EPTUnits You Never Bother Making? - Page 5
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fencer
122 Posts
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Archon_Wing
United States378 Posts
I'd like to see someone do some patrol micro vs scourge with scouts though, lol. Too bad the speed upgrade isn't inherent. As for the arbiter thing, it was true a long time ago, people thought arbiters were too high on the tech tree and weren't worth the gas cost. (But wait, aside from templar, PvT armies aren't gas heavy...) Then again, people thought the same about science vessels in tvp and yes even defilers in zvt.Yes, people knew what defilers were before July/Gorush/Savior came along, but it wasn't considered a staple yet in your "standard" game at least not to the extent we race to them today. Expanding to your natural in TvZ was considered game winning as opposed to something you do every game. We may think of these things and laugh it off as terrible nub shit, but even pros were doing it. You weren't arguing with Boxer about when to expand when at the time, the pros already know about 5 million times more than the average player; you sorta just nodded your head in agreement while wondering why his vulture kills 20 zerglings and yours kills about 3. Much more with the likes of Flash and Jaedong who may not be infallible but then it was just like "Okay! It works because it's Flash/Jaedong". It's just not people you can really disagree with. Those were dark times, built on imperfect theorycraft based on the meta of the time. But it was the best they had, and in that context it may have made sense. I wouldn't fault people for having it ingrained in their paradigm in the game, but you just have to realize the level of play has increased so much and changed a lot so that one's personal opinion just doesn't mean that much anymore. The other thing people don't note is that maps have changed a lot too, and a lot of the old maps don't support modern strategies. | ||
Liquid`Drone
Norway28781 Posts
In reverse order of those I actually do build, it would be something like 1 ghost 2 carrier 3 DA 4 valkyrie 5 queen 6-7 arbiter/devourer 8 guardian then everything else is built frequently enough, some only in 1 of the matchups but yea.. To look more into each of the "rarely used units": For scouts I've found like, one legitimate use for them - when zergs counter sair reaver with super fast devourer rush, abandoning corsairs and going mass speed scout instead is pretty hilarious. Everything else is just gimmicky. Ghosts are pretty much only gimmick. Carriers have seen better days but still have a place in lategame. Dark archons are actually incredible in pvz, for maelstrom earlier on and feedback later on, but it's kinda hard to incorporate them. Valkyries are sometimes a necessity during mech. Queens are legitimately good, but I've been barking up that tree since before this website first created. Everything else is built at certain times in certain matchups or all the time. | ||
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ninazerg
United States7291 Posts
Technically (and I mean very technically) there is no wrong way to play StarCraft if you don't care about winning. So let's say you're playing a TvT and your opponent goes wraiths. If you build firebats, they won't be able to attack the wraiths, and are rendered essentially useless. So you have to try something different, and so you make marines, because they're cheap and kill wraiths pretty easily. Then you go to attack your opponent with the marines, but they get obliterated by factory units. So, you have two options to make up for this: either make your own factory units, or go and make starport units. So, let's go with starport units, because battlecruisers kick ass. Keep in mind though, that our opponent is still going wraiths and then getting factory units after harassing with the wraiths. So you make you own wraiths and a valkyrie and hold off their attack easily. AND, now you can attack them without getting blown apart by tanks. Pretty soon though, they have turrets and goliaths and you have to back off. That's when it comes time to build the battlecruisers. The problem here is that battlecruisers take fucking forever to be built, so your opponent just kills you with goliaths and there are too many of them to fight with wraiths, which do very little air-to-ground damage, and battlecruisers, which will be very few in number. Therefore, the way the game works dictates that you must start getting factory units at some point to win TvT. There are certain exceptions, but these exceptions have nothing to do with the fundamental aspects of the game, and are facilitated by your opponent's play-style. For example, let's say your opponent goes 14CC, and you go double barracks in the middle of the map. Your opponent is taking a slight risk based on the fact that 9 out of 10 games, his/her opponents will not go double barracks. Otherwise, if your opponent plays less risky, your marines are going to get raped by vultures. So let's look at PvT: Terran typically builds factory units and goes with mech play. Factory units are expensive and siege tanks take awhile to make, so Protoss can either get carriers and do damage before there are too many goliaths to deal with, or, take the more effective road and overwhelm the tanks/vultures with a large number of low tier units like dragoons and zealots. Obviously, since StarCraft has a supply limit, it is impossible, as Protoss, to produce a numerically superior army if the Terran waits until he/she has 200/200 supply, and therefore, to win in a fight Protoss needs some spellcasters to deal more damage to the Terran forces. I suppose the Protoss could *try* to add in reavers/archons/dark templar, but all of these units are expensive and will die before they can even get close enough to deal any damage to the Terran forces. So let's look our spellcaster options: - High