I have returned: StarCraft II

[Rehn]

The problem I've been running into since going into silver league is that my micros suck. Been nearly 4 years since I've played SC1, and keeping up larval injection is proving to be a problem midgame. All terrans opponents eventually stomp all over me cause their 6 barracks is enough to destroy my reinforcements... cause I keep neglecting to keep up on queens abilities, sigh.

I still really love zerg though, but I'm not 1v1 material from the looks of it.

And jojo, my games tend to last 10-15 min, so only once did I run into someone going 3 thors (if that's what you mean by overpowered). Then again I've only played like 8 games tops >_> meh.

[Misuicide]

Zerg is probably the wrong race to start with Rehn. I really really hated playing zerg when I first started playing. I stuck with terran, that was the race i played the most in BW. Try switching races to work on your micro a bit, THEN switch back to zerg. Thats what i did, i'm getting better each time.
Personally myself I don't like playing protoss. I suck with them simple, i suck with them in BW and i suck with them in SC2. I like my zerg and terran

[Jojothemidget]

Want i meant by that is if you ever play a long game a terran can basically tech to the point that no matter what you throw at them unless they make alot of mistakes it will be hard to win against them...

[Kaylia]

The problem I've been running into since going into silver league is that my micros suck. Been nearly 4 years since I've played SC1, and keeping up larval injection is proving to be a problem midgame. All terrans opponents eventually stomp all over me cause their 6 barracks is enough to destroy my reinforcements... cause I keep neglecting to keep up on queens abilities, sigh.

I still really love zerg though, but I'm not 1v1 material from the looks of it.

And jojo, my games tend to last 10-15 min, so only once did I run into someone going 3 thors (if that's what you mean by overpowered). Then again I've only played like 8 games tops >_> meh.

At the same time, most players sit on a lot of money, so just build more hatchery if larva is an issue. It will make up for the missed larva.

Want i meant by that is if you ever play a long game a terran can basically tech to the point that no matter what you throw at them unless they make alot of mistakes it will be hard to win against them...

Infestor+muta+baneling almost always solve that. You cant let the terran to 200 obviously, but there is always opportunity before that.

[Bweigelt]

Want i meant by that is if you ever play a long game a terran can basically tech to the point that no matter what you throw at them unless they make alot of mistakes it will be hard to win against them...

Terran is probably the weakest race late game while being the strongest in the early game which makes them seem overpowered with the prevalence of 1 base play right now.

[geno]

I see no evidence for Terran being the weakest in the lategame. They are definitely strongest in the early to midgame, and the other races have a lot more options lategame, but I feel like the game is actually pretty balanced at that point. Whenever I see or play games where both players are getting up 4+ bases without a huge army disadvantage going into it, the game usually seems like it could easily go either way.

[Bweigelt]

I see no evidence for Terran being the weakest in the lategame. They are definitely strongest in the early to midgame, and the other races have a lot more options lategame, but I feel like the game is actually pretty balanced at that point. Whenever I see or play games where both players are getting up 4+ bases without a huge army disadvantage going into it, the game usually seems like it could easily go either way.

Well Toss is definitely stronger than T late game, especially with the BC nerf, at least that's my experience having played both sides pretty extensively. Zerg is more debatable and at top levels I agree it's pretty balanced. But in lower leagues Terran's aren't going to have the skills to out micro the Ultra's and it's going to be over quickly once they come out.

[geno]

I guess at lower levels maybe, I don't really have much experience with that. All I know is that, when players reach a sufficient level of skill, it becomes all about building the right combination of units, and engaging at the right time and place. No one race has a clear advantage at that point, it's just about decision making. Most late management games can seem to go either way at the diamond levels from my experience as well as from what I've seen in pro games.

[altwight]

It really is decision making skills during late game. It's all about where and when you engage. So many times people mass up there army and run it into a terran ball thinking they'll over run them and just get roflpwnt.

A lot of players get stuck between mid game and late game. The transition from say hydras into say ultras. They get stuck pumping out tier 2 units instead of making their way into tier 3. I see this quite often as well.

[geno]

yeah zerg seem to fall into that trap the most. When a zerg gets three base, they should really start thinking about just putting down pretty much all their tech, because much of it becomes extremely useful late game when you can switch between them so quickly. Other races have extremely strong counters to much of the zerg arsenal, but a quick tech switch and their army is largely useless. I saw this in a game my brother played, where he was mainly mass hydras against a guy who just got storm. He lost his whole army, but then an equally big roach army spawned and he was able to defend. When the guy came with a mainly stalker army next, speedlings destroyed it and his hive tech was done. Next some archons and a lot of speedlings were in the mix, and he ended up eating it all with mass baneling and a couple ultras. Before he could even respond to that, brood lords were attacking the guys third and he had already switched back to roaches.

To an extent this is true for the other races as well. Terran needs to know when to start viking production (to prevent colossus or brood lords from sweeping over their army). They also generally benefit from starting up tank and other mech production, even if they are primarily MMM at the start, once they get three base and playing defensively into a strong push. For protoss, its even more important to throw down your extra tech after a certain amount of time, if only to be ready when the enemy inevitably counters your main tech (mass emp when you get templar, or mass hydra when you go phoenix/voidray, etc).

[Kaylia]

Around what ranking (ladder rating) do you need to be to face some of the best players? My stats arent great (115-105, 1000 rating), I'm just curious how to see if there is a small odds to play against really good player, I'm getting tired of even match..

[geno]

The system is designed to keep you mostly even match I'm pretty sure. Probably + or - 200 points from your MMR (not your actual rating). For instance, if your MMR is like 1800, you probably have a chance to play against anyone who's actual rating is between 1600-2000. That may even be too wide a gap, I'm not sure.

