An attempt at strategy(the human perspective part 2)

[h0bgawblin]

I plan to make an article in the article section when I have more time and knowledge. Fortunately, I have you guys. I am going to post some general things that I would write about for feedback. I plan to expand the strategies, and make sure they are fine tuned. Also, describing a mentality will be something I write in this article. For now, the strategies, feel free to expand, critisize ect.

Night elf match up

Close spawn ne: Tower rush.

Against NE, creep to level 2 with archmage. After that, attack the night elf and try to keep him down for the tier 2 push. Nail those archers. For this match up, the sky build is preferable, if your aiming for a tier 2 push.

If the tier 2 push fails, or is looking ugly, go get an expo and creep the naga to level 3 and the archmage to level 3. After putting up the expo, keep pressure on the night elf, then mass flying machines or dragon hawks. Both will counter bear dryad and are usefull for eliminating the entangled gold mine.

If your tier 1 looked ugly, get a mountain king and use hero kills against the night elf to maintain an advantage. Get an expo and mass tanks with flying machines. This will require you to tower your base a little. That way, you can feel free to attack the night elf base with tanks whilst protecting your own. Or flying machines or hawks. For solo flying machines, you essentially need to go for the night elf base. You can kill dryads, but most likely the NE will respond with archers. In which case you need to go for the base race. I generally go hawks, but it's nice to switch it up.

If getting an expo isn’t an option when your tier 2 push is looking ugly and you see him starting to get bears. Get inner fire and a scroll of prot for your rifles. Upgrade your armor and use your immortal rifles to win the game. This way, you can also get sorces. He will not have enough dryads to dispell both inner fire and slow. He must choose 1.
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Human match up

Close spawn. Blizzard harass
Use blizzard on the gold mine peasants to prevent him from getting gold. Your sole objective here is to keep pressure. So use the sky build, and use your 3 foots to nail the living piss out of any peasants you can. Your not here for kills, again it’s about recourses.

Another interesting strategy, is if your opponent is at a tech advantage that you don’t have. Unfortunately, an expo will most likely not solve this problem. Grab a fire lord and use both elementals and lava spawns with(I shit you not) 7-8 foots with defend to lay waste to his resources. If your initial attack proves successfull you need to end the game asap. The counter to a tech advantage is tower pushing. You need to end the game on the second attack, tower his base and use your summons to protect your towers. Then put up an expo, keep up the pressure, until he cracks. If you went for blizzard, and he has a tech advantage, get a pit lord with reign of fire. The blood mage IS a better choice, however, he takes time to get out then apply the pressure. I don’t like panda against human base harass. Mainly because entering the human base is suicide. The range of blizzard RoF(riegn of fire) and flamestrik prevent you from having to enter the human base. The tactic of entering the base with summons will most likely require you to have a town portal.

Non close spawn, quick expo. This counters both the blizzard harass and if he doesn’t quick expo himself for his W.E. build, he’s screwed. Use these recourses to break the breaker wars. With your towers, fend off his tier 2. Don’t play his game, your tier 2 tech will be delayed too much. Run with footmen and priests and try to creep your archmage to level 3, as well as the mountain king. By using knights(which own his breakers) and gryphons(which owns knights and morts), you WILL win provided you keep your expo while preventing his. If you don't want a long game, then fight him at tier 2 with towers. You will have the recources to pump units, whilst building towers. Towers are THE way to end a game. Watch for his militia, his militia might take down the towers if you don't have thunder clap.

Orc match up

Creep as much as you can for your archmage. If tier 1 looked bad, get a mountain king and aim for the heroes. If your tier 1 looked decent, pick up a beast master and run in with foots. Scout to see his tier 2 buildings, if they are building. TAKE THEM OUT and haul ass out of there, the piercing damage of the summons takes out unarmored buildings. Heal up, and come back with sorcs. If you couldn’t take out those buildings, you need an expo and to tower up. Mass gryphons will counter just about everything. Save for raiders, if he goes raiders. This is an easy fix, breakers will counter both chainwave and raiders.

