GitP WarCraft 3: The Frozen Throne group (thread II)

[Winterwind]

This post serves for the organization of our WarCraft 3 groups - all relevant information will be edited into here. The previous WarCraft 3 thread can be found here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=58027).

There are two GitP WarCraft 3: The Frozen Throne groups - one focusing on custom maps, and meeting on Fridays, and one focusing on melee (i.e., normal WarCraft), meeting on Sundays. There is a also a third GitP group focusing on DotA, but it is independent of the group organized within this thread; the associated thread can be found here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88989) (warning, no guarantee of this link being updated, can be outdated). There is a fair chance of meeting some of us in the BattleNet on other days, too, so if you want to play, just come and see whether some of us are online. Our channel bot can help you with that.

The people who expressed interest in the custom map group are, so far (BattleNet names in brackets):
Istari (Istari.)
The Orange Zergling (Baneling_Aspect)
tannish2 (tannish2)
starwoof
Artemician
Crispy Dave (Crispydave)
LiteYear (own1-LiteYear)
WhatIsGravity (WhatIsGravity)
RationalGoblin (SplendidTuesday)
The Randomizer (Sirendeous)
DarkLightDragon (DarkLightDragon)
Setra (BDSetra)
PePe_QuiCoSE (Yakkul)
Maged
Winterwind (Winterwind_GitP)
Poison_Fish (flibs)
Inhuman Bot (Slaanash)
SirSigfried (libertarian_sdr)
Penthar (Penthar)
Drago (Drago_the_Lord)
Battlefield (Ianley)
Swok (SomewhatOkay)
Blood (Moozy)
Mr. Mud (Blargade)
Greenpepa (Aeroth99)
Lord_Asmodeus (Lord_Asmodeus)
Silfir (Silfir)
Marek (Vinnam)
Cynan Machae (CynanMachae)
Albub
Bitzeralisis (Bitzeralisis)
theterran (TerraFormer)
legoshrimp (legoshrimp)
LahmiaVampire
easyname (easyname)
Darth Mario (darth-mario)
Point Blank (P0int Blank)
Goldstein (gold.stein)
Myone (Admiral_Konaa)
Lykos (Lykos)
Zakama (Zakama)
Slash_712 (Slasher_712)
atomsized (atomsized)
detrevnisisiht (detrevnisisiht)
u-gotNOgame (u-gotNOgame)
Kizara (Star_Moon)
The Fiery Tower (TheFieryTower)
Glyphic (Ironlock, Glyphic_GitP)
Hyunkel (Hyunkel)
nooblade (nooblade)
Nohwl (Nohwl)
TheStagesmith (TheStagesmith)
Forderz (Forderz)
Raroy (Ralvious)
Blackmore (Kayes)
AgentPaper (ThePaper)
Duos
Killersquid
Bergett (Bergett)
Battleship789 (Battleship789)
Bunny of Faith (BunnyOfFaith)
Rigel Cyrosea (Rigel_Cyrosea)
LordShotGun
shadow_archmagi (shadow_archmagi)
Demons_eye (GitP_Demons_Eye)
The Linker (Lilplinka)
toddex
742 (742)
Copper8642 (Copper8642)
Winthur (Winth)
Blaze109
Zain (Zain43)
Vulkan (Chibioverlord)
Antisthenes (Antisthenes)
Sirroelivan (Sirroelivan)
Yora
woodzyowl (woodzyowl)
Gamerlord (Gamerlord)
Level8Mudcrab (Level_8_Mudcrab)
Nargan (Naryuk)
Miscast_mage (micast_mage)
The people who expressed interest in the melee group are, so far (BattleNet names in brackets):
SirSigfried (Libertarian_SDR)
Raroy (Ralvious)
atomsized (atomsized)
Forderz (Forderz)
Cynan Machae (CynanMachae)
Inhuman Bot (Slaanash)
legoshrimp (legoshrimp)
Mr. Mud (Blargade)
theterran (TerraFormer)
PrincessAlicia (PrincessAlicia)
Winterwind (Winterwind_GitP)
Darth Mario (darth-mario)
Glenstorm (Glenstorm)
u-gotNOgame (u-gotNOgame)
The Fiery Tower (TheFieryTower)
The Orange Zergling (Baneling_Aspect)
Rigel Cyrosea (Rigel_Cyrosea)
742 (742)
Bunny of Faith (BunnyOfFaith)
Winthur (Winth)
Satoros (Satoros)
Vulkan (Chibioverlord)
Faulty (FaultyClockwork)
Callibretto
Antisthenes (Antisthenes)
woodzyowl (woodzyowl)
Gamerlord (Gamerlord)
Spartacus
Anyone else who wants to join in, feel free to do so. The more the merrier. :smallsmile:

Meeting place is the Azeroth server (USEast), channel op GitP.

The official meeting time is for the custom map group is every Friday, 4 PM EST(=GMT-5). For the melee group it is every Sunday, around the same hour. However, the hours are just a guideline; typically, people can be found online long, long before that. Of course, these meeting times are always open to discussion, if people should prefer a different time.
Also feel free to use this thread to arrange spontaneous games.

I suggest putting each other on our friend lists to make seeing who is online easier.

4 PM EST corresponds to the following times in various time zones:
1 PM Pacific = 2 PM Mountain = 3 PM Central = 4 PM Eastern = 5 PM Atlantic = 10 PM Central European

We have our own channel bot, GitP@USEast, by courtesy of Leper_Kahn and Cynan Machae. Its capabilities and functions are described here (http://qc-net.com/david/gitp/bot.htm). For optimum functionality, it would be helpful if everyone added the bot to their friend-lists. The most useful command probably is ".fl", which causes the bot to tell you who happens to be online currently.

[Winterwind]

Guides

A few guides for some of the custom maps we play in the group, written by our members:

A guide to SWAT, courtesy of nooblade: (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5129853&postcount=869)
Useful links:
Official Website (http://http://redscull.com/swat/readmeafter.html)
SWAT Wiki (http://http://swatam.wikispaces.com/)
WGW forums (with further guides (http://s1.zetaboards.com/Westies_Gone_Wild/)
Redscull's forums (http://redscull.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=1)

A guide for Parasite 2 courtesy of Slaanash and Darth Mario. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5654578&postcount=1222)

A guide to Castle Fight, courtesy of Darth Mario:

Castle Fight


The basics of gameplay are simple. You control a single worker, who constructs three kinds of buildings and can purchase items. The three types are: Unit Spawn, which create units that run at the opponents base and attack; Towers; which fire at attacking units; and Special Buildings, which have various effects to buff your units and hurt/debuff your enemy's. Castle Fight is played with two teams of workers facing off against one another. You win when you destroy your opponent's castle, although usually this is just a formality: a win is obvious before the castle comes under fire.

General unit information:

Units come in three types: Melee, Ranged and Air. In most cases, melee units can only attack other melee or ranged units, and ranged and air units can attack anyone. There are three major weapon types and three major armor types. These work somewhat like a game of rock-paper-scissors:

Normal damage is great against Medium armor, decent against Heavy, and poor against Light.
Magic damage is great against Heavy armor, decent against Light, and poor against Medium.
Piercing damage is great against Light armor, decent against Medium, and poor against Heavy.

This dynamic is probably the most crucial one to the game. Memorizing and following this chart is essential.

There are a few other types of damage and armor.

Chaos damage does it's full, normal damage against armor types. It is best used against Divine armor or as a poor man's siege unit, though is a good choice against anything.
Hero damage deals slightly increased damage to all three major armor types and Unarmored armor, and slightly higher than normal against Divine, but is poor against buildings. This is the best damage type in the game, only three units possess it (the Human Paladin, the Undead Skeleton General, and the Mechanical Adamantine Golem).
Siege damage is most often used against buildings. It deals reduced damage to all armor types except for Fortified and Unarmored. It should be used once your army is about to break into your opponent's base, since it is offensive in nature. It can also be used effectively against Unarmored enemies.

Unarmored armor takes slightly increased damage from all attack types except for Chaos. This is the usual armor type for casters, though a few other units possess this type. These units are weak, and should be protected, since any unit can kill them with relative ease.
Divine armor is the best in the game. It takes dramatically reduced damage from all damage types except for chaos (though it is slightly vulnerable to Hero damage). It can be used against almost any unit, especially units from the Orc, Human, High Elf and Corrupted races (these races either lack affordable Chaos damage or have none at all). Only three units have this armor type: the Undead Banshee, occasionally the Chaos Blood Fiend, and the Mechanical Adamantine Golem.
Fortified armor is the armor type of all buildings. It takes reduced damage from all damage types except from Chaos and Siege.

Races:

Humans are a good all-around race with cheap units.
Strengths: The Paladin is alternately known as the Imbadin. There is a good reason for this. Warlocks are excellent against swarms of enemy units. Defenders will essentially shut down ranged attackers.
Weaknesses: Despite what it says on the label, Warlocks deal spell damage, not chaos damage. This means that Divine armor units cannot be countered by humans. The human tower is poor.

Orcs, like humans, possess relatively cheap units. Their buffs are considered the best in the game. Orcs are a primarily ranged race.
Strengths: Buffs, buffs and more buffs. With Shamen, three different kinds of Kodo Riders, and Ceremonial Altars (name? I'm writing this without the game in front of me), Orcs make their teammates flat out better. They also have great debuffs, with the Wyvern's Slow Poison, the Serpent Rock, and the Troll Trapper's net.
Weaknesses: A lack of melee options. Orcs, like humans, completely lack chaos damage. Their tower is vulnerable to ground units.

High Elves, have the most expensive units in the game, but also have some of the strongest units.
Strengths: Power. The High Elves do everything well, from the Blademaster, a fast-attacking high damage melee unit, to the Master Archer, a ranged unit that does high damage and occasionally stuns an opponent, to the Sorceress/Wizard, which casts chain heal and chain lightning. Also, the City of Magic will disable 2-3 of your enemy's units at any time, and is extremely cost effective. Don't leave base without one. Or five.
Weaknesses: If you mess up, it's hard to recover. Since their units are so expensive, your enemy will outnumber you and will be able to respond to your builds faster than you can to theirs.

The other 6 races to come.


Building placement
The layout of each castle is as follows: From the castle go two lanes, one on the top, the other on the bottom. Between them and on their sides is area where buildings can be built. On their way to the enemy castle, the lanes pass through two walls; at each of these gates, the terrain subsides, so that ranged units that attack along the lane have to shoot up (and hence, tend to miss) when attacking targets more inside the castle.

So where is the right position to place what types of buildings?
Obviously, due to elevated terrain and the protection from melee units granted by the walls, the only two positions eligible for setting up the defense are the inner sides of the two walls. Since there are several reasons speaking in favour of setting up the defense as far back as possible (including: better protection for the castle itself, a more central position within the castle making it easier to reach coins (if any are in play), and more time for the troops to turn the battle on their own without endangering the fragile towers), the position to defend should be the inner wall.

Hence, towers should be built along the inner side of the inner wall. Always start building the towers at the middle of the wall, and go outwards from there - towers have enough range to protect both lanes easily even from the middle, and this way the big investment of a tower will be helpful no matter along which lane the danger approaches.
One very important thing to note about towers: They always draw the attention of all enemy units within their range upon themselves. If your team has a tower, other buildings will be attacked only if they can be attacked from out of the tower's range (or if the enemy has splash damage and targets normal units). Usually this also means that the tower gets absolute priority for repairing, as it will be the only thing attacked.

This also means that nothing must ever be built in the area between the inner and the outer wall - it won't be protected be the towers. There are no exceptions to this - building something outside the inner wall is practically suiciding it.

Creep spawning buildings can basically be placed whereever, there are a few things to note about them though:

Firstly, they obviously shouldn't be built along the inner wall - that place is reserved for towers.
Secondly, it is usually a good move to build some buildings along the inner sides of both lanes, starting right at the inner wall, so that these buildings make the way to the towers longer for melee units. The units need to be able to get out though, and since units appear below the building that spawns them, if the bottom line of buildings happens to be much shorter than the one on top, path-finding of the units on the top lane can be confused, causing them to march along the bottom lane, unnecessarily weakening the top lane, so ideally just have about 4 buildings built side by side from the wall to where the two lanes start to curve towards the castle on the inner side of each lane, and build the other creep-spawning buildings elsewhere.
Thirdly, buildings built at the outer side of the lanes, right at the inner wall, are just barely within tower range. This means ranged units can be able to attack them without entering tower range. Since the towers should, ideally, protect the entire base, if you are going to build on the outer side of the lanes, do so a few spaces away from the inner wall.
The middle, between the two lanes, right behind the towers, is where buildings helping with repairing go (like Naga Coral Statues or Goblin Spare Part Yards). Note there must be enough space for the builders to fit in so they can repair. Further back is a good place for air units, as from there they will be sent along the middle and engage whatever targets they spot first on either lane (meaning they will always help the lane where the battle is taking place closer to your castle, i.e. the one where things are going worse for your team, which is generally desirable).
Since units should arrive as soon as possible, creep-spawning buildings should ideally be built as much to the front as possible without endangering them.

Special buildings are usually rather costly and valuable, so they should be built as far in the back as possible, where they are save.

Since a lot of special buildings can deal area damage to the enemy base, it is usually best not to cluster up too much, especially not to cluster up the most valuable stuff too much.

(more to follow)

A guide to Island Defense, courtesy of u-gotNOgame. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5670373&postcount=1241)

[Legoshrimp]

Woot new thread :), but not to be an entirely useless post the wgw site is gone. The new NANS site is http://s1.zetaboards.com/Clan_NANS/index/ there are not any guides up yet but there should be soon. It has mostly been NM replays. I also put a guide to setting up vent up there. So if anyone wants to check it out go for it.

Edit: On swat who do you think should be leader? I am guessing that I would be best, but do not want to be the leader if someone(s) don't want me to. So if you would be in the SWAT group post your opinion on who would be leading. The people that I think play swat enough and are good enough to lead (I have not really seen them lead much so...) are U-gotNOgame and nooblade. Also if possible (especially if I am leading) I would like to have everyone in a x-fire chat. This makes leading much easier. For several reasons, but mainly you can give detailed instructions with out wasting the time or having the chance of dieing while typing.

[u-gotNOgame]

Hm, i always thought it was the first post in the 51st page (the 1501th post) that signaled the end of a thread...

Anyways, i have lead several PIN's stemming from the SWAT channel so it would not be out of my league to lead a couple of group ins+, but i would always defer to Lego or Noob because i think that they are better then me. Winter i would also throw out as a possibility assuming hes going to stick with the group.

Also, my ID guide is written for 2.8.6 and is woefully out of date with the current 3.0.X versions. Thruthfully i do not know if i will ever get around to finishing/editing the new information into it.

-UGNG

[Legoshrimp]

Well we can of course have different people lead. Like if I am solo Watchman I probably wont really want to lead then. The reason winter wasn't included in the list is that I am sure he is/would be a great leader, but I don't think he understands pathing and how the mob works as well.

I am on right now if anyone wants to SWAT.

[Winterwind]

There are no fixed rules for when threads have to be restarted. I figured I'd just get it out of the way. :smallcool:

And, thanks, UGNG, but I think Lego's assessment is probably correct. :smallwink:

[u-gotNOgame]

And, thanks, UGNG, but I think Lego's assessment is probably correct. :smallwink:

Its alright, i find that sometimes i make erros in mob pathing, but a good enough team is usually able to push through a little mob that might have been forgotten/just spawned. Also all that really comes by is leading more, and watching replays with FoW off.

So the way i see it we have myself,lego,noob,winter,lib,slaan and tan(if he hasn't died or something). I think thats a good core group of players to build around for playing higher difficulties, and i would sign on, but i have Rugby practice :smallannoyed:

-UGNG

[nooblade]

Well, I spent the day at home, staring at my finger (I think I'll call him stumpy... I'm even more hideous now than the last picture), letting it air out and dry after being stuck in bandaids for so long. Turns out the skin looks better after that, so it probably was a wetness thing making it look too white and unhealthy rather than a more serious problem, I'm relieved. Having stumpy exposed will take some getting used to though, visually and also for being careful about it.

I think I'll try playing d2 with one hand, It's quite a bit slower than SWAT in most cases and SSoG posted a rather cool javazon guide where you use 1pt in freezing arrow just to freeze everthing (upwards of 5 seconds in Hell, it's really cool how cold durations on items are added to the freeze length there), then blast it with poison and lightning javelins. Plus I haven't ever tried the CB, lvl 1 guided arrow combo suggested against bosses.

[742]

not to derail all the conversation about a map im not overly fond of, but: im sorry for being so spectacularly incompetent and possibly derailing games this sunday.

also, i notice some guides, but no melee guide. why is this? how can we fix this? maybe a general guide, with race-by-race subguides, each with matchup-by-matchup subguides?

[SirSigfried]

The guides of this group are a rather recent innovation, say within the past 3-6 months.

As for Melee guides I was thinking of writing some myself. If nothing else other than a Unit comparison chart. As having the best units from each race is one of the ways to help gain dominance in team games.

Edit:
Libertarian_SDR's Warcraft III Unit Comparison Guide



Note: Stats listed are after full upgrades. Beginning Stats are in Parentheses.

Tier 1 Melee Units

Grunts
Cost 200 G 3 F
HP 800 (700)
Damage Type Normal
Armor Type Heavy
Avg.Damage 30 (19.5)
Armor 7 (1)
Speed 270


Footmen
Cost 135 G 2 F
HP 420
Damage Type Normal
Armor Type Heavy
Avg.Damage 17 (12.5)
Armor 8 (2)
Speed 270

Defend: Can reduce ranged damage at the expense of speed


Ghouls
Cost 120 G 2 F
HP 330
Damage Type Normal
Armor Type Heavy
Avg.Damage 17.5 (13)
Armor 6 (0)
Speed 350 (270)


Huntress**
Cost 195 G 20 L 3 F
HP 600
Damage Type Normal
Armor Type Unarmored
Avg.Damage 23* (17*)
Armor 8 (2)
Speed 350
Range 22 (ground only)

*The projectiles of the Huntress bounce between multiple units so the damage can be misleading when dealing with massed units.
**Technically the Huntress isn't a melee unit, but it fills much the same role in the
Night Elf army.


Analysis


Of the first 3 Grunts, Ghouls, and Footmen all are available from the entry level barracks.
While Hunts are only available after a hunters hall is built.

In terms of power both Hunts and Grunts have the advantage in overall power but both are pricy.

Footmen and Ghouls are the underdogs for early melee forces but do have their strengths.
(aka being cheap)
Footmen after purchasing the Defend upgrade will do better against ranged forces.

Ghouls have a rather high attack speed after researching Ghoul Frenzy and their damage will add up quickly as a result.

Later Tiers for T1 melee

Tier 1 melee units will always benefit from caster support.
Once you hit tier 3 though their applications dwindle to either support or to be phased out completely as there are far better units out there.

This is far from complete but is up for modification at your leisure.

[Winterwind]

I have been thinking about writing up a melee guide myself, but never felt particularly inspired to do so in the past months. Eh, I guess I should try and write one nonetheless (though I have to admit that I play a lot by instinct). Maybe this evening...



Unrelatedly, reminder: Tomorrow is our next custom map session. I hope to see you there. :smallsmile:

[Legoshrimp]

Well on guides in general I think that there are plenty of good guides out there already. So if you need to help with a race why not google "Wc3 Human guide" and with that you should find a lot of good guides. for example after less then 10 seconds of looking around I found this http://www.mlgpro.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-216725.html I am not sure how accurate it is but it seems good from the first few paragraphs, but I do not really plan on reading it myself since I have little interest in melee right now. In conclusion my thoughts are why reinvent the wheel. There are already lots of good guides out there. Why have are members waste there time to write guides that have already been written. So if you need help with something just google it and if you don't find anything after that ask it in the group.


I am going to be free if you want to swat. Just x-fire me.

Edit: after parsing through it it seems to be just a really basic guide.

Edit2: To add to what I already wrote, I know that people in are group bring their own specific knowledge and skills to writing a guide so if they want to write one I'm all for it. I am sure they would do just as good of a job (maybe better) as the other guides out there, but I don't think there should be any pressure from other members of the group for them to write one if they don't want to.

[Winterwind]

Well... while I basically agree with you that there are dozens of good guides out there, I feel there are still a couple of reasons why having a guide of our own creation here might be a good idea.
Firstly, people are lazy - they might be okay with reading a guide that is presented to them, but not feel like searching for one.
Secondly, many of the guides out there are not good - some omit important parts, some are poorly written and explain what they mean badly, some are outright wrong. And to make matters worse, newbies - i.e., the people who might be the most interested in such a guide - are also the ones the least qualified to determine whether a guide is good or not.
Thirdly, a guide we created ourselves has the advantage that we can expand it ourselves, as we please.
And fourthly, a self-created guide can address issues particularly important to the people in the group.

So... yes, I'm definitely going to write a guide for melee - at least a general one, and one for Undead. If need be, I think I can also write a more or less competent guide for the other races as well (well... maybe not Humans...).

Not today though. Tired from work.

[Legoshrimp]

Okay, you would know more about the quality of guides out there. Two ideas came from your post.

1. We put up a list of good guides we know to be accurate.
2. That the melee guide is collaborative. For example, you would write the undead section because that is the race you have focused on and know best. While lib writes the Human section.

