StarCraft II

[Ironwood]

Thank god, I have my mojo back this morning. Cheesing Protoss are fucking annoying, but if you get past that phase, rushing to battlecruisers is sweeeeeet. Have one hovering above an MMM blob and it wrecks shit up.

FUCK YEAH, I LOVE APPLES.  APPLES ARE WINNERS IN THIS GAME.  WHEN I PUT THEM NEXT TO A 200 FOOD MMM BLOB, I ALWAYS WIN.

APPLES !!!!

[jakonovski]

Someone just lost to MMM.

[Ironwood]

Nah, I just found the idea ridiculously silly.

If you have an MMM blob, you ain't 'rushed' to shit.  Also, why the Fuck do you need a Cruiser if you have an MMM blob ?  Hence, Apples*

Silly.

[jakonovski]

Fine, be that way. 

[Ironwood]

Gies a laugh;  post the replay.

[jakonovski]

No way, I'm not prepared to back my words.

[Muffled]

As a Zerg how I am supposed to handle 4-6 Thors with Marines/Mauraders?

If they're too light on marines muta/ling would do fine as long as you have enough zerglings to surround and you keep the mutalisks spread out while they focus the thors down.

If they're marching around with no Raven and not scanning, you could un-burrow some banelings under the infantry and then attack with whatever you want.

Ultralisks and zerglings plus fungal growth should do alright, if you have enough space to surround the ball, even better if they're light on marauders.

Otherwise, just have more shit than they do and overwhelm it.  If they have a bunch of marauders AND thors AND medivacs then you'll probably have had a lot of time to take the map and bank up some larvae and resources.

[sinij]

As a Zerg how I am supposed to handle 4-6 Thors with Marines/Mauraders?

Simple answer - don't let them get 4-6 Thors.

More involved answer - you need to play Zerg as if you have death wish and build drones, expansions and more drones and ABSOLUTELY BARE MINIMUM of units to stay alive. LESS UNITS MORE DRONES. Park 1 ling outside enemy base and only start making units when enemy base leaves. If you died with 50+ drones, multiple hatcheries... then you are doing it right. Dial down 1 notch from there and you got it. If you died poor and without expansions - scrap what you doing and BUILD MORE FUCKING DRONES.

Now, how do you deal with Thors? You drown MM in blings/lings/hydras before he gets a chance to build many. Deny expos, do ling-and-run on unprotected CC to cull workers, do baneling busts, do canal up his base's ass. This way when T finally gets a chance to roll out with 4-6 Thors you have +1-2 more expos, including gold, and can afford to build speed-upgraded banelings, with cracklings, with hydras multiple times.

[sinij]

keep the mutalisks spread out

You have to use Hold Position with mutas or they bunch up and it all ends up in tears.

you could un-burrow some banelings under the infantry and then attack with whatever you want.

You can manually detonate baneling while they are borrowed for full effect against bioball walking over them.

[Abagadro]

In my random 2v2 I am #3 in a plat division and I was paired with a guy who had played 7 games total and had 2 wins.  WTF?  He built 2 command centers in his main and then just let them sit there.  

[K9]

I feel your pain, I had a streak of partners of similar ilk, who would get maybe 8 or 9 workers then start rushing to battlecruisers or something stupid.

[Malakili]

I feel your pain, I had a streak of partners of similar ilk, who would get maybe 8 or 9 workers then start rushing to battlecruisers or something stupid.

Unfortunately things like "worker saturation" are not even remotely transparent to new players.  Its not remotely obvious that when you hit 200/200 army that 1/3 of your units or slightly more should be workers.   

[Fordel]

I feel your pain, I had a streak of partners of similar ilk, who would get maybe 8 or 9 workers then start rushing to battlecruisers or something stupid.

Unfortunately things like "worker saturation" are not even remotely transparent to new players.  Its not remotely obvious that when you hit 200/200 army that 1/3 of your units or slightly more should be workers.   

It would be if they did the tutorials!

[sinij]

Learn to Fucking Play is bane of all online gaming and exact reason why, if I can help it, I would never play cooperatively with strangers. In any medium ability to attack anyone is a huge benefit that allows you to cull out idiots instead of counting on crude algorithms to not team you up with one.

[Samwise]

This is SC1 rather than SC2, but it seems relevant.  Competition-winning "Overmind" SC AI.  The videos are bitchin so I'll link them here.

Sparky the Wonder Drone fucks with some probes.  During testing they had to turn this off because it cripples the basic SC AI.

Mutas micro around archons.

Overview of how the AI works, with cool overlays.

[K9]

That is fucking awesome, especially the third video with the overlays.

Also it reminded me just how eye-bleeding SC1 is. I hope they can port it over to SC2, that would be fun to see.

[sinij]

Terran probably the most newbie-friendly race out there, you can play it well, but you don't have to. It forgives you lack of scouting since you have scan, you can win with massing any 1-2 units entire game, your worker management is easiest out there thanks to mules and you can PFT and not worry about about most expansion harasses.

[El Gallo]

Id seriously pay $50 a month to play this game on servers with no terrans.  Even when I beat the tank/thor faceroll, the game is just miserably, miserably unfun.  I'd rather get 4 gated every game for the rest of my life than ever see a thor again.

[Strazos]

Can't you just roll them with Immortals and such?

[El Gallo]

Zerg get no immortals.  I basically gotta crush their economy before they make them or hope they are too retarded to push before I have a jillion ultras.  I'm only in gold, so some terrans do that.

