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On March 29 2010 22:54 TurboT wrote:
please enlighten me...what about that "Hello, Artosis!" reference?
It's an inside joke here at TL. Artosis used to play Terran in SC1 and hated DTs. He rages so much when he loses to them.
I agree about static defence and high ground. I don't know why Blizzard is clinging so much to their version of high ground advantage. It's getting criticized left and right. The miss chance was good, because you had to evaluate the risk/reward of attacking uphill. Now it's: early game "lol can't fight back cliffing units because there is no vision." and later on "lol highground, we have equal footing because now I have air units to spot cliffs". No good.
Static defence is so weak now, because so many units deal bonus damage to armoured units. They either need to buff attack speed and damage, or make buildings not be "armoured" and have more hit points, or a combination of them.
About ZvZ I dunno much about, but I'll take your word for it, that it is broken without being able to scout, but everyone has trouble scouting Z now.
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Have any of you guys tried the awesome ZvZ strat which is mass ling->bane ling-> ling/muta. Bane lings are to come by the time the opponent can mass up 12 lings and are even more effective than they were before the last patch. You are to make a couple every once in a while during the game along with other lings. You gradually transition into mutalisks. I learned this just from watching 1 vod of it and it destroys roaches because they group together in balls a LOT. I think I saw the vod somewhere on either HD starcraft's youtube channel or Husky's.
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Awesome read! Static D really needs to be toughened up, especially for Z in particular. Cannons and turrets are already beastly, and bunkers can be salvaged 100% although they die a bit too quickly sometimes. Give the ability to change Spines to Spores and vice-versa! 
Zerg really needs some dedicated anti-armor though to counter Roaches. Wonder if making Banelings do +damage to Armored instead of to Light would change things (too imba maybe lol).
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All defensive Terran buildings have +1 defense and you can upgrade them to +3. That's why depots have lower HP than in BW. Makes sense to me, especially since you now can burrow them.
Also I don't think anyone needs to be concerned that everyone will know everything about the game when it's released. New strategies will always emerge. The game will constantly change, even though we know much more about RTS today.
Great article, Drone is in a league of his own when it's about writing.
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excellent read drone!! FE worthy imho
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I've felt the exact same thing regarding ZvZ in SC2.. scouting drone count is near impossible, meaning you cannot punish somebody for just deciding to randomly build 5 drones because they're bad.
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The more people think out of the box, the bigger the box will get so I'm not too concerned. The whole concept of what is "viable" and what isn't I think is really stopping people from thinking out of the box.
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The scouting issue in PvZ isn't nearly as critical in the current state of SC2 as it is in BW. Protoss's early game is relatively much stronger in SC2 against Zerg than in it is SC1. In other words, zealots/stalkers/sentries do much better against lings/roaches/banelings than zealots/dragoons do against ling/hydra. As a protoss player, I usually am not too concerned if I'm playing blind against the zerg during the early game, because I know that zealots/sentries/stalkers (mostly zealots/sentries) can deal with most any opening that I might see from the zerg, whether it be speedlings, roaches, a fast expand, or quick tech to hydras/mutas. This also makes it much easier to deny the zerg map control in SC2 than in SC1.
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I agree with it all. High ground advantage should have the vision aspect of SC2B and the miss chance of BW. If they changed this, i'd be happy as a clam even with static defenses being kinda weak, cause cannons up a ramp would own pretty hard, especially with one sentry and an observer to limit ramp access+vision. Also bunkers+ghosts, crawler+spore+infestor, all these unit/building compositions would make for much more effective high ground defenses that people simply can't implement now because they have to constantly attack and defend with one giant blob army, maybe two if you're flanking.
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About the ZvZ: i suppose the scout problem can be solved in two ways:
1)remove queen air attack
2)slowing down zergling without leg upgrade (it would make possible to scout with worker witout being alwas killed)
That would also make zerg completely unviable against either Protoss or Terran.
The answer is going to be somewhere in the middle. A combination of a subtle softening of hard counters, and/or buffing of static defense, and players learning to deal against all in timing attacks.
Note: next section is only referencing z v p because that seems to be cheesiest matchup right now. I am Platinum Devision 3 Zerg I'll repost this is strat section as well.
As a zerg player against protoss pretty much every game is about dealing against an all in semi-cheese build. Either you pick the right one or you loose. However, I have a theory that there is a static two base build that could work against most anything v toss (on a 4 player map). It goes something like this. Yet to perfect this so please try variations and let me know what you think.
14 pool to Fe on 17 (no queen) (allows you to be able to afford immediate lings/sunken yes i still call them that) at natural if getting 10 gate zealot rushed)
pump lings drones get speedlings off 2 gas to star (add on gas as drone count allows) 3 queens Very important to counter Void ray or pheonix rush and to be able to expand creep withought sacrificing energy also can heal each other while fighting off void ray or pheonix.
Most toss still roach counter with a nasty immortal/stalker/sentry or immortal/zealot/sentry timing attack. Speedlings do acceptionally well against this combo with either a few roach or banelings mixed in. Most of the time you can have some muta's popped by this point too. Always use pincher/suround attacks forcing toss between ur static defense and units. while not as effective you can still use sim city to your advantage.
