Well, Island Defense was rendered unplayable in the patch, although the new version (3.0.4) fixed it. Dunno about anyone else, though. Maybe just getting ready for Diablo and Starcraft to come out.
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Well, Island Defense was rendered unplayable in the patch, although the new version (3.0.4) fixed it. Dunno about anyone else, though. Maybe just getting ready for Diablo and Starcraft to come out.
Due to my parents not telling me until like an hour ago that they have arrangements for today (:smallsigh:) I will likely be gone today to go to a festival. I *might* show up for a bit either at the beginning or the end and there's the possibility it will get rained on and we won't go at all but don't count on it.
Sorry I couldn't come yesterday; RL friends held me up. :smallwink:
In recent news, I got a namechange! :smalltongue:
Awww, we has bunny! :smalltongue: :smallbiggrin:
Also, custom map session. Tomorrow. Reminder. :smallcool:
Sadly, my previous alternative was taken! And I assumed as this is the only thread I post in for the most part, you might as well all recognise me. :smallwink:Quote:
Originally Posted by Winterwind
i can pretend to not recognize you if you want.
so im finally on before midnight, and nobody is home. where is everybody?
Alright, well, tomorrow is Sunday and thus the melee session; I hope to see you there. Let's see if we can have attendance higher than Friday, hmm? :smalltongue:
Well, I will be there, anyway (sorry for not having been able to send out the reminders yesterday, and thanks, Baneling, for posting it :smallsmile:). :smallcool:
It's quiet in here... too quiet. :smalleek:
*ahem*
I mean, reminder: Tomorrow is our next custom map session. See you there. :smallcool:
ill be a few hours late to the customs sessions for the next few months.
Wow, quiet thread. Must be because school is starting for many of us... I know I'm busier than I'd like to be.
SCA development is frozen until I can take care of some final bits of make up work that were on hold because the prof. was away this Summer.
Nooblade it is always this quiet. School starting has nothing to do with it.
I will not be able to attend the next custom session, DnD session, or Melee session. So hope you all have fun, and I should be there next week.
Yeah, unless we happen to be discussing some recent patch-related screw up by Blizzard, some map causing controversy for some reason, or melee strategies, the thread tends to be rather quiet most of the time.
Anyhow, reminder! Tomorrow's our next custom map session! Hope to see you there! :smallsmile:
EDIT: Oh great, seems like I have deleted the PM in which I store the lists of people whom I'm not supposed to send reminders to by accident. >_<
Oh well, I think I know it by memory...
What would be some good strategies for new players, so they can contribute to a team?
1. Coordinate your unit building with your allies eg. If your ally is getting ranged then get melee or vice-versa.
2. Have a clear line of research between early tech levels to late tech levels. You will never have enough gold to buy a little of everything. For example if you are playing human and build footmen early you could branch out to two other paths more easily than other paths. Either Knights or Gryphons. (as both share an attack upgrade [swords at the smithy])
3. If you notice a unit type that you and your allies don't have fill the gap with appropriate units yourself (speaking as a random team veteran retarded allies are the number 1 cause of losses and mostly because there is a gap in ones armies) eg. No Anti-air units
4. Don't be afraid to cede a unit role to another player if his race is better at an assigned role (eg. orcs for melee, ud/ne for ranged)
5. Learn the strengths and weaknesses of all the races armies. eg. Orcs are very vulnerable to armies with heavy caster support. (they have no anti-casters of their own)
6. Never fight alone. Team games tend to snowball much more radically than others if one fights alone. You will be outnumbered either 2 to 1 or greater depending on the type of team game you are playing. (2v2, 3v3, 4v4)
____
This should get you started if I have missed anything, then the others here can help fill in the gaps in my advice.
Meanwhile I'm going to bed.
