The big Item Guide 1.1 Starting Gear

The Big Item Guide - Will not be updated because the guide is now useless since recommended items are in HoN shops!

Presentation:

The reason i write this is because i want to help all the new players to get a grasp of the items in HoN. I did a fast search here in the forum and i found a good starting gear guide. I will present my own take on this. However i will also do a guideline for what items are good on what heroes and which items are bad. Keep in mind, this is only a guideline based on my opinions and by no means "facts". Its very basic stuff for the new players in here that havent played Dota.


Table of contents:

1.1 Starting gear:
1.2 Boots and Bracelet guide (thx ElementUser for suggesting it)
1.3 Supportive
1.4 Protective
1.5 Combative
1.6 Morph attack
1.7 Random stuff.
1.8 Recommended Builds for all heroes. Can now be found here: http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/sh...ad.php?t=18145



1.1 Starting Gear

There are several forms of starting gear, some are worse and some are better.

The bad ones:

Runes and Marchers.




Marchers and Regen are really common and really bad. You end up with no + attributes. This makes it harder for you to kill creeps and deny creeps. This also gives you low starting health and low starting mana because of the lack of + attributes. It also gives you low lane staying power since you have to little regen and to little hp. The positive side is that u are faster than ur enemies. But this doesnt do very much on most heroes in the first minutes of the game because the distance to the tower is often very short and you cant tower dive nor get a creep aggro after you while chasing a hero. Both these scenarios is likely ending up with getting you killed. However there are some exceptions: Its acceptable on Swiftblade but it still provide the same cons as above. This also an acceptable gear for Slither and Ophelia since they are roamers and can do so from lvl 1 (Thanks to ElementUser for bringing this up).
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Naked Bottle




The quite popular naked bottle is a bad build. It gives the same problems as the marcher build in the terms of stats. No last hit power, no + stats to boost manapool and HP. However it gives you roughly 400 hp regen and 210 mana regen + ability to runewhore. If you are laning top and bot this is 600 gold for the same effect as 4 runes of blight and 2 mana potions since runes are harder to access. In midlane you will probably get out denied and fail last hits. The rune refill is very good, but if you get denied the runes you are ruined. This build is imho surpassed by some of the other builds i will present. I want to be clear (noticed some posts). Its not a worthless build but imho there are better ones. Hehe, im just trying to be sympathetic ^^ naked bottle sucks : D
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Recepie and runes




Also a bad build. It gives +3 to all stats and + additional 3 to another one. The problem is that you pay 125 / 150 / 175 gold for +1 to all stats. Its better to buy the ingredients and skip the recepie to buy additional regen. Thats acceptable. The main reason you buy the recepie is to save item slots and thus getting very good stats on 1 slot. However, we do not have that problem early game. 6 slots are sufficent first minutes of the game.

There are several more bad ones but these are the most common. Now ill move on to the good starting gear :
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The good ones

The all rounder




Gives +6 to all stats and 6 runes for heal. +6 to all stats is 114 hp extra and 78 mana. Its good for heroes that doesnt need much mana regen or getting a fast bottle. Its my personal favourite for agility heroes since it increases their start hp with around 25% and gives a chunk of HP regen. There are some variants of this, i. e. 1 less Minor totem and add a Mana potion. Or one less minor totem and one less rune of blight to replace with a Healing potion. Another variant is to skip 2 Minor totems and add a flask. Decent if you know your facing heavy herass lane.
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The Last Hitter (Get a Logger's Axe asap from side shops!)



Adds +8 strength, +2 Intelligence. This increases ur basedamage alot if u are a strength hero and adds a chunk of hp, 152 hp. Good for obvious reasons. Agility variant of this is ok if you have a good support hero behind you, like demented Shaman or any healer. Makes last hitting easier. Works well for ranged agility aswell (with the agility counterpart). However not for melee agility! Check out below.
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The courier

Note: Any combination of Runes, Mana potions or Health potions and Totems as fillers. Preferably 2-4 Totems.


This gives you a courier. I like to compare this to the naked bottle build wich i feel is quite similar. For instance if you get courier + 4 minor totem + 2 set of blight. You get some additional stats + the possibility to buy a bottle with the courier and bring it to you. The rune of blights give more hp so you survive until you get your bottle. Almost anyone can farm a bottle within the first 4-5 minutes of the game.
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The caster:




+78 MP, 57 HP, + 6 damage for deny and last hit, 690 Hp and 200 mana regen. Great build for mana intesive intelligence heroes i e Thunderbringer or Pyromancer. Works also for strength heroes and agility heroes with str/agi counterpart! The Mana Potions can be replaced by a Health potion for mass regen!
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The Jungler / Supporter




Good for jungling and good if you are a ranged supporter with some kind of heal. Gives you nice mana regen in the lane +6 damage. In the jungle its gotten for the +3 armor and mana regen. If you decide to lane with it, dont forget to turn off the armor aura.
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The New one (Melee only):


This is the new one. We get a Logger's Hatchet for easier last hits. It grants us 32% bonus damage which translates to around 15-25 extra damage versus creeps in the first minutes of the game. As we understand this is great for last hitting. We also get +3 to all stats which increases our HP with 57 and MP with 39. We also get a good amount of Heal. This one is god for any melee agility or strength hero if paired with a nice support since our starting health will be a bit lower than the all rounder. Works great for melee heroes in solo mid.

Note that Logger's hatchet can be bought in the Outpost so thisone is best used at Legion Bot, and Hellbourne Top Lane, when you know that the secret shop wont be accesed easily.
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Advanced One:



This is also a new one from 1.42. This one includes a Mana Battery who will be upgraded to Power Supply asap. Great if you know you are facing a hero who spams spells or abilites. Use this for caster type of heroes who utilize the mana gained well.
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The main principle for starting gear is maximizing cost efficent items that give you + stats and the regen you need. Experiment. Dont get stuck in the naked bottle / boots of speed + regen dead end. Try different starting gear out. See what fits your playstyle. If you really like boots or naked bottle go for it!