another niche unit?!” /badjoke Recently I decided to build an Ahman. He had recently gotten a buff so that his passive skill had increased from 12% of his Max HP to 20%, and I figured “why not?” People told me that Ahman is a waste of time and he doesn’t really do much, but after building one myself, I feel like what they say about him is wrong, as I personally like him. Ahman is a three-star monster; the light Bearman. As per tradition, I’m going to show my stats and runes on him before we talk about him. (As of this writing, I’ve managed to get my fastest GB10 time to 1:20, 2:00 DB10, and unstable 4:00 NB10) For those who don’t know why I’m talking about Ahman, it’s because of his passive when awakened; which says that whenever he lands a critical hit, all allies are healed by 20% of his Max HP. Let’s begin!

Early-Game Ahman

[caption id="attachment_17464" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Side note: I actually ran this team out of sheer curiosity. I dunno why but it was only 2:26. Note that Shannon does not have a slot 4 rune.[/caption] I highly wouldn’t recommend building Ahman for early-game. The only reason why I am building Ahman is because I was bored at the time and wanted a new fun toy to play around with. He requires a lot of rune stats in order to shine. Let’s just list it right off the bat:

• 100% Crit Rate
• Oodles of HP in order for his heals to be worth it
• Speed

Right now, my Ahman has some of my better Violent and Blade runes and even now I feel like he still needs to be better. Think of how difficult it would be for new players to hit 100% Crit Rate to keep a constant heal source, much less have enough HP to heal enough to make a dent in HP bars. With Veromos’s lead, my own Ahman only heals for about 4,000 HP. My ultimate goal is to get him to heal for 10,000 HP (but as calculated, he’d need 50,000 HP). In other words, I would not recommend building Ahman if you’re early game. If you’re mid-game/late-game and need a steady source of heals for TOA and HoH, though, go for it!

Mid-Game Ahman

This is probably where you can best use Ahman. Here, I’d recommend going Violent/Blade on him. You can even switch Blade out for Energy to give him more HP if you can reach 100% CRIT Rate without Blade. Obviously, the optimal 2/4/6 stats would be HP%/CRIT RATE%/HP%.

Late-Game Ahman

You’re probably not going to use Ahman at late game, let me tell you that. I’m not even late-game yet, so my advice here would be don’t. He has no use late-game; can’t use him in raids or in the Arena – …I stand corrected.

Skillups for Ahman?

You really don’t need skillups for Ahman. His main priority is his passive healing; the damage – if you can even call it that – is just extra. Basically, Ahman is fine without skillups. I seriously wouldn’t recommend it; it’d just be a waste of time.

Where to Use Ahman?

This here is actually a question I myself am trying to figure out the answer to. Obviously, you can’t use him for GB10 if you’re a newer player, because – I’m not going to sugarcoat this – your rune sets are going to be pretty bad at that point. You don’t have a steady source of the good runes that those who have been farming GB10, DB10 and whatnot for a while have. Therefore, building and using Ahman would just be a waste of resources. I suppose you can use him in DB10 as a member of a Tower Team (where you kill the right tower and then the boss), but really, you might as well just go for a face team. Tower Teams are slow, inefficient, and usually requires you to build a reviver; someone like Mikene, but my reviver during my Tower Team days as Eladriel. Yeah, I used to be a Tower Teamer. I can really only see a use for him in TOA and Hall of Heroes. His first skill is a built-in Provoke, and he has an AoE heal no matter what he does, so you don’t have to worry about damage. I haven’t tested him out in Hall of Heroes yet, but I probably will this next HoH.

Ahman vs. Belladeon

This is frequently debated amongst the newbies to Summoner’s War: Which light healer is better? I’m going to tell you, every time, to pick Belladeon if it’s Sunday and you want to know which monster to go after. She is the absolute MVP of early-game; with a huge AoE heal + attack bar increase, a 2-turn defense break and can completely strip buffs off of one enemy, you’ll use her in your starter teams for everywhere. I do mean everywhere. Ahman, on the other hand, is more of a mid-game “toy” monster that you can play around with because you want to build an interesting/niche unit. As much as I insist you get Belladeon first before Ahman, both of them still have their ups and downs. Here, I’m going to list the pros and cons of both, and how I feel about both monsters in general.

Belladeon

• The pros:
  • Easy to acquire
  • Two-turn defense break
  • Single-target complete buff strip
  • Heals all allies for 30% of their Max HP
  • Also fills their attack bars by 30%
  • Will be used in early-game GB10, DB10, TOA, and NB10
  • Easier to rune
• The cons:
  • Heal has a cooldown
  • Will sometimes prioritize damage over healing
  • Kind of falls off late-game

Ahman

• The pros:
  • Easy to acquire
  • Provoke on first skill
  • Always heals
  • Doesn’t need skillups
• The cons:
  • Higher rune requirement
  • Seems to be more of a mid-game monster
  • No defense break
  • Less heals

Overall, Ahman is a pretty niche monster, but I like him in general. You can build him if you want, or you can just…not. I’m Sara Ann, and I’ll see you in the next article!]]>