Heroes of Newerth

[Tensei]

Because a courier doesn't have any natural mana (and he never gets any regen either because of his 0 int), you're forced to buy items like glowstones and pickled brains, as well as codex, as well as mana potions and possibly health potions. This is very expensive, and if the courier dies, you lose all the items. It's a hilarious gimmick but it's not viable at all in a real game.

[bladiator]

That's pretty awesome. At first I thought to myself that the S2 staff would probably eventually see this kind of thing and change it, but then after reading your explanation and seeing all the items you had on it, can see this never changing because it is definitely too costly to use effectively.

But from a gimmicky side of things, that's awesome.

[LuketheXjesse]

Because a courier doesn't have any natural mana (and he never gets any regen either because of his 0 int), you're forced to buy items like glowstones and pickled brains, as well as codex, as well as mana potions and possibly health potions. This is very expensive, and if the courier dies, you lose all the items. It's a hilarious gimmick but it's not viable at all in a real game.

All this and you have to not be shitty at micro-ing.

Go play Starcraft.

[eternal Zero]

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.

[Tensei]

Crossposting my thoughts on APM here:

You don't need high APM to be effective, but there's just so much things that seem like spam, which actually have a function. Dancing in a lane is obvious, but there's also animation canceling, orbwalking, etc. Even if you're just chasing down an enemy you need to be spam clicking in case he jukes and disappears in the fog of war. If you only clicked once on him your hero will just stop right there and not pursue him.

Another example is in-lane harassment: you need to hit the enemy with an auto-attack or two but you need to avoid getting hit by creeps since you draw aggro by doing this. It happens so often that a low APM player I'm laning against will issue an attack command, I respond by running a bit back, and he takes hits from several creeps without even landing a hit on me, simply because he didn't respond quickly enough to me retreating.

Not to mention that I think that having high APM will naturally put you into a higher state of concentration. I find it a lot easier to be aware of everything going on ingame when I'm spam-clicking than when I use hold and only click on an enemy creep from time to time.

Edit: While I don't think APM determines skill as much as it would in an RTS game, I believe that if you're under a certain limit (about 30-40 APM I suppose), you're simply not able to play the game to your full potential, as your effectiveness in last-hitting and denying would be severely gimped.

[BardicKnowledge]

Tensei, I dance back and forth, orbwalk, and when I'm chasing, I click on the ground next to the opponent until I'm in range (so if he disappears for a second I still have forward motion).

My APM is _still_ just under 60. Anything above 100 and you're dropping needless clicks, I guarantee it.

[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.

[relyanCe]

Tensei, I dance back and forth, orbwalk, and when I'm chasing, I click on the ground next to the opponent until I'm in range (so if he disappears for a second I still have forward motion).

My APM is _still_ just under 60. Anything above 100 and you're dropping needless clicks, I guarantee it.

tend to agree with this

[Tensei]

I'm usually at 140-160 nowadays.

And as for 100+ APM being 'useless' clicks. I think it depends on what you define as useless. I believe that constantly dancing and keeping a steady amount of clickspam will allow me to maintain a certain rhythm and level of concentration where it's easier to respond to what happens on-screen.

If you're farming a lane where you're dancing around, then TP mid to counter a push, and spend a good thirty seconds on hold position until either team initiates, I do not believe you're in a good position to quickly respond and make the right decisions in a teamfight. (not to mention you're susceptible to long-range targeted skills like Valk's arrow, as well as other initiators.)

Same with walking to a distant location on the map. If you're not spamming move commands or even paying attention to your hero, you won't be able to instantly respond to a sudden enemy appearing.

[BardicKnowledge]

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.

Admittedly, I don't dance while farming lategame nearly as much, and don't orbwalk in the jungle unless I'm creep-pulling. During teamfights I move about as needed -- more if I'm Valk and really need positioning, less if I'm mostly an autoattack hero.

[JadeAuto]

Crossposting my thoughts on APM here:

You don't need high APM to be effective, but there's just so much things that seem like spam, which actually have a function. Dancing in a lane is obvious, but there's also animation canceling, orbwalking, etc. Even if you're just chasing down an enemy you need to be spam clicking in case he jukes and disappears in the fog of war. If you only clicked once on him your hero will just stop right there and not pursue him.

