[2.2.4.2] Pollywog Priest

**XtaZ`y** · 05-31-2011, 06:27 AM

For All Teh Frog Lovers,
A guide to
Pollywog Priest

by Xtaz`y / Poire`

This guide was written for a non - casual mode, 5 versus 5 situation, on Forests of Caldavar

Foreword

Hello everyone, and welcome to my guide to one of the most underused Hero in Heroes of Newerth : Pollywog Priest. This is my second guide submitted in these forums, so I hope to bring you quality content, which you'll hopefully help me improve by your comments and suggestions.

As for myself, I am an all-around player, sitting around the 1800 PSR/MMR mark solo, and mentoring for Clan LRN to help out new players with this unforgiving but so awesome game we all learnt to love. I am most used to playing gankers/initiators, but can play every role at a decent level, and I particularly love to play this teal frog. So without any further notice, let's make the presentations, and jump into the guide so that you can become TEH annoying Di*khead of the game you're in !

O - Table of content

I - Hero's Basic informations

I - a) Basic stats, background information and analysis
I - b) Abilities
I - c) Pros & Cons

II - Gameplay

II - a) Where to lane ?
II - b) Skill builds
II - c) Item builds

Starting items
Pre-core
Core items
Luxury and situationnal items
Items to avoid

II - d) What should you be doing ?

Laning
Ganking
Pushing
Teamfights

III - Drafting, Good allies, Worse foes

III - a) Drafting
III - b) Good allies
III - c) Worse foes

IV - Conclusion

V - Replays

VI - Changelog

VII - Credits and useful links

VIII - Frequently asked questions

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I - Hero's basic information

I - a) Basic stats, background information and analysis

Background

For centuries, every great Frog of the marsh people has wielded both political and magical power as the chief priest of the Wild Cults. Called upon by his Beast brethren in this time of war, the Pollywog Priest has come forth to use those powers in defense of his people, and Newerth itself.

Pollywog Priest is a direct hero port from DotA hero : Rhasta, Shadow Shaman.

Basic stats

Analysis

From these basic stats the first thing that comes to mind is his squishyness. Poor movement speed, no escape mechanism, crappy armor and low Agility gain, low strength and strength gains makes you a vulnerable target early game. Hopefully, your spells make up for it, as we'll see in the next section.

Concerning the last-hitting, with the range, the base damage and the intelligence gain of Polly, you shouldn't have much trouble last-hitting, especially with Electric Jolt.

Concerning the harassment wars you will be fighting, taking into account your squishyness, you should try to use your range at its full effectivness. You should especially focus on animation-cancelling, in order to hit-and-run for last-hits and harass, to avoid retaliation.

In conclusion, Pollywog Priest looks like an average ranged caster, nothing to be really excited about. Notice the use of the word looks, because what makes this hero, are his spells.

I - b) Abilities

And here comes the interesting part. What can 'dis Frog do to its foes ?

Electric Jolt

Spell description

Pollywog priest electrifies a target unit and some of the units near it, dealing damage to each.

Analysis

This is your bread-and-butter. This skill does everything you want a skill to do, except Crowd-Control. It's spammable, hits several units, deals a good chunk of damage, to units that can be VERY far away. It's good for farming, it's good harassing, it's good to finish off fleeing heroes (if he's too far and creeps just spawned, jolt and see what happens, results in pretty funny kills from time to time). This is the reason why you'll want to max this spell first, more on this later on.

Morph

Spell description

Pollywog Priest briefly transforms an enemy into a bullfrog, rendering it unable to attack or cast spells for the duration, if cast on an illusion, the illusion will be instantly killed.

Analysis

This is pretty self-explanatory: transforms a target enemy unit into a frog, he cannot cast spells, use items or attack for the duration. And he is slowed to 100ms.
NOTE: This is base movement speed, so speed buffs will still be applied (e.g if the unit has a haste rune activated, it will still have 522ms, so be careful, Morph the right target). In one word, it's one of the best crowd-control spells (along with Witch Slayer's Miniaturize).
Moreover, this spell has an excellent synergy with Polly's ultimate.

Tongue Tied

Spell description

Pollywog Priest holds an enemy unit with his tongue, preventing it from moving, attacking, casting spells or using items. The Tongue causes Magic Damage over time to the target enemy.

Analysis

Your second crowd-control spell. It lasts longer than Morph at all levels, but it's a channeling spell, so you cannot move, attack, use spells without interrupting the tongue tied. This skill is a very strong ganking tool, but you need to have a teammate with you to deal significant damage to the target (the tongue tied does roughly 30 magic damage after base magic armor per second, so around 140 damage total after armor). Less versatile than morph, but stronger in some situations.

VOODOO WARDS (ULTIMATE)

Spell description

Pollywog Priest summons several controllable Voodoo Wards at a desired location. The wards will attack nearby enemies. With lasers.

Analysis

Another very powerful and versatile spell, but needs a bit of practice to be used at its full effectiveness. It can be used defensively to protect an area (towers, raxxes, Kongor pit, clutch areas of the map), cut the enemy's reinforcements paths, a very dissuasive tool, which you will use as an offensive one in most cases. As the wards deal physical damage, it can be used to push towers / raxxes very effectively, kill enemies faster (these wards deals an INSANE amount of damage till the end of the mid game phase to enemy heroes).

