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[Holden]

ya my bad; i should stop posting articles i find since i don't play anymore;

 

[profit]

ya my bad; i should stop posting articles i find since i don't play anymore;

You dont play anymore Holden ; are you atleast thinking about returning for HoTS?

 

[ZealousD]

What race is the most effective to master for an absolute noob scrub tier like myself?

You'll probably do best if you just fiddle with the races and see what is most comfortable to you. I personally think Zerg is hardest to learn but for some people it fits their play style like a sock. Dip your toes into the training, play a little against the AI, and make a choice.

 

[DieH@rd]

100% truth.

 

[Holden]

You dont play anymore Holden ; are you atleast thinking about returning for HoTS?

nope; got other plans.

 

[calder]

Have some banked OT to burn before the end of the month, so I took Monday and Tuesday off

 

[fatty]

Corran Horn, nice job with the OT, was wondering what the subtitle was going to be.

Ok here it is, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I'm also injecting some of my comments/opinions on the units.

Zerg


Improved units/buildings


Spore Crawler: Does not require Evolution chamber

Even though I'm Zerg I never did really like this move. Sure, I like I can get detection earlier (and to deal with those horrible widow mines), but you lose the timing aspect with dealing with cloaked units. Early Banshee pushes were one example where you needed to make sure you got detection (either by evo chamber or lair prerequisite) and now that aspect is lost which is easier for me, but I think a bummer overall because that was one of the things Zerg needed to account for.

 

[Treemonkeys]

You'll probably do best if you just fiddle with the races and see what is most comfortable to you. I personally think Zerg is hardest to learn but for some people it fits their play style like a sock. Dip your toes into the training, play a little against the AI, and make a choice.

*Maybe* strategically it's the hardest to learn but as far as mechanics terran seems way more difficult with the amount of micro required and protoss next to that because of how important forcefields can be. I got to master as zerg and I really don't think that would have been possible for me with the other races. Who knows what the hots meta will bring though.

 

[cdyhybrid]

BW players will save the pro scene.

 

[ZealousD]

*Maybe* strategically it's the hardest to learn but as far as mechanics terran seems way more difficult with the amount of micro required and protoss next to that because of how important forcefields can be. I got to master as zerg and I really don't think that would have been possible for me with the other races. Who knows what the hots meta will bring though.

I think the hardest thing about Zerg is drone timings. It cannot be a challenge to know when to make units and when to make drones. Larva is like a third resource. With Protoss and Terran you just pump out workers whenever you can.

 

[Yoshichan]

BW players will save the pro scene.

They should just replace all the trash SC2 players and replace them with players that are actually good.

 

[Pancakes]

Watching IEM with HoTS units the game feels somewhat fresh again. Although it's kinda funny to see PvP is still a stupid match up.

 

[Mareg]

Aight, time to work on my macro skillz.
Heh, I can feel my fingers yelling at me already.

 

[HolyCheck]

i will retuuuuuuuuurn

 

[Yoshichan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1bHzgrzgeY

Temp0 - 3-3 Air (Lion King - "Be Prepared" SC2 Parody)

Watch this!

 

[profit]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1bHzgrzgeY

Temp0 - 3-3 Air (Lion King - "Be Prepared" SC2 Parody)

Watch this!

Tempo so great

 

[Yoshichan]

Tempo so great

Seriously! The original song is fantastic and temp0s version is great as well. The "4-4"-part makes me laugh every single time

 

[profit]

Seriously! The original song is fantastic and temp0s version is great as well. The "4-4"-part makes me laugh every single time

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkRdjfRF6r4&list=UUUYkHoRXdj8F44pVg_pnu0w
This puts such a big smile on my face everytime (like if u smiel evrytim); I love SC2 community when they're not carrying their pitchforks.

 

[xmShake]

I'm really noob @ SC. I finished WoL on casual but never bothered to jump into the multiplayer. Nevertheless this time around I would like to start messing with the online aspect of the game after I finish the campaign.

What race is the most effective to master for an absolute noob scrub tier like myself?

