| Posted By WhatUrMuva on 9/17/04 @ 10:15:28 PM |
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Panda Power Night Elf To me, nightelf gets more benefit from choosing panda than any other race. I regularly use panda in 3 of the racial matchups, and occasionally in the 4th. A very powerful hero combo against human is DH Panda. Go with a 1 aow tech b.o. and harass hard. Keep wisps nearby to dispel if he militia creeps but never use more than 2 wisps in this way (until you finish teching). Keep that Archmage low level until you hit tier 2. At this point the human is probably 30 seconds from hitting tier 2 themselves, so you have about 2 minutes to do the damage before his mk comes out and ruins the party. Grab a Panda and go attack. Cut off his escape if possible and haze his footmen. Pick off one at a time and dance individual archers away. During this time you should have thrown down 2 lores and another well, and started making a few wisps to give you wood while you tech to 3. Once you’ve done the damage its time to creep. In Turtle Rock go straight for the red creeps at mines where players have a chance to spawn. Then go for the shop creeps and buy some scrolls. Watch carefully for any expansion activity from the human. Usually your opponent will attack at the point where you have a few adept bears and your heros. Rejuv the heros unless he has a breaker or two, if this is the case roar and run the bears back to rejuv as soon as the breakers have no mana. Go for casters with archers and watch out for aoe. Hazed footmen shouldn't be too difficult to outmaneuver. If for some reason your dh got a higher level than the panda, when he reaches three sit him out so the panda can catch up. Buy a manapot for the panda and a staff for the dh. In battles make sure the bears aren’t all huddled around the mountain king, waiting to be aoe'd. The Mk is no threat to your archers, provided he’s been sufficiently burned by the DH. Archers should focus on casters then mortars then anything else. Order of actions should be something like: Order DH to mana burn mk, order dryads to dispel elementals, haze back lines of human army, order archers to attack a good target, BoF human army. Against undead panda is a must. My build order is a bit different than most tavern hero ne build orders and soon I'll post some replays. (I haven't been saving mine) Important note is to only get 1 AoW. Basically if you have good micro and are near your opponent go hit as soon as possible. In turtle rock go for the green creeps first. Ultimately archers supported by Panda are superior to ghouls supported by DK. Be very careful not to get surrounded while also keeping your archers safe and focusing on ghouls. If you start firing as soon as you haze his army the DK will need to spend 150 mana to keep that ghoul alive, while you only spent 70 to slow him and his corpse-eating buddies. When you hit tier 2 start making a warden, an ancient of wonders, and an ancient of wind. Depending on how the first few minutes go, you have 2 options. The first is the typical night elf expansion. The advantage of this is it forces the undead to come to you, just don’t tp to an expansion only to be slaughtered by aoe since your archers are clumped. But if you did well on your early game you can do the unexpected and play like an undead. Just tech to tier 3 as fast as they are. Make 2 dotts then a hippo. The hippo should scout enemy expansions regularly. If you see gargs start pumping hippos. Hippos will beat gargs even in inferior numbers if the gargoyles are hazed. Haze + BoF + FoK is extremely damaging to both gargs and ghouls. When you hit tier 3 get a chimera roost (2 if you have an expansion) and if your opponent hasn’t made a single gargoyle yet, get druid adept/master training. The ideal ne army is archers panda warden hippos (if gargs) master dotts (if fiends) and several chimaeras. Remember to focus on abominations, not heros with chims. If you have master dotts (get them if you have an expansion, regardless of your opponents units) keep his lich/cl cycloned as much as possible. Even if he gets the spells off it should draw his focus on trying to cast, rather than microing the rest of his army. The reason you need hippographs so badly is that ne has absolutely no other options for beating gargs. I can't tell how many times I've played ud and just used my level 5+ dk to pick off archers one at a time. The thing is, unless he gets close enough to be cycloned/surrounded, the dk just can't be stopped. Remember that its worth it to tp if the undead focused on your panda. Most of the time he will have gotten the worse out of the deal. He will have lost many ghouls and you will just hit a well and resume creeping. Buy a preservation staff for the panda, and a potion for the warden. As a random player, it is my opinion that nightelf has the advantage here, no matter what n00b elfs everywhere will tell you  . A very powerful strategy is panda against night elf. All you really need to do is mass archers and you'll beat any mass tier 1 user. Haze makes equal food armies of archers slaughter hunts. If you see teching don't get a second aow, but tech yourself to bears. This should put you slightly behind your opponent, but give you big opportunities to creep faster than he can. It is EXTREMELY to control the merc camps in a night elf mirror. If your opponent grabbed a merc first, quickly run over and detonate on the golem. The creeps should then attack his merc and possibly his wisp. If you see your opponent doing this, run to the opposite corner of the camp, while staying behind the creeps. Or you could just try to make a run for it and hope the golem is too lazy to throw a boulder. Against a potm masser get a kotg as second hero, and a naga against a dh techer. Orc is the race I don't often get panda against. This is simply because Panda is a sort of substitute for the beastmaster, and I don't like getting archers till tier 2. The best thing about the panda is that he owns tower rushes. A level 2 BoF kills towers before they can be cancelled if you can get it off early enough. Haze also messes up grunts greatly. You can use panda/naga to quickly eliminate heros, then kill the slow moving grunts as they try to escape. Personally I prefer to go warden kotg hunts archers dotts dryads. Doing that allows for some more active engaging early game, rather than creeping and trying to save archers against wolves. The one benefit of using panda against orc is that they never really get dispel, allowing you to really mess up his grunts before he adds some wyvs/demos/casters to his army. Human If you're going for a mid game footie rush against hu the panda is a great second hero. Haze completely negates militia leaving your opponent with nothing but clap or bolt to fend off a horde of defending footmen. This works best if you also grab some ivory towers to pull your opponents focus away from your army. Use this opportunity to surround the archmage. Mid to late game the panda is less useful since humans are at that point switching to a few powerful units, usual am mk pal a few knights and gryphs. However the longer the game goes beyond that the better your chances. The reason that Am Panda Pal wouldn't work so well is that human mirror is generally full of adept priests dispelling elementals. An important thing to remember when using mk is to only spend your mana bolting hawks that are shackling your units. This usually means that the damage clap would have done is more than equaled by the damage of your gryphons. Don't get hawks unless your opponent really starts to mass them. Before that point bolting should pretty much make them useless since shackles has a long cooldown. Panda is just an undead crusher. A level 3 panda really screws gargs/ghouls, undeads favorite units. Panda is best used to engage early. If you can kill off his ghouls as he's teching to tier 3 you'll get a huge advantage and probably be able to take out his shop/graveyard/slaughterhouse depending on how they're positioned. Without any of these buildings the undead has no choice but to make ghouls, which you own. Against Cl fiends get a mountain king and expand. This usually makes the game go long but high level human tri hero is quite devastating to cl dk. Just make sure you keep that panda alive. He's a bit fatter than the mk and doesn't benefit as much from being surrounded by ghouls. If you're against a lot of archers the panda is a good choice to beat ne. Just pop a haze and blizzard. You should be able to do this to your hearts content with the low cost of each of these spells. However panda is probably only suitable against a beastmaster start. A dh will just eat him up. In a hu vs ne match never forget the imbalanced power of mortars. I personally feel that mortars with frag shells and 2 gunpowder upgrades against ne is the most unfair thing in warcraft. 4 Shots of the above mortars can take down anywhere from 1 to 8 dryads, depending on how close they’re clustered. That leaves the nightelf with nothing to stop your sorcs from eating his bears. Slow + clap + blizzard = gg. Orc vs human is a very hard matchup for the alliance. I think the mountain king is really needed here. You're best bet is to get as many units as possible and hit before the orc reaches tier 3. Take down those grunts and get adept priests. Breakers just cant keep up with lust and can't do anything to stop mass lightning shield on your back lines. Take a lot of care in positioning your army before an attack. You'll need to do a lot of dancing to distribute the damage enough for priests/scrolls to kick in. Put a lot of pressure on the orc to avoid his getting tauren. Human always has trouble with the big meat units, much easier to never have to deal with them at all. Orc Panda is a very powerful asset if you plan on tower rushing a human. Haze is an awesome way to hold back tides of militia while your towers build. Remember that once your towers are up, the only reason to come out of them is to attack a building workshop or mortars. Other than that wait until the units reach the towers than haze and charge. Try to time your towering so that it happens at the end of the night as you’re hitting tier 2. This way even maps like twisted meadows can be tower rushed. MY favorite is to build towers at the edge of the bases in turtle rock. This typically gives you a secure hold where creeps cant be abused against you. Once your 3 towers are up, the game is probably yours if you have a panda. An orc panda against undead is just a bad move. Undead can only use ghouls early game and after that must convert to necros/fiends/abos/air. What i do against undead is either: Fast tech with fs to harass and once you hit tier 2 and have 3 grunts + sh, go expand then hit again. Get a lot of wyverns and demos if needed. If the undead goes kodos, use some speed scroll/devour action to do away with them fast. The other approach is to go a slower tech followed by tc with stomp and shamans. This works really well against a cl fiend player. Just lightning shield the tc and a fiend or two and stun them all. Expand and get a bestiary only when the undead reaches tier 3. You'll want bats/wyvs to counter his destros/wyrms. Undead vs Orc is my worst matchup to be undead. For this reason I cannot be sure what the counters would be to what i have above. Orc vs Ud is one of my stronger matchups. Panda can be nice against those nightelf players that just like to mass. First they go mass hunts, then they go mass archers. Panda and shamans are a