Well...there goes the life.

[pikeh]

im on a 3-4 win/loss atm, did my 2v2 placement matches yesterday with my mate but we got placed bronze, but that is all for a laugh anyway really.

I've only faced protoss + 1 zerg in my 7 league matches so far. MMM stim drop play has been really effective, and the zerg I played did a 7 roach all in or something weird, but it was close. I have veto'ed Taldarim Altar because its shit with its massive ramp.
The matches Ive lost tend to involve leg speed Zealots, whats a decent counter for these?

The thing is, I only really have the time to play a couple of times a week, but every time I play I am improving. Is this going to be a disadvantage?

Hope the battles are going well. You'll be in GM soon Moose!!!

 

[mooSe_]

Moose post incoming

Vs Protoss MMM is pretty standard so it's fine to stick with that. Vs zerg you can play MMM but it's not particularly scary to play vs as a zerg once you've got speedlings and speed banelings. Marine/tank/medivac is generally a lot harder to deal with.

Vs zerg if they don't expand pretty quickly then you should expect some kind of all in which will usually be baneling bust or 7 roach. Vs 1 base roach rushes the key is to get some marauders out and a bunker at the top of your ramp, then mass repair the bunker with scvs while the marauders shoot (although marines in a bunker can be ok too as long as you can keep the banker alive). Vs baneling bust you've just gotta make your wall stronger than a supply depot wall. If you have part of your wall in that is just 1 supply depot then build more buildings behind it. So a basic plan vs zerg is that if he hasn't started a hatchery at his natural by about 4:00 of game time then expect an all in or at least some heavy aggression before expansion. If this happens then immediately build a bunker at your ramp behind the wall in, and try to scout his main (scv or scan if you have one) to see if he has a roach warren or a baneling nest. In the case of a roach warren try to get a marauder out asap, and in the case of a baneling nest you need to reinforce your wall in with more buildings. As long as you hold off the initial attack without too much losses you can assume you are ahead and do whatever you want from there.

On taldarim you should try to wall in at the choke that's closer to your main rather than at the ramp. You don't get a high ground advantage there obviously but you can wall in with barracks and supply just like at a normal ramp so you should be safe.

I think vs lots of charge zealots you should still have an army that is mainly MMM but you should add ghosts later on as well. If you can get a good EMP off on the zealots then they die super fast vs MM. Adding ghosts to your army is nearly always good vs protoss since all their units have shields which you can EMP, but especially if he goes templar since he you can prevent him from storming as well. Also make sure that you get the upgrades from the engineering bay as the game goes on. Charge zealots with armour upgrades are really hard to kill if your own units aren't upgraded. Other than that you've just got to try to micro well; stim and stutter step back away from the zealots as long as you aren't trapped by forcefields obviously. If you haven't got much room to micro because you are defending your base then its usually a good idea to have a few bunkers across the front of your natural. I don't play much TvP since I'm zerg but I think that's how you are supposed to play

Only playing a little should be fine as long as you are playing often enough to maintain the level of mechanics that you are at. I know players who are high diamond or even low masters who only play a few games a week. It should be possible to keep improving by just playing the amount you are playing until you get to like diamond/master imo. Just try to focus on learning things or improving specific areas of your game rather than winning games or getting ladder points. Of course winning is nice too though

I'm in and out of top 8 of my division this season which is pretty cool since it's quite a strong division. Hoping to be able to end the season with a solid top 8 position since the last 2 seasons I've only made top 25 and it would be nice to see some kind of progress I've fixed my computer so I can play more and I feel like I've been improving a bit which is nice.

 

[pikeh]

So did you start in Bronze Moose? Did you play lots of RTS's before this?
I often forget about Ghosts because my micro isn't good enough to utilize them to their fullest potential, and its quite expensive to tech to them. I guess I should start practising becuase I've been reading up how damn good they are against toss lategame.
Yeh, I kinda guessed that tanks would be better against Zerg, I don't get to play against them enough so practice though

This is the only game I've played since DAoC that I actually think about a lot when I'm not playing it. I'm always trying to read stuff on it, I'd rather watch a reply than telly. I hope SC2 gets the TV show it deserves.

 

[mooSe_]

I started during the beta when there was a league below bronze called copper league. I got placed into copper lol, but I worked my way up through the leagues pretty quickly once I knew what all the units did and stuff like that because I do have quite a lot of similar RTS experience. I've spent most of my gaming time playing age of empires games since I was like 10 years old. Well I have played a bunch of non-RTS games too but I've mostly always had an RTS game that I played at the same time. I think having lots of RTS experience really helps because I already have a bunch of general RTS theory that applies as much to SC2 as it does age of empires and I know a load of techniques for improving and playing correctly. If you look at the top SC2 players now, most of them were top players, or at least competitive players, in other RTS games before SC2: usually SC1 or WC3. Doesn't mean that you can't improve or get high rated without years of experience though.

I think it's probably a good idea to try to get comfortable early on with units that you aren't comfortable with. It might cause you to lose a few games where you do fail EMPs but it will be better in the long run. You could probably get to like diamond league just using MMM and stim if you executed everything well, but then you would be completely stuck when you finally had to start using other units. Although having said that I do think that working on solid build order execution and macro are more important than being able to EMP well.

I never watch TV any more If I cba to play then there is normally some kind of tournament or a bunch of progamers streaming that I can watch or a million vods of tournaments that I missed.

 

[pikeh]

Got a quick question about the first miners you get. I've learnt an awesome 3rax build that I've nearly perfected. Tried it VS a protoss yesterday and wiped the floor with him. In videos I've seen for pro's so far, with their first workers up until they get a rax or something, they always queue a worker whenever they get to 50/60 minerals. I've always done it so I make a worker AS SOON AS the one before has completed, if not a couple of seconds before. I waypoint my 9th worker to my ramp to supply @ 100 so I've got the timings down well, I just can't figure out if theres any benefit in doing it this way?

 

[mooSe_]

It doesn't make much difference really. As a rule it's best to keep constant worker production without queuing workers so the way you are doing it is fine. The main reason to not queue up units is because you are spending resources on things that aren't doing anything; resources that you could be spending on something else. In the early game before you even have a supply depot there isn't anything else you could be spending the minerals on so it doesn't really matter if you queue up the workers (since you already know how many workers to produce before you will be able to afford the buildings even without queueing). Queuing units up for production becomes bad as soon as you could be doing something else with the minerals while still maintaining constant production.

 

[pikeh]

just beat a gold league terran, I had to change my daughters nappy half way through, paused, he unpaused and said 'misclicked' will he macroed up. Still won, what a twat.

 

[mooSe_]

changing nappies and owning noobs at the same time; good multitasking practise

 

[pikeh]

I heard its how the koreans get pro!

Loving 2v2 atm, seems more fun than 1v1 and I can blame my mate if we lose!

 

[fettoken]

Fuck yeah. Noticed a tactic that is almost fail-safe as terran. 2 base exp. Few marines, tanks. Take gold spot if possible. Mule up. Profit. 10 rax. Upgrade. medivac. Win.

 

[pikeh]

Purely doing 2v2 now, 2nd in our division with 29 wins to something like 11 losses.
I just get bored doing 1v1, I got too nervous (on about 9 wins to 10ish losses this season, which is alright for me!)
I love the synergy of 2v2 and having to work out what 2 people are doing.
Me and my mate running a solid build of rauders/tanks, sentries/immortals/stalkers and push when siege mode down around 10 mins. I go for a 2 rax with tech labs, early double gas (13 and 17) and factory. Start siege before first tank pops and alls well and good should be leaving @ 10 mins with a bunch of stalkers, 2 immortals, a couple of sentries, 10 ish rauders with conc shells (much better early game that stim imo) and 1 tank with the second on its way. We can delay a bit but like to early pressure. If I scout a spire (pretty much the thing that causes us most trouble if our first push happens to fail) then I quickly chuck down a reactor starport and pump out a couple of vikings. We are still learning how to react to unexpected things, unless you kill off the zerg then mutas appear at drastic rates and its pretty much game over, I found you need to match mutas with vikings and turrets to stand a chance, and their mobility is just lolworthy.
I hope 2v2 gets more exposure; I know the game can't be balanced for all modes but its so much fun! I just hope they take the lava maps off the next map rotation, they lend themselves very well to 6/8pools.

