The Warcraft III Thread

[Archon_Wing]

It would be nice to include your account name and realm. Otherwise, it's kinda hard to find you. :)

I can count on you, to be one of the people to activate the Lurker Lounge clan? :)

And I'm still going only a bit more than 50% against the comp, so I wouldn't be far ahead of you. :lol:

[Chief Fruity]

I haven't made an online account yet, so whereever you guys are, I'll make an account there.

And yeah, you guys could count on me. I play for a few hours a night. If you guys need me for something, I'll be there, barring work.

[Archon_Wing]

The majority of the folks, I think, play on Azeroth. I usually play on USwest/ Lorderaon but I really could caree less. I think it may be best to make an account on azeroth first.

[Archon_Wing]

I am unsure about certain timings in the game. Ie. when to expand and when to tech to a higher tier. Most replays I see have people teching fairly fast. Comments? I'm intrested in this for Night elves and for humans.
The main problem is that I would have to produce more workers for the new expansions which leads to upkeep issues. But, how many workers do you need? I seem to never have enough lumber.

- Also, are nature's blessing and that masonary upgrade worth your while?

- Items, there are so many! Which should I buy? (again with emphasis with night elves and humans)

What the heck should I do about people who use invisbility earlly on?

I would watch more replays, but it gets kinda boring. :)

Thanks for the advice. The blizzard site is pretty poor in giving advice, and I have yet to find a decent source beyond those who can only say "stfu n00b." ;)

[Sir_Die_alot]

For the combat side, I think of a RTS game as a complex real time version of paper rock scissors. The best ways to win in that game are the best ways to win in RTS games.

1) PRS rule: Almost everyone chooses rock, it's easy because you don't change your hand shape so indesicive people default to it. How that applies to RTS: People often have the same builds, they find something that works and spread it around. If you see a sloppy first attack they are probably going for this "standard" build. Build your army to counter it. Eventually you can learn to predict battles and their outcomes from well before the units that will be invovled have even been trained.

2) PRS rule: Cheat! Wait till they choose their meathod, pretend you were choosing rock, and choose the counter. Apply it to RTS: Have also a reactionary build. You see them building casters, you build anticasters. They build heavy melee you build heavy magic damage or polymorph (or equivalent).

3) PRS: Cause a tie. Both choose rock and but heads. RTS: This really only applies to team games, but if someone can play a good "decoy" that can win a game. Often people push an attack too hard just because they are trying to finish what they started, when that is the case you know the location of their army AND the strength. If you have an expansion use that as your new town and defend the hell out of your old one with defensive structures so it looks like you are struggling to survive. Waste the odd peon to repair and/or build something so it looks like you are desparate. They waste men and resources trying to kill one player who (or appears to at least) has hunkered down, meanwhile that person's allys have massed and teched an awesome army.

4) PRS: Tip your hand. Deliberately choose something too fast and force a "do-over". They now think that is what you will choose again. RTS: You got scouted. Say you had 4 footmen, immediately switching to rifels can catch their army built to counter your footmen off guard.


For the resource side, I use one simple rule: Need more resources? Make more workers. (Damn that's complex! :lol: ) Early build orders are the only real constant on this one, but unless you pull the same strat every game this should vary some as well.

[Swiss Mercenary]

I am unsure about certain timings in the game. Ie. when to expand and when to tech to a higher tier. Most replays I see have people teching fairly fast. Comments? I'm intrested in this for Night elves and for humans.
The main problem is that I would have to produce more workers for the new expansions which leads to upkeep issues. But, how many workers do you need? I seem to never have enough lumber.

You should tech to a higher tier, in two cases.

A: You feel like you will not lose any more then 2 workers to harass, during your upgrade.

B: You NEED higher tier units, ASAP, because you see your opponent getting a unit countered by them. That usually occured if your opponent teched faster then you. I'll go into a few build orders later.

You should expand, in two cases.

A: You feel that it is safe for you to creep your expansion, without the fear of either losing your army, or some buildings to an attack.

B: You are dominating your opponent, but he is teching up, to build counter-units. Since his tech is faster then yours, and you may already be in upkeep, its more difficult to counter by teching back - instead, tech AND expand.

Worker woes:

You need 5 workers for gold mining. Just to make sure.

I, myself, like to get 8 workers on lumber harvesting - if I'm Undead, though, I usually get 2 ghouls in the early game, and another during my tech to tier 2.

- Also, are nature's blessing and that masonary upgrade worth your while?

Unless you are getting a good amount of static defense, or you are literaly rolling in resources, it's not that improtant - do note, however, that if you do not have a TP scroll, and your enemy attacked your expansion, those upgrades could make the difference between saving it, and losing it.

