Heroes of Newerth

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Heroes of Newerth is a Dota based game created by S2 Games. It's intended as a DotA update and is planned to be much more. Lore-wise, it precedes the Savage games (also by S2 Games).

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Tropes used in Heroes of Newerth include:
  • Action Girl: There are several female heroes. Of course, none of them use the strength primary attribute.
  • After the End: According to the Excuse Plot outlined in the "Savage" games, modern day civilisation had it's downfall ages ago and in the far future humanity is once again on it's rise to power but is no longer the single dominant species on the planet as the beasts of the land had evolved and become intelligent. Or, rather, it was going for dominance until the Hellbourne started their onslought at which point it became a battle for survival and an alliance of convenience with the Beast Horde was formed to fight the daemons.
  • An Axe to Grind: Legionnaire, Moraxus
  • And I Must Scream: Torturer is the embodiment of this trope, having been transformed into pure destruction and torment in exchange for eternal life.
    • The souls that Soulstealer collects are doomed to an eternity of captivity and suffering.
  • An Ice Person: Glacius, more literally than most. He shatters into shards of ice upon death.
  • Announcer Chatter: "CHAMPION OF NEWERTH!"
    • "R-R-R-RAGEQUIT!" when a player quits the game after dying.
    • The "Flamboyant" announcer is even more funny/annoying, depending on whether you're on the winning side or not.
  • Ascended Meme: After the meme "Too bad, it's me Blacksmith!" caught on among the playing population, Blacksmith acquired the voiceline "Too bad!"
    • Also the skeletons rape you in 3 seconds meme is referenced in the tooltip for Forsaken Archer's skeletons skill.
  • Awesome but Impractical: The Doombringer, an item that gives 250 damage. Unfortunately, it drops upon death. Anyone can pick it up.
  • Ax Crazy: Most Hellbourne heroes, some Legion, and almost all players once the game starts.
  • Back Stab: Night Hound's specialty.
  • Badass Adorable: The Chipper, a furry chiprel piloting a killer steamwork mech.
  • Badass Beard: Pyromancer, and he knows it.

"Flaming stick... check. Flaming shoulders... check. Awesome beard... check."

  • Badass Normal: Chipper, Engineer, Legionnaire, Pandamonium, Rampage, Flint Beastwood and Predator get by without any supernatural abilities.
  • Badass Longcoat: Witch Slayer. Fitting, as he's rather similar to Solomon Kane.
  • Baleful Polymorph: The item Kuldra's Sheepstick turns the target into chattering teeth. Pollywog Priest turns the enemy in a cute lil' bullfrog. Witch Slayer shrinks people!
  • BFS: Maliken's Sword of the Damned.
  • Bigger Is Better: Pebbles starts out tiny and gets bigger every time he puts points in his ultimate skill, eventually becoming the largest hero in the game.
  • Black and White Morality: The Legion are good. The Hellbourne are evil. No question about it.
  • Blood Knight: Every hero is out for battle and blood in this game and are not above killing their own. Many players of the game also exhibit traits.
  • Blow You Away:
    • Zephyr's Gust and Typhoon
    • Tempest's Elemental Void
  • Brother-Sister Team: After the Hellbourne appeared, Jeraziah and Ophelia put aside their differences and joined forces.
  • The Cameo: Several popular The Game Station YouTubers voiced alt-avatars:
    • Total Biscuit voices Steampunk Disciple, an alternate skin for the Corrupted Disciple.
    • Jesse Cox of Jesse Cox voices "Spiriticus", a (male) alternate skin for Nymphora.
    • Simon and Lewis of the Yogscast have also been approached about voicing upcoming skins/characters, with Simon voicing Professor Repulsor, an alternate skin for Doctor Repulsor.
  • Captain Ersatz: The game itself is a replication of DotA, updated to a much more flexible engine and with lots of online multiplayer convenience. Those days it's split off much more from DotA and has established its own metagame and many different heroes.
  • Cast from Hit Points: Accursed's Cauterize takes half the damage dealt/healed from his own health.
    • All of Amun Ra's abilities cost % of his max health to cast and none of them actively use mana.
  • Chainsaw Good: Chipper's Sawblade Showdown.
  • Color Coded for Your Convenience: Legion's player colors are all bright and bold: blue, teal, purple, yellow, orange. Hellbourne's colors are darker and subdued: pink, gray, light blue, green, brown.
  • Combat Medic: Healers don't kick as much ass as everyone else, but they kick some ass.
  • Competitive Multiplayer: Teams of up to five players each are pitted against each other.
  • Crosshair Aware: Scout's Marksman Shot and Flint Beastwood's Money Shot will put a bullseye above his target while he's charging the ability.
  • Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Try pressing Alt+QQ in HoN. Then switch to DotA and do it again. Plus, spells in HoN all have QWER as hotkeys, rather than varying from hero to hero. So even if your favorite DotA hero happens to be in HoN as well, chances are the initial hotkey confusion will throw you off.
    • Rather, if you're switching from HoN back to DotA. For those coming from the mod, standardised hotkeys are a godsend. Of course, you can change the bindings in-game, so its pretty much averted here.
  • Dark Action Girl: The Dark Lady, Fayde, and Forsaken Archer.
  • Dark Is Edgy: The Dark Lady and Soulstealer.
    • The game itself is Dark and Edgy in general, unlike the lighthearted League of Legends. The heroes will be more than glad to kill their own if they need to and the game has the feeling of a Dark Fantasy.
  • Deal with the Devil: Torturer was once a mortal who, while dying, made a pact with the Hellbourne to serve them in exchange for eternal life. To ensure his loyalty without the distraction of physical temptations, the Hellbourne stripped the man of his physical body leaving the pure energy of destruction, agony, and hate.
  • Death Seeker: Accursed will charge into battle, hoping to be finally released from his searing pain. Unfortunately, mortal blows will instead heal Accursed!
    • Torturer gasps "At last..." when he dies and is released from demonic dominion and eternal pain.
  • Dishing Out Dirt: Pebbles, Behemoth, and Sand Wraith.
  • Distracted By the Shiny:

Bladeknight5: Probably the biggest thing for me when I started playing HoN, was that I got distracted by all the shiny graphics, I'd be like "Woah that spell is really - CRAP I'm dead." and my team would be like, "Why'd you sit there?" and I would be like, "Ummm... Lag?"

  • Drop the Hammer: Hammerstorm.
  • Dual-Wielding: Blacksmith with his dual hammers, the Dark Lady with two katars, Madman with a pair of claws, and Swiftblade with his dual katanas. The recently added hero, Flint Beastwood, uses dual shotguns.
    • The items Firebrand and Frostbrand can form Frostburn.
  • Dueling Games: With League of Legends.
  • Earthquakes Cause Fissures: Behemoth's appropriately-named Fissure.
  • Enemy Mine: When the Hellbourne threw down, the Human Legion and Beast Horde ended their war and joined forces to fight against the demons.
    • Magebane is allowed to help fight against the Hellbourne - if not for the war, the priests of Sol would have burned Magebane at the stake as a heretic.
  • Everything's Better with Spinning: Legionnaire's Whirling Blade and Swiftblade's Blade Frenzy.
  • Everything's Worse with Bears: Wildsoul and his pet bear, Beardulon.
  • Evil Chancellor: Pestilence was once a chancellor to Moon Queen before joining the Hellbourne for power.
  • Expy: Being an update of DotA, a lot of the heroes have DotA counterparts. Some are fairly obvious (Moon Queen Luna Moonfang, Pyromancer Lina Inverse, Soul Reaper Necrolyte, Keeper of the Forest Treant Protector), but others (Plague Rider Lich, Pharaoh Clockwerk Goblin, Pestilence Slardar, Rampage Barathrum, Witch Slayer ~ Lion) are a bit more subtle.
    • Myrmidon is an expy of the infamous Magikarp from Pokemon
      • "Myrmidon uses Taunt on newbie." followed by "It's super effective!"
      • made even funnier when you realize gyarados frequenly used Taunt
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Many hero names. Devourer, Hammerstorm, and Pyromancer, to name a few.
  • Face Heel Turn: A whole bunch, all involving the Hellbourne.
    • The Blood Hunters left the Beast Horde for the Hellbourne, knowing that they'd be able to drink more blood serving the demons.
    • Corrupted Disciple once was a priest of Sol, before he was, well, corrupted, and joined the Hellbourne to serve their unholy energy instead of Sol's light.
    • Demented Shaman betrayed the Beast Horde after gaining access to their holiest secrets to join the Hellbourne.
    • Forsaken Archer, in life, was a woodland huntress. After being raped and killed by a spurned suitor, she was revived by the Hellbourne to carry out her revenge on the men of Newerth.
    • Hellbringer, a warlock addicted to demon magic, left the Legion to join the Hellbourne and became the most despised man on Newerth.
    • Maliken, once the grand leader of the Legion, mysteriously vanished one day. He later reappeared as a mindless, demonic slave to the Hellbourne.
    • Pestilence once served the Moon Queen, but after realizing that he could never become ruler, he left the Moon Warriors for the Hellbourne and a chance at power.
    • For a time, Glacius was in the Legion. In more Recent times, however, he has been switched over to the Hellbourne.
      • And then he pulled a Heel Face Turn and is now back in the Legion. (as of patch 2.5.7 Glacius is a Hellbourne Intelligence hero.)
    • Myrmidon was in the Legion for a few months, but once someone found out he was a kind of water deamon, he joined the Hellbourne.
  • Fake Difficulty: A complaint brought up fairly often about the game is that the shop grid layout and user interface are unnecessarily complicated.
    • The shop UI was remade to be more user friendly, but some think that it was made less user friendly.
  • Fan Disservice: Defiler is fairly busty, but rotting and undead.
  • Fan Service: Andromeda, Fayde, Ophelia are all practically naked and very prone to... physics.
  • Flash Step: Magebane can blink using Flash, as well as Wretched Hag using her Flash of Darkness. Using the Portal Key will allow any hero to blink over a distance.
  • Fertile Feet: Nymphora and Ophelia.
  • Finishing Move: Legionnaire's Decapitate and Soul Reaper's Demonic Execution.
  • Fog of War
  • For Great Justice: As the Corrupted Disciple says, "For... ME".
  • Friend to All Living Things: Ophelia, the Queen of the Beast Horde.
  • Go Mad from the Revelation: The Madman.

