Shamsz's In-Game Guides

[shamsz]

Hi all, if you know me cool! If you don't my name is Shamsz, I've been playing HoN since beta. I'm a streamer at twitch.tv/shamsz , have played competitively for JAH & friends, ring for many current teams, and co-cast on Honcast from time to time. I've played a ton of high level TMM games [currently 1920 MMR 80% win, was 2020 MMR pre-compression]. I think its also worth noting that I consider myself to be capable at all roles from hard support to hard carry so I have a pretty good diversity of heroes I can play at a high level. Anyways, I've gotten constant requests from viewers on my stream to start making some in-game guides for them. I really liked the idea of doing so, so hear I am doing it. These guides are NOT intended to be for competitive play, and strictly for TMM play. I've currently started with doing AGI heroes (not all of them done yet) and moving into INT. Before I go ahead and link the guides, I just want to make a few points about these guides and in general HoN skill/item builds.

Remember all item pick ups and skill builds are situational on these factors:

1. How well or poor you are doing.

2. The enemy teams heroes and item pick ups.

3. Your teams heroes and item pick ups.

4. There will be times that the best item available is NOT listed on my guides. For example, say you are a Swiftblade and the enemy team has a Jeraziah, Nullfire blade would be a very appealing option for an item.

5. Sometimes in TMM games you have to purchase items that you would like your teammates to get. (Wards, auras, etc.)

6) BOOTS! I will list the boots I feel are viable on a hero, it is up to you to make the decision of what is best for your playstyle/preferences. I'm personally a big fan of Steam Boots, but I'm not gonna force them on you!

7) Shrunken Head will be core for many heroes. That doesn't mean to pick it up every game. Use your own judgement.

8) If multiple attack modifiers are listed, pick one unless you are extremely comfortable with swapping modifiers. I do not recommend this for anyone unless you are very experienced.

9) Don't get ALL of the early item choices.. I will almost ALWAYS put Power Supply, Vestments, and Ring of the Teacher in a heroes laning items, however these items are situational and you must make the right choice if they are worth it in the current game your in.

10) I will use the "core" section to list items that I believe to be a "safe" choice. By "safe" I mean that, I have no idea what heroes you are going to face, how well you are going to do, what items they are going to get, who is on your team, etc. The items in the core section are meant to be you will almost never be wrong to get this item on this hero. I might end up drifting from that theory in some of these guides because there are a lot to do and of course I'm going to make mistakes. But remember that an item under "luxury" might be the best item to get even over a "core" item. Earlier today I played a game with Flint and the situation arised where I felt like rushing a Nullfire blade was the best choice. The more experience you have, the more you'll be able to make better judgements in these situations and I can't always be there to help you! =)

If you like my guides, click the green thumb, set as default, set as favorite! <3

Either goto http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/guides.php and type twitch.tv/shamsz in the search box, or here they are individually.

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=185857

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=185849

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=185860

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=185873

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=185882

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=185888

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=185891

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=185906

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=199783

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=185910

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=199786

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=185916

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=185921

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=185927

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=185930

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=199800

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=199805

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=199810

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=199812

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=199813

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=199817

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=199889

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=199893

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=200735

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=200737

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=200739

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=200742

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=200745

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=201240

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=201242

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=201247

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=201250

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=202705

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=202708

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroe...php?gid=202712

Any intelligent criticisms + tweaks you guys request are gladly accepted. Let me know what you think of these guides and if they help you out in your HoN endeavors, I hope you guys find use of them. I'll also gladly answer any question you guys throw at me in this thread (reasonings for a certain skill / item build, or anything else)! I want to say in advanced because I know people are going to probably question my item builds on versatile heroes like Slither. Well, the hero can basically build as a support, as a tank, an auto attack carry etc.. so I pretty much just put the items I felt were the most go to for that hero in general. (If you're going to go carry slither, don't go with the Nomes, etc)

Enjoy! Don't forget to thumbs up the guides so they can get to the top of the guides so all people can access them through the drop down menu.

[shamsz]

Reserved for future stuff.

[GuiItyCrown]

point number 8 just got me thinking. is there a hotkey for tabbing through attack modifiers? seems like a good idea to up my game lol

[Chronomical`]

Yes there is. Forgot default though. I have it binded to my set up. With practice it becomes an ease.

