Seeking pro advice: how to dominate a low-skill game?

[Treeshark]

Hi, first post. Let me explain my situation. I am by no means a competitive-level HoN player. I played DoTA only casually, and my ~1800 PSR so far in beta seems a fair reflection of my skill. I'm trying to improve and am fascinated by some of the competitive-level tactics on this board. HOWEVER, those tactics assume competent teammates and competent opponents, and this is decidedly not the case in the games I play.

I have recruited many of my friends to play HoN also, and all of them are much less strategic-thinking and/or experienced than me. While I know I am a medicore player with a lot to learn, to them I am a HoN master. They count on me to dominate a pub game and give our team a chance to win, while they mess around making newbie mistakes and learning the heroes.

The problem is that so far I haven't been able to do it. I seem not to do any better in low-skill games than in the mid-skill games I join solo, in fact I often do worse. If I pick a nuker, no one initiates for me. If I pick an initiator, the team doesn't follow. If I pick a carry, the team cannot carry me early and I end up having to defend and flee ganks constantly, or facing fed opposing carries. It seems I cannot win for losing.

Can any competitive-level players share strategies for dominating fairly low-skill pub games without needing much help from your team? Any aspect of strategy would help, from hero choice, to item choice, to gameplay strategy:

- Should I be picking foresters (war beast maybe)?
- Rune-whoring with a bottle and flying courier on a ganker (this is more difficult due to auto-attack pushing from my team)?
- Rushing post haste and ricing the lanes as a carry?
- Do I ward for myself or save the gold (no one else ever wards)?

Also, I think my friends would love it if I just built an invincible tank that could stand in front and absorb punishment while they cowered behind it until they could rush in for a deathblow. Is there a hero with such tank potential that can also make enough gold for the requisite items? How do I build it up early? In a low-skill game I don't need to be a threat; just being in front is enough to make people target me. I could build full defense if I could do that and make gold.

Thank you for any advice; I hope replies will be from competitive-level players who have used their own advice to squish pubbies. I am not especially interested in hearing from fellow pubbies of my same skill level; those are the people I am playing against.

[HunteR_]

http://youtube.com/honleague

these tutorial videos we put together have everything you need to win games.

We're going to do video guides for individual heroes as well very soon

[dumblydore]

You can't really squish pubs when 4/5 people on your team are noobs...unless the other team has just as many, but it is unlikely as you said the other team is getting fed off of your teammates.
If you do something like 1v1, 2v2 it might work better.

If the other team knows how to play at all, they will not let you own them 1v5.

[Wussabi]

Scout would be your best bet, you can pick bottom lane if youre on legion or top lane if youre on hellbourne and take advantage of your electric eye. With that you can keep your lanemate safe from ganking and also keep an eye on the rune close to you in order to fill your bottle as often as possible. Make sure you get creep kills and deny a lot since you have a fast hero and then profit from that farming. I strongly suggest hack and slash as you first item (after enhanced marchers and couple of soulscreams) since it gives you enough strength to stay in the battle for longer and then definitely go for shieldbreaker. With this build you will be strong enough to take down those who cause the biggest mess pretty fast and eventually greatly helping your team in mass battles/pushes.

[JellyBeans]

Go zephyr, farm to shreds, emerge victorious
or
Go devourer, lane with a noob and tell him what to do ( like stun them so u can kill bassically)

[Agitator5]

Hmm an invincible tank, that can jungle and escape ganks and carry the team well... a certain owl comes to mind.

[VortexMagus]

A good swiftblade, good arachna, and good luna all should easily be able to maintain a decent k/d ratio in pub games. They all have strong early games that transition into strong late game carries and can do devastating amounts of damage when utilized properly.

Even if your team sucks you should be able to get kills entirely on your own

Warning: don't try this against good teams - pubs only, love. Good teams will understand your weaknesses, pick you out as the most potentially dangerous player in a team full of nubs, ward all your favorite areas and gank the **** out of you all day and all night.

