Heroes Of Newerth Intelligence / Characters

This is part of the character sheet for Heroes of Newerth. This page contains Intelligence heroes.

Agility | Intelligence | Strength

Aluna

Legion Intelligence

Chain Lightning: Emerald Lightning hits the target and the 3 closest enemies to the target.
Eyepatch of Power: Stardust Aluna covers her left eye with a scouter.
My Name Is Inigo Montoya, Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: When attacking, she might introduce herself with "I! AM! ALUNA!"
Reluctant Warrior: Spirit Warrior Aluna prefers to spend her time playing with the creatures of the forest, but is forced to fight when the Hellbourne scourge began sweeping across the land.

Artesia

Hellbourne Intelligence

Anti-Villain: All she wanted is just to reunite with her lover. However, her lines show no restriction in inflicting despair and chaos to whoever crosses her path.
Hope Spot: Much like Thunderbringer, she can induce this. Her ultimate, Essence Projection, has global cast range. So if an enemy retreat in battle, she can just simply plant them on the retreat route, then kill them en route home.
Hot Witch: Artesia is a gorgeous blonde sorceress whose costume shows off her midriff and thighs.
Lady of Black Magic: A haunted, vengeful sorceress who unleashes arcane bolts and energy projections against enemies.
Navel Window: Yuanri's dress is cut at the specific spot to show her belly button.
Pirate Girl: Artesia's Corsair avatar is dressed like a pirate.
Spam Attack: Her abilities notoriously has low cooldowns, and Dance of Death can lower the cooldowns even further.
Stripperiffic: Her outfit exposes her upper chest, belly, and legs.
To Hell and Back: Her lore depicts her as such.

Blacksmith

Legion Intelligence

Black Mage: Two of Blacksmith's three active abilities deal magic damage, and the other boosts the damage output of his teammates.
Dual Wielding: Two hammers.
Expy: Of Defense of the Ancients' Ogre Magi.
Kung-Fu Wizard: Blacksmith is a melee Intelligence hero, and has enough durability to take hits and retaliate accordingly.
Large Ham: OH YES!
Mythology Gag: The Ogre Blacksmith Alt Avatar calls back to Blacksmith's original incarnation, Ogre Magi in DotA.
Playing with Fire: Two of Blacksmith's skills (Fireball and Flaming Hammer) deal with fire and fire magic.
Random Number God: Blacksmith's ultimate, Chaotic Flames, gives him a chance of "multicasting" his spells and item actives, essentially casting the same spell in rapid succession for little to no increase in mana cost (depending on the specific spell). Given enough luck, Blacksmith can nuke down frail heroes with a 4x Fireball or buff his entire team with a single Frenzy.
Simple, yet Awesome: A simple, yet effective moveset combined with huge base HP and high armor makes him very newbie-friendly.
Spam Attack: Chaotic Flames in a nutshell. Even discounting it, Blacksmith's Fireball only has a cooldown of 6 seconds, letting him belt out a constant barrage of nukes.
Squishy Wizard: Downplayed. Blacksmith has high innate durability and good Strength growth comparable to many Strength heroes, as well as a Healing Factor that overall make him one of the tankiest heroes in the early game. Not so much in the late game though, where he is only slightly less squishy than most Intelligence supports since enemy cores are farmed while Blacksmith usually has to spend his meagre farm on utility instead of durability items.
Super-Toughness: Blacksmith boasts an obscene amount of base armor right from level 1 and is incredibly durable in the early game.
Weapons of Their Trade: A blacksmith who wields a pair of hammers.

Bombardier

Legion Intelligence

Bubbles

Legion Intelligence

Black Mage: Bubbles' playstyle revolves around jumping right into the entire enemy team, causing as much chaos and dealing as much damage as possible before getting away unharmed.
Confusion Fu: A good player can use Shell Surf to confuse the enemy about Bubbles' location - like throwing a shell and moving in the opposite direction, forcing the enemies to split up because Bubbles may or may not warp to it. And then Portal Key, a core item for Bubbles, further adds to this.
Expy: Of Defense of the Ancients' Puck.
Fashionable Asymmetry: Aquarius' chiton is draped over her left shoulder and doesn't cover her right one.
Flash Step: His Shell Surf skill deals damage in a straight line and allows Bubbles to teleport himself in the middle of the orb's trajectory.
Fragile Speedster: Bubbles is one of the most mobile and maneuverable heroes in the game; a player with quick reflexes can easily dodge otherwise lethal projectiles with Take Cover. But with one of the worst Strength stats in the game, Bubbles can be easily taken down with one or two strong nukes if caught out of position, or become stranded if silenced in the middle of a combo.
Hot Consort: Noppamas Bubbles is the queen consort of her kingdom and has a great body.
Power Nullifier: Enemies hit by Song of the Sea are silenced for a few seconds, rendering them easy prey for Bubbles' other skills and his teammates.
Sadistic Choice: When hit by Kelp Field, you have a tough choice to make - stay in one spot and let the enemy blow you up with their AoE spells while taking heavy damage over time, or try to flee and be stunned? Either way, the end result is usually messy.
Some Dexterity Required: Bubbles requires extremely quick reflexes to make the most of its abilities, as players will have to juggle a minimum of five different abilities to be casted in a precise order and within a short period of time, and often as many as eight or nine, all while being ready to instantly change the combo order in case something goes awry (on top of all these abilities having between no to extremely short cast animations). Played properly and equipped with enough mobility items, Puck can jump onto the enemy with no warning, disable them with Song of the Sea and/or Kelp Field, dodge all of their spells with Take Cover, all the while jumping away with an Shell Surf.
Squishy Wizard: While Bubbles can be extremely hard to pin down, being silenced or chain-stunned will usually result in an easy kill if caught while initiating.
Status Infliction Attack: Song of the Sea silences all enemies in its radius for a few seconds.
Surprisingly Sudden Death: Bubbles is a decent Codex user due to its high mobility; with Codex, it can jump onto enemies and unload roughly 1500 points of magical damage within a second. This also means that, when initiating a fight, Bubbles can instantly turn the engagement into a 4v5 by nuking down the squishiest enemy before getting out.
Teleport Spam: Bubbles can teleport to the projectile fired by Shell Surf, allowing for quick escapes or initiates, and almost always builds a Portal Key.

Circe

Hellbourne Intelligence

Evil Redhead: Circe's default avatar is red-haired.
Navel-Deep Neckline: In Dewi Sri's artwork, she wears two rice plants which shows everything between her neck and her navel, though her in-game model covers her up with a strapless boobtube.
Snake People: Dewi Sri has the upper half of a woman and the lower half of a snake, with six snake heads in place of a tail.

Defiler

Hellbourne Intelligence

Black Mage: All of her spells are offensive to some degree.
Destroyer Deity: Kali the Destroyer is the Hindu goddess of death who seeks to show the daemons what divine slaughter looks like.
Evil Knockoff: According to her bio, Chaos Realm Kali is a spirit of Chaos who embodies Kali and uses her power.
Expy: Of Defense of the Ancients' Death Prophet
Fan Disservice: Defiler's default avatar combines a low neckline and considerable bust with rotting flesh, a creepy face, and unnatural movement.
Hand-or-Object Underwear: Instead of clothing, Chaos Realm Kali simply covers her breasts with her lower pair of arms at all times, while Kali the Destroyer uses her huge skull necklace.
Hit-and-Run Tactics: Defiler is one of the best kiting heroes in the game thanks to Siphon Soul and Unholy Expulsion which slowly wear down enemies near her, and her build which consists of items like Ghost Marchers and Stormspirit.
Life Drain: Siphon Soul transfers health from the target(s) to Defiler. Unholy Expulsion spirits heal Defiler in proportion to the damage dealt when they return to her.
Lightning Bruiser: For an Intelligence hero, she is surprisingly tanky with her high Strength growth and healing from Siphon Soul and Unholy Expulsion, the former of which also boosts her movement speed.
Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Most of her avatars have more than one pair of arms.
Percent Damage Attack: The healing dealt by Siphon Soul scales with the target's max HP.
Power Nullifier: She can use Grave Silence to prevent enemies from using skills.
Spam Attack: Wave of Death has an extremely short cooldown and is fairly cheap mana-wise. Early game it can be used both to farm and harass, late game it is a very good pushing tool, able to clear creep waves extremely quickly.
Walking Shirtless Scene: Kali the Destroyer and Chaos Realm Kali are technically not wearing any clothing above the waist.

