I've tried multiple builds for this character and have yet to see a worthwhile strategy.
Attack spells become quickly outmatched with +health items and the short range on them begs me to get close to an enemy that is infinitely more dangerous than I am. Bramble Shield helps in this situation, but I'm forced to switch forms to use it, which leaves me at a complete disadvantage for the 2-3 seconds that takes. I can cast it before I go in, but I will most often need to use it as soon as I get into battle. If I want to do damage with spells, I'm sacrificing the ability to cast this, the bonus splash damage, or I can miss a great oppurtunity to save an ally, which is apparently what Bramble Shield was made for considering how many players are so eager to get themselves killed. Uproot is also to niche, to specific, to be worth getting and is useful for only one situation - that skillpoint is better spent elsewhere.
Minions by themselves are easily killed and almost rely on the buffs from the different pieces of armor. But, I need money and money obviously comes from killing heroes (which is practically impossible unless I'm playing a noob or get the lucky final hit), killing creatures, which is about the only useful thing my spells are good for, or waiting the money out. Meanwhile, other, more damaging characters are raking in more beneficial hero kills and the benefits that provides, and outbuffing me into obscurity.
So basically, my weaknesses far exceed my strengths. I need a ton of mana, but if I want to survive, I will need a ton of health. If I want to buff my minions, I have to sacrifice potentially better items to do that. All of this taken into consideration, if I want money to do those things, I need to find a way to kill players and there doesn't seem to be a way to effectively do that since I'm forced to focus on one particular aspect of my character. Either I can do damage with spells that will quickly be outmatched by +health, or I can focus on the minions that die to quickly and need the items that my non-existant gold income would provide. If I want to do all of these things, I again, need a ton of mana, which forces to to forego the benefits of certain items (such as +health, armor, and bonus self or minion damage) to raise my mana as high as possible.
In short, this character is just to much micromanagement and relies to much on the gold I can't get quick enough to be a threat. So tell me, what is the secret?
Everything the Queen does the torchbearer can do better (except for the whole Shielding thing)
QoT supports creeps and minions far better than TB can with the armor and speed debuff.
Torchie slows the opposing creeps and towers down if not outright kills them at most all levels...the exception would be giants where he might need to use a second AoE to kill them all outright...
Move speed slowing creeps is just about pointless.. Torchie attack speed dedbuffs the creeps which is better..and coupled with UB oozing you can about double the creep attack rate.... if they were still alive...
But that then means you need 2 DGs to the 1 QoT. The negative armor allows your creeps to do as much as triple damage to the opposing creeps and towers. I was able to make a single creep wave with giants(2) kill an enemy citadel in 10 seconds flat using the ground spikes. I wanna see TB do that.
The two teams where basically tied except the enemy team was much better at killing us and we only had AoEs. We had lost most of our towers and we had taken out all of their towers on one side of the citadel. They just happened to be in a bad spot at the wrong time, inside 2 of our giant creep waves when I hit all three of them with ground spikes. My guess is the giants alone each did 1k-1.5k dmg per hit to them and they all died nearly instantly. Which gave us just enough time for one surviving creep wave to reach the citadel with myself.
She does suck in 1v1 and 2v2 combat though. 3v3 and up along with creeps is where she starts to shine. But its all about situational awareness with her.
There are very very short stretchs where QoT has some staying power... against good coordinated teams those stretches are non-existant.
I don't know why people think she's fine as just a support character. It's not. Don't get me wrong, she does have her strengths but against a good team it's like having 2.5 players vs 3. Who cares if you can shield your teammates when that's all you contribute to a battle? That's still 3 of their DG's dealing out DPS compared to your 2. And if they actually know what they're doing they'll just ignore your shielded teammate and focus fire you to oblivion anyway because their "support" DG's - more than likely Oak or Sedna - will be laying the smack down something cruel AND healing their team while they're at it.
Why would anyone want to play as the only character that can't hold their own? For all the above points she is just way under par with the other DG's.
IMO she would perform better if mulch shambler was swapped (form-wise) with uproot and switch times need to be lessened. Her form switch just makes her too impratical for battle.
I have recently moved from Lord Erebus to QoT, and I like her very much. I do not think that she is underpowered (and she is certainly not overpowered). I simply think that people have to play her properly--she's the only general that can't be really built into a demigod-killing assassin. Like a lot of people have already said above, she takes patience and her best role is support.
