I've been playing since day one and I'm always trying to find out new things for maps, matchups, units, etc. Useful or not, it's good to know what your game is capable of. It's more fun innovating techniques than perfecting builds and timings to me (imo, these things are the basis for builds and timings in the first place so it's more important), but feel free to post stuff like that too.
I'll keep posting stuff here as I find it, and I hope you guys do too. Please keep the "WTF OMGz!" to a minimum, as they will clutter the thread.
-Vikings suck ass ground or air. But the one thing they are good at is hit and run versus BC, (BC can yamato though, so watch out).
-you can toggle unit health bars into 3 modes in the options, alternatively you can press alt any time during a game to hide/show health bars.
-Reapers/Stalkers can hit and run versus slow lings and zeals early game. (by hit and run, I mean they won't get hit at all with proper micro and will kill the enemy melee)
- A hatchery's vision range when it is morphing is very small, you can place a bunker 1 or 2 spaces away and not be seen.
-On Scrapyard Stalkers can blink from main to middle island from either base. (you need vision though).
-All units can be patrolled a very small distance and they spin around all crazy (looks funny).
-Obvious, but Terran can fast expand to maps with islands and rocked in bases. (Kulas Ravine, Scrapyard, Desert Oasis, Steppes of War, LT)
-Air units bank around when they turn (looks cool, but this is arguably bad for the game), if you keep a rhythm of clicking around in a circle, you can get almost all air units completely sideways/vertical.
-You can set buildings rallies in any direction, units will pop out on the respective side of the building.
-The buildings in SC2 all fit to a grid, and you can wall with nearly every building. Walls block everything from small units (like lings) and up.
-Taking the last two into consideration, a teching technique I found for protoss, was to make your base in such a way to trap a stalker and use it like a canon/bunker as you tech up toward whatever you are going for. http://tinypic.com/r/w15qo9/6
PS- I'm sure people probably think it's dumb of me to reveal secrets/techniques this early into the game, but I think that the better everyone is, and on an even playing field, the funner the game is.
So the vast majority of buildings tight-wall when touching? That's pretty awesome :D. What about with terrain? In broodwar when putting gates/forges as close to the edges of terrain as possible, they often only walled in very specific cases, is it all wallable in there too?
On February 24 2010 22:05 Ftrunkz wrote: So the vast majority of buildings tight-wall when touching? That's pretty awesome :D. What about with terrain? In broodwar when putting gates/forges as close to the edges of terrain as possible, they often only walled in very specific cases, is it all wallable in there too?
yes, afaik all edges,doodads,mins,gas will tight wall as well. in bw buildings had numerical values for each side (which were all different in most cases) and then units had numerical values as well. If their numerical value was smaller than the sum of the two sides of two structures, then they would fit between. I do not know what is the case in sc2 but clearly most bldgs. have equal sides.
Note: I don't have a key, all information provided from watching streams/replays.
- I noticed when watching streams that voidrays keep their charges on the attack if the unit they attack dies and they immediatly target another. Can anyone with beta confirm this? Also voidrays follow their target while shooting when it runs/flies away. - A voidray will kill a Queen in 1:1 while you need at least three Phoenix(plural?) with one lifting the queen up to kill it before energy runs out. - Workers move very fast and don't slow down when attacking, microing against those with marines/other range units is alot harder. - Drones hatch building immediatly on the place and don't need to "settle down" like in SC1 - You can use /dance on some units(Just saw it on terran, dunno about zerg/toss)and they will do some fancy moves.
On February 24 2010 22:12 XythOs wrote: - I noticed when watching streams that voidrays keep their charges on the attack if the unit they attack dies and they immediatly target another. Can anyone with beta confirm this? Also voidrays follow their target while shooting when it runs/flies away.
I can confirm this. Looks like a bug to me though.
On February 24 2010 22:12 XythOs wrote: - Workers move very fast and don't slow down when attacking, microing against those with marines/other range units is alot harder.
I think this kinda goes for everything. Its harder to dance around things in a very accurate manner. Also when I do it with zerglings(like vs a Zealot rush) they often will lose their right click order and just start fighting as if i ordered an attack-move. Very annoying
On February 24 2010 22:12 XythOs wrote: - I noticed when watching streams that voidrays keep their charges on the attack if the unit they attack dies and they immediatly target another. Can anyone with beta confirm this? Also voidrays follow their target while shooting when it runs/flies away.
I can confirm this. Looks like a bug to me though.
This seems intended, the unit doesn't have to die for it to work like this. You can switch targets as much as you like, as long as more than a few seconds don't go by, you'll keep the charge.
I think this kinda goes for everything. Its harder to dance around things in a very accurate manner. Also when I do it with zerglings(like vs a Zealot rush) they often will lose their right click order and just start fighting as if i ordered an attack-move. Very annoying
A lot of people seem to be reporting this problem, I hope blizzard is working on it. Units should follow your orders ffs!
Another bug that keeps happening (well not sure if it is a bug or just bad design):
-Rallied units will come out on attack move, so if you are trying to save up a force to do a clutch defend with lings or whatever (such as zealots tearing at your nat FE expo) those units will fight to the death when you want them to run away. So manually move them when they spawn.
On February 24 2010 22:19 CharlieMurphy wrote: -Morphing Archons can be pushed around very easily (can't do it with collosus, but everything else yes).
-Immortals say Konadora
-All units have a bug where when told to move, they turn around and attack (hopefully fixed soon).
-Reapers can get stuck behind doodads and in corners sometimes, so pay attention. They can hop up cliffs, but not over structures or anything else.
On February 25 2010 06:27 alexpnd wrote: You can command a mule to land on a mineral patch and it will auto-mine.
There are only 2 addons, tech lab and reactor. These can be fitted to barracks, factory or starport so if you wish to optimize, use your head.
Its pretty easy to think you are landing a starport/factory/barracks attached to a tech lab only to have it land one square to high or two low. The greed outline that shows up when you have a lifted off port/factory/rax is almost to bright, when you get the icon moused over its tough to see.
Took me a few tries to figure it out, but I'm never confident in my swaps now, so I spend way to much time lining it up, they need the green box back!
On February 25 2010 06:13 CharlieMurphy wrote: Another bug that keeps happening (well not sure if it is a bug or just bad design):
-Rallied units will come out on attack move, so if you are trying to save up a force to do a clutch defend with lings or whatever (such as zealots tearing at your nat FE expo) those units will fight to the death when you want them to run away. So manually move them when they spawn.
There are some times when this is what you would want and some times when it isn't. Ideally you would be able to switch between the two but that is clumsy at best.
On February 25 2010 06:13 CharlieMurphy wrote: Another bug that keeps happening (well not sure if it is a bug or just bad design):
-Rallied units will come out on attack move, so if you are trying to save up a force to do a clutch defend with lings or whatever (such as zealots tearing at your nat FE expo) those units will fight to the death when you want them to run away. So manually move them when they spawn.
I actually really like this. I set rally to the area I am being attacked so reinforcements come and just begin fighting right away.
Tip: When you receive a private message while in a game (a whisper), instead of clicking the chat window and typing back, you can press 'Enter', then push 'Tab' to shift through different people you have talked to. It will switch through all chat, allied chat, and any private users you are charting with.
On February 25 2010 06:55 Losang wrote: ctrl alt f gives you framerate.
landing a mule on the closest mineral patch gives you 270 minerals instead of 240 mineralss. It gathers 9 times instead of 8.
I was thinking that perhaps using the mule to scout might be better than scanner, if your not using it to detect as they cost the same. (untested)
It appears as if using chrono boost before your first pylon is less efficient as you can't keep up constant probe production
Yay useful first post.
cool
wow thanks for that, I noticed that the thing seemed to die while doing a return and I wondered if the money lost was preventable. How much do they gather per trip? edit- Seemed like I got 9 from either middle patch on top spot in desert oasis. might have even lost a return on the further one.
I use that thing all the time for scouting, it lasts longer.
you can use it right when u start your probe and it will last for about half the next probe after pylon pops. Or you can opt for probes before pylon.
Has shift click been mentioned? You must hold shift before selecting the command (eg. build supply depot). So hold shift + B + S or B + hold shift + S then click as many supply depots as you like. Good for protoss, meh for terran, garbage for zerg lol.
ed: the shift before command hasn't worked for me but I'll give it another go tonight. i don't get to play as often as I would like. thanks!
On February 25 2010 07:21 alexpnd wrote: Has shift click been mentioned? You must hold shift before selecting the command (eg. build supply depot). So hold shift + B + S or B + hold shift + S then click as many supply depots as you like. Good for protoss, meh for terran, garbage for zerg lol.
this thing always confuses me how it works exactly, from my experience all you need to do is build something, hold shift build something again and then just keep clicking around on the floor.
edit- yea you can just do BS once, shift, and spam as many as you'd like. You can even hit cancel and que up another structure.
- If you get Vortex'd by a mothership and are certain that either your surviving army or your trapped army is going to get decimated, run the remaining guys into the vortex. Then they'll all pop back out at once and you'll be back at square one. This can actually work to your advantage if the protoss stacks on top of the vortex with his carriers - you can instantly kill his mothership and many of his units because they'll all be in range of your hydras/whatever. Just watch out for storm.
- If your colossus is getting chased by zealots or something just go down the cliff and shoot back up. When they path away, move back up and shoot again - they'll come running back. You can repeat this over and over if the guy doesn't micro them away. This can be really nasty on a map like metalopolis or LT where you can reach buildings with the range upgrade from nearby a cliff. Not really a trick, just abuse.
- Carrier interceptors all get a free shot if their target is directly in front of them when they fly out. Particularly dangerous with the upgrade. Very lethal against mutas, vikings, ect. if you are facing them when you deploy.
- The biting Mustaches that Mustache Lords molest enemy units with will predictably cause tanks to shoot at them when they land. The implications of this are simple but surprisingly deadly. Shooting at scv lines can do far more damage from tank splash than from the Mustaches themselves. Terrans will either have to unsiege their tanks or run their workers away. Also works against bunkers, M&M, whatever you're shooting at.
- Thors will shoot at Colossi with their air weapon if the land weapon is out of range.
- Mutalisks are suprisingly effective against battlecruisers but suicide against carriers. In fact, all light air is great against bcs because the bc's damage is split across a long volley and each shot takes an armor calculation. I've only found BC's to be effective against thors and carriers so far, but yamato can be used to snipe Mustache Lords or other key targets. Honestly I think their volley needs to fire much faster, otherwise they seem kind of underpowered.
- OP said you can hit and run lings with reapers, which is totally true. If you are zerg and having problems with this, you can try to play chicken. Run back the lings when the reapers try to kite, and then run forward when you expect them to come back. The idea is to force them to keep running away, stalling them while you get speed or whatnot, but if you actually catch them with lings they are dead. I was able to easily delay a terran trying to do this and lose minimal lings, coming out with enough lings and roaches to steamroll him after his repeated failures to kill my FE.
- Don't be afraid to rush t2 as Zerg. I never play 1hatch roach, I typically go 13 hatch if it's a long distance map or 13pool then hatch at around 15-16, going for early tier 2 and pushing with roaches if a timing opportunity opens up. Be very wary of teching protoss - a Void Ray before you have hydras out is going to be fatal.
- If you are at a stalemate in 2v2's, Nydus worms are your friend. Especially with Ultras. Dear God, Ultras...
- Again, in a 2v2, you can sometimes FE to a high-yield mineral expansion. The idea is to force the enemy to attack you. This is effective if you suspect they are going to be teching. I only do this as Zerg, and only when I know I can recover if the expansion dies (and it usually does). What this does is force the enemy to aggress you when they are trying to save money. The same idea of forcing a zerg to build sunkens or lings when he doesn't want to - it slows them down and keeps them occupied. If you do manage to defend it, congrats, you're going to catapult ahead of everyone in resources. Maybe doable with a fast planetary fortress as T?
- Speaking of T, in FFA's and 2v2's I like to make a fast command center and lift it to the ridge in Kunas Ravine (Wait, I don't think it was Kunas Ravine. I haven't memorized the map names yet, it's the map with a blocked off north/south of you). I do this if I'm going metal or air - I'll need the gas, anyways, but this way the expansion is very sneaky and not vulnerable outside. This is probably an obvious thing to do, but I always see most people taking the front door base which is kind of hard to hold with the ridge and wide chokes if both guys are trying to pressure you. Just keep an eye on the back door - eventually you'll want to destroy the rocks on your side and perhaps put tanks on the other side.
- Don't forget that MULES have an infinite cast range. In a long game, your main CC can still help out your fresh expansions. Once a CC is finished, just queue up a ton of mules. Especially effective on high-yield mineral bases, particularly risky ones - you can get really good bang for your buck very quickly.
- Sim City with Protoss can be applied to funnel enemies into a region ideal for the Colossus' line-attack. For example, a line of Gateways leading from the ramp can force enemies into a narrow line if they try to rush into the base, lining them up perfectly for a Colossi to knock them all down at once.
- Placing a Pylon next to the guy's cliff to Warp Gate zealots or such into his base is just as effective as a Warp Prism, and cheaper.
- Changelings are your friend, especially in FFA's. Use them often - keep tabs on those guys sitting on their motherships and carriers. Likewise, always mouse over Zealots, Marines, and Zerglings sitting in your bases. If you can't do anything to them, attack them with a worker or something - they're peaking down your blouse!
- Always keep an eye on your perimeter. As Zerg, this is easy - space out overlords around your cliff. In SC2 there are a ton of units and sneaky shit that can take advantage of you not paying attention. Worms, Prisms, proxy pylons > Gates, Changelings, Reapers... keep an eye out. Always.
-Taking the last two into consideration, a teching technique I found for protoss, was to make your base in such a way to trap a stalker and use it like a canon/bunker as you tech up toward whatever you are going for. http://tinypic.com/r/w15qo9/6
Lolwut, wouldn't you rather have a moving stalker instead of a immobile one? The stalker can't even protect your mineral field T_T
On February 25 2010 07:21 alexpnd wrote: Has shift click been mentioned? You must hold shift before selecting the command (eg. build supply depot). So hold shift + B + S or B + hold shift + S then click as many supply depots as you like. Good for protoss, meh for terran, garbage for zerg lol.
this thing always confuses me how it works exactly, from my experience all you need to do is build something, hold shift build something again and then just keep clicking around on the floor.
edit- yea you can just do BS once, shift, and spam as many as you'd like. You can even hit cancel and que up another structure.
