Nononymous and KlazartSC

Hello fellow RTS enthusiasts!

KlazartSC

I would like to enlighten you to audio commentators to both Starcraft and Warcraft 3 that will change your entire perspective on the game(s).

KlazartSC is a Starcraft commentator on YouTube. He has a very large amount of videos. If you like fast-paced, in-the-moment commentary, this is the guy for you. Klazart can speak faster than anyone I've ever heard when the heat gets heavy.

http://www.youtube.com/user/KlazartSC

Nononymous

Nononymous is a Warcraft 3 audio commentator also on YouTube. I must say that he is the best commentator I have yet heard. He is funny, informative, and RTS-enthusiast nerdy. There is so much to learn from Nononymous that can be applied to W3 as well as other RTS. I strongly reccomend you check him out. For a small example of his stuff, see my article on the Human Hero: Archmage. There is a clip of a Nononymous commentary on that article.

http://www.youtube.com/user/nonnonymous

Enjoy!
-Kibble

Workers and YOU.

The Workers
OF WARCRAFT

"Ready to work!" Allow me to introduce to you our workers, from left to right: The Undead Acolyte, The Night Elf Wisp, The Orc Peon, The Human Militia and Peasant.

Without these units, you are nothing. Without you, these units are nothing. If an enemy player manages to kill all of your workers, you will lose the game. They are extremely important. You might think that all workers do is harvest gold/lumber and build buildings. This is only partially true. Those are workers' main jobs, but they also serve as tools for other things.

For example:



- The human peasant can turn into a Militia via Call to Arms! The Militia is a melee unit that hits equally as hard as a Footman. This is great, as Peasants cost 75 gold compared to a Footman that costs 135 gold. The problem is that Militia are on a timer, and so you can not bring them very far with your army before they turn back into Peasants. Nevertheless, Militia make for great early game fast creeping! You can pump out tons of little faux-Footmen to raid an orange-difficulty camp near your base. This is a quick and easy level 2 for your hero!

A common Human mistake is to use Call to Arms! via the Town Hall when an enemy attacks your base. This is generally a very bad idea. It clumps up all of your Peasants in a nice AOE-able spot, takes all of your Peasants off of mining gold and harvesting lumber, and it gives enemy heroes tons of xp as they pick your Peasants off one by one. To properly defend, select a handful of your lumber Peasants and use their own Call to Arms! ability. Always tell your Militia to return to work after their job is done!



- The Night Elf Wisp is a famous scout and is a powerful dispeller. They harvest lumber by spinning around a tree and absorbing its energy instead of cutting it down. This way, you can spread your Wisps all over the map, giving you a huge scouting radius while harvesting lumber at the same time. The Wisp ability Detonate causes the Wisp to explode, dispelling all buffs / debuffs around it and doing 225 damage to all summoned units around it! This is a fantastic tool for emergency dispel situations, or for saving a doomed scout Wisp from giving the enemy hero any experience.

Also, the Entangled Gold Mine is the structure that Night Elves use to harvest gold. It completely protects 5 Wisps from harm. If an enemy Blademaster, Footman, or other unit enters your base to attack your lumber Wisps, switch the ones that are about to die with a full health one hidden in the Entangled Gold Mine. This saves the low hp Wisp and gives you more time to return to base. You can do this 5 times before you run out of spots in the mine, so make sure you don't unload your low hp Wisps!




- The Orc Peon has the ability to hide in the Orc Burrows. From here, the Peons throw spears at nearby enemies. The spears do considerable damage against low armor units! This is a great tool for protecting your peons when they are under attack by an enemy worker harass. Similar to the Terran Bunkers in Starcraft, the Orc Burrow holds four Peons. Try not to take all of your workers off of harvesting, though! Much like the Militia swarm, you can quickly run out of resources if your Peons remain idle for too long. Always remember to bring your workers back out when the attack ends!

Undead players, pay attention. You need to know this.

- The Undead Acolyte is in the unfortunate situation of being the most vulnerable worker in Warcraft 3, along with having no real offensive ability of their own. At the Haunted Gold Mine, Acolytes stand in a ring around the outside of it, where they can be targeted and killed at any time. Acolytes cannot harvest lumber (that is the Ghoul's job). To protect your Acolytes, you must and I repeat must have good Ziggurat placement! Ziggurats are used as food, towers, and pathing blockers for the Undead army. Newer players are usually oblivious to the last of the three.

