Starting item guide by Blumousey

I have seen many players pick starting items badly, so I’m just going to lay down a few “golden rules” on starting items and throw down some awesome general gameplay tips at the end as a bonus.

N.B. This starting item guide is mainly based on 5v5 games with 603 starting gold, the calibration on which the balancing in HoN is based. A lot of this still applies to other games though. Oh and excuse any accidental DotA name-ports I include, just not quite used to HoN names yet.

Rule number 1: The only hero; I repeat THE ONLY HERO that it is MAYBE acceptable to buy Marchers on as a starting item is: Swiftblade.

The advantage is to easily catch up to and keep up with heroes whilst blade flurrying very early game.
NO OTHER HERO. NO MARCHERS. Not at the very start. Never, ever, ever.

Glad we have that cleared up.
You don’t even need boots on swift very early on if you are OK at sticking to heroes with your blade flurry on. Which isn’t that hard especially with a stunner or disabler with you.
The reasons for this golden rule are numerous:

a) At the start of the game, in the lane, you do not particularly need any more movespeed. You are mostly waiting around for creeps to get low so that you can last hit or deny them. You are never actually using the movespeed that these marchers promise.

b) Even if you go for a kill on an enemy in the lane, you will slow or disable them allowing you to catch up with them and use your spells on them without marchers required. You will be able to use more spells without marchers due to the higher regen and stats you have.

c) Enemies can still die in the lane and in ganks when they have marchers; even without any marchers on your team. These people dying could have been you.

d) It doesn’t take you long if you are half-decent at lasthitting to farm up the 500 gold required to get marchers, and if your team does indeed have a courier under your control (as it should), you can use this to get the marchers without losing exp and gold from the lane.

e) The cost of marchers is over 80% of your starting gold that you could otherwise use for mana and health regen to lane longer with, or stats for better survivability, lanestaying, lasthitting and harassing power.

The most important rule, naturally put in second, Rule 2: MINOR TOTEMS ARE GOOD. Best item in the game in fact, in terms of gains-per-gold. Much better than pretender’s crowns, bracelets, talismans or rings at the start of the game.
It is very rare for pro players to buy two pretender’s crown or a fortified bracelet, talisman of exile or soulscream ring at the start of the game. The only example of this I can think of is buying two circlets in DotA for a jungling terrorblade which I saw in a pro game once.
The reason for this is that minor totems give far, far more value for money, allowing you to gain the same stats and leave more money for initial regen, allowing for more spells, laning, ganking etc very early game.
For example:
Common nooby starting build: talisman of exile + set of runes
+3 STR
+3 AGI
+6 INT
+345 HP regen
My starting build:
3 minor totems, mark of the novice, 2 sets of runes and 2 clarities
+3 STR
+3 AGI
+6 INT
+690 HP regen
+200 mana regen (over the laning time the two mana potions will give you many, many more spells to cast)
In fact, this is the flexible starting build I use pretty much the whole time, exchanging more tangoes for less clarities for heroes that don’t need mana, vice versa for heroes like thunderbringer, and exchanging the mark for the main stat of the hero I’m using; except most agility heroes where I feel I need a little more HP e.g. with Soulstealer, where I would use claw for +STR. For heroes where I am rushing arcane ring, I sometimes exchange the +3 stat item with a guardian ring.

Another reason to use minor totems is for support heroes, or just heroes you have designated in your team to buy wards or a courier. They can get decent stats and regen even though they have shelled out 200 of their 603 starting gold on a courier or wards. Example:
Monkey courier
4 Minor totems
1 set of Runes
2 Mana Potions
+4 STR
+4 AGI
+4 INT
+345 HP regen
+200 mana regen (mana potions)
Notice how they have the same stats and nearly the same regen as someone who went and bought two pretender’s crowns and roughly the same regen items. But they got a courier ASWELL. Are you starting to see the advantage of the minor totem?

Do not come back to me and retort that minor totems are bad because you cannot use them in any item you will keep for a significant length of time, or they take up a lot of inventory room.
This is not a reason not to get them because:

a) the loss of gold from selling an minor totem is minimal. As insignificant as an ant’s fart. I wouldn’t even sell them. I would stash them and whack them in empty slots that appear in your inventory once you piece together a nice item.

b) they will enable you to farm more gold, way, way, way more gold than you think, so they don’t even actually cost you anything, but are a worthy investment. Because of the extra regen you will buy and the edge they give you in the lane you will kill and deny more creeps and kill more heroes and die less.

c) it is likely you will still have room for your fortified bracelets or soulscream rings or talismans of exile or marchers giving you even more +stats

d) your inventory slots open up as you use regen items, and early game it is rare for you to have trouble keeping at least 2 minor totems in your inventory

e) when they implement some sort of magic wand equivalent you will use them to build that because that is the second best item in the game

f) for many heroes you will use 2 of them for Astrolabe (and probably have room for the third)
Think about what you are buying. Starting items are incredibly significant and mistakes can edge a game against you. Wrong item choices increase the likelihood YOU will become at worst bloodlusted or at best harassed out of a farm.

