zircon

Update; Arek v Newt Bardic v djp Shael v Dyne Flare4War v zircon Play 'em!

The problem with SEEING it is that in a team fight there are a million things going on at once - everyone is spamming attacks and ults, not to mention the creeps. Also, good luck getting all the defensive items you mentioned by level 6, or even by level 11. Remember that this ability does 1400+ damage at level 6, a time when some characters might still have less than 600 HP (Soul Reaper, Nymphora.)

OK, but how many disables, stuns and snares are there in this game? It's pretty easy to get the opponents grouped up.. certainly any melee characters will be grouped up near the character they are attacking, for example. That right there means Plague Rider's ulti is going to at least do 700 to any two melees. Even a skill with that much damage *potential* is ludicrous, as I said. It should have a damage cap per character like MQ's ulti. Not to mention it's not hard to get Assassin's Shroud, Port Key, Invis Runes or use techniques to simply sneak around the enemy so they don't know you're even there.

32" 1080i HDTV is too small?!

You mean one attack speed item? Enhanced Marchers now have +30 AS, which is pretty cool. BTW, I propose formally banning Plague Rider from our games (unless we're all on the same team and pubbing. *NO* other character has an ultimate that is so amazingly destructive. 240 damage per bounce and 7 bounces at *LEVEL 1*, each bounce also snaring and reducing attack speed. That's a potential of over 1,400 damage that a level 6 character can pull off at range with no setup required. Other AOE moves can perhaps add up to that much, but they require channeling, can be interrupted, and/or are only executable from melee. Furthermore, the 1,400 damage can be split between two characters (for ~700 each) whereas an AOE that does, say, 300 might do 1500 to a whole team but only 600 total to 2 characters.

I'm most likely buying this. I agree that the MIDI library is just a bonus - the oneshots/kits are what I really care about. On the other hand, Huggie (Goldbaby) has been releasing some amazing electronic sounds also, and I might pick up those instead...

I've finally gotten around to playing Pebbles, and he's a lot of fun. It's unusual to see a melee STR char with such awesome AOE spells. I'd still place him at the very solid A-tier - his damage, especially if augmented with attack speed items, is VERY high and all his AOEs allow him to farm more easily than most. Still, he's quite mana-intensive, and his armor sucks for *no* good reason. Devourer is getting knocked down to B. He is hard to play and loses usefulness later on as people get higher HP and magic armor. However, he can be a ludicrously strong ganker and later, an unkillable tank (thanks to Corpse Armor.) New Scout is at least an A. His invis was slightly nerfed; he can't vanish -> attack -> vanish, but he can still perma-invis when he's not in combat, and the cooldown is still low. 4 attacks at +200 attack speed is insane when you disarm and 2x crit 25% of the time. His new crossbow and eyes are also way better than the old ones. A very frightening hero now indeed. New Kraken is also at least an A. His Splash is still a little weak, but now that you can activate it anytime, it makes him a superior farmer to his old version. Reduced mana on Tsunami Charge is also great, and his new aura (up to 28% snare at 300 radius) makes him an imposing ganker. New Whirlpool is of course better than the old one, which was already good.

Scout and Kraken look way better - I can't wait to play Kraken in particular.

Hmm, you know I've been playing Nymphora all day and in none of the games did we win. She can lane well, yeah, but unfortunately her attack power is pretty bad without items, as is her move AND attack speed. Furthermore she doesn't have that much utility in team fights as the game progresses. Seriously, in the three games I played (all with good OCR folks), I couldn't help but think Jeraziah would have been a better choice. I think Nymphora would be superior IF she is laning with someone like Pyromancer, Hag or Thunderbringer that has a *constant* mana demand.

