Sloth

Sloth is the biggest tank in the game, in a tier of his own for durability. Unlike other characters who rely on transformation for their durability, Sloth needs no such transformation and is durable all the time. With his multiple escapes, healing, and raw tankiness, his role as the biggest tank in the game is uncontested. He's no slouch for damage either, and has no reason to not be the final surviving Homunculus.

## Abilities

**D - Slack Off:** Sloth relaxes and takes a nap over the course of 7 seconds. During this time, he heals 40% of his health, and takes 30% less damage from his enemies. 120 second cooldown.

* Cray Upgrade reduces cooldown of this ability by 6 seconds per level.

**F - Tunnel:** Sloth sets up a tunnel on the first cast, then burrows back to that tunnel from his current location on the second cast. It takes Sloth 1 second of channeling for every 1000 units he is away from the first tunnel to dig back to it. 30 second cooldown.

* Sloth must dig to his tunnel before he can place a new one. If you are not saving it for later, be sure to get rid of it so tunnel is available again.

**Q - Effort:** Sloth actually puts in effort, massively buffing his movement speed by 200% and his attack speed by 200/225/250/275/300% for 7/8.25/9.5/10.75/12 seconds. When Sloth is NOT using effort, he passively gains 5/10/15/20/25% resistance to physical damage and 5/10/15/20/25 armor. 50 second cooldown.

* This ability boosts Sloth's movement speed and attack speed so much he will always meet the cap for both of them. His low base attack cooldown, however, means his attack rate will still be slow. Bonus attack speed from agility will not help Sloth's attack speed performance while using Q, because it is already capped. His movement speed is also high enough, that enemy slows will often not be enough to stop Sloth.

**W - Charge:** Sloth charges to the target point at an incredible speed, dealing 430/485/540/595/650 damage and a 1/1/1/1.25/1.5 second stun to anybody in his way. 800/900/1000/1100/1200 cast range, 20 second cooldown.

* Sloth charges over the course of half a second. Like all abilities that dash in such a small period of time, Sloth can potentially phase through units while dashing, such as Edward's walls. For best results, aim the dash further away from the hero's current position to make sure you go through.

**E - Elbow Drop:** Sloth leaps into the air and performs a devastating elbow drop onto the target point, dealing 350/425/500/575/650 damage and stunning enemies for 0.5 seconds in a 250 area of effect. This attack is slower than his charge, taking 1 second to reach the target, then another half second to get up. Sloth will gain 1.65 bonus damage for every second he goes without using this attack for the next use of it. 800 cast range, 20 second cooldown.

* This ability upgrades by 0.35X Sloth's Strength per Cray Upgrade.

**R - Iron Whirlwind:** Sloth swings his chains around him in an iron whirlwind, dealing 180/230/280 damage per second for 9 seconds in a radius of 1100 around himself. 55 second cooldown.

* This ability slows the attack rate of enemy units by 20% per Cray Upgrade, and slows their movement speed by 10% per Cray Upgrade.

## Replaced Abilities

**E - Tunnel:** Sloth sets up a tunnel on the first cast, then burrows back to that tunnel from his current location on the second cast. It takes Sloth 1.25/1.11/1/0.91/0.83 seconds of channeling for every 1000 units he is away from the first tunnel to dig back to it. When Sloth comes out at his new position, he deals 400/450/500/550/600 damage and stuns all enemies near him for 1/1/1/1.25/1.5 seconds. 30 second cooldown.

* Sloth must dig to his tunnel before he can place a new one. If you are not saving it for later, be sure to get rid of it so tunnel is available again.
* Sloth cannot level this ability while a tunnel is placed.
* This ability was moved to F, and no longer does damage and stun.

**F - Break Time:** If Sloth does not use any abilities for 42 seconds, he will gain 1 strength. This can stack infinitely. Type -breaktime to see how much longer until you gain stats. Using items counts as using abilities. Sloth also passively deals 35% of his damage in a 150 area of effect, and has 50% damage reduction from abilities like all other Homunculi.

* Slack Off will not interrupt Break Time.
* This ability was removed for encouraging bad play, and his natural strength was buffed in compensation.

## Playing as Sloth

Initially playing Sloth, most people will play very conservatively, since he is a stone user and is naturally tanky. However, being on the side with half as many members as the alchemists, Sloth is capable of much more than merely tanking. Sloth can do piles of damage, and has some of the best mobility in the game despite his terrible base movement speed. While Sloth can struggle traveling great distances, the amount of ground Sloth has to travel in combat will be small enough that his movement abilities make him for all intents and purposes, the most mobile character in the game. While Sloth's raw stats and sleeping ability give him massive amounts of tanking potential, his mobility is what truly sets him as nigh unkillable above other tanks.

