Succubus Strategy Guide

Succubus






Contents:

• Hero Introduction
• Skills & Skill Build
• Items & Item Build
• Strategy
• Conclusion
  

Introduction

Succubus is a carbon copy remake of the DotA Hero; Bane Elemental. Succubus has seen high level play in HoN since her induction into the game; occasionally making her way onto banlists in some games. She is a strong hero during all aspects of the game, and one of a select few heroes in the game that can evolve from one role into another without any deviation in her item/skill build. The aim of this guide is to give both direction to people that may be new to the hero, and food for thought and helpful advice for higher level players.

Pro's:

• Versatile hero with several disables, capable of a lot of control during team fights.
• Very high average stat gain compared to other intelligence heroes.
• Second highest armor intelligence hero in the game (Beaten only by Puppet Master)
• Above average Movespeed.
• Almost unmatched solo.
  
• Superb attack animation and high damage.
  
• Not reliant on items.
• Good escape and defense mechanisms.

Con's:

• Limited Mana Pool compared to other intelligence heroes.
• Only 400 Range Attack (Most Intelligence heroes being 600).
• In conjunction with having a low Mana Pool, is also quite mana dependent.
• As the main disabler of a team, is often shut down and targeted during team fights.
• Ultimate requires channeling.

Skills



Smitten



Smitten; aka The Carry Disabler, is your way to shutdown high physical damage units (Example: Madman, Dark Lady, Arachna etc.) at level 4 it equates to a massive 120% reduction in damage base damage (damage derived from overall attributes). This will effectively neuter the damage output of the target it is on. It's duration of 20 seconds, and cooldown of 15, means it can overlap and be applied to more than one target at a time (or to refresh on a single target making sure it never drops off). Smitten's manacost prevents it from being spammable, as it will use a decent portion of your mana, but is usually applied as soon as the fight is initiated, to take down their physical carries effectiveness as soon as possible.

Heartbreak



Heartbreak; aka The Lane Dominater, is your damaging skill and your way to make sure you never have to leave the lane you're in. It has a hefty mana cost and cooldown, so it is not to be confused with a nuke, and is far from spammable. The biggest perk about this spell is that it deals True Damage, this means the damage taken from this spell is not mitigated by Armor or Magic Armor, so there is no way to reduce the damage taken from it. This makes it especially potent early on, as it will take a HUGE chunk of their hitpoints, and heal you by the same amount, allowing you to keep yourself in a lane without being reliant on Runes of Blight or Pots. Also something of note, is the range is quite large, and quite a lot further than your attack, so even if someone is out of your attack range, you can still nail them.

Mesmerize



Mesmerize; aka The Multitasker, is your main way of shutting the opposing team down, while also setting up kills and your main escape mechanism (you can also deny yourself with it too!). This skill has a vast variety of applications throughout the entire duration of the game. From the very start it is often used to initiate ganks; locking down your target long enough for your team mates to position themselves, taking a disabler out of the equation, or chasing down a hero that thinks he's gotten away. As the game goes on, this is your main way of shutting down the devastating heroes in your opponents lineups (Example; Behemoth, Tempest, Magmus) long enough for your team to go to work on the rest of them. As mentioned before, this spell can also be used to deny experience from your opponents; at level 4 this will deal 20 True Damage every second for 7 seconds, meaning you can kill yourself with it at 140hp or less (this is both a blessing, and something to be aware of).

Succubus' Hold



Succubus' Hold; aka "WHY DOES HE KEEP TARGETTING ME?", is what makes Succubus what she is. This ultimate is absolutely devastating and again scales throughout the game in use. Early on this will net you a kill on virtually any target you choose, basically any partially weakened opponent will fall to Succubus' Hold + Heartbreak. Later on this ability is used to set up team kills, often taking advantage of any enemy hero that even slightly mispositions themselves. Whoever your team feels is the most threatening and uncontrollable threat on their side, that is what your main target should be. As it is a channeling spell, you must use it carefully and precisely and try and get it's full duration off, there is no point diving into team fights and using this on the person you feel like killing, as you will get stunned and disabled to death and you will never go anywhere. There is absolutely nothing a hero can do while in the grip of this spell, and it must be taken advantage of.

