King Garog and Searsha the Charred – Champion Buff Spotlight

In a recent patch, we saw big buffs to King Garog and Searsha the Charred, bringing these forgotten champions back into the spotlight. In this article we look at how these buffs have changed their kits and how you want to build them after these changes.

Before this patch, most would have agreed that King Garog needed a buff…But we never expected him to be buffed this much!

To sum up the changes in Plarium’s own words:

• His A1 now has a higher chance to Stun, increasing up to 75% if the enemy’s Turn Meter is over 50%.
• A2 hits will now ignore 20% of the enemy’s DEF.
• A3 ignore DEF now scales with King Garog’s own Buffs, to make his damage output more reliable, and the Cooldown of the skill was decreased too.
• His Passive was improved as well, allowing King Garog to retain his SPD and Crit Damage stacks after the revival.

On top of these core changes, the damage multipliers of all his attacks were also boosted substantially. Combo him with champions who provide him with multiple buffs, such as Shu-Zhen the Valorous, to get maximum damage from his buffed A3. King Garog now hits HARD!

There are only a couple of small changes needed to King Garog’s build after his buff.

Firstly, it is even more important to build him with ignore defence sets since they stack so well with his new inbuilt ignore defence on his A2 and A3. Merciless set is now extremely valuable on King Garog, letting you ignore 55% defence with his A2 for example—or 80% if helmsmasher procs.

Secondly, Life Harvest has become a unique and interesting blessing for him since it stacks with his passive and allows him to chain between his A2 and A3 repeatedly thanks to his cooldown buffs.

Other than that, he is a standard arena attack nuker: go for high attack, crit damage and speed, with 100% crit rate.

Searsha has never been a popular champion since she is locked behind the massive paywall of the Plarium Points Program. Before these buffs she was guilty of the double crime of being a weak champion, so while the paywall issue still exists at least she is a much better champion now, fixing half of her problems.

To sum up the changes in Plarium’s own words:

• А1 now has a 100% chance to decrease the duration of a random buff on targets under an HP Burn debuff.
• Her A2 will no longer trigger an attack, ensuring reliable [HP Burn] debuffs while bypassing Poison Cloud. Cooldown was decreased too, meaning – even more HP Burn debuffs!
• On A3 we replaced Turn Meter reduction with Decrease SPD and Hex debuffs to boost overall team damage.
• And lastly, her Passive was enhanced to offer greater healing, supporting allies with minor heals, plus an increased chance to instantly activate HP Burn debuffs on enemies.

You should expect Searsha to be a strong Hydra champion now, bringing very reliable sources of HP Burn, Decrease Speed and Hex, which are great damage boosts for most Hydra teams. Since her A2 is no longer an attack, it won’t be affected by affinity and it can be placed through Poison Cloud.

She also is a solid champion for the Hard mode of the Ice Golem dungeon thanks to her improved passive, since she can activate HP Burns to quickly melt the boss when he attacks you. She’s one to watch if they ever add more levels to that dungeon.

With these changes there are now three clear ways to build Searsha.

Firstly, for Hydra, 9-piece Feral is her new best set by far, giving her team a 5% damage boost for every debuff she places, up to 15% with her new kit.

For Ice Golem Hard, look to 4-piece regeneration to keep her alive while you let her HP Burn and passive do the work. You can pair this with Defiant or Immortal or any other set that boosts her survivability if needed.

Finally, 4-piece Reflex is the core of her budget build, letting her cycle through her moves more quickly. Guardian could be a decent alternative if you want to make her a better support.