WARCRAFT III: THE FROZEN THRONE HUMAN UNIT FAQ by Def_Joe_Griffe - - - - - - - - - Table of Contents - - - - - - - - - 1......Introduction 2......Units 3......Heroes 4......General Strategies 5......Do's and Do Not Do's 6......Credits/Copyright - - - - - - - - 1. Introduction - - - - - - - - I've recently started playing Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, and I've decided to write a faq about the units of my favourite race: the humans. Humans are the most versalite class to play with - if you have trouble choosing a race, choose humans. Humans have good, well-balanced units from powerful melee fighters to a very strong anti-air army. Humans have also quite cheap units compared to other races. With the best and the most armored defensive structures AND units in the game, humans' base will not be rallied in a second. Quick to train and easy to use, humans will be the very first choice of new players. - - - - - 2. Units - - - - - Peasant - - - - Trained at: Town Hall Cost: 75 Gold, 1 Food HP: 220 Damage: Normal 5-6, 12-14,13-16,14-17,15-18 Armor: Heavy 0,2,4,6,8,10 Training time: Very Short Upgrades: Improved Lumber Harvesting, Advanced Lumber Harvesting Peasant is the basic worker unit of the humans. They are quite slow lumber harvesters, but it can be upgraded. Peasants have also secondary use than just workers - they can be converted into Militia at Town Hall for 45 seconds. This is useful to repel the enemy's attack if your base is being rallied as Militia have quite a high armor. Don't send Militia into enemy's hands in the first place, send in your other units first so Militia can support your army in pushing the enemy back. Footman - - - - Trained at: Barracks Cost: 135 Gold, 2 Food HP: 420 Damage: Normal 12-14,13-16,14-17,15-18 Armor: Heavy 2,4,6,8 Training time: Short Upgrades: Defend Footman is the basic melee unit of the humans. These armored fighters have quite a low HP, but when upgraded their armor is not bad for a Tier 1 unit and will provide useful late in the game if used in large numbers. The upgrade - Defend - allows Footman to take only a little damage from Piercing attacks but will have slowed movement speed. Defend is essential for Footmen, especially if the enemy is using a lot of units that have Piercing damage. Overall, Footmen aren't that bad. Rifleman - - - - - Trained at: Barracks Cost: 205 Gold, 20 Lumber, 3 Food HP: 505 Damage: Piercing 18-24,19-28,20-32,21-36 Armor: Medium 0,2,4,6 Training time: Medium Upgrades: Long Rifles The basic ground-to-air unit. In my option, Rifleman is the best Tier 1 unit in the whole game. Their attack isn't that powerful, but they have a very fast attack rate and quite a good HP. Their cost is quite expensive, but these dwarves are worth it! In large numbers, Riflemen become killing machines against the enemy's air units. Get the Long Rifles upgrade as soon as possible, it increases the range of Riflemen attacks. I'd recommend having few of these dwarves in every single group in case of enemy air units. Flying Machine - - - - - - - - Trained at: Workshop Cost: 90 Gold, 30 Lumber, 1 Food HP: 200 Damage: Piercing 13-15,15-17,16-19,17-21 Siege 7-11,8-12,9-13,10-14 Armor: Heavy 2,4,6,8 Training time: Short Upgrades: Flying Machine Bombs, Flak Cannons Flying Machine is extremely useful. They are very fast and thus excellent at scouting. Better have one or two of these near the enemy base so you can see what the enemy's up to. Better not use Flying Machines as anti-air units because of their lousy HP and so-so damage. The Flying Machine Bombs-upgrade allows them to gain a siege attack against buildings, which isn't very powerful either. Flak Cannons gives you an area of effect damage against air units. Anyhoo, as I already said, use Flying Machines as scouts in every single game. Mortar Team - - - - - - Trained at: Workshop Cost: 180 Gold, 90 Lumber, 3 Food HP: 360 Damage: Siege 52-66,53-77,54-90,55-103 Armor: Heavy 0,2,4,6 Training time: Medium Upgrades: Flare, Fragmentation Shards In my option, the best siege unit in the whole game. Mortar Teams don't have as good damage as the other siege units, but they have the fastest attack rate and movement speed. Bring a pair of these guys while rallying the enemy's base, they'll provide very useful. Flare-upgrade is also very useful, it allows Mortar Teams to reveal any area in the map for a small amount of time. It can only be used once per a team, though. Siege