[Winterwind]

Your second point is pretty much what I had in mind, yes.
And there is nothing that speaks against collecting guides we know to be good, either. :smallsmile:

[742]

well, here are some general tips for melee, things i have noticed really cripple people, not very well organized, but thats that.

all races: if you dont plan to use your hero until you get at least a few army units, it might be worth it to make a barracks(ancient of war or crypt) before your altar, reversing the two in your build order. remember: never let a full health hero go to waste, use it to creep or harass if nothing else. information is a great edge to have, owls, far sight, owl sentries, arcane towers with the magic sentry upgrade, sentry wards, and maybe even shades or a stealthed blademaster can be exceptionally useful. do NOT let anyone whos not on your team expand if you can help it; see previous point.

with humans you want to either get tier 2 or riflemen as fast as possible. there are almost no exceptions to this. when forming a team remember: T1 humans are slightly weak, even if your doing rifles its smart to get tier 2 for the upgrade. once your there it might be smart to kill your footmen off if your foe hasnt gone mass range, as all they are at this point is food, taking up yours and giving it to enemy heroes. footmen are completely useless against ranged units and creeps without defend (which only works on piercing by the way. it does nothing against huntresses breakers or late air except slow you down).
heroes: never ever ever ever ever use a paladin except against undead mountain king is my hero of choice, and is good against rushes or for early creeping. archmage is good and versatile, great ult, but squishy. blood mages are devastating against buildings late game, so against players that tend to cluster them, a blood mage is a good second choice.

with orcs, get a shop ASAP, i mean; by the time your hero comes out if you plan to hero harass. 1 of everything is exceptionally useful in harassing. by the time your first grunt arrives if you plan to creep, scrolls of speed are great creeping accelerators, and that healing salve can be a lifesaver, especially in team games, its practically your rod of necromancy as far as versatility and overall usefulness goes.
BM is the classic harasser, but i find FS can do equally well, and both provide extra muscle and intelligence later in the game. TC is your support choice, with SH taking up second, rarely do i see a tauren chieften as a first hero, but he can work quite well, my experience with SH is limited, but he makes a good second hero. orcs are all about their heroes, dont be afraid to spend a minute on creeping or a few extra gold on relevant items.

with undead: rod of necromancy is a good thing. its versatile and helps with offence, defence, harassing, major battles, and creeping. remember your good regeneration on blight, send injured units back to heal if your DK is OOM or you picked a different hero. nerubian towers are very very good, better than spirit towers for the cost, especially if you plan the towers only to be a delay until your army can get there. even if you mass spirit towers (i cant think of a time when this is a good idea) be sure to mix in nerubian towers for the slow effect.
DH for initial support/muscle, DL for initial support, CL for some rushes, lich is a great second, and especially against a human nuke a dark ranger (mercenary) is not unheard of but undead is not my race. take my advice only if no other is offered.

with night elves: mass archers doesnt usually work very well, a good general rule: never ever ever ever use archers. there are advanced exceptions to this, but i call them advanced for a reason. multiple night elves do not work well on a team, they lack synergy with each other. remember that your the only ones who get siege on T1. a few siege behind a hunt rush can give you an edge going up against an enemy base, or seriously devastate an opposing army of huntresses, since they arent much more expensive and dont take too much longer to produce, its always worthwhile to have at least one in NE mirrors.
DH/KOTG for harassing and extra muscle, POTM/KOTG for support, warden/KOTG/POTM for good seconds



i apolagize for my lack of organization and scatterbrain writing style.

[Winterwind]

Sounds pretty much right. A couple comments:


heroes: never ever ever ever ever use a paladin except against undeadI assume you meant to say "as first hero" here. I pretty much agree with it then; however, as secondary or (more often) tertiary heroes, paladins work great to keep your army and especially your primary hero alive (the most popular hero choice for Humans is to play with three heroes: Arch Mage - Mountain King - Paladin).


mountain king is my hero of choice, and is good against rushes or for early creeping. archmage is good and versatile, great ult, but squishy. blood mages are devastating against buildings late game, so against players that tend to cluster them, a blood mage is a good second choice.To elaborate some more:

The Mountain King's primary purpose is as nuker - with stun bolt, he either finishes wounded units and heroes, or hurts them and prevents them from running away, so the rest of your army can finish the job.

The Arch Mage excels at creeping with his Water Elementals, and also provides a powerful unit to the army in early battles. His aura is crucial to make other heroes and casters (who typically are a major part of a Human army) more effective. In bigger games or in late-game it is a good idea to switch to Blizzard (use a Tome of Retraining, if necessary), to hurt those big clustered armies really bad. Especially effective against ranged units, as you can hit them more easily without hitting yourself.

The Blood Mage works primarily as either harassment hero or anti-hero hero - flamestrike is devastating to workers, mana leech and banish can totally disable enemy heroes.


with undead: rod of necromancy is a good thing. its versatile and helps with offence, defence, harassing, major battles, and creeping.And scouting, that's important, too. Send out two skeletons to two different gold mines, and you may detect a pesky expansion before it can come up.

Just make sure to pick moderately fresh ones. It won't do you no good if they fall apart one screen away from their goal. :smalltongue:

And remember, you can use corpses from the graveyard (including enemy graveyards) and from critters (like sheep, deer and such) for the rod of necromancy, too.


remember your good regeneration on blight, send injured units back to heal if your DK is OOM or you picked a different hero.While there are situations and alternate strategies where a non-DK as first hero makes sense (the most common one being UD vs. UD), I'd actually file that under "advanced". For new players, I think I'd actually recommend going DK first 100% of the time.


nerubian towers are very very good, better than spirit towers for the cost, especially if you plan the towers only to be a delay until your army can get there. even if you mass spirit towers (i cant think of a time when this is a good idea) be sure to mix in nerubian towers for the slow effect.Mhh... I don't really agree here.
Spirit towers are far more damaging than Nerubian ones. Plus, they have pierce (as opposed to the Nerubian's normal), which increases their effectiveness against huntresses, casters and (almost all) air units greatly.

Personally, I'd say: If you merely need to hold off the enemy until your army arrives, or want to prevent harrassment (that last point is important. Slowed, enemy heroes, far seer wolves and such are no longer faster than your accolytes), one or two Nerubian towers is all that you need. If, on the other hand, you want the defence to actually be able to deter, damage or hold off the enemy effectively, it should consist primarily of Spirit Towers (though I agree that one Nerubian for slow is a must).


DH for initial support/muscle, DL for initial support, CL for some rushes, lich is a great second, and especially against a human nuke a dark ranger (mercenary) is not unheard of but undead is not my race. take my advice only if no other is offered.I'd say: Death Knight is pretty much obligatory (not necessarily as 1st, but both his coil to keep your army and other heroes alive, and his aura to assist your army are difficult to work without). Dread Lord is decent at creeping and works well to disrupt enemy hero activities (anticipate when they might cast a spell - critical healing spells like holy light or death coil would be a great example - and make them sleep just before they get to cast it). Lich is raw and massive damage output and (as only ranged UD hero) important to have someone carry the incredibly critical orb around (I cannot stress enough how crucial it is for an UD to have the orb of corruption!); he's best used as second, though works excellently as first hero in UD vs. UD games, too. And the Crypt Lord is primarily for rushes, indeed.


DH/KOTG for harassing and extra muscle, POTM/KOTG for support, warden/KOTG/POTM for good secondsI'd argue the Warden and Priestess of the Moon work quite well for harrassment, too - Shadow Strike makes for easy kills, Searing Arrows give the PotM a damage output of a magnitude difficult to match in the early game.

[SirSigfried]

No commentary on my guide?:smallannoyed: ^^ Well that is what I get for editing a post instead of creating a new one.

[Winterwind]

Oh! Sorry, Lib, I completely missed that! :smalleek:

*reading now...*

EDIT: I think you should add definite evaluations how what kind of unit will fare in an actual game and what their best uses are.

For instance, microed huntresses will beat all other T1 melee units on account of being faster than them (i.e., the wounded ones can pull out and the enemy units cannot follow) and having the range to focus better.

Or, ghouls are mostly suited for rushes and keeping enemy units away from the rest of the army - if one is not rushing and there are other allied units around that can fulfill that purpose as well, fiends are better.

Things like that. :smallwink:

[Cynan Machae]

Ohhhh new thread.

I can certainly use any scrap of strategy/guides you guys are posting :P

I wasnt aware how much grunts were so much better than other T1 melee units. I don't use other races much other than the occasional Night Elf, but still :P

And I'm glad to see that I'm at least doing one part of harassing right. Getting shop ASAP and one item from each :smallwink: The rest, well...

[Duos]

I notice an Island D guide there-I'd be happy to help UGNG flesh that out, if he wants.

[u-gotNOgame]

I notice an Island D guide there-I'd be happy to help UGNG flesh that out, if he wants.

Be my guest, after i started it i really just figured out that i didn't have the time to finish it. If you want to use that as a base i would be happy to send you a note pad version of the file so that you can re-post it with all your edits and changes. I think that would be faster and more effecient since i do not believe that i can edit my post since the threads been locked.

-UGNG

[Winterwind]

Be my guest, after i started it i really just figured out that i didn't have the time to finish it. If you want to use that as a base i would be happy to send you a note pad version of the file so that you can re-post it with all your edits and changes. I think that would be faster and more effecient since i do not believe that i can edit my post since the threads been locked.

-UGNGThe old thread hasn't been locked, though, so it's actually much simplier than that. :smallwink:

[u-gotNOgame]

The old thread hasn't been locked, though, so it's actually much simplier than that. :smallwink:

Touche then, i didn't actually check to see if it had been locked. I guess just PM your changes then and i'll edit them in

-UGNG

[Winterwind]

So, reminder: Tomorrow is our next custom map session. I hope to see you all there. :smallsmile:

[nooblade]

And I'll be able to join in the latter part of that meeting along with stubby!

It's good enough to use a mouse now, actually quite well healed with some of the sutures still remaining around the nail in unobtrusive places, that and I don't need to push any buttons with it. I hold the mouse with thumb and pinky anyway. The rest of the bio-degradable sutures come out with soap and water. Typing again will be difficult though, it feels numb all the time when I touch things (the palm of my hand feels the same as a counter-top to that fingertip :smallfrown:), and keystrikes with it kinda hurt even though I have a solid fleshy part to use, so I'll wait a couple days before trying that again. Also on the plus side, you'd have to look really close to see that something's wrong with the finger, it's less than a centimeter shorter than before.

Handwriting has worked for a while now and that leads to what's getting in the way of our meeting: the final exam in circuits! I'm looking forward to it actually, I feel ready for this one, about time I got it over with. Little preparation and review time is all I need. :smallcool:

[Winterwind]

Good to hear you're better now. :smallsmile:

And good luck with that exam! :smallwink:

[u-gotNOgame]

:smallsigh:I plan on showing up, so but i will be late for the third time in three weeks... happy gaming.

-UGNG

[Winterwind]

Now, before I forget again (like last week :smallredface:), reminder: Tomorrow is our next melee session. Hope to see you there. :smallsmile:

[Winterwind]

Almost forgot - because I am going on a business trip tomorrow and will be gone till late Saturday, there will be no reminders for either session this week. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[The Orange Zergling]

No Winterwind at the moment so no PM reminders this week. Tomorrow is Friday and thus the custom map session, I hope to see you all there. :smallsmile:

[Duos]

Although my record for these meet-ups is spotty as is (:smalltongue:) I regret to inform that I will not be at this week's session, and probably not next week's either. My computer caught a virus (From, ironically, Warcraft III) and is currently dead to the world. I still have access to the internet, just no warcraft.

[Winterwind]

So, reminder, tomorrow is our next custom map session. Hope to see you all there. :smallsmile:

[LiteYear]

I've decided to start writing that Skibi's guide I said I'd do so long ago. So far, this is what I have:

General Tips:

- Skibi's is more about quality than quantity. A maze much bigger than one screen length will generally spread your money to thin, and there are waves that will take advantage if you build too big a maze.

- On that note, upgrading those mazing level 1 towers is generally never a good idea. The money can be better spent elsewhere. Tower damage scales pretty well, and better towers generally also have better abilities.

- Note that some towers change their function entirely when you upgrade them. (Tempest towers love to do this in paticular)

- If you're one of the back defenders (Yellow, Orange, Green, Pink, Grey, Light Blue), there are brown diamonds in your area. The brown diamods are creep waypoints; these are points that the creeps must cross before continuing on. So, it would be wise to build mazes around them so they have to go through your maze to get to the waypoint, and then through your maze again to get out. Warning: The pathing on Skibi's is a bit flawed; if you maze around a waypoint, make sure you leave a two space wide maze close to the waypoint or else they will attack towers on the way out.

- Practice the Mini-Games, as the gold earned from them can really add up.

- Having a way to heal your towers is very important if you play on surviving the later waves (30 and beyond). I find it worth it to spend a food point on Scarlet Knight, because they by far have the best healing tower in the game (upgraded protection ward).

- On that note, it is generally not wise to have more than two races.

General Wave Information (Classic Mode):

Armor Types:

Waves 1, 6, 11, 16, 21, 26, 31, 36, and 41 have Medium Armor
Waves 2, 7, 12, 17, 22, 27, 32, 37, and 42 have Heavy Armor
Waves 3, 8, 13, 18, 23, 28, 33, 38, 39, and 44 have Fortified Armor
Waves 4, 9, 14, 19, 24, 29, and 34 have Light Armor.
Waves 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, ahd 40 have Hero Armor
Wave 43 has Unarmored Armor
Wave 45 has Divine Armor.

General Specials:

Waves 4, 9, 14, 19, 24, 29, 34, and 39 have Air units.
Waves 8, 16, 21, 26, 31, 36, 40, 42, and 43 have units that deal AoE damage to nearby towers each second.
Waves 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, and 40 have a commander which has a beneficial aura for allies and perhaps other abilities.
Waves 23, 32, 38, and 45 will spawn creeps that directly attack your towers.
Waves 14 and 24 are bonus waves; any leaks will not subtract from lives.
Waves 12, 21, 33, 39, and 43 have much stronger creeps, although less spawn.
Waves 7, 14, 24, 26, and 36 have more spawns than normal.

Set Minigames:

The mini game after waves 5 and 15 is always the hero seige game.
The mini game after waves 10 and 20 is always the Obstacle Course game.
The mini game after waves 9, 19, and 29 is always the coin-grabbing game.
The mini game after wave 25 is always the bear game.
The mini game after wave 30 is always the sheep game.
The mini game after wave 35 is always the race game.


Races:

Ranger
Primary Attack Type: Chaos

Racial Bonus: Whenever a Ranger tower kills a unit, there is a 25% chance it will gain a 35% bonus to damage for two seconds.


Tempest
Primary Attack Type: Magic

Racial Bonus: Whenever a Tempest unit kills an air unit, that unit gives double it's usual bounty.

Specialist
Primary Attack Type: Seige

Racial Bonus: Most specialist towers have more HP and armor compared to similar costing towers from other races.

Scarlet Knight
Primary Attack Type: None; has all attack types in the game

Racial Bonus: You may buy upgrades for certain towers at the scarlet knight base.

Royal Family
Primary Attack Type: Hero

Racial Bonus: All Royal towers sell for 90% of their value (instead of 50%).

Military
Primary Attack Type: Normal

Racial Bonus: All Military towers have greatly increased regeneration compared to other races towers. (Military towers regen 5-15 HP/sec, depending on the tower; other races regen 0.5 HP/sec)

Arcane
Primary Attack Type: Spell

Racial Bonus: All Arcane towers build and upgrade instantly (all other races' towers take 5 seconds)


Other Information:

Weapon Type vs. Armor Type Table:

{table].......|Light|Medium|Heavy|Fortified|Hero|Unarmore d|Divine
Normal|
1.00|
1.25|
1.00|
0.75|
0.95|
2.00|0.25

Seige|
1.00|
0.75|
1.00|
1.60|
0.85|
2.00|0.25

Piercing|
1.40|
0.75|
1.00|
0.75|
0.75|
2.00|0.25

Magic|
1.40|
0.75|
1.10|
0.75|
0.75|
2.00|0.25

Chaos|
1.00|
1.00|
1.00|
1.00|
1.00|
2.00|0.25

Hero|
1.10|
1.10|
1.10|
0.50|
1.25|
2.00|0.25

Spell*|
1.00|
1.00|
1.00|
1.00|
0.75|
5.00|1.00[/table]

*Spell attacks ignore armor value, which makes this a bit misleading. Spell type damage is probably the best in this game.

[The Orange Zergling]

Seems like a pretty good start. :smallsmile:

It might be wise to note that Arcane and Military are rather unorthadox in their playing styles compared to everything else (more Arcane than Military) and it might be best to start out with some other race (I'm a fan of Specialists, personally).

[Winterwind]

Looks like a good start indeed. :smallsmile:

I never realized Skibi's had a fixed armour type order like Corrupted does (though in Corrupted the order is Hero-Heavy-Medium-Light-Fortified instead). That might prove useful to know. :smallbiggrin:

Personally, I'm rather fond of the Scarlet Knight, especially since his special abilities are quite useful, too.

[Winterwind]

Reminder: Tomorrow is our next melee session. :smallsmile:
Alas, due to being over at my parents for this weekend with no WC3-capable computer available to me, plus an impending roleplaying session on that evening, I won't be able to participate myself, but I wish you all a lot of fun. :smallwink:

[Cynan Machae]

Taken from the SC thread:


Eh. Nobody playing? Even the bot is gone. :smallfrown:

Sorry, I kinda forgot to post a notice about that, but the Bot will be down for a few days. I'm in the process of moving and I won't have internet access for some time (well, not at home). It should be back during this week.

[The Orange Zergling]

Due to sudden RL events I may be about half an hour or so late to the session. I will definitely show up, though.

[Winterwind]

Reminder - tomorrow is our next custom map session. I'm looking forward to seeing you all there! :smalltongue:

And... I think that's about all there is to say. :smallcool:

[Winterwind]

And reminder again, tomorrow is our next melee session. Hope to see you there, too. :smallsmile:

[Winterwind]

C'mon, folks, does noone of you all have anything interesting to talk about? Don't make me triple-post! :smalltongue:

Reminder: Tomorrow is our next custom map session. If I don't have a spontaneous meeting with friends, I hope to see you there. :smallsmile:

[SirSigfried]

Yes there are things to talk about..... I'm not dead (yet). I'm back home now.

Trip took longer than expected.

[Winterwind]

Lib! You live! :smallbiggrin:

Welcome back. Good to see you again. :smallsmile:

[Bunny of Faith]

Yes there are things to talk about..... I'm not dead (yet). I'm back home now.

Trip took longer than expected.

We have a Lib? Woo! And no, do not expect an explanation of who I am. That'd be boring.

[Winterwind]

Oooh! We get to guess! Okay, are you an animal, a vegetable, a mineral, or an abstract concept that turned into a rabbit? :smallbiggrin:

[PePe QuiCoSE]

well, monday is a holiday here in Argentina so i´ll probably be around to rub out the dust of my NE and play some games.

[Winterwind]

Sweet. More fresh meat for the slaughter. :smallcool:
...er, to celebrate you joining us, I mean, obviously! :smalleek: :smalltongue:

[Bunny of Faith]

Oooh! We get to guess! Okay, are you an animal, a vegetable, a mineral, or an abstract concept that turned into a rabbit? :smallbiggrin:

A mineral, of course. What else? :smallamused:

[Bunny of Faith]

As an aside, I won't be here tonight! Staying over at a cousin's house.

[Winterwind]

And another reminder: Tomorrow is our next melee session! I hope to crush murder defeat see you there! :smallbiggrin:

[Winterwind]

Sorry for not having shown up yesterday; RL friends kidnapped me again. :smallwink:
As they apparently intend to do today. Probably not for quite as long, so I might still show up later on, but it will be late (sorry about that, Yak).

[PePe QuiCoSE]

nvm about that, i have to study so i won't be around anyway

[Winterwind]

Reminder: Tomorrow is our next custom map session. I hope to see you there. :smallsmile:

[u-gotNOgame]

Yes, I'll be late... But lets show up!! I think I've played 2 games with the group in the past 2 weeks, so lets get a good turnout. Also, lets keep its civil... please?

-UGNG

[Winterwind]

Aaand reminder again - tomorrow's the melee session. Come all, you who are not scared to face the Undead Scourge. :smallcool:

[Istari]

Sorry I haven't been able to get on lately, I had to reinstall my computer and haven't got around to putting W3 back on yet but I will get I by net week hopefully :smallsmile:

[Copper8642]

I would definitely be interested in joining the custom map group, if that could be done.

My Battle.net name is also Copper8642.

[Winterwind]

Most definitely it could be done. Welcome to the group. :smallsmile:

[Copper8642]

Woohoo, finally, playing Parasite with people who might have half-decent IQs!

[Winterwind]

I have to admit, I never was too fond of that particular map. Though, fortunately for you, we do have plenty of members who are. :smallcool:

[Copper8642]

I must ask, have any of you ever played Tales of Kaltazar: The Great War, or Soulchess? They are both amazing maps I used to host when I could host, but somehow I lost the capability of hosting.

Oh, and that link to stuff the bot does is dead.

[Winterwind]

I must ask, have any of you ever played Tales of Kaltazar: The Great War, or Soulchess? They are both amazing maps I used to host when I could host, but somehow I lost the capability of hosting.Never heard of these. If they are good, we sure can give them a try whenever the next opportunity presents itself. :smallsmile:


Oh, and that link to stuff the bot does is dead.Huh, it sure is.

Cynan! Your site is dead! :smalltongue:

[Copper8642]

Yeah, but you'd have to google them and download them, because, as I said, I can't host. As a note, though, Soulchess is only 4 players, and ToK: The Great War is 8.

[Winterwind]

Why Google, when there is Epic (http://www.epicwar.com/maps/86658/) War (http://www.epicwar.com/maps/6894/)? :smallwink:

[Copper8642]

Google just brings me to epicwar. I'm just too lazy to search epicwar.

[nooblade]

For some reason, xFire really isn't working at all. Sorry for the folks who like it and use it (and the dnd guys) but I give up on it.

Also, that Conquest for Glory game was really fun. Tannish obviously didn't know what he was talking about when he said that Priests are underpowered. (though I was vulnerable to the mana burning gun weapon) :smalltongue:

[Winterwind]

For some reason, xFire really isn't working at all. Sorry for the folks who like it and use it (and the dnd guys) but I give up on it.Awww, geez, that's too bad. :smallfrown:


Also, that Conquest for Glory game was really fun. Tannish obviously didn't know what he was talking about when he said that Priests are underpowered. (though I was vulnerable to the mana burning gun weapon) :smalltongue:Now that I think about it, I'm not sure anymore if he was the one who said that priests were underpowered. Somebody did, but I'm starting to think it was someone else. What Tannish said was that druids are underpowered (something I don't quite agree with, either, although they do require a fairly big amount of micro to work, as one has to switch forms constantly).

[The Orange Zergling]

So I'm going to be going to summer camp earlier than I had anticipated this year, so for the next 3 subsequent weeks, beginning this Monday, I will get home around 6 PM EST (or even later) during weekdays, meaning I'll be a couple hours late to the next 3 Friday sessions and won't be on during the week, but Sundays will be unaffected.

