[Hero] Wild Soul

From the Official Heroes of Newerth forum by allquixotic


Wildsoul (with love to Fallout for being a trendsetter)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Wildsoul is a melee/medium range hybrid Agility hero that excels at killing creeps. He has a durable and strong bear pet named Booboo, a substantial movement/attack speed buff, a passive ability to improve all his other abilities, and an ultimate that grants him hitpoints and armor but makes him attack at melee range.




Skills
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Summon Booboo:
No Target
Type: Conjuration
Range: N/A
Mana cost: 75
Cooldown: 180/160/140/120 seconds

If Booboo is alive, this spell does nothing. Otherwise, it summons your pet bear Booboo. Even at the first level, Booboo has 1400 hit points and does substantial damage. Unfortunately, his AI is exactly as "smart" as your hero's: auto-attack enemies near him; nothing more. That means you'll need to micromanage Booboo as well as your hero. If Booboo dies to a player, the player gets 100 gold. At level 4, Booboo can carry items.

Booboo increases in power each level. He is especially useful mid-game against less resilient classes such as casters. You can often send in Booboo to scare away enemy casters or make them waste spells on him, while your hero farms the creeps. Or you can send both your hero and Booboo after someone for added damage. But remember that if your hero dies, Booboo dies instantly as well.


Wild:

Target Unit: Owned Units (yourself, Booboo, or any creep you've Dominated)

Range: 500
Mana Cost: 50
Cooldown: 30 seconds

Applies "Wild" to the target for 10 seconds, plus 10 seconds per level of Natural Attunement, described below, up to a maximum of 50 seconds.

The "Wild" effect:
+5%/10%/15%/20% Movement Speed
+10/20/30/40 Attack Speed

This is one of your most important abilities. Once you max Natural Attunement, you can either keep it on yourself constantly, or chain cast it to keep it on yourself all the time as well as occasionally cast it on Booboo. Unfortunately the duration/cooldown ratio isn't enough to keep this effect constantly on both yourself and Booboo.

Wild will save you from gankers many a time, especially combined with Marchers or a Marchers-based recipe. You should improve Natural Attunement as soon as possible to improve the efficiency of this buff, otherwise it will drain your mana too quickly with its short initial duration. The attack speed modifier is a suggestion of Wildsoul's suggested play style, which revolves around extreme move speed and extreme attack speed. Your item choices should reflect that as well.


Natural Attunement:

Bear Form: +100/200/300/400 Max Health
Wild: +10/20/30/40 Duration
Booboo (himself, not the spell): +10/20/30/40 Damage, and +10/20/30/40 Movement Speed

Passive ability that increasingly improves all of your other skills with each level invested. Maxing this early will make your other abilities very effective once you get them.


Bear Form:

Self
Mana cost: 25
Cooldown: 0 seconds

"Bear Form" Effect:
Health +250/400/600
Armor +2/4/6

Transforms you into a bear. This makes you much more resilient to attack, you move at the same speed, but you use melee attacks instead of ranged. This is where the "hybrid" melee/ranged part comes in. Since you can switch back and forth relatively easily, here's what I'd recommend: for creeping, use ranged (i.e. not bear form). For engaging enemy heroes, especially melee enemy heroes, you can go toe-to-toe with them better by using Bear Form. You will want to have Booboo by your side as much as possible.

Additionally, once you pump this to Level 2 and 3, you get two new sub-skills:

"Battle Cry" Effect (gained at level 2):
Target: Self; radius 900 aura of all player-controlled units (heroes too?)
Mana Cost: 50
Cooldown: 30 seconds
Duration: 20 seconds
Damage +20
Armor +2

This skill buffs you, Booboo, and maybe nearby friendly heroes with 20 damage and 2 armor. Not too big of a deal, but low mana cost by the time you get it.

"Soul Link" Effect (gained at level 3):
Target: Self and Booboo
Range: 600
Mana Cost: 80
Cooldown: 12 seconds
Duration: 35 seconds

This skill causes you and Booboo to split all damage you receive. If you are the one taking damage, this is probably good, as Booboo has a ton of hitpoints, and this extends your survivability (Booboo is expendable). On the other hand, if you accidentally leave Booboo behind, or you are retreating and you run faster than him, enemies can attack Booboo and damage you too, which can lead to your death even when you aren't being directly attacked. Use this skill very sparingly if you expect enemy gankers around.

One Possible Item Build
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Starting items:

Marchers
Lifetube

Since Wildsoul doesn't have any abilities to directly assault enemy heroes, to harass an enemy you need to get within 450 range so your ranged attack can hit. You can also send in Booboo, but if he dies you just gave the enemy 100 gold, and you have to wait for the cooldown on the summon spell again. So, getting within 450 range of the enemy is risky, and you will likely be attacked back by any ranged heroes. That's why you need Lifetube.

Also, without any stun, slow or high damage nukes, you are very susceptible to ganking without the ability to immediately counter attack. That's why I recommend Marchers as early as possible: you are all about speed.

Middle game items:

Warpcleft
Steamboots or Post Haste (take your pick)
Thunderclaw
Sustainer

The combination of Warpcleft and Thunderclaw will make you a godlike creep killer: with a 20% chance to cast a 150 damage chain lightning on every attack, and a high attack speed, you will be able to clear out a set of creeps in seconds, advancing your team. If you got exactly what I stated earlier, you should now have a full inventory.

End game items (in order of priority):

Charged Hammer (eats Thunderclaw)
Daemonic Breastplate (eats Warpcleft)
Null Stone (eats Sustainer)
Hack and Slash

With your high hit points and armor by now, you should be able to fearlessly and constantly use Bear Form. For your sixth inventory slot (if you still have money) you might look into a life stealing item.

The final build is focused around high instantaneous damage (Charged Hammer), extreme attack speed and armor (Daemonic Breastplate), anti-magic properties (Null Stone), and a hero ganking effect (finally!) with the Hack and Slash's slow on hit.

One particular benefit of using multiple Morph Attacks with high attack speed is that, the more frequently you attack, the more you get chances to proc these attacks. So the Wildsoul is particularly qualified to use Morph Attacks. Also, you can creep while using the Charged Hammer, and any nearby heroes will likely get hit by a few Chain Lightning bursts (now for 200 damage instead of 150), which is usually enough to make them back off without a direct confrontation.

Skill Build Order
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1 Wild
2 Natural Attunement
3 Wild
4 Natural Attunement
5 Summon Booboo
6 Bear Form
7 Wild
8 Natural Attunement
9 Natural Attunement
10 Summon Booboo
11 Bear Form
12 Wild
13 Summon Booboo
14 Summon Booboo
15 Stats
16 Bear Form
17-25 Stats


Notes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There are other ways to play Wildsoul, other item builds that work, other strategies. This one is designed to progress Wildsoul from a ranged, creep-killing coward (low to mid-level) to a super-fast melee, hero-chasing powerhouse (endgame).