Champion Spotlight - Sauron

Kabam Zibiit

About Sauron
Sauron was once a hypnotherapist named Karl Lykos, bitten as a child by a mutated pteranodon that bestowed him with both the ability to absorb a person's life force and the vampiric need to do so to sustain himself with it.

Karl was once employed by Charles Xavier of the X-Men to counsel his students, but when he seized this opportunity to drain his fellow mutant Havok to save his life. This charged his own life force and satiated his thirst... something unexpected happened. The mutant's life force triggered something deep within him, transforming into a humanoid pteranodon; claws, beak, wings and all. Now he stalks the skies as The Mighty Sauron!


Sauron's Mechanics

Sauron’s playstyle is all about setting up the extinction of others through draining their life force. He wants to strike into the opponent to get extra hit damage and ramp up Prowess to make Special Attacks stronger. Once he has hit various thresholds of Prowess, he can become Unblockable or Bleed the opponent. If you want some extra damage, convert Prowess into a Fury, then let the claws loose.

He has heavy sustainability through the multiple avenues of Regeneration in his kit but also can apply Degeneration to the opponent through his Extinction Mode. His abilities are all Passive so good luck Nullifying them or Purifying away his damage over time effects.

As a Mutant Champion, they are all about making Special Attacks super duper crazy strong! He is no exception to that. Whether weaving a Special 1 for on-hit Regen or a Special 2 for bigger extra hit damage, you can decide when you need it. Oh yeah, he doesn’t like you messing with his abilities so he will punish ability accuracy reduction.

BASE STATS & ABILITIES

	Health	Attack	PI (Max Signature)
3-Star	5942	548	1949
4-Star	14900	1373	4895
5-Star	29874	2753	10650
6-Star (Rank 3, Level 45)	39494	3547	13690

Character Class: Mutant

Basic Abilities: Prowess, Unblockable, Degeneration, Regeneration


STRENGTHS:

• Punishing Ability Accuracy Manipulation
  
• Sauron excels at punishing champions who mess with his abilities. The punishment is mainly that it helps ramp his prowess to max even faster. So you will definitely notice if you put Concussion or Disorient on him.
  
  
• Quick Prowess Gain
  
• Since Sauron gains his prowess so easily, he will excel on nodes that give him benefits for prowess being quickly gained and spent.
  
  
• All Specials Can Become Unblockable
  
• Who doesn’t like going Unblockable on all Specials? Oh yeah, he also can go Unblockable on his Heavy and Dash Attacks but it's not as painful as an Unblockable Special.
  
  
• Multiple Avenues of Regeneration
  
• With a few ways to trigger Regeneration, Sauron will definitely be able to go up and down in health without too much worry about chip damage. Key insight: his synergies will help him in this respect, either by regen or by health thresholds.
  

WEAKNESSES:

• Prowess Removal
  
• Take away Sauron’s Prowess and he will definitely be weaker since a good chunk of his abilities trigger off having Prowess counts. Not to mention, less damaging specials will result.
  
  
• Heal Block
  
• While Sauron’s Regeneration ability cannot be reduced or reversed, he is still vulnerable to Heal Block. This allows champions to negate his ability to heal himself when struck and when he activates his Special 1.
  
  
• Prowess Control
  
• Since Sauron wants to have max Prowess at the various power bar levels, his loop is made much more difficult if you can slow down his power gain to create an uneven amount of power to prowess count.
  

ABILITIES:
The following Stats and Abilities are based on a Rank 5, Level 65, 5-Star Champion


Always Active

• Immune to all Power Steal, Poison, and Sauron's Regeneration Rate cannot be decreased or increased by outside sources.
  
• Take -95% less damage from Bleed effects and gain +25% Critical Resistance while Bleeding.
  
• When Sauron is struck, 30% chance to gain a Regen Passive healing 10% of the damage taken per personal Prowess Passive effect he has.
  
• Light Attacks have 35% chance to deal 50% of the damage dealt as a burst of Physical Damage. This ability can also trigger through block.
  

Developer’s Note: As you can see, he will have two core ways to trigger Prowess gain on chance based abilities, if they are affected by Ability Accuracy reduction, you will gain more Prowess. Seek out those who Bleed you (see the Signature Ability for even more potential). You can already start to see what masteries he does well with.

