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StarCraft 2 Beta |OT| (Beta Now Reopen, GL HF)

Trasher

Member
fanboi said:
Still... when is this turney going to happened? I'm in EU... Sweden.
Don't know yet. Need to compile a list of people first. It could very well take place over the course of a week so that people can find a good time when they can meet up and play their match.
 

Scrow

Still Tagged Accordingly
so i tried scv rushing as was mentioned a page back... epic fail!

either it's not a viable tactic OR i don't have the skill for it.

my bet is on the latter.
 

Cheeto

Member
Scrow said:
so i tried scv rushing as was mentioned a page back... epic fail!

either it's not a viable tactic OR i don't have the skill for it.

my bet is on the latter.
There is a cool VOD on Team Liquid that I can't get to right now from work where someone pretty much tramples the other player with a single Thor with scvs repairing, coming from a building placed at the opponent's natural. It's a really entertaining video... the title of the thread is something like "blah vs blah... I can't believe this worked"
 

Mengy

wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
Man, not having a beta key sucks, this sounds like so much fun. At least I can watch the replays of you guys having so much fun. :D

I wish this game would just launch already!!!! It looks so finished and polished! DAMNIT!!!!!
 
maniac-kun said:
yay i got a key :D downloading now :D
Hey congrats!
You guys should def post replays n stuff of your tourney, I'd probably watch that :)

Last night I learned that archons don't do splash damage anymore :eek: my mind was blown.
 

Tworak

Member
ToddG15 said:
Do you have to download something separately to get the updated AI or does it auto update?
it does not auto-update. just so you know, the AI mentioned is not an official Blizzard AI.

I'd link you but that might be grounds for ban so... I won't. :>
google!
 

Scrow

Still Tagged Accordingly
something that just occurred to me... people complain about proxies and nydus worm, but as terran there's really no excuse for letting something like that slip under your nose. plonk down one sensor tower (that you can get very early) and you should be aware of any proxies or nydus drops. the sensor tower will show up the pylon or the unit that needs to sight the location for the nydus worm.

zerg should have overlords spread around the perimeter of their base(s) and so getting the drop on them shouldn't be so easy either.

which just leaves protoss, which imo is the weakest against warp and nydus drops behind their defensive line. they don't really have anything that can reliably scout in the general vicinity of their base. observer is good, but you're probably not going to have enough of those spread around your base to watch for drops. they're usually off at expansions and the opponents main to see what's going on.

maybe i'm being "master of the obvious" here, but do you agree/disagree?
 

aznpxdd

Member
Scrow said:
something that just occurred to me... people complain about proxies and nydus worm, but as terran there's really no excuse for letting something like that slip under your nose. plonk down one sensor tower (that you can get very early) and you should be aware of any proxies or nydus drops. the sensor tower will show up the pylon or the unit that needs to sight the location for the nydus worm.

zerg should have overlords spread around the perimeter of their base(s) and so getting the drop on them shouldn't be so easy either.

which just leaves protoss, which imo is the weakest against warp and nydus drops behind their defensive line. they don't really have anything that can reliably scout in the general vicinity of their base. observer is good, but you're probably not going to have enough of those spread around your base to watch for drops. they're usually off at expansions and the opponents main to see what's going on.

maybe i'm being "master of the obvious" here, but do you agree/disagree?

Not the type of proxy me and Pez were complaining about.

The kind of proxy we were talking about is within first 1-2 minutes of the match...where both opponents build barracks/gateway outside your base.
 

ToddG15

Member
Tworak said:
it does not auto-update. just so you know, the AI mentioned is not an official Blizzard AI.

I'd link you but that might be grounds for ban so... I won't. :>
google!
Ah... Thanks a bunch! I'll check once I'm off work.
 

emerge

Member
Scrow said:
something that just occurred to me... people complain about proxies and nydus worm, but as terran there's really no excuse for letting something like that slip under your nose. plonk down one sensor tower (that you can get very early) and you should be aware of any proxies or nydus drops. the sensor tower will show up the pylon or the unit that needs to sight the location for the nydus worm.

zerg should have overlords spread around the perimeter of their base(s) and so getting the drop on them shouldn't be so easy either.

which just leaves protoss, which imo is the weakest against warp and nydus drops behind their defensive line. they don't really have anything that can reliably scout in the general vicinity of their base. observer is good, but you're probably not going to have enough of those spread around your base to watch for drops. they're usually off at expansions and the opponents main to see what's going on.

maybe i'm being "master of the obvious" here, but do you agree/disagree?

