Using Runes

From the official HoN forums by [MSF]_Archangel_

There's five different runes. One spawns randomly at one of two fixed spots on each map at every even numbered minute on the clock starting from 0.00. (i.e. When the clock reads 0.00, 2.00, 4.00, 6.00 etc.) If a rune exists when the time for a rune to spawn is reached, a rune will NOT spawn. Runes last indefinitely until taken or destroyed.

Because it spawns at 0:00 (Same time as the first creep waves) at the start of the game you can buy your items quickly and head to the rune spot to wait for it before the creeps spawn (Get allies to wait at the other one) so your team can have control over it as soon as possible.

Also, there will likely be an opponent hero waiting for the rune to spawn before the creeps spawn. If this is the case, you can bring your teammates in for a gank. This works best with heroes that have a good stun or slow at level 1 (For example, Magmus, Andromeda, Hammerstorm, Pollywog Priest, Plague Rider, etc). If you gain First Blood this way, your team starts with a nice gold bonus and your opponent is set back quite heavily as he'll have to respawn and walk back into his lane before he can begin gaining exp/gold.

Bottle



This is the one important item you must acquaint yourself with if you want to abuse runes. It may be found in the Supplies part of the shop.

This amazing item costs only 600 gold, but gives amazing burst HP and mana regeneration. This is great between ganks to restore HP and mana that you may have spent in ganks.

(Protip: To quickly buy a Bottle, press B, then double-tap R. Then press ESC to close shop window.)

It contains three charges that each restore 135 HP and 70 mana over three seconds. Note that if you get hit during the three seconds, the buff is dispelled. If used while running, try to time your Bottle-drinks right after an enemy attack, to get maximum heal before the next attack dispels your heal.

Once it is empty, you can refill it by returning to fountain. However, the alternative way to refill an empty Bottle (And the best way, that you will learn to abuse by reading this guide) is by nabbing runes with it. To do this, click your empty Bottle and then click the rune. This stores the rune inside your bottle and allows you to use the rune at any time by clicking the Bottle again. When you do this, your Bottle is magically restored to its full state, with three charges. Note that you can store runes indefinitely, which you can't do in DotA. - No longer true as of 1.47. Runes will automatically be consumed 2 minutes after you store them, as in DotA.

Taking as many runes as you can with a Bottle (i.e. Checking and taking them every two minutes) is a practice known as "rune-whoring". Rune-whoring with a Bottle allows effective solo mid play. If you runewhore effectively your Bottle stays full, and you don't have to return to the fountain at all early game.

Some situations will allow rune-whoring better than others. For example, Pharoah is a good rune-whore because he can scout the rune every two minutes with his Tormented Soul so he knows where the rune is every time. Of course, you can get Scout or Keeper of the Forest to put eyes on the runes too.

Because the rune spawns at every even minute, if you take the rune JUST BEFORE the next one spawns, i.e. When the clock reads X:55 where X is an odd integer, another may spawn right after you pick it up. Of course, it may spawn at the opposite rune spot, but if it spawns at the same one or you go to pick up the other one as well you can have two rune effects on you at once, and empty your Bottle twice if you're really low on HP and mana. Double Damage + Haste anyone?

You can used Winged Courier to scout runes for you. Not only this, but you can use it to pick them up too!

Haste



This rune grants maximum movespeed (522) upon use. This makes for great chasing, escaping, positioning for spells and the like. Very simple rune.

Regeneration




This rune restores 6% of your maximum HP and 10% of your maximum mana per second until you are at full HP and mana. Its maximum duration is thirty seconds. (Thanks to Ice_Phoenix)

It dispels upon taking damage, so if you don't want to use it when enemies/creeps are on your ass as it will instantly stop regenerating you.

As of 1.47, the Regeneration rune's effects will end when your hero reaches full HP and mana.

When you store it in a Bottle, you pretty much store a free instant fountain trip and back when you need. This is definitely one of the best runes. Once I played Soulstealer solo mid with Bottle; I got three of these babies in a row. I spammed Demon Hand from afar on the creeps to farm; I had Post Haste at 8 minutes.

Double Damage



This rune adds your base damage, and damage gained from attribute boosts (i.e. If you are an intelligence hero and have an Acolyte's Staff, this rune adds another +25 damage for it) on top of your current damage again.

Note that it DOES NOT add double damage for direct damage gained via items (e.g. Having a Shieldbreaker doesn't mean you will gain an extra 60 damage from this rune), nor does it increase damage of spells that you cast.

This rune is probably the worst rune early game. The damage boost is somewhat insignificant early on and doesn't really help in a gank except you can throw a little more damage on them after you cast your spells.

Of course you can use it while you're in lane to deal increased harassing damage as well as lasthitting and denying nearly every creep for its entire duration.

