Playing Human

[Prozerran]

I just watched what some might call "an epic battle," and it's got me thinking about how the pro's are playing human, why they're using what they use, and what would happen if they tried a different approach. Let me explain, you can watch the replay I'm referring to later and pick out what I'm talking about.

Gozu's insist on using footmen to creep the AM up for Brilliance Aura. I like BA, it's a fantastic aura, it aids casters, it aids heroes, and it's arguably the best aura in the game. Great. It's the footmen part that's a bit problematic. Maybe some of you have heard me bitch about the Human Barracks and how worthless it is, but for those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, let me clue you in.

The Barracks produces Footmen, Riflemen, and Knights. Before they were nerfed, Riflemen were worth building around, because they were higher in HP and had a better DPS. Now, Riflemen are just another unit. Footmen are crap. Ghouls can be produced in large quantities, as can archers (which are ranged) and there's no argument that Grunts are the best Tier 1 melee in the game. When you get to Tier 3 for Knights, they lose to Aboms, Bears, and Tauren. That's right, even fully upgraded in all categories, Aboms, Bears, and Tauren still beat Knights.

So, really, the only reason to build the Barracks is for footmen to creep up the Archmage. Fine. Afterall, that Archmage needs the early levels to even compete with the other match-ups. Water Elemental only takes you so far, until your Orc opponent starts purging, then you have to pay 350 gold to switch to Blizzard. That's costly, but if you fast-expand, you'll have more than enough - that is, if you can keep your expo up with the enormous pressure your opponent brings. Towers are about the only thing that give Humans a fighting chance early, and people bitch about them like they're the bane of War3. Funny how that works.

I digress. So, we place more emphasis on leveling than on teching, or if we have to choose between the two, we opt for the level over the tier. Pro's opt for the footmen to reach the all important level 3 and delay their tech to Tier 2 where Human's strongest units come into play. I've watched so many replays and heard so much criticism of fast tech and using anything other than the Human Tri-hero build that my head is spinning... how does someone justify wasting the extra time and resources on a Barracks and foots for a couple of levels on an otherwise lousy hero like the AM (whose best feature is an Aura that really has no baring on the game until Tier 2 - unless you count a W/E as a game altering spell, I don't).

You can get a two minute head start on your opponent by skipping the Barracks and tech Hard to Tier 2. A couple of towers can fend off early pushes and harassment, an early lumber mill helps to collect lumber much faster (btw, Human is said to be the slowest race to collect lumber), and with the ability to turn peasants into miniature footmen for creeping and defending purposes, you've got all you need in playing human.

The disadvantage in level is slight compared to the massive advantage of Tier 2 units, arguably the best for human. Now that I've ranted, watch this replay, watch how the Pally and AM save the day in the end, but look at how far behind the Human is from the getgo. Even going with an AM and foots, he's still a level behind the Orc. His casters are countered, his army is outnumbered, outgunned, and the Orc failed to capitalize on that. But consider if the Human player had teched hard to Tier 2, used the killer Area of Effect spells on the damn catapults, and actually altered strategy from this standard approach to Human. Consider what two Sanctums and two Workshops can really do. I think back to playing Terran in SC, and the playstyle is not so different when you consider that when all is said and done, it's still RTS, and hero levels don't typically determine the winner.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Human is a horrible race to play. On the contrary, they're one of the strongest races in the game (traditionally the case that Blizzard tends to favor "Human" in some small way in each of its RTS games - see the Siege Tank in SC, Towers and Mortars in War3, Casters as well). I encourage everyone to learn how to play human outside the box they've been placed in with the Pro's, and I expect criticism as well. Any input on this is welcome. Here's the link to the replay I mention. You can judge for yourself whether or not this was approached well or if it could have been done better from a strategy standpoint - considering the AM and Pally were the only thing that sealed the deal in the end.

http://wcreplays.com/replays.php?get=7891&R=2

[Yoda]

Pretty good replay. Paladin must be so annoying plus those water elementals. But this replay never seemed to say human is underpowered or anything like that...?

[Prozerran]

See the following...


Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Human is a horrible race to play. On the contrary, they're one of the strongest races in the game (traditionally the case that Blizzard tends to favor "Human" in some small way...

Yeah, it was a win, but it wouldn't have been a glorified "epic battle" if human was played differently in that match-up.

[xodkrm]

The orc was better, but the human outlasted the orc because human had an expo.
If the human didnt get the expo, the orc woulve pulverized the human.

[GenocideAlive]

I dunno, I can agree with some of your arguments, Proz, but some of them I'm finding myself doing the whole O_o thing at your data-to-conclusions logic.

I hardly think footies are useless, I just think they're like ghouls: they need to be produced en masse or fast tech. For another 15 gold, you get basically the same unit--with a mere upgrade, you have near immunity to piercing dmg. Sign me up? I can't count the number of times I totally buttfuck an Orc player by running in with 8 footies, 2 WEs and FF'ing down burrows. Ditto with NEs whom try to fast tech with archies--I Mana Siphon the DH and FS his archers. Hell it's not the greatest results ever, but it works 10x better than it would if I were trying the same with a DK and ghouls.

People jank on the fast tech I'm sure, but hey--fuck 'em. These are the same people that pick the AM in every matchup and do the same rifle/caster garbage no matter what. Rifle / caster works, yes. However, I'm fairly certain the vast majority of WC players have learned counters to it due to its EXTREME UBIQUITOUSNESS. However, I've found that AM + BM + Tink + mass casters does SUPER on Orcs for mass summons. Then once they try to pop out the wyvs, I pop out the dhawks. They try to make more wyvs and mix in bats, I just mix in a couple rifles. WEs + Quillbeast are surprisingly good AA and bats are useless at that point--they're just 150HP units that give L4 exp.

Anyway, I like playing with HU because of their versatility and the variety of strategies open to them. Other races seem dependent on either crazy-good items or heroes. If you can even soft counter those heroes, they struggle.

[Prozerran]

You know, I can see the usefulness of foots against primarily ranged armies. Being primarily a human player, I see all the possible ways a player can get around foots at Tier 1, all the ways other races hose human.

If I were good with a DH, I'd play NE, and in every human match-up, I'd pump hunts. Rifles used to be good for countering this, since they had meat on them and more armor (check me on that, I can't remember, I started with Orc in ROC). But to no avail now... foots, foots, foots... that's all we see pros doing now. And how can we blame them if they're going to make a Rax... it's 135g and 2 supply that builds slightly slower than a ghoul.

And I don't know a standard Orc player that doesn't go 2 grunt tech with FS against Human. It's the strongest opening against Human of any other race. I find the Human Orc match-up to be the most predictable, because if the Orc's going to win, it better be at Tier 1 or right about the time Sanctums start building. Otherwise, you've gotta be at Tier 3 with adept SWs and Shamans to shut that shit down.

My point, and I think you may agree, GA, is the quicker Human reaches Tier 2, the stronger human becomes.

My opinion of the replay. Had TOD been even slightly worse with micro, he would have lost... that and his pally kept him in the fight, and the mortars were about his only saving grace in this entire game. Had the Orc played even slightly better and not made a couple of mistakes... losing all of his peons for one thing... this game would have ended and I wouldn't have wasted 45 minutes of my life watching it in disbelief that people envy this kind of gameplay with human. I dunno, just frustrated with it is all. Thanks for your input on that, GA.

[GenocideAlive]

You know, I can see the usefulness of foots against primarily ranged armies. Being primarily a human player, I see all the possible ways a player can get around foots at Tier 1, all the ways other races hose human.
Well, being someone that plays all races, I immediately see the ways that people can attempt to "get around" many low-HP units, and the ways that people can try to reciprocate. You can mass AoE, but I can mass heal-scrolls / priests in response. You can FF, but melee FF sucks and ranged does -70% dmg with reflect dmg. If push comes to shove a Pally screws over FF anyway.
If I were good with a DH, I'd play NE, and in every human match-up, I'd pump hunts. Rifles used to be good for countering this, since they had meat on them and more armor (check me on that, I can't remember, I started with Orc in ROC).
Rifles kill hunts very well, and a DH is a far inferior hero to someone like the KotG. Mana Burn can be annoying, but Entangle yields kills. And rifles/hunts are an OK matchup, but I'd just camp a few guard towers until I could get mortars out. Mortars >>> hunts, glaives, archers, dryads, dott. NE could try to in turn switch to archers for better tower killing ability, but not only would that require more food and more money, but as I said they still die to mortars just as well.
And I don't know a standard Orc player that doesn't go 2 grunt tech with FS against Human. It's the strongest opening against Human of any other race. I find the Human Orc match-up to be the most predictable, because if the Orc's going to win, it better be at Tier 1 or right about the time Sanctums start building. Otherwise, you've gotta be at Tier 3 with adept SWs and Shamans to shut that shit down.
Well, they may 2-grunt tech, but they keep those fucking things coming. I frequently see 4-5 grunts before tier 2, which is a pretty steady stream. You sort of seem to acknowledge that they need to WIN FAST, but a 2-grunt tech really isn't much of a strategy in that direction. The best Orcs I've played take a little bit of a slower tech and fucking ride me the whole game, not letting me creep. Then at tier 2 they pop out with demos and a TC--if they ride pressure hard then it's hard to get those Sanctums up.

So you're fighting a equal level FS/TC combo with tons of grunts, 1-2 raiders and 1-2 demos. HU tier 2 is the saving grace there, with sorc/priest to add on to the rifle/footie mix. I tend to only build 3 footies if I see this kind of thing and switch over to rifles and defensive play faster. Then I get that BeastMaster and his bear as a second hero and start working the summon mojo. If they go shams instead of the demo/raider combo, then I take Tink second instead of BM and go blizz (not retrain). The Pocket Factory still helps me regulate choke points (better for the Slow + rifles combo) while blizz kills on mech goblins still damages grunts.

It can be rough if they take that first couple of minutes to harass me then immediately creep an expo. It's easier for me to weasel out of their press, but then they can use the extra gold to make their army diversity much better and match me in the late game.

All of which eventually led me the the realization that base design with HU, moreso than anybody else, IS FREAKING KEY. I'm working on a consistent, good design that I haven't quite defined yet. I've got some good ones, but no perfect ones yet. :)

[Prozerran]

You can mass AoE, but I can mass heal-scrolls / priests in response.

Mass Heal Scrolls for Orc or Human? I'm confused. I'm referring to the Orc match-up. Heal scrolls don't do anything for Demo's.

The AKM replays I posted are great sources for base design. Also, placing the Alter on the corner of your hall, building a tower on either side of it, farms, and then branching out with the Vault and Blacksmith (kind of a command and conquer kind of style) is pretty nice... isolates your towers and keeps your base open enough to militia and surround... but my favorite base builds I've seen are AKM's... fyi..

[thefazant]

youre looking at everything in a completely wrong way, you should never look at units on their own, always look at the big picture.
imo, knights are incredibly good, and probably the best non-mass produced t3.
the difference one or two knights make combined with youre t2 army is unbelievable, if you have holy light, heal, and staff they are just so great as meat and make youre army twice as good, theres no reason to mass them like aboms or bears. thats the great thing about human t3, theres no reason to fast tech to it, but if you just get it a little bit slower, those few gryphs, knights and that pally combined with those incredible ups, makes it such a great T3, and its a flawless transition from t2 (compared to orc for example)
same thing with rifles, they really suck when massed, but if you get just a few to get in that extra shot vs dryads so you dont have to waste a mortar shot, or put in that extra damage vs slowed running away units, or to absorb siege damage, they really own.
also, i dont get how you never mention spell breakers, imo the best unit human has.
the fact that sorcs, priests AND breakers come out of the same building allows for such great tech switches.
and really, footmen honestly dont suck, with defend they are great for pressuring ne just before T2, they own combined with WEs to run in and kill acos, vs orc i most of the time just run, its almost never worth it to do a t1 battle vs fs, grunt, wolves.
teching straight to t2 isnt worth it imo, and standard play human is much better

[Prozerran]

youre looking at everything in a completely wrong way, you should never look at units on their own, always look at the big picture.

