Murlox
09-21-2009, 01:28 PM
HoN 1.46 tutorial for new comers
With pro words in yellow
http://julien.manche.free.fr/maison/bricolage.jpg
Heroes of Newerth is a great real-time team strategy game ported from a Warcraft III map called Defense of the Ancients (DotA) that became so popular that it outclassed all others maps and even Warcraft III itself (also improperly called vanilla, or "ladder") in term of numbers of players.
HoN game-play involves two teams "Legion" and "Hellbourne" (in Dota it was "Sentinel" and "Legion"), generally composed of five players each. This is the default setting, but it can be played 4v4, 3v3, 2v2 and even 1v1 at your convenience.
However, since the game is originally designed to involve 5v5, the heroes on the map are "balanced" for such games, and you may find that some heroes are overpowered if you play with smaller teams.
Wut diz game is about?
The goal of the game is to destroy the other team main structure : the "World Tree" for the Legion team and its counterpart the "Sacrificial Shrine" for the Hellbourne team.
http://img1.imagilive.com/0909/Sans_titre-11_copied3f.png
However, you will find that most of the times teams will concede way before those structures are brought down, because they feel that they won't be able to win the game.
If your team is provoking the conceding vote, it'll pop a little window on the top right of your screen. Green thumb to pass the vote, red thumb to fail it. It's up to you to be a dick or not at this stage, but if you're new you will probably be of little help to turn-over the situation if your team wants to concede, so you should probably just vote along and move on. Nothing worst than playing with people that have concede in their heart.
If you look at your minimap situated in the bottom left corner of your screen, you'll see that to reach this enemy structure, there are three paths, called "lanes". In game chat, it is referred to those lanes as "top lane" ("top", sometimes "up"), "middle lane" ("mid"), and "bottom lane" ("bot").
Those lanes are defended by 4 tiers of towers, being that the first ennemy towers you will see on the center of the map are Tier 1 towers, the next rank are Tier 2 towers, after that are Tier 3 towers defending the production buildings, and lastly Tier 4 towers protecting the World Tree / Sacrificial Shrine itself. At the moment, the higher in tier they are, the more powerful the towers get (increase of damage and armor).
To help you destroy the enemy main building and protect their own, the two factions will automatically send waves of creeps into every lanes.
Those creeps spawn at the Tier 3 towers every 30 seconds, and you can't control them. They will just walk to enemy base and attack every enemy units they cross on their way.
Those creeps will be your main source for gold and experience.
Where am I?
You will appear ("spawn") at the fountain zone of your base. While it is indeed looking more like a pool, it is still generally called the fountain as an heritage from DotA where there was a fountain of life at this spot.
This is also where you will re-spawn if you die.
The fountain provides a strong hit points and mana regeneration aura, so you will head back to it from times to times to heal, "regen" yourself. It also provides a good cover since it has a very strong attack attached to it, so you will hide in it in the late game if your base is heavily assaulted.
http://img1.imagilive.com/0909/Sans_titre-1.png
Lastly, on the top of the fountain lies a single building, the shop. The shop is divided into section and contains a lot of items. So you will come to the fountain not only to regen, but also for buying purposes ("shop").
http://img1.imagilive.com/0909/Sans_titre-2_copie.png
Clicking on the shop also opens your stash, which is like a second inventory, allowing you to shop from a distance. If you toggle shop window from a distance (I believe default short-key for that is "B"), the items you'd buy will be placed on your stash instead of your main inventory. Items stocked in the stash won't be activated for you hero, you need to put them into your main inventory (the six slots rectangle on the bottom of your screen). To move items out the stash to your main inventory, stand in the fountain and right-click on them.
Protip : you can also use your stash to dis-assemble certain of your items. Simply put your item into your stash and left click on it. Won't work with every items though.
Fine but when do I kill stuff?
This game is like a mini-rpg and you will need to gain some experience and earn some gold. But you will also need to avoid feeding the enemy team with experience and gold they would receive by killing you. In other words, you need to kill and not be killed.
