HoN Tempest Hero Guide

Tempest

Tempest is a ranged Intelligence hero in Heroes of Newerth.  Based directly on Enigma from Dota, Tempest is a supporting hero that is strong in the jungle and as a lane ganker, and is really powerful later in the game as a AOE disabler in team battles.  Tempest’s Elemental Void ultimate is a leading cause of GENOCIDE in HoN.  Here is a closer look at all Tempest’s abilities:

Glacial Bursts (q)

Glacial Bursts releases a series of stuns and damages the target unit in two second intervals.  While it only stuns the target once at Level 1, it stuns twice at Level 2 and three times at Level 3.  This is an essential disable that makes it very difficult for targets to escape and allows Tempest and teammates to pummel the target with additional attacks as it runs.  This also allows Tempest to get closer to the target with each mini-stun in order to use his other spells like Meteor or Elemental Void.

Elemental (w) (summon)

Elemental summons three ranged elementals after killing target creep.  This can be used on an allied creep to deny the experience and gold from nearby enemy heroes, or on an enemy creep to instantly gain experience and gold from the kill.  The summoned elementals also duplicate after attacking six times which makes them exceptional for killing neutral creeps in the jungle.  With good micro, Tempest can keep all his elementals alive always pulling back the weakest one before it dies and then let it keep attacking from a safe distance so that it can respawn into two new elementals at full health each.  In this way, Tempest is able to kill several creep camps in the jungle with his elementals without having to tank any damage himself.  Elementals are also effective to gank the lane from behind in combination with Glacial Bursts, or to push towers with.

Meteor (e)

Meteor deals AOE magic damage to units in a large radius equal to a percentage to each unit’s total health.  This becomes more effective later in the game as heroes continue to increase their hit points and will therefore take more damage from Meteor as it scales up.  Meteor is also really deadly when used in combination with Tempest’s Elemental Void ultimate, which can be used to hold enemy heroes within the Meteor radius and drain their health for a long duration.

Elemental Void (r) (ultimate) (channeling)

Elemental Void is a channeling AOE disable that also does magic damage in the radius.  Enemy heroes caught in the Void are silenced, perplexed, disarmed, and immobilized, which means they pretty much can’t do anything for the four second duration unless a teammate is able to stun or disable Tempest to break up his channeling.  The best way to use Elemental Void is to blink in with Portal Key in order to quickly disable a group of unsuspecting enemy heroes for your teammates to mop up.  Throwing down a Meteor spell first will greatly increase the amount of damage the enemy takes during your ultimate, but it may give them time to stun you or get away from the area before you can get Elemental Void off.  Later on when you have Shrunken Head it will be easier to safely cast Meteor before using Elemental Void.

A common mistake made with Elemental Void is players trying to cast it too far from Tempest’s body.  This causes Tempest to move a small distance to get into casting range before beginning to channel it, at which point the enemy heroes may have moved away and won’t be caught in it.  When players see this happening they usually panic and hit S or esc to cancel the command but end up canceling it a few milliseconds late, right after it’s begun channeling and end up losing the spell completely for a long cooldown.  A good way to avoid this type of error is to always make sure you move your hero to the spot you want to ultimate and just cast the spell very close to Tempest’s body.  This way it will cast instantly without moving the hero first and you will catch whichever heroes were near you at that moment.

Strategy

Recommended Skill Build

1. Glacial Bursts
2. Elemental
3. Elemental
4. Glacial Bursts
5. Glacial Bursts
6. Elemental Void
7. Glacial Bursts
8. Meteor
9. Meteor
10. Meteor
11. Elemental Void
12. Meteor
13. Elemental
14. Elemental
15. Stats
16. Elemental Void
17. Stats -> Level 25

Explanation: At level 1 you don’t need Elementals since you should pulling creeps from the lane and having a stun instead could get you an early kill or be useful in some other way.  At level 2 and 3 we want Elementals to hit the jungle, but getting more than 2 levels in Elementals is really unnecessary since they are strong enough at Level 2 to kill any neutral camp with some micro.  Therefore we max out Glacial Bursts asap to gank the lane intermittently and get some kills in combination with Elemental Void when we hit Level 6.  We learning Meteor at level 8 so that it will be leveled up when we need it to deliver damage in mid game team battles.

