Basic
Why Undead?
Pros:
- Mobile
- Inexpensive, able to mass troop
- Many unit abilities revolves around health regen
- Best support heroes in the game
- Ability to use corpse as resource
- "Summoned" buildings
- Ghouls collect 20 woods per trip
Cons:
- Low hits
- No true melee hero
- Health only regenerate on blight
- Most building can only be built on blight
- Goldmine must be haunted first, and Town Scrolls cannot be used unless a necropolis is built also
Heroes
The Death Knight is generally used as the first hero because a) Death Coil heals your troops, (but unlike the Human Paladin's Holy Light, it can be used against most enemies as a nuke spell) b) Unholy Aura is often considered the best aura overall because it boosts rushing speed and healing speed, and also stacks with other Heal Over Time, and c) he rides a goat. Death Pact is OK, but is shadowed by the uberity of Death Coil and Unholy Aura. Animate Dead is more of a situational move, you should only use this when there are corpses of powerful units on the ground, e.g. Human Knights, Undead Abominations, Night Elf Bears, or Orc Taurens.
Build: Death Coil-Unholy Aura-Death Coil-Unholy Aura-Death Coil-Animate Dead-Unholy Aura-Death Pact-Death Pact-Death Pact
Dreadlord are sometimes used against Undead players. Sleep may seem like a powerful move at first, but everybody and their grandmother knows that you can wake up your own unit by attacking them with another unit; despite this, it is one of the only spellcast-interrupting move for UD. Carrion Swarm is only useful when used efficiently when enemy units are lined up and one can hit almost all those units with one swarm, and the Vamparic Aura doesn't work if you use crypt fiends since fiends are ranged, limiting your strategy. However, if you get the Dreadlord to lv 6, Infernal helps to demolish buildings, stun units, and tank very effectively. The Infernal is spell immune, has permanent immolation, as well high hp.
Build-Sleep-Vampiric Aura-Vampiric Aura-Carrion Swarm-Vampiric Aura-Inferno-Sleep-Carrion Swarm-Sleep
Lich is going to be your damage output hero. Althrough fragile, the Lich has Frost Nova, which is AOE and useful in all situatons; Frost Shield, which doesn't really do much execpt increase the tanking ability of DK; Dark Ritual, which is slightly more useful than Death Pact but not quite; Death and Decay can kill anything, but it ran on a percent scale, which means it is going to take the same time to kill a footman as it does a castle, provided it last 13 seconds.
Build: Frost Nova-Frost Armor-Frost Nova-Frost Armor-Frost Nova-Death and Decay-Dark Ritual-Frost Armor-Dark Ritual- Dark Ritual
Crypt lord is the closest thing to an melee hero the undead has, but he's used more like a tank. Crypt Lord also has the spell to summon forever lasting beetles, use these as scouts summon-able tanks. Beetles are also used for early ghoul rushes.
Build: Beetles, Armor/Stun, Beetles, Armor/Stun, Beetles, Locust Swarm, etc.
Note: Armor/Stun is situational, if the player intends to rush, he may prefer armor over stun.
Remember: The Undead should try to stay away from Neutral shops, they might use some heroes in the neutral tavern, but it is usually situational. For example, Alchemist, Pitlord, Dark Ranger, and sometimes Firelord. Night elves may use Pandaren and Naga, Humans might throw in a Beastmaster, but the Undead has the heroes that are capable of carrying their army.
Tactics
There are a lot of different tactics while playing the Undead Scourge, but the most important thing is to scout and counter the tactic of your opponent earlier than he does. This game revolves around speed. Always remember your researching, for instance the frost wyrms arn't very good without frost breath.
Dual Crypt Rush
It`s a strategy which represents the usual Build Order(BO) of the Undeads,so I`ll explain it first.
Start by creating three acolytes (optional:create only two and scout with your ghoul after getting enough lumber for building one Crypt,one Altar of Dead and a Ziggurat as well as one Tomb of Relics) and send the Ghoul to cut some lumber and two of the three Acolytes to the goldmine,the other one summons a Crypt and a Ziggurat.Then send it to the goldmine as well. After you possess enough lumber for an Altar,start summoning it and later a Tomb of Relics and another Ziggurat.Summon a second Crypt as early as you can to create more Ghouls (this is why its called Dual Crypt) All the time you must build as many Ghouls as you can.Send them to the wood.If your hero is finished,send them with a right click on your Necropolis and then to your hero.Then buy your hero a Necromancy Rod in the Tomb of Relics and let the fun begin.
Now you are ready to attack your enemies base. Focus on your opponent's hero(focus: all your units attack one specific unit) and surround him if he wants to flee (surround:stop a unit walking away by blocking his way with your units). Your Ghouls will be faster, and if you creeped (killed creeps for experience) your hero to level two and skilled him second with the aura. Your first skill must be the Death Coil.
Difficulty: medium
Mass Skeleton
One of the most fun thing to do as an UD. 4-5 Necromancers, 3 meat wagons, 2 heroes, and you are all set. In case you don't know how this works - set your necromancers raise dead to automatic with a right click, and make your meat wagons carry the corpses for later (or with expansion you can have the wagons make corpses).
