Which Rare Weapon Should I Pick as a Reward?

[plastiqe]

PLASTIQE'S ADVICE ON WHICH RARE WEAPONS ARE THE BEST PICKS

• This is the quest you get once you've finished the one for 150 points.
• Easiest way to complete it is by beating on the level 3's till you reach 500 points.

• Ok, so you've reached 500 points, now what should you pick?
• Different weapons will excel in different situations, the answer depends on what your goals are.
• What I'll do is provide a bit of insight and my ratings for each weapon, so you can make an informed decision.
• Many of the AI at levels 3 and up will have a rare weapon in their deck, so you'll have a small chance of winning one when you beat them.
• Arena offers a semi-reliable way to earn rares.  When you gain enough consecutive victories (5 for Bronze, 4 for Silver, 3 for Gold, and 2 for Platinum) you will get a bonus spin. This spin will be solely composed of four different rare cards (unupped for Bronze and Silver, upped for Gold and Platinum).
• Way back in the day there was a T50 where players would sometimes put up a rare farm deck composed entirely of rares and pillars.  This gave you a really good chance at winning the rares in that deck when you beat it, so it was possible to collect them all.  This is how the veteran players collected all their easymode weapons and shards before Arena came along.
• If I was starting again from scratch I'd probably choose Arsenic, it's good for pvp & Arena and fits in my favourite deck.
• "It really depends on what sort of deck you have. If you're running mono-aether and you like it, get a Lobotomizer. A poison deck, get an Arsenic. Don't just get the overall "best" weapon; you'll win all of them eventually. Find one that fits your current deck."
  ~ mesaprotector
• "..a player shouldn't choose their rare until they are ready to start FG farming. By the time they've done that much grinding, they may have already won an eternity or pulverizer, so they could choose something else. You really only need one eternity and/or pulverizer in FG decks."
  ~ Demagog

THE WEAPONS
On the left is the unupgraded version, and on the right is the upgraded version.  You'll be able to upgrade cards once you've finished this quest, it'll costs 1500 electrum each.  The rare you choose will be unupgraded.

Discord randomly scrambles up to 9 of your opponents quanta from one type to another. It is very effective against mono & duo decks because they won't be able to use other types of quanta, but has less of an effect against a rainbow deck that can utilize all types of quanta. Flying Weapon:  normal 4/3, upgraded 6/3. My rating: ***

.

Low cost makes it easy to get out early allowing poison counters to be applied before your opponent can destroy Arsenic or start blocking it with a shield. The only way to remove poison counters is with the card Purify. In addition to +2/+4 and Venom, a Crusader targeting Arsenic with Endow gains the Poisonous passive ability. Flying Weapon:  normal 2/7, upgraded 4/7. My rating: ****

.

The high cost precludes it from being included in decks that do not focus on Gravity. Notable for having the highest HP in the game when combined with Flying Weapon, which can then be utilized by cards like Gravity Pull and Catapult. Flying Weapon:  normal 7/50, upgraded 8/50 My rating: **

.

Considered one of the most powerful rare weapons in the game, even with a nerf in patch 1.21. Reusable permanent destruction is the bane of many decks, including some of the False Gods. Earth also has Enchant Artifact so you can have invincible, reusable permanent destruction. Flying Weapon:  normal 5/12, upgraded 5/12 My rating: *****

.

When combined with Flying Weapon and Adrenaline, Druidic Staff will attack and heal you four times per turn.  Jade Staff gets one less attack with this combo. Even if your opponent is blocking the attack you still get healed, unlike the Darkness weapon. Flying Weapon:  normal 2/7, upgraded 4/7 My rating: ***

.

For every five you have, this deals 1 extra damage so it works very well in a mono Fire deck. Damage is calculated at the end of your turn after your pillars/towers generate quanta. Chart showing the damage at different levels of Fire quanta here. Flying Weapon:  normal 4/5, upgraded 5/5 My rating: ***

.

