This is a repost from our old [ATD] forums, for those of you interested in playing HoN, this is a great way to jump in and start your climb up the vertical learning curve. This will be one of several introductory guides to help you learn the basics of the up and coming popular indie game Heroes of Newerth.





One of the reasons I decided to post this was from playing with DJ earlier this week as he was trying to learn the basics. This guide will cover all the ground work for you, you just have to hop in and hold on, and enjoy. This is NOT only for noobs, I still use these methods all the time.




       For those that don't know, I originally came to HoN from a couple friends in DoTA. Both games have a massive learning curve from every aspect whether it's map and lane control or understanding the functionality of your team and your opponents team of heroes. As you may have experienced, there is not much room for inexperience when playing with the masses.  Coming from DoTA, I was already up on the curve for almost everything, my issue was the new terminology from heroes and items. My very first game I was booted because I spent more than 5 minutes standing there looking at the shop items without a clue of what I should get, true story. It's one of the hardest parts of the game when your starting out.

      But, if you're one of those who has this issue, I found a fix that helped me learn the items and skill builds without compromising my gameplay. Even if I had never played the hero before, this helped me get the right items and the right skill build without spending a lot of time reading guides or asking other players for advice (which I don't recommend with the current HoN community  )



   HoN has been kind enough to include a recommended tab for the newer players. This tab will display Hero Specific   item selections based on the developers opinions. Unfortunately, there is no organization of the items, as well a large debate in the community of the validity of their choices. This lead to the creation of the edited recommended tab mods which I have a picture of below.





   This mod differs greatly from the original recommended tab by a variety of things. First off, you'll notice that not all the spots are filled up with items. In the original tab, they included everything from beginning items to situational items with no particular order whatsoever. Fear not! This mod organizes the items according to the following:

First Line: Starting Lane Items ---> What is nice about this you ask?? All of the items added together will be equal/less than your starting gold. Just click through them all once and you're good to go to your lane with time to spare!

Second Line: Core Items ---> During your initial laning phase, these are the items you will be purchasing from the side shop and back at home. Get these first (chronologically of course!) It's easy to just hit 'B' and you IMMEDIATELY know what you need to get. These will help scale you through the progression of the game.

Third Line: Luxury Items ---> Once your CORE ITEMS are completed, these are what you will be aiming for. Keep in mind, you probably will not get all of these completed during the course of a game, but it's there to help you have constant direction on where to spend that shiny gold.

Fourth Line: Optional and Situational Items ---> Up until now, the previous lines have all been straight up obvious selections. Here is where practice and skill come into play. These are the items that you will only purchase under certain conditions in the game. For example: Notice Barrier Idol in the figure above. If you are playing vs 2-3 HARD casters, it is YOUR role to buy the idol, likewise, if the opposing team only has 1 HARD caster, it's not as important.

Fourth Line: The Deuce: General Items ---> You may have noticed the TP and Wards in this section. These aren't Situational or Optional. Every hero will have TP's in this section (they put it here rather than first line because you do not need to start out with one, but, later on it will be necessary to carry one around at all times) If there are wards on the 4th line, it's partly your job to purchase and place wards for your team.

     In conclusion, using this mod will greatly decrease the time you take looking for your starting items. Point and click. Eventually you'll get used to what's what and why it works. This makes it so you focus less on items and more on learning the gameplay. (Your item knowledge will just follow suit...)









      So, you've decided to finally enter an AR game and have unfortunately been blessed with a hero to which you are unfamiliar. This is the next biggest part to the learning curve; knowing the heroes. In the HoN community, the last thing any player wants to hear is, "I've never played xxxxx before, what do I do?" This will likely get you raged at, flamed at, and all sorts of other enjoyable pillow talk. So, how do we get past this, other than taking hours after hours memorizing online guides and playing practice games?

                              Get the In-Game Hero Guide and the Auto-Skill Queue





So lets start with the basics on what this provides.

The In-Game Hero Guide

       The In-Game Hero Guide is the box located on the right side of the screen in the above image. So lets start there:

You'll notice at the very top of the box right next to the hero's picture is the name and role on the team. Example above:

Magmus
Initiator

If you're playing Mag, it's your job to start the fights.
The other roles include but not limited to: Carry, Support, Hard Carry, Nuker, Roamer

So, you know your role, what skills do I now pick?

       This can be a vexing question especially for new players. Whether or not you are familiar with the skills no longer matters. Just below the name is the order to pick your skills. You can learn what they do as you play later on. This eliminates teammates from saying, "WTFBBQ, you didn't get XXXX skill, [rage][rage][rage]".


       Now, it would be extremely annoying to have to constantly pop up this screen every time you level up, I agree. That is why there is the Auto-Skill Queue which is labeled with the big red '2'. Simply pop up your skill selection and click the skills in order of what is read below the name on the mini Guide screen. I had already clicked all the skills in the photo above and you can see the little white numbers above my skills. You guessed it, that's the skill queue in action. Awesome, I know.


      What's nice about the In-Game Guide is it also has a nifty little item chart. This one works a little easier and perhaps varies a little bit from the recommended tab but the items are not clickable so it's not as applicable during the game.  I won't delve too much here because you already know what to get from the previous section.


     Lastly, the very bottom of the In-Game Guide screen are the do's and don'ts of your particular hero. It will let you know whether you should:

Solo
Jungle
Buy Wards
Buy Courier

    It does this by either placing a +/-  . Pretty self-explanatory.       




 
 
Part 1: Getting the mods

        So, how do we get these nice new additions working for us? You'll first have to install HoNModManager. Here is a link, instructions are included in the link's OP.

Hon Mod Manager --->  http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=25883

       Once this is installed, you're ready to get as many mods as you want! I currently use upwards of 40 mods when I play on any occasion. So, here are links to the mods described above:


Part 2: Installing the Mods



When mod manager is run, it does a version check. Many of the mods out there are currently outdated to the new patches. There is a quick and easy fix to this.

Here is how to install your mods!

STEP 1: In each of those links, download the .honmod file and put it in the following folder:   C:\Program Files\Heroes of Newerth\game\mods

STEP 2: Open the Heroes of Newerth game

STEP 3: Open HoN Mod Manager, it will tell you version checks are disabled, just continue.

STEP 4: Double click whatever mods you wish to use

STEP 5: Once you've gone through and decided all the ones you wish to use, close down the Heroes of Newerth game.

STEP 6: Go back to the Mod Manager and then go to --> File --> Apply Mods

STEP 7: Close out and launch Heroes of Newerth, you're good to go!


EDIT::

Here is a link to all my mods. Enjoy!

http://rapidshare.com/files/391581684/Current_Mods.rar.html

You're good to go!!

drummer says this post is no longer valid, unstickying and locking...