Ophelia Guide


A detailed Guide to Ophelia

the least picked hero in HoN
TABLE OF CONTENTS

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.

STATS and ROLE

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.

SKILLS

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.

SKILLBUILD

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.

ITEMBUILD

Early Game

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.

Core Items

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.

Luxury Items

/ / //

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.

Honorable Mention

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.

ITEMS NOT TO GET ON OPHELIA

Unless you’re messing aro

THE GAME HAS STARTED, WHAT TO DO?
EARLY GAME

Buy your items. If you have wards, place them. Then you put one point into Command and wait for the Neutrals, which spawn at 0:30.

If you’re Legion you’ll jungle in the bottom forest and if you’re Hellbourne you’ll jungle in the top forest. Keep in mind that by jungling you’re giving your team another solo lane, so announce that before you pick Ophelia. Why? Because your team wants to pick two heroes that are capable of soloing.

Okay, so now it’s 0:30 and the creeps have spawned. What to do?
Well, you always want to dominate the strongest creep in an orange camp. For example Minotaurs, Catman Soldiers, Vulture Lords, Skeleton Kings etc.

Early on you can only charm one creep, so try to tank a bit and keep it alive until you get Command Level 2, which will increase your farming abilities by miles. If one creep gets low, pull it back and let the other creep tank. If both are low, send them back to the base and maybe check Runes or help out on a lane.

As soon as you hit Level 5 you’re able to control 3 Minions. Now it’s time for a push and or a few ganks. (You can also gank on Level 3, 2 Minions can also ensure a guaranteed kill if your team is competent).

So what you wanna do if you’re ganking is to come out of the jungle, RIGHT BEHIND YOUR ENEMIES (if possible), and cast Nature’s Wrath on one of them. Be sure to let your allies know on which one you’re going to cast it. After that just rush in with your minions. You can switch through them by pressing tab, just try to get a stun in with a Minotaur or a slow with a Catman Soldier. A Root from a Skeleton King can also help you to get your Minotaur’s stun off.

Now after you killed the lane and/or scared the enemies off, it’s time to push. Ophelia is one of the best pushers in the game, keep that in mind. What you’re wanting to do is to push with your mates as fast as you can, and then just hit on the tower with your creeps. If the tower focuses them you got lucky, just let them tank and pull the most damaged one back so one of the other 2 can tank.

If you’re already Level 6 after that, you can actually use your Ultimate to get your creeps back to full health.
Now repeat that on the other 2 lanes, you can easily push the first 3 towers of the opposing site in the first 10-15 minutes.

MID GAME

It’s ganking time! Just stay with your team and get them to push with you. By now you should’ve finished your Astrolabe/Puzzlebox and your Plated Greaves/Steamboots, so use them as often as possible. An early Astrolabe will turn almost every clash around and an early Puzzlebox is awesome for pushes and damage. If everything goes well you can actually get a lane down before the enemies team has time to farm.

LATE GAME

If you and your team somehow didn’t manage to raze the enemies base by now, something went terribly wrong.
Your creeps are going down pretty fast by now and all you can do is heal and/or hex the enemy team.
You can still support your team with the aura of the Wolf Commander or the Ice Ogre’s Armorbuff, but it’s not all fun and games anymore, like in the first 25 minutes of the game.
You’re also going to go down even faster than before when focused in teamfights, so try to stay back and support with your creeps and your heal(s).

WHAT CREEPS TO GET?
EARLY & MID GAME

Minotaur:

1100 HP
200 Mana
Damage 65-73

Bodyslam

Stuns for 2 seconds on enemy heroes and for 3 on every other unit. It also deals 25 damage and costs a whooping 100 mana.
Cooldown: 20 seconds

Attackspeed Aura

Gives +15 to Attackspeed

Minotaurs are great. They have TONS of HP and an awesome AoE stun, which, if aimed right, can mean the difference between life and death in the early game & awesome at tanking towers. They’re also viable lategame, because of their aura.

Vulture Lord:


950 HP
200 Mana
Damage 65-73

Tornado

Damages enemies in a 150 radius for 45 Magic damage per second. Damages enemies in a 600 radius for 15 Magic damage per second.
Cooldown: 120 seconds

They’re pretty okay early game, because their Tornade really has some damage going for it. But that spell is chanelled and the Tornade is slow as ****, so most people will simply outrun it. Vulture Lords are okay if there’s no better creep around, but I avoid to command them unless I’m forced to do so.

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.

Vagabond Leader:

1100 HP
400 Mana
Damage 65-73

Ground Pound!

Deals 100 Magic damage up to 800 units away in a 200 radius cone.
Cooldown: 8 seconds

Presence of the Leader

+3 Health Regeneration Aura

I guess the nuke and the aura is pretty nice to have around early game, but after that the use of having a Vagabond Leader in your “squad” actually disappears. They’re certainly better than Vulture Lords, but other than that? Try to get other creeps.

LATE GAME

Your creeps are basically cannonfodder lategame, so the only viable option therefore are the following 3 creeps.