[[xBM]Ackwell1]

Nice work, even tho I dislike a few of those guides:
-Sb runed axe
-Not about items, but your MQ skill build has aura>stats early???
-I wouldnt go bkb as chronos after runed, you finally need some damage like daemonic/geo/sb
-I dont like dampeer items at all, he should be played in mid and is easy to snowball with. You should pick something that allows you to snowball even harder.
-MM with runed is not that good if you dont have stacked neuts all the time

Some of the guides are set to private
Ive been watching your stream for a long time and really enjoy it, keep it up!

[shamsz]

Nice work, even tho I dislike a few of those guides:
-Sb runed axe
-Not about items, but your MQ skill build has aura>stats early???
-I wouldnt go bkb as chronos after runed, you finally need some damage like daemonic/geo/sb
-I dont like dampeer items at all, he should be played in mid and is easy to snowball with. You should pick something that allows you to snowball even harder.
-MM with runed is not that good if you dont have stacked neuts all the time

Some of the guides are set to private
Ive been watching your stream for a long time and really enjoy it, keep it up!

Runed axe on sb is bad?
MQ could go with stats, but the current pub train nature this game has become I am under the belief that auras are vital in how the game is played by an average HoN player currently.
Read my warnings - I never said to get those items in that order. I just said your "core" items are your "safe" items. Aka BKB is a very safe item on Chronos, doesn't mean get BKB then a luxury item. I talked about this in my original post.
Hellflower, Helm of BL, and BKB are all snowball items.. what would you be suggesting instead?
MM with runed is decent enough to be called a safe bet, which is why it is in my "core" list. If you saw an average MM get a Runed Axe in any given game you would never say "disgusting" which is why I am putting it in the "safe" category.. Once again kinda reread my OP.

Which guides?
Thanks a lot Hope these answers or counters your gripes.

[yamy]

Nice work, even tho I dislike a few of those guides:
-Sb runed axe
-Not about items, but your MQ skill build has aura>stats early???
-I wouldnt go bkb as chronos after runed, you finally need some damage like daemonic/geo/sb
-I dont like dampeer items at all, he should be played in mid and is easy to snowball with. You should pick something that allows you to snowball even harder.
-MM with runed is not that good if you dont have stacked neuts all the time
m
Some of the guides are set to private
Ive been watching your stream for a long time and really enjoy it, keep it up!

-Runed axe on a swiftblade gives him more damage and allows him to farm faster, whilst also giving him the mana-regen; which considering the invulnerability with his skill 1 and skill 4; isn't a bad shout, obviously high MMR item guides vary every single game, i'm assuming this isn't for high mmr.

-You might need damage after Runed:axe, but if you still have 1000hp, or less; you are going to be instanted by most nukers with a little bit of intelligence. With bkb you are going to make life a lot harder even if you leave enemies heroes out of your ultimate. Without bkb, any gank you 'might' go for instead of farming is a lot riskier, so BKB is definitely a good shout considering the MMR I'm assuming the guides are based at.

-Considering helm is one of the best items in-game, and if you can get it early whilst going mid; you will be able to literally go round ganking with very little risk; it seems nice for snowballing. If you go straight for damage; dying is going to be more likely, and in the MMR where people are using guides, positioning isn't widely 'attained' to a high level.

- Whilst very true, the mana regen considering how cheap your escape mechanism is, your low mana pool and very good nuke (skill 2); it is still a very useful item. It synergises well with the mana intensity of his skills; skill 1,2 ulti and he has no mana. With the mana regen; your ulti can be used regularly which will speed up farming.

*Those are my views on why those picks are viable - *****Considering the MMR target range***** (key point)


I like the guides but I feel that you could put a bit more strategy/description into the guides. I feel as though quite often with a lot of the players thes guides will benefit a lot; whilst they can follow the skills/items they don't quite understand why they are doing it.

E.g. "Slithers ulti is non-lethal, when using slither the typical combo will involve skill 1(lethal) and ulti. Skill 1 will slow them guaranteeing the hit with your ulti, if you do not skill 1. Slither has a low mana pool, and at lvl 6 will require full mana to combo; grave locket assists with this"

E.g. "Dampeer, should always have 3 charges up from his ulti (explanation)"

-I feel as though there are certain little elements to almost all the heroes which could greatly assist players using them.
-I also had the private issue for some of the guides, I forget which ones but I thought it was 3-4 or so.

