Hi, it's me again! You may have remembered me from my Mganga guide a couple months back! I'm back with another one, this time on the marauding viking that is Ormarr. Anyone who loved Crunch from Paragon will definitely find a new home in this pulverizing bruiser as of the patch live in August 2019.
The Cons: Ormarr is a very close range, all-in character. This means that if the enemy is able to disengage, there's not a whole lot you can do to follow after them unless you ran flicker. Also, he is very dependent on proving his dominance early game. If they run even with you, or manage to get around you, you are in for a rough game. His passive scales off of CURRENT health, so if you are losing it fast the stuns in your kit will not mean much. Kiting is his biggest weakness, and you should look to punish his range if you ever fight him and try to set him behind.
The Pros: With the change to his passive scaling off of HP, he has near the same potential as Xeniel when it comes to scaling your tankiness along with your damage late game. What you will better know Ormarr for are his ungodly stun combinations that get worse and worse as he builds CDR. Every single ability in his kit has a chance to stun any target hit, including his basics. The only caveat to it is that once you stun with say, a basic on that target, you cannot stun a target with basics again for 6 seconds. This applies to all of his abilities, but you will rarely notice it since if one kind of stun is down, another will likely be up.
Another good thing is that his stuns are instantaneous; if you are in the indicator when he first does the animation, even if you jump away, when the animation hits the ground, you will be stunned, even if you don't take any other damage.
The final good thing about Ormarr is his comeback potential. I would have never said this a couple months ago because of how snowbally his kit was back then, but if you screw up you still have a chance in the very last teamfight to be tanky enough to stun everyone before you die. He used to feel really squishy, but now that his build path favors a lot of HP it allows him to do things that would have killed him in the past, and he now can have an impact in those final fights instead of just outright dying.
The Versatility: Ormarr can be anything you want him to be right now (just like your mom used to tell you). His best position is as an early game Support, but he can be very viable in the Jungle since his dash is very fast and is just the distance to another camp (and swagger has a 6 second cooldown). A final position would be DS lane, but his close range antics against another tanky hero building damage doesn't usually work out well and is his weakest role.
Because of this, I will recommend you use Ormarr for support first, Jungle second, and DS last. I will lay out a support and jungle build in this guide, and you can modify either of those to be a DS build based on a couple of suggestions I'll have at the end.
Arcana and Enchantments: When it comes to arcana, you want your reds mostly Indomitable(Hp and armor), with a bloodlust (AD and lifesteal) and a couple rampage (crit and crit damage) thrown in. Maybe 1 Obliterate(AD), who knows. Purples will be mostly Benevolence (HP and Movespeed) and Guerilla (Attack Speed and movespeed), with 1 or 2 Tyrants (HP and crit). Blues/Greens will be: almost all Mithril (armor and magic def) with a couple Crusaders (armor, magic def, and CDR) and Valiance (HP and CDR).
Enchantments will be Lokheim primary and Afata secondary. On Lokheim, get either the bonus damage on dash or the HP and Mana regen on player kill/assist, then get the 10% resist, and finally Desperate Duel. On Afata, get the Tower Blessing and HP stacking enchantments.
The main idea behind these raw stats are to pump you up with raw HP, armor, magic defense, movespeed, and CDR in order to pump up that late game damage and to be able to stick to enemies a lot easier, and finally with some crit and lifesteal just to have a bit of sudden kick every once in a blue moon to help edge out fights. While most of what I put makes sense, the Guerilla is in there to help with animation speed of his dash and swagger. The higher your AS, the faster the animations and damage are.
The Enchantment side has to deal with general damage with tankiness involved. I would have fully suggested the Afata tree, but using it as a primary doesn't yeild as impactful stuff as a sudden heal and penetration does for close fights in Desperate Duel. Unlike many characters, Desperate Duel is good on Ormarr because every full combo he gets off with AA cancels will proc it every time.
The Power Curve: Play level one safe with the dash, unless you are jungling then take swagger for the higher clear speed. Play safe until level 2 and then go full turkey mode on the enemy laners, since you will have 1 guaranteed and 2 potential stuns in your kit, all in an AoE. This is what makes Ormarr strong, and if they don't kite him properly you will have a guaranteed first blood if/when your jungler comes over or if you are running with an MM that has a stun, like Slimz. When jungling the first time round is safest to not contest the spirits and get a full clear from red side to blue side. The red first will help with your clear, and if you get every minor camp (except maybe the last one) you will be level 4 with both red and blue on your first gank. Plus the early lead you get in hitting level 4 first helps more than you know. Finally, on Level four, you should have chased away the enemy laners. If not, back, come back with full HP and hit them with a full combo. Use your ult last to regain health and to wait out your cooldowns on the first 2 abilities and use those to clean up the fight, or to disengage if it went wrong. The level 4 gank has the same idea. After that, you will be roaming to every lane that you can, but especially to lanes with friendly heroes that have their own CC to help you. Your short range is not as much of a problem when flying out of a bush at Mach 10 with a knockup ready, but any help to close the gap when you approach will help guarantee kills.
