[Megathread] StarCraft 2

[khalltusk]

Aye, you can put up spores/spines, but then they still cost a drone to do so, so you need to make another drone to replace them. If you want to make a unit, you cant make a drone. Normally what every Zerg macro guide says is DRONE DRONE DRONE till like 7 min then start pumping out units. If they don't look like they are going to attack, then keep on droning. However if they start to harass then it fucks you up something awful if you don't have enough units sitting idle (which is another thing you get told not to do).

Gaaah sometime I feel playing Zerg is the short end of the stick. Things like harassment, walling off etc just seem to come much easier to 'toss/terran.

Zerg are funny for me to combat as Terran. I am getting better at my drops so I tend to annoy them with that. Sometimes the zerg tries to baneling bust and i've gotten a lot better and defending against that. When it gets to late game ultras though I really need to be getting more thors and marauders to deal with it. Against muta balls I tend to have plenty of turrets around my expacs and a few widows near the mineral lines to ensure that muta ball pays for any SCV that dies.

Protoss are by far my weakest race to fight. They just seem so upfront powerful. Although if I rush them fairly early and get pressure on their expac then I tend to win. Just need t make sure I pick the right units vs them.

[Wass]

Dropharass the protoss while macroing behind is so key... With the right split and spread MMM can win engages against an almost equally large tossball with col and storms.

I have a few sample replays I could show of me doing that.

Demuslim pretty much taught me that. His stream is awesome for getting better at terran.

[MerinPally]

That's the right attitude "Merlin"

I bet we could be bestest friends!

With a lecture attendance record like yours? No way!

Zerg are funny for me to combat as Terran. I am getting better at my drops so I tend to annoy them with that. Sometimes the zerg tries to baneling bust and i've gotten a lot better and defending against that. When it gets to late game ultras though I really need to be getting more thors and marauders to deal with it. Against muta balls I tend to have plenty of turrets around my expacs and a few widows near the mineral lines to ensure that muta ball pays for any SCV that dies.

Protoss are by far my weakest race to fight. They just seem so upfront powerful. Although if I rush them fairly early and get pressure on their expac then I tend to win. Just need t make sure I pick the right units vs them.

Against Ultras, do Concussive Shells work? Don't think they do but would make it simple. I'm not sure tech switching to Thor is going to work unless you scout it LONG in advance, Thors are very expensive and you need a new set of upgrades. If you've got Widow mines on the map, kite backwards over them but don't get baited and run back and lose your own units... make sure just he gets hit. Ultras work well with some Zerglings around so WM should clean up a lot of them. Just use stim, stutter step and keep Marauders at the front rather than marines to take the hits. Ultras should crumble. If you reckon they're on A move then you could be really cost effective and leave a few Marauders a bit ahead of the rest and let all your units sit still and just fire - that sacrificial marauder should buy you enough time :P That won't work on an average opponent though, only bads.

Against Protoss it's all about knowing what he's got and preventing him from knowing what you have. Not gona lie, what you need to get really good at is spotting the shimmer from an Observer, and then some great scans on his base and units should tell you what he has Something a LOT of Terran forget is that Hellbats will absolutely destroy a pack of Zealots due to +damage against light. Also, you don't necessarily need to wait for your entire army to be attack before you snipe Colossi. If you get map vision/control and see him advancing, split your vikings off and snipe Colossi in hit and run attacks before they get to you. Would be interesting to see what your splitting is like - if you just move and then attack, you're clumped up and storms and colossi will destroy you. It's more like preparation rather than something you need to do in the heat of battle - won't need that til higher league Colossi can be dealt with easily, it's Archons you need to worry about due to +damage against bio.

[khalltusk]

With a lecture attendance record like yours? No way!



Against Ultras, do Concussive Shells work? Don't think they do but would make it simple. I'm not sure tech switching to Thor is going to work unless you scout it LONG in advance, Thors are very expensive and you need a new set of upgrades. If you've got Widow mines on the map, kite backwards over them but don't get baited and run back and lose your own units... make sure just he gets hit. Ultras work well with some Zerglings around so WM should clean up a lot of them. Just use stim, stutter step and keep Marauders at the front rather than marines to take the hits. Ultras should crumble. If you reckon they're on A move then you could be really cost effective and leave a few Marauders a bit ahead of the rest and let all your units sit still and just fire - that sacrificial marauder should buy you enough time :P That won't work on an average opponent though, only bads.

