Arena of Valor (AoV) - Quillen Hero Guide

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List of Item Builds
Warrior	Tank	Assassin
Mage	Marksman	Support

Quillen’s Item Builds

Quillen’s Stats and Abilities

Overview

Quillen is a slippery assassin with loads of damage provided you can take advantage of his Ambush passive, which increases damage when striking from behind. Assassinate provides Quillen with stealth, allowing him easy entry and exit from battle. Once a kill or assist is secured, his abilities reset, allowing him to either escape or move onto the next target.

Strengths

• High Damage – When built and used properly, Quillen can rip apart his enemies often before they have a chance to react. With enough damage and/or crit damage built up, and experience striking from behind, Quillen’s enemies will melt like butter
• Low Cooldowns – Mutilate and Assassinate have very low cooldowns, while Decimate has CDR built in. Add in the 15% CDR from Soulreaver – Quillen’s preferred jungle item – and Quillen players can usually use abilities off cooldown with no worries. And this is before we even mention the cooldown resets Quillen gets once he reaches level 4.
• Hard to Track Down – Assassinate makes it extremely hard to notice Quillen’s approach or escape, as he gains invisibility and a lot of movement speed. Once Quillen picks up a kill or assist and he makes the decision to get out, it’s all guesswork as to which direction he ran off to.

Weaknesses

• Very Squishy – If ever caught without Assassinate to get away, Quillen is an extremely easy target to kill. And because his abilities are based on additional attack damage, Quillen is basically useless unless he’s building damage, so there’s really no way around this weakness.
• Short Range – Quillen’s abilities are all very short in range, meaning he has to physically approach his target in order to be effective. Decimate can be particularly difficult to use, because Quillen needs to get right next to an enemy facing him if he wants to finish the ability behind the enemy (and get the extra critical damage).
• Can be Shut Down – While admittedly a vague weakness, there are a multitude of ways to shut down Quillen. Whether by CC or just facing him to prevent damage, if players can prevent Quillen from getting his first kill, he not only can’t kill anyone else, but he won’t be able to get away. And for assassin junglers who like to snowball, getting shutdown early is a clear path to defeat.

Hero Basic Strategy

Laning Strategy

• Quillen’s best role is in the jungle, where he can quickly build up to three items (including boots) and start to snowball the game.
  • Always attack behind jungle minions for the extra damage so you can clear faster. Jungle minions stop to attack, so use that time to re-position yourself behind them.
• Be wary of any invades, as Quillen is weakest at the start of the game. Ping your allies to cover blind spots, if necessary.
• If someone is asking to die early, then by all means take them out. But otherwise make sure to keep jungling to hit that 3-item sweet spot before going on the hunt.

Leveling Progression

• Level Mutilate first for maximum damage early.
• Keep in mind that Quillen won’t have ability cooldown resets until he acquires Assassinate

Battle Strategy

• Solo Fights: First off, only fight enemies you can quickly kill. While some tanks may look relatively harmless, one stun and a rotation from an ally and you’re dead. Once you’ve found an enemy you can easily kill, use Assassinate to approach them without them noticing. Use Decimate on their backs (it may take some time to get used to the range so you can perfectly hit their back from the front or behind), then immediately use Mutilate. At this point, they should be nearly dead, so one more auto attack and/or one more Mutilate is all it should take. Once they’re dead, use Assassinate to get out of there before the rest of the team comes to kill you.
  • A note on Quillen’s combo: you’ll see the following combo in a lot of places: Decimate – attack – Mutilate – attack. However, because Quillen doesn’t build attack speed until Omni Arms, going for Decimate – Mutilate – attack gives the most damage in the shortest amount of time, since there’s virtually no delay between abilities and attacks (try it in trial mode and you’ll see it’s much faster). And since the second combo gives you your second Mutilate faster, it’s also better if you need to do a little bit more damage than the first combo. In the end, it comes down to preference, but the second combo is better in most situations in our opinion (especially since human opponents tend to react to your appearance so getting the most damage early on is usually optimal).
• Team Fights: Mechanically, team fights are the same as solo fights. Use Assassinate to find an unsuspecting enemy in the back line, and execute the combo above. If you’re still relatively high on health after your first kill, then move on to the next easiest kill, rinsing and repeating until they’re all dead. If you’re low after a kill or assist, then use Assassinate to get away and heal. If the fight is still going on, wait for Assassinate to come off cooldown and join the fight again, as you’ll have healed a decent chunk of your health by then.
• Escaping the Battle: Use Assassinate to get away, perhaps juking your opponent if they’ve correctly predicted your escape path. Decimate can also be used as a dash to get away, but it’s pretty short-range and you’ll reveal yourself, so only use it once Assassinate isn’t available. Because of Quillen’s cooldown resets, escaping the battle is as much about how well you executed the fight as anything.

Abilities

Ambush – Passive – Attacks made behind the enemy have a 100% chance to strike critically, and none of the attacks made in front of the enemy will be critical strikes. Quillen has a base critical damage of 125%, with an additional 0.5% for every 1% he gains. The highest amount of damage dealt to non-heroes is capped at 1,500.

• To state the obvious: hitting behind the enemy is everything when it comes to Quillen. Taking the extra time to re-position yourself is worth it if you can secure the extra damage.
• Ambush makes Claves Sancti for Quillen one of the most “core” item-hero pairings in the game, as it adds a total of 62.5% critical damage.

