Demented Shaman - I'll heal YOUR FACE

[Nome]

This guide is written for Forest of Caldavar play on non-EM modes. It assumes you are playing on the Legion side. If you are playing on Hellbourne, reverse the top/bottom
lanes.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNIcons/HeroIcons/DementedShaman.jpg
"Hi guise"


Demented Shaman is a hero that people tend to misplay a lot. He's a pure support--while he has plenty of offensive power, his defensive ability is much stronger. This guide will be solely focused on playing him as he's supposed to be played--a pure support.


A Lack of Place

Interestingly, Demented Shaman doesn't really have a place right now in HoN in terms of synergy. In DotA, Dazzle + Siren was amongst the top 3 strongest lanes in terms of burst damage output due to Healing Wave + Image combo. But there's no image heroes in DotA, which makes it a bit harder to pull off any insane synergies. Regardless, even though he lacks this offensive power in lane, his heal is still ridiculous in team fights.




Role Playing

You are a support, and as such, should act as one. Savage Mace is not for you. Astrolabe is. You have a high mana pool in relation to your skills' mana costs, so you should be the team heal spammer. At most, you should aim for Totem of Kuldra or Frostfield Plate. The only purely offensive items you should ever consider are Shield Breaker or Demonic Breast Plate, and that's only if you're a lot richer than you should be.


Skill Build

1 Healing Wave 1
2 Entangle 1
3 Healing Wave2
4 Entangle 2
5 Healing Wave 3
6 Arcane Hide 1
7Healing Wave 4
8 Entangle 3
9 Entangle 4

Pushing Early
10 Storm Cloud 1
11 Storm Cloud 2
12 Arcane Hide 2
13 Arcane Hide 3
14 Arcane Hide 4
15 Stats 1
16 Storm Cloud 3

Not Pushing Early
10 Arcane Hide 2
11 Arcane Hide 3
12 Arcane Hide 4
13 Storm Cloud 1
14 Storm Cloud 2
15 Stats 1
16 Storm Cloud 3

You are presented with a serious conundrum in picking your early skills. That is, Healing Wave is your most powerful skill, and you should level it as primary and get it as high as possible as early as possible. However, Entangle is worthless at low levels, yet you should get at least one level of Arcane Hide "just in case". In the above build, I don't get Hide until 6, but you should vary it according to your lane. If you're expecting a strong lane like Swiftblade/Glacius, it's well-worth getting Hide at LVL1. Otherwise, spamming Healing Wave should be enough to keep you going.



Starting Items

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/Supportive/ringoftheteacher.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/supplies/manapotion.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/supplies/manapotion.jpg
Get a Ring of the Teacher and click it to set it to Heroes Only. It's a good support item that will keep you and your lane mate's mana and armor up. I prefer to go mana regen over HP regen as you have a heal.


Item Build


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/Initiation/enhancedmarchers.jpg Enhanced Marchers
Enhanced Marchers offers good movement speed for chasing (you will be doing that a lot) as well as decent damage and armor. You won't need Post Haste because you won't need to be teleporting anywhere quickly--you can't really clear creeps, and while it's nice to have you there for heal, it's better just to carry Homecoming Stones around.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/Supportive/codex.jpg Codex
I caution GREATLY against getting Codex, but I'm sure people will get it anyway. Codex should only be obtained if you have a damage amp on your team such as Voodoo Jester or Ophelia. Ophelia's Nature's Wrath actually applies bonus damage as physical, which works quite well with Storm Cloud, if you can pull off such an unwieldy skill combo.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/Supportive/totemofkuldra.jpg Totem of Kuldra
Expensive, but gives you a guaranteed full disable. 90% of the time you should be aiming for this if you have the money.




http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/Protective/item11frostfieldplate.jpg Frostfield Plate
A good late-game item that makes your mana pool infinite and also increases your survivability ten-fold.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/Supportive/itemastrolabe.jpg Astrolabe
Your high mana pool makes you ideal for being a double healer.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/snagg3r/HoNItems/Initiation/talismanofexile.jpg Talisman of Exile
Can you go wrong with these? No, you cannot.