I don't suggest zephyr for this: a carry with a crap early game is just not going to be able to cut it: you're just feed for the enemy until 30 minutes or so, and honestly it doesn't matter how fast you farm if your team is noob and worse, a team of four noobs fighting five decent players. Pick someone with a vicious early game so you can kill your opponents before they finish feeding off your team, and thereby extend the game long enough for you to carry.

[ElementUser]

Semi-carries are the best if you don't trust anyone

[Treeshark]

Zephyr will not work; I cannot afford to farm for so long while leaving the game in the hands of my team. I am interested by moon queen - how would you build her to be a late-game team carrier without sacrificing too much survivability or nuking ability early? My friends can't be counted on to recognize favorable odds and attack even if they are playing a tank or initiator, so if I am going to kill anyone I need to be able to tank a bit.

[dreamex]

in pub vs pub it's pretty easy to carry with any strong early-game carry or semi-carry.

Valkyrie
Moon Queen
etc come to mind.

Hell, even Hellbringer carries pretty well against baddies.

in pub vs premade you'll have a much harder time carrying since at least the enemy team will have coordination even if they're all bad and they'll probably pick cheese hero combos that your horrible teammates will fall for.

[knallfrosch]

I never have problems carrying a team with SoulStealer.

AoE ultimate, solo mid viable, rune control, 900 dmg nuke combo at lv 7.

Items: Bottle, marchers, post haste, portal key, shrunken head.

Edit: You can hold the enemies off when they push with your 600 range 600 damage nuke combo.

[dunehunter]

Ehm...train your friends? :p Sorry, I know it doesn't answer your question, but it's really not that hard to get people to play better.

[HarrisonFor1]

If you can't trust your team and you don't think the other team is good, you could just gank a lot and other team will rage out or just give up, happens a lot.. Also semicarry of course.

[_PINK]

Play Soulstealer or Zephyr.

[GaIactic]

It's pretty tough to be a mid-level skill player and carry 4 baddies. Even high-skill level players can have a hard time vs 5 people if they have 4 useless teammates.

My advice would be try to get your friends to understand their roles and skills and to help you out more so you don't have to try to dominate and go 1v5 in these games.

^_-;

[LegoPirate]

solo mid or pick a carry type. thats really the only option.

if you do both, thats even better :p

[Tsang]

The best character I've found to do this is actually with torturer. Assuming you are in fact the best player in the game, you dominate mid which puts you ahead in levels. During team battles, your AoE damage will cut down teams if you've farmed well. You can also assist in ganks and pushes during all parts of the game. Admittedly, tort was much stronger pre patch due to non nerfed health items. I still did this last night though in a noob pub game, so it might also work for you.

[Mephs]

Soulstealer can dominate early-mid game and give your team an edge if you get really good at him. Late game he's kind of mediocre though. If you want a better late game hero that can pretty much dominate a bad team, Zephyr.

Swiftblade is also a pretty strong carry throughout, if you gank constantly with him (especially against bad pubs) he will easily solo carry a team.

[Treeshark]

Ehm...train your friends? :p Sorry, I know it doesn't answer your question, but it's really not that hard to get people to play better.

Well, they are pretty new. At this point if anyone plays any hero competently, he will kill them and they will become convinced that hero is overpowered and uncounterable. I just tell them to pick the overpowered hero next time.

Anyway, how about items? Are S&Y and Lothars still the best intial major items for agility heros in a low-mid skill pub?

[Mephs]

Lothars is good in low-skill pubs just cause no one buys dust/wards/gem etc. S&Y I've rarely found to be a good pick honestly. Almost any agi will benefit more from say, a nullfire blade.

[Fiesta]

Madman? If you can farm up some attack speed, and level, GG to you.

[Droggeltasse]

As one of the low skill guys i can say the most important thing is talk talk talk talk talk .....
Tell what to do and what to buy where to go and how to atack ....

But the great skill comes into play with the way of help cause its gamebreaking :rolleyes:.

case 1: me + total noob
me: " stop this agressive kamikaze atacks this will make us loose"
guy " shut up just help me you idiot...flame flame"
--------->match ruined

case 2 me + total noob
me:" lets stay more passive they are to strong we (or I )cant beat them this way"
guy " ok"
---------> match improves

[Blitzl0l]

Pick the new scout. You can see whenever someone is alone being a noob. You can get there very quickly. You have a great escape mechanism. You can monitor runes for ganking.

