View Full Version : In-Depth Agility Carry Guide
a_cloth
08-12-2009, 11:33 PM
THE AGILITY CARRY
Your Job
Your job as the agility carry is to obtain items that scale. This is so you can own lategame and CARRY your team to victory. Your hero is the single most important hero on your team, if one of your int disablers disconnects you can still win, but if your main carry disconnects your pretty much done for, other heroes on your team don't have the dps late game to finish heroes off. They need you to do the damage that kills, you have to play smart if you decided to carry, don't be foolish.
Why Do I Get Owned Early Game?
The way Hon is made is so that intellect nukers own agility carry's early game. All agi carrys have low starting health, while all int heroes start with high damage nukes. The problem here is obvious, we have low health they have high damage so we get owned. Well your suppose to get owned, intellect heroes are made to dominate early game, but lose effectiveness through the rest of the game. They lose effectiveness due to enemy heroes gaining HP from levels and items. The int heroes damage stays the same through the game but the more HP we get the less of an impact there nukes make. The goal of intellect heroes is to own you early game so you can't be effective lategame, while your trying to survive and farm so you can be effective lategame.
Why Do I Own Late Game?
Agi carries own lategame because they benefit from their items more than other heroes, this is because most agi carries have abilities that Scale.
Scale-In Hon scaleing is whatever items/abilities allow a hero to be useful later in the game.
Very few int heroes have a way to scale lategame, due to this agi carry's come to the rescue. At lategame we have items that benefit us twice as much as the items the non carrys have. Int heroes nukes become useless lategame and our auto attacks will be hitting harder than their nukes. This is why we dominate lategame.
http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/6319/awesomeoay.jpg (http://img25.imageshack.us/i/awesomeoay.jpg/)
Why Not INT or STR Carries?
Yes there are intellect and strength carries who scale with items. So why are agility carries better fit for the job? The reason is because our main stat is agility. Agility gives an "agility hero" damage, armor, attack speed. This is why we scale best with items. Agility gives damage and attack speed, damage+attack speed=DPS This means naturally we do the best damage in the game with our auto attacks. Sure a strength carry gets tons of health, but our extra damage translate into health as well through lifesteal. Also with a shrunken head/lifesteal/heart we can tank more than our STR allies. Our agility carries rely on their items scaling with DPS, and DPS is exactly what our main stat (agility) gives. Also you may not realize it, but our agility can give us a ton of Armour lategame, sometimes 20-25 Armour.
The Agility Carry / Semi-Carry &
Item Suggestions
Madman
http://honwiki.net/w/images/thumb/9/96/Madmanhero.gif/64px-Madmanhero.gif
Madman is currently an extremely strong carry. His abilities give him a chase/escape/gank/aoe nuke which means he can farm relatively fast and safely. Madman is also one of the few capable melee mid solos. He can steal creeps and harass with his stalk which can end up dominating the lane. His stalk also gives him unmatched rune control. Madman unlike most carries performs best midgame during the gank fest phase. The way to think about madman when building him is to think of him as an INT nuker. He needs lots of mana because of his spells and hes mainly a caster until much later in the game. Madman is also highly capable of carrying the late game if he farmed well during mid game.
Useful Items:
Steamboots
Runed Axe-Aoe Dps/ Cleaved crits are pure damage/ Farming Power/ Mana regen for a hero that needs it
Nullfire Blade- Counters Jereziah, Hammerstorm, Pestilence, Chronos/ also scales with his ultimate very well/ More chase power
Shurnken Head-Always viable
Brutalizer-only in pubs
Wingbow-Counters other dps carries/ Counters bash/ Adds general survivability/
Frostburn- Its viable but there are better items you could get
Savage Mace- Your main lategame damage item
Whispering helm/symbol of rage- Allows you to stack ancients and gives you another 3.5 seconds of invincibility
SwiftBlade
http://honwiki.net/w/images/thumb/d/da/Swiftbladehero.gif/64px-Swiftbladehero.gif
Swiftblades main usefulness is early and midgame, unfortunately lategame is a struggle depending hows early and mid game went. He should always be laned with a slow/stun. His ulti is kind of luck based like blacksmiths so he isnt picked too often competitively. He can dominate early game because of the insane amount of damage his spin does early game. Dont forget his ulti can get in regular auto attacks in between the blinks based on your attack speed.
Useful Items:
Enhanced Marcher- these are gotten for your spin
Runed Axe-Aoe Dps/ Cleaved crits are pure damage/ Farming Power/ Your ultimate can be cleaved making for a much more devastating ulti.
Staff of the master- This greatly increases your usefulness in team fights and makes sure you ulti is up for each teamfight.
Whispering helm/symbol of rage- Allows you to stack ancients and gives you another 3.5 seconds of invincibility
Nullfire Blade- Counters Jereziah, Hammerstorm, Pestilence, Chronos
Wingbow-Counters other dps carries/ Counters bash/ Adds general survivability/ Increased attack speed means more auto attacks during your ultimate
Shurnken Head-Always viable
Sheild breaker/Savage Mace- You can go either one since you have crit shield breaker is nice. Savage mace can also be procced during your ultimate spreading mini stuns among all your enemies which can become annoying fast.
Nighthound
http://honwiki.net/w/images/thumb/5/58/Night_Houndhero.gif/64px-Night_Houndhero.gif
Nighthound is a unique carry because we don't get the usual items for him. This is because Nighthound doesn't scale with damage, he scales with agility. For each point in agility we basically get 2 damage instead of 1. His blink can be used to damage his opponent or blink to an ally hero/creep for a quick escape. His smoke gives him presence in team fights. His ulti is basically survivability for a fragile hero.
Useful Items:
Either Boots
Nullfire Blade- Counters Jereziah, Hammerstorm, Pestilence, Chronos/ More damage/ Agility scales with your passive
Shield Breaker-High damage output/ Your backstab is physical damage, therefor the -armor scales with backstab
Wingbow-Counters other dps carries/ Counters bash/ Adds general survivability/ Agility scales with your passive
Geometers Bane-Counters bash and single target disables/ Images can also go invisible and have backstab (overpowered???)
Frostburn-Movement speed for map presence and chase/ Agility scales with passive/ The slow is nice too
riftshards- You can crit when you pounce for lulzy 1k crits.
Shurnken Head-Always viable
BloodHunter
http://honwiki.net/w/images/thumb/c/cb/Blood_Hunterhero.gif/64px-Blood_Hunterhero.gif
Bloodhunter can solo mid extremely well like madman. His abilities are designed to hunt and kill and thats what he does best. He can track down low health heroes followed by immobilizing them with his ulti, then he can proceed by buffing himself or silencing them to cut off any hope of escape. Be careful who you silence, stopping magebane from blinking can turn into a huge mistake.
Useful Items:
Ive seen each pair of boots used with success including post haste.
Nullfire Blade- Counters Jereziah, Hammerstorm, Pestilence, Chronos
Shurnken Head-Always viable
Mock of Brilliance-Killing creeps during team fights from the aoe damage can give needed health boosts when you might have otherwise died/ Chase damage/ this should be rushed
Wingbow-Counters other dps carries/ Counters bash/ Adds general survivability/ Damage scales with "Blood Crazy"
Riftshards-More Damage
Frostburn- you don't need a chase but you can get this lategame
symbol of rage- gives you another 3.5 seconds of invincibility
Chronos
http://honwiki.net/w/images/thumb/2/2e/Chronoshero.gif/64px-Chronoshero.gif
Chronos is the definition of a carry hero. You have to farm ALL game whenever your ulti is on CD. This is because he is very useless until farmed up. Chronos has a chance on hit stun. Chance on hit stuns scale all game with your attack speed and never lose effectiveness. You may be thinking that bash cooldown means it doesn't scale, but your chance to bash after your cooldown is over still scales with attack speed. Blink is also useful all game, and as an escape its very nice during early game. But Rewind is another story in itself. This ability gives 25% evasion and magic evasion, the cool part is this is pseudo evasion meaning it can stack with regular evasion. If you get Wingbow you have 47.5% melee evasion.
on a attack the following can happen:
0.3 the damage is evaded through Wingbow
0.25*(1-0.3) damage is instantly healed through Rewind
rest: nothing.
so the total chance to evade/heal the damage is 0.3+0.25*0.7=0.475
This is quite nice when dealing with other carrys. If chronos gets farmed he CANNOT be out carried. Hes currently the strongest carry in a fed game, and the worst carry in an even game. Its imperative you try your best to get the kills and get your farm up.
Useful Items:
Either boots
Runed Axe- Chronos benefits from a farming item, and ancient stacking is usefull if someone else can dominate a creep or has a unit he can share with you.
Eldar Parasite-Lifesteal to help farm/ Attack speed to get as many attack and bashes in as possible during you ult/ Bash scales with attack speed
Wingbow-Counters other dps carries/ Counters bash/ Adds incredible survivability/ Attack speed scales with bash
Geometers Bane-Counters bash and single target disables and of course perma bash
Riftshards- More Damage
Savage mace- More DPS scales with his awesome attack speed
Staff of the master-Another second of your team wailing on enemies inside your ulti is more dps than any other item.
Magebane
http://honwiki.net/w/images/thumb/b/bd/Magebanehero.gif/64px-Magebanehero.gif
Magebane is useful because he can farm very easily. He has the most imbalanced escape in the game. His mana burn is there so you can finish heroes off with you ulti, and since your the carry please don't be afraid to kill steal thats why your ulti is there. Use your blink to escape to unpathable terrain like cliffs or in the middle of tress where your enemies cant reach you.
Magebane is NOT a counter to int heros!
Magebane is NOT a counter to int heros!
Magebane is NOT a counter to int heros!
Magebane is NOT a counter to int heros!
Magebane is an extremely fragile hero . Int nukers are his worst nightmare! they OWN you early game. Magebane has ridiculously low starting health, and this is exactly why int heroes love to harass you. Normally you want to level blink/stats/combustion early game. This makes early game even harder because you don't have masters mantra to help you early game (which is when their spells are at their strongest). If your forced to level masters mantra early game then it makes you miss out of valuable levels of stats/blink/combustion. Not to say you cant own them lategame just remember your going to get nuked, and your going to get nuked hard. Magebane is a counter to strength heroes who have low mana pools but have devastating spells. (Keeper of the Forest, behemoth, devour, etc.)
Lategame int heroes generally have so much int/regen related gear that their mana will always be topped off. making ur ulti kinda useless against them. Im not saying your ulti is useless, im just saying make the str heroes your primary target, draining Keeper of the Forests mana before he ultis can be gamebreaking!
Useful Items:
Runed Axe-Aoe Dps/ Farming Power/ Mana regen for a hero that needs it
Charged hammer-Scales with attack speed/ Amazing if farmed with axe
Abyssal Skull-Scales damage and gives good lifesteal
Eldar Parasite-Mana burn scales with attack speed/ Lifesteal
Shurnken Head-Only way to win lategame/ Counters disables/ Damage/ Health for a low hp hero
Behemoths Heart-Lategame Survivability/damage
Wingbow-Counters other dps carries/ Counters bash/ Adds general survivability/ Attack speed scales with mana combustion
Savage Mace- Scales more with attack speed
Helm of the black legion- Gives you survivability if your going the tankign route
a_cloth
08-12-2009, 11:34 PM
Moon Queen
http://honwiki.net/w/images/thumb/f/ff/Moon_Queenhero.gif/64px-Moon_Queenhero.gif
Moon Queen can be an agi carry, or a caster. If you decided to go the dps route, then you have a nice damage bonus that scales. This means lifesteal/crit can be nice, but you will most likely want to get Nullfire blade since the bounces seem to burn mana in the current patch. This can also be combined with charged hammer for insane amounts of aoe damage. Shrunken Head or assassins shroud should be considered so you can own with ur ulti. (you can go invis after you cast your ulti and it will still channel)
Nullfire Blade- Counters Jereziah, Hammerstorm, Pestilence, Chronos
Charged hammer-Insane aoe dps combined with your bounces
Whispering Helm-Lifesteal/ Dominate a creep that can stun
Eldar Parasite-Lifesteal/ Attack speed to scale with charged hammer
Shurnken Head-Only way to win lategame/ Counters disables/ Damage/ Health for a low hp hero/ Allows you to cast ulti
Assasins Shroud-Escape Tool/ Chase/ Can cast ulti and run around invisible while it channels/ Gank initiating
Behemoths Heart-Lategame Survivability/damage
Wingbow-Counters other dps carries/ Counters bash/ Adds general survivability/ Attack speed to scale with Charged Hammer
Geometers Bane-Counters bash and single target disables/ Your illusions also bounce attacks creating amazing aoe dps. Illusions also help Moon Queen get her ult off. Should be considered a core for her.
Riftshards-More damage
Wild Soul + Booboo
http://honwiki.net/w/images/thumb/4/41/Wildsoulhero.gif/64px-Wildsoulhero.gif
Some may argue that Wild Soul is a little bit of a harder hero to master due to the necessity of microing. With this hero you must control Wild Soul (WS) and his pet BooBoo (BB) to be effective. You can jungle or lane effectively with WS so the choice is up to you. Your goal should pretty much be get a shield and hatchet for BB and farm your Mock as fast as possible. Then get enhanced marcher for BB put the Mock on BB and go destroy mid game with ganks. You can easily chase heroes down with BB due to entangle/ op movespeed/ and enhanced marchers. You don't even have to catch the hero if your have Mock, just chase until he dies. Just like spells BB loses effectiveness at the end of midgame. This is because BB reaches his max lvl when WS reaches lvl 7. So BB reaches his best potential ( in comparison to other heroes) when all the other heroes are lvl 7, this means that Heroes have 25-7=18 levels to gain While BB stays the same due to no stat gain. (except through items of course) Pretty much when BB gets Mock hes as good as hes gonna get and will slowly lose effectiveness throughout the game. This can be countered though by making a switch from focusing on BB to focusing on WS. At this point WS should hold the Mock and you should be focusing on items for WS. A word to the wise: At the beginning of late game BB should be used very carefully, hes very fragile compared to the higher lvl heroes who now have items. Some carry's will be able to take him down in 5 seconds. This wouldn't be a big deal except for the fact that BB gives his assassin +100g when he dies. This can add up quickly and give the same results as feeding if you let BB die enough times. Hes still useful for his entangle disable though so just use caution.
Useful Items: BB
Enchanted Marchers- Awesome for chasing
Mock of Brilliance-Awesome for a chasing and farming all your other items in 10 minutes
Brutalizer- synergizes beautifully with his entangle
Geometers-3 bears= "OMG im perma stunned!"
Useful Items: WS
All Items on BB should be moved to WS lategame so they won't be mentioned again.
Desolater- More damage
Wingbow- Better chance to stunlock if you got brutalizer.
Heart- If you wanna go the tanking route.
Daemonic Breastplate- If you wanna go the tanking route, you can skip desolater if you get this.
Sand Wraith
http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:E0pJc9bj5-xqNM:http://image3.examiner.com/images/blog/EXID13320/images/thumb/thumb_Sand-Wraith.png
Sand Wraith is HON's first true HARD carry. (this means you absolutely devastate lategame if you farmed, but only if you farmed well) Your damage as Sandwraith should be coming from reflected damage. Therefor DPS items are just silly on sand wraith. You want to make him a tank. The only somewhat related damage items you should get are Nullfire Blade/Mock of Brilliance. Your first concern when playing Sand Wraith isn't survivability, its actually farming. This hero is a HORRIBLE farmer, but core items are what make or break Sand Wraith. Therefor you have to focus on farming/ksing don't even worry about killstealing, you need money more then they do, and they can farm much more easily than you can. In team fights you want to be right in the middle of the action because 20% of the damage done to you is reflected to EVERY enemy hero within 1000 range. Add a Mock of Brilliance and the opposing team is basically killing themselves. You have to balance Sand Wraith between damage reduction and total health. The more armor you stack the less you will reflect, but the less armor you stack the faster you die. You don't want to die to fast because the longer you live the more you passively regen health, this regen'ed health turns into more damage to be reflected. On the other side you don't want too much armor or else you'll only be able to dissipate a small amount of damage. Also the more armor you stack the lower your health pool. Lower your health pool = less potential damage you can reflect. Some people swear by Wingbow but 30% evasion means 30% less reflected damage, thus it doesn't appeal to me very much, but its all personal style. Play smart, farm hard, get the kills and you should dominate late game. Sand Wraith's ultimate is an amazing counter to heroes who creep mid/late game. It also acts as a way to tell where the enemy is located, such as an approaching gank or suspicion of Kongor.
Useful Items:
Nullfire Blade- Counters Jereziah, Hammerstorm, Pestilence, Chronos/ More damage/ You can chase much more easily and allows you to solo gank.
Geometers Bane-Counters bash and single target disables/ The move speed is sexy with your desert curse spell/ The best part is during team fights pop this and it's just mass chaos and confusion for the other team.
