Apart from strategy, who doesn’t love a good tier/ranking list? With now 14 pieces of Legendary Equipment in the game, it seems fitting to do a ranking of how these expensive legendary equipment slots stack up against one another. This week’s ranking is going to involve the bottom seven, along with my breakdown of each of these gear pieces. Mainly, I’ll be evaluating how these pieces stack up against the others in terms of the following qualities:
- Their immediate or latent impact on the game when they’re worn (how opponent’s must play around the equipment piece).
- The opportunity cost of having another piece there in place of the chosen Legendary.
- Their defensive values.
- Their impact on the class’s turn by turn gameplay.
Without further ado then, let’s get right into it!
The Warrior arm slot finds itself at the bottom spot of this list due to simply its optional effect having such a minimal effect on the game, alongside being poor value for money. I
f you happen to have an extra pitch floating around, chances are you usually have a better way to use it as well. In the rare chance that you can use the Braveforge Bracers’ effect, it’s not a lot of value for money. The +1 to your second weapon swing is mainly applicable to certain builds as well, which means most Warrior builds won’t be able to capitalize on the effect as well. The main redeeming feature of Braveforge is its great blocking value, which, along with other Warrior pieces, forms a formidable defensive armor lovingly nicknamed “The Fridge.”
The Dynamo follows its brother in arms here due to two main reasons, the first being Refraction Bolters/Snapdragon Scalers completely blowing it out of the water, and the second being that it finds itself in a meta where the aggressive play does not lend itself well to the dynamic advantage the Dynamo gives you in life total over the course of the longer game.
In addition to this, most double-handed weapon builds for Warrior so far have middling success in the Blitz and Constructed meta, and since these builds are also rather aggressive, using the Dynamo is a big opportunity cost over the Scalers or the Refraction Bolters. I do personally love this card, and I hope there does come a day where we can see it effectively used in a defensive build to gain large value over the course of a game. Until then, it will sit right here at number 13.
Initially released with Viserai, Grasp was horrendously poor at generating value outside of first turn plays due to Viserai’s want to play with many Runechants at once. This would make Grasp’s optional effect prohibitively expensive.
Chane, however, has given new life to this equipment slot, as the optional Runechant is great to attack with little bits of arcane damage here and there when Chane has the extra pitch. It also provides him with a great endgame weapon, where the arcane damage can help him tip that final blow over the edge. Grasp also blocking for two is a great buff in it’s favor. Bonus points for taking up the hand slot as well since the class doesn’t have many other great options outside of Grasp for its hand slots.
Some may give some flack for seeing the Footsteps so low on the list, but simply put, Footsteps has the fatal flaw of simply being a slot that helps you “not lose” rather than push to win.
As a defensive piece, they’re nothing to write home about, so their main value must come from the static text on the card. In this sense, Footsteps essentially helps Prism transform her inability to attack Rhinar and Bravo well to a pitch-based issue. Although this is slightly better than the alternative of simply not being able to do anything when your attack is “popped,” it’s not enough to swing her matchups completely, and most Prism players are still going to have trouble with the two big swinging fellows popping her attacks from turn to turn. I don’t deny the necessity of this card for Prism players to even have a chance against her poor matchups, but nevertheless the impact it provides is not comparable to the equipment slots above it on the list.
This is where the gap between equipment slots becomes much tighter, as all the slots from 10 to eight represent solid, competitive pieces of equipment for their class.
At first glance, the Foundry Heart seems incredibly strong, but in play has its limitations. Within certain builds, the Foundry Heart is critical to winning games, such as in Boost Dash and an item-based Data Doll. The Foundry Heart can be the crucial one extra pitch per turn which results in an extra gun shot or Zipper Hit (Red) or so forth.
However, its need for you to have boosted already means that it very much requires a certain type of build to function, and the randomness of the cards that you hit off the top of your deck mean that you could banish a card you would have preferred to play.
These two setbacks hold the Foundry Heart back enough that it earns its spot as a very solid piece of equipment, but never game-changing by any means. If you’re winning games, the Foundry Heart will most likely let you win more, but very rarely does this card allow for a whole match to be swung with its extra pitch earned at the cost of two cards. The Foundry Heart also competes for the chest slot, and although it does nudge out most other competitors due to the solid defensive value, this must be considered given the opportunity cost of having something like a Tunic in Classic or a Heartened Cross Strap in Blitz.
Some may give me some flack for putting Skullcap so low on the list, however, I think Skullcap is more a luxury piece than anything in Flesh and Blood. When used efficiently, the 2-block can be huge, but this has been exemplified more so due to Blitz being the main format so far. In Classic, while good, 2-block doesn’t have the same effect as it does not save as large a percentage from your life total. Arcanite rather gets a lot of points for being one of the few head slots really commanding an effect on the game.
Although each class usually has something else that could replace this slot, the versatility and consistent benefit you get from the Skullcap game after game in this otherwise variety-oriented spot is what makes it such a popular choice among competitive players. However, in a list like this one, the Skullcap finds itself down at number nine.
In the case of Tectonic Plating, the Guardian chest piece does more of what Guardian players exactly want to do, set up their board states, make their big turns even stronger and provide solid defense in between them. Due to many Guardian attack actions costing four or seven, the cost reduction of these attack actions by Seismic Surge means you can now pay for them with one or two blues rather than two or three blues, respectively. This reduces the strain on your hand size when blocking.
Great Guardian players also know that pitching for the Surge also lets you set up big heavy attacks at the bottom of your deck to see later. Since another requires cards with cost three or more in your pitch zone to get its +2 buff, you can pitch a big red attack for the Surge, and then a blue alongside it to pay for Anothos at six. Your opponents have to respect the hammer defensively and you have great late game hands set up as you have pitched your big attacks surround by blues to pay for them. Add in the 2-defense value with battle worn and you have a star slot of an equipment piece.
Where TP loses out slightly though is that it’s competing in the chest slot, which has some stellar competitors within it such as the Tunic, Heartened Cross Strap and so forth. In addition, in faster, more aggressive games such as the current meta, the Plating cannot impact the board state for as long as you want it to, so at times it may be wiser to simply run another piece in its stead.
