Plague Rider

[man_guy]

Plague Rider

The pestilential stench of the Plague Rider can be smelled for miles, a foul warning of the diseases following in its wake. Mounted atop his undead steed, carried aloft on a stinking cloud of flies, the Plague Rider sows sickness among friends and enemies alike, all with the end of spreading disease across the lands of Newerth.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
   
   • Base stats
   • Level 1 - 25 Graph
   • Stat analysis
2. Skills
   
   • Descriptions
   • Skill Build
   • Explanation for typical build and deviations
   • Alternate Skill Build
3. Items
   
   • Starting items
   • Next items
   • Warding
   • Mid game
   • 6th items
   • Mediocre 6th items
   • Afterword
4. Team Composition
   
   • Early Game
   • Mid Game
   • Late Game
   • Lane mates
   • Solo laning
   • Team fight companions
   • Worst Enemies
   • Counters
   • Free Win!
5. Replays
6. Credits

Introduction
Plague Rider is an item independent support hero. Plague Rider is probably the most noob friendly hero in the game with no skill shots. All of his skills are single targeted and with the proper build, you do not have to worry about mana management nearly as much as other heroes. Plague lanes well in a dual lane with a melee hero with a strong disable or damage skill. Plague Rider can handle a solo lane, even against two heroes, due to having decent range and being able to control the lane through Extinguish. He does not do as well with farm as many other heroes can. He relies solely on magic damage and Plague Carrier does not deal reliable enough damage to buy Staff of the Master or Spellshards on him, so it is generally a waste of Plague's lane control to be solo or to spend much time farming. Plague is very squishy throughout the game and must position himself well to avoid getting dropped quickly in a team fight.

Plague Rider is a port of Lich from DotA with a few differences.

• Item independent
• Highest move speed
• Anti-melee
• Strong physical damage counter
• Annoying slow machine
• Ultimate performance ranges between mediocre to game winning
• Low health pool
• Poor ability to farm
• Late game presence wanes
• Lacks reliable AOE damage

Stats

STR 18 (1.55)
AGI 15 (1.8)
INT 18 (3.25)

Movement Speed 320
Damage 42 - 51
Attack Range 550
Attacks/Sec. 0.68
Armor 1.1
Dmg. Reduction 6%

Turn Rate 450
Day Sight 1800
Night Sight 800
Attack Animation / Backswing .46 /1.0
Projectile Speed 1000

Level	Health Points	HP Regen/s	Mana Points	MP Regen/s	Armor	Attack Speed	Attack Damage
1	492	0.79	234	0.73	1.1	115	42-51
2	511	0.82	273	0.85	1.24	116	45-54
3	549	0.88	312	0.97	1.52	118	48-57
4	568	0.91	351	1.09	1.8	120	51-60
5	606	0.97	403	1.25	2.08	122	55-64
6	625	1	442	1.37	2.36	124	58-67
7	663	1.06	481	1.49	2.5	125	61-70
8	682	1.09	520	1.61	2.78	127	64-73
9	720	1.15	572	1.77	3.06	129	68-77
10	739	1.18	611	1.89	3.34	131	71-80
11	777	1.24	650	2.01	3.62	133	74-83
12	815	1.3	689	2.13	3.76	134	77-86
13	834	1.33	741	2.29	4.04	136	81-90
14	872	1.39	780	2.41	4.32	138	84-93
15	929	1.48	845	2.61	4.88	142	89-98
16	967	1.54	884	2.73	5.16	144	92-101
17	1024	1.63	962	2.97	5.58	147	98-107
18	1100	1.75	1027	3.17	6.14	151	103-112
19	1157	1.84	1092	3.37	6.7	155	108-117
20	1233	1.96	1157	3.57	7.26	159	113-122
21	1309	2.08	1235	3.81	7.82	163	119-128
22	1366	2.17	1300	4.01	8.24	166	124-133
23	1442	2.29	1365	4.21	8.8	170	129-138
24	1499	2.38	1430	4.41	9.36	174	134-143
25	1575	2.5	1508	4.65	9.92	178	140-149

Analysis

Plague Rider has the worst strength gain of all intelligence heroes, low starting strength, and low armor. You are squishy at every point in the game, but Cursed Armor helps mitigate the physical squishiness. Plague Rider's starting intelligence, intelligence gain and Extinguish 2 give him all of the mana he will need throughout the game to utilize all of his skills. At all levels of Plague Carrier, you have enough mana to use both the ultimate and at least 2 Contagion skills with no items. Plague is tied for the highest base move speed in the game ( and ) and 550 attack range coupled with Contagion allows him to get a decent amount of harass. Plague's day and night vision is pretty much the same as all other heroes.

[man_guy]

Skills
Plague Rider has three skills that apply an Infected debuff. Although having the same name, the debuffs are able to be stacked. Attack speed is reduced additively while movement slow is reduced diminishing. All three Infected debuffs can be purged. Plague's skills carry a very long cast time of 1.1 seconds.

