Blood of Steel – Lady Zhurong Hero Guide- Skirmisher Extraordinaire

Introduction

Howdy, Lady Zhurong is one of my favorite heros, so I wrote up a guide to help anyone who has trouble playing with her.

I’m by no means the best Lady Zhurong player, but with the below tips and tricks you should see more results like this in your matches playing as her.

So lets get started!

Quick Pros and Cons

Advantages:

Speed:
One of if the fastest infantry units in the game, allowing her huntsmen to avoid or disengage from almost any melee fight with minimal casualtes.

Hard Hitting Arrows:
The Huntsman’s arrows do large amounts of burst damage and allow the Huntsman to engage enemy infantry with near complete safety if properly positioned. Huntsman also rarely ever need to use supply points due to the replenish arrow ability.

Wonderous Hounds:
The Warhounds spot hidden units easily, making her hard to sneak up on. They also can be used to flank or hold back enemy infantry. Giving the Huntsman plenty of time to fire their arrows off. The also can be healed or reaspawned 3-4 times over the course of a long match giving Lady Zhurong effectively 60+ at her disposal.

All these make her a powerful light infantry killer, good flanker, and the ultimate harasser of everything but cavalry. The enemy can’t hide from her dogs, and they can’t run from her huntsman. Heavy Infantry with shields are harder nuts to crack 1v1, but the Huntsman’s speed allows them to be kited fairly easily.

Downsides:

Fragility:

On their own Lady Zhurong’s units can be easily be taken out in a direct engagement due to their low armor and HP, by infantry in melee range, and by archers at long range. Cav will utterly screw her day no matter what.

Low Ammo Count:
Each huntsman only has 8 arrows. This means they can only fire for very limited bursts of time.

Microintensive:
Playing Lady Zhurong to her fullest requires you to effectively manage two units at once each with their own set of abilities and resources. She is listed as having only 24 Troops, but including Warhounds she can have up to 48. Getting the most out of this hero and its troops requires that a player manage them independently which can be hard especially since the dogs and huntsman have different movement speeds.

Jack of All Trades Master of None:
The Fragility of her units, and their inability to face down opponents in direct engagements. Her wide variety of abilities make her a good generalist, but every other unit outperforms her in some Capacity. Melee units will eat her huntsman alive without protection. Archers will turn them into a pincushion at long range. Cavalry will wreck her day at any range. She needs to have the initiative to be effective. When that isn’t the case, or the enemy deliberately focuses her down, all she can do is delay the inevitable.

In General:

She is best played conservatively and more as a support unit, in most matches. Taking advantage of enemy weak points, and flanks. Shes at her best when she’s skirmishing or ambushing enemies. Try run a successive set of hit and run attacks until the enemy is worn down.
Play dirty, and evade direct fights whenever possible. Avoid being focused down and you will dominate. Become the main focus of attention and your life is on borrowed time.

Lady Zhurong- The Heroine Herself

As a hero, Lady Zhurong is listed as a warrior, but she’s better described as a strategist character. She primarily relies on her units to do most of the damage. By herself she’s an archer that opportunistically melees weakened targets. In other words keep her out of the thick of the fighting unless you have the upper hand.

Her Hunting Bow is extremely powerful, but slow firing taking out most heroes in 2-3 headshots. Its also not the most accurate with shots flying widely if you don’t fire arrows from a full draw.

Her Swift Rod does blunt damage so it does fairly well against armor, but avoid attacking any heavy infantry heroes from the front without a plan. Don’t engage any heroes 1v1 unless you have the advantage.

An often forgotten part of her kit is her Steel Trap. It doesn’t do too much damage, but it can be used as an early warning device, a roadblock for enemies, and a perfect set-up for an ambush.

Lady Zhurong also has a Sprint Attack, Nudge Attack, and a Guard Break.

Nudge Attack and Guard break are useful for breaking an enemies guard, particularly units with sheilds.

Sprint Attack works well when you want to chase down a fleeing enemy or catch a pursuer by surprise.

Focus

Focus is the reasource used by Lady Zhurong to activate her Hound’s abilities. It replenishes slowly over time. It doesn’t matter how much damage you do or how many kills you make. The rate you gain focus will stay the same. Balancing when to hoard it and when to spend it takes practice.

The Huntsman’s Abilities require no focus so feel free to use them whenever they are off cooldown.

Southern Warhounds

Dogs: Her dogs are great at flanking enemy units, nomming on archers, and detecting concealed units. They have low HP so they aren’t good at tanking damage, but they do decent damage in melee.

They also are the Huntsman’s Guard dogs. You can use them to hold back enemy infantry while the huntsman shoot over them for large amounts of damage.

The Hound’s passive, sleuth hounds, allows them to more easily find hidden units. Keep the dogs close to guard your huntsman or send them out to detect hidden units.

Dogs can often be used to cap points. Have them move into a cap with F6 while your huntsman remain hidden.

Interestingly the dogs run slower than the huntsman so make sure you don’t get too far ahead of them after long runs.
Controls:
F5: Follow : The warhounds will stay close to their Huntsman.
F6: Move : The warhounds will move to a location the players specifies.
F7: Attack : The warhounds will attack the closest enemy unit or any enemy units close to a spot specified by the player.
Abilities:

Passive:
Sleuth Hounds:

Hounds can spot concealed units more easily than regular troops.
Active:
Feral Rage:
Activated by the 5 key by default.

