I honestly hate Heimer.

ModAcademy Kayn·Apr 26, 2015·64 votes·3,881 views

His kit is just Toxic to play against. His play style revolves on letting Turrets farm and poke, while hiding like a bitch throwing out rockets and grenades. His UPGRADED rockets can kill you from Half Health and down.

He's essentially ungankable since his turrets allow him to run around, while they kill you with their targeted damage, and low behold, if you do kill one or two, he can quickly throw down another two, to replace them since they start with full AS and damage from just being placed.

If they made it where turrets needed to ramp their AS over time, when first being placed, instead of starting out with that stupidly high AS, then it would emphasize his weakness of fights breaking out where he is not prepared, while proceeding to keep his planned fights the same.

101 Comments

Astral ZephyroroApr 26, 201526 votes

The donger sucks to lane against for sure but to be honest thats about all he has. Come team fights he can bring a nice engage if he is lucky enough to hit the upgraded grenade for the stun, but then he sacrifices pretty much all of his damage for an engage. If he saves it for the rockets then he blew all his damage on one attack and doesnt really have much to bring to the party. A good heimer is pretty much the most infuriating thing to lane against and laughs at your junglers ganking attempts. Id suggest pick an Tank/Bruiser into him, my maokai/malphite shits on most heimers Ive played against. Ezreal doesnt have to much trouble with a heimer, LeBlanc can fuck a heimers world up.

Edit: I didnt think about syndra or malz because I never play them, but definitely good suggestions, plus its so satisfying to smack em in the face with his own turret

T RexHasLongLegsApr 26, 20151 votes

Yeah, if it wasn't for is ult he'd be super broken in team fights, but that's also what makes him so awesome. He's really flexible and if he picks the wrong ult he's screwed in a team fight, but a good Heimer that picks the perfect ult for each situation is scary. If he uses the wrong one he does very little, but few kits bring the flexibility to either stun out most of the enemy team for disengage or catching the carries while stopping their peel, massive burst on one target (land an e on the adc and follow it up w/ flash ult+w and ignite=no more adc), or massive aoe damage for counter engage if you dive people and he drops ult q.

As for the picks syndra and ez are obnoxious the most out of those imo for mid lane, and mao and sion are worst for top lane. Mao and Sion just suck so much bc Mao gives that reduction to damage on the jungle when you get ganked, and sion can scream at your ult q and throw it away.

Other picks to consider are Cho'gath as his sustain can mitigate Heimer poke and he removes heimer ult Q with his feast in lane, or ziggs (not a huge counter or anything) since he can poke and wave clear w/ Heimer and imo is a little more mobile and threatening late game during rotations and stuff. I get a lot of people who pick malz into Heimer when I play him and the suppression can be annoying, but he just doesn't seem that bad imo as match ups go, and malph I think suffers from wanting to build ad and having to rush mr vs heimer.

Astral ZephyroroApr 27, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=T RexHasLongLegs,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=EfWmpb1B,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2015-04-26T20:17:45.610+0000)

Yeah, if it wasn't for is ult he'd be super broken in team fights, but that's also what makes him so awesome. He's really flexible and if he picks the wrong ult he's screwed in a team fight, but a good Heimer that picks the perfect ult for each situation is scary. If he uses the wrong one he does very little, but few kits bring the flexibility to either stun out most of the enemy team for disengage or catching the carries while stopping their peel, massive burst on one target (land an e on the adc and follow it up w/ flash ult+w and ignite=no more adc), or massive aoe damage for counter engage if you dive people and he drops ult q.

As for the picks syndra and ez are obnoxious the most out of those imo for mid lane, and mao and sion are worst for top lane. Mao and Sion just suck so much bc Mao gives that reduction to damage on the jungle when you get ganked, and sion can scream at your ult q and throw it away.

Other picks to consider are Cho'gath as his sustain can mitigate Heimer poke and he removes heimer ult Q with his feast in lane, or ziggs (not a huge counter or anything) since he can poke and wave clear w/ Heimer and imo is a little more mobile and threatening late game during rotations and stuff. I get a lot of people who pick malz into Heimer when I play him and the suppression can be annoying, but he just doesn't seem that bad imo as match ups go, and malph I think suffers from wanting to build ad and having to rush mr vs heimer.