With a reusable Earthquake, this doesn't fit with many decks because it requires both Water and Earth quanta. Pillar destruction is most effective at the start of the game, so to use this to it's maxium potential you'd need to draw it early and have the quanta to pay for it. Flying Weapon:  normal 4/9, upgraded 4/9 My rating: *

.

Once you get this out your opponent can't do anything to remove it, though it is still affected by shields. You can get the upgraded version fairly reliably from the False God Divine Glory. Because it is Immaterial, Morning Star cannot be targeted by Endow from a Crusader. Flying Weapon:  normal 7/7, upgraded 8/4 My rating: **

.

Even with a high Air cost, this weapon excels at creature control. Flying Weapon costs so multiple Owl's Eye can easily be flown in an unupgraded Air deck. Along with the common weapon Short Bow, Owl's Eye has the Ranged passive ability that bypasses a Wings shield. Flying Weapon:  normal 5/7, upgraded 7/7 My rating: ***

.

Can be used to prolong the game when you run out of cards by bouncing a low cost creature back into your deck every turn. High quanta cost usually restricts the usuage of this weapon to mid/late game. Combined with Protect Artifact was often included in the old school rainbow decks when fighting False Gods. Flying Weapon:  normal 4/8, upgraded 4/8 My rating: ****

.

Buffed in patch 1.21, now an excellent cost per ability ratio. Each time this hits the opponent it does (4 or 6) damage and heals you for (4 or 6) HP. The best weapon to combo with Crusaders as it imparts the vampire ability to them. Flying Weapon:  normal 4/4, upgraded 6/4 My rating: ****

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3 Lobotomizer's are used in RoL/Hope which is one of the best decks to begin fighting False Gods with. In mono Aether, even if it gets stolen it can't harm your immaterial creatures. Flying Weapon:  normal 5/4, upgraded 5/4 My rating: ***

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I rated the weapons from most useful to least useful.  That's not to say that a one star weapon is useless, just that it's not as useful as a five star weapon.  As always, your mileage may vary.

[Essence]

Edit: Morning Glory's flying weapon stats are 8/4 now.

Badass thread, BTW. +Karma.

[-Phiryos-]

Nice. Maybe I'll add something about which weapons are most commonly found in AI 3  (so far I found there 8 of 12).

[cokeandaspirin]

heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy why Trident has to low ranking i like it!!!!

[Scaredgirl]

Very nice. Good job.

This was moved to "Newbie Tutorials" section so it needs a it bit of work though..


1. Best weapon vs. which one to pick
The title suggests that this thread is about which weapon to pick from the 500 quest, but the content talks more about what is the "best" weapon. The problem is that those are two different things.

For example Eternity is considered by many the best choice as the reward weapon simply because it's hands down the best weapon in FG decks, therefore the best weapon if you want to get rich fast. However if we talk about the best weapon in general (for example for PvP), opinions may vary as there are many other. I personally feel Pulverizer is a much "better" weapon than Eternity.

When a newbie reads this thread, it can actually do more harm than good because this thread strengthens the believe that you should pick the "best" weapon as a reward, when you should in reality pick the weapon that helps you the most in your current situation.

For example reading this thread, a newbie might think that Fahrenheit (4/5) is a good choice when in fact it's a horrible choice because it's almost useless against FG's.

So I suggest you choose one of these two options:

1. Best weapon
2. Best weapon to pick as a reward

.. and go with that. Other option is of course to somehow incorporate the both and explain the differences.


2. Rating
Problem here is that the rating is just an opinion of one player. There's nothing really wrong with giving your own opinions but we have tools to get everyone's opinion so we should use them. For example I strongly agree with some of the ratings you have there. I'm not saying I'm wrong and you are right, but when we have 100+ all give their own opinions, the results are closer to truth.

