ooVsaviour
12-31-2009, 01:22 AM
Saviour's HoN Concept Series: Tanks
Note: The specific trumps the general, this is a general guide to a concept, if you see something that contradicts what is written here and you are sure that that person isn?t incompetent/messing around with you, then you should take what they say. Hopefully you can tell if they are by yourself, it?s a really important life skill to figure out who knows what they are talking about.
Also Note: I played Dota for 6 years and HoN for a few months, so I often still think of things in Dota (many of the items and heroes are the same but different names) so I apologize if I don?t know what it?s called. I will go and eventually use entirely HoN terms with Dota terms in parentheses.
What A Tank is Not
This concept is one that is often horribly misunderstood; the logic is understandable (and faulty) and yet makes me so angry that I had to write a guide for it. The assumption most unorganized game players make is that 1. You need a tank in a hero line up (untrue, a hero should always have a reason why, if you are interested in learning about lane dynamics, please read my guide to captaining and line-ups here: insert link here later after that guide is written) and that 2. Having a lot of hit points makes you a tank. Having a tank seems reasonable except that it assumes your opponents are as intelligent as mobs in RPG games.
Sometimes that seems to be the case (and it works in reverse with your allies as well) in unorganized games, and it makes me nerd rage (so I wrote this guide). However, let?s assume that your opponents are more intelligent than that. They won?t go for you (first) if, all else being equal, you are harder to kill then the other players on your team (unless you are out of position and therefore isolated).
Therefore, in order to ?draw the agro? of intelligent opponents, you will have to increase your actual threat or value to compensate for the difficulty of killing you. Or you can simply charge in first or be out of position often; that works to for being targeted first.
What a tank is
At the very least, tank is a hero that is harder to kill than other heroes. This DOES not equate to having more hit points. RPG gamers (hopefully) know that friendly healing spells and effects are not reduced by resistances and such, but enemy damage generally is. The same is true in HoN(and Dota). This means that it?s best for a tank to not have a lot of raw hit points so much as it?s important for them to have high damage reduction to maximize the efficiency of friendly heals.
If you don?t understand this concept, here?s an example:
Say I have 1k hp and 50% physical damage reduction and I am hit twice for 100 each time.
Since I have 50% reduction, I only take 100 damage.
A 100 hit point heal, which is reduced by 0%, will fully heal me.
If I had 2k hp and 0% damage reduction and am hit twice for 100, I take the full 200,
A 100 hit point heal will only cancel half of the damage.
Note that stacking reduction is mostly only useful when there are friendly (or self) healing spells and effects that exist, that some enemy spells are damage type pure which cannot be resisted and so stacking more health is necessary for those, and finally, that this stacking of reduction is for when heals are a fixed number rather than percentage based. Maximizing the damage that your hero can take is a technical topic that will not be covered here, the math isn?t difficult. It might be covered here at a later time. Most likely there will just be a link to another guide that I believe to be of high quality.
Heroes who are naturally Tanks
Not all heroes can (or should) be tanks. A common misconception is that strength heroes are tanks. The term seems to be used interchangeably in an unorganized game (pubs) which tends to piss me off. Most strength heroes have slightly more health than other heroes, it just so happens that buying strength items also marginally increases their damage output. Most strength heroes also have fairly bad armor and abilities not suited for tanking. Note that abilities are the most important factor in deciding if a hero is a suitable tank. Items are there to fix weaknesses.
TANKING MEANS YOU CAN FUNCTION WHILE BEING STUN LOCKED AND AT NOT FULL HEALTH JUST FINE OR IT MAKES YOUR HERO WORK BETTER THAN IF HE WERE NOT INJURED.
A REALLY IMPORTANT THING TO NOTE IS THAT TANKS SHOULD NOT BUY SHRUNKEN HEAD, THAT IS AN ITEM FOR DAMAGE CARRIES/SPELL CHANNELERS/PEOPLE WHO DO NOT WANT TO GET HIT BY SPELLS. IF YOU ARE MAGIC IMMUNE, THEN THE ENEMY TEAM WILL JUST TARGET SOMEONE ELSE WITH ALL THEIR SPELLS AND YOU FAILED YOUR JOB.