While co-ordination is always good, in matches larger than 2v2, large masses of units will tend to dominate smaller masses of units, regardless of composition. I say tend here, as in 60% of the time. When in doubt, get ranged units. They won't clump up and get stuck, and 20 ranged units can all attack in a confined area, but 20 melee cannot.Quote:
Originally Posted by SirSigfried
Awful advice. The biggest noob mistake is fixating on one build path and not changing your strategy. Only research tech when you are close to the next upkeep bracket, or when you have gp and nothing else to spend it on. If they are getting csters, you best get some mortar teams and priests! Continuing to pump knights is asking for a world of pain.Quote:
2. Have a clear line of research between early tech levels to late tech levels. You will never have enough gold to buy a little of everything. For example if you are playing human and build footmen early you could branch out to two other paths more easily than other paths. Either Knights or Gryphons. (as both share an attack upgrade [swords at the smithy])
Yup, agreed. This conflicts with 2., though.Quote:
3. If you notice a unit type that you and your allies don't have fill the gap with appropriate units yourself (speaking as a random team veteran retarded allies are the number 1 cause of losses and mostly because there is a gap in ones armies) eg. No Anti-air units
While it tends to be good to play towards each races strengths, if you go slightly oddball paths, you can really throw off the competition. If I see an orc heavy team, I will expect melee, casters, and wyverns, so will organize to counter that. If they roll up with raiders, catapults, and headhunters, our team will lose a base or two, and we're suddenly on either a) the defensive or b) a race to raze each other's bases.Quote:
4. Don't be afraid to cede a unit role to another player if his race is better at an assigned role (eg. orcs for melee, ud/ne for ranged)
Very good advice. Be aware of what enemy heros & units can counter your stuff. A mountain king means your starfall won't last long (mountain bolt), but orcs have relatively few ways to break channeling (tauren chieftan & stun ward). Also know what units will kill your heros, like dryads (slow poison), shamans (purge) or necromancers (cripple).Quote:
5. Learn the strengths and weaknesses of all the races armies. eg. Orcs are very vulnerable to armies with heavy caster support. (they have no anti-casters of their own)
You can almost always win a game if you stick together. A team that plays well together will do better than one that doesn't. You can have tier one units that are a terrible match up to the enemies', but win if you stay together and they don't.Quote:
6. Never fight alone. Team games tend to snowball much more radically than others if one fights alone. You will be outnumbered either 2 to 1 or greater depending on the type of team game you are playing. (2v2, 3v3, 4v4)
Pay attention to who has the most levels on your team, or plays the best. If they tell you to do something, do it. It takes awhile before you can tell when you can win a battle and when you will lose. Sometimes, staying and fighting, but losing your hero is worth it, and sometimes, it's not. If you're losing your hero and your allies are running, run!
I will add some advice:
Your hero is the most valuable piece of your army. Do not lose him, and do not feed enemy heroes. High level heroes will spell your end, just as high level heroes will win the game for you.
Creep aggressively. Items & xp help a lot. Also, use items! Don't fill your inventory with junk you won't use. And don't let loot sit there, either. If none of your team will use it, sell it or destroy it.
Learn the hotkeys. They will save your life.
Have good base lay out. Spawn a hero that's trapped? Yuck. Teleport home and get half your army stuck? Cluster things around your main, so it can't be wiped out quickly with tanks or raiders. Put ancients close together so they will kill stuff that's in your base. Strategically place moon wells such that they will heal your army and block your foes. Moon wells are durable and a low priority for an AI attacker (the attack mode units are in when you attack move). I like to put a few moon wells tucked away in my base so I can run my hero back to them and heal.
Double clicking the town portal icon will teleport your hero to your highest level town hall. A good way to get out quick.
Don't stay and fight, and lose all your units. This isn't starcraft. Every unit you lose makes his army stronger, by feeding an enemy hero.
Don't just attack move and sit back. Casters that are told to attack move won't cast, and your units will start shooting at the first enemy they see. Instead, have your ranged units target one thing, and all shoot at it once, while melee intercepts. Focusing everything on an enemy hero can be good if the hero gets trapped, otherwise it runs circles around your units while they chase it and get killed by his. Run units that are getting hit back.
Use control groups.
Well, SirSigfried and Myrmex have already given plenty good general advice; we could give more specific advice if you told us what race you play (if you do not play any particular one, I would strongly recommend you pick the one you have the most fun playing and stick to it for now; it will be much quicker and easier to learn the basics of the game on one race than on all four of them at once).Quote:
Originally Posted by Folytopo
Other than that, a couple more general advice from me (being more of a solo player, the advice is more based on my experience from that, but should be applicable to team games as well, as long as you keep in mind you are generally not supposed to walk around alone):
- Learn some build-orders. Either read them up on the Internet or watch some replays of good players and observe in what order and when they get what. There are efficient ways of getting what one wants and less efficient ones; no point reinventing the wheel.
