also are there any guides anywhere on how to play and how the heroes work and stuff? and what items to buy when and stuff?

Here's a pretty good youtube video on the basics of gameplay:

There are also plenty of Hero-specific guides on the beta forum. Unfortunately I couldn't find a complete guide for Magmus there.. but I did find this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRtMdPWvP8A&feature=related

And here's a video on laning:
I don't think the video says it, but to target your own creep or towers, you hit A and then select the creep you want to attack.

I'm not too fond of the way AI treats Hold. I would get used to using Stop instead if I where you.

It seems like melee characters would be harder to get last-hits with, because they have to move to get close to the creep. This game is so much fun, i love it. I can't wait to get good at it.

Yeah, pretty much. That's why in the beginning of the game a melee character should lane with a ranged hero in the top and bottom lane. The mid lane is almost always a lone ranged hero. When you're laning with a melee partner, it's a good idea to feed them last hits. Instead of auto-attacking the enemy creep, you need to time it so that you hit the creep so that the melee character can then do a final strike on it to get the extra money and exp. As a ranged hero you'll also be doing a lot of denying and sometimes aggresively attacking enemy heros (especially melee ones from a distance) to drive them back.

oh by the way how do you sell or destroy items?

Right-click the item to pick it up and drop it on the ground, ally (trade) or shop (to get cash back). You can also throw recipe items back on your stash and click it (left click) to disassemble it.

oh by the way how do you sell or destroy items?

When you're near a shop, a little signpost should pop up right above your item slots. If you right-click drag an item onto this signpost you'll sell it and receive a portion of its cost back.

Not played since just after Magmar or whatever his name was added.
Is the game still as horribly balanced as it use to be, or is it better now? Also does GW have any sort of clan, or place to meet up?

Not played since just after Magmar or whatever his name was added.
Is the game still as horribly balanced as it use to be, or is it better now? Also does GW have any sort of clan, or place to meet up?

I can't answer your first question, but I can answer the second one. We don't have a clan right now, because I believe it requires 5 of us to be online at the same time to start it... Checking out #netplay on our IRC network would be your best bet. Otherwise, just load the game and see if other GWers are online. That's how I get playing games with some GWers.

Not played since just after Magmar or whatever his name was added.
Is the game still as horribly balanced as it use to be, or is it better now? Also does GW have any sort of clan, or place to meet up?

Well it is more balanced since Magmus was first introduced mainly because now the items are less ridiculous (heart and sacristone I'm looking at you) and there are new items like barrier idol which counter all the AoE ults pretty nicely.

The new item setup makes Zephyr into a regular tank instead of a megatank, you can actually kill Defiler before you die to her ridiculous ult and basically all the heroes go down faster.

Madman and Electrician are still really ludicrous, and the new Scout needs a lot of fine tuning. Arachna is still a certain death 1v1 past level 6.

Maybe this helps to see the current game balance.

Well in DotA games the balance will never be fully balanced, mostly due to the amount of heroes and the fact the game can be decided in hero selection already. Most people don't realize that the hero selection is all about counter picking. If the enemy takes hero X you should try to take someone with abilities that counter hero X's abilities.

A good example is Arachna. She can pretty much kill anyone 1v1 but she gets absolutely trashed by Armadon.

There's also the whole metagame thing. Currently AoE disables rule the game for the most part. A team with Madman, Behemoth, Tempest, Pebbles and let's say Jeraziah would completely trash pretty much any other team, as long as the skill level is equal. The disable team could be even a little worse if the enemy team has small amount of disables.

The balance also constantly changes, mostly decided by what happens in competitive game, so people who play casually may be baffled by some changes.

If you can ignore the music I suggest you watch this video just to see how experienced players play their heroes. They pull off some pretty neat (and well timed) tricks and jukes. I know it's random but it gives you an idea as to how to play this game a little better. I know it's Dota and not HoN but most of the heroes/ abilities (and all of the items) used here are in HoN so it's still useful.

http://www.playdota.com/videos/464

The Axe juke and the way Earthshaker used line of sight and trees to fuck Rhasta over alone is enough to give you something to think about.

Ill be taking a week off of HoN to try League of Legends. I am sticking with Hon/Dota for sure... I just have to try LoL out.

I don't have enough experience with the game to dislike it just yet (Do you?!?). It did show promise but from the things I've seen so far it does seem like they dumbed down the gameplay to make it easier for new players to get into and although it provides a different experience I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. It's not a direct clone so don't let the familiarities fool you. The numbers crunch differently so you have to reevaluate the usefulness of stat modifiers like crit, drain, and etc along with the order of skills you learn and their place on the field. There is also no denying (not even for towers) as well as a glorious lack of attributes (Str,Agi,Int) so stacking modifiers (damage+hp/regen,mp/regen, or attacks peed/armor with the same modifier) or sacrificing early skills for stats is something you can no longer rely on. Thankfully the champions are still divided in a familiar fashion. Although they have more archetypes for characters than simply str/agi/int, as far as stats are concerned the sub-classes are still divided by what you would expect str/agi/intcharacters to be.... IE Assasin, Fighter, Mage, Support, and Tank, as well as the hybrids.

New patch again! Tons of changes this time around. Scout got a little nerfed and Dark Lady finally got some improvements. Most notably, a new hero was added - Pandamonium. Looks fun to play. (Although he doesn't say anything right now).

awesome! pandamonium is the new panda hero i take?

Looks like they made Steam Boots +5 all stats with a +5 toggle... which is better but still wouldn't bring me over to using it again without the ias even if it was +10 to all.