Tanks fall into one of two sub categories: Tank-carries and plain damage sponge. The tank carry is a carry hero who destroys the enemy team by beating them down eventually and not dying, usually they have a massive amount of damage over time area effect FROM SPELLS and HEALTH FROM ITEMS (fixing problems remember?). Damage reduction and survivability are usually bought.
Examples of tank carries are:
:sand:Sandwraith because of (dissipate; note that the illusions and illusions from Geometer?s bane also reflect damage, this imba passive is why this hero counters PlagueRider, MoonQueen and Swiftblade in large fights). This hero is unique and has a very specific build which generally shouldn?t be deviated from. Get mock asap unless it?s been over half an hour.
:defi:Defiler because of excorcism, (which is one of the most destructive spells in the game, also steals life -> survivability.) silence, (Spell that increases survivability and also generally devastating spell with massive aoe and range.), and carrion (which has incredibly high dps aoe). This hero doesn?t have to be built as a tank, but can be.
:arma:Armadon because of quills (area damage which rapidly increases over time) and Bristleback (damage reduction) also it?s difficult to run away from him because of his other two spells which increase his own speed (and damage) and lower an enemy?s speed. This hero should always be built as a tank.
:soulr:Soulreaper because of his aura (which creates continuous threat) and death pulse (massively damage unresistable area effect plus self and friendly heal). This hero can be built as a tank. He does not have to be. A 20 minute mock should be reasonable. Generally only for pubs though (epic lulz ensues)
:wild:Wildsoul has incredibly high armor and massive health, as does his bear but otherwise he doesn?t really do anything. He needs to buy mock to draw agro/get gold really fast. A 17 minute mock is a good time to aim for.
:tort:Torturer can be built as a tank, all of his spells together do massive aoe, but he needs to buy both energy (and regen) and survivability which together is expensive. He can also just buy a shrunken head instead of survivability.
Tank carries generally are not naturally tank-y so they buy survivability items. Mock of brilliance is also a strong item on Soulreaper (Necrolyte; because he regains mana when he kills things), Sandwraith (Mercurial; because using her ultimate will cause disruption and damage the enemy team more, as well as randomly killing mobs and earning gold), Armadon (because his natural damage is quite low compared to his survivability).
The damage sponge on the other hand is a hero who is simply difficult to kill/undesirable to attack but doesn?t pose any real threat compared to the tank-carry heroes/regular carry/semi carry. Their abilities give them LIFE and their items are for adding VALUE or INCENTIVE to attack them.
Examples of damage sponge tanks are:
:accu:Accursed (LoA/Abbadon) because of his ultimate (borrowed time) and his shield spell (aphotic shield). His passive is actually quite helpful in helping his team put out damage.
:arma:Armadon (BB) later in the game generally doesn?t do as much damage, especially since his damage spell is physical based and armor is cheap.
:lego:Legionaire (Axe) because his threat level rapidly decreases towards middle game as heroes add more health so they don?t die to his ultimate and his spins are physical. His disruption with portal key remains high however.
There are probably other examples, I just can?t think of them because I disdain this type of hero.
Damage sponge heroes should buy in addition to survivability items, aura items. Having an aura means that as long as you are alive, there are effects that are benefiting your team/hurting your enemy which increases your value. Mock is in fact an aura, however, these heroes other than Armadon shouldn?t get mock because mock is expensive and is needed to be gotten quickly which these other heroes shouldn?t or can?t do (in organized games). Plated boots, shield of the five, abyssal skull, barrier idol, demonic breastplate, frost field plate, (mekansm) are all good ideas to think about (or just copy what the pros do and figure that out later, which will generally get your better results but might kill your creativity).
Note: ALWAYS BUY BARRIER IDOL if you are a sponge type carry who has a hood it is one of the best, most cost efficient items in the game and will make your entire team live much longer.
Well that concludes this guide, thanks for reading and all the best to you in your HoN/Dota career!
