Boards›Gameplay

Heimer... "little to no skill to play" - dispelling the myth

HokageSapling··8 votes·3,717 views

I have been playing league for a short while now. (6 months)

I bought Heimer out of impulse. I had not read any reviews on him. My family has a German background, and he seemed interesting... so I got him.

To anyone who says that Heimer requires "little to no skill to play"... or that he is naturally OP...or that he is no help. ... Or that he is no fun to play against: Go play a match as Heimer. Hats off to you if you Win the game... double down if you accrue 10+ kills/Assists. Getting to 15+ kills is just difficult. Late game, maybe... Early game, you will do well to finish your lane with few deaths, and lot's of minion kills (money). If you kill, or assist, that is just cherry on top.

Yeah, you may be able to "easily" win your lane against ppl who don't know what they are doing. But without playing him properly, you will most of the time lose, rather than win.

When you see a really strong Heimer, you will see the potential. Any Champion can just "survive" a game with good teammates. But ho thrive as Heimer, you have to learn to play him well... Skill comes into play, just as any champ.

I have gotten my tush destroyed, even now that I think I am a decent Heimer, by the likes of Ahri, Malhazar, Zed, Annie, end so on... I mean... destroyed... getting killed under my own tower sort of thing. Skill... Skill...Skill... I know when I am just not good enough against another player. (and I let my team know... sometimes I switch to TOP for that reason... better than giving the other team free kills)

Here is another thing... Stop complaining so much when a Heimer does not dive into a team fight... unless it is late game, you are just asking us to give them free kills. Pop a rocket, drop turrets close, lauch grenades, etc. But don't dive. On the flip side, I am sure you just love it when you see a soft target like Heimer diving into your fight. Count that kill right away before you continue bashing the other champ down...

If you have a Heimer in your team, he can setup awesome traps for you in a team fight. Let him setup in a bush, and "flee" towards him with your enemies in hot pursuit. Bad guys walk in the bush, Heimer drops Ult, launches stun grenade in the enemy's head, and you get a few kills, or at least severely weakened enemies.

I would consider mylelf a decent Heimer player now.... barring a crazy circumstance, it is unlikely I would ever carry a game, like many Udyrs do.
Yeah, it happens... but that is not playing to his strengths. Supporting team fights (CC and assist), holding back base, setting traps, etc... that is what you want Heimer to do.

If you just jump into a game, with no idea how to play Heimer, you will not be successful. Just like any champ, it takes practice to understand how Heimer scales... It is not easy being in the middle, getting ganked from both sides, deciding when to buy the correct upgrades, based on the enemy you have, and the team you are fighting against. It is NOT trivial.

Fighting a Heimer: Buy MR, shoot his turrets, use a Jungler, WIN Fighting as Heimer: Tons of guides out there... I could go on... But the most important advice I would give is: Patience. Don't dive. You will die. Once you have enough experience, you can dive, but still in a limited fashion.

And Zhoyna is great.. but sometimes...for 2.5 seconds you watch 5 bad guys circle around you and decide which body part they will take after the spell wears off. Not Pleasant...

Flame me if you wish... perhaps you have had a terrible experience with a Heimer.

I feel like bitching about other champs too... but the truth is, we are bitching because we don't understand them... Take the time to study your opponent... There are A LOT of very smart guys thinking through the balance equation of all these champs... Small adjustments are always great, but I do not see a "symptomatic problem" with Heimer.

I still want to become a better Heimer... but I have fun with other champs as well. I am not a fanboy, but I thought I would speak out because I am tired of the negative commentary. I can only hope I educated some of you, and that henceforth you won't complain so much about Heimer.

Have fun out there. Cheers!

12 Comments

MrPerson103 votes

Didn't even bother reading the entire thing, I stopped after this bullshit came out:

Hats off to you if you Win the game... double down if you accrue 10+ kills/Assists. Getting to 15+ kills is just difficult. Late game, maybe... Early game, you will do well to finish your lane with few deaths, and lot's of minion kills (money). If you kill, or assist, that is just cherry on top.

Heimerdinger is a huge lane bully if you have no effective way to clear his turrets, he can advance them slowly and push you against your tower with ease.

