Orcs Must Die! Unchained – FAQ/Walkthrough

Heroes

Blackpaw

Overview

My Personal Rating: 7.25/10

Blackpaw is one of the three starter Heroes (along with Gabriella and Maximilian). He is also the only melee character you start out with. I would argue he is mostly balanced, but he does seem to have a focus on dealing damage to single targets rather than groups.

Abilities:

Wound The Prey (L2) - This ability will place a debuff on the minions that it hits (I think it has a maximum target limit of about 5 or so), and minions affected by the debuff will be colored bright red. The debuff increases any damage source by 250%, and lasts about 5 seconds.

• Mana cost: 15
• Cooldown: 4 seconds.

Call To The Beyond (Triangle) - This ability summons 2 Gnolls to help deal damage. Although it is difficult to determine how much damage they deal, a good thing is that they cannot be damaged. The Gnolls last a little over 10 seconds, and will prioritize any target that is affected by Wound The Prey.

• Mana cost: 70
• Cooldown: 50 seconds.

Go For The Throat (Square) - This ability can hit multiple enemies at once, but the range of it isn't that large (it's about the same as Wound The Prey). Go For The Throat is a great source of damage (it hits harder than Blackpaw's Primary) and also a great source of healing. It's a little difficult to determine how the healing works exactly (it might be based somewhat off of damage dealt), as I've seen it heal anywhere from 15% HP to about 30% HP with a single use. This ability costs 15 Mana, and a cooldown of 5 seconds.

• Mana cost: 15
• Cooldown: 5 seconds.

Passive: Pounce - This passive is a little strange. This gives Blackpaw the ability to do a double-jump, which in turn propels Blackpaw forward as he glides through the air. Since Blackpaw is propelled forward, this does give him a slight movement increase, so using Pounce will always be faster than simply moving normally. Pounce can also be useful in traversing maps of varying elevation; he can make jumps significantly easier, which can help if you are going to potentially fall to your death. The downside is that Pounce does have a Mana cost of 13 Mana, which means you can't just simply jump around as much as you want.

Pros

Blackpaw probably does the best single-target damage out of the 3 starter Heroes. Although he doesn't have an ability that hits as hard as Max's In Your Faces, Blackpaw's damage is more consistent; he can dish out fairly high damage in quick succession, and his direct-damage abilities have short cooldowns.

He is the only melee Hero initially available, but what you'll find once buying other melee Heroes, is that they have a tendency to take significantly more damage than ranged Heroes. In comparison to others melee Heroes, Blackpaw has an easier time surviving with Go For The Throat, as it heals while dealing damage. Since Go For The Throat has about a 5 second cooldown, it should be enough to keep Blackpaw up in many situations where he is taking a lot of damage.

Call To The Beyond has some negative sides to it, but one thing that is fantastic about it is that your summoned Gnolls can gain threat on Shield minions (such as Shield Trolls). This is very unique, because only a small amount of features in the game can do that; Guardians, as well as Summoner and Decoy traps. Being able to do that with just your Hero can really help slow them down and keep them from activating your traps.

Cons

The first problem with Blackpaw you'll probably notice is his Mana; if you are to use all of his abilities as much as you are able to, you'll find that Blackpaw will be out of Mana very quickly.

The primary issue with his Mana is Call To The Beyond, as it takes a significant amount of Mana to use. This means that it can be utilized as much as the player may want, and in turn, hurts Blackpaw's overall damage output.

Call To The Beyond also has a few quirks to it as well that makes it an ability of questionable use:

1. The Gnolls will prioritize targets afflicted by Wound The Prey - This is actually a bit of a problem in a couple of different ways.
   • For myself at least, anytime I use Wound The Prey is because I personally want to kill whatever I'm attacking; in other words, as soon as I use Wound The Prey, I start to melee that target myself. This in turn means that target will die the fastest, and in terms of optimizing damage output, it would make more sense if the Gnolls would target everything else because the wounded target is going to die from my own hits.
   • Since Wound The Prey forces the Gnolls to target, they take a second to "readjust" which means that they need to cancel their current attacks to change targets. In combination with the statement above, once the target dies, obviously they need to readjust again to a new target. So if the wounded target dies fast enough, you may see a window of around 2 seconds where the Gnolls won't even do anything; the behavior would be "Readjust target > start attack again (target dies immediately) > readjust target > start attacking again.
   • Since Wound The Prey deals damage, the targeting system is lost on high priority targets like Kamikaze Kobolds; if you use Wound The Prey on a Kamikaze Kobold, you'll just kill it outright. The Gnolls have no priority system outside of Wound The Prey, which means that if you're hoping that they'll kill the more important things first, you'll be disappointed.
2. The Gnolls behave somewhat irregularly - I have had moments where I've summoned my Gnolls, only to see them go off in a direction where there are no minions. If you summon them, then clear the area of minions, if the Gnolls are still up, they won't proactively head to another area with minions (sometimes they do, sometimes they don't).

With the high Mana cost and long cooldown of Call To The Beyond, this makes it difficult to justify the usage of the ability. Truthfully, I've played many maps with Blackpaw without using the ability at all, and I've hardly noticed a difference in his performance.

With the problems with Call To The Beyond in mind, as a result, Blackpaw feels incredibly uninteresting to play. His simplicity can be beneficial (as he'll be easy to master), but once he is mastered, he doesn't have anything that makes him feel really unique; primarily what you'll see him do is simply melee minions a lot. Call To The Beyond is the one ability I think makes Blackpaw feel unique, but unfortunately with its problems, I don't use the ability very much, and thus Blackpaw becomes sort of dull to play.

The final (somewhat minor) problem is that you may notice that he'll start to take more damage in higher difficulties. Although Go For The Throat works great in Apprentice and War Mage, when the game begins to throw more (and stronger) minions at you, you may find yourself needing to retreat more and more. As a result, he kind of hits this strange middle ground with the Enjoys Pain Trait - he's almost to the point to where he doesn't need it. It would be better if he didn't need it at all, as that would free up a Trait slot for something else.

Upgrades

Upgrades I use:

• Sharper Claws (Level 2)
• Thin The Herd (Level 4)
• Kindred Souls or Heal, Boy, Heal (Level 7)
• Call Of The Wild or Vengeful Vigor (Level 10)

Upgrades Analysis:

• Level 2:
  
