Orcs Must Die! Unchained – FAQ/Walkthrough

Heroes

Zoey

Overview

My Personal Rating: 7.5/10

Zoey is a Hero that uses magic, but she is unique because she has access to all types of magic: Fire, Arcane, Frost, and Lightning. However, you don't have too much control about which one you get to use. She is fairly versatile for this reason, and also gets a melee attack that knocks minions back, and can buff herself.

Abilities:

Book Club (L2) - Zoey smacks minions with her book, which causes a knockback effect. It is important to note that the attack will always force minions to be pushed to the right, regardless of which way Zoey is facing.

• Mana cost: 40
• Cooldown: 7 seconds

Chaos Blast (Triangle) - Zoey blasts minions with whatever magic damage is currently active. After using this ability, Zoey's magic type will change. The blast seems to radiate around Zoey slightly, and is projected down a short path in front of her (the range seems to be somewhat like a cone).

• Mana cost: 45
• Cooldown: 9 seconds

Feebee's Wrath (Square) - Zoey's ultimate ability, where she disappears into her book, and deals quick, successive damage to any minion in a large radius around her. Zoey is invincible during this ability, and minions hit by this ability are affected by random magic types.

• Mana cost: 90
• Cooldown: 89 seconds

Trial And Error (L3) - Zoey grants a random buff to herself, but it can also potentially stun her. Her buffs include an Attack increase, a Defense increase, HP regeneration, Mana regeneration, and a movement speed increase. Each buff lasts about 5 seconds, and I believe if you get hit by the stun, it lasts 2 or 3 seconds.

• Mana cost: 45
• Cooldown: 14 seconds

Passive: Feebee The Firebat - Feebee is Zoey's pet, which flies around her and damages a single enemy (generally the closest to Zoey) at set intervals. Feebee's attacks also deal magical damage, and its magic type coincides with whichever one Zoey currently has active.

• Zoey gets a "second" passive, which grants an attack speed buff (which affects only her Primary attack) every time her magic school changes. Functionally, I believe it is not a damage increase because I'm fairly sure it increases your Primary firing speed by 50%, but also decreases Primary damage by 50%, so it breaks even in terms of damage-per-second. This buff lasts about 4 seconds.

Pros

Zoey's variety is currently the best in the game. Although Temper does have a good amount of variety as well, his is much more situational; for Zoey, every ability can be potentially useful at any given time, and Book Club is probably the most situational, but still can be useful regardless of what is happening.

Due to this, she is arguably the best Hero to perform Combos with. If you're looking to get a high score, Zoey can certainly assist you with that.

Her Primary performs fairly well, but isn't particularly fantastic by any normal means; it competes fairly evenly with most other Heroes. However, the one great feature it has is that it utilizes Zoey's magic schools, and therefore Zoey can potentially do increased damage to certain minions (such as using Fire against Frost minions).

Due to the magic schools, she also gets the ability from each school; if she has Fire, her Primary will add a damage-over-time effect; if she has Frost, she can freeze enemies; if she has Lightning, enemies killed will explode to do area-of-effect damage; and if she has Arcane, her follow up attacks with Arcane will do increased damage.

Book Club's main aspect is that it does a great knockback. Due to how predictable the knockback occurs (minions are always forced to the right) it allows the player to manipulate the surroundings to potentially push minions off a ledge. Book Club was one of the ways I consistently earned my kills for the Hazard Play trophy.

I would say that Zoey's best constant feature is that of Feebee. Having a pet float around to deal extra damage (without having to even think about it) serves as a great, simple way to increase damage output.

Cons

Zoey's main problem is that she is a bit awkward to use. Most of her balance comes from the fact that all of her abilities have some sort of disadvantage to them.

The biggest issue that you will probably run into, is the maintenance of Zoey's attack speed buff. Although it does not increase your damage-per-second, it is still beneficial to have, because without it Zoey's attack speed is dreadfully slow.

Since the attack speed buff only lasts about 4 seconds, you have to get accustomed to how long it lasts, and ensure that you're using one of your other abilities to keep changing your magic school (thus, granting you the buff again). However, in practice, this can be really awkward to perform initially, because in order to do this, you have to understand how to utilize Zoey's cooldowns effectively, and not be tempted to simply use everything whenever it's available.

