Starcraft 2 discussion

[Larry Gershwin]

And Ill say it again. Since you seem to be missing the point. No game, any game, since games have been out has 50 broken ships or units or anything been designed to beat 500 ships or units or anything. I would understand 50 titans beating 500 frigates, sure, frigates should not kill a titan without enough damage. But in its current form, 50 titans beats 500 bs, 500 tengus, 500 ahacs. Any of those combinations are broken.

Try not to blame the poor goon newbie in his rifter, he didn't abuse his toy.

50 siege tanks > 500 zerglings

[Grath]

10 Voidrays can own 100 marines like it aint no thing, unless they have stims and medivacs and probably some vikings added in.


Boat just hasn't played many games.

[Don Peyote]

10 Voidrays can own 100 marines like it aint no thing, unless they have stims and medivacs and probably some vikings added in.


Boat just hasn't played many games.

Voids got nerfed something shameful but yeah they'd probably win especially if they charged on some shit up first

[Grath]

Voids got nerfed something shameful but yeah they'd probably win especially if they charged on some shit up first

Sweet mother of god i've only been playing for about 5 days, and I'd hate to have seen them pre fucking nerf. Fuck those things in the ass with a rusty pole, that, and those gay ass little bat dragon things the zerg get, literally surrounded by faggots in my ladder who spam the shit out of those.

[Solar Fleet Best Fleet]

Sweet mother of god i've only been playing for about 5 days, and I'd hate to have seen them pre fucking nerf. Fuck those things in the ass with a rusty pole, that, and those gay ass little bat dragon things the zerg get, literally surrounded by faggots in my ladder who spam the shit out of those.

Marines are hard-counters to both voids and muta's (the bat things).
If you play terran use Thor's to fight muta balls, if you play protoss use High templars. But honestly, if you scout a muta build you should stomp him before he can tech to them and make a ball of them.

Going GI JOE STARCRAFT in this bitch.

The More You Know!

[Mfume]

I hope you realize you're still logged into your gimmick account.

[Grath]

Marines are hard-counters to both voids and muta's (the bat things).
If you play terran use Thor's to fight muta balls, if you play protoss use High templars. But honestly, if you scout a muta build you should stomp him before he can tech to them and make a ball of them.

Going GI JOE STARCRAFT in this bitch.

The More You Know!

5 DAYS

I spend most of my time losing and watching Day9 and losing so i can not be shit.

Someday

EDIT: (this means i have no idea what any of what you said means)

[Larry Gershwin]

5 DAYS

I spend most of my time losing and watching Day9 and losing so i can not be shit.

Someday

EDIT: (this means i have no idea what any of what you said means)

Basically you send in a hero SCV early to take a peak at what shit they're building for structures and counter appropriately. The only race you have to worry about the timing on is Terran because most of the maps have rps to their base which they will wall of with bunker/supply depots to guard against an early zergling rush as they're the most vulnerable to it early game.

Disclaimer: have not played SC2 in about a year can't speak for the changes they've made.

[Elektrea]

I spend most of my time losing and watching Day9

Skip watching Day9 and find a pro that plays your race. Day9 used to be really good back in broodwar but in sc2 is pretty lackluster thus his commentary and insight has taken a nose dive. Granted he is a really funny guy and has the voice and personality that can swoon you for days but I think you would find watching pros a lot better.

Learn the current meta and hammer on your mechanics.

[Solar Fleet Best Fleet]

Watch Polt or maybe DeMuslim (he streams a lot) if you play Terran.
MvPGenius or perhaps HuK if you play Protoss.
If you play Zerg you should just kill yourself (ingame)

[ungrided]

long basics up grinding through bronze tutorials here

[Tyrael]

I'm subscribed to HuskyStarcraft, HDstarcraft and BlizShouter on YouTube for some top level play, check out the games over 15 minutes as you get to see a lot more units used later in the game. Day9 is a subscription that's good for either his tutorials or his funday monday stuff, like building a single unit on a team of 4 vs. another team of 4 where everyone builds one unit type each

[Grath]

The problem with watching these top level guys is they're not playing in Bronze league.

So what I'm finding, is that I don't know enough of what the other races rushes look like, or even my own, so I've not gotten to figure out how to stop them either, because I don't know what the fuck I'm looking for. In the Bronze league I'm not going up against any long games, I'm getting swamped over and over by rushes. New season I have 11 wins, 10 of those are quit outs, 1 is a real win, I've probably lost 15 actual games because I can't identify or stop a rush yet.

