Heroes of the Storm Orphea

[positiv2 953]

This thread is for comments about our Orphea guide for Heroes of the Storm.

[Bnetmyke 21]

The build I went with was:

Growing Nightmare

Fright

Mind Devourer

Crushing Jaws

Determination

Lurking Terror

Engulfing Oblivion

Ended up going 15/13/3, 86k hero dmg. But the reasonings for the guide's talent choices hasn't been placed yet, so I'm curious to see those.

[Oxygen 446]

1 hour ago, Bnetmyke said:

The build I went with was:

Growing Nightmare

Fright

Mind Devourer

Crushing Jaws

Determination

Lurking Terror

Engulfing Oblivion

Ended up going 15/13/3, 86k hero dmg. But the reasonings for the guide's talent choices hasn't been placed yet, so I'm curious to see those.

I don't think Orphea has any really "wrong" choices in terms of talents. I'll work on the guide some more shortly, when more data is available and I have more experience.

[Guest Den]

You seriously added "Has access to Crushing Jaws" as a Strength? That's some of the most lazy writing I've ever seen. Might as well add some weaknesses like "Doesn't have access to Pyroblast" or "Can't cast Lifebinder"

I normally trust  your website for quality guides but you've really let me down with the laziness here. I understand this hero just released but did you really think that was a valid point to add?

[Guest MrHotWaffles]

I actually just fought against you using Orphea. Using Abathur in theory makes sense to give her the speed for positioning, but a tank with crowd control and peel makes more sense. I think pairing Insatiable, Abyssal, and Dead magic could work. Otherwise, Ravenous makes more sense to me for the heal. Also, fright + eternal feast should go well with someone like Garrosh. Mainly, I'm not sure what to do for the 20 for a shadow waltz build. 

[Kaelos 74]

Lmao nerf pls

Edited November 14, 2018 by Kaelos

[Erathis 53]

Thoughts after some games today:

Shadow Waltz makes her feel really quick and zippy.  Chasing or escape, the damage and evasion this skill brings to the table is excellent.  It's also your most spammable ability and has decent range.  As such talents that focus on it are very valuable.  It helps that on every tier where the Q talent is an option, they're quite good.

Chomp has good damage but the range is a bit lower than I'd like.  It seems lower than her max AA range so it's annoying to use and the short range means she tends to need to get uncomfortably close to the target.  I find it a bit hard to believe that Insatiable is realistically going to see much use as hitting more than once at that range and not dying is asking a lot.  Honestly I tend to only use it PvE with the Ravenous Hunger talent to sustain, clear waves, and damage bosses (and in rare situations as a finisher).  Lurking Terror fixes many of these issues at 16 and as a bonus W talents do trigger off it (so you get the bonus damage and stacks from Ravenous Hunger).

Dread is a joy to use as it's relatively quick traveling and the range is monstrous.  The eruption is basically never going to hit if the enemy isn't forced to walk over it (so place it well!) but even still it's a great ability to use.  I haven't tried her E talents yet (but I plan to!) but I still love the skill.

Eternal Feast is an ability I want to like but it's just too easy to get around.  If the hits started earlier (or it had some secondary effect) then maybe but as is, it doesn't do enough to be worth picking IMO.  Crushing Jaws on the other hand is similarly hard to land but at least if/when you do, the pay off is potentially extremely high.  With enough skill Orphea can combo all of her abilities on the stunned enemy and if you're on a team that can combo if further (Tyrande/Kael'Thas/Kel'Thuzad/ect...) it can easily lead to multiple kills or even a team wipe.  At least the low cooldown on both Rs means you have multiple attempts to get lucky.

Edited November 14, 2018 by Erathis

[positiv2 953]

11 hours ago, Kaelos said:

Lmao nerf pls

Smh, Blizzard never gets the balance right ?

Thanks for letting us know; we identified the issue, and the fixed tooltip should be up soon-ish.

[positiv2 953]

23 hours ago, Guest Den said:

You seriously added "Has access to Crushing Jaws" as a Strength? That's some of the most lazy writing I've ever seen. Might as well add some weaknesses like "Doesn't have access to Pyroblast" or "Can't cast Lifebinder"

I normally trust  your website for quality guides but you've really let me down with the laziness here. I understand this hero just released but did you really think that was a valid point to add?

