Omg WC micro guide??! IT CANT BE

[Ntrik_]

http://www.battle.net/forums/war3/thread.aspx?fn=war3-strategy&t=198207&p=1#post198207

Never thought bnet forum could be useful for something, tho I could go against hell lot in that guide... but hey =)

 

[Kao]

Wow, most of it was screaming *COMMON SENSE!! COMMON FEYUCKING SENSE!!!!*

 

[None293823]

Thats what i needed, I just had to check it there. Im working on my micro in battles , I'm trying to see which is better Alt or [ ] because alt+ right mouse button/hotkey makes the map blinking, changes colours and you can't use f1 f2 for heroes, you cant use num pad 7 for quick town portal.. , then you need 1 min turning it off. On the other hand it is better when you use the other keys for faster actions than [ ] .. , surrounding that sort of things. I know a lot of these but there were some i didnt paid attention to. This is by far the best micro guide.

So who can give a solution to this ALT problem?

 

[TweaK]

Apparently bnet deleted it =\


Edit: decided to work now

 

[Ntrik_]

Deleted? Anyways Ill post it here for fun

MOST IMPORTANT RULE OF RULES YOU CANNOT BREAK FOR ANY REASON WHICH YOU MUST ADHERE TO AND NEVER FORGET OR DENY:
Do not engage in a battle you cannot win.

********************Overall rules:********************

- ALT - Use the "Alt" key... it is your friend and will aid you in almost all the faculties of battle.

- GOALS - You do not have to kill every unit or even kill a single unit (although this would be favorable) to win a battle. Sometimes your aim in a battle will be to cripple or to create a distraction.

- SCOUT - Very important to scout... this will give you the information you need. you need to know when to attack, when you opponent is most vuenrable. you need to knwo what your opponent is building, if he is teching, if he is massing.

- MAKE A PLAN before you engage in battle... those who plan out the battle before it's engagment most often have an advantage. Racial match-ups brood plans... if you know your opponent is NE and you are orc get started on the demolishers and Headhunters. If your opponent is HU and you are NE then plan to get faire dragons. Do not set yourself on one course of action so deeply though that you cannot be flexible to adapt to what your opponent is doing. Do not make two ancients of wind when you have not even seen what your opponent is making.

- GROUND ADVANTAGE - Seek to fight in areas where you are at an advantage. examples would be fighting next to your towers, away from moonwells if your opponent is NE, on bridges if you have AOE, or on HIGHER GROUND for the 25% bonus. If you are fighting next to a merc shop buy the mercs if you can before your opponent otherwise even if you are winning the battle your opponent will boost his ranks with mercs. Same applies at goblin shops for items like scrolls of healing and protection.

- UNITS - Seek to build an army that directly gives you an advantage in battle. examples would be makin faire dragons to counter human spell caster, making demolishers to counter huntresses, etc. This goes double for heros... pick heros that will boost your army's capabilities and at the same time put your opponent at a disadvantage.

- HOTKEYS - You have to make it a point to know what your units are capable of and this includes hotkeys. You have to know that a witch doctor can place a healing ward using "e" instead of using the mouse to click the picture. You should know all your races hotkeys to increase your speed in battle. you should not have to load four peons in a burrow manually unless there is a reason for it... just click on the burrow and click "b" and when the battle is over quickly click "d".

- CONTROL GROUPS - Put your units in control groups "ctrl + #". Make groups that you will remember and that will make it easier for you to command them in battle. Some popular assignments are melee in one control group with ranged and casters in another control group, all spellcasters in one group with all other units in another control group, all normal damage units in one control group with all piercing in another group and all magic damage in another group. In any case make what you feel most comfortable with but do not be afraid to change the kinds of control groups you have later on... you do not have to keep the same groups through-out the game. In the battle though most of the time these control groups will be rarely used in exchange for commanding each unit individually.
Control Group your buildings! - While you are in battle it is easy to click on your control grouped buildings and quickly hit the hotkey for some extra units. Don't go crazy and que up a thousand units... que them up as needed and rally them to your hero.

- TAB - you only really have control groups with numbers 1-5 readily available to you and i myself only use 1-4. I highly recommend keeping at least two groups for units but as for buildings i find it easiest to set all my buildings to control group 3 and setting my alter to control group 4. Tabbing allows you to control multiple buildings and units extremely easily and i highly recommend makin yourself comfortable using it and familiarizing the order of your units in control group orders so as not to have to look down to the control group pannel... rather your eyes should be fixed on the ensuing battle so as to control units more effectively. TAB'ing should be an automatic skill you're fingers have danced with many times.