"Others say he is a man, just a man, but driven mad by the endless carnage he has witnessed."

  • Green Thumb: Keeper of the Forest, Deadwood, and Nymphora.
    • Subverted by Deadwood really; ripping trees out of the ground as weapons? Stampeding through forests and taking their lifeforce to speed himself up?
    • Runes of the Blight, in its unused info, saps the life force of a tree to restore health. It's supposedly "evil", but it's so useful they don't mind it.
  • Good Is Not Nice: Legion might be the good guys but they sure as hell aren't the nice ones.
  • Guns Akimbo: Flint Beastwood.
  • Half-Human Hybrid: Night Hound is rumored to have "unnatural parentage".
  • Heel Face Turn: In the closed beta days, Glacius and Armadon were in Hellbourne, with different lores.
  • Horny Devils: Succubus, natch.
  • Humans Are the Real Monsters: According to lore, an incident exhibiting this is why Ophelia left the Legion to become Queen of the Horde.
  • Human Popsicle: Temporarily, if Glacius imprisons you in ice. Try it on a large target like Pebbles, or even Kongor!
  • I'm a Humanitarian: Devourer.

Devourer: "The best things in life are devoured!"

    • Balphagore, too, but only the dead ones.
  • I'm Taking Her Home with Me: The Chipper would make a good pet... if not for the killer mech.
  • In a Single Bound: Chronos's Time Leap, Predator's Venomous Leap, and Valkyrie's Courageous Leap.
  • I Need a Drink: Engineer says a variation of this if you give him a move order.
  • Instant Armor: The items Astrolabe and Plated Greaves, Arachna's Harden Carapace, Demented Shaman's Storm Cloud, Hammerstorm's Galvanize, Jeraziah's Sol's Blessing, Keeper of the Forest's Nature's Protection, Plague Rider's Cursed Shield and Predator's Stone Hide all give armor at the click of a button.
  • Instant Awesome, Just Add Dragons: Plague Rider rides one. Just 'cuz.
  • Instant Win Condition: World Tree/Sacrifical Pit destroyed? Game over, no matter how many enemy heroes you and/or your team shredded.
  • Invisibility: Scout can Vanish, Night Hound has Invisibility, Keeper of the Forest can Camouflage himself or his teammates, Madman can Stalk in the shadows, Fayde can activate Reflection, and the item Assassin's Shroud will cloak the user when activated.
  • Item Crafting: Maintained from DotA. You can combine base items into more-powerful items using recipes. There are well over five dozen recipes.
  • It's Up to You: Solo mid gankers generally control the game up until lategame, where they pass the reins to the team's carry who will seal the victory almost singlehandedly.
  • Jerkass: This is an online competitive multiplayer game—what did you expect?
    • To wit, more often than not, if you're losing, expect for someone to go into a cluster F-bomb about why his team sucks. Or if your opponents are assholes, expect to be ragged on. Really, it can be argued that Heroes of Newerth has one of the worst communities around.
  • Kill Steal: An essential part of playing the game. [dead link]
  • Lady of War: Moon Queen is in fact an actual queen.
  • Large Ham: The announcer, and about half the hero voices.
    • Devourer: YOU'RE MINE!
    • Blacksmith in particular stands out. "LET'S ROLL THE DICE!"
    • Just listen to the tutorial.
  • Legions of Hell: The Hellbourne, naturally.
  • Level Grinding: From 1 to 25.
  • Light Is Not Good: The item Mock of Brilliance releases burning light that damages enemies near the carrier.
  • Light'Em Up: Jeraziah's Inner Light. Also Moon Queen's Moon Beam and Moon Finale spells.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Armadon, Pestilence, and Rampage.
  • Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: Inverted. Nukers (wizards) are very powerful from early to mid, quickly dropping off during mid- and late-game. Carries (warriors) tend to be very weak early game, eventually becoming a monster late game, killing heroes in 2-3 hits.