You will need some items to help you out but you do not want to just buy random cool items. There are a lot of items in this game, and while some of them can turn your hero into a killing machine, of course at a price, some others are just a waste of items slot in your inventory (which is pretty sad given the fact that it only has six slots).The strongest items cannot be buy right away, but you will need to assemble different basic items and sometimes also buy a recipe to produce them.
This is a very important aspect in HoN, combining different items to produce stronger ones : you'll inevitably need time to learn and understand what item is good for you hero, and in which order should you buy its components.
However, since patch 1.45 and now 1.46, there is a "recommended" section in the shop, which allows you not ot make critical mistakes in your item build, as it will point out the commonly accepted good items for the hero you're playing. Of course you are not bound to buy these recommended items, but you just can't go wrong if you actually try to assemble those recommended items.
http://img1.imagilive.com/0909/Sans_titre-3_copie.png
Notice how I mispell recommended, this is just me being french
Kk, as if i cared, so what do I buy now?!
In the beginning of the game ("early game"), your goal is to go to a lane, last hit some creeps and stay there as long as possible, while not dying. Therefore you need to boost your stats as to be able to have the strongest attack as possible to ease the last hitting part, but also to get some more hit points for obvious survival abilities, some more mana points ("mana pool") for eventual harassment / support and some regeneration for longevity.
Therefore, I'd recommend starting with :
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/supplies/item12runesofblight.jpgx2
Two sets of Runes of blight, also referred in chat as "tree", as in "tree plz" means can you please lend me your Runes of blight so I can regen, which is achieved by right clicking on your runes, and left clicking on demanding hero. (To heal yourself, left click on runes, right click on a tree : it eats it and provides some minor HP regen that will not wear off even if attacked)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/supplies/manapotion.jpgx2
Two mana potions (To use them : left click on them, right click on your hero OR allied hero : provides increased mana regeneration during 30 seconds but will wear off if you are attacked so be carefull) ;
http://honwiki.net/w/images/archive/6/67/20090915053839%21Mana_Batteryitem.gifx1
One mana battery, they give no stats or nada from the start, see the description of the item in game, it's great to have on the beginning.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/accessories/minortotem.jpgx2
Two minor totems, they provide +1 to all your stats, plus they will be needed to later combine your power supply when you can afford the recipe.
http://img1.imagilive.com/0909/Sans_titre-4_copie.png
You will not buy marchers first ("boots" because it was their DotA name), unless you are playing Swiftblade and you know what you are doing therefore not needing this guide.
This starting item build is generic for all heroes, you'll make your own when you become more experienced. (Admittedly, this is a stupid item build for Arachna, since you don't need mana potion on her. Bare with me, this item build works for most heroes besides Lady spider.)
A better Arachna's build would look like this :
http://img1.imagilive.com/0909/Sans_titre-5_copie.png
K I bought marchers first, can I go kill them now?
Now that you equipped your pro items in your inventory, you can head to a lane.
Since you are new to the game, you will want an easy lane.
You don't want to go to the middle lane, "mid", as it is the hardest lane and normally plays solo.
If you play Hellbourne, (your base is on the top of the map), you'll want to head on your left lane, called "top lane", "top". If you play Legion, (your base is on the bottom of the map), you'll head to the "bottom lane", "bot".
http://img1.imagilive.com/0909/Sans_titre-6_copie.png
Those are the easiest lanes because the creep action occurs next to your tower : if you are in trouble, you can always fall back to your tower which strong attack will give you cover and chase enemy heroes away. (it's called "tower hugging").
You can also hide in the woods near those towers if the enemy heroes are being really aggressive. Hiding in the woods is always a good strategy when being purchased, as it breaks the line of sight ("los") and screws their attack move, often delaying them (this is called "juking"). Being in the wood also has the advantage of being extremely hard to target with spells due to stupid trees and it will often make your caster opponent rage, which is a good point.
I'm alone in the bottom lane wtf, what do I do?!!
Dude I said don't go alone if you are new, so ask for a lane switch and if you get no response, just switch by your own, you'd better lose bottom tower than feed the whole game.
Ok I'm now top and I only died 5 times
So now you are ready to play HoN.
