The orc strategy replay example thread

[RollingWave]

Ok, a lot of the dissscusion here have been serious theorycrafting with little real implementation.... so I think we really should change that... and we'll start by this thread.

I will (and any who would like to contribute is welcome) post replays of "strategy examples" of different match up and explains the thinking and logic and the execution behidn them... if things go well this thread should really help many of us here.

I will start with this replay.
http://www.wcreplays.com/pub_replays.php?get=2784
between me (lvl 16 orc atm though havn't been playing that much on this account) vs a lvl 21 UD.

The strategy involved here is the gruntaraider tower push againsted the cookie cutter dk/lich fiend statue strat.

I start with a FS and strait tech to tier 2 adding a barrack as I go up, the reason why I do this is because getting to tier 2 is more important than the extra couple of grunt early on... in fact harrasing good UD with grunts can often be suicide when he have lvl 2+ dk (can't out run and coil ...) and UD can't rush THAT fast so the late grunt doesn't hurt.

I harrase him with FS... my reasoing is to just slow him down and annoying him as much as possible... I DO NOT want him to get lvl 3 dk by the time I'm rdy to tower... a good nuke combo can ruin any player's day... my harrase mostly focus on tearing down buidling under construction and/or their dk and fiend, having him waste coil is very helpful early and later on... espically with me taking out his shop and having him wasting coil he had a hard time creeping.

As soon as I got to tier 2, I get SH and start a beastry for raiders, a few more grunt and as soon as my SH coems out I go looking for him... looking around the possible creeping spots I cought him comming out of his base, as you can see between the ensare and the hex/wolfs fiensd don't stand a chance against gruntraider in the open espically without lich support... notice during this I snuck up 3 peon near his base and start to sneak in a tower and a shop.

as soon as they are rdy I try to (well I hit food cap here shoulda gotten it sooner) get demos and more towers while salving up my army and using clarity... he sees the tower and try to come stop it with horrible results... see with ensare you can force him to fight you under ur towers which si a huge advantage... see how I ensraed his lich under 5 towers that was fun:P push him with demo and make him pay with ensare/towers for tryign to stop you... take out slaguther house is a nice priority as I did due to no wagons and no more destroyer/statue.... (seriously... destroyer with orbs rapes towers) he try to push me one more time and gets owned... gg !!!!!

Also check the apm difference... although my micro definately wasn't that great he's was definately even worse to deserve over 3 times my APM ?!?!?! just to show that apm don't equal effective micro....

Hope you enjoy the rep, it's pretty short acturally... no hero got lvl 3 and it was exactly what I hope to do, end it EARLY ... late game UD is just too scary to face in most situation... and comments would be apprieciated and anyone willing to help with this thread is too :) plz post reps where you are aiming for a particular strat and execute it well and not some kinda long drag fest where everything goes wrong :P I want this to be the more basic strategy examples thx.

[Mr.mOO]

Rolling wave i think this is a good thread to have, hey shadow reckon we could get this as a sticky? i think theres so many good orc strat articles littered about this forum that it would be nice to have them all in one thread.
Ok ive posted this strat a while ago but no doubt its lost in the forums now so ill post it here. I dont pretend to be a gosu but im not a noob so i hope this thread helps... Heres my take on Orc Vs Night elf - Wyvern/Bat/Fs/Tc :

Ok so i keep reading posts with people saying that theyre having trouble vs Ne so ive decided to write this on what is in my opinion THE strat to use in an Orc vs Night elf matchup. Now this ISNT a new strat and i dont presume to name it as my own or anything of the sort but i didnt see it used often vs night elf players until recently so for those of you who dont know it i will explain.

Right, so ill start with the eventuality of the strat in a "perfect" game and then explain why these decisions are made and what can be done using the build order. In my "perfect" game vs night elf i set out with the intentions of quick teching to tier 2 and getting wyverns + bats, followed by a tech to tier3 for fire and venom. My hero choices in the matchup are FS first and TC second.

Right so my basic build order with an explanation since no Orc vs NE game is "perfect"

Start with 4 starting peons into mine, queue two more then use the 5th starting peon to make an alter. The 6th peon then builds a burrow and the 7th a barracks. - Ok so far it seems like a normal FS + grunts tech but it isnt, the object of the barracks is infact 3fold. Firstly it acts as a decoy when the night elf player scouts you early since the night elf expects a slower tech due to grunts. Secondly it acts as a deterrent to archer spam since a good orc player with a FS + wolves + grunts + speed scroll is going to own archer spam early game. Thirdly if a Night elf DOES still go archers despite the rax then you can switch to grunts, as stated above, with ease.

Ok so i usually queue peons up till about 17/20 food so i can still get my grunts (which cost 3 food each) if neccissary and then i knock up a lumber mill at the back of my base and save for 190 lumber so i can tech.
When my farseer pops out of the alter i immediately raise my wolves and run them in opposite directions around the map to scout out the night elf player.

Far seer harass: the night elf hero will figure greatly in how well you can harass him so heres a rough guide of how to deal with each.

1. Ne goes KotG, kotg usually goes off to harass an orc base so i dont find this much of a problem. i knock up another burrow after starting my tech and sometimes i add a tower depending on how strong the night elf is looking. The Keeper will ALWAYS have entangle when he comes to harass so i tend to burrow up a couple of peons from lumber to keep him at bay while continuing my FS harass. So heres my first rule once at a NE base with a FS, NEVER EVER KEEP YOUR WOLVES TOGETHER, you do and its gg because wisps will go boom and the wolves will go bye bye. The object of this harass is 2fold.
1. To knock out as many lumber wisps as possible
2. To see what he is going to build early game and in the event of archers, either kill as many as you can or force him to use his moonwells.
What i usually do here is split my wolves and have one hitting the wisps, one hitting the archers(if he goes archers), and my farseer doing either of the above but maintaining distance from the wolves. Since he has a KotG it is inevitable that he will kill some peons so killing archers + wisps is in order to slow him down and keep up on exp with his KotG.
2. He goes DH, dh will almost always have mana burn so he is going to focus on your FS, use your wolves as above splitting them to attack spaced out wisps or archers, allow him to aquire your FS then just lead him on a merry dance around the map, DH wont be able to kill your FS and therefore wont gain exp unless he detonates 2 seperate wisps to get rid of your wolves in which case he just used 120 gold and decreased his lumber income rate.
3. Warden, I do the same as with the DH except if he has shadow strike you need to be very careful about your fs, trying not to get him too close to the warden because if he gets you into a strike lock, YOU WILL DIE.
4. PotM, With this i usually find it harder to harass, he has no means of stopping your farseer and he probably wont harass so he tends to focus on the wolves, in this case i tell my fs to attack wisps and micro my wolves as soon as he focuses on them.

So where are we... Teching to tier 2 with a FS, rax, lumber mill, one-two burrows and maybe a tower. What units does he have? If he has archers start producing a couple of grunts and knock up a voodoo lounge. This is for obvious reasons since grunts > archers especially when you have a speed scroll. If he goes hunts dont get any grunts, i knock up a couple more towers and a third burrow. This is because hunts are weak vs piercing damage and therefore wont be able to come in close to your base without getting glaive throwers first. If he is stupid enough to attack you with hunts then simply burrow some peons and use wolves to focus weak hunts.

So we finally hit tier 2. usually i have left a space at the side or back of my base during my initial tech for.. .. thats right you guessed it.. dual beastiary. Make sure the beastiarys are covered by your towers/burrows.
I also knock up another 2-3 burrows giving me between 40-60 supply total. Second hero, TC with wave.

Now any self respecting Night elf player is going to think, oh hes gone air i can just get anti air to control him right?... ...wrong, due to the 1.15 patch i have to say orc ARE indeed slightly imbalanced, yes archers/dotts can own wyvern but wave on tc, chain lightning on fs, wolves on fs destroy archers and dotts so fast its unreal, and bats pretty much own any air based anti air that NE can produce. I usually Set 4 wyverns building and upgrade their attack to make them 1/0 while harassing the ne as much as possible at this point.
So why am i still harassing and why have i gone wyverns vs NE who have such great anti air? The wyverns initially are just to help me powercreep since the real strength of this tactic lies in the Orc heros. Until i have 4 wyverns i prefer to keep harassing the night elf and trying to hinder his tech or kill off archers/dotts with wave/wolves and chain lightning.
As soon as i have my 4 wyverns i begin my tier 3 tech and begin production of 5 bats. Powercreeping is now the intention since you really want to have wolves/cl and wave at as higher level as possible ( i alway use aura on TC and i dont think many of you would go stomp after choosing wave anyway). I also find that its a good idea to start my powercreeping at my expo since i want the freedom to expo to a clear mine whenever the opportunity presents itsself.
If the night elf attacks during this time your army will usually look like this...
level 2-3 FS, Level 1-2 TC, 4 wyverns. and it is likely that the night elf will have alot of archers and maybe glaive throwers (however i find many night elves even at level 30-35 dont add glaives into their army). Micro is the key here, make sure your units are within your base and burrow your peons to stop them from advancing right inside. Raise your wolves and set them on the archers, buy a Potion for your tc and use wave and chain lightning on as many of the archers/dotts as possible. The wyverns i usually micro the most, picking off glaives if they have them, and focusing on any huntresses (though they dont usually have them at this point) and weak dotts and archers. even if the NE has superiour numbers i still find that the orc should never lose this battle. I intentionally leave the 5 bats i have building out of this equation since i want to keep them all on full health and they dont really help much vs archers/dotts due to their low hp/armour and damage (i do however use them if the ne has hippos since boom boom bats kiss birdies byebye).
After the 5 bats are made i group my units as follows:-
-Grp 1, TC
-Grp 2, Wyvs + FS + extra bats
-Grp 3, 5 bats
Note : i only have extra bats making if i notice the night elf going large numbers of hippos however i always keep a seperate 5 bats in grp 3.
I begin to make more wyvs/bats at this point as my need allows and continue to power creep with grps 1 + 2 while expanding and researching fire and envenomed spears at my beastiaries. I research the second attack upgrade to make wyvs / bats 2/0 tech.
At this point group 3 are sent around the back of the night elf base and they have 2 functions:
1. Containment
2. Annoyance and building destruction
How can bats contain a NE player? you may ask, this is simple, the only way a night elf player can get to bats which are behind the tree line are with Hippos and Dotts in which case the hippos or dotts will quickly die to unstable concoction and i send my bats from group 2 to take their place while building bats to replace those from group 2.
The most common response i find is to build Ancient protectors at points around the expos/bases so the NE has to stay in base to guard these while they build, this allows you to power creep unhastled, all the time your heros are becoming more powerful and he is losing his own valuable creeping time.
I constantly move my bats around the tree line hastling the night elf as much as possible and forcing him to stay in his base and waste more and more resources on his APs. If the night elf has an expansion this is even better since you can force his army to run back and forth between it and his base, frustrating the player and forcing him to keep using unneccissary micro. After i feel that i have an adequate army of 6-8 wyvs + 3-4 bats + two highly leveled heroes i tend to ease off my attacks with my bats in grp 3 after which my opponent feels that his base is safe and decides to come out. After finding a lack of creeps around most players tend to attack the orc base again and this is where i try to clinch the game.
Teleporting back to my base with grps 1 and 2 i teleport into the back of my base, i then quickly switch to grp 3 who are still hovering out of reach of the NE base, i waypoint them in to hit as many protectors as possible since liquid fire slows the rate of fire of the APs and also makes them unrepairable, My final waypoint for each bat is always the ToL. Switch back to grp1-2 i use the same tactic as previously however this time CL, Wave and Wolves are ALOT more powerful and along with envenomed spears on the wyverns, and bats dealing huge damage to any hippos the night elf army doesnt have much of a chance. I know it sounds wierd but i usually dont even think about the NE heros during my battles since depriving them of creeps usually means they are of levels no more than 3-4 and dont do much damage vs my heros which have potions and any other items i choose to buy (ie, i always buy a potion of invul for the FS if i am against a warden).
The bats however have done their job by this time and the ne base is left with no APs and even better in some cases, no ToL unless of course the ne burns a TP, in which case i merge grp 3 with my other two groups and press my advntage at the night elf expo followed by his main.

