oSoM
08-23-2009, 01:35 PM
Take ‘em by storm - A guide to tempest
1.Introduction
2.The hero and his skills
3.Skill builds
4.Item builds
5.Tactic
6.Favored allys & hated enemies
7.Last words
1.Introduction
Enigma has always been one of my favorites in DotA. While being relatively fragile, lacking burst damage and escape mechanisms, he has one single combo that is potentially the most devastating and effective spell in the whole game. It is always a huge challenge to play him well but also an unmatched satisfaction when his combo succeeds. Still, he is absolutely a teamplayer – a good Enigma enables his team to annihilate the enemy, but he will never, ever singlehandedly annihilate them. I was very happy to see him directly ported into HoN as Tempest. Even though he may not look as badass as his “father”, be assured this odd looking thing floating on a platform is still able to take ‘em by storm! Sounds good? Then read on.
2.The hero and his skills
Ok, so let’s take a look at what this guy can do…
http://www.abload.de/img/tempestcjht.jpg
[glacial blasts]
http://www.abload.de/img/glacialblasts978r.jpg
This is an important skill early game. It does not deal huge damage, and is not a reliable disable, but it is very annoying since it stuns enemies repeatedly (unless it is lvl1), this can be very helpful since it allows you and your allys to chase and to get a few extra attacks on the enemy. Heroes with channeling spells such as electrician or pollywog priest hate this spell because it can prevent them from effective channeling for up to 6 seconds, which can be an eternity in a team fight. This skill is not impressive, but it is your main weapon against any single target, so get used to it!
[elemental]
http://www.abload.de/img/elementalwywnj.jpg
If you like having minions around you, Tempest may be a decent choice for you. These little fellas are your key skill for farming, be it on a lane or in the forest. They pack a good punch but aren’t very robust. Especially when facing heroes with a lot of AoE damage such as torturer it may be best to send em back since they go down with 2-3 spells, and give the enemy a LOT of easy money and experience. But if you manage to keep all of the initial 3 elementals alive until they made 6 attacks, they heal up and duplicate! 6 of these elementals can deal great damage early on, especially when leveled up. This skill is usually taken early on for smooth forest farming, letting your elementals deal and tank most of the damage. Note that you can both deny and insta-kill lesser creeps with this skill. When used while jungling on the strongest creep possible, this will increase your farming effectivity significantly… I’ll get more detailed on this later on.
[meteor]
http://www.abload.de/img/meteorqckb1.jpg
Getting this skill early on is a waste of skill points, but it is a spell with one of the best late-game scaling. Taking away up to 6% of enemy’s health per second for a good 8 seconds means you can in theory bring all enemies in a great area down by 48% of their hp. In practice, enemies won’t of course stay in the area all the time, and they’ll have magic reduction and HP regeneration. Still, this skill synergizes perfectly with your ultimate, elemental void. When coupled with a good ultimate and when looking at some tanks’ HP, the damage potential of this is huge in lategame since it is %-based rather than having a fixed damage value.
[elemental void]
http://www.abload.de/img/void0k9t.jpg
Here it is, the epic ultimate your enemies fear - if you are looking for a gamebreaker, look no further. No one can escape the elemental void, in fact no one can do anything under the effect of that spell except watching the own hero’s HP drop down as he gets sucked helplessly into a whirlwind, getting a brutal beating by Tempest’s allies.
That being said, it has a couple of downsides, worst of it is the spell being channeling, this means as long as you don’t have any magic immunity, any form of stun will immediately cancel your ulti. Another huge downside is the epic cooldown – you have to wait at least 3 minutes, and this can be a very very long time. Do never EVER waste this spell on single heroes or even worse, on creeps (I’ve seen it all happen). People will question your sanity if you do this.
You have to be absolutely sure that it affects at least 3 enemies, if possible even more. Also, this skill loses a lot of its effectivity if you didn’t previously cast meteor in the area of your void, and its twice disappointing when someone stuns you while you channel it. Striving for perfection is important when playing Tempest.
2.1 Summary of skills & conclusion
As you can see, tempest has no impressive starting stats, his movespeed and his base damage are average at best. Due to his lack of good escape mechanisms and his squishy hp, some lane opponents and gankers will eat him for breakfast, forcing him to stay back and lasthit way less or to spend a lot of early gold on regeneration items, or even worse, making him die early on. Since a Tempest getting his core items is so important to his team, and since his elemental skill basically begs for it, you are in 99% of cases best off when you jungle.
There are only a few scenarios where you can stay on a lane. This is when most, if not any of the following applies:
-A solo ally can’t survive by any means against a strong dual lane, and you don’t have any babysitting hero (demented shaman, nymphora, etc.) in the team that can help him.
