Jimbo
Member!
CREDIT IS NOT MINE IT BELONGS TO
oT-TiMe
Before this starts I want you first to know some essentials when playing ANY race.
Undead Heroes: great for support, horrible for solo creeping. How do you take advantage of this situation with this knowledge. UD is THE ONLY RACE that can not solo clear an expansion with a hero alone ON ANY MAP. Also UD heroes cant solo rush effectively. The best way to take advantage of this is to not go an early Altar, and to tech while making 1 defensive structure. Why waste money on a spirit tower(zig upgrade) when your Necropolis upgrade gets a bolt that has 800 range(orc towers range is 800 as well, spirit tower has 700) when turned into halls of the dead? The reason for defense is because your opponent is a gosu maphacker who will hero rush you if you don't make an altar early.(remember you must set your mind into this mentality, it is KEY to winning)
So here leaves the question: How do I tech early, and stop a hero rush, and stop an offensive tower rush on my buildings?
Answer: Game begins, I highlight everything(3 acolytes, 1 ghoul) right click my gold mine, click necropolis, make 2 acolytes, grab ghoul asap and send him to nearest tree, click necropolis and right click(set rally) on gold mine. Take acolyte, make crypt, make ziggarat, return to gold mine. Now here is something cool. As soon as your ghoul returns twice with 20 lumber(you will have 140), highlight your ghoul and get ready to send him back early. You will only need 10 more wood to make your halls of the dead(300g 150L), so as soon as you count your ghoul hitting the tree 5 times, send him back to necropolis ASAP.(note ghouls get 2 wood everytime they slap a tree, 2 X 5 = the 10 wood you'll need for 150L). Make your Halls of The Dead. I have noticed that it is impossible for anyone to even get their hero inside your base before this halls of the dead upgrade is done.
Altar: Should be made when you have 3 ghouls mining slapping the tree. You should send them back after around 10 slaps(this should give you the 100 wood you need) Make sure you get your next ziggarat up ASAP after altar for the longer you wait the longer your hero will have to wait to be trained.
(BTW I prefer Death Knight, Followed by Lich, Followed by Dread Lord..but this is your preference)
Graveyard: After 2nd hero, whenever you can pump ghouls non stop and have the gold
So now you know your initial build vs EVERY race. What do I do now?
The thing is now that you have 9-12 ghouls ready from non stop pump of your crypt, and your hero is out, what do you do now? Go creep HARD creeps, dont underestimate the power of death coil and good micromanagement. If you went Death Knight you can heal hurt ghouls.
Make sure you get out your 2nd Hero ASAP. This is where your army will be stronger than opponents, and any confrontation will result in LOTS of PAIN.(frost nova, death coil are great to cast on hero before fight even begins, frost nova even owns low hit point units.)
Set GOALS NOW:
Goal #1: Expand
Goal #2: Don't let opponent expand(if opponent did expand, make sure you have one too)
Goal #3: Kill the hardest creeps before opponent does.
Goal #4: Don't engage in a losing battle, get out ASAP if you won't win battle. YES even use TP, you will be getting 3 of them!(thanks triple hero)
After you have expanded, proceed to tech Black Citadel Asap: You will be upgrading your ghoul frenzy ASAP, making your 3rd hero, and teching Frosties. (2 boneyards is sufficient)
After all the creeps are dead, proceed to engage with your opponent preferably outside his base or expansion, because why would you want a tower, tree or zig to hurt you with your opponents army there?)
These are all the basics you need to know before I go in depth with how to micromanage and how to play vs each of the four races.
Death Knight
Spells to Research: Coil, Aura, Coil, Aura, Coil, Raise Dead, Aura, Death Pact 3X
Set to hotkey 1
Try to prevent death knight from taking heavy dmg, he is the ONLY UNIT YOU WILL HAVE THAT CANNOT BE HEALED BY HIS COIL. So his life is vital to the survival of your army.
Set All your ghouls to Hotkey "2" as soon as you leave your base.