Mock of Brilliance-Synergizes amazingly well with your passive dissipation.
Behemoths Heart-Allows you to reflect a ridiculous amount of damage/ The more health the better.
Barbed Armor-More reflection of Damage
Wingbow- This gives Sand Wraith more physical dps at the cost less damage reflected/Counters other dps carries/ Counters bash/ Adds general survivability
Helm of the Black Legion- Provides early game survivability
Game should be over if you farmed this much.
Soulstealer
http://honwiki.net/w/images/thumb/f/fa/Soulstealerhero.gif/64px-Soulstealerhero.gif
Soulstealer is a carry that starts out mainly as a caster, but like i mentioned earlier, nukes lose effectiveness lategame, so soulstealer make can either keep being a caster and try to end the game fast, or transition to a dpser towards lategame. Soulstealer is also one of the strongest mid solo's in the game because his nukes don't need vision of the target. Think of soulstealers 2 passives as basically a free shieldbreaker. Allowing you to skip that item and go for other scaling passives and survivability. 1 tip worth mentioning is if you phase or invis on top of a hero standing still you can hit him with every beam of ur ulti and insta kill. Based on the style of game your playing, you should get either assassins shroud or portal key. This is for positioning of your ulti. Remember that Soulstealer is one of the best farmers in the game, able to kill a creep wave in 2 seconds by casting 2 spellls. This means he can skip farming related items. (Hand of Midas, Charged Hammer)
Nullfire Blade- Counters Jereziah, Hammerstorm, Pestilence, Chronos
Whispering Helm-Lifesteal/ Dominate a creep that can stun
Shurnken Head-Only way to win lategame/ Counters disables/ Damage/ Health for a low hp hero
Assasins Shroud-Escape Tool/ Chase/ Can position ulti/ Gank initiating
Behemoths Heart-Lategame Survivability
Wingbow-Counters other dps carries/ Counters bash/ Adds general survivability/ Attack speed from this item is kinda wasted due to diminishing returns of attack speed and your ulti.
Geometers Bane-Counters bash and single target disables
Portal Key-Position Ult/ Escape tool
Riftshards-More Damage
The Dark Lady
http://honwiki.net/w/images/thumb/9/93/Dark_Ladyhero.gif/64px-Dark_Ladyhero.gif
Dark Lady is a strong carry, quite possibly the best carry in game assuming infinite gold. Dark Lady's "Dark Blades" scales directly with base damage. Bottle can help solve your mana problem, while giving you the ability to be a ganker. She also has an blink like escape/nuke. This ability is even better because it works as a silence, and well placed silences can win you a team fight. runed Axe works well with "Charging Strike" because each attack can be cleaved. Use your silence and blink to silence an entire team during team fights. Use her ulti when your ganking/teamfight or need to juke when your getting chased. Her spells now cost very little mana making her much more versatile. She can farm ridiculously fast now. This means farming your core items is much easier allowing you to be more useful sooner in the game. She is extremely strong with damage output and a slow/blink.
Runed Axe-Aoe Dps/ Charge of Darkness will cleave each enemy it hits/ mana regen for a hero who needs it/ Farm Power
Nullfire Blade- Counters Jereziah, Hammerstorm, Pestilence, Chronos/
Charged hammer-Farm Power/ Can proc multiple times during "Charge of Darkness"
Abyssal Skull-Scales damage and gives good lifesteal
Shurnken Head-Only way to win lategame/ Counters disables/ Damage/ Health for a low hp hero
Behemoths Heart-Lategame Survivability
Sheild Breaker-High damage ouput
Wingbow-Counters other dps carries/ Counters bash/ Adds general survivability/ Attack Speed
Geometers Bane-Counters bash and single target disables
Riftshards-More Damage
Scout
http://honwiki.net/w/images/thumb/0/0b/Scouthero.gif/64px-Scouthero.gif
Scout should be played exactly as his name suggests, as a scout. Think of yourself as an invisible moving ward. Set up wards on the runes, if an ally already warded the runes then ward river entrances and possible gank routes. Keep 4 wards up and save 1 for team fights and ganks. When pushing mid invis and run up ahead to see what the enemy team is doing. If a team has a tempest/behemoth check the cliffs during pushes to see if there going to sneak in and initiate. Catching a Tempest or Behemoth can be devastating for the other team. Scout's main role though is an anti-carry, this mean he shuts down other carries mentioned in this guide. Scout has a chance on hit to disarm the enemy thus stopping them from using physical attacks. This is good because most carries main form of dps is physical attacks. Stopping melee attacks and be able to silence is what makes Scout such a deadly hero in 1v1 situations. Scout wins almost every 1v1 battle and this why he is such a powerful ganker. You can unload huge amounts of dps in a very short time making ganks easy. In team fights your goal is to get off the best possible silence you can, let your initiator go in, then follow right away with a ward silence. After that run in and start dpsing down your opponents. Scout is versatile in that he can scale well with damage (disarm) or attack speed (breaking invis) With Riftshards Disarm can proc for 1k-2k if your lucky. Thus I believe scaling Scout towards damage is more useful.
Main tips
-Ward runes/entrances to river
-Help your team see what the other team is up to by being an invisible moving ward.
-Farm useful items that synergize with attack speed or damage
-Before you do anything in a team fight throw down your silence
SCOUT ETIQUETTE: It is customary to type "LOL KS'ED" whenever you get a kill.
Nullfire Blade- Counters Jereziah, Hammerstorm, Pestilence, Chronos/ More damage/ You can chase much more easily and adds another slow after you ult.
Brutalizer- Makes Scout even more of an anti-carry/ Scales with attack speed boost
Charged hammer-Farm Power/ Scales nicely with his attack speed bonus
Shurnken Head-Only way to win lategame/ Counters disables/ Damage/ Health for a low hp hero
Behemoths Heart-Lategame Survivability
Sheild Breaker-High damage ouput
Wingbow-Counters other dps carries/ Counters bash/ Adds general survivability/ Attack Speed
Geometers Bane-Counters bash and single target disables/ If you got brutalizer allows you to perma stun/perma disarm
Runed Axe-Aoe Dps/mana regen for a hero who needs it/ Farm Power/Cleaved crits hit for a ton
Riftshards- More Damage
Scaling Items/Abilities
I Still Don't Understand Scaling
Scaling is an item or abilities passive that increases with (in this case) damage. I'll explain each scale that we care about for agi carries:
Critical Strike
-Madman
-Swiftblade
-Riftshards
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/Combative/riftshards.jpg
Critical strike is a damage based passive scale. The more damage we get the more effective critical strike becomes. Think about it like this (chance to crit for 2.4x damage) say we deal 50 damage for an auto attack, that mean when we crit we deal 100 damage.(50 damage bonus) Now say its lategame and we deal 300 damage per auto attack that means we crit for 600. (300 damage bonus) see the difference?
Lifesteal
-Elder Parasite
-Abyssal Skull
-Symbol of Rage
-Whispering Helm
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/Combative/item8eldarparasite.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/Supportive/abyssalskull.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/Initiation/whisperinghelm.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/Protective/symbolofrage.jpg
Lifesteal is a defensive damage based passive scale. This is majorly important. Obviously the more damage we deal the more we heal ourselves. Lifesteal is best gotten later in the game since healing yourself when you have meager damage means lifesteal is wasted. Hitting for 100 damage(healing for 15) is kinda unneeded, but when our damage start getting up there(200-300) lifesteal starts to shine. The only exception is when u plan to forest for 30 min and emerge a god. Besides that please save this item for later. When this item is combined with some sort of evasion and a Shrunken Head, you will become unkillable. Now you have a lot of choices for lifesteal. Heroes who scale with attack speed (Magebane, Chronos) should try for parasite, while melee heroes going for damage should go abyssal skull. Ranged carries like Arachna must go whispering helm. Symbol of rage should only be a Super last item luxury. Many times lifesteal is completely undeeded and other times its highly important. If your up against another agi carry then life steal can give you the edge if you find yourself in a 1v1 battle
%Base DamageBonus
-Abyssal Skull
-luna
-arachna
-Wolf Commander(neutral)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/Supportive/abyssalskull.jpg
This is possibly the best passive scale, this takes all your base damage and increases it by a percent, this means that damage gets increased then scales even more with crit/lifesteal, this makes for a very scary combination. Remember if you have whispering helm or Ophelia you can dominate the wolf commander for 30% damage bonus aura!
Minus Armour
-Sheildbreaker
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/Morph%20Attacks/shieldbreaker.jpg
Sheildbreaker is the highest damage output item in the game in relation to cost. This ability synergizes with every other damage related passive because -6 Armour is sometimes up to 30% bonus damage!! This kind of boost is extremely good. This should most often be your first damage item or right after Runed battle axe.
Why do these work together so well?
Because Sheildbreaker reduces armor, (and -armor works as a percent) we can say Sheildbreaker increases our damage by a scaling percent. This percent is then scaled higher by Abyssal Skull. This scaled damage in return heals us based on a percent of our damage(lifesteal). All that damage also scales to increase our crits. Crit also scales even more because if we crit we also heal ourselves for a huge amount. See how they all synergize together?
Chain Lightning
-Thunderclaw
-Charged Hammer
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/Morph%20Attacks/thunderclaw.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/Morph%20Attacks/chargedhammer.jpg
Chain Lightning is a chance on hit to unleash a damaging chain lightning similar to Thunderbringer's spell. Chain Lightning scales with attack speed, because the faster you attack the more chances you have to unleash a chain lightning. This synergies amazingly well with Moon Queen's bounces. The bounces and chain lightning create amazing aoe dps. This also works well with madman.
Charged Hammer+ Runed Battle Axe + Madman's Ult = Devestation (pubstomps only)
Chain lightning can be thought of as a "Runed Battle Axe" for ranged heroes, allowing for aoe farming of creep waves and neutrals.
Heart
- Behemoths Heart
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/Protective/item12behemothsheart.jpg
Heart should be a last item, this increases your health tremendously and makes you unkillable with shrunken head and lifesteal. You simply wont die, the 10% damage increase is also beautiful.
Items and Laning
About Abyssal Skull
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/Supportive/abyssalskull.jpg
You may have noticed abyssal skull appeared twice in the lists above. This is because it gives lifesteal and a %base damage bonus. This means if your melee you can get 2 scaling passives with 1 item! Whispering Helm however is superior in that it can be upgraded and allows for domination of creep with which u can stun or stack ancients. You can also dominate Wolf commanders for 30% base damage bonus aura! Generally only go abyssal skull if you control more than one unit such as warbeast and his wolves.
About Assassins Shroud
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/Protective/assasinsshroud.jpg
This item can be considered if your hero has no escape like invis/blink/aoe stun I find it very useful on arachna/soulstealer/moon queen. This item also works as a chase and a way to just move around the map quickly. This item is easily countered though with dust, so if your in a pub get it for sure, but avoid it in competitive play because they will definitely counter you. Competitive players generally get portal keys instead of shroud. The damage bonus from it is also nice.
a_cloth
08-12-2009, 11:59 PM
About Starting Items
generally always go:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/accessories/minortotem.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/accessories/minortotem.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/supplies/Item1HealingPotion.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/supplies/item12runesofblight.jpghttp://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Mana-Battery.png
1x MANA BATTERY (always important)
2x Minor Totem
1x Healing potion
1x Runes of Blight
This combination gives you severely needed early game stats, more often than not your priority is surviving, and this build helps do just that. The healing potion is only to be used in those bad situations where you almost died. The extra stats also help you last hit and deny. always turn your mana battery into a power supply, think of it as a replacement for a bracer/wraith/null.
About Starting Lanes
legion
Top- This lane shouldn't be to hard to farm since the enemies weaker heroes will generally be in this lane so they can tower hug when needed. Always bring a ranged hero with you to babysit. Beware, this lane is easily ganked due to your tower being so far back and the easy entrance into your lane from the river and the woods.
Middle-This lane should belong to your solo, arachna, soulstealer, moon queen, and blood hunter are all good candidates for the mid lane. Remember to go ganking around lvl 6-7 or when the enemy hero in your lane goes mia.
Bot-This is the safe lane, it makes you happy because you can pull the creep camp into your lane and deny creeps. You can also pull creeps towards your tower by issuing an attack command on the enemy hero and running towards the tower quickly. Due to your tower being closer, it allows for protection and easier leveling, as well as reducing your chance to be ganked.
Hellbourne
Same as above just switch top and bot.
A Note On Mid Solos
Yes any hero can solo mid, but some heroes are better fit for the job, a madman is gonna have a horrible time mid if a thunderbringer or defiler is there. Also our carry heroes are putting other heroes on our team at a disadvantage if we solo. The Int heroes on our team don't scale with items as much as us remember, so how do our Int friends stay up to par? levels, the more levels our intellect and strength friends have the more effective their spells are. And since our Int friends rely on their nukes, we want them to have the levels so that they can do more damage sooner in the game. We don't need the levels, we need items and money.
About Your Team
Generally you want your team to consist of the main carry(you) and 4 heroes with at least 1 disable each, make sure someone on your team can initiate. You must also have at least 2 ranged heroes (3 preferably 1 for each lane), A ganker such as soulstealer/valk is always welcome and can help ruin a carrys early game farm. Its also nice to have a back-up carry (semi-carry). An example of this setup would be.
Dream Team
http://honwiki.net/w/images/thumb/2/2a/Behemothhero.gif/64px-Behemothhero.gifhttp://honwiki.net/w/images/thumb/e/e5/Tempesthero.gif/64px-Tempesthero.gif http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:E0pJc9bj5-xqNM:http://image3.examiner.com/images/blog/EXID13320/images/thumb/thumb_Sand-Wraith.pnghttp://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:Gk2AZ5yT_ZX6LM:http://game.online-station.net/files/hon/hero/49.pnghttp://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:a8CqaTOXGXDqTM:http://image3.examiner.com/images/blog/wysiwyg/image/thumb/thumb_Succubus.pnghttp://honwiki.net/w/images/thumb/5/57/Jereziahhero.gif/64px-Jereziahhero.gif
This team can effectively keep the situation under control in team fights while you dish out all the damage needed to finish off kills.
While Laning
If you have an escape ability(invis/blink/stun) level it as your first ability. Its your choice if you want to further level it later in the game, but please get at least rank 1 at the beginning. This helps you avoid gay situations such as a swiftblade who gets the jump on ya, or when a 3 man starting gank occurs. When laning you want to last hit and deny when possible, if your ranged then protect your melee friend from harass. Also harass the other team if you are ranged. If melee avoid last hitting if you know your gonna be harassed, you can farm money later, right now you just need levels and to stay alive. If you do die buy a TP it is always worth the gold compared to the walk all the way back to your lane. Dying early game can ruin your mood for the rest of the game and is an extreme disadvantage, stay alive!
Babysitters
Early game can be very scary for a little 500hp agility hero. Early nukes and harass can ruin your lane. This is why we have babysitters. Babysitters are usually ranged heroes who help control your lane. You are very weak early game but babysitters are generally int heroes who are very strong early game. This helps to balance out your lane. The babysitter can also keep the other heroes from harassing you. If an enemy hero tries to auto attack you, then your babysitter should try to auto attack him. Thus discouraging him from trying to harass you the next time. Your babysitter can also help lower the enemies health enough to where your combined spells can land a kill. Being ranged early game is a huge advantage, but some melee heroes can babysit as well, such as Accursed and Jeriziah. If your laning against the enemy teams solo, try to remember 2 ulti's can usually take down 1 hero. If the enemy solo stays in lane until you and your ally hit lvl 6, then hes waited too long in lane and is now susceptible to a double ult. Take advantage of this, and try to land a kill.
About Neutral Creeping
Sometimes its better to just creep rather than push lanes. Some situations are:
1. When all of your lanes are past the river.
2. When the enemy team is mia.
3. When your team has had a bad start and you can no longer farm effectively in a lane.
4. If you have a hero who can jungle (neutral creep from lvl 1)
Don't just disappear in the forest for 30 min if the game is going fine. Also do not creep if your team is owning. If your destroying the other team then there's no reason to go creep. Keep applying pressure through ganking and pushing and try to finish the game.
About Ganking
Generally you wont be able to gank by yourself, grab a friend and go for the gank, make use of correct pathing. Its always better to come from behind than head on. Use fog to your advantage. Also killsteal!!! Your the agility carry, remember when I talked about intellect heroes earlier, well they don't benefit from items as much as you do and therefor don't need as much money as you, so why let them get the kill? You need money so money is what you should get, this also goes for tower kills. Farming is good, but being able to farm kills is even better.