Succubus' Hold with Staff of the Master

As you can see in this picture, all the Staff of the Master does for Succubus' Hold is increase the damage per tick. While it may seem like something worth getting (and I see this a LOT with people that aren't experienced with this hero). I urge you; DO NOT GET STAFF OF THE MASTER ON SUCCUBUS. Damage is not what this spell is about, and getting this item is actually counter-intuative as the only time when it's damage aspect is particularly relevent is laning at the start of the game, at the point in the game when you have actually obtained the staff, the disable is what is relevent,allowing your team to get the kills, not you, thus making the staff obsolete.




Skill Build


The great thing about Succubus is her ability to adapt and evolve throughout the duration of the game. Your skill build (and item build) will change based on your opponents, which makes her a relevant threat against virtually any lineup. Smitten is a skill that can be omitted entirely from a build, based on how relevant the ability to shut down a physical carry is against the team you're fighting.

Standard Build (Knowing they have a Physical Carry):

1. Mesmerize
2. Heartbreak
3. Heartbreak
4. Stats
5. Heartbreak
6. Succubus' Hold
7. Heartbreak
8. Stats
9. Stats
10. Stats
11. Succubus' Hold
12-15. Smitten
16. Succubus' Hold
17-19. Mesmerize
20+. Stats

Mesmerize is taken at level 1 because you need the skill in your arsenal throughout the game, and Heartbreak costs so much, and does such little damage at rank 1, that it is virtually never worth using at that stage. Heartbreak is then taken at every available level, as it is your main way to stay in your lane and deal damage to your opponent. Your ultimate is also taken at every available level. Smitten is not taken till the 12-15 range, because it's not until later on that Physical Carries become relevant, and shutting them down becomes important (also because it is a % based reduction, the skill does a lot more later on, because it is reducing a much greater amount).
Because Mesmerize is not really being used to shut down at this point, it is more important (and even preferential) to have it at Rank 1 (4 Seconds) at this stage in the game, so maxing it out is not a priority (Also 1 extra second is not really worth giving up +2 Strength, +2 Agility and +2 Intelligence at this point in the game). It is maxed out later when it reaches the point where you want the target locked out for absolutely as long as possible.
As mentioned before, your skill build can vary as much as neccesary. Smitten can be skipped entirely, Mesmerize can be maxed out sooner if you need some serious disables in the team, etc. The situations where adapting your build is neccesary will be covered later on.

Items

Starting Items:



Runes of Blight x 1 - 90 Gold
Mana Potion x2 - 100 Gold
Mark of the Novice x2 - 300 Gold
Minor Totem x2 - 106 Gold
----------------------
Total Cost - 596 Gold

This item build starts you off with 530hp and 338mana. In my opinion this is the optimal way to start off with Succubus. Succubus's ability to stay in a lane is determined by wise use of Heartbreak. I generally use 1 Mana Potion either after Level 3 or after Level 5, depending on how well I am harassing my opponents, and then leave the second mana potion right before you hit Level 6, to ensure that you can dive straight into Hold+Heartbreak combo and go for a kill. Runes of Blight are in there because harassment between Heartbreaks is inevitable from any reasonable opponent, and you don't want to be solely relying on HB to keep you up. Mark of the Novice's are there for the mana pool boost, and to aid you in your last hitting (which Succubus truly excels at). And last but not least, Minor Totems are there for obvious stat gain, and to use up (and therefor make the best of) your starting gold.

Should I be getting Bottle?

An important note, and something that I strongly recommend against is Bottle Succubus. While I generally won't advocate Naked Bottle on most heroes, this is especially true of Succubus. As mentioned earlier on in the guide, Succubus is NOT a nuker. She does not need the hp coming from the bottle, because she gets it from Heartbreak, and the Mana coming from 3 bottle charges is barely even enough to get more than one Heartbreak off the ground. This leaves Succubus vulnerable and with poor lane staying capabilities, and is definitely advised again.


Early Game Items:



Early game you want to just be generally fleshing out your original items. You turn the Novice's into Nulls for a general stat boost, and importantly a mana boost. You want to be grabbing Homecoming Stones because they're essential for every purpose; tower dives, tower defenses, retreating, quick lane swapping, ganks, avoiding skills like Rupture and Spider Shot, you name it, Homecoming Stone can do it.