On the flipside, I'm taking a course in 3D-modeling so maybe when I get back I'll be able to produce some custom models. :smallwink:

[Winterwind]

Oooh, that might end up being simply glorious, Baneling. :smallbiggrin:
Already given consideration to which of your maps would first get a model-overhaul? Or would you rather create entirely new maps to make use of that skills? :smallsmile:

Minor side note: I probably won't, but I might end up being slightly late to the melee session.

[Copper8642]

Man, I don't want to wait a week to play with the playgrounders. Anybody on or have the chance to be on, like, right now, or any time the rest of today? I've found that games are much more fun when playing with people from GiTP. So play with me!

[The Orange Zergling]

Oooh, that might end up being simply glorious, Baneling. :smallbiggrin:
Already given consideration to which of your maps would first get a model-overhaul? Or would you rather create entirely new maps to make use of that skills? :smallsmile:

Not yet; it mostly depends on what free software I can get my hands on at home and how much I actually learn from the class. :smalltongue:

In the end it will likely be special effects and such rather than units or structures but even that can prove incredibly useful.

[Winterwind]

So, as I've mentioned a couple of times, there is this tool called KeyCraft, available here (http://ingame.ingame.de/filebase/index.php?action=file&cid=445&fid=2171) (the site's in German, but the Download button should be easy enough to spot :smallwink:) that makes reconfigurating hotkeys much easier (usually, to reconfigurate your hotkeys, you'd have to edit your CustomKeys.txt file manually. In either case, you still have to turn on the usage of custom keys in your game options.).

Amongst others, it offers an option to instantly reconfigurate all hotkeys for all races in a way that mirrors this array of 4x3 buttons on the right side onto QWER ASDF ZXCV (or QWER ASDF YXCV, or whatever else your keyboard layout might be), for all units, buildings, abilities, upgrades etc. That's immensly more intuitive and quick to use than the default settings, and also means you can easily use hotkeys even for a race for which you'd usually not be familiar with the hotkeys at all. If you are playing melee mostly, I can't recommend it enough (yes, even if you are already used to the default hotkeys, because this array is still much more comfortable to use, and it's so intuitive you won't need long to adapt).

I wouldn't recommend doing it if you are playing only custom maps (and using hotkeys there), and if you play both it's an ambivalent decision, as some custom maps use keys that KeyCraft uses for Hold Position and such for abilities, making these hotkeys unusable there.

[TMC]

Hi! I love playing WC3, and I'd love to play it with some new people for once! :)

[nooblade]

Good! Come visit us in Op GitP sometime, chances are good that someone will be around.

Something I've noticed: we expect new people not to be rude but sometimes are awfully rude ourselves, but I guess that's allowed because we know each other to be harmless. ("I'LL FLAY YOU ALIVE!" is ringing in my ears for some reason)

The maps we play depend on who's there at the time, really too hard to describe it.


Speaking of maps, Conquest for Glory is still fun and I think I'm starting to get a feel for the, err, metagame? I think the game where me and a bunch of pubs fought a pub and a bunch of channelers went wrong because their classes lacked in snares and we had an abundance of combo abilities (Dragoon, Mage, and Hunter have the most dangerous ones, which really need to be snared, and all three were with me there). Getting a few combos off in each scuffle really accelerated the damage and at the moment, I think that is what caused the landslide. Still thinking about whether this is preventable, a fluke, or a flaw in the game.

Also, I don't completely understand the relationship between bubbles and snares yet. Druids, Priests, and Paladins have bubbles that may be used on allies or themselves (Rejuvenation, Power Word: Shield, Blessing of Protection?) but I think they can't bubble themselves if hit by a snare like a Hunter could. Actually, I'm not sure if a Hunter can bubble out of a stunning ability, maybe only the snares like Entangling Roots and Blind.

Anyway, this is interesting because all three of those classes have some of the best snares in the game (Entangling Roots demands a change to human form, Silence has a long cooldown, and Hammer of Justice has shorter range, but otherwise they're ideal). It could be interesting and/or imbalanced for setting up an unavoidable combo or two at the very start of a battle.

[Winterwind]

Hi! I love playing WC3, and I'd love to play it with some new people for once! :)Great, welcome to the group. :smallsmile:
In addition to what Nooblade said, melee is fairly high up there on the list of what's being played, too, with us having enough members who usually focus on either melee or customs for you to be able to pick which to do. :smallcool:
So, which may I chalk you up for, customs, melee, or both? :smallwink:


Something I've noticed: we expect new people not to be rude but sometimes are awfully rude ourselves, but I guess that's allowed because we know each other to be harmless. ("I'LL FLAY YOU ALIVE!" is ringing in my ears for some reason)We are? I never noticed (apart from Tan, occassionally), but maybe I'm just desensitivized to the people's humour...

And I didn't understand at least half of what you said about CfG. In layman terms? :smalltongue:

[SirSigfried]

Something I've noticed: we expect new people not to be rude but sometimes are awfully rude ourselves, but I guess that's allowed because we know each other to be harmless. ("I'LL FLAY YOU ALIVE!" is ringing in my ears for some reason)

Now now, that's not fair Nooblade I only flay people when we have to plant for the harvest.:smalltongue:

[nooblade]

We are? I never noticed (apart from Tan, occassionally), but maybe I'm just desensitivized to the people's humour...Sometimes Slaan or Faith or I or someone else who doesn't come to mind at the moment will club heads in a manner which must be unpleasant to look upon.


And I didn't understand at least half of what you said about CfG. In layman terms? :smalltongue:Well, part of it was trying to understand why a particular game ended up being so imbalanced. Another part is the metagame as I see it. Maybe I'll try saying it in another way, then give up on it if that doesn't make sense. Maybe I'll write until the whole thing turns into another stupid guide.


The rock-paper-scissors aspect of the game is more of a thing to analyze than the game creator's help make it out to be. It's not as simple as Snare beats Combo beats Bubble beats Snare.

For one thing, I have rarely seen people (even us channelers) properly interrupt enemy Combos with their Snares in the situations where they are available and that person isn't fleeing for their life. Sometimes I find that my Snares were cast a second too late or that moving into range of that target took too long for the interrupt to work.

Some of the worst Snares would be the ones that require melee range (someone could just move away from them before casting their combo in that case), but most of these Snares have an ability (charge on the Warrior) or gear option that improves movement speed.

The Warlock's Snare is awful because the projectile moves slowly. You could cast it right as someone starts a combo and the snare won't reach them in time when cast from maximum range. I can't remember, but I think the Dark Stalker's Snare won't even stop a Combo.


Fully skilled up and synergized Combos are the main source of damage until very late games. Damage from Combos is dealt in such a way that healers have a more difficult time restoring it than the spread-out damage of normal attacks. Low-duration armor debuffs (the Druid's Wolf Roar or Dragoon's Penta Thrust) can be applied before combos to make them particularly deadly because of this concentrated period of damage. Focusing fire on the debuffed target also works similarly, but requires more players to drop everything else.

The damage from a Combo goes through regardless of whether the target flees from it (unless interrupted with a Snare or evaded with a spell immunity or invulnerability Bubble), putting Combos on par with Snares for killing opponents who are running. Without defense-boosting items, most classes are close to death after being hit by one Combo, being hit by two or more high-powered Combos simultaneously is terrifying even for a tank and will probably force them to run.

This is why the Gauntlet item is so important for non-strength heroes, it gives them time to run if they're hit with a Combo or if they're focused and snared, and makes the healer's job easier. THE DAMAGE YOU COULD DO WITH OTHER ITEMS IS NEGLIGIBLE. IT IS WORSE IF YOU DIE. BUY THE GAUNTLETS!

So, I guess this is just saying the obvious. If someone is hit by a Combo and low on health, focus fire on them! If the entire enemy team is healthy, use Combos on weaker enemy heroes at the edge of their group! If someone is hit by a Combo and low on health, the entire team needs to flee!

It is possible to get enough ability powerups to do more damage than in a combo, but at that point, 90% of the time, the game is already decided and the skill points you spent in Combos should have served you well. The remaining 10% of the time, you will either be at max level anyway or you will be able to afford the skill-altering item.


The Warrior, Warlock, Hunter, and Vampire classes have Bubbles with spell immunity, which makes them a viable option for preventing combos from damaging them. Paladins or Dragoons may use their bubbles for invulnerability in a few key moments before a Combo strikes.

I still need to do some tests to see exactly how the Bubbles work on the Druid, Priest, and Paladin, but I suspect that they are unable to Bubble themselves out of some Snares, making them very vulnerable in that respect. Like I said before, this is funny because those classes have some of the best Snares, in fact the ones which may be able prevent the use of Bubbles (maybe the Warlock's Snare too).

[Winterwind]

...that's still not in layman's terms. :smalltongue:

I have no idea what Combos you are talking about (nor am I particularly aware of the existence of any), I can only barely gather that "Snare" apparently means something like an interrupting or movement stopping spell, and "Bubble" apparently has something to do with protection? :smallwink:

Overall, this is still totally incomprehensible to someone who hasn't either been playing the game for hours and hours or reading guides for it to catch up with the terminology, preferably both.

[Rigel Cyrosea]

...that's still not in layman's terms. :smalltongue:

I have no idea what Combos you are talking about (nor am I particularly aware of the existence of any), I can only barely gather that "Snare" apparently means something like an interrupting or movement stopping spell, and "Bubble" apparently has something to do with protection? :smallwink:

Overall, this is still totally incomprehensible to someone who hasn't either been playing the game for hours and hours or reading guides for it to catch up with the terminology, preferably both.
Bubbles, combos and snares are described in the in-game help for CFG. (The quest menu stuff). Each class has one bubble, one combo, one snare, and one passive. The bubble removes negative statuses and adds some sort of bonus, the combo has a longer casting time but is stronger, and the snare is instant cast and has usually has some sort of stun or other status effect added. Snare beats combo by interrupting it. Combo beats bubble by doing loads of damage. Bubble beats snare by removing negative status effects.

It's been a while since I read the guide, but I'm pretty sure that's how it works- I'm sure Nooblade can point out any mistakes I've made and fix them.:smallsmile:

[Winterwind]

Ah, I see. I never had the time to read it in-game, due to all time being used up for either discussion of hero choices or playing the game. It makes a lot more sense now. :smallbiggrin:

[Inhuman Bot]

Awww, geez, that's too bad. :smallfrown:

Now that I think about it, I'm not sure anymore if he was the one who said that priests were underpowered. Somebody did, but I'm starting to think it was someone else.

Said person was Einherjar, his reason being that the priest's healing skill sucked, and thus failed at the main roll you'd expect it to fufill.

[nooblade]

The guide is really, really good. There are a few silly item suggestions and class countering ideas, but otherwise I wouldn't change a thing. Ask for a pause if you'd like to read it imho.

Oh, I found that the Lance item and the armor reduction skill on the Dragoon do actually stack, but I still think I would prefer putting a different weapon on him more often than not. (anything but the Hammer, I hate the Hammer).


Any other confusion about Combos, Snares, and Bubbles? I find myself using Snares to try and catch fleeing opponents more often than I interrupt Combos with them, but I guess that's only possible when winning.

IIRC, only the Paladin's Snare involves direct application of stunning. I know that a Hunter can Bubble out of a Druid's Entangling Roots, but I am inclined to think that a Hunter can't use Beast Within to Bubble out of a Hammer of Justice stun or a Stealth stun, that's one thing I would like to test sometime (along with which classes can bubble out of Entangling Roots).


I know it sounds crazy, but the Priest is balanced between offense and defense. Mind Flay is an awesome Combo not because of the damage (which is good, a little low for such a long Combo) but because it also functions similarly to most snares by slowing down the enemy, great for teamwork in taking down fleeing enemies or protecting an ally by slowing down a determined attacker. Between using Mind Flay and healing, Priests can do well without a weapon.

[Winterwind]

What do you think about the Warlock? In our games, he seemed overpowered to ridiculous degrees (he has dangerous skills and is almost impossible to kill... and then he also brings another powerful fighter into the fray), but I was thinking that maybe it was us doing something wrong...

[nooblade]

In other news, I just had the most one sided CfG game I think is possible. Our team consisted of a Druid, a Paladin, and a Hunter. Their team was a Priest, a Warrior, a Hunter, and a Mage. Our fourth teammate was AFK the entire game and never picked a class. They left the game when we had 30 kills to their 10. I'd like to say that they split up too much, but it wasn't much more than I've seen in some games. To be fair, I had played with those teammates more than they had, but most of them got in one game before that one. I'll have to look at the replay to figure out what they did.


I noticed also that most of the Combo abilities have audible warnings for their use. Playing with sound on is a huge advantage, if you can.


I think the Warlock is an interesting class and I wouldn't be so quick to throw him out just because of balance (I bet we already play for fun rather than competition to boot). I have to admit that it would be a big disadvantage to fight one without a good stealth player though. The guide's advice to dealing with him is to ignore him when possible, which is good advice, but the exception is difficult. Particularly in the early stages the Warlock isn't a huge drain on your health, I'd kill the other non-tanks first.

Like I said above, Skill Coil is a defensive Snare, so it doesn't actually aid in killing the target as much as stopping them from doing whatever it is that annoys you. Say if a Rogue or other Stealth hero starts the backstabbing business on your ally and you want to stop him with a Snare, the Skill Coil is more effective than most other Snares (It will keep your teammate alive better) but less effective than a few other snares (your teammates don't get to wail on the Rogue). On the other hand it travels slowly, so you can't use it to Snare a faraway Combo you just saw start up. If you suspect that someone is going to unleash a Combo on your team from a distance, you would have to use Skill Coil on them beforehand and then hope that something else comes along when they get back. I don't think the healing on it is very worthwhile.

When the enemy adds a Warlock onto their team, they must accept more damage from Combos than before, especially the ranged ones like Mind Flay or Searing Arrow, so try to edge those in a bit more perhaps.

The passive ability, Soul Link, makes the Felguard attack faster and the Warlock more survivable by transferring some of his damage to the Felguard. If you really can't deal with an extra little unit sticking around (people ignore wolves and wyverns all the time), then run back to a town for the defensive bonus, maybe picking at them from a distance if they don't follow you. You can see the level the skill by the aura on the Felguard itself. If the level is high, all the more reason to kill the Felguard before the Warlock like the guide suggests. The Felguard's attack does really good splash damage, so don't stand adjacent to each other while taking damage from it.

The Felguard is pretty beefy, with 880hp +80hp per level, but it takes extra damage from hero attacks and can't Bubble, so it goes down pretty fast if you focus on it. It is really annoying how easily the Warlock can restore life for the thing, but the Health Funnel can and should be interrupted with a Snare (to the Warlock) to stop it. He can summon a new Felguard easily if it hasn't cooled down (the cooldown is 90 seconds), but if you attack the Warlock himself, he could also make a shield out of it to absorb more damage than the Felguard is able to. The cooldown and mana cost actually make it similar to a fiddled around Power Word: Shield with another option to get around it, which is probably well balanced actually because the Warlock's other low level skills are gimped.

An alternative is to assassinate the Warlock by stunning him and then unloading all the Combos you can on him, but I wouldn't try it if his teammates are around or if Soul link is leveled up really high, or if you could just kill the Felguard first at all really. He can easily be snared because his Bubble has a long cooldown and is only available at level 6.

Life Drain is capable of doing almost as much damage as Mind Flay on the Priest, but it is over a much longer period of time and with healing instead of the slowing effect. If any of the other team have ranged Snares and are good at using them, you would be better of not putting any points into it, it is one of the easiest Combos to Snare. If noone on the other team is capable of throwing a Snare on you (or just running out of the range of the spell), it would pay off rather quickly. If the Warlock is already at full hp (or maybe if you're just ignoring him), I wouldn't make it a priority to Snare him as much as with other Combos (check the hp bar because he could've been spending health to heal his minion). You can tell the spell is cast without even looking at the Warlock, and then you would either Snare him or run out of the range depending on how close he is.

Hellfire is the skill to be really worried about, this Bubble can potentially do more damage than most Combos (there are eight explosions and each does 100 or 200 damage if he's level 15). The problem with it is that the Warlock has to be in melee range to use it. If a Warlock starts moving into a melee (normally dangerous), you know he's going to be using Hellfire and you should start running, anyone should be able to outrun him as long as they're not Snared. One undesirable target (say a full hp tank with healer support) can stay behind to damage and/or snare him, and then probably run if he starts using Hellfire. If you absolutely must stop a Warlock from advancing with Hellfire I think you will need to kill, stun, or maybe Silence him (I don't know whether or not the silence will work to be honest, and haven't directly tested the stun), but be careful of how any kind of damage (the AoE of Hellfire) takes a Stealth class out of Stealth Mode.

Worst comes to worst, you may have to split up as soon as the Warlock starts using the ability, minimizing casualties, but I don't think that is going to happen very often because the duration of the ability is only ten seconds (the cooldown is 35 seconds, the skill level up tooltip is wrong) and the Warlock is vulnerable afterward. You should be able to run away from the attack even within the confines of a town, but then you would probably lose the cleric and your other support. This ability is very damaging to Creeps and is capable of holding off the waves that appear when a City reaches level 15, which has led to some of the more interesting games of CfG I've played.

One final option for the Warlock to do damage is the Fire Staff. Fortunately, it consumes a lot of mana for him and he will be more vulnerable for trying to compensate for that (or it will be a waste of money when he tries to use other skills instead or has to stop using it from complete loss of mana). Otherwise he will get a bunch of hard-damaging attacks off before the Staff needs to be turned off, made into a waste of money. If you need a boost because the Warlock is doing too much extra damage, it never hurts to run back to one of your towns (this is a big part of strategy, run away at the first sight of trouble).


One last, great option for fighting against the Warlock is to get the gun, preferably on a Stealth class. Burning mana greatly reduces the number of things that a Warlock can do. I personally like to hold off on buying a weapon until I see what the other classes are for this kind of reason. If you're going for the most mana burn possible, I think the numbers say that it is better to upgrade the gun first rather than the Hood on a Stealth class (not changing the amount of time you stealth and restealth, I wouldn't want to lose the bonus provided by constant stunning of one opponent), but you end up doing less normal damage that way.


I like playing against Warlocks, they're the one class that can mess you up in quite a few ways, you need to watch for several things, unlike the other classes with only a handful of tricks. :smallbiggrin:

[Winterwind]

I see. Wow, that was extensive. Thank you. :smallsmile:

[742]

i need to play someone good at melee, and i dont feel like sorting through 50 Bnet matchups to find one, anyone for a game in the next few hours, or at any point after 4 PM pacific?

[Winterwind]

If I wasn't at work, gladly. Since I am, that might be rather difficult though. :smallfrown:

[742]

well, i dont need someone that good, just someone competent, where i wont feel like im kicking a puppy if i play at 100% health and have a chance to lose if i slip up. good enough to make me play seriously(though people who have a good probability of killing me are always preferred).

[Prince Gimli]

So, as I've mentioned a couple of times, there is this tool called KeyCraft, available here (http://ingame.ingame.de/filebase/index.php?action=file&cid=445&fid=2171) (the site's in German, but the Download button should be easy enough to spot :smallwink:) that makes reconfigurating hotkeys much easier (usually, to reconfigurate your hotkeys, you'd have to edit your CustomKeys.txt file manually. In either case, you still have to turn on the usage of custom keys in your game options.).

Amongst others, it offers an option to instantly reconfigurate all hotkeys for all races in a way that mirrors this array of 4x3 buttons on the right side onto QWER ASDF ZXCV (or QWER ASDF YXCV, or whatever else your keyboard layout might be), for all units, buildings, abilities, upgrades etc. That's immensly more intuitive and quick to use than the default settings, and also means you can easily use hotkeys even for a race for which you'd usually not be familiar with the hotkeys at all. If you are playing melee mostly, I can't recommend it enough (yes, even if you are already used to the default hotkeys, because this array is still much more comfortable to use, and it's so intuitive you won't need long to adapt).


Is there a StarCraft version of this handy program?

Secondly, what does Cfg stand for? It sounds pretty cool from what I'm hearing in your posts.

[Winterwind]

Is there a StarCraft version of this handy program?None that I know of, though I have heard such things exist (however, they would require to hack StarCraft. In WarCraft, it merely simplifies something one could do anyway, as WarCraft supports custom keys; in StarCraft, there is no such functionality per default.)


Secondly, what does Cfg stand for? It sounds pretty cool from what I'm hearing in your posts.Conquest for Glory, in my opinion one of the best custom maps out there (though this opinion is quite contrary to that of a fair amount of our members).

[nooblade]

Did I just hear an excuse to rant about how awesome this game is?

But I won't, I've been making too many long posts about it lately. Might as well stick them together and call it a guide.

[Bunny of Faith]

Did I just hear an excuse to rant about how awesome this game is?

But I won't, I've been making too many long posts about it lately. Might as well stick them together and call it a guide.

Do it! Since somebody should get around to it. Or at least explain what is said in the Quests/F9 when compiling your earlier posts.

[u-gotNOgame]

Conquest for Glory, in my opinion one of the best custom maps out there (though this opinion is quite contrary to that of a fair amount of our members).

Yeah, I've been finding its a better then I originally thought. We do almost daily pubstomps if you want to join us:smallamused:.

Also, about the warlock, I find that in the hands of a good player it can he can be a handfull, but against some of the public players... hes fresh meat.

-UGNG

[nooblade]

I wouldn't want to directly copy from the game's guide. You could look at it anytime if you have a copy of Warcraft 3, the game can run in Single Player and we use the version straight from Epicwar (6.9? The latest.). There is a ton of information about towns and the combat system and all of it is important to know (though I suspect that most of the group either hasn't read it or has forgotten about it).


I guess I'd go over the "Solid Advice" section. This is how you win right here. :smallbiggrin:

1) Stay together.

I think most players start to understand this quickly, especially in our group. Unlike other AoS maps, enemy heroes are easy to get to and also are a delectable source of income and experience.

2) Attack undefended towns.