Yes, Acolytes must make a wall around the Haunted Gold Mine with Ziggurats and other buildings to keep units from killing them all. A paladin can use Divine Shield, run to the back of your base, and kill all of your Acolytes, and then use a Staff or a Scroll of Town Portal to escape. If he does this while your Necropolis is upgrading to tier 2 or tier 3, you will be unable to make more Acolytes to replace their fallen comrades, and your gold supply will drain to empty.

All is not doom and gloom for these robed cultists, however! Acolytes have ways around these thorny situations. You might have noticed that an Acolyte will instantly teleport to the empty spot in a Haunted Gold Mine when he is near it when you tell him to mine. You can use this to your advantage. If something begins to attack the Acolyte, you can run the Acolyte around the Gold Mine. The unit will follow. Next, you tell the Acolyte to mine again. He will teleport to the other side of the mine and begin mining again. This causes the attacking unit to run all the way around again, usually under fire from your Halls of the Dead, Black Temple, or Spirit Towers.

As a side note, you can use the Acolyte spell Unsummom Building to destroy a building you are no longer using and get some of the money back. If your expansion is going to be destroyed because you scouted that huge army coming toward it with a Shade, you can Unsummon all the buildings before the army gets there, saving you lots of money! If your hero gets stuck behind your Ziggurat wall, you can Unsummon one of them to get him out!

Happy reading!
-Kibble

Undead Hero: Dreadlord

Undead Hero
DREADLORD

Primary Stat: Strength
"The night beckons." O.k., not the most popular hero. Max Carrion Swarm damage is tough to pull off, Sleep can be interrupted, he has low DPS, and Vampiric Aura only affects melee units. Thus, the Dreadlord does not make it into the pro games very often albeit ever. However! Do not discredit him just yet. He can be a fantastic hero as any in the hands of the right player. He is a situational hero.

The primary advantage of the Dreadlord is (a) his tremendous healing aura on melee units, (b) his powerful CC ability that disrupts a players' flow of movements, and/or (c) a nuke that scales with how many units are in his frontal cone radius, great for large scale battles!

The main thing to know is that the Dreadlord is a Strength hero and a spellcaster, much like the Death Knight. He is not at all like the Tauren Chieftain or the Panda who can sustain quite a few blows before going down. The Dreadlord is rather squishy for a Strength hero. You must micro manage him well. The Hold Position hotkey H is good for the Dreadlord in big fights. The last place you want him is in the middle of a crowd, getting nuked with no where to run. Keep the Dreadlord on the outer areas of your army, where he can be safe while he carefully selects his abilities.

The Dreadlord's abilities are capable of quite a massive amount of damage. The trick is that he requires a bit of timing and positioning to pull it off. Compared to the Lich, the Dreadlord's nuke can inflict much more damage to an army than the Lich's Frost Nova can.

Abilities (Hotkey):

Carrion Swarm (C)
Sends a horde of bats to damage enemies, dealing more damage per unit hit.
Rank 1: 75 damage per unit, maximum of 300 damage
Rank 2: 125 damage per unit, maximum of 600 damage
Rank 3: 200 damage per unit, maximum of 1,000 damage

As you can see by the numbers, a rank 2 Carrion Swarm will kill all casters in it's radius if it hits at least four units. That is better than the Tauren Chieftain's Shockwave ability, which has gotten a reputation as the best caster killing hero ability.

If you are fighting an enemy massing spellcasters (Necromancers, Spirit Walkers, Sorceress / Priests, Druid of the Talon's), consider getting the Dreadlord as a 2nd hero instead of the Lich. Or if you know that the player you are up against likes to use spellcasters, then get the Dreadlord as your first hero! It's always fun to try a new strategy.



Sleep (E)
Puts a target enemy unit to sleep.
Rank 1: 20 seconds (5 seconds to heroes), 100 mana cost
Rank 2: 40 seconds (10 seconds to heroes), 100 mana cost
Rank 3: 60 seconds (15 seconds to heroes), 100 mana cost

Sleep is the illeged 'reason for getting a Dreadlord'. It seems like these trends just catch on, and no one goes for Carrion Swarm anymore. That's not to say that Sleep isn't grossly powerful in the right situation. If a hero is on his own, perhaps to show up at your base to harass you or is running around after creeping, you can cast Sleep on him and get a full hero surround. This will either force him to use his Scroll of Town Portal or it will kill him. Extremely powerful if you catch your enemy off his or her guard.