- Items, there are so many! Which should I buy? (again with emphasis with night elves and humans)

If you are going for really intesnse early harass, you should buy boots of speed, from the neutral shops. A Warden with those things is just SICK, as is a Mountain King (Although, sick in hero killing, not harass).

Also, if you can afford them, get Healing Scrolls, and Scrolls of Protection - the former heal your army for 150 hp each in combat, while the latter add 2 to it's defense - a virtual 12% bonus in life, vs non-spell damage. When you combine the two...

As for your racial shops, Healing Scrolls are obviously a must, if you want to patch up your army - just remember, their non-combat nature ends the healing effects, if the target is attacked. Clarity potions are a given, if your heroes need mana - I try to always keep 1 on each hero, so I can resore my mana in the field, after a battle.

Moonstones are good, if your opponent is not Night Elf - during the "night", your moonwell juice is replenished.

Mechanical critter is usually not worth it - easier to plunk down a sentry ward. They have horrible sight radius.

Ivory towers are nice, but just that - nice. Usually not worth it.

The orbs - usually too rich for my blood. The most useful ones are the Orb of Corruption, from an Undead shop, placed on a Lich (Because of his insane attack speed), and the Orb of Shock, on a Blademaster, for ultimate hero killing.

The staves are nice to save tier 2/3 units, such as knights, bears, and the occasional mountain giant. But, really, if you are having enough difficulties microing in heated battles already, you are just going to forget to use those staves.

I don't really use the Anti-magic potion, and it is very rare that I see anyone using it. Like 1/200 games rare. Would be nice when coupled with a channeling ultimate, like Starfall, or Tranquility, if your opponent has some nasty stunners.

What the heck should I do about people who use invisbility earlly on?

If you are referring to Shadowmeld, then there would be two instances where it would be used.

A: During lone hero harass.

Try to surround the hero, or cut off it's escape route - making a "Semi-closed" base layout, like the one I outlined would help a LOT. That pretty much forces your opponent to waste his TP. Oh, and here's a tip - don't waste a TP to save a lvl 1 or 2 hero. They cost less to revive then it does to buy a new one. However, if your hero is lvl 3+, or you are going to lose a hero, and a unit, don't think twice before casting.

B: During an early attack.

This is more difficult - if your opponent shadowmelds his archers, just as your footmen get to them, while others continue hitting you, he has good micro. In order to defeat good micro, you will need to best him in micro, macro, or plain dumb luck. Try to focus fire on the non-shadowmelded units, while telling 2 or 3 footmen, or a hero to hold position near the shadowmelded ones, to preent you from running back and forth. Alternatively, you can retreat into your base, and get some help from your static defenses. Or, if you are Night Elf, you can use the Dust of Appearence.

I would watch more replays, but it gets kinda boring.

Which is why you should listen to the audio commentaries! Those narrators are just plain funny.

Thanks for the advice. The blizzard site is pretty poor in giving advice, and I have yet to find a decent source beyond those who can only say "stfu n00b."

"stfu n00b."
:P

As for the build orders that I promiced, here's two that work quite nice.

Human: Rifle/caster tech.

1 peasant on altar, 4 on mine. Order some more peasants.

First peasant to be built makes a farm. Try to use your buildings as an aformentioned wall.

Second peasant goes to gold.

Third goes to make a barracks. All peasants afterwards are rallied to lumber.

Peasant that finished altar makes a farm. Make an Archmage, or a Mountain King - Archmage tends to work best, with his Water Elementas supproting your tech. I have become a big fan of Water Elementals - they may not do as much damage as Blizzard late-game, but unlike Blizzard, they drive away harass, and don't pretty much paint a "KILL ME" sign on your Archmage.

Peasant that finishes the farm makes another farm. You should be pumping peasants all this time, unitil you have 13 of them - 5 on gold, 8 on lumber. Along with your hero, that makes 18 supply.

Once the barracks is complete, make footmen. When you reach 220 lumber, if you lack the 310 gold, cancel a footman, and tech to tier 2. Put off this step until later in the game, if you are under heavy harass. Don't forget to keep making farms.

As soon as you get 60 more lumber, make a blacksmith. Resume pumping footmen. Make a shop when you can, and switch to Rifleman production, as soon as the blacksmith completes.

When you are half-way through the upgrade, check your supply, and resources - you should have at least 10 free supply when the upgrade completes, to train your second hero. You should also have at least 700 gold, and 400 lumber for that moment, too.