You can outlevel the enemy group by killing them (hard) or by killing town guards (easy). The guide claims that the exp and money you get for killing guards outweighs the risk of being caught vulnerable. I'd guess that killing guards is worth having one dead ally for a moment, but things start to hurt too much when they kill your entire team. It suggests using a Crystal Ball to find undefended towns, but I'd rather use that item to watch my back, or maybe a flare instead.

3) Kill the cleric first when attacking enemy towns to prevent enemy heroes from spawning on top of you.

This is huge and I rarely see other people doing it. A hero spawns at full health, with almost half mana, and regenerates mana quickly while the cleric is still alive. The cleric is just too vulnerable to leave alive.

4) Time your abilities appropriately. Save your Snare to break a Combo, save your Bubble to shrug off a Snare, and save your Combo to finish off a fleeing enemy.

I wouldn't always go about it like this, sometimes you can get away with a Combo or a Snare due to circumstances (melee Combos are difficult to get off on a running enemy, someone may have already used their Snare), but some of us would do better by saving out abilities a bit. This point of advice isn't suited for the Paladin or Druid because their "Combos" don't deal damage.


The guide also contains information about how the classes are constructed and how quickly the army is trained based on how many towns you control. And then there are mini-guides for each class, with item options (that I sometimes don't like) and counters for each. It's really too much stuff to copy...

I might expand on some of the guides, but sometimes I'm not particularly opinionated one a hero, and for others I will admit I don't know how to play effectively (I'm looking at you, Dark Stalker).

[Copper8642]

One day until the first GitP Custom meet-up for me. Wooooooo!

[Bunny of Faith]

For anyone fancying a go of some crazy, foreign AoS that me and Ein have been playing a little, I uploaded it to epicwar! (http://www.epicwar.com/maps/100566/)

[Winterwind]

So, reminder: Tomorrow is our next custom map session. I hope to see you all there. :smallsmile:

[nooblade]

I don't see why you two like playing imbawars so much.

By figuring out all the heroes and items, you're going to make it a lot less fun for anyone you try to lure into playing it thereafter. Anyone desiring to experience the same thing as you are right now will have to play without you.

[u-gotNOgame]

It should be clarified that a "Combo" is a damage dealing attack that has a casting time and is interupptable. A "Snare" is a stun or hold spell that intterupts channeling and a "Bubble" is something that protects you from damage or lets you shrug off a negative buff or some damage.

Also, I'll be late so save some fun for me!

-UGNG

[nooblade]

Heh, still not right. :smallamused:

The Druid and Paladin Combos do not deal damage, most Snares only cause a 50% slower movement rate for enemies (and some don't impede their movement at all), and some Bubbles can be cast on other heroes.

[Marek]

Conquest for Glory, in my opinion one of the best custom maps out there (though this opinion is quite contrary to that of a fair amount of our members).

Me being one of them, since I stick with my Clan, but thats besides the point <_<

Oh yeah, after trying out the Druid, I do not understand the so-called "uselessness" of the class. Sure, it makes you choose one way to go, either Tanking or DPS, but if you specialize in whatever you choose things generally go well for you. Blade can corroborate this, we worked quite well together.

I won't be here for either the Custom group on Friday or the Melee group on Sunday, I've made plans for those days (specifically, my brother is getting married and I'm his Best-Man).

Oh, and for those who don't know, this is Vinnam.

[nooblade]

People were asking me about what weapons to get, so I'll make a post about those that would help you decide for yourselves.

For weapons in general, you won't want more than one of each weapon that gives a debuff on your team. I like saving the increased attack speed weapons for the stealth heroes and the damage weapons for the melee heroes, but there are some exceptions. The mana cost of the Fire or Ice Staves make them exclusive to the casters (it also helps that those classes attack a bit more slowly), but anyone can pick up an Earth or Light Staff if the boost is worth it. Some of them are great counters for an enemy class ability and others compensate for your own hero disadvantages.

Weapons are a huge investment so wait until you see the enemy heroes to pick one. You don't want to lose money by selling one.

For the particulars:

-Claws are important for the Dark Stalker because he damages himself with Souleater and takes extra damage with Blood Weapon, he can easily overtax the healer.

It's tempting to grab these for the survivability, but it only pays off if you're actually damaged. This can occur either if your opponent doesn't know how to focus properly or you are the one being focused. You'll need to be healed or run away in the second case anyway. It isn't a good weapon for a tank, just more reason to ignore him until his support is dead or fleeing.

-Spears are just great to have around. The -armor benefits the entire team when focusing on one target. I know it stacks with at least the Dragoon's ability to lower armor, probably the Druid's too. Definitely the most offensive of the weapons, get it on someone if you can survive in combat but lack in damage.

-Axes are the bane of all stealth classes. It deals damage over three seconds and any form of damage prevents a stealth hero from going into hiding. I'm not sure if the healing prevention stacks with the Warrior's Snare, but if it does, you would prevent 90% of any healing from getting through and cause damage over time. Very nasty for taking out support enemies, but the Snare can be Bubbled (along with the weapon effect, but that is applied quickly), so maybe wait until those are used up by your enemy.

-Hammers are one of my least favorite weapons, very unspectacular, but I have to admit that it has great use. Slowing enemies who are going for your support allies would be devastating for them, especially if they require melee range and your support works at a distance. It's not a huge debuff (not a Snare) and can be reapplied easily as well, so they can't just Bubble out. It helps against Stealth too, but they'll learn how to run, this is why it's great on the Paladin, he can Hammer of Justice them and keep them down with this Hammer after the stun wears off.

It is a very defensive weapon, but it's good overall team defense unlike the Claws. The main disadvantage is that any class taking it is likely melee. I like the Ice Staff more for the extra slow, but the mana used is very demanding.

-Katanas have a chance to blind an enemy, which causes all of their normal attacks to miss for the next 3, 5, or 7 seconds (depends on upgrade). You need a stealth hero to get this debuff on anyone in a pinch, but it also works well on an unstealthy class if you just want some extra protection from a particular enemy. It can be dispelled with a Bubble but that would be a waste imho.

I like putting it on the Rogue, just because they already do a ton of damage with the chance to get a critical hit and their superfast Combo, but noone really needs it. It's great for the Ninja because attacking is one of the main ways that you figure out which image is real and which are fake (assuming they all attack the same enemy), but the Katana denies that strategy for a while after coming out of stealth. The Dragoon is also capable of using it in a pinch for defense because he has more agility and thus faster attack speed (you could get gloves with him too).

-Swords are decent. You can use them to make a stealth build that completely ignores the gloves (more damaging Hunter too). But I like the other effects more. I don't like putting Swords on Strength heroes because the bonus damage is spread out more (easier to heal or flee). I wouldn't use it without the Hood. It's great for a Ninja who wants to deal more damage.

-Knives are my least favorite. You already stun coming out of stealth and the bonuses to attack speed from a Hood wear out as soon as that original stun wears off. You would use Knives in a stealth build that focused more on the attacks from behind, upgrading the Knife and the Gloves at the expense of the Hood and the Boots. This kind of stealth hero stays in melee longer though, so expect trouble with their allies. I wouldn't want to put a Knife on a Hunter, getting Boots for her would be more fun if you want to stun more.

A Vamprie would be the best class for this style of playing, I think. With the skill that automatically moves you behind enemies, Gloves will be more desirable anyway. Plus you have a great Bubble that gives some spell immunity and an enemy slowing effect to use when all those enemy heroes catch up to you. I think Rogues would actually do worse with the Knife because they'll want to steal from enemy heroes and the Boots really help there, but I guess you'll go for the critical-dodge-stealth passive skill anyway. I'm not sure, but I think the extra damage from Gloves doesn't work with the Rogue's critical ability.

-Guns are good for disabling support heroes without having to kill them. They're great versus Warlocks, Priests, Druids, Paladins, and even Dragoons. Mages tend to have too much mana to burn to actually disable anything he can do, if he starts at full. And with Evocation, it would be silly if a Mage doesn't start at full. I forget at the moment whether this mana burn causes hp damage too, but that would be nice against Mages.

Works great with the Hood on sneaky types, but I guess it also works to bunker down anywhere and outgun the enemy.

-Earth Staves aren't too useful imho. I think it's only really good on the Druid or maybe the Mage. Druids in Bear form get some mana back when they get hit, and Mages just have a ton of mana to begin with, so things work out for them. I'd certainly put it on a tanky Druid and hesitantly put it on a Mage who's getting plinked down. Other heroes have low enough mana and/or enough mana usage (especially Priests) that I think they would benefit more from Gauntlets. The Robe item is better if you're constantly lacking in mana.

-Fire Staves are great for Priests, Mages, or Warlocks who want to do extra damage. Other classes are lacking in the mana department. The Druid could pull it off (he gets less intelligence than other casters), but has other, more preferable dps options. Priests in particular are cutting close on their mana when they use this item, they'll need Robes and/or a Ring item for support while using it, but Mages seem to do just fine with a Fire Staff only. I'd focus on Heal and Shield if I get the Fire Staff, probably more Shield as it's the skill that actually saves on mana (high levels of heal just work faster), you'll want to spend as much time possible using the Staff. If a Warlock gets a Fire Staff, he needs to use it. It's entirely possible for a Warlock to switch between Life Drain and Health Funnel during combat if he isn't Snared (who wouldn't ignore him? Even with a Fire Staff?), which would be a waste for this weapon. Get gear for mana regeneration depending on how much you want to use it.

-Ice Staves are basically for Mages only. Strength heroes would do better with the Hammer and Agility heroes would do better by getting Boots and exploiting the sneaky side of the game. If another caster class were to get this Staff, they wouldn't want to fully upgrade it for fear of losing all their mana in a few moments. Priests are already gimped on mana and an Ice Staff is a third more the mana cost of a Fire Staff. I don't doubt that it's possible to have a class other than Mage use it, but it's dangerous because of the equipment trade you'll make for mana regeneration, and because enemies will very much want to focus on the maxed Ice Staff hero (it's already a weak caster, and the Ice Staff alone is annoying enough in addition to the other skills).

But a fully upgraded Ice Staff is devastating in the hands of a Mage. You could prevent the enemy team from focusing on a support hero (probably the Mage), or prevent an enemy Stealth hero from sneaking away again. I'd like to test sometime if adding a -50% movespeed snare on top prevents them from moving, I don't know what the minimum movement speed is in CfG (I think editors can change it in the global constants). I wouldn't get Arcane Power first as the mana cost is prohibitive even with a Mage, but with it maxed you could do about as much damage as a Shadow Priest with a Fire Staff.

A Warlock may get a max upgraded Ice Staff, but this is where you laugh and shoot him with the Gun.

-Light Staves are for classes that have a healing ability. This means Priests, Druids, Paladins, Warlocks, and Dragoons only. More than the others, this one is the weapon I don't know exactly when to use. It's great if you're going to be healing or using Combos more than attacking much, which is an option for Priests and Warlocks (less so for Warlocks). Otherwise I don't think it's really worth it as a second weapon unless you're really late in the game, or it's possible that this is the mana regeneration option you want to use for putting a different staff on someone.

I suppose you could make a Dragoon that uses skills more than normal attacks, but losing the bonus from a real weapon hurts. The other two classes don't have damaging Combos, which hurts if they want to pick up a Light staff. It's already really easy to Snare a Paladin's Holy Light, don't encourage them by buying the Light Staff.


I think my typing is getting better with the injured finger.

Family wants to do silly stuff. If I'm around, it will be sporadic.

[Inhuman Bot]

I'm going to be going to a camp until next friday, and then (probably) traveling with my family for awhile longer. See you all later. :smallsmile:

[Winterwind]

Have fun, Slaan. :smallsmile:

Reminder: Tomorrow is our next melee session. Hope to see you there. :smallsmile:

[u-gotNOgame]

I won't be there tommorow which means that I'll have missed both sessions this week. Anyways hope to see you next week, or on d2.

@noob: I agree with most of that, I never really found the earth and light staffs that usefull

-UGNG

[Winterwind]

Reminder: Tomorrow is our next custom map session. Hope to see you there. :smallsmile:

[Copper8642]

Yessir... except I have work... damn.... sorry, won't be there.

[Winterwind]

And reminder again: Tomorrow is our next melee session. :smallsmile:
I might end up being late, friends remarked something about kidnapping me or so.

[Winterwind]

And reminder once more: Tomorrow is our next custom map session. I hope to see you there. :smallsmile:

[Copper8642]

Got work again. I'll probably be missing the majority of these from now on. But I hope to have some Fridays off in the future. So I'll play with you guys again eventually.

[The Orange Zergling]

Due to RL circumstances I might be slightly late to the session this Sunday - precisely how late I'm not sure but it probably won't be more than an hour or so.

Also, Winterwind, you need to get around to updating Pandarena. :smallwink:

[u-gotNOgame]

I'm headed off to a summer camp from today until next saturday. So I will be missing todays session next weeks custom session, and all the days on which we might have a casual encounter. So, good hunting, take care, and have fun.

-UGNG

[Inhuman Bot]

So with the people online being a grand total of me...

Get onto WC!

[SirSigfried]

I'm online now if anyone wants to join me... then good.

[Inhuman Bot]

Well, Winter doesn't seem to be around..

So, reminder: Tomorrow is our next custom map session. I hope to see you all there.

V: Didn't come across rude to me. :smallsmile:

[The Orange Zergling]

Actually, I just talked to him about an hour ago, I assume he just hasn't gotten around to the reminders yet.

EDIT: On reflection that came across as a little rude; my apologies. I merely said that so that people would not assume that he'd be absent and then not come. :smallwink:

---

So I currently have a team-oriented melee map in production; mechanically, it's ready, but it still needs some tweaks here and there plus some ambient stuff like doodads and with luck it will be ready next week, though probably not THIS Sunday.

[Winterwind]

Yes, I am here; sorry, was busy so far and didn't get around to posting the reminder indeed. But thanks for doing that anyway, Slaan. :smallsmile:

Also, looking forward to it, Bane. Any changes since we tested it? :smallwink:

[The Orange Zergling]

Yep, added more trees to the starting areas and I'm starting to add aesthetic doodads, mostly on the cliffs but also in some of the wider open areas to both make them more interesting in combat and more appealing to look at. Also looking into why some creeps didn't drop items; I think I gave them item tables that could sometimes give items that didn't exist (so nothing would drop). Also fixed their acquisition range.

[Inhuman Bot]

......Where is everyone? :smallfrown:

I don't belive anyone aside from Bane, myself, and 742 were there at the peak.

Also, am I the only one amused by this threads post count VS it's view count?

[Winterwind]

......Where is everyone? :smallfrown:

I don't belive anyone aside from Bane, myself, and 742 were there at the peak.Yeah, sorry; I was totally exhausted when I arrived home yesterday; I pretty much plunged into my bed and fell asleep instantly. Definitely not fit enough for playing. :smallwink:


Also, am I the only one amused by this threads post count VS it's view count?What about it? The ratio seems pretty normal for the threads in this forum...

[TFT]

Well, I just found out that I broke a part of my hand pretty seriously; enough to have surgery. I probably won't be able to play, but I may get on to watch you guys play.

[The Orange Zergling]

Aye, this forum seems to have a different Post:View ratio than the other forums... at least, from what I remember, admittedly I haven't really payed attention until you brought it up.

Ow, that sucks TFT. :smallfrown:

[u-gotNOgame]

Well, I just found out that I broke a part of my hand pretty seriously; enough to have surgery. I probably won't be able to play, but I may get on to watch you guys play.

That sucks, hope to see you on though.
I'm back, so i'll probably be looking to re-sharpen my skills that were dulled by more then a week away from my computer.

-UGNG

[Winterwind]

Well, I just found out that I broke a part of my hand pretty seriously; enough to have surgery. I probably won't be able to play, but I may get on to watch you guys play.Ouch, saddened to hear that, TFT. :smalleek:

Get better soon. :smallfrown:

[Inhuman Bot]

Yeah, sorry; I was totally exhausted when I arrived home yesterday; I pretty much plunged into my bed and fell asleep instantly. Definitely not fit enough for playing. :smallwink:.

I'd say if we 1v1'd it'd be equal. :smalltongue:

For the post count vs thread veiws, I hadn't actually looked at other thread views, and just glanced at that before I posted.

Also, TFT, it's unfortuneate to hear that, but I'm curious.. How did you break your hand that badly and not realize you had until later? >>

[nooblade]

Injuries hurt.

Talking about them with people has been interesting. Many people had stories, at least something like, "my relative had such and such happen", if not a horrible disfiguring injury of their own to tell the tale of. Plenty of guys in the engineering department had a good sized chunk of flesh taken off by a powered cutting device. One of them used superglue to put his thumb back together. Another more serious handyman-type had to have a operation that flipped his knuckle to the other side of the finger to get it back on, and now can bend it in a funny direction. You can barely tell if someone had a cutting accident or not (unless they point it out) because doctors are capable of sewing the fleshy bits back on. That wasn't possible for me but I still feel really lucky. It would've been worse if I didn't get the rest of my hand out of the way.

Anyway, broken bones sound even worse (particularly the twisty or shattering varieties (rather than the simple snaps or cracks?)). With an amputation-like injury, you don't get any pain sensation from nerves that aren't there. The swelling feeling I got while everything was healing was the most trouble I had through the whole thing. Well, that and having school at the same time.


Oh, and I'll be going on vacation this weekend.


Also, out of curiosity, what did everyone think were the bad parts of Conquest for Glory?

[The Orange Zergling]

I feel uninitiated; I've never broken any bones and only once had stitches in my life (on my tongue) and my most serious hospitalization was when I was dehydrated as a very small child.

---

(On CfG) I don't particularly wish to get into another long-winded debate about this, but I find the game to be incredibly frustrating to play, with tannish or without and whether I lose or win. Without exception I end the game angrier than I went into it and that is the complete antithesis of what a game should be. I started out with an open mind about it but after a while a pattern developed and I pretty much know how it'll turn out for me now.

On the subject of why, I'm not 100% sure; there are certainly gameplay mechanics that I dislike (rock-paper-scissors, characters that revolve around stunlocks and very heavy reliance on items are the ones that come to mind off of the top of my head) not to mention a few bugs (items that don't work) but it does nail a couple principles like requiring teamwork and for the most part balance. Despite any of its strong suits I find myself completely unable to extract fun from the game; if other people do, then great, but I, personally, cannot.

Enjoy your vacation, though. :smallsmile:

[nooblade]

Don't get initiated. :smalleek:
... Though tongue stitches are news to me and might count for something.



Not looking for a debate on CfG, but I hope you agree that it's an interesting game to look at. Particularly when thinking about how it could be balanced or improved (or salvaged?). It's clear that most people are frustrated and think the game needs some kind of improvements or fundamental changes. What's not clear is the adjustments to make, or whether people's suggestions would actually help or if they just "sound good". Like how adding more towns or neutral creeps might cause the game to turn into a farming competition or something.

Here's an engineering type of problem that won't easily be fixed.

[The Orange Zergling]

I don't remember any of it but apparently as a small child I was a habitual tongue-chewer and one day I just bit too hard. Thankfully the tongue is one of the body's faster healing organs so the ordeal was over relatively quickly as far as injuries go. I still have a scar, though.

---

I agree somewhat, though I would find it much more interesting if I could open the map and look at some of the spell codes. :smalltongue:

I haven't given a whole lot of thought as to what would make the game better, to be honest. The two things you gave as an example, though, would definitely not work, as they would make running around too much of a chore and would take the focus away from the game's objective, respectively. Do you know if the guy is still around or if it's one of those long-abandoned projects?

[nooblade]

The latest map on epicwar was put up like a year and a half ago. I guess that's pretty abandoned in the Warcraft 3 world.

But, imho, it would be better to start fresh anyway. The guide says that only a handful of abilities are edited in (mostly the dragoon class). Some things are just melee Warcraft 3 abilities with an extra bonus added on (rejuvenation removes stun -- I think).

As much as I like CfG, I wouldn't want to remake it. Or maybe after playing it a bunch, I'm getting a little tired of its quirkiness.


Actually, now that my finger is better, maybe I'll want to figure out Spellcast Arena when I get back from this trip. Or I'm also fine with just playing more games.


Preparations are commencing, I'll be back Monday.

[The Orange Zergling]

Yeah, unless the author is still around but has been working on other maps that sounds pretty dead to me.

---

Due to RL events (a rehearsal and recital for my taiko group, respectively) I will have to leave early on Friday and will be absent completely on Sunday.

[Winterwind]

Hmmm... I think this might be an interesting debate.
If I was to remake CfG (hypothetically speaking, though if I should ever finish Pandarena - yeah, like that's going to happen :smalltongue: - I might give it some actual consideration), the first thing I'd want to make sure would be it doesn't snowball too hard. Because that is one problem the map currently has.
Now - how could one, in AoS/CfG-type maps, reward players for playing well, but prevent the game from snowballing? Those are two fundamentally opposed principles, and I think much could be won for map design in general if we can find some way to bring them together...


Also, reminder: Tomorrow is our next custom map session. Looking forward to it. :smallsmile:




Due to RL events (a rehearsal and recital for my taiko group, respectively) I will have to leave early on Friday and will be absent completely on Sunday.While it's a pity we'll miss out on you, wow, cool! I had no idea you were doing something like that! :smallbiggrin:

[Oslecamo]

Now - how could one, in AoS/CfG-type maps, reward players for playing well, but prevent the game from snowballing? Those are two fundamentally opposed principles, and I think much could be won for map design in general if we can find some way to bring them together...


There's two ways.

-One is upkeeps of some sort. The stronger you are compared with your oponent, the less gold and/or experience you receive, up to the point where killing a much weacker player hardly nets you anything.


-The other is rewarding the other players for standing in front of the snowball. For example in dota if you start a "killing spree" , whoever frags you get bonus gold for that. The higher your number of kills in a row, the more gold the guy who frags you will receive.


Then there's the vulnerability aproach, altough it's steping more outside of AoS. Heros don't gain more life as they level up. They may gain more armor, evasion, and definetely get better attacks as they level up, but if they turn their guard down, the weacker player should be able to kill them fairly quickly despite the level diference. This is a more radical aproach of course. You would need to do something about the strenght stat first of all(perhaps greatly increase life regen?)

[The Orange Zergling]

While it's a pity we'll miss out on you, wow, cool! I had no idea you were doing something like that! :smallbiggrin:

I wish I didn't have to perform, though... :smalleek:


-One is upkeeps of some sort. The stronger you are compared with your oponent, the less gold and/or experience you receive, up to the point where killing a much weacker player hardly nets you anything.

