This is an fairly in-depth analysis of the new champion Heimerdinger (aka Hemi) who was released in the last patch. This will cover both playing him, and beating him. I've played Hemi a good deal, winning most my games with him and still being close to the top of the kill boards
Table of Contents
I-Basic overview
II-Skills
III-Pregame
IV-Items
V-Recommended Build
VI-How to Play Hemi
VII-How to Counter him
Section I-Basic overview
Hemi is an interesting champion to say the least, excelling at slow pushes and long, drawn out defensive holds. If positioned right, he has been known to hold off an entire team and creep wave. He is fairly item dependent but he gains gold very rapidly if played right.
Starting Stats: HP (420), Mana (305) HP Regen (2), Mana Regen (1)
Base Damage (50), AS (0.63), Armor (10), Dodge (0), Crit (1%)
Magic Resist (30), Range (550), Move (300)
Section II-Skills
H-28G Evolution Turret (Q), Mana Cost (120/125/130/135/140) CD: 30/28/26/24/22
Hemi places a turret that deals 24/26/28/30/32 damage plus 0.25 AP with 225+14/lvl HP, may place 2/3/4/5/6 turrets at a time. For each 7 shots it takes, the turret gains additional armor and damage
This is his bread and butter, this is how he'll win. If he places more than allotted, the first one he placed will be destroyed, keep track of the order you made them.
Hextech Micro Rockets (W), Mana Cost (will add soon) CD: Coming Soon
Hemi fires a rocket per lvl of the skill at a random champion within range for 80+0.2AP damage
A great ability for soloing or ganking a single champion, but much weaker against groups due to its random allotment of missles per target. It's good for harassing and you cannot use it without a valid target so it works as a mini-radar against other champions. It will not target invisible champions so no help there
CH-1 Concussion Grenade (E), Mana Cost (100/110/120/130/140) CD Coming Soon
Hemi throws a slow moving grenade that deals 80/135/190/245/300+0.7AP in a small AoE, blinding targets for 1/1.5/2/2.5/3 seconds and stunning those in the middle for 1 second. Can damage towers.
This is his survival and second farming tool. With engough AP, you can easily kill an entire creep wave with a single grenade
Upgrade!!! (R), Mana Cost (Coming Soon) CD 40/35/30
Passive: Reduces CD for abilities by 15/20/25%
Active: Hemi upgrades one of his turrets with 100 HP, 10 Damage and 10 Armor as well as additional AS and Dam for 15 seconds and gives Urranium Bullets to basic towers, reducing armor and magic resist by 1 on each shot. A second use of this on a tower gives it an AoE splash as well as an additional 100 HP, 10 Damage and 10 Armor
This can make you a god of explosives as well as lets you deploy turrets faster or makes your turrets even better at killing both buildings and your enemies.
Passive Ability: Repair Bots, grants 6/12/16/22 HP/5sec to nearby allied champions and turrets (including your towers) Nice Little healing boost which lets you fix your towers if you are on defense and helps keep your turrets alive in a prolonged fight
Section III-Pregame
Runes-Mana regen/lvl and AP/lvl are your friends. They make you stay in lane longer early game and help you kill things even faster, enough said. Don't bother with CD because your Ult makes them useless as CD buff maxes at -40% CD
Masteries-9/0/21 Spread
Offense - Archmage's Savvy (3), Deadliness (1), Sorcery (4), Archaic Knowledge (1)
Utility - Perseverance (3), Good Hands (3), Awareness (4), Expanded Mind (4), Meditation (3), Utility Master (2), Blink of An Eye (1), Presence of the Master (1)
You don't really need the CD Masteries so I skipped over them in favor of other masteries
Spells
Teleport - This is the only one I say you have to have. Not only can you teleport to your turrets but you need it to get to your starting position fast enough to set up before the enemy champions and creep can reach your starting position
Heal - A good ability, it will heal your turrets and you are fairly squishy, if you pick this, change your masteries accodingly
Flash - Evasion and avoidance is the name of the game, the less up close fighting you do the better
Clarity - Helps with the fact that you Will blow through all of your mana a lot
Section IV-Items