NOTE n°1: You can trap people INTO the wards by clicking on where the enemy will be when you cast the spell. Doing this will force them to attack the wards to get out, thus increasing the time they spend near the wards. It requires (quite) a bit of practice to master, but by doing this you can disable up to THREE enemy heroes ALONE. Usually, you need to destroy 2 wards to get out of a trap, but many factors comes into play (wards destroyed, size of the hero, blocked against trees / Path blocking spells etc)
NOTE n°2: The wards cannot move (!!). This may sound stupid, but it is pretty easy to waste this ultimate, by missing a ward-trap, or missing your CC combo after the wards cast, allowing your enemy to buy the distance to run away. This is why I suggest you to use Morph first, which will also help you to ward-trap your opponent easier, land the wards, use Tongue tied to keep him in place near the wards, and eventually finish him with Electric Jolt if need be.
NOTE n°3: The wards combos extremely well with path blocking spells like Behemoth fissure stun and CC ultimates like Chronos, always think about how can your allies help you set good ultimates, and what can your opponents do to scr*w you up (Andromeda's swap says hai).
NOTE n°4: the wards give a 35 to 40 gold bounty, so avoid getting them killed by enemy heroes with long range (Flint), as it can give them up to around 300 gold.

I - c) Pros & Cons

So what can we get out of all these informations?

First of all the positive aspects:

Polly has two strong Crowd-control spells, which can allow you to turn-around incoming ganks in an unexpected manner (3 people ganking me ? NP, I kill 2, wound the last, and run away, E Z).
Ability to disable / prevent from moving up to three enemies for roughly 4 seconds.
AoE damage between Electric Jolt and Voodoo Wards
Good ganking ability between his CC and burst damage
Excellent pushing potential with Voodoo Wards
Scales well into end-game (CC ability are increasingly useful against enemy carries / disablers / Nukers and wards deals a great amount of damage, which becomes less powerful when the game clock reaches ~40/45mins, basically when the enemy team starts stacking armor).

Now the downsides:

Overall squishyness which is a problem ranging from unexistant to I'm useless in teamfights, depending on the team compositions, your item and skill build, your positionning and your map awareness.
Positionning: Polly requires excellent positionning to be used at its full potential. Most of his spells have short ranges, which places you in the danger zone more often than you would like.
Own vulnerability to CC abilities (cancels tongue tied, prevents you from combo-ing your spells)
Once you casted all your spells, you're basically naked, for at least 5 seconds. Think about it in teamfights, you have a very strong presence for 5 seconds at the beginning of a teamfight, then you have to wait another 5 or 6 seconds before being able to cast a spell, and trust me, when your name is Pollywog Priest, you don't like these kind of situations.
Hard to play. I'm sorry, but it's true. This hero has several advantages and drawbacks, but for this one, it's all up to you. Wanna play Polly properly ? Practice, practice, and practice again. Why do you think [MSI]N0tail lands 95% of his wardtraps ? Aimbot ? Practice ? In most cases you'll cast your ultimate a second too late, taking a stun in your head and dying before using your other abilities, or a second too early allowing the enemy to run away. You'll come in too late for a tower defense, make solo pushes and get solo killed, die to misjudged fights. You need practice to know when/where/what/how you should be doing, what can you do, and can't do.
Needs some kind of farm to be truly useful (AT LEAST levels).

So, are you guys still with me ? I hope so ^_^'
Game on for....

II - Gameplay

In this section, I will try to cover the main aspects of Pollywog Priest's gameplay, from the different item and skill builds, to what you should be doing throughout the game.

II - a) Skill builds

Basically, there is a lot of ways to build Pollywog Priest. His versatility allows him to do a lot of things pretty well, however I will only present two of them, that will be qualified as the good one, and the bad one. The good one is supposed to be used when your team picked decently, understanding Polly's roles and strengths. The bad one is to be used when you're stuck in a trilane, or in the short lane with your ima-carry type-of-guy who instapicked instareadied Swiftblade, who's probably 8 years old, and clueless about what's a team game. But hey, what's done is done, sh*t happens, so deal with it, and move on to the game. However, always remember to ADAPT your build to your team, don't be stubborn, make the best out of what you and your team has.

Teh good skill build

Reasoning

Electric Jolt is your main harassing and farming tool, so you max it out first. Getting Morph or Tongue Tied at level 2 and 4 can be switched up. BUT you need to have both skill at level 4, 1 point in each, as it increases your CC ability, and allows you to use the appropriate one in a given situation. And you need to have both of them skilled before level 6, so that once you got your ultimate, if you play your game properly, you land yourself a hero or a tower kill, or both, every 100 seconds. Morph is more useful in a 1v1 situation, Tongue Tied is stronger if you have a lane mate. However, Morph's versatility makes it a stronger choice to max out first, as Tongue Tied is weaker for solo ganks and can be cancelled by stuns and silences, so less reliable.

Teh bad skill build

Reasoning

In the crappy situation you're stuck in (baby-sitting or worse, a trilane), you shouldn't get farm, nor levels. So Electric Jolt is deadweight, you might even want to replace all the early points in it by stats, only taking the Electric Jolt at level 22 - 25. Thus you should max out your two CC abilities first, maxing out Morph over Tongue Tied for the reasons mentionned above. Level your ultimate every time you have the occasion, and there you go.

II - b) Item builds

Polly's versatility is shown by all the different items you will want to get, depending on the situation, what your team wants to do, and how you can help them to achieve the goals you fixed yourselves at the beginning of the game. I will start by describing the starting items, as they will be similar, the builds evolving at the Core Items.

Starting items

Assuming your heading towards the mid lane, that your team got courier and wards, your items should look like this:

This leaves you with 247 gold, cheap stats (+5 INT, +2 STR +2 AGI for 256g) and cheap regen, so that you can last-hit and withstand the enemy's harass until you get your bottle (which should happen before the 2:00 minute mark if you didn't mess up). Another way to start is to get 2xminor totems, 2x mark of the novice, runes of blight and a health pot, if you need the extra stats to last-hit against annoying heroes like DR with higher base damage and a better attack animation.

If your team didn't buy wards, well buy them for yourself, but tell them (and it's true if the enemy had wards bought by his allies) that the enemy's mid starts with an advantage. Your items should look like this:

x2

x3

Again, same reasoning: cheap stats, cheap regen (added runes of blight, because as you have less gold left, your bottle will have to wait longer, so you'll need more regen. Feel free to replace it by Health pot if you prefer, or by a couple of minor totems if you feel confident in the match-up you think you'll be having mid).