Of the two ideas you put forward I think this one is probably best; while the killing spree reward gives you more in return for killing an enemy it does not help you kill them in the first place and thus catch up to them. To put it metaphorically, instead of providing you a stool to stand on to reach a shelf, it just puts a pot of gold on the shelf but you still can't reach it.

Maybe this one is just personal preference, but I would also make the items far less powerful - still helpful but no longer crucial, maybe in line with Desert of Exile's items. Currently certain classes are so reliant on a specific item load-out that they can't survive without it and the entire point of items - providing a strategic choice of what to pick for a given situation - is rendered moot because there is no reason to pick anything other than this set. Of course this would also require a moderate redesign of some classes, but then I maintain that a game like this should be designed and balanced around the heroes interacting with each other with their spells and traits, not with the items they pick.

[Oslecamo]

Of course this would also require a moderate redesign of some classes, but then I maintain that a game like this should be designed and balanced around the heroes interacting with each other with their spells and traits, not with the items they pick.

You can get this easily by implementing Warcraft's original system of most items you get being random.

Sure there's the ocasional shop that sells basic supplies like weack potions, teleport scrolls and perhaps one or two nonstacking orbs.

But the really good stuff spawns at random from special creeps. You want Staff/Sword X? Then go kill that ogre magi!

Or heck, remove items all togheter.:smalltongue:

[The Orange Zergling]

I don't think they should be removed altogether or made completely random, I just think that they should be less important than the abilities that you pick and that there should be a reason to pick different sets from time to time.

[Oslecamo]

I don't think they should be removed altogether or made completely random, I just think that they should be less important than the abilities that you pick and that there should be a reason to pick different sets from time to time.

Well, this reminds me of an AoS I played once wich had a very interesting design idea.

Every ability is based to one or more of your scores.

You see, in dota at least abilities only go as far as 4 rancks. By level 7 one of your abilities will be maximized. By level 16 all will be. By level 25 heros are doing more damage by simply attacking than with their nukes.

Items, however, go a lot deeper. There are cheap items, and then there are super expensive items that you can only afford late game, like assault, or a maximized daggon.

But, if your abilities, instead of a fixed damage, continue improving as you level up, it makes them stay relevant at higher levels.


However, bear in mind, if you have fixed items, well, people will end up finding optimal item builds just like they find optimal ability builds. It's inevitable when you take out the randomness.

[The Orange Zergling]

Well, naturally, but in CfG, take the Rogue for example. There is no reason whatsoever to pick anything except for the designated Stealth class items and a Spear. You may want to switch out the Spear for something depending on situation, but that's it. It's not that after calculated scientific analysis this build proved to do 2.4% more DPS than this other build but rather that it is the only build that makes sense at all and there is literally no reason to pick anything else. It's not that it's the 'optimal build', it's that it's the ONLY build.

[Oslecamo]

Yeah that was pretty much awfull design. In CfG your gear is almost auto-selected, except if you're a druid, and even then...

But that's the extreme case. I don't remember any other mod where the "correct" choice of gear was so automatic.

[742]

game design? yay!

i would also like to point out that theres a third way to prevent, or at least slow the snowball: share gold and EXP between teams(and make sure dead players are included!). i know it sounds stupid, but since the primary objective has to do with controlling territory not gaining levels or items it still allows for a team to establish and hold a lead, while the other team is still able to kick a decent amount of butt, assuming that they can fix whatever teamwork failure or skill gap that caused the other team to start winning in the first place.
a sub-whatsitcalled of this would be to distribute gold and EXP to both the killing hero and the killed hero. so if i stab the wizard in the back, its true, i get money to buy a sharper dagger, but he gets money to buy either a cooler staff or some armor, so that doesnt happen again.

the first thing i would do is make sure you make every hero like the melee warden, where you want to max out every ability first. dont give them any trash spells, and at the absolute most, give them one ability that greatly improves at least one of their others. this will lead to having at least two different builds for each character

then i might find a way to make the different items useful for different situations, even within the same hero. the gun burning mana is a good start, but make the weapons less about the attack speed/damage bonuses and more about the special modifiers. this will lead to a greater variety of choices, but it will be very difficult to balance.

and yes, making all spells stat based, at least in part would be a positive, it also keeps nuke-based characters from falling behind so much late game. so instead of 150/250/375 an ability would do 100+AGI/200+AGI/300+AGI or (3xagi)/(5xagi)/(7xagi). this would make players try to stick to more stat-based items, so while the spear might be really cool, another +10 to agility might be just as worth it.
if you do this, make sure to modify how the stats work to prevent STR characters from becoming unkillable gods, and AGI characters from being able to achieve stunlock with a 1% bash and 99% damage reduction. a huge nerf to AGI attack speed would be too much, but something small and perhaps removal of AGI to armor maybe AGI to move speed instead, since IIRC that option is there and it maxes out pretty quick. its also good incentive for non-AGI characters to still get AGI and AGI items.

[Inhuman Bot]

Rant time!

In today's WC 3 tournament, I'd won 3 games, won 2 by the opponent leaving, and lost 2. Not bad.

Then I noticed something odd. My tournament record was 0-7-0.

I played another game, opponent left. New record: 0-8-0.
:smallannoyed:

So for no reason, I've been racking up loses instead of wins. WHAT. THAT. HELL. :smallfurious:

[Winterwind]

Hmmm, interesting concept - rather than rewarding players for kills with gold and experience, making the reward of a purely strategic nature - the fact the hero is dead and needs some time to respawn and reach the front line, while the winning hero is there and can push the front further back/conquer towns could well be enough.

Giving both heroes gold and XP would be one way, a different, maybe more natural way would be to simply not give any gold and XP for hero kills at all.

As long as we are talking about a CfG-type map, I could also imagine that, rather than contributing points to a nation's level - which can hardly be ever caught up again by a losing team - towns could generate lumber that would be distributed amongst all players. This lumber could then be used to buy creeps to be sent in a singular wave or to fortify defences of towns, in a way similar to DoE - providing the team with a temporary strategic advantage, but nothing permanent (as the creeps sent in the attack could still be defeated and would not respawn). That should snowball a lot less.


So for no reason, I've been racking up loses instead of wins. WHAT. THAT. HELL. :smallfurious:...huh. That's... weird.
Might try addressing Blizzard about that. I'm sure they'd like to know about such bugs.

[Oslecamo]

Hmmm, interesting concept - rather than rewarding players for kills with gold and experience, making the reward of a purely strategic nature - the fact the hero is dead and needs some time to respawn and reach the front line, while the winning hero is there and can push the front further back/conquer towns could well be enough.


Exactly. Right now, in most AoS, you get fat rewards of exp and gold for killing enemy heros, that many times people start worrying about pushing or defending their bases, and worry only about geting the enemy heros walking pots of treasure and exp.

If all you get from killing an enemy hero is said hero geting out of your way for half a minute, then players will think twice before puting all their resources into killing other players, as it may be rewarding to kill the creeps and towers.

Of course, this would mean that killing creeps sudenly becomes much more important, so creep gold and exp should also be kept in check.

Most of the exp and gold should be gained from achieving hard strategic goals, like taking down towers and capturing pieces of terrain.

[Inhuman Bot]

...huh. That's... weird.
Might try addressing Blizzard about that. I'm sure they'd like to know about such bugs.

Part of my issue is that I didn't think of taking say, a screenshot, or saving the replays.

[Bunny of Faith]

http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/5483/seee.jpg

This. See? >.<

[Winterwind]

http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/5483/seee.jpg

This. See? >.<Aye, that was one powerful split. Didn't know it was possible for that to happen in this fashion. Something new every day, I guess. >.>



Also, to reiterate: I don't think I've ever had an AotZ game that was not pure agony. That map is horrid. Its concept is fine, its hero ideas are fine, but the execution is godawful due to its nonexistant balance. I seriously vote we don't touch that ever again (unless it gets updated), especially considering we have an infinitely better balanced and otherwise very similar map in DoE.

[Inhuman Bot]

Aye, that was one powerful split. Didn't know it was possible for that to happen in this fashion. Something new every day, I guess. >.>



Also, to reiterate: I don't think I've ever had an AotZ game that was not pure agony. That map is horrid. Its concept is fine, its hero ideas are fine, but the execution is godawful due to its nonexistant balance. I seriously vote we don't touch that ever again (unless it gets updated), especially considering we have an infinitely better balanced and otherwise very similar map in DoE.

"Unless" meaning is. RD was doing an overhaul on AotZ, I belive.

[Bunny of Faith]

Aye, that was one powerful split. Didn't know it was possible for that to happen in this fashion. Something new every day, I guess. >.>



Also, to reiterate: I don't think I've ever had an AotZ game that was not pure agony. That map is horrid. Its concept is fine, its hero ideas are fine, but the execution is godawful due to its nonexistant balance. I seriously vote we don't touch that ever again (unless it gets updated), especially considering we have an infinitely better balanced and otherwise very similar map in DoE.

The fun part about that kind of split? If it's not a hostbot hosting it, everything that's custom will show up as pink and black boxes and I'll get a disconnect a few seconds in. If it's a hostbot, normally you can tell because nobody will be moving around, and such. Seemingly with maps like AotZ, it's difficult to notice as it gives heroes AI. >.<

[Winterwind]

"Unless" meaning is. RD was doing an overhaul on AotZ, I belive.Well, let's hope he listens to what people tell him, then. The guy's lack of a sense for balance is practically an artform. :smallwink:


The fun part about that kind of split? If it's not a hostbot hosting it, everything that's custom will show up as pink and black boxes and I'll get a disconnect a few seconds in. If it's a hostbot, normally you can tell because nobody will be moving around, and such. Seemingly with maps like AotZ, it's difficult to notice as it gives heroes AI. >.<Heh, aye, that is amusing. :smallbiggrin:

EDIT: Oh yeah, right, and also, reminder, tomorrow is our next melee session. Hope to see you there. :smallwink:

[nooblade]

Back from vacation! It was fun, of course, going someplace outdoorsy always is. I guess I'll show up tomorrow but I have more management tasks for the night.



I thought the items in CfG were pretty good actually. If you're focusing on making your hero awesome then it's redundant but the fun part is working out something neat with your allies. Eg. the Warrior could get the Spear to help the Rogue's DPS out rather than having the Rogue get a Spear. It's not too satisfying because there aren't many combinations like that (and where there are, they're skewed toward a handful of the hero picks), and because you don't have much time to chat, but it is another small layer of decision-making on top of choosing skills.

The worst part about items is the designer expecting and balancing for some kind of serious forethought in a game that ends up being played like Worm Wars.

Also, with the complete lack of micro for a player in a CfG game that's necessary for its quirky balance (wait... wait... two seconds to Entangling Roots... one and a half... one... one half... zero... hold it... wait... wait... oh, hey, a combo!), I find that balancing the gold out between offensive and defensive upgrades is sometimes more interesting than the current battle. What a game!

[Winterwind]

Welcome back, Nooblade! :smallsmile:

Yeah, I agree; in CfG, while the items one gets are for the most part pre-determined, the order in which one does so and in which one upgrades them later is not.

[nooblade]

This should be good. A Warcraft movie! (http://www.blizzard.com/us/press/090721.html)

Faith says that the movie itself was announced some months or years ago or something? But I just heard about it and the new director news makes it count as news. I'm inclined to think that it would be worth seeing just because Sam Raimi is directing (one of my favorite guys to cheer for in the movie business), let alone because it's being Blizzard-sponsored.

Now what kind of twist can they spin on it to make it interesting for people unfamiliar with the games and people who played them all alike?

[Winterwind]

Hmm... I knew of the plans for that movie, but didn't know they actually took steps to turn it into reality. Sweet. :smallsmile:

I think they actually wouldn't have to make any sort of twist. The campaigns of RoC and TFT should, rewritten into a more compact, story-like form, be a decent enough fantasy tale for people not familiar with the games, and most people familiar with the games would probably be all too glad to see the plot follow the original's plot closely.

[Bunny of Faith]

Two years ago, in fact. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSG2DiejFJ8&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fnews%2Ecnet%2Ecom%2F8301%2D17938 %5F105%2D10292811%2D1%2Ehtml&feature=player_embedded)

[Copper8642]

I think, next Friday, I'll be able to make it to the session. Maybe a bit late, but I'll make it. Finally!

[Winterwind]

Sounds good, Copper. :smallsmile:

So reminder! Tomorrow is our next custom map session - hope to see you all there. :smallwink:

[The Orange Zergling]

Funny little tidbit about the Warcraft movie; Uwe Boll made a grab for the director's seat but Blizzard turned him down in a truly epic fashion (http://warcraft.moviechronicles.com/2008-04/blizzard-laugh-away-uwe-boll/).

Good to know they're still sensible. :smallbiggrin:

[Oslecamo]

It's nice to see that Blizzard is still being run by people with brains:smallbiggrin:

[Winterwind]

"Especially not to you." :smallbiggrin:

Aww, man, I love Blizzard. :smallbiggrin:

[Marek]

For those who dislike Obsidian Depths (a game made by Clan VZ, of which I am a part), a major turn off is the seeming impossibility of completing the assigned tasks, let alone finishing them in a timely enough fashion to get a "Masters" bonus.

Here is a replay that shows it is not only possible, but truly epic indeed: HERE (http://forum.valor-zeal.org/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=1875)

I wasn't in this particular one, but I do have one where a group of 5 people (of which I was the Berserker) got all the way to Cyndarr, the (currently) last boss. Only 3/5 masters, but it was still lots of fun :D

[Winterwind]

And reminder: Tomorrow is our next melee session. Hope to see you there.

Bane, warm up your self-made map already. :smalltongue:
...or better not, we don't want it to thaw. :smallcool:

[The Orange Zergling]

Don't shout when I'm about to put the fusion core into the nuclear reactor; it's a crucial step! :smalltongue:

(I'm working on it right now; I'll fiddle around with the settings for teams-together but it's so vague that I can't be sure whether it works or not, the other things mentioned during the last test should have more definite changes.)

[TFT]

Well, I changed my name on GITP to The Fiery Tower, thought I'd let you guys know.

[Winterwind]

Don't shout when I'm about to put the fusion core into the nuclear reactor; it's a crucial step! :smalltongue:Please tell me we are not going to have a repetition of the Black Mesa incident... :smallfrown:


(I'm working on it right now; I'll fiddle around with the settings for teams-together but it's so vague that I can't be sure whether it works or not, the other things mentioned during the last test should have more definite changes.)Alright, let's give it a test soon to see if the teams-together option is working better now (and for all the other changes, too), then. :smallsmile:


Well, I changed my name on GITP to The Fiery Tower, thought I'd let you guys know.Thanks; that spares me going through the Name Change Request threads in search of some hint what your new name might be. :smallbiggrin:

[The Orange Zergling]

Please tell me we are not going to have a repetition of the Black Mesa incident... :smallfrown:

Prepare for... unforeseen consequences. :smalltongue:


Alright, let's give it a test soon to see if the teams-together option is working better now (and for all the other changes, too), then. :smallsmile:

I fiddled around with it and after a couple tests with bots it does seem to be working now, thankfully. :smallcool:

[Bunny of Faith]

Blizzard's new patch broke custom games. :smallannoyed:

[Winterwind]

Hmmm... yeah, according to the changelog, I imagine it might have done that for some maps.
Though if it fixed any World Editor bugs, all the better. Now, if only they could fix memory leaks, too... :smalltongue:
I only wished I understood what half the stuff mentioned in the changelog actually does... :smallconfused:

[Bunny of Faith]

Hmmm... yeah, according to the changelog, I imagine it might have done that for some maps.


Understandment on 'some'. Can't find any maps working at the moment, and they broke the current DotA, causing people to downgrade to an older version. :smallsigh:

[nooblade]

Seems like the things I've been doing with SCA are working fine. :smallbiggrin:

I used some jass when it really saved me time (and carpal tunnel, the GUI is too much clicking :smallmad:), but I guess not the particular parts that Blizzard thought were bugs.


There are still a number of things to do for Spellcast: Arena. Ran into some unforeseen difficulties in the gesture system and went with a rework for it, but I really like the new version so I think it was worth it.


I wouldn't bet on having the first difficulty ready by Friday. But when it is ready, I will host the most glorious fistfight that any game about spellcasting has ever seen. Yes, Untrained difficulty will feature three "spells": "Punch", "Rune of Power", and "Surrender". Punch is obvious but the other two "spells" are interesting.

Rune of Power buffs your next ability, or your next two abilities if both hands are completing a gesture sequence. Punches made with level 7 Rune of Power do something like double or triple damage. The damage is less than the same number of gestures put into punches, but this one is great for hit and run.

Surrender is actually useful because it distributes your points evenly to other players instead of giving them all to the one who killed you. Also I think that in the mode I have planned where you respawn instead of being knocked out of the match, using Surrender will get you back in the fight faster than if you had lost all health.

A big spell list, sorted by difficulty, not entirely based on DnD, subject to changes:
Untrained: Punch, Rune of Power, Surrender
Initiate: Magic Missile, Shield, Cure Wounds
Nature: Entangle, Lightning Bolt, Gust of Wind
Evocation: Fireball, Ray of Frost, Antimagic
Alteration: Haste, Slow, Paralysis
Illusion: Invisibility, Charm, Confusion
Abjuration I: Dispel, Flame Ward, Frost Ward
Conjuration I: Fire Storm, Blizzard, Wall
Abjuration II: Fear, Counterspell, Bounce
Conjuration II: Summon Elemental, Blink, Pestilence
Necromancy: Creeping Doom, Curse, Finger of Death
Mastery: Contingency, Permanence, Enchant


About the World Editor changes in the latest patch: They don't work! Trying to save an ability in a hashtable crashes the editor. I guess I'll have to wait until they fix that until I see what the things can do. :smallfrown:

Oh, and also, CfG works just fine with this patch. And lots of bored people join it too!

[The Orange Zergling]

On the subject of the patch breaking maps: Yeah, it sucks, but the main reason they made this patch in the first place was because it had recently been discovered that one could convert integers into bytecode which, to the best of my understanding, meant that someone knowledgeable enough could program viruses into the map itself that could seriously harm your computer. I think they released a temporary hotfix as soon as they became aware of it that meant you couldn't download any maps like that off of Battle.net but it was still possible to be affected by maps downloaded off of websites. This patch should be the permanent fix that secures all maps.

I think it's worth it, in the long run.

[Bunny of Faith]

Depends. If they leave it how it is now, think of all the custom maps that aren't updated anymore and are affected, that're never going to be playable again?

[The Orange Zergling]

As much as I disapprove of cracking protected maps, I suppose it would be justified to take a map that has obviously been abandoned and change it so that it would function again but change nothing else about it. But that assumes that there is somebody around who both cares enough and is knowledgeable enough about scripting because to the best of my knowledge the only things affected by this are advanced JASS scripts...

[nooblade]

Try wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JASS#Patch_1.24_and_return_bug. This one is good too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_table

I don't completely understand it myself. Hash tables will likely remain a mystery to me because the GUI for some of the storage functions causes the editor to crash. But I'm not too worried about the custom maps that may be lost; there are still plenty of fun maps I can play on Bnet when I'm interested.


People were talking about maps that were Wigitized or protected all being effected, but CfG has some form of protection and wasn't effected (not that CfG is the model of a map made by a professional). On a slightly unrelated note, I have read that unprotecting a map takes away all the GUI and leaves you with only JASS, sounds kinda fun. I don't disapprove cracking maps at all. :smallyuk:

[The Orange Zergling]

I'm not sure that's true in all cases - some people use third party editors or optimizers that can interfere with triggerwork which act as rudimentary protectors (or a second line of defense).

Orc Gladiators, for example, is not protected but using the default editor when opening it there do not appear to be any triggers.

Vexorian's Optimizer, though I have never personally used it, supposedly converts everything to JASS and makes it all so jumbled that it's virtually unreadable in addition to protecting the map.

Though I don't endorse protecting maps in the first place either (it prevents so much learning and spreading of knowledge) it's ultimately the mapper's choice and in every single other case I would most definitely oppose the cracking of protected maps.

[u-gotNOgame]

I think it's worth it, in the long run.

But its not fixed? (http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=19045816288&sid=3000&pageNo=2). Even if that first post is not true it killed a lot of custom games, some for a long time, others permanently. The reality is that most of the long dead, broken, games won't get updated reguardless of other players stance on the morality of cracking protected maps. I think that this friday will be a sad, sad, day.

-UGNG

[The Orange Zergling]

But its not fixed? (http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=19045816288&sid=3000&pageNo=2). Even if that first post is not true it killed a lot of custom games, some for a long time, others permanently. The reality is that most of the long dead, broken, games won't get updated reguardless of other players stance on the morality of cracking protected maps. I think that this friday will be a sad, sad, day.

-UGNG

I haven't heard anywhere else that it's not been fixed, and the Battle.net forums are infamous for trolls...

But my god, I just went through my map list, assuming this was just a problem found in maps with hyper-advanced scripting like Rising_Dusk's maps or something... and... wow. This is way way way way way way way more widespread than I expected; I think maybe 30-40% of the maps in my (295mb, 345 maps) folder survived and most of those are crappy ones we never play.

I'm... utterly speechless. :smallfrown:

[Bunny of Faith]

2GB's, 3371 maps. Used to have more, but the majority were on and old computer I never got a backup of, so this'll have to do. Checking how many I have left that work...

:smallredface: Too many to count. But it normally black-screens and takes about a minute to load, so I'll take it loading in ten seconds or so as a bad sign. :smallmad:

[Winterwind]

Keep in mind though, Bane, that we all suffered from this weird bug where some maps would not show up at all (at least while being in sub-folders, apparently), while still being quite playable. Some maps might be simply affected by that, rather than the patch.

Though it sure does not sound well, especially if Faith's map loading times being reduced to one sixth of their former self is any indication. :smalleek:

I just hope they fix RvS and CF quickly, if they have been affected... :smallfrown:

[Bunny of Faith]

RvS works. Or, an older version does. A version of it works, at least, as I've played it recently. Not a clue on CF, but presumably if it doesn't work one of the older versions will.