Engine - - - - - - - Trained at: Workshop Cost: 195 Gold, 60 Lumber, 3 Food HP: 700 Damage: Siege 45-55,46-66,47-77,48-88 Armor: Fortified 2,4,6,8 Training time: Very Long Upgrades: Barrage Siege Engines are mechanic siege units. They are extremely good at destroying enemy buildings, but their range is very short, their movement speed is slow and due to their big size it takes a lot of time from them to seek a place to rally an enemy's building. However, their high armor allows them to sustain helluva lot of damage, especially against defensive structures. In any case, I prefer Mortar Teams instead of Siege Engines. Priest - - - - Trained at: Arcane Sanctum Cost: 130 Gold, 10 Lumber, 2 Food HP: 290,320,370 MP: 200,300,400 Damage: Magic 8-9 Armor: Unarmored 0 Training time: Medium Upgrades: Adept Training, Master Training Priests are supporting spellcasters of the humans. Like all the other spellcasters, they've got three spells. Heal - Priest's most important spell, which heals the target unit for 25 health with the cost of only 5 mana. You can see how important is that. Better have at least two of these guys at your main base so they can heal wounded units returning home after a battle against the enemy. Dispel Magic - Requires Adept Training. Dispels all buffs in the selected area. Not very useful, but it also deals a lot of damage to summoned units, so if your enemy is using a lot of summoned units, this spell will provide useful. Inner Fire - Requires Master Training. If you're planning to use Priests in battle, make sure you let them cast Inner Fire on your units at the start of the battle, as it increases the unit's armor and attack damage. This is an extremely useful spell and has a significant change in your army when cast on all of your units. Sorceress - - - - - Trained at: Arcane Sanctum Cost: 155 Gold, 20 Lumber, 2 Food HP: 320,365,405 MP: 200,300,400 Damage: Magic 10-12 Armor: Unarmored 0 Training time: Medium Upgrades: Adept Training, Master Training Sorceresses are versalite spellcasters of the humans. The three spells are: Slow - Slow is quite useful spell as it lowers the enemy's movement and attack speed. It is very good against the enemy units and heroes. Invisibility - Requires Adept Training. Allows the Sorceress to turn the target invisible. Good for scouting, but not Sorceresses' backbone. Polymorph - Requires Master Training. Turns the target unit into a harmless sheep that has no attack but retained HP and armor. This is very useful especially if used on the most powerful enemy units. Can not be used on Heroes and air units. Spell Breaker - - - - - - - Trained at: Arcane Sanctum Cost: 215 Gold, 30 Lumber, 3 Food HP: 600 MP: 250 Damage: Normal 13-15,14-18,15-21,16-24 Armor: Heavy 3,5,7,9 Training time: Medium Upgrades: Control Magic Spell Breakers are the worst nightmare of the enemy spellcasters. Spell Breakers have magic immunity, and their ability - Spell Steal - allows them to steal a positive buff from the enemy and apply it on a friendly unit. Spell Breaker's attacks also lower the target's mana per hit, and has increased damage against units with mana. The upgrade Control Magic allows the Spell Breaker to take control of an enemy summoned unit. As you can see, Spell Breakers are meant to destroy spellcasters. They're extremely useful if the enemy is going heavy on spellcasters, otherwise, they're not that good. I wouldn't recommend them to be used as attack units, Knights will often replace them. Knight - - - - Trained at: Barracks Cost: 215 Gold, 60 Lumber, 4 Food HP: 835,985 Damage: Normal 30-40,31-45,32-48,33-53 Armor: Heavy 5,7,9,11 Training time: Long Upgrades: Animal War Training Knights are very strong Tier 3 melee units. They have great attack power and the highest unit armor in the game (!). However, they're quite expensive, but if your resources allow, replace Footmen with these riders. Knights are also very fast so hit-and-run tactics can also be used. If you're going to heavy Knights, the Animal War Training upgrade is mandatory, because it adds +150 HP for them. Gryphon Rider - - - - - - - Trained at: Gryphon Aviary Cost: 270 Gold, 70 Lumber, 4 Food HP: 825,975 Damage: Magic 45-55,46-66,47-77,48-88 Armor: Light 0,2,4,6 Training time: Long Upgrades: Animal War Training, Storm Hammers Gryphon Riders are the best unit humans have. With the Animal War Training and Storm Hammers upgrades, Gryphon Riders become killing machines against