Dalaran Heist Tips

Figured we should have a thread to share tips and strategies for the latest and IMO greatest solo adventure. Having a lot of fun with this one despite lots of losses! After hitting my head against the wall trying to beat chapter 1 on heroic, I finally managed it using an odd deck I didn't think would work. 

Class/Power/Deck: Mage, Burning Wit, BURN!

Treasures: EVIL Propaganda, Scepter of Summoning, Crystal Gem, Hyperblaster

Started trying to go for an inspire deck since you'll get lots of use out of the Burning Wit hero power, but after getting Scepter as my 2nd treasure I went for big minions. Ended up with a nice mix of big spells and legendary minions. Managed to get lucky and pull EVIL Propaganda as the spell to reduce cost in one of the bartender stages, and had a "reduce random card to zero cost" proc on a Sunreaver Warmage. Most fights were over quickly thanks to lots of removal and early play of big minions that were hard to deal with like Sneed's Old Shredder and Rhonin. 

Can't remember who I had for the first 6 bosses, but the last three were Ar'ha, Noz and Gallywix of course. Here's how I handled them:

Ranger Ar'ha was easy. I let her fill her board with 1 and 2 attack creatures, didn't kill the coin cache, and just went straight for face with my higher attack minions. She went for face too, but with such low attack minions she couldn't kill me first. Seems like her AI isn't coded to sacrifice her weak minions to make room for stronger battlecries.

Noz Timbertail was a tough fight early, but I managed to steal his board which included Shaku, the Collector using an early EVIL Propaganda. After that I played Giggling Inventor to protect Shaku and kept stealing his rogue cards which were great for keeping his board clear. I managed to get an Ogre Ninja which got the +2 attack from his hero power and that sealed the game.

Gallywix was very difficult. Had to be careful and play around his hero power by making sure the first card I played each turn was one I didn't mind him copying. Probably very obvious strategy, but when you play a regular coin as the first card he will copy that and replace it with a Gallywix coin. Helped me get out some good minions early. Ended up stealing a Burgly Bully with Sylvanas Windrunner later in the fight to gain some extra coins to bait out his hero power.

Hope this is interesting and/or helpful. Look forward to seeing other folks post their strategies! I'm working on Chapter 2 Heroic right now, will post back with more if there's interest.

Can anyone please suggest best class for Heroic 3 and 4?

wish I'd seen this before I just finished my run with hunter on chapter 4, but I can say that quest builds with some high-value spells and beefy deathrattles wins every chapter I play so far.

I'll record my next build and run to add here! I really like this idea.

Just finished a run with Rogue on Chapter 4 (normal) and my deathrattle build was broken good.

Class/Power/Deck: Rogue, Dagger Mastery, Dead Man's Tale

Treasures: Crystal Gem, Overpowered, Rocket Backpacks, and Dagwik Stickytoe

I focused on maximum value from deathrattles, and getting the option for Rocket Backpacks early on opened up a lot of options for that plan to work. I thought I'd need Dagwik Stickytoe more than I ended up actually using him to begin with (between not drawing him most of my matches and getting way better value out of my deathrattles, he was a win-more), but before I realized this I added 3 copies to my deck during a friendly encounter.

In order, I faced Linzi Redgrin, The Great Akazamzarak, Mama Diggs, Cravitz Lorent, P.O.G.O., Vas'No, The Rat King (my favorite boss design, btw), and finally Madame Goya.

The most broken strong card in this build was Recurring Villain. Since none of the bosses ran silence or cards like Entomb, Turn 5 meant that Villain could smash repeatedly into anything that had 3+ attack and come back for the next minion. He completely nullifies any threat on board, especially given the AI know's he's not worth using removal on and your other minions generate value as well, so the AI often chooses the "best" removal, which meant anything that wasn't Villain.

EZ run.

