87 replies to this topic

[Illinest]

i feel so dirty.

kulas ravine popped up, random opponent, and i was playing my usual terran.

the first thing that popped into my mind was - god I'm sick of walling in.
the second thing that popped into my mind was - how do i get to that protected expansion quickly?

So I executed Terran cheese.
5 scvs loaded up, one left to scout. lifted the command center up over the rocks and relocated my entire base to the natural expansion. started teching straight to banshees and BCs.
my opponent - zerg it turned out - played it about as well as he could hope except that he had no way to guess whether i was going ground or air. he tried to break the rocks with zerglings but i had 2 banshees out before he could break through and they routed the little critters.
So I had to rush the banshees over there before he had time to establish a line of spore colonies and morph a few overseers. Not my ideal scenario with such a small attack force but it couldn't be helped.
Turns out I had no reason to worry. I was able to deny his attempts to produce a detector and his roaches and hydras fell quickly.

While i was cleaning up his main he got his natural up and running with a few spore colonies, but by this time i had enough banshees to deal with them and the BCs were starting to arrive.

[Cinnabon]

I got my first 50 wins nydus rushing, until i realized i could just win 10 times faster with a 10 pool rush.

Still, I really had my build down, no extra gas/min or anything, I'd be 0/0 when I popped a nydus behind their base (using overlords) and sent in 60 lings plus 2 queens who could transfuse each other.

[Alice]

I'm a boring zerg player. 14 pool/ 13 gas or some sort of variation as an opener (vs Protoss or Terran). Assess situation to see if I can get away with an early expansion, if not wait til early 20 food-ish. Marco, marco. Make mutalisks. Make other massable units (roaches, roaches, and hydras rarely). Marco, marco, marco. Use Nydus worms for moar bases (usually island), or instant win if they were lazy and didn't have their whole base covered by vision. Harass with mutalisks and if opponent allows drops during this whole time. Unfortunately, I'm tired of holding off the sheer number of harasses and timing pushes that Terran can do, so I'm picking up Protoss for the sake of learning.

[Saiyr]

But now I'm a few days into it and I'm surprised at the low level of play I've been facing. I know from prior experience that there's going to be days when I run into effective scouting, 6 pools and reaper rushes and all that fun stuff, but so far nearly every match I've played has been against people who try to tech all the way up to BCs, Broodlords, Carriers, etc.. and I've been winning by pushing with MMM.

there's a guy who goes to my university who thinks the only legitimate way to play starcraft is a 200/200 battle. i know he's sincere about it too because he is the dumbest person i've ever met in my entire life. either way, i was expecting the ranks to mean less at the official launch. they were already a little messed up in the beta

lisks

is this a common abbreviation? if so it's stupid, there's more than one -lisk unit...i assume you meant hydras?

i haven't seen banelings or nydus outside of high level replays yet.

i think banelings are essential units in many matchups and people just don't like to use them for some reason. banelings would've WRECKED me. My wall-in was minimally defended.

Thanks for reminding me about that. I would've gotten used to no banelings and then the first time i ran into someone who used them it would be gg.

banelings got nerfed in the beta, maybe that's why they aren't used often anymore. i didn't even really like using them pre-nerf, but probably because i suck. i didn't play a whole lot but i think i only used banelings successfully in one game

[Illinest]

I usually build two or three barracks, then one factory, then expansion, then make a decision between teching air (usually) or ground.

-Against Zerg I like to end up with Thors. In the meantime I do a standard wall-in and actually scout and play more aggressively against them b/c of bad memories from SC1.
-Against Toss I go with a heavier Marauder build and I'm more likely to use medivacs.
-TVT usually goes either MMM or all the way up to Battlecruisers.


Tonights match was TVT on Delta Quadrant. Never even seen this map before! FUCK!
Well anyhoo... He tried to proxy rush me but I wasn't a noob so I got marines on it and he had to lift off and fly away.
I found his wall but he did not find mine. Why wall off against Terran anyways? So I never built one. AHHHHHH sweet release! I hate the wall.

I got a small force up and expanded before he hit me. He took the expansion out since he had more mineral tied up in his army, but he didn't touch my main and the expansion had already paid for itself so he didn't really hurt me all that bad. I retook and formed a staggered siege tank perimeter that covered main and expansion. Easy peezy

When he wasn't looking I gambled 800 minerals on two unprotected expansions. He found one - missed the other. That fourth expansion is what ultimately did him in since he never found it and my economy was always ahead of his. Sad for him but he never even managed to take out the one he saw.
Banshees appeared on his side but I'd scouted his starports and had a perimeter of turrets already. He never built enough of them to break my minimal turret wall.
He DID however find a weak point in my tank line and eliminate almost all of the siege tanks ahead of a big bio push, but he'd made the mistake of sending thors along with his bio and they fall so freaking fast to marauders. What a waste of resources on his part. Still his bio finally got into my main and took out a few minor targets before I brought my planet buster battle cruiser fleet to bear on him.

