You can download HoN free here. Here’s the full FAQ from the currently flaky forums, most likely from the already growing player base.

Q. How does Free-to-Play affect me?

All existing players will be marked as Legacy accounts. Legacy accounts will no longer be obtainable and will continue to enjoy free access to the general hero pool. You will be able to play in Verified Only games, but can play in Basic games if you choose. Legacy players will continue to receive newly released heroes for free after the hero leaves Early Access.

Q. What is Early Access?

Independent of Free-to-Play is a new feature called Early Access. Players will be able to purchase Early Access to new heroes to play them before they are released for free to the rest of the Legacy players.

While heroes are Early Access, they will not be playable in Tournament Play.

There are many reasons for the introduction of the Early Access system, for a detailed explanation see Maliken’s post here: http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/sh…d.php?t=305655

Q. I already paid for HoN! Was my money wasted now that it’s Free-to-Play?

Not at all! Legacy accounts are now a rarity, part of our old business model – you’re getting additional new content (outside of any potential pay for content expansions) for free, which is a perk no longer available to new accounts whom have to unlock new content.

Q. Will Free-to-Play mean my games will be ruined by griefers and trolls?

By requiring players to either play a significant number of games or make a purchase before becoming Verified, players will have made an investment into their account. If a person griefs, they will lose this investment. We will be increasing our efforts to stop griefing through our Report a Player system so Verified players can be confident the matches they play will be good ones. Basic accounts will not have access to the Report A Player function.

Q. What about game modes that require my teammates to have access to the whole hero pool?

We’ve gone to great lengths to try to ensure that the HoN experience you’ve come to know and love will be as unchanged by Free-to-Play as possible. Game modes SD, BD, AR, and BP will require that non-legacy accounts have a Token or Game Pass in order to enter the match. The token allows them to play as any hero in the pool for that game – if they pick a hero they don’t own, the token is spent. This means that you can depend on any of your teammates having access to that crucial counter-pick in these modes, and not have to worry about team strategy being limited by what heroes your teammates have unlocked.

Q. Can I play with a friend I bring to HoN as a new Basic (free to play) account?

Yes you can, you simply will not be able to queue into a Verified Only pool.

Q. Where can I create an account and download the game?

You can create your account here. After making your account, you can download the game here.

Q. Will I need real money to play?

No. You will have access to a Rotating Hero Pool of 15 heroes and will be able to play without paying a cent.

Q. Who has a Basic account?

Anyone who has created an account since HoN went Free-to-Play and has not become Verified.

Q. What are the benefits of being Verified?

Verified players are able to queue into Verified Only Matchmaking, are able to use the Report a Player system, and are given 5 free tokens to use. Verified players can be assured that players they are playing with take their accounts as seriously as they do.

Q. How do I become Verified?
You can become verified by reaching level 5 or by purchasing Gold Goblin Coins. This is to ensure you are serious about your account.

Q. I signed up to play with my friend who is a long time HoN player, will we be able to queue in Match Making together?

Yes! Verified and Basic accounts can play together, but will be unable to queue into a Verified Only game until both players are Verified.

Q. If I only have access to 15 heroes, will I be at a disadvantage in game modes like Single Draft and Banning Pick?

Certain game modes in HoN were designed around having access to the full hero pool. For these modes, we’ve created Tokens and Passes. Single Draft, All Random, Banning Pick, and Banning Draft require either a Token or a Game Pass to play.

Game Passes let you play these modes for a certain amount of time, as much as you want, playing any hero you want. Tokens allow you to play, and will get spent if you choose a hero you do not normally own. This allows us to guarantee that, in these game modes, all of your teammates are capable of choosing that critical counter-pick hero, instead of having strategy be limited by a restricted hero pool.

You’ll get some Tokens for free when you become a Verified account. Aside from that, Tokens and Passes can be purchased via the in-game store.

Q. Can I still get a Legacy account?

No. These accounts are no longer available.

Q. Do I have to purchase heroes with real money if I want a hero not in the Hero Pool?

No. You can earn heroes by simply playing the game. However, if you would like to get a hero quicker, you can buy Gold Goblin Coins at http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/purchase.

Q. What are HoN’s system requirements?

You can find the system requirements at http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/specs_pop.html

- Greatly optimized client performance on all systems
- Optimized various interfaces to run more efficiently (9000% more efficient!)
- Fixed an issue causing F6 to re-set the position of the scoreboard
- Fixed various crashes that could occur during gameplay
- Fixed experience popups to off-set from gold popups, such that they do not overlap
- Added a new music track to Caldavar, entitled “Encounter at the River”
- Fixed in game match stats screen to display the correct XP/Min, such that it will not calculate time spent playing after reaching level 25
- Fixed a crash that could occur when exiting the game
- Added hero selection announcements for bubbles, chipper, doctor repulsor, gauntlet, and tundra
- Pre-match time for all game modes changed from 1 minute 15 seconds to 1 minute 30 seconds
- Fixed several interface crashes
- Fixed advanced game mode filter on public game interface to correctly save values.
- Fixed animations getting stuck when rewinding replays
- Fixed rewinding tree deaths in replays
- Fixed projectile orientations
- Fixed attacking buildings and towers without sight of that building or tower
- Fixed duration of deny animation glow

- During modes that use alternating pick (banning draft, banning pick, etc), once a player selects their hero it will instantly switch to the other team (rather than waiting the remaining time)
* Each player now has 40 seconds to select their hero, from 30
* Transition time between banning and picking is now 15 seconds, from 20
* The time after the hero picks has been reduced from 2 minutes to 45 seconds
- Hero selection time in all pick reduced from 2 minutes to 1 minute

== Mac Bug Fixes ==

- Fixed a crash in OS X when a user quits by closing the HoN window
- Limit AA to 4x on OS X client to avoid all white/black screens caused by higher settings

== Items ==

New Item – Striders
- New boots added to the Initiation shop
- Marchers + 300 (Recipe)
- 50 Movespeed. No other bonuses.
- When out of combat for 6 seconds, increases movespeed by 100 over the next 2 seconds, for a total of +150 movement speed (including the base).
- Bonus movespeed is removed when the owner takes damage, casts a spell, attacks, or uses an item.
* Using Non-combat items such as Wards, Bottle, Mana, or Health Potions will not remove the bonus speed

Blood Chalice
- Now requires a Mark of the Novice (+3 int) and Crushing Claws (+3 str) instead of a Scarab, granting +3 Str/Int
- Grants 150 mana for 150 health. Mana is no longer lost after a duration
- If an enemy hero dies within 15 seconds and 700 AOE of the user, the user is healed for 150 as the chalice uses the enemy’s spilt blood to pay the debt.
- Cooldown lowered from 35s to 25s

Null Stone
- AOE abilities (such as witch slayer stun / pyromancer wave) no longer proc nullstone when clicking directly on a target

Savage Mace
- Illusions will no longer proc a ministun. They still can get the +100 damage.

Stormspirit
- Now only ’stuns’ allies, letting them queue up abilities. Enemies it is used on can not queue up abilities or items while cycloned.

== Heroes ==

- Updated many recommended items
- Reworked how many projectile-based abilities interact with eachother
* This fixes strange behavior when two skills that try to move a unit interact, such as a charging kraken getting hooked by devourer who gets tossed by pebbles

Flint Beastwood
- New Hellbourne Agi hero, based on DotA’s Sniper
- Skills:
* Explosive Flare – Deals damage in an area immediately, then gives vision over that area and slows/reveals any enemies who come within the vicinity
* Hollowpoint Shells – Gives a chance that an auto-attack will deal bonus damage and apply a mini-stun
* Deadeye – Increases attack range
* Money Shot – Channels for a brief time then fires a massive shot, dealing high damage at a long range to a single target

Chronos
- Damage from Curse of Ages proc from 20/40/60/80 Magic to 15/30/45/60 Physical

Doctor Repulsor
- Increased vision range on first skill to from 300 to 800
- Fixed an issue with sounds on the first skill where some super human players could hear high frequencies
- Radius of tree killing on ult lowered from 150 to 100
- No longer disarmed while using ult

Engineer
- Turret is now killable, dies in 3 hits. Units can only get hit a maximum of 8 times, down from 10

Forsaken Archer
- Volley range from awful/awful/decent/800 to 800 at all levels
- Volley immobilize time from 1.75/2/2.25/2.5 to 1/1.5/2/2.5
- Skeletons no longer apply the DoT

Gladiator
- Flagellation will no longer deal double bonus damage to buildings
- The visual effect on Call to Arms now matches the actual area
- Damage taken from Call to Arms is now spread over 5/6/7 seconds instead of instant
- Increased speed of Call to Arms from 650 to 750

Nymphora
- Zeal damage from 55/90/130/160 to 50/85/120/155
- Zeal stun duration from 1/1.3/1.6/2 to 0.75/1/1.25/1.5

Rampage
- Can now target and affect Magic Immune heroes with all of his abilities

Slither
- Poison Spray range from 1000 at all levels to 600/725/850/1000

Soulstealer
- Cast time for Soul Burst increased from 1s to 1.4s

Tundra
- Ranged pet attack cooldown from 1.5s to 1s
- Coldblooded replaced with Cold Shoulder
* 300,400,500,600 Range, 40 Manacost, 12s cooldown
* Last winter, Tundra had two distant relatives teach him how to charge his enemies correctly, coating them in ice on contact. The ice makes them easier to hit, increasing everyone’s attack speed against that target.
* On use, charges the target, dealing Tundra’s Attack Damage on impact. Applies Cold Shoulder to them for 8 seconds.
* Cold Shoulder Effects: Increases attackspeed against this target by 15/30/45/60
* Attackspeed will linger for 2 seconds after changing targets
* The Brothers of cold send their regards… *

Vindicator
- Silence aura will no longer be disabled by skills like devourer’s hook, Chronos’ ult, Pebbles’ chuck, etc

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• Pros/Cons
• Skills
• Skill Builds
• Items
• Strategy
• Proper Skill Usage
• Hooking Map
• Replays
• FAQ’s and Debates
• Conclusion
• Future Plans
• Changelog

I. Introduction

Devourer is one of my favorite utility heroes. He can completely isolate another player and destroy them before their team even knows what happened. I play devourer as a heavy ganker and a late game Tank/Anti-Carry. This guide will focus around this.

II. Pros and Cons

Pros

-Has excellent strength gain.
-Has amazing ganking power.
-Is a low risk initiator. Devourer has the ability to force the enemy team to initiate, rather than charging in and doing it himself.
-Can tank as well as provide a large amount of damage in team fights.

Cons

-Has high mana costing abilities.
-Has low armor.
-Has low Agility and Intelligence stat gains.
-Requires a very good early game to maintain usefulness.
-Requires a lot of time and practice to master.

III. Skills

Quote:

Guttling Hook The Devourer launches his Guttling Hook at a target unit or location. The first targetable unit that touches the hook will be dragged back to the Devourer. Action: Target Position (All Non-Siege Units) Type: Physical Push Range: 1100 Radius: 60 Cast Time: 0.3 seconds Mana Cost: 140 Cooldown: 14.0 seconds Activation: Deals 100 / 200 / 300 / 400 Physical damage to target and interrupts channeling abilities. Drags the target to self. Here’s a technical breakdown of Guttling Hooks’ travel time, courtesy of ElementUser. Guttling Hook travels at a speed of 1600 units/second. Since it extends up to 1100 units, its max travel time over 1100 units is 0.6875 seconds in 1 direction. If you count the time it has to travel back, then it has a true max travel time of 0.6875 x 2 = 1.375 seconds.

This is your primary ganking tool. You can use this to isolate heroes, save allies, and even interrupt devastating ultimates from the opposing team. It does physical damage, and a very large amount at that. It’s one of the highest damaging non-ultimate nukes in game.

Notes:
-After the hook reaches it’s maximum range, it will start returning to your current position.
-The hook can grab someone on its’ return trip.

Quote:

Decay The Devourer allows himself to decay, draining his Health over time and releasing poisonous gasses that both damage and slow nearby enemy units. Action: Toggle Radius: 250 Activation: Applies Decay to enemy targets in radius and deals 25 / 50 / 75 / 100 Magic damage per second to self. The movement slow persists for 2 seconds after an enemy leaves the Decay radius. Decay Effects 20% Movement Slow 25 / 50 / 75 / 100 Magic damage per second

Decay is amazing. It allows you to get off massive damage on disabled heroes (Such as ones you are well, devouring) and even chase down survivors. Albeit having a small AOE, you can usually catch 2-3 heroes during team fights. (Assuming you’re not in the forest finishing up one of their stragglers.) When used properly, you can get off a couple melee attacks while chasing someone down, too.

Notes:
-You can use it to help last hit during the laning phase.
-You can use it to kill yourself and deny their team of gold and experience.
-The slow stays for 2 seconds after they leave the radius. This means you can spam it once every 2 seconds to keep enemies slowed down. This is most useful when running away.
-You can toggle this on and off at will, even while channeling your ultimate.