Ice Ogre:

600 HP
400 Mana
Damage 24-27

Icy Cold Armor


Applies Icy Cold Armor to any ally for 45 seconds. (+8 armor, when attacked the attacker gets a 30% Movement Slow and -30 Attack Speed)
Cooldown: 5 seconds

They suck and they are squishy, but the armor buff is HUGE. +8 armor? What’s not to love. Plague Rider’s skill gives +12 armor and you can get +8 and a debuff when attacked for free. The Cooldown got nerfed in the newest patch, but the skill is still very, very, very good. Use it & love it.

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.

WHAT TO DO IF NO CREEPS SHOW UP AT CAMP XY?

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!

COUNTERS TO OPHELIA!

A Team of Nukers

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.

POPULAR WARDSPOTS TO KEEP OPHELIA FROM FARMING AND HOW TO COUNTER THEM!

HELLBOURNE

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.


HOW TO JUNGLE?


The good thing is, that once you hit Level 3 with Ophelia jungling becomes a lot easier. The question is where to start on Level 1, and what to do if your minion is to fragile to survive until the second one “arrives”. Just keep in mind that if the enemy have a hero that will probably jungle in their woods, you can really mess up their farm. Just swing your sexy ass over to the enemy woods and start dominating bosscreeps & harassing the enemy. It’s pretty easy to counter, but if they don’t send backup from the lane, you’ll go crazy on their side of the jungle.


Legion




This is where you’ll start out. The first creepcamps spawn at 0:30 and after that every full minute (4:00 for example), but only if there are no corpses lying in the camp (they take around 11 seconds to disappear, keep that in mind!) and the spot isn’t blocked with wards.
What you’ll do is that after you’ve dominated the leader of the first camp (always dominate the strongest creeps in the camp, and only take over the creeps mentioned above!) and kill as much as you can with him. After the second camp (the yellow one) you’ll hit Level 2 and if you can manage to kill the second orange one (depends on the spawns of course) you’ll hit Level 3 and are good to go. 2 minions are all you need for jungling without a problem. Just pull them back before they die and use their skills if you have a Catman Champion or a Vagabond Leader, because they inflict around 100 damage.


If you’re only level 2 and your creep is going to die at the second orange camp, just dominate whatever boss creep is standing there.
Hellbourne




Except for the different starting spot, the tactic stays actually the same. Dominate the orange creepcamp boss and try to extinct as much camps as possible with it.
I actually prefer the Hellbourne jungle over the Legion one, because you can farm better. If you’re wiping through the jungle you can use the river to do a nice circle, where as in the Legion one you actually have to walk back for a million minutes to reach the outter orange camp where you start out.
HOW TO PULL CREEPCAMPS?


Neutral pulling is an awesome strategy. The guy that is soloing on the lane attached to the jungle can easily farm a neutral camp, your creeps may die due to tanking one of the neutrals, which means less XP for your enemies and you prevent your lane from being pushed to hard. But how to do it?
Legion



This is the camp you’re pulling down towards the creeps. What you’ll basically do is to hit one of the neutrals and run back to the lane so your creeps will attack them and follow them back into the jungle. You can do this between x:14 – x:16 and x:44-x:46. If you time it right, you and your mate are in for some free gold.

1. Hit & run!


2. Pull them to your lane


3. Get back into their camp, deny your creeps, last hit the Neutrals.


Hellbourne



The only thing that changes is the creepcamp and maybe the timing is one second off on the Hellbourne side. But other than that it’s exactly the same.

1. Hit them


2. Pull them to your creeps and get back to the camp

3. PROFIT!


HOW TO USE OPHELIA
If you want to set up a gank in the early game, wait for your enemies to push. If they’ve pushed far enough to your tower, now it’s your time to strike.

1. Apply Nature’s Wrath

2. This is what it looks like when your enemy is debuffed

3. Get in with your Minions and start doing damage. Don’t forget their skills!

4. ????

5. Profit! (which means a kill, or even better, an assist)

HOW TO TOWER PUSH?

1. Push the lane with your Minions and attack/tank the tower

2. Pull the Neutral that’s about to die back and let your creeps/your other Minions tank!
3. If the health of all of your minions hits a critical state and the tower still isn’t down, cast your ultimate to get them up to full health! Yes, tower pushes early game are THAT important, you’re allowed to “waste” your Ultimate like that!
HOW TO SOLO KONGOR!
What do you need? Unlike in the earlier versions where Level 6 would’ve sufficed, you now need Level 7 so you can get Command on 4 to dominate 3 Creeps. Besides that you need your Ultimate & a few Auras from maybe Refreshing Ornament and Shield of the Five might help.
So what you’re basically aiming for is to let your creeps tank Kongor and pull them back as soon as they’re low. Do that with all 3 of them and then use your Ultimate. And don’t forget to use that Shield of the Five if you have it, it gives +2 Armor! An Astrolabe or a Puzzlebox would help too, but you’re fine with these lower tier items.

If you’re doing it right, the following will happen:


OPHELIA’S FRIENDS!

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!

OPHELIA’S ENEMIES!

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.

REPLAYS!

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.


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This entry was posted on Friday, April 30th, 2010 at 6:09 am and is filed under Ophelia, guides. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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