Revelade
BattleForums Member
I think I've played at least a dozen games in a row and I can safely say that 80% of them were wins. The strategy I've been using is extremely deadly at killing enemy heroes.
So what's it to you?
Well, I've been using human, but NOT the archmage or casters.
The strategy is simple, requires some common sense and it's a lot of fun. I use a SOLO Paladin, along with mass amounts of tier 1 units and later breakers.
When you first start, you might want to look at the matchups. If it's undead, you know there's going to be a deathknight and that's perfect. Most of the time, the common strategy is spiders, statues, LICH and of course destroyers.
An elf player will most likely go hunts, so rifles are your best bet here.
An orc player will of course use grunts and you need footmen to keep him toe to toe.
I'm not sure how exactly my strategy works, but I'll lay some aspects.
Go footmen versus human, undead and orc players. Huntresses will slaughter footmen, so you'll need rifles at that point. When tier 2 comes, if he is undead, mass breakers.
Breakers are what breaks the common AM/casters strategy. At first glance they look pathetic. I mean they are 3 food, MELEE, yet they do less damage than a rifleman. Well, it's magic immune, moves fast and of course has... FEEDBACK! So when you see statues or other heroes, focus fire these breakers on him. The other player will have to micro a lot to make sure his units stand still, yet his hero runs. Feedback not only does extra damage to heroes/units, but it removes their energy. So it weakens nukes, AoE spells, etc.
RACE SPECIFIC
UNDEAD
Ok, back to the topic. When you face the Undead, your footmen will stand up to his ghouls or fiends. If he masses fiends, you've always got defend, which is excellent in battles. When tier 2 rolls around, you drop 2 arcanes and pump out BREAKERS. Chances are, he's going to get destroyers, which means lots of juicy statues for your breakers to eat up. As a bonus, breakers do great against fiends as well. Pretty much, breakers counter everything a UD player will usually do (heroes, statues, fiends), abuse this power. When tier 3 rolls around, if he is smart, he'll get aboms and from there... well either hope he doesn't have fiends and web and get gryphons or counter meat him with knights.
ELF
Against elf players... RIFLEMEN! Yes, this amazing unit is available at tier 1, yet it's uses stretch far beyond most. Riflemen stand toe to toe against archers, yet can be deadly against huntresses (I've found at times they are equal). At tier 2, ANYTHING elf builds is weak to piercing damage (dryads, air units, talon). You do however, want to drop aviaries in case there's a bear army. As much as breakers are amazing, bears rip them up faster than feedback burns. I suggest RIFLES and gryphons for this matchup.
ORC
Ah, the orc player. Footmen are better off against grunts than rifles, because of their armor type. At tier 2 however, you WANT rifles. Rifles can FF any unit in their beastiary or lodge. The problem is that they have raiders, which have nets and also the dread chainwave. So that's why we take it to the skies. Drop 2 aviaries and get your castle going. Get some dragonhawks, but beware as until you get the animal war training upgrade, bats will kill your dhawks in1 2 hits - but dhawks are more expensive. So get to tier 3, mass those gryphons and make sure u get hawks for backup. Make the orc pay for neglecting headhunters. Get knights if they do.
HUMAN
Finally, the war against yourself, human. Well, 9/10, he's going to go archmage. Perfect. Get footies then tech. Mage means casters, so get... BREAKERS! Yes, riflemen and mortar teams do more damage to casters, but breakers are immune to casters! All you need to do in battles is to send your footies as a distraction and send your breaker assassin squad to eliminate casters and heroes quickly. But perhaps he's looking to counter your breakers. Drop 2 aviaries for now and get some gryphons.
Well, these four strats for each race might not apply to every situation, but I found they are the most common I face.
MR. SUNSHINE HIMSELF!
Oh, about the pally... Perhaps you played too much dota and only get divine shield. That's a mistake right there. Get holy light FIRST then try to max out on the AURA as much as you can. Yes, the AURA. Why?