-You can be sure you won’t die on your lane.
-You can be sure to farm a portal key (2150 gold) in ~10 minutes.
-You are pulling creeps for your solo bottom (Legion) or top (Hellbourne)
-You can be aware of ganks because your team has good map control
Even if all of this somehow applies, it is still probably safer to stay in the jungle. Most jungle ganks can be avoided with a single well placed ward of sight, and you have a pretty safe estimation (8-12 minutes) how long it takes you to farm the gold for a portal key, your first crucial core item.
3.Skill builds:
3.1 “Competitive Play” jungling skill build
Since you often are extremely precious for your team, you’ll probably want to stay in the woods and farm neutrals. To be most efficient at that, use this skill build:
1.Elemental
2.Glacial blasts
3.Elemental
4.Glacial blasts
5.Elemental
6.Elemental void
7.Elemental
8.Glacial blasts
9.Glacial blasts
10.Meteor
11.Meteor
12.Meteor
13.Meteor
14.Elemental void
15.Stats
16.Elemental void
17-25.Stats
Skill build justification
Elemental is taken and maxed out first – without your elementals, you can’t jungle, and the stronger they are, the faster you gain gold, simple as that. Glacial blasts is maxed out next as this is your primary gank instrument, and elemental void is gotten as soon as possible to give you the possibility to help your team take out multiple heroes at once. I then max Meteor as this skill becomes much more useful in mid-lategame, this increases your damage potential by then a lot.
Elemental void is not maxed out as early as possible, because higher levels of elemental void reduce its cooldown just very slightly, increasing the damage a bit (which is not why you get it), but the duration stays the same, yet its mana cost increases, and you are not really going to spend a lot on boosting your mana pool.
3.2 "Laning Tempest" skill build:
Remember what I said, this may be a decent pub build, but you will too often fail with this approach when you try this in a competitive game.
1.Glacial blasts
2.Stats
3.Glacial blasts
4.Stats
5.Glacial blasts
6.Elemental void
7.Glacial blasts
8.Elemental
9.Elemental
10.Elemental
11.Elemental
12.Meteor
13.Meteor
14.Meteor
15.Meteor
16.Elemental void
17.Elemental void
18-25. stats
Skill build justification
I’ve explained why you max out meteor and elemental void so late – this time you start with maxing glacial blasts to give you a better offensive/ganking power, and add in 2 levels of stats to give you a better overall capability to hold your lane and to lasthit. Some people will ask “why no elementals?” – that is highly situational – the definite lasthit you get on a creep is nice, but they cost a lot of mana early on, and are insta-killed by several enemies with enough AoE attacking power… you don’t want to provide your sworn enemies with free food. Also, they can push your own creeps too far towards the enemy tower, where the opponents have a “safe zone”. On some lane opponents this may work, but most of the time I prefer to get them a bit later, this may slow down your farming, but also slow down your enemies’ farming as you are much more of a threat in ganks. You may need your elementals during a pushing or a farming phase in mid-game, this is where they come in handy.
4.Item build
Initial:
12x http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Mana-Potion.png
OR
8x http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Mana-Potion.png
+
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Ward-of-Sight.png
This is your starting setup for forest farming – since your elementals take so much mana, you will need any mana supply you can get, and the mana potions will provide by far the best value for money. Wards of sight should usually be gotten by someone else, but in case you don’t have a supporter/ward ***** on your team (which is bad), you can replace 4 mana potions by wards of sight. Use these to ward up the rune spot next to your forest as well as key places in your forest. You don’t want to get ganked while jungling, this can be fatal to your development.
Early-mid game:
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Portal-Key.png
2x http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Fortified-Bracelet.png
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Marchers.png
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Bottle.png(optional)
The portal key should be the first item you are going for – it is top priority, and if things go bad, at least try to have this one. Marchers are nice to have if you don’t want to crawl around, and bracers are there to give you a bit of survivability, and to increase your manapool a little. I think a bottle is always nice to have on almost any hero if your time/money schedule allows it. Value for money is excellent - Using a stored rune can turn the tide of a close battle to your favor, and some mana refreshing is nice if you want to take a bit of farming time. If your farming went really bad for some reason, rush shrunken head instantly after portal key.
Mid-game:
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Shrunken-Head.png
Just like the portal key, this item is top priority. There is nearly nothing that can stop you from channeling your elemental void now. This item is a huge must if you want to be a gamebreaker.