About Bottle
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/supplies/bottle.jpg
Bottle is viable on just about every hero (some more than others). The deciding factor on whether or not to get bottle is your playstyle. If you like running around and ganking, then get a bottle. If you like to stay in your lane and push for towers then don't get it. The bottle was made for gankers. The most important aspect of the bottle is the runes you can store. Runes were made for gankers, and being able to store runes is even deadlier. Think about it, every rune can help your gank be a successful one.
Invisibility-Allows you to initiate the gank and start with an advantage of an extra teamate (since the enemy doesnt know you're there)
Regeneration-Allows for mana regen to get that last stun/nuke off to finish the hero if you run out of mana.
Double Damage-More damage to kill the enemy.
Haste-More chase as well as more auto attacks.
About Shrunken Head
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/Protective/shrunkenhead.jpg
When you should buy this item is situational, but you should always get one eventually. This is what allows you to attack without worrying as much about disables. It gives decent damage and health as well. All of your scaling passives are worthless if you get disabled, this is the one item that will turn the game around. Plz get this at some point in the game if the opposing team is disabling you.
About Boots
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/Initiation/item7steamboots.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/Initiation/enhancedmarchers.jpg
Current patch steamboots are best for carries, especially for sand wraith and heroes with a blink/movespeed increase.
Lategame
In lategame team fights allow your initiator to start, then run in and use your shrunken head, kill disablers first/ carrys second/ and tanks last. You should be near invincible lategame and can ussually take down disablers and laugh at how fast they died. If your magic immunity runs out and your losing the fight try to run, if your winning stay and help finish, remember if you win a lategame fight go for the rax and finish it, if you lose, they might try the same thing and you will need to buy back to defend.
WTF I followed your guide and we lost!!!!
Blame your teammates.
_Archangel_
08-13-2009, 01:18 AM
What I posted in your other thread:
The best carries function with little or few items, and contributes to their team even before they get them. Nearly all of the heroes you listed there aren't hard carries (And by hard carries I mean like Terrorblade on DotA), but are semi-gankers and should be ganking (Arachna, Soulstealer, Nighthound, Bloodseeker).
Also I disagree that Soulstealer should become a DPSer lategame. He has moderate DPS output but gearing him with Portal Key and Shrunken Head so that he's an AoE damaging machine lategame works far better against competent teams than getting Shieldbreaker or other DPS items. And Assassin's Shroud doesn't work as a positioning tool against competent teams who will Ward in front of towers (Where teamfights will occur).
Blood Hunter COULD solo mid if he lasthits like Yamateh and spams Silence if he's against Zeus/Defiler
And your arguments:
I said only get assasins shroud in pubs, all aoe damage loses effectiveness lategame, and his 2 passives are there so that he can dps lategame, they basically turn into a desolator for him.
Also as I said before there will 90% of the time be another hero on your team who needs early levels more than bloodhunter.
Carries are terrible without items, this is the most basic mechanic of the game. Int heroes dont need items, agi carries do, and terrorblade was useless until he got eye of skadi/s&y/etc after that he would carry, the same thing goes for HON we need to farm items so our effectiveness increases.
Yes, AoE damage loses effectiveness in VERY lategame (i.e. past 50-55 minutes). If you pick Soulstealer, you must make use of his AoE damage abilities to end the game before then, because lategame his DPS will pale in comparison to that of true carries (Like Madman). His damage passive doesn't scale into lategame at all, and the -armor doesn't matter a hell of a lot in the very-lategame stage when everyone has 15+ armor. His DPS is not amazing in the very-lategame stage. Soulstealer is just a semicarry.
Not the early levels but the increased competition for creeps will make it more difficult for Bloodhunter if he is in a dual lane. But that's just from my own experience of playing Bloodhunter; I hate laning with an ally if I'm playing him. It is true that TB can make better use of early levels
HARD carries are terrible without items. In fact, they are terrible early and mid. This is why you don't see hard carries in competitive DotA (i.e. Nobody picks Terrorblade anymore). Many of the heroes you listed are actually semicarries though and they work fine without items. Arachna owns pretty hard even with just Steamboots and some Soulscreams, and her ultimate is a very powerful single-target killing spell. You don't need items to throw a Smoke Cloud in ganks with Night Hound. Don't need items to melt face with Swiftblade's ultimate. Blood Hunter's Haemorrhage owns low-HP heroes early and mid, items or no items. These heroes are still useful to their team before they have items, and therefore should not spend the whole early-mid portion of the game farming them.
And you're incorrect when you say Intelligence heroes don't need gold. Intelligence carries are effective whether they have items or not, thought they do increase in effectiveness tremendously when they do have their items. Defiler owns face with just her abilities, and she just owns face more when she has Sacrificial Stone + Enchanted Marchers. When she gets a Behemoth's Heart, she is nearly unstoppable. Torturer can do much the same with the same items. Pollywog can carry too, though to a lesser extent. Early-mid he has strong lane control and ganking capability as well as tower-pushing ability due to Wards. Lategame if you farm him Refreshing Ornament and Staff of the Master, setting down 24 Wards in a teamfight = GG. Whereas giving Chronos the same amount of farm doesn't make him NEARLY as effective as Defiler or Pollywog.
http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn27/digital-archangel/Carrygraph.gif
Edit: We seem to have different definitions of the word carry, yours being "DPS" and mine being "Impact on a teamfight"
Oh and by the way, Moon Queen is an excellent DPS hero due to being able to hit multiple targets. I personally like Thunder Claw -> Steamboots -> Shrunken Head -> Charged Hammer on her for extreme AoE DPS - your Glaives, Chain Lightnings and Moonbeams flying everywhere = lots of damage
a_cloth
08-13-2009, 02:12 AM
What I posted in your other thread:
And your arguments:
Yes, AoE damage loses effectiveness in VERY lategame (i.e. past 50-55 minutes). If you pick Soulstealer, you must make use of his AoE damage abilities to end the game before then, because lategame his DPS will pale in comparison to that of true carries (Like Madman). His damage passive doesn't scale into lategame at all, and the -armor doesn't matter a hell of a lot in the very-lategame stage when everyone has 15+ armor. His DPS is not amazing in the very-lategame stage. Soulstealer is just a semicarry.
Not the early levels but the increased competition for creeps will make it more difficult for Bloodhunter if he is in a dual lane. But that's just from my own experience of playing Bloodhunter; I hate laning with an ally if I'm playing him. It is true that TB can make better use of early levels
HARD carries are terrible without items. In fact, they are terrible early and mid. This is why you don't see hard carries in competitive DotA (i.e. Nobody picks Terrorblade anymore). Many of the heroes you listed are actually semicarries though and they work fine without items. Arachna owns pretty hard even with just Steamboots and some Soulscreams, and her ultimate is a very powerful single-target killing spell. You don't need items to throw a Smoke Cloud in ganks with Night Hound. Don't need items to melt face with Swiftblade's ultimate. Blood Hunter's Haemorrhage owns low-HP heroes early and mid, items or no items. These heroes are still useful to their team before they have items, and therefore should not spend the whole early-mid portion of the game farming them.
And you're incorrect when you say Intelligence heroes don't need gold. Intelligence carries are effective whether they have items or not, thought they do increase in effectiveness tremendously when they do have their items. Defiler owns face with just her abilities, and she just owns face more when she has Sacrificial Stone + Enchanted Marchers. When she gets a Behemoth's Heart, she is nearly unstoppable. Torturer can do much the same with the same items. Pollywog can carry too, though to a lesser extent. Early-mid he has strong lane control and ganking capability as well as tower-pushing ability due to Wards. Lategame if you farm him Refreshing Ornament and Staff of the Master, setting down 24 Wards in a teamfight = GG. Whereas giving Chronos the same amount of farm doesn't make him NEARLY as effective as Defiler or Pollywog.
http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn27/digital-archangel/Carrygraph.gif
Edit: We seem to have different definitions of the word carry, yours being "DPS" and mine being "Impact on a teamfight"
Oh and by the way, Moon Queen is an excellent DPS hero due to being able to hit multiple targets. I personally like Thunder Claw -> Steamboots -> Shrunken Head -> Charged Hammer on her for extreme AoE DPS - your Glaives, Chain Lightnings and Moonbeams flying everywhere = lots of damage
Soulstealers dps scales just as well as most heroes, the -armour just got an even bigger buff in this patch. And defiler is an int carry, when i talk about int heroes not needing money im referring to non carry int heroes. Every carry needs money (int or agi). Would you rather me change the name to semi-carry agi guide?
Your right some of the heroes i mentioned don't need items to own, but if they do get items there effectiveness will definitely increase more than other heroes. Still int heroes in general don't need money as badly as agility carry's. And your graph isn't very fair, your comparing an overpowered int carry to an agi carry. Make your graph a normal nuker like pyromancer and compare it to chronos and you will see it fits with the information in my guide.
NOTE: I WAS VERY HIGH WHEN I MADE THIS. wILL POST BETTER ON E LATERZ.
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/6836/bestpictureevar.png (http://img5.imageshack.us/i/bestpictureevar.png/)
a_cloth
08-13-2009, 03:25 AM
Nice guide :)
Why thank you sir, I very much appreciate it old chap.
ElementUser
08-13-2009, 10:03 AM
Your right some of the heroes i mentioned don't need items to own, but if they do get items there effectiveness will definitely increase more than other heroes. Still int heroes in general don't need money as badly as agility carry's. And your graph isn't very fair, your comparing an overpowered int carry to an agi carry. Make your graph a normal nuker like pyromancer and compare it to chronos and you will see it fits with the information in my guide.
Um, Pyromancer isn't a carry (hardly a semi-carry in my book). Just a hard nuker/AoE damager/initiator (with Portal Key)/follow-up after ally initiators. Of course pure nukers would compare poorly with agility carries late game (what else is new?).
Are you going to suggest to compare another int carry like Obsidian Destroyer or Necrolyte with Faceless Void in DotA?
About your laning, I personally hate laning in the dangerous lane with an agility carry (even with a ranged supporter/babysitter) - dangerous lane being Top for Legion/Bot for Hellbourne. You should normally put your strongest hero combo (dual lane and roamer if the roamer is good) for your dangerous lane and put your carry in bottom lane (if you have a good mid solo) in my experiences. More often than not I have a terrible time laning in the dangerous lane
LordSkeletor
08-13-2009, 12:26 PM
NOTE: I WAS VERY HIGH WHEN I MADE THIS. wILL POST BETTER ON E LATERZ.
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/6836/bestpictureevar.png (http://img5.imageshack.us/i/bestpictureevar.png/)
Best chart ever.
Also great guide. Just like everything in DOTA/HON, I'm sure there's tonnes to debate but it was a great help for me in understanding the foundations of what it is that makes these heroes powerful.
a_cloth
08-13-2009, 01:02 PM
Um, Pyromancer isn't a carry (hardly a semi-carry in my book). Just a hard nuker/AoE damager/initiator (with Portal Key)/follow-up after ally initiators. Of course pure nukers would compare poorly with agility carries late game (what else is new?).
Are you going to suggest to compare another int carry like Obsidian Destroyer or Necrolyte with Faceless Void in DotA?
About your laning, I personally hate laning in the dangerous lane with an agility carry (even with a ranged supporter/babysitter) - dangerous lane being Top for Legion/Bot for Hellbourne. You should normally put your strongest hero combo (dual lane and roamer if the roamer is good) for your dangerous lane and put your carry in bottom lane (if you have a good mid solo) in my experiences. More often than not I have a terrible time laning in the dangerous lane
The problem was, my guide saids "intellect heroes dont need money as badly as you do" And the other guy used defiler to say intellect heroes do need lots of money, but defiler is a carry int hero, i was refereeing to general nukers not needing money. This is why I compared pyromancer and chronos.
ElementUser
08-13-2009, 01:24 PM
Erm, so anything to say about my laning comment? :)
a_cloth
08-13-2009, 01:32 PM
Erm, so anything to say about my laning comment? :)
Idk its all opinion,
1. Don't you want the solo to have the safe lane?
2. Its not hard to keep a look out on mid to see if any of them left.
3. You wont really have a chance in hell to farm if you go mid, because of ranged hero harassment.
4. If you go top you will most likely be laned with the other teams solo. Generally this means your gonna have a real easy time top and you'll be able to make some gold. A ranged/melee combo vs. 1 melee means you get to control the lane and get the gold while he sits back to get exp.
Kitad1
08-13-2009, 05:44 PM
I like your guide. Being a carry is fun (:
a_cloth
08-13-2009, 06:35 PM
I like your guide. Being a carry is fun (:
to an extent yes it is, I hate the farming phase though.
Kitad1
08-13-2009, 07:19 PM
How about starting with 1x runes of the blight, 5 totems and a courier(as a chronos)? That way you get a similar stats boost, while the courier will help you immensely in the course of farming since you can get supplies and get your items as soon as you get money
a_cloth
08-13-2009, 07:35 PM
How about starting with 1x runes of the blight, 5 totems and a courier(as a chronos)? That way you get a similar stats boost, while the courier will help you immensely in the course of farming since you can get supplies and get your items as soon as you get money
just because in my experience you need more regen than 1 set of runes of blight/ since your the carry you will most likely be targeted first for harass.
Kitad1
08-13-2009, 08:03 PM
just because in my experience you need more regen than 1 set of runes of blight/ since your the carry you will most likely be targeted first for harass.
maybe 2 or 3 set of runes of blight? I mentioned chronos particularly because he has a pretty effective escaping mechanism
a_cloth
08-13-2009, 08:16 PM
maybe 2 or 3 set of runes of blight? I mentioned chronos particularly because he has a pretty effective escaping mechanism
Ya that would probably work fine, it all depends on your lane and how much they harass
Josh242
08-13-2009, 08:25 PM
it is very easy to carry with agi heroes especially on easy mode. WHat i usually find is a good start is if you pare a melee agi hero with a rnaged hero due to an increse of lane control and ability to do damage.
Bonburner
08-13-2009, 08:32 PM
Int heroes never lose their effectiveness at that pace my friend. Totem of kuldra and Refresher orb is 8 seconds already. You can cast so many spells in that given time. If they have magic immune or w/e just cyclone yourself to kill its duration and help your skills CD.
ElementUser
08-13-2009, 09:09 PM
Idk its all opinion,
4. If you go top you will most likely be laned with the other teams solo. Generally this means your gonna have a real easy time top and you'll be able to make some gold. A ranged/melee combo vs. 1 melee means you get to control the lane and get the gold while he sits back to get exp.
The thing is though most people choose the middle lane as solo. So far in HoN, the only time I've seen a hero solo the safe lane is when the team has a jungler/roamer :/
a_cloth
08-13-2009, 10:19 PM
Int heroes never lose their effectiveness at that pace my friend. Totem of kuldra and Refresher orb is 8 seconds already. You can cast so many spells in that given time. If they have magic immune or w/e just cyclone yourself to kill its duration and help your skills CD.
Cyclone stick is only a viable option on a couple heroes. In General, lategame carries shrunken head then kill int disablers because your their health is low and their disables are useless.
Try to think of it like this
1. Pyromancer at level 8 can do about 40%-50% (excluding ulti) of a carry's max health. When you start reaching 40-50 min a pyromancer will do about 10-20% of your max health in damage. This is the loss of effectiveness im talking about. You can say this same thing about pretty much all int nukers.
a_cloth
08-13-2009, 10:35 PM
The thing is though most people choose the middle lane as solo. So far in HoN, the only time I've seen a hero solo the safe lane is when the team has a jungler/roamer :/
I know the middle lane levels faster, so if you do solo it makes sense to go mid, but its always been my understanding that only certain heroes are up to the task of soloing AND controlling the mid lane. If they can't do that then they go to the safe lane?
TomatoBisque
08-14-2009, 12:51 AM
I strongly disagree with the idea that getting Abyssal Skull on most/all Agi carries a "must". Abyssal Skull doesn't scale with +damage items or nukes, which make up a good deal of most Agi carry damage.
Factual error: +% damage skills only increase your base damage with 0 attributes (varies from hero to hero, to find it take your damage at level 1 and subtract your primary attribute) and then your primary attribute. In this case, Agility. Note that I'm referring only to the % damage bonus section, which includes things such as Wolf Commander and Abyssal Skull.
For example, +damage items give much more DPS alone than a +Agility item, so a hero like Madman that has an innate Crit would much rather farm an item that just gives +damage, as the 15% from Abyssal isn't going to surpass the 65-80 from high end DPS items until you get about 400 Agility... Even considering that it only costs 2k compared to 5-6k, you would still need over 133-150 or so Agility for it be comparable, which means it's at best gotten after your other Agility items, and at worst a luxury item gotten after your primary DPS and survivability items.
Swiftblade also has a crit, and he wants either more IAS to do more damage in his ulti, or attack modifiers (such as Runed Axe and Shieldbreaker). Since his crit is effectively 36% increased damage, that means that Abyssal brings him up to 52% increased damage even if he stacks +Agility rather than +damage, making it only a ~12% increase in overall damage, far inferior to typical carry items.
