Warcraft3:TFT Ladder thread

[Tenks]

I did a quick search and basically everything was about DoTA.

Anyone out there playing WC3:TFT on the ladder? IMO it still seems to be the most fun RTS to play online to date for me.

I guess use this place here to talk about strategies and various things.

So I usually play either human or undead. The main achilles heel of me for human is I have no clue what to do in the mid-game and it cripples my play. Usually after my keep goes to t2 I then immediately upgrade it to t3 because I have such a surplus of money. The funny thing is I single rax and am pretty much pumping out footmen on a consistent basis to harass/creep. Do all humans generally skip t2 and go straight for t3 to get Inner Fire + Knights? I've been out of TFT for a bit so I don't know the vogue human BO's anymore. I also don't know the default secondary hero to get. I always go AM first, should I go with the blood mage after him?

For undead I like to mass necros in t2 with meat wagons behind. Overall it works out pretty well for me. The enemy has a fuck-all horrible time trying to surround my heroes (DK + Lich) and with the lich pacting the skeleton I can just rain down Novas on the enemy. This has by far been my most successful build if I can manage to get into the mid game. Towards the late game I go half necros (because they should have dispel about then) with aboms and Destroyers in the back.

[AlexTheDictator]

I used to play RoC ladder pretty hardcore back in the until the WoW epidemic hit. I know I will get pinged for an ungodly amount of -internets for this, but I hate DotA. I always had so much more fun playing ladder matches. I honestly didn't like TFT either; which is why I stuck to RoC. I don't like the maps and the new units in TFT - especially for Undead. Undead were already strong enough and then they had to go give them obsidian statues? I just feel RoC is better balanced (some may say NE are underpowered, but I disagree strongly).

[Hooby]

I used to play a Lot of TFT.. maybe I will pick it up again if I find the discs lying around. Only race I ever learned to use well was Night Elf.. I used to sport the tavern heroes (other than panda when he didn't have a unit cap on his fire breath) when no one else did yet.. Warden --> Naga --> Panda vs Human, Alchy --> Pitlord vs orc, DH--> Naga vs undead.. don't really remember mirror match =/

Anyways, most people probably go mountain king after Archmage for human... blood mage definitely isn't chosen that often for a secondary... if it works for you though, go for it.

Since I am so far out of the loop, the only advice I can give you is to watch lots and lots of replays: wcreplays.com Be sure to toggle fog of war occasionally to see what information their decisions are based on, and try to understand *why* they choose to do what they do when they do it.

Oh, and *always always* scout. Scouting the enemy is the most important and often disregarded (or underestimated) aspect of the game.

[Tenks]

Originally Posted by Hooby

Oh, and *always always* scout. Scouting the enemy is the most important and often disregarded (or underestimated) aspect of the game.

I've been surprisingly good about doing this which is funny because in SC I'm the worst scouter on the planet. In my human BO I always do:

Q 3 Peasants
4 gold
1 lumber
1st -> Altar
2nd -> Rax
Lumber peasant-> Farm
Altar peasant-> gold
Rax peasant-> Go militia -> scout
Other peasants goto lumber


This lets me know if I can overrun the enemy early by going 2rax and pumping footmen (I'll also not build 2 additional lumber peasants if I'm going to try and overrun him)



So far the only game I've lost where I felt completely off balance was a Nelf with DH who was using Drain Mana on my AM constantly and pumping huntresses. I know I probably should have noticed this and started to bust out riflemen in hindsight but he was doing such a good job of harassment that I had to constantly militia up my peasants (I lost a skirmish in his base I probably shouldn't have fought early on) so my econ sucked.

[Quineloe]

Originally Posted by AlexTheDictator

I used to play RoC ladder pretty hardcore back in the until the WoW epidemic hit. I know I will get pinged for an ungodly amount of -internets for this, but I hate DotA. I always had so much more fun playing ladder matches. I honestly didn't like TFT either; which is why I stuck to RoC. I don't like the maps and the new units in TFT - especially for Undead. Undead were already strong enough and then they had to go give them obsidian statues? I just feel RoC is better balanced (some may say NE are underpowered, but I disagree strongly).

I pretty much agree with you on all counts except the internets part =P

Obsidian Destroyers is what pretty much killed the 1on1 aspect of the game for me. Just too powerful, human counterunits are performing too poorly against them and are too easily killed by other undead units.

They give humans the dragonhawk in TFT and their net doesn't work on destroyers. Playing human against undead is kinda like fighting a war today against the US - you're facing absolute and undisputed air superiority.

[Hathe]

Originally Posted by AlexTheDictator

I know I will get pinged for an ungodly amount of -internets for this, but I hate DotA.

wtfffff

Dota is great with a group of people, otherwise it is pretty lame.