Lane = The path where the towers are and your creeps move. Laning = Going to a lane to kill creeps. Ganking = Killing an enemy hero, usually with an ambush. Typically, you gank a hero that is laning. Team Fight = A planned conflict between both sides, usually with all heroes. After level 12 or so, most fights in the game are team fights. Farming = Killing lots of creeps to get experience and gold. Basically everybody in the game is farming until about level 6-7 when the ganking begins. After the initial "laning" phase, some people may call that they're farming - this means that they are focusing on building up their character, NOT pushing a lane or trying to gank. Some characters must farm to become powerful. "B" / Back = Retreat back toward your towers/base. Push = Move with your creep wave up a lane and try to destroy a tower. Top / Bot / Mid = Top, bottom and middle lanes. "Miss" / MIA = An enemy hero that was previously fighting in a lane can no longer be seen. This means the enemy hero is either attempting a gank, or they are going back to heal. You MUST call missing if a hero in your lane is no longer visible, so that other people on your team can be cautious. "Re" = Returned, the enemy hero that was missing is now back where they would be expected. TP / Stone = Homecoming stone, a 135 gold item that teleports you to any friendly structure. Deny = To kill your own creep or tower. By denying a creep, you deprive the enemy of experience and gold. If you deny a tower, you deny them of a lot of gold. You can only deny when your creeps are about 25% health or lower (press A first to turn on all targeting, then left click on your creep.) Towers must have VERY low HP, about 200 or so. Last hit = You get experience as long as you are within about 3/4 of a screen of where an enemy creep/hero gets killed. However, you get gold and EXTRA experience if you land the last hit. Thus, it is often better to stop auto attacking (either by moving around or pressing "H") until your target creep has very little health, then swoop in for a last hit (or a deny!) Disable = An ability that stuns or silences the target, preventing them from moving, casting spells, etc. Disables are very powerful in this game.

Try to plan your builds out BEFORE you play, and have a good handle on what items do what. For example, know that the tanking items include: * Fortified Braclet - ~500 gold, Initiation * Helm of the Black Legion - ~2200 gold, Protection * Shaman's Headdress (vs. Magic) - ~2000 gold, Protection * Shrunken Head (vs. Magic) - ~3900 gold, Protection * Behemoth's Heart - ~5500 gold, Protection Doing a little research on the HoN site definitely won't hurt Also, remember that you can buy items from the shop *anytime*, even though they'll go straight to your Stash, but this is helpful while you're running back to heal.

I'm not sure we should be in the business of banning heroes. We need to teach our new players how to get better, that's all. Another option might be that we could have "serious" and casual games. For example if Wes, Bardic, Scythe, Donut, Celly, Honest etc. are on, we could say the game is serious, and you can use whatever hero. If we have like 3-4 really new guys (which we had yesterday in a match wes and I were in) then we could have a shortlist of banned heroes. I think this probably makes sense, because obviously players like Antigrav, Tran and Tensei know how to play very well and counter hero picks, so guys like them should not have any restrictions.

True, this is a team game, and as I said I am looking at overall utility. The point of my tiers is basically to determine what heroes are generally preferable to other heroes overall. For example, assuming all players were of equal skill, which team do you think would win? Accursed, Kraken, Chronos, Wildsoul, Wretched Hag vs. Tempest, Magmus, Thunderbringer, Soulstealer, Jeraziah I really don't think this would be 50/50; I think the second team has a much better chance of victory. Even if we try to get the same character types, 50/50 would still be unlikely. Unless you honestly and truly believe there are no balance issues whatsoever, and every hero has the same utility, there are gonna be tiers. The common arguments against these seem to be: * "X character, if farmed, is amazing" - Any character farmed is amazing, so this doesn't make sense. * "X and Y characters have great synergy" - OK, true, but maybe Z and Y characters have better synergy. * "You can easily counter X with this item" - Basically any character can be countered with the right item selection, so again, not a good argument.

I agree. For the purposes of determining tiers, looking at overall utility is more important than how dominant a character is at any one stage of the game (even if that stage is lategame.) Actually, I have a question based on what you just posted. What exactly determines your damage? Is it the highlighted yellow stat? I thought it was always AGI for any character...

Gross Beat can't quite do all this stuff. Gross Beat basically lets you put any envelope with any number of points/curves you want over volume and pitch (independently). But I don't think it can do this crazy grain stuff.

Any character can in theory be played as a carry if they farm a lot, so I don't think that says anything about the character itself. Glacius can be a carry too if you give him Savage Mace, Mock of Brilliance, Flayer, etc. Hag has no abilities that would affect her auto attack in any way, so I don't see how she is *naturally* a carry.

