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Heroes of Newerth |OT| Free-To-Play [PC /Mac /Linux]

vocab

Member
zlatko said:
Holy titty balls at how long that guide is haha. I'm up to the skill buy order portion, and what items to purchase. I'll set aside some time to absorb all this tomorrow before jumping into it to try it out.

Any other classes that are a similar? Maybe with a high health pool and range capabilities, but not amazing damage, but still not crap damage. Just want to read up on the basics of a few classes that might fit my style and Leg. def sounds about right, but having options is always good. ;)


Play Kraken. Dude lives an easy life after they reworked him. A ranged hero with those criteria? Doesn't exist. Also, Accursed is a fun hero that most people don't know how to deal with (especially new players). Soaking up ults is so good. Their ranged nukes are decent, but they don't scale that well, but have their purpose.

Legionare is pretty lulz. You need a big pair of balls to play him. Animation cancel his taunt over and over, and go super sayian. The enemy will shit their pants. Also legionare is the ultimate counter to Defiler Ult if the defiler is stupid, and the legionare is properly positioned. He will cut a whole team down if he keeps procing that spin (which is almost 100% chance with defiler ult).
 

Meeru

Banned
vocab said:
Play Kraken. Dude lives an easy life after they reworked him. A ranged hero with those criteria? Doesn't exist. Also, Accursed is a fun hero that most people don't know how to deal with (especially new players). Soaking up ults is so good. Their ranged nukes are decent, but they don't scale that well, but have their purpose.

Legionare is pretty lulz. You need a big pair of balls to play him. Animation cancel his taunt over and over, and go super sayian. The enemy will shit their pants. Also legionare is the ultimate counter to Defiler Ult if the defiler is stupid, and the legionare is properly positioned. He will cut a whole team down if he keeps procing that spin (which is almost 100% chance with defiler ult).
Defilerr is a ranged and can tank
 

Rokam

Member
What exactly was the reasoning behind buffing the radius of Tempest's Ult? I love playing the hero, but being able to hit 2 people w/ it standing a lanes width apart from each other is just dumb. Hero didn't take much skill to begin with assuming you knew how a portal key worked. :/
 

Moobabe

Member
Ok - I've been playing Scout a lot but I'm confused. I was getting the recommended items, as you do, before getting ripped by my team for not buying some item that wasn't on the list. How am I supposed to know these things?

What items SHOULD I be getting? I think the one in question was... Runic Axe, something like that anyway. Do I want to increase my attack speed? Movement speed I suppose is a given, but what about damage? lifesteal? mana regen? It's all so confusing!
 

Goon Boon

Banned
Moobabe said:
Ok - I've been playing Scout a lot but I'm confused. I was getting the recommended items, as you do, before getting ripped by my team for not buying some item that wasn't on the list. How am I supposed to know these things?

What items SHOULD I be getting? I think the one in question was... Runic Axe, something like that anyway. Do I want to increase my attack speed? Movement speed I suppose is a given, but what about damage? lifesteal? mana regen? It's all so confusing!
Get a doombringer on scout, best 5600 gold you'll spend. Fast attack speed of Q + 350 to 400 damage a hit = average of 1500 damage per Q combo, plus crit chances with E bring that to expected damage of 2000 per combo, with anywhere from 1500 to 3000 damage depending on how many disables you get off.
 

Moobabe

Member
Goon Boon said:
Get a doombringer on scout, best 5600 gold you'll spend. Fast attack speed of Q + 350 to 400 damage a hit = average of 1500 damage per Q combo, plus crit chances with E bring that to expected damage of 2000 per combo, with anywhere from 1500 to 3000 damage depending on how many disables you get off.

