Using Runes

Using Runes

Basics

There's five different runes. One spawns randomly at one of two fixed spots on each map at every even numbered minute on the clock starting from 0.00. (i.e. When the clock reads 0.00, 2.00, 4.00, 6.00 etc.) If a rune exists when the time for a rune to spawn is reached, a rune will NOT spawn. Runes last indefinitely until taken or destroyed.

Screenshots to show rune locations on the maps:

Forests of Caldavar - Top Rune
Forests of Caldavar - Bottom Rune
Watchtower - Left Rune
Watchtower - Right Rune
Darkwood Vale - Left Rune
DarkWood Vale - Right Rune

Because it spawns at 0:00 (Same time as the first creep waves) at the start of the game you can buy your items quickly and head to the rune spot to wait for it before the creeps spawn (Get allies to wait at the other one) so your team can have control over it as soon as possible. (Thanks to Ziffy)

Also, there will likely be an opponent hero waiting for the rune to spawn before the creeps spawn. If this is the case, you can bring your teammates in for a gank. This works best with heroes that have a good stun or slow at level 1 (For example, Magmus, Andromeda, Hammerstorm, Pollywog Priest, Plague Rider, etc). If you gain First Blood this way, your team starts with a nice gold bonus and your opponent is set back quite heavily as he'll have to respawn and walk back into his lane before he can begin gaining exp/gold. (Thanks to MahdSkillz)

The Empty Bottle



This is the one important item you must acquaint yourself with if you want to abuse runes. It may be found in the Supplies part of the shop.

This amazing item costs only 600 gold, but gives amazing burst HP and mana regeneration. This is great between ganks to restore HP and mana that you may have spent in ganks.

(Protip: To quickly buy a Bottle, press B, then double-tap R. Then press ESC to close shop window.)

It contains three charges that each restore 135 HP and 70 mana over three seconds. Note that if you get hit during the three seconds, the buff is dispelled. If used while running, try to time your Bottle-drinks right after an enemy attack, to get maximum heal before the next attack dispels your heal.

Once it is empty, you can refill it by returning to fountain. However, the alternative way to refill an empty Bottle (And the best way, that you will learn to abuse by reading this guide) is by nabbing runes with it. To do this, click your empty Bottle and then click the rune. This stores the rune inside your bottle and allows you to use the rune at any time by clicking the Bottle again. When you do this, your Bottle is magically restored to its full state, with three charges. Note that you can store runes indefinitely, which you can't do in DotA. - No longer true as of 1.47. Runes will automatically be consumed 2 minutes after you store them, as in DotA.

Taking as many runes as you can with a Bottle (i.e. Checking and taking them every two minutes) is a practice known as "rune-whoring". Rune-whoring with a Bottle allows effective solo mid play. If you runewhore effectively your Bottle stays full, and you don't have to return to the fountain at all early game.

Some situations will allow rune-whoring better than others. For example, Pharoah is a good rune-whore because he can scout the rune every two minutes with his Tormented Soul so he knows where the rune is every time. Of course, you can get Scout or Keeper of the Forest to put eyes on the runes too.

Because the rune spawns at every even minute, if you take the rune JUST BEFORE the next one spawns, i.e. When the clock reads X:55 where X is an odd integer, another may spawn right after you pick it up. Of course, it may spawn at the opposite rune spot, but if it spawns at the same one or you go to pick up the other one as well you can have two rune effects on you at once, and empty your Bottle twice if you're really low on HP and mana. Double Damage + Haste anyone? (Thanks to Scorl)

You can used Winged Courier to scout runes for you. Not only this, but you can use it to pick them up too! You can even Bottle it with the Courier, and have it bring it to you. Not sure if this is a bug or not. (Thanks to BaghdadAssUp) - Not possible as of 1.41

Haste



This rune grants maximum movespeed (522) upon use. This makes for great chasing, escaping, positioning for spells and the like. Very simple rune. You can no longer be slowed while the effect of Haste rune is on your hero, as of 1.42.

