WC3: FT Communities...

[Artega]

I've never been able to get a Demon Hunter to work. He dies too quickly; low HP, and since you start with Archers (damned weaklings!), he's the only one in melee combat, meaning he's getting swamped. I usually slide a point into Mana Burn for anti-caster combat, which means his frail 600-HP frame is getting wailed on by several big creeps, which means he's dying a horrible death.

In fact, I think the Night Elves outright suck. They require too much micro, unlike Orcs, who can make six Grunts and a Tauren Chieftain and own the world.

[Jester]

I didn't say it's impossible to win without heroes, or that they never take a back seat. But between two players of equal skill, the one who uses heroes well will walk all over the other who uses the hero as a mobile rally point. There's just no way around that, unless neither opponent is scouting to the extent that one player can get 12-18 (!!!) raiders while they run around chasing a lv. 1 TC.

NecroWagon is a beautiful strategy, but it gets much better with good hero harass and hero nuke. If you're relying on that, and not heroes, to win your games, there will be a rather large wall between you and beating more skilled players.

Jester

[Jester]

"Harassing only works on newbies, for the most part."

Perhaps your dislike of replays has caused you to neglect some fantastic ones from *very* high level players, where harass wins and loses games for thousands of dollars at major tournaments. Why does grubby win so often? It sure isn't with war stomp and raiders.

Jester

[Artega]

I've won several games without using a hero at all. That's right; not ever.

It works best with Undead, but it can work well with Humans and sometimes Orcs, but don't even try with Night Elves.

Instead of building the standard Crypt-Altar-Ziggurat that I start my UD games with, I build two Crypts. Pump out four Ghouls, another Ziggurat, another Ghoul, another Ziggurat, and then continue to pump Ghouls. The Ghouls, of course, should have been rallied to the nearest forest. Once you get 8-10 Ghouls, head for the enemy base. Continue pumping Ghouls as you head for the enemy base. Once you get there, you should (ideally) head for the workers, though with Orcs (Burrows) and Humans (Militia), this might not be completely feasible. The best-case scenario is that the target either harassed (which means his hero is either dead or horrifically injured from the ghouls) or you creep-jacked him. If you manage to pull it off, you'll either cripple or completely eliminate the target. This strategy works very well with either Tauren Chieftain (Endurance Aura) or Dreadlord (Vampiric Aura) support from allies. It CAN work in 1v1's, but it's generally not the best idea.

With Orcs, you might want to work towards Berserker Strength and Raiders (along with Pillage.)

With Humans, picking up Defend is a good investment.

It's not fool-proof, and requires a lot of practice, but you can end a game very quickly if you pull it off.

[SwissMercenary]

An altar costs 170 gold and 50 lumber to build. The hero is free. I see no reason to NOT get one. If speed is a priority, hire one from a tavern. If food is a priority, think about this: A hero costs about 80 gold worth of food buildings to supply; the total is 250 gold or so. What do you want more - a hero, or 2 ghouls?

About the "Which hero first" post, there are plenty of reasons to not get MK first. One could be that you may want to get brilliance on your archmage - difficult if he is your second hero, unless your opponent is lazy, and gives you time to creep at tier 2.5. Or, maybe you want the dual AOE power of the AM/BM combo. The paladin also comes in very handy against undead. In fact, I would safely say that any human hero is good for your first, except for the Blood Mage. He has pathetic HP, an AOE spell that small armies can easily avoid, he can't cast it more then twice, and did I mention that he is slower then the Archmage (read - dead meat).

I've already went over the orc heroes, but let me stress this again - much of the time the Death Knight is a better choice. He is essential for several reasons - his aura provides you with great maneuverability, and Death coil lets you do all of the following:

Nuke low HP units that your enemy is pulling out of the battle

Nuke low HP creeps that your enemy is fighting - trail his army (He can't cat you, thanks to your superior speed), and if he engages creeps, wait until one of them is at around 130 hp, as is being attacked - then coil it, to steal the gold, the experience, and to anger your opponent - at the same time, your army can attack-move creep. Stealing drops is also fun. (Do not try tactic against stunners, or purchasers of speed scrolls).