TL;dr a little description of usage of skills, I feel would be very beneficial (obviously that would require some time, so if you have time). Some tips/tricks on certain heroes can also be beneficial. ("slither blocking self in juke spot with ward".)

[[xBM]Ackwell1]

Kinda missed the 10th point , but yeah all still makes sense.
CD and FA are set as a private.

E: About dampeer, I feel like with steams, vestments and huge life stealing skills he is tanky enough early and may focus on other items. I like that hellflower, but it really is worth of a shot to try pk, codex or shroud. Sounds pretty dumb but at least pk is super awesome, your then a nice initiator also with it.

[shamsz]

Kinda missed the 10th point , but yeah all still makes sense.
CD and FA are set as a private.

E: About dampeer, I feel like with steams, vestments and huge life stealing skills he is tanky enough early and may focus on other items. I like that hellflower, but it really is worth of a shot to try pk, codex or shroud. Sounds pretty dumb but at least pk is super awesome, your then a nice initiator also with it.

Well, I always feel like when a hero is snowballing it is easy to shut him down unless he beefs himself up with items such as Helm and BKB. I'm not a huge fan of codex or spellshards on Dampeer because I feel with proper items like BKB, Hellflower, Frostwolf Skull, etc he becomes a force to reckon with even at the 50 minute mark, whereas if you go the "magic nuke" build you really fall off past the 25-30 min mark once heroes start gaining BKBs and have 1200 HP+ with vestments.

Thanks for the private mentions, I made them public.. let me know if any others are on private as well.

I like the guides but I feel that you could put a bit more strategy/description into the guides. I feel as though quite often with a lot of the players thes guides will benefit a lot; whilst they can follow the skills/items they don't quite understand why they are doing it.

E.g. "Slithers ulti is non-lethal, when using slither the typical combo will involve skill 1(lethal) and ulti. Skill 1 will slow them guaranteeing the hit with your ulti, if you do not skill 1. Slither has a low mana pool, and at lvl 6 will require full mana to combo; grave locket assists with this"

E.g. "Dampeer, should always have 3 charges up from his ulti (explanation)"

-I feel as though there are certain little elements to almost all the heroes which could greatly assist players using them.
-I also had the private issue for some of the guides, I forget which ones but I thought it was 3-4 or so.

TL;dr a little description of usage of skills, I feel would be very beneficial (obviously that would require some time, so if you have time). Some tips/tricks on certain heroes can also be beneficial. ("slither blocking self in juke spot with ward".)

I agree with you, but if that was the case I wouldn't be able to create these guides in mass quantity. Maybe once I make an item/skill build for every hero, I can go back and slowly build them up into more detailed guides on how to play the hero. As for now my focus will be to just put out a guide for every hero for items/skills as I feel like the current guides are really misleading (Doombringer on luxury for valkyrie, Staff of the master on core for pyro) ..

I like PK on Blacksmith and taking ulti later to keep Q's mana cost down for longer.

You still like +2 stats on Swift when he was given an int boost in a recent patch to no longer necessitate that build?

I agree PK is awesome on BS, which is why I had it on the luxury (I think?). I disagree with the taking ulti later, because I feel like at that lvl 7, 2x multicasts are so devastating to take down carries and other squishies (Magebane, FA, Soulstealer etc).. getting a kill on these heroes with a lucky 2x multi is worth the mana cost, imo.

The stats are still necessary, go in practice mode.. if you spin with full mana at lvl 6 you still have to wait 5 or so seconds until you can use your ultimate unless you have steam boots or power supply. I think the stats are worth it just to insure you'll be able to have enough mana, also the hero doesn't have the best HP pool early on so the extra +4 strength benefits as well.

Hey shamsz, really enjoy seeing you in pro games and listening to your (much needed) insight on hon cast. I like the idea that you have with these guides, and they're definitely better than 99% of the in game guides floating around (especially the S2 guides dear god). It's unfortunate that they are more or less a list of viable items for each hero...

