just agreeing with Metagross31 that a strict reading of Donaar's criteria list should result in that but definitely felt that was "red meat" so refrained from it initially.

 

Like I said I never viewed Juice Tank as anymore than a "fail safe" and had hinted at SR team making Juice Tank more and more pointless with map rebalances. Finally gotten to Nightmare's End for daily and the power wells near ritualist/"T2" is 900 and I was swimming in so much power the whole time and I didn't even take the power wells in the middle of north and south... I had initially thought that maybe if "T2" power wells were 600 that it might make things quicker for me (I'm still way over 60mins solo) but totally pointless beside for experiment for this thread. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/11/2022 at 11:35 AM, Donaar said:

Hey guys, 

Frost is my favorite faction and I've played 400+ games in expert cpve maps and in rpve 9 and 10. This is the deck I mainly use for rpve 9 and 10:

unknown.thumb.png.1fa1950ad8aa87ebcf279d9880653ccb.png

 

Lets jump in the Tier List. As for the Nature Tier List, I tried to order the cards within each tier so that the best ones are on the left side and the worse ones on the right side. For spacing purposes, I also avoided to rank each individual affinity if there's no substantial ranking difference in them. For example: both Northern Keep would be in the same A-Tier, so I only ranked one of them. Conversely, there's a huge difference in Frost Bite's affinities, so you'll see them both.

Here it is:

my-image.thumb.png.847f5079958965939881e8986c41051a.png

 

A few comments (i am at home a bit bored with nothing to do):
-first things first, I have to clarify my ranking criteria for S-Tier cards. S-Tier cards satisfy one of the two following conditions: 1) are incredibly good in almost any situation and you always want to include them in your deck if it meets their orb requirements (Examples could be Shrine of War, Regrowth and Frenetic Assault). 2) cards that circumvent rules of the game by warping the gameplay (eg. Decomposer and Amii Monument), bypassing orbs and cooldowns (Enlightenment and Offering) or by simply giving the player more power (Breeding Grounds, Resource Booster and Construction Hut).
-Northern Keep is surely one of the best towers in the game, probably only second to Necroblaster. Just build 2 of them and you basically have invincible units.
-While a T1 with Master Archers, Frost Mage, Barrier and Home Soil is more than enough for lower difficulties and rpve 9, Northern Keep and Glyph of Frost are mandatory for even trying rpve 10.
-Avatar of Frost is the best Frost T3 unit - whoever says that Core Dredge is better clearly has not played enough games with Pure Frost 👀. Use Ice Age G with Avatar and you basically have an invincible unit.
-Shrine of Martyrs is a B-Tier card and in my opinion is the worst void return building in the game. It's still a very good card and makes Pure Frost viable in the hardest scenarios, but you still have to use power to gain back power.
-Winter Witch is the best shielding card in the game - it really outshines Coat of Protection. Winter Witch's ability costs way less than Coat and applies more shields - which is a huge thing in situations where Shrine of Martyrs is your only void return option. In those situations you simply don't have enough power to cast Coat + Freezes + any other supporting spell (like Ice Tornado or Ice Age). If you say that Coat > Winter Witch then you must always have played Frost with a Shrine of War support from another player. Coat is only used as a backup shield as it needs Ice Age to be completely viable, WW shield refreshes itself automatically.
-Frost Shard is the best spell Frost has. Super useful in many situations - here are 3 rpve examples 1) vs Twilight it can insta freeze the Willzapper before it paralyses your units 2) vs Lost Souls it shines in freezing the lost dancers before they Disenchant your shields 3) vs Fire it is mostly used to freeze Volcano.
-A few words on the fan-favorite Battleship - the card is good and I used extensively in the past since its ability is very good to take down spawn camps from distance (too bad now Ice Tornado serves the same purpose without binding power). Battleship can still be used as a strong support unit instead of Ironclads: make sure to its ability as often as you can. 
-I feel like the problem with Frost cards is that many of those are too situational and serve a very specific purpose. Cards like Ice Age, Wintertide, all building-support spells, Amii Ritual, Wardens Sigil are good and can be very useful, but only on very narrow situations. Same goes for many lf the units listed in the C and D Tier. I really like cards such as Tremor, Defenders, Lightblade, Imperials and Lyrish Knight, but they get outclassed by more flexible units. 
-Another problem Frost has is with offensive towers, especially at T2 and T3. Cannon Tower is surely good but can be lackluster in situations where you get attacked by flying units (and teching Gravity Surge is kinda meh for these kinds of scenarios). Stronghold is too weak in this current iteration - even with Skyelfs support (but don't worry, there are plans for buffs). The other offensive towers are just bad.
-Juice Tank is a meme-Tier card - even if some pros (👀) are trying to promote its use. Never ever build this useless thing, unless you just want to meme around lol.