Big Picture. Hmm... I thought I was... did I not discuss all three Tiers, all FOUR races?
imo, knights are incredibly good, and probably the best non-mass produced t3.
the difference one or two knights make combined with youre t2 army is unbelievable, if you have holy light, heal, and staff they are just so great as meat and make youre army twice as good, theres no reason to mass them like aboms or bears. thats the great thing about human t3, theres no reason to fast tech to it, but if you just get it a little bit slower, those few gryphs, knights and that pally combined with those incredible ups, makes it such a great T3, and its a flawless transition from t2 (compared to orc for example)

Not quite following you there. Knights and Gryphons are expensive, time consuming units. They're good in FFA, they're nice in certain cases, but for their cost, I'd rather have Mortars, Breakers, and Casters... and the infamous flying machines... that's all Human has ever, EVER needed.

same thing with rifles, they really suck when massed, but if you get just a few to get in that extra shot vs dryads so you dont have to waste a mortar shot, or put in that extra damage vs slowed running away units, or to absorb siege damage, they really own.

Are we in 1.07? No? Ok... the ship has sailed and docked across the ocean where riflemen are concerned. They're countered far too often, the only way you win with rifles is with casters. They're really not that great of anti-air. They cost too much for what you can get out of a group of flying machines with the flak cannon upgrades (100g, 150w, and 90g, 10w per unit). Furthermore, flying machines are more cost effective, evasive, quick to build and versatile in strategy. They compliment Breakers and Mortars (all of whom share the same armor upgrade btw)... I don't see how anyone can consider riflemen great anymore.

also, i dont get how you never mention spell breakers, imo the best unit human has.
the fact that sorcs, priests AND breakers come out of the same building allows for such great tech switches.

See above. When I say casters, I assume Breakers within that context, as they carry mana and cast spells (anti-caster or no, they're still a caster).

and really, footmen honestly dont suck, with defend they are great for pressuring ne just before T2, they own combined with WEs to run in and kill acos, vs orc i most of the time just run, its almost never worth it to do a t1 battle vs fs, grunt, wolves.
teching straight to t2 isnt worth it imo, and standard play human is much better

We were talking about the Orc match-up weren't we? Ahh... NE. You know, you've gotta think about it from this angle to see the point - what does NE fear more? The units that come from the Barracks or the units that come from the Workshop? I was using Mortars against NE when everyone was posting in forums across the internet that they were useless, and I was winning games. I never would have dreamed of using Flying Machines against Orc Wyverns as I couldn't justify the trade-off, until lo-and-behold I had no option but to use them and micro them in battle... now I don't play without them.

Footmen may offer a nice harass T1, but very rarely do they ever win the game against good players. As you could tell from the replay, TOD was already behind when he went foots rather than hard teching. It can be done, otherwise you're banking on whether you can get to Tier 2 in enough time to keep your Orc opponent from KOing you with a Tier 3 horde.

[GroG]

i'd listen to fazant, he's pretty good..

anyways, riflemen are still good, they have very nice range, work very well with healing scroll (where gyros don't), plus work vs both ground and air. with tod's micro, and with early expo being so strong, riflecaster is very lethal

also, the game is more than just straight out fight this unit beats this, it's about harass, positioning, heroes, etc, which of course you already know. doesn't matter if your gyros beat his wyverns if he's constantly harassing your peasants and running away and crushing your eco.

anyways, blizz is hard to use without a stun, they just micro out of it, especially pros would. most of the time when you see blizz you see am/mk stomping and blizzing the stunned units.

[GenocideAlive]

i'd listen to fazant, he's pretty good..
Proz is no slouch either. But hey, you're on thefazant's cock, so what do you care?

Anyway, I just saw the replay, and I have to say I wasn't very happy with it. ToD spent the last 20 min FFing a L6 TC, then finally realized at the end that he could FF the FS (omfg amazing) who is slower, has less HP, and is an all-around better target. That was some amazing staff abuse there, though. They won him the game hands-down.

[GenocideAlive]

And to continue our conversation from earlier, Proz, I've found that typically HUs spend far too much time in tier 1. I usually get an arcane tower, 3 or so foots, and creep conservatively. I get a tower up and camp my base if I have to--I rarely pump more footies unless it looks like I'm going desperately need them. Then when tier 2 hits, I dual sanctum. Then I pick where I'm going from there:

NE: Add a Workshop. Breakers, priests, and mortars.
Orc: Go to tier 3 faster, get BM/FL/Tinker depending on hero/unit choice.
Mass expensive Orc air nets them lots of WEs, quillbeasts, and lava summons.
Mass grunt/raider/demo nets them WEs, Bears, and Pocket Factory.
Mass grunt/sham/SW nets them gryphs.

For UD I typically go with a pushy Pally/MK rifles/priest strat until I see what they do with their Slaughterhouses. If they get the typical destroyer garbage, I'll be FE and waiting for their push. If they get aboms, I'll incorporate gryphons. Depending on gold and our play to that point, I get a Bloodmage third and start using Banish to pump up my HL/SB dmg. I'm usually fairly conservative with the BM third because it makes micro a pain and he's a giant NUKEME target.

Skill set goes HL/Aura unless they've got a DL and they're pulling the Sleep/Surround crap in which case it'll be HL/DS/HL/Aura/HL. MK: Bolt/Clap/Bolt/Bash/Bolt. A lot of people whine that you won't have mana for that, but I've found that lots of ghouls can screw things up at various stages of the game. If they don't get ghouls, you're not out much.

In the mirror obviously I usually don't pick my AM skill until I see their setup. I go Blizz if their base setup sucks or they pick pally first, I go WE if they've got a tight base or an MK, AM, BM first. I pump footies most of tier 1, and attack at around tier 2 with my second hero which is usually Tinker. He can really fuck over a base layout with that pocket factory in the right spot, and those goblins are hell to deal with when militia/footies.

[RedRagToAnOrc]

I've found that typically HUs spend far too much time in tier 1.

Which is why players such as Insomnia stick up a Mill straight after the Altar. I don't bother with an Arcane Tower normally, I don't really think's it's worth it for 70 lumber that you could be teching with. Especially in a HvO matchup, where the Orc always techs before the Human player and so the Hu often has to attack the Orc earliest after Tier 2 as possible, with a Firelord or Beastmaster, in an attempt to take down the Tier 2 buildings and gain some time. However, with a Mill early on instead of Altar/Barracks as first two buildings, and with no Arcane Tower, you get to tech quicker (at the same time as the Orc player) and you can take down said Tier 2 buildings easier.

[GenocideAlive]

I don't bother with an Arcane Tower normally, I don't really think's it's worth it for 70 lumber that you could be teching with.
Geez. The HvO m/u is an almost guaranteed tower from me. As a matter of fact, it seems the better the Orc player, the more he tries to pressure and harass me. Which means lower level AM, which means less water elementals, which means much harder time for HU. The tower(s) save(s) my ass time and again as my 3 footies + 1-2 WEs vs his 3 grunts and two wolves usually nets me a total assbeating in open field. The tower(s) mean(s) the FS has to stay back and the wolves much easier to farm. And if I start out creeping and he tries to do some quick damage while I'm running back, he's going to have a hard time of it with his mana drained.

Some people try to call me a tower whore when I have 2-3 towers up, but I guess it's fun to call people tower whores when every farm you make is a tower.
Especially in a HvO matchup, where the Orc always techs before the Human player and so the Hu often has to attack the Orc earliest after Tier 2 as possible, with a Firelord or Beastmaster, in an attempt to take down the Tier 2 buildings and gain some time. However, with a Mill early on instead of Altar/Barracks as first two buildings, and with no Arcane Tower, you get to tech quicker (at the same time as the Orc player) and you can take down said Tier 2 buildings easier.
I never pick my second hero before Orc because I need to see what they're doing. If he starts getting mucho shams to try to avert my WEs, I'll get a Tinker second for tanks and just let him purge WEs and make him suffer for sham's shitty combat ability. If he gets walkers or no casters, I'll get a Beastmaster and bear/hawk it up with Tinker 3rd. That bear drains a lot of mana to purge, and the hawk is usually just for watching for creepjacks or expos.

IMO, I let the Orc set the tempo. I can creep faster with dual summons and casters and I'm much more dangerous late game. If he pushes a lot of caster + siege + grunts, I'll break out the gryphs and he'll have some serious backpedaling to do. If he makes a bunch of raiders + caster + siege, I'll whip out knights. If he just grunt/raiders I'll just mass casters and show him why cookiecutter is going to get him assraped.

[Prozerran]

I've found Orc cookiecuts against Human more than anyone else. And really, it's not that Orc has much of an option with the potential caster abuse they're in for. I like drawing the Orc in to tower, because that slows the tech when they overcommit to trying to get the quick win. It almost always fails when Tier 2 hits... if you can get to a Pitlord for RoF, but more for AM with Blizzard. Once the towering is shut down, it's all downhill from there.

Orc doesn't stand a chance at Tier 2, unless they try to maintain the speed of tech, but they end up getting hosed from BM/PL AoE abuse with staves of teleport. Really, it just becomes a chess match. Orc brings 2 grunts, wolves and FS, I let my towers and militia hold it off, force them to retreat, then go strike their goldmine. Come in later with invisiblity and do the same, since Orc still has to put up a spirit lodge for Docs and Sentry Wards, which they hardly use unless they anticipate InvisiMortar. Then, GA, the Tinker at Tier 3 comes out, and that pocket factory works its magic with some breaker support.

I make it sound like Orc cannot adapt at all to this, but that's not so true. I recommend from fear of Orc players figuring it out one day, this counter:

Assuming a 2 Grunt Tech, finding a Human hard teching to Tier 2 screams a 2nd Barracks for mass HH. When you hit Tier 2, pump out 2-4 Catas while teching to Tier 3 and put up a Spirit Lodge for Witch Doctors who drop Sentry Wards to deter Invisi AoE harass. I believe the more patient Orc player is the more dangerous player, because at Tier 3, you've got Berserkers and Cata's to hose Casters, Witch Docs to drop healing wards (to deter AoE), stasis traps (!), and sentry wards when a sorc casts invis on a low hp BM or PL. It's a range advantage at that point.

The counter then plays out, with Human bringing out Mortars to counter Cata's, probably now forced to drop an Aviary for Gryphs or maybe bring in a Barracks for Knights... point being, Orc can control this kind of strategy, they just can't do it by trying to get a quick win from it like they always try to do.

As far as your approach, I'm still too opinionated I guess. Footmen slow your tech, maybe not by a lot, but by enough. I'm just not convinced they're the best way to begin in the Orc Match-up.

[GenocideAlive]

I'm having a lot of difficulty understanding what you wrote or where you're coming from...an Orc towering his base? Why the hell would an Orc tower his base against a HU? His burrows are towers and he's got 2 grunts and a FS + wolves to scare off any footies harassment.

And when you say hard teching, do you mean no-rax or no footies? How do you get good levels on your AM if they harass you? Militia and a tower won't do at all--they'll get at least 4-5 kills before you scare them out.

[Prozerran]

You don't understand an Orc player offensive towering a human player's base when they see hard teching? That's what I'm referring to when I refer to Orc "towering when they see human teching." Sorry that wasn't clear.
And that this discussion is about the barracks being useless, I assumed you understood hard teching to be "no rax" tech. Sorry for the confusion.

And yes, my suggestion for Orc to counter is not to Offensive tower or mass air, but instead to Mass HH/Berserkers, some Cata's, and 2-3 Witch Docs for their spells given a 2 grunt tech with Farseer and Wolves with a TC or SH at Tier 2 depending on your preference of Healing Wave or Endurance Aura. I can't really decide on which I would prefer at that point. 1 or 2 Shamans may work for Bloodlust at Tier 3, but I'll leave it at that knowing what I know about the human side of the match-up.

- Clarified.

