I'm pretty sure spells can have a cast time override, and this is consistent with Dota 1 mechanics (which use the wc3 engine). e.g. Shadow Shaman has a base cast speed of 0.3 secs. This is overridden by Hex's cast speed of 0 secs. This is why if you want to disable a hero instantly, you Hex instead of Shackle. This is also why Shadow Hunter's Hex (cast speed = 0) beats Demon Hunter's Manaburn (cast speed = 0.3 secs), even if DH gets a head start. The "bolt delay" on Manaburn is similar to Finger of Death. Essentially, the cast is broken into three parts: 1. DH raises his hands to cast Manaburn (total 0.3 secs). If he gets interrupted before this, he spends no mana, the spell doesn't go on CD, and the spell doesn't work. 2. DH finishes casting Manaburn and the delay kicks in (total 0.25 secs). If DH gets interrupted now, he still spends the mana, the spell goes on CD, and part 3 will still happen. However, the delay also means a well timed Mirror Image (or transformations such as Alchemist transformation, or Metamorphosis, or bear transformation) can dodge the spell entirely and make DH use his resources for nothing 3. The Manaburn takes effect. Mana is removed and the target takes damage.
6:40 yeah, i don't know at what framerate Grubby is uploading, but this Hex took 8 frames to kicks in between the click and the dh being hexed, so for it to be 0.3sec cast time it would mean grubby is uploading at 27 fps. I believe instead that the cast is instant and the 8 frames delay (or whatever corresponding time) is due to his ping. Also you can see that first he clicks, the dh get instantly hexed and then sh plays hes animation I can't find any clue in the editor of why it's instant and not 0.3 sec. The 0.3 cast time + 0.25 bolt delay makes sense for manaburn but then we would expect the same kind of stats for chainlighting and healing wave (both can be dismissed between cast complete and bolt connects even if the travel time is instant, which suggest a bolt delay but there is none).
yh i feel like when it comes to storm bolt or coil, it's obvious you are dodging the projectile after they have cast it. isnt it safe to group all those spells together .. bolt or projectile?
This was a very good game because it showed how you both adapt to each other, since you expected Immolation harass you stayed nearby and because of that he went Mana Burn, which in turn meant you could go mass melee and Hex on Shadow (which you played amazingly). I feel like you could've won earlier if you had seen the Wisp when you scouted the expo but still you were so far ahead level wise that you could win even without any big misplays on his part. GG to both.
I normally don't comment but I've to say, this was so incredibly well-played. All the clutch BM save, item micro during fights and unit micro in general. In the end, it still felt so incredible elf favored, even with major mistake he can still dictate the pace of the game
Q: At 10:24, is there a reason you don't research pillage here? Is it just that you're worried about delaying units knowing that winning the fight here will win the game? To me, you're parked right outside his base and will obviously try to harass moon wells/try to end the game within the next few minutes given that the elf player is a bit behind you in terms of army, so pillage will pay for itself and then some.
@@RazielDeTam That's what I would think too, but on that time stamp he does have quite a while of down time while he creeps and saves gold for scroll. I think it's more that pillage is just very low priority and I am curious why (maybe it won't even pay itself off, or he's expecting way more units from NE since he's still assuming no NE expansion here).
@@tempname2590 if the number I have is right for cost of a moonwell it's 180 gold and 40 lumber so if only units that can use pillage hit the moonwell (not heroes), then supposedly you get 50%, so Grubby should get back 90 gold and 20 lumber if only hit with units that have pillage so if pillage costs 75/25, then it seems it is possible to pretty much earn it back from a single moonwell it does seem like an insignificant cost to get pillage, but I'm sure one is always wondering about oh I need to get one extra unit, oh I need gold for a heal scroll, oh I don't know if I'll be able to target buildings depending on how the enemy reacts I also wonder does pillage work on night elf buildings that are uprooted
pretty sure cast point is just the point at which the cast animation is done mana burn uses the animation ie 0.3 cast point. which means if the spell doesn't use the cast animation it doesn't use cast point so is essentially instant cast ie immolation.
Panda flame breath doing so much heavy lifting. Kind of crazy how 1 hero just lets you turtle in your base and force your opponent to keep running into breath after breath. I would think that catapults would help, but they seem to get countered so easily due to being slow and fragile.
