In 2003, a community-made Warcraft III map gave birth to Defense of the Ancients, more commonly known to gamers as DotA. This fan-made game will later spawn a whole new genre, the “Multiplayer Online Battle Arena”, or MOBA for short. A lot of mobile gamers are familiar with this genre, with games like Arena of Valor and Mobile Legends. While the MOBA genre was ultimately a derivative of the Realtime Strategy (RTS) genre, of which Warcraft III was part of, MOBAs became an entity of its own, becoming even more popular nowadays than its RTS roots.
That’s why this new game by NetEase is so interesting. With a lot of gamers now who started off with either Arena of Valor or Mobile Legends, Warbound Storm will be their first taste of RTS games. It’s amazing how games have now come full circle, as Warbound Storm actually takes elements from mobile game MOBAs and even elements from Clash Royale-esque games to make its own version of an RTS.
For old-school RTS players, Warbound Storm may seem simpler and less complex than the ones they used to play in the old days. However, the low skill floor actually makes the game more competitive.
The game’s relative simplicity and its intuitive design made it a hit for many players, both veterans and newbies alike. Because of its fun and addictive gameplay, many players have developed great strategies and tactics to help themselves win.
Because of how approachable Warbound Storm is, a lot of gamers have been able to develop their own playstyles for the game. Because of this, you never know what to expect when facing an opponent in the game.
We have come up with a beginner’s guide for Warbound Storm to help newbies win their early games. There are a few strategies that are very effective early on, especially when your opponents are also beginners who still haven’t figured out the best way to play. While the competition in higher ranks are definitely tougher, we developed easy to execute strategies and tactics that you can use to quickly increase your rank in your first few days of playing.
1. The Basics Of Warbound Storm – Resources, Buildings, Units, Magic, And Objectives
You will be introduced to Warbound Storm’s mechanics through the game’s tutorials, but it’s still best to cover the basics before we move on to the advanced stuff. Conveniently, the game also gives you tutorials of different levels, depending on how much experience you have in video games.
You start every game of Warbound Storm with a base and one crystal mine. Crystals are the main resource in the game, and you use it to buy units, buildings, and magic. While in old RTS games, you have to manually direct workers to gather resources and bring them back to base, it’s all automated here. Once you capture a crystal mine, it’ll passively produce crystals for your army without you lifting a finger.
Towers aren’t always necessary, but feel free to build them when you feel like playing defensively.
You also don’t have to order workers to build things. You merely have to select a building from the selection on the right of the screen, and then place it on the map. You can place a building anywhere in the map that you have vision. A builder will spawn from the base and move to where you placed the building, and will construct it until it’s finished. Beware though that these builders can be hunted down by the enemy, so be sure to place some protection.
In Warbound Storm, you can build more crystal mines over crystal deposits, place towers to protect them, build barracks to train units, or build a magic tower to formulate spells.
Barracks are essential to your success in Warbound Storm. There are three kinds – Light Barracks, Heavy Barracks, and Air Barracks. They create units from different categories. Meanwhile, Magic Towers will bolster your armies with powerful spells, both offensive and defensive.
Your primary objective in Warbound Storm is destroying the enemy base. The game also has a time limit of fifteen minutes. If neither base has been destroyed at the end of fifteen minutes, the side that has a higher score will win. Score is calculated based on the type and number of buildings you’ve destroyed.
2. Explaining Units – Building The Backbone Of Your Army
In most RTS games, your army is differentiated from your opponents based on your faction, race, or clan. In Warbound Storm, the faction system is removed in favor of a deck-building system. You collect cards of units and magic, and, prior to your matches, can build a deck of up to eight cards. You can keep three deck loadouts at any given time, but you can only bring one in battle.
Mix and match different unit types in your deck. Don’t be afraid to experiment.
Cards can be unlocked in different ways. There are cards that you can get from in-game objectives and events, while there are also cards you can buy in the game’s market. Most of the cards you’d need to play will be provided to you upfront. However, you can collect more copies of these cards to upgrade your units and magic. More information about upgrading will be discussed later.
After completing the tutorial missions, you will be presented with an option between two units: Fire Dragon and Orcish Priest. You can get both eventually, but for now, we recommend getting the Fire Dragon. The next part of this guide will detail a strategy we’ve been using to elevate our rank easily, and the strategy revolves around the effective use of resources and mastery of the Fire Dragon.
3. Controlling The Air Space – Hitting The Enemy Right Where It Hurts
Having multiple barracks will allow you to train multiple units at the same time.
As mentioned earlier, the way to win in Warbound Storm is by destroying the enemy base. This can be done by simply rushing the enemy base. However, just using normal land units will be suicidal. Instead, you have to make use of Fire Dragons to easily do this.
First, build a Light Infantry Barracks. You’ll need this to train a Crossbowman, the cheapest land unit you can train at the start of the game. Once you have the Crossbowman, make it travel to the nearest crystal deposit to your base. Build a Crystal Mine over it. While waiting for it to build, have your Crossbowman go to another nearby crystal deposit. Build another Crystal Mine there. Finally, use the Crossbowman to capture the Scout Towers on the map to provide you some well needed vision.
Having multiple barracks will allow you to train multiple units at the same time.
