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They say EVE Online has a learning "cliff". Pussies. Here's a comparison:
In EVE, your chances of getting ganked within the first 3 mins are about 1000 to 1. In HoN, it's about 2 to 1. And 2 to 1 of getting ganked twice more in the next 3 mins. And your teammates will rage at you for the next 15-45 mins.
Welcome to HoN!
Jump to...
- Heroes
- Guides
- Practice Mode
- Mods
- No Stats Games
- The Lobby
- Early game
- Mid game
- Late game
- Matchmaking and Stats Games
This guide is to point absolute beginners at the good resources, let you know 'stuff' that isn't covered and pre-empt the potential horror that is learning HoN.
The guide is chronological ie ordered with respect to what you need to know first. Don't feel you have to read it all at once.
The Tutorial improved recently, play it at least twice.
Heroes
There are 60+ heroes and some are vastly easier to play than others.
The easiest two are:
Witchslayer - 2 great stuns and great nuke.
Blacksmith - fairly sturdy, click-the-enemy spells, good passive skill but melee.
Here is a very worthwhile attempt to rank the heroes in terms of difficulty to play.
Guides
This mini-guide is meant to complement the HoN Beginner's Guide. You need to know everything in this apart from the Advanced Section.
You also need to study an individual guide for your chosen first hero. I've linked to them above. Others, along with some gameplay guides are here. Modify the build towards survivability then summarise on a Post-It and stick to your monitor.
Practice Mode
This is where you practice last hitting and denying. This is absolutely key to early game. If you're a melee hero eg
Don't practice the middle lane as you won't be going there for a while. Practice the side lanes. Notice where trees can stop you from seeing enemies coming in to gank you. Practice looking at the minimap every 2 seconds. Generally, that's the maximum warning you get before you're ganked. Practice looking at the clock - runes spawn every 2 minutes, creeps every 30s, neutral creeps every minute.
You can also practice buying items, using the courier. You might also practice whilst watching TV, being on the phone, having your parents scream at you etc - it will help you cope with the demands of the real game.
Mentors - worth looking for one. You might get lucky.
Mods
Mods are totally legit in HoN. No, really!
There are some that are 'essential':
Creep Bars
Passive Aggressive (links are broken, will fix asap)
You will need HoN ModManager to install these.
Also very useful: Right-click Deny, Auto-buy, Tower Range, Ability Range, Bard UI, Swap Portrait, TSR.
Lots of people will rage at me for telling you to use these mods. Just remember that it makes me horny, K?
No Stats Games
OK, this is where it gets serious. Don't even contemplate it until Practice Mode makes you want to slit your wrists.
Only play 5v5 Caldavar, All Pick, with 0.5, 0.6 or 0.7 in the title. This refers to the kill-death-ratio so the lower it is, the easier the game for you. You might have to wait 10 mins for such a game.
Casual Mode is probably easier for beginners as dying doesn't lose you much time nor any gold. Switch to Normal Mode games after about 10 else pros will have an extra reason to look down on you.
Your starting PSR is 1500, which supposedly means you're an average player. It takes at least 2 months to become an average player so you, the new person, will constantly get balanced on to the weaker team. Smart move, S2!
One guard against this is the TSR mod if you care about balance rather than learning the game.
Some hosts will even boot you out of the game for being new. Feel smug that this is how they get their kicks in life.
Verbal abuse in game is very common. These are very important in-game commands:
/ic silences the other team's text. If you enter it again, it will silence your own team as well.
/ignore add <in game name> This block any text from a particular person.
/banlist add <in game name> <reason> This will give you a reminder if you find yourself in a lobby with the person.
You can stop listening to players by clicking the tiny speech icon next to their portrait.
Later you'll be able to Report a Player.
The Lobby
In the intervening time, explain to your team-mates that it's your "1st game ever". It will save you a lot of grief when you inevitably lose them the match.
Early game
Initially, you want to play very, very cautiously. If your enemies see you as an easy kill, they'll go for you again and again. You'll understand it when you're ganking new people in a few weeks.
Do not solo in a lane unless you know your enemies cannot kill you. Sometimes you'll have to do this temporarily - stay near your own tower or watch for missing opponents.
The aim here is to stay within XP range. Don't die, farm some gold from last hits and deny the other team from doing the same.
Do not auto-attack except for last hits/denies. Do not waste your spells/mana on the creeps. You don't want to push into your enemies' territory as it will be easier for them to kill you.