Crypt Fiend Madness
A trickier undead strategy is getting mass crypt fiends and a dk. Nothing other than that besides maybe getting t2 stats or t3 frost wyrms, and upgrading the damage or armor early game isn't a bad idea either. Make sure that you use death coil to heal your fiends not nuke the enemy. This strategy is good for creeping and waiting for ur team to build up
Double Race
This strategy allows you to get another race early in the game (in certain situations, you can gain control of all four). It is difficult to pull off without leaving your base undefended.
- How to start
After establishing your base, focus on spawning a lot of Banshees and ghouls. Upgrade to Banshee Master Training to acquire the Possession ability for your Banshees.
- Early offensive action
Attack the other race with ghouls as a distraction, then use possession on as many of the opponent's units (specifically their peons) as possible so that your troops will have a higher chance to escape. As soon as the builder is under your command, guide it securely out of the battle to an outpost that is protected (using a scroll of teleportation makes this much easier). When the stolen builder is safe, order it to build a town hall (be aware that other town halls will dispel blight in a large circle). You may like to create some more builders once the town hall is complete. This strategy works best when you use the Possession ability against Orc, because Orcs are very strong and have good units, (like the Tauren) you can get Frost Wyvms and Tauren and easily destroy your opponent.
- Build order
You're generally going to have to Tech here, so Graveyard, Crypt and Ziggurat will do fine. When you get the gold, make an altar. Quickly get Halls of the Dead and make two Temples of the Damned, one for upgrading the banshees and the other for making banshees. Don't forget that you can use your Town Scroll to teleport the possessed workers away to your base.
Against Human
The crypt fiends are useless against human footmen, and they also have militia, meaning that is difficult to rush them. The best hero would be the Crypt Lord, who can strike and stun many units at once, such as human footmen. Avoid getting deep into your opponent's base until his entire army is dead, then eliminate his workers. After that, take out his farms...and that should do it.
Against Orc
Form a team of 5-6 ghouls (with cannibalize ability) and have a rod of necromancy along your inventory. set rally point of crypt (even 2 crypts would be good) upon the hero, and produce continuously ghouls, and simultaneously upgrading their armor and attack damage. Your army will be superior to the orc's army, and their units have lots of hit points, but weak damage, allowing the hero gaining level really faster. After orc's army is slaughtered, take out his burrows, then he's doomed.
Against Nightelf
As the Nightelfs build units and buildings way slower than you do, build these first: 3 ziggurats, 1 crypt, 1 graveyard (for later use) and a tomb of relics. Build an elite team with the Hero you got, 5 ghouls, 3 necromancers and 3 banshees. Research Cannibalize to help with the healing of ghouls, and prepare for the fun! Go near the nightelf's base, hold there until noon (weakest time for the elves) and attack the hero first, when s/he's dead, the rest is at your hand! IF you have time, research the upgrades in the graveyard! BUT REMEMBER, THIS STRATEGY IS ONLY GOOD FOR 1-on-1 between you and the elves!
Against Undead
Undead versus Undead is often the single most annoying kind of match up in the game, due to the fact that you can't use Death Coil or Disease (picking up the Death Knight will reduce its functionality, and upgrading disease would be a waste of resources). Get the Lich, Crypt Lord, or Dreadlord against Undead, but Death Knight is still very useful against the UD vs UD match up. Your opponent may pick the three heroes listed above, but if you have the DK, you can heal your units giving you a upper handδ.
2on2 with Human
An Undead player working cooperatively with a Human player is quite hard, as neither of you can heal each other, so it's generally not suggested for long games; you should try and wipe out the opposition fast. To do this it would be a good idea for your human friend to make a Mountain King (MK) and you make a Dreadlord (DL). Pick vamp aura first, as you're going to support the MK with his powerful melee attacks. Make a Ghoul rush and let him make a couple of Footmen and now all your units get health back from hitting. If you strike first, then most likely one of the enemy players will leave and the other will leave with him.
2on2 with Orc
One of the best hero combos with UD/ORC is BladeMaster (BM) and DreadLord (DL) .
The skills you get are Sleep and Vampiric Aura, and Wind walk and Critical Strike .
Sleep and Windwalk is good defense and offense, both the UD and Orc can hold off on their own . In the beginning, the Orc goes BM and grunts, nothing fancy . Then at Tier 2 ( T2 ) you add a Tauraun Chieftan . ( TC ) and a lodge for adept walkers and a little bit more grunts than usual, and some raiders . Get orbs, and lust as well .
The UD goes DL and ghouls and normal tech .. In T2, you can either get Panda or Lich . also, add in some fiends and some banshees . Around that time BM reaches lvl 3. UD doesn´t tech to tier 3 here, except for possession on the rare games against lots of tier 3 melee.
The point is to harass on early game, this strategy is very useful, especially if a Night Elf is going mass hunts . The BM kills the wisps, while the DL and ghouls defend with sleep and surround .
This strategy is very good on Gnoll Wood as well .
Well, GL & HF, micro well .
2on2 with Nightelf
2on2 with Undead
You go C.L and crypt fiends. Three ghouls on wood. Build two crypts, then upgrade your ziggurats to protect you. Get to T2 fast. Research Burrow, build 10-15 crypt fiends, then burrow them in your enemy base to annoy them. If they have big units, get to T3 and build one T.O.T.D. Then get banshees and possess them. If they have little units, get Frost Wyrms and kill them. Target large groups of units cramped together.