 

[fettoken]

React to unexpected things; More marines.

 

[mooSe_]

I don't play much 2v2 but it can be fun to mess around in team games with friends when I'm mad at 1v1

I think I agree with you about going concusive shells rather than stim with that push since you don't have a huge number of marauders anyway and they aren't really the main dps in the attack. Also you don't have any medivacs which is what makes stim marauders super effective and concussive shells can be a pain in the ass to micro against.

Vikings aren't the best counter to mass muta imo. Although vikings will beat mutas if the numbers are equal in a straight up fight, you will never really find yourself in that situation. It's so much easier for the zerg player to mass mutas than it is for the terran to mass vikings and once the muta numbers get to a certain point they won't care about your small number of vikings any more. In order to keep up with the muta production you would have to have multiple reactored starports which is a huge investment and then you run the risk of the zerg player suddenly switching to a ground based army (as zerg can easily switch unit composition) which leaves you with a lot of not very useful vikings and some nearly useless starports (unless you want to produce a shit ton of medivacs).

If they stay on a relatively low muta count then vikings are a reasonable response though, at least in conjunction with some well placed turrets. I think the best response to lots of mutas is marines with a few thors as well as turrets. Since you said you are already producing tanks, if you scout a spire going up you can always throw down an armoury and start producing thors from your factories instead. You don't need many thors to scare away mass muta because of their splash damage. If the mutas bunch up at all, which always happens with mutas when you target them on something, then the thor ends up doing a ridiculous amount of damage and if the mutas try to stay spread out then the mutas on the edges of the group are always going to be in range of turrrets and marines and die really quickly. A couple of well placed thors and some turrets can pretty much shut down any muta harass.

There is a trick for with mutas for dealing with thors called magic box. This is where you let the mutas spread out like all air units do while they are stationary, and then move command them across the thor and use the hold or stop command to stop them on top of the thor. Because you didn't use the attack command, the mutas don't bunch up at all and so don't take much splash damage from the thor. This is why you need to have marines as well as thors, because mutas aren't very effective vs marines when they are spread out.

For protoss, stalkers and a few sentries are a good unit composition to have vs muta, so you should be in ok shape there. Make sure that whenever you fight the mutas there is a sentry around to use guardian shield. Muta attacks bounce up to 3 times (I think), and guardian shield basically negates one of the bounces which means that the mutas do a lot less damage. Vs a player who insists on making mass muta, going for high templars and storm is a good response; hitting 1 good storm on a big ball of mutas can be game changing since they have such little hp and they bunch up a lot.

Make sure you both have a few turrets/cannons around your mineral lines even if its only enough to buy time to get your units there to scare the mutas away since losing your workers is the main thing you want to avoid when playing against mutas. A few other turrets placed around the base to prevent or at least delay the mutas from killing reactors and techlabs is good too.

You don't need to do all this stuff whenever you see a spire; that would probably be overkill. But if you have turrets up in time and one of you guys goes for some kind of splash damage attack (thor or storm) then you can ruin the muta player's day.

Fuck yeah. Noticed a tactic that is almost fail-safe as terran. 2 base exp. Few marines, tanks. Take gold spot if possible. Mule up. Profit. 10 rax. Upgrade. medivac. Win.

Sounds like a pretty standard TvZ build. Marine/tank then add medivacs and later a few thors the whole time upgrading and trying to take bases is a sold style. I think it's pretty good in TvT as well, but vs protoss you might have some problems late game if your army is still mostly marines and tanks: a good protoss deathball will roll over that. And yes definitely get the gold base as terran if you can; it gives you a much bigger advantage than protoss or zerg having it since you can drop MULEs on it.