Prowess - Max 10

• Each time one of Sauron’s Abilities fails to trigger due to chance gain a 10% Prowess Passive. Gain an additional 2 Prowess Passive if Sauron's Ability fails due to Ability Accuracy modification.
  
• At 7 Prowess Passives, Dash Attacks, Heavy and Special Attacks grant an Unblockable Passive for 4 seconds. This Unblockable Passive has a 10 second cooldown unless Sauron's Ability Accuracy is being modified or Sauron is affected by a Degeneration.
  
• At 10 Prowess Passives, Dashing Attacks, inflict a Bleed Passive, dealing +2064.75 damage over 4 seconds. This ability can also trigger through block.
  
• Landing the first hit of a Heavy Attack will consume 3 Prowess Passives and gain a Fury Passive, granting +1376.5 Attack Rating for 4 seconds.
  

Developer’s Note: Having multiple ways for an ability to fail will help Sauron will help him gain Prowess fast. Seek out Champions that reduce Ability Accuracy reduction to capitalize on this even better. Unblockable, Bleed, and Fury can get all 3 lined up for big damage. If you drop a heavy into the Opponent followed by multiple light attacks, Sauron can get back to 10 Prowess before the Fury wears off, so you can have it going into a Special Attack.

All Special Attacks

• All Prowess Passives are removed at the end of Special Attacks.
  
• On activation, pause the Degeneration Passive from Extinction Mode for 8 seconds.
  

Developer’s Note: Pay attention to the Extinction Mode Degeneration because it really helps your overall kit strength/survivability. It is all about the timing, and you can actually pause it with back to back Specials if you can align the power.

Extinction Moden:

• While at 10 Prowess Passives, when you hit the Opponent, inflict a Degeneration Passive, dealing +1101.2 direct damage over 5 seconds.
  
• Increase Physical Burst Potency by 50% and a Ability Accuracy Passive for personal Abilities by 100%.
  
• If the Degeneration Passive from Extinction Mode expires, remove all Prowess Passives.
  

Developer’s Note: Lengthening the duration of Extinction Mode will just make everything else even more awesome. It is a short duration so take advantage of it when it's up. Remember when you are in Extinction Mode, get those light attack hits in. It is a 100% chance to hit with extra attacks.


SPECIAL ATTACKS

Special 1 - Life Force Beam After this Special Attack ends, for each physical burst hit dealt to the Opponent, heal for 25% the damage dealt for 10 seconds. Developer’s Note: Need some healing, pop the SP1 then run at the opponent to get the on hit heal procs.

Special 2 - Seething Claws After this Special Attack ends, increase the Potency of all personal burst Physical Damage by 100% for 10 seconds. Developer’s Note: Need some big damage, pop the SP2 then run at the opponent to get the on hit extra damage procs.

Special 3 - Hypnotic Trance After this Special Attack ends, inflict a Degeneration Passive, dealing +688.25 direct damage over 5 seconds per personal Passive effect that has expired on Sauron or on the Opponent. (capped at 30) Reset after Special 3 activation. Developer’s Note: Since all of his abilities are passive, you will get to the cap by running through the usual loop but it's up to you how many times you want to run SP3.

Signature Ability - Doctor's Gift After the start of the fight, if the Opponent attempts to inflict a Bleed, or Incinerate effect while a Degeneration Passive is active, inflict the Opponent with a Passive version of that effect dealing +8259 damage over 2 seconds. Increase personal Prowess Passive Potency by a flat 10%. Developer’s Note: Seek out those who bleed/incinerate you, time your window with Extinction Mode Degeneration and when you are hit with these debuffs, apply your own back in a passive version.

SYNERGY BONUSES
Wings of Fear- Unique - - with Airwalker, Vulture, Annihilus

• Sauron: When landing a Dash Attack, the Bleed damage inflicted now does 100% more damage and the duration increases by 20%.
  
• Airwalker: Armor Breaks from Specials now reduce Armor Rating by +30% for 11 seconds.
  
• Vulture: Exhaust Burn only costs 5 Core Charges and the non-stacking Incinerate debuff now does an additional 20% Attack Rating in damage over 5 seconds.
  
• Annihilus: Stifle duration is increased by 4 seconds and reduces Offensive Combat Power Rate by an additional 15%.
  
  

Leeching Thy Friend - Unique - With Havok

• Sauron: Upon gaining 1 Power Bar, gain a 20% Armor Up Passive for 6 seconds.
  
