Garbage hero gambit tactic!

[rygorych]

I've talked about this generally many times before, but here's something you may want to try out, especially if you are bored of reusing same hero combos every game.

There are several heroes that are quite bad and are considered a "noob" indicator (e.g. other players won't take you seriously).

Naga
Beastmaster
Firelord
Cryptlord
Tinker

You can also screw around with people's expectations (everyone expects a UD to go dk/lich/dl, hu to go mk/pal+something and orc to go tc/sh+something - these are so-called ezmode (EZ) combos).

By breaking these expectations, you make your opponents think you are shittier player, and they won't think you're too dangerous.

Of course this can also backfire. Another player might think you are easy kill and try to tome you, and if they are using an EZ combo, they will have an edge. So it's probably not the tactic you will want to use on maps where you spawn near an EZ player.

Ideally, you should have solid micro to pull this off, but more importantly be ready to manip against the EZers (remember, they have stronger heroes than you, so you want them teamed out while you look like the underdog). Get into the mind of your teammates: you have to look undeniably weak to them. They have to believe that they will beat you in 1v1. If they are using a ud tri nuke combo and you are using a naga/kotg/potm, they will consider you an easy kill, and perfect ally to team up against a nasty bm/tc/sh orc. The orc on the other hand will most likely go for the undead, who is much more dangerous with his tri nuke than naga using NE. This is perfect for you - because while they fight, you snipe for easy experience and quietly collect gold mines.

Once it comes to 1v1, your garbage hero will become a liability, and you better be ready for it. A single hero makes a huge difference in the endgame where heroes can often take out entire 100 food armies. So you have to be sure that you have significant resource/positioning/item/lvl advantage vs your non-garbage hero opponent.

This is a somewhat risky tactic that also becomes problematic if players are resisting manip and don't team the strongest person (this is often the case in low-skill games). But I think it's pretty good in certain map setups in high-level play.

Anyways, this is my contribution to hopefully adding some variety in the ffa hero combos (of which I want to see more! all games seem exactly the same with people reusing same heroes over and over = boring!!!)

[FML|Mog]

how dare you put Tinker on this list....

I agree with the other 4, but would also add for race specific heroes: bloodmage, cryptlord (sorry worpex!!!), warden, and far seer

[Persuade]

um cryptlord does not belong on this list.

He's ridiculously strong vs orc and works well if you go ground undead.

[FML|Mog]

Well, was just trying to think of a hero for each race. Not my fault all of UD heroes are strong! But generally speaking if I see someone go CL first and their acct isn't Worpex I assume they aren't super good. Maybe Lich first would be more challenging than CL?

[rygorych]

I'd be curious to see stats of most used heroes in FFA, I think cl/tinker/naga/beastm/fl would be on the bottom. Bloodmage/farseer/warden aren't very common either although they are all extremely good heroes, it's just other EZ combos are much much more powerful (am/mk/pal is vastly superior to bm/mk/pal, dr/sh/tc is 10x stronger than fs/sh/tc).

um cryptlord does not belong on this list.

He's ridiculously strong vs orc and works well if you go ground undead.

If I'm EZmoding orc (sh/tc+fs/dr/bm), playing against cl ud is a sigh of relief. tri nuke on the other hand, especially at the beginning and 6/6/6 midgame can be bloody ridiculous.