Report and tips
Early newbie style. -by Drasca

Report section
Yes, we're all thankful for replays. In fact, they make learning from each other much easier. For that reason, we might be better off taking a "loss" from a more experienced player in order to save the replay and see what they did. That's the obvious part. The not so-obvious part is where to find "experienced" players. Well there are some right here in USWest server Lordaeron in channel diablo retail dsf-1 and public chat tp. But what of the ladder? Get lucky and it'll arrange you, a level 1 with no wins, with another level 1. That isn't really going to help you much for a replay, is it? Well, there's a loophole. The system currently matches up to 6 levels away from yourself, so a level 1 could theoretically go play with a level 6-7. However, the "search time" has also increased. In the past week, I have not seen a difference beyond 3 levels, i.e. a level 3 paired with a level 6 or a level 1 paired with a level 4.

Also, a friend on b.net directed me to war3replays.com, and that one seems to have some nice replays, but the highest rated ones seem to miss a basic concept of RTS attrition warfare-- prevent your opponent from expanding. I can host my own replays or send them if requested, but I think we should swap replays around in general. Replay file sizes are not large. They seem to vary from 40k to 800k (Note: That was a 3-hour long game). The median size seems to be around 160k. It might be a good idea for people to share their replays.

I checked out battle.net's WC3 strategy forum, and it has a low signal-to-noise ratio. There's some actual strat that's worth checking out, but there's also much much "noise" that's simply very putting off.

There are a number of common tactics in Multiplayer but I'll discuss them in the Tips section.

Now to the Tips section:
For build order in general, most people build a Hero-Summoning Altar and "Farm" immediately, and then a first-tier unit training "Barracks" next when resources are available. The farm and altar will insure food being available for summoning a Hero while training 5 workers (from the 10 original potential food). A second farm would be a priority once the first non-hero unit is trained.

To illustrate food usage in chronological order:
Start 5/10, 5 being used / 10 being max.
Start farm build
Train 5 workers sequentially for resource gathering 5--->
10 / 10
Farm built by now.
10/20
Begin training worker and summoning hero
16/20
starting second Farm
Begin training first-tier unit from "Barracks"
18-19*/20
*Orc Grunts take 3 food, unlike Undead Ghouls, Human Footmen, and Night Elven Archers.

So you can see, building farms immediately is essential to train without "waiting for farms to build."

Specifically for Night Elves, here's an early build order I use that works effectively (I am currently experimenting with others.. hehe).

Immediately.
1. Send 3 wisps to gold mine
2. Other two Altar and Moon well
3. Train several wisps.
4. Send next two Trained wisps to lumber.
5. Moon well should be done by now, send that wisp to building an Ancient of war.
6. Alternate next four wisps available from lumber and gold mine (Altar should be down by first wisp trained here, which is the third total wisp trained).
7. Build a Hunter's Hall and Moon well.

The key point above for Night Elves is that they are starved for lumber early on--that is why the first few trained wisps are sent to lumber instead of gold.

For Undead, the situation is slightly different. Ghouls harvest lumber (and only that) and Acolytes start building summons and can leave. So only 6 total acolytes are necessary in the beginning. Instead of an Altar, I recommend building the Crypt (a Barracks type), to train a few ghouls for lumber harvesting and general mayhem. Ghouls can carry 20 lumber at a time, so lumber is not a problem for the undead.

As for Humans and Orcs, they're pretty much by the book. Of course, the crafty player might want to take advantage of Human "hurry production" ability with additional peasants.

Building Arrangement:
Like Starcraft, one should build to protect and enclose the gold mine. This helps protect against "Hero Rushing." Have buildings arranged to act like a wall against intruders.

Additionally, Defensive towers placed near gold mines expansion lines (rather than the choke point) is also done to protect against worker raids. However, Defensive towers are also used against the player offensively in "Tower Rushes"

Hero Rushing-- a tactic used early game to quickly build a hero with the objective disrupt resource gathering and gain a resource advantage. Methods include: Human Archmage Blizzard of the Gold mine worker area, Night Elf Keeper of the Grove Entangle of the workers, Orc Seer Spirit Wolf attack, Orc Blademaster 'wind-walking' into the enemy's base (wind-walk makes blademaster invisible) and sneaking into the gold mine.