Lategame, when your carry takes this you will be able to go kill Kongor with ease, or have a DPS edge in a teamfight or gank.

Invisibility



Grants stealth with a 0.1 second fade time, and lasting 60 seconds

This rune can be used for escaping, provided your enemies don't have Wards or Dust, but its main use lies in offense - sneaking up behind enemies unseen and throwing a well-placed spell into a gank or teamfight. Stored in a Bottle, this is a free Windwalk and can be used as such in any fashion.

Illusion




Spawns two illusions of you that appear to the enemy to be absolutely identical to your hero that last 75 seconds. However these illusions cannot cast spells, take 300% more damage than your hero would normally take and deal 35% of the damage your hero would deal.

Generally regarded as the most useless rune - it is common to think "Oh damn, not another s**tty Illusion rune" - it is actually one of the most versatile. There are many tricks that you can do using this rune:

If you are playing Bottle solo mid, and you check the runespot before creepspawn (i.e. When the clock reads 0:00), this is the best rune to get IMO. This way, you spam your spells freely and then when the clock reads 1:30-1:40, use the illusions, send one of them to each runespot, empty your Bottle and spam your spells. At 2:00 your illusions will reveal where the next rune has spawned; go grab it. This works for any time the rune will spawn if you have Illusion stored; use it 30 seconds before the next rune spawn.

Illusion runes are also very useful in ganks. When ganking, wait behind the trees with your illusions, and send one illusion in when your teammates all go in for the kill. Very often they will spend their stunning or slowing skills on the "enemy hero" that pops out of the trees. Once they have spent their spells on it, jump in with the real thing and own them.

A similar trick can be pulled while laning. If you've stored the Illusion rune in your Bottle, use it at the top of the ramp where they can't see you. Get your hero and one Illusion to hold position; get the other one to walk forward. Pretend that it's your real hero - make it walk back and forth, but be a little aggressive with it to bait your enemy - walk past the creep line, maybe throw an attack at them. If they're someone like Thunder Bringer or Defiler they will often nuke it, and you successfully waste their mana.

If you're Legionnaire, your Illusions will have the full spinning ability with unreduced damage. You can either use these illusions to grab extra gold in the jungle or use it in a gank when your enemy is standing foolishly close to his creeps for triple spins.

If you pick up Illusion with Insanitarius activated, your Illusions gain strength bonus without the adverse HP draining effect.

If you pick up Illusion with Accursed, his ultimate will activate on the Illusions when their HP drops under the threshold, which is 400 I believe.

If you pick up Illusion with Magebane, all his Illusions gain full Mana Combustion with level equal to the original hero's Mana Combustion. You can use these in a fight or gank for triple mana burn.

You can pick it up with Malphas, which spawns two more Malphai.

In a gank, you could block the enemy hero from running with your Illusions - a very advanced technique. To do this effectively, select your hero (The real one) and rightclick the enemy so that your hero chases and attacks. Select the Illusion, and put it in behind your opponent and micromanage it so that when he tries to run he will be blocked by it. This is a very effective technique in DotA; however I'm very uncertain as to whether it can be used to great effect in HoN as the collision size for the heroes definitely feels smaller (It's damn hard to creepblock in HoN compared to DotA).

Also, you can use an Illusion to pretend to be in your lane while you're actually missing and pull off an unexpected gank.

Lategame, picking up an Illusion rune increases DPS output as well as giving protection against single-target spells (Your opponents will not know which to target).

Countering Rune-Whores

Nothing is more frustrating when you've spent all your mana harassing someone and they just drink their Bottle to heal - and then they grab the rune to refill their Bottle! Grabbing a rune every two minutes is amazing early game if you're solo mid.

So how do you counter people who do this?

The obvious method is to rune-whore yourself if you're in solo mid. It always helps to have vision on the runespots via Wards, Scout's Eyes or Keeper of the Forest's Trees.

Deny your opponent the runes as often as you can - around twenty seconds before the rune spawns, start autoattacking and if needed throw some spells at the creeps to push them towards the opponent's side. Once your opponent's creeps are dead and your creeps are now by the opponent's tower, run backwards up your ramp towards your tower and head for a runespot. Because your creeps are now on the opponent's side of the lane you'll be able to see if they head towards a runespot too whereas they have to guess that you're going to pick up a rune (And they can't do anything about it) or they'll think you're just retreated because you pushed too far.

However denying your opponents runes involves a lot of luck too. If you head for a runespot and it doesn't spawn there, then bad luck. If it's daytime, make sure you're not actually down inside the runespot; stand on top of the ramp (Where you can see it if it spawns). This way if the rune doesn't spawn there, you at least have the chance to quickly run to the other one if your opponent is still busy fighting your creeps off his side of the lane.

