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WarCraft 3: Rein of Chaos
WarCraft 3 Competitive Ladder Faq
Version 3.7 (8/30/2002)
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WarCraft 3 Competitive Ladder Faq
fei_603@yahoo.com
Version 3.7
For questions, comments, or correction please e-mail me at fei_603@yahoo.com
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Contents
I. Disclaimer
II. Updates
III. Introduction
IV. Types of Match ups
V. Race Match Ups
VI. Realms
VII. In chat rooms and stuff
VIII. You'll be ok in war 3 if you are one of the following
IX. General Strat
X. Terms
XI. NPC
XII. Items
XIII. Hero Killing 101
XIV. Building destroying 101
XV. Undead
XVI. Humans
XVII. Orcs
XVIII. Night Elves
XIX. Maps
XX. Weird Situations
XXI. Misc
XXII. Etiquette
XXIII. Hacks
XXIV. SC vs. W3
XXV. Q & A
XXVI. Ending Note
XXVII. Thanks
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I. Disclaimer
Copyright 2002 by Byron Hoy
All rights reserved
This guide may be distributed freely for non-profitable use as long as it is
unaltered and includes this copyright notice. You are free to use any part of
this guide in your own works or WebPages as long as I am credited. This guide
nor any part of it may not be used for profit without prior written consent
from the author. This is MY work. If you rip it off, I will hunt you through
the ends of the Earth.
These things are very boring, I know, but the thing is though, I worked very
hard on this guide and don't wish for others to steal it. Here's the deal, if
you want to use it, go ahead. If you want to put it up, go ahead. If you
wish to print it, feel free.
Here's the thing, if you do any of the above, do this too:
G I V E M E C R E D I T !!!
D O N O T A L T E R !!!
Here's an idea; you could add a "credits" section to your work, whatever it may
be. This would make your work look ever so much more sophisticated. That is
a good thing, for both of us.
At this time, the only pages this should be on is:
Byron's Anime and Stuff at:
GameFAQs at:
Yahoo Groups at:
Cheats.de at:
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II. Updates
This will be updated as new patches arrive or as I add more missing information.
Ver 3.7
*New section "News and Rambling Section" Added
*New section "Balancing, Patches, and Changes" Added
*"Top 50 in Ladder" is in a section of own.
*"Actual Version History" added
*Finished Hero Killing section
*Extra Tips added
*More added to Etiquette
*More Q & A
*Ran through the spell checker again
Ver 3.2
*More Useful Items added
*Finished LT map strats
*Still more formatting
Ver 3.0
*HUGE update!
*Added ALOT of Hero stuff as in ALL heroes talked about
*Added more stuff in general
*Some corrections
*Built time chart
*More strats for all races and in general
Ver 2.1 7-17-02
*Big Update! Lots of stuff added
*Added FOUR new sections: Race Match ups, killing heroes, destroying buildings
and Weird Situations
*Fixed much of the format to better follow Gamefaqs regulations
*Added much more NE strat
*Added more General Strat
*Spell checked again
*Began adding "The Heroes" Subsection for each race.
Ver 1.5 7-14-02
*Sorted the Terms and Strat to make more sense
*I spell checked it,... wow there was so many mistakes
*Added more strategy stuff
*Organize FAQ a little better
Ver 1.0 7-12-02
*The actual FAQ is done sorta
*Things organize and FAQ looks nice
*Filled in all of blank notations
Ver 0.1 released 7-8-02
*Everything is new
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III. Introduction
I'm writing this to teach or assist on how to compete in ladder vs. other
people. WarCraft 3 is a relatively new game so unless you've played the beta,
you would have to learn a new game. This FAQ is designed to help anyone with
how to compete versus people, NOT the campaigns. Though having theses skills
would make campaigns easier. Although I would recommend you run through
campaign before challenging the world.
One more thing before we get started, this guide is not meant to make you play
like me or anything of that nature. It is here to make you a more
knowledgeable and hopefully better player. Most of these strats work best in
1v1 situations but I'm adding a multiplayer exclusive section soon.
If there is a strat you want seen or anything else, feel free to request it,
I’ll see about getting it up.
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Foreword
This section is where I'm going to give advice on where to get started.
Depending on how much experience you have in games, you might have different
spots in which you need help in while learning to play WarCraft 3 (or playing
it better if that’s the case).
The idea I guess is to decide what kind of player you are. Below are several
possibilities, I fairly confident I covered it pretty well (though I'm thinking
that I sound like a fortune cookie in them).
The Different Kinds of WarCraft Players:
People who play a lot of RTS's
-You should be right at home with this game and just need some build order and
strategies (possibly different ways to think).
WarCraft 2 Players
-As a War 2 player, you may end up going only 1 kind of unit, it isn't that
bad, but in War 3, unit mix's are important. The concept of the heroes may
also be awkward but you'll get use to it.
Diablo 2 players
-You already have the concept of getting items and leveling. Many of spells
may be familiar to you. You probably will understand the value of the
hero sooner than others.
SC/BW Players
-You guys got massn' down. Sometimes even micro. You have to learn that
in this game, heroes more often win games than units. Make sure you get this
down fast.
AoE Players
-You guys aren’t intimidated by the graphics in War 3. You're use to the
smaller unit numbers and longer fights. You will understand the concept of
resource trading. If you played AoE aggressively, War 3 shouldn't be hard
to pick up. The biggest problem you'd have is getting to know new units and
abilities.
Beta testers
-You guys found what was wrong with game, you should be more than fine.
Warforge crack sites
-You guys played for free... without permission but still you should be good
by now compared to others.
WarCraft 3 being among the first games that you've learned
-Young grasshopper, you have much to learn, On the bright side, you won't be
bringing in any bad habits from other games.
WarCraft 3 Experts/Masters/Pro's
-You are good. Not only do you have plans for every race match-ups and creep
routes, you apply them with amazing reflex’s. Micro and Macro is second
nature to you, you have no problem fighting large battles well, while
producing units at home and other parts of base maintenance. You exploit
all advantages of your race and will not be intimidated by any opponent.
You come in with an attitude to win. You play serious and well versus any
opponent regardless of his skill, in other words "Perfect Play" always.
Completely New to Games
-You have a ways to go. First would be to familiarize yourself with the game,
then honing reflexes, then much practice. Eventually with enough practice,
you'll be competing with the best.
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News and Rambles
I get to rant stuff here like "OMG NO MORE MINES!!!" If you're not too familiar
with WarCraft 3, you can skip over this section becuase I might not explain
some of the content that clear.
Lets see, what is there to say for now? Oh, I know, OMG NO MORE MINES!!!
For those of you who don't know what I mean by that, before the most recent
patch of the game, you could creep some easy creeps and hope that they drop
an item called "Goblin Land Mines." They were spose to be defensive drops
that did damage when the enemy would walk over them. But people would abuse
this becuase they did obsene amounts of damage, 600. Players would not actually
use them by thier base for defense, instead, they would put them AROUND key
buildings and blow them up, thus garenteeing a free win. Cheap you say? You
betcha! People all over the net used it and complained about it the same time,
now they're gone.
I've been in many a chat rooms reccently just to chill and relax from laddering
recently. I have also noticed a trend of questions that seems apperent almost
anywhere I go. The main one would be "How do I get good?" I've seen it
enought times to actually warrent a place in this faq. I would suggest that
they should read this faq (hehe yes, I actually think THAT much of it) and then
ask questions. After that, its just practice, not just any kind of practice
though, 1v1's, not just 1v1's vs some chumps, 1v1 vs very good people. THis is
how the good get better, and how the best stay sharp. You are the product of
your surroundings, if you're around good players long enough, you'll pick up
their habbits and do better. The idea is to play as many 1v1's vs people much
better than you as possible, then study the replays of the games you play and
analize why you won or lost. Thats what I think anyways, I'm done rambling
on this specific topic.
It's pretty much offical! NE is the most powerful race, followed by Humans,
then Undead, then Orcs. This is determined by, me, from Tourny Results,
number of top Players using each of the races, and the Number of unbalanced
ablilities on each side.
Are Moonwells overpowered? I'm honestly not thinking that huntresses are that
strong. It's just that they can take a lot of hits. The idea is that these
tanks can get full life again just by going home. NE is powerful mainly
becuase any of thier units HEROES included can just get full life and mana
just by going home. No other race can have thier heroes at full life at a
whim, thats kind wrong and possible,... dare I say unbalanced?
One last note for this update is that you'll notice some sections without
numbers, those are new sections and might not stay in the same place for too
long.
Until later, have fun you guys!
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IV. Types of Match ups
The Strat you would use changes from match up to match up.
1v1
-The old fashioned showdown kinda deal. It's where you can only rely on
yourself, which could be a good thing... or not. When playing these, the
idea is always to know what the opponent is doing and play counters to it.
The key is to scout often.
2v2
-This is all about team work and good support. That means if you're ally is
hit, do EVERYTHING in you power to help him, if he goes down, so does half of
your potential army and resources. A new feature to Blizzard's RTS's is the
ability to share control of units and resources.
3v3
-Much harder coordination, but more-less bout triple rushes.
4v4
-Very hard to coordinate but quad rushes work amazingly well. This is all
about killing one opponent as fast as humanly possible by rushing him with
your whole teams worth of units. The team that does this best wins.
FFA
-All about staying alive and leveling ALL your heroes as much as possible. 3
level 10 heroes, what more do you need? That should be your primary goal in
FFA.
Team FFA
-All about working together and leveling up. Take a little 2v2, and mix it in
with FFA, and you got this, use the combined strat of both to do well.
Arranged team
- This is about teamwork, remember, you DO have a teammate, and hopefully you
plan isn't just "to win." You might need a bit more than that.
Anonymous Matchmaking
"Anonymous matchmaking is a new feature on Battle.net that matches WarCraft III
players of similar skill level together for a game. To play a game with
anonymous allies and opponents, select the Play Game button. You can then
specify what game type you want to play, how many players, and what maps you
are willing to play on. When you are satisfied with your choices and join a
game, Battle.net looks for other players in your Gateway of comparable skill
who wish to play the same game type and maps as you. Battle.net determines your
skill level by looking at various criteria including your rating on Battle.net,
the number of games you have played, and your win-loss record."
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VI. Realms
There are 4 realms separating US east and west. A Europe one and the Asia one.
Which one you join is up to you. The idea is to join the one you live nearest
to.
Good players play at certain times consistently. If you want to fight them (or
avoid them, pick a time you'd normally play and switch realms or pick a
different time to play).
The west servers at this moment seem to have the best players in the world.
What can I say, everyone is saying that right now.
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VII. In chat rooms and stuff
Player levels and exp
Hit "c" to go to a default chat room, faster than clicking channel and typing or
picking one.
