Tier 2 FS/Naga Push vs NE

This guide was created by pierikara. You can contact him in gym discord under the name pierikara.

This guide was created for the purpose of giving Orcs another tool to use against Night Elves. That being said, top orc players such as Grubby, Starbuck, and Knoff have been experimenting with variations of this build to surprise their opponents. Some of their variations include reliance on headhunters, however, it has been my experience for us orcs that are mere mortals that grunts provide more sustainability and power than their headhunter counterparts. I will address headhunters and the pros and cons near the end of this post.

The Farseer + Naga tier 2 push with grunts is a powerful strategy that is ideally used vs. Night Elf. It is a variation of the two burrow tech with grunts build (link) which is slightly modified in order to further improve your early-game power through creeping. Many strats involve disrupting your opponent’s early-game to make way for your second hero, but this strategy allows you to minimize your chances of being hurt from early harassment.

Difficulty of Build: Easier to get into and potentially less punishing than one-burrow teching, but gets harder to execute when facing non-popular elf builds/hero choices (Dark Ranger mass archer/skeletons, Firelord/Lava Spawns, Warden or Tinker early harassment, Keeper mass hunts from 2 AoWs etc). It is still trustworthy though, because it gives you room to adapt against most of these opponent choices.

Pros:

Strategic and timing advantage over most elf players’ play style. Many elfs do the following: Ancient of War creeping, keeping army population low (below 30) before getting to tier 2, accumulate gold in order to start building 2 Ancients of Lore and training 2^nd hero at the same time. This makes your strategy a perfectly timed power spike to exploit most elf players. You will find your self fighting with 5 grunts and dust of appearance against a level 2 elf hero (sometimes level 3, rarely though) and 4-5 archers.
Scouting. When creeping with wolves you can scout with one of them before losing it to creeps in order to scout elf’s hero/unit choice. Be careful not to give xp to elf by allowing the elf to kill your scouting wolf, so be ready to resummon. It is also useful to scout the elf base layout in order to perform the push more efficiently.

Cons:

Early harassment from strong early game heroes (Demon Hunter, Warden, Keeper of the Grove) can be an issue. Combined with wisp detonates on wolves/hero you need to be careful not to feed exp to the elf.
Requires Scouting: Ensure the opponent is not expanding or preparing a counter strategy. Scout to learn what units they are building.

Guide overview

The Basic Build Order
Early Game Considerations
Considerations and Priorities During the Push
Mid-Late Game Transitions
Alternative Variation of the Build
Examples of Grunt Pushes
The Headhunter Option (Instead of Grunts)

The Build Order

As you practice the build, you can try small deviations from it, with the most popular being training the 2^nd grunt before teching to tier 2. This maximizes your safety against harassment and accelerates your creeping to level 2. However, it sacrifices some seconds of completing your tech, which then delays you in hiring the Naga, getting brute strength, pillage etc.

Another deviation is that you can also get the shop earlier before you start training your 2^nd grunt. This may delay creeping a bit, but it will prevent a harassing DH from canceling your shop, which is crucial to restoring mana with clarity potions after getting mana burned.

Another adjustment is training the 5^th grunt before hiring the Naga. If for any reason your tech gets delayed (like you are getting harassed early or if you get engaged before tier 2 and are unable to send a unit to the tavern exactly when you hit Stronghold) don’t let your resources go unused. Get your 5^th grunt before hiring the Naga. You may need to do this in order to ensure that the elf player’s army is outnumbered during the push. Remember that this strategy is very macro dependent.

Other adjustments may be made because of the items you get. For example, if you happen to get sentry wards from creeps, you may skip dust of appearance and make your way to the elf base even faster.

Early Game Considerations

Optimize your creeping by using the recommended creep routes. Be careful of gnoll warden camps. Depending on your skill level you may even want to avoid gnoll warden camps if possible in order to keep wolves healthy during creeping (these gnolls purge any melee unit that first attacks them). If they are impossible to avoid, choose a creep route that lets you attack them after the first nightfall. Or take the first hit/purge from them with a grunt and immediately give that grunt an attack command on the Farseer to change the aggro of the creep. After 1 second order him to reattack the gnoll. Aim the gnoll warden first as you want to kill it before it purges again. Check out this article on how to abuse certain creep mechanics, including purge.
If harassed by a DH or by a Keeper, get a Voodoo Lounge up as soon as possible. Hide any hurt grunts, or the mana burned Farseer behind burrows to minimize the harassment effectiveness. You should not worry about this since the elf will have sacrificed his early creeping and will take a long time to return to their base to heal with moon wells. This will give you enough time to use salves/clarity potions and get a level 2 Farseer before hiring the Naga for the push. The most difficult issue to deal with is avoiding detonates on wolves/hero from wisps.
Try to use a low health (but not too low) wolf in order to scout for his unit/hero choice and his base layout. A good time to scout is right before finishing your 2^nd creep camp, because you will already have 2 grunts by then making it easier to finish the camp without both wolves attacking creeps. It is also better in terms of timing of scouting a potential expansion, since such a move by your opponent may not be revealed if you scout during your first creep camp.
Don’t get easily tempted into leveling up your hero to level 3 before the push as there is high risk of being creepjacked, or pushed into your own base, or losing control of the Tavern and arriving there late for the Naga. In some instances if you are late to the tavern the NE may already have hired a Firelord with a level 3 Keeper of the Grove. The overwhelming numbers may stop your push in its tracks before it can even begin. Remember, timing is a very crucial element of this build/push. You may be able to creep level 3 on certain maps by following the appropriate creeping route, but practice it adequately against AI to make sure you can do it and still get to the Tavern on time.

Considerations and Priorities during the Push

Prioritize your targets when hitting the elf base. Try to cancel any Ancients of Lore being produced at the moment.
Split your wolves in order to avoid getting detonated. Keep in mind that detonating your wolves will potentially help the elf’s hero get to level 3 which is something you must avoid if possible, as it will definitely help him survive the fight. Send one of the split wolves further inside the elf base to hurt any Ancient of Lore/Wonders being constructed at that time. Try avoiding any hits from other buildings such as Ancient of War, or Tree of Life/Ages. If any wisps approaching to detonate on you or your wolves try to focus them down with Naga+Farseer+1 grunt (the most nearby to the wisp). Do the same to any wisps repairing his shop/moonwells. Getting detonated on the Naga is not as bad as if detonated on the Farseer because if Farseer gets level 3 during the push then level 2 wolves are a power spike. Not only do these wolves do more damage, they require 2 successful detonates to get dispelled.
Use dust of appearance as soon as you see any shadowmelded units. If you face any shadowmelding heroes (Priestess/Warden), dust becomes even more valuable, as it may force a TP, or a hero kill.
If archers/huntresses are beyond reach of grunts, or he is busy creeping and delays defending your push, try killing Ancient of Wonders and moon wells. This is very crucial as most elves are gathering gold at that moment, in order to get 2 Ancient of Lores and 2^nd hero at the same time, so them being low in population and high in resources will potentially help them stand the push by getting items from their shop (for example healing potions on hero), or healing a stacked Demon Hunter from moon wells. You also gain resources from pillage when you do so.
Use speed scroll both offensively (to get archer/hero kills or optimizing your grunts positioning) and defensively (to save hurt grunts back to your base in order to salve them if the game continues for a 2^nd push).
Don’t go too far inside the elf base with your army if he starts playing hide’n’seek around his Tree of Ages in an attempt to buy time for his first dryads. Hold your front line pillaging moon wells and returning hurt grunts back to base, or salving them nearby. Get ready to hurt his Demon Hunter if he gets out of his defensive position again. If you destroy moon wells you will delay his dryad production and prevent him from healing from moon well juice.
Make sure to macro during the fight and do not stop unit production. Make sure you have assigned all your production buildings in control groups, in order to consume your gold ideally during the push.
If you’re up against mass hunts and not archers, that would be a considerable difference that may impact your choices and you may need to make some strategic adjustments. For example, the value of getting ensnare earlier gets high, as ensnare will be trapping a 3-food and higher movement speed unit (huntress), rather than a slower 2-food unit (archer). On the contrary, if you happen to face something like a PotM with mass archers, then spirit link (to counter focus firing on grunts/heroes) is more crucial, so you may even need to adjust by getting a Tauren Totem up before even the Beastiary.
Ideally you should be able to research backpack and have it ready during the push, so that you can carry items (healing potions, clarity, salves) to your heroes. It is much cheaper and faster than getting a peon out of lumber production in order to build an offensive Voodoo Lounge. Try to remember to set rally point of Barracks or/and Beastiary near the shop if you do want to make use of backpack and also set the Voodoo Lounge in a separate control group. Use hot keys for grunt/raider buying items if possible (H/C/S etc).

Mid-Late Game Transitions

After getting your first raider (40/41 population), try transitioning to headhunters in order to counter any dryads that may be produced. Get another burrow up, build a Tauren Totem and then continue with headhunters, a kodo and a walker. After the first walker get adept training on your walker to let him dispel any Keeper of the Grove abilities (roots/force of nature). If facing a Dark Ranger or something like a Firelord/Beastmaster combo, get your adept walkers faster, in order to counter their summoned units. Get to adept walkers instead of immediately transitioning to headhunters, or replacing lost grunts. You may need to retreat, salve grunts and make a second push. If possible, use any pillage resources to upgrade your units’ armor, especially if you save enough of them and it is worth investing in.

Favor getting adept walkers in the fight over headhunters if you see him producing bears instead of dryads. Disenchanting roar/rejuvenation and extra magic damage over druids of the claw may eventually give you the winning edge.

Alternative Variation of the Build

When moving up to harder opponents, you may find it more useful to use Blademaster as your 1^st hero instead of the Farseer. Try creeping fast with Mirror Image as the first hero ability, exploiting creep mechanics in order to keep your hero healthy (minimizing the need to salve after creeping) and avoid your mirror image getting purged by gnoll wardens. You can still scout efficiently with a hurt mirror image, still paying attention to avoid giving XP to his hero, either by resummoning or by running the hurt image away from his army.

Pros:

If your Blademaster reaches level 3 during the push you will likely be low on mana (due to mana burn/using mana). Getting Critical Strike level 2 is a crucial power spike and most probably a game finishing situation. You don’t get affected by mana burn and still can focus his frost-arrowed units with Naga+Blademaster. Make sure you keep your heroes in a good shape, even for the sake of some grunts sacrificed instead of the heroes.
When facing Keeper of the Grove first, your mirror image ability gives you the opportunity to escape your hero from entangling roots during battle. On the contrary, a level 3 Farseer during the fight may not take advantage of the full potential of his abilities, because he will most probably be low in mana, or his wolves (even level 2) are still in danger of being detonated (although at a greater wisp cost).
Blademaster’s synergy with Naga’s frost arrow, critical Strike, and using a healthy Mirror Image to body block target make your heroes a lethal weapon against elf units and heroes.
A hurt Blademaster may survive after getting focused during the battle because of his higher armor. Try saving 1 healing salve to help him heal back up a bit during the fight, get salved and rejoin once healed to continue his lethal critical strikes.

Cons:

Creeping to level 2 is a bit slower than with Farseer as Mirror Images take damage quickly and deal less damage than feral spirits. This may hurt your push timing a bit.
You may need to spend 1 or 2 more salves after creeping compared to the Farseer opening.

Examples of Grunt Pushes

Here are 3 examples of the build in action. 2 of them are of me playing executing the build as I mentioned it. The third is Starbuck doing a variation of this build which included a BM and Naga.

The Headhunter Option (Instead of Grunts)

Starting with headhunters instead of grunts vs elf is not optimal for the Naga tier 2 push efficiency. Pros vs Cons analysis favors the grunt choice:

Pros:

Creeping to level 2 is a bit faster than with grunts.
During the push, you can focus wisps approaching your wolves/heroes for detonates easier. You can focus more damage on a single unit in general, but this actually pays off better than grunts only if against huntresses, due to attack/armor types of the units involved.
You can cancel any buildings in production from a decent range, especially Ancients of Lore or Shop.
If you happen to be against huntresses instead of archers, headhunters will do extra damage to them (piercing attack). It is a rare choice for elves to go hunts in the early game though.

Cons:

Headhunters’ piercing attack type on heroes/buildings/archers is less, compared to grunts’ (normal) attack type.
Tier 2 upgrade of headhunters is troll regeneration, which oftentimes cannot be valuable during the push. On the contrary, tier 2 grunts with brute strength help them survive many elf skills (immolation, entangling roots) and also have the pillage advantage over headhunters.
Headhunters can be killed more easily by a DH with immolation, or by a Keeper of the Grove with entangling roots, or even by other less popular elf hero choices, such as Warden, Goblin Tinker or Dark Ranger.

To summarize, choosing headhunter over grunts is less likely to succeed. This is mainly because of their vulnerability to elf hero skills, fewer health points and piercing attack type which is reduced against archers/heroes and moon wells. Moon wells are the most valuable defensive elf building during such pushes since you will be doing a lot of damage (mainly because of the Naga’s frost arrow threat), thus taking down the moonwells is critical.

Here are 2 examples of grubby doing an HH variation vs Dise.