Gwen - Wtzky's beginner's guide to SE Heroes v1.5!
Wtzky's beginners guide to Shadow Era heroes
Moving on to the Hunters, we have a hero who used to dominate, was forgotten about, and is now making a nice comeback.
Gwenneth Truesight
http://www.shadowera.com/attachment....2&d=1334366952
Faction: Human
Class: Hunter
Tier: 1.5
Utilisation: To me, Gwen still seems to be a bit underused for her strength. She is seen sporadically at the top levels, and used more at the lower levels.
Pros and Cons (explanations after table):
| Pros: |
Fast and ridiculously large damage output with weapons 1 |
Good synergy with weapons and abilities 1 |
Awesome heal against ally heavy decks 1 |
Very good single ally disables/controls2 |
| Cons: |
Feeble card draw engine 3 |
Often needs to set up her combos to win 4 |
Gwen is pretty one dimensional. She is predictable, and easy to defeat if you know you are facing her. 4 |
1 Once Gwen gets set up she can do huge amounts of damage with her weapons. She has a spammable ability which prolongs the use of her strong weapons (notably Soul Seeker which is also her source of heal) and can be used with Rapid Fire to heap on the pain. A Soul Seeker buffed by aimed shot and her ability will do 10 damage per turn. A Guardian’s Oath (now a great weapon in it’s own right) will do 6 damage per turn, or 8 damage with aimed shot. Even Golden Katar can heap on the pain quite rapidly when buffed by her ability. Given how cheap her ability is, she can easily hoard her shadow energy and go for the throat, often being able to kill an enemy hero in 1-2 turns once set up.
There is also very nice synergy with her other ability cards including traps (lay down some traps while you set up your bows or allies) and Into the Forest (protect yourself while you get that needed shadow energy to activate your ability and hit for 8 -10 damage). Into the Forest is especially painful when you are set up with Rapid Fire, Soul Seeker and have some Shadow Energy stored.
Gwen also has an amazing ability to heal with her ability and weapons/armours. Soul Seeker by itself does a great job of healing, but when buffed can one hit most allies, and two hit almost every ally. When combined with Crimson Vest, she can heal 5 hit points almost in one hit!
Gwen also has some pretty decent armours. A well set up Night Prowler can be a devastating way to use her bows. Gravedigger’s cloak is also very handy, especially against Mage players, as Gwen can steal some handy abilities to use against them. The only problem with all of this theorycrafting is that she needs time to get set up (see cons).
2 By these I mean her traps and flame/poison arrows. The arrows are very cheap and can be stacked for fatties. Poison Arrow in particular is now a very nice card, not only disabling an opponent’s allies but also helping Gwen keep the board clear with the ping damage it provides. Her traps are also very nice, especially now that Net Trap finally got the buff that it deserves. The only downside to her traps are how easy it is to tell which trap is played, meaning that a smart opponent can counter them by the order in which he plays his allies.
3 Gwen’s card draw is quite limited. You can use Bazaar or Bad Santa, however you are then forced to give cards to your opponent too (potentially sealing your fate in this meta). Otherwise you can try Surprise Attack (needs a set up which can be too expensive), Tainted Oracle (expensive), Honoured Dead (conditional) or Careful Planning (Pseudo-draw). Certain things do help, such as Lily providing some level of pseudo-draw, but all in all her draw is lacking compared to other classes. This hurts her particularly because she does often need a certain set up to win.
4What I mean by this is that you generally know what you will get with Gwen. You will either get a Solo Gwen (possibly packing Master Smith or Lilly) that aims to stall while she sets up her bows, or one with a scattering of allies and traps. Either way, you can be sure she will have Rapid Fire and 4 x Soul Seeker which is what she is trying to set up, and what she often needs to set up to win. If you know that you will be up against a Gwen, she can quite easily be defeated by packing enough Severed Ties and item destruction to make her life miserable.
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