Another example is in-lane harassment: you need to hit the enemy with an auto-attack or two but you need to avoid getting hit by creeps since you draw aggro by doing this. It happens so often that a low APM player I'm laning against will issue an attack command, I respond by running a bit back, and he takes hits from several creeps without even landing a hit on me, simply because he didn't respond quickly enough to me retreating.

Not to mention that I think that having high APM will naturally put you into a higher state of concentration. I find it a lot easier to be aware of everything going on ingame when I'm spam-clicking than when I use hold and only click on an enemy creep from time to time.

Edit: While I don't think APM determines skill as much as it would in an RTS game, I believe that if you're under a certain limit (about 30-40 APM I suppose), you're simply not able to play the game to your full potential, as your effectiveness in last-hitting and denying would be severely gimped.

I have to reply to this because I'm more than likely the lowest APM that plays with an OCR tag at the moment. You bring up some good points, that I think are totally valid, Tensei. Lane Dancing, Animation Cancelling. However, these in my mind are advanced tactics that someone new to the game shouldn't be held to pulling off. I personally can't pull the cancelling off (at all) yet, and I have room to improve on lane dancing. It's something that I'll eventually get.

>>High APM giving you better concentration<< I think that depends on the person. For me, the extra clicking seems pointless at my skill level. If I wanted to play professionally, sure, I can see that my APM would need to be sky high to compete. Using myself as an example: there are somethings that I feel comfortable with, and some I don't. Do I need to improve? Yes. Am I good with certain heroes? Yes. Do I have high APM? No. Do I *need* high APM for the level of play that I enjoy (e.g. playing with other OCR people)? Doubtful - when I'm not sick, and at the top of my game, my maximum APM is around 50. With the level of play I enjoy, I probably won't go beyond that.

As for "full potential", again that varies on your point of view. If you want to play at a competitive level, don't complain when you're playing in-house friendly games. If you want to play in in-house games, you shouldn't complain when you're in a competitive game and people yell at you for your low APM. The expectations of your teammates should match the level of play you're in for that particular game. I don't complain when I suck ass in in-house games, because they're just for fun and I'm doing my best to learn the game. I take no offense if we're playing competitively and I'm the only reason we lost.

I am offended, however, when people complain about low APM in an in-house game (which unless said in advance, I'm assuming are training and for fun), and I had to walk away from my computer the other day because of a situation similar to this, because I felt the comments made tward me were not in line with the expectation of the game being played at the time. I'm not upset now (obviously), but I do have a different opinion on APM.

[eternal Zero]

On the flip side I daresay I could still walk all over a good majority of the player base even I tried to lower my APM on purpose. That is to say, that it definitely doesn't make the player but it's much harder to be good with a low APM.

[zircon]

Important post, please read.

HoN is not a game necessarily suited for the 'casual' player. One player not pulling their weight can ruin a game, and make everyone else feel like their time was wasted. In fact, one can play as well as possible, but it is very hard to carry your ENTIRE team, even as an amazing player. The best you can do is try to lead and push them to victory, but even this doesn't always happen. It's definitely frustrating when you personally have a flawless execution, but "your team" loses the game for you.

When I was reading the "good sportsmanship in games" thread I noticed how I was arguing that our community is generally pretty friendly when it comes to competitive games. However, with HoN, that unfortunately isn't really the case. I'm guilty of it myself, so I'm not saying this to implicate one or two people specifically. I really think we all need to take a deep breath and scale back our verbal/textual abuse which is often directed at newer or less-skilled players. Over the last few days there has been some serious berating and flaming, and the last thing we want to do is chase people away from this scene.

You have to keep a few things from mind as you play:

(a) If you're playing with teams of roughly equal skill, you have a FIFTY percent chance of losing. So, expect to lose. A lot. Don't whine about it excessively. DO analyze why you lost and try to do better in the future.