Assuming your heading to a sidelane, you should be buying the courier if you're going to the short lane, or a couple of wards if you're going long lane. Might even want to grab a ward of reveal if your heading short lane, and you think there is a high chance of having your pull camp warded. Your items should look like this:

x2

OR

**XtaZ`y** · 05-31-2011, 06:29 AM

Pre-core items

So, you started laning, farming creeps and harassing your opponent, but you're slowly getting out of regen, and you see your gold at a satisfying point (hopefully ). But what to buy next ?

As for every hero, you want to get sustainable but cheap regen (even more important for you, as you have 4 mana heavy spells, with small cooldowns), minor stats and mobility. Lets go over the items that you can / should get depending on the lane you are in:

: The first thing you want to grab if you're on the middle lane. With your Electric Jolt you should be able to control the lane in order to get the runes to refill your bottle (I suggest you to read the "rune control" part of my middle gameplay guide). This item gives you an amazing regen for a small cost, as well as better rune effectiveness. If your on a sidelane it's up to you, you can skip it, but you'll be moving around a lot during the early-to-mid game, so feel free to grab one if it's not crippling your mid player.

/

: A must have, on any hero, always. Cheap stats, sustainable, bursty regen of both HP and MP. Grab it as soon as possible if you're facing spamming heroes like thunderbringer, armadon, chipper, bombardier, moraxus to counter their harass.

: All heroes needs this cheap mobility early on. Gives you an amazing harassing and chasing advantage over enemies who don't have them yet, abuse this.

: Excellent item, solo laning or not. Gives a lot for a ridiculous price (I suggest you check out MOBAKing's RotT short item guide for further information). Fits very well for Polly as it increases his lane control and pushing power. And it builds into :NomesWisdom:.

/

: Cheap stats if you're struggling. Usually I go for the Talisman, as I already have a Mark of the novice, but you can do any of them, or both, or none, depending on your farm, and the stats you need. Due to recent patch changes, they build into astrolabe and ring of sorcery respectively, two strong items to reinforce a pushing line-up.

Homecoming stone: Best item of the game post-6 minute mark. Always have AT LEAST one in your inventory. ALWAYS. Period.

So, the game is slowly moving to the early-to-mid game phase, and your inventory will look like this most of the time: (at least that's my case)
What now ? Usually (if not always) you'll want to get your upgraded boots by this point. But which one to chose ?

: My personnal preference on Polly. TEH solution for mobility. Makes up for your poor movement speed. Saves an item slot. Allows to jump from lane to lane every 60 seconds, should it be to farm, to gank or to push. All this while dodging any forms of sight (except if your enemy's are warding lanes). It's the boots to attract all the attention to you, as you'll literally be everywhere. Your carry says thanks !

: The boots for survivability. Gives you extra MP, HP, or allows you to get more regen from your bottle by switching to AGI, these boots are a very good choice if you don't have the patience to farm for Post Haste. Makes up a bit for your squishyness, but in most cases 190 extra HP's won't save you, so don't count on it.

I won't recommand getting either :PlatedGreaves::stri::EnhancedMarchers:, as they bring either mobility out of combat (read won't keep you alive), either mobility and +24 damage (read nothing), or armor and a buff to your creeps (read get this only if your team is revolving around pushing and no one is getting them). Plated Greaves are a viable choice if the enemy team is relying heavily on physical DPS though getting them can provide you with handy movespeed, armor and minor stats in between.

There we go, we got our Pre-Core items completed, you started moving around ganking an pushing. Your gold is increasing, so let's get to your...

Core Items

Here I will mention the three items I consider core on Pollywog Priest. This is the cookie-cutter build, as you can't mess up doing it. However in some situations you'll want to build yourself in a more push oriented, get CC items faster, or useful items like tablet because a pharaoh is wrecking havoc.

: This item does pretty much everything you want. Good stats, decent mana regeneration (which you'll need to use your mana heavy spells), and good survivability with the shield/heal it provides when you use a spell. All this for a cheap price with an easy build-up. Oh, and all your allies benefits from the different auras. I pick it up 90% of the time as my first core item. Feel free to skip it if you want to have another core item faster, but you'll have mana problems and don't underestimate the survivability this item provides.

: gives you survivability and magic immunity. With this item your squishyness is not a problem anymore until the 40/50 minute mark. It allows you to survive easier after your first wave of spells, allows you to channel Tongue Tied for the full duration (enemy carries are going to hate you). Very useful against a team with a lot of CC and/or magic burst damage.
NOTE: It can be activated during Tongue Tied channeling without interrupting it.

: The mobility solution. Allows you to escape ganks, chase enemy heroes, and even initiate teamfights with perfect positionning and without being interrupted if you have a Shrunken Head. The first core item I get after Nome's in most cases, switching with Shrunken Head if need be.

With these three items and your post haste, bottle and power supply you should be able to do pretty everything you need to without being interrupted and without having to worry about positionning or mana issues.

Luxury and situationnal items

: Right after my core I usually get one of the three as soon as possible. Stormspirit combo's well with your ultimate (it becomes impossible to miss a ward trap with it), and counters some annoying heroes for a very cheap price (Chronos under sphere, Predator after a stone hide leap, cycloning the target of panda's ultimate, dodging hammerstorm's stun for example). Hellflower is useful against annoying blinkers and some passive abilities (Vindicator says "hai"). Sheepstick transforms you into the enemy's carry nightmare.