everything - units and buildings. One group of 12 Gryphons can easily wipe the enemy's army because of the insane damage Gryphons cause in large numbers. However, their attack type is magic, so they won't be providing useful against targets with magic immunity. Anyhoo, use Gryphon Riders as soon as possible. You can't go wrong with these dwarves. Dragonhawk Rider - - - - - - - - Trained at: Gryphon Aviary Cost: 200 Gold, 30 Lumber, 3 Food HP: 575,725 Damage: Piercing 18-20,19-23,20-26,21-29 Armor: Light 1,3,5,7 Training time: Medium Upgrades: Cloud, Animal War Training Dragonhawk Riders provide to be my favourite human unit, and the most powerful air unit if used right. Although they're weak in the beginning, once they're upgraded they will become quite powerful. Dragonhawk Riders don't have a very good attack damage, but in massive numbers they can easily kill a horde of Frost Wyrms. You know why? The ability Aerial Shackles allows the Dragonhawk Rider to trap an enemy air unit on it's place and disarm that unit temporaly, plus, causing the shackled unit to take damage over time. If you manage to shackle every air unit the enemy has with every single Dragonhawk of yours, the enemy's air force is done for. The duration of Aerial Shackles is very long, so a weaker air unit will easily die to the damage caused by Shackles. You can also let your other anti-air units to focus fire on the shackled units, causing them to die even more quickly. You can now see how important these riders are, although not many people use them. They're not very good against the enemy's ground force due to their low attack damage, so in that case use Gryphons. Upgrade Cloud before going to rally enemy's base, because it's also a very important ability. When Dragonhawk Rider casts Cloud on the selected area, all defensive structures in that area can't attack. This is extremely useful. In fact, Dragonhawk Riders are a must if the enemy is using a lot of towers. - - - - - 3. Heroes - - - - - All heroes are trained at Altar of Kings, and the summoning cost is just 5 Food. Reviving costs gold, and the cost increases by the hero's level. Each hero has four abilities, and they can gain new ranks on them by every level. Archmage - - - - - Abilities: Summon Water Elemental - Archmage summons a Water Elemental to fight for you. This is why Archmage is often chosen. Water Elemental has a ranged attack, decent HP and they can be kept summoning as long as the Archmage has enough mana. Blizzard - Archmage calls down bolts of ice on the selected area to damage the enemy units. This is a very powerful spell, just make sure your own units won't get hit by it. Brilliance Aura - An aura that increases nearby units' mana regeneration. Not much use for this ability. Can be good if you're going to heavy on spellcasters. Mass Teleport - Teleports the Archmage and 24 other units to a friendly building. Not a very useful ultimate, but very good if your base is being razed and you're somewhere else killing creeps so you'll get some defense over there right away. Archmage is quite a good hero, because his Water Elemental spell can be amassed, which is useful for supporting your troops. Constant summoning of the elementals increases your attack's longevity as long as you keep using this spell. Another great spell, Blizzard, is also very useful, especially if the enemy is using a lot of spellcasters/ranged units. Just call down Blizzard on that area, but make sure your land units won't get hit by it (that's why it would be better for you to have more ranged units than ground units if you're planning to use Blizzard a lot). Archmage is also fast so hit-and-run tactics with Blizzard are possible. However, Archmage has got downsides. He is very fragile and quickly killed by a group of Tier 3 melee units, and his stats aren't very good. OVerall, Archmage is a very good hero if used right. PROS: + Great area of effect spell + Wonderful at harrassing the enemy + Can constantly keep summoning Water Elementals + Good at supporting other spellcasters + Fast and thus easy to escape from battle CONS: - Easy to kill - Weak stats overall - Hard to use by new players Paladin - - - - Abilities: Holy Light - Heals the target friendly unit. This is Paladin's most useful spell, as it can quickly restore a badly wounded Knight back to nearly full health. Divine Shield - Shields the Paladin from any damage. This can be quite useful if you're Paladin's