The Cowardly Lion – Champion Spotlight

The Cowardly Lion is the fusion champion from the Echoes of Oz campaign event. In this spotlight we will deep dive into how his abilities work, what teams he is best in, and how to build him to maximise his potential!

Check out our dedicated Champion page for The Cowardly Lion for even more info and ratings.

A1 – LEONINE POUNCE

This is a great A1! Thanks to his A3 (or the Mavara combo with his A2) the Lion will use this attack very often. The base damage is decent, but it becomes very strong after ramping up as Fears activate: this makes it very powerful for beginners against Hydra (if you struggle with the Head of Torment, the fear Head) or against waves, but it is less useful against bosses where Fear doesn’t play a role.

It’s also very helpful against the normal Spider and Fire Knight dungeons, and against Dark Fae thanks to the total 15% Turn Meter Steal. The triple-hit is generally great for PvP and Fire Knight, and it opens up the Giant Slayer mastery as a good choice for newer players.

A2 – PRIMAL ROAR

This is the Lion’s AoE attack, buffing the whole team and dealing solid damage. As a DEF-based damage dealer, he self-enables Increase DEF which makes team-building easier (this also synergises well with The Tin Woodman).

The big draw here is the combo with Mavara: her A1 passive gives everyone a 50% chance to Ally Attack whenever an ally with Fervor attacks–and the Lion provides 2-turns of Fervor to everyone on a 3-turn cooldown. This adds a huge amount of damage to your teams!

This is also an incredibly strong control ability against waves thanks to his passive enhancing Fears against your enemies.

A3 – STRENGTH IN THE PACK

This A3 is very interesting, and is a specialised anti-Fire Knight ability: both Counterattack and Reflect Damage excel at taking down the Fire Knight’s shield stacks. Simply build the Lion to go right before the Fire Knight takes his turn, and these two buffs will likely completely remove the shield on normal difficulty and take a massive chunk out of it even on hard difficulty.

Try pairing the Lion with strong A1 attackers for maximum value, such as Kro’khad against Hydra or other multi-hit A1s like Apothecary for Fire Knight.

This is also a lovely ability for PvP, where it can deal very high damage and specialises in removing Total Guard stacks from the Mercurial gear set–very relevant to PvP right now!

P1 – TRUE COURAGE

This passive is all about Fear. Being able to ignore the effects of Fear–and his ability to get an Extra Turn with a full cooldown reset–for himself is a great boost against Hydra and the Event Dungeon (about 50% of Event Dungeons have featured True Fear prominently) and even against champions like Fabian in PvP.

Boosting the chance of Fear working against your enemies raises it from 50% to 65%: this makes Fear much more consistent and is particularly powerful since he maintains an incredibly high uptime on it thanks to his A2.

As you can see from the section above, The Cowardly Lion is a very versatile damage and control champion who can thrive in almost any area of the game.

FIRE KNIGHT

The Cowardly Lion is absurdly powerful for the Fire Knight dungeon–typically one of the hardest dungeons for new players to take down.

Thanks to his multi-hits, his A3, and his A2 combo with Mavara (for players lucky enough to have her), he can absolutely demolish the Fire Knight’s shield counter while pumping out good damage and even Stealing its turn meter on normal difficulty.

WAVE BASED CONTENT: DUNGEONS, FACTION WARS, GRIM FOREST, ETC.

The Cowardly Lion is a beast against any waves as well, due to his solid damage output and his ability to control them with Fears in his A2, boosted by his passive.

Pairing him with Dorothy is a powerful combo, since his True Fears can cover the gaps she leaves between her A3 Stuns.

PvP – ARENA AND SIEGE

The Cowardly Lion will be an excellent pick for PvP for many players as well.

Dealing with Total Guard stacks from Mercurial gear is a bit of a nightmare for most players: the Lion gives you a strong way to shred stacks off thanks to his A3. This will be insanely good against enemies who can’t avoid doing AoE attacks.