An excellent anti-runewhore method is to have a flying Courier hovering over one runespot. You have to keep alert though, because it has to be right on top of the runespot or you won't be able to see the rune, but that also means that your opponents can see it - make sure that if it's getting attacked, you turn its shield on and move it to safety.

Before the each rune spawn mark, head for the runespot your courier is not at. If it spawns there, great, take it. If it spawns at the one where your courier is, head for it and take it if you can - but if your opponent gets there first, take the rune with the courier, thus denying him the rune.

Tryhard Guide to Wards

From official HoN forums by Magdain

Preface: First and foremost I would like to thank and credit Nome for his Ward GuideMost of the spots shown here are from that post, however I felt there were some pretty important ones missing, and with his guide no longer being maintained I felt this was an area that needed a bit more coverage. So once again, thanks to Nome for his great work.

What are wards?

Ward(s) is shorthand for the Ward of Sight item, located in the Supplies section of your base shop. Wards cost 200g for 2. You can place the item on the ground by left clicking (or using the inventory hotkey) and targeting the area you wish to place it. When placed, they grant you and your team vision in a 1200 radius around the ward, obeying line of sight, and have a natural lifespan of 6 minutes, after which they expire and need to be replaced.

Wards are under most circumstances invisible to enemy players. The only way to see an opponent's ward is with Tower of Ward true sight. Tower true sight is a natural effect that reveals enemy units when they're close to your towers. Ward true sight comes from the Ward of Revelation item, also available in the Supplies section of your base shop. If an opponent can see your ward, they can attack and kill it. More information on this later (see Counter Warding section).

Why use wards?

Wards save the lives of your team and allow you to get kills on your opponents. Having vision of an area where nobody in your team is at, that your opponents don't know you have, lets you to see attempted ganks long before they happen, allowing you to retreat to safety. Additionally, it allows you to counter gank; That is sending your own team to surpise the enemy who thinks they're going unnoticed.

Using wards regularly can be costly, but think about it rationally: If a ward allows you to see and prevent one single gank then it has already paid for itself, two-fold or more, by preventing you from losing 200+g. If a ward allows you to see an enemy who thinks he isn't visible, it has already paid for itself. Wards win games.

Who should buy wards?

While wards do indeed eventually pay themselves off, wards aren't an ideal purchase for all heroes. Some heroes require a large amount of gold spent on items before they can contribute a lot to the team - mostly carries. They should try to avoid wards if at all possible. I'm not going to make a list of every hero that ideally should or shouldn't buy wards, but generally speaking if you're an item-independent non-carry hero, you're most likely a candidate for buying wards.

Counter warding

Counter warding is the act of using a Ward of Revelation to allow you to see and kill an opponent's Ward of Sight. Ward of Revelation is used exactly the same way as Ward of Sight; you left click (or use the inventory hotkey) for the Ward, and place it on the ground. Any nearby enemy wards will be revealed and you can kill them, giving you a map vision advantage over your opponent until they place another ward.

Basic mechanics of warding

Wards follow the same rules as player vision with fog of war:

* Sight is obstructed by trees.

* When placed on an elevated area, you can see areas below your Z axis. This is important! You should always keep this is mind; when executed properly, it allows you to multitask with your wards to see the largest area possible.

The important part (aka good ward placement spots)

Classic top rune

This ward gives you vision on the top rune, the majority of the river itself (a high traffic area for moving between lanes to gank), and a glimpse of the hellbourne jungle ramp. You can't really go wrong with this placement early-earlymid game.



Top Rune Hellbourne Creep Block

This ward once again gives vision of the top rune. It gives less vision of the river itself, but it gives more vision of the hellbourne jungle ramp. Most importantly, it prevents neutral creeps from spawning in the camp nearest the rune.



Hellbourne Mid Ramp

This ward gives you vision of the hellbourne middle ramp - which allows for easier nuking without being impeded by fog of war when below the ramp (but please don't try to auto attack up it!). It gives vision of the top rune, and limited vision on both sides of the river for ganks incoming to mid.



Classic bottom rune

This rune gives you vision of the bottom rune, hellbourne ancient ramp, two ganking entrances to the legion jungle, the path to Kongor, and a large portion of the river itself. Once again you can't really go wrong with this rune at any point in the game.



Legion jungle tri-path

This ward gives vision of the bottom rune and every realistic entry point to legion jungle for out-of-lane ganks on bottom.



Legion defensive

This ward gives vision of the bottom rune and jungle entry points for in-lane ganks. I'd personally avoid this unless you have a really tough lane, which even then you shouldn't since it's your pulling lane. It's still arguably a decent spot though, especially for preventing ganks from heavy disablers or heroes with position-intensive abilities (i.e. Behemoth's Fissure).



