Frozen Throne Human Strategy

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Human Strategies And Tactics (Frozen Throne)

The Guide is old but most of the the tips and strategies are useful for 1.18 too.

Part 1: Basic Strategy, Starting the game
Here is a strategy which I hope will give you nice tips and ways to do well against much stronger opponents.

I’ll start with the idea, then the build order and tips. So the idea when making the buildings is to make a wall of buildings that prevents enemy heroes and units from great harasses of peasants or leaving these heroes with a little chance to escape or use their scroll of town portal without causing you big damages. A wall of buildings should include the first buildings and the Hall as part of it. Also leave one small entrance from this so that a wave of units wont attack your peasants.
Here is how to do it. You start with 5 peasants.
-Send 4 of the peasants to pick up gold . Build Altar with the 5th close to the Hall (distance 1 farm away from the Hall) . Build more peasants at this time.
-With the 6th (1st from the Hall) build Barracks to make another part of the ‘wall’.
-With 7th build farm filling the space between the Altar and the Hall.
-With the 8th build another farm filling another space (continue to build farms close to the altar, barracks until you make a wall with 1 entrance).
-9th, 10th and 11th and 12th select Rally Point to lumber.
NOTE: When you make a building ALWAYS hold ‘Shift’ and aim at a tree or gold mine (like a unit rally point) to direct workers what to pick and not be unemployed ,otherwise they make you receive less resources. For example point the peasant from altar to go to gold mine, the rest to pick up lumber.
-you can make with the 9th a tower, to upgrade it into Arcane tower but when you make farms, try to surround the tower with them.
-also with the 10th make a 3rd farm.

For the rest buildings, it is explained what to build and how to stop harasses vs different races and game types below.
A general possibility of stopping a hero harass who attacks your peasants is to ‘call to arms’ the lumber peasants and surround him or block the entrance of the wall. The Arcane tower will burn his mana although against AOE like flame or blizzard on peasants you can do nothing but to move quickly peasants away and chase him.

Also a general strategy ,make more farms and lumber mill or vault then start the upgrading to keep. You can make the blacksmith during the keep upgrade or before. Again see this below.


Part2 : Basic Strategy

Always do what is needed to counter don’t learn one strategy using it for every game.
-Build Arcane Vault and buy a scroll of restoration .It can help you restore your hero , do it if he has low hit points or keep it when you have injured units from area spells. Sheep: some good players notice a sheep/critter but a trick is to hide it under a building or tree, you can use the 'nature' of the map to hide .Knowing what the opponent doubles or triples your chance to win .Again see different counters below.
-In some cases you can use Spellbreakers that can be very useful when combined with any AOE spell and when they steal positive/negative buffs.
-Upgrade the Magic Sentry now you see that your Arcane Tower has another advantage-reveal your opponent's base. You can have towers- watch tower earlier but making more units is more of use.
-When you make mortars. They have wonderful damage (splash damage) because they take a little damage to the close units too (NOTE: if your units are around the splash they will be injured).Upgrade the 'Fragmentation Shards' too.
-Some use a Flying machine strategy building 2 Workshops and quickly upgrading to Castle. It wont work against stronger. You can try it but you have little chance to win with this.
-Tanks would fit to more specific strategies. If another masses you flying machines or you do it, the easiest way to counter is Tanks with ‘Barrage’ ability.
Read below to get information about heroes, units and spells to use against different game types and races.

>>Air Strategy
The air strategy includes the use of Dragonhawk Riders and Gryphon (seldom flying machines)
-Start in the usual way (see part 1).Quickly make some footmen, riflemen (few) but upgrade only what is needed for the airs from the blacksmith.
-Having made lumber mill, upgrade to Keep, then immediately to Castle and while upgrading make 2 gryphon aviaries and several dragon hawks. When the castle is ready start massing gryphon riders. You can use Mountain King or Archmage for this air. NOTE: pure strategy of only air units works better for a FFA than for solo or team.