Not in the beta (arr!), but you could always plaster pylons around the perimeter of the base. Also Photon cannons still seem to be the strongest of the stationary defense buildings and a couple of them in the worker line should defer most drop attempts. Last but not least, from the vods i've seen, there does not seem to be nearly as much dropping action going on as was common in SC1. Maybe that's because e.g. Banshees are better at fucking up a worker line than any drop could for terran or it's just that disturbing your opponents macro is not worth it as much as it was in SC1 due to resources galore and relative ease of expanding?

Need to play to get a better understanding.
 
Banshee harass! That's a great idea. I'm going to try building a couple starports in my opponent's natural expansion as early as possible, maybe even researching cloak...I guess this would be defined as "cheese."
 

Scrow

Still Tagged Accordingly
The Lamonster said:
Banshee harass! That's a great idea. I'm going to try building a couple starports in my opponent's natural expansion as early as possible
how would you get away with that? i don't know how you could defend your buildings at your opponent's expansion.
 

Cheeto

Member
The Lamonster said:
Banshee harass! That's a great idea. I'm going to try building a couple starports in my opponent's natural expansion as early as possible, maybe even researching cloak...I guess this would be defined as "cheese."
Why build them there? I'm sure they'd get taken out there... getting banshees early sounds like a good strat but considering how fast they are and how they don't need to worry about terrain obstacles, should be fine building the ports somewhere more safe.
 
Scrow said:
how would you get away with that? i don't know how you could defend your buildings at your opponent's expansion.
That's why I called it cheese, because if it fails, I'm done for.

Cheeto said:
Why build them there? I'm sure they'd get taken out there... getting banshees early sounds like a good strat but considering how fast they are and how they don't need to worry about terrain obstacles, should be fine building the ports somewhere more safe.
Good call. This is why I suck.
 

hobart

Member
I'm always down for friendly tournies! Count me in for 1v1. I'm assuming we're doing this over the course of a week....... and not an impromptu MIND BLOWN chat session rush fest?!

Had fun last night. If anything... good to get together with 16 other SC2 Beta testers ;)
 

Procarbine

Forever Platinum
I'm in for the 1v1 as well, despite the two losses last night still had fun. I should've gone muta instead of hydra in game two, oh well.
 
aznpxdd said:
Not the type of proxy me and Pez were complaining about.

The kind of proxy we were talking about is within first 1-2 minutes of the match...where both opponents build barracks/gateway outside your base.
Yea taking making 1 scv.. then taking that one and moving to your base and building proxy gateway and barracks is what we have been seeing a lot.

It's hard to spot because usually you will send your scout out and then get to their base and notice no buildings..

Then you have to instantly change your plans but you are already making a spawning pool or barracks later then them and they are hiding it behind some tall grass or your natural minerals or something next to your base and probably already have 3-4 marines by the time your rax is done and if their partner is doing it with them then its 3-4 marines + 2 zealots and your scvs then can't defend agst so many. =[
 
The Lamonster said:
That's why I called it cheese, because if it fails, I'm done for.


Good call. This is why I suck.
Well it's not like its totally unheard of. Some dozen or so pages ago there was the replay with thr pvp game and the guy made a stargate way out of his base, so when his opponants probe scouted him he wouldn't see the stargates at all and not realise the air units were coming. He eventually won but a lot of it also had to do with the relatively rookie mistakes the other guy made, like scouting and realizing he opponant was behind in buildings, in units, not pushing when he finally realized something was wrong, not simply solidyfing his defenses. Thing is in the lower leagues you could very well get away with it, just not necessarily in his nat expo, which is something he's probably gonna be looking at eventually.
 

