New Immortal: Nebuchadnezzar (Holy)
Nebuchadnezzar
Ultimate skill: Paradeisos
[Passive] Initial Energy Increased by 200 pts.
[Active] Inflict physical damage (Damage Rate x%) to all enemy units, and increase healing recieved by allied units by y%. The skill will also increase the physical damage dealt by friendly units by z% with troop number less than 50% for 6 seconds.
Scaling:
Damage rate, x: 51% / 68% / 85% / 102% / 119% / 136% / 153% / 170%
Healing rate, y: 6% / 8% / 10% / 12% / 14% / 16% / 18% / 20%
Phys. dmg. increase, z: 10.5% / 14% / 17.5% / 21% / 24.5% / 28% / 31.5% / 35%
Infinity Kingdom have a new Immortal taking the field. Nebuchadnezzar II, also spelled Nebuchadrezzar II, (born c. 630—died c. 561 bce), second and greatest king of the Chaldean dynasty of Babylonia (reigned c. 605–c. 561 bce). He was known for his military might, the splendour of his capital, Babylon, and his important part in Jewish history. Now, he is preparing to stand the test of Norheim in Infinity Kingdom combat!
General Info
- Role: Backline utility & off-dps (physical damage)
- Holy element
Nebuchadnezzar has a fair bit of complexity as much utility Immortals. While he does deal okay damage (170%) he will never be in competition with Gilgamesh for damage – much less many of the other backline damage dealers in Infinity Kingdom!
Damage comparison:
Nebuchadnezzar has 69.3 energy regen and a 170% attack hitting 4 targets.
Gilgamesh has 72.5 energy regen and a 400% attack hitting 4 targets and leaving a DoT for an additional 80% x 3 over 9 seconds.
So the damage looks low, what does he have instead?
Utility. It is the first time we are seeing an Immortal bring an increased healing recieved buff to the table. Nebuchadnezzar will increase the amount of healing done by Theodora by a whopping 20%.
Furthermore, adding to the trend in recent holy-releases, we are getting a massive 35% increase to physical damage done by friend targets.
How to unlock him?
Whilst there are no official word out on how to unluck and max him, we can comfortably assume that he will be released into the growing pool of Shadow and Holy Immortals in the Thiea’s Roulette event. This is a spender event which you can read much more about here.
Pros and Cons
Okay, so basically the way I see Nebuchadnezzar, he will be working very very well in winds and in pure-holy vs pure-holy. But I have absolutely no desire to add Nebuchadnezzar to my stable of Immortals. Why? Because there are much better setups without him.
He brings two things to the table: (1) Boost to healing and (2) boost to physical damage dealt. Let’s take a closer look at how both is going to work out in real PvP combat scenarios assuming Nebuchadnezzar will replace Gilgamesh:
(1) Playing against players who understand how extreemly powerful wounds debuffs are, Nebuchadnezzar’s ultimate is rendered into a Gilga with a lot less damage. We end up having too many Immortals boosting physical damage and only Manco to actually deal it. At the same time, we will have a Theo standing in the backline as useless as ever.
(2) In combination with Khubilai Khan we are not able to boost the damage by quite a lot. But we are running out of damage dealers to deal the damage at this point. A well built Manco can deal a lot of damage, but can he be enough? What if you face an Alex that melts your Manco, suddenly you got a ton of buffs and no one to use them?
Overpowered in pure-holy vs pure-holy whale fights. Usless against players with counter setups!
Only in very specific line-ups and counters do I see Nebuchadnezzar working well. This will include wind as a replacement for Atalanta. Doing wind with Nebuchadnezzar + Qin + Barca + Saladin/Arthur with a build centered around dragon heal, shelter and berserk.
Likewise, when holy is fighting anything that does not have wounds, then the boost to Theo healing will make it near impossible to kill. Problem just is, that brainy players are always running wounds. And even holy marches perform at their peak when running Khan in the backline.
Overall verdict
All in all, I am not holding my breath for this one. I think many big whales are going to get Nebuchadnezzar maxed very very quickly and they will enjoy killing full rallies without loosing a troop. Right until they face someone who understands PvP mechanics and kills them with a couple Khan hits..
I am always happy to be proven wrong, but I doubt this guys will change anything in the current meta. He can make for some interesting hybrids though!
There are two things I will say to give a spark of hope to Nebuchadnezzar’s future.
(1) IF we are going to see more Passives akin to Duel Master and Purify working to negate the effectiveness of wounds. Say for instance an aura that changes wounds into 80% or 70% instead of 100%. THEN we will see a shift in the holy meta towards Theo-Nebuchadnezzar-Khubilai Khan-Manco.
The above shows you how useless Theo is in the current meta even with purify AND duel master used.
This is a well built 407K+ holy loosing to 354K khan-holy.
(2) Secondly, I need to test this a lot further, but I could envision a holy-setup with Nebuchadnezzar-Genghis Khan-Manco-Khubilai Khan doing well. If you have ideas let me know. I am not sure it will outperform Gilgamesh-Genghis Khan though, seen as we have a lot more raw damage here… But it is a glimmer of hope to those who want the new shiny toy and be competitive. Ultimately, it would have to be crafted precisely right and obviously we will not have the healing sustain that Theodora offers versus non wounds and for PvE content.
Unless one of the above works out, I am afraid that Nebuchadnezzar will become just a worse Gilgamesh in top tier PvP combat.
Published: 04-11-2022