I hardly played any toss with WoL, but I found them cool and since I've played dota for years I found easier to micro small amounts of strong units with skills rather than large armies that requires strong focus on economy and building.

Protoss is the absolute easiest race to learn with. Their macro is incredibly forgiving with high cost units that you can warp in instantly, and their units are for the most part, extremely basic and easy to use. During a battle you basically a move your army and lay down a couple spells and go warp in some more stuff. At the higher level, Protoss is really flexible in HOTS with all their tech trees being viable, and the opportunity to play a harassment style, macro style, and even aggressive with the mothership core recall. They can also be strong at all points in the game with a lot of new strong allins available to them with their new units, and a nearly unstoppable lategame.

Zerg would be next easiest, as they also have a relatively simple time macroing. The hardest part about zerg macro would be injecting consistently and spreading creep, but they can also remake an army really fast after a battle because of stacked up larvae. Another difficult aspect would be the early game with zerg. It's really difficult for newer players to understand when to scout and how to react so that they know exactly when to stop droning so they don't die to allins, or when to keep droning when the other guy is going for a macro game. As far as micro, it's about the same as protoss. Attack with units and control casters.

I would definitely consider Terran to be the hardest race to learn and play with. They are extremely unforgiving in all aspects of their play. There is no safety net when you lose your army. If you weren't macroing during the battle (big mistake beginners make), you WILL get stomped by the much quicker reinforcements from the Protoss and Zerg. Their micro is also difficult. Frequently if you aren't paying attention at the right moment, your army will just get absolutely crushed due to the nature of a lot of the matchups being high dps weak bio vs absurd amount of splash damage. The micro itself is also challenging. Learning to split fast and efficiently, as well as kiting your entire bio force from zealots while controlling vikings and ghosts separately can be hard for a newer player. This isn't as much of an issue though if you like to play a more mech oriented style, which is much more viable now in HOTS. Probably wouldn't choose this race unless you were dedicated and loved playing it. This is the funnest and most rewarding race to me so they're my main race, but I play a fair bit of random on ladder.

 

[EscapingJail]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CH4w7UZV3NA

Just listen to that if you guys need motivation to play, lol.

 

[profit]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CH4w7UZV3NA

Just listen to that if you guys need motivation to play, lol.

Aaand I can happily go to sleep after this! Goodnight guys <3!

 

[EscapingJail]

Protoss is the absolute easiest race to learn with. Their macro is incredibly forgiving with high cost units that you can warp in instantly, and their units are for the most part, extremely basic and easy to use. During a battle you basically a move your army and lay down a couple spells and go warp in some more stuff. At the higher level, Protoss is really flexible in HOTS with all their tech trees being viable, and the opportunity to play a harassment style, macro style, and even aggressive with the mothership core recall. They can also be strong at all points in the game with a lot of new strong allins available to them with their new units, and a nearly unstoppable lategame.

Zerg would be next easiest, as they also have a relatively simple time macroing. The hardest part about zerg macro would be injecting consistently and spreading creep, but they can also remake an army really fast after a battle because of stacked up larvae. Another difficult aspect would be the early game with zerg. It's really difficult for newer players to understand when to scout and how to react so that they know exactly when to stop droning so they don't die to allins, or when to keep droning when the other guy is going for a macro game. As far as micro, it's about the same as protoss. Attack with units and control casters.

I would definitely consider Terran to be the hardest race to learn and play with. They are extremely unforgiving in all aspects of their play. There is no safety net when you lose your army. If you weren't macroing during the battle (big mistake beginners make), you WILL get stomped by the much quicker reinforcements from the Protoss and Zerg. Their micro is also difficult. Frequently if you aren't paying attention at the right moment, your army will just get absolutely crushed due to the nature of a lot of the matchups being high dps weak bio vs absurd amount of splash damage. The micro itself is also challenging. Learning to split fast and efficiently, as well as kiting your entire bio force from zealots while controlling vikings and ghosts separately can be hard for a newer player. This isn't as much of an issue though if you like to play a more mech oriented style, which is much more viable now in HOTS. Probably wouldn't choose this race unless you were dedicated and loved playing it. This is the funnest and most rewarding race to me so they're my main race, but I play a fair bit of random on ladder.