I guess some of this is about learning the hard way. I bought Ghost Marchers only to find that it doesn't stack with Scout's Vanish :S Are there any items you should aim for early on though? Steamboots are the recommended boots but I'm still not sure what is more useful for scout - post haste maybe?
 

kagete

Member
Moobabe said:
I guess some of this is about learning the hard way. I bought Ghost Marchers only to find that it doesn't stack with Scout's Vanish :S Are there any items you should aim for early on though? Steamboots are the recommended boots but I'm still not sure what is more useful for scout - post haste maybe?

Don't listen to that guy, and don't play scout until you're GOOD. Playing scout or any "carry" is asking your team to bet that you'll win the game for them if it reaches past 25 minutes. If you're really new to the game then just always play a ranged hero like flint beastwood and stay out of enemy skill range or try to pick heroes like hag or myrmidon that will let you escape. At the start, you really just have to focus on not giving the enemy free kills.
 

Archie

Second-rate Anihawk
Goon Boon said:
Get a doombringer on scout, best 5600 gold you'll spend. Fast attack speed of Q + 350 to 400 damage a hit = average of 1500 damage per Q combo, plus crit chances with E bring that to expected damage of 2000 per combo, with anywhere from 1500 to 3000 damage depending on how many disables you get off.

lol

Scout's core is typically Steamboots -> Runed Axe. The other items are kinda contingent on what lineup you are facing.
 

Meeru

Banned
Scout is a difficult hero but u need to know when to farm and when to gank. Rune axe would b ethe first item to get after boots (some ppl rush before boots, up to u). He needs that item because he is a carry and has no farming ability. But with rune axe u can push creeps very fast. After tha I would go steamboots, shrunken head (depends on heroes), savage mace, brutalizer...and then a doombringer if the game hasn't ended yet.
 

Moobabe

Member
kagete said:
Don't listen to that guy, and don't play scout until you're GOOD. Playing scout or any "carry" is asking your team to bet that you'll win the game for them if it reaches past 25 minutes. If you're really new to the game then just always play a ranged hero like flint beastwood and stay out of enemy skill range or try to pick heroes like hag or myrmidon that will let you escape. At the start, you really just have to focus on not giving the enemy free kills.

I'm getting better at not dying in general. I still give away a couple of cheap deaths though when I misjudge ganking situations :S
 

kagete

Member
Moobabe said:
I'm getting better at not dying in general. I still give away a couple of cheap deaths though when I misjudge ganking situations :S

The general rule is to flee if you think you're going to get killed easily, even if it means sacrificing your teammate. IF you think you can win a fight you have to go balls deep and throw out every skill you can before you die, and if you're still alive after that, make sure your hero is autoattacking an enemy hero and not a random creep. Always either commit 100% to escaping or fighting and try not to get too fancy or hesitate too much. With some experience and familiarity with all heroes you can make better and faster decisions on what to do.

Great players transcend this basic mindgame with some tricks of their own but it's a good basic IF-THEN-ELSE argument for a beginner to always keep in mind.
 
Flint is probably even worse than Scout for new players. His early-game damage is pitiful and he can't Vanish to escape. 290 base speed and paper-thin defenses mean he's toast if he gets attacked.

General map awareness and warding is essential.
-Don't teleport to defend a tower by yourself with all 5 enemy heroes attacking it (teleport to the next closest one to deal with the creep wave after the tower goes down because most teams will retreat after taking a tower).
-If you're chasing a low-health hero and his allies have respawned, retreat (unless you're all healthy enough to possibly win another team fight).
-Even if you're low on health, if you score a Genocide you should push for a few seconds and try to get a tower before you teleport out.
-See an enemy pushing a lane by himself? Possibly bait. The enemy heroes start pushing your lane early-game? Their mid may be lining up a gank with a rune.
-Don't always retreat straight down the lane; run into the jungle to limit their visibility and double-back on yourself because people will sometimes assume you're heading for your base.
-Always always carry a Homecoming Stone. It's great for evading ganks against non-stun heroes, defending towers and lane presence.

EDIT: yay for Duke Nukem pack. I don't like MsPudding and the flamboyant pack is kind of overused.
 

