So how to get started?
Practice Makes Perfect
The first thing you want to do is not -- I repeat, not -- jump into a multiplayer match. If you are new to the game and have never played DotA, the best thing you can do for yourself and any potential future teammates is to create a game on the practice server and go into it solo to learn more about the various heroes and the basics of the game.
When creating a practice server, be sure to mark it as "All Heroes", "Easy" and "Private". This will let you pick from any hero, and the "easy" designation means you earn experience just from being near a creep or hero when he dies rather than needing to beat on them. You'll want to play only on Easy servers until you start getting a good feel for the game, and while it says Easy, many advanced players prefer that mode.
In Heroes of Newerth, you are taking on the role of hero within a real-time strategy game, so he object of any game is to destroy the opponent's Sacrificial Shrine or World Tree. To do this, you have a full base that produces armies (called 'creeps') that march up three lanes toward the enemy base. These lanes are populated by guard towers, which not only shoot magic bolts at the enemy, but also reveal enemies (including stealthed characters), so you want to watch out any time you are near an enemy tower.
Playing a few solo games on the practice server will get you used to the basic interface, the heroes and the different items, but nothing will quite prepare you for multiplayer matches. However, it is important to learn a few heroes before you engage in multiplayer, so don't concentrate on just one hero. After all, what will you do if that hero gets chosen by someone else?
A Noobies Guide to Newerth
It is important to know that each hero death strengthens the other team. Not only does a hero death give a good bit of gold, but it also gives some nice experience. With that in mind, here are your three main goals as you make
your way into the world of multiplayer Heroes of Newerth:
1. Don't die.
2. Gain experience.
3. Don't die.
Think I'm stressing not dying too much? Many experienced players would say "Don't die" should be #1, #2 and #3 for any noobie. This is especially important for levels 1 through 6, so you want to equip yourself with a health potion, rune of blight or bottle right off the bat.
In addition to not dying, you want to gain experience and gold. You should be picking "Easy" servers, so experience comes just from being near the action. To get gold, you'll need to get the last hit, which means hitting "a" and manually targeting creeps that are low on health. You can also target your own creeps this way, thereby "denying" the opponent getting any experience or gold from the kill. (Don't worry about this right at first, but it is a good trick once you become more experienced.)
Be careful of getting too close to towers or being gang-rushed by the opponent. If you take some damage, stick back and just get experience. If you do happen to lose over three quarters of your health and have run out of health potions or runes of blight, just head back to the base and heal. It's far better to lose the experience than to feed the other team with your death.
BOT MIA! BOT MIA!
Another hard task for noobies is to pay attention to what is going on in the game. In a standard game, there are three lanes and five heroes per team. This means one lane will be protected by only one here, while the other two will have two heroes. But once the game progresses past 'early game' (i.e. levels 1-6), heroes will leave their lane to go gank other lanes.
This is what "bot mia" means. Literally, it means the bottom lane's heroes are missing in action. When you hear this, be aware that a gank might be incoming. If you are far into enemy territory, move back to your nearest tower unless you are surrounded by at least two other heroes on your team.
Again, your chief task is not to die. You'll learn PvP and how to get kills as you gain experience, but you want to avoid feeding the team. Now, feeding the team will happen. It is part of the learning process, but the better you become at avoiding death, the less detrimental you will be for your team.
And don't just rely on your teammates warning you of impending attack. Get into the habit of scanning the mini-map and locating the enemies. You should always be aware of what is happening in the game.
Know Your Hero
The two basic building blocks to becoming a good PvP player in any game is to (1) know your character -- his strengths, his weaknesses, etc. and (2) know your enemy, his strengths and his weaknesses.
The second part will come in time, so at the beginning, you want to concentrate on learning the basic strategy for your hero. This means knowing their abilities, and more importantly, knowing how their abilities interact with each other and how to enhance those abilities with items.
Chronos is a great example. One of his abilities gives him a chance to stun with each melee attack, so part of your item strategy is to get items that boost his attack speed. The faster he attacks, the more he will stun the opponent. Two other important abilities are Time Leap, which lets him jump into combat and slow people when he arrives, and Chonofield, which literally stops time in a small radius around him.
This combination of abilities means you can use Time Leap to arrive next to your target enemy, Chronofield to stop time and let you beat on him a few seconds, and if you've increased your melee speed enough, he'll have a tough time getting away once Chronofield fades. Note that Chronofield should be used as an offensive ability, not an escape ability. Use Time Leap if you need to escape (it has a rather short cooldown). Save Chronofield for the killing.
And Chronos isn't alone on having a good combination of abilities. Most heroes have some synergy between abilities, like Hellbringer's Life Void and Summon Malphas. Life Void will let you lifetap opponents hit by it, thus gaining you health for damage they take. Summon Malphas not only unleashes a demon to beat on them, but stuns the enemy momentarily. The combination can easily bring Hellbringer from low life to full health in a matter of seconds.
Beginning Items
Knowing the equipment can be just as important as knowing the heroes, so it is a good idea to study the different items available in practice games. Each hero has a primary attribute (strength, agility or intelligence), so you want to pay special attention to items that match your hero's primary attribute.
While some players prefer to stack up on minor items that boost attributes right at first, a solid strategy is to purchase some type of health regeneration and an item like marchers, which not only give a movement speed boost for more survivability, but can also be used in building some good items. If you are a mana-dependent hero, the Ring of the Teacher can also be a good item to build right off the bat since it will give you some better mana regeneration.
Many advanced players feel that buying minor items to get a small boost to an attribute can be a waste of gold if you are not going to later use that item in building a better item. You can sell your items back, but at a reduced cost.
Going Solo Means Dying A Lot
Remember that this is a multiplayer game. While advanced players can go solo and rack up kills, and some heroes are made for roaming the map solo, its best for a beginning player to stick around other players. If you are alone, try to stay near your tower rather than trying to 'push' up your lane into enemy territory.
Once you get past the beginning levels, heroes will begin teaming up more and more to push lanes or to gank the enemy. Be in those groups. Also be attention when a teammate 'pings' an area of the map.
When the battle commences, don't forget your crowd control abilities. Often times, players new to the game just want to lay down damage, but stuns and silences can be the key to victory, and a well timed movement speed debuff can be the difference in a fleeing enemy hero getting killed or getting away.
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