Legion / Hellbourne plateaus

By far my favorite spot to ward. Since it's highly elevated this gives full vision.

In Hellbourne it allows you to see the two safest (and highest traffic) neutral camps, and it allows you to see incoming enemies when pushing top and middle lane.

In Legion it's slightly less effective for vision of neutral camps, but it's just as effective defensively when pushing middle or bottom lane.





Legion / Hellbourne creep pull block

Without going into great detail, it's possible to pull neutral creeps from legion bottom and hellbourne top into your lane creep waves. In higher-tier games, it's common to place a Ward of Revelation in these spots to prevent creeps from spawning - this either forces a counterward or completely prevents that lane from taking advantage of the pulling.

It's possible to place a ward directly on top of where the creeps would spawn, but it's less commonly known that it's also possible to place the ward behind the spawn area. This allows you better vision and still prevents creep spawns.

The hellbourne spot is pretty finicky - it needs to be placed nearly exactly where it is in the screenshot to be most effective. There's some wiggle room for the legion one, but you can't move it any further north or else it won't properly prevent the creep spawn.




Hellbourne Bottom Plateau

Gives you vision of most attack points between mid and bottom lane for Legion pushing.



Base wards

These wards give you vision on the opponent base, allowing you to prevent surprises when pushing, and also allowing you to execute clean initiations rather than having a shaky stand-off.

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.

HoN/DotA Terminology

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Basic Laning Guide

This guide is from the official HoN forums by [RW]Nome

This is the first in a series of generalized guides on playing a full game of HoN:
Laning
Ganking
Pushing and Teamfighting

Laning refers to the beginning stage of the game in which heroes enter the 3 lanes and gain gold and XP through killing creeps and occasionally each other. This is a vital time, as your team's performance during the laning stage sets the conditions for the ganks, fights, and pushes to come.

Information presented will be in a color gradient according to level of difficulty: Easy Intermediate Advanced.


Quote:
Changelog
7/15: Created
7/16: Starting items, creep blocking, checking runes added.
8/04: When to use AoE/single target spells, clash management added.
Starting Items
Your starting item selection can both work for or against you. In general,if you are a new player, you should aim for survivability.

Always grab regeneration. It's not uncommon even at higher levels for players to spend a few hundred gold on Runes of Blight.

Laning is when you'll be gaining most of your XP. Even leaving your lane for a minute will allow your opponent to get a level or two advantage on you. Therefore, design your item build to allow yourself to have maximum staying power.

Anticipate your enemies. If you're going Legion bottom, which is your defensive lane, you shouldn't expect to fight a Thunderbringer, who will surely be going mid solo. Instead, you should expect to fight a caster/tank combo that maximizes their own survivability. Likewise, if you go Legion top, your dangerous lane, expect to fight defensie heroes. Select your items carefully according to their lineup.

Creep Blocking
Not to be confused with neutral blocking. Creep blocking is a maneuver to delay a creep wave from arriving in battle. This provides you with an advantage--the battle will begin closer to your tower. In middle, this can provide a huge advantage if you time it such that the battle occurs largely on high ground, and your opponent has a 30% chance to miss!

To creep block, maneuver in front of a creep wave and move slowly in front of it, dancing back and forth and occasionally hitting stop. This will delay its arrival.

Time your creep block so that the waves do not clash in front of your tower. If they do, you messed up, and it's actually counterproductive because the lane will now naturally push.

If the lane is pushed out too far, and you have a lanemate, either you or a lanemate should temporarily abandon the lane and move back to block the next wave to create a more favorable situation.

Last-hitting
Last-hitting is the most basic maneuver of laning. It's how you will be making the majority of your income as well as the most effective way to keep your opponent behind in gold and XP.

To perform a last-hit, time your attack such that you kill the low-HP creep in one blow. Attempting to do it in multiple hits leaves the creep open to being killed by another player.

To effectively last-hit, you must understand your hero's damage, factoring in any random damage spread, applied status effects, and projectile or swing speed. You must also understand these components for the opposing heroes.

You can attack-cancel by clicking A on the creep, then quickly hitting S before the attack animation finishes. Repeat this quickly, and you have a timing advantage if your attack is already in mid-animation when the creep hits last-hit HP range.

Denying
Denying will deprive opponents of XP. By doing this, you can create a difference in levels, giving you a huge early advantage. You can only deny creeps that are less than 50% HP. Towers can be denied once they're less than 135 HP.

To deny an allied creep, last-hit it.

If you are presented with both the opportunity to last-hit an enemy creep and to deny your own, deny your own if the opponent is a carry, and last-hit the enemy creep if he is not.

