Orcs Must Die! Unchained – FAQ/Walkthrough

Heroes

Temper

Overview

My Personal Rating: 7/10

Temper is a melee Hero that deals physical damage. He is one of the few Heroes that has is own unique resource, which is Rage. Temper's Rage starts off at 0, but gains Rage every time he hits a minion with his Primary. When Temper's Rage is at full, he temporarily gets his Primary damage boosted, and also gains a slight area-of-effect mechanic.

Abilities:

Exploding Hammer (L2) - Temper throws his hammer, which will explode if it comes into contact with something (not just minions). What isn't in the description is that this ability does consume Rage if you have it (and will increase its damage), and also adds an (extremely minor) Fire damage-over-time effect.

• Rage cost: 0 (when Rage is at 0), maximum Rage consumed is 35.
• Cooldown: 7 seconds

Happy Place (Triangle) - Temper will heal himself at the cost of Rage, while increasing his movement speed. Any attack performed by Temper will cancel this ability.

• Rage cost (guesstimate): 10 per second
• Cooldown: 7 seconds
• Healing done (guesstimate): 1% per second

Hammer Slam (Square) - Temper slams his weapons onto the ground, which will deal damage, and also place a Fire effect on the ground (briefly), which will place a Fire damage-over-time effect on enemies that cross it.

• Rage cost: 30
• Cooldown: 7 seconds

Bull Rush (L3) - Temper rushes forward in a straight line, dealing damage and knocking back enemies. All enemies are affected by the knockback, but normal minions are affected the most (it really launches them quite well).

• Rage cost: 35
• Cooldown: 12 seconds

Passive: Rage of the Forge - As noted above, his Passive is more-or-less the attack buff he gets to his Primary when his Rage is at full.

Pros

Temper is an interesting Hero because he has a lot of situational abilities. This means that he's kind of "Jack of all trades" of sorts, because he has different abilities to help him in different scenarios.

For this reason, I feel that Temper is relatively easy to learn. Although there are other Heroes who have varying abilities, for Temper, his abilities are much more specific in their use. His abilities don't get much use at all if the situation doesn't call for it, which means that most of the time you can sit back and happily just spam his Primary.

Although that may initially read as an issue, it really isn't, because his Primary attack seems to be the focus of his entire design; it is his best ability, and it's his most reliable source of damage.

Since his Primary attack gets improved at full Rage (and Rage is gained simply by using his Primary), this allows anyone to do deal good damage while using Temper. Since the buff is automatic, there is very little to learn outside of understanding when to use his other abilities.

Cons

The idea behind Temper (having a lot of situational abilities) can be beneficial, but I think it ultimately ends up to hurt him overall.

The issue is that the rest of his abilities have entirely too much questionable use:

• Exploding Hammer is quite odd, and it actually has no Rage cost, but it also consumes Rage (weird right?). This means that when your Rage is at 0, you can still use it, but at any other time, you will consume Rage. The damage of the attack seems to increase if it consumes Rage, but even then, it doesn't really do a lot of damage. The knockback is also not significant, which really makes me question how useful this ability really is.
• Happy Place doesn't heal for enough, which forces you to run away from combat when you want to heal. This disrupts a lot of flow in combat when using Temper. When the Enjoys Pain Traits is acquired, you'll notice that you have little use for Happy Place anymore, because of how good Temper's Primary is.
• Hammer Slam, although does great damage, forces me to question it due to priority - Do I save my Rage so I can get the Primary attack buff faster? Or do I use Hammer Slam, get good damage now, but at the cost of having my Rage top off later? Although it is overall a minor issue, it does bring into question what the most ideal usage of Hammer Slam really is.
• Bull Rush is severely under-utilized because it's entirely too situational. The knockback, although is nice, if you can't knock minions off the map, there's no real reason to use it (as all it does it reduce your damage, and push things back, wasting time). In order to knock minions off the map, the ability needs to be used when the minion has its back to a ledge of sorts. This is further complicated by the fact that you charge straight ahead, which means you risk falling off the same ledge.
  • You also have to be somewhat careful about where you use this ability. On the map "The Wall" for example, using Bull Rush to knock minions off the map is actually a bad thing, because it doesn't kill them. Instead, they get propelled to a further point, off the map. This means that you'll be waiting around for them to come back to the map, which severely wastes time.

Temper's upgrades are also extremely questionable, and quite honestly, I think he gets one of the worst upgrade sets in the entire game. The reason why is because the majority of his upgrades are focused on his already too situational abilities; what's the point of upgrading something if it rarely gets used? Happy Place is a great example, because it gets 3 different upgrades, but the entire ability can be canceled out by the Enjoys Pain Trait.

Temper's final issue is that because he's so focused on his Primary attack, you might feel like he's doing subpar damage when he starts out. The only other Hero that I felt has this issue, is Deadeye, but she has other damaging abilities, but Temper doesn't (outside of Hammer Slam). As he levels, this problem goes a way a little bit, but just be aware you may be a little overwhelmed at times when starting with Temper.

