Stormbringer guide: how to heal and deal damage in mail — talents, build, PvE and PvP

The Stormbringer is a hybrid who both strikes and heals from a single deck: lightning and fire hit several enemies at once, and heals over time keep allies on their feet. If you like switching roles to fit the situation and hitting a whole crowd of enemies at once, this is your class. In this guide we’ll look at how to play a Stormbringer: their cards and Class Power, which talent trees to take early on and at level 60, what to wear and how to play in dungeons, raids and the arena.

The Stormbringer at a glance

• Group roles: healer or damage dealer.
• Armour: mail; anything lighter can be worn too.
• Resource: Focus. It’s the same Crystals everyone has: 1 on your first turn, one more each turn up to 10, and whatever you don’t spend is lost.
• Health at level 60 without gear: 446 — halfway between the plate wearers and the cloth classes.
• Cards: 22 of their own and 4 more from talents.
• Difficulty: medium. The deck is broad — damage, healing, shields, control — and every turn you have to choose what matters most.

Strengths and weaknesses

Strengths:

• flexibility: one deck holds healing, shields, single-target damage and damage to all enemies;
• the attacking Class Power hits up to three targets at once — good against groups of foes;
• the healing power can both heal an ally and hit an enemy, so the healing tree works solo too;
• lots of damage and healing over time — effects that work for several turns in a row;
• a shield for the off hand and mail — sturdier than the cloth classes;
• control: a polymorph card makes the enemy lose a turn.

Weaknesses:

• no Taunt — the Stormbringer can’t tank;
• less Health than the plate wearers;
• damage and healing over time take a while — in a short fight part of it is lost;
• two one-handers are available to only one tree; the others use a shield, tome or orb.

The Stormbringer’s deck: key cards

In Zarhold you don’t build your deck by hand: all 22 class cards and the cards of your learned talents go into battle, and if you have fewer than thirty cards the deck is topped up with copies of cheap ones. Every card with its description is in the Stormbringer’s Spellbook. Here’s what the class is built on.

Tempo

A 1-Crystal card deals a little damage and returns 4 Crystals, and another draws 2 cards and returns 1 Crystal. In the early turns they let you play something you otherwise couldn’t afford yet.

Lightning and fire

Lightning strikes for 2 and 4 Crystals (6 and 11 base), a strike that also heals you, and two big 8-Crystal strikes — fire and thunder — each leaving damage over time behind. Three cards put damage over time on the enemy: fire, frost and one more — fire from a totem.

Group damage

• lightning on all enemies — 7 base damage to all enemies at once for 5 Crystals;
• damage over time on all enemies for 3 turns — also for 5.

Healing and shields

Heals for 10 and 18 base, two heal-over-time cards — 5 at the end of each of your turns for 3 turns — an 18-point shield for just 2 Crystals and a 20-point shield for 5. Healing cards can be aimed at an ally, and anything healed above full Health becomes a shield.

Debuffs, a buff and control

• two debuffs: the target takes 20% or 25% more damage from all sources for 3 turns;
• a 3-turn buff — +30% to the damage you deal;
• polymorph — the enemy loses their turn.

About totems

Five Stormbringer cards “place a totem” in their description. They don’t create separate creatures on the board — they’re ordinary effects: damage over time, healing over time, a shield, damage over time on all enemies and a debuff. Play them as cards with those effects.

Base card numbers grow with Power: the more a card costs, the bigger the share of Power it gets.

The Stormbringer’s Class Power

Your Class Power is the round button that costs 1 Crystal, once per turn. Which one you have depends on your specialisation — the tree with the most points in it:

• the two attacking trees (and no specialisation, before level 10) — a strike on up to three targets, each taking the full hit;
• the healing tree — a dual power: on an ally (or yourself) it heals, on an enemy it deals damage. On the keyboard, plain E hits the selected enemy and Shift+E heals you or the ally selected with F2–F5.

