Zaphragor, First Blade of the Witch-king
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?
Previously, we gave you a glimpse into Mornamarth, the man chosen as the steward of Carn Dûm, capital of Angmar: Moddb.com
Today, we'd like to show you one of the Witch-king's most powerful warriors.
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!
Let the Warcraft puns start! ^^
Nothing wrong with a little bit of Warcraft influences just look at the sword hilt that's clearly an Iron Crown. I think there are more 3.8.1 Angmar details then WoW details in my opinion.
And in the and it's a beautiful combination wich looks fitting foor an evil general/ warrior. :)
Go Arthas!
Please explain to me, why do you think that he still looks like Arthas? :D
No, he doesn't. I just think that this nickname for him will stay for a long time. It's such a funny easter egg. You can't get rid of it. He'll be my lil' Lich King 4 ever XD
haircut style, heavy upper armor and style of the gaiters, style of the sword . I thought immediately about an inspiration from arthas ^^
Frostmourne hungers :P
I simply love this piece of news... everything taste better after a longer waiting time :)
I am just hoping for a good soundset for him :). I just couldn't stand his german sound back in 3.8.1
He will have a cool english sound set ;)
His soundset currently is in the game. Go listen to it on worldbuilder it really sounds frieking awesome (110% better than his 3.8.1 german voice)
Dark Haired Arthas....
My first blade, my iron hammer. My dread forcer, my chosen one..
That sounds like lyrics of an emo love song XD
Anyways, I'm sure you'll enjoy sending him after helpless heroes of the Dúnedain :)
Waw I can actually write emo songs!
new talent discovered XD
Great hero concept whatever people says...
Looks really promising!
Does his sword have a name?
Toothpick
Okay. I just wonderd if it... hungers!
I wonder If he has a horse.. I get it! Maybe it IS Invincible.. Invisible
Sadly, we can see that 'mount' is not one of his powers. But I have thought of it too)
I just want to see him jelling APOCALYPSE XD
M.youtube.com
WoW players apparently are everyehere ^^
Omg. That's scary. I didn't play wotlk for long... so I haven't seen this)
Cuilsogor
Hey Edain team,
Me and a friend are having some troubles on the 8 player maps.
We played a 2v2v2v2 With us, dwarfes,gondor and isengard and suddenly our game was out of memory.
Is their any way to fix these problems?
And btw can't wait for Angmar :)
The engine can't handel a huge amount of units because of the fps.
The only thing you (and your friends) can do is lowering the settings.
Hope it helps ;)
What a unique hero! his abilities are so awesome!
Very interesting and truly fearsome hero, Edain Team, great job! :)
I can just imagine Argaleb's face when he had to face this dude...
*argaleb runs to the castle*
*zaphragor is chasing him and yelling*
COME BACK!I ONLY WANT TO PLAY!
His skills are awesome, but i never really liked him in 3.8.1 and earlier vesions since he stole a little bit too much attention away from the witchking, the main hero of angmar.
I really like this character, to me embodies the strength of the whitch kings forces, strong evil men with the power of sorcery. Added to that he kinda reminds me of Gregor Clegane from Game of thrones, a mountain of a man with no mercy and a reputation to match, great job edain team!
The Mountain That Rides was definetly an inspiration in the making. ^^
When it comes angmar ;)
When it's done Lord Sauron
He looks like Snape from Harry Potter lol nice job though sound sick
The Voiceover lines should be:
"Speak fool!", "Morgul's blade hungers!", "This is more like it", "Ahh,at last", "For the Witch King!", "Glory to the Iron Crown!",
Edain team, is there any way to get the 3.8.1 version back?
I mean, i love the new aditions that you guys have made.
But i wanted to play as Rivendell back when you could spam out buildings
Just google it ;)
You will find download links with google. We won't make another "official" download, because then people would expect us to support it again.
Why should you add so much Warcraft-reeking fan-fiction into this great mod? This is way-way over the top
What exactly do you mean with "warcraft"-reeking?
If you're talking about the design:
The whole design is made to be realistic, especially more realistic than our Angmar in 3.81.
(the sword, the armor an the whole proportions are taken from existing things in the real life)
If you're talking about the magic:
Magic is always something difficult in the tolkien universe, that's correct. But let's take what we already know:
Sauron taught the mouth of Sauron some kind of magic.
Sauron was able to use magic artefacts (the rings) to give power to other people (the nazgul).
In the game there are already the sorcerers. They are using their acolytes for their magic. Zaphragor instead uses his own life power for it.
For us the sorcerers (and therefore Zaphragor as one of them) are people who got the ability to perform magic by the witchking similar to Sauron giving the ability to his loval servants. Therefore the sorcerers aren't just some part of the army anymore, but the most loyal servants of the witchking which got a special treatment.
Imo this has nothing to do with warcraft and is a much better interpretation than the sorcerers in the original game.^^
If you're talking about the story:
The story is also very similar to already existing parts in the lotr:
Many Dunedain served Sauron, even while the war of the ring - f.e. the mouth of Sauron is also a dark Dunedain. Those were originally people who fought against Sauron, but later joined him.
As we don't know much about Angmar we had a bit of freedom:
Therefore our heroes are quite often originally people from Arnor, which later joined the witchking - the same way as some joined Sauron. :)
But I can also tell you at the end:
Such free interpretations will only be used for Angmar. As we know a lot more about the other people in middleearth, we won't add something similar there. :)
The only personal issues I have with Angmar's sorcerers is their ability to heal or freeze entire armies, and the corpse rain ability. If I had to be critical, that is where Angmar's sorcerers are way over the top, especially for sorcerers that are supposed to be less in power than their superiors. You don't see the Witch King summoning a rain of corpses; those sound like feets of Maiar to me.
Their default abilities are interesting though. As a beta-tester, I can say that you are doing a really neat job of diversifying Angmar's heroes, especially with such a lack of official lore to back it all up.
oh ..dont boter your self whit coment.. the cam and goo .. WoW? Jesus.. it dos not look nothing to me like World of W. Maby W King looks like Arthas.. but this guy? looks more like Faromir whit short h. enway good Job
Certainly looks interesting.
At first I thought his sacrificing health for abilities was a bit of a gimmick but now that you've thrown in increased blade damage at low health, there definitely is some tactical value. Double blade damage at 25% health? Watch out Aragorn, the Iron Crown calls for thee!
Keep up the good work!
p.s. Please keep that black/blue AOE ability the witch-king had in 3.8.1. So awesome!
And they need to add in more quotes for him
Definitely agree here. There seems to be a little controversy concerning the Hero, but there is significant tactical appeal here, balancing his health consumption using magic to damage and increase damage, while making sure it doesn't get too out of hand and causing his death.
AM I the only one who got graphic issue? The qulities of the games are awesome...but...my game screen is not full...I want to post it the picture but...I can't :(
My problem is game screen is cutted and smaller. so left and right of my computer moniter is black. so my game screen is smaller so I can't do micro control.
Anyone advise?
Change the resolution.
HURRY UP 4.3 ;-;