- Speaking of which, that part about watching good players is a good idea anyhow, just to see how the game looks like on a high level - how aggressive one is supposed to be, what good micro looks like, etc.
- Learn which attack types are good against which armour types and which units have what - that will make you understand why getting some particular unit is good against some particular other one.
- Never sit around in your base for long, stay on the move. When you are not fighting your opponent, creep. Your army is a big investment; every moment you are not using it is a moment this investment is not working for you, meaning you are falling behind.
- Make sure you spend everything your workers earn. If you don't, you need to tech more, upgrade more, get more units - if need be, more unit production buildings - but don't sit on your gold. If you have 2000 unspent gold, just consider how many units this could make, and how much these units could change the tide of battle!
- Related with the previous point, don't use control groups only for your units, use them for buildings, too (my personal control groups are:
but use whatever works for you.Spoiler1 - heroes and melee,
2 - heroes and ranged,
3 - air or casters, usually only with heroes using healing spells
4 - air or casters or siege, always without heroes
5 - first type of unit production buildings,
6 - second type of unit production buildings,
7 - third type of unit production buildings (rarely used, but just in case),
8 - altar
9 - upgrade building
10 - main- Get a feeling for when opponents typically tend to get expansions, and visit the most probably expansion spots at those times (in team games, together with your teammates, of course). If you can interrupt an expansion, you throw a major wrench in your opponents' plans.
- Learn all the little details about the interface and use them. Such things like "double-clicking a unit selects all units of its type" or "Tab changes the currently high-lighted unit in your selection, allowing you to quickly switch between the units of which you want to use the abilities" or "F1 is a permanent hotkey for your first hero, F2 for your second hero, etc." are very useful and important to know.
- If at any one point one player has a particular need for some resource, give it to him, and call for a resource yourself should you be lacking it (not sure how good an advice this is in Random Teams though, I imagine it might not work out too well due to the abundance of idiots there - I can tell only from what I hear from others, never played Random Team myself).
- You can also use the TP scroll to teleport your army to any allied town hall. If you manually click on the ground somewhere in the vicinity of the town hall, you will be teleported to exactly this spot. It is tremendously important you target the spot you teleport to right - if you are immobilized somewhere where you cannot attack properly or where you will be attacked while not being able to maneuver, the outcome of the battle might be the opposite of what it usually would have been.
- An army that would utterly crush the other can be utterly obliterated instead if the formations are wrong. If your melee happens to be up front and your ranged units behind, while the attack comes from behind, you will suffer tremendous losses. This is in particular true in team games, where you usually have only one of these functions - if your ally has all melee units, and you are attacked from behind by melee units while having only ranged units yourself, you will die a painful death if you stay there, and the armies will be too big and your ally may not notice quick enough to reform in time. In such situations, it might be best to run or TP out.
- Generally, whenever you run or TP out, tell your allies you are doing so, so they know they should do the same, lest they face three players while being only two, or so.
That's more or less all I can think of right now.
On the topic of hot keys: If you have a group of units selected, say two heros, some troll witch doctors, and grunts, you can push tab to cycle forward through your units while still maintaining control over all of them, and tilde to cycle back.
For instance, say you are feinting, and need to run your army back to some cunningly laid stun wards. You can be right clicking and have your army fall back while you hit 'w' to have your blade master windwalk, push tab to tell your farseer to make some spirit wolves, hit tab to go to your witchdoctors and have them make a ward, then hit tilde to go back to your farseer and throw out some chain lightning. There's a way to send orders to only a specific subgroup, but I forgot how to do that.
If you hold down the control key, you will see units' life bars hover above them. Use this to keep track of weak units so you can target them.
Pressing the backspace key will cycle you through your town halls. A useful way to quickly zoom to an expansion or your main base. Space bar will take you to the last "ping" from your units- whether someone was attacked or a unit just popped out.
In multiplayer games larger than 2v2, ranged heroes tend to be better than melee ones, since melee ones are more likely to be targeted and trapped in a 3v3 battle (especially since you're a noob and micro is still hard). That said, the blademaster is great since he can move through units with windwalk, the paladin can put up divine shield, the mountainking is small and looks like a footman, and tauren chieftan has a lot of HP. When I play night elf, my first hero is always keeper, because he is incredible for creeping.