Part 3: Micro and Useful tips

-The way you arrange your units is also important. Something that refers not only to human but to all races-always put the melee units (knights, footmen, etc) in front of the ranged. The ranged (riflemen casters and mortars) can attack from behind and lastly you add airs if there are some .In most cases the enemy won't wait you arrange your units you know. You will be even surprised, when creeping or from the back ,from up/down where the ranged can be the first attacked .In this case quickly retreat with the ranged and let the melee attack ,then let the ranged take part.
-Buildings: mostly towers that you should 'block' with farms for example .If you make many towers (more than 3 is just useless in most cases), never put them next to each other (unless this is a tower rush ),never put them in front of the exit like a passage blockage (an old Starcraft strategy).Make them behind other buildings and separated.
-Being under attack in your base: Return with your units, back to the base near the town hall and now with your separated towers that attack you can fight. By having a distance when they destroy one tower, the others may attack many times and the opponent will have to 'jump' from one tower to another (you earn more tower strikes).
Also add militia .If you see that the enemy has many units, when returning to the base with your units let the militia help too .You will be surprised to see that they can counter and contribute to that a lot especially for tier1 and tier2.
-Controlling your units during a battle .A good strategy is to put behind the injured units and heal them with a Paladin or priest .Then replace injured-newly healed with new injured and so on.
-Attack the injured: Try to attack the injured enemy units, when you see somebody masses a type of unit ,to reduce the damage they make to your units obviously start with the injured. NOTE: use the ‘[’ and ‘]’ keys (without the quotes) to see yours and the units of you opponents hit points. That is how you can move injured away when they have ‘orange’ hit points and attack their injured.
-Attacking creeps: Sometimes you may decide to scout with unit and the unit may encounter the masses of units of your enemy .Then such unit will be dead in seconds .That's why you can attack a spot- nearby creeps ,even better with dragons .The opponent may decide to creep anyway so such a surprise may result in killing some of their units and making them a good damage .The creeps attack your unit first because it started the attack but when dead the creeps will continue with the enemy units.
-Use invisibility to save units and move them away.
-Use Tome of Retraining to switch from some skills to others like you have ware elementals lvl3 and need to have lvl3 blizzard because your opponent masses a type of units.
-A tower rush with Humans. The best that is not useless but still very hard to do is against Night elf. You must have a very good micro and so far works on Lost Temple and Turtle Rock. Scouting a NE with a militia and bringing Archmage with footmen all the time. Starting to build Arcane tower and in the base quickly male Lumber Mill. The next towers should be Guard towers and if they kill your peasants don’t stop sending more. The idea is to harass in such a way that you don’t allow a NE to have an Ancient of War and Huntress hall. Move away injured footmen and send more, chase his hero and units and don't allow him to step close to your towers. Towers you can build directly in his base without hiding.

SCOUTING: A very important part of playing whatever game type or race in order to locate your opponent in maps with several possible places you must make a peasant to militia and scout taking advantage of the fast movement. Find and return back. Do it regularly to know what they may use.

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Part 4: Heroes , hero combinations

Whatever strategy you use here is a good leveling.

Blood Mage

Flame Strike
Siphon Mana
Flame Strike
Siphon Mana/Banish
Flame Strike
Phoenix
Siphon Mana
Banish (x3)

I recommend to start with flame strike and siphon mana because with the latest patches Banish had its permanent mana cost for any level and despite the 1.15 damage cap like Blizzard ,it is still of use more than the others .
You can make Banish on yourself but you slower the BM so any hero can get you. On other units or hero it would be better because you slower the unit and you can kill it too but it works best when with the air strategy so when with it you can choose Banish for level 4 too.

Paladin

Holy Light
Divine Shield
Holy Light
Divine shield/Devotion Aura
Holy Light
Resurrection
Divine shield/Devotion Aura(x3)

Always have holy light as first to heal units and heroes .For level 4, if you think you can prevent your hero to die you can use the Devotion Aura and buy potions of healing instead, which is recommended. Otherwise without the defense bonus from the aura continue with Divine Shield.

Archmage

Water elemental
Brilliance aura
Water Elemental
Brilliance Aura/Blizzard
Water Elemental
Mass Teleport
Brilliance Aura and Blizzard (x3)

NOTE: This is only optional. You can start with Blizzard if they mass one type of unit. But to prevent harasses is better to have Elementals that is how you can start like this and later unlearn skills to have Blizzard.

