Onatel is perfect to control a Mother North tank setup.
Or other slow charging tanks as well…
Just like Athena could smash massive damage to a red tank.
If you pull her feel lucky if not you may pull another great hero.
Dont be afraid of not getting her - all in all its just a game 
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Good question, and something I didn’t test in beta. @MrKenny’s answer is correct but not responsive. The situation is, I believe, like this: suppose enemy GM is under Onatel’s special, second turn. GM needs but one tile to charge. Four tiles hit, nominally giving two tiles of mana to GM and two to Onatel. But GM only could use one tile. Does Onatel get one or two tiles of mana?
Just to clarify, Onatel has a hit-3 at 250%. “Splash” usually means “and minor damage to nearby”. And you’re right that her attack is unimpressive—it’s a touch weaker than Thoth-Amun’s, and he is widely derided as a weak hitter. Onatel is there for the mana control and a more strategic, longer raid. I appreciate that the meta has swung towards fast and faster, but I see hints that SGG is working to slow it. Consider that both Santa and Mother North are slow minion-casters.
But as was pointed out:
Only yellow heroes cast blind, so it’s yellow-on-yellow, not the normal setup (especially if Onatel is tank). In beta raiding I did use her whenever there was a non-tank Drake or Joon, and the blind immunity was a nice perk.
The “immunity” trick is the new perk for 2019 HOTM, it appears. Next month’s. Kunchen (say kun-CHEN) has the much more valuable immunity to -defense.
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Absolutely not, her special is too delayed to be as impactful as you might imagine it is.
haven’t gotten to test her out yet will be a little while but she did fine for me as a tank in a few pve matches. only thing is her special doesn’t lower there mana just gives some to her but I don’t know how strongnit will be after she is leveled up
Onatel is a team player. She slows down the foes, giving you more time to charge your primary offensive weapons. You’ll still want the GMs and Zelines of your team to lay waste to the field.
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You can have her skill on all 5 at once.
To me she’s more like Drake Fong in a tank position. She can be effectively fast by stealing mana from others. She however doesn’t have Fong’s blinding ability.
On the contrary, the delay for her special makes her effectively a slow hero.
That won’t slow down her attacking ability.
I think that she’s less versatile than Drake Fong though.
Her attack is immediate, and her first-round mana effect is stronger than Alasie’s. Then it gets better.
In beta a lot of people were asking to see how she would play with a 3-round effect, scaling 33%/67%/100%. So less total impact but “ripens” faster. Unfortunately that variant was never released, but it’s the sort of tweak we might see yet. Lady Locke went from 6 to 4 turns.
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she either needs to be : ((fast) optional) hit all affect all lower turns to 3 and increase siphon percentage. her skill damage can be lowered.
give or take right now she barely does anything near Guinevere . very lackluster. much sad
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You and I disagree. Time will tell.
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sorry busy . slow typing while distracted. either way she needs a buff.
I wouldn’t mind if she stay the way she is and +PLUS siphon mana from nearby allies. BECAUSE she is blind and needs allies to guide her LOL
***and she could blind the 3 enemies lol blind lady blinds heroes.
As someone who loves mana control heroes and likes to try find ways for even the most maligned heroes to be useful I feel I should love Onatel but honestly I’m struggling to think of situations where I would prefer Onatel over the 4* mana controllers.
If I’m looking to use a mana controller it is because I want to stop bosses or enemy heroes from being able to use their specials whilst being able to fire as many tiles as possible into them. Indeed a variation on this with Merlin and Gretel in tandem allowed me to complete the Christmas event with a sub 3400 TP team quite effectively.
However Onatel won’t stop specials, just slow them down. So in something like the Xmas event it would appear the likes of Merlin, Gretel, Hansel or Proteus would be more useful to counter the likes of Mother North.
In raid offense I’m struggling to see how she is much of an improvement over someone like Proteus. With Proteus if you get a board favourable to him you can freeze the mana of everyone on one side, charge again and then freeze the other side whilst being able to refresh the mana freeze on the tank if it isn’t already dead. Onatel on the other hand if you recharge quickly would either have to aim her attack on the wing to avoid resetting the mana drain on the tank (thereby missing out on some damage) or reset the mana drain on the tank if still standing.
Comparing Onatel to other mana slowers like Alasie and Little John both have higher attack stats and do more damage overall with their special that the mana slowing is a nice secondary effect. Onatel however does less damage than Drake Fong’s special (whereas he will stop a few slashes or specials from blinding your enemy) is making the mana siphoning the primary reason for her use and it seems rather lacklustre.