  • Living Shadow: Fayde conjures these as a means of attack.
  • Loads and Loads of Characters: Sixty-plus already, with more coming. It helps that they're borrowing a lot of characters from DotA. Many of those borrowed characters are an exact port (in the sense of stats and ability mechanics), but this is changing over time. Almost every hero has at least a few differences from DotA, if not completely original.
  • Luck-Based Mission: Casting Blacksmith's Fireball. Will you do as little as 275 damage... or as much as 1100?
  • Macross Missile Massacre: Chipper's Rocket Barrage
  • Magikarp Power: All "carry" heroes, intended to merely survive the early game and then dominate the late game.
    • Myrmiddon uses the same Magikarp Power but literally. One of it's skills is named Magic Carp and it's info even used to say this : "Magic Carp use Splash !!!"
    • Myrmiddon as a whole IS an expy of Magikarp and a Shout Out of Pokemon after all.
  • Making a Splash: Kraken.
  • Meaningful Name: Loads and loads.
  • Me's a Crowd: Sand Wraith's Mirage, or when a hero activates the Geometer's Bane.
  • Mix-and-Match Critters: Chiprels, represented by The Chipper.
  • Mooks: Lane creeps.
  • More Dakka: Ultimate skills seem to have this effect, or rather most of them.
  • Ms. Fanservice: All hail Ophelia, Queen of the Beast Horde.
    • The Hellbourne counterpart would be Fayde, who is practically naked.
    • Also, Empath, with her G-string of war.
  • Mummy: Pharaoh.
  • My Nayme Is: Fayde.
  • Names to Run Away From Really Fast: The Hellbourne.
    • The Madman, Soulstealer, Hellbringer, Soul Reaper, Torturer, Devourer. Yikes!
    • The Legion also has a couple of examples: Pyromancer, Witch Slayer, Predator, and Behemoth.
  • Neutral No Longer: Many heroes in the Legion stayed out of the Human Legion/Beast Horde conflict, but when the Hellbourne showed up, they joined the Legion to defend their homeworld.
  • Noob: Common parlance in the community.
  • Off with His Head: One of Legionnaire's responses as you issue any commands except for attack. More like:

Legionnaire: Off with their heads!

  • One-Man Army: Once carries farm up the right items, they become this.
  • Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Engineer. To clarify: he drinks heavily, has a Scot accent, a beard, and uses steampunk tech.
  • Pandaing to the Audience: Pandamonium.
    • This is a Shout-Out to the Pandaren Brewmaster in Warcraft III. "I bring PANDA-MONIUM!"
  • People Puppets: Puppet Master.
  • Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Night Hound, Scout, and Madman are all diminutive yet can be lethally effective.
    • Pebbles starts out pint-sized and eventually becomes huge.
  • Playing with Fire: Accursed, Blacksmith, Magmus and Pyromancer.
    • Hellbringer's Ultimate summons the fire-demon, Malphas.
  • Poor Communication Kills: The team with superior communication will almost always win the match.
  • Powered Armor: Corrupted Disciple. When he dies, the armor sucks him into it!
  • Pungeon Master: About half the cast have a whole array of voiced puns, give or take a few.
  • Rage Quit: Announced in BIG BOLD LETTERS whenever someone disconnects shortly after a death.
  • Rain of Arrows: Forsaken Archer's Crippling Volley.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something:
    • Jeraziah, the Leader of the Legion.
    • Ophelia, the Queen of the Beast Horde.
    • Moon Queen, the Queen of the Moon Warriors.
  • Sentry Gun: Engineer's Steam Turret.
  • Sibling Rivalry: According to lore, Jeraziah and Ophelia were on opposite sides of a war between the Legion and the Horde before the Hellbourne appeared to throw a wrench into things.
  • Shock and Awe: Corrupted Disciple, Electrician, Dr. Repulsor, and Thunderbringer.