An effective way to deny is to first harass an enemy hero, forcing him to move back, then go for the deny.

Harassment
Harassing a hero, depending on your role, can be the primary or secondary role in laning. If you have an orb-walker, or nuker, it is your primary. If you are a late-game carry, allow your lanemate to harass.

To effectively harass, you should minimize damage to yourself. Spells and orb/arrow effects will not draw creep aggro. Use them to put pressure on your opponent.

You don't have an infinite supply of mana, however. If you right-click an enemy hero, you will inevitably draw creep aggro. Therefore, move into range first, then right-click to harass, then quickly pull back to avoid damage.

Keep an eye on your health. Regeneration items are great for harassment, because damage taken from creeps while you're harassing can be healed. You should always try to maintain high health when harassing, because harassing places you at a positional disadvantage.

Checking Runes
Runes spawn either top or bottom river every 2 minutes. If you have a Bottle, you can store the rune for later use. It will also recharge your Bottle. A more in-depth analysis of runes can be found here.

If you lane mid, you can check rune every time you are in the river. Just by walking northwards, you can see if the rune is there. If it's not there, alert your team, then go see if it's bottom.

If you're laning bottom, you should check rune only if you're at a severe disadvantage, or if you're jungling and are able to take a quick peek. This is because it's a long, long walk to the rune from your tower, and you'll miss a lot of XP. If you're laning top, you can go take a look every time your wave pushes out a bit.

At the beginning of each game, one hero top and one hero bottom should check their respective sides of the river for the starting 0:00 rune. Depending on your lineup and the rune, it's quite possible to get Bloodlust.

Staying Alive
If you find yourself in a difficult lane, your utmost priority is to stay alive.

Stay outside of attack and spell range, but stay within XP range. If you see that your XP meter isn't increasing with each creep death, try to move closer. If they continue to play aggressively, tower hug until the creeps come close.

If you have a lot of idle mana, or are desperate for XP and gold, you can use nukes to last-hit.

Ask for a gank or a lane change. If you are in a dual-lane, and both heroes are getting suppressed, then you can also go ganking yourself. You will help the team out, and your lanemate will reap the benefits of single-hero XP gain.

Neutral Pulling
The Legion bottom lane and Hellbourne top lane can neutral-pull. Pulling neutral creeps will allow for easy neutral-farming, and will often deny your own creeps outside of enemy XP range.

To perform a neutral pull, walk close to or attack the outermost neutral camp to draw aggro. Time it so that when your run, you will run straight into your own advancing creep wave. Allow the neutrals to attack you right as your creep wave walks by, and it will draw their aggro.

To counter neutral pulling, buy and place wards at the enemy neutral camps, or alternatively use your own hero or an illusion to block their spawn by sitting there at the 60 second marks.

Neutral creeps spawn every 60 seconds. If you draw the neutrals out at the right time, you can cause a double spawn. Double spawns provide more gold and XP, and will almost certainly wipe out an entire wave. If the neutrals are particularly strong, you can wipe out two or three entire creep waves, causing the enemy heroes to be severely deprived of XP.

Static Farming
Static farming is a defensive method of gaining XP and gold. It relies on the player having strong last-hitting in order to maintain a static position between the two clashing creep waves. Preferably, this position is close to an allied tower, providing for easy escape and defense. On the other hand, if you do not static farm, the wave will inevitably push out, making you vulnerable to ganks.

To static-farm, only attack enemy creeps you can last-hit. However, if there are no enemy heroes near, you should attack allied creeps the second they are vulnerable to denial until they are dead. Do not worry about getting the deny here.

If enemy heroes approach you, send out a ping to your allies, then dodge into the trees or towers. If possible, teleport out.

You can avoid the lane being pushed out by never allowing the creepwaves to reach a tower. If you find that the enemy creeps are approaching tower range, tank them by dancing in circles until your own creeps arrive. While you will take some damage, this prevents the creeps from being wiped out by a tower, and the lane being pushed.

Clash Management
Clash management is an overarching term that refers to controlling the position at which allied and enemy creep waves collide.

You can alter clash position by entering creep range, then right-clicking (issuing an attack order) on an enemy hero. This will force enemy creep aggro onto you. Now move back--they will follow you for a short bit before re-engaging allied creeps. You have now moved the creeps closer to you.

You can use clash management in order to level faster than your opponent. If you solo-mid Thunderbringer, it may be wise to pull enemy creeps repeatedly towards you until they are in tower range. This will kill the creeps faster, allowing you to have a temporary level advantage for faster nuking power.

Clash management can be performed by all heroes. A good opponent will drag the creeps towards himself and his tower. If he does this, you should harass him as he does it, to pull the creeps back to you. It's a big tug-of-war!


