It's Orc week... let's talk about their (crappy) Mythics and how they can be better

Feature Requests and Game feedback
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As the subject states… every time Orcs roll a mythic or anything for that matter, it seems to turn out to be mostly trash.

Gargantaur currently: Deal (Magic +15) damage to an enemy, boosted by all allies and enemies killed. (x15). Costs 22 mana.

Traits are: Huge, Impervious, and Dark Fury. The first two are self explanatory whereas Dark Fury give +8 attack/magic when Gargantaur takes damage.

The problem with Gargantaur is that you need enemy (and potentially ally) deaths to be effective. His last trait wants him to take damage, but he doesn’t have any real defense, so he’s squishy, making it not too effective. It also forces him to be paired with Gar’Nok for that 1 true damage.

My suggestion for Gargantaur is a simple one. Replace the Huge and Impervious trait with Stone Skin or similar trait (50% skull damage reduction or similar) and Orc Armor (+5 armor every time takes damage.) That way, he has better synergy with his final trait. He’s a big Orc, he should be able to withstand some damage, right? In any case, that should make his skill better since people will be more inclined to stick him at the front.

Shade of Zorn…
Deal [Magic + 5] damage to an Enemy, boosted by Red Allies and Skulls. If the Enemy dies, summon 2 Fists of Zorn. [4x] Costs 24 mana.

Traits: Stealthy, Undying, Zorn’s Fury.

The first two traits are self explanatory, but the final trait gives Shade of Zorn 4 mana every time he takes damage… but wait… he’s stealthy, so uh… that doesn’t synergize well. He’s a Mythic, for goodness sake, and obviously this means he’s kinda stuck to being paired up with Gar’Nok again, much like Gargantaur. And on top of that, his skill kinda sucks, as it requires you to actually kill the enemy to get a Fist of Zorn to summon.

Suggestion: Replace the Stealthy trait with Spell Block or Spell Armor (25-50% spell reduction). Change his skill to summon 1 empowered Fist of Zorn, regardless whether the enemy is killed or not. This should help synergize with his final trait and make him a sorta better Mythic.

Just my two cents.

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@ChunkyMono is the resident Orcpert.
Tagging him to make the request or put onto his radar.

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Emphasis mine.

Just sayin’.

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I think most of the traits make sense thematically, but fail in execution, which is what an Orc’s supposed to be good at, so that’s a shame.

On the other hand, while I think your suggestions might result in stronger Mythics (although don’t be so quick to flick off Impervious!!), they could do with a bit more of a thematic touch.

I’ll check back in if I have any bright ideas, myself :stuck_out_tongue:.

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As long it only hits one target, Shade of Zorn is always going to be useless. Mother of Darkness hits two targets, does true damage, and summons 2 troop when it doesn’t kill. (and has a 3rd trait that can do up to 10 true damage per turn). What does Shade have?

I think it would benefit from having a unique backstab-style mechanic, like launch an extra attack on cast for every other allied and/or enemy Orc.

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I’m not sure summoning an empowered Fist of Zorn is entirely useless…

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You have to be losing for the summon to matter and the board has to be favorable for Fist of Zorn to do anything. If I’m making a skull bashing team, I’m not slotting in a Shade of Zorn and hoping it gets to that point. If I’m making a spell casting team, a one color denying skull creator is probably going to cause me more problems then good.

(for what its worth, I also find Mother of Darkness summoning Sister of Shadows somewhat pointless as MoD does True Damage and Sister of Shadows does regular damage)

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Gargantaur doesn’t need to front line, he’s not supposed to be a defender. That said, Dark Fury giving him 8 attack is pretty dumb, it should give him 8 armor instead along with the 8 magic. Then his ability should also deal 1 true damage to himself. Problem solved.

Next up Shade of Zorn. I think he’s fine in the trait department. His ability can also deal a massive amount of single target damage if conditions are right. He summons troops that are red which increase his damage. overall great troop he just doesn’t have the synergy right now that he needs.

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My low Intelligence prohibits me from making a compelling argument, and my lack of Charisma would prevent you from believing me even if I could.

My alt used to run a Gargantaur team during a Red/Brown GW Day. (I still need a copy). We were facing Dead Guilds still using outdated meta teams from yesteryear…

Gorgotha’s, Emperor Korvash, Forest Trolls, those kind of teams.

Orc in 1st position worked okay on Red Day, with Cyclops 2nd, Thief with Blade of Guilt and Gargantuar. Yeah, there was a lot of blocking going on, but it worked for me.

Brown Day was Titan w/ MC, Drake Rider, Cyclops, and Gargantaur. Alt didn’t have Gar’nok.

Eventually he got better troops, and the Orcs faded from use. Except on standard PvP Defense.

