StarCraft II

[K9]

I think qnother problem with zerg is that their units feel far more single purpose than protoss or terran. The fact that they only have two significant units which can attack air and ground (muta and hydra, queens and infested terrans don't really count), while T and P units by and large feel like they fit more scenarios better.

[slog]

As a Result of the Funday Monday thing, I drop another hatch in my main when I notice I'm floating a lot of Minerals.  I think that pays off with the increased unit production I get out of it.

[Rasix]

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.

Assume on a two player map that you're getting 6 pooled and start from there.  Terran should be able to deal with this easily.  As Protoss, I think they can get zerglings to your base before the first zealot is out if they execute well.  Like K9 said, just leave a unit wide entrance at your ramp and plug it with a chronoboosted zealot (hit 'h' to make sure he doesn't chase).  That guy can hold the line for a while. Probes can help too if needed. 

[Malakili]

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.

Assume on a two player map that you're getting 6 pooled and start from there.  Terran should be able to deal with this easily.  As Protoss, I think they can get zerglings to your base before the first zealot is out if they execute well.  Like K9 said, just leave a unit wide entrance at your ramp and plug it with a chronoboosted zealot (hit 'h' to make sure he doesn't chase).  That guy can hold the line for a while. Probes can help too if needed. 

This is how I do it more or less.  Also, assuming you've scouted and know its coming, you can consider throwing down a pylon to totally wall off, even though it'll go down.  Spending 100 minerals to buy you some extra time to chronoboost zealots is really worth it.

[Muffled]

You generally won't even have to let the pylon complete, only one or two zerglings should be hitting it and you can cancel once your zealot/cannon pops out.

[Malakili]

I think qnother problem with zerg is that their units feel far more single purpose than protoss or terran. The fact that they only have two significant units which can attack air and ground (muta and hydra, queens and infested terrans don't really count), while T and P units by and large feel like they fit more scenarios better.

I don't think its really the case.  Hydralisks are great, but I think people tend to say "ok, I've 'gone hydra' time to produce nothing but hydralisks."  A nice core army of zerglings, roaches and hydras is pretty darn versatile and powerful.   Just like MMM, or zealot, stalker, sentry.   All three of those combos are strong solid cores. 

There are some other issues that need to be addressed and it isn't as simply as I've made it sound, but don't think of unit versatility, think of army versatility, and if one unit = your army, thats a separate issue.

[slog]

Races played for all brackets


Races played for 1v1


Races Played for Random 2v2


Races played in 1v1 Silver (Which I think was your bracket, right), divided by region

I know I shouldn't quote this whole page, but I clicked the link again.  Looks like there are more Terran players than ever?

http://www.sc2ranks.com/stats/league/all/1/all

[bhodi]

I don't think its really the case.  Hydralisks are great ...  Just like MMM, or zealot, stalker, sentry.   All three of those combos are strong solid cores.  

Actually, they aren't. They are "ok" on creep and decent in mass numbers, but the instant you take them off creep they might as well be infested terrans. They CAN'T be part of a force like MM&M because they don't clump together like other race's unit compositions.

You're free to have your opinions, but if you watch any diamond to pro game, you'll notice a distinct LACK of hydras in almost all games. They are simply too slow to be useful off creep, cost an extra 150/150 off the bat and decent players will take out all your tumors. Hell, I can't think of the last time I made them. Mutas+ling to ultra with fungal support is better in almost every matchup. They aren't even super terrific versus air because they can still be sniped one at a time by both void rays and banshees, mutas are better to counter either case. I suppose if I was losing the muta race might make a few to even the odds a tiny bit, but it's unlikely that I'll be able deter harassment, and the army also dies horribly to your standard muta+bane+ling combo.

I'm really trying not to be mean here, but I've seen you make pretty consistent advice/comments over time that I haven't seen any strong backing for in either replay packs or my own zerg experience.


Beating 6pool is easy. Select all your workers, right click on a mineral patch away from the lings until they all bunch together, the lings should chase. right click on a far mineral patch so you path into the lings, then when you're nearby, attack move. They will all instantly do damage, spread, and probably surround the 6 lings. Then, counter and win because your opponent has no econ.

[Fordel]

That's something a lot of people probably don't really notice at first, is just how many Terran ground units travel at the same speed.


Marines, Marauders, Ghosts, Tanks, Landed Vikings, those all travel at virtually the same rate. Thors lag behind a little bit, but not all that much.

Flying Vikings, Banshees and Medivacs, also all travel at virtually the same speed too. Ravens lag behind the others a bit, similar to how Thors lag behind the ground stuff.




Zerg shit is all over the place in terms of speed, doubly so to the creep mini game. Like, isn't one of the reasons you go Muta/Ling is because Muta's are one of the few things that can sorta keep up with upgraded zerglings?

[K9]

Hydralisks are pretty glass cannon though, and painfully slow off creep (although this is probably the factor that balances them better than their low HP); and roaches are durable but don't feel like they hit as hard as marauders or stalkers. Thats sort of my point, the zerg dps/survivability balance lags behind T and P in certain areas.