HoN, as DotA was, revolves around last hitting stuff. You will get precious gold if and only if you are the one landing the killing blow on a enemy creep.
Yes it is very counter-intuitive, but you mustn't auto-attack ennemy creeps (unless you are after the "auto-attacking noob" achievment). There is no point in auto-attacking creeps besides laziness. Granted, it is very counter-intuitive since your hero himself will auto-attack creep if you let him uncontrolled!
But you must show him who's the boss, and control him so that he will not auto-attack. This is done by two ways :
- pressing "H", which will order him to hold position, not attacking ;
- spamming right click around, also called "dancing", which will make him move around and also not attacking.
Now when you spot an enemy creep almost dead, you go and try to last hit it. Your enemy heroes should be doing the same. Your ally will try do the same, and a sane fight should rapidly begin in your lane as to whom can last hit better.
A good hint to know if he (or any hero) got the last hit, is that the creep will actually explodes if last hit by a hero.
http://img1.imagilive.com/0909/Sans_titre-7_copie.png
Also, when you spot one your own creep almost dead, you should try to deny it from the enemy. This is done buy pressing once the attack command to trigger the attack cursor (default is "Q" on qwerty keyboard, "A" on azerty), and to left click on your own dying creep. This is called "denying", "deny".
By last hitting a creep, you gain the gold for it, which is a random amount between 23 and 50, up to 75 gold for siege engines.
By denying a creep, you deny your enemy the chance to get the gold bounty from it. Moreover, you cut the experience they gain from this denied creep by half.
http://img1.imagilive.com/0909/Sans_titre-8_copie.png
You do not need to last hit to earn experience though, as you will gain experience for every enemy units that die around you, including of course enemy heroes (only exceptions to that : they are killed by a neutral unit, or they deny themselves) and neutrals units. This fact allows you to still level up even if you are dominated on your lane, and forced to tower hug without the possibility to last hit anything.
This is also the reason why you should buy regen items on the beginning, to be able to stay as long as possible in your lane, harvesting the maximum experience possible from ennemy creeps dying.
TL;DR wtf I can't kill them trees with my level 4 terrify
On a general rule you shouldn't use your spells against the creeps.
You should always try to last hit creeps with your regular attack, and save your spells to harass enemy heroes.
There is, however, a second way of seeing the game at this stage (we are still in the early game stage). That is to ignore enemy heroes and focus only on creeps. You aim for fast gold, and you do whatever you can to last hit, be it with your regular attack or you spells. This is also a viable strategy, but be careful not to ignore them too much and die to their harass, or to be left mana-left when they'll try to kill you.
Some heroes can do both. Pyromancer, Magmus for instance can last hit a large number of creeps at once with their area of effect spells ("aoe"), while damaging ennemy heroes in the same time. Be sure to at least last hit one or two creeps when you do that, to maximize the effect.
As for what spells should you pick and on which order, please head to the strategy section : http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/forumdisplay.php?f=9
It can look a little bit messy, but if you use the search function which is located on the top right, select "advanced search", then "search title only", and input your hero's name, it will work just fine.
I have the cash, what should I buy??
It is often a good idea to spend your gold quite fast if you are a beginner, since every time you die you do lose a fair amount.
So pop up the shop window from times to times (default key is "B" I believe), and buy yourself some Fortified bracelets (or "bracers", as called in DotA) if your hero is STR or INT based, or some Soulscream rings if your hero is ARACHNA or AGI based. They are located into the recommended section of the shop.
Also finish to assemble your Power supply by buying the recipe.
And you could definitively use some enhanced movement speed, so get some marchers ("boots"), and upgrade them to Steam boots, or Enhanced marchers, depending on your class.
Steam boots are good for casters class and tanks, while Enhanced marchers are good for DPS class, agility heroes.
Although the recommended shop always recommend to upgrade your marchers to Post haste when you play an INT character, I would not recommend it for new players, seeing as it requires some map control and knowledge, and because the recipe for this item is quite expensive, meaning hard to farm when you're not good at last hitting.