Healing your low HP units - denies your opponent the exp, and removes the need to rebuild your unit/slowly wait for it to heal.

Note that the undead have no way of healing (other then the slow healing on blight) until statues, and no instant healing until the tier 3 overpriced healing scroll - I'd rather use the goblin merchants for that, myself.

With the Orc, I've already went over my preferences.

As for the Night Elves - yes, they require more micro, but they have some pretty effective units. Archers, for instance should not be underestimated, as long as they have tanks. In a 1 v 1, the Demon hunter is your best choice for one, unless you have acess to a tavern, in which case I prefer the Pit Lord, or the Beast Master. A properly-microed demon hunter can stay alive (And suck up damage) for enough time for your archers to deal equal damage to the enemy. With him, I prefer immolation, as it tends to anger my opponent more then mana burn, and attracts focus fire - in which case you can run him away - all the while, your high-damaging, but fragile archers are getting free hits. Although he is a solid hero in 1 v 1 (And he's a good harasser, which is probably why you have not fully seen his uses), his use drops exponentially in team games - when large armies are involved, he's not much more then an expensive grunt. However, in 1 v 1, note that his basic attack has the highest damage per second of any other hero.

In team games, with the broadened focus on ranged units, the Priestess of the Moon is vital - her aura benefits various units. Alternatively, the Keeper of the Grove is an effective hero against orcs, as his entangle is multiplied in power against expensive units, and his thorns aura can tip the scales to your side.

Night elves require different playing tactics because of the vulnerability of their units, yet when they have the proper tanks, they are deadly.

(PS. Killing creeps to "Boost your economy" is worthless in TFT. Unlike RoC, most creeps give no more then 20 gold for killing them.)

[Sir_Die_alot]

Thorns is the last skill you should be getting with keeper. His treants do far more effective damage plus they add to your tanks, something you seem to have trouble getting (be a little faster on your hunts :P ).

[Artega]

Whether or not you agree with the tactic, I've won a number of games with it.

I rather dislike heroes; I'd rather see basic grunts gain veterancy status, but I guess Blizzard didn't want War3 to be similar to C&C/RA.

I'd still pick an MK over a Paladin any day. While the Paladin really shines against Undead, Holy Light only does half damage (100 HP) to the target Undead unit, and does not stun. Storm Bolt also starts out at a measly 100 HP of damage, but it features a lengthy stun duration, and it's pretty much the penultimate Hero-killing skill; stun them in melee combat, or whack them as they try to flee. The Dreadlord's Sleep, the Sea Witch's Frost Arrows, and the Keeper's Entangling Roots are also good at this.

I'd also pick a Dreadlord over a Death Knight, too. Death Coil can heal your (cheap) low-HP Ghouls, and can do a pittance of damage to a single, non-Demon/non-Undead target, and Unholy Aura makes you regenerate faster (for heroes) or just plain regenerate (for normal units), but Sleep can stop a fleeing hero or unit cold, and Carrion Swarm can slay a few near-death units in a single casting. Vampiric Aura is also far more useful for your teammates (especially for Orcs) than Unholy Aura. If you want to regenerate, bring a Sacrificial Skull (or two) along and plant some Blight and camp out for a few seconds. Use Cannibalize/Burrow/Stone Form to speed the process.

The Tauren Chieftain is the most powerful melee hero in the game; he does the most raw damage, and has the most HP of any melee hero, and War Stomp and Shockwave are just plain candy. He doesn't strike as fast as the Demon Hunter (who gets just plain nasty with some Claws of Attack and Gloves of Haste), but he hits a good bit harder, and can also take a good many more hits. Endurance Aura is also pretty nice; with the TC, I usually go War Stomp-Endurance Aura-Shockwave-Endurance Aura-Shockwave-Resurrection. War Stomp is mainly to stop a melee hero from disengaging and running away, while Shockwave is for picking off weakened units, and Endurance Aura makes those big, strong Grunts and Tauren that much meaner.