DemiMatt

Member
I was playing a 2v2 last night (not in the tourney guys since carbine didnt wanna be my partner!)

And they did proxy gateways and barracks to try to take 1 half of the map.

Luckily I scouted and when they attacked they went all in to my base (terran) and I had it blocked off with tanks, hahaha.

Proxy stuff is fun but ive been seeing it alot more lately.
 

satori

Member
Yeah I been running into way to many proxy/cheese games. In one v one I can deal with, especially if I am terrans (I been playing random). But in 2v2 its always been a quick GG for us. I remember a few games when my random partners would ask us to do a cheese tactic, and I refuse to ever do something like that. It sucks because proxy rush is defensible, but if you are facing opponent who plays normally, you would be so far behind in tech ><. The only way I could ever fight off proxy rush as toss is by building quick forge/sentry even then, its really close.
 

Cheeto

Member
I did a 1v1 last night and I missed the protoss opponent sneaking a probe into the corner of my base... before I knew it, my base was overrun with photon cannons and I couldn't do anything about it.
 

ZealousD

Makes world leading predictions like "The sun will rise tomorrow"
1v1 List so far:

ZealousD (Zealous.demon)
Milabrega (Milabrega.mila)
Trasher (trasher.trasher)
Pandaman (Panda.craft)
FromTheFuture (Alumus.mosaic)
-COOLIO- (COOLIO.nick)
Wedge7 (wedge.ncn)
TurtleSnatcher (pezradar.pezradar)
Zzoram (zzoram.zzoram)
MisterAnderson (VertigoII.vince)
Cheeto (Cheeto.Cheetobandit)
Terproerg (Terproerg.terproerg)
AbortedWalrusFetus (WalrusFetus.aborted)
Procarbine (procarbine.red)
 

hobart

Member
ZealousD said:
1v1 List so far:

ZealousD (Zealous.demon)
Milabrega (Milabrega.mila)
Trasher (trasher.trasher)
Pandaman (Panda.craft)
FromTheFuture (Alumus.mosaic)
-COOLIO- (COOLIO.nick)
Wedge7 (wedge.ncn)
TurtleSnatcher (pezradar.pezradar)
Zzoram (zzoram.zzoram)
MisterAnderson (VertigoII.vince)
Cheeto (Cheeto.Cheetobandit)
Terproerg (Terproerg.terproerg)
AbortedWalrusFetus (WalrusFetus.aborted)
Procarbine (procarbine.red)

And me (hobart.hobartaj) :)

I've been cheesing a lot, myself. I started to do it because I got cheesed twice in a row and figured... if you can't beat em, join em. Also, from a learning standpoint, being someone who is relearning this game and everything you need to do... it forced me to act quickly going from base to base. I still don't do it properly. But now I feel entirely more active once I do it and I feel that I'm getting better... from a unit creation, building structures standpoint. Dunno. I just feel like as of right now it's helping.

Besides.. the opening is easy. If I get the probe thru and no one chases... all I need to do is make a pylon and wait. Someone scouts... I cancel... continue scouting. Rinse, repeat.

Honestly. Coming from a noob... I think it's really all about the fact that I've chosen ONE strat and stuck to it. It's allowed me to get more comfortable with my race, the maps, and what I'll be seeing from other races. It's a game altering strategy... I get that... but, just personally, I feel me understanding the game a whole lot more because of it.
 

satori

Member
Anyone here play zergs? For the past few games when I am giving control of zergs, I actually been going straight for speedlings. This works really well vs other Zergs who are either massing roaches/teching. I am not sure if it is the quality of my opponents or if this strat is valid. Each time I really wreck some havoc on his econ line, or if he does a FE, its pretty much game since after losing that he is way down on his econ vs mine. It really helps me transition into other units as well since I have a pretty high stockpile of gas to play around with.

