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Zurich15239 Posts
Preface
Unfortunately this piece is incomplete and largely unedited. It was meant to go with the official TL reporting from Blizzcon but I wasn't able to finish it in time. Since it touches a few points that haven't been addressed so far I'll just post it as-is here in the forums. I'll happily clarify and expand on the article in this thread should there be questions.
Starcraft 2 at Blizzcon
In contrast to the previous times I got to SC2, this Blizzcon I played exclusively against staff or other TL people, never against randoms. Since we pretty much all played to win, I didn't get to try out too many units this time, and hardly any tier 3 units. But this means also that I can talk more about the gameplay instead of how masses of tier 3 units rape everything.
I will reference last Blizzcon and the SC2 build from the WC3 Regional Finals I attended in June often for differences and developments in the game. I also wrote a lengthy report about the build in June, and most of what I wrote about back then is still valid for the Blizzcon build. + Show Spoiler +Zerg can skip lings and pump drones at a insane rate early in the game, and then switch to a booming zergling/roach production [...] Against the end of the second day Protoss tried to find a way to counter this, but there was none in this build.[....] this was probably the most obvious imbalance in the build. I heard Zerg is weakest in Blizzard inhouse testing, and I am wondering whether they are really exploring the potential of the queen (they are not judging from BR#3).
I told all of you! Why didn't you believe me?! :-)
Zerg Midgame
Wait, with all the 1 hatch queen rushing there was Zerg midgame? Yes indeed. Granted, when I was playing HotBid the games were mostly about overcoming the insane queen / hatch macro. However, I still played a decent number of games that progressed well into the midgame.
My favorite unit there is still the mutalisk. I know a lot of people at Blizzcon have the opinion that mutalisks are too weak now and the whole Zerg midgame suffers. I disagree. I loved mutalisks. Yes, they are pretty weak and yes, they can't be stacked and maneuvered like BW mutalisk. However, as in BW, you are not supposed to fight with them head on. They are still excellent units to harass and to keep your opponnent in his base. The key difference to BW and the thing that makes mutalisk powerful in SC2 is the lack of a hard hard counter on the P and T side. In BW, P can build Corsair and T Vessels, which both basically nullify even large mutalisk groups. In SC2, you can just keep adding more and more mutas to your flock of death, and they just get more and more powerful. I had several games where I was just flying around looking for weak targets and dodging stalkers while adding more and more mutalisks until I could 1 shot cannons and obelisks. It is incredibly frustrating as Protoss to have this doom cloud scourging your base and you can't really do anything but chase them around with stalkers. It is very hard to place a good storm on mutalisks mid-flight and the Pheonix is just laughable air to air.
The thing with the mutalisk play is there is no real transition out of it. You will have huge amounts of minerals over, which I put first into roaches. When I found that roaches don't die but also don't kill anything I just made masses and masses of zerglings. One game against HB my idea was to muta harass, go to hive while getting air upgrades and then switch to broodlords. After I finally had the greater spire (which takes for-evever) HB moved into my natural with huge amounts of stalkers. And I had to realise broodlords spawn from corruptors. GG. Seriously that was the most stupid tech branch in the entire game. There is simply no situation where you would have a group of excess corruptors after the midgame. You will just build them to morph them straight into broodlords.
Mutalisks were also needed once the P got an army backed by a colossus. It is virtually impossible to take down the colossus with ground units if it's protected by an army and you will cry when you see how fast your hydras or roaches burn in the dual lances. I usually traded half my mutas against the colossus which was a good enough trade as long as you can still keep the P in his base this way.
Mutalisks were also very effective against Terran - if they went for a factory opening like siege expand or mass hellions. The thor takes forever to build and is so slow, you can just fly around and be annoying, avoid it until you have added enough mutas, then fly in and focus the one or two thors down. Again, the problem vs mutalisks that Zerg can just add more and more and does not have to fear their entire force will burn in one irradiate.
