One of the most popular game release for 2023 is none other than Honor of Kings, a MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Royale) that features a strategic 5v5 battle royale action. Just recently launched 1 week ago, the China-based MOBA has already amassed over 1 million downloads. This massive feat tells how much the game is loved and perceived by the players. Apart from downloads, Honor of Kings also boasts over 1 million pre-registrations prior to its Brazil launch. The game is expected to launch globally soon after stability tests. As part of new server opening rewards, players can experience a variety of freebies offered to players such as free champions on logging in, in-game currencies, and more accessories. Players can download and install Honor of Kings as a free-to-play title on both the Google Play Store and iOS App Store with in-game microtransactions enabled.

Table of Contents

1. Combat Mechanics Explained
2. The Ranking System
3. Strategy for Winning Ranked Matches Easily
4. TOP LANERS (CLASH LANE)
5. MID LANERS
6. BOTTOM LANERS (FARM LANE)
7. JUNGLERS
8. SUPPORTS (ROAMING)

Honor of Kings is a MOBA title where players battle in a 5v5 match that takes place in a cross directional square shaped map. One of the biggest advantages of games like Honor of Kings are the reliability on each individual player’s skills instead of blatant pay-to-win mechanics that can assist them in victories. Each team has to strategize, outplay and overpower the opponent team in order to win. The core condition of victory depends on which team can destroy the enemies base.

A lot of strategies take place while playing games like Honor of Kings where 1 bad move can lead to disaster. In the mix of the chaotic teamfights, you might be wondering what should I do? Which enemy to aim for? What are the best heroes? A proper game plan to achieve victory? Well, you’ve come to the right place, as we will be sharing all of our personally observed tips and tricks for Honor of Kings. We will also be discussing some basic combat strategies in this beginner guide for Honor of Kings.

Combat Mechanics Explained

The combat mechanics for Honor of Kings are quite simple to understand but quite difficult master. Simple in the sense that they require little to no pre-requisite knowledge of similar games in order to excel. Players spawn along with their teammates at one side of the square shaped multi-directional map. The enemies spawn at the other side of the map. Your team will be each divided into 5 different roles depending on the different lanes on the map – Top Lane, Middle Lane, Bottom Lane, Support, and Jungler. The Top laner goes to the top lane which is marked by the spawn of Dark Slayer while the Bottom Lane goes to the bottom lane which is marked by the Abyssal Dragon.

The Mid laner goes to the middle lane which stays in the middle regardless of which side of the map you spawn. Similarly, the Jungler is tasked with going to the jungle area in between all the 3 lanes. The Jungle area is inhabited by different types of monsters that provide the jungler with ample experience and gold to catch up with their laners. The Jungle also hosts 2 different types of buffs – Red Buff and Blue Buff. Each of these buffs provide different type of effects to the carrier. The Red buff provides additional AD (Attack Damage) to the carrier and slows the enemies on hit. The Blue Buff on the other hand provides immense amount of Mana Regeneration, typically useful for Mages and Assassins as their skills consume a lot of mana.

The Support role is a multi-utility role in Honor of Kings and it isn’t bound to any particular lane. As the name suggests, supports are usually playmaker heroes that can either crowd control enemies or heal/provide buffs to allies. They can go to any lane which is having trouble in order to neutralize the lane. On the other hand, they can also help the jungler to take objectives such as the Dark Slayer and Abyssal Dragon faster. Well, with the basics clear, let’s get right to the exciting part.

The Ranking System

In Honor of Kings, the competitive game mode is called the Ranked mode where players fight for rank points and to climb the rankings in order to appear higher in the leader boards. There are 2 types of rankings – Global Rankings and Friend Rankings. The Global rankings dictate where you stand among all the players on the server while the Friend Ranking dictate where you stand among your own friends in your friend list. Naturally, the players are rewarded based on their global rankings. To understand the strategies for winning rank matches, we must understand the ranking system first.

The ranking system in Honor of Kings is quite easy to figure out as it is not much different from any other similar MOBA game. The gist of the system is that players fight amongst each other and get points rewarded to them if they win the matches. Points are deducted if they lose the match. In Honor of Kings, players are given 1 rank star per win while 1 rank star is taken away upon loss. Do not worry as till Gold rank, your rank stars won’t be taken away till loss. This is to promote player participation in the game mode and not to discourage players from avoiding ranked mode. For more clarity, here are the different ranks in Honor of Kings:

• Bronze – 3 sub-tiers (Bronze 1, Bronze 2, and Bronze 3)
• Silver – 3 sub-tiers (Silver 1, Silver 2, and Silver 3)
• Gold – 4 sub-tiers (Gold 1, Gold 2, Gold 3, and Gold 4)
• Platinum – 4 sub-tiers (Platinum 1, Platinum 2, Platinum 3, and Platinum 4)
• Diamond – 5 sub-tiers (Diamond 1, Diamond 2, Diamond 3, Diamond 4, and Diamond 5)
• Master – 5 sub-tiers (Master 1, Master 2, Master 3, Master 4, and Master 5)
• Grandmaster – Stars given per win, no tier system. Overall stars decide the rankings.
• Mythic – The top 100 grandmaster players will be given this rank.