Well, the light is useful for situations you can control. Say creeping for example. Since you are going solo paladin, you really don't have another hero to worry about. But when you run out of mana... it's useless. Light works better in SMALLER battles as opposed to larger ones (5 units+).
Devotion aura has always gotten a bad rap. People say it's not cool like unholy or brilliance. Well let's look at what it does: 1.5/3/4.5 armor. That's 9/18/27% more health for your army!
A 9% health boost makes a previous 505 hp rifleman into a 550.45 hp monster! Well, okay, that doesn't sound like much, but when you have 5 or more riflemen, you get far more than the 200 hp that level 1 light gives. But you have to remember that you can attack with an ally to increase that bonus even more. A little bonus is that your pally and their heroes are also tougher to kill. Even better is that an actual health point of the unit fraction is worth more. So that makes healing scrolls more effective.
It sounds odd, but I've been using this order:
L/A/A/D/A/R/L/L/D/D
Early light for creeping and harassment purposes. Aura is then applied to bulk the health. Divine shield is for when my pally gets too close to the action. Ressurection can make a tight battle in your favor. I guess the biggest controversy is not using the light/shield combo that's common. Light needs mana, is on a singular unit and overall needs micro. Will you care enough to keep each footmen healed in a major battle? Or won't you save it for big units? I get early light because in starting creep battles, you'll have 2-3 units, in which case the aura won't be of much use.
And why shove shield away? Well, if nobody was attacking the pally in the first place... it doesn't do squat. People seem to think that without shield, pally is instantly dead. But that's quite the opposite: even if you shield to prevent damage, that damage just ends up going somewhere else. Then when your shield is gone, pally is still going to be FFed. However, giving him more armor will give him bonus hp. I'm not saying DON'T use shield, but only use it to get out of sticky situations. Harassing with shield is a waste of time.
So we are left with the aura. It's always on, gets more effective with more units and no micro needed.
Here's what I do against the races generally when I'm using Pally:
Race, T1, T2, T3
Orc: foots, hawks, gryphons/hawks/knights
Elf: rifles, rifles, gryphons/rifles
Dead: foots, breakers, knights/rifles
Man: foots, breakers, gryphons
Here's a replay if you are dying to see how this works out...
So what's it to you?
Well, I've been using human, but NOT the archmage or casters.
The strategy is simple, requires some common sense and it's a lot of fun. I use a SOLO Paladin, along with mass amounts of tier 1 units and later breakers.
When you first start, you might want to look at the matchups. If it's undead, you know there's going to be a deathknight and that's perfect. Most of the time, the common strategy is spiders, statues, LICH and of course destroyers.
An elf player will most likely go hunts, so rifles are your best bet here.
An orc player will of course use grunts and you need footmen to keep him toe to toe.
I'm not sure how exactly my strategy works, but I'll lay some aspects.
Go footmen versus human, undead and orc players. Huntresses will slaughter footmen, so you'll need rifles at that point. When tier 2 comes, if he is undead, mass breakers.
Breakers are what breaks the common AM/casters strategy. At first glance they look pathetic. I mean they are 3 food, MELEE, yet they do less damage than a rifleman. Well, it's magic immune, moves fast and of course has... FEEDBACK! So when you see statues or other heroes, focus fire these breakers on him. The other player will have to micro a lot to make sure his units stand still, yet his hero runs. Feedback not only does extra damage to heroes/units, but it removes their energy. So it weakens nukes, AoE spells, etc.
RACE SPECIFIC
UNDEAD
Ok, back to the topic. When you face the Undead, your footmen will stand up to his ghouls or fiends. If he masses fiends, you've always got defend, which is excellent in battles. When tier 2 rolls around, you drop 2 arcanes and pump out BREAKERS. Chances are, he's going to get destroyers, which means lots of juicy statues for your breakers to eat up. As a bonus, breakers do great against fiends as well. Pretty much, breakers counter everything a UD player will usually do (heroes, statues, fiends), abuse this power. When tier 3 rolls around, if he is smart, he'll get aboms and from there... well either hope he doesn't have fiends and web and get gryphons or counter meat him with knights.
