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Introduction and Table of Contents
Ophelia is a powerful, flexible, and difficult hero to use. In the right circumstances, she can decide the outcome of the game in the first ten minutes. In the wrong circumstances, she can be a liability.
This guide is aimed at 1600-1900 games. I'm going to assume you have a basic knowledge of how HoN works and who Ophelia is, and I'm not going to tell you things you already know or don't care about. The guide will, however, go into great detail on everything else.
You can view a summary of this guide in-game at http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe....php?gid=38995.
- Introduction & Table of Contents
- Skills & Stats
- Creeps
- Skill Build
- Item Build
- Picking a Team with Ophelia
- Early Game (allied jungle)
- Early Game (enemy jungle)
- Mid Game
- Late Game
- Advanced Jungling
- Legion Double Pull
- Double Stacks
- Miscellaneous
- Dealing with Parasite
- Effective Pushing
- Counter-Warding
- Heroes to Watch Out For
- Tips & Tricks
- Replays
- Changelog
Skills and Stats
Stats
Strength: 20 + 1.5/level
Agility: 15 + 2.1/level
Intelligence: 21 + 2.8/level
Base Damage: 43-53
Attack Range: 600
Move Speed: 300
Base Armor: 1.1
Nature's Wrath
Range: 600 (the same as Ophelia's attack range)
Mana Cost: 100
Cooldown: 14 seconds
Slow: 8/16/24/32%
Damage Amplification: 7/14/21/28%
This is a distinctly mediocre slow/damage amplifier. When timed perfectly, it'll take out about 20% of the enemy's HP, or about 150-300 damage early- to mid-game. The slow at level 4 is about equal to Hellbringer's slow at level 2.
Ophelia's Judgement
Range: 600 (the same as Ophelia's attack range)
Mana Cost: 175
Cooldown: 16 seconds
Damage: 75/150/225/300
This is both an overcosted nuke and an awesome ally-saving skill. At level 1, it will teleport your ally to base 6 seconds after the spell is cast on them, regardless of what happens during that time. At level 4, it only takes 3 seconds.
The obvious use for the teleport is when an ally is running away from the enemy on very little health but isn't guaranteed to die within 3 seconds; use Judgement followed by heals or Stormspirit to save the ally. It's also useful when a hero is low on HP and mana and wants to get back to the base without bothering with a Homecoming Stone. It can be used in a teamfight when an ally is being focused down hard by the enemy, especially if they are the target of a Rampage, Devourer or Succubus ultimate. Make sure your allies don't have a Token of Life when you teleport them unless they want to save the token for later. You don't normally have time to ask for permission before teleporting people, especially if they don't have a mic and/or don't know what Judgement does, so you should develop a sense for when teleporting is a good idea.
Command
Range: 900
Mana Cost: 100
Cooldown: 30 seconds, but can store up to three charges
Lets you dominate 1/1/2/3 creeps, giving them +0/10/20/30 move speed and +75/150/225/300 HP.
The health bonus from Command also applies to Puzzlebox minions and any units you dominate with Whispering Helm. When you level up Command, your existing creeps get the extra HP and mana.
Ophelia's Touch
Range: Global
Mana Cost: 200/300/400
Cooldown: 120 seconds
Heal: 200/300/400
To use this skill effectively, you have to have good map awareness. Keep an eye on your allies' HP at the top-left of the screen. If one starts to drop, see what's going on and heal if necessary. Touch heals all your creeps to full HP but should rarely be used for that alone, you can send the creeps back to the fountain instead.
Creeps
Your ideal early-game set consists of 3 Minotaurs, or 2 Minotaurs and a Skeleton King. Late-game you want 1 or 2 Minotaurs, 1 Wolf Commander, and maybe 1 Ice Ogre. Skeleton Kings are generally preferred to Catmen Champions. Details are provided in the spoilers; numbers in brackets factor in the bonuses from level 4 Command.
Minotaur
Minotaurs are the best creeps. They do a lot of damage, have a lot of HP, and most importantly have a 2 second stun. Try to micro your minotaurs independent of your hero, otherwise you might end up running into the middle of a fight while trying to line up a stomp. Their 15% attack speed aura is also nice in pushes and late-game.
Skeleton King
The Skeleton King's 1.5 second immobilize is ideal for getting Minotaurs into position to stomp enemies. Bear in mind that it only prevents movement, but doesn't stop them from attacking or casting. It does stop channeling, though. The range on the grip is slightly less than Ophelia's attack range. Skeleton Kings do pathetic damage and are slightly weaker than other big creeps.
Skeleton King's Grip stops channeling spells even if the enemy has a Shrunken Head.
Catman Champion
Catmen are basically the poor man's Minotaurs. They have a 150 damage stomp with a 3 second 25% slow. This makes them useful in clearing stacked creep camps, and in very early ganks where the 150 damage is significant.
Vagabond Leader
If Catmen are the poor man's minotaurs, Vagabonds are the poor man's Catmen. They do 100 damage with no slow. Vagabonds do have more AoE on their nuke, though, and they can use it twice in one gank due to its low cooldown. Vagabonds are good for harassing if you can't gank. Vagabonds also have a 3 HP/s regen aura.