Wretched Hag: B. Warp -> Ulti -> Scream is a nice combo, and the Bat is a good harass. But it feels like all of her stuff just costs about 10-20% too much mana, and she doesn't scale all that well. If you can pair with Glacius or farm a lot, she can be pretty strong though. Otherwise, no reason not to just use Defiler or Pyro. Slither: A. Fun character overall. He's similar to arachna, except with more damage over time spells, and slightly less snaring ability. Unfortunately, no base damage aura means he doesn't scale quite as well either. Because characters like Arachna and Madman scale better overall and have about the same earlier ganking ability, I put him in a tier below, but he's certainly solid.

Sorry, I meant that the 11:49 train arrives TO ROSEMONT at 12:19, which is 20 mins later than the meetup time. Not a big deal, though. As for beer, unfortunately, we can't have any here. Our apartment complex specifically forbids it on the patio, and we'll obviously be eating out there. There's not really any way to sneak it either since we have to actually tell them that we're having a lot of guests over, and we're in plain view of the offices inside.

Pebbles sort of plays like INT, true, but he at least has Enlarge which is practically telling him to melee. Behemoth doesn't play like an INT. His abilities use mana but they all need melee range to be really effective, and he needs to get in close. Kraken plays like an INT in that he wants to nuke a lot w/ Drench at range. He sucks :/ Also, I played a Devourer earlier that had 4700 HP. He had such high regen he could have Decay on all the time and still take no damage from creeps, and generally kill a creep wave in <3 seconds. It took the entire enemy team about 2 full minutes to kill him after turning off Decay, walking from the bottom to the top of the map. Pudge, man.

UPDATED the first post. Since there are so many people coming, I think it would make the most sense to just have the meetup in the 'burbs, at our apartment. This way we don't have to worry about all the public transportation nonsense, finding a restaurant that can seat all of us, etc. So, here's the deal: If you're driving... We live at 1030 E Lancaster Ave, Bryn Mawr, PA. It's in a big apartment building (10 stories) called Radnor House, and it will be on your left up a hill/driveway if you're going WEST on Lancaster. You can park in any of the lots to your RIGHT once you start going up the hill. Just give me a call ( 215-531-0798 ) when you've arrived. Try to be there between 11:30 and noon, as we're going to go for a short walk to pick up the folks taking public transportation around noon. If you're taking public transportation... All trains and buses go to 30th St Station in Philadelphia. So, whether you're taking BoltBus, Megabus, NJ Transit, Septa or Amtrak, you'll probably end up there first. What you'll want to do is go to the SEPTA / Regional Rail area of the station (you can always ask an employee if you can't find it, but there are signs) and then buy a ROUND TRIP TICKET on the Septa R5 Westbound toward Paoli/Thorndale. This should run you about $6.50. Try to catch the 11:19 train as it will arrive at Rosemont at about 11:49 - just a little early. If you miss this, the next one is at 11:49, which will of course arrive at 12:19... a bit late though. Make sure you are taking a LOCAL train, not express! You will want to get off at Rosemont. The folks who arrived at our apartment building by car will all walk with us to Rosemont station to pick up everyone else (it's only a few blocks away.) Please remember to bring $3-5 to help us cover the cost of the BBQ. There are a lot of people coming so we'll need to buy quite a bit of stuff. In case we eat earlier and everyone is hungry for dinner (or eat late and want to order a separate lunch), you will probably want some additional money to pay for that too. We probably won't be going bowling because of logistics, but if you want to be extra-prepared, I think it's around $10.

No, I've played him in other games, and I knew he was useless early. Now I know he's useless late too.

Kraken is now Garbage tier. Sorry but this guy has just no redeeming qualities. He plays like an INT char, but has the gains of a STR char... making him entirely useless. Yeah, whirlpool shennanigans, but besides that he's garbage. I'd also like to upgrade Glacius to A. He's pretty outstanding as a babysitter and has massive lane control.

I don't know, I think Nymphora is quite good as well. Puppet Master could use tweaks but he's a great concept and not a garbage-tier hero like I thought he was (potentially amazing farming.) Malilken also seems solid. And hey, I may be pretty new to the game but I'm getting to be beastly

She does vaguely look like Paige... Just kidding. Congrats, Karl!!!

This is cool, but NH has permanent Stealth, Scout has Vanish -> bonus backstab damage, etc. Other characters have damaging AOE stuns. Other AGI heroes have crits. War Beast and Blacksmith can buff similarly... So that's why I say it's not that impressive on paper. I guess the reason he's so good is that while those abilities are nothing special in and of themselves, it's the fact that they're all on ONE guy.