Ha Boa - Complete He Bo Mid Guide. The Dive / Anti Dive Mage

About me:

Hi, my name is Eli, IGN: xSypRo. I am a diamond level conquest player. I am trying to create these guides to help new players get familiar with the game and understand the basics of the game.

Do know that while I am trying to do these guides as informative and as helpful as I can, reading them alone won't make you instantly good. This is not clickbait guide to tell you that if you build this way you will win every single possible game. You will have to try and get better, and with time and following this guideline, it will happen and you will win more.

About He Bo:

He Bo is semi assassin mage, which means he has the damage to take enemies from 100-0 in a quick burst of damage, but he needs to get pretty close to them to do so.

It is best to start to play He Bo when you have some understanding of the mid meta and know to play other gods, YOU DONT WANT TO MAIN HE BO AS YOUR FIRST MAGE MID LANER because then you will learn principles you won't be able to apply when playing other characters and it will be pretty hard for you to learn other gods.
Some recommended first mages are: Ra, Scylla, and Poseidon. After you learned and mastered all 3 of them, come to this guide and learn he bo safely.

As for today meta, you start at the speed buff, helping your jungler clear it, you shouldn't stay there too long, or until he finish it, you can hit the camp as it spawn with your 1, and add 1 or 2 auto attacks and move to your lane.

Your level 1 is pretty bad with this starting build, you give up lvl 1 clear for better lvl 3 and better mana sustain in the mid game.

You should try to clear the wave as fast as you can, howeven you will be out-cleared by most mages at the first wave, that's ok, try not taking too much dmg from the minions as they go to the tower, if you do take over 200 dmg at this point, use the potion to get back to full health.

Be careful from level 2 ganks as at this point the jungler is heading toward the mid lane, and you don't want to fight them.

Wait for your jungler and head for your red buff, try to save your mana, don't use more than 1 skill to clear it with the jungler.

At lvl 3 is where you start to be good, you would want to hit all the minions you can with your 1, but mostly hit the archers, then follow up with your 3 and it will clear them, that's really important because he bo wave clear is pretty weak for a mage.

Then you keep going like that in lane, you back when you can finish the items, and your first back should be around lvl 3 to complete full boots, I highly recommend the magi boots for the lifesteal and extra early damage.

He Bo clear is pretty bad compared to most mages, you would need to get close to your minions in order to hit them, and even then it's not going to damage them so much.

Be careful here, let the other mid laner clear before you if u need to, don't take too much damage while clearing the wave from pokes or from minions.

Example wave clear:

As you approach the wave, you can poke the enemy with your 3, it has great range, and it's a pretty safe poke because the knock up he will have hard time to damage you back.

He Bo strength is not coming from his clear, or lane pressure. It comes from his damage to gods. However, fighting in the mid lane is often risky because he bo is pretty vurnable to ganks, so do fight only if you have good vision on the enemy jungler and support. So be cautious, take fight when you can, and avoid diving too far, while it is tempting to get close to damage them with your 1, you should still be careful with it and watch your position when you try to do so.

He Bo has great gank potential, use it, rotate from your lane and help in other lanes, he is great at bursting people before they can re-act, the go-to place to rotate is usually the duo lane because it's usually easier to get kills there and snowball ahead.

Plus, it's the gold fury side so keep an eye on that, if you win big on the duo lane fight you can maybe start gold fury.

He Bo staple combo examples:

There is 2 main approach to team fights with he bo.
Either play like an assassin and try to find a good blink to the enemy backline within the chaos of the fight - This approach is mostly used by he bo junglers that I am not going to cover here.

Or play like a traditional mage, near your ADC, deal with the divers, help him and fight together with him, this is the approach I recommend, especially for beginners.

Before the fight starts, you are looking for good poke opportunities with your 3, you want to try to find it on high-value targets that you can do a lot of damage to, mostly the ADC and the enemy mid, but do be careful from stepping out of position when you trying to get this poke, as the enemy team will try to lock you down if you do.

When the fight start and hell break loose, you want to choose your approach, if you want to help the ADC dealing with all that happened, stay near him, "push" your way inside through the enemy frontline,use your 1 when they in range, use your 2 to boost your team and slow the enemy and use your 3 to get enemies off yourself and your ADC, when the enemy jungler approach, try and use it to burn him down.
Use your ult if you can for aggressive option to finish them off, but be careful from when you end up when you use it, you don't want to find yourself at the enemy face with no ults and no way to escape.

The other approach is to play near your assassin and warrior as they go in and look for the enemy backlines, you can either do that by sneaking around the jungle or by using your blink to go past the enemy frontline.

However, never do it alone, never be the one that does the engage, because if you would try and go alone, you would die in 10/10 times, sometimes u would get a kill, but 99.99% of the time it would not be worth it, play smart, let your team do the engage and look for the time window when they don't expect you, and only then strike.

So which approach is better? it depends on the situation, and where you can do more impact, there is no right or wrong, most of the time both of them can work, so it is up to your judgment and your playstyle which one you choose.

For He Bo, Offense is the best defense. He bo is burst mage, it means that when assassin's dive him, he can often turn on them and kill them.

You would want to create some space, as he bo has some range, you don't want to fight them at straight melee range, you can use your 3 to create that initial space when they try to get close to you, it's a knock up but it's not straight up like Horus knock-up, for example, it will knock them up and send them sideways, use that space it creates and doesn't let them close it easily if you can follow this knock up with your 1 or even your ult you would most likely get them pretty low, low enough for them to go back. the main strategy with He Bo do deal with divers is not letting them close to you, and push them away when they do, thanks to your 3 knock-up, the slow on your 2, it should be very hard to get close to you. He Bo is extremely good against melee attackers for that specific reason.

However, be careful when facing against gods that has Knock Up immunity in their kit, like Fenrir 3, Da Ji 2, Thor 3. If they do get close to you and use this skills, sometimes you can use your ult aggressively on them, because while they use their skills they can't run away from you. "If you can't run - Attack" He Bo great damage allows him to fight when others have to run, his main form of defense is his damage, if you absolutely stuck, the enemy got you pinned or cornered, try to fight back, he bo can "explode" on targets and do a lot of damage really fast, and therefore is always feared by the assassins who think about diving him.

Example: