RedRagToAnOrc
08-08-2006, 9:37 AM
How To Mass Bats
By RedRagToAnOrc
i - Introduction
ii - Build Order and Basic Hero Choices
iii - Strategy
iv - Dealing with Flamers
v - Epilogue
Part i - Introduction
Ah, mass bats. Who hasn't played against it. It's the most guilty pleasure in Warcraft, you simply tower up your base, sit back and mass the stupid things, right? I'm afraid that's where you're wrong, there is actually an art to massing Bats, whether you like it or not.
I've recently created a smurf which I will continue to play on until I get bored of it, called LUMBERJACKIST (in honour of Downwhere's third audio commentary on WCR, which you need to listen to). I started massing Bats in 4s RT and solo, and eventualy AT once I find someone to abuse stuff like this with.
Anyway, there are a few things you need to know about massing Bats before you try it. Firstly, if you're not a patient person who can't wait 5 minutes before trying an all-or-nothing attack on the enemy base, do not do this strategy. You are required to either harrass or creep early on then sit back and wait until the time is right.
Secondly, massing Bats is easier against better players, obviously within reason. I often find myself almost struggling against sub-50% and yet thrashing high-30s players. Why is this? Well, if you've noticed, worse players are more likely to do the following;
1. Camp their base so you can't attack it. This allows you to expand as much as you want, but as you will only have one hero this is slightly harder.
2. Mass towers. Troublesome, but can be beaten.
3. Not bother attacking your base. You want your opponent to attack your base and keep pressure up.
So basically, you can get wins against much better players than yourself doing this - as you can by going, say, DR/Panda or mass Hunts.
Finally, you will be letting yourself in for a very long series of games if you choose to do this. I've had hour-plus games doing this, simply attempting to contain expansions, harrassing with my Blademaster and using "tactical strikes" (the funzzor name for Bat attacks that Wisp came up with). Don't expect to finish games quickly, towering your base often leads to uneventful and boring wins. However, it can be absolutely hilarious.
Anyway, I present to you the strategy and ideals that make this sort of guilty abuse possible.
ii - Build Order and Basic Hero Choices
There are a number of schools of thought as to what heroes to use against what races and what build orders to use. I personally stick with mostly the same hero and build order everytime, with a few slight variations. Your basic "Two Tower Tech" build order is as follows;
All peons to gold, 1st back builds War Mill, queue two peons at Main.
First peon out of main builds burrow, queue to gold.
Second peon out of main builds Altar, queue to wood.
Start pumping Peons after this until you have 8 on wood.
When War Mill finishes, build your first tower, queue Peon to the spot where you will build your next tower.
When Altar finishes, build Voodoo Lounge and train a Blademaster, rallying him to your shop.
When first tower finishes, build second tower.
Buy two Healing Salves, two Clarity Potions and a Speed Scroll from the shop.
Tech at 315 gold/190 wood.
This is your basic build order and the timing works out near-perfectly. Remember to queue only two Peons at the start, not 3, otherwise you will not have enough gold with which to build your Altar immediately. Your first tower should finish just as your hero is halfway/two-thirds finished, and against an Altar-first build, when your opponent's hero is finished. This allows you to have basic base defenses in time for a harrass, should they choose to use one.
Next, hero choices against various matchups. The general rule is if unsure (or playing Random) use a Blademaster, however Beastmaster is another good choice. The Beastmaster's summons can be easily spammed using Clarity Potions from the Voodoo Lounge and allow for extra defenses against early game pressure or a mid game push (Hawk harrasses beat Siege weapons into the ground).
If you choose Blademaster in RT, then attempt to harrass the enemy in this order: Night-Elf first (easiest to harrass) then Human, Orc and finally Undead. This is why Beastmaster is a relatively good choice against Undead and Orc in solo as long as you remember to get Reinforced Defenses at Tier 3 to counter mass Destroyer hits on your towers. I also have been known to use Beastmaster against Night-Elf, but it's really whatever you feel like. Remember, if in doubt, go Blademaster.
iii - Strategy
Now we get to the meaty part of the guide, with any luck, the strategy section. You may think that massing Bats and suiciding mains is what you should do, but there is much to be considered in a mass Bats strategy.
