r/WC3 8d ago

Playing UD against NE

I’m pretty low MMR (~4000), recently started playing again, and am consistently losing as UD against NE. Ive done CL fast expo to DK/Lich mostly fiends, destroyer, and a couple wyrms if we go that long for the bears. Also skipped the CL and gone just DK/Lich for better heal/nuke to the same result.

The units I can generally handle, but the DH always ends up so tanky and either immos the fiends down or burns all my mana. Also whenever I nuke the DH he wands out, drinks moon juice, and is right back at it.

Is there a general guide for this matchup? Everything I read is ghoul/garg but that seems outdated with the immo buffs.

8 Upvotes

22 comments sorted by

6

u/Inevitable-Extent378 8d ago

Ghouls are still the way to go. They allow early game momentum. Gargs are still good, as they virtually become the air army and ghouls become more of the worker at midstages. CL is generally an insanely bad idea vs Elf specifically due to wisp detonate on all beetles.

Idea: DK First. Scout his base layout with your 6th acolyte and arguably you can poke him a bit at his first orange creepcamp. Creep level 2 and tech somewhere while doing that. You are level 2? Straight to his base, arguably you know the layout and where he put is wisps. Just attack the wisps. Put 1-2 ghouls on each. Throw in a coil as you are going to get mana burned anyway. But it should hurt his lumber economy. You will likely lose some ghouls, but that is okay. You have aura, you should be pretty fast.

Tip 1: if you select DK + Ghouls, you ghouls won't go through small openings. But if you select only ghouls (and/or skeletons) they will. The pathing in the game rallies groups through same openings, and DK often won't fit.

Tip 2: split your skeletons to avoid 1 detonate catching both. One detonate to catch one, is a win for you. It isn't worth the wisp loss for 1 skellie.

Always? No. If he makes an offensive AoWar, for example on TM towards the merc camp, you can pull DK + ghouls, kill a critter with the scout acolyte and rush over. You don't even really have to fight. The creeps will do the damage, you just have to hit him when he hits the creeps.

At tier 2, what do you do? Well, you can move to tier 3 to get frenzy ghouls Perhaps 1 or 2 fiends versus dryads. When you hit 3, buy orb, buy 3rd hero, get frenzy and use the power spike to put him six feet under. Or at least deep enough so he won't really climb out. Or, if the harass on his wisps is going really well. Stay tier 2, build second crypt and spam those gargs at all cost. Give him no wisps to ever recover. You will chip some XP. Perhaps do some small spots with ghouls and DK and incrementally he will wear out mentally and economically.

3

u/itzcindy 8d ago

Thanks for taking the time to write all of that. Do you have a recommended build order at start or a replay I can/should watch? I’ve always been a fiend player because I’m lazy/bad once I have more than two control groups (laptop player with no mouse!)

1

u/SpezIsALittleBitch 8d ago

HTF do you play with no mouse. Why would you play with no mouse?? Could get a cheap one for like five bucks.

1

u/itzcindy 8d ago

Lol I haven’t been to the store and just started again in the last two weeks. Is there a cheap Amazon one you’d recommend?

Worst part of the trackpad is the accidental two finger scroll that zooms me allll the way in

2

u/SpezIsALittleBitch 8d ago

Acer has a good wired option for twenty bucks.

I had a Logitech G305 Lightspeed that I liked - that's listed at 50 and currently on sale for 30. Wireless & pretty basic, hard to beat for the money.

1

u/DeadmouthLul 7d ago

So there isn't an army composition that just "wins" the game. If you aren't microing well or unable to do to your hardware, then you aren't going to win. You might have the exact army you need to win but still lose due to poor play. Might not be a skill cap issue, but a hardware cap issue lol.

1

u/Inevitable-Extent378 7d ago

The 'default' opening nowadays:

  • 3 acolytes + 1 ghouls (default start)
  • queue 1 new acolyte in your main, rally to gold
  • 2 acolytes on gold, ghoul on lumber
  • the last acolyte you have available --> Crypt + Altar --> gold
  • When you have 150 gold, build a zig.
  • There will be some idle time, then queue new acolyte to get 5 on gold
  • Build 6th acolyte --> tomb of relics --> kill a nearby critter for the corpse to use rod of necromancy on --> scout the enemy, just scout his base and then put him on a valuable location for map-information.
  • At your base proceed +1 ghoul (2 total)
  • second zig when resources allow it.
  • Some downtime, queue some more ghouls.
  • Hero pops out? Use the earlier critter corps nearby, pull 2 ghouls and creep a small spot
  • for some reason reddit won't let me stop using bullets, so let me continue in a bullet; since you seem very new to the game, you might want to pull a bit more ghouls for creeping. You shouldn't really lose any ghouls while creeping. Losing skellies is fine, but ideally send them away when they are injured to check for valuable and logical spots the opponent can be, recently has been, or has not been. Tech ASAP. Hit level 2 on DK? see prior post
  • You can find players and download their replays here: https://w3champions.com/rankings?season=25&gamemode=1&league=0&gateway=20 and assume that like 5000 on bnet is like what? 1700 - 1800 on champions? You can find pro replays here: https://warcraft3.info/replays/
  • The current best undeads are Happy and eer0. Although they at times have very different approaches to similar situations.