Regeneration



This rune restores your health and mana at a very fast rate for 45 seconds (Thanks to ElementUser for confirming).

It dispels upon taking damage, so if you want to keep receiving the rune's benefit you must avoid taking damage.

If you're at full mana and its effect is still on you, you can spam spells at the enemy and have your mana regenerated immediately afterwards, giving an unprecedented lane control advantage so long as you don't get hit. Make sure you take care not to get hit by creeps, as even a single creep attack will dispel it.

As of 1.47, the Regeneration rune's effects will end when your hero reaches full HP and mana.

When you store it in a Bottle, you pretty much store a free instant fountain trip and back when you need. This is definitely one of the best runes. Once I played Soulstealer solo mid with Bottle; I got three of these babies in a row. I spammed Demon Hand from afar on the creeps to farm; I had Post Haste at 8 minutes.

Double Damage



This rune adds your base damage, and damage gained from attribute boosts (i.e. If you are an intelligence hero and have an Acolyte's Staff, this rune adds another +25 damage for it) on top of your current damage again.

Note that it DOES NOT add double damage for direct damage gained via items (e.g. Having a Shieldbreaker doesn't mean you will gain an extra 60 damage from this rune), nor does it increase damage of spells that you cast.

(Thanks to Splinter)

This rune is probably the worst rune early game. The damage boost is somewhat insignificant early on and doesn't really help in a gank except you can throw a little more damage on them after you cast your spells.

Of course you can use it while you're in lane to deal increased harassing damage as well as lasthitting and denying nearly every creep for its entire duration.

Lategame, when your carry takes this you will be able to go kill Kongor with ease, or have a DPS edge in a teamfight or gank.

Invisibility



Grants stealth with a 0.1 second fade time, and lasting 60 seconds (Thanks to ElementUser for correcting the duration).

This rune can be used for escaping, provided your enemies don't have Wards or Dust, but its main use lies in offense - sneaking up behind enemies unseen and throwing a well-placed spell into a gank or teamfight. Stored in a Bottle, this is a free Windwalk and can be used as such in any fashion.

Illusion



Spawns two illusions of you that appear to the enemy to be absolutely identical to your hero that last 75 seconds. However these illusions cannot cast spells, take 300% more damage than your hero would normally take and deal 35% of the damage your hero would deal. (Thanks to aggroholic for confirming numbers)

Generally regarded as the most useless rune - it is common to think "Oh damn, not another s**tty Illusion rune" - it is actually one of the most versatile. There are many tricks that you can do using this rune:

If you are playing Bottle solo mid, and you check the runespot before creepspawn (i.e. When the clock reads 0:00), this is the best rune to get IMO. This way, you spam your spells freely and then when the clock reads 1:30-1:40, use the illusions, send one of them to each runespot, empty your Bottle and spam your spells. At 2:00 your illusions will reveal where the next rune has spawned; go grab it. This works for any time the rune will spawn if you have Illusion stored; use it 30 seconds before the next rune spawn.

Illusion runes are also very useful in ganks. When ganking, wait behind the trees with your illusions, and send one illusion in when your teammates all go in for the kill. Very often they will spend their stunning or slowing skills on the "enemy hero" that pops out of the trees. Once they have spent their spells on it, jump in with the real thing and own them.

A similar trick can be pulled while laning. If you've stored the Illusion rune in your Bottle, use it at the top of the ramp where they can't see you. Get your hero and one Illusion to hold position; get the other one to walk forward. Pretend that it's your real hero - make it walk back and forth, but be a little aggressive with it to bait your enemy - walk past the creep line, maybe throw an attack at them. If they're someone like Thunder Bringer or Defiler they will often nuke it, and you successfully waste their mana.