Templar - Dark Archon - Corsair - Arbiter High Templar uses psionic storm, a big AoE attack which always does the maximum amount of damage, so that's good. The unit is relatively slow-moving, so it will need to be carried in a shuttle or just trail behind quicker units. Dark Archon uses feedback, which does nothing to non-spellcasters, maelstrom, which only affects biological units, and mind control, which you can use only once before having to recharge. Although mind control might be useful in some cases, mind controlling 2-3 units in a big battle probably won't make much of a difference. Corsairs have disruption web, which disables enemy units under the affected area. Also, they move pretty fast. Arbiters have recall, which can teleport units into your opponent's base, stasis, which freezes enemy units, and makes your whole army invisible. So let's just cross out Dark Archons right away. They look cool, and mind control is a cool spell, but they're too expensive to make en masse. For air units, we have corsairs and arbiters. Arbiters have a clear advantage because they do so much more than a Corsair. Stasis lasts longer than disruption web, and unlike disruption web, the Terran units can't move out of the affected area. Additionally, an Arbiter can essentially transport as many units as 10 shuttles into the enemy base and cloaks them, so it makes more sense to use Arbiters over Corsairs. There is nothing that invalidates using High Templar in PvT. There isn't a "more effective" spellcaster in terms of dealing damage for Protoss, but since High Templar and Arbiters both cost a lot of gas, it would naturally take a large gas economy to be able to build both simultaneously in significant numbers while still making dragoons, and therefore, Protoss will usually start PvT picking one or the other, and then, once they have a larger economy, start adding the other gas-heavy spellcaster into the mix. Most Protoss players prefer to get Arbiters first because of their mobility. IT MAKES SENSE, RIGHT!?!?!? OR AM I JUST CRAZY In ZvP, obviously, all Zergs run into the problem of dealing with Corsairs. Since Corsairs have no air-to-ground attack, and Protoss player cannot win a game with Corsairs. So why even bother making them? Well, anyone who has played PvZ or ZvP knows that Overlords are the Zerg's means of supply, so if the Overlords get shot down, then it supply-caps the Zerg and allows the Protoss to pull ahead in production and economy. The Protoss will then field a large ground army to win the game. So, as Zerg, you have to be thinking about that ground army that the Protoss is going to build. Building Devourers will definitely ward off the Corsairs, but will do absolutely nothing to the Protoss' ground army. Guardians could be used, but basically everything Protoss makes destroys Guardians, especially High Templar, Archons, and Dragoons. Additionally, all of these Protoss units are cheaper to create and take less time to produce than Guardians, making it very inefficient to combat a Protoss army with Guardians. This is why Zerg players will not rush for a Greater Spire in ZvP (most of the time, lawl) but will focus primarily on making hydralisks and getting overlord speed, so that the effectiveness of the Corsairs is greatly diminished, and the Zerg also has an army to combat the Protoss ground forces. Sometimes you will also see Zerg players create a lot of Mutalisks and Scourge with +1 air carapace to fight the Protoss. The Zerg will then build Sunken Colonies and Lurkers as static defense, and use the Mutalisks to attack the Protoss base whenever the Protoss army moves out of position to defend. This strategy would not be viable with Guardians because Guardians are much slower than Mutalisks and would not be able to move deep into Protoss territory and do damage and be able to escape in time to prevent themselves from dying. See, there's a reason for this crap. | ||
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[[Starlight]]
United States1578 Posts
On December 30 2013 22:51 Chef wrote: I think [sair carrier] was quite popular on Arcadia, Requiem and Andromeda. Any map that is good for corsair reaver is ok to transition into carriers as well. Basically any map where protoss can get a lot of bases and take advantage of islands with an air fleet and 3+ gases. On Arcadia it felt like literally every PvZ sometimes. Similar to queen usage in ZvT. It's a response to a huge mech army on several bases. Devs are a response to a huge corsair fleet. Valks are a response to huge wraith fleets. All Brood War units are beautiful  But the games Starlight is describing are in no way too bad or too nooby. His league may be a microcosm and everyone in it may be have 80 APM, but it's still good competition between them. I really enjoyed when I played in a microcosm like that. It forces players to try to innovate on their own, and that is part of the joy of SC.Cool post. Thanks for that. And yes, it was a very fun league.  | ||
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Battleship789
United States415 Posts
On December 29 2013 17:25 rauk wrote: kwanro would never build a defiler if he didn't have to, bless his heart *snip* Kwanro would never build anything other than a spawning pool and lings if he didn't have to! Obligatory link because Kwanro was brought up. On topic, I'd say ghosts or scouts are probably the least used. Ghosts are incredibly fragile, slow, practically worthless in standard combat, very high on the tech tree (and so their best defense is negated by all of the detection available), require upgrades from the highest possible tech structure to be relatively useful (they have no abilities upon being unlocked), require a slowly constructing add-on to a building that already has a useful add-on (Comsat) to have it's best ability unlocked, and the ability costs a high amount of mins, gas, and supply with a long build time, a very long "cast time," and a warning to the other team for every single time it is used. They can still be useful, but it is really hard to find a spot to use one in a standard game (where you wouldn't prefer/already have access to an easier and/or cheaper alternative.) They really only get used in very late game TvT or TvP that have gone to capital ship battles. Scouts have a ridiculously high cost for the unit you get (mins, gas and supply), poor scaling on weapon upgrades, slow movement speed and low sight radius before upgrades, and being mostly outclassed by a cheaper and faster unit at the same tech level (except in a one or two ship battle). | ||