Start with Farie Charm, I know that it's not very good but what you want is to build Tear of the Goddess as fast as possible to boost your max mana. Once you can buy the full thing, do it. Then save up to by Archangel's Staff for the continued mana boost, mana regen, and AP boost
At this point there are options, you can build boots (swiftness or mercury) as running is a very good thing for you to do when you have 5 champions trying to gank you (and they will), the AP ones are good but I prefer survivability with them. You should also be going for Frozen Heart (Glacial Shroud first) and Zhonya's Ring in the order of your choice, I prefer the Glacial shroud then the ring followed by finishing the Heart but that's my preference. So this is what you should have
Archangel's Staff
Boots (Mercury or Swiftness)
Frozen Heart (for bonus CD, armor, and Mana)
Zhonya's Ring (for more mana and tons of AP)
This is usually all I have time to build but other good items include any mana regens including Innervating Locket which will also heal your turrets. Pots will also boost your AP and give you more gold to buy with
Section VI-How to play him
Hemi excels at slow controlled pushes and base/tower defense. Maximize your land control by placing your turrets in the bushes so they can shoot from relative safety, just be wary as this makes them easier to hit with AoEs. Alternativly you can place them in a C-curve along a lane with the bend towards your base to set up an effective kill zone for anyone that enters the middle though it makes the outer turrets easier to kill individually as each turret has less coverage. My favorite is a C curve with two turrets on the outer flanks and four in the middle covering the kill zone but not attacking until the other two have started shooting. It will take some time to learn the correct placement but it will hold back multiple champions and get you kills if they try to rush, as well as ensuring that creep waves will be decimated. When it comes to upgrading the turrets, try to place all of your turrets first with the reduced CD then upgrading the flanks to lvl 2 first, then the middle. Then repeat when upgrading to lvl 3 turrets. This works for both defending and pushing. To defend, place near your tower, to push move the line further up.
When going after a tower, grenades are your friends. Since they have good AoE damage and damage towers at a range further than the towers can shoot, you can work them down with only having to run back to your turrets to wait on the next creep wave to die before you can 'nade the tower again and with a low CD you can spam them very well, eventually 1 'nade every 6.8 seconds, making him great at soloing towers. Hemi's turrets will also attack towers if no other targets are available and with the MR and armor decrease of lvl 2 turrets, it will make you job faster. Speaking of Turrets, they will do the same against inhibitors, making very short work of them even though your grenades will not damage inhibitors, period.
Recommended Skill Advances
1 Turret 1
2 Grenade 1
3 Turret 2
4 grenade 2
5 Turret 3
6 Upgrade 1
7 Turret 4
8 Grenade 3
9 Turret (MAX)
10 Grenade 4
11 Upgrade 2
12 Grenade 5
13 Missile 1
14 Missile 2
15 Missile 3
16 Upgrade (MAX)
17 Missile 4
18 Missile 5
I like this since it maximizes your staying power and your ability to drop towers. You might want to pick up a missile early in place of a grenade but don't use it often
Early Game (levels 1-6)
Go bottom, period, as fast as you can. As soon as you buy your items, teleport to your outer tower and rush to the opposite side of the bushes and start dropping turrets at the edge of the bushes. Then just camp out using grenades to hit the tower and enjoy your free gold and Xp, you will level faster than everyone except sools in most cases if you are sharing the lane. Just focus on farming and holding your lane, only leaving to buy or if you are jumped, at this point though, very few champions can deal with both you and your turrets, dying if they manage to kill you. If you can't go bot for some reason, the top bushes can reach the creep path but barely, you will need to attack the creeps to have them rush your turrets in the bushes, in mid, just use the C turret formation though you will need to repair them more than in the other lanes.