I just always let heimer push as malph, then go flanking through jungle when the jungler gets their and we both come from the side lane, and once you get ahead you can get that MR first without to much dropoff, it doesnt even have to be a full item, specters or even two cloaks will cut a lot of heimers pre 6-8ish damage.

I never thought about chogath or ziggs but Ive also never laned against them as heimer, but I can definitely see where they would be useful, Im a terrible sion so Im not even gonna try working with that one until I get better with him (not happening anytime soon). I think an Azir might be pretty mean to a heimer when mid lane, I can just throw his soldiers out there and I believe their range is enough to normally be able to hit 2 turrets if the heimer is doing a typical triangle with his turrets.

T RexHasLongLegsApr 27, 20151 votes

Lol can't believe I forgot azir and karthus. Karth q is a bitch for turrets and azir (when his numbers are good) is in many ways just a better higher skill cap heimer in that he has a weird mix of utility/damage potential and is entirely reliant on zones. However, azir can relocate his zone of control frequently, and you can't destroy his version of turrets.

You probably aren't playing a decent heimer then as malph (or I'm getting lucky to not play a good malph as heimer :D) since two things are true, first the heimer should be looking to kill malph before level six, at the latest you want to kill at six by hitting six first and tower diving the malph w/ you ult (this means have a ward up heimer), and second, if you're able to leave and then flank through jungle he isn't playing right when the lane leaves (shove and go do something else, don't stand there w/ it) and he doesn't have the ward he should which would require a malph to go around the long way to come through river if you want to flank me w/ jungle. Just watch out if you start seeing heimer hard shove the lane and back up when you leave lane because they will probably start reacting to your flank better.

Astral ZephyroroMay 1, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=T RexHasLongLegs,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=EfWmpb1B,comment-id=0001000000010000,timestamp=2015-04-27T20:20:49.517+0000)

Lol can't believe I forgot azir and karthus. Karth q is a bitch for turrets and azir (when his numbers are good) is in many ways just a better higher skill cap heimer in that he has a weird mix of utility/damage potential and is entirely reliant on zones. However, azir can relocate his zone of control frequently, and you can't destroy his version of turrets.

You probably aren't playing a decent heimer then as malph (or I'm getting lucky to not play a good malph as heimer :D) since two things are true, first the heimer should be looking to kill malph before level six, at the latest you want to kill at six by hitting six first and tower diving the malph w/ you ult (this means have a ward up heimer), and second, if you're able to leave and then flank through jungle he isn't playing right when the lane leaves (shove and go do something else, don't stand there w/ it) and he doesn't have the ward he should which would require a malph to go around the long way to come through river if you want to flank me w/ jungle. Just watch out if you start seeing heimer hard shove the lane and back up when you leave lane because they will probably start reacting to your flank better.

Its the mind games that get them, they always see me starting to get low ( I almost always try to save a flask/pot for when I get to a 3rd health) then head back like Im afraide of being dived, or ill bait him at tower with the recall, once jungle shows up its normally an easy kill. I have unfortunately played damn good heimers as malph and you might as well just double jungle all game, at least youll get some gold that way.

T RexHasLongLegsMay 1, 20151 votes

Lol yeah I played a game vs garen that I did well and was 5-0 at like 7 or 8 min and the team score was 7-2. Garen did not get good farm that game.

FarRockBFMay 6, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=Astral Zephyroro,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=EfWmpb1B,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2015-04-26T10:21:00.697+0000)

The donger sucks to lane against for sure but to be honest thats about all he has. Come team fights he can bring a nice engage if he is lucky enough to hit the upgraded grenade for the stun, but then he sacrifices pretty much all of his damage for an engage. If he saves it for the rockets then he blew all his damage on one attack and doesnt really have much to bring to the party. A good heimer is pretty much the most infuriating thing to lane against and laughs at your junglers ganking attempts. Id suggest pick an Tank/Bruiser into him, my maokai/malphite shits on most heimers Ive played against. Ezreal doesnt have to much trouble with a heimer, LeBlanc can fuck a heimers world up.

