Counter Strategies

[Cheapo5020]

In 1v1 games, each race has another "rival" race that can execute a specific, common, strategy that usually tears the former race apart. For example, Night Elf (huntresses) < Orc (gruntapult) < Human (slow-riflemen)... you get the idea. I decided it would be a good idea to start a thread where we post strategies to overcome these weaknesses. I would like to start with one of my own.

Counter Slow-Riflemen (Orc)

The build order can be determined by the person executing this strategy, since it can vary and still be ok. Alright, this strategy employs units that you generally don't get a lot of in normal games.


Start out with the typical grunts for all your basic early game needs.
Tech quickly, and when your war mill finishes, switch production to Head Hunters.
Once your Stronghold finishes, build a spirit lodge and continue to produce head hunters. Get a second hero (preferably a Tauren Chieftain).
Research Witch Doctor Adept training, and afterward, start building witch doctors.
On a side note, it might be a good idea to upgrade troll regeneration, since you are using lots of Head Hunters and Witch Doctors (both trolls).
When the battle begins (if you fight them this early) lay down stasis traps. The idea is that the stun counters the slow used on you. It also allows you to focus on their soceresses while they are stunned.
Get Shockwave or War Stomp with your Tauren Chieftain (your choice) (if you have one). Shockwave is good for killing the oppsing force faster, but war stomp just adds to the amount of time in which their force is stunned.
Make sure to kill all the sorceresses first so that slow isn't too much of a problem.


As for your heroes, I would definately advise having a Tauren Chieftain, since he works well with this strategy. The second hero is your choice, but I have noticed that the Pit Lord works quite effectively with his AoE. As soon as the stasis trap goes off, use rain of fire to take advantage of the opposing units' immobility. He is also a good meat shield with all his health. Ok, it is very likely that you won't be able to finish them off this quickly, so now you move on to the second phase of this strategy.


Continue to tech. When you reach a fortress, upgrade your Head Hunters to Berserkers. Upgrade Witch Doctor master training for healing wards as well as additional mana. Construct a Tauren Totem, and start production of a few Spirit Walkers (make sure to get adept and master training and build another Spirit Lodge if necessary).
When you fight them again, odds are that they will have polymorph for their sorceresses. Use disenchant on your Spirit Walkers to take care of that, and use spirit link to link all your tauren together, reducing the effect of their focus firing. Also make sure to use Ancestral Spirit when any of your Tauren die. It is important that you micro your tauren though, since they are valuable units.
Don't forget about your stasis traps. Keep laying them to stun them, and keep using your Tauren Chieftain. I would advise some mana potions to fuel his mana tank.


If you do this properly, then this will probably be enough to deal with them. If they survive, just produce counter units accordingly to deal with new threats, with the greatest threat at this point being gryphons. Have your Berserkers focus-fire on them to take them down quickly. Also build a Bestiary or another barracks if air becomes a real problem. Keep upgrading though, make sure especially to get increased range damage, as well as armor. I would advise an expansion so you can continue to build casters, tauren, and berserkers at the same time, and make sure they don't expand. Use your Docs to put sentry wards down to keep an eye (literally. HA!) on possible expansion spots as well as their main base.

Actually, I can see another application for the second part of this strategy, if a gruntapult vs. a NE player fails, then I think this would work well against them, especially since they usually like to get archers at the sight of gruntapult.

So what do you guys think? This strategy is fairly new and hasn't been tested a lot, so there is probably some stuff that can be made better. Lets hear some feedback! :) .

[Ender]

You know, I'm not much of a 1v1 player, and what I'm looking at right now is Theorycraft I know, but how does Rifle/Sorc counter Gruntpult? Wouldn't the Demos totally rip through Sorceresses? I mean, the rifles are deadly, but Grunts have a lot of hp and do a decent amount of damage, especially with Beserker Rage upgrade (I think that is the name of it). The Sorcs prolly slowed all the grunts, but if you aim your catapults at the ground just behind the rifles, you should be able to hit them and not your orcs, right?