What I didn't like at all is the infester. So weak compared to the ghost or the templar! Basically its only use is to mind control a colossus so you can move the colossus towards your army and focus it down. And for that you will have to research mind control and wait for the energy - resources that are pretty much wasted should the P go for a pure tier 2 army with templar. Compare that to the ghost which has EMP by default. Spawn infested marines is a joke if you look at the firepower of a normal midgame army. If Blizzards wants to "fix" the Zerg midgame I'd suggest starting over with the infestor.
Once it got to the late game Zerg is again ridiculously strong. The one time I actually had broodlords I sat back and laughed how mercilessly they raped ground troops. After a few seconds a stalker force was just swarmed in lordlings and can’t move towards or away from the broodlord bombardment. And of course ultral/ling overrun everything. Ultralisks don't die. Several times when I played Terran I focused an ultra with my marines and couldn’t believe how slowly it’s HP bar went down. These monsters just refuse to die.
Terran vs Zerg
Terran vs Zerg has gotten so hard compared to the last time I played SC2. In June, you could use the full mobility of Terran against the Zerg well into the midgame. This time, this was entirely denied by hydra being tier 1 units. My favorite 3 barracks reaper opening was completely nullified this. At this point I don’t see any use for the reaper anymore – they stand no chance against hydra and are too expensive and take too long to be useful. Hydra on tier 1 really wasn't a good idea for TvZ.
From the midgame on mass drops were just as strong as ever. Zerg basically has to sit there and take it as you unload entire armies, kill an expo, load up and fly to the next. It has to be said though that in “real” games I usually couldn’t mass drop anyway since Zerg could always threaten a counter to my main. One game against Chill I dropped and destroyed all his 5 mining bases in one go only to get overrun by ultra/ling anyway. I am wondering how this will turn out once the game gets more understood and refined. As it looks now leaving the Terran in peace for only a short time can instantly mean a lost game due to incoming doom drops.
The other Terran strategy I found worked well was siege expanding and then slowly sieging over the map taking expoes and building up your marines force. There was one map with 2 golden mineral bases in the center – once you were set up there with siege tanks the game was basically over. Siege tanks thankfully still kill ultras so once you had a number set up you didn't feel as helpless against ultra/ling. I never succeeded with pure factory builds though, mostly because of muta switches from the Zerg. If they see you going factory only they can switch to pure muta and take the map while you have to slowly build up your tank / thor army. Pretty similar to BW metal TvZ actually. The few times I went for hellions I was actually surprised how much better they made them. In masses they can even take on hydras. But again, the problem I see with factory builds that there is no transition out of it that is safe vs mutalisks.
Terran vs Protoss
Wow, I still love SC2 TvP! It is totally different from BW TvP but so much fun to play. My favorite opening is still the "Zatic build", which as far as I experienced is one of the few viable fast expansion builds. I get 1 barracks with reactor and 1 with tech lab and move out with 3 marauders and 7 marines, at which point I have exactly 400 minerals for the CC. This small army can push the Protoss way back into their base, even severly hurt them if they rushed for the obelisk or basically did anything but 2 gate nonstop units. First I tried to kill probes however I found that probes just murder marauders, which is quite a fun view after you effortlessly blasted through the zealot / stalker force at the ramp. The last few TvP I played I placed a bunker in their nat and pulled back into there after killing their units while getting my own natural running.
Once I had my expansion up I added 2 comsats and started nonstop MULEing while getting barracks after barracks and ghosts and infantry upgrades. My midgame army was almost pure marauders with ghosts. At this point, when my bases were decently saturated, I basically stopped MULEing because scanning army positions and getting the first hit (=EMP) off is so crucial. After scanning the P army and smartcasting 2 EMPs into them it's just ridiculous to watch how the marauders clean up entire armies. On the other hand, if you don't get your EMPs off you are equally screwed as now your marauders will get fried in psi storm and stalkers mop up the survivors. That's why scan is so important.
The TvP I played were always decided at this point. If I could kill the P midgame army and prevent them from getting ahead in expansions I would win - however if P can get their 3rd and 4th running and saturated, combined with the obelisk this will give them a seemingly insurmountable economy.