Against Protoss it's all about knowing what he's got and preventing him from knowing what you have. Not gona lie, what you need to get really good at is spotting the shimmer from an Observer, and then some great scans on his base and units should tell you what he has Something a LOT of Terran forget is that Hellbats will absolutely destroy a pack of Zealots due to +damage against light. Also, you don't necessarily need to wait for your entire army to be attack before you snipe Colossi. If you get map vision/control and see him advancing, split your vikings off and snipe Colossi in hit and run attacks before they get to you. Would be interesting to see what your splitting is like - if you just move and then attack, you're clumped up and storms and colossi will destroy you. It's more like preparation rather than something you need to do in the heat of battle - won't need that til higher league Colossi can be dealt with easily, it's Archons you need to worry about due to +damage against bio.

Not gonna lie my micro is bad. I've gotten better at it but its not there just yet. I tend to build some vikings the moment I know a col is about. I did make some ghosts to snip templars. Zerg I find easier to spot what they are doing due to scans. Protoss often build something sneaky away from their base while most zerg players I fought tend to have their tech at their main.

Last player who had ultras I used an MMM ball and had my marines stim stutter and sacrificed 2 hellbats I had near the group used the hell bats as a shield with the marauders behind and marines further back. Had my sieges in behind them and had them ready to un siege should my line collapse. Sometimes i have the tanks un sieged just so theirs no splash.

[Deleted]

Tbh i find the most pain in the ass thing to deal with when using Ultras is a good MMM ball with decent levels of marauders that are being micro'd well. Off creep a stim'd MMM can kite ultras for eternity.

[MerinPally]

To have anything resembling micro before platinum is pretty impressive. And by micro I mean some attempt at a split, ordering certain units to attack certain units rather than a move, and then picking up a drop rather than letting it perish, and making Phoenix kite mutas rather than sitting there slamming your face into them. I've begun doing it and I watch people just right click my phoenix with their mutas and with 4-5 phoenix I'll kill a flock of like 20 mutas. WHY. It hurts for me to do it because it's so bad. That flock could be terrorizing an orphanage but no instead it's going into a Tesco value burger.

Zerg are forced into it really, their building placement isn't so it's useful it's so that it's well protected. They don't produce units from them after all. Same with protoss Warpgates. Robos need to be decently positioned and Stargates anywhere really due to flying obviously. The only thing toss really needs to do is keep a clean path around its base so it can deal with drops this leads to some pretty spread out placements. Don't use snipe on Ghosts if you meant the ability, please god no. Use EMP, a Templar is useless apart from Archon merge when it has no energy, plus EMP will damage the shields of all protoss units, and that's so important on Immortals and Archons. Gives you a huge advantage, and you want a few HT rather than all archons, just for splash so he shouldn't really merge them all unless he sees an imminent win.

Before pro level and maybe Masters, EMP is really underused. I've seen one ghost even against the plats I play sometimes, and that was from the AI when I was practicing a build.

[khalltusk]

To have anything resembling micro before platinum is pretty impressive. And by micro I mean some attempt at a split, ordering certain units to attack certain units rather than a move, and then picking up a drop rather than letting it perish, and making Phoenix kite mutas rather than sitting there slamming your face into them. I've begun doing it and I watch people just right click my phoenix with their mutas and with 4-5 phoenix I'll kill a flock of like 20 mutas. WHY. It hurts for me to do it because it's so bad. That flock could be terrorizing an orphanage but no instead it's going into a Tesco value burger.

Zerg are forced into it really, their building placement isn't so it's useful it's so that it's well protected. They don't produce units from them after all. Same with protoss Warpgates. Robos need to be decently positioned and Stargates anywhere really due to flying obviously. The only thing toss really needs to do is keep a clean path around its base so it can deal with drops this leads to some pretty spread out placements. Don't use snipe on Ghosts if you meant the ability, please god no. Use EMP, a Templar is useless apart from Archon merge when it has no energy, plus EMP will damage the shields of all protoss units, and that's so important on Immortals and Archons. Gives you a huge advantage, and you want a few HT rather than all archons, just for splash so he shouldn't really merge them all unless he sees an imminent win.

Before pro level and maybe Masters, EMP is really underused. I've seen one ghost even against the plats I play sometimes, and that was from the AI when I was practicing a build.