How do you get good levels on your AM if they harass you? Militia and a tower won't do at all--they'll get at least 4-5 kills before you scare them out.

I believe my initial post in this thread addressed this very same question.

So, we place more emphasis on leveling than on teching, or if we have to choose between the two, we opt for the level over the tier. Pro's opt for the footmen to reach the all important level 3 and delay their tech to Tier 2 where Human's strongest units come into play. I've watched so many replays and heard so much criticism of fast tech and using anything other than the Human Tri-hero build that my head is spinning... how does someone justify wasting the extra time and resources on a Barracks and foots for a couple of levels on an otherwise lousy hero like the AM (whose best feature is an Aura that really has no baring on the game until Tier 2 - unless you count a W/E as a game altering spell, I don't).

Yeah, I said it. I don't start with the AM. I like Flamestrike for harassing. Also, I don't rely on one tower, 2-3 are safer, and anything more is just a waste of resources that I need for building Sanctums at Tier 2. If I get the AM, he'll be second, but I'll probably opt for a Pitlord with RoF and your Tinker at Tier 3 for his factories (I agree, they're the shit).

My rationale is this: it only takes one or two well targeted AoE bursts to cripple an enemy army, so why do I really need BA from the AM anyway? At that point it's just a commodity, unlike when you use the MK since you storm bolt frequently and must always have mana for him. Pitlord makes a pretty decent tank and aside from his AoE spell has a nice splash damage passive ability that works well when he has no mana to work with. Put a couple of Circlets of Nobility on him, maybe a Healing Potion, and he's good to go.

But then that's not really an issue when the BM can siphon from out of stunspell range and feed mana to the PL or the Tinker, who aids in keeping
distance from casters, mortars, and the BM as well as tanking with the PL. When the Tinker hits level 2 with Rockets, it's nice. I've almost considered throwing Tinker in Second, letting his factory harass an expo while the BM flamestrikes the Goldmine at the Main. I've seen better results from AKM replays and from Tod when he'd no rax tech in the Human match-up. He'd use the AM and Firelord, take Mass Summons from the FL to the expo and continually harass the main with Blizzard. I think of it in terms of chess, where you force an opponent to choose between a Rook and a Queen - I don't remember what that's called, but I'm positive there's terminology for it.

I'm rambling now. Did I answer any of your questions in all of this?

EDIT: I remember what my point was going to be...

I've seen better results from Dual AoE harass on one goldmine instead of separate harassment of two, but I'm not opposed to the idea of using a Tinker to bait an opponent out from turtling in his main.

EDIT2: I couldn't get matched up with an Orc for an hour, so I put a demo together... sort of sucks, but you'll get the idea.

[GenocideAlive]

You don't understand an Orc player offensive towering a human player's base when they see hard teching? That's what I'm referring to when I refer to Orc "towering when they see human teching." Sorry that wasn't clear.
I've seen it before, but it generally only works on 2P or neighbor spawns on 4P maps. OT'ing is a greedy way to try to nab a tier 2 win that usually fails when the HU player pops up with mortars, then dragonhawks, then gryphons.
And yes, my suggestion for Orc to counter is not to Offensive tower or mass air, but instead to Mass HH/Berserkers, some Cata's, and 2-3 Witch Docs for their spells given a 2 grunt tech with Farseer and Wolves with a TC or SH at Tier 2 depending on your preference of Healing Wave or Endurance Aura. I can't really decide on which I would prefer at that point. 1 or 2 Shamans may work for Bloodlust at Tier 3, but I'll leave it at that knowing what I know about the human side of the match-up.
My suggestion for the Orc is to fast tech and get a SH second for hex--creep an expo with the FS, expand and camp the main with a SH. Any attempts to flamestrike just results in a hex interrupt, and good luck mana siphoning an Orc hero in his base. And no Orc will ever, EVER get witch docs against a HU, because HU will just pop out 2 breakers and Control Magic their every ward.
Yeah, I said it. I don't start with the AM. I like Flamestrike for harassing. Also, I don't rely on one tower, 2-3 are safer, and anything more is just a waste of resources that I need for building Sanctums at Tier 2.
So basically you copy AKM. I think AKM deserves points for thinking outside the box, but his game is tired and unadaptive. The AM is considered a better hero choice because he feeds mana via the Brilliance Aura to other heroes and units while running at 320 and having plenty of mana for Blizzard. Compare this to the Bloodmage who can only give mana to one unit at a time after taking it from another unit and moves at 300. While Flamestrike is undeniably the better AoE, mana becomes an issue later and there's no option to retrain the sometimes-outmoded AoE for giant L3 WEs.

Overall, AoE abuse is fun for a few minutes, but fairly unproductive against multiple strategies. You keep jabbering about witch docs and HH's which are both trash units in that m/u. You'd just AoE them and steal their wards, which would completely rape them. As Orc mass air and a BM would cut you apart effortlessly, towers included--with no barracks and no AM+WE you have no response.
I've almost considered throwing Tinker in Second, letting his factory harass an expo while the BM flamestrikes the Goldmine at the Main. I've seen better results from AKM replays and from Tod when he'd no rax tech in the Human match-up. He'd use the AM and Firelord, take Mass Summons from the FL to the expo and continually harass the main with Blizzard. I think of it in terms of chess, where you force an opponent to choose between a Rook and a Queen - I don't remember what that's called, but I'm positive there's terminology for it.
It's called a "fork" and it applies to any situation where two allied units are threatened simultaneously by one enemy unit. I'm curious how you deal with a player that simply creeps around your base waiting for you to come out. Do you just camp there until you can get Sorcs for invis? Do you buy boots? Doesn't that largely sacrifice any cost-saving that you would have gained by not investing in tier 1 units? It would seem that, at max, after your first flamestrike the jig would be up.

You mention Pocket Factories and Rockets...you don't get the Engineering upgrade to pump more goblins? Dual-skills like that seems like you'd be sacrificing the quality of the Pocket Factory for some cheapo damage and a bit of stun. I realize you've been entranced by the replay of AKM desperately attempting to keep validated his outmoded lackluster playstyle (more appropriately referred to as "grind"), but seriously...rockets kind of suck when compared to that bitchin' pocket factory.

[Prozerran]

I've seen it before, but it generally only works on 2P or neighbor spawns on 4P maps. OT'ing is a greedy way to try to nab a tier 2 win that usually fails when the HU player pops up with mortars, then dragonhawks, then gryphons.

In terms of fast tech without a barracks or an early expo, Mortars (180g, 70w), Hawks (200g, 30w), and Gryphs (280g, 70w) is too expensive and less than effective. You'd be better off just massing hawks the whole game. No, comparing that to the cost of casters, mortars, and flying machines, you're much better off economically, not to mention the strength of that army compared to that of Mortars, Hawks, and Gryphs.

My suggestion for the Orc is to fast tech and get a SH second for hex--creep an expo with the FS, expand and camp the main with a SH. Any attempts to flamestrike just results in a hex interrupt, and good luck mana siphoning an Orc hero in his base. And no Orc will ever, EVER get witch docs against a HU, because HU will just pop out 2 breakers and Control Magic their every ward.

Yeah, I was kind of veering into your realm when going into the Orc strategy. But that's fine, I'll learn a few things here. Given a Bloodmage, Pitlord, and Tinker I would RoF first. You then Hex to interrupt, Bloodmage Flamestrikes and Priests Dispell Hex (is it dispellable or no?). The reason I mentioned Witch Docs was more for Sentry Wards, and I agree his other wards are easily stolen. The use is more for preventing Invis on Heroes as a means to escape when they run low on HP. Thus, my reasoning for HH/Berserks for the ranged attacks to pick off the low hp heroes.

So basically you copy AKM. I think AKM deserves points for thinking outside the box, but his game is tired and unadaptive. The AM is considered a better hero choice because he feeds mana via the Brilliance Aura to other heroes and units while running at 320 and having plenty of mana for Blizzard. Compare this to the Bloodmage who can only give mana to one unit at a time after taking it from another unit and moves at 300. While Flamestrike is undeniably the better AoE, mana becomes an issue later and there's no option to retrain the sometimes-outmoded AoE for giant L3 WEs.

Actually, I don't directly copy AKM, just his opening build for fast tech. As far as strategy, I adopt SUM1DiffereNt's unit selection, more of a hybrid of both really. I don't use Siege Engines like SUM1, and I don't sit in Tier 2 like AKM. I tech hard, I produce a couple of Priests, a couple of Sorcs, a couple of Mortars, and Breakers. Once Tier 3 hits, I upgrade Flak Cannons, add another Workshop, and pump Flying Machines to cover my ass in the air. As for heroes, I'm sticking to the BM, PL, and Tinker for two AoE spells and two tanks. I don't get that with the AM, and the synergy in those heroes' spells is nice. On LT and other non-tavern maps, I'll stick to BM/AM/Pally as usual.

Overall, AoE abuse is fun for a few minutes, but fairly unproductive against multiple strategies. You keep jabbering about witch docs and HH's which are both trash units in that m/u. You'd just AoE them and steal their wards, which would completely rape them. As Orc mass air and a BM would cut you apart effortlessly, towers included--with no barracks and no AM+WE you have no response.

I guess we're theorycrafting here at best. I'd love to test it all in-game. If you're down, let me know.

It's called a "fork" and it applies to any situation where two allied units are threatened simultaneously by one enemy unit. I'm curious how you deal with a player that simply creeps around your base waiting for you to come out. Do you just camp there until you can get Sorcs for invis? Do you buy boots? Doesn't that largely sacrifice any cost-saving that you would have gained by not investing in tier 1 units? It would seem that, at max, after your first flamestrike the jig would be up.

I don't camp. I go Flamestrike, go back for Clarity Pots, rinse and repeat until Tier 2 when I hit up the Tavern for a Pitlord, then dual AoE while putting up a Sanctum and a Workshop, followed up by another Sanctum if I've got the minerals while I'm teching to Tier 3. And what do you do? Go out and creep some more, or stay in your base to try and catch the BM. If you're stuck there, you're not out leveling up, and the playing field is still even. If you're leveling up, your economy or your tech is suffering, and if you're pressuring the base, you're up against 2-3 towers, militia, and a BM flamestriking the shit out of your units after he Staff's back to defend base after FSing your goldmining peons. I try to keep the pressure on until I've got an army to go attack.

You mention Pocket Factories and Rockets...you don't get the Engineering upgrade to pump more goblins? Dual-skills like that seems like you'd be sacrificing the quality of the Pocket Factory for some cheapo damage and a bit of stun. I realize you've been entranced by the replay of AKM desperately attempting to keep validated his outmoded lackluster playstyle (more appropriately referred to as "grind"), but seriously...rockets kind of suck when compared to that bitchin' pocket factory.

Good point. I guess Dual AoE is plenty... :)

Let's just play it out, even if I suck at it, we can see what works on both sides... it'd be fun. If you've got time and are interested, PM me and let me know.

[Revelade]

Before I quit WC3, I did play human. However, I was primarily using the Pally.

The pally is slow, granted, but at later levels, he is a beast to kill.

Against UD, you should DEFINITELY get the Pally. Cookie cut UD goes fiends, stats and destroyers. That's why the key unit against UD is... BREAKER.

Yes, the breaker counters all three of these units in addition to their hero. Fiends? Breakers do 200% more to them and reduce their damage by 25% (normal armor). Stats? Feedback will make them pop in seconds. Roys? Roys can't even touch them. Heroes? Feedback again is highly effective.

Paladin further helps by making breakers harder to kill. Later, you might want to throw in a Blood Mage to drain their mana, and at the same time, give mana to the Pally. This offsets the reduced mana flow from Brill Aura.

Now they probably will go melee, but you can counter with knights or casters, which will be easy, since you already have those buildings anyway. You might even want to go gryphons if you don't see many fiends.

The great thing is that these units, footmen, breaker, knights and gryphon share the same attack upgrade. The armor upgrade will help all your ground units however. I just found this a highly effective strat against UD.