Tower Rush- Generally meaning Orc Watch Towers. Orc watch towers have piercing ranged damage, have no minimum range of attack and have a very high rate of attack. Towers are quickly built either within an enemy's base, or within range of peasant gold mines. Once started, towers are difficult to remove because of their hp gain as they are built. For a cheap price, the player's offensive units either delayed (to destroy the tower), or the player risks being assaulted by towers. The Tower Rusher can then station units near their defensive Watch Towers near your base, and effectively either pin you inside your base or trigger the "auto-defend" A.I. of your units and take them out. With watch towers at their backs, the assaulting units are extremely difficult to take out.

 

More tips:
Common Early (staple) Unit combinations:

Night Elf: Huntresses, En Masse.

Orcs: Grunts, shamans following. Or Troll Head-hunters, same damage but ranged, piercing and less hp units.

Humans: Footmen /w Defend followed by Riflemen. Beware of the Human with the Sorceress en masse, Polymorph Other can be baaaaahd.

Personal Favorite, though generally unused: Riflemen & Priests.

Undead: A few ghouls, mainly Crypt Fiends /w web upgrade. Necromancer /w Skeletons on auto-cast is also popular.

 

More newbie tips:
Armor doesn't work the same as Starcraft. It is not a simple damage reduction, it is percent based--though I'm not sure of the formula right now. Can anyone else clue in?

In general, three types of heroes are used, and they aren't exactly what is expected. Ranged/Magic for general use, Hero-killers, and Hero-Rushers (as discussed earlier in this post). Hero-Killers are those specifically tailored to taking out the other player's hero and hero abilities. Hero-killers obviously counter other Heroes, and general Ranged/Magic counter regular units, and rushers are simply good at taking out workers. These types are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but the nature of their skills(Focusing damage on one vs Spreading damage over many units) generally make Hero-Killer and general Ranged/Magic unlikely to be mixed.

Night Elf: Demon Hunter's Mana burn does damage and takes out mana, the spell ability. Very useful indeed. His Demon transformation later makes him ranged, and additionally capable to take out heros specifically.

Human: Mountain King, storm bolt, bash, thunderclap, avatar. All very useful. Storm Bolt in particular, for stunning, and discontinuing the other hero's ability to use a continuous spell, say an Ultimate like the devastating starfall, tranquility, earthquake, death and decay, etc.

Undead: Dreadlord, with the sleep ability--or in a pinch, the infernal, which if summoned on top of the enemy, stuns them.

Orc: Sadly, the only semi-ranged ability is the Tauren Warchief's Warstomp, which stuns opponents. Not terribly great, but with shockwave, will have to do.

For General Ranged/Magic use (ranged is recommended due to auto-unit-formations having ranged units move behind others, and the hero is more likely to survive):

Night Elf: Priestess of the Moon. Her searing arrow is tempting, and taking the Trueshot aura is a given, but later on, one would like to keep a mana reserve for the Ultimate, Starfall. An Owl scout can be much more useful as a second skill point choice, for general reconnaisance of terrain, searching for the enemy's base, and probing the enemy's defenses.

*Note on combination of Priestess, Starfall and Building placement. A friend of mine likes to place moon wells defensively, most recently in a semi-circle arrangement, but before that a square-ish U. I enjoy making moon wells into guantlets for my units to pass by and heal.

Starfall, as an ultimate, is great, but is limited by the Priestess'es ability to survive onslaught. When defending a base, this is countered by having the Priestess in the center of many moon wells on auto-cast to heal her. Potions and scrolls interrupt Starfall, so they cannot be counted on. Health stones are rumoured to work, but I personally haven't managed to use them during starfall.

Human: Archmage--If going magic/support (or otherwise coordinated strategy), Brilliance aura beyond one point, but otherwise Brilliance aura is wasted. Blizzard is effective in many/all melee situations and vs ranged enemies which must station themselves.

Mass Teleport--There is a fast cooldown on Mass Teleport. Here's a more advanced tactic. Have a sorceress cast invisible on a fast unit, send that unit into the other person's base, and then Mass Teleport in and out before everyone can send a defense.

Undead: Dreadlords and Death Knights are a favorite-- their ultimate summoning skills, undead healing abilities and auras are wonderful. Dreadlord Vampiric Aura will make melee allies very happy, or if one wishes, attack with abominations and enjoy the aura yourself.

Orc: The Orc Seer is the pick, due to chain lightning. The spirit wolf is often used as a disposable scout in lieu of the Far vision ability.

Sadly, I don't have any advanced strategies for Orcs or Undead =/

This is a first-draft and it isn't polished, but should give some additional idea into the Wc3 world beyond what is currently posted (which is basically nothing so far )

-Drasca

Original Thread