Wrath of Heroes BETA 3: Nethys Character Breakdown!

The Third Phase of the Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes Beta Phase ended a few days ago! After much mayhem, carnage, and bloodshed, the introduction of the new Blackfire Pass map and the two new heroes, Gromkin and Aessa, was successfully completed. Now all we have to do is wait for the next round of tests, right? Wrong! Instead we are going to use everything we have learned from the game so far and make a character breakdown of all characters in the game!

I will also use those character breakdowns to discuss some general aspects of the game, including the strategy and the overall gameplay and pace.

The first character of this serie of posts will be the character that surprised everyone during the Beta: Nethys, the Insatiable.

It won't be the last time you see Korith in such a... situation. 

Hero Abilities

Blood Siphon
Magical | No cooldown | 5 ft range
Deals 33 damage and gives you 1 stack of Siphoned Blood.
Siphoned Blood quickly restores health over time and stacks up to 3 times.

Tainted Blood
Magical | 5s cooldown | 5 ft range
Deals 72 damage for each stack of Siphoned Blood on you.

Domination *Damage, Buff
Magical | 10s cooldown | 5 ft range
Deals 72 damage and moderately increases your chance to critically hit for 7 seconds.

Quickblood
Magical | 20s cooldown | Self
Allows you to sprint for 8 seconds and causes all of your attacks to deal an additional 33 damage.

Seduction
Magical | 30s cooldown | Self
Staggers all nearby enemies for 6 seconds and restores 106 hit pionts for each enemy affected.

You can see the abilities of all heroes up to Beta 2 at 6v6v6.com.

Vaguely overlooked in the previous Betas, the character was a rarity. You would once in while encounter a Nethys that would annoy you with Seduction and then probably try without much success to kill you. But other than that, she was seldom seen. You could blame it on the merciless domination of ranged magical heroes during Beta 1, and the absence of viable support characters in Beta 2. After all, there was no real reasons to pick Nethys when you had Bax, his more frequent self-heal, and his better armor, plus the fact that CC (Crowd Control) was not that needed since there was no viable support characters in Beta 2 to either protect or stop from healing.

However, thanks to the Blackfire Pass map and its "capture the flag" mechanic, everybody noticed Nethys as an actually pretty awesome character. Her two abilities Quickblood and Seduction made her a viable choice for rune carrying duties. With Quickblood you could outrun any characters in the cast except of course Bax..., and with Seduction you could either CC a rune carrier, or as a rune carrier, slow down any attacker. I saw teams with 2 Nethys that would go together for the runes, and it worked! It was really hard to stop them from capping, even with Bax.

Yes, I got owned shortly after...

During this Beta phase, Nethys saw her speed slightly increased, however it seemed to me that some aspect of her dps were buffed. She seemed to hit harder than in previous phases of the Beta. Maybe it was a side-effect of some invisible nerfs to armor or resistances, I couldn't tell. However the character seemed truly more powerful than in previous phases.

One fight that cemented this impression was when I was solo'ed as a Thagison by a Nethys, when Thagison is supposed to be her counter! Maybe I was outplayed (which I would love to know how), but it seems unlikely as Nethys attacks are subject to Thagison's insane magical resistance. Skills alone would have made the encounter very close, and as she kept regenerating life the fight quickly slipped out of my hands. One thing I could notice was how much damage I would take from Tainted Blood. Being on both the giving and receiving end of this ability, I can say that the ability is brutal on certain characters! Use Quickblood and Domination to increase its damage and you have a true nuke in your arsenal! This ability worries me a little as it has the potential of making her maybe a bit over the top. But despite Tainted Blood, she is far from over-powered.

In my opinion, Nethys is the character that should be used as a base for most characters. Good at her role (dps in her case), most of her abilities have a dps aspect, she has a CC, a way to manage movement (in her case, a buff), a fun mechanic (self-healing and blood siphon), and a survivability CD. Pretty much the best AND most balanced package in the game. This is a sharp contrast with characters like Korith whose sole focus is dps, dps, and more dps!

Nethys is one of those rare characters that naturally encourage teamwork without forcing it. Seduction can be used when she is alone, as a heal, a CC, or just an escape route. But the ability reveal its true potential when used in a massive battle, or in combination with your team.
Through the Seduction ability, Nethys, along with the Dryad, fills a niche that is needed in the game, which is mass crowd-control. A game of this type need those type of abilities for two reasons:

• Slow down damage, giving some breathing room to your allies.
• Reducing the chances the opposite team has to turn the tables.

Now that people have seen that this hero is capable of actually killing heroes, the fact that she possess a mass CC ability will ensure that she will see play as long as her dps capabilities stay approximately the same. The amount of gameplay in knowing when to use Seduction plus her fun dps mechanics make her one of the less boring and rare skill-rewarding heroes in the game. I would love to see Bioware-Mythic play a bit more with her Siphoned Blood mechanic, with for example an attack that would actually consume the stacks for a bonus.

My general impression of the character is that she is a fun dps, with some serious capabilities, a great package of abilities, and a nice face (that's important)!

As a verdict, Nethys gets a:

 WAAAAAGH!!

Next time I will review one of the new heroes that were available in this Beta phase, Gromkin the stone eater... I mean Dwarf RunePriest. Tell me what you think of this character breakdown in the comments below, it only takes a second :), and follow me on Twitter @ControlBlue for more! Until next time, Stay Green!