Church of Ilryos Axe — Epic Seven Dark Warrior: RTA Build, Counters & Win Rate

Church of Ilryos Axe is a slow 3-star Dark Warrior built around forcing enemies to attack him and grinding down their defenses. His basic axe swing hits one target with a 75% chance to provoke for a turn, and his damage on it scales off his own max Health rather than Attack, so he wants a bulky build. His other skills are an all-enemy shockwave that has a 60% chance to provoke the whole enemy team and then shields him with one turn of immunity, plus a single-target smack that can lower the target's Defense for two turns while again scaling its damage with his Health. He has no passive, so everything comes from these three active skills on three-turn cooldowns.

Counters

Counterattackers and reaction-based attackers — Provoke forces the affected enemy to swing at him on their turn, so heroes that punish him by counterattacking or by reacting to his teammates get their target redirected onto a tanky body that scales off Health and shrugs the hits off.
Setup carries that need their own turn — His all-enemy shockwave provokes the whole enemy team at a 60% chance, jamming a turn for slow-building damage dealers, soul-hungry units, and second-turn payoff heroes who lose tempo when they are forced into a basic attack at him instead.
High-defense bruisers and tanks — Plagued Strike can strip a target's Defense for two turns, and his own damage grows with his max Health, so he chews through defensively-built front-liners that try to wall him out and softens them for his allies.
Fragile pressure relying on landing debuffs on him — Right after his shockwave he gives himself a turn of immunity, so a follow-up meant to stun, decrease his Defense, or stack ailments on him simply bounces off, letting him keep dictating who attacks whom.

Countered by

Enemy immunity — If a target already has immunity up, his provoke and Defense-down just bounce off, and with nothing redirected the enemy team is free to ignore him and focus his backline.
Cleanse — His provoke only lasts one turn, so a teammate that removes debuffs wipes the forced-attack effect off the provoked ally before it matters, leaving him with no control follow-through.
Dispel and buff-strip — The one-turn self immunity from his shockwave is his only protection; strip it and he is wide open to being locked down or focused before his three-turn cooldowns come back.
Speed and burst before he acts — He is slow with no passive, so faster teams can open on him or his allies and kill or hard-lock him before his provoke and Defense-down ever land, and his single-target skills mean he can only redirect one enemy outside of his cooldown-gated shockwave.

counterIvana54%

counterLionheart Cermia53%

counterAram60%

Skills

S1Disconnect

Attacks with an axe, with a 75% chance to --provoke-- for 1 turn. Damage dealt increases proportional to the caster's max Health.

S2Attack ChainCD 3

Attacks all enemies with a shockwave. With a 60% chance to --provoke-- for 1 turn, before granting immunity to the caster for 1 turn.

Soulburn −10 soulsSkill cooldown is decreased by 2 turns.

S3Plagued StrikeCD 3

Smacks the enemy, with a X chance to --decrease Defense-- for 2 turns. Damage dealt increases proportional to the caster's max Health.