Contagion
The Plague Rider instantly afflicts an enemy with a Contagion, damaging and Infecting all nearby enemies.

Action: Target Entity Type: Enemy Units
Type: Magic
Range: 600
Cast Time: 1.1 Seconds
Mana Cost: 125 / 150 / 170 / 190
Cooldown: 9.3 Seconds

Activation
Deals 50 / 100 / 125 / 175 Magic damage to the target and an additional 75 / 100 / 125 / 150 to all enemies within 200 units.

Infected Effects
Applies a 30% Movement Slow and -20 Attack Speed debuff to the target enemy and enemies within 200 AOE of the target lasting 4 seconds.

The combination of Contagion and Extinguish makes Plague Rider extremely good at controlling a lane. You will often be using Contagion followed up by auto attacks on whichever hero in your lane is easier to kill as a means of harass. While chasing, make sure to animation cancel your auto attacks as you have a 1 second backswing.

The AOE component doesn't do enough damage to allow Plague Rider to farm in any reasonable capacity. Contagion should largely be considered a single target spell as the small AOE makes it difficult to hit multiple targets. The AOE component is small enough to be nearly insignificant, but there are a few situations that you can still take advantage of positioning to make use of it. Choke point chasing forces heroes to clump together to slow multiple targets. The AOE component can kill a nearby invisible hero on low life, or slow a hero with a Nullstone.



If a melee hero is being ballsy going for a deny on the last creep in the wave, while his ranged teammate is going to pull, punish his mistake by nuking him. The AOE will net you the last hit on the creep and slow the enemy hero--making them take lots of damage from the creep wave and your auto attacks.

Always use Contagion before Extinguish is ready to make the most efficient use of your mana.

Cursed Armor
Places a Cursed Shield on an ally, granting them increased Armor and causing any melee enemy who attack them to become infected for 2 seconds.

Action: Target Entity Type: Ally Units
Type: Magic
Range: 800
Cast Time: 1.1 Seconds
Mana Cost: 25
Cooldown: 10.0 Seconds

Activation
Applies Cursed Shield to target for 40 seconds.

Cursed Shield Effects
When attacked, applies Infected to melee attacker for two seconds.
3 / 6 / 9 / 12 Armor

Infected Effects
Applies a 30% Movement Slow and -20 Attack Speed debuff to enemy melee auto attackers lasting 2 seconds.

Cursed Armor has cooldowns and durations that enable Plague Rider to spread this buff to up to four allies in preparation of a team fight. The movement slow of Cursed Armor can cripple a melee carry's ability to stay on a target. Cursed Armor will not apply Infected to melee attackers that are magic immune. Keep this in mind when facing a team with Plague Rider if you are melee and rely on your auto attack to deal the majority of your damage. Though magic immunity prevents Infected from applying to the attacker, the increased armor remains on the ally.

Cursed Armor is very effective in mitigating damage from physical based enemies like that have skills that reduce physical armor. At level 12, Plague Rider has 3.76 armor resulting in taking 18.4% reduced physical damage. With Cursed Armor 4, he has 15.76 armor with a 48.6% reduction. Increased armor gives a linear increase in effective health points. http://honwiki.net/wiki/Armor

Base attack speed is 100 and starting attack speed with no items ranges from 109-126. The Infected debuff reduces attack speed by a flat number, so it is far more effective early in the game before anyone has items or levels to raise their attack speed enough to make the debuff insignificant. The attack speed reduction component is most useful against Kongor as he only the base attack speed and does not gain attack speed with higher levels.



The low mana cost and long duration allows you to use Cursed Armor liberally throughout the game. Cursed Armor can be purged off of a target by Nullfire Blade or other sources purge, but given the cooldown, it may not be worth investing in an item to combat this skill. A sneaky little trick you can occasionally pull off is to place Cursed Shield on a creep the moment before a melee hero goes for a last hit.

Extinguish
The Plague Rider ends the life of an allied unit instantly, restoring his own mana. His mount enjoys the snack and feeds off the destruction he caused.

Action: Target Entity Type: Ally Creeps
Type: Magic Transfigure
Range: 400
Cast Time: 1.1 Seconds
Mana Cost: 25
Cooldown: 55.0 / 50.0 / 45.0 / 40.0 Seconds

Activation
Kills the target unit and converts 15 / 30 / 45 / 60% of its current life into mana for the Rider.

Acts as an actual creep deny.

There are several uses for the Extinguish skill. Using Extinguish on your creeps gives you mana, denies the enemy team of creep experience and gold, and controls your lane by moving the creep wave closer to your tower. On the first creep wave of the game (0:30), you can deny a creep in a lane you will not be in (particularly middle) to give that lane an early advantage. Extinguished creeps used to fully deny experience from the enemy, but was changed to give normal denied experience. Enemy melee heroes receive 2 / 3's of a denied creep's experience while ranged heroes receive 1 / 3. It is significant to Extinguish a creep out of the heroes' range to deny the full experience of the creep.



Melee creeps give 62 experience while ranged creeps give 41. When using Extinguish to deny experience from the enemy, target a melee creep. Melee creeps also have nearly twice as much health points, so you get more mana using Extinguish on them as well. However, denying your ranged creep will push your lane farther back since a ranged creep pushes harder by surviving longer than any of the melee creeps in a wave. Mana in excess of your maximum mana is discarded.

Level	Melee Creep Mana	Ranged Creep Mana	Mana Regen Boost (Melee)
1	58	20	1.05
2	140	65	2.8
3	223	110	4.96
4	305	200	7.63

It's important to note that mana returned is based on the current health of the creep, not the maximum health.

The lane control Extinguish affords by both anti-pushing and skewing the experience gap between you and the enemy demands that you skill Extinguish as early as possible.

Plague Carrier
The Plague Rider lets loose a Plague Carrier towards an enemy that mini-stuns the first target it hits. The Carrier deals damage to the target it lands on before traveling to another nearby target. Any enemy hit becomes Infected.

Action: Target Entity Type: Nonstealth Organic Enemy Units
Type: SuperiorMagic
Range: 750
Cast Time: 1.1 Seconds
Mana Cost: 200 / 325 / 500
Cooldown: 145.0 / 115.0 / 60.0 Seconds

Activation
Deals 280 / 370 / 460 Magic damage to the target and mini-stuns the first target it hits, then bounces to another enemy within 600 units. Bounces 7 times.

This ability can be boosted by Staff of the Master.

Staff Effect: Increases damage from {280,370,460} to {370,460,550}.

Infected Effects
Applies a 30% Movement Slow and -20 Attack Speed debuff to the target enemy lasting 4 seconds.

The primary target of Plague Carrier will get mini-stunned instantly and a projectile will follow them until it makes impact or gets disjointed. Disjointing a bounce will result in Plague Carrier attempting to find a new target rather than terminating the projectile. Upon impact, Plague Carrier will lock onto a random target within 600 range of the point of impact. Plague Carrier will continue to travel until it has run out of bounces or cannot find a target. Plague Carrier's projectile basically has unshared flying vision as it bounces through fog, raised elevation, and vision blockers. The projectile travels at max speed (522). Plague Carrier will bounce to any enemy, but invisible enemy heroes, buildings, and gadgets are not valid targets of bounces.

Plague Carrier is a huge team fight skill and will have the other team put priority on killing you before you can get your ultimate off. Plague Carrier is also exceptionally effective in thwarting jungle ganks with easier controlled numbers of non-hero targets. Due to the random nature of the skill selecting where to bounce to, positioning and timing when to use this skill is very important and makes up for having three other fool-proof, targeted skills. Good teams will be wary of your ultimate and keep a good distance apart, ready to separate, when expecting a team fight. You will not always have the luxury of waiting for the perfect opportunity to use your ultimate. In this case, use your ultimate as a single target nuke and hope the bounces hit heroes and not creeps. Creep bounces can ruin an otherwise well placed ultimate. Intentionally use Plague Carrier away from creeps or have your teammates clear them out quickly before you unleash your ultimate. The only time you can control the bounces of Plague Carrier are where there are exactly two valid targets.

Being a superior magic ultimate, Plague Carrier will bounce to magic immune targets and apply the Infected debuff, but will not deal any damage. The primary target gets mini stunned through Shrunken Head. Using Plague Carrier's stun can stop a magic immune enemy from teleporting or from using a powerful channeling skill.

Well placed ultimate
At this exact moment, Magmus has a Portal Key and is starting his ultimate, the other team cannot see us and Plague Rider is moving into range to follow up.

http://img822.imageshack.us/i/ulti1.jpg/

I am letting my ultimate and Contagion go onto Valkyrie as Magmus has just finished his channel and will blink into the enemy team.

http://img87.imageshack.us/i/ulti2.jpg/

The resulting aftermath ends up being a genocide with Bubbles mopping up.

http://img828.imageshack.us/i/ulti3.jpg/

Skill Build

1. Extinguish 1 / Contagion 1
2. Contagion 1 / Extinguish 1 / Cursed Armor 1
3. Contagion 2
4. Extinguish 2 / Cursed Armor 1
5. Contagion 3
6. Plague Carrier 1
7. Contagion 4
8. Cursed Armor 1 / Extinguish 2 / 3
9. Cursed Armor 2 / Extinguish 4
10. Cursed Armor 3 / Cursed Armor 1
11. Plague Carrier 2
12. Cursed Armor 4 / Cursed Armor 2
13. Extinguish 3 / Cursed Armor 3 / Stats
14. Extinguish 4 / Cursed Armor 4 / Stats
15. Stats
16. Plague Carrier 3

Generally, you do not want to spend a skill point until the pre-0:00 adventure is determined. If your team has first blood within reach, an early team fight at during adventure or are laning with someone like Swiftblade, you should take Contagion first without question. Otherwise, most of the time you will be taking Extinguish and deny the first melee creep out of the enemy's experience range. If you are on Hellbourne, you can take Cursed Armor at level 1 to aid in a level 1 Kongor rush. Extinguish's cooldown does not significantly drop with levels, so it does not deny much extra experience from the enemy. At level 4 if you have an enemy melee hero in your lane, you can opt to take Cursed Armor instead of Extinguish 2. It limits your free harass potential, but can give you and your lane mate the edge in an early gank or escape. If you take Cursed Armor at level 4, you can take Extinguish 2 at level 8. Your natural INT gain, Extinguish 2, and Mana Battery / Power Supply should give you enough mana for any skirmish, so stats can be taken over Extinguish 3 and 4.

