Impressed So Starcraft 2...

[pikeh]

Hmm, seems I was just missing out on little bits which just adds up over 10 mins. Should really be strict on the 3rd gas and getting another rax.

 

[BloodOmen]

Speaking of nothing, you seen huskys HoTS video with Stephano vs Mathies?


View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eapAPxPjW88

Those swarm hosts will be fucking amazing on smaller maps.

 

[old.Tohtori]

The thing is, at 10mins I have a surplus of like 800+ minerals. Im never supply blocked, always producing.

Surplus is bad unless you're zerg

Get those minerals to work!

If all your buildings are producing units/tech, then build more. Whatever armycomp you're using, build those. If you know you're going to have surplus at time X, build more stuff to use it on at X -3 minutes.

Oh and about cheese/turtle; take it in as that's part of the game, there's no wrong tactic, so just learn to deal with them.

 

[Himse]

Thinking about getting this, anywhere I can find out about strats, builds, etc? Or is it all YouTube?

 

[old.Tohtori]

Youtube is your best bet, husky starcraft does some really good stuff, total biscuit also.

 

[Himse]

Thanks Tohtori.

 

[Ctuchik]

Husky and TB is ok, but dApollo is way way better if you want to actually learn something.

He's also hillarious when he streams.

http://www.youtube.com/user/dignitasapollo?feature=results_main

 

[mooSe_]

Moose!!!

SO ive been doing some exercises etc, basically to have goals for certain timescales. I think this is better as it lets you be more flexible with what is happening in the game other than sticking to a strict build order and getting hard countered.
Ive been aiming for
50 scv's @ 10 mins,
3:45 natural started,
6:30-50 fac started/take 3rd gas,
7:55 starport started/reactor on fac and switch over when starport done,
10:00, push with 100 food of army.

You should've lit the moose signal, didn't see this yesterday I think having rules for worker counts at certain times is a pretty good idea, it'll let you know how well you've been keeping up with macro and stuff. I think its best to follow a specific build order for the early game but once you get past about 40 food then it's better to have rules like you've set to account for all the variables that can happen in the game. As the game goes on your timings should get 'looser' (not sure what word to use lol). In the early game everything I do is pretty much timed out to the second, but by the time I'm taking my 3rd base it's usually more like a list of things I need to get done next and 30 second time in which I think they should normally get done. By later in the game it's more like "Go hive, should be around 11 minutes assuming the game was pretty standard, start spire around this time, when hive finishes get 3/3, adrenal glands and greater spire".

However, one reason why it's better to use supply counts than game times is that if anything wierd happens in the early game, for example you fuck up or your opponent cheeses you and you barely hold off by pulling all your SCVs, then your clock timings are all going to be way off and it's going to be hard to work out when you need to do stuff. If you know that, for example, you normally start your starport around 50 supply (random number I dunno when it is); then even if you spent the first 5 minutes of the game chasing lings around your base rather than mining your timings will still work. In my opinion you should have a combination of clock timings and supply timings. You should know what you should have at X minutes given a standard game, but you should also know how many workers you need to make before you can do certain things. If you lost 15 workers to a drop earlier in the game, then you will need to delay the timing where you add a bunch of extra barracks on because you just won't have the economy to support it at the normal time.

Manage to hit these pretty easily, sometimes get -2 scv's or something. The thing is, at 10mins I have a surplus of like 800+ minerals. Im never supply blocked, always producing.
It feels like a cop out to build 4 rax all in one go. Should I be starting a 3rd when I push or should I have just made more production builds earlier on? Its things like this that are so hard to decide.

Try watching your replays, but rather than following the battles, just pay attention to your base. You can see how well you kept up with your macro when you were fighting battles and stuff. You'll probably be surprised at how quickly it falls apart When I watch my replays to see how good my larvae injects were I usually end up shouting at the screen GOD DAMNIT INJECT WHY ARENT YOU INJECTING but when I was actually playing the game I thought I was doing pretty good. Obviously the macro won't be perfect but if it seems fairly ok and you're still floating a lot then you definitely need to add something to the build.