Early Game

Recommended Starting items:

+  +

Minor Totems + Mana Potions + Runes of the Blight

Several Mana Potions are essential on Tempest to make ample use of Elementals and still have mana remaining for your stun and ultimate to gank the lane with.  An alternative to this is Ring of the Teacher which will give you some mana regen and also armor for your elementals, but this is a lot more expensive and puts out mana a lot slower.  Minor Totems are good since they are the most cost effective way to increase your mana pool, hit points, and attack damage.  You can also turn them into a Power Supply or Astrolabe later if desired.

Early game you should be pulling creeps to your lane (unless it’s warded).  Then when you are Level 2 or 3 you can start tanking neutral creep camps with elementals.  Then come back to the lane in between creeping when you have six elementals up and come from behind with Glacial Bursts and you will easily generate kills on the stunned hero with combined attacks from your six elementals, Tempest, and your teammate.

Recommended Early Game items:

+

Portal Key + Marchers

Portal Key is essential to set up your ultimate in future team battles.  You can also use it to be really aggressive and catch escaping or lone heroes by blinking in and stunning them with Glacial Bursts.

Mid Game

Recommended Mid Game items:

Shrunken Head

Use Shrunken head right before blinking in to cast your ultimate in team battles.  This will prevent enemy heroes that are not trapped in your ultimate from stunning, silencing, or otherwise disabling you to break up your channeling of the spell.  After Shrunken Head you can always use Meteor before Elemental Void as well, since you will won’t have to worry as much about getting disabled if you don’t use your ultimate immediately.  Otherwise just make sure to throw down Meteor in the most focused spot where it can damage the most enemy heroes, like on a ramp if the other team is pushing into your base.  And use it a lot since the cooldown is only 20 seconds.

For the most part, getting a good ultimate off with Tempest is the most important thing, which should usually be done in one of two ways:

1. Initiate the battle with your ultimate when you see a clump of several enemy heroes that you can quickly blink onto and disable for your team to kill OR

2. Wait until after the team battle has been initiated and enemy heroes begin to cluster up and commit to the battle by attacking your teammates and casting their spells.  Then blink in and disable them with your ultimate.

Late Game

Recommended Late Game item:

Restoration Stone

Late game, Restoration Stone will help by resetting the extremely long cooldown (three minutes) of Tempest’s ultimate.  This can help stop counter pushes where the other team tries to push right after a battle in which you used your ultimate, or even allow you to use two ultimates in one battle.

Counters

Tempest is countered by heroes like Pharoah and Hellbringer that can stay back from team battles and then use their ultimate from long range to stun Tempest and disable his ultimate right after he begins channeling it, or initiate first and kill Tempest before he can ult in a good spot.  Spamming Pharoah’s Soul spell also works to get vision of Tempest pre-battle and also hit him with damage to put his Portal Key on cooldown and prevent Tempest from blinking in.  This also works with Thunderbringer and Sand Wraiths’ ultimates, and any other spells that can be used with good timing to damage Tempest right before he wants to blink in.  You can also use silencing heroes like Vindicator or Defiler to break up Tempest’s ult.

It’s also good to gank and ward the jungle early game if you want to make it hard for Tempest to farm a Portal Key.

Best Pushing Heroes in HoN

1. Defiler- crush towers w/ultimate, spam creeps w/Wave of Death
2. Pollywog Priest- crush towers w/ultimate, spam creeps w/Electric Jolt
3. Ophelia- tank/crush towers w/masses of charmed creeps, heal them to full w/ultimate
4. Wildsoul- tank/crush towers w/BooBoo (Demolish adds +60% attack damage to buildings)
5. Engineer- crush towers w/Steam Turret and channel Tinker on turret, catapults, or towers
6. Forsaken Archer- crush towers w/masses of spawned skeletons
7. Hellbringer- tank/crush towers w/ultimate
8. Soulstealer- crush towers w/+60 Soulsteal damage at level 7
9. Hammerstorm- crush towers w/+150% damage ultimate
10. Torturer- crush towers w/Impalement ability, spam creeps w/Chain Reaction and Agonizing Bonds
11. Tempest- tank/crush towers w/summoned Elementals
12. Pebbles- crush towers w/Chuck, spam creeps w/Chuck and Stalagmites

Sample pushing lineups:

Defiler solo mid, Pollywog Priest/Hammerstorm lane, Wildsoul side solo/Ophelia jungle

Take mid raxes when Defiler hits level 11

Hellbringer solo mid, Torturer/Pebbles lane, Forsaken Archer side solo/Tempest jungle

Push when Tempest gets Portal Key (blink)

Also might want to throw a healer like Demented Shaman, Jeraziah, Accursed, or any Int support like Plague Rider w/Astrolabe (Mek) into the mix for any pushing team to sustain hp

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.