When to Single-Target Nuke
Single-target nukes tend to be costly in terms of mana, as they tend to be found on non-INT heroes. However, they can be very useful in preventing denies, though they should be used sparingly.

You can use a single-target nuke to prevent a deny, or to kill a creep you can't get with your normal attack.

If the nuke is a stun, you should generally avoid using it, as you should always have a big mana pool for the stun. One of the few exceptions here is Blacksmith, who can keep his stun at LVL1 to last hit, as he has a huge mana pool. However, you should follow the advice given in purple for "When to AoE Nuke" regarding leveling the skill--that is, keep the skill points unspent so you can use it at its highest level when you need to.

If you have Glacius on your team, you are a lot more free to use your mana. However, gauge your enemy first--does he have a ton of regen? If so, and your nuke harassment isn't worth it, spend your spells on creeps. In general, harassment is a lot stronger, as it forces an enemy back, letting you get last-hits anyway.


When to AoE Nuke
Damage spells, especially AoE nukes, should be used with caution and only under the correct circumstances. Understanding how your spell works is paramount to using it correctly.

AoE nuking (ie, Defiler's Wave of Death) of creeps should generally be avoided, as it pushes the lane. You should only AoE nuke to avoid a deny or to get a last-hit you'll miss with your normal attack. When AoE nuking, position yourself and your nuke such that it will not only hit the targeted creeps, but will hit your enemy too. This way, you get the most out of it.

The fact that an AoE nuke is AoE does not imply that you should hit as many creeps as you can with it. If there is a low-HP Warlock in the back, don't just nuke the entire wave. Move into position so that it only hits the Warlock and if possible, enemy heroes.

If you are using a farm-centric build, such as rushing Sacrificial Heart, under the correct circumstances it may be wise to keep your AoE nuke at LVL1. For example, Defiler has enough lane control power to keep Wave of Death at LVL1 and max out Power in Death. In this case, you should not get stats, but rather, leave the skill points unspent. This way, when you do need them (for a kill, or for serious harassment), you can spend them rather than having to level a lot more just to do more damage.


Map Awareness
Most players, understandably, only pay attention to the one or two heroes they're fighting in their lane. Most players are also understandably upset when a third hero comes out of nowhere and kills them. Don't be that guy who dies--or that guy who gets blamed for not calling the lane.

Always call your lane. If you don't see a hero, type "bot mia/top mia/mid mia" right away. If they reappear in 2 seconds, type "nm".

If you KNOW a hero is going somewhere, specify it. If you're mid, and you see your opponent start moving into the river for a rune, type "mid to bot rune".

Ping multiple times if you know the projected path of a hero. This can catch attention much better--if I'm mid, and see my opponent start heading bottom, I take a quick glance at my team's health. If my ally is low, I'll ping a path from the opponent's last known position straight to my ally so he knows exactly what's going on. This takes 2 seconds max.

Hope it helps!

DotA Basics for New to Average Skill

This Guide is from the Offical HoN forums by [D55]Kaution

Table of Contents

* Introduction
* Basics
* Survivablity
* Creeps and Towers
* Items
* Hero Classifications (coming soon)
* Credits

Introduction


I thought I would write some of the information that I constantly say in games online to new players or via the in game comms. It is a joint effort with friends the guide will be updated, so if you have any piece of information you want to contribute with, feel free to post it in this thread.

Text in Red is the Heroes of Newerth item name
Text in Green is the same item but the DotA name for it.

Basics

* Don't assume you always have to be fighting to win the game.
* You get experience for being about 2/3 of the screen width away when something dies, you don't have to kill it yourself.
* You get gold from a kill if you make the final, killing blow on it.
* Early on, getting experience is more important than getting gold.
* Killing enemy heroes gets you roughly 200 gold and some experience.
* Dying costs you a %age of your gold, and means your opponents level ALOT faster than you.
* Press the quote key ' (or you can remap this in the control's section) to show units health/mana bars above them.
* Heroes abilities decide games.

Therefore, if you don't recognise the hero you are against in your lane, ask your teammates what to watch out for. They will tell you the nastiest things you will face.



Survivablity

Early in game, stand nearby action but don't be involved all the time, don't make yourself a target for enemy heroes. Sit levelling up for a while and you gradually get a small amount of gold in the "background". If you make a few creep kills you get even more gold.

* When you have little health early on, creep hits on you hurt quite alot.
* If you don't have much health and you stick around near combat, the enemy will try to ambush you.
* Your skills are weak early on, and it takes many hits and spells to kill a hero. It is best to conserve your mana.
* Skills increase along with damage and combat later in the game can be brutally fast.
* If you conserve your mana it could be the difference between life and death either for yourself, allys or enemy heroes. (Stuns for example)
* Sometimes no matter how hard you try to play well, you will get beaten on.