If you don’t see the tier 2 buildings producing take out the burrows. In addition, if the tier 1 is looking ugly, but your archmage is level 2. Go for the burrows in the orc base. Surprise the orc player, by getting blizzard against his peons. The goal isn’t to take out burrows, it’s to prevent recources at tier 2. Making a tower push extremely possible. You will have to bring either a mana pot, or a potion of clarity to make up for the lack of brilliance aura.
If your tier 1 went over well, and I mean pretty well. Use the fire lord instead of the beast master. Then bring peasants in militia form to tower the orc players base at the start of tier 2. The heavy armor on lava spawns make the tier 2 push easier. also, the militia will give brief meat, then you can make towers. The towers however, need to be spread out. Don't let chainwave murder you in the face. If he goes blade master, your bringing militia makes too many targets. He will try to force a tp on your archmage. Keep your archmage alive at all costs. If you know he's using a blademaster, bring a potion of healing.

Wyvs counter casters, so get hawks in response to wyvs. However, upgrade you armor for your hawks once. This way, the bat riders can't 1 shot your hawks. Of course, keep your hawks spread out.

If he goes grunt and spirit walkers, get rifle breaker


Undead match up

Close spawn on turtle rock. Militia all wood peasants and destroy his tomb of relics

The trick in this match up is not letting the undead tri hero do as they please. Which means lots of scouting. Begin by trying to get the archmage to level 3(this RARELY happens). If the archmage does happen to hit level 3, go straight to your opponents base and do some damage. Focus fire ghouls, and retreat, if not aco focus and tp. Level 3 archmage will most likely give you the win.

If your archmage does not hit level 3, but the death knight is only level 1 get a pally. The pally will go nicely with a tier 2 rifle push. Combined with priests this will lay waste to ghouls.

At tier 2, if the DK is level 2, go with a mountain king and a rifle push. If he made a lot of ghouls go with thunder clap first. That way, your rifles will be protected. If he doesn’t make a lot of ghouls, bolt FTW.

If the push isn’t looking very good, get out and expo. Keep upgrading your rifles armor, but through in some gryphons. That way, mass aboms won’t be able to counter your army.

When ever you go mountain king with bolt, your first priority is to kill the death knight. Ghouls are easy kills, so you can get those without bolts. Just micro your archmage to hunt down low hp ghouls.

If he goes fiends, get defended foots. Instead of going rifles get breakers. After you have about 6 priests, stop getting priests and get rifles. If you think you killed enough fiends though(about 3 out of the usual 4-6) get flying machines.



Things to keep in mind every game. Winners of a match are defined by three things
-heroes
-economy
-army size

Try to keep this in mind at all times when you’re playing your opponent. Try and scout as much as possible to know where you stand. As human, I generally have the level advantage. This is not SO much my concern at tier 1 and 2. However, once tier 3 comes along, my archmage isn’t going to be very strong. I will have to have a high level second hero.

I should always keep in mind economy, it is easy for me to clear a gold mine. Then put up an expo later. This is something that is fairly easy for human to do. Especially considering there is no ONE unit I can rely on as human, making army dominance harder to gain a leg up on my opponent.

[GroG]

Here are my snide comments:
1) Creating a "strategy guide" and including how to tower someone is not teaching them any strategy whatsoever.
2) Whats the importance of L2 for your archmage vs NE? You aren't getting casters for your tier 2 push. I'd prolly try and get L3 for the WE L2 skill before I pushed.
3) What the shit is the sky build? Link it or type it out.
4) So I expo and get gyros? Why? To kill his buildings? Do I split up my tanks or send them straight away to his base?
5) I don't know about that inner fire/rifle stuff, sounds good in theory but I guess I'd have to see it.
6) Sole not soul
7) resources not recources
8) If entering the human base is suicide, how have you been blizz harassing him all game and "pushing" his base?
9) Talk about how knights/gyro win, otherwise he could theoretically make a unit combination to beat that (hawk/rifle/sorc?)
10) BM/SH Mass wyvs beats your hu I take it?
11) What about vs. fiends?

