FFA Masters League
General => Strategy => Topic started by: Nooblex on March 02, 2012, 02:15:52 pm
-
So since the strategy section is essentially dead, let's get get some ideas going. Post anything you've tried or think is worth trying regarding strategy, such as odd build orders, creeping patterns, hero combos, counters, etc.
I realize that most things have already been tried in FFA, but there's always a little room for strategies to evolve, whether it's just a trick on a certain map (i.e. creeping fountains for tomes with BM on Deathrose) or something more substantial.
I'll start.
1. NE Hero Combo: BM/Panda/Kotg
I've messed around with this combo a little bit and it shows some promise. I realize that BM is generally considered useless in FFA, but in this case I think he's somewhat viable. Summons provide good tier 1 scouting and let you creep quickly. They're also useful vs magic immune heroes and are supprisingly effective in hero vs hero battles. Maybe not as strong as a few of the top elf combos, but certainly worth experimenting with.
2. UD Build Order
I mentioned this in my guide. Essentially you’re getting a tavern hero (presumably DR) at about the same time you’d normally get a late UD hero, but you’re able to tech before the 2:00 minute mark and still expand quickly. If you want to use a combo like DR/DK/Lich, this build is awesome on maps like goldrush and twilight.
1. Acolytes to gold, Ghoul to wood
2. Queue up 2 Acos and build a Crypt and a second Necropolis
3. When your fifth Aco completes train a sixth
4. As soon as your sixth Aco comes out, use it to scout both positions next to you before sending it to the Tavern
5. Tech when resources allow
6. Build an Altar as soon as you have enough wood and keep pumping ghouls
7. Build a second Ziggurat when resources allow
8. Build a Tomb of Relics
9. Your Aco should reach the Tavern before your Altar finishes
10. Use your sixth Aco to expand, making Acos from your second Necropolis.
Feel free to post your own theorycraft or lightly-tested-craftl, or discuss what's already been posted.
:)
-
My input for other race's item strat:
Offer a trade for items in chat, e.g. Orb for a Staff. If they agree, drop it in their base, they drop theirs in yours. If they trick you, suicide. If they do it fair, win-win. Orcs with hu staffs? Hu with purge orbs?
Kek.
Seriously, anyone who plays vs me, feel free to ask, we can deal (I hope this isn't considered preteaming... shouldn't be... cause after I pick up your item, I'll be all over you, using your own item.... kekeke).
-
I've been trying AM/Panda/Pal lately, but with mixed results. So much of the human's strength comes from the mk, and I'm always hesitant to go without brill on non-market/fountain maps.
-
l77, if you went naga/firelord/bm HU would still be OP comparing to UD and NE
-
Imo AM/Panda/Pal is solid vs non-BM orcs and good vs NE unless they get starfall. Kind of need MK vs UD and other HUs though.
-
I know I've said it a few time but I'll say it again to make sure I eventually see it in a game!
AMS Garg >>> Prebuffed orcs in a straight up battle (unless they are all ground, then you are fucked)
I remember testing this (in theorycraft) vs dase, managed to win vs All bats, all Wyv, a couple of mixes of bats/wyv (but I din't even manage to kill 1 hh of his ground army T_T)
And this was vs the microless me (I was worst back then!) And I din't even have destro to devour, just some straight up battle, no nuke and run.
HOWEVER (T_T this had to be here!) every time I tried this, I had the problem of not being able to do anything vs a towered main :( And I get rapped as soon as I don't prebuff, and since they also have a speed aura, some orc just ran arround waiting for AMS to go off :(
(ps: AMS does not block ALL bat damage, it only blocks 300 damage.... It's not much, but if you combine that with the staff, you are actually able to have an army after the waves of bats (you should still stone form vs mass bats... stone form does not remove AMS, and like wise spiritwalker are not able to dispel it)
-
UD is tricky when they use AMS, luckily not many do. I've found that ud either runs me over or vice versa, not much in between. Good sleep usage + AMS + good destro usage is just deadly.
-
awwww UD, my first ffa race in tft. I always wants to go back to it, but I hate how they have almost no scouting/tower killer/healing
-
That was my first ffa race, too!
