Augur of the Mountain K'Thir Forest / Shattered Peaks Race: Garu, Moga Flavor text: Tribals along the borderlands seem ambivalent to the wars of their kin. They believe there are only two factions in Poxanthuru: those who deny the Bestial Spirits, and those who serve them. Visual: A Moga, head covered by a painted boar's skull and shoulders draped in a feathered shawl, rides upon the shoulders of a Garu Mystic, face and fur painted in streaks of green and orange. Gist: KF/SP Beasts. With a primary focus on Beast synergy, this unit does have a home in its respective races' BGs, due to Improve Range as an upgrade and Nexus Aura (potentially useful with Moga). Boost Beast also affects Moga Cannon, Savage Boar, and Moga Hunters, along with the Garu Primitive (which may be useful in a split Beast BG, as well). Overall, the Augur gets the most bang for its buck when you are running Spirit of the Mountain -- at which point, it gets buffed by each of its Beast and Spirit allies. Class: Shaman DMG: 12 SPD: 6 DEF: 1 RNG: 3-5 HP: 48 Cost: 78 Attack: Psychic Boost: Beast 1 Nexus Aura Resistance: Magical 3 Revere: Spirit of the Mountain (Passive) While this champion is in play, Spirit of the Mountain costs 10% less nora to deploy. While Spirit of the Mountain is in play, this unit has Protective: Spirit and Bulwark: Beast. Upgrades: Gift of Scrying Teleport 1 Hibernate Encourage 3 (existing SP Avatar ability) This unit has Overseer: Moga 2. Friendly champions within 3 spaces have +1 DEF and +5 HP. WHY: I am trying to promote split theme Beast play. While this rune ostensibly favors SP/KF beast splits, there is nothing keeping you from using it in SP/UD or KF/ST or SP/SL or... whatever! One massive gap in Split Beasts has been shored by this rune: SotM. People have been on the fence about whether he's good, bad, great, or trash since he came out. This rune aims to make him undeniably awesome in a split Beast BG. The end. No more debate. The reason for his build is straightforward: Revere is 100% obvious in its use, while Nexus Aura + Magical Resistance can make SotM and Augur (together) almost unkillable for the round. Outside of that, if you aren't playing Beasts, Nexus is still amazing with Moga, where you have 3 or 4 little dudes clumped together and you need to buy some time while setting up for a Peaks Tactics, etc. Garu, with their naturally solid HP and Hibernate regen, are also good recipients of a well-placed Nexus. Most of the time, you will only have one Spirit in play in split Beasts: SotM. That's fine, as Protective: Spirits will temporarily give Augur a total of 17 DMG at a very respectable range. Running additional spirits to encourage procs of Protective is an option, as well (obviously). Encourage 3 (the upgrade) allows you to run this in Moga, without the upgrade being useless in Garu BGs or even in split Beasts (it offers additional Boost buffs to nearby Beasts). The obvious downside to Encourage + Boost is that you have to be within 3 spaces to get get both buffs going, and that makes you a target for nuking when Nexus isn't active. Finally, the reason I *wanted* to make this unit is because I saw Xirone's thread about a spirit Peacock, and it got me thinking about animal spirit worship. I immediately thought of SotM (obviously), and then I thought about the Garu Mystic with something riding on its back. Tribal Moga wearing a boar skull took all the marbles, there. Suggestions? Criticism? Thanks!
I like that this champ would be useful in FF SP, FF KF, and in splits with SotM. I also really like that flavor-text! In my world, though, the Moga wouldn't be riding the Garu but would rather be affixed by leather bindings to the head of the Garu's shaman pole (he'd be alive, of course). Either way, a useful champ to promote the tribal spirit animal theme that doesn't exist but would be cool if it did.