Any "new" ideas on how to play? What actions do you take as you play? Explain your scouting methods, your creep order and stuff, how you "read" your opponent, your priorities in battle, etc.

Oh and stop playing with Cole and Redrag, they are teaching you how to be a scrub.

[h0bgawblin]

I didn't go into specifics grog and perhaps I should have elaberated. I wanted to see if these strategies were sound. That's about all, I am rewriting the article for detailed explinations later.

also grog, the rifle inner fire tactic has been used. It's strange and not the most effective, but great for adapting. I saw a pro gamer use this successfully. Also grog, and I said this MANY TIMES, you don't need to ENTER the human base to blizz harass. Otherwise, you would just get a panda and do the same thing. There is enough range on the spell that you can hit the gold peasants and be far enough. Which again, I will be explaining how these things work in my article.

Also grog, i'll be honest, I am finding my orc match up to be my worst unfortunately. So yes, I do lose to wyvs a lot.

Also, I don't know what to do against fiends.

Edit: I was in a rush while responding to you grog, I owe you an apoligy. I relized that more than 1 question was right on. I'll revise the article accordingly.

[Prozerran]

It's interesting that you mention the Orc match-up. I'm revising the AKM guide shortly to explain changes to the Orc and UD match-ups. To counter Orc Wyvs, start by splashing in Rifles to replace dying foots. Rifles/WE's take care of the first few Wyvs while you prepare a stronger counter ala FM's, Hawks, or both. Gryphs are more expensive, but combined with Rifles can make an equally effective solution at Tier 3 if you have a Pally for Light.

Against Fiends, Mortars and Knights are your better option. Since priests will form the core of your unit production against UD (you'll only add sorcs after countering destro's), you can easily shift from Rifle/Caster to Knight/Mortar when you add a couple workshops for FM's to counter destro's. When it comes to macro, everything is circular with Human. It's all about how effectively you use your units at each stage of the macro chain that really matters, as Grog has already pointed out in his article. You may never have to add FM's or move on to Knights/Mortars, but those are solutions if you cannot maintain a solid position with the units you have.

[cole]

One prob. Dh with pots/orb> 300 million flying machines

[h0bgawblin]

Akm has a flying machine tactic. I don't exactly know how it works though. *cough* proz

[Prozerran]

One prob. Dh with pots/orb> 300 million flying machines

Yeah, about that... we're talking about the DH, right? You see, the problem here is that if you were right about that, NE players wouldn't need to hire the Panda for Breath of Fire to counter mass FM's. Unfortunately, your assertion isn't supported AT ALL by replays of Hu vs NE. Yeah, you're Gosu and it shows... please note my sarcasm.

Hob: I finally read through this guide and saw some things I think you need to back up with replays.

1. Your approach to NE is just mind-boggling, and not in a good way. First off, mass FM's DON'T counter Bear/Dryad. Mass FM's is a strategy from 1.14 or so on LT, where you expo and tech, throw down three workshops and pump 24 or so FM's to nuke NE bases. This is repelled by mass dryads, which pwn FM's, who only counter Wyvs, Gryphs, Wyrms, and Chims. Rifle/Caster (ala Rifle/Priest/Inner Fire) is a tried and true strategy against NE, however, you are mistaken about Abolish. Sorc slow and Priest inner fire will be abolished by dryads. Also, Dryads have the benefit of wells that can replenish mana. This in and of itself is a crux in your game plan with Rifles, Inner Fire, and Slow. Mass Hawks are a great way to go with NE as long as your opponent doesn't realize what you're doing. If he has time to prepare a counter, Chippo will stop you.

2. So, you want to tower a Human? No, I don't think that's a good idea. Militia will stop you in your tracks. Keep in mind that you need to separate the concepts of tactics and counters. Tactical counters are best left out of strategy guides. Stick to the units and leave the "if your opponent performs this tactic, do this" out of it for now. Not to offend you, but you don't really have the experience to assess these situations, and it's not very effective anyway for people. Stick to the knowledge and avoid the theorycraft. Against Human, the Breaker-wars will undoubtedly occur. Like I was already telling you in the earlier thread, your Breakers will lose to his Breakers if you're using Blizzard and he's using Elementals. It's that simple. I don't have time to go into more of this... moving on.

