Universal Hogger build for PVE legendary, PVP or dungeon

Roles

Build Cycle

1

2

3

3

Shortest Cycle

9

3

4

5

Playable Anywhere

Intro: The build is a jack of all trades designed to be a universal answer to either casual PVE quests, PVE legendaries (although some units might need to be swapped based on legendary boss mechanics, for example huntress for meatwagon or chimaera, bandits could be swapped for dark iron for the Bloodscreetch boss, etc) or PVP or active Dungeon farm. While, like the rest of my builds, they are not universally ideal, you get the benefit of having a solid build that works with orange and sometimes red difficulties as well being VERY competitive in the PVP scene, without having to constantly swap minis around to make a build work.


The 3 gimmicks:

- stealth --> 4 of your units are stealthy [SAFE, Prowler, Huntress, Bandits] (you can swap the "Prowl" perk on your prowler with "Pack Leader" if you don't have it and the build will be just as fine, as the prowler is your Hogger support companion anyway, giving Hogger 30% bonus damage is still solid), meaning that they can generally hit first, snipe critical unit and snowball from there.

HINT[All]: Most stealth units have Ambush (NOT ALL) which means they will do about 2 times their normal attack on that initial hit. While this doesn't sound like much, it actually adds to their survivability as they often one shot the target that could have damaged them back. For example the huntress will oneshot a group of 3 harpies from stealth, meaning it will not take any damage in return, while with the Eleven Might perk , she will take at least 1 hit from one of the harpies , as the damage only applies at snipping the first harpie. It might not seem like much , but that one health could mean the difference of being taken out by a chain lightning or requiring your opponent to come up with a much more dedicated effort to counter you.

- poison --> you have 4 units stacking poison on your targets [Harpies, Quilboar, Bandits, Hogger], this is one of those rare builds where "Spoiled Meat" perk from Hogger actually works well, (while i am sure, most of you have "tunnel vision" on the quilboar, for the rest of you who have bramble, please rejoice, as you can now use the burst to stack even more poison on your victims)

HINT[All]: Poison has a 5 second duration and does about 8 MAGIC damage per second (40 damage in total over the entire duration). Each attack from a unit that has poison will reset and add another poison stack. So for example Harpies with poison, if all 3 land a hit , will cause 8*3 = 24 poison damage per second for 5 seconds (120 damage magic damage in total over 5 seconds), if all 3 attack again then the poison timer resets and goes up to 48 damage per second. If the harpies die , but in that 5 second time-window, you summon a quilboar that bursts with poison , that 48 poison damage per seconds , goes to 48+8 = 56 damage per second and the 5 second timer resets. This is where you probably start to understand how the builds poison stacking starts to pack a punch even to legendary bosses (or pvp towers).

- speed --> 4 of your units are FAST [Hogger, Harpies, Huntress, Prowler], this means you can grab stones and chests super quick and reinforce pushing lanes quick, or you can unbalance your opponent

As always, i like to keep my builds around the 3.2 gold mark or lower, so your minis generally cycle in and out quite fast based on what ever scenario you might encounter.

There are a few openers that i personally like to have:

Hogger + Proweler --> the prowler generally stuns a critical target and then draws most of the damage, while hogger starts to mass stack the poison. While this opener is generally weak, after about 2-3 deployments of hogger, it turns into something extremely deadly, as hoggers attackspeed and aoe attack really start to pack a punch once poison stacks.

HINT[All] Hogger attack and movement speed ONLY stacks 3 times, so on your 4th deployment , he is maxed out. This means that the Ham Hock perk (if used) basically translates to 30% bonus HP as the bonus is additive not multiplicative. This also applies to his movement speed and attackspeed , this means he ends up with 105% bonus movement speed and attack speed in the end.

Prowler + Huntress --> this is a more universal great opener ... and you generally end up with some gold to spare until a combat happens. While it may seem like a frail combo, you will generally have the first strike, and with the extra gold you can deploy either SAFE (to nuke or weaken ranged enemy backline before you prowler+huntress reach the contact line) or quilboar (generally to tank a few shots until the prowler + huntress start doing their magic).

Harpies and bandits are mostly a defensive tool to nuke down ground units (such as a tyrion with footmen as the poison stacking will outpace even 2 or 3 tyrions healing) or pushes, but they can also be used as a support or quick finishers on "winning lanes" to either grab chests or finish of a tower if you can distract it with a quilboar.

While the build looks like it does mostly physical damage, don't let that fool you, the poison stacking will rip apart most armour (even resistant) enemies.

Slots: From top to bottom , left to right: Beast -> Beast -> Cycle -> Unbound -> Squad -> Ranged

Slot Flexibility:

Sadly this is not a very flexible deck , but some slots can be moved around.

Ranged Slot: For those of you who have the Chimaera, she can replace the Huntress if you feel like you need a pseudo range magic artillery. Any of the Chimaeras perks will do just fine , personally i like the poison stacking perk or Leviathan (for more HP). You can even use the meatwagon on some legendary bosses insteas of the huntress, if you feel like you have a handle to the enemy air units with just harpies and SAFE (i would not advice replacing huntress for PVP as she tends to be better in most scenarios)

Cycle Slot [this is main your alternative]: You can move the rouges into the Squad Slot, move the harpies into one of the beast slots, so for example replace the quilboar with harpies (and just remove the quilboar) and in the cycle slot to use the smoke bomb. "Why would i do that ?" you probably ask .. why give up on the harpies or the quiboard ... well ... your slot will then look like this

prowler --> quilboar OR harpies( pick one) --> smoke bomb
SAFE --> bandits --> huntress

The smoke bomb can be used with "through the shadows" to give minis 50% more speed (probably the only useful perk that spell has). "Why so much work for one spell?" Because the spell resets your stealth mechanic on units, so you can reset the stun on bandits, the ambush damage on huntress, the stun on the prowler and the double damage on your SAFE pilot. While this build also works, i have had less success with it ... this alternative sacrifices a bit of poison stacking or remote support in favour of being more stealth focused, but it is an example of how to mentally approach some builds and their possible flexibility.