Wisp (Warcraft III)

Wisps are ancient spirits of nature that inhabit the forestlands of Kalimdor. Legends say that Wisps are actually the disembodied spirits of the Night Elves themselves, but these rumors have yet to be proven. The Wisps act in unison with the Night Elves and serve to strengthen the demigod like trees known as the Ancients. Beckoned by the Night Elves, Wisps are capable of animating various trees and expanding themselves into rough-hewn structures of living wood and stone.

Information
Wisps do not have an attack so it is best to run away when attacked. While Wisps do not have an attack and may appear weak, they can kill the most powerful Demon in large numbers.

To mine Gold Wisps must be placed inside an Entangled Gold Mine. They cannot mine Gold from a Gold Mine until it is entangled.

Wisps are useful in battle to repair mechanical units or as a last resort to cast Detonate.

Wisps do not use up trees when they harvest which gives Night Elves the advantage of not having to seek out additional Lumber.

Because Wisps do not use up Lumber, you may find it useful to hide Wisps away from your town where the enemy is unlikely to look. If the enemy attacks your main town they won't be able to attack those Wisps harvesting Lumber.

If an Ancient is destroyed while a Wisp is constructing it, the Wisp will also be killed. If a Wisp is creating a non Ancient building such as a Moon Well it will survive if the building is destroyed while it is being constructed.

Use Wisps around the map to scout. Place several a bit outside of your town at the start of the game to watch for offensive towering. Using this method the enemy will often start building towers in your line of sight. Your Wisps will alert you to the towers because the enemy expects your town to be much further inland. The Wisps are great scouts because they can harvest Lumber while they are watching an area.

Place a Wisp in an enemy Night Elf Town. Sometimes the enemy won't even see them giving you a look into their town. This won't work against good players however.

R enew (Autocast)

 * Repairs friendly Night Elf buildings, allied buildings, and friendly mechanical units.

G ather

 * Mines gold from Entangled Gold Mines and harvests lumber from trees.

Create B uilding

 * Brings up a list of the available buildings that you may choose to construct.

Wisps are consumed when creating Ancients (all of the trees) but not when creating a normal structure such as a Hunter's Hall, Moon Well, or Altar of Elders.

D etonate

 * Destroys the Wisp, dispelling all magical buffs and draining 50 mana from each unit in an area around the Wisp. Deals 225 damage to summoned units.

Detonate is targeted on a location rather than an enemy unit so make sure you adjust where you want the Wisp to Detonate if the enemy moves after you target it. If you do not control the Detonation carefully the Wisp will use Detonate on an area after the enemy has already left its blast radius which will waste the Wisp.

Another thing to watch out for is friendly or enemy units walking where you instructed the Wisp to Detonate. If this happens the Wisp will move to Detonate but will then stop and do nothing. Usually they just die before you can give them another command. To use Detonate effectively you will need to control it rather than just firing and forgetting.

Keep in mind that Detonate is one of the best dispels available to the Night Elves. When the enemy rushes your town early on with summoned units use Wisps to detonate them. Try to also hit the enemy Hero to take away some or all of their mana. This will remove up to 50 of their Mana a Detonate and can shift the power in favor of your Hero. Wisps should also be used against Skeletons and groups of casters (if you can sneak up on them). Whenever possible try to bring a few Wisps into battle. Be warned that Detonate will also affect your own Heroes and allied units so be careful when using it.

If the enemy Hero is attacking your Wisps Detonate on them rather than trying to run away. Heroes can easily chase down and destroy Wisps. This will prevent the enemy from gaining experience on your Wisps with easy kills. Deny them that experience.

Detonate is great if you can get a tightly packed group of enemy spellcasters. If the enemy has a bunch of Shaman or Sorceresses you can sometimes sneak up and remove some of their mana.

Detonate is also great if you can hit several enemy Heroes at the same time.

Detonate is usually not a good trade in most situations. A Shaman can have 400 mana which would take 8 Wisp Detonates to remove. But if you can hit a bunch of Shaman or several Heroes, or if the Wisp would just die anyway, it's good to use.