While killing Creeps won't boost your economy, using Raiders and Pillage can ^_^

[Swiss Mercenary]

True, although in a team game against 2 or more orcs, thorns is quite useful.

About the hero usage - you are forgetting the posibillity that Holy Light can heal 200/400/600 health - the reason that I mentioned nuking capabilities, is for finishing off weakened units that woud otherwise get away. And, even with the Storm Bolt's stun, 600 health healed on your unit would often do more then 350 dealt to an enemy - not to mention that the healing is multiplied, due to the Paladin's Devotion Aura. And, while Avatar makes the MK a killing machine, Resurrect often has a great effect in battle. Although, Storm Bolt is an obvious spell for use against fleeing units - which is why I would pick the MK as my second hero against an UD opponent, and a Banish-capable Bloodmage as my third. The undead army comes from the altar - and crippling the heroes cripples the army. For other matchups, the MK clearly leads, but I'm just saying that the Paladin is an equal choice against Undead.

As for the UD hero choice, note that the Dread Lord's Carrion Swarm + Sleep use a GREAT amounts of mana, while his mana supply... Isn't. The Death Knight, however, gets many castings of Death Coil per mana pool, and there is no way that you can call a 400 HP heal weak. Additionally, regenerating on blight/burrowing is not always feasible - what if you have 10 units at 90% hp, but 1 at 10%? The reason that Death Coil is so effective, is because it allows your units to stay in the battle longer, and deal out (and absorb) more damage - if you were to run your crypt fiends away whenever someone focused fire on them, because they would have less then 30% life, your numbers would quickly dwindle (And the uneven distribution of damage would add difficulty to healing). If, on the other hand, you would pull the fiend back, and at the same time coil it, it would either break focus fire on it, or cause the enemy units to chase after it, while you get free hits in. While coil is not very effective with Ghouls, they won't win you the game (Unless you rush early, and keep the pressure on, in which case, you are right, the Dread Lord is useful); alternatively, it is essential if you use Crypt Fiends/Abominations/Destroyers/Frost Wyrms. If I could pick one hero that I would be stuck with, for the UD, I would pick the Death Knight.

For the Orc, I can see where you are going, and I would have to agree - a high level Tauren Chieftain wins games. However, on level 1, he (And most other line AOE nukers) are little more then fat grunts. Unlike the Dread Lord, however, the TC has excellent hit points, an aura that's useful for any army, and an amazing ultimate - those factors make him a solid first hero choice - if you can creep to at least level 4 before major engagements. Alternatively, you can not bother for any of that, and win the game, right there, at Tier 2, through fast teching to Wind Riders + Far Seer/Blademaster harass.

I value my units - not only for the gold costs, but also for the experience they give my opponent - hence I prefer to keep them alive, and try to take cheap shots at him, when he is vulnerable.

[Artega]

I don't much like the TC's Ultimate. Reincarnation for free is great, but if your army is slain while Reincarnation kicks in (or you were forced to flee), your TC is going to revive in the middle of an angry enemy army.

I tend to mass units, like an old SCer is wont to do. I prefer to overwhelm my opponent with sheer numbers, rather than jump in and out with flyers and expensive superunits.

With Undead, this means lots of Ghouls and Necromancers, with the occasional odd Meat Wagon for Disease Cloud and Exhume Corpses.

With Humans, this means lots of Footmen (with Defend) and Priests for Heal and Inner Fire.

With Orcs, it means lots of Grunts (or Troll Berserkers) with Shamans for Bloodlust and Spirit Walkers for Spirit Link.

With Night Elves, it's usually either Huntresses or Archers-to-Riders.