Mountain King

Storm Bolt
Thunderclap
Storm Bolt
Thunderclap
Storm bolt /Thunderclap
Avatar
Thunderclap/Bash(3)

I would recommend storm bolt which is very effective against heroes. You can abuse a high-level hero with blocking him from everywhere with units and kill with storm bolt .A running away hero too. Thunderclap is excellent and the reason to get it as second, not as first is because you can easily counter harass and by this time you will have had lvl2 so you can easily get thunderclap. The clap is useful for the following: a hero is on red hit points and you’ve just used a storm bolt. When the stunning effect disappears he will escape and your spell may not be ready letting him escape. So if you have mana after bolt, use thunderclap that slows and you’ll kill him or not let him escape.

Naga (Neutral)

Cold Arrow
Forked Lightning
Cold Arrow
Forked Lightning
Forked Lightning/ Cold Arrow
Tornado
Mana Shield (x3)

-Neutral heroes with Human, mostly Naga more info below.

The heroes you are going to use should depend on the game type and number of opponents you play. There are some good combinations which can do well in all types. I’ll explain in details below.
- The best is Archmage, Mountain King as second and Paladin as third. Or for teams first Archmage with blizzard, second Blood Mage with flame strike and third Paladin.
-A good Blood Mage combination with sorceresses. Using flame strike can be really useful. You can cast it in the center of their units or on their casters. A very good combination with slow is that you can cast flame strike on running away units. To kill retreating units with slow, run with your BM and cast flame strike just in front of their units. When they pass they will be either injured or the injured-dead. It works well and makes you gain experience quickly.


Part 5: Maps Creeping and picking up items
With Archmage , summon elemental, put it on the front and make all creeps attack the elemental .Again aim them one by one so that you can lose the elemental but not the units.
With Mountain King use storm bolt or thunderclap but only if you know that you will have enough mana for battles with the opponent.
With Blood Mage you can use Banish, which is suitable for creeps and if you have it or cast flame if there is a group.
With Paladin send any unit to attack and heal the unit all the time. .

NOTE :If you are under attack by your opponent while creeping instantly use town portal or get away from the creeps .The same is if your base is attacked, you harass and need to return because with low hit points.
MAPS:
Twisted Meadows: you can start with a green spot if the opponent comes to harass you or if not using 4 or 5 of the peasants for lumber you have and 4 footmen creep a Goblin Observatory that is guarded by a Rock golem and trolls. Use Archmage and elemental also attack the troll priest after killing the rock golem.
Turtle rock: creep the turtles with 4-5 peasants (militia) and do the same for the orange spot with a lvl3 ogre and trolls.
Lost Temple: With Archmage and again 4-5 militia + footmen creep the mine that is below you (orange spot).
Plunder Isle: with several footmen you can creep directly the orange spot guarding the mine above you- Ogre Magi ,lvl 5 ogre and lvl3.
Gnoll Wood: scout and get the creep in the center with the drake lvl 6 to have an artifact.
You can make fast expands on these maps, in the very beginning or when you have Keep.

ITEMS:
-Always buy potions of healing, at least 1 to each hero .Always use scroll of restoration from the Arcane Vault.
-From a Goblin Merchant always buy scrolls of healing and now if on 1.15 boots of speed are too expensive, buy Circlet of Nobility. Use potion of invulnerability and Tome of Retraining when needed.
-Always buy potion of mana for your Mountain King.
-Always use Dust of Appearance against Blade Master and Night Elf.

