Stalk the Night as New ‘Paragon’ Hero Countess

Epic Games just released the newest hero to join the roster for their third-person MOBA, Paragon. Countess is a Burst Caster with a gothic vampire theme. She specializes in misdirection and unpredictability, and relies on her high mobility to slip in and out of combat. This new Paragon character is a continuation of Epic’s promise to announce of a new hero every three weeks.

Countess Revealed

The teaser image from Twitter a few days ago gave fans their first glimpse of Countess and her unique style. It shows off her deep red lips and lower lip piercing.

The next peak at the new Paragon hero showed her standing in a lane wielding dual blades. It was accompanied by the foreboding statement, “Her hunger is eternal.”

The full trailer reveal describes the new hero as the “Countess who stalks the night.” This is interesting, since there are no night time maps in Paragon, nor does it have day/night cycles. One can only assume that the description is meant to encourage players to see Countess for what she is — death from the shadows. Her armor, face, and hair all give off a gothic, vampiric vibe.

Playstyle and Abilities

Epic describes Countess as a Burst Caster. While she often initiates her abilities from a distance, the majority of her attacks are within or near melee range. Her greatest strengths are misdirection and unpredictability. She has high mobility and can attack and vanish out of sight.

Blade Siphon

Countess’ first ability is Blade Siphon, an AOE blade spin that causes damage to enemies around her. Every time an enemy dies from this attack, Countess’ passive ability siphons a percentage of her max health in return. If the kill was another Hero, she gains bonus health.

Counter Slip

Counter Slip allows Countess to target an enemy and leap to it, dealing damage and a slow debuff effect. Minions will die from this attack. If the ability is reactivated, Countess returns to her original position.

Dark Tide

Countess’ Dark Tide ability uses both weapons to create a cone of burst damage in the form of a cloud of darkness in front of her. From the trailer, this appears to have a medium range.

Feast

The Countess’ final ability, Feast, allows her to teleport to an enemy, force them to look at her, and deal a high damage attack. She is locked down for the duration of Feast, however. A way to counter this could be to use Counter Slip to move to the enemy, use Feast for the high damage attack, and reactivate Counter Slip to teleport back out.

Counters and Synergies

How Do You Counter a Countess? Finding ways to slow Countess’ movement or locking her down to keep her from teleporting will be essential to stopping and destroying her. While she isn’t technically an Assassin, her playstyle feels very similar to that of Kallari. They also share the same Corruption affinity.

Her synergies would also be similar. Countess grows stronger as the match goes on and her strikes become more deadly. She could easily take on stragglers and her ability to execute minions becomes even more important as they grow stronger later in the game. Take a look at the full Countess overview video below.

Like all Paragon heroes and the game itself, Countess is currently available to play for free as part of the open beta on PC and PlayStation 4.

A version of this article originally ran Oct. 19, 2016.