Devourer

While on the surface, HoN’s Devourer seems the same as Dota’s Pudge, the port has actually has turned a difficult and potentially frustrating hero into one that is much easier to play.  Sure it’s possible to have great, dominating games with Pudge in Dota, but throw in a little delay and the already slow Meat Hook animation can turn your game into a nightmare (just remember the swiss “monsta hoox” beatz or monster videos).  Pudge is truly better suited for the faster-paced and smoother game environment of HoN, so lets look at his skills and find out why:

Gutting Hook

As mentioned, Gutting Hook is better and easier to use than Meat Hook in every way:

• Casts faster and every game has negligible delay.
• Animation is faster so any pubfuck allies chasing with you are less likely to path around you and block your shot like in Dota.
• You can keep moving while the hook is in flight, which will change the return path; and you can catch units during the return path.
• The tip of the hook grabs onto a larger area so it is easier to snag targets.
• Normal pathing over terrain of different elevations instead of a crazy bend.

Decay

The same as Rot.  Get close to the enemy, rot em up, and get the kill.  Learn this skill first and you can sometimes get a level 1 first blood.  You can also use Decay to deny yourself so always turn it on if you’re going to die anyways.

Cadaver Armor

This works slightly different than its Dota counterpart, Flesh Strength, which has now been modified to work similarly to Blood Stone or Silencer’s Aura;  in Dota, Pudge now gains strength whenever a nearby hero denies no matter who killed it, and does not gain strength for killing units.  Cadaver Armor in HoN still works the way that Flesh Strength used to in Dota: Pudge gains a little bit of strength for killing a creep and a lot for killing a hero.  So if you are dominating a game you naturally are going to get bulked up.

Devour

Same as Dismember in Dota.  Great for ganking and really good to disable farmed enemies late game.  Also can be used with Staff of the Master to heal Devourer as he eats someone.

Strategy

Early Game

If you solo, you should get Bottle and Boots quickly to control Runes and start ganking heavily as soon as you hit level 5 or 7, where Gutting Hook will finally be of useful length.  Devourer is a beefcake so you need to dive right in and start Decaying the hell out of the enemy and hopefully your teammates will help mop up the battle.

If you lane, I like to start out with an Iron Buckler (Stout Shield), several Minor Totems (branches), Runes of Blight (tangos) and a Health Potion (salve).  Devourer will take a lot of punishment early while trying to cs, but its important start with items that will allow you to quickly farm up to 875 or 950 at which point you can grab Lifetube (Ring of Health) or Helm, both of which will give you the necessary health regeneration to survive in lane, and which you can later turn into Helm of the Black Legion (Vanguard) or Shaman’s Headdress (Hood).  These are good starting items that will help you gank later.  Shaman’s Headdress is especially good because it reduces the amount of damage Devourer deals to himself from Decay.

Mid Game

Grab an early Mock of Brilliance if you get off to a good start

If you are getting a lot of kills or farming very easily, then one of the best items you can get is Mock of Brilliance (Radiance).  Devourer is naturally a great tank, and adding a constant AOE damage to something that is hard to kill is a massive game-changer.  This item will also increase the amount of creep kills you are getting, thus increasing your strength from Cadaver, and getting you tanked up even more.

If you are having a hard game and not getting much gold, then you need to go for a more conservative build like Staff of the Master (Aganhim’s), which can be built in small pieces (so you can get it even if you are dying a lot), and also helps you tank up and gives you more mana pool for more hooks and devours.  Another good choice is Barrier Idol (Pipe), which is especially useful against heroes like Magmus or Torturer that do a lot of AOE damage to your team.

Another possible item choice is Portal Key (Blink Dagger), something not allowed on Pudge in Dota but is allowed on Devourer in HoN.  This can make your ganking game a lot more dynamic.

Late Game

You should tank up and then add some armor as well.  Some good choices for this are Behemoth’s Heart (Heart of Tarrasque), Frostfield Plate (Shiva’s), and Barbed Armor (Blade Mail).  In team battles, make it your duty to find and disable the strongest carry hero on the other team with your ultimate and then stay in their face, so they can’t deal a lot of damage to the rest your team.

A good late game item build on Devourer

Tags: cadaver armor, Decay, devour, Devourer, dismember, Dota, flesh strength, Gutting Hook, hero guide, HoN, meat hook, pudge, rot

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 8:40 AM by daggius and is filed under Guides: HoN. 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.