Abilities Build
INTRO
In Paragon the damage of spells don't really get higher, at least on Howitzer, so you either play him as some sort of tank support or you have to make out a new Idea of dealing damage.
Next you notice that your scale with Energy Damage, only with a ratio of 0.375 but they still do. Then you realize that there is only one way to increase your damage if your ratios are shit.
You buy crit, because crit always doubles or 2,5x 's your damage output. And then? Then you buy attackspeed because attackspeed does not have to follow ratios.
The outcome is attacks with damage between ~130 and (with crit) ~330 Damage.
How much damage did that again? Like 400 with full spelldamage build? ? 1200? 1300? Overall pretty low amounts which you can easily surpass with this build.
You will do about 2 attacks per Second, worst Case damage output (in Lategame)
~260
Best case damage output (in Lategame) in 1 second
~660
More than you will ever achieve as a caster.
If you play Howitzer as a Caster he is easily the worst caster, if you play him like I said, he is easily the best caster. Using his Ultimate as Escape skill is also totally legit.
Abilities Overview
Your is nice to farm and finish people
Your is an okayish escape skill + usable to throw the enemy back into your team after ulting
Your is a slow, which doesn't get better when you level it.
Your is one of the best escape skills in the game, with some unreliable damage. (It's really good against gideon when he ults)
Abilities Combos
About me
I'm a 23 year old Student, living in Austria.
I have played every moba that was invented in the last 10 years and got some experience that way.
Last Words
The Cards are just an Idea I am giving you. I'm pretty sure this is not the perfect build, I'm also lacking many cards to make it better. But this is how you can deal tons of damage with Howitzer.
Answers
Q: Why did you give up on Sustain and how do you get map awareness without wards?
A: Howitzer's Skillset gives you tons of ways to escape from situations, there are nearly no Reasons to die. Beside a 5 man Gank while you were Overextending. Overall as a Dota Player I don't really value health much.
Because, if you are in such a bad Situation that you can not escape with and the fact that you can tank up 2-3 more attacks won't change anything for you. Overall you always have to check your positioning.
I can't really explain how I have map awareness without wards. At first there are 4 other players in your team which are totally able to place wards, and if they don't you just have to guess the enemy movements. Like try to think how you would act in their Situation.
The #1 Trick to Survive is not to overextend your position alone (and even then Howitzer has the best chance to survive it with his Skillset)
Q: Why don't you focus on Mana Pool?
A: This is an Build which focuses on Howitzers . So your main damage won't cost any mana. Another reason is that as a Dota player I'm used to have so little mana, that I don't even know what to do with all the Mana Paragon gives me.
Don't use your skills light-hearted and try to get the most value out of them.
Q: Whats the flip-side of your Build?
A: I honestly don't see a flip-side of this build. As I have explained above I don't see the use of tankyness on Casters beside maybe Gideon, because he has to go in Facerange. Overall you won't be some kind of Support with this build.
@Deevo, welcome to the club. Nice build. I'd love to see it a bit expanded with analysis of what is the flip side of the coin.
The other thing I see is that the build completely gives up on sustain. Nearly no HP increase. So you need to have good map awareness but the ward comes very last. Does auto attack DMG worth it?
Mana pool is also a trade off but It looks fair since the build focuses on auto-attack output. No mana potion for the same reason I guess.
@George
Thanks for replying, I will answer Questions in the Bottom of my Guide.
Hi,
Madstone Gem it s physical damage not energy
@Teo (not verified), yep. Probably the Whirling Wand was meant to be used instead.
@George, and @Theo no this is actually wrong in the Database of paragon-game.com
Madstone Gem is actually Energy Damage. Proof here: http://imgur.com/JkwTQhz
I will change it in the Database.
Okay, nevermind I can't change it. Might be Interesting for the dev of this.
@Deevo, Thanks for the screenshot. It was fixed.
@Deevo, Looks good bro, howitzer is a AWESOME character when used right! My good friend plays him like a pro. I saw him take out 4 v 1 with his ult. Great hero when played right. Keep up the work and appreciate the time you took to write this guide!
SmokeyJay :)
The guide was promoted to the front page for a couple of days to receive more attention.
@George, thanks :)
@Deevo, the guide was put back from the front page to give new guides more chances to be noticed. Since 11 Apr this guide has received 811 unique views and scored total 6 rating. This is the 5th-6th place among all the guides which is a very good result for a guide that is less than 10 days old.
Is this still viable after the crit nerf?
@Hocisern (not verified), My personal opinion would be no, given that that howi is a caster, crit wouldn't have been very good stat from him from the get-go. Given the recent nerfs to "crit chance/ damage" it just not worth building on him anymore. Also due to the .27 patch his abilities got buffs to their range and to capitalize on the buffs I would highly recommend building Eng. Dmg. with a some mana and a bit of added health.
Feel free to check out a guide I made for Howitzer "Liquid Courage" which you could find under Howitzer guides for this site. It still under progress and need some minor tweaking due the .27 patch but still viable and worth looking at.
@NakedMexico, you could have simply linked that guide :)
Made that for you.
@George, Lol, did not know I could do that, thank you good sir.
Nice build although I would add that it would be better to up the slow grenades instead of the land mine. Grenades do more damage and don't cost as much mama.