getting focus fired. It also lasts pretty long at the highest level. Divine Aura - An aura that increases friendly units armor. Not a bad aura, especially when you have Knights who have the highest armor in the game. Resurrection - Brings 6 nearby friendly units back to life. For an ultimate this can provide extremely useful. This spell can turn the tide for your favor in any situation. However, it costs a lot of mana. Paladin isn't very good at dealing nor taking damage, but he's useful to have as a backup to heal your units. That's the Paladin's main purpose; keep your own units alive with Holy Light, Divine Aura and Resurrection. Divine Shield is quite useful if your main healer's being attacked. But as I already said, Paladin shouldn't be used for dealing damage, because he will provide quite bad at it. PROS: + Great support unit + Easy to keep alive with Divine Shield + Useful ultimate CONS: - Weak fighter - Easy to take down if focus fired - Uses a lot of mana Mountain King - - - - - - - Abilities: Storm Bolt - Throws a magical hammer at the target that stuns and deals damage. This is the Mountain King's most useful ability. It has an insane damage and can stun for nearly ten seconds at the highest level. Extremely useful in order to stop an escaping enemy hero or any other powerful unit. Thunder Clap - Stomps the ground, causing damage and stunning nearby enemy units. This is also quite useful; send Mountain King into enemy's hands and use Thunder Clap when he is surrounded by the enemy force. Bash - Every attack has a chance to do extra damage and stun the target. Not a bad thing, this passive ability can provide very useful when attacking heroes. Avatar - Increases strength, HP, armor and renders spell immunity. When Avatar is activated, Mountain King is unstoppable. He beats the hell out of any other unit or hero, and takes incredible amounts of punishment. In my option, Mountain King is one of the best, if not the best, hero in the game. He has high strength, defense, hp and can beat armies of the enemy's Tier 1 melee units before falling. Mountain King will usually have the upper hand on hero-against-hero battle. Especially at higher levels he will also withstand massive amounts of pain. Mountain King's ultimate, Avatar, transforms him into a crazy, unstoppable killing machine that wipes out the enemy before you know it. There are no really cons on Mountain King. He's not very useful in early levels due to his lack of abilities. PROS: + Very hard to take down + Great damage + Insanely powerful abilities + Extremely good at hero-against-hero combat + Very useful ultimate CONS - Not very good at early levels Blood Mage - - - - - - Abilities: Flame Strike - Summons a firestorm on the selected area. Flame Strike works the exact same way as Archmage's Blizzard. Banish - Turns the enemy target into etheral so he is unable to attack and takes extra damage from magic. A good strategy is to banish a few targets and cast Flame Strike to deal a helluva lot of damage. Banished targets' movement speed is also slowed. Can't be cast on heroes, though. Siphon Mana - Drains the target unit's mana. Very useful if your Blood Mage is out of it. However, it can only be used on targets with mana. Also good for draining another hero's mana so that hero is unable to use any abilities. Phoenix - Summons a Phoenix to fight for you. This is quite a good ultimate, plus when your Phoenix dies, he will turn into an egg and resurrect if the egg remains untouched for a while. This can only be used once per a Phoenix, though. For new players Blood Mage isn't very useful because they don't have enough micro management to use Blood Mage in the right way. However, when Blood Mage is used in a right way by more skilled players, he becomes very powerful. Flame Strike works the same way as Blizzard, so make sure your own units won't get hit by hit. Banish is useful to hold out powerful Tier 3 melee units from attacking you. Plus, a banished target takes extra damage from magic attacks, which means Banish + Flame Strike = extreme damage. This is the most common (and the most effective) strategy used while playing a Blood Mage. Blood Mage's ultimate is quite useful for strengthening your forces for a while, but it's not as useful as Mountain King's Avatar, for example. PROS: + Very good if used right + Great spells to take down groups of enemies + Can regain own mana quickly + Useful ultimate CONS: - Very