He currently has one of the highest winrates overall for a reason. He scales well, his kit encourages passive lane bullying and makes for easy teamfights if you can draw your enemy into your turrets.

He works particularly well on assassins like Katarina Kassadin who have no effective way of clearing your turrets early on or into the mid-game.

This is not to say he requires no skill.

But to say he's less than a force to be reckoned with is hilarious.

meneroth23 votes

So by not reading you missed where this guy has been playing for 6 months. It's nice to have new players in the game even with people like you around. Yea the guy doesn't know a ton, but he's learning and it's nice to see. Maybe in another year or so he will be pro like you, and talk shit to all the new guys to ensure they don't keep this game going after you and I are gone.

MrPerson101 votes

Nope, that was the first sentence that I read - along with anyone else.

I gave factual evidence as to why he's in the spot that he is and isn't terrible at all, then even provided an example of matchups he does extremely well in.

manliestdino1 votes

Heimer really has no skill. Only hard thing i know is pressing that zhonya's and landing that w and e. Don't make him harder than he actually is.

HokageSapling1 votes

Dude.. I just said... If you think it takes no skill, Play as Heimer. Face up to a skilled Ahri, Katarina or Zed on the mid, and die repeatedly. It will be the most unsatisfying game of your life.

I hold my mid lane well... most of the time winning it... I can be aggressive, but I found a good pace in between. I stay focused on the map, and come out to help out in team fights, generally by setting up a safe haven escape route. I do kill my mid-laner early often enough, but I do not make it a priority. If the midlaner is aggressive, and drops bellow 50% while trading punches with me, I will signal the jungler to come finish it. My personal record is 23/2/10. I would much rather have higher assists, but my teammates have to use my turrets to their advantage.

Yes, i do roam the map with the tanks... and I hide in bushes... and I throw rockets and grenades into team fights... When I get to level 16 or so, if allowed to farm, I feel a little more courageous to roam. But most of the time, i regret roaming alone. I think Udyr and WW have a sweet tooth for Heimers.

The next time you meet an "impossible" heimer... just focus on destroying turrets, and denying him farm. Use your jungler to pester him and stay focused on the turrets. A few kills early game, and your Heimer may never recover before the game is over. Pay attention to the items purchased... that will give you a pretty good idea of his Ap level is.

Catastrop1 votes

{quoted}

Dude.. I just said... If you think it takes no skill, Play as Heimer. Face up to a skilled Ahri

My god. I had a game with this one Ahri, just god. They alternated with maxing W and E and made my laning very annoying very quickly. I had to honor them because the guy was really cool and at one point he got off this awesome Charm on me.

Killer of Poros1 votes

It doesn't matter whether or not he can be dealt with or not. He's going to be annoying for both teams since he needs his team to set up fights and the enemy team has to constantly deal with his turrets and Heimer himself while fighting which is freakin annoying as hell.

DreamReaper1231 votes

Heimer is very difficult. The turrets don't require skill, but you have to be able to bait people into them, and the w and e are actually hard to land against a competent opponent. He's also really squishy early.

PL551 votes

You don't usually see people complain about Heimerdinger much except when they get beaten as a melee.

To anyone who says that Heimer requires "little to no skill to play"... or that he is naturally OP...or that he is no help. ... Or that he is no fun to play against

This is the main complaint you see people make everything else is just whining. This should only be a problem in blind pick because not many people will pick a melee into unless it's their main. When you play against Heimerdinger, all you see is his turrets doing everything while you are last hitting that's why many people get frustrated and call him a no skill champion

Sinister Snail1 votes

Dinger always feels bullshit to play against when he's doing well, but one that didn't get good farm early is almost sad to faceroll.

He has either a really easy or pretty rough early game; his kit is pretty polarizing when it comes to which champs can handle him. As others have asserted, it's mostly dependent on your champ's ability to kill his towers.

I noticed that, mid/late game, he's pretty heavily influenced by team comp and communication. If the rest of his team is initiating strong and diving into fights hard, it takes him longer to become relevant in that fight, since he needs to spend time setting up turrets. Wheras a kat, akali, or vel'koz can start dropping their damage at full capacity as soon as a fight starts.

