Stormborn Build

Stormborn's Base Stats

Taking a quick look at Stromborn's base stats, you will notice a couple of interesting tidbits:

First, he is a melee hero with auto-aim. That generally means lower utility in modes like Guild Event or Boss Brawl, but easier to play since you don't have to orb walk.

Next, he gets 5% cooldown from hitting level 10. Any innate cooldown is great for Normal and Hard Mode progression, so check that box off. But hidden in the middle of his level progression is a big, big modifier.

The Stormborn has a 1.5x time multiplier in damage to stunned horde. 1.5x! I don't think I've ever seen that written down in the game.

Lastly, he's part of the Warriors' Guild faction, one of the best factions in the game. That means he'll both boost and gain boosts from Knight, Blademaster, and Paladin, all free-to-play heroes.

Which makes now a good time to review his globals to see how he impacts all heroes.

Stormborn's Globals

Now, not to burst your bubble, but Stormborn has bottom-tier globals.

His three truly global buffs from levels are all small increases to damage. Those are essentially the worst globals in the game, but he's got three of them!

His three-star weapon forge is a multiple to damage, but it's a multiple of damage to stunned enemies. Unfortunately, barely any heroes stun enemies, making that essentially worthless except on the Stormborn himself.

I mentioned earlier that Stromborn is part of the Warriors' Guide Faction camp, which is great. He adds more physical damage as a level 90 faction bonus, and his faction camp bonus is also more physical damage.

That makes the best part of his global set helping to get your Warrior's Guild to max level 20. With heroes like Blademaster, Knight, Paladin, and Lionheart all being free to play, you can hit this cap relatively quickly.

So, all in he has garbage globals, unlike the last hero, Trapper, who had some of the best globals in the game.

But that's what you get with these adventure heroes. It's a crapshoot from month to month.

That being said, I think his skills will make up for his lack of globals.

Now let's take a look at the Stormborn's forge. The forge has become the most interesting part of recent hero's design. The best heroes have forge levels that improve on their skills, not their weapons. That's because skills typically get better damage scaling. So, improvement to skills means a higher potential damage cap.

Stromborn doesn't disappoint when it comes to his forge.

The first level of the forge offers you two choices that impact Electric Cleave, his level 40 skill. You can opt for Stormlink, which adds three bounces or a 42.5% increase in damage. Or go right to add a 20% chance to stun.

You know what that looks like to me? A meaningful decision! As I learned from Mort Dog, meaningful decisions are the key to good video game design. You can select left for more damage in Hard Mode or right for disruption in Nightmare Mode.

Love it.

His level two forge offers really interesting changes to his level 80 skill, Storm Guard. You can go left for more damage - Frequent Discharge reduces the number of hits it mitigates, but also cuts the cooldown in half. Half is big for a skill. That's doubling the damage cap.

Or go right to block more hits per shield rotation.

This guy was made for nightmare mode, but might also pump some DPS with the forge options.

Meaningful choices!

The third level's global is 1.05 times damage to stunned enemies, which we already discussed in the globals section. It's not the best for non-Stromborn.

Then, his fourth level converts his weapon into the Stromsplitter. Stunned enemies have the potential to unleash a tremendous Thunderquake. Unfortunately, I don't know what the heck a thunderquake is or what it does. If I had to bet, I'd say it stuns more things, but guess we'll find out.

Finally, the fifth level of the forge lets Stromsplitter leave a wake of damage if you go left. Or a 1.3x multiple to damage if you go right.

That sounds to me like Freywood got bored with writing complex forges and said F it, just amp his damage.

More seriously, it gives you an expected value for a good fifth-level forge. A 1.3x multiple to damage is huge, considerably better than a heroic talent. So other heroes probably get that level of boost.

Everything considered, this is a wonderful forge construction and reflects the growing maturity in hero design. Hopefully, it translates into a quality, all-around hero when fully forged.

Quickly glancing through Stormborn's skills, you'll see he's got one straightforward skill and two very intriguing skills.

His first skill is Electric Cleave. Every second, he throws a chain lightning that bounces between 7 enemies. The issue I see with this skill is the 7. When events like Guild Event have 30,000 horde over 5 minutes, this will only hit 2,100, which isn't a lot. That means it's better in modes with fewer horde…

That's what we call foreshadowing.

Which brings me to his second skill, STORM GUARD:

The Stormborn gains a shield that blocks 5 damage instances. The shield lasts for 20s. When the shield breaks (blocked all dmg instances) the shield explodes, dealing 2150% AoE Damage and stunning enemies hit for 3s. The shield has 10s recharge cooldown.

Here's the first instance of a stun in his kit. He's one of the few heroes with that innately available. This skill is very similar to the Shield Warden's shield, except it just mitigates the damage before casting.

What makes it interesting is that it requires you to get hit to proc, but won't proc the stun if it simply runs out of time. That makes it tailor-made for Nightmare Mode, Hard & Normal Arena, and Hero Clash.

Which, for you guys playing at home, creates a pattern of two skills made for lower horde count content.

His ultimate Wrath of Stormfather rounds out his skill set. This ultimate charges off all weapon kills. It causes his weapon to throw more chain lightning and have all chain lightning apply a 2s stun. Here's the second instance of a stun in his kit.

Depending on the charge time, this could be another useful skill for Nightmare Mode. At the very least, it's a nice combination of damage and disruption.

Like all new adventure heroes, he does get solid scaling damage on all his skills. If you get him up to three or four stars, he'll do a considerable amount of damage.

However, that takes a long time and a lot of investment, so don't expect it anytime soon, just like investing in his forge.

So, what do I think of the Stormborn?

He's going to be a very solid pick for Nightmare Mode based on his defense skill, forge, and inclusion in the Warriors' Guild.

Combine that with the fact that you have options in how to change the effects of his skills, and you can probably put out enough damage at forge level 2 to clear out all of hard mode, definitely by forge level 4.

The key to his place on your active roster and your shelf is whether or not he can put out enough damage to clear both Arena modes and Hero Clash. Those stuns look mighty promising in helping for Arena and Nightmare Mode.

But, it might take some skill to take advantage of the fact that by getting hit, he can unload his stun and do AOE damage.

Only time will tell if Thor's little brother can stand up to the big guns in the faction like Warlord, Monk, and Knight.

Here's to hoping he's the stunner I think he'll be.