Tribune Herakletes – Faction Unity Champion Spotlight

Tribune Herakletes is the sparkling new–or is it rotting old?–Faction Unity champion for the Undead Hordes, bringing a totally unique playstyle to the game that revolves around massive damage while also bringing benefits for your team while he is dead.

Read on to find out Herakletes’ pros and cons, how to build him, and his ideal teammates.

Herakletes has a fairly simple yet very unique kit.

While he is alive, his A1 deals strong damage and can place True Fear for 1 turn, making it a fairly average attack. While dead, he will automatically use this attack alongside any other ally’s attack if there are 3 other Undead Hordes champions on the team to activate his Faction Unity passive. This makes the True Fear unblockable and irresistable and also heals all living allies by 20% of their MAX HP. This makes the move significantly stronger and can be a huge source of healing, especially since it can potentially trigger on every ally’s turn!

His A2 is a massive single target attack that ignores 100% defence. For context, moves that ignore 50% defence are usually the pinnacle of damage, so 100% defence ignore is on another level entirely (it is rated as the #2 strongest attack in all of arena, at time of writing).  If this kills an enemy it will revive a random dead ally with 50% HP and Turn Meter, or reset its cooldown if no one is dead. This attack is incredibly powerful and is not reliant on Faction Unity bonuses at all.

His A3 is an AoE attack with strong damage. This Destroys enemy MAX HP by 10%, and gives Herakletes a Shield buff equal to their destroyed MAX HP. Without Faction Unity bonuses, this is a very average attack, though the Shield can be decent for survivability due to the high DEF you will be building on Herakletes.

His A3 becomes much stronger with Faction Unity:

• 1 faction ally making the Shield unremovable is a minor bonus.
• 2 faction allies letting him cast this skill for free whenever he is revived is a big increase to his damage and survivability, and synergises with his passive.
• 3 faction allies lets this skill ignore defence equal to each target’s desroyed MAX HP, which gives it a much needed damage boost.

Finally, Herakletes has an incredibly strong passive which increases his damage by 20% whenever he is revived, stacking up to 200%. In other words, after dying and being revived 10 times, he will hit 3 times harder than he did originally. Hitting the maximum stacks on this is unlikely outside of Clan Boss fights, but every revive is a significant boost to his damage and will make a noticeable difference.

The Faction Unity bonuses on his passive are very strong as well:

• 1 faction ally makes him immune to Block Revive, which has niche uses in arena.
• 2 faction allies makes your team receieve 20% less damage while he is dead. This is a moderate bonus that synergises very well with the 3rd one.
• 3 faction allies enables him to join with his A1 while dead whenever an ally attacks. This can add up to decent extra damage, a good spread of unblockable True Fears, and a massive amount of team healing.

There’s no question that players can build some crazy teams for boss progression which use the healing and survivability from his passive to survive.

The key stats to look for on Herakletes are:

1. Crit Rate to 100%
2. Defence
3. Crit Damage
4. Speed

Crit Rate, Crit Damage, and Defence are all needed to make Herakletes deal more damage, so build as much as possible. Speed is always good: an early player should aim for 170; an endgame player for 250+; and inbetween for everyone else. Note that if you are intending to leave him dead for the fight to utilise his Faction Unity bonuses, then speed becomes less important.

The recommended sets for Herakletes are:

1. Lethal
2. Savage
3. Merciless
4. Instinct
5. Slayer

Herakletes is a strange champion to build, since his A2 often ends up being most of his damage and it ignores 100% defence anyway, and his A1 doesn’t do a huge amount of damage while he is dead (due to no Increase Defence buff). Lethal, Savage, Instinct and Merciless enable him to hit harder on his A1 and A3 which is likely your best call. 9-pieces of Merciless could be interesting to chain A2 attacks.

Stoneskin or reaction accessories are viable options for the champion, though you might also decide not to use them at all if you’re planning to have him die anyway!

Slayer might be another unique build for the ignore defence and turn meter boosting on his A3 when he revives. His A1 will miss the ignore defence but it’s not a particularly hard hitter, and his A2 has 100% anyway. It might be worth considering if you have some of this limited set to spare.

Once again, he’s a weird champion to pick blessings for since most blessings do nothing while you are dead.

Polymorph at 6 stars is the best bet for the arena, but it won’t work at 5-stars or lower since you won’t be building any accuracy.

Life Harvest is my favourite arena option, since he is very likely to kill enemies with his A2 and the MAX HP destruction will scale up the Faction Unity bonuses on his A3.

Cruelty or Soul Reap could be a great option for a full Faction Unity team for boss fights where you are intending to leave him dead, helping you finish them off a little faster.

Heavencast is a decent boost to his damage while he is alive, since he self-buffs with a shield.

Intimidating Presence is also an ok option, boosting the power of his Faction Unity aura.

The first Undead Hordes ally to look for for Herakletes is a reviver who can enable him to stack his passive. Currently you are limited to only 2 options: Siphi the Lost Bride, a void legendary; and Gorgorab, a magic epic. Needless to say, Siphi is by far the best option, being a top tier champion in most content in the game.

As a defence-scaling damage dealer, Increase Defence will be a valuable buff for Herakletes as well. Siphi is once again the best (and only) legendary option, with Mausoleum Mage being a budget epic alternative.

Tanky champions who can keep your team alive will combo with Herakletes’ team sustaining passives. Ultimate Deathknight and Nekhret the Great are top tier options here. Vogoth is a good epic option.

The overall standout pairing from his faction (alongside Siphi) is Valkanen, who has the unique ability to kill one of his own teammates. It can be awkward to get Herakletes to die due to his high defence stats and Valkanen gives you a controlled solution to that problem.

Tribune Herakletes is such a very unique champion, and it’s very possible that some of his use cases are still to be discovered.

Players who are lucky enough to pull him might find him a massive help against challenging bosses such as Amius the Lunar Archon, due to the immense amount of healing he can give your team while he is dead. He could be exceptional against the New Clan Boss, since it’s Ram Form is vulnerable to True Fear.

For arena he is a powerful pick for teams with multiple revivers, such as Siphi and Marichka, since his damage will eventually scale high enough to let him wipe out any enemies, no matter how tanky they are. At the end of the day he is a damage dealer with a revive (regardless of Faction Unity), which is always useful.