Deathawaitsyou1 votes

oh my god these people that say dinger takes skill!!! i just want to throw up lmfao you just sit your ass between all your turrets and let them do all the work for you! zhonya's and its no risk guaranteed!!! just wtf are you talking about??? forget the op talking about skill alone and he has none!

HokageSapling1 votes

Ok... I see your frustration... BUt the turrets are only menacing if heimer has enough AP/Magic pen... which he can only get if he farms... which he CANT do effectively against any ranged champ that spares an auto or 2 to destroy the turrets while killing minions.

Heimer is ... well... Heimer. The AP scaling is good, so a late game even average Heimer will create 3 turrets that can hurt squishies...

But heimer is very fgragile... basically no peel save for a skillshot... (lob grenade)

About Zhonyas: it AINT as much cherry on top as you may think. If your turrets are not powerful enough, or if you get ganked by 2-3... you could kill one, MAYBE, but you will die instantly upon the fading of the zhonyas effect.

It absolutely takes skill to get the kills using your turrets... I get lots of kills with nicely landed combos, but it takes SKILL to land those combos. Takes slkill to farm effectively.. it is a MYTH that the turrets do all the work. screw around and the minions take more of the enemy's minions than you can kill. Takes skill to thrive in the early game, not die, and start accruing enough AP to really put a hurting on the enemy.

I play nocturne, Malphite, Vayne, Ekko, Azir, Veigar, Alistar, and many others. When I face a Heimer now, I KNOW how to beat him. Precisely because I fought AS a Heimer for so long. And to that point... I can kill him much more effectively IF HE HAS NO SKILL. A skillful heimer is harder to kill, and he will get many kills/assists for his team.

I think Heimer's kit is not much different from anybody else who has a companion (like Elise, Malzahar, Yorick, etc).

The high power of the turrets is balanced by his lack of mobility. I don't know about you, but I would much rather see a FED heimer and his stationary turrets on the map, than an equally FED Malzahar and his crawling companion coming in my direction.

Your perception that it takes no skill is akin to a person who is ignorant of the amount of effort it takes to be successful as a Heimer.

I will say this... Categorically... After having played many more champs now... Heimer is HARD WORK... I get kills, farm better, and make a much bigger impact in the game with a number of other champs, doing less work than I do while playing as Heimer.

Team comp is always a factor... And alternate roles for Heimer (top, support, adc, and even jungling) should be wheighed against the enemy's comp. While I can be very successful as a Support Heimer against a jana/graves combo, I will die repeatedly to an Alistar/Vayne combo. ( BTW, I think jungling Heimer is a bad idea... BTW2, I think ADC heimer is a bad idea as well... I would much rather have a Fed Vayne than a Fed Heimer (but BOTH would be awesome, hence Heim Midlane).
BTW3, Heimer's passive HEALS ALLIES. Free heal. Dont laugh away the next time some dude wants to play Heimer support. It is viable, based on matchup.

I guess In the end, what is bothering me is that I have (along with thousands of other players, over thousands of hours) improved my gameplay with Heimer. If it took no skill, I wouldn't get BETTER at him. Learning combos, concocting situational item builds based on game, deciding how to join team fights for maximum effect (like using Ult grenades to initiate, and let the rest of your team rush in, or waiting for the fight to start in earnest and finding a way to place a Ult turret). There is a lot of knowledge about how the Heimer "flows" in a game, and it takes SKILL to thrive, and win.

I do bid you a great day, and may you continue to have fun with whatever champ you have been playing lately... improving your skill with him :)

Heimerdinger Alistar Malphite Nasus Nocturne Veigar Vayne Azir

More from Gameplay

3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay764 comments
7,167
votes
3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay156 comments
3,510
votes
UPVOTE FOR URF
Gameplay606 comments
2,440
votes
Yes plz.
Gameplay456 comments
1,721
votes
3 Refunds per season, up vote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay114 comments
1,716
votes
When is ANYONE at riot going to address the awful new player experience?
Gameplay634 comments
1,383
votes