Demented Shaman

Hellbourne Intelligence

Chainmail Bikini: Battle Armor Athena wears a strapless metal bra, helmet, and greaves, in addition to a loincloth and buckler. This especially stands in contrast to Goddess Armor Athena (described to be her non-combat attire) who dresses much more modestly.
Combat Medic: Healing Wave heals a number of friendly units near the target, and deals damage in an area around them.
Combination Attack: Storm Cloud is ridiculously good when partnered with right-click damage dealers. Demented Shaman can also combo with himself, as both of his offensive spells deal physical damage instead of magical damage.
Damage-Increasing Debuff: Storm Cloud causes enemies in its area to constantly lose armor during the duration.
Defog of War: Storm Cloud grants vision around the targeted point for 3 seconds. With its big AoE and long cast range it can be used to (somewhat) safely check Kongor's pit from afar or scout high ground, and the cooldown is low enough that it is usually okay to "waste" it.
Expy: Of Defense of the Ancients' Dazzle
Herd-Hitting Attack: Inverted and played straight with Healing Wave. Since each allied unit healed can inflict up to 140 Physical damage in an area around themselves when hit with the spell, the damage can be applied multiple times, meaning that if Demented Shaman and 8 friendly units are standing next to an enemy, that enemy can potentially take up to 980 Physical damage from a single cast (1400 with the appropriate talent and further increased to 1700 with Staff of the Master), before even factoring in Storm Cloud. And since it's an AoE spell, this damage can potentially be applied to multiple enemies, every 4 seconds.
Last Chance Hit Point: Unbreakable places a 5 second buff on an ally that heals them when they take damage that would be fatal.
Magic Knight: His starting damage is quite high for a support hero, and all his spells deal Physical damage, meaning magic resistance or magic immunity don't protect against it. Properly geared, he can easily shred enemy armor down into negative levels and thus increases his overall damage. Combined with his great attack animation and high base damage, he's a viable mid hero and can even carry with the right team/items.
Ms. Fanservice: Obviously averted normally because Demented Shaman is a man. Played straight by two of his female Alt Avatars, Battle Armor Athena and Songkran Athena. Battle Armor Athena turns "him" into a woman clad in skimpy "armor" that show her thighs, midriff, and bare shoulders. Songkran Athena is an even bigger example, wearing only a strapless bikini top and very short skirt that leave very little to the imagination, in addition to being very beautiful.
Navel Outline: In her artwork (but not her in-game model), Winter Shaman's navel is clearly discernible under her form-fitting leotard.
Parrot Pet Position: An owl sits on Battle Armor Athena and Goddess Armor Athena's shoulder.
Pinball Projectile: Healing Wave bounces off allies, healing them while dealing damage to nearby enemies.
The Red Mage: Demented Shaman is both capable of keeping his allies and himself from dying, causing his foes to waste time in a fruitless endeavour, as well as delivering a huge damage output with Healing Wave and Storm Cloud when good positioning comes to play.
Stripperiffic: Demented Witch, Battle Armor Athena and Songkran Athena's outfits all expose a lot of skin, especially Songkran Athena (who wears just a strapless bikini top and very short skirt).
Underboobs: Demented Witch's top leaves the lower third of her breasts exposed.

Doctor Repulsor

Hellbourne Intelligence

Achilles' Heel: Due to his frailty and reliance on his ultimate to initiate (as well as most of his damage output coming from his spells), Doctor Repulsor can become very easy prey if he's silenced in the middle of a gank, or runs out of mana in the wrong place.
Death of a Thousand Cuts: Each individual Electric Frenzy attack deals a pitiful amount of damage (comparable to damage-over-time spells), but it's possible to proc it on every right-click if you can cast a spell between each attack. Used properly, it can lay down a surprising amount of damage over a few seconds, comparable to many higher-tier damage nukes, and this isn't even counting the physical damage from the attacks or any additional magical damage from casting Magnetic Contraption and Ludicrous Speed.
Dynamic Entry: Ludicrous Speed allows Doctor Repulsor to travel vast distances and initiate on heroes who aren't aware that he's in the area.
Expy: Of Defense of the Ancients' Storm Spirit. However, as of late, Repulsor differentiated himself with a new style.
Fragile Speedster: He is one of the fastest and most mobile heroes in the game, capable of travelling over impassable terrain at will to initiate and escape ganks. On the other hand, Doctor Repulsor is not a tanky hero with his low Strength. If he can't zip out, he dies.
Great Escape: Ludicrous Speed makes Doctor Repulsor extremely hard to pin down without silences. A gank has to either keep him locked down while it finishes him off, or burn all his mana reserves out, not an easy feat when he's always building mana regeneration.
Hunter of His Own Kind: Doctor Repulsor is a squishy, high-mobility hero that specializes in hunting down other squishy, high-mobility heroes, as Ludicrous Speed lets him initiate on them from far outside their effective range and easily chase them down if they try to escape, while his other abilities let him hold the target in place and burst them down.
Invulnerable Attack: Ludicrous Speed temporarily turns Doctor Repulsor invulnerable when he's zipping.
Magikarp Power: Doctor Repulsor starts the game as a ranged hero with moderate right-click damage and a nuke that is essentially melee-ranged, and is very vulnerable to enemy supports ganking the mid lane until he hits level 6. Without many items he won't do much in a teamfight besides flying short distances and throwing out mildly annoying but not very strong Electric Frenzy right-clicks and the occasional Opposite Charges. That said, once he gets 2 big items (usually Icon of the Goddess and Hellflower), his extreme mobility allows him to deprive the enemy of their jungle, easily eat supports and compete with other carries by his ability to engage/disengage at will and outplay them in general (zipping away when the other team pops their Shrunken Heads or ultimates, or quickly picking someone off before they have a chance to get their skills off).
Some Dexterity Required: While simply using Ludicrous Speed to initiate and then hitting the target with an Electric Frenzy attack can be relatively straightforward, it takes careful management of your spells and split-second timing in order to make the most of your attacks, since you want to attack after casting a spell and you never want to cast two spells without an attack inbetween.
Spam Attack: Doctor Repulsor's playstyle revolves around spamming the very cheap Magnetic Contraption and zapping around the battlefield with Ludicrous Speed as frequently as possible to take advantage of Electric Frenzy.
Spell Blade: Electric Frenzy causes Doctor Repulsor to deal bonus magic damage on the next auto-attack he uses after casting a spell. While each individual attack doesn't do much, Magnetic Contraption has an extremely low cooldown (and Ludicrous Speed has none), meaning that with the right combo it's possible to drop upwards of a thousand magical damage on a target in the span of a few seconds.
Squishy Wizard: Doctor Repulsor's starting Strength and Strength growth are atrocious, meaning that he'll go down fast if caught out of position without mana.
Super-Speed: When using Ludicrous Speed, Doctor Repulsor can move at a ludicrous 3500 speed.
Surprisingly Sudden Death: Once Doctor Repulsor gets at least Icon of the Goddess and Hellflower, most supports become no more than food to feed him. He can simply jump in from the fog with Ludicrous Speed, use Hellflower to make his prey hapless, then use his combo and the support in question is more than likely already dead.
You Will Not Evade Me: Downplayed with Opposite Charges: while it does pull the target towards Doctor Repulsor's position, the cast range is quite short (so Doctor Repulsor has to be fairly near the target at the first place) and the distance in which the target is dragged is even shorter.

Ellonia

Legion Intelligence

Navel-Deep Neckline: Black Ice Ellonia's dress has a very low-cut top extending to her belly.
Winter Royal Lady: Ellonia is the Frost Queen, ruler of the great Forstfields of the north.

Empath

Legion Intelligence

Chainmail Bikini: Her Emerald Alt Avatar's outfit looks more like a set of armor than the default while still revealing a lot of skin, including midriff and legs.
Earthy Barefoot Character: Gaia, a manifestation of the planet itself, goes in battle barefoot.
Garden Garment:
- In the Legion jungle, Gaia assumes her grass form and covers her naughty bits with leaves.
- Nang Tani's entire outfit is made out of banana leaves.
Flaming Hair: Gaia's hair burns with fire in the Hellbourne jungle.
Mother Nature: Gaia is the mother of Newerth, the ethereal, intangible spirit of the world made flesh.
Ms. Fanservice:
- Empath's default avatar wears a skimpy bra whose cups aren't connected at the front, a G-string, hood, skirt, and thigh-high boots. More prominent in the Chinese client where she gets a more detailed model and beautiful face.
- Her Emerald Alt Avatar shows even more skin by wearing high heels instead of thigh-high boots as well as a transparent skirt which leaves her butt visible.
- And then there's Gaia, who wears a bigger skirt from behind... and also forgoes her hood and boots altogether, and only covers her breasts with leaves or rocks.
- Yet other scantily-clad Alt Avatars are Nang Tani, who only wraps banana leaves around her naughty bits, and Overly Attached Empath, who wears a strapless boobtube and short shorts.
Navel-Deep Neckline: Her bra has a gap in the middle, which becomes this trope when combined with her bared midriff. Much more clear on the Chinese client's more detailed model.
Sexy Backless Outfit: Gaia's top consists of two leaves or rocks (depending on where she stands) which covers her breasts and nothing else.
Thong of Shielding: All right, um... nice G-String, Miss Empath?

