Orcs Must Die! Unchained – FAQ/Walkthrough

Heroes

Oziel

Overview

My Personal Rating: 7.25/10

Oziel is a ranged Hero that uses Arcane magic. Oziel also has two unique abilities: He gets a natural lifesteal with his Primary attack, and he has an ability to convert his own HP into Mana. By combining these two abilities, you can keep constantly keep Oziel at maximum HP and Mana.

Abilities:

Wraith Surge (L2) - Oziel fires a single, large Arcane bolt at the enemy. If the bolt hits an enemy, Oziel is granted a buff that will allow the next Wraith Surge cast to deal more damage, but at the cost of more Mana. This buff increases Wraith Surge damage by 50%, and stacks up to 3 times. The buff will continue to refresh itself if Wraith Surge connects (in other words, the buff does not get consumed upon using Wraith Surge).

• Mana cost: 30
• Cooldown: 2 seconds
• Buff duration: 10 seconds

Descrated Ground (Triangle) - Oziel tosses a jar of souls on the ground, which will leave a "puddle" on the floor. This acts similar to a floor trap, since any minion that passes over it will be slowed, and will have an Arcane damage-over-time debuff placed onto them.

• Mana cost: 50
• Cooldown: 16 seconds
• Duration: 8 seconds

Haunting Spirits (Square) - This ability costs 75 Souls to activate. When activated, spirits will swirl around Oziel, and haunt nearby minions. If a haunted minion is attacked, the haunted minion will explode, dealing extra damage to the minion, but the haunt effect will fade.

• Mana cost: None
• Cooldown: None
• Duration: 18 seconds

Essence Siphon (L3, Hold) - Oziel drains his own HP to convert it to Mana. Although the conversion is about 1% HP to 2% Mana, this ability cannot kill Oziel (it won't work if his HP is too low).

• Cooldown (once usage stops): 1 second

Passive: Soul Harvest - Oziel gains a 5% bonus to his maximum Mana every time he levels up during a match.

• Note: Although it doesn't say it on the description, the Passive should also indicate that Oziel collects "Souls" if he's nearby when a minion dies; for some reason this is stated on the "Haunt" description. How many Souls Oziel has is indicated as a buff, so it's located right above his HP bar. The maximum amount of Souls Oziel can have is 300. Oziel needs to be within a certain range to collect Souls (it's about mid-range), and if Oziel dies, all Souls are lost. Souls serve no purpose beyond allowing Oziel to use Haunt.

Pros

Oziel is one of the best, possibly the best, Hero that deals single target damage. He has many things working for him that allow him to do this:

First, his accuracy is really high. Much like Deadeye, his reticle never really changes, allowing you to sit and spam his Primary attack as much as you want. His Primary is somewhat similar to Cygnus's, but feels a little better; it's not as slow as Cygnus's, and it does seem like its damage is relatively the same, if not harder (without considering Cygnus's Rift Lord buff).

Since Oziel is entirely Arcane damage, this is really helpful for almost every type of minion, with the exception of some of the Wu Xing minions (which get natural all elemental resistance). Even then, the debuff of Arcane allows Oziel to deal more damage with each successful hit, stacking up to 3 times. This means that every successful hit (including Primary) is going to hit harder, which reinforces his single target damage.

Obviously Wraith Surge is his boss/Mercenary killer, and it works great for that. The buff granted by connecting with Wraith Surge increases its damage by 50%, and it stacks up to 3 times, giving it a potential total increase of 150% (the base damage is multiplied, not the subsequent hits). With Wraith Surge's very short cooldown, it's really easy to eliminate bosses and Mercenaries only within a few short uses. The Mana cost balances it though, so if you try to spam it, you'll find yourself quickly out of Mana.

Desecrated Ground is Oziel's only initial area-of-effect ability, and although it's not as impressive as his other abilities in terms of damage, it's still pretty good. It's a great example of a "fire-and-forget" ability, because all you have to do is toss it in the middle of the minion's pathway, and it'll just do its thing. The slow is clearly really beneficial, and this ability is fantastic for clearing groups of Runners as a result.

Haunting Spirits again reinforces his single target damage, as hitting a haunted minion should deal more damage than a Wraith Surge. However, there's something even better about Haunting Spirits, which is its level 10 upgrade of "Ectoplasmic Explosion". With this upgrade, Haunting Spirits turns into one of the most damaging group abilities in the entire game.