First of all, you have to get the base setup correct. There is an art to building a towered up base and you should do the following;
a) Build the War Mill next to the trees in the back lines of your base.
b) Build a Burrow beneath (or above) your main so that there are two squares of space in front between the main and your Altar, which you should build directly beneath (or above) the Burrow.
c) Build a tower in the gap between main and Altar, and a Voodoo Lounge as close as possible to the tower/Altar. Wall in the side on which your wood peasants are working with additional buildings and towers.
d) When to scout is a little bit of a grey area but you can do it after your Altar finishes or your first tower finishes. I prefer to do it after my Altar is done.
Here's a basic base build early on;
http://img454.imageshack.us/img454/2926/batsfig2up8.th.png (http://img454.imageshack.us/my.php?image=batsfig2up8.png)
The shop will go to the left of the first tower and be used later as shelter for another couple of towers. The second tower will go directly to the right of the first burrow.
Next, let's assume you chose Blademaster and head off to harrass the enemy base. You should get a good look at their base setup and identify and weaknesses in the setup. Are their buildings far away from base defenses? Are their towers (if they have any) spaced out? Identifying key weaknesses and exploiting them is a useful skill to have.
http://img487.imageshack.us/img487/7387/batsfig1mq8.th.png (http://img487.imageshack.us/my.php?image=batsfig1mq8.png)
Look at this Undead player's base, and think about the weaknesses.
Did you say that his main buildings (Altar/Barracks/Shop) are too far away from his Ziggurats and that his mine can be attacked from the other side that the Nerubian Tower is on? You'd be right. Always evaluate a base as soon as you get a glimpse of it so you can choose where to strike for maximum efficiency.
Now, once you've finished harrassing their base or creep/itemstealing, you should aim to delay their construction of any towers and Tier 2 buildings for as long as possible. If a Human has peasants constructing Tier 2 Buildings, you kill the peasants and scram. Focus down low HP buildings in progress. Remember that you can use Wind Walk for extra damage against units (not buildings) and not just to get away. However, you should always leave 75 mana left for a getaway Wind Walk.
While this is happening, you should have constructed additional towers and burrows during your tech and should now be putting up Beastiaries (as far away from the front of your base as possible) and tech to Tier 3 as soon as possible for Liquid Fire.
A number of things could be happening at this point. Your opponent could either be;
a) Creeping the entire map and expanding like crazy, in which case you follow him with your Blademaster and delay expansions for as long as possible, as well as creep/itemstealing to your heart's content. This is what you don't want him to be doing.
b) Camping his base waiting for your Blademaster to come back. Obviously, this is a low level thing and you should be relatively happy to mass more Bats.
c) Pressuring your base. This is fantastic if your opponent starts doing this. Hotkey your Blademaster to 1 and repeatedly buy Clarities/Salves/Potions from your shop (and remember to get an Orb at Tier 3). Hotkey any Bats you're building to 2 and only use them when your opponent's army comes within range of the towers. Hotkey 4 or 5 wood Peons to Group 3 and use them to repair towers/buildings should your opponent siege you.
While these things are happening, you should be getting a full group of Bats plus Liquid Fire. Now go and attack their base. Look for obvious weaknesses in their base setup and exploit them. Your opponent will now do one of the following things;
a) Be an idiot (unless he's Night-Elf, who have no natural base defenses) and TP back, at which point you run away and he wastes 350 gold.
b) Run back to his base (also rather idiotic) at which point you run away when you see him coming.
c) Continue to pressure you and stick up as many base defenses as possible, while upgrading towers/putting peons in burrows/etc. Pressuring is fine, but base defenses are another thing. They can be overcome as I will explain later, but they are an absolute nuisance and en masse can seriously detract from your bat-harrassing abilities.
So you've got to the point where you start mass harrassing/attacking with bats. Your opponent could have 1 tower up, he could have 10, but there are rules you need to follow to bypass the base defenses.
