Orcs Must Die! Unchained – FAQ/Walkthrough

Heroes

This is a section dedicated to information about the various Heroes (characters) that you can purchase from the store. I will review each Hero in what I think their strengths and weaknesses are, as well as go into their abilities.

Any information I write is my personal opinion and thus, my opinions about each character may differ from yours, especially if you play the character in a different way than I do. So although I can make objective statements such as "Bionka has one of the slowest movement speeds in the game", I personally find that terrible (which is an opinion). This may not be the case for each person who plays as her (other people may not mind her speed).

Although I did mention my favorite and least favorite characters in the FAQ section, if you missed that, here they are again:

Favorites, in order:

1. Midnight (only with the Enjoys Pain Trait)
2. Yi-Lin
3. Deadeye

Honorable mentions to:

• Temper
• Cygnus
• Zoey
• Oziel

Least favorites, in order:

1. Bionka
2. Hogarth/Smolder (tied for second place)
3. Brass

Note about Hogarth, Smolder, and Brass - With the current patch, the only Hero I severely dislike is Bionka. I'm sure there are those that will disagree with me about Hogarth, Smolder, and Brass, but their lower position on my list doesn't necessarily mean they're "unplayable" by any means. Someone has to be in those second and third spots, and I feel those 3 are appropriate, because they have some extremely odd quirks in their design. Instead of reading that as potentially offensive or bizarre, simply head over to their appropriate sections so you can read my analysis of them.

As you will read, I do give a lot of the Heroes a "7/10" which takes some thought to consider in-depth. What I mean by a "7" is that the Hero can perform decently well, but what they excel at may be considered more situational.

In an example for analysis, let's take Ivy and Bloodspike: There is an obvious difference in damage output (at the very least, initially) between the two Heroes, so why rate them both a 7? Because it depends on how well they are utilized. For example, if you can get Ivy to battle level 10, and take her "Warden's Wrath" upgrade, that allows Reach of Roots to deal damage, it becomes easily one of the best abilities in the game. However, up until level 10, you may struggle with Ivy a bit, particularly if you have trouble utilizing the knockback of Penetrating Arrow, and if you overuse her healing ability.

Bloodspike on the other hand, deals more initial damage, and does indeed get quite stronger as well if you take all the upgrades into Stunning Execution (but an upgraded Reach of Roots still trumps it in my opinion). However, if you're on a map with a lot of boss minions, Unstable Rifts, and Mercenaries, you'll see that Bloodspike begins to struggle as well, and this is regardless of his level.

Ivy's lack of damage can be compensated by simply gaining more Account Levels, and utilizing different Traits (and she doesn't really need a healing Trait, allowing slightly more flexibility). Bloodspike's major issue is not really compensated for regardless of how you approach it; he will always do subpar damage to single targets (ones that he can't use Stunning Execution on, that is). Although one could make the argument that bringing in a Big Game Hunter trap can help compensate for Bloodspike (which is true), that's more difficult to manage. For one, Big Game Hunter traps can be more difficult to place, and two, it would mean replacing a trap that you probably normally use.

The Heroes are listed in alphabetical order, which is the same order as you view them in the Workshop or Store.