ELF
Against elf players... RIFLEMEN! Yes, this amazing unit is available at tier 1, yet it's uses stretch far beyond most. Riflemen stand toe to toe against archers, yet can be deadly against huntresses (I've found at times they are equal). At tier 2, ANYTHING elf builds is weak to piercing damage (dryads, air units, talon). You do however, want to drop aviaries in case there's a bear army. As much as breakers are amazing, bears rip them up faster than feedback burns. I suggest RIFLES and gryphons for this matchup.
ORC
Ah, the orc player. Footmen are better off against grunts than rifles, because of their armor type. At tier 2 however, you WANT rifles. Rifles can FF any unit in their beastiary or lodge. The problem is that they have raiders, which have nets and also the dread chainwave. So that's why we take it to the skies. Drop 2 aviaries and get your castle going. Get some dragonhawks, but beware as until you get the animal war training upgrade, bats will kill your dhawks in
HUMAN
Finally, the war against yourself, human. Well, 9/10, he's going to go archmage. Perfect. Get footies then tech. Mage means casters, so get... BREAKERS! Yes, riflemen and mortar teams do more damage to casters, but breakers are immune to casters! All you need to do in battles is to send your footies as a distraction and send your breaker assassin squad to eliminate casters and heroes quickly. But perhaps he's looking to counter your breakers. Drop 2 aviaries for now and get some gryphons.
Well, these four strats for each race might not apply to every situation, but I found they are the most common I face.
MR. SUNSHINE HIMSELF!
Oh, about the pally... Perhaps you played too much dota and only get divine shield. That's a mistake right there. Get holy light FIRST then try to max out on the AURA as much as you can. Yes, the AURA. Why?
Well, the light is useful for situations you can control. Say creeping for example. Since you are going solo paladin, you really don't have another hero to worry about. But when you run out of mana... it's useless. Light works better in SMALLER battles as opposed to larger ones (5 units+).
Devotion aura has always gotten a bad rap. People say it's not cool like unholy or brilliance. Well let's look at what it does: 1.5/3/4.5 armor. That's 9/18/27% more health for your army!
A 9% health boost makes a previous 505 hp rifleman into a 550.45 hp monster! Well, okay, that doesn't sound like much, but when you have 5 or more riflemen, you get far more than the 200 hp that level 1 light gives. But you have to remember that you can attack with an ally to increase that bonus even more. A little bonus is that your pally and their heroes are also tougher to kill. Even better is that an actual health point of the unit fraction is worth more. So that makes healing scrolls more effective.
It sounds odd, but I've been using this order:
L/A/A/D/A/R/L/L/D/D
Early light for creeping and harassment purposes. Aura is then applied to bulk the health. Divine shield is for when my pally gets too close to the action. Ressurection can make a tight battle in your favor. I guess the biggest controversy is not using the light/shield combo that's common. Light needs mana, is on a singular unit and overall needs micro. Will you care enough to keep each footmen healed in a major battle? Or won't you save it for big units? I get early light because in starting creep battles, you'll have 2-3 units, in which case the aura won't be of much use.
And why shove shield away? Well, if nobody was attacking the pally in the first place... it doesn't do squat. People seem to think that without shield, pally is instantly dead. But that's quite the opposite: even if you shield to prevent damage, that damage just ends up going somewhere else. Then when your shield is gone, pally is still going to be FFed. However, giving him more armor will give him bonus hp. I'm not saying DON'T use shield, but only use it to get out of sticky situations. Harassing with shield is a waste of time.
So we are left with the aura. It's always on, gets more effective with more units and no micro needed.
Here's what I do against the races generally when I'm using Pally:
Race, T1, T2, T3
Orc: foots, hawks, gryphons/hawks/knights
Elf: rifles, rifles, gryphons/rifles
Dead: foots, breakers, knights/rifles
Man: foots, breakers, gryphons
Here's a replay if you are dying to see how this works out...
