Orcs Must Die! Unchained – FAQ/Walkthrough

Heroes

Brass

Overview

My Personal Rating: 6/10

Brass is a mid-ranged Hero who deals physical damage. She has a few different things at her disposal; a sentry turret, mines, and she collects her own resource known as "Scrap" in order to place her mines and upgrade her turret.

Abilities:

Cannonball Shot (L2) - Brass shoots a Cannonball in an arc, which will explode in a radius when it lands.

• Cooldown: 6 seconds.

Swiss Army Wrench (Triangle) - Brass swings her Wrench, which can be used to damage enemies, or upgrade the Dwarven Turret.

Brass Bombs (Square) - Brass places a bomb on the ground, which functions like a proximity mine. Minions do have to step on the bomb directly to activate it, but it does have a large explosion radius. A maximum of 15 Brass Bombs can be placed at once.

• Scrap Cost: 15

Dwarven Turret (L3) - Brass places a Turret at the location you choose. The Turret functions somewhat like a mini-Guardian; it has HP and deals (ranged) damage. The Turret can be upgraded twice (with Scrap), via the Swiss Army Wrench. The first upgrade grants the Turret more damage, and gives it a shield that works like a weak version of Max's "Can't Touch This". The second upgrade grants the Turret more damage, and I believe its damage is also granted an area-of-effect.

• Upgrade "per Hit" Scrap Cost: 10
  • Total Scrap Cost (to tier 2): 40
  • Total Scrap Cost (to tier 3): 70
• Scrap Cost to Heal: 5 (Each heal restores about 20% HP I think).

Passive: Short Stack and Scrap - Just like Dobbin, since she's so short, large minions will never attack her (which also includes bosses, but not Mercenaries). The other part of her passive isn't really an ability, as Scrap is just the resource she uses instead of Mana.

• Note: Since Brass doesn't use Mana, realize this changes her ability to use Gear. Scrap starts out at 0, which means that you need to find some Scrap first in order to use Gear that has a resource cost (like Fire Wall Bracers).

Pros

Brass's Primary attack has the potential to deal a lot of damage, and she does get a decent amount of variety in her abilities.

Her Primary works just like a Shotgun, as it hits multiple times in a spread. This allows Brass to deal a lot of damage at once (if each hit manages to hit the same target). Since her Primary attacks multiple times, this also means she does fairly well against Order minions; hitting multiple times means she can overcome the Order's "Steady" buff easier than other Heroes.

Brass Bombs deal fairly good damage, and the radius is decent as well. They don't have a cooldown at all, and their Scrap cost isn't very high. The 15 limit is generally not an issue, because if you're trying to actively place them (as in, placing them as minions path), you probably won't ever have the Scrap cost to get 15 up at once.

Cannonball Shot is kind of a weaker version of Brass Bombs (with a smaller radius), but it has a 6 second cooldown. One very amusing (and very effective) thing to do with Brass is take the upgrade "Cannonball Coming!" at level 10, and then use Unchained. This makes the cooldown instant, which allows Brass to bombard any area with Cannonball Shots.

Her Dwarven Turret can be quite helpful, as it nearly functions as a Guardian that can be placed anywhere. It can also be upgraded to do more damage, and grant it a reflective shield (like Max's Can't Touch This).

Cons

Brass's Primary attack, although does high damage, has a decent spread to it; this means that each hit has the chance to simply not hit anything at all, so her Primary damage becomes extremely random. It is compounded by her slow attack speed; she has about 2 seconds between each Primary attack, which is really a problem if her shots are missing.

Cannonball Shot does fairly good damage, but I find the radius of the explosion is somewhat disorienting; it seems to be much smaller than you would expect it to be. This means that you may need to readjust somewhat to ensure you are hitting what you want to hit.

Swiss Army Wrench has absolutely zero use, outside of upgrading your turret. Swiss Army Wrench does in fact deal damage, and the minion will drop Scrap if it is killed with it (guaranteed). However, I would argue you would be a fool to use this over her other abilities. It does least amount of damage than any other of her abilities, and it forces her into melee range (which you don't want, given her low HP).

Brass Bombs has one gigantic problem - Although when placed, you'll see a green ring (which indicates its blast radius), in order for the bomb to activate, the minion has to be stepping directly onto it. Although the graphic does seem to be much larger in 2.61 than it did in the past, it still runs the risk that a minion will simply walk by it.