( When you lose, it is just as much your fault as anyone else's on your team. While I've been in situations where I was 5-6 levels above my team, super-farmed and still lost, even in these situations I probably could have done more to help. So, don't absolve yourself from all responsibility and blame it on everyone else. For example, in the last game I played, we were having a hard time dealing with Pandamonium, and Luke got blamed for our loss (inability to stun Panda.) But in hindsight, I should have bought Barbed Armor or a Void Talisman. Puppet Master should have gone a support build instead of DPS. Accursed should have KSed me less. Valkyrie should have had better initiating arrows. etc.

© We're all only human. It doesn't feel good to be yelled at and called a screwup, or blamed for every loss. Do you really think this motivates most people? No. Try to be positive at least some of the time and help each other to correct mistakes AND compliment what they're doing right. This is not a simple game by any stretch of imagination so if someone doesn't spend hours every day playing/researching (like me) they might need to be reminded of concepts that would appear, to more skilled players, to be very basic.

Let's not prove people in that other thread right about how "playing to win" makes us all assholes.

[Dhsu]

I think the fact that ACCURSED was KSing Rampage just tells you how epic that game was. Best part was when we got Tensei down to his last sliver of health, and he sanded into a clump of woods where nobody could reach him. So I followed his Mock aura and let my Mock aura do the rest.

[JadeAuto]

Zircon, nicely said.

Tensei, I understand much better now why you said what you said, after Zircon put it so clearly. Sorry for my mini-rant earlier (if you took offense to it).

[LuketheXjesse]

Carry Accursed! Go go go!

[Dhsu]

What's funny is we probably would've won if I had gotten carry items and kept KSing people.

[Tensei]

Zircon, nicely said.

Tensei, I understand much better now why you said what you said, after Zircon put it so clearly. Sorry for my mini-rant earlier (if you took offense to it).

The post about APM wasn't directed specifically at you, I was just posting my thoughts on it. I think it's only a (slightly) limiting factor if you're really trying do everything you can to win and improve, but if you feel like playing this game at only a casual level (which I really have NO problems with whatsoever), your APM won't matter that much at all.

Also Dhsu, that kill was total luck because you assumed I had neither a homecoming stone left, nor enough mana for another dagger. Unfortunately you were right. D:

And the game was pretty much over after I got my (first) behemoth's heart. It was still epic like hell.

Edit: And I'm really sorry for putting Rambo off the game. In retrospect I really should have told our pub Andromeda to knock it off with the berating of hag/tb a bit more, but the game was just very intense, and I didn't want to get involved with stupid bickering while we still had a chance to win. That said, I really DO enjoy having you on my team, even if you're not necessarily the best player out there, since at least you make a conscious effort to improve, and you definitely are improving. I'm also really sorry for not being clearer in telling you what to do after you asked for it repeatedly, so here's a mini-guide to Thunderbringer:

Skill build:

1. Blast of Lightning

2. Lightning Rod

3. Blast of Lightning

4. Lightning Rod/Chain Lightning (if needed for lasthitting)

5. Blast of Lightning

6. Lightning Storm

7. Blast of Lightning

8. Lightning Rod

9. Lightning Rod

10. Stats/Lightning Rod

11. Lightning Storm

12-15. Stats

16. Lightning Storm

17-22. Stats

23-25. Chain Lightning (can be gotten over stats as early as level 10, in case you need the pushing power)

Items:

Starting with: 2x Symbol of the Novice, 2x Minor Totem, 1x Runes of Blight, 2x Mana Potion.

- Bottle (asap)

- 2x Amulet of Exile

- Power Supply

- Steamboots/Plated Marchers

- Kuldra's Sheepstick

Luxury:

- Staff of the Master

- Sacrificial Stone

- Frostfield Plate

- Restoration Stone

Lanes: TB should solo mid, as he's very squishy and lacks escape mechanisms. Rune control is vital, but fortunately getting as few as two runes means you will have the mana to chain-nuke your enemy in lane to oblivion (with some exceptions), which means they either die or are forced to go back to heal, which in turn gives you ample opportunity to help out sidelanes with ganks.