vulnerable - Not very good if used wrong - Hard to use as a secondary hero - - - - - - - - - - - 4. General Strategies - - - - - - - - - - - Against Orcs: - - - - - - - In my option, orcs are the easiest match for the humans. Although orcs are far more powerful in ground combat and will easily defeat the humans early in the game, they will suck very badly once you get Gryphon Riders. Due to the orcs' lack of anti-air force and air units, you'll easily beat up the orcs once you're able to train an army of Gryphons. The only way for the enemy to encounter your Gryphons are Wind Riders and Headhunters. Headhunters have a lousy HP and they will die after a few Gryphon Rider's hammer strikes. Wind Riders have a good damage, but they are also fragile and are no match for your Gryphons. Bring in a few Priests for Inner Fire and your Gryphons become killing machines. A little more skilled player might train Raiders to ensnare your Gryphons to the ground. However, this is quite uncommon because most players think Raiders suck and thus never choose to train them. Another way to counter your anti-air force is Batrider rush, but I don't see this happening very often. You can prevent it with Dragonhawk Riders using Aerial Shackles, but you must be VERY quick if you're going to shackle most of the Batrider force. If you don't use air units that much and your key to victory consists of ground units, you will most likely be facing a tough match. The orcish Grunts put up a fight even against Knights due their great HP and damage. Player will probably choose to train Tauren that kill your Knights without trouble. Once the player adds in some Shamans with Bloodlust spell, your army will be easily beaten up. That's why you should always kill every Shaman you see at the start of every battle. If the player is using Witch Doctors, deal with them quickly so they won't be able to set up any of their wards. Rallying an orc base is a pretty simple task due to the fact that orcs have the most vulnerable buildings. The Spiked Barricades are not a hold to you, their damage is lousy and many players choose not to upgrade them. Make sure you destroy Burrows as soon as possible so Peons won't be able to run inside them and fire at your units. Also, try to destroy Watch Towers if the player has them. Fortunately, orcish Watch Towers are very fragile and easy to destroy. Keep your air force away from them, though. The Watch Towers will make a quick work of them. Bring in a couple of Dragonhawk Riders to use Cloud, preventing the towers from attacking. The orc heroes are quite a tough match for the humans. Tauren Chieftain takes great amounts of damage and is also a quite good at dealing damage. War Stomp is an annoying ability, doing damage and stunning your units around the Chieftain. Shockwave is not a very dependable ability, unless you have a lot of units in a line and Shockwave hits 'em all. Chieftain quickly kills Archmage or Blood Mage, so keep them away from him at all times. However, Chieftain is very big, so he is easily surrounded by a handful of Knights. This is where he gets a good chance for War Stomp, however. Blademaster is a famous harraser, with Wind Walk he is able to turn invisible, gains increased movement speed and the next attack caused while Wind Walking deals extra damage. With Wind Walk Blademaster will mostly harass your weak Peasants, so building a few towers around the base is not a bad idea at all. Blademaster will also easily escape from battle and then assassinate your badly wounded units when you're returning to base. Besides Wind Walk, Blademaster has also another VERY annyoing ability, Mirror Image. It creates some images of the Blademaster so that the player is unable to locate the real Blademaster. However, the mirror images can't do damage so you can easily find the real one by carefully watching which one is doing the damage. If you're able to engage Blademaster in open combat, he is very quickly killed. To prevent him from escaping the battle with Wind Walk, bring in Blood Mage and siphon the Blademaster's mana. This is very useful. Far Seer is one of the most dependable orc heroes. Far Seer is an excellent, excellent scout and he will easily find out with where you're lurking with Far Sight and Feral Spirits. Far Seer is also very fast so he is quite hard to kill if he keeps moving around. Chain Lighting is quite a powerful spell to deal damage to your air- and ground