With three Crystal Mines, you’ll be able to accumulate crystals quickly. Build two to three Air Barracks at your base. Don’t bother building defensive structures. Remember that the enemy will gain points if they get to destroy your buildings. Building towers is an easy way to give your opponent points. Instead, train Fire Dragons. Fire Dragons can easily lay waste to whatever land units your opponent sends your way. They will hover above them away from danger.
With about four or five Fire Dragons, you can lay siege to your opponent’s base. Have them fly towards the enemy base while also avoiding any towers that might be in the way. Once you find the enemy base, chances are your opponent won’t have any units that can defend. You’ll be able to whittle away the enemy’s base HP until you claim victory.
Pro Tip: You can also build a Magic Tower and formulate Shield spells. This way, even if your opponent does have units that can attack your Fire Dragons, you can cast the Shield spell over them so they receive less damage and regenerate HP. Shield spell doesn’t work on buildings, so your opponent can’t do the same for their base.
4. Protecting Your Air Space – How To Counter The Fire Dragon Strategy
If you find yourself being on the receiving end of this strategy, don’t panic. Instead of Fire Dragons, train Giant Wyverns. If you’re familiar with Warcraft III, Fire Dragons are like Chimeras. They’re powerful air units that can easily destroy the enemy base. They have one weakness: they can’t attack other air units. Meanwhile, Giant Wyverns are like your Batriders in Warcraft III – agile, and can take on both land and air units.
Also take the map type into consideration when building your strategies. Some maps reward aggressiveness more than defensiveness.
With a battalion of Giant Wyverns, you can easily defend your base from attacking Fire Dragons, even if they were Shielded by your opponent.
If you have extra crystals and you’ve unlocked Skeletal Dragons, they’re like the Frost Wyrms in Warcraft III. They have slower attack and lower damage compared to Fire Dragons, but they can attack both air and land units. Skeletal Dragons are effective in both your offense and defense, but are quite expensive. If you’re planning to use Skeletal Dragons, don’t try to build an army of just Skeletal Dragons. You’ll also have to put in a couple of Giant Wyverns as a safety measure.
Pro Tip: If you have the Rain of Fire magic, you can also use it to defend your base. Don’t worry about hitting your own buildings in its area of effect – Rain of Fire doesn’t have friendly fire!
5. Of Orcs And Men – Strategy For Those Who Chose Orcish Priest
If you didn’t choose Fire Dragon when you have the chance, it’s not yet the end of the world for you. However, you have to play very defensively. Your opponent will likely use the Fire Dragon strategy mentioned above, so you have to play against that.
First, you’ll have to build a lot of towers and have them surround your main base. This will be your primary defense against the enemy. You should also train a lot of Giant Wyvern to go after fleeing Fire Dragons, if any.
The game has many resources to help you learn the ropes if playing against humans might be too hard for you.
As for your main attack party, you should build an army of Knights and Orcish Priests. The Knights will be your primary damage dealers, with the Orcish Priests standing closely behind them to heal them when they’re in trouble.
When your opponent start attacking your base with their Fire Dragons, maneuver your land units and avoid the path of the Fire Dragons. Have them go straight at the enemy base, which will most likely be undefended. Focus on defending your own base, while also pressuring your opponent to get their Fire Dragons back home to deal with the Knights. When they do return home, have your Knights retreat. If your opponent keeps up the chase, meet them with your Giant Wyverns. Once the Fire Dragons are no longer protecting the enemy base, you can have your Knights go back and finish the job.
Pro Tip: When managing multiple units, keep in mind that they take up different amounts of population space. The number of population they take up is written beside their crystal cost. You can’t go over the population limit, and units will no longer be trained once it’s reached. To free up population space, some of your units will have to die.
6. Rearming Your Army – Upgrading And Getting Better
If you notice that your armies are falling like flies against your enemies even when you outnumber them, then it’s time for you to upgrade your units.
Upgrading requires gold and extra copies of a unit card. Thankfully, gold is aplenty in this game. You get gold for anything you do – winning matches, ranking up, or even just by logging in daily.
Meanwhile, you can get new cards from treasure chests or from the shop. Be sure to check the shop regularly so you can snag up cards of units you want to upgrade. Upgraded units will have stronger stats. The higher level they have, the better they are in battle.
Collect gold and more copies of cards through the treasure chests you get for winning in battles.
Make sure to upgrade all your units. Having a healthy variety of available units at your disposal will be helpful when the game developers decide to rebalance the game. For example, if a new patch comes out that heavily nerfs Fire Dragons, then maybe it’s time to use Catapults instead. Being flexible will help you find new strategies as you play along in the game.
There are also many resources provided in the game that will help you hone your skills. If you’re feeling stuck, go check out their tips and tricks in-game. There, you can revisit the basic mechanics and brush up your knowledge about the game.
As there are many people playing this game, you’ll always have to be ahead of the curve. Experiment with new units regularly. Don’t be afraid to lose – as losing will give you valuable new information that you can use to refine your strategies.
Finally, don’t forget to have fun. Don’t hesitate to make fun builds like humans only or orcs only decks. Winning with a non-meta deck is more fun than racking up countless points with a dull and overused strategy.
And with that we end our Warbound Storm beginner’s guide. If you happen to know additional tips or strategies that we should include in this article, please let us know in the comments below!