Lategame:
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Totem-of-Kuldra.pnghttp://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Restoration-Stone.pnghttp://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Post-Haste.pnghttp://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Frost-Wolfs-Skull.png
Totem is always useful for cleaning up after you’ve used your ult, or as an escape mechanism versus enemies like night hound, scout, madman, that roam the map and can’t wait to catch you alone. Restoration stone explains itself – use it to lower your effective cooldown or simply destroy the enemies with a total 8 second AoE disable. Post haste is nice for increased mobility, you could for example farm in relative safety near your base, have your allys push, and as soon as a teamfight starts, you port near them, blink in, and win the battle with elemental void. Frostwolf’s skull is nice to have as it provides you a great boost to mana and hp. The frost attack combined with glacial blasts helps you to chase down single enemies. This is particularly useful against tanks.
4.1 Alternate item build (for laning):
Initial:
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Pretenders-Crown.png
2x http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Minor-Totem.png
2x http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Runes-of-Blight.png
2x http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Mana-Potion.png
Early-mid:
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Marchers.png
2x http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Fortified-Bracelet.png
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Portal-Key.png
Mid:
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Shrunken-Head.png
Late:
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Totem-of-Kuldra.pnghttp://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Restoration-Stone.pnghttp://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Post-Haste.pnghttp://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Frost-Wolfs-Skull.png
5. Tactic:
Early game:
Buy your mana potions and head to the forest. Stay in the forest and farm, farm, farm. Don’t forget to have the crucial spots warded to prevent enemy ganks. Being a jungling hero also has a couple of advantages to your team – you can have 2 solo lanes: middle and top if you are hellbourne, and middle and bottom if you are legion. This means not only you profit from your jungling but also your ally since you both get more XP than you would get on a dual lane.
When jungling, try to use elemental on the strongest creep possible. The ideal set of creeps would be the catmen, you can instantly kill a catman champion for around 80 gold. Wild hunters can not be converted, so you should avoid them for a conversion. Better run near a convertible creep camp, farm these creeps, allowing your elementals to split up, then run to the wild hunters and kill them. Also, try to avoid the vultures until your elemental skill is at least level 2. The cyclone has a large AoE and it will just rape your elementals. Obviously, completely stay away from the red creep camps.
Your priority for farming should be in this order:
1.Catmen
2.Skeletons
3.Ogres/wolves
4.Any “yellow” creep spawn (snotters, ebulas etc)
5.Minotaurs
6.Wild hunters
7.Vulture lord
That being said, spawns are purely random. I had a setup of almost only vultures and wild hunters once, this slowed down my farming significantly. Not only if you are playing blacksmith, love it or hate it, luck is a factor in HoN.
There is a very detailed guide to neutral creeps, make sure to take a look:
http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=666
Also, always have a mana potion activated unless you are at maximum mana. You don’t want to run out of mana. Make sure you always have enough mana to cast elemental after the 30 second duration is over.
You should pretty much stay in the forest until you have your portal key. You can however help your solo on the adjacent lane get bloodlust or at least a kill. Make sure to always keep an eye on your adjacent lane, and try to help your mate to a kill if the opportunity appears.
Also, check the minimap often and listen to your teammates if they call missing heroes. Nothing is worse than getting killed on your way to your core items.
When you have your portal key, are at least level 6 and have enough mana, use your elemental void for a gank, preferably on your adjacent lane. If your teammate(s) can deal enough damage, this can easily give your team 2 kills.
When ganking a single target, you can initiate by blinking in and using glacial blasts on the enemy. If he doesn’t have a good escape mechanism, this will provide enough time for your teammates to get in range.
However, always play safe, try not to die, and never use elemental void when you’re alone – a kamikaze tempest isn’t the way to success.
Mid-game:
If things didn’t go horribly wrong, you should have a portal key, boots and 2 bracers and be on the way to a shrunken head. When building a shrunken head, try to get the most expensive component, the war hammer, first. It’s usually easier to build expensive items when you have enough money to start with the most expensive component.
When it comes to teamfights, do not show yourself until the opportunity appears. Usually a tank or ultra mobile hero will scout the area for the enemies. Do not engage now! Let your teammates take the bait – they attack their tank, and most of the time, the rest of the team will engage. Be patient. You will have to wait for most of them to enter the battle zone, and if possible, they should have used their disables already. As soon as you have most of them in a rather small area, blink in and cast void.
Don’t bother casting meteor yet – this will give them an extra moment to split up again, and even worse, disable you before you can unleash hell.
The element of surprise is your friend. If they are not very smart and stood very close together, you may be able to catch all of them. You should at least have 3 enemies, preferably those with a stun caught in your void, otherwise your ultimate will be considered bad.
Since your ultimate has such a high cooldown, try to make the most of the phases in between. Farm the forest, help your teammates push if most of the enemy team are dead, and help with ganking single targets with your glacial blasts. If most of your allies are dead, it is sometimes the wisest choice to stay in your base or very close to it – if you die now, all may be lost.
