#Brute guide gloomhaven full

There are so many factors at play to what makes a card a good fit, such as group, scenario, build type, personal playstyle, etc.įor this build, I looked for balance across my whole deck to make sure I had a good mix of:Īt each level, I wanted to take the card that looked like the best value to me. There are no inherently good or bad cards in Gloomhaven. Sawbones Crowd Control Support card analysis I discuss the pros and cons of Medical Packs in a later section.

During combat, there was usually too much else going on! I found the best times to hand out Medical packs were either at the start of a scenario when allies were adjacent to me or when between rooms. We don’t have that many late initiative cards though, so we’ll need to be smart and use conditions like Disarm, items like an invisibility cloak, and occasional shields to keep ourselves safe. We don’t want to be on the front lines the entire time just waiting to be hit! Ideally, we’ll go late on one turn after the monsters have settled into position, do some awesome AoE, then go early on the next turn, hit them again, and move out of the way! In each round, I aimed to take my turn after the tank so if we were the same distance from monsters, the tank drew the monster focus. To avoid taking too much damage myself, I made sure to stay to one side of our tank and slightly further away from most of the monsters than them.

We need to be in melee range to be effective, but that comes with the risk we might be hit. It worked out pretty well because they needed the healing more often anyway! Careful positioning and initiative This meant that most of my healing went to our tank because I was closest to them. To heal as a Sawbones and to hand out a Medical Pack, you need to be adjacent to an ally.

I could be an effective damage dealer, tank support, and crowd controller and still give out the occasional heal! I found this to be the best of both worlds. For example, you can Move and heal an adjacent ally as part of the same action. If the monsters aren’t there, they can’t hit your friends!įor the Sawbones, healing can be done as a nice bonus (especially as you level). Damage over healingĭealing damage is often the best way to prevent your allies from taking damage. Here are the strategies that I found helped our group. I played in a 4 player group with a tank and two ranged damage dealers. Similarly, with two damage classes already playing, I could bring more to the group with crowd control abilities to support the tank and some hard-hitting melee abilities to pick off irritating monsters! Sawbones Strategy This meant that while healing was helpful, it wasn’t needed all the time. Our general strategy was to take down monsters as quickly as possible before they had a chance to do too much damage to us. CC, Damage & Healingįor this build, I went with a mixture of all three roles because my 4 player group had a tank that could benefit from some shields, and we also had two ranged damage dealers who lacked healing abilities. It makes them an effective crowd controller. There’s even a Muddle in there somewhere. Saw’s damage abilities often have negative monster status effects on them like Poison, Wound, Disarm, Stun and Immobilize. Their lack of overall damage is more than made up for with their crowd control! Crowd control Saw isn’t the hardest hitting melee class in Gloomhaven, but they do a pretty decent job. So if we want a damage-focused build, it’s melee. Sawbones only has 3 ranged damage-dealing abilities in their entire deck, and two of these are at levels 8 and 9.

#Brute guide gloomhaven full

The main drawback to playing solely as a healer is that sometimes you and your allies are at full health with no negative status effects, so there isn’t a huge amount to do. Especially if you have tank in your group that can take advantage of those Shields! Medical Packs, heals, abilities that remove negative effects on allies, and two persistent Shields that can only be played on allies all make the Sawbones an effective support class. Sawbones class miniature and character board Why a Sawbones Crowd Control Support build?Īlthough the Sawbones can be seen as a traditional healer support class on first glance, when you take a closer look, there are a couple of other roles they can fill as well.