In dungeons, raids and against world bosses the healing power heals the whole party: the chosen ally gets the full effect (with no target, the most wounded one does), everyone else gets another 0.2 × the Stormbringer’s Power (into Health only), and half of the chosen ally’s heal jumps to the second most wounded. In PvP and one-on-one fights the power works as usual, without the party-wide part. The numbers for every power are in the Class Power reference, and healing in group content is covered in the knowledge base article Class Power and racial ability.

Stormbringer talents: three trees

Talents unlock at level 10 and you get a point for every level — 51 by level 60. Each row of a tree opens for every 5 points in it, and the top talent needs 20 points in its own tree. A hero can only have one top talent per loadout. Each Stormbringer tree holds 31 ranks — 93 in total — so you can’t learn everything: talents are about choices.

1. The first tree — lightning and fire. Attacking, built on strong spells. It has two talent cards: in the second row, a 3-Crystal strike that also puts up a shield; in the fourth, a cheap 2-Crystal strike with damage over time.
2. The second tree — tempo on cheap cards. Attacking. Its talent card is a 2-Crystal strike after which the target takes 20% more damage for 2 turns. Only with this tree as the active specialisation can the Stormbringer wield two one-handers.
3. The third tree — the healer. The Stormbringer’s only healing tree. Its 2-Crystal talent card removes harmful effects from you and heals you; on an ally it removes everything except effects that take away a turn.

The talent cards arrive at the earliest at level 15 in the second row, level 20 in the third and level 25 in the fourth. Every tree with its talent and rank counts is in the Talent trees reference.

What to take early on

Until level 20 you have only one specialisation. Any tree works for open-world quests: the attacking power hits up to three enemies at once, and the healing one damages an enemy too and heals you when needed. If you run dungeons as a healer from the very first levels, take the third tree. Put your points into one tree in a row — that opens the next rows and the talent cards faster.

A level 60 build

From level 20 a hero has two specialisations:

• Spec A — attacking: 21 points in the first or second tree (20 to reach the top talent plus the top talent itself), the other 30 into bonuses from the neighbouring trees. The first is stronger on expensive spells and gives two talent cards, the second on quick cheap turns and with two one-handers;
• Spec B — healing: 21 points in the third tree for dungeons and raids.

Switching specialisations, loadouts and talent resets are free. How to count points and put a build together is covered in “Talents in a card RPG”. You can test a new build right away: the Try out button in the talents window takes you to the training dummy.

Stormbringer gear and weapons

• Armour: mail. The Stormbringer can also wear leather or cloth, but their own type gives the most protection.
• Weapons: mace, axe, fist weapon, staff and dagger.
• Off hand: shield, tome or orb.
• Two-handed: staff, and the two-handed versions of the axe and mace.
• Two weapons: only while the second talent tree is active. Hands are equal for every class: a one-hander plus an off-hand item carry as many stats as a two-hander.
• Ranged slot: instead of a bow or a wand, a relic of their own class that only a Stormbringer can wear.

At level 60 the Stormbringer’s goal is the Tier 1 set Raiment of the Storm-Speaker: eight pieces of item level 232 from heroic raids and world bosses. The 2-, 4-, 6- and 8-piece bonuses depend on your active tree and don’t work in PvP. Details are in “Tier sets in an MMORPG”, and every class’s armour and weapons are in the Armour and weapons reference.

Which race to choose for a Stormbringer

Any race can be a Stormbringer. If you want to squeeze out every bit, match the race’s permanent bonus to your goal:

• more damage and healing — Power: the Kogran, Nakar and Shaydar get +6% each, the Velion +5%, the Selenar +3% Power and −3% damage taken;
• more staying power — Health: the Gartan get +10%, the Durgar +8%, the Grumak and the Vaerin +5% each;
• for the arena consider the Morven: no crowd control makes them lose a turn — while stunned they simply have 1 Crystal.

Race is a nice extra, not a life sentence. Every bonus is in the All races reference.

The Stormbringer in PvE: dungeons and raids

A dungeon takes a tank, a healer and a damage dealer; a raid or a world boss takes a tank, a healer and three damage dealers. The Stormbringer can fill the healer or the damage slot.