MMR is different than regular rating though, and it is much more sensitive to win/loss. For instance, I'm only a 700 diamond right now because I haven't played a ton of 1v1s yet, but my MMR is much higher because when I do play I have consistently beaten people around my rating. As a result I'm playing a lot of people in the 1100-1300 range right now. If I were to keep playing a lot of games, I'd end up facing stronger people until I get about a 50:50 win rate and then hover there while my actual rating catches up.

For reference, #1 rating US is around 2100 points.

[Slapper]

In my 2v2s we're ranked around 21-22 in gold, once we started hitting a win streak (around 6 win streak) we started playing against diamond people. My guess is when you win you take one step towards better people, and when you lose, you take one step back.

[Kaylia]

Yeah, I know the system is supposed to keep you around 50% win rate, I just have no idea how wide the gap between your opponent and yourself can be. Since most of my match are against people who have less than 50 games played, it's hard to tell what rating they have.

Oh well, hopefully, my current streak is going to bring me back a little higher (15-5 in the last 20 match), I want to fight against people who can pull over 100apm all the time.

In my 2v2s we're ranked around 21-22 in gold, once we started hitting a win streak (around 6 win streak) we started playing against diamond people. My guess is when you win you take one step towards better people, and when you lose, you take one step back.

It's particularly true when you only have a few game played, but after 100 games, the match making start to stabilize and make you fight even match a lot more often.

[tonyg]

I've been watching replays and everything but I honestly can't grasp what the good players do to have over 50apm, I'm honestly trying to up my apm but I have no idea what actions to do to up it. I'm still in bronze, but I usually smash most of my opponents and I play against my cousin which is in diamond and I can hold my own for a while against him, but he still builds units way too fast for me to control his numbers. He also keeps harassing my natural expansion, and I have no clue how to stop him from doing it (his zealots attack my barrier while his stalkers blink up the ledge and fuck my base up). I tried siege defense, but to cover all that ground just costs me so many resources it's useless (and when he sees it he just goes voidray and harasses me from the other side).

Overall I think I'm getting better though, I realize my big weakness is that I have no early game harass (midgame I harass with marine drops, endgame with banshees). I tried opening with 3 barracks and sending M&M but I lose so many resources early in the game that my opponent is able to come back at me and usually drop me before I can gather enough troops back up.

Edit : Would harassing with 2 ravens dropping turrets all over the place be a viable thing to do while I build up forces?

[Kaylia]

Don't worry about your apm for now, your build order is probably more deficient than your ability to click fast. 50apm is more than enough to win a diamond games if you play by the book (and by this, I'm not saying you can't be original, you just need a clear plan that can possibly succeed).

Anyway, if you really want to increase your apm, here is a few thing you can/should do
-Queue command with shift click. Basically, build a supply depot, send your scv back to mineral line, make a scout patrol all 6 expansion in one command to find hidden expo
..etc
-Ctrl1 your scout/army, ctrl 5 all your command center together. Press 5->s to build scv, press back 1 to go back to your scout really fast. Same deal with production building later in game (all of mine are set on 4 usually, and I cycle through them to build my army).
-Approximate click followed by a more accurate click. Send your army in the general direction using the minimap, then correct your path if needed. Same deal when you build something. Start moving your scv toward the proper location, then pick the building as its moving.
-Hit and run. Most terran build gain a lot from attacking, backing 2 step, and attacking again. You can usually get a few more clean shot this way, especially if there is a few marauder in your army.

I've no idea what build your friend is following, but if you want to win, you will have to scout properly to counter his army. If he is going zealot/stalkers, counter that with a large mm ball. You dont want to defend everywhere at the same time, you want a large army that intercept his army at a choke point or something. To do that, you need to scout his movement properly (leaving a scv midmap often work)

Because your friend is better than you and know you dont harass, he is probably going all out on economic build and doesnt play safely. You could try maybe to slip a single reaper in his base (no upgrade or anything). If he has no stalker around, you will be able to take out 3-4 probes easily, scout his base, and escape alive. After that, you can use that wounded reapers at the xelnaga tower. Because he saw you go reapers, he will be forced to get a few stalker, which can easily be countered by marauder (start producing these right away after your first reaper).

[Falaras]

APM isn't really important, its how you use it. Some pros will get up to 300ish APM and still be beat by other pros only managing 130ish. APM doesn't really matter at a non professional level either tbh, I do around 50 usually and am 1000~ point diamond if that tells you anything. I've played against tons of people that do 100-150 and still crushed them also.

As far as the harass thing, I wouldn't call banshee harass "late game" if you go Barracks -> Factory + Tech Lab -> Starport and swap the addons you can get a Banshee out very early and its quite a good way to harass other people...terrans especially. Reaper harass is the only super early game harass since it comes out of the Barracks but it also got nerfed pretty hard and after a while people learned to deal with small amounts of reapers so you have to do something like 5 rax reaper which requires some really good micro.

[Rehn]

Did they ever released an est. date on when the zerg expansion comes out?

[Kaylia]

Apm mean shit early game, lot of players just spam rally point to increase it. I played a game today against a guy who had 120min..for 20min...after that, it dropped to 100 (meaning he had around 70 apm when playing seriously).

In the first 10 min of a game, having more than 50-70 apm is kinda hard, unless you are microing reaper or having fun with your scout

[altwight]

Apm mean shit early game, lot of players just spam rally point to increase it. I played a game today against a guy who had 120min..for 20min...after that, it dropped to 100 (meaning he had around 70 apm when playing seriously).

In the first 10 min of a game, having more than 50-70 apm is kinda hard, unless you are microing reaper or having fun with your scout

mineral boosting yields me 150 APM :/ if you keep doing it until say 25supply then it just gets complicated.