Firstly, if you're playing in RT, there is an order in which you attack the bases - this goes Night-Elf (easiest to attack) then Human, Undead and finally Orc (hardest). You then make sure you have Liquid Fire on your Bats and move them in to attack. Make a judgement of how many towers are in his base. If he has 1 tower for every 2 bats, or less towers than that, you're fine. If he has more than 1 tower for every 2 bats you get out of there, the reason being that you need to put one Bat on every tower. Liquid Fire reduces tower attack speed by a whopping 80% and buys you infinite amounts of time to take down buildings with the rest of your bats. Select the control group of bats and simply select a different one to take each tower, then remove them from the control group and tell the rest to focus down whatever you want. This works absolute wonders and almost always forces the opponent to run or TP back, because their towers are next to useless.
After the first attack, you simply scout with your Blademaster (and take down any expansions as soon as possible) then keep on taking down your opponents buildings, mines, mains, anything, forcing him to run back and leave you to do whatever you want. Remember later on that 5 peons and a Tiny Great Hall can be used to set up a very quick expansion (5 towers and a speed-built main).
If you choose Beastmaster first then you want to creep instead of harrassing, get Level 3 and then go Level 2 Quilbeast against no siege and Level 2 Hawk against siege units, making sure to continually scout for expansions with your Hawk and spam summons when you're back in your base defending - they can almost be used as throwaway units to kill that pesky low-HP Grunt or similar.
iv - Dealing with Flamers
Flamers are funny. No, really. They get annoyed when you mass bats and towers, and call you an idiot and say you have no life, and stuff like that. There are two simple ways to deal with flamers. If you hate them and detest what they're saying then squelch them and get on with the game. However, if like me, you have acid wit and wish to do so, continue to wind them up. I find this works much better because they end up getting really annoyed, typing more than they should and it detracts from their play in general. Remember always to twist their words, point out flaws in their logic as much as possible and alert them to grammatical errors.
v - Epilogue
So, I hope you enjoyed this and learnt a thing or two and perhaps even try the strategy out someday. LUMBERJACKIST is currently 7-1 (6-1 4s RT, 1-0 solo) and having extreme amounts of fun annoying the living daylights out of his opponents. I shall attempt to get some replays up in the near future.
Voila!
By RedRagToAnOrc
i - Introduction
ii - Build Order and Basic Hero Choices
iii - Strategy
iv - Dealing with Flamers
v - Epilogue
Part i - Introduction
Ah, mass bats. Who hasn't played against it. It's the most guilty pleasure in Warcraft, you simply tower up your base, sit back and mass the stupid things, right? I'm afraid that's where you're wrong, there is actually an art to massing Bats, whether you like it or not.
I've recently created a smurf which I will continue to play on until I get bored of it, called LUMBERJACKIST (in honour of Downwhere's third audio commentary on WCR, which you need to listen to). I started massing Bats in 4s RT and solo, and eventualy AT once I find someone to abuse stuff like this with.
Anyway, there are a few things you need to know about massing Bats before you try it. Firstly, if you're not a patient person who can't wait 5 minutes before trying an all-or-nothing attack on the enemy base, do not do this strategy. You are required to either harrass or creep early on then sit back and wait until the time is right.
Secondly, massing Bats is easier against better players, obviously within reason. I often find myself almost struggling against sub-50% and yet thrashing high-30s players. Why is this? Well, if you've noticed, worse players are more likely to do the following;
1. Camp their base so you can't attack it. This allows you to expand as much as you want, but as you will only have one hero this is slightly harder.
2. Mass towers. Troublesome, but can be beaten.
3. Not bother attacking your base. You want your opponent to attack your base and keep pressure up.
So basically, you can get wins against much better players than yourself doing this - as you can by going, say, DR/Panda or mass Hunts.
Finally, you will be letting yourself in for a very long series of games if you choose to do this. I've had hour-plus games doing this, simply attempting to contain expansions, harrassing with my Blademaster and using "tactical strikes" (the funzzor name for Bat attacks that Wisp came up with). Don't expect to finish games quickly, towering your base often leads to uneventful and boring wins. However, it can be absolutely hilarious.