Against other races, try going Pally and BM, and mix around with foots, rifles, breakers, knights and gryphons as you see fit. The reason why I say this is because you send in your bloodmage to drain their mana. Chances are they will FF on him. That's where holy light and banish come in. Your BM is brand new again.

You drain their mana, while getting more of your own. You should focus on light and AURA (not shield) with pally and drain/flame on BM with one point in banish. Now you may think, this sounds pathetic, but think about it: How much DPS do casters really do? Now replace the casters with a couple knights, rifles or gryphons. The DPS is obviously higher.

Slow and heal are the main reasons why the human army can stand up to armies. This strat attempts to replace these with devotion aura and holy light. That leaves more food to built higher dps units.

It's an alternate strategy to cookie-cut AM casters.

[RedRagToAnOrc]

Before I quit WC3, I did play human. However, I was primarily using the Pally.

I used Pally/Panda for fun against Undead, with mass air and casters. That was funny. But Archmage is definitely better, I find. At later levels with mass pots he's pretty darn difficult to kill against a good Hu player, and the summons and mana regen aura, especially if you were to go Panda second, are invaluable.

The pally is slow, granted, but at later levels, he is a beast to kill.

Unfortunately, I must object. He may be a strength hero, but without large amounts of potions and Divine Shield, he's just like, say, a Beastmaster with slightly more armour and less summons.


Against UD, you should DEFINITELY get the Pally. Cookie cut UD goes fiends, stats and destroyers. That's why the key unit against UD is... BREAKER.

Yes, the breaker counters all three of these units in addition to their hero. Fiends? Breakers do 200% more to them and reduce their damage by 25% (normal armor). Stats? Feedback will make them pop in seconds. Roys? Roys can't even touch them. Heroes? Feedback again is highly effective.

Paladin further helps by making breakers harder to kill. Later, you might want to throw in a Blood Mage to drain their mana, and at the same time, give mana to the Pally. This offsets the reduced mana flow from Brill Aura.


Now I really do disagree. Sure, in theorycrafting, Breakers are good, but firstly, the 150% damage against Fiends isn't all that important, because cookie cutter Undead has at last realised that Defend generally holds out well against Fiends and is starting to go for Ghouls instead. Breakers do not attack Destroyers. So the roys can't touch them, but they can't touch the roys. Other units kill the roys on their behalf, while the Destroyers get free ability to focus other, more important units, for instance summons and casters, rather than being attracted to the melee units which you want to be able to tank.

As for Blood Mage, you're simply replacing the Brilliance Aura later on with an inferior hero. Water Elementals do just fine until Tier 3, thanks very much! Banish is good with HL, as you mentioned, but even then, DK has Coil, which almost immediately counters it.


Now they probably will go melee, but you can counter with knights or casters, which will be easy, since you already have those buildings anyway. You might even want to go gryphons if you don't see many fiends.


Gyros all the way! Insomnia's strategy may be weird, but it works quite well when used effectively. They completely own Destroyers with focus fire. And even when Undead does go melee, I always find that massing Hu air units is a good solution, even against Aboms/Fiends. You have heavy air units in Gryphons - which are inevitably useful, Hawks, (which own Dests and Gargs w/ Shackles) and Gyros, which also own aforementioned units, and the Ud player may have some serious trouble webbing all this stuff.

Some interesting ideas, but I just can't find it in myself to agree with you.

[Prozerran]

Before I quit WC3, I did play human. However, I was primarily using the Pally.

The pally is slow, granted, but at later levels, he is a beast to kill.

The real distinction to make about the Paladin in the UD match-up isn't that he's hard to kill, but rather that he's difficult to deter from harassing the UD aco's at level 3. Invis potion, Boots of Speed, Divine Shield, and Holy Light combined produce a very potent harass on acolytes that is difficult to prevent.

Against UD, you should DEFINITELY get the Pally. Cookie cut UD goes fiends, stats and destroyers. That's why the key unit against UD is... BREAKER.

Yes, the breaker counters all three of these units in addition to their hero. Fiends? Breakers do 200% more to them and reduce their damage by 25% (normal armor). Stats? Feedback will make them pop in seconds. Roys? Roys can't even touch them. Heroes? Feedback again is highly effective.

There really is no key unit in this match-up, unfortunately. There's the Pally, of course. The real key is to get Tier 3 fast and counter Destros before you get raped. Breakers don't counter Destros, they're simply immune to magic damage. That's why we counter destros with flying machines. Mortars counter Fiends, not Breakers. Breakers do counter Stats, but Stats just morph into Destros and run away just to come back later to kick the human player's teeth in.

Paladin further helps by making breakers harder to kill. Later, you might want to throw in a Blood Mage to drain their mana, and at the same time, give mana to the Pally. This offsets the reduced mana flow from Brill Aura.

Well, yes, Bloodmage drains enemy mana and gives it to Pally. I agree here that Pally and Bloodmage are a great combination in this match-up, so long as you use Flamestrike instead of Banish...

Now they probably will go melee, but you can counter with knights or casters, which will be easy, since you already have those buildings anyway. You might even want to go gryphons if you don't see many fiends.

The great thing is that these units, footmen, breaker, knights and gryphon share the same attack upgrade. The armor upgrade will help all your ground units however. I just found this a highly effective strat against UD.

Against other races, try going Pally and BM, and mix around with foots, rifles, breakers, knights and gryphons as you see fit. The reason why I say this is because you send in your bloodmage to drain their mana. Chances are they will FF on him. That's where holy light and banish come in. Your BM is brand new again.

You drain their mana, while getting more of your own. You should focus on light and AURA (not shield) with pally and drain/flame on BM with one point in banish. Now you may think, this sounds pathetic, but think about it: How much DPS do casters really do? Now replace the casters with a couple knights, rifles or gryphons. The DPS is obviously higher.

Slow and heal are the main reasons why the human army can stand up to armies. This strat attempts to replace these with devotion aura and holy light. That leaves more food to built higher dps units.

It's an alternate strategy to cookie-cut AM casters.

I guess I'm having trouble following you here. Of course they'll go Melee. Aboms, Fiends, and Destros are typical in this match-up. But, what do your knights really do for you? Not much, and they're very expensive, not to mention Aboms counter Knights with disease cloud. Your best option is a mix of Casters, Breakers, and Mortars with Flying Machines that keeps Destro's from countering your casters. Really, if you want to play it safe, you'll make Breakers, Priests, and Mortars to creep and harass. Pump Flying Machines, upgrade Flak Cannons, then start producing sorcs once you have control of the air.

When you attack, send in your fleets of flying machines first, followed by your Breakers, then your Mortars and mix of Sorcs/Priests. Use polymorph on Aboms once Destroyers are dead, Flamestrike Fiends, and focus Breakers on UD heroes (the real reason to use Breakers, btw). Use your heroes to take out Fiends and Morphed Aboms. It's important to keep those Flying Machines out of sight until you're ready to attack, lest your opponent starts massing Gargs. Gryphs are overpriced and easily countered. So are Knights, as they're inferior to all other Tier 3 melee.

[Revelade]

Ah, I see people attempting to prove how I am "wrong", when I'm stating my experience, as in it already happened.

@RRTAO: You like AM, well that's great. I don't like summons and microing a weak hero (in terms of health)

He's not a Beast Master. He starts with 2 more armor than him. Behind the Demon Hunter, he is the hardest hero to kill thanks to devotion aura and the fact he starts with a lot of armor for a strength hero. If you add the health and armor values and compare it to every hero, you will find I'm correct.

And what, are you GOING to use casters and summons against UD? Stats WILL be used in every game a good UD plays because they have no drawbacks. A roy is only tier 3 and a simple upgrade away. Please explain how feeding roys is better than doing 150% to fiends. If you find them using ghouls, all that is needed is switching to more footmen and to knights/gryphons at tier 3. Again, when I used this strat, it has worked quite well and even got me to the top 800s in ladder (US West). This is not theorycrafting; it's already happened, meaning there's no point debating it. Do you want my ladder picture?

As for the bloodmage, his AoE will be tons better than feeding destroyers with your summons or buffs/debuffs. Also, you get to have a nuke with the Paladin as well. Please explain how an instant nuke and AoE is worse than feeding roys with summons.

Gyros will die fast to AoE roys. You have to remember gyros take 200% from roys, which is the same as taking 200% from a gyro. Use rifles on roys. You don't need to build another building and if they don't even USE roys (which they won't, because you have no casters), at least rifles will still be useful.

I'm not asking you to agree with me. I'm saying what my strategy for human WAS when I played and that it worked enough to get me into the top 800s in RT ladder.

@Prozerran:

While you can do your harassing acolytes, I find we battle before it comes to that stage since it's hard to get a level 5 pally with 2 heroes.

Breakers don't counter destroyers you are correct, but in doing so, you render roys useless. For a 5 food unit, a roy does crap damage against anything other than a melee unit and without stuff to eat. Look at how much DPS tauren do. If they do happen to get a lot of destroyers, you simply mass rifles. You will do 200% to him, in addition to FF, will down roys easily.

Destroyers can't rape anything if they have no food. Without their AoE, they are crap DPS units. Their AoE is decided by other stats, which is only once, or the debuffs/summons/buffs you have, which you don't have in my strat. The mana from the stats are easily evaporated thanks to feedback on the breakers. Try FFing a statue with breakers. You'd be surprised HOW fast it dies.

You can use mortars, but expect FFing and nuking, as well as building another building, JUST for mortars. The armor upgrades for footmen and knights also don't apply to them as well.

You need one point in banish because you can SUPER heal your knights or bloodmage OR you can SUPER nuke their deathknight or lich or abom. Then you get bonus damage with your phoenix. One point in banish, not two or three, but one.

If they go Aboms, you use Knights. They go fiends, you again, can use your knights. If they go roys, you bring in rifles. You just need to focus on barracks and sanctums, meaning you save money.

Knights expensive? They cost only 5 more gold and have 10 less wood than Aboms. Have you tried using them? Disease Cloud is a pathetic 1 damage per second and you have should have at least 3 bonus armor, in addition to banish/holy light to heal your knights. Knights also have a higher DPS than Aboms, in addition being made from barracks. What's the problem here?

Again, casters are USELESS. Are you going to by a 2 food, 135 unit just for heal? They aren't going to use summons, they aren't going to use debuffs/buffs and your summons/buffs/debuffs are FOOD FOR THE ROYS. Mortars will be easily FFed by roys and nuked by the DK/LI, then you need a workshop as well. You then will be forced to make gyros which are useless offensively when creeping, if you aren't battling him.

Knights are the fastest tier 3 melee. They also have the most armor and do higher damage than Aboms and only need barracks. They aren't useless.

Gryphs do slightly more damage than knights, but do a lot more when they use their upgrade. However, I wouldn't recommend relying on these guys because they can be webbed. If you see a good number of fiends, it's best to skip these completely. Only use these if the opponent is focusing on LOTS of melee.

Basically against UD, using the (light/aura) Paladin, (drain/flame/one point banish) Bloodmage works. You will rely on footmen early on against fiends or ghouls, switch over to breakers if they go pure fiends, and then use knights/rifles at tier 3 against fiends and destroyers, the common cookie cut. This isn't theorycraft; it's taken me to the top 800s in ladder and I'll say that's good enough for me.

If you want to, go to wcreplays.com and look up some of my posts on paladin first. I'm banned from there due to an argument with the moderator, but you might find the threads I made.

[GenocideAlive]

I'm not asking you to agree with me. I'm saying what my strategy for human WAS when I played and that it worked enough to get me into the top 800s in RT ladder.
Just to let you know (not taking any sides in the matter), top 800 in RT ladder is roughly equivalent to my ass cheeks squeaking together.
If you want to, go to wcreplays.com and look up some of my posts on paladin first. I'm banned from there due to an argument with the moderator, but you might find the threads I made.
I'm fairly certain everybody is banned from WCR. I regularly see people get banned for no good reason, while mods and staff regularly behave in the manner that they clamp down on users for doing.

