The Defiler: A Plague Upon Thee!

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The Defiler: A Plague Upon Thee!

#1 Post by RSOG »

A Plague upon Thee

Angeline knew before she even passed the first cottage that something was wrong. Not a single sound had greeted her approach. No dogs, no children, not even the wind. None the less, this work had to be done. The humans at Candleburg were unaware of the coming calamity, and had to be evacuated. She approached the first house and knocked.
No answer. She pushed the door open a crack, and her nose was assailed with the thick stench of decay. The door caught, something was propped loosely against it. She pushed, but the door did not yield. She closed it and called a blast of wind to push more forcefully. The door burst open, the object, which Angeline now saw to be a freshly killed human body, fell across her arm.
The corpse’s eyes shot open, hollow and wide. Angeline gasped. A low howl escaped the cadaver’s lips; the stench was intolerable. The skin all across the corpse then began to swell. The corpse burst, scattering bits of flesh across the ground and walls, and leaving a cloud of green gas around the Aeromancess. She choked and gasped, before pulling herself out of the cloud.
“Captain, are you alright?” called one of her subordinates as he ran over. Angeline nodded and fought back nausea. The soldier’s eyes suddenly went wide, as he pointed to the roof of the second home, “Captain…!”
The sight was grotesque. It was difficult to tell what the creature was while it was alive. Its skin had rotten, and appeared blue and swollen. Moss and fungi grew in every crack and fold in its hide. It places, it was stretched so thin that the bones shown through. A cloud of green, noxious gas had settled around a staff the figure carried. The figure cackled and coiled its legs, then leapt down from the rooftop.
The soldiers sprung to action immediately. Angeline called the force of winds to bind the creature. The soldiers were nearly close enough to slash it when it broke free of its bonds and swept its staff. A putrid miasma spread across her soldiers, striking the three of them dead. Angeline turned about on the winds she had conjured and began to propel herself away. The creature spoke a single word, and then whirled and departed. Angeline grew dizzy; her stomach knotted.
By the time she returned to her camp, her magic had faded so far that she could only barely keep herself aloft. “M’lord,” she gasped, “Candleburg is dead.”
Her vision blurred, and she collapsed.


Author’s Note: About Defilers
When I first saw the Defiler, I thought it was overpowered. I still do, but not to the extent that I did. Whereas other heroes take complicated builds, or packs of consumable items, Taz’Uraj relies on three simple principles. First, Defilers are subtle. A traditional defiler, especially as described in this guide, that runs to the front lines will take a lot more damage than they are prepared to handle. Thankfully, most of his abilities are long range, or wide areas. The farther behind the line the Defiler stays, the safer he is. Second, Defilers move slowly. Every move he makes takes careful planning. Pestilence is his only immediate damage ability, and its range is far too short to be effective in most hero-killings. The Defiler’s only form of a surprise hero killing involved corpse explosions, which are never reliable as they are always in the path of enemy footsoldiers. Finally, Defilers support. This is almost exactly what was stated above, but looked at from another angle. Because the Defiler has great strategic power but little immediate killing power, the Defiler is excellent at separating heroes from their troops. He can easily force a retreat by throwing a Devouring Plague, Frailty or both. From there, another hero can easily catch the coward and finish the job.