I suppose most folks use Red Deeds on Attack Kingdoms such as Pridelands, or Mist of Scales for the Dark Pits delve, or even Dragon’s Claw because they love Dragons. I’ll post the benefits from using them on Grosh-Nak later, as I’m away from my XBox.

My brother once said “all Mythics are just tools. No need to craft a sword and shield if all you ever plan on is using a Warhammer”. I like what I like. Some people prefer to dodge dodge parry thrust until the wargs come home. 2 or 3 smacks with a Warhammer and I’m off looking for the next Elf.

I like Gargantaur as is. Perhaps I would craft him, if I didn’t get Shade of Zorn during the Barbarian class event, and I didn’t have 8 other Kingdoms blocked by a missing Mythic. His Impervious trait kept him from being devoured/death marked. And if paired with Gar’Nok, those 1 dmg hits would boost him a bit, and offer more meat shields.

For the Horde. :axe::rage::shield:

And despite all that, if my math is right, I’ve only used Grosh-Nak troops 240 times on offense:

Screen Shot 2020-03-18 at 8.34.43 PM
Screen Shot 2020-03-18 at 8.34.43 PM882×396 114 KB

I’m still looking for the Blue Mana user that hacked my XBox and used “queen” Mab 3,454 times while I wasn’t looking.

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Say it is not so, Warmaster, that you would not take the chance to argue for making our orcish brethren even STRONGER!

I would like the Shade of our lord Zorn to get more mana when taking damage. His summoned fists should be empowered, there should be a small chance one of them would be Gar’nok instead, and he should create yellow gems * # of deaths in the battle, for fist(s) to convert to skulls. At a minimum. Because, as Idle rightly says, for summons to be a strategy means one is already behind.

Gargantaur should be as all true barbarians—able to RAGE. And by RAGE I mean MINDLESSLY. Make his attack as it is, but allow it to hit 1-4 targets. Give himself ((4–targets)*5) HP, too (like temporary HP in D&D), thus negating the need for Huge and allowing Orc Armor instead as the OP suggests.

Or really anything that makes me want to craft these guys for more than just my love of the orcs!

:fist_right: FOR THE HORDE :fist_left:

EDIT: Had another idea! Takes an orc a minute to collect his thoughts, heh. Too many headbutts today, HEH.

What if Shade of Zorn allowed a choice when casting? (This could be cool for future troops, too—something besides just selecting a target gem/enemy!)

  1. Do you want to devour an ally?
  2. If so, summon 1 unempowered FoZ to replace what you eat
  3. If not, do the other things listed above
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Shade of Zorn’s spell should devour any Fists of Zorn on his team and replace them with fresh ones. That would be worth casting.

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One of the ideas I’ve had around Storms on weapons is to have two separate “cast” buttons after clicking on the filled Hero/Troop.

(E.g. “Cast” and “Cast with storm”)

Wasn’t sure if it would be annoying or break up game flow, though.

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Because the game favors faster battles, all mythics that require significant setup must benefit substantially from that setup. A moderate and reasonable increase would make him viable and add interesting options to the meta, such as Sunbird in higher play or making sacrifice troops such as Vash or Widow Queen viable.

If Gargantuar gained 2000 damage per death, he would still not be overpowered because he can only kill one enemy per cast, which is too slow for Gems’ faster pace and provides more opportunity for the enemy team to win. A boost ratio of one thousand would still not be overpowered in high level PVE because Irongut and Zuul can one shot enemies with little to no setup. (Although having a different color instant kill option would be useful for delves and TOD.)

Gargantuar’s design is so broken that increasing his boost ratio to literally infinity would not make him overpowered but simply an alternative to Irongut and Zuul*.

*This ignores event troops with Invulnerable, but this can be solved by changing his spell to “Deal [damage]. If there are any ally or enemy deaths, deal lethal damage.”

Since even players can see the use rates for given troops (even if just their own), it is obvious the devs can and thus can use these rates to determine which troops should be buffed. However, there is little incentive to buff existing troops that players already possess versus introducing new troops that are more powerful because the latter promotes spending resources while the former does not.

Although the devs struggle even with that. See Will of Nysha who suffers from the same issue in that she benefits from longer matches from which the player does not benefit and thus is useless for end game players. (She’s crazy powerful for new players. Who are also most likely to not have her. Nice.)

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When I made that statement, I thought I’d be able to demonstrate the benefits of upgrading the Wednesday pet from 10 thru 20. But it is the Weenie Wyvern that benefits from the Kingdom upgrades. Not the snot nosed booger that was for sale yesterday. As such, my alt saved his gems for another day. My Wyvern pet is at level 10, while Moco is at 15.

I included a 4 orc team and a 3 orc/thief team for comparison. I still use the Skeleton Key team 90% of the time when I pvp tho. Speed kills.

4 Orcses
4 Orcses863×482 534 KB

3 orcs and Thief