You can go back to your lane with a Homecoming stone (target your tower), or by just walking if you are cheap.
http://img1.imagilive.com/0909/Sans_titre-9_copie.png
This is what your inventory should look like around level 11~12
http://img1.imagilive.com/0909/Sans_titre-12_copie.png
And this is what is should look like if you play INT.. well hopefully you got the point.
Wow now I own them creeps hard, and its easy because I'm alone on my lane LOL
At this stage of the game, you should be around level 11-12. You should also witness a lot more creep explosion with the better damage output you now got from your items.
You can go back to your original lane, but begin to also pay better attention to the map : are there really lanes anymore?
Wait you said you were alone in your lane? Where are your two early game opponents?
I don't know mate, but I'm sure making some gold now : ))
Well congrats but wait what do I see, your team chat is filled with "wtf miss" "nice miss" "omg kick the OJ naab"...
Team... chat? lol my team is noob, look at me I can auto-attack now!
At this stage of the game, that is to say around level 11-12, but it can begin at level 7 and sometimes even sooner, you'll want not only to care for your ass, but also for your team as a whole.
Therefore, while you are still farming precious gold by delivering flawless last hit on every single creep you encounter, be them friends or foes, you will also report ennemy heroes missing from your lane. Enemy heroes missing means they can be anywhere on the map, maybe shopping, but maybe behind the trees ambushing your allies, and maybe just behind YOU.
Therefore you will say "miss top 2", "ss top" "top mia", everytime you see your opponents are missing.
And you will also pay special attention to team chat, and if you see something like "mid miss", you will take care on your lane, do not make a risky move and probably head back to the safety of your tower.
You can alert your lane partner by saying "b", which stands for "back", if you actually saw something suspicious on the map, or if you feel you are just venturing too far.
Please note that "bb" does not mean bye bye in this game, but 2 times back, which generally means you should go back and fast. (If you don't it can probably be seen as bye bye though, since you'd be dead)
Remember, it is always a better move to fall back for nothing, than to die when it could have been avoided. You lose straight gold on death, you feed the enemy with gold and experience, your team mates inevitably loses small amount of morale every time, and most important of all you lose precious time, that could have been spent farming or ganking. You do not want that.
Ofc I do not want that, but how can I farm we have lost our towers?!
If you already have lost your tier1 towers, you can still farm in the lane by "pushing the lane" back to the enemy tower, but then you will need to buy a homecoming stone.
A stone won't prevent you to die though and pushing those lanes are always a risky move as you expose yourself to potential ganks.
So instead of pushing your lanes, you should be regrouping with your team, and trying to gank (picking isolated enemy heroes, by surprise, generally done by coming from the forest) or beginning to push (a 5 heroes action, where you push a lane all together, generally this means the first team fights).
If you ever die, or wipe (all allied involved are dead, push failure) during a push where you were only 4 because the ******* swiftblade was farming in the forest, by all means feel free to show him your love in the team chat.
Do not, however, say "omg my team is noob" in /all chat, the opposing team doesn't really care and will likely make fun of you instead.
Depending on how well the pushing / ganking went, you should proceed to save some gold to make a higher tier item (referred as "core item" for your heroes in the stragegy guides).
If it went good then begin by buying the expensive elements, if it went bad then buy the cheap ones first.
Now if it went VERY bad you can always add a third bracers and roam your forest to just kill neutrals for some gold.
If it went UTTERLY bad and all your towers are destroyed and you can't see **** on the map, do not go on the forest alone. Do not leave your base alone. It's always better not to die than feeding your opponent's team with experience, gold, good morale, costing you time, gold, and bad morale.
Also, in this situation, think wards. Wards should be used more often, although no one never wants to buy them in public games ("pubs") because LOL they're useless. Which is wrong, they are a legal map-hack, with all the benefit it provides for a mere 200 gold. They can also screw your opponent's forest for a good 6 minutes.
A good guide to warding : http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=4839&highlight=ward
Except I didnt need your noob wards, I owned them solo by accidentally rolling my face on keyboard
As the game proceeds and as you become more experienced, you'll noticed the specificities of each heroes.
Basically there are tanks, gankers, carriers, support, pushers.