[Revelade]

Just to let you know (not taking any sides in the matter), top 800 in RT ladder is roughly equivalent to my ass cheeks squeaking together.

I'm fairly certain everybody is banned from WCR. I regularly see people get banned for no good reason, while mods and staff regularly behave in the manner that they clamp down on users for doing.

If top 800 is just piss to you, then so be it. I can't change what you think. I think that's something, at least to show this strat does work.

I'm not here to create sides. I'm just saying what I did back when I actively played WC3 ladder. It's like saying I kicked the ball and other people saying "No it's impossible".

Of course you could argue the weaknesses of this strat and I would admit to them because no strat is perfect, though cookie cuts are close.

Anyway, having fun discussing here? Everywhere else I look: Blizzforums, Batteforums, Warcraft Strategy are all dead.

[Prozerran]

I disagree with your assessment of flying machines in reference to destro's. A large group of flying machines owns destro's, much more than an average amount of Riflemen. In your build, it may be that you can mass a significant number of Riflemen, but even so you're talking about sanctums and the barracks as opposed to sanctums and workshops for unit production. It's obvious you've never seen a group of flying machines manhandle a group of destro's... it's a full blown reach around as Destro's die while retreating.

And knights ARE expensive, that's undeniable. Breakers are much more difficult to deal with as UD with a third to half your army consisting of Destro's. Aboms are big and slow, disease cloud owns Human more than any other race. Granted, Knights may not suffer directly, but it's the combo of cloud, Abom damage, and Fiend damage while heroes nuke.

You're obviously better off countering UD with sanctums and workshops than with sanctums and barracks, but it's your decision from the start. If you're going to waste your time with a barracks, you might as well use it and try to make the most out of it. Barracks units are shit, tho. The only time they become useful is if your opponent masses ranged units so you can use defend. It's your perrogative.

[Revelade]

You can use your flying machines and I'll use my rifles. Blizzard made more than one way to do things.

2 Footmen cost more than 1 knight, yet do less damage and have less hp/armor, in addition to moving slower. It's true that 1 knight does cost more than 1 footmen. I think it's cost effective.

Barrack units can counter many things. Roys < Rifles. Fiends < Knights/Footmen. These are the common cookie cut units of the UD.

If you use another strategy, that's good for you. I'm here to say what I used and how it's been effective for me. Again, it's already happened, so there's no point in saying it won't work. It's like saying the Steelers can't win the Super Bowl.

People shouldn't be forced to explain themselves just to post a strategy they use. Anyone should be able to say what they think in this forum (as long as it doesn't violate the contract), without fear of being attacked.

[Prozerran]

Who's attacking you? And just because it "worked" for you doesn't mean it's the "best" way to do something. If you're going to state your strategy and just expect us to agree with it, applaud you, and move on, then what's the point?

[Revelade]

No the point is that you're telling me it's the wrong way to do it when I've already proved it works.

You can say what you would do instead of my strategy, but you can't say that it doesn't work.

I use Pal/Blood foot/rifl/knight/break and it's worked for me. That's all that matters.

[thefazant]

it worked for you at youre shitty top 800 rt level, that doesnt mean its a good strat.

[Revelade]

Removed.

[Prozerran]

No the point is that you're telling me it's the wrong way to do it when I've already proved it works.

You can say what you would do instead of my strategy, but you can't say that it doesn't work.

I use Pal/Blood foot/rifl/knight/break and it's worked for me. That's all that matters.

Fair enough. Here's what I do when I expect a cookie cut UD match-up.

5 Peasants to Gold. First 2 Peasants collect Lumber. When the third comes out, I build a Lumber Mill. When the 10th Peasant comes out, I begin a tower. When the 12th Peasant comes out, I tech. Then Alter, Farm, Farm, Guard Tower, and Blacksmith (starting your melee Armor rush is important here, begin upgrading immediately). Bloodmage first, usually have to select siphon mana first since DK harass can own. Combine Siphon with Arcane Tower, and you quickly shut down DK harass. I'll get Flamestrike after that as a primary skill. Let Militia handle Fiends. At Tier 2, add a Pally, tech to Tier 3, build a Workshop and a Sanctum, then another Sanctum when resources are available. First unit will be a flying machine to scout out my opponent's strategy.

Mortar Teams and Priests are priority, protected by towers, militia, and low level heroes. I'll stick with two heroes. Pally heals Bloodmage early on, later, with 1 point in Banish, I'll begin a weaker nuking. If I want a stronger nuke on the DK later on, I'll get the MK. Banish, Light, Bolt, Flamestrike. But that's more dependant on the way the game's going. Mostly, I'll just feed mana to the Pally for Banish/Light.

Once at Tier 3, I'll put up a second Workshop, upgrade Flak Cannons on Flying Machines, and start pumping those out. With 1-2 Control Groups of Flying Machines to control the skies for virtually the same cost of 1 control group of Destro's, the splash damage is very effective. That's when UD will switch to Aboms, but that's about the time a few Sorcs come out to polymorph. When the attack begins, Flying Machines go first to secure the casters, then Breakers and Mortars, then Casters to Polymorph Aboms and Priests Inner Fire Mortars and Flying Machines. If this doesn't end the game, upgrade the Bombs on Flying Machines, Inner Fire them, and send them to take down the UD expansions.

In the rare instance some newb decides to tower up his expo's, I'll build one Aviary for 2 or 3 hawks and cloud, but that's the extent of it. There's nothing that Human cannot counter with two Sanctums and two Workshops.

[GroG]

if you actually win huvud by going BM and towering up but going siphon first instead of flamestrike, you are playing newbs. you have 0 harassing power and your teching like a whore.

btw, when ud's see that build, they don't dk harass you they creep like a whore. you can't jack them either, because you'll get surrounded. i suppose you could go harass some acos, but what are you gonna do with siphon?

here's a rep of one of my huvud games doing the AKM start, except i went pally/mk. basically so you know im not a total scrub.

[Prozerran]

Sure, you'd be nuts not to go Flamestrike first against UD IF they don't DK harass the hell out of you. I've seen it both ways. Keep the skill point open though until you know what they'll do. Basically, if your BM comes out and you've got DK harassing the hell out of your peasants, Siphon can work. Not to mention, if they see you select siphon and then go off to creep. You can still siphon the hell out of the DK so he can't heal ghouls. But, I completely agree, if you can go Flamestrike first, do it.

[thefazant]

O yay, it's fazant with his OMG LIGHTNING SHIELD OWNS strat which is killed by crowing...

How's it going nerd? haha, you dumbass you really seem to hate being shitty at this game now dont you?

[GenocideAlive]

No the point is that you're telling me it's the wrong way to do it when I've already proved it works.

You can say what you would do instead of my strategy, but you can't say that it doesn't work.

I use Pal/Blood foot/rifl/knight/break and it's worked for me. That's all that matters.
You really sound like a fucking crybaby. Oh no, someone on the Internet argued with you--call out the manner police!

The fact is that your strategy folds like a total bitch to the tri-hero combo of your choice. DK + DL + CL and mass melee will totally abuse you, and there's nothing in the barracks that will counter it. Sleep on the heroes and DK aura for positioning. GG. He could get 50 food in destroyers and wipe out your entire peasant population while your breakers sit there talking about how cool they are, impotent and immune. GG. Or he could just totally mass the hell out of aboms and destroyers, and you'd have no hard counter to either.

The result, of course, being that you'd get chainmorph used like every other noob HU that tries mass tier 1 units against UD. You've got a very small window to show the UD player that you're ready for him in terms of his fast-track to destroyers. Frankly, none of the units you've suggested even implies that he should stop what he's doing. Nova + Impale on rifles, Coil + mass destroyer >>> your rifles + Holy Light.

The message here that you don't seem to want to acknowledge, is that Top 800 RT is ass and massing barracks units + breakers with a Pally can't compete with UD tri-hero.

Edit: And BTW, the Wand of Lightning Shield needs to just be taken out of the game, period. Anybody playing vs. HU gets that drop and it's pretty much GG right there. I've done it, I've had it done to me, and in either scenario, only massive screwups or 300APM non-spam micro saves the HU. I usually just TP in, and go straight for the enemy hero. If I get him, I've got a good chance of continuing. If he runs off or manages to stay alive for too long, odds are most of my peasants are already dead. Continuing just means he'll come back with another AoE hero and finish me in a few minutes.

[Revelade]

Removed.

[GenocideAlive]

And there's Genocidealive who thinks if he doesn't like a strategy that he's never tried, then obviously the person should be flamed and punished for it.
Sadly, you know less than for which I give you credit. I've tried this maybe a year or two ago. It fails, miserably. Destroyers are far too manueverable, and rifles too vulnerable while trying to FF them down.
The fact is that there's nothing to argue about. Like I said before, if I said, I ate a burger today and you argue with me about it, guess what IT'S ALREADY DONE.
While we're talking about facts, let's talk about another fact: this strat sucks.
Tri hero and mass melee blah. Maybe it's being more apparent these days, but I've always seen the usual fiend/stat/roy pattern when I played because IT'S SO EFFECTIVE AGAINST COOKIE CASTERS.
Fiends and destroyers are used because they're generally effective and easily adaptable to everything HU can pull. Casters be damned, there's all sorts of problems with countering that strategy since aboms are an easy switch from destroyers.
If he's going to do that anyway, you'd obviously stick with with foots and throw some spice at tier 2, maybe casters or mortars, then pump knights and gryphons at tier 3. What seems to be the problem?
You're an idiot, that seems to be the problem...how do you know he's going mass melee until tier 3, when abom/destroyers would make the scene? He can get 2-3 statues and just keep them sidelined and you have no choice but to account for destroyers. Another two pop out of Slaughterhouses at any time and suddenly he's got 5, which is a very dangerous number for HU. Or he can just stick with his fiends and pop 4 aboms out of his slaughterhouses between scouting trips.

The fact that Slaughterhouses produce Aboms and Statues is very problematic for HU. If he sees an Aviary going up, he knows to account for air. If you see a Slaughterhouse go up and two statues come out, you have no way of determining if ultimately this means he's going to come up with aboms or destroyers. You need time to get units out, or you have to make three different buildings to account for either direction (Workshop, Sanctum, or Aviary). Even if you do, you're still behind in production since he's coming out of two buildings vs your one, and on top of that you're waiting on his production to make your move.
But as with most human vs. ud games, why would you wait until tier 3? You simple attack at tier 2, when UD units are shittiest. When you see masses of statues, he has no offensive power. If he has masses of ghouls, you tank with breakers and flamestrike them.
Because statues are tier 2 units that he can mass before he gets to tier 3. Since you paused at tier 2 and sunk all kinds of money into buildings and units while he went straight to tier 3, odds are you'll be winning to a point, then he'll morph destroyers and force you to TP. Then he'll pay your base a visit with more of the same, and you're helpless.

[GroG]

no, prozerran, dk won't harass you with an arcane and with a guard tower, so you won't ever get siphon first, ever. if for some reason the dk does harass you and you start with akm build, you don't even need a hero, the 2 towers is enough to keep them at bay

i dont understand why you'd ever get siphon first with the AKM build.

oh, and when i play vs ud and i see fiend into destros, i usually try to get knight/tank/priest. i hope this doesnt make me newb. then again, i usually go MK/pally with stomp and healing light. probably about the easiest way to play this matchup without heavy micro and pot usage i'd say

btw, i'm pretty sure the exact units you get to win in this matchup doesnt matter as much as your style of play and also hero levels.

[Revelade]

Removed.

[GroG]

what if they tower up and go to their base (if you find their army) and repair their statues and wait for tier 3? what if they don't engage you until they hit tier 3, instead creeping like a whore, like most UD's do?

also, i don't know if this is just me, but you say fiends beat gryphs, but in my games gryphs always beats fiends, just watch my replay i posted.

what if he nukes your BM then just hides in his base.. you are stuck at tier 2 and he's at tier 3

post a rep for more clarification please revelade

[cole]

Fiends in general lose to gryphs but ghoul fiend does a nice job of countering air along with coil nova.

