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All you need to know about Zander, Battlerite’s latest champion
Looking to stun the competition with the performance of a lifetime as Battlerite’s latest champion, Zander? Here’s everything you need to know to master the tricksy magician.
Magicians love to perform the same old tricks: pulling a rabbit out of a hat, vanishing into thin air, summoning a body double to launch magical projectiles at you. You know, all the classics. Battlerite’s latest support champion, Zander, the ‘Magnificent Magician’, lives up to all these tricks – and then some.
With patch 1.3 – which tweaks the game’s UI, makes a few quality of life changes and reworks existing champions – it also adds a brand new character to the mix in the form of Zander. The well-dressed showman is the newest champion to join Stunlock Studios’ team arena title, and he takes a different approach to the classic support role.
Instead of a focus on healing or shielding, the illusionist instead thrives on his utility. He’s able to pull allies out of a tricky situation, reduce the damage they take from enemy attacks, increase the damage taken by enemy targets, or just confuse his opponents. All tricks of the trade benefitting a magician – and if you want to know how to master him, we’ve got just the guide for you. Read on for our top tips on how you can master Zander.
Pick a card, any card
It all starts with his most basic ability: Trick Shot. A left-click of the mouse will fling two cards out in front of him, dealing damage to enemies, healing any allies and restoring Zander’s health on any target hit. The important thing to keep in mind, though, is that the move also applies the Hearts buff on any allies too, which reduces the damage they take by 15 percent for four seconds.
On the other hand, his right-click skill, Grand Conjuration, fires a projectile that pierces targets and inflicts the Arcane Catalyst status on them. This increases the damage any targeted opponent takes by 13 percent for three seconds.
Therefore, as with most support champions, Zander’s best position is in the backline firing off cards and missiles to buff his team and debuff his opponents. At the baseline, his healing is fairly mediocre, though, so it might be worth considering the Heart Restoration Battlerite to give a little boost to his sustain healing on Trick Shot.
And for my next trick...
Still, with some inevitability, you’re going to get focused down as a support. Fortunately, Zander has a number of escape moves that can befuddle your opponents or leave them hopping mad – quite literally.
First up, his Portal ability allows you and your allies to warp out of the battle for a brief time and then reappear at a new location. Not only is it handy to save yourself from an opponent’s dive, but it also works to save allies in a pinch. As they’re able to choose where they pop back into existence, too, they’re able to better position themselves to be out of danger or to set up a new point of attack.
A couple of Battlerites can support either of these strategies too, with Showdown providing a brief damage shield to any ally who travels through the portal to give them a bit of breathing room. Meanwhile, Late to the Show grants the teleported target a 50 percent haste buff for two seconds, giving them an extra burst of speed to retreat easier or engage on a specific target.
Hopping mad
As for a more immediate and perfectly thematic form of escape, Zander can turn himself into a bunny and jovially bounce away from his attackers. Rabbit Form not only increases his movement speed by a significant 80 percent for the duration, but it also removes away movement impairing effects when cast, and knocks away nearby enemies. All in all, it’s an extremely versatile form of escape – and perfectly suits a magician.
Battlerite options to refine the move are, however, somewhat limited. Nevertheless, the one and only choice available is a very strong modifier that can give you another way to get rid of any opponents who are insistent on chasing you down.
Casually bound away from enemy attacks
© Stunlock Studios
Bunny Hop gives you the option to recast Rabbit Form to dash forward a short distance – if you come into contact with an enemy target, you knock them and yourself back, while also interrupting any abilities they are casting. Better than that, if you knock them into a wall, they’ll be stunned for a little over a second. Right there, you’ve got some huge disengage and lockdown potential on a single move, and it feels like an essential choice in his kit.
Feeling sheepish
Speaking of turning things into animals, another of Zander’s control abilities allows him to pull off any mage’s favourite trick and polymorph his opponents into sheep. Rather than just hit a single target, though, Sheep Trick hits all enemies in a target area, allowing you to completely pacify an enemy duo or trio if they foolishly stack up against you. Any damage over a certain threshold will break the effect, so be careful with attacks if you or your allies want to keep a target out of the fight for some time.
Of all the Battlerite options for this ability, Lasting Form is perhaps the one that can be the most impactful. It consumes a stack of Arcane Catalyst on the target to increase the duration of the effect by over a second, bringing the amount of time you can leave an opponent baa-ing to almost four seconds. In fights as quick and frantic as they can be in Battlerite, that’s a huge amount of time to focus your attention elsewhere.
Zander can overwhelm opponents with illusions
© Stunlock Studios
If you want to get your opponents to focus their attention elsewhere, then Zander can also spawn a whole bunch of illusions to leave them befuddled. Mirror Image allows him to turn immaterial and dash forward while leaving an Illusion in his original position. These decoys copy your Trick Shot casts, which might not always fool your opponents, but will help stack damage or healing.
Now you see me, now you don’t
To give Zander’s illusions a bit more of a punch, his ultimate ability The Prestige summons a more powerful Grand Illusion. As with the standard illusions, this not only copies your Trick Shot casts but also Grand Conjuration, and it assists with Sheep Trick to increase the ability’s radius. Quite the useful ally, then!
Battlerite options to improve these abilities are somewhat underwhelming, however. Three of a Kind, which powers up The Prestige to give the Grand Illusion a shield and extra Trick Shot throw, doesn’t seem entirely worthwhile for the slot space. If there’s a standout it’s Poof!, which causes your Illusions to explode at the end of their duration and stun nearby targets. On the off-chance an opponent is fooled by your Mirror Image, then the brief stun is a cheeky little passing shot that entirely encapsulates Zander’s bag of tricks.
Overall, it’s a kit that doesn’t obviously fulfill the traditional idea of a support champion, but one that – when mastered – can cause chaos on the battlefield and leave your opponent’s heads spinning.
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