Exp per fight? N/A
Basic Chat Commands:
/away (message) = you're away, you still see messages that people send you, but
they will get an auto response saying away, and your message (which could be
nothing)
/dnd (message) = you're doing something, you see no messages, people who message
you will see that you are doing something important and you message.
/stats (name) = a player's solo wins and losses, do it without any name to check
yours.
/squelch (name) = do not hear words from someone, do this when someone is very
annoying.
/w (name) = private message a user
/time = checks time
/users = checks # of users at that time, updates ever few mins
Profile
Double left click a name in a chat room to see the person's profile.
You can advertise your website or leave a message here. Lots of people look
at this, so might as well give yourself personality by putting ANYTHING in.
You can see your solo, teams, arranged teams, and win percentage with the
profile screen.
Friends List
The friends list is the greatest thing (in my opinion). It tells you who's
online so you can follow their progress, and you can know who are your friends
and such. With the friends list you can keep in touch with people that you
met that have gained your respect and such. A very useful tool to tell how
many of the top 20 are playing at any given time if you fear them. So much
fun!
You can add people to your friends list by clicking the Friends tab and
putting the name of the person in the Add box. Click add and you're done.
You can also type /f a "name" (without the quotes). /f r "name" will remove
people from the list. You can also right click names of people and click
add to friends if they are in same channel to add friends the easy way.
You can manage your friends list by simply right clicking a person already
in your friends list and promote (put further up on list) or demote.
/f m "msg" will send a message to all of the people on your friends list.
If you are in someone else’s friends list and they're on yours you can invite
them for an arranged teams game from any chat room as long as he's not in a
game.
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IX. General Strat
1v1 and 2v2 are completely different animals, go in to each thinking
differently.
Know terms
-Those ones that follow this section, it'll help a lot. Well most of it will.
Never Give up
-If you ever come across a level 12, or some ridiculous skill mismatch, fight
anyways and save a replay after game. Watch his build and consider trying to
think like he does.
In team games, SHARE resources. If your ally needs something like gold or wood,
just hit the allies button and pass some on.
Undead = Free fast lumber for all.
Control Groups
Ever go **Doh** "I can only control 12 units at a time!"? Well highlight
those 12 and hit Ctrl + 1, now select the remaining ones and hit Ctrl + 2.
Now to control both hit 1 then move them, then hit 2, then move other guys.
There, now you can control all 90 of your supply at once better! BTW you can
control groups on buildings also.
Double-clicking to select all units of same type in area.
Ctrl + Click on the image of selected group to only highlight the type of unit
of that given group.
Targeting enemies and creep (Focus Fire)
When fighting smaller number of enemies target them in specific. Don't leave
enemies alive. Even with 1 hp they hit as though they had full life.
Don't let opponent kill your summons, they count as exp too.
Early build, you cannot support more than 1 base unit producing building at a
time so having 2 barracks early on is wasted because you can't possibly afford
to efficiently pump units from both and continue teching.
Scout and Scout often! All of the best WarCraft 3 players do, you should learn
to do it efficiently also.
Know when and how to use Town Portal Scrolls.
Letting the hero die?
Early in the game it may be ok to let the hero die. You can resurrect him for
200 gold and he gets 100 mana and full life and he spawns fast because he's
level 1. Pretty good deal if he died harassing the enemy as an early rush.
Knowing that you can lose your hero on purpose, you can think of strategies to
work on mind games and mess with the opponent.
Know what creep to avoid. Level 10 Fliers are HARD. So are spell immune level
9 golems.
Peasant, peon, acolyte, wisp count on a mine should always be 5, you’ll get
nothing more if you have 6 there with any race.
Have only as many woolgatherers as you need, going into low upkeep sucks.
To keep track of the number of peon, peasants, or acolytes mining, just box
all of your miners and count. If you're human or Orcs, one should be in mine
when you highlighted, you should count 4 of them.
Rallies and rallying to mine and hero. Good idea when trying to be efficient.
careful when rallying to hero when he's farrr away from the home base because
your new units may very well be attacked by creep on the way.
Creeps for money level items, what more do ya want... creeping is a good source
of gold when you're on high upkeep.
Keeping hero alive strat. If your hero is ever targeted, just run him back
away from battle and he'll usually be fine. When he run's the targeting units
will try to follow him and get slaughtered in the process by your army.
Walking past entrance def. Makes sense right? If you don't want to deal with
it just walk into the inside where it isn't defended.
The loading screen maps and stuff tells you a lot. Who has the better
computer, how good bnet thinks your opponent is. What map your going to be
playing on. Where all the starting and scouting points are. Make sure you're
there to pay attention to this.
This game isn't SC, your economy ISN'T hurt until you have less than 4 workers.
don't get nervous if you lose some, ok?
Good scouting during day, good scouting at night... during the day you can
see more. At night creep don't bother you.
Starving strat, more than 1 way to win. If you don't want to deal with huge
def at his base, cover mid with your army and never let him expand. The
main thing is to def your expo and control all expo sites.
Reflexes and stuff. The more you play, the more apt you'd be at dealing with
situations that occur, and faster too. That'd be what makes a good player
good.
"I played a guy who turtled with like 15 of 'em, and it did take a while till
the meat wagons got in on it" DoomZergling. W3 isn’t a very turtle friendly
game, don't turtle or you will lose.
seems like 2 approaches to creeping, the tanker hero method and the pet tanker
method. The first is where you have the hero take a beating while your army
does the killing. The second is where you have the hero summon something to
take the beating and have your army do the killing.
Winning with land mines. Yes if you get them, you win. Just walk in to the
opponents base and put them around the hall or what not. When he tps in...
well you say gg.
Before game dun move mouse around much or you might get off centered at
beginning of match.
You can NOT resurrects air units, don't EVER think you can, because sir, you'd
be sadly mistaken. ;p
Upgrades take 60 seconds for the first level to upgrade. From then on the
better upgrades +15 sec more than the last, it doesn't matter for what,
applies to all upgrades.
You can tell how much wood and gold and supply your ally has by clicking on any
of their buildings and reading the box on your screen.
Do NOT attack tower esq. buildings. Towers are anti-small units, most of time
you would be massing them. MAKE SURE you follow this if they have army there
while you fight towers. If that happens, you run.
The backspace will center your screen on your town hall, or toggle through your
town halls if you have more than one.
In custom games where you can pick your color, you should pick the color of the
most dominant feature on the map. Ex. In a forest dominant area, pick the
shade of green most closely related to the ground. This is so that you can
camouflage better and avoid losing too many units and such on the run. This is
a very practical way of thinking about advantages. Its just better to be
harder for the opponent to distinguish what is enemy and what is a tree.
It is a VERY good idea to lure out and sleep/ensnare high level creep to
separate it from its kin. This way, it's an easy fight, good exp, and a nice
chance for godly drops 2 mins into game.
You on average can mine 12k in 19 mins. So make sure you know when to expand.
DENY EXPOS! DENY EXPOS! DENY EXPOS! DENY EXPOS! DENY EXPOS! DENY EXPOS!
DENY EXPOS! DENY EXPOS! DENY EXPOS! DENY EXPOS! DENY EXPOS! DENY EXPOS!
DENY EXPOS! DENY EXPOS! DENY EXPOS! DENY EXPOS! DENY EXPOS! DENY EXPOS!
Nuff said?
Do not be stupid, go siege! Take that for what its worth.
There is a level 10 hero cap. That means at level 10, your hero will not gain
anymore exp. But by this point, he will have all spells, very high stats,
and be like a god on the field. Be good to level 10 heroes, if they fall
your opponent gets massive exp boost's and they take long as hell to respawn.
This just means level 10 heroes are worth protecting with all that you've got.
Defensive Structures:
Orc Towres Have most range with Cannon towers 80 game units.
All other towers and def has 70 range of game units.
Burrows have 60 for range.
With that in mind, beware of orc tower rushes.
ALWAYS BUILD def after failed attack, always.
Innates and autocast have more value to me than other spells. This is true
because of the ease of use.
3 Wood Guys usually takes down a tree.
Taurens, Knights,Driuds of Claw bearform, Abominationss > small melee units.
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X. Terms
RTS
-Acronym for "real time strategy" game. These games are typically war games
that involves the player actively controlling the runnings of his army.
Micro
-Is the control of units individually. Saving your units especially as orc.
If they have low life, run them away and let them regain some life back, saves
on resources and build time. It only makes sense right? Learn this skill
well.
Macro
-The ability to control things on a larger scale. To be able to mass units and
send them to battle. ex. making units from all your buildings while at the
same time moving your troops, or expanding while you attack at the same time
Night time
-Creep will not attack you. Good time to send an attack uninterrupted. Some
creep do not sleep like golems, be warned.
Early game
-About 0-9 mins in would be about early. Another way to see it is about the 2
full days. At this point, some people rush, some people expand, some people
creep. Very small number of units to work with and vs.
Mid game
-About 10-20 mins in is about mid. At this point expos are up, At least 1
major battle or skirmish should have occurred. Some creeping is done for sure
and merchants and marcs are used. Units are usually massed produced and used.
Late game
-Anything 20 mins or later is late game. Your firs gold mine should be empty
and you are living off your expo. Managing limited resources and few
remaining units to finish game is usually what happens in late game. More
often than not the last big attack has to have a siege weapon of some kind.
Often times having "high upkeep." At this point its a good idea to have only
3 miners mining per base to avoid draining it of all its gold. Resume with
all workers when you hit "low upkeep" again.
Massing
-When you start to produce units on a large scale i.e. from multiple
buildings. Don't keep your units for too long. Very taxing so to speak.
Resources
-They are what you get to buy more things with. At 40 supply you will drop
from 10 gold per mine to 7. From 70 to 90 it drops to 4 gold per mine.
Therefore to make the best of "low upkeep" make sure to have expanded already
when you hit this mark. Learning when to break limit is also important.
Heroes
-Heroes are the most important units in the game. How well you develop them
will determine whether you win a game or not. Always get a hero, always
get it very early. After-all, the first one's are free, so why not at least
get one hero right?
-Heroes win games.
-The max level of a hero is 10. At this point he'll have all of the spells
he can learn at max levels. The only way to raise his stats more are to
find tombs and items. Make note they can NOT gain anymore exp, end of story.
Do NOT give him exp tombs because they will be wasted.
Best way to start any round is to send all workers to the mine and grab them
from there. Speed counts and recourses add up. It's worth it.
Hot keys
-Speed is the real key here, so hot keys help.
Upgrades
-If you have a lot of a certain kind of unit, upgrades are essential.
Trees
-They can be taken down. Opponents might not know or expect an attack at their
minerals from through the trees. A good idea.