The Blizzcon siege tank was very much improved over the last time I played, however I did not use it that much in TvP. Not because it wasn't powerful, but mostly because I liked the mobility of pure infantry armies. I know Chill loved siege tanks - and tank drops; I had to see his cliffed tanks kill my nat more than once I think. The splash area of the arclite seemed bigger too and it took like two well placed volleys from two siege tanks to clean out all probes at a mineral line. What is especially annoying about that is that you can’t focus cliffed units anymore. You can’t place storms on top of a cliff if you don’t have vision either. I almost cried when I attacked into Chill’s T natural and the 4 tanks on the cliff on both sides just tore apart my forces and when I tried to storm then my templars wanted to walk up the ramp first.
Protoss vs Terran
As P I used a lot of proxy (2) gate. I tried to build something like a wall at my nat and rallye zealots into the T main (if they didn't wall in that is). Early zealots are just as annoying for Terran as they were in BW. Once the Terran fended off the zealot harass I usually expanded - with forge and cannons if needed. This was tricky though against MULE builds if you didn't kill enough marines early. Chill loved his million marine march with MULE and 2 rax 2 reactor. Everytime I slaughtered a group of marines with zealots and cannons I thought, yeah, now I am ahead! Only to see the next wave being thrown at my natural.
In the midgame I basically made only stalker, zealots and templar. Smart casting storm really is strong. You can carpet bomb the entire enemy army with storm in a second. I didn’t use DT that much mostly because the tech takes so long. But I am pretty confident you can abuse them to force the Terran to spend his energy on scan rather than MULEs.
The immortal wasn’t viable at all in the Blizzcon build, entirely because it came from the robotics. I remember they were pretty much, well, immortal the last time I played in June, but there you could nicely transition from stalkers into more and more immortals because they used to build from the warp gate. At Blizzcon you just couldn’t design a real build involving more than 1 immortal. Generally, the stalker / immortal "choice" is what I like the least about Protoss at the moment. The stalker is just too strong against everything at the moment. They look so fragile but in large groups they are really really strong - There doesn't seem to be a hard counter like muta/ling used to be against goons in BW. Just building up masses of stalkers is just way too easy and too strong. They are every BW East players dream - expand, get upgrades and start building 1 unit only in masses. I know they switched around the immortal a lot in SC2 and are probably trying to figure out it's role still. I would really like to see it more instead of the all-around stalker as it is a much more interesting unit concept.
Overall, I didn't play too much Protoss though, I don't like how they feel - that's just personal preference though, apart from my BW main Zerg I just find Terran much more interesting.
Conclusion
I can't wait to play again.
Seriously, the actual gameplay is just so much fun and I can't wait to get my hands on it again. The following days after I played SC2 previously where always the worst as I used to theorycraft all the tricks and strategies I didn't get to try out. We need Beta :-(
I know it's kind of late for that, but should there still be open questions about Blizzcon shoot away.
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Nice writeup zatic. I agree that we need beta
One question: Without irradiate, how are you supposed to counter ultralisks? Any ideas?
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why didnt anyone write about Vikings T_T. I thought the Transforming ability from Air - Ground would be abused so much.
I think Blizzard should just bring back the defiler. Even for lore purposes the defiler sounds better (because its their only badass magic creature).
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Thanks for the article. It's nice for those of us who haven't played.
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On September 26 2009 23:01 LaLuSh wrote:Nice writeup zatic. I agree that we need beta One question: Without irradiate, how are you supposed to counter ultralisks? Any ideas? Siege tanks i suppose
Siege tanks thankfully still kill ultras so once you had a number set up you didn't feel as helpless against ultra/ling.
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Zurich15239 Posts
On September 26 2009 23:01 LaLuSh wrote: One question: Without irradiate, how are you supposed to counter ultralisks? Any ideas? Tanks did pretty well. I am careful to say marauders, because while the do take down ultras pretty well I wouldn't want to build them in larger numbers in the late game.
