Orc Guide

Orcs are the easiest race to play and have the highest winrate in the game. They are easy to play and hard to counter. Orcs has the highest winrate because they tend to get fed by beginners which causes them to snowball their way to victory. The few players that know how to counter will have difficulty countering an orc with a much bigger army due to being fed by beginners.

Orcs usually have high hp and armor units. They are basically quality over quantity race. This gives them a good resistance to splash. Orc has the best melee damage in the game.

## Build order

Building as orc is very simple. You either build raider or tauren on first round. Shaman on the second round. Upgrade raider or Tauren on 3rd round. 4th round you either add another upgraded raider, or get more support such as spirit walker or get Kodos for the auras buff. Dont worry about losing on rounds 1 to 4 as you are usually ridiculously strong by round 5 to 7. On bonus round, you should have 3 upgraded raiders or taurens, minimum 2 spirit walkers, 1 upgraded shaman, 1 witch doctor, 1 upgraded troll priest, 2 upgraded kodos and 1 upgraded bat rider. Ideally, you want a mana item on your shaman. If you have extra mana item equipped on upgraded priest and maybe witch doctor. You would want orbs on your bat rider, with lightning orb being the best. Attack speed and lifesteal items goes are best for your raiders, but you can also stack armor on them during player battle rounds. Raiders are slightly better than taurens on bonus rounds. However, raiders greatly outperforms tauren when complete with a set of 3 items compared to 2 items of tauren. You can blindly build like this, not worrying about counterbuilds, and win most games. Most beginners won't be able to stop you and would be feeding you kills. Veterans would have difficulty when beginners feed you kills. This is why a lot of players complain that orcs are op. However, orcs are only op when fed. With enough veterans in the game, they get countered easily due to being too predictable.

### Raider build

The most popular build due to its simplicity and easy transition to bonus and finals.

Round 1: Raider

Round 2: Shaman

Round 3: Upgrade Raider to chieftain

Round 4: Add +1 chieftain, or more support units

Round 5: +1 chieftain, kodos, support units

Round 6: upgraded bat rider, upgrade shaman

Round 7: More raiders and support units.

Bonus: 3 chieftains with speed and lifesteal items, upgraded shaman with mana item, upgraded witch doctor with mana item, upgraded bat rider with orb (ideally lightning orb), 2 upgraded kodos. Extra gold - build more raiders, spirit walkers and other support units. Ideally, you want all of the advised items above , but you will likely not get all.

### Tauren and blademaster build

You can actually replace raider with tauren. However, opening with blademaster on round 1 is not advisable as they tend to be weak without support units. Blademaster is strong when they are spinning, but it takes them too long to charge. Add blademaster after you have upgraded kodos to have the attack speed buff necessary for a faster charge to a spin. Build order is same as above except you can mix in with tauren and blademaster instead of raider. Tauren and blademaster adds splash damage to your army and is a good answer for players that spam frontline meatshields against you. On bonus, sell your tauren and blademaster and replace with chieftain as they outperform the two on bonus.

### Grunt Party Build

A less popular build. Instead of raiders, tauren, and blademaster, you have grunt as your frontline. Grunt dps is bad, so most of your dps will be coming from ranged trolls and batriders.

Round 1: Grunts and trolls

Round 2: More grunts and trolls

Round 3: Spirit walkers and troll priest

Round 4: Witch doctor, More grunts and trolls

Round 5: Upgraded Kodos and shadow hunters

Round 6: Upgraded bat riders, more spirit walkers

Round 7: More Grunts and Trolls and support

Bonus: Sell all grunts and replace with 3 chieftains and add shamans to transition to the advised bonus setup mentioned above.

Note: Grunt party tends to underperform in bonus unless you get lots of lightning orbs. You can keep grunt party setup on bonus if you get 2 or more lightning orbs equipped one on each upgraded batriders. Grunts doesnt benefit much from shaman's bloodlust so shamans are not necessary during player battle rounds, unless you have raider, tauren and blademaster mixed in with grunt party.

### Finals Build

There are a lot of variations but ideally you want to keep as much buffs as you could. 3 chieftains with for the armor aura buff, equipped with attack speed, lifesteal and armor items. 2 upgraded kodos for the attack speed and attack damage aura buffs. Have at least 3 spirit walkers, Upgraded shaman with for bloodlust buffs equipped mana items. 1 to 2 thralls with mana item for earthquake aoe damage, summon spirit wolf and chain lightning. If enemy is spamming frontline melee units then maybe add demolishers. Add a good amount of range units in the form of troll headhunter and batriders. You can mixed in with tauren for stun aoe and blademaster for even more aoe damage.

## Adapting to your opponents

As mentioned in the main page, you should be tracking down who you fought and who you haven't in order to get an idea on who you will be matched with. You also should be paying attention to their build, to come up with the correct response against them.