Fayde

Hellbourne Intelligence

Black Bra and Panties: Glorious Fayde strides into battle wearing black lingerie.
Chainmail Bikini: Red Mist Fayde wears what amounts to a metal microkini.
Fog Feet: Reaper, one of her Alt Avatars, has a misty haze for a lower body.
The Grim Reaper: The Reaper of Hell's Keep looks the part of a scythe-wielding hooded figure, rules the shadows of the city, and at the height of her power she will seek to overshadow all of Newerth.
I Have No Son!: From her bio, Comtessa Raze was disowned by her family by pledging to fight for the Legion, since they "saw their blood was much too precious to waste upon a filthy battlefield".
Ms. Fanservice: Fayde's default appearance and a LOT of her Alt Avatars wear very skimpy thongs that leave most of their buttocks on display. Additionally:
- Her default appearance also emphasizes her cleavage. Even more of the case with Persephone and her neckline which dips to her belly button.
- Red Mist Fayde replaces her default bodice with a metal bra that does a good job at showing off her rather large chest and also exposes her midriff.
- Glorious Fayde's outfit is just black lingerie.
- Gypsy Fayde's panties are super small and only cover what absolutely must NOT be exposed.
Navel-Deep Neckline: Comtessa Raze's dress features a neckline that plunges to the upper third of her belly. Persephone's neckline plunges even deeper.
Thong of Shielding: Fayde, Trophy Fayde, Glorious Fayde, Red Mist Fayde, Gypsy Fayde, and Persephone all wear very narrow thongs which only cover the absolute minimum of their buttocks.

Geomancer

Hellbourne Intelligence

Expy: Averted! Despite the same class name, he has nothing similar with Defense of the Ancients' own Geomancer, Meepo.

Glacius

Hellbourne Intelligence

Black Mage: Aside from his passive aura, all of Glacius's spells deal damage to enemies.
Death or Glory Attack: Glacial Downpour is tremendously powerful, capable of dominating teamfights by itself; however, it's also a channeling spell, rendering the already-squishy Glacius completely defenseless for its duration. As a result, when Glacial Downpour is cast, it will generally either completely wreck the enemy team or get Glacius killed immediately.
Difficult, but Awesome: Glacial Downpour costs a lot of mana and requires impeccable positioning to be effective: because it's a channelled spell, it can easily be broken with a stun or silence, and since Glacius is so squishy it might continue to be a problem even after he gets Shrunken Head. However, it deals incredibly high damage and has good secondary effects as well, allowing it to absolutely wreck teamfights if pulled correctly.
Exposed to the Elements: Female Glacius wears a cropped top and no pants, despite hailing from the tundra of Frostfield.
Expy: Of Defense of the Ancients' Crystal Maiden. As an old man.
Field Power Effect: Chilling Presence boosts the mana regen of all allied heroes globally, and is doubled on Glacius (although it doesn't stack with percentage-based mana regen items). At max level, it effectively equals using Sorcery Boots on them every time it's off cooldown, globally, which allows all friendly heroes to cast their spells more frequently (particularly non-Intelligence heroes who have small mana pools and low mana-cost spells). Even with only one or two levels, it can give teammates an edge during laning since they'll almost always have enough mana to cast a spell when they need to, meaning they don't have to spend their starting gold on Mana Potions.
Glass Cannon: A well-positioned Glacial Downpour, if left to channel for its full duration, might potentially wipe out the entire enemy team (or at least bring them down to critically low HP) - a remarkable feat for a starved hard support like Glacius. On the other hand, so much as sneeze on him and he's dead.
Harmless Freezing: While Ice Imprisonment does deal damage, it's mostly incidental next to the disable, which lets allied heroes wail on the helpless target.
Heel–Face Revolving Door: Started as Hellbourne. Then becomes Legion. Then Hellbourne again for good.
Hostile Weather: Glacius's ultimate, Glacial Downpour, creates an explosive hailstorm that damages and slows any enemies within a certain radius of him. While it's channeled and the explosions hit in random places, a total of 100 explosions happen over the course of the ability, and each individual explosion can be as powerful as Tundra Blast, meaning that if left uninterrupted, almost anything caught within range will die if they don't run for cover.
An Ice Person: All of his abilities involve ice in some form.
Sexy Backless Outfit: Snow Queen Shiva's outfit doesn't cover her back one bit.
Squishy Wizard: Glacius is notorious for being one of the easiest heroes in the game to kill because of his low Strength and Agility, both base and gain per level (meaning very little HP and armor), having no escape abilities, and his awful base 275 movement speed. It's very common to build Strength items on him just so that he doesn't (literally) melt in the first two seconds of a teamfight.

Gravekeeper

Hellbourne Intelligence

Hellbringer

Hellbourne Intelligence

Mini-Mecha: Battlebringer's equivalent of Malphas (called Zenith) is a mecha half again as tall as she is.
Sorcerous Overlord: The Jade Empress's desire for power and access to ancient secrets of the eastern sorcerers have guided her to studying the dark arts.

Kinesis

Legion Intelligence

Walking Shirtless Scene: Kinesis's default avatar is completely shirtless.

Martyr

Legion Intelligence

Desperation Attack: Retribution does more damage and slows for more the less health you have.
Heroic Sacrifice: Obviously.
- My Death Is Just the Beginning: Sacrificial Lamb buffs all surrounding allies' attack speed and movement speed after you die.
- Taking the Bullet: Guardian Angel redirects a percentage of all damage received by the target to you.
Martyrdom Culture
Stone Wall: With all the self-sacrificing that you're going to be doing, building for this is mandatory.
Throw the Book at Them: Basic attack.
Vapor Wear: Virgo is clearly not wearing a bra under her cloak.

Monarch

Legion Intelligence

Myrmidon

Hellbourne Intelligence

Making a Splash
Super Mode: His ultimate Forced Evolution buffs his stats and transforms him into a larger sea creature, turning his attacks into melee.
Token Evil Teammate: He makes no efforts to hide his lust for carnage when he was counted amongst the Legion heroes, making him the trope. Eventually Deconstructed that his true nature was discovered and he ditches the Legion for the Hellbourne, the place where he fits more.

Nymphora

Legion Intelligence

Combat Medic: She can heal allies near at her Volatile Pod and damage enemies near it as well.
Fertile Feet
Mass Teleportation: Her ultimate can send her—and her allies—if they were inside the circle formed by the skill.

Oogie

Legion Intelligence

Apologetic Attacker: One of his attack quotes is:
Oogie: This would hurt me more than it would hurt you!
Dishing Out Dirt: Tar Quake.
Don't Look At Me: He says that fearfully as if the player might hurt him.
Emergency Transformation: Running low in health? Better activate his Ultimate, Primal Surge. His transformation allows him to restore some damage he takes as mana, and he can gain health when he uses mana in that mode.
Equivalent Exchange: See the lore above. The price could be transformation into a crazy-looking warrior; or mana, mana, and MORE mana.
Lovable Coward
Playing with Fire: His Conflagrate.
Shrinking Violet: His quotes will convince you he is this, along with being a Lovable Coward.

Ophelia

Legion Intelligence

The Beastmaster: She can get creeps, including jungle and Ancient ones, to follow her with Holy Persuasion.
Can't Catch Up: The whole idea behind picking Ophelia is to invoke this trope on enemy heroes by snowballing your own team with ganks, tower pushes and a fast Kongor. However, if enemies can farm back up, Ophelia herself can be victim to this trope because of the near-total lack of scaling of her converted creeps.
Combat Medic: Ophelia's Touch heals all allied unit on the map.
Compelling Voice: Ophelia's signature skill, Command, converts creeps into her loyal followers.
Continuing is Painful: Because neutral camps are randomly generated, losing all of your jungle creeps generally means that you'll be forced to spend a lot of time to recruit all the creeps you need again.
Crutch Character: Early on, Ophelia and her creeps can gank enemy heroes and push down towers with ease - when most heroes haven't finished their core items yet, a single converted big creep can be nearly as powerful as themselves, and it's hard to resist a tower dive from Ophelia in this stage. However, the longer the game goes on, the less effective Ophelia becomes - Ophelia's Touch loses impact as enemies get more HP and damage items, while her creeps, which don't scale at all (aside from a HP boost from Command, which is almost always maxed at level 7), will be dying left and right because their HP are too low to survive teamfights, though this is alleviated somewhat by Nature's Wrath and Staff of the Master, which allows her to convert ancient creeps, mainly for their auras.
Difficult, but Awesome: Ophelia is one of the most micromanagement-reliant heroes in the game. Not only do you need to have a fairly good knowledge of control groups and a fair amount of prior jungling experience (to say nothing of the micromanagement required to actively use your converted creeps), but a good Ophelia player also needs to know which neutrals are worth converting, based on their various skills and auras, for specific situations. A good Ophelia, however, is one of the strongest and most versatile supports in the game, as she can rescue allies from ganks, buff teammates with her various monster auras, disable enemies at just the opportune time, or heal her entire team with her ultimate.
Elite Army: Even though Ophelia's creeps are fairly weak and easily killed, they're generally treated as valuable due to being able to give your team additional capabilities. On top of that, losing a creep means not only that you just fed the enemy free gold and experience, but also that you have to go back into the jungle to find a replacement.
Expy: Of Defense of the Ancients' Chen
Fertile Feet
Field Power Effect: Ophelia doesn't carry any auras himself, but she can persuade creeps that do, allowing her to grant her team a variety of bonuses.
Great Escape: Casting Ophelia's Judgment on an allied hero at low health can save them in a situation where they would otherwise die to the enemy.
Monster Allies: Command coverts creeps into Ophelia's loyal followers.
Ms. Fanservice: Her bra, headdress, and loincloth cover her just enough to be called an "outfit".
Random Number God: Various aspects of Ophelia play revolves around how generous the rolls are to you.
- How well your jungling phase goes can really depend on what camps are spawned every minute, since that will determine the first creep that you convert. For instance, getting an early Screacher camp can greatly boost your jungling phase since you can use the Vulture Lord's Tornado to quickly clear a large camp that's been stacked a few times.
- Once you get past the laning stage, it can be tricky to get the exact creep that you need for a certain situation, since the only thing that determines which camp will spawn is that it won't be the same as the one that was occupying that camp before. This can be particularly punishing if you lost the Minotaur that you needed for a reliable 2-second area stun, and none of the camps spawn another Minotaur camp for several minutes.
The Red Mage: Ophelia can hinder enemies with Nature's Wrath, heal them with Ophelia's Touch and teleport them to safety with Ophelia's Judgment.
The Remnant: Ophelia's creeps can still carry on his work and even kill players when she's dead.
Royals Who Actually Do Something: As The Queen of the Beast Horde.
Some Dexterity Required: Controlling Ophelia? Easy enough. Microing Ophelia and an army of creeps, all with different abilities, while trying to keep everyone alive and getting maximum mileage out of all those abilities and keeping an eye on the minimap to decide when to drop Ophelia's Touch? Considerably more difficult.
Squishy Wizard: If the enemy can get past his converted creeps, they'll find Ophelia herself rather fragile and easy to kill.
Stone Wall: After she gets Staff of the Master, Ophelia can control even Ancient creeps with Command. Though by the time window when he can afford it, they can't do much damage anymore, they are still very hard to kill thanks to their huge HP pool.
Stripperiffic
Teleportation: Ophelia's Judgment allows Ophelia to teleport her creeps to her location and friendly heroes to the fountain. This can be used to yank an allied hero away from danger, or bring her creeps back to her when she uses a Homecoming Stone or Post Haste.
Weaksauce Weakness: While Ophelia's creeps can be quite powerful in the right hands, they can become easy prey against abilities that can instantly kill creeps. This means that Ophelia can become helpless against Alchemist's Bones, Tempest's Elemental, and so on. This weakness can be alleviated by getting Staff of the Master, since Ancient creeps are immune to most of these abilities.

