Tensei

Okay, my thoughts on the two new heroes so far (I love them both by the way, expect me to play them a lot): Plague Rider is an awesome awesome support hero. He can lane very very well due to his infinite mana supply (sacrifice a friendly creep and convert a percentage of his health to mana). Obviously this skill dicks over anyone who has to lane against you since you're denying them tons of experience by spamming this skill (especially if you cast it on creeps outside of the 'experience' range). He has a decent slowing AoE nuke which you can use to harass almost non-stop due to your mana replenishment, as well as a very spammable 'shield' that you can cast on any of your allies (due to the CD it's possible to keep your entire team shielded), which boosts their armor and slows anyone who attacks them. Finally, his ult is just rape if used correctly. Imagine Voodoo Jester's acid potion on steroids; bounces 7 times, dealing 240 splash damage on level 1. If you ever catch two enemy heroes by themselves, this will just devastate them. Staff of the master bumps the damage up to 550 per bounce, making this skill an awesome damage dealer in lategame team battles. Soul Reaper on the other hand seems quite similar to defiler, except that he seems to be more geared towards taking down lategame tanks rather than pushing. His nuke is on a 5 second cooldown and heals/damages in an AoE, which means you should basically be spamming it non-stop in teambattles. He has a passive ability that replenishes a set amount of mana each time you get a last-hit or deny, which, combined with his heal, gives him good longevity in a lane (maybe even solo mid), provided you can last-hit well enough. His passive Aura damages every enemy around him for a % of their maximum health every second (1% per second at level 4), which makes him GREAT at negating a tank's regen in lategame, though you obviously shouldn't get it until level 10-ish due to the pushing this will cause. Finally, his ult is a single-target nuke that deals damage based on the amount of damage the enemy has already sustained: on level 3, 0.9 points of damage (1.1 with SoM) is done for every point of health the enemy is missing, which means you can INSTANTLY finish off any enemy that's around 40% health or lower. This is of course an amazing way to finish off a Legionnaire with 4k health.

Well, Arek, get ready to cream your pants, because Lich just got ported. Edit: And he has a fucking bone dragon mount too, guy's a pimp. Btw, Arachna is more based on Drow Ranger than anything else. Orbwalking with Frost Arrow/Web is really what defines her IMO.

You don't get a big "DENIED" message like when denying a tower, but it does give you an awesome "[OCR]TenseiSan killed himself"-type message.

Devourer would be an hero because he can kill himself with his decay ability.

I really only elect to play support if I'm on a team with a carry player that can make proper use of it (i.e. one of the srs bzns games). No offense to new guys, but there's nothing more frustrating if you set up what would have been a perfect gank, only for them to start running back to the fountain just as you disable the target.

Well, I've added you to my buddy list, but you almost always seem to be ingame (no surprise there obviously), and we usually set up our games through either clan-chat or IRC. Since you're apparently in another clan, it might be the best if you join #ocrhon on irc.enterthegame.net if you're interested in playing with us. Also, apparently "jungling" means killing neutrals straight from level 1 onwards, otherwise it's called "neutralling". I have never played DotA but I'm starting to pick up on DotA terms for items/heroes as well, since a lot of people insist on using those in guides or ingame. Besides, it's obviously a lot quicker to type out "zeus miss" than "thunderbringer miss". Edit: Something about laning. If you're not confident in last-hitting, note that it's more beneficial to NOT ATTACK AT ALL, or only focus your attacks on the enemy heroes (especially if you're ranged). I'm pretty sure you only get gold from last-hitting, not xp, which is why a good support should never ever last-hit unless it's clear that your laning partner can't reach it. You will be getting the same amount of experience, but you also ensure that your laning partner gets a ton of gold and can get his important items quicker. When I play a support hero, I always focus on denying my own creeps and hitting the enemy heroes whenever they get in range. Your lane partner will love you for this.

A nuke is basically every spell that does damage in one chunk. If it's over time, like Hellbringer's Blood Boil, it's called a DoT (Damage over Time).

In my experience, PSR is a very very bad indicator of skill. I'm personally around 1200-1300 because I play tons of inhouse games with new people which we end up losing even if I perform well.

I guess it's all about the proper mindset then. I knew right from the start that I wouldn't be some god at this game right away and my first bunch of games would involve lots of dying, not knowing what to buy, what skills to use etc. And yes, I got killed over and over again by c3lly until I learned I shouldn't run into towers etc. Sure, it's frustrating, but it's not like I EXPECTED to do any better, and this definitely taught me WHY I shouldn't push my lane early and all that, because I would get punished for it right away. By making people go easy on you, you only protract the period where you're a total noob and clueless about just about everything. Honestly, you can do without learning all items and skills right away, the first thing you need to learn is to just stay the hell back and play cautiously. Bitching at new players for performing badly is obviously something I wouldn't do, but don't expect me to go easy on them anymore. Edit: It's not like you all decide to go easy on new players in TF2, do you? Also I can see Slither, but there's just NO WAY I would ever get outlaned by Magebane as Arachna (lol melee), unless the skill gap was incredibly huge.

This was what? A 3v4 game? In the end even 2v4. I didn't counterpick you guys or anything. And of course I was bitching about having to 'hold back'. How the hell are you going to learn the game if you force people to go easy on you? I'm pretty sure it was SD as well and I got a choice of 2 melee heroes and TB. Also, I kind of agree with zircon. When I got Arachna a few days ago in the 5v5 on watchtower, c3lly bitched initially as well, but I KNOW him and relyanCe are good enough to deal with her, and look how it turned out, it went on to be an awesome hour-long match that went completely back and forth til the very end. It really depends on who is playing and how the teams are balanced. That said, I PERSONALLY don't mind playing with or against Arachna, I just notice that newer people tend to have lots of trouble dealing with her, to the point where it takes the fun out of the game. I don't think she should be outright banned, I just consider it kind of bad form to pick her when you know you're up against new players. Edit: And about the winning and losing = fun. This doesn't hold true for me. Of course it's slightly more frustrating to get steamrolled than doing the steamrolling yourself, but ultimately I'd much rather play a balanced match that ends up taking an hour and losing it in the end than winning within the first 20 minutes.

