Kevin Bearwalker and I tried once again to best Briskbreeze Tower together. For some reason, he and I always make an attempt late at night, which means at most two shots on the final boss. We've streamlined our attacks, each of us playing our attack-all-enemy spells (Fire Dragon and Snow Angel), and down go the monsters. We easily handled Angrus, and made our way to the top of the tower in about a half hour. It could have been twenty minutes, but let's just say a half hour. It was a BRISK pace (thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week).
And we did much better against the boss this time, getting the boss down under 1000 health. Really, the mistakes were all mine. Kevin, if you're reading this, I'm sorry! I underestimated the damage of my Helephant strike, and tipped the damage past the 4000 threshold on Orrick. Also, I lost track on my Quench spells and allowed a Heck Hound through. Most of all, our strategy was unsound, and by "our" I mean mine, since we tried my plan.
My goal was to get Orrick to just above 4000 health, and each of us would build up for a big attack each to take him out in one round. This part of the strategy is good - I just gauged my damage badly, and so we had to go through the rest of his cheat mechanics. The first mechanic is that from 4000 down to 2000 of his health, he drops one special tower shield each round that blocks 65% damage. This shield is an interrupt and doesn't count as his regular cast. He still does his Heck Hound and Meteor Strike interrupts, and he still gets to remove single traps cast on him as interrupts, too. The second cheat happens when he's under 2000 - free earthquakes. I don't remember the timing on those, but he gets that extra 300 plus damage on each target for free, which is just that much more damage coming at you all at once.
Know how much damage your attacks on him will be! That may mean purposely wiping the group a couple of times so you know much damage each of your attacks will do on him. Then, when you do a good run, you won't blow it (like I did) and start his secondary cheat phase. Let's be real. You are level 50 or higher, and I'm pretty sure every class in the game has at least one big spell when modified right that can do 2000 or more damage in a hit. The only one that may have trouble is a death wizard, who is very reliant on his traps. This might be the one case where I would suggest buying some treasure cards and planning your big hit using them. This is even easier with four people, because if follow the above plan of getting his health around 4000, you only are responsible for doing little more than a thousand. Realistically, someone's going to fizzle. So plan for 1500 damage at least. Remember, that your traps will be impaired, but blades are good. If you're teamed up with someone of the same school, you can share a global damage circle, otherwise let the guy likely to do the most damage drop his.
Another lesson I learned was specifically about how I built my deck. I'm the fire guy; I'm supposed to be the answer man to Orrick. As such, I could have just loaded Quench treasure cards in my sideboard. This is what I should have done, but I elected to cast Quenches from my regular hand.
Also, I wanted to be in first position. Why? I took a sweet sweet beating from his death spells while laying the interrupts and shields on. Yeah, I was using fire shields on Kevin and I for the Meteor Strikes. I figured I'd lose a turn every cycle of having to cast two shields (which I didn't always do, anyways), but I'd save up some pips for a big strike. Kevin is a thaumaturge, and has a secondary school in life. If I had left him in first position and controlled the fire completely, while he built up and simply healed himself occasionally, this would have been a snap.
I over-thought this battle. I mean really? I can hit the guy for over two thousand very simply. I can giant my efreet, have three different blades each at 35% (Dark Pact from amulet), drop my star aura boost, add a fuel and an elemental trap, and that's some damage! Kevin's Ice, so he won't hit as hard as me, but he does hit hard, too; so between the two of us, this shouldn't have been so hard. Either I can add my Wyldfire, or let Kevin drop his Balefrost, it doesn't matter, that's just gravy damage. By allowing the secondary cheat mechanics into the battle, we lost the ability to keep up...
I'm rather excited, actually. Considering what I wrote above, I think this plan can work!
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