Alternate Skill Build

1. Contagion 1
2. Cursed Armor 1
3. Contagion 2 / Cursed Armor 2
4. Cursed Armor 2 / Contagion 2
5. Contagion 3 / Cursed Armor 3
6. Plague Carrier 1
7. Contagion 4 / Cursed Armor 4
8. Cursed Armor 3 / Contagion 3
9. Cursed Armor 4 / Contagion 4
10. Extinguish 1
11. Plague Carrier 2
12. Extinguish 2
13. Extinguish 3
14. Extinguish 4
15. Stats
16. Plague Carrier 3

Have not seen this in action, but you would probably use this build to combat a heavy physical damage trilane with something like Andromeda, Pestilence, and another hero or to help a carry that deals damage through increased survivability like Soul Reaper, Electrician, Zephyr, etc. You miss out on the killer mana regeneration from Extinguish, but still have a healthy mana pool without items. By your own judgment, choose to max armor or the nuke first.

[man_guy]

Itemization
Plague Rider is an item independent hero. He is able to fully perform his job with little to no items. For that reason, you are the one that is going to buy the courier, upgrade the courier, and buy wards all game. The key to itemization with support heroes is utilizing your limited inventory slots with the cheapest and most effective items.

Starting Items

Short Lane:
:MinorTotem::MinorTotem:WardOfRevelation / (:ManaPotion::ManaPotion / (:ManaPotion::MinorTotem / (:MinorTotem::MinorTotem
:Courier::HealthPotion::RunesOfTheBlight:

Traditionally, the short lane support buys the courier. You need regeneration in lane and Health Potion and Runes of the Blight are too strong to ignore. Minor Totems are the most cost efficient +stat item in the game. These items take up everything but ~100g and you use your own sense on what you need. A Ward of Revelation can be used to counter ward your pull camp. Being able to pull along with having Extinguish puts your lane at a huge advantage. Extra mana provided by Mana Potions will not hurt even with Extinguish.

Long Lane:
:MinorTotem::MinorTotem:MinorTotem::MinorTotem / (:ManaPotion::MinorTotem / (:ManaPotion::ManaPotion / (:RunesOfTheBlight
:WardOfSight::WardOfSight: :HealthPotion::RunesOfTheBlight:

The long lane items are similar to items in the short. Instead of the courier, you want wards to see the runes and incoming ganks to / from mid and to counter their pull. Extinguish will help pull the creep wave toward your tower, but you may need a tad more survivability since the tower is still further away than in the short lane.

Next items

:FlyingCourier: :ManaBattery: :HomecomingStone: :Marchers: :HealthPotion: :ManaPotion: :WardOfSight: :WardOfRevelation:

Your next item will nearly always be to upgrade the Flying Courier. Your items afterward are a toss up between those shown. What you buy depends on how the game is going. If I am facing a lane of heavy spell spammers, I will delay upgrading the courier to get a Mana Battery ASAP. If another lane is getting ganked often, carrying a TP can save a hero and turn the gank around. If you and your lane mate are facing a lot of harass, purchasing a Health Potion for them can save their money and let them stay in lane.

Warding

By the time 5:30 rolls around, you need to either purchase wards or kill creeps to buy them. It is not important to counter ward at this exact time as the wards the other team placed will also be timing out. If you catch where the enemy renews their wards, you can counter ward then. Half the cost of a counter ward is supported by successfully destroying the enemy team's (orange) vision ward. Be mindful of when your wards will expire as it can be very dangerous to renew wards when you do not have vision of the area you are going into.

The need to have vision of the enemy will never go away and you will need to be buying wards throughout the game. Your natural gold generation (69g / minute) is enough to take care of being able to buy four wards every six minutes. Prior to a planned team fight, I will often buy wards if I cannot finish an item. In the event that I die in that fight, it results in little net gold loss. Warding is a very complicated topic, so I just wanted to lightly cover it and redirect you to something more in-depth.

Mid Game
Support hero items are pretty standard with some flexibility on their 5th and 6th items.

:stri:/:Steamboots:/:PlatedGreaves:/:EnhancedMarchers: :PowerSupply: (:MysticVestments
:WardOfSight: :WardOfRevelation: :HomecomingStone:

Plated Greaves recently had a nice change in removing the recipe. This reduced the cost by 200g, lets you carry a Shield of the Five around combined with boots in one slot and lets you disassemble the item into an Astrolabe to build upgraded boots later. Striders are the most effective support hero boot, but I have found them poor on Plague if you are spamming Cursed Armor on allies you pass when warding / counter warding / etc. Striders will constantly be on cooldown and you will not be benefiting from the increased movespeed while doing this. This downside is not enough to ignore the effectiveness of Striders on support heroes.

Ultimately, your boot choice will follow in line with your team and the enemy hero picks, your playstyle and team strategy. Plated Greaves help with both physical damage mitigation and pushing. Enhanced Marchers are excellent for chasing when ganking someone, but may need additional hit point boosters when running Enhanced Marchers. Steamboots give the highest hit point boost among all of the boots. The fall back boot is to use Striders simply because they will be obtainable on pretty much any game performance. Never prioritize purchasing upgraded boots over wards if you do not have vision of the map.

6th Slot
Your 6th slot is flexible depending on the other team's lineup. Generally it will be inexpensive with small items that are easy to build on a budget. The sixth slot will be a support item or one that gives you enough survivability to get your ultimate off. Many times you will not be able to afford these items until the game is over if you are keeping up with your warding duties. Some of the larger items can be afforded after a few incidental "kill steals" from your ultimate or a successful tower push.

Astrolabe

Astrolabe is the combination of everything a support hero could ask for. The Refreshing Ornament acts as a miniature Fortified Bracelet and the disassembly of Plated Greaves allow you to gradually build this item throughout the game without committing too many slots. All of the components are very inexpensive with the recipe being the only one with some difficulty in obtaining. Plague is one of only a few decent carriers of Astrolabe due to having so much spare mana (the active costs a hefty 150 mana).

2306

• Shield of the Five 803
  
  • Ringmail 550
  • Minor Totem 53
  • Recipe 200
• Refreshing Ornament 603
  
  • Trinket of Restoration 350
  • Minor Totem 53
  • Recipe 200
• Recipe 900

Passive Bonus
+5 Strength
+5 Agility
+5 Intelligence
+5 Armor
+3 Health Regeneration (Aura affecting Allies)
Applies an aura to nearby allied units.

Item Activation Details
Target: Allied Units
Range: 600
Cooldown: 45 seconds
Mana Cost: 150
When activated, restores 250 Health and applies Fortified to nearby allies.

Tablet of Command

Tablet is an amazing support item that allows your team to acquire superior positioning, chase escaping heroes, and stop powerful channeling skills. Tablet is inexpensive and has three easy to build items. This item is back to being a no brainer pickup because of the change back to a Major Totem since it combines utility and survivability through the extra 4 strength into a single slot.

2040

• Major Totem 540
• Neophyte's Book 1000
• Recipe 500

Passive Bonus
+4 Strength
+4 Agility
+14 Intelligence
+10 Damage

Item Activation Details
Target Type: not_rooted_enemy_and_willing_heroes
Range: 800
Cooldown: 16 seconds
Mana Cost: 25
Pushes target hero forward.

Kuldra's Sheepstick

Kuldra's is an expensive item and one you will not make in most games due to its cost and build up. Buy either the Acolyte's Staff or Blessed Orb first as the Mana Tube does not do anything for Plague Rider. You are mainly buying the Acolyte's Staff first due to the high cost and difficulty to obtain farm with Plague since you do not really need the extra mana or attack damage from the +25 INT. Sheepstick is effective against any team composition. Disabling one hero for 3.5 seconds is enough time to take nearly any hero out with focused fire before they are able to retaliate. Any time you can afford Sheepstick, you should make it. The added crowd control is invaluable.

5675

• Acolyte's Staff 2700
• Blessed Orb 2100
• Manatube 875

Passive Bonus
+10 Strength
+10 Agility
+35 Intelligence
+200% Mana Regeneration

Item Activation Details
Target: Enemy Units
Range: 800
Cooldown: 35 seconds
Mana Cost: 100
Applies Transfigured to enemy target for 3.5 seconds.

Barrier Idol

Barrier Idol is great to build against a magic heavy team and has a build up that is easily managed. Refreshing Ornament is a component of both Barrier and Astrolabe and gives you options depending on how the game is progressing. Mystic Vestments provides immediate benefits to the intent of the final item. If you activate Barrier and get your ultimate off in a team fight, dying afterward will not be a huge loss to your team as Barrier does not require you to be alive for the team to benefit after successful activation.

3653

• Shaman's Headdress 2050 | 2225
  
  • Mystic Vestments 400
  • Helm of the Victim 950
  • Trinket of Restoration x 2 350 | Lifetube 875
• Refreshing Ornament 603
  
  • Trinket of Restoration 350
  • Minor Totem 53
  • Recipe 200
• Recipe 1000

Passive Bonus
+2 Strength
+2 Agility
+2 Intelligence
+10 Magic Armor
+10 Health Regeneration

Item Activation Details
Target: Allied Units
Range: 600
Cooldown: 60 seconds
Mana Cost: 100
Gives the holder the ability to summon a Barrier around his allies, absorbing Magic Damage for a short time.
Barrier cannot affect a hero more than once every 50 seconds.