Earlygame: While it's possible to go gank before level 6, your ult adds a big chunk of damage which will probably be necessary to complete most ganks. Just farm up your bottle, bring it to you by courier, and keep a steady control of runes. Harass your enemy with blast of lightning whenever you have the mana reserves (i.e. you just bottled a rune), as it starts doing critical damage at lvl 3. Ganking is relatively easy but you're still going to need some assistance from your allies in a lane, as they'll probably need to throw down at least one stun. Always open with blast of lightning, preferably out of the woods. The thing about Blast of Lightning is that it's untracable, so using trees as cover means you can nuke enemies into oblivion with barely any fear for your own safety.

Save your ult in case the repeated uses of Blast aren't enough to bring the enemy down. If your carry fails at killing him and he escapes at low health, feel free to ult him.

Midgame: At this point, after a succesful gank, try to push the outer towers with your lanemates. This will result in either a quick tower kill, or the enemy porting in, which will put them out of position and cause them to group up, which will usually signal that it's the end of the laning phase. Try to group up with 2-3 of your teammates (preferably strong on disables) and try to get a rolling gank going. Ward offensively and immediately try to gank any solo farmer. Push down a tower if you ever manage to get 2-3 kills in short succession. In general, just try to make farming a living hell for the enemy team as your heroes' effectiveness is going to sharply drop soon. In 'downtime', farm from a lane where your carry isn't at, but preferably only use your auto-attack to lasthit and hard deny to prevent the lane from getting pushed too quickly.

Lategame: It all boils down to teamfights here, and TB is a great addition to any team, because he's one of the few heroes that shut down a portal-key pre-emptively and can prevent initiation by heroes like Pebbles, Behemoth and Tempest. Timing on the ult is key, you generally want to use it when both teams are close enough that it's too late to back off, but before the enemy team has initiated. Using your ult at this point will deal a good chunk of damage to the enemy team, while revealing any hidden surprises like a Tempest waiting behind a few trees, as well as temporarily shutting down portal keys. It's imperative that your team initiates within this short opportunity.

In the actual teamfight your goal is to take down as much HP as possible by the use of Lightning Rod, which means spam, spam, spam. If you had a good midgame with lots of succesful ganks, you might have Kuldra's Sheepstick already, which you should either use on the enemy DPS carry or on a heavy disabler (polly/succubus). Positioning is still quite important, as you're easy to kill and can't escape very well, so hiding behind a few trees should be done whenever possible. Of course make sure that you're still in range for blast of lightning.

[zircon]

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=53887

Fix Zephyr's Leap!

[Tensei]

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=54085

A STR hero with a heavy focus on ganking? HELL YES.

He can also totally solo mid with his insane last-hitting.

[LuketheXjesse]

Woooooooooooooooooooow Deadwood has some sick moves.

Uproot is just plain brutal.

[Dhsu]

So his ult is a scaling AoE nuke that essentially hits everyone for 40% of their health.

Yup, not gamebreaking at all.

Edit: So now that the last hero is coming out, I guess it would be a good time to pre-purchase?

[zircon]

Well, the STR debuff is just temporary.

[Dhsu]

Also anybody that actually survives gets the damage they took amped by 67%. If a hero with 1000HP gets hit with this ult and is left with 200/600, it becomes 333/1000 after the debuff wears off, meaning 400 damage became 667 damage. 550 damage would normally take him just below half health, but now it's suddenly 917 damage, hitting him for over 90% of his health.

Ridiculous. Put a Portal Key on this guy and it's GG.

[Tensei]

Actually I think I'd build him mostly like Pestilence or Predator, i.e. mostly as a ganker/DPS semi-carry. Portal key doesn't particularly suit him because he doesn't have anything in the way of AoE initiation, but he does have plenty of chasing skills.

Also, revised, ultimate item build for Corrupted Disciple:

Core:

- HotBL

- Steamboots

- Barbed Armor

Luxury:

- Fenrir's Fang->Frostwolf Skull

- Geometer's Bane

- Behemoth's Heart

Core is easy to farm up and gives you so much tanking capability, so towerdiving for ganks shouldn't be an issue at all.