A Comparison and Analysis of 4 Hard Carries [1.66] by KnightDavion

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source

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=77877

Read this First!
Before we start you must understand and agree with most of the following given information for this article to mean anything to you. You may have different names for these terms, but as long as you agree with my fundamentals in a general way we can talk about hard carries from a high end perspective.

Given:
-Each hero in HoN has a role.
-The role of any one hero is common to other heroes, and a good amount of bleed over between roles occurs with "hybrid heroe"s
-Agi heroes fall some where between two extremes, illustrated below:





[x]------------[y]------------[z]

Game Time when heroes are most effective:
x= 10:00
y= 20:00
z= 30:00+

x= Blood Hunter / Slither etc.
y= Arachna / Forsaken Archer etc.
z= Chronos / Sand Wraith etc.

-People commonly refer to the heroes in the Z category as any or all of the following terms: Carry, Hard Carry, Late Carry etc
-People commonly refer to the heroes in the X category as any or all of the following terms: Carry, Ganker, Early Carry, Roamer etc.

Now if you can understand that, you can see that nearly all the AGI heroes fall somewhere on the above sketch. Please keep in mind I am just using rough estimates on the numbers to illustrate the point clearly. The reason I have drawn this out is so you can see that when you compare heroes, you must compare heroes that are close together on this chart for the comparisons to be useful. Its pointless to compare Chronos to Blood Hunter and ask which one is the "better" carry because they each have completely different jobs.

If you disagree with my assessment then stop reading now because the rest of this article is based on the above given information. However, if you do understand and agree with most of that, keep reading.


This article will discuss 4 different heroes that are all in the Z category. These are not the only heroes in the "Late Carry" category, but they are 4 very relevant heroes that have pros and cons.

The Players:



Chronos

Profile:
Chronos has gotten a huge boost with his makeover, and now he is seeing a lot more play at all levels. Chronos is the poster boy definition of the term "Hard Carry". Before the rework his early game was pitiful, and he had a very hard time farming. Now, His early game is still challenging but his farming and ganking power has gone up dramatically. Hist ult was game breaking before when it stunned both teams, now channelers keep right on channeling, and many spell can be cast in 6 seconds even with the reduced cast time. Instant spells work great =D.

Now lets talk about the controversial bash change. It is a lot more powerful now. You only need to get 1 level of this passive early on, this allows him to get rewind maxed out early on, improving his early game survivability. Rewind gets nerfed a bit to compensate for all the other boosts, but the fact that rewind can be maxed out right after leap is an indirect boost to it that negates the nerf somewhat.

The net result of all the changes is that Chronos has a bit easier time early on than he used to and his ult is even more game breaking than before. In exchange he gives up perma-stunning and hes a bit easier to kill than before even with his core items. The perma-stunning is not missed at all, the amount of stun that comes off the passive is plenty enough for most situations and it can be used tactically now. The agi drain means that we can now kill enemy carries while inside our bubble late game, thus ensuring we win team fights.

Team Construction:
Even though Chrono's early game has been boosted a bit, that doesn't mean he can universally fit into any line up and dominate. Chronos needs to farm for about 25-30 minutes. So he needs a team that can give him a reasonable amount of safety to do so. A savvy Chronos player will move into the jungle around lvl 5-6 for full time, consistant farming. With the new leap, Chronos can now effectively help on nearby ganks, and the team should try and utilize this new aspect of Chronos. Get people scared of him early on and it makes farming a whole lot easier. Mostly though you want a team centered around creating opportunities for Chronos to farm up fast. THat means you may have to turtle up and defend towers with 4 if they are pushing hard. Or maybe you have a ganking line up and your early carries are keeping the game under control from the start. I love having an early game superstar like Blood Hunter or Pyro when playing Chronos because those type of heroes take a lot of the pressure off me.

Vital Statistics:

Primary Role: Late Carry
Secondary Role: Mid game Initiator

Pros: Game breaking Ult, Agi drain makes him a carry-killer, early game now less painful, he can gank a lot better with the new leap
Cons: Still needs 25-30 minutes of solid farming to be effective, easier to kill than before, does not fit well in every line up

Sample line up: Chronos, Pyro, Pest, Forsaken, Hellbringer




The Madman

Profile:

Despite the Pseudo-Nerf to Stalk, Madman is a viable Late Carry. Madman lacks a game breaking skill like Chronosphere. To compensate for this, Madman has a much easier time farming than Chronos and he requires less items to become effective. Madman has the ability to help initiate fights with barrel roll, though many Madman players fail to use this facet of his skill set. The barrel rolls skill naturally combo with just about every other hero in the game, some more so than others. Madman can swing team fights in your favor by leading off with a barrel roll followed by a stalk. This safely softens up the entire enemy team, stuns them in position for other heroes to use follow up skill and sets the stages for Madman to mop up whatever easy kills are left over.

All four of Madmans skills scale perfectly to late game. The combination of Stalk and Barrel Roll give him all the escape mechanism he needs to farm up heavily in the first 20-25 minutes. If the other team is playing sloppy he can use these skills to help on nearby gank to great effectiveness, and I want to stress that as well. His early game is solid and mostly stress free compared to a hero like Chronos or even Sand Wraith. The ability to farm up quickly and the universal appeal of having a huge, long range, AoE stun on your team is why Madman is on this list.