Fortified Bracelet

A staple cheap, single slot item for boosting your health points. This can fill your 6th slot and be sold when you have enough gold for a better item. Rush two of these if you are facing a heavy burst lineup.

510

• Crushing Claws 150
• Pretender's Crown 185
• Recipe 175

Passive Bonus
+6 Strength
+3 Agility
+3 Intelligence

Nome's Wisdom

Nome's Wisdom will give you and your team a small damage shield when dumping your spells and a good boost to your team's resilience. The Major Totem is a good starting item giving +4 all stats while you build Nome's. The +armor aura is strong and makes for a good buy.

2240

• Ring of the Teacher 500
  
  • Scarab 325
  • Guardian Ring 175
• Major Totem 540
• Neophyte's Book 1000
• Nome's Wisdom 200

Passive Bonus
+4 Strength
+4 Agility
+14 Intelligence
+6 Damage
+50% Mana Regeneration
+3 Armor (Aura affecting Allies)
+1 Mana Regeneration (Aura affecting Allies)
Applies an aura to all nearby allies.

Mediocre 6th Items
These items are worth building, but other items will usually do more for your team.

Void Talisman

This will help keep carries off of you. If you get your Plague Carrier and Contagion off it can be more beneficial for their carries to drop you instead of someone else more important on your team. I have regretted purchasing this item in the past on Plague due to the redundancy of utility provided by Cursed Armor, but it is an effective item for support heroes that get focused and is worth mentioning as an option.

1500

Passive Bonus
+7 Strength
+7 Agility
+7 Intelligence

Item Activation Details
Cooldown: 25 seconds
Mana Cost: 0
Renders you immune to attacks and physical effects on use.

Staff of the Master

The build up for Staff of the Master is actually very nice and gives Plague much needed HP to survive a moderate amount of focus to get his ultimate off. Staff of the Master does not reduce cooldowns and only modifies his ultimate by providing extra damage. Other items can provide better survivability.

4300

• Glowstone 1200
• Mighty Blade 1000
• Neophyte's Book 1000
• Recipe 1100

Passive Bonus
+10 Strength
+10 Agility
+10 Intelligence
+200 Max Health
+150 Max Mana

Spellshards

Spellshards deals more damage than SOTM will boost, offers a (small) cooldown reduction that SOTM does not, and boosts Contagion's damage. SOTM however boosts Plague's survivability where Spellshards will give you nothing. Compared to other heroes, Plague only has two spells affected by Spellshards. Always remember that you cannot predict the performance of Plague Carrier when weighing the value of this spell damage boosting item.

2575

• Great Arcana 1575
  
  • Steamstaff 800
  • Apprentice's Robe450
  • Scarab 325
• Recipe 1000

Passive Bonus
+6 Intelligence
+17 Damage
+10 Attack Speed
+75% Mana Regeneration
The wielder's spells ignore 2 of enemy's Magic Armor per level, causing increased magic damage.
After obtaining this item, the recipe may be re-purchased to upgrade it. Can be upgraded two additional times.

Abyssal Skull

Abyssal Skull is good to build if you have a melee carry on your team as the aura provides them the full benefits of the item without having to commit a slot to it themselves. You receive more benefit to yourself by buying Nomes Wisdom.

2050

• Ring of the Teacher 500
  
  • Scarab 325
  • Guardian Ring 175
• Hungry Spirit 900
• Trinket of Restoration 350
• Recipe 300

Passive Bonus
+5 Armor (Aura affecting Allies)
+0.8 Mana Regeneration (Aura affecting Allies)
+15% Lifesteal (Aura affecting Allies)
Applies an aura to all nearby allies. Life Steal only works on melee units.

Restoration Stone

Restoration Stone is a super late game item that lets you unleash two ultimates side-by-side. This is not something you would rush due to needing at least 1300 mana from a combination of Extinguish, stat gains, and items.

5200

• Sustainer 1750
  
  • Lifetube 875
  • Manatube 875
• Arcana 1575
  
  • Steamstaff 800
  • Apprentice's Robe 450
  • Scarab 325
• Recipe 1875

Passive Bonus
+6 Intelligence
+42 Damage
+10 Attack Speed
+5 Health Regeneration
+200% Mana Regeneration

Item Activation Details
Cooldown: 210 seconds
Mana Cost: 300
Upon activation, resets the cooldown of all abilities and items.

Afterword

I covered the items that you would pick up in about 95% of games, but there are highly situational cases where you might pick up Nullfire Blade, Barbed Armor, or Stormspirit, etc. Do not let yourself get caught in a guide's recommendations on an unusual item when it can influence the game more than a typical pickup.

