Arachna Strategy Guide

Arachna

Story

It is said for every fear and phobia that effects man and beast alike. there is a demon waiting to be born -- Arachna, chittering, skulking, crooked and wicked -- spawns from the fear of spiders. Protected by a chitinous exoskeleton as strong as cold iron, she stalks, and traps, and slaughters her enemies.

Index

Using the index: Simply bring up your "find" feature in your browser (Ctrl + f) and type in the code next to the section you wish to browse.

• Stats [qe1]
• Abilities [qe2]
• Skill Build [qe3]
• The Rundown [qe4]
• Items [qe5]
• Strategy [qe6]
• Hero Synergy [qe7]
• Replays [qe8]
  
• Changelog [qe9]

Stats [qe1]

Strength: 17 (+1.9)
Agility: 22 (+3.2) Primary attribute
Intelligence: 15 (+1.5)

Damage: 40-51
Armor: 208
Movement Speed: 290
Attack type: Ranged
Attack Range: 600

Abilities qe2]

Webbed Shot (Q)
Arachna imbues her attack with webbing, slowing enemies on impact.
Type: Magic
Mana Cost: 12
Cooldown: 2/2/0/0 seconds

Effect: Causes her attack to apply Webbed Shot to the target for 1.5 seconds (Note: This actually feels like 2.2 - 2.5 seconds)

Webbed Shot: 10/20/30/40% Movement Speed slow; 5/10/15/20 Attack Speed slow

Harden Carapace (W)
Arachna hardens her carapace for a short duration, increasing her resistance to magical attacks.
Type: Self buff
Mana Cost: 90
Cooldown: 22/20/18/16 seconds

Effect: Dispels debuffs on self and applies Hardened Carapace for 6 seconds at all levels.

Hardened Carapace: +5/10/18/35 Magic Armor
(24.8% base Magic Resistance --> 38.7% / 48.2% / 58.5% / 70.8%)

Precision (E)
Arachna's renown at being a precise shot inspires nearby ranged units, increasing their base damage. Also increases Arachna's base damage.
Type: Aura (passive)
Range: 500

Effect: Increases base ranged damage of Arachna and nearby ranged units by 7/14/21/28%

Spider Sting (R)
Hurls a Spiderling toward a target enemy unit that can reveal stealthed enemies. Upon reaching its destination, the Spiderling viciously attacks the enemy unit, poisoning it, slowing its movement and attack speed.
Type: Target Unit Summon
Range: 500
Movement Speed: 522
Mana cost: 125/175/250
Cooldown: 80/50/30 seconds

Effect:
Hurls a Spiderling toward a target enemy unit.

Spiderling: 5 Armor, Magic Immunity, Splash Immunity, 600 sight range which is not obscured by obstacles (cliffs dont count as obstacles), focuses all attacks on target and keeps them revealed until the Spiderling is killed.

• Attacks up to 5 times then perishes, lasts up to 15 seconds
• Each attack Applies Spider Sting for 1.5 seconds
• Each attack deals 75/150/225 physical damage
• The Spiderling dies once it has been attacked 3 times (loses 1/3 of its health with every hit it takes if you have lifebars turned on)
  

Spider Sting: Slows target's attack and movement speeds by 40/60/80

Skill Build[qe3]

When the game starts you should be grabbing your items and heading either bottom or top lane with an ally, do not select your skills until you have seen your enemy heroes in your lane.You should take the orange highlighted abilities if the enemy heroes can hit you with 3 or more magic damage nukes.

1 - Webbed Shot
2 - Stats / Harden Carapace
3 - Webbed Shot
4 - Stats / Harden Carapace
5 - Webbed Shot
6 - Spider Sting
7 - Webbed Shot
8 - Precision / Harden Carapace
9 - Precision / Harden Carapace
10 - Harden Carapace / Precision
11 - Spider Sting
12 - Precision
13 - Precision
14 - Harden Carapace / Precision
15 - Harden Carapace
16 - Spider Sting
17 - Harden Carapace
18-25 Stats

If your enemy can give you a debuff early you should consider taking a level of Harden Carapace to remove the debuff. Blacksmith, Armadon, Hellbringer, Pestilence, Predator, Legionaire, Keeper of the Forest, Soulstealer, Dark Lady, Glacius, Electrician, Kraken and Slither all have debuffs that can be removed, making this skill very flexible. Slither has 2 debuffs that can be removed, making Arachna an ideal counter to Slither (Thanks XQuicksilver for finding this out).

