Heroes of Newerth Noobie Guide 1 – Terms

If you’ve ever played an online game before you’ll know that certain abilities, items, maps, and strategies have shortened aliases. Most online games share a few such as OOM, DPS, and ZOMG HELP.

General Online Game Terms:
If you truly are a noobsauce to online gaming here are a few keywords that most online games share.
OOM - Out of Mana
DPS - Damage. Can relate to a class (damaging class vs healing or tanking class) or the act of damaging.
Tank - The act of taking damage for a long period of time. Can relate to a class or the act itself.
Gank - Killing another player by surprise. Or killing a target player when the target player didn’t have a chance to survive. Some games frown on this, but not in HoN.
DoT - Damage Over Time. Rather than a spell or an attack directly damaging the target a DoT spell/attack will tick damage over time. Think poison. Poison will kill over time, but the initial bite won’t do very much.
Nuke - A nuke is opposite of a DoT spell. Instead of doing damage over time it does it all in one shot.
CC - Crowd Control. When you disable a player for a long period of time. The player can’t use spells/abilities or get away.
Stun - When you disable a player for a short amount of time.
MIA - Missing in Action. A warning when a player is missing from your lane. Alerts team mates to watch for a possible gank.

Heroes of Newerth Game Terms:

Lane - There are 3 lanes. Lanes are the path that creeps take to get to your base. There’s a top, a bottom, and a middle lane. Lanes also have defensive towers in each.
Creeps - Creeps are the little guys that follow each lane to the enemy base. They are the primary source of gold and exp for each team.
Bot / Mid / Top - These refer to each lane. Bot (bottom), Mid (middle), and Top (Top…). They can also refer to the players in that lane. For example, “careful bot” and “back top.”
Care - This is a warning. Means watch your surroundings for a possible gank. “Care mid, bot mia.”
b - Back. Means pull back to base or just back enough to safety. A basic retreat.
Neutrals / Neuts – Ever notice the yellow, orange, and red random dots in the jungle? They are neutral creeps. Meaning they will attack any faction. The color references how hard the monsters there are. Yellow = low, while Red = Harder.
Ult - Your players ultimate ability. Learned typically at 6, 11, and 16.
Fog - The darkened areas around the map when your character can not see anything. For example, the jungles when you’re not in them.
Fountain - The pool of water that your character starts in at the beginning of the match. It gives your character regeneration effects.
Last Hit – Refers to the last hit of a creep that rewards more gold.
Deny - When you get a last hit on your own creep to deny the gold and exp to your opponents. You can attack your own creeps by pressing A and then clicking on the creep. You can only do this when they are below 50% health. Its only a good idea to do this to get the last hit. Otherwise you may be helping your opponents level faster.
BD - Backdooring. Backdooring is moving a head of your wave of creeps and attacking a tower. This is considered cheating by most.
Carry - A character that “carries” their team to the win. Most teams will lose with a bad carry.
Rax - Refers to the ranged and melee barracks that make creeps. Destroying the other teams barracks makes your creeps stronger. Destroying all the barracks gives you super creeps.
Feed / Feeding - Refers to when a hero dies a lot to the other team giving them a lot more exp and a lot more gold. You are in essence “feeding” them.
Fed - Refers to when a hero has gotten so many kills early on that they are at a much higher level than the opposite team and they have a lot more items.
KS - Kill Stealing. When you land a final blow on an enemy when they would of died anyway in essence stealing someones kill. I’ve seen it more frowned upon than “helpful.”
TP - Teleport. When you or a player uses an item or ability to teleport you to your your tower or base. Homecoming Stones are USEFUL. Always have one on you.
Runes - Random runes spawns every two minutes on one side of the river bot and top in Forests of Caldevar (Map I’ve seen most played). There are five types of runes, each has a different color and use.

Double Damage – (dd) Increases your base damage by 100% for 30 seconds.
Invisibility – (inv / invis) Turns your hero invisible for 60 seconds, or until you use an ability or item.
Illusion – (illus) Creates two illusions of your hero that do one fourth damage and take three times the damage for 2 minutes.
Regeneration – (regen) You regenerate 10% hp and mana per second for 30 seconds. It is removed if you are hit with damage.
Haste – Increases your move speed to the maximum speed you can run in the game for 30 seconds.

Heroes of Newerth Game Type Terms:

AP - All pick. Means they let you pick any hero regardless of what side you are on.
EM - Easy Mode. Means that you will get double the gold and experience as normal.
RD- Random Draft. Means that you have to pick your hero from a randomly selected group of 20.
SD- Single Draft. Pick from 3 random heroes assigned to you from each slot. (Agi, Int, Str)
AB - Refers to Auto Balance. Means that teams will be sorted to balance the game to give a 50/50 chance of winning. It sorts it as close to 50% as possible.
PSR - Public Skill Rating.
BD - When in a title of a game BD means Banning Draft. Means players in the blue and pink slots will take turns on banning a hero until 4 total heroes have been banned. This is like Random Draft in that there are only 20 randomly selected heroes to choose from. A total of 16 after all the banning is done.