3. I'm once again boggled by your approach to Orc. First, Breakers don't counter Raiders, because Raiders don't use mana to cast spells. Breakers counter Shamans, which we see little of nowadays. I don't recommend Breakers against Orc at all, because they die and feed exp to Orc heroes that need it. Also, 4 or so Bats ruin Mass Gryphs. In fact, by the time you have Gryphs, your opponent will know about it and counter with Bats. Forget it. Stay on the ground and fight the good fight. First and foremost, if you're going AM with WE's, you'll want T2 fast, and you'll want either a Flamelord, Beastmaster, or Tinker. Sorcs and Priests follow along with militia for towering at Tier 2. To make this work, you have to use Defended foots to take down Orc Burrows during tech or you'll quickly find yourself losing after a failed push. Rifle/Caster also works, and Mass Hawks is feasible if your Shackle micro is up to par.

4. You have the right idea against UD, but you seem to have no clue why. First, you NEVER try to kill the ghouls when you take your level 3 AM to harass. The whole point of this harass is to kill Acolytes during the UD tech with Defended Footies and WE's. Also, getting Gryphs is situational based on what your opponent is doing. You mainly see Aboms when UD goes Fiend/Stat/Abom, so going Gryphs to counter Aboms isn't very effective when they're all webbed. Sure, if you've killed enough Fiends not to have to worry about it, you're in good shape with Gryphs. Otherwise, Knight/Priest/Mortar is more effective, and Rifle/Caster is also solid.

There you have it. Good effort, but you should watch more replays on this and start noting what counters what.

[cole]

Yeah, about that... we're talking about the DH, right? You see, the problem here is that if you were right about that, NE players wouldn't need to hire the Panda for Breath of Fire to counter mass FM's. Unfortunately, your assertion isn't supported AT ALL by replays of Hu vs NE. Yeah, you're Gosu and it shows... please note my sarcasm.
.

I like how you post reps all the time of you beating good players. oh wait you dont. Please not my sarcasm. Your a moron, ive seen DH take on mass gargs. Besides a high level dh is a machine, esp with pots/rejuv. Not to mention if its a basefight he has instant heal moonwells on his side.

You didnt exactly jump at the chance to solo me so you of all people have no right to criticize my skill level. And your assertion is supported by replays, proving mine wrong? Yea ok. A pro with with a dh can do wonderous things. A HU player(Which you always say you are) should know that.

And btw, you basically say most of Hobs stuff is wrong but you dont back up what you say with anything besides personal experience of you beating some newb or low level hasu. Try playing someone good please.

[Prozerran]

I like how you post reps all the time of you beating good players. oh wait you dont. Please not my sarcasm. Your a moron, ive seen DH take on mass gargs. Besides a high level dh is a machine, esp with pots/rejuv. Not to mention if its a basefight he has instant heal moonwells on his side.

You didnt exactly jump at the chance to solo me so you of all people have no right to criticize my skill level. And your assertion is supported by replays, proving mine wrong? Yea ok. A pro with with a dh can do wonderous things. A HU player(Which you always say you are) should know that.

And btw, you basically say most of Hobs stuff is wrong but you dont back up what you say with anything besides personal experience of you beating some newb or low level hasu. Try playing someone good please.

You're cute.

I've watched a number of AKM replays (who uses shitloads of flying machines) vs NE, and every NE goes DH. At Tier 2, every one of these players know and expect mass FM's and compensates by getting Panda second. You don't believe me? I posted an article with a shitload of replays throughout the thread in the article guide. Please view them.

As for playing you? Soon, Cole. Very soon.

[cole]

Um. That doesnt mean DH cant solo a shitload of flying machines easily. Panda just makes it easier.

You waste my time with worthless posts insulting me. You always say soon and dodge when i ask to solo. So until your ready to show that your not some worthless newb, i suggest you humble yourself.

