I've also encountered a rigged version where lm has 4000 hp, 500 shields and has +5 attack....I was pissed. The dude called me a noob and stuff then a guy on the other team drop hacked him

Normally, I hate people who drop hack others, but I'm alright with it this time.

I disagree, If you can manage to get 5 upgrades you can almost any hero. Especially if they're nubs.

And vs warrior is easy, you just have to juke him so he use's dt, traps himself. Then lurker him. OR if he stuns you immidiately lurker and L2 to rape him and push him away. OR if you have chaos just use L4 if he stuns.

"Especially if they're nubs" is beyond the scope of my advice. I assume that you are playing against competent, skilled opponents. Those Warriors will use L3 against Mutant (most likely with an L2 afterwards) because L2 is not reliable enough against the Mutant due to the difficulty in trapping him. Good Warrior players will never stay at L2 and just spam HP/mana against a Mutant.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Feb 21 2009, 5:49 pm by Theodore Roosevelt.

Good mutants will get L4 even if they lurker, if they stun you you can just change and lurker, or vice versa. there is a breif period were all you rlurker shots will hit warrior, right as he stuns. He can't move.

if ur a lv3 mutant, I don't see the point in putting 3 civs that could go to mana, into a spell upg that you might rarely use. Even if I had max mana, I'd rather spend it on hp.

Volt

This guide is for mt or m3.

Volt is one of my favourite characters. Its main role is a support/stunner character. It can be strong all throughout the game with its awesome stunning spells. Each spell is different and used in different ways. Volt is a bit weak, so you should always have a teammate support you while trying to kill another person.
Playing Volt requires precise timing in order to get the most effectiveness from its spells. It can use its paralyser spells to run away from a person hunting you down or to trap an opponent that is trying to heal or run away.

Some Counters
Melee Mutant
Medic
Assault

Countered By
Archer
Mech
Special Ops
Light Mage

Note that this might not always apply. Counters just have a slight advantage over another.

Spell 1: Shockwave
This spell is a basic stunner. You start with this spell at the beginning. It is very helpful as it also subtracts 10mana from the paralyzed opponent. This is best used to finish a low-hp opponent. It can also be used to kill any corsairs and/or dropships nearby. The scourges attack them and can kill them before they get near.
This spell needs some timing. If you fire them too quickly, you can waste mana. If you fire them too late, the enemy can get away. You should cast spell 1 every 5 attacks or so on your opponent.
I find that newbs try to escape from summoner’s lings by using spell 1. Spell 1 does NOT affect lings or spawn, so don’t waste your mana.

Spell 2: Magnetic Channel
Magnetic channel is your main combo starter. It is great to spam in mt, but on m3 and 1.5, it’s not too good. It drags your enemies to yourself, so then you can continue with spell 1s. Its easy to catch an opponent in this spell- easier than spell 1. This should be used when trying to catch an opponent.
Keep in mind that some heroes, like mech and archer, can attack even though they’re paralyzed or being dragged. Many people forget this and they don’t notice their hp going down. They usually don’t retreat before they die. Don’t use this spell if you’re being pounded by summoner lings. The lings can demolish you with manual attack if they have enough upgrades.

Spell 3: Static Charge
Static Charge is great for mana-based heroes. If you’re facing a mana based hero like light mage or archer, it is wise to use this since it drains 150 mana. This spell is good against heroes like assassin, light mage and archer. It is recommended to use spell one first, so that the enemy doesn’t run away during the animation in the beginning of the spell. Spell 3 lasts a long time, so you can use spell 4 after for an easy kill. This combo is good against people who can manual attack you like mech and warrior.
This can also be used to avoid summoner’s lings. It stuns them by turning them into neutral, but spell 4 is probably a better alternative.

Spell 4: Power Overwhelming
Power Overwhelming is volt’s ultimate move. The Volt gets changed to another archon with more hp and damage. It is well used to kill slow units. You can also use this with spell 3 to kill faster units. This has plenty of hp, so your opponents won’t be able to kill you.
This spell is the best to avoid summoner’s lings. Since you have a lot of hp, it is unlikely for the lings to be able to kill you in time before they die.
Power Overwhelming is a great building destroyer. Your archon has plenty hp and can just run in and kill pylons. Make sure you run out if your spell is going to run out. If you transform back while your in the range of cannons, you are likely to die.

