I have returned: StarCraft II

[Misuicide]

I just checked as well, no go for me , going to breakdown and play the cracked version ;/

[GRT]

new round of invites went out yesterday?

[Trocian]

new round of invites went out yesterday?

Depends where you live, but yeah, real invites.

[izembo]

never gonna get to play :l

[Neosutra]

So what's the consensus? SC2 > SC1? Awesome fun? Lives up to hype? Go buy immediately when out?

[Ramor]

quite awesome, all kinds of funny new cheese builds and the fucking map editor, oh your god:

[Kaylia]

How do you fucking stop muta on protoss? Actually, it's not so much of a question, but a complain. Sentry are kinda nice if there is only a few, but you're just throwing gas away if he has a bunch. Stalker works, but their mobility rarely allow you to defend your bases efficiently (at least until blink). Well placed cannon do a fine job, but shit it's not always easy to properly defend your whole base, and static defense isnt that great if you have to expand eventually. It's the same deal when I'm the zerg, I literally won every game where I massed muta against protoss.

So what's the consensus? SC2 > SC1? Awesome fun? Lives up to hype? Go buy immediately when out?

SC2 is pretty much equals to SC1. If you enjoyed it back then, you will most likely like this one for the same reason. It's prettier, a few stuff were tweaked for the best, but the gameplay is essentially the same (with different units/abilities). I don't know if there is a concensus, but imo, it will be worth the money.

[willriker]

abslutely amazing

[geno]

Yeah amazing game, buy it second its out, etc. etc.

For the PvMutas thing.. I'll be honest, I haven't played a lot of 1v1s in a very long time, but phoenix's were god against them. The real problem isn't the mutas, because they are either killed by phoenix's or easily held off by sentry/stalker/cannon, its the ability of the zerg to quickly switch tech. So if you do go phoenix's to deal with mutas, you'll need to move up to templar tech fairly quickly afterwards to deal with a hydra switch.

But yeah anyways, I haven't had a ton of experience with 1v1s in awhile though, been playing mainly 2v2s since the reset. #1 in our Gold division and thats with consistently being put up against platinum teams (surprised it hasn't pushed us up yet). We're starting to get a lot of 2v2 down, with the fatal exception of Terrans. We're a PZ team, and pretty much any team with a terran in it is just ridiculously hard to handle due to the power of a marauder+Xunit timing attack. We've pretty much made it our standard now to cheese or at least use really early aggression against these teams just to force the terran to use something other than marauders.

I wouldn't be surprised at all to see them nerfed in the next patch, or at least Protoss buffed a bit. Marauders cost-effectively beat every gateway unit very easily as of now, and their natural hard counters (air and immortal) are themselves highly ineffective against them because of the early timings of marauders and the glaring weaknesses of those units (Protoss Air-to-ground is ridiculously weak until endgame making a handful of marines all that's necessary to repel it, and immortals are WRECKED by their high cost/robo orgin (making them easily outnumbered) and their hard counter, EMP.

Anyways, those are my most recent SC2 related ramblings from my recent play. I look forward to a patch that doesn't contain a protoss nerf (hasn't been one yet)

[Kaylia]

Yeah, problems isn't the muta alone, it's just that if you're getting ready for anything else, you're pretty much fucked if they harass you with muta. Scouting on protoss isn't easy either before, and getting a facility/observer isn't helping you against the first wave of muta. I guess mass stalker the safest bet, but still...



I could try phoenix, but getting 4-5 of them is a lot of money/gas, and pretty risky considering hydra/roach would destroy me.

Anyways, those are my most recent SC2 related ramblings from my recent play. I look forward to a patch that doesn't contain a protoss nerf (hasn't been one yet)

Last patch had stalker/canon boost. Had a few nerf, but I think it made protoss stronger in overall.

[Ferien]

I think Infestors are my new favorite unit. Stopped a full-on hydra/muta/roach rush cold with just a handful of roaches and corruptors backed up by fungal growth.

[Maguspk]

quite awesome, all kinds of funny new cheese builds and the fucking map editor, oh your god:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joNPrnY4K_4

Wow I hadn't seen that but it is awesome. There are going to be some fucking amazing maps once they release the map editor in beta.

[geno]

Yeah, problems isn't the muta alone, it's just that if you're getting ready for anything else, you're pretty much fucked if they harass you with muta. Scouting on protoss isn't easy either before, and getting a facility/observer isn't helping you against the first wave of muta. I guess mass stalker the safest bet, but still...



I could try phoenix, but getting 4-5 of them is a lot of money/gas, and pretty risky considering hydra/roach would destroy me.



Last patch had stalker/canon boost. Had a few nerf, but I think it made protoss stronger in overall.