Ok so there you have it, the orc air vs NE strat explained as best as i can, feel free to flame me since i know that will happen from various bad mannered individuals anyway.
At the moment i am level 24 on northrend and i was only level 20 before patch so yes i can be considered a nub by many of you, but one thing i will say is that i have used this versus approximately 60-70 night elf players of levels ranging from 1 to 37 and i am proud to say it was only beaten once by a NE who AP rushed me and he was red :x ( im colour blind btw, i couldnt see the red spots on the minimap against a green background), not much of an excuse i know but there you go.
I will start saving my replays of this versus each player i play from now and post them in the next week if i find the time, i hope this wasnt too vague and i hope it helps any low level players who have trouble versus NE.

Ok i said id post a replay asap and ive played 20 matches since my original post, 10 against undead, 3 against human, 7 against orc and only 1 vs a NE. So unfortunately i dont seem to be up against a particularly good player but its 3am and im thinking what the hey ill post this.
Ok this gives the basic jist of the strat (which im sure many of you have seen anyway) and it was early so the late game battle vs mass archers.. dont even start with me over it, i kicked mehself too ^^'

http://www.wcreplays.com/pub_replays.php?get=2570

[RollingWave]

Interesting I'll check it out when I get home.. the mass air vs elf strat is one i've never been able to pull very successfuly... I guess my problem was going blade instead of FS as though blade can usually harrase better early on they don't have much power to fight mass archers later on unless they manage to get lvl 6....

But if ur already getting a rax... wouldn't pumping out some demos at tier 3 once you get ur air going a good idea???? mass flaming oil is always nice against elf espically since they can't really go air.... and between the envonem spears and burning oil and chain/wave he won't have much time to ff ur demos... not to meantion they help take out elf bases REALLY well espically when they mass ap...

[Mr.mOO]

It is a good idea if you have the micro to pull it off but demos are about as expensive as wyverns and though they do more damage i prefer to take increased attack speed and mobility, above the slow low hp, cumbersome demolishers which die so easily to archers focus so i add a few more bats/wyverns. It also helps to gel my army since when you're attacking retreating you're only as effective as the slowest unit. If you do go demos then its a good idea to have a couple of speed scrolls. In my original post im not sure i mentioned. NEVER go against archers head on with the wyverns, try to weaken them with wave/cl/wolves first then bring them in at the side or back to pick off 1 archer at a time.

[Ownsyou]

Here's a strat I've been using vs NE lately that's been working better than you'd think. I'll post an unconventional strat since most of you already know about or use all of the normal ones.

http://www.wcreplays.com/pub_replays.php?get=2812

The strategy relies on a relatively fast tech to tauren with 5-8 grunts and Shadow hunter first to creep and stop rushes. This works well because tauren can destroy any NE ground army while SH helps you deal with air.


Early game: try to quickly creep to level 3. The NE player will probably try to harass you so do what you can to prevent it. Use the standard 2 grunts tech with a shop soon after you start teching. If they rush, put up wards to stop hunts and make a couple pults as soon as you can.

Mid game: As soon as you start to get tauren, stop making grunts and start to get a couple pults. Upgrade burning fire and pulverize ASAP. You'll want to attack at this point because you should have an advantage. Attack their expo if they have one, otherwise, go for their main base. As you'll see in the replay, wards provide a huge amount of damage while your tauren tank. (still dishing out a lot of damage themselves)

Late game: If your opponent survives your attack and begins to get air you'll need to swith up your unit mix a bit. You shouldn't have to worry about 2-4 air units because of wards. However, if he starts to mass air begin making bats immediately. If he as no archers left begin making wyverns as well. It's generally a good idea to start making these things early to discourage him from making air. You should also expand at this point; usually with the mini great hall item.

It's hard to see how the strat works without watching the replay so please do.

[Raven.Icon]

Mr. Moo, i sometimes use a windrider+bats, buts its more effective on big maps, but on small maps, Ne is gonna harass/rush u early game. If u dont have any units, ur gonna be in for a quick loss. If u have towers up, Ne can get glaive. That is why i prefer to use it only on big maps.

The big disadvantage w/ ur strat is that ur going for tech tier 2, but building a rax w/ it. That slows ur air strat so much, to the point, where ne will be in tier 2 same time as u. The reason why 2 grunt fast tech works or no rax air tech is becuz it utilzes the fact that u dont ahve much wood but lots of gold.

So having a extra grunt is not hurting ur tech, if u built a rax,since it does not cost any wood to produce, but if ur main purpose is to fast tech air, building a rax will hurt u. Also u over anaylze how ppl think. U will be facing ppl who sees a rax and still pump out archers only(alot of ppl on bnet rnt too smart, also, if they r , they will reliaze its just a front, when no grunts appear when they harass ur base). U say, that if ne does that, then u can counter by producing grunts, but the thing is, he will just be able to ff u to death w/ archers alone. U might think that is bs, cuz i said the same thing when it happened to me in a game. I had this one ne who went dh and 2 aow and massed only archers, he had a good 16 archer units, while i only had like 5 grunts, and archer micro/dancing is not that hard when u have that many archers. He wupped me so bad in early game, that i eventually lost due to smaller army.

Im not trying to put u down or anything, but jsut pointing out some weakness in ur strat. Also windrider strat vs all races is not something new. Alot of the orc players that i no, use windriders period. Dont matter what race they playing vs. Me im more of mix army guy, but i've seen the windrider strat utilized to some amazying degree.

[Mr.mOO]

well i can say that i see your point but currently i believe i have used the strat over 80 times now against players ranging levels from 1-37 and ive lost once in those 80 games, so i seem to be doing something right :) (its a pity i suck vs almost every other race lol)

[AnCouLer]

Rolling wave i think this is a good thread to have, hey shadow reckon we could get this as a sticky? i think theres so many good orc strat articles littered about this forum that it would be nice to have them all in one thread.
Ok ive posted this strat a while ago but no doubt its lost in the forums now so ill post it here. I dont pretend to be a gosu but im not a noob so i hope this thread helps... Heres my take on Orc Vs Night elf - Wyvern/Bat/Fs/Tc :

Ok so i keep reading posts with people saying that theyre having trouble vs Ne so ive decided to write this on what is in my opinion THE strat to use in an Orc vs Night elf matchup. Now this ISNT a new strat and i dont presume to name it as my own or anything of the sort but i didnt see it used often vs night elf players until recently so for those of you who dont know it i will explain.

Right, so ill start with the eventuality of the strat in a "perfect" game and then explain why these decisions are made and what can be done using the build order. In my "perfect" game vs night elf i set out with the intentions of quick teching to tier 2 and getting wyverns + bats, followed by a tech to tier3 for fire and venom. My hero choices in the matchup are FS first and TC second.

Right so my basic build order with an explanation since no Orc vs NE game is "perfect"

Start with 4 starting peons into mine, queue two more then use the 5th starting peon to make an alter. The 6th peon then builds a burrow and the 7th a barracks. - Ok so far it seems like a normal FS + grunts tech but it isnt, the object of the barracks is infact 3fold. Firstly it acts as a decoy when the night elf player scouts you early since the night elf expects a slower tech due to grunts. Secondly it acts as a deterrent to archer spam since a good orc player with a FS + wolves + grunts + speed scroll is going to own archer spam early game. Thirdly if a Night elf DOES still go archers despite the rax then you can switch to grunts, as stated above, with ease.

Ok so i usually queue peons up till about 17/20 food so i can still get my grunts (which cost 3 food each) if neccissary and then i knock up a lumber mill at the back of my base and save for 190 lumber so i can tech.
When my farseer pops out of the alter i immediately raise my wolves and run them in opposite directions around the map to scout out the night elf player.

Far seer harass: the night elf hero will figure greatly in how well you can harass him so heres a rough guide of how to deal with each.