My favorite race so far is Terran (they really need to increase range of siege tanks), follow by zergs. I just cant seem to get toss right for some reason. I lose a lot more than win with toss. After watching some of my replay, it seems that I am fast teching way to soon as toss. I rush immortals/collusi and get caught with my pants down way too much haha. I cant help it they are so cool looking!

edit: Hey hobart, I made that mistake in SC1 actually. Sticking to one strat and one race is definitely easier. But since this is beta, we have such a wonderful opportunity to try so many different strat and race. To me personally not only does it help me enjoy the game more, but also, really teaches you on how to counter the other race/strat with my favorite race. If you do a cheese tactic, one of 2 things will happen most of the time. You either win the game fast, or if the opponent defends that, you will lose the game relatively fast. You wont get to experience the mid/late game micro and macro of the different units you and your opponent would have. Again this is all coming from someone who never seen you play and it is only base off my personal experience but to each his own.
 

zoukka

Member
Jesus Christ I suck against Terran. I seem to win most of my matches against toss and zerg (I play zerg), but the fucking MMM ball and Vikings just wreck anything I have. Roaches melt against medivacs if I don't have AA support, Lings work in the beginning, but when the ball just gets huge there's no penetrating that... and banelings are so fucking risky.

I never tech to mutas because the marine ball is often enough to counter it and Terrans usually tech to vikings when against zerg just to harass overlords... and then you have the fucking tanks and those will be the end of me without mutas that I really don't want to make against the marine ball :( And scouting is so hard against good terrans.

Fucking imba race that's all :b

EDIT: I don't even remember when I've lost against zerg mirror btw. Fast mutas wins every single time. Even mass producing hydras won't save you because lings will tear them apart and usually mutas have already hurt your economy and expo. Zergs ALWAYS just walk to my base with roaches/lings... I either have spine crawlers (if I've scouted and seen mass ground) and naturally the returning mutas and ones being spawned.
 

Cheeto

Member
zoukka said:
Jesus Christ I suck against Terran. I seem to win most of my matches against toss and zerg (I play zerg), but the fucking MMM ball and Vikings just wreck anything I have. Roaches melt against medivacs if I don't have AA support, Lings work in the beginning, but when the ball just gets huge there's no penetrating that... and banelings are so fucking risky.

I never tech to mutas because the marine ball is often enough to counter it and Terrans usually tech to vikings when against zerg just to harass overlords... and then you have the fucking tanks and those will be the end of me without mutas that I really don't want to make against the marine ball :( And scouting is so hard against good terrans.

Fucking imba race that's all :b
Have you tried building land mines with burrowed banelings? I've seen that completely destroy massive MMM balls
 

Meeru

Banned
zoukka said:
Jesus Christ I suck against Terran. I seem to win most of my matches against toss and zerg (I play zerg), but the fucking MMM ball and Vikings just wreck anything I have. Roaches melt against medivacs if I don't have AA support, Lings work in the beginning, but when the ball just gets huge there's no penetrating that... and banelings are so fucking risky.

I never tech to mutas because the marine ball is often enough to counter it and Terrans usually tech to vikings when against zerg just to harass overlords... and then you have the fucking tanks and those will be the end of me without mutas that I really don't want to make against the marine ball :( And scouting is so hard against good terrans.

Fucking imba race that's all :b
Nope, you're just not macroing good enough. Zerg is all about expanding, and you're not doing it well. Not being aggressive enough either. SC2 is all about thinking outside the box, both literally and psychologically. Literally as in, getting out of that turtled base of yours and attack.
 

hobart

Member
Satori:

Agreed completely. I'm not terribly proud of it... and I know what I'm missing... but I was just so fucked up in my first couple of games... I needed SOME stability in order to learn hotkeys and the like. I actually went thru all the races for a number of games and I came to realization that, at least for me, I needed ONE race to work on in order to get the basics down.

It's not unlike how I learned DOTA and HoN awhile back. I needed to find a way to slow the game down for myself. Using the same character with the same build helped me do that.

Bottom line is... to each his own. We all come from different RTS backgrounds and gaming backgrounds. I'm actually happy I'm in such a low Tier right now because I do feel like I'm playing against people close to my current skill level. I've been watching some Platinum streams of some Protoss players... just to see what "real" builds look like. I'll be attempting them shortly. When I'm ready ;)
 

zoukka

Member
valenti said:
Nope, you're just not macroing good enough. Zerg is all about expanding, and you're not doing it well. Not being aggressive enough either. SC2 is all about thinking outside the box, both literally and psychologically. Literally as in, getting out of that turtled base of yours and attack.

