StarCraft II Beta

[Wolf]

omg, best change EVER:

-To prevent the accidental research of Ventral Sacs when trying to train an Overlord with no Larva available, the hotkey has been changed from V to E.

:)

Here are the full notes:


Short version - Thors got a slight buff to ground attack, slight nerf to air attack (vs. non light) and the ability is researchable now.
Battlecruisders got an across the board buff in build time (first BCs are out 25s earlier now)
Colossus and Phoenix made more microable
Sentry got a nerf, but not enough imo :(
Broodlords got nerfed, Corruptors got a pretty nice buff
Infestors' mind control got a nerf
Ultralisks got a massive buff

Pretty big patch all around

bonus content: Blizzard explaining the reasoning behind changes

[trias_e]

omg, best change EVER:

-To prevent the accidental research of Ventral Sacs when trying to train an Overlord with no Larva available, the hotkey has been changed from V to E.

:)

Oh, thank god for this.  

Short version - Thors got a slight buff to ground attack, slight nerf to air attack (vs. non light) and the ability is researchable now.
Battlecruisders got an across the board buff in build time (first BCs are out 25s earlier now)
Colossus and Phoenix made more microable
Sentry got a nerf, but not enough imo :(
Broodlords got nerfed, Corruptors got a pretty nice buff
Infestors' mind control got a nerf
Ultralisks got a massive buff[/url]

Phoenixes didn't just get more microable.  They got kinda absurd.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31kSA0Guqpo&feature=related

On the plus side, Ultras got better, and will get better next patch.

Corrupters new ability is pretty awful but at least they are faster now.

Infestors mind control has to be researched, but on the plus side it can effect air units now.  So yes, you can mind control a mothership.

[Wolf]

I need to stop playing today. Or for at least a couple of days. I'm just playing like shit all day, lost 10 won 4 :(

Last game I build up a huge army, and just moved into the opponent high templers in the front... :(

[trias_e]

I hate those kind of days.  So brutal but yet I just keep playing and punishing myself.

[Rasix]

I can't win TvT. Every single match the person just turtles up and I can't seem to bust it before they've got mass air.  TvP has been interesting thus far as just about every joker is massing nether rays.  Starport + reactor = die asshole.   This also tends to open them up for getting thwacked with a ground force while the vikings and marines are rendering the nether rays ineffective.

[Teleku]

Yeah, I'm having a hard time in TvT as well.  Maybe I'll start trying the Turtle strategy myself.  Normally I've just been rush tech'ing something and hitting the enemy with it, which has worked out decently.  But it always falls apart if they turtle heavily.

[Mosesandstick]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31kSA0Guqpo&feature=related

How is this whole moving and attacking thing done? Constantly moving lots of short distances to active the auto-attack mechanism?

[Wolf]

Well what I do in TvT is either go fast thor (kinda wonky and too easy to counter, but ends games fast - you either win or lose), or turtle and go for BCs directly (this was even before patch and has worked great). Basically, get one rax pump some marinies, go fo factory with tech lab (get siege and 4-5 tanks) and a starport with a reactor. Scan often, if he's going for mass viking - keep your tanks and marines close to your worker line; if he's going many rax turtle up, like bunkers and all that jazz; if he's going for thor, get a reactor for your barracks and pump a ton of marines, those counter thor nicely (also try to catch the dropship with your vikings), keep your tanks at your choke, they will destroy a thor ground push. Transition into armory and natural expand, start upgrading air attack, pump vikings and get two more starports with tech labs and start getting BCs from those. Be on the lookout for banshees and get some turrets just in case. Push out at about 6 BCs, get a new expo while doing this. You should have a ton of vikings, the only thing that can counter you is if he has a lot more vikings than you - that's why you're getting upgrades. Dont forget to target vikings when the battle happens, dont A move; shift click through his.

Worked great pre-patch, and now they've nerfed thor AA and buffed BC build time, should work even better. Games are long though.

[Wolf]

Day 9's casting the Razer thing:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/day9tv

should be live right about now :)

[bhodi]

Some great marauder micro and then the stream died :(

[trias_e]

Back up...wow is that perma-forcefield on the ramp incredibly cheesy.

Gotta love strelok just using it to tech up to siege tanks though.  Very well played.

[trias_e]

How is this whole moving and attacking thing done? Constantly moving lots of short distances to active the auto-attack mechanism?

All you have to do is attack move and they'll do it automatically as far as I know.  Pretty crazy how annoying they are against zerg, sniping overlords and kiting mutas.  Fungal Growth is mandatory against them now IMO.

[Mosesandstick]

Hmm so if you fly them away they'll sporadically turn around and fire under an attack move?? Or you have to do it sort of side-side? 

[Teleku]

Well what I do in TvT is either go fast thor (kinda wonky and too easy to counter, but ends games fast - you either win or lose), or turtle and go for BCs directly (this was even before patch and has worked great). Basically, get one rax pump some marinies, go fo factory with tech lab (get siege and 4-5 tanks) and a starport with a reactor. Scan often, if he's going for mass viking - keep your tanks and marines close to your worker line; if he's going many rax turtle up, like bunkers and all that jazz; if he's going for thor, get a reactor for your barracks and pump a ton of marines, those counter thor nicely (also try to catch the dropship with your vikings), keep your tanks at your choke, they will destroy a thor ground push. Transition into armory and natural expand, start upgrading air attack, pump vikings and get two more starports with tech labs and start getting BCs from those. Be on the lookout for banshees and get some turrets just in case. Push out at about 6 BCs, get a new expo while doing this. You should have a ton of vikings, the only thing that can counter you is if he has a lot more vikings than you - that's why you're getting upgrades. Dont forget to target vikings when the battle happens, dont A move; shift click through his.

Worked great pre-patch, and now they've nerfed thor AA and buffed BC build time, should work even better. Games are long though.

Hmm, sounds fun, might give it a try.  Thanks!

[Ironwood]

Hour long Gay-Ass replay that, frankly, I quite enjoyed.

Click for the GHEY.

That ought to be a dropbox link that's downloadable.  Maybe.  Who knows....

[trias_e]

If anyone wants to help me, here's the last few games I lost, both were really frustrating.  

http://www.sc2rc.com/index.php/replay/show/4147  ZvP, he goes Zealot->Voidray->DT

http://www.sc2rc.com/index.php/replay/show/4149  ZvT, he goes Reaper->Banshee

[Ironwood]

You seem to have the same Zerg problem I do;  control and speed.

It seems to be an UTTER ARSE to keep track of the zerg and what you're building and where they're going and what you're doing.  At some points in that first game, you were all over the shop, even building new drones while old drones sat there sipping tea and eating scones on the grand piano.

I find Zerg the hardest.

Then you got Void Ray and Cloak Cheesed.

Void rays are all over the shop at the moment.

[Wolf]

TLi 2 Live in an hour on: http://www.djwheat.tv/

Cast by DjWheat and Chill + Day9 Later when he dies (he's actually playing in this one).

Trias:

One very important thing vs Terran - keep an overlord close, in this game - the one that scouted the 12 main - you should've moved it down to the cliffs overlooking his natural. As soon as you get lair, morph that into an overseer and do a fly over his base. They have a ton of HP, are fast can drop a changeling mid flight and you'll have full knowedge of the 9 reapers he was massing. Another thing - as soon as you have some sort of harass - move your drones, don't let them just stand there taking it - better to lose a couple of seconds of mining than all your drones. Other than that it was mostly mechanics mistakes - not setting your rallies as soon as you build the hatchery at the natural (you can do it while it's still morphing). What killed you was that you lost all your mining - income was 200 vs 1000 at this point. He didn't have anything that a billion roaches wouldn't kill. It's a good build - mass roaches with tunneling claws vs mass marauder. video. Watch the whole series, it's a nice showcase of a macro zerg with FE. Dimaga is using a trickier build vs Terran, that I've found requires insane micro and game sense so I don't suggest it. You can find replays of it here: http://razer.cups.gamesports.net/replays (in 3rd place and finals pack, the finals, as well as the quarter finals vs. a different terran).

vs Protoss - same thing with the overseer. Learn it, love it. Other than that - why didn't you get the expo fast? Did you get scared by the two gate? When you saw the cyber core and forge + 4th pylon that should've been your clue to expand, that would mean not enough zealots to kill it. Don't play 1 base vs 1 base toss - he will kill you in supply (like he did he attacked with like 10 supply over you, you shouldn't be in this position vs toss). Also you didn't move your built sunkens to your natural (block your ramp with roaches so he doesn't move up). After that attack you were so behind, the game was over. A toss that doesn't push you early should be a free win for you - you just drone up and sunken up.

In both reaplays it was bad scouting on your part - try the overseer trick, it should help you a ton.

[Mosesandstick]

I wasn't that bad was I Ironwood 

[Ironwood]

God No, I just had an Elena emergency.

Sorry !

[Mosesandstick]

Haha, hope the little tyke's ok. I actually tried to win anyways, at least I lasted for 15 minutes 

[trias_e]

You seem to have the same Zerg problem I do;  control and speed.

It seems to be an UTTER ARSE to keep track of the zerg and what you're building and where they're going and what you're doing.  At some points in that first game, you were all over the shop, even building new drones while old drones sat there sipping tea and eating scones on the grand piano. 

Lol.  I couldn't have put any better, and even if I don't know what 'eating scones on a grand piano' means, it's still awesome.

TLi 2 Live in an hour on: http://www.djwheat.tv/

Cast by DjWheat and Chill + Day9 Later when he dies (he's actually playing in this one).

Trias:
(analysis was here)
In both reaplays it was bad scouting on your part - try the overseer trick, it should help you a ton.

Thanks again wolf.  For the links and the advice.

I just need to get that in my head.  Right when the lair pops I need to spawn an overseer and scout.  It just needs to be automatic.

One thing I'm still really bad at is understanding what I'm scouting.  As you pointed out, I got scared off by the two gate, but then I didn't correctly understand that his army was small when I saw those additional buildings.  I understand really basic things, and I understand tech buildings because you can't fucking misunderstand that, but everything in between...I just don't really know what I'm looking at yet.  That will get better over time I think.

The second thing I am utterly atrocious at is reacting to the minimap alerts when my base is under attack.  Bhodi can attest to the fact that I simply don't notice things going on in my base.  It's a fairly regular occurance to look back at my base and see a bunch of units there that I had no idea had been there for 10+ seconds.  I wish I could set the volume of specific warnings...'your base is under attack' would be made 10x louder for me.

[trias_e]

Lots of drama regarding Artosis vs Slush in the TLI.

Artosis disconnects with a huge lead, they call it a rematch, and then Slush goes on to win the match and the entire tournament.

Weeee amateur-run beta esports.

[Ironwood]

Where would I find such replays ?

[Vaiti]

Think they are all on the Team Liquid forums, or rather will be.
They haven't uploaded all the replays just yet.

I watched up to Slushs match with Louder. Louder is a pretty interesting up and comer. Reminds me of TheLittleOne.

[Ironwood]

Having a good time with Carriers at the moment.  My protoss and human game is good.

I seem to still utterly blow as Zerg.

[Phry]

Lurker here...

phry.phry if any silly americans wants to play

[Mosesandstick]

I'll post the list again in case people are still looking. Welcome Phry!

Filthy Euros:

Wolf: wolf.iclan
Mosesandstick: neth.nethalas
Der Helm: helm.helm
Ironwood: ironwood.jones
IainC: iainz0r(at)gmail(dot)com

Silly Americans:

Nonentity: Non.nonentity
Fordel: Fordel.sturmvogel
Ingmar: ingmar.slap
Caladein: Caladein.cal
Vision: Vision.Vison
Quintoon: Quinton.zzz
Bhodi: bhodi.bhodi
Fuser: bin.fuser
Trias_e: trias.funkychicken
Thrawn: Thrawn.thrawn
Rasix: Rasix.rasix
Teleku: Teleku.teleku
EvilElvis: evilelvis.togh
lamaros: lamaros.lamaros
Phry: phry.phry

[Teleku]

Hmm, I went down the list and tried to add all the silly American's, but at least half of them weren't recognized.  What am I doing wrong?  Tried uppercase'ing the first letter on the ID's listed that didn't have it, but no good.

[Ingmar]

I never got back around to recreating my ID so it probably doesn't exist right now.

[Malakili]

Hmm, I went down the list and tried to add all the silly American's, but at least half of them weren't recognized.  What am I doing wrong?  Tried uppercase'ing the first letter on the ID's listed that didn't have it, but no good.

They've probably reset the system once (or more) since people put their info in this thread.

[Kageru]

The fact that the discussion is centered on technical minutia and there seems to be some diversity in tactics makes it sound like Blizzard got it mostly right again.

[Ironwood]

I haven't had it glitch on me once yet, I don't think.  The new patch brought an annoying 'won't close after I close' thing in Win7 but I'm sure that's an easy fix.

Once again, Blizzard impress by releasing something really ready to release and keeping it back to get it totally right.

My only criticism here is that, frankly, it's not that much different to Brood war.  I'm going to be interested to see how the Single player brings new stuff to the table because it seems limited.

Gripping hand, I don't mind someone reskinning Starcraft for the new generation and releasing it.  I'd imagine Diablo III will be much the same...

[Malakili]

I haven't had it glitch on me once yet, I don't think.  The new patch brought an annoying 'won't close after I close' thing in Win7 but I'm sure that's an easy fix.

Once again, Blizzard impress by releasing something really ready to release and keeping it back to get it totally right.

My only criticism here is that, frankly, it's not that much different to Brood war.  I'm going to be interested to see how the Single player brings new stuff to the table because it seems limited.

Gripping hand, I don't mind someone reskinning Starcraft for the new generation and releasing it.  I'd imagine Diablo III will be much the same...

The single player does look pretty good as single player campaigns for RTS games go (despite my hand wringing about it earlier in the thread).   Its interesting because you have the casual players like us saying its basically Starcraft reskinned, while the pro players are saying it deviates too much from what made SC1 great.

My biggest issue so far is the damage v. armored units.  (Roach, Marauder, Stalker/Immortal)  Because these units are so cheap and easy to get and often make up the backbone of any army, armoed units have practically become MORE vulnerable than light units, and certainly more vulnerably by cost.   They've already toned it down more than once because it was getting silly, but I am generally of the opinion that the more units that are viable in a given situation the better, and with the current mechanics, there is often a best unit to have given your opponents army make up. It doesn't sound bad when I say it that way, but I think it makes games, generally, a lot less interesting.  For instance, I was watching a replay the other day where one guy went Mutas, and the other guy went Hydras, and neither really had a huge inkling of what the other guy was teching to, but the guy who went Hydras was just at a huge advantage because Hydras just tear up mutalisks.

[Ironwood]

In fairness, the same thing happend in WC3 when they introduced the armor types.  It's actually a good mechanic that helps spice up the gameplay.  My problem with it in SC2 I've already mentioned :  the games are so fast paced that the guy who went Muta's game was OVER long before he knew it.

He was never gonna win.  Even if he'd found out after the first engagement, he wouldn't have had TIME to make something else before being, quite literally, zerged.