Nearly 50% of Nighthound's damage gets 0 benefit from Abyssal. He's much better off getting +Agi Steamboots, a Nullfire Blade (Active ability + Smoke means if they run out they're ridiculously slow and taking backstab damage, if they don't you win since they're silenced and have a huge miss %), and then farming up to a Wingbow, as even with just the Nullfire Blade he can solo low HP Ints with ease.
Arachna is ranged and already has a % damage bonus ability (which lessens the overall increase of getting Abyssal compared to +Agi items).
Bloodhunter has a HUGE steroid skill (+80% damage!) which nearly cuts the overall benefit of Abyssal in half compared to going pure Agi, and if you keep it at low level for the Silence you're better off going Mock of Brilliance.
Chrono's time lock doesn't benefit from it, and the only +Agi item that he'd realistically get is Wingbow since his images are frozen by his ult (change/fix this, S2, with that combined with Images being able to Bash, it might make Chronos a good hero... He's currently bottom of the barrel, and even if he's OP for one patch, he can't possibly be more broken than lol80 damage 4 armor at level 1 Magmus)
Magebane... Meh. Sure, why not. Hardly counts as "every" Agi carry though.
Moon Queen is ranged and has a +dmg aura like Arachna. Helm of Dom/Geo's Bane is better anyway.
Soulstealer is ranged, his +60 damage doesn't benefit from Abyssal (but does benefit from Critz and -armor).
The lifesteal is nice, but as you said yourself, it's rather insignificant until you get high damage, and as I would like to add, it requires you to be attacking, which is impossible to do when stunned, and still leaves you susceptible to burst damage (sup nukers), so Shrunken Head and pure HP items are still superior.
I'm also fairly sure that the Lifesteal aura on Abyssal is melee only like in DotA, however I'm not 100% sure, although the only hero that might care is Soulstealer.
a_cloth
08-14-2009, 02:15 AM
I strongly disagree with the idea that getting Abyssal Skull on most/all Agi carries a "must". Abyssal Skull doesn't scale with +damage items or nukes, which make up a good deal of most Agi carry damage.
Factual error: +% damage skills only increase your base damage with 0 attributes (varies from hero to hero, to find it take your damage at level 1 and subtract your primary attribute) and then your primary attribute. In this case, Agility. Note that I'm referring only to the % damage bonus section, which includes things such as Wolf Commander and Abyssal Skull.
For example, +damage items give much more DPS alone than a +Agility item, so a hero like Madman that has an innate Crit would much rather farm an item that just gives +damage, as the 15% from Abyssal isn't going to surpass the 65-80 from high end DPS items until you get about 400 Agility... Even considering that it only costs 2k compared to 5-6k, you would still need over 133-150 or so Agility for it be comparable, which means it's at best gotten after your other Agility items, and at worst a luxury item gotten after your primary DPS and survivability items.
Swiftblade also has a crit, and he wants either more IAS to do more damage in his ulti, or attack modifiers (such as Runed Axe and Shieldbreaker). Since his crit is effectively 36% increased damage, that means that Abyssal brings him up to 52% increased damage even if he stacks +Agility rather than +damage, making it only a ~12% increase in overall damage, far inferior to typical carry items.
Nearly 50% of Nighthound's damage gets 0 benefit from Abyssal. He's much better off getting +Agi Steamboots, a Nullfire Blade (Active ability + Smoke means if they run out they're ridiculously slow and taking backstab damage, if they don't you win since they're silenced and have a huge miss %), and then farming up to a Wingbow, as even with just the Nullfire Blade he can solo low HP Ints with ease.
Arachna is ranged and already has a % damage bonus ability (which lessens the overall increase of getting Abyssal compared to +Agi items).
Bloodhunter has a HUGE steroid skill (+80% damage!) which nearly cuts the overall benefit of Abyssal in half compared to going pure Agi, and if you keep it at low level for the Silence you're better off going Mock of Brilliance.
Chrono's time lock doesn't benefit from it, and the only +Agi item that he'd realistically get is Wingbow since his images are frozen by his ult (change/fix this, S2, with that combined with Images being able to Bash, it might make Chronos a good hero... He's currently bottom of the barrel, and even if he's OP for one patch, he can't possibly be more broken than lol80 damage 4 armor at level 1 Magmus)
Magebane... Meh. Sure, why not. Hardly counts as "every" Agi carry though.
Moon Queen is ranged and has a +dmg aura like Arachna. Helm of Dom/Geo's Bane is better anyway.
Soulstealer is ranged, his +60 damage doesn't benefit from Abyssal (but does benefit from Critz and -armor).
The lifesteal is nice, but as you said yourself, it's rather insignificant until you get high damage, and as I would like to add, it requires you to be attacking, which is impossible to do when stunned, and still leaves you susceptible to burst damage (sup nukers), so Shrunken Head and pure HP items are still superior.
I'm also fairly sure that the Lifesteal aura on Abyssal is melee only like in DotA, however I'm not 100% sure, although the only hero that might care is Soulstealer.
1. I said in my riki guide not to get crit or lifesteal
2. Abyssal skull gives lifesteal to dont forget, lifesteal/ %damage bonus for 2k is an amazing deal. And don't forget lifesteal scales with damage. So abysall skull DOES scale.
3. Arachan doesnt benefit from abysall skull. My guide saids get whispering helm for her.
4. Bloodhunters 80% damage increase scales by 15% if you have abysall skull which adds up to huge numbers.
5. Also on Chronos i said get elder parasite not abysall skull (did you even read my guide?)
6. Moon queen is ranged therefor get whispering helm not abyssal skull.
7. Soulstealer/ see above
8. Yes it is melee only.
9. My section for abysall skull saids "if your melee" like 3 times -.-
Milkhater
08-14-2009, 02:18 PM
Solid guide, should help a lot of the new players to HoN that don't have DotA experience. Sucks that so many people want your nuts in their replies. Could add a bit more about babysitters/when to jungle, but it's more of an extensive entry-level deal, so no biggie.
a_cloth
08-14-2009, 11:43 PM
added a babysitter and neutral section
_Archangel_
08-15-2009, 06:13 AM
The problem was, my guide saids "intellect heroes dont need money as badly as you do" And the other guy used defiler to say intellect heroes do need lots of money, but defiler is a carry int hero, i was refereeing to general nukers not needing money. This is why I compared pyromancer and chronos.
Funnily enough I'd still take a Pyromancer with a Totem of Kuldra over a Chronos with Wingbow any day.
a_cloth
08-15-2009, 06:42 AM
Funnily enough I'd still take a Pyromancer with a Totem of Kuldra over a Chronos with Wingbow any day.
Idk a late game chronos is kinda invincible
O, and i tryed your little moon queen strategy and my god it was funny. I tried the same thing with madman (charged hammer and battlefury) was pretty ridiculous.
a_cloth
08-15-2009, 07:50 PM
Added some new info, also added some more mechanics explanations.
ElementUser
08-15-2009, 07:59 PM
I know the middle lane levels faster, so if you do solo it makes sense to go mid, but its always been my understanding that only certain heroes are up to the task of soloing AND controlling the mid lane. If they can't do that then they go to the safe lane?
Yeah it makes sense, just that people never really do it. :(
More dual lanes middle! :D
a_cloth
08-16-2009, 02:08 AM
Yeah it makes sense, just that people never really do it. :(
More dual lanes middle! :D
agreed
LegoPirate
08-16-2009, 04:12 AM
a few things.
1. abysmal skull's damage bonus is based on base damage.\
2. riki needs a abysmal skull, as it gives him enough mana regen + lifesteal means that he doesnt need to go back to heal if he doesnt want to.
3. getting a behemoths heart on magebane early on is very very useful, as combined with spell sheild and blink, makes you invincible, and gives you the hp you need to survive in team battles. vangaurd(hotbl) is very situational and is only half the price of heart, while giving less then half the hp, and a fraction of the regeneration
Real_Wolf
08-16-2009, 06:09 AM
Why do I find absolutely NO mention of THE best lategame carry agi hero?
DARK LADY
Farmed up, she can beat any of the above heroes. A bit of life steal, +130% base damage, I was hitting 500 a hit, add in some crits and your seeing Mortred. Whats more, it silences which is incredibly useful, blink and a not too great slow mean that your able to blink in, slow, silence, and hit them for 500 damage a hit, with your scaling aspd.
Seriously one of the most overpowered agility heroes, and thats not even mentioning the ulti.
I use the blink lategame and go through creeps and almost kill them all, despite the moon-queen like decreasing damage.
You say its an in depth guide and then miss out the true lategame potential. She definetely isn't early game due to her mana reliance, and midgame she is only mediocre, having the mana for one combo (and thus, one or more kills).
She doesn't even need that great items, she becomes fairly tank from stat growth, and 3.2 agi gain is insane, thats the same as terrorblade from dota, roughly the same as Mortred, both incredibly lategame heroes who exist purely for their lategame imba dps.
Seriously, how can madman deal with 500 damage per attack + lifesteal + tank + silence
Loosance
08-16-2009, 06:44 AM
Why do I find absolutely NO mention of THE best lategame carry agi hero?
DARK LADY
Farmed up, she can beat any of the above heroes. A bit of life steal, +130% base damage, I was hitting 500 a hit, add in some crits and your seeing Mortred. Whats more, it silences which is incredibly useful, blink and a not too great slow mean that your able to blink in, slow, silence, and hit them for 500 damage a hit, with your scaling aspd.
Seriously one of the most overpowered agility heroes, and thats not even mentioning the ulti.
I use the blink lategame and go through creeps and almost kill them all, despite the moon-queen like decreasing damage.
You say its an in depth guide and then miss out the true lategame potential. She definetely isn't early game due to her mana reliance, and midgame she is only mediocre, having the mana for one combo (and thus, one or more kills).
She doesn't even need that great items, she becomes fairly tank from stat growth, and 3.2 agi gain is insane, thats the same as terrorblade from dota, roughly the same as Mortred, both incredibly lategame heroes who exist purely for their lategame imba dps.
Seriously, how can madman deal with 500 damage per attack + lifesteal + tank + silence
All is a meaning of scaling. The dark lady need ALOT of farm and is too much mana dependent. Her charge is not really effectiv for escaping so she is not really hard to gank (and the charge is not really a good engage also) and she does not do really good dmg without her silence ability. Madman can stun (free dps for), crit and got insane attack speed with the ultimate. Dark lady does not have any speed attack speed bonus and does not have any free dps skill. She ABSOLUTE needs shrunken head and attack speed items if she wants to kill, and she does not tank better than any other carry. Try to face a chronos/madman and you will die for sure.
She will be a good carry if the snare % and the charge cooldown are upp.
Real_Wolf
08-16-2009, 07:20 AM
Actually, charge has a fairly low cd, its 6/15 for active which is fine for ganking. Once lategame she no longer has mana problems, and indeed I find her mana problems to be rather similar to madmans in terms of use.
Charge is a brilliant skill for engaging, and is effective enough for escaping. I use it plenty for engaging and chasing due to its rather low cd. Its effectively a blink which can't go through non-pathed areas.
As for saying that she needs ALOT of farm, she doesn't need significantly much, a small bit of lifesteal from a vlads (can't remember its name), steam boots, and maybe a wingbow gives PLENTY of attack speed which is just as insane lategame due to the agility gain. 3.2 agility gain is nothing to scoff at, it puts her at the highest aspd base in the game.
Add to the fact that aspd's effect on dps scales diminuitively, the boost from damage is MUCH more useful than the boost from aspd, which means that her silence+dmg + stats allows her to deal alot more dps than the speed boost from madman. Add in a crit and you'll be hitting 600's easy, if not more, definetely more than a madman.
Heres two situations:
Madman engages, he stuns, ulti's, and you take a fair bit of damage, probably about 1200-1500 to be realistically overkill. That leaves you with approximately 500 on an average build. However then you just use your charged blades, and attack back, and you CAN steal back more health than you lose even with madmans ulti on, should you not quite be strong enough to do so you can run away by 800, which is a significant distance, and then his gank has failed.
On the other hand, you blink in with silence, you do alot of damage, dealing 500 dmg per attack, plus 2.2x crits, when he runs you use your slow, dust/gem/wards deals with his invisibility and the low cd of your blink lets you chase him even with high ms due to his low invis time, and you can easily deal out a significant amoutn of damage. Add in a slow from frost skull or hack and slash and you can probably net a kill as his escape is ms based not blink based.
Add to the fact that she can do that all on her own with her ulti, or with a team, 1v1 or 5v1 or whatever, while he can not assure that her teammates won't come to her rescue, and you have a much more significant carry.
She is not 'too much' mana dependent, rather she is similar to other heroes with a limited mana base dependent. Instead what I would say is that she is disable dependant.
While other carry's may be able to rip someone to pieces and stop them escaping, others simply can't stop an enemy from escaping and require a disable.
Finally, on another note, why do you assume that only agility heroes make the best carry's? Or is that not quite what your aiming at? For beast master (lycanthrope) is one of the best carry's in the game, lacking a similar thing to dark lady with his lack of disable, but his ultimate is VERY significant, BAT decrease is a much better ultimate than an aspd increase, with vlads he has a 40% dmg increase, which scales. Some other heroes can do similarily amazing carry potential easily outdoing agi heroes.
Loosance
08-16-2009, 08:19 AM
All your theory craft is nicely done for a 1vs1 game but Dota/Hon is not a 1vs1 game. Madman will only need few items to be effectiv and even if his farming has been broken by many ganks and hard lanes he can still be effectiv with stuns and crits + his attack speed. His chasing style with invis and stun his better to finish the kills.
I personnaly never said that madman was the best carry, i think magebane is just because of his survability.
Just with the thing that if you are full slot (sot fed or you farmed the whole game) you will always need to save a slot for anti invis (like gem,powder, ward etc..) if you do a 1v1 with madman he can have 6 slot with usefull stuff.
With the unlimited gold, if you stuff a madman you will have less dmg per hits than a dark lady but you will absolute hit alot faster and that scale with crits and leech life beter than add dmg with leech life.
Now speaking in a Midskill/highskill game, if i correctly remember her charge gets beter with levels (like mana cost and distance). You can easily gank her before lvl 6, she will have maybe charge lvl 3? so only silence lvl 2? Madman/Magebane don't need to activate any OTHER skill to dps she does. Ok they all have the same mana pool, but she has to activa her silence, her charge, her ulti ... man this is ALOT of mana. Ok on lvl 25 with 10 stats lvl you are ok but before lvl 11 even you are so low in mana you can escape the first gank, but the second you will be oom.
I am thinking of that because i recently saw a replay from a Dota game with ganking pick (Es, Venom, Lina, Sven and another one i don't remember). Those guys were ganking so much i can't even imagine how can survive the dark lady to that kind of game ... I assume that madman with his stun and stealth can survive even against powder.
Another thing; It is way easier to do kills with a babysit with a madman than a dark lady. If they don't have an imba aggressiv lane they will suffer. Dark lady will make them suffer way too late from my opinion.
I really think that dark lady need an upp and she deserve it as she has to deal with imba carry with crits/evade/stun only with a silence and a snare. But i think she is better than blood hunter just because of her silence, she gain %dmg with a silence on enemy, the blood hunter got to choose.
To answer to your lycan, yeah he is insane like in dota... but he NEEDS the woods and its too much easy to counter a wooding hero.
Agi are the best carry cause :
agi = attack speed + armor + dmg
str = hp + dmg
I could say : hey pebble rox in carry with mass attack speed items ... or pestilence?? With -armor items he can 3 shot any heroes. Did you tried pyro with refresher and codex 7? Cmon :)
Damage
08-16-2009, 12:48 PM
Pretty much... to sum the whole guide up:
-Anything with "%" scales.
Good guide :)
a_cloth
08-16-2009, 03:10 PM
Why do I find absolutely NO mention of THE best lategame carry agi hero?
DARK LADY
Farmed up, she can beat any of the above heroes. A bit of life steal, +130% base damage, I was hitting 500 a hit, add in some crits and your seeing Mortred. Whats more, it silences which is incredibly useful, blink and a not too great slow mean that your able to blink in, slow, silence, and hit them for 500 damage a hit, with your scaling aspd.
Seriously one of the most overpowered agility heroes, and thats not even mentioning the ulti.
I use the blink lategame and go through creeps and almost kill them all, despite the moon-queen like decreasing damage.
You say its an in depth guide and then miss out the true lategame potential. She definetely isn't early game due to her mana reliance, and midgame she is only mediocre, having the mana for one combo (and thus, one or more kills).
She doesn't even need that great items, she becomes fairly tank from stat growth, and 3.2 agi gain is insane, thats the same as terrorblade from dota, roughly the same as Mortred, both incredibly lategame heroes who exist purely for their lategame imba dps.
