Truthfully, all races did seem to have a certain hero that was head and shoulders better, until people learned proper counter player to make them less effective. I don't know if it's possible to noob stomp now like it was ten years ago, but you could win a ton of matches just by going Orc and Blademaster harass, or Night Elf and Demon Hunter Harass-amass Huntress. It wasn't until TFT and some Tavern hero buffs (then nerfs) that things seemed to open up competitively.
Level one heroes are all but set unless you go for a specific strat ( e.g. tower rush ) or want to counter a specific strat. In the case of the latter usually that's what your 2nd hero is for.
Orc: blademaster
UD: death knight
NE: demon Hunter (could be warden)
HU: archmage
Ne has the overall weakest options with their base heroes so they simultaneously have the greatest flexibility
I personally don't like twisted Meadows just because in UD v orc it is very easy to get units picked off by a blademaster. Beyond that it's mostly fine.
I've been trying to take the same approach I attempted in starcraft. Pick specific things to work on. Lately it has been correctly walling off. So far I haven't been very successful. Granted I guess I base layout is fine since the last few players that tried to worker harass end up losing since they had to micro so much I just destroyed their base/expo and saved my workers. However the skill levels vary so much it could be they just didn't have the apm to do both and a better player would've beat me. The workers are always an UD weakness.
That being said I lost some games earlier because invisible paladins with divine shield kept beating up my acolytes. I didn't respond correctly.
edit:
to elaborate in 1v1 this is basically what i see most of the time
orc: blademaster into shadow hunter. rarely is there a 3rd hero. tauren chieftan shows up against undead occasionally and rarely are tavern heroes used
undead: death knight into lich nearly 100% of the time. usually dark ranger 3rd but pit lord is effective against orc. naga sea witch will show up if you are doing something aggressive and usually ghoul based. dk is still getting used first there though. in the mirror a dreadlord or lich first can be used as it opens some cheese strategies up (aka show up with a bunch of ghouls and use your opponent's graveyard to power rod of necromancy), nova early on hurts acolytes pretty bad. crypt lord sometimes shows up as a 3rd hero, dreadlord is almost never chosen outside of the mirror
human: archmage first allows for a lot of fast creeping and fast expands. mountain king second is usually the standard as storm bolt is really strong. if you feel you can out micro your opponent and want to be aggressive MK first is viable. paladin 3rd sometimes comes into play. however he also is the backbone for the rifleman strategy that was popular a year or 2 ago. think of it as the human version of DK + fiends.
night elf: as mentioned usually it is DH first. however you can go solo warden. keeper of the grove can be first in some strategies but usually they only work at lower skill levels especially since kotg drops off as hero levels rise. his power spikes just arent as strong. Priestess of the moon almost never shows up outside of team games
tavern heroes:
pit lord: as mentioned this is usually chosen by undead as a 3rd hero. he is coil'able and howl helps a lot to lower the dps of an orc player pandaren brewmaster: typically seen as a 2nd hero by non-undead races in order to deal with swarms of units be they gyrocopters, gargoyles, ghouls, footman, whatever. breath of fire hurts dark ranger: a common 3rd hero for the scourge. she also can enable some cheese strategies by showing up with a million minions. the silence is really her best asset firelord: generally show sup alongside human or orc tower rush strategies. his ability to generate a lot of extra units helps add to the pressure applied by locking your opponent in their base. beastmaster: orcs lack dispel especially early on so it isn't uncommon to see night elves take the beastmaster to try and leverage that fact and lean of the quillbeasts and hawks to inflate their army size. usually the beastmaster's bear doesn't show up. naga sea witch: her frost arrows can really help pick off fleeing units so if you can constantly harass your opponent you'll be able to whittle down their forces. i've seen her units with pretty much every race in the same capacity. however she also loses power as the games goes long compared to other heroes. goblin tinker: pocket fa ctory is very strong and a good harassment tool against expansions. it also let's you create a frontline to protect units that would otherwise be exposed. he has been used with pretty much every race for this purpose. goblin alchemist: to my knowledge this guy is a mee. i've seen him picked 1st, 2nd, and 3rd but generally by when streamers are just goofing around.
