[Poll] Ganking Heroes

So this week we have a poll to find out what ganking hero is generally presenting the most issues for you.  I can do a very in depth help guide for playing against that hero once we find out what hero is presenting the most problems.

Nigma's Wisdom

Nigma has had a pretty good blog for a while, and while he hasn't had an update in a while I've kept a link to a his blog here.   Looks like it paid off, here are 2 blog posts full of awesome:

5 Easy Ways to Lose a Game

5 Worst Pug Heroes

Some other heroes to not play in a pug game if you don't know them how to play them-

Devourer
Valkyrie
... Scout >.> <.<

In other news, Nome's Wisdom is looking for a rename to Nigma's Wisdom... I kid don't ban me Nome!

[Guide] Last Hitting and the Laning Phase

Many new players allow their hero to attack creeps as much as they want, thinking the more they swing, the faster creeps will die and the more gold they will get.  While this logic is used in some circumstances, what we would call pushing, early in the game it is often better to bide your time try to land the last hit.  Last hitting is when you do not attack until either your creep, or the enemy creep is able to be killed with just one hit. This leads to several advantages:

1. You can deny friendly creeps, which reduces the XP your enemies get, and allows you to level faster than them.
2. You can "last hit" enemy creeps, still getting the gold and full XP for yourself.
3. By doing both of these skillfully, you will slowly cause the friendly creeps to lose, "pulling" the creeps back towards your tower, giving you the safety of tower cover at a closer proximity.  A definite bonus!

This link is a Dota video, but the concepts still apply.

Posture, who is scarier? Often times people will talk about OP lanes such as swift blade and Glacius, and how there is nothing they can do to prevent feeding.  While these lanes are hard, denying when you can, and playing aggressive at the start to whiddle swift blades HP down will help.  Trying to knock someones HP down is an aggressive posture.  Remember if swift blade is too low, even if he twirls he'll die, so he'll just sit back and soak XP.  The stance swift blade is taking in this example, the passive sit back and don't die posture, is known as defensive posture.  Remember, posture and your choice of what you actually are can make a HUGE difference to the way you'll play and how easy it will be to not die and get last hits.

While we're talking about posture, sometimes you're going to have to play extremely defensively to not die.  In these cases make sure you are in XP range of the enemy creeps as they die.  To check this, check and see if there is a purple diamond above the creeps head.  If there is, you're in XP range.

Remember, playing your lane correctly and last hitting/denying can make a HUGE difference.

I want to apologize for the lack of pictures in this post compared to normal.  I had a few replays I was going to harvest for good last hitting pictures, but the server issues have made it almost impossible to get to them.  I will try to add them later this week along with more information with those pictures.  Feel free to leave any questions or comments as always.

[Trouble Hero] Tremble

There has been a lot of discussion both on the official forums, on www.reddithon.com, and just about everywhere else about Tremble.  Tremble is an annoying hero to play against, especially as a new player.  The developers have said that they are not going to be directly nerfing him anytime soon, but he will receive a rework eventually (TM).

You'll look like this before he gets a rework

Tremble is an insectoid hero that uses stealth and a crippling poison to bring his enemies to task.  With the fact that both he and his pet have a non-attack modifying slow, getting away from tremble can be painful at best or impossible at worse.  How you're going to deal with this is going to depend on whether you have a lane mate or not.

Picking Phase:  Tremble is annoying but not necessarily game breaking.  If you're afraid your team isn't going to be willing to pony up to buy stealth sight wards; and/or play conservatively, he could be worthy of a ban.  However, if you're confident that you'll get stealth sight wards, and you know your team mates can play carefully, he really isn't worth your ban.  If he's smart, he is going to build a Shrunken Head, so grab some heroes with ult level stun.

Early Game:

• Solo:  You're going to need stealth sight wards.  Ask your support if they can afford to get you one at the beginning. If he can't, you're going to have to do it yourself. Dont wanna?  Tough.  You're also going to need another one before the current one expires,  ask your supports nicely if they'll buy one for you.  If they won't, too bad, so sad; buy them yourself.  Better to buy than to die.  With sight, try and harass tremble as best you can and kill his mounds for the bonus gold.  Just be aware that its almost impossible to get away from tremble once he hits you.
  

