Rise of the Witch King

Gandalf the Grey, later on Gandalf the White, is a powerful wizard and strong Men of the West hero.

This guide is going to explain his strengths and weaknesses in detail and will help you to utilize his full potential.


First of all, a look at his general statistics:

Cost: 4000
Health: 2700
Armor: Normal Hero Armor
Damage: 300

Gandalf has normal survivability but make sure to keep him out of trouble anyways. He's too expensive to let him just die. This changes when he reaches level five. You can then even use him as some kind of a tank.

His damage has been tripled from 2.01 to 2.02 to 300, so he now does decent damage.

Note:
- When he reaches Level three he gets a passive Shield Bubble ability: +300% armor for 2.5 seconds, activates automatically when being damaged, recharge time 60 seconds.

- When he reaches Level five, he becomes Gandalf the White and gains:
+500 hitpoints
-25% spell recharge time
- fear resistance for allied units nearby

But you don't buy a wizard for his physical strength: Let's now take a look at his mighty magical powers.

Abilities

Level 1: Wizard Blast

Gandalf's first power is not to be underestimated: It deals a great amount of damage in a great radius. This, together with the fast recharge time of 45 seconds (from 30 seconds in 2.01), makes it an ideal power to kill clumped armies. It can kill almost any unit instantly, unless they are buffed. As you can see, it's an all-around power which is great to have in almost any situation.

Note:

You should cast Wizard Blast on a unit in the middle or back of the targeted battalion. This way you kill the maximal amount of enemies.

Level 2: Lightning Sword

This power was strong in 2.01 already, but it has been greatly buffed so it's now an extraordinary strong power which really makes Gandalf pay off.

It was changed in two ways: First of all, the damage dealt by one flash was increased from 300 magic and 60 flame to 500 magic and 180 flame. As Gandalf sends out eleven flashes, this power can kill almost any hero and a lot of buildings you target. Just make sure there are no other units in the targeted area so all the flashes hit the hero or building.

With 2.02, another way to use this power was introduced: Splash damage with radius 15 was added. This makes it a great army killer as well, which is as strong as Wizard Blast if not even more powerful.

However, the recharge time is quite long (2m30s, from 4m) so don't use the power on a single battalion.

Level 4: Mount/Dismount

Gandalf can ride his horse Shadowfax, the fastest horse in Middle-Earth. According to this, 2.02 increased his mounted speed by 50%, enabling him to escape exceptionally fast on his horse. Mount/Dismount is now enabled slightly earlier, on level four rather than level five. But Gandalf now uses resilient hero armor when mounted, which means he will suffer twice as much damage from pikemen as he used to.

Level 7: Istari Light

This power sends out a bright beam of light that deals very high damage and has a small splash radius as well. Although the recharge time is rather short, you should only use Istari Light on heroes or strong units (such as Deathbringers).

Weaker heroes can almost be killed by it, whereas stronger take serious damage and will be forced to retreat from the battle.



Note:

Istari Light can kill any Nazgul in one hit. However, it can't kill Drogoth and Eagles anymore, but will damage them pretty hard.

Level 10: Word of Power

Gandalf's final power sends out a shockwave which does an enormous amount of 2000 damage, compared to 500 in 2.01, in a very large radius. This way, it can kill most mini heroes and any normal units in the radius. Heroes take serious damage as well. The recharge time is very long, but that's more than appropriate for this awesome power.