Healing Wave

With the exception of the Shaman-Ophelia combo, Healing Wave cannot be used offensively at-will due to a lack of image heroes. That means it must be used defensively or conditionally when an enemy hero is near a group of allied creeps. The more creeps around him, the more damage it does. Of course this applies also to allied heroes during ganks--if they're surrounding someone, it does huge damage. You always want to keep an eye out for this and heal accordingly. This makes Demented Shaman especially strong on a team of mass melee, even if mass melee is otherwise terribad.






Arcane Hide

During team battles you should always be spamming Healing Wave, as well as keeping an eye out on your carry. Use Arcane Hide only when the hero is in imminent danger of dying--otherwise it's completely wasted. While the hero has Arcane Hide on him, continue healing to help him run.


Storm Cloud

It's a good idea to cast this on as many heroes--allied and enemy--as possible, but in most situations this is not feasible, as the skill is weak to start and gets stronger over time. Rather, you may wish to cast it on your team to initiate a team fight--this way, they go into battle nearly immune to physical damage. Alternatively, you may wish to Storm Cloud a group of enemy heroes on high ground if you have wards placed--if they're good, they'll avoid conflict, which allows you some time to beat on a tower. If they're bad, they'll engage, and you'll win.






Demented Shaman-Ophelia Sexy Combo

If you, for some strange reason, go Demented Shaman bottom solo, or dual-lane bottom with a Ophelia jungle, this is a very strong combo. Ophelia should have two or three creeps. To start off, you should slow the target with Entangle. Ophelia should also slow with Nature's Wrath. She should then maneuver her creeps next to the target-this should be very easy with two slows stacked. The creeps should then use their Q stomps, while you heal the creeps. This is a guaranteed kill, espcially if you have a lane mate who can use a third nuke.

[Condomplate]

no stats and heal first? it is an offensive early game hero not defensive

[Nome]

no stats and heal first? it is an offensive early game hero not defensive

No, no stats and heal first.
Your heal doing damage is very conditional upon enemy position. With HoN's current lineup, I would NEVER take damage from heal if I laned against a Demented Shaman unless they had a fast melee that could run up to me with me disabling him first.

[Folly]

Storm Cloud makes allies nearly immune to physical damage? Not really.
Even towards the end of a lvl 3 storm cloud you're getting around +20 armor, which might shave off 20-40% of incoming physical damage depending on how much armor they started with. Declining returns make all that extra armor have very limited usefulness.
Casting it on enemies however will often bring them down to 0 armor fairly quickly, increasing the physical damage they take by 50-100%. Always much better to cast it on enemies rather than allies, if you have to choose.
Most importantly, Storm Cloud does take some time to build up. Cast it as early in the fight as possible!

[EnragedCamel]

Storm Cloud makes allies nearly immune to physical damage? Not really.
Even towards the end of a lvl 3 storm cloud you're getting around +20 armor, which might shave off 20-40% of incoming physical damage depending on how much armor they started with. Declining returns make all that extra armor have very limited usefulness.
Casting it on enemies however will often bring them down to 0 armor fairly quickly, increasing the physical damage they take by 50-100%. Always much better to cast it on enemies rather than allies, if you have to choose.
Most importantly, Storm Cloud does take some time to build up. Cast it as early in the fight as possible!

You do not understand how damage mitigation works.

[Nome]

Storm Cloud makes allies nearly immune to physical damage? Not really.
Even towards the end of a lvl 3 storm cloud you're getting around +20 armor, which might shave off 20-40% of incoming physical damage depending on how much armor they started with. Declining returns make all that extra armor have very limited usefulness.
Casting it on enemies however will often bring them down to 0 armor fairly quickly, increasing the physical damage they take by 50-100%. Always much better to cast it on enemies rather than allies, if you have to choose.
Most importantly, Storm Cloud does take some time to build up. Cast it as early in the fight as possible!

