Warcraft 3 -- race balance

[wumpus]

Has anyone been playing Warcraft 3 on battle.net? I've been playing a ton and my initial thoughts on balance have shifted quite a bit.

Most recently, I've given up on Orcs. That's painful, because Orcs was the race I chose to play for 100+ games after dabbling in all four initially. Why have I given up? Well, a number of reasons.

- Orc archers (headhunters) suck. Low hit points and weak damage. Web Fiends, Archers, and Riflemen are all clearly better for a variety of reasons. They do have regen, which I consider a worthless skill. The problem is keeping units alive in battles, not worrying about them having time to heal in the "down time" between battles. THERE IS NO DOWN TIME! You're either fighting and winning, or sitting around and losing. Regen is a worthless skill in this game.

- The single air unit (Wyvern) sucks. Wyverns are average with the poison upgrade, but all the other races have far better flying options. Bone Wyrms, Hippogryphs, Chimeras, and whatever the human storm hammer flying thing is, I can't remember. Wyverns might be better than that ridiculous flying mechanical human scout thingie nobody builds, but that's about it.

- Orcs have only one hero with an aura (the Tauren guy). Auras are extremely effective in multiplayer games because they affect so many units. But this Tauren guy.. is a total pain in the ass. He's slow, and he's HUGE, so he sticks out like a sore thumb on the battlefield. Generally he gets targetted before any other hero, so he's incredibly difficult to keep alive. The orc heroes just aren't that great.. in fact, they kinda suck. I'd much rather have the dread lord (sleep + vampire aura), priestess of the moon (trueshot + starfall), or human mage (blizz/water + mana regen aura) than ANY of the orc heroes.

Which brings me to the real problem. Orcs have no real strategic options in a game. They have one decent build strategy-- get to level 3 Taurens and Shamans with Bloodlust as soon as possible. This is all well and good (it is an incredibly powerful combo), but a decent player will never let you get to level 3 because they're constantly attacking you. The Orc early and mid-game units are totally outclassed. Particularly by the huntresses, who absolutely chew grunts up with their goddamn bouncing short-ranged glaives. And I'd say at least half the players on b.net use night elves.. so in every other game, you're up against a wall, fighting a race that was seemingly designed to be an Orc counter.

You have to be a very, very good player to win with Orcs. Assuming equal skill of both players, you'll probably lose. And whatever you do, your strategic choices are very limited.

The one positive thing about Orcs, I suppose, is the screwy "forward tower build rush" strat that some people have had success with. But that's also quite risky. Against a good player, this won't work. One well-managed catapult can take down 4 towers with ease..

Anyway, I don't play Orcs any more. I'm going with Humans. I find Human and Undead to be the two most versatile and effective races. Night Elves are OK, if you're into the whole Huntresses + Starfall strategy that works for so many players. But they're not quite as flexible.

[Alan Au]

Interesting. I had heard that the orcs were completely dominant during the beta, with the overwhelming majority of top ranked players using them to great effect. Can anyone confirm this?

- Alan

[Mike Cathcart]

I started as NE but switched to Humans after a few games because I think they have the best variety of units and combos. The orcs are the only race I really don't like, I've used them only a few times on bnet, so I guess I can't help too much, but...


...regen, which I consider a worthless skill. The problem is keeping units alive in battles, not worrying about them having time to heal in the "down time" between battles. THERE IS NO DOWN TIME! You're either fighting and winning, or sitting around and losing. Regen is a worthless skill in this game.

This just isn't true, there's plenty of down time. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like one of two things is happening: you're either sitting back playing defense (I can't imagine you'd be doing that at this point) or you're attacking and just throwing all of your units at a fight, letting them die if you don't win. Either way you've got a serious problem. Playing defense doesn't work in this game and attacking all out is just as bad.

You should take a look at PussinBoots' replays here (http://www.iratenet.com/gaming/index.shtml) and here (http://www.progamer.ru/war3/replays.html), especially this one vs Alucard (http://ftp.progamer.ru/demos/war3/rotd/0807/pussinboots-aiucard.w3g). The game against Cena[r]ius was also good, and I still can't figure out how he actually won. And the game against star_of_west had a pretty cool bit in the beginning where he uses militia + AM to clear his first expansion. His opponents aren't always brilliant, and he plays Human, but you can still get a lot of ideas from him, as he usually does a good job of getting the most out of every unit. Anyway, since you've decided to go Human, I guess it'll still help.


The orc heroes just aren't that great.. in fact, they kinda suck. I'd much rather have the dread lord (sleep + vampire aura), priestess of the moon (trueshot + starfall), or human mage (blizz/water + mana regen aura) than ANY of the orc heroes.

The ArchMage does seem to be the hero of choice at the moment, but that just means that it's even harder to keep them alive. I used to be able to sit him in the back and toss in WEs and blizzards, but the other players on bnet have caught on, so he gets targetted pretty early now. Keep your eye on him, he goes from full health to none in about 3 seconds.