-saviour
Note: The specific trumps the general, this is a general guide to a concept, if you see something that contradicts what is written here and you are sure that that person isn?t incompetent/messing around with you, then you should take what they say. Hopefully you can tell if they are by yourself, it?s a really important life skill to figure out who knows what they are talking about.
Also Note: I played Dota for 6 years and HoN for a few months, so I often still think of things in Dota (many of the items and heroes are the same but different names) so I apologize if I don?t know what it?s called. I will go and eventually use entirely HoN terms with Dota terms in parentheses.
What A Tank is Not
This concept is one that is often horribly misunderstood; the logic is understandable (and faulty) and yet makes me so angry that I had to write a guide for it. The assumption most unorganized game players make is that 1. You need a tank in a hero line up (untrue, a hero should always have a reason why, if you are interested in learning about lane dynamics, please read my guide to captaining and line-ups here: insert link here later after that guide is written) and that 2. Having a lot of hit points makes you a tank. Having a tank seems reasonable except that it assumes your opponents are as intelligent as mobs in RPG games.
Sometimes that seems to be the case (and it works in reverse with your allies as well) in unorganized games, and it makes me nerd rage (so I wrote this guide). However, let?s assume that your opponents are more intelligent than that. They won?t go for you (first) if, all else being equal, you are harder to kill then the other players on your team (unless you are out of position and therefore isolated).
Therefore, in order to ?draw the agro? of intelligent opponents, you will have to increase your actual threat or value to compensate for the difficulty of killing you. Or you can simply charge in first or be out of position often; that works to for being targeted first.
What a tank is
At the very least, tank is a hero that is harder to kill than other heroes. This DOES not equate to having more hit points. RPG gamers (hopefully) know that friendly healing spells and effects are not reduced by resistances and such, but enemy damage generally is. The same is true in HoN(and Dota). This means that it?s best for a tank to not have a lot of raw hit points so much as it?s important for them to have high damage reduction to maximize the efficiency of friendly heals.
If you don?t understand this concept, here?s an example:
Say I have 1k hp and 50% physical damage reduction and I am hit twice for 100 each time.
Since I have 50% reduction, I only take 100 damage.
A 100 hit point heal, which is reduced by 0%, will fully heal me.
If I had 2k hp and 0% damage reduction and am hit twice for 100, I take the full 200,
A 100 hit point heal will only cancel half of the damage.
Note that stacking reduction is mostly only useful when there are friendly (or self) healing spells and effects that exist, that some enemy spells are damage type pure which cannot be resisted and so stacking more health is necessary for those, and finally, that this stacking of reduction is for when heals are a fixed number rather than percentage based. Maximizing the damage that your hero can take is a technical topic that will not be covered here, the math isn?t difficult. It might be covered here at a later time. Most likely there will just be a link to another guide that I believe to be of high quality.
Heroes who are naturally Tanks
Not all heroes can (or should) be tanks. A common misconception is that strength heroes are tanks. The term seems to be used interchangeably in an unorganized game (pubs) which tends to piss me off. Most strength heroes have slightly more health than other heroes, it just so happens that buying strength items also marginally increases their damage output. Most strength heroes also have fairly bad armor and abilities not suited for tanking. Note that abilities are the most important factor in deciding if a hero is a suitable tank. Items are there to fix weaknesses.
TANKING MEANS YOU CAN FUNCTION WHILE BEING STUN LOCKED AND AT NOT FULL HEALTH JUST FINE OR IT MAKES YOUR HERO WORK BETTER THAN IF HE WERE NOT INJURED.
A REALLY IMPORTANT THING TO NOTE IS THAT TANKS SHOULD NOT BUY SHRUNKEN HEAD, THAT IS AN ITEM FOR DAMAGE CARRIES/SPELL CHANNELERS/PEOPLE WHO DO NOT WANT TO GET HIT BY SPELLS. IF YOU ARE MAGIC IMMUNE, THEN THE ENEMY TEAM WILL JUST TARGET SOMEONE ELSE WITH ALL THEIR SPELLS AND YOU FAILED YOUR JOB.