Most damage thrown around in team fights tend to be magical in competitive games--on the other hand, most physical damage tends to be from a single carry, creeps, and towers.

A good team will always retreat and play defensively if you cast Storm Cloud pre-emptively. Because team battles don't tend to last very long, Storm Cloud has very limited effectiveness if you cast it in the middle of battle. The most effective or rather, guaranteed way to use it, in most situations, is to cast it, let it go for a bit, then run in and initiate.

[xhunt3r]

Gotta mention Totem of Kuldra as a possible item to use in the build imo. Great stats, excellent mana regen(so you can heal spam), and the disable is very useful.

[Nome]

Gotta mention Totem of Kuldra as a possible item to use in the build imo. Great stats, excellent mana regen(so you can heal spam), and the disable is very useful.

Blargh, I mentioned it in "role playing" text, but forgot to put it in item builds.

[Folly]

You do not understand how damage mitigation works.

What's not to understand? The mouseover tooltips seem pretty straightforward, unless they are just plain wrong.

[DruidFluids]

I find Eul's Scepter is just as good on him as it was on Dazzle. If you cyclone someone right after entanglement, your cooldown on the entanglement should be just about refreshed.

[Drasha]

What's not to understand? The mouseover tooltips seem pretty straightforward, unless they are just plain wrong.

while it looks like you get less damage mitigation with every point every point of armor is actually better then the one before it. its vary mathy stuff but if you look threw dota guides it will explain it.

[willtsay]

i prefer entangle over the heal but i guess it depends if you want to be more gank heavy or heal heavy?

although i guess healing wave does do pretty nice amounts of damage but its more dependent on creeps/heroes being near them

my reasoning -> level 1 to level 2 does not add an extra bounce for healing wave just more heal/dmg which is 80 to 100, adds .. 60 damage whereas getting the second level of entangle increases the slow from 33 to 66% slows for 2 seconds _. then applies the dot dmg amount is an extra 49, although entangle really isnt for the damage.

so i prefer to do HW, E, E, HW ,E , HW, HW last level of entangle really only adds another 49 damage to it and 2 sec less cd so that can wait for after a point in arcane hide :P

[Nome]

i prefer entangle over the heal but i guess it depends if you want to be more gank heavy or heal heavy?

although i guess healing wave does do pretty nice amounts of damage but its more dependent on creeps/heroes being near them

my reasoning -> level 1 to level 2 does not add an extra bounce for healing wave just more heal/dmg which is 80 to 100, adds .. 60 damage whereas getting the second level of entangle increases the slow from 33 to 66% slows for 2 seconds _. then applies the dot dmg amount is an extra 49, although entangle really isnt for the damage.

so i prefer to do HW, E, E, HW ,E , HW, HW last level of entangle really only adds another 49 damage to it and 2 sec less cd so that can wait for after a point in arcane hide :P

Very reasonable reasoning =P
It all comes down to personal preference, I think. There are definitely good points to both.

[_Archangel_]

Yeah, you can max Entangle first for the ganking ability - I think it comes down to the situation. I definitely take Astrolabe as first item after Marchers. Double heal is so damn useful. Enchanted Marchers upgrade, then Totem of Kuldra afterwards.

[Albane]

I really like some of the ideas of this guide, but the more I play Demented Shaman, the more I am finding that my play style seems different from others.

While many people play the game to boost their K:D ratio, I really like winning. I have won almost every game played as a demented shaman, because people underestimate my group buffing abilities and damage output.

I have found marchers and 2 mana pots to help me solo mid easy and get to level 6 very fast, while collecting plenty of gold from kill shots. Many times I can force the other person at mid to back off, slowing down their xp and gold earning. This also lets me take down the tower by around level 8.

