I have a feeling that's going to change as people learn the game more. Zerg obviously already has the baneling bust, and protoss seems to finally be learning just how powerful voidrays are in terms of forcing your opponent to engage (block ramp? Okay, I charge up on your buildings, before I start raping your dudes). Of course, Terran also has the tried and true drop play, so they can just ignore ramp chokes altogether if they want.

 

Even then, it's still defensible if your opponent has the right units set up; Banelings? Siege Tank stagger. Void Rays? Missile Turrets and Vikings. Ghosts and Nukes? ComSat and Siege Tanks.

Hell, terrans can even defend by using nukes in a triangle formation! (Pretty fun; I did that last night in a lose-lose scenario - I was the last man standing out my three person team due to our third (and random) player being a fucktard, so I took the two islands in the corners of the map with the gold minerals. I bunkered up, used 8 Banshees on each island to hold 'em off alongside BC's and Siege Tanks, and used hit and run with Ghosts and Nukes.

Fun times - one of my opponents apparently got pissed off that we didn't leave when our main bases died (thus giving up easily), and started insulting me after I said 'gg' as I finally got overwhelmed like twenty minutes later.

A lot of good things were cut from SCII that would of livened up the gameplay - the zerg Lurker being a good example.

(I miss my Lurkers!)

 

I agree, with both the statements that is. As a zerg, I find it annoying how easily Protoss and Terran can force a long game with relative ease. The last game I played was against a Terran, he went the 2 rax into siege tank build (or something along those lines, I'm not that familiar with Terran builds, basically lots of marines and early siege) I tried a baneling bust but the timing was too late. There seems to only be a small window of opportunity, if there is a window at all, and even then maybe it has to be an all in attack.

After the first siege tank though, there is basically shit all you can do except sit back and macro, maybe try some muta harass but most players these days expect that and counter accordingly.

Then it just turns into a long game of teching and trying to stop drops until he finally moves out with a maxxed army. Broodlords help, but if you tech to them too fast you're very vulnerable to a push.

I don't know, just my observations I'm only diamond (and just barely at that) and I still make plenty of mistakes that could account for my failures to break bases early on.

 

Hahahahahahahahahahaha. No really, siege tank stagger is extremely overrated against ling/bling. I was playing a game on Xel Naga earlier against a zerg who outmacro'd me. I had like 25 siege tanks and some marines and he just rolled in with the ling bling and fucked me up hardcore. You have to be ballsy as zerg. Really the siege tanks aren't the important aspect of a siege tank push; ironically the marine micro and numbers are more important.

 

Fucking LOL!

 

Everyone should check this out: MrBitter - 12 Weeks with the Pros

Fantastic resource for becoming a better player, he basically plays with several different pro players coaching him as he goes, this is especially valuable if you're a zerg player.

 

Curious-anyone know a cheap place to buy a Euro SCII account? Looking to get one for my friend so we can play (different regions), and don't feel like forking over $50 just because Blizzard got fucking greedy.

 

TSL is on.


I'm finally starting to get into the 1v1s in Starcraft. Took me long enough. Watching these tournaments is great for learning.

 

The site is getting a lot of traffic, so if you want to go straight to the stream, http://www.ustream.tv/teamliquidtv

 

SPOILERS FOR DREAMHACK IDRA VS. TLO.

Well, I've got the best terran strat ever. ONE BASE SEVEN RAX MARINES!

 

NASL was broadcasting today, was pretty awesome to watch. Hopefully they'll have VODs up soon.

Also, in case you guys haven't seen it - this is the best zerg build EVER.

 

It was okay. Certainly better than I was expecting given how poorly they were handling every other aspect of it. That being said, they seriously need to do something about the bloom.

EDIT: Also, I really hope they step up the quality of games over the next few seasons. Maybe it's because I've watched pretty much every match in GSL (except for most of...2, I think), but the game quality was a massive step down. I don't even mean GSL code A, I mean more code B (which doesn't really exist and is more of a qualifier for code A).

 

That zerg build is fucking invaluable! I'll be trying it out, later.

On a side note, I'm starting a custom map project designed to open up the melee gameplay a little bit. It'd probably fuck the balance (and make it unstable until I implement the whole new set of additions to each faction), but it's mainly for fun.

I'll post up screenshots of the initial changes when I get around to working on it, even if my graphics card is sucky.

 

Okay, warning, I just posted this on the blizzard forums, but those are pretty shitty, so I'm just gonna copy it here.

 

Relax, take a break from the game, play single-player.

Play custom games for a few days, wind down.

 

Host a replay or two of you winning one, and losing one. I'm pretty awesome at theory crafting. I also have masters credentials .

 

Seriously, last time I went on a losing streak I just started fucking around. I got my friend to do a bunch of custom games with me (he's plat as well, so I wasn't really losing to him).

It's like any sport, you don't want to keep going during a losing streak. You just keep getting more and more frustrated. Leave it alone and cool down.

 

Well, I'm not sure which race you play, but this might inspire you to play past a certain race's stupidity.

http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/1971759389?page=2

 

Great, so lets take the already shitty gateway units and remove one of the few advantages they have.

That makes perfect sense.

Idiots like this should just burn.

Sicksee makes the most amount of sense. The biggest problem (at least in diamond level pvp) is that I FF the ramp, but they just warp in above and suddenly they have vision and 4 zealots all up in my shit. Remove vision and suddenly 4gate becomes much less powerful.

 

Protoss are about finesse and micro-management; stalkers being designed for support and hit and run, sentries being fire/casting support, zealots as tough melee, etc.

However, due to the combined and inherent natures of the warp gate, nexus chronoboost ability and pylon proxy, all protoss players seem to do is spam stalkers, with a few sentries as support. Sometimes, you'd also find a zealot or two in the mix, too.

When a unit designed as a support/raider is being used as a main battle unit contrary to its design, you know that something, somewhere has gone awry with the intended design.

A solution to this, making stalkers more precious and valuable so that they cannot be squandered on being a massed unit, should be considered.

Warp Gate technology? Tack on an extra 10 seconds on the research time, and double the cost in gas.

Increase the time between 'spawns' by a few seconds, or increase the cost of 'gated in' units by 10% or so compared to their gateway cost.

This would force the player to utilise the warpgates as mid-battle reinforcement tools as they were intended to be, and not for general unit creation, which the gateway is supposed to be.

(Even if stalker spammers are usually ridiculously easy to counter, the fact that it's constantly being used as a tactic highlights a problem).

This is also the case with the terran reaper; they had been nerfed (for example, having their G4 Cluster Bombs removed) and tweaked so much, that they're not really used that much at all now, aside from in marauder/reaper combinations to take down stalkers/zealots. Ever since nitroboost now requires a factory to be used, the low percentage of players that used them early on as raiders has becoming even smaller, perhaps to the point of nil.

Blizzard themselves have stated that them screwing up the reaper so much was a 'mistake', and they're buffing them in Heart of the Swarm.

Blizzard have attempted to streamline Starcraft 2 so much to appeal to the 'pro-gamer' crowd that dominated Starcraft 1 and Warcraft 3, that they've carved down the meat of the game too much.

Just look at all of the cut alpha/beta content that was seen in Starcraft 2's development, as an example.

Edit: Oh, and banelings decimating legions of marines per pop? Fun times...fun times.