You can consider it to be "Has access to a strong CC + damage follow-up tool in the form of Crushing Jaws"

[Twych 24]

After much play, I have concluded...she is much weaker than similar characters on release. Her abilities feel awkward when she has no real way to self peel or survive burst. Not only that. Every ability has a cast time which makes all of them quite underwhelming.  Q is decent but short, W is useless half the time, E never hits beyond the initial travel, Eternal Feast is bad, and Crushing Jaws is also easy to dodge unless used as follow-up since you can see where it will cast and it feels like you have a full second to move out of the way. This is all gets worse when she has to play much more aggressively than other mages to get any sort of return. 

On 11/13/2018 at 3:56 PM, Guest Den said:

You seriously added "Has access to Crushing Jaws" as a Strength? That's some of the most lazy writing I've ever seen. Might as well add some weaknesses like "Doesn't have access to Pyroblast" or "Can't cast Lifebinder"

There's so little that's good about her that saying she has Crushing Jaws is legitimately one of the only good things about her. Her suitability is low, her damage is outclassed, she has zero utility beyond Jaws. She can't even apply pressure because if she tries to, she dies.

If you need spell and physical damage with a stun, Pick Thrall. He outclasses her in everything. Long range poke. Chain lighting out classes. Longer range CC. Feral spirit is a root. Charged basic attack. Windfury hits more and heals more. Stun. Sundering has no cast time. Repeating area damage. Earthquake also has a slow and doesn't need to hit someone to continue. Sustain. Frostwolf Resilience is better than Chaos in every way. 

I believe a buff is in order. Give her more damage so her risk actually justifies the reward.

[Erathis 53]

16 minutes ago, Twych said:

If you need spell and physical damage with a stun, Pick Thrall. He outclasses her in everything. Long range poke. Chain lighting out classes. Longer range CC. Feral spirit is a root. Charged basic attack. Windfury hits more and heals more. Stun. Sundering has no cast time. Repeating area damage. Earthquake also has a slow and doesn't need to hit someone to continue. Sustain. Frostwolf Resilience is better than Chaos in every way. 

I believe a buff is in order. Give her more damage so her risk actually justifies the reward.

While I won't comment on whether or not she needs a buff (I haven't played her enough yet to make that decision in my mind), I don't see Thrall as a good comparison to her at all.  Orphea's damage is very much her Q attacks with W and E being used as the situation permits (and her trait being a bonus when it's convenient).  While the range on Q isn't enormous it's still quite decent and the dash goes a long way to help dodge attacks, getting away, or chasing.

Thrall on the other hand is much more about getting into melee range.  Yes he can poke with his Lightning at range but if that's all he's doing then Orphea will easily out damage him.  The individual hits of their respective Qs are somewhat equal but Orphea has many talents to buff her damage and in addition she gets cooldown resets where he does not.  Of course if he does get into melee he does more damage than her but that's not exactly a surprise.  Melee is much more dangerous than mid range and harder to survive in/maintain, the rewards should be greater.  I freely agree that Thrall's Heroics blow hers out of the water and that her Heroics are are the weakest part of her kit.

[Twych 24]

32 minutes ago, Erathis said:

Melee is much more dangerous than mid range and harder to survive in/maintain, the rewards should be greater. 

Yeah, my bad on the melee to ranged comparison. I've played a decent amount of her and Q + E spam is practically the only way to play without dying and it's pretty boring. The fun way to play (the one you die more) has more basic attacks and W which you need to be really close for which is where I was getting the comparison. Should have done safe play as the comparison. That's entirely on me.

[Erathis 53]

Alrighty, well I gave the E talents a try tonight and honestly they weren't terribly impactful for me.  The sustain from Ravenous Hunger was missed more than I expected.  I think I've basically settled on a max Q build with Ravenous Hunger on 7 and either the Q talent or Lurking on 16 (depending on how much HP the enemy team has).

Edited November 18, 2018 by Erathis

[Morcalivan 86]

Waaay less risky than Mephisto. :p 

Reminds me more of Li Ming than Thrall.

