Ok so my fav theme has always been zombie. I have been tryin to figure out the best champs/upgrades for it atm, but i am not the best at understanding the efficiency/ power of a BG. Ideas to make the theme work?
first off lets understand the mechanic of ZA as far as i can tell its " if you have 5 or more zombies in play champions with ZA have swarm : festering corpse " and swarm : festering corpse says " when this champion destroys another champion with a basic attack you spawn a festering corpse" this means that zombies that don't have ZA do not swarm, and zombies with ZA that destroy a unit with anything other than a basic attack do not swarm IE DOTs, auras, manic, or power attack. i dont know if soulstrike procs swarm or not (please correct me if im wrong) the mindset ive developed with zombies is to accept the fact that most of your units are slow, meaty, and for the most part useless and play around the ones that aren't, on average you will have around one or two crucial champions that should be protected like they are twice as expensive as they actually are and the rest of your champions should be cheap meat/summons that you really shouldn't care about. sorry but it would take way too long to write out all the upgrade paths that i took just focus on cheap meat and realize/accept that your champions will die but as long as the match is in a stalemate or even position as the FW player youre usually winning
The Zombies that don't have ZA on base, Zombie Behemoth, Wandering Zombie, Risen Moga, Mute Stalker, Fleshblight Zombie, Corrupted Guardian, Afflicted Corpsefor me, I don't upgrade to ZA the other abilities available are better used like Death nova and possibly Locus Swarm( right now Nova is beating out Swarm for the top spot)
I was hoping to be brief, but after some testing, there's quite a few things I can say. Since only certain units can swarm, you need to focus more than ever on supporting those champs and enabling their kills. Afflicted Corpse is still great as cheap meat that contributes to ZA, but is a horrible candidate to take ZA on. Locust Swarm is ultra important, not just for damage, but for the AoE defense reduction that makes it easier for a ZA champ to get a kill. Mute Stalker is the top ZA champ, by far. Wizard Foe and Distract are good, but his damage potential combined with good range and easy stealth makes him the easiest one to get a swarm with. With full Preperation, he hits the 16 damage mark - potentially 20 with a warbanner and Lost Queen with Regal Presence. Speaking of Lost Queen, she's a key piece when it comes to helping weaker ZA zombies with their Swarm potential. Regal Presence is fantastic. She's not very good at swarming on her own - 10 damage is okay, but Attack: Disease isn't great. As for other ZA champs... Corrupted Guardian is fast, strong, and durable. Definitely worth the nora. Since you're striving to get basic attack kills with them, you can take Desecrated Zone instead of Disease Aura for a cost reduction. Coragh is expensive, but still really powerful, so he's worth using if you have him. I take Rotting Blows to keep his cost down. Risen Moga and Wandering Zombie are both good for their price - a little slow, but a decent 11 damage that can reach 15 when boosted. Wandering Zombie's durability is through the roof with Regal Presence around. On the negative side, Fleshblight and Behemoth seem terrible for swarming. You can't take ZA and Black Death at the same time, so it's too difficult to get a swarm kill with Fleshblight, especially since he can't swarm with Manic. That said, taking him as a regular damage dealer with Black Death is pretty solid, particularly thanks to that 66 HP. Behemoth, on the other hand, is just a wall of HP. His damage got lowered so much that trying to swarm with him seems pretty pointless - he can deal high damage with Knockback 2 or 3, but that won't swarm. Doesn't even have Sunder anymore! Incredible HP for the cost, though - worth running as a shocktrooper with Knockback and Exertion (he can get Iron Will from Regal Presence if he needs it.) Anyway, I'll leave you with some Secret Tricks: Right now, one Corpse Pile will give you two Infected Corpses that are better than the cheapest Infected you can deploy. Also, Corpse-a-pults are currently pitching full HP, non-summoned Festerings. Finally, Dusk Creepers are amazing (I'll even say integral) support champs in Zombies. +1 range helps immensely with getting swarms and lets your slow melee zombies attack more easily in crowded situations. Also, Soul Collection will grab a nora globe from a swarm kill before the new zombie can grab it, maximizing the nora you get thanks to Dead Eater.
I made a spell suggestion that might help. http://forums.poxnora.desertowlgame...nfected-wind-fw-zombie-spell.4153/#post-57411 I like the idea of zombies having a dual racial, with Zombie Plague working in conjunction with ZA. As far as I know, it's only present on two units currently. ZP would give an easier method of swarming as you would be able to finish off the target with anything, but it would be weak to cleanse. The only problem I can foresee is the possibility of ZA and ZP together being redundant or too similar.