/

: Staff of the master provides you with survivability, a bigger mana pool and improves your ultimate by nearly 40%. In the current metagame, revolving around push a lot, you might even want to rush staff. Having restoration stone will allow you to cast your ultimate twice, but for an AMAZINGLY HIGH mana cost at level 3 (2*600 + 300 = 1500 mana). Don't expect to pull this combo often, but it's pretty devastating. Having both transforms you into the backdooring king (Drop the double ulti, PK out and use Post haste to go back to safety, you just destroyed the base tower and two raxxes if they don't port in the 4/5seconds). I usually don't go for these luxuries in most cases, as they are decisive in already won games. However this kind of backdooring can win lost games, so keep it in mind.

: Extremely situationnal item, but you might want to pick it up instead of nome's wisdom if you are facing one or several heroes that are totally countered by a tablet (Pharoh, channeling spells, Behemoth stun, rampage ultimate and so on). It provides cheap survivability, some mana, and the versatility of the TeH push stick.

: All these have auras and/or activated abilities useful in different occasions, so you might want to get one for your team, either to increase your team synergy (Push strat, physical dps line-up, AoE team synergy), either to counter the enemy's strengths (Barrier idol against magic AoE / Breastplate and Frostfield against right click carries).

: Situationnal but always OH so powerful. Survivability, mana, it increases your ganking (lv 3 Pbox minions and 8.25s of CC, 'nuff said) and pushing potential, gives true sight for counter-warding (thus increasing your team's map advantage) and/or countering stealthed enemies. If your team is build around pushing and no one is getting it, you should definitely work on it as soon as possible. And get it to level 3 for christ sake.

: Farmed carry with a Shrunken head? A Predator on the enemy team? Activate Void and run away !

Fun build

Want to relax, so you played a Casual Mode game, or you're having dominating farm and you want to do something stupid ? Here's a couple of items that works well together, are unusual on Polly, and transforms you into an amazing physical DPS hero (Don't do this if you're playing seriously ^^)

: -10 armor so that your pack of Voodoo wards hit like a truck

: Initiation tool. +120 damage on your opening attack, placing the Shieldbreaker debuff. Morph, ward trap, tongue tied --> Profit !

Items to Avoid

Here are the things you don't want to get, in any situation.

II - c) What should you be doing ?

Laning

As you might have guessed from what I said in the first part of this guide, I highly recommend on laning Pollywog Priest as a solo hero. His ganking and pushing spells benefiting from the middle lane mobility, this is where you should aim at sending your Frog.

However, in some cases, you won't be able to send him mid (for various reasons, should it be you playing Single Draft and having a Soulstealer on your team, or Polly being the closest thing to a baby-sitter for the guy who insta-picked Swiftblade in your hero pool). Don't despair, he's a good laner as well.

Reasons to send him to the long lane:

Creeps are close to the tower, allowing you to push it easier / faster
Usually there's the main farmer of the enemy team on this lane, so with your CC and nuke abilities you should be able to slow his farm quite a bit.
Even better if they have a jungler
Good ganking path to the middle lane if you know how to dodge the different rune wards

Reasons to send him to the short lane:

You're the closest thing to a baby-sitter for the guy who insta-picked a carry like Swiftblade.

Reasons to send him in a trilane:

None, get rid of the guy who picked your team.

If you're laning mid:

Estimate the match-up you're facing. Do you have the advantage? Does he/Do them ? What would you need to win this lane if you're at a disadvantage ? In most cases you should have the upper hand concerning the harassment and the last-hitting. Your Electric Jolt is amazing for this. Be wary of hard nukers like Thunderbringer, Pyromancer, Chipper because of your overall squishyness, but melee nukers like Pebbles shouldn't be a real problem, as you have the time to cast Morph when you see the initiation coming. In a 1v2 situation, if you feel you're at a disadvantage, call for a gank from one or two allies, once you're level 3 or 4, this should net you one or two kills, a bit less than a minute of free farm, and a good level advantage allowing you to face the 1v2 situation with confidence.
However you should really focus on farming your pre-core items as soon as possible. Attack several creeps to get them at Jolt's nuking point, use it to farm, try to hit the enemy hero at the same time if possible. You should have sufficient lane control to get every single rune if he doesn't ask his teammates to camp runes for him. Against certain heroes (like Soulstealer for example), play all-out agressive, as you need to prevent them from farming (and SS creep nuking power outclasses yours, so if you want to win this lane, you got to kill him. Don't worry, don't eat too much hands and you'll be able to kill him pretty easily). They must FEAR you. Once you hit 6, estimate whether you can push the mid tower (easy against any ganking type hero, hard against any carry that will sit in the lane forever). If you can do so, if you cannot, go to a sidelane, gank, and try to push the tower if possible. Don't hesitate to towerdive if you have your ultimate.

If you're laning long lane:

Again estimate the match-up, whether or not you should be agressive or waiting for an initiation to counter. Will they be able to defend the tower. Do they have a jungler ? If so you should play over agressive, force him out of the lane or get a kill, push the tower, ward the jungle and kill that jungler. If your mid needs a gank, and you're level 4 go for it, your CC should be enough to ensure a kill, even with tp's from his allies.
Once level 4 always carry a homecoming stone, as with your 150 damage nuke and your two CC you're an amazing counter-ganker, especially if you see them towerdive.

If you're laning short lane:

As a baby sitter, you should focus on harassing the opponents and leaving the farm to the carry. If you're laning with a hero like swiftblade, use the bad skill build to get as much kills as possible during the laning phase: Morph one, tongue tie the other and watch him / them die. Be careful at exectuting this fast if they have a 2x stun lane, as you need to use tongue tied as fast as possible after the morph, in order to get enough damage before the morphed one will be able to stun you.
If you're laning with a hero with low lane presence (Sand wraith says "hai"), go for the good build, as you'll be doing the harass alone, so you need every bit of damage you can get. Call for ganks if you're facing a hard lane (2x range, magmus/pyro combination etc), and pray to play better than your opponents.
As a support you should stack and pull the pull camp regularly, letting it for your carry and tanking the creeps to protect your tower. However, remember to keep a good chunk of HP's. If you're not able to harass, you'll lose the lane.