1. Ne goes KotG, kotg usually goes off to harass an orc base so i dont find this much of a problem. i knock up another burrow after starting my tech and sometimes i add a tower depending on how strong the night elf is looking. The Keeper will ALWAYS have entangle when he comes to harass so i tend to burrow up a couple of peons from lumber to keep him at bay while continuing my FS harass. So heres my first rule once at a NE base with a FS, NEVER EVER KEEP YOUR WOLVES TOGETHER, you do and its gg because wisps will go boom and the wolves will go bye bye. The object of this harass is 2fold.
1. To knock out as many lumber wisps as possible
2. To see what he is going to build early game and in the event of archers, either kill as many as you can or force him to use his moonwells.
What i usually do here is split my wolves and have one hitting the wisps, one hitting the archers(if he goes archers), and my farseer doing either of the above but maintaining distance from the wolves. Since he has a KotG it is inevitable that he will kill some peons so killing archers + wisps is in order to slow him down and keep up on exp with his KotG.
2. He goes DH, dh will almost always have mana burn so he is going to focus on your FS, use your wolves as above splitting them to attack spaced out wisps or archers, allow him to aquire your FS then just lead him on a merry dance around the map, DH wont be able to kill your FS and therefore wont gain exp unless he detonates 2 seperate wisps to get rid of your wolves in which case he just used 120 gold and decreased his lumber income rate.
3. Warden, I do the same as with the DH except if he has shadow strike you need to be very careful about your fs, trying not to get him too close to the warden because if he gets you into a strike lock, YOU WILL DIE.
4. PotM, With this i usually find it harder to harass, he has no means of stopping your farseer and he probably wont harass so he tends to focus on the wolves, in this case i tell my fs to attack wisps and micro my wolves as soon as he focuses on them.

So where are we... Teching to tier 2 with a FS, rax, lumber mill, one-two burrows and maybe a tower. What units does he have? If he has archers start producing a couple of grunts and knock up a voodoo lounge. This is for obvious reasons since grunts > archers especially when you have a speed scroll. If he goes hunts dont get any grunts, i knock up a couple more towers and a third burrow. This is because hunts are weak vs piercing damage and therefore wont be able to come in close to your base without getting glaive throwers first. If he is stupid enough to attack you with hunts then simply burrow some peons and use wolves to focus weak hunts.

So we finally hit tier 2. usually i have left a space at the side or back of my base during my initial tech for.. .. thats right you guessed it.. dual beastiary. Make sure the beastiarys are covered by your towers/burrows.
I also knock up another 2-3 burrows giving me between 40-60 supply total. Second hero, TC with wave.

Now any self respecting Night elf player is going to think, oh hes gone air i can just get anti air to control him right?... ...wrong, due to the 1.15 patch i have to say orc ARE indeed slightly imbalanced, yes archers/dotts can own wyvern but wave on tc, chain lightning on fs, wolves on fs destroy archers and dotts so fast its unreal, and bats pretty much own any air based anti air that NE can produce. I usually Set 4 wyverns building and upgrade their attack to make them 1/0 while harassing the ne as much as possible at this point.
So why am i still harassing and why have i gone wyverns vs NE who have such great anti air? The wyverns initially are just to help me powercreep since the real strength of this tactic lies in the Orc heros. Until i have 4 wyverns i prefer to keep harassing the night elf and trying to hinder his tech or kill off archers/dotts with wave/wolves and chain lightning.
As soon as i have my 4 wyverns i begin my tier 3 tech and begin production of 5 bats. Powercreeping is now the intention since you really want to have wolves/cl and wave at as higher level as possible ( i alway use aura on TC and i dont think many of you would go stomp after choosing wave anyway). I also find that its a good idea to start my powercreeping at my expo since i want the freedom to expo to a clear mine whenever the opportunity presents itsself.
If the night elf attacks during this time your army will usually look like this...
level 2-3 FS, Level 1-2 TC, 4 wyverns. and it is likely that the night elf will have alot of archers and maybe glaive throwers (however i find many night elves even at level 30-35 dont add glaives into their army). Micro is the key here, make sure your units are within your base and burrow your peons to stop them from advancing right inside. Raise your wolves and set them on the archers, buy a Potion for your tc and use wave and chain lightning on as many of the archers/dotts as possible. The wyverns i usually micro the most, picking off glaives if they have them, and focusing on any huntresses (though they dont usually have them at this point) and weak dotts and archers. even if the NE has superiour numbers i still find that the orc should never lose this battle. I intentionally leave the 5 bats i have building out of this equation since i want to keep them all on full health and they dont really help much vs archers/dotts due to their low hp/armour and damage (i do however use them if the ne has hippos since boom boom bats kiss birdies byebye).
After the 5 bats are made i group my units as follows:-
-Grp 1, TC
-Grp 2, Wyvs + FS + extra bats
-Grp 3, 5 bats
Note : i only have extra bats making if i notice the night elf going large numbers of hippos however i always keep a seperate 5 bats in grp 3.
I begin to make more wyvs/bats at this point as my need allows and continue to power creep with grps 1 + 2 while expanding and researching fire and envenomed spears at my beastiaries. I research the second attack upgrade to make wyvs / bats 2/0 tech.
At this point group 3 are sent around the back of the night elf base and they have 2 functions:
1. Containment
2. Annoyance and building destruction
How can bats contain a NE player? you may ask, this is simple, the only way a night elf player can get to bats which are behind the tree line are with Hippos and Dotts in which case the hippos or dotts will quickly die to unstable concoction and i send my bats from group 2 to take their place while building bats to replace those from group 2.
The most common response i find is to build Ancient protectors at points around the expos/bases so the NE has to stay in base to guard these while they build, this allows you to power creep unhastled, all the time your heros are becoming more powerful and he is losing his own valuable creeping time.
I constantly move my bats around the tree line hastling the night elf as much as possible and forcing him to stay in his base and waste more and more resources on his APs. If the night elf has an expansion this is even better since you can force his army to run back and forth between it and his base, frustrating the player and forcing him to keep using unneccissary micro. After i feel that i have an adequate army of 6-8 wyvs + 3-4 bats + two highly leveled heroes i tend to ease off my attacks with my bats in grp 3 after which my opponent feels that his base is safe and decides to come out. After finding a lack of creeps around most players tend to attack the orc base again and this is where i try to clinch the game.
Teleporting back to my base with grps 1 and 2 i teleport into the back of my base, i then quickly switch to grp 3 who are still hovering out of reach of the NE base, i waypoint them in to hit as many protectors as possible since liquid fire slows the rate of fire of the APs and also makes them unrepairable, My final waypoint for each bat is always the ToL. Switch back to grp1-2 i use the same tactic as previously however this time CL, Wave and Wolves are ALOT more powerful and along with envenomed spears on the wyverns, and bats dealing huge damage to any hippos the night elf army doesnt have much of a chance. I know it sounds wierd but i usually dont even think about the NE heros during my battles since depriving them of creeps usually means they are of levels no more than 3-4 and dont do much damage vs my heros which have potions and any other items i choose to buy (ie, i always buy a potion of invul for the FS if i am against a warden).
The bats however have done their job by this time and the ne base is left with no APs and even better in some cases, no ToL unless of course the ne burns a TP, in which case i merge grp 3 with my other two groups and press my advntage at the night elf expo followed by his main.

Ok so there you have it, the orc air vs NE strat explained as best as i can, feel free to flame me since i know that will happen from various bad mannered individuals anyway.
At the moment i am level 24 on northrend and i was only level 20 before patch so yes i can be considered a nub by many of you, but one thing i will say is that i have used this versus approximately 60-70 night elf players of levels ranging from 1 to 37 and i am proud to say it was only beaten once by a NE who AP rushed me and he was red :x ( im colour blind btw, i couldnt see the red spots on the minimap against a green background), not much of an excuse i know but there you go.
I will start saving my replays of this versus each player i play from now and post them in the next week if i find the time, i hope this wasnt too vague and i hope it helps any low level players who have trouble versus NE.

Ok i said id post a replay asap and ive played 20 matches since my original post, 10 against undead, 3 against human, 7 against orc and only 1 vs a NE. So unfortunately i dont seem to be up against a particularly good player but its 3am and im thinking what the hey ill post this.
Ok this gives the basic jist of the strat (which im sure many of you have seen anyway) and it was early so the late game battle vs mass archers.. dont even start with me over it, i kicked mehself too ^^'

http://www.wcreplays.com/pub_replays.php?get=2570

Nl and long post!! I like those!! It makes me want to play orc!! :)

[Mr.mOO]

lol thanks but you didnt have to quote it all lol xD

[PartisanRanger]

Err... sorry for second post, I can't edit recent posts...
Anyway, here's a game with me vs lvl 30 o2.viet, a pretty talented orc player. This replay shows the versatility of the fast-tech in the orc mirror with FS/Naga. I always start out with grunts/kodos, which is especially effective early because most of the time my tech is much faster than my opponent's giving me an early game edge. As you see in this game, I get raiders later to counter kodos of his own, etc. It's also evident why early game Naga is a lot better than an SH in this matchup...
Here's the link: http://www.wcreplays.com/pub_replays.php?get=2556

[Mr.mOO]

Partisan reckon you could give us a breakdown of the tactic chosen and why? to go with that replay?

[DeadUndead]

so far in my weekly solo games ive played two level 15s, i assume before the patch came out they were level 11 or so. they went hunts first and dh first to archer dott and kotg or naga sea witch. i did gruntapult doc tauren one game and then some air gruntapult doc the next game, both with archer killing heros. both games they got cyclone, the first game i had pit lord naga sea witch and fs to nuke his archers. many battles he only got out with a near dead dh but then rebuilt super fast since dott archer build fast. the other game i had tc fs both level 7 for that nice anti archer/dott nuking, but he fast teched to chims and cyclone. he expanded slower than me, but with chims i had to immediately churn out batriders and then in both games spirit walkers to dispel cyclone. my asses were kicked both games -_-

[lhehehel]

OMG nice thread, I've learned alot from you! keep up the good work! I want more strategies and I'm only a lv3 orc

[PartisanRanger]

Partisan reckon you could give us a breakdown of the tactic chosen and why? to go with that replay?
Like I mentioned in my previous post, my all-encompassing orc mirror strat is to start with grunts and fast tech to kodos, generally effective units, and work from there. With a rax and beastiary up you can do almost anything you need to do in this matchup, and countering is very easy. For example, in the replay he starts to go wyvs to throw me off, but in come the bats within a minute or two. The trick is to be flexible, and that's what I think a lot of orc players don't understand. Going strictly one strat in this matchup is futile, you will just end up losing to players who know the correct counter to what you're doing. In summary, adaptation is key :).