Quote:

Cadaver Armor This grotesque armor increases the Devourer’s Magic Armor and permanently adds strength for each nearby hero kill or each kill he makes. Action: Passive Adds: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 Magic Armor Aura: 400 (Enemy Heroes) On Kill: Permanently adds 0.9 / 1.2 / 1.5 / 1.8 Strength to self per hero kill, or 0.03 / 0.05 / 0.06 / 0.09 Strength per creep kill. Aura Effects On death, when not killed by the devourer, permanently adds 0.9 / 1.2 / 1.5 / 1.8 Strength to the devourer.

Cadaver Armor will provide you with a little more magic armor, and allow you to start building up a massive amount of strength. As long as you remain in team fights and gank frequently, this skill will really start to beef itself up. It’s not uncommon to see this say +30 to +50 strength by the end of the game.

Quote:

Devour (Om Nom Nom) The Devourer grabs a target enemy and feasts on their flesh, dealing massive damage for every second he feeds. Type: Superior Magic Range: 160 Channeling Time: 3 Seconds Mana Cost: 100 / 130 / 170 Cooldown: 30.0 Seconds Activation: Applies Devour to target enemy for 3 seconds or until channel is canceled. Devour Effects 75 / 125 / 175 Magic damage per second This ability can be boosted by Staff of the Master. Staff Effect: Heals self equal to the damage done. Deals additional (0.75 * Strength) Magic damage per second.

Devour synergizes well with his other skills. You can Hook an enemy hero, Devour them, and proceed to burn them down with Decay. The amount of damage you obtain from this combo is amazing during early-mid game, and is almost always a sure kill. Late game you will primarily use this ability to disable the enemies carry or initiator before a teamfight begins.

The ability is upgradable with Staff of the Master, giving it a major damage increase that will heal you for the damage it does. This is particularly useful for non-stop team pushing. With a low cooldown of 30 seconds, you can heal a good portion of your health in just about every fight you engage in.

Note that this ability is superior magic. The disable will work through magic immunity, but the target will not be damaged. If you have Staff of the master, you will still be healed while the target is magic immune.

IV. Skill Builds

The “Pro Hooker” build

1. Decay
2. Guttling Hook
3. Guttling Hook
4. Decay
5. Guttling Hook
6. Devour
7. Guttling Hook
8. Cadaver Armor
9. Decay
10. Decay
11. Devour
12. Cadaver Armor
13. Cadaver Armor
14. Cadaver Armor
15. Stats
16. Devour
17-25. Stats

Explanation
While some would argue that you don’t need to level Guttling Hook so much early game as of patch 1.64, I still believe it’s worth leveling above everything else. If you level Decay above Guttling Hook, you will be required to chase a hero for at least a couple seconds longer just to match the damage you get from landing a hook. Not to mention decay damages you too, whereas hook does not.

I normally grab Cadaver Armor at level 8. The reasoning behind this is simple: You should be ganking a lot now, and you will probably be part of a few team fights. Decay is high enough level to “get the point across” and your hook + ult is enough damage to get the job done. Cadaver Armor will reduce the overall magic damage you take by a small amount, and will also allow you to start building your strength up. Hopefully it will give you a small hp boost mid game.

If you’re not confident in your hooking ability, then this may not be the best build to go for. Decay is rather easy to deal damage with as long as you chase; whereas you must actually land a hook to benefit from the skill points.

The “Chaser” build

1. Decay
2. Guttling Hook
3. Decay
4. Cadaver Armor
5. Decay
6. Devour
7. Decay
8. Cadaver Armor
9. Cadaver Armor
10. Cadaver Armor
11. Devour
12. Guttling Hook
13. Guttling Hook
14. Guttling Hook
15. Stats
16. Devour
17-25. Stats

Explanation
This build is primarily focused around being part of every single team fight. You take one level of Guttling Hook so you can still hook heroes when you really need to, but you won’t be relying on it for damage. Decay will be your primary source of damage, and is leveled above everything else. You pick up Cadaver Armor at level 4 so that your early game kills will benefit you a bit more, but it’s not maxed until midgame. Hook is taken last just for the extra damage boost. By then the hooking should consist of either easy straight line stragglers, or teamfight initiation, and the damage can help end both faster.

Something to note is that while Decay boosts your damage output, it also boosts the rate at which you kill yourself. When choosing this build it is recommended you have some sort of “support” role to lane with you to ease the burden on your health loss.

V. Items

You need to stay on top of your farm so that you can rush your core build. Health regen and magic armor directly synergize with Decay, and allow him to tank better as a whole. Devourer also has fairly slow base movement speed, so getting boots early is needed for efficient ganking.

Starting Items

Healing Potion x1 – 100g
Runes of Blight x1 – 90g
Mana Potion x1 – 50g
Minor Totem x3 – 159g
Courier – 200g
Total Cost – 599g

Generally speaking, I get roughly the same starting items on almost every hero I play. Nobody in pubs buys a courier, so I’m usually the one stuck doing it, which leaves you with little gold to work with. I do however, wait to see if somebody else decides to. If they give me control then I’ll buy a mana battery instead of the third Minor Totem.

The consumables are just enough to allow you to take some damage while you deal out hooks and decay-chase early game. You should take note that Devourer has a very low mana pool. One hook takes over half your mana early game. Use your mana sparingly, and be very defensive about not getting hit after drinking a potion/using bottle.

If you’re in a side lane with ability spammers, build a power supply as quickly as possible. It clears up inventory space, and the constant flow of health and mana will keep you in the lane much longer.

Before the Core

Before you pick your core build, this is what you want your items to look like. You will need these items before you start “Hardcore Ganking”. You can mitigate a decent amount of damage with vestments, and bottle+power supply will sustain you in between each gank.

Choosing Your Core Build

There has been a lot of debate lately on what exactly is the most effective “Core build” for Devourer. I’ve done extensive testing on different builds and have been unable to decide one way or the other. Due to my inability to “chose” the proper build, I’ve decided to let it boil down to personal preference.

Core Build 1

Shaman’s Headdress – 2050g
Plated Greaves – 1503g
Bottle – 600g
Homecoming Stone – 135g
Power Supply – 606g
Total Cost – 4395g

Headdress has always been an effective item for devourer due to the massive magic armor and health regen. This combined with Cadaver Armor (Level 4) gives you 53.9% magic reduction! Plated greaves are taken for survival purposes. They give you everything you need. They give you some stats and a ton of armor. They’re also the fastest boots excluding Post-Haste.

Core Build 2

Helm of the Black Legion – 2225g
Plated Greaves – 1503g
Bottle – 600g
Mystic Vestments – 400g
Homecoming Stone – 135g
Power Supply – 606g
Total Cost – 4870g

There has been a lot of speculating and theorycrafting done with this build. It is entirely dependent on the fact that you keep mystic vestments throughout the entire game. This build mitigates more damage than Core Build 1 in all situations. The drawbacks are that it costs 575 more gold than Core Build 1, and it requires one extra inventory slot.

Once lategame rolls around, you may want to consider disassembling your HotBL and building Headdress/Behemoth’s heart out of the pieces. This allows you to make use of an item that would otherwise be worthless late game.

Details on the Core Builds

Both core builds are completely valid, and each have their drawbacks/perks. Some people prefer headdress, and others swear by HotBL. I personally, prefer Core Build 1 over Core Build 2. Losing that extra inventory slot from Core Build 2 doesn’t matter much mid game, but once you work towards late game it starts to hurt. Numbers don’t lie though, and Core Build 2 does make you a better tank. (Yes, even when the enemy team has a lot of magic damage.)

You can see all the mathcraft and gritty details in the “FAQ’s and Debates” section near the end of the guide.

Honorable Mentions

These are items you want to purchase for specific situations. Some could be bought before you finish your core, and others should be put off until after. Strictly speaking you should almost never need to buy these items, they’re completely situational.

Ward of Sight – 200g
You shouldn’t ever really need to purchase wards. There are better heroes that are less item dependent, and they should be buying these instead. Nevertheless, some support heroes just don’t do there job right, and spending a mere 200g can give you sight of a good portion of the map, and provide you with even more ganking opportunities.

Barbed Armor – 2200g
If you’re actually being focused a lot, this may be worth a purchase. It gives some OK stats and can often ensure you and your “new best friend” aren’t interrupted by his pesky teammates. It’s also a great counter to many of the heroes that counter you. (Bloodhunter is one example.)

Portal Key – 2150g
There are heroes that require this item to initiate properly, but devourer isn’t one of them. He can initiate with hook just fine; and while portal key can help you hook heroes into some secluded locations, he just doesn’t need it. Though, if you’re having a hard time getting hooks off, this item can really help you still be useful to your team. You can blink in and ult, then hook them as they run away instead.
-I haven’t used this item enough to really see it’s full potential. If you have a replay showcasing the “true power” of Portal Key, please let me know!

Tablet of Command – 2040g
I find the actual “push” of Tablet to be rather weak. It’s hard to find situations where I’d rather use tablet instead of simply hooking them instead. In every case that I’ve purchased Tablet, I was only able to utilize it for chasing purposes.
-I haven’t used this item enough to really see it’s full potential. If you have a replay showcasing the “true power” of the Tablet of Command, please let me know!

Late Game/Luxury Items

Choosing a late game item is very important, and you must judge which one is best suited for the game you’re in. If you’ve had a good early-mid game it’s more than likely you’ll be able to squeeze in one-two of these items. Try to decide what your team needs to win the game, and rush it as fast as you can.

Barrier Idol – 3653g (1603g Upgrade from Headdress)
If their team has a lot of AOE damage, this is an amazingly smart purchase to make. You could save your team as well as yourself. It gives you a little bit more health regen, and a nice 400 magic damage shield for 8 seconds. Using this in the middle of a teamfight will give your team quite the edge.

Staff of the Master – 4300g
While Barrier Idol is a much better “support” item for your team, Staff of the Master allows you to become a beastly tank. Due to the items required to make this item, you can keep your health and mana stats rising throughout the game; sustaining your early game edge. Strictly speaking – the major reason I buy this is for effect on your ultimate. It allows you to become a tank that is able to heal a quarter of his health every 30 seconds while their carry is busy being burned down to nothing. Hands down this is my most preferred late game item.

Behemoth’s Heart – 5500g
This is usually what I go for if the game continues after I’ve finished my core build and obtained a Staff. You get a major boost to your HP, more ult damage(assuming you have a staff), and a 0.75% hp/s regen. If you haven’t had a particularly “great” early game, it can be difficult to farm this item due to the expensive parts. If you plan to use Behemoth’s as your first late game item, it is important for you to make sure that you can actually farm the item. Unlike other late game items, the components required to make behemoth’s heart can’t be acquired easily as the game progresses.

VI. Strategy

Strategy is very important in HoN. You would be amazing how much better off you will be if you properly chose the correct lane and laning partner. Maximizing your early game effectiveness is extremely important for Devourer. He’s a hero that relies on his early game edge, and you won’t have one if you don’t properly plan things out beforehand.

Solo Mid: If you’re confident in your ability to hook well, ask for solo mid. If not, don’t risk it. The solo is a very important role for your team, and devourer can be easily shut down.

The main benefit from mid is having the large ganking potential. Devourer is a ganker, and one of the best at that. You should have your bottle before you roam, and always try to gank the lane with the rune. Every 2 minutes the rune will spawn, and you better be there. A lucky haste or regen rune is all you need for a double kill. Another major benefit from middle is the ability to easily hook your opponent into the tower. You can pull a hero from the center of the river directly into the range of your tower, as well as slow them while they are within its’ range.

The Side Lanes: If you aren’t quite as confident in your hooking abilities, or even if there is somebody who would be better off mid, you should head off to a side lane. (It doesn’t matter which, each has their own benefits) You can usually get a couple hooks from the trees while in a side lane, and you’re provided with a lot more hooking opportunities due to the length of the lanes.

After mid game hits you should start roaming, gank as much as possible! Ganks buff you up and save your team from getting killed themselves. Keep up your creep farm until you see an opportunity to get moving; you have to find an opportunity to catch them off guard. When ganking a lane with two enemy heroes, always try to make your hooked target as isolated as possible. The further their teammate has to walk to get to you, the more likely you are to get away clean.

Great Laning Partners
Devourer goes great with a very wide variety of heroes. You’re basically looking for heroes that can pump the crap out of your early game farm. Anyone with a stun or high burst damage is immediately a good laning partner, and of course the major support heroes are natural buddies as well. I won’t list heroes that fall into those categories. If they’ve got a stun/slow, they’re great to lane with, period.

Jeraziah’s Repel and Heal synergize so well it’s ridiculous. Probably the best partner for devourer. He can make you immune to your Decay, and then heal you directly after the effects wear off; taking your enemy down and keeping you alive in the process. He can help you stay in the lane longer, as well as nab you a few early game kills. A well played Jeraziah can make you nearly invincible.

Nymphora can stun, heal, and refill your mana. While I’d honestly prefer a good Jera over a good nymph, she can be a very strong asset to your early game.

Accursed can shield you and mitigate the damage from Decay. This keeps you from doing too much damage to yourself, and then proceeds to blow up whoever you are Decay-Chasing. He also has a nuke that can be used as a heal, which can help when you’re in a pinch.