Dwarven Turret is decent, but it comes with some problems. The main problem has to do with it's upgrading system - once you have some Scrap, you have to be next to it (fairly close too, in melee range of it) and hold Swiss Army Wrench down. Each "hit" with Swiss Army Wrench will then reduce your Scrap (a set amount) and fill an "upgrade bar", and once that is filled, the turret will upgrade. This becomes an immense waste of time during Master and Rift Lord.

This is further exacerbated by the fact that the Turret pulls threat (although this is understandable); although the Turret has a decent amount of HP, if it gets destroyed, not only do you have to replace it, but you have to upgrade it all over again, which is incredibly inefficient if you're crunched for time.

Current technical problem with Scrap - I would guess this only affects PS4 users, but unfortunately, someone thought it would be brilliant to animate the Scrap drops (they spin). The issue with this, is that you may end up seeing the frame-rate drop more often when using Brass. This is partially because of two reasons: First, Scrap is generally never in short supply, as it drops quite often. Second, Scrap stays on the map for a significant amount of time, which is good when you need it, but not so good if it's slowing down the game.

• Patch 2.61 note - They patched the Scrap drop rate, which means that it's not quite as frequent (there's still plenty of it, so it doesn't really affect Brass's capabilities), so this may be resolved to some degree. However, I haven't tested this enough to see if it's completely resolved; it's possible that this can still occur (particularly in Endless), but you may see it a lot less frequently. Just keep in mind if you do experience some slowdown with Brass, the Scrap is probably to blame.

Upgrades

Upgrades I use:

• Mrs. Boom or Turret Feature V.1 (Level 2)
• Stunning Cannonball (level 4)
• Brass Bomb Cache or Turret Feature V.3 (level 7)
• Cannonball Coming! (level 10)

Upgrades Analysis:

• Level 2:
  
  • Mrs. Boom: If you like to use Brass Bombs, this is a no-brainer, as it simply gives a 25% damage increase to the bombs.
  • Scrap Pile: Personally I don't think this one competes very well with the other two upgrades available. Personally, I would end up using this upgrade to place down more Brass Bombs, but Mrs. Boom is a much more attractive upgrade for Brass Bombs.
  • Turret Feature V.1: If you plan on using the Dwarven Turret, I would really recommend this upgrade. It has a decent amount of HP as is, but if it's pulling a lot of threat in the higher difficulties, you may want to take this so you don't have to worry about placing/upgrading it again quite as much.
• Level 4:
  • Stunning Cannonball: This is actually a pretty good upgrade, because it adds a stun to an area-of-effect ability, and if you take the cooldown reduction at level 10 (which I recommend), this adds up to be some pretty good crowd-control. There is one thing to point out with this upgrade, but it entails taking the level 10 upgrade "Cannonball Coming!", and I'll talk about it with my commentary about that upgrade instead, so make sure you read it if you take both upgrades.
  • Scrapuum: Scrap-uum, like Vacuum? Yep that's hilarious. Anyway, I never saw much use for this, because it just makes it easier to gain Scrap. If you're never really running out of Scrap, it's not really useful to be able to pick it up easier.
  • Turret Feature V.2: I personally think this is a worthless upgrade. When you upgrade the Turret (via Scrap) for the first time, it grants a shield that works in a similar way as Max's "Can't Touch This"; Can't Touch This reflects all damage, but the Turret's shield will only reflect a percentage. Unfortunately, the percentage reflected is incredibly small (I think it's like 10%), and if you've ever noticed how much damage minions deal, it's also not very much (Hunters only hit for like 20ish damage) so this equates to the shield being virtually useless on its own. This upgrade just means that the damage reflected will happen in an area-of-effect (which it doesn't tell you how large that effect is), but regardless, the damage itself is still going to be insignificant.
• Level 7:
  • Brass Bomb Cache: Brass Bombs are probably Brass's best ability, so reducing their Scrap cost obviously means you're going to be able to place more of them before you run out of Scrap, which means more damage. If you don't use Brass Bombs much, you may want to consider taking Turret Feature V.3 instead.
  • Thrifty Scrapper: Scrap not only has a decent drop rate, but it also stays on the map for quite a while. As a result, I never really had much of a shortage of Scrap, so I've never taken this upgrade.
  • Turret Feature V.3: If you like to use the Dwarven Turret, this is obviously an attractive upgrade. The Dwarven Turret's damage is pretty good normally, so a 50% increase makes it even better.
• Level 10:
  • Cannonball Coming!: This reduces the cooldown of Cannonball Shot to 2 seconds. There is one thing interesting about taking this upgrade (as I noted above in the "Pros" section), and that is if you take it, and use Unchained, you can constantly use Cannonball Shot (just hold down L2) and Brass will continually spam the ability. The reason why this happens is because using Unchained reduces the cooldown of all abilities. This not only looks hilarious, but it's extremely effective in terms of damage; Brass can literally destroy groups of minions in a matter of seconds. One potential drawback is if you took the "Stunning Cannonball" upgrade at level 4; if you wipe out the enemy wave, chances are you'll start shooting at the gate (to try to damage whatever is entering). You don't want to do this with the additional stun effect, because the minions won't be damaged, but will get stunned. Thus, you'll keep them crowd-controlled before they enter the map, which does nothing but waste your time.
  • Junk Yard: Just like the other Scrap-oriented upgrades, there's really not much use to this upgrade if you have no issues gaining Scrap.
  • Turret Feature V.4: I don't think this a good upgrade, because you have to be standing next to it in order to get the HP and Mana regeneration. In effect, this just does what you can get in 2 different ways anyway (standing next to the Rift or a "Shield" Guardian). Also keep in mind it makes little sense, as you'll inevitably have to leave the area the Turret is in to deal damage to another gate, so it'll be going to waste at that point.