Strategy for Winning Ranked Matches Easily

The Strategy for winning rank matches is quite diverse and by multiple experiences from different players, it also depends a lot on your current rankings and the teammates you get. Firstly, the best option to climb would be to get mastery with a particular set of heroes that go in either Jungle, Top Lane, Mid Lane, Bot Lane, or Support. None of the roles are inferior or superior to each other. All the roles play a major part in getting victorious over your enemies. Each role has a different job altogether; hence, we would like to share some of the strategies and your role in each of these positions. Keep in mind that these understanding of roles are coming from a singular point of view and there are other complexities involved while playing these roles. Here’s a short gist of each role:

TOP LANERS (CLASH LANE)

Top Laners are generally categorized as those players who choose to go to the lane that is marked by the Dark Slayer. The Dark Slayer is a huge monster that spawns near the pit in the top lane. In inverted map, the top lane is located at the bottom side of the map, hence, it’s always marked by the Dark Slayer. The heroes that come in this lane are usually bruisers or tanks that can deal significant amount of damage or tank/sustain enough damage. This is partly due to the lane being completely isolated from the rest of the map and no useful objectives except the Dark Slayer being around. Players fight 1v1 with their opponents in hopes of either killing them and getting a gold advantage or to simply farm more gold by denying your opponent gold and experience.

There exists a small dragon as well at the corner of the top lane that provides a teleport buff to the player that kills the dragon. It respawns once every 2 minutes in the lane till 7 minutes. After the Dark Slayer spawns, this buff also disappears. Top laners can use this teleport buff to come to the bottom lane near a spot towards the Abyssal Dragon. This helps them fight with their team or to execute a gank by surprising enemies. Some popular heroes that are used in this lane include Kai, Li Po, Sun Ce, Ata, Ying, Musashi, Arthur, Wuyan, Lu Bu, Eternal Sage, Beast, Yang Jian, and Li Xin.

MID LANERS

Mid Laners are generally categorized as those players who choose to go to the middle most lane that harbors at the centre of the map. The Mid lane remains in the middle position, regardless of which side of the map you spawn. The heroes that come in this lane are usually mages that can deal magical damage, crowd control enemies, or poke from range. This is partly due to the lane being being surrounded by a both sides of the river where they are susceptible to ganks from enemies. Hence, mages that can deal damage from range and are fairly mobile are preferred.

Players fight 1v1 with their opponents in hopes of either killing them and getting a gold advantage or to simply farm more gold by denying your opponent gold and experience. However, many times, the mid laners simply clear the minions in their lane and then proceed to gank other lanes for opportunities to get more kills in order to snowball their lead over their opponent. This helps them fight with their team or to execute a gank by surprising enemies. Some popular heroes that are used in this lane include Angela, Kongming, Peacekeeper, Daji, Breezy, Guitarist, Chemist, Frost, Diaochan, Nuwa, Milady, and Athena.

BOTTOM LANERS (FARM LANE)

Bottom Laners are generally categorized as those players who choose to go to the lane that is marked by the Abyssal Dragon. The Abbysal Dragon is a huge monster or neutral objective that spawns near the pit in the bottom lane. In inverted map, the bottom lane is located at the top side of the map, hence, it’s always marked by the Abyssal Dragon. The heroes that come in this lane are usually attack damage carries that can safely farm from a specific range and can scale up to become true carries in later stages of the game. Players in the bottom lane usually face a lot of skirmishes as they are ganked constantly by junglers, supports, and mid laners. Since they are quite squishy and weak in early stages of the game, they need to play many times quite carefully under their towers. Similar to other lanes, players in the bottom lane also fight 1v1 with their opponents in hopes of either killing them and getting a gold advantage.

As bottom laners, it’s evident that most of the time you need to farm till late game as attack damage carries or ADCs for short are late game heroes. However, in higher ranks, even ADCs simply clear their lane and assist their team in skirmishes or fights around them.  Some popular heroes that are used in this lane include Arli, Solarus, Private Ear, Luban No. 7, Lady Sun, Marco Polo, Judge Dee, and Juniper.

JUNGLERS

Junglers are generally categorized as those players who choose to go to jungle area that is located between the lanes on your allied side of the map. The Jungle area is home to several different types of monsters or a group of monsters that are called “Jungle Camps”. The Junglers are expected to constantly farm these jungle camps as they provide gold and experience to the jungler. Additionally, they also get access to 2 Buffs which we had previously talked about – Blue Buff and Red Buff. The Jungler is tasked with taking the Smite spell which can deal true damage to neutral objectives and jungle camps. The Smite spell can be upgraded as well into Blue or Red Smite by upgrading the Jungle item from the shop. Yes, the Jungle item is a must build for players who are going to jungle as it deals more damage to jungle camps and allows them to farm efficiently.

The main objective of any jungler should be to farm their jungle camps efficiently, gank enemy lanes, and to take neutral objectives such as Dark Slayer and Abyssal Dragon. This neutral objective provides buffs to all allied teammates. Smite is a great spell to secure the objectives as it deals true damage to them. The damage of the Smite spell increases proportionately to your level as the jungler. Some popular heroes that are used in the jungle include Ying, Han Xin, Mirrorblade, Mulan, Zilong, Li Bai, Prince of Lanling, Lam, Kongming, Monkey King, Tigerous, and Private Ear.

SUPPORTS (ROAMING)

Supports are generally categorized as those players who choose to be the roamer or supporter for the team. The Support role is probably one of the hardest roles to excel at as there are many gray areas with no significant duty of the support. It’s generally observed that they go to all lanes, mostly mid or bot lane, to carry out ganks or prevent their allies from dying. Some aggressive supports such as Voidcaller are also known for setting up ganks with their crowd control abilities. They are not bound to a specific lane. Supports are required to purchase the Support items from the Item Shop in order to get more gold and experience passively without the need to last hit minions or monsters. Hence, their duty is completely dedicated towards allies and watching the map.

Supports are also quite susceptible to getting caught by enemies and need to have a high degree of map awareness. Some popular heroes that are used in this role include Timebender, Dreamcaller, Mischief, Beast, Voidcaller, Little Lute, Eclipse, and Yaria.

For more information, players can visit the official website for Honor of Kings. Players can enjoy Honor of Kings even more on a bigger screen with your keyboard and mouse via BlueStacks!