Alternative openings vs UD as NE

[adiga]

I've been watching recent pro games and I always see NE getting pressured really hard in the early game and having to insanely micro squishy archers and dry up moonwells just to stay behind later in the game (this is when they pick DH or Warden). How about getting Beastmaster first? or a Dark Ranger?


BM will help you fend off ghoul pushes, and in late game the UD will have a much harder time in nuking your hero (unlike DH and Warden who are agility heroes).

If you opt for DR first, she and her skeletons will be immune to death coils and since you can train her earlier than the first UD hero you will be able to get a little XP and some skeletons to deal with the incoming ghouls. Until destroyers are up, UD won't be able to do much against the skeletons.

[Kevin]

I think both are rather popular strats? Dr obviously benefits from maps like EI where she can get tons of skels of tiny camps all over the place. But I think elf has the most legitimacy of any race to play dr or beast or firelord or panda or tinker or whatever they want first it all works pretty well with the standard elf stuff, probably just stay t1 a little longer to help not get owned by mass ghouls or whatever.

[adiga]

They are popular against HU but I have never seen them against UD...

[griffer]

Yeah there are a ton of those with BeM and DR, you can search replays by hero on here or if you know the unit codes you can google search replays.net for beastmaster or dark ranger openings.