HoN Magebane Hero Guide

Magebane

Magebane is a powerful melee agility carry hero in Heroes of Newerth.  While based on the Dota hero Anti-mage, Magebane is actually a much stronger and more viable pick at a competitive level due to a couple of changes made in the transition from Dota to HoN.  Though Mana Combustion (Mana Break)  and Mana Rift (Mana Void) remain identical in function to Anti-mage’s abilities in Dota, a new ability, Flash, is a essentially a combination of Blink and Spell Shield from Dota.  Magebane’s other new ability, Master of the Mantra, is basically like a passive version of Pugna’s Nether Ward in Dota.  These generous improvements make Magebane a volatile force that is completely unstoppable late game if allowed to farm.  Here is more on the abilities:

Mana Combustion (passive)

Mana Combustion burns up to 64 mana off an enemy unit per attack and adds 0.6 damage per mana burned, which means an extra 38 damage on any unit that has more than 64 mana left in them.  This passive ability is the foundation of Magebane’s dominance and should be maxxed out first for best results.  Mana Combustion keeps casters at bay early game when Magebane needs to farm, and is also essential later in the match when used to destroy their mana supply to set a up a high damage Mana Rift ultimate.

Flash (w)

As mentioned in the intro, Flash is basically a combination of Blink and Spell Shield from Anti-mage in Dota.  Magebane blinks to a location and, upon arrival, increases his magic armor and the magic armor of allied units in an AOE around him.  In this way, Flash allows Magebane to get in other heroes’ faces to quickly burn off their mana with Mana Combustion while at the same time protecting himself and nearby allies from any spells those heroes might use in retaliation.  Flash also allows Magebane to blink to safety at any sign of ganks, which will be numerous as the opponent tries to prevent him from farming.  One level of Flash is essential to learn at level 1 or 2.

Master of the Mantra (passive)

Similar to Pugna’s Nether Ward in Dota, Master of the Mantra slows the casting speed of nearby enemy units and passively inflicts massive damage to them whenever they cast a spell.  While teammates generally scoff at blatant carry picks like Magebane, assuming they will offer little to the team as a whole, Master of the Mantra and the magic-armor-increasing effect of Flash add just the kind AOE significance Magebane needs to have a serious influence in every team battle.

Mana Rift (ultimate) (r)

Identical to Mana Void in Dota, Mana Rift ministuns and deals damage proportional to the amount of mana missing from the target unit.  This damage is not done just to the targetted unit but in a small AOE around it, which can lead to massive carnage if a low mana hero is clumped up with nearby allies.  Mana Rift works in beautiful combination with Magebane’s Mana Combustion passive, has a short cooldown, and should be used generously to produce kills throughout the game.  Alternatively, use its ministun in emergency situations to cut off an opponent’s channeling spell that is wreaking havoc on your team or to break a teleport, etc.

Strategy

Early Game

Quickly gauge the enemy heroes in your lane and consider what stuns and disables they have.  Any heroes like Defiler or Vindicator with limited disable can do very little to stop you from simply blinking next to them and burning off all their mana.  This tactic should be used ad naseum to get complete control of the lane and prevent your opponents from harassing you off the creeps.  Heroes that actually have stuns or disables are more difficult to deal with and should lead you to play less aggresively and focus more on last hitting creeps while saving Flash for emergency getaways.  These heroes are just as vulnerable to this tactic right after they cast a spell, however, at which point you can simply blink in and burn off the rest of their mana while their spell is still on cooldown.

Valuable items for Magebane early game are Logger’s Hatchet and Iron Buckler (upgrade to Iron Shield soon), which will allow you to last hit creeps and tank the harass attacks that you will inevitably be recieving from the other team.  You also need health consumables to stay in the lane and farm.  If you cannot control the lane (say you’re laning against something ridiculous like Arachna and Torturer), then go pull creeps or switch lanes and keep farming.

Mid Game

Continue farming and grab a Sustainer (Perseverance) asap, which will allow you to keep farming while being harassed in lane, keep your mana up for blinking and ulting, and even allow you to jungle sustainably.  After this you should upgrade the Sustainer to a Runed Axe (Battlefury), and try to farm either Steamboots or Enhanced Marchers.  Strength Steamboots will help you by increasing your hit points, move speed, and attack speed substantially, all which are greatly beneficial to Magebane.  Enhanced Marchers are of less benefit as a whole, but the increased attack damage and activated speed boost can help you chase down heroes and get more mana-burning attacks off to kill escaping heroes.  Also at this phase of the game, you should try to farm a Whispering Helm (Helm of Dominator), which will allow you to capture a creep to stack Ancients with, which you can later kill quickly with your Runed Axe cleaving damage.  Whispering Helm is also a great item on Magebane because it increases your armor and gives you lifesteal which, in combination with your naturally fast attack speed, will allow you to stay alive in chaotic team battles so long as you KEEP ATTACKING SOMETHING to steal life from it.  Additionally you will be able to jungle any type of neutral creeps and even solo Kongor as the game goes on.

