Blacksmith: Padawanabee's Guide

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Blacksmith is a rather unique hero in Heroes of Newerth. A melee hero with above average starting armor, strength, strength gain, and base damage, the blacksmith is actually a intelligence-based nuke supporter who keeps his team strong (or at least fast) and the other team weak. His stats and skills are each direct ports of the Ogre Magi from DotA, but as with most heroes of HoN he received a significant aesthetic upgrade with the port. How we will play blacksmith in this guide is as an early game ganker with late game team support. His excellent starting strength and strength gain, coupled with a spell that allows for a significant speed boost, allows us to focus on intelligence and support related items without having to worry about our survivablity. Pros and Cons Pros Basic stats and armor cover all survivability needs. Excellent ganker and supporter with 2 nukes, one a slow and the other a stun, and a haste. Scales better mid-late than most intelligence heroes. Performs well in a lane, especially combined with another stunner/disabler. Easy to learn and play. Cons One of only a few intelligence based heroes with a melee attack. Poor attack animation, but that could just be me. Only a decent farmer, which doesn't matter because you should be ganking. The arguably most powerful aspect of PASSIVE ult is UNRELIABLE

By: Padawanabee

Skill Overview

• Fireball - This is the skill you will rely on more than any other throughout the game. It is your primary source of magic damage, as well as a powerful single target stun. Max it, as until level 4 it deals subpar damage. Also, unlike in dota even when you multicast (chaotic flame's extra casts of fireball) it will only stun for 1.5 seconds.

Early game it serves us well. Until you put levels in Chaotic Flames it remains low mana cost, which is a necessity considering our mana pool. It is a single target stun, so open with it in a gank. It allows you to set up a teammates spells as well. Tormentor or Pyromancer can easily hit someone who isn't moving for 1.5 seconds, although a Valkyrie might have more trouble.

• Flaming Hammer - If you're too lazy to do the math, it deals 75/150/225/300 magic damage over it's duration. Another nuke, it works differently than fireball. It deals it's damage slower, but for chasing the 7.5 seconds of slow will actually allow more hits than 1.5 seconds of stun. Also, when we level Chaotic Flames, instead of dealing more damage to the target sometimes, it will ALWAYS deal it's damage in a larger radius, allowing for AoE slow and some farming potential.
• Frenzy - If nothing else, this spell will keep you supporting your team well into mid-late game. For some reference, activating phase boots adds 10% move speed, where at level 4 frenzy adds 15% move speed in addition to practically giving them a Warpcleft. Even if you don't get the 20% chance to get 2/3 casts, level 3 Chaotic flames allows you to keep this on your whole team. Put it on your carrys and they will love it. Keep it on yourself and you run faster than all but the fastest heroes (Blood Hunter with 44% movespeed).
• Chaotic Flames - This is a passive ability that increases his other spells, and I've put the benefits into those skills rather that here.

Skill Build

Fireblast and Ignite are our nukes and our disables. We max these as early as possible so that we can support our team and gank our opponents. Frenzy is taken as soon as we max these two, and stats are grabbed when nothing else is available.

The only difference in my two skill builds is where we pick up Chaotic flames. Really, you can take them anytime between 6-25. However, every level of Chaotic flames adds to the mana cost of fireball. So if you're running out of mana, the 30 less manacost of fireball can be more important than a 25% chance to deal another 175.

Level	Build A	Build B
1	Fireball	Fireball
2	Flaming Hammer	Flaming Hammer
3	Fireball	Fireball
4	Flaming Hammer	Flaming Hammer
5	Fireball	Fireball
6	Chaotic Flames	Flaming Hammer
7	Fireball	Fireball
8	Flaming Hammer	Flaming Hammer
9	Flaming Hammer	Frenzy
10	Frenzy	Chaotic Flames
11	Chaotic Flames	Chaotic Flames
12	Frenzy	Frenzy
13	Frenzy	Frenzy
14	Frenzy	Frenzy
15	Stats	Stats
16	Chaotic Flames	Chaotic Flames
17	Stats	Stats
18	Stats	Stats
19	Stats	Stats
20	Stats	Stats
21	Stats	Stats
22	Stats	Stats
23	Stats	Stats
24	Stats	Stats
25	Stats	Stats

Hey guys, everything up to this point has been pretty obvious, but this is where I start inserting my own opinions on things, feel free to pick your own items.

Items

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Core Items

As mentioned previously, all our strength and armor needs are taken care of already. We don't need to waste money on our health pool, we can move directly to what we need.

You are both melee and a high mana cost nuker with high strength and low intelligence. You need regen when you first go to the lane. Spend at least 140 on runes and a mana potion. It's your decision whether you spend the extra starting cash on more regen or starting your Talismans of Exile. By the time you're done laning, you will have 1-2 Talismans of Exile, a bottle, and Enhanced Marchers.

Enhanced marchers is an obvious choice, they're cheap and make you go fast. The bottle is more arguable. If 2-3 people on your team or the other have bottles, don't bother with it. But being a MELEE NUKER who GANKS, you are the perfect candidate to rune whore if noone else is.

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• HP Regen

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• Mana Regen

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• If you farm badly, at least get one of these.

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Шаблон:Hero Guide Item Section

Any other items are situational or better on another hero IMO.

Шаблон:Hero Guide Gameplay