Kapura

Banned
So when I'm not playing with gaffers, I'm usually rocking CM matchmaking because then i don't have to give a shit about winning or losing. But cm players are really, really terrible about doing anything as a team. I was in a game as tort and we literally spent about 15 minutes going in one by one to destroy the last ranged barracks on the opposing side. It should have taken like 20 seconds but kids were too chickenshit to go in when I went in, so they went in after me and died like i did. Christ, it's not that hard to win when you've knocked down 5 other barracks, but my team tried their best to give the other team a fair shot at coming back out of nowhere.
 

Swag

Member
Archie said:
Patch notes

Hate the coins change.

Well then just going to quote the highlights for those that don't wanna read everything.

S2 said:
- Arcane Hide removed and replaced with Unbreakable
- Unbreakable: Target allied hero is affected with Unbreakable (state) for 6 seconds. Affected hero gains 15/30/45/60 Attack Damage and if he receives fatal damage while affected by Unbreakable, he does not die and is instead restored to 150/250/350/450 health
* Unbreakable is dispelled when it prevents the target's death

S2 said:
- Volcanic Touch is now toggleable

S2 said:
- Missing Cannon Ball will no longer slow Pandamonium

S2RAMPAGE said:
At 4+ charges Stampede, Rampage is now Magic Immune instead of having Slow Resistance
* The Magic Immunity does not linger past the impact point

Succubus said:
- Attack Range from 400 to 500

Also rofl at the change to coins, I guess people were getting gold coins too fast. 6800 Silver coins for an announcer pack? What a Joke
 

Archie

Second-rate Anihawk
They also have a :smug thread on their forums. I'd never expect this kind of hubris from S2. I'm quite disappointed.

The Duke Nukem pack sounds terrible anyway. You can tell JSJ was trying to sound as close to Duke as possible without S2 being sued.
 

Kapura

Banned
Love the notes, hate the coins change. Fucking bullshit. 6800? I average maybe 5-6 coins per game (which I have stated I think is bullshit when you play an hour long match for two coins), and they go ahead and make it worthless? stupid shit.
 

Dreavus

Member
Just saw the notes...

Shop changes:
Depending on how many things are going to be "premium" this could be kinda dumb or... not actually that bad. Personally, I'm only interested in a few of the skins right now and I'm nowhere having the coins to buy them (which is fine with me). It's not like they reverted everything in the shop to have a "gold" price or anything. As long as they aren't selling exclusive premium heroes, I honestly don't care that much. I hate to be the S2 defense force but I fail to see a significant issue here. It's all just cosmetic bullshit. Why is everyone so up in arms about this?

It might have been better if they just made it unavailable to purchase with "silver coins". The 6800 price is just making everyone angry.

Also what makes you guys think that DOTA2 won't have similar bullshit? With the whole TF2 hats thing you can bet that valve will get their foot in the door when it comes to a cash shop. It might not be quite the same as Hon's but there will be one in some form. I still don't understand the whole "DOTA 2 will come and save us! You'll see!" mentality.



The balance side of the patch looks nice. A 1-point-in-stun Torturer build could be viable now, cool.
 

Goon Boon

Banned
delirium said:
Aside from S2Fielding trolling the community with that thread, I don't see what's bad about the gold/silver coin thing.

The silver coin thing is 100% a troll. Maybe twice as many silver coins or so would make it less of an issue, but 6000+ coins is over 1000 games. In addition, they aren't making gold coins more valuable except for this one item, so its 1:1 for everything but premium items, where it suddenly becomes 7:1


EDIT - You also can't mix and match coins. Have 500 gold coins and 100 silver coins, and want a 560 skin? Too fucking bad, your gold coins are useless to you.

EDIT 2 - My bad, apparently you can only not mix with non premium purchases.
 