Anyway, I present to you the strategy and ideals that make this sort of guilty abuse possible.
ii - Build Order and Basic Hero Choices
There are a number of schools of thought as to what heroes to use against what races and what build orders to use. I personally stick with mostly the same hero and build order everytime, with a few slight variations. Your basic "Two Tower Tech" build order is as follows;
All peons to gold, 1st back builds War Mill, queue two peons at Main.
First peon out of main builds burrow, queue to gold.
Second peon out of main builds Altar, queue to wood.
Start pumping Peons after this until you have 8 on wood.
When War Mill finishes, build your first tower, queue Peon to the spot where you will build your next tower.
When Altar finishes, build Voodoo Lounge and train a Blademaster, rallying him to your shop.
When first tower finishes, build second tower.
Buy two Healing Salves, two Clarity Potions and a Speed Scroll from the shop.
Tech at 315 gold/190 wood.
This is your basic build order and the timing works out near-perfectly. Remember to queue only two Peons at the start, not 3, otherwise you will not have enough gold with which to build your Altar immediately. Your first tower should finish just as your hero is halfway/two-thirds finished, and against an Altar-first build, when your opponent's hero is finished. This allows you to have basic base defenses in time for a harrass, should they choose to use one.
Next, hero choices against various matchups. The general rule is if unsure (or playing Random) use a Blademaster, however Beastmaster is another good choice. The Beastmaster's summons can be easily spammed using Clarity Potions from the Voodoo Lounge and allow for extra defenses against early game pressure or a mid game push (Hawk harrasses beat Siege weapons into the ground).
If you choose Blademaster in RT, then attempt to harrass the enemy in this order: Night-Elf first (easiest to harrass) then Human, Orc and finally Undead. This is why Beastmaster is a relatively good choice against Undead and Orc in solo as long as you remember to get Reinforced Defenses at Tier 3 to counter mass Destroyer hits on your towers. I also have been known to use Beastmaster against Night-Elf, but it's really whatever you feel like. Remember, if in doubt, go Blademaster.
iii - Strategy
Now we get to the meaty part of the guide, with any luck, the strategy section. You may think that massing Bats and suiciding mains is what you should do, but there is much to be considered in a mass Bats strategy.
First of all, you have to get the base setup correct. There is an art to building a towered up base and you should do the following;
a) Build the War Mill next to the trees in the back lines of your base.
b) Build a Burrow beneath (or above) your main so that there are two squares of space in front between the main and your Altar, which you should build directly beneath (or above) the Burrow.
c) Build a tower in the gap between main and Altar, and a Voodoo Lounge as close as possible to the tower/Altar. Wall in the side on which your wood peasants are working with additional buildings and towers.
d) When to scout is a little bit of a grey area but you can do it after your Altar finishes or your first tower finishes. I prefer to do it after my Altar is done.
Here's a basic base build early on;
http://img454.imageshack.us/img454/2926/batsfig2up8.th.png (http://img454.imageshack.us/my.php?image=batsfig2up8.png)
The shop will go to the left of the first tower and be used later as shelter for another couple of towers. The second tower will go directly to the right of the first burrow.
Next, let's assume you chose Blademaster and head off to harrass the enemy base. You should get a good look at their base setup and identify and weaknesses in the setup. Are their buildings far away from base defenses? Are their towers (if they have any) spaced out? Identifying key weaknesses and exploiting them is a useful skill to have.
http://img487.imageshack.us/img487/7387/batsfig1mq8.th.png (http://img487.imageshack.us/my.php?image=batsfig1mq8.png)
Look at this Undead player's base, and think about the weaknesses.
Did you say that his main buildings (Altar/Barracks/Shop) are too far away from his Ziggurats and that his mine can be attacked from the other side that the Nerubian Tower is on? You'd be right. Always evaluate a base as soon as you get a glimpse of it so you can choose where to strike for maximum efficiency.
Now, once you've finished harrassing their base or creep/itemstealing, you should aim to delay their construction of any towers and Tier 2 buildings for as long as possible. If a Human has peasants constructing Tier 2 Buildings, you kill the peasants and scram. Focus down low HP buildings in progress. Remember that you can use Wind Walk for extra damage against units (not buildings) and not just to get away. However, you should always leave 75 mana left for a getaway Wind Walk.