Parasite

Hellbourne Intelligence

Body Horror: Parasite's body itself.
- And then, Imagine being infested with Parasite, with it being inside and controlling you. Nightmares form.
Facepalm of Doom: The Facehug skill.
Grand Theft Me: Only applied for neutral and enemy creeps only.
Puppeteer Parasite
Seven Deadly Sins: One of which, Envy... is embodied in his alternate avatar Envy Parasite.

Pearl

Legion Intelligence

Bubble Gun: On a staff that looks like a bubble maker.
Bubble Shield: Her ultimate creates a huge bubble shield that pushes away enemies when it's created and blocks all damage from attacks outside of the bubble.
Combat Medic: Soothing Presence heals nearby allies passively and/or actively while as she supports in combat.
- Her Preservation heals HP per second while allied units are inside and engaging enemies outside of the large bubble.
Girlish Pigtails
Last of Her Kind: Sadly, Maliken killed every single bubble mage except this poor cute girl.
Pint-Sized Powerhouse
Token Mini-Moe

Plague Rider

Hellbourne Intelligence

Glass Cannon: While Plague Rider is very squishy and easy to kill, his Contagion nuke does a lot of damage and has a very low cooldown, allowing him to spam it. On top of that, Plague Carrier can deal massive amounts of damage to crowded enemies, making it one of the most feared ultimates in the game.
Human Resources: Plague Rider's Extinguish ability instantly kills a friendly creep and convert a percentage of its current HP into mana for him, as well as converting it into experience for any hero (regardless of team) within the XP gain radius.
An Ice Person: His Alt Avatar, Frost Rider. It is a homage to DotA's Lich, whom Plague Rider owes its stats from.
Mutual Disadvantage: Plague Rider has no control over Plague Carrier after it launches, so unless he buys Staff of the Master, heroes with summoned creeps or illusions can take much of the bite off his ultimate by having much of the damage be taken by them instead. On the other hand, after he gets Staff of the Master, it becomes much more difficult to split your minions up, because they can no longer eat the bounces for you.
Not the Intended Use: Plague Carrier can be cast on magic immune units. It doesn't actually damage them, but it will still continue to bounce. This means that a Plague Rider with Staff of the Master could lock down ancient camps and kill anybody who tries to farm them.
Pinball Projectile: Plague Carrier hits up to 10 enemies via bouncing if another enemy is close enough to it (buy Staff of the Master, and the bounces become unlimited as long as there's another target nearby). It's fairly common for a savvy Plague Rider to pull off multi-kills against gankers, or during teamfights.
Random Number God: Because Plague Carrier will bounce to random targets after each hit, you can get extremely varied results if there are more than two enemies within the bounce radius.
Run or Die: If Plague Rider buys Staff of the Master, Plague Carrier never stops bouncing until there's no one left to bounce to - in other words, until the enemy either scatters or gets annihilated.
Squishy Wizard: Plague Rider has very low Strength gain and can be squashed quite quickly if caught out of position.
Status Infliction Attack: Besides his nuking power, all of Plague Rider's active spells serve to slow the enemy's attack and movement speed. An enemy hero under the effects of the debuffs from Contagion and Plague Carrier will have their movement speed slowed by 60%.
Weaksauce Weakness:
- There are two ways to counter Plague Carrier: either walk into a group of allied or neutral creeps, as they will take some of the bounces, or run away from any allied units, which, done fast enough, may mean the spell won't be able to bounce even once. This means that to get the most use out of the ultimate, it is necessary to lock down the targets' movement speed and engage in an area without creeps.
- Without any other units in the area to bounce to, Plague Carrier becomes all but useless, just a simple one-time nuke that isn't even that strong, leaving him very vulnerable to a one-on-one situation.
Draco Lich: He rides one.
Expy: Of Defense of the Ancients' Lich
Herd-Hitting Attack: Plague Carrier. Expect to die if you're close to anything that it can bounce off of.
Plaguemaster
- Universal Poison: Works on everything from humans to undead treants to extradimensional beings.
- Poison Is Corrosive

Pollywog Priest

Legion Intelligence

Anti-Escape Mechanism: Between Morph, Tongue Tied, and Voodoo Wards, Pollywog Priest excels at locking down single targets.
Barrier Warrior: The Voodoo Wards are placed such that there is an empty spot in the middle of them. This is specifically designed such that, if you're good enough, you can drop the wards right on top of an enemy hero, which without a source of escape ability or phase, can box them in and render them helpless while the snakes blast at them.
Black Mage: Pollywog Priest is one of the very few heroes in the game with more than one hard disable, and he can deal good damage with his other two spells as well.
Expy: Of Defense of the Ancients' Shadow Shaman
Forced Transformation: He can turn enemies into a cute lil' bullfrog with his Morph skill. Ribbit...
Glass Cannon: Voodoo Wards is one of the most powerful pushing and teamfighting skills in the game, able to burst down heroes, towers and Kongor alike with their massive damage output. Combined with Electric Jolt, Pollywog Priest has great damage output in the mid-game, but he has one of the worst strength and movement speeds in the game, making him extremely easy to focus down and kill.
Multishot: Individual Voodoo Wards can fire at different targets than others, though this is more often a problem—you're dividing the overall damage. Unobservant Pollywog Priests can end up not getting their wards properly focused on a hero if there are a lot of creeps around, and end up allowing them to escape.
Overly-Long Tongue: He uses it to bind his target with the aptly named skill Tongue-tied.
Piñata Enemy: As dangerous as Pollywog Priest's Voodoo Wards ability is, the wards are only dangerous at relatively close range, against a limited number of enemies, and give decent gold when destroyed. Enemies with good attack speed and range like Flint Beastwood can wipe out the wards pretty quickly while not being in range of more than two or three at a time, if at all.
Shock and Awe: Electric Jolt uses some kind of magical electricity.
Squishy Wizard: His squishiness and lack of any escape mechanism is compounded by one of the slowest movement speeds in the game, meaning that he can melt very easily under fire.
Status Infliction Attack: Pollywog Priest is notable for having two hard disables (Morph and Tongue Tied), while most other heroes in the game do not or have only one reliable disable, making him one of the best roaming supports in the game.
The Turret Master: Voodoo Wards summons eight Voodoo Wards, which act like ranged turrets. When focused on one target, be it a hero or a building or anything else, they can deal large amounts of damage.

Prophet

Hellbourne Intelligence

Puppet Master

Hellbourne Intelligence

People Puppets: Makes enemy heroes be like this.
Voodoo Doll: His ultimate places a voodoo puppet on the ground, connected with targeted hero, and he and his allies can attack it, and the connected hero suffers as the doll is attacked.

