Learning Warcraft 3
(9226 reads, 27 replies, 2 years ago)
Hi, I'm a Starcraft player interested in Warcraft 3. Before Starcraft 2 comes out I want to feel that I have an understanding of the game. I have therefore a few starting questions.
1. In Warcraft 3 there exist low upkeep and high upkeep. Is it more beneficial to stay on low upkeep to achieve a greater income or is high upkeep not that much of a problem? With other words, army size vs economy? Is it situational, MU-specific or race specific?
2. How important is a second hero? And if so, is a third hero necessary? Are there units/unit-combos that are better then heroes?
3. How important are upgrades?
4. Are there BO:s or strategies that requires no hero to execute? With other words, are there strats regarding only units being used?
5. What maps today are mostly played? A similar matter for Starcraft players when learning about the Iccup Map-Pool.
6. I have studied the races but am still somewhat confused about their role in the game. Is there a huge difference among the races or are the races more similar? Are there races harder then others to learn?
7. What would you recommend me to start with? What MU is the easiest to understand for a beginner?
To start with I want to thank you all for your informative replies. I have played one week on ladder so far and it’s been a blast. Warcraft 3 is actually a good game. The mechanics somewhat still confuses me but I’m beginning to see the game from a new perspective.
As a Zerg player I love creep so naturally I chose Undead as my main race. The other reason is simple: Acolytes are cool. But still I haven’t grasped Undead, both MU-counters and strats. I have followed the BO site and tried out different strategies. Of course the more you learn the more you don’t so a few more questions have arisen.
Instead of creating a new thread regarding my issues I will redo this. Almost every question below is from an Undeads perspective. Please note that I know that these questions can sound vague.
8. Is there specific counters for each and every unit in Warcraft 3? In a game vs a Night Elf my Crypt Fiends got completely squashed by his Huntress. In another game vs Orc my Fiends spanked the crap out of his Grunts. With other words, is there a counter-system? Ex Fiends > Grunts, Huntress > Fiends etc. What are a good counter between Undeads units and the other races?
9. Following your guide Death Knight and Lich King seems to be the most common hero combination in every MU. What items do you usually use for this heroes? Is Orb of Corruption important?
10. How do you scout as Undead? I have seen people making an extra Acolyte to scout with. Other then that, you send your ghoul or first fiend?
11. Harassment seems to be a big part of how the UD works. Is it more important to try harassing in the beginning then go creeping?
12. In late game I tend to lose more due to the fact that I don’t understand it. How powerful is a maxed UD army? What units would you say is more important in this mix then others? An example, Destroyers vs Abominations? Necromancers vs Banshees? Meat Wagons vs Statues?
Not really sure why you want to learn WC3 before SC2 hits... But anyways.
1. You pretty much want to stay out of upkeep and only break upkeep when you are about to make a push, or if you are about to be pushed. Scouting is really big here. The time when you break upkeep is situational for every race and match up, as you will have different windows of attack available to you.
2. A second hero is pretty much a must, unless you are doing like a Nelf mass t1 push. But for the majority of strategies, a 2nd hero is a must. Heroes are so strong in Warcraft 3. Keep in mind though that once a hero hits level 3, it is significantly stronger than a level 1 or 2 hero. You want to be able to creep in order to level your heroes up to 3, and not be stuck with 3/2/1 or something like that.
3. The importance of upgrades is dependent on which upgrade. For instance the Dryads upgrade to abolish magic. It is pretty important to get against a human especially if they go Archmage with elementals. But against a UD, it isn't as important. Although it is nice to dispel frost armor later on.
4. Any strategy that doesn't use a hero, will be a weak one. A hero is a must.
5. Just look at the 1v1 map pool on battle.net. Those are all good maps to learn. Echo Isles is a nice small map that will teach you to scout and creep effectively.
6. All the races are very different. Every race has a strong point and a weak point in the game dependent on strategy and match up. I really don't know how to summarize this without writing a couple pages.
7. Really start with whatever race you like. Everyone will say a different race is easy to play. I personally believe Nelf is a pretty easy and standard race to play. Also you can watch "Oversky's FPVODs" which he posts on this site, he plays Nelf so it may help. You can also listen to some Audio Commentaries (www.wcreplays.com), which come coupled with a replay or two. The commentators are usually pretty good at analyzing the match up they are covering. They may discuss a few things that will go way over your head, but you will pick up on more and more over time. Really just get some games under your belt. Practice practice practice. Once you have a feeling for the flow of the game and how to effectively use your heroes and the tech tree. Then I would worry more about the more advanced tactics.
2009-07-03 21:16, t1.reset wrote:
Not really sure why you want to learn WC3 before SC2 hits... But anyways.
1. You pretty much want to stay out of upkeep and only break upkeep when you are about to make a push, or if you are about to be pushed. Scouting is really big here. The time when you break upkeep is situational for every race and match up, as you will have different windows of attack available to you.
2. A second hero is pretty much a must, unless you are doing like a Nelf mass t1 push. But for the majority of strategies, a 2nd hero is a must. Heroes are so strong in Warcraft 3. Keep in mind though that once a hero hits level 3, it is significantly stronger than a level 1 or 2 hero. You want to be able to creep in order to level your heroes up to 3, and not be stuck with 3/2/1 or something like that.
3. The importance of upgrades is dependent on which upgrade. For instance the Dryads upgrade to abolish magic. It is pretty important to get against a human especially if they go Archmage with elementals. But against a UD, it isn't as important. Although it is nice to dispel frost armor later on.
4. Any strategy that doesn't use a hero, will be a weak one. A hero is a must.
5. Just look at the 1v1 map pool on battle.net. Those are all good maps to learn. Echo Isles is a nice small map that will teach you to scout and creep effectively.
6. All the races are very different. Every race has a strong point and a weak point in the game dependent on strategy and match up. I really don't know how to summarize this without writing a couple pages.
7. Really start with whatever race you like. Everyone will say a different race is easy to play. I personally believe Nelf is a pretty easy and standard race to play. Also you can watch "Oversky's FPVODs" which he posts on this site, he plays Nelf so it may help. You can also listen to some Audio Commentaries (www.wcreplays.com), which come coupled with a replay or two. The commentators are usually pretty good at analyzing the match up they are covering. They may discuss a few things that will go way over your head, but you will pick up on more and more over time. Really just get some games under your belt. Practice practice practice. Once you have a feeling for the flow of the game and how to effectively use your heroes and the tech tree. Then I would worry more about the more advanced tactics.
Thank you for taking your time reading my post and answer it in such an informative way. Really, this was a big help.
Hmmm well if you want to learn a race, i recommend you start using orc....they only got 1 tactic. They use that same tactic on all races, so same build same heroes same everything.
Check out Grubby how he builds. Its really hard to master orcs though, but the building and so on is simple
7. Nelf easy to play? Standard???? Nelf needs to use different kinds of strategy in different matchup's. LOL! Standard....they dont have standard units usage. They dont even have standard hero usage. They have to get neutral heroes, cause their 1v1 heroes sucks. They get easy tower rushed, ghoul rushed, not to mention garg harass, tank harass. Seriously, you really need to play the game wc3 first, not sc.
Orc is standard! Orc is easy. Same build order in all kinds of mu. Same heroes: Bm and sh/tc. Same units usage: grunt/sw/raiders.
#7 Bernard Shaw as a philosopher:
Martydrom...is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability.
Bernard Shaw as a warcraft gamer:
Playing elf...is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability.
Seeing that you can replace it with all kinds of crap. I think you should replace 'elf' with 'orc', after all the wc3 community is complaining about them being imba, am I not right?
2009-07-03 20:32, PokkiTeam wrote:
Hi, I'm a Starcraft player interested in Warcraft 3. Before Starcraft 2 comes out I want to feel that I have an understanding of the game. I have therefore a few starting questions.
1: you can go high upkeep if you have an expo , but it's a risky situation and it works better to mass with NE/HU than with Orc for example .