The Facts
“Move!” commanded the Wizard. Without Angeline, Xeldarith’s task would be that much more difficult. Of his two captains, Serra was the better scout, but Serra knew absolutely nothing about commanding troops. All the same, Xeldarith would have to make do, or else.
He watched his soldiers file along. Their expressions were dismal. This was a suicide mission; they were expendable. They knew it. The limbs and leaves of the trees were growing darker and darker as they continued down the path, as if the life was being drained from them. Ahead, in the distance, the ground was a murky black sludge with pockets of sicklier ooze. There were no trees left standing on that vile ground. Serra was right; this could only be a camp of the Grim Brigade.
As they reached the edge of the trees, Xeldarith suddenly felt light headed; dizzy. He recognized the magic working away at him immediately and struggled to recall the spell he had learned in his childhood to banish such magics. The words eluded his grasp.
A trio of rotting corpses crawled up from under the sludge and charged them. Xeldarith turned his holy power against them, channeling spell after spell to destroy the fiends, but something was wrong. Every bit of power he stole from their life was being eaten away by the curse infesting his body. He became exhausted, and all too quickly. He shouted for the retreat; it was a suicide mission, but it would not be a meaningless one. Not if he could help it.
The ghouls set upon his men with redoubled fury, biting and tearing at their armor and flesh. One of his men collapsed, screaming in agony and begging for a quicker death. The ghoul removed the arm from the man’s living body before Xeldarith managed to destroy it with a furious bolt. He took a sip from his hipflask. The mystical brew it contained was valuable. More valuable than his men’s lives, even, but not more valuable than his own.
Another soldier collapsed under the ghouls, and the two of them rounded on Xeldarith. He intoned a spell with terrible fire in his voice and both collapsed to pieces in a flash of light. “Fall back!” he barked at his sole surviving soldier, before turning to flee himself.
“So soon?” taunted a horrible voice from the shadows. A hideous cackle echoed beyond the words. Xeldarith’s illness suddenly grew worse. He felt as if he was near to collapse. His gasped, clutched his stomach, and collapsed, unable to breathe.
Xeldarith tore open a portal and shouted, “Serra! To me!”
He didn’t see anything come through the portal; that meant little. He heard the sound of metal striking flesh, and the cackling stopped abruptly. “Fiend!” Shouted Serra’s voice from the shadows.
Suddenly, the cackling resumed. The figure broke from cover and ran, its dark shape gliding across the murky ground. “Serra, kill it!” called Xeldarith. Serra started to run after it, but then stumbled, catching herself on the branch of the last tree before the muck began and putting a hand to her forehead, feverishly. Xeldarith cursed. “Let’s go, before that thing comes back.”


Stats
Strength: 13 + 1.4/level
Agility: 17 + 1.5/level
Intelligence: 19 + 2.0/level
Base Damage: 17 + 1d6/upgrade
Base Armor: 3
Range: 600

Abilities
Q - Trap Corpse
Effect: Turns a corpse into a mine.
Mana Cost: 45
Converts a corpse into a mine. The mine deals 250 + 2*int damage.

W – Pestilence
Effect: Deals X + Y*Int damage, strikes three targets, losing 15% each bounce. If it kills a target, it strikes an additional target and only loses 7% that bounce.
Mana Cost: 50 / 81 /102 / 123 / 144 / 165
Range: 400
Cooldown: ~10 Seconds
Base Damage: 70 / 95 / 120 / 145 / 170 / 195
Damage per INT: 1.1 / 1.35 / 1.6 / 1.85 / 2.1 / 2.35

E – Devouring Plague
Effect: Drains target’s life and mana at a rate equal to 1% of their maximum per second.
Mana Cost: 45 / 52 / 59 / 66 / 73 / 80
Range: ~500 / ~600 / ~700 / ~800 / ~900 / ~1,000
Cooldown: ~30 / ~27 / ~24 / ~21 / ~18 / ~15
Duration: 10 / 14 / 18 / 22 / 26 / 30

R – Exhaustion
Effect: Slows target’s movement and attack rates, with a chance of randomly stunning them each second.
Mana Cost: 50 / 72 / 84 / 96 / 108 / 120
Range: ~700
Movement Reduction: 5% / 7% / 9% / 11% / 13% / 14%
Attack Speed Reduction: 15% / 18% / 21% / 24% / 27% / 30%
Stun Chance: 3% / 4% / 5% / 6% / 7% / 8%
Duration: 45 / 53 / 61 / 69 / 77 / 85

C – Blight
Effect: Increases allies’ attack speed while damaging enemy buildings in an area.
Mana Cost: 60 / 66 / 82 / 98 / 114 / 130
Range: ~600
Cooldown: ~40 Seconds
Speed Increase: 6% / 12% / 19% / 27% / 38% / 48%
Base Damage: 9 / 12 / 15 / 19 / 22 / 25
Damage per INT: 0.04 / 0.05 / 0.06 / 0.07 / 0.08 / 0.09

T – Frailty
Effect: Decreases the target’s strength.
Mana Cost: 45 / 57 / 70 / 82
Range: ~650
Cooldown: 60 Seconds
Duration: 60 Seconds
Strength Reduction: 15 / 25 / 35 / 45