He also is a great counter against any enemies with True Fear, such as Ozilda or Fabian. This is especially nice against Fabian since his self-reset counters Fabian’s Increase Skill Cooldown as well, and Fabian is constantly trying to spam True Fear on your team.

The Cowardly Lion has some powerful combos with the other Oz champions.

1. The Tin Woodman

This is the ultimate anti-Fire Knight combo, with the Tin Woodman bringing a full team Ally Attack which works wonderfully with the Lion’s A1. In return, the Lion provides him with Increase DEF and Fervor to boost his massive damage output even more.

2. Ozilda the Wicked

Ozilda is constantly placing True Fears with her passive, which the Lion makes more effective with his, while also boosting his A1 damage.

Ozilda has an incredible A1 against Feared enemies, and the Lion’s A2 True Fear and A3 Counterattack set her up perfectly to maintain insane control.

This is arguably his best combo, but in our opinion the universal value of the Tin Woodman combo outclasses it, since Ozilda is not good against most bosses.

3. Dorothy Gale

This is the F2P combo, and it’s great! Dorothy provides Decrease DEF to boost the Lion’s damage, and the Lion covers the gaps between her Stuns with True Fears and helps her maintain Weaken through his counterattack buff.

4. The Scarecrow

The Scarecrow is his worst combo in the Oz event. The Lion appreciates the cooldown reduction and Increase ACC/RES, but that’s about it.

It’s not a bad combo, but he’d much rather have a Mavara on the team.

Other Great Teammates

1. Mavara the Web Diviner

Mavara is the actual best teammate for The Cowardly Lion due to her incredible A1 passive ability: this gives every champion on the team a 50% chance to trigger an Ally Attack from any ally with the Fervor buff. The Lion provides very high uptime on Fervor for the whole team, and this will add up to a massive amount of extra team attacks and damage.

This is one of the most powerful duos in the game, up there with the likes of Kro’khad and Shy’ek or Lady Mikage and Ninja. To maximise the duo, try to include a second damage dealer (like The Tin Woodman) so you’re getting double the damage-boosting value.

The Cowardly Lion should be build as a hybrid DEF-based damage-dealer.

Best Stats for The Cowardly Lion

The key stats to look for on The Cowardly Lion are:

1. ACC
2. SPD
3. C.RATE
4. DEF
5. C.DMG

To build the Lion, the first step is to build enough ACC for him to succesfully land his debuffs and effects. (You can bypass this step if you don’t need them, e.g. if you’re fighting Hydra where they’re all immune to Fears and Turn Meter Steals).

Check out the Raid Stages Tool to check any given stage to get precise ACC requirements. As a rough rule of thumb, we recommend the following: 200 ACC for early-game; 300 for mid-game; 400 for late-game.

After you have enough ACC, you will want to have a decent chunk of SPD. We recommend being faster than the Fire Knight so you can apply his A3 before it takes a turn. If you’re using him in PvP, you should aim to be faster than enemies for the same reason.

To deal damage with The Cowardly Lion, you should first build C.RATE to 100%, then stack a mix of DEF and C.DMG. His SPD and ACC requirements are often lower than other hybrid-damage dealers, so you should be able to get a decent amount of these stats. Use our Raid Optimiser Tool to find the best damage build for your account!

Best Gear Sets for The Cowardly Lion

The best sets for The Cowardly Lion are:

Early-Game:

• Speed
• Accuracy
• Perception

Mid -Game:

• Savage
• Lethal
• Stoneskin

Late-Game:

• Merciless
• Mercurial
• Protection

Any sets which boost his priority stats are great choices.

Early-game is focused on getting enough SPD and ACC for his effects, through easy sets to acquire. Don’t worry about ideal sets: simply use the actually good pieces of gear you own.

Mid-game is a big upgrade, with the goal being to get a 4-piece Ignore DEF set for him, massively increasing his damage output. This can be paired with Stoneskin for PvP–a combo which remains the best choice all the way to endgame.