• With a Partner:  You may or may not need stealth sight wards depending on what skills tremble gets.  Ask your support if they can afford to get you one at the beginning. If he can't, you're going to have to.  With this sight, try to harass tremble as best you can or tell your babysit to.  If he has mounds try and kill them for the extra gold/denying him stealth.  Just be aware that its almost impossible to get away from tremble once he hits you, so unless your ally has a stun or a very strong slow play conservatively.  Actually, even if he has a stun or slow play conservatively.

Don't feed Tremble or you might have this happen!

Mid Game:  Remember that without stealth sight and a stunner, tremble is extremely hard to gank since he can go invisible or teleport away at anytime with his mounds.  Going with Dust of Revelation and a stunner into the enemy woods to gank tremble is an extremely good idea since he does have a decent end game carry potential and without stealth or his teleport he has no easy way to evade you.  Use offensive wards and make sure to axe down any of his mounds you see to minimize his map presence.

Late Game:  As long as you haven't fed tremble in the early or mid game, you should not have too much trouble with him here as all he provides is his slow.  If he is fed, hopefully you've picked up some ult level stun to deal with him while magic immune.  Also, check his items and have your carry build to counter him.  For example, if he has the evasion granting Wingbow, your carry could get a Savage mace to completely negate that and grant very impressive damage.

As you can see above, tremble, like most heroes with carry potential, is really only a problem once you've allowed him to snowball due to his gold amount.  Remember to pick and ban wisely, buy stealth sight wards and gank him repetitively and you will not have a problem dealing with tremble.

Next post I'm going to try and put together a last hitting guide since the one I thought was informative has been taken down.  Feel free to ask any questions or drop my a comment, especially about tremble, as I know he can be very frustrating.

[Introduction] Welcome to HoN

This Blog was originally intended for people who had minimal knowledge of Heroes of Newerth (HoN), with the intention of getting better.  This post is for people who have never played this game, and would like to learn the basics, and what HoN is. 

Heroes of Newerth is a player vs player game, in which two armies clash.  The objective is for each team to destroy the enemy's throne, heavily guarded structures at opposing corners of the map. Players use a variety of heroes to aid the cause, and are assisted by allies (who also use heroes) and AI-controlled allied fighters (generally much weaker) called "creeps".  In RPG style, the hero gets progressively stronger as the game continues.

 

If you're interested in learning how to play HoN, fantastic, but a word of caution.  HoN is an amazingly fun game, that is constantly evolving and I highly recommend it.... however, it is also notoriously hard to learn.  The purpose of this blog is to help make that easier, but even with this, it's not a walk in the park.

That said, if you're interested in learning more, feel free to read up on some basics with my earlier post:  Useful Links and Information

Welcome to Newerth, if you're new, I hope you enjoy yourself.  As always feel free to leave questions or comments!

Many people have been complaining about Tremble and we'll review how to deal with this hero in my next post.

[Hero Spotlight] Witchslayer

 

As I promised last week, this week we're going to be focusing on Witch Slayer.

Witch slayer is a ranged support/ganking hero, that is very item independent, but brutally effective none the less.  Since he is so item independent, getting wards for your team should be a top priority, and enough survival items so you don't just explode in team fights.  He is ranged, brings a stun, and is a great babysit for your carry, so he is definitely a hero to pick up early in any of your games.

I don't wanna go home!

Many people think Witch Slayer's power drain is worthless, however at max rank it takes 400 mana from a unit up to 750 feet away and gives it to you.  400 mana is often enough to shut down enemy strength heroes with important casts like kraken, for an entire engagement instead of just 3.5 seconds like miniaturize.

In fact, you can even drain neutral camps without them attacking you, giving you more staying power.  Good Witch Slayers can gank around the map, never going home until things go poorly for them and they need to heal.

