The StarCraft II thread

[Claus]

PatoArmado, #451

[Claus]

I feel your pain - But when you started attacking the pylon, maybe you should have taken another 2 SCVs to try and take out the probe at the same time?

[Claus]

I can swear by the cult of Day[9] have been watching his cast the past week or so, and while I still suck, at least now I have a more concrete idea of where I suck and can work to improve on it.

TBM, that second replay was intense, glad you didn't buckle under pressure.

[Claus]

Argh. Just when I go on a trip...

If you guys do a mini league, I'll be back Monday.

[Claus]

I tried for the "win all 5 placement matches" today with Nuwen, and failed miserably. Here are the replays:

http://claus.castelodelego.org/starcraf ... cement.zip

We won the first 3 games, then I completely lost my cool as the wireless started lagging Happy new year!

[Claus]

Playing the campaign will NOT prepare you to play online. I remember when I finished the campaign and played my first couple online games:

"What? I can't build medics? What's wrong? What building did I forget? AAAAAH"

[Claus]

Just played my craziest game ever. TvT, Metalopolis, far positions.

I open 2 rax 1 fac and push with some 'rines and marauders around 8 min. The attack fails, and I high tail back to my base. So far, nothing strange. He counter attacks with a force of marauders, and takes out all my defenses. I had a CC by the ramp, and I tried to turn it into a PF, out of desperation... and it worked!

Follows 40 minutes of him throwing everything at my PF, while I juggle my marines and thors to protect my back. Will PatoArmado be able to rise back from the ashes? Will the fat mama PF finally survive waves and waves of slaughter?

http://claus.castelodelego.org/starcraf ... .SC2Replay

[Claus]

Hey, I was in a game, sent a chat message after the game was over to you guys, and never got a reply T_T

But honestly, send a chat message next time. I saw your party invitation but couldn't reply mid-game.

[Claus]

Rines and Rauders man, Rines and Rauders

[Claus]

I'm in too!

[Claus]

I'm usually 24/7 on skype/gtalk (ccaranha for skype, caranha for gtalk), feel free to ping me to see if I'm available for playing. I don't really use AIM though, sorry.

Tomorrow I should be able to play 11AM-7PM GMT then 10PM-4AM GMT.

Yeah, I'll play with T

I would like to suggest a rule that disconnects before 5 minutes should be rematched. My network is VERY unreliable from time to time

[Claus]

Something pretty similar happened in one of my BSL games

[Claus]

If it worked for JDodge - what are the chances I could upload a couple of my 1v1 replays and get critiqued? Is anyone willing to help poor ol' Quag?

I know I'm still terrible, but I might be getting close to 'flatlining' without some help by the good players.

Quag, from the game we played (which I watched the replay later). here are my hints.

Right now, you need to "automate" the things that can be easily automated: for instance, you can rally your nexus to the mineral line, so that when you produce a probe, it goes directly to mining without you needing to look at it. You can also hotkey multiple buildings (like gateways) to the same number to produce from all of them at the same time (I know that for protoss this gets obsolete with warp tech, but I'm sure it works for other buildings like robo. There are probably other things, but this is what I remember the most, and I believe in the "one improvement at a time" routine.

It has been a while since I saw that replay, but I will take another look at it and comment more. If you want to post other replays, I would certainly watch them too. If other people want to see this replay, it is in the BSL thread.

[Claus]

I'm not exactly "good" myself, but I'll totally take a look too. If we all help each other get better, we can eventually all become pros and make a Mafiascum Pro team.

Heh, I'd be a fan for that.

In other news, some crazy terran tried to lift off his initial base to the island in Scrap station. I managed to make him regret it by annihilating his main with a drop and was ready to look for an expansion when...

I got disconnected

I hate my network. (and I just bought an extension cord to my wireless too!)

[Claus]

However, hotkeying multiple buildings into one hotkey? How to do that?

Select each building while holding the Shift key, then press ctrl+hotkey to hotkey all of them.

[Claus]

I'm going online for a game or two before sleeping, if anyone is around.