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Piste
6183 Posts
On December 29 2013 04:13 traceurling wrote: Holy World it was an interesting map.... I once played this pvz which got into a point where I had like 12 reavers or so. I was knocking the front door of the zerg, each reaver full of upgraded scarabs. Then none of them fired :S | ||
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slytown
Korea (South)1411 Posts
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fearthequeen
United States788 Posts
On January 02 2014 14:49 slytown wrote: It's hard to find a map where u can secure the gas for cattlebruisers in the non-mirrors. However, TvT it's still viable but I'd say cattlebruisers still. In TvZ you will see BCs sometimes when T is going 2 port vessels and is able to keep enough vessels alive into the late game that they can transition into BC. It's less about the map and more about how far ahead you get. They are similar to scouts in that you can make a more efficient army with the build time/cost of a BC. | ||
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ShaLLoW[baY]
Canada12499 Posts
On December 28 2013 19:08 Kenpachi wrote: D-Web Sairs Except nobody uses D-web but I do. It's my ace in the hole. They adapt to my fleet beacon with anti carrier turrets and goliaths when they see it but they see me rollin in with a million dragoons and corsairs. can't stop it D+ strategy. Or they try to kill me before I get going. I think I die then I also had a B- player mass ghosts vs me. I was thoroughly traumatized corsair goon is my favorite strategy in bw (as toss at least) | ||
digmouse
China6330 Posts
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[[Starlight]]
United States1578 Posts
On January 04 2014 18:55 digmouse wrote: Someone doesn't bother make Arbiters? Really? I know. I have sinned, and will say ten Hail Marys as my act of contrition.  Srsly though, I am going to use Arbiters more going forward. And, I did list 7 units I didn't use/didn't use much, only one of which was controversial/'heretical'. Guess if I had to re-do my list, I'd replace Arbiters with BCs. I love BCs, but yeah, not that many opportunities to use 'em for me. | ||
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myminerals
560 Posts
Who played it? | ||
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ninazerg
United States7291 Posts
On January 04 2014 20:03 [[Starlight]] wrote: I know. I have sinned, and will say ten Hail Marys as my act of contrition. Srsly though, I am going to use Arbiters more going forward. And, I did list 7 units I didn't use/didn't use much, only one of which was controversial/'heretical'. Guess if I had to re-do my list, I'd replace Arbiters with BCs. I love BCs, but yeah, not that many opportunities to use 'em for me. I've decided to bully you more and let you know that Battlecruisers are applicable to TvT. I hope my incredible, awful level of drama in this post does not discourage you from participating in our angry, but close-knit society. | ||
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Loffeman
Sweden105 Posts
On January 04 2014 22:25 myminerals wrote: Does anybody know a pro game with infested terrans? Who played it? There was a map wih a neutral cc in the midle. Can't remember wich game it was but it was a pvz and the protoss got wrecked becaus of the infested terrans. No suprise they removed the map latrer  | ||
Peeano
Netherlands5304 Posts
On January 05 2014 03:28 Loffeman wrote: There was a map wih a neutral cc in the midle. Can't remember wich game it was but it was a pvz and the protoss got wrecked becaus of the infested terrans. No suprise they removed the map latrer http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/korean/games/12038_Jila_vs_ZerO/vod + Show Spoiler + You can thank the nerds who work on the sc2 TLPD for that horrible mistake | ||
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[[Starlight]]
United States1578 Posts
On January 05 2014 00:54 ninazerg wrote: I've decided to bully you more and let you know that Battlecruisers are applicable to TvT. I hope my incredible, awful level of drama in this post does not discourage you from participating in our angry, but close-knit society. Yup, late-game TvT is about the only time I ever get to use 'em. Hence the "not that often". And it's okay Nina, I've accepted the fact that a certain amount of hazing is just the TL way. Though you were actually quite polite to me in our PMs. Cheers.  | ||
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Birdie
New Zealand4438 Posts
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ninazerg
United States7291 Posts
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[[Starlight]]
United States1578 Posts
Birdie wrote: I wouldn't call it hazing lol, just we know we're right and you're wrong About what? I already said I should be using arbiters more. So what's left to grouse over? (now get to work on that BW build order calculator like you were talking about )On January 05 2014 15:08 ninazerg wrote: Birdie, this is some gritty, hardcore, soap-opera level drama. We need to drag [[Starlight]]'s good name through a pile of mud just to let him know who's in charge. Thank you for proving my point. | ||
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