The horde has been naughty, and Santa's evil brother is here to make them pay. Out of an icy wrath and into the holiday spotlight stomps a reformed guardian who's swapped his sack of presents for a sack of souls.
His name: Krampus.
The newest special faction hero in the HvH roster, this red-and-black brawler has come to grind hordes into coal dust and farm orbs while doing it.
So, let's pull Krampus out of the sack and figure out exactly what he's bringing to your shelf.
| 10 | +100% Damage |
|---|---|
| 20 | +1 Starting Upgrade(s) |
| 30 | +1 Starting Upgrade(s) |
| 40 | PUNISHMENT SACK: On kills, Krampus has a chance to put souls into his sack. Once collecting 30 enemies, the sack explodes for 1910% damage. |
| 50 | All Heroes that share Faction: +12.5% Damage |
| 60 | +100% Damage |
| 70 | All Heroes that share Faction: +2.5% Critical Hit Chance |
| 80 | DECLARED NAUGHTY: Every 3s Krampus marks a random enemy as naughty. If a naughty enemy dies, they explode in an area dealing 720% damage. |
| 90 | All Heroes that share Faction: +5% extra orbs on completing a run |
| 100 | JUDGMENT OF THE NAUGHTY: Killing enemies fills a meter. Once full, Krampus thrashes the ground, sending waves across the battlefield, each dealing 480% damage upon impact. |
| 120 | All Heroes: +10% Pickup Range |
| 140 | Strong Stat Bonus: +15% extra orbs on completing a run |
| 160 | All Heroes: +100% Damage |
Krampus arrives as part of the holiday wheel event alongside Santa's Elf, and like the elf, he's a special faction hero. That's actually a really nice quirk: special faction heroes don't muddy your hero pool in the portal, so picking up Krampus won't ruin your hero shard luck on anyone else.
The catch with any special faction hero is the grind. You can really only pull hero shards for them out of the event itself or out of Dragon's Tower, which means getting Krampus from two stars up to four stars is a long, long road. Don't believe me? Ask my Leprechaun and Dragon Empress, who I've owned for over a year and still aren't past three and a half stars.
Krampus is a physical weapon hero who walks up and smacks things, and his whole kit is built around the word "naughty." If the horde misbehaves, he punishes them. He's got adventure scaling on his skills, which means he gets significantly stronger with every star level you pick up, so this is a hero you'll want to invest in long-term.
Even if you never plan on forging Krampus, his globals alone make him worth grabbing. Honestly, these globals are phenomenal, and if you sleepwalk into them you've already got an A-tier hero.
The pattern here is essentially identical to Bavarian: damage, crit, orbs, pickup range, more orbs. The team got a little lazy on the template, but the result is an absolutely fantastic kit of globals. The orb scaling at 90 and 140 is what turns Krampus from a fun holiday gimmick into a long-term shelf piece.
The forge is where you start tuning Krampus to whatever game mode you're running. Modern HvH forges have shifted toward boosting hero skills rather than weapons, and that's a good thing for a hero like Krampus whose star scaling lives in those skills.
Level 1: You're choosing between two flavors of Punishment Sack. Shortened Sentence drops the threshold from 30 enemies to 20, a 33% reduction in time-to-pop. Widened Wrath boosts radius by 20% and damage by 10%. The first triggers more often, the second hits harder. It's roughly a wash, and honestly worth swapping back and forth to test which fits your build better.
Level 2: The Declared Naughty fork. Aura of Mischief makes naughty enemies emit an aura that damages nearby enemies for 20% per tick—so the damage applies while the naughty target is alive instead of waiting for it to die. Rebuke Burst changes the on-death explosion to also stun nearby enemies for one second. The pure DPS path (Aura of Mischief) wins for Normal Mode, Hard Mode, and Arena. The stun path (Rebuke Burst) is more interesting in Nightmare Mode or Dragon's Tower if you're trying to squeak out a clear, but Krampus isn't built for those modes anyway. I'm Aura of Mischief all the way.
Level 5: Two more forks. Explosive Parade changes the toy soldiers so they run in a straight line and explode every time they hit an enemy for 20% weapon damage—essentially infinite penetration on the soldiers, which is a huge AoE upgrade. Wrath makes the ultimate's waves cause pushback. Pushback can be cute in Nightmare Mode, but for Normal Mode farming, Hard Mode grinding, and orb farming late game, the toy-soldier upgrade is going to net out to way more damage. Go Explosive Parade.
The whole kit comes together as a normal-mode-and-hard-mode grinder that turns into a dedicated orb farmer once you reach level 140. He won't carry your endgame nightmare clears, but he absolutely earns a spot on the shelf.
Krampus has three skills, and all three of them lean hard into the "naughty" theme. They also all scale with his adventure star level, which is critical to understanding his ceiling.
On kills, Krampus has a chance to pull souls into his sack. Once he's collected 30 enemies, the sack explodes for a whole bunch of damage. There's even a counter in the top-left of the screen so you can watch it tick down. The damage on this is no joke—at three stars it can break 10k per pop.
Every 3 seconds, Krampus marks a random enemy as naughty. If a naughty enemy dies, they explode in an area dealing a whole bunch of damage. Like everything else in his kit, this scales hard with stars, which is a recurring theme.
Killing enemies fills a meter. Once full, Krampus thrashes the ground, sending waves across the battlefield, each dealing a whole bunch of damage on impact. The really cool quirk here is that the ultimate keeps pulsing well after the initial cast—I had two and even three ultimates running on top of each other in Try Mode. So you definitely don't want to be running an ultimate-duration-down jewel on this guy.
The flip side: every one of his skills requires the horde to be dying. There's no shielding, no boss-target damage, no continuous AoE that just exists. So Krampus is going to feel great in Normal Mode, Hard Mode, and any farm-style content where things are dropping fast. He'll feel pretty mediocre in Boss Brawl, where there isn't enough horde to die, and he won't carry you through Dragon's Tower or Nightmare Mode either.
Putting Krampus through Try Mode, the kit comes alive in a way the description doesn't quite communicate. The Punishment Sack counter ticking down in the corner gives him a satisfying rhythm, and watching two or three ultimates pulse simultaneously across the battlefield is genuinely fun. Compared to the last few weapon-event releases, which were kind of joyless, Krampus actually has visual personality.
The honest read is that he's a shelf hero first and a late-game farmer second. If you pull him from the wheel, congratulations—you've got an A-tier hero before you do anything else, just from those globals. The orb farming at 90 and 140 is going to pay you back for the rest of your account's lifetime, and that's the real reason to invest in him.
If you're choosing between Krampus shards and Santa shards in the marketplace, the answer depends on where you are in the game. If you're not yet at heroic gear, Santa is the better hero—gold key chance is immeasurably valuable when you're still grinding gear. If you've already got Santa at four stars, prioritize Krampus to two stars for the orb global, then push Santa to four for keys, then come back to Krampus for the late-game orb scaling.
Krampus also benefits from the special faction quirk: getting him doesn't pollute your portal pool, so even if you never push him past two stars, the orb global alone makes him a worthwhile pull. He'll never be your Boss Brawl hero or your Dragon's Tower hero, but as a normal-mode grinder and a long-term orb farmer, he's a great addition. Just don't expect him to clear endgame content—expect him to make your endgame content cheaper.