Hide behind your creeps. Save your stun for when the enemy tries to gank you.
Stunning/slowing is a major part of the game. Some heroes can do serious damage-over-time (DoT) but need the enemy to be held in place.
Expect to be using the courier to ship extra blight runes for the first 10 mins.
Do not cross the river alone or stay in it. If you do, you're susceptible to being ganked from middle lane. If you're in the long lane, you're also susceptible to being ganked due to the trees hiding the easy approach from mid - thus keeping an eye on mid is essential. <screenshot to be added>
Perhaps the most important thing here is calling missing opponents. If one of your opponent is missing for > 5 seconds (> 15s if they died) call them missing either by voice or typing "miss top" or "miss bot". "ss" instead of miss is acceptable.
Even if you're not in your lane, you must do this. This is what wins/loses games more than anything else.
On the other hand, don't be surprised when your teammates forget but rage at them nonetheless.
The convention for pointing out a lane is top, mid and bot. Mid is the middle lane obviously. Bot is the lane that runs horizontally from the Legion base along the bottom of the map and up the right of the map to the Hellbourne base. Top runs left along the top of the map then down the left-hand side.
The other important abbreviation is that b means leggit to your nearest tower.
Your starting items should be :RunesOfTheBlight: and :FortifiedBracelet:. If you know better you're reading the wrong guide.
The exception to this is if you're facingor
(see below). In this case just buy :RunesOfTheBlight: and :PretendersCrown:. Be very careful not to die and buy :Marchers: as soon as you have 500g - you can get them in the side shop. Buy the other two components of :FortifiedBracelet: as soon as possible afterwards.
In HoN, you lose gold if you die, but not if you've spent it. And you don't need to be at the shop to buy things. They will remain in your cache (when you or courier are in pool, press B, you'll see your cache at the bttom right).
Early game ends around 8-12 mins and moves on to...
Mid game
Mid game is when the teamfights start ie 6+ players in a fight. At this point you stay with your team until the end of the game. The only exception is if one of your Towers is about to be attacked. There are other exceptions but they're beyond the scope of this guide.
Being near opposition creeps reveals your location as do wards andand
's ultimates. At this point, heroes might have enough health to towerdive so don't hang near enemy creeps alone for > 10s.
You'll want to always have a :HomecomingStone: you can double-click to escape ganks.
Late game
Sometimes barely distinguishable from mid game but this is more or less constant teamfighting.
This is the only stage you don't need to call miss.
Heroes you need to know about - because they're easy-to-play/overpowered hence in almost every low-tier game and can easily kill you
will hook you from Fog of War and kill you without you being able to do a thing about it. If you don't know where he is, stay behind creeps or really far back.
is even worse. His stun has higher range than
A goodwill deny you any XP or gold whilst harrassing you and farming for himself. He makes :IronBuckler: an essential early pickup for
can go invisible at 6 which means you won't even see her coming. She is stupidly easy to get a kill with. Having lots of health helps. If your laning partner doesn't have a stun, you'll need revelation wards.
can also go invisible (the first 2 for extended periods). Keep your health high, stay with allies/tower and join in the moaning if someone refuses to buy a :BoundEye:.
This section could go on forever (can you see the top of that cliff yet?)
and all the carries are worth learning about.
You also need to learn about physical damage vs magical damage. Autoattacks are nearly always physical damage. Most spells are magic damage. Armor protects only against physical damage, whilst magic armor (:MysticVestments: -> :ShamansHeaddressonly protects against magic damage. Health protects against all. There are only three decent health items in the whole game: :FortifiedBracelet::HelmOfTheBlackLegio: and :BehemothsHeart:, costing 510g, 2250g and 5500g respectively.
Your best protection is map awareness and knowing your enemy. However, if your lane opponents include one of
(magic gankers) then get some health (:FortifiedBracelet: + :Steamboots
Vs:nomad: (and other carries late game) you want :Ringmail:.
If you have no invisible heroes on your team, andisn't on the opposing team, build :AssassinShroud:. It needs activating and is easily countered but low-tier players never seem to bother.
Either way, you want :Steamboots: as a newbie (leave on default red setting) as they provide much needed health and thus a chance to escape
Matchmaking and Stats Games
Worth avoiding for a while. Tensions are much higher and worse, there are kids who like to stomp beginners like yourself to earn coins/pad their stats. They will use game titles like ULTRA MEGA SUPERNOOBS! to entice you and then ninja lock their mates for a fake auto-balance.