Pyromancer

Legion Intelligence

Black Mage: Pyromancer's kit almost completely revolves around raw damage: three of his abilities are nukes, while the final one boosts his right-click attack.
Catchphrase: Whenever he uses his Ultimate skill Blazing Strike.
Pyromancer: "CATCH THIS!"
Difficult, but Awesome: Dragonfire is very tricky to land for new players, and his skills are almost entirely focused on raw damage, and he's very mana-hungry in the earlier game before his Fervor can optimally buff his right clicks. He can be an unholy terror in the right hands, but food in the wrong ones.
Expy: Of Defense of the Ancients' Lina.
Glass Cannon: At max level, his ultimate, Blazing Strike, deals the largest amount of burst magic damage in the game, beating out even Lion's Silver Bullet. Combine with his good intelligence growth and attack speed from Fervor, he can tear down enemy heroes quickly if his burst hasn't done so already. On the flip side, he's easy to put down if focused down by the other team.
Mage Marksman: Pyromancer's passive, Fiery Soul, ramps up his attack and movement speed the more spells he casts. This allows him to actually deal a surprising amount of physical damage for an Intelligence hero, so right-click items like Hypercrown and Frostwolf's Skull aren't uncommon on him.
Mirror Character: To Witch Slayer. Both are fearsome nukers with an ultimate capable of dealing massive damage to a single target. Compared to Witch Slayer, Pyromancer is a better carry, has higher damage output and scales better to the late game, but needs more levels and isn't as good of a disabler.
Playing with Fire: Nearly all of Pyromancer's abilities involve fire. He can send out a wave of fire with Phoenix Wave, smite foes with dragon fire by using Dragonfire, hurl a hot fireball with Blazing Strike, and the more he casts, the more his Fervor burns, increasing his speed.
Spam Attack: Phoenix Wave and Dragonfire both have extremely low cooldowns (and the cooldown of the former can be reduced even more with talent), allowing Pyromancer to deal huge amounts of area-of-effect damage the longer he survives.
Squishy Wizard: He can bring a lot of pain with his fire spells, but can't take it in turn.

Revenant

Hellbourne Intelligence

Invisibility: When he casts Essence Shroud on his ally or himself.
Magic Staff
Wendigo: Wendigo, his Alt Avatar, is "a hideous spirit that is half man, half monstrosity, and who is eternally starving to death no matter how much he eats".

Rhapsody

Legion Intelligence

Impossibly-Low Neckline: Her model in the Chinese client has this, a neckline that barely extends over her breasts.
Ms. Fanservice: While her default avatar is a downplayed version at best, only showing her thighs and cleavage, she has the Luau Rhapsody Alt Avatar where she only wears a one-piece swimsuit, and Tourmaline, who reveals her left leg and rock-hard abs.
Musical Assassin: If her name is any indication, of course, she has both supportive and offensive music to either support her team or attack her enemies. Notably, considering HoN took a lot of cues from DOTA, then Rhapsody would be the first music-based Hero between those two (as even until 2016, Dota 2 still has no heroes about music, when other MOBAs has at least one).
Navel Window: Luau Rhapsody's swimsuit covers slightly more of her belly than a bikini but still leaves a window around her navel.
Shout-Out: Her lore's sentences is basically a play to Madonna's music American Pie

Riftwalker

Hellbourne Intelligence

Corralling Vacuum: Cascade Event is mostly valued for how it can forcibly group enemies tightly together, in the process serving as a setup for teammates' other AoE abilities, including Riftwalker's own Rift Burn.

Soul Reaper

Hellbourne Intelligence

Combat Medic: Soul Reaper's first ability, Judgment, deals damage to enemies and heals his allies within a certain radius. It also can't be evaded through blinking or teleportation, so it'll eventually hit its target no matter what.
Damage Over Time: Withering Presence removes a small percentage of HP from all enemy units... within a screen's radius, every second. In order to deal ludicrous amounts of damage Soul Reaper just needs to walk along with the party and chase off fleeing enemies, and it isn't unheard of to outright kill fleeing enemies with the passive alone.
Death of a Thousand Cuts: Though Soul Reaper initially doesn't deal much damage, Judgment and Withering Presence damage can constantly add up to ludicrous levels in a prolonged fight, before he finishes his victim off with Demonic Execution.
Expy: Of Defense of the Ancients' Necrolyte/Necrophos.
Field Power Effect: Soul Reaper's passive Withering Presence degenerates a percentage of every nearby enemy's maximum HP every second. While 3.2% per second doesn't sound like much, being in a teamfight for just 20 seconds means that you can remove 64% of their max HP. Its huge radius means that it is possible to actually finish off fleeing enemy heroes simply by walking after them, since they will still take the damage even outside of direct combat.
Finishing Move: Demonic Execution is tailor-fitted for this purpose, since it deals damage based on the victim's missing HP, so it is more powerful when its target is low on health.
Fixed Damage Attack: Withering Presence deals damage based on enemies' maximum HP.
Healing Factor: With at least one point in Judgment and Inhuman Nature, Soul Reaper gets absurd amounts of HP and mana regeneration, making him one of the few Heroes in the game who will rarely/never have to go back to base except to buy items.
Human Resources: Inhuman Nature gives Soul Reaper HP and mana regeneration every time he kills anything (including denying). Each individual amount isn't that much, but considering that he only has two active abilities, and that you'll be getting kills each time you last-hit a creep (and you'll be doing this dozens of times in any given match), this means that it's very hard for him to run out of mana even if he spams Judgment.
Injured Vulnerability: Soul Reaper's ultimate, Demonic Execution, deals damage based on how much health the target is missing, meaning that if the victim's below a certain percentage of health, it can potentially result in a One-Hit Kill.
Kill Steal: If an enemy hero dies when affected by Demonic Execution, Soul Reaper will be credited with the kill and benefit from the regeneration from Inhuman Nature, no matter who actually finished off the target.
Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: Soul Reaper is a rare case of a caster who scales (although through unusual ways), which is what allows him to carry.
- While Judgment's damage doesn't scale to the late game, it only has a measly 5-second cooldown. The longer Soul Reaper survives in a fight and the more mana he has, the more times he can spam Judgment, allowing him to continuously keep his allies alive while wearing his enemies down. Late game, if built as a tank, Soul Reaper can spam Judgment indefinitely while being almost unkillable.
- Due to being a form of Fixed Damage Attack, Withering Presence actually deals more damage the tougher an enemy is. At max level, it is capable of killing any enemy inside of 67 seconds by itself, making it an extremely powerful aura if teamfights drag out too long.
- Demonic Execution, as an inversion of Percent Damage Attack, has the ability to instantly kill any enemy once they fall below a certain health threshold, making it an unspammable but more powerful version of Legionnaire's Decapitation (though without the ability to pierce through Death Prevention effects), which can only cull a target below a flat amount of HP.
Magikarp Power: Soul Reaper is extremely weak early game: Judgment costs a lot of mana and needs many levels to be effective, and Withering Presence is his only useful skill as its damage is equally effective at all stages of the game. However, late game, with enough levels and equipment, Soul Reaper can become extremely tanky with constant Judgment spamming and Inhuman Nature giving him absurd regeneration, and with Judgment and Withering Presence he is a walking hazard to the enemy team as long as he lives, before he uses Demonic Execution to finish them off, putting them at a huge disadvantage. Ironically these traits means that Soul Reaper is a bad support, and the fact that he is a carry has become a running joke amount the player base since pubs tend to think that Soul Reaper is a support.
Mighty Glacier: Because his first skills can wear down enemies steadily in a teamfight, Soul Reaper can afford to be built as a tank without any damage items and still be a huge threat. A common (even encouraged!) way to play Soul Reaper is to build survivability items on him rather than damage items so that he can stay alive longer for teamfights to make full use of Withering Presence and let him spam Judgment as much as possible until he can finish a high-priority target off with Demonic Execution. As such, it's not uncommon to see Soul Reaper players build Behemoth's Heart, Frostfield Plate, and/or Barrier Idol. The tradeoff is, of course, his miserable base movement speed of 280, making it relatively easy to walk away from him unless he invests in items like Portal Key.
One-Hit Kill: Unless an opponent has absurd amounts of magic resistance, has spell immunity, has a special ability active, or is healed, Demonic Execution will often net a guaranteed kill. With a level 3 ultimate, you only have to drop a target to around 40% HP in order to net a kill unless they have magic resistance items or skills.
Painfully Slow Projectile: Judgment has one of the slowest projectile speeds in the game, at 400 (far slower than even the movement speed cap of 550), allowing high-mobility heroes to run away and heal up if their HP is too low to survive the hit otherwise.
The Red Mage: Judgment makes Soul Reaper both a powerful healer and a fearsome nuker, with significant amounts of sustain on top of that.
Regenerating Mana: Inhuman Nature regenerates mana for every creep kill you get with it. Killing a hero regenerates ten times that amount, more than paying back however much mana you spent casting Demonic Execution.
Sinister Scythe: He carries one around (fittingly, also shaped like a shepherd's crook), but only uses it as a Magic Staff. Although his ultimate, Demonic Execution, manifests as a giant scythe.
Spam Attack: Judgment's cooldown is extremely short, only 5 seconds when maxed, and combined with his Inhuman Nature, which returns mana for each unit killed, Soul Reaper can afford to spam it with ease during a fight once he has a sufficiently large mana pool. It's also the reason why Soul Reaper is a carry, as he needs mana items so he can spam Death Pulse without running dry for Demonic Execution, HP items so he could survive for longer and throw more Death Pulses (good teams will focus him first and he'll melt easily without items), and last hits to fuel Inhuman Nature.
Walking Wasteland: The nature of Soul Reaper's kit makes him a walking hazard to the enemy team simply due to his very presence in the teamfight: the longer he lives, the more times he can spam Death Pulse and the more damage Withering Presence can deal, without the need of many damage or Intelligence items, though it also means that Soul Reaper will be a very high priority target for good teams. Because of this, he can very easily be built as a tank and in most circumstances should be. Players will often also throw in a Mock of Brilliance for good measure, letting him simply melt enemies that stand near him.