Knowing maps
-Its as easy as just looking at where the starting points are to scout, and as
in depth as memorizing what creep are where and their levels with what they
drop, get as much as you can before starting a map.
Hero spells
-Memorize all 48 hero spells and what they look like on the field. This is
important.
Expand
-Resources are important so expand.
Quick Expos
-Getting resources early. Usually means expanding by nightfall.
Defending Expos
-By mid game, your expo determines whether or not you win a game. The idea
then is to build 2 defensive structure by all expos.
Builds
-Win with same over and over.
Use same over and over.
Scout and scouting
-Do so very early.
Save Replays
-You’d be amazed at how much you can learn from them.
Print screen key
-Just so cool to be able to screen capture many fine moments in a battle and
showing to friends. Also you can open the chat log and screen capture
conversations too.
Creeping
-Gets you resources and valuable items
Leveling Hero
-Can be done by creeping or killing virtually anything like enemy summons.
Practice
-Just keep playing, you'll get good, trust me. The top people in ladder play
this day in and day out.
Controlling map.
-Scout constantly for expos in mid game, make sure you're the only one that
gets to expand. If the opponent turtles, this is an excellent way to stop
it, just let them starve.
Early Altar hero rushes.
-They are good, and kinda fun to annoy your opponents with, but don't expect to
win games with it though.
Tier's
-This refers to the units that can be produced at any given point in the game.
There are 3 types of Tiers, 1, 2, and 3. Tier 1's are units that you can make
when you first start the game, footmen and ghouls are good examples of this.
Tier 2's are the new units availible after you upgrade your hall one level,
Dryads and Raiders are examples of tier 2. Tier 3's are the units that you can
make with a fully upgraded hall. This includes most of the offensive air units
and heavy melee units. Something to remember is that tier 1's are always tier
1's. This means even though you can produce Knights, your footmen are still
considered tier 1.
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XI. NPC
Merchants
Very very useful source of items. Games have been won and lost because of smart
commanders makes hero just fight near a merchant to buy heal-all scrolls,
protects scrolls, and mana potions to fully utilize the hero and obtaining an
outstanding unit advantage.
Mercs
I favor the healing troll the most because its economical, think "free healing."
You can save much resources from not buying new heroes, but instead upgrading
them, in which case you would save even more! If ever in a pinch for units, do
not hesitate to hire all the mercs at camp because they appear instantly.
Labs
You can use them to scout for 50 gold. Pay it if you want, make sure you do if
you have a LOT of gold. They also have sappers.
Sappers - Very strong 500 damage attack that’s area effective. At further ranges
(about 25) it still does 250 damage, less but still you can't really complain.
Very strong but is blind to who it damages. They can kill each other and you
just as fast as opponent. Send in with your army and retreat when they're about
to hit. Then finish them. Goblin Sappers cannot be loaded into Goblin
Zeppelins.
Goblin Zeppelin - The only dropship in the game. It is great for LT maps and
scouting. The best part about them is that they take no supply! Things that
are inside when the Zeppelin dies only get dizzy if the zeppelin goes down.
Goblin Shredder - This is THE GODLY tree chopper. It puts whole lumber teams of
ghouls to shame. 200 per trip, this guy is worth getting.
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XII. Items
Good items can make or break a game, make sure you use them and buy them.
Use them effectively.
Knowing that items can change the flow of the game, here are some of the GOOD
ones.
Ankh of Resurrection - Brings your hero back to life with FULL mana and health,
godly item
Mana Pots - Always have some. Spells carry most fights on. This puts it in
your favor.
Heal Scrolls - Heals all local units for 150. Good for all races except Orcs,
they have so much hp that 150 is insignificant.
Protection Scrolls - Add armor and make units live longer, useful for all, VERY
useful for Orcs, they have good armor, and with this on top, they hard to kill.
Get if you're Orcs or if you have mana pots, heal scrolls and a tp already.
Town Portal Scroll - Always have one... unless you don't have a base.
Grim wards - This kills summons good! Stops nasty necro rushes flat and
gain madd exp off the crippled skeletons. If you opponent goes summons, you
go wards.
Goblin Land Mines - 600 damage... If you ask me that's over powered. During a
attack just like opponents buildings with them, and tp away if you start losing
(they don't hurt you). Moments later you'll hear some surprise or cursing,
cueing you to attack and finish what is left of his town.
Sentry Wards - A spy that last for 10 mins. Very nice to cover key areas of
the map. Another use is to put 2 at every expo so that the other player can't
expand. If the sentry wards are in place, they can't build an expo over it.
Wand of wind - Cancels out 1 unit for a period of time, you can do it three
times, vs. Orcs, you can effectively time out half their army. that’s a pretty
good advantage dontcha think? Don't use this against heroes, they recover
very fast from this.
Resurrection Scroll - This is a free casting of the ultimate spell from the
Demon Knight and the Paladin. Definitely a game winner, brings back up to 6
of the most powerful units.
Book of the Dead - Summons 4 skeletons and 4 skeleton archers to fight for you.
They do not add to your supply or upkeep, great to tip battles in your favor.
Cloak of Shadows - This can save your hero, therefore it warrants a place in
the items section. At night if your hero is ever surrounded, hit the hide
button and he'll be saved. The only hero that doesn't need it is the PotM.
Tomes of Exp and Greater Exp - Quick levels, very very powerful.
Tomb of Power - You level up. Use this only when trying to hit level 6 or
higher levels, otherwise wasted. Best used to level to 10 with empty level
9 exp bar.
Spiked Collar - Summons a Felhound, a respectable fighter, like all summons,
does not add to your supply and upkeep. The big part with this summon is
that he can mana burn! Yes, harass other heroes with this.
Stone Idol - A strong fighter that can throw rocks. Make SURE you take
advantage of his special move because it isn't auto cast.
Infernal Stone - This is the Dread Lord's Ultimate. Same in everyway except
that you can now have his help with any race, or have 2 of them if you're
using a level 6 DL. It has a passive Immolation, very nifty.
Demonic Figure - This is the BEST summon in the game. You get a Doom Guard!
1.3k life! He can stop, meteor storm, cripple, dispel, and has 500 mana to do
it with. How can you lose if you pull one of these during a battle? He's like
an army by himself.
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XIII. Hero Killing 101
Heroes being so strong are a pain to keep on the field (as opposition). But
they are so hard to kill, what do you do? There are a few spells and units in
War 3 that are meant to kill or deal with heroes. There are also other things
you can do (if creative enough) to deal with heroes too. This section will
focus on just that.
There are 2 general ways to kill heroes. The first is to slow them so that
your army can surround and beat up. The other is the old-fashioned damage way.
This involves ranged attacks that do good damage or ranged attacks that slow
or stun (notice that melee really is not a choice here?).
The more advanced way to kill heroes is by trapping them. Whether it is
between buildings are even harder, your own units, the only option a hero has
when trapped is to kill a path out, OR use a precious tp to escape from the
situation. The idea is to MOVE your whole group a little past the opponents
hero and target him, this should quickly completely surround the hero,
giving him no place to go.
Hero Killing:
As Orcs
Orcs have a key hero killer that isn't used often but should be. Its name is
purge, its unbelievable how much it slows a hero down for killn'
Stasis Trap is another rarely used but VERY effective hero killer. It stuns
all units for 10 seconds and the hero for 5, good stuff.
Both Stomp and shockwave are not half bad at hero killing. Chain Lightning
is kinda weak for hero killn' but if you're desperate, its a good last ditch
effort before the hero runs away.
If used properly all of the Orcs ranged units can kill heroes with out much
trouble during major battles. Shamans, doctors, headhunters, and wyvern all
fit this category.
Ex. Your armies are fighting but you make all your shamans target the
opponents hero.
Ensnare is a good hero stopper, very worth while to learn this if raiders are
to be in your party.
As Human
The MK hero counts as a hero killer on his own. Between his passive and his
hammer (both stun units), opponents heroes usually have a hard time running
from this guy. His clap will slow the hero also. All three of his moves do
good damage, very good stuff.
The AM and his many Water Elementals can do away with heroes because they are
all ranged units.
Slow from sorcerers can act also a very good hero killer.
Griffons are great hero killers, being fast, having range, and being able to
cut off run paths of the other hero, these guys are just great for hero
hunting.
Riflemen are ok as hero killers but I wouldn't recommend them in general, so be
warned.
As Undead
The Death Knight has DC which can do away with heroes due to a 6 sec refresh
time, being ranged, and doing good damage.
Lich can nova to slow the hero and do a quick 150 damage.
DL can do sleep. On of the best hero killers out there. Sleep and surround.
Also the infernal has stun if you land it on top of the opponent's hero. Swarm
can do some quick damage too.
Necros can cast cripple, a very nice thing to do to other heroes in general, but
especially if they run, this makes them go slower.
Fiends are ok, but I don't think that much of them.
As Night Elves
Entangle is almost a as godly as it gets as a hero stopper. It will allow you
to surround a hero that tries to run and you can recast it often.
Mana Burn can kill heroes that run **that have mana left.**
If targeted by Searing arrows from the beginning of the fight, a hero can be
taken down by the PotM if the opponent isn't careful.
The archers are ideal hero killers in that they're cheap, do good damage, and
get huge ranged. This makes them hard to run from. Make sure you know that
they can die rather easily.
Dryads can cause the death of many heroes because of the innate slow poison.
Riders are good for hunting heroes.
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XIV. Building destroying 101
Fighting battles are where Wars are won and lost, what happens when those
battles are over? You have to finish their homes off too... but what if they
have too much to take down or too much defense? This section will deal with
destroying defensive structures, important buildings, and other such topics.
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V. Race Match Ups
Here, in short, are kinds of confrontations and how to deal with them properly.
More depth however is done in the section devoted to the specific race.
Vs Undead With Hero
When rushing, put hero between opponents acolytes so that there is one on each
side and only 1 ghoul can hit him from each side. Your hero will last much
much longer like this.
^^^^^^^^^^^
^ G A_H_A G ^
^ G / \ O ^
^ | N | ^
G = Ghouls
A = Acolytes
H = Any hero from any race
M = Gold Mine
^ = Represents Trees
O = Opponents hero
See? Your hero will not fight more than 2 at a time, very nice and mean at
same time when you pull it off.
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XV. Undead
My thoughts:
The undead acts almost as if it were the zerg from StarCraft. Many of you may
remember them as the "Alien" esq. things that were good at overwhelming the
opponent with large number of units. The undead can do the same. Dread lord
has the spell "Sleep" which in my humble opinion, is one of the most powerful
base level spells in the game.
The Heroes:
Overall, the order to build heroes usually goes either DK then DL, DL then
DK, or DL then lich. Rarely is lich used first, but can be done well in an
Undead vs. Undead game.
