BardicKnowledge

i HATE chronos, and vow to never play him again in a real match.

Wildsoul has definitely earned his "A" spot -- the buffs to him post-patch are incredible. Wild now affects both him and Booboo in one cast, and Booboo has an inventory from level 1...making him the 2nd best jungle char in the game (after Legion). Great stuff -- on average I get my Mock of Brilliance around 20 minutes.

Let me be the first to report djp's conquering of me! I'm crazy rusty after all of this HoN -- only got one round

I haven't played with the new patch yet, but seeing as how it's been out less than a week, I'd hold off on the banstick, zircon. See if any hard counters to the hero develop?

IMO you should be grabbing one attack-speed item on him to compensate for his otherwise crazy slow attack speed. EDIT: changed "move" to "attack", but you guys probably knew what I meant to say.

I would if they'd never played an FPS before. Also, dying in TF2 doesn't outright hurt your team -- running forward, firing two rockets and dying at least creates the distraction of two rockets -- it's not like the other team gets a free uber when you die. This will largely go away next patch, as #hondev spent their afternoon helping the S2 staff create the "Recommended Items" shop section -- 12 items for each hero that you can get and be decent (if not the best). Said shop includes minor totems and healing consumables for EVERY character -- there's a reason most of us get them early on.

I've got a really nice tenor recorder that's perfect for Christmas stuff -- unfortunately, I lack the production skills to write anything behind it. If anyone wants me to play for them, hit me up in IRC or PM me.

3/5 of 3/5 works for me sure. I haven't played much because I've been doing HoN lately Find me in IRC and we'll rumble.

Interesting list of the heroes and suggested builds at a glance: http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=18145

I have defeated Bahamut, and must now play djp! He's been eager to play, so I'm looking forward to it.

For DotA players making the transition to HoN, one BIG change: Orb effects mostly stack. Anything called an "exclusive modifier" stacks, but only one of each type. You can now have lifesteal, Sange&Yasha's cripple, manaburn, bash, and chain lightning on the same character, and they will ALL trigger. There are two items and some hero abilities that will stack with everything above but not with each other, here's the list: Attack Modifiers Frostwolf's Skull (grants Frost Attack) Shield Breaker (reduces target's armor by 6) Slither's Toxicity BooBoo's Tangle Claw Accursed's Sear Magmus' Volcanic Touch Source: http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=2044

I think Wildsoul is a solid B tier -- at start the bear serves as a free ward to prevent early ganks, and assuming you don't need to heal (which you shouldn't) he is also a free monkey at level 7. Putting boots on the bear him faster than all nonblinkers. Oh, and because of bear, Wildsoul can start pushing towers at level 4-5 instead of 6-7. I often push 2 towers very early in my lane, which feels great (and gets you enough cash to finish all of your early game stuff). Edit: Now that Zephyr's ultimate actually does what it says it does, he should be a solid char. Haven't played him enough to really say yet though.

One of the new items really stands out IMO: Logger's Hatchet. It's extra damage to creeps, and allows almost any melee hero to be viable for a few levels in the jungle. An absolute must for Legionnaire and Zephyr. The other item series that seems interesting is Mana/Power Battery if you're up against spellcasters a lot, or play a char that specializes in fighting them (Magebane). IMO Iron Shield doesn't compare to Helm as a Shield upgrade -- +6 regen is huge. If anyone has a good reason to get it, lemme know.

Giving upgraded boots to my bear last 5v5 house game was sick -- extra speed and extra entangle procs FTW. Mock of Brilliance (radiance, dota players) was icing on the cake. I didn't do a ton of damage, but my bear raped. Considering that the bear basically can't die, I highly preferred making him a bigger threat than me (who could hang in the back, relatively safe).

Yes, this would be awesome as we RARELY get to play 5v5 with no pubs. Despite whatever intentions you have, your attitude and way of approaching things is dumb. There's a reason most of us don't play public games, and this attitude / behavior is it. Yeah, that last game was incredible. Pebbles throwing Moon Queen into group as I triggered her ulti was amazing

As far as items go, I usually start with a +6/+3/+3 item, and a few +1 all items. Then first trip back is boots + tp. Don't start with boots! Edit: I love valk's stun. FIVE SECONDS omg yes.

Same as arek haha. What a letdown

Something to add to zircon's emphasis on not being gone too long (by not dying, and healing) is that the Homecoming Stone is WELL worth 135 gold, ESPECIALLY early game when you don't think you can spare the cash. Maintaining equal XP gain with the other team is important, and the portal ensures that they don't receive a huge benefit when you retreat.

Arek's mostly right -- the ONLY hero I feel deserves a nerf currently is Jereziah. Everyone else no matter how good they are is easily overcome by the right team. Also, if you feed them early and then they're unstoppable late, that's not because they have a great endgame, it's because you suck. Don't get killed in the first 10 minutes, period. 90% of the time if you do it's your fault and the other team took advantage of your mistake. That being said, I do agree with zircon that there are some tier differences in the current batch of heroes, and the list is worth noting for a new player. We should make a list of no-no heroes for newbies (warbeast and wildsoul come to mind).

If anyone needs recorder or tenor vocals, hit me up! This project looks fun!

Some heroes are hard counters to others, or synergize REALLY well on certain teams. For instance, Glacius jumps at least one tier on a team with Thunderbringer or Pyromancer. Slither counters carry heroes as he is one of the best heroes in the game until level 7 (and continues to do well until after 16). Accursed makes for much better bait than Jereziah, even though it takes a similar effort to kill each one...the list goes on. My personal favs for each archetype of hero are currently as follows: Nuking early -- Thunderbringer (fullscreen) Nuking late -- Moon Queen (>1000 damage ulti if done well) Ganking early -- Slither (poison > blink), then Magnus (awesome ulti if they can't blink) Ganking late -- Behemoth (stun) and Defiler (spirits are amazing) Push early -- don't do this! ugh Push late -- Defiler (nothing can stop spirits moving forward) Support early -- Glacius (if spellcasting team) and Jereziah tie Support late -- Jereziah DPS mid -- Legionnaire DPS late -- Moon Queen / Madman Jungling: Legionnaire EDIT: Forum moderator gives his opinion on lategame carries: http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=15362

I'm waiting on my new XBL Gold card from Amazon, and will be ready to play my matches after Labor Day weekend. Also got a nicer stick for my SE joystick, and it's frigging incredible. Choosing which height of air hurricane to do (juice kick or high air hurricane) adds a sweet set of maneuverability / tricks to my Ryu.

Enigma (the dota version) really excelled in team fights, but sucks 1v1. Especially given that his minions give a TON of gold and XP on kill -- you can't run away leaving your minions for free, or it's like he gets a free hero kill in XP.

Does that wrench do anything special, or just look neat?

Thanks for telling me about my new hat, Rambo! My medic and spy are wearing it atm.