[darksensei]

Originally Posted by Quineloe

I pretty much agree with you on all counts except the internets part =P

Obsidian Destroyers is what pretty much killed the 1on1 aspect of the game for me. Just too powerful, human counterunits are performing too poorly against them and are too easily killed by other undead units.

They give humans the dragonhawk in TFT and their net doesn't work on destroyers. Playing human against undead is kinda like fighting a war today against the US - you're facing absolute and undisputed air superiority.

What? Tower up your expo fast enough and there is no way undead can beat humans. If I can get there before the human has 7 or 8 towers, I can break it, but once they do I can't assault their bases at all. Then they can use tanks and wreck my base.

[Talenn]

I play TFT daily.
Talenn on West.

I usually just play 4v4, but I have over 1500 wins.

I suck at 2v2 though, its totally different kind of game play.

[Quineloe]

Originally Posted by darksensei

What? Tower up your expo fast enough and there is no way undead can beat humans. If I can get there before the human has 7 or 8 towers, I can break it, but once they do I can't assault their bases at all. Then they can use tanks and wreck my base.

That's simply not the War3 I played 5 years ago in high ranking leagues. That's just fucking stupid and it speaks volumes about the Ud vs Hu matchup that such a cheesy shit strategy is the best one.

[darksensei]

Originally Posted by Quineloe

That's just fucking stupid and it speaks volumes about the Ud vs Hu matchup that such a cheesy shit strategy is the best one.

Absolutely agree.

[Tenks]

So basically what I'm hearing is I should abandon human and play UD so I can overpowered the noobs.

[AlexTheDictator]

Originally Posted by Talenn

I play TFT daily.
I usually just play 4v4

That's what I always played, too! I tried getting into 1v1 a little more, and I started to get better at it, but nothing compared to 4v4 games. I love their epic scale (especially when everyone CC's). I also liked formulating strategies with other players because the game plan would always change based upon team make-up.

[Inconsiderable]

Originally Posted by Quineloe

That's simply not the War3 I played 5 years ago in high ranking leagues. That's just fucking stupid and it speaks volumes about the Ud vs Hu matchup that such a cheesy shit strategy is the best one.

Heh.
Well "back in the days" I did also nerd wc3 fulltime. Mainly 2v2 with a friend and we usually went for 90% accounts before we reached a level on which we had to wait for hours to find opponents (i heard they changed the automatch system so its not only +6/-6 levels anymore), so we just created new ones and did it again. What we did? Dual wyrm tech with UD. Both going dual boneyard. DK/Lich DK/CL. If required one went for single BY and some destroyers.
It was pure pwnage. In like a third of the games we lost a base and still won the game. Once the first FOUR fucking wyrms are out and the others didnt go mass aa they already lost. If they let us build 8 wyrms it was just a massacre.
"Newbs! rax already down.. OH SHIT WYRMS I NEED TO FLEE. OH SHIT HERO GOT NUKED. OH SHIT MY WHOLE ARMY IS SUPER SLOW AND HIT BY SPLASH DAMAGE."

Didnt even use voicechat. After around 4-5 thousand games together there was just no need to say anything beside a ping every once in a while. Was really a great time back then and lots of fun. But wc3 was (or better IS) lacking in strategy. You see what races your opponents have and can guess their hero combination 90% of the time and their tactic 75% of the time. Micromanagement was perfect, but the strategic depth was simply not there.
And auto-cast was the most gay things blizzard ever added to a game, even worse than pink haired wow gnomes.

At some point we switched to 3v3 because mass mortars with upgrade were ANNIHILATING armies in seconds. Sadly teching took too long for tournaments. Same for mass wyrms. Finally went Orc/UD which was far less fun, because he hardly ever lost fiends and I was busy rebuilding the grunts instead of building cool units.

Anyway.. as I was going to say... towering your expansion because a race cannot counter it is not cheesy in terms of my wc3 experience. Maybe mild cheese. But everything that wasnt cookie cutter was cheesy in most cases, because wc3 lacks options.

[darksensei]

Originally Posted by Tenks

So basically what I'm hearing is I should abandon human and play UD so I can overpowered the noobs.

Nope, those two races consistently fight for who's not the worst race in the game. Orc and Night Elf are the way to go.

[Quineloe]

Originally Posted by Tenks

So basically what I'm hearing is I should abandon human and play UD so I can overpowered the noobs.

Not really. As Sirlin has said, the only way to win is not to play at all, and that's pretty much what I feel about the UD HU matchup

And auto-cast was the most gay things blizzard ever added to a game, even worse than pink haired wow gnomes.

Removing micromanagement would be a good thing if it had made more room for strategy.

and technically, BW already added autocast with medics =P


Compared to SC, War3 is shallow like a rain puddle.