You can find a good list of which hero is what there : http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=18145
This guide proclaims to be outdated as of 1.46, but you still get an idea of the role of each hero.
http://img1.imagilive.com/0909/Sans_titre-10_copie.png
With pro words in yellow
http://julien.manche.free.fr/maison/bricolage.jpg
Heroes of Newerth is a great real-time team strategy game ported from a Warcraft III map called Defense of the Ancients (DotA) that became so popular that it outclassed all others maps and even Warcraft III itself (also improperly called vanilla, or "ladder") in term of numbers of players.
HoN game-play involves two teams "Legion" and "Hellbourne" (in Dota it was "Sentinel" and "Legion"), generally composed of five players each. This is the default setting, but it can be played 4v4, 3v3, 2v2 and even 1v1 at your convenience.
However, since the game is originally designed to involve 5v5, the heroes on the map are "balanced" for such games, and you may find that some heroes are overpowered if you play with smaller teams.
Wut diz game is about?
The goal of the game is to destroy the other team main structure : the "World Tree" for the Legion team and its counterpart the "Sacrificial Shrine" for the Hellbourne team.
http://img1.imagilive.com/0909/Sans_titre-11_copied3f.png
However, you will find that most of the times teams will concede way before those structures are brought down, because they feel that they won't be able to win the game.
If your team is provoking the conceding vote, it'll pop a little window on the top right of your screen. Green thumb to pass the vote, red thumb to fail it. It's up to you to be a dick or not at this stage, but if you're new you will probably be of little help to turn-over the situation if your team wants to concede, so you should probably just vote along and move on. Nothing worst than playing with people that have concede in their heart.
If you look at your minimap situated in the bottom left corner of your screen, you'll see that to reach this enemy structure, there are three paths, called "lanes". In game chat, it is referred to those lanes as "top lane" ("top", sometimes "up"), "middle lane" ("mid"), and "bottom lane" ("bot").
Those lanes are defended by 4 tiers of towers, being that the first ennemy towers you will see on the center of the map are Tier 1 towers, the next rank are Tier 2 towers, after that are Tier 3 towers defending the production buildings, and lastly Tier 4 towers protecting the World Tree / Sacrificial Shrine itself. At the moment, the higher in tier they are, the more powerful the towers get (increase of damage and armor).
To help you destroy the enemy main building and protect their own, the two factions will automatically send waves of creeps into every lanes.
Those creeps spawn at the Tier 3 towers every 30 seconds, and you can't control them. They will just walk to enemy base and attack every enemy units they cross on their way.
Those creeps will be your main source for gold and experience.
Where am I?
You will appear ("spawn") at the fountain zone of your base. While it is indeed looking more like a pool, it is still generally called the fountain as an heritage from DotA where there was a fountain of life at this spot.
This is also where you will re-spawn if you die.
The fountain provides a strong hit points and mana regeneration aura, so you will head back to it from times to times to heal, "regen" yourself. It also provides a good cover since it has a very strong attack attached to it, so you will hide in it in the late game if your base is heavily assaulted.
http://img1.imagilive.com/0909/Sans_titre-1.png
Lastly, on the top of the fountain lies a single building, the shop. The shop is divided into section and contains a lot of items. So you will come to the fountain not only to regen, but also for buying purposes ("shop").
http://img1.imagilive.com/0909/Sans_titre-2_copie.png
Clicking on the shop also opens your stash, which is like a second inventory, allowing you to shop from a distance. If you toggle shop window from a distance (I believe default short-key for that is "B"), the items you'd buy will be placed on your stash instead of your main inventory. Items stocked in the stash won't be activated for you hero, you need to put them into your main inventory (the six slots rectangle on the bottom of your screen). To move items out the stash to your main inventory, stand in the fountain and right-click on them.
Protip : you can also use your stash to dis-assemble certain of your items. Simply put your item into your stash and left click on it. Won't work with every items though.
Fine but when do I kill stuff?
This game is like a mini-rpg and you will need to gain some experience and earn some gold. But you will also need to avoid feeding the enemy team with experience and gold they would receive by killing you. In other words, you need to kill and not be killed.
