Hero Strategy: Pit Lord

[ChrisH36]

Hero Strategy - Pit Lord

I come from the darkness of the pit...
Last revised: April 13/2006 (v1.20d)

Greetings friends, if you are reading this guide, you are looking for information about the Pit Lord Neutral hero. I have written this guide in dedication in one of my favorite neutral heroes along with the Tinker (I also like DR, Naga and Alchem). His hotkey inside the tavern is I.

General​

The Pit Lord is not necessarily the hero killer you'd hope it to be. Its skills are ment for weakening and killing multiple units at once (except for its Doom spell, but even the Demon has area type spells). However, this hero is undead type! Meaning that Death Knights can heal it and enemy Paladins can hurt it.. Being able to harm multiple units can be a strong advantage when engaged in deadlock (all players fight in one section), defending your base, or harassing an enemy.

NOTE:
If you do decide to use this hero with humans, I hope you have good micro skills. For you can only heal him by potions or using Priests. So don't use it if you are not confident in that personna with humans.

Being able to micro this hero will be a definite plus for your army. He is fast, so most basic men (except hunts) can't catch him at full speed, plus his strong constitution won't bring him down that easily. This still doesn't mean you can just leave him for dead, treat him like any other hero when it comes to micro capabilities. Even his size is something to worry about! More units can surround him and easily kill him off, so beware and don't get into a conflict like that.

Pit Lord's Abilities​

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Rain of Fire​

This spell is a clone of the Archmage's Blizzard except for 2 things. One, it drops fireballs (obvious). Two, it does weaker base damage (25-35 damage/wave). The real beauty is that any unit affected by Rain of Fire takes damage over time. Allowing this spell to cause more damage than Blizzard. However, this isn't a spell where you can just aim it in a sect of units and hope you fry them.

First off, this spell affects only 5 units per wave! If any more units are affected, the damage will be divided to accordinate for the extra units. Also
this spell needs to be channeled to get the full 6-10 waves out of it. It would be very unwise to cast this near a Kotg that has entangling roots for example.

Second, as with the Archmage's Blizzard: Its a chaotic spell. This means that it will affect any unit caught in it (friend or foe). So don't lead your own men into the blaze unless they can survive it and have some way of healing. This is something you don't want to start doing, especially when you command units like Footmen, Grunts, Ghouls or even casters. You may accidently weaken your own men and give the enemy an advantage over you. Also, don't cast this spell when the enemy has some mobility to escape from it.

If you do manage to pull off the hits, this spell is good as wasting tier 1 melee, casters, or even weak ranged units like Archers or Trolls. At level 3, it could really cripple units like Crypt Fiends and Tier 3 melee. So I consider this spell a must-have if you are good with casting AoE type moves.

If you want to, use Rain of Fire when your enemy town portals in. Since his units are clumped together (maybe stuck), you can fry him while he has to spread out his crammed warriors. You might just be able to kill a few things doing so.

As for defending your base, if you go with an enfilade design (you have a small enterance in and its the only way in or out). You can set off a Rain of Fire at the bottleneck, for they cannot escape and your own units can kill them easily. As for the structures, they will only take 50% of the damage. Still might be a good idea to repair them!

If you have an archmage or blood mage or another pit lord ally, help out the burning by casting rain of fire where these channels are being bombed or in a possible area that they might evade from to try and dodge the Flame Strike and/or blizz. These damages stack and can easily kill t3 units fairly easily, except the burning damage from the other rain of fire won't stack. So you can do up to (50 * 10) + (110* 3) + (35 * 10) in one cast set. If your enemy is stuck or is stupid, then he will surely lose units or even heroes, unless they are spell immune.

Use this spell to combat Spirit Walkers and thier ethereal forms, after about 3 waves, they lose almost 1/2 thier life. Unless your enemy moves them out or you have an ally or units that have magic attack capabilities.

If you want to hero nuke with this spell, try to pin the hero under it with something like Roots or Storm Bolt, even though your attacks would probably suffice (since the pit lord does full damage to the hero compared to doing 33% less damage to the hero). Also use Rain of Fire when thier units move around a lot and can often get stuck in the area.

So if you want maximum burnage, aim for weak targets and cast it where not many enemies can reach you or they can't escape too well. Remember to apply the science of Blizzard when you start casting this spell (like chaoticness, keeping targets under it).

Howl of Terror​

Personally, this is most important skill I get for the Pit Lord . This spell reduces the damage of any nearby enemy units by 30-50% for 15 seconds. In other words: Roar, meet your negative cousin! This spell will affect as many enemies that are close to Pit Lord.

Think about it, you can reduce the damage of deadly things to mere crap. For example a Tauren does 33-57 at level 3 weapons. After level 3 Howl has been inflicted, the Tauren will do 17.5-28.5 damage (ouch!). If that wasn't bad enough, wait till tier 3 air get infected. Sorry air nukers, no hero for you!

Howl of Terror is great in Deadlock or any enemies you want to pull Cleaving Attacks off. Mass attack damage reductions can easily turn the tides on the battles, since your men are fine and thiers have thier attack capabilities hampered. As for Cleaving, they won't do much damage trying to make you run; allowing you to kill mass amount of men.

Be warned, this is a de-buff! Any Spirit Walkers or Priests can mass-remove it. Also Spell Breakers could manually Spell Steal and put one of your own men under Howl of Terror. This spell will still work on heroes, but the armor might reduce the length to like 5-7 seconds instead of 15.

If you do get surrounded, this spell can help weaken enemies around you so you don't take as much damage as you would, and possibly help you escape by using Cleaving and/or your own men. As I said, try not to get into that situation. For getting surronded just proves how bad you are at microing (unless a buff caused it, or you get surronded by players).

Cleaving Attack - Passive Effect​

Allows the Pit Lord's attacks to cause splash damage as long as the enemies are vulnerable and they are on the ground, doing 35%-85% of the Pit Lord's damage across any nearby units. If it works, small green blasts pop out of the enemy and it will take the splash damage.

This passive effect can help kill off more than 1 unit, allowing you to exterminate nearby units faster and also damage units you cannot reach with melee weapons. Plus, it will be a benefit if one of the heroes is clogged. You can still do damage to the hero and still hurt some of his nearby minions.

If you get surronded early, this passive effect can help you escape from a surrounding sitaution. For almost all enemies will be damaged, allowing your units to come in and help you out of the jam (if you got any). Also, since its a passive, any vulnerable units will be affected (regardless of Spell Immunity).

Combine this with Howl of Terror to really screw up enemies. Less attack power and more units taking damage adds on to the slaughter. Also, get Claws of Attack or Orbs to add on to the effectiveness.

Claws +15 at level 10 with level 3 Cleave = gg any ground so long as you don't die . Note that orb effects will only affect the initial target! But the bonus damage from items will still add to the cleave.

Here is something to take into consideration, jack off Unholy Frenzy or Bloodlust to this hero, and watch the cleaving attack take REAL effect. Being able to attack faster makes it easier to take down units with more hits per second. Just be sure to have Skull of Blight or healing potions to negate the life loss (2 hp/second).

You'd better have this passive or else you are not going to accomplish anything but this hero's demise. You will lack mana and you would be able to attack 1 target at a time while your mana is trying to recharge.

Doom - Ultimate​

If you thought the Pit Lord was bad enough to your enemies, get a load of this spell! This spell causes 40 damage to the infected unit. Upon the death, the unit will die and a 1600 HP Doom Guard will take its place! A truly evil creature with even more spells to conquer foes. The sad thing is that Doom cannot be removed and the infected unit cannot cast spells (good for a caster target), so be prepared to lose a unit!

This spell is also chaotic, as long as the unit doesn't have Resistant Skin or isn't a hero. You could cast it on an enemy like a Huntress or Rifleman and get experience. The alternative would be casting it on an ally unit that is almost dead or can easily be replaced (usually summons). This keeps them from getting experience!

Cast this spell on a unit closer to your allied units. The Doom Guard is powerful, but not when its surronded and easily killed off (congrats you wasted 150 mana). Also, aim for weaker units so the Doom Guard can come into play faster.

To avoid an enemy Doom casting, bring the unit to a surronding point (near Spell immune things or towers). Or far away from battle to eat up some time, then try using things like Abolish Magic and Purge against it.

Warcraft III - Neutral -> Creeps -> Demons
This site tells you about the Demon unit that will spawn!

Hero Building​

Pick between Howl or Rain of Fire. Then learn Cleaving Attack! This hero isn't a good example of picking the two spells. Like the Tauren Chieftan, he lacks a decent mana supply! So if he gets mana burned or uses his mana, he will be useless without Cleaving attack. This hero is better off getting it first. If you choose to get it second, get a spell that can heal it or items. So that it won't die fast and give experience to the enemies.

It also helps to carry around HP increasing items or potions. He can stay in battle longer and help turn the tides with his cleaving powers. A pit lord has max life at 1400, but it doesnt mean you can get strength tomes and Vitality shields (getting him to more hp than even a Mountian Giant)!


Other than that, this is a great hero for harming multiple beings at once. Good luck with this one and I hope it becomes a good asset to your gaming. For me, it has!