I'm pretty much obsessed with the damn things - and as long as people make the mistake of allowing me a 4 base economy I'm gonna keep pumping them out. I had 12 of them by the time he GGed.


He never really had a chance once the first wave of 4 popped out. I'd researched Yamato ahead of time and he didn't have the critical mass of counter-units necessary to deal with my fleet. There's at least 4 different viable counters to BCs, but in each case you need to have numbers if you want to make it work and he was never able to bring out more than 6 or so vikings at a time.
6 vikings are superior economically but it's too easy for me to yamato 4 of them right off the bat and focus fire the other two. I hardly even lost any BCs.

If he was smart he would've relocated all his barracks and gone heavy marines since gas was starting to limit him. Stimmed marines could've done me up.

There were hundreds of different ways he could've done me up actually but he didn't find the right answer.

Another Gold notch in my belt. From what I can tell of the matchmaking system and from reading speculation posted on team liquid forums I think I got misplaced and I'm more of a Silver/Gold level player at the present time. Actually I think Gold players kind of suck. I struggle to beat them since I'm slow on micro and I forget things all the time - like expanding or spending all my resources - but it seems like there's almost always an exploitable hole in their game like a failure to scout properly or an unwillingness to change their army composition or - most damning of all - late expansions.
So many games are the same story. They build up the biggest army they can off of one base and try to win it all in one big battle. Usually doesn't work against me cause I have either too much economy by that time or else I have a unit that hard-counters theirs.

[Illinest]

since the last post was so long I'll do a TLDR here.

The matchmaking didn't place me in the right bracket. I am NOT really a Bronze level player after all. (thank god)

After a conversation with a calc major who used words like bayesian and gaussian to describe how he thinks the matchmaking works - and after an hours worth of research into the match history of my opponents it's clear that the matchmaking system has been matching me up with mostly gold players and good silver players. Players that have beaten me have gotten pretty big points as if I were rated above them. My own point awards have been 46 for a win without fail - which is an indication that the system is trying to figure out my upper limit as it keeps placing me against better ranked opponents every time.

I am barely squeaking these wins out though so I think the ride is gonna come to an end soon - and if the rumors are right I'll have to play another 18 matches before I get considered for a new league.

[Alice]

banelings got nerfed in the beta, maybe that's why they aren't used often anymore. i didn't even really like using them pre-nerf, but probably because i suck. i didn't play a whole lot but i think i only used banelings successfully in one game

Banelings do tons of bonus damage against light units. Meaning really only against zerglings, hydralisks, marines, reapers, and helions. Zealots are light but they take about 5 banelings, so it's usually never worth it... that and sentries' force fields make it them LOLOLOL useless. They are most likely seen in Zerg vs Zerg mirror matches with speed upgrade zerglings, and against heavy marine Terran players because marines tend to get grouped up by one control group syndrome.

Personally, I use them almost whenever the Terran goes for heavy Barrack play.

since the last post was so long I'll do a TLDR here.

The matchmaking didn't place me in the right bracket. I am NOT really a Bronze level player after all. (thank god)

After a conversation with a calc major who used words like bayesian and gaussian to describe how he thinks the matchmaking works - and after an hours worth of research into the match history of my opponents it's clear that the matchmaking system has been matching me up with mostly gold players and good silver players. Players that have beaten me have gotten pretty big points as if I were rated above them. My own point awards have been 46 for a win without fail - which is an indication that the system is trying to figure out my upper limit as it keeps placing me against better ranked opponents every time.

I am barely squeaking these wins out though so I think the ride is gonna come to an end soon - and if the rumors are right I'll have to play another 18 matches before I get considered for a new league.

There's a hidden rating of what you actually are. That's what determines whom you play. It's also bugged as well (in beta and early release, I don't know if they fixed it.) Many people including myself got stuck at Platinum because the algorithm actually requires you to lose some games to better determine your "league". Also, I don't believe bonus pool gets factored into your "true" ranking.


-

Anyway, if you guys ever want to play, add: tenthirtyone.844 or atenthirtyone@gmail.com

[Cinnabon]

Im in a net cafe right now but they dont have fucking SC2, useless cunts

[Alice]

Im in a net cafe right now but they dont have fucking SC2, useless cunts

aren't you stuck on the EU servers?