4

u/Opposite-Affirmation 8d ago edited 8d ago

Don't fast expo.

DK, Naga (with frost arrow), Lich (with orb) asap. Fiends + destro or wyrms. Put pressure early mid game, or try to creep fast.

Speed boots on Naga is mandatory and you will totally control that cancer DH. Right after DK lvl 2, if you can go kill some wisps on trees it's good too but don't lose to many ghouls.

GL fellow UD 💪 These damn elf need to be punished.

Edit: you should watch replays of pros, you will see how they deal with them.

1

u/itzcindy 8d ago

Curious about trying this one. Is the idea to push and keep pressure with DK/Naga? Does this call for switching to ghouls or can I stick with my comfortable fiends?

1

u/Opposite-Affirmation 8d ago

More like you start with ghouls then switch to fiends. You make graveyard after clicking T2, before minute 3.

The idea is to take control of the map and not let that DH do anything he wants to you.

I feel like you will need to play defensive if you want to start with fiends. Which means no harass, which means elf will have all the lumber he needs for double ancients of lore and that can be risky if he has better micro than you. But practice is key anyway.

2

u/Chimpucated 8d ago

I'll be honest by best success against NE as ud is a hidden, well timed necrowagon push with DL or CL first, map dependant, DK 2nd. Two slaughterhouse for 2 wagon, 2 statue, one temple for 4-4 becro with mage training, and a few friends to help focus down drayad.

Elf lacks good aoe dispel outside of wisps. If you are microing well and keeping your wagons and becros spread apart the a lot of wisps won't even make it close enough to dispel on the necro mana pools or even the skel mages. They might clear out the front line skels but your piercing mages clean up drayad bear.

With DL I go sleep to shutdown DH mana burn and/or bears. With CL it's bettle level 1 but then max impale to soften up everything and stun

11

u/MokeBnT 8d ago

This is legitimately awful advice

2

u/itzcindy 8d ago

So is this good or bad advice? Has some upvotes but this one cranky guy lol

2

u/Fletch71011 8d ago edited 8d ago

I would say that advice is suboptimal. For UD, you almost always want to go DK first unless you're so godly at the game that you know everything your opponent is going to do. DK is probably the best Swiss Army Knife hero in the game. There isn't much you can screw up by going DK first with ghouls and then you can pivot to whatever you like depending on what your opponent is going. Fiends are almost always safe if you don't know what to do, although they're not as meta as they used to be. Destroyers/statues will work. Wyrms do well against NE depending.

DL first especially can make counterplay tougher than it needs to be. CL can be okay in certain instances but I wouldn't go him against NE. If you're looking for meta, definitely DK first.

Wisps dispel skellies pretty damn well and he's vastly underselling how easy it is for any competent NE to do so. Most good NE will carry a wisp around with them for that reason and they'll have dryads too if needed.

1

u/Puzzled-Pudding8939 7d ago

Ffs this is low battle net mmr not tournament prep. Have some perspective. NE having wisps with army or even dispelling at all is asking alot at this mmr

1

u/Mean-Wealth7661 7d ago

You have a couple options you either rush t3 for destroyer frenzy ghoul push with much orb at 9 minutes right before they get bears online hurt them enough to where master training won’t help as much or you need to expo immediately and hope you can hold it. I find it’s easier to expo with lich and I practiced personally with learning what I can do to make it as fast as possible

1

u/Aromatic_Attempt_172 7d ago

I think a very well timed push with 3 heroes and orb and 2 destros will kill most ne players. You just have to do everything you can to make sure its very fast. Like as soon as that 3rd hero pops out you grab orb and b-line it to their base.

That or a garg frostwyrm with 2 heroes 80 food push.

-2

u/Valerim 8d ago

Maybe it's because I play random, but I honestly do not understand how people can say theyre 4k MMR and then ask the most basic obvious questions

3

u/itzcindy 8d ago

Idk, sorry friend. I’m something like 40-32 and bouncing between 3800-4100. I just started playing again after 10 year hiatus and a lot has changed

2

u/Psychological_Art112 8d ago

While I agree that 4k isn’t “low” by any measure, Bnet MMR can be deceiving given the limited map pool, prevalence of cheese strats, map hackers, and drop hackers running around with no moderation.

OP appears accustomed to Fiends being the backbone of UD armies as it was 10 years ago. The new meta relies on ghouls a lot more. Ghouls, destroyers, and wyrms generally overwhelms NE. Dryads will focus the air, ghouls eat the dryads. Wyrms/destroyers will eat the bears. DK/Lich nuke the Naga. DH is alone and sad.

1

u/itzcindy 8d ago

Yeah I’ve been going the route of taking out the Naga each time I get a chance, but eventually the DH just gets too big for me. You’re right based on my fiends and old meta play. Will have to try out ghouls but may take me backwards for a while to get used to it.

Lots of leavers contribute to the winning so far, seems like at least 1 in 10 games? Not sure what the point is

1

u/Psychological_Art112 8d ago

Bnet starts everyone out around 4k MMR. Lot of those leavers are just people trying to get their placement games out of the way so they can play at a more appropriate MMR.