You will need some items to help you out but you do not want to just buy random cool items. There are a lot of items in this game, and while some of them can turn your hero into a killing machine, of course at a price, some others are just a waste of items slot in your inventory (which is pretty sad given the fact that it only has six slots).The strongest items cannot be buy right away, but you will need to assemble different basic items and sometimes also buy a recipe to produce them.
This is a very important aspect in HoN, combining different items to produce stronger ones : you'll inevitably need time to learn and understand what item is good for you hero, and in which order should you buy its components.
However, since patch 1.45 and now 1.46, there is a "recommended" section in the shop, which allows you not ot make critical mistakes in your item build, as it will point out the commonly accepted good items for the hero you're playing. Of course you are not bound to buy these recommended items, but you just can't go wrong if you actually try to assemble those recommended items.
http://img1.imagilive.com/0909/Sans_titre-3_copie.png
Notice how I mispell recommended, this is just me being french
Kk, as if i cared, so what do I buy now?!
In the beginning of the game ("early game"), your goal is to go to a lane, last hit some creeps and stay there as long as possible, while not dying. Therefore you need to boost your stats as to be able to have the strongest attack as possible to ease the last hitting part, but also to get some more hit points for obvious survival abilities, some more mana points ("mana pool") for eventual harassment / support and some regeneration for longevity.
Therefore, I'd recommend starting with :
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/supplies/item12runesofblight.jpgx2
Two sets of Runes of blight, also referred in chat as "tree", as in "tree plz" means can you please lend me your Runes of blight so I can regen, which is achieved by right clicking on your runes, and left clicking on demanding hero. (To heal yourself, left click on runes, right click on a tree : it eats it and provides some minor HP regen that will not wear off even if attacked)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/supplies/manapotion.jpgx2
Two mana potions (To use them : left click on them, right click on your hero OR allied hero : provides increased mana regeneration during 30 seconds but will wear off if you are attacked so be carefull) ;
http://honwiki.net/w/images/archive/6/67/20090915053839%21Mana_Batteryitem.gifx1
One mana battery, they give no stats or nada from the start, see the description of the item in game, it's great to have on the beginning.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/accessories/minortotem.jpgx2
Two minor totems, they provide +1 to all your stats, plus they will be needed to later combine your power supply when you can afford the recipe.
http://img1.imagilive.com/0909/Sans_titre-4_copie.png
You will not buy marchers first ("boots" because it was their DotA name), unless you are playing Swiftblade and you know what you are doing therefore not needing this guide.
This starting item build is generic for all heroes, you'll make your own when you become more experienced. (Admittedly, this is a stupid item build for Arachna, since you don't need mana potion on her. Bare with me, this item build works for most heroes besides Lady spider.)
A better Arachna's build would look like this :
http://img1.imagilive.com/0909/Sans_titre-5_copie.png
K I bought marchers first, can I go kill them now?
Now that you equipped your pro items in your inventory, you can head to a lane.
Since you are new to the game, you will want an easy lane.
You don't want to go to the middle lane, "mid", as it is the hardest lane and normally plays solo.
If you play Hellbourne, (your base is on the top of the map), you'll want to head on your left lane, called "top lane", "top". If you play Legion, (your base is on the bottom of the map), you'll head to the "bottom lane", "bot".
http://img1.imagilive.com/0909/Sans_titre-6_copie.png
Those are the easiest lanes because the creep action occurs next to your tower : if you are in trouble, you can always fall back to your tower which strong attack will give you cover and chase enemy heroes away. (it's called "tower hugging").
You can also hide in the woods near those towers if the enemy heroes are being really aggressive. Hiding in the woods is always a good strategy when being purchased, as it breaks the line of sight ("los") and screws their attack move, often delaying them (this is called "juking"). Being in the wood also has the advantage of being extremely hard to target with spells due to stupid trees and it will often make your caster opponent rage, which is a good point.
I'm alone in the bottom lane wtf, what do I do?!!
Dude I said don't go alone if you are new, so ask for a lane switch and if you get no response, just switch by your own, you'd better lose bottom tower than feed the whole game.