Seriously, how can madman deal with 500 damage per attack + lifesteal + tank + silence
Honestly I've never found dark lady that incredibly useful, she reminds me of chronos being horrible though most of the game and being godly at the end. Her only real scale is her first spell. One thing I do like about her, is her blink combined with battlefury is funny. I think of her more as support.
Real_Wolf
08-16-2009, 03:27 PM
Well I've just been playing her alot recently, admittedly some of the just end up being pub bashing but other games have been a real struggle, yet I have found dark lady to truly be useful in them.
And madman in a 5v5 is easily countered, with a proper gank he isn't going to escape.
As for your aspd vs crits, lets say one is attacking at 1.6 times per second, the other 1.4. One is dealing 200-300 damage, the other 500. The difference in life steal is almost double. At the higher attack speeds, your attack speed has LESS effect, as it is calculated through
BAT/(1+IAS), which means as your IAS goes up, your relative attack time will decrease.
Dark lady does not need any more items than madman to do well. I can always drive someone back to fountain at level 5, with a few exceptions, and with only average items I can be a significant enough threat in any gank and indeed if I use my three skills in it, despite running low on mana, I do a LOT of damage to the enemy, even if they are rather tank.
Believing that she needs more items than madman is rather strange, because early game she deals more damage, and uses about the same mana, ignoring her ulti which I have stated is WAY too situational to include in every gank, and assuming madman uses his ulti (why wouldn't he?). Indeed, madmans ulti, + invis twice (once in, once out say), + stun is well over 300 mana aswell, and he has a very limited mana pool, so that means one gank and then how is he going to escape with no mana?
That silence rips up enemy heroes aswell, when you blink in and are silencing them for 8.5 seconds (assuming you get a hit at the last 6 second point), especially with so many heroes spell dependant, causes alot of chaos. Thunderbringer with no spells, magebane with no blink, Chrono with no timewalk, madman with no invis.
You keep saying all I am saying is Theorycraft, however I have personally found that most of the things I have said are true from actual practise IN HoN with dark lady. You just need to look at how you are playing her. She might not be as good early game as a few other agi heroes but she is definetely far better lategame. Just the HoN equivalent of crystalis gives her insane crits not seen of in dota besides Phantom Assassin.
The last thing to say about dark lady in this post, same thing people get told all the time to other people proposing balance saying one hero is too strong. Just because you failed at playing the hero doesn't mean the hero is worthless, rather it means you need to look at how you played them.
On the final bit, war beast doesn't need to woods, but he does do it incredibly well. I will admit he does need to farm, but he doesn't need to farm nearly as much as most agi heroes.
And about how you believe that agi is a better lategame, cause str gives hp + dmg, well I am going to remind you of the above, once attack speed is at a certain point (I believe its +120 aspd where it starts becoming rather less effective to increase), damage is more efficient, and getting health AND damage means your incredibly tank, one thing that carry heroes always lack.
a_cloth
08-16-2009, 04:40 PM
Well I've just been playing her alot recently, admittedly some of the just end up being pub bashing but other games have been a real struggle, yet I have found dark lady to truly be useful in them.
And madman in a 5v5 is easily countered, with a proper gank he isn't going to escape.
As for your aspd vs crits, lets say one is attacking at 1.6 times per second, the other 1.4. One is dealing 200-300 damage, the other 500. The difference in life steal is almost double. At the higher attack speeds, your attack speed has LESS effect, as it is calculated through
BAT/(1+IAS), which means as your IAS goes up, your relative attack time will decrease.
Dark lady does not need any more items than madman to do well. I can always drive someone back to fountain at level 5, with a few exceptions, and with only average items I can be a significant enough threat in any gank and indeed if I use my three skills in it, despite running low on mana, I do a LOT of damage to the enemy, even if they are rather tank.
Believing that she needs more items than madman is rather strange, because early game she deals more damage, and uses about the same mana, ignoring her ulti which I have stated is WAY too situational to include in every gank, and assuming madman uses his ulti (why wouldn't he?). Indeed, madmans ulti, + invis twice (once in, once out say), + stun is well over 300 mana aswell, and he has a very limited mana pool, so that means one gank and then how is he going to escape with no mana?
That silence rips up enemy heroes aswell, when you blink in and are silencing them for 8.5 seconds (assuming you get a hit at the last 6 second point), especially with so many heroes spell dependant, causes alot of chaos. Thunderbringer with no spells, magebane with no blink, Chrono with no timewalk, madman with no invis.
You keep saying all I am saying is Theorycraft, however I have personally found that most of the things I have said are true from actual practise IN HoN with dark lady. You just need to look at how you are playing her. She might not be as good early game as a few other agi heroes but she is definetely far better lategame. Just the HoN equivalent of crystalis gives her insane crits not seen of in dota besides Phantom Assassin.
The last thing to say about dark lady in this post, same thing people get told all the time to other people proposing balance saying one hero is too strong. Just because you failed at playing the hero doesn't mean the hero is worthless, rather it means you need to look at how you played them.
On the final bit, war beast doesn't need to woods, but he does do it incredibly well. I will admit he does need to farm, but he doesn't need to farm nearly as much as most agi heroes.
And about how you believe that agi is a better lategame, cause str gives hp + dmg, well I am going to remind you of the above, once attack speed is at a certain point (I believe its +120 aspd where it starts becoming rather less effective to increase), damage is more efficient, and getting health AND damage means your incredibly tank, one thing that carry heroes always lack.
Stregnth carries can do very well, otherwise they wouldn't be in the game. Since Dark Lady is a new hero and not a port, I'll play a few games with her and add a section for her. When it comes to a dark lady having to fight a madman though, madman will always win. Darklady is very good vs heroes who have active spells. Madman can rely just on his passive to do well, as with most carries. Thus any real carry would dominate dark lady, but dark lady is definetly more useful to the team than most other heroes. I wouldnt pick her as your MAIN carry though.
Real_Wolf
08-16-2009, 05:36 PM
I still maintain that she can outdamage madman. Madman, as with all carries, is inherently soft, and thus being able to deal more dps than him would mean that you can kill him.
Though, as you said she does rely on her spells alot, but I think you are severly underestimating her damage output throughout the whole game.
Just think of her silence as a double damage rune, that can be used at any time, and you might start understanding just where her overpowered damage comes from.
My main build is charge, nuke/slow, dark blade,s nuke/slow, nuke/slow, dark blades, nuke/slow, dark blades, dark blades, ulti, ulti, charge, charge, charge, stats, ulti, stats.
Sometimes I ditch the level 1/2 ulti and just go straight for charge, depends on how much the enemy team is sticking together. If they are all in the same place its not quite as useful and it does cost alot of mana.
Levelling up charge IS very useful, because it gives you range, mana decraese, and cd decrease, but I find that to use her to her full potential you want as much damage as possible early on for the ganking.
Oh, and on another note, something I just thought of. People are complaining that she has nothing that "scales" beyond her dark blades. 130% those are too.
Magebane has nothing that scales nearly as well
Madman only has crit, or if you include stun then dark lady gets the slow as a scale (not as good, but still useful lategame).
Bloodhunter only has his damage increase, rupture can be tanked more and more lategame, and his other two are a set amount which won't scale (though you will get slightly more from bloodfeast I suppose)
Arachna only has her dmg increase aura that scales
Chronos only has his bash which scales (and not well because of cd)
Soul stealer has nothing that scales (thus he's a ganker not a lategame carry)
Oh, and on another note
Dark Lady is more of a ganking caster type. I personally believe she is better as a support, but I've seen her used as a carry with great success. Dark Lady's "Dark Blades" scales directly with damage. Your first concern when playing Dark Lady is get an item to solve her mana problem. "Hell Flower" is an efficient and easy to build item that synergizes amazingly well with her. Never pass this item up reguardless of going support or carry. She also has an blink like escape. This ability is even better because it works as a silence, and well placed silences can win you a team fight. Battle Fury works well with "Charging Strike" because each attack can be cleaved. Your strategy should be to activate Dark Blades use Charging Strike to silence everyone then Taint Soul to silence the hero with the scariest ulti, then Hellflower whoever your team is targeting so he gets killed faster. Use her ulti when your ganking or need to juke when your getting chased.
Not quite true. Taint soul doesn't silence. You shouldn't use your ulti when ganking its too specific. Hellflower isn't that great, bottle is FAR FAR better and cheaper, then with just a mana tube you do fine. She is less of a ganker than someone like moon queen, who tries to get them alone, or swiftblade. She is sort of a caster type, but its a caster who does physical damage as opposed to a nuker. As a support she lacks several useful things. Firstly it wastes the 130% damage increase, secondly her disable relies SOLELY on a slow which is ineffective at best, thirdly it implies that she brings something useful to the ganks to let "true" carries get the kill, which is completely not true. I'd say "never pass up lifesteal" rather than "never pass up hellflower", because hellflower is NOT that good an item on her.
Sure, the mana regen is nice, and it has a bit of damage, and the increased mana, and its active is quite useful. BUT. It does not increase your damage using dark blades at all. For a fairly expensive item that is rather a bad thing. None of its + dmg will be gained by 130%, none of its int will be turned to damage and increased by 130%, that kind of makes it a big expensive waste of a skill, when for about the same price you could have a wingbow which would deal significantly more bonus damage of +99
a_cloth
08-16-2009, 06:04 PM
I still maintain that she can outdamage madman. Madman, as with all carries, is inherently soft, and thus being able to deal more dps than him would mean that you can kill him.
Though, as you said she does rely on her spells alot, but I think you are severly underestimating her damage output throughout the whole game.
Just think of her silence as a double damage rune, that can be used at any time, and you might start understanding just where her overpowered damage comes from.
My main build is charge, nuke/slow, dark blade,s nuke/slow, nuke/slow, dark blades, nuke/slow, dark blades, dark blades, ulti, ulti, charge, charge, charge, stats, ulti, stats.
Sometimes I ditch the level 1/2 ulti and just go straight for charge, depends on how much the enemy team is sticking together. If they are all in the same place its not quite as useful and it does cost a lot of mana.
Levelling up charge IS very useful, because it gives you range, mana decraese, and cd decrease, but I find that to use her to her full potential you want as much damage as possible early on for the ganking.
Oh, and on another note, something I just thought of. People are complaining that she has nothing that "scales" beyond her dark blades. 130% those are too.
Magebane has nothing that scales nearly as well
Madman only has crit, or if you include stun then dark lady gets the slow as a scale (not as good, but still useful lategame).
Bloodhunter only has his damage increase, rupture can be tanked more and more lategame, and his other two are a set amount which won't scale (though you will get slightly more from bloodfeast I suppose)
Arachna only has her dmg increase aura that scales
Chronos only has his bash which scales (and not well because of cd)
Soul stealer has nothing that scales (thus he's a ganker not a lategame carry)
Oh, and on another note
Not quite true. Taint soul doesn't silence. You shouldn't use your ulti when ganking its too specific. Hellflower isn't that great, bottle is FAR FAR better and cheaper, then with just a mana tube you do fine. She is less of a ganker than someone like moon queen, who tries to get them alone, or swiftblade. She is sort of a caster type, but its a caster who does physical damage as opposed to a nuker. As a support she lacks several useful things. Firstly it wastes the 130% damage increase, secondly her disable relies SOLELY on a slow which is ineffective at best, thirdly it implies that she brings something useful to the ganks to let "true" carries get the kill, which is completely not true. I'd say "never pass up lifesteal" rather than "never pass up hellflower", because hellflower is NOT that good an item on her.
Sure, the mana regen is nice, and it has a bit of damage, and the increased mana, and its active is quite useful. BUT. It does not increase your damage using dark blades at all. For a fairly expensive item that is rather a bad thing. None of its + dmg will be gained by 130%, none of its int will be turned to damage and increased by 130%, that kind of makes it a big expensive waste of a skill, when for about the same price you could have a wingbow which would deal significantly more bonus damage of +99\
The reason Madman can out dps her is because he scales with damage through crit, and then he can get any orb effect that scales with attack speed (such as Charged Hammer/Nullfire) to make his ulti lethal.
I also made the changes to my guide since you seem to know more about her than me.
The way I see it is only her Dark Blades scales. Yes many heroes only have 1 ability that scales, but there scales are much better than Dark Lady's. If you get the right items I can see her being useful.
And I'm defending soulsteal because his bonus damage can scale with your items and the - Armour scales.
Ganking also seems to be the only real use of her ult. If that's wrong then when do you use it?
Also if you could have infinite gold what 6 items would you get for her?
I don't know why but i would want to get items like hellflower and just play her as an all out silencer. Then maybe get some other support and survivability items.
What Info would you like to see in her section of my guide?
Real_Wolf
08-16-2009, 06:17 PM
Your saying that there are scales better than 130% damage? There are ones that are similar or close, but 130% + silence is alot
Soulstealer is good, but he's not a lategame carry cause they are static rather than scaling
Hmm, I'm still in the process of deciding just what works best on her in terms of items, so infinite gold makes the question rather difficult.
I suppose it'd be something similar to this (Note, assuming lvl 25 so mana regen not important, a realistic build would be different)
Steam boots
whatever the name for satanic is
wingbow
behemoths heart
runed axe (maybe, useful for farming and pushing, and regen, but damage doesn't scale)
nullfire/manta (maybe)
charged hammer (maybe)
abysmal skull (maybe replacement for satanic)
hack and slash (less useful than the above, but very easy to build and useful in small parts)
frost skull.
I guess I'd choose infinite gold from there, but in a realistic game It'd probably just be steam boots, survivability (shamans headress of helm of black legion), lifesteal, hack n slash or nullfire (depending on mana req requirement and on how much health she needs)
a_cloth
08-16-2009, 07:04 PM
Your saying that there are scales better than 130% damage? There are ones that are similar or close, but 130% + silence is alot
Soulstealer is good, but he's not a lategame carry cause they are static rather than scaling
Hmm, I'm still in the process of deciding just what works best on her in terms of items, so infinite gold makes the question rather difficult.
I suppose it'd be something similar to this (Note, assuming lvl 25 so mana regen not important, a realistic build would be different)
Steam boots
whatever the name for satanic is
wingbow
behemoths heart
runed axe (maybe, useful for farming and pushing, and regen, but damage doesn't scale)
nullfire/manta (maybe)
charged hammer (maybe)
abysmal skull (maybe replacement for satanic)
hack and slash (less useful than the above, but very easy to build and useful in small parts)
frost skull.
I guess I'd choose infinite gold from there, but in a realistic game It'd probably just be steam boots, survivability (shamans headress of helm of black legion), lifesteal, hack n slash or nullfire (depending on mana req requirement and on how much health she needs)
the 130% isnt permanent and doesnt last that long thats why it loses to other scales
Real_Wolf
08-16-2009, 08:05 PM
6 seconds out of 15 is plenty enough, if it was permanent, or even lasted longer, it would easily be overpowered. As it stands its very very powerful and I would say that it beats some of the other scales
a_cloth
08-16-2009, 08:21 PM
6 seconds out of 15 is plenty enough, if it was permanent, or even lasted longer, it would easily be overpowered. As it stands its very very powerful and I would say that it beats some of the other scales
It does just played a game with her and dear mother of god it was silly 24-1 by the end of the game haha. Ya that scale is a lot more useful than i thought.
build at the end of the game was:
1.shrunken head
2.steam boots
3.battlefury
4.abyssal skull
5.charged hammer
6.nothing/aegis at one point
Splode
08-17-2009, 02:20 AM
Thankyou so much for this guide. I usually play Arachna or Defiler, and while defiler is not an agility class at all, there's a lot of similarities. Your comments on items are particularly helpful.
Real_Wolf
08-17-2009, 04:12 PM
Defiler is not similar at all, I'm sorry, defiler is a pusher and a spam nuker, she has no dps and definetely shouldn't be played with any dps lategame items due to her poor agi growth.
On the subject of items for dark lady, scratch off frost skull, its not worth it (played a game with it, spent too long farming, wasn't quite as strong as needed, and the slow wasn't as useful. It was incredibly useful, but by the time I had it it was rather gg, and I didn't deal that much damage)
a_cloth
08-17-2009, 07:23 PM
Defiler is not similar at all, I'm sorry, defiler is a pusher and a spam nuker, she has no dps and definetely shouldn't be played with any dps lategame items due to her poor agi growth.
On the subject of items for dark lady, scratch off frost skull, its not worth it (played a game with it, spent too long farming, wasn't quite as strong as needed, and the slow wasn't as useful. It was incredibly useful, but by the time I had it it was rather gg, and I didn't deal that much damage)
The guy was just saying defiler is a carry and this guide helped him understand some things
a_cloth
08-18-2009, 03:12 PM
Thankyou so much for this guide. I usually play Arachna or Defiler, and while defiler is not an agility class at all, there's a lot of similarities. Your comments on items are particularly helpful.