this obviously isn't comprehensive as i don't really play all 4 races i basically stick to UD and sometimes play orc or human. additionally things change substantially in 2v2 as you'll see almost any hero first since you have your teammate to also fill in strategic/tactical gaps. plus things like cryptlord first work since you can use say your teammates voodoo lounge to get healing salves or similar items.
edit 2: on one hand it makes sense that each race has a "leader" hero and that is their primary one. on the other hand everyone is partial to specific heroes for various reasons and it'd be nice to let people start with whatever they want. however to do so i think the power level of many things needs to be flattened. for example UD nukes (coil/nova) possibly need to be nerfed, however to do so you need to buff basically everything else they have. the other UD heroes just aren't reasonable to take as first heroes due to a variety of factors before you get to the fact that death coil and unholy aura are nuts. not unlike brood war, since there have been no balance patches for so long there is a delicate tension between everything at this point as a result of the strategies that evolved. sure things can be changed but there are a lot of dominoes that will fall as a result.
another approach is changing the maps as several are strongly in favor of one race or another in a given matchup. item drops are also a source of frustration as you can get blown out for example by a blademaster with a ton of claws or something similar. book of the dead is a game changing item drop. along with ranges for unit damage you can end up in some frustrating situations.
The biggest issue is the opportunity cost. Level 2 coils and water elementals are a big deal and it can be tough to get a 2nd hero to that before it's too late.
Additionally in the case of UD, the lack of early game heal is a significant problem. Both the coil and the aura. I've definitely won and lost games on the back of being able to have a coil ready for even my acolytes as opposed to my "real" units. Nothing else comes close, the blight stone/skull unfortunately isn't enough. At least for HU players you can use militia to creep/expo and not be at a huge loss letting the mountain king or other options be viable.
Level one heroes are all but set unless you go for a specific strat ( e.g. tower rush ) or want to counter a specific strat. In the case of the latter usually that's what your 2nd hero is for.
Orc: blademaster
UD: death knight
NE: demon Hunter (could be warden)
HU: archmage
Ne has the overall weakest options with their base heroes so they simultaneously have the greatest flexibility
I personally don't like twisted Meadows just because in UD v orc it is very easy to get units picked off by a blademaster. Beyond that it's mostly fine.
I've been trying to take the same approach I attempted in starcraft. Pick specific things to work on. Lately it has been correctly walling off. So far I haven't been very successful. Granted I guess I base layout is fine since the last few players that tried to worker harass end up losing since they had to micro so much I just destroyed their base/expo and saved my workers. However the skill levels vary so much it could be they just didn't have the apm to do both and a better player would've beat me. The workers are always an UD weakness.
That being said I lost some games earlier because invisible paladins with divine shield kept beating up my acolytes. I didn't respond correctly.
edit:
to elaborate in 1v1 this is basically what i see most of the time
orc: blademaster into shadow hunter. rarely is there a 3rd hero. tauren chieftan shows up against undead occasionally and rarely are tavern heroes used
undead: death knight into lich nearly 100% of the time. usually dark ranger 3rd but pit lord is effective against orc. naga sea witch will show up if you are doing something aggressive and usually ghoul based. dk is still getting used first there though. in the mirror a dreadlord or lich first can be used as it opens some cheese strategies up (aka show up with a bunch of ghouls and use your opponent's graveyard to power rod of necromancy), nova early on hurts acolytes pretty bad. crypt lord sometimes shows up as a 3rd hero, dreadlord is almost never chosen outside of the mirror
human: archmage first allows for a lot of fast creeping and fast expands. mountain king second is usually the standard as storm bolt is really strong. if you feel you can out micro your opponent and want to be aggressive MK first is viable. paladin 3rd sometimes comes into play. however he also is the backbone for the rifleman strategy that was popular a year or 2 ago. think of it as the human version of DK + fiends.
