Agreed... For SR I think you should pretty much be getting some mana and pumping AP. CD reduction is good also if you don't want to depend on golem buff, but Armor and HP are kind of moot when by the time you are getting in serious fights your turrets and abilities, not to even mention your allies, should be ripping them up before they get anywhere near you. Plus yeah, you go over the CD cap, and shouldn't ever really need that much armor even if you like to play safe, so it is some wasted stats. The aura is kind of nice though and can help a little in teamfights, so I wouldn't really say it's useless.

If I REALLY feel like stacking armor because I'm getting owned constantly by physical attacks, it's probably because I'm making mistakes, but I think Thornmail is a better choice. It really makes those types that depend on auto-attacks (most likely the ones doing all the physical damage to you, champs like yi, ww, ashe, shaco, teemo, tristana, tf, etc...) into weaklings. Because it calculates its damage BEFORE armor mitigation, with you just wearing thornmail those enemy heroes are typically hitting themselves for over 60% of the damage they are doing to you, and that's AFTER their magic resistance is taken into account! This makes killing them trivial if they are foolish enough to focus you.

I think a lot of people fail to realize how many ways there are to "win" this game. The idea that Heimer needs HP belongs to mid level players who think that everything and then some is decided by team fights and ganks.

This is not the case, as Heimer is built around maintaining a siege on an enemy tower. He doesn't need to expose himself while sieging, he just needs to run in, drop a grenade and a turret, and run out. This resuts in minimum exposure, so stacking damage is much more effective to bring towers down quickly. However, this can lead to problems if your team is based around ganking and team fights.

For example, imagine a team with Amumu, Pantheon, Tristana and Fiddlesticks. This team would win by constant ganking and forcing team fights (which it would win due to it's massive amount of AoE). Heimer could certainly help, as he still deals some damage, but there are other champs that would be better: Morgana would deal more AoE damage and have more CC, Ashe could add more overall damage, etcetc.

If, however, the team has Alistar, Soraka, Nidalee and Sivir, Heimer would fit in perfectly. A team with those champs would allow you to maintain a constant siege. HP is a non-issue, because 1) You won't be taking damage anyway and 2) Three healers mean you get back any life you do lose. Sivir is as great of a pusher as Heimer, so working together you can expect instantly dead creep waves and non-stop grenades. Kayle, Alistar and Nidalee are all great pushers in their own regard, too. You could literally maintain a siege line in front of the enemy tower with all five enemies standing guard, and blow the tower to pieces anyway.

The only time Heimer should get focused is when he lets himself be focused, or during team battles. Heimer is not geared towards team battles, he's geared towards pushing. Building HP on Heimer would make him better in team battles, but in that case you should just choose a champion who has the capability to do well in team battles and leave Heimer for those who know how to use him.

This should be added to the front page. Aweome info.

It sounds here like you are saying either accept the fact that your team will always be basically 4v5 in any team fights or don't play Heimer which I disagree with strongly.

While Heimer does excel at pushing, the capability to at least do well in team battles is necessary for EVERY hero. Team battles WILL happen no matter what, and you need to be useful in one way or another... If you are participating in a team battle, and have a lot of ap and maxed out cd reduction like you should have, then your turrets and grenades will be dishing out very large amounts of damage and almost constant cc to the other team... it is VERY likely that they will try to focus you first if they can.

Of course, the point with Heimer is that you should be making any attempt at getting to you without dying very hard, your skills have great range and you can lay turrets around you, which is why armor and HP aren't that great, they really just shouldn't be reaching you... smart play, strong AP, and capped cd reduction makes this a reality most of the time. If you find them reaching you anyway, a LITTLE HP and a LITTLE armor does not hurt (personally I like the combination of rylai's scepter and glacial shroud on heimer in situations like this, usually in Twisted Treeline, but still those items are mostly good for the AP, slowing effect, mana, and CD reduction, the armor and HP are just nice bonuses, I wouldn't consider itemizing for more)

If your teammates aren't stupid, you can generally avoid team fights. With Heimer and heroes who work well with him, you should be avoiding team fights in all but two situations:

1) You have pushed to the enemy teams tower

2) The enemy team has pushed to your tower

Heimer's abilities allow him to take down a tower in the middle of an enemy group, so floating around outside the enemies towers and forcing them to take hits while you take down the tower is very beneficial. And fighting under your tower is a no-brainer.

Which is where positioning properly comes in. If you pick the team battles, your whole team needs to be between you and them so that they suffer to get to you. If they jump you, the only thing that will keep you alive is building strictly as a tank, and then you'll be useless anyway.

Now that I think about it, I can see Rylai's being a great item on Heim. I could also see Glacial Shroud being good on him on TT, since there is no golem buff and the vast majority of people you'll be fighting are either tanky DPS or Shaco. What I disagree with is building straight HP items for Heim, on SR, to give him "survivability." He stays alive with smart play and good ability usage, building him tanky just covers the summoner's inability to play well.

Edit:

Forgot to mention another place you want to have team battles: jumping your enemy when they're at dragon or golem. If your team is grouped effectively you'll be at an advantage from the get-go.

As a long-time Heimer player, I heartily endorse this guide. My only qualm with it is buying Archangel's so late; it takes most of a game to get the maximum benefits. Because Chalice is so much more useful early game, I'm not sure if Archangel's is necessarily the best idea in general, although it almost always is the most AP for the money.

The alternate item build, of course, satisfies your qualm.

Well, your whole team or at least a couple of turrets... I've had situations where 4 champs had to stand there and watch me blow up their tower while all the rest of my team was elsewhere. Once your cooldowns are capped and your ap is decent you get really scary. All I have to do is stun someone as soon as they get in range of my turrets and they die easily.

If I get jumped I usually stay alive just fine, by just dropping a grenade and maybe a turret right away, that stuns or at least blinds everyone in range to hit me and does nice damage to them as well, usually setting them up perfectly for a kill from my teammates if not just from my rockets and turrets. If it's by 3 or more people at once, I probably screwed up, and in that case I usually die, but even then, I can often take them all down to well below half before dying.

Obviously I'm not trying to be in front or let them all hit me, but one or two trying to initiate on me usually get a nasty surprise as long as I can live through their initial onslaught. This is easy with a minimum of armor or hp like i get from scepter and shroud and the cc reduction and MR from mercury's treads, but without any of these items, it can be hard and you can definitely get stomped if anyone touches you.

Personally I like having a little survivability, because I think sticking his turrets in the thick of the fray is worth exposing yourself every now and then, and you want to be sure you won't die and make all your support disappear just because a single champ figures out a way to get within flash or movement ability range of you and then can own you in 3 seconds.

But really, a little bit goes a long way here... if you can live through a stun and get a grenade off that's usually all you need. Building for HP or armor is definitely way less effective than AP, and should not be done unless it is absolutely necessary. Like any dps character, a good offense is your best defense.

I tend to get rylai's scepter and shroud more in TT, in SR I tend to go for Archangel's Staff and Deathfire Grasp instead for the superior mana and AP.

I really like this guide, I noticed something lacking in your specific champ counters though. Ezreal really wrecks my **** in mid. Mystic shot out ranges my turrets and takes them down in 2-3 shots and there doesn't seem to be much I can do about it. Suggested counter or just avoid? I've just started avoiding middle against Ezreal because of stupid Mystic shot.