Introduction

Developer: Blizzard Entertainment
Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment
WarCraft III official page: http://www.blizzard.com/war3

1.10-1.13

As we reported earlier, the latest patches to WarCraft III have brought sweeping changes to the game, adding missing units and spells, and changing game balance from top to bottom in order to fix several exploits discovered by the beta testers thus far.

Longer Battles

The most noticeable change is that unit attack speeds have been reduced compared to pre 1.10. The effect of this is that battles last much longer than they used to, which allows players more time to micromanage their troops, positioning them, and casting spells. As was Blizzard’s goal from the beginning, the changes have given players more of a chance to manage their battles as opposed to their economy, making the game more fun.

Kenn's a cluster builder

Moving in the dead of night

Heroes live to fight another day

Many of the changes have also increased the survivability of heroes in battle. Ranged units now do a lot less damage on heroes than before, because one of the exploits was to mass as many ranged units as possible and concentrate fire on heroes right at the beginning of a fight, killing him in just a few seconds. You can see on Blizzard’s page the various different attack types and their effect on different targets. “Piercing” damage units now only hit for 75% against heroes, and a lousy 25% against buildings. Now, most players build a lot more melee units than before.

A juicy, undefended town

That Paladin won't stand up long by himself

Pre 1.10, many of the spells used were a little too good for hero assassination. Entangle from the Keeper of the Grove was one notorious such spell, holding enemy heroes in place for 10-30 seconds while units could attack it. The Orc Raider’s Ensnare ability has a similar effect. Now, most of these immobilizing spells can no longer affect heroes, so players have to work harder or be more clever at taking out enemy heroes. Other assassination type spells that used to do a lot of direct damage to one target, such as Chain Lightning and Frost Nova, have also been toned down, instead doing less damage to the primary target and more to surrounding units with less of a mana cost and cooldown time.

There are still methods you can use to take out heroes. One trick that I’m fond of is using the Undead Dread Lord’s Sleep spell for this. I cast Sleep on the enemy hero, and use my army to kill all or most of my opponent’s army while his hero is snoozing away. Then when he wakes up again, I cast Sleep one more time, surround his hero with melee units so he can’t run (most heroes are rather fast movers, making them tough to run down), and then finish him off. Slow from Human Sorceresses can be used for the same purpose.