The Road to Edain patch 4.3 - Zaphragor, First Blade of the Witch-king

[Lord of Mordor]

Greetings, Companions of Edain!


Things have been a bit quiet lately, but fear not - it's not due to lack of activity on our part! We have in fact been very busy on several projects, it's just that most of those are not quite ready for the public eye yet. As it contains both the reworked Dwarves and the new Angmar faction, version 4.3 takes significantly more work than previous updates. Today, however, we are ready to show you a new Angmar hero!

Angmar always has been both one of the easiest and most difficult factions to design. It's the faction where we can draw upon the least amount of lore - to create an interesting group of heroes for this realm, we are essentially forced to invent our own, because the official background only gives us the Witch-king himself. This also gives us great freedom, but we don't want to veer too far away from what's plausible within Tolkien's canon. Still, we decided to give Angmar a more pronounced emphasis on sorcery than other factions. After all, its ruler earned his title of Witch-king here and if Sauron taught his Mouth Morgul sorcery, why shouldn't the Lord of Angmar have shared some of his art as well? This is how he created one of his most powerful champions:

Zaphragor, First Blade of the Witch-king

Zaphragor was born a Numenorean of Rhudaur. From a young age, he looked towards the rival kingdom of Arthedain and craved what he saw there for his own country: Strength, unity and a proud legacy. Yet Rhudaur had always been the least of Arnor's successor kingdoms. Torn apart by strife between Dunedain and the lesser Hillmen, beset by Orcs and Wolves and entirely without allies, it had little claim to greatness. Even as Zaphragor spent every day honing his skills with the blade in hopes of one day bringing proud Arthedain low, a grim bitterness began festering in his heart - after all, what chance did Rhudaur truly have?

All that changed when the Witch-king arose. His arrival kindled a fire within Zaphragor's heart as he had never known it before. Here at last was a ruler with the power to enforce unity among Numenoreans and Hillmen, to dominate the wild Orcs and beasts of the wastes and forge a kingdom strong enough to conquer all in its path. Rhudaur no longer, but Angmar, realm of the Iron Crown! Zaphragor became one of the first Dunedain traitors to swear his allegiance to the Witch-king. Henceforth, he was found at the frontline of every battle, slaying his master's enemies with brutal zeal. The Witch-king soon realized what an useful tool this young warrior might become and armed him with weapons and armor forged in the depths of Carn Dûm itself. After Zaphragor slew King Argeleb of Arthedain in battle, the Lord of Angmar bestowed an even greater honor upon him and began to teach him the art of Morgul sorcery.

Today, Zaphragor is among Angmar's most powerful servants, a fearsome butcher driving his enemies before him through strength of arms and magic. He is the hammer of the Witch-king, charging into battle at the head of his host to break the enemy line with little regard for his own life - for Zaphragor does not serve the Witch-king out of fear or greed, but burns with true and unbending loyalty. Where other sorcerers sacrifice acolytes to perform their spells, Zaphragor despises such weakness and gives of his own life instead. Far from a weakness, however, this makes him even more deadly as he does not have to rely on any kind of support to wreak havoc on the battlefield.

Abilities

- Lvl1: Witch-warrior (passive): Zaphragor pays hit points for most of his abilities. Once below 50% health, his spells deal 50% less damage and cost 50% less hit points, but his blade strikes deal 50% increased damage. Below 25% health, his abilities deal no damage and have no cost anymore, but his blade damage is doubled. Outside of combat, Zaphragor recovers health faster than other heroes.

This ability gives Zaphragor tremendous versatility, but carries significant risk. At high health, Zaphragor can use his abilities to lay waste to large groups of enemies. At low health, he becomes much more powerful against single targets with his blade, but of course is also more vulnerable. Even without damage, his abilities still serve the secondary purpose of keeping enemies away from him while he engages priority targets.


- Lvl1: Devastation (low health cost): Zaphragor unleashes a blast of frost, damaging enemies and knocking them down.

This is Zaphragor's primary offensive ability. If you desire, it allows you to quickly spend a lot of health due to its low cooldown, allowing you to manage Zaphragor's health bar and damage output in small steps.


- Lvl4: Footsteps of the Slayer (moderate health cost over the duration): For a short duration, Zaphragor moves 20% faster and periodically emits powerful blasts that damage and knock away nearby enemy units.

This ability has several uses: Wading into the enemy army, it allows Zaphragor to deal a significant amount of damage. However, it can also be used to get out of a sticky situation - at low health and without its damage, it still grants speed and keeps foes away. More offensively, use it to chase down enemy heroes while stopping enemy units from interfering.


- Lvl6: Fanaticism (no health cost): For a short duration, all of Zaphragor's abilities deal 50% more damage, but also cost 50% more health. His sword strikes gain 50% increased damage as well.

Another tool that allows you to manage Zaphragor's health and damage better, this ability is useful at all stages of the battle: At high health, you'll want to use it to boost his ability damage, while at low health the blade damage is multiplied with the increase from Witch-warrior to become particularly effective. Note that abilities will always deal zero damage when Zaphragor is below 25% health, even while Fanaticism is active.


- Lvl10: Unleashed Fury (high health cost): Zaphragor summons a torrent of ice and shadow against all nearby enemies, dealing massive damage. Units are blown away while heroes are encased in ice for a short duration.

This ability once again has several different uses. Most obviously, it's extremely effective against large armies. It also offers a way to quickly deplete Zaphragor's health bar with one cast to gain increased sword damage. When cast at low health, it deals less damage, but still allows you to imprison enemy heroes in ice to attack them with empowered sword strikes - while the units guarding them are blown away and can't interfere.

We wanted Zaphragor to be a powerful and versatile hero that takes skill to control and offers a unique playstyle, emphasizing Angmar's theme of sacrifice for power.

Creation

Zaphragor is a character of our own creation, originally written years ago by Lord of Mordor for a forum RPG set in Angmar - this RPG is in fact where many of our Angmar characters originate. This also meant that we had no official sources for the design and had to come up with something that fit the rest of Angmar's style and conveyed Zaphragor's personality and powers. While normally we work from movie designs, this time we started with concept art by Lord of Mordor:

We wanted Zaphragor to be massive and imposing, but not necessarily heavily armored. He is not truly a tank hero because he needs to sacrifice his own health. Furthermore, he would gladly lay down his own life and does not fear pain - why would he even want heavy protection? As a warrior, he has few equals and holds most foes in contempt. So we emphasized his power in other ways: Through his physique, his size and his massive blade. We also added heavy fur to his cloak and boots to make him look heavier. Our modeller Adamin then set to work on creating the actual ingame model:

Zaphragor's asymmetrical design should emphasize the duality of his powerset. His right arm is protected by a metal glove, chainmail and heavy shoulder plate - this is his sword hand. The left he uses to cast spells, so it is clad in leather and cloth.

We hope you will enjoy playing this hero as much as we did making him!