Styles

Member
Meeru said:
Vect u are the biggest dodger I ever seen in my life. Are you really that scared to play with gaffers

That time I logged back in immediately, but you were in mm already so I ended up playing with Lost Prodigy instead. :/
 

Swag

Member
Dreavus said:
Just saw the notes...
Also what makes you guys think that DOTA2 won't have similar bullshit? With the whole TF2 hats thing you can bet that valve will get their foot in the door when it comes to a cash shop. It might not be quite the same as Hon's but there will be one in some form. I still don't understand the whole "DOTA 2 will come and save us! You'll see!" mentality.

Valve creating Dota 2, automatically guarantees that at least the GM / staff will be of a higher moral code then S2 and we won't have "Bitter Tears" threads about things the community has actual concerns over. As for the Dota 2 cash shop, I have no doubt it will have one, and I have no doubt it'll be consistent. Not introduced then changed because their not making enough money from people buying coins.

Lol get real here, just because your game audience is filled with a bunch of angry kids doesn't mean you shouldn't uphold your company image in a mature light, i.e take some queues from GAF, but I guess S2 just don't give a fuck

Like I said, What a joke

This guy said it amazingly.
 

delirium

Member
Sebulon3k said:
Valve creating Dota 2, automatically guarantees that at least the GM / staff will be of a higher moral code then S2 and we won't have "Bitter Tears" threads about things the community has actual concerns over. As for the Dota 2 cash shop, I have no doubt it will have one, and I have no doubt it'll be consistent. Not introduced then changed because their not making enough money from people buying coins.

Lol get real here, just because your game audience is filled with a bunch of angry kids doesn't mean you shouldn't uphold your company image in a mature light, i.e take some queues from GAF, but I guess S2 just don't give a fuck

Like I said, What a joke

This guy said it amazingly.
Yes, S2 games IMO need to act more professionally (as I'm sure there are many who actually like the way S2 acts), but thinking the idea that Valve is consistent is laughable. Just look at TF2 and how its changed. They're fucking sell items that give players fucking in game advantages FFS. Look at what Valve promised with L4D and how they promised more L4D content, and now they're basically throwing away the game. After the next DLC, there is no fucking point in owning the original.

Just because Dota2 is a Valve game doesn't automatically guarantee its good. They do have a great track record, but so far you barely know anything about the game. In your minds, its the perfect game right now. Of course its going to compare favorable to what you do know.
 

kagete

Member
Man this is a terrible patch. They buffed tons of heroes and changed all these skills in one patch? How do we know it's balanced? Dota at least had version control built-in in the form of map versions where people could choose to play an IceFrog-recommended older/stable/tourney map. This patch is CRAZY.

I'm not miffed by the coin changes because they're not game-changing like the cash shop in MMOs and other competitive online games. If anything, they look like an admission from S2 that they need to start making some money back. Who knows what Jon St. John's talent fee is? I doubt he did this for free ala DudeBro. I personally think the cash shop is nice, even though a lot of the items are almost pandering to internet tard-dom.

I'll keep playing, but DOTA2 will get my time and money day one, sight unseen.
 

Archie

Second-rate Anihawk
Before this patch, I thought HoN had the perfect cash shop model with everything being cosmetic, obtainable via gameplay and having a somewhat reasonable pace to earn unlocks. The new patch throws that out the window and essentially relegates some DLC to be purchase only. I have played ~200 games of matchmaking and earned around 1600 coins. S2 is saying I will either have to play ~800 games of matchmaking (>300 hours of my life) or fork out $20 for "premium" content.

In addition, the troll thread on their forums is a slap in the face to their fan base, totally unprofessional, and very disappointing coming from a company that I used to admire for their community relations.
 

Swag

Member
delirium said:
Yes, S2 games IMO need to act more professionally (as I'm sure there are many who actually like the way S2 acts), but thinking the idea that Valve is consistent is laughable. Just look at TF2 and how its changed. They're fucking sell items that give players fucking in game advantages FFS.