As usual, the most important point of the laning phase is focus. Focus on your last-hitting/denying/harassing, focus on miss calls, incoming ganks, check your minimap after EVERY SINGLE LAST-HIT so that you have a clear idea of who's doing what and where.

By the end of laning, you should have your pre-core item done (except if you're in the short lane, in this case striders, mana battery, couple of totems and wards are fine), eventually your upgraded boots if you did extremely well. In the middle lane,being around the 400gpm at the 10th minute mark happens more often than you'd think

.

Ganking

So you started moving around. But on which heroes should you focus your attention?

In most cases it will be their main carry, as the enemy team will have focused on giving him the most farm during the laning phase, and now shifting their attention to your current successful heroes.
Another priority focus will be their teamfight initiator, who hopefully doesn't have his core items. A behemoth solo farming his Portal Key in a lane ? Gank him. The longer he has to farm to get it, the longer your team has the upper hand in teamfights, the weaker they are in counter-ganks and defense matters.

So what should you do in a ganking situation, assuming you got all your spells ready to use ?

First of all, communication. Talk to your teammates, let them know that you are coming, who you are targetting, and make sure that they are ready to follow you. Voice-chat, minimap pings and typing are the tools at your disposal, so make use of them. I don't want to see a failed gank with the following teamchat:
"gg follow up guys, rly..."
-"maybe tell us you're ganking? / look at where we were, we couldn't follow retard"
-"look at your minimap 'tard.. jeez hate to play with nubs" etc etc...
Next in line, positionning. Pollywog Priest relies on positionning a lot because of his spells range. Thus you want to come as close as possible to your enemies, without being spotted. Use trees and fog of war to do so.
Once the gank starts, use Morph first, on the second priority target, or on a strong disabler or a hero with counter-initiation tools (such as Behemoth fissure stun). By doing this, you prevent this hero from helping his other teammate, the main target of the gank. Drop your ultimate to ward trap the main target if possible, or at least block his pathing or his backing route. As soon as you drop your ulti, Tongue Tie him, micro the Voodoo Wards to attack him, and once the Tongue Tie finishes, use your electric Jolt (the best way to do this is to queue your spell, by holding Shift and using Electric Jolt on the target) to finish him if need be, or leave the kill to one of your teammate who needs it more. However, don't miss him, so don't hesitate to take the kill if you're not sure that your teammate will be able to take the kill. Try to finish the other target as well, but don't put yourself in unnecessary trouble.
Another way to do it, to ensure a kill, is to use Morph on the target n°1, to help you wardtrap him, and Tongue Tie him if his surrounding teammate(s) don't have spells to cancel your Tongue Tied.
Last but not least, use your spells on the right targets, in the right order. You'll realise pretty quickly that it's the key of successful ganks with Polly, and this only comes with practice, practice and practice again. The same goes for Ward-trapping. Seems easy, but needs time to master, and you need to predict where your opponent will be running to surround him properly.

Pushing

Not much to say there, apart from a few common mistakes to avoid, your ultimate being really powerful.

Don't surround towers. They won't go away, I promise, so why surround them? Couldn't you place your ultimate better? Block a jungle path wih it (for the top tier 1 tower of Hellbourne or bot tier 1 tower of Legion for example)?
Don't put it in front of your creeps. Why? Simply because creeps will come and attack the first thing they see, your wards in this case, who are pretty squishy targets, and it makes them vulnerable to ranged enemy heroes. The only reason you might want to place your wards ahead of your creeps is that you are sure to get the tower kill with your current firepower, and want to scare the enemy heroes, preventing them from denying the tower. I wouldn't advise using this often though, as it's some sort of a wasted ultimate.
Don't micro your wards to attack a hero or the tower directly. Why? Because it will shift the tower's attention to your wards, and will start destroying them, and a tower destroys a pack of wards pretty fast. Let them attack the creeps (one or two salvos to destroy the majority of a creepwave paired with Electric Jolt), they will switch to the tower by themselves, and the tower will attack the creeps. So far so good.
Creep awareness. Don't drop your wards if there's only one of your creep left, and the next creepwave is far behind, you're wasting your ultimate.

Teamfights

At this point, you hopefully completed some of your core items and it's in these situations that they will come into effect.
Assuming your team got a strong initiator (Behemoth, Magmus, Pharaoh, Bubbles etc), wait for him to go in, and follow him as fast as you can. If your team doesn't, then it's your job.
In both cases, you should be doing the following:

Activate your Shrunken Head (will prevent you from being interrupted during initiation)
Portal Key in and drop your ultimate. That's a VERY important part: don't SCREW UP your wards position, as they are one of your team main source of damage for a long time. The ideal situation would be to ward trap an important enemy without an escape mechanism in it (Melee carry is perfect). Feel free to use your Morph or your Stormspirit/Kuldra Sheepstick in order to do so.
Use your CC items if they are still off cooldown, on important targets (in the order of importance: counter-initiators / initiators, carries, disablers, strong nukers, support).
Tongue Tie another target (try to use the order of importance as much as possible, but hey, at this point anything will do)
Once your Tongue Tie finishes, Electric Jolt
If the fight isn't over yet, your Morph should be up again in a couple of seconds, rinse and repeat

If you manage to do this smoothly every teamfight, you should win pretty soon, or at least you can't do much better for yourself. Now I guess you see the importance of the two core items that Shrunken Head and Portal Key are.

This covers pretty much everything you need to know and do on the overall gameplay. Now let's see what heroes pairs well with you, and which ones are your nemesis, and focus on an important part in every game...