I suggest you remake this thread with a poll. This way we get a better understanding what the general public thinks about these cards. The poll should probably let you choose 3 weapons you would pick, like "What 3 rare weapons would you pick first?", or if you want to talk about the best weapon, it could say for example "What are the 3 best weapons?".


3. The layout breaks with a smaller resolution
This is just a minor layout issue but should still be fixed.

You'll see the problem if you resize the browser window and make it smaller. As you can see the text columns on the right become too narrow or even brake the layout.

There's an easy fix though. Either make the first two images smaller or get rid of the tables and put the text under the images.


In other news. if I may, I'd like to use this post in the new Wiki I'm building (you will of course be credited for it).

[ltenn1]

It's a good list but very opinionated.  What I think you should pick are the rarest card.  For instance you shouldn't pick morning star since it's easy to get later.  Eternity and Pulverizer, as well as being the best cards, are also the rarest.  Go for either of them

And Trident 1 star?  I have big problems with that...

[Rahlious]

Level 3 Weapons.

Here is some info regarding weapons from Level 3. 

Easiest is Owl's Eye: There are 2 of them in the same 36 card deck.
Hardest is Pulverizer: There is only one and it is in a 58 card deck.
Impossible is Lobotomizer:  Not contained in any Level 3 decks.

For FG farming, I would recommend Eternity or Pulverizer.  I prefer Eternity since it allows running a smaller optimized deck without the risk of carding out.  It really sucks to have a game under control and then card out.  Eternity can also be used to send back troublesome/buffed creatures and rescue any of your own creatures that have been debuffed (lobotomized, poisoned, frozen).  Pulverizer is also very useful for FG farming, especially against the harder FGs (Rainbow, Hermes, Obliverator) but when you start out, it is best to specialize your deck to go after the easier FGs (the ones without Permanent control). 

Here is a list from easiest to hardest.  List also has the number of weapons along with the deck size in () parentheses

2 Owl's Eye (36) Same Deck
2 Vampire Stiletto (37) (40)
2 Morning Star (38) (40)
2 Druidic Staff (38) (58)
1 Arsenic (40)
1 Trident (40)
1 Discord (40)
1 Titan (40)
1 Eternity (44)
1 Fahrenheit (45)
1 Pulverizer (58)
0 Lobotomizer (can't get this weapon from Level 3)

[ivalmian]

I  think that giving only 4 to eternity is silly.. most of the good rainbow decks use it and, frankly, if a player wants to farm gods he should pick this weapon. The only other useful weapon in a rainbow is pulverizer, the rest can be farmed once you have an upped deck easily....

[plastiqe]

I knew it! I knew it!  As soon as I put the bright & shiny time quanta for the ratings that is all that anyone would see.

Fixed?

[icybraker]

Great, informative thread. Keep up the great work.

However, I agree with most of Scaredgirl's comments. I disagree with a couple of your ratings, and even if some may consider an Arsenic as a "better" weapon than the Eternity, most players will agree that an Eternity or a Pulverizer would be the smartest choice for choosing the weapon.

[Tea is good]

Whoa Whoa, Whats with the low rating on the Trident/Poseidon. It's a pulverizer, except for pillars. Without pillars the foundation  of elements starts to crumble. Barely anyone uses pillarless decks these days except as a novelty. When fighting HBs and you steal this weapon (water decks have it, but usually don't have the earth to use it). They are basically sunk. No pillars = easy, easy win.

On the other hand, I like the fact that this thread exists, it will be very helpful to all those noobs asking everyone what weapon to pick. Thanks!

[PuppyChow]

What rare to choose really depends on what you plan to do.

Do you plan on farming some top 50 and then slowly work up to FGs?
Do you plan on farming some AI5s and then slowly work up to FGs?

If it's the former, I would choose a "rare" rare card such as morning star, *gasp* vampire dagger, titan, lobotomizer, discord, etc.

If it's the later, I would choose a pulverizor or eternity since those are heavily used in false god decks.