Queen of Thorns - Bulb Bumping

Greetings everyone. Was stalking the forums while venting some frustration at the issues impulse and multiplayer are having and decided to read a few posts here. I didn't see much on Queen of Thorns, my personal favorite Demigod, so I thought I'd write up a quick strategy I like to use.

Note: It hasn't been tested constantly against anything but A.I. and newer players (I assume they were), so constructive input will be welcomed.

I also plan to write a full-on and organized guide on her later, likely while at work throughout the week, listing abilities, suggestions, ect, ect. This are all my opinions by the way, feel free to add input or disagree.


This particular way of playing is a bit different than what normally a demigod would do - it's focused more on support and defense than actually killing people. Before I go into the details, let me give you a small description:

Generals are difficult to play correctly, more so than assassins in my humble opinion. Minions are used as orbital damage platforms, which they are, but they are also expendable dps and great harassers among other things. This QoT build isn't designed for killing demigods, so if that's what you want to do with her you should probably read elsewhere.

Instead, you'll be not dying to demigods and offering your team all the support you can. In the games I played, I always had the least deaths if any and was always annoyingly capping flags, tossing in my ranged support damage via myself or pets alongside an assassin's, or shielding others and giving them just that extra boost they needed to dominate.


Skills

The basic skill build focuses mostly on Bramble Shield and Shamblers to Mulch. Bramble Shield is a wonderful absorb shield, Shamblers are Queen's unique ranged unit, and Mulch kills off a Shambler to restore hp and do fairly impressive aoe damage.

The first skill you'd want to take would be bramble shield. This will allow you to survive early gank/harass attempts easily unless you get jumped by more than one demigod. Assassins love weak and crunchy generals, especially the players new to the genre playing assassins who tried a general, died, and wrote them off. Keep it on you always, it'll last and keep it off cool-down so you can use it again on yourself or others.


The very next skill should be a Shambler. I'm not quite sure what the progression is, I forget, but typically you always take the bramble shield upgrade when it's available granted you been doing fine on the money stream. You don't want it so high as to not be able to have enough mana to use it often.

I'll update the guide with an exact skill order later, but you'll want to upgrade Shield, Mulch, Entourage, and Shambler in that order of importance. You really don't need four shamblers until higher levels, two will suffice for healing yourself, and once you can summon two at once it might even be better to leave them there for a while in favor of the other skills and the lower mana cost.

Entourage will boost their damage and ensure they'll be around for you to kill off. Shield and mulch will keep you alive and you'll be loved forever by allies when you can shield them.

Once the above four are upgraded, you can start on compost (I believe around 17ish?) as it'll add damage to your shamblers. Sometimes I just get the stat bonuses at the bottom though, it depends on match ups.


Items

My personal opinion is that every general should start with the + 600 body, but that's just me. For this particular strat, it works wonders. Starting items for me are the +600 body armor, a scroll of warp, and depending on who I'm facing I'll nab a potion (Bramble Shield basically takes the place of a potion as does Mulch later so you normally don't need to waste cash on them) or get the first helm. It's a good starting kit. Grab the ranged idols as soon as you can, then the priest idols.

Since you and your minions are ranged, it's a good idea to get the ranged idols first which is why I suggested them.


From here on, you'll be mostly using helms and bodies. You want to keep your mana pool large and up high, but you also want armor and hp to stack which will make you that much harder to kill. One of my favorite bodies is third best I believe, it gives your minions + hp and + hp regen. Very useful.

Another must have item and one I try to get as soon as possible is the Heart of Life. Mana regen, hp regen, and you can pop it to regain 3000 hp and mana over 10 seconds. Since most of your QoT abilities will not be reactive, you can burn mana, walk off and restore it with his baby, and then continue on. Very useful for her.

Another must, eventually, since this build doesn't give Queeny a way to stun or some other form of escape is the + 25% movement accessory. Bramble + tele scroll works until you start getting stunned out of it, in which case this will help as well.


Play

Basically, you always stay in bulb form as all of your abilities are in that form. It also gives you more mana and hp regen as well as armor, which are all things we want. Keep bramble shield on yourself and off cool-down; but if you don't see yourself in danger be generous with it especially on Rook and Unclean Beast. I always try to bramble them. If you're in danger, bramble shield and then warp back to base if you think you can get away with it. If you get stunned, you'll have to trek it which is why the speed + wand is useful.

Typically, however, your should be fine. The hp + and armor + usually counters the "damage! damage!" whoring most assassins will probably go for fairly well, with your absorb shield helping that much more. If you need health, mulching will be your godsend in combat or while on the run. Heart of Life will be your love baby as well, allowing you to keep your mana almost always up since you don't have to spam abilities too much. I haven't tested it yet, it just occurred to me but I'm sure it's been thought of before, but it may be possible to use Heart of Life while in Bramble Shield to heal up mid combat. I'll try it out soon, but if a beta player could confirm that would be nice.

Keep your minions up and try to mulch low hp shamblers (requires some microing, also keep them behind healthy units), I don't know if it acts like a deny in Dota but the aoe damage and hp gain from doing so will usually be worth it over just letting it die. Don't waste mana though if you gain nothing from mulching it.

As you'll be difficult to kill, three things will happen. Smart players will ignore you in favor of weaker foes, ala the "ignore the tank go for the healer" mentality. This hurts, but you can still be useful. Add damage to assassins going in for the kill by sending minions with them or going along as well, you'll all mostly ranged so you can do it from safety. You can also shield others, so even if they ignore you you'll still be of great use. Also, you can cap flags with slightly less fear! Cap, cap, cap! You can leave Demigod killing to the others. Your ranged attack in bulb form is also aoe, add in minions and you make an amazing creep killer so go feed and get yourself levels\gold.

The other  thing is a demigod will run up to you and try to kill you. Usually, you'll get away if he's actually killing you. Otherwise, you'll slowly simply out-live him between shields and mulches, which hurt him while healing you. He'll run, of course, but you can't do anything about it. Don't chase unless you think your ranged attack can kill him in one or two hits. If an assassin is doing his job, he'll come along and finish your work.

Lastly, you'll probably get ganked. It's effective, and it's the most common way for me to die. It's hard to survive against higher numbers of demigods, period. Don't let them make you ineffective. Start warping around and make them follow you, or harass them. Even if you aren't doing anything, those demigods trying to kill you aren't elsewhere which will allow teammates to push.


Endgame


At end game, this build can be very powerful. Other generals will be slightly less useful, waves of creeps will fall at your feet, and as long as you don't die you can add quite some damage to the cluster f*** that tends to happen end game. A fully upgraded mulch skill will do 750 damage aoe! Most demigods, unless they stack health, range around 4-5k~, so it does hurt. You can really clear the floor by spamming your mulch, seeing twenty or so "750" damage appear above your head is nice.

Generals will lose their minions trying to kill you usually as you mulch to heal yourself and hanging around others lets you mulch aoe creeps\minions while helping your buddy whack on an enemy demigod. Very effective.


Well, that was a lot... I apologize, but hopefully it was useful to someone. As I said, I'll likely write a full guide later (that's much more organized than this strat write-up and with images), I really like Queeny. I might do one for Unclean Beast as well, he's my favorite assassin.

Any inputs, suggestions, fears, or pointing fingers + laughing are welcome.