Early Game
The first thing you do is to put civilians into money. Get five weapon upgrades. This helps very much as it very well doubles the volt's damage as well as makes it easy kill broodlings so they don't get into your way during capturing gates. Volt doesn't need shields early game since it has a reasonable amount of hp/shields. Go towards an outpost- it's wise to spread out your team into different places, so you don't lose any outposts. While confronting an enemy, make sure you have at least 25 gas to use spell 1. This will do some decent damage. Try not to attack your enemy when you're out of mana- spend time killing the spawns around the base. It is crucial to not lose hp, especially early game as it can spell death or losing an outpost. Note that volt is heavily countered by archer, mech and light mage early game. Early game, you could only kill mutant, since it has little hp.

Mid Game
Try to farm right away. Make sure you’re at where the spawns meet. You can splash your own spawn to get double the experience. After you get money, put two civilians into mana, so you get a max of 100 mana. Try to get spell 2 after that. Then, aim for 5 civilians into mana. Spend your upgrades, after you have 5 weapon upgrades, on shields according to your spawn’s attack. Then get weapon upgrades. At this phase, you should be able to kill some heroes with more hp. You shouldn’t be wasting your mana on a warrior, since you can’t deal enough damage to kill it. You should not be attacking cannons until spell four, since you can easily die due to your size and mobility. Focus on player killing and farming. If you don’t have any assimilators by now, it may be wise to get some.
During night, you should be player killing. Try to get behind an opponent while another teammate attacks from the front. Trap them while they’re running for heal and the enemy is likely to die.

End Game
When you have spell 2 and 200 max mana, get spell 3 and 4. The rest should go into mana or hp. You should be able to kill just about any hero with the spell3 the spell 4 combo or spell1/spell 2 spam. You should now stop farming and start player killing or capturing any warp gates. You should be able to attack their base.

General Notes
-Time your spells right
-Keep track of your hp... I’ve seen too many times when I manual attacked a volt and killed them
-While running away, use spell 1 so you can get a head start.
-This is what I follow...you don’t have to follow this if you don’t want to
-Volt is a support unit... try to have another teammate helping you kill
-don’t type too much... people can catch you off guard and you may die
-try not to confront heroes without any mana

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Apr 13 2009, 1:12 pm by xYoshix.

My Assassin Strat:

- At the start, get mass attack. 5/6 will do.
- Try your best to interrupt during the outpost era. You obviously won't capture, but will let your team cap.
- After outposts are settled, go directly to l2 by night.
- By mid game, start eating up pylons with l3
- Late game is when you shine. If you have l4, you are teh gods. Begin raping cannons and temple
- L1: Always think about teleporting while attacking
- L1: On MT3, time this well.
- L2: L2 works better comboed (use it once, and then use it again after a while)
- L2: L2 disables summoned units, like Revs or Summoner
- L3: L3 is only useful if you're in OK condition. If your base is getting raided, theres no point.
- L3: Capture outposts at night, mostly top, or comboed with mid/bot
- L4: Combo it with L2.
- L4: When you're usng it on temple, make sure there arent anything else nearby, because you might waste it.
- Eat away assims at night.
- Grinding is hard at night. Best idea is to be in a choke, and you'll only leak 1-2 lings.
- Don't upgrade shields. This is a common error for newbs.
- Get either health or 6/10 armor. For health, get only about 2
- Assassin is a team comboer. Call your teammates to PK someone.

kev, sorry to say your strategy ignores alot of aspects of assassin, such as using l3 to sneak into outposts and the other teams base and pick the enemy heros off, aswell as getting armor... why? its pointless assassin in my opinion is the third lowest character in benefitting from armor, second being assault, first being volt(duh).

Yeah, I haven't played much Assassin since regular MT so I missed alot of stuff, I don't really think mine is detailed enough.

I'll work on the Phantom, though.

I put in red the things I wanted to comment on from my limited experience with the assassin.

1: Generally in the beginning I get only 2 attack, before getting 6 armor. This allows me to 1 shot the spawn, and tank it. With this strat, you can stay out longer rather than teleing back to base every few spawns. This obviously allows for better exp gain, but isn't so great if people are harassing you.