-
awwww UD, my first ffa race in tft. I always wants to go back to it, but I hate how they have almost no scouting/tower killer/healing
Possess a peon or peasant. Problem solved.
-
Imo AM/Panda/Pal is solid vs non-BM orcs and good vs NE unless they get starfall. Kind of need MK vs UD and other HUs though.
i think a mk, especially in humanmirror is a bit overrated ( the focus power u have, gets denied through the paladin anyways ). mix in a bloodmage/panda/alchi or even a dr instead the mk or the am can be very effective as i found out in several games.
on the other hand i also just like the chance of easy kills that a mk can provide u, also with avatar u don´t need to worry much about him getting slayed, of course. also the lack of interrupting channeling spells can be very annoying and costful.
-
Btw way back when, when I was annoyed that everyone always complained about hu being a tower/tank passive race, I started to go BloodMage/Panda/Pitlord mass gryph (din't made any towers... those crap slows down my tech/gryphs amount!)
Could pretty much kill anything instantly with Banish + Gryph
Gryph survived pretty well with the 80% miss and -50% dmg
And towers/tanks/ground armies went down like flies to Flamestrike/Bof/Rof
But then players with "ffa sense" din't meet up to fight, they would harrass my expo/main, forcing me to start building towers. Ppl would hit and run, and w/o any form of stun it was annoying as hell so I got an MK. And then I realized that pala's aura was almost as good as howl, but also protected vs spells. Finally, having lost the panda and the pl, I had to compensate for my lack of AA, and building killing, so I had to add some tanks. And in the end, BM was pretty much useless in my new army so I got an alch.
Players like ebo pushed me to stop cheesing, and then they drove me into a corner until I went back to it! Oh the irony
-
Hi guys,
I mentioned a piece of theorycraft (or only theorycrap perhaps) on the wcreplays forums a few weeks back and was wondering what you all would think of it here. I haven't posted or visited here in a while and the only other time of any significance that I did was with another questionable piece of theorycraft as far as allowing pm and preteaming in FML, but be that as it may I assure you that these are not attempts to troll.
Someone (for the umpteenth time) brought up the huge weakness undead suffers as far as base racing in FFA, and I suggested replacing ziggurats with necropolises (or necropolii to some =) as the game progresses, or beginning with necropolises instead of ziggurats in the first place, and building them significantly spaced apart, perhaps as far apart as 4-5 necropolises worth but at least 2 necropolises worth.
It didn't occur to me to specify at that time the idea of using the necropolises as a perimeter around your base, not only for an advance warning but also to synergize with the fact that the standard undead army is built for speed and hit and runs, and great at nuking single units, and being able to TP to multiple positions, some of them perhaps not on-screen and perhaps not during daytime, whereby you can catch your opponent out of position, is a huge advantage to any army.
Necropolises are much cheaper to build compared to upgraded zigs and can be built anywhere. An undead player able to keep their army alive (which shouldn't be too hard against armies designed to kill buildings), and which can rely on a new abundance of opportunities to out-position incoming armies could I think turn the base race against undead into the more costly option it ought to be.
Finally, tanks and chims are slow. Spacing out your buildings means those units need to cover that much more ground to do their work, giving you more time to respond and/or force a TP. Also, you would be fighting on blight more often, insofar as a larger space is occupied (at one time or another) by undead buildings.
Any thoughts FFA players of all skill levels and/or fans? I personally prefer playing orc and don't have the time to play as often as I like so I think it unlikely (though not out of the question) that I'll ever do anymore than theorycraft on this subject. I would however love to hear about anyone's results while utilizing such a strategy.
-
I don't know about making only necropolis, but XX was very successful with doing a lot of them, and fewer zig
He used it mainly for wood though
-necropolis don't cost wood
-necropolis next to wood for faster gathering
I think it could be worth trying it!
-
I don't know about making only necropolis, but XX was very successful with doing a lot of them, and fewer zig
He used it mainly for wood though
-necropolis don't cost wood
-necropolis next to wood for faster gathering
I think it could be worth trying it!
Ah that is good to hear, I'm glad you think it not crazy! And those are great reasons to forgo zigs for necropolises!