When I get my first 875g, I go and buy a mana tube, so that I can continue my AoE heal/DD and push. I continue to do this until level 11-12 ish, at which point I can make sustainer and work my way toward the heart. The extra health/mana/damage/ and mana regen will make me almost impossible to kill. I then work toward enhanced marchers and The helmet with +300 health and block value (When you have 40+ armor and are only taking half damage, blocking 40 damage on 65% of incoming attacks is huge).

My skill build is:
Heal
Entangle
heal
hide
heal
storm
heal
hide
hide
hide
storm
stats
stats
stats
...

With this setup, by the time I reach the teens I am able to survive against 3+ attackers for a decent duration, while keeping my group alive and doing good damage from my heal.


I am still a beginner, but so far I have found with a decent team, I can carry them to a win and they never quite know why they are not dying or why the shaman is getting so many kills.

[Nome]

You really should get Entangle IMO. The damage on it is quite underrated, and it can slow a hero to a crawl, not to mention the stunning property it has.

On the other hand, Storm is quite worthless at low levels.

[R1C3]

wut about shield breaker (deso), daemonic breastplate (assault curiass), and astrolabe (mekanism)?

i usually get these as core items for dazzle

[raithza]

I don't recommend leveling up healing wave as the mana cost makes it hard to spam, and the heal amount does not increase enough to warrant leveling it. Entangle seems better than in dota but it is still significantly stronger at lvl 3 and you need to get it there asap. my skill build:

1 Hide (mostly because of shallow grave habit from dota)
2 Heal
3 Entangle
4 entangle
5 entangle
6 heal
7 heal
8 heal
9 entangle
10 ulti
11 ulti

etc

Your item build with the hero is highly situational but i do recommend getting a manatube + bracer before starting any core build. Having a manatube + ring of teacher means you have practically infinite mana and you'll rarely need to go to fountain to heal. Manatube can be used for a Totem of Kuldra, which i would also recommend as your main item to build but only after Astrolabe.

Also, you forgot to mention Warbeast. I try to lane with him if he's in my team, your slow and heal synergises very well with his wolves (or whatever they are in this game).

He is also actually a decent pusher and you can farm quite well with him - try to get all enemy creeps on low hp, stand close to them and heal.

Albanee - I think you misunderstand the hero's role. While he is a decent enough solo, he is so good at babysitting a weak earlygame hero, and there will almost always be a better solo hero in your team, so having him solo is a waste. You CAN tank/carry with him due to his versatility, but once again he is better at support and it's best to leave those roles to heroes better suited to them.

[Greensponge]

Healing Wave
With the exceptino of the Shaman-Ophelia combo,

Aside from being an ass and pointing out the only error I could find in your guide I will thank you for putting out so many well written guides.

You are indeed a credit to team.

[Netukka]

Steamboots
2 exiles
Kuldra
Shieldbreaker

Battle shaman ftw. And entangle is totally awesomesauce, it makes me want to kill kittens when enemies spam it on me : >

[M3chTig3rZZZ]

Honestly I prefer a defensive healer, so I use an item build like this:

Enhanced Marchers
Astrolabe
Stormspirit
Hellflower
Forstfield Plate

[Vl]

Is storm cloud channeled? Or an aoe over time thing after cast

[Verne]

Is storm cloud channeled? Or an aoe over time thing after cast

AoE over time. Cast and forget. :)

[Offsure]

while it looks like you get less damage mitigation with every point every point of armor is actually better then the one before it. its vary mathy stuff but if you look threw dota guides it will explain it.Most of those guides are wrong. So are you. Let me explain.

For each point of armour, 6% of your HP is added to your EHP (efficient HP). (This relation only applies to positive armour values.)

Say you have 1000 HP. If you have 5 armour and gain 10 armour from Storm Cloud, your EHP is increased by the factor (1000*(1+.06*(5+10)))/(1000*(1+.06*5))=1.46 which is a 46% increase in EHP.

