This is much like some good guide from the second half of the two thousandth, but, of course, the interview is fresh, and there are questions about WarCraft 3
Can you briefly introduce yourself?
— Hi, my name is Manuel Schenkhaizen, also known as Grubby. In the past, I professionally played WarCraft 3 and StarCraft 2. Later, I became a fulltime streamer and content producer on Twitch / YouTube, and sometimes I work as a commentator.
What class do you think is the strongest at 1.30?
In patches 1.29 and 1.30, night elves recieved about 13 buffs fot the early game and for their main strategy:
1. +1 to the intellect of KotG
2. Reducing the cost of «Forces of Nature» at KotG from 125 to 100 units
3. + 2 seconds to the duration of the roots at KotG
4. a two-fold increase in the speed of restoring health with the spell «Rest», plus 3 seconds of invulnerability during caste
5. +1 damage for hunters
6. Increase Archer's Health
7. + 39% damage to ballistam
8. Increasing the rate of mana regeneration in lunar wells
9. Increase Protector Attack Speed
10. Increase the damage of the Priestess of the moon
11. Increase the damage of the Alchemist Acid Bomb, increase the amount obtained when using the Transmutation Gold spell
12. Owls from hunters by default
13. Moon chakrum upgrade to TIR-2
I consider points 1, 2, 3, 7 and 11 especially important — these are very strong buffs that seriously limit the playing styles of other races. Because of this, the night elves now start every game with a very safe expansion, which is built before or after the 1st unit, and then they can either mass the units and crush the opponent, or go into technology and take the Alchemist to heal the huntress. I hope the balance of the match will be out soon.
In one of your videos you said that now the weakest class is the undead. Can you explain?
In fact, now I think that the weakest of all are humane. But maybe this is due to the fact that in Europe there are very few strong players for the Alliance. If I played against TH000, InFi, Romantic and similar guys, then maybe I would have a different opinion on that. Now I play for all races, so I could learn something new from the guys in the game for the Alliance.
Can you tell us about the benefits of taking one hero instead of two, and two heroes instead of three?
Playing one character can be a good solution when you rely on a critical mass of some units. For example, you have 8 backtraders versus 8 hawks — which means that you have every chance of losing the fight in one wicket, for this the hawks simply overrun all your backraders. Or, you can win the battle if all the trackers reach the goal. But if you have 10 backtraders versus 8 hawks, then you win anyway, because each exploded unit releases the next one and you get a consistent series of explosions. If the limit and gold you only have enough for 10 betraiders and one hero, then the right decision will be to play one hero.
The same can be said about wyvern. These are fragile units that cause a large amount of damage and therefore rely on hit-run tactics. A certain number of wyverns will kill the opponent’s units with a single attack, so you need to quickly gain the critical mass of these troops. That is why sometimes when playing wyvern they use only one hero. One hero also does not have enough space in the inventory for all the artifacts found, so a large number of items must be sold. And this is just the way, because the rapid mass production of wyverns requires a lot of gold. It is important not to constantly build new wyverns, because they are easy to counter, and you don’t have much time to gather your army.
Which class is better to choose for beginners?
In 1.30.2, the easiest way to play elves is to take KotG, you put two huts, a mass of hunters, if necessary, switch to archers. You put a fast expansion, in parallel with this you push an opponent. If the opponent turns on the turtle mode and does not stick his nose out from his base, then add the ballista; more ballista will be useful if the opponent has units without armor (casters, dryads, hunters). It is very important to upgrade to the ballista on t2, then they will not miss. In my opinion, there is some kind of bug in this upgrade.
The second most simple race is the orcs. Blademaster itself is very strong, you only need to try to find him good items and boosts to the parameters. Farsir is also strong, plus it is easier to explore with it thanks to the wolves, who also increase your army.
The most difficult, probably, is the undesed — there is a need to know a lot of things, since the strategy of the undead is entirely based on timings and on the selection of counterstrategies. Without the knowledge that experienced players possess, you will constantly feel that your army and heroes are simply not as effective as the heroes and the opponent’s army. Here it is probably better for beginners to start with strategies with necromancers and corpses — they are simple in execution, unhurried, potentially very powerful. Well, the coolest thing is that when you are ready to fight, your magicians will automatically invoke legions of troops in the autocast, after which you just need to send them to attack the opponent.
Do you have any advice for those players who would like to play at a competitive level?
Now is a great time to start playing. Blizzard promise that Reforged will be released in 2019. So now you can buy a WC3 and first go through the wonderful campaigns in Reign of Chaos and The Frozen Throne; get acquainted with the plot, which later will result in the plot of World of WarCraft; find out how Arthas went over to the side of darkness and why Illidan was freed. Before launching Reforged and after launching a new edition on the Battle.net ladder there will be many more players than now, so multiplayer will be a difficult and interesting journey along the path of self-improvement. The scene of custom cards in WC3 has always been amazing, so if you need just pure uncluttered fun, then custom will be an excellent change for you.