EPT[SC2B] Drone and the Art of Defence - Page 3
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zul
Germany5427 Posts
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beetlelisk
Poland2276 Posts
On March 29 2010 23:48 Teugeus wrote: 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. I agree, people just need to learn when to scout, when and how to expand in a safe way, learn proper counters and get used to the new units. You just got used to fast expanding too much. I also can't think of any situation in early game in BW where high ground gives advantage, please give me some? Like the only situation I can think of is PvT but even here it doesn't matter at all, there's just pure micro (as ramps are basically high ground) and awaiting for the first Tank to pop out <- people don't use static defenses but unit counters and everything is fine? | ||
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frequency
Australia1901 Posts
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0neder
United States3733 Posts
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Freezard
Sweden997 Posts
On March 30 2010 01:04 0neder wrote: Isn't it 'defense' ? Am I crazy or does everyone misspell it? (good article btw!) Defence is the UK way of spelling it. | ||
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Daycayday
France9 Posts
On March 29 2010 23:03 muzzy wrote: Great article, but I disagree somewhat with your assessment of ZvZ. It's not impossible to scout... just difficult. If you keep your initial overlord around the perimeter of his base, you should be able to do a quick peek at things without being sniped by the queen, on most maps. Zerg tend to put their buildings along the edge of the creep or behind their mineral line, which makes it all the easier to spot. Also, I disagree that roach is the only viable ZvZ tactic, and in fact, I exploit the fact that so many Zerg players believe this. Now, I'm not high level (I play in the top of my Gold division, but certainly don't feel like I'm a Platinum player), but I think I have a good overall feel for the game. A strategy that some might call a bit cheesy, but which I employ with great success, is fast teching to mutas and avoiding ground altogether during Tier 1. I throw down between 3-5 spine crawlers depending on the pressure the enemy puts on me. Usually by the time they have actually started hitting with roaches, it's too late for them to realize that I have mutas on the way to their base. At my level, I have lost almost no ZvZ with this tactic. The only time I feel a strong challenge in ZvZ is when my enemy either goes Mutas himself, which results in an intense micro battle and war of attrition, or when he successfully scouts with his overlord and sees that I am going mutas. If they have even one spore crawler waiting by the time my mutas come, I have little chance of doing much damage. Even if they throw up spore crawlers though, I'll be able to keep them contained long enough to switch into hydras/roaches myself and go forward with a standard game. Most opponents overreact to the first batch of mutas and start to go heavy anti air and stay holed up in their base, which further adds to my advantage. I'm really interested to see how ZvZ play evolves over time... I'm also playing in gold league, and I also almost never loose in ZvZ, and I NEVER go muta. If you go no ground units, I will know that you fast tech, I will pressure you with Roaches and going Lair asap my queen pop, with 4 hydras and my queen your muta are totally useless. | ||
Zelniq
United States7166 Posts
Dustin Browder has said before in an interview how they don't want static defenses to be able to hold off attacks/pushes, they just want it protect vs harassment. I think they have the wrong idea, perhaps they're thinking about the typical BW newbie who would just mass a bunch of cannons/sunkens and turtle and did not like that kind of play, and felt that static defenses shouldn't be able to hold off attacks. But everyone knows a player who invests in too much static defenses will be severely behind and the opponent can just take the rest of the map without concern and power-economy really hard. They really made it way too weak and it causes some major issues. right now units are too equal in terms of attack/defense, with the exception to the siege tanks which is why, combined with walling-off and primarily ranged units, along with planetary fortresses they're the race most suited for being able to defend and hold positions. but with many readily available units that are much stronger versus buildings, increased army production, high mobility/terrain bypassing of units, lack of strong defensive (but harder/weaker to attack) units like the lurker/reaver, and no high ground penalties, the defender gets almost no advantages and is forced to just have a strong enough army to stop attacks. | ||
Heyoka
Katowice25012 Posts
On March 29 2010 22:23 Hot_Bid wrote: Nice article! Agree on a lot of points, especially ZvZ, that mu single handedly makes me not like playing Zerg. I also think static D needs to be buffed and high ground needs to be changed. I've always wondered what effect AMM has on this. In BW if you don't like one matchup, your choices are to dodge or race pick and it doesn't necessarily effect your overall race choice. But when a system is giving you players to play against and neither of those are viable, it makes me wonder if it skews the number of people picking that race. I've known people through the years who have switched races in WC3 because of it so surely it has some impact. Great article! Agree on every point. I feel like the high ground issue is huge. | ||
