The best way to play HoN

[[SBI]Bjarkar]

Okay so, before you write something down like "l2p", you must know, that I've played this game for two years.
I joined a clan 5 months ago called Project Epoch which helped me alot and sky rocketed my overall performance. There I noticed, as I got mentored by different people (most over 1700) that they play the game differently. I stuck to one, then tried the other.. and I'm not sure which one is the best. As an example: Angrytestie(no he did not mentor me, he is just an example!) farms alot until he outfarms everyone and then suddenly rapes.
My mentor: He despises farming. The way he gains gold is by pushing towers/lanes, ganking heroes, helping in teamfights and occasionally, when he can't do anything he farms a bit. He taught me that farming instead of doing something more when you can, is just being inactive = bad..., (mmkay?)
His friend: He sits in lane and pushes the tower. The second someone goes missing on the map or ports in, he hides(if he cant kill him) and when they're gone he keeps pushing. He also helps the team like my mentor and farms like testie.
I tried all of them, and they all work... But which DO YOU THINK is the best method of winning the game?
Or do you have any other strategy you use to win?

[Dreadlord]

Well it is best to adapt, every game by itself is different and requires different approach.Best advice I can give you is to observe your team and your opponents and adapt accordingly.But bare in mind that you can't "be active" role if you are playing a carry role for your team, since you are expected to have farm.
So in short play a hero that you feel good with, and try to plan picks with your team and try working with them.

[[Mana]Farosarg]

Do whichever style fits you, your team's strategy and/or the current match. Personally I like being active, setting up kills and pushing towers, warding actively to exploit opponents positions and movements. A lane opens up somewhere when opponents go defend/gank? I either tell my team that they should push the tower up or I go there myself to push. Every now and then though I do like to stick to a lane and farm it up while my and opposing team runs around the damn map with neither side really doing anything impactful and that can give you and your team a huge advantage. It doesn't necessarily even matter which hero it is you are farming on. In one game my team tried to kick me when I didn't go dumbly bouncing about the map on Blacksmith, farmed myself a Barrier Idol before minute 20 since I knew the opponents were big on magic damage and then I started pushing hard and told the team to join me. Opponents couldn't stop us before raxx was down.

Also on some heroes you are doing it wrong if you don't rice it up. Gladiator is one pretty big example for this. Sure he can pop up the comboes and initiate at any part of the game but if you plan to actually carry, you have to give most of the focus on farming and sticking to a lane as the big power of the hero comes from easy farm and gaining advantage through early huge damage from flagellation. On the other side there is Predator who has most power after his Steams-Icebrand-Sol's combo is up. Or Drunken Master with his own tilting period.

In any case focus on whichever playstyle you like best personally and then pick up accordingly. Like ricing it up? Carry carry carry. Like to be active to set up kills all game long? You'll just love heroes like Magmus or even Repulsor and your opponents WILL hate you for it. And the list goes on.

[[xBM]Ackwell1]

Carry static farming for 30minutes will most likely loose you the game. Other wise you would have won the game anyways 4v5. I like what you said, farm when theres nothing better to do.

[HELLruler]

I believe every person has a thing they prefer doing. Like you said, your mentors were different, one tryed to push until the tower is down, the other prefer the "normal" play, like ganking and helping.

I don't really think that sitting and farming is effective, I even play with my friends: "I don't farm creeps, I farm heroes". Yes, I do think that killing is the best way of getting gold and level, and that's why I pick carries and gankers

The best way is the one you like

[Maximus``]

The thing that differs any good player from a mediocre player is that the good player always knows where he's most usefull, counterganking, pushing lanes, setting up ganks etcc, of course this is different depending on your team setup, their team setup and the hero you're playing, a hero like MM for example won't be of much use pushing lanes, counterganking etcc, and a hardsupport shouldn't be sitting farming a stack, rather than stacking it for someone who can actually put that gold to more use.

There's no way of playing the same every game and winning becouse of it, and expecting to win by doing that every game is dumb. For example, the current metagame revolves around picking big tanky str heroes who gives you that "Unkillable-syndrom" and then picking a hero like pebbles or DW for example which makes you able to gank, then by ganking a hero, which leaves them with only 4 heroes alive, they can't defend their towers against early, timed pushes by these "Unkillable" heroes, an example of such a setup would be Nymph/Dsham ,Arma ,Keeper, Tort, Peb/DW, you get the idea?

Of course you can't play the same way if you set up a turtling focused line-up, or a Gank/Carry line-up, or a Push/Carry line-up, etc.

I believe every person has a thing they prefer doing. Like you said, your mentors were different, one tryed to push until the tower is down, the other prefer the "normal" play, like ganking and helping.

I don't really think that sitting and farming is effective, I even play with my friends: "I don't farm creeps, I farm heroes". Yes, I do think that killing is the best way of getting gold and level, and that's why I pick carries and gankers

The best way is the one you like

Keep in mind that killing heroes only gives you about 250gold, that's not as much as it might look, and keep in mind by TPing to other lanes and counterganking or trying to set up ganks will also put some downtime to your farming. The primary intent why you should be doing it is to suppress the other team, giving your carry some breathing room, setting up pushes etc. And good luck setting up ganks or pushing with heroes such as MM, MB, NH, Chron etc, and if you actually manage to set some ganks up with these heroes, your GPM wouldn't be anywhere close to as much it would be if you actually farmed properly.

But of course, i'm not saying that you shouldn't participate at all, it all depends on your judgement. You have a brain, use it.

Carry static farming for 30minutes will most likely loose you the game. Other wise you would have won the game anyways 4v5. I like what you said, farm when theres nothing better to do.

Yes, but at the same times keep in mind that some heroes can't really do much but beefing up Early-Midgame, and if they don't they will be completely useless when the game drags on, this is the whole mindset behind Hard-carries.

Good luck actually trying to do something besides farming Early-Mid with heroes such as SW, TDL, Flint, and if you actually manage to help your team out with a push, chances are you didn't do much but reduce the amount of GPM you have, which just renders you more useless.

Cheers

[yamy]

Your aim of what works best to win the game depends on whether you are mid or a sidelane.
Whether you are solo-TMM or with friends.
Whether there are wards on the map.
Who the enemies heroes are.
Who your teams heroes are.
Did you get a rune, did their mid get a rune.
Did you get bloodlust or did they.
Are your lanes pushed a lot or quite far back.

In the end of the day, if you are much better than there players you will get to your MMR, from outperforming one of the random variables as you are the only constant. As mentioned aboved; what works to win the game varies greatly depending on their heroes.

Slight example, if they have 3 late game carries; your team has none, farming is unlikely to win late game. (However if you are just much better than them and are more efficient farmer etc. it still is possible i.e angrytestie).

If you have ganking heroes on your team, ganking is productive. If you have a hard carry; you can gank to allowed their team to play defensively whilst he farms.

Basically it varies each-game; the main difference between your mentors and yourself is that they will be able to tell what is necessary and when, depending on hero picks and how the game has progressed.

If my team is 2:2 and I am mid, with both lanes being quite even and I am winning mid; farming mid can easily win the game as you will be able to take advantage. If both your lanes are getting trashed and you are winning mid, you will have to do something differently to balance it out.