2: Remember in 2s to go wherever they don't go.

3: I usually tech straight to l4 making me 'god' by night 2 or 3, which really catches people off guard. Imo late game is harder for you since they know you'll have l4. If you can surprise them, you can do better.

4: There is one spot specifically around top for the top base spawn which is the one spot you can block with 1 unit. This spot is good, except it makes the units run away and build up, so you have to periodically move away a bit to lure some through. This is my most effective strategy for exping at night, before I'm out player hunting, that is.

Assassin is fun, but is a real pain in the ass if someone decides to harass you.

Anyone working on a complete list of counters?

I'm working on an anti-reavers.

Do you mean a counter list for every hero? I can start doing this.

DISCLAIMER
The following also does not account for any particular amount of XP/levels or XP/level gap.
The following does not account for any SINGLE stage of the game. (opening, early, middle, late) I have attempted to account for an overall matchup.
This assumes 1 on 1 combat, for which Temple Siege overall is NOT balanced for. (Obviously Medic does not suck that much.)
Last but not least, we assume that all classes are played by comptent players who are playing competitively.
This chart assumes we are playing version 1.4M#.

If anything, this chart represents my personal opinions on "what I would pick" against certain classes. Nothing more, nothing less. Of course, this is highly subjective and there will be much disagreement because of the (ironically) unquantifiable difficulty in quantifying this information. So yes, this is definitely biased according to my personal preferences. Overall, this entire chart is to be taken with a grain of salt.



Post has been edited 28 time(s), last time on Apr 13 2009, 3:42 pm by Mini Moose 2707.

Too late. Thanks Moose.

My best class has for the most part been Mech, and no one has written a detailed guide for that so I'll do so here. Be warned, this guide will be VERY in-depth.

Mech
(This guide is relative to version M3)
The first thing you need to know about the Mech is that it is the only character that spends a good deal of time in multiple forms. He starts as a Goliath and can turn into a speedy Vulture and a Siege Tank. The Mech's role is raw damage/transformer. It requires a high level of micro and a good knowledge of the game, but using this class you can do a number of things that other classes are never able. His versatility allows him to counter nearly every build of every unit without difficulty, making him an excellent choice in almost every game.

First I'll go into detail about how the Mech's spells operate:
L1. If you aren't a Goliath, this turns you into a Goliath. Goliaths deal normal damage (100% to all types). Its air attack is explosive, but that won't really have much of an impact in Temple Siege.
L2. If you aren't a Vulture, this turns you into a Vulture. Vultures deal concussive damage (25% to large units, 50% to medium units, 100% to small units).
L3. If you aren't a Siege Tank, this turns you into a Siege Tank. Tanks deal explosive damage (100% to large units, 75% to medium units, 50% to small units).
L4. This is not a transformation spell. The effect will be the same no matter what unit you are. This spell creates a barrage of units. 3 Goliaths, 2 Vultures, and 2 Tanks will spawn for about a half dozen seconds and fire as much as possible.

Each of these units has separate hit points and when you bring your unit to the Temple, whatever form you may be in, all three units will be healed.

The spells operate differently if you are in the role of whatever unit you're casting. For example, if you cast your L1 as a Goliath, your L2 as a Vulture, or your L3 as a Tank, it will not transform you.

The following effects are from casts in the form you'd otherwise change to:
L1. This creates two siege tanks in siege mode which deal a substantial amount of damage, even early game before there are many upgrades in play. If you can stall long enough to get off multiple casts of this that hit, you can beat anything besides a Warrior in a 1v1 battle for a warp gate.
L2. This creates vultures that spawn alongside the Mech, fire, and are removed. About a dozen of these will spawn and fire a single shot each. With proper micro, this nearly doubles your damage for the period of the spell being cast.
L3. This creates 8 siege tanks in siege mode surrounding your hero. They will fire a single shot each which deals a huge amount of damage if timed correctly. However, it also has the effect of trapping your hero while the tanks spawn and fire, which takes a few seconds.
L4. See above.

Versatility
The Mech is easily the most versatile character. You NEED to play to your strengths as a Mech or you will not be very successful against good opponents. Here are facets of the Mech's versatility.