[Revelade]

Please explain how fiends lose to gryphs. Fiends do nearly 60 damage to gryphs, while gryphs only do 37.5 damage to a fiend. But that's besides the point as Genocide has stated the UD would MASS roys, which means gryphs wouldn't be able to hit them.

Towering up won't win you games. Unless it's the tower up HU with the mass tanks, that might work, but they might be ready with their own siege. If they spend all the money towering up, you have more time to creep, expand and tech. You then come with a level 4 Pally and Bloodmage with lots of rifles or breakers. It's a win-win situation.

Knights > fiends/ghouls, = Aboms
Rifles > roys
Breakers > fiends/stats/heroes
Footmen > fiends, = ghouls (upgrade to knights at tier 3)

I wouldn't go air because of web, only dragonhawks can hit roys and fiends eat hawks and you have to build aviaries.

The footmen/knight, rifle and breaker combo does the job. Human players are so used to using casters, they don't see the potential of using other heroes. The Paladin is a slower death knight, though his aura is MORE useful in prolonged combat situations, while the DK is for hit and runs. The bloodmage removes their mana and feeds your paladin, who heals your BM when he's getting hit.

Tier 1:
Footmen

Tier 2:
Breakers

Tier 3:
Knights/Rifles

Buildings:
2 Barracks
2 Arcane Sanctums

Pally: Light/Aura/Light/Aura/Light/Ultimate (equip invisibility potion for defense)
Bloodmage: Drain/Banish/Drain/Flamestrike/Drain/Phoenix

The reason you don't need divine shield is the same reason the Mountain King can live without it too. The Pally is harder to kill than the MK as well. Against other races, get aura at level 5 because banish + light2 works nearly as well as light3 by itself.

You want one point in Banish because it adds 33%, whether you're healing your units or nuking them. The phoenix does more damage with banish as well. Flamestrike will be pretty useless against mass roys, but for mass ghouls, it works wonders.

I can't show you replays because WC3 is off my computer. All I can say is this is what I used when I used to play and perhaps you can TRY IT AND SEE IF IT WORKS.

[xodkrm]

What?
Lol, Revelade.
You've gotta be the most newb i have ever seen.
First off, it is extreamly hard to to a tier 2 push against an undead.
Instead of attacking, you want to creep and make an expo.
And did you know that breakers cant attack air?
Did you also know that there is a cooldown and a once hell lot of mana cost for flamestrike?
And no, fiends do not make air units useless. All they do is "web" them for a few seconds.
Webbing does not stop the air units from attacking. As long as the air units are behind the melee line, you're totally fine. The real air killers are gargoyles. Theyre cheap, fast, and do alot of damage verses air.

What do I not get?
You.

[Revelade]

Removed.

[xodkrm]

Undeads have someting called zigs. They can be upgraded to become towers that slow enemy units down, while dealing damage.

Yes, If you did expo earlier, you would be behind in terms of tiers. Assuming that the UD is an average player, the Ud would be hitting 3rd tier when you hit 2nd. I dont find early - expoing before tech too effective because humans's higher tech units are much much better than tier one units.

I mentioned gargoyles because they are better at killing air units. A human will only mass gyros if youre massing gargs. Im not telling you to mass gargs. Im just saying that gargs are better verses air.

Drain mana spell doesnt drain too much. Its a channeling spell, and it is easily dispelled by moving your targeted unit by a few inches. And not alot of human players put 3 points into mana drain for it to be effective.

Ive been playing warcraft three for over three years straight now. I wouldnt say im any good, but I usualy know what I am talking about. And BTw, Im not the one whining. Im just trying to correct you...trying to mass breakers against fiends and air. LOL.

PS: Fiends dont have mana.

[Revelade]

Removed.

[xodkrm]

And upgrading these zigs cost 145 gold EACH, which slows down unit production and teching.

You're saying somehow UD MAGICALLY has all this res to not only tech, but mass units AND spam towers at the same time. Tell me, can this UD have 4 heroes as well?

Gargs are better at air. When did I disagree with this? Stick with rifles because 3 gyros will lose dps when one gyro dies. A three food rifle man keeps his DPS until he dies. Realize the fact that rifles are also useful against ground units, while gyros are shitty at it.

If you get drain mana to level 2, you can bum off 30 mana a second off the DK or Lich. And making them run is the point. That makes their micro worse and even one second of draining makes them lose a coil/nova nuke, which can save your hero's life. As obsidian statues are the only way to get more mana, you can easily kill those with breakers.

Yea, it's sure funny when roys can't hit you, yet you do more damage to fiends and can blow up stats in just 2 volleys from 7 breakers. Then you can chase heroes because breakers move at an impressive 300 speed. Yep, real funny.

Oh, good job figuring out fiends don't have mana. Maybe in another three years, you'll figure out breakers are magic immune. Not really. I was talking about the Nerubian Tower. 100gold, 20 lumber.
This is not going to slow down tech if you get it while you tech to tier 3, which when you really need it.

No, UD cannot have 4 heros. Actually read what Ive said. Ive never mentioned anything about massing units or towers.

Okay then. The garg part is settled. Whew. ;)

Ermm, yes. Mana drain is effective- but it has a shitty range. Most people would probly respond to the mana drain in atleast 3 seconds. Okay. 80 (90-10) mana drained. Is that going to save you? No. I personaly would rather put points into flamestirke.

Okay. This is taking too long. Download all the replays from www.wcreplays.com (http://www.wcreplays.com), and see if you can get a replay where a human masses spell breakers against an undead player. We'll talk when you do find one. Also, you might want to think about taking anger management classes.

[Revelade]

Removed.

[Prozerran]

Gargs are better at air. When did I disagree with this? Stick with rifles because 3 gyros will lose dps when one gyro dies. A three food rifle man keeps his DPS until he dies. Realize the fact that rifles are also useful against ground units, while gyros are shitty at it.

The benefit of using flying machines is that you can produce 6 to 12 of them in very little time. Now, compare that to say, 2-4 Riflemen. When Destro's target a flying machine, the loss in dps is negligible compared to the loss of a rifleman. Flying machines build faster than riflemen, meaning from 2 workshops you have a faster response than from two barracks.

And if you're using flying machine bombs, you use them to harass enemy buildings, not enemy armies, unless they're countering air units like Destro's. Flak cannons make the anti-air power of flying machines even more pronounced, since they do splash damage while Riflemen don't. You must FF with either unit group, but the strength in numbers is what makes gyro's so effective, not that they are a superior unit one for one. Ghouls aren't a superior unit either, but then again, neither were zerglings in SC. I think you get the idea.

[RedRagToAnOrc]

You must FF with either unit group

In addition to this, with FMs you can select a group and then shift-click and generally forget about microing them until you want to run. Riflemen on the other hand have to be microed once in a while and this leaves the group with no command, meaning that you have to shift-click everything again.

[thefazant]

this has got to be the most retarded thread ive ever seen.
theorycraft is so useless
i use rifle-breaker-am-mk-2 priests and 2 sorcs with an eventual tech to t3 for a few knights, gryphs, a pally and a staff vs ud
its great, maybe everyone should try it instead of wasting their time with obviously inferior heros like the bm and the pally.
funny thing is, i started doing this on myself, never saw a huvud rep before i started playing human, then when i watched some reps, i noticed all the pros did smth similar.
not-cookiecutting just to not-cookiecut is retarded

[GenocideAlive]

I'm sorry if you're terrible at microing a couple of rifles in FFing a single destroyer. That doesn't mean it applies to the rest of us.
I'm sorry you think that a couple of rifles standing around getting beat on and spelled while destroyers fly away is going to get you a kill. It just goes to show that you play a lot of RT and have no idea about this game.
How about you suck at this strat, so learn to play better.
How about I'm Top 100 on US East and you're just some tool not-even-a-has-been from RT that thinks a couple of rifles are going to counter 3x their food in destroyers.
Oh, then what is he going to do pre tier 3? 2 heroes and an army of... stats? Make some fucking sense.
Generally he'll make around 10 ghouls and harass your creeping with a DK while creeping with ghouls off somewhere else. Then he'll run back, pick up the items (possibly stealing yours), and enjoy his level differential.
You hit him at tier 2 with breakers and flamestrike. If you actually try using a breaker against a stat, you'll see it takes only a matter of seconds before they fall. Ghouls? That's what flamestrike is for.

You don't seem to realize slaughterhouse is a useless building until he hits tier 3. Like any good human player does, HIT HIM AT TIER 2. Get this in your head.

Why the hell would you go aviary against UD? Fiends make gryphons useless and hawks are crap against roys. Use knights instead. They are built faster, have more hp and don't require another building.

Again, you get your FEEDBACK breakers and you hit him at tier 2. If he's pooling all that money into roys, he won't have the money for ghouls, which are the only counter the UD will have at that time against breakers. You just walk into his base, IGNORE the heros and simply FF on the stats. They will die like flies, thanks to feedback. 2 volleys from 7 breakers will destroy a stat. Feedback adds 20 damage to the existing 20 damage of the breaker. You might as well hit the heros and take their mana as well.
As I already explained, you pause at tier 2 to start building sanctums. He doesn't. He'll hit tier 3 far before you'll get any appreciable amount of breakers and then pop out with destroyers that he was massing from statues all during tier 2. Even if you get 1-2 statues and most of his ghouls, when he gets destroyers your breakers are ass and your flamestrike is useless.

You're not going to waltz into a UD base with a bunch of melee and FF down statues. FYI, knights don't counter destroyers and "ignore UD heroes" is the stupidest advice I've ever heard from someone that's trying to sound like they really know WC.

If push comes to shove, he can always quick-FF your AM to force a TP and a regroup. He'll spend the entire game stalling, and you'll spend the entire game trying to get your tier 2 push to work; then he'll get destroyers and your collection of knights, breakers, and flamestrike is fucking done. Over. Trashed. The reason you played RT is because this kind of trash in solo will get you raped and mocked over and over. If you're lucky, he'll let you take off your clothes by yourself.
this has got to be the most retarded thread ive ever seen.
Given what I've seen you post and participate in, I seriously doubt that.
Attacks without contributing to discussion, blah blah blah...
If you want to learn how to play HUvUD in higher level solo play, create a thread and we can talk about it. But I was contributing to the discussion just fine before you came along with your fucking mass-melee + 4 rifles + pally strat that obviously works great because you were Top 800 in RT. So sorry, but your strat is shit in solo (the only ladder that matters) and half of the shit you're throwing out there falls flat in practice. In the meantime, everybody here is trying to teach you how to play solo and you won't hear it because you did it in RT a year ago.

Here's a hint: RT is by and large played by people that have no idea how to play Warcraft III. If you want to learn Warcraft, play solo and you'll understand the nuances of units, their applicability and their scope. Rifles always lose to destroyers and heroes because rifles are massively vulnerable to spell damage while destroyers are immune and possess far and away more manuverability.

[Revelade]

Removed.

[xodkrm]

Okay then, Mr. know-it-all.
Why dont you post a replay of your OMG UBER LEET LOLO MASS BREAKER strategy?
Hmmmmm? (0.o)

[GenocideAlive]

Top 100 East can suck my dick. I don't give a fuck who you are unless you prove me wrong with a strategy. You show me reps, then I'll give you cred. You can just shut your face until I see them.
Funny that you haven't done the very thing you claim as being what's need for credibility. Funny that you quote yourself as being top 800 RT and use it as a form of credibility, but you don't like my reply that I'm Top 100 East. Funny that you're now requiring that I prove you wrong with a strategy, when I already have, over and over. You can't mass rifle/breaker until you know he's getting mass destroyers, which 2-3 statues doesn't necessitate. If he pops out with aboms vs your breaker/rifle army, it's fairly certain you're going to get violated.
Again, if he's super teching, while massing stats, YOU HIT HIM. How is this hard to understand? In fact, you might as well kill his acolytes and stop his gold flow altogether. He's not going to be sitting in base otherwise his hero won't level. You seem to think a bunch of stats and a hero can own an army of rifles and breakers. Use common sense.
Equally, I ask that you use common sense. He can make two 30DPS towers for 300G. If he feels very pressured, he'll make 3 for a scant 450G. And he'll recoup his losses on your troops. I realize this isn't something you're used to seeing in RT, but most UD players have equitable levels and can use their Lich, DK, rods of necromancy, towers, and ghouls to keep you out. All you'll do by trying some nutty ass late tier 2 push with an army of breakers is stop your creeping and feed him experience.