Late game:
Great, you should have a shrunken head now. Here is where the real fun starts. Meteor should be at level 4. You should still be very careful – Tempest is always a top priority target for ganks. Also, certain heroes can really really hurt you, so it may be a good idea to stay back most of the time. Do not farm alone on a lane, that’s a welcome invitation for assassinations.
Try to stay in the background – not too far away from your team, but also not too close since you will be spotted and the enemy will focus you, or draw back and regroup. Try to become familiar with the range of portal key, it’s very important that you get to know it. Your tactic will be the same as in midgame – wait for most of the enemies to engage, and wait for your opportunity.
If most of them are close together, proceed as follows:
1.Activate shrunken head
2.Use portal key to blink near enemies
3.Cast meteor in an area covering the area where the enemies stand
4.Cast elemental void in the same area
When executed properly, this gives you the opportunity for an unmatched devastation that is almost uninterruptable. However, you have to be fast with your combo. Sometimes, the window of opportunity is extremely small. If you activated shrunken head too early, it will wear off while you are channeling elemental void. If you took too long to cast meteor, the enemies will have enough time to run out of the area. Make sure that you know your hotkeys as well as the technique of shift-queuing orders inside out. Don’t bother casting anything else than these spells in a teambattle. If you start hexing and stunning, the enemies will have enough time to regroup and to focus you.
If you and your teammates did well, you should be able to wipe out almost the entire enemy team. This allows you to push, push, push. Usually that’s enough to win the game.
What I can’t stress enough: Do NEVER EVER use your ultimate when there are not most or all allys nearby. Some players use it just to save an ally or themselves, but it will be a huge waste of potential. You may have saved one life, but your ultimate is gone for 3 minutes, and you will most likely not get any of them killed. The enemy can now push or gank in safe knowledge that your ult won’t be up for 3 long minutes.
If the game drags on, get one or more of your luxury items or – what I prefer – save some money for rebuying. If you get killed in a critical phase before you could use your combo, let the enemies kill you, giving your team time to regroup. Then you can just buy back, and get ready for your combo.
6.Favored allys & hated enemies
Favored Allys:
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Jereziah.png (http://heroes-newerth.com/heroes/Jereziah)
he provides you with a free magic immunity effect that lasts much longer than shrunken head, allowing you to use your full potential much earlier.
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Behemoth.png (http://heroes-newerth.com/heroes/Behemoth)http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/magmus.png (http://heroes-newerth.com/heroes/magmus)http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Torturer.png (http://heroes-newerth.com/heroes/Torturer)http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Glacius.png (http://heroes-newerth.com/heroes/Glacius)
these guys are all about heavy AoE devastation. You enable them to unleash their spells on a bunch of helpless enemies.
Hated Enemies:
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Night-Hound.png (http://heroes-newerth.com/heroes/Night-Hound)http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Scout.png (http://heroes-newerth.com/heroes/Scout)http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/The-Madman.png (http://heroes-newerth.com/heroes/The-Madman)
these guys make use of inivisbility, can scout the area looking for you and can hunt you down when you’re alone. Especially night hound is dangerous because of his permanent invisibility and his ability to cancel channeling spells.
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/valkyrie.png (http://heroes-newerth.com/heroes/valkyrie)
her javelin can be dodged, but if you get hit, the battle is over for you. Also has an ultimate that makes all her allys invisible, allowing them to get close to you and kill you.
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Magebane.png (http://heroes-newerth.com/heroes/Magebane)
initially he is not that dangerous since he doesn’t have a stun and lacks burst damage, but in lategame, he can hunt you down easily.
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Blood-Hunter.png (http://heroes-newerth.com/heroes/Blood-Hunter)
be careful of this guy as he can silence you all the time. Don't let him silence you before the battle starts.
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Electrician.png (http://heroes-newerth.com/heroes/Electrician)
A very versatile hero that is a counter to many. His cleansing shock removes the shrunken head effect, his static grip disables you. Need I say more?
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Legionnaire.png (http://heroes-newerth.com/heroes/Legionnaire)http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Pestilence.png (http://heroes-newerth.com/heroes/Pestilence)
both guys have some form of disable that even works through shrunken head.
These are more or less top priority targets, so if you can, eliminate them before or at least try to make sure your elemental void affects them so they are fully disabled and can’t mess up your ultimate.