Now here is a point that I won't present as fact; and is up for debate between people that I have discussed this with. Again this is a "Well it varies from game to game" point. Generally speaking though, I advocate Enhanced Marchers as the best choice for Succubus.

Enhanced Marchers; Yes, the Damage and Attack Speed aren't particularly relevant to her (although depending on how long your laning period lasts, and how well you farm early, getting Punch Dagger and Gloves of the Swift can help out a lot). The true beauty of Enhanced Marchers is how well the speed boost gels with the playstyle of Succubus. Early on in the game she is a ganker, her role is to get into a prime perfect position, get off Succubus' Hold, and allow her team to score some quick kills. Enhanced Marchers allow for setting up said positioning, whether it be via catching up to an opponent to get off a Mesmerize to hold them in place, getting that extra bit of range to pull off that last Heartbreak to seal the deal, or quickly getting the jump on someone to pull off a good Succubus' Hold.

Steamboots again is one of those things that could very easily be gotten, the stat boost is helpful, the intelligence/strength boost is very handy too. If you find yourself against a team either with a lot of nukes, or one where you realise you're going to be a target a lot of time, I would consider getting Steamboots instead.

Boots of Travel are ~generally~ speaking too slow to farm, and while they certainly give Succubus a lot of ganking freedom, I find that Succubus a) Isn't that farm dependant, so jumping around to farmable lanes isn't particularly useful, and b) Has no fast farming mechanism, so being able to jump from farm to farm isn't that easy.


Mid-Late Game Items:

Now here is where Succubus really shines. She has many options here for how to build her for midgame onwards, all tailored to your opponents team and playstyle. Main items for Succubus:

Totem of Kuldra

Total Cost - 5,675 Gold.

This is; in most situations, your first main priority to build. Totem of Kuldra does several things for you:

• Large Intelligence Boost, solving the low Mana Pool problem
• Has a nice Strength Boost, giving you some extra survivability in team fights.
• Gives your the Mana Regeneration to use your abilities more aggressively, and really let you take control of fights, without having to mana your mana pool quite so much.
• And most importantly; gives you yet another (very powerful) disable to aid your team.

This is about your best option as far as main items go, and will really let Succubus come into her own. The items involved in the recipe are also very beneficial, Manatube > Blessed Orb > Acolyte's Staff, give you the things, in order, to cover a lot of Succubus's flaws, and give you a nice steady progression over the course of the game.

Puzzlebox

Total Cost - 2,750 Gold Level 1 + 1,300 Gold per upgrade (Maximum Level 3).

While a lot more of a prominent item on the DotA counterpart Bane Elemental, the item in general is yet to really take off in the competetive DotA community, seeing play a rather low amount of games. However this synergises extremely well with Succubus's playstyle, and can provide a lot of strong plays, especially those very familiar with micromanagement. At level 3 Puzzlebox provides:

Passive:

• +14 Strength
• +24 Intelligence

Activeateable:
Minions with -

• Mana Burn
• Explosion on Death
• True Sight (1,000 Range Invisbility Detection [Only at level 3])
• Mana Burn
• Haste Aura (Movement and IAS increase)

As you can see, this is not an item to be trifled with. The combo of Mesmerize + Bust Out Minions + Succubus' Hold + Mana Burn + Attacks while target is held, is enough to bring down virtually any foe. However, the use of this item is more prominent in ganks and solo work, as in team fights, you have a lot of other roles to play, and important things to be doing, leaving Micromanaging minions to be virtually impossible to do. The invisibility detection however is invaluable and a great counter to stealthy targets.

A good point raised by King_Fear is Group Micromanagement leaves something to be desired in HoN. Previously in DotA, with your minions and Succubus (channeling her ult) all grouped together, you could order an attack command, setting the Puzzlebox minions on your target, yet your ult channeling to go uninterrupted. However in HoN, an attack command with all 3 units selected will result in your Succubus breaking her channeling to start auto-attacking, making management of this item a lot more difficult.

Shrunken Head

Total Cost - 3,900 Gold.

