StarCraft II

[K9]

Oh, whoops. My bad

[Malakili]

Oh, whoops. My bad

No worries.   I think I'm to the point where I just need to start thinking more about that stuff if I want to get moved up to Diamond/be Diamond level quality.  I am pretty good with my macro at this point, far from perfect, but better than most platinum players I can't matched against at least.   However, I'm not quite to the point where that is easy enough for me to start freeing up brain for other tasks (harass, extra map control/sight, etc).   Usually I'm so focused on macroing, expanding, building probes and pylons that everything else gets shoved to the back of my mind. 

I think the other side of it is that my decision making is still a little slow.  Day9 has always said you should be thinking about the next thing you're going to do, and not the thing you're doing right now, and I think that my muscle memory hasn't quite gotten to the point where I can do that, and it leads to a kind of very deliberate play style.  Probably just need to play more in general, which is hard given the fact that I don't ONLY play SC2, and my amount of time to game has dropped off signnificantly in the last month.

[slog]

Anyone happen to catch that "MondayFunday" day9 thing? It was actually very interesting. Zergs building no Queens led to some interesting openings that could later be augmented with Queens in live play. Anyone seen any stuff based on this up in plat/diamond at all? I'm really curious to see if it opens the Zerg up more over time... or if it was just a cherry picking of games he showed. (I'm sure it was to some extent but it does leave a certain impression the way he "pushes" the idea.)

It was Daily 183

I did!

I haven't tried the spinecrawler Rush yet, but I fully intend do, just to the hilarity factor.

One thing I'm starting to work on is a build where I do something like this

9 Overlord
13 Gas
13 Pool
Pull drones off gas at 100 and get speedlings
16/17 Hatch in main
then build queens/ expand.

I still need to refine it, but the idea is that I would have 2 Hatches in my Main from the early game on, and 2 hatches in my Natural.  This allows me to be less gas dependent, and eases up the pressure to Inject Larvae perfectly.

In other words, my early game would be mass speedlings/Queens driven by many hatches.

[Malakili]

Anyone happen to catch that "MondayFunday" day9 thing? It was actually very interesting. Zergs building no Queens led to some interesting openings that could later be augmented with Queens in live play. Anyone seen any stuff based on this up in plat/diamond at all? I'm really curious to see if it opens the Zerg up more over time... or if it was just a cherry picking of games he showed. (I'm sure it was to some extent but it does leave a certain impression the way he "pushes" the idea.)

It was Daily 183

I did!

I haven't tried the spinecrawler Rush yet, but I fully intend do, just to the hilarity factor.

One thing I'm starting to work on is a build where I do something like this

9 Overlord
13 Gas
13 Pool
Pull drones off gas at 100 and get speedlings
16/17 Hatch in main
then build queens/ expand.

I still need to refine it, but the idea is that I would have 2 Hatches in my Main from the early game on, and 2 hatches in my Natural.  This allows me to be less gas dependent, and eases up the pressure to Inject Larvae perfectly.

In other words, my early game would be mass speedlings/Queens driven by many hatches.

I just played against a zerg that went for a 2 hatch in base build and pumped out mass speedlings early against me.  It was fairly effective at holding me off, but he would always JUST defend my attack, we'd stale mate for a bit.  The fact that I kept putting pressure on his front though meant it was hard for him to expand, and I just mostly kept him in his base the entire game.

Now, 2 hatch in one base is actally not a terrible plan, but my point is to make sure that you secure your natural relatively quickly anyway, because if you let your opponent get ahead in econ, you're in trouble.

[slog]

Agree completely.  I would need to use both the Speedlings and the Queens offensively to take and hold the Natural.  That means lots of Creep tumors, Offensive queens, and Some spinecrawlers.

Then I would probably have to go Mutas for Map control.

[Abagadro]

I'm getting a fairly frequent "Desync" where it just says that and then boots me out of a game to a score screen that says "Error cannot access score screen". Anyone else having this happen to them?

EDIT: I think I may have identified the problem. It looks like it happens when my virus scan auto-updates while I am in a game. I've turned off the auto-update so we'll see if this fixes it.

[slog]

I beat a Gold level Terran today as Zerg.  (my ifirst evah!)



Any critiques would be appreciated.

[trias_e]

Congrats! Having just watched the opening, did you try to extractor trick there?  I would recommend 9 overlord 13 pool as a safe, easy, and effective opening against any race.  9 OL 13 pool, 13 extractor, 15 ovy, 15 ling 16 queen, zergling speed around 19 or whenever you have 100 gas, 21 hatch.  In ZvZ skip the hatch and make banelings instead.