Haven't started the heroic runs yet, but having a lot of fun with this adventure.  My favorite deck so far was thief rogue on wing 4 where I ended up getting the treasure that sets all cards in your hand to random cost every turn. After that I grabbed all the biggest buckets to raise the chance that I would be getting a steep discount and just had absurd plays all the way through.  Managed to shuffle 3 Sylvanas into my deck as well in the tavern.  Just broken as hell.  Wish I had ran heroic that time!

Hello, any suggestions for Chapter 5 on normal ? Class, hero power, deck and picks ?

Quote From LaGrosseBise

Hello, any suggestions for Chapter 5 on normal ? Class, hero power, deck and picks ?

Considering what I've been reading on the rest of the internet and my own experience of repeatedly trying to beat chapter 5 on normal mode about 20 times without success, I'd say you probably just need better luck. Paladin is favored, but it's much easier if you can get "Sound the Bells" reduced to 0 mana cost. I haven't been lucky enough to do that but I've still gotten as far as the second archmage without a "special trick."

I've been able to finish the other chapters on the first or second try. This one is really reliant on having the right combination of stuff offered to you and for you to choose wisely when the "treasures" and cards are offered. I've found in most cases that whenever I take the Potion of Vitality treasure I do a lot better so I always try to get that one. A lot of people are saying that the "Robe of Gaudiness" is another one to choose whenever it comes up, but I have not been lucky enough to have that choice so far, after 20 times of going through this darn thing.

Basically, from what I can tell from my own attempts at trying to beat chapter 5, beating bosses 1 through 9 (or maybe 10, I don't know, Archmage Vargoth is really hard, too) mostly depends on player skill because I think they're pretty simple to defeat with lots of different things. Bosses 10 or 11 to 12 require skill and the right combination of treasures and cards and having that combination largely depends on randomness and decision making. The decision making part, of course, is very limited, given that you can only choose what is offered to you. So, if the good stuff isn't offered on your run or any of your runs, you're going to have trouble finishing it.

Other people might disagree with me, but mostly I think Chapter 5 is a lot like poking something with a stick to see what happens. I'll keep grinding it until I win, though, because I'm determined! I just hope I can beat this thing soon, because it's getting way too repetitive for my liking

I haven't tried all the alternate Paladin and Warlock abilities yet, just got done beating the heist on heroic.

Other than Act 3, the streets, which can really hurt classes that have lots of swarm buckets like Druid and Warlock, the power levels of the different classes are more or less consistent between the acts, so I might as well go on a class-by-class basis.

The undisputed tier-1 hero is mage, due to the mana discount hero power, which is absolutely busted on its own, synergises with most of the strongest passive treasures AND works really well with some of the most powerful mage legendaries (Antonidas, Kalecgos) which show up in the buckets and tavern a lot. If you want to beat the heist on easy mode, Rakanishu + Burning wit is the way to go.

Tier 2 is Paladin, Hunter, Druid.

Paladin has a bunch of absolutely insane interactions with Sound the bells that can singlehandedly win you the heist, either with the passive treasure that lets you cast spells with health points or the tavern card that lets you reduce a spell by 3 (the echoes cost 0 as well). Other than that Paladin has a decent pool of legendaries, although the defensive nature of a lot of these is a drag because there are tons of bosses that will inevitably win any value game. But if you win the highroll then this class is nuts.

I couldn't really say why Hunter is as powerful as it is, it's certainly not the hero powers, but for whatever reason, it just works. Pet training is cute, but slow, and the shifting chameleons have terrible counter-synergy with Hagatha's embrace. That said, they're pretty great against Galliwix and the Carousel, so there's that.

Druid has incredibly powerful card picks and is really only hampered by its mediocre hero powers. +1/+1 is the best of the bunch. Tokens, choose one and big druid are all very solid decks, and you can even combine the archetypes if need be. Keeper Stalladris is nuts. 

Tier 3 Shaman Priest and Rogue

My best experiences with shaman were playing big shaman, but you're heavily reliant on getting the right treasures to support that, EG robes of gaudiness or Scepter of Summoning. If you pick the deck with Whirling Zap-o-matic you can also go super-aggressive if you get the right treasures (banana split!) and tavern buffs, although the efficacy of the early rush wears off around the fifth or sixth encounter. Battlecry shaman is a ton of fun. Refresh is a great hero power but really messes with your curve if you don't pay attention. Hardly ever worth using on turn 1, for example.