### Dealing with Humans

Humans have advantage against you from round 1-5 due to having magic damage as their main damage source. They also can recruit spellbreakers to dispel your bloodlust buffs on your unit. Lastly, they can stun you, throw endless meatshield against you or disable your melee units with Dragonhawk Rider's (cloud ability). Opening with tauren is not a bad idea when dealing with humans as they bring area damage to their troops. Later rounds, a seasoned veteran would likely throws endless wave of militia against you while their archmage blast your frontline. If this happens, you can add in blademaster to have the aoe damage they provide after they charged to a spin. Blademaster can easily deal with militia spam. If you can equip your raiders/taurens/blademaster with powerful items through rerolling items, then you can win against humans no problem. For item tip and item rerolling tips, see Orc Item Guide section. The most desired items against humans is essence of aszune as they halve the damage that Archmage does to your units. In finals, try to have a full set of powerful items for your Chieftains and bring plenty of splash damage to break through their frontline fast before they kill your frontline which you rely on for damage.

### Dealing with orcs

A mirror matchup unless they are using grunt party build. Rounds 1-4, you are most likely lose to grunt party build as they can easily stun you using witch doctor and outlast you with heals and spirit link. Later rounds, as you stack armor, attack speed, and lifesteal then you gain an advantage against them. On mirror match up, there really is nothing much to talk about. Rounds 1-3, you are most likely going to do the same thing. On round 4, you should be looking into stunning them with witch doctor's stun ward. If they are doing the same, you can upgrade your shaman to a fel orc warlock to disable the stun ward. Later rounds, you can also throw in a surprise by stunning them with Tauren Chieftain's stomp. While the opponents frontline are stunned, the witch doctor's stun ward would trigger for another round of stun, which gives you plenty of time to decimate them. If you and your opponents are equal in skill, it all comes down to luck on who gets the better items. The best item when dealing with orc is lightning orb as they can dispel the bloodlust buff and is best equipped on your windrider unit.

### Dealing with night elves

Rounds 1 - 3, you are likely to lose to a competent night elf player. On round 3, when you have an upgraded tauren or chieftain, the night elves are likely to bring in faerie dragons to snipe your shaman before they can cast bloodlust. From then on, their druid of the talon/marfurion will clean up your tauren or chieftain through magic damage. If you are lucky, the Tauren chieftain's stomp might hit the faerie dragons before they can snipe your shaman. If you can get the bloodlust casted in, then you are likely to win the round. On round 4, you should have enough gold to hire a troll priest to bait the faerie dragon into shooting them instead of the shaman to give you time to cast the bloodlust buff. They might bring in priestess of the moon for the night cast buff or bring in Ghost of the keeper's thorns aura which reflects back melee damage, in which you might steal lose round 4. On round 5 is where it really goes downhill for night elves as they have no way to dispel your bloodlust and you would have more chieftain backed by a kodo. To add insult to the injury, the night elves doesn't have a strong magic damage hitter. The only chance for night elf to beat is you is if they got themselves a lightning orb item to dispel your bloodlust.

### Dealing with undead

Early rounds, the fight can go both ways. You are likely to win against undead with raider unless they opened with ghoul and gargoyle, because unupgraded raider is weak to gargoyle's piercing damage and ghoul prevents the raider from getting to the netted gargoyles. Upgraded revenants can also be a problem for raider as they make their damage against revenant zero after cursing them. If you opened with tauren, then undead won't be able to beat you on round 1 as the splash damage from tauren would easily deal with ghouls and gargoyles' piercing damage is weaker against tauren's heavy armor. Revenant is also not a problem as their curse is easily shrugged off by the tauren's (resistant skin ability). On round 2, you are likely to get a shaman and the deal is the same but with more ghouls to deal with but now you have the bloodlust buff on your raider or tauren'. The undead cannot really beat your bloodlusted raider or tauren until the bloodlust wears off. On round 3, you are likely to have an upgraded tauren or raider backed by a shaman. If on round 3, the undead opens with dreadlord, then you are likely to lose as the shaman would have sleep casted on them while the dreadlords and ghouls clean up your frontline. If they opened with kel'thuzad then you might win this one with 3 units that are bloodlusted cleaning up the ghouls and the necromancers and its summons. On round 4, if you see dreadlords, get witchdoctor. The dreadlord will put your shaman to sleep, but the witchdoctor would stun the dreadlords which buys you time until shaman wakes up. On the otherhand, they might get banshee king to steal your units, in which you might lose, but still has chance depending on how the fight turns out. Round 5 and later they might bring in a second banshee king backed by lots of ghouls. If you see this, then you can get blademaster to quickly kill the ghouls. Time is off the essence here. The longer the battle stretches the more likely you will lose as more and more units will get possessed by the banshee king. If you are lucky, you would have powerful items equipped to your chieftains and they would clean up the opponent's army as they cannot be possessed/stolen.

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