I need to learn what six pooling and 3raxing looks like when i scout it and what its viable counters are, and how to then implement those counters into my own normal strategy, until I do that I'll stay a bronze level scrub lord faggot and all this super advanced shit that I'm seeing won't make fuck all difference.

[Rer]

Honestly in Bronze, your best bet is to just stay on top of your Macro as much as possible. (This is excluding being cheesed which I guess might be prevalent in that bracket)

As long as you're keeping your mins and gas low, most of the time you'll end up winning, simply by outmassing your opponents through sheer numbers.

[Jean Leaner]

The problem with watching these top level guys is they're not playing in Bronze league.

So what I'm finding, is that I don't know enough of what the other races rushes look like, or even my own, so I've not gotten to figure out how to stop them either, because I don't know what the fuck I'm looking for. In the Bronze league I'm not going up against any long games, I'm getting swamped over and over by rushes. New season I have 11 wins, 10 of those are quit outs, 1 is a real win, I've probably lost 15 actual games because I can't identify or stop a rush yet.

I need to learn what six pooling and 3raxing looks like when i scout it and what its viable counters are, and how to then implement those counters into my own normal strategy, until I do that I'll stay a bronze level scrub lord faggot and all this super advanced shit that I'm seeing won't make fuck all difference.

6 pooling looks like they have their spawning pool up and lings morphing when you scout. 3 raxing looks like they put 3 rax up before gas and produced asstons of marines.

What race are you playing out of curiosity?

The top level guys aren't playing in bronze its true, thus ignore their mind games and trickery and just look at how they macro and their mechanics. Good mechanics and spending your money while expanding alot will get you to plat on its own, no troll. Also, never stop making workers. If you have to ask when you should stop making workers you aren't to the point in your skill at the game where you can feasibly figure that out on the fly.

If your playing protoss and bronze, master the four gate, and by master I dont mean just win with it a lot. I mean get to the point where its timed as well as a pro could time a four gate, and figure out hey if I only warp in one additional round of stalkers and do good damage I still have the minerals to expand and transition into something for the longer game and not gimp myself if they start to hold off the four gate.

Oh and always try to open with a forge fast expand against zerg, it'll save your ass from 6 pools by getting a cannon up in the mineral line. You get that cannon up, you win the game. It also leads to awesome mid game with a 6 gate +1 zealot sentry timing attack, or a 7 gate +1/6 gate stargate +1 All in build. Its the bane of all zergs atm. Be care of the 12 minuite 200/200 roach push though.

[Jean Leaner]

Also stopping a 3 rax is pretty easy, get 3 sentries and you can keep your ramp forcefielded permanatly. Do that and keep macroing until you have the force to push back his attack. You can also let a few of his marines slip up at a time and pick them off slowly. Sentries are your best friend. 3 Rax isn't the scariest, its good 2 rax with concussive shells that hurts. Day9's Newbie tuesday on mechanics was really good too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUohp...ure=plpp_video I recommend it to every new SC player.

Day9's Newbie tuesday on Mechanics was really good as well

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUohp...ure=plpp_video

I recommend it to every new SC player

[Grath]

Yea i went terran as the single player was all i had tried when everybody was like CHOOSE A RACE like it was the last meal or some shit. So I've learned terrans.

[Rer]

M&M&M, (Marines, Marauders, and Medivacs)

You learn that, and (generally speaking) you'll be plat in no time.

[Jean Leaner]

M&M&M, (Marines, Marauders, and Medivacs)

You learn that, and (generally speaking) you'll be plat in no time.

And Marine tank medivac for zerg

[Solar Fleet Best Fleet]

You guys do realize SC2 has evolved since the beta right?

M&M&M isn't nearly as dominant now as it was before. Zerg can counter it easily with infestors, protoss can counter it easily with a deathball. This can and WILL happen even in plat, so bad advice is bad.

FFE is generally effective provided you have the timing down for it, I WOULD NOT recommend you try FFE against zerg until you've played a fair share of protoss games. Stick to 4 gate or 3 gate robo.

Grath, as Terran there are a couple of things you need to know how to do well. Timing attacks, especially if you mass marines, is vital. Marines scale crazy well with upgrades, so time your attacks to coincide with your upgrades to give you an edge. An early rush with +1 damage marines with the shield upgrade is beastly if done right.

The other thing you HAVE to do well as terran is harass. This means constant use of units such as reapers, hellions, and medivac drops to take out enemy workers and snipe buildings. Early reaper attacks on mineral lines can give you a significant economic lead, dropping hellions on mineral lines can accomplish this as well and can be done throughout the game, and constant medivac drops with stimmed marines can knock out important buildings while leaving time to escape.

This is all really general advice, but your bronze so specific builds and shit are probably a waste of time at this point (no offense)

[Jean Leaner]

M&M&M isn't nearly as dominant now as it was before. Zerg can counter it easily with infestors, protoss can counter it easily with a deathball. This can and WILL happen even in plat, so bad advice is bad.

Thats why, marineking beat down DRG with MMM at the last MLG, although Yes Marine tank or mech is far more effective in TvZ. Also, MMM is still the predominate strategy in TvP, obviously late game deathball can crush MMM thats why terrans use timing attacks in TvP. Claiming thats bad advice just makes you look really fucking dumb.

Otherwise your advice is dead on.

[Rer]

Grath you'll never be this bad.

[Solar Fleet Best Fleet]

Thats why, marineking beat down DRG with MMM at the last MLG, although Yes Marine tank or mech is far more effective in TvZ. Also, MMM is still the predominate strategy in TvP, obviously late game deathball can crush MMM thats why terrans use timing attacks in TvP. Claiming thats bad advice just makes you look really fucking dumb.

Otherwise your advice is dead on.

Yea, notice that's why I said not NEARLY as dominant. It still works in TvP most of the time, but Rer was making a blanket statement that simply going M&M&M at all times was enough. Over-reliance on a specific build is never a good thing, and usually won't be effective, even in platinum. Of course exceptions exist if you have crazy good micro or something.

[Rer]

He's bronze, I figured repeating one build to gain familiarity with it would be worth it, Im aware Zerg can easy counter it but HE'S BRONZE

[Solar Fleet Best Fleet]

I understand, just trying to save the guy from getting rolled hardcore when he gets out of bronze. When something works as well as M&M&M likely does in the bronze ladder, you might tend to rely on it as your sole build.

[Rer]

[Stronke]

gg



/quite

[Grath]

So right now I'm working on 2 basic concepts at once:

Keeping the early game harrassment up

Keeping units building everywhere.


I was trying to operate off 2 basic builds, the 3 rax and the 1-1-1, now I've kinda whittled it down to the 1-1-1 that I morph into whatever I feel I need later on.

I just played a game where for the first time i felt like I was in control the entire time through good scouting, realizing what that cocksucker was doing and building against it. Though I still fucked that up, he banshee rushed me right when I realized what was going on, but I knew that he was probably pretty weak otherwise, so I fought off the banshee rush by putting up the damn missile towers i forgot while he was busy pounding on my expansion, and soaked him with the lives of that expansions scvs, while running my own marines down to his base to start my own harrassment.

By the end even though he had massive air tech superiority, my 3 gend air bases could pump out waves of vikings that were owning anything he had in the air while my siege tanks would just drop in, drop in siege, fire for about 20 seconds, reship and dip.

managing the 3 command centers, 3 barracks, 2 factories, 3 starports, 1 army of marines 1 army of tanks and 1 army of vikings starts to suck balls around the 15 minute mark.

[Jean Leaner]

Good job grath, just off your analysis the one thing I can guess at is your money probably got really high, you dont appear to have had enough production. Basically barracks are for minerals factories and starports are for gas, if you do a cycle of marines and still have 1k minerals, drop more barracks since you can afford th extra production.

[Solar Fleet Best Fleet]

If you're really ballsy you can try an early double gas with 1Rax dual factories. Basically the idea is you build a rax and a bunker at your ramp, pop up a couple rines and put them in the bunker, so you can repair it in the event of an early rush. Then you have a reactor'd factory and a tech lab factory, reactor'd pumping out hellions and tech lab pumping out siege tanks. Have siege ability and orbital command for scans, roll up outside their ramp and siege up, scan the ramp to blow away any ramp defense, hellions to deal with rines/lings/zlots, tanks to deal with everything else. Takes some tweaking and understanding of the build, but it's incredibly powerful if done right and done before air comes out.

Just something to consider trying if you want to work on your mech.

[Grath]

i do actually

EDIT: And i can do that easily with my build, a 1-1-1 grabs the gas plants very early and builds the first factory pretty early too.

[Stanpome]

Just came in to say 50 High Templar > 1000 anything else

[Stanpome]

On a serious note, however, I could use some help. I'm in Silver, but like on the bubble of gold. I beat almost every silver player I get put against, but I can't win against the gold. What do I need to do to just boost me up a little into gold?

[Solar Fleet Best Fleet]

Practice your macro.

A big mistake lower-league players make is they start focusing too intently on micro'ing units and completely fall behind in their macro. It's more important that you get your 3rd expo up and throw down a couple more production buildings than micro your zealots perfectly against some lings.

Learn to create a balanced army as well. I know you were kidding about the 50 templar thing, but recognize that an army of powerful units (like the templar) can get utterly wrecked by a well balanced army of lesser value. For example, an early battle between a protoss army and a terran army can swing heavily in the favor of the protoss simply with the addition of a couple sentries and their shields. Relying too heavily on one powerful unit usually leads to getting kicked in the dick.

[Stanpome]

Okay, well usually I open with gate, then robo, then expand. That usually gives me enough to defend my first expansion. After that, I usually continue with gateway units and robo units, upgrades, of course, depending on what my enemy is doing. I do scout loads, and that is probably what wins me most of my games. I usually try to expand every 5 minutes. I'm not very good at being aggressive/harassing until I'm almost sure I will win. That is definitely something I need to do better. When I lose, I usually blame it on poor scouting my part, or some dumb early game mistake. I won 6 games today out of the 8 I played. The last game I lost because I alt tabbed to look at a chat because I am dumb. v0v The other game I definitely lost because I did not keep up my macro against a 4gate. v0v

[Solar Fleet Best Fleet]

Okay, well usually I open with gate, then robo, then expand. That usually gives me enough to defend my first expansion. After that, I usually continue with gateway units and robo units, upgrades, of course, depending on what my enemy is doing. I do scout loads, and that is probably what wins me most of my games. I usually try to expand every 5 minutes. I'm not very good at being aggressive/harassing until I'm almost sure I will win. That is definitely something I need to do better. When I lose, I usually blame it on poor scouting my part, or some dumb early game mistake. I won 6 games today out of the 8 I played. The last game I lost because I alt tabbed to look at a chat because I am dumb. v0v The other game I definitely lost because I did not keep up my macro against a 4gate. v0v

You play protoss, excellent! It's my primary race so it's the one i'm most prepared to provide advice on. Harassing is not nearly as hard when playing protoss as some people make it out to be. Here are some examples of easy harassing techniques:

Building multiple cannons outside their main ramp (careful of the range, you don't want to get hit by siege tanks/other long range units), and stacking your army behind it. If you go this route expo as fast as possible after setting up the cannons. This tactic is designed to give you an early economic lead.

Not a harass, but Proxy gateways hidden away near their base. You build your first pylon in as secluded a spot as you can near their base. You'll want to send one of your first probes to do this. Immediately build a gateway on the pylon and another once you can, and start pumping out zealots. Save your chrono boosts for the gateways. Send your zealots in as soon as their finished and start hacking away at the ramp defense/workers/any static defense building.

Warp prism + warpgate zealot harass. This works well with a 3 gate robo build. You pump out enough zealots to fill a warp prism you build at your robo bay (Think 5 or 6) and you make sure you have warpgate upgraded. You fly the prism over the enemy mineral line and drop the zealots, immediately activating the prism ability that allows it to warp in units, then boom warp in 3 more zealots, go to town on the workers, and if they get wise and pull workers early attack the CC. If they respond early with their army set your zealots on important buildings with less hp, such as the refineries, nearby production buildings, or a vital lone pylon supporting some structures. Remember, this is all about economic damage.

Dark Templars can be useful for harass, and might be perfectly viable against gold players, but I wouldn't advise them. Most players will get stealth detection relatively early and DT's simply are not worth the time and resource investment considering how lousy they are without stealth. Anyway I'm getting sleep so I'm going to go to bed, hope these harassment idea's help. If you need help with a specific build or against a specific race just ask.

[Solar Fleet Best Fleet]

EDIT: ^^^ Nevermind I found my wall of text ^^^

Dafuq, my helpful wall of text got lost.

I was also neg-repped by some masochist just to put me in the red, how rude.

[raw]

bronze:
- macro. you can win games just with better macro. that's true up to low diamond at least.
- memorize the hotkeys. really.
- snatch a build you like from some replay and note down the timings for some core stuff (!not! the supply and !not! everything). play 5 games in SP, go over your replays and then play 5 more times in SP. then go ladder until build sits, rinse, repeat
- it's not that goddamn hard

[Stanpome]

Yeah I like to keep my original build though. I've found that its pretty all around good and it is easy to defend early on with 1 sentry, 1 stalker, and 1 immortal. I never use this build against zerg, of course. FFE always. I'll do warp prism harassing sometimes, or I'll just warp in a set of zealots and walk them over to his expansion. I usually only harass about mid-game and that is only in order to deny a 3rd.

[Jean Leaner]

Dark Templars can be useful for harass, and might be perfectly viable against gold players, but I wouldn't advise them. Most players will get stealth detection relatively early and DT's simply are not worth the time and resource investment considering how lousy they are without stealth. Anyway I'm getting sleep so I'm going to go to bed, hope these harassment idea's help. If you need help with a specific build or against a specific race just ask.

Fast DT is my go-to build in PvP, it forces either a robo, or an insta win. It prevents the four gate from happening if they scout it. and if they dotn scout it my DT's just walk around and win the game. It also transitions nicely into a midgame zealot archon mixture, which makes for great timings against sentry defenses.

[Stanpome]

More and more people are going 3-gate robo now, at least in a lot of my games. 4 gates do drive me crazy, but usually I am safe with that if I just build up units until about the 7-8 minute mark, then expand.

[StevieTopSiders]

A friend in my fraternity plays Starcraft with MIT's Starleague club, and he sent out this vid, which I think is pretty funny.



So basically, who wins: American nerds or Korean nerds?

[Dezzy]

I was also neg-repped by some masochist just to put me in the red, how rude.

i got u nigga

[Jean Leaner]

A friend in my fraternity plays Starcraft with MIT's Starleague club, and he sent out this vid, which I think is pretty funny.



So basically, who wins: American nerds or Korean nerds?

The korean nerds obviously, this is starcraft.

[Solar Fleet Best Fleet]

Start match, type random words in korean, watch as opponents say "fuck that shit" and quit out.

Repeat until diamond league.

[StevieTopSiders]

Type "zerg rush" into Google right now.

[Don Peyote]

Grath, if you're feeling down about not being great at Starcraft... be thankful you aren't either of these guys

[Grath]

Yea, so we've moved into the rage stage, where i have a snowballs chance in hell if I'm playing zerg, a crap shoot if I'm vs Terran, and a fucking outright curbstomping (my mouth, their doing the stomping) if i play Protos.


Now, thats not too bad you might say for a new player.....


Until you have to play 10 protos matches in a row.


For the past 3 days, I'll get one or two wins playing something other than protos, then the fucking match making system (this is no bullshit you can check my match history) plays me against EIGHT FUCKING STRAIGHT PROTOS MATCHES.


I lose every one.


Then I'll get to curb stomp some half afk faggot who's not really trying and just wants to unlock his stupid portraits before its back to protos protos protos. Like, IDGI, I'm a new player, the match making system is so flawed that it can't see that i have an obvious problem with Protos and NOT give me all those fucking cocksuckers in a row?

How does that help new player retention: Hi, we know you're new, you have a profile that says you lose 90% of your games against Protos, so to make that go away, we're going to put you in nothing but protos matches until you learn how to counter every fucking cheese they have.

No, thats fucking dumb. At one point last night i actually played 10 straight protos matches and lost every fucking single one.

[Marko Box]

Protoss is boss mode atm. My main race was zerg since sc1 days but since i switched to toss i fell like an idiot for not doing it sooner. Now the secret of going against toss as terran is mid game push with MMM, get combat shield, stim and slow for marauders and do as much damage as possible. Dont let him get third or allow him time to get colosus or templar, just keep the pressure on.
If you can multitask a early game harras without fucking up your build try to open up with reapers (especially if hes trying to quick expo) and follow it up with pure marauder push once your stim and slow is done.
Basicly kill him in mid game or loose in late game

[Grath]

Protoss is boss mode atm.

Yea, after losing 5 games in a row yesterday i decided to blind try protos.

I know not one single hot key, I don't know any builds at all for protos (but to be fair I'm only barely aware of the Terran builds) but still managed to easily win 3 out of 4 matches. Like actually curb stomp people over and over.







So heres the thing, theres like, 2 or 3 base builds for each race, and the thing thats currently bothering me about this game is that theres very little room for creativity. You either follow those build orders to the letter or your game is considered "oh well you fucked up you should just start a new match". Like really, I mean fuck man can I think on my own or is creativity so frowned upon in RTS games.


My first match last night I build 17 warp gate things, and a forward pylon. I then literally did nothing but spam zealots and keep constant pressure on his base. Next match I just cannon spammed his base. Next match I built 15 warp gates and 4 of the things that let me call in void rays. The poor guy that had to fight me never actually stood a chance, he got mouth fucked the second I had blink for my stalkers.

The last match was zerg and I was told that I'd lose a lot to zerg because I'd need to use all my units and i really don't know what those units are yet.


Tl'dr gona play as protos for a few days to see if I do any better, I like the instant unit placement that the gates allow, I like that my little guy can be told to build a thing and then go right back to mining, not sit around for 1 full minute while its being built. There are a few things that I missed instantly about Terran, but there weren't many.