Edit: I didnt think about syndra or malz because I never play them, but definitely good suggestions, plus its so satisfying to smack em in the face with his own turret

Huge +1.

Such a pain. I'm an Annie main. You simply MUST hug your turret and wait until much later when you can flash ult him and... he ded.

Late game he sucks.

goldensilver09Apr 26, 201520 votes

Pick
FUS RO DAH Heimer turrets
See the turrets fly
???
PROFIT

ModAcademy KaynApr 26, 20152 votes

AP Sion anyone?

AshenFoxApr 26, 20151 votes

Pfffff. Naw bro. Banner of Command Sion. Welcome to GE Tigers Meta. ;)

ModAcademy KaynApr 26, 20152 votes

While URF was up, I tried AP Sion, and the enemy team deployed super minions. I played soccer with them, pushing them around the map.

Occams RaiserApr 27, 20151 votes

This isn't effective. His turrets cost little to put back It looks like its working but since Sion nerfs you will run out of mana first. and he doesn't lose cs even if you kick him back to his lane turret

T RexHasLongLegsApr 27, 20151 votes

I think it's more about just getting to scale. Sion scales pretty well as a tank and heimer can't bully him proper bc heimer can't place turrets FAST enough to keep control of the area. Yeah sion will run out of mana, but he actually is super annoying to deal w/ bc until he runs out (where he can back, buy a mana crystal or FH eventually and tp back w/ mana and mr) he can keep heimer from pressuring him by removing heimer's area of control.

Occams RaiserApr 28, 20151 votes

That is true. And without a gank you never have to worry about him killing you. the flaw of Heim.

T RexHasLongLegsApr 28, 20151 votes

Against a lot of champs heimerdinger has pretty good kill pressure, but sion can punish you hard if you do it wrong so usually it isn't worth the risk. Sion just is a decently tough match up for heimerdinger.

Occams RaiserApr 28, 20151 votes

Mundo is another champ that walks through Heim. I had all three turrets out and the ult turret. By level 8 He ignored al of them and killed me under turret. I can deal with Sion. As Heim I have never gotten a gank from my jungler.

T RexHasLongLegsApr 28, 20151 votes

Huh, I don't think I have played it yet. I would have assumed Munro had a bad time against a champ that rushes morello's first item. Lol

NarasimhaApr 26, 20155 votes

Well yeah, that's his strength. You may as well complain that TF2's Engineer is invincible behind his turrets. The thing is, he's only strong when he's surrounded by them, which is why he tends to shine in the laning phase. Come late game, the prevalnce of high damaging aoe spells tend to knock out his turrets before they can do any major damage, leaving his damage potential pretty low.

ModAcademy KaynApr 26, 20151 votes

I'd argue that in TF2 i can uber a teammate to get rid of the problem. It also has only one turret and targets one person, unlike da Donger with three and Aoe's.

NarasimhaApr 26, 20153 votes

And theres your answer. Much as you wouldn't try to fight an Engineer with his turret, you don't rush a Heim in his nest. You bring in a buddy to help solve the problem.

ModAcademy KaynApr 26, 201510 votes

Ahri "Hey, Vi can i get a gank?" "Sure, on my way"

Announcer Heimerdinger "'DOUBLE KILL'"

Ahri (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

NarasimhaApr 26, 20151 votes

Wait, who would you be, the Ahri, or the Vi? Because Ahri actually beats heim pretty badly. Her Q wrecks his turrets pretty quickly. You might need a blue buff to keep your mana up, but after that its pretty easily done.

T RexHasLongLegsApr 26, 20151 votes

Ahri's actually a pretty fun match up, it's pretty skill based. She can clear turrets pretty easy, but you can usually land poke on her when she does so it becomes a dance as to how much you can punish her for clearing, and what she can do to you while turrets are down. Plus it's like blitz w/ the constant pressure to keep up a kit to drop if you get a hook or charm thrown at you.

