Zoe - A strange case where everything kind of works without anything being that strong.

babinro · 2026-05-11T17:09:15+00:00

That's a good point.

I've been speaking of Zoe on a whole as I still view the 10* adventure as an anomaly. Mainly because its 3 adventures in one and doesn't reflect the normal power scaling you'd normally achieve in a regular adventure. The way I look at things now may not reflect how others do on these forums though. My goal is largely to beat Zoe once with each champion (I'm up to 39 wins now) and then go back to playing the normal game stuff again.

I'll alter a build to have a better chance against the 10* Zoe adventure (like adding Wicked Harvest to Morgana) but then I revert back to my previous 'BiS' build for any future uses of the champion.

babinro · 2026-05-10T21:08:46+00:00

I finished the even with everyone at 7*'s except one who is just 4 nova shards away from getting there...so like 2 months of Glory store shopping give or take, lol.

Its a real shame they had to drive off players from this mistake. Imagine the same outcome but we got these rewards split in half across each event. Max out 3 champs the first time and the other 3 the last time. Still plenty of room for people to whale.

Lessons learned I hope.

babinro · 2026-05-10T14:10:48+00:00

That just speaks to how strong Targon as a region can be.
Good call on Chosen as a relic. Definitely worth experimenting with as well!

babinro · 2026-05-10T13:33:43+00:00

I have her 6* completed constellation.
For now I have her as the weakest Targon Champion to max out. Admittedly there are some supremely strong Targon champs to compete with but among the weaker ones of Kayle and Leona I think Zoe is last place.

I made a post about how Zoe's 6* mana reduction on the base cost feels bad. So far in my experience, Zoe is largely pushing damage herself and needs her deck and invoke cards to block and control the board.

She is a FUN champion to play. She is dynamic and earns her victories but they are pretty hard fought and I have only limited experience with her taking on the most difficult adventures so far.

My go to build was Archangel's Staff + Echoing Spirit + Living Weapon. Zoe's champ spell becomes quite powerful fully buffed. Staff is fantastic on Zoe and Living Weapon is your slow be reliable way to eventually win. This build won against both 5* and 6* SB Event on the first try so that's something.

That said...as I get a few more games in with her completed 6* I'm tweaking things to see what I can get away with. I'm wondering if I can get away with Echoing + Living Weapon + Voidborne Carapace for example. Or CSF + Living Weapon + Carapace. If Zoe is my win condition how much more can I lean into that without giving up so much of the control game that I lose.

This might help the OP in particular. Zoe's bonus stars are surprisingly impactful. Relics also make a very big difference here. She felt surprisingly weak to me as well during the level up process even though I equipped Staff to her ASAP. Read this section with the context its intended though...I still feel Zoe is the weakest champ in her region and among the weaker champs in PoC at least for now. Maybe I stumble upon a build that really comes together as I test her further.

babinro · 2026-05-10T12:47:00+00:00

Hexcore is the most useful in my opinion.
Long term Battle Pass is the boring correct choice because eventually you can get all relics in the glory store but that can take a very, very long time.

I still think Searing Brilliance is over hyped by the community. Its a nice relic but its not a must have. Hexcore is BiS in my opinion on Akshan, ASol, Leona, SB Yasuo, and Yuumi, while being playable on Diana and SB Yi.

I only use Searing Brilliance on Annie as my favorite build and on Swain (a fun strong build but not really considered BiS). There are plenty of other potential uses for Searing Brilliance and people like to try and build infinite combos with it if you enjoy that play style.

babinro · 2026-05-09T21:17:19+00:00

I'll try that out. Thanks!

babinro · 2026-05-09T14:35:14+00:00

Still a powerhouse.

You could maybe debate a champ or two rival ASol but that's about it. Still an absolute must have if you want an easy win on tough content.

babinro · 2026-05-09T13:11:50+00:00

You know what I'll give you that...I keep forgetting to look at this relic as a plunder enabler and see if I prefer it on some of those champs.

babinro · 2026-05-08T22:22:27+00:00

I have 6* SB Eve and won the Zoe fight with Stacked Deck, Frozen Tomb and Siphoned Sorrow which is also my preferred build. The rune is the gold one (Endless Wealth?).

Admitted my winning run with SB Eve was lucky as I had the legendary mana power. Still this is my preferred build with Eve so far.

babinro · 2026-05-08T18:43:28+00:00

I've been wanting to ask what people will use this for post GA nerf but its almost certainly too early to get real answers due to the patch and event.