Hey man, ty for you post. Since i want start investing in frost (my favorite faction) your post just came in to the right time for me. 

Could you explain your above posted deck a little bit more?

Why did you pick Nothern Keep (r) over (b) ? Do you already play it on T1?

Whats the general gameplan/playstyle and the core combos? Im open for any explanation since im really looking forward to play frost.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, Marvvster said:

Hey man, ty for you post. Since i want start investing in frost (my favorite faction) your post just came in to the right time for me. 

Could you explain your above posted deck a little bit more?

Why did you pick Nothern Keep (r) over (b) ? Do you already play it on T1?

Whats the general gameplan/playstyle and the core combos? Im open for any explanation since im really looking forward to play frost.

 

Considering you are interested about various Frost combinations I can already go a little in depth about the Northern Keep opening. The main use of this strategy is to enable smooth early game clears in a very difficult settings like various lvl 10s, but also helps to deal with close base T3 on 1p 9s, where the entire camp would be pulled whenever you want to take your T2.

To successfully execute this follow these steps. 

Step 1: Build up 2 Northern Keeps safely outside of the aggro range and make an army of Master Archers. For beginners I would recommend roughly 11-12 units, once you get more comfortable you can reduce the unit count for faster early game progression.

Step 2: After obtaining your units, wait for a little bit of power and play one Glyph of Frost to freeze the entire camp while focussing down the spawner right away. This is why you never want to play Frost mages in this particular situation, because their cone damage might be blocked by units in front of the spawn buidling. 

Step 3: After destroying the Spawner do not keep fighting and immediately retreat until you reached your towers. Leave the units in front of them and activate the Northern Keep ability.

Step 4: Make sure one of your Northern Keeps is active from now on. 2 towers are enough to maintain 100% uptime. Your units will not take any damage and as long as they are in front of the Northern Keep, the tower does not get targeted. This is also the main reason you use red over blue affinity, because the blue affinity only increases effective hp on the turret. Since it usually isn't in danger of getting destroyed in the first place the damage buff on your Master Archers tends to be more useful overall.   

Step 5: Keep fighting until the entire camp is cleared. Ideally freeze the incoming T3 wave by leaving 1 unit alive for smoother progression. Also do not forget your mainbase, because there probably will be a wave hitting your T1. 

 

Further things to consider:
- To find a good position for your turret placement in the first place you can use Glyph of Frost to scout into the fog of war giving you a rough idea where the enemies are. As it's a trap spell it shows whenver there is an enemy nearby.   

- Lost Spellbreaker can remove the immunity buff from your units. Therefore, Lost Souls will be your most difficult opponent.

- Homesoil can be used to increase the damage for additional clearspeed, but does not stack with the Northern Keep (r) damage buff, so don't spam it too much.  

 

I illustrated the basic engagement in the following pictures against a Fire map (1p lvl 10). I hope this is somewhat helpful.

rPvE10.png

rPvE102.png

rPvE103.png

rPvE104.png

 

 

Metagross31, Volin, Donaar and 3 others like this
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, RadicalX said:

Considering you are interested about various Frost combinations I can already go a little in depth about the Northern Keep opening. The main use of this strategy is to enable smooth early game clears in a very difficult settings like various lvl 10s, but also helps to deal with close base T3 on 1p 9s, where the entire camp would be pulled whenever you want to take your T2.

To successfully execute this follow these steps. 

Step 1: Build up 2 Northern Keeps safely outside of the aggro range and make an army of Master Archers. For beginners I would recommend roughly 11-12 units, once you get more comfortable you can reduce the unit count for faster early game progression.

Step 2: After obtaining your units, wait for a little bit of power and play one Glyph of Frost to freeze the entire camp while focussing down the spawner right away. This is why you never want to play Frost mages in this particular situation, because their cone damage might be blocked by units in front of the spawn buidling. 