On September 27 2009 00:14 Sharp-eYe wrote: why didnt anyone write about Vikings T_T. I thought the Transforming ability from Air - Ground would be abused so much. I actually didn't use them once. The previous times I played SC2 they were very good air to air (damage comparable to BW wraith) but their ground attack was so weak.
The banshee was much better. I should have included that in the article :-/ If you managed to surprise Zerg with a banshee raid you could clean up their mineral lines with 3 banshees pretty easily. If scouted though they are instantly countered by even a few muta or corrupters.
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On September 27 2009 00:26 zatic wrote: The banshee was much better. I should have included that in the article :-/ If you managed to surprise Zerg with a banshee raid you could clean up their mineral lines with 3 banshees pretty easily. If scouted though they are instantly countered by even a few muta or corrupters.
Feel free to add it to your article. We love any info. I know youve already talked about the macro mechanics a bit but anything you could elaborate on the macro mechanics more. You mention that you can snipe them with mutalisks, how easy is this?
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Can someone explain what smartcast is exactly?
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Zurich15239 Posts
On September 27 2009 01:07 Archerofaiur wrote: I know youve already talked about the macro mechanics a bit but anything you could elaborate on the macro mechanics more. You mention that you can snipe them with mutalisks, how easy is this? Well, the obelisk has only I think 150 HP, or maybe even 100? In any case, it went down pretty quickly against muta. So it was a prime target once you dodged stalkers and if it wasn't covered by cannons. Also, regular pylons go down pretty easy as well. Once game the P (dunno who I played against) placed pylons all around the edges of his main to be able to react to nydus attacks - with muta I could just fly around his base killing pylons before the stalkers could be there.
So yeah, obelisk and regular pylons where the buildings you could kill pretty quickly with a harassing muta group.
On September 27 2009 01:25 RoieTRS wrote: Can someone explain what smartcast is exactly? You can select 5 templar and storm with T-click-T-click-T-click for every click only one of the templar will place a storm instead of the whole group. This works not only with storm but any special ability.
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from this, i am guessing that keeping "score" in SC2 is different from sc1?
in SC1, after winning a battle or murdering some scvs, you can guess that you are up in the game at least until your opponent hits his next tech.
but in SC2, seems you can murder thousands of units, and still have no idea if you are up or down. demonstrated by you killing tons of marines only to see more coming, or by killing 5 expos, and then getting overrun by ultraling.
maybe it's possible that we just dont' understand tech transitions well enough, like a noobie finally killing muta harass in TvZ and getting overrun by lurkers. Now, I'm all for hard counters and tech switches happening periodically changing the flow of the game, but right now as you describe it, it sounds like anarchy.
With that being said, SC2 sounds like an incredibly fun game to play and watch. it's main thing is that it's a spectator game, and seems blizzard understood that part, and focused on fun spectatorship throughout the development process, and left balancing to the end. good stuff. I doubt i'll play it much, but i'll sure watch the progamers duking it out.
sure hope blizzard does something so that gamers can play well into their 30s. poor boxer.
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On September 27 2009 01:42 zatic wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2009 01:07 Archerofaiur wrote: I know youve already talked about the macro mechanics a bit but anything you could elaborate on the macro mechanics more. You mention that you can snipe them with mutalisks, how easy is this? Well, the obelisk has only I think 150 HP, or maybe even 100? In any case, it went down pretty quickly against muta. So it was a prime target once you dodged stalkers and if it wasn't covered by cannons. Also, regular pylons go down pretty easy as well. Once game the P (dunno who I played against) placed pylons all around the edges of his main to be able to react to nydus attacks - with muta I could just fly around his base killing pylons before the stalkers could be there. So yeah, obelisk and regular pylons where the buildings you could kill pretty quickly with a harassing muta group. Show nested quote +On September 27 2009 01:25 RoieTRS wrote: Can someone explain what smartcast is exactly? You can select 5 templar and storm with T-click-T-click-T-click for every click only one of the templar will place a storm instead of the whole group. This works not only with storm but any special ability.
if you have a terran ally, can you float a barracks over your obelisk?
sounds like losing an obelisk is a big hit.
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You've healed my broken hype n_n! I was bitching about macro getting all the attention just today.