[man_guy]

Team Composition
Plague Rider is not a hero that will be first picked except in drafting modes where hero choices are limited. You generally want to draft Plague Rider later as either a counter pick or because there are more pick worthy heroes that need to go first. Plague Rider fits well into an AOE centric team as it lets Plague Carrier only do hero bounces by destroying creeps quickly. Cursed Armor heavily counters both melee carries and heavy physical damage teams.

Early Game

Plague Rider has a very strong early game. Contagion and Extinguish combine to make you a harassing machine setting up for easy kills on the enemy and burning through their regeneration items to stay in the lane. Generally, you will stay in your lane until level 6 except to TP counter gank, renew wards, or gank mid with a good (haste / invis) rune.

Mid Game

By the time you hit level 6, the lanes have already started to break down and you will either be roaming around setting up ganks, defending / pushing towers with the team, stacking creep camps for your carry, or warding. Plague Carrier is a very strong ultimate at this point when counter items cannot yet be afforded and any counters will lie in the enemy teams' skill sets. With 750 range on your ultimate, try to use it on the hero your team wants to drop the most followed immediately by Contagion on the same hero. Do not be afraid to use your ultimate outside of team fights if it can drop a key hero.

Late Game

Like many support heroes in HoN, Plague Rider drops in effectiveness as the game goes on. Plague does not have a stun like some other supports do, so he cannot do much to the enemy team's carry once he has a Shrunken Head. Plague Carrier, however, will mini stun through magic immunity if your team has no other stuns that break immunity. Barrier Idol nullifies most of your ultimate's damage, but the slow will still go through and Plague Carrier will probably break Barrier's magic buffer on a few heroes. Make sure to spread Cursed Armor to your team's most important heroes prior to engaging in any battle. You cannot apply Cursed Armor to a magic immune teammate.

You can expect to be the main target in team fights in an attempt to take you down before you can get your ultimate off. At this point in the game, the enemy team will have Portal Keys and you will get focused. Stay out of sight and play like a coward until your initiator goes in or you find a good opportunity to let Plague Carrier out.

Lane mates

Plague's 4 second 30% slow with Contagion at all levels lets these heroes stay on the target and benefit greatly from Plague's lane control by being able to free farm the lane. Keep in mind that the hero pairings are not meant to be comprehensive.

Solo laning

There is a recent trend of soloing Plague Rider either to face the other team's solo or to solo against a trilane. As long as you can manage to get levels, it can be a success as your ultimate is highly effective (though still unpredictable) against the enemy team's underleveled trilane. Anticipating a 1v1 solo situation, you would be looking at building 4 minor totems, armor ring, and regen. In a suicide solo lane, you can build the same items in a short lane, but boots first is recommended if you will solo the long lane. Plague's 370 movespeed, good positioning and map awareness allows you to evade certain death. If you manage to purchase an early Astrolabe, it would be wise to take Extinguish to level 3 or 4 compared to support Plague leaving it at 2 as your mana needs are much higher than usual in this case.

Team fight companions

These heroes have skills that limit or eliminate the ability to move to avoid Plague Carrier bounces. Behemoth's Shockwave will destroy the creep wave leaving only heroes to bounce to. Magmus's Eruption will also help destroy the creep wave, but also provide another slow followed by a Lava Surge.


Deserted triggers when an enemy has no allies in proximity. The enemy team has to decide to gather to avoid taking the true damage from Deserted when Mirage goes off or to separate to avoid Plague Carrier.

Worst Enemies

The ability of items and heroes to create secondary, unimportant targets to bounce to greatly diminishes the power of Plague Carrier.


Barrier Idol's spell shield will help mitigate the damage of Plague Carrier, but the slow will still apply to targets.


Not only will he make you unsafe anywhere on the map, his mini stuns from Hellfire will make it impossible to get a spell off due to your long cast times.


All that positive armor you stacked for your team will go to waste from Harkons which turns the enemy's attacks into magic damage and ignores physical armor.


This item will prevent you from using one of your nukes on a particular hero. Try to use a weaker single target spell from a teammate or Tablet to get rid of their Null Stone as your nukes are the majority of your damage. Inside of teamfight or where you are ganking multiple heroes, just target your ultimate on someone that does not have a Null Stone.

Counters

Cursed Armor mitigates a lot of physical damage and hinders melee carries from pursuing a target before they have a Shrunken Head.

Free Win!

Well not really, but any time you can be alone with just Wild Soul and Booboo and your ultimate is ready, he will be an easy kill. Just be aware that Plague Carrier can still bounce to targets (like neutrals) that you cannot see.

[man_guy]

Replays

Match 27057191
top top
mid mid
bot bot
Demonstrates good follow up Plague Carriers after Magmus Eruption. Laning with Swiftblade rather sucked since any attempt at spinning on top of someone would just be followed by a leap out on either target. Stacking because I expect Swift would get a Runed Axe, this helps make up for Swift's poor early game. This game was a little one-sided by the time Magmus got his blink, but the point is to show some proper Plague play.