Upgrades

Upgrades I use:

• Anger Loves Company (Level 2)
• Rage Machine (Level 4)
• Hammered or Set Off (Level 7)
• Explosive Anger (Level 10)

Upgrades Analysis:

• Level 2:
  • Anger Loves Company: It seems like a strange upgrade when you first read it, but it's actually really helpful. The condition of "during Rage of the Forge" is when Temper reaches maximum Rage. When Rage of the Forge starts, you want minions around you, because when it's finished, Temper hits everything around him. So by taking this upgrade, you force more minions into your attack range and thus, deal more damage.
  • Seeing Red: A very bizarre upgrade, as I don't know why you would want to stun anything with Bull Rush. Since it doesn't really do that much damage, all you're doing is wasting more time by stunning minions while they get knocked back. I personally prefer to use Bull Rush to knock minions off the map, rather than crowd control, but if you do like it for crowd control, this is a viable upgrade.
  • Moment of Zen: If you're not using Enjoys Pain, then this is decently viable. One of the drawbacks to Happy Place is the fact that you have to retreat in order to really get use out of its heal, so by taking this upgrade, it allows you to stay right in the thick of combat.
• Level 4:
  • Happy Hooves: Not a useful upgrade at all, as the extra movement speed isn't really that big of a deal. Temper has a fairly average movement speed, so the extra speed from Happy Place (without this upgrade) generally works just fine, if you want to move around the map with it.
  • Blow His Top: This is one of two Rage conservation upgrades that are available at this level (the other one being Rage Machine), and truthfully, Rage Machine is the better one of the two. Mathematically speaking, Temper's maximum Rage is 250, and since Rage of the Forge consumes all of it, that means this upgrade decrease that consumption to 80%. That means you get to save 20% of your total Rage, which is 50 Rage.
  • Rage Machine: I would argue that this is much better in comparison to "Blow His Top" because it'll allow you to save Rage at all times, rather than only when you maximize it. The reason why this is so much better, is because you have to consider all the moments that you are not actively attacking, such as moving to another gate, or waiting for minions to spawn. To compare it further, if you take "Blow His Top" instead, Rage will still decay. If you have moments where you're not attacking, that means you get less utilization of it, because you have to fill the Rage bar up all over again in order to see it activate. For "Rage Machine" this is not the case, as the conservation happens at all times.
• Level 7:
  • Hammered: Personally I'm not a huge fan of using Exploding Hammer, but 3x damage isn't that bad. As I said above, Exploding Hammer doesn't really do that great of damage, but taking this upgrade may get you motivated to use it more, as it will do decent (but still not that great) damage.
  • Set Off: I do like using Hammer Slam, but this upgrade is really conditional. It sets off nearby floor traps, but only floor traps. So if you don't have any floor traps around well...it's useless.
  • Kicking Mad: Increasing the knockback of Bull Rush makes it do some pretty crazy things; if you use it on a normal minion, you can potentially rocket them straight off the map, which looks rather amusing. It still requires you to set it up properly though (meaning, it won't push minions over a barrier), which in turn kind of makes it unnecessary overkill.
• Level 10:
  • Happier Place: Again, if you don't have Enjoys Pain, this upgrade can potentially be an option. Regularly using Happy Place really takes a hit to your overall damage output, due to the fact that its use is preventing you from reaching maximum Rage. By taking this upgrade, you reduce the Rage use, and thus, conserve your Rage for damage.
  • Explosive Anger: I think this is Temper's best upgrade, although I will admit I don't exactly know what it means by "Rage of the Forge explosions". I'm guessing that it increases the damage of the final hit (where Temper hits everything around him), which usually does pretty good damage, so increasing that by 25% is actually a decent amount.
  • Stompin' Mad: For me, an increase in Bull Rush's damage doesn't make it more attractive. As I said before, it's a long animation, it readjusts your position, and it knocks enemies back, which can potentially waste your time. Even then, consider that you may be motivated to use it more, and you may not be thinking about your own positioning; by using it more, you run the risk that you forget that it can potentially run you right off a ledge.

Synopsis

Although Temper is interesting, he's also very odd. His abilities being so situational although are unique, they unfortunately are so specifically used that you may not really end up using them that much. In turn, this really just boils down Temper to an incredibly basic Hero, constantly spamming his Primary attack.

Fortunately, his Primary attack is significantly better than most Heroes, so his lack of good abilities doesn't end up affecting him that much. Being able to deal more damage, in a radius, simply by constantly using his Primary attack, almost makes his Primary its own unique ability.

You may be wondering why I listed Temper in my "best Heroes" list; on paper, he certainly doesn't seem that interesting or good. The reason why I list him is because he can be viewed as a Hero that is "easy to learn, difficult to master". Temper is incredibly reliant on his Primary, but his Primary is also really good, which means he can be decent to start out with.

My thinking is he may be more of a Hero designed for newer players, completely due to how situational his abilities are. If you're new to the game, Temper's situational abilities are so specific that it forces you to start to think about the proper settings to use certain abilities. From that foundation, when the player moves on to a different Hero, they have this prior knowledge from using Temper, which hopefully allows them to play the other Heroes more efficiently.

Temper, in a way, is kind of a "utility" version of Tundra; Tundra's abilities have a decent variety as well, but they're much more regularly used due to how they all deal damage. Temper's abilities on the other hand, are focused on crowd control and survivability. Just like Tundra though, he really becomes something very "average" in terms of performance; he's not stellar, but he's not too bad either.