Damn... I should have been saving shards instead of books. 

Honestly, seems very unimpressive. Am I missing something? Even with both on the same team, I don't see where I'd ever use them.

You don't do PvP still though, correct?

Correct, but even in PvP is he useful? Like, damage-wise there's nothing special there, so what kind of team would you use him on?

He's potentially the second highest HP nuker aside from Taras. I think people had tested his damage and he's definitely above the Monster Hunter champ, but lower than Taras. 

Really? That surprises me ... his A2 is 0.28x HP, which isn't really that impressive - for comparison, Magnarr is 0.22x HP, but Magnarr is two hits. Admittedly he has 20% more base HP, but that still doesn't come close (0.33x vs 0.44x). Does the 25% DEF ignore really make that much of a difference? Or is there something else I'm missing?

Hmm, he also ignores passive damage reduction like Lilitu's or Pythion's...generally ignores Shield and Strength buffs....

Curiously...I have some shards but not many books...;-)

You are playing smarter than I likely.  I've gotten suckered into just about every void 2x.  I accumulate books, chickens, brews and gems just by being lazy.  Only takes a minute to pop the shards 😆 

I am only like 90 short!

Why you pulling champs if you're not gonna build them anyway?

Check out his A1 that Decreases enemy skill cooldowns on an A1 is really good. 

His A2 is a double hitter against enemies that have Shield or Strengthen - which is extremely common (Mithrala, Marichka, bolster, etc). Not to mention his passive coincides with this, he ignores Shield and Strengthen buffs, which is massive. 

His A3 is pretty incredible against buffer comps, think of Siphi or Duchess putting 3 buffs on their nuker, if Narses kills them, he blocks their revive. 

He's almost exclusively a PvP champ, but he goes really hard. 

Also, yes, ignoring DEF is a huge deal as well. That's why every single end game nuker is built with Savage + Helmsmasher. And that's why someone like Georgid is also so strong, he goes through a lot of those defensive buffs and has additional chances to ignore DEF. 

I'm well aware of how valuable ignore DEF is. My point is simply that 25% ignore DEF, on its own, won't compensate for the lower damage output - at least not to the point of making him interesting.

I'll give you the ignoring shield or strengthen being valuable though. Anyway, clearly I'm not in-tune with this stuff, so if he's good, so be it. I won't be spending 110 voids on an arena-only champ for sure.

Asking the real questions

Hmm.  So you have the 110 and are passing? I suggest u reconsider. 

Will he help me in either a) making auto Hydra more consistent or b) clearing some of the more obnoxious Sintranos stages? If the answer to both is no, then I have zero need for him. I literally barely touch arena - I do the bare minimum to stay in G5, and I consistently drop in Tag by not doing the weekly 10.

a) I'd be shocked of the duo doesn't become a staple in auto hydra teams 

b) this seems a given, even with the other rotations unknown 

c) enables you to progress in pvp without "doing" pvp

I think enables 0 effort tag/live for current rewards per annum of 50 primals alone from live. 

I'm curious as to other opinions from our late game experts (like carpe).  And our mods can chime in as well 😆 

@kramaswamy.kr .  

I'm guessing auto hydra is #1 priority.  I think live arena bonus and fk10/ig10 hard farming are more important than specific champs 

Why / how would he help for Hydra auto? Not really seeing where the value comes in?

gonna have to side with kram on this one. i barely even see a use for them in hydra, let alone enough value to be called a staple. ankora strikes me as a collection of somewhat-useful-but-nothing-really-essential abilities and narses is hot garbage. frankly, i think you'd be better off just running ankora by herself.

i doubt that they'll make much of an impact on sintranos either. i think you and i both know that when krama says obnoxious stages he's talking about soulcross and you're not gonna get much use out of them there. outside of the bosses and awakening stages, soulcross is limited to a single affinity per stage. neither one brings a lot of value against the boss stages either (except ankora and the nether spider, but you don't need narses for that) so they're really not offering a lot of potential. for less advanced accounts that are concerned with the stages outside of soulcross there might be some value, but even that's got a lot of iffiness to it. if there are stages that allow for both of them to be used and if the player doesn't already have champions to use in that stage, then maybe running the duo will allow you to get through the stage, but that's a lot of uncertainty.

they definitely have strong pvp value, but i don't really see the effortlessness that you claim.