Mutilate – Quillen attacks twice in target direction, dealing 175/200/225/250/275/300 (+0.55 [additional] AD)ˀ physical damage.

• Mutilate needs a target nearby to activate. This can be frustrating when trying to damage a stealth hero, but is very useful when trying to secure the last bit of damage on someone – just spam it and it’ll only activate if you’re in range.
• Mutilate gets all of the benefits of an auto-attack and none of the downsides (item-wise): you can move while using it, it can crit, it doesn’t get reduced in damage by items like Sonic Boots, you get the extra damage from items like Fafnir’s Talon, you get life steal (which is normally limited to just auto-attacks), and perhaps mostly importantly, you get the effects from items like Omni Arms and Frost Cape.
• Because Mutilate cannot be aimed even if you hold the ability down, make sure to adjust your targeting settings so that you attack the correct target. Quillen will turn and face the enemy he’s attacking during Mutilate, so enemies who are technically within the targeting circle but in the opposite direction will not be damaged.
• Be careful when spamming abilities, because both Decimate and Assassinate will animation-cancel Mutilate. Though this may seem useful, you won’t get any benefits from Assassinate if the second strike of Mutilate goes off after you’ve cast Assassinate. Meanwhile, you’ll want to use Mutilate after Decimate for the CDR, so using Decimate between strikes is similarly a bad idea.

Decimate – Quillen moves in the target direction rapidly and attacks a nearby enemy after reaching his destination, dealing 350/390/430/470/510/550 (+1.0 [additional] AD) physical damage and marking the target for 10 seconds. Each time Quillen attacks the marked target, the target’s movement speed is reduced by 50% for one second and the cooldown for Decimate is reduced by 1 second. Quillen also takes 30% reduced damage from the marked target. Only one target can be marked at any given time.

• Whether Decimate lands a critical strike is dependent on where Quillen is at the end of the Decimate, not before. Therefore, if you’re passing through an enemy with Decimate, make sure to start in front and finish behind
• Make sure to use Decimate before Mutilate, since the 2 strikes of Mutilate will reduce Decimate’s cooldown by a combined 2 seconds.
• Though the dash is very short, the range of the damage is nearly twice as long as the dash. This makes aiming for critical hits tricky, since you can be somewhat far from your opponent if they’re turned away from you, but you’ll need to be nearly point-blank if they’re facing you.

Assassinate – Quillen enters stealth after a short charging time. While in stealth, he gains 40% movement speed and recovers 100/150/200 (+0.25 [additional] AD) HP every 0.5 seconds for 3 seconds. When he launches an attack, he comes out of stealth and gains 150/175/200 attack damage and 30% movement speed for 1 second when he damages an enemy target. Passive: Refreshes cooldowns of all abilities when killing a hero or completing an assist.

• The description is a bit confusing – it should read something like, “When Quillen attacks, he comes out of stealth and gains 150/175/200 attack damage for 3 seconds. During those 3 seconds, Quillen gains 30% movement speed for 1 second whenever he damages an enemy”
• Despite the name, Assassinate is Quillen’s best escape tool, so don’t use it unless you’re planning an attack or no one is nearby.
• Enemies can see a glimmer when Quillen enters stealth, so try not to use Assassinate right in front of them

How to Counter Quillen

• If you’re a tank or warrior with good CC, stick close to your squishies – one stun can be all it takes for your back line to annihilate him
• Unless you’re very close to a tower, don’t try to run away from Quillen. Facing him makes it much harder for him to kill you, and you may be able to burst him before he bursts you.

Hero Item Builds

SG Recommended Build
Soulreaver	Gilded Greaves	Claves Sancti
Omni Arms	Muramasa	Fenrir’s Tooth

SG Recommended Build
Soulreaver	Gilded Greaves	Claves Sancti	Omni Arms	Muramasa	Fenrir’s Tooth

More Quillen Item Builds

Hero Arcana

• Rampage is by far the best red Arcana for Quillen, as it adds the most damage throughout the game. If you don’t have Rampage, then Atrocity still works better than Onslaught (the standard red Arcana for damage dealers).
• Purple can be Guerilla or Assassinate, while Skewer is the only option for green.

Hero Counters

Tank

Just stay away, it’s not worth your time. Unless it’s the early game and they’re just asking to die, you’re better off finding some jungle camps to take or an unsuspecting squishy. Trying to kill a tank will just invite the rest of the team over to kill you.

Warrior

Check their build to see how tanky they are. Heroes like Skud and Ryoma will generally build pretty squishy, so you can take them out pretty easily. If they build more tanky, then avoid them like you’d avoid tanks.

Assassin

Whoever can get the jump on the other first will win an assassin duel. Since you’ll have stealth, you’ll usually take it as long as you don’t bungle Assassinate or your positioning for critical hits.

Mage

It really depends on the mage. Most of the time, you’ll have an easy time taking them out. However, a Veera with quick reactions can stun you and kill you before you can finish her off. Similarly, a Flash or Liliana can dash away to safety, leaving you vulnerable.

Marksman

Marksmen are your primary target, as even a Valhein with his litany of stuns can’t take you out fast enough. As long as you position correctly, Marksmen should be easy prey.

Support

Quillen likes to take out heroes one-by-one, and supports are usually around an ally. If a roaming support is scouting too aggressively, then you can punish them for their positioning. Otherwise, you can take their CC into account but generally ignore them and aim for the damage dealers.

Heroes List
Warrior	Tank	Assassin
Mage	Marksman	Support

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