Vulture Lord
The Vulture Lord's Tornado skill does a reasonable amount of damage and is invulnerable but it's difficult to keep the enemies near it. It's channeling, so you can't attack with the vulture at the same time. The best use of a Vulture early game is to move it near the lane, summon a tornado, then move the tornado onto the enemy while pulling creeps. You can use the Tornado to take down stacked creep camps, especially easy camps, fairly quickly. To move the tornado you have to select it at its base; boxing it or selecting the top of the tornado won't work. The tornado can't attack, but you can right-click to move it.
Ice Ogre
Ice Ogres are reasonably good mid- to late-game, where you can give +8 armor to up to four allies at a time. Note that it no longer slows enemies that attack. Ice Ogres are useless in combat, so try to keep them separate from your minotaurs and catmen.
Wolf Commander
Wolf Commanders have a +30% damage aura which is excellent late-game. They are rather fragile, so you'll have to micro them carefully to stop them from running into a fight and getting blasted to death by AOE, while keeping your DPS heroes within its 500 radius. One way to do this is to right-click an allied ranged DPS hero with the wolf to issue a follow command; unfortunately this doesn't prevent the wolf from running off and attacking things. I don't recommend getting wolves early-game.
Vagabond
Vagabonds are a very niche creep. They can burn 100 mana at 600 range, but they're extremely fragile. Vagabonds are good if your long lane is having an extremely difficult time against a strength hero, and you can use the vagabond to keep that hero's mana low.
Vagabond Assassin
Vagabond Assassins have a purge which removes buffs from enemies and debuffs from allies and slows for 80% decreasing over 5 seconds (so on average, a 40% slow for 5 seconds). Will remove Jereziah's Protective Charm and Sol's Blessing. Will remove Blood Hunter's silence, but not his ultimate. You have to be extremely careful as the purge has 200 range and assassins die to a stiff breeze. If you can keep the assassin alive, you can reapply their purge as soon as it wears off due to the short cooldown.
Snotter Boss
Snotter Bosses have a +12% move speed aura (about equal to +45 move speed) with 900 AoE. This isn't bad, but Snotters die to absolutely everything, so they're not worth getting if there's anything better available.
In my opinion, Sporespitters (20% slow on attack, 400 range) and Antlore Healers (15 HP/second heal, 250 range) are too fragile and have too little effect to be worth getting.
Skill Build
1. Command
2. Ophelia's Judgement
3. Ophelia's Judgement
4. Command
5. Command
6. Ophelia's Touch
7. Command
8. Ophelia's Judgement
9. Ophelia's Judgement
10. Nature's Wrath
11. Ophelia's Touch
12. Nature's Wrath
13. Nature's Wrath
14. Nature's Wrath
15. Stats
16. Ophelia's Touch
Both Judgement and Wrath are quite weak during the laning phase. I choose to max Judgement first because it's stronger in the mid-game, where porting an ally to base in 3 seconds instead of 6 is likely to save their life. If your team really needs another slow, you can max Wrath first, though you should have enough disables with just Minotaurs, Catmen, and Skeleton Kings.
Item Build
Ophelia's build is entirely dependent on the decisions you make in the mid-game, and whether you want to focus on ganking, pushing, countering your opponents, or going to late-game. You shouldn't go into the game with an item build in mind; you should determine your item build based on the hero selections of both teams and how the early game has unfolded. Each item below will be labeled with the strategy it works best with.
A lot of Ophelia's items are most useful if there's only one on the team, so make sure your communication with allies is good so you don't double up.
Core
You should always get a Ring early-game even if one of your teammates has one; the armor bonus to your creeps is too useful to pass up.
Core
Plated Greaves gives all allied creeps +20% damage and 10 damage block, making it excellent for pushing. If one or two allies are already getting Greaves you could consider Striders instead, but Ophelia is by far the best Greaves user in the game.
Support
Most of the time your first item will be Astrolabe; you have the mana to support it and your creeps benefit from its heal. If you have a Plague Rider who wants to get Astrolabe, then don't get one yourself. If you have a Demented Shaman, Soul Reaper, or any other hero that often gets Astrolabe, tell them not to get Astrolabe because you'll be getting it. If they insist on getting Astrolabe, let them and don't get it yourself. I typically get Astrolabe around the 17 minute mark, this requires 190-240 GPM depending on how many wards you buy.
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Utility
Unlike most support heroes, you rarely want Power Supply or Vestments. Greaves, Ring, Astrolabe, both wards, and Homecoming Stone take up all 6 of your inventory slots. Get them only if they'll be particularly useful.
Support
Stormspirit is a reasonably good item for Ophelia if you can't afford sheepstick. If you cast Ophelia's Judgement on an ally and immediately stormspirit them, they'll almost certainly survive, though you might die in the process. It can also be used to break channeling spells and deal with fat initiators like Pestilence and Legionnaire, preventing them from hurting your allies and allowing your allies to damage their fragile ranged heroes. Rushing Stormspirit before Astrolabe is sometimes advisable against Legionnaire.