Stats are taken early due to Arachna having a pitiful health pool and damage, stats conveniently solves both of these problems. If you take Precision early... well... you'll lack the health to help in team battles and you'll die in about 3 nukes. Precision gives you 7% per level which at the start is only 3.5 damage per level of Precision. However delaying it until level 8 means you have gained 22 agility in levels, which is an extra 5 damage per level of Precision.

Webbed Shot is the main ability for Arachna, its necessary to take this as soon as possible because of the powerful debuff it applies to the enemy. Webbed Shot is used to harassing, helping out allies, kiting things, and most importantly, making the other team lose their cool. at Rank 1 Webbed Shot does not do much by itself, you should only be casting it Rank 2 and above, otherwise you're wasting your mana. You shouldn't toggle on autocast of Webbed Shot until the very late stages of the game where you cannot orb walk any more.

Spider Sting is a very, very powerful ability at the moment, it has the potential to do more damage than Pyromancer's ultimate with Staff of the Master. If the target has 0 armor the Spiderling is doing 1225 damage, this is the main reason why we get Shieldbreaker. The Spiderling is extremely hard to kill by 1 hero alone, with 2 heroes the Spiderling will probably only get 3 attacks off before it dies. Early game you should use Spider Sting to get hero kills, never use it if you think your enemy can make it to their tower. You can use it to escape ganks, cast it on their hero with the most physical damage and run for your life, and apply Harden Carapace when necessary. As soon as you get Spider Sting Rank 3, you can demolish any hero 1v1 with Webbed Shot and Spider Sting, make sure it's a 1v1 though, take note of your minimap, if you know where all the enemy heroes are, fire away.

The Rundown[qe4]

Beginner - Intermediate - Expert

Strengths:

• Good end-game damage
• Excellent attack animation
  
• Can stack slows to literally stop enemies in their tracks (80% slow from Spider Sting and 40% slow from Webbed Shot which is an 88% combined slow)
  
• Strongest physical damage ranged hero in the game
• Can remove debuffs on herself and provide magic resistance for a short period of time.

Weaknesses:

• Poor early game damage
• Poor strength gain, resulting in low max hp
• Has no escape mechanism i.e. stealth, blink
• Slow attack speed compared to her late game rivals.

Arachna is one of the most difficult heroes to play, because she is so fragile you're going to be targeted the entire game. To play Arachna with her greatest potential you will have to have mastered concepts such as; Orb walking, Animation canceling, last hitting, kiting and creep leashing.

Arachna is considered to be a carry hero, she is really weak at the start of the game, having a small strength gain and barely any base damage. Your goal is to farm lots of gold until you can form at least 2 Morph/Combatative items, then push your team to victory.

Why choose Arachna over other melee carry's like Madman or Magebane? Because she is better! She is a counter hero for ALL melee due to her Webbed Shot and Spider Sting almost completely removing her enemies attack and movement speeds. Team battles will consist of you standing behind your team waiting for someone on your team to initiate, then you'll charge in, Spider Sting the hero you want to kill and Webbed Shot 2 heroes while their team retreats. Try to hit as many heroes with webbed shot as you can, giving as little chance of escape as possible to the opposing team, remember the debuff expires after about 2.5 seconds so you can probably fire 2 attacks into the hero you want to kill and shoot the other hero on the subsequent attack.

Arachna is a very psychological hero, she makes her opponents think they can beat her, but she has the power to turn a 1v2 into a 1v1 then a 1v0. Just Spider Sting one hero, then Webbed Shot the other, Webbed Shot the original hero and keep swapping between them while running away. There will come a point where they will both back off and you will still have Webbed Shot on both of the opposing heroes, allowing you to chase them for the kill.

Items[qe5]

Item build designed for non-em games, no one should ever play em... even if you're learning. Hopefully a support hero is nice enough to buy you a monkey courier so you can spend as long in the lane as possible, don't be afraid to buy consumables as long as it will keep you in your lane.

Starting inventory should look like this (unless you are against a team of nukers in which case you should buy some Health pots, Mana pots, and Runes of the Blight instead of Trinket):





Trinket of Restoration: 350 gold
4x Minor Totem: 4x53 = 212 gold
= 562 gold

You will be aiming to get Alchemist's Bones in 12 minutes, if you're not farming that well, try getting Whispering Helm for the lifesteal, damage and armor and ignore Alchemist's Bones. You can use Whispering Helm to dominate a Wolf Commander for 30% increased damage which helps with last hitting.

Note: Ignore this item if you are getting Nullfire Blade since the +30% attack speed does nothing for your images.



Alchemist's Bones: 1900 gold

That's 22 creep waves, and you're aiming to get at least 2 kills per creep wave. After this point you should always be carrying a Homecoming Stone on you at all times. I strongly suggest getting Alchemist's Bones for the farming value, it's arguably the best farming item in the game.



2x Fortified Bracelet: 1100 gold
Enhanced Marchers: 1500 gold
= 2600 gold

Should take you about 10 minutes with Alchemist Bones, hopefully your ally is ganking at this point, otherwise it will be closer to 12-15 minutes.

Here's where an important decision comes into play, look at your enemies team and see what heroes they have. If the enemy doesn't fit into one of these categories, go straight for Shieldbreaker (Unless: you get Nullfire Blade, in which case you should skip Shieldbreaker and continue with the build, make Geometer's Bane after Wingbow.)
If the other team has:

• Jeraziah, Hammerstorm, Pestilence, Chronos

Nullfire Blade: 3300 gold

Dispels Repel, Hammerstorm's ultimate, Swarm and can turn in to Geometer's bane to counter bash heroes. Save charges for dispelling rather than using it on enemy heroes (unless of course you're saving an ally).

• A team of 3+ heroes with strong nukes, including heroes like Pyromancer, Glacius, Soulstealer, Behemoth, Torturer, Thunderbinger, Moon Queen and Pebbles.
• Either Electrician, Pollywog Priest, or Puppet Master, you should get:

Shrunken Head: 3910 gold

Shrunken Head is the staple item for countering a team of disables and stuns. Its magic immunity provides reduces your number 1 target status and provides you with 5+ seconds of free dps which is good on any hero.



Shield Breaker: 4420 gold

If you've been farming nicely you should have this baby by 30-35 minutes. This is achieved by pushing your lane back to the tower, going to a neutral camp and using Alchemist Bones on the highest level neutral spawn then finishing off the camp and going back to your lane.

At this point you can either push with your team or farm some more to guarantee victory, if you choose to farm you should be getting:



Wingbow: 6000 gold

50-55 minutes into the game and your build is complete and you are virtually unstoppable (with your team). You can also tank/disable/dps most of their team as an added bonus.

Extra items:



Flayer: 5800 gold

After Wingbow you will have 225 damage, Flayer will increase that to 300 damage with 20% critical strike chance for 2.2x damage (660 crits), which is effectively a 20% chance of 360 physical bonus damage, statistically giving you an extra 72 damage every attack.



Deamonic Breast Plate: 6050 gold

Only get this item if no one on your team has it, everyone you attack will have -11 armor and you will have an insane attack speed, letting you apply Webbed Shots at a faster rate.



Symbol of Rage: 6150 gold

Get this item after you have at least 3 combatative/morph attack items, this item gives you a lot of survivability against other dps heroes like Predator and Magebane.

Sidenote:
Any items not mentioned doesn't necessarily mean they're bad on Arachna, for instance you might want to get Thunderclaw --> Charged Hammer if you have a hero that is going to get focused with attacks late game i.e Legionairre. Or you might want to get Frostwolf's skull for the slow that multiplicatively stacks with your Webbed Shot and Spider Sting. Generally you will want to avoid Assassin's Shroud because when you're playing against experienced foes, they will always be buying Dust of Revelation, thus destroying the escape mechanic that you once had.