In most cases if you survive the attack its gg if you re and pump/rally to toss base. If not then continue to up grades while taking map controll expanding creep...avoid direct confrontation with sentry heavy army. engage/snipe and run until macro mode/grades are just too much and overrun him.
Give it a try, let me know how it works for you.
Note: I know every moment of the build is not spelled out, most of it assumes you know what you are doing. Please don't just flame response but have something usefull to say and say it nicely. Just because i didn't cover something directly doesn't mean it hasn't been thought of in the build. I assume you'll be scouting at least enough to have a general idea how to adapt etc...the build should allow for a relatively safe FE, with more options/resources to counter toss as necessary.
Edit: almost forgot! Nice article! was very well thought out and enjoyable read.
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great article, I agree with most of it.
I certainly think scouting and static defenses need to be better.
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spine crawlers really suck, but i think bunker is really strong already with its fast building time, and canons turrets, spores seem strong enough too
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On March 30 2010 00:16 Innovation wrote:
Most toss still roach counter with a nasty immortal/stalker/sentry or immortal/zealot/sentry timing attack. Speedlings do acceptionally well against this combo with either a few roach or banelings mixed in. Most of the time you can have some muta's popped by this point too. Always use pincher/suround attacks forcing toss between ur static defense and units. while not as effective you can still use sim city to your advantage.
In most cases if you survive the attack its gg if you re and pump/rally to toss base. If not then continue to up grades while taking map controll expanding creep...avoid direct confrontation with sentry heavy army. engage/snipe and run until macro mode/grades are just too much and overrun him.
Maybe I'm off-base, but I've found that zerg have a very difficult time defending the immortal/zealot/sentry timing attack, particularly when they early expand. I time the attack to when I have +1 weapons done and 2 immortals out. My force is very zealot heavy with 5-6 sentries in support. Roaches and lings get dropped very quickly, particularly if I place my forcefields well. Zerg that go mutas will usually have their first 4-6 popping out right as I attack, which never have been enough to prevent either severe economic damage or outright defeat. Hydras seem to fair better, but I don't have enough experience against FE => hydra builds to really comment.
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iNfeRnaL
Germany1908 Posts
Nicely written article by one of the greatest RTS minds ever!
<3 Eri
Edit: (Liquid`)Drone and the Art of Defence... intrigueing in the one or other way isn't it?
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On March 30 2010 00:31 iNfeRnaL wrote:
Nicely written article by one of the greatest RTS minds ever!
<3 Eri
Edit: (Liquid`)Drone and the Art of Defence... intrigueing in the one or other way isn't it?
totally agree with this.
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Nice read, well constructed argument and deductions.... except I don't agree with most arguments at all in the first place.
I am relatively new in BW, and Static defense there seems just as weak as static defense in SC2. Good SimCity and timings is what made them strong in BW, and I see this starting to happen in SC2 already (Spine Crawlers vs Hellions, Bunkers everywhere since they're salvageable, well placed cannons (see Nazgul's FE build on Blistering Sands vs Z), Spine Crawlers to deny early harass (sometimes double queen > she's so slow it is almost static defense) and then later repositionned to stop "cliff spotters" later on, and of course turrets and PFs).
Scouting is harder, yes. But this is the only thing that is making "fast air" builds any worth. Now, defense is weaker? Not quite. Only in the lack of "thou shall not pass" units like Lurkers, Mines and Reavers, and even that is arguable.
Of course defense will get better in time, this, and timings are what gets better as time passes in any game.
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I really liked the read. I wish I was around for BW longer, and could relate to some of the changes you talked about.
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very nice article but i disagree in over 80%
sry man !
its good not to have just static defense everywhere so u cant just make exp 5 cans SAVE u must ALWAYS look ur exp for harrass (see hasuobs vs insomnia)
also cans are not as weak as u seems to find them they are pretty nice vs mutas in small numbers (come on in bw 50 muta also destroy cans in 2sek) and also are super good for early expand pvp pvz so i must disagree here (also sunkens are rly rly nice when queens heals them ! damn i lost so many vs that shitt when i attack)
so sry but i cant agree with u ^^
also alot t lost because they are to greedy and mule without scan anytime and lost to carrier etc ^^
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On March 29 2010 22:57 LuDwig- wrote:
About the ZvZ: i suppose the scout problem can be solved in two ways:
1)remove queen air attack
2)slowing down zergling without leg upgrade (it would make possible to scout with worker witout being alwas killed)
queen air attack is the only defense against void ray rush. Maybe have it research as an early upgrade might be better than having it taken completely out.
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Great article. I totally agree that scouting a Zerg needs to be easier; I would happily lose my Queen AA attack. Zerglings without speed need to be slower than workers off creep too.
I don't agree that defensive advantage needs to be changed, I think larger and better constructed maps would solve that problem by itself.
Imagine all BW being played on LT, that's the sort of map level we are currently at.
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EPT
