StarCraft 2 - Season 7 is live. Someday I'll ladder, honest

[Casio]

So following something Cody said to me, I've started doing a 2-Rax Techlab/Reactor expand in TvP and TvT and I'm probably 90% win with it in the last week, particularly against Protoss. I'll post some replays later. I'm basically the best player in SEA at the moment.

 

[Gazumagi]

Sometimes I think the Mutalisk was added just to troll non-zergs. I finally can deny mutas as Terran, then I play as Protoss, then I get my butt kicked by mass muta. So I made a lot of blink stalkers and cannons. Fat lot of good that did. zerg busted down the pylons that powered the cannon, and still had enough mutas to take on 25 stalkers. All the while, I'm teching to High Templar w/ Storm, and just before storm completes, he takes out my HT's. (actually, I give him points for that). Eventually, I have enough stalkers to thin the heard, but lo and behold, 50 Banelings roll in and gut my entire base. How the hell is Protoss meant to counter mass muta, and expand beyond 2 bases?

[/rage]

Basically what Azuremen said. The few times that i've played in the last few weeks i've made it a habit to Forge expand in PvZ and follow up with a fast 3rd (around 8 minutes) because so many zergs build mutas and they aren't super-aggro (at least in plat) with their lings. By the time they start muta harssing me, i usually just have ~10 gateways and am chronoing +2 armor or +2 weapons out. Zealot charge already researched and just spam chargelots at the zerg-mutas take forever to kill them, lings basically get slaughtered, and with 10 gateways and a possible 6 geysers you can warp in whatever you need after the first wave of attack ^^

 

[reflective]

All that talk makes me want to play starcraft 2 again. I'll wait till season 5 starts.

 

[Azuremen]

All that talk makes me want to play starcraft 2 again. I'll wait till season 5 starts.

That was a couple of weeks ago, just so you know.

 

[FrontalSystem]

So following something Cody said to me, I've started doing a 2-Rax Techlab/Reactor expand in TvP and TvT and I'm probably 90% win with it in the last week, particularly against Protoss. I'll post some replays later. I'm basically the best player in SEA at the moment.

Whats your 1v1 ranking?

 

[Blackbird.]

So following something Cody said to me, I've started doing a 2-Rax Techlab/Reactor expand in TvP and TvT and I'm probably 90% win with it in the last week, particularly against Protoss. I'll post some replays later. I'm basically the best player in SEA at the moment.

Hmm this is relevant to my interests...

 

[Casio]

Hmm this is relevant to my interests...

Well, I may not have replays as my SSD just died...But basically I go standard 12 rax / 13 gas / 15 OC. Get a marine out and build a techlab. By the time you've built your depot after rax you should have almost exactly 150 mins for another Rax.

Once the techlab is up I build maurader and keep building mauraders out of it. Once the first maurader has started you can start stim very soon after. Put a reactor on second rax straight away. Keep constant SCV/Depot Construction etc, and build a CC when you get 400 mins. While this is happening you can move out with about 5-6 maruaders and some marines just as stim is finishing and poke the ramp. Sometimes can just win outright there if they are going for DTs or any tech cheese, even if a Terran is going for seige tanks they never have more than 1 and you have a lot more bio army. Snipe the Tank and win.

Though if they have too much just pull back, float your OC down. After you get you second OC up, then put down 2 more rax and a factory. Second gas when factory starts to build. Then if they P I swap a reactor rax for reactor starport to get my MMM ball up. If T I swap factory on Rax tech lab to get seige. If they are still on one base you've basically won already. Just put down a couple of bunkers at natural if they have a big one base gateway ball.

Only other thing I take note of is the gas timing with your scouting worker, if they have 2 gas quite early then I get enginnering bay early so can be ready for cloak banshee/DT. If one or no gas than generally the 6:30 scan will give you enough time to prepare for either.

--

I'm try something similar vs zerg but it's a bit harder to execute. Same 2-rax timings but with 2 reactors. Then give the reactor to a factory for helions and then expand. Build techlab with rax. Then depending on what they are doing, get stim or seige tanks.

 

[Owen.C93]

So following something Cody said to me, I've started doing a 2-Rax Techlab/Reactor expand in TvP and TvT and I'm probably 90% win with it in the last week, particularly against Protoss. I'll post some replays later. I'm basically the best player in SEA at the moment.

I saw Demuslim do that in TvP a few times on ladder the other day, it's a pretty strong opening.

 

[Azuremen]

Except Casio is doing it wrong. At least the one I told him; there are a few variants of the 2 rax opening. The one I fear more is the reactor first opening, as it gives a very high count of Marines with just enough Marauders to slow Zealots and prevent effective Stalker kiting.

Here is a break down of the build. It excels at shutting down 1 Gate expand builds, but is effective against other openings. If a 4 gate is scouted, you should consider doing something else, or just drop 2 bunkers while expanding if you are nervous.