Transforming
- Your forms do not share hit points. This means that if you have 50 hp as the Goliath, you can transform into the Vulture, fight until that has 50 hp, and then transform into the Tank. Only when the tank is near death do you have to heal. If you've saved mana, you can transform to the Vulture and race back to heal at a high speed. Nothing should be able to stop you.
- When transforming, your unit is cloaked for a second or two before you can select it. It will still attack during this time period, which can be annoying, but also can give you an extra edge in fights that come down to the wire. You can dodge attacks by transforming back and forth, and opponents' units will run from the cloaked attack.
- If a certain special attack has a charge up, you can dodge it by swapping forms. Units won't automatically target you if they can't see you.
- The Siege Tank stays in the form it was in when you swapped out from it. This means that leaving it in siege mode and using L3 at the proper time can get you a quick long-range shot on someone low on HP who wasn't expecting it.
- If you are ever trapped in a corner or against a wall, simply by changing forms you will almost always be moved to a place outside of the surrounding enemies. This is enormously useful.

Goliath
- The Goliath has a high range equaled only by the Medic, which does negligible damage to Large units. This makes it micro-able against any opponent, letting you get in more shots than your opponent than you would have if you had just stood toe to toe and fired.
- One easy way to gain free shots in the early game is to use spawns to block and simply fire over them. If you're standing far enough back, you'll have free shots against a lesser-ranged opponent. Against a melee opponent, if you maneuvered correctly, you can trap opponents behind the wall of spawns and keep firing. This is a good time to use your L1, as melee opponents often are too close to you to take the hit from your tanks.
- The Goliath is also capable of hitting pylons in the middle without ever being within range of the cannons. Combining this with your L1, you can often take over the middle at night before the opposing team even notices you doing so.
- Your L1 can be cast from enough of a distance to allow you to hit even base-pylons from out of range of their cannons. This lets you enter the enemy base more quickly than most units. If you get your L3 quickly, you can also use it in siege mode to kill enemy pylons. If approached, you can simply morph out and run away.
- Using L1 Tanks, picking off DM's Orbs or Medic's medics is easy and gives loads of experience.

Vulture
- The Vulture is the fastest unit in the game, bar none. This gives ENORMOUS flexibility to the Mech. Melee opponents are incredibly weak against a skilled Mech. Coupling proper micro with L2, you can deal huge amounts of damage to opponents who are running for the heal. This means they have to heal earlier and more often, and you gain an edge in the experience race.
- The Vulture's speed also allows it to escape almost any situation without difficulty. Nothing can catch you. If you get stunned, you can transform to another unit to absorb damage, but you really should rarely get stunned because of how quickly you can dodge any trap.
- Again using the Vulture's speed, you can gain experience from multiple lanes per spawn wave. Have one group attack you, and quickly run to another lane, microing the spawns chasing you as you go (or not, depending upon your ability). Once in the other spawn, have those attack you as well. Easy double experience.
- Another aspect of the Vulture's speed is that you can contain low HP opponents inside their captured areas. If they are low on life, just your presence forces them to wait for a teammate's help before they try to heal. You can experience while this is happening, and gain a huge edge the more time they wait. Even after a teammate helps them, with skilled micro you can still often make the killing blow.

General Versatility
- Putting a 4% increase in HP means putting 4% more on your Goliath, 4% more on your Vulture, and 4% more on your Tank. High-HP is hugely effective and can result in an almost unbeatable Mech, but being more offensive can pay off as well.
- Your spells are very hit or miss, but very skill-intensive. Opponents can stand within the minimum range of Siege Tanks and take no damage, but if you use it at the right time you are almost guaranteed a hit due to their high range. The 8 tank barrage and Rail Gun are likewise effective if used correctly.
- The "going into Siege Mode" animation when you cast your L1, L3, and L4 gives you the time to correctly target what you want to hit with the tanks
- The Goliath and Vulture, and possibly Tank form can be "manualed." For those not familiar with the term, this allows you to fire through a stun by manually attacking your opponents repeatedly. Some of the attacks will be canceled by the stun, but by attacking fast enough with certain units some of your attacks will get through. Even against the DM's alliance curse, you can A+Attack manual with at least the vulture.
- You are immune to maelstrom in all forms. As a Vulture, you are immune to spider mines, and can also lay them to capture a beacon.
- You can deal concussive or explosive damage, depending on your opponent. You can be a large or medium sized target, depending on your opponent.