[h0bgawblin]

I relise I am asking the impossible, but please don't flame. Ordinarily i'd let it be, however, i'm trying to gain something from this thread, and flaming is not going to do that. Your right about mass flying machines, and me not understanding the tactic. That's why I made the thread, some of this is not well founded.

As for dryads versus my rifle/breaker/priest/sorc with inner fire, I one time did mass sheeps against NE's bear/dryad. I was suprised out how many they dispelled(I was nub), however the 1/2 the bears were still sheeped. Also, this was at a time where I didn't manual slow. These bears were slowed, and were easy as hell to demolish. There was about 6 dryads(I havn't faced many night elves that make more than 8), however I do not fear the dryads as much as the wisps. I claimed in the article, that this is a last resort, if your tier 2 push was ugly and you needed to quickly redeem yourself. This is, in no way, the best strat. However, mass hawks is a great counter if he doesn't see it coming(not many would especially because I hide my aviaries). "your Breakers will lose to his Breakers if you're using Blizzard". The idea is to make the risky move of using blizzard harass to make sure he does NOT have breakers at the time you do. You will most likely have more of them as well. I don't know how you counter blizzard harass proz, but for me it's hard as hell to counter on a close spawn. Dispellable water elementals, don't seem to save me.


"Also, 4 or so Bats ruin Mass Gryphs. In fact, by the time you have Gryphs, your opponent will know about it and counter with Bats." WHAT? 4? are you insane? I have faced much more than 4 bats then just healing scrolled or used my priests to heal it off. I have NEVER felt threatened by bats when using big air units like gryphons. I worry more about mass raiders, which can do a number on me. Also, chainwave owns my foots, so wouldn't breakers save me from that rampage? How do orcs counter breakers better than they molest footies. I'm seriously asking, not trying to flame or anything. I am curious. I can see the ensare grunt rape, however, the chain wave is so rediculious as is, that if I throw in foots I get raped.

The undead points were much easier to understand, thank you. However, i've tried to watch lots of replays to see what counters what. Unfortunately, the only replays that exist apparently are cookie cutter strats. The information I based some of this on is the imbalanced video series. Which, I admit, has many, many, many old games however they have great points.

[Prozerran]

As for dryads versus my rifle/breaker/priest/sorc with inner fire, I one time did mass sheeps against NE's bear/dryad. I was suprised out how many they dispelled(I was nub), however the 1/2 the bears were still sheeped. Also, this was at a time where I didn't manual slow. These bears were slowed, and were easy as hell to demolish. There was about 6 dryads(I havn't faced many night elves that make more than 8), however I do not fear the dryads as much as the wisps. I claimed in the article, that this is a last resort, if your tier 2 push was ugly and you needed to quickly redeem yourself.

First off, take a look at the cost of polymorph. Most Hu's don't even bother because it's dispelled, and you've wasted more mana than it costs to dispel. I dunno why you're running into opponents that aren't abolishing this spell, but whatever. Your better option is letting slow do its worst, letting it be abolished, and cast it again manually. Inner Fire is a toss up. If anything, I'd cast it on Mortars in your back lines where Dryads dare not venture. Typically, Breaker/Priest/Mortar will be enough for Bear/Dryad.

"Your Breakers will lose to his Breakers if you're using Blizzard". The idea is to make the risky move of using blizzard harass to make sure he does NOT have breakers at the time you do. You will most likely have more of them as well. I don't know how you counter blizzard harass, Proz, but for me it's hard as hell to counter on a close spawn. Dispellable water elementals, don't seem to save me.

Use militia. Really. Use militia and swap out peasants mining gold, because that's where Blizzard is typically focused. In a perfect world, your Blizz harass will cripple your opponent to the point that he can't make Breakers. That's the idea, anyways, but it just doesn't work out like that... you need to explain further how to make this happen and show this in replays (of Sky, you, etc).

"Also, 4 or so Bats ruin Mass Gryphs. In fact, by the time you have Gryphs, your opponent will know about it and counter with Bats." WHAT? 4? are you insane? I have faced much more than 4 bats then just healing scrolled or used my priests to heal it off. I have NEVER felt threatened by bats when using big air units like gryphons. I worry more about mass raiders, which can do a number on me.