For Late-game, Merciless is the best damage choice for all PvE content. 9-piece Protection is an interesting alternative which focuses on boosting all team damage by 20% (he places 4 buffs); this is very strong when paired with Mavara and another S-tier damage-dealer. Mercurial is a niche option for PvP, but should only be used if you have a very powerful damage Relic to compensate for the loss of Ignore DEF.

Check our Gear Tier List for more info on sets.

Best Masteries for The Cowardly Lion

Check out our dedicated The Cowardly Lion champion page to see his best masteries!

We are waiting to see if there will be a guaranteed soul available for The Cowardly Lion in a Titan Event or the like; it’s certainly our expectation, so stay tuned on the website for news as soon as it’s confirmed!

Best Blessings for The Cowardly Lion

Check out our Blessings Tier List for full details on all Blessings!

The best Blessings for The Cowardly Lion are:

1. Lightning Cage (Legendary): The best option for PvP. The Lion has a lot of powerful buffs and should be geared in Stoneskin for PvP, and this Blessing protects them from being removed.
2. Crushing Rend (Epic – 6 star only): The best option for PvE but only at 6-stars. This adds a huge amount of damage but requires a 6-star Blessing to apply to every hit.
3. Heavencast (Epic): A good option for everywhere, giving him a small damage boost per buff (and he has lots of buffs).
4. Nature’s Wrath (Epic): This is more damage than Heavencast but relies on him placing True Fears–something which simply doesn’t work against most bosses.
5. Faultless Defence (Rare): A niche anti-Fire Knight pick, allowing his Increase DEF buff to strip even more of its shield stacks. We found this to be overkill in our testing, since he’s already smashing this boss without it.

Best Relics for The Cowardly Lion

Check out our Relics Tier List for full details on all Relics!

The best Relics for The Cowardly Lion are:

1. Fleshmelter Lash (Legendary Coalescence Relic): One of the new relics, designed for DEF-based damage-dealers and with a Skinwalker bonus! This hugely boosts his A1 attacks from Counterattack or Mavara Fervor Ally Attacks, etc.
2. The Cat’s Gaze (Legendary Clan Relic): Best overall option, giving huge damage. The downside is that every damage champion wants it and it is not in the permanent rotation.
3. Essence Quencher (Legendary Clan Relic): Very powerful and permanently available damage boost.
4. Gaze of Damnation (Epic Event Relic): A great Fear-focused option which gives fantastic stats and synergises with his Fear debuffs.
5. Gilded Dragonscale (Epic Standard Relic): A great budget option which scales his damage and synergises with his “get hit” buffs.
6. Molten Deathbell (Rare Chimera Relic): His best budget option which provides ACC and some nice turn meter boosts from his A2.
7. Malefic Talon (Rare Chimera Relic): An accessible budget option which works as a C.DMG stat-stick.

Best Gemstones for The Cowardly Lion

Check out our Gemstone Tier List for full rankings of all Gemstones!

The best Gemstones for The Cowardly Lion are:

Circle:

1. Boss Slayer: for bosses.
2. Momentun Breaker: for PvP.
3. Dungeon Delver: for dungeons.
4. Invigorated: more turn meter means taking more turns.

Triangle:

1. No Mercy: best Clan Boss option.
2. Sharpened Riposte: incredibly strong, enabled by his A3.
3. Double Down: one of the few champions who can use it, but it doesn’t work against most bosses.
4. Rolling Force: triple-hit A1.
5. Fearmonger: amazing for waves.
6. Target Smash: when building ACC it boosts his damage.
7. Pierce Defenses: more damage.

Square:

1. Torpidity: incredibly strong for waves and PvP if can land his Fear.
2. Barbed Defenses: Sneaky for PvP.

Diamond:

1. Monstrosity: help landing his Fears.
2. Expeditious Exploitation: good for waves for more SPD.

Pentagonal:

1. Skullcracker: he has tons of DEF, so it’s a great damage boost.
2. In for the Kill: more Turn Meter.