Ambrosia Software Web Board: Help Trah Become A Better Blademaster - Ambrosia Software Web Board

I feel kind of 'stuck' at my current skill level on battle.net. So if our resident WC3 Masters are up to it, i have a replay of a recent battle: replay.

Basically my tactic is to mass grunts. These are the main problems I've encountered:

1. Air: Grunts can't attack the air, and my blademaster isn't enough to kill all the air units I encounter. I haven't been able to figure out a way to have effective anti-air without taking too much from grunt production.

2. Spell Casters: If an enemy uses any kind of spell tactic, I'm sunk. How should orcs counter something like a sorceress and priest mass?

3. I don't make secondary bases enough.

Play arranged team, have your partner cover your weaknesses.

Z and I are doing quite well. Come join the horde.

Or when you tech up, get raiders to ensnare enemy air, and bats to blow up light air. Potentially get wind riders vs heavier air.

As a counter to casters, consider walkers for aoe dispel - but be careful as they are a bit weak at the moment and vulnerable to magic themselves. I personally never use shamans, but healing wards/spirit link on a melee army makes for a virtually invincible group (except vs heavy air), and most of the time just spirit link (+ heal wave) works as well.

I wish I still played WC3. I usually played the custom games though. Still you guys look pretty good.

Ignore the first 128 wins and 138 losses, they don't count.

Alternatively Trah could use a handy to level up his blademaster.

I play Undead and I have a standard strat that seems to work quite well. I'll play against y'all if I can have your B.net names. Mine's Journalisty on US West.

I'm away in California until Friday (Visiting the mother ship and Stanford), but I'll play you after that; bnet name is Trah.

Troyen on USEast.
You can also catch Zortrium on USEast.

West has too few decent players for most ladders.

This reminds me of that other time i didn't understand what the hell was going on...

Flying pamplemeese!

Avatara, on Aug 9 2005, 10:53 AM, said:

Eh...I think Jambo played both of you a while back and he's way better than me...so you'd probably both slaughter me. In any case, I don't usually play on East but I made a account on that-Journalisty again.

For Orc I suggest the raiders, easily the best unit out there if your playing solo, I build these every game. Their nets allow to take down airunits for your grunts to kill and/or immobilize an enemy and kill them off one by one. Both of these take EXTREME micro so good luck.

Furthermore blademaster is only good against NE's. Its all about Farseer/Tauren guy.

Sorcs/Priests you should just be able to overrun (build a few catapults if you see their going for spellcasters and micro them to target,) humans are the hardest class for you to kill if you play orc I've found.

Az and I were pretty good before our new addiction showed up.

Cheers.
I don't even recall if this advice is any good, its been so long, so feel free to point out any stupid mistakes I've gone and done.

This post has been edited by GandalfDaddy: 12 August 2005 - 12:54 AM

/me wishes he could play Starcraft...

GandalfDaddy, on Aug 11 2005, 11:52 PM, said:

A few comments is enough to bring your ideas up to speed in the 1.18 world.

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Raiders are quite strong this patch, now that people have figured out ensnare's duration (15 seconds) is longer than its cooldown (12 seconds). Though unfortunately, that was a while ago, so some players are figuring out ways around the ensnare surround.

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The farseer was nerfed quite a bit, and chainwave is waayyy over-rated, only really good against low hp units like ghouls and archers.

However, FS wolves at level 2+ can still take down units, and stomp is a *very* useful skill - 3 second stun is enough to nuke a hero, prevent a bunch of ranged units from fleeing, and give your melee army a chance to catch up and deal some damage.

A blademaster with lightning orb, critical strike, and whirlwind is just deadly. Used right, with a few mana/healing potions, he can take down an entire army by himself - but that's often really tricky, so settling for an enemy hero or two is enough.

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I find the opposite, humans are one of the easier two (undead being #1). Night elf is my toughest because their racial weakness is piercing/range damage, and orc's forte is melee. Its tough fighting night elves.

If you want to counter slow, get a speed scroll. Priests die to pretty much any orc hero. If spells are slowing you down, get adept walkers for disenchant or learn to use shaman purge.

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We had a great fours team for a while. You should come back for the ladder reset in a few weeks, could be the top team.

I loved raiders.