Not too many people play Pollywog Priest these days, even though he is a very powerful hero. He of course lanes well with just about anyone, but I consider him to go exceptionally well with devourer. A 2.5 to 4.75 second disable where you can just sit there and Decay them while auto attacking is nothing to joke about. The damage output of these two heroes together is amazing.

Enemies to Avoid
Devourer’s worst enemies are ones that blink, silence, or drain mana. Stuns can mess you up, but not nearly as bad as a 4HP hero blinking away, or a silence right before you go in to hook their carry.

You know what’s fun? Being silenced for 15 seconds while you are doing 100 damage per second to yourself. Bloodhunter is no joke. He can completely destroy your use in a team fight, and make you kill yourself at the same time. Never caught by him with your Decay toggled on. You might not get a chance to turn it back off.

Vindicator will destroy your early game, 100%. Do not even risk laning against him, or it will ruin you; regardless of whether or not he actually kills you. His DoT will drain your mana, and slowly take down a good portion of your HP. He steals your intellect, and even prevents you from chain casting your abilities. While during late game he can silence you when your team needs you most.

Anyone that has any form of blink is a natural enemy. If you don’t ult them quick enough, your hooks will mean nothing. Dark Lady’s charge may just be a “pseudo blink” type of ability, but it’s usually enough to escape your wrath. She does a great deal of damage late game, and will silence you with every attack. What’s more is that her ult can take you completely off guard. Just as you thought you’ve hooked yourself a kill, the darkness clears and you’re surrounded by five enemy heroes. Not cool.

He drains mana, blinks out of hooks, and rapes your face late game. Magebane can be a real pain. Early game he won’t do too much other than blink away after you hook him, but in the mid-late game phases he’s not too fun to deal with. Magebane will blink right next to you, drain you of the mana required to ult, kill you, and then blink away like nothing happened. This all happens in a matter of a couple seconds, and there’s little you can do to stop it.

Pharaoh is a powerful hero in any game. He’s a walking bag of channel canceling abilities. A 3000 range stun that will bring him to your position, and a recurring mini-stun. I’ve often hooked Pharaoh only to have him activate hellfire right as I ultimate. He gets out of my combo and I’m now in a position where I will most likely die. Even if you hook somebody else, Pharaoh will be there in an instant, and he will destroy all of your hard work. In addition to all of that, he is able to “block” a majority of the lane, draining your mana if you get too close, this makes chasing heroes more difficult as well.

VII. Proper Skill Usage

This section will demonstrate how to effectively use each of Devourer’s skills properly. Devourer has a large amount of utility due to the sheer amount of possible usages each skill has. To make full use of Devourer you must properly practice each of these techniques.

As you can see, Night Hound has been hooked, and is on the way to my position. What’s more, is that he has lost a massive 39% of his maximum HP.

As mentioned above, the slow effect from decay persists for 2 seconds after they leave this radius. Just being able to catch a hero within the AoE for a split second could be enough to get them killed. Note that while the slow does stay on their hero, the damage will not be applied during the extra 2 second duration.

Hooking a Moving Target

Let’s face it, you aren’t going to see stationary targets passed the early game phase. Maybe a few here and there, but not enough to where you can just “ignore” a moving target. In the below screenshot, I’m following an underfarmed electrician. Mmm~, my favorite. I’m not much faster than him, but he’s got corners to go around, and corners are Devourer’s best friend.

Hooking a moving target requires you to accurately judge an enemy heroes movement speed, and then target where you think they’re going to run. A smart opponent would know this and they would never turn a corner when you’re around. Rather than continuing to follow the blue arrows, he would simply turn the other way.

Fortunately for me, Electrician isn’t smart. Seeing as how just my hook alone was enough to bring him down to 59% HP, it’s unlikely that he will be able to get away.

Bringing Everything Together

Devourer is all about synergy. Every one of his abilities helps the other, and they can all be combined into one powerful-ass combo.

I came up from behind Scout just after he came out of invis, so I have a brief amount of time to unleash my combo before he enters stealth and escapes from my wrath.

Scout is a moving target, and so I must predict what he will do. He’s already started running to the right, so I can only assume he will continue to do so. I click a small distance in front of his current position.

I cannot stress how important this next part is.

Many heroes have some form of escape mechanism: Blink, Pseudo-Blink, Invis, or even just really high movement speed. Most of these heroes will queue up these actions the moment you hook them.

What does this mean? It mean’s that you need to queue up your abilities as well! The moment you target your hook, press “Shift+R” and click on your target. This will queue up your ultimate to be used as soon as it will let you. If you hit your target, it will Devour him the moment he arrives; giving him no time to escape.

That is, if you manage to click him. The problem is that you have to actually target the enemy hero with your ult after you’ve already thrown out your hook. If you take even half a second too long to click him, he’s going to be pulled to your position without your ultimate being queued. I can’t count how many kills I’ve missed out on just because I couldn’t ult the damn hero quick enough.

The great thing about Devour is that it still allows you to toggle Decay while you’re channeling it. The moment I’ve started devouring scout, I toggle decay to maximize my damage.

And there you have it. A full combo using every skill at Devourer’s disposal. Scout couldn’t even withstand the full duration of my ult, so I didn’t even need to blindly run after him with Decay toggled on.

Blind Hooking

Blind hooking is where you predict a players actions and successfully hook them while they are not on your screen; when you’re completely blind.

This is an advanced technique, so don’t expect to be able to pull it off right away. It requires a lot of DotA/HoN experience to be able to properly predict a players actions within the fog.

The below screenshot gives an overview of the situation within my lane.

Zephyr and Magebane are going to push the lane back my way. I’m watching their actions and waiting for a chance to land a hook.

I notice zephyr position himself on the left side of the creep, which coincidentally puts him in the perfect hooking position. Unfortunately though, there aren’t any more creeps, and the fog is dimming.

Zephyr hasn’t been in the fog for very long. I have a good grasp of how fast he moves, so if I were to assume he ran straight the entire time, he would be at the red circle.

This part often makes my heart skip a beat. If you look at the bloodstain, you can tell that I’ve obviously hit “something”. If Zephyr did exactly as I predicted, it’s no doubt going to be him, and I’ll soon be having myself a kill. But what if it wasn’t? Zephyr could have just as easily thought “I should probably move, devourer is missing.” If he did, that could be a creep for all I know!

When you see this situation, you can’t help but smirk a little. I predicted exactly what zephyr would do, and caught him completely off guard. When targeting your hook, you need to also predict what could go wrong if you miss your desired target. In this specific situation, I could have been easily killed by the two of them if I had missed that hook. You have to decide if the risk is worth the reward. For those interested, I Devoured Zephyr and he died before magebane could even realize what just happened.

Blind hooks aren’t always ridiculously hard to pull off. In a situation where an enemy is running for his life, he is more likely to make mistakes, such as running in a completely predictable straight line.

Sand Wraith is running in fear of the Kraken. He just ulted in hopes to confuse my team and save his life. I’m well aware that he’s still there though, and I am within hooking range. Generally speaking, people will run in a straight line towards the fountain when running up their base ramp. Sand wraith is about to do just that.

After watching his actions for the past couple of seconds, I try to predict where he is going to run. I’ve never seen him throw off any crazy juking movements, and just before he enters the fog he’s running in a straight line; so I can only assume he will continue to do so.

It might take Kraken a second to realize that what I have in my hands is not an illusion, but I imagine he will be dead before that happens. Success!

VIII. Hooking Map

Throughout the map there are certain locations that Devourer can make excellent usage of. There are a few reasons why you would want to make note of these locations. One is that some of these spots allow you to hook enemy heroes in locations where they are unable to see you, and others are just spots where it is easy to catch enemies off guard. This makes things a lot easier in terms of predicting an opponents actions. If they can’t see you, they are less likely to run away in fear hiding behind their precious creeps. Areas where you are “guarded” by cliffs and trees are perfect locations for you to snag enemy heroes.

Please note that each spot isn’t strictly useful for the team it is color coordinated for. A good majority of the hooking locations can be used both ways. I simply colored them accordingly to whichever team I felt benefited more from that specific spot. Don’t treat this map as a black and white guide for hooking spots.

Try to observe the hooking spots that appear/disappear as the game progresses. If you look closely you can see that the Legion has more ganking locations during the laning phase, while the Hellbourne has considerably more “defensive” hooking spots compared to the Legion. The team you play on will actually change your role as Devourer by a little bit.

IX. Replays

This section is dedicated to replays that were submitted using my guide as a basis for their style of play. This section will have a maximum of 10 total replays.

If you have a replay that you think deserves a spot in this section, post it in this thread. I will filter these as time goes by to try and showcase only the best replays that have been submitted. So try not to get too disappointed if you made the section but were later removed.

MatchID: 22452073
Submitted by: Delfofthebla
Outcome: Defeat.
Score: 24 / 9 / 15
Duration: 0:55:45

Even though we lost the game, I played devourer pretty well. It was a fairly even match between teams, and I’d say I was a major asset to the team. Both as an initiator, as well as a tank. This replay also shows how powerful Jeraziah + Devourer can be in a lane together.

MatchID: 21538277
Submitted by: Delfofthebla
Outcome: Victory!
Score: 23 / 8 / 26
Duration: 1:07:30
This was actually one of my best games, I had a very high score, and pulled off some crazy hooks. By the end of the game, Cadavar Armor had stacked up to 91 strength. Even though both teams had some noob players, it was a pretty even match.

MatchID: 21073170
Submitted by: Delfofthebla
Outcome: Victory!
Score: 15 / 5 / 4
Duration: 0:35:39
This was listed as a noob game, but it turned out being filled with some average players. Not the greatest game to watch, but I pulled off quite a few nice hooks.

MatchID: 30701952
Submitted by: frog
Outcome: Victory!
Score: 22 / 2 / 7
Duration: 0:45:26
Replay with Portal Key on Devourer. frog played devourer very well, and it was a fun game to watch. While portal key wasn’t a major asset to his victory, it did make a difference. Worth checking out if you are interested to see how Portal Key can work with Devourer.

X. FAQ’s and Debates

Q. What UI mods do you use?
A. Quite a few! The most common one that I am asked about is “Player Names” by wuuh_riddie. This is the mod that changes the health bar.

I did a lot of mathcrafting in this post here: http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/sh…8&postcount=38

Yes, HotBL is better (as long as you buy mystic vestments with it), but there are acouple drawbacks that come with it. One drawback is that you will be forced to sell one item earlier than you would if you had bought Headdress instead.
The other is that you are required to spend 575g more towards your core build, and the amount of damage you mitigate is minor compared to Headdress. It’s really a matter of preference when it comes down to it.

“Do you want the item slot, or do you want to save more health in team fights?”

XI. Conclusion

Devourer has much utility but he is heavily based around the early-mid game phases. If you don’t do well during this time, it’s very possible you will be 100% useless late game. Due to this, it can be very disheartening to play Devourer in games where you aren’t hooking well. You have to remember not to get discouraged with a bad game! I’ve seriously had games where I went something like 22-5-15, and then 5-15-8 the next. Just as how a “pro hook” can land your team victory, a missed hook can end up losing you the entire game. Devourer is an excellent hero but he must be played flawlessly in order to maintain his usefulness. You just need to practice, practice, practice!

Don’t agree with something?
Think something could be added?
See a grammatical error?
Would it be easier to read if the guide was _______?

Please post any and all feedback! If you explain your thoughts with facts and logical details I would be more than willing to change my guide accordingly!

XII. Future Plans

This section will briefly layout my plans for guide updates.

-I’m hoping to get a section going regarding saving allies with your hooks.
-Hoping to get more data on games with Portal key/Tablet on devourer. I’m unable to provide completely accurate information on this item due to how often I don’t use it.
-More tweaks to the “Item” and “Strategy” sections.
-More replays!
-General formatting tweaks and changes.