If you're super lucky with priest you can get the Elistra the Immortal + Right hand man + gang's all here dream, but realistically you're stuck playing some form of big priest. The alt hero powers are super underwhelming, but the big stuff buckets are pretty solid.

Rogue has two decent hero powers in Yoink! and Cut-less, but the card pools are pretty iffy. The pirates and weapons stuff is mostly junk IMO.

Tier Bleh is Warlock and Warrior

Warlock has some truly terrible buckets like sacrifice, discard and healing/lifesteal. The top end picks aren't terribly impressive as many of WL's larger minions are discount-demons with some huge drawback. Double battlecry is downright harmful and premium deathrattles are pretty scarce as well.On top of that the hero powers aren't spectacular either. You'll probably do fine with a captured flag zoo/swarm build but boy am I thoroughly unimpressed by Warlock so far. (Edit: If you can draft a lot of Molten Giants + scepter of summoning that's still a cute combo, just not as strong as in the catacomb run where you also had a hand WL bucket with Mountain giants. The discounts add up so the base cost is (5 - damage taken) so that's turn 2 hero power turn 3 8/8, which is pretty sweet. Just hard to hit consistently. Spell power +3 is also surprisingly good with WL because almost every bucket contains one or more mediocre damage spells like demonfire, hellfire, fellfire potion, etc. all of which become premium board clears.)

Warrior's themes are likewise pretty atrocious, like masochistic minions or taunts. The hero powers aren't good either. I've tried everything to make bomb warrior work in act three, where it should be the most favoured due to the lack of space for minions, and even with good treasures(double hero power!) and solid control picks it still fell short for me every time I've tried. So far I've had the most success just going for the quest and ditching my hero power as soon as possible. That said Warrior's large minion pool isn't terrible.

Regarding act 5, I don't think it's particularly difficult compared to the other acts, just longer. So far on both normal and heroic, if I made it to the final four bosses I've beaten them; it's 6-7-8 where you run into trouble, IMO. I beat act 5 on heroic on my first attempt with an atrocious Elixir of Vim + First Aid kit paladin deck, so it's certainly not like you need to highroll on treasures or w/e to win.

Tier 3 Shaman Priest and Rogue

My best experiences with shaman were playing big shaman, but you're heavily reliant on getting the right treasures to support that, EG robes of gaudiness or Scepter of Summoning. If you pick the deck with Whirling Zap-o-matic you can also go super-aggressive if you get the right treasures (banana split!) and tavern buffs, although the efficacy of the early rush wears off around the fifth or sixth encounter. Battlecry shaman is a ton of fun. Refresh is a great hero power but really messes with your curve if you don't pay attention. Hardly ever worth using on turn 1, for example.

 

If you're super lucky with priest you can get the Elistra the Immortal + Right hand man + gang's all here dream, but realistically you're stuck playing some form of big priest. The alt hero powers are super underwhelming, but the big stuff buckets are pretty solid.

 

Rogue has two decent hero powers in Yoink! and Cut-less, but the card pools are pretty iffy. The pirates and weapons stuff is mostly junk IMO.

Tier Bleh is Warlock and Warrior

Warlock has some truly terrible buckets like sacrifice, discard and healing/lifesteal. The top end picks aren't terribly impressive as many of WL's larger minions are discount-demons with some huge drawback. Double battlecry is downright harmful and premium deathrattles are pretty scarce as well.On top of that the hero powers aren't spectacular either. You'll probably do fine with a captured flag zoo/swarm build but boy am I thoroughly unimpressed by Warlock so far.

