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4 Tips for Beginning Players in Heroes of Newerth

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I just got into the Heroes of Newerth beta and I am having immense fun with it. I don't have any invites (yet), but I figured I would share what I have found out what works best for getting started. What I have is four easy tips for beginning players in Heroes of Newerth/DoTA. I am by no means a "pro" player but by sticking to these tips I have been doing pretty good while playing HoN beta. This isn't the end all for info, just a good idea to get beginning players on their feet with Heroes of Newerth beta.

Heroes of Newerth Tip #1: Don't Die!

Now this may see like a pretty straightforward tip at first, but if you aren't careful, you will end up dead pretty quick. Dying means that you are out of the fight for an amount of time which increases with your level, but worse, the enemy gets bonus gold and xp for killing you.  That means the enemy team will out level you very quickly if you die alot as well get good items faster than you.  If your team ever tells you "stop feeding" it means you need to hang back a good distance because you're letting the enemy team "feed" off your hero by killing it repeatedly.  Soak xp from a safe distance, hang with the rest of your team, just don't go anywhere alone at that point because the enemy team has marked you as an easy target.

• Run Away from any fights in early levels; Err on the side of caution, it is much smarter to just run away to fight another day than give the enemy team a free kill. This also means to not over extend your self when chasing an enemy hero into their territory; that quickly leads to your ass being handed to you-- unless you have your teammates nearby to support you, and even then, caution is key because the rest of their team could be right around the corner if you can't see them on your minimap elsewhere.  A final note on this subject... tradeoffs are not worth it.  If you aren't sure who is going to win an encounter, or you think you will win by a small margin, it is better to just run because chances are while you're fighting they have a teammate coming to clean you up even if you win 1v1.
• Learn what each Hero can do: This is a hard one since the best way to learn is to play each of the heroes; only then will you know what kind of abilities that enemy hero is going to bring on your head. Reading about them only gives you part of the picture.  Try to play a different hero every time; Personally, I love playing Single Draft games since it gives you a random Agil/Int/Str hero to choose from;  It also makes the game more interesting
• Stay behind your own creeps.  In the early game, stand near the action but don't be involved all the time. Try not to make yourself an easy target for enemy heroes. If you stay behind your creeps (more in tip #2) you get XP just for being about one screen width away when things die (keep in mind there is absolutely no benefit to attacking an enemy creep except for the very last hit on it). Don't worry too much for now about trying to get last hits until you're more aware of what your opponents can do to you while you're rushing their creeps (nukes, stuns of their own).  Survival is key and getting hit by enemy creeps makes you much easier for the enemy to kill.  Even if you don't die, running back to base to heal up will cost xp you would have gained staying in your lane with your creeps.
• Stay by your own Towers. Try to keep the action near your towers but not on top of them (your tower will likely kill enemy creeps before you can get last hits on them).  In the early levels  enemy heroes will get severely hurt by your towers, so there is less chance they will be willing to gank you if you stick near them and retreat often. This leads into Heroes of Newerth tip #2

Heroes of Newerth Tip #2: Don't Tank Creeps/Towers.

This may not seem obvious at first, but you don't have to severely damage the enemy creeps to get XP and gold; in fact it is usually best to not even auto attack them.

• Early Levels: Tanking enemy creeps (getting hit by them) is a sure way to get ganked by the other team. The creeps do a lot of damage since you don't have many items yet for more hp / hp regen, etc... and it may cause you to lose lots of xp due to running away to heal, even if you don't get ganked.
• You still get XP: It may not sound intuitive, but you will still get XP from your creeps killing the enemies.  Your Hero will get experience from roughly 1 screen away from the action.  To figure out the range at which you can get XP, turn on the Show XP option in the Options panel of Heroes of Newerth.
• Let the Creeps fight each other: If you let the creeps duke it out for themselves they will meet in the middle and the action will not progress farther up the lane. This is beneficial to you, since you can try and keep the action going nearer to your tower (and thus stay safer).  You should try to work on last hitting (gold and denies)  while the creeps duke it out.(Heroes of Newerth Tip #4)

Heroes of Newerth Tip #3: Don't buy worthless items for your Hero.