One day I'm hoping to be good enough to ult q fast enough to drop it in reaction to blitz and watch him pull an ult turret to his team so mine can engage w/ it :D

LittleBlastApr 27, 20152 votes

Ult turrets are immune to cc.

Rıots Bad ClientApr 26, 20154 votes

If you fight a hiem, play as syndra or malz.

ModAcademy KaynApr 26, 20152 votes

I know the guys counters, but that doesn't do much when I'm playing Team Builder. Anyone who can't push constantly against him loses.

AnidanApr 26, 20154 votes

You're effectively complaining about losing a blink pick match-up. Since you can't see him being picked, and therefore don't have the potential to counter, there's not much that Riot is going to do. Nor should they.

It sucks to go against someone who is an effective lane bully (Hi, Yorick), especially if they countered you with that pick, but they don't need changed just because of that. Besides, you add a ramp-up to his turrets and he'll suck even harder at teamfighting, and that's not a hit he really needs.

ZephyrDrakeApr 26, 20154 votes

why aren't you killing his turrets? he cannot keep replenishing turrets if you keep killing them. Anything with not-horrible range can outrange the turrets default autos. You are complaining about not being able to win because you played in a blind pick mode... you might as well complain about how turrets deal stupid amounts of damage when you are lvl 1... aka what did you expect? Heimer has so many counters and the only thing he has is his laning phase and just because you cannot win a blind pick match you want to take away the only thing he has going for him? no, just no

InSingedWeTrustApr 27, 20154 votes

As a Heimer main, I'm enjoying these tears.

T RexHasLongLegsApr 27, 20151 votes

Awe but you have so few games on him this season :( (and are so much higher rank than me :P)

JofeyyApr 26, 20153 votes

You're going to have to coordinate with your jungler to gank when he's weak. If he pushes his turrets a lot, let him take your tower. That way he'll be forced into your side of the jungle when he places his turret network. He'll be more exposed. Punish him whenever he leaves lane by rush-pushing the minion wave and attack his tower. Late game his towers are so weak you can sneeze and kill them. (I'm referencing their health not damage, they still hurt like hell)

If you want to be a total jerk and troll the asshat playing heimer, build banner of command and watch him be unable to kill the promoted minion since its immune to all magic damage. (That one's just for fun but it does ruin his turtling strategy)

stealthfox94Apr 27, 20153 votes

mid laners that dumb on Heimerdinger

Syndra Malzahar Yasuo Ziggs Lux

T RexHasLongLegsApr 27, 20151 votes

Malz and zigg aren't that bad, and yas is mostly annoying in the same way cho is in that he screws your ult options. Not sure about lux match up since I haven't played it enough, but I'm always wondering why I play syndra so seldom and malz, yas, ziggs more when I don't mind those match ups nearly as much.

The Blue RajahApr 26, 20152 votes

Fun fact: early on, Doran's Shield completely denies the damage you take from heimer's turrets.

At rank one, they do 12 damage per shot. Doran's Shield's passive makes it 4 damage per shot. And if he wants to get his other skills, he won't be ranking the turrets until at least level 4. Especially useful if he's trying to cheese top lane, since there's even odds you'd like a Doran's Shield on a normal top pick anyway.

Astral ZephyroroApr 27, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Blue Rajah,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=EfWmpb1B,comment-id=0011,timestamp=2015-04-26T23:27:52.921+0000)

Fun fact: early on, Doran's Shield completely denies the damage you take from heimer's turrets.

At rank one, they do 12 damage per shot. Doran's Shield's passive makes it 4 damage per shot. And if he wants to get his other skills, he won't be ranking the turrets until at least level 4. Especially useful if he's trying to cheese top lane, since there's even odds you'd like a Doran's Shield on a normal top pick anyway.

They may be true, but if the heimer is relatively smart he will have 3 turrets up, one ready to place and be inside his minion wave....early game minions fuckin hurt bro.

The Blue RajahMay 6, 20151 votes

Don't let him set up? You should be clearing turrets before the minions arrive. If you can keep him to only 1 turret at a time, you're pretty much good.

