Empires and Puzzles Zocc

Zocc – Hero of the month August 2020

• Deals 300% damage to the target.
• Increases the mana of the target by 50%
• The target automatically casts Mindless Attack on a random ally when mana is full during 3 turns.
• Element Link gives all Nature allies +30% defense against Special Skills for 4 turns. This effect can’t be dispelled.

Mindless attack

• When a hero is afflicted with “Mindless attack”, when that hero’s mana is full,
• A “slash” attack (100% damage) to any allied hero
• That hero’s mana is reduced to 0.
• Activation of Mindless attack when on attacking team occurs right before activation of your special skills and matching of tiles.
• Activation of Mindless attack on defending team occurs before activation of their specials and regular attacks.
• This means that there is no way to dispel the status ailment before mindless attack triggers.

Zocc Hero Review

If you have already played Empires and Puzzles for quite some time, you will understand the power of mana control. Effects that prevent enemy heroes from activating their special skill is a life saver.

This effect in heroes like Hel, Proteus, Hansel & Gretel, Merlin make them solid choices for offensive raids, with top players showing that you can win highly unfavored raids using these heroes. Example here.

Compared to Merlin, Hansel or Gretel, Zocc is definitely more reliable.

Firstly, when utilizing Merlin, Hansel, Gretel on offense, you MUST estimate whether your target will be able to activate their special skill in the next turn or two.

Secondly, you should err on the side of activating these mana control earlier, rather than later. The reason for this is because you never know if the next match you make will cascade into a multi-combo, allowing your target to activate their specials.

These often create awkward situations whereby you know your next match will cause a cascade of tiles – but you are not sure if those tiles will result in the enemy special being activated.

Should you choose to wait, you could end up allowing the special to be triggered, or even worse, end up dead. Should you activate your own special early, the cascade might be less than expected, resulting in a non-effective mana control.

And this is where Zocc shines.

Zocc gives the target 50% mana – which removes the reliability issue of your mana control, reducing the skill level required to play Zocc to his full potential.

With some decent planning, you will always be able to zero your target’s mana upon activation of Zocc’s special.

When you consider such an outcome, Zocc’s special at Average speed seems quite well balanced.

Zocc in Offensive raids

As mentioned previously, mana control heroes are always in high demand.

Activation of Zocc’s special should almost always mean that you are able to neutralize a single hero reliably for at least the next 3 turns.

However when you put that into perspective, isn’t simply killing your target much more effective, as compared to simply stopping their special from activating? That said, such an ideal scenario is not always available, and being able to delay activation of your target’s special for you to buy enough turns to activate your own specials to kill them would be the next best strategy.

Therefore, Zocc is really a support hero – not really enough damage to take out the opponent, but great at preventing the opponent team from killing your guys.

Ultimately – Zocc is a very skill based hero. Which target do you want to stop the activation of their special? Stopping the healer helps you kill them faster, but if you don’t stop Azlar (example) your whole team could end up dead. But if you stop Azlar, Vivica will will dispel the status ailment, and heal that enemy that is about to die. Ah. Dilemma.

Therefore the rating for Zocc will be very very different from player to player.

Personally, I rate Zocc an A for offense.

Read more about setting up your teams for offensive raids here.

Zocc in Defense

Zocc is slightly worse off in defense due to the poor AI targetting system. However that is partially offset by the 50% mana given to the target.

That 50% mana greatly increases the efficiency of Zocc in a defense team – but just barely making Zocc viable in defense.

Read more about setting up your teams for raid defense here.

Zocc against Titans

Zocc is quite decent against titans – preventing titans from activating their special skill is always a good thing.

Zocc has moderate tile damage and skill damage and lacks buff/debuff that can increase your titan score.

Zocc is good if you want to save items in titan fights, but not the best choice of hero if you are aiming for the high score.

Guide to Titan Fights

Zocc Hero Grade/Rating

Titan – A-
Offence – A
Defence Tank – C
Defence Flank – A
Defence Wing – B
Defense Overall – B
Tournaments Rush Attack – A
Tournaments Buff Booster – C
Tournaments Bloody Attack – A
Overall A