Debatable. The cannon boost wasn't particularly significant, particularly comapred to the other races' static def buffs, but the stalker buff and unit walling fix were pretty big. I'm not sure if they were big enough relative to the storm nerf and the other races' buffs to qualify as an overall gain for the race though. Either way, Terran has been the clear winner in most patches to date.

[MisterBob]

Phoenix is garbage vs good Muta users. Honestly, all Phoenix is used for currently is to harass Overlords, lol.

Static defense + a strong earlygame rush is the only way to handle Mutas right now. If you don't beat the Zerg down earlier in ZvP, you just lose.

[geno]

Wait what? Phoenix's rape mutas, I have no idea what you are talking about. In same or even smaller numbers, mutas get worked up against phoenixs. With a handful of cannons at your base to support them, you don't even need to match their numbers to easily hold off any muta attacks either while you push out with a sentry/zealot army.

Phoenixs are a lot stronger than you guys have given them credit for. They are amazing for harassing and dealing with small numbers of units. When you get 4-6, if they don't have defenses ready, you can clear out an entire base of drones ridiculously fast. Like I said before, the real weakness of a phoenix build is Zerg's ability to quickly switch tech to hydras. Massing mutas though is just not going to cut it against 2-base 2+gate phoenixs.

[Shuvo]

Wait what? Phoenix's rape mutas, I have no idea what you are talking about. In same or even smaller numbers, mutas get worked up against phoenixs. With a handful of cannons at your base to support them, you don't even need to match their numbers to easily hold off any muta attacks either while you push out with a sentry/zealot army.

Phoenixs are a lot stronger than you guys have given them credit for. They are amazing for harassing and dealing with small numbers of units. When you get 4-6, if they don't have defenses ready, you can clear out an entire base of drones ridiculously fast. Like I said before, the real weakness of a phoenix build is Zerg's ability to quickly switch tech to hydras. Massing mutas though is just not going to cut it against 2-base 2+gate phoenixs.

How many mutas are you talking about? Mutas work in mass because of the ricochet. Having maybe 3-5 mutas is pretty easy to stop, but if they build up say 20 of them, even if I have an equal number of stalkers and they (mutas) don't run away, my stalkers will get raped. I imagine the same would happen with pheonixes.

Only way to really deal with it I found, is to just keep putting pressure on them to prevent them from getting mass mutas in the first place.

[geno]

Well, phoenix's are stronger than mutas in almost every regard (AtA): Damage, range, and life. They even benefit a ton from upgrades because their attack is 2x5 (so each upgrade adds +2 dmg). I'll 1up your 20muta example, here's 100 mutas vs 100 phoenixes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_NcLMb1zpg

Even then, its shouldn't be a cakewalk for them to get mass mutas either. Phoenixes are just as mobile and annoying as mutas are, so when is the zerg going to get an opportunity to mass them up unopposed? They aren't going to pull it off without committing to other tech or turtling up with spores. The latter is easily beaten with more expansions, more cannons, and more phoenixes.

The former is a bit trickier and is basically what I conceded earlier. Its so hard to reliably scout what zerg is doing because of how easy it is for them to switch tech. They can have a hydra den and a spire when you last scout, so you tech up to templars and keep a fair amount of phoenixes, but then they push out with pure muta/corrupter and you're screwed (phoenixes do get raped by corrupters). Or they push out with mass upgraded roaches, only one building stopping that. It takes the time to build one building and about the cost of a unit to switch tech for zerg, while building up the counters on the protoss side can take a ton of buildings, and a long time to build units (roach switches are evil when you don't even have a robo bay up).

TBH I have a similar problem with terran, but earlier in the game. There are so many viable terran openings right now including marine/marauder pressure, pure marine pressure, pure marauder break, straight to reaper harass, straight to hellion harass, straight to banshee harass, and variations of the above that put pressure on at a wide variety of different timings. Most are followed up with expansions and a secondary push that is over twice as strong because of EMP. And pretty much any of this can happen or be about ready to happen by the time you can get an observer (a painful 100gas) into their base to see it coming.

[Maguspk]

Of course stalkers will lose to mutas in equal numbers, lmfao.

Phoenixes do counter mutas very well though, no arguing that. Geno is right though, while they do counter well they suck if the Zerg stops making what you are countering with the Phoenixes. So while you are building phoenixes they can just switch tech. I notice a lot of my wins on Zerg are from my opponent just countering the wrong unit either due to being dumb (just massing units), not scouting, or reacting to a push and then me not building an identical army. There isn't really a way to fix it either without drastically changing the way Zerg play. :/

[Dezzimal]

[Maguspk]

amazing. I learned that Ultralisks have an AoE attack from that too.