[Saiyr]

bayesian and gaussian

if he names every mathematician and statistician he's bound to get it right eventually!

banelings got nerfed in the beta, maybe that's why they aren't used often anymore. i didn't even really like using them pre-nerf, but probably because i suck. i didn't play a whole lot but i think i only used banelings successfully in one game

Banelings do tons of bonus damage against light units. Meaning really only against zerglings, hydralisks, marines, reapers, and helions. Zealots are light but they take about 5 banelings, so it's usually never worth it... that and sentries' force fields make it them LOLOLOL useless. They are most likely seen in Zerg vs Zerg mirror matches with speed upgrade zerglings, and against heavy marine Terran players because marines tend to get grouped up by one control group syndrome.

Personally, I use them almost whenever the Terran goes for heavy Barrack play.

yeah i haven't played multiplayer since the beta except one embarassingly long 3v3. playing mass effect/2 instead wooo, no shame in getting owned in that game cuz nobody sees it

[Illinest]

my little brother finally got his internet back and got his game loaded up on his fiances computer.

i like playing against him a lot better than facing random weird guys on Bnet.
he hasn't beat me yet on account of rust - but i think he'll start winning matches tomorrow on account of how close he got today.
he plays zerg as his main and you can tell he likes to micro cause he's always into some kind of drop or harass of one kind or another - but he gets too excited about what's going on and loses track of his economy. typically he wins a number of small battles until i settle on the right unit counter and then crush him en masse.

but the last match we played tonight was a pretty good one. his mistake was one of assumption this time - as I typically don't mass marauders against him but i sure as hell did this time. His army was chock full of roaches and hydras and his force was split when i came for him since half of his army was loaded into a nydus canal. (lucky me - i didn't know about that yet) I actually microed a little and i did an okay job keeping tabs on his tech, massing counters, and supporting them smartly with medivacs and siege tanks.

[Alice]

my little brother finally got his internet back and got his game loaded up on his fiances computer.

i like playing against him a lot better than facing random weird guys on Bnet.
he hasn't beat me yet on account of rust - but i think he'll start winning matches tomorrow on account of how close he got today.
he plays zerg as his main and you can tell he likes to micro cause he's always into some kind of drop or harass of one kind or another - but he gets too excited about what's going on and loses track of his economy. typically he wins a number of small battles until i settle on the right unit counter and then crush him en masse.

but the last match we played tonight was a pretty good one. his mistake was one of assumption this time - as I typically don't mass marauders against him but i sure as hell did this time. His army was chock full of roaches and hydras and his force was split when i came for him since half of his army was loaded into a nydus canal. (lucky me - i didn't know about that yet) I actually microed a little and i did an okay job keeping tabs on his tech, massing counters, and supporting them smartly with medivacs and siege tanks.

A really big mistake of players loving to mirco a lot (Warcraft 3 players are especially gulity of this) is that these players spent too much time saving some units while not making units (both combat and worker).

[Cinnabon]

My problem with zerg right now is it is difficult to build new workers since you need the larve for new units, its not hard to keep building workers with the other two races.

[Alice]

My problem with zerg right now is it is difficult to build new workers since you need the larve for new units, its not hard to keep building workers with the other two races.

I find it toughest as Protoss to replace workers imo. With good larva and marco management, Zerg can pump drones back up fast. (Obviously there's the risk of the enemy just pushing and killing us straight up but...) Terran has the ridiciously powerful MULE which is insane. There was this kid that got 4th place at MLG Raleigh for Starcraft 2 but pulling 90% of his scvs to do a timing push. He either wins or cripples people enough (forcing them to pull workers) that can he win the long economy game via MULEs (against Protoss and Zerg). Protoss has to rely on Chrono Boost, which they should usually use for reducing Warp Gate cooldowns or speeding up research.

[Illinest]

few big patches that i haven't had a chance to play out. my dumb computer is overheating still.

roaches upgraded range. void rays buff/nerfed. They have higher initial damage but lower final damage.
lots of buildings have more hp, thors and corruptors lost their energy bars so they can't be feedbacked any more. still have their abilities, but they're just on a cooldown.

reapers have been nerfed multiple times and don't seem to serve any purpose any more. barracks cant be built until after the first supply depot is down so proxy rush is toast. Terran basically doesn't have an early game anymore which is probably what they intended but Blizzard also revealed some of their internal balance numbers which suggested that Terrans were only OP in theory anyways. The Blizzard numbers actually showed that Protoss was the OP race.
So I'm not sure what I would do anymore as a Terran. I'm guessing that a variation of the 1:1:1 build is probably the best answer and I think this is where the ability of Z to quickly change army composition is really gonna start to be a big deal.

At least you can say that with the planetary fortress Terran still has the resources necessary to do a slow turtle game.