Synopsis

I actually had to almost completely rewrite my original Synopsis. With the release of 2.61, Brass saw a significant amount of improvements; my rating was originally 3.5/10, but I bumped that up to 6 after patch 2.61, which is pretty significant. I do feel that she has still has some issues with her design, but as of this current patch, she does perform much more "on average" than she did prior.

First, the issue of her Primary is that it is not reliable in terms of damage, which can be a problem on occasion. Due to the spread, slow attack speed, and range, this becomes particularly problematic with Runners such as Kobolds. Add in Kamikaze Kobolds to the mix, and she runs the risk of only having 1 opportunity to hit a Kamikaze Kobold before it potentially runs out of range to your Barricade. In other words, you really need to make sure your shots count when it comes to Runners.

The plus side is that she does in fact deal a significant amount of damage if the shot is accurate; she can do significant damage to even large minions (she even rivals Bionka's damage), if all the hits manage to connect. As I stated above, since it hits multiple times at once, she is arguably the second-best Hero for Order minions; the multiple hits can ensure you can bypass their "Steady" buff, as their buff has only a chance to activate per hit.

Personally, I think it's unfortunate that Swiss Army Wrench takes up an ability slot, as it is almost entirely used to only upgrade your Turret. In terms of Brass's performance, this is not really that big of a deal, I just think it's too bad that they couldn't simply handle the upgrades differently, as an extra functional ability would make Brass more interesting.

The most effective way I've managed to play as Brass is:

• Use a rotation with her Primary and Secondary - Open with Cannonball Shot, then use your Primary 5 times, then use Cannonball Shot again. Five Primary uses coincides almost perfectly with the cooldown of Cannonball Shot, and allows you to weave it in for consistent damage. If you take the "Cannonball Coming!" upgrade, you do have to readjust (I believe you can use Primary 3 times before the cooldown is back up).
• Place Brass Bombs in the middle of large groups of minions, as they are moving. The reason for this is because it increases your chances that a minion in the group will walk over it. The blast radius of the Brass Bombs are fairly large, so all you really need is one of them to walk over it. I would also recommend placing multiple Bombs (in fact, as many as you can afford) down at once; doing so will ensure maximum damage.
• The Dwarven Turret should be able to function in Apprentice and War Mage just fine, but keep in mind the increased damage that comes in Master and Rift Lord. In these higher difficulties, I would never place the Turret by itself and expect it to handle the wave, as chances are it will just get destroyed.
• If you do want to use the Dwarven Turret, consider placing it next to a Guardian. This will allow the Turret to survive a little longer, as the Guardian will pull some of threat from the minions.