Electrician: Shock and awe!
Corrupted Disciple: It's electric.

  • Silver Bullet: Witch Slayer's Silver Bullet.
    • And not only effective against werewolves!
  • Sinister Scythe: Fayde's weapon of choice.
  • Standard Status Effects: This game has a lot of possible status effects, so naturally a few of them match up. Slither's skills cause poison, Pyromancer's Fervor causes burning, a number of heroes have ways of silencing, Blood Hunter's Blood Craze is essentially berserk, Glacius's Ice Imprisonment freezes, Maliken's Possession fears, and there are quite a few slows and stuns in this game.
  • Stripperiffic: Some like Succubus but especially Ophelia I mean CMON!!! What the hell does Jeraziah say when he sees his sister like this.
  • Suffers Newbies Poorly: Most of the community actively push new players away. In this game, you getting killed does not just hurt you - it helps your enemy, as they make progress towards leveling up by killing you, so a newbie that dies more than average can actually be a net loss to the team. Experienced players know this, and will vote-kick, or cuss out, newbies, to make them leave. They hope that by doing so another (non-newbie) player will join in that open slot - but if that does not happen, they're still ahead. Overall, the incentives are structured such that newbies are a liability and experienced players seek to push any on their team out of the match, either by harassment or simple vote-kick.
    • Gets worse, the announcer and the game mocks the player for poor playing skills ranging from saying "TOO BAD" for whiffed skillshots. To Unreal Tournament style killquotes. Heroes of Newerth is a ruthless game and it's setting reflects upon it.
  • Super Mode: Maliken's Possession turns him into a hulking demon. Hammerstorm can summon up his Brute Strength and triple his damage. War Beast undergoes a Metamorphosis making him (literally) unstoppable. Madman can go Berserk and totally flip out on an unfortunate victim.
  • Summon Magic: The item Puzzlebox, Forsaken Archer's Call of the Damned, Hellbringer's Summon Malphas, War Beast's Summon Hellhounds, and Wildsoul's Summon Beardulon.
  • Super Strength: When Devourver kills something be it Mooks or Heroes, with a passive skill he gets strength each time until finally it goes over 200, which is bascially saying "HAHAHA now i kill you good".
  • Teleport Spam: Accompanied by sword slashes when Swiftblade triggers his Swift Slashes.
  • The Chosen One: Jeraziah.

"King Jeraziah, the hope of humanity and one of the two leaders of the Legion, is not just a mighty warrior but also the chosen of Sol himself."

  • Throw a Barrel At It: Engineer's The Keg.
  • Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Maliken's Sword Throw.
    • Closely related to (and technically inspired by) Bubbles' Shell Surf, in which said back-implement gets flung out.
  • Time Stands Still: Chronos can freeze time within his Chronofield for everyone captured by it - except for himself.
    • With a Staff of the Master in his inventory, Chronos' teammates can move and act within the Chronofield, albeit very slowly.
  • Too Dumb to Live: To keep this short, its happened.
  • Unstable Equilibrium: Having a better early game often means you'll have a better late game.
    • This is called 'snowballing' and it is only true on team level. Individual heroes that perform well during the early game are useless 30 minutes later and vice versa. However, if there is just one bad player on your team who keeps dying, the game is lost no matter how good the rest of your team is.
  • Valkyries: There is one amongst the Legion's roster.
  • Variable-Length Chain: Torturer.
  • Visible Invisibility: To the invisible hero's team, or when someone is carrying a Bound Eye.
  • What an Idiot!: When all heroes fight against each other on one spot, using the wrong skills at the wrong time will have you being called this in-universe.
  • When Trees Attack: Deadwood and Keeper of the Forest, arguably more so with the former.
    • Now quite literally with Keeper of the Forest, as he has gained the ability to bring trees to life and send them to attack his enemies.
  • Your Soul Is Mine: Quoted by Soul Reaper when he casts Demonic Execution.
  • You Shall Not Pass: Pyromancer, if you click on him many times without giving a single command, will declare this.
    • Followed up by a rather sheepish "... I always wanted to say that."
    • In a more literal context, Pharaoh's Wall of Mummies and Behemoth's Fissure.
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