How To heal your ghouls early game: hit "1" than hold shift and highlight all your ghouls(or as many as you can), this ensures that coil will take preference over cannibalize. However if you highlight your Death Knight and units simultaneously with one big left click drag, coil will take preference. Hit "C" and left click the hurt ghoul on the bottom middle box which has all your units "boxes + hitpoints", now if the fight won't be over, you know that the computer AI will continue to abuse that ghoul, so you want to left click TWICE on the hurt ghoul FROM THE BOTTOM MIDDLE BOX and right click him away from the battle. Quickly highlight your DK and ghouls and proceed to repeat with healing and running. Of course when the battle is over you can just hit "2" + "c" and your ghouls will automatically start cannibalizing.
P.S. Make sure you when your ghoul ran away far enough he returns to continue battling. The best way to do this is right click him half a screen away from battle, hold shift, hit A(attack duh), and left click back into the area of fighting anywhere. This will allow you to immediately get back to micromanaging the battle with your other ghouls.
How to Heal your other Heroes:
Notice as you get more heroes, the hotkeys SHALL CHANGE. Your 2nd hero will take preference at the 2 hotkey and your ghouls shall be pushed to #3. (the fastest way to do this is to hit the hotkey of your ghouls "2" and than hit ctrl + 3. Than hotkey your 2nd hero and hit ctrl + 2. )
EXAMPLE: Your Lich is getting abused and he needs a heal.(death coil)
Proper steps:
#1 Hit hotkey of Lich "2", and right click him in the opposite direction of where he is getting hit.(Duh he is getting owned from creeps/enemy units on the right, move him left)
#2 Hit hotkey for DK "1", hit C and easily target the lich which has moved away from all the blazing colors of war(makes it so easy to target when he isn't in a crowd, so you won't have to play WHERES WALDO?? This also prevents him from dying as you wanna cast the coil for he is running away)
#3 Hit hotkey of Lich "2" , than hit A, than left click to the right side so he proceeds to attack again.
Healing Frosties dont have to be microed as toughly as ghouls, because by that time you should have at least a lvl 5 DK and your coil will heal for 600 hp.
LICH
Spells to research: Frost Nova, Frost Armor, FN, FA, FN, Death & Decay, FA
He has low hitpoints, try to keep him in the back and let him shoot.
Don't be a saver of his mana. Use it on tough creeps if you need to. It is worth it if you can kill tough creeps just that much quicker because of it, so you may move on ASAP to the next batch of tough creeps.
Death and Decay is not only more effective than an earthquake spell to buildings(it can kill a Fortress, which EQ cannot), but it is EVEN BETTER TO BE USED ON UNITS!. If engaged in a battle try using this spell on the back of his army while disregarding the front, for you DO NOT WANT YOUR UNITS to be caught in the spell.
Dread Lord
He will be hotkey #3 if he is your 3rd hero, and ghouls/frosties will be pushed to 4 + 5
Spells to research: Carrion Swarm, Vamp Aura, CS, VA, CS, Inferno, VA
Consider your Dread Lord your wall of abuse absorbing. He is the guy you will want in front every time. Keep him alive with coil at all costs. As with lich, don't be a saver of mana. Use carrion swarm freely vs creeps, and obviously enemies.
Inferno should be dropped ONLY vs your opponents army. Drop it on top of his weakest units: priests, sorcs, archers, huntresses, DotT, Shamans, Witch Doctors, Necros, Banshees, etc.
Frosties
Usually by the time I have frosties, I do not even bring ghouls with my army anymore. If I have any lumber probs, I'd just a hire a Lumberchopper from Goblin Observatory. Once you get frosties you can kill ANY set of creeps on the map. BNET programmed AI to have some unnatural tendency to make creeps target air units..wonder why? they die easy? Your DK can easily heal the frostie taking the abuse with coil.(Don't you just love that spell? 600 hp!!! by lvl 5 DK!)
So by now I have 4-5 hotkeys set.
