Theorycraft

[Jey_s_TeArS]

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.

[Dovekie]

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?

[Jey_s_TeArS]

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

[Meeds]

Hiporider are 4 food too ? (hipo = 2 + archer = 2) = 4 ?

[FML|Renaud]

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 ^_^

[Meeds]

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 ?

[Persuade]

http://classic.battle.net/war3/nightelf/units/chimaera.shtml

[FML|Renaud]

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

[Dovekie]

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.

[Dovekie]

I guess it is only 600 range.  Just tested it.

[FML|Renaud]

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

[Pinballmap]

If Hipporiders would only be 2 food - id switch to nightelf for sure :D

[FML|Renaud]

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

[Pinballmap]

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.

[FML|Renaud]

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