Part 6: Strategies for the different game types

-Free for all: You can make it like a solo in the beginning if one harasses you. Use what you usually use for solo but better tech quickly. If you cannot own don’t waste time and tech quickly. Use everything and finally use gryphon or dragonhawks or what is needed to counter like tanks vs mass gargoyles.
Special TIPS: For FFA you can get all the 3 heroes. You can choose AM as first. Have the King as second and you can get Paladin as third. The idea is there are too many units and all the 3 can reach level 5 and the first and second level 7 or 8 by then. Have 2-3 towers not necessarily cannon towers-from the beginning Arcane Tower and later Guard towers because you need to stop harass not to defend against tier3 units and you can’t defend with towers against them. Also always try to have a second expansion-very important to have for example before going to tier3.And don’t attack if you can’t win the battle.
You know you may come across players already fighting with each other. Always wait the winner of the battle to end and to make an ambush to attack unexpectedly.
Another very good is not to own an opponent immediately. You can let him make units and kill them all the time to have an experience advantage.
-Random Team and Arranged Team: This is a hard part because you can’t always decide with your partners what to do.
--Team 3v3. The best for Humans to use is Archmage (take blizzard for lvls 1 3 5) as first and Blood Mage(flame 1 3 5) as second. Also make mass riflemen with sorceress upgraded to polymorph. You can add priests or dragonhawks as much better with Aerial Shackles against mass chimearas and wyrms than riflemen. If one of your allies is orc, it is better for orc to make melee and blood lust and you to use this strategy whatever the third ally is. The idea with these 2 heroes is to burn units in seconds. So don’t cast blizzard on taurens or giants. If there are riflemen, archers or footmen, cast Blizzard and Flame Strike on the same place on these weaker units. They’ll lose armies with that.
If there are 2 Humans from your team one may decide to be rifles and sorc so you have to be melee, if the other is not melee like NE or even if it is orc. The best is to quickly tech to tier 2 make 2 Arcane Sanctums and mass breakers and on tier 3 to get gryphons if they don’t have a good anti-air like gargoyles or hyppos. You can rape anti-air rifles using blizzard and flame. Using breakers and gryphons is good even if there is another making melee. Another you can do is mass knights and some casters.
A possible but risky one is with getting mass tanks. This you can do only if you’re sure the other 2 can do well against 3 and by this time you go and destroy the main building and the rest base by base.
--Team 2v2. Again go first Archmage and as second Mountain King. Only if you see massing before you have a second hero you can choose Blood Mage. Both are possible but because they may kill a BM much easier it is recommended MK. Again you 2 have to decide one to go melee and the other ranged. For Archmage get water elemental and unlearn later, possible too.
Sometimes the 2v2 completely splits to 1v1. If you see that they don’t stop attacking you separated then you fight vs the closer to you and your ally to the one closer to him. You must try to defend alone and own him alone. If you always need your ally to help you, it will be 1v2 you may make your opponent retreat but the other will attack your ally just because he is away.
Knowing solo things will help you for both 2v2 and 3v3. Now look at Part 7 where you can find out more about the different races in 1v1.

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Part 7: Human Strategies against other races in solo

Human vs Human:
Start in the usual way (Part 1).Build Arcane Tower. Use Archmage MK (use thunderclap in the center of the enemy units and bolt on heroes and units, see the order to use skills above) and Paladin if you reach tier 3. You must creep as much as possible. Don’t try to harass another Human. You’ll lose more because you will be countered with militia. So creep with footmen and if the other Human comes to you of course you have to return. Do it and also add militia to stop him. Upgrade to keep quickly, you need to tech fast. When Keep is under upgrading you can now build an Arcane Vault and Blacksmith if you wish. Don’t mass riflemen. Don’t use them while you’re with tier 1 or just finished tier 2 or use only little like 2-3. When you get tier 2 build Arcane Sanctum and make some priests,then breakers. You can either quickly tech to tier 3 to get knights or build 2 Sanctums and make more breakers and priests. You’d better not make sorceress, the other Human may get breakers and slower your units with Spell steal. It is not necessary to have gryphons although they are good if the other has many knights, because he can get Dragon hawks and counter you. If you see he won’t do hawks you can try it. On the other hand you can have hawks which are some kind of air against ground and you can kill the other’s priests or gryphons if he gets. Also don’t forget to make expand for a long game and have a third hero Paladin. You can have potions of healing but try to protect your Archmage at higher lvl.
You can use Naga as second instead of MK because a Naga as first will have no mana. In the beginning you’ll do well but later you won’t and you’ll have to buy mana potions that cost 200. See the order of picking skills. With cold Arrows you can kill units and heroes that run away.