If you are levels behind in your lane and getting hurt badly every time you go into combat, CALL IT EARLY and request a swap. Other people in your team doing better may be able to swap with you and stop the rot. You could also ask team mates to come and "gank/ambush" the people in your lane.

Always try to be staying alive, don't go for the jugular until you are sure of your capabilities, and the enemies.


Safe Buys
I would suggest people who have a problem with survivablity take into consideration and perhaps buy these items to help.


Fortified Bracelet / Bracer: + 3 to Strength, +3 to All Attributes. (found in the Initiation Recipe shop)

I would try and get two of these to begin with, the reason for this is so that you have some extra stats and more importantly a lot of extra health which will help you survive, if you have picked a strength hero you will get extra damage.

Steam Boots / Power Treads: +65 Movement speed, 10 Strength, and +30 attack speed. Click to toggle stats. (found in the Initiation Recipe shop)

To make these you need to get [ Marchers / Boots of Speed: +50 Movement Speed - 500 gold ] - which are extremely important for most people as it helps you get into or out of fights a lot quicker (aswell as into Lanes to creep). The reason for this item is so that you can have improved movement speed, attack speed and gain some extra health again. Combined with the Bracelets you won't be extremely squishy and most likely the enemy will have a harder job killing you which is what we want to avoid to begin with.


Creeps & Towers


Your hero will automatically attack units that are close by to it such as creeps(term: Auto Attacking). Here is a run down of why this is a bad thing and hopefully teach new players the reasons why last hitting is something that all HoN/DotA players should aim to perfect.

* Creeps will give gold for getting the killing blow on them.
* Friendly creeps can be denied.
* You kill your own creep to deny your enemy experience and gold, and thus giving you an advantage.
* Creeps are only deniable when on 50% health or lower.
* To deny creeps you should press A and target the friendly creep
* The creep waves are ALWAYS equal to each other, so any interference from players will make the creep wave move down or up a lane.
* If you put equal amounts of damage into friendly and enemy creeps then when the creep waves meet again they should fight in exactly the same place you were just at or extremely close by.
* If you auto attack and push the creeps forward and continue to creep this means that you could become vunerable to being ambushed.

Towers

* Towers hurt alot early on.
* Towers target ANYTHING which is attacking a friendly hero (or should).
* You have to take towers down, but it is much easier late game than early.
* The final hit on a tower gets you hundreds of gold.
* You can attempt to deny a tower by last hitting it
* Towers can only be denied when they are on 10% or less health.
* Denying a tower grants you & your team mates 100/150gold each and non for the opposing team

It is never really a good idea to be pushing towers early on unless your team has decided you need to win the game early and you are a team that is based around early mid game wins. If you kill a tower early the likelyhood is that the creep wave will end up on the enemies side of the map for huge portions of the game until it is either pushed back by enemy heroes (which they should try and attempt not to do by last hitting and denying to keep the creep wave safe in a friendly area) or until they push and take down 1-2 towers to equal each side.

Later in the game you must group up as 3/4/5 players and push one lane, usually the middle to take barracks down. Once you have done this, go another lane. If your team starts grouping you should NOT be alone unless you know what you are doing and why and when. (hint : if you need to read this post, you are dozens of games away from knowing what, why and when.)


Items

* Buying items suited to your heroes helps quite a bit.
* Buying the wrong items just plain sucks.

Therefore : if you are not sure what to buy, ask a team mate with more experience for a build order. Even among experience players there are disagreements and opinions, but they won't be significantly different. Remind them it is a build for a new player so they don't make it too ambitious for you.

Starting Items


(This is what I personally like to buy to start off with in 90% of games I play)

* Pretenders Crown / Circlet of Nobility: +2 All Attributes - 185 gold -
* I buy TWO of these to turn into Bracelets.
* Found in the Accessories section of the shop.
* These will give you extra health/mana/damage.

Now you need some regeneration or healing items so that you can stay in lane for a longer period of time, because its going to be 99% sure you will be taking some damage from creeps or heroes in the lane.

* Healing Potion / Healing Salve: Heals 400 HP over 10 seconds on a friendly unit. 1 Charge. Dispels on attack. - 100 gold.

I also buy TWO of these (found in the Supplies section of the shop). You need to make sure that you stay away from any incoming damage when you activate this heal potion on yourself as any damage will stop the regen effect.

Alternativly you can buy

* Runes of the Blight / Ancient Tango of Essifation: Allows the bearer to consume a tree, restoring 115 hit points over 16 seconds. 3 charges. - 90 gold.

Usually people buy TWO sets of these runes. The good thing about the Runes of Blight over the Healing Potions are that they don't stop the regen effect should you take damage.