25:35 Mana burn has a bolt delay of .25 which is why I think you're finding it easy to counter because it would bring up the entire delay to .55 which would be over the highest. I don't know for certain though because I never really understood the value because to me it makes no sense that they didn't put it under casting time, except that maybe they wanted him to be able to move cast it? I mean, there are quite a few redundant data attachments to spells, like silence had data points for movement speed, attack speed or miss chance. So if I want an AOE for debuff for a custom hero it is easy to change that and remove the silence buff for example.
I didn't even notice until I read your comment. I guess it wouldn't be so bad if it was at the lowest volume, (thousands for grubby) but after hearing it for a few hundred hours I think it's fine to give up on it
Wasn't the shredder a tell that he had expansion? That's how I saw it at least - of course it could be he was just having wood problems from previous harass, but that didn't seem to impactful to warrant a shredder... Gg!
not sarcasm, but good to see Grubby win against ne, especially ne panda sidenote: I like in the description, it says let's give him a proper welcome then the title, I forgot to say gl hf :P
I'm not sure if this is what you're talking about but he uploaded a video called do you want to play orc vs zerg on his grubby talks channel I saw him play a starcraft2 mod of warcraft3 (which the afforementioned video I'm guessing is also about), but I can't remember what channel and what the video was called, I'd guess it might be on grubby plays, but I dunno
Cast point depends on 2 things. The actual unit (or hero) cast point, and each ability has their own hidden cast point, my belief currently is that the game picks the fastest cast point of these 2. But i've read that the cast point ingame is hero cast point + ability cast point. The answer is probably somewhere in between these 2
Yes Dota 1 makes this more apparent, since many unit packages have spells they weren't "intended" to be able to cast, so more frequently have spells at varying cast speeds, or that disagree with their own speed, though you'll also sometimes notice this with creeps that have Great Value versions of hero spells. But broadly speaking, casting speed defers to whatever the fastest value exists between a caster and spell, with the notable exception that some spells have more crunchy pieces to their cast, like the tiny channel that happens at the start of Blood Mage's Flame Strike that can't be worked around, or some spells that want an animation to play to a certain point before launching their projectile, like Demon Hunter Mana Burn. If I remember correctly, some spells outright don't have a casting speed value, meaning it just defaults to whatever the value of the unit casting it is, but I could be wrong. Usually, the distinctions don't matter too much, since, again, most of these spells are usually packaged into heroes intended to use them, and so there's infrequently anything truly weird that happens, but it can play a part in knowing if spells can be interrupted or dodged, and when those interrupts or dodges have to be done.
I think it is range with hex. Hex range is long and mana burn is pretty short so if you when DH comes near you can hex him before he gets near enough to burn you
You were way too scared to push your advantage into raxing his base when you saw he was out of army. I know your blade was low, but even during the live game, you saw his heroes being like half hp and no moonwells. I feel like this in general is something you might want to explore more. Push more for win when you are ahead, instead of playing it safe. You are essentially giving your opponent the choice of fightning now or later, when you could just take the option away. Night Elf, specifically gains immense value over you whenever you let them utilize Moonwells, and giving them time is just that. I think this is big part of why you are struggling so much against Night Elf. Not claiming everything is that simple or easy, but it's not the first time I keep thinking "You should just push for the win here" And this game is actually a prime example where you made a mistake by not pushing for it, even though you ended up winning anyway.
This got me thinking about how healing salve interacts indirectly with moon wells. Moonwell at it simplest is steady healing over time, delivered in chunks. HS is also healing over time, except it's expensive and *constantly* susceptible to being cancelled. So the strategy has been to get enough salves for the army, fight, withdraw and heal at a safe distance. Except when orc withdraws far enough to take time to heal, elf also benefits with their moonwell heal-over-time. Is orc spending money to buy time that elf gets to heal for free? I might be confusing myself on the details but I think how salves are being bought and used in orc v elf is worth examining
@@ambion19 I think it's very important to not dismiss that moonwells also restore significant mana for heroes. As I mentioned earlier, I think Grubby pulls away way too much from Elf encounters, especially if he is fighting next to Elf base. The moonwells just provide so much value. You need to think more about exhausting them and then pushing to win right away or just not fighting at all. You are easily losing economically even if you trade favorably in the fight, if you end up buying tons of salve/healing scroll/clarities. Now obv exp from favorable trades is not to be ignored, but trying to simply illustrate some of the reasons why Grubby is specifically struggling in this match up.
