Published On: October 3, 2024
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Gurgoh and Warchief – Rework Spotlights

This week’s new update for Raid: Shadow Legends has brought substantial buffs and reworks to Gurgoh the Augur and Warchief – two old and previously outdated legendaries.

Gurgoh has now become an arena specialist, bringing reliable Freezes, Buff Strips, AoE Decrease Defence, and big AoE damage.

Warchief has become a strong team protector, now bringing AoE Provokes, team Shields, and a lot of team healing.

In this article, we’ll be breaking down all the crucial facts you need to know about these changes, how to build them, and where in the game they should be used.

GURGOH – HE’S ALL ABOUT ARENA!

gurgoh the augur splash art

Much like Kruysen’s catchphrase, Gurgoh’s rework has pushed him to be all about arena.

His old 44% ATK in Faction Wars aura has been changed to a 30% SPD in Arena aura, which is a huge upgrade. This puts him on par with Arbiter for having one of the best speed auras for arena in the game.

Gurgoh’s A3 has also seen a dramatic change, going from a single target attack to an AoE attack that applies Decrease Defence and hits a second time if enemies are frozen. This combos cleanly off of his A2 and is a big damaging move in arena. It will be a lot weaker against bosses who are immune to Freeze.

The new “wombo combo” of Gurgoh’s A2 into A3 is what he’s all about: strip all enemy buffs, freeze them, then hit them with the double AoE attack. This will kill any enemy that is not built to be very tanky.

The biggest weaknesses for Gurgoh remain Stoneskin and Polymorph. Stoneskin has a 50% chance to block removal, and subsequently block the freeze and follow up attacks and debuffs from Gurgoh. Polymorph is another big problem since Gurgoh can potentially trigger it with both of his active skills now.

Gurgoh’s passive now works against enemy supports but is a bit weaker against enemy damage dealers. It’s decent, but it won’t help much with keeping him alive, and Gurgoh is still a very squishy character with weak base stats.

I think that Gurgoh’s best area will definitely be in Live Arena, where his speed aura becomes extremely strong and you can draft him against any teams that don’t have these counters. He’s a bit like Sun Wukong without the passive: a big damage threat with buff strips and a speed aura included.

HOW TO BUILD GURGOH NOW

From my testing, it seems that the new Gurgoh has two different ways to be used.

Firstly, he can be used in a speed team. You will use his speed aura to build a go-first team and likely combo him with a lockout champion, such as Yumeko or Basher. You will build Gurgoh with Lethal and 4-piece Pinpoint gear to try to hit hard and prevent Polymorph—he can even be the solo damage dealer with this build. Without any stoneskin gear, you will be relying on your other champions to keep Gurgoh alive. This is a very stat hungry build, needing good attack, crit rate, crit damage, speed, and accuracy.

A variation of this build could be to forgo any damage and index purely into speed, accuracy, and Pinpoint or Feral gear. This focuses more on using Gurgoh to set up your damage dealer like an Odin would… And that’s the main problem: he’s basically a budget Odin with this build, and you’d much rather have Odin instead.

Secondly, you could use him in more of a go-second team. If enemies don’t have much Polymorph then you can build him in Lethal and 4-piece Stoneskin gear to become a massive threat. By building him a bit slower you can let enemy teams buff up and outrun their Stoneskin buffs, letting Gurgoh’s A2 get maximum value and making the A3 setup much more consistent.

WARCHIEF – BROGNI 2.0?

Warchief

Warchief has always been a strong single target provoke champion, but now he is a strong team protector as well!

His new passive might sound very familiar to anyone who has a Brogni: 25% of the damage taken by Shield buffs will be turned into healing. While Warchief doesn’t have the damage reflection aspect of Brogni’s passive (a bit of a pity, considering the old Warchief passive), this new passive will contribute to a lot of survivability for your team thanks to his new and improved A2. Much like Brogni, it is well worth running Shield or Bolster sets on Warchief since they work with his passive too.

His passive has also been updated to always give him a DEF boost, with a bigger boost if enemies are provoked.

Warchief’s A2 had its cooldown nerfed, going from 2-turn to 3-turn, but this is more than worth it for the buffs it received in compensation. It steals all buffs from the target and has a 75% chance (when booked) to Provoke every other enemy for 1 turn on top of the 100% chance to provoke his chosen target for 3 turns. This chance rolls for each enemy individually. This makes it a much better move for wave-based content.

The even bigger buff to his A2 though is that it now creates a Shield for your team based off Warchief’s defence. This will get boosted by his passive, and you’ll also ideally want an Increase Defence champion on your team to boost it even more. This can be a very chunky Shield and adds a ton of survivability to your team.

His A1 got some minor buffs as well, now with a much better chance to Provoke (approx. 72% over all 3 hits combined) and a bit of healing for Warchief and your lowest health ally as well.

All in all, Warchief is now better at provoking waves of enemies, and he provides a ton of shielding and healing for your teams. He’s brilliant for Doom Tower or Hydra!

HOW TO BUILD WARCHIEF NOW

Thanks to his new passive, Warchief loves a Shield or Bolster set: these extra shields can stack with the Shield buff from his A2 and will also heal you thanks to his passive.

Warchief is a strong arena champion for early-mid-game players, and should be geared with Reaction or Stoneskin accessories alongside one of the Shield sets to keep him alive.

For longer PVE fights, like Hydra, Guardian or Reflex sets are even better: Guardian will reduce the damage your team takes and Warchief should be more than capable of handling the extra damage; Reflex will make his A2 a consistently shorter cooldown since it’s his only active skills, letting him pump out Provokes and Shields much more regularly.

For blessings, Brimstone is a decent option against most bosses, though it does have anti-synergy in Hydra where he will often place it when Provoking the Head of Decay (and when the head is provoked, it will never trigger Brimstone). Cruelty is also a decent option since Warchief has a triple-hitting A1.

For Arena, consider the Temporal Chains or Polymorph blessings to bring even more protection to your team.

LET US KNOW WHICH CHAMPION YOU ARE MORE EXCITED TO TRY IN THE COMMENT SECTION DOWN BELOW!

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