Match 39880212 Replay GR HCT
top top
mid mid
bot bot
Plague in a solo lane that is allowed to farm. In dominating his lane, he is able to snowball the rest of the game into some good items. Goes a pretty standard build skipping two levels of Extinguish until Cursed Armor is maxed.

*add replay of nova_ playing in a defensive trilane in the short lane when replays are fixed*

Credits

• NomesWisdom for portions of this guide's layout.
• SzpT for writing a ward guide so I didn't have to.
• honwiki having a decent armor / EHP graph to link to.
• Anakha for suggesting the alternate build and giving me the hint to use Extinguish in another lane at the start of the game.

[Gonzobrez]

nice guide

[man_guy]

Anyone?

[Hero_of_Noob]

I play plague a lot and i notice one serious problem: Do not take mana pots swith PR! You have the best mana absoorption spell in the game, why take that? You admit that he is the squishiest early game hero in the game, so why not take extra runes of blight instead of mana pots?

Also, Nomes wisdon is pretty much core on him. Before i even finish boots i try to finish it. Why? Because pr has a skill that has a 9 second cooldown but costs almost 200 mana. This means that PR can efftively heal himself for about 50 health every time he fire contagion, which will be often early game once you get level 2 and 3 exntiguish. Addiotnally, his ult is also very expensive. Point it: lot's of extra little heals that go a long way for PR who will almost never have mana problems anyway.

Also nomes as you said is a great support item, has a sweet buildup and is cheap. The ring of the teacher and major totem are two great early game items for plague. The item is a great aura for your team, and gives nice stats and armor which you really need.

So i would go 1 runes, 1 health pot, 2wards/courier, +2 armor ring (for ring of teacher in lane). Then i finish ring of teacher in lane, then red boots, then major totem, then neophyte book, nomes recpie... and of course plenty of wards in between.

Other than that, nice guide.

[Hero_of_Noob]

Oh and try to get your guide listed in the "list of hero guides" section.

[man_guy]

I play plague a lot and i notice one serious problem: Do not take mana pots swith PR! You have the best mana absoorption spell in the game, why take that? You admit that he is the squishiest early game hero in the game, so why not take extra runes of blight instead of mana pots?

It's not a great mana generation spell until it's skilled to level 2 (usually at level 4) and you want to establish your lane presence before then. On base mana levels, you're looking at two nukes and you're spent. The parenthesis mark optional deviations, so if you don't want to buy them, it's your choice.

[yyr_]

Very nice guide, i was happy you did both skill builds as most people dont realise you can skip the rest of extinguish. The item guide was pretty solid as well.

[man_guy]

Added the movement speed change from 305 to 320.

[man_guy]

Formatted Team Composition and rewrote parts of it. Added Credits section. Looking for replays that either demonstrate Plague as a counter pick to melee heroes in the same lane or just better players than me. I think my provided replay demonstrates how to use Plague in an AOE team well enough.

[[LN]Serris]

Also, Nomes wisdon is pretty much core on him. Before i even finish boots i try to finish it.

If you've got time to finish a Nome's before you get your boots, you're doing it wrong. Unless you're not getting boots before 25 minutes. In which case, you're doing it wrong anyway.

In general, a support hero's items should look like :PowerSupply::HomecomingStone::WardOfSight::WardOf Revelation::stri:/:Steamboots: and one other item. Since all the above items take priority, I'd say offhand that you couldn't complete your sixth item until at least the 15 minute mark.

Maybe I'm wrong. Whenever I go all out on supporting, I tend to be unable to finish anything beyond a :TabletOfCommand: before waaaaaaaay into the late game.

[Anakha]

Needs a mention of a typical Lich skillbuild (121214122) for trilane viability before his Dark Ritual got buffed.

[man_guy]

Added Anakha's trilane build and wrote a better mechanical description for how Plague Carrier behaves.

[[BIFF]`Smidig]

IMO 3 minor totems and courier/wards is the best starting build, then u got the start for astrolabe and plated greaves. when i get my astrolabe done the other team usually concedes xD
If they havn't conceded yet i think staff should been built for + dmg then get spellshards.
But i dont see why tablet is good on PR when he already got slow... If your PR and tries to get away you just slow them and your team will come and assist you. IMO you should never go alone when your PR so i cant see any situation where tablet is better then slow -> kill chasing enemy.

[man_guy]

Tablet lets you mini Portal Key anyone on your team to a more favorable position. I already covered why Staff / Spellshards are undesirable over other items--you cannot predict Plague Carrier's performance for > 2 targets. I would certainly want Sheepstick over them every single game.

[man_guy]

Added a poll as per: http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/sh...d.php?t=227749

[man_guy]

I wanted to make this guide as hero-centric as possible, avoiding depth into topics that I felt are more general to the game and could apply to any similar hero. Am I leaving out too much by following this too tightly? What is missing? Is Plague Rider so devoid of skill to not warrant a guide?

WTB a bone here.