Ornithox

Ancient Creation

Nature engineered a living beast of wood and cogs.

Deep in the Twilight Woodlands lives a particular tribe of small-framed elves that lack the physical strength to protect themselves. Their chieftain ordered the tribe’s small carpentry guild to construct a war machine. The guild built a protector, “Ornithox,” a wooden dragon, capable of flying by use of intricate cogs, pulleys, and levers.

The chieftain was not impressed by their “toy” and sentenced them to death. The guild members prayed for a miracle. The morning of the execution, a dangerous Stalking Beast lay dead at Ornithox’s feet, though nary a villager had heard neither clatter, clop, nor clank in the night.

Their chieftain formally recognized Ornithox to be the tribe’s protector and the carpentry guild members were released from their sentence, and a feast was had to celebrate their ingenuity.

Mythic Wind Warrior

Breeding Pair: Korgon (Level 12), Phasma (Level 12)

Spells

GALE SPHERE - Active | Red | 1 Rage

First cast shields dragon for (30)% of its modified HP and increases the dragon's breath damage by (400)%. Recast to detonate shield, damaging nearby towers for (8)% of dragon's modified HP. Duration: 6s.

UPDRAFT - Active | White | 2 Rage

Damages a target tower for (0)% of the dragon's modified HP and freezes it for (2) seconds.

WIND ENERGY - Active | Blue | 1 Rage

Restores (3) rage on cast (net +2) and dragon heals for (14)% of its modified HP whenever it destroys a tower. Duration: 4s. Cooldown: 4s.

TORQUE ENGINE - Passive | Yellow

Dragon has 60% increased rage regeneration.

Design Intent

Ornithox is a slight alteration on the winning warrior dragon formula. Created by a tribe of frail elven craftsmen, this dragon wields all the abilities of the most powerful beasts they had ever studied. Gale Sphere is a shield that also greatly boosts the power of its breath attack -- it has a short duration, but with careful timing, it can be detonated right before it expires for a bit of extra damage.

Due to the difficulties of engineering a life-like roar into a wooden wyvern, Ornithox has Updraft instead; a large ground targeted AOE freeze that trades ease of use for increased range and control. When piloting Ornithox, use Gale Sphere to burn down priority towers along with aimed Updrafts to keep back islands frozen and unable to fire on you.

Ornithox requires a lot of rage to keep ticking, so the elves engineered its Torque Engine to provide it with greater rage regeneration. Torque Engine is a passive ability, which gives Ornithox increased natural rage regeneration to fuel it’s demanding kit of spells. Torque Engine, along with the spike in rage gained from its final spell, Wind Energy, provides an abundance of rage to this dragon.

Finally, to keep it sustained and healthy on the battlefield, Wind Energy also allows Ornithox to recover health for every building it destroys while the spell is active.