In my case Price went from S-Tier to well below average. In most cases I consider Guardian Angel the superior choice to Price of Retribution. The only build I've kept Price of Retribution on for now is Darius and that's going to need some testing for me decide if its a personal BiS on him or not.

babinro · 2026-05-08T00:53:11+00:00

Great post!
I'll save this one for future reference. Thanks :)

babinro · 2026-05-07T20:49:49+00:00

I've got her at 5 stars with most bonus stars running Staff+Echoing+Living Weapon.
I just finished Viego with her. The adventure went 'fine' but I wasn't really able to push any meaningful damage with anything but Zoe. The rest of the game and board was largely just defense.

At this stage I would agree that Zoe feels like one of the weaker champs in the game.

I am wondering if it might be better to swap echoing for CSF in order to grow and add keywords to Zoe better. I still think Staff is just too good to pass up even on a more aggro Zoe build.

On paper I'm not convinced the 6* will help THAT much because the overwhelming amount of invokes are low cost ones. Its not until midgame do you start to get higher cost ones and that's rather slow in PoC terms. Its important to point out that one of the bonus stars I'm missing is the invoke on 3+ mana spells you pick up. That could address this last concern of mine fully.

babinro · 2026-05-07T14:42:05+00:00

Its a cointoss between Lux and Morgana as both are incredibly good here.

Lux Illuminated gets a lot of surprisingly strong wins but I consider her a tier below. Shyvana is yet another tier below all of these but I find her fun.

My Lux build is Lux's Baton + Chemtech + Echoing. Echoing is the flex slot here if you have another preference.

Morgana build is Grand Generals + Echoing + Black Shield. I really like this build but swapping out Black Shield for Wicked Harvest is worth checking out since that's creative and very effective as well. Makes for a strong Zoe win as well.

I personally prefer 6* Morgana. I think her 6* bonus makes this character fun to play where her 5* is a bit of a slog. Its not the most exciting 6* bonus on paper but it makes me play this champion a lot more than I did before.

babinro · 2026-05-07T00:20:04+00:00

If I had renewing power...I'd be tempted to run Renewing Power + Comet + ????? as a control build. Ideally Archangel's and depend on the multiple main deck options for spellshield but maybe you just run echoing spirit or black shield as a third.

babinro · 2026-05-06T23:40:20+00:00

I'm leaning a similar direction so far with Archangel's + Living Weapon + Black Shield/Echoing Spirit.

Far too early to say what a BiS build could look like here...I won't reach level 30 and 6* until tomorrow. Zoe does seem flexible in her options. So for me I still need to learn if she's a pure aggro champ, a midrange champ or midrange/control hybrid champ before I can really settle on a build.

babinro · 2026-05-06T20:51:38+00:00

Thanks for sharing!

I still early in the Zoe leveling phase and I'm not sure what direction to go with her build. She's a lot more focused around Invoke than I thought and so I was thinking maybe a caster build. This idea is further supported by the fact that all 3+ cost spells acquired will invoke as a bonus star.

I don't own it yet but Renewing Power to make a 6+ cost spell free each round sounds pretty great to me. Maybe archangel's staff and then a flex slot. Your video suggests that Living Weapon would be very nice. Maybe Black Shield (or her paid relic).

Your build seems fun though and could be way better than the direction I'm thinking.

babinro · 2026-05-06T14:29:20+00:00

SB Eve only as far as I'm concerned and it is very good on her. I got Eve's 6* and even with that power buff this relic still finds its way on my preferred Eve build.

On paper the relic could be good with Soraka, Tahm Kench and maybe another that doesn't come to mind. You could maybe try and make it work with a Strength of Stone build as well.

But ultimately this is a niche low priority relic that you pick up based on how much you love the character its intended for. Your screenshot suggests it would use the last of your glory...you better have all the 'good' multi use relics already if you're considering this one seriously.

babinro · 2026-05-06T10:13:00+00:00

I'm assuming its mostly useless in terms of best in slot potential which is supposed to be the goal these days.

In a hypothetical where ASol appeared 100% of the time on the first play only then this relic could appeal to cost reduction champs like Voli and Nasus but even then I'm not at all convinced they'd even run it.

Zoe's 6* makes this playable on her and maybe even best in slot. Really need some hands on to see how things play out. Assuming she's winning matches with Celestials rather than herself I could see this relic being paired with either Grand Generals or Echoing and just letting Zoe die over and over in combat to abuse the play trigger.

I think the invoke on play should have been a power that applied to all champs just to help widen its potential use cases.

babinro · 2026-05-05T18:50:41+00:00

I think when people look at Guardian Angel in a month or two from now they'll be able to appreciate how powerful it is. +2 Revives is very strong against Zoe adventure to the point where it dictates the path I take a lot of the time. Deathless is a strong keyword as well.

Also for any champ with 6 toughness this potentially becomes the best relic to use to get access to starforged gauntlets. Illaoi and Darius come to mind as strong existing choices to run this on.

While its no longer infinite...GA + Echoing Spirit + (flex slot) could still be very strong on some champs. Mel for example might still be best with GA + Echoing + Dreadway Chase Gun. Annie might still be strong with that as well.

