Hon Torturer Hero Guide

Torturer

Torturer is a ranged Intelligence hero in Heroes of Newerth equivalent to Leshrac the Tormented Soul in Dota.  With four active spells that deal damage in an area including a spammable multi-target nuke and an AOE stun, Torturer is effective in lanes and as a ganker, and a genocide machine in team battles.  Here is a closer look at his abilities:

Chain Reaction

Chain Reaction is an AOE stun just like Pyromancer’s Dragonfire.  This is great for ganking (if you can land it) and breaking up team battles by stunning multiple heroes at once.  After landing a stun from long range, Torturer has time to move in closer to use his close-range damage spells.

Impalement

Impalement does continuous physical damage to random spots in a radius around Torturer.  This is a good hero killing ability against heroes that have nothing to slow or stun Torturer with to prevent him from simply walking alongside them till they die.  Impalement also hits buildings, making it a great ability for pushing.

Agonizing Bonds

Agonizing Bonds hits several units with magic damage in a wide radius around a single target and slightly pulls them toward that target.  This is a great spamming ability to wipe out enemy hit points in your lane while also getting the last hit on creeps.  The pulling effect can be used to set up a Chain Reaction stun.

Torment

Torment deals constant magic damage in a small radius around Torturer at the cost of draining mana continuously while it is activated.  Due to this, it’s not very useful early game, but absolutely deadly in mid to late game when Torturer has the items to increase his mana capacity and survive well enough to really get in the middle of enemies and make them suffer.

Strategy

Recommended Skill Build

1. Impalement (1)
2. Chain Reaction (1)
3. Agonizing Bonds (1)
4. Agonizing Bonds (2)
5. Agonizing Bonds (3)
6. Chain Reaction (2)
7. Agonizing Bonds (3)
8. Chain Reaction (3)
9. Chain Reaction (4)
10. Torment (1)
11. Torment (2)
12. Impalement (2)
13. Impalement (3)
14. Impalement (4)
15. Stats
16. Torment (3)
17. Stats -> Level 25

Impalement had a buff in a recent patch to make it deal damage in its maximum radius beginning at Level 1.  This makes it a very effective first ability that can generally earn you a Level 1 Bloodlust kill just by getting in behind your enemy and staying near them while they run and getting a few attacks in.  Just by walking alongside them they will take massive damage. Apart from this, having your stun (Chain Reaction) is the only other crucial thing to make/break early game lane kills, so we learn this at Level 2.

After this, you could justify putting skill points into any of your three abilities.  The skill build listed above (maxing Agonizing Bonds from Levels 3 to 7) is a popular choice since this spammable ability hits a wide range and is popularly used to harass enemy heroes and hit creeps to control the lane early.  Another option if you don’t like using Impalement is to just put everything into Chain Reaction and Agonizing Bonds in order to have both of these maxed out at Level 8.

Another thing to consider with Torturer is that your ultimate (Torment) basically does the same thing as Impalement while draining your mana at the same time.  Since Torturer already has three spammable spells that will be costing mana to put out damage, getting Torment early on is not practical nor effective since your longer-ranged abilities will be more useful in the laning stage of the game, before all-out team battles are happening.  For this reason, it’s good to hold off on getting any levels of Torturer’s ultimate until Level 10 or later.

Early Game

Recommended Early Game items:

+ +

Talismans of Exile + Marchers + Sustainer

Talismans of Exile are great early game to boost your attack damage for last hitting and harassing enemy heroes.  They also add to your mana pool so you can use more of your massive spell arsenal at one time.  Marchers allow Torturer to more effectively chase heroes with Impalement turned on, and can also be upgraded later on to Ghost Marchers for improved chasing or Plated Greaves for increased tanking capability (both are important attributes for a Torturer to have).  A Sustainer allows for hit point and mana recovery during the lane control phase and will later be upgraded to a Sacrifical Stone or a Null Stone.  Bottle is also a good item to get for controlling runes if you are soloing middle.

Mid Game

Recommended Mid Game items:

+

Sacrifical Stone + Shrunken Head

Sacrificial Stone gives Torturer the massive boost in hit points and mana capacity necessary for spamming all abilities in long team battles and getting to the center of the action to make the best use of his Impalement and Torment abilities.  Shrunken Head augments this capability by increasing Torturer’s survivability and making him invulnerable to most disables so he can really make enemies suffer from his ultimate.

Late Game

Recommended Late Game items:

+

Staff of the Master + Void Talisman

After Shrunken Head there is not much to stop Torturer from dishing out massive damage with his ultimate.  Get Staff of the Master and make this damage even greater.  Void Talisman is the perfect item for Torturer late game since Torturer doesn’t use his attack very much and will by relying on his ultimate and spells to put out damage, which can still be used while he is physically immune from Void Stone activation.  This allows Torturer to avoid death from farmed up Agility heroes late game that will be looking to kill him quickly, before he wreaks havoc on their teammates.

If the game is going really late you want to consider items like Behemoth’s Heart, Kuldra’s Sheepstick, and Frostfield Plate.

Counters

Heroes with built in magic immunity abilities like Predator and Swiftblade can survive Torturer’s spell spamming and kill him efficiently.  Remember though that Impalement does physical damage and will go through these invulernabilities.  The damage from the rest of Torturers spells can be reduced with Shamans Headress or Barrier Idol or avoided altogether with Shrunken Head.  If possible, use disables to kill Torturer asap before he starts putting out damage in team battles.

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.