Puppet Master Guide
This is a build for an offensive Puppet Master in HoN. It isn’t a ‘carry’ build in the purest sense, but it is highly effective and I’ve used it in the latest patch last night. The most important thing to realize is that you start by putting on point into the puppet strings skill. This may seem counter-intuitive because you might want to pump the whiplash skill for the crit and splash damage. But the first point in puppet strings can save you or a laning partner early game and can help in getting an early bloodlust.
The start items are dependent on whether or not you have to get courier or wards. But I recommend that if you have a partner that gets wards than you get the courier and vise-versa. If nonone gets courier or wards the guess what? Yep, you’re getting both be because it’s about winning and teams that have map control win and others get ganked it’s that simple.
Other items should be some runes of blight and minor totems. If you have tons of money to spare you can always get a pretenders crown for even more stats.
The cool thing about puppet master is that he can lane with almost anyone. His puppet strings work great with Swiftblade because they can drag someone right into the whirlwind.
The second skill you get is the puppet show. This is basically a confusion skill. You want to max this as fast as possible. It can turn the tide of a battle quite easily. It makes an enemy hero attack whoever is closest. But they may even attack someone on their own team. So it is great to cast this on a high damage ranged hero. The reason why you rush to max it is because the duration of the confusion goes up. I personally this this spell is better than a stun. This skill can be used in conjunction with his ultimate as well, which is awesome.
While working on maxing the puppet show, just put one point in the strings and a couple in the whiplash passive. This passive will give you critical strike and can do area of effect damage. What is interesting is that the crit is charge based rather than percentage chance. So the faster you attack, the more splash crates you will have.
This is why you get steamboots on puppet instead of any other boots. The increased attack speed will be monster. The second item to make is Alchemists Bones. This item is made of two pairs of gloves and a recipe that is 900 gold. The gloves only cost 500 each and they add 15% increased attack speed each and that will help you last hit in order to make the money for the recipe.
The reason why Alchemist Bones is great on puppet is that you get triple the gold for creep and neutral creeps that aren’t reds. So if you use the Alchemist Bones on a Vagabond Leader you will get 300 gold! That is a lot of money early game. And you get a charge every minute and a half with a max of two charges. The cool thing is that I instantly kills the creep without you needing to weaken it or anything.
The next item I build is the whispering helm. It adds damage armor and lifesteal. Make sure to by the helm of the victor first. That gives armor and Health regen. The lifesteal piece by itself isn’t good to get first.
Now you can farm like a pro. The next item I like to get on him is millstone. People like to do crowd control direct damage spells on puppet so millstone can absorb a spell every 20 seconds. After that, any item that uses a warpcleft is a good choice. Either that or Behemoth’s hearth for survivability. If you go tank get hear first then upgrade your helm to the savage mask, the heart is a superior tank item.
A lot of people go shroud on puppet. But I think it isn’t as good long term as bones for how expensive it is. Also if you get the bones then you will be able to quickly farm whatever else you wan either in a lane or jungle. Also Puppet can easily be a toe to toe player and he really doesn’t need to hide like a wuss. That and people in better games use eyes and dust so I look down upon stealth late game.
Here’s how to ruin teams in team battle. If you are close to an enemy use your ultimate voodoo doll. Then cast your puppet show and there is a chance they will attack their own voodoo doll which will hurt them a ton of pain.
Meanwhile use your strings on anyone that tries to move or blink or teleport because the puppet strings disable teleportation. When attacking, try and aim for the center of the enemy pack of heroes that way you will hit everyone with your splash damage.
You should be leeching some health but when you get too low run away and let your millstone heal you up a bit and get back in the fight. Using your strings is a good way to avoid being chased from a teamfight.
Your splash damage makes you kill creep waves very fast so late game you will be able to destroy towers and push back waves wig ease.
Since you have a whispering helm make sure to mind control a wolf leader. This will give you a 30% base damage bonus which stacks with your passive whiplash bonus. At level 4 your passive gives 20% base damage bonus. So combined with the wolf leader there is potential for excellent damage. Minotaur champions are good also, they give 15% attack speed bonus. But they also give 150 gold with your alchemist bones so the choice is yours.
Savage mace is an awesome item late game because it does true strike which punctures through evasion. Plus it gives tremendous bonus damage as well as 15% attack speed. Go ahead and sell your alchemist bones late game if you need money or room for this item.
-Tyler