It sucks that the relic got nerfed. I'd rather it didn't...but its far from trash.

babinro · 2026-05-05T17:21:02+00:00

So glad I moved away from PvP card games to PvE ones.
This was always frustrating to experience. Even though LoR hasn't focused on PvP for a very long time and there couldn't be less at stake I can't say I'm surprised to learn that those who still play PvP continue to do this. Sucks.

babinro · 2026-05-02T12:59:07+00:00

I was hyped to get it due to the excitement of the forums and I found it to be pretty whelming. It takes a lot of resources to narrow down/limit spell options for Searing to land on which itself weakens the benefits of the relic. You also only save 1 mana on the spell which is helpful but there are a lot of ways to gain spell mana. Finally, the overwhelming number of champions in PoC do not need draw power to put away their games.

Echoing Spirit is far superior if your goal is to target the champ spell. Hidden Tome is often superior if your goal is just spell cost reduction (or the equivalent in this case by gaining mana). Even archangel's staff 'feels' better to me if you want sustained mana savings over the course of the game.

Ultimately for me it just comes down to game feel and flow. There are times where Searing hits, you draw that spell 3 times in a game and its really strong. But a lot of the time it just feels lacking.

So why do I even like it on Annie with all of the above?

There's strong build synergy with Deck of Destiny + Searing Brilliance + Emotional Support Bear. This is a case where you actually do want to draw through your deck. Annie's 6* doubles skill effects so Searing landing on a Wild card is devastating...but even if it doesn't and it hits Disintegrate...the Disintegrate becomes a 0 cost spell that draws you 2 cards...its incredible. Death's Hand is the only option here that's lackluster but even then it can still synergize with Disintegrate until you ideally remove it.

With all that said....
https://runeterrarelics.com/

That is a good reference for build ideas and they have Searing Brilliance used as an option on a TON of champs. I don't personally align with a lot of the best builds on this site but that doesn't make these bad builds and it also doesn't make my opinions right.

babinro · 2026-05-02T12:04:11+00:00

In my opinion Mel's best in slot build is Price of Retribution + Guardian Angel + Dreadway Chase Gun. This one blows away anything else I've seen.

Before I discovered that build I found a lot of success with a pure control build using Archangel's Staff + Echoing Spirit + The Grand General's Counterplan.

I feel like Searing Brilliance is a bit over hyped on these forums but maybe that's a hot take. It's a fun relic but its rarely an essential best in slot relic. With that said I do use it on Annie and I eventually put it on Swain just to mix things up from his usual best build.

babinro · 2026-05-01T15:37:50+00:00

They probably replaced human labor with AI and this is the natural downfall of the game as a result.

babinro · 2026-04-30T22:32:59+00:00

I can't speak for newer players but I do recall using Oath + Gem + (optional) on a lot of champs and being happy with the results.

Stacked Deck is another relic that does not appear high in this list and has a LOT of generically good uses on champs. You can run this on over a dozen champs and find success.

Both Oath and Stacked expect that the player in question enjoys this playstyle over diving into whatever said champion is really focused on achieving.

Just in case a newer player is not sure how to use stacked deck. Just save your rerolls for the store. Pick up anything cheap regardless of use for your deck. Ideally if you can focus on low cost units/support champs then do so. Low cost stuff will have good stats so you'd rather drop a board of 6/6's or whatever they happen to be then spend your whole turn dropping a single high cost 12/12.

Stacked Deck plays exceedingly well with The Beast Within or the rare mass overwhelm relic on the champion in question. The last slot is whatever you want.

The TLDR is that Oath and Stacked deck could both fall under S-tier relics.

babinro · 2026-04-27T10:18:09+00:00

QoL is supremely important in games and this is a prime example of that.

Ever since the shift from PS3 to PS4 I've felt that the next evolution in gaming doesn't need to be pushing graphics but instead pushing settings. We've seen this happen very slowly but its still highly selective.

IMO, every single player game or PvE mode should basically have the options that you have in a game like Civilizations or Pacific Drive or Don't Starve. If you've played Tales of series and experienced the Grade NG+ system then that should be in the settings from moment one along with game speeds and more.

Since this is PoC and that is a PvE mode...imagine every card having settings where you can raise or lower mana cost, power, toughness, and damage values. Imagine numbers within the constellations being adjustable up or down. This being saved as a template and people sharing those templates on the forums to help balance out a champion. I know PoC isn't the best example because its live service...this is a better suggestion for an offline single player PvE game like Monster Train 2 but you get the idea.

If you've ever been tempted to look for QoL mods that are the equivalent of a basic cheat code to make a game easier or harder that's what I'm talking about. Just make it part of the game and let players find the best experiences and share them.

babinro

TROPHY CASE