Strategy
Serra approached the secluded home and knocked. The human who lived in this home was once imprisoned by the same Elven Battalion she served now, for smuggling dangerous magical items. She now prayed that the man had not changed his ways; that he was still in possession of such items.
She heard a soft whimpering from the other side of the door; she knocked again, heavily. “Who- who’s there?” called the voice of a small girl, perhaps twelve years old, from the other side of the door.
“Captain Serra Moonslayer. I am here to see your father.”
The girl’s whimpering grew louder, but there was no answer. Serra pushed the door open.
“No! No! Stay away!” shouted the girl as Serra entered the room. The girl stood between Serra, and the two swollen corpses of her parents, one of whom was the man whom Serra had hoped to bargain with. The two bodies were putrid and pox-ridden, slain by a disease.
“I know who did this,” said Serra to the girl in a calm voice, “And I’m going to avenge your parents. Please help me.”
The girl nodded; her whimpering slowing slightly.
“Did your father keep any weapons?”
The girl nodded, “That
thing took the Hammer… but I still know where a few things are.” She pulled a brick from the fireplace, reached inside, and produced an ornate looking talisman, carved in the shape of the sun. She offered it to Serra. “Buried under the maple tree in the garden is a staff. Take it, too. Make that monster pay for what he did to them!”
“Thank you.” Serra left the house and proceeded to the garden. Before long of digging, she pulled a tall crystal shaft from under the tree. She sent up a signal flare; Xeldarith’s portal opened in front of her, and she stepped through, returning to the camp.


Ability Analysis
Trap Corpse – Set it to autocast and forget about it. The drain on your mana is a pittance for the effect you get out of it.
Pestilence – This is your only direct instant damage spell, and it has a very short range. Mostly, I find this useful in harvesting gold and, with the help of nets and/or exhaustion, in the finishing off of retreating heroes.

Devouring Plague – Of all the Defiler’s abilities, this one is perhaps the most versatile, and the one which most of the strategic notes in this guide are base around. Against tank heroes, this ability simply does a lot of damage over its duration. Against caster heroes, it depletes a large percentage of their mana. Because it damages by percentages, this ability is useful against nearly any hero. And because it returns all of this to the Defiler, the Defiler can remain on the front line indefinitely, assuming that they occasionally come into contact with an enemy hero.

Exhaustion: This ability’s long duration compared to its cooldown makes the Defiler a loathsome adversary. Like most of the Defiler’s abilities, this can be so crippling that it forces a strong hero to retreat. This ability is less useful against caster heroes as it has no effect on their spell damage or mana consumption, and more useful against melee heroes as the reduced movement speed reduces the rate at which they can close or pursue.

Blight: The Defiler’s siege spell. It is useful for assisting pushes and breaking fortifications. Also, it can theoretically be used to surprise any hero foolish enough to step in front of their spawnies and draw mass agro.

Frailty: The Defiler’s only deathblow, and it does not deal death. The strength reduction can, at best, assist in a kill. While the duration equal to the cooldown may seem as if this ability was meant to be always active, I would advise against it. When a creature is afflicted by frailty their maximum health, and hence, 1% of their maximum health, is decreased. This reduces the life which you can drain out of them through Devouring Plague. Furthermore, due to frailty’s short range, closing to use it may easily get you killed. Calculate the damage which the strength reduction will do, then use it in combination with Pestilence to make quick hero kills of near full-life heroes.

Useful Equipment:
Intelligence! Intelligence! Intelligence!
With Devouring Plague, hit points have very little bearing on your endurance. I do recommend that you upgrade your hero armor at least twice, to allow you some survivability. You may also wish to consider getting an Orb of Life, so that you do not die as easily while you retreat from enemy heroes. Beyond that, focus entirely on your intelligence. You can safely ignore your agility.

Consumables:
Because your devouring plague restores both your health and your mana, you do not need any healing items. You are not, however, without weaknesses. If your enemies are using cloud attacks, area effects, or summons, you should definitely buy at least a Wand of Negation, if not a staff. The Staff of Negation from the Ancient of Wonders may be the better investment, as it will allow you to destroy mind fogs, mana surges, mana storms, and the like in a single casting. You have enough mana to use this liberally, thanks to Devouring Plague. The wands deal less damage to summons and so may take several charges to destroy such an effect, and you would likely end up spending more money in wands than you would in a single staff. Beyond that, dust of appearance or an Amulet of Detection may be useful if you are facing an infiltrator, a tactician, or a player who utilizes potions of invisibility. Once again, you have the mana to use an amulet liberally. Do not be caught unprepared. Lastly, you may wish to invest in anti-magic potions for dire circumstances. They will guarantee your safety if nothing else will.