So how do you know what to buy?  Read hero guides at the HoN beta forum if you're a participant.  Pay attention when selecting your hero to what their main stat is (Agility, Strength, Intelligence), but be aware most heroes do not buy the same items even if they have the same primary statistic.  Also keep in mind that the only bonus you get from boosting your primary stat is additional auto attack damge, which may or may not help you based on your hero.

• If you don't know, ask! Your team could be helpful even in a public game.  If you are at a point where you have gold for some items, ask your team and they should be able to help out a bit.  Buying the wrong item just plain sucks (though you can sell them back for a partial refund).  A safe buy for most heroes' early game survivability is 2x Pretenders Crown as they buff your max hp and mp a bit, then the Marchers (run speed increase) next after you get more money.
• Get Items That Complement Your Skills, Not Your Primary Stat: Typically the most powerful part of your hero is your special skills that you improve as you gain levels, so sometimes you may want to ignore adding +Int to an Int character in favor of +mp/hp regen so that you can spam more nukes (though Int does boost your mana pool and base regen) and make less trips back to heal up.   You may never actually use your autoattack in the late game depending on your hero, so the value of stacking your primary stat varies greatly from game to game.
• It takes time to Learn Build orders: No way around it, it takes time to learn good build orders for skills and items to buy.  Plus, it completely depends on what hero you are using.  Ask more experienced DoTA/Heroes of Newerth players what the best build order is for your hero.  Remember, you can bring up the Shop menu ANYWHERE by pressing B on your keyboard so if you're hugging a tower while waiting for enemy creeps to come to you, you can browse the items in the game and figure out what you want to buy in what order.  However, you can only purchase items if you're at the fountain or secret shop / outpost.

Heroes of Newerth Tip #4: Last Hits and Denies

Last but not least in this mini guide to Heroes of Newerth is Last Hits and Denies. Last Hits mean YOU kill the creep and get the gold for the kill. Deny means to deny the gold/XP to the enemy by getting the last hit on your own creeps (hit "a" then left click the one you want to deny, right click won't work).

• Don't Auto Attack: Your hero will automatically attack units in range (like creeps.. this is called Auto Attacking). This is a bad thing to do and you should click back and forth to keep your hero in motion instead of attacking.  Alternatively, you can "hold position" by hitting "h" with a melee hero, but make sure you pay attention to what the enemy heroes are doing while you're standing still.
• Denies: You finish your own creeps and toewrs to deny your enemy experience and gold, and thus giving you an advantage even if you can't kill them yet.  You can only attack your own Creeps when they are at 50% or lower health. To show the health of everything on the screen: Hit the single quote button ' on your keyboard. You have to do this every time you launch Heroes of Newerth.
• Last Hits: When you last hit, you get the gold from the kill. This applies to towers, creeps, and enemy heroes.  This is how you earn more gold to buy items, etc. This will give you a huge advantage when playing Heroes of Newerth.
• Timing is Key! This takes a bit to prefect, since if you attack to early, the enemy will get the kill or deny. If you know the health, you just need to practice your timing as each hero has slightly different animations and attack speeds. You should be practicing this (and not Auto Attacking!) while at your tower. Since creep waves are ALWAYS equal to each other, any interference from players make the creep wave move up/down a lane. Auto attacking makes it so your wave will move down the lane and could make you vulnerable to being ganked as you get farther away from your own towers.

Thats it for Heroes of Newerth Tips; Again, this is not the end all/be all of advice and strategy for Heroes of Newerth, but it is a great start for beginning players. With these tips and advice for Heroes of Newerth, you can play and not feel like you are getting destroyed all the time. If you come across any great tips you think I should put into this Beginners Guide to Heroes of Newerth, just leave a comment, email me, or send me a Tweet on Twitter!.

Update: 7-23-09

Next Heroes of Newerth patch is expected either today or tomorrow, should include new hero Maliken, clan support, pub skill rating and one new 2 lane map. I have gotten some Heroes of Newerth Beta keys to give away; head to the article to get yours!

Update: 7-28-09
Patch 0.1.30 is expected to be released today! New heroes, clan functionality, pub skill rating, shop redo and game list filtering