Farm
Kuldra's Sheepstick is a great item for Ophelia, but it's very hard to farm. If you think you can get it in a reasonable amount of time (I'd say that's by the 40 minute mark), go for it. Sheepstick keeps you relevant late-game.
Push
Nome's is great if you want to push early with your team, or if you've got a lot of high-mana-use casters like Wretched Hag. However, getting Nome's means you're not going to be that useful late-game. There are a number of better Nome's users, so make sure you don't get one if they are.
Push
If you're farming really well, an early Puzzlebox is awesome. It lets you push quickly, run quickly, and kill your enemies quickly. It's especially good if the enemy has invisible heroes, or heroes with small mana pools, or if your team has a lot of disables so the minions have time to hit your enemies. The minions get +400 HP from Command, and the benefit of any auras from you and your creeps, but they can sometimes get in the way of you and your other creeps. Puzzlebox is best when someone else gets Astrolabe, letting you put all your money into the box.
Gank
Staff of the Master reduces your ultimate's cooldown to 30 seconds. You need to get a Stormspirit, Sheepstick, or Nomes in order to have enough mana to really take advantage of this. Staff doesn't do you much good in teamfights, as they rarely last 30 seconds. It's good when you've farmed it and another item reasonably early (30-35 minutes), and your team is heavily focused on ganking. Staff means you've always got your ult up to help your allies in a fight, allowing them to gank more frequently and effectively. Most of the time, Staff won't be the correct choice, but it's great when it works.
Support
If the enemy has a lot of AoE magic damage, Barrier Idol is like a double Astrolabe. Barrier's especially good if you're being sniped by a Hag, Fayde or Pebbles and want a Shaman's Headdress to be able to survive that. Ophelia isn't the best Barrier carrier, so don't get it if another ally already is.
Support
Tablet is a cheap way to break channeling spells and get people out of Pharaoh's mummies. Since Ophelia often stays back in fights, she's in a good position to break a Tempest ultimate with Tablet. Ophelia isn't a great Tablet holder in general because you're usually focused on creep micro and miss opportunities for a good Tablet use.
Support
Abyssal Skull is a good way to support any melee DPS heroes on your team. It's typically gotten late-game if you have an extra 1500-2500 gold sitting around before a big push, haven't got a Nome's, and need something to buy. If you do get Abyssal, make sure that nobody's already got one, and make sure your allies understand that they shouldn't buy one.
Push
Bulwark is amazing pushing item, and in any push-focused team (some would argue any team) someone should get one. That said, there are a lot of heroes who benefit from Bulwark's armor more than Ophelia.
Gank
If your team is short on disables and teamfights tend to involve a lot of running back and forth, Energizer gives your team the extra movespeed to catch up to enemies. Energizer is also particularly good if Balphagore's or Keeper's minions are clogging up teamfights. Typically gotten after Nome's if your team has a significant advantage and you want to maintain it.
Defense
Void Talisman is a very situational item. It should be gotten if you're being ganked by
and want to be able to port out before they kill you.
Push
Whispering Helm lets you dominate another creep every 6 minutes; the creep gets the bonuses from Command but doesn't count towards the 3-creep limit. It's decent if the enemy has no AoE and your team's gotten a significant advantage early game; it lets you push quite well and improves your ganking slightly. The cooldown is huge, though, so if your creeps are dying at all it's a terrible item. I've never gotten it; I prefer Nome's or Puzzlebox to fill its role.
Codex is terrible on a support hero even with a 28% damage boost. If you want to Codex, play Parasite instead.
Last edited by Zakharov; 06-17-2012 at 05:07 AM.
Picking a Team with Ophelia
The most obvious aspect of playing Ophelia is that you're going to have two solos, one of which has to lane 1v2. Most of the time this isn't an issue, and a hero supported by Ophelia does considerably better than they would in a regular dual-lane. In more competitive games this is less true. In any case, make sure your team contains two viable solos and a dual-lane. Ophelia fits the support role on a team, and is one of the best heroes to have as the only support because she can farm and level quite well while supporting.
In the context of 1600+/1650+ pubs, I've found that running melee carries or semicarries as the solo sidelaner is surprisingly effective. Heroes like Predator, Armadon, and Pandamonium are beefy enough to survive a 1v2, have great skills to get kills along with Ophelia, and can snowball with good early farm. Again, this doesn't work so well in competitive games. Ranged heroes with slows or disables, such as Slither, Arachna, Flint, Pyromancer, and Puppet Master are pretty good. So are heroes that can put out a lot of damage such as Corrupted Disciple and Silhouette.
You can run a "jungle trilane" with two heroes in the long lane and a solo with an escape mechanism in the short lane. If you do so, make sure that the carry in the trilane knows how to freefarm and the support knows how to keep the lane pulled back. Gank very frequently. This strategy can be devastatingly effective when it works, but when the solo shortlane gets dominated and the trilane fails to kill the enemy you're in trouble.