Also, on another note, Zerg have far fewer micro abilities than the others. I thought about this and more often with zerg than T or P I feel like I just smash at my opponents army with mine and generally hope it is bigger. While you can micro fast units such as zerglings and mutas around, the amount of useful or interesting micro you can do as Z (compared to T and P) seems less.

Abilities

Macro:

Micro:

I know it's a fairly trivial point, but zerg have four upgrades just focusing on speed increases, and far fewer interesting micro abilities.

[Yoru]

Beating 6pool is easy. Select all your workers, right click on a mineral patch away from the lings until they all bunch together, the lings should chase. right click on a far mineral patch so you path into the lings, then when you're nearby, attack move. They will all instantly do damage, spread, and probably surround the 6 lings. Then, counter and win because your opponent has no econ.

Okay, I've seen people say "attack move" a lot. I presume this means that you hit A, then click somewhere on clear ground as opposed to, say, right-clicking a single guy?

That may be why I seem to always fuck up with melee units.

[Malakili]

I'm really trying not to be mean here, but I've seen you make pretty consistent advice/comments over time that I haven't seen any strong backing for in either replay packs or my own zerg experience.

I'm frankly going by what feels dangerous to me when I play against zerg.  And in any event, my real point isn't a particular tactic to use anyway, so much as that I think the problems with zerg are far less with their units themselves and far more with other zerg mechanics.

[slog]

I decided last night that I want to start using the 5 Roach Rush as my opener in all my games for a bit, and then transition into other fun stuff like Baneling Drops and Nydus Worms.

[bhodi]

Okay, I've seen people say "attack move" a lot. I presume this means that you hit A, then click somewhere on clear ground as opposed to, say, right-clicking a single guy?

Correct. Hit a, left click on the ground somewhere. Always, always attack move your armies once they are above 50 food or so or when you don't have time to pay attention. Obviously, you'll want to micro stuff like force fields, blink, stim, stuff like that, but in general, attack moving is the way to go.

I decided last night that I want to start using the 5 Roach Rush as my opener in all my games for a bit, and then transition into other fun stuff like Baneling Drops and Nydus Worms.

The 5rr doesn't work against terran. It works against Protoss and works half the time (possibly less) against a competent zerg. Terran will scout your roach warren and make marauders, and with a proper walloff he can attack your roaches from behind it. ZvZ is always speedling to baneling and you will likely lose to early banelings, even without something dirty like a proxy sunken, and then you will most certainly lose to his muta counter. The protoss counter (for those who might face it) is just to forcefield your ramp until you get a few more stalkers out to even the odds.

[slog]

I know it won't work every time, but I would like to try some ways to put early pressure on Terran.

[jakonovski]

Oh god, Day9's Funday Monday is totally hilarious. I haven't played SC2 for two weeks but I'm totally going to try his next challenge: Terran without Marines, Marauders or Tanks. Loss streak incomingu!

[Fordel]

Terrans without Marines doesn't seem possible, even Marine-less builds have 1-4 marines at the start.

[Malakili]

Terrans without Marines doesn't seem possible, even Marine-less builds have 1-4 marines at the start.

It seems like losses to rushes will be common.  However, if you wall off and hope for the best, you could get hellions out pretty quick.  Still, its going to be just plain weak to a lot of stuff.  You could manage the last 2 with some creative play, but this strikes me as needing to be purely lucky.

[bhodi]

It's completely possible. Early reaper to hellion harass/drop to air. Or, skip the hellion. If you bunker your reapers you can hold off rushes. It's not 100% practical but a decent walloff should delay long enough for those reapers or that first banshee.

Or you can just be a total dick and do a proxy thor all-in. Those things are fucking impossible to kill if you can keep the scvs behind the thor, because you can't physically target them. They kill stalkers in 3 hits. Then again, generally you have marines as support, I wonder how it'd be solo.

[slog]

http://www.youtubedoubler.com/?video1=http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DzkF0zjd6FaA&start1=378&video2=http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DMK6TXMsvgQg&start2=0&authorName=Grey

[trias_e]

While the banelings were somewhat entertaining, unfortunately the quarter finals were pretty much horrible.   Hopefully the RO4 turns things around, because if this round was what top level of play is going to end up like, I'm thinking Blizzard has a big problem on their hands.

[Malakili]

While the banelings were somewhat entertaining, unfortunately the quarter finals were pretty much horrible.   Hopefully the RO4 turns things around, because if this round was what top level of play is going to end up like, I'm thinking Blizzard has a big problem on their hands.

I didn't see the RO8, what was so bad about it?  Or, to put it another way, we've seen some pretty ridiculous stuff over the years in SC1, what makes this worse than stuff like infamous SCVs rushes and such.

[Littlejenny]

Terrans without Marines doesn't seem possible, even Marine-less builds have 1-4 marines at the start.

agree, marine seem to be the basic and most important unit of terran at the very beginning of the gamr :D

[slog]

Terrans without Marines doesn't seem possible, even Marine-less builds have 1-4 marines at the start.

agree, marine seem to be the basic and most important unit of terran at the very beginning of the gamr :D

Dual Planetary Fortress Rush.  Build nothing but SCVs and expansions, upgrade, invade the base, win.