The new Matchmaking system pretty much makes stats games obsolete.
If you have more money than sense, you can simply pay S2 to reset your stats.]
Last edited by NubbyMcNub; 12-15-2011 at 03:36 AM.
< reserved >
Firstly, I should say I'm not sure this is the right section. This is for absolute beginners and this is the first section I looked in as a beginner.
It's designed to supplement the HonCast Beginners Guide and if new people find it useful, could be combined in some way.
It's a Work-in-Progress. Still to do: diagrams.
Lastly, I'm a noob and probably gave bad advice somewhere. I wrote this because my internet went down and because being new sucks. I'm happy to defer to superior understanding.
Last edited by NubbyMcNub; 06-16-2011 at 07:03 PM.
One of the best, if not the best, beginner guides I have read.
Thumbs up, all the way.
A few things I'd like to add (feel free to ignore/add them into your guide)
- Sticking to one hero for extended periods of time: Don't do it. If you feel swamped by the number of heroes and their various roles, and thus intimidated to try anyone apart from, keep in mind that all heroes tend to fill a certain role in a team. Granted, there are some heroes, like
or
- You make a point of
- Last hitting and denying are great things to practice in practice mode when you first start, but I would recommend you spend considerably more time perusing the shop and the various items that you can buy. The recommended tab is usually good, and in the beginning, I would use it for all your item decisions. As you grow as a player, this will change, and you will find yourself experimenting with different options. This is good, but don't rush yourself. As a new player, the most valuable items are the ones with strength on them. More HP gives you more time to stay alive and at least attempt to make a get away.
- If you truly are new and are willing to learn, and express that to your team, you will find players who will be more than willing to help out. Be patient, don't get too upset with a loss, go back, watch your replay and see where you went wrong, and things you could change. This game, unlike most multiplayer experiences, requires A LOT of effort from your end if you want to truly get better. As scary as it may be, play with players who are clearly better than you (higher tsr; psr is not very informative). This will help you understand how they make certain decisions, and you can try emulating and adapting those to your playstyle.
Very usefull for newer players, I can't notice a single bit of bad advice! :P
And guys remember - if in doubt of ganks incoming, STAY AT YOUR TOWER!
May need to remind people that pushing Z will show all the chat log allowing to scroll just incase you missed something important, like MISSING DEVOURER!!
Worthy enough to be the pocket handbook for newer players; HOWEVER, emphasize that they shouldn't play easy mode some more :P
Technically Swiftblade's ultimate isn't an AoE skill, but rather a single-target skill that chains to nearby units (or the same unit)
S2 Games: Dedicated employees serving dedicated gamers. Continuous development. Never-ending improvement.
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Tech Support and Customer Support: https://www.heroesofnewerth.com/support/
Look for my highlighted text (important information) and grey text (interesting but not required information).
PVP game, etcIn EVE, your chances of getting ganked within the first 3 mins are about 1000 to 1. In HoN, it's about 2 to 1. And 2 to 1 of getting ganked twice more in the next 3 mins.
and only NH has 'innate' invisiblity, all other 3 are activated skills.
Great guide, would have saved alot of extra reading when I started playing a week ago but still a usefull quick guide and definately a must read for any new player.
I've actually thought of doing this myself, but I've never had the time. Thought, you should add some things:
*Useful links
-http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=64274 (somewhat outdated atm, but good enough)
-http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/forumdisplay.php?f=17 (especially the warding guide and juking guide, maybe some more that i've forgotten)
-(http://hon.esportmedia.com/) (great fun and you can always learn from the pros)
- http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=5465 (I've always thought the item section in this guide is really solid, with a few things missing/wrong, it's kinda old too)
* Some sort of step-by-step this should you do to get going guide, for the very new players that havn't played a game, or just a handfull. Like stick to one hero for the 1st 5 games in order to gett a very basic feeling to the game. Then start learning new heroes, start with this and this (the really solid ones, swiftblade and ws comes to mind)
Apart from some things missing (IMO), as i've stated, I think it's a really solid guide. A must read for all new people
Thanks for the vote of confidence, all, and the excellent feedback. I've not added much as I don't want to increase the length as yet and I feel the rest is of secondary importance due to not being beginner, not being definitively good advice etc. As they are part of the thread I hope they'll get read by many, anyway.