XIII. Changelog

V2.7
-Added the “Hooking Map” section! -Hurray~
-Added the ability to “Jump” to each section from the Table of Contents.
-Changed some text within the “Skill Build” section.
-Changed a lot of text within the “Items” section.
-Italicized the more important information within the “Laning Partners” subsection.
-Added more info regarding Pharaoh’s abilities within the “Greatest Enemies” subsection.
-Conclusion section had a few minor edits done to it.
v2.6
-Updated skill build to promote getting Decay at level 1.
-Added text in “Core Build 2″ informing the ability to dissasemble HotBL for Headdress+Behemoth’s Heart.
-Fixed a typo in the “Predicting Actions and Movements subsection”
-Added another Replay! Thanks frog for your submission!
-Future Plans section updated.
v2.5
-Minor edits to the text within the “Skills” section. (An important note about Devourer’s ult was added.)
-Corrected the total gold value for “Core Build 2″ within the “Items” section.
-Removed a couple placeholder stubs that I forgot to remove.
v2.4
-Minor edits to the text within the “Skill Builds” section
-Major overhaul to the “Items” section. The core build has changed!
-”Strategy” section split! The new sections are “Strategy” and “Proper Skill Usage”.
-Added a “late game” subsection to the “Strategy” section. (Seems I actually forgot to add that in…oops?)
-Added an actual subsection to the “Strategy” section for laning partners and enemies to avoid. (Subsection is called “Laning Partners and Enemies to Avoid”)
-Text within “Laning Partners and Enemies to Avoid” subsection tweaked.
-New section added! “FAQ’s and Debates!”
-”Future Plans” section updated!
v2.3
-The first screenshot for hooking a moving target was broken. I’ve properly added it to the guide.
-Made a few spelling and grammar corrections.
V2.2
-Added a new subsection called “Hooking a Moving Target”!
-Added a new subsection called “Blind Hooking”!
-Added a new section called “Future Plans”!
-Renamed the “Aiming your Hook” subsection to “Hitting Stationary Targets”.
-Updated text & screenshots according to the 1.66 patch. (The Decay slow effect and the hook target range increase).
-Removed more colored text for abilities where I felt it wasn’t needed.
v2.1
-Updated Guttling Hook skill information regarding the target range. (This change makes a lot of the information regarding target range obsolete. Will update soon)
-Fixed typo regarding laning partners subsection.
V2.0
-Updated guide to be consistent with the 1.66 patch. No major changes were needed, however.
-Items section got a bit of an update. It’s now more oriented around making you chose the right items based on their team.
-Removed coloring format on skill abilities where I felt it wasn’t needed. (This is a work in progress, I’ll keep tweaking it as time goes by)
-General formatting changes.
V1.9
-New thread, yay! (This allowed me to properly reserve the second post. There’s now lots of room to cram things into the guide)
-Re-added the changelog for previous versions.
V1.8
-Added a little more info to the Decay Chasing screenshot explanation.
-Small update to “Great Laning Partners” subsection (Jeraziah’s section).
-Added Pharaoh to “Enemies to Avoid” subsection.
-Removed previous changelogs until I can sort out the “post character limit” issue.
V1.7
-Updated images to be 50% smaller. Low-Res monitor users rejoice!
-Centered text and images around the “Proper Skill Usage” sub-section.
-Rewrote the Conclusion section.
V1.6
-Strategy section got a big update!
-”Proper Skill Usage” sub-section added.
-Added highlighting for mentioning of specific skills throughout the guide.
V1.5
-Reformatted text of document, should be easier to read now.
-Finished shrinking images for all items, abilities, ect.
-Added the “Laning Partners” and “Enemies to Avoid” sections! (Would be great to hear some feedback on this)
-Changed to a better format for the replay section.
-Skill usage section cleared out. I will update this with screenshots and better explanations later.
V1.4
-Finished uploading smaller images.
-Barbed Armor added to Items section.
-Framework for upcoming Strategy revamps placed.
V1.3
-Most images have been shrunken down.
-Guide cleaned up a bit.
-New skillbuild – “The Chaser”.
-More details added to items section.
V1.2
-Tweaked skillbuild – “Pro Hooker” explanation, added more to the items section.
V1.1
-Added a few basic hooking tips, as well as two replays.
V1.0
-Guide created.

Introduction: .1a
Wretched Hag is based off the DOTA hero Akasha, Queen of Pain, with some subtle differences; most notably her Ultimate applying the Haunt debuff to its targets (mass aoe slow and DOT) and that her third skill, Sonar Scream, hits units that are fogged and invisible.

Wretched Hag is one of the most versatile heroes in the entire game. A strong nuking semi-carry with amazing chasing ability, she maintains relevance throughout the game, and she is one of the heroes that has the ability to step on the throat of the other team before their carries even have a chance to breathe. Should the early game go awry, she is one of the best ward hoes around.

This is my first guide, and I hope it is helpful. If you have any feedback, please let me know!

Pros and Cons of Wretched Hag: .2a

+Massively strong early and mid game
+Even scales well into late game!
+Good runewhoring abilities
+Hero is fun to play – highly mobile hit and run!
+Just about any item works good on her! Or no items!
+Great voice! Also carries a weird thing on her back!
+Very good chaser!

-Squishy! Even with lots of health she goes down quick in a stun
-Hard to play! Constant mana problems, not a great animation, and MASSIVE positioning requirements!
-Some people don’t like the model!
-No innate hard disable!
-Did I say that she’s squishy?

When Should I Pick Wretched Hag? .3a
Wretched Hag is a high burst damage ganker that has no innate stun. She requires a bit of early farm. Hag fits into lineups that need a semicarry, and that already have good crowd control.

Hag is especially punishing to squishy teams that lack immobilizing heroes. Hag is a stronger mid solo than many popular mids. Hag is a great pick if you have a hard carry, as she can counterpush well, and can fend off the enemy team while your carry farms. Hag also combos with any initiator, for example, with , the fight is over before it begun.

Immobilizations tend to last longer than straight stuns, and are especially brutal to Hag due to her requiring to be so close to the enemy. Heroes like Glacius and Puppet punish hag by shutting down her ability to blink. Vindicator cuts down Hag’s burst significantly just by being present – being silenced between casts is not a fun thing when you’re the Hag. Electrician’s long duration disable really hurts if your team isn’t there to stun him every time he does it, and unfortunately, Hag has no innate disable to counter him.

Skills:.4a

Learns Haunt, Flash of Darkness, Sonar Scream, Bat Blast

Haunt: The Wretched Hag haunts a target unit with a bat, slowing its movement speed and dealing periodic damage.

Target: Enemy Unit
Type: Magic
Range: 400
Mana cost: 80/100/120/140
Cooldown: 20/17/14/11 seconds

Deals 50/70/70/100 initial Magic damage, then applies Haunted to target for 15 seconds.

Haunted:
10/20/40/50 Magic damage inflicted every 3 seconds.
20/30/40/50% Movement speed initially, which wears off over 10 seconds.

Notes: Haunt is a scaling slow (meaning you need to get points into it for it to slow a lot) that does crap damage at low levels. It also has a short range. At max rank though, it does 350 damage and applies a brutal slow. The recent buff to her ultimate applies the haunted debuff to all targets hit, dependent on your level of Haunt.

400 range is really short.

Flash of Darkness: The Wretched Hag disappears in a flash of darkness, only to instantly reappear at a target location.

Type: Target position
Mana cost: 60 at all levels
Range: 800/900/1000/1150
Cooldown: 12/10/8/6 seconds
Teleports self to target position.

Notes: Hag’s playstyle is heavily dependent on positioning. Without blink, she would be a very poor pick. With blink, she can chase, initiate, blink into the woods and TP away, farm lanes, etc. This skill has a nice quick cooldown, but not quick enough so that you can blink in, unload, and blink out. You’re vulnerable for a few seconds in between.

The wards show distance for each rank of Flash of Darkness.

Sonar Scream: Unleashing a high frequency scream, the Wretched Hag damages all nearby enemies.
Target: Point Blank AOE -> affects nearby enemies
Type: Magic
Radius: 400/450/475/500
Mana cost: 140
Cooldown: 7 seconds at all levels
Deals 85/165/225/300 Magic damage to targets in radius.

Notes: This skill is what allows your early and mid game dominance. Note that the radius increases by 25% from Rank 1 to Rank 4. You can hit people from rather far away with this skill at Rank 4, as shown in my picture below:

Please note that unlike Hag’s counterpart in DOTA, this skill DOES hit units in the fog or stealthed. It goes through trees and cliffs. Combined with your blink and your haunt, nobody escapes the Hag.

Bat Blast (Called Bat Swarm when it’s boosted by Staff of the Masters): The Wretched Hag lets loose a torrent of magical bats in a target direction. Enemies caught within the blast are heavily damaged.

Target: Target Position
Range: 700
Mana cost: 250 / 350 / 500
Cooldown: 135 at all levels (120 / 100 / 80 with Staff)

Deals 290/430/600 (340/530/725 with Staff of the Master) and applies Haunted to targets in a line, up to 800 units away. Radius of the damaging line starts out at 100 and ends at 300.

Haunted Effects: Pretty much is just the debuff portion of Haunt with OUT the initial cast damage.

This picture shows Bat Blast range. Like our friend Sonar Scream, bat blast range is LARGE

Notes: This is the skill that will cause your enemies to mass mystic vestments. The skill is aimed similarly to Defiler’s Wave of Death, but does far more damage. Additionally, it applies haunt to your targets (though not the initial haunt cast damage, just the debuff), allowing you to slow their team. Haunt does stack with this ult, meaning if you ult someone, then haunt them, they will be taking a load of damage. You have to level haunt for the ult to apply the debuff to the target.

Finally, a quick note regarding targeting: If you target a point outside of where the ult would be able to reach, Hag will walk to a point where it would hit, and then cast. There is a small cast time on this skill, so be careful when you aim it or you’ll look like a big noob when you whiff it!

The enemy team found themselves in a poor position, enabling this ult initiation to get our team three easy kills.

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Core Analysis: .5a
This is where we analyze hero-specific stuff like stat/stat gain and movespeed.

Wretched Hag’s starting stats are fairly average or below average. She has a good starting INT at 24, but a poor starting STR of 16. Both her INT gain and STR gain are poop, at 1.7 and 2.5, respectively.

Hag’s agility is an oddity in the INT world. She starts at a fairly good 18 and gains 2.0 per level. As Hag gains levels, and you start putting points in stats, her attack speed becomes quite decent.

Hag has 300 movespeed, low base damage, and crap armor. As if this wasn’t underwhelming enough, her range is 550, and her attack animation leaves something to be desired. Finally, sonar scream has a static mana cost, meaning you can’t spam it early to get last hits.

So what do we do with this hero, whom seemingly has so many beginning-of-the-game disadvantages? Hag is a ranged blinker that nukes fairly hard early and needs farm early. She needs the middle lane and thrives on runewhoring.

We will build and play Hag to compete in the mid lane, crush the other lanes, and farm enough to maintain relevancy in endgame. We will not waste our dominance. Our job is to own hard for the first forty minutes of play, and then hand a winning game over to a carry so they can right click end it for us.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Skill build: .6a
1: Flash of Darkness / Sonar Scream / Haunt
2: Sonar Scream / Flash of Darkness
3: Sonar Scream
4: Haunt / Flash of Darkness / Sonar Scream
5: Sonar Scream
6: Bat Blast
7: Sonar Scream (maxed out)
8: Haunt / Flash of Darkness
9: Haunt / Flash of Darkness
10: Haunt / Flash of Darkness
11: Bat Blast
12-14: Haunt / Flash of Darkness
15: Stats
16: Bat Blast (maxed out)
17-25: Stats

Explanation: Hag’s skill build really depends on what you are comfortable with, and the enemies you’re facing. If you are being forced into teamfights early, the mobility gained by extra ranks of Flash of Darkness is going to be key. If people are in lane and you’re laying down the ganks, extra damage and slow from Haunt (as well as the ult bonus) is wonderful. Many times, I’ll get two ranks of Flash of Darkness for a bit extra mobility, then finish maxing Haunt. A level of haunt at 4 is recommended, because it transfers a small slow to your ult.

Even the very first point is debatable. If you’re going for rune bloodlust, it’s possible that a super early rank in haunt or scream is good. If you’re against a strong mid, you might want that level 1 rank in sonar scream to grab a last hit you’d otherwise miss. Keep in mind when skilling Hag that your goal is early-mid game dominance, not just merely survival. You NEED those early last hits, you NEED that early gold, and you NEED to hit 7 before the enemy does. Period. If there is one thing you learn from this guide, learn that Hag is all about knocking down the enemy, then kicking them in the nuts. Have I repeated that enough?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Early item build and philosophy: .7a
Hag’s core is really simple: Bottle, Marchers, TP stones and early INT.

Thing is, Hag can farm. Hag has the best chasing mech in the game with blink, and a built in slow. Her sonar scream HURTS, and is spammable. She has a 2.0 agility gain, and will have a respectable autoattack later on.

What am I saying? This hero isn’t Glacius. You don’t buy bracers / wards and ’support’. You have to be aggressive through the entire game. This means farming open lanes, grabbing early kills, killing neutrals when nothing else is around. Hag isn’t the ‘ricing’ type carry where she sits safely near a tower for 20 minutes denying creeps. She blows apart a wave or two, then blinks around the map looking for more targets – preferably heroes.

Starting Build:

or / or (your preference!)

You can get runes of the blight instead of the healing pot, if you prefer

The two above permit an aggressive bottle rush, using sonar scream to grab last hits and harass, then use the pots to refill. Either way you go,= work towards your early game items.

Early Game items:

Once you get your bottle, you’re given more leverage for spamming sonar scream to get hits and harass your opponent. Your blink will let you get most of the runes, and if you’re still running dry on mana, feel free to crow the bottle back and forth. Get your . While you’re good for ganks now, you’ll need additional mana to cast multiple screams or to chain all spells together.

then to your CORE:

Bad farm? Are you needed right away?
Great farm? Want to try something different? Get . Always get . Get wards if necessary.

Exile stacking is a cheap and easy core build that will get you the mana you need, fast, and on a skeleton farm.