-
physical space isn't an unlimited resource, certain maps you might not really have the space to build many necropolis, especially like market square
-
That is a legitimate point but what are the FFA maps that are short on building space and have more than a single choke point to enter each spawn point (as on Market Square)? I know that choke points won't matter against mass chims but at least standard undead has an effective way of killing them. I'm assuming of course that the single choke point on Market Square can be used to deal effectively with tanks, but I admit I have no personal experience with which to argue that it in fact can be.
And just a little more theorycraft regarding Market Square: if the wood around the naturals were gathered (or perhaps even if not) I wonder whether the naturals could also be used well as far as necropolises?
-
I am an advocate of multiple necropolis'. 255 gold versus 150 gold 50 wood. Wood can sometimes be an issue and the extra 100 gold grants you a 1500 hp building that still gives 10 food. Another important point is that it gives you another building to TP to in case your main is wrecked by tanks, chims, or bats. You touched on it also that it buys you additional time if you have necropolis' on the perimeter of your base to get back in position to defend. I also make an extra necropolis usually at most expos. 2 Necropolis, 1 cold tower, and 1-2 spirit towers fortifies it really well. Again it buys you more time if you aren't ready to TP right away as you can let one of the necropolis go down.
You can place at least 3 necropolis' in your main on any map. Even on Market, once the wood is chopped I will always build one more necropolis in the back as well as one towards the front. This allows me to TP onto the path in front of my base, in the far back, or from my main. On maps where you can accumulate a lot of gold like Twilight, you can have a ring of necropolis (2-4) around the perimeter, your main base, and 1 or 2 necropolis in the back as well.
One additional use of the necropolis is that it does not require blight to summon. Meaning that you can place it at choke points between bases for not only a fortified scout, but also for another option to TP to if you see an opportunity. Same goes for the idea of building one right next to an opposing main base for offensive TPs.
-
I am an advocate of multiple necropolis'. 255 gold versus 150 gold 50 wood. Wood can sometimes be an issue and the extra 100 gold grants you a 1500 hp building that still gives 10 food. Another important point is that it gives you another building to TP to in case your main is wrecked by tanks, chims, or bats. You touched on it also that it buys you additional time if you have necropolis' on the perimeter of your base to get back in position to defend. I also make an extra necropolis usually at most expos. 2 Necropolis, 1 cold tower, and 1-2 spirit towers fortifies it really well. Again it buys you more time if you aren't ready to TP right away as you can let one of the necropolis go down.
You can place at least 3 necropolis' in your main on any map. Even on Market, once the wood is chopped I will always build one more necropolis in the back as well as one towards the front. This allows me to TP onto the path in front of my base, in the far back, or from my main. On maps where you can accumulate a lot of gold like Twilight, you can have a ring of necropolis (2-4) around the perimeter, your main base, and 1 or 2 necropolis in the back as well.
One additional use of the necropolis is that it does not require blight to summon. Meaning that you can place it at choke points between bases for not only a fortified scout, but also for another option to TP to if you see an opportunity. Same goes for the idea of building one right next to an opposing main base for offensive TPs.
And, as Renaud pointed out, wood can be returned to it whereas the same can't be said for zigs.
As for the second of your bolded points, I would love to see people try this. Even if the enemy can see it building, they still have to divert units to it (or perhaps even TP home) to deal with the possibility that an undead might TP to it and/or end up with a large chunk of blight outside their base which remains even after the necropolis is killed/unsummoned, unless of course it is dispelled/built over (which would still be a price to pay).
-
offensive tp :
did that vs dfm on twilight (cast seksi dfm me + j33). Round 4 of season 16.
I had necrowagon and i made offensive tp on dfm (didnt work so well but still it was offensive tp!)
Mass necropolis :
Just look at maga's base. He always have several and often a second one up to T2 so he can still make gargs if main is chimed out
-
I'll def check out that game Ugri =)
Yeah, now that you mention it I've seen that 2nd Hall of the Dead in Maga's base when watching him, and I do normally see more than one main building in most players' bases as games progress, but I wonder if turning to mass necropolises instead of zigs could make a difference in the late game. I think their attributes could be > zigs as far as synergy with the standard UD army when it comes to base race.