Good work though, I'll be giving them the thumbs up when I see them in game.

Thanks a lot. Like I said though, once I finish an item/skill guide for every hero in the game I'll go back and start making more detailed guides hero by hero if these are successful and people find them useful.

[man_guy]

I like PK on Blacksmith and taking ulti later to keep Q's mana cost down for longer.

You still like +2 stats on Swift when he was given an int boost in a recent patch to no longer necessitate that build?

[[Ben]Rice_Against]

Hey shamsz, really enjoy seeing you in pro games and listening to your (much needed) insight on hon cast. I like the idea that you have with these guides, and they're definitely better than 99% of the in game guides floating around (especially the S2 guides dear god). It's unfortunate that they are more or less a list of viable items for each hero...

Good work though, I'll be giving them the thumbs up when I see them in game.

[yamy]

Yeah its seemed as though that was the case, and obviously that being said the items are far more viable than a lot of the guides i've seen. After coming back from 11 months off; a month ago and looking at guides for new heroes so many of them are completely wrong. I find a problem is that many of the guides Up-voted are up-voted by those who use the guies, and those are lower MMR players which in a sense is a vicious cycle.

I only mentioned it, because whilst using this Account i see a lot of errors in usage of skills and feel that could be very beneficial for a lot of the players.

Oh and hey hey, nothing wrong with a valk throwing the game with a luxury doombringer -.- !!

*My personal opinion*

I am not a fan of slither ward lvl 2 with slither.

[Side-lane]
Whilst in a side-lane the extra harass I feel is more viable early on.

If you have wards of sight early on then the vision given by the slither ward, is not really necessary; even if you don't by lvl 4, you should either have a call if their mid is missing and therefore the ward seems unecessary. If you don't get the call, the chances are their mid is ganking with invis/haste/dd and you are most likely dead anyway even if you get a 300-600 range view on them.

Keeping in mind the awful mana pool of slither (ulti/spray) the ward in my opinion is manacost which is not needed. That being said with poison sprays increase in range as well as the ability to harass in lane is quite important especially considering that most players won't leave lane pre-lvl 6.

I assume that perhaps you chose ward for blocking yourself in when juking or perhaps jungling to improve farming efficiency (correct me if I have assumed wrongly).

[Mid]

I believe the harass with toxicity is too vital considering the importance of lane control, harassing and CK when mid. You should have wards mid or if not you should at least buy 1 irrelevant of your hero, in order to rune control etc. Ward seems a bit unecessary.


That is my opinion of slither considering early game; but then again that is partially due to how I play slither and I don't really need wards due to positioning.

[Guiga_JHC]

Nice job, keep making them

[[Ben]Rice_Against]

Shamsz umad? Where dat nomad guide??

[[E]Chubbyslas]

Just made em all fav/default :P much more sensible than those horrible S2 defaults btw, stream much more please

[[IaF]pera037]

Just made em all fav/default :P btw, stream much more please

same here

[Jenova26]

Great guides overall. Obviously there'll be situational and opinion-based differences, but these are great standard guides. It's nice to see someone intelligent making standard guides. I've been forced to make a lot of my own guides for the heroes I play often, but I'm always lost when it comes to playing heroes I don't play very often and Diva's guides just don't cut it. I always end up using s*** like "Doug's Super Awesome Annihilation Valkyrie Guide 2.0!!!!"

I'm going to default/favorite your guides to fill the emtpy spots where I don't have my own guides made.

Thanks!

[trout0x]

Hey shamsz for some reason I can't login (which is retarded because I'm logged in here to the forums) to the website and as such can't search for your guides, through herodex your guides I guess are too new (or the list is too short) and do not seem to show up is there any other way to view them?

[Jenova26]

Hey shamsz for some reason I can't login (which is retarded because I'm logged in here to the forums) to the website and as such can't search for your guides, through herodex your guides I guess are too new (or the list is too short) and do not seem to show up is there any other way to view them?

Click any of the guides in the original post and, when the guide opens, log in again in the top left and click to remain logged in. The forum site and the website are different. You can be logged into the forums and the main website at the same time on two different accounts.

[Maginator]

Nice guides one little thing, i think u should add hellfower to core on blacksmith. Its really strong on him as well as on any other hero really