Death Knight
This seems to be more popular a first hero in the West Coast than East. He's
a pretty good hero, but my gripe with him is he only hits as hard as the
Dread Lord, so this counts him out as a melee hero. His Death Coil is good,
but I'd rather cannibalize than use DC. While it can be used offensively,
it only does half the damage it was going to heal. Don't waste points in
conversion until after level 7. His unholy aura and resurrection are his
bread and butter. His aura combined with the Dread Lords aura can make
ghouls live very much longer, while res can win games, bringing key units back
to life for 2 minutes.
He's kinda like a paladin in that he can heal his own units. More importantly,
death coil at high levels can heal your other heroes, frost wyrms, and aboms
fast.
They way to raise him would be to go 2-0-3-1.
When creeping use his coil offensively and just cannibalize to regain health.
Dread Lord
My personal favorite because of all of his spells. There are so many ways to
divide up the points depending on what race you are against. Sleep is the
classic first skill, for creeping or for annoying, its great. This will stop
long spells like StarFall and Blizzard. Using it vs. orc armies can cut their
numbers down by half easily at higher levels. Carrion Swarm is just a nifty
spell, it has huge range, which makes up for its smaller number for damage.
The way to look at it is that it'll even up the diff between footmen and
Ghouls. His aura is great, what can I say? Mix it with the Death Knights
and you're set. Swarm is best used vs. humans.
There is a tiny lapse in time where you can't hit a sleeping unit. That time
is the moment it's going to sleep. That means sleep will last a min time of
.7 second's or so.
The way to build his skills would be, 2-1-2-1 or what ever would suite the
situation better. Just go sleep first.
*Infernal attack type = chaos, good vs. heroes or everything
Lich
Lich is cool. Frost Nova is good for the slow, at high levels it does MORE
damage to the enemies around it than the one you target. The armor is ok, good
for abombs. Dark Ritual is like free fast mana. Just hit skeletons with it
and you'll be good for mana for nova. Death and Decay is a slow spell, it
takes about 34 sec's to take down anything from a peon to the great halls
because it does a consistent 4% damage to whatever is under the effect of the
spell. Not the greatest ultimate but if the game was down to just him, he
could take down hundreds of towers given the time to.
In Undead vs. Undead, Lich is a pretty good hero for first, frost nova really
give your ghouls an edge over his in early game. But he's not great for
creeping, if you know ahead of time that the creep will be hard, consider not
going him fist.
Lich build would be like 3-0-2-1 in general. More often than not he's the
second hero rather than first.
The build:
Crypt, Zyg, Alter, Zyg, Graveyard. Have a total of 6 acolytes by end of build.
In general:
*Gold mines unsummon themselves after all the gold is gone.
*You don't need necropolis at new expos.
*Sleeping scouts. Fun easy exp. Remember, your mana refills for free, his
scouts don't, unless they're summons, then its just free exp, none the less,
should you be complaining?
*Always pump out ghouls. This means never stop,... for any reason...
*You don't need 2 crypts till after your first expand.
*Abominations vs. melee units
*Cannibalize is USEFUL for creeping, after supply of 27 research this
regardless of what you're going.
*Upgraded Hall's are great towers, they do twice the damage and have 4 times
the life of a regular spirit tower.
*Gargoyles = anti air, or fiends with nets upgrade.
*2 Gold mines can support 2 crypts and 2 temples.
*3 gold mines can support 3 crypts and 2 temples or slaughter houses.
*Have towers inside and by border of base. Don't upgrade until after failed
attack.
*Fiends are pretty weak units, compared to a ghoul, they attack at the
speed of... of... well something very very slow... They are only ok as
support units for anti air only. If you have to use them because you like
them that much, the ratio should be 5-6 ghouls to 1 fiend OR the inverse of
that and have like 20 fiends to 3-4 ghouls. Fiends in large numbers can do
good damage, but they still die pretty easily.
Crypt Fiends do not have an air attack!!! Don't even think for a second that
they do, they can web things out of the sky to hit, but can NOT hit things
in the air otherwise.
*Shades ARE useful, but not usually worth making unless you plan to go Frost
Wyrms. You have to sac a unit AND make a building AND retrain the sacrifice
units (not in order). You could have gone Necros, Aboms, or meat wagons
instead. Unless you plan air, don't go shades.
*Frost Wyrms are great but so expensive, by them if opponent is all ground or
heavy defense. If you wanna go these, 3 gold mines support 2-3 depending on
your upkeep. If you plan air, MAKE SURE that you get a level 5 death night
to heal them if they get low on life, they're just too expensive to keep
buying. Make note that you can't resurrect flying units. Also, have a necro
follow them to offer Unholy Frenzy.
*Always have 3 towers by every expo. Very often, whether you win or lose can
be determined if you have more resources than the opponent. In other words,
you can't afford to lose this.
*Unsummon all towers near empty gold mines.
*When using lich think, "Frost Nova, Frost Nova, Dark Ritual, Frost Nova,...
etc."
*Frost Nova can be good for fast leveling of the lich.
*Dark Ritual is an under rated spell. People are hesitant to ever sac units.
It is worth it for another Ritual, remember that. You can DR any kind of
units including skeletons, acolytes, and ghouls. Skeletons especially useful
because they will crumble by themselves anyways.
*Late game, if you are ever down to just a lich and acolytes, don't even
hesitate to make that you new army.
*If opponent goes taurn, you can go abominations OR posses them with banshees,
what ever is more convenient at the time.
*Banshees are good vs. big ground units only, don't waste time building with
other races, it's waste of time. They are best used when you're going necro's
and other player tries to counter by going big units like taurnen, aboms,
and druids of the claw.
*The Necro spell "Cripple" DOES count as a hero killer, don't forget to use it
as such.
*Skeletons are great, they can come in large numbers and they do NOT add to
you upkeep. This is why necro rushes are so good, you simply have so much
more than the opponent that you overwhelm them. They do not stay for long
though, so make sure you get longetivity to have them work harder. The
mastery would give you more skeletons so it'd also be helpful. One side note,
even with longitivity, skeletons do not stay summoned long enough to traverse
the whole map. If the opponent starts to use wands of negation, they will
gain massive exp for the number of skeletons they fry. Be warned not to make
that many if you see this happening. Make a very important note, no matter
what ANYONE tells you, you can only summon 25 active skelies at a time, not a
single one more. They live for 40 seconds with out longetivity.
*If you have no resources, don't hesitate to unsummon buildings for new
gold mines.
*As a minor note, no you can't sleep your own units or hero.
The way you should be thinking:
As soon as night falls you should Expo Fast, have cannibalize ready so you can
refill life. As soon as you have 5 acolytes rallied to your new expo, expo
again. Now you will rush as soon as you feed up again. Your only goal in
this rush is to hurt as much as possible and just tp out. You should have a
graveyard by base so you can heal up again. The opponents units won't usually
be so lucky, or smart, so they have a damaged army. By the 1st expo you should
have 2 crypts 2slaghter or2 temple. By 2nd expo you should have 3 crypt 1 of
other tech that you didn't go, or 1 more of the one you did. This in short
is the triple expo strat.
Ghoul Rush Strat:
Have 7 ghouls by night and your hero ready. You should have scouted if you were
gonna rush and know where opponent is by now. Attack and target vital units or
buildings, in general ignore hero unless easy kill because it'll get respawned
too soon.
Necro Ghoul Rush Strat
Same as above, but instead of hitting enemy, hit a gold mine and its creep,
send acolyte with team and build mine during fight. Rally 4 more acolytes to
new mine. Upgrade halls as soon as last acolyte is done. Add another crypt
while waiting. 2 Temples as soon as possible. Upgrade longitivity only and
build necro. Attack with all ghouls and necros when your necro count hits 4-5.
Ghoul Fiend Rush Strat:
Not recommended.
Vs. Night Elves
If you see a Demon Hunter and Huntresses, you should quick tech to aboms and
ghouls. Half abombs and maybe half ghouls never only aboms. Make sure to
have quick expanded and don't go just aboms. Aboms are > Huntress's.
If you see bears GO POSSEION FAST or any sort of slow spells if you haven't
already.
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XVI. Humans
My thoughts:
As always, humans seem to be the most versatile of all races, they can do
everything. Even without any balance changes their potential to win under a
good commander is amazingly high. And NO I by no means think they "suck."
The Heroes:
Paladin
He's an excellent first hero, he allows creeping without the loss of lives.
Early in the game, he can save you a lot of money. His aura is excellent
for keeping your units alive better, I'd say the paladin could almost count as
free upgrades armor wise to units. His divine shield is ok, but I tend not
to put more than 1 point here, I just don't like the idea of only having the
hero live through a battle. The shield does have its uses, but you don't
need more than 10 sec's of it. Resurrection is great if you go knights,
those units are expensive, so getting 6 for free is a good idea to me. Heal
at high levels is ideal for healing knights, griffons, and your other heroes.
Creeping is easy, fight with footmen and hero, then heal wounded during battle.
The build: 2 Heal, 3 Aura, 1 Res. You could take 1 point away from the aura
if you really like it that much, but on a large scale, 1 armor bonus to ALL of
your units feels like a better deal to me.
Archmage
Also a very good hero, there are many ways to build him. His blizzard is a
very good damage spell, at max levels it can do 500 damage to anything that
stays in its area for its whole duration. (FYI It does 250 max to buildings).
Its best for hitting ranged units because they won't move too much, but if
you're gonna hit melee units, don't be afraid to hit your own either. Make
sure you do not move while this spell is going on. A good idea is to give
him a protection scroll or potion of invulnerability before starting it so
it's less likely for it to be interrupted. His aura, brilliance in my
opinion is too over powered. That means you want this at HIGH levels.
Originally, this aura was only suppose to affect your own units. But in the
retail release, it affects not only your hero, but your allies heroes AND
THIER units also! Combinations for infinite mana is seemingly endless.
Water Elemental is a pretty good summon, when you think about it, they hit
hard, at level 3 they have almost 1K in life, you can recast them, you can have
up to 4 fighting for you at any given time, I'd say you got a pretty good
summon. Combine WE with brilliance, you can cast infinite WE's, never stop
casting them even when the enemy ISN'T around just to have extra units. They
don't take supply either. His ultimate is a lot of fun and CAN be useful.
Keep peons all over the map in key area's, when you think you can handle a
fight mass tele in and win, if you start to lose, mass tele away. Free tp's,
very much fun. Make note you can mass tele to almost anything of yours. A
farm at every important spot is a good idea. Nice for defending expos also.
To creep with him, make a WE and have it take all the damage.
You CAN siege with the AM, it just takes a long time. All you do is cast WE to
tank and blizzard over towers. You'll win out eventually.