Hey Grubby, I too think this is worth examining, and recall you suggested as much ("too passive") after a recent game against Jens, I think. But I also thought you mostly did push this game and still had to out-fight your opponent the entire time, which just seems like overmuch given your early lead. I thought focusing the buildings instead of the army around ~10:30 - 12:30 and then avoiding fights for a while to allow an economic advantage to materialize (as you recently commended a member of the chat for perceiving) would have been a good, lower-effort play.
Hey Grubby Great vids ggs love wathching the conetent , i think the reason why hex can int. MB even tou MB is cast 1st is bcuz of the frame animation , DH has to raise the hands up 1st then does the cast where as Hex has a lower frame animation thats why the Dh feels slow to cast. Tekken frame lab .. haha
New graphics A: have less visual clarity and B: straight up just look worse. WC3 classic vs Reforged I think is a good case study of how art style trumps graphics.
Grubby has many videos explaining all the ways in which reforged is worse. It's a long story but the whole project was a failure and then basically abandoned by activision
To simplify Many units were redesigned in ways that reduce visual clarity. Base WC3 made graphical concessions on models to improve how easy it is to distinguish different models at a glance; these redesigns of creeps, units, and heroes often forgo visual clarity for what we'll call quality of visuals, to the detriment of actually telling these visuals apart or playing the game. Many units are also a combination of proportionately bigger, and have less negative space on the model, which means even if you can accurately parse units from eachother, actually clicking the unit you want to becomes more difficult. The item chest in particular is replaced with a floating, bobbing model that you can sometimes miss. Many of the spell, skill, and interface thumbnails and icons were changed, meaning people with years and years of experience with the old ones would have to relearn all these icons. Some units have different voicelines and, most importantly, death cries, which, in addition to being again more relearning required to parse information quickly like the icons, some units recieved ambiguous death cries, which can be misinterpreted. If two exact copies of a person are playing eachother, and one is playing base WC3, and one playing with Reforged graphics on, the base WC3 player has an advantage entirely on the basis of better, more efficient information parsing, and better interface and more accurate micro. Not a huge advantage, but an undeniable one. Basically, the presentation overhaul was made without the level of care and attention that base WC3 was. WC3 was very, very mindful of the interweave between presentation and playability, and made many, many compromises or concessions on quality or direction of presentation to facilitate the game being played. Reforged simply does not have this same level of awareness, and in the rush to justify itself and its price tag, greatly overreached in what it should do. It touched things that didn't need to be, and really shouldn't have been touched, and sacrificed playability for presentation wherever it could, because it wasn't made/directed by people who understood why base WC3 was presented the way it was. This is before and completely aside from the other, more nebulous social and critical issues it faces.
How the hell does NE get a lvl 3 hero by just chilling next to you creeping??? It makes no sense the hero can just do nothing for 5 mins and then get lvl 3
apparently wc3 now has global xp so your archers can kill something on the other side of the map and the hero gets xp, unless you have another hero that is close by to the archers
![[EPIC] These Chimaeras deal SO MUCH DAMAGE! - WC3](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZGpHX8PDDtc/mqdefault.jpg)
I'm pretty sure spells can have a cast time override, and this is consistent with Dota 1 mechanics (which use the wc3 engine).
e.g. Shadow Shaman has a base cast speed of 0.3 secs. This is overridden by Hex's cast speed of 0 secs. This is why if you want to disable a hero instantly, you Hex instead of Shackle. This is also why Shadow Hunter's Hex (cast speed = 0) beats Demon Hunter's Manaburn (cast speed = 0.3 secs), even if DH gets a head start.
The "bolt delay" on Manaburn is similar to Finger of Death. Essentially, the cast is broken into three parts:
1. DH raises his hands to cast Manaburn (total 0.3 secs). If he gets interrupted before this, he spends no mana, the spell doesn't go on CD, and the spell doesn't work.
2. DH finishes casting Manaburn and the delay kicks in (total 0.25 secs). If DH gets interrupted now, he still spends the mana, the spell goes on CD, and part 3 will still happen. However, the delay also means a well timed Mirror Image (or transformations such as Alchemist transformation, or Metamorphosis, or bear transformation) can dodge the spell entirely and make DH use his resources for nothing
3. The Manaburn takes effect. Mana is removed and the target takes damage.
6:40 yeah, i don't know at what framerate Grubby is uploading, but this Hex took 8 frames to kicks in between the click and the dh being hexed, so for it to be 0.3sec cast time it would mean grubby is uploading at 27 fps. I believe instead that the cast is instant and the 8 frames delay (or whatever corresponding time) is due to his ping.
