StarCraft II Beta

[Phry]

Made the mistake of winning all my placement matches... i don't think i'll win another game ever :(

[Rasix]

Heh, most of my silver matches have been other's placement matches.  I got really badly beaten by some guy that's in platinum in 2v2/3v3 and gold in 4v4.

I haven't disconnected once, but the initial loading screen and when the b.net interface opens, it lags to all hell.

The default strategy in silver seems to be: turtle hard and tech like crazy.

[Phry]

Nice... i'm stuck in diamond getting WTFPWNED

[schpain]

There is a small point buffer between leagues meaning you'll need to lose about 3-5 games near the bottom of diamond to get into platinum.

 It also works in reverse if you are trying to jump up a league you need to curb stomp about 10 people when you are at the top of your division to jump up a league. Pre the shit patch I was teetering gold/platinum.

The only thing I like about the new patch is that your division is given a name (Goliath iota) and marine research is cheaper (shields stim).

[Margalis]

When fighting carriers make sure to focus fire on the actual carriers, if you A-move your guys will just shoot the interceptors. Same is true vs. Brood Lords.

[Wolf]

With a marine blob it's actually a good idea to kill the interceptors as they fall fast and take time to actually build. Unlike broodlings that are free and awesome :)

[Rasix]

I just got called lame by some guy that walled off his main with about 20 supply depots.

I did a failed drop, and I spotted no tanks and him teching towards just a bunch of battlecruisers (no tanks, no marauders, no other air).  So I made a 100+ food army of just marines (stim+shield) and medivacs.    Tore through that shit frighteningly quick.

edit: and yah, thanks for the carrier help.  Upgraded marines with combat shield do pretty good against them.    I need to remember next time though that void rays eat battlecruisers pretty bad.

[Ironwood]

People who just go for ONE BIG UNIT are idiots.

This game, much more than SC1, is about countering units.  I too had the game with the retard where he just did OMG BATTLECRUISERS and he got owned extremely hard by the swarm.

One thing that bothers me is there's a LOT of Zerg players out there who do Lings and Mutas and, frankly, that's it.  And they always get humped.  And they're always my ally.

 

[Margalis]

I haven't been seeing much ling/muta recently, muta builds have been weakened pretty significantly and when someone goes mutas usually there is a big window where you can waltz into their base and ream them.

I don't think I've ever seen battlecruisers be effective. The high tier units in general don't seem too well balanced really, when you factor in the time and cost it takes to get them along with build times and such there just isn't much point. And most of them are countered by tier 1 and 2 units.

[K9]

Mass Hydras seems to be pretty damn good at the moment, you need to spread the creep around to help them move though. I'm always surprised by zerg players who don't spread creep tumors across the whole map. For one it's free scouting, also it's a huge mobility boost to the swarm.

[Ironwood]

Mass hydras against protoss will get utterly sodomised by a couple of Collossi.

Trust me on this.

As to the creep tumours:  YES.  Stick one down and tend your tumour garden.  I also use the Overlords to spawn creep in a line between expansions.  It just allows you to mass sooo much faster.

[K9]

True, fortunately down here in the pleb leagues most people still seem have a hardon for Void Rays, 4 gate robo is somewhat rare. I think part of this is that Colossi aren't the easiest units to use; deadly effective when used right, but quite easy to screw up with. I'm not sure what the zerg counter to Colossi is, Mutalisks perhaps.

Aganst terran though mass hydras seems to work quite well, especially against MMM. Better than mass roaches.

[Malakili]

True, fortunately down here in the pleb leagues most people still seem have a hardon for Void Rays, 4 gate robo is somewhat rare. I think part of this is that Colossi aren't the easiest units to use; deadly effective when used right, but quite easy to screw up with. I'm not sure what the zerg counter to Colossi is, Mutalisks perhaps.

Aganst terran though mass hydras seems to work quite well, especially against MMM. Better than mass roaches.

Roaches in the front to absorb, hydras in the back, Corruptors focusing down the collossi.

[Ironwood]

Mrs Ghandi in the ashtray.

No, wait, wrong joke.

[Mosesandstick]

Don't forget anti-air hits colossi 

[K9]

Too bad corruptors are utter shite.

[Ironwood]

Corruptors are only useful for their special abilities, but since they can rarely use them they're pretty much shite.  Broodlords are utter awesome tho.

[Rasix]

Dropped twice in a row mid match.  I think I'm done for a bit.

[Polysorbate80]

Nothing quite like "losing" a game after easily crushing an opponent only to get dropped while tracking down his last fugitive unit 

[Mosesandstick]

Damn, I was thinking I'd finally play some games today!

[K9]

My further playing around as random has led me to a specific reason why the Zerg are tougher, they only have two units which can attack land and air, while protoss and terrans have many.

i.e.

