Impressed So Starcraft 2...

[ileks]

Downloading the EU client now. I hope it works.

I take it I will have to do my placement matches again? I was at the top of my league as well

 

[pikeh]

Yeh new account = New matches.
If you deserved to be at the top of your league then you will get there again. Except US players are shit! p)

 

[ileks]

Yeh new account = New matches.
If you deserved to be at the top of your league then you will get there again. Except US players are shit! p)

I think I won about 9 games in a row. It then matched me repeatedly against master and one former grand master player who absolutely annihilated me! I'm back in diamond now, slowly climbing up. I die to cheese a lot though.

I love watching the live streams on Teamliquid. Grubby is so damn fast. I like watching InControl as well since he always explains why he's doing what he's doing as he does it.

Enjoying the day9 dailies as well. He's a really cool guy but can drag things out a bit.

Any other good shows you guys watch? Also, is there a list of future tournaments coming up? I used to really enjoy watching MLG and the GSL when it had some US/EU players in it like Idra, TLO etc.

 

[mooSe_]

I usually just use the calender and the SC2 Tourneys forum on TeamLiquid to find out which events are on/coming up. I used to watch a bunch of day9 dailies but after a while I felt like already knew most of the stuff he was saying. I find him quite entertaining though. Would still pick up something new most of the time but I felt like it wasn't the best time investment for learning stuff for me. I hear apollo's videos are pretty good too, but I haven't really watched any of them myself: http://www.youtube.com/user/dignitasApollo. I also usually listen to state of the game or realtalk by JP while I'm laddering: http://www.youtube.com/user/itmeJP but those are mostly like community news and entertainment rather than actual sc2 content (although SotG sometimes has strategy discussions).

I only watch player streams if I'm eating or something because I find studying replays or actually playing more productive practice-wise and tournament streams or VODs better entertainment-wise. There are some good things you can only pick up by watching a first person stream though: like how they manage their control groups, use the minimap and where they focus their attention in different types of situation. If I do watch one it's usually whoever I think the best zerg player currently streaming is. QuanticHyuN is my favourite player so if he's streaming I'll watch him. I also jump on any replay packs that come out that have games of him in, like the recent Acer Teamstory Cup: http://acer.taketv.net/news/standings-13-03-13-17943

 

[ileks]

Thanks Moose I forgot about SotG i used to enjoy that. Will have a look at Apollo as well.

I've got a new strategy against zerg. I go for an early 7 gate +1 attack but hide a twilight council and DT shrine somewhere. The 7 gate on its own used to beat a lot of zergs but the good ones scout my base at about the 7 minute mark. If I can keep my shit alive until the DTs pop out (and keep them worried enough to neglect detection) it usually works out quite well. I need to do something else though as it's pretty much an all in.

What are most Protoss doing against you / what do you find most annoying? FFE into Pheonixes looks quite good. InControl is quite successful with it anyway. I absolutely hate fighting Mutalisks so opening pheonix is probably a good bet.

 

[mooSe_]

Yeah that 7gate into dt is quite strong but it's possible to see it coming. I can usually tell if someone is doing that to me based on the amount of gas they are mining compared to the amount I can see that they've spent. A normal 7 gate build only takes 2/4 of the available gas geysers (for a 2 base protoss) because you are making mostly zealot/stalker and don't need the extra gases. If they go up to 3 or 4 gas and I still only see zealots and stalkers then they're obviously teching to something behind the aggression so I get detection just to be safe. It's possible to get DTs out while staying on 2 gas too but that's even more obvious because you can only make zealots because you have to save the gas for stalkers. If the zerg player manages to keep a 3 base economy alive and deflect your 7 gate and your dts then you're in a horrible position. Still it's a good build to have up your sleeve. All it takes is for a zerg player to not check your gases, which is pretty easy to forget if you're defending what appears to be a 7 gate all in.

FFE into stargate does seem to be the standard opener at the moment. 1 Gate expands are still quite common because you can do some faster early pressure with your first few units and mothership core and it prevents zerg from opening 3 hatch. But I think FFE is still the most standard. Most protoss players seem to do something like FFE -> some kind of stargate harass (phoenixes, voidrays or oracle) -> colossus and 3rd base and then start going mass colossus voidray and later storm and 4th base. Some people skip colossus and get more voidrays and templar/archons but I think this opens you up to taking some damage from roach hydra pushes and stuff a bit earlier, it also makes it harder to deal with swarm hosts so you have to make extra cannons and turtle harder usually.

Colossus/voidray was the strongest protoss build in WoL for a while near the start before zergs worked out how to use infestors. It seems like in theory that corruptor hydra should do ok vs it if you make enough corruptors to snipe the colossus then kill everything with the hydras; but actually Colossus/voidray completely destroys it. Iit stopped working because colossus and voidrays stack up on each other a lot so fungals do a lot of damage and infested terrans dealt with voidrays quite well. Now that infestors are a little bit weaker (fungal is projectile so possible to dodge and infested terrans dont benefit from upgrades so are weak in late game) and voidrays are stronger (that spell they have now) it means that infestors don't crush colossus/voidray so hard anymore. Hydras are better than they used to be and deal with voidrays well but obviously get raped by colossus, and corruptors are good vs colossus but do terrible vs voidrays so this seems to be the hardest composition to deal with as zerg. If you get the right mix of hydra/corruptor/infestor and a bunch of lings then you can do ok, but by this time the protoss player can have templars out too (feedback infestors and storm hydras).

You can try to get to the good old broodlord/infestor deathball as zerg but the protoss player can start massing tempests and then you are basically forced to mass corruptors which are no use vs anything else the protoss has (unless he made too many colossus). Also the broodlords are no use vs air heavy protoss compositions and infestors don't deal with voidrays so well anymore.

Zerg's other main style is to go muta (they move faster now in HotS and have more health regen) but obviously if you open stargate and see him throw up a spire you can just mass phoenix and hard counter him. Some zergs will go hydras first to try to deter you from making more phoenixes then they'll do a late switch to muta on 3 or 4 bases once you have started colossus production and hope to catch you off guard with not enough anti-muta defense to defend all 3 of your bases. This is kinda hard to see coming because the spire after hydra could be for corruptors, so really you want to actually see the mutas as they pop out. You can throw down a bunch of cannons at your mineral lines while you start getting your phoenix count up.

So basically I think that stargate is probably the best way to play. Don't try to get too greedy and take a 3rd just off some stargate units and gateway units because you will probably die or at least lose your 3rd to hydra/ling or roach/hydra. Going up to colossus before/as you take your 3rd is the normal way to prevent this happening.

 

[ileks]

Excellent advice there Thanks a lot mate.

I'm going to try to perfect the forge fast expand into stargate then. Although I won't be able to do much early pressure it does give me the option to mix things up with a cannon rush if I want to. I saw WhiteRa do a build where he cannon rushed the natural and forced the zerg to take his third early. This muffed up his creep spread between bases and WhiteRa was able to win with some semi early aggression.

I never really bothered with voidrays vs Zerg. If I went Colossi I would usually just build a load of blink stalkers to tank the damage and kill the corrupters. I will have to have a look at getting them if he goes mass hydra. Having the early stargate should make the transition easier.

I reckon FFE > pheonix > 5 gate + robo > expand on second collosus + thermal lance should be a good bet. It should make the games last quite a while which will be good practice.

I need to improve my general play like checking the mini map constantly and scouting more actively. Until a few days ago I thought they had changed it so you couldn't click on enemy structures while they were building to check what they were. I didn't realise there was an option to change in the settings!

 

[mooSe_]

Yeah I think that option confused everyone at first lol. No idea why the default is so you cant click on enemy stuff; it's completely useless.

Cannon rush is one of the main strengths of FFE in early game over gateway expand I think. If you open gateway then you can't do anything to punish a zerg who goes hatch first but if you open forge and he goes hatch first you can get a huge advantage by just sticking a couple of pylons and a cannon behind his mineral line and forcing him to cancel or lose the hatchery. A zerg player who goes pool before hatchery can have lings out in time to defend a cannon rush in his natural most of the time if he scouts it; but with hatchery first he has no chance at all. Vs a zerg going fast 3 hatch you can also try to cannon rush his 3rd base if he's not paying attention.

Good protoss players learn the timings so that their cannons finish right after the hatchery finishes. If the cannons finish before the hatchery then they will start shooting and the zerg will have a chance to cancel and save some minerals. If they finish after then he either has to commit a lot to killing the cannons or just abandon his new hatchery.

After being cannon rushed literally hundreds of times I'm very paranoid about it. I always scout around all my bases with my first few lings and keep an eye on how many probes he's sent out and where they are on the map to avoid this kind of situation. If you try to cannon rush and he sees it coming you can always just cancel and it hasn't cost you much.

Your build sounds fairly solid. Might help to steal a replay off a korean pro or something and copy their build to make sure what you're doing is efficient. I remember thinking I had a solid BO and then studied a DRG replay where he did exactly the same as me but with a few things in a different order and ended up with exactly the same stuff as me except 5 extra drones at the 7 minute mark: which is quite a big deal.

 

[ileks]

Cool, I will have a look for some Korean replays. They are notoriously efficient with their builds. InControl does something similar I think, will write it all down next time I find him streaming.

I think I will only occasionally cannon rush as I'd rather my games lasted a bit longer if possible. It's great to have the option to do so early on though. I absolutely hate it when someone does it to me

I'm watching DeMuslim stream atm. He just announced he will offer coaching soon at $125 an hour! Seems insane. I wonder how many people are out there that would pay that much. Then again lots of people seem to have coughed up thousands of dollars for the Camelot Unchained Kickstarter so you never know. I wonder how much the professionals get for streaming? Given how much they want to charge for coaching it must be quite a lot.

 

[Lethul]

Recently bought this, I'm horrible I can either attack or macro. Not both. I can not even manage to keep a constant probe production atm

 

[Zenith]

Cool, I will have a look for some Korean replays. They are notoriously efficient with their builds. InControl does something similar I think, will write it all down next time I find him streaming.

I think I will only occasionally cannon rush as I'd rather my games lasted a bit longer if possible. It's great to have the option to do so early on though. I absolutely hate it when someone does it to me

I'm watching DeMuslim stream atm. He just announced he will offer coaching soon at $125 an hour! Seems insane. I wonder how many people are out there that would pay that much. Then again lots of people seem to have coughed up thousands of dollars for the Camelot Unchained Kickstarter so you never know. I wonder how much the professionals get for streaming? Given how much they want to charge for coaching it must be quite a lot.

Revenue from streaming is quite complicated. I know Own3d and Twitch did it quite different, and Im not sure if Twitch has shaked it up since becoming the monopoly of stream providers. The revenue is calculated on how many active users get exposed to the ads. Im not sure how ingame ads is calculated, but im pretty sure that's external from Twitch.tv.

I think you'd need a cosistent 8-10k to make any cash of it.

 

[ileks]

Revenue from streaming is quite complicated. I know Own3d and Twitch did it quite different, and Im not sure if Twitch has shaked it up since becoming the monopoly of stream providers. The revenue is calculated on how many active users get exposed to the ads. Im not sure how ingame ads is calculated, but im pretty sure that's external from Twitch.tv.

I think you'd need a cosistent 8-10k to make any cash of it.

I've seen various numbers thrown around ranging from 2$ per 1000 ad views to 5$. They tend to do a couple in between each game so I reckon they average anywhere from 10-50 dollars an hour. Not bad for playing games

I turn ad blocker off when I watch them. The only problem is they always show KFC adverts which make me hungry every 20 minutes

 

[Zenith]

Hahaha yeah I hate when it's like 4 KFC ads in a row. Or that weird Sony Playstation anime one.

In any event, you'd need to stream often with a steady following in the thousands. In DoTA2 (where I lurk) theres a few. Dendi who never streams with less than 10k. Pays quite well for just playing a game, but these guys dedicate their lives to it.

 

[mooSe_]

There's a lot of progamers who only get a few hundred viewers on average who stream all day playing ads. I guess they don't make a lot but they must be making something since they religiously play an ad after every game. Also some teams pay salaries, and they make money from coaching and tournaments. Each on it's own probably isn't enough but it seems like you can make enough with these things combined to get by.
People with popular streams like Destiny seem to do ok even without a team or any tournament results to speak of; although I guess he might sell coaching. I think I remember Theognis saying he pretty much lived off the money he made from coaching.
Nobody becomes a progamer to get rich though I imagine (unless they're really dumb). If you love playing starcraft that much then I guess it's worth the sacrifice.

Recently bought this, I'm horrible I can either attack or macro. Not both. I can not even manage to keep a constant probe production atm

If you want to improve your macro and multitasking then imo first make sure you have the basics down like using hotkeys and control groups. Learn a simple solid build and practise it until you can execute it correctly. If you focus in like this and minimise the amount of variables you have to worry about then I think its easier to work on fundamentals like constant probe production and multitasking.

 

[ileks]

Nobody becomes a progamer to get rich though I imagine (unless they're really dumb). If you love playing starcraft that much then I guess it's worth the sacrifice.

I noticed the other day that a lot of the pro Korean players are 18-19. They must have chosen not go to university so they could become a progamer. Can you imagine the pressure? You'd be really screwed if it turned out you weren't good enough to make it at the top. I think I remember Idra saying he skipped college to play Starcaft. Luckily he's done alright for himself.

Given the skill required (and time needed) to succeed I don't think they get paid enough really (unless they are the very best).

 

[mooSe_]

Yeah I think it must be tough for the koreans to convince their parents to let them go live in a team house rather than going to college, some of them are only like 15 lol. Startale Life is 16 I think: he has to get days off school to play in GSL. I think its fairly common for foreign pros to go to university as well as play; but they aren't expected to play 10 hours a day minimum like the koreans. Polt was studying at a good university in Seoul as well as being one of the best players in the world until recently. He's living in the US and studying now instead I think.

On the other hand South Korea has mandatory military service for 2 years so I think a lot of them just think "oh well I'll play starcraft until I have to go to the military and then get a real job after".

 

[Lethul]

What is a good buildorder to get you started at Protoss? Watched dignitasAppolo beginners guide and he user a 3 stalker "rush" (not offensive rush) as a good opening. But that was WoL. Does it still work?

 

[mooSe_]

It depends how complex you want to make it really I think. If you want something simple to start with maybe just learn to 4 gate and then when you're comfortable with that try to do a 3gate or 1gate expand into something. 3 stalker pressure should still be a viable opening, the only real difference between WoL and HotS for early game as protoss is that you can get a mothership core and use that with your early pressure or defensively if you need to.

 

[ileks]

What is a good buildorder to get you started at Protoss? Watched dignitasAppolo beginners guide and he user a 3 stalker "rush" (not offensive rush) as a good opening. But that was WoL. Does it still work?

You probably want a different one against each race. Against Terran I open 13 gate, 15 double gas, cyber as soon as you can & then chrono out two stalkers and a mothership core. Then get a stargate and make some oracles. The oracles are really good in the early game against Terran. They murder marines so can hold off early pushes, can detect against widow mines and can destroy his mineral line if he is slow. You can early expand and then chuck down some more gateways or get the gateways first depending on what he's up to. Just remember to get the stalker out quickly so you can fend off any reapers.

Against Zerg I do a forge fast expand. You might be better off just doing a one base opening to begin with though. Just be sure to wall off with a pylon + gateway/forge. Four gate is a good aggressive opening and doesn't have to be an all-in. You can also be sneaky and open with a four gate but hide a Twilight Council and then Dark Shrine. If you are putting a lot of pressure on them they can often forget to get detection when your DTs arrive. If they do get detection you can turn them into Archons which are a good all round unit anyway.

Against Protoss is the tricky one. The general rule to stick to is don't expand early unless he does. There are lots of one base timings they can do which are really hard to hold off. You could go for 3gate + stargate for a nice secure opening. The Oracles can be used for detection or to harass his mineral line. They die easily to stalkers though so not as good as against Terran. Voidrays are the killer unit in PvP. There isn't really anything that is good against them other than more voidrays. Pheonix can be good but can be a bit distracting as you need to constantly micro them to get the most out of them.

 

[mooSe_]

I knocked this guy out of WCS EU Qualifier this afternoon; he was not happy, and came off a bit desperate (reads from bottom left up):

 

[mooSe_]

I'm E-famous boiz, top of r/starcraft

 

[Shagrat]

die to cancer? lol, angry man

 

[Ono]

WHat happens if he pauses forever? Is he actually allowed to do that?

 

[mooSe_]

I can unpause it whenever I want. Each player gets 3 (I think?) pauses during a game and another player/referee can unpause at any point. So he couldn't stall the game indefinitely. I didn't want to unpause before he was ready in case he tried to use that as an excuse for invalidating the match.

 

[mooSe_]

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

 

[Lethul]

My personal feeling after a few days of gaming is that Widow Mine is in for a nerf

 

[Coldbeard]

Tssss. Widow mines need to move unborrowed imo!

Was looking for that infamous video

 

[Coldbeard]

For Terran you should check out Polt when he is streaming. That guy is a pure genious!

 

[pikeh]

I love that "im top 30 gm"



"ex"


people take this game far too seriously. However, I've not played a game that makes you invest so much effort into it, sometimes just to be undone but something so simple from the other player. It punishes you for your mistakes more than any game around, I think.

p.s Moose, 6 zerglings is cheese K!

 

[Coldbeard]

Such a mental effort playing 1v1, takes alot of effort to even manage to log on and play

edit: and im only stuck on high gold