• Havok: Upon consuming 1 Power Bar, gain a 20% Prowess Passive for 6 seconds.
  

A Little Bit Feral - Unique - with Beast, Sasquatch
Sauron, Beast, Sasquatch: All Synergy members gain 15% Attack Rating for being under 50% Health and an extra 25% Attack Rating for being under 20% Health.
Sauron: While under 20% Health, also gain 20% Crit Damage.
Beast: While under 20% Health, also gain 20% Crit Resist.
Sasquatch: While under 20% Health, also gain 20% Combat Power Rate.




No More Patients - Unique - With Dr. Strange, Mister Sinister

• Sauron, Mister Sinister, Dr. Strange: Whenever an Opponent heals, gain a 2% Regen Passive for 2 seconds. This goes on Cooldown for 5 seconds. Once this has been triggered 4 times, Inflict Heal Block Passive for 12 seconds.
  

RECOMMENDED MASTERIES
Liquid Courage

• Being Immune to Poison, this is a gimme for extra damage!
  

Double Edge

• Being highly resistant to Bleed, pretty much says gimme some more of that bonus damage, plus he gets bonus crit resistance as a result.
  

Coagulate

• Same goes for Double Edge, but with this mastery, you can take no damage from Bleed.
  

ThatGuyYouSaw235

Not sure how I feel about him

te_dua_shum

So, if I use warlock against him I'm dead? Everytime I hit him he has 70% chance to gain a prowess that can only removed by letting him use his specials and warlock would prevent this, if he reaches 7 prowesses he becomes unblockable and since he will be degenerating from Warlock' sig. he won't have a cooldown. So, how do I fight him with my warlock? ^^"

Riptide

te_dua_shum said:

So, if I use warlock against him I'm dead? Everytime I hit him he has 70% chance to gain a prowess that can only removed by letting him use his specials and warlock would prevent this, if he reaches 7 prowesses he becomes unblockable and since he will be degenerating from Warlock' sig. he won't have a cooldown. So, how do I fight him with my warlock? ^^"

If he can’t throw specials you can heavy spam 👀

Crine60

I am really confused by this spotlight. Does anyone else think this is overly complicated and/or poorly written? I don't know if I am just overtired but I have literally spent over 25 minutes trying to read this and make sense of the whole thing together.

I have a few questions right now.

It says his weakness is prowess removal but how do I take away his prowess? Does nullify from Doom's SP1 remove passive effects like the prowess because I didn't think it did.

It says to try to lengthen Extinction Mode but it doesn't even explicitly say what triggers it in the first place. It really just says while in Extinction Mode having 10 prowess lets you inflict degen. Is it just poor formatting and obtaining the max of 10 prowess triggers Extinction Mode? If so, it says when degen expires the prowess gets removed which I guess would end Extinction Mode but it also says using a special pauses the degen which I guess could be how they mean you could extend it. This makes no sense to me though because it also says using a special removes your prowess and if prowess is what keeps you in Extinction Mode then using a special seems like it would end it......?

For the no more patients synergy (which we may have to wait to see unless a mod deigns to comment) does salve count as healing so if I fight champs with this synergy in arena they would be triggering it constantly off of me every time the cool down ended? What happens after the 4th activation and subsequent heal block? Does it start the 4 activation cycle over again or does it not activate any more?

Magrailothos

@Crine60

Yes, it's badly worded!

Reading it, sounds like you're in Extinction mode for as long as you have ten Prowess Passives.

If you throw a special, you immediately drop out of Extinction mode, as you consume your Prowess. As a payoff, any Degeneration passive(s*) get paused for eight seconds.

Alternately if you land a degeneration, but can't keep hitting as you need to bait out a special Attack, then when the Degeneration passive expires, so do all your Prowess and Extinction mode goes with them.

*Note: it doesn't explicitly state if this degeneration stacks or not; but I'd assume that it does.

As for the 'Weakness' of Prowess removal, it's not exactly a crippling weakness (or one unique to Sauron) as there are currently only about three champions that do that, to my knowledge:
- Nimrod does it with all Attacks when he's in Blitz mode
- War Machine can remove Prowess with his SP1
- Howard the Duck can do it with his 'Not so Uncanny' synergy

There might be others I've missed; but removing Prowess is a very rare (and recent) ability.