As soon as the upgrade is done, plunk down 1 arcane sanctum, and train your Mountain King, or Archmage if you chose MK fro primary. If you did, I suggest using Blizzard, instead of WE.

The reasoning behind these heroes, is that the Archmage can creep, and counter harass with his elementals, while the MK has some nice mana regen, to spam his Storm Bolt.

As soon as the sanctum is complete, here's where your units will differ, depending on your opponent.

If he's Orc, get sorceresses. Slow > grunts.

If he's NE, get priests. Dryads make Slow/poly useless. If he's getting bears, get Spellbreakers.

If he's UD, get priests ASAP! Dispell will save you against hordes of skeletons, slow will just be free mana for his Destroyers.

If he's Human, get spellbreakers, and priests - if he gets sorceresses, you can steal his slow. :D

Make about 4 of your chosen caster, getting the upgrade after building 2, and keep up on rifleman production. Don't forget to upgrade. At this point, you should try to engage your opponent, as you have the unit advantage. Human casters are awesome.

What does that build order work on?

Mass archers/talons/hippo riders.

Most orc builds, as long as your front line holds, until you get slow. After you get slow, it's Le Gee Gee, unless your opponent crippled you, in the early game. Keep your casters away from his Demolishers!

Ghoul/garg builds. If your opponent goes Fiend/Statue, it's much more difficult.

Massed human melee.

What is this build equal against?

Huntresses/dryads. If your opponent gets bears, you will need some melee for your frontline. Spellbreakers standing behind knights > bears. Spellbreakers without knights, though, are slaughtered.

Grunt, spirit tauren, demolisher. In this case, the orc build is quite expensive, so you should have the resource advantage.

Fiend/statues - they have a slight advantage.

Mass Wyvverns - they have increased mobility, but rifles counter wyvverns...

What to NOT use this build against?

NE players with mountain giants. Get some knights.

Dual AoW, early rushing NE.

Headhunter/grunt/demolisher mix - these are rare, but very effective.

Third tier air, paired with third tier melee. That's just sick.

Now, looking at the length of this post, and the time, I'll post the NE dual AoW ---> AoLore tech tomorrow.

[Jester]

I'm seriously interested in starting this Lurker Lounge WC3 clan. I've been playing a little (either as OrkishMandolin on Azeroth, or UdoJurgens on Lordaeron), and it'd be nice to have people around for AT and fun games.

Do we have the requisite 10 people? Does anyone know people who could be used as placeholders? We don't need permanent members, only enough to establish the clan and keep the number above 10. Of course, playing is nice too, but...

So, I count Archon Wing, SwissMercenary, Artega, Munkay, and myself. That's 5... are there 5 more people who are even interested in being placeholders who own WC3?

Sir DieALot? Refrigerator? Anyone?

Jester

[Artega]

Ugh. Rifle/caster is the way to go if you're up against mass grunts; I've lost a number of games to that strategy, thinking that the human was gonna mass footies or something similar.

For Orc strategy:

You almost always want to start with a Far Seer; FS is quite possibly the best caster-type hero in the game. He has a very effective nuke (Chain Lightning), very efficient summons (two wolves with a very good damage-to-life ratio), and his ultimate just decimates bases. Far Sight is great at Level 2 and Level 3, but it just can't compare to Chain Lightning or Feral Spirit. Make your FS, get Feral Spirit, and zip in and take some cracks at gold miners. If you can find a Wand of Illusion, this is pure gold. Bring a Grunt or two along to really mess em up.

The Blademaster is probably one of the best hero-killers in the game when used properly, up there with Demon Hunter and Mountain King. Nip on over to the enemy base and start slaughtering gold miners. When resistance shows up, Wind Walk away, and go hide. When they leave to go creep, return and keep pestering them. If they try to build towers, zip over and destroy them. Tech madly while you're doing this.

The Tauren Chieftain is a great melee hero, though I honestly see him more as a second hero than as a first, simply because he's such a huge target. In 1v1's, War Stomp and Endurance Aura are the way to go; in team games, I tend to find Shockwave to be more useful than War Stomp (because it keeps the Big Cow out of the center of the hordes of melee enemies, and Shockwave decimates low-HP units like Footies, Ghouls, and Archers.) He's a viable first hero choice if it's a team game; especially if you can get an Archmage to give him Brilliance (can we say spammed Shockwave?)