Terran
T1 - Marine
T2 - Viking, Ghost
T3 - Thor, Battlecruiser

Protoss
T1 - Stalker, Sentry
T2 - Void Ray
T3 - Carrier, Archon, (Mothership)

Zerg
T1 - Queen
T2 - Hydralisk, Mutalsik, Infested Terran ( )
T3 -

n.b. I excluded abilities like Psi Storm and such from this comparison

So the nutshell problem (at least for me is), if I want coverage I am forced to mass mutas or hydras, both of which are fairly easily countered. If I go anything else I can get hard countered by someone who is focused on a ground or air force. Terran and Protoss can switch builds and keep air and ground coverage, zerg cannot with anywhere near as much ease. This post can also be considered a post about how utter shite Ultralisks are. Compared to Thors, Battlecruisers, Carriers and Colossi they are pure crap.

[trias_e]

This is why it is so damn important for zerg to spread creap into the mid game.  That way their hydras aren't slow as shit and can actually defend against air effectively.

Corrupters are also good anti-air.  The only option against phoenixes as mutas get raped,  hard counters battlecruiser/carrier, and not to mention very, very strong against colossus.

[Margalis]

Anti-Colossi is the main role of corrupters and the only zerg unit that can do anything against them.

[Fordel]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this already, but TotalBiscut is doing SC2 commentary and is easily the most entertaining of the lot so far.

http://www.youtube.com/user/TotalHalibut

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


Are his two places for replays/streams currently.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92Rv-s-7rNk 

[Ironwood]

Zerglings actually hump Collossi.  Strangely.


I love broodlords, but last night I had a revelation;  They're just carriers that can't hit air.

 

[Margalis]

Lings can do well against Colossi as long as they don't get blocked by force fields or units or get too bunched up, I try to create multiple control groups and attack from different angles to get good surrounds on them.

Broodlords are really great against terran mixes that include tanks as the tanks do friendly fire damage as they shoot the broodlings. I don't find them too useful against protoss since blink stalkers beat them pretty bad.

[K9]

Six-pooling people is depressingly effective down in bronze. I feel dirty...

[Ironwood]

Which is .... ?

[Malakili]

Which is .... ?

zergling rush kekekekee

[bhodi]

Which is .... ?

Save all money, then build a spawning pool. No drones. Works OK on super small maps where you know your opponent is, incineration zone or steppes of war. It's an all-in tactic since you're so far behind in terms of economy that if you don't kill them their counterattack will finish you.

I prefer 9pool, it doesn't hurt your economy AS much and works great against protoss.

[bhodi]

Been spending some time with custom maps. Here's my report:

I play the games so you don't have to.

Worth playing
Battlecraft Armageddon  Fun, fast, about 2 minutes a game
A Standard Tower Defense OK enough to try once and beat
Zone Control Advanced    Just like the orig, pretty fun
Evolves: Nuclear Chaos    It's evolves. Decent enough.

Maybe worth playing
Spinecrawler D            Decent but if one goes down you all go down
Red Circle Tower Defense  OK enough to try once and beat, standard is better.
Missile Commnad v.6F      Kind of fun but fairly simplistic
Overrun                   Fun enough but if one goes down you all go down
E.V.O.L.V.E.S             Evolves. The other one is a better implementatino.

Not worth playing
Art of Defense             By 2/3 through, way too many things firing, actually freezes/lags even on a good computer
Starship Troopers Outpost  Terrible half-finished buggy map
Nexus Wars                 Buggy, half-finished, units get stuck and bad pathing
Tank Defense Jacked        Slow, half-finished, and nonsensical
Classic Run Kitty Run 2    It's like frogger if the road was a huge spiral and you had 1 life and there were no lanes. There are fun "survival" maps but this ain't one.
Hero Wars                  Poor camera renders this untryable, they rebound F10 so you can't even quit, you have to F4
Defend the Headquarters    It even WARNS you that it's buggy and new. Don't bother.
Magic Tower Defense! Horrible, boring tower defense. Avoid.
OMFG the Zerglings   Standard defense map but poor map building and mineral placement means some spots are at a serious economic disadvantage
Freeze Tag                If you liked the orig, this is a remake. Sadly, zerglings attack faster than zealots so it's imbalanced.
Destroy all monsters     OK idea, one massive guy you have to help destroy, only one person has the entire city and two others have a single unit. Not fun for 2 out of 3 people.

[Samwise]

Six-pooling people is depressingly effective down in bronze. I feel dirty...

I've always had a soft spot in my heart for the six-pool.  It's the SC equivalent of the "fool's mate" in chess, which I am fond of also.

[Ironwood]

I don't want to blow my own trumpet, but I am a GOD with the Nydus Worm.

No-one can wiggle that fucker into the smallest most circumspect little crevice where it will gestate before bursting forth with Swarmy Goodness.

Fucking lovely mechanic that.

Tech to air will you ?  Not likely you fucker.

(Not many people realise you really ought to SHOOT THE WORM when it's disgorging.)

[Mosesandstick]

Zone Control 

[Rasix]

Got cannon cheesed.  Bad sign when you scout their base and nothing is in it. Thinking back I could have broken it easy.  Oh well.

Just really hard to see that if they send the probe at the start on a small map.