[Swiss Mercenary]

Ah, but your TC reviving in the middle of an enemy army can still do a LOT of damage. Sure, there are times when you wish that it would not get used, but it only increases the time it takes to revive him by a few seconds - in the meantime, War Stomp, and Shockwave can decimate armies. High level TCs and MKs win games. It's simple as that.

The problem with your concept of massing weak units, is that, simply put, third tier melee is more cost efficient then first tier melee. 4 tauren will pound 6 grunts into the dust, yet they cost less gold. (265 * 4 = 1060), (200 * 6 = 1200). The situation is even worse with humans, because footmen aren't even on par with other Tier 1 melee. If you are going melee with human, and it's late game, you must have knights. Unless you want to be torn to shreds by AOE, pulverise, and the highly-cost-efficient third tier melee. Undead can redeem the case with skeletons, making ghouls viable later in the game, although completely useless against air - in which case you would need gargoyles. For Night elves, you need hippogryph riders if you are serious with getting archers as your late-game strategy - they go down against third tier melee faster then a zergling against a bunker full of firebats.

I do not go for super-unit flyers. The only fliers that I ever get are:

Hippogryph riders, if I am massing archers.

Gargoyles, if I'm going ghoul/garg, because ghouls cannot attack air.

Wind Riders as Orc, if I need to win the game before Tier 3, and I am not massing grunts.

A few Dragonhawks as human, for stopping air hit and run harassment, if the game comes to it.

I dislike Gryphon riders/Chimera/Frost Wyrms because of both their high cost, and their extreme vulnerability to ranged units - but I will build the respective anti-air units for each race, if I am going tier 3 melee.

[Artega]

I really hate AMM games. I really do.

I prefer team games to solo games, because I like the maps, and I like big armies as opposed to guerilla tactics. The problem is, 90% of the people on Bnet (i.e., everyone that isn't a Lurker or AB member) tend to be self-important smacktards. Case in point:

I just recently got my icon for 25 wins with Random, so I decided to go for my next-closest: Orc (3 wins before I started working towards it.)

I entered a 3v3 AMM match (3v3's seem to be the most popular game type), and get paired with Orange (Night Elves) and Yellow (Undead.) I promptly announce (to everyone *slams head into desk*) that I'm going grunts-to-tauren. The other three people taunt me, and I promptly slam my head into the desk. Yellow says he's going fiends/stats, while Orange went with hunts/giants/dryads.

The game proceeds normally, with my team creeping and expanding early, and with the other team apparently doing the same. Orange, who grabbed a DH, found some Sentry Wards and went spying, at which point we found Pink (Night Elves) was massing Archers, Purple (Undead) was apparently off fondling himself (he had a DK and maybe five ghouls, and there were no signs of teching), and Blue was running towards Orange (eep!) with a sizable army of hunts with a Warden.

Being in the center of our side (the map was Dark Forest), I ran my grunts and TC over to orange while orange ferried his DH back. Blue shows up (and gets slaughtered), while Yellow and his rather large army of fiends (complete with an impossibly large CL) TP's in. We launch a counter at Purple (who really must have been having fun in the bathroom, as he still hadn't built much of anything), but are intercepted by Pink. Yellow apparently thinks that having three fiends die is cause enough for retreat, and runs off without telling us. His CL gets gunned down by three golems (creeps) as he retreats. Everyone taunts him.

Orange (who had two giants by this point) and I proceed to slaughter Pink's archers, where, lo and behold, here comes purple with a downright insane army of ghouls and Banshees (!?). Apparently he was off in some corner of the map, creeping like mad, despite calls from his teammates. After slaying some of my grunts, his DK reaches Level 6, kills a giant, and uses Reanimate Dead. Ouch. I TP out with four badly injured grunts and a nearly dead TC, and Orange retreats with his last giant and six or seven hunts. Purple was apparently a retard, because he did not counter, even though he had a clear advantage.