Finally, it should be fairly obvious that Oziel has probably the best survival abilities in the game; his natural lifesteal on his Primary allows you to steal some HP back, and you never really have to worry about Mana. This doesn't make him invincible though, which I'll mention in the next section.

Cons

Reading his abilities, Oziel may sound like quite the powerhouse, but his single target damage is actually a crutch in a lot of ways.

It's pretty easy to determine that single target damage is not quite as beneficial as group damage; most maps will throw waves of smaller, weaker minions in large groups at you, rather than smaller groups of larger, stronger minions (although in Endless, that's not always the case).

Oziel's Primary attack and Wraith Surge have relatively the same projectile speed. This means that although each of those abilities hit decently hard, their overall damage-per-second is more focused to targets with more HP. It doesn't really matter if you're hitting for 1000 on a minion with 100 HP, all of that extra damage is overkill, and thus, the slower projectile speed (which is balancing it), is actually hindering you.

Oziel's damage output still functions just fine despite this, but as a result, you may feel he takes a little getting used to. Strangely, Oziel just may feel somewhat like Ivy; he starts out kind of slow, but as he levels, you get to see him do increasingly better. For this reason, you may feel he's a little clunky until you get him some levels.

For his abilities, Haunting Spirits is actually extremely lackluster until you get its respective upgrade at level 10. It does take a while to get 75 Souls to activate it in the first place, but when you do activate it, it just turns into more single target damage. I mean sure, it does hit the hardest, but it's nothing that can't be achieved within a few uses of Wraith Surge (if you hit the same target multiple times). I find myself never using Haunting Spirits, until I take Ectoplasmic Explosion at level 10.

Ectoplasmic Explosion is a fantastic upgrade, but it feels like it overcompensates. Without it, Oziel doesn't really get any ability that really stands out and clears groups of enemies well; without this upgrade, he stays a little too consistent (and arguably dull) in how he deals damage. In turn, this also means that when "things get chaotic", without this upgrade, he doesn't really have much to assist him.

If you do choose Ectoplasmic Explosion at level 10 (which I highly recommend), you then have to be very careful about not dying. If you die, you lose all of your Soul stacks, which means that you won't be able to use your single best ability. What makes matters worse is the fact that you have to regain your Soul stacks, and depending on what's going on, this may be difficult to do, as there may not be enough minions around to get the stacks back quickly.

A note about his survivability - Although Essence Siphon and his lifesteal are great, Oziel has a very low HP pool (it's pretty close to Midnight's), so you do have to be careful with him. Order Mages, Fire Fiend Warlocks, and Cyclops Mages are extremely dangerous, due to their high damaging attacks.

Finally, you'll notice Oziel is decently slow, and he seems to have a movement speed that's just slightly slower than Cygnus's. This isn't a large issue while in combat, because he can stay at such a long range, but it is an issue while traversing maps.

Upgrades

Upgrades I use:

• Dark Urges (Level 2)
• Jagged Shards (Level 4)
• Unholy Mire or Vexing Surge (Level 7)
• Ectoplasmic Explosion (Level 10)

Upgrades Analysis:

• Level 2:
  