7. Last Words:
That’s it for now. Hope you’ve learned a bit from this guide. To master the tempest, you will need these things:
knowledge of your skills & enemies skills
perfect timing
map awareness
patience
teamplay
Good luck taking ‘em by storm :)
1.Introduction
2.The hero and his skills
3.Skill builds
4.Item builds
5.Tactic
6.Favored allys & hated enemies
7.Last words
1.Introduction
Enigma has always been one of my favorites in DotA. While being relatively fragile, lacking burst damage and escape mechanisms, he has one single combo that is potentially the most devastating and effective spell in the whole game. It is always a huge challenge to play him well but also an unmatched satisfaction when his combo succeeds. Still, he is absolutely a teamplayer – a good Enigma enables his team to annihilate the enemy, but he will never, ever singlehandedly annihilate them. I was very happy to see him directly ported into HoN as Tempest. Even though he may not look as badass as his “father”, be assured this odd looking thing floating on a platform is still able to take ‘em by storm! Sounds good? Then read on.
2.The hero and his skills
Ok, so let’s take a look at what this guy can do…
http://www.abload.de/img/tempestcjht.jpg
[glacial blasts]
http://www.abload.de/img/glacialblasts978r.jpg
This is an important skill early game. It does not deal huge damage, and is not a reliable disable, but it is very annoying since it stuns enemies repeatedly (unless it is lvl1), this can be very helpful since it allows you and your allys to chase and to get a few extra attacks on the enemy. Heroes with channeling spells such as electrician or pollywog priest hate this spell because it can prevent them from effective channeling for up to 6 seconds, which can be an eternity in a team fight. This skill is not impressive, but it is your main weapon against any single target, so get used to it!
[elemental]
http://www.abload.de/img/elementalwywnj.jpg
If you like having minions around you, Tempest may be a decent choice for you. These little fellas are your key skill for farming, be it on a lane or in the forest. They pack a good punch but aren’t very robust. Especially when facing heroes with a lot of AoE damage such as torturer it may be best to send em back since they go down with 2-3 spells, and give the enemy a LOT of easy money and experience. But if you manage to keep all of the initial 3 elementals alive until they made 6 attacks, they heal up and duplicate! 6 of these elementals can deal great damage early on, especially when leveled up. This skill is usually taken early on for smooth forest farming, letting your elementals deal and tank most of the damage. Note that you can both deny and insta-kill lesser creeps with this skill. When used while jungling on the strongest creep possible, this will increase your farming effectivity significantly… I’ll get more detailed on this later on.
[meteor]
http://www.abload.de/img/meteorqckb1.jpg
Getting this skill early on is a waste of skill points, but it is a spell with one of the best late-game scaling. Taking away up to 6% of enemy’s health per second for a good 8 seconds means you can in theory bring all enemies in a great area down by 48% of their hp. In practice, enemies won’t of course stay in the area all the time, and they’ll have magic reduction and HP regeneration. Still, this skill synergizes perfectly with your ultimate, elemental void. When coupled with a good ultimate and when looking at some tanks’ HP, the damage potential of this is huge in lategame since it is %-based rather than having a fixed damage value.
[elemental void]
http://www.abload.de/img/void0k9t.jpg
Here it is, the epic ultimate your enemies fear - if you are looking for a gamebreaker, look no further. No one can escape the elemental void, in fact no one can do anything under the effect of that spell except watching the own hero’s HP drop down as he gets sucked helplessly into a whirlwind, getting a brutal beating by Tempest’s allies.
That being said, it has a couple of downsides, worst of it is the spell being channeling, this means as long as you don’t have any magic immunity, any form of stun will immediately cancel your ulti. Another huge downside is the epic cooldown – you have to wait at least 3 minutes, and this can be a very very long time. Do never EVER waste this spell on single heroes or even worse, on creeps (I’ve seen it all happen). People will question your sanity if you do this.
You have to be absolutely sure that it affects at least 3 enemies, if possible even more. Also, this skill loses a lot of its effectivity if you didn’t previously cast meteor in the area of your void, and its twice disappointing when someone stuns you while you channel it. Striving for perfection is important when playing Tempest.
2.1 Summary of skills & conclusion
As you can see, tempest has no impressive starting stats, his movespeed and his base damage are average at best. Due to his lack of good escape mechanisms and his squishy hp, some lane opponents and gankers will eat him for breakfast, forcing him to stay back and lasthit way less or to spend a lot of early gold on regeneration items, or even worse, making him die early on. Since a Tempest getting his core items is so important to his team, and since his elemental skill basically begs for it, you are in 99% of cases best off when you jungle.
There are only a few scenarios where you can stay on a lane. This is when most, if not any of the following applies:
-A solo ally can’t survive by any means against a strong dual lane, and you don’t have any babysitting hero (demented shaman, nymphora, etc.) in the team that can help him.
-You can be sure you won’t die on your lane.