Alternatively, I have two options for early int that work if you’re getting a decent farm (i.e. maybe you got first blood and a double kill at 7). A quick rush on Hag would suffice as an alternate core. Nomes is fantastic on Hag, and really helps her early game mana problems, as well as adding good auto attack damage and armor. The problem with this is that it does nothing to solve your HP problem. Against poorer players, I tend to rush Nomes fast, but against better ones, I seem to do better with exile stacking or tablet. Personal preference. See how the game goes before committing to Nomes. If you are grabbing that farm, go for it!

Secondly, I’d like to discuss . The tablet is cheap, and far underrated, and it is my last option as an alternate “core”. It cancels enemy channels (even through their shrunken head!), so it’s great against heroes like pollywog, succubus, devourer, jester, panda, glacius, tempest, archer, magmus and the newly buffed electrician. It frees you from tree’s root and deadwood’s root. It gets you or teammates out of pharaoh mummies. It saves you from panda’s flick. It lets you hop up cliffs when blink is on cooldown. Hops you right out of Zephyr’s ult, and lets you save teammates from Chronos’ ult. Oh, and did I mention that it gives great stats at a cheap price and can be purchased instead of exiles? Yep, this is a quality item for Hag!

Luxury items will be discussed below!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Playstyle Guide .8a

Laning: Solo mid, baby. A Hag without a solo lane is an underleveled underfarmed shadow of what she could be. Hag isn’t a particularly great 2v1 hero, either, as she is vulnerable to harass and has weak starting damage. Finally, Hag’s ability to runewhore is among the best.

Hag might have some trouble vs a few other popular solos. Melee solos are particularly troublesome, as they can deny with hatchet. Against solos like you cannot afford to make a mistake. Clip the hero with your sonar scream, if you can, when you use it to last hit. Against , you’ll probably need help. Also of concern are popular mid solos like puppet and deadwood that have immobilizations. Your goal in the early early game is to NOT DIE and to get FARM! Use your mana potions and sonar scream to accomplish this! Hag’s early nuking is strong, and clipping a hero a few times with sonar scream can lead to a surprising bloodlust. Don’t overextend yourself, and get caught without an escape!

Once you get bottle and boots, it’s go time. Starting from level 7 onwards, every time your ult is up, use it to get a kill or two. A pair of level 5s have no chance against a level 7 hag that’s blinking in from the fog with her allies around. Remember that your blink likely has a 12 second CD at this time so don’t put your squishy self in a position you can’t escape from!

Between 7 and 14 you’re the God of the Battlefield. When you show up, people die. Do not waste this time free farming lanes!! Don’t be afraid to blow up creeps or neutrals if there’s no targets, but make your priority enemy heroes. Keep your mana topped off in case you’re needed to TP defend your carry, push a lane, or punish an opponent’s lane that’s pushed too far. Do not squander any opportunity to kill enemy heroes!

Team fights: Generally, you want to dump your ult onto as many as possible, but always try to get either the carry or a couple of squishy support. Follow your initiation hero, but don’t be afraid to initiate yourself if you see an opportunity that you can escape from! Don’t let people get away – especially enemy carries!

This screenshot shows the power of good positioning with Wretched Hag. I’ve nailed both with a sonar scream, and now the two enemies are prey to an easy ult. A couple auto attacks with my double damage rune and Archer’s toast. Chronos tries to juke me in the woods, but nobody escapes the Hag. Note two important things about this image: this is a level 6 gank on two carries, and that the archer in the screenshot was hit by Sonar Scream, even though the graphic of the spell is nowhere near her.

Mid Game and Beyond – Luxury items and more: .8b
Once you’re at the 15-20 minute mark or so, you really need to start assessing the game and where it’s heading, so that you can sap momentum from the opponents, or try to end the game if you’re dominating them. Hag cannot win a game herself, so it is important to pick your luxury items with this in mind.

Upgrade you boots: Do NOT get
Generally, steamboots are your only option. Ghost Marchers are trash on Hag. Trash!

Always a safe bet:

Dominating HARD? Only get this if it’s under 25 minutes:
An early STOM will allow you many more ults during the time they’re most effective – midgame. Get this too late, and your ult will be doing less significant damage, whether because of magic armor or just HP.
Are you GETTING dominated hard? Consider wards, cheap mana, and CC:

HORRIBLE farm? (not really recommended).

Items like barrier idol and Astrolabe are poor on Hag because she does not sit with her team in fights. She is an opportunist that skirts the edges of the field, clipping enemies when able, and chasing down runners. Hag will never be a good carrier of items that require your team to be near.

Also amazing on Hag as Luxury?

The mighty deserves a mention and a paragraph of its own. This item makes Hag into a terrific pusher, but it also adds a load of damage in teamfights. Please for the love of Christ, use the green dude’s mana burn. Please. An early puzzlebox can end a game almost as much as an early SToM, and its usefulness remains even when the enemy begins to get magic armor.

is probably my favorite item for Hag. This truly accentuates her role as a chaser, makes her Haunt slow by a ~LOT~, gives godly amounts of HP, MP, gives good autoattack damage, gives good agility, and so on and so forth. This item also uses a glowstone, which is something I like to get early anyway. If you have a good amount of money, but it’s too late to build staff, strongly consider this item.

Super Luxury – Survivability problem solved, buff your autoattack:
If the game got to this point, you just pick whatever you think will help the most.

Situational Items! Sometimes even Amelia Earhart had a detour:

- great against loads of magic damage

– People hate it, but it has GREAT hp for the price!

– Heard you like initiating?

Carries getting you down? Try one of these, or both!
Nullstone has been significantly buffed, and is a really solid choice for Hag at this point in time, especially with heroes like Polywog Priest and Thunderbringer receiving buffs. Good regen means you can get this as an alternate first item instead of something like Nome’s Wisdom.

A hag with her HP problem solved is a good bound eye carrier. She can also blink to popular ward spots to get sight of them easily.

NONO items for hag:
you have too much stuff to worry about early to rush this. go gank!
fun, but too expensive!
or neither one is not AWFUL, but you could do so much for the money. Sheep’s better than heart for regen, and Frostwolf trumps heart in overall usefulness. People like the CD reduction on Heart, but neglect to remember how little your 300 damage nuke really does late game against magic armored enemies. Buff your auto attack!!!!
people are going to buy magic armor against you anyway, so don’t buy this. Additionally, you’re not really a super hard carry, and can only semi carry due to your superior chasing mech. Finally, frostwolf skull is truly a good item on hag, and this item does not stack with the Frostwolf slow. Get a savage mace instead!!!!
see above about magic armor.. plus hag hits decently fast with her natural agi gain
why do i see people buying this on her? it’s trash! get nomes instead!
don’t even think about it!!! a double ult will cost you ungodly amounts of mana, thus ruining your ability to chase. why get this when you could get something more useful like sheep or frostwolf?
doesn’t add much damage, and you don’t need the movespeed. Get the frostbrand part + glowstone and work for DA WULF
You know, I see people get this all the time on hag at like the 35 minute mark or even later. It adds a whole 125 damage to your ult. The cooldown reduction IS significant, however, if you haven’t rushed this item, you won’t be needing the fast cooldown (later on, fights tend to be team vs team a few minutes apart, as opposed to frantic ganks earlier in the game that can happen at any time). Remember – this item is good for EARLY domination, where every cooldown of ult is additional kills. Later on, your ult is not going to be guaranteeing kills.

Remember! Your job is to carry the team for 40 minutes, so that your ‘real’ carry can take over! Stop their pushes, kill their carry, and be all over the map! Abuse your on demand damage and six second blink! Abuse your ability to farm out creep waves! Abuse the enemy that thinks she doesn’t need to stack bracers! If you do your job well, EVERYONE else’s job becomes cake!

a crafty tablet of command escape from a mean blood hunter while my blink’s cooling down!

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Replays .9a

Match 23983450 – Decent hag play on my end, made a lot of mistakes but maintained relevancy throughout the game and ended up winning. Even 60 minutes in the game, hag is a lethal hero. Build: Tablet of Command -> Glowstone -> Wards -> Nullstone -> Frostwolf. Features raging by yours truly!

Match 23830598 Very poor beginning game, had to buy cheap items to turn it around and eventually win. Build: Exiles/Supply -> Glowstone ->Steamboots ->Nomes ->Frostwolf. Featuring an accursed that is totally stoned and KSs me a bunch!

Match 24187876 This is what I would consider a perfect laning phase as Hag. The game itself was poor, but the first twelve minutes of gametime in this replay are a very good example of how to survive against an aggressive mid using crow bottling and tangoes, ganking the side lanes, runewhoring, using the crow to scout the runes, and getting a kill vs the opponent solo when he moves just slightly out of position. If you need help laning mid, watch the first 12 game minutes of this replay (or around 12:50 on the replay clock).

I’ll try to get some more

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FAQ .10a

(0.3.0) Look! Nullstone and Harkons are REALLY good on Hag!!!
Here’s the thing about Harkons – it doesn’t stack with any attack modifier. Frostwolf is going to do more for getting you kills than Harkons would, and it lets you stay in fights. As for Nullstone, I have to say that it really is a solid choice after its cost reduction and its indirect buffs through other heroes like Polywog entering the scene. If I were going nullstone, I’d go bottle->supply->steams->manatube->glowstone if needed->nullstone-> frostwolf.

Do Haunt and Bat Blast stack? What are the exact mechanics?

Here is the answer, Supplied by ElementUser:

Quote:

Originally Posted by ElementUser The mechanics of Bat Blast & Haunt stacking is the following: -Bat Blast and Haunts’ individual DoT’s will tick on their individual timers. -Applying Bat Blast after Haunt (or vice-versa) will reset the slow timer. This means that if you cast both spells on the target at once, they won’t be slowed for twice as much in the same duration (the slows still stack diminishingly though)

When should you dual-lane Hag? How does a Hag dual lane play out?

I’m so glad you asked! Dual laning Hag is not recommended for obvious reasons. There are only a few times when you’d dual lane hag. These times are:

*Blood Hunter or some other mid is destroying you.
*You have soulstealer on the team, or another person that’s even more mid-reliant than you (aka AR or SD or some BD games where you can’t have perfect lanes)
*I think that’s about it

In any situation, the person laning with Hag has to not gobble up all the farm. Getting Hag’s early int, early bottle, and early marchers are important no matter what lane she’s in. The lane has to play extremely defensively. If you have a Soulstealer mid, for example, our friend the Hag would likely be in the dangerous lane, and likely against double stunners.

Think about a lane such as vs . Even though Poly is capable of offensive plays vs the double stun, the Hag Wog lane will be more defensive since Pyro Magmus is offensive. Positioning (as always with this hero) is super important. The good thing about this is that Hag and Wog can unload a crazy amount of burst if they make a mistake. If magmus makes a poor charge or Pyro misses a stun, Wog can sheep the other and they can unload, with a good chance of a kill using blink. Remember that Hag, even in a side lane, is still a ganker, and try to get out of the lane ASAP and start roaming that map

ARG! I can’t win vs heavy nuker solo mids! Help!

To answer your question, against heavy nukers like Plague, Thunderbringer, and Pyro you harass when you can with your nuke, and use the monkey to ferry bottle back and forth. Items like mana battery are good, and you might need to get a second courier for your team if you are hogging the first too much.

Finally, don’t sit there going blow for blow with someone that’s got a chance to beat you. Ganking the sidelanes will give the game’s momentum to your and your team and null the effect of a strong mid against you.

Match 24187876 is a good example of what to do against enemy nukers that just don’t quit. Watch the first 12 game-time minutes (the first 13 on the replay control clock) to see how you handle someone. Pressure his other lanes and make him pay for his positional mistakes.

Against Vindicator, your blink costs 60 mana. His Sage’s Lore costs 75-135 depending on level, and has a 14 second cooldown at all ranks. Save your blink for his crap, and you’re good to go.

Why Sonar Scream first? I max Haunt first and it guarantees early ganks with your ult. Sorry bro, your skill build is wrong!

This is one I’ve seen pop up now and again, and I see Hags in game skilling Haunt first. Haunt first DOES make your ult hit harder, slow more, and do more total damage. The problem is that Haunt’s damage is done over fifteen seconds, in 3 second intervals. This means, if your opponent is good, they can sip bottles between ticks to stay alive, much like Slither’s poison nuke. Sonar Scream does its damage up front, and has a seven second cooldown. While Haunt may do more damage PER CAST than Sonar Scream, Sonar Scream does far more TOTAL because of its short cooldown.

Finally, if that isn’t good enough for you, Sonar Scream is AOE, and increases your farm by a million (yes that’s mathematically proven ).

The best build for Hag right now is Max scream at 7 with 1 point in blink and Haunt along the way. After that, it’s all personal preference.