But I have improved wording upon your feedback.
Question for all, if you put wards on a courier, do they automatically get shared or are there ownership complications?
If the courier is shared (the share button toggled on) then anyone on your team can pick up the wards and use them. The only items that other players can use, other than the one who bought it, is consumeables (includes bottle) and wards. Bound eye and doom bringer can be used by both teams. I don't think I've missed any, but I might have.Originally Posted by NubbyMcNub
Oh, I read the part regarding the midgame, and I don't agree. IMO mid game is from lvl 6-16 or something close to that, depending on the heroes in the game. It starts with the first gank and ends when the real teamfighting and hardpushing begins. In the midgame is where there's most movement between the lanes, everyone tries to get their core items and the ones who has got them tries to deny the rest of their core.
It's the time when gankers gank, carries farm and supporters helping both out (creep stacking, offensive/defensive wards and helping with ganking etc.). The initiators is a bit more difficult to define, but if they've got their core, they should help with the ganking, if not, they should farm.
This is opposed to the late game, where the carries have stopped perma farming and starts to be more active in the teamfights. The initiators is always at the teamfight, starting it up. Supporter does what they always do, support. But now they might focus more on keeping kongor warded, disabling in teamfights etc. The gankers time of shine is over, but they are still useful in teamfights as nukers or disablers (or something else), they are also good for picking one hero off before the teamfights begins (via a gank, normally in the forest, wards are really helpful), making it a 4v5. Serious pushes occures one after another and kongor starts to get really important.
not bad, introduce a step wise procedure.
something i always thought was like:
1. read forums to understand game concepts
2. play a couple (10 or so) of games by yourself on the practice server to PRACTICE - creep denying, learning the shop, which items have active abilities, how much towers deal damage, get the feel of a new hero
3. when you are comfortable with a few heroes and get ability concepts and item concepts, migrate to the No Stats server. here you will gain real game experience in a less competitive atmosphere, plus mistakes are not recorded.
4. after you are comfortable with no stats, move to stat games and try and farm PSR
One thing you should probably add, is countering Chronos (other carries that have inevitably been fed as well) with void talisman and storm spirit (even shroud) when he jumps in. Most players of him at low levels will ult as soon as he jumps in, so this will waste his ult.
Also, playing some stats games isn't too bad, all one has to do is ignore teams if they flame. Plus, this will lower their psr, making it easier on them as they can join <1400 games, etc. Then they can play no stats if they don't want to lose psr past a certain point cause climbing back is a ***** before one is a decent player.
WIsh I had this when I started^^. The only things I would suggest are maybe linking to all-heroes mini guide for skill/item builds and telling people that they should use their spells on enemies whenever possible in a teamfight and not on creeps early game (simple concepts when you actually know but otherwise you have no clue) Also never ks with witch's ult (my first two weeks of hon were just ksing ppl with ult lol). Another mistake I made when I first started was I clicked on my skills instead of pressing qwer etc which doesn't cut it lol, so you should probably say that's important as well.
Stats games aren't too bad except you mess up your stats, but at least that gives you much more motivation.
Something i have wanted to try, how easy/hard would it be to climb out of ~1200 psr for me. Unfortunately i have no clue how to get there without griefing.Then they can play no stats if they don't want to lose psr past a certain point cause climbing back is a ***** before one is a decent player.
Definitely a good guide. We already have two guides stickied at the top, so I won't sticky this one as well; however, I would recommend that this guide be bookmarked for quick reference.
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Having trouble getting started? The Training Grounds and Project Epoch can help!
I am of the firm opinion that subtracting "raging stupidity" from anyone's voice can only cause them to sound more like myself.
I initially went for a definition like this, wasn't sure it was accepted and ended up with a much vaguer one.
What does everyone else think? Feel free to contradict - I don't want two people to agree and everyone else to follow like sheep.
@Tripwyr Thanks for your comments. The guide is really aimed at people who've played < 10 games eg the new triallists.
IMHO, S2 are missing out on $1,000,000+ because of the learning cliff (triallists put off, players not referring friends, reviewers who are put off or don't have time).
It would be interesting to compare the subscription rate of most triallists vs those who manage to stumble on this guide...
You should add a tablet of content. It makes it easier to find the part you want if you're comming back to the thread in order to read a specific part (which people should be if they thought the guide was useful).
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