[Rob O'Boston]

Since I'm only level 5 or 6, I probably haven't run into the sort of player that can tear apart orcs so easily, because I'm finally starting to win on a semi-consistent basis. Yesterday I played a 3v3 with our side all orcs against humans, undead, and NE. We whooped them solidly. It was probably due to our side grouping more effectively, but there was one huge furball that the orcs came out of on top, and the game was ours after that.

I don't ever use the trolls. I'm guessing that the spear throwers don't really shine unless you

A. Use them in hit and runs, which the Raiders are also excellent at, in order to let them regen.

B. Put them behind a shield of grunts so that their damage is sleight and easily recoverable.

Again, I go with grunts and shamans, with raiders, cats, or wyverns depending on the situation. In the middle game, with the grunts weapons and armor increased by 2, the huntress becomes very beatable by some well organized grunts. I use the TC mostly, and you are correct about the aura, it really helps. I hadn't thought about the TC's size being such a target, but at least the big boy can take a hell of a beating.

Personally, I'm fearing the NE less and less. If your team can work together to stay alive early, then the grunts and shams working together become too much to reckon with for the NE. Its the undead that I have the hardest time with. With raise dead going, suddenly a battle against a few abomos can turn into a sea of raised corpes all around your troops. However, the sleep spell doesn't bother me too much anymore. Whenever I get 'slept', I grab one of my grunts and have him smack my hero, and he wakes up immediately. And then I kick his undead ass.

[wumpus]

Huntresses should be able to take a grunt force of roughly equal size with ease, assuming the controlling player isn't an idiot. Here's why:

1) The glaive attack hits from a short distance away. That way, one huntress can attack from "behind" another one. They don't have to spend nearly as much time maneuvering to get face-to-face like melee units do.

2) The glaive bounce. Even without any upgrades, the glaive bounces from one enemy to another. This means a given attack will hurt not only the targetted enemy but also another nearby enemy. You can upgrade this to get even more bounces later.

3) They're fast. They are mounted units, so they have as high a speed as you're going to see from a melee unit. Great for hit and run, or for grouping nearby forces.

I've seen a lot of good NE's build dryads to back up their huntresses. They have that slow/poison attack. It's crappy damage, but the slow/poison helps a lot. And they can dispel magic buffs cast on enemy units.

[wumpus]

Another example of orc suckitude.

In this random team 2vs2, we rushed this one orc guy all but out (he had one mine and maybe 3 buildings), and this level 13 undead guy left (who was very good).. then my teammate FUCKING DROPPED. Bah.

At the end my forces were weak, my teammate dropped, so I blindly sent up whatever my teammate had. Like 7 grunts and the blademaster (I did activate his mirror image as soon as he engaged), and they were fighting about 9 ghouls with the death knight hero (the horse guy) and his unholy power aura or whatever. THEY. FUCKING. LOST!! And it was a straight battle! No towers or other armies affecting anything. Just mano a mano on the field.

I couldn't believe that. And what's even worse is that they didn't just lose slightly. They got fucking pounded. There were a lot of ghouls left over and the death knight.

[Anonymous]

Maby the undead knight had some items, scroll of protection or healing? one footman beats a ghoul so it's odd they would win against so many grunts.

The orcs big weakness is grunts there 3 food you just don't have anough bodies early game. The farseers hound guys can help a bit in that department but still. I like the chieftain actually if you use his warstomp correctly it can be devestating. it's equelly good for hero killing and units. Not to fond of the farseer lightning doesn't quite pack anough oomph and the blademasters mirror image scouts well anough for my liking. I'v also gone windwalk with my blademaster a few times and had good success sneaking into a base and slaughtering all there peasants.

Finally, anyone up for some team games? I'v played 8 and out of them my teammates have dropped 3 times I'm also not fond of being allies with HeXorSJOO17$.

[Enidigm]

Orcs are one of the most powerful races actually using some abusive strats like offensive towering, its just that Grunts are somewhat underpowered for their cost. All of the Orc heros are excellent at their specific roles - the Blade Master is arguably the best melee hero in the game, the Farseer has the best direct damage spell and the Tauren Chieften the best tier 1 raping skill in that warstomp mass stun spell he has. I mean, what do humans have? Paladin? (the heal bitch) Mountain King? (the stun whore) Good humans HAVE to go AM first - Orcs can pick from 3. While raiders are only useful as a siege weapon and troll headhunters do in fact suck (probably the crappiest unit in the game actually), wyverns are underrated and the most flexible air to ground unit. Shamans are hideously imbalanced and can be massed alone (ie hero+shamans and nothing else) against many relatively decent players with few (and costly) counters. Orc bases are self sufficient early game if you have an eye for building placement, leaving you free to tech or attack or creep or do something unconventional. Oops i almost forgot about Taurens - if your getting Taurens your probably doing something wrong (in 1on1). Taurens are like Bears in that their extremely powerful but so high up the tech tree and so expensive themselves its impossible to reach them during any competitive game with skilled opponents. 5 food....