[Kitad1]

Many people in this thread have recommended heroes for you to pick and carry the game, those are good recommendations and I agree that a semi-carry(like valk) is a great choice.

However, I think its something else that will make you win or lose that hasn't been recommended; What your friends pick.

If they don't have much knowledge of the game and they begin with a jungling character, a hard carry or with ophelia, well, then they are gonna under-perform, so make sure you craft your team maximizing their potential with straight-forward hero picks

make one be TB and tell him to spam his spells on the enemy and ulti when neccesary, another to be arachna and have her build DPS items, etc

[WonderWhite]

Play against each other in a 2v2 or 3v3. That way you can eat your nooby fwends :)

[Whalecore]

Puppet master.

1 bracer
Boots
Alch bones
Steamboots
Shieldbraker
win

[sneakysob]

Gankers.

Bloodseeker is pretty good, since most low-skill games involve idiots who run with ult.

[KARTlK]

Soul Stealer. He doesn't need **** from anyone and can EASILY carry a team 5v1.

[aimlessgun]

Hell, even Hellbringer carries pretty well against baddies.



This is amusingly true. Life Void + Mock and you run around being unkillable. I also hear Charged Hammer works out pretty well with Life Void.

[ForumTroll]

Manman, last hit lots of creeps in the laning phase and then farm till you can afford shrunken head and a damage item or two and it is then GG.

[Heliotic]

Go MQ. She is ideal for this sort of thing. Mid viable, very strong all around.

Make your friends pick absolutely devastating lane combos. I recommend magmus + pyromancer and electrician + something with ranged DPS.

[cute]

jereziah or soul reaper, then just call all the shots

[Tajak]

Creep in the woods with Zephyr. Get mock. Push quickly, win before they know what hit them.

[GaIactic]

Tell your friends to pick certain heroes and give them basic instructions. Tell one of them to pick electrician and use the grip as much as possible, tell another to pick jereziah and to always have repel on you, etc.

Making them more useful is a lot easier than you trying to be the ultimate 1v5 player, cuz this game wasn't designed for 1 person to be able to dominate 5.

^_-;

[absoluterain]

I found Pestilence to be godly in low skill games because everybody underestimates him. Assassin's Shroud, Shieldbreaker and Flayer should see you almost two shotting unsuspecting int heroes.

[jtown]

I am by no means good at this game, but i've seen a good madman utterly carry our team.. he had Rage for the 25% leach and was critting like 800 and was 25 before any of us hit 16.. if you can do this.. he farmed kongor solo every 10 mins and that started at like 16.. then if you do get stunlocked you'll auto respawn quick enough.

edit:
also play 3v3 games and such.. unless you have 4 other friends..

[Meowshi]

It's actually really simple

Go to the forums and listen for the cries of "X hero is OP"

pick that hero.


What I do is pick heroes like Soul stealer, Defiler, Arachna, Thunderbringer, Pyromancer - The star heroes that solo mid. At that point, I will be able to 1v1 ANYBODY and win (With defiler, maybe 3v1 :3c). Then, just carry your team to victory by running around the edges and taking out towers.

[Voyage]

Play against each other in a 2v2 or 3v3. That way you can eat your nooby fwends :)

This a lot.

Help them. Talk to them during the game. Point out why they were ganked. Maintain a good fun atmosphere.

[Trazgo]

Play solo mid as a Semi-Carry and gank the side-lanes to victory while simultaneously dominating your lane. Also, hope the other team doesn't have any players as good as you are or better.

[windirein]

Scout would be your best bet, you can pick bottom lane if youre on legion or top lane if youre on hellbourne and take advantage of your electric eye. With that you can keep your lanemate safe from ganking and also keep an eye on the rune close to you in order to fill your bottle as often as possible. Make sure you get creep kills and deny a lot since you have a fast hero and then profit from that farming. I strongly suggest hack and slash as you first item (after enhanced marchers and couple of soulscreams) since it gives you enough strength to stay in the battle for longer and then definitely go for shieldbreaker. With this build you will be strong enough to take down those who cause the biggest mess pretty fast and eventually greatly helping your team in mass battles/pushes.