When Sloth is so durable and is able to escape any situation, many Alchemist players will just ignore him while focusing on his less durable allies, or even NPCs in some cases. It is very rare Sloth will be taking much focus from the enemy team unless he is entirely alone, in which case he will probably be using his mobility to flee. As the Sloth player, your job is to make yourself impossible to ignore. You want to take the brunt of the enemy attacks if at all possible, charging headfirst into a group of enemies before using your E elbow drop slam accurately. You want to do your best to bodyguard your teammates and "peel" for them if you can, as you have very little reason to be concerned about your own safety. In the rare event you do manage to lose a life or two, this can sometimes even be turned into a good thing, as Alchemists will try to focus you over your more frail allies who have more stones. If you are allowed to play conservatively with Alchemists focusing you, you may as well have won the game already.

W charge is arguably Sloth's best spell, as it will never miss and is his most reliable tool for engaging and escaping. E and R, however, can sometimes be annoying to hit with. Missing Elbow Drop is not the end of the world given its short cooldown, but it is a very sizable portion of damage. In teamfights, try to aim it at multiple people if possible, so that it hits at least one of the targets. R does massive damage but can be quickly denied by Alchemists, either with 2 ordinary spells or a single knockback spell. If you want maximum damage out of it, use it towards the end of a fight where most cooldowns should be down. Alternatively, you can just pop the spell immediately to try to force enemies to attack you instead. If possible, watch for the relevant knockback spells which can knock you out of the spell instantly before using R. Roy W, Izumi Q, Armstrong W/R, Darius W and Jerso Q are all obnoxious for a Sloth to deal with. Marcoh's E also appears to interrupt Sloth's R instantly. Havoc Q's slows will trigger Sloth's spellblock, before eventually putting him to sleep and interrupting it.

While tunnel is your least important spell, it is a useful spell that should not be overlooked. If nothing else, it enables Sloth to tunnel back to base quickly, placed either in Central or at one of the sewer entrances. If he is nearby, he can potentially even use it to escape a teamfight, most notoriously to go over the Dublith trees and into the sewers. This works best against enemy characters with few or no direct stuns to interrupt you, such as Olivier.

Sloth is the most obvious character to dump items onto, just because they are almost as safe when dumped onto him as with Father. Items that increase his durability will not see much mileage on him, so dumping Basque Grand's gauntlets onto him is mostly done to keep them out of enemy hands. Sloth more greatly appreciates offensive items, such as bald or Mugear. The sole exception for a durability based item for Sloth is Mein Kampf, which benefits him more than most due to it scaling with his massive amounts of HP. If Sloth can get Mein Kampf and/or bonus strength from the gate, it is possible for him to win the game entirely by himself. No other character has as much potential for this. Sloth very easily kills Hitler with no issues if he gets to go to Shamballa, given his ultimate will instantly kill all of the minions.

## Playing Against Sloth

You generally need one of Roy, Armstrong, Izumi, Darius, Jerso, Havoc, or Marcoh to interrupt Sloth's ultimate reliably. The more you have of these characters against Sloth, the better. Having to dedicate two spells to interrupting this ability is extremely painful. Knockbacks are also one of the only reliable ways to catch Sloth out with his massive mobility if he is trying to get away, although focusing him is generally a fruitless effort unless he is entirely alone. Try to knock Sloth away from his allies so you can focus on the more easily killed homunculi when it comes time to interrupt his R.

If you do not have knockback to casually interrupt Sloth R, you will want to look into using weak spells to interrupt it to get past Sloth's auto spell block. May's knives and Dolcetto R are the most obvious examples to use, given they have very low cooldowns and are not "wasted." Other abilities you can use are item abilities to trigger the cooldown, such as your xerxes book, before stunning Sloth with another ability. While it is a shame to lose all the damage of a xerxes book, if you weren't going to kill him anyway, which is 99% of the time, it's better to just use the book to get rid of the spell block. Xerxes cooldown is very low anyway, and it's an item many characters should own by the end game.

There is no simple counter to avoiding Sloth's E, you simply need to have the skill to do so. Sloth has a lot of air time and only 500 range on his E, so it is much easier to avoid in comparison to other jumps. This is the spell that directly scales with Sloth's upgrades, so make a point of avoiding it if at all possible. Move in unpredictable patterns rather than simply walking away in the most generic and obvious path Sloth will assume you're going to head in. If you dodge Sloth's E and cancel his R, Sloth's damage is unimpressive. Be aware you can also deal knockback to characters during jumps, though don't waste your knockback cooldown unless Sloth R is already on cooldown.

It should go without saying, but focus Sloth's allies rather than him unless he is greatly out of position. Even if Sloth has less lives than his allies, it is very rarey advisable to target him over his allies unless he is badly misplaying. Killing Hitler to prevent Sloth from getting Mein Kampf is also a good idea if it's possible, because Sloth can casually kill Hitler with no problem if he gets enough intelligence items.