Welcome to our next Champion Spotlight design blog!
Today, we're going to go into detail on our newest Champion: Farideh, the Tiefling Warlock.
Farideh will be available in our first Year Two Event: Highharvestide, launching TOMORROW (October 3rd)! I hope this blog will give you all you need to know about our latest champion.
How you can unlock Farideh:
Farideh is unlocked by playing Highharvestide, a limited-time event launching on October 3rd and running until October 15th. Once you unlock Farideh, she swaps with Minsc or Catti-brie.
Farideh will be sharing Highharvestide with last year's Champion: Stoki, the Gnome Monk! Don't worry - you'll be able to unlock both of them if you haven't already unlocked Stoki.
Who is Farideh:
Farideh is a character from the from the Brimstone Angels D&D Novel series written by
Erin M. Evans.
Abandoned as an infant and adopted by an outcast dragonborn warrior, Farideh grew to adulthood acutely aware of the drawbacks of being a tiefling. Despite doing everything she could to reassure her neighbors, including keeping her wild twin sister, Havilar, out of trouble, the villagers focused on Farideh as the one who would embrace the dark side of herself. They weren’t wrong.
When Havilar tried to summon an imp to practice her blade on, she drew the attention of Lorcan, a cambion looking to make warlock pacts with the descendants of one of the first Infernal warlocks, the Brimstone Angel. But Havilar was always meant for the glaive--and Farideh would do anything to keep her sister safe. While Lorcan, Asmodeus, and the Nine Hells do their utmost to corrupt her, Farideh isn’t interested in power so much as defending the world from demons, the undead, and any other villains trying to bring trouble or drag her friends and family into danger. Even being made the Chosen of Asmodeus--something Asmodeus isn’t going to explain to Farideh or anybody else--just means she has more magic to turn against the powers of evil.
Farideh's Design:
We were excited to have a fully fleshed-out 5th edition
stat block, which gave us a great place to start from a mechanical standpoint. Between the stat block and our knowledge of the Brimstone Angels series, we reached out to Erin M. Evans, the author of the books Farideh appeared in, to see if she was interested in working with us to make our version of Farideh. Luckily for us, Erin was game for anything we threw at her. She worked closely with us, reviewing the design, sketches, and the equipment pieces. She also helped come up with some really fun GIFs, like this one showing Farideh enjoying her tea with WAY too much sugar.
We decided early that we wanted to place Farideh into slot 7 (Minsc, Catti-brie) and we wanted her to be a pure DPS character. I found her
Hellish Rebuke ability super compelling. I really liked the idea of giving her a reaction-based ability to push back against the horde. From there, Justin and I sketched out the rough design and passed it over to Erin who enjoyed it as much as we did!
Base Attack - Scorching Ray: Farideh starts in your formation with her
Scorching Ray attack. Scorching Ray begins with 3 rays of fire that attack random enemies. As Farideh increases in level, the number of rays she creates increases, which increases her DPS. Her DPS is key to her design as you'll see shortly.
Hellish Rebuke: When you unlock
Hellish Rebuke, you start to tap into the infernal power that Farideh controls. Whenever an enemy hits Farideh, they take damage back equal to a percentage of Farideh's DPS. It starts as a modest percentage, but as you gain levels, and earn better slot 3 equipment, that percentage increases. On my dev server, each
Hellish Rebuke is currently dealing 1,300% of her DPS!
Chosen of Asmodeus: Being a chosen of Asmodeus has to grant you some sort of advantage, right? When you unlock this ability, she grants Hellish Rebuke to champions adjacent to her. This means that when enemies attack Champions adjacent to Farideh in the formation, those enemies will take damage from
Hellish Rebuke. Even though this damage is coming FROM a different Champion, the calculation is based on Farideh's DPS, so put her behind your tank(s) to maximize her damage dealing capabilities!
Pact Family: Farideh and her twin sister Havilar were orphaned at a young age. They understand the sting of growing up as a Tiefling. Because of that, Farideh's damage increases based on the number of Tieflings in the formation. Bring out Makos & Strix. It's time for a Tiefling party!
Farideh's Specializations:
With Farideh's specializations, we wanted to help you decide how you want to use Farideh's Hellish Rebuke based on your formation.
You can either use
Dark One's Luck to expand the range of
Hellish Rebuke, granting it to Champions within 2 slots of her, or you can increase her damage with
Dark One's Blessing, which also increases the damage output of
Hellish Rebuke to those Champions that have access to it.
Farideh's Ultimate Attack:
Farideh's Infernal Aspect is a new ability granted to her as a Chosen of Asmodeus. With it, she can project an aura of menace, affecting her enemies and causing them to be frightened. In our game, that means she's going to sprout a pair of fiery wings for the duration of the ability, tapping into her infernal connection. She pushes enemies back, slowing them for the duration of the ultimate, while she also damages a random enemy EVERY second, for 15 seconds.
Look out, baddies. We've got an angry tiefling!
Farideh's Equipment
Slot 1: Amulet
- Farideh's amulet increases her damage.
Slot 2: Magical Rod
- Farideh's chosen focus increases her damage.
Slot 3: Spellbook
- Farideh's book increases the effect of her Hellish Rebuke ability.
Slot 4: Armor
- Farideh's armor increases the effect of her Pact Family ability.
Slot 5: Wroth Deck
- Farideh's wroth deck increases her Ultimate Attack damage.
Slot 6: Chapbooks
- The chapbooks that Havilar continues to loan Farideh reduce the cooldown of her Ultimate Attack.
What about any other Farideh Details I'm looking for?
Farideh is Neutral Good, and her stats are as follows:
Str: 10 Dex: 14 Con: 14 Int: 14 Wis: 13 Cha: 18
Champion Rebalance
Fariedh received the following changes as part of an update on October 8th 2021:
- We've added a new ability - Sister Sister (Farideh)
- Increase the effect of Pact Family by 500% when Havilar is in the formation.
TL/DR- Final Farideh Thoughts
Farideh uses her Hellish Rebuke as an unlimited reaction to deal damage to enemies that attack her or Champions in the Formation she wants to support. She wants to work with other Tieflings and stay near your tanks. She's a DPS character that you'll want to buff, especially when facing down an enemy that attacks multiple Champions!
We'll be watching the discussion online and on discord to see how well she's received, so let us know what you think on
Facebook,
Twitter, or on the
official Discord! If you are enjoying Farideh, consider checking out the
Brimstone Angels series by Erin M. Evans. It's a good read!
Chris Dupuis