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Now to conclude, random, general tips for good games (How to not be a noob):
Lane confidently. Do not auto-attack creeps. You must lane evenly to your opponents, and good starting items (and practice) will enable you to do this. Try to assert yourself, be dominant the lane. Stand forward if you can. If you are ranged, hit your opponents everytime they approach the creeps. Last hit everytime your opponents do, and deny twice for every deny they get. For every 100HP they remove off you, take 150 of theirs. Be aggressive. Call ganks if you are having trouble. Go to called ganks.

Call misses. Even if the hero is missing because they are dead. Even if the hero is missing because they are invisible. If you cannot see them in the lane, they are MISSING. But don’t stop there!!! If the lane next to you isn’t doing anything because of your miss, e.g., if you say miss to an enemy lv6 scout with full HP and mana that just vanished in top lane, and an ally solo defiler in mid with half health is still attacking the mid tower, ping her! Talk to her with VOIP! Tell her to get back or she is going to die. APPLY THE MISS. Don’t just call it. A miss in a dual lane is also a great opportunity to harass the remaining enemy hero to hell, or kill him aided by his lack of available support.

Use damage-over-time spells to disable portal key. If you are chasing a hero with dagger, they WILL get away if they are not damaged every 3 seconds. They can blink into fog and even if you have dagger aswell, you can never be completely sure of the direction of their blink. It is best if they do not blink at all.
Buy tp scrolls all the time. Have one on you at all times. I buy about 10-30 TP scrolls per game (except for games where I get post-haste). A lot of the time it is the first thing I buy after my starting items. You got 135 gold after arriving to the lane? You got a slot? Buy a TP. Only takes about 3 last hits after the start. They are essential kit for escaping, ganking, saving and pushing. For escaping, get good at being quick at TP’ing after the enemy has used their stuns, or if you know that the enemy approaching has no stuns just go, go, go! Some of the escapes you can pull off are unbelievable.

It is very useful to put TP scrolls in an item slot that you can easily hotkey-click. I usually put mine bound to a tertiary mouse button so an escape is only 2 clicks away. When you are running and you have a TP, it is useful to run up a hill and start TP’ing, as the enemy cannot see you until they get right up the hill, giving you that little edge, or run into a cute little shadow spot. If someone needs you, TP to them. You will surprise yourself at the amount of saves of towers or allies you will do by TP’ing in to provide support.

Spend at least 1 second of every 3 looking at the minimap. From the start of the game to the finish. Map awareness is absolutely crucial in HoN and you will not believe the awful situations you will avoid if you get into this habit. It is worth the very few last hits/denies you will miss by glancing at the minimap. Once you get really good it should not affect your laning at all. Even in teamfights, you might just piece a situation together and kill another fleeing hero with a glance at the minimap.

You will get more exp, gold and the team benefits more by leaving a lane, stopping your epic creep farming, to gank. In place of obsessive laning and farming, the team that successfully ganks more IS the team that gets rewarded with tower gold, creeps gold and exp, and hero kill exp. That is why teams win.
Press B a lot. Buy stuff when you are not at the fountain. Especially meaningful in those moments before big teamfights, or in those moments before ganks you are running into with half HP, which are so much fun, but quite risky. Get into the habit of buying your stuff before times when you may die. If you are quick you can use those 5 or 6 seconds before you die whilst the enemy chases you to kill you. If you think you are definitely going to die and cannot be more useful, click to move to the fountain and buy stuff fast. You lose roughly 30x your level in gold every time you die. Look at the amount of “Gold Lost” due to your deaths after a game. Minimise further it in your next.

If you want to get good, play a lot and study a lot. Hero guides will teach you a lot you didn’t know already, and knowledge is power. You will learn a lot through play, but knowledge of the intangible mechanics is probably more important than skill at aiming, micro or timing. It will affect how you use your skills. When you use them, on who, and where. It will even affect the very hero you pick.
Dying to neutrals or Kongor is better than dying to the enemy. If it is certain you will die, and you are near a neutral creep camp or ancient camp, or even Kongor’s hideaway, run in there and try to let the creeps last hit you. The enemy will gain no gold if you are successful. You will still lose gold. (Which you shouldn’t lose much of if you follow the tip about that above ^-^)

*THIS IS PROBABLY THE MOST IMPORTANT TIP*
Do not pick your hero blindly. See what shape your team takes. Look at your team’s primary stats. Are they balanced? Discuss your team’s picks with your teammates. Discuss counters to your enemy’s team. Listen to those more experienced than you. If your team already has 2 carries, don’t pick another one. Very few teams are effective with more than 2 agility heroes on board. So take that into account. There are only a few heroes I would pick first, without any info on the enemy team’s ideas, or any communication between you and your team: Jereziah, Defiler, Pollywog, Swiftblade, Predator, Devourer, Valkyrie, Torturer, Soulstealer, Tempest, Arachna. Notice how these are heroes who either have magic immunity, magic resistance, lots of disable or are typically versatile, solo lane dominators, or heroes with great pushing power and virtually all of them are not item-dependent. Most other choices can be countered, or THESE choices ARE great counters to LOTS of heroes. As in, they are mostly fucking awesome.
Thanks for reading and,