As a healer

• Queue as a healer only in the third tree: only it has the healing power, and if you’re in the wrong tree, the game will warn you.
• Pick your heal target: F1 is you, F2–F5 are your allies. The board shows who every enemy is targeting — heal and shield whoever is about to be hit before it happens.
• Press your Class Power every turn: it heals the chosen ally, tops up the whole party, and half the heal jumps to the second most wounded.
• Put heals over time up before the enemy’s heavy turns, especially before hits on “everyone”: they strike the whole group.
• Healing above full Health turns into a shield, so topping up the tank “in advance” isn’t wasted.

As a damage dealer

Your Class Power hits up to three enemies, and lightning on all enemies and damage over time on all foes hit the whole enemy group. That’s especially useful when a boss summons helpers. Weaken the target before the big 8-Crystal strikes and don’t pull the boss off the tank. A long fight is risky: the boss enrages, and every stage adds 18% to its damage.

Step-by-step raid prep is in “Your first MMORPG raid”, and the roles in detail are in the knowledge base article Group roles.

The Stormbringer in PvP: arena and duels

In the arena (1v1, 2v2, 3v3 and 5v5), on the battleground and in duels the Stormbringer can be both a damage dealer and the team’s healer.

• In team fights the Class Power and the all-enemies cards hit several opponents at once.
• The healing tree hits too in PvP: its power damages an enemy when there’s nobody to heal yet.
• Polymorph takes away your opponent’s turn, but afterwards the target has at least 2 turns of their own when they can’t lose a turn again.
• Healing weakens: from your 10th turn healing and shields lose 10% a turn, and the third and later heals in a turn are half as strong.
• Remember the PvP rules: you can’t lose more than 60% of your Health in a round, a card shield lasts 2 turns and can’t exceed 30% of your Health, and the deck isn’t reshuffled — once you run out of cards, fatigue damage begins.
• Defence in PvP is Resilience from PvP gear; Hardiness from regular gear doesn’t work in the arena.

All the rules are in the knowledge base article Special PvP combat rules, and modes and ratings in “PvP in a card game”.

Common beginner mistakes as a Stormbringer

1. Queueing as a healer in an attacking tree. Only the third tree has the healing power. Check your specialisation before the queue.
2. Equipping two one-handers in the wrong tree. The Stormbringer holds a second one-hander only while the second tree is active — otherwise take a shield, tome or orb.
3. Spending an all-enemies card on a single foe. Against one target single strikes pay off better; lightning on all enemies and damage to all are for groups.
4. Casting damage and healing over time at the last moment. They work for 3 turns in a row and only pay off if you put them up in advance.
5. Saving up Focus. Crystals don’t carry over to the next turn — what you don’t spend is lost.
6. Wearing Hardiness gear in the arena. In PvP only Resilience protects you.

Stormbringer FAQ

Is the Stormbringer a healer or a damage dealer?

Both. Your specialisation decides the role: the third tree makes the Stormbringer a healer, the first and second a damage dealer. From level 20 you can keep both specialisations and switch with one button outside combat. The Stormbringer can’t tank.

Can a Stormbringer wield two weapons?

Yes, but only while the second talent tree is your active specialisation. In the other trees the off hand holds a shield, tome or orb, or you use a two-handed weapon.

Does the Stormbringer place totems on the board?

No. Totems only appear in card descriptions: those cards give damage over time, healing over time, a shield or a debuff, but no separate creatures show up on the board.

Can I play a healing Stormbringer solo?

Yes. The Stormbringer’s healing power damages an enemy and heals you, so the healing tree works for quests too. Still, quests go fastest with an attacking tree.

How much Health does a Stormbringer have?

446 at level 60 without gear — less than the plate wearers but more than the cloth classes. Gear, talents and race add on top.

The bottom line

The Stormbringer is the pick for anyone who doesn’t want to choose between damage and healing: lightning hits several enemies at once, while heals over time and shields keep allies standing. Start with any tree — all three work for quests — and from level 20 keep a second specialisation for your other role. Create a Stormbringer and find out what it’s like to be both the storm and the rescue. And if you’re still choosing a class, see “Which class to choose”.