...this is just basic command queuing but applied to buildings. I always though SC was odd because it did't have it
-Taking the last two into consideration, a teching technique I found for protoss, was to make your base in such a way to trap a stalker and use it like a canon/bunker as you tech up toward whatever you are going for. http://tinypic.com/r/w15qo9/6
Lolwut, wouldn't you rather have a moving stalker instead of a immobile one? The stalker can't even protect your mineral field T_T
this one doesn't require micro and you can possibly break it out later. Also, this was just a demo, i'm sure if you made the stuff on bottom part and tighter/better formation it would protect mineral lines better.
IskatuMesk , great additions. I knew about the broodlords vs scvs, that's really ownage.
The thor vs collosus thing is interesting, is there a way to tell other than judgement on when he will shoot ground or air?
Lolwut, wouldn't you rather have a moving stalker instead of a immobile one? The stalker can't even protect your mineral field T_T
I was also unsure about the usage of this when i first read it; the placement is for sure not great. I guess though it could be useful against banelings (they are still called that, right) and other close combat-units that has no possible way of attacking the stalker inside his little nest there. Dunno if its going to be actually useful in very many games - but due to the fact that you can rally your units in any direction you might as well build it like that, and rally one inside if you sense some kind of rush..
On February 25 2010 07:14 Dr.Frost wrote: Tip: When you receive a private message while in a game (a whisper), instead of clicking the chat window and typing back, you can press 'Enter', then push 'Tab' to shift through different people you have talked to. It will switch through all chat, allied chat, and any private users you are charting with.
/r to PM back the last person to message you in game.
Question. How exactly do changelings work? Can the enemy select and move them? Do you have to sneak them into your enemy base and does it give your enemy vision? etc, etc.
Also, does the "Land terran building, run siege tank under and siege before building's landed" trick still work or does it explode like in Brood War?
On February 25 2010 06:13 CharlieMurphy wrote: Another bug that keeps happening (well not sure if it is a bug or just bad design):
-Rallied units will come out on attack move, so if you are trying to save up a force to do a clutch defend with lings or whatever (such as zealots tearing at your nat FE expo) those units will fight to the death when you want them to run away. So manually move them when they spawn.
I highly doubt that that is a bug, and I would also argue that the only reason anyone would ever think of considering this a "bad design" is because it is different than it was in SC:BW. Do you really think that it is more useful to have units be forced to ignore units attacking them by default, in any situation, rather than attacking things that attack them unless instructed otherwise?
On February 25 2010 06:55 Losang wrote: ctrl alt f gives you framerate.
landing a mule on the closest mineral patch gives you 270 minerals instead of 240 mineralss. It gathers 9 times instead of 8.
I was thinking that perhaps using the mule to scout might be better than scanner, if your not using it to detect as they cost the same. (untested)
It appears as if using chrono boost before your first pylon is less efficient as you can't keep up constant probe production
Yay useful first post.
I am just quoting this because I don't want people to skip over. These are awesome tips.
Don't use the mule to scout, it is a necessity for your macro econ
they meant in place of a scan. you would be using your mule to macro as usual but when you usually scan for tech, drop a mule instead since same energy and lasts longer for scouting.
On February 25 2010 06:13 CharlieMurphy wrote: Another bug that keeps happening (well not sure if it is a bug or just bad design):
-Rallied units will come out on attack move, so if you are trying to save up a force to do a clutch defend with lings or whatever (such as zealots tearing at your nat FE expo) those units will fight to the death when you want them to run away. So manually move them when they spawn.
I highly doubt that that is a bug, and I would also argue that the only reason anyone would ever think of considering this a "bad design" is because it is different than it was in SC:BW. Do you really think that it is more useful to have units be forced to ignore units attacking them by default, in any situation, rather than attacking things that attack them unless instructed otherwise?
I haven't played in the beta but that does sound like bad design. When I set a rally point I want that unit to stand on that point, even if it's attacked on the way there. The instruction that a rally point sends out is to get to an area, not attack enemy units from area A to B and at area B.
But if you are on top of rallies and units then this shouldn't matter.
On February 25 2010 08:14 neobowman wrote: Question. How exactly do changelings work? Can the enemy select and move them? Do you have to sneak them into your enemy base and does it give your enemy vision? etc, etc.
Also, does the "Land terran building, run siege tank under and siege before building's landed" trick still work or does it explode like in Brood War?
Haven't tried the latter, but the former;
Changeling assumes the form of a Zealot, Marine or Zergling and their color depending which race they are ect. It does this when it comes into a certain range of their units (beyond vision). They do not automatically attack it. It appears friendly to the player, but they cannot control it or see buttons - hence why you've gotta check all of those stray units in your base ect.
On February 25 2010 08:32 CowGoMoo wrote: Using 'Stop' on Banshees instead of Attack Move is pretty decent vs Marines since u avoid floating towards them by doing this and take less damage.
- Putting a Nexus in its own control group is a good idea even when not building workers, because then you can Chrono Boost without having to go all over the place to find your various buildings.
- Thors attack that stuns and does massive damage is actually most effective against buildings with 100% health, if you can manage to get into a scenario like that. Thors are not a great investment right now.
- Vikings and probably other air-to-air only units can still hit Colossi.
- /dance works for marines and marauders right now, but some achievements that have been previewed may allow for other units to have dance animations in the future.
As a protoss taking the hallucination ability before teching to void rays allows you to send in a couple of hallucinated air units with your Warp Rays. You can then get just out of visual range of your enemy and attack your own hallucinations to get your Warp Rays to max charge before moving in range and attacking the enemy base. This gives your opponent much less time to react and can cut down the time it takes for a warp ray to kill an enemy building after being spotted considerably. When using this tactic make sure you also try to incorporate hallicination into your overall strategy to make the research more worthwhile.
On February 25 2010 09:05 DeCoup wrote: As a protoss taking the hallucination ability before teching to void rays allows you to send in a couple of hallucinated air units with your Warp Rays. You can then get just out of visual range of your enemy and attack your own hallucinations to get your Warp Rays to max charge before moving in range and attacking the enemy base. This gives your opponent much less time to react and can cut down the time it takes for a warp ray to kill an enemy building after being spotted considerably. When using this tactic make sure you also try to incorporate hallicination into your overall strategy to make the research more worthwhile.
I might just make a video dealing with this. It's pretty damn good.
On February 24 2010 21:35 CharlieMurphy wrote: -Obvious, but Terran can fast expand to maps with islands and rocked in bases. (Kulas Ravine, Scrapyard, Desert Oasis, Steppes of War, LT)
as z, i find that sending your first overlord to the nearest drop expo (to the terran) is more useful than using it as a spotter because you can poop creep all over it
On February 25 2010 09:11 nicoaldo wrote: That /dance stuff is retarded, i dont see the point
That is the point. There's no point in clicking your units a dozen times to hear wacky quotes, but they've been doing that since Warcraft 1. It's just a fun, silly extra.
On February 25 2010 08:32 CowGoMoo wrote: Using 'Stop' on Banshees instead of Attack Move is pretty decent vs Marines since u avoid floating towards them by doing this and take less damage.
On February 25 2010 07:21 alexpnd wrote: Has shift click been mentioned? You must hold shift before selecting the command (eg. build supply depot). So hold shift + B + S or B + hold shift + S then click as many supply depots as you like. Good for protoss, meh for terran, garbage for zerg lol.
ed: the shift before command hasn't worked for me but I'll give it another go tonight. i don't get to play as often as I would like. thanks!
Actually, it is great for T. It doesn't work exactly how you said there is 1 more thing u can do. If you do B + S and click the ground then push B + B and hold shift before u click where you can Queve different buildings. Doesn't have to be mass of 1 building. This goes for P too. All you have to do is hold Shift before you select the location to place w/e building your making.
On February 25 2010 06:13 CharlieMurphy wrote: Another bug that keeps happening (well not sure if it is a bug or just bad design):
-Rallied units will come out on attack move, so if you are trying to save up a force to do a clutch defend with lings or whatever (such as zealots tearing at your nat FE expo) those units will fight to the death when you want them to run away. So manually move them when they spawn.
I highly doubt that that is a bug, and I would also argue that the only reason anyone would ever think of considering this a "bad design" is because it is different than it was in SC:BW. Do you really think that it is more useful to have units be forced to ignore units attacking them by default, in any situation, rather than attacking things that attack them unless instructed otherwise?
yes, this is called micro.... If I want my units to attack always as soon as they come out, I'd tell them too. I mean what idiots are rallying their units across the map without watching them (which is the only time you could want attack move rally).
On February 25 2010 08:49 JoshSuth wrote: - Putting a Nexus in its own control group is a good idea even when not building workers, because then you can Chrono Boost without having to go all over the place to find your various buildings.
I like to put my nexuses in the control with all my production buildings. After warp gates, you can warp in units, and then tab back to the nexus and cast Chrono Boost on the building portraits without having to leaving whatever map position you were at.
On February 25 2010 12:14 CharlieMurphy wrote: -At about 600-800 hp of a barrack construction the scv goes behind and inside the building, making harder/impossible to worker harass it.
I think that's on purpose, like the unit rally, which I like.
Ok I'm pretty new but I had this thought. In Day9's zerg opening discussion he talked about how it may not be smart to always use the queen's spawn larva ability because you can't use them anyway - this also stops larva production at the hatchery (will not produce larva if 3 or more are present). Watching OverSky's marathon replays I'm noticing he usually can only use half his larva (he tends to always have a queen at each hatch and spawn larva a lot, I think).
My thought is, in the early game when you first get your queen and can't earn enough to use all the larva, isn't it smarter to spawn Creep Tumors leading to your ramp or natural? That way if you're invaded all your units move faster for more surround/escape opportunities. Speed-boosted zerglings in particular absolutely FLY (pun intended) on creep. Of course it may take finesse to be able to rely on normal larva production but I can see the benefits of at LEAST one creep tumor being easy to prove over a stream of spawn larva.
edit: wanted to add to OverSky's credit he seems to be the first player I've seen put the overlord creep drop to good use (or any use at all). However it does pose a large risk to the channeling overlord, hence why I had the thought of tumors when spawn larva doesn't have much benefit.
i mean you may not need 7 larvae now...but 40 seconds from now...
but i saw in dayvie's game vs ggtemplar where dayvie went banelings, he was putting the creep tumors everywhere. If anything they serve map awareness tools. It forces the enemy to deal with them before being able to move out their army. And while they're up you get movespeed.
Watching another of OverSky's games I guess it wasn't as much time as I thought before where the hatchery isn't creating larva, especially if you just use 1 queen between your main and natural.
I'd still like to think there are lots of options for defensive/offensive deployments of creep tumors.. load a queen into an overlord and move to each expansion spot, dropping some creep (tumor must be placed in creep) then tumoring? Would cost some energy and time with the queen away from your base but creates a pretty nice block of an expansion maybe. Especially if the player doesn't realize it's a tumor and just tries waiting for it to disappear
I can definitely see the use for 7 larva, the point was the situation where you have 3 larva, cast spawn larva, then get enough minerals to use those 3 larva AFTER the larva spawn. So you use 3, have 4 left over, and have a period of no larva production while you wait to build up minerals again.
Yeah I don't mind that you don't always have the income to use as mana lava as you can spawn if you use the queen constantly. It allows you to bank them up for when you have a tech building in production. You could potentially time cutting lava use alltogether to save up the resources to pop 15 muta off one base soon as the spire is up for example.
On February 25 2010 08:49 JoshSuth wrote: - Putting a Nexus in its own control group is a good idea even when not building workers, because then you can Chrono Boost without having to go all over the place to find your various buildings.
I like to put my nexuses in the control with all my production buildings. After warp gates, you can warp in units, and then tab back to the nexus and cast Chrono Boost on the building portraits without having to leaving whatever map position you were at.
Thanks, didn't know this! I tried hitting 4(Nexus)-C-9(Gateways) for instance and that didn't work so I assumed it wasn't possible and went back to manually clicking the buildings I want to Chrono.
On February 25 2010 08:49 JoshSuth wrote: - Putting a Nexus in its own control group is a good idea even when not building workers, because then you can Chrono Boost without having to go all over the place to find your various buildings.
I like to put my nexuses in the control with all my production buildings. After warp gates, you can warp in units, and then tab back to the nexus and cast Chrono Boost on the building portraits without having to leaving whatever map position you were at.
Creep tumors once you drop one down have the ability to spawn an infinite amount more (limited by cooldown). For the loss of one inject larva you have a tumor that can go on forever potentially. From a practical perspective it will easily build creep up to your natural without having to use overlords. And with two tumors you could slowly cover the entire map with goo at an okay pace! Maybe not so useful but who knows!
As Z, upgrade Burrow (if you use it), put a burrowed unit at the T's natural. When he goes to expand, he will have to waste a scan (which means he wastes a mule, and a mule is about 250 minerals)
If the T is FE to an expo behind a destructible rock ramp, send your overlord there and take a dump on it with creep. Can't land that CC on creep.
There are common places on maps where Reapers like to abuse cliffs. As T or P, you can wall those parts of the cliffs off in some cases.
On February 25 2010 19:20 Tor wrote: Creep tumors once you drop one down have the ability to spawn an infinite amount more (limited by cooldown). For the loss of one inject larva you have a tumor that can go on forever potentially. From a practical perspective it will easily build creep up to your natural without having to use overlords. And with two tumors you could slowly cover the entire map with goo at an okay pace! Maybe not so useful but who knows!
What do you mean by this? Are you saying that once you have used a queen to create a creep tumor you are then able to use an ability on the creep tumor to create additional creep tumors?
On February 25 2010 19:20 Tor wrote: Creep tumors once you drop one down have the ability to spawn an infinite amount more (limited by cooldown). For the loss of one inject larva you have a tumor that can go on forever potentially. From a practical perspective it will easily build creep up to your natural without having to use overlords. And with two tumors you could slowly cover the entire map with goo at an okay pace! Maybe not so useful but who knows!
yea I've been doing this forever, usually do it on the 2nd or 3rd time after injections. It's really really good. Most people don't even know what's going on or bring detection to kill the tumors.
Not only do you get speed boosts, but you can run your towers anywhere, and you get vision of like the entire map or your entire base (on LT for example).
On February 25 2010 20:20 P00RKID wrote: If the T is FE to an expo behind a destructible rock ramp, send your overlord there and take a dump on it with creep. Can't land that CC on creep. .
I really hope the excrete creep feature stays in the final game, Manner Creeping for the win! Protoss and Terran got off way too easy the last 10 years.
On February 25 2010 19:20 Tor wrote: Creep tumors once you drop one down have the ability to spawn an infinite amount more (limited by cooldown). For the loss of one inject larva you have a tumor that can go on forever potentially. From a practical perspective it will easily build creep up to your natural without having to use overlords. And with two tumors you could slowly cover the entire map with goo at an okay pace! Maybe not so useful but who knows!
What do you mean by this? Are you saying that once you have used a queen to create a creep tumor you are then able to use an ability on the creep tumor to create additional creep tumors?
Yeah the Creep Tumor (which is kinda like a building) has a button for spawning an another creep tumor for free, the only cost seems to be a cooldown.
On February 25 2010 19:20 Tor wrote: Creep tumors once you drop one down have the ability to spawn an infinite amount more (limited by cooldown). For the loss of one inject larva you have a tumor that can go on forever potentially. From a practical perspective it will easily build creep up to your natural without having to use overlords. And with two tumors you could slowly cover the entire map with goo at an okay pace! Maybe not so useful but who knows!
What do you mean by this? Are you saying that once you have used a queen to create a creep tumor you are then able to use an ability on the creep tumor to create additional creep tumors?
Yeah the Creep Tumor (which is kinda like a building) has a button for spawning an another creep tumor for free, the only cost seems to be a cooldown.
well yea, that and the time it takes for the ooze to spread fully.
On February 25 2010 06:13 CharlieMurphy wrote: Another bug that keeps happening (well not sure if it is a bug or just bad design):
-Rallied units will come out on attack move, so if you are trying to save up a force to do a clutch defend with lings or whatever (such as zealots tearing at your nat FE expo) those units will fight to the death when you want them to run away. So manually move them when they spawn.
This isn't a bug, the tooltip for rally specifically says that units on their way to the rally point will attack enemy units.
However, I haven't seen anyone mention this, but I think there's a way around it.
You can 'pre-command' eggs. Click the egg, and right-click where you want the unit to move to. As soon as the egg hatches, the unit will move to where you clicked. This will override the rally point. So for example if you're under attack and you want to save up lings, ctrl-click/double-click an egg (to select all eggs) and right-click somewhere away from the attacking units. However I'm not sure if it's a 'move' command or an 'attack-move' command. I'll experiment a bit more with this.
I know creep tumors block buildings, but can they be used to wall? wall off your choke with an invisible wall, it may be too gimicky to be done in a real game, but it would confuse the hell out of somebody...
On February 25 2010 09:05 DeCoup wrote: As a protoss taking the hallucination ability before teching to void rays allows you to send in a couple of hallucinated air units with your Warp Rays. You can then get just out of visual range of your enemy and attack your own hallucinations to get your Warp Rays to max charge before moving in range and attacking the enemy base. This gives your opponent much less time to react and can cut down the time it takes for a warp ray to kill an enemy building after being spotted considerably. When using this tactic make sure you also try to incorporate hallicination into your overall strategy to make the research more worthwhile.
Do want. Probably the first time I've seen a practical application for Hallucination. I would like to see some replays dealing w/ this.
i'm not sure this has been mentioned, but all workers split the building workloads
so if we take an extreme example and your main base was demolished but you have a ton of minerals and want to quickly rebuild supplies, you can select 12 SCVs, with shift + B + S placing 12 supply depots, all 12 unique scvs will build unique depots (well, shift+click them to minerals after you place 12 B+S obviously). It looks cool and obviously they build them very fast
for a more normal example, you can select 3 SCVs, shift queue a supply depot, a turret, a startport, and the SCVs will decide for themselves who's going to build which
or like if im transferring workers to a freshly built expansion as protoss, i select 8 or however many i want to transfer: tell them to go mine there, then shift place 2 assimilators, a pylon, whatever the hell else i need, and shift click to minerals. A unique probe will build each of the queued structures
saves time and mouse clicks
oh, also I find that if with the mothership you can temporal rift (the slowing down thing) RIGHT as the Vortex turns off, the units come out sooooooooooooo slowly and I'm not sure if they would even shoot back until they fully 'come out' and even if they did, they would all be intensely bunched up, all would shoot insanely slow (and if they're melee then not at all), and you would just level them with your army or storm or whatever AOE you choose
Also, until last night I wasn't aware that hallucination works differently than in SC1 you don't 'clone' a unit like you did in BW, you can select what hallucination you wish to create out of a list of units I would assume this would be intensely powerful given that you can show your enemy, for a example, a collosus while teching to something that will counter the collosus' counter
or let's say rather, in a PvP, show him voidrays, he makes stalkers/cannons/whatever to deal with the threat, you run over him with your zeals+immortals
admittedly, I'm not at all sure if you can create hallucinated units that you do not have the tech for
On February 25 2010 20:20 P00RKID wrote: As Z, upgrade Burrow (if you use it), put a burrowed unit at the T's natural. When he goes to expand, he will have to waste a scan (which means he wastes a mule, and a mule is about 250 minerals)
if you have siege you can just splash it with a marine, maybe even a hellion
my only problem with using queen to pop creep tumors instead of larvae is: If you dont use the larvae because you dont have the resources or for whatever reason, you just dont use them. The larvae will remain there if you keep injecting. For instance I had 150 supply worth of hydras just for fun in a FFA game, i had 2 other hatcheries. The entire game i would re-inject them with my queens. So at one point in the game i let all my hydras die in an autoattack. But since i was spamming larve injection I was able to rebuild 200 supply of hydras almost instantly. So i still like larva injection to be put on non-stop.
On February 26 2010 07:25 CowGoMoo wrote: Spamming S on worker units so they dont attack will cause their priority to drop and enemy units will ignore them like they would in SC
On February 25 2010 20:20 P00RKID wrote: As Z, upgrade Burrow (if you use it), put a burrowed unit at the T's natural. When he goes to expand, he will have to waste a scan (which means he wastes a mule, and a mule is about 250 minerals)
if you have siege you can just splash it with a marine, maybe even a hellion
or just build a turret so it;ll be good for 50-250 minerals then
-When a tank shoots in sieged mode, there is a quick status clock on the attack icon, when it goes from 12 back to 12 again it shoots. (they should do this with more units imo)
Enemy units will auto acquire the auto turrets placed by a raven. Since auto turrets have 150 life, placing a bunch of auto turrets in front of your push can help alot. If he micros to attack units, the auto turrets give you a nice damage boost (they do ... 8 dmg I think and fire at about marine speed). If he doesn't micro his units they will attack the turrets allowing your units to basically get free hits in, which can really turn the tide of a battle.
yea there are at least 2 guys with that name (Spelled diff).
BoT, I was just messing around in single player with Terran. And I discovered that if you lift up a unit right when a raven HSM is about to hit the unit is safe inside but the splash/target hits the medivac. Since the thor is still there, it should take splash damage technically, but it does not as well. Same thing for Yamato, but yamato doesn't do any damage at all.
-Ghost nuke does 500 damage to barracks and the radius is 24 SCV wide, it did 300 to BC.
also, /dance when marines or marauders selected makes them dance (each one has 2 dances). Marauder does the running man and the robot, marine does that WoW Tauren dance and the moonwalk.
I just had someone use the bunker vs. hatchery LOS trick on me a few minutes ago on Blistering Sands. As an additional kick, he placed the bunker right up against the edge of the map, so that he had a nice protected pocket for his SCVs to repair and it wasn't possible to surround the bunker with SCVs.
As terran rushing to helions/tanks, you can use the barracs for building multiple addons near the factories, before the factories are complete and then fly the factories to them.
On February 28 2010 00:24 sob3k wrote: Zerg buildings spawn broodlings when they die, they only last for like 5 seconds but if you're quick you can use them to kill something.
this has been known since about the time the zerg were first introduced by blizzard for SC2.
I don't have beta, but has anyone with beta tryed abusing the high yield minerals? Like on maps where they are close, if you are terran, lifting cc straight to the minerals and ditching the main, or expanding there before you expand to your nat and taking advantage of mobile units to defend?
On February 28 2010 00:24 sob3k wrote: Zerg buildings spawn broodlings when they die, they only last for like 5 seconds but if you're quick you can use them to kill something.
this has been known since about the time the zerg were first introduced by blizzard for SC2.
Sry, nobody told me! It surprised the hell out of me!
Tip: you can queue tanks to move into position and siege up. Shift-right click then hit "E", the tank will move to its destination and go into siege mode automatically. This was something I always wanted in sc1.
On February 28 2010 00:24 sob3k wrote: Zerg buildings spawn broodlings when they die, they only last for like 5 seconds but if you're quick you can use them to kill something.
this has been known since about the time the zerg were first introduced by blizzard for SC2.
Sry, nobody told me! It surprised the hell out of me!
Tip: you can queue tanks to move into position and siege up. Shift-right click then hit "E", the tank will move to its destination and go into siege mode automatically. This was something I always wanted in sc1.
On February 28 2010 00:24 sob3k wrote: Zerg buildings spawn broodlings when they die, they only last for like 5 seconds but if you're quick you can use them to kill something.
this has been known since about the time the zerg were first introduced by blizzard for SC2.
Sry, nobody told me! It surprised the hell out of me!
Tip: you can queue tanks to move into position and siege up. Shift-right click then hit "E", the tank will move to its destination and go into siege mode automatically. This was something I always wanted in sc1.
Oh wow didn't know that....thanks!
you can do it with any units. waypoint system allows abilities and spells now. I think workers will even finish their current mining task then go build if you want.
On February 27 2010 22:12 sob3k wrote: Just a note in case you haven't noticed:
on bunkers there is a "salvage" button which deconstructs the bunker in like 5sec and gives you 100% of the money you spent back.
So bunkers are basically free if they don't die and you don't need them permanently.
it is surprising how many people do not notice this, and I thought bunker rushing was gay in sc1
yea, I've already seen a few people kill them to make room. Even I did it on habitt and realized that I could have salvaged it afterwords
yeah, I haven't gotten a chance to play T like at all, but it seems pretty crazy to get 100% back, there's no reason not to literally spam-fill your entire base with them if you are going to be on the defense for a while.
Something I just came to think about regarding zerg.
Spawning creep on overlords.
This seems like useful ability since creep doesn't allow other factions to build on it. And creep that an overlord has put out for some time seems to stick around for like 1min. This could be used to deny expansions or other kinds of buildings. And it requires your opponent to get something to shoot air simply to be able to build there. 100 minerals for denying buildings in a pretty big area until anti air comes around and after that for like 1min in a smaller area seems like a pretty nice investment.
To bad it needs lair. But maybe you could rush lair and maybe deny protoss smth like placement of photo cannons at his ramp if he goes a turtle start build with one gate with cannons as back up. That could force him to pull out anti air simply to deal with the overlord and maybe he wont get the cannons up before your roaches arrive. I'm speculating. I cant try it myself. But it would be pretty cool to screw someone over like that using the creep from an overlord.
On February 28 2010 10:01 Izzachar wrote: Something I just came to think about regarding zerg.
Spawning creep on overlords.
This seems like useful ability since creep doesn't allow other factions to build on it. And creep that an overlord has put out for some time seems to stick around for like 1min. This could be used to deny expansions or other kinds of buildings. And it requires your opponent to get something to shoot air simply to be able to build there. 100 minerals for denying buildings in a pretty big area until anti air comes around and after that for like 1min in a smaller area seems like a pretty nice investment.
To bad it needs lair. But maybe you could rush lair and maybe deny protoss smth like placement of photo cannons at his ramp if he goes a turtle start build with one gate with cannons as back up. That could force him to pull out anti air simply to deal with the overlord and maybe he wont get the cannons up before your roaches arrive. I'm speculating. I cant try it myself. But it would be pretty cool to screw someone over like that using the creep from an overlord.
On February 28 2010 07:19 Newguy wrote: I don't have beta, but has anyone with beta tryed abusing the high yield minerals? Like on maps where they are close, if you are terran, lifting cc straight to the minerals and ditching the main, or expanding there before you expand to your nat and taking advantage of mobile units to defend?
on twilight fortress (2v2 shared base map) i often hidden expo very early on at the yellow minerals just outside the mains. it rarely gets scouted and even if it gets killed, all you need is a few minutes of mining time to have made it pay off. those bases are awesome
When building Starports when going for an air heavy army you can use your factory to build the Tech lab or the reactor and then lift off to said tech lab or reactor to save yourself some build time.
At the begging of a game as Terran you can load up and lift off your CC to an island expo or a rock protected Expo
On February 25 2010 06:13 CharlieMurphy wrote: Another bug that keeps happening (well not sure if it is a bug or just bad design):
-Rallied units will come out on attack move, so if you are trying to save up a force to do a clutch defend with lings or whatever (such as zealots tearing at your nat FE expo) those units will fight to the death when you want them to run away. So manually move them when they spawn.
I actually really like this. I set rally to the area I am being attacked so reinforcements come and just begin fighting right away.
that's dumb because if you set a rally there, or behind there the units will get to the point and stop, then auto acquire targets anyways.
The command queuing system is much more advanced than in sc1. For example, with roaches and burrow, you can select one near death, tell it to burrow, quickly hold shit and give it a move command back to base, (assuming you have the upgrade), and your roach will try to save itself to live another day.
Or in longer fights you can simply have them go to the back lines and unburrow. At least they'll have gained a bit of health.
-If you fire at a zealot with a collosus and pick up it via graviton beam, the beam hits the floor but it misses. I dunno if the surrounds units still take splash because I'm only able to test it on my own units.
-If you use a warp prism to to drop and shoot something and pick it up right when it is shooting, the animation of the lances will go into the sky above the prism and it doesn't do any damage. So the animation has to finish. This might be a bug, not sure. Could be in place to stop people from dropping and firing and picking up too fast.
I'm still messing around a bit with protoss units, I'll mess around with zerg next.
Maybe later I can get 2 guys (one of each race) and we can test stuff out against each other.
On February 28 2010 15:03 CharlieMurphy wrote: -If you fire at a zealot with a collosus and pick up it via graviton beam, the beam hits the floor but it misses. I dunno if the surrounds units still take splash because I'm only able to test it on my own units.
-If you use a warp prism to to drop and shoot something and pick it up right when it is shooting, the animation of the lances will go into the sky above the prism and it doesn't do any damage. So the animation has to finish. This might be a bug, not sure. Could be in place to stop people from dropping and firing and picking up too fast.
I'm still messing around a bit with protoss units, I'll mess around with zerg next.
Maybe later I can get 2 guys (one of each race) and we can test stuff out against each other.
yeah damage for the collosus doesn't register until after the beams finish arcing across
On February 26 2010 05:53 radiaL wrote: Also, until last night I wasn't aware that hallucination works differently than in SC1 you don't 'clone' a unit like you did in BW, you can select what hallucination you wish to create out of a list of units I would assume this would be intensely powerful given that you can show your enemy, for a example, a collosus while teching to something that will counter the collosus' counter
or let's say rather, in a PvP, show him voidrays, he makes stalkers/cannons/whatever to deal with the threat, you run over him with your zeals+immortals
admittedly, I'm not at all sure if you can create hallucinated units that you do not have the tech for
This is awesome. Can someone confirm this with replays?