Defiler is a good carry, but mainly she just needs survivability.
ImpBloody
08-18-2009, 08:34 PM
Ok,
I understand this guide is to provide how later game you can own late game, however you seem to think intelligence, as i can see, is worthless late game...
TBH if you have an int that is able to keep up... they will own you any day, pyro with a hellfire, refresher, codex... even with this combo will own the crap out of the cronos, and if thats not bad enough if you have a tempest well that agility carry cant do crap if hes trapped in a double maelstorm with 4% of his life rotting away.
Real_Wolf
08-18-2009, 09:09 PM
ImpBloody, maelstrom is the ulti of tempest right? I assume it is.
If it is, and the tempest is dumb enough to get a restoration stone, then that tempest is really stupid and is food.
Secondly, no, intelligence CAN NOT keep up lategame? You know why? Three things:
First, shamans head (BKB, can't remember its actual name, my bad), gives you magic immunity, and then the only threat is the ulti of tempest (and a few other ulti's, since ulti's disable goes through magic immunity, but the damage doesn't).
Second, shamans headress, turns the nukers damage down to a minimal amount, and unless he can do some decent physical (aka chaos ward of voodoo, or blacksmith), your barely gonna be a threat to them, especially when they can then lifesteal you.
Third, some of their skills, I'm thinking mainly arachna's masive magic reduction, timed right she can cast that and then all of your nukes do a piddly little bit of damage, after which she starts attacking and slowing you.
I'm not saying the int are useless, even lategame they are incredibly useful, if they got a totem of kuldra and have a disable of their own anyway they will help. BUT, they are no longer killers, they are disablers, and that is true of (almost) EVERY int hero in the incredible lategame, and that includes the ones people think scale, such as defiler, thunderbringer, etc. Unless the int hero can dps, and i don't mean nuke I mean physically deal significant damage, they are not able to match up
ImpBloody
08-19-2009, 03:35 AM
ImpBloody, maelstrom is the ulti of tempest right? I assume it is.
If it is, and the tempest is dumb enough to get a restoration stone, then that tempest is really stupid and is food.
Secondly, no, intelligence CAN NOT keep up lategame? You know why? Three things:
First, shamans head (BKB, can't remember its actual name, my bad), gives you magic immunity, and then the only threat is the ulti of tempest (and a few other ulti's, since ulti's disable goes through magic immunity, but the damage doesn't).
Second, shamans headress, turns the nukers damage down to a minimal amount, and unless he can do some decent physical (aka chaos ward of voodoo, or blacksmith), your barely gonna be a threat to them, especially when they can then lifesteal you.
Third, some of their skills, I'm thinking mainly arachna's masive magic reduction, timed right she can cast that and then all of your nukes do a piddly little bit of damage, after which she starts attacking and slowing you.
I'm not saying the int are useless, even lategame they are incredibly useful, if they got a totem of kuldra and have a disable of their own anyway they will help. BUT, they are no longer killers, they are disablers, and that is true of (almost) EVERY int hero in the incredible lategame, and that includes the ones people think scale, such as defiler, thunderbringer, etc. Unless the int hero can dps, and i don't mean nuke I mean physically deal significant damage, they are not able to match up
Ok, i guess you fail to understand this because im not talking about a 1v1 here...
You get 1 int that can lock a team, how the crap are they supposed to do anything to the other team, i fail to see how this isnt good for late game?
a_cloth
08-19-2009, 12:24 PM
Ok, i guess you fail to understand this because im not talking about a 1v1 here...
You get 1 int that can lock a team, how the crap are they supposed to do anything to the other team, i fail to see how this isnt good for late game?
Tempest is good all game with a portal key/shrunken head. In my opinion he is a top pick
BattleBuddy
08-19-2009, 12:57 PM
WTF I followed your guide and we lost!!!!
Blame your teammates.
I lol'd. Very nice guide btw. Hopefully the less experienced players will eat your brain and gain your knowledge.
Inconmon
08-19-2009, 01:36 PM
Two things... first Daemonic Breastplate is also -Armor like Shieldbreaker and should be in there and second you need to mention that STACKING -Armor (example: Shieldbreaker AND Daemonic Breastplate AND Shadow Fiend Aura / Pestilence Ultimate) is extremely effective because it skyrockets attack damage.
a_cloth
08-19-2009, 02:06 PM
Two things... first Daemonic Breastplate is also -Armor like Shieldbreaker and should be in there and second you need to mention that STACKING -Armor (example: Shieldbreaker AND Daemonic Breastplate AND Shadow Fiend Aura / Pestilence Ultimate) is extremely effective because it skyrockets attack damage.
Armour gives diminishing returns in both directions. Its best to get sheildbreaker early while people have low Armour. Its kinda like mock of brilliance, the sooner you get it the better. In general there should be someone else on ur team getting breastplate like the tank or some other str hero. Your survivability should be heart over breastplate.
Real_Wolf
08-20-2009, 01:50 AM
Also, the thing about tempest, I"m not talking about 1v1. He is only semi-decent as a damage tool mid-lategame, as are all the other int heroes.
Which is why, as I said, they are primarily disablers.
The agi carry's, and a few int/str carries deal the significant damage lategame, while the int heroes get relegated to harrassment and disables
a_cloth
08-20-2009, 03:57 AM
Also, the thing about tempest, I"m not talking about 1v1. He is only semi-decent as a damage tool mid-lategame, as are all the other int heroes.
Which is why, as I said, they are primarily disablers.
The agi carry's, and a few int/str carries deal the significant damage lategame, while the int heroes get relegated to harrassment and disables
Tempest never does any real damage throughout the game. He is a complete disabler and thats his only role. (besides early game ganks)
JustAnothe2
08-20-2009, 04:07 AM
What I posted in your other thread:
And your arguments:
Yes, AoE damage loses effectiveness in VERY lategame (i.e. past 50-55 minutes). If you pick Soulstealer, you must make use of his AoE damage abilities to end the game before then, because lategame his DPS will pale in comparison to that of true carries (Like Madman). His damage passive doesn't scale into lategame at all, and the -armor doesn't matter a hell of a lot in the very-lategame stage when everyone has 15+ armor. His DPS is not amazing in the very-lategame stage. Soulstealer is just a semicarry.
Not the early levels but the increased competition for creeps will make it more difficult for Bloodhunter if he is in a dual lane. But that's just from my own experience of playing Bloodhunter; I hate laning with an ally if I'm playing him. It is true that TB can make better use of early levels
HARD carries are terrible without items. In fact, they are terrible early and mid. This is why you don't see hard carries in competitive DotA (i.e. Nobody picks Terrorblade anymore). Many of the heroes you listed are actually semicarries though and they work fine without items. Arachna owns pretty hard even with just Steamboots and some Soulscreams, and her ultimate is a very powerful single-target killing spell. You don't need items to throw a Smoke Cloud in ganks with Night Hound. Don't need items to melt face with Swiftblade's ultimate. Blood Hunter's Haemorrhage owns low-HP heroes early and mid, items or no items. These heroes are still useful to their team before they have items, and therefore should not spend the whole early-mid portion of the game farming them.
And you're incorrect when you say Intelligence heroes don't need gold. Intelligence carries are effective whether they have items or not, thought they do increase in effectiveness tremendously when they do have their items. Defiler owns face with just her abilities, and she just owns face more when she has Sacrificial Stone + Enchanted Marchers. When she gets a Behemoth's Heart, she is nearly unstoppable. Torturer can do much the same with the same items. Pollywog can carry too, though to a lesser extent. Early-mid he has strong lane control and ganking capability as well as tower-pushing ability due to Wards. Lategame if you farm him Refreshing Ornament and Staff of the Master, setting down 24 Wards in a teamfight = GG. Whereas giving Chronos the same amount of farm doesn't make him NEARLY as effective as Defiler or Pollywog.
http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn27/digital-archangel/Carrygraph.gif
Edit: We seem to have different definitions of the word carry, yours being "DPS" and mine being "Impact on a teamfight"
Oh and by the way, Moon Queen is an excellent DPS hero due to being able to hit multiple targets. I personally like Thunder Claw -> Steamboots -> Shrunken Head -> Charged Hammer on her for extreme AoE DPS - your Glaives, Chain Lightnings and Moonbeams flying everywhere = lots of damage
very good graph, describes the problem with almost every agi carry. But best carry by far is brsitle with cm aura.
[x]early game/lanecontrol
[x]tank
[x]aoe damage
[x]dps
Wolfsong
08-20-2009, 04:25 AM
Great guide.
I agree with the OP on all points.
Real_Wolf
08-20-2009, 04:33 AM
I dunno, against those with no magic resistance/immunity, dealing what is it, 7% dmg per second, for an assured 5 seconds, thats massive
RedRaider
08-20-2009, 01:56 PM
Well I tried the guide last night with Moon Queen. Pub game. Had a bad lane going against Arachna and Electrician. Could not get last hits for anything, they knew what they were doing.
Drags along, I go to forrest for 20 mins at least , hitting a lane here and there. My team starts getting mad at me. My teams Thunderbringer tells me I am worthless and get in the game. By that time I had built Enhanced Marchers, Abysal skull and Thunderclaw and was going for Runed axe. We push, I start looking like a god, . Whispering helm and Runed axe built quick. I am hitting for a ton of damage, insane creep neutral killing begins. We push into them with ease, 5 mins more, I buy charged hammer. I stand in front of electrician and Arachna and kill them both with about 150 hp left. Retreat, final push I am doin like 347-360 damage, nothing could take me at that point. If I had gotten heart I am convinced my character would have grown 60% in size and start literally eating the enemy heros.
Very helpful guide, thanks.
a_cloth
08-20-2009, 01:59 PM
Well I tried the guide last night with Moon Queen. Pub game. Had a bad lane going against Arachna and Electrician. Could not get last hits for anything, they knew what they were doing.
Drags along, I go to forrest for 20 mins at least , hitting a lane here and there. My team starts getting mad at me. My teams Thunderbringer tells me I am worthless and get in the game. By that time I had built Enhanced Marchers, Abysal skull and Thunderclaw and was going for Runed axe. We push, I start looking like a god, . Whispering helm and Runed axe built quick. I am hitting for a ton of damage, insane creep neutral killing begins. We push into them with ease, 5 mins more, I buy charged hammer. I stand in front of electrician and Arachna and kill them both with about 150 hp left. Retreat, final push I am doin like 347-360 damage, nothing could take me at that point. If I had gotten heart I am convinced my character would have grown 60% in size and start literally eating the enemy heros.
Very helpful guide, thanks.
Haha very nice, why did you build runed axe? you know it only works for melee right?
Vodka
08-20-2009, 02:42 PM
In "Scaling items and abilities" under crits, you forgot to include swiftblade's crit.
a_cloth
08-20-2009, 04:27 PM
In "Scaling items and abilities" under crits, you forgot to include swiftblade's crit.
ty added
a_cloth
08-20-2009, 09:51 PM
Update:
Added hero suggested items
Added bottle info
Jammy2001
08-20-2009, 10:41 PM
Never really thought about charged hammer for AoE damage on an agi hero. I generally play NH as my main carry character and may start taking it into consideration. Nice guide and learnt a few things about scaling certain items with attack speed to make them better.
Though when Im messing around it's occasionally fun to get flayer on a character with passive crit, this is because there is a chance to get double crits = OP damage.
Real_Wolf
08-21-2009, 04:23 AM
Jammy, two things about that.
First, the crits. You can't get double crits (unless HoN is severly different (stupidly) from dota). Rather, you get the FIRST crit from an item/skill that you got, and the second skill/item doesn't actually do any damage.
Second, and this is more aimed at the first page info, some things to change/clarify:
All:
Geometers bane (which I assume is linkens sphere, if not ignore this), never worth getting because it is currently fairly bugged and doesn't proc off many skills it should, or proc's but doesn't block.
SwiftBlade:
Just thought I'd add an item here, whatever the name of manta is. High stats mean high dps images, carries on from nullfire, but BEST of all, can be cast during his ulti for even more dps
BLood Hunter:
Mock of Brilliance-Killing creeps during team fights from the aoe damage can give needed health boosts when you might have otherwise died
- Two things you might want to add here. First is don't get this AND runed axe, one or the other, otherwise your just wasting money for absolutely no survivabilty. Second is that this is far superior to runed axe as it doesn't require you to be attacking in the right direction. Third its brilliant for a chasing hero, dealing damage to them while your just running. Fourth, and finally, if you are getting this you should rush it as soon as possible, its not effective lategame
Chronos
Sheild Breaker-High damage output
- Wouldn't suggest this, this item is best if gotten early-mid game, as lategame armour values get to the point that its damage boost is less effectie. And as it adds no survivability to a purely lategame hero, probably best to avoid it.
MageBane:
Brutalizer
- Not really a worthwhile item on any hero due to the cooldown, but some like it. Personally I'd say don't suggest it, it doesn't give you any survivability at all, while other items give you better dps and survivability. Let your teammates disable, you are dps
Moon Queen:
Charged hammer-Scales with ultimate/ Insane aoe dps combined with your bounces
- Um, how does it scale with ulti?
Secondly, it only can proc off first hit, not off subsequent bounces (correct me if I'm wrong, I've never had it happen but I don't use this item much)
Thirdly, she already has plenty of AoE, save Charged Hammer for a hero who needs the farming help
Soul Stealer:
Demonic Breastplate-Survivability/ Attack speed/ Armor and attack speed for team/ More aoe -armor for your enemys
- Not really worth it, it costs alot and its -armour is rather pitiful, doesn't help much lategame and with your high agility you don't need more armoru. Leave it for a str hero
Dark Lady:
Nullfire Blade- Counters Jereziah, Hammerstorm, Pestilence, Chronos/
- How does it effect Chronos? It only slows him, and it won't effect hammerstorm. Not sure if it purges pestilences speed skill.
InsaneChef
08-21-2009, 09:29 AM
To me Chronos always ends up being 'the guy that owns 10 minutes after the game ends'
:(
a_cloth
08-21-2009, 12:24 PM
Jammy, two things about that.
First, the crits. You can't get double crits (unless HoN is severly different (stupidly) from dota). Rather, you get the FIRST crit from an item/skill that you got, and the second skill/item doesn't actually do any damage.
Second, and this is more aimed at the first page info, some things to change/clarify:
All:
Geometers bane (which I assume is linkens sphere, if not ignore this), never worth getting because it is currently fairly bugged and doesn't proc off many skills it should, or proc's but doesn't block.
SwiftBlade:
Just thought I'd add an item here, whatever the name of manta is. High stats mean high dps images, carries on from nullfire, but BEST of all, can be cast during his ulti for even more dps
BLood Hunter:
Mock of Brilliance-Killing creeps during team fights from the aoe damage can give needed health boosts when you might have otherwise died
- Two things you might want to add here. First is don't get this AND runed axe, one or the other, otherwise your just wasting money for absolutely no survivabilty. Second is that this is far superior to runed axe as it doesn't require you to be attacking in the right direction. Third its brilliant for a chasing hero, dealing damage to them while your just running. Fourth, and finally, if you are getting this you should rush it as soon as possible, its not effective lategame
Chronos
Sheild Breaker-High damage output
- Wouldn't suggest this, this item is best if gotten early-mid game, as lategame armour values get to the point that its damage boost is less effectie. And as it adds no survivability to a purely lategame hero, probably best to avoid it.
MageBane:
Brutalizer
- Not really a worthwhile item on any hero due to the cooldown, but some like it. Personally I'd say don't suggest it, it doesn't give you any survivability at all, while other items give you better dps and survivability. Let your teammates disable, you are dps
Moon Queen:
Charged hammer-Scales with ultimate/ Insane aoe dps combined with your bounces
- Um, how does it scale with ulti?
Secondly, it only can proc off first hit, not off subsequent bounces (correct me if I'm wrong, I've never had it happen but I don't use this item much)
Thirdly, she already has plenty of AoE, save Charged Hammer for a hero who needs the farming help
Soul Stealer:
Demonic Breastplate-Survivability/ Attack speed/ Armor and attack speed for team/ More aoe -armor for your enemys
- Not really worth it, it costs alot and its -armour is rather pitiful, doesn't help much lategame and with your high agility you don't need more armoru. Leave it for a str hero
Dark Lady:
Nullfire Blade- Counters Jereziah, Hammerstorm, Pestilence, Chronos/
- How does it effect Chronos? It only slows him, and it won't effect hammerstorm. Not sure if it purges pestilences speed skill.
Geometers is manta
Chronos-Because it turns into gerometers to counter bash
Hammerstorm-Kills his ulti
Jereziah-Kills his magic immunity
Pest-Can purge his swarm off you
made the other changes ty
Real_Wolf
08-21-2009, 04:32 PM
You might wanna specify that its geometers instead of nullfire then, cause nullfire won't help there.