Without some sort of defense up or improved heal (perhaps whole healing elemental link family buffed to gaining 6% over 4 turns rather than 4% over 6 turns) tiling her to death on defence will be too easy to remove her status effect, even easier for those with Kageburado and Victor who may have got a special off before she even charged.
So whilst I want to like her I struggling to see how on offense she is much better than many of the 4* mana controllers out there and considering people are 4 times more likely to get Hansel or Gretel than Onatel when Grimforest comes round next month is she worth trying to pull for?
@Kerridoc do you mind trying to sell her to me? You seem the most enthusiastic of those who’ve used her and I’m wondering what situations would she be better to use than someone like Merlin, Gretel, Hansel or Proteus and is it worth the extra power up costs and costs of trying to pulling for her?
Mana siphoning could be an interesting idea but I think it seems kind of wasted here as the fact her status effect starts low penalizes being able to recast it sooner with the siphoned mana so you’ll have to wait to reuse it anyway. There is obviously a balance issue that even taking a small amount of mana gain from three will give a lot to one hero. As such I reckon a better mana siphon for Onatel could be “The caster steals generated mana of the target and nearby enemies over 4 turns starting high and decreasing every turn (Let’s say 80%, 60%, 40%, 20% siphoning turns). The stolen mana is shared between the caster and nearby allies, the slower the hero the greater the proportion of mana received. This effect cannot be dispelled.” In this version you don’t get penalised as much for refreshing the special so recharging it earlier with the siphon is better, sharing the mana gain means Onatel wouldn’t charge every turn whilst starting high and Onatel gains a supporting role and helps make more average and slower heroes viable against increasing numbers of very fast heroes. By making the mana share inversely proportional to hero speed helps facilitate this supporting role and reduce chance Kageburado-Onatel-Gravemaker becoming a too frequent raid defense.
Alternatively she could be made more of a mana controller with the siphon with changing Onatel so she can only siphon mana the target had at the point the status effect was applied. They slowly have their existing mana stolen with anything they gain after casting point kept. Sure you can still overcharge them still and have their special go off but she could be paired with Hel or Proteus on offense where they stop further mana gain and she steals what they already managed to accrue. That being said whilst I would love to see a 5* yellow mana controller like this I think the other suggested mana siphoning may be better for the meta in general.
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tldr. jk i read ur essay. very long and much wowe. Doge.
Does Kunchen resist elemental defense downs (like Jackal’s) or is it just the normal ramming pulverizer defense down?
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Onatel has stats that no 4* approaches, and heals herself. So she’s going to survive much longer than Proteus/Gretel/etc.
Unlike Hansel/Merlin/Gretel, Onatel controls mana on three foes. Her direct damage is meaningful, while Proteus relies on DoT.
The biggest difference is that she is gaining mana back, not merely slowing it. Once she fires, you can keep her going indefinitely, slamming first one side then the other. A key to this success is that she charges on any color tile. Proteus and Hel need purple tiles to charge. All Onatel needs (once she starts) is tiles dropped onto her victims.
She is not an easy hero to play well. For those who like to “fly casual” there are better options. But if you can set up the boards, she Onatel can be great fun to play. Not overwhelming—I’ve lost with her several times—but Strategic an, for me, fun.
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Thanks for the reply. I’ll try keep an eye out for any videos that might get posted of people trying to use her and keep an open mind. However I think as it stands she’s probably not going to be that useful for me. My current yellow 5* go to heroes for offense are Joon, Drake or Vivica. If I’m passing on them to use Gretel it’s because I really want to stop a special - like Mother North’s in Xmas event - with damage being a lesser issue and between them I’m not sure how much she adds to it really.
Granted Onatel does have the higher stats overall I’ve largely found suppressing the specials and having a HoT hero makes up a lot for what those 4* lack in defense - though notably all of those 4* have higher tile damage without requiring the rarest AMs.
I don’t know if that means the 4* controllers are overpowered or whether Onatel has been undercooked a little over concerns that mana influencing on a 5* can risk being too OP. I’ll keep on open mind and look out for some vids but still reckon mana siphoning would be better if the mana gained was shared with her neighbours than charging just her special faster to then wait to cast it to not reset it. At the moment I think I’d be more frustrated that if I charged Onatel in two turns that I’m missing out on the mana gains of the last two turns whilst I wait to recast my special so as to not waste the most mana suppressing turns of the special.
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Unfortunately, the pu$h toward fast and very fast heroes has made slow heroes and heroes with delayed effects like Onatels definitively suboptimal.
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I haven’t created a cleaned up version, but most of the data used is included in 7DD’s Alliance War Team Planner.
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