She's naturally a spell-caster, so she is very mana dependent --> which means you'll have to build up mana at the expense of building up health, armor, or damage --> which means you have to keep her out of close fights. For me, this means getting the Bramble Shield early and using it often (which means mostly you're in closed mode). For an "aggressive" build, I get the swift anglet favor item (to outrun pursuers and to help out allied demigod faster), one of the mana helms (and a second one as soon as possible), Bramble Shield (upgrade quickly), Ground Spikes (upgrade quickly), Spike Wave (upgrade quickly), Shambler, and Mulch Shamber (for the health boost--it also does AoE damage). But even with this build, she is not going to be killing demigods regularly. Instead, I have her follow one of the heavy-hitting demigods, providing shields for both of us, and I use the occasional ground spikes and spike wave. If the other demigod does his role, he should get plenty of kills, take down some towers, and soak up a lot of damage (thanks to the Bramble Shield). If I do my job, I kill a lot of creeps and minions (thanks mostly to ground spikes and spike wave), debuff demigods, and get a lot of assists.
If you play her as a general (that is, in minion mode), plan to be in closed mode almost the whole time. Plan on controlling one of the lanes, since you are not really going to be supporting other demigods. I do not play her like this often, since I think that she is more valuable as support for other demigods. However, if you invest in Shamblers, Entourage, Bramble Shield, Morale, Idols, and other minion buffs, she can be effective in pushing a lane.
I'm still trying to figure out if Uproot is worthwhile. At least the first level of it does not seem effective, and I never upgrade it from there. Is Uproot's strength mostly dependent upon Compost? Anyhow, I prefer buffing another demigod with a shield and letting him do the tower work. Also, both upgraded Ground Spikes and Spike Wave do decent damage against structures.
The only possible change I would make to QoT is make her shift from Open to Close mode faster. As it is now, she (and Torchbearer) is the most micromanagement-intense demigod. Losing a few seconds between opening and closing can mean the difference between life and death. You almost have to predict what's getting ready to happen, so that you are not caught in Open mode when you should be in Close (or vice versa). So, I would make the change in modes almost instant (or about half of the current time).
Finally, I am reluctant to play QoT unless my allies are good melee fighters (such as UB, Oak, Rook). She can turn Sedna or UB into absolute monsters. However, she does not fit in well with either Regulus or TB as allies. She needs to complement a heavy hitter, since melee is not her role.
the_hunger, play her a bit more and also against experienced teams and you'll soon see that:
There IS a reason why Regulus and UB are played at least 3 times as much as QoT and the rest is played at least 2 times as much as her.
There IS a reason why her win/loss ratio is the lowest.
There IS a reason why there are no QoTs in experienced, competitive teams.
There IS a reason why these threads exist.
I play her, she is fine using the shield/spike/wave/morale builds with idols.
Her minions could use some pathing work, they seem weak most of the time because they are not attacking but instead tripping over everything. (smaller footprint, better turning, and better angle of tolerance to start an attack). Then we could judge if they need to be buffed or not.
Shamblers IV needs to be re-evaluated.
Which is exactly her problem. EVERYBODY that has at least the basest of experience with her knows that's she's a support DG. Which is fine early game and against random teams.HOWEVER, if you go up against a team that communicates well and knows each other, QoT is a detriment to a team in 3v3 rather than a boon.
Shield is a great tool when used on allies and early game it really shines. But make no mistake, one shielded ally DOES NOT EQUAL two enemy DG's. Furthermore, if you actually want to make an impact on the fight you have to change forms which means you and your ally have suddenly lost all advantage you were playing with in the first place. No decent player is going to stick around when you pop into open form and wait for those spikes to start rolling. They're either going to run out of range or switch targets to you which will leave your teammate unshielded and already beat on and you dead because the second you close up you can expect a stun.
Granted, there are games when everything works out and QoT just rolls like a charm but as the people you play against get more experienced these games and moments get fewer and fewer. And don't get me wrong, I love QoT. I play from Australia and I've played her alot since release but we're a pretty tight knit community and there are games and players that I will just not play her against. And these are players I'd rate myself on the same skill level as but QoT just doesn't cut it competetively.
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