If you find that you are consistently floating 500+ minerals then I think you definitely need to add at least 1 extra production building in somewhere. It could be the gas timing like you mentioned too, it is important to take your gases on time. As well as leaving you with too many minerals, if you take your gas late then your tech/production will be delayed and it'll haunt you up until the mid game. If I find that my build isn't working very well, like if I always have too much money or not enough at a specific time, then I usually just find a replay of a pro who does a similar build and compare theirs to mine (Tbh I don't really make my own builds up ever anyway since it's much easier and more effective to just copy what stephano or some korean does in the early game (although of course I'll always make sure to understand why im doing things and not just copying blindly)). Alternatively I can look at a replay of you and tell you if there's anything going wrong if you want.

Also don't necessarily consider it a cop out to build a bunch of production at once. I see pro terrans doing this in some cases. If you've just taken another base and got another orbital then your income will suddenly increase quite a lot so you'll have to make a sudden adjustment to your production capability too.

Im always guilty of floating minerals when I attack/scout, like I guess most people are, but my answer to recovering from this is hold down A on my rax and hope it drops a bit!

I know you don't play terran but you've helped a lot in the past!!

I have a terran smurf account which I got to diamond so I can play them ok-ish I guess. I find I usually do the same thing lol. Early in the game I'm doing really well with macro and then as soon as a fight happens I have 5 marines queued up at each barracks and still somehow floating 1k

Thinking about getting this, anywhere I can find out about strats, builds, etc? Or is it all YouTube?

Teamliquid.net is the best site to go to for pretty much everything starcraft related other than youtube vids. As far as watching videos to improve your play I agree with Ctuchik. Husky and TB are basically entertainment/play-by-play commentators and don't really give you much insight into strategy. Apollo is good; he has a bunch of videos focused on learning and improving. I would also recommend Day9 for learning and for entertainment; he has a daily show which is usually pretty educational (except mondays).

 

[pikeh]

Oh and about cheese/turtle; take it in as that's part of the game, there's no wrong tactic, so just learn to deal with them.

The thing is, I spend so long watching high level games where cheese is much less prevelent. It just makes all of my learning pretty much reduntant if I come up against some shit like that, I can deal with 6 pool or whatever, but literally have so much trouble with just random crap that low players chuck at you because for the most part they don't know what they are doing.
Turtle is a legit tactic, but very hard to break, am I'm an aggresive player!

 

[pikeh]

Another great post, thanks Moose


Whats everyones thoughts on the supposed exodus to LoL that the pro arena is suffering? Do you reckon SC2 is on its way out of the limelight for e-sports?

 

[pikeh]

Husky and TB is ok, but dApollo is way way better if you want to actually learn something.

He's also hillarious when he streams.

http://www.youtube.com/user/dignitasapollo?feature=results_main

Must agree, his vids are very helpful.

Teamliquid is a great read, but very strict posting policies and there isn't a massive wealth of help on there for a brand newbie.

Check out Day9's dailies; Newby tuesday. There are a few that are specifically design to help out a first timer, and teach all the things that are so basic no-one else bothers telling you.
I can't remember the episode numbers though

 

[mooSe_]

The thing is, I spend so long watching high level games where cheese is much less prevelent. It just makes all of my learning pretty much reduntant if I come up against some shit like that, I can deal with 6 pool or whatever, but literally have so much trouble with just random crap that low players chuck at you because for the most part they don't know what they are doing.
Turtle is a legit tactic, but very hard to break, am I'm an aggresive player!

Although you never see pros having to defend most of the stupid all ins that people do on ladder, you can be sure they do know how to defend them or they wouldn't have managed to get where they are. Cheese becomes less effective when you have a solid build and you know how to see it coming and the correct response. The stuff you've learned isn't redundant, it's just that there are a few small holes in your play. Once you fix them you'll be a more solid player, and one who can macro better than all these scrubs who just attack and hope you don't know what you're doing. Low level players just blindly do these all ins and they work because other players don't know the correct cues to scout for or even if they do they don't know the correct response. You'll probably lose to a new cheese build that you've never seen before because they are really strong when they surprise you. After the first time you should try to find out what the best way to scout it and then adjust your strategy to hold it is. From then on whenever you face that build consider it a test of your cheese defense. Once you get good at defending them it'll actually kinda help you climb the ladder faster because all you've got to do is hold 1 attack, that you already know how to defend, and then you get a free win.

