The StarCraft II thread

[AGar]

HEY RECKONER REMEMBER WHEN I SENT YOU AN IM SAYING I WAS GONNA NAP AND THEN NAPPED.

I WOKE UP THIS MORNING

seriously, i hadn't slept since I grabbed a few hours during the afternoon sunday. and i'm fucking terrible too. this whole agar playing zerg thing is going to be interesting

[Iecerint]

I hate you.

[xRECKONERx]

I ended up playing a game vs AI as zerg... and lost. On medium.

Then I played a game vs AI as Protoss and won but still went "haha fuck that shit" and decided on Terran.

..then I barely won as Terran vs AI.

I am complete shit right now.

[DeathRowKitty]

I hate you.

<3

[AGar]

I hate you.

No hearts.

And yeah... it should be hilarious when we do this Reck, I won't lie.

[Otolia]

I lose because my mechanics are lacking not because of the 7RR. It's is not the most economically oriented build (it's 15 hatch) but it allows a quick counter to cheese (which is important in bronze) and a possibility of pressure while staying quite good because of the very early queen. After that, the protoss have to drive me away by teching immortal (huge eco cost) which delay the colossus which is my goal because I am fast-teching hydra (during the attack ~6min)

My replays show that even though I'm ahead, I don't take a 3rd nor do I have army advantage. I have to work on my scouting and my map control which are both bad. That's why I lose, protoss units are too cost efficient compare to zerg ones and I have trouble making the good decision. But it's improving And it has nothing to do with my initial build since I lose my games in a single attack around 20 min.

Cheesing can be good but most of the time, people will just wall their base in time or just make a rush build so you are screwed.

[DeathRowKitty]

The best counter to cheese in bronze is to scout it and respond appropriately. There's a reason whatever cheese that player is using hasn't gotten him out of bronze yet. It's because he doesn't execute well and it isn't that difficult to stop. If you're against protoss and you scout two early gates with no gas and possibly a low probe count (or if you see nothing in his base), throw down your pool (if you haven't already) and spam lings. If you see just a forge, send 4 drones to stop the cannon rush, and, worst case scenario, spawn a creep tumor with your queen's first 25 energy to stop the cannons from advancing, then tech to roaches. Etc. Intentionally going for a less economic build as a preemptive counter to cheese will lose you more games than it will win, especially when you can counter without it.

With or without having to produce a couple immortals (and you don't need many to tip a battle in your favor if all your opponent has is roaches), colossi come out well before 20 minutes. If you're hoping to set your opponent back enough to prevent him from teching to colossus, you need to attack sooner. Maybe just wait until you have some predetermined number of hydras (I don't know what that number would be) and attack again. Or focus on taking a third base and skip the fast teching to hydras.

It seems like you're really trying to make this one strategy work for whatever reason and it's just not working for you. If you want to improve your mechanics, I would suggest trying a more standard build that gets your second base down sooner. Having more resources gives you more flexibility in what you can make and hopefully it will get you used to expanding earlier. You can only stay on two bases so long as zerg before you start to fall behind. Unless you have some sort of semi-all-in timing attack planned out off two bases, you're going to need a third base sooner than your opponent so you can get extra resources and keep up with their production. And if one unit composition isn't working for you (roach-hydra, in this case), try something different. Roach-hydra only works until colossi or HT come out. If you stick with roach-hydra and aren't able to get enough of an advantage to break the protoss before he gets colossi or HT out, you're probably not going to win. So take a third base, take a fourth base, get some corruptors out, get some infestors out, and then try engaging the protoss army.

[Otolia]

And lose anyway because he can a-click ... I expand/tech around the time of my push so it's earlier than any opponents except DT or Banshee rush. It's not my strategy that is bad, it's my mechanics. You can go to diamond (at least) just with mechanics. I don't take my 3rd early enough, I have a poor creep management, I have an below average larva management. I either lose against one base all-in (I don't scout the attack or have spines) or in two bases (I don't expand to my 3rd early enough) After that I usually rage a lot because I feel like I play better overall in the first 12 minutes (faster expand and tech) but I get sloppy afterwards. I insulted many mothers today >>

I can demolish pretty much anyone in bronze and silver with terran or protoss by a-click to death but I can't do that with zergs because my zerg mechanics are bad. I know my weaknesses and I am working on it. I appreciate your advices (most are aweome) but zerg are a reactive race and I am not reactive at all. I don't scout and I have poor map control, these are the main reasons for my loss. Sure I could scrap a win or two by having another strategy but in the long run it's not gonna make a difference. Losing brings me more insights about my own attack timing and forces me to work on it. If I wanted easy games, I would switched back to Protoss which is my favorite race.

