More about Trees than you ever wanted to know
By Drasca

Here you’ll find Data on Gold and Lumber Cost, Build times, attack speeds, and destruction times of various units by three Ancients of War. Currently this piece is focused on trees and a select few early units/buildings, but will be expanded later. Finally, there is a comparison of Trees of Life (Silly Beta-Folk :P) vs Ancients of War and strategical usage of uprooted Ancients as assault units.

First, Data.
*Gold and Lumber Cost:

Tree of Life: 400/150
Tree of Ages total: 720/230 (Upgrade to Tree of Ages: 320/80)
Tree of Eternity total: 1070/350 (Upgrade to Tree of Ages: 350/120)
Ancient of War: 230/70
Ancient of Lore: 240/80
Ancient of Wind: 220/80
Ancient Protector: 240/100

*Starting Gold and Lumber: 750/200

*Build time (in seconds)
Moon well: 50 seconds
Altar of Elders: 65 seconds
Hunter's Hall: 70 seconds
(these two are the standard buildings NE players make immediately)
Archer: 20 seconds
Huntress: 35 seconds
Ballista: 45 seconds
Priestess of the Moon: 60 seconds
Demon Hunter: 50 seconds
Keeper of the Grove: 55 seconds
Ancient of War: 60 seconds
Tree of Life: 125 seconds
Ancient Protector: 80 seconds

*LIfe/Damage/Attack Rate
Tree of Life: 1300, 41-50, 2.5 second cooldown
Tree of Ages: 1700, 49-60, 2.5 second cooldown
Tree of Eternity: 2000, 60-74, 2.5 second cooldown
Ancient of War: 1000, 45-55, 2 second cooldown
Ancient of Lore: 900, 41-50, 2.3 second cooldown
Ancient of Wind: 900, 38-46, 2.3 second cooldown

All Trees have normal damage when uprooted. Ancient Protector has Siege Damage when rooted.

Ancient Protector (uprooted): 550, 34-41, 1.5 second cooldown
Ancient Protector (rooted): 550, 52-64, 2 second cooldown

Damage is displayed damage on unit descriptions. Actual average damage is untested. I tested attack rate myself. I have a margin of error of ~0.075 seconds.

**Approximate Minimum Times for 3 Ancients of War to destroy following:
Altar of Elders (900 hp, 2 armor): 45 seconds
Level One Priestess of the Moon: <10 seconds
Level One Demon Hunter: 13 seconds
Tree of Life: 60 seconds:
Ancient of War: 45 seconds
Moon Well: 25 seconds

Ancient Protectors have siege damage and a minimum range when rooted.

*All these numbers I have pulled directly from the game or tested myself. Battle.net's wc3 guide has incorrect data. Times were done under "Fast" game speed.

**Ancients of War are notably slow. My tests account for some, but not all of walk time. Times may vary due to wisp-repair, walk-time, and other distractions. This data is to give relative comparison only, and not to be accurately relied on for individual building destruction.

Using Trees of Life, as clever as it may seem in Beta, is a sheer waste. Why? Ancients of War are much more cost-effective. Let's do a numerical analysis:

So at a first glance, if we try as you say and build at the other person's base, we can immediately build 3 ancients of war, or 1-2 (two being special cases) Trees of Life. Now there's still the question of which will build faster? I can get 1-3 Huntresses as NE in the third minute of the game with a standard build order.

5 Trees of Life cost a total of 2000 gold/750 Lumber
5 Ancients of War total 1150/350
8 Ancients of War total 1840/560

Ancients are certainly cheaper… We see that Ancient of War has approximately half the build time. Well what about combat effectiveness? Tree of life certainly has more life, doesn't it? Well that will prove true (1300 vs 1000 hp) but Ancients of War show to have better damage and attack rate than Trees of life(45-55 vs 41-50 dmg & 2 vs 2.5 seconds).