The Defiler’s Weaknesses
Alarms sounded as Taz’uraj approached the camp. He was spotted, but he didn’t care. He was there to finish his task.
An arrow stuck painlessly through his shoulder. He pulled it out and swept a foul plague in the direction of the archer. She and the two soldiers with her collapsed; instantly dead.
He drew the hammer from his back and invoked its power, giving life to the lighting in the sky. The living bolt began to strike at the tents of the camp, sending the elves scurrying left and right. He cackled; this chaos, this was his existence.
“Don’t let them near the healers!” shouted the tall elf-man with blonde hair. He suspected this one was their commander, but he couldn’t be sure. Suddenly, his living bolts caught aflame. A beast of fire rushed from the bolts to attack him. It singed him once before it extinguished.
Taz’uraj howled with fury at the setback. He threw a plague at the commander, but the elf simply laughed, then vanished. “Illusions! Trickery! You all will suffer tenfold more for this!” bellowed Taz’uraj.
A bolt of magic struck him from behind, in answer. He whirled to see the elvish commander, and threw his most vile concoction at the trickster. The elf collapsed, his skin swelled up and cracked, letting blood trickle to the ground.
The dagger woman was approaching him again, but he was prepared this time. He willed a debilitating ailment into her, and her movements slowed. The Defiler slipped away, and began to chant.
First, termites burst from the ground, shredding at the flimsy structures the elves had erected. The tents which had not yet been destroyed by the lightning collapsed into heaps of canvas, the elves inside struggling to get out.
From under one of these collapsed tents crawled the elvish mage-woman whom he had first met. The one whom he had thought he had killed. “You hope to fight?” cackled Taz’uraj.
In answer, the woman grabbed a stick from the ground and used it to help her stand. She then spoke an incantation, and Taz’uraj was gripped again by magic. “Xeldarith! Serra! Now!” she shouted hoarsely.
Taz’uraj was dimly aware of the knife being planted in his back. He would live. He cackled at the pitiful effort.
The commander, who had been lying on the ground and choking in his own blood, stood up. His blood and wounds seemed to turn to fire, and the flames leapt at Taz’uraj.

Xeldarith saw the fiend’s body scatter into a dozen pieces, but still the head continued to cackle.


Most of these have been covered so far, but I will list the main things that I advise you to watch out for. If you can find a plan to deal with them that isn’t listed here, I beg you to post it. The first is long range heroes, such as the Tactician, which can attack you while you are standing back and sniping with Devouring Plague. The second are quick heroes, such as the Infiltrator or the Harpy, which are difficult to escape from. Invisibility is dangerous in that your low health will make you a tempting target for surprise attacks. Dispellers will also pose a problem, as they will remove your Devouring Plague, as well as all your other afflictions. Note that only hero-abilities such as Expunge or Balance of Nature or anti-magic potions can dispel hero-ability based afflictions; a staff or wand of negation will not. Binding spells such as the Aeromancess’ Hold Person or the Elder Treant’s Grasping Tree will also pose a painful threat. The Aeromancess is made worse by her ability to retain her mana through her Devouring Plague with her Mana Rush. Lastly, beware of sudden, heavy damage. The Defiler needs health less than most heroes because of his ability to effortlessly recover it. Because of this, it is all too easy for sudden damage to reduce you from full to zero. There isn't a particular method to countering this, except perhaps for having more health. Find a balance between toughness and attack power which will let you survive attacks, but endurance is not essential.

Disclaimers
-Any number marked with a ~ sign is an estimate.
-I have a very aggressive play style. If you use my strategies, expect to die. A lot. Just hope to kill more often than you die.
Last edited by RSOG on September 25th, 2009, 9:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Dekar
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Re: The Defiler: A Plague Upon Thee!

#2 Post by Dekar »

How comes nobody reads this nice TL;DR post? :shock:

Nice story.

Trap corpse damage is missing. A good strategy with it against melee heroes is to make 2-3 nearby trap corpses if possible and then sticking around them. If the melee heroes tries to kill you, you can make him stand on the corpses while tanking him for 2 second to deal good damage to him and/or forcing him to retreat.

A little good to know on Frailty: It basically increases all damage a hero takes ( except Devouring Plague ), even if he doesnt die, because the % of hp stay the same when Frailty is applied/removed. And Frailty can be dispelled!


If you add the talents, it would be complete.


And this post deserves a nice necroing imo.
<EotA@Azeroth> YAKS GO MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Dekar: the ultimate ocean themed hero should buff and depend on spawn waves!
DarnYak: why is that
Dekar: WAVES
Dekar: :D
DarnYak: i was afraid that was the answer

RSOG
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Re: The Defiler: A Plague Upon Thee!

#3 Post by RSOG »

Some of the numbers might have changed I wrote this, too. I haven't played the Defiler in a long time. I'll see about updating it.

[First update] Trap Corpse is 45 mana, not 30.

I'll check the other numbers when I get a chance.

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