- RALLY POINTS - Rally point where you need them... most of the time you will want to rally point your units to your hero but this is not always the case. Rally points also work for combat as well.... target an opposing unit or creep and shift target the next unit you'd like to attack.

********************Battle Rules:********************

In battle there are a couple of things you need to do.

Offense

****UNITS****
- ATTACK UNITS... do not attack area. You should seek to control all your units individually in order to maximize your army's potential.

- UNIT TARGETING - Attack your opponents units with units of yours that will do the most damage. examples using demolishers to attack spellcasters in the back of the army... demolishers can get rid of those pesky spellcasters instead of attackin an opponents hero doing minimal damage and not giving you the most it can. Always look for an advantage in all unit matchups.

- SICK UNITS - Your oppoent will almost always have units that have less hp than others as they have taken damage from creeps or are just not fully healed... i call these sick units. Seek to get rid of these first. Be careful not to chase them though as you will suffer more damage than you should.

- NEVER ENGAGE IN 1V1 BATTLES... that is to say never allow your units to attack your oppoents units one to one. The damage outcome of this battle is never productive to your victory... instead attack single opponent units in groups of two or three. Although some of your opponents units will go undamged for a while, none the less your opponents army will die twice as fast as yours. Also it is important to remember that although in a 1v1 unit battle you damage all the units slowly, that is not what will gain your hero levels... dead units get you levels.

- HERO TARGETING is both risky and necessary. There will be times when the quickest way to victory in a battle will be to target your opponents hero. This is risky due to the fact that heros can survive longer than regular units, they have spells to help them, and your opponent will be focusing on keeping them alive. When targetting a hero click on the hero to make sure their items will not allow them to out live your units. In targetting a hero your units will take alot of damage on the norm... if the hero's items allow it to live for a long time while being attacked your units will dwindle to nothing and the battle will be lost for you. *Don't target a hero unless you can kill them.* If your opponents hero is occupied, many times you will be able to surround the hero to avoid it running away to expedite the kill. In these occasions use a move command instead of the attack command. Also when attackin heros do not use your offensive spells pre-emptively... instead wait until their are low on hp to use them. If you use chain lightning on a hero with 500 hp they will heal as soon as your use it... but if you wait till they are down to 200 hp and use it they'll be caught off guard and will die soon after.

-TP(Town Portal) ADVICE Never TP out a lvl 1 hero if you harrassing. The cost of the TP is twice that of the revive cost of the hero and a lvl 1 hero revives pretty fast. Obviously, if you have units along and the cost of losing them > cost of the TP, then do it.

If you are losing a battle and must TP, don't just TP to your base and wait cause in those five seconds (of TP channeling time) your opponent can pick off alot of units. Move the injured units away a bit and maybe try to ff their weaker ones.

If your base or allies is under attack and you must tp it, YOU CAN AIM THE TP! This is very uselfull for making sure you TP to the front lines if you have melee or rear if you have ranged. Also, it very easy to TP/surrond an enemy hero if they are close enough to the town hall if you aim the TP right on top of them. Also can keep you from getting stuck in more compact bases.

 

[Ntrik_]

- FORMATIONS AND DECEPTIONS: if encountering an opponent with AOE (area of effect spells) or an opponent that is benifiting from holding you at bay with one wave of units while pounding you with their ranged units rush headlong into his units. examples of opponents would be huntresses holidng you while archers focus fire your units to nothingness or grunts holding you back while zerkers pick you apart. By rushing headlong into their lines you are takin that advantage away from them... this also creates a sort of confusion that will work to your advantage as they are probably not use to controling units when mixed with other units.
Deception is VITALLY important. Sun Tzu said all warfare is based on deception. This means don't sell those wands of illusion. This means while you are engaged in a battle drop a couple of meat wagons or demolishers in your oppoents base and rip their gold mine to shreds. This means use those mechanical critters. This means build your Boneyards and Tauren Totems where your opponent can't see them if he scans your base. This means build your trees of life behind goldmines when you can. this means turn those mortars invisible and watch as your opponents jaw drops. This means flood your opponents side of the battle with fliers in order to avoid him easily commanding his units (this is quite humorous and frustrating). Think outside the box and surprise your opponent with strange and unique stratagies and you'll give youself a large advantage. It is EXTREMELY difficult to defend something you have never encountered before.

****HEROS****
- SPELLS - they have SPELLS for a reason... use them.... all races have a way for heros to regain mana quickly so don't be frugal... use your spells as much as you can and at the appropriate times. for example if you see a far seers wolves are about to die cast them again quickly to take away that potential xp from your opponent. as NE don't mana burn a hero with only 9 mana since it's pointless... you waste your mana and you would have done more damage had you attacked normally.
- ITEMS - Equip your heros with them... don't be bashful... load them up with goodies and you'll find you will have a significant advantage in battle.