The build: 1 Blizzard - 2 WE - 2 Brilliance - 1 Mass Teleport. Go WE first and
Blizzard last.
*You can't mass telepot to air units.
Mountain King
Another great hero. I originally found him hard to use because of how small he
was. I'd often mistake him as a footmen and let him die. But I got over this
as I used him more and more. Storm Bolt is good for hero killing, one point is
really all you need though. Thunder Clap is this guy's bread and butter, it
can be used several times in a fight causing stun and good damage. This skill
owns all ghouls in like 2 hits. You can run the MK around in battle to get
into good Hammering positions and because he's small, he'd likely go unnoticed,
until it's too late that is. His innate is where you'll spend the next most
amount of points because you really wanna just TC, but too many times will
drain all of his mana, so his innate is good for the fact it doesn't use mana.
His ultimate is nice because of spell immunity, in this respect it's better
than the Demon Hunters ultimate, but he doesn't get a splash attack. The MK is
pretty hard to kill with avatar activated.
Creeping means going at night at TC right between all enemies for max damage.
The build: 1 Storm Bolt - 3 Thunder Clap - 1 Bash - 1 Avatar
Go Stormbolt when you start fighting his hero, otherwise build up TC and Bash
sooner.
The build:
Barracks, farm, alter, farm, mill/or blacksmith, farm.
In General:
*The defend skill. This is a wonderful skill to have while creeping and
fighting towers. As long as you know what has piercing attacks you'll be
fine. Don't forget to undefended after attacks for normal walk speed.
*Humans have 2 different tower choices. The Guard Tower is like the orc tower,
its pretty good in general. The cannon tower is very strong but cant hit
units close to it. The solution? Build a guard tower or farm in front of it.
*Humans can help each other build buildings.
*Humans can repair buildings and mechanical units.
*Blizzarding peon lines, lots of fun.
*Send invisible units into the opponents base, then mass teleport in, then
mass teleport out when support comes, it's like free damage.
*You CANNOT cancel your building if there is no peasant there building it.
*When expanding, send at least 2 peons to support build the new hall.
*If your main base is attacked, don't wait until you lose your army before
calling militia. Do it early to end the attack on your town sooner.
Footmen Riflemen Rush:
*This rush involves rushing to blacksmith and pumping units until nightfall.
At night you can creep, expand or rush. You should have early scouted the
opponent already.
*The ratio to aim for is 2-3 footmen to 1 riflemen. Good damage overall,
generally effective.
*It's always nice to have about 3 sorcs in the background casting slow.
Teaching them dispel is an excellent idea vs. necro skeleton rushes.
*With upgrades militia has armor of TEN! That’s not half bad if you think
about how much abuse your little peasants can take now.
*Humans have awesome anti air, another name for that would be gyrocopters
*Scout with peons, at level 6 with an archmage you can mass teleport in.
With that in mind, you could put peons all over map mass teleport anywhere.
You should cover expos etc., this is much better than leaving footmen there
because peasants are only 1 supply.
Power Knights Strat:
Just go with this train of thought first. A fully graded knight has 12 armor.
If he's around a level 5 paladin, his armor can potentially go up to 15. If
he is then aided with a protect scroll, he has 17 def. Say if you had priest
that gave inner fire. Now your knights are at 22 def. With the life upgrade,
you would have 950 life knights that had 22 def. That would mean it'd take
over 900 hits from a fully upgraded ghoul to take down a knight. If you had
that paladin to level 6, well then, you could bring them back to life when
they fall. Does something seem wrong here?
The Infinite Mana Mage Team Strat:
The AM has a really powerful aura, with it at level 3, you can indefinitely
cast blizzard, mass tele, and NONSTOP pumping water elementals. The units
around them, if they are spell casters can cast heal/inner fire,
slow/polymorph for long periods of time. So at all times, you'll have 4 WE's
many sorcs casting slow and poly, many priest casting heal and inner fire.
Good stuff. Best if done in team games.
Footmen to Griffons strat:
First hero paladin and heal, second skill to aura, 3rd to aura, 4th to heal,
5th your call learn resurrect at level 6
Second hero mountain king as hero killer.
Creep as soon as night falls.
Upgrade sword only and mass footman.
Expand early
Double barracks and upgrade to keep at as soon as you expand.
Keep pumping footman and learn defend, grades to a castle.
Start Riflemen armor as soon as swords upgrades are done.
2 Aviaries and learn hammers and mass pump Griffons, have paladin around to
heal them so they don't die. Remember, you can't resurrect Air Units.
Steam Tank Decoy Strat:
Build 4 steam tanks. Make small attack on enemy expo WITHOUT tanks. Instead
have them wait by edge of enemy's main base. when they go to def expo, send in
steam tanks to main. By the time they get back, it'll be too late and you
just run away steam tanks to be repaired and repeat.
Vs. Night Elves
Footmen counter vs. huntress, they do more damage per sec than huntresses with
bounce. Just try to Focus Fire on one, and your advantage gets larger. Slow
also helps if you have sorcs around.
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XVII. Orcs
My thoughts:
Orcs have amazingly powerful heroes. The tauran chieftain being the most
powerful single hit, hitter in the game. If raise to a high level (*6 or
higher) he could very well take out over 30 undead ghouls by himself. Think
"Stomp, Shockwave, attack until you can stomp, shockwave" repeat until he dies,
comes back with FULL mana to stomp, shockwave some more! With micro and mana
pots, he can do very much to an enemy army.
The Heroes:
Blade Master
A very fast and pretty strong melee hero. He can be one of the hardest heroes
to kill, hands down. Windwalk allows him to run from almost any situation.
Also good for scouting, the Blademaster can run faster while invisible.
Mirror image will stop targeting and spells on the Blade Master. When you use
this, make sure the Blade Master has as much life as possible because his
copies will have the same amount of life. You can use mirror image for creeping
and scouting too. His innate, critical strike, is definitely one of my favorite
innates in the game. Allowing up to 4 times damage, that’s like 200 damage, and
300 vs. buildings. Make sure to have this at a fairly high level. The best
part is that his copies can do fake critical hits, very disheartening to the
opposition. His ultimate is very strong but can be confusing to control. His
ultimate last for seven seconds, during this time he'd be doing a lot of damage
with spell immunity. Make note that he CAN be killed during this period of
time.
To creep, just mirror image and creep with him.
The Build: 1 Wind Walk - 2 Mirror Image - 2 Critical Strike - 1 Bladestorm
Go Mirror Image earlier then CS. Windwalk when you start fighting vs. the
opposition.
Farseer
Farseer is a favorite first hero for many players. Especially those who tower
rush. He's pretty fast and has a ranged attack. Far sight is pretty good at
scouting, but at level 2, it TRIPLES the sight that it already gave you, at
level 3 it doubles the level 2 sight, you see a LOT. If you're smart, you
would use this to find units that run away cloaked or invisible. Chain
Lightning is a pretty good spell, but it leans on the very taxing side mana
side. This spell works best vs. units that have little life like ghouls and
peasants. The wolves he can summon are good for tanking and creeping, at high
levels they can be good for attacking too. His ultimate is the most damaging
building destroyer in the game. All of the units that are caught inside will
be slowed, resulting in more damage and keeping your seer safe too. Do not
move your Seer while he cast this spell. You can kill trees with it if you
want...
To creep just cast wolves and your done.
The build: 2 Chain - 3 Wolves - 1 Ultimate Wolves last longer, that’s why I
chose that over Chain.
Tauren Chieftain
A pure power hero. Can be THE hardest hero to kill with only small units.
His stomp stuns surrounding units, therefore if your chieftain is ever
surrounded, you can stall with this. It is weaker than the TC of the
Mountain King. It's only good for the stun, unlike the MK, you don't need
high levels of this. Shock Wave is an amazing damage spell purely because it
doesn’t have a limit like chain lightning and carrion swarm. This means ALL
units will take up to 200 damage as long as they are in the line of the attack.
You definitely want this at high levels. His endurance aura is a great
complement to the Chieftain and his surrounding army. This makes lust ever
so much more damaging. His ultimate is just fun, you never want him to die
on purpose though. If you do, the other hero gets LOTS of exp. The benefit
of this ability is that you get FULL mana along with health. This allows for
max damage combo possibilities. This also means you should use ALL of his
mana before letting him die.
To creep, go Stomp first then go in.
The build: 3 Shockwave - 1 Stomp - 1 Endurance Aura - 1 Reincarnation
In general:
*Strong Heroes, Best in game damage wise.
*The Taurn Chieftain should be your second hero in general. He is very strong.
Just think, at level 6, this could happen vs. a large army of melee units
(once more I repeat): Stomp, shockwave, attack, attack, stomp, shockwave,
heal, mana potion, stomp, shockwave, stomp, die, resurrect with FULL MANA AND
HEALTH, stomp, shockwave... etc for a LONG time. You get the picture right?
*Grunts arn't that strong. They cost too much and take up too much supply.
*Orc Towers shoot further than Undead spirit towers.
*Orc burrows are defensive structures, when attacked, fill all of them up for
minimal losses in your troops.
*Bloodlust is the most powerful support spell in the game.
*Blademaster for orc v orc? Mirror image, lt creep alone. It seems effective.
I'll add more to this as I experiment.
*Spines on buildings are great, especially versus the Undead. Upgrade only
if you see a lot of melee.
*Purge is a wonderful spell, it can dispel summons, slow heroes, cancel
polymorph, etc. Make sure you use it, and use it A LOT. 2 purges can take
out a level 3 Water Elemental, just think about it.
*I don't like Taurens that much, but I must admit that they eat small melee
like Ghouls for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. With upgrades and lust, you
can do some serious damage. 5 supply for ANYTHING is a bit much though.
Tanks from other races are usually 4 supply, so you'll always have lesser
number of units compared to them. Area effect hits are a blessing.
*Go raider when you are vs NE to try to take out thier main tree. When I say
go raider, I mean that 5 is enough.
*Pillage 35% gold back for damage to buildings (from full life to none), so
wolf riders destroy buildings fast, and thus you can conclude, wolf riders
hero rush and ensnare is a safe bet right?
The build:
Barracks, burrow, altar, burrow, mill. Have a total supply of 21 early by end
of build.
Lusted Grunt Strat:
Good vs. Humans and Night Elves. Lusted Grunts do amazing damage and will walk
over most Human NE armies.
Raiders To Wyvern Strat:
Good vs Night Elves. This is one of the very few things that Ors has over
NE. Early game, its about solo creeping and scouting with either the Far Seer
or Blademaster. The Chieften is NOT a choice, you're aimming for speedy units.