Ophelia works best in a push-focused strategy, where you can often smash through all the outer towers in the first 15 minutes. She's fairly good at ganking, but lacks the mobility of the best gankers because she's limited by her creeps' speed. If you have a lategame-oriented team, Ophelia can give your carries a head start on their experience, give you the early-game strength to not lose, and gank the enemy to distract them from your carry.
Ophelia works well with tanky carries by keeping them alive with her heals and using Ophelia's Judgement to save them when they start to drop low.
Early Game (levels 1-7, allied jungle)
Start:
:WardOfSight: :HealthPotion: :PretendersCrown: :CrushingClaws: :MinorTotem:
OR
:HealthPotion: :PretendersCrown: :CrushingClaws: :MinorTotem: :MinorTotem: :MinorTotem:
OR
:FlyingCourier: :HealthPotion: :PretendersCrown: :MinorTotem: :MinorTotem:
Early:
:FlyingCourier: :Marchers: :RingOfTheTeacher: :PlatedGreaves:
The sight ward gives your mid-laner rune vision and lets you see incoming ganks. The health potion lets you heal off any damage you take when ganking. The rest give you gold-efficient stats. The Ward of Sight can be replaced by 2 more Minor Totems if your allies have already bought both wards; alternatively, you can replace Crushing Claws with a Minor Totem and upgrade the courier at the start.
This is how I usually spend the first 2 minutes:
Credit to www.hondb.com for the map image
0) -1:00 - Stand here so you can see if the enemy's coming to ward your camp. If they do, run away, you can't stop them. If you're on Legion and your bot laner has a Hatchet, get them to cut down one or two trees on the north end of the pullable camp so you can double pull.
1) 0:30 - Dominate the large creep here and kill the others.
2) 0:55 - Stack this camp.
3) 1:05 - Gank the lane.
4) 1:20-1:40 - Place a ward on the white dot. Upgrade the courier if possible.
5) 1:46 - Pull the camp marked (2)
The lane gank happens at 1:05 because that means your solo is level 2 against 2 level 1s, you have time to clear and stack a camp, and the lane creeps won't get in your way.
If the enemy wards your pullable camp, buy a Ward of Revelation, place it at the blue spot and kill their ward. See Counter-Warding below for more detail. You might need a flying courier to reveal the ward if they've stuck it in the trees.
Before you gank the lane, you need to check three things:
- Your ally is prepared for the gank
- The enemy heroes aren't near the enemy tower
- Another creepwave isn't going to arrive and get in the way.
For the third point, if your creep wave is approaching or has just passed your outer tower, wait until it engages with the enemy creep wave before ganking. If you don't, the enemy creeps will get in the way of your gank and allow the enemies to turn it around. Get around behind the enemy before ganking. Right-click the creep onto the enemy and animation-cancel with Ophelia; or right-click the enemy with Ophelia and use the creep to block the enemy, depending on positioning and your micro skills. Use Judgement only if necessary; it costs a lot of mana. If you have Plated Greaves, activate them just before ganking so your creeps get +20% damage.
Remember that the player in the long lane is essential to your success. Don't insult him, even if he messes up. Say "good job" after a successful gank. Give him your health potion if he needs it (this happens about 30% of the time in my experience). Pull frequently to keep the lane near the tower and the enemy heroes underleveled. When pulling unstacked camps, make sure your Ring of the Teacher is off and deny your own creeps from 50%. When pulling stacked camps, leave the ring on and attack the neutral creeps (Wolf Commanders first), otherwise you won't finish them before the lane creeps all die.
If you're facing heroes that are hard to gank, such as Wretched Hag and Valkyrie, it's still worth ganking. Keeping them scared makes it much easier for the solo laner to farm. If the enemy has a solo shortlane, gank them every time they leave the safety of their tower.
Upgrade the courier with your first 200 gold if nobody else has; it's rare that anyone needs the courier before this point so you don't need it upgraded at the beginning of the game. Start with Marchers because they allow you to gank more effectively, then Ring for mana regen and more armor for your creeps, then Plated Greaves for more pushing power.
If you happen to be running past a camp at the X:50-X:56 mark, stack the camp (stack between X:53 and X:57). This gives you a few more chances to get minotaurs, and gives your carry more creeps to farm later on. You'll usually be stacking the center Hellbourne camp or the northeast Legion camp this way.
Generally you're at levels 5-7 when most heroes hit level 6, the lanes break up, and ganks get more frequent. At this point you want to gank mid, the enemy jungle, and the short lane, especially if you have a good set of creeps (minotaurs and skeletons) on hand.
Once you're level 5-7, especially if you have Greaves and/or there's no enemies nearby, you can often push the long-lane or mid tower. This works best if you have a solo who can push well, such as Pollywog or Torturer.
Early Game (levels 1-7, enemy jungle)
Start:
:WardOfSight: :WardOfSight: :RunesOfTheBlight: :HealthPotion: :ManaPotion: :ManaPotion: :MinorTotem: :MinorTotem:
Early:
:Marchers: :RingOfTheTeacher: :PlatedGreaves:
Get this if you're going to take the enemy jungle. There are a few reasons to do this:
- If winning mid is really important. This often occurs when you know your opponent's mid is a drama queen who will destroy his team if he loses mid.