Mid Game (Level 7-12)
You likely have a tower kill or two and the other team has taken notice, move cautiously but don't stop your slow advance. Use grenades and missiles to harass the other team and chip down on your next turret. Just remember that you are still a fragile champion with low health so don't go in over your head and get out of there if the other team is coming for you, you can always rebuild. Don't worry about ganking them though unless you have an easy opportunity or it's not out of your way, they will come to you or forfeit their base to your grenades and turrets. Try to stun them in range of your turrets and let them do the dirty work
Late Game (Level 13-18)
At this point you have most your items and you are a force to be reckoned with, your missiles will eats enemy champions that try to take you on 1-on-1 and your grenades will kill entire creep waves. Just keep up the pressure on their base and watch their attempts to stop you fail and if they all decide to attack you, just run off as the rest of your team does heavy damage of their own.
Other fun strategies, placing turrets near neutral creep spawns will let you jungle without staying there, 3~4 lvl 3 turrets will drop Dragon for you and you'll only need to replace one every time they get you more Xp and gold.
Section VII-How to counter Hemi
I don't use him at all times and he is very annoying to play against at times so here is some advice on how to stop and enemy Hemi. Don't let him set up in the bushes and if he does get a heavy gank going as fast as you can because he will drop the tower unless you can get a large number of AoEs into the bushes. Additionally, if the turrets aren't in the bushes, Ashe and Tristana can easily deal with his turrets as Ashe's volley and Tristana's basic attack out-range the turrets. Large AoE's are your friend when facing a cluster of them. Fiddlestick's crowstorm, Viegar's Dark Matter, Ganplank's Cannon barage, and Morgana's Dark Soil will kill them though Fiddlesticks will die without cree support, the cannons should but won't always hit and Viegar and Morgana will need to send a couple attacks at them in order to drop them. Another Hemi's grenades also work wonders. In the general sense, don't let someone solo against him, as constant pressure will be needed to force him back.
I've also heard Sivir is amazing at dropping towers but I haven't seen that match-up yet
*edit* Twitch's ult out-ranges Hemi's turrets and will drop clusters quickly (from ben4zwin)
In closing, Hemi is good, and likely going to get a few nerfs but until then he is a solid champion with a few set back, he is very item dependent to keep in mana up and he will go through it regardless in a prolonged fight and if you can find him without his turrets he can go down pretty easily once you dodge his first grenade. I plan to finish looking at the mana and CD numbers for his skills and add anyhing else I can think of at a later date.
Table of Contents
I-Basic overview
II-Skills
III-Pregame
IV-Items
V-Recommended Build
VI-How to Play Hemi
VII-How to Counter him
Section I-Basic overview
Hemi is an interesting champion to say the least, excelling at slow pushes and long, drawn out defensive holds. If positioned right, he has been known to hold off an entire team and creep wave. He is fairly item dependent but he gains gold very rapidly if played right.
Starting Stats: HP (420), Mana (305) HP Regen (2), Mana Regen (1)
Base Damage (50), AS (0.63), Armor (10), Dodge (0), Crit (1%)
Magic Resist (30), Range (550), Move (300)
Section II-Skills
H-28G Evolution Turret (Q), Mana Cost (120/125/130/135/140) CD: 30/28/26/24/22
Hemi places a turret that deals 24/26/28/30/32 damage plus 0.25 AP with 225+14/lvl HP, may place 2/3/4/5/6 turrets at a time. For each 7 shots it takes, the turret gains additional armor and damage
This is his bread and butter, this is how he'll win. If he places more than allotted, the first one he placed will be destroyed, keep track of the order you made them.
Hextech Micro Rockets (W), Mana Cost (will add soon) CD: Coming Soon
Hemi fires a rocket per lvl of the skill at a random champion within range for 80+0.2AP damage
A great ability for soloing or ganking a single champion, but much weaker against groups due to its random allotment of missles per target. It's good for harassing and you cannot use it without a valid target so it works as a mini-radar against other champions. It will not target invisible champions so no help there
CH-1 Concussion Grenade (E), Mana Cost (100/110/120/130/140) CD Coming Soon
Hemi throws a slow moving grenade that deals 80/135/190/245/300+0.7AP in a small AoE, blinding targets for 1/1.5/2/2.5/3 seconds and stunning those in the middle for 1 second. Can damage towers.