Edit: When it comes to maxing abilities, go for the dash, the the ult, then swagger. Leveling the dash is most important due to the cooldown reduction on it, as well as a knockup. Swagger doesn't offer mobility or consistency except when on 2 stacks, so you use it as a tool get your passive off in a wide area, rather than using it specifically for it's damage. The Ult is leveled whenever possible because while the heal is a constant 2% max HP for each enemy hero hit, the higher the damage it does the better a trading tool it is since it's damage and heal will likely scare off enemy opponents.
Edit: The basic idea when it comes to trading as Ormarr is to either swagger when the enemy is just at the edge of the circle, or to dash-AA-swagger on the enemy. Even if you get chunked in return, you will stun off of one of those swaggers at some point, which is just a free trade. Anywho, once you get to 2 stacks of Swagger, play very carefully. The next swagger you do hit on a hero will reset it and guarantee the passive stun on that reset use. This leaves you with incredible all-in potential since a reset and a surefire stun on Swagger allows you to just really lay the hurt on the enemy and lock them down for a long time, espcially if you get lucky and stun on the normal swagger as well. A full combo of dash-AA-swagger-AA-swagger-dash back to safety is insane in trading, and can just as easily be turned into a full-on kill attempt.
Now that it's midgame, build a lot of HP and Cooldown Reduction, prioritizing HP. You will need the tankiness to avoid death, especially if early game didn't work out well, and CDR should be something you get in addition to that (your cooldowns are already short, but being able to spam out your stuns likely a flailing fish whenever you get in range is always helpful). This should be a time where you practice up on your map awareness and look to help push down towers, take Abyssal Dragon, and just steamroll the enemy team. Even when behind, your stuns alone can help bring your team back into the game since if they aren't fighting back or escaping, their damage and tankiness doesn't matter.
Late game is your time to go out in a brilliant charge for glory. The dash is instantaneous, almost, so use that to engage. They will likely drop just about eveything they have on you, and if you die, you die. Depend on your teamates to use their cooldowns to kill the enemy team who has zero of theirs'. If you do manage to survive all the CC and damage, while is very possible if you built right, spam your whole kit. Swagger dash, dash and swagger, use your ult to heal back up and do it all over again. The dash at this point in time will likely be around 5 seconds cooldown, and the enemy team will have a very hard time escaping that even if they are good at kiting. It may be your only movement, but at this point in the game you can use it fast and often.
The Builds: Support vs Jungle. I'll start with the Support build path I use.
Essence of the Wind (maybe Ring of the Fiend): Always build this first item, unless you are rushing boots for chase potential and early pressure. The passive it gives is invaluable for keeping you in the game as a support, and the shield active is just good. Use the Fiend Ring if there is a Quillen/Wukong/Batman, etc.
Sonic Boots: Always build these since your main targets are squishies like ADCs whose HP pool is far smaller than your's and your passive damage chunks. The only time I reccomend the CC resist shoes is if the enemy team has a character with constant slows or a stun longer than 1.25 secs. The CC resist shoes will help you trudge through slows to your target easier, and you just don't want to die to S-tier Diaochan for no reason.
Gaia's Standard: This is a core item. The heal on damage is massive lategame when you have an HP pool the size of a small town, and the HP and movespeed help with your kit and damage. The Magic Resist is also strong, since this is the only MR item you will have unless you feel like a situational item is more neccessary later on in the build.
Mail of Pain: An excellent hybrid item that gives you HP and a passive that punishes those who want to focus you down.
Mantle of Ra: This is your only damage item, and it comes with a 2% of your max HP burn in magic damage. From armor to HP to HP regen, this is also a staple in my opinion.
Shield of the Lost: The last item in this build, it gives you an overwhelming amount of defense (and in Ormarr's case, damage) and a passive that hinders the characters you like to beat on most, ADCs.
Now for the Jungle build.
Soulreaver: The cooldown reduction is amazing, and the passives it has really helps with your burst which Ormarr has a lot of stunlock potential for. I prefer it over the HP stacking burn item because in this build you are looking to come online really fast, not wait for an amazing endgame.
Sonic Boots: Look above for the reasoning. ADCs look tasty, is all I'm saying.
Spear of Longinus: This is an excellent 3rd item since it will give you pen, HP, and CDR. It may not be much, but the cost for every stat that Ormarr would like in this build is amazing.
Gaia's Standard: The heal passive is still strong, and with your short range you need a health barrier to avoid dying if your dash just isn't far enough. The HP and movespeed is still valuable either way.
Rankbreaker: General purpose damage potential, and the passive helps you engage when sprinting out of some bushes like a madman.
Fenrir's Tooth/ Blade of Eternity: Go with Blade of Eternity first and use Fenrir's Tooth when it is on cooldown. A lot of reselling happens in this last slot and you can even put in another HP tank item if you feel you really need it.
Thanks for getting to the end of the guide! I'll likely continue trying to change it when I get the chance and if I missed something.
Edit: I never got to explaining the DS build. This will be short. Mantle of Ra, Sonic Boots, Gaia's Standard, Rankbreaker(maybe Spear of Longinus), Mail of Pain, Situational (Usually Shield of the Lost, the Blade of Eternity, the mana based Aegis Shield thing, or Medallion's Pendant (whatever that magic defense item is that gives you a shield).)