On February 26 2010 05:53 radiaL wrote: Also, until last night I wasn't aware that hallucination works differently than in SC1 you don't 'clone' a unit like you did in BW, you can select what hallucination you wish to create out of a list of units I would assume this would be intensely powerful given that you can show your enemy, for a example, a collosus while teching to something that will counter the collosus' counter
or let's say rather, in a PvP, show him voidrays, he makes stalkers/cannons/whatever to deal with the threat, you run over him with your zeals+immortals
admittedly, I'm not at all sure if you can create hallucinated units that you do not have the tech for
This is awesome. Can someone confirm this with replays?
This is true. You can't hallucinate motherships though...
Sorry if this has already been posted. The same trick that can be used for the ghost snipe skill(post 1) can be used with the infestor, the spawn infested marine ability. With 3 infestors you can spawn 24 marines in under 1sec.
On February 28 2010 15:03 CharlieMurphy wrote: -If you fire at a zealot with a collosus and pick up it via graviton beam, the beam hits the floor but it misses. I dunno if the surrounds units still take splash because I'm only able to test it on my own units.
-If you use a warp prism to to drop and shoot something and pick it up right when it is shooting, the animation of the lances will go into the sky above the prism and it doesn't do any damage. So the animation has to finish. This might be a bug, not sure. Could be in place to stop people from dropping and firing and picking up too fast.
I'm still messing around a bit with protoss units, I'll mess around with zerg next.
Maybe later I can get 2 guys (one of each race) and we can test stuff out against each other.
yeah damage for the collosus doesn't register until after the beams finish arcing across
If it doesn't register until the arch is complete could someone be amazing enough to get a dropship pick up 8 marines then drop it in the back of the army without taking damage from the heat lance (Yes I think Koreans could probably do it)?!? That would be like seeing mutalisk harassment for the first time again, Unheard of!!!
Oh snap that tank queueing is actually very useful. They realize their damage isn't necessary and snap to the next target very quickly... I wonder if this applies to all units and not just tanks. It would be useful for any heavy hitting unit like immortals or thors.
Units have a Leash now. If you have a unit standing there idle and it gets attacked and kited, if you give it absolutely 0 commands, it will eventually turn around and run back to it's idle spot (if it doesn't get killed first).
That tank queuing will be sooo usefull in the lategame where you actually have time to queue up the attacks by targetting the stronger units first - ultra/collusus.
On March 01 2010 10:25 silencefc wrote: Units have a Leash now. If you have a unit standing there idle and it gets attacked and kited, if you give it absolutely 0 commands, it will eventually turn around and run back to it's idle spot (if it doesn't get killed first).
really? I noticed this when units are moving amongs your other units. YOu can only push them around so far before they turn around and come back. I was trying to trap my zeal by pushing him around with 3 other zeals but wasn't very patient or successful with doing so.
Ctrl+alt+f shows your framerate at the top right corner during any game or replay. If you lower all your graphics, resolution, and possibly increase refresh rate you may double or at least see in increase in FPS.
Roach bomb: Burrow roach(es) and move them under sieged tanks (or marines with sieged tanks nearby), when they scan or if you unburrow they blow up their own units :D
- When units warp in at the stargate, you can see a white warp in thing for each unit as it comes in. So you can tell what he is making and make the appropriate response units. (this doesn't work for gateways though). Although, gateways do light up now when warping in units (where they didnt in SCBW).
On March 01 2010 10:47 Tef wrote: Roach bomb: Burrow roach(es) and move them under sieged tanks (or marines with sieged tanks nearby), when they scan or if you unburrow they blow up their own units :D
nice, this could be very abusive in middle ground battles with no turrets or ravens around. you can move directly under a pile of marines right? lol, why even make BLings anymore when we have this !
On March 01 2010 11:15 CharlieMurphy wrote: - When units warp in at the stargate, you can see a white warp in thing for each unit as it comes in. So you can tell what he is making and make the appropriate response units. (this doesn't work for gateways though). Although, gateways do light up now when warping in units (where they didnt in SCBW).
- prioritizing units that are still warping in might be a good idea, since they take double damage before they completely materialize
On March 01 2010 11:15 CharlieMurphy wrote: - When units warp in at the stargate, you can see a white warp in thing for each unit as it comes in. So you can tell what he is making and make the appropriate response units. (this doesn't work for gateways though). Although, gateways do light up now when warping in units (where they didnt in SCBW).
- prioritizing units that are still warping in might be a good idea, since they take double damage before they completely materialize
On March 01 2010 11:15 CharlieMurphy wrote: - When units warp in at the stargate, you can see a white warp in thing for each unit as it comes in. So you can tell what he is making and make the appropriate response units. (this doesn't work for gateways though). Although, gateways do light up now when warping in units (where they didnt in SCBW).
- prioritizing units that are still warping in might be a good idea, since they take double damage before they completely materialize
wait you are talking about using warpgates to place units anywhere on pylon aura right? I was talking about just units inside the stargate itself. You can't use the warpgate tech on stargates.
-MULEs gather 30 minerals per trip and make about 9 trips, for 270 gained. On yellow high yield minerals they get 42 per trip and make about 378! so save up your mule power for that yellow expo. -MULEs will gather over another unit mining at the same patch mining, doesn't matter if it's an SCV, Drone, Probe, or another MULE!
Just a fun idea i came up with while reading this is if you make pilons such a way that they leave just enough space for a stalker or two to be warped into the middle that can make for some very nice static defense, i think im gonna play around with this idea and see if it is at all workable early/mid game as a way for toss to make make bunkers. It might have no real use but i could be just a cool thing to do if you need to "construct additional pilons" and secure a part of the map
On March 01 2010 14:47 Noev wrote: Just a fun idea i came up with while reading this is if you make pilons such a way that they leave just enough space for a stalker or two to be warped into the middle that can make for some very nice static defense, i think im gonna play around with this idea and see if it is at all workable early/mid game as a way for toss to make make bunkers. It might have no real use but i could be just a cool thing to do if you need to "construct additional pilons" and secure a part of the map
On March 01 2010 12:30 CharlieMurphy wrote: -MULEs gather 30 minerals per trip and make about 9 trips, for 270 gained. On yellow high yield minerals they get 48 per trip and make about 432! so save up your mule power for that yellow expo. -MULEs will gather over another unit mining at the same patch mining, doesn't matter if it's an SCV, Drone, Probe, or another MULE!
mules cant mine the same patch as another mule, if you tell 2 mules to go to the same patch they auto split
On February 28 2010 09:55 CharlieMurphy wrote: you can do it with any units. waypoint system allows abilities and spells now. I think workers will even finish their current mining task then go build if you want.
unfortunately if they're mining minerals and you queue a refinery they wont return the minerals before they start building the refinery. They will finish mining though =o
I made this video for shift commands after finding this thread. The last part is probably the most interesting with the dropships and thors.
The first part is siege tank micro, it has been touched on by others int his thread, but I thought this showcased a little more of what you could do with [shift] commands. Basically, you can tell the siege tanks to move, siege up and then attack in order. Now, if in the process of doing all this they end up in their sieged position already, with allt heir targets q'd up, you can keep holding shift to tel them to unsiege and retreat after they do their damage. There seems to be a bug that makes one siege tank stay behind sometimes though.
Second part is Ghosts, Similar to Science vessels you can [shift] emp and retreat, it also works if u have a whole protoss army to EMP you can [shift] EMP EMP retreat.
Last part is a bit of Thor and Medivac micro, (I'm no gosu ok) but this is pretty neat, using shift commands it makes this micro process of sort of "sniping" a (my own) command center go smoothly. Doing all this in real time would be a lot harder for me, plus after the thors are q'd up to do their shit I could be macroing.
I hope you enjoy it, new here to TL and looking to contribute.
Oh my god, I never thought about using turrets against colos, brilliant. I feel so dumb though
Someone earlier mentioned scouting with mules, you can't send in a mule to a place you have no vision.
There's a second hold command, don't remember its name/shortkey atm, but it's hold + cease fire. It basically functions like hold lurker. Sorry I haven't tested it at all, but possible units will not have high priority to target them, if all units can use it could be useful for sentries (if this works, the sentry won't attack and thus won't be targetted, so its shield effect will last longer because it'll live longer), or for ground units against melee units. Similar to the spamming s on an scv as mentioned earlier.
Watch your reapers carefully, they get stuck often en-route.
Clever terrans and protosses keep their initial scout on the outskirts of creep (which speeds zerg units) so that queens and lings have a harder time killing them, letting them scout longer. Cleverer zergs run their ling on the creep and then run in front of the scout instead of just chasing behind slowly.
Zergs should wait to tech until the first scout is dead. If going lair (before expo), once your lair finishes, you can wait for terran to scan your main before picking your tech. This isn't always practical obviously.
I hope this hasn't been mentioned before, I skimmed through the thread but might have missed it. I don't have beta, so this is more of a suggestion for someone to confirm than a trick.
If you are doing a Void Ray rush (for example against zerg), power up its attack before you engage the enemy. It will bring down the hatch much faster and the enemy has less time to react.
My ideas on how to do this: Proxy a pylon close to the enemies base on the way that you want your Void Ray to go, attack it for a while and then sprint for the hatch before the charge is lost. Possibly stronger alternative: Attack a Zealot. You can have the Zealot walk towards the enemy base and your Void Ray chase it while attacking it, thus you don't have to waste time attacking an immobile pylon. Obviously both solutions are map dependant. You need a good place close to the hatch for the pylon or a path for the Zealot, and your Void Ray should not be very likely to be scouted while charging up.
On March 01 2010 18:59 spinesheath wrote: I hope this hasn't been mentioned before, I skimmed through the thread but might have missed it. I don't have beta, so this is more of a suggestion for someone to confirm than a trick.
If you are doing a Void Ray rush (for example against zerg), power up its attack before you engage the enemy. It will bring down the hatch much faster and the enemy has less time to react.
My ideas on how to do this: Proxy a pylon close to the enemies base on the way that you want your Void Ray to go, attack it for a while and then sprint for the hatch before the charge is lost. Possibly stronger alternative: Attack a Zealot. You can have the Zealot walk towards the enemy base and your Void Ray chase it while attacking it, thus you don't have to waste time attacking an immobile pylon. Obviously both solutions are map dependant. You need a good place close to the hatch for the pylon or a path for the Zealot, and your Void Ray should not be very likely to be scouted while charging up.
Yeah. Works well with hallucination. And taking it early can give you great scouting with hallucinated phoenix.
On March 01 2010 12:30 CharlieMurphy wrote: -MULEs gather 30 minerals per trip and make about 9 trips, for 270 gained. On yellow high yield minerals they get 48 per trip and make about 432! so save up your mule power for that yellow expo. -MULEs will gather over another unit mining at the same patch mining, doesn't matter if it's an SCV, Drone, Probe, or another MULE!
mules cant mine the same patch as another mule, if you tell 2 mules to go to the same patch they auto split
On February 28 2010 09:55 CharlieMurphy wrote: you can do it with any units. waypoint system allows abilities and spells now. I think workers will even finish their current mining task then go build if you want.
unfortunately if they're mining minerals and you queue a refinery they wont return the minerals before they start building the refinery. They will finish mining though =o
I just spammed out 20 mules to a yellow mineral base and it took like 1000 of each patch before they all died. Pretty fucking sure they were mining on top of each other.
unfortunately if they're mining minerals and you queue a refinery they wont return the minerals before they start building the refinery. They will finish mining though =o
Shift + Click your CC then Shift queue your refinery. The SCV will deposit the minerals then build the refinery.
On March 01 2010 12:30 CharlieMurphy wrote: -MULEs gather 30 minerals per trip and make about 9 trips, for 270 gained. On yellow high yield minerals they get 48 per trip and make about 432! so save up your mule power for that yellow expo. -MULEs will gather over another unit mining at the same patch mining, doesn't matter if it's an SCV, Drone, Probe, or another MULE!
mules cant mine the same patch as another mule, if you tell 2 mules to go to the same patch they auto split
On February 28 2010 09:55 CharlieMurphy wrote: you can do it with any units. waypoint system allows abilities and spells now. I think workers will even finish their current mining task then go build if you want.
unfortunately if they're mining minerals and you queue a refinery they wont return the minerals before they start building the refinery. They will finish mining though =o
I just spammed out 20 mules to a yellow mineral base and it took like 1000 of each patch before they all died. Pretty fucking sure they were mining on top of each other.
I don't know if it's different for yellow patches but I know that MULEs can't mine on top of each other on regular minerals.
On March 01 2010 12:30 CharlieMurphy wrote: -MULEs gather 30 minerals per trip and make about 9 trips, for 270 gained. On yellow high yield minerals they get 48 per trip and make about 432! so save up your mule power for that yellow expo. -MULEs will gather over another unit mining at the same patch mining, doesn't matter if it's an SCV, Drone, Probe, or another MULE!
mules cant mine the same patch as another mule, if you tell 2 mules to go to the same patch they auto split
On February 28 2010 09:55 CharlieMurphy wrote: you can do it with any units. waypoint system allows abilities and spells now. I think workers will even finish their current mining task then go build if you want.
unfortunately if they're mining minerals and you queue a refinery they wont return the minerals before they start building the refinery. They will finish mining though =o
I just spammed out 20 mules to a yellow mineral base and it took like 1000 of each patch before they all died. Pretty fucking sure they were mining on top of each other.
I don't know if it's different for yellow patches but I know that MULEs can't mine on top of each other on regular minerals.
I think they can mine over each other but they try not to.
Either way, you want to target different minerals patches with your mules otherwise you end up eating up an entire patch pretty quickly and then ur down to 7 patches instead of 8, haha.
my tip: it is almost always a good idea to use Mules on new expansions or the largest mineral patches available to avoid mining out a single base too quickly which would reduce your income rate.
so each mule brought about 262.5 total here (which is pretty similar to their output on blue minerals normally).
that's a very large decrease in efficiency from their normal 378 total. Some in the middle might have even been triple and quadruple stacking, being that the data says the middle was mined hardest. Hard to make it out though.
The Mules try not to stack (but it is possible for them to do so) and therefore waste a lot of mining time moving to different patches to avoid stacking.
Having both queens and hatcheries in same hotkey allows you to spawn larve using the icons instead of clicking your hatcheries. just cast spawn on each hat one at a time, the queens are smart and the closest queen will spawn on each hatchery. just have to get used to tabbing before hitting s to select larve or have two hotkeys 1 with hat the other with queen + hat. The queens are auto selected first.