After that battle, everyone resorts to creeping (at least, we did; Purple probably creeped his entire half of the map), except for Purple, who went back to fondling himself. I rapidly tech to Tauren, upgrade my weapons to Level 3 and armor to Level 2, and buy Pillage, Spiked Barricades, and expand again. Orange researches all of the upgrades for his giants and dryads, and visits a Goblin Merchant to buy a few things. Yellow just keeps making fiends and stats, and announces he hit the magic 100. We attack (Purple), and find that both Pink has arseloads of Gryphon Riders, while Blue has Chimaeras. Purple has a lot of Banshees, but somehow forgot to get Master training. We were worried about Possession of our expensive Tauren and Giants (hence, Resistant Skin), but Purple apparently doesn't have a brain.

We weren't worried about air units (and thought pink and blue insane for getting them); after all, Yellow had a huge army of fiends. But! Yellow didn't research Web for them (wtf!?), and our armies die a horrible death, but manage to destroy Purple's town as a consolation prize.

Yellow loses maybe ten fiends, calls us noobs (he was a Level 1, while we were Level 12 and Level 16, respectively), and leaves.

Orange blames the loss of the game on ME, calls me a noob, and leaves.

The other team (Purple, too) call me a noob, and I get bored of their "insults" and leave.

Whee!

[Sir_Die_alot]

Yellow had a huge army of fiends. But! Yellow didn't research Web for them

LOL! I hate these people. I'm sure there is an extra hot place in hell for them. I had an ally once who didn't use raise dead with his army of adept level necros. I never got a clear answer as to why he built them in the first place. :P

[SwissMercenary]

Those games are about as sad as ones where one of your allies sits there for 5 minutes, doing nothing, and then quits.

Thank you, bnet matching system, for matching people with 0-4 win records with those of 45-36. The old system where we were matched by level, and a lvl 14 would never play with anyone below lvl 8 was THAT much worse. And the other system, where we were matched by win % alone was HORRENDOUS. /sarcasm

I had some great games with people of level 20, 30, 40+ at the win % matching system. But, no, Blizzard introduces another of their typical cryptic formulas.

[Artega]

All is forgiven for the countless poor matches. I just played a game and I can't stop laughing.

It was a standard 3v3 AMM, and all three of us were Orc. I figured this was a bad thing, since our opponents could easily exploit Orcs' primary weakness - bad AA - but one of my teammates had an interesting idea: Ward rushing. That is, all three of us pick up a Shadow Hunter with Serpent Ward, grab a Grunt or three, and run on down to the closest enemy. And the funny thing is, it worked!

We took Orange (Orc) by storm; we all ran in at about the same time (some stupid Creeps notwithstanding), and promptly started pumping Serpent Wards all over the place (which, at 30 Mana and only about an 8-second cooldown, is easy to do), and cackled gleefully as the other team tried to counter this. While they don't have much HP, we pretty much didn't have to worry about that, given the sheer number we had.

If I was able to find a decent FTP, I'd host the replay (among others), but since I don't have access to such a thing, I can't :(

[Bob]

ahh, yes, ward rush.

I did something similar in 4v4 once.
I believe we ended up with 2 shadow hunters, 1 FarSeer & a Blademaster. We rushed one base, wards up everywhere, a pair of wolves & massive melee damage from the BM. They must've been out creeping because we killed the NE's main buildingy thing before anyone challenged us, and then they all quit.
Farseer rush is also cool, 8 wolves can take out a town hall in one enemy base, even on friends where they're right next door to each other.


However, I rarely get good games like that, sometimes it's because I get poor allies, but usually it's because the enemy get air units. Unfortunately, Orcs don't have any form of real AA, yet our good friends at Blizzard insist that having to get a beastiary and then 3 batriders per chim, who you then blow up is a fair counter. Notwithstanding the fact that to have enough in time, you have to mass batriders first - batriders are NOT a useful unit for much else & so the counter isn't viable. So... yeah, I hate air units as Orc.

