Engineer

Engineer is a new ranged agility hero in HoN beta Patch 0.1.58.  He is a skilled mechanic and carries a large musket into battle.  This is a completely unconventional hero with a different style of play than the rest of the heroes in the game.  Just like Goblin Techies breaks the mold in Dota, the Engineer in HoN does things his own way.  Let’s take a look at the abilities and figure out how to play this new hero:

The Keg (q)

Crushing the myth that engineers work all day and don’t love to party, the Engineer throws a huge keg of a Ale into battle which explodes, damaging and stunning an AOE, and blasting units away from the area.  The effect is analogous to Bat Rider’s Flamebreak ability in Dota.  This has obvious implications as a nuke and stun, and can also be used to blast fleeing enemies back towards you to hinder their escape.  This is the most conventional ability that the Engineer has, so get ready for the crazy stuff.

Steam Turret (w)

“Built piece by piece” by the Engineer himself, this contraption has a twice-per-second ranged attack that drains 1 mana per shot from a 50 total mana pool.  You can control what it attacks, just like with Pollywog Priest’s ultimate.  This turret uses the effect of all Engineer’s items except lifesteal! When it runs out of mana, the Engineer can shut it down about a minute during which time it heals mana before it is ready to fight again.  Five attacks from any unit will destroy the turret.

This is like having another version of you on the battlefield, capable of essentially doubling your damage output in any team battle.  This scales with your hero, getting stronger as you add more items and therefore making Engineer a powerful late game carry.

Tinker (channeling) (e)

This Engineer “manipulates the inner workings of any mechanical unit or tower”, modifying attack speed and armor of towers, attack speed and damage of seige units, increasing the attack speed and mana regen of the Steam Turret, or increasing the damage over time effect of his Energy Field ultimate.  This has clear implications for pushing or defending towers (great to use at the same time as you Glpyh your low-hp tower to scare off any enemy before you deny it) and buffing his ultimate damage.  Also consider that this spell has a 400 range, which means you can essentially engage in any battle through your Steam Turret (remember it’s attacks use the effects of your items), while the actual engineer sits back at a safe distance and channels Tinker.

Energy Field (ultimate) (r)

“Deploying his patented Double-Magnetic Modulator v3.0″, the Engineer creates an Energy Field that deals initial damage, drains hp at a rate of up to 7% of max health in Magic damage, and purges and silences enemy heroes that enter or exit it.  This ultimate casts on the current position of the Engineer, which means he must get close to the center of the battle for it to really be effective.  It is killed by any five enemy attacks.  The health drain part of the spell works exactly like Tempest’s (Enigma’s) Meteor (Midnight Pulse) ability.  The rest of the abilities are just really good disables for disrupting a team battle, and can obviously be immensely beneficial for purging off important abilities like Hammerstorm’s (Sven’s) ultimate or Jeraziah’s (Omniknight’s) Protective Charm (Repel) without having to get a Nullfire Blade (Diffusal).

Strategy

Early Game

Engineer’s short-ranged attack and delayed attack animation make it a weaker solo hero that would fit better into one of the side lanes.  Keg is effective for lane control; use its AOE blast to last hit creeps and harass simultaneously.  Steam Turret can generate kills early game if you place it behind the enemy in side lanes to mow them down with dual attacks as they try to retreat.  When you reach level 6, your ultimate will add a paralyzing disable to slow their escape and allow Steam Turret and you to attack them for longer.

Alternatively, if you are inclined to push, you might forget Keg altogether and put your early points into Tinker and Steam Turret instead.  Then you can channel Tinker on either on your team’s siege units or the enemy tower itself as you push until the enemy tower is dropped to low enough health for you to move in for the last hit.

Mid Game

Farm lanes and load up on orb items like Charged Hammer (Mjollnir) and Frost Wolf’s Skull (Skadi).  Any orbs (other than lifesteal) will transfer to your steam turret as well and wreak havok on the battlefield as the game goes on and you continue to get stronger.  When team battles start happening, it is important to get close enough to the enemy to catch them in your Energy Field ultimate (it casts where you stand), although staying alive in the line of fire is of course an issue for you, as a low-hp agility hero.  If you need to hold back in order to survive longer, try throwing down Steam Turret and channeling Tinker on it from behind, which will allow you to contribute a lot of damage to the battle without getting very close.  Engineer is also an amazing defender, so make sure to teleport to help defend/deny towers and use Steam Turret on top of ramps for uphill and fog advantage if your base is getting pushed.

Late Game

Keep farming and go for a Wingbow (Butterfly) and get some lifesteal to for duking it out in long late game battles.  Steam Turret will be a massive force in any team battle, as many opponents will not have the presence of mind, or will be too disabled, to destroy it before the combined force of both you and your Steam Turret take out most of their team.

Counters

One way to deal with the massive damage unload of Steam Turret is to get Barbed Armor (Blade Mail).  Late game, the turret attacks very quickly, so if you activate Barbed Armor when the turret is targetting you, it will destroy itself in just over a second (the time it takes to make five attacks).  Other options to deal with the turret is to just get your team to back up when a turret is placed, or to try and focus the Engineer and kill him very quickly (the turret dies when he does).

Tags: engineer, hero guide, HoN, HoN beta

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 26th, 2009 at 12:51 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.