For Book Club, it's almost entirely used for crowd control, as its damage is so meager, it may as well not have any damage at all. The range of it also takes some getting used to, and since you do need to be in melee range to use it, which can be somewhat risky given Zoey's lower HP.

Trial and Error is completely randomized, and it seems that, for me at least, I get the less attractive buffs (Defense up, HP, and movement speed) more often than not. Considering the buff only lasts 5 seconds, it's difficult to justify its high Mana cost.

Feebee's Wrath unfortunately only (initially) hits minions in its radius, despite the radius being really large. If not placed correctly, minions will barely have any time within the radius, and thus, it's possible to have certain minions be barely affected by it. This is unfortunate due to its long cooldown.

Zoey also has some HP and Mana issues, but it's not as bad as it is with other Heroes. Zoey has fairly low HP, which isn't a huge deal considering that she attacks at range, but doesn't really get much in terms of survivability (she gets a single upgrade for it). Although Zoey has a great Mana pool (it's 285), as you can see above, all of her abilities cost a lot of Mana. If you don't quite understand how to manage her abilities (to keep the attack speed buff active), you may run into some Mana problems.

Upgrades

Upgrades I use:

• Chapter 1: Wellness From Chaos or Chapter 3: Mastering The Schools (Level 2)
• Chapter 4: Refreshing The Spirit or Chapter 5: Training Familiars (Level 4)
• Chapter 9: Death and Chaos (Level 7)
• Appendix: Pulling It All Together (Level 10)

Upgrades Analysis:

• Level 2:
  
  • Chapter 1: Wellness From Chaos: Zoey doesn't really have much when it comes to survivability (Trial and Error can heal, but it's too random to be relied on), so I would argue anything that heals is fairly beneficial. It is important to note, that this HP restoration happens over time, not all at once. This is unfortunate, because sometimes it doesn't heal fast enough to be truly effective.
  • Chapter 2: Finding Inner Strength: Not really much use for the extra knockback, as Book Club already has one of the best knockback effects in the game. Increasing it further can actually have a detrimental effect, depending on where you use it; it increases so much, that sometimes you can knock minions over the environmental hazard.
  • Chapter 3: Mastering The Schools: This is a decent upgrade, but loses most of its use if you end up taking "Chapter 9: Death and Chaos" at level 7. The reason being is that Zoey should have the buff up almost all the time with that upgrade. It still is useful up until level 7 though, as keeping that attack speed buff for a longer duration is quite beneficial.
• Level 4:
  • Chapter 4: Refreshing The Spirit: Zoey does have some Mana issues on occasion, so this is an option if you find yourself constantly starved for Mana. With it, you shouldn't have many Mana issues afterward, if at all.
  • Chapter 5: Training Familiars: I usually choose this upgrade, because Feebee is extra damage that I never need to think about. Increasing Feebee's attack speed just equates to more damage that I don't need to think about.
  • Chapter 6: Spell Improvisation: I think I've only used this once, and if I remember correctly, it doesn't effectively stun minions for 2 seconds, it's actually slightly less than that. I believe the stun is activated the second you connect with Book Club, which means that the minion is stunned in mid-air, which is useless, because they're not going to move anyway. It does add a little bit of crowd control, but in my opinion, Zoey doesn't need it, because she does plenty of damage.
• Level 7:
  • Chapter 7: Wielding The Power Of Relics: Even though a 500% damage increase to Book Club seems tremendous, if you ever pay attention to how much damage it deals initially, it's pretty laughable (at Account Level 100 it does maybe 50-75). This means that increasing it by 500% basically allows it to hit on par with Zoey's Primary. I find this useless, as I would rather just use my Primary to deal damage.
  • Chapter 8: Getting More From Spells: A 60% increase to the buffs from Trial and Error equates to the buff lasting about 8 seconds. This does make the buff much more useful....but unfortunately, the upgrade does not justify the randomness, nor the Mana cost, of the ability.
  • Chapter 9: Death And Chaos: I think this is probably Zoey's best upgrade. By taking this, you should be able to keep changing magic schools constantly, keeping that attack speed buff at nearly all times. Since you're not worried about the attack speed buff anymore, it allows you to conserve Mana as well. I'm not entirely sure how well this works with "Chapter 1: Wellness From Chaos" at level 2, because I can certainly tell you that you're not going to have infinite HP if you took that upgrade as well. It also may be important to note that although this does not activate when a trap gets a kill, it does when Feebee gets a kill.
• Level 10:
  • Chapter 10: Advanced Familiars: An automatic slow, especially given how strong it is, does seem fairly attractive. However, it needs to be considered a little further; Feebee has a tendency to attack whatever is closest to Zoey. This means that chances are, Feebee will be attacking whatever minion you are currently attacking as well. Therefore, that minion has a good chance of dying so quickly that you won't really see much use of this upgrade. It still has its benefits though, and obviously can perform much better against boss minions and Mercenaries. Consider taking this upgrade if you are going against Swiftyhooves, or if Chaotic Kobold is a potential problem. This upgrade is ideal with the "Chapter 5: Training Familiars" upgrade at level 4.
  • Chapter 11: Vigor From Chaos: Truthfully? I have absolutely no idea what this upgrade does. Apparently, when you change magic schools, and use your Primary attack, the upgrade says there's a movement speed penalty. In all honesty, I've never actually noticed the movement speed penalty. Not only that, but after taking this upgrade a couple of times, I still never noticed a difference in Zoey's performance.
  • Appendix: Putting It All Together: I think this is Zoey's best level 10 upgrade, because it fixes the main issue with Feebee's Wrath, and makes it even better. The issue with Feebee's Wrath is that minions won't spend a lot of time in it (since they'll just walk through it), which means it won't maximize its damage on a single target. This upgrade not only remedies this, but the "pull-in" effect actually pulls in from further than what the damage radius is. The pull only happens when you first use Feebee's Wrath (it is not in continual effect), but it is still helpful because you can catch the minions that managed to move out of your range as you first use the ability.