Late Game

There are numerous viable late game item options on Magebane.  Most important is that you are getting the farm to buy SOMETHING.  Wingbow (Butterfly) is effective but generally not necessary since Magebane’s attack is already so fast.  Because of this, Riftshards is a very appealing option that will increase your damage output to disgusting levels.  Alternatively, grab a Brutalizer (Basher) if you need some disabling stuns to take out the carries on the other team.  If your team is letting you down in terms of disabling the enemy, you may need to grab a Shrunken Head (BKB) or upgrade your Whispering Helm to a Symbol of Rage (Satanic) to stay alive in team battles.

Counters

It requires a plethora of disables to successfully gank Magebane.  Generally this means at least two stunning heroes, but usually even this will not be enough to kill a good player.  The Flash animation is fast enough to blink away the second an incoming gank is sighted, while your Andromeda or Hammerstorm stun projectile is still in the air.  Try and counter Magebane with long duration disables, like Succubus’s or Pandamonium’s ultimates.  In lieu of these choices, make use of Electrician’s grip or heroes like Witch Hunter or Puppet Master that have multiple disables built into their hero.  Remember that Magebane will blink away as soon as he sees you, so your gank must aim to minimize the time between him seeing you and him being disabled, or it will fail.  An example is shown below where Torturer and Blacksmith are involved in an elaborate gank setup designed to leave Magebane clueless of Torturer’s presence.  They will then alternate stuns to prevent his escape.

Torturer wiggles into some trees to attempt a crafty gank on Magebane

If ganking Magebane early game is not working, then push and end the game as soon as possible, before he is able to farm items and carry.  If this doesn’t work, you must get Totem of Kuldra (Guinsoo) to sheep Magebane or Barbed Armor (Blade Mail) and turn it on when Magebane starts attacking you, or he will quickly destroy your entire team.

HoN Banning Draft (BD) Hero Picking and Bans Guide

Overview

Banning Draft (BD) is a new game mode in HoN where two captains first ban four picks from a pool of 24 random heroes, then alternate 10 picks from the remaining pool of 20 (in 1-2-2-2-2-1 fashion).  BD is generally regarded as the most balanced game mode available (least amount of luck involved), so the better team of players should win in this mode more than in any other mode.  This, of course, is only true if your captain makes the right picks and bans.  This process can be rather complicated, but if you understand the concepts of premium heroes and counters, it becomes simple to make the best possible choices.

Premium Heroes

It is important to understand that there are certain heroes in HoN that captains will try to first pick every single game.  These “premium” heroes are generally dominating AOE heroes that can turn the tide of any team battle.  In BD, the team that gets to ban the first hero also gets the first pick after bans.  If you don’t have the first pick, then realize that the other team will get one of these heroes with their first pick if you don’t ban it.  These heroes are (in rough order of importance): Tempest, Jereziah, Behemoth, Demented Shaman, and Magmus.

Second Bests

Here are some versatile heroes that are going to be in high demand after the premium choices are gone:

• Plague Rider: dominates team battles and ganking with a slowing, splash nuke and slowing, splash nuke ultimate, and gets a free deny and mana every time Extingiush is up.  Statistically the winningest hero in HoN.
• Pestilence: incredible ganking power with speed boost and stun abilities; dominant late game with a bash and armor-reducing, invis-revealing ultimate.
• Sand Wraith: dominant late-game carry with two escape mechanisms that make it extremely difficult to gank.
• Hellbringer: massive AOE ultimate stun that can break up any team formation.
• Magebane: another dominant late-game carry that is nearly impossible to gank.
• Puppet Master: versatile disabler carry that can fill many roles and has a crushing early game harass.

Counter Picks

Often it is okay to let the other team have a premium or other great hero if you know there is a counter pick in the pool that you can make directly afterward.  For example, if you have second pick, you can not ban Tempest, and then pick Hellbringer right after the other team gets it (Hellbringer’s ultimate stops Tempest’s ultimate, even if he has a Shrunken Head).  If they see this coming and don’t first pick Tempest, then you can pick Tempest and Hellbringer with your 2nd and 3rd pick, thus getting both the premium hero and it’s counter out of the pool in one picking round.  Here are some examples of good counters:

• Hellbringer, Pharoah counter Tempest (their ultimates stops Tempest’s ultimate from long range)
• Electrician counters Jeraziah, Hammerstorm (Electrician’s ultimate removes Protective Charm aka Repel and Hammerstorm’s ultimate)
• Vindicator counters Magmus, Tempest, Torturer, any channeling heroes (Vindicator’s ultimate silences all heroes)
• Pestilence, Rampage counter any heroes with invisibility (Pestilence’s ultimate exposes invisible heroes, Rampage’s Charge does as well)
• Thunderbringer counters heroes that initiate with blink (Behemoth, Tempest, Magmus, etc.) (must have good timing with ultimate and vision)

Other Guidelines

Make sure you pick a solo hero.  In general, don’t have more than one melee hero per lane.  Make sure you pick at least one carry hero and not too many.