If you’re anything like me, Heroes of Newerth is the game you play when your League of Legends account has been temporarily banned. Or at least, that’s how I used to feel, before I started playing HoN consistently. Then, I noticed something unique about the world created by S2 Games: HoN might have the strongest support champions in the entire MOBA genre.
Unlike most MOBAs I’ve played, Heroes of Newerth rewards players with a wide variety of support classes who excel at bringing a team’s synergy together. Not only are support champions crucial to any team composition in HoN, but check this out — they’re actually fun to play. Soraka the Starchild from League of Legends isn’t fun to play. I don’t care how creative you think you can be with her, she simply dies over and over while barely helping in team fights. You want a champions that feels like she’s actually doing something? Check out Empath, a favorite of mine. Empath combines a unique set of abilities that allows her to drain life from champions, create walls only passable by allies, and give a passive health regeneration to every ally on the map. Oh wait, I forgot to tell you the best part of all. She can go inside champions and buff them, while she keeps using her abilities. How cool is that? For example, here’s one time that playing Empath came in handy. Playing HoN with my brother, he chose to play a melee bruiser called Predator. Every time Predator leapt dangerously into battle, I would port myself inside him using Empath to give him increased health, attack speed, and movement speed. When my brother’s melee bruiser got low on health, I would life drain an enemy to restore his health, as I had no form of my own while inside him. Not only does using these attributes allow me to avoid dying myself, but I get to single-handedly turn my teammate into a non-stop killing machine, which feels really, really good. Try feeling that empowered with any support champion in any other MOBA game. It won’t happen, because unlike at other MOBA companies, HoN‘s Executive Director, Pu Liu, plays support champions competitively and knows first-hand how it can suck.
Why would you want to spend your time as a support dying over and over? Because you want those high moments when you feel great. A good support can really pull it out in a team fight and turn it around, which gives you that gamer’s high. We want to make everyone’s favorite type of champ feel really rewarding in fights, so no matter who you play, you get that high feeling. That’s why we have champions like Empath, Rhapsody, Monarch, and Myrmidon. I was deeply involved with the creation of all of these characters because I play support. That role is very near and dear to me.
Like Tristana to the max!
Pu’s right. Overall, this game has arguably better champions compared to other MOBAs because each type of champion feels like its pushed as far as possible. Tanks are tankier, supports actually support, and carries deal lots and lots of damage late game. Most MOBAs simply replicate champions from the original Defense of the Ancients game, and HoN has its share of DotA-clones. But every HoN champion has something that sets it apart from one another, not just the same abilities with a different name. As a result, HoN‘s combat is thrilling. The game has a slower overall pace in the beginning than over MOBAs, but quickly picks up in-lane and then over the whole map mid-game. Kills feel more rewarding because they’re harder to get, and penalties, such as gold loss upon death, force players to actually think before blindly taking action. Unlike League of Legends, HoN games can be one man down and still win if players work cooperatively and strategically. You have no idea how rewarding it is to win a four-on-five or even a three-on-five. Items are also diverse. There are a handful of ways to build each champion, and get this, each way actually works. It’s not just Infinity Edge, Phantom Dancer, Last Whisper on every carry, which we all know gets stale quickly. And it’s refreshing to have that sort of freedom in the game.
However, like everything in life, HoN does have some flaws. I mean, who’s perfect? Like every other MOBA, HoN‘s games are riddled with trolls, feeders, noobs, and general asshats. But the saving grace that makes HoN stand above the other MOBA giants is the voting feature. Don’t like the Night Hound who’s doing nothing but running around in stealth mode the entire game, spamming chat with abuse? Simply vote “kick,” and initiate a vote that, if passed, completely removes that player and distributes his items and gold to the remaining players. Feel like your team has horrible composition after the game has commenced? Simply vote to remake, and if enough people agree, the game is forfeited free-of-charge. Even when that one guy on your team starts lagging really badly because he buys his internet at Kmart, you can simply vote to pause the game for a few seconds (and yes, Kmart still exists). Honestly, these features alone are worth playing HoN over other games. Not only do these features save hours of your life, but they let you feel like you have the power to make your game more fun. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat in the fountain, waiting for the 20-minute mark because some jerk-off wouldn’t stop purposely feeding.
Pretty much how all team fights look. You shall not pass!
Heroes of Newerth is a game I picked up, put down, and picked up again. Not only am I impressed with the vast improvements made to the game over the past year, but I’m blown away by S2 Games’s commitment to bring new and exciting content to the game. S2 Games and Heroes of Newerth listens to the community. All Random All Mid was a custom play list that, because of popular community demand, was officially released as Mid Wars with it’s own map, ELO rating, and other special tweaks to make gamers happy. In fact, Liu told me that HoN is completely re-organizing the store, repricing items and skins, and pushing for more surveys and polls, all because of community feedback. Other MOBAs have followed suit in this level of community interaction, but it goes to show who’s doing the leading around here.
If your idea of a MOBA game is strategy, patience, unique abilities, and having fun no matter what type of champion you pick, give Heroes of Newerth a shot. You’ll be rewarded with one of the best MOBA experiences out there.
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