Thank You Zatic
I am very interested in ZvT Muta counters, let's start with that I was checking like everything on sc2armory.com and I've noticed lot's of things, were they the same during Blizzcon?
- 3 more upgrades in E-Bay:
1) adding additional +2 slots to Bunkers and armor to both Bunker and Turret; Bunkers are 400HP and Turrets 250HP now? 2)upgrade adding +1 to range of Turrets and few other things 3)rather not as important in mid-game upgrade for additional Terran buildings' armor
- Ghost's being able to kill Mutas in 2 Snipes since it's not against just casters but all bio units now
Is using special abilities from inside of a Bunker still in? Also their standard attack with light armor damage bonus put together with their range and ability to cloak is pretty dreadful itself, do they shoot fast enough ? EDIT3: how good were nukes by the way?
- Too bad about Reapers not being viable, I was thinking about them as possible counter harassment before Muta hatch :/
Was Stimpack upgrade in Merc Compound? About Stimpack, I've read it works different now?
- Do you think Vikings have potential as Muta counter? Twice as long range (6 vs 3) with upgrade adding additional +2 in game, twice as big damage, no need for Tech Lab so I'm getting images of Starports with Reactors attached...?
On September 27 2009 02:29 Polyphasic wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2009 01:42 zatic wrote:On September 27 2009 01:07 Archerofaiur wrote: I know youve already talked about the macro mechanics a bit but anything you could elaborate on the macro mechanics more. You mention that you can snipe them with mutalisks, how easy is this? Well, the obelisk has only I think 150 HP, or maybe even 100? In any case, it went down pretty quickly against muta. So it was a prime target once you dodged stalkers and if it wasn't covered by cannons. Also, regular pylons go down pretty easy as well. Once game the P (dunno who I played against) placed pylons all around the edges of his main to be able to react to nydus attacks - with muta I could just fly around his base killing pylons before the stalkers could be there. So yeah, obelisk and regular pylons where the buildings you could kill pretty quickly with a harassing muta group. On September 27 2009 01:25 RoieTRS wrote: Can someone explain what smartcast is exactly? You can select 5 templar and storm with T-click-T-click-T-click for every click only one of the templar will place a storm instead of the whole group. This works not only with storm but any special ability. if you have a terran ally, can you float a barracks over your obelisk? sounds like losing an obelisk is a big hit. I think you can zoom in game now in W3ish way so hovering buildings won't be that useful anymore...
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zatic: What was your experience with the Terran Raven? You say Zerg can just mass a bunch of mutas and Terran can't hard-counter that because there are no Vessels with irradiate- but in theory, Seeker Missiles (previously known as Hunter-Seeker missiles) from the Raven could obliterate a muta flock just as well as Irradiate does in BW.
As to Protoss counter vs. mass mutas, I'd imagine it has to be either psi storm or archons. Were Archons any good?
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1) Were storms just bigger or stronger and bigger? Is their cost still 75 ?
2) Were there tests to throw 2+ storms all around mutas since casting it takes so long?
3) Can Obelisks be used to at least make newly made HTs cast storms faster or is its 2:1 energy transfer ratio just too poor?
4) Do upgrades increasing energy capacity make casters be made with more energy?
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Zurich15239 Posts
On September 27 2009 04:03 beetlelisk wrote: 1) Were storms just bigger or stronger and bigger? Is their cost still 75 2) Were there tests to throw 2+ storms all around mutas since casting it takes so long? 3) Can Obelisks be used to at least make newly made HTs cast storms faster or is its 2:1 energy transfer ratio just too poor? 4) Do upgrades increasing energy capacity make casters be made with more energy? Storm seemed bigger, but not stronger. I don't have exact numbers though. I didn't manage to hit muta well and I know I flew around in HB's base and didn't get hit by storm. You also have to keep in mind that the templar was usually dead after casting one storm. Obelisk recharge didn't seem worth it at all (See Chills article). I don't think I ever got energy upgrade.