Another thing is to make sure you get your gas for a reason, not just to have it.  Gas has a high opportunity cost early on, as mineral intake leads to more drones, which leads to more intake, etc.  Its ok to have excess minerals because you can turn them into drones, but excess gas with nothing to spend it on is problematic.  Diamond level zergs generally take workers out of gas after they get zergling speed unless they go roaches or extremely fast lair due to this.

[slog]

Congrats! Having just watched the opening, did you try to extractor trick there?  I would recommend 9 overlord 13 pool as a safe, easy, and effective opening against any race.  9 OL 13 pool, 13 extractor, 15 ovy, 15 ling 16 queen, zergling speed around 19 or whenever you have 100 gas, 21 hatch.  In ZvZ skip the hatch and make banelings instead.

Another thing is to make sure you get your gas for a reason, not just to have it.  Gas has a high opportunity cost early on, as mineral intake leads to more drones, which leads to more intake, etc.  Its ok to have excess minerals because you can turn them into drones, but excess gas with nothing to spend it on is problematic.  Diamond level zergs generally take workers out of gas after they get zergling speed unless they go roaches or extremely fast lair due to this.

I tried the extractor trick because I made a drone instead of an Overlord :)

OK, I was thinking I need to work on moving guys from Gas to Minerals and back.

[Malakili]

I didn't see you end up over supply after the trick, which so I wasn't sure what you were going for there either.  In any event, you really just need to work on cleaning up that opening, it seemed a bit cobbled together.   If you are going to expand early, you may as well do it REAL early, and also not get that early gas if you aren't going to spend any for a while.  Or, you can just mine 100 gas for speed upgrade and then move back to minerals.

I think you had decent ideas in general.  Nice broad strokes like "I'm going muta ling"  "I should try to keep at least one base ahread as zerg" and so forth, but it was just a bit sloppy and with a little refinement could shoot you up the ladder quickly.

Also, for the love of all thats holy make more drones.

[slog]

I really really, have a hard time droning up.  I always want to make units.

[Malakili]

I really really, have a hard time droning up.  I always want to make units.

Yeah, I think thats a common inexperienced thing to do.  It FEELS safe to have lots of units.  The odd thing is, you don't want to be overly safe, you want to be JUST SAFE ENOUGH, and its getting a feel for whats just safe enough that is actually the hard part.  You have way more than you needed to fend off that initial push, and if you think of every 2 zerglings left at the end of that fight as a drone, you could've had a solid 10 more drones, or heck, even if you were just a bit extra safe, 5 extra drones.  It adds up quick, and its just something you have to really put the time in to learn.  Its not something that really comes from playing either, in comes from watching replays mainly, and making a real conscious effort to note timings.



Also, I never should have violated my normal "Don't play sc2 after 10pm" rule tonight.  I just don't have the mental or physical sharpness after that time of day, and I lost 3 games in a row to just pure sloppy play that I know I wouldn't have done if I had been awake and alert. Also, the rankings are starting to make me nuts.  Today I beat a diamond player and lost to a gold player.  I'm not sure if that says more about the ranks, or how inconsistent I can play sometimes though :(.

[Muffled]

Might have been a good day for the gold player and a bad one for the diamond, or the gold might be improving rapidly or something.  Not necessarily either the ranking system or you at fault.

***

Has anybody else been watching the GSL stuff?  I've been staying up most nights that it's on ever since the round of 64 because I'm insane and too cheap or stubborn to buy the VoD package thing.  Just wondering how popular it is around here.

[Malakili]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/09/26/blizzard-on-starcraft-ii-1-2-patch-zerg-balance-issues/

Chris said to PC Gamer that the next patch is “largely our e-sport patch. A couple of big things that will be in there are support for the season rolling, so players can look at the history of how they did in past seasons. There will be bugfixes, balance changes and tweaks, too. Chat is the other major thing we want to get in there next patch. We’ll also add more significant features to the editor.”

[slog]

My favorite part:

Chris is also keen to address the ongoing idea that Zerg remains underpowered – an idea fuelled partly because so few Zerg players made it into the top 200 Starcraft II players in North America.

“That’s not actually the case,” says Chris. “We have fewer Zerg players overall. I avoid playing Zerg as much as possible because I find them to be just more complex in general. Zerg, or rather larvae management is harder for me to deal with, so I don’t enjoy playing them as much.”

Zerg are balanced, just harder to play.   

[Malakili]

My favorite part:

Chris is also keen to address the ongoing idea that Zerg remains underpowered – an idea fuelled partly because so few Zerg players made it into the top 200 Starcraft II players in North America.