Step 3: After destroying the Spawner do not keep fighting and immediately retreat until you reached your towers. Leave the units in front of them and activate the Northern Keep ability.

Step 4: Make sure one of your Northern Keeps is active from now on. 2 towers are enough to maintain 100% uptime. Your units will not take any damage and as long as they are in front of the Northern Keep, the tower does not get targeted. This is also the main reason you use red over blue affinity, because the blue affinity only increases effective hp on the turret. Since it usually isn't in danger of getting destroyed in the first place the damage buff on your Master Archers tends to be more useful overall.   

Step 5: Keep fighting until the entire camp is cleared. Ideally freeze the incoming T3 wave by leaving 1 unit alive for smoother progression. Also do not forget your mainbase, because there probably will be a wave hitting your T1. 

 

Further things to consider:
- To find a good position for your turret placement in the first place you can use Glyph of Frost to scout into the fog of war giving you a rough idea where the enemies are. As it's a trap spell it shows whenver there is an enemy nearby.   

- Lost Spellbreaker can remove the immunity buff from your units. Therefore, Lost Souls will be your most difficult opponent.

- Homesoil can be used to increase the damage for additional clearspeed, but does not stack with the Northern Keep (r) damage buff, so don't spam it too much.  

 

I illustrated the basic engagement in the following pictures against a Fire map (1p lvl 10). I hope this is somewhat helpful.

rPvE10.png

rPvE102.png

rPvE103.png

rPvE104.png

 

 

Man what a huge answer! Ty so much. I'm really hyped for going all in frost so every reply is really nice 🙂 have a nice day!

Metagross31 likes this
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/16/2022 at 7:41 PM, Marvvster said:

Could you explain your above posted deck a little bit more?

Why did you pick Nothern Keep (r) over (b) ? Do you already play it on T1?

Whats the general gameplan/playstyle and the core combos? Im open for any explanation since im really looking forward to play frost.

 

Hey,
Glad you like Pure Frost. Here is an overview of my deck and the choices behind the inclusion/exclusion of every card. Keep in mind that the deck is built for rpve 10 and should be able to clear most expert maps.

 

Master Archers, Frost Mage, Ice Barrier and Home Soil are the bread and butter of Frost T1, both for campaign maps and rpve. Nothing much to explain here I guess. My most used composition for rpve 9 is 4 MA and 2 FM.

Glyph of Frost and Northern Keep are optional cards for lower difficulties but they are mandatory for rpve 10. Yeah, the following part is basically a summary of what RadicalX has (excellently) analysed in-depth, but I started writing this before his post so I'll keep it. For rpve 10 I usually build 2 Keeps near my base, then push for the spawncamp using 9-10 units and support by Glyph (place Glyph where you would place a Mine if you started fire) and Home Soil. After the spawn is destroyed, I retreat where I built Keeps and kill every enemy unit that follows me. Having x2 Keeps and using their ability continuously makes your units unkillable. I choose to use Keep (R) because i like to deal a bit more damage (since I used Home Soil to destroy the spawncamp) but honestly the affinity doesn't really matter for Keep - other experienced Frost players such as Gam3over use the Blue affinity because they like having a more durable Keep in case enemies attack it.

Other good T1 options are Lightblade and Imperials in maps where you need a solid T1 tank or where you face lots of L units (Behind Enemy Lines for example). Wintertide is a solid card that has some uses (it counters the Bandit Wizard Towers in maps such as Blight), but I find it too situational to be included in my all-around deck. Construction Hut is the best Frost card by far. I decided to not include it in the deck since in normal games I only build a single Shrine of Martyrs - while it is mathematically worthed, the use is too narrow to justify a deck slot. Frost Bite (P) is another good card - I usually bring it in maps with a bossfight (Sunbridge, Insane God, Oracle, Titans and so on...)

 

For T2 the most important unit is War Eagle: it is surely one of the best T2 units in the game and carries runs on many expert maps. The only downside of War Eagles is that they can't attack flying enemies - therefore, the best unit to support them is Stormsinger due to her Gravity Surge ability. Here I prefer the Red affinity since 1) i like to deal a bit of damage and 2) i don't really need a fast unit (mainly since War Eagles are slow) - but honestly the affinity is not that important, choose the one you prefer.
Coldsnap is the bread and butter CC spell for Pure Frost - freeze enemies and focus down spawn camps and other important targets. Coldsnap scales incredibly well to higher tiers as well, thanks to Martyrs void return, Dreadnought passive ability and Shatter Ice.