Early Game Matchups:
Easy win: Light Mage, Dark Mage, Summoner, Medic, Firebat, Mutant, Assassin
Skill-dependent: Volt, Archer
Difficult to win: Marine, Warrior

With proper micro, a good Mech can even overcome an early-game 2v1 of the "Easy win" units and come out with a couple of kills or a warp gate.

How to Vulture-Micro
Move in a direction, patrol towards your opponent. Repeat. The timing for this is difficult at first but after a while it should be easy. Using patrol instead of attack lets you fire very fast, and you can immediately move away from your opponent.

If your opponent is running to his base, you can also block him to gain even more time to fire, while still keeping up a steady stream of attacks. You can combine this with your L2 if your opponent is running in a non-downwards direction. If you use it while running downwards, your vultures will spawn below you and hinder you more than they help.

It's a personal challenge of mine to see how long I can dance around a melee opponent who will kill me in a hit or two. They usually give up or die before I do, which should tell you how absolutely dominant the Vulture can be against melee opponents.

General Strategy:
As with most Heroes, put your initial civilian(s) into minerals, upgrading damage. Depending on your opponents, you may want to rush straight to Vulture with your next 3 civilians. You can get a free kill if you catch an opponent far from his base simply by vulture microing him as he flees by surprising him. Using a low-HP Goliath as bait has gotten me countless kills. Following this, most of your civilians are going to be put into minerals for damage for a good bit of time. (If playing on a non-M3 version, it's worthwhile to go for a probe and assimilators as well.)

Your current mana dictates when you change classes, and how often you need to change classes dictates how much mana you get. Getting more mana upgrades allows more flexibility, but against melee opponents it may be preferable to simply stay in Vulture form for the majority of the game and thus you're better off getting HP or Damage upgrades.

The issue of when to get the tank, or getting it at all, is a matter of your opponents. A Vulture/Goliath combo is weak against very few things, such as a Lurker Bomb-Mutant or a Reaver-LM. Otherwise, it will be your bread and butter for most games. You can use the tank form as "extra HP" if you're ever in danger, or you can simply put civilians into Hit Points. It equates to much the same thing if you don't plan on using the Tank for killing.

My personal rule of thumb is that if we are working on taking down the enemy temple, getting the Tank form is worthwhile. In games more hinging around PvP action, the tank is not as useful. Gaining entrance by hitting a pylon while in Siege Mode is quick, even without casting the 8-tank barrage. The L3 cast as a tank deals huge damage to the Temple, as does the tank form itself, and the Tank's high HP allows me to remain in their base for longer. This essentially allows me to add the Goliath's HP to the Tank's, and keep the Vulture in reserve to heal all forms quickly and get back to the action faster.

If you choose to get the Tank form and have been getting mana, you'll probably want to get the L4 soon too. Usually this is most effective against a stunned opponent, but it can be powerful against a moving opponent if timed and placed correctly. By the time you get the L4 one of your opponents likely is down to his final life. Springing it on him before their team is aware you have it can be a quick game-ender for that unlucky player.

In closing:
The Mech is, in my opinion, the most powerful and most underutilized Hero. It is a hard counter to any melee unit due to the vulture's speed and microability, and allows you to play more daringly than any other class because of how quickly you can move around the battlefield. Coupled with the life bonuses from having essentially 3 separate heroes that all gain that percentage of hit points, you are very difficult to kill and yet still have very high damage-dealing potential. If you actually read all of this post, you should be a more than competent Mech player after a game or two of experimenting.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 23 2009, 6:25 am by FaZ-.

I just want to say that I'm really proud how everyone's contributing to this topic. There're a lot of strategies and things that I have implemented, and a lot more emergent gameplay strategies (some good, some cheap) that I've never even perceived when I made the map.

Thanks guys ..
hopefully the new heroes have just as much strategy and fit well into the game.

