eternal Zero

If your APM is under 60 then you're not dancing while farming lategame or while a teamfight is brewing. I feel that you still should be dancing and stuff because you should be able to react whenever necessary. Whenever you're jungling or farming you should be orb walking to make sure you can bolt at any second. I personally feel the threshold for a good player is a pretty high APM. Once you're over that threshold it doesn't matter but anything below it and you're just being lazy.

I thought I was starting to lose my competitive edge in HoN. Then I brought down the house in the form of Torturer. It was glorious.

Welcome to the hero from DotA. Only thing missing is that in DotA his eyes skill creates a brand new tree so you can place them pretty much anywhere. He used to be able to solo mid pretty effectively due to insane base stats + Living Armor (the DotA name for the buff) is one of the best skills in the game.

Here's the thing: She doesn't need sheep stick. Never has. Here are the main reasons for her use: Reliable AoE stun. Reliable AoE damage. Useful ult. She doesn't need any items ever. She could ward all day long and still be a huge deal in battle (mind you that I have seen at most a handful of pro games that ever get to lategame). Her 3rd skill is just gravy. And like I've said before. Having only 3 useful skills is actually a GOOD thing. It makes your build more efficient and you don't really need 4 useful spells to make a hero as many of them prove. Why Lion is not used: Stun is pretty much single target. I mean you could argue a good player always getting at least two targets but more often than not you'll see the pros going for just one hero to be sure of the hit. Mana Drain is useless after level 6 but every good Lion player starts with it. This means you waste a few levels into this necessary skill that will not be using effectively again. Also any good opposing lane will know to punish you while you channel it. So any benefit can be negated. And lastly, Hex (or Miniaturize as HoN calls it) is super expensive so you won't be casting this regularly until level 14-15 when your mana can handle it because you absolutely need to keep your stun and ult on hand because otherwise you aren't doing enough damage as you cast. While he does share the lack of needing any items you will rarely see a Lion initiate a winning battle where you'll see Lina do it all the time. Also the presence of another sure stunner (like Sven [Hammerstorm]) makes Lina [Pyro] stun one of the very best in the game. This is why you will see this lane in 8/10 pro games. It's just that good. As for Lion you'll see him when he wants to babysit a hero like Admiral cause he'll go ganking at level 6 and will generally keep his lanemate safe. This, however, is not used nearly as much because Admiral has a better partner in Lich and also a strong mid solo.

Look at pro replays in DotA. Only time you'll see Lion is to babysit a midrange carry. You see Lina a lot more. Or at least used to. Can't say I've totally kept up.

Requiring flawless execution to even compare to a decent execution of Madman does not put them on the same tier. I still think she should be an B list hero. Definitely not S. Also Witch Slayer << Pyro. So you might want to look into that. Rampage is not a carry. He is a ganker and a subpar one at that. He is a win-more hero. B at best. You underestimate Pebbles. He is a great alternate initiator as well as he can own anyone who tries to mess with him early with his spell combo early then he becomes solid support later. He should be bumped up. Glacius and Defiler have both become less and less useful as time goes on. Both need a drop down. Also Engineer is a B hero (where Scout belongs, actually) because he's a great noob killer but any team will know how to deal with him. Also you've missed some heroes (at least one that I noticed). Arachna is a B hero. And Soul Reaper needs a bump down. He doesn't do enough to be an every game pick.

This is because I am a super bad Nymphora. I don't do full support well which she is early and mid game.

I disagree. Nymphora is a much better hero than Glacius. She can't be used as a carry but she easily can be a support semi-carry DPSer with the zeal she gets from her stun. Also allowing a hero like Behemoth to cast his Fissure every CD for free is nothing to scoff at because that will rip any lane to shreds. Her multiple teleport isn't so great early as you've stated but with Staff of the Master it allows you to easily save teammates in trouble which I have done many times over. She's definitely underrated and is used more often than you'd think in high level play where people used to use Glacius for their mana support because she's superior in skilled hands.

Yes you were supposed to carry that game. I do not feel a carry should be carried by his team at all. He's playing the strong focal hero for a reason. The player has to be good and on top of that the hero should be relevant throughout all but the first six levels of the game. Also I don't read Glorify's guides or any guides anymore for that matter at this point. That's an obvious skill build because it's what's good on the hero. Summons and split shots have been around before and it's always the same story. And yes Tensei understands. You won't have anything relevant with splitshot until you are already well farmed. It's fine for team damage or stopping a push if you have something like Thunderclaw but it's nothing spectacular. It's a "win more" kind of skill. Get me?

Rely I can't see you playing FA in a "real" game. You build lifesteal before a damage item and keep your steamboots on Agi instead of Str. You say you don't want to do what's proper all the time but if you don't have the ability to make it work otherwise then you shouldn't be playing a carry. She's a decent hero at best. Only one really useful ability. Level stats and stun first but it's not an initiating immobilize because it's easy enough to dodge. Ult is decent but only if you can fire it off safely. Damage is meh and split shot is split shot. Never anything special and doesn't really farm any better than regular last hitting until you are already super farmed. Those skeletons are so useless until level 20 so don't even bother. Engi on the other hand is quite strong. Best build seems to be Thunderclaw to Nullfire to finishing your Charged hammer. Or instead of Nullfire you make a tornado stick for better turret/ult placement. He's a much better team hero and semicarry if you ask me.

