HoN Strategy

Flavours of the month

After being blessed with patch 0.1.63, HoN players are switching up their play styles accordingly.
Here is a list of heroes that have been effected by this patch, starting with those that have been buffed.

Recent buffs:
Devourer
Engineer
Glacius
Hellbringer
Moon Queen
Night Hound
Nymphora
Ophelia
Pandamonium
Pebbles
Rampage
Slither
Soulstealer
Swiftblade
Torturer
Wretched Hag

And those that have been nerfed:
Corrupted Disciple
Deadwood
Forsaken Archer
Madman
Magebane
Puppetmaster
Sand Wraith

Most of the buff/nerfs are subtle, however a few heroes have had noticeable changes. Here are a couple we thought might make some noise in the weeks to come.

Devourer:

With his hook now 1100 range at all levels, Devourer players have the option to skill level 1 hook instead of rot. This in our opinion is a huge advantage, especially if he is laning with a partner who has a stun/disable, opening up the possibilities of level 1 tower hooks (where you hook a player into the vicinity of a nearby tower). Level 1 rot is still viable as an early ganking spell.

Engineer:

Having had channeling removed completely from Tinker, Engineer is now a great support hero. Making defending/pushing a much easier job.

Glacius:

Glacius can now cast Ice Imprisonment on allies reducing ALL damage taken from enemy’s up to 80% at level 4! (the draw back being they are immobilized for the duration). We think this is great throughout the game and especially late game when facing farmed carries or just before a player gets nuked by a big damage dealing spell.
Special tip: Try ice imprisoning yourself when playing Glacius just before you cast your ultimate.

Hellbringer:

Deathboil now jumps to a total of 4 targets at level 4…. need say anymore ?

Rampage:

Not the most viable pick in high level games, but for the players who enjoy Easy Mode games Rampage has had cool-downs on both his spells significantly reduced, nice.

Slither:

Slithers attack range has been increased by a whopping 50, this may not sound like much but it makes a huge difference in terms of lane control and ganking.
His Passive now impairs the health regeneration of players under the effect. Possibly making him more of a viable pick in higher level games.

Sand Wraith:
Those fond of Sand Wraith will be sad to realise his dispersion is not doing nearly half as much as the damage it used to do. This is because the damage type has been change to Magic (from True) making it less effective the more magic armor enemies have.

Tempest:
Early farming for tempest has become a difficulty: with the new creeps implemented in the last patch, and purge getting buffed in this patch, his spawns will have a tough time lasting  in the jungle.

To sum things up
So, we’ve given you some advice on picks of the month, its up to you how you go about countering the newly buffed heroes.

Good luck!

An Advanced guide to Geometers Bane by Euls

Geometers Bane

Components- Slash, Blessed Orb and a 500g Recipe.

Want DPS?

Geometer’s Bane – or if your still old school, the Manta. Well this is an item that is definitely one of the most underused damage items you can buy in HoN.

Back in the days of Dota, it use to be a primo item on the likes of a ranged carry, and you most often saw it being used on Mirana.

However, for HoN – this item not only makes many other dps items look silly, but it also plays a staple part of many carries builds and hardly any people realize it.

Read more

Farming Account Statistics

We have discovered it is possible to increase your Heroes of Newerth account statistics such as KDA ratio and PSR using multiple accounts. If you have spare beta keys you can create new accounts to use on the HoN servers; you can also run multiple instances of HoN. Therefore, make a private game with your main account and use a subsidiary account in a second instance to join the game and go on the other team. Then start feeding kills to your main account – we have managed to farm about 200 kills in 30 minutes using soulstealer against madman, thinking about what items to buy, what spots on the map to use etc. Sure enough, the unanswered kills get added to your account and your KDA improves.

Although less effective, you can also farm PSR. You need to have many subsidiary accounts and as many instances (or many friends with second accounts) running – and make a team on the enemy of 4 or 5 accounts, against your 1. This will ensure you gain a lot of PSR from the game. You then win the game and your PSR will increase. You can only do this a few times as when your PSR gets too high, it will stop letting you gain any because of the mathematic algorithm involved. Even if you make more and more fresh accounts, a team of 4 1500 players against your 1 will still not let you gain a lot of PSR at all later on.

S2 games have discussed the issue and concluded that for now at least, they will not take action to prevent this activity because players cannot farm PSR very well, and the player’s PSR will not represent how skilled they are. ‘True’ high PSR players will identify quickly that you are not as good as your rating. If you look at people’s statistics profiles, it can be a little obvious when people have farmed K:D ratio. Usually the normal relationship between games played, games won, PSR and KDA gets upset in a way identifiable to others.

What do you think? Should S2 take a stand against stat farming? Or should it be left for those players with no conscience?

Puppet Master guide

In my opinion, the Puppet Master can be played as a support, ganker, disabler or carry. Item and skill builds vary for each role. I will not advocate a certain role and I am not suggesting that he is the best hero for any of these roles. It depends how you want to play him and the team you are against.