- LEVELS - Heros need them to increase their effectiveness... how do you do this???.... kill units... don't let an engagement pass that you allow your opponent to run... even if you have to use a war stomp to kill one single unit do it. Every unit you kill gets you closer to the next level, the next skill, and the win. If you need to waste the coil on an archer do it... heal your unit later on. Hero rules apply double for UD as they are a race that centers on their heros.

Defense

- IT'S NOT THE END - Do not fight battles as though each one were the last. Your battles should have goals... whether it is to cripple, to destroy, or to kill a hero, or to harass.

- KNOW WHEN TO RUN AWAY... if at any time in the battle you feel you cannot win or the losses will outweigh the benefits then avoid pursing the battle any further. TP out if you can... if not then run. If you run do not walk if you can run... meaning bring a scroll of speed if you have it... if you are undead keep your death knight in the back to allow all your units to benefit from unholy aura instead of out running them and watching your units die, as your running purge, entangle, ensnare pursurers to make a more efficient retreat. Never TP a level 1 hero... reviving him will almost always be more cost effective than to waste a TP. Lastly never leave anyone behind... don't give your opponent the xp from those wolves, skeletons, or furblogs you left behind.

****UNITS****
- HAZARD CONTROL - As your units become damaged pull them back to avoid getting hit... then bring them back into battle as your opponents units have now targeted your other units with more hp.

- UNIT SAVED IS A UNIT SAVED - Don't be afraid to let the unit go back to your base... better to be down one unit in battle than to be down one unit in game.

- WILL TO LIVE - Use unit abilities. examples would be shadowmelding for NE, ghouls canabalize, and spirit walkers ethereal form.

- HEALING - use it... mass healing is a wonderful wonderful thing. Nothing makes an opponent more furious then seeing a unit or units he's delt massive amounts of damage to get healed negating all his attacks. examples would be scrolls of healing, healing salve, holy light, coil, regeneration, etc.

- KILLING YOUR OWN UNITS - there are occassions when it is preferable to kill your own units than to have your opponent kill them... this is most usually the case before makin a retreat.

- ZEPPLINS- Zeplins are fantastic for defense in battle. they can life units up and take them out of battle to avoid getting hit and can drop them anywhere in the battle.
****HEROS****
- LIIIIIIVE - Keep them alive... they are your ticket to victory, they give you advantages in battle with their spells, if they die they can't very well be any help to you. If your hero is targeted run them to the back of your lines, then bring them back... this will allow your units to do significant damage to your over anxious opponents units. If you feel as though a hero is far too weak purchase items that will help them... a melee hero should almost always have an invun pot handy or a nice potion of healing.

********************Conclussions:********************

- Micro at it's best is like an elegant dance of two people trying to do the same thing and achieve a similar end. Your opponent is using the same offensive ideas and defensive ideas as you are using and it usually comes down to who is more effective and focused in their mind and of course fingers.

- Knowledge and ability are seperate but not exclusive (keep this in mind before flaming me for my record). Although you know everything about micro it is nothing without being applied in reality. Experience is the best teacher but not only experience but experience with a cognative aspect. You must always seek to improve and to improve you have to ask yourself what you did right, what you did wrong... and MOST IMPORTANTLY *WHY* it was right or wrong.


This part by Augury

In my below descriptions, the army type I am focusing on unless otherwise specified is a midgame ranged - melee mix ( ~5 rifles and ~5 foots)

I recommend seperating your army into an "attack-move" group (melee + casters) and a "focus-fire" group (heroes + ranged + siege). If you do this, then your micro will be limited to:

1. attack-moving the attack-move group
2. hold alt (for hitpoint bars)
3. hero spells
4. focus-fire with the focus-fire group
5. dance or retreat damaged units
6. possible unit surrounds

Attack-moving:

These units are most likely the ones that you will want to dance or retreat so they should be an important focus when you look at your main screen.

Alt:
Beware of the windows key.

Focus-fire:

The ideal targets are the ones that are nearby / close / in front and weakened by the attack-moved troops. Usually I assign two targets per focusfire by using shift. If your opponent pulls back the focused unit, be sure to switch targets quickly.

Dancing / retreating:

dancing is retreating a unit a short distance but keeping it in the battle so that enemies on attack-move will break attack lock.

When you dance units, don't use shift. If it's a melee unit, it'll use it's AI to re-engage as if it were on attack-move anyways. If it's a ranged unit, you should use your entire control group to re-focus on a target. This is because using shift and telling your danced unit to reacquire a certain target takes up "micro time" which could be used instead to dance away another unit or two.

