Soulstealer Hero Guide - HON Tutorial - Heroes of Newerth

If you played DotA and remember Shadow Fiend, you should have an idea how to play Soulstealer in HoN. Soulstealer is one of the best gankers/dpsers in the game so if you do your job(level up fast/ gank often) at early/middle game your team should be victorious. This Soulstealer tutorial should give you the basics of how to play this hero.

Soulstealer main role is gaking. His amazing sight range at night is of 1200(average is 800) so you can often start a gank without the enemy hero even lay eyes on you. Try to gank at night since you have this great advantage. But Soulstealer is also a good initiator, if you lack a prime initiator in your team, Soulstealer can do the job, just have all your souls pk in and use your ultimate. Since Soulstealer has a pretty high damage on attack (thanks to the souls and his removing armor aura), if you farm well and out level your enemies Soulstealer can also carry the game.

Skills:

Demon Hand

Action: Facing
Type: Enemy Units
Range: 250 / 450 / 650
Radius: 275
Cast Time: 0.65 Seconds / 0.35 Seconds Backswing (Can be canceled.)
Mana Cost: 75
Cooldown: 10 Seconds
Required Level: 1 / 3 / 5 / 7
Activation
Deals 75 / 150 / 225 / 300 Magic damage to each target in radius.

This spell has three activations, each with a different range(300, 500 and 700). It is great for nuke, harass and farm early on. At mid game this skill is still used for nuking/farming. At late in the game, this skill wont be effective, since creeps grown stronger at 35 min and they don´t die anymore with 2 nukes,at this point your auto-attacks should do a great amount of damage and the skill wont do as much damage as the enemies will have magic armor so you rather use your auto-attacks.

Soulsteal

Action: Passive
Required Level: 1 / 3 / 5 / 7
On Kill
Adds one charge

Adds 2 damage per charge to attacks. Dying will cause you to lose half of your charges.
Maximum of {8,15,23,30} Souls.

You get 1 charge with added +2 bonus damage. Every time you kill something, you get a charge. The skill is mainly used to boost your last hitting while laning, and to maximise your ulti's damage.

Dread

Action: Passive
Required Level: 1 / 3 / 5 / 7
Aura Effects
Radius: 900
Target: Enemy Units
-2 / -3 / -4 / -5 Armor

Dread is the skill that makes the difference in late game, the effect of a "free" Shield Breaker makes Soulstealer so strong hero in late game and able to kill hard carries. If you are getting Shroud instead of pk prevent getting this until late game. Because this ability also shows the enemy that you are near them when you are stealth with Assassins Shroud as it has the Aura debuff.

Soul Burst

Action: Target Self
Type: Magical
Cast Time: 1.4 Seconds
Mana Cost: 150 / 175 / 200
Cooldown: 120.0 / 110.0 / 100.0 Seconds
Required Level: 6 / 11 /16Activation
Releases one torrent for every 2 souls that the Soulsteal ability currently has.

Each torrent deals 80 / 120 / 160 Magic damage. Applies Soul Burst to enemies in radius for 5 seconds.

Soul Burst Effects
-15 / -20 / -25% Base Damage
15 / 20 / 25% Movement Slow

This attack is devastating as soon as you are level 11 and have the skill at level 2. The best and really only way you should use this Ultimate is either with a Portal Key or Assassins Shroud. Portal Key to blink in or Assassins Shroud to sneak in and set off. Another item that is very useful for successfully getting of Soul Stealer's ultimate is shrunken head.

Skill build:

1. 1.  Soulsteal
   2.  Demon Hand
   3.  Demon Hand
   4.  Soulsteal
   5.  Demon Hand
   6.  Soulsteal
   7.  Demon Hand
   8.  Soulsteal
   9.  Dread/Stats/Soul Burst
   10.  Soul Burst/Stats/Dread
   11.  Soul Burst
   12.  Dread/Stats
   13.  Dread/Stats
   14.  Dread/Stats
   15.  Stats
   16.  Soul Burst
   17.  -25 Stats/Dread

First you will max Hand and Soulsteal to make you stronger in early game. You will also take stats once in a while to get that few hit points extra. Start using your ultimate at mid game that's why you will only level it at level 10 and not straight at 6.  You wont need Dread until you farm some item that gives you attack speed and the aura will most likely show you to enemies and prevent you from ganking.

Item Build:


Starting Items:




you should get your bottle as son as possible.


Early/Mid game:

or


Mid/Late game:



Luxury Items:


Soulstealer belongs in the mid lane. You have all the key ingredients to pown hard with Soulstealer. So if you gank properly,and manage to follow this Item and skill build you can take your team to victory.

Hope this guide was of help, for improvements to this guide just leave the tips on comment bellow ;)