I have returned: StarCraft II

[Maguspk]

Any word on Blizzard opening up higer difficulty settings for computer opponents?

Probably along with the content patch in April. This is also when the mac client is supposed to be released.

[Rivero]

Oh, what is that supposed to mean? *baw has bronze skills* ;_;

Copper here.

[Maguspk]

God I hate ZvZ, you are literally forced to mass roaches, it's fucking stupidity. I miss hydras being prelair fuck.

[Ferien]

Most of my ZvZ matches end with whoever gets Mutalisks first, actually. I haven't really had to deal with (nor have I rushed with) mass roaches since my first set of placement matches.

[Kaylia]

How do you deal with 3-4 tanks surrounded by MMM. The guy was good at microing his shit, and I simply couldn't get close to his tank without getting rapped. Hydra failled, muta failled as well. If I went straight muta, maybe I could have rapped the medivac and marine, but with a few vikings, he was pretty much unstopable on my 2nd attempt.

He literally destroyed half of my base from outside, and no air or ground was working (I was zerg the first time, and protoss the 2nd match) and even templar wouldnt get close enough. in SC1, I would just use corsair or queen to get ride of tank, but in SC2, I dont know what to do to counter this.

[edit]

And seriously, they need to fucking buff phoenix. It has to be the weakest air unit ever made. They take forever to kill anything, and their only skills disable their own attack. Most mobs you would want to disable arent light armored in the first place, so what's the point?

[Maguspk]

Most of my ZvZ matches end with whoever gets Mutalisks first, actually. I haven't really had to deal with (nor have I rushed with) mass roaches since my first set of placement matches.

Mutalisks are not great against other Zerg, especially if they have hydras. If your matches are being decided by mutas then it's a bad match because whoever gets mutas has lost a fair amount of investment getting them and even with them won't be able to out damage a pack of the corresponding roaches your opponent zerg will have gotten. Then in the best case scenario when you base swap, you go against his hydras while his roaches rape your base.

How do you deal with 3-4 tanks surrounded by MMM. The guy was good at microing his shit, and I simply couldn't get close to his tank without getting rapped. Hydra failled, muta failled as well. If I went straight muta, maybe I could have rapped the medivac and marine, but with a few vikings, he was pretty much unstopable on my 2nd attempt.

He literally destroyed half of my base from outside, and no air or ground was working ( I was on protoss the 2nd time) and even templar wouldnt get close.

[edit]

And seriously, they need to fucking buff phoenix. It has to be the weakest air unit ever made. They take forever to kill anything, and their only skills disable their own attack. Most mobs you would want to disable arent light armored in the first place, so what's the point?

Phoenix are like only good against mutas, I agree the ability seems sort of weak.

I think zerg right now are weakest at directly countering enemies, our hard counters are like... corruptors and maybe BLs because they are our only 'splash/seige' unit. The way I see high level zerg playing is trying to contain the opponent and harassing so that a large force like the one you're describing is not possible.

In that situation I'd suggest attacking from behind with speedlings maybe to get at the tank and distract while you attack from the front with stronger units or your main force, same thing with Mutas could flank the tanks while simultaneously attacking head on with something like hydras. Also, the best ability for that situation would probably be the infestor's fungal growth, it'd really ruin that MMM ball's day. I never see people using fungal growth though, but I am fairly certain it's a strong ability. It's just discouraging to have to spend 150 gas on a spellcaster, at least that's why I usually avoid it.

[Kaylia]

I couldnt really flank him since he was making good use of the terrain. His tank were always behind the marine and marauder.

Fungal grow is something that I never use, but against tank, I'm not sure I could get close enough, and even then, tank was the deadly part. MMM was just a shield.

[GRT]

the only way you can get to muta in a ZvZ is if your opponent relaxed the pressure with his roaches

[Shuvo]

How do you deal with 3-4 tanks surrounded by MMM. The guy was good at microing his shit, and I simply couldn't get close to his tank without getting rapped. Hydra failled, muta failled as well. If I went straight muta, maybe I could have rapped the medivac and marine, but with a few vikings, he was pretty much unstopable on my 2nd attempt.

He literally destroyed half of my base from outside, and no air or ground was working (I was zerg the first time, and protoss the 2nd match) and even templar wouldnt get close enough. in SC1, I would just use corsair or queen to get ride of tank, but in SC2, I dont know what to do to counter this.

[edit]

And seriously, they need to fucking buff phoenix. It has to be the weakest air unit ever made. They take forever to kill anything, and their only skills disable their own attack. Most mobs you would want to disable arent light armored in the first place, so what's the point?

I don't have the best success rate with this, but what I like to do in this situation is use 4-5 void rays (i like to build them in a corner where they usually don't scanner sweep) and take out their command center asap. This usually forces them to do a straight up attack instead of waiting for the siege tanks to blast away from a safe distance. Then, its just a matter of your defenses vs their MMM. If they have a comprable number of vikings however, this will not work, as they just fly those out. You will at the very least be able to take out the 1 CC though, and then fly away to safety (void rays are faster then vikings).