**XtaZ`y** · 05-31-2011, 06:30 AM

III - Drafting, Good Allies, Worse Foes

III - a) Drafting

As you should know, picking is a VERY important aspect of the game. So, let's not lose a game from the start, am-i-right ?
One of the most common mistake people make on the Pollywog is to think that Polly is a support. It's true after all, INT = support. Everybody knows this. Moreover, Polly has 2 CC abilities, so he's like myrmidon, a fishy style hero, with good disables, but destined to be the ward wh*re and die repeatedly whenever he comes across someone on his own. Or wait... does that makes Puppet Master a support ?
Now let's think up a bit, and get out of this "newb-frame-of-mind":

Support = low levels, low farm.
Low levels for polly = Poor CC abilities, or one CC ability and one nuke, late ultimate (and thus losing its effectiveness)
Low farm for polly = he can't address his innate problems with items

So, he's gonna be one of your team farmers, possibly in a solo lane so that he can have a snowball effect with early level advantage.

Basically, Polly is very versatile, can do a lot of things very good, fits into a good amound of line-ups, but is also a solid addition to dedicated strategies (push strat, turtling strats, ganking strats and so on). But remember, picking him and planning to run him as a support is a waste of a hero.

III - b) Good Allies

Usually most stunners and initiators are good paired with Polly, but these are simply amazing. With their initiation and stuns (Fissure stun, Mummies, Release the Kraken and Kelp Field) they can keep the enemy team in place for quite a long time, which makes your ultimate even stronger. Cherry on the cake, Kraken has - armor as well.

Your ultimate being physical, - armor is very nifty. Moreover you benefit from Pestilence initiation, and Soulstealer benefits from your crowd-control to land perfect ultimates in ganks / teamfights. And picking Andromeda prevents the other team from getting it, you'll love this when reading the next section

Strong pushers for a strong push strategy. Moreover some of them are junglers, allowing heroes Slither or Polly to solo for example. Not used very often, but powerful in this aspect, as people won't be prepared for it.

III - c) Worse Foes

: Aweful guy to play against. His aura will screw you up all game long, his ultimate will either prevent you from comboing your spells, either prevent your allies from following the initiation. In teamfights this guy is your main target, use Morph on him IMMEDIATELY (as it perplexes and thus shutting down his aura for 4 seconds). One of the rare cases I get a Hellflower on Polly (along with DR / Hag, farmed Armadon sometimes). If he uses his ultimate, activate your shrunken to be able to use spells. Might even want to get a nullstone, but only if the vindicator plays EXTREMELY well.

: TEH support you don't want to face. Her swap will save her allies all game long from ward traps (:TabletOfCommand: for the same matter is a big probelm), she got a stun to interrupt your Tongue Tied or your initiation, and her aurora drops your armor to around 1 or 2 if you didn't go for Plated Greaves or Nome's Wisdom.

: Usually any sort of long CC (Electrician says Hai) is a pain because of your squishyness, but these three are either superior magic or physical, so your screwed anyways. Moreover they can disrupt your intiation under Shrunken head.

: Armor is annoying as your main source of DPS is physical, and doesn't scale. Demented Shaman is REALLY a pain because he will keep the people you're trying to kill alive for ever.

: Once again, your a caster, so any farmed carry with a :ShrunkenHead: will eat you alive. Once again, don't let them jump on you. A solution if your initiation is weaker than the enemy team's, get a Void talisman if you feel that tablet won't be enough to save you.

IV - Conclusion

And this finishes my guide on Pollywog Priest. It's a bit long, I know. But there's quite a few things to cover, so I tried to be as exhaustive and easy to read as possible. I hope you guys enjoyed it, and are willing to try this kewl looking teal Frog. He's very entertaining to play, and very rewarding as well.

I would really appreciate you taking a couple of mins to use the box below and leave your impressions, comments, feedbacks, things to add, change, remove. I would appreciate it even more if it's constructive criticism, or simply more than "guide sucks" or "man you're so awesome love Polly NAOOOOWWWW"

On a last note, remember that the key in most games is being able to adapt to your team and to the other team. You can't have middle ? Suck it up and act accordingly, sit that carry in the short lane. A pharaoh is totally tearing your team apart ? forget this portal key for now and get a tablet. I could go on and on, but you get it. Keep up your team's spirit, don't flame your teammates, try to help people who're not familiar with the game, most games are lost on poor team's spirit, so don't participate in ruining it.

Anyways, Good Luck & Have fun playin' with TeH frog, Peace,

Xtaz`y / Poire`

V - Replays

Quite a lot of pro-players picked up Polly recently, so you should be able to find a lot of replays easily, here are my favorite Polly players: N0tail, Chu, Isaacjewton and H4nn1. Meanwhile, there's three replays illustrating this guide pretty well:

Match 40633715: A match between Fnatic MSI and Phenomenal Boys, with N0tail on Pollywog Priest facing Scandal on Soulstealer mid. A good replay of one of (if not TeH) the best Pollywog Priest players. Gives a good idea of what this frog is capable of

Match 42351482: A match I just played, just an average 1650/1700 TMM. I'm facing a Corrupted Disciple mid. In this replay I have a very good early and mid game, managing a 350/400gpm farm pretty fast (and sustained throughout the entire game), but our scout was trolling with Hellflower, which eventually lead us to lose the game. Gives an idea of why pick post haste on Polly and make your presence felt.

Match 52285190: 1700 TMM again, but this one illustrates polly's pushing power and the gold advantage it can give to your team (580gpm in 15mins for me

)

VI - Changelog

31/05/2011: Indenting and minor changes (Thanks Jezu). Added FaQ section (one question so far)
07/06/2011: Added replays
16/07/2011: Added a couple of screenshots for abilities
06/10/2011: Added some other screenshots, updated the guide for the latest version 2.2.1.2.