Other good options for Frost T2 are:
-Mountaineers (especially in maps with lots of buildings and no air enemies - Convoy for example).
-White Rangers to snipe down important targets from distance.
-Cannon Tower for defensive maps.
-Skyelf Templar + Ice Barrier to spawntrap enemies on many maps.
-Area Ice Shield in situations where there is a long T2 phase.

 

Avatar of Frost is surely the best T3 unit for Frost. It's incredibly durable and with a bit of support (mainly from Ice Age (G)) can singlehandedly clear camps.
As I already wrote in the other post, Frost Shard is the best Frost spell. Shard is super useful in many situations, especially since it has an immediate effect with damage and CC combined. Here are 3 rpve examples where Frost Shard is super useful: 1) vs Twilight it can insta freeze the Willzapper before it paralyses your units 2) vs Lost Souls it shines in freezing the lost dancers before they Disenchant your shields 3) vs Fire it is mostly used to freeze Volcano.

 

T4 is the Tier in which Pure Frost really shines. An army of 4-5 Dreadnoughts supported by 2 Winter Witches is incredibly powerful and is enough to tackle every situation, especially with spells support (mainly from Maelstrom and Ice Tornado).
Here's my usual approach to a camp:
1) immediately use Frost Shard to the sensible targets, mainly Willzappers, Windhunters and Lost Dancers.
2) cast Maelstrom in the middle of the camp. Keep in mind that freezes are ultra useful for Pure Frost: they block enemies from attacking, enemies take 50% more dmg since you're using Dreadnoughts and you get void return with Shrine of Martyrs.
3) cast both Winter Witches ability on the spot where Dreadnoughts are. Afterwards I move WW into the same spot to keep them safe between the shields and Dreadnoughts auras.
4) at this point Maelstrom has frozen most enemy units and you got back a lot of power through Shrine of Martyrs. That's the moment to spam spells. I always go for Ice Tornado on the spawn camp and Shatter Ice on the frozen units. Ice Age (G) follows next, especially if Dreadnoughts have walked outside the shield area.
With this approach you should be able to deal with every situation you can face.

My T4 also includes Ironchad and Coat of Protection but both are optional. Ironchad is simply a support card for Dreadnought - I usually don't use many of them, only 1 or 2 for the very last camp if I got some spare power. Ironchads can be swapped out for any other support/ranged unit you like, a cheaper but solid alternative is Battleship. Battleship's ability is very good to destroy spawn camps from distance - make sure to use that as often as you can.
Coat on the other hand is used as a backup shield option or to support allies. While I rarely use Coat on easier maps and rpve 9, it can act as a safety net for rpve 10 if Dreadnoughts walk away from Winter Witch shield area. Coat is surely the first card I would swap out from this deck.

I hope everything is clear, feel free to ask anything otherwise.

See you in the Forge,
Donaar

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/19/2022 at 11:42 AM, Donaar said:

Hey,
Glad you like Pure Frost. Here is an overview of my deck and the choices behind the inclusion/exclusion of every card. Keep in mind that the deck is built for rpve 10 and should be able to clear most expert maps.

 

Master Archers, Frost Mage, Ice Barrier and Home Soil are the bread and butter of Frost T1, both for campaign maps and rpve. Nothing much to explain here I guess. My most used composition for rpve 9 is 4 MA and 2 FM.

Glyph of Frost and Northern Keep are optional cards for lower difficulties but they are mandatory for rpve 10. Yeah, the following part is basically a summary of what RadicalX has (excellently) analysed in-depth, but I started writing this before his post so I'll keep it. For rpve 10 I usually build 2 Keeps near my base, then push for the spawncamp using 9-10 units and support by Glyph (place Glyph where you would place a Mine if you started fire) and Home Soil. After the spawn is destroyed, I retreat where I built Keeps and kill every enemy unit that follows me. Having x2 Keeps and using their ability continuously makes your units unkillable. I choose to use Keep (R) because i like to deal a bit more damage (since I used Home Soil to destroy the spawncamp) but honestly the affinity doesn't really matter for Keep - other experienced Frost players such as Gam3over use the Blue affinity because they like having a more durable Keep in case enemies attack it.