Human vs Orc: The best for Orc is to harass Human all the time with Far Seer feral spirits (wolves). Again Archmage MK .If he gets Blade Master you can build Arcane tower so the best to do is build Scout tower, if he gets FS upgrade to Guard tower or if he gets Blade Master to Arcane. The only way to defend is footmen. Don’t waste time even if they harass you. Quickly upgrade to Keep. By this time instead of having arcane tower, build Lumber Mill and make 2 or 3 Guard Towers. Works better against Orc. At tier 2 or a little before that you can make Blacksmith and have 2-3 riflemen .Also good against grunts, wind riders and bat riders. Always heal footmen with scroll since orc will kill them with chain lightning and wolves. At tier 2 get Arcane Sanctum ,MK and start with sorceress and 1-2 priests. Scout him too. If he gets tier 3 this means blood lust so get 2-3 breakers. If he starts making taurens get some gryphons and you must also upgrade to Castle. Make several knights too and possibly upgrade sorc polymorph. Against Gruntapult it is similar- casters and if he gets tier 3 you can also make gryphons.
If they mass wind riders (he won’t attack you in the beginning but you have to see if he’s building Beastery) you can get Dragon hawks (aerial shackles) as tier 2 and stop them. Add sorceress and you will own. Against mass bat riders you must make riflemen.
It is typical for Orc to make tower rush. You must either watch near your base all the time and destroy towers that are under construction or quickly get dragon hawks with cloud and mortars again making a mass attack on the towers with could.

Human vs Night Elf: Make Arcane tower and attack DH who uses immolation or Warden with knives. Yes a NE can start with Warden or Demon Hunter or Keeper of the Grove (sometimes Priestess with archers). Get AM 3-4 footmen and start making rifles. If he doesn’t get hunts he will mass you archers so again don’t try to harass. If he attacks you, you’ll have less because you make riflemen. Use militia to counter him. Then having 5-6 riflemen you can start creeping and by this time upgrade to Keep and build Vault. If he gets mass huntresses nothing is better than elementals and riflemen. When he finishes tier 2 he’ll use mass dryads, druid of the talon and giants. At tier 2 you must get MK and Sanctum and start making only 1-2 sorceress (make more if he continues to mass huntresses), make more priests with dispell. Also against mass dryads and hunts you can get mortars that do full damage to huntress and dryads and own them with their splash damage. Or Night elf can get dryads, druid of the talon and bears (druid of the claw). Then to priests add 3-4 breakers. Again you can own like that. You can attack NE as soon as you have more riflemen and casters with a second hero. NE can get chimera so if you see this quickly make Griffin Aviary and get some hawks.
Also make expands and use potions. Use thunderclap on units but not where there are many dryads. In late game make knights too. You can also have Naga as second with the same effect. Paladin as third .Use Dust of Appearance.

Human vs Undead: Maybe the most interesting battle- Human vs Undead. Make Arcane Tower and Archmage as a hero. Undead is more likely to harass with Death Knight using rod of necromancy. The only way to get him away is to chase him so that he returns back to his base. You can kill the skeletons too which is experience. Usually an UD will use 2 strategies. One is with mass fiends and probably necromancers, the other is with mass ghouls, destroyers and later abominations. To counter the first make more footmen with ‘defend’ ability also you can unlearn your skills and use Blizzard on fiends and necromancers. At tier 2 get priests with dispell, a sorceress too. Quickly upgrade to Castle and start making knights. This will own fiends and necromancers but use scroll of healing. You can make dragonhawks which are very useful with cloud against Undead and if he makes frost wyrms , hawks can own them with Aerial Shackles.
For their second strategy, make 5-6 footmen and before even Keep is ready build Blacksmith and start making some riflemen. Upgrade them with black gunpowder and long rifles. At tier 2 get MK with bolt or thunderclap as first skill. Use thunderclap in the center of the army of ghouls and put Archmage’s elementals on the front. You can own them even DK is healing 1-2 of them. If he gets destroyers, again in tier 2 you must have Arcane Sanctum and some priests and sorceresses. When you tech to tier 3 get knights. Start attacking destroyers with riflemen killing them one by one. Try to own Undead as soon as he has only ghouls and destroyers.Destroyers can be owned with 1-2 tanks if they are 4 or 5. If you have gold for 3 then you'll just own. He may get Lich and Crypt Lord as second and third hero so always use scrolls of healing. Once he gets abominations it will be hard with riflemen. You can get fewer knights because even upgraded they are owned by aboms.Make Gryphon Aviary for tier 3 and about 4 gryphons and you can counter mass aboms.With the knights as meat shield and rifles to shoot gargoyles (moving gryphs away from gargs) you can win.You can also get paladin as third hero and make a second expand. Protect expands with Guard Towers.

Many good players use these strategies so to see how this works check out their replays in:

http://www.replayers.com/

http://www.wcreplays.com/

http://war3.replays.net/