  • Cutting Deep: I never found this upgrade to be necessary, so I've never bothered with it. Wound The Prey's duration coincides with its cooldown almost perfectly, so what this upgrade means is you won't have to use Wound The Prey as much (over the course of the entire map). In turn, this will save you some Mana, but in a very indirect way.
  • Feral Fitness: The HP regeneration is really not meant to keep you alive, but rather just keep you topped off. Go For The Throat will still be your main source of healing, and personally I found that it does keep me alive just fine without this upgrade.
  • Sharper Claws: Personally I think this the best upgrade at level 2, because it's the least conditional. It provides a 15% damage increase to large minions, so as long as there are large minions on the map (and most of the time there are), you'll see use out of this upgrade. I believe this upgrade also increases damage to boss minions and Mercenaries as well, making it all the more attractive.
• Level 4:
  • Hungry Wolf: The reduced cooldown for Go For The Throat is actually not too bad of a choice, as GFTT does more damage than your regular Primary attack. A reduced cooldown would mean better damage output, and even a better healing source, but it will also mean you'll be consuming more Mana.
  • Thin The Herd: I usually choose this at level 4, because the slow added onto Wound The Prey seems decently significant; I think it's a 50% or 60% movement speed reduction. This is absolutely amazing for some boss minions (Swiftyhooves) and Mercenaries (Chaotic Kobold, Bouncer Bear), but usually it's not too helpful for regular minions. It is slightly helpful for large minions, because chances are those are the ones who are going to survive after being hit with Wound The Prey; normal minions will generally die after a single hit (once hit with Wound The Prey). Thus, it does help slow large minions down, to ensure they're not progressing towards the Rift.
  • Spirit Animal: Personally I never choose this upgrade, as I never found that 40 extra Mana would really make that much of a difference. Although it is true that more Mana would mean more opportunities to use Call To The Beyond, the summoned Gnolls behavior is still not that great, so for me I don't have any problems using the ability sparingly.
• Level 7:
  • Kindred Souls: Although I do use this upgrade on occasion, it does have some questionable use. I love any kind of flat damage increase, but the damage increase may be lost, because of how stupid the Gnolls can be sometimes. Since the level 10 upgrade of "Call Of The Wild" does grant an additional Gnoll, that's potentially even more damage output. That is the catch though, it's just a potential, so I would say that if you feel confident in your Gnolls, take this upgrade.
  • Heal, Boy, Heal: I think this the alternative if you don't really like your Gnolls too much, although it also has questionable use. If you're running with the Enjoys Pain Trait, you will probably never see any real use out of this. However, planning for this upgrade, and simply not bringing in Enjoys Pain (allowing yourself a different Trait), would allow you to get full potential out of this upgrade. Although, you need to be confident in surviving until level 7 if you're not bringing in Enjoys Pain.
  • Jumpy Wolf: I think the Mana removal of Pounce is pretty worthless. I never use Pounce more than 2 or 3 times in a row, because if you need to do more than that, I'm guessing there are 2 reasons - There's a Runner that got by you (and ideally this should never happen) or you're struggling to effectively traverse the map (which just takes practice). For both reasons, some better planning will reduce your reliance on Pounce, and thus, the Mana cost is a bit of a moot point.
• Level 10:
  • Vengeful Vigor: It's difficult for me to say how useful this upgrade really is. Although it tells you that the maximum damage increase you can receive is 35%, it doesn't say when it's activated, nor how it scales. Is the maximum damage activated at a 65% HP (which means it would be 1% per 1% HP lost), or is the maximum activated at 1% HP? If it's activated at a lower threshold, do I get it in equal proportions? In other words, if the maximum is at 10% HP, is a 17.5% damage increase at 55% HP? As you can see, there are way too many questions associated with this upgrade, so it has questionable use. Also keep in mind, if you're regularly using Go For The Throat, how long that damage increase lasts will only be a few seconds (potentially only long enough for 1 hit); if you're running with the Enjoys Pain Trait, you may also see even less use in this upgrade, as chances are you'll rarely be below 90% HP. However, a damage increase is still a damage increase even if it's only brief. Over the course of a match, the extra damage can add up.
  • Take What Is Owed: This is a very bizarre upgrade, because who is going to need THAT much healing in a match? 2% HP healing per Primary hit is a TON of health back, but it's entirely too much considering that Go For The Throat heals you as is. Again, if one is to bring in Enjoys Pain anyway, it completely negates the usefulness of this upgrade.
  • Call Of The Wild: Similar to "Kindred Souls" at level 7, this upgrade is more dependent on your confidence of your summoned Gnolls. If you feel they are useful, then I would recommend this, as an additional Gnoll is simply more damage that you don't even need to think about.

Synopsis

Blackpaw is a fairly balanced Hero, who deals consistently high damage to single targets. Although he doesn't really get any abilities that hit large groups of enemies, it's not really required for him. Since Blackpaw can deal fairly high damage to a single target, he can kill it faster, thus he can change targets faster. This indirectly gets the same result as dealing damage in an area (as area-of-effect damage generally does less overall damage).

Blackpaw can have some Mana issues, but this can be resolved by taking consideration in using his abilities (rather than just mindlessly spamming them). If Call To The Beyond is used sparingly, you'll find that Mana generally isn't much of an issue (although it still can be on occasion).

For Blackpaw's HP, you'll find that Go For The Throat is usually enough to keep Blackpaw alive, but it becomes less useful as the minions get stronger. However, this can be easily compensated by either upgrades or Traits, so Blackpaw shouldn't have many issues in staying alive overall.

Blackpaw's upgrades also show a continual theme you will see in other Heroes - some upgrades have questionable use. The vast majority of the Heroes in the game have this exact same problem; sometimes it is difficult to determine what upgrades are useful. Sometimes it's difficult to determine because the description isn't very detailed, and sometimes because it's difficult to understand how the upgrade can be used.

Ultimately, it's just unfortunate that Call To The Beyond isn't that great of an ability. Although it is great that it summons Gnolls to deal some extra damage, they may not behave the way you want them to, so you may lose some interest in the ability altogether. This boils Blackpaw down to a Hero that is incredibly basic, simply dealing melee damage, despite the fact that he does it fairly well.