Team Construction:

One of the best things about Madman is the fact that he is a late carry that has some early to mid game utility. Coupled with his great disable, this allows madman to fit in just about any team that is looking for some scaling DPS. Madman can farm safely on your long lane, then clear the jungle efficiently. This allows him to reach his effective mark around 25 minutes in your average game, which is somewhat faster than other heroes on this list. You will need to compliment Madman with a game breaking ult to make up for his lack of one, and that needs to be seriously noted. Madman is very friendly to AoE and blinking teams as well.

Vital Statistics:

Primary Role: Late Carry
Secondary Role: Disabler, Initiator

Pros: Easy to farm with and high Str+Agi gain means less items needed, long range AoE stun+damage, fits well with just about every balanced lineup
Cons: Lacks a game breaking Ult

Sample Lineup: Madman, Magmus, Slither, Demented Shaman, Tempest




Magebane

Profile:

Magebane is another Hard Carry that lacks a truly game breaking ult. Like Madman, Magebane has an easy time farming, but unlike Madman he lacks any sort of disable. Because of this lack, Magebane has less ganking power than Madman early on in the game when enemy mana pools are still low. The good news is this liability disappears by mid game and his ganking skills improve rather quickly. Magebane has decent lane presence from the start, and he has the ability to get some early game lane kills with the right partner ie Vindicator.

Like Chronos, Magebane can move into the jungle full time very early on if your team composition supports such a move. This will net the team more exp. When I play Magebane I like to be ready to hit the jungle at the 7-8minute mark with an Iron shield and a Mask of Death. The jungle is a very consistent source of gold and exp and I can normally get my core items by 25 minutes or so. After you have your core items Magebane becomes truely scary in a hurry. His turbo attack speed kills heroes in seconds and drains their mana so they cannot escape or fight back. Magebane is an excellent chaser and hes bloody hard to kill. Magebane's -cast speed aura does not scale well and has limited use in the early game, but his other skills are good enough to make him a viable pick in a lot of situations.

Team Contruction:

Magebane can fit well into most lineups, though ganking heavy teams use his skills most efficiently. Safety isnt much concern for Magebane since he has a spammable, instant cast speed blink. This lets you have free range in you choice of support hero for the team. Magebane works very well with stuns / grips. Your overall team strategy should be focused on isolating a hero either via gank or other means. Once isolated, the gank squad disables it for Magebane to finish "In the blink of an eye".

Vital Statistics:

Primary Role: Late Carry
Secondary Role: Mid Game Ganker

Pros: Hard to kill, Deadly in 1v1 situations, combos insanely well with other gankers, decent AGI gain
Cons: Lacks game breaking ult, Lacks Disable, low STR gain

Sample Line-Up: Magebane, Plague Rider, Electrician, Andromeda, Vindicator



Sand Wraith

Profile
And finally we come to Sand Wraith, and in many ways the Sand Wraith discussion is the whole purpose of this article (besides talking about the high end viability of the new Chronos). In the interest of full disclosure I will start out by saying that I am not a huge fan of Sand Wraith in HoN. I think that for meta-game reasons Sand Wraith is less viable in HoN than he is in Dota. I realize that Sand Wraith's high hero win% is in conflict with this opinion but my explanation for this is that it has become a commonly known fact that Sand Wraith is a very difficult hero to use properly. The result of this is that only the really good players play him consistently. On top of this, the recent nerf to Dissipation makes him less game breaking than he was before.

That said, I think Sand Wraith is an EXCELLENT pick in a lot of drafting modes, and thus deserves a place on this list. Now thats out of the way lets talk about what Sand Wraith brings to the table as a Late Carry.

Sand Wraith is a game breaking Hard Carry with a wicked AoE maim. He farms moderately well since he has some escape potential with Deserts Curse. He can also farm a lane longer than the other carries on this list due to his ult doubling as a teleport. All of Sand's skills scale decently well, and he has decent STR gain.

On the downside, Sand has a very tough early game. He has almost no lane presence, though occasionally he can facilitate some early kills with the maim on Desert's Curse. He needs a babysitter and there is really no way around it. More importantly though, the nature of the way he deals damage and breaks games open require more farm than any other hero on the list.

Team Construction:
To make Sand effective you MUST assemble a team that can afford to buy him lots of time to farm. Sand needs a ridiculous amount of farm to become truly game breaking. It really doesn't help that the damage from Dissipation is Magic instead of Pure. That said, Sand Wraith's ult unlocks a few tactics that can mitigate his pathetic early game IF used wisely. Sand can port in and finish off any hero on the board that is in critical range. It is important to build a ganking team that buys sand plenty of time to farm up while allowing him the chance to get a few easy kills via his ult.

Vital Statistics:

Primary Role: Late Carry
Secondary Role: Disabler

Pros: Game breaking, moderate farmer, AoE LONG distance maim, global chaser / finisher, excellent STR gain

Cons: Needs tons of support and doesn't combo well with other heroes, takes longer to farm than any other hero on the list, nerfed Dissipation makes him less game breaking, poor AGI gain

Sample Line up: Sand Wraith, Blood Hunter, Keeper of the Forest, Wretched Hag, Plague Rider

Conclusion

After comparing the roles, strengths and weaknesses of these four carries we can see that each one is viable for different scenarios. I think that post nerf Sand Wraith is the least viable of the four. Chronos is potentially the most game breaking of the four, but he fits into fewer teams than Madman or Magebane.

I look forward to hear your comments regarding my opinions on HoN and these late carries. Thanks for reading this.