HoN: Heroes of Newerth - Predator Guide

Looking for a guide to pawn your opponents with Predator in Heroes of Newerth?
Well you came to the right place! :D

Predator

 Attributes: 25/18/15

Statgain: 2,5/1,9/1,75

Movementspeed: 300

Basearmor: 1.52

Range: 100

Skillset:

Venomous Leap

The Predator leaps toward an enemy unit, then strikes them with venomous claws. The enemy takes some damage and is slowed briefly.






Type: Physical
Range: 650
Cast Time: 0.7 Seconds
Mana Cost: 90
Cooldown: 20.0 / 17.0 / 14.0 / 11.0 Seconds
Required Level: 1 / 3 / 5 / 7

Activation:
Leaps toward target, dealing 75 / 125 / 175 / 225 Magic damage and applying Venomous for 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 seconds.

Venomous Effects:
40% Movement Slow

Note:
However the damage is not physical, it will be still strong when ganging early game.
Normally you want to jump into the teamfight with this, however initiating can be dangerous, especially with a team full of chickens.




Stone Hide

The Predator makes his hide like stone, granting him Magic Immunity, dispelling debuffs, and increasing his armor temporarily.






Mana Cost: 75
Effects: Dispels debuffs and applies Stone Hide to self for 3/3.75/4.5/5.25 seconds.
Stone Hide Effects: +3/+6/+9/+12 armor and Magic immunity during the duration.
Cooldown: 15 seconds

Note: Grants magic immunity and +armor, quite obviously boosts your chance of survival.
Best used when you can evade spells by activating. (javelin, rockets, ....)
or when the big AOE clash begins (at teamfight-startings)
Physical disables will still smash you.


Carnivorous

The Predator feasts on his opponents flesh with each attack, allowing him to topple the mightiest warriors. Each attack damages opponents for a percentage of their current Health, and heals the Predator based on the damage dealt.





Passive
Required Level: 1 / 3 / 5 / 7
On Attack
Deals Physical damage to targets equal to 4 / 5 / 6 / 7% of their current Health and heals you for the same amount.
Does not work on Boss units.

Note: Inbuild-Lifesteal with insane damageoutput.
If you are low in health in a teamfight, jump on another target. The best would be fully healed strength type target and feast on him.




Terror

The Predator roars, instilling terror in nearby enemies, reducing their armor. Allies who attack enemies affected by terror will receive increased attack and movement speed.





Action:Target Self
Type:Enemy Heroes
Type: Physical
Radius: 450
Cast Time: 1.0 Seconds
Mana Cost: 50 / 75 / 100
Cooldown: 60.0 Seconds
Required Level: 6 / 11 / 16

Activation
Applies Terror to targets in radius around self for 20 seconds.

Terror Effects
-2 / -4 / -6 Armor
When attacked, buffs attacker's attack speed by 20 / 40 / 60 and movement speed by 15% for 4.5 seconds

Note: Pretty spam-able, suits Predator's small mana pool.
Used to open a team fight, the AOE is pretty small though, try to infct as many as possible.



Skillbuild:
1. Carnivorous
2. Venomous Leap / Stone Hide
3. Carnivorous
4. Venomous Leap
5. Carnivorous
6. Venomous Leap
7. Carnivorous
8. Venomous Leap
9. Stone Hide / Venomous Leap
10. Terror
11. Terror
12. Stone Hide
13. Stone Hide
14.Stone Hide
15. Stats
16. Terror
17. - 25. Stats

Stone Hide at level 2 if you fear gangs in forest.
generally, it also assists your jungling, but not much tbh.
Maxing venomous leap on level 8 makes you a even more terrific ganger though.


Itembuild:

Startgear:


Primarily, I am using this build for jungling, however this could also work for laning.

NEXT:




 YOU NEED A COURIER. (Bought by an ally of course)
As soon as you hit 500g, get:

 , but also bring health potions if you got really screwed.

__________________________________________________
OPTIONAL:
x 2
 Nice health boosts, +agi is needed and +int also contributes.
__________________________________________________
   


Luxury:
  

OPTIONAL PART 2:



Explanation:

Alchemist Bones: Increases your gold per minute, gives attack speed. IMHO best item on predator.
Best used on Vagabond Leader (the big one in the creep set where 1 creep can slow you).
2. best: minotaur, skeleton boss.

Steamboots: no brainer, you need attack speed, you need health.
Phaseboots can own, but there are inferior on predator.

Insanatarius: This item fits predator the best. str+damage+attackspeed boost
Hilarious nice stats for such a cheap prize. (yes I know its balanced because of the true damage)

Bracers: You need health? Get them.
Makes your item slot coordination very difficult though.

Heart or Shieldbreaker first?
Do you need hp like hell cause the enemy team is full of AOE and/or focuses you?
get behemoth heart. 3 people focusing you still need ages to kill you.

Are facing an already squishy team with low armor heroes?
Get shieldbreaker to ultimately stomp them into the ground.
Shieldbreaker doesn’t work well against enemy carries though, cause they already got that huge amount of armor.


deamonic breast plate versus savage mace:
savage for pure dps (and anti carry)
deamonic breast plate: support your carry and simply get un-killable and also boots your dps.



