I have returned: StarCraft II

[GRT]

didn't the phoenix use to have some kind of AoE vs air? they took that out too? booo

[MisterBob]

didn't the phoenix use to have some kind of AoE vs air? they took that out too? booo

Phoenix and Thor are both pretty much garbage units at this point. You can use Phoenix to harass Zerg Overlords, but they don't actually counter air like they are supposed to.

[Minions]

AI Version 5.0 seems to work rather well, did not attack very much, built quite alot expanded and defended pretty well however.

[GRT]

Phoenix and Thor are both pretty much garbage units at this point. You can use Phoenix to harass Zerg Overlords, but they don't actually counter air like they are supposed to.

Thor is not garbage, medivac 2 of them along with some marauders into enemy base is one of the most fun thing ever

[Flarega]

The infested terran launcher is pretty funny.

[geno]

Phoenix and Thor are both pretty much garbage units at this point. You can use Phoenix to harass Zerg Overlords, but they don't actually counter air like they are supposed to.

Phoenix is pretty sick for harass, and not just against overlords. Even a handful of them can do a lot of damage to unprotected worker lines. They are also good at harassing/killing Queens and other units that are separated, particularly if you have a Void Ray as well.

I'd still like to see them get some kind of buff against air though, either a bit of splash or a small damage/attack speed increase, something to help against mutas. As of now, 2 hatch mutas is hard to stop; archons can't keep up with them and don't seem to deal splash anymore (not 100% sure about that), high templars would be good if it wasn't so ridiculously unintuitive to storm air units, stalkers are garbage against them unless you have a huge numbers advantage. The best unit for dealing with them seems to be the Sentry using guardian shield, which actually is surprisingly effective when you have them in even or even fewer numbers.

[Meian]

Thor is not garbage, medivac 2 of them along with some marauders into enemy base is one of the most fun thing ever

Medivac can heal Thor? Or was it for the Maruaders?

Was trying to figure out if BC was worth over Thor usually

[Trigun]

I got it working half through 4chan half through that youtube video. The game is very beautiful and the music is awesome. Can't wait for the full thing.

[Shuvo]

Thor is pretty good with their 250mm cannon. That thing can go right through protoss shields and take down buildings really fast.

[Meian]

Thor is pretty good with their 250mm cannon. That thing can go right through protoss shields and take down buildings really fast.

As opposed to Yamato Cannon I suppose since they come with 250mm cannon built if I remember.

V5 is pretty nice the zerg are giving me issues early on if I am not ready, but later game they aren't really a threat at all and still only expand next door to them. Still, a great improvement in AI as compared to before.

Mm... the whole Marine/Medic and 1-2 tanks early on from SC1 doesn't really seem to apply here as easily since Medivac is here instead.

Any tips for early on attacks with Terran? I was use to the whole "bio for zerg" and "tech for protoss" simple mentality but I can see that really isn't so much the case here as before.

[popsiclestix]

I'm surprised this is very under radar. THIS IS THE MOST anticipated game of the past decade is it not? There were only like 2500 beta keys. This opens up playing vs AI bots for everyone . I imagine more people would be doing this by now, or at least see it on some gaming sites as news.

Any how. Roaches are fucking hax shit. Nukes are easy to get and cheap, but it is sort of a trap to fall into when going that path because ghosts are 200 gas each.

[aers]

I'm surprised this is very under radar. THIS IS THE MOST anticipated game of the past decade is it not? There were only like 2500 beta keys. This opens up playing vs AI bots for everyone . I imagine more people would be doing this by now, or at least see it on some gaming sites as news.

Any how. Roaches are fucking hax shit. Nukes are easy to get and cheap, but it is sort of a trap to fall into when going that path because ghosts are 200 gas each.

Over 10k beta keys, actually. Probably close to 20k+.

[GRT]

Any how. Roaches are fucking hax shit.

this


david kim vs. oversky, seems as long as you tech up burrow before opponent gets detect you win

Spoiler: show

[geno]

My brother played like a 30minute ZvZ (he's silver, but he's #1 in his division and was playing against a platinum) a day or two ago. Yeah, ZvZ is just a hardcore roach-fest it seems. My brother was behind on expos and eventually wasn't even mining at the end, but he still won the game largely because of superior roach upgrades. The other player was roach+hydra, which just didn't compete with burrowing roaches.