2: As Reset stated it , a 2nd hero is a must , Third hero can become a must if the game last long , but it always depends on the MU . Also remember that having a third Hero can be a big disadvantage if you don't take care of him enough , it could be freeXp for your opponent .
3: about weapons/armor upgrades , going for w2/a1 or w1/a2 is hotly recommended for most of races . Once again it depends on enemy's units . About this learn the Armor type well (strength/weakness) , it's a corner point in fights .
4: read Reset's answer
5: google wc3l and ngl , you'll find competition map pools , if you plan on going into competitive gaming .
6: Definitely , there are a lots of differences between race : i.e UD is fun to play and to master , nuking feels damn good and it's always entertaining as surrounding ( best micro move :D) . But UD is also the less creative race and the one with lesser strategies choices .
On the other side you have human , which is quite an open race when it comes to strategies , and it's also definitely fun to play as well but some MU can be really tough.
7: It depends on your race choice , but go for the one seems ( to you i mean ) the coolest etc...
Also hardest MU make the best games and will obviously make you learn a lot about races and wc3.
1. In Warcraft 3 there exist low upkeep and high upkeep. Is it more beneficial to stay on low upkeep to achieve a greater income or is high upkeep not that much of a problem? With other words, army size vs economy? Is it situational, MU-specific or race specific?
2. How important is a second hero? And if so, is a third hero necessary? Are there units/unit-combos that are better then heroes?
3. How important are upgrades?
4. Are there BO:s or strategies that requires no hero to execute? With other words, are there strats regarding only units being used?
5. What maps today are mostly played? A similar matter for Starcraft players when learning about the Iccup Map-Pool.
6. I have studied the races but am still somewhat confused about their role in the game. Is there a huge difference among the races or are the races more similar? Are there races harder then others to learn?
7. What would you recommend me to start with? What MU is the easiest to understand for a beginner?
1.) There are 3 stages of upkeep. No Upkeep (+10 gold per peasant mining, the maximum) Low Upkeep (+7 gold per peasant mining) and High Upkeep (+4 gold per peasant mining). Remember always have 5 peasants/workers harvesting gold! You generally want to "bank" gold at 50 food (population) for a while, so that you get the most money before massing units. Generally a final battle is an 80 food army. For Example:
Playing as night elf vs. human. Lets say the human fast expands and is tier 2 with 2 sanctums and 1 workshop right now. You are sitting at 50/80 food right now with 2 heroes, some dryads and bears, and may or may not have an expo. Ideally for the night elf is they want to mass units right when the human masses units. That way the human can't just out economy play the night elf. Now on the human's side of the matchup, the human will be banking food while teching to tier 2, because he has 2 gold mines going at the same time. So by the time he hits tier 2 he will have 1.7k gold sometimes. Then he just builds his 2 sanctums and 1 workshop, gets 2nd hero, and when he has about 1.3 - 1.5k gold he just masses his 80 food caster breaker mortar army really quickly, and goes to own the night elf up :) So upkeep is generally match and race specific. I'd watch replays and see when the upkeep is broken and why. Does the player have like 2k gold stored up? do they need to mass units quick because their enemy has way more?
2.) I don't think I've ever seen a (serious) solo game where one player has never gotten a hero. Second heroes are very important most of the time (except when night elves mass tier 1 versus human, and usually have a warden). Undead usually get 3 heroes, and humans usually only get 3 heroes versus undead. Night elves get 3 heroes vs. orc if they are going a dott push strategy. Other than that, most races stick to 2 heroes. BM/SH or FS/TC for orc, night elves can have a hell of a lot of hero mixes, AM/MK for human, undead DK/lich.
3.) Upgrades are usually important i'd say. In a human vs. nightelf matchup, humans want a 2 - 2 breaker upgrade, and a 2 - 0 mortar upgrade. Also possibly adept training on the casters. As night elves vs. orc and your doing a dott push you can't really fight until you get master training, so you can cyclone the orc heroes.
4.) there are no strategies where a hero isn't used.
