Vampire Grux

Grux Fighter/Tank Hybrid with Extreme Durability and Longevity

Build Advantages and Disadvantages

Strengths: Amazing durability with a large amount of power behind it. Can recover health relatively quickly away from base, and can secure a large amount of kills. Is a large support in teamfights due to durability+crowd control. Can solo Orb Prime with a full deck build. Works equally well alone or with a partner/group.

Weaknesses: Cannot efficiently kill opposing tanks with high physical and energy armor, as their teammates usually get there before the kill can be made. Dislikes being stunned more than the normal Grux. Sometimes relies on ganking to get the kill on certain slippery opponents such as Aurora.

Abilities Overview

- Chop (Basic Attack)

Grux swings his hammer blades in a chopping melee attack. This attack may be altered to apply Bleed when Warlord’s Challenge is active.

• Base damage is 58 and increases by 1 each Hero level up to 74.4 at level 15.
• Attack speed increases with Hero level.
• Ability Card scaling factor is 70%.
   

- Double Pain (Alternate Ability)

Melee cleave attack dealing Ability Damage and applying Bleed to all enemies. Bleed drains 1% of target's over 5 seconds.

• Base damage is 60 and increases by 20 each ability level up to 120 at level 4.
• Cooldown and cost are the same at all ability levels. 5 seconds and 25 Mana respectively.
• Ability Card scaling factor is 70%.
   

- Smash & Grab (Primary Ability)

Wedge-shaped AOE that pulls all enemy units to Grux and deals Ability Damage. Enemies will be stunned for the duration of the pull.

• Base damage is 75 and increases by 45 each ability level up to 210 at level 4.
• Base cost is 70 Mana and increases by 5 each ability level up to 85 Mana at level 4.
• Cooldown is 14 seconds at all ability levels.
• Ability Card scaling factor is 40%.

-Charge (Secondary Ability)

Grux charges forward 1200 units dealing Ability Damage to all enemies in his path.

• Base damage is 40 and increases by 40 each ability level up to 160 at level 4.
• Base cooldown is 14 seconds and decreases by 2 each ability level down to 8 seconds at level 4.
• Cost is 40 Mana at all ability levels.
• Ability Card scaling factor is 25%.

-Warlord's Challenge (Ultimate Ability)

Grux clangs his hammers together with such force that it briefly stuns all nearby enemies. While the hammers are ringing Grux's Chops have increased damage and apply Bleed.

• Base damage bonus is 25 and increases by 25 each ability level up to 75 at level 3.
• Base cooldown is 90 seconds and decreases by 20 each ability level down to 50 seconds at level 3.
• Cost, Stun duration and Ultimate duration are constant at all ability levels. 40 Mana, 0.5 and 8 seconds respectively.

Abilities Upgrade Priority

First grab Double Pain, then Smash and Grab, and then finally Charge. Whenever you can, level up Charge (The reduced cooldown is vital for securing kill opportunities for yourself and teammates on this deck). Whenever you can’t upgrade Charge, upgrade Double Pain. Of course, whenever Warlord’s Challenge is available, upgrade it. The damage bonus and cooldown reduction is essential.

Early Game

In the early game, you should focus on farming. You can take the Jungle or the Off-lane for this, depending on your team.

JUNGLE:

In the Jungle, use Double Pain to deal cheap, consistent damage to enemy jungle camps. Start out with a Strike Token and a Healer Token. Work towards Paineater as soon as possible, discarding the tokens to get there, as the 40% lifesteal from it will allow you to stay in the jungle for a much longer time than normal. After that, work towards Whirling Wand to increase your damage output, to farm faster. After you max out Whirling Wand, start saving towards Traitor’s Touch so you can start ganking enemies.

OFFLANE:

When you take the Offlane, grab a Strike Token and a Healer Token and work towards Eldermage Amulet (Upgrade Power or Health depending on your needs). Feel free to discard the Strike token whenever, but keep the Healer Token for now. Max out the Eldermage. Grab Whirling Wand or Pendulum of Lords, whichever tailors your needs better. After this, you can discard the Healer Token. Max out the Pendulum of Lords/Whirling Wand and then work towards Traitor’s Touch.

Mid Game

Midgame is a somewhat expansive area with this deck, based on how the game is going so far, and which position you started out in. After you finally get Traitor’s Touch, work towards Pendulum of Lords or Whirling Wand, whichever one you don’t have. If you don’t have Paineater, but have a maxed out Whirling Wand, get Paineater ASAP. After that, get your Eldermage Amulet(s), getting their power upgrade before the health ones.