good way to bring on the pain. I often go with a dual rax grunt/hh with adept shamans and fs tc vs nightelf. This gives you some powerful aoe damage and also doubles as aa. If the ne starts getting chims you'll need some bats. The shamans also allow you to purge and get those melee heros. If your shamans have a lot of mana try this. Purge and focus on his primary hero relentlessly, while keeping your shamans behind your other units to avoid being picked off. Once you force a tp spam lightning shield like there’s no tomorrow. Chances are you'll get a hero kill and do a ton of overall damage to his army. This will only help you when you attack with burning oil demos. Panda doesn’t have a place in the orc mirror. In these games its all about sh and naga as second heros. You need to pick off those individual units since there are fewer in orc armies than any other. Remember to ensnare/focus on raiders when possible. Abusing merc camps in this mirror is also a must. Heros + forest troll berserker is a high damage output, especially effective when one of those heros is naga. Late game bloodlust is your best friend. Blademasters have the advantage for about the first 10 minutes, then the balance shifts to favor the farseer. If you see a blade techer, grab an expansion and tech yourself. Basically you'll want to follow him to the tier he’s headed for and beat him with superior resources there. Undead Generally you'll be safer going with dk lich against human. The Cl isn't necessary but is a huge help in long games. Remember that to insure victory later you need to hit level 3 before your opponent. Once you have a lich try to harass and pick off individual casters. Any contact that's not in your base before you have ghoul frenzy ghouls is a bad thing. Remember not to spend too much time with your heros when microing ghouls. Always watch for a moving away that forces ghoul to attack the mountain king. Impale first, to give yourself some time to maneuver the ghouls into position, then attack ground and nova. If you have three heros, the longer the game goes, the better off you are. Remember to sit the other heros out once they hit level 3, so the lowest can catch up. Even with gryphons, abominations are really hard to kill for human. Try to focus your units off of the elementals and on to the other units. Ghouls tend to be high maintenance if you want to beat the better players. I've seen replays of koreans doing 120 apm without spamming. It's all about being in contact with the rifles/casters without being together. Panda would make an interesting ud mirror hero, but you'd have to suicide ghoul rush for it to be fully effective. Your ideal opponent would be a dl trying to do the same to you. Hazed units are 50% slower with a 45% miss chance at level 1 haze. Basically it makes a group of units half as effective as they used to be, am I alone in finding that very useful? I often go lich dk cl fiends against undead. The only games I've lost with this were to fast expanding cls. These were my fault because i didn't scout actively enough. Always go 1 crypt, 2 slaughterhouses. Get 5+ aboms for a powerful meat shield to your fiends. If your opponent goes banshees just impale/nova the possessing ones. Unless your aboms are far from the fiends or if your opponent has a ton of banshees, this shouldn’t be a problem. If your opponent does manage to possess a lot of aboms, your best chance is to fall back and get 2 boneyards. With your fiends and high level heros, the wyrms shouldn't have a problem thrashing your opponent. If you're going to ghoul rush against archers a panda is a nice touch. It will allow you the time to kill all the archers before they can get away. Why doesn't gargs with panda work against hippos with panda? The panda is a really easy target for the nightelf. The undeads attack power is far less with gargs. If you’re going to mass air i suggest you stick with single hero and get a destroyer. Have it sit back and be ready to devour the second haze goes off. If you do it right you can avoid the bonus damage of fire too. Remember to coil the archers one by one, I suggest using a shade with a mana pot or two. Until recently i tried to counter mass air with archers. In the end the heal scrolls help the undead while they do little for the archers, by way of aoe heros, the gargs will be taking damage in groups, while the archers are focused on and coiled. So always get scrolls when fighting archers with gargs. It's very important to use 4 or more gargoyles to constantly scout/harass/annoy your opponent while you creep to 5. 4 gargs should be enough to take down a just started expansion as well as several wisps. Panda against orc offers some very interesting possibilities. Level 1 haze with curse makes units miss 85% of the time. Try going with dk fiends panda. A dk with fiends in equal numbers to a fs with grunts will win. You only have to hurt a grunt down to about 200 and if you have unholy aura, you can kill him with only 75 mana. When you hit tier 2 get a slaughter and a temple. The thing about going with this mass curse is that you have less fiends (banshees) and thus less damage output than with dk/lich. Get ams to protect your units, since physical damage wont be much of an option. It is better to haze a group of wyverns than a group of grunts since chances are you'll hit more of them. Just mass produce fiend and if the orc goes for something tier 3 just get possession. The timing of haze is vital to this strategy. Make sure you are hitting at least half the orc army or it wont be enough. use banshees and coil to take down walkers if he chooses to get them. The only unit that really complements them is tauren, which are great food for banshees. |
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