Unfortuantely, a player can wake up his own unit by ordering one of his units to attack the sleeping unit. It only has to be inflicted a minimum of 1 damage to wake. Not only that, Sleep has a highly diminished effect on enemy heroes.



Vampiric Aura (Passive)
Nearby friendly melee units heal hit points when they damage an enemy unit.
Rank 1: Heals for 15% of attack damage
Rank 2: Heals for 30% of attack damage
Rank 3: Heals for 45% of attack damage

The 'other' Dreadlord spell that you get. Vampiric Aura is great if you are using Ghouls, Skeletons, and/or Abominations. It does not work on any ranged unit! Like most heroes, you either choose the first spell or the second and get the passive ability as your 'other' ability. In this case, you get to choose whether you want a CC spell or an AOE damage spell. You have to get it, whether you benefit from it or not, because you will definitely not have enough mana to use Sleep and Carrion Swarm unless you have an inventory full of mana potions.



Inferno (F) (Ultimate)

The Dreadlord's Ultimate summons a powerful unit to join your army. The infernal is a beast. It can take a huge hunk of damage, and it is immune to magic. It has a passive immolation, so any units near it will slowly die. He hits like a truck, too! Like all Ultimates, it can decide the game in the event you get to level 6 before the enemy player does.

Counters against the Dreadlord: Demon Hunter

Happy reading!
-Kibbles

Unit Spotlight: Faerie Dragon

Night Elf Anti-Spellcaster
FAERIE DRAGON

Trained from: Ancient of Wind
Requires: Ancient of Wonders
Cost: 155 gold, 25 lumber
Population: 2 food

These little winged creatures are practically unknown to newer players of Warcraft 3. They are a more complicated unit to manage; much more complicated than an archer. The faerie dragon is a flying unit produced from the Ancient of Wind at tier 2. It is certainly not a one-strategy-fits-all unit. You will be wasting your money training one if the enemy has few spellcasters.

The faerie dragon's role in Warcraft 3 is to kill spellcasters. Its two main abilities and passive trait make it invincible against non-hero caster units.

Abilities (Hotkey):

Phase Shift (E)
Causes this unit to shift out of existence whenever it takes damage. While out of existence, this creature cannot: attack, move, cast spells, be attacked, or have spells cast upon it.

This ability is on autocast by default. It simply protects the Faerie Dragon from all the non-spellcasters that try to kill it. This ability makes it very frustrating for the enemy to kill the Faerie Dragon. It literally disappears from the game for a second, causing all enemy units to attack other things. There is one unit, the suicidal Troll Bat-rider that can one-shot a Faerie Dragon. If you see Bat-riders coming at your Faerie Dragon, hit your E key command to save it. The auto-cast will not preemptively go off.




Mana Flare (F)
Causes the Faerie Dragon to channel negative magical energies that damage nearby enemies when they cast spells. Also increases the Faerie Dragon's armor by 12.

Splash Damage Radius: 20
Unit Damage Per Point of Mana Used: 3
Hero Damage Per Point of Mana Used: 1
Max Damage Per Unit: 90
Max Damage Per Hero: 50

The main reason for getting a Faerie Dragon. It is not well understood by newer players, so please read on. This spell turns your little Dragon into a hardened electric ball. It gains a massive armor bonus, making it very difficult to kill. Troll Bat-riders can't one-shot the Faerie Dragon in this form. The Dragon cannot move while he is casting Mana Flare.

To use Mana Flare, you must position the Faerie Dragon over the enemy army and hit the hotkey F to activate it. The Dragon will turn into a little ball and every time a spellcaster uses an ability, they get zapped based on how much mana they used. If a sorceress uses Polymorph under a Faerie Dragon, she will be hit for 66o damage (Polymorph costs 220 mana, x3). Sorceresses can have a max of 405 hp, so this will kill her in one shot. The zap also does splash damage to all units around the sorceress for a lesser amount. Only one zap can fire off at a time.




Spell Immunity (Passive)

As an added bonus, the Faerie Dragon is immune to all magic spells and attacks!