VII - Credits & Further Links

To you reader, for taking the time to read me, and hopefully help me improve this guide for the community
To Nomeswisdom's Guide Guide for all the formatting and different tools it provides for guides (Thanks to you and Notepad++, this guide's code is more neat than the previous ones )
To Mom who gave me birth
To Jezu for his thorough reading and feedbacks, pointing out how bad I know Blood Chalice, and how bad I am at english grammar

VIII - Frequently asked Questions

Q ) "No mention of blood chalice ?"
A ) On a general note it's an item I hate, was decent when it gave HP regen, now it's just good for STR heroes with crap manapools and mana heavy spells (DW, Pebbles, Gauntlet etc). Polly doesn't have 150HP to waste.

Q ) "How about Sol's Bulwark on Polly ?"
A ) At first I thought it would be a great item on Polly. After playing it a bit, I realize other items are simply better, and in most cases, another hero in your team is more fit to build it. Of course you can get it if no one is, but that's not one I would recommend.

Q ) "Personally I do the SotM + refresher combo, and works amazingly well, why isn't it your core build ?"
A ) This combo is strong, I'm not saying the opposite. However, these items doesn't bring you THAT much. SotM gives some sort of survivability (450hp's, which is pretty low considering that's around 2 nukes in a teamfight) and 3 extra wards. Helps pushing, but that's it. With refresher, you're paper until you can farm your next item. Gives good manaregen, but that's nearly it, and allows to refresh your spells every 210 seconds. That's three minutes and a half. If it works, go for it, I'm not here to dictate you game choices

However, I don't see how it's better than having another 3.5s disable with sheepstick for example.

**Jezu** · 05-31-2011, 03:00 PM

The content of this guide seems to be so good that I have nothing to add (at least for now) So i will comment on formatting to give some feedback at least

I think you should write all of your body text with the same indent, as those constant indent changes make it look a bit messy (at least for me) and also
If you just would take those ;quot: shitz off when you feel like you have time to do it it would also look much better as i said earlier

Keep up the good work m8

Oh btw if you would give me some feedback on my FA Draft via a PM I would really appreciate it. If you don't have the time its np :P (the first post is finished)

EDIT: Added the link to the fa guide: http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/sh...d.php?t=270001

**man_guy** · 05-31-2011, 07:03 PM

guide sucks

Somethings you could emphasize or point out. All spells are very short range CC (its what makes PK / Tablet more attractive pickups and another part of why he's a shitty support). Electric Jolt only bounces to visible enemies. How many wards you have to destroy to get out of a ward trap. What is the bounty on wards. Sorry if you've pointed these out, I only skimmed it.

**[SyCF]FurFarmer** · 05-31-2011, 08:38 PM

In regards to formatting, you might want to scale your headers better just so that it is easy to find specific sections. Also putting links into your table of content would help with this as well.

In regards to content, there are a lot of things I guess I disagree with. Boot choice is my first point of contention. Personally I prefer :PlatedGreaves: on him if you are not completely a ward B**** that game, and don't really have the farm for :PostHaste:. Firstly, I think that people underestimate the +5 armor and +3 ALL stats these boots give, along with greater movement speed than :Steamboots:. Not only that, but Polly is a powerful pushing character no matter if your team is playing a pushing strat or not. The difference that :NomesWisdom:+:PlatedGreaves: makes when trying to quickly snipe a tower is huge. Also can be broken down for :Astrolabe:. Not saying these are the end-all boots for him, but they are a good option IMO.

Second contention is your builds. The fact that you say there is only one is inherently incorrect in my opinion. I have played games where I have maxed tongue and frog first because I was babysitting a

and letting him get in more autos in was more important than the damage I could deal with jolt. I have played games where I max tongue first (especially in a 2v1 situation). There is in no way ONE good build, and each build is situational.

**XtaZ`y** · 06-01-2011, 04:47 AM

@man_guy: I emphasized quite a bit on the short range of spells, in at least 3 sections, and why I considered PK as core on him

Adding the other details you pointed out after this post.

@Furfarmer:
Concerning the format: If I get the same feedback I'll change the headers's format, but I find it easy to read. Putting links in the table: I wanted to, but with all the images I'm using, some images address are eating up the limited characters by post like crazy so I can't do that. Moreover the search function of the browser should be enough to find what you want.

I guess plated greaves are ok on him, but your wards doesn't benefit from the buff (and that's where your main damage come from, unlike heroes like balphagore for example), RotT / Nome's buff is usually enough to keep your creeps alive so that your wards stay alive to get the tower. I'd get plated only against a VERY HEAVY physical team. I might add this though. (quite reluctant to because of the guide's size atm

)

I think you misinterpreted the part where I said there was a good and a bad way to build Polly. The bad build is bad because you're not playing Polly as he is supposed to be (he can support, but he's a waste of a pick as several heroes support better than he does). Then the case you are sitting a Magebane. You're saying that letting him get more AA is more important. I agree that giving kills to carry in a support situation is more important. However, Magebane's lane presence is close to 0. Therefore, against a strong lane, he won't be able to get near creeps, at all, and your AA won't be enough to scare them. Spamming Jolt allows you to keep them around 50% HP, thus forcing them to play safer, and thus allowing a Magebane jump. A magebane will never jump into two enemies with 100% hp's and a stun.
As you said, and as I pointed out in the guide, each build is situationnal (that's why there is TWO builds in my guide and not only the good one). The bad one is only bad because playing Polly this way is wasting a hero pick. What's the point of picking an electrician and roaming with him ? None, but still he can roam.

**Jezu** · 06-02-2011, 11:05 AM

Added the guide to my list of hero guides.

**yourstruly** · 06-02-2011, 11:25 AM

Seems good, exept for one little thing: The "good" skillbuild isn't so good
I can't imagine a time when i'd want that build over the following:
tongue tie, jolt, jolt, morph, jolt, ult, jolt, morph, morph, morph.

TT level 1 is more important than morph level 1, and you don't really want to cast the lvl 1 jolt a single time anyway, so miht as well get the TT at level 1 and go from that.