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LaughingTulkas
United States1107 Posts
I was wondering though if you had any specific improvements you would suggest? Like, "increase _____ of ______." Like if you were blizzard, what changes would you suggest? You'd want changes to increase the viability of defense without unbalancing any of the matchups. Do you think just a hp buff on all defense structures is good? Or damage increases to cannons/spine crawlers? What would you do if you could do anything right now (even if it needs tweaking later) It's more for my own curiosity than anything else, as I don't have the beta. | ||
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Daycayday
France9 Posts
On March 30 2010 00:30 xDaunt wrote: 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. Against Toss, the FE or not may depend on the map. On small map it's harder to contain the timing attack immortal/zealot/sentry. I usually do roaches to hydra, and can pop few hydra by the time is attacking which is enought to stop this units compo, and I expand then. | ||
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Skeggaba
Korea (South)1556 Posts
Regarding the high ground advantage: doesnt this also limit mapmaking alot? This might have been discussed before but there are really no big difference with a map with a ramp to high ground than to a map with a narrow choke. This - i believe - will limit the diversity of mapping in SCII, | ||
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Two_DoWn
United States13684 Posts
I definitely get your point about static defenses and a smaller, defensive army in order to save resources for tech that we saw so much in broodwar being downright impossible in SC2 (unless a terran can get tanks on cliffs). There does need to be some change where a player can actively chose to have a smaller army with a few defenses and be safe, but give up any ability to attack. | ||
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QibingZero
2611 Posts
What really gets me about defense right now is trying to hold off any early harassment/rushes with 45hp vulnerable SCVs and slow building marines. It's just an exercise in futility, and I'm dreading the first few minutes against good players (even when it's just a probe annoying my rax-building SCV endlessly) more than any other. | ||
flamewheel
FREEAGLELAND26780 Posts
I really enjoyed ZvZ in BW just because of the micro-intensive battles, but now it's just devolved into something even more basic. Of course, that's saying I want SC2 to be a copy of SCBW. We're still early in the Beta now, so let's see how things get changed before the actual game comes up. | ||
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Pyrthas
United States3196 Posts
On March 29 2010 22:13 Liquid`Drone wrote: This promotes a style of play where players want to build enough units to attack at a particular moment, rather than in BW, where players could also opt for defending for a certain period of time to allow themselves to either reach a level of tech or economy that would grant them a huge advantage at a later point. This is probably the thing I've noticed more than anything else while watching streams. I really hope it gets fixed before release; you've certainly done a nice job of cataloguing all the different features of sc2 that lead to it. | ||
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Mastermind
Canada7096 Posts
On March 30 2010 01:04 0neder wrote: Isn't it 'defense' ? Am I crazy or does everyone misspell it? (good article btw!) You Americans like to spell many words differently then the rest of the English speaking world. | ||
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ProoM
Lithuania1741 Posts
On March 29 2010 23:12 Xith wrote: Good read, as to be expected from TL.  1. That would remove early zerg air defense and move ZvZ scouting back to BW times, lair tech + building for air defense. Plus in SC2 zergs don't rush Hydras in the same way they did with mutas in bw. 2. That would hurt zerglings a lot versus normal units though. A better solution would be something like moving the bonus speed on creep to lair tech. (Not an actual tech itself, it just becomes activated when your lair finishes.) orrr they could just move hydras back to tier 1 and take queens ability to attack air away  . | ||
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HazMat
United States17077 Posts
On March 29 2010 22:34 Senx wrote: Why can't you just drop a changeling in the zergs base? Will the queen auto attack it? No, he means scouting before lair goes up. | ||
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C0rrupt
United States57 Posts
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sLiniss
United States849 Posts
And yes... ZvZ is definitly annoying with queens being a very early and effective anti-air. Ovies can't even get near to mineral like on some maps like metalopolis. | ||
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