Damnit, the Farseer was the coolest, always leveled him fast with wolves to get advantage on opponent and not lose and units. I actually like Tauren because of the shockwave, thats a nasty thing when coupled with a shock, really makes quite a hard thing to beat. Blademaster been buffed lately?

Really, I always found human spell casters + knights to be a royal bitch to beat. Used purge and Walkers a lot, but they'd get more mana before I could purge, speed scroll has not been something I've tried.

Yes, but we'll have to get away from wow first.

Oh, and Trah, for expanding creep a goldmine as soon as your hero is 3-4 and you've finished harassing, that way when your on the attack and excess gold is building up build an expo then while you pump out units.

This post has been edited by GandalfDaddy: 14 August 2005 - 12:40 AM

I'll try the raiders, and that tauren guy who can get rid of spells.

Avatara, on Aug 13 2005, 12:09 AM, said:

I find night elf are the easiest to kill. Low hp units, and usually people use archers and huntresses. Archers have normal armor and huntresses are unarmored, both of which take extra damage from grunt's normal attack.

This post has been edited by Trah: 14 August 2005 - 02:49 AM

Lucky you, I usually end up fighting high level DH (mana burn) + dryads (immune to magic), bears, and chimeras. Archers are no problem, hunts are when there are three AoWs per enemy player. Then again, when I play NE, I just mass archers, and I seem to win 75% of those games.

The farseer is still useful, but there's been a big shift away. Windwalk has no collision size, so the blademaster is the big cheese of this patch. I still don't like shockwave, it takes until level 3 to become a really damaging skill, and with a high mana price on the tc, I find endurance 3 to be more useful (especially in team), and stomp is my AoE stun.

Avatara, on Aug 14 2005, 07:42 AM, said:

Yeah, that's because you sit behind my footmen (who get slaughtered while your units actually do something) . Mass archers, at least in solo, can practically be beaten by certain heroes alone (blademaster, farseer, most anything with aoe).

Trah, on Aug 14 2005, 07:26 AM, said:

Actually, unarmored doesn't take extra from normal. If the night elf player has decent micro and just masses hunts, they'll butcher an equal supply of grunts with ease, due to the fact that injured hunts can run away easily and injured grunts can easily be chased down and killed. Mixing archers and hunts means that running the hunts away leaves the grunts to kill the archers, but 2x AoW hunt massing will completely own grunts (mind you, if the orc player played well, he then shows up with wyverns, which turn hunts into tomes of exp).

However, in the current patch there's a pretty easy way to beat NE as orc. Go blademaster with an early voodoo lounge and constantly harass to keep the NE from creeping. Tech as soon as you have the wood (13 peons) and build a war mill. Then, just build about 4 towers in your base while teching to tier 3. Once your towers are up, you're pretty much invulnerable for awhile, due to the fact that glaive throwers have so few hp that a solo bm can kill them pretty easily. While the NE is building up to attack your towers, you can build 2 bestiaries and mass bats. NE has no real counter to mass bat harass (aka, running into their base, blow up the tree, and run out), due to the fact that bats counter hippogryphs and you can just run away from archers (and bms massacre archers anyways). Added to the fact that NEs only good siege is air-based (chims), you can hit and run with bats and a bm and the NE can't do anything to you, due to your fortified burrows and towers.

Here is that Binders spreadsheet I made

I think the biggest three mistakes in today's game:
1. Red didn't defend you, he ran across the map to fight blue/teal with us, and too late at that.
2. We stayed too long fighting a losing battle there, should've ran after you got the paladin.
3. After you lost your hero, but had a hidden peon/burrow, it took a long time to get your resources/hero back in action. A blademaster behind the lines leeching exp would have helped greatly. :/

Avatara, on Aug 14 2005, 07:42 AM, said:

Dryads? Pft. Just use catapults and tear them apart with some grunties... Easy win I always found unless they did something. Why the hell did you let them tech to dryads so fast, stupid rushes and NE.

I find endurance more useful in team, but in solo taking out a line of spideys with that spell is sooo nice. ( I only use him team or when I'm against UD which suck even in WoW)

Znorty said:

When I get back on this will be the first strategy tried.

1.18 has not helped my spelling at al.

This post has been edited by GandalfDaddy: 15 August 2005 - 12:03 AM