I honestly personally don't mind playing/laning against Arachna that much. I know how to deal with her because I used to play her a lot so I know her weaknesses, effective range, etc. It's just that I have noticed that on lower skill levels, picking arachna in and of itself gives a player an immense advantage over other, inexperienced players. It's not even the ganks (because, really, new players won't be roaming with her anyway), it's just that she completely outlanes and repeatedly kills players of a lower skill level, to the point where it becomes gamebreaking. Edit: Clef, Arachna is NOT like Akuma. As I understand it, Akuma was completely overpowered in any level of play, whereas in higher levels of HoN, a competent thunderbringer or soulstealer should be able to hold their own against her, and a succubus should even be able to outlane her (though Succubus is basically the counter to anything 1v1). Arachna, like almost all agi carries, is squishy as hell at the start. A few well-placed/timed nukes is really all it takes, especially if you time them so that her carapace is on cooldown. As long as you keep succesfully runewhoring to replenish your mana, Arachna can be dealt with (speaking from personal experience when playing TB).

Okay, so, while I'm probably the last one who should be talking about this, I'd like to say that picking Arachna in AP is kind of a dick move in our inhouse games. She's EXTREMELY easy to be effective as, and considering many of the people playing are relatively new, they simply have no way of dealing with her slows+ ult and so they get killed repeatedly. I wouldn't want to call for an outright ban, I just think it's better to think twice about picking her, for the sake of having a fun and balanced game for everyone.

Well, I guess you should also look at the stats, and stat gain especially. I don't know how good hag is in that department, but, suppose she has a high int gain, that means a lot of dps in the endgame. In general I think with carries you have to look at how 'hard' they carry, i.e. how well they can carry your team in the endgame provided they've farmed well (Chronos is amazing when it comes to this), but you also have to consider how easy or hard it is to actually get to this point. Arachna has an easy time ganking and thus farming gold, so she's way more likely to be farmed up enough in the endgame than Chronos, even though Chronos would probably destroy her (along with most of the opposing team) if they were both farmed up equally. Also, zircon, when you're playing a hero that's predisposed to early(ish) ganking but has a low mana pool, you should just start using a bottle and go runewhore. The refill every 2 minutes should be more than enough to allow you to use spells for ganking without ever having to return to the fountain.

But starcraft is REALLY REALLY good! D: Empire: Total War then.

'Exactly' the same? More like vaguely resembling.

I can testify that pebbles wants to be nuking a LOT. Throw and stalagmites are both amazing for midgame ganks. He scales SOMEWHAT well into lategame provided you manage to farm up warpcleft and behemoth's heart relatively quickly, but most of his use is definitely in midgame IMO.

Like I said on IRC, zephyr can do all of this much better. Near-constant 20% evasion, chance to reflect physical projectiles (this reflects defiler's ult actually!), coupled with mass HP regen from behemoth's heart gives you such a ridiculous amount of (Effective)HP. Not to mention that, with proper neutral-killing, you should have mock of brilliance about 25 minutes in. Behemoth's heart shouldn't be very late after that since you'll be making ~500 gold per creep wave. And I'd like to see Armadon keep up with the dps you get from mock of brilliance + mass tornado's. Oh and Zephyr also has an ult that mass slows. And a blink. Edit: luke gtfo of this thread or get a beta key and play with us >=|

I think SD is the way to go after all. Personally in AP I either pick a hero I've been playing in practice mode and want some hands-on experience with, or a hero that I think will complement the team. Seems like I'm in the minority with that, though, since many people will just pick what they think is the 'best' hero (lolarachna). SD at least somewhat forces you to think over your choice and pick something that would benefit your team. Also, Armadon is a tank more than anything else. You don't necessarily need a tank for a balanced team, and even then, there are lots of heroes who can tank and carry way better than him (cough zephyr cough).

btw, Zephyr is at least A-tier. He carries so well! In the end I had like 10 kills, 3 deaths and almost 500 creep kills with what's essentially an INT-tank. btw, for some reason I didn't really catch the enemy team's hero line-up at the start, so I thought we were royally screwed once I saw Defiler, Arachna AND Swiftblade.

I think the biggest problem with madman is that he's similar to arachna, in the sense that he's supposed to play as a carry (though he scales even better than arachna in lategame), but he really has no trouble at all being effective in early and midgame as well (especially if you compare him to, say, Chronos). The combination of the speedboost/invisibility and AoE stun gives him both a great way to escape and to initiate early ganks. The only real drawback for him is his low mana pool, which is why he pairs up so well with glacius.

Madman. God Tier.

Yeah I already knew about most of the orb effects stacking, but it's nice to have an exact list with the ones that DON'T stack. Dark Lady with frostwolf skull = mass slow and silence.

My biggest issue with puppet master is that none of his attacks is a 'true' disable. Enemies can still cast spells with the hold on them, and puppet show is more like a silence than a disable. His ult does amazing damage, and I've gotten a lot of kills that way, but you have to remember it has a huge cooldown and it only works on one target basically. Whiplash is pretty great, though, and I guess it's possible to play puppet master like a DPS carry.

And so the "... is banned from playing ..."-jokes started all over again!

Well I got it traded at the very last moment because SOMEBODY had to play Armadon no matter what.