Succubus

Hellbourne Intelligence

Achilles' Heel: While Succubus is a great disabler, all her spells are single targeted, making her one of the worst pushers in the game.
Armor-Piercing Attack: Cursed Embrace can disable and drain an enemy's mana through spell immunity, although it can't damage them. This makes it one of the more powerful disables in the game, since carries often rely on spell immunity in order to avoid being disabled in a teamfight.
Black Mage: Her entire kit consists of nukes and debuffs designed to screw his enemies up as much as possible.
Combination Attack: Mesmerize's purpose in a nutshell. As a disable it's rather situational, only really usable on a target which your team don't intend to focus down. On the other hand, it's one of the best setup abilities in the game: its long duration gives plenty of time for Succubus's teammates to reposition themselves, and if necessary, land a powerful and normally-difficult skillshot (Valkyrie's Javelin of Light being most notable) with zero effort.
Difficult, but Awesome:
- Since all of Succubus's abilities are single-target and mechanically very different and unique, good Succubus gameplay means that you'll have to know when to cast certain disables and when to hold back. However, good Succubus players can hard-disable two enemy Heroes in a teamfight, greatly reduce the effectiveness of carries' right-clicks, and generally make life difficult for the enemy.
- Mesmerize is a rather complex spell to use: it can be cast on allies, transfers between targets with right-clicks, and has a 1-second invulnerability window. This means that it can completely screw over your team if used the wrong way. One of the harder tricks to pull off is casting it on an ally to take advantage of its invulnerability period; time it perfectly and you can block a nuke spell, saving your friend's life, but if you're off by just a little bit, you'll probably end up just stunning them for no reason, making things worse.
Expy: Of Defense of the Ancients' Bane, instead of fellow Succubus Queen of Pain (she's expied by someone else)
Jack of All Stats: Unusually, Succubus has completely even stats and stat growth, starting off with 20 points in each category, then gaining 2.1 points with each level.
Hot as Hell: She's an attractive demoness who dresses in little. Her Alt Avatar Incubus is a male example.
Life Drain: Can drain life from an enemy with Heartache.
Mercy Invincibility: Mesmerize gives its target invincibility for the first second of the spell, allowing it to be used to dodge abilities.
Mr. Fanservice: Both of her male Alt Avatars qualify. Cupid is a real hunk who only wears a loincloth and proudly shows off his ripped chest and legs. Incubus is a demon who is fairly well-built and wears nothing on his chest or torso, and is still humanoid enough to be a Pretty Boy.
Ms. Fanservice: What else did you expect from a Succubus?
Power Limiter: Smitten reduces the target's attack and can't be dispelled by anything. Used in-lane it can starve your lane opponents of last hits (and experience since you can then easily deny creeps), used in teamfights it can drastically reduce the damage output of the enemy carries.
Required Secondary Powers: Succubus can end Mesmerize whenever he wants to prevent the ability from screwing up his teammates too much. She can also do this while she herself is affected by Mesmerize, and can attack Mesmerized enemies without waking them up or transferring it to herself.
Status Infliction Attack: Specializes in disables; Mesmerize renders the target unit unable to move or attack, but any damage will wake them up (as well as transferring the Nightmare to the attacker if it's a right-click). Cursed Embrace, her ultimate, deals huge amounts of damage and cannot be broken unless Succubus herself is interrupted. Additionally, allies can attack an enemy under its effect, making it extremely useful for taking down carries and other damage-dealers in the late game.

Tempest

Legion Intelligence

Armor-Piercing Attack: Elemental Void will disable magic immune enemies and also damage them, meaning that the only way to dodge it is to become invulnerable.
Black Mage: Tempest is a purely offensive spellcaster, with none of his abilities having any direct defensive application.
Blow You Away
Corralling Vacuum: Elemental Void slowly pulls all affected enemies toward its core in addition to stunning them, making it easier for Tempest's teammates to follow up with their own AoE abilities.
Difficult, but Awesome: Elemental Void is one of the most fearsome teamfight abilities in the game, disabling the entire enemy team for up to 4 seconds while dealing heavy damage. It is also very difficult to land as the enemy will rarely group nicely for you given the choice, and being a channelled ability, requires Tempest to catch all enemy heroes or buy Null Stone to prevent disruption.
Elemental Powers: He is an interesting mix of Fire, Ice, Wind and Water.
Enemy Summoner: Elemental turns friendly or enemy creeps into three Elementals, which are capable of self-replicating on successful attacks. Casting it on allied creeps instantly denies them, while casting it on enemy/neutral creeps will instantly kill them, making it a highly flexible spell (you can even cast it on existing Elementals, since their timer is extended when they multiply). However, you can't use it on higher-level jungle creeps.
Expy: Of Defense of the Ancients' Enigma, only with Elemental Powers instead of The Power of the Void
Glass Cannon:
- He may dish out great damage to teamfights, but is relatively an easy kill when picked on early.
- His Elementals are less durable than War Beast's hellhounds, and slower to boot, but their damage output once there's 6 of them is staggering, and their range makes up for the lack of mobility to some degree.
An Ice Person
Money Multiplier: With Elemental, Tempest is THE fastest early game jungler in the entire game, which allows him to farm up really fast, meaning that he's rarely starved for money unlike most other supports. Good Tempest gameplay primarily revolves around farming up utility items to give the team a huge advantage or making sure he can land a good Elemental Void.
Percent Damage Attack: Meteor, which deals damage based on a percentage of their current HP. Anyone stupid enough to stand in it for the whole duration will lose almost half their health.
Playing with Fire
Prongs of Poseidon: All three of Tempest's Poseidon-themed Alt Avatars wield a trident.
Self-Duplication: Tempest's Elementals are able to multiply and fully heal themselves after 6 successful attacks.
Spawn Broodling: Elemental instantly kills a creep (friendly or enemy) and summons 3 Elementals at its place.
Summon Magic: Elemental.
Too Awesome to Use: Elemental Void has one of the longest cooldowns in the game (with only a few level 1 ultimate abilities tying, which gain shorter cooldowns when leveled up). This means that Tempest players will frequently be forced to die without casting their Elemental Void because they need it for a major teamfight. It isn't uncommon for Tempest to build single-target disable items just so that they have an option outside of Glacial Blasts.

The Chipper

Legion Intelligence

Bad Ass Adorable: Yep.
Badass Normal: Just uses a killer steamwork mech in battle.
- HoN has one tip when the game is in the loading screen and displays hints and tips... and it says this:
"Fear the chiprel!"
Chainsaw Good: His Ultimate Sawblade Showdown.
Macross Missile Massacre
Mix-and-Match Critters: A Chiprel