If you get the Shiva's equivalent item (Frostguard or whatever) you get 20 armour total. If you then gain 10 armour from Storm Cloud your EHP is increased by the factor (1000*(1+.06*(20+10)))/(1000*(1+.06*20))=1.27 which is a 27% increase.

As a general formula, the increase in EHP from an item with armour can be calculated with this formula: EHP_increase=.06*item_armour/(1+.06*current_armour)

[BLUEPOWERVAN]

I don't see why people pick up storm at lvl 6, it's just not great at the mana cost for that level. I generally pick healing wave and the dot for the first 8 levels. Level 4 of the healing wave enables you to rapidly farm whole waves, while the dot scales greatly with the levels you put in it.

Mana is key, and sometimes I will get 2x mana tube, or mana tube + the first piece of hellflower early. This allows you to spam healing wave, which should allow you to get 4 or 5 kills from any normal wave easily, more from a stacked wave, and enable you to neutral or tank creeps to stop the tower from wasting them... all of that adds up to big time money gain.

Totem is best, then some defensive items. Storm is indeed great, but lvl 1 is crapola.

[Czech0]

^ what is this dot you speak of?

edit- didn't realize entangle was actually a dot.

[Hippie]

Depending on my lane partner, I'll often put a point in Entangle first - like if I'm babysitting a Swiftblade or someone similar. At the very least you can force them to play back somewhat, and if you time it right you can get an easy bloodlust off of it. The Entangle damage + your autoattack + 80 MDPS should often kill anything but the highest HP early game heroes.

[Kietharr]

If I'm doing very well early on I sometimes break down the ring of the teacher to make ring of sorcery, it diminishes in usefulness as the game goes on but it does wonders for his late early-early mid sustainability in the field, which in turn enhances his farm and pushing potential.

Astrolabe is also a great item with him, combined with ring of sorcery and his heal it makes him ideal push support. I agree though, Kundra is THE item you need to get. He farms pretty well with his healing wave and good damage so you can pretty reliably get phase/ring of sorcery/astrolabe/kundra provided you have a decent team.

[LiquorQ]

Usually i grab 1 point in healing at level 1, then entangle, then arcane hide, then back to healing wave, and alternating between that and entangle until one of them is level 4.

[Maximum]

I only just found out that storm has a crazy range of 2000

[LiquorQ]

When you do storm is it an instant effect in the target area? Or can i can storm and walk to where i casted it to get the effect?

[Chobbelito]

http://dagobah.biz/flash/mjsaysyouredoingitwrong.swf

You forgot to mention Demented Shaman-carry style.

Basically, you rush Steam Boots and Hellflower and rape the entire team.

[Nome]

http://dagobah.biz/flash/mjsaysyouredoingitwrong.swf

You forgot to mention Demented Shaman-carry style.

Basically, you rush Steam Boots and Hellflower and rape the entire team.

I don't think it's competitively viable to have DS carry >.>

[Chobbelito]

I don't think it's competitively viable to have DS carry >.>

People who are seriously following guides wont be playing competitively for a long time anyway.

[Nome]

People who are seriously following guides wont be playing competitively for a long time anyway.

You're right here, but the point of guides is to push people in the right direction =P

[Lethe]

You're right here, but the point of guides is to push people in the right direction =P

this is true. Don't ever forget that.

[j00sh]

My starting items are usually boots and tangos. It's a bad build for most heroes, but really, he can handle the lack of stats early.. and he's an easy hero to get bloodlust on, which boots will help with.

Then get mana tube, finish enhanced marchers, 2-3 bracelets, finish totem of kuldra, daemonic breastplate.

Very offensive, very supportive. Just use your cooldowns and you should do great.

[Travakh]

I question why you say he can't really clear creeps. He can, he just needs the allied creep wave right behind him. A bit of timing and demented shaman can clear an entire wave with one heal and walk away with 300 gold each wave.