To addon to this, since I already agree with everything you say.

Zerg has the "safest" early game, by this I mean the are the least susceptible to early game cheese. That majority of the time a good zerg can just rely on overlord scouting.

Terran has the "safest" midgame marines and bunkers beat pretty much every allin. Add in the new widow mine and the facts that tanks don't have to research seige mode and you have the safest midgame ever.

Protoss has the "safest" endgame, if a Protoss takes no damage and expands properly without being denied the Protoss lategame is by far the strongest late game option. Throw in the new Protoss air in HOTS and the mothership core recall ability and now you have yourself an army that is pretty much immune to counterattacks.

One thing I will not about what shakes said is that generally what he said is correct, but some peoples minds work differently than others. You might has an easier time with Zerg or Terran than Protoss just because of how your brain works. As of right now it looks like Terran is very slighty the best race in hots at least thats how it seems when I hear the pros talk about it. But I think Protoss is extremely close.

 

[Draft]

At a low level Zerg is the hardest. Staying on top of injects and creep spread is an onerous exercise for the typical fat fingered beginner. Protoss and Terran are about equal. Both races have simple macro mechanics that can be spammed if the player allows the resource to accumulate. Protoss warp in is the easiest unit production mechanic, but Terran has simpler T1 units that can kick ass with the most basic micro skills.

 

[ThreeSixty]

Super excited for this. I played through the WOL campaign twice (completely worth it for the two alternate side missions) and played multiplayer for months on end. We're basically getting two games here since we have the new campaign and the Starcraft multiplayer component which is so powerfully addictive. One criticism I do have is that Blizzard took eons to actually get this out there. How long has it been? Three years? Legacy of the Void needs to seriously not take that long.

Then again the reason why Blizzard's games are so good is precisely because they take so long in developing their games so they can be somewhat forgiven. I'm planning on playing through the campaign in one sitting when the game launches. Something else that's important is that my old laptop barely played WOL. I had to have the game on the lowest settings and even then experience massive slowdown in some of the more epic missions (like the Protoss' last stand "In Utter Darkness").

Loved that mission but the old laptop made it painful to play. The awesome thing is that I now have a completely new laptop which has much more game focused specifications (the last one didn't even have a graphics card; this one has a Radeon 7520) so I can't wait to ramp up the settings and play on max. So pumped for HOTS. Can't wait.

 

[Yoshichan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CH4w7UZV3NA

Just listen to that if you guys need motivation to play, lol.

I actually got demoted for the first time when I started listening to this song on repeat... that was a long time ago, I remember going from gold back to silver :lol

 

[Yoshichan]

nope; got other plans.

LoL, I take it?

is there any good replays of swarm host being used effectively in games?

Any bronze player can use them effectively... they're herp Mcderp to play and dominate with.

Spoiler

I'm talking about how they were many months ago... I have no idea if they got nerfed or not

 

[calder]

At a low level Zerg is the hardest. Staying on top of injects and creep spread is an onerous exercise for the typical fat fingered beginner. Protoss and Terran are about equal. Both races have simple macro mechanics that can be spammed if the player allows the resource to accumulate. Protoss warp in is the easiest unit production mechanic, but Terran has simpler T1 units that can kick ass with the most basic micro skills.

I agree. I played some zerg during the beta for fun (just vs AI) and it's such a completely different mechanic and mindset to P or T, I found it consistently confusing at times no matter how much attention I was paying to the early game. Like, "how the hell do I have 1200 minerals so soon and only 2 lings when the AI is making it's first push?" sort of stuff, and I'd always get hypnotized spreading creep and doing larvae injects.

I would say that Terran requires more micro at a moderate/low level to play successfully thant either zerg or protoss.