On March 02 2010 08:34 CowGoMoo wrote: The Mules try not to stack (but it is possible for them to do so) and therefore waste a lot of mining time moving to different patches to avoid stacking.
On March 02 2010 09:28 AndrewGreve wrote: Having both queens and hatcheries in same hotkey allows you to spawn larve using the icons instead of clicking your hatcheries. just cast spawn on each hat one at a time, the queens are smart and the closest queen will spawn on each hatchery. just have to get used to tabbing before hitting s to select larve or have two hotkeys 1 with hat the other with queen + hat. The queens are auto selected first.
i prefer to hotkey each hatch and just grabbing the queen manually when i see it. Since i'm there macroing and making units anyways.
I'm sure this method helps when microing/attacking though.
PS- doesn't this trick defeat the purpose of the macro mechanic, blizzard said they added them so that players would have to go back to the base every once in a while to make up for the auto mining workers.
APM displayed in replays (and in the spectator interface I assume) is normalized to a speed between slower and fast. If you want to know your real APM for a game played on faster, multiply by 1.35. This helps to explain why everyone's APM seems so low.
I tested this by starting a game with the AI and performing exactly 120 actions. The game lasted 2 minutes 6 seconds according to the victory screen (and about that long according to my stopwatch); the replay was 2 minutes 50 seconds long and recorded an APM of 43, which is 120 / 2:50, not 120 / 2:06.
Not much of a tip, but I didn't feel it deserved its own thread.
On March 02 2010 15:00 CharlieMurphy wrote: i prefer to hotkey each hatch and just grabbing the queen manually when i see it. Since i'm there macroing and making units anyways.
I'm sure this method helps when microing/attacking though.
PS- doesn't this trick defeat the purpose of the macro mechanic, blizzard said they added them so that players would have to go back to the base every once in a while to make up for the auto mining workers.
Yes. It does defeat that purpose when used like that. And eventually it will make "going back to your base to macro" a noobie move. At least in the eyes of the people that can do that trick to macro while they keep their focus where needed elsewhere.
On March 02 2010 09:28 AndrewGreve wrote: Having both queens and hatcheries in same hotkey allows you to spawn larve using the icons instead of clicking your hatcheries. just cast spawn on each hat one at a time, the queens are smart and the closest queen will spawn on each hatchery. just have to get used to tabbing before hitting s to select larve or have two hotkeys 1 with hat the other with queen + hat. The queens are auto selected first.
Wow this could be a lot more efficient. You could have one hotkey for queens+hatcheries and another hotkey for just hatcheries so you don't have to tab between queens and hatcheries. I'm going to try this out now.
On March 02 2010 16:47 ShadowDrgn wrote: APM displayed in replays (and in the spectator interface I assume) is normalized to a speed between slower and fast. If you want to know your real APM for a game played on faster, multiply by 1.35. This helps to explain why everyone's APM seems so low.
I tested this by starting a game with the AI and performing exactly 120 actions. The game lasted 2 minutes 6 seconds according to the victory screen (and about that long according to my stopwatch); the replay was 2 minutes 50 seconds long and recorded an APM of 43, which is 120 / 2:50, not 120 / 2:06.
Not much of a tip, but I didn't feel it deserved its own thread.
weird, why was the game so much longer? And how'd u get that number? I did notice my apm was lower, so I've been trying to increase it, it seems my 150 apm is really 202 lol.
On March 03 2010 14:56 geno wrote: As a trick to finding the divisions: look for people in your own division or friends divisions, check their 2v2 ladders, check people on the 2v2 ladders and find their 1v1 division - with enough patience you can probably find any division. Easiest to find platinum 1v1s when looking at platinum 2v2 ladders of course.
Anyways, found division 11 this way, leader is ZPr.theamazing if anyone wants easy access to it.
On March 01 2010 20:33 CharlieMurphy wrote: I just spammed out 20 mules to a yellow mineral base and it took like 1000 of each patch before they all died. Pretty fucking sure they were mining on top of each other.
How many mineral fields were there? 2 per patch would not cause any to mine at the same time. It takes 3 harvesters per patch to break even on full saturation doesn't it?
* Get burrow and speed upgrade for them asap 50/50 150/100 (150/150?) (burrow is now W) * Use creep tumor(s) to spread ooze outside your base so they move even faster * Instead of having 12 blings in a pile, put 4 in your nat, and split the other 8 into 2 flankable groups when he moves into the nat. Time them all to engage all at once so he literally has no where to run.
*Get overlord speed and drops (50/50 & 200/200), you can load 4 blings per lord. When you engage the MnM send lords into him slightly before and drop (drop is now D) them all around the ball, while at the same time sending in your lings/roaches/hydras. *Use Infestor to fungal spore (hotkey F) terran balls, then and just watch them asplode.
*Be sure to not just attack move the blings into enemy, you don't wanna overkill things. Try to sorta surround and attack, pull back a little, attack again. *You don't want them being wasted on his Marauders who take like 10 bling hits or something. You want to hit his Marines, good terrans will use marauders as a shield for the marines, which is another reason to use drops or flanks.
*Watch out for hellions especially w/ upgraded igniters, They obliterate blings. *If using burrow, watch out for ravens. (both of the above can be countered by using lord to drop blings)
*Blings morph kind of fast, so if you already have speedlings, it's best to move them to a safe location close to where you are about to attack/defend and then morph them. (the same way you would with lurkers or guardians in scbw)
You can set production building rally points onto any unit you control. For example you can set all 3 of your rax to rally onto the first marauder you built. Wherever you move your army the newly created units will be rallied too. Just remember to set the rally point to a new unit in the army if it dies. It can be helpful to make the rally unit something identifiable for that reason.
Oh and almost useless but... Protoss can not Chrono Boost their allies anymore, but a Zerg who NPs a probe and creates a Nexus can Chrono Boost his own Hatcheries.
On March 02 2010 09:28 AndrewGreve wrote: Having both queens and hatcheries in same hotkey allows you to spawn larve using the icons instead of clicking your hatcheries. just cast spawn on each hat one at a time, the queens are smart and the closest queen will spawn on each hatchery. just have to get used to tabbing before hitting s to select larve or have two hotkeys 1 with hat the other with queen + hat. The queens are auto selected first.
Wow this could be a lot more efficient. You could have one hotkey for queens+hatcheries and another hotkey for just hatcheries so you don't have to tab between queens and hatcheries. I'm going to try this out now.
I think this is one of the most important contributions to the thread. If Blizzard puts in the F key functionality, this will be the #1 way to macro with Zerg without a doubt. It's kind of tough, because you have to remember that to build units, you have to do:
number -> tab -> s -> [build hotkey]
instead of
number -> s -> [build hotkey]
It requires basically relearning the keyboard layout so that you can have constant finger access to tab, but this is a skill that can be learned and practiced. The only issue with the Queens + Hatcheries hotkey is that you really need to separate hatcheries that have a queen and hatcheries that don't have a queen (otherwise you have queens running to distant hatcheries).
So if you have Queen+Hatch in 5, then you need 'bare' hatches in 6, for example. This is not difficult at all, though. The only real complication with the Queen+Hatch method is being careful to have your queens be in the location that you want (i.e. want at the main or at the natural?). The other subtle point is that you have to be very careful when setting rally points because it will walk your queens to the rally point.
But using the Q+H hotkey, you can use your macro mechanic AND build ALL of your desired units without ever looking in your base. You only ever have to look at your base to
a) upgrade at non-hotkeyed buildings (fixed by hotkeying them) b) make buildings c) set rally points d) defend attacks
On March 02 2010 09:28 AndrewGreve wrote: Having both queens and hatcheries in same hotkey allows you to spawn larve using the icons instead of clicking your hatcheries. just cast spawn on each hat one at a time, the queens are smart and the closest queen will spawn on each hatchery. just have to get used to tabbing before hitting s to select larve or have two hotkeys 1 with hat the other with queen + hat. The queens are auto selected first.
Wow this could be a lot more efficient. You could have one hotkey for queens+hatcheries and another hotkey for just hatcheries so you don't have to tab between queens and hatcheries. I'm going to try this out now.
I think this is one of the most important contributions to the thread. If Blizzard puts in the F key functionality, this will be the #1 way to macro with Zerg without a doubt. It's kind of tough, because you have to remember that to build units, you have to do:
number -> tab -> s -> [build hotkey]
instead of
number -> s -> [build hotkey]
It requires basically relearning the keyboard layout so that you can have constant finger access to tab, but this is a skill that can be learned and practiced. The only issue with the Queens + Hatcheries hotkey is that you really need to separate hatcheries that have a queen and hatcheries that don't have a queen (otherwise you have queens running to distant hatcheries).
So if you have Queen+Hatch in 5, then you need 'bare' hatches in 6, for example. This is not difficult at all, though. The only real complication with the Queen+Hatch method is being careful to have your queens be in the location that you want (i.e. want at the main or at the natural?). The other subtle point is that you have to be very careful when setting rally points because it will walk your queens to the rally point.
But using the Q+H hotkey, you can use your macro mechanic AND build ALL of your desired units without ever looking in your base. You only ever have to look at your base to
a) upgrade at non-hotkeyed buildings (fixed by hotkeying them) b) make buildings c) set rally points d) defend attacks
It sounds like you suggest one group for all hatches (+ queens) with queens, and one group for all the other hatches. I'm pretty sure that SearingShadow suggested that the second group includes ALL hatches, but no queens. You would use the first group for spawn larva only, and the second group for producing units and setting rallys.
On March 02 2010 09:28 AndrewGreve wrote: Having both queens and hatcheries in same hotkey allows you to spawn larve using the icons instead of clicking your hatcheries. just cast spawn on each hat one at a time, the queens are smart and the closest queen will spawn on each hatchery. just have to get used to tabbing before hitting s to select larve or have two hotkeys 1 with hat the other with queen + hat. The queens are auto selected first.
Wow this could be a lot more efficient. You could have one hotkey for queens+hatcheries and another hotkey for just hatcheries so you don't have to tab between queens and hatcheries. I'm going to try this out now.
I think this is one of the most important contributions to the thread. If Blizzard puts in the F key functionality, this will be the #1 way to macro with Zerg without a doubt. It's kind of tough, because you have to remember that to build units, you have to do:
number -> tab -> s -> [build hotkey]
instead of
number -> s -> [build hotkey]
It requires basically relearning the keyboard layout so that you can have constant finger access to tab, but this is a skill that can be learned and practiced. The only issue with the Queens + Hatcheries hotkey is that you really need to separate hatcheries that have a queen and hatcheries that don't have a queen (otherwise you have queens running to distant hatcheries).
So if you have Queen+Hatch in 5, then you need 'bare' hatches in 6, for example. This is not difficult at all, though. The only real complication with the Queen+Hatch method is being careful to have your queens be in the location that you want (i.e. want at the main or at the natural?). The other subtle point is that you have to be very careful when setting rally points because it will walk your queens to the rally point.
But using the Q+H hotkey, you can use your macro mechanic AND build ALL of your desired units without ever looking in your base. You only ever have to look at your base to
a) upgrade at non-hotkeyed buildings (fixed by hotkeying them) b) make buildings c) set rally points d) defend attacks
It sounds like you suggest one group for all hatches (+ queens) with queens, and one group for all the other hatches. I'm pretty sure that SearingShadow suggested that the second group includes ALL hatches, but no queens. You would use the first group for spawn larva only, and the second group for producing units and setting rallys.
You're right, I misunderstood him. That method does seem easier, and it translates better from BW mechanics.
On March 02 2010 16:47 ShadowDrgn wrote: APM displayed in replays (and in the spectator interface I assume) is normalized to a speed between slower and fast. If you want to know your real APM for a game played on faster, multiply by 1.35. This helps to explain why everyone's APM seems so low.
I tested this by starting a game with the AI and performing exactly 120 actions. The game lasted 2 minutes 6 seconds according to the victory screen (and about that long according to my stopwatch); the replay was 2 minutes 50 seconds long and recorded an APM of 43, which is 120 / 2:50, not 120 / 2:06.
Not much of a tip, but I didn't feel it deserved its own thread.
weird, why was the game so much longer? And how'd u get that number? I did notice my apm was lower, so I've been trying to increase it, it seems my 150 apm is really 202 lol.
Replays default to "Fast" game speed, which seems to be a 1:1 ratio of ingame time to IRL time. Faster, which is the game speed in Matchmaking games, seems to be about 1.4:1 ingame time to IRL time.
Thus, your actual APM, income, etc etc. is 1.4 time higher than the replay stats board says. Also, that seems to be why the scoreboard will say a match length is shorter than a replay does. Replays are all based off of Fast game speed.
On March 04 2010 01:33 Nightmarjoo wrote: I didn't know you could rally to a unit, nice one, thanks.
Does chrono effect all eggs at a hatch for the 20 seconds? I can see that actually being viable in relatively long 2v2s.
None. Only units produced by the hatchery itself (Queens lol). Thats why I said it's almost useless knowledge. PZ teams were Chrono boosting on the Zerg hatch every time for faster queens, but NP implies you have infestors, so it is a bit late to be gaining 10 seconds of extra queen time per new expansion for the 400 mineral investment in making the Nexus.
On March 02 2010 09:28 AndrewGreve wrote: Having both queens and hatcheries in same hotkey allows you to spawn larve using the icons instead of clicking your hatcheries. just cast spawn on each hat one at a time, the queens are smart and the closest queen will spawn on each hatchery. just have to get used to tabbing before hitting s to select larve or have two hotkeys 1 with hat the other with queen + hat. The queens are auto selected first.
i prefer to hotkey each hatch and just grabbing the queen manually when i see it. Since i'm there macroing and making units anyways.
I'm sure this method helps when microing/attacking though.
PS- doesn't this trick defeat the purpose of the macro mechanic, blizzard said they added them so that players would have to go back to the base every once in a while to make up for the auto mining workers.
You can use spawn larva and click on the minimap where a hatchery is and it'll work. Air units flying over a hatchery can block this though.
the moment you research hallucination you get a "build menu" from the sentry. It actually makes you able to fake tech as you can build for example fake phoenixes without having a starport. Which is amazing as you could have people react hastely to tech units you dont even have the building off.
On March 04 2010 01:33 Nightmarjoo wrote: I didn't know you could rally to a unit, nice one, thanks.
Does chrono effect all eggs at a hatch for the 20 seconds? I can see that actually being viable in relatively long 2v2s.