Against NE however the Orcs are at a grave disadvantage early game when facing the KoTG + Huntresses, since entangle is just broken and mass hunts will beat grunts in a straight fight with some easy micro on the NE's part even without the grunt raping entangle.

Of the three heroes, the Tauren Chieften is actually the most vulnerable imo. Agility heros get both damage and armor bonus with +agil; strength heros get +health but much less armor on average. Even at lvl6 his stats are weaker than those of a regular Tauren and his pathfinding is questionable at best. Use him like a mobile cannon, fire away your spell and get the heck out of there.

BTW Ghouls strength is in their ability to focus fire upon a single unit better than any other melee, because of their fast attack and fast movement speed. The sleep/circle technique is the most popular use of this and ive had large armies of Knights, Priests, Water Eles and Sorcs raped by this. 3/3 Ghouls+ Vampiric/Sleep are only really scary in the hands of a skilled player whom properly micros, newbs won't do it correctly and the strat in less skillful hands will seem only so-so.

Some Orcs strats:
- fast offensive tower. Use Farseer for the summoned wolves; build 2 towers close to his base, defend with farseer + grunts. Tech to 'pults. GG. Great way to contain darn hunt spammers.

-solo creeping +tech. Creep with blade master alone with mirror while you tech at your main. Takes alot of map knowledge and choosing of specific creeps to be effective. Can be combined with early expanding.

-Raider/Pilage sneak attacks. Very difficult to pull off because Raiders can't really hold their own against any other combat units although they can handle melee or flying creeps well. Requires you to avoid combat until you catch them without a TP scroll, then hit their main. Works well against NE whom have crappy defensive buildings.

[wumpus]

A very informative reply, but completely consistent what what I was saying. Outside of a few half-baked weirdo strategies, orcs = ass against good players.

You're vastly underestimating the lack of auras on the Blademaster and the Farseer, too. I almost never play 1on1, so maybe that's the reason. I'm fairly sure all the other races have 2 heros with auras.. that don't suck. The tauren is a bitch to keep alive.

Shamans don't seem all that powerful to me. The only game I've seen someone build a lot of 'em and dominate is where the guy had about 5 tauren, a hero, and a LARGE number of shamans backing them up (my estimate more than 12). My god, they were unstoppable. It was craziness!

I'd like to see someone go hero and all shamans; I can't imagine how that could work.

I haven't seen much shaman abuse in the nearly 200 games I've played, anyway. The only two obvious things Blizzard needs to fix are

- fix the goddamn huntresses. I heard they had a lot of problems adjusting them in the beta, then adjusted them up for the final, breaking it again. I can see why. A bouncing short range attack is an incredible advantage for a cheap melee unit.

- make orcs a viable race. I have no idea how they can do this, probably by making grunts cheaper and headhunters better?

[wumpus]

If anyone wants to play on US East I am in as "p.deady" or "wumpus".

[Enidigm]

Well yah i play mostly 1on1s so my perpective is quite different. I don't know, many other Auras aren't that powerful imo. The Paladins' aura gets weaker as time goes on and the DKs' is mainly for the speed. Trueshot is nice but PoTMs are poor first heroes and so the NE usually get thorns.

The real problem with hunts is their mobility and size. They're so big its impossible to surround one of them quickly, and so much faster than other tier1 they can run away the wounded ones back to moonwells. I think (but not certain) in a 'straight' fight with no micro the Grunts would win, its these less tangible factors that push them over the edge.

The strats i gave were mostly for Orc vs NE. Orcs can handle UD easy with Shaman/Warstomp. Orc vs Human is pretty balanced although leaning a bit towards humans with Knights out of barracks. Its just Mass Hunts/Entangle that Orcs have no easy solution for.

Go to the theinclan.com for replays by the uber-leet if your having problems with certain racial matchups.

[Anonymous]

Wumpus, doesn't the leader boards kind of fly in the face of your arguments? I think there are quite a few hghly rated orc players, but not so many human ones.

Do you think as you play the other races that after scores of games you will begin to obsess over their inherent weaknesses? Especially as other good players exploit them in creative and effective ways? Obsess may not be the right word, I'm not trying to call you out, I'm just making a point.

If I wanted to call you out I would say that America's Army blows Counterstrike away.

[wumpus]

Well, let's see.

random team ladder, top 20, azeroth

5 elf
4 orc
9 random
1 undead
1 human

random team ladder, top 20, lordaeron

4 elf
5 orc
7 random
2 undead
2 human

The other two realms are all over the map. Not sure if you can derive anything interesting from this, other than the odd propensity for playing random.

[wumpus]

Check out the 1vs1 top 20 on all 4 realms. There's definitely a serious lack of orc presence there. Gotta run, but if anyone wants to break it down, here you go:

http://www.battle.net/war3/ladder/