I always fast expand against terran. It's just that my scouting sucks against them because I'm afraid of using overlords and terrans block their bases. But you are correct about my macro, it's pretty bad. But I manage against the other two races... it just seems that Zerg is really the paper against Terran the scissors.

And a few remaining marauders can tear through buildings when the clashes end.


Oh and some cheese tactics against Terrans are more than welcome... I probably should play around with infestors more.
 
So, I thought I'd post some of my thoughts on SC2 now that I feel comfortable with it.

Overall, I think SC2 is a huge step in the right direction. One of my biggest gripes about SC was that it relied so much on twitch. It did this to the extent that the professional carriers of the top players barely lasted outside of their teens, in large part to slowing down as they got older. You can do in 70 APM what used to take 200APM. What I think this is going to do is broaden the field of professional (and casual) play greatly, and increase the lifespan of the players. It takes a lot of the focus of play off the meaningless side of macro and focuses it onto the meaningful side of macro, the actual strategy and planning. SC is the sort of game that you should not get worse at as you age. You should get better as you understand the game more and more.

I'm also going to have to call out the people who say that SC2 is nothing more than SC HD. It's not. In some says the races don't even play similarly. The largest change seems to be with Terrans. If you sit down the the beta for a week and then compare the two games you'll realize how different they are. The new racial mechanics are awesome and really change the flow of the game as well.

The graphics on the game are terrific, and a lot of the other little touches are even better. The fact that replays are automatically saved is great. The built in voice chat is great. The novice mode maps are neat. There's a lot of nice polish that really increases the experience.

When I played Brood War I never once felt like I even had a chance at being competitive. The time you had to invest to getting macro down was a ridiculously high bar to entering the game. With SC2 I can see myself improving greatly even over a short period of time. It's not to say it makes the game "easier". I still lose to good players. I still lose to cheese even. But I also always feel like I had a fighting chance too.

So basically, 10/10. GG Bliz.
 

Minsc

Gold Member
valenti said:
Nope, you're just not macroing good enough. Zerg is all about expanding, and you're not doing it well. Not being aggressive enough either. SC2 is all about thinking outside the box, both literally and psychologically. Literally as in, getting out of that turtled base of yours and attack.

Yea, watching some of these videos online the best defense really is a strong offense.

I've noticed quite a few matches where a huge army was going towards the other base, and they countered by simply sending their units right in to their opponents base (rather than take on the army directly). Every time it was enough to make the advancing army stop and turn around to defend.

The SVC rush from before against protess, has anyone had that used against them? Looked pretty effective.
 
zoukka said:
I always fast expand against terran. It's just that my scouting sucks against them because I'm afraid of using overlords and terrans block their bases. But you are correct about my macro, it's pretty bad. But I manage against the other two races... it just seems that Zerg is really the paper against Terran the scissors.

And a few remaining marauders can tear through buildings when the clashes end.


Oh and some cheese tactics against Terrans are more than welcome... I probably should play around with infestors more.

Yeah, you need some banelings against terrans. They will completely murder any bio units if used correctly. Nydus worms against unsuspecting terrans can be devastating as well
 

ZealousD

Makes world leading predictions like "The sun will rise tomorrow"
zoukka said:
Jesus Christ I suck against Terran. I seem to win most of my matches against toss and zerg (I play zerg), but the fucking MMM ball and Vikings just wreck anything I have. Roaches melt against medivacs if I don't have AA support, Lings work in the beginning, but when the ball just gets huge there's no penetrating that... and banelings are so fucking risky.

I never tech to mutas because the marine ball is often enough to counter it and Terrans usually tech to vikings when against zerg just to harass overlords... and then you have the fucking tanks and those will be the end of me without mutas that I really don't want to make against the marine ball :( And scouting is so hard against good terrans.

Hydras
Infestors
 
Banelngs Zoukka - Not sure how they are risky.. They are cheap and you only need a few.