On the topic of creeping: Two races can expand very quickly early game- night elf and human. As night elf, build a moon well, ancient of war, and an altar, followed by a shop when you can afford it. Get a keeper of the grove with treants. You can creep orange patches by the first night fall if you are careful. Here's how you do it: pump archers, buy a lesser potion of clarity (out of combat mana regen potion) cast treant near your base, heal at a moon well, grab a lesser potion of clarity, and run towards an orange patch. As soon as treants are off cooldown, cast them. With your four treants, send the ones with the shorter duration in first. Focus fire with your archers and keeper at a single enemy. Keep casting treants as it comes off cool down and drink the potion if you need to. The map Ogre Mound is perfect for this strategy.
Humans can also be really good at creeping, as water elementals make great tanks. Early game, pump a ton peasants. You want like ten on lumber and 5 on gold. This has two advantages- peasants can defend against early rushes, and you will get a lot of lumber that you can give to another teammate if they need it. After your hero comes out, preferably archmage, though you can do it with other heroes (beastmaster with a grizzly, pally with heal, etc), grab your 10 or 12 lumber peasants and have them call to arms. They move much faster than your hero/footmen, so send the hero with summoned water elemental & footmen towards the patch, as the militia will catch up. You can have up to 3 water elementals out at a time, if you have the mana and cast the spell as soon as the duration is up, so you should have two water elementals by the time you get to the gold mine. Send the water elementals in first, followed by militia. Run any peasants that take damage out, so you don't lose anyone. Then send 5 peasants back home, and have the five there build you a town hall.
Creep AI isn't great. If you build too close, they will smash your buildings, so I don't recommend tower rushing them. If creeps are sleeping, they will target the first unit to do them damage. You can take advantage of this with a summoned unit (nothing lost if it dies), or a hero, who has better health regen & armor than most troops.
Random tip:
Tauren chieftains are ridiculously tanky. I like getting them as my 2nd hero as orc if I am playing against people who like to hero target, or if they're just bad. I like to give the tauren a couple shop bought items plus whatever I found on monsters that boost strength (like gloves of str +3 & that circlet with +2 all stats).
By the time a second hero pops out, your other heroes are likely between levels 3 and 6, so seeing a level 1 tauren wandering around looks like a great target. However, he has a ton of life, and you can easily run him back. Just keep him away from the action, throwing out stuns or shockwaves, and up that aura. They'll throw all sorts of spells at him, but as long as you keep him alive (healing pot, chain heal, run him back), he's surprisingly durable, and you likely won't lose him. It's much easier to keep a hero alive than kill one, so you will win the micro advantage when it comes to units. They will put lots of resources into killing a level 1 hero (spell cooldowns, mana, attention), neglecting their tier 2 or 3 troops. This strategy doesn't always work, but it's awfully fun when it does.
Seems like I really need to find a better time to post/send out the reminders about the melee session. Between roleplaying and StarCraft session definitely doesn't work out, I perpetually keep forgetting it. :smallsigh:
Oh well. Melee session in a little more than two hours. :smallwink:
Thanks for the tips guys. I was thinking of playing as undead or orcs, which one gentler learning curve?
Personally, I find UD to be easier.
With some advice from Winter, I got the hang of the undead after a few games, but it took me awhile to "master" orcs.
Undead are the only race without a way to get mana and HP back at tier 1, however, aside from time.
I just got back! I might upload some photos soon. When/if I do I will put a link to them here!
Undead is pretty easy- mass fiends, get statues.Quote:
Originally Posted by Folytopo
Against the trend I actually think Orcs are easier since their style is play is more orthadox (normal resource gathering and no blight mechanic, among other things) and they have easily some of if not the best items at T1 (non-combat healing items and scrolls of speed). Plus their melee units are some of the toughest in the game - your very first Grunts start out with 700 hp and can be upgraded so that they have 800 at T2.
