[phillryu]

Well, I've been having great success with this strategy, and I wanted to share it with you guys so mac gamers will dominate battle.net! Anyway, it involves massing druids of the talon.

I started an account for this, wnxpryu006, and I'm 12-1 at this point in random team games. (The one loss was from disconnect). Ok here's the build order:

3 wisps to gold mine
1 wisp to alter
1 wisp to lumber
Upgrade tree of life

(All that in first 3 seconds)

When you hit 40 wood, take the lumber wisp off and start a moonwell. When alter is done, pick a hero (I recommend demon hunter or priestess).

When the tree of ages is done upgrading, immediately queue up two wisps for gold and like 5 for wood. As the tree is pumping out the wisps, build your first Ancient of Wind, and another moonwell.

When you reach 120 wood, upgrade the tree again, and while it is upgrading, start another Ancient of Wind.

When the first Ancient is done, upgrade druids. When second AOW is done, start pumping out druids. As soon as the tree of eternity finishes, upgrade master rank for druids, and continue pumping out druids (they are VERY cheap). You should mass at least 12 of them, mapping them to control group 2 and your hero as 1.

TACTICS:

Why druids of the talon?

Cyclone. The most broken spell in the game Undispellable, you can cast two-three per druid, 30 seconds an enemy unit is gone. When enemy heroes TP out, cycloned units do not tp. Usually you want to cyclone about 1/2 of the enemy army and let your team mates kill the rest, and when the rest of the army comes down, kill them. Bite size chunks. Oh, and keep on cycloning enemy heroes until you're done with the armies, then surround them.

Faerie Fire: Pretty useful, but sucks mana for cyclone, so I usually turn it off.

Storm crow: When you see air, transform your 12 + druids into crows, and the air is gone. It's already one of the best anti air in the game, and when you have masses of them...

Now what do you do when you creep?

Just cyclone either all the weakest creeps, or the strongest one, and focus firing with all your druids makes easy work of all groups. Remember that golems are magic immune, and that dragons and drakes are really really easy to kill with storm crow.

What if the enemy rushes you?

This is the ONLY weakness of this build. For about 4 minutes you are pretty defenseless, with only a demon hunter or hero to protect you. That's why you should play team games, where team mates can help you defend an early rush.

If the enemy attacks first, but no rush?

Talons are one of the best defenses in the game. Just cyclone most of the enemy army, and take the units down one by one.

Can talons attack enemy units? Does cyclone do any damage?

Cyclone does not do any damage, but druids do have a ranged attack. It does about 17 damage I believe, and it's quite powerful if you focus fire with tons of druids.

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Hope that you are successful with this.

-phillryu

[Deicide]

phillryu:

That is a good strategy. I have seen it used in a couple of replays with great effect. I only play Orc so it doesn't help me much. Do you play on a Mac? I will only play on my PC because the curser lag in battles makes it no fun on the Mac.

[mac freak]

That strategy would be cannon fodder for my arranged team (#68 on ladder yesterday, my current account is "Polkiousness"), since our herp rush and then our main rush would totally catch you unprepared. Pray we attack another person on your team!

Our general strategy:
Player 1 = Orc
Player 2 = Human
Players 3, 4 = Night Elf

Player 1 has a Tauren Chieftan (train shockwave first for hero rush to kill enemy peons). Rush army = Hero + 8 grunts @ midnight, plus peons to tower enemy base. Endgame army = 6 shamans, 3 witch docs, hero, and lots of tauren (up to pop limit). [This is me, BTW].

Player 2 has an Arch Mage (train blizzard first to kill enemy peons in hero rush). Rush Army = Hero + 11 footmen. Endgame army = Sorcs/Priests/Gryphons.

Player 3 has a Demon Hunter (train whatever, your damage will kill peons on hero rush). He masses hunts for rush, typically 7 or 8 + hero. Endgame army is lots of Chimaeras and a couple of DotT's. Perhaps some archers/hunts mixed in there too.

Player 4 has a Priestess of the Moon (I don't know what he trains for hero rush, but starfall is incredible later on. This hero MUST be leveled up for endgame). He also masses hunts for rush, perhaps with an archer or two. Endgame army = Dryads, DotC's, hunts/archers/Hippos/DotT's as needed (depends on enemy).

However, I won't spill the beans on build orders!

[phillryu]

I use my family iMac 800mhz, which is pretty usable.

About your AT strat, well, its AT, what can I say. If I could pick all the people who play with me I'd kick your ass too

About early hero rushes, I usually have my orc or human ally if I have one build two-three towers in my base. (I pay him back since I always have surplus resources). That's usually enough to deter a hero rush. A "rush" with 8 units and a hero means I already have cyclone. Which means that the rush army will be cut down by half, while my three team mates tp in and I focus with 15 + druids. See, I think druids are overpowered right now because of their cheapness (I believe they cost 160 gold 20 wood?) and extremely short build times.

About starfall/powerful heroes, they are pretty neutralized by cyclone. Cyclone interrupts spells like starfall, plus puts the heroes and auras out of the battle.