How to Counter Melee AGI

Guide is from the official HoN forums by [RW]Nome

This guide is written for Forest of Caldavar play on non-EM modes.

There seem to be a good number of people here who feel that melee AGI are overpowered. While HoN's melee AGI are definitely overall stronger than DotA's, they are still susceptible to the same overall weaknesses.

The Melee Agility Heroes


Night Hound
Strengths: AoE silence and slow, huge mid-late attack damage output. Great at chasing and escaping. Permanently invisible.
Weaknesses: Poor early-game laning. Low HP makes him susceptible to true-sight-equipped ganks.
How to Exploit His Play Style: Night Hound players tend to use their permanent invisiblity to act as a scout for team battles and ganks. Because they are invisible, they tend to not hang back with their team--rather, they place themselves in optimum position to initiate team battles with Smoke Bomb. Because of this, you can often expect him to already be beside you prior to engagement. Use detection items to root him out and kill him before his team can assist. Because Night Hound typically becomes the centerpiece carry of a team, if he's out, his team becomes very vulnerable.
Counter: Detection items and disables.

Swiftblade
Strengths: Fast base movement speed, magic immune AoE damage skill. Highly damaging ult that makes him invulnerable. Can be very hard to lane against when coupled with a disable like Glacius.
Weaknesses: Low HP and mana pool. If he whiffs a spell, he becomes extremely vulnerable due to long cooldowns and low mana.
How to Exploit His Play Style: Swiftblade players tend to capitalize on your fear. However, you must use calm to defeat him. If he Blade Frenzies towards you, avoid contact but dance around creeps. This way, he lacks the certainty of hitting you with Swift Slashes. Chances are, if he misses with Blade Frenzy, and cannot reliably Swift Slashes, then he will start running. Attack him at this point, but at no point should you chase so far you lack creeps--this is when he will Swift Slashes. Ideally, if he Swift Slashes, you should stay as near as possible without touching him. This will put you in the best position to counterattack.
Counter: Smart play and superior numbers.

Magebane
Strengths: Feedback skill, takes very little damage from magic late game. Elusive due to a blink with short cooldown as well as fast base movement speed.
Weaknesses: Very low HP. Very vulnerable right after Blink. Poor early game laning ability.
How to Exploit His Play Style: Magebane's greatest weakness is actually the mage. Because of his very low HP early on, he is most susceptible to INT nukers and disablers. He also has fairly low armor. If he Blinks in on you, immediately dance around creeps while nuking and disabling. He's only a big threat later on, when he's got lots of items. Magebane players also tend to Blink in front of you while you're fleeing in order to get extra hits in. Anticipate their blink, and immediately begin running in the opposite direction until your allies arrive.
Counter: Ranged heroes, disables.

Scout
Strengths: Huge burst damage, fast, and elusive with long windwalk. Tends to get a lot of kills due to strong finishing power.
Weaknesses: No creep-control ability or fast disables.
How to Exploit His Play Style: A team with a Scout is like a team playing a man down. Scouts tend to be invisible before the fight--this gives his team one less guy to kill creeps. Push early and hard, and keep Dust on hand. Like Night Hounds, Scouts tend to place themselves in compromising positions. Unlike Night Hounds, some Scouts won't even bother attacking--they'll just use their ult. A good Scout will always make sure he has full sight of his opponent before using Marksman Shot. Most Scouts are not good Scouts. Dodge into the trees if you find yourself targeted--it will cancel the skill due to fog.
Counter: Pushing early, detection items, silences and disables.

Chronos
Strengths: Unstoppable late game with AoE disable. Difficult to chase mid-late game with blink-style skill.
Weaknesses: Poor early-game laning. Low HP, low mana, low armor, low damage. An overall horrible hero that requires his entire team to babysit him.
How to Exploit His Play Style: Gank him repeatedly until he cries and wants to rage quit. To avoid him blinking out, flank him from front and behind. Make sure the guy going behind has a disable.
Counter: Hit him from early game to end.

Blood Hunter
Strengths: Powerful all-game. Amazing early-game harass and DPS nuke, devastating ganker at 6 and above.
Weaknesses: Susceptible to INT nukers and disablers. No true escape mechanism. Useless without a good supporting team. No creep-control abilities.
How to Exploit His Play Style: If you don't have the right heroes fighting him, he's nigh-impossible to lane against. A good Blood Hunter will silence and DPS you until you cry, while taking all the last-hits and denies. He needs to be focused constantly during laning and team battles.
Counter: Stick together.

