Heroes of Newerth

[Kidd Cabbage]

So, had I known there was a HoN thread on here and people actually played it, I'd probably triple my post count in a week. I don't really post on here and nobody knows who I am, but if you feel like playing with me, add me: KiddCabbage.

And on another note, although Kraken isn't one of the best heros in the game, he's definitely not terrible. There are other strength heroes that play like intellect heroes (Pebbles and Behemoth). Early game, Kraken can have good burst spell damage and very high health, and all through the game is a good initiator for team fights.

[LuketheXjesse]

nobody knows who I am

I know who you are!

You make AWESOME remixes

[Tensei]

You should investigate Armadon more Especially his farming abilities, support abilities, initiator role and post-runed axe danger.

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 >=|

[zircon]

So, had I known there was a HoN thread on here and people actually played it, I'd probably triple my post count in a week. I don't really post on here and nobody knows who I am, but if you feel like playing with me, add me: KiddCabbage.

And on another note, although Kraken isn't one of the best heros in the game, he's definitely not terrible. There are other strength heroes that play like intellect heroes (Pebbles and Behemoth). Early game, Kraken can have good burst spell damage and very high health, and all through the game is a good initiator for team fights.

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.

[Kidd Cabbage]

No way, dude. Pebbles' Enlarge slows his melee speed by a lot a lot. He is not a melee hero by any means, and if it wasn't for the improvements to his other skills, Enlarge isn't very great (in Dota, most Tiny players wouldn't even get Growth until level 10 and 11.) And Behemoth, dude - his bread and butter move, Fissure, is absolutely not melee range. His later game moves are, but by then you have a blink dagger, and either way, are still nukes, not attacks. They're both early game nukers who are useful mostly for stuns and tanking late game, somewhat similar to Kraken.

And Epitaph, if you need a beta key, I could get you one.

[LuketheXjesse]

ehhhhhhhhhhh...sure, pm me.

[Tensei]

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.

[LuketheXjesse]

my screenname for this is LuketheX.

[zircon]

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.

[eternal Zero]

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.

Wretched Hag used to be the end-all super solo of DotA before she got a massive nerf. She definitely has poorly costed spells as well as a bad animation and attack range. It used to be so good you have no idea.

As for Slither. He is agi support to the max. He is the king of agi ganking Madman and Arachna don't even come close. The main reason is that Arachna and Madman shouldn't be ganking early but farming and creating an advantage. Slither wins lanes all by himself and then goes to win other lanes for his team. He is a definite midrange hero where he loses steam in the lategame but every single one of his abilities is useful and he is one of my favorite heroes.

[Kidd Cabbage]

Wretched Hag can still rape if you can farm up on the midgame ganks. She's one of the few heroes that can make really, really good use of Frostwolf Skull, and she rules with it. Midgame, she relies more on her nukes, but if you can farm up damage items like Frostwolf Skull and a Savage Mace, she can really own late game. It sounds like you're comparing her to nukers, when she does better as an endgame carry.

If anyone's awake, and wants to play some matches, I'm logging on.

[zircon]

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.

[Tensei]

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.

[zircon]

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...

[Kidd Cabbage]

She also has a pretty high Agility gain for an intellect hero, meaning more attack speed. Another reason why she works so well as a carry hero is that both her blink and bat buy a lot of time for straight up DPS. While her nukes decline late-game, assuming you were able to farm earlier with her nukes and not die, using her blink, it's not hard to get DPS items to compliment her slow and blink.

[Sporknight]

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...

For autoattacks, STR heroes gain damage from more STR, AGI heroes get more damage from AGI, and INT heroes get more damage from INT. This is pretty much straight from WC3. So yes, it's the highlighted yellow stat.

[Dhsu]

Wait, how have you been choosing your item builds so far, zircon? The damage/stat thing is the first thing they mentioned in the new player guide (and the reason Steamboots are such a rockin' item).

[eternal Zero]

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...

Either one or two stats affect your ability to carry: Agi and your primary stat.

Primary stat gives you damage. Agi gives you armor and attack speed.

Wretched Hag has some pretty sick stat growth which used to be even better which is why she was considered a late game DPSer though this was mostly with Guinsoo/Skaadi for the high damage disable chasing.

The only thing I dislike about your tier decisions so far is the lack of vision of heroes in a team setting. Either you think of them in situations where they are useless or they are most useful because of their team setup. This isn't an individuals game so viewing the heroes as such kinda bothers me.

[zircon]

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.

[Kidd Cabbage]

* "X character, if farmed, is amazing" - Any character farmed is amazing, so this doesn't make sense.

* "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.

So, I know it's gotta seem like I'm just trying to argue everything you say at this point, but those arguments definitely have validity.

The first argument definitely is valid, since certain characters scale much better than others. Take Arachna and Pyromancer, give them both 20 levels and 8k gold. Arachna has Steamboots and a Wingbow. Pyromancer has Enchanted Marchers and a Sacrificial Stone. Arachna benefits from her farm much more than Pyromancer does, since items that boost her attack speed also boost her attack power, she has a built in snare, and she has an aura that scales her damage even more, and what does Pyro have? The same nukes he's had all game and bigger pools and more regen. How much certain heroes benefit from items generally has to do with how well they can carry and how much of a "farmer" they are (EDIT: Other way around, actually. How well they can carry has to do with how much they benefit from items. Worded it backwards.). And going off this, Pyro doesn't need about goddamn anything to own around the 20 minute mark. You could give him a pair of boots and a bottle and he'll still be in his prime. Whether or not a hero *can* farm up until they're owning is another story, though - where, for instance, Chronos sucks.

And to the latter argument, yeah, there is usually a way to counter any hero, but the thought is generally "at what cost?" You take Night Hound, and someone says "You can counter him with wards." That's 200 gold for two wards. Now, you take Pebbles, who has a buttload of armor, health, and stuns, and what does it cost to counter that? 6000 gold for a Wingbow to take him down? There are just different heroes and some are very easily countered, but there's not much you can do to counter Glacius's mana aura or Pebbles's living forever that costs 200 gold.

[Tensei]

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.

[Kidd Cabbage]

Looks like someone got owned by Arachna one too many times.

[Bahamut]

Looks like someone got owned by Arachna one too many times.

I did - but what was terrible is that all the other people in my team were new. Picking Arachna in an in-house in that situation is pretty bad.

Tensei was on the winning team (i.e. with Arachna).

[Kidd Cabbage]

I guess I'm just wondering what the problem is. There are heroes like Arachna who are designed to hunt down other heroes and (hopefully) kill them, and ganks like that are a very integral part of the game. Is it just that they're ganking too much with the hero? Hell, Swiftblade and Night Hound are easier to gank with and harder to deal with than Arachna.

But anyway, it's not really my business, since I'm not in any of these games to begin with. It just seems kind of silly to me.

[Clefairy]

Street Fighter 2 Turbo, despite being quite an old game, still sees tournament play. Over here, Akuma is banned from said tournaments on the grounds that he is just too good. As I understand it, however, in Japan Akuma is "soft-banned"; most players silently acknowledge he breaks the game, but sometimes a newb will pick him anyway and get destroyed.

I propose a similar idea for in-house games. If she's picked deliberately(ie, not via random), it becomes assumed that she is the priority target.