Wolfing

Playing as a wolf is not about randomly killing farms. Since the sheep can usually build farms way faster than the wolves can kill farms, the wolves need to be smart to kill a sheep. If you play as a team you can bring the sheep down easier than you think. But there are some things you should know.

Positioning

This is the most important thing as a wolf. You need to know where to be and when to be there. The wolfs should first try to isolate one or more sheep. To do this cutting is vital. The sheep's main goal is to build as many farms as possibly, hence it is the wolves' goal to prevent the sheep from building. You do this by spreading out. Two wolves at the same place is just pointless. Each player should take one side of the mass. If the sheep tries to build on your side, follow his movements and force him to stay inside his mass. The rest of the wolves should cut through the sheep's mass.

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Cutting

Since sheep can build farms way faster than the wolves can kill farms, the shepherds need to be smart to kill a sheep. One of the most important things for a successful wolf team is cutting. This is done by destroying farms in a line, cutting the sheep's mass in half. It is equally important to guard the cutted lane, so that the sheep doesn't fill it in again. In theory 2 wolves (2 cutted lanes, in a corner) can kill a sheep, no matter how big his mass is. The longer the cut is the harder it is to defend, especially versus several sheep (see Bridging (helping)).

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Image/mirror jumping

Image jumping involves using the mirror image spell (hotkey r) to jump a farm or a small obstacle. It can be used to jump over one farm, trees/small object, down and up ramps, and in special cases, over walls. Keep in mind the an image requires as much space as a regular farm. The key to an image jump is to stand sideways to the object you want to image over. There has to be no space between you and the object, otherwise it will just appear next to you. Keep in mind that image jumps only have a 50% chance of jumping the real wolf over.

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Golem jumping (Goleming)

Goleming is when a wolf summons a golem over a certain obstacle or farm. Golems can be jumped over farms, trees/small objects, down and up ramps, over low walls, and over small bodies of water. A golem takes up as much space as a farm, so you need to make sure there is room on the other side of the obstacle for it to be summoned. Basically your golem will appear in the closest spot towards the direction your wolf is facing or if there is no open space, the closest spot to your wolf. So when you golem, you want to face the obstacle or farm. This image shows a normal golem jump through one farm. This is almost the same, but to the left.

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Image micro

This is a very underrated and unknown skill among many players, especially beginners. Even though images can't kill sheep, they can be used to block the sheep and stop it from building. This picture shows a wolf blocking the sheep using his mirror image. The sheep is caught off guard and gets trapped inside. This picture shows something called image harassing. The wolf to the right is obviously the real wolf, meaning the image is just standing there, but you can't build farms on top of an image. The wolf takes advantage of this and with his image blocks the sheep, and stops him from building. This can be very useful, especially if all wolves do it at the very start of the game, when the mass is still small.

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Invisibility usage (Sniping)

Invisible potions allow a wolf to go invisible and snipe sheep. Sheep can still see invisible wolves but only if they are close to the wolf. Sniping is when the wolf predicts where the sheep is going and catches if off guard outside of its mass. Some common tactic include sending an image after the sheep and catching it off guard with the real one and using a speed potion or golem at the last second. Good snipers also use the terrain to help them, because sheep can't see uphill or past trees. Also sheep have limited vision at night, which would be the best time to snipe. It should be noted that this tactic can help the sheep. If you do not successfully kill a sheep the first time, he will know you are invisible and will be more cautious. Also a wolf can't destroy farms while sniping, which allows the sheep to mass unchallenged. This picture shows the range at which a sheep can see a invisible unit.

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Locking

Locking is done by simply attacking (right clicking) the sheep. This will make your wolf follow behind the sheep at the same pace, and if the sheep stops, fails a backbuild, or makes a tight turn, your wolf will kill it most of the time.

The downside to locking is your wolf will always be behind the sheep. You're completely dependent on the sheep messing up. Make sure that you are never in a situation where the whole team is locking the sheep. It's important to always have at least one locker but you need other wolves to frontclick too because otherwise all the sheep would need do to survive is run around in circles.

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Leading off/Front clicking/Angling

There are many different terms associated with this strategy and for simplicity's sake we'll just call it front clicking. Front clicking is when a wolf clicks on the space in front of the sheep instead of right clicking the sheep. The reasoning behind this is if you lock a sheep, the wolf will just follow behind at the same pace as the sheep until the sheep makes a mistake or stops. Front clicking can throw a sheep off with timing backbuilds and since wolves are slightly faster than the sheep, you can catch up with the sheep without waiting for him/her to make a mistake or stop.

The one downside to front clicking is that all it takes is a sudden change in direction by the sheep and your wolf would just continue running by. The most effective way to counter this is to have one wolf lock the sheep while the other wolves try to cut off the sheep's path by front clicking. Make sure that you never have the whole team trying to front click. It takes quick thinking and a little bit of luck to know when to stop front clicking and to start locking. Sometimes you may have trouble locking on the sheep because of how abrupt it's change in direction was. One solution to this is hitting a on your keyboard and left clicking with your mouse on the terrain nearby. Keep in mind that most of the time your wolf will lock the closest sheep but in some cases the wolf may go for the closest farm instead.


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