Artega, have you considered geocities? just zip the replay to get past their evil filetype rules (or just rename it to something else which we can change back)

-Bob

[Sir_Die_alot]

I'm surprised you haven't seen the mass ward thing yet. It's quite commmon and nearly impossible to counter as UD or NE. Even if you fight them off it's almost guarenteed you will lose out when it comes to experience gained and resources spent.

Hero rushing is the biggest flaw with WC3 IMO. It's the old 6 zergling rush issue with a new face (worse actually, at least the ling rush would ensure the attacker a weak economy for awhile) and usually what drives me back to UMS games. I suppose people who play my map like that since it also drives me back to map editing. :P

[Artega]

Troll Berserkers aren't too bad. They're relatively cheap (135g/20w/2f), and with their Berserk ability (keep in mind that you have to activate it, and it has a reasonably long cooldown), they can mow down weak air units, though they still get totally, utterly, pwned by air superunits like Wyrms and Chimaeras.

For Orcs, I prefer Raiders with Ensnare as the AA solution of choice; while it requires good micro to use it to its best ability, since Ensnare requires NO Mana (I just recently noticed this, which makes getting Raiders every game even smarter), you can really just have all of them Ensnare a single target (only one uses the ability, of course) and have your tough melee units pound on it. Ensnare is also pure gold for trapping that fleeing hero, especially if you tech straight to Raiders.

Oftentimes, I'll hard tech to Raiders in team games, and have a squad of two or three at each teammate's base, waiting for hero rushes or hero harasses, and promptly Ensnare them. While Raiders' Siege damage doesn't do piddly crap to Hero armor, they're great for stopping fleeing heroes (who stay Ensnared for roughly six or seven seconds), allowing tougher units to catch up and pound on them.

[Swiss Mercenary]

And the lack of effective Orc AA is an even better reason to finish the game before tier 3 with them. While ensnare can bring enemy air units down to the ground, even ensnared chimera/frost wyrms stil defeat grunts/tauren, due to the insane 2x damage they take. Note that melee doesn't deal extra damage to air.

As for hero harassing, I guess Blizzard thought that superior to people teching + creeping for the first 15 minutes. <_< And, I can't stress this enough - kill the wolves/wards, they are the real damage dealers. (Note - if your response time was that of a three legged cow, and your enemies have 15 wards in the base, it's le gg anyways.)

[Sir_Die_alot]

As for hero harassing, I guess Blizzard thought that superior to people teching + creeping for the first 15 minutes.

I would rather see the invunerability on the initial teleport scrolls go away. That's just screams for hero early abuse. Shop bought ones are okay, but a freebie item that lets you go in, kill stuff, and guarenteed get out alive as long as you weren't dumb... well... sigh. I understand why that was added but I would have rathered Blizzard simply make it so the scroll cast can't be interrupted. <_<

And, I can't stress this enough - kill the wolves/wards, they are the real damage dealers. (Note - if your response time was that of a three legged cow, and your enemies have 15 wards in the base, it's le gg anyways.)

Easier said than done. Keep in mind a hero rush is just that. They sent theirs the instant they got them so you are not likely to have more than a hero and 1-3 units (depending on race) yourself. *Plop plop plop* now they have 3 heroes and 3 "units" of sorts in your base versus your 1 hero 1-3 units. At usual killing speed for that many units by the time you kill the first ward there are 3 more to replace it and between 3 wards and 3 heroes you likely lost a unit in the process. A ward that costs only mana for a unit that costs money is not a good trade at all. Without at least 1 ally teleporting to your base with their army it's most likely gg. Even then the scroll is spent, so if the battle was resolved "evenly" unit wise, you still lost when you look at the overall cost.

[Archon_Wing]

You could use http://www.battlereports.com to upload replays :)