-Neutral Heroes-

-Naga Sea Witch-

This is a weak caster hero that doesn’t move especially fast. She’s very good for destroying bases, assassinating heroes, and dealing heavy damage to small groups. She’s less specifically useful than many other heroes, as are many of the neutral heroes, but in being so is a valuable addition to any army.

Forked Lightning: This spell hits three units with heavy damage, almost peer to that of Storm Bolt or similar magic. It does (85, 160, 250 at levels 1,2,3) damage to each unit, and has a low cooldown of 11 seconds. It can hit air or ground. It’s especially usfeful against small numbers of units, but be sure to have 3 targets for it to hit, or you’ll lose some of its effectiveness.

Frost Arrows: This ability slows an enemy unit for 5 seconds (or 1.5 seconds vs a hero), adds 10 to her range, and costs 7 mana per arrow. The slow amount goes up every level, and so at level three, with 70% attack and movement speed, this can effectively neutralize a hero’s effectiveness. Very good for stopping straggling units from running away, or picking individuals out of an army. Coupled with another hero with a speed aura, this can make for devastating hit-and-run attacks.

Mana Shield: This makes the naga absorb all damage dealt to her, but drains her mana pool of one point per health point she would otherwise lose. This is useful, but detracts from your other spells, so be sure to have mana potions if you use it, and max it if you’re going to, because only at level 3 does it make your mana potions more effective than your health potions (for the amount of gold they cost). It costs 25 mana to cast, and lasts indefinitely (until you run out of mana)

Tornado: This is a unique ultimate, creating a summoned tornado for 40 seconds, costing 250 mana. The tornado throws units in the air, damaging them, and is especially effective to buildings. It is a channeling summon, so stunning the naga will cause it to stop, but if unchecked, can destroy buildings quickly and effectively. The actual damage is 20 damage/sec to buildings directly under it, so 20*40=800 damage, more than enough to destroy most buildings.

-Dark Ranger-

This is a ranged agility hero, much like the POTM. She’s undead, and so can be healed by the death knight. She’s especially good at nullifying enemy spellcasters and turning opponent’s advantages against them.

Silence: This spell stops all enemies in the radius from casting spells. The AoE and duration go up as the spell’s level increases, so you can effectively nullify a group of enemy spellcasters for an extended period of time using one casting. Very useful for shutting out the occasional blizzard or storm bolt, and useful for keeping your heroes alive against opponents without much range.

Black Arrow: This spell gives a small amount of extra damage to each attack (2, 10, 20 at levels 1, 2, 3) and creates an increasingly powerful minion every time you kill an opposing unit with it. It’s useful for picking off low-hp units to add meat to your army in the form of undead servants.

Life Drain: This spell is like mana siphon, but for health. Make sure you don’t cast it at full range, or when your ranger is at full health, because doing either detracts from its effectiveness. It costs 75 mana and heals (20, 35, 50) hps per second for eight seconds, with an eight second cooldown (so you can essentially continually cast it if you have a lot of mana). It hits at a range of 80, which is further than the ranger can normally shoot, so if you cast it after shooting, you’re probably in good range.

Charm: This spell is like the banshee’s possession, only it costs 150 mana and doesn’t kill the ranger while casting it. It has a relatively low cooldown (45 sec) so you can cast it two or three times a battle, gaining an effective edge of 6 units (3 to you, 3 from your enemy). The best things to target with it tend to be spellcasters with spells you don’t have (especially witch doctors, as they let you get healing ward), or expensive units like taurens, knights or frost wyrms, as they cost a lot and are substantially more powerful than normal units. You can get over the 100 food limit using this, and you keep any upgrades on the unit that it had when you converted it.

-Pandaren Brewmaster-

Everyone’s favorite hero (not literally, but many people find him endearing) , the Pandaren Brewmaster is a pacifistic, drunk bear who doesn’t like people interrupting his drink. (and since he’s always drinking, he doesn’t like anyone talking to him, period) A monster in close combat, he’s also got a powerful AOE to boot, and some serious tanking power.

Breath of Fire: This spell creates a cone of flaming alcohol, dealing 50 damage/level to everything around. It costs 75 mana, and has a 10 second cooldown, so you can quickly use it again and again. In conjunction with Drunken Haze, it also does 10 damage/level per second for 5 seconds, effectively doubling its damage output, making it the most damaging AOE spell in the game!

Drunken Haze: This spell sprays alcohol all over a group of units, halving their movement speed and giving them a VERY high miss chance. (higher than that of ANY other skill in the game, period) for 12 seconds (or 5 for heroes). Really gives you an advantage in battle, making your units at LEAST twice as hardy for the duration. It also makes them vulnerable to the breath of fire.

Drunken Brawler:
This spell gives the brewmaster 60% of the effectiveness of Evasion, and 60% of the effectiveness of the blademaster’s critical strike. It doesn’t affect buildings, however. Its evasion percent (21% at highest level) makes drunken haze all that much more powerful: 21% of 20% of the attacks will hit (that’s about 16% of the attacks) him!

Storm, Earth, and Fire: This spell creates three small pandas to replace your big one, each with different abilities, for 150 mana. It lasts 60 seconds and has a 180 second cooldown. The earth one is very difficult to kill, the air one makes micromanagement a nightmare for your enemy, and the fire one does masses of damage! Beware, however, for if all three of them die, so too does your beloved panda! A popular strategy is to cast a few spells with the storm one, then run him away so you don’t have to worry about your panda dying. Unfortunately, you can’t use the brewmaster’s inventory while he’s using this ultimate, and any bonuses he may get from items in it will be nullified for the duration.

-Beastmaster-

A powerful melee hero, he is one of the only strength heroes in the game that is primarily a caster. He is also the only hero in the game to have not one, not two, but THREE summons, and an incredibly destructive ultimate. His only downside is that, being a strength hero, his mana store is not very high. As such he really can’t afford to continue casting summons non-stop. Nonetheless he is still one of the better neutral heroes.

Summon Bear

This skill summons a powerful bear to your side. At each level, the bear gains increased HP and damage, as well as abilities. Level two bears gain bash, and level three bears gain blink. At level three, these bears are true beasts. Blinking the bears around and bashing enemy heroes is a great way to annoy your enemy to no end, and these things make fantastic tanks.

Summon Quillbeast

Unlike the bear, the quillbeasts make horrible tanks. However, their damage output is very high, and at level 3 they gain the ability to deal splash damage, making them quite deadly. Level 2 quillbeasts get a personal bloodlust ability, making them not only deadly in damage, but able to deal this damage quite quickly. And the best part is, you can have up to four of them on the battlefield at a time! Not quite as tankable as the Archmage’s Water Elementals, but far more deadly in damage potential. And quite a bit more deceptive.

Summon Hawk

Level one hawks are merely tuned down versions of owl scouts. However, level two and three hawks gain the ability to deal damage, and level three hawks also gain truesight. This summon, while the weakest in terms of damage an d HP, is flying, and thus able to harrass far more effectively. Use these to annoy the enemy by harrassing his workers, or pick off low HP units during battle.

Stampede

This skill is just pure destruction. It summons a horde of beasts to smash themselves into a bloody pulp onto the enemies. The beasts appear in random locations and travel in a straight line, colliding and exploding onto whatever they hit, dealing 80 damage. This skill lasts for 30 seconds, and if let to full duration, can easily do upwards of 5000 damage to a base and army! Not to be trifled with.

-Pitlord-

Another of the new neutral heroes that defies its class, this is a strength hero with caster spells, once again. His rain of fire is like a souped up blizzard, except with a lower instant damage, while his howl of terror simply shuts down an enemy army. His passive ability allows for improved damage, but it is not worth passing up the other two for. His ultimate is somewhat underwhelming, as the doomguard that is summoned is quite easily dispelled, however if left unchecked is still reasonably deadly.

Rain of Fire

Not to be confused with the similar Doomguard ability, the Pitlord’s rain of fire is completely devestating. Doing slightly less damage than blizzard on impact, it has a burning duration that gives it in reality slightly MORE damage than blizzard. It has a higher mana cost and longer cooldown though, so it can’t be cast as often.

Howl of Terror

This spell nullifies a large portion of the enemy army, as even at level one it gives -30% damage. This is increased to a maximum of -50% damage at level 3, which is a very significant amount. Use this skill when close to a pack of enemies for maximum effect, as it’s radius is not very high.

Cleaving Attack

This ability gives the Pitlord a splash damage attack. At increasing levels, more of the pitlord’s damage splashes. At level one it only splashes 25% of the damage, however at level 3, the splash is increased to 65%. This is a skill best reserved for late game, as you won’t be doing much splash damage early on.

Doom

Doom’s an enemy unit to death, upon which the unit will respawn as a Doom Guard under your control. The unit takes 40 damage per second until dying. Make sure that you use the Doomguard’s abilities quickly, as it is easily killed. Warstomp knocks out their units that are surrounding it before it is spawned, and cripple can then be used to knock out their more powerful units. After this, it is best to run the doomguard away, as even though it has high hp and damage, it is best used for its spells.

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