Also you can see that first he clicks, the dh get instantly hexed and then sh plays hes animation
I can't find any clue in the editor of why it's instant and not 0.3 sec. The 0.3 cast time + 0.25 bolt delay makes sense for manaburn but then we would expect the same kind of stats for chainlighting and healing wave (both can be dismissed between cast complete and bolt connects even if the travel time is instant, which suggest a bolt delay but there is none).
yh i feel like when it comes to storm bolt or coil, it's obvious you are dodging the projectile after they have cast it. isnt it safe to group all those spells together .. bolt or projectile?
This is correct. Chain Lightning also has 0 cast time.
I play a game at most 20 hrs and I'm done. I watch grubby play wc3 for 11 years and still click on the new video.
Playing ≠ watching
I couldn't work for 1 hour straight, but I can watch someone work till the end of my days.
same here bro o7
Gladly
That damn blue hedgehog
Hola grubby, me encantan tus videos de ww3 1v1. Sos el mejor! Saludos desde Argentina
This was a very good game because it showed how you both adapt to each other, since you expected Immolation harass you stayed nearby and because of that he went Mana Burn, which in turn meant you could go mass melee and Hex on Shadow (which you played amazingly). I feel like you could've won earlier if you had seen the Wisp when you scouted the expo but still you were so far ahead level wise that you could win even without any big misplays on his part. GG to both.
I normally don't comment but I've to say, this was so incredibly well-played. All the clutch BM save, item micro during fights and unit micro in general. In the end, it still felt so incredible elf favored, even with major mistake he can still dictate the pace of the game
Q: At 10:24, is there a reason you don't research pillage here? Is it just that you're worried about delaying units knowing that winning the fight here will win the game? To me, you're parked right outside his base and will obviously try to harass moon wells/try to end the game within the next few minutes given that the elf player is a bit behind you in terms of army, so pillage will pay for itself and then some.
Just forgot to research) he's microing and producing units like crazy, obviously could missed something
@@RazielDeTam That's what I would think too, but on that time stamp he does have quite a while of down time while he creeps and saves gold for scroll. I think it's more that pillage is just very low priority and I am curious why (maybe it won't even pay itself off, or he's expecting way more units from NE since he's still assuming no NE expansion here).
@@tempname2590 if the number I have is right for cost of a moonwell
it's 180 gold and 40 lumber
so if only units that can use pillage hit the moonwell (not heroes), then supposedly you get 50%, so Grubby should get back 90 gold and 20 lumber if only hit with units that have pillage
so if pillage costs 75/25, then it seems it is possible to pretty much earn it back from a single moonwell
it does seem like an insignificant cost to get pillage, but I'm sure one is always wondering about oh I need to get one extra unit, oh I need gold for a heal scroll, oh I don't know if I'll be able to target buildings depending on how the enemy reacts
I also wonder does pillage work on night elf buildings that are uprooted
@justanobody0
I'm pretty sure you can TP to an uprooted Tree of Life, so I suspect they're still "structures", even if they might also be units.
I forgor
pretty sure cast point is just the point at which the cast animation is done mana burn uses the animation ie 0.3 cast point. which means if the spell doesn't use the cast animation it doesn't use cast point so is essentially instant cast ie immolation.
would be fun to see a high level NE use a ancient of wonders to make hidden tech in the trees to blindside with chims or something while having lores
Panda flame breath doing so much heavy lifting. Kind of crazy how 1 hero just lets you turtle in your base and force your opponent to keep running into breath after breath. I would think that catapults would help, but they seem to get countered so easily due to being slow and fragile.
19:54 that staff denial was so good :0
defenitely deserves a GG lol
25:35 Mana burn has a bolt delay of .25 which is why I think you're finding it easy to counter because it would bring up the entire delay to .55 which would be over the highest. I don't know for certain though because I never really understood the value because to me it makes no sense that they didn't put it under casting time, except that maybe they wanted him to be able to move cast it?