Abyysal Skull: If you need additional lifesteal to compete against other carries, get one.
Make sure no one else in your team does.
Your role drifts even more to support now. When getting abyssal, make sure that you get breatplate too, and stay next to the other carry/carries.
Also only buy this when your team has AT LEAST 1 other melee carry (the more the better)
I dont really think you will need more lifesteal, but its situational.




Items I didnt consider:


HELM OF THE BLACK LEGION
Greatly helps you to survive, especially with Insanitarius, no question about that.
HOWEVER, you pay a HUGE load of money for that "block damage" feature, which doesn’t scale much into lategame. And in early game, you will only be present for gangs next to your forest.


the 300hp are easily obtainable by buying the 1100 gold hp booster alone (and make a behe-heart out of it) or 2 bracers.


The regen is completely unneeded at the time you get HotBL. 
It also doesnt give any stats / +damage.
And you are not a tank but a damage dealer.
I advise you not to buy one.


FROSTBURN
first off, shieldbreaker is superior.
Secondly, it just got nerfed and you need 5 attacks to fully achieve the 15% slow.
The stats are nice, so is the as and the ms, but I consider other items as more useful.
In a situation where shieldbreaker isnt superior (mass enemy carries), lifesteal probably is.
DONT BUY.   


RIFTSHARD
savage mace is superior here. 
A good item on pred non-the-less


SHRUNKEN HEAD
optional, never bought it, I think there are better items for your 6 slots.
I think 1 immunity is enough. Still a good item.


Gameplay:

I really recommend jungling, this is what the skill build is made for.
And I recommend it from level 1, its hard at first and you need a lot of pulls, but its doable.

Unless: -Your teammates cant handle 2 solo lanes. (unlikely)
-Your pullspot is warded, so no new creeps spawn. And you cant effort wards to counter ward. (even more unlikely)
-Your enemies are hardcore-jungle-gangers.

So what to do?
Start by killing the easiest creep set, either finish it or leave it alone to reach the creep set at the bot/top lane to pull it.
You surely saw before, that the creep sets which are located the nearest the bot(for the left side) or top lane(the right side)
can be pulled into the lane.

To pull them, run next to them at either X:15 or X:45 secs game time and run into the lane.
Now the creeps will start fighting your allied creeps instead of you. (chop off the tree on the left site, it can block your view)
Now auto-attack the creep with the most health, to generate health for yourself but MAKE SURE you get the last hit(and thus the gold).

Let the courier transfer you health (if needed), and the +15 gloves as soon as you hit 500gold.
Attackspeed is what you benefit most from early.

Also look into other jungling guides which explain pulling WAY better.

General jungling hints:
-Before finishing a creep, check the gametime, if its X:40-X:53, kill the creep outside the creepcamp (or this spot be refreshed).
If its X:50-X:54, run away from the creepcamp and stack them.
(also see other guides for creep stacking)
-Until level 3, your jungling abilities are quite low, but you can already clear a WILDHUNTER creepset on lvl 1. (can does not mean you should)
-Catman camps are your worst nightmare  .
-On the legion side, you can also pull a creepset (the one far the left, not the easiest) into the middlelane (at X:27/X:57, if I recall correctly), make sure you tell your mid-ally if you do, cause he will be surprised otherwise.
-Predator ganging from the woods is super-effective due to his leap. If bot or mid is pushed and your ally can slow/stun, your chances for killing someone are extremely high.
(very effective against soulstealer, an early death totally rapes their laning-phase)


Later on:
Join teamfights after you bought you insanitarius, keep farming, keep rocking.
Try to win. Use alchemist bones.
Homecoming let you evade gangs or lost teamfights.
Stone hide + homecoming stone ---> ZAAP. unless you die because of your health, that is.

In teamfights, take out squishy target and switch to hp monsters if you need a lot of regen.
And dont turn back when you get focused by 2 or even 3 (unless your farm was bad ^^),
because as soon as you turn back, your regen will stop and they will take you out.

Whilst when you autoattack them, you will regenerate lot of health and thus take a lot more damage.
Not to mention to you can not only hold yourself, but also defeat them and kill them.
Hope for teammates to help you, if they wont, run away after activating STONE HIDE and try to juke them.



Helpful Allies:
All kind of slowers, stunners and supporters, DOH.
Special mention: Glacius, the aura assists you greatly (very low mana pool, spamable spells)
slow+disable on the enemy team, an aoe ulti which draws A LOT of attention. (and slows)


Bad enemies:
Slowers are definitely your worst nightmare (apart from catman soldiers when you are level 3) Frostburn to some extent, but especially Frostfieldplate are disturbing you heavily.
Night Hound is also pretty heavy, in his smoke you are vulnerable + his damage is ridiculous when he is backstabbing you.
Even worse than night hound is Pandamonium, all of his skills are physical-disables, and thus the definition of your nightmare.