None. Only units produced by the hatchery itself (Queens lol). Thats why I said it's almost useless knowledge. PZ teams were Chrono boosting on the Zerg hatch every time for faster queens, but NP implies you have infestors, so it is a bit late to be gaining 10 seconds of extra queen time per new expansion for the 400 mineral investment in making the Nexus.
o rofl, oh well ~~
On March 04 2010 06:29 koleen wrote: the moment you research hallucination you get a "build menu" from the sentry. It actually makes you able to fake tech as you can build for example fake phoenixes without having a starport. Which is amazing as you could have people react hastely to tech units you dont even have the building off.
Yeah haluc sounds nice in this game, how much energy is it though? Don't want to use it to try to fake out your opponent and find yourself unable to guardian shield for a battle a few seconds later.
Workers going to mine or return resources still go through units and have no collision size as in SCBW. However, they *also* go through forcefields. Pretty spiffy thing I just noticed today.
You can waypoint the rally points of buildings so if you, say, build your base in a silly fashion such that your units get trapped if they exit on one side of the building (which happens to be the same side as, say, the entrance of your base where you'd normally rally the units) you can waypoint the rally so the units exit on whichever side of the production building that you want them to.
Also, there is another command, besides /dance that works for marines/marauders. /cheer makes the marines fire their rifles in the air.
On March 04 2010 08:13 Haemonculus wrote: Workers going to mine or return resources still go through units and have no collision size as in SCBW. However, they *also* go through forcefields. Pretty spiffy thing I just noticed today.
bah lame :/ gathering units don't bug units out any more drone drill is no fun now
Using patroll is an easy way to spread units out. They will eventually (takes a trip or 2 back and forth) get fairly evenly spread out between their previous location and the patrolled to location. Mite be handy to prevent your whole army getting psy stormed or emp'd while you're busy.
I wouldn't say its impossible. Its alot harder. its much easier to get one stuck because the auto-surround on the zealots is crazy good. Not to mention stalkers and zealots feel the same speed (in bw zealots were slower until upgraded)
I could be heaps wrong tho. But thats how it feels in game
Not sure if this was mentioned already but I heard someone (Dustin Browder maybe?) mention it in an interview before: If you want to build multiple buildings (i.e. 2 supply depots) you can select 2 workers simultaneously and select build supply depot twice. In fact you can select ALL your workers and plop down 2 supply depots. 2 workers will leave your mineral line and build'em. (I like to select 2 workers only because that way I can also shift-right-click them back to minerals without all the other workers clumping up on that mineral patch). Haven't really seen any streamers build like that so I thought I'd blurp it here
On March 04 2010 11:33 CharlieMurphy wrote: heat seeker missiles will hit units if they burrow and still do splash. if u kill the target, they will still go to last living location and blow up.
If the target is a roach or infestor which burrows then moves the Seeker will go to their last known location. Since the Raven is a detector I suggest making it follow the target unit to keep it in detection range so the Seeker can hit it directly while burrowed. Just make sure your Raven is not too close to the splash radius.
On March 05 2010 05:02 Feefee wrote: If you want to build multiple buildings (i.e. 2 supply depots) you can select 2 workers simultaneously and select build supply depot twice. In fact you can select ALL your workers and plop down 2 supply depots. 2 workers will leave your mineral line and build'em. (I like to select 2 workers only because that way I can also shift-right-click them back to minerals without all the other workers clumping up on that mineral patch).
Putting every SCV in the game on one hotkey can make building much faster. If you try to build proxy tech or build a few buildings away from your bases it will send not only the required number of SCVs but also the closest. This has a tradeoff however because it becomes harder to waypoint them back onto minerals if you are not sure where they came from.
Don't know if it has been said already but you can tell your tank to siege on a distant location by using shift key. Just left-click to destination then press shift+E and the tank will siege when it gets there. That would be awesome in sc:bw
On March 02 2010 08:34 CowGoMoo wrote: The Mules try not to stack (but it is possible for them to do so) and therefore waste a lot of mining time moving to different patches to avoid stacking.
On March 05 2010 05:02 Feefee wrote: Not sure if this was mentioned already but I heard someone (Dustin Browder maybe?) mention it in an interview before: If you want to build multiple buildings (i.e. 2 supply depots) you can select 2 workers simultaneously and select build supply depot twice. In fact you can select ALL your workers and plop down 2 supply depots. 2 workers will leave your mineral line and build'em. (I like to select 2 workers only because that way I can also shift-right-click them back to minerals without all the other workers clumping up on that mineral patch). Haven't really seen any streamers build like that so I thought I'd blurp it here
should work with a bigger group, I've been grabbing 6 or 7 workers, building a few pylons or supply depots or w/e, then shift clicking back to the minerals, because the other workers are in "mining mode" it seems they will just continue to mine until thier patch is done then they might swarm, but it doesn't affect them initially atleast. Will have to double check that this works this way.
Also you can shift build buildings, so if you want only one probe to build 10 pylons you can shift click shift click shift click and queue them all up, to return it seems to get stuck in the build menu but you can hit esc, or click on the unit again, and then shift back to the mineral line, that also works nicely.
On March 05 2010 09:35 fert wrote: Also you can shift build buildings, so if you want only one probe to build 10 pylons you can shift click shift click shift click and queue them all up, to return it seems to get stuck in the build menu but you can hit esc, or click on the unit again, and then shift back to the mineral line, that also works nicely.
To return, just let go of shift then press it again to shift-click your minerals.
On March 05 2010 08:10 Archetype wrote: Don't know if it has been said already but you can tell your tank to siege on a distant location by using shift key. Just left-click to destination then press shift+E and the tank will siege when it gets there. That would be awesome in sc:bw
I thought you could do that with tanks in SCBW? Well you could do similar things with some units anyways, lurkers or something.
You can use shift commands for burrow too. I just told some roaches to attack-move over to near my enemys base, then to burrow and sneak into the mineral line then unburrow and hold position. While that was all happening I went about other tasks.
I think this kinda goes for everything. Its harder to dance around things in a very accurate manner. Also when I do it with zerglings(like vs a Zealot rush) they often will lose their right click order and just start fighting as if i ordered an attack-move. Very annoying
A lot of people seem to be reporting this problem, I hope blizzard is working on it. Units should follow your orders ffs!
I'm not sure it's a huge bug. I think it happens when there is not enough space available around the unit you attacked for every zergling to attack it at once. So instead of them standing in the back waiting, they just attack something nearby.
On March 02 2010 08:34 CowGoMoo wrote: The Mules try not to stack (but it is possible for them to do so) and therefore waste a lot of mining time moving to different patches to avoid stacking.
when calling down mules make sure you click ON the mineral patch or else it wont mine and lol at you.... useful info so you don't spot it when its time is half up T_T
On March 05 2010 08:10 Archetype wrote: Don't know if it has been said already but you can tell your tank to siege on a distant location by using shift key. Just left-click to destination then press shift+E and the tank will siege when it gets there. That would be awesome in sc:bw
I thought you could do that with tanks in SCBW? Well you could do similar things with some units anyways, lurkers or something.
In sc:bw tanks instantly sieged when u pressed O no matter what (just tried it).
I think this kinda goes for everything. Its harder to dance around things in a very accurate manner. Also when I do it with zerglings(like vs a Zealot rush) they often will lose their right click order and just start fighting as if i ordered an attack-move. Very annoying
A lot of people seem to be reporting this problem, I hope blizzard is working on it. Units should follow your orders ffs!
I'm not sure it's a huge bug. I think it happens when there is not enough space available around the unit you attacked for every zergling to attack it at once. So instead of them standing in the back waiting, they just attack something nearby.
I've been having this problem with lings, hydas, and mutas. I read the control attack move thing but I'm just moving them away from the enemy and sometimes they go where I tell them to for a sec then turn back and start attacking the enemy for some reason. I then have to frantically click for them to retreat a million times so they actually retreat.
Also sometimes a stray drone will not follow the economy rally point and go to where I set the military one. This only happens sometimes early game before my second ov comes out I think. Another thing is that sometimes a random ov will start heading straight to the enemy base and I have no idea why this happens, but it has only happened twice that I know about in about 200 games.
Cause hunter seeker missiles move so slowly they can't even catch up to a banshee and will fizzle out, the target has to be pretty much immobile for it to hit unless the player isn't paying attention or is distracted. People rarely leave their mutas unattended in enemy bases, there's very little chance of one ever landing on a harassing air unit.
That said, they are great fun when they do land in large ground battles.
Cause hunter seeker missiles move so slowly they can't even catch up to a banshee and will fizzle out, the target has to be pretty much immobile for it to hit unless the player isn't paying attention or is distracted. People rarely leave their mutas unattended in enemy bases, there's very little chance of one ever landing on a harassing air unit.
That said, they are great fun when they do land in large ground battles.
a hunter seeker at close range to an aggressive opponent, like that video is probably the best use of the weapon.
Another thing to note, in all out massive battles, units won't move out of the way of each other when microed around (like they do when just sitting there) if they are engaging a target. So if you throw a few missiles at a huge group of hydras, it's not easy to move the targets away, and you can't kill them before it hits either (itll still blow up on corpse).
PS- Banshees are fast, I think you meant slow ass vikings.
A somewhat different question, say I got 5 lings in a group, is there a hotkey that allows me to give each ling a different order? Like say, you move here, you move there, you move there, etc. That would be so much easier then to select individually and then move the mouse again to a point when you want for example a line of units.
Is there also a key that allows your units to 'move away from each other'? I remember such a thing in red alert, where you pressed X and the units would move randomly, eventually resulting in a more spread out army.
If you call down a mule and select on the ground the mule hits the ground and you have to tell the mule to go to the minerals. But if you Select Mule and call it down on a mineral patch it auto Mines. Yay for less clicks.
Hellions work best with MM's if you micro them behind the MM line and have them hold posit, if any melee units get close to the MM's the helions melt um quick.
6pool lings pop at 2:19~ , 8pool lings pop around 2:30~
It takes around 30~ seconds on close spots for most of the maps from 1 base to the other.
When Protoss is doing standard 11gate, the first zeal comes out about 3:00~3:20 depends on chrono boost. Toss will have around 13~ probes which will fuck you up if you go toe to toe with lings. So the goal is to try and pot shot the stragglers without being surrounded yourself and waste his mining time to get your econ back in line.
edit- Desert Oasis is 1 minute walking distance, Scrapstation is :45. If you break the walls on SS it's 20 seconds.
Here's a tip. Spore crawlers can detect when uprooted. Haha just kidding, they can't detect while moving and if you try you'll lose to banshees in your main like I just did.
However I will say that if you spot 4 banshees headed for your main, if you put up 3 spore colonies in a cluster that will just be enough to hold them off, one will die before it finishes morphing, but the others will ward them off to the edge of your base while you get a muta or hydra out. That means if terran is walled off and you have no clue what he's doing, you can put down an evo chamber for 50+drone and be more or less safe from that build as long as you have a zergling outside of his base to spot them incoming.
Also I'm only about half sure of this, but I don't think you can heal a building that is in the process of building (such as a spore crawler), so you might as well cancel it if it gets attacked.
Each spore colony costs 100+drone and takes 33 seconds to morph. A banshee costs 150+100 gas, so you will be way ahead.
Hide zerg tech by overlord creep drop and possibly the dropship upgrade for overlords. If you want to get really crazy and put them on cliffs etc. I use this most for spire. infestor and hydra.
You can target your own unit with Raven Seeker Missile, I think this can be a really cool way of using this abiliy.
* Longer range/Protecting the raven * If unit is not killed, you have somewhat more control of where it lands
and the longer range doesnt just protect the raven, it also gives your enemy a false sense of security since the raven is not in range to cast anything nor is it moving towards him.
Pimpest play would ofcourse be to cast on a cloaked banshee and kill a group of mutas!
*The red targeting line is still visible though I think?
On March 09 2010 06:38 jabberwokie wrote: Hide zerg tech by overlord creep drop and possibly the dropship upgrade for overlords. If you want to get really crazy and put them on cliffs etc. I use this most for spire. infestor and hydra.
Saw this in tonight's Day9 daily, pretty cool idea! If you already plan to have a nydus network you could plant a worm instead of getting overlord dropship upgrade. Could use the worm to defend if they discovered it later (besides using it to move drones to an island expansion also located there etc)
On March 09 2010 05:52 maybenexttime wrote: To accurately storm air units, simply set your shadows to "low" and aim for the dark blobs underneath units.
Sorry if it's been mentioned already.
Isn't there a nice green line and circle marking the ground position of air units?
On March 06 2010 10:45 Koffiegast wrote: Repost in a more appropriate topic:
A somewhat different question, say I got 5 lings in a group, is there a hotkey that allows me to give each ling a different order? Like say, you move here, you move there, you move there, etc. That would be so much easier then to select individually and then move the mouse again to a point when you want for example a line of units.
Is there also a key that allows your units to 'move away from each other'? I remember such a thing in red alert, where you pressed X and the units would move randomly, eventually resulting in a more spread out army.
You can always just do this by cloning like you do in SC1. It's really not that difficult. For example if there're 4 sensor towers on a map I usually group 4 lings, send all for to 1, shift click 1, and send 3 to another and so on.
I don't know if there's a better way to do this though, I hope there isn't.
On March 09 2010 05:52 maybenexttime wrote: To accurately storm air units, simply set your shadows to "low" and aim for the dark blobs underneath units.
Sorry if it's been mentioned already.
Isn't there a nice green line and circle marking the ground position of air units?
On March 06 2010 10:45 Koffiegast wrote: Repost in a more appropriate topic:
A somewhat different question, say I got 5 lings in a group, is there a hotkey that allows me to give each ling a different order? Like say, you move here, you move there, you move there, etc. That would be so much easier then to select individually and then move the mouse again to a point when you want for example a line of units.
Is there also a key that allows your units to 'move away from each other'? I remember such a thing in red alert, where you pressed X and the units would move randomly, eventually resulting in a more spread out army.
They took it out with SC2, but in SC1 you could use the control key to only issue targets to the selected subgroup of your total group
So if you had 24 marines and 4 tanks selected and in group 1, you could press 1 and then click to attack the enemy, then you can tab to your tanks (they should be the first group anyways since they're the higer tech unit) and then control click somewhere else, and your tanks will move to a different location than your mairnes. It's good for positioning your army w/o having to deselect the whole group.
But now control is the attack move modifier key
I guess you can say...we lost control
YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH
(so in SC2 you'd have to hotkey the marines and tanks separately if you wanted to place them different, or move the whole thing and then either double click (or ctrl click) the tanks to select only the tanks from the main screen/wireframes, ...or i think there's a way to deselect only the marines leaving the tanks selected..ctrl shift click?)
Nydus does not require creep. In any way. I have told this to at least 3 people I've played, as they started dropping creep in my base before nydus-ing.
