Gwen - Wtzky's beginner's guide to SE Heroes v1.5!

[Wtzky]

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


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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[Wtzky]

Ease of play for beginners - On a scale of 1-10 where 1 is hardest hero pick up and 10 is easiest hero to pick up:

7-8

Fairly easy to pick up and play really. Throw in some cheap allies, a few bows and some abilities of your choice and off you go. It may not be a top tier deck, but it will work at a certain level and when you get better at deck building it is easy enough to refine for better decks.

Good match ups:

Heroes that are ally heavy or don’t pack much item destruction are your best match ups:

- Baduuru
- Gravebone
- Majiya
- Victor
- Nishaven
- Elementalis
- Zaladar

Bad match ups:

Generally decks where item destruction is more readily accomplished or allies can be protected:

- Darkclaw (particularly Solo)
- Moonstalker
- Lance
- Ter Adun
- Serena
- Jericho
- Amber

Best suited style of play:

Control and build up style

Cost of creating a good deck:

A good Gwen deck is expensive to make. A starter pack or two will give you a good grounding of allies and abilities but her bows will cost you.

Combos:

Here I will include some interesting/fun/good plays or combos. Gwen’s are kind of straight forward.

Rapid Fire + Ability + Soul Seeker: pretty straight forward, but devastating as you get 8 damage from your weapon alone and lose no durability

Rapid Fire + Soul Seeker + Night Prowler + Ability: The steal is nice. Combo that with your ability so you don’t lose durability and you can do some real hurt

Night Prowler + Into The Forest: Protect that Night Prowler from pesky allies by playing an Into The Forrest so that you get some extra steal from your opponent

Night Prowler + Retreat!: A personal favourite of mine. If the opponent has a small hand, Retreat a good ally that he has played for better odds of stealing it (even better if he has nothing in hand thinking you CANT steal and then you Retreat! for the steal)

Tracking + Trap: Use Tracking to see what allies your opponent has. If his hand is full of fatties, you know that is the best time to play your traps. If his hand is full of weenies, you can hold off on wasting them.

Aimed Shot: Aimed shot can really boost the ability of your bows to dish out some serious pain. Use it and love it.

Soul Seeker + Crimson Vest: 5 heal per turn? Yes please!

Gwen in the future:

Gwen has potential to become even better, especially if she gets some any new draw mechanism which will allow her to set up her bows. Any new bows are really just a bonus, as she does so well with what she has already.

Good decks to check out on the forum:

Here are some good decks/discussions about Gwen. As you can see, the ones currently posted have very similar strategies as described above (bows, rapid fire, ability):

http://www.shadowera.com/showthread....eth-Powerhouse – I know that this is a 1.27 deck, but iClipse is an excellent Gwen user and the general advice he gives in this thread and the tactics he discusses are an amazing source of information and well worth a read and consideration when constructing a current deck

http://www.shadowera.com/showthread.php?14026-GwenClaw

http://www.shadowera.com/showthread....-Gwenneth-Solo

Overall Recommendation:

Overall not a terrible place to start and a recommended hero for beginners willing to spend some money early on to get all the required bows/abilities. Her play style is well suited for those who like the late game, however be warned that it can be one dimensional.

For those wanting a cheaper and more versatile deck, I recommend you look elsewhere.




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[Rayzie]

I've found that one of her worst matchups is actually amber. A hero that retaliates for 3/4 whenever you attack? No thankyou!

[Wtzky]

True. Aimed shot and ITF really helps against amber in that case though. Get ahead on damage and then hide until you can attack with buffed weapon again.

You're a better Gwen player than I am so you probably have a more elegant solution but I tend to run 4 x ITF and 2 x Aimed shot in my Gwen these days.

[Meta]

Awesome work Wtzky. Your old guides like these were EXTREMELY helpful when I was just starting out a couple of months ago. Looking forward to the rest of your 1.5 guides!

[Dima]

i would add Shrine of Nigetia combos.

Big help for 1 cc against DC and Amber, a lot of other usage too.

Puwen + poison arrow - one of the best early board controll solutions.

TO is expensive but from the all cardpool the best choice after BS imo.

LLN or Poor Quality is must have for Gwen since any armor takes tempo a lot.

Nice guides WTZKY.

[jacqui]

Like Rayzie, I would add Amber to her bad matchups list. I smile anytime I see a Gwen with Amber. And for consistencies sake anyway, since you have Gwen as one of Amber's good matchups in your Amber guide.

[Mojumbo]

Great article as always Wtzky

[Wtzky]

Like Rayzie, I would add Amber to her bad matchups list. I smile anytime I see a Gwen with Amber. And for consistencies sake anyway, since you have Gwen as one of Amber's good matchups in your Amber guide.

Lol, I'll pay that. Thanks for picking that up

@Mujumbo, cheers

[Wtzky]

Updated with new picture - thanks to Unruler for sending me the new hero card art!!!