 

[Gazumagi]

tbh, i started watching SC:BW and it totally killed my sc2 appetite T_T;
fffff

 

[Azuremen]

tbh, i started watching SC:BW and it totally killed my sc2 appetite T_T;
fffff

Now try playing it

BW is so much more mechanical it is kind of scary. D on ICCUP is about on par with Diamond/Masters in SC2, while A is more or less professional level play. Sometimes, I play it on my netbook just to remind myself how much harder BW was in terms of mechanics and unit AI (Dragoons!) but I have to say I honestly enjoy SC2 more, I think partially because it is young and so it is developing faster. All the builds in BW are very, very well defined at this point I'd say, and it is slowly losing steam.

 

[Blackbird.]

I tried it real quick against a computer just to see it. I definitely need practice with it. I was able to shut out the protoss player. I felt greedy and put down bunkers near the ramp too. It's natural to have a high mineral count when the 5 units come out right? I just took that as a sign that's the time to drop a CC. Is this viable in 2v2?

 

[Casio]

I tried it real quick against a computer just to see it. I definitely need practice with it. I was able to shut out the protoss player. I felt greedy and put down bunkers near the ramp too. It's natural to have a high mineral count when the 5 units come out right? I just took that as a sign that's the time to drop a CC. Is this viable in 2v2?

Yes, I do it in 2v2 as well. As long as your partner isn't doing like Nexus first or something (Which is super risky in 2v2 anyway...), you'll have enough units to counter almost any rush. My partner does 3 gate robo almost every game and we're pretty safe against almost anything. If you're on one of those maps with the in base natural it's even easier.

I tried the Reactor first a couple of times and I personally don't like it as much. Though if Cody says it's better it probably is.

 

[granturismite]

Played a very funny game last night on Shakuras Plateau. As Protoss, I have already expressed my difficulty/displeasure with mass Mutas, so inevitably, I am playing against a guy who goes mass muta. Taking advice from here, I had blink nearly done, and layed down the templar archives, and a number of cannons (bad macro left me with a surplus of minerals). After holding off for a while, I moved out with stalkers, zealots, collosii, and a few archons and storms. my army was destroyed, but I also took out his third, and a large chunk of his army

By the time I had started to rebuild a significant army, he had denied my expansions over and over again. I eventually whittled down the flock to just a few, and moved out again with Charglot, stalker, archons, storm and a few dt's. Ran into ultralisks and brood lords. that really hurt. he rolled my army, and proceded to destroy my main ( I had abandoned it because I had to protect my mining bases). I had rebuilt some gateways and a few stargates.

Once he eradicated my main I had cannons, two archons, a hand full of stalkers and zealots, and 2 void rays. turns out the only anti-air he had left were some infestors which had low energy. I wound up losing the rest of my military, until 2 more voids I was making popped out. by the time that happened, he had just about killed me, I had 1 mining base and 5 gates, no cybernetics core (aka, nothing). Somehow, I held off the attack, and just ran the remains of my force into his base. Turns out the guy had not been macro-ing at all behind the attack, because he had no mining bases. So with the help of 2 void rays, a warp prism I had forgotten about, and zealots, I won.

TL;DR version. I was having my butt kicked by mutas, lost 2 armys, got steamrolled, saved by void rays and opponent not macro-ing.

 

[Azuremen]

Speaking of dealing with mutas, here is a recent replay from a rather peculiar game.

Tal'darim Altar PvZ

Unusual in that I never built a Robotics or Stargate despite it being a 25 minute game. And because the Zerg did 10 Pool after Overlord (you can see my slight adjustment in my building placement) and then went for fairly fast Mutas. Quite a bit of back and forth and certainly less of an economy game because of it.

 

[Casio]

Surely as Protoss vz Zerg you just make like 1 Archon and kill 75 Mutas with it.

 

[granturismite]

Not so. Archons do have splash damage, but are not very mobile. plus, it still takes a number of shots to kill any mutas

 

[Blackbird.]

Not so. Archons do have splash damage, but are not very mobile. plus, it still takes a number of shots to kill any mutas

Do thors do more splash versus archons?

 

[Casio]

Do thors do more splash versus archons?

Compared to Archons? If I calculated right, Archon does 20DPS vs Thors 16DPS. The Thor can shoot Mutas though without being in Mutas attack range.

 

[Azuremen]

Not so. Archons do have splash damage, but are not very mobile. plus, it still takes a number of shots to kill any mutas

Archons have a move speed of 2.81, same as Chargelots, and faster than Bio before Stim, which is 2.25. So, more mobile than one might think.

Do thors do more splash versus archons?

Yes and no. Thors do 6 (+6 light) x 4 damage, so 48 per shot to Mutas. Their splash radius is half that of an Archons, but it doesn't fall off. Archons do 25 (+10 Bio) per attack, and have double the radius of Thors, but the area full damage done is 1/4 of a Thor. However, Thors have an attack speed of 3 versus 1.7 on Archons, so Archons have a higher DPS against single or very tightly bunched targets.