[Muffled]

I haven't been playing as much lately, and even less as Zerg, but I would have thought massing mutalisks into a death ball would deal with thor/tank.  Add zerglings and a million hatcheries and queens with all the extra minerals.  Thors are slow as shit, and lose badly versus mass muta in a pitched battle (in my experience) without substantial marine support.  If that doesn't work for whatever reason, I would think roaches would deal pretty adequately with it when combined with drops, burrowed movement, or clever attack timing to avoid running through two volleys of tank fire before they get within spitting range.

[sinij]

Mutas generally not a good idea against Thors due to splash. You can move-hold position-move against it to some degree, but it is better not to be in that situation.

[Muffled]

I was taking hold position micro against thors as a given there.  I'm not sure how an equal cost army of thors would do against mutas, but you'll never see an equal cost army of thors if you're dedicated to building a ton of mutas.  Or, if you do, just pump one round of zerglings, a-move, win because the terran has zero tanks.

[Malakili]

I have the hardest time managing my emotions in this game sometimes.   I think the nature of the victory condition, which is that you generally tap out, leads you to think you have a chance to win right up until that moment when you don't, and that sharp break emotionally is just a RAGE factory for me.  When I played sports you generally lost games with a few minutes left and you could mull it over on the bench and sort of come to terms with it, in SC2, it just makes me want to lash out.

EDIT: Yes, I'm posting this because I just lost to a Banshee/marine all in and I nearly snapped my keyboard over my knee.

[Ironwood]

For about 31 pages, you've worried the fuck out of me.

Get outside and play football.

[Malakili]

For about 31 pages, you've worried the fuck out of me.

Get outside and play football.

*shrugs*  I do work out regularly, though I don't play any competitive sports etc.  I made a thread over at team liquid that is about roughly the same thing and it seems like a lot of people have similar problems when playing Starcraft, at least out of the people that browse Team Liquid.  In any event, pretty productive thread, lots of people posting suggestions that helped them stay cool while playing, so going to try some of that out.

[El Gallo]

I was taking hold position micro against thors as a given there.  I'm not sure how an equal cost army of thors would do against mutas, but you'll never see an equal cost army of thors if you're dedicated to building a ton of mutas.  Or, if you do, just pump one round of zerglings, a-move, win because the terran has zero tanks.

From what I've read, magic boxing doesn't make mutas cost-effective vs thors, they just make it so thors don't instantly evaporate every muta on the screen.  Add even a few marines into the terranball, and I don't think you can come out ahead when facing it with mutas.

edit: removed some QQ

[Malakili]

This weekend was total clownshoes, I apparently forgot how to play.  27 games played, 22 games lost. 0_0.  I got to ~1350 diamond and have been in a free fall since.   Not like I got there cheesing either, I play standard every single game.

[DLRiley]

As a Zerg how I am supposed to handle 4-6 Thors with Marines/Mauraders?

zerg, baling, muta, maybe a sprinkle of hydra. Zerg + baling surround them first than finish off the maruda/thors(should be 2-3) with a muta's plus fresh batch of zerglings(doesn't have to be a lot). Level carapace and have at least +1 weapons. no tanks mean that the terran has no aoe to mass wipe the zerglings. pure speedlings are good against wondering balls of marines + maruaders on creep for this reason as well. If he got more tanks just overlord drop balings.

[Register]

Don't see any mention of the GSL tournament here, but the winner Fruitdealer aka Cool played zerg and crushed terans all the way - he counters Thors marine/marauders with zerglins, banelings, infestors and sometimes ultras. In a tournament where zerg players like Irda and Checkprime gets ousted early, he played amazingly and was unstoppable in his march to the top.

The GSL vods can be accessed through the GOM TV website... first match is free to watch with a free account signup.... though season tickets are needed to watch the subsequent matches. I would recommend game 1 of the semi finals vs Liveforever - that was one awesome match. His earlier rounds vs oGsTop showcased him winning against massed thors. His destruction of terran armies with zergling / infestors / roaches with baneling bombing dropped by accompanying overlords is a sight to behold.

[bhodi]

If you look back a few pages, we were talking about it when it happened. I posted the youtube vids, though they have probably been pulled now.

Edit: page 27, 28 - vids have been pulled unfortunately.

[Register]

If you look back a few pages, we were talking about it when it happened. I posted the youtube vids, though they have probably been pulled now.

Edit: page 27, 28 - vids have been pulled unfortunately.

Ack. Missed those as I did not read through the entire thread.

Anyway as I mentioned, the first matches are available for free on Gom Tv net, and that includes the GSL season 2 matches - where you see Starcraft 1 legends like Boxer and Nada in action playing SC2.

Speaking of Boxer, he played a exhibition match with Fruitdealer at Blizcon. Only replay I was able to get on you tube was really crappy - still trying to find some vods that wasn't horribly distorted.

(Edit)Link to the VODs from Gosu gamers : http://www.gosugamers.net/starcraft2/news/13396-blizzcon-vod-the-emperor-vs-fruitdealer

Game one quality is bad, two is pretty good. And both were epic games - especially game 2.

[Muffled]

I believe the horrid VOD quality is due to the stream crapping out partially at that time, so unless Blizzard's recording is better we're stuck with that (or hopefully the replays).

[slog]

So I'm #4 in my Silver league, and I've been getting nothing but Gold opponents.  It amazes me how bad some of these people in Gold are.  After I stop their initial attack they just don't know what to do.

[Ironwood]

Both of those games are available to download because I have 'em.

Good games.