[birdsguts]

The 5rr doesn't work against terran. It works against Protoss and works half the time (possibly less) against a competent zerg. Terran will scout your roach warren and make marauders, and with a proper walloff he can attack your roaches from behind it. ZvZ is always speedling to baneling and you will likely lose to early banelings, even without something dirty like a proxy sunken, and then you will most certainly lose to his muta counter. The protoss counter (for those who might face it) is just to forcefield your ramp until you get a few more stalkers out to even the odds.

I think the whole deal with the 5RR in ZvT was that you have to deny the scout with the first few lings and hide the roach warren. The Terran will still go marauders but after those initial 4/5 roaches you just "backtech" and make speedlings and start moving toward muta. That way the "force" to marauder actually ends up working in your favor.
That's the idea behind the build anyway. Break the wall and force the T to make less 'rines more 'rauders, then counter. If you do it wrong it obviously won't work, but you can't say it outright doesn't work against Terran. IIRC it was designed FOR that matchup as an alternative to a baneling bust.

[bhodi]

I've never been able to edge roaches in far enough that they didn't get completely hammered trying to break the wall in. If you're just trying to do a fast tech switch fakeout, that's fine, but I've never really had it work thanks to their scan.

[slog]

Here is a game where I do everything wrong!

I forget to expand, I go Lair quickly and get Mutas, don't produce the Mutas right away, get supply blocked a couple times.  The Terran just makes Marines Mauraders, hangs out in his base for 10 minutes, makes a few tanks, then A Moves in for the win.

[Muffled]

For anyone watching the GSL: do the Zergies feel that Cool/Fruitseller's absolute destruction of everyone he's played is in spite of his race, or does he demonstrate that, at least at the highest levels of play, Zerg can be strong?  OR has he played sub-par opponents?  I haven't made up my mind on it yet, or I'd leave my own opinion.

I might have to go find a replay pack for him or something, just to get a clearer idea what exactly he's doing to snap necks.

I'm taking Fruitseller to win it, only dropping one game in the finals.

Edit: because I decided against double posting.

Here is a game where I do everything wrong!

I forget to expand, I go Lair quickly and get Mutas, don't produce the Mutas right away, get supply blocked a couple times.  The Terran just makes Marines Mauraders, hangs out in his base for 10 minutes, makes a few tanks, then A Moves in for the win.

Are you looking for analysis or just some commiseration?   

[Margalis]

For anyone watching the GSL: do the Zergies feel that Cool/Fruitseller's absolute destruction of everyone he's played is in spite of his race, or does he demonstrate that, at least at the highest levels of play, Zerg can be strong?

He's really fucking good.

Watching the first 2 games of the finals. His opponent's strategy is just not working. Instead of doing any sort of major push he tries to harass and his harassment is just not effective. But that's a credit to fruit dealer spotting all the dropships, reacting very quickly, building enough spines at each base to slow or stop the contents of a single dropship, etc. He's just on another level.

[Fordel]

Cool is both very very good, with just enough luck mixed in too.

[bhodi]

He's very very good, obviously, but his play really highlights a few things:

He has incredible map awareness; this allows him as zerg to make drones right up until the last possible moment
He's perfected overlord drops into tank lines as an offensive tactic
Transfusing spine crawlers with overlord spotting to kill early tank ledge drops
Mid-battle muta transfuse
Ability to instantly shut down any harass with FG

I think some of his techniques will transfer over and become part of standard zerg play.

(Note that this does not mean zergs need nerfs, no mater what the teamliquid twitter says - one robot from the future come back to teach us zerg does not a balanced race make)

[Mosesandstick]

Finally got the game after my plat friend needs somebody to play with (why me). I've been randoming in 2v2, and I think I've been Zerg at least 50% of the time (and that's generous). I've been sticking with roaches a lot, but I get the feeling I'm just doing that because it's so damn easy, and we haven't had a single drawn out game so far.

[Muffled]

I'm taking Fruitseller to win it, only dropping one game in the finals.

Awwww yeah.  He took it 4-1, for the record.  I've decided on my own answer to my question: Zerg is balanced now, for tip top diamond if not for anyone else, and Fruitseller would also succeed with whatever race he decided to use.  

His anticipation was pretty awesome, both on the drops and on the overall strategy his opponents took throughout the later rounds.  I hope and think that it was not a fluke based on lucky guesses, and was instead him reading the map perfectly.

Edit: word choice.

[Ironwood]

Links to replays plx.

[Margalis]

In most of the games he knew exactly what his opponent was going to do. And I don't mean general strategy like "turtle and tech up" but specific things like "try to drop on this ledge with a tank" and had the perfect counter for it already in mind. It was pretty amazing.

I don't think it says anything about Zerg balance when he obviously outplayed his opponents so badly. It's like in Street Fighter when you just know your opponent is going to stick out a limb so you psychic DP it, then you know they're going to be scared to stick out a limb so you walk up and throw, then you know they're going to anticipate a throw so you fake one and DP them again. Just total domination based on players, not on race.