Retreating is pulling a unit out of the battle completely and sending it home. In general, you want to dance units if you think they will continue to survive but retreat units if you think they would die otherwise. If your opponent relies mainly on attack-move, you'll use dancing most of the time. If he likes to focus a unit to death (and keep running after it) then retreating is the best option. If he does a mix of these then you just need to do a mix as well. Retreating units denies enemies of exp and also makes your army considerably stronger if you manage to heal safely after the battle. In general you will want to regroup your healthy units so that when you select the group again you won't pull the damaged units back into the fight. Certain situations make this very difficult (ex: tc shockwave on foots) in which case you should rely on click-dragging the healthy units onscreen and regrouping in that manner (instead of using the selection box).

10 chars gg .

 

[Ntrik_]

Unit surrounds:

The basic principle in surrounding a unit is to cut off it's means of escape. These are the four directions that are directly north, south, east, and west of the unit. This means that you need a minimum of 4 units to surround another unit.

There are two methods to surrounding a unit. If you have a large number of units (such as mass ghouls) then you can use a move + move command to surround by moving past / around the unit then telling your army to move onto the unit (patrol) multiple times. This is what is usually used with a spell such as sleep. Variations are using attack-move instead of move-spam to surround

The second method is for a low unit-count skirmish such as anti-harassment with MK and foots. For this one, you want to move past the unit partially before attack-moving (the first second) and then moving individual units to fill up the N, S, E, and W directions Usually you will only need to fill in two of the escape routes since the attack-moving troops will cover the other two.
----

Of course, all of this is assuming that you have a strong familiarity with your basic hotkeys (1, 2, 3, a, shift, alt, ctrl, backspace, and hero spell hotkeys (some of which are w, t, f, c, n, e, b, d, x, r). Clicking pictures for commands or spells is a habit that should be dropped prior to any of the above for improved micro.

omfg another one lolol Im gonna get banned

 

[QuikSilver]

yup most of this stuff comes with basic experience! except for the basic key usage like Alt and Tab...

"omfg another one lolol Im gonna get banned"
Big Deal...

 

[None293823]

I find it hard to play with ALt. It messes up my controls and movement and concentration with the minimap signal, yeah you can click on the ground not the map itself it still is a problem. I don't know how you use Alt with no problems.

 

[Ntrik_]

I find it hard to play with ALt. It messes up my controls and movement and concentration with the minimap signal, yeah you can click on the ground not the map itself it still is a problem. I don't know how you use Alt with no problems.

Alt > everything, I use it all the time

 

[Renzokuken]

I always attack area and then just micro the casters and any units that are getting pummelled.

 

[None293823]

Alt > everything, I use it all the time

I don't mean I dont use anything for health bars, I use [ and ] for now. I have tried and I can't click on my hero because '1' '2' also F1 F2 aren't working.

 

[Renzokuken]

What does Alt do?

 

[Ntrik_]

Alt shows small health bar of units when you press it

MS, thats why you hold and take your hands off of alt very quickly.

 

[GodHatesYou1701]

Come to think of it...I don't even group buildings...Maybe I should do that...

 

[ChrisH36]

Wow, most of it was screaming *COMMON SENSE!! COMMON FEYUCKING SENSE!!!!*

In every strategy game, that is common sense, except for some people in Starcraft .

WILL TO LIVE - Use unit abilities. examples would be shadowmelding for NE, ghouls canabalize, and spirit walkers ethereal form.

Every creep i destroy and I am the dude making Undead melee, I would canabalize after the battle. I'd rather have strong ghouls and aboms rather than nearly dead ones for the enemy to get easy kills off.

 

[None293823]

Come to think of it...I don't even group buildings...Maybe I should do that...

Yeah group buildings and start pumping rally point. You really can't get more than 160 apm without abusing rally point. Meh Im also abuser but I never say that Im great because I have higher apm.

Anyway grouping buildings really saves you time in battles. Much better than to click at your base, to make a unit, then to click back into the battle while they kill some of your units.

 

[Samsara]

Come to think of it...I don't even group buildings...Maybe I should do that...

I tend to just bind my barracks to 3 and my Arcane sanctuary to 4. Anything else i work backwards (0,9,8...)

 

[OMGLOLWTFPWN]

That was there a while ago I think, must've got bumped. Anyway most of it is common sense like don't let your units die. My building hotkeys are 7,8 and 9 and I use the low keys for units.

 

[Ntrik_]

That was there a while ago I think, must've got bumped. Anyway most of it is common sense like don't let your units die. My building hotkeys are 7,8 and 9 and I use the low keys for units.

IT is from awhile ago

and it stickied.