FFA Masters League

Sleep can be useless vs good elves, since abolish can knock it out instantly, it is however extremely good in controlling a mirror fight.  Silence can have more of an impact vs some armies/players than sleep can, which is why DR is seen picked a lot third.

Yeah but infernal/carrion/hero wars/vamp aura puts the DL on top for me.

Level 5 DK has no impact in air fights, lich is the key here... I'm confused on these "tricks".  If an elf plays a map without a tavern he will probably lore rush you, in which case gargs will be too slow.  You need a destroyer more than a frosty btw, or else entangle will destroy you.

Level 5/6 DK has an enormous impact vs elf.  The extra move speed lets you get off nova/carrions before you fight.

Assuming you mean stacking armor, it really isnt...  The only circumstance I can see armor being good is vs all orcs, which never happens.  Most races depend on a strong nuke, in which case armor is completely useless.  There's a reason most players sell all rings in favor of periapts.

Just armor in general.  Devotion aura, rings of 4 or 5 armor, armor upgrades, armor scrolls, inner fire.  Once it adds up, things just don't die so easily.  The opposite is true as well.  Acid bomb/ faerie fire/ ud orb.

Long range wyverns with 50% the dps. Better to spend 1 more food and get a chim, it's also a different tech path and requires a ton of resources to do both.  The only time riders are good is in a rush, in which case afterwards you need to get rid of them asap.

do you mean 50% more dps?  They have the same dps unbuffed, because their attack speed is literally double.  With roar/aura they have almost double, because attack speed scales better.  And yeah they are situational, but less situational than people think. 

Ever seen air get ripped apart by slow + tanks + blizzard? Also 50 gyros can kill any amount of air in mere seconds.  Pally/mk can solo an undead army by itself.  But you are right, gryphs/knights/rifles are terrible.

50 gyros is over 4 control groups and over 4k gold/ 1.5k lumber.  Its the best AA, but isn't as practical, and they die by the 10.

Been playing tons and tons of games on the FML bots these last few months, and have been learning a lot about FFA.  So here is my giant wall of text:


The biggest thing that I've learned... and I think its more than just my opinion... is that orc and human are just slightly better than elf and undead.  There is something about orc casters, warstomp & endurance aura, ww + critical strike, heal wave, strong towers, wards, spirit link, etc, that just puts them a little above night elf and undead.  Same with human, though the with human its mainly just the tanks, massive armor, and the mass TP that gives them an edge.  That being said, people seem ready to team orc/human players a little easier so I guess it can also be a curse.  Two things that might make this theory untrue.  One is anti-magic shield, which isn't utilized well enough or enough, and 2 is night elfs rushing potential.  You can have a maxed out night elf army so fast, that unless the human or orc was preparing for you(and even if they were), you can probably kill them.  But the games are adding up where I am fighting orcs or humans that reach an unkillable point that I can't seem to obtain when I am elf or undead.