Let's face it, you're nobody, you know ass about Warcraft, and you're flailing to keep your bullshit above water. Cry, scream, or freak out all you want. Your strat sucks and wouldn't work on anybody who knew how to play. GG noob.

[xodkrm]

Funny that you haven't done the very thing you claim as being what's need for credibility. Funny that you quote yourself as being top 800 RT and use it as a form of credibility, but you don't like my reply that I'm Top 100 East. Funny that you're now requiring that I prove you wrong with a strategy, when I already have, over and over. You can't mass rifle/breaker until you know he's getting mass destroyers, which 2-3 statues doesn't necessitate. If he pops out with aboms vs your breaker/rifle army, it's fairly certain you're going to get violated.

Equally, I ask that you use common sense. He can make two 30DPS towers for 300G. If he feels very pressured, he'll make 3 for a scant 450G. And he'll recoup his losses on your troops. I realize this isn't something you're used to seeing in RT, but most UD players have equitable levels and can use their Lich, DK, rods of necromancy, towers, and ghouls to keep you out. All you'll do by trying some nutty ass late tier 2 push with an army of breakers is stop your creeping and feed him experience.

Let's face it, you're nobody, you know ass about Warcraft, and you're flailing to keep your bullshit above water. Cry, scream, or freak out all you want. Your strat sucks and wouldn't work on anybody who knew how to play. GG noob.
WELL SAID, GENOCIDE ALIVE.
WELL SAID.

[mAnbimanimanimA]

Sadness level: overwhelming.

[Revelade]

Removed.

[thefazant]

here's me massing breakers in huvud, without the shitty pally and bloodmage but with the completely superior am and mk
im pretty tired so i wasnt playing too well, but you get the idea

[Prozerran]

Revelade:

Just so we're clear on how UD plays against Hu, I just watched 8 replays of Hu vs UD match-ups from tournaments with high level players like 4KTOD, SK.Insomnia, NIP Rainbow, and 4K FOV at www.wcreplays.com. None of the UD players went with a Fiend build. I saw one UD dual crypt on LT because of Human's overwhelming advantage on that map. Most, if not all UD's went Ghouls/Gargs/Stats and maybe a fiend. Then, those 4-6 Stats would morph at Tier 3 as they lost HP. Soon, UD had 6-8 Destro's while Human countered with (sound the trumpets) FLYING MACHINES!!

Just goes to show that if you're using your strat, your riflemen have to survive 8-10 ghouls, 1-2 Fiends, Stats (healing those units), UD heroes, AND Destro's. Your 5 Riflemen DO NOT SURVIVE THIS. Revelade, NO ONE CARES what this did for you in RT. In ladder, it doesn't work. I'm not about to take this strategy on any account of mine to see if it works. Breakers and Rifles don't carry the win. You need 2 workshops pumping flying machines, or at the very least, an Aviary and a Workshop to provide a mix of Hawks and FM's. Still, the Barracks units at Tier 2 just aren't worth producing. I'd much rather work from 2 Sanctums and 2 Workshops. There's flexibility between Sorcs, Priests, Breakers, Flying Machines, Mortars, and Tanks in this match-up.

Breakers would work if you had something to keep them alive like 3-4 Priests healing them, and something to increase DPS like Mortars. That makes sense. Breakers and Riflemen will get mauled with no healing back-up or DPS boost. The only way Riflemen work in this instance is if you're not facing Destro's and can use Sorcs to slow/polymorph units. In all cases of this match-up, that will never happen. Use Flying Machines.

[thefazant]

nah, flying machines really arent the only way to counter destros, watch the rep i posted.
i never really try to kill the destros, after the first few rounds of focus while they still have mana, destros really do shit damage vs non-heavy units, i tend to just ignore them while killing of his ghouls and damaging his heros so they are in constant danger of getting focused, after that, 3 riflemen and youre am are enough to drive the destros away.
riflemen are shit at actually killing destros though, and massed they get completely wasted, but 3 or so is all you need, combined with 2 priests, 0-2 sorcs and massed breakers.

[cole]

Fiends beat gryphs? Lol? Ever hear of something called splash damage?

[xodkrm]

Gryphons dont have splash damge, correct me if i am wrong.
I think they have some skill upgrade that allows their atacks to hit other units besdie
the target, kinda like the hunteresses' ability.

anyone actually know how many units the gryphons can hit with the ability upgrade?
and is there a damage reduction per unit?

[Prozerran]

nah, flying machines really arent the only way to counter destros, watch the rep i posted.
i never really try to kill the destros, after the first few rounds of focus while they still have mana, destros really do shit damage vs non-heavy units, i tend to just ignore them while killing of his ghouls and damaging his heros so they are in constant danger of getting focused, after that, 3 riflemen and youre am are enough to drive the destros away.
riflemen are shit at actually killing destros though, and massed they get completely wasted, but 3 or so is all you need, combined with 2 priests, 0-2 sorcs and massed breakers.

Well, you really can't count the AM in that mix, can you, as in the replay you almost never had him in key battles because he got nuked. Perhaps that was just a micro issue from you being tired. I tend to believe it's more of an issue of the AM being highly overrated for the early advantage of a WE.

However, with a BM/Pally combo, you can do some nukage on that Lich, forcing the DK to coil the Lich rather than the BM. Siphon mana from the DK to lessen the coil usage, and all of a sudden you've got the same upper hand with BM that you have with the AM - more mana. AM/MK is not better, nor is it worse if you have the addition of the Pally as a third hero. The Pally is really the deciding factor. If I had only two options of hero usage rather than three, I'd go with BM/Pally over AM/MK any day of the week and twice on Sunday. If you're not going to use the Paladin, AM/MK is just another combination with no synergy other than a couple of extra mana points to your regen rate. Not the kind of advantage you get from a BM that Flamestrikes Ghouls, Siphons the DK, casts Banish then Holy Light from the Pally. Rinse and repeat. The DK ends up with no mana, no way to heal OR nuke, you keep both your heroes, and you get a solid 4-5 nukes out of a BM and Pally to take down UD heroes at Tier 2-Tier3.

Compare that to a summon, storm bolt, possibly clap and bash (that might stun a unit every 3-4 hits), and a slightly higher mana regen rate at levels 1 and 2.

Riflemen generally don't live through large battles like the ones in your replay. Fortunately, your opponent was too concerned with nuking your AM and attacking your peasants, rather than focusing on your Riflemen to eliminate the counter. Otherwise, it was pretty much a standard Rifle/Caster replacing foots with Breakers. Nice micro in some situations, I honestly don't believe you could have done much to prevent the kills on your AM, though I'm sketchy on the first time he dies (the surround), I'm willing to settle on fatigue as an explanation.

[Revelade]

Removed.

[RedRagToAnOrc]

I just don't see how getting seven Rifles instead of, say, three fits in with standard Hu vs Ud cookie cut. I mean, Human player expands at Tier 2 as soon as the MK comes out and picks up a few towers or a regen scroll. Unless you have the economy to be building copious amounts of Rifles as well as your Tier 2 buildings and an expansion, I'd suggest you stay at three.

Rifles are bait, as such. They're what your opponent goes for in a battle, he runs his Ghouls around the back and collapses them in on your formation. Having three means you can easily move them around and take care of the Ghouls with Clap on the MK. As Ud player will doubtless tech to Tier 3, your window of opportunity to beat him is between Tier 1 and Tier 3, when he has a DK/Lich/Ghouls/Stats and you have Foots/Rifles/AM/MK/Casters. When the Undead reaches Tier 3 and gathers a decent force, you're either going to have to go dual Aviary if you have an expansion, or lose.

Ud/Hu is a macro matchup, and it's one I have great difficulty with for that reason. Breakers are not as important unless you're self-destructing by not expanding in your window of opportunity and hoping to catch the Undead at Tier 2. The basic strategy is, you get your decent Tier 2 army, tech to Tier 3 and add in a Pally if necessary, and make sure the Undead dies (or is seriously damaged) at Tier 2. If you take down his Tomb of Relics, for instance, you'll know that he's more likely to go Aboms, which makes your dual Aviary a whole lot more effective. Gryphons tear up Abominations, and provided you can outmass the Roys with Hawks (which let's face it are just flying Riflemen) then you're fine. At Tier 2, all you need Rifles for is the focus firing of Ghouls.

Sorry if this post was a bit irrelevant but I didn't read most of the other page long posts. ;)

[Prozerran]

@Pro: With all due respect, a strat does not have to be used by pros to be "effective". Perhaps those players could have achieved the same or better result with another strat, we may never know. There's more ways than one to achieve a goal. Pit Lord might be considered a crap hero by many, but I believe someone used it against Orc in the finals. Now is it necessarily because the PL has good abilities? Or is it more along the lines that the player that used the PL had better micro?

You're doing exactly what Geno was doing, and that is figuring out the one counter to my strat. EVERY STAT HAS OR SHOULD HAVE A WEAKNESS. I believe this is a given. Do you expect me to pull a strat that has no weakness? Let's be realistic here.

Um, if you're too prideful to use this on your accounts, why not use a smurf account? Stop making lame excuses and get some balls and play it. Even fazant has attempted to try a variation of my strat.

Thanks for comparing 5 riflemen to an army of ghouls, roys, 2 heroes and stats. Yep that's such a fair comparison. You should be in the field of statistics.

Aviary sucks against UD. The only thing you can make is hawks at tier 2, but UD won't make any gargs against you, seeing you have rifles and slow. Fiends also eat hawks. Finally at tier 3, when you get riders rolling, say hello to roys who ARE IMMUNE TO THEM. What kind of kindergarten logic are you trying to use here?

Flying machines are ass when they aren't attacking air. Even if you see roys, chances are, they will get webbed and roys do 200% damage to FMs, in ADDITION to splash, meaning he gets as much as an advantage as you. You're wasting time and money on a building that will be useless if he decides to scrap roys, compared to the sanctum.

And your "bombing" technique... Let's say UD comes knocking at your door with whatever ground/air units. Any ground units UD has won't be effected because Gyros do ass ground damage. OR you could have rifles that can do good air AND ground damage, while only needing barracks.

2 sanctums and 2 workshops? What, do you only play Big Game Hunter maps?

Breakers do shit damage against most enemies. However, you have to remember they do 150% more to fiends, only take 75% from fiends, do a whopping 40 a shot on statues and can't be touched by roys, NOR can they be nuked, in addition to possessing 300 speed-perfect for chasing near dead fiends or statues.

You seem to ignore the fact that flying machines can be webbed, take 2x damage from roys, lose DPS faster than rifles, require workshops and do crappy land damage, which only comes at tier 3. Rifles in the other hand take only 75% from roys/fiends, CAN'T be webbed, come from barracks, have better range (when upgraded), come at tier 1, CAN BE HOLY LIGHTED and actually do decent land damage.

You have 3 gyros versus 1 rifleman against a destroyer. Once the roy lands 11 hits on a gyro, one gyro will die, reducing the DPS LOWER than 1 rifleman. When a roy lands 11 hits on a rifleman, he's only going to do 165 damage, which you can wait and later holylight. And when he decides NOT to make roys, congratulations, you have 1 food units that do about 5 damage to buildings. Yep, that's sure worth investing in two workshops for.

No. Just. No.

Read. Comprehend. Repeat.

You. Are. Not. Comprehending.

The discussion has been raised before on this board that "defines" countering. In that discussion, it was widely agreed upon that there are two types of ways to respond to any situation - a hard counter and a soft counter.