On March 11 2010 10:17 caution.slip wrote: They took it out with SC2, but in SC1 you could use the control key to only issue targets to the selected subgroup of your total group
So if you had 24 marines and 4 tanks selected and in group 1, you could press 1 and then click to attack the enemy, then you can tab to your tanks (they should be the first group anyways since they're the higer tech unit) and then control click somewhere else, and your tanks will move to a different location than your mairnes. It's good for positioning your army w/o having to deselect the whole group.
They had subgroups in SC1? I honestly didn't know o.O
On March 09 2010 14:32 MostDifferent wrote: You can target your own unit with Raven Seeker Missile, I think this can be a really cool way of using this abiliy.
* Longer range/Protecting the raven * If unit is not killed, you have somewhat more control of where it lands
and the longer range doesnt just protect the raven, it also gives your enemy a false sense of security since the raven is not in range to cast anything nor is it moving towards him.
Pimpest play would ofcourse be to cast on a cloaked banshee and kill a group of mutas!
*The red targeting line is still visible though I think?
This sounds very powerful. Does anyone know if seeker missiles targeted at an air unit will splash ground units, and vice versa? Seems like banshee bombing could be a really cool/effective way to obliterate mineral lines or groups of clustered ground units as well, if it works.
This is probably dangerously obvious, but ZvP if enemy has void rays, you can quickly burrow and unburrow whatever they are attacking to force them to switch targets and keep their DPS very low.
- you can put workers on gas before it's complete, when it's done they go start working. - when using creep tumors, u can make overlords shit creep in front of the tumors so u can spread them asap without waiting for the creep to spread max range on its own.
On March 12 2010 17:50 caldo149 wrote: minor tip: Before a game actually starts make sure to put the mouse in the center of the screen so that you can quickly build your first worker. =)
Yea, I've just been figuring that out for myself today. It was really throwing me how the cursor was always in different locations when the game started. Took me about 40 or so games to figure it out.
On the subject of "just before the game starts, though", I really wish they had the countdown begin after the game had loaded. Progress bars are so unreliable and don't give you any good warning of when the game is actually going to start. As it stands the coundown timer seems a bit pointless. As there's not really that much you can do while it's counting down, other than, as you mentioned, put ur cursor into the middle of the screen.
On March 11 2010 10:17 caution.slip wrote: They took it out with SC2, but in SC1 you could use the control key to only issue targets to the selected subgroup of your total group
So if you had 24 marines and 4 tanks selected and in group 1, you could press 1 and then click to attack the enemy, then you can tab to your tanks (they should be the first group anyways since they're the higer tech unit) and then control click somewhere else, and your tanks will move to a different location than your mairnes. It's good for positioning your army w/o having to deselect the whole group.
They had subgroups in SC1? I honestly didn't know o.O
Warcraft 3, they should really implement this instead of the auto-attach move thing
You can load a collosus into a warpray before its attack animation is completed and it will continue on its own while the collosus is inside the prism. It looks funny and buggy. Im not sure if the collosus attack is actually instant but the animation isnt.
In any case you can harrass much butter if you load and unload the collusus like this. Coupled with collosus range and prism speed upgrade this is pretty sweet.
On March 12 2010 12:12 Cyclon wrote: This is probably dangerously obvious, but ZvP if enemy has void rays, you can quickly burrow and unburrow whatever they are attacking to force them to switch targets and keep their DPS very low.
Don't Void Rays keep being "charged" for a short period after they stop attacking? (I do not have beta, but I have read abiut this couple times)
I just realized this was different from sc1 after using it in a TvT: Tanks still have a range longer than their sight, but thanks to the new "height mechanic" units no longer fire upon other units they cannot see. I.e. spotting for your tanks with air lets them shoot your enemies tank, but your enemies tanks never fire back. Made use of that in about 3 TvTs before one of my opponents was all "what the hell that's not supposed to happen!". It felt so natural that I completely forgot that it was different in SC1
On March 12 2010 12:12 Cyclon wrote: This is probably dangerously obvious, but ZvP if enemy has void rays, you can quickly burrow and unburrow whatever they are attacking to force them to switch targets and keep their DPS very low.
Don't Void Rays keep being "charged" for a short period after they stop attacking? (I do not have beta, but I have read abiut this couple times)
Only if they hit the next stage of charge. So if the Void Ray charges up to level 2 and kills a unit, it will retain the level 2 charge for ~5 seconds. However, if it stops attacking BEFORE it reaches 2nd/3rd stage, it has to start all over again.
On March 12 2010 17:36 CharlieMurphy wrote: - you can put workers on gas before it's complete, when it's done they go start working.
someone can check this?
Considering I wouldn't just make shit up and I created this thread in the first place, I'm pretty sure it's a credible source.
Just to clarify though, there is a known bug where you can click on a geyser underneath the refinery,assimilator,extractor. So make sure you click the workers on the structure not the geyser otherwise they'll sit there.
On March 13 2010 01:33 Feefee wrote: I just realized this was different from sc1 after using it in a TvT: Tanks still have a range longer than their sight, but thanks to the new "height mechanic" units no longer fire upon other units they cannot see. I.e. spotting for your tanks with air lets them shoot your enemies tank, but your enemies tanks never fire back. Made use of that in about 3 TvTs before one of my opponents was all "what the hell that's not supposed to happen!". It felt so natural that I completely forgot that it was different in SC1
lol yeah this is definetly one of the lesser known changes from BW. I was so confused when 1 tank killed 3 of mine in a game.
Infestor Sneaks: burrow move to an expansion without detection after you have 150 mana. Unburrow and throw a fungal, wait 6 seconds and throw the next fungal on the same units for SCVs to kill them. and only 1 or 2 seconds for probes and drones.
Fungal does 36 damage over 8 seconds, or 4.5 dps, it also holds the units in place like maelstrom, but they can still attack.
The burrow movement speed upgrade might help a little here, but more importantly the +25 starting energy will make this attack come out faster if you rush to it.
On March 12 2010 19:29 Kaboo wrote: You can load a collosus into a warpray before its attack animation is completed and it will continue on its own while the collosus is inside the prism. It looks funny and buggy. Im not sure if the collosus attack is actually instant but the animation isnt.
In any case you can harrass much butter if you load and unload the collusus like this. Coupled with collosus range and prism speed upgrade this is pretty sweet.
I thought i already posted this. the attack doesn't do damage until the animation finishes or until the lances cross. This is just something to know to avoid rather than to abuse to shoot faster or whatever.
On March 12 2010 12:12 Cyclon wrote: This is probably dangerously obvious, but ZvP if enemy has void rays, you can quickly burrow and unburrow whatever they are attacking to force them to switch targets and keep their DPS very low.
Don't Void Rays keep being "charged" for a short period after they stop attacking? (I do not have beta, but I have read abiut this couple times)
Only if they hit the next stage of charge. So if the Void Ray charges up to level 2 and kills a unit, it will retain the level 2 charge for ~5 seconds. However, if it stops attacking BEFORE it reaches 2nd/3rd stage, it has to start all over again.
Yes, this exactly. If you let them charge up on the first 1 or 2 units, they will massacre your force quickly. If you hide each unit before they get a damage boost, the countdown timer starts over again and they remain pitiful. Its quite micro intensive to do if your opponent is attack moving a large fleet, but if they are focus firing something it becomes very easy.
Of course, if they have detection in place it does nothing. The attack continues.
So protip: As protoss you can secretly make cannons in the other player's base in the beginning of the game. This will get you through copper league very fast.
I was playing around a little with drops and thought this was cool.
Like SC1 if you unload on your dropper then you can use the moving drop tactic. However when you issued another command like "move to this new location" dropping stopped.
In SC2 when you using the moving drop you can issue commands to the dropper while it still continues to drop until it has unloaded each of your units once. So what I was doing was I put 4 stalkers in the warp prism and unloaded. The prism unloaded one, the stalker shot, and I picked it back up quickly by right clicking on it. The prism then unloaded the next stalker and the process continued.
if you somehow manage to make a Nexus as zerg..you can Chrono Boost hatcheries which not only increases larvae generation rate, upgrade/research rate, but also the Queen's Spawn Larvae as well. You can even Chrono Boost EGGS to hatch faster! supply blocked? chrono boost that overlord! lol ofc it works on other zerg buildings to increase research/upgrade and even Morph (like spire to greater spire, lair to hive, etc) time
corruptors can corrupt nydus worms while they are building, this stops it from building for 30 seconds i believe. probably more useful in 2v2, it may stop other building production, havent tested.
this is actually more useful in other matchups, when you have a reason to get corrupters, you can use them to corrupt cannons, robobay and gateways(not sure about warpgates) and slow down production. usually p does not have much aa in those areas.
awesome in vs t for taking out planetary fortresses since it stops them from firing on your units.
also for fast spell spamming, like spawning infested terrans from many infestors, select them all press spell hotkey once and hold shift while spamming left click,this saves u from having to press the spell hotkey before every infested terran.
this carries over from bw so not new, but shift+number appends units to that control group, rather than resetting the group. you can shift add eggs that are morphing to an existing control group if you want to keep your reinforcements up with out looking or resetting your rally point.
Shift-click on a raised Supply Depot + R will lower all raised Depots on the screen. Shift-click on a lowered Supply Depot + R will raise all lowered Depots on the screen.
I also didn't see the new Patrol mentioned. You can press P, hold down Shift, then click on a couple locations. The selected units will walk along that path, then turn around (a-b-c-d-c-b-a). It's also pretty smart: If the last location = the first location, the units will patrol in a circle (a-b-c-d-b-c-d if a=d).
You can queue up to 8 Patrol points, and 32 other commands.
Queued commands show in different colors: Move = green, Attack-Move = red, Patrol = blue.
This may have been said already but due to pathing speedlings can get through any unit wall just by massive amounts of clicking behind the units at the choke.
Once you get vision of an island with an ovy you can nydus there and expo without having to get drop. You can easily reinforce and transfer drones to this expo also.
On February 25 2010 07:14 Dr.Frost wrote: Tip: When you receive a private message while in a game (a whisper), instead of clicking the chat window and typing back, you can press 'Enter', then push 'Tab' to shift through different people you have talked to. It will switch through all chat, allied chat, and any private users you are charting with.
This is a great feature.
@OP: You mention BCs and their Yamato but when does anyone seriously use BCs in SC2?
did u know broodlord did twice damage if he got 2 broodlords saved up? aka initial attack will deal 50 dmg and following ones will be 25 found out this yesterday, man broodlords r looking better and better :p
On March 17 2010 03:57 HTX wrote: 2v2 Terran SCV's repair Protoss units automatically when activated. Combined with Medivac your Army is ready again in no time.
Use Mule for dropping tank lines, pretty fun in late game TvT
On March 14 2010 12:46 kNyTTyM wrote: I was playing around a little with drops and thought this was cool.
Like SC1 if you unload on your dropper then you can use the moving drop tactic. However when you issued another command like "move to this new location" dropping stopped.
In SC2 when you using the moving drop you can issue commands to the dropper while it still continues to drop until it has unloaded each of your units once. So what I was doing was I put 4 stalkers in the warp prism and unloaded. The prism unloaded one, the stalker shot, and I picked it back up quickly by right clicking on it. The prism then unloaded the next stalker and the process continued.
On February 25 2010 06:34 Chairman Ray wrote: Vikings are useful against colossi, carriers, BCs, and motherships.
Agreed, I also find Vikings pretty good at harrasing enemy expansions or shooting down those Overlords trying to spawn that ugly Nydus Worm in your base.
I also like the way how they can avoid fighting Currupturs by simply transforming themselves into assault mode, altough if the Zerg player realizes he can eat them with some lings/hidras/roaches, then the Vikings have no chance of surviving.
On March 06 2010 12:33 CharlieMurphy wrote: 3 Costs of an Archon, 2 DT = 250/250 DT/HT, 175/275 , 2HT 100/300
I know this post is a bit old, but I did some math (someone has probably already found this number), but solving the equations 250x+250y=k 175x+275y=k 100x+300y=k
x = 1k/1000 y = 3k/1000
Implying that blizzard values gas as 3 times as valuable as minerals, if the cost of an archon is the same no matter how you make it.
19 larvae is the maximum a hatchery can sustain, any additional spawned larvae will die (Actually the existing ones will die making place for the newly spawned larvae)
Corruption ability of Corruptors unfortunately doesn't disable power on pylons
Warp Rays are extremely effective against Corruptors. Speed upgrade helps saving the wounded Warp rays for zero losses, even when confronted with an overpowering amount of Corruptors.
As a defense for harrass, you can shift-queue queens to heal a building multiple times depending on the energy level of the queen.
late in game when you have a whole bunch of unspendable extra money as terran, make a bunch of planetary fortresses for defense :D:D:D does anyone else think this is an amazing idea? with building armor upgrade they have 5 armor and 7 range with the range upgrade....... they rape pretty hard
On March 17 2010 07:55 duckhunt wrote: late in game when you have a whole bunch of unspendable extra money as terran, make a bunch of planetary fortresses for defense :D:D:D does anyone else think this is an amazing idea? with building armor upgrade they have 5 armor and 7 range with the range upgrade....... they rape pretty hard
the problem is that you must convert them once a CC has landed. Getting them into position is the tricky part. I don't doubt their durability and DPS, but simple avoidance gets by them. If they could chase you that'd be a different thing.
Not sure if this still works, but you can yamoto (with a fleet of BCs) and shift click enemy units and they will only yamoto enough to kill each unit so theres no overkill.
On March 14 2010 12:46 kNyTTyM wrote: I was playing around a little with drops and thought this was cool.
Like SC1 if you unload on your dropper then you can use the moving drop tactic. However when you issued another command like "move to this new location" dropping stopped.
In SC2 when you using the moving drop you can issue commands to the dropper while it still continues to drop until it has unloaded each of your units once. So what I was doing was I put 4 stalkers in the warp prism and unloaded. The prism unloaded one, the stalker shot, and I picked it back up quickly by right clicking on it. The prism then unloaded the next stalker and the process continued.
late in game when you have a whole bunch of unspendable extra money as terran, make a bunch of planetary fortresses for defense :D:D:D does anyone else think this is an amazing idea? with building armor upgrade they have 5 armor and 7 range with the range upgrade....... they rape pretty hard
This could work to secure the last remaining expansions. With 3 or 4 planetary fortress the base would be barely unbreachable.
late in game when you have a whole bunch of unspendable extra money as terran, make a bunch of planetary fortresses for defense :D:D:D does anyone else think this is an amazing idea? with building armor upgrade they have 5 armor and 7 range with the range upgrade....... they rape pretty hard
This could work to secure the last remaining expansions. With 3 or 4 planetary fortress the base would be barely unbreachable.