At this point, start straying from the lane/jungle and invade the enemy jungle, harassing enemy heroes when you can. There are 2 tactics I find best for this job:

Gank n’ Chase: This strategy is best for the more fragile enemies who push too far. Make sure there is a decent amount of distance from the enemy and the nearest tower. Around 1 and a half times the gap between the enemy’s first tower and your first tower works. If you can get them farther away, awesome! Either way, come up behind them, out of their view, and use Double Pain followed immediately by Warlord’s Challenge. The damage buff and bleeding from Warlord’s Challenge, plus a maxed out Whirling Wand and the damage bonus from Traitor’s Touch, will deal major damage to them. When they attempt to run away, pull them back with Smash and Grab and position yourself between them and the tower. When they use their escape skill (If they have one), use Charge to catch up. Sometimes, a slippery opponent such as Gideon or Aurora will escape (Although some Aurora players will try and stick around and fight you), but don’t fret.

Stun Run: I labeled this tactic what I did because Stun is the beginning of the tactic, and Run is the end of it. This works best on defending enemies who aren’t quite in the safety of their tower. Position yourself behind an invisible barrier in the jungle, and watch the fight through your minion’s eyes. When the opponent runs up to the ranged minions to kill them, walk up and use Smash & Grab to pull them to you and stun them, and start basic attacking them. Use Double Pain when they retreat, if you can. Once they retreat, don’t follow, but instead head back into their jungle and move to a lane and start laning for a few minutes, and then repeat the process. If they are around the midway point on the map when you execute this strategy, use Charge to chase them until the enemy tower is in view, to deal some extra damage before running. The best targets for this strategy are the ones who don’t have skills that can both escape and chase. If an ability exists that only chases, or it is built with escape in mind, and not chasing, they will be less likely to chase you, as they either won’t catch up to you or won’t be able to beat a quick retreat should you have help or prove to be too much of a fight. Khaimera is an exception to this tactic, however, and should not be targeted, as he can just heal it back with his passive.

If you prefer a more proactive role on your team, you can start pushing the lanes or defending them. Smash & Grab combo’d with Double Pain can quickly damage minions, no matter how large the group. If you try to brave one of the massive 50 minion hordes that can be formed, albeit very rarely, from time to time (Usually from some Support like Narbash or Muriel defending a lane and then subsequently pushing it alone, without power cards), your lifesteal will keep you alive while Smash & Grab and Double Pain ruin their day. While pushing, you have two ways to push. The first, and the most commonly done, method is to just clear the enemy waves as fast as possible and try to blitz their tower before they can mount a defense. This is a great, true and time-tested strategy, and has many advantages with few disadvantages. The second method can work just as effectively, if not more at certain times, but is easier for the enemy to counter since it takes more time. If you target only the ranged minions in each group, and wait for your minions to kill the melee ones, the minions will take longer to kill the wave, but will also suffer little to no causalities, as the enemy ranged minions are dead. This may seem like a bad idea at first, as you are taking more time to do the same thing, but you are actually allowing new waves to spawn and catch up, essentially creating one of the massive hordes I mentioned above. This means it takes MUCH longer for enemies to destroy, and if they attack you while you are near the horde, the minions will all target the hero that hit you and, believe me, those huge groups hurt. They also destroy towers very quickly. The issue with the strategy is that it takes time, meaning that you may have to go defend a lane elsewhere or aid your teammates, and the enemy will also have much longer to respond to the threat.

Late Game

Late game is the coup de grâce of the match. Here you should be pushing and defending constantly, getting involved in teamfights, and fighting Orb Prime. With your full deck build, you can solo Orb Prime, so if you want to go for Orb Prime, you can communicate to your teammates that you will fight it alone (so the enemy won’t know you are stealing Orb Prime, unless they have wards) or with a teammate to help you (For expediency). However, just because you can solo Orb Prime doesn’t mean you should do that. If the enemy team catches wind of what you are doing, by ward, just passing by and spotting you, or by planning to assault it already and finding you there killing it, you will be doomed and they will take Orb Prime. Generally, the best, and probably only, time to solo Orb Prime is when the enemies are on constant nonstop defense, barely hanging on, but your allies and you can’t break them. Any other time, I would recommend getting at least 3 teammates to help out, if not more. A quick tip for Orb Prime: Some people believe that Orb Prime doesn’t take bleed damage. This is untrue. I am unsure of whether or not he takes reduced bleed damage, but he takes it nonetheless. Warlord’s Challenge, with your maxed Whirling Wand, can make bleed stack to the point that he takes 250 damage a second from bleed damage, an amazing amount. Also, while it may seem at first that Orb Prime is slightly outdamaging you, do not forget that Paineater will active when you get to Critical Health (25% of Max). While that may seem pretty low, you have over 3k Max HP at level 15 with a full deck. That means your Critical Health activates before you even reach 750 health. It can still be a tight battle, though.