Shrunken Head is for those matches where you realise you're just not going to be getting any casts off. You're the first target every fight, you're hit with an array of stuns, you just generally can't find the time to contribute anything useful before you're gunned down. Succubus relies on her ability to control the flow of a team fight, who gets to fight, who can use their abilties at what times, and who is taken out of the fight entirely. Without the ability to do this, Succubus loses a lot of her potency. Shrunken Head provides you with a window after the initiation of a team fight to:

1. Get off your initial casts; Smitten and Mesmerize
2. Channel Succubus's Hold without interuption
3. Take the attention away from yourself, and hopefully onto a hero that can take more hits than you can (how 'hopeful' this is, depends entirely upon how well you set up your disables on the opposing team).

This is a very useful item for Succubus, and generally a goal in most games with a balanced opposing team (whether it comes before or after your Totem of Kuldra is a choice you make based on how vulnerable you feel to the opposing lineup).

Hellflower

Total Cost - 5,025 Gold.

Hellflower is an interesting item on Succubus, completed, the effects of Hellflower are:

Passive

• +20 Intelligence
• +40 Damage
• +30 Attack Speed
• +225% Mana Regeneration.

Activeateable

• 5 Second Silence
• 20% True Damage Equal to the amount of damage taken during the Hellflower effect.

Now this is a very aggressive choice on Succubus. I take this when it's not so crucial for me to be controlling the team fights, and more important for me to be taking down key targets, the 5 second Silence can throw a large spanner in the works of any heavy duty chain caster, and coupled with Heartbreak, the bonus damage can equate to a large amount if the target is focused. The stats itself however don't provide much in the way of survivability. They greatly increase your low mana pool, and regeneration. But with this build, you are very succeptable to focus firing. You really need to be on your game to control potential threats when playing with a Hellflower build, if your team has a lot of disables, a Hellflower build can be devastating.

Luxury Items:

Generally in this section you will find items that you will only obtain if:

1. You are playing an -em game.
2. You have essentially already won anyway.
3. But most importantly, are playing a nail biting, edge of the seat clincher where anybody could win.

Froswolf's Skull

Total Cost - 6,150 Gold

A true luxury item. When your team has killed Kongor several times, you've stacked up a lot of kills and assists, and are forced to deal with massive creep waves and need to spend your gold. Frostwolf's Skull will make you extremely hard to target and kill, you will be able to survive through several nukes, and give you more than enough time to do the job you want to do. The slow on your attack helps pull out straglers and gives you a strong AutoAttack for when your main disables are on cooldown.

Sacrificial Stone

Total Cost - 5,050

I chose to include this here, because although it is certainly a useful item for Succubus, I would advise to avoid it in a core build. The stats on it are cetainly very relevent to Succubus, in that the mana regeneration and additional hp and mana help cover up her flaws, but overall, the expense and lack of utility of this item, leave better choices to be taken. However in the clinching moments of a match, extra charges on this make for quick recoveries, and the on-death bonus helps a lot during team fights. Cetainly not an item to be overlooked, but not worth rushing for.

Null Stone

Total Cost - 5,175 Gold

Yet another item to help with general surviveability. This is for those matches where getting Shrunken Head wasn't a worthwhile investment, but there are still some targetted stuns/ministun nukes that can interrupt your channeling, and make your life difficult. Nullstone's spell block helps protect you during your ultimate, and gives you the additional stats to make it hard to focus fire you.

As with all heroes, this is not the be-all end-all of lists, but generally the items you will use/aim for in 90% of games. It all comes down to the situation and who you are up against. I specifically left out an order in which to obtain these items, as it varies a lot from situation to situation. As mentioned previously, Succubus' strength is in her versatility and adaptability, you are only limited by your ability to assess what is needed.

Wards:



As mentioned earlier, Succubus is a hero that is defined largely by her abilities and spells, not by her items. Her scalability with items is not nearly as large as other heroes, and as with other heroes of this type (Demented Shaman, Plague Rider, etc.) this makes you the perfect hero for...you guessed it; Wards!
Warding and Counter-Warding is essential in any game of HoN you will ever play, information is everything, and your team will love you for it. There are many warding guides out there, so I won't go into specifics, but be aware that Succubus is great for this role, and don't shy away from getting eyes out there.