Thunderbringer

Legion Intelligence

Achilles' Heel: A casual Mystic Vestments, which is very cheap, is a fairly good counter against Thunderbringer, because it reduces all of his magical damage, which is really all that he has, by a good amount. Shrunken Head likewise disables his damage output almost entirely while active, and almost every carry gets Shrunken Head.
Black Mage: Thunderbringer's entire kit revolves around dishing out as much magical damage as possible.
Chain Lightning: Chain Lightning jumps from target to target, dealing damage.
Crippling Overspecialization: All of Thunderbringer's abilities are magical nukes, and he provides little utility other than scouting and detecting invisible units with Blast of Lightning and Lightning Storm.
Death from Above
Death of a Thousand Cuts: Chain Lightning does relatively little damage, even at level 4. However, it has a very low cooldown, and fairly low mana cost, which means that it can be cast often enough to farm with it if you're careful, and can be almost continuously cast at higher levels, whittling down your enemy's health a bit at a time.
Defog of War: Blast of Lightning gives True Sight around the target, and can even be cast on the ground, making it an excellent dewarding tool. Lightning Storm also reveals all enemy heroes on cast, allowing Thunderbringer to scout with it if he doesn't need the damage too much (i.e. in the late game).
Expy: Of Defense of the Ancients' Zeus
Glass Cannon: Thunderbringer has mediocre Strength, pathetic Agility, and little mobility, but that doesn't mean a whole lot if he zaps you to death before you can get close.
Herd-Hitting Attack: With his first skill Chain Lightning.
Hope Spot: Enemy gets this whenever they escape with a little HP left... then suddenly Thunderbringer uses his ultimate which strikes all enemy heroes anywhere on the map.
Kill Steal: Among the fandom, he's renowned for killstealing. This is because Lightning Storm hits every (non-spell immune, non-invisible) hero on the map for a huge amount of damage, so if he uses it when an enemy (usually one being ganked and chased by his teammates) is at low health, it will all but guarantee the kill to him. It's usually not a good idea, though, as a lot of the damage is wasted on heroes that aren't doing anything more dangerous than farming or warding, and in the long run it basically pools money to a hero that doesn't scale well with farm anyway.
Long-Range Fighter: Thunderbringer has relatively high cast ranges on all of his abilities (global range in the case of his ultimate and Thunder Storm), allowing him to fry enemies from long range. However, his lack of anything other than magic damage makes him relatively vulnerable up close.
Percent Damage Attack: Lightning Rod zaps targets for a percentage of their current HP.
Poor, Predictable Rock: Thunderbringer's entire skillset revolves around dishing out as much magical damage as possible - all four of his skills are some variation of 'do damage', while his autoattacks are weak and scale badly, making him easily counterable by buying anti-magic items like Shrunken Head or Barrier Idol - even a cheap Mystic Vestments can become very useful.
Shock and Awe: Taken to ludicrous levels. All of his abilities are some variant of "strike enemies with lightning".
Spam Attack: His entire skillset is based around simply spamming out as many lightning bolts as possible. The only thing that makes this anything other than overglorified button mashing is that he needs to target his abilities, and even then, his primary spammed ability Chain Lightning pretty much hits everyone in a forty-foot radius of the target anyway and Blast of Lightning can snap to nearby targets when ground-targeted, so aiming isn't terribly important.
This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: Since Blast of Lightning is one of the few skills that grants True Sight, Thunderbringer can work as a support when the enemy team has an invisible hero. For a support, Thunderbringer needs a lot of gold and experience, but can completely shut down heroes such as Night Hound.
Unskilled, but Strong: Thunderbringer's kit is centered around dealing as much magical damage as possible at the expense of most utility - to the point that he nearly always ends up as the hero who deals the most damage to enemy heroes in teamfights, even if played as a support.
Yellow Lightning, Blue Lightning: Blue, like most lightnings in the game.
You Can Run, but You Can't Hide:
- Lightning Storm is perfect to finish off fleeing enemies and scout enemies' positions, as it reveals every hero on the map and deals moderate damage.
- Thunderbringer can target the ground with Blast of Lightning, which will seek the closest hero within a 250 radius. It can hit invisible heroes while both damaging and revealing them.
- Once he has Staff of the Master, Thunderbringer gains access to Thunder Storm, another global nuke that is also the only way to interrupt channelled abilities (most notably Homecoming Stones) from anywhere on the map.

Torturer

Hellbourne Intelligence

And I Must Scream
Angelic Beauty: According to Torturer's Alt Avatar Kindness's description, she is an angel. And she looks like an attractive young woman wearing a midriff-baring outfit.
Anti-Escape Mechanism: While most of Torturer's abilities are damage over time based, two of them (Impalement and Torment) allow him to damage enemies while moving, which make him a powerful chaser. Combined with an AoE stun and a nuke that can slow the target long enough to set up the stun, Torturer can be very hard to escape, which is especially surprising given that he's an Intelligence hero.
Anti-Structure: Impalement is one of the very few spells in the game that damages buildings, and in fact gets a damage bonus against buildings specifically. At level 4, a full Impalement takes off roughly 80% the health of a tier 1 tower and over half the health of a tier 4... and he gets a talent to double the number of explosions, letting him kill towers by himself. It's not uncommon for teams facing Torturer to save their Fortification just to tank an Impalement.
Black Mage: Torturer at his best is a rampaging ball of magical damage, able to melt heroes, creep waves and towers alike with his four nukes.
Deal with the Devil
Death Seeker: Evident when he gasps "At last..." as his last words after dying.
Difficult, but Awesome:
- Two aspects of Torturer's playstyle appear to contradict each other: he's a Glass Cannon with very little health, but his Torment requires him to be in the thick of the fight in order to be used most effectively. A good Torturer must know when to enter the fray, and when to retreat.
- Chain Reaction is a powerful AoE stun, but has a delay before activating, meaning that it requires either considerable prediction or another stun to set it up.
Expy: Of Defense of the Ancients' Leshrac
Glass Cannon: He's as squishy as they come, with no escape^note, and a stun that takes practice to land. But he has an incredibly high damage output and moderate mana use per damage. A Torturer who manages to farm an Icon of the Goddess essentially becomes a walking hazard that melts anything that comes near him, and his ultimate combined with Impalement allow him to damage enemy heroes simply by walking alongside him, making him capable of easily chasing down enemies.
Herd-Hitting Attack: All four of Torturer's skills are AOE nukes; one (Impalement) also affects structures, making him an excellent pusher.
Jack of All Stats: Because he has a stun, a slow, a pushing skill and doesn't need many items to be effective, Torturer is often run as a support. On the other hand, because he benefits well from farm and levels, he is viable as a mid hero as well, taking advantage of the XP at mid to quickly shove down towers with Impalement and get a quick Icon of the Goddess, which gives him the HP so he can run into the enemy team without being insta-gibbed, and the mana so he could spam Chain Reaction and Impalement, and keep Torment perpetually active.
Lead the Target: Chain Reaction must be aimed on the ground and has a short delay, forcing Torturer players to guess where their target would move.
Random Number God: Impalement hits random enemies around Torturer, making it very powerful against lone heroes or towers but loses much effectiveness when a creep wave arrives.
Seashell Bra: Worn by the Mermaid Torturer Alt Avatar.
Squishy Wizard: His Strength and Agility are fairly lacking and he has no escape mechanism,^note meaning that he dies relatively quickly under fire, not helped by his item build prioritizing mana over survivability. Of course, that's assuming that the enemy can weather his spells.
Variable-Length Chain

Vindicator

Legion Intelligence

Voodoo Jester

Hellbourne Intelligence

Armor-Piercing Attack: The Spirit Ward's attacks deal physical damage but bypass damage block, meaning that Helm of the Black Legion and Ultor's Heavy Helm cannot reduce its damage.
Combat Medic: Mojo heals an ally, and Spirit Ward deals some of the highest damage in the game.
Damage-Increasing Debuff: Cursed Ground deals a pitiful amount of damage by itself, but deals a large amount of bonus damage with each tick depending on the difference in the target's HP between ticks, making it a powerful damage amplification spell, in effect if not in mechanics. However, it can also be countered with large amounts of burst healing between ticks, as the spell only checks on the HP difference rather than damage dealt to the target (meaning that a burst heal that happens at the same time as a damage nuke will essentially make Cursed Ground think that little to no damage was done between the ticks).
Difficult, but Awesome:
- Cursed Ground has a very thin AoE, low range and a fairly long cast time, making it difficult to land on smart opponents. However, it is a very powerful damage amplification that can decimate any enemy heroes caught in it.
- As Spirit Ward is a channelling spell, Voodoo Jester needs to try to wait out enemy stuns, have his team disable them, or have suitable equipment to avoid the channelling being broken. In addition, it cannot be repositioned once cast, so Voodoo Jester must make sure to use it at the correct time and location (ideally slightly back from the 'centre of gravity' of the fight), and even then, if his team has no AOE disable the enemies can simply run away from it. However, if used correctly and combined with a good setup (like Chronos's Chronofield), it can deal a whopping 3120 physical damage when maxed, able to dominate teamfights with ease. And that's not counting the extra damage if he hits you with Cursed Ground...
Expy: Of Defense of the Ancients' Witch Doctor
Hollywood Voodoo: Voodoo Jester is an amalgam of Voodoo stereotypes.
More Dakka: The Spirit Ward attacks once every 0.3 second, which very few heroes can surpass, meaning that during its lifetime of 8 seconds it can put out 26 attacks.
Pinball Projectile: Acid Cocktail bounces from the primary target to nearby foes, stunning multiple enemies (or one multiple times). Spirit Ward projectiles also bounce if Voodoo Jester has put three points in it or buys Staff of the Master.
The Red Mage: Although mostly valued for the massive damage potential from his ultimate, Voodoo Jester can also heal his allies with Mojo.
Squishy Wizard: Voodoo Jester deals incredible amounts of both physical AND magical damage (most heroes specialize in one or the other, and thus peak at different times in the game) with his spells, and can heal his allies as well. His damage and utility potential is therefore offset by his very low stats, and his huge damage potential and healing means he might as well be walking around with a bullseye over his head.
The Turret Master: His ultimate, Spirit Ward, summons a magical turret that deals incredible amounts of damage.
Weaksauce Weakness: While Spirit Ward can dominate a teamfight or counterpush, it's also a channeled spell - meaning that if Voodoo Jester is stunned, silenced or otherwise interrupted the ward will disappear.
You Are Already Dead: Cursed Ground deals delayed damage based on how much health an enemy lost since the spell cast. If it's instantly followed by burst damage, the target won't be able to escape alive.