Though they are very different in practice because Thors are range 10 against Air, while Archons are range 3. So solid control can keep Mutas away from Archons much more effectively than against Thors.

Archons become much more scary at +3 attack against Zerg, as they are then hitting at 47 damage per attack versus 35.

And if anyone is curious about splash damage areas...

 

[Blackbird.]

God the banelings' splash makes me cringe.

 

[Azuremen]

God the banelings' splash makes me cringe.

Yes, the scary, slow moving, melee unit. That dies. Considering less than half that AoE almost ever applies (unless dropped) it isn't really that scary.

 

[Blackbird.]

Yes, the scary, slow moving, melee unit. That dies. Considering less than half that AoE almost ever applies (unless dropped) it isn't really that scary.

Catching a mmm Bio ball out of position is at least a little scary.

 

[Azuremen]

Catching a mmm Bio ball out of position is at least a little scary.

Why on earth would you have MMM against Blings and lings? Makes zero sense. Mass Marine and Tanks with Medivav and Viking support is how you play that match up. Unless you have wicked sick control.

 

[Blackbird.]

Why on earth would you have MMM against Blings and lings? Makes zero sense. Mass Marine and Tanks with Medivav and Viking support is how you play that match up. Unless you have wicked sick control.

Just saying in that scenario.

Plus I have been in that situation before when I first began. I've only been scouting recently.

 

[Gazumagi]

5-1 so far this weekend, starting to get back into the swing of things after the Christmas Crush when i started losing to golds after hitting diamonds ;;

Only loss was a TvZ on Tal'Darim (wtb takeable fourth).

Most recent win was a TvZ on entombed. Started with a pretty strong marine-hellion-banshee attack that killed like 15 drones, and then we both backed off for a while (i went up to 3 bases while he went up to 4). Got some nuke harass in, killing 10 overlords and a bunch of drones at his fourth with two different nukes and spotted his attempted fifth. My army was marine-hellion-ghost with a few medivacs and he build roach-ling-muta with a few blings in response. He tried to be aggressive as he hit 180 food-i was at 175 or so. He tried to break through the rocks at the nat, but that ended up killing him as the lings didn't even get to touch my army thanks to the hellions, and snipes and stimmed marines were pretty good at cleaning up his roaches. From there it was just waltz in and kill him

And a PvZ where i fake 4gate-vray allin->double expand with a cannon wall at the third. End up sweeping in with DT's to kill his 3rd and then go for an archon/chargelot/stalker killing blow-had like 10 archons at the end ^^

And i've started playing against multiple computers on BW money maps just to try and help increase macro/apm (keeping track of 11 different buildings and having to build units individually from each is difffiicccuulllllttt). And currently sitting on a 1-5 record on iccup :d

 

[granturismite]

Came home late-ish last night, and turned on the ShoutCraft invitational (totalbiscuit's tournament), and went straight into an epic match between ThorZain (T) and DarkForce (Z) on the Tal'darim Alter. The game went for 50 mins at Pro level, so you know it was good. I won't spoil it, but keep an eye out for the VOD on Youtube.

On a related matter, turns out I drifted off to sleep during the stream, and woke up at 4 in the morning to a match between ThorZain and Stephano (Z). Didn't watch it, but I thought about staying up. Then I put my pc and myself to sleep (/cool story)

 

[Casio]

Just saying in that scenario.

Plus I have been in that situation before when I first began. I've only been scouting recently.

Against Z I've started doing full mech play. Hellion, Tank, Thor. With some banshee tossed in later. Actually finding it to be a lot more fun than Marine/Tank.

I sometimes do do MMM against Zerg but you have to do a fair chunk of damage early and be really diligent on clearing creep. If you encounter banelings with speed on creep you're done for.

 

[granturismite]

^ I've been meching vs Z since I started playing SC2. Mainly because I can't properly use Marine Tank. I actually tried it the other day. Got baneling stomped. But it is fun if you can Mech push before Hive tech, because the only thing you have to worry about at low level is Brood lords, or infestor Nueral Parasite. If done well, BF Hellions clear out zerglings, tanks flatten roaches, Thors tank most of the damage and keep mutas at bay, as well as hammering away at anything that moves.

 

[Casio]

But it is fun if you can Mech push before Hive tech, because the only thing you have to worry about at low level is Brood lords, or infestor Nueral Parasite.

I actually love it when Zergs go to broodlords. I feel they aren't that great vs a Terran. By the time they've got broods you generally have enough starports/income to be making vikings 4 at a time. (Or even just make ghosts if you have lots of gas) And then you can just go around the broodlords and annilate their bases cause Broods are so slow and tie up so much supply.

I find Ultras much harder and scarier to deal with personally. Particularly if you've gone Hellion/Tank for most of the game. Them **** just don't die.