Yeh I use snipe, mainly just before I commit an attack. Did it last night guy went in with his protos death ball. I ordered my 3 ghosts to snipe all 4 of his templar who were full on energy. had enough for an emp which took out 1 col. My mmm ball rolled in and cleaned house. Actually won the game. I fear the storm on my mmm ball :<

ill keep it in mind though. I also had a couple of banshees which I used to decoy some stalkers. Then sneaking around with a drop of some marines and a widow. guy was raging cajun!

I do try to split like if im retreating I will order a few to attack to try and bait them off the guys legging it. Or if I see widows I will send out a few lone marines to bait them out. In the heat of battle my micro suffers a fair bit but im trying!

[Wass]

The reason I beat diamond ppl half the time I play them is that I don't just spam MMM and hope to win. I actually pay attention to my supply and unit comp.

Besides MMM I frequently use mines, hellbats, ghosts, vikings, thors and even battlecruisers sometimes. Not as many siege tanks as I like because I have problems telling when I should siege up and when not, leaving me caught off guard most of the time :/

I should also more often add ravens into my comp. When I build them I usually only just get one. Should aim to have like 5 of them.

[khalltusk]

The reason I beat diamond ppl half the time I play them is that I don't just spam MMM and hope to win. I actually pay attention to my supply and unit comp.

Besides MMM I frequently use mines, hellbats, ghosts, vikings, thors and even battlecruisers sometimes. Not as many siege tanks as I like because I have problems telling when I should siege up and when not, leaving me caught off guard most of the time :/

I should also more often add ravens into my comp. When I build them I usually only just get one. Should aim to have like 5 of them.

Yeh lets siege, OH SHIT ZEALOTS ON MY TANKS ABORT ABORT ABORT! amount of times i made a bad call to start sieging and instantly be swarmed by zulu like waves of zealots.

I stuck to MMM ball mostly due to trying to get my macro working. I've since getting into gold anyways tried to mix in a few units that might help me win. So a few vikings to ward off some air/colossi a few ghosts to go around picking off easy targets. Widow mines I love as I put them in future expansion areas to pick off lone drones etc and sometimes put them down in likely dropship paths. I rarely build cruisers. I have no idea what I should use them against.

[Riverness]

-snippity snap bout cheese-

Yeaaah, about that, I did it in silver back in WoL

Haven't played any games in HotS yet haha

[MerinPally]

You don't use BC's against something else, you build it and they react. It's one of those units which basically says "you've been sleeping to let me get an army like this, come on kid". It's not good against mass marine obviously but against lots of powerful units which can't shoot upwards such as Zealots and Roaches it's fantastic. Also fantastic against air units or units that shoot up, which don't do plus damage against armored. Marines not being one though due to the sheer number you can get. For example, they're decent against mutas and carriers and thors but fail against void rays and corruptors. You need to be wary of Tempests though if playing protoss or against hydras if zerg. Had a game a while ago where he had an impenetrable defense and had a shitton of tanks and BC's. That was it. Turtled like a fucker. Constant Yamato blast against anything I had and I couldn't do something like mass Stalkers because even with 3/3/3 the tanks were tearing them a new hole. He was contained to 2 bases though which was nice, however it took me WAY too long to realise about the Tempest. I'd literally fire a shot and run and kite him and I killed all his BC's - takes like 4 shots of a 3/3 Tempest to kill a BC.

[khalltusk]

You don't use BC's against something else, you build it and they react. It's one of those units which basically says "you've been sleeping to let me get an army like this, come on kid". It's not good against mass marine obviously but against lots of powerful units which can't shoot upwards such as Zealots and Roaches it's fantastic. Also fantastic against air units or units that shoot up, which don't do plus damage against armored. Marines not being one though due to the sheer number you can get. For example, they're decent against mutas and carriers and thors but fail against void rays and corruptors. You need to be wary of Tempests though if playing protoss or against hydras if zerg. Had a game a while ago where he had an impenetrable defense and had a shitton of tanks and BC's. That was it. Turtled like a fucker. Constant Yamato blast against anything I had and I couldn't do something like mass Stalkers because even with 3/3/3 the tanks were tearing them a new hole. He was contained to 2 bases though which was nice, however it took me WAY too long to realise about the Tempest. I'd literally fire a shot and run and kite him and I killed all his BC's - takes like 4 shots of a 3/3 Tempest to kill a BC.

yeh ive had games like those, usually terran...... go figure! :P

Thats a nice use of the tempest makes sense, get a observer to scout for it and instant pew pew. Against one terran I contained him to his expansion and his main. I simply wore his army down as I could afford to replace my units. I also kept widow mines and a missle turret near any future expansion spots he might try to take. So forcing him to spend more money in an effort to clear those places out for what was 175 minerals and a bit of gas in defending those places.

[Wass]

if I get BCs I normally don't get more than 4-ish.

They are a good supportive unit, like ultras they can take quite a punch before they go down. Upgraded they can have up to 6 base armor. (3+3) Yamato is a nice asset.

If anyone wants to play now or later today give me a poke here or in pm or somewhere. I'm available.

(1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, don't matter)

[Deleted]

To have anything resembling micro before platinum is pretty impressive.

I don't see why though i was doing that when i started off even by watching pro's doing it and trying to emulate it. It's a mystery to me where the barrier lies that stops people doing splits and stutter etc.

[khalltusk]

I don't see why though i was doing that when i started off even by watching pro's doing it and trying to emulate it. It's a mystery to me where the barrier lies that stops people doing splits and stutter etc.

Theres gosu stutter (or what ever husky calls it) on BRONZE LEAGUE HEROES!

Always creases me up. i'm rooting for those micro heroes in bronze league.

[MerinPally]

Theres gosu stutter (or what ever husky calls it) on BRONZE LEAGUE HEROES!

Always creases me up. i'm rooting for those micro heroes in bronze league.

It's Gosu, it's the latinized version of the korean word for "skill" I believe

And I suppose the reason some don't is that they find it overwhelming, it's bad enough learning this that and the builds and then microing as well. When I first played SC it was my only RTS and I didn't watch it online so I failed hard but nowadays I watch it and I pick things up and it's not difficult, it's just adding another step onto what you're doing.

[Pilobolus]

Theres gosu stutter (or what ever husky calls it) on BRONZE LEAGUE HEROES!

Always creases me up. i'm rooting for those micro heroes in bronze league.

As much as I know I shouldn't laugh at people who are terrible at this game (Because everyone starts somewhere, right?) I still can't help myself when watching that series.

[MerinPally]

My all time favourite of fails and mismicros if you can call it that, is Zergs and their creep spread. Yet again the game I played a little bit ago today, the guy had creep spread on Neo Planet almost to my 3rd on both sides. I walked by slow as fuck army over towards him, he could see everything, his entire army was just chilling outside his natural. And for a good 10 seconds, although it had taken me about 2 weeks to get to his base and I had to ask some overlords for directions, he did absolutely nothing. I hit his units and did terrible terrible things to them and they just looked back at me and did the default hitting of whatever's there. After I had killed half his army did he actually select them and do anything and he had pretty decent kiting, if it wasnt for the fact he had half roach half hydra, and he had roach speed but not hydra speed and I had Void Rays, so I picked off all his Hydra very quickly focus fire and proceeded to ruin the roaches.. herpaderpa.

[khalltusk]

As much as I know I shouldn't laugh at people who are terrible at this game (Because everyone starts somewhere, right?) I still can't help myself when watching that series.

I know its a guilty pleasure. But I love Bronze league heroes. They might not be good but some of the things they come up with are just brilliant. I am by no means a great player and i've probably done enough rubbish to feature on it :P

Lol Merin, As a terran I generally try to use widow mines and the odd marine as a scout. I played against one zerg guy and he had Creep everywhere, end the end I bought a raven just to kill them tumors.

[Pilobolus]

My all time favourite of fails and mismicros if you can call it that, is Zergs and their creep spread. Yet again the game I played a little bit ago today, the guy had creep spread on Neo Planet almost to my 3rd on both sides. I walked by slow as fuck army over towards him, he could see everything, his entire army was just chilling outside his natural. And for a good 10 seconds, although it had taken me about 2 weeks to get to his base and I had to ask some overlords for directions, he did absolutely nothing. I hit his units and did terrible terrible things to them and they just looked back at me and did the default hitting of whatever's there. After I had killed half his army did he actually select them and do anything and he had pretty decent kiting, if it wasnt for the fact he had half roach half hydra, and he had roach speed but not hydra speed and I had Void Rays, so I picked off all his Hydra very quickly focus fire and proceeded to ruin the roaches.. herpaderpa.

Sounds more like an afk fail on his part =p

Can't say I have seen anything epic like that though. Mostly just people who try to move command their army past mine but that's kind of expected in placement/lower bracket games. Otherwise it tends to be macro style failure, like the Terran who decided to counter my ultras with marines. That sort of thing.