Orendi is by far my favorite character. She has great dps, she can dominate hordes, she's agile as a badger on all kinds of happy pills (yes it makes sense), and she's basically a more batsh*t insane version of Tiny Tina (with the same voice.)

I have a fairly extensive career with Orendi. She was my main in the beta and now I have 100% lore with her at character rank 15.

LET'S COMMENCE THE SLAUGHTERING!

Starting with her passive, Gnosis is a key part to her combat flow. You devastate waves with your Shadowfire Pillar, hit with your Nullify, and since Gnosis reduces your cooldown, you hit them with another Shadowfire Pillar.

Her Chaos Bolts are not to be underestimated. Even though the majority of all your damage will be done with your Shadowfire Pillars, if you fill all those empty spaces with well placed chaos bolts to the head, you will be chewing eyeballs like gum in no time. If you are in combat and aren't using your skills, your finger should be holding the left mouse button with your cursor aimed at your next preferred pain sponge. You do have to get used to the bullet speed and aiming ahead of strafing targets. You want to be primarily using the single shot instead of the secondary burst since the bolts in the secondary do less damage individually and are harder to hit criticals with. If you spec into the level 3 mutation and/or are going for the lore challenge, you may want to use the secondary burst.

Her one main problem is how squishy she is. She has close to, if not the least health of any character in the game. This is the biggest thing you have to get used to as Orendi. Since she is so agile and can output so much damage, you may sometimes overextend because you expect to kill the enemy quickly and if anything goes wrong you can just run for it. This can end with you either missing a Shadowfire Pillar or getting jumped by a Rath without any notice and before you know it, you must join the hordes of dead things behind you because her health can be melted so quickly. You have to be absolutely sure of the situation you are jumping into and your escape routes.

Nullify acts like the enabler to your Shadowfire Pillars. It does very little damage directly, but can push/blind a character into your Shadowfire Pillar and then refresh your cooldown. With Nullify you can run into a bad situation, set a Shadowfire Pillar behind the so called "bad situation" and push them into it while Nullify also takes care of the retreating by bouncing you back. This creates an interesting situation where you run straight at an enemy and they think you're being crazy and overextending. Before they know it, BAM! 300+ damage. It can also be used as an aid in movement to get over ledges etc.

Shadowfire Pillars are the main event, your bread and butter, and just generally the bringer of death to anything and everything. It does great damage and covers a huge area considering how many you can spam. The thing to remember is that it does no damage until it detonates (well....until level 4). So you will be much better aiming them in the predicted location for the enemies instead of where they are at that moment. This is made easier by Nullify pushing enemies into your Shadowfire pillar. Remeber that the Nullify is only to be used on single strong targets and for mobs you're better off aiming.

Paradigm Shift is a fun one. Does something need to die RIGHT NOW? Well look here! This ultimate will fire a huge rail gun blast of minion devastation and gushing necks. It has a short time to conjur the spell so you can adjust accordingly when you have that window of time. You should only use it when you see targets with low health because anyone will run the second they take 500 damage. Believe me when I say that nothing is more satisfying than killing 3 Battleborn with a perfectly place Paradigm Shift.

Above is my gear for Orendi. I use her legendary that you get from completeing her lore challenges because it gives her even more dps, somewhat improves her survivability, and gives you a chance to minmax your Shadowfire damage. With this piece of gear, you can waste a Shadow fire pillar when coming out of your base so that the next one makes your enemies 25% more dead!

The second piece is a boost to sprint speed because she was already fast. After that gear is activated her speed is as crazy as she is. You can escape, build stuff, and get shards much more effectively with that gear.

The final piece is a maximum health boost I got from the Sabateur. It helps with how squishy she is, but I'd rather use a skill cooldown reduction piece.

Level 1
What to Pick: Fire Walk With Me
When: Always
Why: Uncloaking enemies makes little to no difference while leaving a DoT behind your Nullify narrows the escape of enemies. If they run back, the Shadowfire hits them. If they run forward, the DoT damages them. You also do tons of indirect damage to enemies without even knowing it.



Level 2
What to Pick: Dismissed!
When: Always
Why: This one is kind of up in the air. I will always go with the push instead of blind because when someone gets blinded they can still move. Blinded enemies are rather difficult to predict while you know exactly where the enemy will go if you push them. This is the skill you use to push them into the Shadowfire Pillar.



Level 3
What to Pick: Oh That Reminds Me or Mind Bullets
When: Mind Bullets if you are going for the lore challenge or if you prefer it
Why: I don't like Mind Bullets because I like being in control of my aiming and I don't use the secondary attack. Oh That Reminds Me just buffs Orendi's escape to be even more annoying to the enemy.



Level 4
What to Pick: Preamble of Pain
When: Always
Why: Instant Gratification? Yeah, no. Less damge is never good. I don't like Encore because you have even more aiming to do and the second pillar doesn't even do as much damage as the first. With Preamble of Pain, you don't have to aim that far ahead anymore. Your dps will improve and your enemies won't be able to get out without taking damage. This damage also stacks on top of several targets so minion waves will be completely decimated.



Level 5
What to Pick: Prognostication
When: Always
Why: MOAR SHADOWFIRE PILLARS!!!!!!!!



Level 6
What to Pick: Shadowfury
When: Always
Why: Nullify doesn't do much damage in the first place..........MOAR SHADOWFIRE PILLAR DAMAGE!!!!!!!!



Level 7
What to Pick: Force of Will
When: Always
Why: The life steal isn't enough to make a big difference and you shouldn't be that low health in the first place. Skill damge means more Shadowfire damage. I've said enough



Level 8
What to Pick: Rapid Deterioration
When: Always
Why: Shield Penetration doesn't make nearly enough of a difference to be worth the point and the cooldown time just makes your combat loop quicker.



Level 9
What to Pick: Shadowfire Storm
When: Always
Why: (distant screaming about Shadowfire Pillars or some nonsense)



Level 10
What to Pick: Either
When: Pillarstorm when you are in PvP. Other 2 when you are in story mode. The choice doesn't matter between those two.
Why: The blind and push back is devistating after taking that much damage. The cooldown reset=MOAR SHADOWFIREPILLARSSSZZZZZ!!! The real MVP here is the mutation. This mutation locks in kills on just about every enemy in your range. *insert Shadowfire joke here*

Story Mode

Focus on hordes with your Shadowfire Pillars and singled out enemies will die from your Chaos Bolts. Use your combat rotation on Evolved Thralls, Brutes, Bonecrushers etc. Place a Shadowfire Pillar behind them, use the nullify to hit them into it, and finish them off with Chaos Bolts. Keep in mind that your Shadowfire Pillars will stun the Evolved Thralls.

Capture

Hit the Battleborn with your combat Rotation. Use kills and assists to level up.

Meltdown

Focus on using the Shadowfire Pillars on the minion waves to level up. Occasionally teleport back to base to heal and collect shards so you can build turrets. Only take kills that you don't have go far out of your way for. Once you have leveled up enough you can start going out of your way for kills and go to the combat rotation.

Incursion

Focus on minion waves and shards to level up. Use your Shadowfire Pillars to push back the enemy team and once you've reach level 4 use the combat rotation on enemy Battleborn, Thralls, and Elite Bots.

Congratulations! You made it to the end of my guide! You are now qualified to pub stomp as Orendi. Now go get some jugulars!