TOO MUCH WALL OF TEXT! PICTURES PLZ!
Hey, this isn’t a question, but your wish is my command! Guide tidied up and pictures added

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Wretched Hag 30 Second TLDR Guide! .11a

-> Solo mid. Start with stats and a bit of regen. Courier if necessary. If you HAVE to dual lane, play defensively and with someone who doesn’t need loads of farm.
-> Get bottle fast. Get lots of last hits through whatever means necessary.
-> Skill Built: Sonar Scream first then Haunt or Flash next depending on opposition. 2 ranks of blink then max haunt is good, too. Ult when able.
-> Grab marchers and gank hard all game. 7-14 are your money levels, make em count.
-> Ward / Counter-ward if necessary. Gank a lot.
-> Item Build: Early INT -> -> -> luxury. Work on autoattack dmg late game. Only get staff if you can rush it FAST.
-> Win!

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[/QUOT
Changelog and Credits

3.30.10 – Added notes about Nullstone and Harkons.
2.25.10 – Pictures are back!
2.01.10 – Typos!a
1.31.10 – Has anyone ever said you guys are picky Changing the format of the guide to have more pictures and less words. This is a bit of a process!!
1.31.10 – Added a bit more to 30 second guide. Added more screenshots with captions. Added Haunt vs Sonar Scream question in FAQ.
1.30.10 – Changed 30 second guide a bit
1.29.10 – Added more content and screenshots! Edited Staff of the Master a bit to reflect significance of cooldown, credit to Elementuser for pointing this out

Special thanks to:
TinyBlkTears for letting me copypasta his guide format
Jesus and Baby Jesus for their inspiration
Elementuser for Haunt + Bat Blast Mechanics

Post #1 deals with Ophelia’s Stats, her Skills and a few Itembuilds.
Post #2 covers her role from early to late game, which minions to get during what phase of the game, counters to Ophelia and counter warding when certain spots in your jungle get blocked.
Post #3 shows how to push towers, gank in the early and mid game, how to solo Kongor as soon as you hit Level 6 and what heroes work best with/against her. There’s also a little guide that shows how to jungle in the beginning and how to pull neutral creepcamps.

So if you check the hero usage statistics you’ll probably notice that Ophelia is only picked in 0,6% of all the games played! Is it because she sucks? Definitely not, as most of the higher tier players love her to death.

It’s because she’s probably the hardest hero out there to play right. Why’s that? Because using her to her full potential means that you need to get your microskillz straight.

Strength: 20 (+1.5)
Agility: 15 (+1.1)
Intelligence: 21 (+2.8)

Range: 600
Damage: 43-53
Attacks/sec: 0.68

As you can see her stats aren’t that impressive, but if you play her right she’ll be jungling for ~15 minutes and only come out for an occasional gank or two.

Her role in the game is to push and to support. Ophelia is one of the strongest pushers in the game. She may get weaker as the game goes on and on, but her creeps are amazing for tanking and damaging a tower.
Also her support is pretty crazy, because with that global heal and the supportitems you’re going to get, you’ll end up as an awesome addition to almost every lineup.

Nature’s Wrath:

Type: Magic
Range: 600
Cast Time: 0.8 Seconds
Mana Cost: 100
Cooldown: 14.0 Seconds
Required Level: 1 / 3 / 5 / 7

Nature’s Wrath Effects
7 / 14 / 21 / 28% Damage taken
8 / 16 / 24 / 32% Movement Slow

Nature’s Wrath is a powerful single target spell. Ophelia can slow the targeted enemy AND amplifies the damage the target takes as well. If you’re sticking your head out of the woods to gank an opponent using Nature’s Wrath, having your buddy on the lane know whom you’re going for, will often result in a free kill because of the sheer amounts of bonus damage your debuff will make you inflict. It’s also good for preventing a hero to run away from a gank/in the aftermath of a succeded gankattempt.
The CD is pretty low for how impressive and useful this skill is, so use it every time you can.

Ophelia’s Judgement:

Type: Magic
Range: 600
Cast Time: 0.8 Seconds
Mana Cost: 175
Cooldown: 30.0 Seconds
Required Level: 1 / 3 / 5 / 7

Activation
If target is a player controlled enemy unit, deals {50-100,100-200,150-300,200-400} True damage.

If target is an allied unit that you control, it will be teleported to your spawn point instantly.

If target is an allied unit that you do not control, they will be teleported to your spawn point at the end of the channel time.

Allied units can avoid teleportation by moving more than 200 units away from their original position at time of cast.
A highly situational skill. You don’t need it early game, because you only control around 1-2 units and it’s not like you can’t get new ones. Yes, if you have 2 minotaurs sending the one that’s near death back to the base might be a good choice on the first look, but it’s actually a wasted skillpoint. You can port allies back to the base as well, which is actually very good, but you won’t need that until mid-/lategame.
And for the nuke: It’s actually horrible. You can try to nuke in the beginning of the attack, but KS’ing with Ophelia is horrible, as you don’t need the money. And if you think that you need money, you can get it by jungling.
Command:

Type: Magic Dominate
Range: 900
Cast Time: 0.8 Seconds
Mana Cost: 100
Cooldown: 30.0 Seconds
Required Level: 1 / 3 / 5 / 7

Activation
Dominates target, taking control of it permanently. Only allows control of 1 / 2 / 2 / 3 units. Applies aura to all minions under your control.

Aura Effects
Radius: 9999
Target: My Other Units
Increases your minion’s health by 75/150/225/300
That’s Ophelia’s bread & butter skill. I’m not kidding, you actually have to take it at Level 1 if you’re not aiming for a superexotic build no one ever uses.
It actually enables Ophelia to dominate an enemy creep (NEVER do that. I’m not kidding. Just don’t.) or one of the Neutrals. It may not sound like much, but those creeps are insanely strong in the earlygame and sometimes in the midgame. Lategame you can pick creeps like Ice Ogre or Wolf Commander, but more on that later.

The problem with this skill is that many people feel overwhelmed with controlling so many creeps. You actually have to group them right and use many of their abilities at the right time. Plus you need time to learn which creep has which ability.

To summarize: This skill is awesome!

Update as of the new patch: This skill is still awesome, but now you have to take it on Level 7 too, because only then you can dominate 3 creeps. The Magic Armor is gone too, so if their team is heavy on nukes, you’ll have to watch out and micro your creeps.

Ophelia’s Touch:

Type: SuperiorMagic
Cast Time: 0.8 Seconds
Mana Cost: 200 / 300 / 400
Cooldown: 120.0 Seconds
Required Level: 6 / 11 / 16

Activation
Heals all allied heroes on the map for 200 / 300 / 400.

Fully heals all minions under your control.

Ophelia’s Ultimate. Global heal, sounds boring, right? Well, it’s not. If you have a good map awareness and check your teams HP from time to time, you can save their asses with it. You don’t even need to be there, because it’s GLOBAL!
But that’s not all there’s to it. You can pop it in ganks too, basically giving your team a free Astrolabe-pop every 120 seconds.
Plus you can use it for pushes, when all your creeps are low from tanking the tower.
With Staff of the Masters the Cooldown gets reduced from 120 to a whooping 30 seconds. But there are other items out there that are better for Ophelia.

Level 4 Command gets left out, unless you’re facing a team of AoE nukers that aim for your creeps, in which case that +5 to your creeps Magic Armor could come in handy.
1. Command
2. Nature’s Wrath
3. Command
4. Nature’s Wrath
5. Command
6. Ophelia’s Touch
7. Command (now Command on Level 7 is a MUST HAVE, there’s NO WAY AROUND IT! You need it now to dominate 3 creeps, because the skill got nerfed.)
8. Nature’s Wrath
9. Nature’s Wrath
10. Ophelia’s Judgment/Stats
11. Ophelia’s Touch
12. Ophelia’s Judgment/Stats
13. Ophelia’s Judgment/Stats
14. Ophelia’s Judgment/Stats
15. Stats
16. Ophelia’s Touch
17+. Stats

So it’s basically like this: You get Command on Level 3 as soon as possible, and then you max Nature’s Wrath with one point in Ophelia’s Touch mixed in on Level 6. On Level 9 you can get one point in Ophelia’s Judgement to port your mates to the base after ganks. If needed. They can actually save a lot of time running back there or 135g for a Homecoming Stone.
Always take the Ultimate as soon as it’s available.

You actually have a lot of options as Ophelia. If nobody buys courier, you’re going to buy it. If nobody buys wards, you buy them. If your team is getting both of those things, you can go for an Refreshing Ornament and rush Astrolabe. The +2 Health Regeneration Aura is pretty nice. You’ll probably not notice it, but your creeps will stay alive a lot longer with it, if you know how to micro them correctly.
And if you have somebody in your team that’s already going for astrolabe ( ) you can save your money and rush a Puzzlebox.

So if you break it down, her items can look like this:

/ /

or

or

As mentioned above, always buy a courier or wards if nobody buys it. Also that Refreshing Ornament is only a viable option if your team wants you to buy Astrolabe (= nobody else is buying it).
Bolstering Armband isn’t actually that great. But on Level 1 you can tank for your creep, because it will be a little bit squishier without Refreshing Ornament. And it’s only a good choice if you’re rushing for Puzzlebox.

A note about the courier: It actually benefits from Ophelia’s Command aura. I don’t think that it helps, because if everyone’s favourite monkey is getting caught up by the enemy, he’ll die nonetheless because he only has a MS of 300.

or / or

Astrolabe is a great item on Ophelia, but if your team already has one, you can go for Puzzlebox. It’s great for pushing, it’s great for draining the enemies Mana, and it’s great for dealing damage. It also gives True Sight if you’re facing a team with heroes that can go invisible and one of the creeps has a nice aura that gives movementspeed to those standing nearby.

As far as boots go Steamboots are a good choice if you need that extra survivabilty, but Plated Greaves are awesome too, because they give everybody in a radius of 450 +2 to armor and a 100% chance to absorb 10 damage.

/ / //

Nome’s Wisdom is always great to have and some consider it to be a core item on Ophelia. But getting an early Astrolabe or a early Puzzlebox makes your team benefit even more than from Ophelia running around with Nome’s Wisdom. Sure, it has a nice Aura and the health and manaregeneration it gives are awesome, but so is the heal from Astrolabe and the Puzzleboxminions.

Totem of Kuldra and Stormspirit are an obvious choice if you’re having too much money, because more support is always good.

I know that Whispering Helm is a popular choice on Ophelia, but come on guys. Ophelia doesn’t need the damage or the life steal and yeah, having more minions is great, but that’s 1850g you could stuff into your Astrolabe or your Puzzlebox. It’s nice to have 4/5 or even more creeps with you, but the helm has a 5 minute CD, so it will take 10 minutes for you to have 5 creeps. 10 minutes is a long time in a game where your team has Ophelia, because you should be pushing.
Yes, you can get it. Yes, it’s actually pretty viable and useful, I just think that there are better items to get with Ophelia.

Unless you’re messing aro

Skeleton King:

1100 HP
550 Mana
Damage 32-36

The King’s Grip

Roots a target enemy for 1.5 seconds. (550 range)
Cooldown: 20 seconds

I love them. They don’t have great damage, but their ability is actually pretty good. It’s a ranged root and it helps TONS with positioning your minotaurs for that vital stun. I always get them early with 2 Minotaurs if I have the chance too.

Catman Champions:

1100 HP
300 Mana
Damage 65-73

Wildstrike

Deals 150 damage to targets in radius and applies WildStrike to targets for 3 seconds.
Cooldown: 20 seconds

The damage from Wildstrike is pretty nice early game, plus it slowes the enemy down by -25%. But I like to think of them as Minotaurs gone bad. The 2 second stun is just so much better. But if there are no Taurs around, feel free to go for Catman Champions.

Wolf Commander:

600 HP
- Mana
Damage 30-33

Damage Aura

+30% Base Damage Aura (500 range)

That aura is insane, even more so when your team already is farmed. Wolf Commanders are squishy, so you’re going to look out for them. It’s totally worth it tho.

The third creep you’ll be aiming for is of course a . The aura from the Commander doesn’t stack & the Ogre will have sufficient mana for buffing the team for a while. So that either leaves us with getting a Skeletton King or a Minotaur. I say that the Minotaur is the better option of those two. He has more HP and 2 second of AoE stun never go out of style.

If no creeps show up after 0:30 in one of the camps the enemy team has probably warded it up. What you need to do here is to counterward as soon as possible. Yes, 200g may sound much early on, but missing out on 5 spawns on creeps (if we say that the wards last from 0:30 to 6:30) is an even bigger loss. So buy some Wards of Revelation!

The newest patch buffed Command Level 4 so that it gives your creeps an additional +5 Magic Armor, but nukers are still a problem. You’re squishy and your creeps go down fast if 2 or 3 nukers are going apeshit on you and your party of baddies.
If there’s only one nuker around or their nukers don’t pair up to give your creeps the middlefinger, you’re good to go though. Keep that in mind.

Alchemist’s Bones:

You don’t see it that often to counter Ophelia, but if a team decides to get at least 2 of them, you’re officially ****ed. It has a high CD and you can dominate new creeps faster than they can use Alchemist’s Bones again, but everytime they come near you, you’re basically giving their carries (carries, because that’s the heroes that usually aim for it) huge amounts of gold for free.
If you encounter a team massing Alchemist’s, just try to play passive or use at least a few of your creep’s abilities before they get raped by an instantkill.

