FFA Masters League

(I wrote a guide a few years back for Clan Lone before it went boom, and I was very bored at work today so here you go, remade from scratch, NOT proofread, NOT checked for gramatical errors, and INCOMPLETE. Also, the formatting is very poor. Will work on it more tomorrow if I have time)


General Orc Dark Ranger Guide

With a surprising rising interest in FFA thanks to the FML bot, I have decided to write this short but effective guide to demonstrate the imbalance and power of the Orc Dark Ranger (DR) build to new players. This guide will also cover some basic orc tactics to help you abuse this race to its potential. FFA regulars will already be familiar with most of what is written here, but have fun reading through anyways and correcting any errors/oversights that you see, or perhaps to provide criticism.

The Dark ranger has always been a good alternative choice for elf players and sometimes UD, but it wasn’t made truly popular for Orc until Shadowsoul utilized it into his army many years ago when Lone was actually relevant. Although he also used TC/Panda/SH, he began to demonstrate the true power of DR/TC/SH. He mostly utilized his ground army of  mass zerkers/taurens/casters in combination with the 3 H’s: (as he liked to call it) healing scrolls, healing wave, healing totem. I found the hero fascinating and because I sucked at BM usage initially, I began to use it to see how strong the combo really was.

Enjoyment came at first, but then frustration – I found that a primary ground army to be fairly annoying as orc, mostly due to the lack mobility. I eventually transitioned – continuing to use the Dark Ranger but mainly supporting it with a different army, I mostly used lots and lots of bats to counter air rather than pure zerkers (and early in my FFA career – I remember being made fun of using the SS combo but doing it with bats instead), and found great success due to how fast the DR and other heroes would level through destroying enemy air quickly, but found it to be a mostly economical issue, during end-game, so I transitioned again to a more tradition wyv/tauren/caster army combination, using bats as needed only, and I’ve stuck with it ever since.

Dark Ranger is still a far from common hero for Orc, although it’s been proven to be highly effective, many orkorks still prefer the power and mobility of a blademaster – and with good reason. Despite what enemies and anti-orc advocates will tell you, there are clear advantages and disadvantages to which hero you pick first. The TC/SH combination is IMO a powerhouse that fuels the orc machine so there is no denying the imbalance of that – perhaps the SH can be dropped for a panda or something a bit more unconventional, but the TC is the heart of the orc army. So you could technically say the BM or DR is just icing on the cake for a more powerful force. Before I get into the strategy + tactics itself, let’s quickly discuss the pros and cons of choosing DR over BM:

Pros:
-   Ranged hero, allows for easier micro
-   Black arrow supplements early creeping extremely well, but can vary a bit from map to map
-   Silence is an amazing group utility spell
-   Charm, great ability with short cooldown
-   Low mana cost of spells, less focus on needing mana items to supplement the hero’s inventory. Not an item dependent hero.
-   Undead hero, less immune to the undead nuke

Cons:
-   Low mobility compared to the BM, less scouting capability
-   Weak in hero arena compared to the BM/TC/SH, 80 food typically must be maintained for battles as opposed to the possibility of an orc sitting on 50 food thanks to a powerful BM contributor
-   Weak early game hero vs early enemy attacks compared to the BM
-   Undead hero, vulnerable to a proper human nuke/focus
-   Drain life useless ability
-   Silence is not fully useful until level the DR reaches level 5, level 1 silence is terrible, level 2 silence is ok but still pretty poor
-   Black arrow fairly useless in end game except for some specific situations.

While it may seem from my short lists that there are more cons than pros, realize that the pros are VERY strong indeed – specifically how silence complements the orc army extremely well. This spell costs a mere 75 mana, lasts for 24 seconds on units (12 seconds on heroes), has a short 15 second cooldown, and a HUGE AoE.

Regardless, there’s no clear winner (IMO) as to which is truly better than one on another – it’s all very situational. In my opinion, the DR shines very strongly during most large scale battles + encounters, while the BM excels at small encounters, harassment, and endgame situations with limited gold. The DR is also clearly weak in early game, making things more difficult should you get rushed.

Fun Fact: The DR shares the same exact stats (strength, agility, intelligence) as the POTM, from level 1 to level 10.