I do this often to fastfarm my second item after sheepstick.

EDIT: Also, nulls over bracers? His int growth is already high and his low hp makes him a vulnerable target to chain damage combos. I try to get bracer bracer mek blessed orb as my first fielded items

[MARCUS]

Good guide, I build 2 bracers asap and if I cant farm travels I go for Steamboots then the mekanism in this game or sheep stick.

I agree while he has primarily support he has an insane attack animation range and you can harass anyone with it at pretty huge distances.

With a good lane partner and entangle its pretty easy to rack up some kills especially if lower enemy int/agi dont have any strength or defence items.

[ElementUser]

Yay Shaman got a buff to Arcane Hide. REJOICE!

[Nome]

Man, this guide is so outdated. I need to fix it. Scout and MQ guides come first though.

[Travakh]

Man, this guide is so outdated. I need to fix it. Scout and MQ guides come first though.

Moon Queen guide: Farm wingbow, savage mace, symbol of rage, geometer's bane, autoattack to their throne

Anyway I have some pretty screenshots of 'how to farm with shaman' so I think I'll write one in the downtime

[MABManZ]

Yay Shaman got a buff to Arcane Hide. REJOICE!


It's still pretty bad. It needs shorter duration (maybe 4/5/6/7 seconds) and no charges.

[afrikanen]

Man, I really gotta thank you for helping me find my old love for Dazzle. And I gotta say that DS is even funnier to play than Daz was.

Great guide.

Support ftw.

[Eiz]

I did not play dota so if this is a terribly nooby question im sorry in advance to all u flamers :)

Ive been playing all the support heroes recently, demented shammy being my favorite so far. I have found that my early game mana regen is preety **** awful. I usualy start with ring and mana pots like the guide says and try to lane with a good hero to babysit and feed. Recently i have been getting marchers and mana tube, then finishing up enhanced marchers. After this i feel like i need items to increase my hp and mana pool + regen to complement my pure support play style + role in team battles. I feel like i need to have a massive ammount of hp and mana so i can heal bot for as long as possible and land entangle interupts on channels the best i can (**** magmus). So ive have been getting an icon of the goddess and then working on either totem or frost b-plate.

Would it be better to just go for totem or frost instead of getting icon first? I want items that will give me the hp / mana that icon does or is this stupid?

Also is there a thread that stats how much hp / mana 1 stat will give u? (aka 1 int= x mana , 1 str= x hp, etc)

thankz!

[PlatinumZ]

In DotA, Dazzle + Siren was amongst the top 3 strongest lanes in terms of burst damage output due to Healing Wave + Image combo. But there's no image heroes in DotA, which makes it a bit harder to pull off any insane synergies.



I think you meant to say HoN. =). Just a small error, great guide otherwise!

[mcfatty]

ok listen up hes one of my best heros thsi is what u do get healing wave first and level that and entagle the whole time at level 10 get storm cloud to kill people early have u and another hero go in us entangle get close and use heal on u and crepps bam!!!! at level4 it does 500 dmg and with entanglke and ur auto attacking u can gwet kills so easy . once went 26-2 offensive shaman made us win the game.

[ButtsDontPee]

Seems like a smart guy, but I see a 1000 hp DS at lvl 16. I like to throw in an H&S in there at some point. Maybe even a frostwolf skull if you feel rich.

[Blitz]

I random and play this guy for the first time yesterday. He seems kinda weak and underpowered hero. every move seems weak. just my imho.

[InsaneChef]

I random and play this guy for the first time yesterday. He seems kinda weak and underpowered hero. every move seems weak. just my imho.

No way is he underpowered. He's a beast support.

[evotech]

Heeds like sac stone or atleats some mana regen -_-

[Loosance]

I random and play this guy for the first time yesterday. He seems kinda weak and underpowered hero. every move seems weak. just my imho.