[Ace_Balasador]

replay vs a so-so lvl NE
http://www.wcreplays.com/pub_replays.php?get=2867

replay vs lvl 21 NE (which i really doubt)
http://www.wcreplays.com/pub_replays.php?get=2869

this is another variation of an ALL AIR strat vs NE, and is very, very similar to Mr. Moo's

here it goes...

nowadays i really dnt make a rax vs NE (except in small maps)... just build a FS, war mill asap, plus 2 towers, this will stop an early push of any kind (except with a cheesemaster), then tech (18/20 food)... while teching build a lounge and 1-2 additional burrows in such a way that ur towers will not be open to direct assault... then creep with ur FS...

@ tier 2 get TC, 2 beastiaries and tech (believe me i have done this lots of times and the resources will permit this) then creep like mad using FS and TC... if he happens to scan ur base and sees the bats this is a bonus... y? because he'll make archers or hippogryphs... if he pushes ur base (assuming u have lvl 2 CL and lvl 1 SW) just cast this on his archers and within a few seconds his archer line will be dead... this will prompt him to back off...

@ tier 3 research liquid fire and raze his entagled gold mine and structures... if he goes hippos just detonate a bat, one unupgraded hippo will die on a single bat... just back ur bats then come back in a while, while all the time ur FS and TC creeps the whole map with wyvs... u can add either a panda or a naga as 3rd hero for additional crowd control spells... if he goes dryads wyvs will rape them, archers will now just a breeze for lvl 2 CL and lvl 2 SW will almost kill at least 5 archers, include the feral spirits they'll be all dead in no time...

*note: i copied and pasted this frm another thread

[RollingWave]

Very nicely done ace though I think the fact that u got 2 LS drop helped you a ton :P

After watching a few of ur games though a little bit of general suggestion...
1. you sometimes forget items... u forgot 2 itmes in tthat gnollwood game.... a mental of intel and a potion of invul... I don't think you didn't pick them up on purpose :P

2.I notice you sometimes use a little too many hero skilsl while creeping it seems... forexample in ur other game I"m pretty damn suer I saw you use wolf/cl AND sw to creep one of those 3 gnoll orange camps on twisted while you had units too -_-..... that my friend is overkill... you really need those mana in battle... being cought in the open with no mana hero is not a good thing.... I generally just use wolf or sometimes even use my hero to tank when I have salve.... that tend to mean i'll have higher mana hero.. (espically TC... dude tc have like 2 shockwave with full mana and u use them to creep ????)

[Ace_Balasador]

oooops! im sorry, sometimes i micro and macro things that i forget things... abt the CL and SW combo, i just tryu to end things far quicker than without the 2, the reason is that both players spawned at my immediate side so anytime he can push my base so the soon i kill the creeps the better... also, i have enough funds to buy myself mana pot and a clarity... ^_^

and yeah, those 2 LS drops REALLY made the difference...

[Ace_Balasador]

THE FILTHY ELVES ARE SPYING ON US!!!
http://wcreplays.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12082

but it's ok, good thing they'll put up some kind of resistance for our godly and gosu strats! :LOL:

[Mr.mOO]

hehe i suggested the only resistance i know how to that strat. I wonder if ill come up against it :)

[RollingWave]

Here's another one, back to the basics of the most epic enduring struggle or the warcraft series ... HUMAN AND ORCS!!!!! :P

http://www.wcreplays.com/pub_replays.php?get=3046

This dude was on a new account 5/1 dunno what he's real lvl is... he made one creeping mistake but apparently he have some decent enough combat micro.

Back down to the basics of how to play against a standard OvH game, (and it doesn't get anymore standard than turtle rock :P ) many orc (espically lower-mid lvls) complain massively about the ole rifle/caster AM/MK strat, this is a basic break down of how to do fight someone attempting this strat. (first part is game discription so skip that if u watched the game already and start from after the seperating line)

This was a cross map start on turtle, I started on the 10 o clock and he started on the 4 o clock position, BO is altar/burrow/rax/burrow whenever possible... then get to 20 food with 1 hero 1 grunt and 12 peon (5 gold 7 wood obviously) I sent the first peon back on wood to scout my next door (before FS came out) and seeing that it's not where he started I immediately head across the map with my FS and 1 grunt... summon wolf along the way (I grouped FS and grunt in 1 and wolf in 2) and sent them in different direction.

I cought his AM finishing up the green turtles outside his door with my FS and killed the almost dead water elemental (check the exp.. it gives lvl 1 hero A LOT of exp for killign water elemental) while sending my wolfs back from the other side and into his base while I lured his footie/am out a bit away from his base... he cought on a bit late and I killed 2 of his peasents and backed off ... I then came back 2 more times (I think it was 2 or was it 3) in basically the same fashion... wolf go after peasents while fs/grunt lure their footie/am (and try to kill footie if u can) all and all I ended up killed 3 peasents 1 tower under construction and and footie while losing nothing, see how we both hit lvl 2 by the time I stopped but he creeped while I havn't and he lost stuff while I didn't.

At t2 I got a TC (wave/aura/wave/aura/wave)and a lodge , then get pults and shaman, while ur shamans and pults are comming up (will take a bit usually as in this game) creep up ur hero and build extra burrow (50-60 food) , once you get a couple of pults and shaman (u need at least 2 shaman... 3-4 will be even better but 2 is adequet) I head out and look for him...

He came to the shop I just creep so I saw him (and he saw me too as I snuck close behind him) and we fought, notice he had a very small army compare to me, he made the right choice to ff one pult and then get out with tp...

So I head for his base and he got a MK up with his rifle and a sorceress, the insueing fight I pushed too much and he flanked me with milita (very very smart move on his part... I was almost totally surronded by the mass milita and lost 2 grunt to them, he also had nice slow/bolt/ff during this fight) I probalby didn't have to tp there but I was afraid he bolt my FS so I did.

But by this time I already got close to T3 and I was able to replace my army at a much more rapid pace, I got beserker shaman master and flaming oil upgrades and got a tauren out with pulverize so now I head over once again, fighting the final fight outside his base, he was gged to the max as I almost lost nothign while he lost everything. :flex:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some more insight to why and how I did some of the things.

harrase: why harrase? this is a part very overlooked by most low lvl orc player in this match up... and you see them try to creep ... but you almost always SHOULD harrase against a human, why? first of all you will have a hard time matching their creeping speed espically if human knows how to milita creep and even worse goes fast expo. and second human are very very weak against orc harrase for the most part in terms of equal skill. even good human players will often lose a peasent or 2 to a mediocare orc player harrase.

Key to harrase: while i'm sure there are many different approach to this, my own is basically seperating my wolfs and my fs/grunts into 2 groups, the wolfs prioirty are peasents building stuff/wood peasents or buildings under construction/gold peasents in that particular order, the reason is two fold, one is obviously how easy they are to kill and the second is how much it will effect them in getting t2 stuff and rifles up.

building peasents are obviously easiest to kill since they stand there... and having a late blacksmith or keep hitting the food cap etc are all very bad for the human player so obviously this is top prioirty, next comes wood peasents or buidlings under construction... usually I go for towers (only those that havn't finish upgrade) then if he have farms/shop that just started I will try to kill those too (but sometimes with grunt/fs depend on where it is) then wood peasents ... wood peasents don't move as much as gold so they are easier to kill and wood is usually more crucial for them to get second hero/arcane sanctum/t3.

During all this ur FS/grunt's main mission should be decoy and escort for the suicidal wolfs (note if ur wolf is almsot dead and u can resummon do it it's usually good unless they are almost killing somehting) see how I lured his footies and AM out a bit from his base during my first harrase and he went back too late and lost 2 peasents... then I ffed his footies when I had the chance and caused him to be indecisive as to fight me or kill the wolfs first. but realize that although grunts are more beefy than footie... in general you should still avoid a strait up fight at this stage because he will have WE support while ur wolf is usually out harrasing. if he is no where around his base than try to kill his shop/tower/farm depend on which is easier and safer to do.

Some important hints... 1. DO NOT charge ur grunts/fs deep into his base... ur just asking to get owned by the mass milita this way. only charge the exapndable wolfs...
2. you should stop when you see him hitting t2 and starting to get second hero... a MK can really put a fast end to ur harrase.

Why get TC second? : well there are several reasons... and there are a couple of other possible hero choices (SH/naga are common... i've fooled around with DR too and I belive panda is more commmon now) in general most ppl agree if they are going for the standard stuff a TC would be best, shock wave combined with chain lighting espically at higher lvl can take a huge chunk out of their army right off the bat (while ur hitting them with pulverize/ls/flaming oil too...) and TC's aura offer some half decent relieve to slow. he will be taking more damage though so I usually keep most of the heal/buffs on him. usually my chain/wave prioirty would be footies/casters/rifles as footies tend to go down the fastest (espically since ur wacking on them too) and then caster... rifle tend to be quiest durable unless u have high lvl chain/wave.

Why get Shaman: the second crucial element new orc player miss in OvH is the shaman, they pretty much have anti-human labled all over them. their 3 spells are

purge: themain and most basic use of a shaman vs human is purge, purging the water elementals (espically the higher lvl once) are a huge advantage as they suddenly lose a massive tank and huge peircing power while u get instant experience points. purge can also be used in other matters as stopping fleeing units/heros and or puring ur slowed units when ur trying to run away.

Lightening Shield:the second spell lighting shield is arguablly the most unique spell in this game in the sense that it takes a bit to use well but have many different use if u know how to use it... but I won't get into this much as i'm not one of those who can use it very well... I usually just try to LS my TC (since it's big and thus more units will be hit by the spell) a whole guide can be written purely on how to use this skill so I won't go any deeper (and I can't execute much deeper either :P)

blood lust the final and most powerful spell of the orc in white is the powerful bllodlust, it adds extremely to ur army's attack power and if left unchecked is almost always a game over spell right there, but that is the key here... IF.... a orc player should be VERY careful about lust when facing a human player.... if he have more than a couple of spell breakers blood lust would usually spell ur doom way faster than it spell his. one must remember to ALWAYS turn off auto lust until ur sure he's either got no breaker or no breaker left standing before you turn on the blood lust.

As shown in my game in the final fight, I had auto lust off until I saw he only have 1 spell breaker while I had a huge army and 4 shaman, so I let the lust break loose while ffing his breaker immediately, the following fight he didn't even come close to killing anything before his entire army was down.

Conclusion: Key to OvH, Harrase, chain/wave and shaman.