I mean, there are quite a few redundant data attachments to spells, like silence had data points for movement speed, attack speed or miss chance. So if I want an AOE for debuff for a custom hero it is easy to change that and remove the silence buff for example.
nvm you found it haha.
These videos without the wc3 music feel so... uncanny.
Love it. I hate when they have the music on full blast like back2warcraft, so annoying.
I didn't even notice until I read your comment.
I guess it wouldn't be so bad if it was at the lowest volume, (thousands for grubby) but after hearing it for a few hundred hours I think it's fine to give up on it
Digging the jacket grub
GLHF Hoomuns, Orcs, Elves, and Undead
Yuumans
Wasn't the shredder a tell that he had expansion? That's how I saw it at least - of course it could be he was just having wood problems from previous harass, but that didn't seem to impactful to warrant a shredder...
Gg!
not sarcasm, but good to see Grubby win against ne, especially ne panda
sidenote: I like in the description, it says let's give him a proper welcome
then the title, I forgot to say gl hf :P
Where's the starcraft vs warcraft video?
I'm not sure if this is what you're talking about
but he uploaded a video called do you want to play orc vs zerg on his grubby talks channel
I saw him play a starcraft2 mod of warcraft3 (which the afforementioned video I'm guessing is also about), but I can't remember what channel and what the video was called, I'd guess it might be on grubby plays, but I dunno
Just from the title i thought you playing against that toxic Undead and he forgot to type slurs after he lost
If he expo'd earlier, he would've won, no clue why he didnt do it the moment he could
I think hex goes first because it has more range and probably casts first
how was he not in range to staff demon theres no way. he got breath and drunken haze off
God damn, well fought on both parties.
Cast point depends on 2 things. The actual unit (or hero) cast point, and each ability has their own hidden cast point, my belief currently is that the game picks the fastest cast point of these 2. But i've read that the cast point ingame is hero cast point + ability cast point.
The answer is probably somewhere in between these 2
Yes
Dota 1 makes this more apparent, since many unit packages have spells they weren't "intended" to be able to cast, so more frequently have spells at varying cast speeds, or that disagree with their own speed, though you'll also sometimes notice this with creeps that have Great Value versions of hero spells.
But broadly speaking, casting speed defers to whatever the fastest value exists between a caster and spell, with the notable exception that some spells have more crunchy pieces to their cast, like the tiny channel that happens at the start of Blood Mage's Flame Strike that can't be worked around, or some spells that want an animation to play to a certain point before launching their projectile, like Demon Hunter Mana Burn. If I remember correctly, some spells outright don't have a casting speed value, meaning it just defaults to whatever the value of the unit casting it is, but I could be wrong.
Usually, the distinctions don't matter too much, since, again, most of these spells are usually packaged into heroes intended to use them, and so there's infrequently anything truly weird that happens, but it can play a part in knowing if spells can be interrupted or dodged, and when those interrupts or dodges have to be done.
I think it is range with hex. Hex range is long and mana burn is pretty short so if you when DH comes near you can hex him before he gets near enough to burn you
but he literally only starts clicking hex when after he saw the mana burn starting swing so its def. not range because dh is already in range
First Comment!
Time to bye Grubby... from dota2
the deep dive at the end was so nice
10:00 cringe never using fountain
love your videos brotha
sonic game was cray
Elf haters unite
You need more gold!
Love you grubby
Soo the key to beating Elf is BM >.
why didn´t you wish him (Sonik)a good game?
because he's a toxic streamer obviously?
@@AB-su7jt I don't think so, but now I see from the name that he just forgot
You were way too scared to push your advantage into raxing his base when you saw he was out of army.
I know your blade was low, but even during the live game, you saw his heroes being like half hp and no moonwells.
I feel like this in general is something you might want to explore more. Push more for win when you are ahead, instead of playing it safe.
You are essentially giving your opponent the choice of fightning now or later, when you could just take the option away. Night Elf, specifically gains immense value over you whenever you let them utilize Moonwells, and giving them time is just that.
I think this is big part of why you are struggling so much against Night Elf.
Not claiming everything is that simple or easy, but it's not the first time I keep thinking "You should just push for the win here"
And this game is actually a prime example where you made a mistake by not pushing for it, even though you ended up winning anyway.
This got me thinking about how healing salve interacts indirectly with moon wells.