1- DK
2- LICH
3- DL
4- Ghouls, if I do bring ghouls, I set Frosties to 5 instead of here at 4
oT-TiMe Before this starts I want you first to know some essentials when playing ANY race.
Undead Heroes: great for support, horrible for solo creeping. How do you take advantage of this situation with this knowledge. UD is THE ONLY RACE that can not solo clear an expansion with a hero alone ON ANY MAP. Also UD heroes cant solo rush effectively. The best way to take advantage of this is to not go an early Altar, and to tech while making 1 defensive structure. Why waste money on a spirit tower(zig upgrade) when your Necropolis upgrade gets a bolt that has 800 range(orc towers range is 800 as well, spirit tower has 700) when turned into halls of the dead? The reason for defense is because your opponent is a gosu maphacker who will hero rush you if you don't make an altar early.(remember you must set your mind into this mentality, it is KEY to winning)
So here leaves the question: How do I tech early, and stop a hero rush, and stop an offensive tower rush on my buildings?
Answer: Game begins, I highlight everything(3 acolytes, 1 ghoul) right click my gold mine, click necropolis, make 2 acolytes, grab ghoul asap and send him to nearest tree, click necropolis and right click(set rally) on gold mine. Take acolyte, make crypt, make ziggarat, return to gold mine. Now here is something cool. As soon as your ghoul returns twice with 20 lumber(you will have 140), highlight your ghoul and get ready to send him back early. You will only need 10 more wood to make your halls of the dead(300g 150L), so as soon as you count your ghoul hitting the tree 5 times, send him back to necropolis ASAP.(note ghouls get 2 wood everytime they slap a tree, 2 X 5 = the 10 wood you'll need for 150L). Make your Halls of The Dead. I have noticed that it is impossible for anyone to even get their hero inside your base before this halls of the dead upgrade is done.
Altar: Should be made when you have 3 ghouls mining slapping the tree. You should send them back after around 10 slaps(this should give you the 100 wood you need) Make sure you get your next ziggarat up ASAP after altar for the longer you wait the longer your hero will have to wait to be trained.
(BTW I prefer Death Knight, Followed by Lich, Followed by Dread Lord..but this is your preference)
Graveyard: After 2nd hero, whenever you can pump ghouls non stop and have the gold
So now you know your initial build vs EVERY race. What do I do now?
The thing is now that you have 9-12 ghouls ready from non stop pump of your crypt, and your hero is out, what do you do now? Go creep HARD creeps, dont underestimate the power of death coil and good micromanagement. If you went Death Knight you can heal hurt ghouls.
Make sure you get out your 2nd Hero ASAP. This is where your army will be stronger than opponents, and any confrontation will result in LOTS of PAIN.(frost nova, death coil are great to cast on hero before fight even begins, frost nova even owns low hit point units.)
Set GOALS NOW:
Goal #1: Expand
Goal #2: Don't let opponent expand(if opponent did expand, make sure you have one too)
Goal #3: Kill the hardest creeps before opponent does.
Goal #4: Don't engage in a losing battle, get out ASAP if you won't win battle. YES even use TP, you will be getting 3 of them!(thanks triple hero)
After you have expanded, proceed to tech Black Citadel Asap: You will be upgrading your ghoul frenzy ASAP, making your 3rd hero, and teching Frosties. (2 boneyards is sufficient)
After all the creeps are dead, proceed to engage with your opponent preferably outside his base or expansion, because why would you want a tower, tree or zig to hurt you with your opponents army there?)
These are all the basics you need to know before I go in depth with how to micromanage and how to play vs each of the four races.
Death Knight
Spells to Research: Coil, Aura, Coil, Aura, Coil, Raise Dead, Aura, Death Pact 3X
Set to hotkey 1
Try to prevent death knight from taking heavy dmg, he is the ONLY UNIT YOU WILL HAVE THAT CANNOT BE HEALED BY HIS COIL. So his life is vital to the survival of your army.
Set All your ghouls to Hotkey "2" as soon as you leave your base.