 

Warrior's themes are likewise pretty atrocious, like masochistic minions or taunts. The hero powers aren't good either. I've tried everything to make bomb warrior work in act three, where it should be the most favoured due to the lack of space for minions, and even with good treasures(double hero power!) and solid control picks it still fell short for me every time I've tried. So far I've had the most success just going for the quest and ditching my hero power as soon as possible. That said Warrior's large minion pool isn't terrible.

I don't think it's possible to have tiers, but your experience trying out all the different heroes is really helpful! My only deal is that I actually finished Chapters 2, 3, and 4 on my first try using Shaman and I am a terrible Shaman player, so terrible in fact that until I tried it out on this adventure I had no interest in the class and mostly dusted things from that part of my collection if I desperately needed to craft something. Playing the Heist has made me interested more in Shaman. As far as Chapter 1 goes, I beat it with Mage, but on my second try. For Chapter 5 I've tried Hunter, Mage, Warlock, Paladin, and Rogue. Mostly I've been using Paladin, but I cannot for the life of me get the "Sound the Bells" spell reduced to 0 mana. Bartender Bob refuses to give me the option of reducing a spell by three. However, when I use other classes, Bob faithfully gives me the option to reduce spell costs. So, should I make a foil hat? LOL 

I would say Tier 1 is Bartender Bob. He's got to be with you all the way so you can get your deck "just so" for the adventure.

Shaman and Hunter are the ones I'm most conflicted about in my ranking, you could have Shaman at T2 and Hunter T3, but I do think there are definite (average) power level differences between the classes based on the hero powers and the types of buckets they're assigned. Even if you get the appropriate cards and hero power, Warlock's "sacrifice" theme will be awkward, gimmicky and situational whereas everything in the "Big Shaman" pool is good if you can afford it.

And I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that Burning Wit is objectively head and shoulders better than all the other hero powers. Investing one mana to cheat two later on is very strong, especially because so many high-cost (mage) cards are balanced around being too expensive to cast alongside other things, EG Antonidas. That card can solo any boss because he turns mana into damage, and your hero power is free mana.

Bob is definitely the man you need to have on your side if you want to have a highlight-reel playthrough, though. I was trying for ages to get Elistra in buff priest and of course when you do she NEVER shows up in the tavern. Or she does but you're not offered Right hand man or Gang's all here. As much as I like the fact that they added more ways to retool your deck the fact that that too is luck-based is frustrating, especially if you get the right action with the wrong cards or vice versa.

Warlock can be incredibly good if you get mal'ganis with stealthed minions passive. The ai typically can't do anything to you. Throw in a Rin the first disciple to win harder. I agree bomb warrior is pretty bad but extremely fun if you can somehow get an elekk to survive on board and not face Kazamon. I've rage quitted a few times because of that bastard.

OK, so finally today with my morning coffee I finished Chapter 5 on normal mode. I used Paladin. The treasures I took were "Robes of Gaudiness," "A Prince's Ring" (this one gives you a random Death Knight hero power). I also took a "Big Boomba" to clear the board and I was lucky to get "EVIL Propaganda" twice (this one steals your opponent's minions). I constructed my deck with a couple secrets, gave my "Annoy-o-Tron" +2/2 in the tavern, and included a modest dragon package which included Dragon Speaker to buff them as well as the card that death rattles into two 4/4 dragons. Versus Vargoth my hero power was the Priest Death Knight's, which allows you to deal 2 damage to anything and refreshes when you play a card. Versus Archmage Kalec I got the Bloodreaver power, which deals 3 damage with lifesteal, and versus Khadgar I got the priest one again. I felt for sure with Khadgar I was going to die, considering my hero power seemed kind of lame and my starting health was lower, but I just kept wiping out his elementals that copy spells and I stole his minions every time he built a full board. I also think my legendary minion that reduces all opponent's minions' attack value 1 sealed the deal for me in the late game. Essentially, I used a lot of control methods to wear out Khadgar and he died overdrawing his deck with Aluneth.