You're crazy if you think this will be the case with Dota 2, absolutely crazy. This isn't Riot we're talking about, looking at the support and evolution of the original Dota map I'm confident enough in Icefrog to believe he understands how bad of an idea this would be considering the nature of the community / gameplay.

delirium said:
Look at what Valve promised with L4D and how they promised more L4D content

Didn't Valve release content for L4D post L4D2 release?

L4D DLC

Survival Mode - April 21st 2009
Crash Course - September 29, 2009
Matchmaking Versus update - November 9, 2009
The Sacrifice - October 5, 2010

Delirium said:
and now they're basically throwing away the game. After the next DLC, there is no fucking point in owning the original.

Are they shutting down the servers or just adapting the DLC for L4D2? I doubt their shutting servers down so what difference does it make if you don't have L4D2, if you still don't own it at this point your content with what their putting out, considering they've had 2 DLC packs released for each game there is some parity with support ( although L4D has been out longer ), it's obvious at this point they want you to purchase L4D2 as obvious as it was when they announced it at E3.

How do PC owners complain about wanting L4D support, it's there, if you want more buy L4D2 it's not like their charging a premium for it, it's 19.99 and has been on sale countless times. Get Serious

Delirium said:
Just because Dota2 is a Valve game doesn't automatically guarantee its good. They do have a great track record, but so far you barely know anything about the game. In your minds, its the perfect game right now. Of course its going to compare favorable to what you do know.

Don't get me wrong, I think HoN is a great game and quite proud of what S2's development team has done with the genre and how they've made the original Dota map their own. I just don't agree with some of the decisions they've made that make it extremely difficult for me to actually enjoy the game.

As for knowing anything about the game, I didn't know anything about Cataclysm when rumors of that started churning but I knew Blizzard's track record was near flawless, and look it became the best expansion they've ever released. Similarly I didn't know much about Mass Effect when it came out, but knew it was from Bioware, low and behold it's considered one of the greatest rps of current gen, if S2 was able to create HoN, you can't honestly be arguing that Valve is going to botch Dota 2 considering the support they have from the current DOTA team.

I'm not saying DoTA 2 is going to be some type of HoN killer, or that when it releases HoN will die or some absurd opinion like that, however considering the way S2 handles themselves and the way they treat their community I wouldn't be upset or remorseful if Valve took a humongous dump on them.
 

Kapura

Banned
I like to give companies making controversial decisions the benefit of the doubt. For instance, when they removed the Battle Rifle from Halos ODST and Reach, some people got mad. While it is my favourite weapon, i can understand the want to change it up. I find myself often rationalising unpopular decisions and thinking that they are good, probably, in the long run.

Having trouble doing that with the gold/silver coins thing. It's a pretty clear attempt to coerce money out of the community. There is no greater good, there is no long term. I doubt anybody has even earned 6800 coins in game, let alone saved them all. When i first read that shit, i thought "oh, they must be changing how silver coins work so we get more in less time" but that's not how it happened. The silver coins bullshit is S2 preparing to roll out riot-style premium content and somebody speaking up and saying "oh, wait. We said everything can be purchasable in the shop. How are we going to make that still happen?" S2 might have set the silver price at a million coins for how unreasonable this is.
 

Swag

Member
Kapura said:
I like to give companies making controversial decisions the benefit of the doubt. For instance, when they removed the Battle Rifle from Halos ODST and Reach, some people got mad. While it is my favourite weapon, i can understand the want to change it up. I find myself often rationalising unpopular decisions and thinking that they are good, probably, in the long run.

Having trouble doing that with the gold/silver coins thing. It's a pretty clear attempt to coerce money out of the community. There is no greater good, there is no long term. I doubt anybody has even earned 6800 coins in game, let alone saved them all. When i first read that shit, i thought "oh, they must be changing how silver coins work so we get more in less time" but that's not how it happened. The silver coins bullshit is S2 preparing to roll out riot-style premium content and somebody speaking up and saying "oh, wait. We said everything can be purchasable in the shop. How are we going to make that still happen?" S2 might have set the silver price at a million coins for how unreasonable this is.