Synopsis

I think Zoey is a pretty interestingly designed Hero, as she does feel extremely unique in her performance. This turns out to be a slightly double-edged sword though, because although she's effective at what she does, she can be quite awkward to use. I do think that this is entirely intentional, because it does seem to fit the overall idea of her character.

I do think if she was a little less randomized, and easier to use consistently, I would increase my rating of her to at least an 8/10. Although the consistency aspect will come to you as you practice with her, even when mastered, you'll notice that she does struggle with certain things on occasion.

The first thing is keeping up her attack speed buff. Once it's gone, Zoey's attack speed is so incredibly slow, you'll be dying to get the buff back. Although this can be dealt with if you understand her abilities, it can still give you problems:

• If for whatever reason, things are on cooldown, you're forced to go without the buff for a while.
• If you're lacking Mana, you're stuck with using Primary until you can get some back.
• I normally use Chaos Blast to change magic schools. If it's not up, Book Club is an option, but if you miss with it, you won't get the buff. You could instead use Trial and Error for it, but then it's mostly wasted Mana, and you can potentially stun yourself.

So it's really important to understand how to effectively use a rotation with Zoey, but this changes depending on how you want to play (or potentially with the situation):

• I always start with Chaos Blast, as it does great damage and changes the magic school. I then use Primary until the attack speed buff is gone, but you'll still have about 5 seconds left on Chaos Blast at that point.
  • The option then, is to either use Book Club (effectively making Zoey a mid-ranged Hero) or use Trial and Error (which allows you to keep at a distance) to get the attack speed again. Once it is regained, continue to use Primary until it is gone again.
  • Use Chaos Blast when it's up, and repeat.

Even with the proper rotation though, you still have to worry about missing attacks and running out of Mana. The rotation becomes less important at level 7 though, if you take the "Chapter 9: Death And Chaos" upgrade. The reason being that even if you do manage to lose the buff, you can just zap things with your Primary until you get a kill to get it again.

The effect of the various magic schools is always helpful, but it is also a double-edged sword when you're facing minions weak to a certain element. Frost minions, for example, may get the extra damage from Fire attacks, but they also get less damage from Frost attacks. Since you can't choose what magic school is currently active, it's fairly random whether you are going to see the benefit from elemental weaknesses.