Raiders are siege units. The idea is to quick tech (As fast as possible
to Tier 3). But during Tier 2 time, double Beastiery and double hero before
going tier 3. Afte the two beastieries are done, pump 5 raiders. On the 5th
radier, have your other beastiery learn ensnare. This whole time, you should
have creeped all the easy creep on the map, running away from all encounters.
At no time should you pass the 40 supply mark until you can produce wyverns.
By the time you have 5 Raiders and your second hero, run into the opponents
base and attack thier hall and try to take it out fast. Split Form and Wolves
help. When the opponent tp's back in to save it, you have two choices. Either
to run (if you DON'T think you can take out the base), or just let all of your
units **Cept heroes** die busting down their hall. If the opponents hall will
not go down, do not give free exp to their hero by letting raiders die. Ensnare
will stall you more time, ensnare EVERYTHING. If you ran, just wait for a good
moment to hit their base again. Do not try this more than 3 times in 1 given
game. This does NOT work vs Undead (as well). Anyways, by the time you're
tier 3, you'll be double pumping Wyverns and can hopefully win off of double
hero and Wyverns. To be honest, WYverns are ONLY there as insurance, of this
worked, they opponent might not beable to have rebuildt in the first place.
Just keep the pressure on until you win.
Quick Tech Lusted Wyvern Strat:
Good vs. Orcs. Orcs strong point is their amazingly powerful base unit, the
grunt. To avoid unnecessary lost in lives, the best way to combat them is to
go air. Wyverns are very strong (*fully upgraded they do over 60 damage per
hit!), them with lust will destroy most orc players. If you try to get this in
shortest amount of time necessary, you'll need to sacrifice building any grunts
and def with spikes 1 tower, burrows, and 2 heroes.
Quick Shamans Strat:
Good vs. Undead. Quick shamans is a relatively safe route to travel vs. the
undead because spines on buildings will def you from ghouls very well, thus
giving you time to tech for shamans fast. The idea with this is, after you
scout your opponent out, you'll know what base unit to go. If he's massing
ghouls and necros, go lusted taurens. Air, go lusted wyverns. etc.
Towering (Watch out for legato)
-Towering is a very powerful strategy in WarCraft 3 many would call it cheap and
I would almost agree because of how powerful it is. This will probably be fixed
in the patch. Don't worry though, it is still possible to stop with some
practice and work.
The Tower build:
Alter, borrow, mill, tower, tower, tower, borrow, upgrade town hall, tower,
barracks. Have 18 units without the catapults.
How to tower rush-
Scout early and with 2 peons, about when you have 8-9. First burrow by home.
Tower behind trees, tower near tower, tower near tower, burrow near
tower, upgrade base, tower near borrow, barracks near tower, 2 towers by you own
base. Catapults and hero micro on his supply and def first.
Vs the Tower rush with Night Elves
Scout early and take out the main with whatever you have. Or defense up and do
balistas.
Vs the Tower rush with Undead
Scout early and if you see his base has tower rush potential, attack it fast
with your hero and 7 ghouls.
Otherwise rush tech for your slaughter house and meat wagons. I don't recommend
this unless you had a failed rush. Orcs only need a barracks to build catapults
but you need new building so the opponents would come out sooner. So what you
should do is WHILE you rush, tech up FAST because if rush fails, you won't be in
as much pressure.
Another thing you could try is turtle with upgraded towers in a row near edge of
range from towers, and tech for slaughter house's and meat wagons. If you had
cleared creep by a potential expo, take it!
Vs the Tower rush with Orc
Tech for catapults FAST and he' who micros best wins.
Actually you might be able to do a tower rush on him at same time... I wonder
what would happen...
Vs the Tower Rush with Human
Defend and footmen
Demolition guys
Steam engines
Remember, as soon as you're safe, the game is practically yours because the orc
player can not have done much and won't have more than a barracks to build with.
(Unless you destroyed that too...)
Vs Humans
Vs Humans it's a pretty safe bet to go lusted grunts. Keep grades going and
know what battles to run from, and you've won. Make sure to expo once, and
not let the human player expo.
*2 purge vs. WE, Learn this and do not FORGET IT EVER.
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XVIII. Night Elves
My thoughts:
Night elves are pretty weak early game to rush. Once you survive that part of
the game though, you can show the opponent the true power of upgraded ranged
units. Micro is extremely important with them because their base unit the
archer has low def and life. Just the thought of having your wells heal
you is amazing though.
The build:
Build alter, moonwell, 3 wisp gold, ancients, moonwell, hunters, moonwell,
either upgrade tree or second ancients.
The Heroes:
Demon Hunter
The Demon Hunter is a very strong melee hero. I consider him better than the
Blademaster because of the simple fact that he can just run or TP home just
to heal and be ready again. Mana burn is nice to creep with and to hamper
opponents heroes of their valuable spells. Immolation just completely messes
up Ghoul armies. Evasion helps him live like forever, while Metamorphosis
guarantee’s that he lives almost forever.
Creeping with the Demon Hunter is a fairly strategic thing. The idea is to
pump him out first and solo creep until huntresses are out to help him.
Just fight until he has 25% life left run back to heal and keep creeping.
If you know for a fact that a creep uses magic, make sure you mana burn it.
If you go archers, the goal of the Demon hunter is to take all the hits.
Demon Hunter build: 1 to mana Burn, 2 to Immolation, 2 to Evasion
1 to Metamorphosis.
*Manaburn does damage equal to the amount of mana "burned" so to speak.
Anything that uses magic you should burn, just for the damage factor if
nothing else.
*The Demon Hunter can dodge attacks in his sleep, this will cause him to
avoid waking... Make note of that vs. the undead.
Keeper of the Grove
Creeping with Keeper is easy, just force of nature and attack with all or
Entangle and kill individually. I use to think he was strong for Force of
Nature, but this was back in the days of beta when he could do it 3 times
a battle. Then I began to think he wasn't that great because his ultimate
wasn't damaging. Ever since I've found Entangle though, everything’s changed.
It is such a good spell, does damage and holds in place. Better than sleep
in that it can't be canceled by attacking their own unit. He's naturally
fast and has good day sight so he can scout early and bother your opponent
and then run away. Entangle does enough damage to KILL one peon per casting.
You can initially cast it 3 times, then the 4th a moment later. Keep this in
mind for when you find them, ignore his units and go his workers.
KotG build: 3 Entangle, 2 force of nature or 2 thorns depending on the other
persons main build, I'd go aura just because I spend all my mana on Entangle.
1 Tranquility.
Entangle CAN be dispelled, purged, etc. But most players won't be able to
due to the fact they might not know, that they don't have the means, or just
all out forgot.
Tranquility is a spell that you need to have your hero stand still to cast, but
it'll eventually give all your units full life. It will stop if you move Keeper
or if he gets stunned one way or other by the enemy.
Priestess of the Moon
Much more useful as the second hero purely because she isn't that good at
creeping. Her trueshot aura is great for going huntress, archers, and dryads.
Her searing arrows are ok damage wise, but in large scale battles they are
insignificant. Her scout owl is pretty much the best scout in the game. Its
an owl that can't be killed that last longer, flies faster, and see's farther
with each level. Very useful because if you don't go arrows, you can summon
this owl forever. Just have it follow the opponents army or something if you
have the free time to allow it. Funny stuff. Where PotM shines is in a little
spell called StarFall, her ultimate is pretty much the most battle changing
spells in the game. It is SOOO good for battles and you can use it often. Only
problem is that she has to be level 6 to use it, meaning you have to have her
pretty early for the most use of her. You could use searing arrows as your
hero killer, but it has to be high levels with good items on the PotM, but by
the time the arrows are high, you could use SF, so why bother? The only
reason I would use it would be to relax and not worry about constantly
casting owls, less micro can be nice.
The Build: 3 Trueshot Aura, 2 Owl, 1 Starfall. No questions asked, I'd always
go like this, I just don't deem her arrows to be THAT good in any significant
way.
*Searing arrows instead of owl only if you're lazy, it all depends on how
much work you want.
*The easy way to deal with owls is just to have them follow the opponents
hero and just have more and more follow them as you get the mana to.
*Owls Reveal invisible things, use them to find sentry wards.
What you should be thinking as NE:
Run from virtually ALL fights. Footmen beat huntress. Grunts beat huntress.
Huntress vs. Huntress is even fight so you don't want these kinds of encounters
either. Huntress beats ghouls, so this is the only fight you should take if
numbers are in your favor. Farie Fire is extremely useful when fighting Orcs
and Humans, this is the edge you want before fighting them. If you see
huntresses, the best you'd usually hope for is leaving with like 2-3 more
units than the other player, I just don't think that’s a good trade, most any
losses are unacceptable. Vs Ghouls however, you should chase and hunt down
if possible, its a you win situation. Vs Tier 1 and 2's, you should go
Huntress, Dryads, and DotC. Vs Tier 3's do Archer, Rider, Chimera. If
you can't get Riders up fast enough, make sure you know about hide micro
and such, which is explained elsewhere, and fight at night. With this in
mind, deny expo's, get ONE up yourself (don't get too greedy) and stay in
control to win. At this point, don't get careless and starve, at the 20
min mark, you should have won. Like always, do not build siege until you
plan to win.
In general:
*Perfect Ratio is 3 huntress 8 archers perfect damage and absorption vs. melee
of any race.
*All NE females have innate cloak of shadows. Meaning they'll be invisible at
night as long as they don't move or attack.
*Hide is a waste of time, don't use it.
*Auto-cast moon wells heal you as you walk by them.
*Moonwells HEAL you. You can make them auto-cast if you'd like to make things
easier on yourself. Keep them in strategic places on map.
*Moonwell away from tree unlike undead.
*Moonwells fill up at night and don't start full.
*Have near hall and auto heal so when tp in u heal easier.
*Huntresses are just too expensive to lose due to carelessness so be careful
with them.
*Force of nature is an amazing spell, you can cast this spell up to 3 times
so you could potentially have 12 trees fighting with you (absorbing damage
while your archers do all the work).
*Starfall is a very very cool attack. Drink an invulnerability potion and cast
it in the heat of battle. It does less damage to buildings so keep it in the
fields. Damage wise to units it is the best in the game, in the beta, if you'd
run into the opponents base and cast starfall, by the end of it, the opponent
would not have a base left, nor any units. The only thing any race can do vs.
this is to run or hinder the Priestess.
*During SF, you can use DotC's rejuvenation on the Potm. Making SF last longer
and keeping PotM safer.
*Huntresses, they are the bread and butter of the NE, very very powerful. Make
a small note that they cannot hit air. Defend does not affect them. Big melee
units beat huntresses, make sure to have 2-3 druids of one kind or another out
when you see them to make odds more so in your favor.