Ok I'm now top and I only died 5 times
So now you are ready to play HoN.
HoN, as DotA was, revolves around last hitting stuff. You will get precious gold if and only if you are the one landing the killing blow on a enemy creep.
Yes it is very counter-intuitive, but you mustn't auto-attack ennemy creeps (unless you are after the "auto-attacking noob" achievment). There is no point in auto-attacking creeps besides laziness. Granted, it is very counter-intuitive since your hero himself will auto-attack creep if you let him uncontrolled!
But you must show him who's the boss, and control him so that he will not auto-attack. This is done by two ways :
- pressing "H", which will order him to hold position, not attacking ;
- spamming right click around, also called "dancing", which will make him move around and also not attacking.
Now when you spot an enemy creep almost dead, you go and try to last hit it. Your enemy heroes should be doing the same. Your ally will try do the same, and a sane fight should rapidly begin in your lane as to whom can last hit better.
A good hint to know if he (or any hero) got the last hit, is that the creep will actually explodes if last hit by a hero.
http://img1.imagilive.com/0909/Sans_titre-7_copie.png
Also, when you spot one your own creep almost dead, you should try to deny it from the enemy. This is done buy pressing once the attack command to trigger the attack cursor (default is "Q" on qwerty keyboard, "A" on azerty), and to left click on your own dying creep. This is called "denying", "deny".
By last hitting a creep, you gain the gold for it, which is a random amount between 23 and 50, up to 75 gold for siege engines.
By denying a creep, you deny your enemy the chance to get the gold bounty from it. Moreover, you cut the experience they gain from this denied creep by half.
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You do not need to last hit to earn experience though, as you will gain experience for every enemy units that die around you, including of course enemy heroes (only exceptions to that : they are killed by a neutral unit, or they deny themselves) and neutrals units. This fact allows you to still level up even if you are dominated on your lane, and forced to tower hug without the possibility to last hit anything.
This is also the reason why you should buy regen items on the beginning, to be able to stay as long as possible in your lane, harvesting the maximum experience possible from ennemy creeps dying.
TL;DR wtf I can't kill them trees with my level 4 terrify
On a general rule you shouldn't use your spells against the creeps.
You should always try to last hit creeps with your regular attack, and save your spells to harass enemy heroes.
There is, however, a second way of seeing the game at this stage (we are still in the early game stage). That is to ignore enemy heroes and focus only on creeps. You aim for fast gold, and you do whatever you can to last hit, be it with your regular attack or you spells. This is also a viable strategy, but be careful not to ignore them too much and die to their harass, or to be left mana-left when they'll try to kill you.
Some heroes can do both. Pyromancer, Magmus for instance can last hit a large number of creeps at once with their area of effect spells ("aoe"), while damaging ennemy heroes in the same time. Be sure to at least last hit one or two creeps when you do that, to maximize the effect.
As for what spells should you pick and on which order, please head to the strategy section : http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/forumdisplay.php?f=9
It can look a little bit messy, but if you use the search function which is located on the top right, select "advanced search", then "search title only", and input your hero's name, it will work just fine.
I have the cash, what should I buy??
It is often a good idea to spend your gold quite fast if you are a beginner, since every time you die you do lose a fair amount.
So pop up the shop window from times to times (default key is "B" I believe), and buy yourself some Fortified bracelets (or "bracers", as called in DotA) if your hero is STR or INT based, or some Soulscream rings if your hero is ARACHNA or AGI based. They are located into the recommended section of the shop.
Also finish to assemble your Power supply by buying the recipe.
And you could definitively use some enhanced movement speed, so get some marchers ("boots"), and upgrade them to Steam boots, or Enhanced marchers, depending on your class.
Steam boots are good for casters class and tanks, while Enhanced marchers are good for DPS class, agility heroes.
Although the recommended shop always recommend to upgrade your marchers to Post haste when you play an INT character, I would not recommend it for new players, seeing as it requires some map control and knowledge, and because the recipe for this item is quite expensive, meaning hard to farm when you're not good at last hitting.
You can go back to your lane with a Homecoming stone (target your tower), or by just walking if you are cheap.
