Heroes vs Hordes Shaman Guide 2024 – Build Intro & Jewels

Aaqib Javed
Aaqib Javed
18 Min Read

Welcome to our Heroes vs. Hordes Shaman Guide, This article is shared by Goooodluuck on Discord so Let’s get started. Hello everyone, my Discord name is Goooodluuck. I’m a Shaman main that’s been enjoying her play style and pushing content to the late stages of the Heroes vs Hordes.

I’ve been noticing people are a bit negative towards her. Whether it be damage, survivability, or late-game difficulty. I’d like to shed some light on the matter and clear any (hopefully all) misunderstandings with her.

So this Heroes vs Hordes Shaman Guide is for people who want to play her but are discouraged by either negative reviews or having difficulty playing her. The first thing to understand is that she’s a healer and can’t be built or played like the other heroes. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t dish out damage.

Read this Heroes vs. Hordes Shaman Guide and you’ll understand. Just means you have to enjoy the healing play style even if this Heroes vs Hordes Shaman Guide helps you.

Heroes vs. Hordes Shaman Guide 2024

Damage Problems

People say she lacks damage… Based on what I’ve learned from everybody, they’re right. The main problem is they haven’t loved her enough. It won’t make a difference whether you’re lvl 1-39. You need lvl 40 ability. It’s called Thornskin. It grants your beast Damage Reflection. It’s a night and day difference between no damage and loads of it.

Those that have her at or above 40 that says she still lacks damage, don’t understand what’s happening. DR (Damage Reflection) is based on per cent of damage taken. Meaning in the lower stages, if you check the damage chart, the staff has low dps because the damage done by the enemy is low.

At the late stages of the game, I’m doing incredibly high dps with the staff, because the enemy is doing more damage. Therefore, more raw DR. What’s interesting is that it takes just as much time to kill stronger enemies in late stages, as it would at lower stages because the DR per cent is still the same. I just recently tried it to confirm my theory.

Heroes vs Hordes Shaman Guide

Zen Garden’s enemies died as fast as Crystal Mines’s enemies. Which is huge, meaning if you can stay alive, your damage potential is limitless. Regardless of the Right Armor piece rarity (damage side). All that matters is Left Armor (HP side). Which I will explain soon.

Beasts Keep Dying

People are saying that the beasts are dying way too fast. I’ve been there and I will explain shortly how to improve their tackiness and your staff’s healing ability. First I have to explain how the staff and beasts work/scale.

In the game’s description of the staff and beasts, it shortly states that the beasts scale off of 5 things: damage, cooldown, aoe, movement speed, and hp. And that the staff works well with aoe and recovery times. It made me think.

That regen in this game is per cent based on total hp. Meaning the more hp you have, the more flat regen you get. So I put on all my best gear that gave me the highest hp increase. Full Knight set was the key. Even though at the time my Right Armor was lower in rarity, the bonus was a per cent hp increase. It also gives regen and armour.

All 3 things that both you and the beasts need. Then my next run I felt invincible. And the damage output never mattered because it depends on enemy damage output. So I tried using all these tomes in different combinations and have come to the conclusion that the beasts’ stats are based on your stats, including armour value.

So I tried two runs, one with armour tome and one without. My beasts received significantly less damage with the armor tome.

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Where Are You Going?!

Another major complaint is that the beasts run off to the edges of the screen. I feel for anyone who’s dealt with that. I have two points to make about it.

First, I actually like it, I just think it needs improvement. If the beasts never left your side, the runs would be boring. Let’s face it, you’re not aiming at enemies. You’re not actively pressing buttons to heal the beasts. You’re standing there keeping them in range. Them wandering off is what’s keeping you on your toes. Also not dying, don’t forget that. If the Devs could at least improve the targeting system.

Second, there are two ways to get near them when they’re split up. First is to walk towards them, and the second is to make them come to you. If you move away from a beast enough, it’ll teleport to your location.

Take for example you have two beasts on the top part of the screen, and one below. If you want them to bundle up (sometimes you don’t) move towards the two at the top and keep moving until the bottom one teleports to your location. Now in the same example, the bottom lonely beast is close to dying, you move to the bottom one and keep moving until the top two teleports to your location, so you never got out of the healing range of the one that’s dying. You just brought the rest of the party with you.

There are going to be times when you have to leave a beast behind. Its not worth dying to keep your beasts alive. Maneuver however, you need and let them die if you must. I know that sounds awful to some. But they respawn after 10 seconds. Just stay alive and move forward with the game and they’ll eventually all come back.

What I want the devs to work on, is that sometimes I’ll see a beast wander off to the corner of the screen. I’ll move away to bring it to me, then it’ll just go right back. Over and over again until it finally stops. By then, the other beasts start doing the same thing.

If they could just work on the targeting system it would help in those situations. Like having to first acquire a new target that’s close, before acquiring targets far away as usual. Other than that, I don’t mind it. Again, it would be boring if they didn’t wander.

Build Intro

I’ve experimented extensively to narrow it down to this main build. Other builds work too. But this is my cookie cutter.

Weapons: Main Weapon, Vampire Aura, poison darts, bombs, frost wand Tomes: aoe, hp, armor, recovery, evasion.

Read our: Heroes vs Hordes Best Weapons Guide

The only two weapons you should worry about are the staff and vampire aura. The other 3 slots are bonuses, so don’t worry if you don’t get the 3 I listed, they’re just the best I’ve come up with and work very well.