This is his survival and second farming tool. With engough AP, you can easily kill an entire creep wave with a single grenade
Upgrade!!! (R), Mana Cost (Coming Soon) CD 40/35/30
Passive: Reduces CD for abilities by 15/20/25%
Active: Hemi upgrades one of his turrets with 100 HP, 10 Damage and 10 Armor as well as additional AS and Dam for 15 seconds and gives Urranium Bullets to basic towers, reducing armor and magic resist by 1 on each shot. A second use of this on a tower gives it an AoE splash as well as an additional 100 HP, 10 Damage and 10 Armor
This can make you a god of explosives as well as lets you deploy turrets faster or makes your turrets even better at killing both buildings and your enemies.
Passive Ability: Repair Bots, grants 6/12/16/22 HP/5sec to nearby allied champions and turrets (including your towers) Nice Little healing boost which lets you fix your towers if you are on defense and helps keep your turrets alive in a prolonged fight
Section III-Pregame
Runes-Mana regen/lvl and AP/lvl are your friends. They make you stay in lane longer early game and help you kill things even faster, enough said. Don't bother with CD because your Ult makes them useless as CD buff maxes at -40% CD
Masteries-9/0/21 Spread
Offense - Archmage's Savvy (3), Deadliness (1), Sorcery (4), Archaic Knowledge (1)
Utility - Perseverance (3), Good Hands (3), Awareness (4), Expanded Mind (4), Meditation (3), Utility Master (2), Blink of An Eye (1), Presence of the Master (1)
You don't really need the CD Masteries so I skipped over them in favor of other masteries
Spells
Teleport - This is the only one I say you have to have. Not only can you teleport to your turrets but you need it to get to your starting position fast enough to set up before the enemy champions and creep can reach your starting position
Heal - A good ability, it will heal your turrets and you are fairly squishy, if you pick this, change your masteries accodingly
Flash - Evasion and avoidance is the name of the game, the less up close fighting you do the better
Clarity - Helps with the fact that you Will blow through all of your mana a lot
Section IV-Items
Start with Farie Charm, I know that it's not very good but what you want is to build Tear of the Goddess as fast as possible to boost your max mana. Once you can buy the full thing, do it. Then save up to by Archangel's Staff for the continued mana boost, mana regen, and AP boost
At this point there are options, you can build boots (swiftness or mercury) as running is a very good thing for you to do when you have 5 champions trying to gank you (and they will), the AP ones are good but I prefer survivability with them. You should also be going for Frozen Heart (Glacial Shroud first) and Zhonya's Ring in the order of your choice, I prefer the Glacial shroud then the ring followed by finishing the Heart but that's my preference. So this is what you should have
Archangel's Staff
Boots (Mercury or Swiftness)
Frozen Heart (for bonus CD, armor, and Mana)
Zhonya's Ring (for more mana and tons of AP)
This is usually all I have time to build but other good items include any mana regens including Innervating Locket which will also heal your turrets. Pots will also boost your AP and give you more gold to buy with
Section VI-How to play him
Hemi excels at slow controlled pushes and base/tower defense. Maximize your land control by placing your turrets in the bushes so they can shoot from relative safety, just be wary as this makes them easier to hit with AoEs. Alternativly you can place them in a C-curve along a lane with the bend towards your base to set up an effective kill zone for anyone that enters the middle though it makes the outer turrets easier to kill individually as each turret has less coverage. My favorite is a C curve with two turrets on the outer flanks and four in the middle covering the kill zone but not attacking until the other two have started shooting. It will take some time to learn the correct placement but it will hold back multiple champions and get you kills if they try to rush, as well as ensuring that creep waves will be decimated. When it comes to upgrading the turrets, try to place all of your turrets first with the reduced CD then upgrading the flanks to lvl 2 first, then the middle. Then repeat when upgrading to lvl 3 turrets. This works for both defending and pushing. To defend, place near your tower, to push move the line further up.