 

[pikeh]

awesome advice, thanks Moose, again! Totally miscounted thors. I often forget to tech up like that as our games are usually over in under 15 mins, meaning that if the games drag on a bit longer then we tend to get behind in tech, which has lost us a couple of games.

 

[kirennia]

Finally decided to sign my life away and got this for next day delivery, tomorrow! Should be interesting trying to jump into an already established set of gamers im guessing... will add my game tag here once I have one; any advice for nooby noobison noobing his way straight into multiplayer? sod single player!

 

[pikeh]

ill play you kirennia, im still a lowly bronze but getting better all the time!

watch some of day[9]'s 'newbie tuesday' videos. very handly for beginners.

 

[kirennia]

Kirennian 2355, 22 updates later, I'm in Will go through and add a few people I guess.

 

[kirennia]

Phew...19 pages of scrolling...but here it is;

ECA - Allyourbase 956
mooSe_ - Moose.746
ileks - Skelitore 427
Ch3tan - Chet 456
Huntngtons - huntingtons 152
Tohtori - Crosshare 529
Levin - Cobbs #236
Bondoila - Bondoila 709
pikeh - WeAreWolf 353
Chosen - Noctis(needs numbah)

22 updates later and I'm in Pikehs tag didn't work, added the rest of you from this list (cheers Tohtori).

edit: Added pikeh as EscapePlan 409.

 

[kirennia]

2 wins 3 losses and placed in gold . Ended up loosing to people with 100+ matches won but who were on their placement. I'm guessing this season 5 has only just started? :/

 

[pikeh]

2 wins 3 losses and placed in gold . Ended up loosing to people with 100+ matches won but who were on their placement. I'm guessing this season 5 has only just started? :/

nope, nearly ended in fact!
bloody hell, gold! you play lots of RTS's before?

 

[pikeh]

Kirennian 2355, 22 updates later, I'm in Will go through and add a few people I guess.

Can't find you btw mate.

 

[kirennia]

Can't find you btw mate.

Already added you as friend I played the beta and have watched a fair few matches...I just end up getting confused.

Second or third game I think, I ended up macroing brilliantly, was really happy then he did a small push... "fuck, why haven't I built any units?!". Every game I seem to forget two or three core things

 

[pikeh]

So yeh, I did the 'Starcraft Master' portrait today. Took me about an hour. So theoretically I should be no.1 GM?

 

[fettoken]

Ahhh 2 rax marine / rauder always wins the day.

 

[mooSe_]

So yeh, I did the 'Starcraft Master' portrait today. Took me about an hour. So theoretically I should be no.1 GM?

I've done them all except #30 I've got as close as having 1 stalker left with orange health but I can't quite do it.

 

[Huntingtons]

I wish I possessed the time and energy to play both Starcraft2 and Dota2 - competitive games require so much commitment to excel at

 

[ECA]

Goodjob only one of them is a competitive game then!

 

[pikeh]

is that a pop at DOTA? Everyones going crazy for it but it just sounds like a isometric WoW battleground to me :s

 

[Huntingtons]

Dota is based on a concept from SC BW and developed quite differently since then. 5v5 with over 100 different playable heroes each with at least 4 abilities (some more) working in synergy with different heroes and combinations of skill ensures no game is equal. Its quite fun, especially if you have a team to play with. It can however also be as tiresome as it can be fun. Extremely infuriating to play with people who have no concept of team play but as rewarding to play with people who play as a team. It has alot tougher learning curve than starcraft since you have so many mechanics and heroes to learn and no help from random people you play with except the cursing and whinin they will give you for not playing as they want you to.

 

[ECA]

It has alot tougher learning curve than starcraft since you have so many mechanics and heroes to learn and no help from random people you play with except the cursing and whinin they will give you for not playing as they want you to.

lol.