The Shadow Hunter is another great second hero choice. If your enemies have channeling heroes like Far Seer (Earthquake), PotM (Starfall), or AM (Blizzard), you would do well to place at least a dummy point into Hex to stop that. If they're using expensive tier-3 units like Tauren and Knights, Hexing them can really put a hurt on the enemy. Healing Wave is useful to topping off your units after a battle or keeping that near-dead unit alive to take another couple of whacks. Serpent Ward is useful if you're going up against lots of casters or Unarmored units (such as Huntresses and Dryads), or you have more than one Orc player on your team. Ever hear of a Ward Rush? Tons of fun :)

Unit Combos:

Grunt/Headhunter/Demolisher: If you can get the ratio down right (usually 2:1:0.5), this is gold. Headhunters have lousy attack speed, but they do a TON of damage, and Grunts with the Berserker Strength upgrade are more than a match for tier-1 melee, and can hold their own against tier-3 melee with some upgrades and superior numbers. Switch over to Tauren if your enemy manages to reach tier-3 melee.

Grunt/Raider/Casters: Another lovely combo. Make sure you research Pillage early and continually harass the enemy (focus on buildings when possible to leech some extra gold and lumber.) Research Ensnare early (before your first Raider) and Ensnare melee units closing in, and injured units attempting to flee. Start with Spirit Walkers (upgrades are not necessary, but the increased mana pool is lovely), then go for Witch Doctors (you'll need Master for Healing Ward), and then eventually Shaman (for Bloodlust, of course.) You'll want at least two Spirit Lodges, and three if you can afford it. Use Spirit Link to negate the effects of focus-fire on your units (particularly your Raiders), Healing Ward to heal them (picking a Shadow Hunter for a second hero works well), and Bloodlust just because Bloodlust owns. If they're human, you might want to ditch Bloodlust, since they'll get Breakers as soon as they see your Shaman wandering about. Also keep an eye on your Healing Wards, since Breakers can steal them with Control Magic. Have your Grunts and heroes keep the enemy army busy, while your Raiders rush in and devastate their base. In most cases, you'll want to aim for food buildings first (particularly against Night Elves) as they're quickest to kill and lack of food will prevent the enemy from training (or buying) reinforcements. If you have the time, have EVERYONE focus on their town hall - if you can bring it down, it's game over. Since you'll be swimming in money from Pillage, you should be able to continually pump Raiders without issues. Switch over to Tauren if you're having trouble with the enemy army.

If you're playing a team game:

Try going all-siege. Make a Far Seer and a small troop of Grunts (2-5, depending on enemies) and help your ally harass the enemies. In order to make this work, you MUST keep your enemies under constant pressure; if you're able to attack both at once, this is gold. Have your ally mass at the start (mass Footies with Defend or mass Grunts works very well) and rush off to harass someone. You should, meanwhile, be waiting just outside the other enemy's base, waiting for him to either TP or rush over to help his ally defend. The second he TPs (or engages your ally's army), rush in and lay waste to his town. If he didn't use his TP, run away as soon as he does. As long as your ally's able to hold his ground, the other enemy will be unable to help and be crying for help the whole time. When your target leaves, return and attack again. Continually do this (staying just inside of their vision range does wonders), while madly teching to tier-2 for Demolishers, Raiders, and Kodo Beasts. Immediately pump out two Beastiaries, another Barracks (if you hadn't already), and a War Mill (if you hadn't before.) Depending on how many Grunts you have left, and your enemies' tech, you may wish to add a few more Grunts to your force before going for Demolishers; if not, pump out two Demolishers and two Raiders. Continually pump Raiders (Ensnare isn't necessary, but it's useful), and get 4-5 Demolishers. Have them join your existing force (preferably out of sight), and wait for your target to rush to his ally's aid. When he does, attack full force. Unlike in 1v1's, you should aim directly for his Town Hall; even with a number of peasants repairing it (assuming you aren't killing them), you should be able to destroy it. If they don't give up then, destroy their Altar and any Barracks, kill any Peasants, and then rush over to assist your ally in destroying the other enemy. I have a lovely replay of this somewhere; I'll get around to posting it some day.

[Sir_Die_alot]

I can help you make it but as I said I am on west 99% of the time. I would need to know when to log on to help. B)

[Refrigerator]

Yeah, sure. I've been on WC3 a bit more recently, actually. Just set a date far enough in advance (a day, maybe, so that I don't miss the post. :lol:) and I can help make a clan for east and west on that time. I only ever play on west mostly, but switching wouldn't be too much of a problem at all. I think I'm level.... 3...?

:lol:

[JustAGuy]

I can be a place holder. I haven't played WC3 in a while (nor have I finished the game), but if I don't need the expansion to be a part of the guild, then I can be a placeholder.

I'm off to Toronto for the rest of the week, though, so I can't do anything until Friday night.

