But it’s actually only the US-EN Forum that has still trafic on it. The other language-Forums are quite dead now.
That’s one of the reasons why so many non native english speakers ruin the readability here. Me included 
2 Likes
So since it seems that we have at least a few HoN alumni here, what heroes in HoN did ya’ll like?
For 3 top favourites were Behemoth, Ophelia and Nymphora…? I think her name was. The fairy girl.
I liked going around in the forest gathering a group of Minotaur creeps and then surprise rush someone on lane, surround them with the minotaurs and then hit them with the Minotaurs’ stuns.
I also liked playing Nymphora both as a standard healer/support but also, on occasion, as a deadly killer as one of her abilities gave her attack speed bonuses’ and stuff for each enemy hit, allowing her to become kinda deadly in some situations.
And there was nothing greater than using Portal Key with Behemoth into the middle of the enemy with the CD-reset item for double ult.
Me and my IRL friends still have a silly inside joke from HoN. At one time, a battle was about to start at top lane and we were waiting for one of my friends, who was playing behemoth and was a bit aways, but then he was like “GOGOGO ATTACK I GOT PORTAL KEY!”
So we went in to attack and got killed because he was muuuch farther away than a Portal Key could ever hope to teleport.
Since then we make that joke of “DONT WORRY I GOT PORTAL KEY!” When we’re waaay too far away to help.
I played random mode or just all-pick but where I clicked the random hero button that also gave a bonus of 250 gold quite often.
Good times.
3 Likes
My fav was always Glacius, pretty liked his overall style and of course the Nuclear Winter skin! - “Stay away, unless you wanna be radioactive!”. Also played Pearl quite a bit, she was fun! And I generally was always some of a support/heal main. But man, supporting was quite a chore sometimes, ngl.
-Securing kills but don’t you DARE taking the last hit
-Warding/Counter warding
-ganking the other lanes
-Last hitting your own minions to deny gold/XP
-Stacking jungle camps
-Occasionly pulling a wave of minions into that one camp on the long lane to shift push
-Upgrading the curier (in the very old days)
All while of course try to not fall back too much in XP and gold for your own stuff
Besides that I also quite liked Cthulhuphant and Prisoner 945, cool dudes
2 Likes
I would argue that these are players who haven’t cared about the low population for a while. Honestly, I thought HoN would have shutdown 1 year after Dota2 came out because it was almost a direct clone. So it begs the question: What did these die-hard fans like in HoN that Dota2 didn’t have?
I would say that it’s more likely that they switch to Dota2 due to familiarity, but I think these players enjoyed certain features enough that the low pop didn’t matter. I don’t think HotS has those features – whatever they may be – but I won’t say low pop is their deciding factor.
What did HoN have? Much better purchaseables for a very long time. A smoother game engine. You know how all the LoL kids complain that Dota 2 has a delay? HoN fixed that by not wasting time on recreating all of the WC3 engine’s quirks. Many original heroes and items that weren’t in Dota 2. Arguably a better art style overall. HoN could have been THE flagship of the genre if Maliken wasn’t so greedy.
4 Likes
That makes sense. I played Dota1 for 10 years but didnt switch to Dota2 because of the art (too dark, hard to see things) and didn’t seem to make mechanical changes (e.g. keeping the “lag” and turn rates just to keep with the original). And it took them like 4+ years to come out with an original hero.
I also think they didn’t care about low pop.
But jumping from a sunk ship to one with a leak?
I usually liked playing the tank but there were midlane heroes or support CC that were really fun. Very rarely I’d go as carry.
My go to was Accursed I liked persuing and just being a menace. Magmus, Soulstealer, Monarch, and Dr Repulsor were such fun and unique heroes I loved playing them.
100%
Its such a shame how its own management burned it to the ground like that.
Yeah the news are sad to me as former HoN player, but I expected it since Frostburn isn’t a giant company like Activision Blizzard.
My favorite hero was Gladiator, but I liked a lot of heroes, especially tanky or support heroes.
It is a Dota-copy that’s true, but calling it “almost a clone” is just plain wrong. HoN’s gameplay is much faster than Dota 2. Meta wise and technically. I loved HoN, but I never could get used to Dota 2…
Another thing I miss about HoN is the shop cosmetics. I paid real money for that without regret.