Additionally, we should also post the hero's weaknesses.
For example, Mech is both Upgrade, Hp, AND Mana intensive. I found that while playing mech, one wrong move means death. Like, if I used a spell without realizing someone's about to attack me, I wouldn't have enough mana to transform and escape. With mech needing all these upgrades, it is fairly dangerous to PvP early game, despite Faz- saying that mech can own Light Mage, Dark Mage, Summoner, Medic, Firebat, Mutant, and Assassin (I'd say Mech'd own only Mutant, Summoner, DM, and Medic.)

I'll edit my first post for Archer's weaknesses .

That's a good idea, I guess I just don't think to include the weaknesses because they aren't something I see a lot any more now that I'm experienced with the character.

As for LM, Firebat, Assassin:
- LM is hopeless versus Mech until Reavers. Like, it needs to stay within 10 spaces of the base or it will lose 1 life guaranteed hopeless. This is true against any ranged character, for LM.
- Firebat does 25% damage to Goliath form of Mech... it doesn't have a prayer at any point in the game without a teammate to help deal damage with its stuns, or enough stuns to last for a nuke to drop. Lol.
- Mech obviously won't kill a good Assassin, but it will send it warping with any decent micro whatsoever. You should get L2 right when the Assassin does if you're playing against it, so until he has loads of mana he's not a threat at all. If he has loads of mana it's not the early game any more. =p

I did warn that Mech takes a lot of micro, so fair enough. =p

Team Building:

Damage characters: Mech, Warrior, Marine, Mutant (L2), Archer (L1)
Support characters: DM, Assassin (L2), Volt
Endgame characters: LM, Summoner, Assault, Medic, Mutant (L3), Assassin (L4)

In my opinion there's two ways to build a top team.

1.) You go for damage plus support and you take over the game with early kills and 2 or 3 warp gates, then build assimilators and win with a base assault over time. Usually you're going for a stunner plus two characters emphasizing heavy damage. How you build your team is all about matchups.

- If you're against a summoner, it's a good idea to get a melee damage character. The mutant in particular, with L3, ends the threat of a summoner massing, even without many ranged upgrades.
- If you're against a LM or Volt, it's better to get ranged characters so you can stay as far away from spells as possible.
- If you're against a Medic, it's a good idea to get the Warrior, because Warrior+Medic is just too ridiculous and shouldn't even be in the game.
- If you're against Assault, a Dark Orb on defense ends any nuking threat with well cast maelstroms. That leaves the DM free to help Exp/Attack.

With proper teamwork and a good player acting as the stunner, you should force the enemies to stay together or stay just outside of their base. This leads to a huge assimilator advantage and a huge damage advantage and finally a win.


2.) You win a war of attrition by outlasting your opponents and winning by playing defense until you are powerful enough (usually by denying XP for the enemy team) to break out. This is nearly impossible if you don't capture a warp gate at first because you will lose against a team that assims, but because of how hard warp gates are to capture after taken for a first time, you're pretty much assured that it will stay in your control even if you're not there, afterward.

Usually you'll see this happen when a team takes just the middle warp gate. The LM will go huge mana and reaver/storm deny, the Summoner will go manaling and (attempt) dark swarm, the Medic will go L4, and the Assault will go for nukes. The Mutant is also capable of being an endgame character by getting massive amounts of mana and just triple casting L3 on someone. An Assassin with 170 mana and L4 can kill most opponents. If you're smart and get HP, he needs 290 mana, or more. Either one of these units has the potential to end the game if left unchallenged. Usually, one of the characters on this team will be a damage character who just goes around and prevents assims from being built.

Often, this strategy is coupled with spawning Reavers.


In my opinion, a smart team should win against the second strategy, easily. The problem is that this takes advantage of your enemies' impatience, and you'll get kills by making your opponents make mistakes. If they don't make mistakes, you probably won't win. Get lots of HP upgrades, break through a single area as a team, and force all members of the opposing team to actively play defense. Build assimilators, and win. This second strategy is abused a TON in M3 because of how slow the assimilator income rate is.

In particular, I don't think that the second strategy should even be possible. However, because of how worthless the spawns are for dealing damage and how you can deny them with a few different characters with an actual experience GAIN, it occurs.

Light mage should either be equal with mutant or slightly counter it.
Assassin doesn't counter mech, because mech has so much extra HP.