Strategy



Early Game:

Which Lane To Go:
As Succubus, your heavy preference is to solo mid, with your ability to last hit and stay in your lane, you will have an easy time against almost any hero in the game. However don't let this limit you, Succubus can thrive in dual-lanes as well, setting up kills with Mesmerize (either on their stunner/disabler) or using it to get into position to take down an opponent with the aid of a team mate. If you have a hero that will really benefit from a solo lane, don't feel like you need to solo to reach your potential, politely slip into a lane with a team mate that you can do well with.

Laning Solo Mid:
Your job here is easy, just sit and farm and last hit. You do not need to rush into kills. Succubus has a fantastic attack animation and very strong base damage, allowing you to sit back in a lane and just pick off creeps.

What's your opponent doing?
This is something you need to assess right away. Is it a Thunderbringer with a Bottle looking to harass the hell out of you? Is it a Hellbringer who's just looking to last hit and turtle around his tower? Is it a runewhoring Valkyrie that wants to do everything in his power to end your life.

You need to find out the answer to these questions as early as possible and react accordingly. If you're against someone who you know is going to abuse runes to dominate you in a lane, get an ally (or use an ally Monkey) to run you down some Observer wards and simply get to his runes before he can make use of them.

If you are facing someone who is not interested in harassing you heavily, and just wants to farm, that's fine, do likewise. Against nearly all heroes, you will gain a huge advantage on them as soon as you hit Level 6. Make sure to use Heartache occasionally after level's 3 and level 5, to stop them sitting on full hp, and then use that momentum to your advantage, and look for an opportunity to score a kill. Against players that don't do much in a lane, it's very easy to stockpile up your mana, and use everything in your arsenal on them as soon as you hit level 6.

Laning in a Dual Lane:
Your best friends here are heroes that require positioning to really abuse their damage abilities:
Pebbles
Soulstealer
Valkyrie
Behemoth
These are just examples of a few heroes that will greatly appreciate a 4 second window in order to setup a great place to abuse their abilities. Use Mesmerize offensively, even when not looking to score a kill, make their laning life a living hell.

I've hit Level 6, what now?
Early on with Succubus, you are a ganker, that is your role. Be aware of both your team and your opponents team, and where they are at all times. Succubus can turn a potentially overwhelming fight in favor of your team with careful use of her abilities. See which lanes need the most help, and use Homecoming Stone's and move around behind the trees to setup kills.
This is one of the best aspects of Succubus Ganking, you can Hold them, and they won't even know it's coming;
Example:


Here in this picture, Sand Wraith thinks he's just sitting back having a nice farm, with my ally Pebbles too low HP to be able to really do anything to him. I teleport down to my bottom tower and run behind the trees, and sit and wait. The Sand Wraith gets himself into a vulnerable position and I start to hold him from the shadows. I have then set my Pebbles up for a great Stun/Toss combo to completely destroy Sand Wraith.

Something to always bare in mind, is that while Succubus is capable of some devastating solo kills on Low HP opponents, she really shines setting up her teammates for kills. As already gone over, Succubus doesn't rely on her items as much as other heroes, meaning you are in a great position to setup kills for team mates to get them hero kill gold. Ways you can abuse this is to Heartbreak BEFORE you Hold (if the situation permits) to get them even lower straight off the bat, to setup a team mate to get an easy quick kill. A well played Succubus should end games with her assists through the roof.

Use the early game to roam around the map from lane to lane using combinations of Mesmerize/Heartbreak/Succubus' Hold to set your team mates up for kills, helping your whole team farm up and reach the next phase of the game.

It's Mid-Endgame, team-push time!
At this stage you should have finished your early game build and be on your way to your Totem of Kuldra or Shrunken Head. You're now reaching the phase of the game where your role in fights has evolved from ganker to disabler. Your role here is to assess who can stun/disable on their team, and stop them from doing their job.
Example:


Here in this (rather unrealistically staged) fight, I've seen my opponents and decided that Magmus is quite clearly the hero here that's going to do the most damage, so I've Mesmerised him and taken him out of the fight. I've then realised that Pyromancer has an AoE stun and a huge damage output, but is relatively easily killed. So I've turned my grip to him in the hopes that my team will now press forward, take out the Pyromancer and with that momentum will be able to clean up the rest of their team.





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