Other good T1 options are Lightblade and Imperials in maps where you need a solid T1 tank or where you face lots of L units (Behind Enemy Lines for example). Wintertide is a solid card that has some uses (it counters the Bandit Wizard Towers in maps such as Blight), but I find it too situational to be included in my all-around deck. Construction Hut is the best Frost card by far. I decided to not include it in the deck since in normal games I only build a single Shrine of Martyrs - while it is mathematically worthed, the use is too narrow to justify a deck slot. Frost Bite (P) is another good card - I usually bring it in maps with a bossfight (Sunbridge, Insane God, Oracle, Titans and so on...)

 

For T2 the most important unit is War Eagle: it is surely one of the best T2 units in the game and carries runs on many expert maps. The only downside of War Eagles is that they can't attack flying enemies - therefore, the best unit to support them is Stormsinger due to her Gravity Surge ability. Here I prefer the Red affinity since 1) i like to deal a bit of damage and 2) i don't really need a fast unit (mainly since War Eagles are slow) - but honestly the affinity is not that important, choose the one you prefer.
Coldsnap is the bread and butter CC spell for Pure Frost - freeze enemies and focus down spawn camps and other important targets. Coldsnap scales incredibly well to higher tiers as well, thanks to Martyrs void return, Dreadnought passive ability and Shatter Ice.

Other good options for Frost T2 are:
-Mountaineers (especially in maps with lots of buildings and no air enemies - Convoy for example).
-White Rangers to snipe down important targets from distance.
-Cannon Tower for defensive maps.
-Skyelf Templar + Ice Barrier to spawntrap enemies on many maps.
-Area Ice Shield in situations where there is a long T2 phase.

 

Avatar of Frost is surely the best T3 unit for Frost. It's incredibly durable and with a bit of support (mainly from Ice Age (G)) can singlehandedly clear camps.
As I already wrote in the other post, Frost Shard is the best Frost spell. Shard is super useful in many situations, especially since it has an immediate effect with damage and CC combined. Here are 3 rpve examples where Frost Shard is super useful: 1) vs Twilight it can insta freeze the Willzapper before it paralyses your units 2) vs Lost Souls it shines in freezing the lost dancers before they Disenchant your shields 3) vs Fire it is mostly used to freeze Volcano.

 

T4 is the Tier in which Pure Frost really shines. An army of 4-5 Dreadnoughts supported by 2 Winter Witches is incredibly powerful and is enough to tackle every situation, especially with spells support (mainly from Maelstrom and Ice Tornado).
Here's my usual approach to a camp:
1) immediately use Frost Shard to the sensible targets, mainly Willzappers, Windhunters and Lost Dancers.
2) cast Maelstrom in the middle of the camp. Keep in mind that freezes are ultra useful for Pure Frost: they block enemies from attacking, enemies take 50% more dmg since you're using Dreadnoughts and you get void return with Shrine of Martyrs.
3) cast both Winter Witches ability on the spot where Dreadnoughts are. Afterwards I move WW into the same spot to keep them safe between the shields and Dreadnoughts auras.
4) at this point Maelstrom has frozen most enemy units and you got back a lot of power through Shrine of Martyrs. That's the moment to spam spells. I always go for Ice Tornado on the spawn camp and Shatter Ice on the frozen units. Ice Age (G) follows next, especially if Dreadnoughts have walked outside the shield area.
With this approach you should be able to deal with every situation you can face.

My T4 also includes Ironchad and Coat of Protection but both are optional. Ironchad is simply a support card for Dreadnought - I usually don't use many of them, only 1 or 2 for the very last camp if I got some spare power. Ironchads can be swapped out for any other support/ranged unit you like, a cheaper but solid alternative is Battleship. Battleship's ability is very good to destroy spawn camps from distance - make sure to use that as often as you can.
Coat on the other hand is used as a backup shield option or to support allies. While I rarely use Coat on easier maps and rpve 9, it can act as a safety net for rpve 10 if Dreadnoughts walk away from Winter Witch shield area. Coat is surely the first card I would swap out from this deck.

I hope everything is clear, feel free to ask anything otherwise.

See you in the Forge,
Donaar

Your answer is huge, my friend. Ty so much, i'm still having a blast playing pure frost, definitly the most fun ive ever had while playing BF. 

I think i ll go Battleship over Chads but we ll see. 

All the best to you Sensei 🙂

Donaar likes this
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. Terms of Use