When you get involved in a teamfight, you have 2 separate roles you can take with this deck:

The first is a tank, providing support to your team by getting between the enemy and your fragile hero, and using your skills to keep the enemies near you and away from your fragile hero. When being a tank, use Warlord’s Challenge to handle any melee heroes getting too close for comfort (FYI: Don’t use Double Pain while Warlord’s Challenge is up, you will actually lose damage potential), and Smash & Grab to either draw the enemy ranged to you, to keep the enemy team from retreating, or to give your team an opportunity to retreat, then you can follow with Charge or distract the enemy team long enough to assure the retreat even more (Better you than the whole team, and with 3k max health and Paineater, you could probably take one down with you if kite well enough).

The second possible role is one of a plain melee warrior, like most Grux players do. With this role, you’ll be the initiator of the fight and the one who calls the retreat. Focus on getting all the enemies that you can in a single Smash & Grab, followed up by Warlord’s Challenge instead of Double Pain. The stun from Warlord’s Challenge is a lot more than you might think. It gives the time for your caster and other teammates with AoE, especially ones with Ultimates with AoE (Like Aurora with Hoarfrost and her Ultimate Cryoseism) to realize every enemy is in one spot, which is especially helpful if Dekker is on your team and follows up with her Ultimate, which will lock the enemies all in that same spot for much longer. After Warlord’s Challenge, focus on chasing down the squishiest enemy, usually a carry or caster. If you can choose between the two, choose a carry, as casters can be very slippery, while carries not so much. Don’t get too carried away in killing them, though. If they retreat from the teamfight, don’t chase them but instead head back and aid your teammates. However, if they come back, feel free to use Smash & Grab again, followed up by Double Pain, and beat them up again. When the situation gets too hot, and your team needs to beat a hasty retreat, let them retreat while you (And hopefully any other melee fighters with escape abilities on your team) keep the enemy at bay, whilst slowly retreating yourself, so that your allies without escapes, such as Twinblast and Khaimera, can escape. Once they get to a sufficient distance, use Charge to escape. Before you do, if you have the chance to, kite to the side and use Smash & Grab to disorient the enemies, but follow up by retreating with Charge instead of using Double Pain or Warlord’s Challenge. If you just use Smash & Grab without kiting, all you do is bring them closer to you, and they won’t be disoriented from being suddenly pulled and having you dash out of their vision like a rabbit, for reason of you never leaving their vision.

Card Build

These are the base cards you need for the deck. It is well short of the 40 card max, and you should add cards as you need them. CP is Card Points.

Strike Token

1 Strike/Cast Token. Both cost 1 CP and gives 6 power. Works with Healer Token for your opening hand.

Healer Token

1 Healer Token. Costs 2 CP and gives 2.8 Health Regen per Second. Keeps you healthy in the lane and when traveling between jungle camps.

Eldermage Amulet Major Strike Health Health

2 Eldermage Amulets. Universal Card, Common (White) Rank, costs 3 CP each, both give 50 Health and 6 Power, and an extra 100 Power when fully upgraded. Both have the following upgrades: Major Strike (3 CP, 18 Power), 2x Health (2 CP each, 100 Health each).

Pendulum of Lords Greater Health Health Health

1 Pendulum of Lords. Universal Card, Common (White) Rank, costs 3 CP. Gives 50 Health, 30 Mana, 0.3 Mana Regen, and an extra 0.3 Mana Regen when fully upgraded. Has the following upgrades: Greater Health (3 CP, 18 Power), 2x Health (2 CP each, 100 Health each).

Whirling Wand Major Kinetic Kinetic Kinetic

1 Whirling Wand. Universal Card, Common (White) Rank, costs 3 CP. Gives 6 Power, 5.5 Attack Speed, and an additional 11 Attack Speed when fully upgraded. Has the following upgrade: Major Kinetic (3 CP, 16.5 Attack Speed), 2x Kinetic (2 CP Each, 11 Attack Speed each).

Pain-Eater Health Health Lesser Health

1x Paineater. Fury Card, Epic (Purple) Rank, costs 5 CP. Gives 50 health. Has a Unique Passive where you get 40 Lifesteal (40 Lifesteal means 40% of the damage you deal is restored to you as health) if you are critically wounded (25% Health or less). Has the following upgrades: 2x Health (2 CP each, 100 Health each), Lesser Health (1 CP, 50 Health).

Traitor's Touch Minor Kinetic Minor Kinetic Minor Kinetic

1x Traitor’s Touch. Corruption Card, Uncommon (Green) Rank, costs 7 CP. Gives 6 Power and 5.5 Attack Speed. Has a Unique Passive where your basic attacks that hit enemy heroes will deal extra damage equal to 5% of the enemies current Health (The extra damage does have lifesteal applied to it). Has the following upgrades: 3x Minor Kinetic (1 CP, 5.5 Attack Speed)