Is it kinda creepy i feel at home in this graveyard?

Witch Slayer's graveyard skill allows him to stun all targets within a 700 unit line.  However, the cast range is only 500, so it will often go farther than you expect.  Be sure to lead this skill on the ground, as sometimes you can still get heroes even if you can not cast on them directly.  Also, this ability does give you some time to channel mana drain, if you're afraid the enemy hero is going to harass you while you drain.

His miniaturize is just a plain old point stun, and while that's nothing to sneeze at it is kinda boring compared to his other skills.  At max rank, it lasts for 3.5 seconds, so it definately is a huge contribution to team fights.

Finally silver bullet is the skill everyone fears, as it unleashes 500/650/850 damage single target nuke.  Many people save this until they're sure they're going to get a kill with it.  In team engagements, it's better to use this early; and on an important enemy hero, like the carry, so they flinch because they're suddenly low on HP.

Core items for Witch Slayer:

    

Nome's Wisdom demands a bit of a explanation as many people don't understand why its so good on casters like Witch Slayer.  Any time you cast a spell, Nome's Wisdom heals you, or puts a shield  on you if you're at full HP, for an amount equal to 25% of the mana used to cast the spell.  With silver bullet, Nome's Wisdom is 50/105/162.5 extra HP in every team engagement, while giving your team regen, and extra HP, for only 2240 gold!  It will definitely bring all the boys to the yard!

You might wanna leave some kills for your carry >.>

Witch Slayer is a hero that is easy to play, but the best players make him into a powerhouse.  I'd definitely recommend adding this hero to your list if you're trying to learn HoN.

[Item Spotlight] Puzzlebox

Puzzlebox is one of those items, that back in dota (when it was necromonicon) this item was considered a golden goose.  Most games you'd see one Puzzlebox one Mock Brilliance (radiance back then), and it was a legitimate build, as it was VERY strong.

In HoN, we don't see puzzlebox as much, which is especially awkward when you think about what puzzlebox is capable of in the current ward, counter ward meta game.

Puzzlebox Item Details

+6/10/14 Strength
+15/21/24 Intelligence
Summons a Puzzlebox Mauler and a Puzzlebox Wizard under your control for 45 seconds

At level 3 the Puzzlebox wizard gains true sight.

Cooldown 90 seconds
Mana Cost 50 

Puzzlebox Mauler  

Hit Points:  400/600/800 at 6/8/10 physical armor

Damage: 21/41/61 at 1 base attack time

Abilities:

1. Mana Combustion: Burns 25/50/75 mana with each attack, dealing 60% of that amount in Physical damage. 
2. Last Stand: Explodes on death, dealing 200/400/600 True damage to its killer. 
3. Reveals invisible units.

Puzzlebox Wizard 

Hit Points:  400/600/800 at 6/8/10 physical armor

Damage: 31/61/91 at 1 base attack time

Abilities:

1. Mana Burn: Burns 125/175/225 mana from the target dealing that amount in magic damage. (Once per summoning)
2. Haste Aura: Increases friendly units' within 350 units movement speed and attack rate by +3/6/9% Movement Speed, +3/6/9 Attack Speed.

These little guys will allow your support to counter-ward the entire rest of the game, while providing them with a nuke (mana burn), a speed aura, decent base damage (this little guys hit pretty good, 181 DPS), and true sight against enemy stealthers as well.  

If you farm 230 gold per minute, you can have this by the 30 minute mark, which is definitely feasible for support heroes.  This will save you SO much gold from that point forward as it allows you to counter-ward every 90 seconds for free, and gives TONS of benefit in team fights.  

If you don't think its that effective in team fights, check out this video

Puzzlebox brings the funny

Now, while Puzzlebox is an amazing item, be aware that it doesn't make you super tanky, so if you need a lot of survivability this is not the item for you. This definitely deserves to be picked up on channelers like pollywog priest and succubus. It's an amazing item and I urge you to try it out and get a good laugh yourself.