Tanks fall into one of two sub categories: Tank-carries and plain damage sponge. The tank carry is a carry hero who destroys the enemy team by beating them down eventually and not dying, usually they have a massive amount of damage over time area effect FROM SPELLS and HEALTH FROM ITEMS (fixing problems remember?). Damage reduction and survivability are usually bought.
Examples of tank carries are:
:sand:Sandwraith because of (dissipate; note that the illusions and illusions from Geometer?s bane also reflect damage, this imba passive is why this hero counters PlagueRider, MoonQueen and Swiftblade in large fights). This hero is unique and has a very specific build which generally shouldn?t be deviated from. Get mock asap unless it?s been over half an hour.
:defi:Defiler because of excorcism, (which is one of the most destructive spells in the game, also steals life -> survivability.) silence, (Spell that increases survivability and also generally devastating spell with massive aoe and range.), and carrion (which has incredibly high dps aoe). This hero doesn?t have to be built as a tank, but can be.
:arma:Armadon because of quills (area damage which rapidly increases over time) and Bristleback (damage reduction) also it?s difficult to run away from him because of his other two spells which increase his own speed (and damage) and lower an enemy?s speed. This hero should always be built as a tank.
:soulr:Soulreaper because of his aura (which creates continuous threat) and death pulse (massively damage unresistable area effect plus self and friendly heal). This hero can be built as a tank. He does not have to be. A 20 minute mock should be reasonable. Generally only for pubs though (epic lulz ensues)
:wild:Wildsoul has incredibly high armor and massive health, as does his bear but otherwise he doesn?t really do anything. He needs to buy mock to draw agro/get gold really fast. A 17 minute mock is a good time to aim for.
:tort:Torturer can be built as a tank, all of his spells together do massive aoe, but he needs to buy both energy (and regen) and survivability which together is expensive. He can also just buy a shrunken head instead of survivability.
Tank carries generally are not naturally tank-y so they buy survivability items. Mock of brilliance is also a strong item on Soulreaper (Necrolyte; because he regains mana when he kills things), Sandwraith (Mercurial; because using her ultimate will cause disruption and damage the enemy team more, as well as randomly killing mobs and earning gold), Armadon (because his natural damage is quite low compared to his survivability).
The damage sponge on the other hand is a hero who is simply difficult to kill/undesirable to attack but doesn?t pose any real threat compared to the tank-carry heroes/regular carry/semi carry. Their abilities give them LIFE and their items are for adding VALUE or INCENTIVE to attack them.
Examples of damage sponge tanks are:
:accu:Accursed (LoA/Abbadon) because of his ultimate (borrowed time) and his shield spell (aphotic shield). His passive is actually quite helpful in helping his team put out damage.
:arma:Armadon (BB) later in the game generally doesn?t do as much damage, especially since his damage spell is physical based and armor is cheap.
:lego:Legionaire (Axe) because his threat level rapidly decreases towards middle game as heroes add more health so they don?t die to his ultimate and his spins are physical. His disruption with portal key remains high however.
There are probably other examples, I just can?t think of them because I disdain this type of hero.
Damage sponge heroes should buy in addition to survivability items, aura items. Having an aura means that as long as you are alive, there are effects that are benefiting your team/hurting your enemy which increases your value. Mock is in fact an aura, however, these heroes other than Armadon shouldn?t get mock because mock is expensive and is needed to be gotten quickly which these other heroes shouldn?t or can?t do (in organized games). Plated boots, shield of the five, abyssal skull, barrier idol, demonic breastplate, frost field plate, (mekansm) are all good ideas to think about (or just copy what the pros do and figure that out later, which will generally get your better results but might kill your creativity).
Note: ALWAYS BUY BARRIER IDOL if you are a sponge type carry who has a hood it is one of the best, most cost efficient items in the game and will make your entire team live much longer.
Well that concludes this guide, thanks for reading and all the best to you in your HoN/Dota career!
-saviour