Also, chainwave owns my foots, so wouldn't breakers save me from that rampage? How do orcs counter breakers better than they molest footies. I'm seriously asking, not trying to flame or anything. I am curious. I can see the ensare grunt rape, however, the chain wave is so rediculious as is, that if I throw in foots I get raped.

Not afraid of Bats? You will be. "You will be." -Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back

I digress. Unstable concoction makes 2 Bats a threat to 5-6 Gryphs. I say 4-5 Bats because of Scroll of Healing. Unless you have Hawks and Healing Scrolls, your Mass Gryph army will die a horrible death. I don't see how you're even getting Mass Gryphs against good Orcs without immediately getting countered by Bats. We need to see some replays.

As for Chainwave, Scroll of Healing is a simple solution. The issue you seem to be running into is one of micro, not macro. It's important that you realize this, because your problem with Chainwave is timing. You probably use the SoH too early or too late. Also, dying foots aren't really the problem here. You're probably focusing the wrong units. Grunts deal shit damage compared to Raiders, so you need to be sure you're targeting Raiders with your casters. If Wyv's are your problem, you need to be sure you're making Rifles and/or FMs.

@ Cole: I haven't dodged your pathetic ass, and I haven't flamed you up until now. I've been waiting on my new, widescreen monitor to be delivered, so when I have time (hopefully sometime this weekend) I'll be glad to put you in your place.

[cole]

Proz youll never beat me, i wouldnt lose to some newb. I mean hell your to scared to even post replays.

[Prozerran]

I haven't had much time to play any games this patch, and I've been busy putting the AKM guide together. So, no, you're right, Cole, I haven't posted any replays of myself playing. Shame on me.

You, on the other hand, come back to WB like the Devil came down to Georgia acting like some cocky, arrogant punk who's been dumped by his 8th grade girlfriend and spent 6 months behind a computer monitor trying to make his life mean something. It's going to be a real shame if you lose to me, but at least if you win we all know why.

[cole]

Yea because we all know im just a better player then you. Putting a AKM guide together is about stupid anyways, you can watch replays and pretty much figure out what he does every freaking game.

[h0bgawblin]

I pollied bears WAYYYY back when. A couple years ago actually, I did not mean to prupose that as a solution to bears. I posted it to point to the limited mana pool of dryads. It actually WORKED, that's the sad thing. Granted, someone with enough dryads could dispell inner fire and slow. However, at the cost of bears, which is a sacrifice I want them to make.

As for mass bats, again, i'm not worried. It depends on his ground army, but I try to always keep gryphons a suprise. I used the tactic that GA posted one day, and it is seriously effective. upgrade armor on gryphs, inner fire, scroll of prot, healing scroll, priests and a pally. That's enough healing/armor to keep damn near anything alive, and the splash damage is nothing at that point. I admit though, I didn't put that into the guide.

[Prozerran]

Yea because we all know im just a better player then you. Putting a AKM guide together is about stupid anyways, you can watch replays and pretty much figure out what he does every freaking game.

No one here can really attest to that. I haven't played anyone here since I played GA in KotH. Prior to that, I hadn't played in 8 months. The only thing we all know here is that you're trying to goad people into playing you to prove you're not the best player here, which is pretty redundant since GA already had his way with you many times over in the same KotH.

In short, you calling me a newb is like the pot calling the kettle black. After watching your replays, you have nothing to boast about.

[cole]

Ive had my way with GA also. And proz you never play this game and think you can beat me? lol.

[Prozerran]

Ok, Cole. I'll let you know when my comp is up and running.

[h0bgawblin]

Aww... let proz give me advice cole...

[cole]

Ok, Cole. I'll let you know when my comp is up and running.


If your comp isnt up and running then how exactly are you posting on WB? Does your penis have access to the internet?

[Prozerran]

I'm using a laptop that doesn't run War3 well. It's a Dell, a hand-me-down POS, and my computer monitor should be here soon. I'd say next weekend will work out possibly pending my schedule for school and work. Either way, if I could have played I would have by now.

[h0bgawblin]

The thread is lost...