LEGION

und don’t get the following items:

//

These three are just examples. Also never ever get Riftshards or Insanitarius. If you’re wondering why I’m telling you this: Believe me, I’ve seen it all.

Basically all the heroes that are good pushers are your friends. Why? Because the enemy towers will fall like nothing over your awesome pushingpower! Also Engineer with Tinker will result in crazy pushes early on!

There are not that many enemies around, but basically they’re nukers and/or Behemoth and Legionnaire. Nukers can bring you or your creeps down easily (at least until you get Command Level 4) and Legionnaire will just port in and taunt you and your creeps for Maximum Whirling Blades.
And Behemoth’s Ultimate… I don’t think that I have to mention it will totally kill you. You will even die after you’re dead from all the damage it will deal.

+ Nukers. But there are too many to list them all.

For now there’s only one replay, but I’ll make sure to add more.

ID 27272724 (SD 1650+)

Well, my jungling was a bit off here, but my team was great and we had lots of good pushes thanks to defiler and her ultimate. There are also a few early kills in it. It should suffice for showing newcomers how to approach jungling with Ophelia and how you can gank with her.
Yes, there are a few messed up stuns in there.

ID 29058277 (SD 1700+)

This game was pretty good. Not flawless, but it shows an early Kongor kill, a bit of jungling in the enemy jungle, pushes, putting early pressure on the enemy team and so on. Actually it was AP, but nobody knew, because the game name said SD. And sorry for the “flame” in the end, but Zephyr called us “tards” for saying “gg”. Nevermind, just watch it.

Third Item – Thunderclaw


Requires

$500 – 1x Gloves of the Swift – B-E-Q
$1600 – 1x Warhammer – B-W-A
$900 – 1x Thunder Claw – B-X-E-E

Stats
+24 Damage
+15 Attack Speed
Chain Lightning Passive
- 20% Chance to cast Chain Lightning dealing 150 Magic damage to your attack target and two additional nearby enemies.

Now aside from this being an epic farming tool for you it will increase your damage dramatically and give you a good buff to your attack speed.
When your Chronofield is up this will add to your “aoe” damage so to speak, dropping the first hero and reducing the life of anyone else nearby will have the opposing team spamming ‘b’ ‘b’!
At this stage your almost ready to 1v1 anyone. (Obviously if you farmed well).

Fourth Item – Charged Hammer


Requires

$0 – Your Prior Thunderclaw
$2100 – 1x Warpcleft – “A” at secret shop
$400 – 1x Charged Hammer Recipe – B-X-F-E

Stats
+24 Damage
+70 Attack Speed
Chain Lightning Passive
- 20% Chance to cast Chain Lightning dealing 200 Magic damage to your attack target and two additional nearby enemies.
Charged Up Activation
- Target: Ally’s
Range: 600
Mana Cost: 50
Cooldown: 45 seconds
Duration: 20 Seconds
Effect: Apply “Charged Up” to target for 20 seconds.
20% Chance to cast Electric Jolt, dealing 150 Magic damage to anybody who attacks you.

Total
$2500

An awesome upgrade choice. With this combined with Elder Parasite your attack speed will be crazy! You should be able to kill at least one hero in your Chrono extremely easy, whilst lowering anyone else s health inside the bubble.
You have the option to charge yourself with the item or your tank, this depends on the fight really. But don’t forget you have it!

Luxury/Situational Items

Staff of the Master


Requires

$1000 – 1x Mighty Blade – B-Q-C
$1000 – 1x Quickblade – B-Q-V
$1200 – 1x Glowstone – “X” at secret shop
$1100 – 1x Staff of the Master Recipe – B-Z-A-R

Stats
+10 Strength
+10 Agility
+10 Intelligence
+200 Hit Points
+150 Mana
Improves Ultimate

Total
$4300

This will be your main hp buff item, plus it comes with a nice little bonus for your ult to.
(Decreases cooldown from 120/110/100 to 75 seconds and adds one second to your ultimate on any level)
Keep in mind this combined with the restoration stone is a whole 12 seconds of free pounding!
But at the same time that’s 2 expensive items that do not contribute to your dps!
However i still highly recommend getting this staff at least!

Wingbow

Requires

$3300 – 1x Dancing Blade – “W” at secret shop
$900 – 1x Steamstaff – B-W-C
$1800 – 1x Snake Bracelet – B-E-Z

Stats
+30 Agility
+30 Damage
+30 Attack Speed
+30% Evasion

Total
$6000

Because this stacks with your passive dodge this can be a great item for tanking out and destroying other melee dps heros.
It also gives a nice attack speed an awesome 60+ damage buff.
Another highly recommend item.

Riftshards

Requires


$500- 1x Punchdagger – B-W-Q
$1200 – 1x Broadsword – B-W-W
$950 – 4x Riftshards Recipe – B-Z-W-E

Stats
+45/55/65/75 Damage
Critical Hit Passive

Total
$5300

A great item to finish off with when combined with a Wingbow and/or a Savage Mace. However because we use Charged Hammer (which adds very little damage) this is certainly not an item to get unless you have 1 or more heavy +damage items .

Runed Axe


Requires

$1200 – 1x Broadsword – B-W-W
$1400 – 1x Bastard Sword – B-W-E
$875 – 1x Lifetube – “S” at secret shop
$875 – 1x Manatube – “D” at secret shop

Stats
+65 Damage
+6 Hit Point Regeneration
+150% Mana Regeneration
Cleave Passive

Total
$4350

Quite a devastating item on Chronos in 5v5 matches. You do not need this item for farming as some might believe, a charged hammer will do you MUCH better.
But! If you find yourself trapping multiple heroes under your chronofield this is the perfect item. Like I stated before if you can take out one or more heroes and do quite a bit of damage to their teammates the fight will most likely be over!

Savage Mace

Requires

$1500 – 2x Halberd – B-W-R
$2400 – 1x Slayer – “R” at secret shop

Stats
+80 Damage
+15 Attack Speed
True Strike

Total
$5400

Personally i really only go for this item before wing-bow, when i need the True Shot Effect. The damage output is really nice along with the 15+ attack speed is good to. Combined this with Riftshards and you will be hitting like a train.

Restoration Stone

Requires

$550 1x Great Arcana – B-S-A
$875 – 1x Lifetube – “S” at secret shop
$875 – 1x Manatube – “D” at secret shop
$1875 1x Restoration Stone Recipe. – B–D-V-E

Stats
+40 Damage
+5 Hit Point Regenration
+200% Mana Regeneration
Refresh Cooldowns Active

Total
$5300

For the restoration stone i would call it a 6th throw your money at item. 12 Seconds of aoe disable (even more than Vindicators global silence + restoration stone) can be totally invaluable whether your attacking your enemy or holding/separating a group back. It can also cut through buffs (eg Shrunken Heads that have been used).
12 Seconds of free attacks will allow you to take out 2 support heroes. I much prefer a 3v5 don’t you?
HOWEVER, that’s one less damage item you can use, so really only get this if your confident in your Chronofielding and NEED the disable.

Symbol of Rage

Requires


$3200 – 1x Axe of the Malphai - (Shortcut coming)
$950 – 1x Helm of the Victim – “S” at secret shop
$900 – 1x Hungry Spirit – “D” at secret shop
$1100 – 1x Symbol of Rage Recipe. – (Shortcut coming)

Stats
+20 Damage
+5 Armor
+25 Strength
+20% Lifesteal

Applies Symbol of Rage for 3.5 Seconds
+150% Lifesteal

Total
$6150

Great for tanking out other carry heroes and an amazing survival tool!

5) Your Role

Chronos is a “Carry/Dps” hero that can also fall under a “Disable” and late game even possibly a “Tank”.

Farm:
When playing Chronos your primary role is to carry so you can take out any nasty hero towards the end of mid game and late game. It is not your job to roam and gank for at least the first 15-20 minutes, this is serious farming time. If your lucky during this time you may get a kill or two in your lane by dropping a Chronofield on someone running into tower range, or a team mate coming down to gank. But only leave your lane to neutral or move to another lane.

Stay Alive:
Whilst dead you are wasting precious farming time (at least $250 per 30 seconds dead), you will lose gold on death and you will be wasting time (and a possible $135 on a homecoming stone) to get back to your farm. So your looking at least $500 gold per death. Just flee early and save the hassle.

Don’t think “Because i’ve just bought i can die” that’s not how it works. Don’t risk dieing, its better to retreat then get the kill.

Team Fights
In a team fight your chronofield placement is crucial. Make sure you disable as many opposing heroes as possible, or disable their real threats.
Inside this bubble you must get at least 1 kill. Make sure you take out their teams biggest threats, whether this be stunners or a carry. But make sure you get the kill.
5v4 is much better than 5v5.

Solo Fights:
If you see a stray hero that you can kill… Do it!
However before you jump in make sure
a) You know you can kill him,
b) Check your minimap to see if your being baited,
c) That if you need to use your chronofield that your not going to need it again before your cooldown is over.



6) Laning

Generally two ranged opponents are pretty bad for your farming, but its worth sticking through it. However are rare occasions that you MUST call for help in your lane (Id suggest not moving lane unless you can teleport as its much to time consuming).
This is when you have either:

Pollywog Priest – his hold and sheep can easily make you one dead little Chronos.
Witch Slayer- with his stun, his sheep and his mana-drain to remove your jump, it cant get any worse.
Electrician – again with his mana-burn and hold on you you become an easy kill.
Nymph – This dirty little mana and healing battery will allow any ally to keep harassing you without a problem.

These heroes can almost create a guaranteed death. If your feeling gutsy and want to risk it, I strongly suggest buying those 3x Crushing claws!
Yes you may be able to avoid these ganks but it will strongly effect your creep kills.

Almost any ranged hero would be a good Laner with Chonos as it will help his last hits alot, but these are his best ‘baby sitters”.

Nymph – This dirty little mana and healing battery will be able to keep you alive no problems so your free to last hit.
Puppet Master – With his excellent harrassing skills and disables you should be able to get a kill partnered with this guy pretty easily.
Pollywog Priest – his disables can keep you alive and should be able to get you a kill.

If you want to solo!

Ok, this totally depends on the skill and concentration of the Chronos player, the level of competition and the heroes that have been selected against you.

(Note this section is designed for pubs, I’m yet to play a serious competitive game and try solo with Chrono’s, yet i believe it would still be fine as generally you would have a solo opponent as one should be neutraling)

* If you are a well experienced player and know how to pull creeps then you should be able to solo fine.
* With the right baiting and jumps you could turn a gank into a kill using the towers and forest.
* Try and convince a team mate to get a courier just in case your lane opponent(s) gets carried away with harassing.
* Save timeleap to escape or dodge hard hitting abilities.
* With his rewind you have a chance to totally ignore a nuke and with the shield you take very little harass damage (if tower hugging properly). Make sure you do not make the mistake of believing rewind = 25% extra hp either as i’ve seen posted. This is far from true. As it can proc alot, not proc at all and most importantly can block crazy nukes such as Witch Slayer’s or Pyromancer’s ults.

Tips on how to solo with the master of time itself!
1) Try and always stay within this the radius of the tower. This will discourage harassment alot and you should be able to last hit with the tower hurting them.
If they go outside the radius pull them back in.
2) Don’t stand around closely behind the creeps, you want to play hit and run style. Run in, last hit, go back towards your tower.
3) If your creeps are being pushed up the lane, drag the neutrals down into your lane. This should make your opponents creeps move closer to your tower and will give you some easy neutral gold/exp.

4) Defensive Wards and miss calls are dire! Again this part relies on your team. Very handy if you have a scout on your team.

These two ward positions should keep your from any surprise gank. You should have site through from the middle lane right to the bottom to see any sneak attack from the forest.

7) Farming - More info coming

You will be right to farm with just a Hungry Spirit, but farming will be a total breeze when you have Elder Parasite! I recommend farming the neutrals when your lanes are pushed past the river or when you cant get a lane to yourself.
Also don’t forget to kill the ancients when you walk past them, your hp should stay about the same at low levels, but you will walk out with much more gold.

With this build You have an axe… USE IT! Whether this be for juking, farming or cutting down Keeper of the Forests eyes. It has the ability to cut trees for a reason!
You can find a few excellent guides on general jungling around the forums but these trees are excellent short cuts around the map, can cut farming time and allows you to fight less mobs at a time.

Timeline - More info coming

Just quickly jotting down the basics, will update this later.

Farm in bottom lane until boots are completed.
Farm bottom lane preferably but you can start to forest for Elder Parasite.
Farm any empty lane thats been pushed near a tower but try and stay towards bottom or at least mid as you can still easily access the neutrals.
When you have your hammer you should be right to start picknig off enemys and you are getting useful for team fights.
When thunderhammer is complete neutralling and farming is a breeze and you should be able to kill pretty easily in a one on one. It’s time to start helping the team at this stage.


9) Timeleaping And Chronofielding

One of my absolute favorite abilities in the game. Timeleap allows you to travel an enormous distance, over or onto obstacles, it has a 40% slow on landing and your invulnerable whilst you are ‘leaping’.