[Winterwind]

Well, in that case, it's not as bad as it could be. :smallwink:


Oh yeah, also, reminder: Tomorrow is our next custom map session. Hope to see you all there. :smallsmile:

[Bunny of Faith]

Well, in that case, it's not as bad as it could be. :smallwink:


Oh yeah, also, reminder: Tomorrow is our next custom map session. Hope to see you all there. :smallsmile:

Yeah. The majority of maps should at least have some previous version that works. It's just how much is changed between versions that then becomes an issue. :smallfrown:

[Marek]

Dusk has released updated versions of OD, DoE, and AotZ that should work with the current patch.

[The Orange Zergling]

Keep in mind though, Bane, that we all suffered from this weird bug where some maps would not show up at all (at least while being in sub-folders, apparently), while still being quite playable. Some maps might be simply affected by that, rather than the patch.

Though it sure does not sound well, especially if Faith's map loading times being reduced to one sixth of their former self is any indication. :smalleek:

I just hope they fix RvS and CF quickly, if they have been affected... :smallfrown:

I wasn't using whether the map itself showed up in the list or not as a gauge; for me, at least, when I clicked on a non-functional map in the list the teams/players list would not appear or would not update whereas when I clicked on a map that worked it did.

The latest RvS that works for me is 1.0.33 which is the second to most recent one that we've been playing, so it's not THAT bad, though it's missing some things like innate abilities on Support heroes. None of the versions of Castle Fight that I have, at least, seem to work. :smallfrown:

For those curious; ICD is affected by this but I have pinpointed precisely what is causing the problem so it should be playable again in 1.20.

[Winterwind]

Dusk has released updated versions of OD, DoE, and AotZ that should work with the current patch.Mmm, okay, at least we got those, then. :smallsmile:


The latest RvS that works for me is 1.0.33 which is the second to most recent one that we've been playing, so it's not THAT bad, though it's missing some things like innate abilities on Support heroes. None of the versions of Castle Fight that I have, at least, seem to work. :smallfrown:Yay for RvS... too bad about CF, but at lease Gex is active, so it should be fixed soon, if it isn't already.


For those curious; ICD is affected by this but I have pinpointed precisely what is causing the problem so it should be playable again in 1.20.Ouch, poor ICD... :smallfrown:





Just to see how wide-spread the problem is, I checked all the TDs we tend to play.

Corrupted TD, WH40k TD and Islands TD are still working.
Flux TD, Power TD and Eeve TD are down. So is Element TD except for one really old version I still had (3.0).

And most hilariously... Skibi's Castle TD does not work either.
That's right. Blizzard shot down its own map with this patch. :smallbiggrin:

[Bunny of Faith]

According to Dusk(The previously mentioned one), Gridlock TD doesn't work anymore either. Though I'm not sure if that's been tested or not.

[The Orange Zergling]

Ouch, poor ICD... :smallfrown:

It's just one trigger for one spell on a hero that nobody ever picked (Cleric); it's not that bothersome. :smallwink:


Just to see how wide-spread the problem is, I checked all the TDs we tend to play.

Corrupted TD, WH40k TD and Islands TD are still working.
Flux TD, Power TD and Eeve TD are down. So is Element TD except for one really old version I still had (3.0).

And most hilariously... Skibi's Castle TD does not work either.
That's right. Blizzard shot down its own map with this patch. :smallbiggrin:

While sad that it doesn't work... that's hilarious. :smallbiggrin:


According to Dusk(The previously mentioned one), Gridlock TD doesn't work anymore either. Though I'm not sure if that's been tested or not.

It doesn't appear to work, sadly. :smallfrown:

[Winterwind]

It's just one trigger for one spell on a hero that nobody ever picked (Cleric); it's not that bothersome. :smallwink:Lego did. :smallfrown:


While sad that it doesn't work... that's hilarious. :smallbiggrin:It sure is. :smallbiggrin:

[The Orange Zergling]

Lego did. :smallfrown:

I didn't mean that literally; rather that I think the Cleric is the hero that gets the least amount of picks with the possible exception of the Shaman. Meaning that not very many people will mourn the replacement of a skill. :smallwink:

[nooblade]

What was wrong with the Cleric's trigger though? Did it involve a return statement?

[The Orange Zergling]

I have no idea, I commissioned the script from somebody else. But since it was what broke the map I would imagine that yes, it does.

[nooblade]

Alright-y then.

I found out about something that was bothering me about JASS today: Pointer variables are actually called "Locations" when writing custom scripts. THAT'S why none of my local pointers would work. :smallmad:
(I was using global pointers instead).

Typing out "local location" feels funny. :smallsigh:


I'll be there on Friday. SCA will likely have enough stuff in it to play a silly round of Untrained difficulty, before people get bored of the ridiculous ease of picking up those three spells. Well, anyone who's curious will see it. I may just have something new every Friday from now to a while, but I don't think it will be exciting until I put in the fun spells in Nature at least, and then I think I will genuinely start to have fun (like with a game of the old Spellcast) in Illusion.

According to some things I read, there are quite a few leaky variables that I need to fix, and general commenting and things on the JASS (global variables for points need to be nulled too :smalleek:). But other than that, I think it looks very nice so far. Hope to see you all there!

[Winterwind]

Sounds promising. Looking forward to it. :smallsmile:

[Swok]

Joy. Something is wrong with my wc3 for patching. Fortunately I think I just need to fix the registry for it. Unfortunately I only have the foggiest of notions of how to go about doing that.

Also, yay for the turning 21.

[Winterwind]

Also, yay for the turning 21.Woot! Happy birthday, Swok! :smallbiggrin:

[nooblade]

I bet there's a guide for doing that somewhere Swok. Windows programming-type things all sound nasty to me though. :smalleek:

Also, happy Birthday. Swok is now the same age as me. :smalleek: But I still feel like I'm 15 or so.


Finally I found out what that bug was in SCA's multiboard. I was messing with too many variables in my search for leaks. A stray set and null for my avatar unit array caused me those problems. Oh, and I found out that one of the requirements that's meant for players to see was messed up. :smallredface: Maybe it would've given an indication that both hand gestures are to be made at once.

But overall, things are really starting to come together. :smallbiggrin:

[742]

will be very late, to the point of your-all-gone on sunday.

[Copper8642]

Aaaannndddddddd I didn't make it Friday, family went out to dinner. And I'll be missing next Friday due to work.

Maybe I'll just start playing Warcraft during the week as opposed to waiting for the mass gatherings that I won't make it to. Someone is always on.

[Winterwind]

Also, happy Birthday. Swok is now the same age as me. :smalleek: But I still feel like I'm 15 or so.I'm starting to think feeling like 15 is normal. I'm another five years older, and I'm feeling just the same. :smallwink:


Finally I found out what that bug was in SCA's multiboard. I was messing with too many variables in my search for leaks. A stray set and null for my avatar unit array caused me those problems. Oh, and I found out that one of the requirements that's meant for players to see was messed up. :smallredface: Maybe it would've given an indication that both hand gestures are to be made at once.That part never was unclear though.


But overall, things are really starting to come together. :smallbiggrin:Alright! :smallsmile:


will be very late, to the point of your-all-gone on sunday.Awww... :smallfrown:


Aaaannndddddddd I didn't make it Friday, family went out to dinner. And I'll be missing next Friday due to work.

Maybe I'll just start playing Warcraft during the week as opposed to waiting for the mass gatherings that I won't make it to. Someone is always on.Quite true. That pretty much always works. :smallsmile:

Just watch out for Einherjar. He tends to... lack the courteous manners of Playgrounders.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and reminder, tomorrow is the next melee session. :smallbiggrin:

[The Orange Zergling]

Finally I found out what that bug was in SCA's multiboard. I was messing with too many variables in my search for leaks. A stray set and null for my avatar unit array caused me those problems. Oh, and I found out that one of the requirements that's meant for players to see was messed up. :smallredface: Maybe it would've given an indication that both hand gestures are to be made at once.

But overall, things are really starting to come together. :smallbiggrin:

Alright. :smallsmile: In its current state there really isn't enough to critique or give (constructive) criticism on, so I look forward to when it is more complete.

---

Happy birthday Swok! Don't get TOO drunk and/or hungover while playing with us, it might make balancing games too difficult. :smalltongue:

---

It appears that a friend is coming over to visit tomorrow so I will be absent for most of if not the entire session, my apologies.

[nooblade]

Well I have one huge disadvantage in developing SCA and that is that it's been on the back of my mind for a couple of years now. Material that is meant to be helpful will likely be confusing to new people. Most of my notes refer to something from older versions of Spellcast or some other game or concept that I'm sure someone will find obscure, like the notation for gestures. P-W-P-F-S-S-S-D, for example, is the original gesture sequence for casting Finger of Death. :smallamused:


One thing you guys didn't really notice (I guess) that I had hoped would lead to more productive discussion was that it is possible to leave one hand continually making the Rune of Power spell and the other hand making Punches. This could be exploited in Untrained difficulty to let the player do up to 12 damage per round. It's also possible to do 24 damage in a burst, but it's more of a one-shot thing.

I had figured that doing so had a huge disadvantage in making your movements predictable (it is certainly possible to make yourself a good "dive-bomber" by constantly clicking on an enemy and being ready to cast punch), but talking about the gestures in the spellbooks led me to not leading anyone far enough in that direction.

Another thing on my mind was whether Untrained difficulty should be kept at all. All the lower categories are going to be a somewhat dull game without the flashy incapacitating spells or the slow-moving instant kills, but Untrained might just give the player a bad first impression without showing any skills that could be useful in higher difficulties. The minion avatars have faster movement speed and halved health as a sort of merciful shortening, but it could be just frustrating. Maybe asking later once those difficulties are in would be better anyway.

[The Orange Zergling]

I have finished the new version of ICD (http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/maps-564/imperial-castle-defense-v1-20-a-81686/) just now - and just for fun I decided to write up the changelog in a fancy, professional way, if only because I've always wanted to do that. :smallwink:

And just so you know that it isn't a bug, there will always be a (very short) lag spike at the very beginning, before anybody even picks their hero, this is to prevent a spell from lagging the game in the heat of battle the very first time it is cast.


-ICD is now compatible with the 1.24 WarCraft III patch.

-The Cleric's Healing Ray spell has been reworked slightly.
-The Barbarian's Envigorating Cry spell now scales with Strength.
-The Necromancer's Corpse Explosion spell now scales with Intelligence.
-Minor changes such as cooldown tweaking made to several other spells.

-Gatekeepers are more powerful, spawn more often and now come in 4 varieties, one of which is randomly selected each time they spawn:
--Stone Gatekeepers are very durable and have War Stomp.
--Fiery Gatekeepers are heavy damage dealers and have Permanent Immolation and conjure runes around themselves that explode after a few seconds.
--Shadowy Gatekeepers are heavy debuffers and reduce the armor of those they attack and can temporarily disable the inventories of nearby heroes.
--Chaos Gatekeepers are very volatile and deal area-of-effect damage to nearby units that attack them (except the attacker itself) and can temporarily enter a brief rage that gives them god-like strength for all of 8 seconds.
-The Demonic Entity now has Cleaving Attack instead of Pulverize and the damage and area-of-effect it deals has been scaled down.

-All heroes now have hero glows.
-Tooltips have been streamlined with different colors for attribute-based variables such as damage and healing.

-Raised the cost of the Annihilator Tank mercenary.
-Architects can now repair structures for free and far more quickly.

-Fixed a bug that granted infinite mana potions in a stack
-Fixed a bug involving the Rogue Bracers of the Fox setting your mana to 14 instead of adding 14.
-The Mage no longer has a slight delay between casting a spell and when the spell takes affect. This also fixes how the Electrical Nova spell would sometimes not deal damage to moving units.

[Winterwind]

Oooh, awesome. Looking forward to testing it. :smallsmile:

[nooblade]

Ack. pubbies don't join CfG games anymore. :smallfrown:

[Winterwind]

Have you bashed them so badly they are scared now, Nooblade? :smalltongue:


Also, reminder: Tomorrow is our next custom map session. Hope to see you there. :smallsmile:

[The Orange Zergling]

I'll have to leave a few hours early on Friday because I'm going to go see District 9. I'm not precisely sure when it is or if we're eating dinner beforehand so I can't say exactly when I'll be going but I can guarantee I will show up for at least a little while.

[nooblade]

Have you bashed them so badly they are scared now, Nooblade? :smalltongue

Well, let's go for a more serious hypothesis, eh?

Looking at /users, it seems like a lot of people have left war3 due to the 1.24 patch. I guess the people who left weren't the DotA players but rather the people who got on to play whatever random map they find (CfG is such a map I think).

But I can't tell the difference between the consistencies of games available now compared to before. Also, anyone care to make a list of things we played before that haven't been fixed?

[Winterwind]

Well, let's go for a more serious hypothesis, eh?

Looking at /users, it seems like a lot of people have left war3 due to the 1.24 patch. I guess the people who left weren't the DotA players but rather the people who got on to play whatever random map they find (CfG is such a map I think).That would seem rather strange though, as people not bound to a single map should be afflicted the least by this patch... :smallconfused:


Also, reminder: Tomorrow is the melee session. I hope to see you there. :smallsmile:

[nooblade]

Well there was a brief period where virtually nothing was being hosted, that was the time I got an epic amount of CfG every time I logged in. Or I don't know, maybe they were more tied to a particular map than I thought. Is there a particular map I'm missing that was hosted frequently before but hasn't come available or has been fixed only recently?

[Winterwind]

I haven't got the slightest clue. DotA has long been fixed by now, I guess?

[Duos]

Well, Island Defense was rendered unplayable in the patch, although the new version (3.0.4) fixed it. Dunno about anyone else, though. Maybe just getting ready for Diablo and Starcraft to come out.

[The Orange Zergling]

Due to my parents not telling me until like an hour ago that they have arrangements for today (:smallsigh:) I will likely be gone today to go to a festival. I *might* show up for a bit either at the beginning or the end and there's the possibility it will get rained on and we won't go at all but don't count on it.

[Winterwind]

Sorry I couldn't come yesterday; RL friends held me up. :smallwink:

[Bunny of Faith]

In recent news, I got a namechange! :smalltongue:

[Winterwind]

Awww, we has bunny! :smalltongue: :smallbiggrin:


Also, custom map session. Tomorrow. Reminder. :smallcool:

[Bunny of Faith]

Awww, we has bunny! :smalltongue: :smallbiggrin:


Also, custom map session. Tomorrow. Reminder. :smallcool:

Sadly, my previous alternative was taken! And I assumed as this is the only thread I post in for the most part, you might as well all recognise me. :smallwink:

[Nohwl]

i can pretend to not recognize you if you want.

[742]

so im finally on before midnight, and nobody is home. where is everybody?

[The Orange Zergling]

Alright, well, tomorrow is Sunday and thus the melee session; I hope to see you there. Let's see if we can have attendance higher than Friday, hmm? :smalltongue:

[Winterwind]

Well, I will be there, anyway (sorry for not having been able to send out the reminders yesterday, and thanks, Baneling, for posting it :smallsmile:). :smallcool:

[Winterwind]

It's quiet in here... too quiet. :smalleek:

*ahem*

I mean, reminder: Tomorrow is our next custom map session. See you there. :smallcool:

[Nohwl]

ill be a few hours late to the customs sessions for the next few months.

[nooblade]

Wow, quiet thread. Must be because school is starting for many of us... I know I'm busier than I'd like to be.

SCA development is frozen until I can take care of some final bits of make up work that were on hold because the prof. was away this Summer.

[Legoshrimp]

Nooblade it is always this quiet. School starting has nothing to do with it.

I will not be able to attend the next custom session, DnD session, or Melee session. So hope you all have fun, and I should be there next week.

[Winterwind]

Yeah, unless we happen to be discussing some recent patch-related screw up by Blizzard, some map causing controversy for some reason, or melee strategies, the thread tends to be rather quiet most of the time.

Anyhow, reminder! Tomorrow's our next custom map session! Hope to see you there! :smallsmile:

EDIT: Oh great, seems like I have deleted the PM in which I store the lists of people whom I'm not supposed to send reminders to by accident. >_<
Oh well, I think I know it by memory...

[Folytopo]

What would be some good strategies for new players, so they can contribute to a team?

[SirSigfried]

1. Coordinate your unit building with your allies eg. If your ally is getting ranged then get melee or vice-versa.

2. Have a clear line of research between early tech levels to late tech levels. You will never have enough gold to buy a little of everything. For example if you are playing human and build footmen early you could branch out to two other paths more easily than other paths. Either Knights or Gryphons. (as both share an attack upgrade [swords at the smithy])

3. If you notice a unit type that you and your allies don't have fill the gap with appropriate units yourself (speaking as a random team veteran retarded allies are the number 1 cause of losses and mostly because there is a gap in ones armies) eg. No Anti-air units

4. Don't be afraid to cede a unit role to another player if his race is better at an assigned role (eg. orcs for melee, ud/ne for ranged)

5. Learn the strengths and weaknesses of all the races armies. eg. Orcs are very vulnerable to armies with heavy caster support. (they have no anti-casters of their own)

6. Never fight alone. Team games tend to snowball much more radically than others if one fights alone. You will be outnumbered either 2 to 1 or greater depending on the type of team game you are playing. (2v2, 3v3, 4v4)

____

This should get you started if I have missed anything, then the others here can help fill in the gaps in my advice.

Meanwhile I'm going to bed.

[Myrmex]

1. Coordinate your unit building with your allies eg. If your ally is getting ranged then get melee or vice-versa.

While co-ordination is always good, in matches larger than 2v2, large masses of units will tend to dominate smaller masses of units, regardless of composition. I say tend here, as in 60% of the time. When in doubt, get ranged units. They won't clump up and get stuck, and 20 ranged units can all attack in a confined area, but 20 melee cannot.


2. Have a clear line of research between early tech levels to late tech levels. You will never have enough gold to buy a little of everything. For example if you are playing human and build footmen early you could branch out to two other paths more easily than other paths. Either Knights or Gryphons. (as both share an attack upgrade [swords at the smithy])

Awful advice. The biggest noob mistake is fixating on one build path and not changing your strategy. Only research tech when you are close to the next upkeep bracket, or when you have gp and nothing else to spend it on. If they are getting csters, you best get some mortar teams and priests! Continuing to pump knights is asking for a world of pain.


3. If you notice a unit type that you and your allies don't have fill the gap with appropriate units yourself (speaking as a random team veteran retarded allies are the number 1 cause of losses and mostly because there is a gap in ones armies) eg. No Anti-air units

Yup, agreed. This conflicts with 2., though.


4. Don't be afraid to cede a unit role to another player if his race is better at an assigned role (eg. orcs for melee, ud/ne for ranged)

While it tends to be good to play towards each races strengths, if you go slightly oddball paths, you can really throw off the competition. If I see an orc heavy team, I will expect melee, casters, and wyverns, so will organize to counter that. If they roll up with raiders, catapults, and headhunters, our team will lose a base or two, and we're suddenly on either a) the defensive or b) a race to raze each other's bases.


5. Learn the strengths and weaknesses of all the races armies. eg. Orcs are very vulnerable to armies with heavy caster support. (they have no anti-casters of their own)

Very good advice. Be aware of what enemy heros & units can counter your stuff. A mountain king means your starfall won't last long (mountain bolt), but orcs have relatively few ways to break channeling (tauren chieftan & stun ward). Also know what units will kill your heros, like dryads (slow poison), shamans (purge) or necromancers (cripple).


6. Never fight alone. Team games tend to snowball much more radically than others if one fights alone. You will be outnumbered either 2 to 1 or greater depending on the type of team game you are playing. (2v2, 3v3, 4v4)

You can almost always win a game if you stick together. A team that plays well together will do better than one that doesn't. You can have tier one units that are a terrible match up to the enemies', but win if you stay together and they don't.

Pay attention to who has the most levels on your team, or plays the best. If they tell you to do something, do it. It takes awhile before you can tell when you can win a battle and when you will lose. Sometimes, staying and fighting, but losing your hero is worth it, and sometimes, it's not. If you're losing your hero and your allies are running, run!


I will add some advice:
Your hero is the most valuable piece of your army. Do not lose him, and do not feed enemy heroes. High level heroes will spell your end, just as high level heroes will win the game for you.

Creep aggressively. Items & xp help a lot. Also, use items! Don't fill your inventory with junk you won't use. And don't let loot sit there, either. If none of your team will use it, sell it or destroy it.

Learn the hotkeys. They will save your life.

Have good base lay out. Spawn a hero that's trapped? Yuck. Teleport home and get half your army stuck? Cluster things around your main, so it can't be wiped out quickly with tanks or raiders. Put ancients close together so they will kill stuff that's in your base. Strategically place moon wells such that they will heal your army and block your foes. Moon wells are durable and a low priority for an AI attacker (the attack mode units are in when you attack move). I like to put a few moon wells tucked away in my base so I can run my hero back to them and heal.

Double clicking the town portal icon will teleport your hero to your highest level town hall. A good way to get out quick.

Don't stay and fight, and lose all your units. This isn't starcraft. Every unit you lose makes his army stronger, by feeding an enemy hero.

Don't just attack move and sit back. Casters that are told to attack move won't cast, and your units will start shooting at the first enemy they see. Instead, have your ranged units target one thing, and all shoot at it once, while melee intercepts. Focusing everything on an enemy hero can be good if the hero gets trapped, otherwise it runs circles around your units while they chase it and get killed by his. Run units that are getting hit back.

Use control groups.

[Winterwind]

What would be some good strategies for new players, so they can contribute to a team?Well, SirSigfried and Myrmex have already given plenty good general advice; we could give more specific advice if you told us what race you play (if you do not play any particular one, I would strongly recommend you pick the one you have the most fun playing and stick to it for now; it will be much quicker and easier to learn the basics of the game on one race than on all four of them at once).