I haven't played since I'm still at home home and not at my apartment but both of these heroes look very good and cool on paper. I will definitely be online tonight to play. Be on the lookout for me going nuts.

I'm not sure i'll ask katsie next time how she shoutcasts it but i'm sorry i wasn't there tonight i got drrzzunk instead this hasd been a post buy zero under the influrence

For those of you who like watching high level play it's going to be Hon League inhouse night tonight starting at 9PM EST. You just might see me make an appearance or two but I'm still unsure. I hear it's going to be shoutcasted quite a bit as well for those of you who can't get observer spots and/or aren't vouched.

Yeah...so Dragon Age and now Modern Warfare 2 have kept (and will continue for a little) me off of HoN. If you can manage to get my attention (try AIM or over live) I'll play with you guys though. As for the whole "my friends let me down" bit I say that all the time. I know for fact what I'm getting myself into when I play with you guys but that's just the nature of the game. I don't blame any of you for it. Most of you are as good as you'll get and probably won't see vast improvement. I don't hold that against you and will still play as often as you ask. As for LoL I really dislike it. I mean I'm not saying this because I'm good at DotA/HoN but I really enjoy the mechanics that came about. I hate any kind of game that waters things down to cater to "casual" play. Tripping in Brawl? Giving a speed boost proportional to your position in a racing game? If gamers want to make it casual they will play it as such. If they want to make it competitive they will do that too. Also most inherent systems of "I've played longer therefore I will win" are terrible. Ohwait! I forgot. "I paid money to get everything therefore I will win". I know these aren't hard and fast rules and there will always be exceptions when it comes to each game but can you honestly tell me that if I had access to every hero where you only had access to one or two that I wouldn't win more often? And yes include our relative skill levels. (By you I mean the person reading this not anyone in particular.) It's not my cup of tea. Edit: lol I should sift through my replays to post some of mine. :3 If you thought my recent ones with Madman/Swiftblade/Blood Hunter are sick you should have seen my Defiler/Torturer/Scout/Arachna in previous patches before nerfs were applied.

Roommate has it for the PC. Plays like a dream and I don't miss dedicated servers as much as I thought I would. Then again I myself own it on the 360 and am not a whiny bitch about minor details ruining my fun.

Runs smooth as silk on mine~ Also, Bleck, not everyone will like you. Pretty sure this also applies for real life. Get over it and just play the game.

No worries. We still won. I have a strong carry Pyro. @Tensei: No need for bottle on Hellbringer. No need for Runes of the Blight either. Life void is all the healing you need and it's cheap. If anything you start out with some clarities. Also main build is to build refresher. Then you build any of the luxury items in order to put your base mana to a point where you can cast everything twice including refresher activation.

You are mistaken.

Usually as a carry you grab an iron buckler to ensure you don't get harassed out of lane or use up all of your healing items before laning phase ends. As for Sustainer I used to get it on most every hero back in DotA when I was a beginner. It's a really great item but nowadays I only get it if I'm building a Refresher or a Battle Fury. I almost never get it as a standalone item except for a hero like Hag. Back in DotA the decision was either Bottle for the ganking burst style or Pers for the sustained farming and presence but your spells bursts were much more infrequent. Btw while I like the buff to Hag I really think they should just give her movespeed and attack range that QoP used to have and then she'll probably be a little OP but that's okay because I loved playing QoP in her glory days. She used to be able to win against triple lanes back when that was popular. (OMG we need to run a triple lane at some point. Triple stun?! Awwww yeah) Edit: Nevermind I lied. I used to turn the Pers on QoP into a Linken's after building sheep stick. So no, I guess I never get it as a standalone item ever. Only to be built into something else.

Not quite. Point is, you're going to learn how much a single hit will change the timing between two kills. You'll learn how to set the timings apart so you can actually get everything. Also if you're aware of a hit or two changing how well or bad it can go for you then you are aware of what your enemy will be thinking. It's not about getting every creep in an actual game. It's about getting more and messing up your opponent. So make sure the creeps will be staggered and clear cut and see what your opponent does. Is he confident enough to fight you over them directly as they drop one by one? Or will he be doing similar things to counteract you and force you to make hard decisions? Depends on his style. All I'm saying is that if you want to be able to do this with any hero then you're much better off as a player. I guarantee you I can do this. Also starting off with range is the easy mode of this training. Beast mode is doing this in an actual game with a melee character. Harassing isn't fun to deal with.

The trick I used to last hit and deny like I do in DotA was to pick the hero with the least base damage and worst attack animation then practice killing waves and waves until you can last hit and deny every creep in every wave for ten minutes with nobody harassing you. If you can do that you can work with any hero. In DotA it was Techies. In HoN I'm not so sure.

Haven't been playing recently cause of lots of work (also Borderlands). Might decide to jump back into the swing of things soon.

If you ask me Vind is a definite A tier. No doubt a solid hero but with no built in escape mechanism and the requirement of farm to truly deal damage he's a hard to play carry.

Mock accelerates your farm to incredible levels. You can take on the entire jungle at once while being able to gank anyone on the map. If you can get it fast enough it is far superior to nullfire blade. That's a big if though. If you can't then you might as well play another carry if you ask me.

This is why I don't play Merc without a solid team backing me. She forces a turtle->global gank strategy.