Hope you enjoy this rather looooong guide for a rather short replay :rofl:

[Bobo_XIII]

Very, very nice Rolling. That guide helped me, especially with the whole thing about Shaman.

Lately I've been straying away from shaman and have been using raiders. I've been using them for mostly base raiding and (attempted) creepjacking, and because of my paranoia of human air. But they flat out suck against human when in straight-up combat. Your shaman reasoning reinforced their purpose in this match-up to me, and now I think I'll start using them again...

[RollingWave]

:) ty though ur a better orc player than me anyway kekeke :P

Still though I've seen some rep of raider vs human, I'm not very convinced it works well.... if the human is obviously going air or going for a strait tech in general they might be worth it but other wise mass footies and espically later on the knights wipe them out fast... (not to meantion clap pwns low hp melee units like raiders pretty badly even without the slow...) I guess if ur really good with ensare focus they could work ok but pults would pretty much do the same and even better and human can't really do that much hit and runs.

Here raise the big question though.... how to beat human air:/ or other rare but extremely annoying human strat such as strait teching to air/invisible mortar/tanks etc.... personally... if he is going footies with/without rifles to air with the normal AM/MK combo... personally I think you should still do rax/lodge and go mass lusted zerkers... and then maybe try to get some raiders afterwards.... (or master docs )

If you go harrase and see him strait teching... I would almost always stop producing any grunts after 3.... because whatever he's gonna get grunts probably won't help much...(unless he does a even weirder late rax.... which i've never seen anyway) he probably try to blizzard harrase you so you should creep near ur base and fight off his AM whever he trys that..... at t2 get a beastery first and mass raiders with hh later zerker is probably the best... there are 2 most common strait tech... first is strait air... in which case you could try mass wyv/bats with dark ranger or raider... or just raider and hh:/... nither works incrediablly well though once they get a serious mass... so I really suggest just raider/hh and a couple of pults to make sure they have to face ur hh in a strait fight... but the blizzard on ur hh will be annoying :/

[RollingWave]

http://www.wcreplays.com/pub_replays.php?get=3092
lol ok... well I used mass raider vs human this game..... cause he wasn't going for the standard strat... i've seen these type of strat a few times and it is VERY VERY annoying to say the least and losing to it will make you really feel like tillerman's what can i dewwwww....???

2 river OvH, I was already going oh... **** when I saw his lone AM meeting my fs on the bridge.... I knew what was up... and I tagged my fs/grutn behind his AM while senidng a couple of wolfs down ... and not surprisingly he got a guard tower and no rax adn strait teching.....

Usually... when a human do this he could be going for one of a few things... it turns out this dude went late rax and ended up with mortar/casters/rifle/knight/TANKS, why tanks??? hit and run annoyance on ur base... you can be REALLY screwed by that if you don't watch it ... (like getting cought without TP and/or raider/pults....) I tried to tower him at the start because I thought he might be going air... in which case the tower rush would be very helpful.... turned out I was wrong:/

Notice I intentionally fast expoed (normally no one expo that early as orc... though I forgot to get more peon there for while) cause I know whatever he is going he's not going to get enough of it to stop my expo...

I got a lodge cause again whatever it is it'll probably involve some hit and runs and raiders will prove very good against that... and turned out they saved the day in against the tanks and really everything else.....

I ended up going SH second for ward/heal... ward as a precaution in case he goes air:/ (damn I took so many precaution against air and he didn't go for it :P) and a unit combo of raider/zerkers/ mass pults (had 7 in the end lol!!!) but this was still a long slug fest (partially due to tank harrase and my poor posittioning in a couple of battles... but see how the expo really paid off as I was able to replace things much faster than him and pretty much had huge money most of the game )

Seriously though... if you suspect he is getting tanks ... GET RAIDERS AND PULTS... ALWAYS TP IF HE SHOWS UP AT UR BASE WITH TANKS!!!... much cheaper to tp and kill tanks than let the tanks own half ur base before killing it... and withotu raider pults even if u do tp they'll still own half ur base before u kill it XD

These kinda strat tech strats can really really be a spin off to normal OvH.... watch if u want to see how to really adept to the situation when they do unexpected things.

[nogatsira]

good job ur doing there rollingwave! keep up the good work to help some orcish players

[Ownsyou]

Did anyone watch my reps? The first one is definitely worth the watch even if you don't approve of the strat.

[Raven.Icon]

yea in orc vs hu battles, orc always has to harasss in order to win. Also the harass must be effective as well. This is to slow down hu teching by hurting thier rescoures, keep the am at low levels, since a level 3/4 am is actaully quite more power then ur fs or tc is. Reason why is becuz the brillance aura and multiple we's can really give hu a edge, especialy when thier 2nd heros are able to cast more spells (bolt) and therfore become more dangerous. a level 2 mk is way more dangerous then a level 2 tc. Usually when ur tc is level 1 or 2 is when ur gonna fight ur first major battle. and the bolt is gonna kill ur tc unless u have items to stop them from taking advantage of a low level melee hero. Also mk has brillance aura which makes him quite deadly even at low levels.

[Raven.Icon]

Very, very nice Rolling. That guide helped me, especially with the whole thing about Shaman.

Lately I've been straying away from shaman and have been using raiders. I've been using them for mostly base raiding and (attempted) creepjacking, and because of my paranoia of human air. But they flat out suck against human when in straight-up combat. Your shaman reasoning reinforced their purpose in this match-up to me, and now I think I'll start using them again...


Bobo, in order to master orc, u need to master shamans, shamans are ur key casters and also alot of counters/strats depend on them. Raiders r only useful in certain situations or vs a certain race. shamans are good in every race match ups, also shamans are prob one of the most flexible caster there is.

[Bobo_XIII]

Raiders are pretty useful against all matches except vs Human. I think I'll stick with them except against hu :O

[Dot_Com]

Bobo, in order to master orc, u need to master shamans, shamans are ur key casters and also alot of counters/strats depend on them. Raiders r only useful in certain situations or vs a certain race. shamans are good in every race match ups, also shamans are prob one of the most flexible caster there is.


i agree... lately ive been spamming purge like its going out of style... particularily against UD...

I played this one UD on saturday where after he had lost the battle and tried to run he left three fiends behind (purge, ensnare, hex) followed by immediate offensive towering... gg... shamen made that game... lightening shield his necs, and purge his fiends... and hex heros... and the blademan had a field day...

[nogatsira]

You know, I was thinking ...
Since harras is such an important thing to master as an Orcish Warlord, why not make something like microwars, but instead, something to practise harras with.
I dont know if this is possible at all but it would be ab-so-lu-te-ly-frea-king-cool

and if you manage to kill lets say 3 peons or so, u advance to the next lvl :p

[Dot_Com]

that doesnt sound bad at all... all of a sudden everyones micro would be bettter:)

[RollingWave]

I think it would be hard for the AI to mimike actural human player behaviors though... its really often more about out smarting him than out microing him (really... how hard is it to micro when both side only have around 5-6 units -_- and most of those are the same type of unit too not like 3-4 different type of units)

[NIGHT_echoes]

OvH the key is to harass. but what about a straight forward battle?(how to control ur units)
Just bring those slowed grunts against fast moving rifle dance?It's like a turtle chasing a rabbit. FF+Clap on grunts sure is annoying.I need help here..(the human player don't run away with his army,he just bring ONE rifle who is been focused to the back and repeat with the following front)

[ANewHope]

Hey OwnsYou

Have you tried towering elf with the shadow hunter?

If the map is small enough, or if I just feel like plain towering lol.

I literally send 4 peons to his base and ward spam and use my 4 grunts to hold the elf army off while 4 towers go up.

Why go late game when you can beat the elf in 6 minutes?

[Dot_Com]

i have done this before... although it works even better if in a 2v2 your ally is UD, and he gets early shop and a rod of nec... wards, skelingtons, coil, and towers...

[RollingWave]

Anewhope: because if they go warden/dh they'll pwn ur SH before you even get a chance to tower and early game hunts>>>>>> grunts by far?? not to meantion if ur towering in T1 u'll lack seige while he have the option to (though a rather poor one) to pull out siege .

Night: you are discribing the biggest advantage of the rifle/caster vs orc... and honestly I pertty much give up microing grunts during these fights for the most part... ur not gonna micro them to much effect when they are slowed/clapped.... try to pulveize their casters fast with pults and chain wave LS like hell..... right before the fight or as the fight start popping a speed scroll and charge in ur grunts is pretty much the only real micro you can do here for them.... then you can only hope the human player have sucky micro or panics or take too much damage from the AOEs.

[Ownsyou]

Anewhope,

I've seen people try that before but I've never actually seen it work. Warden or DH cripples SH and hunts beat grunts. If you have a replay of that actually working though, I'd like to watch it.

[Nafaltar]

Night: you are discribing the biggest advantage of the rifle/caster vs orc... and honestly I pertty much give up microing grunts during these fights for the most part... ur not gonna micro them to much effect when they are slowed/clapped.... try to pulveize their casters fast with pults and chain wave LS like hell..... right before the fight or as the fight start popping a speed scroll and charge in ur grunts is pretty much the only real micro you can do here for them.... then you can only hope the human player have sucky micro or panics or take too much damage from the AOEs.

Only thing I might want to add is SpeedScrolls: dont burn your Speedscroll in the beginning if you only have one (best would be 3), if you have 2 Burn one right at the start and simply Move into the ennemy then start attack. Your remaining Speedscroll is for hero surrounds, this actually works quite often since it is rather unexpected for the HU to suddenly get surrounded by a slowed army. A third Scroll would be handy for running if you dont want to burn a TP and arent all that far away from you base.

IMHO it also helps to switch to Raiderpult (the Demolishers do the most damage even in Gruntapult so you wont miss their superior damage output all that much) as Raiders are a) faster b) have Ensnare for Hero kills and stopping the ennemy from running from your smalll Army and c) they take less damage from Riflemen.

Nafaltar

[foxstoneeety]

wow,... pity im not an orc if people like you were in the ne forums then I wouldnt want to change race back to my old race orc....
anyway gl with you ppl now you know how to do it now you have to do it and for all people looking at the replays they will have to micro like you guys too :D

[Bobo_XIII]

Guess I'll contribute to the thread :P

I'm going to be gone for the next two weeks (leaving in an hour or so), so I figured I'd get my fill of War3, because even though I'm bringing it along with me on the laptop (mostly for screwing around with stuff and watching replays) I doubt I'll be playing online much, if at all.

