Learn
Every guide on the site — 60 of them — grouped by race and topic.
beginnerHuman
Hello and welcome to playing Human in Warcraft 3! The goal of this guide is to help novice players get started with online 1v1 play. This guide assumes you have some understanding of Warcraft 3.
intermediateHuman
This guide is about how to play the Human vs Human match up in Warcraft 3, with a focus on the most common meta strategy: one base archmage footmen into priest spellbreaker.
intermediateHuman
Written by DarkDestroy/TheRedOrc The Solo Paladin build is effective only against Undead players and relies on hitting and runningstrategies with eliminating buildings as the primary objective to win the game. You will need to outmicro the opponent in the earl
intermediateHuman
This guide is about strategically placing your buildings in a way that generates as much value as possible as a human player in Warcraft 3. It’s important to note here that there’s no consensus on what’s optimal when it comes to base building.
intermediateHuman
This is a very common and flexible expansion build that can be used on most maps. You quickly creep one camp before expanding, which gives you some extra safety compared to an immediate expansion. This build can transition to any two-base play.
intermediateHuman
The MK 2 Barracks Tower push relies on heavy micro abilities and out microing your opponent while staying calm. This strategy is an all-in and will require you to win in the initial push otherwise your opponent will out-scale and out tech your army.
intermediateHuman
The Paladin rifle build is one which revolves around sustainability. It requires the balancing providing mana to the the paladin with the bloodmage while also draining the mana of the enemies heroes via the blood mage. All the meanwhile keeping the riflemen alive with holy light.
intermediateNight Elf
Mass talons versus Orc ran the Night Elf versus Orc meta for years, especially during the lull of patch 1.26.
intermediateNight Elf
This build is seen mostly against Undead, but has situational viability in other match-ups. The idea is to sacrifice a little bit of power in the early game to establish a two base economy. Once your economy is up and running you can pump units and upgrades.
intermediateNight Elf
Night Elfs have a unique ability to be able to place their wisps anywhere on the map when harvesting lumber as wisps do not have to return the lumber to the main tree. As a result NE players take advantage of this ability and will place some of their wisps around the map.
intermediateNight Elf
Night elfs are by far the most common race to pick a tavern hero first. Sometimes it is simply just fun to play a tavern hero first. At other times it is one of the strongest things to do on a map vs certain races, like going beastmaster first against human on
intermediateNight Elf
Ancient of War (AoW) creeping has revolutionized night elf creep patterns and build orders. Proper AoW creeping is vital to learn after learning the basics of the game.
intermediateNight Elf
The standard fast master Druid of the Claws (bears) strategy is one of the first strategies a NE player should learn because it’s probably the safest build to play against most opponents. This build around fast bears can work in every matchup to varying degrees.
intermediateNight Elf
A strong timing push to hopefully end the game close to the 8 – 9 minute mark. The idea is to have adecent amount of archers with 2 Druids of the Talon in the back casting Faerie Fire on theenemy units to reduce their armor and provide vision. Your second hero
intermediateNight Elf
This build is good for beginners who are just learning the game and not too confident in their micro since hunts are much beefier than archers.
intermediateNight Elf
The Firelord fast expo build is a HoT's special. It’s probably the fastest expo build in the game, at least from a build start perspective.
intermediateOrc
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.
intermediateOrc
Tauren Chieftain (TC) and Headhunters (HH) is an unconventional strategy to see in solo, but it does see some use. This build is most effective in team games 2v2, 4v4 etc due to the fact that HH provide military strength from early on and scale well.
intermediateOrc
Warcraft 3 is a rather unique game when it comes to upgrades. In many other RTS games, a certain set of upgrades finishing is usually the “trigger” to start a push or timing attack towards your opponent.
intermediateOrc
This opening is a rather niche one for Orcs. It is usually limited to very specific map-, matchup- or build-situations where it gives you a slight advantage over its “siblings”, the No Rax Tech without Shop, or the 1 Burrow Rax Tech.
intermediateOrc
The two-burrow tech with grunts (or just two-burrow tech for short) is as its name suggests a variation of the one-burrow tech build-order where you build your second burrow before teching instead of afterwards, and is most commonly used in the mirror and vs.
intermediateOrc
This opening is one of the most standard and versatile openings for Orc. It allows you to transition into multiple different builds at tier 2 and also get a relatively quick second hero. It does not have the same strength of an HH build early on, but does allo
intermediateOrc
This is the fastest ‘standard’ strategy tech in the game. It used to be the go to strategy versus human until headhunters got popular and it’s still very strong in the matchup.
intermediateOrc
This is a variation of the 2 Burrow Headhunter build, that adds one grunt before building any headhunters. The added grunt gives some extra damage and tankiness for early creeping.
intermediateOrc
The Farseer Headhunter 2 Burrow Tech is the most versatile opening orc players have. It can work vs every race and offers transitions into multiple strong mid and late game strategies. That also makes it a good choice versus opponents playing random. Difficult
intermediateUndead
This guide was created by Nio of Ida (aka SilversGodot) This guide introduces the Pit Lord Tier 3 Necro-Wagon strategy, which combines the strong sustain and attrition value of necromancer meat wagons and the Pit Lord’s powerful Cleave ability. This is a highly off-meta strategy.
intermediateUndead
This guide was created by NorthDrakkar This guide focuses on a Crypt Lord first build with a fast tech to Tier 2 and a push using Crypt Fiends. It’s designed to be beginner-friendly, requiring minimal micro in fights, while allowing players to focus on macro.
intermediateUndead
This guide presents a strategy which is proven to be successful in games up to Grandmaster level. Fairly simple in its idea, but requires the ability to execute!
intermediateUndead
This is a loose guide of some of your options vs paladin riflemen openings.
intermediateUndead
This build allows a relatively quick tier 3 in order to access your orb and third hero but is also very safe in that you have multiple ghouls that can be used for base defense and creeping.
intermediateUndead
These tips assume you can execute fast dk push around 9:20-9:50 in game time of minimum 3/1/1 heroes + orb. Check out https://warcraft-gym.com/fast-death-knight-with-fiends-build/ (which includes a video from kaiser) if you cannot yet do so.
intermediateUndead
Death Knight ghouls with an early expansion allows an undead to thrive in the ultra-late game. However, early expansions leaves you exposed to night elf pressure. An early expansion is more practical on some maps compared to others.
intermediateUndead
This build allows you to simultaneously tech tier 3 while also harassing. Your aim is to slow the Night Elf’s creeping down, steal experience, and also hopefully slow the expo as a result.
intermediateUndead
This build revolves around attacking before the Night Elf’s expansion pays off too much and they can amass too large of an army to stop. You also constantly harass the night elf up until mid tier 2/tier 3 while creeping with your ghouls WITHOUT your hero in or
intermediateUndead
As an UD moving up the ladder and improving it is critical to know how to block your gold mine so that you cannot be harassed. Below is a guide created by RemoteFan1 on how to properly block your gold mine on some 1v1 maps.
intermediateUndead
As an undead player, knowing exactly where critters can and do spawn on a map is critical to early game creeping and later game if you need skeletons for harassment etc. Remotefan1 has put together a collection of images outlining critter spawn locations on some maps.
intermediateUndead
This build is a strategy to be used ONLY vs night elf to cancel and/or slow the Ancient of War (AoW) creeping of a Night Elf (NE). It is not effective vs any other race. As the build outlines you must go straight with your ghoul to where the NE is AoW creeping
intermediateUndead
This build is a pocket strategy to be used ONLY vs night elf. It is not effective vs any other race. The point of this build is to disrupt the night elves wood economy as soon as possible. First with the Death Knight (DK) and then with quick gargoyles.
intermediateUndead
This build is the build for all new UD players. It is the safest and most easy to execute of all UD strategies. While your very early game will be weak, you quickly ramp up with fiends allowing you a strong mid game presence. It has many weaknesses though and
intermediateUndead
Fast Death Knight into fiends is one of the most standard and safe builds that undead has. It allows the undead to quickly tech to tier 2 and tier 3 where undead unlocks some of its power spikes (like statues and getting orb at tier 3).
intermediateCreep Routes
Autumn Leaves map creator, Tenshi, has been working on some changes to AL which are going live in the most updated version 2.0. While w3c ladder is still using the older version of AL it has been said on w3c discord that AL will be updated to version 2.0 with
intermediateCreep Routes
Turtle Rock is one of the oldest maps in the game. There are no critters on this map which is annoying for undead players. There are few greens and easy oranges on the sides of the map. All of the orange gold mines have harder creeps to take and thus early exp
intermediateCreep Routes
Tide Hunters was introduced to the w3c map pool a couple seasons ago. There are 2 different expansions you can take on your respective side of the map, however, one is VERY easy to take and allows for very very quick expansions if you want. This map does not h
intermediateCreep Routes
Terenas Stand is an older map which gives early access to a safe and relatively easy expansion. There is also access to a quick merc camp which allows players to also be aggressive in attempting to stop/slow enemies expansions from going up. Below are various
intermediateCreep Routes
This map is the newest map to the w3c map pool. It has seen almost no tournament use. As such the creep routes are still very much up in the air, especially since quite a few good players have vetoed this map since they do not like change and it is not used in
intermediateCreep Routes
Shallow graves was one of the more recently added maps to the w3c map pool. The expansion on this map is not a very easy creep to take and can be risky. It is not used in many tournaments and as such there is still a lot of variability in the creep routes. The
intermediateCreep Routes
This map’s natural expansion is not the easiest to take. There is also a potential orange near both bases that can be taken reasonably early by all races and gives a nice consumable. The middle camps are always highly contested and mid game is usually about en
intermediateCreep Routes
This map gives you the potential early access to a merc camp and the mercs as well as an easy expansion. This is one of the more popular maps to be played in the game and in tournaments. Below are various creep routes for each race (UD still under construction
intermediateCreep Routes
Echo Isles is a small map with an easy expansion. There are very few camps and the middle camps are ones which are highly contested and must be constantly scouted. Below are various creep routes for each race (UD still under construction). Before you try these
intermediateCreep Routes
Concealed Hill is a large map with 3 red creeps, 2 of which are health fountains. There are numerous creep patterns on this map as well as some creeps which players have learned to abuse. Below are various creep routes for each race (UD still under constructio
intermediateCreep Routes
Autumn Leaves is one of the newer maps in the map pool which has 2 potential expansion spots. The expansion in front of your base is very easy to take. The map is one of the newer maps in the w3c map pool and as such people are still working on potential creep
intermediateCreep Routes
Amazonia is one of the smaller maps with the fewest amount of creeps. It also features one of the hardest and most exposed expansion spots in the solo map pool. As such proper creep routes on this map is critical in order to not fall behind. Below are various
intermediateGame Mechanics
What are item levels? Anyone who plays Warcraft 3 knows that items drop from creeps. What some people may not know is that each item has a specific level. Items are split into 2 groups: permanent items and consumable/charged items.
intermediateGame Mechanics
Due to the AI and somewhat clunky/bulky nature of Warcraft 3 units, players have learned how to both surround units and also block units. Body blocking and surrounding units are 2 critical features one should learn as they improve in this game.
intermediateGame Mechanics
A critical aspect of Warcraft 3 is creeping. Overtime players have learned what creeps can do and how to abuse them as to creep quicker or bigger creeps than was likely ever intended by the map makers.
intermediateGame Mechanics
There are numerous heroes that have area of effect spells and in game it does not give much of a description for these spells.
Game Mechanics
This page will concentrate on how to hotkey (keyboard shortcut) groups of units or buildings together and how to properly manage your hotkeys or groups of units/buildings. Everything described will be based on if you are using the original hotkeys of the game.
intermediateGame Mechanics
Warcraft 3 provides each unit with a certain type of armor and a certain type of attack. This results in certain units countering other units. It is important to understand what type of unit has what attack or armor type in order to figure out how best to coun
intermediateGame Mechanics
While the concept of hero experience and how it works seems straight forward at first, there are quite a few intricacies in how hero experience works in Warcraft 3 that you should be aware of in order to maximize your potential hero levels in a game.