Orb effects stack in HoN?

[Luxpus]

have you tried telling your friends what to do?


like.. tell one friend to pick an initiator and then tell him what he has to do.. stuff like that.. tell em to read guides aswell..


Teach them.. soon they'll be pretty decent and you will be able to dominate every single pub game ; )

[Tboy]

Orb effects stack in HoN?

Yes they do. With certain exceptions. But they do.

[Trazgo]

Orb effects stack in HoN?

All except for Shieldbreaker and Frostwolf skull. Those two stack with anything except for each other.

Exclusive modifiers stack with anything except another Exclusive modifier of the same type. Lifesteal + Manaburn is fine, Lifesteal + Lifesteal is not.

Attack modifiers, which currently only Shieldbreaker and Frostwolf Skull have, do not stack even with each other.

[mrgoldfarb]

Decreasing # of players in the game increases the effect you have on the outcome. In other words, try 2v2 & 3v3 with your friends and you will probably be a bit more successful.

If I'm in a really **** game (with friends) I'll sometimes go with Zephyr. It can tank and carry relatively easily in low skill games. Half the players probably don't even understand what Zephyr does, so it's pretty easy to destroy pubs.

The other option is a strong laner with good late game potential, such as Arachna, Demented Shaman etc...

You'll definitely want to stay away from heroes which heavily rely on teamwork, like tempest.

[Snaiderman]

Solo mid with defiler seems to be working for me. 15min bloodstone and its pretty much gg.

[calm]

defiler torturer soulstealer arachna valkyrie, or just pick a carry like madman

[Puchi]

pick bettre m8s to play with.. i have the same problem when playing with some of my friends. they suck hard and reley on me to win them the game.. I end up being the target of the other team since without me there is no chance in hell that the base will stay up..

something to add is that i mostly play Support/initiators which sucks balls when there is no team there to back you up.

[PyycKoah]

Always play solo, stomp mid and gank lanes to misery.

[DBDK1]

just like in dota, you need a hero that can gank and rack up kills early, and carry later on. being able to ks easily is also a big bonus.

valk, moonqueen, night hound, swiftblade and soulstealer are the top 5 imo

wildsoul, predator and warbeast are also good, since you can jungle with them easily and not have to worry about noob lane mates and its easier to keep an eye on the minimap so you dont have to worry about mia calls.

or you could just try for a hard carry, magebane and arachna seem to work the best for me. chronos and dark lady seem to take too much farm though.

its really not easy to do though. even if you are tearing the other team up and get completely decked out late game, if your team is really bad and the other is half decent it just wont work.

[Valor2002]

Decreasing # of players in the game increases the effect you have on the outcome. In other words, try 2v2 & 3v3 with your friends and you will probably be a bit more successful.

If I'm in a really **** game (with friends) I'll sometimes go with Zephyr. It can tank and carry relatively easily in low skill games. Half the players probably don't even understand what Zephyr does, so it's pretty easy to destroy pubs.

The other option is a strong laner with good late game potential, such as Arachna, Demented Shaman etc...

You'll definitely want to stay away from heroes which heavily rely on teamwork, like tempest.

Or if you go with teamwork-heavy heros like tempest, use ur microphone! I had a game recently where i picked tempest, because we had kraken on our team. We were losing big time early and had a really hard time. But after I told them what to do, it worked out great for us. Kraken ultied, i waited at the whirlpool, ultied too and then we finished them off getting 3 genocides in a row. Sometimes you just have to give exact instructions.

[HOONdeSOON]

Get Behemoth and denie/lasthit the **** out to dominate temclashes, too give your team a easy gankign time.

Cause even the badest palyer can paly a rightclick and thats it hero. but initiation a perfect behempoth ulti needs exp.

SO when they are low even the pro zeus with thunderclaw + Burza could bash them off whith hoem i palyed yesterday!