-You can be sure to farm a portal key (2150 gold) in ~10 minutes.
-You are pulling creeps for your solo bottom (Legion) or top (Hellbourne)
-You can be aware of ganks because your team has good map control
Even if all of this somehow applies, it is still probably safer to stay in the jungle. Most jungle ganks can be avoided with a single well placed ward of sight, and you have a pretty safe estimation (8-12 minutes) how long it takes you to farm the gold for a portal key, your first crucial core item.
3.Skill builds:
3.1 “Competitive Play” jungling skill build
Since you often are extremely precious for your team, you’ll probably want to stay in the woods and farm neutrals. To be most efficient at that, use this skill build:
1.Elemental
2.Glacial blasts
3.Elemental
4.Glacial blasts
5.Elemental
6.Elemental void
7.Elemental
8.Glacial blasts
9.Glacial blasts
10.Meteor
11.Meteor
12.Meteor
13.Meteor
14.Elemental void
15.Stats
16.Elemental void
17-25.Stats
Skill build justification
Elemental is taken and maxed out first – without your elementals, you can’t jungle, and the stronger they are, the faster you gain gold, simple as that. Glacial blasts is maxed out next as this is your primary gank instrument, and elemental void is gotten as soon as possible to give you the possibility to help your team take out multiple heroes at once. I then max Meteor as this skill becomes much more useful in mid-lategame, this increases your damage potential by then a lot.
Elemental void is not maxed out as early as possible, because higher levels of elemental void reduce its cooldown just very slightly, increasing the damage a bit (which is not why you get it), but the duration stays the same, yet its mana cost increases, and you are not really going to spend a lot on boosting your mana pool.
3.2 "Laning Tempest" skill build:
Remember what I said, this may be a decent pub build, but you will too often fail with this approach when you try this in a competitive game.
1.Glacial blasts
2.Stats
3.Glacial blasts
4.Stats
5.Glacial blasts
6.Elemental void
7.Glacial blasts
8.Elemental
9.Elemental
10.Elemental
11.Elemental
12.Meteor
13.Meteor
14.Meteor
15.Meteor
16.Elemental void
17.Elemental void
18-25. stats
Skill build justification
I’ve explained why you max out meteor and elemental void so late – this time you start with maxing glacial blasts to give you a better offensive/ganking power, and add in 2 levels of stats to give you a better overall capability to hold your lane and to lasthit. Some people will ask “why no elementals?” – that is highly situational – the definite lasthit you get on a creep is nice, but they cost a lot of mana early on, and are insta-killed by several enemies with enough AoE attacking power… you don’t want to provide your sworn enemies with free food. Also, they can push your own creeps too far towards the enemy tower, where the opponents have a “safe zone”. On some lane opponents this may work, but most of the time I prefer to get them a bit later, this may slow down your farming, but also slow down your enemies’ farming as you are much more of a threat in ganks. You may need your elementals during a pushing or a farming phase in mid-game, this is where they come in handy.
4.Item build
Initial:
12x http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Mana-Potion.png
OR
8x http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Mana-Potion.png
+
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Ward-of-Sight.png
This is your starting setup for forest farming – since your elementals take so much mana, you will need any mana supply you can get, and the mana potions will provide by far the best value for money. Wards of sight should usually be gotten by someone else, but in case you don’t have a supporter/ward ***** on your team (which is bad), you can replace 4 mana potions by wards of sight. Use these to ward up the rune spot next to your forest as well as key places in your forest. You don’t want to get ganked while jungling, this can be fatal to your development.
Early-mid game:
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Portal-Key.png
2x http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Fortified-Bracelet.png
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Marchers.png
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Bottle.png(optional)
The portal key should be the first item you are going for – it is top priority, and if things go bad, at least try to have this one. Marchers are nice to have if you don’t want to crawl around, and bracers are there to give you a bit of survivability, and to increase your manapool a little. I think a bottle is always nice to have on almost any hero if your time/money schedule allows it. Value for money is excellent - Using a stored rune can turn the tide of a close battle to your favor, and some mana refreshing is nice if you want to take a bit of farming time. If your farming went really bad for some reason, rush shrunken head instantly after portal key.
Mid-game:
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Shrunken-Head.png
Just like the portal key, this item is top priority. There is nearly nothing that can stop you from channeling your elemental void now. This item is a huge must if you want to be a gamebreaker.