Other than that, a couple more general advice from me (being more of a solo player, the advice is more based on my experience from that, but should be applicable to team games as well, as long as you keep in mind you are generally not supposed to walk around alone):


Learn some build-orders. Either read them up on the Internet or watch some replays of good players and observe in what order and when they get what. There are efficient ways of getting what one wants and less efficient ones; no point reinventing the wheel.
Speaking of which, that part about watching good players is a good idea anyhow, just to see how the game looks like on a high level - how aggressive one is supposed to be, what good micro looks like, etc.
Learn which attack types are good against which armour types and which units have what - that will make you understand why getting some particular unit is good against some particular other one.
Never sit around in your base for long, stay on the move. When you are not fighting your opponent, creep. Your army is a big investment; every moment you are not using it is a moment this investment is not working for you, meaning you are falling behind.
Make sure you spend everything your workers earn. If you don't, you need to tech more, upgrade more, get more units - if need be, more unit production buildings - but don't sit on your gold. If you have 2000 unspent gold, just consider how many units this could make, and how much these units could change the tide of battle!
Related with the previous point, don't use control groups only for your units, use them for buildings, too (my personal control groups are:
1 - heroes and melee,
2 - heroes and ranged,
3 - air or casters, usually only with heroes using healing spells
4 - air or casters or siege, always without heroes
5 - first type of unit production buildings,
6 - second type of unit production buildings,
7 - third type of unit production buildings (rarely used, but just in case),
8 - altar
9 - upgrade building
10 - mainbut use whatever works for you.
Get a feeling for when opponents typically tend to get expansions, and visit the most probably expansion spots at those times (in team games, together with your teammates, of course). If you can interrupt an expansion, you throw a major wrench in your opponents' plans.
Learn all the little details about the interface and use them. Such things like "double-clicking a unit selects all units of its type" or "Tab changes the currently high-lighted unit in your selection, allowing you to quickly switch between the units of which you want to use the abilities" or "F1 is a permanent hotkey for your first hero, F2 for your second hero, etc." are very useful and important to know.
If at any one point one player has a particular need for some resource, give it to him, and call for a resource yourself should you be lacking it (not sure how good an advice this is in Random Teams though, I imagine it might not work out too well due to the abundance of idiots there - I can tell only from what I hear from others, never played Random Team myself).
You can also use the TP scroll to teleport your army to any allied town hall. If you manually click on the ground somewhere in the vicinity of the town hall, you will be teleported to exactly this spot. It is tremendously important you target the spot you teleport to right - if you are immobilized somewhere where you cannot attack properly or where you will be attacked while not being able to maneuver, the outcome of the battle might be the opposite of what it usually would have been.
An army that would utterly crush the other can be utterly obliterated instead if the formations are wrong. If your melee happens to be up front and your ranged units behind, while the attack comes from behind, you will suffer tremendous losses. This is in particular true in team games, where you usually have only one of these functions - if your ally has all melee units, and you are attacked from behind by melee units while having only ranged units yourself, you will die a painful death if you stay there, and the armies will be too big and your ally may not notice quick enough to reform in time. In such situations, it might be best to run or TP out.
Generally, whenever you run or TP out, tell your allies you are doing so, so they know they should do the same, lest they face three players while being only two, or so.


That's more or less all I can think of right now.

[Myrmex]

On the topic of hot keys: If you have a group of units selected, say two heros, some troll witch doctors, and grunts, you can push tab to cycle forward through your units while still maintaining control over all of them, and tilde to cycle back.

For instance, say you are feinting, and need to run your army back to some cunningly laid stun wards. You can be right clicking and have your army fall back while you hit 'w' to have your blade master windwalk, push tab to tell your farseer to make some spirit wolves, hit tab to go to your witchdoctors and have them make a ward, then hit tilde to go back to your farseer and throw out some chain lightning. There's a way to send orders to only a specific subgroup, but I forgot how to do that.

If you hold down the control key, you will see units' life bars hover above them. Use this to keep track of weak units so you can target them.

Pressing the backspace key will cycle you through your town halls. A useful way to quickly zoom to an expansion or your main base. Space bar will take you to the last "ping" from your units- whether someone was attacked or a unit just popped out.

In multiplayer games larger than 2v2, ranged heroes tend to be better than melee ones, since melee ones are more likely to be targeted and trapped in a 3v3 battle (especially since you're a noob and micro is still hard). That said, the blademaster is great since he can move through units with windwalk, the paladin can put up divine shield, the mountainking is small and looks like a footman, and tauren chieftan has a lot of HP. When I play night elf, my first hero is always keeper, because he is incredible for creeping.

On the topic of creeping: Two races can expand very quickly early game- night elf and human. As night elf, build a moon well, ancient of war, and an altar, followed by a shop when you can afford it. Get a keeper of the grove with treants. You can creep orange patches by the first night fall if you are careful. Here's how you do it: pump archers, buy a lesser potion of clarity (out of combat mana regen potion) cast treant near your base, heal at a moon well, grab a lesser potion of clarity, and run towards an orange patch. As soon as treants are off cooldown, cast them. With your four treants, send the ones with the shorter duration in first. Focus fire with your archers and keeper at a single enemy. Keep casting treants as it comes off cool down and drink the potion if you need to. The map Ogre Mound is perfect for this strategy.

Humans can also be really good at creeping, as water elementals make great tanks. Early game, pump a ton peasants. You want like ten on lumber and 5 on gold. This has two advantages- peasants can defend against early rushes, and you will get a lot of lumber that you can give to another teammate if they need it. After your hero comes out, preferably archmage, though you can do it with other heroes (beastmaster with a grizzly, pally with heal, etc), grab your 10 or 12 lumber peasants and have them call to arms. They move much faster than your hero/footmen, so send the hero with summoned water elemental & footmen towards the patch, as the militia will catch up. You can have up to 3 water elementals out at a time, if you have the mana and cast the spell as soon as the duration is up, so you should have two water elementals by the time you get to the gold mine. Send the water elementals in first, followed by militia. Run any peasants that take damage out, so you don't lose anyone. Then send 5 peasants back home, and have the five there build you a town hall.

Creep AI isn't great. If you build too close, they will smash your buildings, so I don't recommend tower rushing them. If creeps are sleeping, they will target the first unit to do them damage. You can take advantage of this with a summoned unit (nothing lost if it dies), or a hero, who has better health regen & armor than most troops.

Random tip:
Tauren chieftains are ridiculously tanky. I like getting them as my 2nd hero as orc if I am playing against people who like to hero target, or if they're just bad. I like to give the tauren a couple shop bought items plus whatever I found on monsters that boost strength (like gloves of str +3 & that circlet with +2 all stats).

By the time a second hero pops out, your other heroes are likely between levels 3 and 6, so seeing a level 1 tauren wandering around looks like a great target. However, he has a ton of life, and you can easily run him back. Just keep him away from the action, throwing out stuns or shockwaves, and up that aura. They'll throw all sorts of spells at him, but as long as you keep him alive (healing pot, chain heal, run him back), he's surprisingly durable, and you likely won't lose him. It's much easier to keep a hero alive than kill one, so you will win the micro advantage when it comes to units. They will put lots of resources into killing a level 1 hero (spell cooldowns, mana, attention), neglecting their tier 2 or 3 troops. This strategy doesn't always work, but it's awfully fun when it does.

[Winterwind]

Seems like I really need to find a better time to post/send out the reminders about the melee session. Between roleplaying and StarCraft session definitely doesn't work out, I perpetually keep forgetting it. :smallsigh:

Oh well. Melee session in a little more than two hours. :smallwink:

[Folytopo]

Thanks for the tips guys. I was thinking of playing as undead or orcs, which one gentler learning curve?

[Inhuman Bot]

Personally, I find UD to be easier.

With some advice from Winter, I got the hang of the undead after a few games, but it took me awhile to "master" orcs.

Undead are the only race without a way to get mana and HP back at tier 1, however, aside from time.

[Legoshrimp]

I just got back! I might upload some photos soon. When/if I do I will put a link to them here!

[Myrmex]

Thanks for the tips guys. I was thinking of playing as undead or orcs, which one gentler learning curve?

Undead is pretty easy- mass fiends, get statues.

[The Orange Zergling]

Against the trend I actually think Orcs are easier since their style is play is more orthadox (normal resource gathering and no blight mechanic, among other things) and they have easily some of if not the best items at T1 (non-combat healing items and scrolls of speed). Plus their melee units are some of the toughest in the game - your very first Grunts start out with 700 hp and can be upgraded so that they have 800 at T2.

Though if you want to get into things like Blademaster harassing then it takes a lot more practice. I, personally, am still not good at BM harassing but then I mostly play Night Elves and only Orc when I feel like mixing things up or balance demands it. Which also probably means this should be taken with a grain of salt. :smallwink:

[Myrmex]

Against the trend I actually think Orcs are easier since their style is play is more orthadox (normal resource gathering and no blight mechanic, among other things) and they have easily some of if not the best items at T1 (non-combat healing items and scrolls of speed). Plus their melee units are some of the toughest in the game - your very first Grunts start out with 700 hp and can be upgraded so that they have 800 at T2.

Though if you want to get into things like Blademaster harassing then it takes a lot more practice. I, personally, am still not good at BM harassing but then I mostly play Night Elves and only Orc when I feel like mixing things up or balance demands it. Which also probably means this should be taken with a grain of salt. :smallwink:

Orc units are expensive, and nubs tend to lose units to anything that does damage, especially those of the melee variety.

Though, if you're in a 3v3, you can just pump casters and go for tier three, and then move around behind your allies. Orc casters are easymode. Necros require a lot more finesse.

Personally, I think humans are the best. Their heroes are rigged, and virtually any strategy you want to use with them works. They have great casters, melee, anti-air, air, sige, and anti-caster, and their units are cheap. Also, good shop items.

[The Orange Zergling]

Orc units are expensive, and nubs tend to lose units to anything that does damage, especially those of the melee variety.

Learning to preserve units comes with time, though. And I would imagine that learning it while playing an expensive race would mean that you make it that much more of a priority and you get better at it that much faster.


Though, if you're in a 3v3, you can just pump casters and go for tier three, and then move around behind your allies. Orc casters are easymode. Necros require a lot more finesse.

Not to mention that Tauren completely mulch pretty much any non-tank unit when used in numbers. Even against units they're not normally good against. And Kodo Riders, which not only give a damage boost to your entire army but also can Devour enemy units, taking them out of the fight either permanently or for a decent amount of time even if the Kodo is killed. Raiders and Wyverns are pretty good all-around, too.


Personally, I think humans are the best. Their heroes are rigged, and virtually any strategy you want to use with them works. They have great casters, melee, anti-air, air, sige, and anti-caster, and their units are cheap. Also, good shop items.

I don't play humans so I can't really speak from their perspective, but I do know that they are not overpowered to any noticeable degree, having beaten them many times before. Unless you count ultra-cheesy strategies usually involving invisibility but those are actually pretty rare, in my experience.

[Myrmex]

Learning to preserve units comes with time, though. And I would imagine that learning it while playing an expensive race would mean that you make it that much more of a priority and you get better at it that much faster.

I guess. I'd rather learn unit preservation on crypt fiends than grunts. I always get DK with coil, though. Tier two gets you burrow, which is great for quick regeneration.


Not to mention that Tauren completely mulch pretty much any non-tank unit when used in numbers. Even against units they're not normally good against. And Kodo Riders, which not only give a damage boost to your entire army but also can Devour enemy units, taking them out of the fight either permanently or for a decent amount of time even if the Kodo is killed. Raiders and Wyverns are pretty good all-around, too.

I find taurens, in 3v3 or bigger, to be kind of situational. They're very expensive units, they don't path well, and clogging is a major issue. If you don't have them en masse, they make attractive targets. A cluster of dryads, archers, and a kotg can do horrible, horrible damage to you in a choke point, with many more and many cheaper units than you.

Raiders can be awesome, with net, but that's a micro intensive strategy, and they are fragile melee units. Wyverns are what you build if you want to lose. In 3v3 or 4v4, there's almost always someone with fiends. Wyverns are a poor combat unit. They are good for harassing fleeing troops, bases, and expansions, but when it comes to combat, I don't really like 'em. Good players with wyverns & a blademaster can do some horrible damage, for sure. But gruntapult + shamans is a way easier strategy, with good results.


I don't play humans so I can't really speak from their perspective, but I do know that they are not overpowered to any noticeable degree, having beaten them many times before. Unless you count ultra-cheesy strategies usually involving invisibility but those are actually pretty rare, in my experience.

Of course. This is Blizzard; we're not talking about Necrons or Space Marines. The problem with humans, though, is their lack of weak points. They are like the factotum of warcraft.

[The Orange Zergling]

I guess. I'd rather learn unit preservation on crypt fiends than grunts. I always get DK with coil, though. Tier two gets you burrow, which is great for quick regeneration.

Though the Orcs also have the Shadow Hunter who has Healing Wave, and in my experience he's not actually that bad of a first hero choice (though I prefer the Tauren Chieftain myself). No burrow though but I figure they make up for that with extra hit points... and of course being a totally different unit for a totally different role.


I find taurens, in 3v3 or bigger, to be kind of situational. They're very expensive units, they don't path well, and clogging is a major issue. If you don't have them en masse, they make attractive targets. A cluster of dryads, archers, and a kotg can do horrible, horrible damage to you in a choke point, with many more and many cheaper units than you.

Even Dryads, with Unarmored armor, fall prey to Tauren very very quickly when they can't keep their distance. And even moreso for Archers too, because they have Medium. In an open battlefield it's easier to keep your distance but in, say, a siege, either defensive or offensive, it's much more difficult and this is where Tauren can really mess you up.

In 4v4s everything is inherently cheesy so I wouldn't really count anything that applies only in that category as being practical.


Raiders can be awesome, with net, but that's a micro intensive strategy, and they are fragile melee units. Wyverns are what you build if you want to lose. In 3v3 or 4v4, there's almost always someone with fiends. Wyverns are a poor combat unit. They are good for harassing fleeing troops, bases, and expansions, but when it comes to combat, I don't really like 'em. Good players with wyverns & a blademaster can do some horrible damage, for sure. But gruntapult + shamans is a way easier strategy, with good results.

They're only micro intensive in that Ensnare is not autocast. They're fragile versus melee units but against ranged they're not so bad and their Siege damage is incredible against buildings and Unarmored units.

Admittedly it has been a while since I've built Wyverns but as I remember they are better for smaller games where it's more likely that opponents can neglect anti-air and, as you say, for harassing. 3v3s are not the only game type, after all.

I've noticed that pretty much anything with shamans yields good results.


Of course. This is Blizzard; we're not talking about Necrons or Space Marines. The problem with humans, though, is their lack of weak points. They are like the factotum of warcraft.

Again, I'm not really qualified to comment here.

[Myrmex]

Though the Orcs also have the Shadow Hunter who has Healing Wave, and in my experience he's not actually that bad of a first hero choice (though I prefer the Tauren Chieftain myself). No burrow though but I figure they make up for that with extra hit points... and of course being a totally different unit for a totally different role.

Shadow Hunter is nice, though I prefer Blademaster. Healing Wave is a little underwhelming. It was really great in Beta, and shortly after release, but it got nerfed. 3 Shadow Hunters & Serpent Ward can make a really brutal rush.


Even Dryads, with Unarmored armor, fall prey to Tauren very very quickly when they can't keep their distance. And even moreso for Archers too, because they have Medium. In an open battlefield it's easier to keep your distance but in, say, a siege, either defensive or offensive, it's much more difficult and this is where Tauren can really mess you up.

Actually, I find closed bases and narrow chokes the biggest problem for taurens. I am a Random player, but as NE, tend to make lots of archers, druids of the talon, and dryads, and go kotg as primary & priestess as secondary hero. That strategy works really well against bears, abominations, and tauren, but not knights, due to the unit size. Level 3 entangle + 6 treants means the tauren are stuck, and any that break through are going to get slow poisoned. Focus fire with 20 or 30 archers with damage upgrade, range upgrade, weapons upgrade, and aura, against low armored tauren with faerie fire on em (also great for a big blademaster stfu), and they go down FAST. Of course, this strategy is contingent on being able to stay away from the tauren. Once they close, it's all over.


In 4v4s everything is inherently cheesy so I wouldn't really count anything that applies only in that category as being practical.

Yes, I agree, but the noob was asking for advice in team games, and since 2/3 of team games have more than 4 players, I was giving him advice for 3s & 4s.


They're only micro intensive in that Ensnare is not autocast.

Well, yeah, of course. And they are squishy melee units, so you have to keep em back, away from the normal damage. I love using raiders in 1v1 & 2v2, especially with catapults against night elf. Nothing pleases me more than watching elves explode.


They're fragile versus melee units but against ranged they're not so bad and their Siege damage is incredible against buildings and Unarmored units.

This is true, but I find maneuvering units (getting units to where you want them and attacking what you want while staying away from what don't want hitting them) to be extremely micro intensive, especially if you are trying to keep you hero alive vs a mass of range units focus firing it.


Admittedly it has been a while since I've built Wyverns but as I remember they are better for smaller games where it's more likely that opponents can neglect anti-air and, as you say, for harassing. 3v3s are not the only game type, after all.

True, but again, specific advice regarding team games.


I've noticed that pretty much anything with shamans yields good results.

That's my recommendation for orcs, especially in team games. Get bloodlust asap. Well, not too asap.

[Winterwind]

Thanks for the tips guys. I was thinking of playing as undead or orcs, which one gentler learning curve?Well, let me present some aspects of both races. Keep in mind I'm an Undead player myself (though I play all races moderately frequently), so my comprehension of Orcs may be imperfect.

Undead:

Extremely good heroes. No other race sticks so much to its own heroes as the Undead, and for a good reason - the Death Knight can heal your units, making preserving them that much easier, and gives your army unparalleled mobility, the Lich has an incredible damage output and becomes utterly insane when equipped with the Orb, and the other two, while more situational, are quite powerful and useful for various strategies as well.
Very good items in their shop - the Rod of Necromancy makes both creeping and rushing that much more effective, you have invisibility detection right at T1, and at T3 you get the best orb in the game with the Orb of Corruption, which increases the damage of your entire army if you focus whatever the hero carrying it is attacking (ideally the Lich, since his ranged attacks are easier to direct at what you want to focus; this would be another example of the synergy between the UD heroes and army).
Arguably the best ranged T1 unit. Fiends are durable and powerful, and with Burrow and a bit of micro, you can deny the enemy any kills and heal them quickly - even in mid battle. Burrow a near-dead fiend, and it may well be healed up enough to engage again before the battle is over. Between this and the Death Knight's healing Death Coils, an UD can preserve units really well.
One of the best dispells in the game, being positioned on a durable magic-immune unit which fuels its powerful attacks with it at the same time. On the other hand, being available at T3 only, it's also the latest dispell in the game, meaning casters can be a problem until you tech far enough.
Arguably the strongest T3. If you can live to T3 without suffering too much damage, then winning shouldn't be all that difficult anymore. On the other hand, pretty weak T2. It gives you a few very useful and important things (2nd hero, burrow+web, gargoyles, statues), but the really powerful aspects of your army require T3.
Connected with the above point, as well as the UD's general penchant for not letting units die - less need for an expo than other races. On the other hand, it's fairly difficult to get an expo up, since you either lack a main building to teleport to or have to make an additional investment, cannot place towers while the expo is being built unless you use a Sacrificial Skull, and most importantly cannot get workers for the expo while teching.
No ways of healing or regenerating mana beside the Death Knight (who cannot heal himself) and the ghouls' Cannibalism at T1.
T1 melee units, the ghouls, while being strong, are fairly difficult to use due to their low hit points.
Weak to worker harrassment - due to the exposed position of the accolytes and their low number, they present a premium target.
Most hated enemies: The Orcs. It's generally considered one of the most poorly balanced match-ups in the game; winning against an Orc player who knows what he is doing is really difficult.

tl;dr: Late-game race - teching is very important and very strong. Heroes play arguably an even bigger role than usual in this army. Good at preserving units.

Orcs:

Very strong heroes, capable of posing a threat even without the rest of the army, making them excellent at harrassment. Also, good at killing single units or heroes (Blademaster, Shadow Hunter's Hex, etc.). This is further boosted by such units as Raiders and Kodos.
Very good healing and mana regeneration options in their shop. Also, their Orb synergizes excellently with their theme of killing solitary units.
Arguably the best melee T1 unit. Grunts are durable, strong and quite cheap for what they do, and the upgrade at T2 makes them even better. Due to their high hit points, it's also easier to have them run away before they die.
Fairly poor dispell, since the only unit that has one with area effect is fairly costly, not magic-immune, and not even necessarily used in every game.
One of the, quite possibly the strongest T2. With all their casters and bestiary units available at T2, the Orcs wield a terrifying force and can use this moment to secure an advantage that will win them the game. On the other hand, T3 holds only Tauren for them (which are excellent, but often not needed, since Grunts are very strong melee units too), much less than the T3 of other races (many Orcs don't even bother with upgrading to T3).
Moderate need for expos, but due to their strong T2, quite good at securing expos.
Fairly poor invisibility detection capabilities.
T1 ranged units, the trolls, while being strong, are fairly difficult to use due to their low hit points.
Thanks to burrows, fairly strong against worker harrassment.
Their bats tear light air to shreds, but they have a problem against heavy air, lacking a decent amount of good counters to that.
Most hated enemies: Not sure if it's the Night Elves or the Humans currently. The Humans have air that the Orcs have trouble dealing with, the Night Elves have the infamous Mass Talons strategy.

tl;dr: Mid-game race - try to secure a superior position at T2. Good at harrassment and killing single targets.

[Myrmex]

I am a random player, so have played all the races the same amount. Here's my take:

Undead have weaker heros, overall, than Orcs, but WAY better synergy. Coil means your units aren't going to die, and with the auras up, you really aren't going to die!

I like the lich least, since his nova has a long cool down and is mana expensive. I usually go death knight, dreadlord and/or crypt lord. The crypt lord's impale is AWESOME, and extremely mana efficient. Put a +150 mana thing on him, and you can cast it 4 times in a battle.

Ghouls + Dread lord aura can be a low level rush that will win you the game. It only works in teams with more than 2 players, though.

Getting the dark ranger from the tavern and using her to rush is brutal (doesn't work vs. NE, though, since wisps don't spawn skeletons). It requires a lot of micro, as you have to make killing blows on enemies, but you can quickly have an army of undead. Combined with a couple ghouls and a rod of necromancy, and you can swarm an enemy.

If you get to statues fast, you can be almost unstoppable. Having a death knight aura up, along with statues healing, and blight from a sacrificial skull, and your army has terrific durability.