- If you've got another jungler on your team.
- If the enemy has a jungle War Beast and you want to ruin his game.
- If you think the enemy has a Parasite in your jungle.
It's much worse if the enemy has a hero with a blink-like skill mid, because they're hard to gank.
Start by killing the eastern Hellbourne camp if you're Legion, or the central Legion camp if you're Hellbourne. Gank the middle lane immediately if you can, or once your mid is at level 2 if it's a Devourer or other hero that needs level 2.
Taking the enemy jungle is all about dominating either their jungler, or the mid lane. It's much more difficult than taking your own jungle. The enemy long-laners are quite likely to come in and try to wreck your fun, and their mid might do so as well. You need to have wards up to see them coming and get out of there. You'll want your short-laner(s) to keep the lane pulled back as close to the tower as possible, because otherwise you can't gank that lane.
You'll want to ward the same rune spot as you would for your own jungle, plus the pullable camp (hopefully an ally will buy the ward for this one), plus maybe the hill near the mid lane. This lets you see ganks coming for you. If you suspect the enemy of warding these places, counter-ward them, as it's far more difficult to gank with wards up. If the enemy tends to run away as you approach, despite having no direct sight of you, they probably have wards up.
Get a boots, ring of the teacher, and plated greaves, for the reasons described above. Try to get another ally to upgrade the courier because you need Marchers and Ring faster. If they won't, upgrade it yourself, as you can't use a ground courier in the enemy jungle.
Mid Game (levels 8-14)
During the mid game, you can gank, push, farm, and support. Knowing when to do each of these is very important.
Ophelia has a difficult time ganking anyone but fragile supports alone. Try and get an ally to help you, as you'll need their disable to set up your Minotaur and Catman stomps, and their DPS to finish off the enemy before they get away. You should focus on ganking if your team has other strong gankers and a decent-to-good lategame compared to your opponent. If you have a hard carry, ganking frequently keeps the enemy afraid and away from your farming carry. Make sure the carry doesn't spend too much time ganking himself, as he needs to farm. If you focus on ganking, ward the enemy jungle thoroughly and counterward the entrances to their jungle. Wards are especially important if either team has a hero like Devourer or Pharaoh.
An ideal gank consists of an ally initiating with a disable, then Ophelia following up with chained stomps and grips. Judgement is used if necessary to get the kill. Remember that your creeps are kind of slow and can't chase a fleeing enemy very well, so if the enemy gets away, there's not much you can do about it.
Ophelia is one of the strongest pushers in the game. If you've got other strong pushers on your team, and the enemy doesn't have too much AoE, you can get all the first- and second-tier towers down very quickly. This gives your team a massive gold advantage, which you can hopefully turn into an easy win. Ophelia can also push a lane alone if everybody else is busy in another lane. This is often worthwhile because your creeps can't teleport to a fight, and you don't need to be near allies to heal them with your ultimate. Of course, come late-game, you need to be there in fights.
Ophelia can farm the jungle and ancients very quickly. If you can't gank or push, you can farm. Ophelia isn't very item-dependent, so don't steal the jungle from a carry.
If you've got nothing else to do, you can stack camps, ward, counterward, and stay near the carry to protect him if he gets ganked. Ophelia is a fairly good candidate for ward-buyer, as she gets a decent amount of money from jungle farm and doesn't need many items. If nobody else is getting wards, as is common in pubs, you need to get them yourself. If a Pollywog or Soul Reaper is getting wards, try to discourage them from doing so, as they need the money a lot more than you do.
In teamfights, control your creeps separately to your hero. I like to have my hero in control group 1, creeps in control group 2, and both in control group 3. Focus primarily on creep micro, but don't ignore Ophelia completely. Make sure your hero doesn't run into the middle of the fight and die; it's a very easy mistake to make in the heat of battle. Sometimes if you outnumber your opponents you can just leave Ophelia out of the fight and focus entirely on your creeps.
Ophelia is good at killing Kongor because the minions can tank damage. You can't solo Kongor since his recent buffs in 2.20, but with your team you can get your carry a token earlier than your opponents expect. When killing Kongor, rotate out low-health minions so they don't die; keep them away from Kongor so they don't get stomped to death. Wolf Commanders, Ice Ogres and Minotaurs are especially useful when killing Kongor.
If you're dead but your creeps are healthy, use them to either scout or help your allies out. If they have a really underfarmed support, you can sometimes gank them using just your creeps. It's hilarious when it works.