Strategy[qe6]

I know what you're thinking, how am I meant to farm that much, when my opponents are trying to gank me every 5 minutes or they're pushing mid nonstop at the 20 minute mark. Answer: if you're getting ganked, tp top/bot and farm some more while buying another Homecoming Stone from the Outpost. If their team is pushing, let them 5v4 while you farm, if they're getting a rax you have no choice but to tp back and help your allies.

Keep in mind that Arachna has a very different playstyle to lots of heroes, expect to die in a few games before you know exactly how fragile she is to play. It takes a long time to learn when you should be farming/ganking/running away, it all comes with experience. You may get bored farming for half an hour but you should keep in mind that your team is relying on you to carry them to victory, and the best way to do that is farm, not gank.

Early game:
With a hero like Arachna, it's all about smart counter play. You need to be aggressive and make your enemies fear your lane. You should be attempting to last hit every single creep in your lane, denying creeps makes the enemy players die a little inside, making them frustrated. A good way to harass your enemy heroes is to orb walk 3 Webbed Shots into them, making them run away a bit then last hit a creep. Repeat this until they decide to stand out of exp range and continue to last hit. When they're standing out of last hit range you should be standing in melee range of the creeps, so your projectile distance travels as short of a distance as possible. You should always prioritise last hitting over harassing. Arachna is not just about last hitting, she's about psyching out the enemy heroes in her lane to stop them farming.

Mid Game:
If you've successfully scared your enemy out of exp range, they're probably yelling for help on their mic or in team chat, so be prepared for a gank. Hopefully you have smart allies that are warding and/or using abilites for map control, if they are not, you may have to buy some wards yourself. When there are no enemy heroes in your lane, just sit back max range of creeps and only attack to last hit, when one of your ally creeps falls below 50% health, attack it until it dies, this will force the enemy creeps back towards you and you should be able to sit in your lane without it being pushed anywhere. This isn't a skill that can be picked up after one game, you have to practice this a fair bit before you can judge how much damage you need to do to each creep to keep them in the same position. Remember that the ranged creep does more damage so if you're doing it correctly, they should be the last 2 creeps in the wave that are alive, attacking each other.

Mid-Late game:
You should never attack your enemy tower with Arachna, since you want to farm, if you push down a tower too early, your creeps will be fighting on the other side of the river, making you a very susceptible target for ganks. However once you have your Shieldbreaker, feel free to push down the tower for extra gold, make sure you have keen map awareness, the last thing you want is to trying to last hit a tower with 5 enemy heroes around it, waiting to deny. Your Webbed Shot and -armor effect will both trigger from the same attack, also remember your Spiderling deals physical damage which is amplified by -armor which rips through enemy intelligence heroes.

Late Game:
Puuush! You should be at the back of all your heroes, your enemy is looking to pick you off with nukes/disables. Your job is to get web shot stacks up on as many heroes in range of you while backpedaling away from nukes and stuns. Cast Spider Sting as fast as possible to unsettle the enemy, making some of them run back, some of them attack the spider and some of them trying to engage you still. You should have enough dps to down even the tankiest of heroes, if any melee come within 600 units of you, get a Webbed Shot debuff on them as soon as possible. If they are all ranged, then use your Harden Carapace sparingly and wait for someone on your team to initiate then begin casting Webbed Shot on as many heroes as possible. You should never charge out the front of your base and aim straight for the disabler, or the tempest, or their carry hero, just wait for them to come to you. You can sit in your base, drag the game out and get items while they're pushing at your tower and you'll end up winning because pusher heroes lose their effectiveness late game, while you gain effectiveness when you level up because of Precision.

The key to being a good Arachna player is to be patient and smart, you need to know what your enemies are capable of and you need to know all their abilities/combos. You need to be patient enough to not charge out at the enemy, and patient enough to sit in a lane for 20 minutes and not push it anywhere. Webbed Shot is debatably one of the best control spells in the game at the moment, once you have Wingbow you pump your enemies with debuffs and dish out incredible amounts of damage. Debuffing enemies should be your number 1 priority, with debuffing comes kills, which gives you gold to get items that win the game, it's the circle of life.


This strategy is from Heroes of Newerth Forum