EPTIt is funny what such a long absence to a game does to your skills. I have never been what i consider a good RTS player. I have no real sense of strategy hence i relied on timings and macro to win my games. Now i dub myself a hots newbie since well, i didn´t play the beta and i have not followed it at all, infact i all but cut SC2 completely in all forms for the time i was gone since i merely wasn´t interested and wanted Blizzard to burn in a fire for shitting on BW´s legacy. But here i am, back at it again and 45€ poorer.
My time away has led me to forget everything, all i could remember was 9 pylon, 13 gate, 14 gas, 16 pylon and 17 core. Everything else was gone, no timings in my head and no builds. With little free time available to research builds i just said screw it and join up the matchmaking. Here is where i should type how i got slaughtered and got placed in like silver, luckily for me this wasn't the case as it turns out badly performed 4 gates still works well enough in placements hence i go 5 - 0 and get to platinum.
The first loss
I win two more games after my placements by, well, 4 gating and cannon rushing(sorry) i come across a zerg player whom i 9 scout and he's 6 pooling. My first 6 pool. Ok shit what was i supposed to do against this? Wall off my ramp seems like a good idea except i've forgotten how to do that properly. So it takes me two gateways and two pylons to wall the sucker of completely. Well, whew now we are safe i hope, nope! This guy is commited and more lings start shitting on my pylons on Daybreak. Total panic mode since i only have one zealot out so far, i build four more pylons covering the two that are under siege but he has also been working on a gateway and that quickly falls. I pull probes and my now two zealots duke it out alongside my probes to fight the zerg menace and - we are victorious! A complete clusterfuck ghetto hold but i didn´t lose much of anything!
I jokingly say something along the lines of "Well not exactly a textbook hold but it was OK i guess!
" feeling rather cheerfull. "NO YOU ARE BEHIND SCRUB THIS IS WHY YOURE IN GOLD" i'm like... what. I try to politely explain how i didn´t really loose anything but he just spews out more flaming about me being bad and him actually being a GM pro superstar, so i just ignore him and proceed to 4 gate(poorly at that) while supply blocking myself. Needless to say i loose as he surrounds me with a ton of lings the second i approach his natural, all the while flaming and calling me a scrub ofcourse. So i say GG and leave, the new nifty apm meassurement shows him having 320 APM to my 220 so maybe he was a GM superstar, profiles won´t load atm on EU so can´t check where he is at currently but he´s tagged up to the team "[nXg] Next gaming" so, some random barcode zergplayer in that team is a complete douchebag. Call the sponsors!The next game and also the next loss.
Next game is a PvP, and from having quit for some stints before, i know mirror matchups is where your absence shows the most. I 12 scout and what do i see after running my probe around for a while - he´s freaking fast expanding. In PvP? Is this real life? LOL THX EZ WIN i think to myself and happily proceed with my 3 gate robo and prepare to a-move myself to victory with some gateway stuff and a few immortals. But what the fucking fuck, his freaking nexus is shooting shit at me. WHAT IS THIS SORCERY?! And the range is freaking huge! My push gets completely smashed and i gg out. Turns out there´s this unit called a mothership core, apparantly it´s pretty good.
The next game and again, the next loss
Next up is a terran. My gameplan is to go 3 gate robo and assess the situation, if he's greedy i'll go for the all-in but if not i'll safely expand, ok good. My probe scout see's nothing interesting and scouting the ramp shows a naked barracks. Imagine my surprise when a reaper shows up in my base! How the hell? HE DIDNT HAVE A TECHLAB I WAS SURE OF IT! I loose some probes but thwart the reaper. And after moving my observer around in his main for a while i just notice that he simply doesn´t have much at all, a few marines at his ramp, bunker at his choke preparing to expand. I figure he´s just bad and go for the all in after a few minutes. I once again prepare to a-move myself to victory as i crush his measly little bunker with my immortals, move my screen to warp in some more zealots, come back to my units - i've lost half of them. What the fuck does he have tanks on the highground or some shit? My observer has been sniped while i wasn´t looking so i can't check. I decide that it´s all or nothing since he has his expansion up and i push up the ramp. Instantly about 50 supply worth of units just evaporates. And this was my first encounter with widowmines! What a lovely little unit!
I've since won and lost a fair amount of games but i´ve gotten used to hots a little bit more, i still die to widowmines a lot since i forget they even exist at times, the unit seems at first glance to me pretty dumb since it can do just about everything, offense, defense, harass etc. But overall hots seems fun and good, sadly the only new unit i have ever felt the need to build is the mothership core but i´ve seen some streams putting the oracle to good use so i will have to try that out next.
Random obersvations and questions:
People play greedy as hell. Half my wins comes from simply scouting a greedy expand and flat out winning with a push then and there.
Like nobody can stop a 4 gate anymore, i´m even getting master players now and yeah, still works since people are being greedy as hell.
Fungal is nerfed - PRAISE JESUS!
Marauders are still rage inducing when dropped in my bases.
Nobody seems to build the transformer guys - why? They seem pretty damn good to my mass speedlots.
How on earth do you PvP now? Like what´s the standard opening and unit composition?
Well this turned out longer then i expected but, was a lot to write about since i´ve enjoyed hots so far.