“That’s not actually the case,” says Chris. “We have fewer Zerg players overall. I avoid playing Zerg as much as possible because I find them to be just more complex in general. Zerg, or rather larvae management is harder for me to deal with, so I don’t enjoy playing them as much.”

Zerg are balanced, just harder to play.   

Its actually pretty close to true, which is why its proving so difficult to balance them at the lower levels.  The sorts of imbalances that Idra complains about aren't the things that your rank and file zerg complains about.  Heck, inject larvae is THE reason I chose protoss instead of zerg, I just found the mechanic far too punishing.

[Ironwood]

Fuck it, all they need is a queen ability to bond to a nest and then have it run automatically.

But they don't do that because that's how they want it.  Zerg's harder.  Deal with it.

Personally, I love it.

[Margalis]

The problems with Zerg go way beyond spit larva.

As a Zerg playing against Terran you can lose at any moment. You have to be constantly scouting for one of a half-dozen lethal tricks. Screw up once and you lose. Meanwhile there is basically nothing you can do to actually win the game until tier 3, and even then you have to be way ahead economically.

Terran has nothing to fear from Zerg and Zerg cannot be aggressive at all. Zerg also has very few options. As a Terran you can go reapers, you can go straight up MM, go for Hellions or Hellion drops, rush to Thor, rush to Banshee, rush to BCs, go overlord hunting with vikings, abuse terran on some maps with tank drops, etc. Right as the game starts there are about 8 different strategies you can work towards, most of which require different responses. Meanwhile as Zerg your only choice is whether or not to try a baneling bust.

They could make Zerg more balanced by changing some stats but it's pretty weak to have 2 races that have diverse strategies, diverse units and all sorts of useful special abilities and attributes and one race that has a small, narrow range of units that can only attack move.

This was a known issue as soon as beta launched, Blizzard acknowledged it, but has done nothing to address it. At this point I suppose they're waiting until Heart of the Swarm so they can charge $60 for balance fixes.

[Malakili]

The problems with Zerg go way beyond spit larva.

As a Zerg playing against Terran you can lose at any moment. You have to be constantly scouting for one of a half-dozen lethal tricks. Screw up once and you lose. Meanwhile there is basically nothing you can do to actually win the game until tier 3, and even then you have to be way ahead economically.

Terran has nothing to fear from Zerg and Zerg cannot be aggressive at all. Zerg also has very few options. As a Terran you can go reapers, you can go straight up MM, go for Hellions or Hellion drops, rush to Thor, rush to Banshee, rush to BCs, go overlord hunting with vikings, abuse terran on some maps with tank drops, etc. Right as the game starts there are about 8 different strategies you can work towards, most of which require different responses. Meanwhile as Zerg your only choice is whether or not to try a baneling bust.

They could make Zerg more balanced by changing some stats but it's pretty weak to have 2 races that have diverse strategies, diverse units and all sorts of useful special abilities and attributes and one race that has a small, narrow range of units that can only attack move.

This was a known issue as soon as beta launched, Blizzard acknowledged it, but has done nothing to address it. At this point I suppose they're waiting until Heart of the Swarm so they can charge $60 for balance fixes.

Wow, totally uncalled for and not based in reality at all.  I'll agree that TvZ is still biased towards T, but I have to assume you're just blowing off steam.   If you don't like how Zerg plays, thats different than it being underpowered or stupid.

[Demonix]

Fuck it, all they need is a queen ability to bond to a nest and then have it run automatically.

But they don't do that because that's how they want it.  Zerg's harder.  Deal with it.

Personally, I love it.

yes, because clicking like a weasel on meth is FUN, damnit!

I mean, its cool you like it, but is it -really- fun?  I think Blizzard may have lost sight of this.

[bhodi]

Wow, totally uncalled for and not based in reality at all.  I'll agree that TvZ is still biased towards T, but I have to assume you're just blowing off steam.   If you don't like how Zerg plays, thats different than it being underpowered or stupid.

Actually, he's right. The other races have a TON of options. Zerg early game is speedlings and... uh, banelings for terran and zerg, and uh... ... that's it.

[Margalis]

Wow, totally uncalled for and not based in reality at all. 

Huh?

If you disagree feel free to list all the scary tier 1 / tier 2 strategies for Zerg that Terran has to scout out or lose to.

If you watch a lot of top players play what you notice is Zerg players losing at pretty much any time in the game whereas when they win it's usually in very long games. And even then it's often a very long drawn out struggle with the Zerg player throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the Terran player over and over again.