Happy reading!
-Kibble

About Me

Warcraft 3 Player

GRASS_ROOTS

Screen name: Grass_Roots
Race: Night Elf

For your race...
Fav Hero: Keeper of the Grove
Fav Unit: Faerie Dragon
Fav Building: Moonwell or Ancient of Wonders

For your enemy...
Fav. Hero to Kill: Orc Blademaster
Fav. Unit to Kill: Human Peasant or Orc Spirit Walker
Fav. Race to 1v1: Orcs
Least favorite to 1v1: Humans

Hired to kill...
Fav. Tavern Hero: the Tinker
Fav. Mercenary: Mud Golem or Troll Shadow Priest
Fav. item from the shop: Invulnerability Potion
Fav. Machine from the Lab: Goblin Sappers


:D
Happy reading!
-Kibble

Unit Spotlight: Sorceress

Human Spellcaster

SORCERESS

Trained from: Arcane Sanctuary
Requires: Research to Tier 2 (Keep)
Cost: 155 gold, 20 lumber
Population: 2 food

"The flows of magic are whimsical today." I thought I would do a unit spotlight on the Sorceress first because she is one of my favorite units in the game. There is certainly a bias towards spellcasters when it comes to my unit favorites. The Sorceress is the Human equivalent of the Undead Banshee, Orc Shaman, and Night Elf Druid of the Talon. She starts out with one spell available, like all spellcasters in Warcraft 3, and gains two more after research. Her starting spell is Slow, followed by Invisibility in Sorceress Adept Training (Rank 1). She gets Polymorph at Sorceress Master Training (Rank 2). Each rank gives her a larger mana pool as well.

Now, why is the Sorceress so special? She is good because of a variety of reasons. The biggest reason is that she fights alongside the Archmage. If you read my hero article on the Archmage, you would know that his Brilliance Aura dumps mana into all units around him. This includes the Sorceress, who spams her abilities like crazy during a battle. Without the Archmage, she is an O.K. unit. Her mana can run dry, especially when Polymorph comes into play. However, Brilliance Aura keeps her topped off throughout a match, giving the Humans an untold advantage. She does not work very well against an enemy Human mirror match. Spell Breakers will rip the poor Sorceress army to shreds. Against Orcs, Night Elves, and Undead however, she is quite potent.

Abilities (Hotkey):

Slow (W)
Slows a target enemy unit's attack rate by 25% and movement speed by 60%.

Slow is on autocast by default, so whenever the sorceress goes into combat, she casts it on any enemy unit that does not allready have it on them. Autocast can be disabled by right-clicking on the spell icon. If the enemy does not have a unit that can dispell this magic debuff, their army will be in serious trouble. This spell lowers an army's DPS by 25% and makes them unable to escape a battle by running away. Slow is autocast as I said before. Dispell is not autocast on any unit except the Night Elf Dryad, and the Ai (Artificial Intellegence) autocasts dispell rather poorly. So this means that the player will have to manually dispell their army, going to a lot of work only to have the sorceresses put Slow on the enemy units again. It's a fantastic spell.



Invisibility (I) Requires Sorceress Adept Training
Makes a target unit invisible. If the unit attacks, uses an ability or casts a spell, it will become visible.

This spell is under used and under rated. It's very unfortunate that not too many players see the power of the Adept trained Sorceress. Units can scout without worry of being picked off by the enemy or creeps for one. Secondly and most importantly, sorceresses can use invisibilty on units that are about to die in a battle. The unit will take loads of damage and then poof. The unit dissappears right under the enemy player's nose. It is free to run back to base or wait a safe distance away for the fight to end. Lastly, if the Archmage gets to level 6, an invisible unit can run into an enemy base or expansion and crash land the entire Human army at the enemy player's most vulnerable spot. 20 seconds later, the army can escape with another Mass Teleport to safety if needed.



Polymorph (O) Requires Research to Tier 3 (Castle) and Sorceress Master Training
Turns a target enemy unit into a sheep or flying sheep. The targeted unit retains its hit points, but cannot attack. Cannot be cast on Heroes or Summoned units.

Contrasting the adept-trained invisibility, the master-trained Polymorph is slightly overrated but no less powerful sorceress spell. By the time you have gotten to master training on your sorceresses, your enemy has probably scouted your small batallion of spellcasters. A good player would have gotten a unit capable of dispelling magic by now. However, it still causes people to have to manually dispell things while you get to focus on the killing spree. And hey! If you are able to sheep all the dispell units, then you are at a huge advantage! The downside is that Polymorph costs 220 mana, which is a lot. Without the Archmage's aura, you get about 2 polymorph per Sorceress (who have a max of 400 mana with master training). If you want to use this as a strategy, you better have a Brilliance Aura Archmage to back it up!


Happy reading!
- Kibble

Special Thanks

Special thanks to:

Mojo StormStout's Warcraft 3 Manual for Stats and Pictures.

Nononymous Warcraft 3 Audio Commentator on YouTube for strategies and tips!