[Claus]

Had a pretty epic game this saturday - TPxTZ, my partner got rushed at 6 minutes, but held forever before being eliminated, while I managed to turtle myself and hold the rush. Then I harassed both opponents to death with Banshees. Replay coming later

[Claus]

So yesterday a zerg bm'd at me "Did you know that 30% of gays play terran?"





Worst than a BMing kid is a BM kiding who doesn't even know maths.

Or funnier, if your mood is right

[Claus]

He would play much better if he improved his grasp of statistics first

[Claus]

I will in about an hour and a half.

[Claus]

So, the Funday Monday for this week is Team Monobattles again...

Anyone wants to schedule a time for 4x4'ing this weekend?

[Claus]

Too late, funday monday is over

[Claus]

My first few games in this new seasons were all against "favored" opponents. It sucked balls. Yesterday was like around 2:7 against me...

At least I got promoted to silver in the placement match.

Funny, I used to suck at TP and beat TZ easily, but now it seems to be the opposite.

[Claus]

So based on JD's blorg and that recent "getting into starcraft" daily, I decided to try to organize and write about my gaming. The idea is about 2 hour daily sessions of playing and watching my replays, with some dedicated sessions to improving certains aspects, trying new things, or just plain laddering.

Today I managed to play 5 ladder games. The first two (TZ) were disastrous - the first my macro was horrid. The second the macro was a bit better, and I'm not quite sure what was the big losing point - unit composition? Overcommiting on the first attack?

The third game (TZ) was weird - base trades are always fun, and this one was really close - remember to have a building float to your army earlier when you base trade as terran. In retrospect, though, I should probably have tried to hold my ground after destroying his b/ling forces.

The fourth and fifth game (TT, TZ) were nothing to write home about, two wins against players with poor macro.

Message for the day: I really, REALLY need to learn to time my supply depots. I was getting supply blocked ALL THE FREAKING TIME, even on the winning games. I already got a pair of "supply building probes" hot keyed, anyone has other hints? At least I know what I will be practicing tomorrow.

Replays: http://claus.castelodelego.org/starcraft/20110329.rar

(If anyone could comment on game 2, that would be greatly appreciated)

[Claus]

So I have published a few more replays. I'm practicing my MMM into tank, and it is slowly getting better. I still need to learn not to forget SCVs and supplies at the middle/late game, and scout moar though...

http://claus.castelodelego.org/starcraf ... -pack2.rar

A few noteworthy games:
1- Here Claus builds too many marauders, and forgets that ling+bling = mutas. Lesson learned.
2- And here I go too auto-pilot in the MMM build, and build waaaaay too many medvacs. Also, hellion AI sucks, need to micro them more when harassing.
5- This one was lolzy. I won, but I forgot about the towers, and the zerg enemy was watching all of my army march back and forth all the time >_>
8- Horrid macro and lack of map control here. I thought he was expanding everywhere, If I had slowly pushed forward I might have won instead.
12- Somehow I was mistyping "scan" (C) and "call supply" (X) all the time. When you see me not killing banshees, that's what happened - I was fumbling with the keyboard.

Also, a FFA as bonus where I go mass Battlecruiser against mass VR/Carrier/Mothership. Pew Pew Pew!

Comments are welcome! Now I need to diversify my MMM build for the 3 games.

[Claus]

Oh man, I haven't played starcraft in ages. After a very sucky day at work, I deserve this:

IT IS A GLORIOUS DAY FOR MANKIND!

FFA, I go mass marine/medvacs. Opponents are massing in their bases. Kill one zerg who was trying to expo. Then kill a second zerg with a biggish base (but dont see his expo). By then the protoss massed an army of Carriers + Mothership, I build a fuckton of turrets in the middle of the map, and manage to fight the carriers there, taking them down. Then I realize the second zerg is still alive... I fear he has massed banes or ultras, but fortunately no.

Go terran!

[Claus]

I have never done a FFA, it seems too intimidating.

I think the opposite: FFA´s are so much a flip of the coin, that I go into them without any expectations. It is really good for a relaxing game.

The only problem is that it takes so damn long to get a random FFA game going...

Also, Heart of the Swarm teaser went up yesterday, woot woot.