I have been able to use the Terran liftoff ability to scout through fog of war. For example, if you liftoff a command center and move the ghost image of where you will land around the map you can see where the enemy has build buildings because the outline will turn red on the grid wherever there is an occupied spot. I have been able to see where my opponent has been expanding in 1v1 by just mousing the ghost landing image over expansions and I can tell if he has built there or not.
Is this a bug? I think in SC 1 you could land anywhere the terrain would allow it and if an enemy building occupied the spot you would not know till you revealed the fog of war.
I have been able to use the Terran liftoff ability to scout through fog of war. For example, if you liftoff a command center and move the ghost image of where you will land around the map you can see where the enemy has build buildings because the outline will turn red on the grid wherever there is an occupied spot. I have been able to see where my opponent has been expanding in 1v1 by just mousing the ghost landing image over expansions and I can tell if he has built there or not.
Is this a bug? I think in SC 1 you could land anywhere the terrain would allow it and if an enemy building occupied the spot you would not know till you revealed the fog of war.
That is spectacular. Probably will be fixed in short order, but still spectacular while it lasts.
I have been able to use the Terran liftoff ability to scout through fog of war. For example, if you liftoff a command center and move the ghost image of where you will land around the map you can see where the enemy has build buildings because the outline will turn red on the grid wherever there is an occupied spot. I have been able to see where my opponent has been expanding in 1v1 by just mousing the ghost landing image over expansions and I can tell if he has built there or not.
Is this a bug? I think in SC 1 you could land anywhere the terrain would allow it and if an enemy building occupied the spot you would not know till you revealed the fog of war.
That is spectacular. Probably will be fixed in short order, but still spectacular while it lasts.
This is pretty much the equivalent of waypoint scouting from other RTS games, but its clearly going to get patched out,.
usually send my SCV out with a ton of waypoints so he goes around the whole map. In addition when I send an SCV to the opponents base early I will created about two dozen waypoints back and forth within his base so my SCV runs around on his own if I forget to micro.
On March 19 2010 16:14 fantomex wrote: usually send my SCV out with a ton of waypoints so he goes around the whole map. In addition when I send an SCV to the opponents base early I will created about two dozen waypoints back and forth within his base so my SCV runs around on his own if I forget to micro.
no, I think L was talking about some other abuse thing from other games. Obviously we know we can waypoint scout in this game and it in no way compares to terran landing exploit.
God, the same thing existed in Warcraft 3 (regarding the see-if-there-is-an-enemy-building-in-fog-of-war-by-checking-with-another-building). You would think they'd remember this.
also there was a superb way to use your carriers - you can move them and attack at the same time. i found it impossible at sc2, maybe you discovered method how to pass it?
Don't know if this was posted before, but +1 damage for protoss not only allows zealots to kill zerglings in 2 hits, instead of 3, it also lets immortals kill roaches in 3 hits instead of 4.
Don't know if this was posted before, but +1 damage for protoss not only allows zealots to kill zerglings in 2 hits, instead of 3, it also lets immortals kill roaches in 3 hits instead of 4.
wow i didnt know that it made immortals kill in 3 hits. Nice find
On March 19 2010 16:14 fantomex wrote: usually send my SCV out with a ton of waypoints so he goes around the whole map. In addition when I send an SCV to the opponents base early I will created about two dozen waypoints back and forth within his base so my SCV runs around on his own if I forget to micro.
no, I think L was talking about some other abuse thing from other games. Obviously we know we can waypoint scout in this game and it in no way compares to terran landing exploit.
In other games on semi-grid setups you could scout through the fog by planting waypoints. If there was a building in the way of the waypoint area, the waypoint would appear slightly to the side, which would let you 'sonar' out someone's building with extra apm.
On March 21 2010 07:57 NeaX wrote: Don't know if this was posted before, but +1 damage for protoss not only allows zealots to kill zerglings in 2 hits, instead of 3, it also lets immortals kill roaches in 3 hits instead of 4.
Wow now I'll be getting fast +1 in every pvz instead of every pvz =P
Really cool trick, but at the same time, I don't see it ever being used to mine island expos or anything like that. Even if you're always super fast, it still mines 2 or 3 times slower with a limited amount of drones.
I would imagine it being used to mine out an opponent's expo before he builds there tough, and since it's pretty safe even if he kills the worm, there's really not much to lose.
Really cool trick, but at the same time, I don't see it ever being used to mine island expos or anything like that. Even if you're always super fast, it still mines 2 or 3 times slower with a limited amount of drones.
I would imagine it being used to mine out an opponent's expo before he builds there tough, and since it's pretty safe even if he kills the worm, there's really not much to lose.
I play terran so... i really don't know :p it's really tricky and nice however!
Watching todays Zotac Cup you got to know that SVCs, Drones, Probes and the Planetary Fortress are being prioritized by Attack-Moving-AI. Dont know about Orbital Command or other Units/Buildings. But adding those Units to your army (or Buildings to your defense) works good against Siege Tanks or having some Meatshield when being overwhelmed by the enemies army.
Something that really surprised me considering they patched the ability to chrono boost a 2v2 partner's buildings: Terrans can repair protoss units. I put my SCV's on auto-repair and they started repairing my partner's stalkers, colossi, immortals, you name it. Surprised the heck out of me^^
Not sure if you need to enable ally unit control for it but I doubt it
On March 23 2010 05:44 Feefee wrote: Something that really surprised me considering they patched the ability to chrono boost a 2v2 partner's buildings: Terrans can repair protoss units. I put my SCV's on auto-repair and they started repairing my partner's stalkers, colossi, immortals, you name it. Surprised the heck out of me^^
Not sure if you need to enable ally unit control for it but I doubt it
yea it must be a bug, go report it on the forums (and the bldg landing bug while ur at it)
(excuse me if that has been mentioned before) about ZvZ and infestors: you seldom see infestors beeing used agains other Zerg so i decided to do a few custom games: 1. larves and much more interesting EGGS instantly die when targeted by neural parasite (i still have to test if the resources used on the eggs are refund or gone but anyway it might me a neat trick in certain situations). 2. when mindcontroling an enemy drone you can build spinecrawler right away and cancel neural parasite the second the spinecrawler starts to build(to target the next drone and build a crawler. as long as it finish it will be under your command. if your opponent is about to kill it before it finishes just cancle it. the drone will than again be under your enemys controll but you have your minerals refund (you only lose the required energy for the skill).
those 2 things might not me huge or gamebreaking but i managed to use them now and than with great outcome: #1 will enable your to stop backup. drop 2 infestors with as much energy as possible at the enemys main, neural parasite any eggs, load them back into overlord. repeat #2 may be similar to just towering your enemy at his mineral line with a drop of your own drones but when you already have infestors in your army that way is much more efficent for yourself as you dont really lose anything but energy when executed well.
Nothing huge, but if microing burrow with roaches is too difficult or there is more than one unit dying at the same time, burrow, shift click the damaged units out of your selection, unburrow.
I was going to make a topic on this, but I figured I'd just post it here
If you hotkey all of your queens in a control group (for the sake of example, lets say '4' ), you can press '4' and then press R and click the hatchery on your minimap. The A.I. will automatically tell the queen closest to that hatchery to cast spawn larva on it (provided it has enough energy and the hatchery isn't already "spawning larva"). Obviously this is incredibly useful as it allows you to continue to cast spawn larva on all of your hatcheries without having to take the time to select each queen at each hatchery individually and tell them to cast spawn larva.
Again, sorry if this has already been pointed out, but I thought people might find it handy
The "Transform to Gateway" button on warpgates is not affected by warpgate cooldown, so you can use it to pump units faster. The general idea is to do the following:
> Warp-in a wave of units with Warpgates. > Transform to Gateway immediately. > Build units from Gateways as soon as it finishes transforming. > Transform to Warpgate immediately when unit is done. > Repeat.
Now, even though the trick magically nullifies the warpgate cooldown every cicle, all the transforming takes time, and gateways produce units slower and with less versatility, so some calculations are required:
- Warpgates produce units 10 seconds faster - It takes 10 seconds to transform an Warpgate back to a Gateway and 3 back to Warpgate
No matter the unit composition you're making, you will ignore one warpgate cooldown, and then lose 10+3+10=23 seconds as a cost. Here's the list of warp-in times for Warpgates (from liquipedia 2)
- Zealot : 23 -- net gain: 0 <- interesting - Cybers : 32 -- net gain: 9 <- decent - Templar : 45 -- net gain: 22 <- Speeds up production by 1 Zealot !!
So by making this trick, you are basically pumping units at the speed of zealots. The cons you get with this is that instead of getting a constant stream of units, you'll delay one wave of units and then get another wave nearly instantly. And this delayed wave will be produced at the gateways, and not wherever you have Pylon Power.
However, it is easy to see how this is useful when you're defending or just massing an army at your base. You always want to warp-in the slowest building units and building Zealots/DTs (since they're the fastest walking gate units) in gateways for the best outcome.
Also, if you have energy upgraded HTs, and produce 50%/50% HTs/Zealots, you can warp-in the HTs, insta-cast storm and merge, and the storm should make the enemy back up, giving you enough time for the Zealots to get in position, and thus pretty much gaining an extra Zealot from your gates every cicle.
Finally, this is all compatible with Chrono Boost.
I call this Manual Boost in allusion to Chrono Boost, Zeke50100 called this ReGating which sounds much more awesome =P. Dunno which name is better, but this definitely needs one. Actually, this seems to be the only good use out of the Transform to Gateway button, and the zealot warp time seems to be the perfect magic number... for me this is intentional, and every Protoss should learn when and how to use this efficiently. Seems to consume a lot of APM though.
On March 25 2010 08:12 [wh]_ForAlways wrote: I was going to make a topic on this, but I figured I'd just post it here
If you hotkey all of your queens in a control group (for the sake of example, lets say '4' ), you can press '4' and then press R and click the hatchery on your minimap. The A.I. will automatically tell the queen closest to that hatchery to cast spawn larva on it (provided it has enough energy and the hatchery isn't already "spawning larva"). Obviously this is incredibly useful as it allows you to continue to cast spawn larva on all of your hatcheries without having to take the time to select each queen at each hatchery individually and tell them to cast spawn larva.
Again, sorry if this has already been pointed out, but I thought people might find it handy
yea np, it was posted a long ways back for the first time in TL iirc, and then others have posted about it in other threads. It's really nifty but I think most people are just used to the old fashioned way
- you cant transport Mules with your Medivac - if you transport an damaged Thor in your Medivac the Thor will not be repaired from SCVs - use Mule calldown to repair your Planetary Fortress when no SCVs around (Lategame) - EMP the CC to get rid of ememys scan and Mule abillity
In 2v2 (P and T) with DTs and EMP you could hit the Terran enemy pretty hard and dirty
- Expanding to Highground with terran and the rocks are not down? Fly with your CC transporter back and forth (Upload, Unload while flying) over the high ground cliff and bring a lot of SCVs to your new expansion. Due to the fast flying speed it works pretty well.
May have already been posted but it was new to me: Creep tumors will not spread creep to high ground by themselves, but once creep is started at all (for example, after a moment of overlord creep drop) it will sustain/spread the creep on the highground (even after the overlord leaves). I did not discover this, I saw it in this video:
This guy has one more that I don't think is mentioned in this thread (I could be wrong):
Xel'naga watch towers deactivation range is greater than activation range, can be exploited with towers next to high ground to control the tower without ground interference: + Show Spoiler +
On March 24 2010 06:14 Azro wrote: (excuse me if that has been mentioned before) about ZvZ and infestors: you seldom see infestors beeing used agains other Zerg so i decided to do a few custom games: 1. larves and much more interesting EGGS instantly die when targeted by neural parasite (i still have to test if the resources used on the eggs are refund or gone but anyway it might me a neat trick in certain situations).
This is a bug and should be fixed.
On March 30 2010 09:19 CruS wrote: Read them all! Cool tricks ))
Here is one, you can /dance with changeling marines. Very funny way to taunt your opponent when things are going your way
I haven't read them all so sry if its a repost, pretty obvious too, very handy tho When you select a tank, you can Press and hold shift -> right click somewhere on the map -> press E -> release shift. This will make your tank move to the designated spot and siege up there!
There's a glitch that allows infestors to use neural parasite beyond their actual range by using a warp prism/medivac/ovie w/ transport.
The tongue thingy will keep extending to try and hit the unit even if it's in the transport and moving away until the infestor dies. If it connects, sometimes it bugs again and allows units to move freely w/o the tongue thing attached (or there's a huge tongue stretching across the screen).
Happened when i was thor harassing and running way from infestors
In a ZvZ you could get perfect scouting in your enemies base if you manage to get a Creep Tumor there. It is perfect, because the creep is already there and you are not changing the ground. The easiest way to get this is when your opponent either uses tumors himself and you advance on his creep highway. Another might be to advance with your own creep tumors close to the enemy, then spawn onto his creep and kill the tumor(s) linking the two highways.
Just discovered a trick yesterday, not sure if it's new...
Workers can pass through force fields by being told to mine minerals or gas past the forcefield, much like being able to move through any units in bw. I did this when my opponent trapped like 15 of my scvs on the nat cliff on scrapyard when I was moving up with like 20 marauders and 15 scvs to take out his trapped army, and I was able to retreat all the scvs away through the force fields by telling them to mine at my natural.
On April 19 2010 05:59 AcrossFiveJulys wrote: Just discovered a trick yesterday, not sure if it's new...
Workers can pass through force fields by being told to mine minerals or gas past the forcefield, much like being able to move through any units in bw. I did this when my opponent trapped like 15 of my scvs on the nat cliff on scrapyard when I was moving up with like 20 marauders and 15 scvs to take out his trapped army, and I was able to retreat all the scvs away through the force fields by telling them to mine at my natural.
mineral walking across forcefields? wow, thats helpful
On March 23 2010 05:44 Feefee wrote: Something that really surprised me considering they patched the ability to chrono boost a 2v2 partner's buildings: Terrans can repair protoss units. I put my SCV's on auto-repair and they started repairing my partner's stalkers, colossi, immortals, you name it. Surprised the heck out of me^^
Not sure if you need to enable ally unit control for it but I doubt it
I'd consider this (and the chrono ability) to be fair tactics in 2v2.
Much like zerg spewing creep to your partner's expansions to give sight and also speed up emergency backup if they need it.
Sorry for the bump, but someone might actually find a use for this... right now i just call it Castling since i trap my queen in some games for protection and this allows me to glitch through stuff. + Show Spoiler +
The creep tumors glitch the queen past the buildings. (Maybe a variation could mineral walk idk.) Oh yeah and you can use other players tech labs/reactors by landing in the empty spot or building ^
EPT
someone quoted my old video xD.
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