Also, I'm pretty sure I've already seen the following done/attempted so I won't call it theorycraft: if the enemy is only sending tanks but no heroes or the heroes have been killed then good infernal and stone-form garg drops and a wyrm (plus D & D?) could suffice for standard UD against tanks, I'm thinking.
-
I've seen undead players block their main off with stone formed gargs on market
Pretty funny actually, tanks can't get in :)
-
lol, yeah it does sound pretty funny, tanks useless all of a sudden :icon_razz:
-
A note about offensive TPs with Undead is that normally you would be so fast with Unholy Aura that you could run into their main without much time difference anyways. However, I think a good use could be when they are attacking your main or expos to force them to TP away from your bases. You could easily TP, force a TP, do damage and get out hit and run style adding more map control.
Or if you had a full necrowagon army summoned and buffed... the offensive tp could be much more effective compared to gargs =)
-
I've seen undead players block their main off with stone formed gargs on market
Pretty funny actually, tanks can't get in :)
Yep, I do that ALL the time. lol
-
then the MK blinks in and the base dies in 5 seconds anyways
-
then the MK blinks in and the base dies in 5 seconds anyways
water elemental cast through, mass TP in and the base dies in 5 seconds anyways
-
go bm instead of mk and mass teleport to phoenix egg
-
too bad the Phoenix doesn t do chaos damage
"very similar to the other Ultimate Summonables such as the Dread Lord's Infernal or Night Elf Warden's Avatar of Vengeance"
-
too bad the Phoenix doesn t do chaos damage
"very similar to the other Ultimate Summonables such as the Dread Lord's Infernal or Night Elf Warden's Avatar of Vengeance"
but it flieeeees
-
but it flieeeees
Indeed! I have to test before I am sure, but I guess you should be able to make a cross map one way travel on Market with less than three egg form switches.
-
Hippogryph Rider versus Wind Rider
I learned late in my warcraft 3 career that hippogryph riders actually do very solid damage. But it wasn't until I started trying to get ridiculous 4v4 RT records that I finally developed a strategy that would interestingly enough win me just about any game. Tinker mass archers to hippogryph riders with a panda and potm (had never heard of mog at this point, but I assume he ran across the same stroke a genius). They weren't just good, but too good. I've managed to, at times when my micro is up, replicate its power in ffa games using a warden instead of tinker, and it's shown to be quite powerful. I just wanted to run some numbers by you guys and we can discuss
All numbers are calculated with 3 attack upgrades.
Wind Rider-24.5dps
Hipporider-23.6dps
Very similar, within 1dps of each other. Lets note here that the Wind Rider has almost double the damage and the Hipporider has almost double the speed. 49vs26 damage and 2vs1.1 second CD's.
This next calculation is with the level 5 aura heroes counted in, using level 2 endurance aura and level 3 trueshot aura.
Wind Rider-26.9dps
Hipporider-30.7dps
The extra damage from trueshot starts to make hipporiders look more desirable. Next is with 20%kodos and roar added in.
Wind Rider-32.3dps
Hipporider-38.4dps
Hipporiders are now beating Wind Riders by a more considerable margin. You really need to try them out to know how much damage they actually do, and feel it for yourself. But I forgot about bloodlust, right? We can factor that in now, and it comes out to 45.2dps. Holy moly they pack a punch, now beating their night elf counter parts by 6.8dps. Persuade brought this up to me in another thread a while ago and it kind of just didnt sound right to me, as I have used them both extensively and maybe I was just wrong in game and that Wind riders truly do more damage. Then I started to realize that whatever I was attacking with my Hipporiders was almost always faerie fired, as I usually have 3-4 dotts and at least one in my Hipporider control group. And that was my missing link. Orc gets casters to buff the attack speed of their units, and night elf gets casters to nerf the armor of their enemies. Same mana costs, same mana pools, same food, same amount of casters, just that dotts can fly and actually do damage. Well, I calculated it in and it feels much more accurate now to what I encounter in-game.
Wind Rider-45.2dps
Hipporider- 47.6dps
The Hipporider, yes, comes out on top, but, with envenemed spears, wind riders come out on top against non-light armor units, but that needs to be factored in after armor type and armor amounts are calculated in, and the type of unit. Basically, in the end, they are about the same as far as dps is concerned, assuming the elf gets a potm and uses dotts (many elves).