Now let’s get into the nitty gritty of things, let’s talk the hero combo itself and the skills chosen

Hero combo: Dark Ranger, Tauren Chieftain, Shadow Hunter

Skills:

DR – Black Arrow/Silence/Black Arrow/Silence/Silence/Charm/Doesn’t matter after this point

TC – Stomp/Aura/Stomp/Aura/Stomp/Ankh/Aura/Shockwave x3

SH – Healing Wave/Hex/Healing Wave/Hex/Healing Wave/Hex/Voodoo/Wards x3

To quickly touch on skills, DR should be aiming for level 3 silence as soon as possible. If you are getting rushed early, grab level 2 silence when your DR hits level 3. Drain Life is fairly unimportant, might be slightly useful in hero arena but typically it’s just a large ass green beam that screams “KILL ME NOW” and your DR is just sitting still. Definitely do NOT grab it early game. Black arrow is a waste of mana end-game, it’s semi useful for boosting damage in hero arena but the only other usefulness after the creeping stage is over is to use it on tauren during mirror battles, the resulting kill would leave no corpse and thus they can not be revived by spirit walkers. This requires some decent micro to pull off but can be pretty damn valuable.

Some people prefer to grab SH before TC, this is obviously highly preferred in solo/RT games due to the invaluableness of an immediate hex. Either option is fine really, although in FFA I would suggest a higher level TC rather than a higher level SH, Level 3 stomp is extremely deadly especially on an item stacked hero. Unless you are getting super rushed hard, you don’t need an early SH.

For the SH, You can choose hex instead of healing wave first if you wish, again its personal preference. Grab healing wave at level 3 though, it’s more beneficial than a higher level hex. Also, at level 6 I personally don’t grab the ultimate. It’s a really a very situational ability that has a high mana cost and leaves your SH vulnerable. It also cancels out all buffs on your units which sucks because lust/link is pretty essential. Regardless, it can be useful at times, just not very often.

Alright now onto the finer details:

Starting up:

You have generally 3 options as orc:

1.   Grunts
2.   Headhunters
3.   Straight tech

With a BM it’s pretty popular to go with choices 1 or 3, depending on the map. With a DR option 3 really isn’t feasible, a DR’s ability to solo creep isn’t fantastic, and attempting to hold off a potential early attack with just this hero is suicide. So your choices are option 1 or 2. Option 2 is generally the better choice, headhunters deal more damage than grunts and you’ll already be having the skeletons from black arrow tanking most of the damage, so melee units really aren’t necessary early on. But grunts can be used as well if you wish.

Here’s my build order, I find that most orcs who do a tavern/HH build differs from the one I do, but I still find mine to be the most efficient:

- 5 peons to gold
- Make peons
- When first peon is about 2/3 done being made, take one off gold, build burrow, rally that to wood when finished
- 1st peon made goes to gold
- 2nd peon made makes mill
- 3rd peon made makes barracks
- 4th peon made goes to wood
- 5th peon makes altar
- All further peons made go to wood
- Make 2nd burrow once you have 160 gold + 40 wood (this should happen around the same time).
- Barracks is finished, produce first HH, Peon that made barracks is the one I use to scout. - If done correctly, you’ll have exactly or near exactly ~130 gold and 20 wood, just enough to produce your first unit. This HH will go to the nearest Tavern and grab your beloved dark ranger.
- Alternate between making HH and peons. Stop at 26/30 food. You should have 3 HH at this point, 1 hero, 5 on gold, 9 on wood, 1 scouting.
- Upgrade to Stronghold.
- Make 4th HH, now at 28/30
- Make 3rd burrow
- Make 5th HH, now at 30/30.
- Typically I stop at 5 HH, but if I’m on a map with more difficult creeps I’ll grab a 6th one.
- If you’re on a shredder map, grab one ASAP!
- Stronghold complete, being making TC. Your food will differ slightly depending on if you have a shredder and if you made a 6th HH. If you have a shredder, no more peons will need to be made for wood. If you don’t, I would suggest making more peons to gather wood until you have 40/40 supply, then begin upgrading to fortress.
- Oh and make sure to expand obviously, should’ve done this ASAP once you clear your natural.

By this point you are well on your way to tier 3, grab an SH and upgrade your burrows, then decisions will need to be made at this point. Scouting is crucial to help you formulate these decisions. For example, if you are in an 8 player FFA on an 8 player map, more than likely you’ll need to get ready for a fight fairly soon. Throwing up some towers in your main would be a good idea. On the other hand, if only 4 players are present and you are on a large map, getting a 2nd/3rd expansion is recommended.

But in either case your #1 priority is to get two spirit lodges up and research master training on shamans and witch doctors, with priority on shamans, bloodlust is an insanely overpowered buff that helps tip the favor on your side. You’ll also want to get beastiaries and tauren buildings started. The order and priority – again – depends on your scouting and who you are targeting or who is targeting you. If you see an elf pumping from 5 chim roosts next to you, it’s probably best to to get 4-5 beastiary up asap for mass bat production. If an orc neighbor seems aggressive – prioritize tauren/lust and master walkers. Start some upgrades on your war mill as well – once again priority really depends on what you are getting. If you are going to be fighting a pesky undead player who masses frosts/dests early, getting 3/3 upgraded wyvs is a good idea

A lot of what you can do depends on one valuable resource that orc players have the most difficult time acquiring – wood. This will be your #1 hinderence. If you are on a shredder map, this liability is greatly diminished. If not, then you’ll need to deal with this problem. Multiple peons on trees and building additional war mills when you see them traveling too far is most optimal. Also, be aware of where you will go next when your trees run out in your main – you do NOT want to be in a situation where you have 10k gold, 200 wood, and no place to gather more.