 

[TheThunder]

At a low level Zerg is the hardest. Staying on top of injects and creep spread is an onerous exercise for the typical fat fingered beginner. Protoss and Terran are about equal. Both races have simple macro mechanics that can be spammed if the player allows the resource to accumulate. Protoss warp in is the easiest unit production mechanic, but Terran has simpler T1 units that can kick ass with the most basic micro skills.

As a gold player I would say that Terran is way harder than toss to play at low levels, you still have to properly mange your infantry while sieging/unsieging your tanks or else you're gonna day to a 1A ling/baneling attack while you try to push (unless you have MKP's marine splits or you have 50+ in supply on him).

Zerg has the harder macro mechanic + knowing when to drone and when to not while scouting for cheese but I think Terran is equal in difficulty due to army management in the mid/late game.

Protoss is the easiest and most scrub friendly race for lower levels due to more forgiven macro mechanics and you can just ball everything you have up and push after turtling for a while.

 

[Yoshichan]

Aaand I can happily go to sleep after this! Goodnight guys <3!

Glad to have you in this thread man! Excited?!

 

[Draft]

As a gold player I would say that Terran is way harder than toss to play at low levels, you still have to properly mange your infantry while sieging/unsieging your tanks or else you're gonna day to a 1A ling/baneling attack while you try to push (unless you have MKP's marine splits or you have 50+ in supply on him).

Zerg has the harder macro mechanic + knowing when to drone and when to not while scouting for cheese but I think Terran is equal in difficulty due to army management in the mid/late game.

Protoss is the easiest and most scrub friendly race for lower levels due to more forgiven macro mechanics and you can just ball everything you have up and push after turtling for a while.

IMO bronze-low gold league TvP mechanic difficulty comes down to stim vs. force fields with stim being the easier to micro. Later tech is a wash. Colossus are easier to micro than tanks, but tanks are easier to micro than templars.

I also think P is the easiest but just by the slimmest of margins.

 

[ZealousD]

All races have strengths and weaknesses. Like I said, you should just go with whatever race you're most comfortable with. For example I like my Protoss but they're hardest to tech switch with. Terran can 1/1/1 and they've already got 80 percent tech. Zerg can plop down 1 building and now every hatch can build that unit. Protoss you need both the producing structure and 1 or more extra tech buildings. You need 3 buildings to fully produce out of gateways.

Edit: Correction, 4 buildings.

 

[mbmonk]

I just preordered this game yesterday..... must .... stay... calm!

 

[Miletius]

Is the Torrasque skin cool enough to warrant the collector's edition? It's either the digital non-collector's or collector's for me. Don't want another box in the house, I am pulling up stakes here in 3 months or so and am avoiding cluttering things up.

 

[mr stroke]

I can't wait for this game, had the CE pre-ordered for months now. Hopefully the single player campaign is a solid 8-10 hours?

 

[Coolwhip]

I LOVED sc1, liked sc2 and followed the sc2 esports scene for a few months. But for some reason I have zero interest in HOTS.

 

[Yoshichan]

ZealousD, thanks a lot for the videos!

 

[Chris R]

You'll probably do best if you just fiddle with the races and see what is most comfortable to you. I personally think Zerg is hardest to learn but for some people it fits their play style like a sock. Dip your toes into the training, play a little against the AI, and make a choice.

Zerg isn't good for ultra beginners because of the larva mechanic. Having your army get destroyed and then not having the larva there to make it again right away due to missing injects or not having a macro hatch sucks.

edit: in my opinion at least, said the person working on getting out of the silver league after switching away from zerg.

 

[Vaporak]

Terran is by far the easiest race to learn for a newbie. They are practically cheese proof compared to the other races, they have the initiative by default in all their matchups, end up winning in basically all "tie/mirror" situations, have the strongest basic units, and the most straight forward and easy macro.

After all this time everyone is forgetting that it took basically a year for knowledge of the game to get to the point where Terrans couldn't just walk over at a Zerg/Protoss base at a slightly different time than was expected and just outright win. There simply is a much higher knowledge outlay needed on the defensive for Zerg and Protoss players to compete with Terran players of the same mechanics and game knowledge. A newbie Protoss player is just going to roll over and die to basically anything built out of a barracks because they don't know how to use forcefields; I know this because it's exactly what happened to everyone of all skill levels for the first months of the game.