Late Game (levels 15-25)
Late game is not Ophelia's strong point. The enemy can kill your creeps very easily and laugh off their damage; it's rare to have any creeps survive a teamfight unless your opponents get completely routed. Your role lategame is to provide useful buffs to the rest of the team - 30% damage from wolves, 8 armor from ice ogres, heals from astro, nome's, barrier, and/or ult. If you can stun opponents with minotaurs, that's nice, but sometimes they just die before they can reach the enemy. You have little HP or DPS, so stay in the back in teamfights and don't get yourself killed just to cast Nature's Wrath. If you have a Stormspirit, Ophelia's Judgement into Stormspirit on an ally is extremely strong, saving them provided they can stay alive for 0.5 seconds.
When pushing base towers, try to kill the tower before engaging in teamfights. Ophelia can do this relatively quickly, though the enemy's likely to snipe a creep or two in the process. Between the tower, the rax, and creeps, there's not much room to maneuver in an enemy base. You're going to have a hard time getting disables off with your creeps, and it's very easy to accidentally draw tower aggro with your hero and take a lot of damage. If a fight goes badly, you can get trapped in the base and killed.
Your creeps are going to die a lot, and you're not going to have too many opportunities to search the jungle for good replacements. A lot of the time you'll make a single sweep of the forest taking what you can get; vagabond assassins and snotter bosses are better than nothing. Don't forget that you can dominate regular lane creeps (but not siege creeps) if your neutrals all died in a teamfight.
Ophelia is reasonably good at split-pushing; let four of your heroes push one lane while you, or even just your creeps, push the other. You can push very quickly without putting yourself in too much danger, especially if you have a Puzzlebox. You can use your ultimate to help your teammates if the enemy decides to fight them. Coordination is extremely important in split pushes; if the enemy has time to kill you and then fight your team 5v4 before they kill a tower, your split push failed. Split pushing is best when the enemy has a lot of cheap AoE which they can use to take down waves and stop regular pushes, but is riskier than regular pushing; you should split push only if you can't push normally.
Last edited by Zakharov; 06-17-2012 at 05:00 AM.
Advanced Jungling
Basic jungling consists of pulling creeps to the lane and stacking creeps. You can pull the pullable camps (Hellbourne northwest, Legion southeast) by attacking them between X:46 and X:47, then running to the lane. Once the lane creeps start attacking the neutrals, run back into the camp. You can stack creeps by attacking them between X:53 and X:57 (X:54-X:56 is more reliable), then running away from the camps while the creeps follow you.
Legion Double Pull
If you cut down one or two of the trees to the north of the pullable camp, you can pull creeeps from the northeast camp into the pullable camp and draw aggro from the lane creeps. This can be difficult to do, and requires practice to pull off reliably.
Double Stacks
You can stack these two Legion camps at once by pulling the top camp at X:54 or X:55, then running down to the indicated spot to draw the aggro of the south camp, then running left. Doesn't work at night.
You can even stack all three Legion camps during the day if you have precise timing. See this youtube video.
You can stack multiple camps at once by pulling one with a creep at X:54 and one yourself at X:56, but the timing on this is very tricky.
Avoiding Spawn Blocks
If there are any corpses in a neutral camp's spawn area at the X:00 mark, creeps will not spawn in that camp. The spawn area of a camp has a 500 radius around the spawn point (the ground is slightly discolored in this area) and corpses take 23 seconds to disappear. When farming creep camps after the X:37 mark, get the creeps to red health, then pull them out of the spawn area before killing them. If you fight creeps outside of the spawn area, they will run back to the spawn point after a few seconds.
Miscellaneous
Dealing with Parasite
The best way of dealing with Parasite is to wait until 0:02 to pick Ophelia so they don't pick Parasite in response, and not pick Ophelia if they pick Parasite first. If it's BP or BM, you can ban Parasite, though the enemy will probably ban Ophelia in response, or last-pick Ophelia. Failing that, things get more difficult.
Start the game with :WardOfSight: :WardOfSight: :HealthPotion: :HealthPotion: :CrushingClaws: :MinorTotem:. The extra ward lets you keep tabs on Parasite, and the extra regen deals with his harassment.
Parasite will probably go into your jungle and steal your creeps, then attack you with them. You won't be able to gank, you won't be able to farm, and you probably won't be able to pull. You should accept that your early-game will be crippled, and do as much as you can to cripple Parasite too. You can recover more easily than Parasite can.
If Parasite's in your jungle, don't grab a creep until Parasite's Infest is on cooldown, though if he's infested the only good creep you'll have to go without. Try to stack the pullable camp and pull it; if Parasite attacks here at least the fight is close to your tower and he has to worry about creep aggro. Ask an ally to upgrade the courier, you can't really afford to.
If Parasite is chasing you around waiting for you to Command a creep, attack him while animation-canceling away from him. Call for a gank from your long lane. If Parasite decides to run off and dominate some creeps at the other end of the forest, take the opportunity to get some farm. If Parasite is about to jump into your creep, use its ability first so Parasite can't.
If Parasite kills you or forces you back to the fountain, go into the enemy jungle and farm there for a while. When Parasite comes after you, return to your own jungle. The more back-and-forth chasing goes on, the more underleveled Parasite will be.
If you can keep Parasite level 1-2 while either of your solos are level 4-6, they can come in and kill Parasite easily. Conversely, if you're level 1-2 and in their jungle, be extremely careful.
