On the Importance of Resistance Gear

First, let's start with a picture. This is me.

Forget those other two chumps. They just get my hand-me-downs as they level.

For awhile now, I've been running around with the same gear. I've had that gear since before my year-long hiatus (except for the shoes, just picked those up in Atlantea). I've liked the combination of accuracy and power that my gear gives me. I hate fizzling, so have resisted switching gear with more critical chance in favor of always hitting.

And if you know me at all (by reading through the blog posts), you know that I will die fighting a boss twenty times before asking for help. I won't try and solo dungeons, unless of course I already out-level it, but it's in my nature to try and puzzle bosses on my own.

Enter Clemente Moraga and his two fiery monkey companions Primo Ortiz and Segundo Ortiz. I'd been only half paying attention to quest text and just following the arrows to beat up the next boss. That's too bad, because the Azteca drama seems to be pretty interesting when I stop and read the story here and there. I couldn't remember why I had to fight these guys, just that this was the next boss fight in a chain. Well I got my face smacked pretty hard in this fight. I tried it three times, and after the third loss (and this time killing both minions before falling), I was tired of it and decided to move on. I was pretty disappointed in not being able to port back in after death, so I knew I'd eventually have to come back with a better strategy or at least come in with friends.

Later, when the time came, I looked up Clemente Moraga on the web to get better info and form a strategy. I was a bit disappointed. I realized I had to beat him to open up the next set of spells, this time from the Sun School. I also noted that there was no way to port back in, and friends can't help out. This was a solo boss, and I was failing. I had tried stacking fire shields in my sideboard and in my hand, but it was never enough. One battle, I failed to block four critical hits... I was dead in three turns. They just simply could outpace my damage mitigation and any healing I might be tempted to load into my deck. I was at a loss; and for the first time, I doubted I could move forward.

And then I came across a post in a help forum. The helpful voice (actually there are quite a few who say this) said, "Go to the Bazaar and buy fire resistance gear..." I thought, I got some funds, as long as it isn't too expensive, how bad can it get?

I bought three pieces. Molten Mantle, Torched Tunic, and Fiery Chac's Great Boots. This gave me 74 Fire Resistance. I could have done Reckless Runners for boots... they had 2 less Fire Resistance and gave accuracy, but I wanted to fully mitigate against fire.

I then prepped my deck (Cinder Deck)
Fire Shield x7
Colossal x4
Efreet x4
Fireblade x5
Empowerment x5
Pixie x3
Power Link x3
Fire Prism x3
Fire Trap x2
Mass Fire Prism
Fuel
Backdraft
Elemental Blade
Elemental Trap
Furnace
Reshuffle

Sideboard: All treasure card Fire Shield

This is how I looked for the fight.

So how did it go? Well I knew from the very first hit how it would go. The enemy got to go first in the turn, which worried me; but instead of taking around 500 damage from the first cast Meteor Strike, I took 113 damage. I did put up some Fire Shields that came up in my hand, and occasionally I cast a Pixie. At one point, my pet cast a Sprite on me, and I healed enough to mitigate two attacks entirely. I only suffered three unblocked criticals that were around 300 damage total. I took my time and knocked off each minion one at a time. Before concentrating on the boss. I did wind up using my Reshuffle. From that point I built up for a big hit. I dropped a regular Fire Trap and a 15 pip Backdraft on him after using a Fire Prism. And I had my standard three blades up (Fire Blade, item card Fire Blade, Elemental Blade), and also used the Furnace aura. That means when I sent my Colossal Efreet to knock on Clemente's door, I wasn't even fully loaded. It was more than enough. I finished the battle 100 health short of my maximum.

What did I learn? I learned that I've been playing this game several years without utilizing one of the best strategies in the game: resistance gear. When you are high enough level, you shouldn't be hurting on coins. I often burn off my extra on treasure cards or crafting reagents. Now I'm considering buying resistance gear against as many schools as I can... Just. In. Case!

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Addendum! If you want a good list of resistance gear by school type and which schools can wear it, this site provides it for you:
http://www.wizard101central.com/forums/showthread.php?322768-Bazaar-Found-High-Resistance-Gear

The page is two years old, but the list is still useful.