Skills

Puppeteers Hold

The Puppet Master ties up a target enemy with puppet strings. The strings slow down the enemy’s attack speed and restrains movement.

Applies Puppeteer’s Hold to target for 3, 3.75, 4.5 and 5.25 seconds respectively. Target is constantly pushed toward the position he was at when Puppeteer’s Hold was applied. If the target moves too far from this location, it will be forced back to the original position.

This is the Puppet Master’s signature skill. It is essentially just a slow at first glance but it works so much better. You might think the heroes has to facing the way you want them to go to make it work it. Wrong. They can turn around and run away (albeit slowly). If you cast it when they are running away, it will push them in that direction, then pull them back to the original position for moving too far. At level 4 this skill lasts a whopping 5.25 seconds. This skill will pretty much ensure that a gank goes down well.

No matter what items or role you are you want to level this up first. It’s too good to miss out on.

Puppet Show

The Puppet Master enslaves an enemy unit as his Puppet. The target is driven crazy and will attack the nearest unit, be it friend or foe.

Applies Craze Puppet to target for 2.5, 3, 3.5, 4 seconds respectively. If target comes within a 250, 300, 350 or 400 radius (respective of level) of any unit while Craze Puppet is active, it will be forced to attack that target until Crazy Puppet wears off.

When I first saw this skill I thought it would be absolutely amazing. But its not. Its a mediocre disable. It CAN be very effective if used properly. To use this skill properly you need another unit near your target at the very least, otherwise it will do nothing. You, yourself count as a unit but your not really tough enough to take a beating for 4 seconds. Enemy heroes (in a lane) or the creep wave is a good target. An allied Legionnaire is one of the best targets. Using this on a lategame carry near the end of the game isn’t exactly an amazing idea, unless a creep is closer to him than your ally. Combine this skill with Puppeteer’s for a 9.25 second disable. If you combine it with Legionnaire against a single target they are dead. It does well against spell casters as they can’t nuke/stun you or heal themselves while they are forced to attack so you may wish to save this until they are low if they have some sort of disable, heal or escape skill.

Whiplash

Imbuing his attack with his magical Puppet Strings, the Puppet Master is able to increase his base damage and unleash devastating attacks that damage multiple enemies.

On every 5th attack, attacks do 125, 150, 175, 200% normal damage and apply 25, 50, 70, 100% splash damage in radius of 200 respective of level.

This is the skill that will enable you to harrass, push, farm and carry. As you can see from the description, every 5th attack does bonus damage and splashes in 200 aoe. As a passive bonus, this skill granks +6/12/18/24% extra damage. You can use this skill to lasthit very effectively. It is also a very good tool for harassing. Wait until its about to proc, anhd hit the enemy hero(es) for bonus damage. This is pretty much a guaranteed 2x crit every 5 hits. (20% chance to crit 2x). As your damage goes up, so does this. With the added splash and enough damage you can 1-shot entire creep waves. Making you (eventually) a very good pusher and farmer. If you level up fast, and get a moderate farm early on you should be able to rice farm enough to carry.

Voodoo Puppet

The Puppet Master imbues the essence of a target enemy in his Puppet. The Puppet can then be attacked by the Puppet Master or any of his allies. The puppet takes increased damage, and transfers damage taken to the target as Magic damage.

Spawns a Puppet near self that is linked to target. Any damage taken by the Puppet is transferred to the target as Magic damage. The Puppet has a maximum health of 450, 700 and 950 respective of level, 5.5 Magic Armor, and takes 160, 180, 210% damage respective of level.

Lasts until target gets more than 1000 units away from spawned Puppet, or until Puppet is killed.

Basically, this skill creates a puppet next to the Puppet Master. It is tied to the enemy. Any damage done to the puppet will be transferred as magic damage (reduced by magic armour) to the enemy. At level 3, the puppet takes 210% damage. Theoretically this means that doing roughly 450 damage will kill the puppet and deal 950 damage to the enemy. Personally, I’m not incredibly impressed by this skill, especially as in ultimate. It can be used to kill invisible targets if you cast it before they go invisible, and if they splash from whiplash hits both the target and the puppet it will deal massive damage. If you know any good way to use this ultimate please leave a post explaining it.

Skill Builds

The Ganker/Carry build
1. Puppeteer’s Hold
2. Whiplash
3-8. Puppeteer’s Hold+Whiplash (Level up whichever you need primarily, typically Puppeteer’s hold if you need a disable, or whiplash if you need to farm or harass more)
9. Puppet Show
10. Voodoo Puppet
11. Voodoo Puppet
12. Puppet Show
13. Puppet Show
14. Puppet Show
15. Stats
16. Voodoo Puppet
17-25. Stats

Disable/Support Build
1-8. Puppeteer’s Hold/Puppet Show
9. Voodoo Puppet
10. Whiplash
11. Voodoo Puppet
12-14. Whiplash
15. Stats
16. Voodoo Puppet
17-25. Stats

Why no ultimate at level 6?????
Because its ineffective, more damage from whiplash or more disable from Puppeteer’s hold is much better for ganking or surviving.

Written by Neounk