Guide To Griefing and Feeding

Link to HoN Forums Thread

Introduction:

So, you're playing HoN and losing every game because your team feeds every lane. You win your lane but your incompetent teammates do not understand the concept of hugging the tower or switching lanes (pub training) when they lose their lane. Inevitably, the game is lost, or if you carry hard enough your pubs undeservedly gain MMR. Don't despair, though. There is still fun to be had in HoN. You just need to know where to look.

I now present to you the art of feeding and griefing. "Feeding?! Only losers and basement dwellers do that! I don't want to be a scummy, game-ruining brazilian like those orange and brown players!" you say. Hold your horses, fat son. At least hear me out on this one.

How It Works:

Heroes of Newerth is a very competitive game. The goal from the beginning of every game is to win at any cost. As a result, emotions are high and mistakes are not tolerated. Each of the ten players is investing time from his or her life they will never regain, and after 45 minute endeavors that result in lost MMR, many players become quite angry and before long, losing becomes associated with these feelings of grief (Pavlovian). This feelings are intensified by the fact that after this investment of time, there is a net loss. The player would have been better off not playing the match. Unfortunately, with the introduction of goblin coins (and IP in LoL), the player receives some sort of compensation for his time. This has reduced overall mad, but thankfully there is still plenty to be had.

Schadenfreude:

Now that we understand how and why emotions run rampant in Newerth, I would like to explain how to exploit these for personal gain. But first, a short history lesson. In ancient Rome, gladiators were often killed, much to the delight and sadistic pleasure of spectators. In Lord Byron's poem "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage", a gladiator is referenced to being "butcher'd to make a Roman holiday." In modern terms, a roman holiday has come to be associated with enjoyment at someone else's bad luck or pain. A Similar term you may be familiar with is schadenfreude, a german word often used as a loanword in English, meaning pleasure derived from the misfortune of others. The word exists in many other languages and the correlating phenomenon has been observed since the beginning of time. Scientifically, the hormone oxytocin has been demonstrated to be associated with feelings of schadenfreude in a 2009 study. Unarguably, schadenfreude exists, and HoN just happens to be a very suitable medium to experience it from.

Disclaimer: I am not responsible for any penalizing action upon your account. For best results, create a smurf account (free and does not require a valid email address), and solely employ the following actions on that account. Also, most of the following mechanisms only work when hero help is enabled. Because of this, typically you will have to wait before you're below 1400 to begin experiencing most of the joy associated with this style of play. Also, there exists a negative correlation between rating and player willingness to voice his or her opinion of you and your mother in both team and voice chat. Lastly, and this is purely anecdotal, but, the young and foreign demographic seems to be increasingly strong as your rating diminshes. As a result, if you ever wanted revenge against the aforementioned cohort for being called a niggercuntlicker in CoD, now is your chance.

Graph of Propensity Towards Turning Off Hero Help

I will now begin to elaborate upon the various ways of upsetting your team and losing games. With how many heroes and items are present in Newerth, there exist a multitude of ways in which you may grief your team. Unfortunately, some are not as good as others and as a result, I have organized several tiers of trolling. Not all heroes are equal in terms of griefing potential, and as such, such disenfranchised heroes are placed in to lower tiers. I will also mention various items that may be of assistance throughout these ignoble pursuits.

Unfortunately, the hero tier list and item list could not be fit in to this post and as such, I must externally link it. Here it is:

• Hero Tier List and Item List

Frequently Asked Questions:

Q: When should I get the courier killed?
A: This is a difficult one. It encroaches upon Game Theory and I find it very similar to the game of double or nothing. Executing a proper courier kill requires much skill and few get it right. Allow me to elaborate.

If one kills the courier before the game starts, teammates will be aware and may prevent you from doing so (I recommend investing in an AutoClicker for this reason). Even if you do get it killed your teammates can just buy another courier and not give you control (if they find out it was you). For this reason, I recommend against such an approach.

Rather, wait for items to be placed within the courier and when the courier is about to reach its destination, suicide it. Then, the courier will drop the items and if you're lucky, the enemy team will either kill them, take them, or even use them (bottle, eye, et cetera)!

However, one doesn't want to suicide the courier when there's only a couple potions on it or a pair of boots. Getting the courier killed when it has big ticket items like null stones or daemonics really makes your teammate especially furious and almost always results in a loss.

Then again, what if this time never comes? In that case your team had unlimited access to the courier throughout the game and you missed an opportunity. I hope you can now see the dilemma. It then becomes a game of risk and calculation. Should you wait for the possibility that a teammate ferries an expensive item at the cost of said teammates having unrestricted access all game to the chicken, or be more safe in suiciding it during the delivery of a bottle? The decision is yours.

Q: What are some ways in which I can grief specific heroes?
A: Great question! Personally, I love to kill Emerald Warden's traps. Even if they are full health they can be denied. This makes EW players quite irate and even moreso if you just follow them around doing such.

Also, Booboo can be denied and killed once he is below 10% health, damaging Wildsoul slightly. If you're lucky, you can actually kill your Wildsoul with such an act.

Also, summoned creeps can be denied once they're past the 50% mark in terms of health. Keeper's trees, Warbeast's wolves, Balphagore's minions, Ophelia's creeps, et cetera.

Q: How many people should I queue with?
A: I prefer queueing with just myself and a friend. This way, you cannot be kicked (requires unanimious vote) as long as neither of you become detected as AFK (stay active). Also, if you queue with three the pubs no longer have the majority and there are less people you can fuck with.

I rarely queue solo because schadenfreude is best when shared, but when I do, an Ophelia pickup would probably be best, because otherwise you may still win the game or not be able to sufficiently upset your teammates.

Q: Won't I get reported? I don't want to get banned!
A: First of all, you're on a smurf account and S2 never does IP bans except in extreme circumstances. Secondly, for executing the actions outlined in this thread, you will most likely just be suspended for a few days. During that time you can just make another account and use that one.

When (if) that account gets suspended, you can just switch back to your old one. However, you probably won't receive any sort of disciplinary action. An account needs to be verified in order to report you and most of the pubs at that level don't even know what verified means.

Also, pubs are notorious for their lack of short-term memory. Even if they say they will report you, once the game is over they will have forgotten and will just queue again instead. Even if you are successfully reported, you might not even get suspended. This is a relatively minor offense and S2 doesn't care about 1300s anyway.

Q: What if my teammates turn off help?
A: At this point I usually just begin feeding my hero to the other team repeatedly. One can also resort to killstealing, wasting skills, using spells improperly, being generally useless, spamming/insulting your team, etc. Be creative!

Conclusion:

Thank you for reading my post and hopefully maintaining an open mind. This style of play need not dominate your playtime. Rather, give it an honest try and see if you like it. Perhaps it may serve as some sort of catharsis, or at least a mild stress reliever. Good luck everyone. See you in Newerth!