night elf: as mentioned usually it is DH first. however you can go solo warden. keeper of the grove can be first in some strategies but usually they only work at lower skill levels especially since kotg drops off as hero levels rise. his power spikes just arent as strong. Priestess of the moon almost never shows up outside of team games
tavern heroes:
pit lord: as mentioned this is usually chosen by undead as a 3rd hero. he is coil'able and howl helps a lot to lower the dps of an orc player pandaren brewmaster: typically seen as a 2nd hero by non-undead races in order to deal with swarms of units be they gyrocopters, gargoyles, ghouls, footman, whatever. breath of fire hurts dark ranger: a common 3rd hero for the scourge. she also can enable some cheese strategies by showing up with a million minions. the silence is really her best asset firelord: generally show sup alongside human or orc tower rush strategies. his ability to generate a lot of extra units helps add to the pressure applied by locking your opponent in their base. beastmaster: orcs lack dispel especially early on so it isn't uncommon to see night elves take the beastmaster to try and leverage that fact and lean of the quillbeasts and hawks to inflate their army size. usually the beastmaster's bear doesn't show up. naga sea witch: her frost arrows can really help pick off fleeing units so if you can constantly harass your opponent you'll be able to whittle down their forces. i've seen her units with pretty much every race in the same capacity. however she also loses power as the games goes long compared to other heroes. goblin tinker: pocket fa ctory is very strong and a good harassment tool against expansions. it also let's you create a frontline to protect units that would otherwise be exposed. he has been used with pretty much every race for this purpose. goblin alchemist: to my knowledge this guy is a mee. i've seen him picked 1st, 2nd, and 3rd but generally by when streamers are just goofing around.
this obviously isn't comprehensive as i don't really play all 4 races i basically stick to UD and sometimes play orc or human. additionally things change substantially in 2v2 as you'll see almost any hero first since you have your teammate to also fill in strategic/tactical gaps. plus things like cryptlord first work since you can use say your teammates voodoo lounge to get healing salves or similar items.
edit 2: on one hand it makes sense that each race has a "leader" hero and that is their primary one. on the other hand everyone is partial to specific heroes for various reasons and it'd be nice to let people start with whatever they want. however to do so i think the power level of many things needs to be flattened. for example UD nukes (coil/nova) possibly need to be nerfed, however to do so you need to buff basically everything else they have. the other UD heroes just aren't reasonable to take as first heroes due to a variety of factors before you get to the fact that death coil and unholy aura are nuts. not unlike brood war, since there have been no balance patches for so long there is a delicate tension between everything at this point as a result of the strategies that evolved. sure things can be changed but there are a lot of dominoes that will fall as a result.
another approach is changing the maps as several are strongly in favor of one race or another in a given matchup. item drops are also a source of frustration as you can get blown out for example by a blademaster with a ton of claws or something similar. book of the dead is a game changing item drop. along with ranges for unit damage you can end up in some frustrating situations.
I thought Orcs were generally Farseer/SH as first hero? Farseer Wolves were good for harass/creeping and/or Shadow Hunter w/ Hex was good for picking off high value targets (crypt fiends/huntress/grunts)
Overall, agree with the majority of this, though I wasn't a huuuuuge 1v1 guy. (Mostly a 2s/3s guy w/ over 3000 games to show for it)
I really do agree with Night Elves being the most varied for Heroes. WIth the exception of the POTM, their heroes were very strong and varied. I personally never cared for Warden personally (was a huge KOTG/DH/Tinker guy) but overall have nothing but good memories when playing Night Elves.
it used to be farseer first, but recently (i'd say last 5 years at least) it's been blademaster first. you can just windwalk the entire map and then last hit to steal creeps and items. you can actually creep faster and pretty much safer due to critical strike. sometimes right-clicking opposing heroes with the BM will just end games too. since your opponent has to constantly respect the potential that you show up and kill off units, creeps, or even their heroes it slows them down and you can tech pretty safely without needing many units early on.
i forgot to mention that TC is a good 2nd choice for orc against NE since on the NE side the common strategy is to mass talons and shockwave puts in work in that situation.
edit: just to clarify all this stuff is from me watching streams. i don't play all the races as mentioned and although watched a lot i will openly admit that i could be wrong. plus although the tournament scene is alive it isn't nearly as big as other games. as such all it takes is one player showing up and things get turned around.
On the improvement front: don't forget to rebuy town portals or other important items. It isn't uncommon to have a surplus of gold but be choked on lumber since creeps award gold and you can always sell off extraneous items. Invulnerability potions, town portals, and other consumables will frequently be the difference between winning and losing.
