Heroes of Newerth

From shrugging off a Pyromancer ultimate, to tearing a carry to shreds with Pestilence, understanding armor and damage types is an important part of adaptive play in Heroes of Newerth. This guide will help you to understand the various kinds of armor and damage types, how they affect one another, and how to respond to common hero/item selections. It is important to note that there are different damage coefficients for towers, neutrals, creeps, and so on, but this guide will purely analyze damage and armor interactions between heroes.

Armor Types

In HoN there are two types of armor:

1. Physical Armor: Determined by base armor and agility and augmented by certain items, your physical armor reduces incoming damage from physical attacks. There are also a number of abilities and items that reduce physical armor, and one that essentially negates it.
2. Magic Armor: Starting at a base of 5.5 on all heroes and augmented by abilities and items, Magic armor reduces all incoming magic damage. There are currently three abilities and three items that reduces magic armor.

Physical Armor

While base values vary, all heroes gain 0.19 armor per 1 Agility. This means that during late game, a character with a high Agility value will also have a high armor value, which is part of what makes Agility carry heroes difficult to deal with in the late game. To combat this threat, there are many ways to reduce physical armor.

Abilities that reduce physical armor are Predator's Terror, Andromeda's Aurora, Pestilence's Insect Swarm, Deadwood's Rotten Grasp, Soulstealer's Dread, Demented Shaman's Storm Cloud, Kraken's Torrent, Armadon's Snot, Corrupted Disciple's Overload, and Pandamonium's Flick. Likewise, items that reduce armor are Shieldbreaker and Daemonic Breastplate.

With so many ways to reduce armor, there are also abilities that increase armor, such as Demented Shaman's Storm Cloud, Plague Rider's Plague Armor, Keeper of the Forest's Nature's Veil, Pebble's Slab Skin, Legionnaire's Taunt, Hammerstorm's Galvanize, Wildsoul's Bear Form, and Predator's Stone Hide. Items that increase armor are Ring of the Teacher into Abyssal Skull/Nome's Wisdom, Ring of Sorcery, Astrolabe, Plated Greaves, Barbed Armor, Insanitarius, Daemonic Breastplate, Whispering Helm into Symbol of Rage, and Frostfield Plate.

Additionally, there is only one item that can make you immune to physical damage: Void Talisman.

Magic Armor

All heroes start off with 5.5 magic armor and gain no more through leveling except from several abilities. This is both good and bad. If you play as heroes who deal a lot of magic damage, your ability to deal damage is very strong in early/mid game because your damage scales up but the reduction stays the same. For the same reason, it hurts magic-damage-reliant heroes because by late game, when many heroes have items that either reduce or block magic damage, a nuker's effectiveness drops drastically. To balance this there are a few items that either increase magic armor or reduce it.

Abilities that increase magic armor are Magebane's Blink, Arachna's Hardened Carapace, Legionnaire's Terrifying Charge, and Devourer's Cadaver Armor. Furthermore, Chipper's Focus Buffer can block up to 500 Magic Damage. The only items that increase magic armor are Mystic Vestments, Shaman's Headress, and Barrier Idol. The abilities that reduce magic armor are Blacksmith's Flaming Hammer, Myrmidon's Wave Form and Hellbringer's Life Void. Likewise, the only two items that reduce magic armor are Harkon's Blade and Void Talisman, while Spellshards negates 2/4/6 Magic Armor.

Also worth mentioning are abilities and items that make someone immune to magic, meaning that they cannot be targeted with or damaged/stunned by magic abilities (although certain area of effect abilities still disable you because they are considered Superior Magic). These abilities and items are Jeraziah's Protective Charm, Rampage's Charge, Predator's Stone Hide, Swiftblade's Blade Frenzy, and Shrunken Head.

Damage Types

There are three types of damage:

1. Physical Damage: Reduced by Physical Armor and negated by Physical Immunity
2. Magic Damage: Reduced by Magic Armor and negated by Magical Immunity
3. True Damage: Cannot reduced or negated in any way, hence it being "true" damage

Physical Damage

Physical damage is done by auto-attacking or by abilities that are considered physical. Basically, anything that does not say it deals Magic Damage or True Damage. Many items in HoN increase a hero's physical attack damage, including any item that increases the primary stat of your hero as well as Savage Mace's damage proc.

Magic Damage

Magic damage is done by auto-attacks made with Harkon's Blade active, most activated abilities, and damage auras. It is oftentimes more difficult to reduce Magic Damage than Physical Damage because few skills and items increase Magic Armor. On the other hand, there are literally zero skills or items that will increase your magic damage by a set amount (except some ultimates affected by Staff of the Master).

True Damage

True damage is completely unreduced or prevented by any source, aside from certain spells that reduce damage, such as Glacius' Ice Imprisonment, Sand Wraith's Dissipate, Tremble's Dark Swarm and Armadon's Armadillo. The sources of True Damage are Sand Wraith's Deserted, Succubus' Heart Ache, Vindicator's Master's Incantation, Hellflower, and Insanitarius' active Damage over Time.

How to Use True Damage to Your Advantage

So now you know about the types of armor and damage, and how they relate to each other, but how can that affect your gameplay? Well, there are a number of ways to reduce or prevent damage based on your item selection.

Countering Physical Damage

So let's say you are facing a fast/hard hitter like Scout or Swiftblade. When faced with physical damage you have three possibilities:

1. Reducing Damage. Adding armor items, like Frostfield Plate or Daemonic Breastplate, can reduce the amount of damage taken, but oftentimes this is not enough if you are facing a late game hero.
2. Reflecting Damage. The only way to do this is with Barbed Armor, which fortunately has a short cooldown time and is relatively cheap for its utility. However, this is still not a foolproof method.
3. Preventing Damage. Void Talisman can be used to grant immunity to physical abilities and damage for a brief time. Its short duration is usually enough to last through at least Scout's flurry and a few extra auto-attacks. Also, this will prevent almost all of Pandamonium's abilities and instantly cancel Swiftblade's ultimate if there is no one else for him to jump to. Keep in mind that Void Talisman also makes you unable to use physical attacks yourself.

Countering Magical Damage

If you are facing opponents with high damage magic abilities, like Pyromancer, Witch Slayer, or Blacksmith, there are a couple of options available to you:

1. Reducing Damage. By increasing your Magic Armor you can reduce the damage you take from all magic sources. Unfortunately, you are limited to only three items, which were listed earlier.
2. Reflecting Damage. Again, Barbed Armor reflects a percentage of ALL incoming damage, so it will reflect magic damage as well.
3. Preventing Damage. Shrunken Head functions the same as Void Talisman, except for Magic Damage. Also, Nullstone is able to prevent a single targeted spell, and has a relatively short cooldown. Hellflower and other silencing abilities can contribute to preventing spells from being cast, preventing the damage they would deal.

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