In the mid and late game, keep your creeps away from Parasite as much as possible, especially when ganking him. You don't want him to jump in a Minotaur, stomp, and escape. You'll probably have to accept losing a creep to him in most team fights.
This game gives an example of defeating Parasite; it's a pretty bad game otherwise though.
Effective Pushing
Let the lane creeps go out in front to tank the tower damage. Use your Plated Greaves as soon as the creeps start attacking unless the tower's fortified.
If there's nobody opposing the push, send your least valuable creep behind the tower. When the enemy creeps approach, send your creep back to meet them, and once it's drawn aggro, have it run around through the forest. This lets your lane creeps push the tower unimpeded.
If the enemy isn't trying to deny their tower, spam "s" (stop) just before you'd kill the tower. This prevents you from getting the tower kill, giving your more item-dependent allies the gold instead.
Counter-Warding
Opponents will often place wards to block your creep spawns, or see you coming to gank them. These spots show you where to place Wards of Revelation in order to find and destroy enemy wards. You can tell a camp is warded if no creeps spawn there. You can tell if an enemy can see you coming if they run back as soon as you approach, or if you see them run into the forest for a bit, play their spellcast animation, then run back.
This only covers counter-warding of wards which block creep spawns; for a more complete guide to warding and counter-warding see SzpT's Warding Guide.
Heroes to Watch Out For
Glacius' Ice Imprisonment lasts 10 seconds on creeps at all levels, dealing a total of 750 damage. Fortunately, Glacius can be easily taken down with only two creeps.
Voodoo Jester's Acid Cocktail stuns creeps for 5 seconds on each bounce, dealing 150 damage. Try to kill VJ if possible before moving your creeps in.
Behemoth's ultimate wrecks your creeps and anyone standing nearby. Be very careful around Behemoth, and try to keep your creeps away from the rest of the team if he's around. Sometimes this will mean not using your creeps to push a tower.
Cthuluphant's Hook 'Em can take one of your creeps, giving the elephant a very meaty shield. Try to avoid this, but it's not the end of the world if it happens.
Skeleton King's Grip has 550 range and stops channeling, even if Tempest has a Shrunken Head. Always keep a Skeleton King in a separate control group away from the fight, ready to stop Tempest as soon as he comes in.
Tips and Tricks
If your creeps are injured and/or out of mana, you can teleport them back to the base instantly with Ophelia's Judgement. If you want to save mana or need to heal multiple creeps, you can have them simply run back to the fountain. If you're getting ganked and are sure to die, you can at least save a creep with Judgement before going down. Saving your allies is, of course, a higher priority.
You can grab creeps from the enemy jungle by sending your existing creeps up to the jungle for vision, then casting Command from down the cliff without having to risk entering their jungle.
Don't kill off entire creep camps in the enemy jungle. Take the creep you want and run, leaving the little creeps behind to prevent the camp from respawning. Of course, you shouldn't do this if you have control of their jungle.
Always pay attention to the game time. If it's X:50 and you're in the jungle or near the ancients, get ready to stack at X:55.
When you're just killing neutrals, attack first with low-value creeps such as Vultures and Vagabonds so they take the damage.
Use the Catman stomp, Vagabond wave and Vulture tornado to take down stacked camps faster. None of these skills affect Wild Hunters, though.
Ward spots which can see neutrals are slightly more useful for Ophelia; they're indicated by white dots on this map.
If an enemy Succubus uses Mesmerize (the sleep) on an ally, attack that ally with your least valuable creep to transfer the Mesmerize effect to that creep.
During the laning phase, if you're not near the lane and the lane creeps are near your tower, type "ganking top"/"ganking bot", optionally followed by "oops", in all-chat. This might drive the enemies back and give your long-laner some freefarm time. If the enemy catches on, they might waste their time responding to you in all-chat, giving your allies an advantage.
Replays
These games probably aren't very entertaining to watch, but they do show me playing Ophelia and following the strategies outlined in this guide. If anyone has any replays of exceptional tournament-level Ophelia play, please link me to them, I'd like to add them.
Me playing on Legion
Me playing on Hellbourne
Me beating Parasite
Dealing with adversity
The power of Ophelia's Judgement (I lose this game)
Me getting smashed by Parasite (I lose this game)
[tdM]Tralfamadore counter-jungling War Beast (Also cast by TheKarcher on GameReplays)
[infs]CaptainBoner playing Ophelia against Parasite (Also cast by TheKarcher on GameReplays)
A more recent Ophelia replay, with Chessie taking the enemy jungle and getting an exquisitely rare Ophelia annihilation.
Changelog
- 22 October 2011: Modified starting items to account for the 2.2.4 ward availability change.
- 22 October 2011: Added detailed neutral creep information.
- 4 November 2011: Added skill build justification and more replays.
- 9 January 2012: Added legion triple stack.
- 17 June 2012: Updated guide since the Hellbourne mid pull has been removed.
- 1 July 2012: Added "Avoiding spawn blocks" section.