 

[Mr Cola]

Likely this is going to get a preload? I forget if wol did.

 

[TriniTrin]

Is the Torrasque skin cool enough to warrant the collector's edition? It's either the digital non-collector's or collector's for me. Don't want another box in the house, I am pulling up stakes here in 3 months or so and am avoiding cluttering things up.

it looks cool, i really want the collectors edition for the art book because i like the style of the zerg art.

 

[Calidor]

wow excellent feedback guys. I think I will be trying to master Protoss, since well, they are freaking cool.

Anyways I can tell that I've yet to learn pretty basic stuff (cheese? macro/micro, allin, etc.)

Any suggested text guide for a new player? (I hate video tutorials)

 

[J2d]

CE preordered and no work for three days after the launch, so pumped. Also looking forward to getting back to watching tournaments cause I hope we get something else than infestor brood lord =/

 

[ZealousD]

wow excellent feedback guys. I think I will be trying to master Protoss, since well, they are freaking cool.

Anyways I can tell that I've yet to learn pretty basic stuff (cheese? macro/micro, allin, etc.)

Any suggested text guide for a new player? (I hate video tutorials)

Check liquidpedia. It can get somewhat in depth at times, but it has a glossary and can give you some basic builds. I know you said you didn't like video tutorials but just going onto YouTube and watching games can really improve your play.

 

[masterkajo]

So what about global play? Is it still in this expansion? Would love to finally participate in some GAF tournaments and show my

Spoiler

silver to gold, at least according to the Hots Beta,

skillz. Always had to sit out on them on the account of the US - EU region sparation.

EDIT:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1bHzgrzgeY

Temp0 - 3-3 Air (Lion King - "Be Prepared" SC2 Parody)

Watch this!

Holy... that is the best thing I have ever seen.

Spoiler

I am a huge Lion King fan

 

[zlatko]

A new home!

 

[Hazaro]

At a low level Zerg is the hardest. Staying on top of injects and creep spread is an onerous exercise for the typical fat fingered beginner. Protoss and Terran are about equal. Both races have simple macro mechanics that can be spammed if the player allows the resource to accumulate. Protoss warp in is the easiest unit production mechanic, but Terran has simpler T1 units that can kick ass with the most basic micro skills.

The main benefit is when you have 1500/1500 you can probably find some way to spend it (aka making 6 Ultras or 10 Infestors at once).

Some people find Zerg 'easier' in this way.

I'll agree Terran is the most straight forward. MULEs are pretty good too.

 

[FluxWaveZ]

The main benefit is when you have 1500/1500 you can probably find some way to spend it (aka making 6 Ultras or 10 Infestors at once).

Some people find Zerg 'easier' in this way.

I'll agree Terran is the most straight forward. MULEs are pretty good too.

I'm not sure true beginners to the series are familiar with the fact that accumulating surplus resources is a bad thing to do in SCII. I wasn't.

 

[ZealousD]

I'm not sure true beginners to the series are familiar with the fact that accumulating surplus resources is a bad thing to do in SCII. I wasn't.

True beginners have their minds blown the first time somebody builds two barracks or gateways.

 

[calder]

True beginners have their minds blown the first time somebody builds two barracks or gateways.

My friend from work and I were at a poker night at another coworkers place and we watched him play SC2. He made 2 SCV's, then nothing for a while, then 2 gas, then a few SCV's until supply blocked, then had 3 or 4 SCV's in both gas for a while, then a couple of depots and then made his first barracks. He ended up with maybe 18 SCV's total, and made marines from the one rax and easily killed his opponent. I don't think he used any gas at all.

There are levels of bronze that are almost tough to comprehend.

 

[Aylinato]

True beginners have their minds blown the first time somebody builds two barracks or gateways.

or why someone would build a plyon next to their CC and then cannons without reacting.