Madman
Strengths: Huge spell-based damage output as well as huge late-game attack damage output. Strong laning and ganking.
Weaknesses: Poor mana pool.
How to Exploit His Play Style: There's no good way to counter Madman apart from buying detection and constantly ganking him. If he's behind in levels, it's very difficult for him to catch up during the team battle stage. He's a very strong hero, but not quite imbalanced.
Counter: Push early and stick together. Carry a TP. Team needs to buy disabling and detecting items.

Dark Lady
Strengths: AoE silence, amazing team-oriented ultimate. Elusive with blink-style skill.
Weaknesses: Low HP, horrible laning, largely worthless until mid-late game.
How to Exploit Her Play Style: Her terrible HP is her greatest weakness. If she blinks in on your team, just smack her a few times.
Counter: Run whenever she uses Darkness Falls. Otherwise, hit her.


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Easy Counter Heroes

Legionnaire
Quite possibly the easiest hero to play in the entire game, the Legionnaire is also the most difficult to kill for melee AGI heroes. The key here is to max out Whirling Blade and Taunt, but skip out entirely on Terrify. The reason here is that not only is Terrify just a terrible skill against decent players, it's absolutely horribly against melee AGI, who have absolutely no problem last-hitting a creep or hero with their high damage. Build your Legionnaire with tanky items like Helm of the Black Legion and Enhanced Marchers. Then get a Portal Key, and make war on those pesky, low-HP gnats. At level 16, you can literally Portal Key in, Taunt, get a few spins in, and just Decapitate for a kill. It's that easy. Also take note that Taunt will affect invisible heroes, so if you can guess where they are, Portal Key in, Taunt, and get 'em!

Pyromancer
When you play Pyromancer, you should always be aiming for a good mana pool. In general, a good item to be going for is Sacrificial Heart, prioritizing obtaining the Icon of the Goddess over the Sustainer. The Pyromancer has the most burst damage in the game, which spells disaster for low HP heroes. The second you see that Scout pop out, spam all your spells beginning with your stun, and he's toast.

Thunderbringer
This guy gets picked every game, so just make sure he's on your team and not the melee AGI's. With the best non-ultimate nuke in the game based on mana cost, cooldown, and raw damage, the Thunderbringer is by far the best nuker in fighting against melee AGI heroes. Blast of Lightning will not only do a lot of damage, but it will also mini-stun (cancel their TP!) and temporarily reveal invisible enemies in the area! Keep this in mind next time you fight that Scout or Madman. If they windwalk away, consider nuking a random creep to shower the area with detection. Don't forget that your ultimate will also reveal invisible units!

Defiler
She was imbalanced in DotA and she's imbalanced in HoN. Going a tank build (Sacrificial Heart, Helm of the Black Legion, or Behemoth's Heart) and letting loose your ultimate is a surefire way to keep melee AGI at bay. Because Unholy Expulsion does physical damage, and melee AGI tend to chase way past their creep wave, you can tear apart anyone that wants to one-man gank you. Be sure to use Silence wisely though!

Voodoo Jester
A relatively difficult hero to play, but once you get the knack of him, he's a bane to anyone that wants to rambo you. You should aim for Codex. If someone attacks you, Acid Cocktail to stun him, then quickly cast Cursed Ground on him. Proceed to Codex and Mojo him. If needed, Spirit Ward to finish. However, after Codex and Mojo, chances are you can just waltz on back to your base for more mana, and wait for the +200 hero kill gold.

Pestilence
Also fairly difficult to play due to his extreme need for precise control, Pestilence is yet one of the most basic, intuitive counters to melee AGI, especially for windwalking heroes. He has a guaranteed AoE stun as well as a passive % stun, all of which is topped off by his ultimate, Swarm, which grants vision and reduces the armor of a target. You need to act quick though, though Swarm effectively.

These are by far the easiest heroes to counter melee AGI. However, when you look at the hero list, you realize that just about everyone is pretty good at killing them. Use your imagination, play as a team, and you'll do just fine ;0


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Generalized Countering

Skillwise, heroes that can nuke and disable are your best bet against melee AGI. Pushers also help. Melee AGI all have low HP, so if your entire team focuses on them they will die quickly. Disables, especially holders like Pollywog Priest, can keep a pesky windwalker from terrorizing your team if you're fast enough. Silencers like Defiler can guess where a fleeing Night Hound is running and silence the area--it will pull the Night Hound out of invisibility. Items like Dust of Revelation and Totem of Kuldra can also be used to counter effectively, putting melee AGI's out of commission for several seconds. Pushing is easily the most effective strategy against late-game heroes like Chronos--the faster you get some barracks down, the less gold they can get.