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This is what your inventory should look like around level 11~12
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And this is what is should look like if you play INT.. well hopefully you got the point.
Wow now I own them creeps hard, and its easy because I'm alone on my lane LOL
At this stage of the game, you should be around level 11-12. You should also witness a lot more creep explosion with the better damage output you now got from your items.
You can go back to your original lane, but begin to also pay better attention to the map : are there really lanes anymore?
Wait you said you were alone in your lane? Where are your two early game opponents?
I don't know mate, but I'm sure making some gold now : ))
Well congrats but wait what do I see, your team chat is filled with "wtf miss" "nice miss" "omg kick the OJ naab"...
Team... chat? lol my team is noob, look at me I can auto-attack now!
At this stage of the game, that is to say around level 11-12, but it can begin at level 7 and sometimes even sooner, you'll want not only to care for your ass, but also for your team as a whole.
Therefore, while you are still farming precious gold by delivering flawless last hit on every single creep you encounter, be them friends or foes, you will also report ennemy heroes missing from your lane. Enemy heroes missing means they can be anywhere on the map, maybe shopping, but maybe behind the trees ambushing your allies, and maybe just behind YOU.
Therefore you will say "miss top 2", "ss top" "top mia", everytime you see your opponents are missing.
And you will also pay special attention to team chat, and if you see something like "mid miss", you will take care on your lane, do not make a risky move and probably head back to the safety of your tower.
You can alert your lane partner by saying "b", which stands for "back", if you actually saw something suspicious on the map, or if you feel you are just venturing too far.
Please note that "bb" does not mean bye bye in this game, but 2 times back, which generally means you should go back and fast. (If you don't it can probably be seen as bye bye though, since you'd be dead)
Remember, it is always a better move to fall back for nothing, than to die when it could have been avoided. You lose straight gold on death, you feed the enemy with gold and experience, your team mates inevitably loses small amount of morale every time, and most important of all you lose precious time, that could have been spent farming or ganking. You do not want that.
Ofc I do not want that, but how can I farm we have lost our towers?!
If you already have lost your tier1 towers, you can still farm in the lane by "pushing the lane" back to the enemy tower, but then you will need to buy a homecoming stone.
A stone won't prevent you to die though and pushing those lanes are always a risky move as you expose yourself to potential ganks.
So instead of pushing your lanes, you should be regrouping with your team, and trying to gank (picking isolated enemy heroes, by surprise, generally done by coming from the forest) or beginning to push (a 5 heroes action, where you push a lane all together, generally this means the first team fights).
If you ever die, or wipe (all allied involved are dead, push failure) during a push where you were only 4 because the ******* swiftblade was farming in the forest, by all means feel free to show him your love in the team chat.
Do not, however, say "omg my team is noob" in /all chat, the opposing team doesn't really care and will likely make fun of you instead.
Depending on how well the pushing / ganking went, you should proceed to save some gold to make a higher tier item (referred as "core item" for your heroes in the stragegy guides).
If it went good then begin by buying the expensive elements, if it went bad then buy the cheap ones first.
Now if it went VERY bad you can always add a third bracers and roam your forest to just kill neutrals for some gold.
If it went UTTERLY bad and all your towers are destroyed and you can't see **** on the map, do not go on the forest alone. Do not leave your base alone. It's always better not to die than feeding your opponent's team with experience, gold, good morale, costing you time, gold, and bad morale.
Also, in this situation, think wards. Wards should be used more often, although no one never wants to buy them in public games ("pubs") because LOL they're useless. Which is wrong, they are a legal map-hack, with all the benefit it provides for a mere 200 gold. They can also screw your opponent's forest for a good 6 minutes.
A good guide to warding : http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=4839&highlight=ward
Except I didnt need your noob wards, I owned them solo by accidentally rolling my face on keyboard
As the game proceeds and as you become more experienced, you'll noticed the specificities of each heroes.
Basically there are tanks, gankers, carriers, support, pushers.
You can find a good list of which hero is what there : http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=18145
This guide proclaims to be outdated as of 1.46, but you still get an idea of the role of each hero.
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