General Unit Tactics/Hero Tactics/Item Stacking/What to do in battle/Specific tactics vs other races and army compositions/Mid-Game vs End-Game/Other useful hints, tricks, and tips/Gold management/Manip/Etc etc - COMING SOON!

FFAreplays most likely is dead and gone for good, to be honest I am surprised it has lasted this long, it's been hacked and threatened to be taken down several times now. It has held together a slowly dwindling FFA community (which already was a very low population to begin with). The website helped to unite the European playerbase with the US playerbase and also helped to establish FML.

With the website potentially gone for good, it seems like perhaps we lost a major component for the FFA spirit. Yes FML will still be here, and yeah if you want to FFA, Northrend is still around and somewhat active (don't bother with Azeroth anymore, sadly), but still, FFA just won't be the same without the massive, beautifully designed website that we all came to know and love. Slack single handedly (whether he knows it or not) held FFA players together through that website for a lot longer than people thought it would stay around.

Let's remember the good times and not so good times of the website, and perhaps of FFA in general.

Here's some of my favorite moments, although mine aren't super old school since I wasn't around that far back:

1. I remember ONCE Fury finally outnumber Lone members in the top 20 Azeroth ladder, promptimg for much (FURY WINS AGAIN!) nonsense...

2. Me raging out on Fly for suiciding me several games and leaving clan Lone to join clan Fury (for a short period of time, only to come back to Lone later). But in actual games, Fly will always the player I feared the most. Doesn't matter how many fights I won against him, he would almost always kick my ass with insane hit n run manuevers on my expansions.

3. FD and I making FFA threads lasted 100+ comments from our games because he was pissed with my excessive teaming.

4. Tchou-Tchou, one of the very few players (besides Lost.Ancient and Fly) who could outmicro and outmanip me almost every single time we played. And he was a random player too! Probably the best player I respect, although I never knew who he truly was or if he was an old school player (does anyone know?)

5. Speaking of Lost.Ancient, definetly the best elf player ever to grace FFA, not surprised he's an SC2 pro now. I finally owned him straight up on Deathrose once cause he chose DH over Warden, and he thoroughly regretting it. I remember him winning many games without making a single chim roost and making it look easy.

6. The nebu hacking rage fit, I'm sure we all remember that. Anyone remember what pushed this ticking time bomb over the edge?

7. Discovering that FML|Jumptoad = Nebu was also some serious LOL (shame on you Worpex!)

8. 4k.Fury, the pro solo player, briefly entering the FFA scene, and turns out to be one of the biggest whiners ever 

And my favorite:

9. PinballMap losing to a 20% 30 APM FFA Azeroth player named China_King (who literally had a record of 200-1000 or something), and posting the replay instantly afterward in a fit of uncontrollable illogical rage. Thank you PBM, you have given us many laughs for years to come.

Anyways, post your own memories my friends

First off, if you haven't heard yet, ffareplays.com will be shut down very soon by owner Slack, who has kept it up for many many years, despite being inactive in the gaming scene for the majority of the time.

Here's the thread:

http://www.ffareplays.com/comment.php?file=foo

Now we need to discuss what to do. FFAreplays.com, whether you want to admit it or not, has been the central HUB for FFA activity and drama throughout the years, even though FFA activity levels are not what they used to be, we still are a small community built around this website. Even with the Clan Lone/Fury websites going down, we still made it our home.

Here seems to be the possible choices:

1.) Donate Slack money to keep it alive - So far I don't think he is receptive to the idea. He seems intent on either letting the site expire or handing it off to someone else. Should he be open to it though, I think the best method is use of a Paypal Donation account

2.) Giving the site for someone else to operate - I can think of no one better than Worpex, he has led FML for many years, handled countless spam attacks, and I believe has a good grasp on understanding the concepts of websites and such. If this were to happen, we could use the above method (paypal donation account) to help him support the site

3.) Find a different central HUB for FFA activity - I find this to be a difficult option, but if all else fails, we should prepare for the possiblity. The only other active FFA site is this one right here, can it be made into an FFA replays portal of some kind? And how much work would be involved in it?

Advice/Suggestions from fellow website specialists would be welcome, because to tell you the truth, I have 0 knowledge on the subect of it.

Discuss