*Sentinel ability, put an owl on a tree. Can't be dispel and only taken down
by a siege weapon (or 3 lumber workers from any given race). Awesome free
scout(sorta free, you pay to research it and I guess it's part of a huntress's
cost to train), all of your huntresses come with one.
*Druids of the claw are amazing units. Fully upgraded they can turn into bears
with almost 1k life! In groups you can have all bears healing while they fight
and roar for 25% extra damage. You just have to be good about micro with them
and heal when needed. As humans they really suck at combat but regenerate mana
fast. As bears they are some of the strongest kinds of tanks there are but
regen mana slow and walk VERY slow, not to mention they can't cast spells.
*If you send 1 wisp with you main attack team, you can have the wisp detonate
to fight summons or cancel spells.
*Dryads are great. They're immune to magic, can slow, can dispel magic, they're
fast, can hit air, very good vs. undead. Have like 1 or 2. It's a good idea.
*Going air with NE. Hypograhs are great if you've been going archers and PotM.
Chimera's are godly air to ground. Make sure that you support them with
archers so that they don't get shot down by air to air units.
*Going dryads is just like going shaman, you don't need a Ancients of War.
*If you're making Hippo’s for anti air, don't rider them until the air is
cleared. They do less damage as riders.
General strat:
To the build, mass hunters until night so you should have 2 archers, some hunters
and your hero. Creep for quick exp and expo. Expand and pull another ancients,
and really start pumping huntresses. Upgrade weapon as time allows, and as soon
as expo finishes upgrade main tree.
Mid to endgame strat:
A handful of huntresses to absorb damage, a hero About 6-8 ballista fully
upgraded, and walk into someone's base, even if they stop the huntresses,
they should have lost many many buildings by now.
Demon Hunter Rush:
Have your first hero be DH, and scout the opponent quick. Send 1 wisps with him
to opponents base. Have 1 wisp outside already doing the first moonwell. (This
means you should have 2 wisps working for you) Fight with DH and have
Immolation. As he runs low on life run back to the well. With Immolation on,
you can kill everything by running around in circles. If you can handle micro,
you could have also had up an ancients pumping archers the whole time, making it
much harder for the opponent to win.
Moonwell wall Defense Strat
Have a wall of moonwells across choke. Have a protector act as a door. Have
archers and The Priestess stand behind wall. This is awesome def vs. ALL non
siege units. Remember though, this will not win you any games, make sure you
uproot the protector and go creep or attack the opponent.
PotM Archer Strat:
The PotM has trueshot to help local ranged units do more damage. If you combo
this with a ton of archers, you can inflict mass amounts of damage and level the
priestess fairly quickly for Starfall.
Druids of the Claw strat:
Druids are the tankers of this race, but they're spell casting tankers which
make them almost godly. The idea is to quick tech to the Tree of Eternity
so you can have fully upgraded Druids. You should be creeping with only the
Hero and either 2 archers or 1 Huntress
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XIX. Maps
Lost Temple - Generally a favorite of war 3 because this was the map all beta
players played the most. There is high ground and all sorts of drop spots. I
don't like this map as much because of the fact that so many players are that
much better on this map. ** Thinks back to SC: BGH, Huntz, and LT... **
**Shudders**
You have to know this map because if you do not have a preference to maps, you
will end up fighting here quite a lot.
Lost Temple Strat:
There is a close expo by every base guarded by fairly weak creep.
There is a fountain of health in middle of map. 4 sets of creep in each corner
of the center box and some weak creep guarding the entrance of the fountain
area.
If you wanna level by the fountain first, take the easer creep by entrance first,
then the trolls in either top left of box or bottom right of box, because they
are next easiest to level with. Then tackle ogres or the middle area.
If you wanna expo first, go straight there as soon as night falls, kill the
troll priest first, then target the rest. After that you can go merchant or
fountain area to creep or just attack straight up with what you have left.
Lost temple drop spots:
The 2 expansions in top left and bottom right of map are drop only expansions.
There is a place above all ledges by the near expo of each base to drop a
siege weapon there on high ground. Very mean if the other player has
never seen it before. If you want to get closer to the mine, just knock down
trees with siege weapon.
Creeping your expo early may get you land mines, in which case you win. End of
story.
Healing on Lost Temple at night:
This is easy, after all your creeping, your troops must be tired, just run to
the fountain in the middle and ignore the creep while you heal. Good stuff,
because when you're full you can creep the fountain and then heal again!
In LT with Undead:
A good idea would be to go Dread Lord first here. Have your sixth acolyte
scout all key areas where the opponent might start. Creep your expo with what
ever you have and get cannibalize along with starting your quick gold mine.
Have 4 acolytes rallied there. By the time you're done feeding you should do a
rush on the opponent. The objective is not to win but to hurt. Tp out as
soon as you start losing life from your ghouls. Feed when you get back and
get ready for your next expo. By now your expo should be up and 3 Ziggurats
that will soon be graded to towers. Remember again, all towers are meant to do
is delay the opponent and not stop them while your army arrives. From here
you have nuff to double temple triple crypt or double slaughter house and double
crypt.
On a side note, if you want to go alter first, you can gamble for a rare in the
first two mins of game by running to the labs and drawing the three ogres away.
Sleep the big guy when a good deal away from labs and keep running till other 2
stop chasing, head back to sleeping lord and beat him down with DL and like 5
ghouls. You could get a Drakes Egg for an easy win or many game winning items
like resurrect scrolls etc.
In LT with Humans:
Start Creeping at the fall of night. Have your barracks rallied to your hero.
You want to creep center first with Humans. Hit the shamans in bot right and
top left first. Then from there you can creep the fountain, attack your
opponent, or creep your expo for expand. Not much to say besides the fact that
you should get a healing and a protect scroll by the second attack on the
opponent.
In LT with Night Elves:
This depends more on your initial hero. If you go DH, get mana burn and hit
the shamans with it, no healing and they lose life too! Do this early, like as
soon as the hero comes out you can solo one of the corners. Once you get both
troll sets creeped, you should have 4 huntresses and are ready to make your
first attack on the opponent OR hit the merchant area for good exp, a rare item,
and a chance to attack with 6 huntress instead.
If you went KotG you'd do the pestering strat and contain him. I do not
recommend going PotM first.
Don't forget to heal up between fights and a series of creeping completed.
In LT with Orcs:
This one depends a lot more on what you want to go. If you plan to early
double hero with a barracks, take your expo first for exp. Hit the fountain and
heal between battles. Hit the merchant when fountain area cleaned. You want
protect scrolls. Blademaster can do solo creeping on trolls very well here
because you can heal at fountain.
Early air would mean early scouting, no creeping and hit them as soon as you're
ready.
Towering would mean just to scout them and put up towers behind trees near expo.
ON the high ground, not below.
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XX. Weird Situations
This will be where I put up very rare and unusual situations. Since they don't
happen much, the use's from what is learned here is very limited in application.
None-the-less, some of it can be amusing and fun to know.
Rallying acolytes to a gold mine then haunting a mine over it stops all of the
traveling acolytes in their tracks. I found my guys just sitting in the middle
of the map doing nothing... stupid acolytes *grumble*, I pay him to just sit
there *grumble*.
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Useful References
Here are a series of statistics that you may find useful just to know.
Build times
Having an idea how fast units come out is pretty useful. I've divided them up
into three groups from fastest to slowest.
Fast Build Units
0 s. Dire Wolf
0 s. Hippogryph Rider
0 s. Infernal
0 s. Militia
0 s. Shadow Wolf
0 s. Skeletal Warrior
0 s. Spirit Wolf
0 s. Treant
0 s. Water Elemental
14 s. Wisp
15 s. Acolyte
15 s. Peasant
15 s. Peon
18 s. Ghoul
20 s. Archer
20 s. Footman
22 s. Druid of the Talon
22 s. Troll Headhunter
Middle Build Speed Units
25 s. Gyrocopter
26 s. Rifleman
28 s. Priest
28 s. Wolf Raider
30 s. Crypt Fiend
30 s. Druid of the Claw
30 s. Dryad
30 s. Grunt
30 s. Huntress
30 s. Kodo Beast
30 s. Necromancer
30 s. Shaman
30 s. Sorceress
30 s. Witch Doctor
35 s. Banshee
35 s. Gargoyle
35 s. Wyvern Rider
Slow Build Speed Units
40 s. Hippogryph
40 s. Mortar
45 s. Abomination
45 s. Ballista
45 s. Catapult
45 s. Gryphon
45 s. Knight
45 s. Meat Wagon
50 s. Tauren
55 s. Steam Tank
60 s. Frost Dragon
65 s. Chimera
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Balancing, Patches, and Changes
This is the section where I'll be putting my thoughts on the above stated
topics.
No more mines, what can I say?
I DO miss the Tombs of Greater Experince though.
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Actual Version History
The notes in this section were taken from the bnetupdate file in the WarCraft
3 folder. I thought it was relevant because this is almost a bnet FAQ and
that not all people actually know of this files existence.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
WARCRAFT III VERSION HISTORY
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
- PATCH 1.02
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
FIXES
- Fixed an issue that allowed players to abuse dragons with Devour.
- Fixed an issue with dragons that could cause them to divert attacks.
BALANCE CHANGES
- Necklace of Immunity, Tome of Greater Experience, and Goblin Land Mines
no longer randomly drop in multiplayer games.
- Scroll of Resurrection & Scroll of Animate Dead item level increased.
- Bridges are no longer destroyable on the (6)Stromguarde.w3m map.
NOTE: Replays are incompatible between major game revisions. (1.01 replays
cannot be viewed with the 1.02 version of WarCraft III.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
- PATCH 1.01c
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Fixed an issue with copy protection for certain DVD drives.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
- PATCH 1.01b
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- Fixed a problem where players were disconnected from a game as it was
starting and thus getting a loss.
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- PATCH 1.01
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** Welcome to WarCraft III and improved Battle.net! **
This patch contains various data and code updates necessary for play on
Battle.net as well as some minor balance changes.
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XXI. Misc
2v1's are virtually impossible. Nuff' said? There is very little you can do
about this because unless both players are incompetent or MUCH less in skill
then you are, this is a match up that you can not win.
Icons
-You get an icon for the number of wins you get of a specific race. At 25 you
get your first, 250 your second, 500 for third, and your last at 1500 wins.
According to battle.net, the icons are as follows. Everyone starts with a peon.
The you get one for 25, 250, 500, and 1500 wins with a certain race. For humans
the icons are footman, knight, archmage, Medivh. For Orc they are grunt, tauren,
farseer, Thrall. For Night Elf it's archer, druid of the claw, Priestess of the
Moon, and Furion Stormrage. For Undead the icons are ghoul, abomination, lich,
and Tichondrius. Finally, for Random they are green dragon whelp, blue drake,
red dragon, and Deathwing.