When going after a tower, grenades are your friends. Since they have good AoE damage and damage towers at a range further than the towers can shoot, you can work them down with only having to run back to your turrets to wait on the next creep wave to die before you can 'nade the tower again and with a low CD you can spam them very well, eventually 1 'nade every 6.8 seconds, making him great at soloing towers. Hemi's turrets will also attack towers if no other targets are available and with the MR and armor decrease of lvl 2 turrets, it will make you job faster. Speaking of Turrets, they will do the same against inhibitors, making very short work of them even though your grenades will not damage inhibitors, period.
Recommended Skill Advances
1 Turret 1
2 Grenade 1
3 Turret 2
4 grenade 2
5 Turret 3
6 Upgrade 1
7 Turret 4
8 Grenade 3
9 Turret (MAX)
10 Grenade 4
11 Upgrade 2
12 Grenade 5
13 Missile 1
14 Missile 2
15 Missile 3
16 Upgrade (MAX)
17 Missile 4
18 Missile 5
I like this since it maximizes your staying power and your ability to drop towers. You might want to pick up a missile early in place of a grenade but don't use it often
Early Game (levels 1-6)
Go bottom, period, as fast as you can. As soon as you buy your items, teleport to your outer tower and rush to the opposite side of the bushes and start dropping turrets at the edge of the bushes. Then just camp out using grenades to hit the tower and enjoy your free gold and Xp, you will level faster than everyone except sools in most cases if you are sharing the lane. Just focus on farming and holding your lane, only leaving to buy or if you are jumped, at this point though, very few champions can deal with both you and your turrets, dying if they manage to kill you. If you can't go bot for some reason, the top bushes can reach the creep path but barely, you will need to attack the creeps to have them rush your turrets in the bushes, in mid, just use the C turret formation though you will need to repair them more than in the other lanes.
Mid Game (Level 7-12)
You likely have a tower kill or two and the other team has taken notice, move cautiously but don't stop your slow advance. Use grenades and missiles to harass the other team and chip down on your next turret. Just remember that you are still a fragile champion with low health so don't go in over your head and get out of there if the other team is coming for you, you can always rebuild. Don't worry about ganking them though unless you have an easy opportunity or it's not out of your way, they will come to you or forfeit their base to your grenades and turrets. Try to stun them in range of your turrets and let them do the dirty work
Late Game (Level 13-18)
At this point you have most your items and you are a force to be reckoned with, your missiles will eats enemy champions that try to take you on 1-on-1 and your grenades will kill entire creep waves. Just keep up the pressure on their base and watch their attempts to stop you fail and if they all decide to attack you, just run off as the rest of your team does heavy damage of their own.
Other fun strategies, placing turrets near neutral creep spawns will let you jungle without staying there, 3~4 lvl 3 turrets will drop Dragon for you and you'll only need to replace one every time they get you more Xp and gold.
Section VII-How to counter Hemi
I don't use him at all times and he is very annoying to play against at times so here is some advice on how to stop and enemy Hemi. Don't let him set up in the bushes and if he does get a heavy gank going as fast as you can because he will drop the tower unless you can get a large number of AoEs into the bushes. Additionally, if the turrets aren't in the bushes, Ashe and Tristana can easily deal with his turrets as Ashe's volley and Tristana's basic attack out-range the turrets. Large AoE's are your friend when facing a cluster of them. Fiddlestick's crowstorm, Viegar's Dark Matter, Ganplank's Cannon barage, and Morgana's Dark Soil will kill them though Fiddlesticks will die without cree support, the cannons should but won't always hit and Viegar and Morgana will need to send a couple attacks at them in order to drop them. Another Hemi's grenades also work wonders. In the general sense, don't let someone solo against him, as constant pressure will be needed to force him back.
I've also heard Sivir is amazing at dropping towers but I haven't seen that match-up yet
*edit* Twitch's ult out-ranges Hemi's turrets and will drop clusters quickly (from ben4zwin)
In closing, Hemi is good, and likely going to get a few nerfs but until then he is a solid champion with a few set back, he is very item dependent to keep in mana up and he will go through it regardless in a prolonged fight and if you can find him without his turrets he can go down pretty easily once you dodge his first grenade. I plan to finish looking at the mana and CD numbers for his skills and add anyhing else I can think of at a later date.