Lategame:
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Totem-of-Kuldra.pnghttp://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Restoration-Stone.pnghttp://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Post-Haste.pnghttp://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Frost-Wolfs-Skull.png
Totem is always useful for cleaning up after you’ve used your ult, or as an escape mechanism versus enemies like night hound, scout, madman, that roam the map and can’t wait to catch you alone. Restoration stone explains itself – use it to lower your effective cooldown or simply destroy the enemies with a total 8 second AoE disable. Post haste is nice for increased mobility, you could for example farm in relative safety near your base, have your allys push, and as soon as a teamfight starts, you port near them, blink in, and win the battle with elemental void. Frostwolf’s skull is nice to have as it provides you a great boost to mana and hp. The frost attack combined with glacial blasts helps you to chase down single enemies. This is particularly useful against tanks.
4.1 Alternate item build (for laning):
Initial:
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Pretenders-Crown.png
2x http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Minor-Totem.png
2x http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Runes-of-Blight.png
2x http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Mana-Potion.png
Early-mid:
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Marchers.png
2x http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Fortified-Bracelet.png
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Portal-Key.png
Mid:
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Shrunken-Head.png
Late:
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Totem-of-Kuldra.pnghttp://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Restoration-Stone.pnghttp://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Post-Haste.pnghttp://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Frost-Wolfs-Skull.png
5. Tactic:
Early game:
Buy your mana potions and head to the forest. Stay in the forest and farm, farm, farm. Don’t forget to have the crucial spots warded to prevent enemy ganks. Being a jungling hero also has a couple of advantages to your team – you can have 2 solo lanes: middle and top if you are hellbourne, and middle and bottom if you are legion. This means not only you profit from your jungling but also your ally since you both get more XP than you would get on a dual lane.
When jungling, try to use elemental on the strongest creep possible. The ideal set of creeps would be the catmen, you can instantly kill a catman champion for around 80 gold. Wild hunters can not be converted, so you should avoid them for a conversion. Better run near a convertible creep camp, farm these creeps, allowing your elementals to split up, then run to the wild hunters and kill them. Also, try to avoid the vultures until your elemental skill is at least level 2. The cyclone has a large AoE and it will just rape your elementals. Obviously, completely stay away from the red creep camps.
Your priority for farming should be in this order:
1.Catmen
2.Skeletons
3.Ogres/wolves
4.Any “yellow” creep spawn (snotters, ebulas etc)
5.Minotaurs
6.Wild hunters
7.Vulture lord
That being said, spawns are purely random. I had a setup of almost only vultures and wild hunters once, this slowed down my farming significantly. Not only if you are playing blacksmith, love it or hate it, luck is a factor in HoN.
There is a very detailed guide to neutral creeps, make sure to take a look:
http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=666
Also, always have a mana potion activated unless you are at maximum mana. You don’t want to run out of mana. Make sure you always have enough mana to cast elemental after the 30 second duration is over.
You should pretty much stay in the forest until you have your portal key. You can however help your solo on the adjacent lane get bloodlust or at least a kill. Make sure to always keep an eye on your adjacent lane, and try to help your mate to a kill if the opportunity appears.
Also, check the minimap often and listen to your teammates if they call missing heroes. Nothing is worse than getting killed on your way to your core items.
When you have your portal key, are at least level 6 and have enough mana, use your elemental void for a gank, preferably on your adjacent lane. If your teammate(s) can deal enough damage, this can easily give your team 2 kills.
When ganking a single target, you can initiate by blinking in and using glacial blasts on the enemy. If he doesn’t have a good escape mechanism, this will provide enough time for your teammates to get in range.
However, always play safe, try not to die, and never use elemental void when you’re alone – a kamikaze tempest isn’t the way to success.
Mid-game:
If things didn’t go horribly wrong, you should have a portal key, boots and 2 bracers and be on the way to a shrunken head. When building a shrunken head, try to get the most expensive component, the war hammer, first. It’s usually easier to build expensive items when you have enough money to start with the most expensive component.
When it comes to teamfights, do not show yourself until the opportunity appears. Usually a tank or ultra mobile hero will scout the area for the enemies. Do not engage now! Let your teammates take the bait – they attack their tank, and most of the time, the rest of the team will engage. Be patient. You will have to wait for most of them to enter the battle zone, and if possible, they should have used their disables already. As soon as you have most of them in a rather small area, blink in and cast void.
Don’t bother casting meteor yet – this will give them an extra moment to split up again, and even worse, disable you before you can unleash hell.
The element of surprise is your friend. If they are not very smart and stood very close together, you may be able to catch all of them. You should at least have 3 enemies, preferably those with a stun caught in your void, otherwise your ultimate will be considered bad.
Since your ultimate has such a high cooldown, try to make the most of the phases in between. Farm the forest, help your teammates push if most of the enemy team are dead, and help with ganking single targets with your glacial blasts. If most of your allies are dead, it is sometimes the wisest choice to stay in your base or very close to it – if you die now, all may be lost.