GG's
-Most "good games" last about 20-30 mins.
Comps are VERY HARD. Fight them for good practice w/o hurting your rec (if you
care) or just because you don't feel up to fighting vs. humans. BTW don't be
ashamed if you lose to them.
For people using an Intel mouse, you can roll the mouse wheel for a different
angle, not good for game play but makes way for some of the best possible
screen captures. The Pageup Pagedown keys have the same effect. Insert and
delete will rotate the screen for added effects.
The max number of arranged teams in your profile is 6, all new ones will push
an old one off.
Solo and Solo Teams level Representation
The number you have next to your name represents the level of you as the
individual. So if you team someone you know, you'll get a level count, but
it would only show the highest level that you have attain by yourself or
with arranged teams.
There is a level cap of 50 on your Account name.
There IS an inactivity loss. If you don't log on to your account every week,
you will lose some exp from all of your respective exp bars. I'm not sure how
much though. Make a note though, you will not get a loss, just exp.
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Top 50 in ladder
This is where I will put the number of each race in the top 50. This is
significant because it tells you what the best players are using, along with
possible race imbalances, and trends of races as patches come.
Top 50 in ladder as of 7-9-02
14 Random
15 Orc
8 Undead
7 Night Elves
6 Human
Top 50 in ladder as of 7-16-02
11 Random
14 Orc
11 Undead
13 Night Elves
1 Human
The above numbers will be a series of notes I make on the ladder every week to
follow the flow and popularity of each race (USEast EXCLUSIVELY because I forgot
to check all realms when I did the first poll. Don't worry though, the jist of
all coasts tend to stay relatively close). This is kinda FYI to see what
might be overpowered or popular. Anywho, on with the analysis. It seems that
Human players are getting very scarce compared to the first week of the release.
NE and Undead players are rising in number though. The Orcs are as popular as
ever too. Random players dropped off a little but still more common than
players who use humans.
Top 50 in ladder East 7-23-02 Top 50 in Ladder West
8 Random 10 Random
11 Orc 6 Orc
15 Undead 16 Undead
10 Night Elves 14 Night Elves
6 Human 4 Human
Top 50 in ladder East 7-30-02 Top 50 in Ladder West
15 Random 13 Random
10 Orc 4 Orc
11 Undead 13 Undead
9 Night Elves 18 Night Elves
5 Human 2 Human
Top 50 in ladder East 7-30-02 Top 50 in Ladder West
15 Random 13 Random
10 Orc 4 Orc
11 Undead 13 Undead
9 Night Elves 18 Night Elves
5 Human 2 Human
Top 50 in ladder East 8-8-02 Top 50 in Ladder West
14 Random 11 Random
11 Orc 3 Orc
9 Undead 16 Undead
7 Night Elves 16 Night Elves
9 Human 4 Human
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XXII. Etiquette
This section is about life on the WarCraft 3 front.
One thing I want you to keep in mind is that you're playing against REAL people,
what you say here actually goes through to the other person, now some computer.
It's not nice to spam their screen with pointless typing, cursing them off, or
other such acts of immaturity.
Don't hack.
Don't blatantly accuse people of hacking either. There is no such thing as a
money hack in WarCraft 3 for battlenet so saying "It isn't possible for you
to have that many units so soon" makes you look foolish. On the same note,
without proof, don't call someone a map hacker, there are a lot of people out
there that are just good. If you think they're hacking save a replay and
watch it. If indeed he IS hacking (in your honest opinion, send it to
blizzard to have it checked. If they agree with you, they will possibly
ban his cd key.
Be polite, everyone has more fun this way.
If you think about it, this game is all about respect. Play well, act well
mannered, and being nice will get you pretty popular. Who knows, you might
catch the eye of someone famous and be able to play with the best of bnet.
Don't diss people, just tell them what they did wrong, and in a polite manor if
you will.
Don't call other people cheap just because you lost to them. Think WHY did you
lose to them, and if your answer is still because their cheap, then you
probably deserved that loss.
Try to keep the language clean, I mean come on now, we might have some young
ones in the War 3 crowd. Besides, it doesn't make you look much like the good
sport you are.
Rushes are sometimes very frustrating things to deal with, but this just like
any other strat is a legitimate part of the game. If you get rushed and lose
to it, try to figure why it worked on you. Correct it for the next game.
Once more, if the answer is because he was cheap, my response would be the
same as it was earlier. All rushes can be stopped,... maybe except for Legato's
tower rush,... in that case its just bad luck... maybe...
Don't waste people's time. When you lose, leave. I can not understand why
people try to stay alive by placing moonwells all over the map. Do they think
that they're funny or maybe that they'll win? I could understand that if you
have a lot of money and are trying to rebuild for a win, to stay in a game.
Otherwise if you only have enough for a single moonwell (or several for that
matter) please, don't waste your time or the time of the other player by hiding
it. This makes other players lose respect for you even if you played a brilliant
game, it all goes away.
In the end, if you are really angry at someone, just remind yourself "This is
nothing more than a computer game."
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The winning Mentality
Winning isn't always about just playing well. Its about your attitude to the
game before each match, how you appoach it, and how you keep your cool.
"angieCutesyPie: should be thinking how to win throughout the whole game"
*Talk about frustration and such.
I'll ramble about this in the next update.
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XXIII. Hacks
Dude, just don't hack. People make hacks that have viruses and Trojans in them.
Using them to CHEAT could cost you thousands of dollars in damage (on your
comp.) You violate your contract with Blizzard's TOS. There’s just so many
things wrong with them. Please, for your own sake don't hack. I know you can
win without them.
Blizzard is now officially going ban happy. If you can catch someone
hacking, send in the replay and if the ladder crew agrees with you, they WILL
ban the cd key of that player. I applaud Blizzards efforts here. Well met!
This is from an email to me from Michael Nguyen of Battle.net's ladder team.
"Many of you may know the identity of some of these hackers. We would urge
you to work with us to eliminate cheating by not supporting people or web
sites that promote cheating and hacking. We also ask that you not link to
such sites or interview cheaters/hackers on your site. Additionally, if you
discover functioning hacks or sites with hacks, please notify us immediately
at our hacks@blizzard.com address."
Report hack sites for me too please!
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XXIV. SC vs. W3
To be posted. (Finishing FAQ more important that this comparison right now)
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XXV. Q & A
Q: "Just looking through your guide and noticed that you said the icon will
change at 25, then 250, then 500, and lastly 1000 wins. Do you know what
the icons change into? I know 25 for NE is an archer, UD is a ghoul, H is a
footman and Orc is a grunt. Just wondering what is after that for 250, 500,
and 1000. Thanks!
P.S.: How does it work if you have 25 wins with 2+ races? What about
random too?"
A: Just look at the misc section for what they are. The first race you get
to with 25 wins will be your icon, as would be the next to 250 first.
Random has an icon that is a dragon of some kind.
Q: "What should be upgraded first armor or weapon? I know that its good to do
more damage but at the same time you don't want your units to die fast."
A: This depends, if you're going to fight >>>VS<<< a lot of small units, def
first, unless you're going a LOT of small units too. Then Weapons. If you
see that the opponent is going fewer smaller units, make attack first. In
general, you shouldn’t ever have to choose if you're constantly upgrading.
Q: "When is the time to tech? the reason I lose is because I tech either WAY too
fast or WAY too slow either giving me little high tech units of a lot of low
tech units that eventually get slaughtered by abom, tauren etc"
A: The right time to Tech is naturally. As the game progresses, you tech for
the sole reason of countering the opponent. Therefore, scouting is
essential. Does that make sense to you? If you see the opponent going
huntress, you'll know its time to quick tech to sorcs and knights. etc. If
quickteching, have defense at your home base, a little usually is enough to
hold off early game rushes.
Q: "How do you deal with partners that just quit for no apparent reason.....and
you are left with your army and one you don't know how to control... (cough
Night Elves cough don't know how to play N.E)"
A: You got 4 choices, learn all races, mass small units from both of your bases
and rush (praying that you'll win), don’t play 2v2 or more players, or leave
the game too. The choice that is NOT offered is to fight with only your one
base and ignore your abandoned allies base. You will almost undoubtedly
lose, so you should have left the game just so that you wouldn't be wasting
your opponents time, or yours at that.
Q: "When Partners leave their base to you is there anyway to check on their
resource too.... since it doesn't cost YOU to build there units how do you
know how much gold, wood and food they have?"
A: Click on any building of your allies, you can do this even while your ally
is still there. The best way is to click on your allies farm structure or
something that doesn’t do anything, and hit Ctrl + 7 - 0, so you could just
hit like 7 and see his resources at the building box instantly.
Is there more you want to know? Just ask!
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XXVI. Ending Note
I guess this is where I'm going to put what the next update will include or
something. Actually its just a compilation of notes right now to be included
in the next update.
I guess you could say this is a "Whats to Come" section.
I'm gonna consider changing name of this guide, don't know to what though.
That’s what I got for now, I'm gonna finish for sure soon. Drop by again!
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XXVII. Thanks
Thanks to all of the Blizzard team for releasing such a fun game.
Thanks to Gamefaqs for being such a popular place for gamers to be, otherwise, I
wouldn't have met up with a childhood fried of mine again. Many many thanks.
I admit that I have read material from Battle.net. I'm not sure if anything I
have written stuff that is very similar to what they have or not, so they
deserve credit too. They have an excellent war 3 strat section, you should go
check it out.
xaan-the-feared aka JJ teaching me War 3 if not for him, I wouldn’t have the
insight to have won as many (if any) matches as I have.
Jaeron aka Dorion for his generosity. Thanks to him this FAQ was possible,
otherwise where else would I find a comp good enough to run War 3.
Anehc aka Andrew for helping me define macro and talk some neat strats with me.
Durward aka Tyson for talking with me about more strats and stuff.
Eladriel aka Matt a reliable source of NE strats.
They say teaching is the best way to learn, if that’s the case, I have to thank
Confusa aka Mimi for listening through all my rambles. ^_^
Ninjay aka Jay took the time to write some good AM for me, good stuff.
Thanks to EVERYONE (yes ALL of you, who took the time to send me mail about
the icon thing over,... and over,... and over heh ;p ).
Angie aka AngieCute for practicing 2's with me. This FAQ is only as accurate
as the research put into it.
People with corrections for me, many thanks for your time!
-Daniel Lee
-M.V. Williams
-Tyson Dunham
-J B
-Andrew
And one more big thanks goes to all the people who took the time to write thanks
to me. It makes me very happy that people actually read this.
Well, that's about it, hope you enjoyed your time with this FAQ, thank you all
for reading to this point. Until next we meet again, best of luck to all of
you!
This published work is Copyright © 2002 Byron Hoy. All rights reserved.