Meh, not impressed. And what´s up with them charging full game price for an expansion? >_>

[Claus]

Well, to be fair, it's another full-length campaign (the same size as Wings of Liberty), plus a bunch of multiplayer mods with new ladders for the new units and buildings (lurkers, apparently). I don't mind paying full price for it, especially since we won't even see it until Q1/Q2 2012.

A full length campaign is just another bunch of scenarios. New ladders for the new units and buildings were already available on battle.net for previous games. Some of the new units (lurkers for example) were already available in the beta.

Unless they are offering a whole new engine to take advantage of technical innovations that happened in the 2-3 years between the games, yeah this is just an expansion. BroodWars and the WC3 expansions came at a fraction of the price of the original game.

EDIT: Don't take me wrong. I like the game. But given that in the past we were offered the same amount of extra content for a reduced price - yeah this feels like a ripoff. Customers should be complaining about it.

[Claus]

Oh well, I'm happy they won't be full priced

In the reddit thread about the HoTS, the guy who was there said that one of the banelings evolutions was a super baneling that when exploding spawned two regular banelings, which when exploding finally spawned two more baby banelings each.

That is so awesome.

Also, it seems that in the preview they only had access to lings, roaches and blings, thus the massive amount of blings (not that I have anything against that)

[Claus]

Sooo... newbie tuesday. Day9 suggested that we played 10 games, and between everygame we analyzed the replay and made some concrete adjustements and see how it goes.

Of course, on my first game I got a proxy rax T_T。。。

[Claus]

I know right? I actually realized they were going for a marine heavy build because of the no-gas, but I'm so paranoid with proxy pylons that I forgot terran can proxy rax also and didn't go after that stray scouting probe inside my base.

Lesson learned.

[Claus]

That game was hilarious... Idra is insane... And ScumChat is not letting me in!

[Claus]

Hey guys,

1- I am interested in helping JDodge cast. Or at least write summaries to the replay packs. Seems fun. I volunteer to host any files as well.
2- I feel that 2x2, 3x3, 4x4 is a completely different beast than 1x1. I'm ranked waaaay higher in these ladders than I am in 1x1 (which I'm only mid-silver, BTW)
3- I think the best compromise for everyone would be to have all participants play their placement matches (come on, Albert, it is just 5 matches to avoid a lot of drama)
4- People suggesting that Albert would throw matches to enter the tournament are in retard mode.

[Claus]

http://www.banelingbbq.com/?comic=19

This is sooooo mean. But I lol'ed

[Claus]

Meh, I just missed you guys, spent the whole night playing SC2

Moratorium, if you always play at this time, and want to do somewhat regular training matches, let me know! Mid-silver Terran.

[Claus]

I once played "Shadow" once or twice. six players, 2 "shadows", 2 "paladins", 2 "slayers". Paladins and shadows get extra resources, shadows get extra supplies, slayers get almost nothing. Shadows need to kill everyone else, and everyone else need to kill shadows. There is a night phase with fog of war, and a day phase without. It would be nice if the night phase blocked talk among non-shadows, though.

[Claus]

Oh, and the extra resource of shadows increase after every night phase.

[Claus]

Bad - mass Marines, Hellions, and Void Rays

Bad - mass Marines?????? WHAAAAAT? Let me see that replay

My favorite tactic for FFAs is basically going mass marines...

[Claus]

A few notes on Moratoriums very good hints.

3) Idle Factory time

- ALL. Factory never built a thing. All you did was swap the factory around to allow the starports access to the tech labs.

- Solution: Build it later if you're going to build it at all.

I disagree with this point. If he was going for mass air (haven't seen the replay yet), that means probably mass banshees, and that means he will need all the gas he can take. It also means that he will need something to shoot up (marines). So, yeah, no reason to build anything other than the necessary add-ons from the factory.

A good macro + a good plan (for example, marines and banshees) would mean he won't have money for anything else, really. He shouldn't try to fix his macro by building things outside his plan.

6) Supply Blocks

- Blocked at 11, 35 and 59. You responded to the 35 and 59 ones by building 4 supply depots each.