I just don't understand, how they think a 7:1 ratio is even remotely obtainable, may as well just remove the ability to purchase it with silver coins altogether. Oh well.
 
Vect said:
That time I logged back in immediately, but you were in mm already so I ended up playing with Lost Prodigy instead. :/

Was that the game where we got stomped? =/

Shop stuff is still cosmetic but I thought 6800 was a placeholder; that's pretty unreasonable of them.

Patch stuff is pretty crazy though:
-Heart only gives regen now
-Nome's and Ring of Sorcery (100g cheaper) got a boost so I think that makes Chalice less useful
-will people buy Post Haste now?
-Arachna got buffed, Hammer's ult can't be dispelled (gg Elec?)
-Jeraziah with a passive slow and improved movespeed... wow
-what does the passive change to Lego mean? Less chance of bad luck screwing you over?
-Maliken's damage to self is Magic... Shaman's build? haha
-quite a buff to Ophelia, can get 3 neutrals instantly if she has enough charges
-Plague is so fast now
-man I hate Ramp's Stampede and the Magic Immune makes it even worse. Is it lost instantly if you cancel the charge?
-Scout's ult means you can't lose him in fog
-not sure if SR needed a boost
-Succubus should be more useful now
-wonder what you would max first for Torturer now. Impalement for towers or Bonds for positioning?
-did Wildsoul need a buff?
-yay for Zeph's Cyclones being more useful

Seems like they mostly buffed lesser-used heroes and only SW got the biggest nerf IMO.
 

vocab

Member
A lot of you guys are really gonna be upset when DOTA2 has less stat tracking, and replay combability/functionality. Unless they really are commited to making a good system that is on par with hon, there's no way DOTA2 will be any better. Sure you'll have dota heroes, but that's not enough. I hate playing MP games on the source engine. I'm pretty sure the flaws will be all over the place.
 

Swag

Member
vocab said:
A lot of you guys are really gonna be upset when DOTA2 has less stat tracking, and replay combability/functionality. Unless they really are commited to making a good system that is on par with hon, there's no way DOTA2 will be any better. Sure you'll have dota heroes, but that's not enough. I hate playing MP games on the source engine. I'm pretty sure the flaws will be all over the place.

Didn't they say in that interview that replays are automatically uploaded to the Steam Cloud upon match completion?

One feature I wish HoN would steal from the D2 interview is the ability to spectate a match of any player live and have a spec chat that isn't linked to the game chat.
 

Meeru

Banned
Lone_Prodigy said:
Was that the game where we got stomped? =/

Shop stuff is still cosmetic but I thought 6800 was a placeholder; that's pretty unreasonable of them.

Patch stuff is pretty crazy though:
-Heart only gives regen now
-Nome's and Ring of Sorcery (100g cheaper) got a boost so I think that makes Chalice less useful
-will people buy Post Haste now?
-Arachna got buffed, Hammer's ult can't be dispelled (gg Elec?)
-Jeraziah with a passive slow and improved movespeed... wow
-what does the passive change to Lego mean? Less chance of bad luck screwing you over?
-Maliken's damage to self is Magic... Shaman's build? haha
-quite a buff to Ophelia, can get 3 neutrals instantly if she has enough charges
-Plague is so fast now
-man I hate Ramp's Stampede and the Magic Immune makes it even worse. Is it lost instantly if you cancel the charge?
-Scout's ult means you can't lose him in fog
-not sure if SR needed a boost
-Succubus should be more useful now
-wonder what you would max first for Torturer now. Impalement for towers or Bonds for positioning?
-did Wildsoul need a buff?
-yay for Zeph's Cyclones being more useful

Seems like they mostly buffed lesser-used heroes and only SW got the biggest nerf IMO.

Why do you think heart giving only health regen is bad? I rather have that than 10% attack damage for agi heroes.
 
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