How To heal your ghouls early game: hit "1" than hold shift and highlight all your ghouls(or as many as you can), this ensures that coil will take preference over cannibalize. However if you highlight your Death Knight and units simultaneously with one big left click drag, coil will take preference. Hit "C" and left click the hurt ghoul on the bottom middle box which has all your units "boxes + hitpoints", now if the fight won't be over, you know that the computer AI will continue to abuse that ghoul, so you want to left click TWICE on the hurt ghoul FROM THE BOTTOM MIDDLE BOX and right click him away from the battle. Quickly highlight your DK and ghouls and proceed to repeat with healing and running. Of course when the battle is over you can just hit "2" + "c" and your ghouls will automatically start cannibalizing.
P.S. Make sure you when your ghoul ran away far enough he returns to continue battling. The best way to do this is right click him half a screen away from battle, hold shift, hit A(attack duh), and left click back into the area of fighting anywhere. This will allow you to immediately get back to micromanaging the battle with your other ghouls.
How to Heal your other Heroes:
Notice as you get more heroes, the hotkeys SHALL CHANGE. Your 2nd hero will take preference at the 2 hotkey and your ghouls shall be pushed to #3. (the fastest way to do this is to hit the hotkey of your ghouls "2" and than hit ctrl + 3. Than hotkey your 2nd hero and hit ctrl + 2. )
EXAMPLE: Your Lich is getting abused and he needs a heal.(death coil)
Proper steps:
#1 Hit hotkey of Lich "2", and right click him in the opposite direction of where he is getting hit.(Duh he is getting owned from creeps/enemy units on the right, move him left)
#2 Hit hotkey for DK "1", hit C and easily target the lich which has moved away from all the blazing colors of war(makes it so easy to target when he isn't in a crowd, so you won't have to play WHERES WALDO?? This also prevents him from dying as you wanna cast the coil for he is running away)
#3 Hit hotkey of Lich "2" , than hit A, than left click to the right side so he proceeds to attack again.
Healing Frosties dont have to be microed as toughly as ghouls, because by that time you should have at least a lvl 5 DK and your coil will heal for 600 hp.
LICH
Spells to research: Frost Nova, Frost Armor, FN, FA, FN, Death & Decay, FA
He has low hitpoints, try to keep him in the back and let him shoot.
Don't be a saver of his mana. Use it on tough creeps if you need to. It is worth it if you can kill tough creeps just that much quicker because of it, so you may move on ASAP to the next batch of tough creeps.
Death and Decay is not only more effective than an earthquake spell to buildings(it can kill a Fortress, which EQ cannot), but it is EVEN BETTER TO BE USED ON UNITS!. If engaged in a battle try using this spell on the back of his army while disregarding the front, for you DO NOT WANT YOUR UNITS to be caught in the spell.
Dread Lord
He will be hotkey #3 if he is your 3rd hero, and ghouls/frosties will be pushed to 4 + 5
Spells to research: Carrion Swarm, Vamp Aura, CS, VA, CS, Inferno, VA
Consider your Dread Lord your wall of abuse absorbing. He is the guy you will want in front every time. Keep him alive with coil at all costs. As with lich, don't be a saver of mana. Use carrion swarm freely vs creeps, and obviously enemies.
Inferno should be dropped ONLY vs your opponents army. Drop it on top of his weakest units: priests, sorcs, archers, huntresses, DotT, Shamans, Witch Doctors, Necros, Banshees, etc.
Frosties
Usually by the time I have frosties, I do not even bring ghouls with my army anymore. If I have any lumber probs, I'd just a hire a Lumberchopper from Goblin Observatory. Once you get frosties you can kill ANY set of creeps on the map. BNET programmed AI to have some unnatural tendency to make creeps target air units..wonder why? they die easy? Your DK can easily heal the frostie taking the abuse with coil.(Don't you just love that spell? 600 hp!!! by lvl 5 DK!)
So by now I have 4-5 hotkeys set.
1- DK
2- LICH
3- DL
4- Ghouls, if I do bring ghouls, I set Frosties to 5 instead of here at 4