Hammerstorm I do not believe it purges his ulti, though it might. I know that its not purging things properly (dota style) atm.
Jere, yes, thats a great idea, thats why i didn't mention him
Pest, um, if you purge yourself do you get reduced MS, cause if so not really the smartest idea
a_cloth
08-22-2009, 06:58 AM
You might wanna specify that its geometers instead of nullfire then, cause nullfire won't help there.
Hammerstorm I do not believe it purges his ulti, though it might. I know that its not purging things properly (dota style) atm.
Jere, yes, thats a great idea, thats why i didn't mention him
Pest, um, if you purge yourself do you get reduced MS, cause if so not really the smartest idea
Purging yourself just removes all debuffs, and it does get rid of hammerstorms ult.
a_cloth
08-23-2009, 12:24 AM
Never really thought about charged hammer for AoE damage on an agi hero. I generally play NH as my main carry character and may start taking it into consideration. Nice guide and learnt a few things about scaling certain items with attack speed to make them better.
Though when Im messing around it's occasionally fun to get flayer on a character with passive crit, this is because there is a chance to get double crits = OP damage.
No double crits sorry =/
a_thread
08-24-2009, 03:13 PM
TY so much very helpful!
TurpinoS
08-24-2009, 03:21 PM
Dream Team
http://honwiki.net/w/images/thumb/2/2a/Behemothhero.gif/64px-Behemothhero.gifhttp://honwiki.net/w/images/thumb/d/d4/Electricianhero.gif/64px-Electricianhero.gifhttp://honwiki.net/w/images/thumb/9/96/Madmanhero.gif/64px-Madmanhero.gifhttp://honwiki.net/w/images/thumb/7/72/Defilerhero.gif/64px-Defilerhero.gifhttp://honwiki.net/w/images/thumb/e/e5/Tempesthero.gif/64px-Tempesthero.gif
3 melee dream team with a jungle hero ? FAIL
Else, good guide.
Real_Wolf
08-24-2009, 08:11 PM
Its not a bad dream team, just ditch electrician for a better babysitter and your good
a_cloth
08-24-2009, 08:19 PM
3 melee dream team with a jungle hero ? FAIL
Else, good guide.
Made changes accordingly.
Run_Faster
08-27-2009, 06:24 AM
Yo
nice guide, though i was wondering do your passive crit stack with a items crit. So if i got swiftblades passive crit then bought the crit item will the 2 crits stack or not?
Thanks in advanced
LegoPirate
08-27-2009, 06:43 AM
no they dont, in hon the higher multiplier will take precidence. you do get dimishing returns on the %'s, but when both crits proc, the bigger one will override the smaller
a_cloth
08-27-2009, 09:25 PM
no they dont, in hon the higher multiplier will take precidence. you do get dimishing returns on the %'s, but when both crits proc, the bigger one will override the smaller
I believe its actually the most recently acquired form of crit takes precedence, I could be wrong though.
RealTechN9ne
10-22-2009, 05:45 PM
You state Soulstealer as a full carry and Dark Lady as a "ganking caster type"? I hope you were drunk when writing that.
ElementUser
10-22-2009, 05:49 PM
No Sand Wraith update? :(
By the way, armor does not have diminishing returns as it gets higher and higher. Only negative armor does as it gets lower and lower.
a_cloth
10-24-2009, 09:35 AM
I didn't realize this had been bumped back up, I'll definitely update it again sometime this week. I'm confused about the armour though, are you saying damage reduction from Armour is linear?
Voidi
10-24-2009, 09:39 AM
I'm confused about the armour though, are you saying damage reduction from Armour is linear?
Yes, refer to http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=22235
Basically, it says that you don't need to watch the percent of reduction growing, but rather the relative amount of damage remaining to see it actually scales linear.
a_cloth
10-24-2009, 09:49 AM
Yes, refer to http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=22235
Basically, it says that you don't need to watch the percent of reduction growing, but rather the relative amount of damage remaining to see it actually scales linear.
Made me feel stupid but i understand now
ForTheSwarm
10-24-2009, 10:06 AM
Chronos only has his bash which scales (and not well because of cd)
Technically each one of his skills scales. Blink + slow never loses effectiveness. -25% damage never does either. Bash scales (except the magic damage if you want to be picky). Ult scales too.
NullDragon
10-24-2009, 10:26 AM
Incidentally, you forgot Geometer's Bane, an excellent item for some carries.
Most of your abilities duplicate for your illusions. Certain special abilities like mana burn don't reduce, effectively tripling your effectiveness.
For example, as magebane, flash next to a jereziah, activate geometer's bane, and start attacking. You'll be amazed at how fast you drain their mana with this one useful item.
Blitzl0l
10-24-2009, 10:30 AM
I think moonqueens synergy with geomancers bane should be elaborated on. It's IMO the best carry item you can get on her. Not only does it increase survivabilty through them having to find the real you, it scales retardedly with bouncing glaives. It also probably doubles your efficiency for taking tower/raxes. Which is winning.
a_cloth
10-24-2009, 11:17 AM
Added the beloved Sand Wraith.
ElementUser
10-24-2009, 12:13 PM
One other not on Sand Wraith, go for Health giving items not armour or damage reduction. You want to reflect damage, therefor why would you want items that reduce the amount of damage you get to reflect? some people swear by Wingbow but 30% evasion means 30% less reflected damage, thus it doesn't appeal to me very much.Not necessarily true. People get HotBL & Shaman's Headdress (Vanguard & Hood for DotA) on Spectre all the time (Vanguard less in DotA because of different method of damage calculations).
Yes, you want to disperse damage in the 1000 AoE, but you also want to live. The longer you live, the more regeneration kicks in effect, thus the more total damage you're able to disperse. Not to mention the additional damage you can get in with Mock of Brilliance & normal hits.
Wingbow adds some physical DPS on Sand Wraith, so that's why people get it on him.
P.S. "One other not" -> "One other note"
RealTechN9ne
10-24-2009, 12:13 PM
If you say that damage items are bad on Sand Wraith you simply fail. Im not talking about direct damage items like Mkb and Buriza here but about lets say Skadi or Butterfly. These ARE in fact good items for him because they buff Illusions incredibly well. Especially in HoN, where your illusions dont disappear after using Reality, its finally worth to skill it beyond lvl 1 again. Illusions will wreck havoc among the enemy when paired with some stat items like Diffusal Blade (which you stated in your itembuild along with Radiance, yet you are advising not to buy damage items -> nonsense). Although i dont recommend Radiance myself anymore in most games as it is retardedly hard to farm and gets weaker lategame, where your time to shine should be.
In HoN i use to build him like that: Treads (Str), [4 Bracers], Diffusal, Skadi, Manta, Satanic, Butterfly.
The fact that frost, lifestealing and manaburning attacks stack even makes it worse for them. Satanic gives you more effective Hp by that time than HoT.
Blademail is quite retarded as long as you dont fight 1v1, as Dispersion is much better but scales with Hp as well and not with Blademail.
And Dark Lady's blades dont scale with direct damage. Bad guide overall
a_cloth
10-24-2009, 12:40 PM
Not necessarily true. People get HotBL & Shaman's Headdress (Vanguard & Hood for DotA) on Spectre all the time (Vanguard less in DotA because of different method of damage calculations).
Yes, you want to disperse damage in the 1000 AoE, but you also want to live. The longer you live, the more regeneration kicks in effect, thus the more total damage you're able to disperse. Not to mention the additional damage you can get in with Mock of Brilliance & normal hits.
Wingbow adds some physical DPS on Sand Wraith, so that's why people get it on him.
P.S. "One other not" -> "One other note"
ahhh you got me the regen effect, I didn't take that into consideration
Changed to
"You have to balance Sand Wraith between damage reduction and total health. The more armor you stack the less you will reflect, but the less armor you stack the faster you die. You don't want to die to fast because the longer you live the more you passively regen health, this regen'ed health turns into more damage to be reflected. On the other side you don't want too much armor or else you'll only be able to dissipate a small amount of damage. Also the more armor you stack the lower your health pool. Lower your health pool = less potential damage you can reflect."
RealTechN9ne
10-24-2009, 01:09 PM
Y very nice and now fix Dark Lady
a_cloth
10-24-2009, 01:36 PM
Y very nice and now fix Dark Lady
What about her
a_cloth
10-24-2009, 01:49 PM
Scout
http://honwiki.net/w/images/thumb/0/0b/Scouthero.gif/64px-Scouthero.gif
Scout should be played exactly as his name suggests, as a scout. Think of yourself as an invisible moving ward. Set up wards on the runes, if an ally already warded the runes then ward river entrances and possible gank routes. Keep 4 wards up and save 1 for team fights and ganks. When pushing mid invis and run up ahead to see what the enemy team is doing. If a team has a tempest/behemoth check the cliffs during pushes to see if there going to sneak in and initiate. Catching a Tempest or Behemoth can be devastating for the other team. Scout's main role though is an anti-carry, this mean he shuts down other carries mentioned in this guide. Scout has a chance on hit to disarm the enemy thus stopping them from using physical attacks. This is good because most carries main form of dps is physical attacks. Stopping melee attacks and be able to silence is what makes Scout such a deadly hero in 1v1 situations. Scout wins almost every 1v1 battle and this why he is such a powerful ganker. You can unload huge amounts of dps in a very short time making ganks easy. In team fights your goal is to get off the best possible silence you can, let your initiator go in, then follow right away with a ward silence. After that run in and start dpsing down your opponents. Scout is versatile in that he can scale well with damage (disarm) or attack speed (breaking invis) With Riftshards Disarm can proc for 1k-2k if your lucky. Thus I believe scaling Scout towards damage is more useful.
Main tips
-Ward runes/entrances to river
-Help your team see what the other team is up to by being an invisible moving ward.
-Farm useful items that synergize with attack speed or damage
-Before you do anything in a team fight throw down your silence
SCOUT ETIQUETTE: It is customary to type "LOL KS'ED" whenever you get a kill.
Ok thats what i got planned for scout, hows it look?
Ill add this math craft somewhere too
Look at it this way if you got a Double Damage rune. Assuming your scouts attack damage is 300.
300+Double Damage rune+disarm+flayer crit=dead
300+100%+100%+2.4x crit=dead
300+100%=600+100%=1200+2.4x=2880+runed axe=960 cleaved pure damage
So with Riftshards, Runed Axe and a bottled Double Damage rune a Scout can hit for 2880 damage and cleave for 960 pure damage.
RealTechN9ne
10-24-2009, 02:22 PM
What about her
You obviously dont really give a damn about any posts that come from non-moderators or whatever.
"You state Soulstealer as a full carry and Dark Lady as a "ganking caster type"? I hope you were drunk when writing that."
There is no hero that can wreck havoc in such a short amount of time as Dark Lady.
And what you didnt read either:
"And Dark Lady's blades dont scale with direct damage."
Oh and I just saw you didnt bother about reading posts about SandWraith, cause "balancing him between damage reduction and armor" doesnt give you **** when you are virtually no threat to your enemy. The solution to this can be found in my post.
a_cloth
10-24-2009, 02:37 PM
You obviously dont really give a damn about any posts that come from non-moderators or whatever.
"You state Soulstealer as a full carry and Dark Lady as a "ganking caster type"? I hope you were drunk when writing that."
There is no hero that can wreck havoc in such a short amount of time as Dark Lady.
And what you didnt read either:
"And Dark Lady's blades dont scale with direct damage."
Oh and I just saw you didnt bother about reading posts about SandWraith, cause "balancing him between damage reduction and armor" doesnt give you **** when you are virtually no threat to your enemy. The solution to this can be found in my post.
The so called threat comes from nullfire and Mock, burning away your enemies mana every hit can be very frightening especially in team battles where ultis cost big mana. Also the constant damage from mock is more than enough reason to make them want to target you.
And shes a ganking caster becccause,
1. Shes a ganker
2. She has 4 active abilities
RealTechN9ne
10-24-2009, 02:55 PM
Sand Wraith is HON's first true HARD carry.
This is just as wrong. Unless you consider Chronos a really good ganker lol.
The so called threat comes from nullfire and Mock, burning away your enemies mana every hit can be very frightening especially in team battles where ultis cost big mana. Also the constant damage from mock is more than enough reason to make them want to target you.
And shes a ganking caster becccause,
1. Shes a ganker
2. She has 4 active abilities
I didnt say Nullfire was bad, but Mock IS lategame.
Ok Dark Lady has four active abilities, which makes her a caster immediately. Lets see:
Dark Blades: Scaling carry hero skill.
Taint Soul: A slow. Hell yeah, there are so little slows in HoN that Dark Lady is immediately in the top 10 ganker hero list.
Charging strikes: Scaling initiation/escape ability.
And not even her ult is a pure ganking ability. It has so many uses you obviously cant even think of. Saving allies, killing a hero that is close to his allies, screwing the initiating, defending team totally over, etc.
And Madman is currently the strongest carry? lol
HE in fact is a mix of carry and ganker. His crit is barely, if at all, better than Buriza, his ult gets owned by the attackspeed cap of 2.22222 attacks/second which Dark lady reaches like np with Charging Strikes.
ElementUser
10-24-2009, 03:01 PM
And what you didnt read either:
"And Dark Lady's blades dont scale with direct damage."
Oh and I just saw you didnt bother about reading posts about SandWraith, cause "balancing him between damage reduction and armor" doesnt give you **** when you are virtually no threat to your enemy. The solution to this can be found in my post.
They don't. The %-based increase is only applied to base damage & any bonus agility gained from items. When a_cloth said "direct damage", he means direct + damage from items (like Doombringer/Divine Rapier)
While your post might be true, he's not going to be a big threat in early-game regardless. He needs a few items before he's able to do anything. When late-game comes, you can get practically any item you want that suits the situation.
RealTechN9ne
10-24-2009, 03:05 PM
They don't.
Of course they dont. I was quoting myself.
ElementUser
10-24-2009, 03:06 PM
Of course they dont. I was quoting myself.
Oh I thought it was written by the guide author lol
RealTechN9ne
10-24-2009, 03:07 PM
No the guide says they scaled directly with damage or sth. While thats not completely false, as main stat=damage, this will confuse new players.
And please add Harkons Blade to Dark Lady. She is designed to kill enemies in a few hits, while having a good mana pool with Frostwolfs Skull. 1400 pure damage crits are nothing the enemy tank/carry wants to see flying at his face.
Edit: I see you edited something about her in your guide, but infinite gold is completely exaggerated. She devastates from lvl 14 Dark Blades/Runed Axe on. If you want to write something negative about her, write about her downtimes. All the time her Dark Blades are on cooldown and not active, she mutates into a supporter quite much (slow, ulti).
Im not completely sure whether its viable on other agi carries as i have only tested it on DL and Scout (on Scout it is just as good because you have the regen of Runed Axe), but since hes not a real carry and also not in this guide...well yeah. Madman doesnt have the MP pool to support it, neither the inventory space for a big MP pool. Same with Swiftblade. Might be nice for MQ as well, but not if the manacost applies for every glaive bounce oO Would be 500 mana/hit.
I really dont know why this item is so overlooked.
Soulstealer should be removed from this guide. +60 dmg/-6 armor is not enough to be a carry. Hes a semi-carry/ganker for early/midgame. But in pubs he tends to farm 1000000 items very fast, this is the only case hes considered a real carry.
a_cloth
10-24-2009, 03:35 PM
No the guide says they scaled directly with damage or sth. While thats not completely false, as main stat=damage, this will confuse new players.
And please add Harkons Blade to Dark Lady. She is designed to kill enemies in a few hits, while having a good mana pool with Frostwolfs Skull. 1400 pure damage crits are nothing the enemy tank/carry wants to see flying at his face.
Edit: I see you edited something about her in your guide, but infinite gold is completely exaggerated. She devastates from lvl 14 Dark Blades/Runed Axe on. If you want to write something negative about her, write about her downtimes. All the time her Dark Blades are on cooldown and not active, she mutates into a supporter quite much (slow, ulti).
Im not completely sure whether its viable on other agi carries as i have only tested it on DL and Scout (on Scout it is just as good because you have the regen of Runed Axe), but since hes not a real carry and also not in this guide...well yeah. Madman doesnt have the MP pool to support it, neither the inventory space for a big MP pool. Same with Swiftblade. Might be nice for MQ as well, but not if the manacost applies for every glaive bounce oO Would be 500 mana/hit.
I really dont know why this item is so overlooked.
Soulstealer should be removed from this guide. +60 dmg/-6 armor is not enough to be a carry. Hes a semi-carry/ganker for early/midgame. But in pubs he tends to farm 1000000 items very fast, this is the only case hes considered a real carry.
if your gonna get that technical then the only carries in the game are chronos sand wraith and pest lol
and harkons fails in every way imaginable
regarding your other post mock is not late game, you farm mock first because it loses effectiveness as the game goes on. Also mock is used to farm all your other items 0982u435823872834x faster
edited the dark lady dark blades thing, meant base damage.