If you're Scout, and you pick up an Illusion while Vanished note that your Illusions also gain Vanish and all its effects. Thus you can use the above technique with more effectiveness with Scout - send your Illusion in to backstab; the enemy will almost certainly cast something on it if they can. (Thanks to Tyrando) - No longer true as of the Scout remake

If you're Wildsoul, pick the Illusion rune up with your Booboo. The illusions can proc Entangle, which strongly increases Entangle chance. (Thanks to Mardius) - no longer true; I don't know when this was changed.

If you're Legionnaire, your Illusions will have the full spinning ability with unreduced damage. You can either use these illusions to grab extra gold in the jungle or use it in a gank when your enemy is standing foolishly close to his creeps for triple spins. (Thanks to b3erserker)

If you pick up Illusion with Insanitarius activated, your Illusions gain strength bonus without the adverse HP draining effect. (Thanks to b3erserker)

If you pick up Illusion with Accursed, his ultimate will activate on the Illusions when their HP drops under the threshold, which is 400 I believe. (Thanks to Irysa)

If you pick up Illusion with Magebane, all his Illusions gain full Mana Combustion with level equal to the original hero's Mana Combustion. You can use these in a fight or gank for triple mana burn. (Thanks to ElementUser)

You can pick it up with Malphas, which spawns two more Malphai. (Thanks to EvilRebel for correcting my obvious grammatical error! Plural for Malphas is not Malphases.)

In a gank, you could block the enemy hero from running with your Illusions - a very advanced technique. To do this effectively, select your hero (The real one) and rightclick the enemy so that your hero chases and attacks. Select the Illusion, and put it in behind your opponent and micromanage it so that when he tries to run he will be blocked by it. (Thanks to CoolChris) This is a very effective technique in DotA; however I'm very uncertain as to whether it can be used to great effect in HoN as the collision size for the heroes definitely feels smaller (It's damn hard to creepblock in HoN compared to DotA).

Also, you can use an Illusion to pretend to be in your lane while you're actually missing and pull off an unexpected gank. (Thanks to evotech)

Lategame, picking up an Illusion rune increases DPS output as well as giving protection against single-target spells (Your opponents will not know which to target).

Countering Rune-Whores

Nothing is more frustrating when you've spent all your mana harassing someone and they just drink their Bottle to heal - and then they grab the rune to refill their Bottle! Grabbing a rune every two minutes is amazing early game if you're solo mid.

So how do you counter people who do this?

The obvious method is to rune-whore yourself if you're in solo mid. It always helps to have vision on the runespots via Wards, Scout's Eyes or Keeper of the Forest's Trees.

Deny your opponent the runes as often as you can - around twenty seconds before the rune spawns, start autoattacking and if needed throw some spells at the creeps to push them towards the opponent's side. Once your opponent's creeps are dead and your creeps are now by the opponent's tower, run backwards up your ramp towards your tower and head for a runespot. Because your creeps are now on the opponent's side of the lane you'll be able to see if they head towards a runespot too whereas they have to guess that you're going to pick up a rune (And they can't do anything about it) or they'll think you're just retreated because you pushed too far.

However denying your opponents runes involves a lot of luck too. If you head for a runespot and it doesn't spawn there, then bad luck. If it's daytime, make sure you're not actually down inside the runespot; stand on top of the ramp (Where you can see it if it spawns). This way if the rune doesn't spawn there, you at least have the chance to quickly run to the other one if your opponent is still busy fighting your creeps off his side of the lane.

An excellent anti-runewhore method is to have a flying Courier hovering over one runespot. You have to keep alert though, because it has to be right on top of the runespot or you won't be able to see the rune, but that also means that your opponents can see it - make sure that if it's getting attacked, you turn its shield on and move it to safety.

Before the each rune spawn mark, head for the runespot your courier is not at. If it spawns there, great, take it. If it spawns at the one where your courier is, head for it and take it if you can - but if your opponent gets there first, take the rune with the courier, thus denying him the rune.


Original place: Heroes of Newerth Forum