[Cheapo5020]

You would think so, and I thought so for awhile, but demos die really fast to riflemen. They can usually micro their sorceresses, and plus the AM for additional firepower and the aura along with the MK for additional annoyance. The main reason this works is because the slow-riflemen makes it really hard for the orc to micro, since if you try to retreat any of your grunts, they get killed because they are so slow. If you try to get their riflemen, you fail because your grunts can't move fast enough to get them. See what I mean? I proposed this idea to counter the slow with stunning. That makes it hard for them to preserve their riflemen, and if you can stun them fast enough, you can kill their sorceresses before they can retreat them.

[Prozerran]

You have the right idea. The trick to beating Rifle/Sorc builds is a combination of several factors. First and foremost, the only real "counter" to sorc slow is a speed scroll, which you should almost always be using as it's one of the best Orc items IMO. Next, your production of HH/Berserkers is correct. Add in a couple of Cata's for siege and target the casters in battle (where you will lose the cata's more than likely, but not without taking out most of the sorcs and priests). Also, keeping the pressure on the opponent with early, heavy harassment with enough peasant kills will surely disrupt his economy enough to give you the advantage. As far as Witch Doctors, I agree to some degree, but I think the early Wyverns are just a better solution in most cases. Riflemen don't hold up against the heavy anti-ranged units you'll throw at them with cata's, poison striking Wyverns, and Berserkers. And of course, Tauren add the finishing touch. Thought I'd add my two scents here.

[Cheapo5020]

I suppose I could see wyverns being applied in this strategy. However, it could be difficult to keep them alive since rifles tear them up faster than they do demos. Hmm, perhaps a mixture of wyverns and docs? You only need maybe 2 docs. Wyverns would increase firepower as well as help kill the casters. Combining them would also put you in a position at tier 3 to get good anti-air in case of gryphons as well as create a caster-tauren combo. I think that just may work :).

Sentry wards got me thinking about invisible units, then I realized that the humans can cast invisibility. How come I have never seen anybody cast invisibility to help remove their damaged units from combat, including heroes? I would think that it would have been popular or something, since it would help micromanagement so much.

[xodkrm]

whats the best strategy for countering mass footies?

[Cheapo5020]

Which race?

Heroes always play a key roll in stopping mass footies. The best heroes are those that do damage to multiple units, like...

Far Seer- Chain Lightning
Tauren Chieftain- Shockwave
Archmage- Blizzard
Bloodmage- Flame Strike
Demon Hunter- Immolation
Warden- Fan of Knives
Dreadlord- Carrion Swarm
Crypt Lord- Impale

I think you get the idea.

[tb473]

Ok, this is kind of off-topic, but here's my way to counter the Gruntapault as NE.
1. Start with whatever Mass-Archer build you want, and use a PotM as your hero.
2. Get to tier 2 as soon as you have a Hunter's Hall and an Ancient of Wonders
3. Get an Ancient of Wind or two
4. get Hyppo Taming
5. use Hunters Hall to get 2/2 for Archers (if you havent yet)
6. get many, many Hyppogryphs in ur AoWind and get Hunts in ur AoWar.
7. Fire!!!!!!
It works fairly well, as the Grunts and Demos can't attack your Hyppos, so they are free to Focus Fire whatever they want. So you FF their Hero and use the Hunts as meat. Maybe an AoE neutral Hero could help the cause (aka. Pit Lord or Tinker) so they can AoE the Demos. That may be useful.

And about the Mass Footies inquiry, it's very simple. Just either A. Get some more powerful, more upgraded tier 1 meele, or B. get to tier 2 faster than ur opponent and use some better techs to win. They need a lot of Footies to get away with such a rush, so just out-tech them.

[Cheapo5020]

You are pretty much right on in countering the gruntapult tb473. However, the best thing you can do is keep them away from your base, as well as clueless about what you are doing. One guy I faced had a pretty good base layout, which included an AoW with an ancient protector at the main choke to his base. That held up pretty well, and once he got a few hippo riders, the game pretty much ended for me.