Late game:
Great, you should have a shrunken head now. Here is where the real fun starts. Meteor should be at level 4. You should still be very careful – Tempest is always a top priority target for ganks. Also, certain heroes can really really hurt you, so it may be a good idea to stay back most of the time. Do not farm alone on a lane, that’s a welcome invitation for assassinations.
Try to stay in the background – not too far away from your team, but also not too close since you will be spotted and the enemy will focus you, or draw back and regroup. Try to become familiar with the range of portal key, it’s very important that you get to know it. Your tactic will be the same as in midgame – wait for most of the enemies to engage, and wait for your opportunity.
If most of them are close together, proceed as follows:
1.Activate shrunken head
2.Use portal key to blink near enemies
3.Cast meteor in an area covering the area where the enemies stand
4.Cast elemental void in the same area
When executed properly, this gives you the opportunity for an unmatched devastation that is almost uninterruptable. However, you have to be fast with your combo. Sometimes, the window of opportunity is extremely small. If you activated shrunken head too early, it will wear off while you are channeling elemental void. If you took too long to cast meteor, the enemies will have enough time to run out of the area. Make sure that you know your hotkeys as well as the technique of shift-queuing orders inside out. Don’t bother casting anything else than these spells in a teambattle. If you start hexing and stunning, the enemies will have enough time to regroup and to focus you.
If you and your teammates did well, you should be able to wipe out almost the entire enemy team. This allows you to push, push, push. Usually that’s enough to win the game.
What I can’t stress enough: Do NEVER EVER use your ultimate when there are not most or all allys nearby. Some players use it just to save an ally or themselves, but it will be a huge waste of potential. You may have saved one life, but your ultimate is gone for 3 minutes, and you will most likely not get any of them killed. The enemy can now push or gank in safe knowledge that your ult won’t be up for 3 long minutes.
If the game drags on, get one or more of your luxury items or – what I prefer – save some money for rebuying. If you get killed in a critical phase before you could use your combo, let the enemies kill you, giving your team time to regroup. Then you can just buy back, and get ready for your combo.
6.Favored allys & hated enemies
Favored Allys:
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Jereziah.png (http://heroes-newerth.com/heroes/Jereziah)
he provides you with a free magic immunity effect that lasts much longer than shrunken head, allowing you to use your full potential much earlier.
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Behemoth.png (http://heroes-newerth.com/heroes/Behemoth)http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/magmus.png (http://heroes-newerth.com/heroes/magmus)http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Torturer.png (http://heroes-newerth.com/heroes/Torturer)http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Glacius.png (http://heroes-newerth.com/heroes/Glacius)
these guys are all about heavy AoE devastation. You enable them to unleash their spells on a bunch of helpless enemies.
Hated Enemies:
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Night-Hound.png (http://heroes-newerth.com/heroes/Night-Hound)http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Scout.png (http://heroes-newerth.com/heroes/Scout)http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/The-Madman.png (http://heroes-newerth.com/heroes/The-Madman)
these guys make use of inivisbility, can scout the area looking for you and can hunt you down when you’re alone. Especially night hound is dangerous because of his permanent invisibility and his ability to cancel channeling spells.
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/valkyrie.png (http://heroes-newerth.com/heroes/valkyrie)
her javelin can be dodged, but if you get hit, the battle is over for you. Also has an ultimate that makes all her allys invisible, allowing them to get close to you and kill you.
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Magebane.png (http://heroes-newerth.com/heroes/Magebane)
initially he is not that dangerous since he doesn’t have a stun and lacks burst damage, but in lategame, he can hunt you down easily.
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Blood-Hunter.png (http://heroes-newerth.com/heroes/Blood-Hunter)
be careful of this guy as he can silence you all the time. Don't let him silence you before the battle starts.
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Electrician.png (http://heroes-newerth.com/heroes/Electrician)
A very versatile hero that is a counter to many. His cleansing shock removes the shrunken head effect, his static grip disables you. Need I say more?
http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Legionnaire.png (http://heroes-newerth.com/heroes/Legionnaire)http://heroes-newerth.com/wp-content/myimages/Pestilence.png (http://heroes-newerth.com/heroes/Pestilence)
both guys have some form of disable that even works through shrunken head.
These are more or less top priority targets, so if you can, eliminate them before or at least try to make sure your elemental void affects them so they are fully disabled and can’t mess up your ultimate.
7. Last Words:
That’s it for now. Hope you’ve learned a bit from this guide. To master the tempest, you will need these things:
knowledge of your skills & enemies skills
perfect timing
map awareness
patience
teamplay
Good luck taking ‘em by storm :)