[AGar]

Try looking into a speedling expand if you need better map control.

[Otolia]

It's what I was doing before, but I feel like the micro needed for pressure with lings is too high for now and it keeps making me forgetting larva injection and stuff like that. Maybe I should give it another try to see what I can do.

Though in ZvZ my 7RR is almost always game-winning. If I don't win at 8 min, I win as soon as I have 10 hydras. \o/

[DeathRowKitty]

I would think roaches require more micro to use properly than lings do...unless you're attacking a mineral line with a small group of lings, in which case you're probably getting far enough ahead you don't have to worry about being a bit late on a larvae inject.

[Iecerint]

It could just be that he wants to lose strategically so that he can stay in Bronze and achieve the fastest possible wins/time ratio because he wants the Dark Voice avatar.

Against anything Hard AI or below, I think you can just defend->attack-move counter-attack and win every time. Or you can do standard cheese (proxy barracks/6 pool/cannons) and win every time.

I wish I had youtube here so I could see the modern way to beat Insane with the various races (post-AI changes). That way I could convince myself to go Random Custom or Random Insane Co-Op instead of polluting league games with my filth.

[Otolia]

It could just be that he wants to lose strategically so that he can stay in Bronze and achieve the fastest possible wins/time ratio because he wants the Dark Voice avatar.

No, I'm not like that. It's just Protoss == Forcefields. A force field in the ramp = 6 lings trapped or 1 roach trapped. Which one is better ? That's why I am doing a 7RR rather than speedling. I can tech and expand during the first zealot kill

[Iecerint]

Oh, I wasn't talking about you. I was responding to the back-and-forth re: cheese keeps you in Bronze only if you do the cheese poorly/slightly more elaborate fail-proof-y strategies recommended.

My counterpoint was that the extra effort required for such strategies defeats the purpose of grinding achievements (because they take more time to execute).

[AGar]

It could just be that he wants to lose strategically so that he can stay in Bronze and achieve the fastest possible wins/time ratio because he wants the Dark Voice avatar.

No, I'm not like that. It's just Protoss == Forcefields. A force field in the ramp = 6 lings trapped or 1 roach trapped. Which one is better ? That's why I am doing a 7RR rather than speedling. I can tech and expand during the first zealot kill

Why are your 6 speedlings getting trapped up your ramp?

If you're doing a speedling expand, you should have 1 ling at his choke and the rest of yours nearby so that if he tries to push, you can stop droning and start producing lings while you bring in your control group of initial lings to flank his forces. Or are you getting cheesed here? In which case, scouting.

The only things I can think of here is either a) you're misunderstanding what to be doing if you're doing a speedling expand (those lings shouldn't be left at home) or b) you're getting lolfacerolled on maps with close spawning positions, in which case, that's going to happen at the low levels, and until you feel comfortable enough to vary your build orders in that matchup to the point where you have a build for the larger maps and a build prepared for smaller maps.

[DeathRowKitty]

I think he meant his lings get trapped up his opponent's ramp...the solution to which is not to run several lings up a ramp guarded by a sentry.

[AGar]

Well.. yeah.

[DeathRowKitty]

This is what happens when you run lings up a ramp guarded by sentries. It's from a little over a month ago. My opponent usually played protoss and I usually played zerg, so it's...uhh...kind of an awful game. For anyone that doesn't care to watch the replay, he tried to attack up my ramp with something like 72 zerglings vs a few zealots, a few stalkers, and a few sentries, caught me at the perfect time (just as I was moving out to try to expand with my aforementioned massive army for support) and still couldn't break through. Moral of the story: ZOMGOMZOMZGOMZGOMZGZ FORCE FIELD OP!1!1!!!!11!!

[Otolia]

I saw the ZvP from Sheth yesterday and he can break through with speedlings when there is on sentry and one zealot. But I am afraid I'm not as ballsy as he is droning up like a madman >>

[Ellibereth]

DOES ANYONE STILL PLAY BROODWAR.

[Iecerint]

Yay random 250.

Excellent use of my free time.

[AGar]

DOES ANYONE STILL PLAY BROODWAR.

I would if there was anyone else to play with

[Ellibereth]

DOES ANYONE STILL PLAY BROODWAR.

I would if there was anyone else to play with

My shitty computer can't handle Star-2.
Haven't played for a while...used to be iccup really low D and the like, but if you don't mind the suckitude..

[AGar]

I was forever D- on Iccup lol.

Unfortunately, I'm on a mac, so I can't play with Chaos/Icc launchers and I can only access US East/West I think.

[Otolia]

Playing BW is like blowing his own mind with a gun. So so so painful.