Soulstealer

Soulstealer is a ranged Agility hero in Heroes of Newerth based on the Dota hero Shadow Fiend.  An aggressive lane-controller, Soulstealer lies among the best of all solo heroes in the game and is also destructive later in the game with a powerful AOE ultimate and massive potential to carry.  Here is a look at his abilities:

Demon Hand

This spell is actually three different AOE nukes with separate cooldowns.  This means you can unload three individual Demon Hands in rapid succession to quickly dish out 900 damage when Demon Hand is Level 4.  That kind of power absolutely demolishes enemy heroes early game.

Set your secondary ability keys to something easy to use like Z, X, and C (what they are for Shadow Fiend in Dota).  Demon Hand won’t be effective if you are clicking it with your mouse instead of using hotkeys effortlessly.  Then try to remember Z-close range, X- medium range, C-far range so you don’t use the wrong distance later on.

New players have a lot of trouble landing Demon Hands, but it’s actually pretty simple.  Don’t over-think it.  Just make sure you are facing the direction you want to nuke before you cast the spell.  Sometimes this is as easy as first attack-clicking the hero you want to nuke, or right clicking in the vicinity of that hero right before you cast.  If you realize you are facing the wrong direction after you already hit the spell hotkey, or your opponent has juked to the side, you still have a little over half a second to push S (stop) to cancel the animation and try the spell again.

Soulsteal (passive)

Soulsteal increases your attack damage every time you make a last hit.  Increased damage is exactly what you need early game to dominate the last hitting in your lane and harass enemy heroes.  As the great Raider134 once said, “my grandmother can last hit with Shadow Fiend”.  This is totally true; when fully loaded at Level 4, Soulsteal gives you +60 base damage, which is like having a free Sword of the High (3800 cost) in your inventory!

Soulsteal needs to be fully loaded for your ultimate to do full damage.  Also, half your souls are lost when you die.

Dread (passive)

Dread is a passive aura that lowers the armor of nearby enemy units.  This complements  heroes like Andromeda and Pestilence who can lower armor even more, and works well with Shield Breaker, an item which also reduces armor.

Soul Burst (ultimate) (r)

Soul Burst is a devastating AOE ultimate which can be used effectively on groups of players in team battles or to quickly kill individual players who are alone on the map.  The ultimate does damage and slows enemy units based on the distance between them and Soulstealer, which makes it ideal for use right after blinking in or sneaking in with Assassin’s Shroud.  Depending on the makeup of your team, either you should either use this to initiate or to wipe out several heroes after an initiator like Tempest or Legionnaire sets you up or something else has happened causing the enemy to commit to a battle.  After unloading a high damage Soul Burst, mop up any survivors with Demon Hands or your ridiculously high attack damage.

Strategy

Recommended Skill Build

1. Soulsteal
2. Demon Hand
3. Soulsteal
4. Demon Hand
5. Demon Hand
6. Soulsteal
7. Demon Hand
8. Soulsteal
9. Dread
10. Soul Burst
11. Soul Burst
12. Dread
13. Dread
14. Dread
15. Stats
16. Soul Burst
17. Stats-> Level 25

Explanation: Soulsteal is necessary at Level 1 and 3 to gain attack damage for last hitting and lane control.  After this point Demon Hand becomes more important, since at Level 4 and 5 you can easily start comboing a couple Demon Hands and attacks on your opponent to generate kills in your lane.  Soul Burst (ultimate) is more or less useless until later in the game (unless you’re really crafty), so we hold off getting it until Level 9 or 10 in order to max out the essential Soulsteal and Demon Hands abilities.  By level 11 we should have either an Assassin’s Shroud or Portal Key and so we want to have Soul Burst leveled up so we can use it effectively.

Early Game

Recommended starting items:

+ + + +

Duck Boots + Pretender’s Crown + Minor Totem + Healing Potion + Runes of the Blight

The first three of these items will raise your attack damage by six, which is essential for last hitting creeps at Level 1 before Soulsteal is giving you much bonus damage.  This also gives some added hit points and can be made into a Soulscream Ring later.  Soulstealer’s base damage is very low without Soulsteal, so if you don’t start out with some damage-boosting items you will have trouble building up souls early game.

You should solo mid.  Focus solely on last hitting for Levels 1-3 in order to raise your soul count, but by time you are Level 4 or 5 Demon Hand is strong enough to start getting kills if you start landing combos on the enemy hero in your lane.  This is as simple as landing a close or mid-range Demon Hand spell on them (easiest to do by moving forward and using it while when they are trying to last hit a creep and therefore are motionless).  After you land the first nuke, you can attack them, then land the longer range nukes for the kill as they retreat.  If your opponent lets you get close enough for a close-range nuke, then they are almost surely dead since you can land the two farther range nukes on them when they run back.

Recommended early game items:

+ 

Bottle + Marchers

Grab these as soon as you can and start controlling the Runes to keep your hit points full, help you gank faster, and have enough mana to keep using Demon Hand.  An early invis or haste rune will get you ganking kills, while double damage and illusion runes will make it easier for you to control your lane.

Mid Game

Recommended mid game items:

or then

Portal Key or Assassin’s Shroud then Post Haste

Portal Key and Shrunken Head is the combo of choice at more competitive levels where players will be getting gems or putting Wards of Revelation on the battlefield to prevent someone from sneaking in with Assassin’s Shroud to Soul Burst.  With this combo, you can simply tell your team “I’m going in”, activate Shrunken, blink into a clump of enemy heroes, and let your ultimate rip them up.  This sets up a battle for your team to come in and mop up (all enemy heroes are heavily damaged and slowed), and you’ll probably even survive thanks to Shrunken Head’s period of magic invulnerability and the added hit points it gives you.  Alternatively you can wait until they have committed to the battle instead of initiating yourself, then go in and Soul Burst at this time.

Assassin’s Shroud is a viable alternative to Portal Key and can often be better especially in lower level games.  This will let you sneak in and Soul Burst from directly underneath a hero who will have less time to react and will be standing closer and take more damage than if you blinked in with Portal Key.  Once you have Post Haste and Assassin’s Shroud it’s really easy to teleport to outer lanes, sneak in and kill anyone trying to farm with your ultimate and a couple attacks or Demon Hands to finish them off.

Late Game

Recommended Late Game items:

or or  then or then

Shrunken Head or Behemoth’s Heart or Frost Wolf’s Skull then Wingbow or Daemonic Breastplate then lifesteal

You need to tank up to survive team battles after getting in the middle of them to use your ultimate.  Shrunken Head is the best option for consistently getting your ultimate off, but Behemoth’s and Frost Wolf’s have some nice bonuses; Behemoth’s will increase all damage by 10% (including Soul Burst damage) and allows you to continue to be able to kill creep waves with only two Demon Hands until late in the game; Frost Wolf’s adds some hit points and makes it really hard for anyone to run from you.

After this you should grab either a Wingbow or Daemonic Breastplate for the attack speed and to solidify your newly increased hit points with either evasion or armor.  After this you should, as always, get some lifesteal for late game to be sustainable in long battles.  Alternatively you could go for a Symbol of Rage to combine your tanking up and getting lifesteal needs into one item, but then you’ll need to get some additional attack speed as well to make use of Soulstealer’s high attack damage.

Tags: hero guide, HoN, soulstealer

This entry was posted on Friday, January 29th, 2010 at 8:05 PM 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.