With some luck, their remaining CC will have used up all its energy doing scanner sweeps for your siege tanks, and a lone dark templar will be able to take out most of the marines by himself (1 hit kill), or make them run away anyway.

[Dezzimal]

I think zerg right now are weakest at directly countering enemies

Disagree with this, Zerg's macro mechanic allows it to be the most fluid at countering builds. Maybe the units themselves aren't always hard counters, but since you can make /anything/ out of an unused larva as long as you have the tech building for it, you can re-macro your army to almost any comp you see fit limited only by the number of larva you're producing and money you have.

[Maguspk]

Disagree with this, Zerg's macro mechanic allows it to be the most fluid at countering builds. Maybe the units themselves aren't always hard counters, but since you can make /anything/ out of an unused larva as long as you have the tech building for it, you can re-macro your army to almost any comp you see fit limited only by the number of larva you're producing and money you have.

When I say directly counter I think it's obvious I meant like hard counters built into the game like +X against X armor type. I agree the ability to produce easily 30+ units mid game as the drop of a hat makes them able to react more dynamically but the units themselves do not have many hard counter type attacks which we see on other races key units. Making it a bit trickier to intially counter a well balanced enemy army comp.

I don't have the best success rate with this, but what I like to do in this situation is use 4-5 void rays (i like to build them in a corner where they usually don't scanner sweep) and take out their command center asap. This usually forces them to do a straight up attack instead of waiting for the siege tanks to blast away from a safe distance. Then, its just a matter of your defenses vs their MMM. If they have a comprable number of vikings however, this will not work, as they just fly those out. You will at the very least be able to take out the 1 CC though, and then fly away to safety (void rays are faster then vikings).

With some luck, their remaining CC will have used up all its energy doing scanner sweeps for your siege tanks, and a lone dark templar will be able to take out most of the marines by himself (1 hit kill), or make them run away anyway.

He was playing Zerg. Also going fast void rays against terran sounds like a really bad idea. Actually, fast void rays sounds like a bad idea always, it's too all your eggs in one basket and if you're scouted (which happens easily with the current maps) you are going to get punished for doing it. The fact that they are scanner sweeping instead of sending an scv already makes me wonder about the caliber of opponents.

[GRT]

the problem is most zergs stick to roaches hydras mutas throughout the game, and those 3 units really don't hard counter any build

whereas if you strategically utilize banelings and corruptors, even ultralisks, together with your usual mass army, those 3 completely dominate most similar tier units from terrans and toss

[Maguspk]

I have yet to see a pro zerg player use banelings, they are only really effective defensively against a player who is on their guard. There is a reason zerg players stick to Roaches, Hydras and Mutas and it isn't because they are just stubborn or playing the game wrong. Most games also end before T3 is viable, going T3 as soon as possible is a sure fire way to lose.

[GRT]

got owned by a pro baneling guy... flanked my roaches/hydras army with like 8~12 banelings and destroyed my hydras

also, corruptor isn't t3... i like to use them against guy going viking's overlord hunting and worker harass

[Shuvo]

When I say directly counter I think it's obvious I meant like hard counters built into the game like +X against X armor type. I agree the ability to produce easily 30+ units mid game as the drop of a hat makes them able to react more dynamically but the units themselves do not have many hard counter type attacks which we see on other races key units. Making it a bit trickier to intially counter a well balanced enemy army comp.

He was playing Zerg. Also going fast void rays against terran sounds like a really bad idea. Actually, fast void rays sounds like a bad idea always, it's too all your eggs in one basket and if you're scouted (which happens easily with the current maps) you are going to get punished for doing it. The fact that they are scanner sweeping instead of sending an scv already makes me wonder about the caliber of opponents.

I didn't say make void rays and nothing else, you can still build up enough forces to hold a choke point. Making 1 void ray takes approximately the same resources as building 1 siege tank or 1 medivac. And if they have several medivacs, siege tanks to back up their marines/marauders, you should be able to build up enough stalkers/zealots/sentries to hold the choke point while still building a few void rays.

They scout with an SCV at the start, then move on to scanner sweeps afterwards. And I've noticed, even with plat players, that they often ignore the corners of your base with their scans.

[Kaylia]

I don't understand update anymore.

Storm nerf?...ugh
Thor...sound like a nerf most of the time, except against muta that are super packed
banshee boost? They werent useful enough?

[Meian]

I don't understand update anymore.

Storm nerf?...ugh
Thor...sound like a nerf most of the time, except against muta that are super packed
banshee boost? They werent useful enough?

Man... Thor really didn't need a nerf but I am curious to the splash damage though

I am guessing the Banshee boost was to accomodate the slight nerf in reactor/marine and make tech more appealing... prolly same reason for more nerf on roach so other methods are used?

[Kaylia]

Am i the only one who have issue with b.net. it constantly get stuck looking for a game forever unless I close the game, and I get kicked off a lot (lost 4 match yesterday getting disconected at the start)


[edit]

Gdi, again, and it just broke my long winning streak when I was winning the game.

[Meian]

http://us.battle.net/matchmaking/index.html
So surprised this wasn't posted yet XD

[Trocian]

New round of invites went out yesterday/today, apparently. Nothing for me, obviously, but a few friends got in.