5.) here is a good mappool, copied straight from zotac:
Echo Isles (TFT Version)
Ancient Isles
Melting Valley (TFT Version)
Turtle Rock (TFT Version)
Snow Drop
Secret Valley (TFT Version)
Death Trap
Terenas Stand (TFT Version)
Twisted Meadows (TFT Version)
However I've never played deathtrap.
6.) It is definitely harder to learn some races than others. Most of if not all the people I've talked to say human is the hardest to master (please no QQ and trolling on this). But each race has its own uniqueness and special thing that makes it different. Humans have towers and fast expansions. Undead can hero focus like no tomorrow. Orcs have Blademaster and Spirit Link :) Night elves can basically use any tavern hero, and can use bear/dryads almost all the time, AOW creep, and they are very versitile.
7.) I don't know all the matchups. But I say play random on ladder until you feel like "I really like this one race when I play it." I think one of the easiest matchups to understand is night elf vs. orc playing as a night elf. The Dott Push strategy. It is basically don't have a big fight until tier 3, get tri hero (usually DH/Beastmaster/Tinker) mass up dotts, get master training, get a lot of scrolls, and push the orc. In my opinion it really is more understanding a strategy easier than a matchup. Because a strategy can be as simple as a 5 minute tower rush as human, to as complex as a fast expand mass tier 3 army game.
quick edit: check out the strategy guide in this forum. I wrote a lot on human, and that was mainly just buildorders. If you choose to play human I can help more. I wrote that a while ago.
This post was edited by a forum moderator @ 2 years ago
yeah #7, the reason tehy don't have standard hero usage is cuz they can use such a wide variety of heroes whenever they want. Panda warden dh potm naga tinker beastman. and it is quite obvious you are QQing about orcs being imba. Just saying, before you can say how easy/hard a race is, understand the commonalities of the game and try to write about it from a non-biased point of view.
1. In Warcraft 3 there exist low upkeep and high upkeep. Is it more beneficial to stay on low upkeep to achieve a greater income or is high upkeep not that much of a problem? With other words, army size vs economy? Is it situational, MU-specific or race specific?
2. How important is a second hero? And if so, is a third hero necessary? Are there units/unit-combos that are better then heroes?
3. How important are upgrades?
4. Are there BO:s or strategies that requires no hero to execute? With other words, are there strats regarding only units being used?
5. What maps today are mostly played? A similar matter for Starcraft players when learning about the Iccup Map-Pool.
6. I have studied the races but am still somewhat confused about their role in the game. Is there a huge difference among the races or are the races more similar? Are there races harder then others to learn?
7. What would you recommend me to start with? What MU is the easiest to understand for a beginner?
1.) There are 3 stages of upkeep. No Upkeep (+10 gold per peasant mining, the maximum) Low Upkeep (+7 gold per peasant mining) and High Upkeep (+4 gold per peasant mining). Remember always have 5 peasants/workers harvesting gold! You generally want to "bank" gold at 50 food (population) for a while, so that you get the most money before massing units. Generally a final battle is an 80 food army. For Example:
Playing as night elf vs. human. Lets say the human fast expands and is tier 2 with 2 sanctums and 1 workshop right now. You are sitting at 50/80 food right now with 2 heroes, some dryads and bears, and may or may not have an expo. Ideally for the night elf is they want to mass units right when the human masses units. That way the human can't just out economy play the night elf. Now on the human's side of the matchup, the human will be banking food while teching to tier 2, because he has 2 gold mines going at the same time. So by the time he hits tier 2 he will have 1.7k gold sometimes. Then he just builds his 2 sanctums and 1 workshop, gets 2nd hero, and when he has about 1.3 - 1.5k gold he just masses his 80 food caster breaker mortar army really quickly, and goes to own the night elf up :) So upkeep is generally match and race specific. I'd watch replays and see when the upkeep is broken and why. Does the player have like 2k gold stored up? do they need to mass units quick because their enemy has way more?