To take a recent example I had an UD vs Orc game yesterday. Was pretty handily in the lead since my opponent tried to creep jack and I turned the tables by killing his blademaster. After a little time I wanted to push and managed to destroy some burrows and his shop. Well he then shows up to defend and in the clash I end up letting my DK bite the dust. On the way to his base I even thought "I should go buy a tp", but I decided to see if I could just micro my way out of what was potentially a bad situation. Obviously I could not and went on to lose the game, one which I should have had if I had listened to...well me. At the end of the day I console myself somewhat because I was intentionally barreling in and I'll be more careful next time. At the same time however I am a little frustrated that I didn't just take the extra 10 seconds to walk to the shop and lost a game that I "should have won". It's tough sometimes experimenting and it going sideways.
I think you can argue that Warcraft 3 is one of the most interesting RTS designs ever created.
Lots of room for weird strategies and experimentation (early on at least). I think having units, items and heroes specific to a map is just really unique system that adds a lot to the game.
You're basically making me want to play this again WingedWeasel.
I hope I am! I've been playing a lot lately and just getting back into the swing of things. I kinda rotate between starcraft 2, Warcraft 3, and dropzone (not necessarily in that order) and will play a game or two on each so I have time to digest what happened in each game.
Unwittingly made the playoff rounds of a 1v1 tournament today but had switched over to play heroes and didn't realize it. I didn't think 2-1 would make it.
I can't really contest the claim, it really is the most comprehensive analysis I've seen. It breaks down all the major streamers into markets (Asian,Western,Russian) and calculates a lot of details such as audience sharing/channel exclusivity, hours watched, performance over time (as it pertains to viewership), what people tend to watch aside from WC3 and more stuff. It's pretty interesting although admittedly I haven't had the time to review it thoroughly.
I don't make maps so I don't know how impactful these changes are but it sounds big. Of note these are not official tools. Hiveworkshop is one of (maybe biggest?) communities for custom maps.
We've released patch 1.28.1 today. Please use this thread for any issues or questions. Notes:
Bug Fixes
Fixed installer crashes and bugs
Fixed CDKey related bugs
Fixed stability issues related to missing data in the Polish build
Fixed German RoC installer launching TFT
WorldEdit map testing will work with non-default map names
PreloadGenEnd() will now save into the User Data folder
Know Issues
Non-Latin Windows usernames are not working
If Mac OSX does not launch the game, and gives an error that CDKeys could not be found:
Rename the .app from “Warcraft III.app” to “War3.app”
Run the game and quit
Rename .app back to “Warcraft III.app”
Allegedly the delay on b net was reduced from 250ms to 100ms. That's pretty awesome if true
So the delay reduction for b.net seems to be for a future patch and not yet implemented unfortunately. but overall that's cool news that its being considered
Classic Games has been working hard on Warcraft III. The 1.28 patch didn’t hit all the marks we hold ourselves to. We’ve been making a lot of changes behind the scenes to make future work faster and more reliable.
Patching and installation, CD keys, data migration, missing files from MPQs, usernames and file paths with UTF-8 characters, screen modes, order ID’s broke popular non-blizzard maps, and Mac specific issues were fallout from those improvements. We are working hard to address all the issues that you’ve brought to our attention. We appreciate your patience and involvement.
Improving these classic codebases comes with its share of hazards, and we’re glad to partner with you on the endeavor. The better you communicate needs, wants, or bugs for the game, the more effective we will be at building a better Warcraft III.
As we move forward, there will be quality of life game improvements, editor updates, new map pools, balance tweaks, and more. The recent patch was an important step in paving the way for the bigger ticket items that you all want. Please continue to give us constructive feedback, let us know where we missed, and what you want us to do!
A bunch of cleanup things such as combining reign of chaos and frozen throne via a toggle in the main menu as well as some bee installers, combined executable and world editor, and although it isn't in this patch it was confirmed that the b.net delay has been reduced from 250 to 100 Ms as of yesterday!
They're still patching this game? I was in sicily in the navy when this game came out. Many hours lost online playing, especially in custom games. DoTA consumed me. Was actually friends with EuL (original maker of DoTA) and helped beta test his DoTA sequel that never caught on.
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Lord_AsmodeusgoeticSobriquet:Here is your magical cryptic riddle-tumour: I AM A TIME MACHINERegistered Userregular
I should play some custom games.
One thing I regret is I can't find some of the old maps I used to like, there was one that sort of like Footmen but with demons, and all there were 2 teams. It was pretty cool, but I can't for the life of me find it.
also hard to find people still playing King Leopold's maps which I loved.
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
I never did finish the built in gauntlet like game they included. The portion when you got in the vehicles and you're ankh (is that what it was? an extra life) didn't matter.
If there's a vehicle portion with huge numbers of sheep, yeah, that's Warchasers.
I just remember you picked a hero, there were enemy spawns like gauntlet you had to destroy, it was built in by blizzard, and when you got to the vehicle portion, everyone died
One thing i failed to mention is that there is going to be an invitational "tournament" as well including 4v4 and ffa games. I appreciate that the name drop back2warcraft as well. Most of the people on the list have been out of the tournament scene for a while but it should be fun.
Yeah the people who have been playing still are probably going to stomp all over the ones who have stopped playing. Hopefully at the invitational they announce something crazy like WC4, a 2nd expansion, or porting wc1/2 stuff into the wc3 engine, or the most boring just an HD rerelease.
At this point honestly I'd be entirely grateful for anything.
3D remakes of WC1,WC2 and the expansion. A remake of WC3 and FT in the StarCraft II engine (with further improvements, dammit!). I think announcing Warcraft IV would actually kill me with joy.
Just...not something in Overwatch or Heroes of the Storm, okay? We've already got all that. Repeatedly.
The rumor is a remaster will be announced similar to how it went down with sc:bw. However the remaster is the worst kept secret as blizzard has openly said they are working towards it. This patch introducing modern support for a lot of stuff adds evidence to that.
The long term goal I think is remaster their major games so I doubt we'll get WC1 anytime this decal but maybe. My understanding is there are some significant problem with WC3 in SC2 despite the assets already existing (they were added a while ago). In fact there is a existing mod already which while.decent has issues. For example did you know each tree is a "unit"? This means there are thousands of units on screen and it causes performance issues as an SC2 mod.
I'm fine with trying out these changes and hopefully getting frozen throne added to the launcher. Being on b.net 2.0 would offer all the social additions plus it would hopefully address any bot/cheat related issues that remain. Even just being more visible for their existing audience will hopefully injection t some additional life.
The campaigns hold up remarkably well too. After playing WoW for so long, WC3 just feels so much more like warcraft than WoW does. Playing as the undead seems really weird though after playing the hero for so long. I miss playing some actually good RTS games just because so few of them are made anymore. Glad they are making a bunch of changes to the hero units. Shaking up that meta should be good for the game since so many of them aren't even used.
Really curious if they're updating the engine at all to support more things on screen at once, because the possibility of some kind of 12v12 DotA game probably has some map editors really interested. But if it's just going to crash or slowdown when anyone tries to do anything then there's no point even adding it in.
Very story-driven RTS games are sort of rare now. Halo Wars 2 (and the earlier title) both take a lot of cues from the point-to-point singleplayer story mission style of Warcraft III, particularly hero units.
I still need to finish the Nova mini-campaign from StarCraft II...
Warcraft 3 was a seminal game, I am really looking forward to the remaster.
I wonder what their commitment to the aestics of the original will be. SC1 was pretty slavish, but the style created by WC3 grew a lot in Wow.
I hope they stick to the aesthetic of WC3
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
Warcraft 3 was a seminal game, I am really looking forward to the remaster.
I wonder what their commitment to the aestics of the original will be. SC1 was pretty slavish, but the style created by WC3 grew a lot in Wow.
I hope they stick to the aesthetic of WC3
Assuming it happens--I really want it to--I imagine they'd be borrowing heavily from the aesthetics in the original World of Warcraft and the early expansions. I'm assuming a remaster does not alter the gameplay meaningfully (everything has the same footprint, etc.), so a great deal of resizing would be involved (tiny buildings), but it seems like a natural place to turn to (and potentially to save a bunch of effort, depending on what they have of the original assets.
Posts
Orc: blademaster
UD: death knight
NE: demon Hunter (could be warden)
HU: archmage
Ne has the overall weakest options with their base heroes so they simultaneously have the greatest flexibility
I personally don't like twisted Meadows just because in UD v orc it is very easy to get units picked off by a blademaster. Beyond that it's mostly fine.
I've been trying to take the same approach I attempted in starcraft. Pick specific things to work on. Lately it has been correctly walling off. So far I haven't been very successful. Granted I guess I base layout is fine since the last few players that tried to worker harass end up losing since they had to micro so much I just destroyed their base/expo and saved my workers. However the skill levels vary so much it could be they just didn't have the apm to do both and a better player would've beat me. The workers are always an UD weakness.
That being said I lost some games earlier because invisible paladins with divine shield kept beating up my acolytes. I didn't respond correctly.
edit:
to elaborate in 1v1 this is basically what i see most of the time
orc: blademaster into shadow hunter. rarely is there a 3rd hero. tauren chieftan shows up against undead occasionally and rarely are tavern heroes used
undead: death knight into lich nearly 100% of the time. usually dark ranger 3rd but pit lord is effective against orc. naga sea witch will show up if you are doing something aggressive and usually ghoul based. dk is still getting used first there though. in the mirror a dreadlord or lich first can be used as it opens some cheese strategies up (aka show up with a bunch of ghouls and use your opponent's graveyard to power rod of necromancy), nova early on hurts acolytes pretty bad. crypt lord sometimes shows up as a 3rd hero, dreadlord is almost never chosen outside of the mirror
human: archmage first allows for a lot of fast creeping and fast expands. mountain king second is usually the standard as storm bolt is really strong. if you feel you can out micro your opponent and want to be aggressive MK first is viable. paladin 3rd sometimes comes into play. however he also is the backbone for the rifleman strategy that was popular a year or 2 ago. think of it as the human version of DK + fiends.
night elf: as mentioned usually it is DH first. however you can go solo warden. keeper of the grove can be first in some strategies but usually they only work at lower skill levels especially since kotg drops off as hero levels rise. his power spikes just arent as strong. Priestess of the moon almost never shows up outside of team games
tavern heroes:
pit lord: as mentioned this is usually chosen by undead as a 3rd hero. he is coil'able and howl helps a lot to lower the dps of an orc player
pandaren brewmaster: typically seen as a 2nd hero by non-undead races in order to deal with swarms of units be they gyrocopters, gargoyles, ghouls, footman, whatever. breath of fire hurts
dark ranger: a common 3rd hero for the scourge. she also can enable some cheese strategies by showing up with a million minions. the silence is really her best asset
firelord: generally show sup alongside human or orc tower rush strategies. his ability to generate a lot of extra units helps add to the pressure applied by locking your opponent in their base.
beastmaster: orcs lack dispel especially early on so it isn't uncommon to see night elves take the beastmaster to try and leverage that fact and lean of the quillbeasts and hawks to inflate their army size. usually the beastmaster's bear doesn't show up.
naga sea witch: her frost arrows can really help pick off fleeing units so if you can constantly harass your opponent you'll be able to whittle down their forces. i've seen her units with pretty much every race in the same capacity. however she also loses power as the games goes long compared to other heroes.
goblin tinker: pocket fa ctory is very strong and a good harassment tool against expansions. it also let's you create a frontline to protect units that would otherwise be exposed. he has been used with pretty much every race for this purpose.
goblin alchemist: to my knowledge this guy is a mee. i've seen him picked 1st, 2nd, and 3rd but generally by when streamers are just goofing around.
this obviously isn't comprehensive as i don't really play all 4 races i basically stick to UD and sometimes play orc or human. additionally things change substantially in 2v2 as you'll see almost any hero first since you have your teammate to also fill in strategic/tactical gaps. plus things like cryptlord first work since you can use say your teammates voodoo lounge to get healing salves or similar items.
edit 2: on one hand it makes sense that each race has a "leader" hero and that is their primary one. on the other hand everyone is partial to specific heroes for various reasons and it'd be nice to let people start with whatever they want. however to do so i think the power level of many things needs to be flattened. for example UD nukes (coil/nova) possibly need to be nerfed, however to do so you need to buff basically everything else they have. the other UD heroes just aren't reasonable to take as first heroes due to a variety of factors before you get to the fact that death coil and unholy aura are nuts. not unlike brood war, since there have been no balance patches for so long there is a delicate tension between everything at this point as a result of the strategies that evolved. sure things can be changed but there are a lot of dominoes that will fall as a result.
another approach is changing the maps as several are strongly in favor of one race or another in a given matchup. item drops are also a source of frustration as you can get blown out for example by a blademaster with a ton of claws or something similar. book of the dead is a game changing item drop. along with ranges for unit damage you can end up in some frustrating situations.
WoWtcg and general gaming podcast
WoWtcg and gaming website
Additionally in the case of UD, the lack of early game heal is a significant problem. Both the coil and the aura. I've definitely won and lost games on the back of being able to have a coil ready for even my acolytes as opposed to my "real" units. Nothing else comes close, the blight stone/skull unfortunately isn't enough. At least for HU players you can use militia to creep/expo and not be at a huge loss letting the mountain king or other options be viable.
WoWtcg and general gaming podcast
WoWtcg and gaming website
Twitch.tv/back2warcraft
WoWtcg and general gaming podcast
WoWtcg and gaming website
I thought Orcs were generally Farseer/SH as first hero? Farseer Wolves were good for harass/creeping and/or Shadow Hunter w/ Hex was good for picking off high value targets (crypt fiends/huntress/grunts)
Overall, agree with the majority of this, though I wasn't a huuuuuge 1v1 guy. (Mostly a 2s/3s guy w/ over 3000 games to show for it)
I really do agree with Night Elves being the most varied for Heroes. WIth the exception of the POTM, their heroes were very strong and varied. I personally never cared for Warden personally (was a huge KOTG/DH/Tinker guy) but overall have nothing but good memories when playing Night Elves.
i forgot to mention that TC is a good 2nd choice for orc against NE since on the NE side the common strategy is to mass talons and shockwave puts in work in that situation.
edit: just to clarify all this stuff is from me watching streams. i don't play all the races as mentioned and although watched a lot i will openly admit that i could be wrong. plus although the tournament scene is alive it isn't nearly as big as other games. as such all it takes is one player showing up and things get turned around.
WoWtcg and general gaming podcast
WoWtcg and gaming website
WoWtcg and general gaming podcast
WoWtcg and gaming website
To take a recent example I had an UD vs Orc game yesterday. Was pretty handily in the lead since my opponent tried to creep jack and I turned the tables by killing his blademaster. After a little time I wanted to push and managed to destroy some burrows and his shop. Well he then shows up to defend and in the clash I end up letting my DK bite the dust. On the way to his base I even thought "I should go buy a tp", but I decided to see if I could just micro my way out of what was potentially a bad situation. Obviously I could not and went on to lose the game, one which I should have had if I had listened to...well me. At the end of the day I console myself somewhat because I was intentionally barreling in and I'll be more careful next time. At the same time however I am a little frustrated that I didn't just take the extra 10 seconds to walk to the shop and lost a game that I "should have won". It's tough sometimes experimenting and it going sideways.
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Lots of room for weird strategies and experimentation (early on at least). I think having units, items and heroes specific to a map is just really unique system that adds a lot to the game.
You're basically making me want to play this again WingedWeasel.
Unwittingly made the playoff rounds of a 1v1 tournament today but had switched over to play heroes and didn't realize it. I didn't think 2-1 would make it.
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https://www.reddit.com/r/WC3/comments/67m6a2/the_most_comprehensive_analysis_of_warcraft_3_on/
I can't really contest the claim, it really is the most comprehensive analysis I've seen. It breaks down all the major streamers into markets (Asian,Western,Russian) and calculates a lot of details such as audience sharing/channel exclusivity, hours watched, performance over time (as it pertains to viewership), what people tend to watch aside from WC3 and more stuff. It's pretty interesting although admittedly I haven't had the time to review it thoroughly.
WoWtcg and general gaming podcast
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Wish I could remember the dota like game that came out before dota
It had a constant stream of foot soldiers you fought alongside
I think you're thinking of Aeon of Strife, that actually first came out in Starcraft multiplayer and got ported to WC3 when it came out.
maybe
I'd know it if I saw it. that name doesn't ring a bell though
edit: you were correct!
that map was FUN
I don't make maps so I don't know how impactful these changes are but it sounds big. Of note these are not official tools. Hiveworkshop is one of (maybe biggest?) communities for custom maps.
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https://us.battle.net/forums/en/bnet/topic/20754496381
Allegedly the delay on b net was reduced from 250ms to 100ms. That's pretty awesome if true
WoWtcg and general gaming podcast
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GCS asia qualifier #1 is live:
twitch.tv/back2warcraft
WoWtcg and general gaming podcast
WoWtcg and gaming website
WoWtcg and general gaming podcast
WoWtcg and gaming website
https://www.reddit.com/r/WC3/comments/6a0vpj/gcs_western_qualifier_1_this_weekend_grid_released/
Hawk v hunter
Happy v orcWorker
Sonic v foggy
Thomas v rudan
Should be a fun event
WoWtcg and general gaming podcast
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https://us.battle.net/forums/en/bnet/topic/20754965441
WoWtcg and general gaming podcast
WoWtcg and gaming website
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/bnet/topic/20756885804
A bunch of cleanup things such as combining reign of chaos and frozen throne via a toggle in the main menu as well as some bee installers, combined executable and world editor, and although it isn't in this patch it was confirmed that the b.net delay has been reduced from 250 to 100 Ms as of yesterday!
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1.29 has a metric ton of changes for balance, map pools and features here are links to the notes
Balance
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/bnet/topic/20762006793
Features
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/bnet/topic/20762056755
There is a megathread over at /r/wc3 as well compiling all the changes and wow this is a lot of stuff.
WoWtcg and general gaming podcast
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One thing I regret is I can't find some of the old maps I used to like, there was one that sort of like Footmen but with demons, and all there were 2 teams. It was pretty cool, but I can't for the life of me find it.
also hard to find people still playing King Leopold's maps which I loved.
So much fun though.
I just remember you picked a hero, there were enemy spawns like gauntlet you had to destroy, it was built in by blizzard, and when you got to the vehicle portion, everyone died
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Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198004484595
3D remakes of WC1,WC2 and the expansion. A remake of WC3 and FT in the StarCraft II engine (with further improvements, dammit!). I think announcing Warcraft IV would actually kill me with joy.
Just...not something in Overwatch or Heroes of the Storm, okay? We've already got all that. Repeatedly.
The long term goal I think is remaster their major games so I doubt we'll get WC1 anytime this decal but maybe. My understanding is there are some significant problem with WC3 in SC2 despite the assets already existing (they were added a while ago). In fact there is a existing mod already which while.decent has issues. For example did you know each tree is a "unit"? This means there are thousands of units on screen and it causes performance issues as an SC2 mod.
I'm fine with trying out these changes and hopefully getting frozen throne added to the launcher. Being on b.net 2.0 would offer all the social additions plus it would hopefully address any bot/cheat related issues that remain. Even just being more visible for their existing audience will hopefully injection t some additional life.
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Really curious if they're updating the engine at all to support more things on screen at once, because the possibility of some kind of 12v12 DotA game probably has some map editors really interested. But if it's just going to crash or slowdown when anyone tries to do anything then there's no point even adding it in.
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198004484595
I still need to finish the Nova mini-campaign from StarCraft II...
I wonder what their commitment to the aestics of the original will be. SC1 was pretty slavish, but the style created by WC3 grew a lot in Wow.
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I hope they stick to the aesthetic of WC3
Assuming it happens--I really want it to--I imagine they'd be borrowing heavily from the aesthetics in the original World of Warcraft and the early expansions. I'm assuming a remaster does not alter the gameplay meaningfully (everything has the same footprint, etc.), so a great deal of resizing would be involved (tiny buildings), but it seems like a natural place to turn to (and potentially to save a bunch of effort, depending on what they have of the original assets.