units and Feral Spirits can deal quite a lot of damage. However, Far Seer is also quite fragile and will easily die in open combat. Shadow Hunter is your least concern when it's about heroes. Shadow Hunter is a weak fighter, he's very fragile and thus quickly killed. However, Shadow Hunter's Hex is very annoying as it works the same way as Polymorph. Healing Wave is used to keep the orc units alive, although it's quite weak. Shadow Hunter's ranged wards have a good damage, but are easily destroyed by few hits. Although Shadow Hunter's abilities are not very dangerous, his ultimate is probably the best there is. Big Bad Voodoo turns all the units around the Shadow Hunter invulnerable (not your units, of course). In this case you have absolutely no option but flee, or kill/stun the Shadow Hunter. Overall, Shadow Hunter is not a very dangerous match for you. Against Undead: - - - - - - - - Undead put up a match against humans with ease during the early game, but they can be defeated. In the early game undead player will most likely heavy on Ghouls and Crypt Fiends, then later moving on to Abominations and the monstrous Frost Wyrms. I'd recommend having a vast anti-air force consisting of whole lot of Riflemen and Gryphon Riders. Gargoyles will easily eat your Gryphons alive, so make sure you deal with them as soon as possible. Lucky for you, Gargoyles have a lousy HP and thus they are very easy to kill. Make sure your ground force deals with Crypt Fiends before anything else so your Gryphons won't be webbed to ground. It might be a good idea to bring a pair of Dragonhawk Riders also so they can trap Frost Wyrms with Aerial Shackles. This is VERY useful, by the way. If the undead player is heaving on ground units, he will engage you with Abominations and annyoing Necromancers. Necromancers keep summoning skeletons constantly, so your army will fall easily to the hordes of skeletons. This is where Priests come in handy. Priests have Dispel Magic, which deals great damage to summoned units. With a couple of Priests casting Dispel Magic you can just watch how the enemy's skeletons shatter to bones. To prevent the skeleton attacks completely, kill every single Necromancer at the start of every battle. The most powerful undead ground units, Abominations, are your most concern after Necromancers. They have a great damage and more HP than your Knights. However, Abominations are huge and they won't be reaching the battle easily. Ironically, your Knights are quick and small and in large numbers will easily defeat the Abominations. When razing an undead base, you will most likely encounter a significant number of defensive structures. That's why it's important to always bring some Siege Engines or Mortar Teams to take care of the towers. Probably all of the Ziggurats have been upgraded into Spirit Towers or Nerubian Towers. Try to destroy them as quickly as possible. A very good strategy is to bring in few Dragonhawk Riders and let them use Cloud on the towers. This is very useful. By the way, try to pull the undead from the area of Blight to stop them from regaining health (unless the player has Death Knight with Unholy Aura it's no use). Undead heroes are toughies to deal with. If the enemy player chooses to go for Death Knight first, you'll be facing some hard time. Death Knight is fast and can easily escape from battle. He'll keep his army alive with Death Coil and Unholy Aura, and in the worst case he will resurrect any dead units around with his ultimate. The only thing you can do to destroy the newly raised dead units before they vanish is Priest's Dispel Magic. Make sure you kill Death Knight quite quickly. Once again, Mountain King's Storm Bolt is useful to prevent Death Knight from escaping. Another annoying hero is Dreadlord. Dreadlord will continously put your most powerful units and heroes to sleep for a very long time. Make sure you hit the sleeping units as quickly as possible with any other unit to awake them. Dreadlord also spreads an excellent aura that causes the undead units to regain health on every hit. Dreadlord's ultimate calls down an Infernal that is very difficult to put down. However, Dreadlord is a weak fighter and very fragile so he'll be no match for a group of Knights or Gryphons. The two remaining heroes, Crypt Lord and Lich are not very dependable heroes. Although Crypt Lord sustains an extreme amount of punishment, he is not a very good damage dealer and has