While this is happening, you should have constructed additional towers and burrows during your tech and should now be putting up Beastiaries (as far away from the front of your base as possible) and tech to Tier 3 as soon as possible for Liquid Fire.
A number of things could be happening at this point. Your opponent could either be;
a) Creeping the entire map and expanding like crazy, in which case you follow him with your Blademaster and delay expansions for as long as possible, as well as creep/itemstealing to your heart's content. This is what you don't want him to be doing.
b) Camping his base waiting for your Blademaster to come back. Obviously, this is a low level thing and you should be relatively happy to mass more Bats.
c) Pressuring your base. This is fantastic if your opponent starts doing this. Hotkey your Blademaster to 1 and repeatedly buy Clarities/Salves/Potions from your shop (and remember to get an Orb at Tier 3). Hotkey any Bats you're building to 2 and only use them when your opponent's army comes within range of the towers. Hotkey 4 or 5 wood Peons to Group 3 and use them to repair towers/buildings should your opponent siege you.
While these things are happening, you should be getting a full group of Bats plus Liquid Fire. Now go and attack their base. Look for obvious weaknesses in their base setup and exploit them. Your opponent will now do one of the following things;
a) Be an idiot (unless he's Night-Elf, who have no natural base defenses) and TP back, at which point you run away and he wastes 350 gold.
b) Run back to his base (also rather idiotic) at which point you run away when you see him coming.
c) Continue to pressure you and stick up as many base defenses as possible, while upgrading towers/putting peons in burrows/etc. Pressuring is fine, but base defenses are another thing. They can be overcome as I will explain later, but they are an absolute nuisance and en masse can seriously detract from your bat-harrassing abilities.
So you've got to the point where you start mass harrassing/attacking with bats. Your opponent could have 1 tower up, he could have 10, but there are rules you need to follow to bypass the base defenses.
Firstly, if you're playing in RT, there is an order in which you attack the bases - this goes Night-Elf (easiest to attack) then Human, Undead and finally Orc (hardest). You then make sure you have Liquid Fire on your Bats and move them in to attack. Make a judgement of how many towers are in his base. If he has 1 tower for every 2 bats, or less towers than that, you're fine. If he has more than 1 tower for every 2 bats you get out of there, the reason being that you need to put one Bat on every tower. Liquid Fire reduces tower attack speed by a whopping 80% and buys you infinite amounts of time to take down buildings with the rest of your bats. Select the control group of bats and simply select a different one to take each tower, then remove them from the control group and tell the rest to focus down whatever you want. This works absolute wonders and almost always forces the opponent to run or TP back, because their towers are next to useless.
After the first attack, you simply scout with your Blademaster (and take down any expansions as soon as possible) then keep on taking down your opponents buildings, mines, mains, anything, forcing him to run back and leave you to do whatever you want. Remember later on that 5 peons and a Tiny Great Hall can be used to set up a very quick expansion (5 towers and a speed-built main).
If you choose Beastmaster first then you want to creep instead of harrassing, get Level 3 and then go Level 2 Quilbeast against no siege and Level 2 Hawk against siege units, making sure to continually scout for expansions with your Hawk and spam summons when you're back in your base defending - they can almost be used as throwaway units to kill that pesky low-HP Grunt or similar.
iv - Dealing with Flamers
Flamers are funny. No, really. They get annoyed when you mass bats and towers, and call you an idiot and say you have no life, and stuff like that. There are two simple ways to deal with flamers. If you hate them and detest what they're saying then squelch them and get on with the game. However, if like me, you have acid wit and wish to do so, continue to wind them up. I find this works much better because they end up getting really annoyed, typing more than they should and it detracts from their play in general. Remember always to twist their words, point out flaws in their logic as much as possible and alert them to grammatical errors.
v - Epilogue
So, I hope you enjoyed this and learnt a thing or two and perhaps even try the strategy out someday. LUMBERJACKIST is currently 7-1 (6-1 4s RT, 1-0 solo) and having extreme amounts of fun annoying the living daylights out of his opponents. I shall attempt to get some replays up in the near future.
Voila!