Otherwise Really smooth guide.

**Jezu** · 06-02-2011, 11:57 AM

Originally Posted by yourstruly

Seems good, exept for one little thing: The "good" skillbuild isn't so good
I can't imagine a time when i'd want that build over the following:
tongue tie, jolt, jolt, morph, jolt, ult, jolt, morph, morph, morph.

TT level 1 is more important than morph level 1, and you don't really want to cast the lvl 1 jolt a single time anyway, so miht as well get the TT at level 1 and go from that.

Otherwise Really smooth guide.

Actually, a Polly often last hits with Jolt at level 1, and pretty much never uses a disable at level 1 (if he is solo)
I think TT / Morph are pretty much equal, either one is fine imo.

**XtaZ`y** · 06-02-2011, 12:32 PM

@yourstruly: Love how you backup your arguments

Originally Posted by yourstruly

TT level 1 is more important than morph level 1, and you don't really want to cast the lvl 1 jolt a single time anyway, so miht as well get the TT at level 1 and go from that.

TT more important than morph? Why? Remember that TT prevents you from moving. What if a Dev' hooks you? You TT him and get killed anyways? Or you morph him and get away to safety? Moreover Morph allows you to get AA on the target, usually at least 3 if you cancel your attack animation. Deals way more damage than the magic damage you get from TT. TT first was a good idea when there was a 0min rune spawn, and thus ganks at the runes, where TT was indeed a strong disable as you had teammates to hit the target.
If you're not using Jolt level 1 to get last-hits against a hero with higher base damage, or to get several creeps in the first couple of waves, you're probably not using demon hands lv 1 to farm (with the crappy base damage SS has) either. Start doing this, you'll play much better mid and miss much less early CK's.

And as it is said in the guide, morph and TT have different uses, so feel free to switch the build between the two if you're laning with someone or if you're facing a team with few disables.

Thanks for the positive opinion you have of my guide, and at least you're giving feedback, so thanks again

**yourstruly** · 06-02-2011, 01:22 PM

Simply because level 1 of morph gives shorter disable than 1 lvl of tongue tie. Yes, morph allows you to get couple autohits on the target, but TT deals about the same amount of damage anyway. The actual difference in the total autohits is 1-2, since you should autohit - tie - autohit right after when it ends.

But the thing is, both of those skills are not worth it for harassing, you use them when you want to kill someone (2 man lane or someone gangs mid for you) or punish enemy for their mistake (like going to tower range), and in both of those cases tongue tie is stronger.

Overall i think it boils down to this - morph is defensive, tongue tie is offensive. Which one you want first depends then on the matchup, are you the offensive or the defensive party. Aainst devourer you're clearly harass-defensive, but not trying to all out kill him, same with gauntlet.

EDIT: Also, polly can play as the agressor in most matchups, he's awesome little frog.

The thing with lvl 1 jolt, is that in solo lane you'll reach lvl 3 in no time at all, and lvl 2 jolt does significantly more damage - if you use jolt at level 1, with no regen items, you won't have regened that mana back by level 3, so i find it better for harassing purposes to wait for level 3. Pollywogs animation and damage are both high enough to lasthit against anyone, without resolting to jolting creeps at lvl 1.

As for the demon hands, i don't use demon hand lvl 1 on creeps, unless absolutely necessary - which it so far has never been. :P Soulstealer is also a special case, since getting those first creepkills is hardest part in the lane, and thus using mana to get them is a good option.

**Jezu** · 06-02-2011, 02:13 PM

^ Actually, a Pollywog Priest should go for a fast Bottle if he is mid; So he will get his regen pretty soon.
Other than that i agree.

**yourstruly** · 06-02-2011, 02:21 PM

That is true, bottle fast is good, but still i'd rather use the one charge for a half of lvl 2 jolt instead of half of lvl 1 jolt :P

**Jezu** · 06-02-2011, 02:32 PM

But keep in mind that having Jolt at level 1 provides faster Bottle.
But i guess it is up to preference then.

**yourstruly** · 06-02-2011, 02:50 PM

Considering the 2nd creepwave makes you ding, there isn't that much time to use the jolt to farm. Also, as i mentioned earlier, polly is quite good at lasthitting herowise.

**XtaZ`y** · 06-02-2011, 06:17 PM

To the chit-chat above:

Your arguing on two valid opinions. These things are up to personnal preference.
I prefer to play with jolt, as I can ensure myself several easy ck's with a single jolt, even level, and therefore can focus on AA harassment.
I prefer morph over TT in a 1v1 situation because of the versatility of the spell (both offensive and defensive, I usually prefer to have morph at lv 3, as it's one of the most important levels in the middle lane with levels 5 and 6, so I have a defensive tool if need be), but as I said feel free to switch between the two.

**[SyCF]FurFarmer** · 06-02-2011, 07:29 PM

I actually go tongue tied at 2 and 4 when I am mid, so I can tongue tied for as long as possible at 6 near wards if you don't get the ward trap (Or tower if someone dives). At level 8 I take my first level of morph usually. A matter of preference really, but in a 1v1 I find having a 1.25 second disable with a 1 second cast time pretty worthless (Makes ward trapping easier or cancels channels, but that is it really). If you are going to max tongue tied first, I would not just substitute tongue tied levels for morph levels, I would go a completely different build.

**yourstruly** · 06-03-2011, 01:59 AM

I prefer the 1st morph level at 4, because morph at lvls 3-4 is starting to be awesome, but tongue tie doesn't benefit from the 2nd level too much. Also, if you do get ganged, its nice to have both disables available, even for a short time, for running away.

**XtaZ`y** · 06-07-2011, 01:23 PM

Added replays (finally

). Hope you guys enjoy them (and that the replay files are downloadable, works for me so should for you as well !)

Bump for the feedback

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