On September 27 2009 03:02 beetlelisk wrote:- 3 more upgrades in E-Bay:
1) adding additional +2 slots to Bunkers and armor to both Bunker and Turret; Bunkers are 400HP and Turrets 250HP now? 2)upgrade adding +1 to range of Turrets and few other things 3)rather not as important in mid-game upgrade for additional Terran buildings' armor
- Ghost's being able to kill Mutas in 2 Snipes since it's not against just casters but all bio units now
Is using special abilities from inside of a Bunker still in? Also their standard attack with light armor damage bonus put together with their range and ability to cloak is pretty dreadful itself, do they shoot fast enough ? EDIT3: how good were nukes by the way?
- Too bad about Reapers not being viable, I was thinking about them as possible counter harassment before Muta hatch :/
Was Stimpack upgrade in Merc Compound? About Stimpack, I've read it works different now?
- Do you think Vikings have potential as Muta counter? Twice as long range (6 vs 3) with upgrade adding additional +2 in game, twice as big damage, no need for Tech Lab so I'm getting images of Starports with Reactors attached...?
This is all theorycrafting: I didn't use the building upgrades and didn't see them anywhere I think. It would only keep muta away for so long though. Also I wouldn't like strong stationary defense in SC generally. Ghosts don't work against muta, too expensive to get enough. Stim was in Merc compound yes. It doesn't feel nearly as strong as in BW, but it works the same way. Vikings are good anti air, however if the Zerg scouts it they can easily counter Vikings by mixing in corrupters. Corrupter / muta cleans the skies. Nuke was unchanged as far as I know. Comparable to BW damage-wise.
On September 27 2009 02:29 Polyphasic wrote: I think you can zoom in game now in W3ish way so hovering buildings won't be that useful anymore... That is actually interesting, haven't thought about that. Surely something good players will use.
On September 27 2009 03:48 Zato-1 wrote: zatic: What was your experience with the Terran Raven? You say Zerg can just mass a bunch of mutas and Terran can't hard-counter that because there are no Vessels with irradiate- but in theory, Seeker Missiles (previously known as Hunter-Seeker missiles) from the Raven could obliterate a muta flock just as well as Irradiate does in BW.
As to Protoss counter vs. mass mutas, I'd imagine it has to be either psi storm or archons. Were Archons any good? Archons have the same problem as in BW - they are slow and big, so you can easily dodge them and still get the odd vollye off.
Seeker missiles should be easy to avoid with muta. They are very slow and you should always be able to separate the targeted muta before the missile hits. Also it doesn't do THAT much damage. I had one explode right in between my hydra group and only the targeted hydra died.
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archon now cause 70 damage+splash, i feel strange that they can't counter muta, maybe your opponent do not has a good micro...
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On September 27 2009 04:50 Amph wrote: archon now cause 70 damage+splash, i feel strange that they can't counter muta, maybe your opponent do not has a good micro... No amount of micro is going to make your archon as mobile as a mutalisk.
Also, 70 damage? Where did you hear that?
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I asked this before and only CharlieMurphy answered so far. How APM intensive is the game currently? Also, did you play any mirror matchups (ZvZ, TvT) and if so, how did they turn out?
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On September 27 2009 05:01 Tsagacity wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2009 04:50 Amph wrote: archon now cause 70 damage+splash, i feel strange that they can't counter muta, maybe your opponent do not has a good micro... No amount of micro is going to make your archon as mobile as a mutalisk. Also, 70 damage? Where did you hear that?
in broodwar a player with an archon can always hit your muta at least one time...and with 70 damage you need just one blow to make them withdraw...
stats are from sc2pod
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On September 27 2009 05:31 Amph wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2009 05:01 Tsagacity wrote:On September 27 2009 04:50 Amph wrote: archon now cause 70 damage+splash, i feel strange that they can't counter muta, maybe your opponent do not has a good micro... No amount of micro is going to make your archon as mobile as a mutalisk. Also, 70 damage? Where did you hear that? in broodwar a player with an archon can always hit your muta at least one time...and with 70 damage you need just one blow to make them withdraw... What are you talking about? A good zerg can run in circles around an archon all he wants.