Fast hit animation, long range and having snare/stun + heal/damage makes him one of the best harasser of the game and is incredibly dangerous in lane. The fact that he just needs boots + astrolab as stuff makes him a good support too providing wards/chicken for the whole team.

[Spikey]

http://dagobah.biz/flash/mjsaysyouredoingitwrong.swf

You forgot to mention Demented Shaman-carry style.

Basically, you rush Steam Boots and Hellflower and rape the entire team.

This is usually the way I play him. Hellflowers spell is nice in team fights, and it gives more mana than you could possibly ever use. Oh, and it lets you own face with your attack.

[Hooby]

This is usually the way I play him. Hellflowers spell is nice in team fights, and it gives more mana than you could possibly ever use. Oh, and it lets you own face with your attack.


Ditto.. solo shaman works out something like this for me.

Beginning Items: Monkey (200) 2x pretenders crown (370)

Bring out a bottle asap (if laning against someone who is going to dump their mana on you, like a thunder, only get monkey and quick bottle it so you can refill with the first rune respawn.) Next Boots --> Scarab --> finish both bracers --> finish steam boots --> hellflower. After that it gets pretty situational depending on enemy team/game. Also don't forget to bring a tp out any time there is an extra 135 gold during a monkey run.

As for skills:
Lv1: Healing Wave (1)
Lv2: Entangle (1)
Lv3: Entangle (2)
Lv4: Arcane Hide (1)
Lv5: Entangle (3)
Lv6: Storm Cloud (1) (It's totally worth getting at 6 if solo, tossing a storm on someone before entangling/ganking them really ups the dmg)
Lv7: Entangle (4)
Lv8: Healing Wave (2)
Lv9: Healing Wave (3)
Lv10: Healing Wave (4)
Lv11: Storm Cloud (2)
Lv12: Stats (1)
Lv13: Stats (2)
Lv14: Stats (3)
Lv15: Stats (4)
Lv16: Storm Cloud (3)

Usually finish arcane hide at that point.. Reason for waiting for arcane hide is the stats give you just as much hp as the dmg the extra 1 charge of arcane hide would mitigate (at this level, at least), while also upping your mana regen to the point of a limitless supply. Not to mention the extra 8 dmg.. after level 16 there are buff enough carries etc to where giving a team mate that extra 50% makes a huge difference.

Granted I am pretty much a noob at HoN, I've had much success following that build.

A carrying shaman works surprisingly well, storm cloud/entangle is kinda rape for early game ganks and whenever you go top or bottom to give a hand you can heal your team up while you are at it.

[Suiraclaw]

I go:
1 Heal wave (80 heal/dmg is nice)
2 Entangle
3 Entangle (entangle only becomes a good snare at level 2)
4 Heal wave
5 Entangle (entangle get's it's stun and max duration snare)
6 Heal wave (one more target)
7 Heal wave (one more target)
8 Ulti
9 Arcane hide
10 Entangle
11 Ulti

You can get entangle level 4 even later: you get all the nice things already at level 3. So if you want you can max arcane hide/ get stats first before getting the fourth point of entangle (which really only helps with the cooldown).

You really shouldn't wait too long with the ulti, it still makes a huge difference early on. I consider level 8 perfect: you already got the breakpoint for entangle and heal wave and you start getting in big battles.

[DANAYO]

Thanks Nome,

This guide really helped me playing Demented Shaman a lot better. And I'm starting to love this lil' fella. The Codex is absolutely amazing on this char and is mostly the finisher in team battles. Thanks a lot!

[PoopsDeath]

This guy is so weak, go into a team battle take a few hits and it's lights out.

[VyyyE]

This guy is so weak, go into a team battle take a few hits and it's lights out.
....wat

[CrypticOmen]

I like your guide, but I see a really big mistake in your skill build. Not getting level 3 entangle at level 5 is awful, as it gives you an extra second of stun. It's a lot more useful than 20 heal per target -_-.

[PoopsDeath]

....wat

Ghey?