What does this mean? I hope this is a surprise to a lot of people, as I feel like I am the only one save a few who actually bothers with that tech path.
But what other differences are there between the units.
Wind riders hp: 570
Hipporider hp: 765
Wind rider range: 450
Hipporider range: 700!
Wind rider armor: 6
Hipporider armor:7
Wind rider cost: 255G and 40L
Hipporider cost: 290G and 30L
Hipporiders, at slightly more of a gold cost, come out on top in armor, having spectacular, sniper like range, and ~200 more hp.
Survivabilty? Wind riders get spirit link, heal wave, and stomp. Hipporiders get to attack from a much safer range, have more health, and have haze to protect them. In my experience, they can both be tough to kill and easy to kill, but the survivabilty is very close. Hipporiders can also dismount, taking double advantage of scrolls and only using half the food to bats.
So this isn't exactly to theory craft who would win in a fight, elf or Orc with these armies (I vote Orc because of hexastomp), but to theory craft in what situations would it be beneficial for elf to use hipporiders? Night elves, would you add stronger, sniper-like Wind riders to your army in any circumstance that you can think of? How about versus undead? Against human? Against elf? Against Orc? I have things to say on it (with actual play to back it up), but what do you think?
-
before I ask Marilyn vos Savant about it, in the absence of panda, what is better to shred air army with like 6 wyrms?
6 tanks or 18 gyros ? with or without innerfire/slow
-
Hiporider are 4 food too ? (hipo = 2 + archer = 2) = 4 ?
-
Yes hippo-riders are 4 food
Also, hippo riders are faster 350 vs 320, (and have a better night vision)
There was a player (nebu) who would usually mass them and rush someone, his theory was that it was great against rush (one of elf's weakness in ffa), because he would get a bunch of archer early on, and instead of killing them for space, he combined them with hippo as he built them
Does anyone knows if dismounting removes all buff/debuff?
Because if so, it might actually be very good in mirror, both panda cast haze, you dismount, even if you only have half as many hippo, his hippos are missing 80% of the time, and yours aren't
Edit 1: It does remove debuff, I'll try to test with nova now since that one is often diffrent
Edit 2: It also removes the nova debuff, so I guess it works for everything
Edit 2.2: Also, the piercing attack is not worst than the magic one against tanks, so it wouldn't be worst than it is now, just equally bad :P
Edit 3: Actually, chims have a range of 45, riders have a range of 80 60, and tanks have a range of 50, so the riders could kill the tank from a distance, sounding more and more like a plan ^_^
-
Edit 3: Actually, chims have a range of 45, riders have a range of 80, and tanks have a range of 50, so the riders could kill the tank from a distance, sounding more and more like a plan ^_^
Chims have a range of 45 ? Really ? Do you mean 450 ?
Also where do you get all this info, is there a warcraft III wiki or something ?
-
http://classic.battle.net/war3/nightelf/units/chimaera.shtml
-
http://classic.battle.net/war3/nightelf/units/chimaera.shtml
well the normal attack has range of 45, but the acid breath has a range of 85
but I did make a mistake, hippo riders have a range of 60, not 80! my bad
-
Yes he means 450. You can use http://classic.battle.net/war3/races.shtml which can be wrong for certain things, but it is almost always updated, or you can use the world editor. I am getting the dps through math.
I would say their movement speed is about even or maybe a little in favor of the wind riders due to endurance aura, but its not a noticeable difference, unless you add in blood lust, in which case everything is faster anyway.
And yeah dismounting removes every debuff, because it creates two units. Its nice after you tp because you can instantly get rid of slow/faerie fire, etc. And there are times when you can dismount in the middle of the battle, best right after nova or haze, and your riders are mid hp, you dismount and heal scroll, and they will be full hp and not cold/debuffed anymore, with added full-hp archer support down below.
I would probably wait till after breath of fire hits before I dismounted, at least if I had a heal scroll, I think it would be more effective that way.
As far as killing tanks, chims are better..................................almost always, but here is some math.
I did the math with a food per food basis in mind, where chims count as 4 food, so the dps calculations are more equal with that in mind.
Chimera- 10.6dps
Hipprider- 8dps
Under the same night elf buffs as before, chims do 10.6 dps to 3-3 tanks. Remember though, that they have a 2.5 CD, so really they all do 25-30 a hit, and then have to wait ~3 seconds to do it again, which is nice for hit and runs, but is thrawted by bolt/slow. Hipporiders attack at a very constant rate, faster than bloodlusted pace, so if you have 10 hipporiders the tank will take about 7-8 seconds to die with no hero or other unit support. Chims also have splash, witch can help a lot. When defending, hipporiders can work pretty well with a panda and a few ancients, then you can safely kill anything a human has unless its 40 gryos, but when attacking, you need something else to kill the tanks.
-
I guess it is only 600 range. Just tested it.
-
Well the chim will have higher damage output, but hipporidders can hit them from behind the buildings. Tanks will try to hit the flying unit by default (unless you micro them to target the buildings) So you should be able to keep your unit alive while killing the tanks
-
If Hipporiders would only be 2 food - id switch to nightelf for sure :D
-
Tried a game with it here: http://clan-fml.lunaghost.com/game/34743/
Was not perfect, but I was really happy with my army most of the time,
-being able to kill breakers/dryad was great
-not having to save your bear from your own chim was great
-having more than 2 archer against a rush was great (A hu tried to hit me twice early game, that would probably have been enough to kill me if I had done my usual tech to chim)
-having a fast army was also very fun (although I would have been much better if my hero had boots...)
The only time I missed my chims was against the knights (not a unit you usually see in FFA, but these hu seems found of them) and when trying to kill building
Sounds like a terrible army to have against orcs though, I'm scared of what bats would do to them, and even if I managed to unmount in time, my ~16 archers won't be able to do much vs the 2 tauren... guess it would need more bears and more dots
-
I guess you guys all still know new_nebu. He was expert at massing hipporider , especially when rushing with fast 80 food. Yeah in early they are amazing but i think they'r more or less useless when the other guys have fully upgraded armies (gyros with splash, 3/3 tanks with barrage etc) Also the problem is you need different weapon and armor techs for hipporiders, and when you switch to chippo you will need the other attack/armor upgrades too.
-
Even if you don't switch to chippo you will most likely need to upgrade, to help when you are separating the hippo, but it's not really a big deal considering how ne tech so little usually (when compared to orc/hu who must upgrade everything!)
I'm still experimenting, but so far I prefer hipporiders vs tanks, mostly because I can make a few more bears and attack without them dying to the chim's splash
True enough, hipporiders are bad vs gyros and tanks... but so is chippo :P
-
I'm happy that someone else is actually trying them out with an honest attempt to see if they are good. I'll DL the rep and watch it tonight.
Looked in my replay folder and found a replay that was basically a 1v1 between me and Asha(undead) that lasted a while. Here you can see their use versus gargs, and that it actually does work pretty well.
http://tft.replayers.com/index.php?action=view&id=28941
-
Estoy feliz de ver las repeticiones de un gran amigo mio y aprender mas acerca de este uso y sobresalir mas, agradecer a FFA master por permitirme ser parte de esta nueva aventura en mi vida, y nuevo desafio personal. Muchas gracias amigo usted sabra q a usted me refiero con este mensaje por brindarme parte de su fuerza en el uso de tal raza... Muchas gracias a todos
-
I'm happy to watch replays of a great friend of mine and learn more about this application and excel more, thank you for allowing FFA master be part of this new adventure in my life, and new personal challenge. Thank you very much friend you will know I mean qa you for giving this message of its strength in the use of such a race ... Thank you very much to all
-
Estoy feliz de ver las repeticiones de un gran amigo mio y aprender mas acerca de este uso y sobresalir mas, agradecer a FFA master por permitirme ser parte de esta nueva aventura en mi vida, y nuevo desafio personal. Muchas gracias amigo usted sabra q a usted me refiero con este mensaje por brindarme parte de su fuerza en el uso de tal raza... Muchas gracias a todos
Usted es bienvenido!
-
Muchas Gracias :D