Though if you want to get into things like Blademaster harassing then it takes a lot more practice. I, personally, am still not good at BM harassing but then I mostly play Night Elves and only Orc when I feel like mixing things up or balance demands it. Which also probably means this should be taken with a grain of salt. :smallwink:
Orc units are expensive, and nubs tend to lose units to anything that does damage, especially those of the melee variety.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Orange Zergling
Though, if you're in a 3v3, you can just pump casters and go for tier three, and then move around behind your allies. Orc casters are easymode. Necros require a lot more finesse.
Personally, I think humans are the best. Their heroes are rigged, and virtually any strategy you want to use with them works. They have great casters, melee, anti-air, air, sige, and anti-caster, and their units are cheap. Also, good shop items.
Learning to preserve units comes with time, though. And I would imagine that learning it while playing an expensive race would mean that you make it that much more of a priority and you get better at it that much faster.Quote:
Originally Posted by Myrmex
Not to mention that Tauren completely mulch pretty much any non-tank unit when used in numbers. Even against units they're not normally good against. And Kodo Riders, which not only give a damage boost to your entire army but also can Devour enemy units, taking them out of the fight either permanently or for a decent amount of time even if the Kodo is killed. Raiders and Wyverns are pretty good all-around, too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Myrmex
I don't play humans so I can't really speak from their perspective, but I do know that they are not overpowered to any noticeable degree, having beaten them many times before. Unless you count ultra-cheesy strategies usually involving invisibility but those are actually pretty rare, in my experience.Quote:
Originally Posted by Myrmex
I guess. I'd rather learn unit preservation on crypt fiends than grunts. I always get DK with coil, though. Tier two gets you burrow, which is great for quick regeneration.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Orange Zergling
I find taurens, in 3v3 or bigger, to be kind of situational. They're very expensive units, they don't path well, and clogging is a major issue. If you don't have them en masse, they make attractive targets. A cluster of dryads, archers, and a kotg can do horrible, horrible damage to you in a choke point, with many more and many cheaper units than you.Quote:
Not to mention that Tauren completely mulch pretty much any non-tank unit when used in numbers. Even against units they're not normally good against. And Kodo Riders, which not only give a damage boost to your entire army but also can Devour enemy units, taking them out of the fight either permanently or for a decent amount of time even if the Kodo is killed. Raiders and Wyverns are pretty good all-around, too.
Raiders can be awesome, with net, but that's a micro intensive strategy, and they are fragile melee units. Wyverns are what you build if you want to lose. In 3v3 or 4v4, there's almost always someone with fiends. Wyverns are a poor combat unit. They are good for harassing fleeing troops, bases, and expansions, but when it comes to combat, I don't really like 'em. Good players with wyverns & a blademaster can do some horrible damage, for sure. But gruntapult + shamans is a way easier strategy, with good results.
Of course. This is Blizzard; we're not talking about Necrons or Space Marines. The problem with humans, though, is their lack of weak points. They are like the factotum of warcraft.Quote:
I don't play humans so I can't really speak from their perspective, but I do know that they are not overpowered to any noticeable degree, having beaten them many times before. Unless you count ultra-cheesy strategies usually involving invisibility but those are actually pretty rare, in my experience.
Though the Orcs also have the Shadow Hunter who has Healing Wave, and in my experience he's not actually that bad of a first hero choice (though I prefer the Tauren Chieftain myself). No burrow though but I figure they make up for that with extra hit points... and of course being a totally different unit for a totally different role.Quote:
Originally Posted by Myrmex
Even Dryads, with Unarmored armor, fall prey to Tauren very very quickly when they can't keep their distance. And even moreso for Archers too, because they have Medium. In an open battlefield it's easier to keep your distance but in, say, a siege, either defensive or offensive, it's much more difficult and this is where Tauren can really mess you up.Quote:
Originally Posted by Myrmex
In 4v4s everything is inherently cheesy so I wouldn't really count anything that applies only in that category as being practical.
They're only micro intensive in that Ensnare is not autocast. They're fragile versus melee units but against ranged they're not so bad and their Siege damage is incredible against buildings and Unarmored units.Quote:
Originally Posted by Myrmex
Admittedly it has been a while since I've built Wyverns but as I remember they are better for smaller games where it's more likely that opponents can neglect anti-air and, as you say, for harassing. 3v3s are not the only game type, after all.
I've noticed that pretty much anything with shamans yields good results.
Again, I'm not really qualified to comment here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Myrmex