Witch Slayer

Legion Intelligence

Anti-Escape Mechanism: Witch Slayer is one of the game's more notable heroes due to having two hard disables (Graveyard and Miniaturization), as well as Power Drain, which can prevent heroes with small mana pools from casting any spells or using certain item active abilities. Most other heroes in the game will have only one reliable disable.
Black Mage: Witch Slayer is known as one of the most fearsome nukers in the game, being able to burst down heroes extremely quickly in the early- and mid-game.
Crutch Character: Once he hits level 6, Witch Slayer becomes a powerful nuker that can reliably remove any hero from the map. However, Silver Bullet falls off in the late game, and his lack of anything that goes through debuff immunity means that he's powerless against a carry with a Shrunken Head. Being a support hero, Witch Slayer isn't going to accumulate enough money for durability items, meaning that in the late game he will outright melt if the enemy carry so much as looks at him funny; although if said carry's Shrunken Head duration is reduced to 5 seconds, Witch Slayer does regain some usefulness, as being miniaturized for 4 seconds and stunned for 2.6 seconds can be devastating.
Cycle of Hurting: He's one of the few handful of heroes with 2 hard, reliable Disables (others include Pollywog Priest and Succubus). Getting hit by Graveyard followed by Miniaturization means you're getting disabled for a very unhealthy 6 seconds, not to mention his Graveyard has the potential to hit multiple targets.
Difficult, but Awesome:
- Witch Slayer is one of the most squishy heroes in the game, because of his slow speed, short effective range (Miniaturization, for example, only has 500 range), poor HP and lack of armour. Your positioning has to be strong, and you have to be wary of strong enemy combos.
- While Graveyard can be targeted on units up to 500 range away, its actual effect range is 700. Add in the 150 radius on the spikes, and you can potentially stun enemies up to 850 range away, almost twice the targetable range. So while regular Witch Slayer players can reliably stun enemies at the usual 500 range by directly targeting them, good Witch Slayer players can hit people twice as far by ground-targeting the spell instead, relying on manual aim.
Expy: Of Defense of the Ancients' Lion, who's ironically... a Demon Witch.
Glass Cannon: His health pool is pathetically small, but Silver Bullet is one of the most powerful burst-damage spells in the game.
Mage Killer: Witch Slayer is quite adept at nuking down fragile intelligence heroes with Graveyard and Silver Bullet, or preventing them from casting spells with Power Drain and Miniaturization.
Mana Drain: His third ability, named Power Drain. Used properly, Witch Slayer can maintain his mana pool without having to go back to base by siphoning mana off creeps (including the ranged lane creeps, which possess a mana pool that they have no use for), meaning that he can roam and gank very effectively. It also has utility in teamfights, since draining an enemy Hero's mana pool (usually coupled with a disable to keep them from breaking the tether too early) can prevent them from casting their escape abilities or using their big teamfight ultimate.
Mirror Character:
- To Pyromancer; both are fearsome nukers with an ultimate capable of dealing massive damage to a single target. Compared to Pyromancer, Witch Slayer is a better ganker and disabler, needs fewer levels and items, but can't be played as a carry and scales to the late game worse than Pyromancer.
- To Pollywog Priest: both are extremely squishy Intelligence casters with a relatively spammable nuke and the honour of having more than one non-ultimate hard disable, as well as an ultimate with the potential of dealing massive damage. Compared to Pollywog Priest's Voodoo Wards, Witch Slayer's Silver Bullet does its job faster and has a shorter cooldown at higher levels, but only works against a single hero, is of doubtful usefulness against Kongor and completely useless against towers.
Squishy Wizard: His spells are extremely powerful, being able to inflict massive amounts of damage or disable an enemy, but he has very low health and is one of the squishiest heroes in the game.

Wretched Hag

Hellbourne Intelligence

Armor-Piercing Attack: Bat Blast is one of the largest area-of-effect spells that goes through Shrunken Head, making it extremely deadly in the right hands as she can finish off targets even if they've activated magic immunity to escape. It also deals True damage, which means that any amount of magic resistance will not help the target(s).
Black Mage: Three out of four of Wretched Hag's skills are nukes, giving her extremely high burst damage, and her last ability is a positioning spell that helps her get them off. If given fast level 6 in the mid lane, she can burst down most enemy heroes with ease when ganking the side lanes.
Dynamic Entry: Wretched Hag's nuking power and blink ability allow her to initiate fights on her terms, and blast down enemies extremely quickly entire teams at a time.
Expy: Of Defense of the Ancients' Queen of Pain
Fragile Speedster: Wretched Hag has Flash of Darkness, which allows her to engage and escape as she pleases. But unless you build survivability on her, she's easy to kill if she's stunned at the wrong moment and focused down.
Flash Step: Flash of Darkness moves Wretched Hag over a very long distance (even more than Portal Key!) with only one point in the skill, and eventually reaches half of Portal Key's cooldown (or even shorter with the right talent) without the player-damage cooldown reset. Its only drawbacks compared to Portal Key are the mana cost and cast animation, as well the fact that it becomes unusable if silenced.
Glass Cannon: Wretched Hag can deal massive amounts of AoE damage, but she's easy to kill if she's stunned at the wrong moment and focused down.
Great Escape: The extremely low cooldown on her Flash of Darkness ability, on top of being able to slow pursuers with Haunt, means that she can escape engagements that go sour fairly reliably.
Jack of All Stats: Wretched Hag has nearly everything people want packed into 1 hero: fairly reliable slow, AoE nuke for team fights and farming, built in mobility, and an ultimate that deals massive Pure damage that pierces spell immunity. She can be played in any core position from main carry, mid to offlaner, and is nearly always a safe pick in any situation against any team. She doesn't really take over a game but can always make an impact. Picking Wretched Hag doesn't reveal anything about your strat and even if she is a late pick, she can still fit.
Kill Streak: Wretched Hag is notable among mid heroes for being reliant on getting early kills and snowballing with them in order to be effective. She has some of the best early game harassing abilities and can get kills with her nuking abilities at a time when the enemy has few ways to counter her, and then use those kills to buy items to increase her ability to kill enemies even more. But if she fails to snowball, then she has a much harder time since it's more difficult to get kills against farmed enemies who have ways to disrupt her chain attacks, can simply become immune to her damage or simply have too much HP, on top of her not having a hard disable ability and thus being reliant on buying a Hellflower or Kuldra's Sheepstick with the gold from her kills.
Mage Marksman: Even though she is a burst-heavy nuker with no damage steroids skill, her right-click damage is still decent with good starting damage, faster-than-average attack speed, Intelligence growth, Flash of Darkness to chase and kite and Haunt to slow her targets. As a result, her item build mostly consists of Intelligence items which boost both her mana pool and right-click damage like Hellflower, Kuldra's Sheepstick, or Frostfield Plate.
Ms. Fanservice: Obviously averted by the default avatar, who is a wizened old hag, but played straight by two Alt Avatars. Mercury is a young woman in an outfit that reveals her thighs and midriff. Alexandrite's outfit emphasizes her cleavage, which plunges to her belly button, and her long legs, and makes it clear that she isn't wearing underwear.
Sexy Backless Outfit: Wretched Hottie's outfit doesn't cover her back one bit.
Spam Attack:
- Sonar Scream is on a constant 7 second cooldown, while Haunt at its highest level can be cast every 6. With Flash of Darkness on a 6 second cooldown, Wretched Hag is capable of dropping loads of damage on her enemies over extended chases.
- Special mention goes to Bat Blast, which is usually on a cooldown timer comparable to big teamfight ultimates. Purchasing Staff of the Master reduces its cooldown to 60 seconds, meaning that Wretched Hag can cast it on lone victims any time she finds someone, not just saving it to use on the whole enemy team during a major teamfight. It can even be used to nuke down creep waves instantly for little consequence.
Squishy Wizard: Despite her high mobility and nuking power, Wretched Hag still has a rather mediocre Strength and Agility gain, and very little base armor. If she doesn't kill her targets in the first few seconds or tries to engage more than one target at a time, she can be disabled and put down very easily.
Super-Scream: Sonar Scream is a super-powerful scream which deals damage to foes caught in the sound wave.
Teleport Spam: Alongside Magebane, Wretched Hag's Flash of Darkness gives her a huge amount of initiation or escape capability, being able to chase with ease or escape determined ganks.
Vapor Wear: Her Alexandrite Alt Avatar is obviously not wearing any underwear.
Weaksauce Weakness: One of Wretched Hag's greatest weaknesses is that virtually all of her damage is magical, so she loses a lot of her killing potential once her target activates spell immunity. As such, she's often used to pick off lone enemies who don't have a Shrunken Head (or can't afford to use it in a single skirmish), or builds a Kuldra's Sheepstick in order to prevent her target from even using their items.

Characters / Heroes Of Newerth Intelligence

Edit Locked

Aluna

Artesia

Blacksmith

Bombardier

Bubbles

Circe

Defiler

Demented Shaman

Doctor Repulsor

Ellonia

Empath

Fayde

Geomancer

Glacius

Gravekeeper

Hellbringer

Kinesis

Martyr

Monarch

Myrmidon

Nymphora

Oogie

Ophelia

Parasite

Pearl

Plague Rider

Pollywog Priest

Prophet

Puppet Master

Pyromancer

Revenant

Rhapsody

Riftwalker

Soul Reaper

Succubus

Tempest

The Chipper

Thunderbringer

Torturer

Vindicator

Voodoo Jester

Witch Slayer

Wretched Hag

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