unimppresive abilities to match your army with. Lich has the most powerful spell in the game and is a good hero killer, but he's very, very fragile in open combat. Against Night Elves: - - - - - - - - - - Night elves are the most dangerous match for the humans. Night elves have excellent ways to engage your ground and air force. Against your Gryphons they've got Archers, Dryads and Hippogryphs. Against your ground units they have Chimaeras and Mountain Giants. Mountain Giants is probably one of the most dependable night elf units due to their ability to take extremely lot of damage and taunt your units to attack them. Fortunately, they're not very good damage dealers. On the other hand, Chimaeras can only attack ground units and are particulary good at it. That's about your ground force. There's nearly nothing you can do about Mountain Giants, they just take and take damage. The real problem is the night elves' way to encounter your air force; the cursed Dryads. Dryads are immune to magic and so they can't be attacked by your Gryphons. In large numbers Dryads and Archers will easily tear through your air forces. While engaging night elves I wouldn't recommend investing on air units too much. Dragonhawk Riders might provide useful so they can shackle the Chimaeras while your Knights handle the Dryads and Archers. A good strategy is to go crazy with Footmen. Footmen have the Defend ability so they won't be taking too much damage from Archers. However, Footmen are easily countered by Huntresses and Chimaeras so it might be a good idea to bring some other units to back up your Footmen. Priests with Inner Fire are a must whenever engaging night elves. Bringing a couple of Sorceresses to Polymorph Mountain Giants is a very effective strategy, if your enemy hasn't upgraded them enough yet. Fortunate for you, night elves units are overall very fragile (except for Mountain Giants). A large group of Knights will easily defeat a whole army of Archers and Huntresses. A big army of Riflemen is bound to take care of a horde of Chimaeras. Dragonhawk Riders are also effective at taking care of fleets of Hippogyrphs or Chimaeras. Rallying a night elf base is a real threat. You know why? Buildings can defend themselves, Wisps can detonate against your summoned units and the cursed Moon Wells can heal the night elf units. If possible, try to pull the night elves out from the base so Moon Wells won't be able to heal them. A pair of nearby Moon Wells can quickly restore a Metamorphoed Demon Hunter back to full health. I don't need to tell you how annyoing is that. Bringing in a couple of Mortar Teams to pull the night elves from the base and damage the Moon Wells is quite a good idea. The night elf heroes are quite a trouble. The most popular hero, Demon Hunter, puts up a REAL match against your units. Demon Hunter is quick and small and quite hard to spot in the battlefield. He's got Mana Burn, which can easily wipe your hero out of mana. Having a Blood Mage with Siphon Mana is not a very bad idea. Demon Hunter hasn't got a great damage, but he's particulary hard to kill due to his ability to dodge attacks and damage nearby units with Immolation. The Demon Hunter's ultimate is monstrous; he becomes nearly impossible to kill when it's activated. Demon Hunter gains more HP, and a ranged attack. Demon Hunter becomes very hard to kill when Metamorphoed. Mountain King's Avatar puts up a match against Metamorphosis, however. Priestess of the Moon is a fearsome hero. She's got a great aura that increases all nearby ranged units' attack. You can only think what happens when she is leading an army of Archers. Priestess of the Moon is also very fast and thus will easily escape. However, the worst is yet to come. Priestess's ultimate is extremely powerful. Starfall can wipe out nearly your entire army. Lucky for you, Priestess of the Moon is quite weak in open combat and is quickly killed if focus fired. If PotM starts her Starfall ultimate, quickly focus fire on here and the player will probably move her to cover, interrupting the ultimate. One of the most dependable night elf heroes is Warden. Warden is an excellent hero killer, with the monstrous Shadow Strike she can quickly damage your Blood or Archmage to half a health. Fan of Knives causes terribly much damage against your weaker units, like Priests for example. Warden is also adept at escaping from combat or surrounding very quickly with the Blink