Here’s a basic image for you so you can calculate how far your jumps will be. (Note the comparison to the neutral camp above)

When chasing or engaging make sure you leap slightly in-front of the target.

As I said above Timeleap allows you to leap onto/into obstacles giving you a big advantage over your enemies.
Best of all in HoN there is no -unstuck feature like there is in dota. So when the time is right you can freely walk out of these spots.

Here are two extremely useful examples.
On the left we see Chrono’s on high-ground right near the bottom rune. When getting chased leaping onto here will completely remove your enemies vision of you and they will be unable to attack or target you. (Unless they use aoe moves). A great spot to jump onto and portal from if needed. On the otherhand this is a great ambush point as you can just walk down the cliff and start hacking away on the unsuspecting opponent saving your Timeleap for chasing or escaping.
This is not the only useful high-ground spot so keep your eyes peeled.

On the right we see Chronos in a low-ground spot. This is no where near as useful as high-ground as you lose vision of your enemies and they can still see you. But it can be extremely useful if you are begin attacked by a melee character. You can jump inside and they wont be able to touch you. Then your free to portal.
Remember to hit (h) when you land so Chronos doesn’t walk off!

Now your Chronofields can literally ‘make or break’ a fight. This would be so to speak a perfect chronofield because both opponents are stuck inside the chronofield with my ally outside.
Because pestilence is right on the edge, Accursed can help drop Pestilence. The fight then turns to 2v1.
Dropping Chronofields become ALOT more difficult in a 5v5 environment and take patience and timing. You will almost never get to lock down the entire team so make sure you get the important people.
Now inside your chronofield spells cast from outside still work. Two deadly examples of this are Magmus’s Eruption (When blinked into the center of the chronofield does insane damage) and Plague Riders Plague Carrier ability which when bouncing round inside the Chronofield can also do insane damage. If any of these types of characters are on your team great! If not you MUST make sure they are dead or disabled because this can destroy your team.

Do I drop my chronofield in a 1v1?
Well hopefully you can avoid having to use it, but if you must:
*Preferably you would like to walk up to your target and save your timewalk but this rarely happens.
***Wait until there is a leak in your bashing, if you cant timewalk onto them as they flee or their not still slowed from a prior timewalk chase and try and get one more hit. Because you will both be moving off at about the same time when the stunlock breaks you should chase for the next hit. On the next hit void has to stop whilst his opponent gets to keep running. If you get a bash here go back to the ***, if you don’t, drop your Chrono on so they don’t get away!

10) Chronos Changelog

Version 0.1.50
- Attack impact time set to 0.5 seconds (from 0.6)

Version 0.1.47
- Bash damage can proc while the stun is on cooldown

Version 0.1.46
- Time Freeze cooldown reduced to 1.5

Version 0.1.42
- Fixed Chronofield not stopping Invulnerable units or Towers
- Chronofield is now boosted by Staff of the Master
- Time Freeze will now go through Magic Immunity
- Time Freeze now deals magic damage, not physical

Version 0.1.34
- Base strength increased from 17 to 23
- Removed visual cool down from Rewind. The effects on rewind will not play if the source of the damage is a DOT

11) Replays

See Replay http://replays.heroesofnewerth.com/m…p?mid=13799438.

Welcome anyone Else’s replay’s demonstrating my guide in AP, credit will be given =)

12) To Do List
Lots =(,

*Ancient Stacking !+!+!
*Add Hellbourne Wards
*Finish Item Explanations
*Possibly add heart – Still in testing.
*Which heroes are you strong/weak against.
*Add crit passive to riftshards
*Add shortcuts to changed items
*Possibly add Power Supply?
*Add items to get if team doesnt have courier
*Possibly Change Skill Description into graphs

13) Guide Changelog

20/12/09
- Changed item preference from Slash to Elder Parasite due to the change of Slash.
- Added Satanic as a luxury item.
- Removed Abyssal as a luxury Item.

14) Credits
[TeT]Javu- Champion helping me fix ‘the look’ of the guide and fixing all my typo’s. Also great tips and advice whilst helping me write it. Thanks mate.
Trysaeder – For answering my questions on mechanics.

5) Its not end of the world if you lose the tower, bottom for legion or top for hellbourne are your least important towers. Any opponents pushing around that area will leave themselves open to a nice gank. It also allows you more creeping room. But avoid it if possible of course.
6) Soloing Bottom with Legion and Top with Hellbourne gives you easy neutral creep access. If there are 3 enemies in your lane versing just you, do the smart thing and stay right back and wait for assistance.
7) As a legion solo your a bit better off because of the ‘U Shaped’ walkway in the trees beneath your tower. If you are against to lane partners and one disappear, it might be best to play it safe and hide in those trees. If they follow you they will be in tower range, and with your axe and jump it is quite easy to lose your opponent in there.

Disclaimer:
I wasn’t intending on writing this now but I will be quitting HoN in its entirety for at least the next several months so this will be my last and final thread/post. I don’t want to get into details considering my decision, so don’t ask. This runthrough will analyze Madman’s skills, skill build, core analysis, and most importantly his item build, which is the reason I made the poll. Any responses you make directly to me (the OP) will fall on deaf ears as I will no longer be around. Feel free to discuss my item build amongst yourselves.

Notes on Skills:

Stalk:

• The main benefit of leveling stalk is the cooldown decrease, which has a huge impact on your offensive and defensive capabilities. Never get just one level of this skill, get all 4 unless you like the noob label.
  

• This skill has a 0.5 second fade time. Many people overlook this but it is huge. Unless you are running directly away from a hero while spamming stalk at the exact moment he casts a targeted stun it is virtually impossible for you not to get stunned. Even with godly reflexes you are likely to get stunned due to the fade time, even if you are invis.

• Some people like to use this skill to harass/creep farm early game. Don’t overdue it. Madman’s base int and int gain are far to low to use this frequently. Personally I would advocate never using stalk to grab creep kills early game unless you can ensure at least 2 with a single stalk.
  

Barrel Roll:

• Think of it as impale with displacement thrown in. You can dodge stuns with a well-timed roll, and honestly you have a much better chance dodging a stun with barrel roll then you do with stalk. The skill that Madman is feared for early game, stalk is just the icing on the cake.
  

Gash:

• Crit skill, not much to say. Combined with his high agi gain and ult this is a strong tool for dps mid-late game, amplifying all dps affected by armor reduction, damage and attack speed by 24%

Berserk:

• Identical to Troll Warlord’s old ult before it got changed. Steroid skill, nuff said.

Core analysis:

• Let’s clarify one thing, Madman is a carry that is useful all game, in fact he is noctorious for it.
  

• His stat gain and base stats are rather stereotypical for a hard agi carry, but stalk and barrel roll open a world of opportunities for him from the get-go.

• However, his agi gain, crit and ult make him deadly under the right hands when late game rolls around. At that point you will be focusing on his hard carry aspect.

• His base int and int gain are terrible.

• Therefore, it should not come as a surprise that you should consider all these aspects of Madman as you build him, both skill wise and itemwise.
  

Skill build:
1: Stalk
2-3: Barrel Roll
4: Stalk
5: Barrel Roll
6: Stalk
7: Barrel Roll
8: Stalk
9-12: Gash
13-14: Berserk
15: Stats
16: Berserk
17-25: Stats

• Barrel Roll and Stalk have full priority over anything else early game. Berserk takes off an unacceptable amount of mana early on, and the early crit offered by gash is vastly inferior. You can max out stalk over barrel roll if you want at level 7, but personally I prefer the extra benefit of an additional level of an aoe stun over 2 seconds off stalk cooldown. Take your pick it shouldn’t make a significant difference.
  

• Madman scales quite nicely as a carry once he has the mana to support his skills. As such, take gash over stats from level 9-12, so you can make full use of it by the time your mana pool and dps are reinforced.
  

Item build:

• Did you scroll down to this section? No surprise, you need to build this hero properly to get the most out of him.

- Logger’s hatchet, minor stat items, both health and mana regen

• No surprise here. Stereotypical opening carry build which focuses on farm.

- Mana battery/Power supply/Bottle

• You can take any of these, or even none if you want. You need to address Madman’s heavy dependence for mana this early.

-Sustainer

• The regen is very applicable to Madman, and relating to the above, he needs it too.

-Steamboots

• Set on strength mode, if you feel you can sacrifice vitality for some needed mana during certain ganks turn it on int in certain scenerios. Enhanced Marchers is useless on Madman, we don’t need the early damage, or the phase, or the attack speed. We just need vitality and mana.

-Glowstone

• Further reinforce Madman’s hp and mana needs. This item is noctorious for being the best item for hp and mana for its price.

-Runed Axe (Bastard Sword and Broadsword)

• We have the stats required to play Madman early game/mid game with the glowstone and steamboot combination. That aspect of him is covered, and done with. Runed axe will let us scale late game, into a great farmer and a late game carry that the other team should rightfully fear.

Projected Time to farm this much in an ideal game: 30 mins

-Shrunken Head

• Physical dps carry, need magic immunity, nothing more to say.

Following this, you can build several items for Madman. This is what I use.

- Frostwolf Skull (2x blessed orbs, recipe)

• More then enough physical dps already, we just need to effectively deal it. Magic immunity? Check. Stats? Check. Enough mana that you will never run dry again? Check. Slow that allows you to effectively deal your dps under magic immunity? Check and mate.

- Savage Mace

• It’s either this or wingbow. Savage Mace actually deals more dps then wingbow, and as you usually won’t face off against more then one carry I heavily favor Savage Mace to Wingbow, especially with truestrike as a perk.

- Symbol of Rage

• The best vitality item available this late in the game with the nerf to behemoth’s heart. Depending on the type of lineup you can take whispering helm earlier, at the very earliest after you complete shrunken head.

Other items, and why I hate most of them. Orange items means that they can be viable, Red items make me puke when I see a Madman with one.

- Sacrificial Stone

• This item takes care of stats and regen, but completely neglects Madman’s ability to carry late game. With the most recent nerf to this item I have no idea why you would build this item. I enjoy killing my enemies in seconds rather then chasing them down over the course of a team fight, thank you.

-Hellflower

• This item is even more disgusting. Costs alot of gold, buildup has no real vital components other then mana regen, gives no hp, and has a single-targeted silence. You may get more mana regen out of it then a runed axe, but with a runed axe you don’t have to use stalk/barrel roll as much anyway to farm. People that go hellflower on Madman due to its stats are clueless. Instead of either of these **** items, try:

-Kuldra’s Sheepstick

• You like mana regen? You like to “semi/pseudo carry?” You want a disable that far outdoes what Hellflower’s silence could ever dream of? Go kuldra. If you intend to build Madman as a semi-carry there is absolutely no reason you should be taking sacrificial stone or Hellflower over Kuldra, ever.

- Nullfire Blade

• Not that this item is bad, but it doesn’t bring out Madman’s potential as a hard carry. It’s like going nullfire on tDL over Runed axe. If you need it that bad draft a SW or Valk who can get this item and use it more effectively with respect to their playstyle. Or even the newly buffed Electrician.

- Shieldbreaker

• Damage? Oh yea. Lack of everything else Madman needs? Unfortunately. I used to take Shieldbreaker over Runed axe if my team had a Glacius, but since then Glacius has went from being a top hero to a mediocre one. Shieldbreaker is less effective as enemies stack more armor, so by the time you finish shrunken head there are quite a few items that are far more deadly, aka wingbow, savage mace or frostwolf skull.

-Abysmal Skull

• Lifesteal is good. Mana regen isn’t needed though, especially since it is fixed and we are concerning ourselves with scaling mana regen while using bottle/mana battery to keep ourselves up and ready early game. Get whispering helm over this.

-Brutalizer

• I don’t care if you are playing pubs. Learn how to carry properly.

-Harkon’s Blade

• Enjoy killing yourself by spending over 200 mana/second. Useful against other carries, unless, of course, they go shrunken head…oh wait.

- Post Haste

• Stats are far more important early in the game. TP is worth the cost on some heroes, but Madman is certainly not one of them. You can replace steamboots with post haste if you have like a 75 min game with a full item build.

- Daemonic Breastplate

• Wildcard of any carry hero. Often you won’t need it, sometimes you will. The more noticeble perks are the armor reducing aura that works on structures…and, well, that’s about it. Armor and the warpcleft component won’t make Madman much stronger then he already is, at least as far as vitaility and dps is concerned.

- Mock of Brilliance

• This item just doesn’t fit Madman’s playstyle. This isn’t exactly a hero that farms up 3800 gold early in the game. Completely neglects mana regen, vitality, mana pool. Not worth the mock+ stalk synergy. This item worked on weaver in dota, but is far less practical on Madman.

- Alchemist Bones

• There are far too many things you should worry about early game then rushing Alchemist bones. Luckily I have never seen a Madman go Alchemist bones, but there is a first for everything.

- Riftshards

• You already have a crit. Get Savage Mace instead.

-Rushed Shrunken head

• This hero builds as a carry later in the game, he isn’t war beast or something. Believe me when I say no enemy will care that you’re magic immune when you are struggling to manage your own mana.