[Lady Vashj]

I have played recently, but always SP or Lan, not on Battle.net. I could be an expansion placeholder if necessary, but don't expect me to do much playing (DAMN dial-up!).

[Archon_Wing]

That's ok, I have lag issues too. :) I mean, I think that's what you're implying. You could turn those grahpics and sounds down. (Does one really need 3d sound?) ;)

[Archon_Wing]

Wow... this thing is impressive. Anyone had any experience with it? :lol:

I'm quite experienced with the Starcraft editor, but I'm at a loss on even how to make the terrain here!

Heck, even if I never learn how to play this game, the editor and user made maps would be well worth the money. ;)

I should go around looking for UMS maps to download. If people made quality custom scenarios with the limited starcraft editor, I would like to see what they can to do with the wc3 one. :o

[Sir_Die_alot]

Not to just toot my own horn but I am a pro at the editor. :) If you have any ideas on maps I would probably help you since right now I have the mappers version of writers block. :wacko:

For terrain it works much like starcraft but there are many more potential cliff levels (14 as I recall). You can have water on any of these levels also, but it will count as 1 cliff level below the one you place it on so you can't place water on the lowest cliff level. The raise/lower tool will create humps or craters, which on land are more just a visual effect, but can be used in water to raise deep water to be walkable or lower shallow water so it is deep and unwalkable. Ramps are problematic because they are a little buggy, especialy if you make them on diagonal cliffs. You can see a couple flaws I was demonstrating for a discussion on the war3 mapping forum with the ramp generator here: http://www14.brinkster.com/sirdiealot/ramp...ps_are_evil.htm

If you have questions feel free to ask me directly or you can visit the warcraft 3 mapping forum on the battle.net website which is visited by many competent people besides myself (I've been pretty inactive there the last few weeks, but it's been slow too since the patch was announced, and beta patch released, which will include some nice editor changes). The forum FAQ is worth reading if you really want to get into WC3 mapping.

Last if you know programming you might want to skip the GUI triggers and learn the JASS programing language the editor uses. It's more flexable and efficent than the way the editor will set up triggers using the GUI trigger interface. Some of the standard Blizzard functions are really bad, like to check if a unit is "dead" it checks if the unit has 0 or less life, unfortunately that doesn't always make a unit "dead". Worse the function to check that a unit is "alive" calls in turn the "dead" function and just expects a different boolean.

Edit: I should also say, that though I don't see him post much, Ackpth is also very good with the editor. I pwn him though. B)

[Archon_Wing]

Have you made any maps? I'd like to see. ;)

Also, the editor seems to be pretty hard on my poor computer. It seems to make it sluggish. (Not even the actual game would do that most of the time) :lol:

[Sir_Die_alot]

Just cut the end off of that link I gave for the one that found some popularity http://www14.brinkster.com/sirdiealot/ It isn't played as much now, but it had it's day. I still update it now and then for my more devoted fans. :) It's protected to keep the 12 year olds from adding their favorite map ruiner: the tome store.

If you want to take a look at the internal workings I can send you up to 1.08, anything beond that is beond the file size limit my hotmail account will let me send. :( Just a warning though, I have lots and lots of triggers that may or may not have a mate stuffed somewhere else, which can make them hard to follow. I'm not as bad as Blizzard though that often spiderwebs triggers that run eachother through 5 or more folders. :P

I rarely finish the maps I start, I just like making them, so if you want to get a lot of my finished works they don't exsist. :lol:

[Sir_Die_alot]

Also, the editor seems to be pretty hard on my poor computer. It seems to make it sluggish. (Not even the actual game would do that most of the time)

Click "window" and turn off "brush list". This feature lags bad on just about any system and should just be removed from the editor, or at least turned off by default. :angry:

[Archon_Wing]

I like to peer inside the inner workings of these things, but if you really want your map to go around, protection is almost necessary. :D

[Lady Vashj]

That's ok, I have lag issues too. :) I mean, I think that's what you're implying. You could turn those grahpics and sounds down. (Does one really need 3d sound?) ;)

The worst part is, the computer only has one speaker. I have never played with 3D sound - or hi-res graphics, either, for that matter. It's just slower and lags more than a lawnmower with a flat in an F1 race.

I have several modified maps (based on Blizzard maps, but usually a completely different tileset) with a max of four Level 15 heroes, frequently accompanied by a doubled population limit (and more nasty creeps, too). I also have the first four of my WarChasers: Creep Campaigns series finished (Ashenvale, Outland, Barrens, and Sunken Ruins) if anybody wants those.