List of things learned: (FYI this isn't a guide on how to win, for that you should ask better players)
-Unlike 4 man FFA, going to 100 to finish off a player is almost always a bad idea.  Because you are playing with 6-8 people, you should almost always wait until there are 2-4 people left before going 100, unless you want to surprise rush someone good that you think might be a big threat later. 
-I've been trying lots of different hero's and purposefully not using the Dark Ranger very much, but honestly she is just so good.  But I would only choose her for elf and maybe orc.  UD should stick to DL and humans need the MK and Pally. Silence + hex + stomp might be the best combo in FFA, at least to winning large army battles. 
-Undead-- I don't understand how anyone could not go dk/lich/dl.  The only reason I wouldn't is if I didn't think I could get an infernal.  But if I don't think I'm gonna get an infernal, I obviously am not planning on winning, but I'm always planning on winning (planning), so I always get dl. Sleep works as a good enough silence for me, but carrion/nova is just so important for hit and run crippling attacks if you are behind, that you can't go without him.
-Undead has the most "tricks". On non tavern maps, you can, almost with a certainty, kill any nightelf with pure garg 1 frostie.  This is also convenient because you can also kill any undead with the same army.  You can straight tech gargs and kill mass air creeps, giving you a level 5 dk in the first few minutes. 
-Armor is better than you think.
-Hipporiders are better than you think.  With roar + level 3 aura they are tanky, bloodlusted, long ranged wyverns.
-Mass teleport is better than you think. (Hard to imagine o.O, but if people could multitask perfectly, it should be almost an auto win, with enough tanks and gryphs)
-Human army kills things the slowest.  Gryphons aren't the greatest, neither are knights.  Rifles don't do much damage.  Tanks do low damage and need time to kill stuff.  Heros become super tanky but never achieve killing speed of orc or ud.
-Night elf has access to the greatest explosion army.  By this I mean you can make the enemies entire ground disappear (excluding tanks) or their entire air disappear in the time it takes for a tp scroll to finish casting.  Pure chims or pure hippos are sometimes the only things that can kill the enemies army, but then afterward you have a giant weakness to either mass ground or mass air.
-As a night elf player, there are some armies that a human can make that you actually have no chance of beating unless you chose the right hero's and they are high enough levels.  When the Tank count reaches enough to take care of any air you have, and he has enough gryphons to take out any bear threat you have, and his heros can negate yours, then you lose.  You need a high level DH, Panda, AMS potm, tinker, in order to be able to beat them, and usually a combination of two of these.
-When in doubt, summon your 3 RoC hero's (replacing the FS with the SH).
Human = AM/MK/Pally.  Just perfect.  Has everything Human needs.  Mobility, surivability, damage, stun, massive mana regen.
Orc = BM/TC/SH.  Once again, has everything you need.  Completely absurd damage, ridiculous disables (I mean RIDICULOUS), and amazing heal.
Elf = DH/KOTG/POTM.  Sometimes we feel we need to get the panda or the dark ranger, and then we wonder why we are losing to mass tanks or we just can't kill the enemy at his base, but then we choose these hero's, that lets us have access to a sweet disable/hold, metamorphosis(aka battle winner), starfall(aka battle winner), tranquility, great aura, best scout, mana burn, high armor, and all of a sudden we win a game that we couldn't have with a panda/dr.  You lose your ability to fight mass air as well, but stick an AMS potion on your potm and starfall next to their base with mass chippo and now you are the one thats getting teamed.
Undead = DK/Lich/DL.  Mobility, crippling potential, crazy nuke, best aoe stun behind a blink dagger tc, nova, nova, death and decay, and nova.

Nearly unbeatable armies exist in my opinion.  But only a few and they are situational.  Here's what I can think of/have faced/have used or lost to.

orc v ud: 100 food orc army vs undead with BM/TC/SH or DR/TC/SH.  Tri caster, kodo, couple tauren, and mass wyverns/bat or zerkers + bat.  It is quite literally unbeatable.  Some sort of AMS abuse/ infernal drop/ sh sleep/ giant nuke on the dps portion of their army/ flank hit/ 5 hit and run nukes before the actual battle, and you might have 40/60 odds, but only if you out level their heros and have more gold in the bank.

Mass undead air against elf on non tavern maps, especially if they dont have a warden/ lvl6 potm.  Very hard to screw this up.

Balanced tank/priest/gryhpon army against an elf that doesn't have the right heros.  Elf ground just isn't good enough unless his heros can make up the work.  Air will get killed by the tanks if there are enough.

Chippo vs orc can sometimes be unbeatable if the elf has decent gold advantage.  Unless the orc can produce enough bats, he can be overrun.  Especially with use of heal scrolls/tranquility/scroll of prot, 10 chims just wcreck anything the orc can make, and hippos vs wyvern is a joke.




BUT all this being said, it is remarkable how balanced FFA can be.