ScR3aMofHe11
1st May 2010, 09:39 AM
Elves Don't Maphack -They Train Wisps
Now, I haven’t been around the Warcraft scene as much as some of you think, but it always surprises me how so many people use the word “scouting” improperly. Trust me, between the league team I manage, my administration in the Prime Time Gaming League, and the players of various skill level with which I train, I know what scouting is, and I know that a lot of people still don’t understand the concept very well. it is one of the most important aspects of the game, especially to the elf player. Thus it is important to define what scouting actually is.
Scouting is observing your opponents buildings, tech timing, units, unit upgrades, heroes, hero upgrades, location, and all of the above relative to your own timing, in order to determine their overall game strategy, timing, and current location (to figure out or estimate their next move). It’s much more than simply sending a wisp into your opponents base at the beginning of the game, and it’s much much more than simply determining their location, though this is a part of it. For example, how many times has this happened to you: You send a wisp into your Undead opponent’s base early in the game and see a Crypt, Altar, Ziggurat, and assume that he is doing a single barracks tech. Depending on the map and your post-“scout” wisp placement, you might also see his Death Knight creeping, or maybe even heading towards your base. Reasonably, you assume that he is going to harass you and go for Crypt Fiends or Gargoyles later. But, when your opponent shows up at your base, you see he has far more Ghouls than you anticipated. And they keep coming. You can’t get Hunter’s Hall or an Ancient of Wonders built fast enough. There’s no way to counter the rush. You say “GG” and rage. You have lost.
You can prevent this scenario from ever happening again. But even this story doesn’t fully explain the full extent of scouting or it’s potential. So, before returning to this story, we will address a few points about scouting.
Initial scout - whenever your wisp gets to your opponent’s base you need to be able to observe what they are actually doing. Personally, I would prefer to delay creeping with my ancient of War for two seconds and actually look at what my opponent is doing. If I can see that my human opponent is building an early Lumber Mill, I might decide to alter my strategy a little bit, just to be safe. If I see that my Orc opponent isn’t building an early barracks, it might be best if I change my game plan. Paying attention to your opponent’s base and scouting well will allow you to see if your opponent is playing a standard strategy or something you’ve never seen before, which can make or break a game of Warcraft for anyone.
And make sure your wisp doesn’t die. Be careful. Relocate it somewhere near your opponent’s base so you’ll be able to re-scout him sometime later.
Map scouts - map scouts are your wisps that are scattered around the map (in some match-ups) in order to increase your awareness of the game, but it would be too situational for me to discuss the proper wisp placements on all maps for an elf player. However, I suggest that you be aware of places important to your opponent. On Terenas Stand against Human players, for example, I typically have a wisp watching the routes to all expansions, and one other wisp somewhere near the middle of the map. That said, there are many players that struggle to know when to send these wisps out. I recently saw a player place wisps in very good positions on a match on Twisted Meadows. Unfortunately, he sent them out too early. In general, you can start to send wisps around the map once you have started your second moon well. For players who have their timing down with standard build, you might be thinking, “But isn’t that when I should be Ancient of War creeping AND checking my wisp in his base?” The answer is Yes. Here’s the trick: Delay your Ancient of War creeping. Uproot your ancient while you’re checking out your opponent’s base and then start to creep once you’ve made your observations. You can also use control groups and waypoints to make sure your units attack the proper creeps and that your wisps go to the proper locations. In most cases, 100 apm players are missing 50 apm of micro from their game play. Being able to do what I’ve suggested above will help improve your game greatly, if you aren’t doing it already.
So, you have a solid view of the map. You know where your opponent is and what he might be trying to do. Now what?
The Re-scout - Remember that Wisp you used to scout initially? And how you placed it strategically near your opponent’s base? Good. You’re going to use that wisp to scout again. Re-scouting can save the game for you. Remember the story we we’re talking about earlier. If you had only scouted your opponent’s base a second time, you would have seen the second Crypt or the incredible number of Ghouls in the back of his base, and you would have been aware that he intends to destroy you very soon. You can also use that wisp to scout creep camps, which could help you further determine your opponent’s strategy, or even estimate the level of his heroes.
So, you can see the map, you’ve scouted and re-scouted your opponent, and maybe even re-re-scouted him. What else can you learn?
Heroes and items - Scouting enemy items is critical. It can signal many different things. Do you know the standard scenarios in which a player might sell their Scroll of town Portal? Can you identify where a player has crept based on their items? Even if you can, are you actually checking and thinking about it in your games? Beyond this, can you pair strategies with the heroes they typically employ? Can you think of alternative strategies that might arise from different heroes? Even more, do you know the timing that different strategies require? If you’re answering no, then you need to examine your own replays and others’ in order to start learning. If you’re answering yes, then you need to try to remain aware of your wisps on the map. Use the knowledge that you can gain in those brief glimpses of your opponent’s base to examine hero items, locations, and types. If I see an Undead player buy a Naga Sea Witch, I’m not going to run across the map to creep. I’m going to stay nearby to protect my tier 2 buildings.
Upgrades - Number one, if you’re not getting them, that’s a problem. Number two, if you don’t know what upgrades affect different units, you need to find out. Learn what units are paired together for upgrades. Then, when you’re playing, check enemy units. Once again, against Undead for example, you can frequently tell if you opponent will be focusing on air or ground units based on what upgrades he’s getting. Abuse that knowledge to define your army composition.
So you ask, “I’m supposed to watch my wisps, check units, check items, check heroes (and their mana, and their items), while doing everything else that I have been?” Yes. But think about it; it’s easier than you may realize. First, abuse waypoints while creeping. Click and shift-click the units that you want to die in order, and now you can look at your mini-map for a second, or macro a little bit better, or, even better, use a wisp and find something out. Or how about this: while you and your opponent are about to fight and your armies are moving back and forth near each other vying for positioning, take the time to check his heroes and upgrades. Even if you lose this fight, the information you gain might help you win the game.
Lastly, there is intuition and experience. How your opponent plays against you can signal a lot. Human players tend to push or harass after putting up an expo if you aren’t already harassing them. Use all the cues in the game that you can to try to estimate what your opponent is doing, and then counter and disrupt what they’re doing. Frankly, this is the hardest part of the game. As a player who typically maintains 150+ apm without spamming, one of my peaks is usually as I’m going through early tier 2 and trying to figure out what my opponent is doing. In practice, this means that my in-fight apm is about the same as my scouting apm. Both are very important and require a lot of attention and focus.
Overall, there are lots of things that you should be doing to scout your opponent. You must also use your own intuition to piece things together. As you become more experienced with the game and scouting, you’ll be able to figure out more with less. Even still, use all the tools at your disposal. Before I close this article, let us re-examine the Undead situation that I talked about before. This time you have gotten level 2 from Ancient of War creeping and are now going to check on the Undead player with your Demon Hunter. You see the Death Knight and quickly check his items. He has sold his Scroll of Town Portal. This signals you that he might be converting to a double-Crypt or fast teching. You jump back to your base and start a new Ancient of War while he’s still mid map. You carefully control your Demon hunter to avoid surrounds, and then run away for a second. While you run away, you move your wisp into his base and scout the second Crypt. You resume control of your Demon Hunter and harass a bit more. Now you throw down another Moonwell a little early and begin microing your units. You then use one of your map scout wisps to build an out-of-base Hunter’s Hall. With micro, you keep from losing your Demon Hunter or too many units. He kills 2-3 Wisps, but you’ve got enough around the map. Suddenly, he’s facing double-Ancient of War hunts and his Death Knight is out-leveled by your Demon Hunter. His next move, to go double-Crypt Gargoyles, is countered easily by double-Ancient of War Archers. You now have a huge advantage for the rest of the game. You survived and gained your advantage, by scouting.
Scouting:
1. Initial Scout
2. Map Scouts
3. Rescouting
4. Heroes and items
5. Upgrades
6. Timing and intuition
7. Everything; you don’t have to gain knowledge with wisps, you can do it during fights. As your micro improves, or your opponent runs, or you’re TPing away, scan units. You’ve got enough time to learn a little bit.
And so scouting with Wisps. Who'd have thought it?
Now, I haven’t been around the Warcraft scene as much as some of you think, but it always surprises me how so many people use the word “scouting” improperly. Trust me, between the league team I manage, my administration in the Prime Time Gaming League, and the players of various skill level with which I train, I know what scouting is, and I know that a lot of people still don’t understand the concept very well. it is one of the most important aspects of the game, especially to the elf player. Thus it is important to define what scouting actually is.
Scouting is observing your opponents buildings, tech timing, units, unit upgrades, heroes, hero upgrades, location, and all of the above relative to your own timing, in order to determine their overall game strategy, timing, and current location (to figure out or estimate their next move). It’s much more than simply sending a wisp into your opponents base at the beginning of the game, and it’s much much more than simply determining their location, though this is a part of it. For example, how many times has this happened to you: You send a wisp into your Undead opponent’s base early in the game and see a Crypt, Altar, Ziggurat, and assume that he is doing a single barracks tech. Depending on the map and your post-“scout” wisp placement, you might also see his Death Knight creeping, or maybe even heading towards your base. Reasonably, you assume that he is going to harass you and go for Crypt Fiends or Gargoyles later. But, when your opponent shows up at your base, you see he has far more Ghouls than you anticipated. And they keep coming. You can’t get Hunter’s Hall or an Ancient of Wonders built fast enough. There’s no way to counter the rush. You say “GG” and rage. You have lost.
You can prevent this scenario from ever happening again. But even this story doesn’t fully explain the full extent of scouting or it’s potential. So, before returning to this story, we will address a few points about scouting.
Initial scout - whenever your wisp gets to your opponent’s base you need to be able to observe what they are actually doing. Personally, I would prefer to delay creeping with my ancient of War for two seconds and actually look at what my opponent is doing. If I can see that my human opponent is building an early Lumber Mill, I might decide to alter my strategy a little bit, just to be safe. If I see that my Orc opponent isn’t building an early barracks, it might be best if I change my game plan. Paying attention to your opponent’s base and scouting well will allow you to see if your opponent is playing a standard strategy or something you’ve never seen before, which can make or break a game of Warcraft for anyone.
And make sure your wisp doesn’t die. Be careful. Relocate it somewhere near your opponent’s base so you’ll be able to re-scout him sometime later.
Map scouts - map scouts are your wisps that are scattered around the map (in some match-ups) in order to increase your awareness of the game, but it would be too situational for me to discuss the proper wisp placements on all maps for an elf player. However, I suggest that you be aware of places important to your opponent. On Terenas Stand against Human players, for example, I typically have a wisp watching the routes to all expansions, and one other wisp somewhere near the middle of the map. That said, there are many players that struggle to know when to send these wisps out. I recently saw a player place wisps in very good positions on a match on Twisted Meadows. Unfortunately, he sent them out too early. In general, you can start to send wisps around the map once you have started your second moon well. For players who have their timing down with standard build, you might be thinking, “But isn’t that when I should be Ancient of War creeping AND checking my wisp in his base?” The answer is Yes. Here’s the trick: Delay your Ancient of War creeping. Uproot your ancient while you’re checking out your opponent’s base and then start to creep once you’ve made your observations. You can also use control groups and waypoints to make sure your units attack the proper creeps and that your wisps go to the proper locations. In most cases, 100 apm players are missing 50 apm of micro from their game play. Being able to do what I’ve suggested above will help improve your game greatly, if you aren’t doing it already.
So, you have a solid view of the map. You know where your opponent is and what he might be trying to do. Now what?
The Re-scout - Remember that Wisp you used to scout initially? And how you placed it strategically near your opponent’s base? Good. You’re going to use that wisp to scout again. Re-scouting can save the game for you. Remember the story we we’re talking about earlier. If you had only scouted your opponent’s base a second time, you would have seen the second Crypt or the incredible number of Ghouls in the back of his base, and you would have been aware that he intends to destroy you very soon. You can also use that wisp to scout creep camps, which could help you further determine your opponent’s strategy, or even estimate the level of his heroes.
So, you can see the map, you’ve scouted and re-scouted your opponent, and maybe even re-re-scouted him. What else can you learn?
Heroes and items - Scouting enemy items is critical. It can signal many different things. Do you know the standard scenarios in which a player might sell their Scroll of town Portal? Can you identify where a player has crept based on their items? Even if you can, are you actually checking and thinking about it in your games? Beyond this, can you pair strategies with the heroes they typically employ? Can you think of alternative strategies that might arise from different heroes? Even more, do you know the timing that different strategies require? If you’re answering no, then you need to examine your own replays and others’ in order to start learning. If you’re answering yes, then you need to try to remain aware of your wisps on the map. Use the knowledge that you can gain in those brief glimpses of your opponent’s base to examine hero items, locations, and types. If I see an Undead player buy a Naga Sea Witch, I’m not going to run across the map to creep. I’m going to stay nearby to protect my tier 2 buildings.
Upgrades - Number one, if you’re not getting them, that’s a problem. Number two, if you don’t know what upgrades affect different units, you need to find out. Learn what units are paired together for upgrades. Then, when you’re playing, check enemy units. Once again, against Undead for example, you can frequently tell if you opponent will be focusing on air or ground units based on what upgrades he’s getting. Abuse that knowledge to define your army composition.
So you ask, “I’m supposed to watch my wisps, check units, check items, check heroes (and their mana, and their items), while doing everything else that I have been?” Yes. But think about it; it’s easier than you may realize. First, abuse waypoints while creeping. Click and shift-click the units that you want to die in order, and now you can look at your mini-map for a second, or macro a little bit better, or, even better, use a wisp and find something out. Or how about this: while you and your opponent are about to fight and your armies are moving back and forth near each other vying for positioning, take the time to check his heroes and upgrades. Even if you lose this fight, the information you gain might help you win the game.
Lastly, there is intuition and experience. How your opponent plays against you can signal a lot. Human players tend to push or harass after putting up an expo if you aren’t already harassing them. Use all the cues in the game that you can to try to estimate what your opponent is doing, and then counter and disrupt what they’re doing. Frankly, this is the hardest part of the game. As a player who typically maintains 150+ apm without spamming, one of my peaks is usually as I’m going through early tier 2 and trying to figure out what my opponent is doing. In practice, this means that my in-fight apm is about the same as my scouting apm. Both are very important and require a lot of attention and focus.
Overall, there are lots of things that you should be doing to scout your opponent. You must also use your own intuition to piece things together. As you become more experienced with the game and scouting, you’ll be able to figure out more with less. Even still, use all the tools at your disposal. Before I close this article, let us re-examine the Undead situation that I talked about before. This time you have gotten level 2 from Ancient of War creeping and are now going to check on the Undead player with your Demon Hunter. You see the Death Knight and quickly check his items. He has sold his Scroll of Town Portal. This signals you that he might be converting to a double-Crypt or fast teching. You jump back to your base and start a new Ancient of War while he’s still mid map. You carefully control your Demon hunter to avoid surrounds, and then run away for a second. While you run away, you move your wisp into his base and scout the second Crypt. You resume control of your Demon Hunter and harass a bit more. Now you throw down another Moonwell a little early and begin microing your units. You then use one of your map scout wisps to build an out-of-base Hunter’s Hall. With micro, you keep from losing your Demon Hunter or too many units. He kills 2-3 Wisps, but you’ve got enough around the map. Suddenly, he’s facing double-Ancient of War hunts and his Death Knight is out-leveled by your Demon Hunter. His next move, to go double-Crypt Gargoyles, is countered easily by double-Ancient of War Archers. You now have a huge advantage for the rest of the game. You survived and gained your advantage, by scouting.
Scouting:
1. Initial Scout
2. Map Scouts
3. Rescouting
4. Heroes and items
5. Upgrades
6. Timing and intuition
7. Everything; you don’t have to gain knowledge with wisps, you can do it during fights. As your micro improves, or your opponent runs, or you’re TPing away, scan units. You’ve got enough time to learn a little bit.
And so scouting with Wisps. Who'd have thought it?