Easy to play with, much easier to use her abilities and land blows than most. That delay to impact isn't big enough to make her constantly miss. The amount of attacks she can use in fairly safe distance means that a few misses aren't really a bad thing. It also means that you can use it to zone. If your attacks can't be evaded, people will ignore them. Sometimes the best move is to not do damage but make it look like you're trying.

As for the Heroics. Meh. Not great but not bad either. One strong zoning tool. Less Strong now that Garden of Eden has changed. While Jaws is fairly easy to land. Not sure when people are using it. Use your E then your R to land it or just use a teammate as bait. Peels nicely from teammates. So good defense heroics that can also catch runners when your Q is too short range.

Fun character.

[Guest Motorbike]

I understand this is a new hero, But she has been dominating for a long time, i think the talent discussion in this guide is pathetic, its basically non existent, compared to previous guides. eg We select X to increase mobility. We select X to increase damage. Does anyone even care anymore? c'mon guys lift a little

[positiv2 953]

On 12/7/2018 at 11:17 AM, Guest Motorbike said:

I understand this is a new hero, But she has been dominating for a long time, i think the talent discussion in this guide is pathetic, its basically non existent, compared to previous guides. eg We select X to increase mobility. We select X to increase damage. Does anyone even care anymore? c'mon guys lift a little

Due to a train of unfortunate events, there has been a delay in updates, including addition of talent discussions. However, they are going to be added as soon as more important issues are tended to.

[Oxygen 446]

On 11/13/2018 at 6:56 PM, Guest Den said:

You seriously added "Has access to Crushing Jaws" as a Strength? That's some of the most lazy writing I've ever seen. Might as well add some weaknesses like "Doesn't have access to Pyroblast" or "Can't cast Lifebinder"

Although a rare occurrence in Heroes of the Storm, heroic/ultimate abilities can absolutely define certain heroes in the moba genre. 

I believe Crushing Jaws plays a major role in Orphea viability. As of the time of writing, its win rate (and popularity) is significantly higher. Omitting this would actually make me a poor writer. If I'm proven wrong, I'll amend this with absolutely no shame; writing about new heroes is always difficult due to guesswork.

[Chronopolize 0]

The guide could stand to be updated. Lurking Terror build is dead, Crushing Jaws is alright now but is harder to use than Eternal feast, though it has a much better lv 20 talent, in games where you feel too threatened to go for eldritch conduit.

[Fydorian 0]

This guide is out of date at the current time. 

In particular, Abyssal Symbiosis and Dead Magic are now part of the meta build (along with Insatiable and Chaotic Assault). My source is hots logs sorted by ranked Master and Diamond. 

 

Beyond that, I would like to mention that Abyssal Symbiosis never really deserved to be overlooked to begin with. I don't know how much Orphea has been changed since the guide was written, and it's probably fair that no meta build wanted it, but at least as it stands the logic behind dismissing it makes no sense,

Quote

 is the most difficult Talent to reliably use at this tier, as it requires successful  Chomp hits. Further, the additional  Overflowing Chaos stacks generated are wasted if any Ability has been used prior.

If you're not hitting Chomp, that's a problem with the player, not with the skill. The previous meta build also required you to hit Chomp for the burst damage. The second line also makes no sense because Ancestral Strength encourages you to auto attack before/after every ability anyway, so the stacks should rarely be wasted.

The survivability of the shield and healing from the three-charge hit are usually better than spell armor stacks, depending on what large damaging spells the enemy team has.  At the very least there should have been a question mark for use when you take insatiable since the combo potential was always very potent. 

 

Edited August 7, 2020 by Fydorian

[Guest Orp orp]

Monster Within at lv20 got buffed a while ago, now it gives +150% cdr for a minimum of 6.5 seconds, which makes it somewhat similar to Jaina's Icy Veins. The extra chaos from hits is kinda pointless, but the CDR buff basically doubles DPS for a good amount of time and also increases survivability via chaos + abyssal symbiosis.

In its current form it's not at all a winmore talent as it doesn't require hitting with ulti many times to generate good value. It can also be useful in PVE situations vs core/objectives/whatnot for some extra damage.

In my opinion it's currently stronger than Eldritch Conduit, as it offers a huge power spike on demand without requiring a lot of chaos attacks first.