Scouting for cheese can be as much about what you don't see as what you do see. For example if you scout a zerg's natural and there is no hatchery there at a time when you would normally see one, you can be pretty sure he's doing some gimmicky shit. Or if you scout a protoss players main and there's no gateways or gas there and he has a lot of chrono saved on his nexus you can assume there's a 2 gate coming. You don't need to know everything about your opponents builds, you just need to learn rules like "a protoss who only has 1 gas in his main is either going 1 gate expand or 4 gate" (this is because he'll have plenty of minerals but hardly any gas so he can't afford to tech or make anything other than zealot stalker. He has to put all his minerals somewhere, so it's either gonna be gates or a nexus). Then you learn the standard time for a protoss to take his second gas, scout at that timing if you can and if there is no second gas and no nexus he must be doing a 4 gate.

Of course it's possible with low level players who have no idea what they're doing that they might stay on 1 gas and try to tech to DT or something ridiculous and inefficient like that. In that case you might end up making extra defense for an attack that's not coming, but that's not really a big deal because your opponents retarded build order has already put him behind so you can afford to play safe. When I see someone with a suspiciously weird looking build I always think "either this guy is cheesing me or he's really bad": in either case it's ok for me to play extra safe. When in doubt, don't cut any corners and always play safe. If you take the risk and cut a corner and he's cheesing you then you lose, if you play safe and he's not cheesing you then you take a small disadvantage but can still win.

For terran the defense usually comes down to having walls and bunkers up in time and pulling your SCVs to mass-repair them. That allows you to defend vs players who have been investing in army while you've been investing more in economy. Learn a few key standard timings for when players of other races do important things, and then if you see something unusual at those timings take extra precautions.

Another great post, thanks Moose


Whats everyones thoughts on the supposed exodus to LoL that the pro arena is suffering? Do you reckon SC2 is on its way out of the limelight for e-sports?

Np. It's just dumb drama. People are being panicky and stupid. 1 team disbanded and a few players have switched game/retired. This stuff has happened in the past and will happen in the future, it just coincidently happened around the same time that Destiny made some big post saying that we are all doomed because SC2 doesn't cater to casual players as well as LoL. LoL has more players and more viewers but it's a different kind of game to SC2. There is no mass exodus of SC2 pros or anything like that, people are just being hysterical.

There's a new SC2 expansion on the horizon, it's not there yet but it's still early days in the beta and I'm confident it's gonna turn out much better than it is currently. WCS Europe finals which was just over a month ago had over 100k viewers at the same time. SC2 is perfectly fine. There's plenty of room in esports for games of different genres to exist at the same time.

 

[Ctuchik]

Np. It's just dumb drama. People are being panicky and stupid. 1 team disbanded and a few players have switched game/retired.

lol, slayers i take it?

Jessica is such a comedy gold mine i'm almost sad to see her crumble...

 

[Scouse]

I have no idea what the above few posts are about.

It's probably why I never bothered playing SC2 much beyond the single player missions

 

[mooSe_]

It's MLG Dallas this weekend For anyone that's interested: http://www.majorleaguegaming.com/live. There's gonna be loads of good games this evening and tomorrow.

If you have problems with that stream you can also watch it here: http://www.twitch.tv/mlgstarcrafta, http://www.twitch.tv/mlgstarcraftb

 

[pikeh]

oooh thought you had to pay for that!

 

[mooSe_]

You have to pay for some MLG stuff like the Arenas but the Championships always have a free stream. There's 2 free streams and you have to pay to get HD. Leenock just did a cool comeback vs Rain with some burrow micro.

Also here's the bracket: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/2012_MLG_Pro_Circuit/Fall/Championship

 

[pikeh]

You have to pay for some MLG stuff like the Arenas but the Championships always have a free stream. There's 2 free streams and you have to pay to get HD. Leenock just did a cool comeback vs Rain with some burrow micro.

Also here's the bracket: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/2012_MLG_Pro_Circuit/Fall/Championship

I've got a questions for you again!!!

So basically I think I've established that my cardinal weaknesses are; losing macro focus when attacking/pushing and also not reacting or being able to know what Im seeing when I scout.
A cardinal rule that most players say is to keep checking the mini map. Why is this exactly? I know you can see enemy units in vision from all over the map, but is that the only advantage? In all honesty, its pretty much in my peripheral vision anyway so taking an actual physical look is something I just don't regularly do!

 

[mooSe_]

I've got a questions for you again!!!

So basically I think I've established that my cardinal weaknesses are; losing macro focus when attacking/pushing and also not reacting or being able to know what Im seeing when I scout.
A cardinal rule that most players say is to keep checking the mini map. Why is this exactly? I know you can see enemy units in vision from all over the map, but is that the only advantage? In all honesty, its pretty much in my peripheral vision anyway so taking an actual physical look is something I just don't regularly do!

Improving your macro/multitasking is quite difficult because it's not like a single thing that you can just change to fix the problem. It's something that improves over time as you practice, but I think in order to really work on it you need to try to actively keep it in mind while you are playing. Try to challenge yourself with a build that takes more multitasking than you are used to; probably something that is quite aggressive without being all in at all so you are forced to micro battles and manage your base at the same time more often. Having a good hotkey setup is important too. If you don't play with your armies and your production buildings ctrl grouped yet then make sure you start doing it. It's much easier to multitask if you can just hit 5aaaa rather than having to go look back at your barracks in order to build marines. If you keep practicing, eventually controlling armies will take up less of your available attention and you'll have enough of your brain left available to remember to keep making dudes.

Knowing what to look for when scouting is another thing that's not easy to fix Spending some time playing the other races can help a bit because you'll be more familiar with what they are capable of doing at any given time. It's probably not the fastest way to learn though because you'll have to spend a bunch of time getting comfortable with all the mechanics and stuff before you can even start learning the builds. Otherwise you need to try to remember rules for what to look for when you scout like "if he hasn't started his nexus when I scout at time T, either he's doing some kind of 1 base tech or he's really bad". You can't really learn and internalize everything at once; you just have to always be trying to learn something from every game. Every time you lose, try to stop and think about 1 major thing that caused you to lose the game and then find a way to make sure it doesn't happen again. Sometimes it might just be shit macro, but lots of the time it will be a specific thing you can fix like you didn't see his all in coming because you didn't scout at the right time or didn't know what you were looking at when you did. In that case you can watch the replay and work out a cue you can look for to tell you when your opponent is doing this type of strat.

I found that my ability to see stuff coming and react correctly improved a lot when I identified standard times to scout in each matchup. For example in ZvT and ZvP, if my opponent took gas on 1 base then I'll always sacrifice an overlord scouting their main at 6:00 and if they did a gasless expand build then I'll send the overlord in at 7:00 (expanding early means they had to delay their gas which delays their tech so I need to scout later to make sure I see it). After watching replays I found that no matter which tech path they choose, they will have always started the important tech that im looking for by this time, and it's also early enough that it gives me time to react before any push comes. You don't necessarily need to have intimate knowledge of your opponents builds (although it does help), you just need to know the broad strokes. Tech routes and expansion timings are basically the 2 big things you need to look for. When I scout at 7:00 in a ZvP and I see a robo facility, I don't know whether he's going to do a 7 gate immortal/sentry all in, a 5 gate immortal/sentry into 3rd base build, some kind of warp prism harass build or a 2 base colossus build or any number of other things. But what I do know is that since he's got this robo facility, for the time being at least there is no threat of DTs, stargate units or fast mass gateway all ins so I can just focus on the threats a robo facility presents. Then if I have a ling or an overlord at his 3rd, I can narrow down his strategy even further. If he doesn't show any sign of taking a 3rd base then I can assume it's a 2 base all in and prepare extra defence, if I see a 3rd base then I know I can play a bit more economy focused. If you don't know what times you should be scouting then just watch a few pro replays and copy their scan/scv scout timings.

Regarding looking at the minimap, it's basically just so you don't miss anything. It's really annoying to take loads of damage from a drop and then when you look at the replay you realise that you had vision of the medivac on its way to your base but you didn't notice. Also if you're fighting a battle somewhere and they are doing a counterattack somewhere else at the same time then you can't rely on the "your units are under attack" sound to warn you because it's gonna be saying it anyway because of the battle you're fighting. If you find that this stuff doesn't happen to you very often and that you generally pick things like this up then you probably have pretty good minimap awareness and you don't really need to worry about it so much. I've always been pretty good at paying attention to the minimap so I've never had to actively make myself look at it more often.

lol another post that turned out way longer than first expected. Hopefully there's some useful information in this long rambling essay.

 

[Ctuchik]

I've got a questions for you again!!!

So basically I think I've established that my cardinal weaknesses are; losing macro focus when attacking/pushing and also not reacting or being able to know what Im seeing when I scout.

Read and memorize.

http://www.majorleaguegaming.com/ne...uting-guide-what-to-look-for-and-how-to-react

 

[pikeh]

Thanks guys again!
Im pretty happy with my hotkeys but have been meaning to go in and swap from 6 upwards around as they are a little bit of a stretch.
Im fine producing workers and army and units etc, its just building stuff takes me longer than it really should, placing workers on gas whilst pushing, remembering to re-rally etc. All little bits that just take more time because im looking at the fight or something.
Really do appreciate the long posts moose, does it make easy to understand.

 

[pikeh]

Watched the Leenock vs Rain game. What say you, sir, about the zerg whine at the moment? Not really a good judge at my lowly level, all I see is the whine. Fuck it, Im playing terran and I whine about how god damn stupid siege tanks are!


/edit also, People say to improve just play games. I think I've played something like 30 'serious' games of 1v1 SC2 at the moment. My other 200 have been 2v2's when we got to top silver.
Would you say playing vs my level is better practice or playing vs say, master level is better? I can see advantages and disadvantages of both.

/edit [FH] clan when Hots released yaaaa!

 

[mooSe_]

Hoping for a leenock vs flash final. I'd be happy if life wins too but everyone who doesn't play zerg is gonna whine if it's a ZvZ final

Watched the Leenock vs Rain game. What say you, sir, about the zerg whine at the moment? Not really a good judge at my lowly level, all I see is the whine. Fuck it, Im playing terran and I whine about how god damn stupid siege tanks are!

Do you mean everyone complaining about zerg being too strong? There is something to it, but most of the time the complaining comes from people who have no idea what they're talking about. Leenock is incredibly good and was so way before anyone thought that zerg was too strong.The problem is late game: broodlord/infestor is too strong because you can fight battles against maxed armies and win without actually losing anything important. Broodlords outrange anything on the ground and fungal growth stops anything getting close enough to shoot back. Armies just end up fighting against broodlings (which are free) and infested terrans (which only cost energy).

Terran's best shot at dealing with it is vikings and, later on, ravens. Vikings out-range infestors so you can sit and shoot at the broodlords and if the infestors want to fungal then they have to move closer which means they are within tank range. To deal with this zerg produces corruptors to match the vikings, and so it comes down to who has the stronger air army, but zerg kinda has the advantage here too because although vikings out-range corruptors, if at any point the vikings get into infestor range (it's pretty difficult to always stay exactly out of range) then fungal growth will trap the vikings and the corruptors will clean up. Ravens with hunter seaker missile are apparently what terran is supposed to go to next, but its quite rare to actually see terrans get to that stage and zerg can kinda minimise the effectiveness of it by just spreading their army more.

Protoss' best option is mothership and archon, they have to try to catch as much of the zerg army in a vortex as possible and then put the archons in. When the vortex ends, all the broodlords will be stacked on top of the archons and the archons' splash attack and they die almost instantly. Protoss players often try to blink under broodlords before their stalkers get fungalled and focus the broodlords down, and this works sometimes, but it's usually due to the zerg making a mistake either with positioning or unit composition. A well prepared zerg will have thrown down infested terrans in advance as well as probably having lings under the broodlords so the stalker blink is a suicide all or nothing attack. Zerg can also bring queens and constantly transfuse the broodlords. This means lategame zvp almost always comes down to zerg trying to either dodge the vortex or kill/neural parasite the mothership before it can use it. If the vortex fails to kill the zerg army then zerg wins.

