Playing around with Pyromancer - a hero strategy discussion

My brother and I had this conversation yesterday about the best item build for Pyromancer. Actually we always have a lot of HoN strategy discussions everyday as we get to play with different teams.

As for my intro, let me just tell you something about this hero. He's a popular utility man, ganker and heavy nuker. Every time I play HoN, there's always someone who will pick this hero. Oh btw, this hero's counterpart in DotA is Lina. Pyro kinda strong in early game and serves well in ganks and clashes because of his double spell. He can't be considered a disabler because his AoE stun will be the first spell that he'll throw. You can't afford to wait for the right moment. Unless there are other stunners, e.g. Blacksmith/Hammerstorm.

I played around Pyro when my psr was around 1600. And not just played around but used him to his full potential. Tried several builds etc.

These are some things that I've discovered:

1. He's imba in mid!
Well obviously, casters are strong when they're high level. Early Blazing Strike (laguna) can kill the carry hero if they decided to let him farm in bottom or top.

2. You can try to steal the other team's creep stack by placing wards there then nuking their creep stack.
This is very popular. You get your domi then dominate a creep. After than, pull every minute. Either ancients/normal creeps then kill them to get an early bounty. Thing is you have an enemy pyro, he can easily get your stack. So to counter it, put wards in your creep stack as well. :)

3. The third skill is actually useful in laning.
At first I thought that it was useless but NO! It's useful. Maybe just get 1 level then it's fine. Magical damage overtime + attack speed is not that bad right?

Now, this is where our debate began.
I said the best thing to do is get Ghost marchers,bottle,bracelet/1 glowstone and wards early game. Your role is to control the runes and gank. After that, if everything goes well, you can get your Portal Key and hopefully Staff of the master.

I also added that sometimes, if early game was really owned, getting staff of the master early is not a bad idea at all. Imagine killing a carry hero like Valkyrie by just one stun and ulti? Pretty cool huh?

But then, my brother said:
It's better to get Str Steamboots, wards, then storm spirit, then portal key. I was stumped with the idea. He explained that steamboots would be like his bracers. The storm spirit would be an additional disable + movement speed. You can cyclone a fleeing hero then stun! Not a bad idea. Moreover, he said you can escape aoe spells such as epicenter/chain frost (sorry if i used the dota term). He has a point right? Thing is if you don't die, you will eventually get money to get your key and eventually staff of the master. The cooldown of key and cyclone are the same so if you want to escape from the epi. Cyclone yourself then spam your portal key to the safe place. It works for them! I tried it once and it's true.

But yeah. Thing is this doesn't fit my play style. All up to you guys on what items you want to use. I even tried using Harkon's blade. Works nice but not ideal for his role. LoL

Posted in: Hero Guides,Heroes of Newerth,HoN,Legion