Burrowing neardly dead crypt fiends (dancing) in combat doesn't work. You have to run them back, then burrow them. You used to be able to do it, but not anymore (not for a long time).

Personally, I think undead has one of the strongest tier twos. Necromancers are incredible. You can win the game with them, if you get em fast enough. Statues are also unbelievably good. Crypt fiends are they best anti air unit, as it traps air units, not just shoots them. This means any form of harassment from flyers is usually going to fail.

Most of what Winterwind covered with orc, I agree with, save his claim that no one uses spirit walkers. In 1v1 & 2v2, they are used a lot. Their dispel is much needed, but more importantly, their spirit link is extremely powerful. Orcs have high hitpoint units, but they get few of them, so focus fire tends to hit orcs a little harder than other races. With spirit link, though, you don't have to kill just one 800 hp grunt, you have to kill all 6. Healing scrolls & healing wave just got a lot better, since 1200 damage on one unit would kill it, but spread out over 6 units, each 200 points of damage will be healed 150 points by the scroll (or is it 200? I forget).

Orcs' strength, surprisingly, comes with their maneuverability. Blood lust lasts a minute, which means you can run very fast, either chasing or fleeing from a battle. Wyverns & raiders are both fast, wind walking blademasters are fast, and a tauren chieftain makes even the catapults fast. I'd say orc does best against night elf, since they have a lot of siege damage which blows apart fragile units, unarmored night elf units. Raiders' ensnare removes the maneuverability of huntresses and spirit link makes NE focus fire (arguably the best out there) pretty moot. Ensnare will also remove mountain giants from combat and keep units stationary for catapulting.

[The Orange Zergling]

Shadow Hunter is nice, though I prefer Blademaster. Healing Wave is a little underwhelming. It was really great in Beta, and shortly after release, but it got nerfed. 3 Shadow Hunters & Serpent Ward can make a really brutal rush.

Yes, but a heal is a heal. Granted, it's no Death Coil or Holy Light but it's better than nothing.


Actually, I find closed bases and narrow chokes the biggest problem for taurens. I am a Random player, but as NE, tend to make lots of archers, druids of the talon, and dryads, and go kotg as primary & priestess as secondary hero. That strategy works really well against bears, abominations, and tauren, but not knights, due to the unit size. Level 3 entangle + 6 treants means the tauren are stuck, and any that break through are going to get slow poisoned. Focus fire with 20 or 30 archers with damage upgrade, range upgrade, weapons upgrade, and aura, against low armored tauren with faerie fire on em (also great for a big blademaster stfu), and they go down FAST. Of course, this strategy is contingent on being able to stay away from the tauren. Once they close, it's all over.

That's my point; once they're in melee, you're dead. In a siege you're either defending your base and thus don't have mobility or you're attacking a base and thus you're sandwiched between your ally's army(/armies) and the opposing structures. It's circumstantial but I notice that my Huntresses, Bears and Dryads tend to be able to avoid Tauren way more easily in an open field rather than during a siege.

Unrelated, but Force of Nature is generally a bad idea, since Treants have so few hit points that almost all dispels in the game will destroy them in one casting. I haven't tried rushing with it yet but that's a whole different can of worms.


Yes, I agree, but the noob was asking for advice in team games, and since 2/3 of team games have more than 4 players, I was giving him advice for 3s & 4s.

In my experience 2v2s are played just as often as 3v3s. And my position on 4v4s has already been made clear so I won't go there.


Well, yeah, of course. And they are squishy melee units, so you have to keep em back, away from the normal damage. I love using raiders in 1v1 & 2v2, especially with catapults against night elf. Nothing pleases me more than watching elves explode.

They are squishy, yes, but you have Grunts for that. :smallwink:


This is true, but I find maneuvering units (getting units to where you want them and attacking what you want while staying away from what don't want hitting them) to be extremely micro intensive, especially if you are trying to keep you hero alive vs a mass of range units focus firing it.

Yeah, but this is true with pretty much every army, regardless of composition. Unless you have something like Huntresses/Dryads which all have the same armor type, but that has problems aside from micro.


True, but again, specific advice regarding team games.

Actually just earlier today I was in a 3v3 match where I built Wyverns and they were used to great effect. We still lost but that was more due to their specific army composition and our coordination.

---

Final verdict: *shrug*, play what you want. I think any of the races could become relatively easy for you if you pick one that you like and just stick with it.

[Winterwind]

Going to comment just upon the things I disagree with or have some comment to make on.

Also, for the sake of less experienced players who might be reading this, I'll try to keep all acronyms out.


I like the lich least, since his nova has a long cool down and is mana expensive. I usually go death knight, dreadlord and/or crypt lord. The crypt lord's impale is AWESOME, and extremely mana efficient. Put a +150 mana thing on him, and you can cast it 4 times in a battle.I think you underestimate the damage output of a Lich's Nova though. Yes, a crypt lord's Impale is impressive, but the damage output on each single target is significantly lower, the stun is shorter than the Nova's slow effect, and hitting distant, running away targets is practically impossible. And the ability to deal a lot of damage in a very short time, while preventing the enemy to run away, is what forms the basis of the infamous Undead nuke. The Nova helps killing enemy heroes or units that lag behind in a way Impale cannot.

But there is a much more important reason to have a Lich around: He is the only ranged Undead hero (technically, there's also the Dark Ranger, but the skill she is usually chosen for is an orb effect). This means he is the only one well suited for carrying the Orb of Corruption. His projectiles are faster than those of fiends, which means his attack will always impact first and lower the targets armour for the entire rest of the army. The damage output increase is enormous. So enormous, in fact, that I'd consider rushing towards T3 worth it if the only thing it offered was the Orb of Corruption. And for this reason, I think the Lich is almost as important to a functioning Undead army as the Death Knight himself. The importance of the Orb of Corruption just cannot be understated.


Ghouls + Dread lord aura can be a low level rush that will win you the game. It only works in teams with more than 2 players, though.It can work against Night Elves or other Undead in 1v1s too - any better ones will know how to fend it off, but you can still hope to do enough damage to make it worth it. Though a Death Knight against the former or a Lich against the latter may support the ghoul rush just as well, if not better.


Burrowing neardly dead crypt fiends (dancing) in combat doesn't work. You have to run them back, then burrow them. You used to be able to do it, but not anymore (not for a long time).Why not? Even players from the top 200 solo ladder do not always have invisibility detection around, and even if they do, even their micro is not perfect enough to always keep focusing the fiend.


Personally, I think undead has one of the strongest tier twos. Necromancers are incredible. You can win the game with them, if you get em fast enough. Statues are also unbelievably good. Crypt fiends are they best anti air unit, as it traps air units, not just shoots them. This means any form of harassment from flyers is usually going to fail.Necromancers are an incredible risk. Yes, they can win games for you... the problem is, if you do not win right away, and the opponent realizes what is going on and gets sufficient dispell, you are left with having invested tons of resources into buildings and units that will not do you much good - a blow from which you are most unlikely to recover.
As for statues, they are good healers, certainly, but they won't outheal the damage output of a well microed army.


Most of what Winterwind covered with orc, I agree with, save his claim that no one uses spirit walkers.We have a misunderstanding here. I didn't mean to say nobody uses spirit walkers - contrariwise, they are fairly frequent sight.
My point was, there are Orc strategies that do not involve them, like when an Orc goes for multiple bestiaries to mass raiders/wyvern/kodos, while games with Humans without priests, Night Elves without dryads or Undead without destroyers are much more infrequent. Most importantly though, they are less in number, for the simple reason that they cost more resources and take up more supply than, say, priests, which ultimately means less chances to cast their dispell magic, especially if the enemy should use something like the Mass Talons strategy (granted, by that logic the dispell of Undead would be even worse, as destroyers are even more costly, but destroyers are magic immune, which ensures the things they are supposed to dispell will not prevent them from dispelling, and they have a lot of combat power going for them, too).
Essentially, I feel that if an opponent really sets her or his heart to it, the Orc is more likely to run out of dispell before the opponent runs out of spells.

[Myrmex]

Going to comment just upon the things I disagree with or have some comment to make on.

Also, for the sake of less experienced players who might be reading this, I'll try to keep all acronyms out.

Same. Good call.


I think you underestimate the damage output of a Lich's Nova though. Yes, a crypt lord's Impale is impressive, but the damage output on each single target is significantly lower, the stun is shorter than the Nova's slow effect, and hitting distant, running away targets is practically impossible. And the ability to deal a lot of damage in a very short time, while preventing the enemy to run away, is what forms the basis of the infamous Undead nuke. The Nova helps killing enemy heroes or units that lag behind in a way Impale cannot.

I don't know if you can do this still, but I used to use impale as an enemy town portal'd away, and if they were in the air, they wouldn't be targeted. It's been awhile since I pulled that trick off.

My play strategy is a little different with undead. I use Death Knight & Crypt Lord as tanks and healers, not hero nukers. I find Death Coil tends to be a waste on enemy units, and is usually better spent keeping resource intensive fiends & a tanking hero alive. There are times when coil, coil, coil works, for sure, it's just not my main function with undead heros.


But there is a much more important reason to have a Lich around: He is the only ranged Undead hero (technically, there's also the Dark Ranger, but the skill she is usually chosen for is an orb effect). This means he is the only one well suited for carrying the Orb of Corruption. His projectiles are faster than those of fiends, which means his attack will always impact first and lower the targets armour for the entire rest of the army. The damage output increase is enormous. So enormous, in fact, that I'd consider rushing towards T3 worth it if the only thing it offered was the Orb of Corruption. And for this reason, I think the Lich is almost as important to a functioning Undead army as the Death Knight himself. The importance of the Orb of Corruption just cannot be understated.

Huh. I'm going to have to try that out. The lich is such a slow, fragile, mana intensive unit, though, I've never gotten into using him. Didn't know Orb of Corruption was so good. That would explain why T3 undead can wipe my heroes so fast.


It can work against Night Elves or other Undead in 1v1s too - any better ones will know how to fend it off, but you can still hope to do enough damage to make it worth it. Though a Death Knight against the former or a Lich against the latter may support the ghoul rush just as well, if not better.

I've had a couple really good successes with it. In solo play, when I go random and I see an undead player, guessing mass fiends is usually a pretty good guess, so ghoul superiority can usually do it. They move faster, they're cheaper, build sooner, and do extra damage to fiends. Not always- it can fail spectacularly.

In 3v3 or 4v4, when I have allies leave, and any of them happen to be undead, it's just T1 units en masse. Mostly noobs play 3v3 or 4v4, so having to control 4 teams is sometimes better than having them there. I've won quite a few games where it was just me or me and another guy vs. 4 other people because of being able to coordinate T1 really well.


Why not? Even players from the top 200 solo ladder do not always have invisibility detection around, and even if they do, even their micro is not perfect enough to always keep focusing the fiend.

They don't burrow fast enough and stay visible for awhile. It's like how 6 marines shooting a burrowing lurker can take it from green to yellow or yellow to dead by the time it's fully burrowed. Blizzard may have changed it, though. I remember when it first saw play, and you could dance the hell out of them, then it got removed (ie, they stay visible for a LONG time as they burrow).


Necromancers are an incredible risk. Yes, they can win games for you... the problem is, if you do not win right away, and the opponent realizes what is going on and gets sufficient dispell, you are left with having invested tons of resources into buildings and units that will not do you much good - a blow from which you are most unlikely to recover.
As for statues, they are good healers, certainly, but they won't outheal the damage output of a well microed army.

In 1v1 or 2v2 (2v2 is my favorite match up), you only get one necromancer building facility, and get 4 to 6 necros. With two statues out, you should be able to run them out of dispels before they run you out of mana. Unless they have a 5th level archmage with lvl 3 brilliance aura for some reason, in which case you did something wrong or they are just way better than you.

Combined with ghouls, fiends, two statues, two heroes, and a corpse wagon, you have some really good staying power. The best part is being able to crack enemy bases if they don't want to fight you.

In 3v3 or 4v4, getting necros fast will end the game at tier two. Since half their players will suck, some preliminary shade scouting will let you wipe at least one of them out, which will then let you win by sheer numbers.


We have a misunderstanding here. I didn't mean to say nobody uses spirit walkers - contrariwise, they are fairly frequent sight.
My point was, there are Orc strategies that do not involve them, like when an Orc goes for multiple bestiaries to mass raiders/wyvern/kodos, while games with Humans without priests, Night Elves without dryads or Undead without destroyers are much more infrequent. Most importantly though, they are less in number, for the simple reason that they cost more resources and take up more supply than, say, priests, which ultimately means less chances to cast their dispell magic, especially if the enemy should use something like the Mass Talons strategy (granted, by that logic the dispell of Undead would be even worse, as destroyers are even more costly, but destroyers are magic immune, which ensures the things they are supposed to dispell will not prevent them from dispelling, and they have a lot of combat power going for them, too).
Essentially, I feel that if an opponent really sets her or his heart to it, the Orc is more likely to run out of dispell before the opponent runs out of spells.

What sort of match up are you talking about? 1v1 or 2v2, virtually all good orc players get raiders, a kodo, spirit walkers, grunts, a couple catapults, two heroes, and bloodlust.

Massing one type of unit in 1v1 or 2v2 sometimes works, but it's mostly at break points and in games with low levels of conflict. For instance, if you rush with 14 footmen with no tech, you can win. But if the enemy plays it smart and pushes you out, then retaliates with a couple sorceresses, and you are still at tier one, you can really be stewed. Alternatively, if you go to tier two and have a nice, mixed army, but don't take advantage of it, and he gets tier three air or melee, your mix won't matter, as it will be a brute match up.

3v3 or 4v4 doesn't really matter what happens, as long as you pour enough units early enough at their weak point. Paper-scissors-rock doesn't matter early game, as it's really just who can accrue the most paper or rocks and hurl them at the enemy. Later in the game it's more paper-scissors-rock, but not much more. Dryads & mountain giants, for instance, have ENORMOUS impact on a 1v1 one game, but for every additional ally & opponent, their importance steadily declines, until their expense is no longer worth it, and tauren or bears or knights are simply a better solution.

[Winterwind]

I don't know if you can do this still, but I used to use impale as an enemy town portal'd away, and if they were in the air, they wouldn't be targeted. It's been awhile since I pulled that trick off.I think this still works. Not sure, since the only occasions when I use a Crypt Lord are either in the very lategame, with few opportunities to pull this off presenting itself anymore, or to support a tower rush/expansion steal (which I hardly do more often than once in a hundred games, when I feel like doing something crazy).


My play strategy is a little different with undead. I use Death Knight & Crypt Lord as tanks and healers, not hero nukers. I find Death Coil tends to be a waste on enemy units, and is usually better spent keeping resource intensive fiends & a tanking hero alive. There are times when coil, coil, coil works, for sure, it's just not my main function with undead heros.I agree, Death Coil in offensive function is rarely a good option. 90% of the time, casting it to heal is a far superior option. However, there is one thing for which using it offensively is a good choice, and that is to finish off fleeing units. Be it a nigh-dead huntress retreating to her base or an enemy hero on the run, if it dies, it was worth it.

As for the Undead nuke, the coil is the finisher, for this very reason. First, focus the target with everything that makes sense. Then, just as the target realizes it's being focused and wants to run, it gets a Nova, and cannot run anymore. If a Crypt Lord is available, stun to prevent a portal; otherwise, just before it gets out of the army's range, judge if it is hurt enough to be killed by a coil, and use it only then.


Huh. I'm going to have to try that out. The lich is such a slow, fragile, mana intensive unit, though, I've never gotten into using him. Didn't know Orb of Corruption was so good. That would explain why T3 undead can wipe my heroes so fast. I always carry a mana potion on my Lich, because yes, he is mana intensive. With a mana potion, he will practically be able to shoot 4 novas during a battle though, which is quite terrifying, both the damage dealt by the nova and the damage prevented by the slow considered. Boots of Speed can help with the slowness, though I don't always remember to get them/can spare the gold at the time myself. He is fragile, of course, but that's what the Death Knight is there for...


I've had a couple really good successes with it. In solo play, when I go random and I see an undead player, guessing mass fiends is usually a pretty good guess, so ghoul superiority can usually do it. They move faster, they're cheaper, build sooner, and do extra damage to fiends. Not always- it can fail spectacularly.They move equally fast, actually, but yeah, otherwise agreed. Many Undead players - usually, though not always, the noobier ones - go for Death Knight with fiends even when they know they are up against another Undead. Nothing's sweeter than using an Undead's own graveyard to summon the skeletons that will kill his accolytes... :smallbiggrin:


In 3v3 or 4v4, when I have allies leave, and any of them happen to be undead, it's just T1 units en masse. Mostly noobs play 3v3 or 4v4, so having to control 4 teams is sometimes better than having them there. I've won quite a few games where it was just me or me and another guy vs. 4 other people because of being able to coordinate T1 really well.Yeah, I imagine so. Lack of coordination seems to be the primary reason for people who may even be quite competent individually losing anyway.


They don't burrow fast enough and stay visible for awhile. It's like how 6 marines shooting a burrowing lurker can take it from green to yellow or yellow to dead by the time it's fully burrowed. Blizzard may have changed it, though. I remember when it first saw play, and you could dance the hell out of them, then it got removed (ie, they stay visible for a LONG time as they burrow).It's not quite as bad as with lurkers... one has to pay close attention to how much damage the fiend is taking and take care to burrow it early enough (which may be at one third hit points, rather than the last few slices), and I admit I screw it up often enough myself, but it is definitely possible, especially in smaller games and before late-game brings all those huge armies with tons of heavy melee units.


In 1v1 or 2v2 (2v2 is my favorite match up), you only get one necromancer building facility, and get 4 to 6 necros. With two statues out, you should be able to run them out of dispels before they run you out of mana. Unless they have a 5th level archmage with lvl 3 brilliance aura for some reason, in which case you did something wrong or they are just way better than you.

Combined with ghouls, fiends, two statues, two heroes, and a corpse wagon, you have some really good staying power. The best part is being able to crack enemy bases if they don't want to fight you.If you get only one Temple of the Damned though, it will take long if you want to upgrade your Necromancers to master-level. Longer even if you want the upgrades for the skeletons. By that time, the opponent's army will be quite impressive, and he will have been operating quite freely while you got all of this (meaning he may well have an expo, while you have none). And they don't have to dispell until one of the sides runs out of mana - it's sufficient to dispell for long enough to clear the way to the necromancers and get rid of them.


In 3v3 or 4v4, getting necros fast will end the game at tier two. Since half their players will suck, some preliminary shade scouting will let you wipe at least one of them out, which will then let you win by sheer numbers. In Random Team games, I imagine that might happen. In Arranged Team games, on the other hand, the chance for them being good enough to deal with it is far better...


What sort of match up are you talking about? 1v1 or 2v2, virtually all good orc players get raiders, a kodo, spirit walkers, grunts, a couple catapults, two heroes, and bloodlust.I was talking about 1v1s/2v2s mostly. And it depends on the match-up and strategy chosen - against another Orc, for instance, they may go for more disabling via raiders and kodos, rather than getting casters. Against Undead, they may opt to go for more grunts+raiders, too, to kill all the fiends, and not get casters either, or try to overload the Undead's anti-air by producing enough windriders to outkill the fiends. Etc.


Massing one type of unit in 1v1 or 2v2 sometimes works, but it's mostly at break points and in games with low levels of conflict. For instance, if you rush with 14 footmen with no tech, you can win. But if the enemy plays it smart and pushes you out, then retaliates with a couple sorceresses, and you are still at tier one, you can really be stewed. Alternatively, if you go to tier two and have a nice, mixed army, but don't take advantage of it, and he gets tier three air or melee, your mix won't matter, as it will be a brute match up.Massing one type of unit would indeed be untypical (though not unheard of; mass huntresses or mass fiends is popular enough), but I was mostly thinking about players limiting themselves to barracks and bestiary units. Which is not that rare a thing.


3v3 or 4v4 doesn't really matter what happens, as long as you pour enough units early enough at their weak point. Paper-scissors-rock doesn't matter early game, as it's really just who can accrue the most paper or rocks and hurl them at the enemy. Later in the game it's more paper-scissors-rock, but not much more. Dryads & mountain giants, for instance, have ENORMOUS impact on a 1v1 one game, but for every additional ally & opponent, their importance steadily declines, until their expense is no longer worth it, and tauren or bears or knights are simply a better solution.Quite true.

[Myrmex]

Getting skeleton mastery & adept training only takes 45 seconds (15 sec for the former, 30 sec for the latter).

I usually pick up mastery immediately, then research training on the way to his base. Necromancers need to be escorted, so there's no real loss in the turning off unit production for 30 seconds.


Something that I haven't seen mentioned: scouting. It is extremely useful. Huntresses' sentinel ability means you can watch every gold mine, creep patch, and choke point. Shades can follow enemy movements or infiltrate bases. You can actually really mess up base lay out if you fill an enemy base with strategically placed shades. I've had it done to me before, back in the days of tree-walking ghouls. Every race has at least two good scouting units.

[Legoshrimp]

I have not really gotten scouting down as human. What are the best ways to do it effectively/cheaply in T1. I know to upgrade true sight and use arcane towers when I can.

[Oslecamo]

Some points to the discussion:

Statue healing:
It's actually quite good. Specially because they can regenerate mana. Build two statues during battle and put them following your hero regenerating mana. It really helps to keep the spells coming out. Outside of battle, it allows you to quickly replenish the health of your army after a hit and a run. It also makes burrowing fiends even better.

Air on 3x3
If you do it alone it really isn't that good, but two players massing air togheter is just brutal, as they can easily overpower any AA the other team has, or just go and raid their bases to oblivion before they understand what's hapening.

On the lich
He's very good yes, but he's also the hardest undead hero to use. He's pretty much a glass cannon. Hits hard, but if you don't baby-sit him all the time he just goes down on a breeze.

On the tauren shamans
They're necessary. A skilled elf player can rape an orc army trough talon mass+tornado, as the orc army will always have fewer units. The only way to counter this is with tauren dispel. Also the life link rocks.

Also I must ask why aren't you talking about the awesomess that are crypt fiends? One or two are really the cherry on top of the UD army! Slow AND area damage? Yes please.:smallbiggrin: