Man what a roller coaster! My first week of WC3
TL;DR: Having lots of fun! 😂🪓⛏ and just felt like sharing.
I picked up WC3 this week. As a long-time WoW player, I did play WC3 once... 20+ years ago... in an internet café... back when the only game at home was Runescape and the 1MB internet struggled with it.
Like most new players I assume, I watched Grubby's tournament last year and loved seeing the progression curve the players went on, starting out completely clueless and slowly developing game knowledge and expertise. I didn't find the time then, but this week I had a few days off and thought I'd finally give it a shot.
Running on my memories of the tourny and a couple of YT guides, I picked Human. Ran Archmage. Within a couple hours I'm beating Easy AI comfortably, but medium and insane feel like a coin flip. Both felt like they came down to whether I could kill their heroes in a fight around the 7min mark. If I couldn't, I'd then spend 30mins denying expansions and grinding 100v100 pop fights until their gold mine ran out. It was still fun to play, but I didn't feel like I was learning anything. Oh, except that my micro was completely awful - heroes and units dying all over the shop. The times I'd laughed in the tournament when someone would run a unit out just to send them straight back in on their next click - that was now me. I was that guy.
So it's Day 2 and I figure, hey, if I'm losing to the Insane AI 90% of the time anyway, why not go lose to some real people instead. I bet the game is completely different when playing a Human, anyway.
I hit multiplayer from the main menu and crack that Find Match button. Hmm. Maybe it's like League, and it'll ask me to pick a race once in the lobb- oh, no, I'm Orc now. First time ever. Hmm. Well, Far Seer sounds kind of arch-magey, right?
I set about hitting up the first creep camp with a couple of footmen grunts. Creeping is important. Leveling up your hero is crucial in this game and wait, what's Maiev Shadowsong doing here? I know her! After all, I'm playing TBC classic-classic at the moment! Oh, she's beating my ass. My grunts are dying. My farseer is confused and scared.
She runs off, but 30 seconds later she's full health at my gold mine. That's fine - I've seen this online. She's after my peasants! Well the joke's on that mopey warden as I followed that one guide that said to build an arcane tower. They counter this exact kind of situation.
And now my peons are dying. Well, that's not ideal. I can't even get in to stop her. Is she shadow stepping? Well, GG at 5min!
I figure I'll just play out my placements and get my MMR to where it needs to be, especially now I know I need to click the versus button first and can pick Human. It went as you could expect: 0-5, with no game lasting more than 8-9min. Pretty sure in two of the games I didn't kill an enemy unit. Well, enjoy the free wins, guys!
<Level up sound effect> Rival! Wait, isn't that the WoW arena title that means you're not completely awful?
What am I doing here? Demote me, damnit, I suck! This isn't a Rorschach scenario! I'm locked in here with them! Help!
Right. Back to the AI punchbag, I think, because this has been an interesting but ass-widening experience.
I'm now beating medium AI 95% of the time, and Insane is 50:50. My micro still sucks though - I only win by rushing with rifles and priests. If I try anything else, I get stomped. It doesn't feel like I'm learning anything again, so time to get back online.
Altar. Check. Farm, check. Barracks, check. Second farm, check. Next step: await the scary sneaky hero that'll turn up to murder all my little disgruntled miners.
But they never show. Minute 3, 4, 5 pass - nothing. I'm creeping like a mad man, I've got a second gold mine. We pass the 8 minute mark and I've still not seen any sign of him on the map. I hit tier 3. I start to wonder if he's afk and I'm breaking a sweat against player disconnect.
An empty camp. THE ENEMY EXISTS. THE THREAT IS REAL.
We've been missing each other. I move to the next set of creeps and spot a peon out for a stroll. This is it, revenge for all the innocent lives lost mining and woodcutting in the last 5 games! Zug zug, friend!
Then I see the enemy squad on the horizon, led by a pitlord!? This pro has clearly been biding his time and has built some monstrous tavern hero army and is about to roll over me. I flee like a coward back to my base with him breathing down my neck.
By some divine intervention, he stops chasing. I realise if he comes now I'm dead. I max out my unit production on every building I have. I'm just happy I stayed alive for 14min in a multiplayer game, even if we'd both effectively been afk.
He rushes past my expansion straight for the main base. I let him pass and bring my gryphons around the back for his siege weapons.
My paladin, that I'd completely forgotten I'd trained up until this exact moment, gets his face caved in. A moment of clarity dawns on me. I don't have the brain to win a fight. But I think I have a unit advantage now I've killed the siege weapons.
I town portal my army directly on top of his. Let the fates decide!
I do some frantic focus targeting on the pit lord, and then let nature take its course. The Tauren is the last to die as he tries to run away, my Dwarfy chungus doing the hammer down.
I regroup my army to push his base when I see it. The player has left the game message. I've won a game. My God. I can't believe it. What an incredible experi- oh God I just gained 200 rating what have I done!?
Needless to say my next game didn't go like that at all. I do the same build order and head out to creep - my enemy has built farms just outside of my base. I'm being settled!
I know I'm immediately out of my depth based on this alone, but just to hammer it home his arch mage shows up seconds later. He runs up and drops a blizzard on my gold mine peasants. No, my beautiful boys! Arcane tower isn't even up yet.
I try to fight him but he just rides away on his obnoxious horse. I head back to creep but he's there too, poking my militia, stealing last hits. I somehow hit Lvl 2. Aha! Level advantage! He last hits one of my footmen. We're even again. I have no idea what to do, so I commit. I chase him with everything and prod him down to 40%. He leaves. Hah, I showed him!
But now I'm worried - what's he been up to while I've been distracted for 4min? I send a footman to check for expansions and start creeping. He's out there somewhere. Now I just need to find him. What is his plan?
Well, all my gold mine peasants are dead.
The Archmage and Kael'Thas are at the back of my base. My arcane towers completely useless in the defensive effort. I don't even know how they got there - is there some sort of TP mechanic I don't know about? Is there a zeppelin floating around I didn't spot?
I run all the way back and they teleport out in my face. Well, guess I'm rebuying peasants. My gold's low, but I think I have enough to replace the 6 I lost.
More importantly, I have no idea how they did it, and they'll probably keep doing it until they win. So I go on the offense. If I'm ransacking their base, they'll have to focus on me instead. Right?
They're back again. Everybody's dead. And just to pound home the gap, my army wipes against his 3 defensive towers and his huge army of spellbreakers and sorceresses - units I don't think I've ever made before.
GG. GG.
I absolutely love the layers to this game. One game we're clearly both noobs - we don't even see each other and it all ends in a big bust up once we're out of ideas.
The next I'm fighting a strategy I can't even work out on the replay - I assume somewhere sells an invis potion and he uses that to get in? I don't know :D What was with the houses, anyway? Inexpensive vision? I mean... If it worked for him... Maybe I should try...
Posted May 1, 2026, 8:00 PM UTC