The tomes however are incredibly important. The only one that isn’t crucial is evasion. You can replace it with damage, a coin bonus, or whatever you want. But if it’s a difficult lvl for you, then get evasion for survivability. HP tome gives you and beasts more hp and therefore, more regen. Especially your main weapons healing ability.

Vampire Aura is to keep you alive, since you’re going to be positioning yourself near or on enemies to heal beasts. Since you have DR from Knight set, you’ll be like a 4th beast. Imagine 4 units on the screen doing DR. Yeah, it’s fun to watch. Also, the more enemy there are, the more vampire aura will heal you, so you either want to stay away from few enemies, or stay right in the middle of a lot for life steal. The more the merrier.

Heroes vs Hordes Shaman Guide

Venom Vial is a high dps aoe weapon that’s great for where you’ll be standing. You’re standing in the middle of your beasts, and out comes a ring of poison. Tons of damage. Then bombs for even more.

Frost Nova is a very useful weapon that you’ll either lvl first or last depending on the situation. If your beasts are having no trouble at all surviving, save it for last. If they are struggling to stay alive, then evo it before poison and bombs. When you see your beasts losing hp, stand on top of them and frost nova will freeze enemies around and give your beasts time to heal. Then go back and forth between beasts until you either lvl enough to make them tanky, or survive the round.

Build Order

Obtain in order

Main weapon by default, divine aura, recovery tome, aoe, hp, armor, evasion, frost wand, poison, bombs

Lvl or evo in order

Main weapon and Vampire aura are equals > Aoe and HP are equals > armor > Frost Nova (if needed) > Evasion > Venom Vial > Bombs > Recovery > Frost Nova (if not needed)

I know what some of you are thinking, why is recovery important to obtain, but not to lvl. You need it for Vampire Aura. It doesn’t increase healing of the staff much when leveled. I’m not sure if it helps at all. It’s strange but it works that way as previously explained.

As for AOE, it helps in two ways. Increasing healing range (staff aura radius) and increases size of vampire aura. Since you heal based on how many enemies are inside the aura, the bigger it is, the more enemies can fit, the more you heal.

HP is King

Just recently I was stuck in Zen Garden 8 on normal. I had a legendary helm and boots, but only epic for chest. Right Armor only needs epic rarity for HP and DR bonuses from the Knight set. I was sitting at 2,260hp. I couldn’t beat that chapter.

After farming and finally getting my legendary chest (chest gives more hp than helm and boots) my hp increased to 2,580. I attempted that chapter again. I flew right through it without any struggle at all. My damage chart was crazy high, all because my beasts and I stayed alive. All you need is more hp, and the damage will follow.

Then it was time to face the coin rush. My best strategy is to keep my beasts together and run a circle around them, staying away from the waves. Let your beasts deal with it. Avoid obstacles, regardless of how other hero play styles may be.

Normally at 4:00 (with main build) my beasts start losing hp and its only a matter of 5-15 seconds until we all die. Not this time. I reached 4:30 and my beasts hp hadn’t even budged. This is the first time I ever reached the 5 min mark in coin rush with any hero.

At 4:59 my beasts hp was still full and not even a single moment of stress. All because I got more HP. Which made me notice, that even the Shamans survivability was outlasting the incoming waves. Moral of the story, Build hp on Shaman.

Jewels

Jewels are no different. Hp jewels even if they don’t seem like much. Evasion is great. Aoe is a must. Anything that compliments this build. Adding damage and cooldown is pointless unless you don’t have many other defensive jewels.

The explosion is great because enemies are always bunched up together around beasts. So they explode near each other. Ultimate duration and ultimate charge jewels are incredible.

Here Comes the Damage

Now I can address the lack of damage for those that want more. If Thornskin (lvl 40 ability) wasn’t enough for you, wait until you reach 80. Her ult is called Spirit Orbs. It puts Thornskin on steroids. When active, 4 orbs rotate around each beast and do an absolute truckload of damage.

And when your beasts are inside your staff’s aura (healing range) they spin even faster. I’ve seen late-stage bosses go from 100-0 in a few seconds. Not an exaggeration. If your beasts are standing just far enough away from the boss for the orbs to hit, and you are close enough to make them rotate faster, it absolutely destroys bosses. It does so much dps, that it helps heal your beasts in hard times.

When there are too many enemies and your beasts are dying, and the ult happens to pop… everything around disappears and your beasts start healing up because nothing is hitting them anymore. Hopefully, the devs don’t nerf this. It’s so satisfying when it saves you. The moral of the story, she is a beast 😛

 

Cons

Sadly everyone has a weakness. Since majority of damage comes from DR, there are a couple situations that would hold her back. When you freeze or stun enemies, they don’t do damage. Therefore your beasts have nothing to reflect. That’s why I say to evo frost nova last if its not needed.

Which brings me to the next point, fewer enemies means less damage. Particularly bosses. If she’s not lvl 80, or your ult isn’t ready, you won’t be doing much damage to single targets. The beasts still have basic attacks, but it’s no where near the damage DR and Ult can do.

Lastly, she doesn’t seem to do well in Dungeon or Guild runs. Its just the way her kit works, and how those events are designed. She’ll do ok, or maybe even great depending on gear and total hp. But not as good as others like Blademaster or Fire Wizard.

That’s this for this Heroes vs Hordes Shaman Guide and Thank You Devs Hopefully that answers most of everyone’s questions and concerns. I’ll be happy to answer more in the discord channel if I’m around.

My name in Discord is GoooodLuuck and My name in Game is GodisGood7.

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Aaqib is an Noob gamer who loves playing competitive games and RPGs. apart from gaming, he has also written over 500 guides for various gaming websites.