The other option in both matchups is to just counter attack. Broodlord/infestor is really slow moving, so you can just load up your army into dropships and go trade bases if he tries to move out. The problem with this is that he will kill your base at the same time and then it comes down to whether you can kill all his buildings before he kills yours (and zerg can just uproot a spine crawler and have it follow his broodlords around so you are forced to engage him to win).

Lots of people are saying that the infestor is the problem, which I kinda agree with. Mass infestors with fungal growth is kinda stupid because there just isn't anything you can do once your units have been locked down (imo mass sentry with loads of forcefields spammed everywhere is a similar issue, but it doesn't get as much attention because sentries get weaker the longer the game goes until they become basically useless on while infestors only get stronger). The problem with nerfing it is that without fungal growth, zerg is pretty much fucked in every matchup past the 10 minute mark. It's basically bad game design; the zerg race ends up revolving round 1 super powerful spell. Not only is it hard to balance but it's not that interesting to play. You can pretty much guarantee that you'll see infestors in every game that goes late game. As a zerg player, I would happily let them nerf fungal growth as long as they give me some other reasonably strong options to make up for it (fingers crossed for heart of the swarm).

/edit also, People say to improve just play games. I think I've played something like 30 'serious' games of 1v1 SC2 at the moment. My other 200 have been 2v2's when we got to top silver.
Would you say playing vs my level is better practice or playing vs say, master level is better? I can see advantages and disadvantages of both.

Imo you should play mostly against people roughly your level or slightly above. It's good to challenge yourself and make sure you are forced to play better but if you play against players who are a lot higher rated then you'll probably get stomped. It's not fun to lose over and over again and it will be hard to identify which areas you need to improve on because there will be loads and most of the time it will just come down to "I need to make more dudes next time". Also it will be harder to see how much you are actually improving because even when you fix 1 issue, you'll just lose again the next time for a different reason. If you play against someone who's a similar level then every time you get a little bit better you'll be able to see it in your results. Maybe a mix of both would be best; a master player will be able to tell you what you're doing wrong and put you on the right track, but then you should spend time working on those things vs players closer to your level.

 

[Ctuchik]

Ravens with hunter seaker missile are apparently what terran is supposed to go to next, but its quite rare to actually see terrans get to that stage and zerg can kinda minimise the effectiveness of it by just spreading their army more.

You don't deathball versus infestors either though, you should split your army up to so their energy isn't being spent effectively.

The more you force the infestors to spend energy on inefficient kills the faster they become a non issue. And you have more resources saved for the counter push.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Something to make you feel good about yourself


View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGngqV3jglc

 

[old.Tohtori]

Also these are really cool;


View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2nY8nNctb4&feature=related

 

[old.Tohtori]

Really should start practicing again, especially with HotS looming over the horizon like a kerrigan titty shaped pot of gold

Should choose a race i guess, but i love random

 

[pikeh]

Respect people that play random but always get the feeling they just learn 1 easy tactic for each race and play that over and over!
Was a shit playing 2v2 vs 2 randoms as you knew a 6pool/proxy rax was on its way, not matter what, and with wide ramps on 2v2 maps its an easy win!
I have never even tried zerg or toss, can't even get my head around zerg!!!

 

[pikeh]

Something to make you feel good about yourself


View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGngqV3jglc

Thought it was all over when the infestors came out, seems strange he didn't keep em around really

Widow mines are <3

 

[old.Tohtori]

Yeah often it goes to that when people start off with random; one strat per race and then go with it. I usually try to mix things up just because one strat means that i also get creamed if it fails.

Best part about it is the surprise element, forcing an early scout etc. Not to say that a random 6 pool isn't excellent

To be fair i only use it if the other player doesn't glhf