For .2 focus you can activate an ability that makes them glow red and make their bites do bleed (DoT) Damage over time. Great for when you really want to stick it to an enemy or want to do a quick hit and run with them.
Summon Warhounds:
Activated by the 6 key by default.

For .4 focus you can heal any surviving Hounds and respawn any dead ones. 1 Dog for every surviving huntsman. It usually takes a minute or two to build up that focus.
These will only respawn the dead Hounds so its impossible to have more hounds than you have huntsman.

Masa

Lady Zhurong’s Personal Warhound, and the Strongest of the pack.

He’s fundamentally the same as the other Warhounds, but he has more than Double the Hitpoints and damage dealt. Since it’s Lady Zhurong’s Personal Warhound, it can be spawned with Summon Warhounds for as Lady Zhurong lives.

Hound Tamer Huntsman

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Lady Zhurong is listed as Light Infantry, but her huntsman are better described as skirmishers. They don’t have the ammo capacity or range to be considered a dedicated archer unit, but the huntsman lack the melee damage or armor to be much of a threat in melee. They are better at fighting more heavily armored units than other Archers due to their blunt damage, but you should not use them in melee unless absolutely necessary.

Their main asset is their speed. They are faster than pretty much any other infantry unit so use them to pelt the enemy with arrows then retreat before any melee units can catch up. A huntsman’s ammo capacity is low(each only has only 8 arrows), but each shot hits like a truck so make each one count. Get the huntsman close to the enemy, but far enough so that they can run away if they try to chase you. Be especially careful around melee units with a charge ability.

Cavalry will absolutely ruin a huntsman’s day. If cavalry is on the map, stick close to friendly infantry (preferably spears or pikes). If this isn’t possible keep your huntsman close to things like stairs, walls, or barricades they can retreat to if cavalry threatens. In a worst case scenario use the dogs to distract them and run with whatever huntsman you can save.

Archers are also a threat. Huntsman are lightly armored and they will be cut to ribbons by any archer unit at long range. Huntsman don’t have a volley ability so its impossible to engage any units at long range. Its best to stay out of their line of fire at long range. At short range the Huntsman can can face off against some ranged units shot for shot, but its best not to try doing it head on. Flanking them, preferably with dogs are the best option. Huntsman are only slightly better than most archers at melee, but not enough to make it a sure thing.

Avoid going into melee with them unless they are flanking, the enemy has already been weakened, or is outnumbered by your huntsman significantly.

No matter what keep the huntsman alive. The amount of dogs you can spawn and command is limited to the number of huntsman remaining. You shouldn’t waste your dogs willy nilly, but they can be respawned the huntsman can’t. Every huntsman that dies means one less dog you can’t spawn.
Controls:
F1: Follow : The Huntsman will stay close to Lady Zhurong.
F2: Move : The Huntsman will move to a location the players specifies.
F3: Attack : The Huntsman will attack the closest enemy unit or any enemy units close to a spot specified by the player.
F4: Retreat: The Huntsman will step back, withdrawing from a fight if able.

Abilities:
Active:
Toggle Fire-At-Will:

Fire-At-Will must be toggled on for the huntsman to shoot. Once it is toggled on the Huntsman will usually shoot at the closest target they have a clear line of sight on.

Turn Fire-At-Will off to stop the Huntsman from Shooting. Its also important to turn it off when you need your Huntsman to move quickly. When Fire-At-Will is turned on the huntsman will look and shoot at targets as they run, slowing them down significantly.
Replenish Arrows:

Refills the ammo of the Huntsman, no supply point required. Huntsman have a low ammo capacity so you’ll need to use this plenty over the course of a long match.

Map Selection and Strategy

Strategy

Stay with friendly infantry until you can determine if cav is present.

If cavalry is around:
Stay close to said infantry or in spots where its hard for cavalry to reach. When your infantry engage an enemy rush to the flanks, send in your dogs and pelt the enemies backside with arrows. (preferably hitting the enemies right or your allies left flank side since most units wear their shields on their left arm.) When you run out of arrows retreat your dogs and your huntsman behind friendlies until your ammo restocks.

If no cavalry is present or has been killed:
Go full viet cong mode. Hide in tall grass or behind cliffs, Ambush lone infantry or archers, and/or flank groups of already engaged enemy units. Lay your trap to cover your rear, slow an enemies advance or to keep track of enemy movements. Keep hitting the enemy hard, then fading away before they can get any damage in.

Whatever you do though keep your huntsman alive. They and their dogs become exponentially more powerful the longer the match goes on. As the enemy units get weaker your ambushes get stronger. At the beginning of a match huntsman and hounds are useless in a direct assault. By the end they are usually the most powerful units since their speed keeps them from taking too much damage, and their dogs can be healed and respawned every few minutes.

Map Selection:

She does best in maps with a lot of cover, concealment and complex terrain, but with some open spaces to maneuver. She does poorly in wide open plains or tight city maps where troops are easily funneled into choke points. If there are few places for her to hide or run she can easily be trapped and dispatched.

Conclusion

This is all I know about using Lady Zhurong, or at least all i’ll tell ya ;). If you ever had any problems with her I hope this solved them. If there is anything I missed or other feedback you have. please correct me in the comments.

Peace, with a hint of war.

Hope you enjoy the Guide about Blood of Steel – Lady Zhurong Hero Guide- Skirmisher Extraordinaire, if you think we should add extra information or forget something, please let us know via comment below, and we will do our best to fix or update as soon as possible!