- Solution: Don't get supply blocked, don't build more than 2 depots at a time by the 10 minute mark, keep up with building supply depots as you go.

This is not a solution. Here is a solution:

Your first 3 or 4 supply depots can be integrated into your build order. Memorize when you need to build these four supply depots, (at 10 supply, after 1st barracks, after OC, etc), and practice that against the computer.

After you have your economy going, hotkey two SCVs in your main (I got this tip from here, not sure if from nuwen or somebody else). I like to hotkey them to 5, but whatever works for you. If your economy is going strong, you can order both to build supply depots, and when the supply depots are done, you probably need to build two more anyway, and can access them quickly. (The transition from "BO supply depot" to "supply depot on demand" is something I'm still trying to get the hang of, myself).

8) Initial Scouting
- Your scout at 13'ish supply went to a corner of the map, and stayed there for 90 seconds. Use Shift-queue to queue up waypoints for your scout so that you can scout all possible enemy starting positions, and when you see one appear on your minimap, stop the scout there.

The way points is a very good hint. But I would expand this a bit more. First, I would scout right after you finish your first supply depot (at 10). On bigger maps, scouting at 13 might be a bit late to catch some cheeses (and this is what you are looking for at this level). Also, I remember that when we played together, you just checked what race/position the opponents were and left - you should be looking out for more:

- Big one: how many gases he has. Terran with two gasses probably means fast banshee. No gas probably means marine rush. One gas + wall probably mean he will "behave". Protoss you want to see how many pylons he has in his base. Two pylons, and you are safe. One pylon, you better check if there is a proxy pylon in your base. No pylons might mean proxy gate. No gas might mean proxy gate or cannon rush (unless you can see the early forge, then you know). For zerg you want to see how fast he builds the pool, or if he rushes out a roach warren. All in all, you want to keep your SCV on his base until you can rule out the cheeses.

Of course, you cannot forget to build your own base, so use shiftclick to circle your SCV in a safe path while you are building gas, your first barracks, etc. In this stage of the game, I hotkey my scouting scv "1" so I can keep shifting between him and my base.



On an unrelated hint, I remember from the replays I saw of you, you need to get used to hotkeying your production buildings. This helps A LOT with terran macro. All barracks on 7, all starports on 8, all command centers on 6. (or whatever works for your hand). As for "getting lost in midgame", just decide on a proportion of unit producing buildings, and make sure you build them. For marine + banshee (I never tried it myself, so this is just a guess), I'd say 3 barracks and 2 starports per base. Build these, expand, build 3+2 more, expand again, etc. (adjust the above after watching the replays and checking if you have too much gas/minerals).

Of course, that is a lot of hints. try to practice one of them at a time. I'd say hotkeying the production facilities, and the supply SCVs should be your first priority.

[Claus]

DRK said a lot of good stuff - don't worry about counters, just make sure you know when to bunker down and turtle.

for zerg...mutas, maybe?

In my experience, I don't see zerg two gassing early, even for mutas. My biggest "muta tell" is watching lots of lings and little else. If it is 7 min in the game (the usual timing when I do my first push/poke), and I only see lings in the opponents base, I start my Ebay for turrets and/or cut marauders. If he has roaches/banelings/upgrades, I ease it a bit.

If you see your opponent is rushing, your counter is to build a lot of units.

In the case of terran, you also want to build a bunker in your ramp. Bunkers are wonderful, wonderful things. If you KNOW a rush is coming, leave an scv near the bunker as well.

About banshee's

since covering your entire base with turrets isn't exactly the best option

If it is early game, you just need one, at most two turrets in your mineral line. Pull your marines to the turrets, and there is little else for the banshee to kill. Also, most bronze/silver leaguers won't be good enough to outmicro you with the banshee (if they were, they would be in a higher league).

Knowing things like which units are armored, which are light, and which units do bonus damage against armored and light units should make figuring out a lot of counters simple.

Sometimes, just microing your units differently also helps counter. Collosi are slow and armored. I found out that unless he has a godly amount of colossi, I can dance around them with my bioball, leaving one or two sieged tanks nearby, and trying to feint them into coming closer to the tank line.

But at the bronze level, if you can just train yourself to keep a good macro, and build more production buildings when expanding, you can easily 1A your way to silver (and maybe gold).

[Claus]

Mine is similar as well:

6- CCs
7- Rax
8- Facs
9- SP

If for some reason I'm doing the hellion+banshee build, I will do 7 fac and 8 starport. If for some reason I'm doing just MMM, it will be 7 rax, 8 starport.

5- supply-SCVs
1- scout probe, and then main army
2- tanks
3- flyiers or secondary army

But sometimes I just put all armies on 1 and call it a day.

[Claus]

Well, it is never too late to say that MLG columbus was great!

[Claus]

Thanks Nuwen! But the drama on SC is kinda drowning everything else now

[Claus]

how do you go into a final ace match, for 15 grand, and think to yourself "man, I'm gonna six pool"

Mind games!

"This is the final ace match for 15 grand. My opponent would never risk a 6pool".

[Claus]

Yeah, I'm still working on my "one size fits all"-ish strategy; miles away from mind games

[Claus]

I wonder if there is some sort of crawler or website that tracks league position of people, that we could use to have an automated list of the classification of each scummer in the ladder?

[Claus]

Someone on the TL forums suggested the above + making a wall of dark templars on the ramps.

[Claus]

Reason for removing metalopolis: Not enough rocks.

Its not being removed, just taken out of the ladder pool

That´s what they said. I´m not holding my breath.

Anyway, why

remove

¨take out¨ such a popular map when they have much worse in there?

Also I personally liked Scrap. Might not be the best of maps, but it was DIFFERENT.

[Claus]

Darn. I missed MLG this weekend. Do you guys really recommend buying the pass? Has anyone here bought it? Browsing TL for info I got people complaining about bad VOD quality, silly cuts, etc, and got me a bit wary.

[Claus]

This week's Funday Monday was seriously hilarious. Seriously. If you haven't, go see it now!

[Claus]

What is the point of making a Latin American Invitational if they stream it during working hours in the middle of the week? >_> *grumble grumble*

[Claus]

Thanks for the link! I haven't followed TL for a while.

Kerrigan(?) going all vader on the prince was great

[Claus]

Guys, can anyone give me some hints on how to deal with ultralisks in TvZ? In this matchup I usually do a very vanilla marine/tank/medivac build on 2 base - push - 3 base - try to contain, and this has been working ok if my macro is equal to my opponent's. However if they go ultra, specially in early/mid game, I usually lose, even if the macro levels seem the same.

Should I increase the tank/marine ratio? Any scouting tips for ultras? I suck at anything that is TOO micro intensive. Thanks for the input!

[Claus]

I still play SC2 a few times a week, but I'm not worried anymore at getting better at it. I do however enjoy the hell out of watching pros play this game at tournaments!

[Claus]

The games in HSC yesterday were pretty cool, but the casting + chats between games were annoying me for some reason.

Also loved that Nestea 6pool in the last game yesterday *guilty pleasure*

[Claus]

Yeah, the entire internet is annoyed at the dumb, retconned love story. They do lampshade this near the end of the game from what I understand, though, which made me feel a little better about it. And we also get a neat twist involving Raynor from what I understand.

The only plot-related thing that annoyed me was

Spoiler:

the death of Narud. Big anti-climax, since Duran was one of my favorite Brood War characters. I was over-the-moon about Alexei showing up, though. But there's probably still space for them to full a fast one in Legacy of the Void.

Yeah, I also feel that

the death of Duran/Narud was a bit rushed and anti-climatic - he was much more resourceful in BW. I hope that this is not the last we've seen of him.

On another note, although I liked the campaign, I think it did a pretty poor job at showing the abilities of the new MP units. You are kinda made to use the swarm host a bit in the

primal missions

, but the only real appearance of the Viper is on an evolution mission, which is not even mandatory. It would be nice to have the protoss and terran enemies use the new units with a bit more of a spotlight. I felt that the WoL campaign did a much better job in this regard.

[Claus]

Dat GSL RO16 Group B.... wow