HoN Hero:: Heroes of Newerth Guides

Introduction

This guide is being produced to help those who are new to Heroes of Newerth, as if you had no basic knowledge of the Action Real Time Strategy genre. I will cover Terminology, Hero Roles, Item Dependency, Lane Structures and more in this guide, so I hope that after reading it I have covered anything you have been wanting to know. However if I left something out, please post in this topic to discuss it with myself and other HONHero members, or alternatively you can send me a private message regarding the information in question.

Terminology

The first thing I want to do before continuing forward, is to cover the terminology you will read in this guide, other guides and in game. If you have played other games, this terminology may sound familiar or you may know what it means. Some terminology will be covered in other sections of this guide, so don't forget to read the other sections.

Starting off we have Hero, which refers to the character you are currently using in the game. In League of Legends, they are called Champions, but Heroes of Newerth calls them heroes. When someone refers to a hero's abilities, they will most likely call them by the order in which they are displayed and the most common hotkeys for them even if they do not activate by pressing them. Q, W, E and R refer to your first, second, third and fourth abilities respectively. Common use of this in game would be, "level up your q" or "go in and use your r".

Second is the Lanes. Each side is connected through three major lanes and many random pathways connecting them to one another through trees. When the game starts, most players enter their lane and begin to farm off the Lane Creeps that spawn from either side, advancing down the lane to attack the enemy's Lane Creeps and eventually their base. Each Lane is named after where it is on the map, Top Lane, Middle Lane and Bottom Lane.

In contrast to the Lane Creeps, there are Jungle Creeps as well and like their name suggests, they reside in the Jungle that is anything but the Lanes and River that divides the map's two sections, one half for the Legion and the other for the Hellborne. Some heroes are better at farming in the Jungle than they are when they Lane, so they will reside in there and once they have become strong enough or the timing is right, will begin to enter the lanes and attack enemy heroes when they least expect it.

In the river at two specific points (picture required) Runes will spawn every 2 minutes that the game has lasted. When these runes are activated by either ordering your Hero directly into it or by capturing it a , they give a specific effect depending on which of them spawned (random). The types of Runes are as follows: Rune of Illusion will spawn two illusions of your hero that take additional damage when attacked, deal less damage than your own and cannot cast spells, but will receive most passive bonuses. Rune of Speed makes your hero move at the maximum speed that any hero can move, which is 522 movement speed temporarily. Rune of Double Damage doubles the auto-attack damage of the hero that possesses it. Rune of Regeneration will give your hero a very significant increase to their health and mana regeneration for a short duration that is disabled when you take damage from any source.

Missing, "SS" or MIA refers to when a hero is not present in the lane they have been farming since the beginning. Most heroes who leave the lane are going to check for the Runes that reside in the River, heal at their Fountain or move to another lane to attack the heroes there.

Ganking, which refers to when one hero moves from the Lane that he started in and has been residing in to surprise the enemy's heroes in another lane and kill them when the timing is right. The only goal in the ganking process is to kill the heroes there, not to farm off their creeps and in most cases, not to push down their tower. Regardless if the gank was successful or not, once the opportunity to kill them is gone or is too low, the hero that went to gank returns to his lane. In most cases this hero came from the closest neighboring lane.

Farming refers to the act of acquiring gold from creeps, ignoring what else is going on in the game and focusing on that single effort. Most of the time this is considered a bad thing, but some heroes are required to do this at certain points of the game. Another form of this is Free Farming which is the same, but when there is nothing for that hero to worry about as the opposing team is ignoring them as much as they are being ignored by that hero.

Last Hitting is when you deal the last source of damage, generally by auto-attacking, a creep to receive the gold for it. This is a vital part of playing Heroes of Newerth and I would suggest practicing it as much as possible. Another form of last hitting is Denying which is doing the same thing, but to your own side's creeps to prevent your enemies from getting the gold for it and less experience for its death in most cases.

Hero Roles

Hero Roles refer to what each hero is most commonly used to do and in most cases, made to do. Some heroes have more than one role, but most focus on the main role.

Carry is a pretty universal role for any Action RTS, the hero is meant to do deal the highest damage per second and in most cases this is accomplished from their auto-attacks in combination with their abilities. Carries focus on items that amplify their damage or attacks in some way. They are weak during the early stages of the game, but scale much faster than any other role in the game and towards the end, are the most powerful heroes in the game.

Hard Carry are extremely similar to Carries, except that they heavily rely on items to be do their damage unlike carries who mostly focus on their own their abilities, but when they do are exponentially more powerful and typically counter a standard carry by dealing more damage, faster. They require much more time farming and this can sometimes take a majority of the time in the game to do. These heroes generally have the hardest time during the first ten minutes of the game and any kind of interference early on is devastating to this role.

Nuker refers to heroes who focus on large amounts of damage through their skills in a very short amount of time. Commonly they only have one or two abilities that deals a significant amount of damage to a single hero. Their role in a game is to single out a single hero and take them out before they can be of any use to their team, preferably before a fight starts.

Disable heroes are meant to lock down another hero temporarily for their team to take them out or prevent that hero from performing their role. Doing this on a carry is typical, but it is also acceptable to do on any other role that is causing an issue for your carry.

Support roles, like the name suggests, support their team through their abilities and their items also reflect this, typically giving off positive effects for their allies. Most of the time these heroes fill one of the more important but rarely performed role of a Babysitter during the first ten minutes of a game. They usually lane with a hero that is extremely weak during the early stages of a game, 99% of the game this is a Hard Carry, and keep them in their lane as long as possible.

Pusher is pretty straight forward, they push their lanes and quickly throw aside the opposing creeps to take down enemy structures with relative ease. Additionally some Pushers keep allied creeps alive during the process as well.

Initiator heroes have one or two abilities that when used in conjunction, will put multiple opposing heroes at a disadvantage before a fight even starts and make your team able to win the fight much faster. Most of the time this is accomplished through a large area disable or a hero with a lot of health that can abuse a team who doesn't turn to fight him, forcing a fight that they may not win.

Ganker is when a hero's role is to go around and surprise enemy heroes

Nice work! Handy for new players :)

<Administrator>

Unremarkable

Posts: 16

Could use more... but for what you have, +1.

Posts: 4

Nice guide, info generically good for someone new to MOBAs. I would like to see something about how the items and shop system work in HoN.

Posts: 1

Id add soaker as hero roll too, but thats minor.
Good guide, thumbs up

Posts: 20

well done +1

but as teyso said, shop information would be fine :)

Posts: 26

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1.	Under Construction
2.	Introduction
3.	Terminology
4.	Hero Roles
5.	Item Dependancy

Loveless' Heroes of Newerth Guide

Loveless' Heroes of Newerth Guide

Under Construction

Introduction

Terminology

Hero Roles

Item Dependancy