2.) I don't think I've ever seen a (serious) solo game where one player has never gotten a hero. Second heroes are very important most of the time (except when night elves mass tier 1 versus human, and usually have a warden). Undead usually get 3 heroes, and humans usually only get 3 heroes versus undead. Night elves get 3 heroes vs. orc if they are going a dott push strategy. Other than that, most races stick to 2 heroes. BM/SH or FS/TC for orc, night elves can have a hell of a lot of hero mixes, AM/MK for human, undead DK/lich.
3.) Upgrades are usually important i'd say. In a human vs. nightelf matchup, humans want a 2 - 2 breaker upgrade, and a 2 - 0 mortar upgrade. Also possibly adept training on the casters. As night elves vs. orc and your doing a dott push you can't really fight until you get master training, so you can cyclone the orc heroes.
4.) there are no strategies where a hero isn't used.
5.) here is a good mappool, copied straight from zotac:
Echo Isles (TFT Version)
Ancient Isles
Melting Valley (TFT Version)
Turtle Rock (TFT Version)
Snow Drop
Secret Valley (TFT Version)
Death Trap
Terenas Stand (TFT Version)
Twisted Meadows (TFT Version)
However I've never played deathtrap.
6.) It is definitely harder to learn some races than others. Most of if not all the people I've talked to say human is the hardest to master (please no QQ and trolling on this). But each race has its own uniqueness and special thing that makes it different. Humans have towers and fast expansions. Undead can hero focus like no tomorrow. Orcs have Blademaster and Spirit Link :) Night elves can basically use any tavern hero, and can use bear/dryads almost all the time, AOW creep, and they are very versitile.
7.) I don't know all the matchups. But I say play random on ladder until you feel like "I really like this one race when I play it." I think one of the easiest matchups to understand is night elf vs. orc playing as a night elf. The Dott Push strategy. It is basically don't have a big fight until tier 3, get tri hero (usually DH/Beastmaster/Tinker) mass up dotts, get master training, get a lot of scrolls, and push the orc. In my opinion it really is more understanding a strategy easier than a matchup. Because a strategy can be as simple as a 5 minute tower rush as human, to as complex as a fast expand mass tier 3 army game.
quick edit: check out the strategy guide in this forum. I wrote a lot on human, and that was mainly just buildorders. If you choose to play human I can help more. I wrote that a while ago.
1. So basically when I hit 50 populations it would be a wise choice to stock gold for a while? Could you say it works as a timing attack when you mass units at a specific point of time to surprise your enemy? If I'am an Undead player here, should I stock gold to be ready for tier 3 mass?
2. Yeah, I can see why heroes are a must now. After been playing for a week now I see that my units are completely helpless without a hero.
3. Is this a general concept of what upgrades to choose or was this very MU-specific? If I play Undead, would 2-2 Fiends and 2-0 Meat Wagons be as good as for a human player?
4. I can understand that^^ I tried some games without a hero and got completely squashed.
5. Thanks, and also thanks before.
6. I understand. I guess there are some similarities to Starcraft here regarding the races. After testing the races out I choose Undead. I read the BO compilation site.
7. I understand. As stated above I play Undead now. From what I recall from others UD is a race kinda passive from the rest. Staying in your base and macro. Would you agree?
#14, yes and thats why its harder to master night elf. The reason why ne has to use tavern heroes is because their heroes arent good enough. You cant defeat garg with warden, potm or kotg. Against orc, Potm warden are useless except for kotg (but still it sucks a bit).
Did I really write it from a biased point of view? I dont think so. Im just saying that Orc is easier to play with for the beginners.
My first main race was orc, then I switched to hu, now im elf.
And I can tell you for sure that Orc was really easy to play with. Its so standard. Why would an orc use tavern heroes? Their heroes are already good enough in every match up.
#15 it is situational for undead. They are the race I know the least about. I recommend watching replays of FoV, TeD, and those guys. As for upgrades, I don't know. Again, watch the replays and learn the game.