T RexHasLongLegsApr 27, 20151 votes

What's the cheese strat top lane? Also I'm pretty sure they do more than 12, but that might just be the runes I run and stuff (I also generally show up in lane at lvl 2 from taking jungle, so I will have second q point by the time you have all your skills if not just taking it when I hit 3)

The Blue RajahMay 6, 20151 votes

I just generally mean him going top lane, lol.

The base damage is 12, so yeah, that's not including any AP scaling, but you have to remember that the enemy laner getting hit will have a bit of mr from base and their runes as well, so I generally consider runes a wash.

If you're getting ranks in it earlier, then yeah, that greatly decreases the effectiveness of Doran's Shield, but basically as long as the ability is at level 1 (and assuming a person can dodge the laser), it's super easy to go full ham on every turret you put down and try to prevent heimer from getting set up.

T RexHasLongLegsMay 6, 20151 votes

Yeah, I definitely think I underestimated the doran's strat (part of why vlad is such a bitch to lane against as Heimer). At my low elo being a level up is a huge thing, I'm usually waiting for turrets to charge and trying to get 3 so trading doesn't really start and burn my turrets till level 3 vs level 2. Sometimes a level 2 turret can zone an enemy off the wave, but usually not and so it's better to just grab e, but at my level doing that usually results in someone trying to kill the turret and you can e them, w them, and they take 1 if not two lasers. Doran's doesn't help much then, but people probably don't get caught doing that at higher elos.

jmaishereApr 27, 20152 votes

if you think he's bad now, before his rework, his w auto targeted, all he had to do was walk into range and push w

Variks the LoyalApr 27, 20152 votes

Ask the jungler to smite them.

What I did recently, when my mid laner went against Heimer, was go to mid at the beginning and smite any turrets he puts down. Before a certain time, around 1:30 I think, Smite only has a 15 second cooldown, which means you can smite just about every turret he uses.

Takeuchi 17Apr 27, 20151 votes

hmm. thats an interesting strategy. do you do that in the very beginning or is that after your red/blue buffs?

Variks the LoyalApr 27, 20151 votes

At the very very beginning, when Heimer is trying to set up his turrets, before minions come. I was Udyr, and I just waltzed in, and killed one turret with smite. Came back 15 seconds later, smite another one. 15 seconds later, smite another one.

When you get in smite range the turrets will try to cast their piercing shot on you, but if you smite it the spell cancels during wind up, so you don't hafta be afraid of it.

It's not perfect and it won't win you the lane or shut down heimer or anything, but it helps.

Takeuchi 17Apr 27, 20151 votes

interesting. I wonder if taking smite in lane against heimer would be something effective. similar to what top laners now do. may be ill try this out later

Variks the LoyalApr 27, 20151 votes

It'd be worth a try on tanky mid laners, like Cho'Gath or Urgot, for Cinderhulk maybe. For others, I wouldn't discount the utility that Ignite/Heal/Cleanse/Barrier give.

I'd just ask the jungler.

T RexHasLongLegsApr 27, 20151 votes

It will also only work against a bad Heimer or one who doesn't start a camp. probably 99% of my games I start a jungle camp because you can come to lane level 2 with almost no damage done to you if you kite and use turrets right. It takes a while to set up and gets damaged if they contest it but it's an easy advantage. The other option would be to shift where you started placing turrets and put them more on your side so you have a safe early lane drop back and can move up slowly. You'd have to overextend a bit to smite them constantly and my team could get some free damage on you by coming mid to play.

Linna ExcelApr 26, 20151 votes

It seems like every time I pick Ahri mid, the other guy picks heimer. At this point, I'm sick of seeing him more than anything else.

ModAcademy KaynApr 26, 20152 votes

Doesn't help when the majority of Heimer players are toxic. I know not all Heimer players are toxic, I once met a real nice one, but an overwhelming number are.

AudiomancyApr 27, 20151 votes

I've never actually met a toxic donger player. Literally every one I've seen has either been super friendly or just doesn't talk.

ModAcademy KaynApr 27, 20152 votes

Then wow am I unlucky. Everyone I face, save for the one, commit anything to insulting me. Even on my own team, a Heimer harassed me enough just to leave the game (was new to League and didn't have many values"