It was fairly even until the very end (which is big considering my brother was 1base and the other guy was 2 base). Near the end the other guy pushed with his hydra/roach army and successfully stopped my brother's expo attempts (and he was mined out in his main) so it was down to just their armies which were similar sized or favored to the other guy in supply count. The big difference was my brother had the hive tech roach upgrade that allows roaches to heal fairly fast even unburrowed and RIDICULOUSLY fast burrowed. It wasn't even close, the guy just couldn't do any damage to them with his hydras, and my brother just pushed into his base and won lol. I have a hard time seeing other viable units in ZvZ in the current build. Its probably not impossible and some very defensive/tech strategies might work, but it does seem hard.

[Flarega]

Yeah. I love zerg, but roaches are way OP.

[geno]

Yeah. I love zerg, but roaches are way OP.

In other matchups besides ZvZ, roaches really aren't as bad as they are made out to be. People just make the mistake of pushing out with similar tech units in similar numbers. I'll refer to protoss here because thats what I play, but that basically means a zealot/stalker/sentry army. Thats just not going to work against a 1base roach build. You need to counter when you see something like that, push to robo tech and possible fast expand and you will completely invalidate the zerg's entire strategy. Observers stop cute burrow micro and immortals will just eat up roaches in no time flat. This also allows you a great opening into a solid mid-game build to counter whatever the zerg does:

If they tried to go heavy expansions with their roach map control, you can build a solid ball of sentry/stalker/immortal with some zealots to eat damage and just push and win. If they used the opportunity to tech up, use obs to find out what they're going for and direct counter it. Colossus w/ range and the above army will eat hydras and templar tech units with high sentry numbers will take out mutalisks. In any situation, you should be in the lead going into this decision, because its actually a sizable investment on the zerg's part to get that high roach count early on to try to end it or just for map control.

I honestly have more trouble with quicker tech strategies. Fairly fast 2 hatch mutas is just a very strong timing to beat when you are one gate tech expand. Fast hydras into a hydra break with overseer support is also difficult to beat. Its all a bit of rock-paper-scissors here of course because either of these strategies can themselves be dealt with with the use of early aggression like a 2 gate zealot push. This is good though, there needs to be a variety of viable builds and as long as its not impossible to win if you guess wrong or are scouting poorly, I'm going to be pretty satisfied.

edit: quoted wrong

[Flarega]

I wish mass lings were a little stronger. They were my favorite unit in SC1, now they feel weaker.

[geno]

They can still be pretty strong, but (again, referencing PvZ) you need to do appreciable damage before colossus tech. I feel they are very similar to SC1 lings in all honesty, such ridiculously fragile units that can do a lot of damage when they have support. Mass lings was only a really viable strategy in SC1 if you did it when the opponent was completely unprepared. Honestly, they are even more effective now because you can incorporate banelings with the mix for very little extra investment and really put a ton of pressure on your opponent to spend and defend early on.

Again, like in SC1 they are very control and upgrade dependent. Surrounds are just as important and a lot easier to pull off (particularly with ling speed) because of the attack AI. And cracklings are theoretically just as powerful as they ever were (though to be honest, I haven't had them used against me much to back that up). Overall, lings are just as dangerous in numbers as they were in SC1 in my opinion, as long as you are using them right.

[Flarega]

Yes, but they do lose a lot of their power with filers gone.

I do really like them for trapping units in early game too, before many people have detects. Same goes for banelings. They're really handy for burrowing at a choke point and supporting ranged units in an attack.

[geno]

You are right, their end-game usage is certainly hurt with swarm gone, particularly against terran. Only took a handful of lings and a defiler to defend any fringe expansions from a terran push in SC1 so long as your reaction times were good and micro was even better. I don't see that being the case anymore. But at the same time, the doom drop scenario has gotten even stronger with the advent of the nydus worm making instant zergling base destruction a frighteningly easy to achieve reality, against both unsuspecting protoss and terran players. This is actually one of the things I'm REALLY scared of seeing happen to me in future games because I don't know how I'll handle it. Doom drops were almost as scary in SC1 as the nydus is in SC2, but they required a lot of APM and time to set up so only strong players could pull them off successfully (and if you were playing a strong player, you were likely strong enough to defend or counter successfully as well). But now its as easy as rallying one round of units to your nydus network, resetting the rally, popping a nydus worm, unload all, and move on with your day.