Overall it is best that what ever items you decide to go for at the start you should always look to take some health regen items in the form of items or consumables. If you turn up to a lane with no health regen items the likelyhood is that you will get pushed out of lane quickly by enemy heroes that have noticed this and get some attacks in on you trying to force you out of lane.


Hero Classifications

So this section is to explain to people what class or role each hero is/plays within Heroes of Newerth. A lot of the heroes are good at several things and not just one - I will try and give a little run down of what they are good at.

Carry/Assassins
Heroes which specialize at killing other heroes through physical damage. Most heroes that have windwalk, an invsisibility skill, or blink can fall into this catergory. Often these heroes need to get more gold than other classes.

Disablers
Heroes who possess the ability to disable other characters, basically forcing them into a disadvantage while they attempt to fight or flee. Disables include any spells that move the enemy without his or her consent, stun an enemy, reduce movement speed, disallow movement, reduce damage, reduce attack speed, reduce armor, prevent physical attack or prevent spell casting. Though many spells fall under these catergories, the general rule of an effect disable spell is a spell that can extend and enemy's precence in combat against his or her will, which therefor only includes the first four of the listed effects. Also, passive abilities are often ignored as disables. Pollywog Priest and Puppeter are examples as they both have two skills that are classed as Disable.

Support
Heroes whose skills are meant to directly aid the rest of the team. Heroes with healing or protective skills fall into this catergory. Pushers can be counted as support, although somtimes they can be used individually instead of working together with the team.

Nukers
Heroes which possess the ability to cause an significant amount of damage in a single instant via use of an activated spell in lieu of a physical attack. E.g. Pyromancer.

Pushers
Heroes which can quickly destroy enemy towers and creep generators due to their ability to summon additional units or deal damage to an area of enemy creeps.

Stunners
Heroes who posses the ability to stun other characters. Certain heroes have passive skills enabling their attacks to have a chance of stunning. When such heroes are able to keep an enemy constantly stunned it is known informally as permastun or stunlock.

Tanks
Heroes who can absorb huge amounts of damage with either high health or armor count. Typically used to tank towers or enemies.


Intelligence Heroes


[Blacksmith]
Stunner
Nuker
Disabler(Slow)
Support

[Nymphora]
Stunner
Disabler
Nuker/Pusher
Support

[Pollywog Priest]
Disabler
Nuker
Pusher

[Tempest]
Stunner
Disabler
Pusher

[Zephyr]
Pusher(Early/Mid Game)
Disabler(Slow)
Assassin

[Pyromancer]
Nuker/Pusher
Stunner

[Torturer]
Nuker/Pusher
Stunner

[Puppet Master]
Disabler
Nuker(Ultimate)

[Hellbringer]
Pusher
Disabler(Slow)
Stun(Ultimate)
Pusher
Support

[Demented Shaman]
Nuker/Pusher
Support
Disabler/Stunner (Snare Skill)

[Defiler]
Nuker
Pusher
Disabler(Silence)

[Glacius]
Disabler
Support(Aura)
Nuker/Pusher

[Voodoo Jester]
Stunner
Nuker(Maledict/Ultimate)
Support(Heal)



Agility Heroes


[Moon Queen]
Carry
Nuker
Pusher

[Wildsoul]
Carry
Tanker(Bear Form)

[Scout]
Assassin/Carry
Nuker(Ultimate)

[Magebane]
Carry
Nuker(Ultimate)

[Nighthound]
Assassin/Carry
Disabler(Cloud)

[Swiftblade]
Carry

[Slither]
Nuker
Pusher(Toxin Wards)
Maybe Carry

[Chronos]
Carry
Disabler

[Madman]
Carry/Assassin

[Blood Hunter]
Carry
Disabler(Silence)

[Arachna]
Carry
Disabler(Orb effect slow)

[Dark Lady]
Carry
Disabler

[Soulstealer]
Carry
Nuker/Pusher


Strength Heroes

[Hammerstorm]
Carry
Stunner

[Jereziah]
Support
Pusher

[Legionaire]
Tank
Nuker
Disabler

[Predator]
Carry/Tank
Disabler(Slow & Armor reduction)

[Behemoth]
Stunner
Support
Nuker/Pusher

[Armadon]
Tank
Disabler(Slow from Snot)

[Pebbles]
Stunner
Tank
Support

[Keeper of the Forest]
Support
Disabler

[Devourer]
Support
Disabler
Tank

[Electrician]
Disabler
Tank
Support

[Pharoah]
Carry or Tank
Stunner

[Kraken]
Support(Ultimate)
Tank

[Accursed]
Support
Tank

[War Beast]
Carry/Tank

[Pestilence]
Stunner
Support(Ultimate)
Tank