  • Defiled Essence: What this upgrade does is reduce the amount of HP required to convert it to Mana. I don't really see the point to this, because getting HP back is very easy to do with Oziel's natural lifesteal. Even then, it's only 25%, which does not reduce the conversion by much.
  • Consecration: This used to be a decent upgrade, but a couple of patches ago they increased the range of Soul collecting, allowing Oziel to be further away from a minion when it dies, and still get a Soul stack. The range is fairly forgiving now, and as a result, this upgrade loses most of its purpose. Before, this was helpful because it allowed Oziel to sit back at a safer distance.
  • Dark Urges: I always pick this upgrade because Desecrated Ground is Oziel's only area-of-effect ability until level 10. A 25% reduction in cooldown takes it down to 12 seconds, which means there is only 4 seconds between its cooldown and it's total duration.
• Level 4:
  • Jagged Shards: Another upgrade I always choose, because again, it just makes Desecrated Ground even better. The damage actually isn't too bad, but it's not stellar either. Regardless, extra damage on a frequently used ability (and you should be using it frequently) is always a great thing.
  • Spiritual Connection: Oziel really doesn't need any more Mana regeneration than Essence Siphon. To make matters worse, it's also attached to Haunting Spirits, which is something that you're not going to use very often anyway.
  • Vampiric Soul: This really pushes Oziel's survivability to crazy limits, especially when you consider it even stacks with the lifesteal Trait of Practices Witchcraft. Truthfully though, I would recommend that you simply bring in Practices Witchcraft instead of taking this upgrade, if you feel like he needs to increase his lifesteal.
• Level 7:
  • Unholy Mire: I like to take this upgrade because I know I'll be using Haunting Spirits as much as I can when I get to level 10. More Slows are always great, but do keep in mind that Haunting Spirits is probably going to be your least used ability overall, and you do have to remember you lose all Soul stacks if you die. If you can't use Haunting Spirits, obviously this upgrade goes to waste.
  • Vexing Surge: This is not a bad upgrade, because it rewards a Soul stack simply by hitting something with Wrath Surge. This can be really helpful, particularly when you're trying to build up Soul stacks. I personally don't take it, but that's just because I don't normally use Wrath Surge much.
  • Profane Healing: I have never taken this upgrade, as it is clearly meant for co-op purposes. Similar to some other co-op upgrades, the "small radius" makes me wonder if the radius is too small to actually be effective. In terms of solo play, this is useless, as Oziel should never really need the healing.
• Level 10:
  • Ectoplasmic Explosion: One of THE best upgrades in the ENTIRE game. Hitting a haunted enemy will result in not only a fairly large explosion, hitting multiple enemies, but it also hits like a truck. The only real downside to it is that it takes a second for the haunt to "register" that it's active on the minion. Hence, you may find yourself hitting (what looks to be) a haunted minion, but it's not doing anything. Still though, it's entirely possible to clear huge amounts of minions at once with this upgrade. Also keep in mind that when it says "hitting a haunted minion" it means ANY direct-damage hit (not traps though). This means that if you took Jagged Shards at level 4, the direct damage when it first lands can activate the explosion! This means you can activate multiple explosions at once, which can do devastating damage.
  • Diabolic Efficiency: Kind of a strange upgrade, because the Mana reduction allows you to use Wrath Surge more often (which in my opinion, is not necessary), but the duration of the buff is also doubled. If you're using it more...you don't need the buff duration doubled, because it'll be active more often regardless. This upgrade still pales in comparison to Ectoplasmic Explosion anyway.
  • Reaper: It's very odd that this is at level 10. It would be extremely useful if Oziel got this at a different level (like 7) because then it would combine perfectly with Ectoplasmic Explosion. I suppose that would make EE much more frequently used though, which would might tip it into being very unbalanced. The sad reality of it is, if you don't take Ectoplasmic Explosion, there's really not a reason to get more Soul stacks, as you probably won't be using them that often.

Synopsis

Oziel is a bit strange in what he's capable of. He's extremely good with single target damage, but unfortunately, he only has one (initial) ability that does group damage, which is Desecrated Ground. Even when upgraded, although Descrated Ground is good, it doesn't really help Oziel that much overall in clearing groups, which is what the majority of the maps throw at you.

As a result, he runs a really odd parallel to Ivy; he starts out dealing much more damage than Ivy, but his overall performance still boils down to kind of "meh". As he levels, he gets just sightly better, until level 10, at which point (with Ectoplasmic Explosion) he becomes an absolute powerhouse. This is very similar to Ivy, because Ivy as well turns into a crazy beast at level 10 if you fully upgrade her into Reach of Roots.

What's kind of ironic is that this may be intentional when you consider that Ivy is the only healer in the game (thus she "gives life"), and Oziel is supposed to be a "Grim Reaper" of sorts. Interestingly, also consider that Ivy and Oziel have the only direct heals in the game; other Heroes can heal, but it's usually more indirect and dependent on other things, or gained via upgrades.

Regardless of the comparison, just realize that Oziel is a little slow to start. Once he hits level 10, and if you take Ectoplasmic Explosion, I do feel confident in saying you'll see how great he really can be.

Of course, the reason why I give him only slightly above the average score of 7, is because you may have some issues with him until level 10. Even at level 10, you have to be very careful not to die with Oziel, otherwise you lose your Soul stacks, and you no longer have access to Haunting Spirits until you gain 75 back, which can be difficult to do if you're getting close to the final wave of the map.