I like playing Zerg but I feel like in most games there's no way for me to surprise my opponent, no way for me to put pressure on them and when I win it's because I deny expansions and slowly starve them out.

[Muffled]

I don't think being a strong Zerg has ever been about surprising your opponent.  It's much more about forcing your opponent to move where you want them to be, with mutalisks, banelings, infestors, nydus, and just the general speed on creep, and about abusing your ability to make a buttload of one type of unit very quickly, either drones or attackers.  They are a bit strapped for aggressive options early, but to me that's just the price Zerg pays for being the beast they are in longer, multiple base games.

It is rather frustrating if you're looking for 15 minute wins as a Zerg, but that's just not what the race does well.

Larva inject is completely fucked though, we all seem to agree that the investment (in terms of hand speed/memory) is completely out of line with the reward when compared to mules or chronoboost.

[Malakili]

I don't think being a strong Zerg has ever been about surprising your opponent.  It's much more about forcing your opponent to move where you want them to be, with mutalisks, banelings, infestors, nydus, and just the general speed on creep, and about abusing your ability to make a buttload of one type of unit very quickly, either drones or attackers.  They are a bit strapped for aggressive options early, but to me that's just the price Zerg pays for being the beast they are in longer, multiple base games.

Ding ding ding ding.   Which is exactly why I said what is really being complained about is the play style.  If you want to play like Terran, play Terran.

Like I said, Zerg is a bit unbalanced still, but it isn't for the reasons people generally complain about.

[Margalis]

They are a bit strapped for aggressive options early, but to me that's just the price Zerg pays for being the beast they are in longer, multiple base games.

If by "beast" you mean "equal to Terran and Protoss" then sure.

To elaborate if you watch pro games Zerg tend to lose as many long games as they win.

[Ingmar]

They are a bit strapped for aggressive options early, but to me that's just the price Zerg pays for being the beast they are in longer, multiple base games.

Part of the problem is this means the zerg feel 'wrong' to at least some SC1 players, I think. Not so much in the way of KK ZERG RUSH anymore.

[Fordel]

To many causes and solutions to zerg problems seem to be tied up into Queens. They're pretty much the only anti-air Zerg have till you get into Hydra/Muta or whatever.


If a Toss or Terran shits out a few extra marines or stalkers to fend off some air-attack, then they'll have a workable army unit even after the air-attack is made moot. Making a bunch of extra queens is kinda  , unless you are super awesome at the creep mini-game (which is also largely queen based!).


You can already see the tip-top players really trying to work Queens into their actual army on some level or another, but it's damned far from ideal currently.

[Ironwood]

The amount of people pumping multiple queens these days is staggering.  I've seen some interesting 'Queen only' wins recently.  A bunch of them healing each other, laying creep at a rate of knots and throwing done the spine crawlers in order to push forward.

I think also many people get into the 'Main Base' mindset of Terran and Protoss.  Unless you're expanding, you don't build another nexus and hardly ever build a command centre.  For the Zerg, you have to resist that.  Another hatchery beside your main hatchery is perfectly acceptable and can boost unit production.  A lot of people tend to just expand when they have a lot of resources, which just compounds the problem - you don't NEED more drones or resourcs, you need more units.

[Fordel]

I totally make Command Centers, then I turn them into PForts as super turrets! 


I get what you are saying though, for Zerg, making another Hatch is sorta like making a few more Barracks/Gateways or whatever.

[K9]

The amount of people pumping multiple queens these days is staggering.  I've seen some interesting 'Queen only' wins recently.  A bunch of them healing each other, laying creep at a rate of knots and throwing done the spine crawlers in order to push forward.

I think also many people get into the 'Main Base' mindset of Terran and Protoss.  Unless you're expanding, you don't build another nexus and hardly ever build a command centre.  For the Zerg, you have to resist that.  Another hatchery beside your main hatchery is perfectly acceptable and can boost unit production.  A lot of people tend to just expand when they have a lot of resources, which just compounds the problem - you don't NEED more drones or resourcs, you need more units.

Yeah, I'm having to change my mindsets to these things. First was multiple queens, second was multiple in-base hatcheries.

