Pollywog Priest

Pollywog Priest is a ranged Intelligence hero in Heroes of Newerth based on the Dota hero Rhasta, the Shadow Shaman.  Pollywog Priest is a supporting hero with a couple of very useful disables and an ultimate that is great for pushing buildings or defending your own.  This guide makes use of the remade abilities and spell names that will be released in HoN patch 0.1.67.  Let’s take a closer look at the hero:

Electric Jolt (q)

Electric Jolt delivers a spray of magic damage in a cone in front of Pollywog Priest, hitting a target and several units around it as well.  This is useful early game to last hit creeps in your lane while simultaneously harassing enemy heroes.  It is also very effective in team battles to damage large parts of the enemy team at a time.

Morph (w)

Morph turns the target into toad for several seconds during which they are silenced, perplexed, disarmed, and have a reduced movement speed.  The effect is equivalent to that of Witch Slayer’s Miniaturization spell and the Kuldra’s Sheepstick item.  This is one of the best disable spells in the game and is very useful in ganking and as a means to neutralize strong enemy carry heroes late in the game.

Tongue Tied (channeling) (e)

Pollywog Priest grabs a target with his tongue and holds onto it for several seconds during which that target is immobilized, revealed, and cannot cast spells or attack.  The target also takes a small amount of magic damage over time.  Tongue Tied is another very useful disable for Pollywog Priest, great for making opponents suffer early game when they are over-committed to a battle or just in a bad spot with a wave of your creeps going after them.  You can also set up your allies for easy kills, especially if you have a nasty melee hero on your side like Swiftblade or Magebane who can rip into them for several seconds while you channel Tongue Tied.  This is also a great spell for holding enemies within the wrath of your Voodoo Wards ultimate.  Remember that since this is a channeling ability, you should queue up another spell like Morph or Electric Jolt on a hero you are grabbing if you know they are going to survive longer than you can hold them for.  You can do this by holding shift then clicking the spell on them.  The spell will then be cast as soon as Tongue Tied finishes channeling.

Voodoo Wards (ultimate) (r)

Pollywog Priest drops a pile of Tiki statues that use ranged, physical attacks on nearby enemy units.  These attacks do splash damage!  These Voodoo Wards can also be selected and controlled to target the unit of your choice (either double click a ward to select all nearby wards, control click a ward, or drag box around them).  Voodoo Wards are great for pushing enemy towers and other buildings or defending your own base.  They also work well in combination with your Tongue Tied ability to kill off individual enemy heroes in a battle.  Another great use of these wards is to stacks of Ancient creeps (the splash damage works wonders on stacks).

Strategy

Recommended Skill Build

1. Tongue Tied (1)
2. Electric Jolt (1)
3. Electric Jolt (2)
4. Morph (1)
5. Electric Jolt (3)
6. Voodoo Wards (1)
7. Electric Jolt (4)
8. Morph (2)
9. Morph (3)
10. Morph (4)
11. Voodoo Wards (2)
12. Tongue Tied (2)
13. Tongue Tied (3)
14. Tongue Tied (4)
15. Stats
16. Voodoo Wards (3)
17. Stats -> Level 25

Explanation: Tongue Tied is essential at Level 1 so you can grab enemy heroes that are over-committed near your tower or a pushing creep wave so that your lane mate can put damage into them.  From Level 2 on we switch the focus to maxing out Electric Jolt and Morph as soon as possible.  Not putting further levels into Tongue Tied at this early game stage is a tradeoff that will benefit us in the middle game as a stronger ganking/disabler with a high level of Morph.  Going from Level 1 Morph to Level 4 Morph increases the duration of the disable by 180% (1.25 s to 3.5s), while increasing Tongue Tied from Level 1 to Level 4 only increases it’s duration by 90% (2.5s to 4.75s).  This is not to say that other Pollywog Priest skill builds will not work.  Some players will argue fervently for maxing out Tongue Tied 1st at the cost of leveling Electric Jolt (mainly to hold people for longer in their ultimate), while others prefer a 100% disabling build by maxing out Tongue Tied and Morph at the beginning and neglecting Electric Jolt.  Clearly there are a number of different combinations that will work and what’s really important is picking a build that you are confident with and will therefore be able to execute smoothly with in pressure situations.

Early Game

Recommended Early Game items:
+ or  or

Marchers + Fortified Bracelets or Talismans of Exile or Glowstone

Pollywog Priest has one of the slowest movespeeds in the game and really needs some shoes to gank and make effective use of his disabling abilities.  For this reason you should grab an early pair of Marchers and maybe even Enhanced Marchers if you want to become really nasty with chasing heroes down.

Pollywog Priest also needs a large mana pool to use his ultimate and one or two disables plus his nuke all in one battle starting at Level 6.  He also needs some more hit points since he is an Int hero and you will be putting all your skill points into spells and not into stats to help his hit points with more Strength.  For this reason, Talismans of Exile or Fortified Bracelets are a good choice early game.  If you are farming easily enough early game then these can be neglected as you go straight for Glowstone.

Mid Game

Recommended Mid Game items:

Staff of the Master

Staff of the Master is exactly what Pollywog needs.  More hit points, a larger mana pool, and a boost to his ultimate that gives it more wards and a shorter cooldown.  This makes Pollywog a lot harder to kill and a base-pushing machine.

Other decent choices:

, ,

Storm Spirit, Portal Key, Post Haste

If you are looking for a less blunt approach and some more versatility, Storm Spirit is a popular choice.  You can cyclone enemy heroes and put your ultimate down (they will be trapped when they come back to the ground).  Probably a better option than this if you really want to gank a lot is Portal Key, which lets you catch enemy heroes that are out of position so you can disable them with your abilities.  Another good item to have in the middle-late game is Poste Haste, which lets you farm outer lanes and counter-push the enemy base with your ultimate.

Late Game

Recommended Late Game items:

Restoration Stone

Having a Restoration stone and a Staff of the Master makes Pollywog a complete base destroyer.  Two sets of Voodoo Wards will drop a set of raxes in a matter of seconds or rip up enemy heroes in a battle.

Counters

Early game Pollywog Priest is slow and has low hit points.  Gank him a lot with nuking heroes like Witch Slayer or Thunderbringer.  Later in the game if you are being disabled a lot by Pollywog, consider a Shrunken Head especially if you are playing a carry hero.  Otherwise, make sure you disable Pollywog before he can disable you.  For example, with Chronos you should catch him in your ultimate and kill him or he will merely Morph you during your ultimate, making you completely waste it.  Also remember that Voodoo Wards do physical damage not magic, so use armor to reduce the damage you take from them.  You might also consider purchasing Barbed Armor or Void Talisman.

Tags: hero guide, HoN, pollywog priest

This entry was posted on Friday, March 5th, 2010 at 9:18 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.