ability. However, if you manage to stun Warden with Mountain King's Storm Bolt and then let a whole group of Tier 3 melee units attack her, she will be dead before you know it. If the player chooses Keeper of the Grove as a hero, you have absolutely nothing to worry about. Keeper of the Grove is very fragile and a very weak fighter, plus his abilities are nearly useless. You can easily counter the Treant attack with Dispel Magic. Keeper will most likely use Entangle to keep your hero away, but you can still kill him with a group of powerful units. Against Humans: - - - - - - - - Humans versus Humans is quite a decent match, as the other player will most likely heavy on Gryphons and Knights. Well, the only way to counter this is to do the same. Get as much Gryphons as you can and some Knights as well. And don't forget the Priests, they'll provide huge advantage when they have Inner Fire. Another strategy for human players is a spellcaster army with tons of Priests, Sorceresses and Spell Breakers. The best way to counter this is simply a lot of Footmen and Spell Breakers. Fortify your base and expansions with Arcane Towers. It may sound strange, but Mortar Teams are very effective against the unarmored spellcasters. Don't go crazy on Gryphons, they're useless against Spell Breakers because of their spell immunity. For the first hero the enemy will most likely choose Mountain King or Archmage. If he trains Archmage he'll most likely come to harass you in the early game, so prepare to counter with many Footmen and a Mountain King. If the player chooses Mountain King, train a vast air force. - - - - - - - - - - - - 5. Do's and Do Not Do's - - - - - - - - - - - - Creeping: - - - - - Make sure you start creeping as soon as your first hero comes out and pair him with a couple of Footmen. It's very important to creep so you can level up your Heroes. You don't want to engage your opponent with a level 1 Hero while he has a level 5 Hero. Don't stay at your main base building a large army so you could creep the whole map at once. If your opponent has any skills at all, the whole map is empty when you're just about to start creeping. And one important thing: while creeping, make sure you keep producing more units so you can engage more dangerous creeps and won't be creepjacked by your opponent. Expand: - - - - Make sure you capture yourself an expansion as soon as possible. If you'll have more than just one gold mine you're gonna get twice as much more gold! Once a gold mine is cleared, make sure you get a Town Hall started at the captured gold mine right away before your opponent grabs it in front of your nose. Also, make sure not to leave the expansion that is under construction unguarded. Build a few towers up there in the first place, or leave some of your units to protect it. As I already said, start an expansion as soon as possible. You don't want to lose the game by running out of gold in your first mine and then reliazing you haven't even started an expansion. Unit Control: - - - - - - - Ability to control your units in the middle of the battle is one of the most important things to do. If one of your heaviest units is badly wounded or focus fired, move him away from the battlefield for some time. You don't want to lose a unit that cost you over 300 gold that easily. Also, if your heroes are taking heavy damage, move them away from battlefield immediately. -- More coming soon -- - - - - - - - - - - 6. Credits/Copyright - - - - - - - - - - Those who wish to contact me, my e-mail adress is mikko.palomaki@pp1.inet.fi Contact me by any means if there are errors in this guide, like misspellings or wrong information about a certain unit. With wrong information I mean the wrong cost or misspelling of a certain unit, not if you want to mail me about your opinion for some unit being different from mine. I will ignore you. I will gladly accept your feedback as long as you're being polite. Any trash containing swearing or mocking will be deleted. Try to be as proper as possible if you wish to contact me. Copyright 2008 by Def_Joe_Griffe. All rights reserved. This file must not be found on any other sites except for: http://www.gamefaqs.com http://www.gamespot.com http://www.neoseeker.com Lastly, I would like to thank the following: Blizzard Entertainment for making this great game. Myself for creating this guide. You for reading this guide. - - - - - - - - -- END OF DOCUMENT -- - - - - - - - -