Regarding what Margalis and Malakili are saying, I agree with Margalis that Zerg lack any easily accessible hard push units in the early game. You have no equivalent to siege tanks/thors/immortals/void rays which can both push hard and are durable. The most durable early-game unit the Zerg have are roaches, and even those are cannon fodder. It all changes at the endgame where Ultras and Brood Lords are just ridiculous. They allow a built-up zerg player to push with phenomenal force, and they can re-macro an army of Ultras way faster than equivalent colossi/thors. I guess if you had to change zerg a little you might toughen up some of the early game units, or reduce opponents ability to wipe them out so cost effectively (siege tank change helps this a bit, but not enough). I suspect the Zerg meta game has a lot more space in which to grow, and things will get better. I feel more confident now as ZvT than I have in a long time, if you are allowed a foothold you can end up with the strongest position at endgame. The challenge is surviving long enough with enough pressure in the first 10-20 minutes of a game, and that's where Zerg really struggle.

[bhodi]

As entertaining as funday monday was, making another hatch in a zerg base is not a recipe for success. If you're going to drop 400 minerals, you'd better get some return out of it. It really needs to be at your natural unless you're camped in and frantically trying to build an army to push out. In which case, you've probably lost, because as was noted, zerg can't really go toe to toe with the other races until t3.

One mineral patch can only support one hatch with a queen unless you're making nothing but zerglings and drones. If you're making a second hatch so you don't have to bother with queens, well, OK I guess, but realize that you're paying a 250 mineral premium for it AND you'll need to build 1.5 extra hatches to replace that single queen in terms of larvae.

[Malakili]

As entertaining as funday monday was, making another hatch in a zerg base is not a recipe for success. If you're going to drop 400 minerals, you'd better get some return out of it. It really needs to be at your natural unless you're camped in and frantically trying to build an army to push out. In which case, you've probably lost, because as was noted, zerg can't really go toe to toe with the other races until t3.

One mineral patch can only support one hatch with a queen unless you're making nothing but zerglings and drones. If you're making a second hatch so you don't have to bother with queens, well, OK I guess, but realize that you're paying a 250 mineral premium for it AND you'll need to build 1.5 extra hatches to replace that single queen in terms of larvae.

I think the real benefit to the builds we will get out of funday monday aren't that they are super viable in and of themselves, but that they give insight into different options.  Its not that you play queenless, its, for instance, that you can make delay your queen longer than you thought and still have interesting options.

For instance, we saw a lot of fast tech to lair with no queens and some interesting stuff came out of it.  The artificial queen deprivation made people play creatively, and its incorporating that creativity, more than the hard rule of "no queen" that is great.

Likewise, this week I'll be interested to see what kinds of stable one base stargate play Protoss players have come up with.  Its not that I'm actually interested in carrier rushing, but it demands other kinds of creative play to make it work.

[Yoru]

Does anyone have any tips against 6-pools? I'll post a replay later if I remember; I had a string of losses vs. 6-poolers over the weekend.


I eventually got to the point where I'd have 1-2 marines/1 zealot and a bunch of workers by the time the lings got into my base, but they'd do enough damage with each wave to slowly chip away at my ability to replenish army units and workers before they returned.

[K9]

If you're on a map where you expect a six pool (Xel'Naga Caverns, Steppes of War, Blistering Sands) wall of fast. Pull an extra worker or two off your mineral line to get your barracks and second supply depot underway as quickly as possible. If the buildings have started construction then the zerglings will not be able to just run in, and once they are built one or two scvs is sufficient to keep a standard wall-off (2 supply depots + rax) standing against 7 zerglings which is the maximum that can fit across the ramp if I recall right. Once you have walled off, just mass marines quickly and push out.

For protoss it is a lot harder, best I can do is to build tight and use probes to kill the zerglings until your zealot is up. n.b. that against a six pool you will feel like you are having your economy ruined, but as long as you have 8+probes you will be pulling ahead. You can either use a forge and gateway to wall off at your ramp, and leave a 1-unit wide gap where you park a zealot (1v1 a zealot will beat maybe 10 zerglings?) or build very tight to your nexus and minimise the room his zerglings have to hit on your probes or pylons. The worst scenario is where he uses zergling to stomp your pylons, so try and plan for this.

Six pools are really only effective on a few maps; scouting can help, but to catch a six pool you need to be scouting a lot earlier than is natural, so you are probably best pursuing a conservative build order, and then progressing from there. On larger maps (especially Kulas) you can make a reasonable assumption that any half-sane player will not attempt a six-pool, because the combination of the rush distance and the need to scout makes success unlikely.

[Sairon]

It's pretty much universally accepted that Zerg is underpowered by high level players. It's even worse at lower skill level imo. JulyZerg recently raged about being beaten by 50 APM terrans on the ladder. There's just so much that can cost you the game when you're Zerg that's out of your control while you really can't deny terran intel ( or toss, although I personally think ZvP is a much more fair MU ).