Last edited by Zakharov; 09-08-2012 at 10:26 AM.
Nice formatting, good guide for a difficult hero.
Only constructive thing I've got to say is Skelly King has an immobilise with a mini stun. Calling it a disable is a vague term that could incorrectly imply it's a stun.
Thanks, fixed.Originally Posted by Rope`
What an excellent guide! Kudo's!
Really great to elaborate creep pulling, stacking and warding in here.
I suggest adding that whispering helm also allows you to control another creep, I don't think everyone is aware of this. (Edit: you mention the cooldown and pushing potential, but not the actual fact of what it does.)
Really love your guide Zakharov. I recently got addicted playing Ophie and I love it. This has been extremely helpful answering my questions on pulling, stacking and jungling. Kudos to you!
One thing I wanna ask is your skill build order. A lot of people told me to go Wrath because of the slow and amplify to finish off foes easily, plus the slow allows your minotaurs to catch up to the enemy. It seems fairly unorthdox to max Judgement first, but I guess it is personal preference?
Judgement and Wrath are both very close in power level, so which to go for does depend a lot on circumstances and preference. To be honest, I saw competitive players usually max Judgement, so I followed that and rarely tried the Wrath build. I've gotten used to having Judgement now and don't feel much incentive to change.
Wrath isn't all that useful in letting your minotaurs catch up. I usually run my minotaurs 400-600 units ahead of my hero, which gets them into the right position and helps prevent me from getting ambushed. Doing that means the Minotaur stomp range is the same as the Wrath cast range. Skeleton Kings can also provide the ranged initiation for Minotaurs, as can your allies. The amplification generally does less damage than Judgement until late-game, at which point you should have both skills maxed.
Ophelia spends a lot of time at levels 3-7, and Judgement is considerably stronger at those levels. Level 2 Wrath (14% slow, irrelevant damage) is nearly useless; level 2 Judgement (150 damage, 5s port) is somewhat useful. At level 9 I really like having the flexibility of the 3s teleport, though Wrath would be around the same power level. Maxing Wrath is strongest at levels 10-12, where you've got the full power of Wrath and some of the benefit of Judgement.
Looking through recent replays of competitive players, it seems Judgement is nearly always maxed first. Out of around a dozen random games played by competitive players with Ophelia, I found only one where Wrath was maxed first. It looks like Akke was correct to max Wrath here - his team lacked ranged disables, and had Flint and Swiftblade who really like having their enemies slowed.
As an aside, it's completely different in DotA, where the teleport is attached to Persuasion (Command) instead of Judgement (Test of Faith).
I've added most of this to the skill build section of the guide now.
Last edited by Zakharov; 11-03-2011 at 07:54 PM.
This is one of the best guides made in the last year or so. Great work!
HoN Information Central The CTRL+F Guide
Thanks for the great guideI'll be sure to try it out.
Awesome guide! Great information and a nice layout. Just wanted to show you guys this youtube tutorial on triple stacking in legion jungle http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eclOf...eature=mh_lolz
That's quite impressive; I'll add it to the guide.
Chen/Ophelia has been my favorite character for more than 3 years and I have to say I play this hero really well so I have never really bothered reading a guide. After I've read yours I could really learn a lot of details that really makes the difference thanks, it's an outstanding guide and I say it should be placed in the premium guides topic for sure. If there's one thing I would add to your guide is that during late games, when your creeps are pretty close to useless during teamfights because they die very fast, I instead use them to push other lanes while my team pushes another. I know you have mentioned something similar but this should be emphasized. I have managed to rax one lane with this stratagy as the enemy team was struggling to decide whether defend the lane attacked by the creeps or keeping the 5 memebers of the team together for the teamfight. It also grants you a nice amount of money without taking the carriers' gold. It's funny when you're level 12 and has the same GPM as the dude that is 18 or so. And it also helps keeping the pressure. The enemies are forced to call off a push because they have to defend the other lane that is being pushed by my creeps.
Well that's it, congratulations for the guide.
Another thing I want to point out, and this is due to watching a lot of DoTA Chen players, is that vulture lords's tornado are really useful for keeping other players away from the tower that you are pushing. Since there is no +3 armour buff like the DoTA equivalent but the tornado does have a psychological impact due to the DoT and slow if you send em behind the tower when pushing. Just make sure you keep the vulture lord out of tower's range.
wasn't the teleport moved to your creep takeover ability?
Great guide ! This realy should be premium since there is no Ophelia's premium guide (and ofc because it explains very good how to play ith an ophelia and gives many options to do it, not just one like (sadly) in many other guides).
Yeah I've really started to appreciate vultures a lot more recently. If you can get the tornado right onto the enemy, it's like having a Mock of Brilliance at level 1. I played a game recently where 4 of the enemies wound up fleeing from a tornado instead of pushing.
Nope, that's only in DotA.
Does anyone know how I might get this guide promoted to Premium; is there a mod in charge of the process?
Last edited by Zakharov; 06-17-2012 at 05:08 AM.
+1 for making it premium. excellent guide
Agreed, i learned a lot from this.
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