Let's distinguish between the two, shall we? A soft counter is not really a counter at all, it's an adaptation within your unit production that is made without producing another building. Generally speaking, a soft counter is a preliminary response, a way to buy you time to bring in a hard counter.

A hard counter is a specific unit produced to react to a threat. This does not always mean that the unit must come from a separate structure, it simply means that the given unit is the BEST answer to the problem.

Destroyers are immune to magic damage, they can deal a large amount when they have mana, which is accessible to them through Statues. All an opponent must do to boost the DPS of a Destroyer is take mana from Statues to feed to Destroyers. The drained statues then morph into Destroyers, and more statues come to take their place.

In Fazant's replay, his opponent used Destroyers to focus on the AM, not the Riflemen that he should have focused on. Had the UD player focused on the Riflemen, Destroyers would have bought him the win.

If you haven't understood so far, Destroyers do a shit load of damage regardless of what unit they're firing upon. Flying Machines will be destroyed by Destroyers. So will Riflemen. There's no distinct difference in how long it takes for FFing Destro's to kill a unit when they're juiced up on mana.

Riflemen take 26 seconds to build. Flying Machines take 13 seconds. That means in the time it takes to build one Rifleman, you build 2 Flying Machines. Now, unless your strategy consists of fast expanding, you won't have the economy to produce Riflemen from two Barracks. That's a big problem given how long it takes to produce them. They cost 205g and 30w. Flying Machines cost 90g and 30w. This is also a significant factor in why Flying Machines are more efficient in acting as a counter to Destroyers, since they can be built and massed rather quickly.

I'll come back to Flying Machines in a moment. I agree that Breakers are amazing. They are a pivotal unit in playing Human. They keep hero mana levels low, provide feedback damage, and more or less cannot be "hard-countered" by anything other than Tier 3 melee. Casters are great, but I wouldn't have sorcs casting slow while destroyers are present. It's a waste of mana for additional DPS for Destroyers. That's Retarded! Sorcs are not worth producing if Destro's are out and about, stick to Priests because they heal, and Destros don't get any of that mana. If you must use Sorcs, use them only to cast Invisibility until Destros are gone.

Mortar Teams are insane good against UD. More people should use Mortar Teams in this Match-up. Why? Do I sound insane? Of course I do, but initially, Mortars add that extra boost of DPS needed, combined with a wall of 4-6 Breakers and Flamestrike, Ghouls won't get through. If your opponent stops making Destros, that's your cue to stop making Flying Machines and start making more Mortar Teams. The two are quite complimentary.

When your opponent starts making Aboms, that's when Sorcs come out. Reducing Abom speed is crucial, polymorphing is preferred. Otherwise, you're SOL on dealing with them, you'll lose your Breakers, your Casters, your Mortars, and especially your Riflemen, who die from Disease Cloud. Flying Machines clear the skies of Destroyers so you can use those critical spells like Polymorph and Inner Fire, and there's no real counter for them other than Gargs. And that's the paradox, does the UD concede control of the air for melee Aboms, or do they mass Gargs? Often, the UD opts for the latter, but it depends on the way the game has been played to that point. There's no real way to decipher a good decision at that point unless you're playing at that moment.

Hopefully, you're still with me, Revelade. Keep reading. If you don't understand something, go back and read it again. I'll wait.

If you've got doubts about my information, it's all here: www.battle.net/war3

Moving on. You'll notice that the build time of statues is 45 seconds. If UD is massing Destro's, their best option is to produce them from two Slaughterhouses. So, if you've got 1 workshop, you scout his base and find a second Slaughterhouse in the works, you build a second workshop. 140g and 140w can hit your economy, but consider that an investment in air supremecy from a resource standpoint. Everytime he's producing 2 statues, he's spending a total of 400g and 70w. Everytime you're making 2 Flying Machines, you're spending 180g and 60w. Of course, 2 Flying Machines don't do much against 2 Destroyers, so you have to make more. Here's the advantage.

The strength is in the numbers. Because they build so fast, you can have 6 Flying Machines from 2 Workshops before your opponent has 2 Destroyers. By the time your opponent has 4 Destroyers, you can have 12-16 Flying Machines. Flying Machines deal piercing damage, which deals extra damage to Light Armored Destroyers. When an air battle ensues, a good player will focus fire the Flying Machines, but in the end, your flying machines will do significant damage. While your opponent is desperately trying to counter your Flying Machines by building Gargs, you've got 4 more Flying Machines built to respond to that 1 Gargoyle from the single Crypt UD has. Typically, a good UD player knows that this fight cannot be won, as Human can continue massing Flying Machines to match gargs 4 to 1. He'll either dump more resources into a second crypt, or switch to Aboms.

And again, it's too far into the game at that point to determine what will happen from that point, but chances are UD will have to switch up or take their chances with the FM's. We're talking Tier 3 here, a point at which wood should not be an overwhelming issue, but Gold can become scarce.

This whole summary just goes to show that Flying Machines are the Hard Counter to Destroyers. What you describe as a counter for destro's in your strategy is nothing more than a soft counter, something players should not rely upon as an adequate counter compared to the unit designed to counter destroyers. For you, I'll be more specific. Riflemen are not a counter to Destro's, they are simply a unit you can use to respond to destroyers if you don't have a workshop. If you're up against a good UD player who knows that FFing Riflemen can GG a human player, you had better be putting up a workshop when you see stats coming out. Mortar Teams are uber good when Destroyers aren't killing them.

So, I'm tired now. I've wasted way too much time in this thread debating what should be very, very obvious by now. If I come back and see some stupid post like, "but Destros deal uber gud damage to Flying Masheens" I'm gonna be annoyed. Don't be a retard. Stop debating this point any further, lest we bury it any deeper in the grave you've been digging for it. The horse is dead. Stop beating it with a stick of ignorance.

[xodkrm]

@ Revelade Omg.
I juzt plaid tis uber gawdly omg undaed and omg he liek, lol, massed destryoers so i liek, lol, massed brakkerz are immune to omg lol to liek speel breakers (lol spell breakers soooooo imba, liek they OWN undead. lol spell breakers are the only units that kill undead lol) lolzhahawtf. But then, Destros deal uber gud damage to Flying Masheens so lol, god gaem, liek lol.

[thefazant]

However, with a BM/Pally combo, you can do some nukage on that Lich, forcing the DK to coil the Lich rather than the BM. Siphon mana from the DK to lessen the coil usage, and all of a sudden you've got the same upper hand with BM that you have with the AM - more mana. AM/MK is not better, nor is it worse if you have the addition of the Pally as a third hero. The Pally is really the deciding factor. If I had only two options of hero usage rather than three, I'd go with BM/Pally over AM/MK any day of the week and twice on Sunday. If you're not going to use the Paladin, AM/MK is just another combination with no synergy other than a couple of extra mana points to your regen rate. Not the kind of advantage you get from a BM that Flamestrikes Ghouls, Siphons the DK, casts Banish then Holy Light from the Pally. Rinse and repeat. The DK ends up with no mana, no way to heal OR nuke, you keep both your heroes, and you get a solid 4-5 nukes out of a BM and Pally to take down UD heroes at Tier 2-Tier3.
honestly, bolt + focus is hundred times better then holy light + banish at nuking
really, wtf are you going to do on most maps without a am to creep?
what are you going to do in early battles without WEs?
then at t2, how are you going to kill anything without having bolt to stun and focus?
how are you going to kill ghouls without clap?
how are you going to cast spells without brilliance aura? siphon all youre units individually?

off course bloodmage and pally do something, but they really are completely inferior to am mk.

Wait a minute, so you're saying 3 riflemen, casters (THAT CAN'T EVEN HIT ROYS), breakers (SAME) are better than, say 7 rifles at killing roys? What the hell?
yes, im saying exactly that, 3 riflemen are better at killing roys then 7.
7 riflemen will die, youll have put too much resources in them and wont be able to keep them alive, 3 rifles will not die, and will be able to kill his destros after you killed his ground with youre casters/breakers/heros

[GenocideAlive]

Just to add on to what Prozerran was saying, Flying Machines are also held as superior because they aren't susceptible to nuking. If you want to nuke a UD player and creep well, everyone will tell you to go Pally first, MK second. HL + devotion, Bolt + bash. I usually don't add in the BM because it just gives them a nuke target in return. He doesn't have the HP to keep him up while you're nuking, and the Orb of Corruption speeds things along far too quickly to be able to micro effectively.

You can't Nova + Coil + Impale flying machines, and you can't do anything regarding the UD's standard mode of handling obstacles with rifles. BM/Pally aren't going to save rifles from the nuke/stun while destroyers with Orb of Annihilation goes to town on them.

Additionally, why in god's name would you get mortars vs. an UD player? Nukes would do very, very bad things to them. They also give pretty good exp. for their deaths. :/

[thefazant]

here's another rep of me vs ud, notice how i kill exactly 0 destros.
really, except vs heavy units, their damage is completely negligible after they spent their mana, youre way better off killing the ghouls and then focusing down his heros.
he HAS to put his heros into danger cuz they are the only thing that really damages youre units.

[Prozerran]

honestly, bolt + focus is hundred times better then holy light + banish at nuking
really, wtf are you going to do on most maps without a am to creep?

You don't creep the BM, you harass with him, like a bitch.

what are you going to do in early battles without WEs?

You can stay within the safety of your towers, continue harassing, use militia to defend your base. Mortars are useful for defense. There are a variety of options.

then at t2, how are you going to kill anything without having bolt to stun and focus?

Flamestrike? Banish and Holy Light? When you have an army, you start creeping. If you're using footmen, use them and militia to creep with while you're harassing with Flamestrike.

how are you going to kill ghouls without clap?

Flamestrike.

how are you going to cast spells without brilliance aura? siphon all youre units individually?

No. The units will be fine. Priests can heal with little to no mana. The pally is the only real unit with mana you siphon mana to. The more important, more relevant issue is that with Breakers and Siphon mana, UD heroes quickly run out of mana.

off course bloodmage and pally do something, but they really are completely inferior to am mk.

Nothing you've mentioned here indicates inferiority between the two groups.

yes, im saying exactly that, 3 riflemen are better at killing roys then 7.
7 riflemen will die, youll have put too much resources in them and wont be able to keep them alive, 3 rifles will not die, and will be able to kill his destros after you killed his ground with youre casters/breakers/heros

That's completely retarded reasoning. Because you have 7 Riflemen, none will survive, but 3 will? You are making no sense with this little rant.

[cole]

Gryphons dont have splash damge, correct me if i am wrong.
I think they have some skill upgrade that allows their atacks to hit other units besdie
the target, kinda like the hunteresses' ability.

anyone actually know how many units the gryphons can hit with the ability upgrade?
and is there a damage reduction per unit?

I dont know whats sadder, your post or the fact that people have enough time in their lives to make "well organized posts" that are 300 paragraphs that say basically the same bullshit every paragraph just so they can try to convince someone that their right and that their micro is more Uberz gosu then someone elses micro when we all know my micro is clearly godly. Ask redrag to refer to my kitaes skillz, k thx.

[Revelade]

Removed.

[xodkrm]

I know I am. No need to tell me that.

[Revelade]

Removed.

[thefazant]

That's completely retarded reasoning. Because you have 7 Riflemen, none will survive, but 3 will? You are making no sense with this little rant.
reasoning like this is the reason why it took me exactly one week to be better then you at this game while you played it like 20 times longer.
the reason 3 riflemen will survive while 7 wont is because all the money you would have put into rifles you dont need AT ALL is much better spend in protecting youre few rifles (you only need the rifles so he cant attack youre army with destros only, smth he would be able to do if you dont have any aa at all, he needs his ground too)
instead of getting 4 more rifles you get 4 more breakers which in combination with youre heros and casters pretty much rape anything that would rape youre rifles, enabling you to kill off his ground and then scare off his destros with youre 3 rifles/am.
4 breakers + 7 rifles get owned, 8 breakers + 3 rifles is the way to go.

meh, this thread is really