#16 Night elf really don't have to use tavern heroes, they GET to. Only time human uses tavern is panda in mirror (sometimes) and naga sometimes versus elf. Also, so what if Orcs don't need to use tavern heroes? They have heroes that are fine enough as it is. And its obvious that not every hero is good in every matchup. Using MK versus a DH would be suicide. So you can't argue that you can't use warden versus certain races, otherwise the game wouldn't have any diversity, and therefore wouldn't be fun or competitive. And I agree orc is easier to play with, but night elves aren't the toughest. They can use almost any tavern and any of their own heroes. They can go dark ranger, warden, potm, kotg, dh, tinker, panda, alchemist. So their options are quite varied. However, with like Orc, they can only use BM/FS/TC/SH, their standard heroes. They have no use of the tavern heroes.
also, about your earlier post, night elves do have standard unit combos. Bears/Dryads with DH/panda vs. human is used like 85% of the time. versus orc all of em do a dott push. and I dont know about other matchups. What makes night elves unique is all the different heroes you can go. It isn't a disadvantage at all.
Like you say vs. orc, potm and kotg are worthless. Well every race has that for matchups... not just elf. Humans you don't see use paladin first in any matchup except undead.
I'm just saying, you are talking about irrelevant things that each race goes through. Tavern heroes are a tool that night elves can use to the most of their ability. They aren't a last resort that is required in every matchup. You can just go mass t1 warden versus human, and stuff like that. So what if orcs don't use tavern heroes? if every race in the game used the same stuff, it wouldnt be a good game. Yes you were arguing that orcs are easier for beginners (which is true in some cases), but that doesnt give you a right to start complaining on the race. Otherwise, all we would see is orc mirror in EVERY tournament.
also, the #1 player in USA right now is Night Elf!
I really wish people could stop arguing about which race is the easiets. I said elf is pretty basic, because from my experience it was a quick race to learn the basics of. Although orc is pretty standard builds in all Mmatch-ups, its pretty complicated early game to tech, creep with grunts/SH, and effectively use BM. You need a feel for the game in order to control the map properly to play orc early game. A begineer won't have that knowledge.
Anyways.
I don't play undead, but you are really going to want to get level 3 Deathknight and then level 3 Lich as fast as possible. Both heroes are really strong, and the core of the undead army. Death Coil is nice for saving units, but is even stronger when used offensively for nuking, when combined with Frost Nova from the Lich. You are also going to want to get the Orb of Corruption (aka Orb of GG), when you hit Teir 3. For the most part you are going to want to keep it on your Lich and use it for focus firing. The armor reduction will allow you to drop focused units or heroes quickly. This combined with the double hero nuke is very strong. Only time you are really going to want to put the Orb on the DK, is if your anti-air is lacking.
As mentioned already, early game you are going to either want to get fiends or ghouls. Most players will get fiends, just because they are a versatile unit and much easier to keep alive than a ghoul. If your micro gets strong, ghouls can be used to deal a lot of damage. Rod of Necromancy is an amazing item and you should always get it early game. You can use the Rod on 1 hero, then pass it to another and the cooldown will be ready, so you can use 2 charges back to back. Fiends come with the added bonus of getting burrow at Teir 2, to help even more with survivability. Enemies will generally split damage to force you to use a coil on 1 target, then burst another. Burrow can really help you keep Fiends alive. Keep in mind though, you are losing the damage of the fiend while it is burrowed.
Obsidian Statues are great for the HP and MP regeneration. Destroyers are match-up specific, but being able to dispel the enemies buffs and dispel the debuffs cast on you is amazing.
How has your first week of playing gone? Any questions regarding creeping, hero usage, items, or match-up specific stuff? I know I'm not the most knowledgeable on Undead solo, but I have played this game for a long time.
#19 t1.reset How has your first week of playing gone? Any questions regarding creeping, hero usage, items, or match-up specific stuff? I know I'm not the most knowledgeable on Undead solo, but I have played this game for a long time.
It is very different from Starcraft but I'am having fun while learning^^ The OP will change soon regarding some new questions. Overall, it is an interesting game and thanks to all who took their time reading my thread.
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