RealTechN9ne
10-24-2009, 04:35 PM
+60 damage barely helps later on, just like -6 armor
And obviously you have never even tried Harkons. Never. Im not even suggesting it as a core item, its for the last item slots. If you have a hero with 66% mitigation from armor it boosts your dps by 3x for every hit.
But yes, the lack of arguments against Harkons just means you have never tried it.
a_cloth
10-24-2009, 06:16 PM
+60 damage barely helps later on, just like -6 armor
And obviously you have never even tried Harkons. Never. Im not even suggesting it as a core item, its for the last item slots. If you have a hero with 66% mitigation from armor it boosts your dps by 3x for every hit.
But yes, the lack of arguments against Harkons just means you have never tried it.
I don't need to argue it, Tinyblktears already summed up my thoughts in a nice thread he made.
http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=29253
And 60 damage -6 armour is from the levels soulstealer gets meaning he can have 60 damage -6 armor at lvl 8 if he wanted, which IS a big deal
For every hero you suggest harkons for I can suggest a better item. Even as a last item i can justify better options.
RealTechN9ne
10-24-2009, 07:32 PM
Ok, lets see.
Situation: You have Dark Lady with:
Steamboots, Runed Axe, Frostwolf Skull, Riftshards, Wingbow.
Go ahead and suggest something better against 3 heroes with 20+ armor.
And I know this thread. He obviously is just too uncreative to think of other uses of Harkons other than the stupid Puppet Master. He is arguing with high attackspeeds causing too high manacost, which is nullified by Frostwolf+Runed Axe, as you will be blasting your enemies to oblivion in about 3 hits.
And 60 damage -6 armour is from the levels soulstealer gets meaning he can have 60 damage -6 armor at lvl 8 if he wanted, which IS a big deal
Ye, but he doesnt want. Soulstealer is by no means a full carry. Shadowraze, his Ult, and the poorly/not scaling oteher two skills reflect that.
Lethe
10-24-2009, 10:36 PM
Ok, lets see.
Situation: You have Dark Lady with:
Steamboots, Runed Axe, Frostwolf Skull, Riftshards, Wingbow.
Go ahead and suggest something better against 3 heroes with 20+ armor.
And I know this thread. He obviously is just too uncreative to think of other uses of Harkons other than the stupid Puppet Master. He is arguing with high attackspeeds causing too high manacost, which is nullified by Frostwolf+Runed Axe, as you will be blasting your enemies to oblivion in about 3 hits.
Ye, but he doesnt want. Soulstealer is by no means a full carry. Shadowraze, his Ult, and the poorly/not scaling oteher two skills reflect that.
lol i caught you.
Torturer has a +3.0 int gain and an ult that costs 60 mana/second to keep on, and if you have ever played Torturer before you know that even with a shitload of mana regen and mana pool your ult still drains your mana rather quickly.
Now let's take a carry hero, who does not have an int gain of 3, does not have as much regen, or total mana.
And double the mana/second by over 2.
Please don't think I know the possibilities of Harkon's blade. I clearly stated in my thread that I KNOW you can effectively double your dps, maybe even more. That doesn't make it great.
If you are dumb enough to cast charging strikes with harkon's blade activated prepare to lose a good chunk of your mana pool, not to mention attacks with zeal afterward.
If you are dumb enough to use harkon's blade on madman I will laugh when you effectively kill yourself when you run out of mana in like 5 seconds.
If you go harkon's on SW you are just bad.
If you go harkon's on Magebane, similar to Madman, I will laugh at you when you drain your own mana pool so quickly you can't even flash.
Also, I know one item that will help you, try shrunken head. Anyone who doesn't even mention that core item on tDL should not be posting his opinion. Even lifesteal+ charging strikes is far more practical then harkon's blade.
Please don't try to teach me how to carry, I know every aspect of carrying like the back of my hand.
a_cloth
10-25-2009, 12:44 AM
lol i caught you.
Torturer has a +3.0 int gain and an ult that costs 60 mana/second to keep on, and if you have ever played Torturer before you know that even with a shitload of mana regen and mana pool your ult still drains your mana rather quickly.
Now let's take a carry hero, who does not have an int gain of 3, does not have as much regen, or total mana.
And double the mana/second by over 2.
Please don't think I know the possibilities of Harkon's blade. I clearly stated in my thread that I KNOW you can effectively double your dps, maybe even more. That doesn't make it great.
If you are dumb enough to cast charging strikes with harkon's blade activated prepare to lose a good chunk of your mana pool, not to mention attacks with zeal afterward.
If you are dumb enough to use harkon's blade on madman I will laugh when you effectively kill yourself when you run out of mana in like 5 seconds.
If you go harkon's on SW you are just bad.
If you go harkon's on Magebane, similar to Madman, I will laugh at you when you drain your own mana pool so quickly you can't even flash.
Also, I know one item that will help you, try shrunken head. Anyone who doesn't even mention that core item on tDL should not be posting his opinion. Even lifesteal+ charging strikes is far more practical then harkon's blade.
Please don't try to teach me how to carry, I know every aspect of carrying like the back of my hand.
Thank you its always nice to hear your logic on things.
If you don't mind me asking I need a little help on the guide regarding boots in this patch. I'm at a loss of which way to go now steam/enchanted? Which would you prefer in most situations?
Lethe
10-25-2009, 01:37 AM
Thank you its always nice to hear your logic on things.
If you don't mind me asking I need a little help on the guide regarding boots in this patch. I'm at a loss of which way to go now steam/enchanted? Which would you prefer in most situations?
np it's fine. Let me first say that I am basically an inactive player atm, I'm helping some local friends learn the game but that's about the extent of it.
Since we're dealing with carries, to be quite blunt you should only go enhanced marchers when there is incredibly strong reason to do so.
Ex. for tDL, Madman and Zephyr, you will want to go for steamboots, steamboots and post haste respectively. The dps coming from EM for tDL and Madman are negligble, Madman has stalk while tDL has charging strikes, both have 2 dps modifiers not even considering their disgustingly high agi gain. There is effectively 0 reason to go EM on either hero.
Zephyr plays like a tank. He is not a physical dps hero, but his cylcones offer insane farming, plus his stats gain is fine...as such the benefit from both EM and steamboots are negligible in the long haul...get post haste.
On some heroes like war beast, pestilence, and swiftblade, the phase ability clearly offers benefits that are worth the price. Get EM on these heroes.
On magebane, I personally tend to to focus on hp over anything else off the get-go...I know people that like to go EM on Magebane but if you have ever seen a magebane with a rushed Steamboots HotBL you will know it's no joke. Especially with the flash buff, that is the ideal opening buid.
I puke when SW players go EM on SW. Complete waste of money for what is effectively negigible dps. Save your money and get bracers/rings, or nullfire blade, or mock, hell even HotBL or Headdress. Just stop getting EM for SW, please, it shows such inexperience at the game, and at carrying properly, it's not even funny. You go an item that effectively does nothing for SW but physical dps, on a hard carry that doesn't even carry with physical dps. Just wrong, no questions about it.
RealTechN9ne
10-25-2009, 08:21 AM
Please don't think I know the possibilities of Harkon's blade.
I know that you dont know its possibilities.
I never suggested Harkons on Magebane or Sand Wraith, and neither on Madman. You obviously cant read carefully either.
With Dark Lady, you have a manapool of about 1400, which is more than enough for a reasonable usage of Harkons Blade.
Your argumentation with charging strikes draining all your mana just shows me that you dont have the "micro" to turn the blade off and on.
And contrary to Torturer, Dark Lady doesnt need 15 seconds to kill a hero but rather 2.
And Shrunken head can be/cannot be a core for ANY agi carry in the game. Its like telling somebody to buy boots.
ForTheSwarm
10-25-2009, 08:27 AM
You DO have to buy boots.
RealTechN9ne
10-25-2009, 08:37 AM
Oh my god... The swarm of illiterates is approaching
a_cloth
10-25-2009, 11:44 AM
Oh my god... The swarm of illiterates is approaching
Harkons sucks if you want to use harkons wait until its buffed in the next few patches, O and about madman that was when i wrote this a couple months ago. i'd say pest is the best carry now
ElementUser
10-25-2009, 11:46 AM
When theorycraft wars continue endlessly, prove it practically in a competitive game.
RealTechN9ne
10-25-2009, 12:13 PM
You cant even give me a single arguement against Harkons. You just quote the nonsense of the Harkon-hating threadstarter above although you obviously never tested it yourself.
If you have
1. A sufficient manapool to use Harkons
2. Enough other damage items to make Harkons amplify your dmg output by roughly 3x
tell me one reason why you should bother to get any other item on the heroes I stated.
Prove it practically in a competitive game.
Competitive games usually end at Runed Axe or maybe Wingbow (assuming you are playing Dark Lady)
a_cloth
10-25-2009, 01:02 PM
You cant even give me a single arguement against Harkons. You just quote the nonsense of the Harkon-hating threadstarter above although you obviously never tested it yourself.
If you have
1. A sufficient manapool to use Harkons
2. Enough other damage items to make Harkons amplify your dmg output by roughly 3x
tell me one reason why you should bother to get any other item on the heroes I stated.
Competitive games usually end at Runed Axe or maybe Wingbow (assuming you are playing Dark Lady)
Exactly why everything your trying to prove is pointless, go back to em
Lethe
10-25-2009, 01:14 PM
I didn't misread it. I just wanted to address why Harkon's blade is **** on agi carries without exception.
Competitive games usually end with SHRUNKEN HEAD, certainly not wingbow since any tDL who doesn't get shrunken head after runed axe in a competitive game should never play carry again. You know nothing it's kind of funny.
I'll tell you what an ideal tDL build looks like, steamboots, runed axe, shrunken head, frostwolf skull, flayer.
Hmm what to get for a 6th item? Well at this point I am easily the best farmer in the game, and can kill practically ANY hero in the game in less then 4 seconds. No need for more damage, try, hmm SURVIVABILITY PERHAPS?
aka lifesteal with your alrdy massive dps and the 25 str gain from axe.
Give me one legit reason I should listen to a dumb pub who advocates getting triple dps items (technically quad) while having a single survivablity item in frostwolf skull.
That is what seperates real carry players from wannabe carry players such as yourself. We know how to balance out farm, gank, defensive play, offensive play, survivability, and damage. Pub carry players such as yourself just think "omg other team has 3 other agi carries with 60% dmg reduction, must get a 6th item after an hour of farm don't need shrunken head, I'll beat them with raw dps instead!" Let me guess, the game where you go harkon blade on tDL, not one carry on the other team has shrunken head? OMG HOW DID I KNOW THAT RIGHT?
But hey what do I know right? My carry in dota was strong enough that I could compete with other high tier players like Loda and Misery- in a balanced game, aka the ones where there are NOT 3 carries on a team and people DO go shrunken head (bkb). I used my practical experience in higher tier games that you could never dream of, and used it to write a thread on why harkon's blade is complete and utter ****.
If you like to use harkon's blade as a 6th item in your pubs, then go for it.
RealTechN9ne
10-25-2009, 02:39 PM
So shrunken head is not survivability?
Exactly why everything your trying to prove is pointless, go back to em
Go back to school, learn to read properly and to write properly and learn not to accuse people of bullshit when you dont even know that.
a_cloth
10-25-2009, 03:41 PM
So shrunken head is not survivability?
Go back to school, learn to read properly and to write properly and learn not to accuse people of bullshit when you dont even know that.
You just mad you got told by a pro :rolleyes:
stop trolling and get out of my thread
Lethe
10-25-2009, 04:10 PM
Ok, lets see.
Situation: You have Dark Lady with:
Steamboots, Runed Axe, Frostwolf Skull, Riftshards, Wingbow.
Go ahead and suggest something better against 3 heroes with 20+ armor.
So shrunken head is not survivability?
Go back to school, learn to read properly and to write properly and learn not to accuse people of bullshit when you dont even know that.
hmm where is Shrunken head in this?
Don't worry I know I just perfected your tDL build by mentioning an item that you failed to take into consideration earlier. You can take credit for it, I won't tell anyone.
Also the attack speed cap isn't 2.22 attack/second, it's 3.33 attack/second. No wonder you think tDL is so much better then Madman, you don't even know how attack speed works, nor do you take into account that tDL has her "god mode" damage for half the time, where as Madman has it for the full fight. That's not to say that Madman is better then tDL or vise versa, they both have their strengths and weaknesses and they are both incredibly powerful agi carries.
I can play this game all day son, I enjoy making pub carries look like idiots. Think twice before you post your next comment.
RealTechN9ne
10-25-2009, 06:27 PM
You dont know **** about me and yet you call me a pub carry. No point in discussing with ignorant scum.
Lethe
10-25-2009, 06:37 PM
ok bye bye ignorant pub carry. Best part is you can't even admit your points are wrong and so you just back out of this thread.
Well hopefully you know how attack speed works now, and how useful shrunken head is. Not everyone can carry against competent players.
a_cloth
10-25-2009, 06:42 PM
best thread EVER
RealTechN9ne
10-25-2009, 07:42 PM
They seem to have updated the IAS thing, its not even 3.33333 anymore. Madman with 6 Charged Hammers has 4.
ElementUser
10-25-2009, 07:46 PM
Actually you're all wrong, maximum attacks per second is 20. Or 0.05 seconds per attack.
Of course, there is no known way to obtain that yet. The most a person in the Mechanics forum has obtained is Scout with 6-7 attacks/second.
Lethe
10-25-2009, 07:49 PM
ROFL ITS TRUE. Don't know how you found this out Element.
Tried Scout with 6 charged hammers and got 5/second.
Oh well my point still stands. 2.22 attacks/second is nowhere near the cap, although for all practical purposes it's good enough.
ElementUser
10-25-2009, 07:52 PM
ROFL ITS TRUE. Don't know how you found this out Element.
Tried Scout with 6 charged hammers and got 5/second.
Oh well my point still stands. 2.22 attacks/second is nowhere near the cap, although for all practical purposes it's good enough.
I read posts in Mechanics forum. Idejder posted the maximum limit in one of the threads too, so that's how I know.
Lethe
10-25-2009, 08:05 PM
The way it works is strange though. 3.33 attacks/second seems to be the cap until you reach a certain threshold, I went scout with marchers and 1 warpcleftsand hit that limit with flurry. Threw in another warpcleft, and one more...and still was at 3.33 attack/second. Not until I through in the 4th warpcleft until I hit 4 attacks/second.
Can u explain that?
Not that it is at all practical, just interesting.
ElementUser
10-25-2009, 08:21 PM
In one of the recent patches, S2 made it so that the attacks/second round off at a certain value.
Lethe
10-25-2009, 08:24 PM
ahh ty for the explanations. We all bow down to your vast knowledge of mechanics ElementUser :)
ElementUser
10-25-2009, 08:26 PM
Nah you should be thanking Malle, Trysaeder, the other people who actually help in Mech (testing, verification and good discussions/questions) and S2 devs that respond to Mechanics threads.
/end thread-derail
a_cloth
10-25-2009, 08:47 PM
Nah you should be thanking Malle, Trysaeder, the other people who actually help in Mech (testing, verification and good discussions/questions) and S2 devs that respond to Mechanics threads.
/end thread-derail
lol no worries, I always learn something new from you and tiny's posts
and take some credit man, you do a lot for mechanics forum
a_cloth
11-09-2009, 12:32 PM
updated/ wild soul added
HOTDOGFUN
11-10-2009, 08:07 AM
wow thanks, just what i needed as generel guideline to HoN heroes
a_cloth
11-12-2009, 10:35 PM
wow thanks, just what i needed as generel guideline to HoN heroes
no problem man
Feel free to post anything you believe I should add.
ElementUser
11-13-2009, 11:22 AM
Magebane actually counters mages a bit more now because of Master of the Mantra (but you'll still get owned early-game).
a_cloth
11-13-2009, 02:18 PM
Magebane actually counters mages a bit more now because of Master of the Mantra (but you'll still get owned early-game).
True, fixed
nice guide, but in my opinion you should add valky aswell shes pretty good in early/mid and late game if geared.
SReis
03-23-2010, 05:53 AM
I am a noobish-to-medium player in HoN(I only play No Stats,can't find my friends you get the picture) Just wanna discuss
I don't think you can base only in Charging Strikes as Dark Lady to escape.I don't say get Ghost Marchers as only boots choice,but you must do something more(using your ultimate,a homecoming stone etc) Once i had yellow/red HP in a teamfight,use Charging Strikes think I 've escaped and almost immediately Predator comes to me with Venomus Leap and pwns me
And about attacks per sec,have Dark Lady with a Wingbow and an Elder Parasite activate blades+charging+ep and you'll see