So I'm searching for a game. 'Lo and behold, a level 45! And an Undead, at that! Yay, Undead destroyers up the ass! Too bad the guy is a mostly Human player, though; his Undead isn't exactly the greatest (his UD record is 100-80 or something like that -_-). Nonetheless, he's a level 45 and I'll look better posting a win vs a person so high up in the ladder :P.

Here's the rep:
http://www.wcreplays.com/pub_replays.php?get=3189

Anyway, onto the game. As with every Undead these days, he goes for the ghoulfasttechuptheassmassdestroyer strat. I go with the standard Seer (wait 'til I get back; I'll be owning it up with the Blademaster :O) with a barracks for some early creeping. He comes to try to harrass with his Death Knight (it was pretty pathetic), so now I'm positive he's going for the destroyer strat. I decide to head on down towards his base to try to steal creeps, creepjack some ghouls, whatever.

He isn't creeping, so I do the honors. Instead, he decides to head for my base but spots a grunt. Luckily, he can't surround to save his mother's life, so my grunt escapes death. He starts to follow it and I try to lure him to his expansion creeps so I can finish what I'm doing and try to get him from behind (ProtectYouRear?). However, he decides to leave that grunt alone and creep where I happen to be creeping. I bring the grunt back and we clash.

Unfortunately, that grunt that escaped last time wasn't so lucky this time :(. He actually gets surrounded, though after watching the replay it looks like I could have ran him out. Oh well. As the ghouls pound on the poor guy, my army pounds on the Death Knight, actually forcing a TP.

I decide to try to steal his expansion creeps. Ok, I really gotta finish this up because I gotta finish getting packed :O. Some more fighting ensues, his DK is killed. I creep the golem camp and nab a scroll of healing. I creep a little more, regroup, buy a scroll of protection and another scroll of healing. By now, he's got his statues out and Destroyer form researched. Oh dear! I come towards his base to see what's going on, and three statues are heading straight to me. Right about then does the battle start.

The whole purpose of buying the scrolls was because I know that the splash damage from the destroyers was going to rape me, so I tried to keep my grunts in battle as long as possible. Blah blah blah, yada yada yada fighting continues. I manage to surround his Death Knight and his Invul Pot goes off. I didn't have hold position, so he actually hit one of the raiders away, which could have let him escape, but I guess he wasn't looking because he just sat there -_-. I bring the raider back and this time I hold position. Good game.

There ya go :). The guy didn't play as good as other Undead players I've faced, but he was decent I guess. He needs to work on his Destroyer abuse ><

[Riv[GoD]]

Well...i'm probably the biggest newb who is actually submitting a replay on this thread but whatever. Anyways, I tried a new strat of going Shadow Hunter as 1st hero vs Nightelf for the wards. Because almost all the NE units are unarmored I figured some wards could help turn the tide in some battles. As you can see from the replay, the wards were the difference in many of the battles early on. Hex helps me get a few hero kills as well as fleeing unit kills as well. I think this strat is only viable on a big map like LT because it relies on creeping alot to level your SH pretty fast so you get tier 2 and 3 wards.

Orc Vs NE (SH/TC vs Kotg/DH) (http://www.wcreplays.com/pub_replays.php?get=3283&lc=true)

[Death]O_O[Eyes]

Only thing I might want to add is SpeedScrolls: dont burn your Speedscroll in the beginning if you only have one (best would be 3), if you have 2 Burn one right at the start and simply Move into the ennemy then start attack. Your remaining Speedscroll is for hero surrounds, this actually works quite often since it is rather unexpected for the HU to suddenly get surrounded by a slowed army. A third Scroll would be handy for running if you dont want to burn a TP and arent all that far away from you base.

IMHO it also helps to switch to Raiderpult (the Demolishers do the most damage even in Gruntapult so you wont miss their superior damage output all that much) as Raiders are a) faster b) have Ensnare for Hero kills and stopping the ennemy from running from your smalll Army and c) they take less damage from Riflemen.

Nafaltar

But getting raiders = no shamen, and no shamen = gg orc.

[Nafaltar]

Yes Shamans are great but you dont need them to win. Especially not vs Rifle/Casters, i take Raiders over Shamans any day when faced with that frequent HU combo. To a degree this is based on my using BM which normally results in a not to high lvl Archmage. Thus I dont have to worry so much about purging WEs.

Also Raider/Pult makes for fast building takedowns. I've quite frequently managed to kill of a Townhall vs average players before they TPd (and vs good players on Two Rivers with Sappers+Raider/Pult).
Just remember to stop repairing Woorkers by using Ensnare.

Nafaltar

[Death]O_O[Eyes]

Blade vs any decent human is like asking to get smacked.. same with not going shamen, you simply won't have the AoE. In OvH, ensnare is more or less useless, as your units have almost nil manuverabilty with slow/clap. Straight gruntapult vs pure rifle/caster will always result in human vistory, which is why you need shamen. LS and chain/wave are THE things which really turn things in favor of the orc, and it is VERY hard to win vs someone of decent skill without them.

[RollingWave]

Naf... I havn't seen many convincing replay of orc using no shaman and raiders to beat a good standard am/mk rifle/caster strat....... but I would not say that it can't work... because many strat can work just that it takes ppl to actrually figure it out....

It iS possible to go both shaman and raiders.... but you would have to sacrifice building demolishers if you want to get it at a reasonable speed.... while speaking for myself I would find microing both shaman and raiders is a pain in the ........

I have hear recently from some good human players that a dual rax gruntapult tower rush (anti ne strat) can work extremely well against human too....

[Bluebamboom]

this is just a bit of therocraft i thought up, but what can a ne do vs a orc who goes grunts and batriders?

i dont mean the liquid fire bats that you use just to be annoying, like if you brought 6-7 bats ( there easy to mass) with you in a battle along with your standard grunts. when i used this an important thing is to upgrade the bats attack once before you start to fight with em. that makes thier attaks 14-18 which is alot more suitable for what im trying to use them for.

ive seen grunts and wyverns but the only problem is that wyverns are expensive and die to hippos. with bats and grunts it beats hunts because of bat attack, it beats archers because of grunts, it beats dryads because of a mix of grunts and bat rider ownage, and your opponent cant switch to air because you have all these bats!

the only thing i see beating this, is are bears, and a mix of hunts and archers. hunts and archers mainly because bats<archers without grunt support, and your grunts are to busy fighting the archers. if you try to ff the hunts with your bats that just gives the archers time to pick of your bats.

late game the bats would be good to stop expos and genneraly be pain in the ass to ne buildings ^^

once again this is just therocraft, and im not claiming this to work or nothing.

[Ownsyou]

Riv[God], I already posted a strat almost exactly like your ;)

Maybe you didn't see it so I guess I'll watch your replay then...

[Raven.Icon]

Only thing I might want to add is SpeedScrolls: dont burn your Speedscroll in the beginning if you only have one (best would be 3), if you have 2 Burn one right at the start and simply Move into the ennemy then start attack. Your remaining Speedscroll is for hero surrounds, this actually works quite often since it is rather unexpected for the HU to suddenly get surrounded by a slowed army. A third Scroll would be handy for running if you dont want to burn a TP and arent all that far away from you base.

IMHO it also helps to switch to Raiderpult (the Demolishers do the most damage even in Gruntapult so you wont miss their superior damage output all that much) as Raiders are a) faster b) have Ensnare for Hero kills and stopping the ennemy from running from your smalll Army and c) they take less damage from Riflemen.

Nafaltar



I disagree w/ u strongly, VS hu I burn a speed scorll right away, becuz ur melee, ur army has to be right next to the enemy to hit them, also melee set up takes a little time, dont let them get shots on u, SPEED INTO POSITION. Ur speeding into positoin+ reg speed scorll benefit. If ur already fighting and then u speed scroll, u dont get as much benefit cuz ur grunts are already positioned by thtat time, so ur really only getting the speed movment bonus.

Once slow takes place, i burn another speed scroll to help me move through slow. Also tyring to micro grunts to recycle is pretty hard vs hu. Its better to work on positioning and hero micro and good uses of scorlls of speed and other scrolls. Orc vs Hu can be best summed up as: Go for maximum damage, dont worry try to save grunts in a tier 2 battle, i only save grunts in tier 1 or early tier 2, but once hu gets rifles/caster going, its not worth ur time to save it. instead u should be concentrating on where their line is the weakest, or positioning ur tc better, etc.

[KoGs]

I thought I would contribute to this thread. My Orc vs. Orc strats (my favourite matchup). This is a collection of the couple games I had vs. orc since I started soloing. Some involve shamans + Tauren, some involve SH second hero, some naga second hero, a couple tower pushes, 0and mostly grunt raiders. The first couple are for 1.15 and the last couple are 1.403. You can tell which are which by the dates in the front. http://members.shaw.ca/KingofGods/kogsorcvsorc.zip

I have only lost 1 Orc vs. Orc match since I started soloing a couple days ago, and that was against grubby :). Or so he claims. With the incredible micro I believe him.

Behold my < 70 apm.

[RollingWave]

A more clear description would be appriecated KOG.....

[Panda]

Here is a new Orc vs Orc strategy I have been using on the beta server (Not that the beta patch favors it, just that for some reason I'm willing to try new stuff on a beta server). In a nutshell the strategy is defensive in general, and I try to aim for a tri-hero grunt/hh/doc/tauren combo. I know that may sound like a ton of units and I'm just asking for a tower rush, but this how I find it especially effective on twisted meadows. (Also note that my opponent probably has better micro than me, which could vouch for my strat ;-))

Base Structure
Notice how my base structure is kinda weird. I picked it up from some gosu awhile back. You will see that it kinda just goes off on a horizontal line from the left of my town hall. This is only really effective in Twisted Meadows. Why? Because despite the space behind the buildings being 'open,' it actually is extremely well defended. Notice that to reach my peons, my opponent must go through a very narrow entrance between two copse of trees as well as a hill, thus making it almost suicidal to attack from there unless you have a huge advantage. If you attack from the north, my buildings are all in perfect position to protect my burrows and it becomes a shooting gallery.

