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Tirion Fordring ranks among Warcraft Rumble’s best Leaders to select for new players for being simple to play, yet extremely powerful and effective. Tirion is a well-rounded melee combatant with exceptional versatility and defensive capabilities. Wielding the iconic and legendary Ashbringer sword, Tirion is a single-target attacker who can only attack ground units.
Tirion has the Armored Trait, meaning that he only takes 50% damage from all physical attack damage sources. Being a tank, Tirion has high health compared to other units of comparable gold cost. Tirion’s leader ability is Holy Light, an auto-casted spell that will heal all nearby friendly units periodically. This is a flat-damage heal that applies equally to all units within Tirion’s range.
Overall, Tirion fits the archetype of the Paladin quite well, capturing excellent flavor from Tirion’s character in the Warcraft universe and serving as an excellent anchor to a well-rounded Rumble team.
In this article, we'll dive into the best talent selection for Tirion Fordring and the best army build to complement his strengths and smooth over his weaknesses.
Talents
As you progress through the single player world map, you will unlock a talent for your first leader of choice when you acquire 20 sigils without having to purchase it on G.R.I.D.
Tirion has three different talents to select from, and while each have merit, one clearly shines above the rest in fueling early game builds to clear the campaign and acquire more sigils which unlock more content and fuel overall progression.
Divine Shield (Best Choice)
Divine Shield clocks in as the best talent choice for Tirion Fordring early in the game. This talent provides Tirion with full immunity from damage for five seconds. Tirion will continue to heal all surrounding units and attack during this time.
Even better is the fact that enemy units who were targeting Tirion prior to the Divine Shield activation will continue to do so—providing exceptional damage absorption for your entire army.
Consecrate
Consecrate gives Tirion AoE damage capability to enemy minis in addition to his strong single-target attacks. While this does boost the overall offensive capabilities of Tirion, it is likely the weakest talent choice for Tirion of the three and should be avoided early on.
By the Light
By the Light is a great talent choice to make Tirion more of an off tank behind a massive unit like Molten Giant, or cheaper tank options like Earth Elemental, Quilboar, or Gnoll Brute. By positioning your durable tank units in front of Tirion, Tirion will act more as a strong support unit providing powerful healing and allowing your squishier minis to deal damage behind the cover of your tanks.
While all of Tirion’s talents have merit, Divine Shield is the most well-rounded in providing flexibility and the power to defeat early single player challenges and collect more sigils. It is incredibly powerful in multiplayer PVP as well and makes Tirion a dangerous threat that must be answered.
Deck Build
This Army build of Tirion is well-rounded and is designed to be extremely flexible in single player and multiplayer content. It uses units from many different factions so is not suitable for clearing Dungeons—but will be a great choice for acquiring sigils in the campaign or early participation in PVP matches against other players. For now, we will ignore Army slot upgrades to leaders and talents for individual minis that will be acquired later on in the game. I have included potential talents for each unit in the deck above, but will need further testing.
As a new player, you also won’t have every mini right off the bat and that’s okay! As Dirk mentions in his ultimate beginner’s guide, focus on acquiring new minis as a new player to raise your collection level—but be sure to keep an eye out for a lot of the minis in this deck as they are great overall options and can socket into many different decks.
In this configuration, Tirion takes the spotlight as our frontline tank and primary healer for the rest of the army. You will want to position your primary pushes with Tirion in the lead with every other unit dealing out damage to foes and supporting each other.
Whelp Eggs
A very powerful and useful unit in that the eggs can be stored for later and can take down even the sturdiest melee fighters once they hatch. Eggs can be great to guard gold ore veins, enemy chests, or simply to sabotage your opponent’s forces mid-fight.
Their flexibility and the fact that they are an unbound unit gives on-demand DPS and powerful flying attackers at a moment’s notice. In my day one testing, Whelp Eggs have been one of the strongest cards I’ve used thus far. Along with some of the other units in the list, Whelp Eggs is Unbound, meaning it can be played almost anywhere on the map.
Defias Bandits
At only a single gold cost, Defias bandits are an excellent melee unit. They are great at claiming gold chests, and can provide a lot of utility in fights due to their stun potential that can disrupt powerful enemy melee minis.
Defias Bandits also help with quickly cycling through the deck to get to an answer to an opponent’s threat. Defias Bandits can be sent down the middle lane in certain maps or PVP to capture gold chests while the rest of your army pushes in a different lane.
Quilboar
At two-cost, Quilboar is another fantastic Unbound unit and offtank that can help support the rest of the team. Quilboar can be great to try to steal an enemy’s gold chest in the first seconds of the match or deployed to reinforce the rest of your army in a pinch.
Quilboar adds to the theme of Unbound and allows you to add pressure to your opponent on demand—especially in situations when Tirion and your army is pushing forward and you have the opportunity to farm more gold than your opponent. Unbound allows us to play additional units to reinforce the main army push and snowball our way to victory.
Necromancer
At four-cost, Necromancer provides some ranged single-target elemental damage and also endlessly summons melee skeletons. With Tirion tanking, these skeletons serve to add pressure to your pushes and capture additional value over time. Necromancer provides more and more gold efficiency the longer he stays alive, and fits exceptionally well with Tirion in this strategy.
S.A.F.E. Pilot
As a three-cost starter card, S.A.F.E. Pilot is one of the best minis in the entire game. Combined with a well-timed burst of AOE damage, S.A.F.E. Pilot also provides good single-target ranged damage. It’s often a valid play to crash the pilot behind Tirion and the rest of the army to increase damage.
Like the other Unbound cards, S.A.F.E. Pilot is a great addition to a very flexible army composition and can deal with many different types of threats.
Drake
Finally, Drake rounds at the army as a four-cost flier with powerful AOE damage to both air and ground units. Drake helps clear out the threat of enemy swarms and add a lot of pressure to your attack waves. One thing to note is that Drake looks a lot tankier than she really is.
You will want to keep her protected by Tirion whenever possible, or use her to defend your towers while under their protection. A single three-cost ranged unit like Darkspear Troll can take her down with only a couple of spear throws!
Conclusion
Tirion Fordring is a fantastic leader in Warcraft Rumble. He’s incredibly easy to play, but also rewards skill and the expertise you build while playing the game. For both PvE and PvP, I’ve found Tirion to be an excellent leader choice for new players as they dive into all Warcraft Rumble has to offer!
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