Moonwell at it simplest is steady healing over time, delivered in chunks. HS is also healing over time, except it's expensive and *constantly* susceptible to being cancelled.
So the strategy has been to get enough salves for the army, fight, withdraw and heal at a safe distance.
Except when orc withdraws far enough to take time to heal, elf also benefits with their moonwell heal-over-time.
Is orc spending money to buy time that elf gets to heal for free?
I might be confusing myself on the details but I think how salves are being bought and used in orc v elf is worth examining
@@ambion19 I think it's very important to not dismiss that moonwells also restore significant mana for heroes.
As I mentioned earlier, I think Grubby pulls away way too much from Elf encounters, especially if he is fighting next to Elf base.
The moonwells just provide so much value. You need to think more about exhausting them and then pushing to win right away or just not fighting at all.
You are easily losing economically even if you trade favorably in the fight, if you end up buying tons of salve/healing scroll/clarities.
Now obv exp from favorable trades is not to be ignored, but trying to simply illustrate some of the reasons why Grubby is specifically struggling in this match up.
Hey Grubby, I too think this is worth examining, and recall you suggested as much ("too passive") after a recent game against Jens, I think.
But I also thought you mostly did push this game and still had to out-fight your opponent the entire time, which just seems like overmuch given your early lead.
I thought focusing the buildings instead of the army around ~10:30 - 12:30 and then avoiding fights for a while to allow an economic advantage to materialize (as you recently commended a member of the chat for perceiving) would have been a good, lower-effort play.
Hey Grubby Great vids ggs love wathching the conetent , i think the reason why hex can int. MB even tou MB is cast 1st is bcuz of the frame animation , DH has to raise the hands up 1st then does the cast where as Hex has a lower frame animation thats why the Dh feels slow to cast. Tekken frame lab .. haha
Why players of warcraft 3 reforged don't use the new graphics like we are doing in Age of Mythology: Retold?
New graphics A: have less visual clarity and B: straight up just look worse. WC3 classic vs Reforged I think is a good case study of how art style trumps graphics.
Grubby has many videos explaining all the ways in which reforged is worse. It's a long story but the whole project was a failure and then basically abandoned by activision
Because it sucks
To simplify
Many units were redesigned in ways that reduce visual clarity. Base WC3 made graphical concessions on models to improve how easy it is to distinguish different models at a glance; these redesigns of creeps, units, and heroes often forgo visual clarity for what we'll call quality of visuals, to the detriment of actually telling these visuals apart or playing the game.
Many units are also a combination of proportionately bigger, and have less negative space on the model, which means even if you can accurately parse units from eachother, actually clicking the unit you want to becomes more difficult.
The item chest in particular is replaced with a floating, bobbing model that you can sometimes miss.
Many of the spell, skill, and interface thumbnails and icons were changed, meaning people with years and years of experience with the old ones would have to relearn all these icons.
Some units have different voicelines and, most importantly, death cries, which, in addition to being again more relearning required to parse information quickly like the icons, some units recieved ambiguous death cries, which can be misinterpreted.
If two exact copies of a person are playing eachother, and one is playing base WC3, and one playing with Reforged graphics on, the base WC3 player has an advantage entirely on the basis of better, more efficient information parsing, and better interface and more accurate micro. Not a huge advantage, but an undeniable one.
Basically, the presentation overhaul was made without the level of care and attention that base WC3 was. WC3 was very, very mindful of the interweave between presentation and playability, and made many, many compromises or concessions on quality or direction of presentation to facilitate the game being played. Reforged simply does not have this same level of awareness, and in the rush to justify itself and its price tag, greatly overreached in what it should do. It touched things that didn't need to be, and really shouldn't have been touched, and sacrificed playability for presentation wherever it could, because it wasn't made/directed by people who understood why base WC3 was presented the way it was.
This is before and completely aside from the other, more nebulous social and critical issues it faces.
How the hell does NE get a lvl 3 hero by just chilling next to you creeping??? It makes no sense the hero can just do nothing for 5 mins and then get lvl 3
He was creeping with units somewhere else
xp is global unless a hero is near to xp source
didnt you see his ancient creeping with archers
AoW is to be fair a high level tactic, anything actually killed by the ancient gives no exp, so it requires attentive micro.
apparently wc3 now has global xp
so your archers can kill something on the other side of the map and the hero gets xp, unless you have another hero that is close by to the archers