So, with the Paladin class you don't necessarily need to use that "Sound the Bells" OTK method. It's totally unreliable, anyway, because often you can't pull it off with the right options in the Tavern with Bartender Bob and it's a totally useless strategy when facing Norroa, which limits turn times. You don't have time to buff a minion that much against her and if you keep your deck low on cards as a strategy for the OTK Norroa will kill you.

I think there are probably many other ways to finish Chapter 5, but if anyone else gets the same options as me, I think I chose wisely! Also, now that I've finished it, I feel like I've improved my skills for building decks, which is a nice addition to the Golden Pack!

Completed normal on 1st try with Paladin sound the bells infinity. Heroic took a bit but Warlock with double health and perma stealth and getting rafaam for legendaries along with lokarri sacrifice for board control and not rolling the -2 attack guy worked out for me. perma stealth eliminates half of khadgars removal it seems.

For act V, Warlock was a walk in the park.
Basic hero power, 1st deck suggested.
Robe of Gaudiness (Card cost half, but can only play 2 per turn) and which ever else passive you fancy.
Get yourself one - or as many as you can - Mal'Ganis and you are golden, as long as you draw at least one

^ Any act with any class is easy with Robes of Gaudiness. There's a reason they had to reduce its drop rate. 

Pretty much the only encounter where you might run into trouble while wearing Robes is Galliwix, but even then giving him 9 cost cards while you're playing them for four allows you to beat the tar out of his otherwise-mediocre deck, not to mention, burnt cards don't matter if your opponent is dead.

TBH they should've just nerfed Robes of Gaudiness to rounding up instead of down. It'd still be crazy good.

Quote From Pezman

Regarding the 0 mana Sound the Bells, I've managed to make this combo twice now. Obviously, barring taunt, Vaporize or Ice Block, it's a free win (although Rocket Boots makes taunt irrelevant). The first time, I actually lost because one boss cast Devour Mind and got a copy of my 0 mana Bells. When he started buffing his minion (I think it was a Mossy Horror), I was ready to quit, as that could literally go on forever, but he stopped at 14 attack. Weird. But I couldn't remove the Horror, so I died. Feelsbadman.

Second time was Heroic Chapter 4, and I took it all the way. Guaranteed wins are great and all, but damn, that was BORING. Dong dong dong dong dong...

However, I discovered something folks might find useful: Elistra the Immortal caps at 30. On Boss 3, I played her and jammed her all the way up to 110 attack just so I'd be able to play her later and kill Khadgar (who has 110 health at the end of Chapter 5). I did play her in the next fight, and she only cast Bells 30 times. Should still be enough in most scenarios.

It isn't reliable. You got lucky. Twice. Which is totally possible. It is also possible for me to not get so lucky. You can have a bad run with it, trust me, because I did, like three times before I just looked for a better alternative. Even if you get the combo available to you it's possible you won't draw it, for example. That happened to me. Also, you can't rely on the tavern offering you the ability to reduce it to zero, which also happened to me. Also, you can't rely on the card being worth 0 another way, which I also attempted with Emerald Goggles. I would ask you to pull off the combo 50 times in a row and then tell us all how it works so well and so reliably. I'm living proof that you can do it with Paladin George without this OTK that relies on A) visiting the tavern and having the card that allows you to reduce a spell by 2 or a random card to 0 B) if you get the option to reduce the spell by 2, that Sound the Bells is in the selection of four so you can reduce its cost C) if in the case of reducing a random card to 0, that the random card that is selected is actually Sound the Bells. THEN, once you're lucky to have all that Tavern mojo happening, you have to draw the darn card before you die, on all levels and also you have to hope you don't get Norroa on phase 8, an encounter in which the turns are timed. You don't have time to buff a minion over and over to pull it off, if you actually draw the darn card.

I actually managed to pull the OTK Sound the Bells all the way to Archmage Vargoth on Friday. That was where my adventure ended because I was unlucky. I didn't draw Sound the Bells before I died. So, it isn't a good strategy, IMHO, it's really a crap shoot. I really tried to make it work and it didn't, so I went for a different strategy that worked for me.

I don't think any strategy is completely reliable.