Early Game
I like to creep one green camp and then send in my wolf scouts. This was a mistake on my part for this game as my opponent was semi-quick teching. Had I scouted from the get-go perhaps I could have done some damage since he had a late rax.

Mid Game
I put up the spirit lodge and train a Tauren Chieftain. I prefer the Tauren Chieftain because of his resilience, AoE, and Endurance Aura. I do not choose a Shadow Hunter for this strat because this is a 'defensive' strategy, and a Tauren Chieftain is more deadly at high levels than a Shadow Hunter. Also Hex is more for 'picking off' units, and the Chieftain is better suited for big conclusive battles. I do not choose the panda because I felt the endurance aura of the TC was too good to pass up, especially when I was trying to assemble a large army.

Later on I get a SH as a third hero. The SH is an ideal third hero because wheras a level 1 TC/FS/BM/Naga isn't very valuable (late game), a level 1 SH can make a HUGE impact. He can basically take three units out of a battle AND set you up for a hero kill or pick off retreating units.

Late Game
You will notice I have chosen to get HH instead of additional grunts or demos. This is because grunts are being phased out in favor of tauren, and demos do splash damage wheras HH do focus fire. The nature of an orc army is beefy units with high HP, therefore splash damage doesn't help you as much as focus fire in this matchup. The fact that HH do additional damage to kodos (the counter to my tauren) is gravy :-)

I know that the last battle was closer than some of you may have wanted, I have more one-sided victories (Not that I have many. I have below .500 record in Westfall T_T) with this strategy, but I felt this replay would be more amusing to watch :-P

hope this helps
http://www.wcreplays.com/pub_replays.php?get=3339

[KoGs]

Well ok by request I will expand on the orc vs. orc strat. I did by no means invent this, I don't think anyone invented it, but it is widely used nonetheless. This is grunt + raiders.

Ensnare for Raiders
Before we get into the purpose of raiders I cannot stress the importance of ensnare. If you are gonna get raiders, ALWAYS get the ensnare upgrade, especially in orc vs. orc. This is because grunts abosultely rape raiders. Grunts do more damage than raiders, grunts have more hp than raiders, and grunts do extra damage against raiders. Conclusion: Grunts rape raiders.

Purpose of Raiders
Well if grunts rape raiders why build them in orc vs. orc ?? There are basically 2 main reasons for raiders in this matchup. 1) Ensnaring weak or fleeing units and 2) Keeping your opponents units away from the battle. You could also put in ensnaring opponent hero so you can surround. But that works for all races, not just orc vs. orc. I shall go into a bit more detail about the purpose of raiders.[p]

1)In case you haven't noticed, your grunts are not special. They are not any different from your opponents grunts. Grubbys grunts do not run faster than your grunts. So if your grunts are just as slow (yes grunts are slow lol) as your opponents grunts, how are you ever going to chase one down?? This is where ensnare comes in. Ensnare has a great range, especially for a melee unit. On a regular unit (non-hero) it has a duration
of 15 seconds and a cooldown of 12 seconds. So theoretically you could keep a unit ensnared for as long as you wish or as long as the raider is alive. Also you can ensnare a unit while it is still ensnared so the 15 seconds resets. It doesn't even have to be the same raider doing it. Ensnare is perfect compliment to your grunts because grunts are so slow.

2) Second reason for Ensare: keeping opponents out of battle. Let us assume for a second that you and your opponent both have 5 grunts getting ready to rumble. Now if you and your opponent have about equal micro the battle should end in a draw. What if you have 5 grunts and your opponent only has 3 ?? Again assuming equal micro you with your 5 grunts
should beat your opponent with 3 grunts every single time. This is where you can use your raiders ensnare to tilt a matchup in your favour. BEFORE you engage in a big fight have your raiders ensnare the grunts that are in the BACK. What difference does it make you say?? Well it's very simple. Ensnare is NOT equivalent to entangling roots. Entangling roots completely renders a unit usless (for the duration of the entangling roots). While ensnare does stop a unit from moving, it does not however stop a
unit from fighting. It does not in no way slow down the attack speed of the unit ensnared. This is the reason you ensnare the grunts in the back. As you know grunts are melee, so if nothing is beside them they have nothing to hit. So if you ensnare the back grunts they are unable to join the fight with their comrades that are in front. So obviously the more grunts in the back that you ensnare the better. Oh I should say that Kodo beasts (another common unit in orc vs orc matchups) should take priority when ensnaring. Again you should always ensnare them when they are still in the back. This is of course because devour is a melee attack type. So than his kodo beast cannot get to the front line to devour one of your units. I am sure I do not have to tell you how much NOT getting devoured helps you out. If you don't understand, I suggest you read up on Kodo beasts on the manual guide, more specifically his devour ability. Many times when I go up against a fellow raider user he/she will ensnare my grunts after they are already in the front line engaging a battle with another grunt or raider. That's cute, but my grunt is still fighting at 100%, so what is the use of that ensnare?? The only time you should ensnare a front line grunt is when u see he is low on hp and about to be microed away and you can finish it off before it flees. Killing units is a good thing, don't let anyone fool you. So anyways yeah, this is how you make a 5 vs 5 grunt matchup turn into a 5 vs 3 matchup in your favour. They still physically have 5 grunts, but 2 will be ensnared in the back and unable to fight.

Ok now for hero choices. I like far seer for first hero. For its excellent scouting, harassing, and the fact that it is range. Why is range so important in this matchup?? Quite simply because your own grunts and raiders are melee. In a fight of grunts/raiders vs. grunts/raiders there isn't going to be a whole lot of focus firing going on. when you get a grunt to 10 hp and don't want to give up your front line positioning to chase it down just get your ranged hero to shoot it down.

Some people like the blademaster for his hero sniping ability. One problem with the blademaster in this matchup though (among other problems) is that the blademaster is a melee unit. And you have ensnare. Remember ensnared melee fighters have to have something right beside them to fight. Especially since the blademaster has no aoe spells that are ranged or anything like that. So there are a couple ways you can deal with a blademaster. No matter what you do though, get dust of apparence and always keep the blademaster ensnared. He cannot wind walk out of ensnare.

Since the blademaster has to come into the front to do any sort of damage he is putting himself in harms way. For a unit that doesn't have much hp, he is always in danger. So you could ensnare it, surround it and kill it off. Or you can ensnare it, and just move your units away from it so he has nothing to cut. And then focus on the rest of his army.

Naga or Shadown hunter. Great 2nd hero, but not so great first hero. Reason: no wolfs to tank while creeping, and no wolfs to scout. Why the Naga works, frost arrows to slow down his grunts movement speed and attack speed and fork lightning is excellent. Especially alongside chain lightning. Also ranged hero like the far seer. Why shadow hunter?? Serpent wards and healing wave. Serpent wards have enough hp that they won't be taken down in one hit, and the grunts are not likely gonna focus fire on them, especially if u put them in the back of your forces. Since there is not much focus firing, multiple units are gonna take damage. Which healing wave is good for. Also ranged hero like the far seer.Scroll of healing is great in this matchup. I have seen ppl use Tauren 2nd hero in this matchup, I have no comment about it. As I haven't used it much in this matchup. [p]

General Tips
Use the alt key a lot. Send your weak grunts home and look to finish off your opponents weak unit. Try and get a scroll of protection and scroll of healing if you can afford it. Upgrades, upgrades, upgrades. Do not underestimate upgrades.
here are some examples http://members.shaw.ca/KingofGods/kogsorcvsorc.zip

[ILL FATE]

Dark Ranger and Mass Air then adapt to what is being done.

I use this strat versus Night Elf players because their ground AA is very weak and falls very fast to FF of Wyvern. With Dark Ranger FF with the wyvern it usually takes only 1 volley to kill a archer or dott or dryad. Any how 2 of those units (Archer/dott) become skeletons. So basically you are creating a ground based army off their deaths which in return is helping you kill the archers. So its very easy to kill there archers. If they are to get hippos or you expect them you simply get some bats.

Beginning
Basically you start with a normal Tavern hero build getting grunts and then tech up. So you can get the Wyvern. Power Creep with Dark Ranger.

Mid game you start adding the wyvern and should have a nice army of wyvern and grunts. Adding whatever else you may want. Tech up to Tier 3 as soon as possible because Posion with Wyvern is a must.

Late game your choice of mix if you need to mix up more.

DarkRanger comes in real handy during the late game Silence is a very good spell at level 2 or 3 even level 1 vs units. But the best thing about her has to be her ultimate charm the cool is very fast so you can steal things and run off. We all know NE loves to make chims or MG's well with DR you can have your way with there units. While your own are there to Back up your newly added Chim or MG.

Replay
http://www.wcreplays.com/pub_replays.php?get=3358

[Aramis]

I disagree that the blademaster is useless vs humans, at least up to 20 level before 1.15. Just don't make him 1st and don't use wind walk but mirror image. He, with the aid of wolves, can incapacitate the mk pretty fast with his critical strike.

[KoGs]

give us replay or else don't make any claims plz.

[PartisanRanger]

Yes Shamans are great but you dont need them to win. Especially not vs Rifle/Casters, i take Raiders over Shamans any day when faced with that frequent HU combo.
Nafaltar
How are you winning games? In my experience rifles rip through raiders before they can make much of an impact, and I think shaman are 100% more effective in Orc vs HU. I mean, its skills work so well vs HU. Purge is great for picking off fleeing units (basically the point of ensnare anyway, right?) and disspelling WE's, LS is great for peasant harass or for putting on your TC or tauren, and Bloodlust just rapes, 'nuff said.

[AbandonAllHope]

Ive just tried out an tactic which Raven.icon(?) posted...that works very well..i got no replays but i think its easy to tell u how it worked..
First get the standard BO alter,burrow,rax...
then get 1-2 grunts research PILLAGE at ur townhall make a FS (BM if ure up against NE) and harass his wells/farms/zigs/burrows and just harass as much as u can by the time u tech to raiders..get ensnare and ensnare as much as u can and hit his base and by this "harass" u can gain a BIG and i mean BIG resource advantage...its very and VERY usefull..


PS: This havent been tried out in solo or "high" level games... but i beat lvl 12 HU and lvl 24 NE with my orc allie we both did this with BM we were lvl 12 and lvl 16

very good tactic if u play aggressive

[RollingWave]

I saw a custom game on westfall the other day where the orc went grunt/shaman/raider... that was really effective the way he pulled it...... perhapas that could work.... but i'm nto too sure though... microing both raider and shaman is rather painful...