Personal Experience:
I have used a dozen or so ancients of war offensively as assault units. It drives newbies mad and insane. Fortified armor works extremely well vs the piercing towers of Undead and Orcs, usually Humans too, as few Human players use cannon towers. It works best when they are supported by skirmishing or ranged attack units (by team-mates that know about your strategy) that can pick off other units out of the ancient's range. The Ancients of War are the ultimate meat-shield, as very few use major use of Siege equipment or offensive Ancients of Protectors.

Types of Tree Wars.
There are two types, the early rush and the assault, both are a gamble over conventional strategies, as they’re best done in smaller maps with less travel time.

Ancient of War rush gamble. As mentioned earlier, it is very possible to gain 3 ancients of war into the enemy’s base within 2 minutes of the game. Send 2 wisps, 1 each to lumber and gold, and the rest of the initial wisps to the enemy’s base. Building more wisps is optional, as this whole thing is a gamble. By the second minute of the game, you should have 3 ancients of war and very little time to start attacking. Ignore the enemy’s units and directly target a building. Ancients of War are assault units, and very poor at fighting alone or against skirmishers.

So what to destroy? The most obvious target is the enemy’s Town Hall / Necropolis / Tree of Life / Great Hall. Your Ancients of War will last the 60 seconds necessary to destroy it. Less obvious choices for Night Elves are moon wells, which take 25 seconds to destroy and 50 to build.

Ancient of War assault. This is another gamble, as your base will be basically undefended once the assault begins. This is best done with Team-mates who are aware of your strategy. Considering mixing in a few Ancient Protectors to hedge your bets, but more than a few is too large a hassle, as they must be rooted for maximum effectiveness. Begin with a singular hero for defense, either KotG or DH. Make a second Tree of Life for wisp production and upgrade the first to Tree of Ages and upgrade Nature’s blessing. After a dozen or so Ancients are assembled. start building a "normal" army, but with mostly ranged and fast moving mobile units.

Recall, trees take no food, so all this while you’ll be at no-upkeep and maximum gold production. This is your additional advantage. Additionally, you may produce your army at any point where your Ancients of War have moved. Having a near-instant army is definitely a good thing. If you retain 10 Ancients of War, considering Huntresses take 35 seconds to produce, and assuming you have the resources, it should take no longer than 100 seconds to setup Ancient of War (rooting) placement and create an army of 10 Huntresses. 130 seconds to produce an effective army of 20 huntresses. Formidable, No? After that, you can double-click the rooted Ancients of War, re-hot-key them and uproot them all at one time.

Ancient Protector support: Dragons ever get in the way of expanding? Don’t want to buy more anti-air? 3-7 Ancient Protectors uprooted and rooted in key points will make life very difficult for those Gold Mine Creep Dragon guardians. Even more especially so when sieging bases. Park it, armies passing by will find a huge surprise. Ancient Protectors do splashing siege damage, so are exceptionally nasty toward large armies.

There is a reason these tactics are named support and assault, because they cannot function alone. I highly recommend against trying this alone. The Ancient of War rush is a gamble because Good Players with well-oiled build-orders can and will have their first effective units by 3 minute mark, giving mere seconds to find, build and attack the enemy’s base. The Ancient of Wars may be very long lasting, but they are not invincible. They can be worn down like rock is worn down by water. If you fight conventionally afterward, you will be at a great resource disadvantage.

There is one more possibility, if resources are available, build a unit mid-rush. This is hugely unlikely though, except with Team-mates who’ll lend you enough gold and lumber to build an additional Ancient of War at the base-site. You must either have a moon well built at your base at this point or build one. After the base is crippled/destroyed, you may use the three ancients normally as unit-producers or mop-up. Having an additional wisp trained, set on auto-repair and sent along with the ancients is recommended if resources are available. This kind of stunt can be hard to pull off, but also very effective if done correctly.

Well, I have enough for now. Any comments or suggestions?

-Drasca

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