 

EACTLY! LOL It was enough to drive me insane! But, getting it finished was a great feeling even though a lot of it required some luck.

One thing that I'd feel bad about is if people sat down at the computer and just closed out the adventure if they didn't get "exactly whatever combo" for a potential OTK. It's probably more productive to press on with another strategyto see what happens.

Swarming warlock with Recycling is insane synergy.

The way I see it, cheesing with Sound the Bells is just like including a "win the game" card in your deck. You're still going to have to build a deck that can win if you don't draw that one card, but every time you do draw it, it's GG, so it substantively improves your chances of beating the act.

You can also use 'You're all fired" to keep thinning the deck to give yourself better odds of drawing the bells, because it doesn't really matter what minion you're buffing to infinite/infinite*2.

Quote From LaGrosseBise

Hello, any suggestions for Chapter 5 on normal ? Class, hero power, deck and picks ?

Generally, find a way to cheat mana. Whether that is the OP Robes of Gaudiness, Emerald Goggles, or even just ensuring you are playing overstatted minions on turn 1 with the "give this minion stats" and "always starts in your opening hand" enchantments. You need to be able to keep up in the early stages of the game. This is where most are lost because the final bosses start on 4 mana. I also find picking the removal treasures is also usually the more consistent option.

Quote From Poorwotan

Can anyone please suggest best class for Heroic 3 and 4?

I did Paladin and chose the random weapon and the robes of gaudiness.  I went through it without a problem

all heroics and of course normal can be done by this way very easy... (and u can get 0 spell by tavern)

Quote From Pezman

Hey everyone, been playing a lot of Heist recently and wanted to share a few more things I've discovered.

Duplatransmogrifier is a PERMANENT change. I used it on Mal-Ganis in the late game because I could play every one I drew. Next boss (#8 go figure), my deck is 23 copies of Mal-Ganis. Couldn't do much and died on turn 8.

Not 100% sure due to low sample size, but I think Rakanishu's cost reduction hero power automatically avoids things that already cost 0. Nice!

Also not sure about this, but Ranger Ar'Ha's unused hero power carries over. I've seen it summon 3 or 4 copies of things with Pantry Spider and Big-Time Racketeer.

As others have noted, buffs don't always work how they do in normal games. Doppelgangsters buffed in the tavern do not copy the buff. A 0-mana Antonidas copied by opponent with Convert or Seance will cost 0 for the opponent. Probably a lot more examples of this.

Still having fun! Can't wait for the League of Explorers to return!

You're right, Rakanishu's Burning wit hero power avoids zero-mana cards, which you can totally abuse with other mana discounts from treasures, sorceress' apprentice etc. Sometimes it's better to keep cards like Magic Trick and Flame Geyser in hand costing zero so you can keep discounting the right cards.

Also, good catch on Ar'ha! I had just assumed the hero power was a little buggy, but it says "next battlecry", not "next battlecry this turn", so it charges up over turns if she doesn't use it.

Just listen to rafaam if you can't win- cheat, no really cheat mana a lot of mana if your deck isn't cheating mana you can't win.

Small minions are bad late game you need big minions you can play early in the late game that's your main win condition in most decks tried countless times make burn decks like bomb warrior or zoolock work.. They just don't work you run out of value/lose tempo way too fast. 

Quote From DoubleSummon

Just listen to rafaam if you can't win- cheat, no really cheat mana a lot of mana if your deck isn't cheating mana you can't win.

Small minions are bad late game you need big minions you can play early in the late game that's your main win condition in most decks tried countless times make burn decks like bomb warrior or zoolock work.. They just don't work you run out of value/lose tempo way too fast. 

While it is generally true that picking big stuff + mana discounts is the most powerful option, especially for chapter V, it depends a lot on your class, your first treasure and whether or not you're playing with anomalies.

For example, the anomaly that buffs all friendly minions at the end of each player's turn pretty much requires a swarm deck that curves out, but if you do draft a low-curve deck with lots of tokens you can ride the anomaly to victory without much value in the deck.