Heck if only 4 of those hit.. you can kill 25-30+ marines.. leaving just Mauraders.. for either Zlings to rape or a massive amount of roaches. They are also amazing at breaking walls.

If you need AA for Vikings then just make an Evo chamber and crowd your OL's around a few spore walkers/queen.. Or you can just do the easy mode way and tech to Hydras.. Having like 4-5 hydras is enough to push back a group of 8 vikings easily.

If they land.. then just run up with zlings and rape.

Evo chamber is like 75 minerals? Spore walkers are 100 each.. same cost of a hydra.. less than a queen and cost of 2 zlings.. (Oh and I guess a drone.. but meh)
 
TurtleSnatcher said:
Banelngs Zoukka - Not sure how they are risky.. They are cheap and you only need a few.

Heck if only 4 of those hit.. you can kill 25-30+ marines.. leaving just Mauraders.. for either Zlings to rape or a massive amount of roaches. They are also amazing at breaking walls.

If you need AA for Vikings then just make an Evo chamber and crowd your OL's around a few spore walkers/queen.. Or you can just do the easy mode way and tech to Hydras.. Having like 4-5 hydras is enough to push back a group of 8 vikings easily.

If they land.. then just run up with zlings and rape.

Evo chamber is like 75 minerals? Spore walkers are 100 each.. same cost of a hydra.. less than a queen and cost of 2 zlings.. (Oh and I guess a drone.. but meh)
I have learned to never land my vikings unless they are taking out buildings.

They are so damn weak :lol
 

Hugbot

Member
Does anyone have tips/youtubes for a very, very green Zerg player? Like, "I haven't played SC1 in five years, and was never good at it in the first place" level of green? I've looked through the thread some, and have watched a handful of replays, but it's really hard finding a starting place. I am reading some really helpful advice here and there, but it's kind of overwhelming when everyone has ten years of history with the game and I'm basically tossing around a beach ball.


If it matters at all, I'll be mostly playing 2v2 with a Terran player.
 

fatty

Member
Finally played my placement matches and finished 4-6 and was place in Copper. Woo hoo! I'm guessing that is the lowest tier unless there is a Plastic group that I was unaware of.

I've probably played 5 matches as Protoss, 2 as Terran and 3 as Zerg with most of my success coming as playing Protoss, my main SC1 race.

But later I just started playing Random, as I want to take this opportunity to learn the different races and just have fun instead of trying to "perfect" one race. Sometimes I'll get cheesed or just simply overwhelmed by someone a lot better but I don't care, I'm having fun just playing the game. I'm not too concerned with record or trying to get a quick victory if I see the opportunity as I want to get to mid-game and see some of the other units. Still haven't even made a baneling and I'm still trying to see the differences between roaches and zerglings.

Oh, and my username is Robert.fatty so I guess the updated 1v1 list is:

ZealousD (Zealous.demon)
Milabrega (Milabrega.mila)
Trasher (trasher.trasher)
Pandaman (Panda.craft)
FromTheFuture (Alumus.mosaic)
-COOLIO- (COOLIO.nick)
Wedge7 (wedge.ncn)
TurtleSnatcher (pezradar.pezradar)
Zzoram (zzoram.zzoram)
MisterAnderson (VertigoII.vince)
Cheeto (Cheeto.Cheetobandit)
Terproerg (Terproerg.terproerg)
AbortedWalrusFetus (WalrusFetus.aborted)
Procarbine (procarbine.red)
hobart (hobart.hobartaj)
fatty (Robert.fatty)
 
Hugbot said:
Does anyone have tips/youtubes for a very, very green Zerg player? Like, "I haven't played SC1 in five years, and was never good at it in the first place" level of green? I've looked through the thread some, and have watched a handful of replays, but it's really hard finding a starting place. I am reading some really helpful advice here and there, but it's kind of overwhelming when everyone has ten years of history with the game and I'm basically tossing around a beach ball.


If it matters at all, I'll be mostly playing 2v2 with a Terran player.
Even watching experts and their build orders should help

HDStarcraft I believe is a big Zerg fan.. He has some decent videos on YT.
 
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