[Nafaltar]

How are you winning games? In my experience rifles rip through raiders before they can make much of an impact, and I think shaman are 100% more effective in Orc vs HU. I mean, its skills work so well vs HU. Purge is great for picking off fleeing units (basically the point of ensnare anyway, right?) and disspelling WE's, LS is great for peasant harass or for putting on your TC or tauren, and Bloodlust just rapes, 'nuff said.

Raiders are faster than Shamans making them better for catching fleeing units also it lasts longer which helps with both Catas(to counter casters) and preventing running. Ofcourse Purge is Great vs WE's and LS does deal tons of Damage, but with my hero focused strats its not of that much use since casting it on own units during battle can doesnt change much since the ennemy will simply move away from Grunts (slow). And a TC does die fast unless he has a high lvl.
Raiders last about as long vs Rifles as Grunts do but Raiders have better chances off escaping (although I seldom have a good enough Ping to pull this of in reality) also they have lower build Time. But more importantly my Barracks will be busy producing Demolishers not Grunts (probably even more so once we get 1.16).

Its actually more about the Demolishers anyway (for me). They wont get slowed by the Sorcs due to vastly superior range unless the Sorcs get microed which is rendered impossible by ensnare. Non slowed Demolishers kill Sorcs in a few secs and do good enough damage to Riflemen.

With FS/TC I believe you are almost certainly on the better track with Shamans however with my way of playing BM/Naga(or FS) Raiders can work just as well.

Nafaltar

[Bluebamboom]

shadow hunter first with serpent wards works very very well. i have dozens of replays of me winning going shadowhunter first but this is my the best one because it realy shows how much of an advantage wards give.

seriously, at one point i had no army and i just fought with my shadow hunter and wards. at level 3 a un disspelable summons that dose ruffly 40 damage a shot for 30 mana and short cool down seriously owns

http://www.wcreplays.com/pub_replays.php?get=3443

[Zythius]

It's also evident why early game Naga is a lot better than an SH in this matchup...


Have you played Panda as second? Drunken haze all the way!

I've been owning in mirror with FS+Panda vs FS+Naga.

[AbandonAllHope]

i like panda...i played a team game yesterday with panda first and drunken haze made me kill 2 wardens 3 times..with archers and haze its ownage

[Gosu_Orc]

In this replay i face off against a lvl 22 human myself being lvl 17. He goes am/rifle/casters. I go the standard fs harrass w/ grunts and wolves. I keep constant pressure on him killing as many peasants as possible. And if u watch i dont lose hardly any grunts. At tier2 i pick up a TC and throw up a spirit lodge. I get the berserker upgrade on grunts and keep the pressure on the human. I made about 7 grunts i think not sure how many but a good number. At tier3 i put up a tauren totem and got master training on the shamans and kept attacking. There r 2 things that need to be done to a human in order to win. That is keeping constant pressure on him and killing as many peons as possible. Once i got tauren it was basically over. I also add in a demo or too w/ burning oil to kill his casters. here is the replay.

[Gosu_Orc]

Hmmm. I already uploaded my replay in another thread and i dont no how to attach it again. If someone could tell me how to that would be great other wise it is in the "Improving my game thread" which i just started today.

[Andra]

I'd post up a replay of the strat I use for OvO but I'm just a newb :p

I go FS/SH, grunts early...tech after 2-3, creep/harass...get Beastiary and Lodge. I then get Wyverns and possibly Bats/Raiders depending on their army and Shams...stick at tier 2 for a while then go for Tauren/Lust/More Beastiary units if able/needed.

Here's a game where I decide to use that strat except use Blademaster (I prefer him on small maps for 1v1 :> )

Replay:

http://www.wcreplays.com/pub_replays.php?get=3500

I know, my micro is almost non-existent, I don't care...if I feel I need to micro, I will, but not vs that opponent :p

[Bluebamboom]

shadow hunter first with serpent wards works very very well. i have dozens of replays of me winning going shadowhunter first but this is my the best one because it realy shows how much of an advantage wards give.

seriously, at one point i had no army and i just fought with my shadow hunter and wards. at level 3 a un disspelable summons that dose ruffly 40 damage a shot for 30 mana and short cool down seriously owns

http://www.wcreplays.com/pub_replays.php?get=3443


heres another replays of me going sh first vs ne. once again wards totally gave me a big adavantage. it was shorty shaky in the beginning but level 2 wards was what started to put me on top

http://www.wcreplays.com/pub_replays.php?get=3540

[Raven.Icon]

HOW TO FIGHT MERC ABUSE BY NE (Macro is the most important, so if ud ont have time, read only that)
(on maps like twisted meadows)

Even w/ dual rax, its hella hard to beat dual merc abuse+dual aow. Also a key to winning these maps is not matching enemy by going dual rax. If u go dual rax, ur gonna lose or be even. The best and only is to 2 grunt fast tech+ merc abuse myself+ fast/early expo+fast, + depriving them of fast expo+merc units.

OK this is how i counter maps like twisted:

Get a burrow at the closest merc center, and go to 2nd merc center and recruit some mercs. usually ne that is merc abusing has wisp at both centers. Make sure u kill them, to slow down thier build up. Best thing u can do is 2 grunt fast tech all the way to tier 3 for taruens asap, while mixing ur army w/ grunts, mad mercs, shamans(if ur in tier 2). Dont waste time and money on pults, only mass regular units.

Also in merc abuse battles such as maps like twisted, who ever recruits teh fastest, has edge. Cuz each merc center has a cooldown period, before u can get the unit again. So timming is very critical. Every time u beat someone to get the mercs, ur not only adding to ur army, ur also depriving enemy of chance to get mercs, till the next cool down.


BATTLE:

Early game is all aobut hit and run on both sides, fast expoing, stopping enemey fast expo, and trying to slow each other down. Who ever makes a mistake can lose the game at this point. So playing well in early game is very critical in this match up.

Early battle, use priest to heal but most importantly, use teh abolish magic when facing a warden dagger harass or kotg entangle. Abolish magic is such a life saver. Also priest has a crappy healing spell, but still effective enough+ preist give u some range/piercing vs hunts, can be a big boost,

When u hit tier 2 and get beserker upgrade for ur grunts. That is the best time to go looking for a battle, till then, just fight guriella warfare.

MACRO: build one tower, if thier hit and running on ur burrows alot. Otherwise just keep focusing on getting merc units and grunts, while u get early fast expo. FAST EXPO is such a key to winning this map!!!!! The other KEY TO WINNING IS MERC ABUSE!!!! (fast teching and beating ne w/ it is also critical, but u can win w/out it)

*************why these things are important***************
Add these two together, u'll have a huge advantage, also a good thing about merc abusing, is that while ur fast teching, u still have a huge army to combat enemy dual aow army+merc. This allows u to get the game winners, which in my opinion is the shamans(first game winner), 2nd game winner is the taruens. Becuz of fast tech, u can get 4 shamans upgraded w/ bloodlust+ 3 taruens w/ stomp upgrade very very fast. So w/ ur regular army and ur game winning units, u can totally rape NE early tier 3. Also u should be ahead on tech by a good minute + depending on enemy tech. So the minute u get 3 taruens(stomp) and ur bloodlust, this is the time to hit, before enemy can get tier 3 spell upgrades.

[Riv[GoD]]

Maybe you are like me...and your micro is only average. If you are having trouble fending off a full blown huntress rush...you can adopt the tactics that I used in this tournament game seen here. (http://www.wcreplays.com/pub_replays.php?get=3943)

[Delfius]

']Maybe you are like me...and your micro is only average. If you are having trouble fending off a full blown huntress rush...you can adopt the tactics that I used in this tournament game seen here. (http://www.wcreplays.com/pub_replays.php?get=3943)

Good job. But golly, I can't remember the last time I saw THAT many huntresses (like, a whole gold mine worth) commit suicide to towers and burrows . I think he would have had the game if he replaced just a couple of his kamikaze hunts with glaive throwers.

[haris_me]

you did very good with the human but the basic gruntapault is a very good way to counter humans rifles caster just main tain the pressure early on while teching after that the catapaults with an attack upgrade work wonders u didnt really need shamans because eventually u would have been able to kill all casters by pults and while grunts woule be raking the shit out of rifles

[haris_me]

today i was faced up against a level 25 undead player he wents fiends build an later went for destroyers i saw this coming i went gruntapault and took out his alot of his army i was about to attack him when i saw a dual slaughter house pumping out statues most of which had already morphed into destroyers (shit i thought so soon) however i had a beastiary set up and since i was expecting this wuickly pumped out raiders which i used to ensnare his destros thenthe tauren with pulverise completely owned him i went FS first and TC second.

so basically vs undead just go gruntapault first with the grunts armor being upgraded and the pults attacks being upgraded. if u see statues pump out raiders.


GG u stupid undead player coz ensnared destros dont stand a chance against tauren with pulverise

[Delfius]

so basically vs undead just go gruntapault first with the grunts armor being upgraded and the pults attacks being upgraded. if u see statues pump out raiders.


GG u stupid undead player coz ensnared destros dont stand a chance against tauren with pulverise

Sounds like fun. Show us the replay, please! (this is, after all, the orc strategy replay thread). Plus, I wanna see mass destroyers getting owned! That'd be so satisfying...

[Nafaltar]

(...) i saw a dual slaughter house pumping out statues most of which had already morphed into destroyers (shit i thought so soon) (..)

I believe this is exactly why things worked out quite so well for you... No Chain Morph = Destroyers easy food for any anti air army.

However its true that Raiders+Tauren work better than most things.

Nafaltar

[ATGB]

http://www.wcreplays.com/pub_replays.php?get=4102

ORC-HU(Rd)

Harass, with grunts+FS
Air Counter=> Kodos+HH
WE Counter=> Purge
MK Counter=> Purge+Grunts

[PartisanRanger]

Have you played Panda as second? Drunken haze all the way!

I've been owning in mirror with FS+Panda vs FS+Naga.
Er... your opponents must not have been very good. While drunken haze is helpful it's not hard to take down the panda with cold arrows. I haven't done FS/Panda myself but I've faced it a few times.