Wolf

"We run. For life and pack, we run. For fang and claw, we run. For blood and death, we run. For wind and sun, we run!"

Wolves are fast melee units.

Description
Wolves are fast melee units that can be built faster than barracks units. They are primarily used to deny your opponent from expanding or to harass opponent workers. Wolves regenerate health, so they are great for harassment because they can easily back off when they take damage and regenerate back to full health.

Abilities
None

Upgrades
Beast Attack Upgrade

Increases the attack damage of your beast units.

(Grants Wolves +1 damage per upgrade, up to +5)

Beast Defense Upgrade

Increases the armor of your beast units.

(Grants Wolves +1 armor per upgrade, up to +5)

Beast Speed Upgrade

Increases the movement speed of your beast units.

(Grants Wolves +0.30 speed per upgrade, up to +1.50)

Usage
Wolf Rush

Both Wolves and the Wolves Dens that train them are cheaper and faster to produce than their Human counterparts. This lets Beast players mount early rush attacks that force the opponent to try to fend them off with only Workers. This is particularly effective against enemies who tried to expand too quickly or whose micro is not good enough to fight Wolves with Workers effectively.

Micro Capability

Similar to Archers, Wolves are multiplied in effectiveness by good micro. Because of their health regeneration, they're great for moving in to get a few hits in and then backing off to regenerate any hp lost to get extra value out of each Wolf. Combined with their speed, this makes Wolves ideal hit-and-run units against slower, lightly-armored foes.

Wolves also have a huge amount of lag after an attack animation, so when chasing a Worker or a stray unit, players can cancel the lag animation by ordering the Wolf to run immediately after the damage from the attack is dealt. This raises the dps of a chasing Wolf considerably.

Surround

Wolves individually have very low damage. However, Wolves are really great at surrounding stray armies or units which lets multiple Wolves attack each enemy, allowing them them to take favorable fights and punish a small army that is out of place or over-committing. Three wolves can completely surround any ground unit, preventing its escape (except for Workers, which can mineral walk through it); however, this is challenging, and it is recommended to have 4 or more to surround a stray unit.

Scouting

Because of their speed and low cost, Wolves are one of the best scouting units in the game, even if they are spotted by Barracks units they can usually get away without taking too much fire. Even if the wolf does die, they are the cheapest unit in the game at 45 gold so they are not much of a loss if you get information like your opponent's expand timing or see their army moving out.

Wall-Ins

One of the better ways to stop Wolves from being very effective is to just wall in at your natural to stop them from getting into your base. Usually the wall consists of Houses, Barracks, Towers, or a combination of the three with a one space wide gap. A wall-in with a Tower or Archer behind it generally results in too many losses for the wolf player to be able to harass buildings or try to push through.

Soldiers

While Wolves excel at harassment, Soldiers rip through them in a direct engagement due to their high health, native armor, and damage. Wolf players must rely on continual harassment to reduce the opponent's income and take expansions of their own, so that they can attack with overwhelming force.

Development
1.91: Wolves reduced cost from 50 to 40, Building Time from 22 to 18 seconds.

1.9: Wolves Added.