Heroes of Newerth

Dadadam. It's this time of a game again. Right at the picking screen, you see your enemies picking heroes you just cannot cope with. Those guys that make you rage every time and will seal your unlucky losing streak. You want to know what to do, but you can't find a way. Well, rejoice.
This series of Tips of the Weeks focuses on how to counter all the heroes in the game, summing up their strengths and of course, their weaknesses.

Each Tip will feature a total of 6 heroes, one Intelligence, Agility and Strength for both factions.
So lets get this party started.


We all know him, most of us hate him. It's the annoying green guy spamming Wards that slow everyone, do a tonne of damage to buildings because you can
line them up or build a fortress with them (if you like LEGO). He might not be the strongest pusher, but he has huge potential. It is also really hard to initiate
upon a team that is pushing a tower surrounded by his Wards. Not only will they slow your movement speed, they will disable your Portal Keys, but if you try to
initiate he will spray you his ultimate in the face, making you pay for only thinking of initiating.
He has an obvious weakness. Considering all his damage is damage over time which slowly ticks you down during the team battle, he will be countered by heals.
Heroes like Demented Shaman and Soul Reaper have been picked since the dawn of HoN, and if you can get at least two healers in your team, Slither will be rendered almost completely useless.


Defiler is scary. Not only because of her looks, but her ultimate is, if used correctly, a destructive force you don't want to mess with. Her Wave of Death allows her to push creep waves incredibly fast, and then push towers with her physical damaging ultimate.
Running into this ultimate is in most cases sure death.
To counter Defiler you need some type of quick burst damage. That is the best way. If you crowd control her and she has right clicked one of your teammates just before the control happens, her spirits will still go on a rampage and tear through the target. Ideal heroes to burn Defiler down are heroes such as Behemoth, Witch Slayer and Pyromancer. Heroes that initiate out of the black and unload a full potential of burst damage ultimate on her, so she and her spirits are taken out immediately.


Accursed is one of the most feared heroes on the field. He is often considered a safe ban in competitive play and one of the most first picked heroes.
His Cauterize, being used as heal or offensive nuke and his Fire Shield make him one of the most annoying supporters to deal with. Both spells combined will give a hero around 500 more health every time they are off cool-down, which is especially huge in the early- to midgame phases. But even in the later stages, he doesn't lose utility. As his Shield removes a lot of movement impairing effects, his support for carries is almost unchallenged.
Accursed has two weaknesses: His early manapool is really low, he needs items to stay in the fight and heal efficiently. If you manage to deny that, meaning you give him a really hard time in the early game, he will run into serious trouble keeping his team up in team battles.
As he is a babysit, he won't get many creep-kills. But he'll get levels, he'll get the passive gold, he might even get assist gold. Deny that, keep him down, kill him if you have the chance.
The other weakness is simple: as he is a healer, he will be countered by healers. It's simple: All he can do is keep his team up. So if you have someone in your team that fulfills the same role, you will basically have a 4v4 situation, depending on the player skill. Heroes like Soulreaper that keep their complete team alive by spamming Judgement can kill Accursed even before he can blow his ultimate.



This guy is a real pain to deal with. He will throw a Keg at you. He will push your towers. He will place a Turret that deals more damage than most other heroes can do. And he places this incredible Ultimate, probably the most game-deciding ultimate up to date. Nothing will separate a fight so heavily like a well placed Engineer ultimate. Not only will it punish you for entering and leaving, it will deal a huge amount of damage while you are practically trapped at one place and have a Turret shooting at you.
Engineers first weakness is his concept, being based on Gadgets. They can only take a certain amount of hits until they break. I'm not saying your team should now focus on those Gadgets immediately, because that only sounds nice on paper. In a real fight there is too much going on to just go and swap on the Gadgets for even a few seconds. You will get punished heavily for it. So what to get: 2 answers. Defiler or (if your micro is really good) Pollywog Priest.
Defilers Spirits will destroy both Gadgets if you only click the attack button on them once and wait for a split second, same with Pollywog Priests Wards if you micro them right. Now you say: But my team doesn't always have one of these heroes.
That's true. The other possibilities include baiting an Engineer ult and back out of the team-fight without losing a teammate for it, or just being so dominant that you can ignore the Ultimate. Killing Engineer with a burst-heavy hero before he can use his ultimate is huge, so keep that in mind.
If everything fails, get Barbed Armor. Engineer is not really a Glass Cannon, but considering his ultimate, Turret and the Charged Hammer he will most likely always go for incredible AOE damage, two or three Barbed Armors will punish this poor little Dwarf for even trying to kill you.



This guy destroys your towers, disables the living hell out of you and is a Frog. Seriously, is there anything more humiliating than getting tied by his tongue while his team just completely beats you up.
But this guy is not hard to counter.
He has some issues, his health pool is incredibly low, he is dependent on solo experience to be an efficient pusher and farmer early on (he needs the Staff of the Master), his Tongue Tied requires him to stay still for its duration.
So what to do with a solo hero that is pretty weak health wise? Put a nuking/harassing mid against him, namely Forsaken Archer or Thunderbringer. A lvl 6/7 Thunderbringer combination of Chain, Blast and ult will put Pollywog Priest to rest, unless he gets some major items like a Bracer and Steamboots early on. Considering the time you hit 6 as a solo hero (Thunderbringers case) and the money you have to spend on items to stay in mid (a Bottle and Boots to rune-control efficiently), if he is getting constantly harassed, he won't farm much, and will be a safe kill if you have enough mana to combo. His spells are really expensive (except Jolt of Lightning), which makes ganking a pain for him. Not impossible, but a pain. If you deny him the runes (by sidelaners checking/taking them) his mana pool will not be sufficient to gank.
If you keep him down early you will render him pretty much useless. He will still push your towers frog style, but you can live with it if you give him a beating every team fight.



You know this guy and you hate him. It's the one with the burst heal that can provide magic immunity to an allied hero. His ultimate also makes people semi immortal for the uptime.
Keeping Jeraziah down is fairly easy. It's summarized in one word we all should know: Purge.
This effect is provided by one item (Nullfire Blade) and three heroes, Gauntlet, Engineer and Electrician. By purging off Sol's Blessing and Repel, those guys who thought they were immortal just a second ago are miraculously susceptible for damage of any kind again, thus dying and making them sad pandas.
Pick around the Jeraziah enemy pick, get either one of those three heroes or an Agility carry that can build a quick Nullfire Blade. It will save you a lot of trouble. Jeraziah also has trouble racking up money (except when he steals a lot farm from carries). That is because he rarely gets assists. Even though his Heal damages, it is true damage which miraculously does not count into the assist count. He is not ranged and his movement speed is slow, which makes it hard for him to chase or keep up with enemies. While Heroes like Accursed have an exploding Shield that deal AoE damage, he has nothing to tap the enemy for an assist.

That is all for today. I hope these tips will help you out in your play and remember: There is always a counter to everything. You just have to use your brain and find it.

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