They're not talking about a straight up muta vs. archon fight, they're saying an archon doesn't do much to protect the whole base.
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On September 27 2009 05:31 Amph wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2009 05:01 Tsagacity wrote:On September 27 2009 04:50 Amph wrote: archon now cause 70 damage+splash, i feel strange that they can't counter muta, maybe your opponent do not has a good micro... No amount of micro is going to make your archon as mobile as a mutalisk. Also, 70 damage? Where did you hear that? in broodwar a player with an archon can always hit your muta at least one time...and with 70 damage you need just one blow to make them withdraw... stats are from sc2pod SC2pod's stats say Archons deal 50 damage, plus 10 damage vs. biological, or 60 damage per hit against mutas. That's a ton of damage, but not quite 70.
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ok, but i think one archon can do AT LEAST one hit...If you continue to tell me no, then go watch some progamers vod...and i remember you, that in bw muta are more effective in terms of micro...
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On September 27 2009 05:53 Zato-1 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2009 05:31 Amph wrote:On September 27 2009 05:01 Tsagacity wrote:On September 27 2009 04:50 Amph wrote: archon now cause 70 damage+splash, i feel strange that they can't counter muta, maybe your opponent do not has a good micro... No amount of micro is going to make your archon as mobile as a mutalisk. Also, 70 damage? Where did you hear that? in broodwar a player with an archon can always hit your muta at least one time...and with 70 damage you need just one blow to make them withdraw... stats are from sc2pod SC2pod's stats say Archons deal 50 damage, plus 10 damage vs. biological, or 60 damage per hit against mutas. That's a ton of damage, but not quite 70.
no... read well it's 2x25+10 each attack
so...
it's not (2x25)+10, but (1x25)+10 + (1x25)+10...
and i cannot believe that , the archon cannot hit once...
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On September 27 2009 05:53 Amph wrote: ok, but i think one archon can do AT LEAST one hit...If you continue to tell me no, then go watch some progamers vod...and i remember you, that in bw muta are more effective in terms of micro... There's no "think" to this. It's a fact that mutalisks are significantly more mobile than archons. The only way an archon catches mutalisks is through zerg error.On September 27 2009 05:55 Amph wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2009 05:53 Zato-1 wrote:On September 27 2009 05:31 Amph wrote:On September 27 2009 05:01 Tsagacity wrote:On September 27 2009 04:50 Amph wrote: archon now cause 70 damage+splash, i feel strange that they can't counter muta, maybe your opponent do not has a good micro... No amount of micro is going to make your archon as mobile as a mutalisk. Also, 70 damage? Where did you hear that? in broodwar a player with an archon can always hit your muta at least one time...and with 70 damage you need just one blow to make them withdraw... stats are from sc2pod SC2pod's stats say Archons deal 50 damage, plus 10 damage vs. biological, or 60 damage per hit against mutas. That's a ton of damage, but not quite 70. no... read well it's 2x25+10 each attack so... it's not (2x25)+10, but (1x25)+10 + (1x25)+10... and i cannot believe that , the archon cannot hit once... In standard math, multiplication is calculated before addition unless parentheses specify addition first.
2 x 25 + 10 is the same as (2 x 25) +10
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On September 27 2009 05:55 Amph wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2009 05:53 Zato-1 wrote:On September 27 2009 05:31 Amph wrote:On September 27 2009 05:01 Tsagacity wrote:On September 27 2009 04:50 Amph wrote: archon now cause 70 damage+splash, i feel strange that they can't counter muta, maybe your opponent do not has a good micro... No amount of micro is going to make your archon as mobile as a mutalisk. Also, 70 damage? Where did you hear that? in broodwar a player with an archon can always hit your muta at least one time...and with 70 damage you need just one blow to make them withdraw... stats are from sc2pod SC2pod's stats say Archons deal 50 damage, plus 10 damage vs. biological, or 60 damage per hit against mutas. That's a ton of damage, but not quite 70. no... read well it's 2x25+10 each attack so... it's not (2x25)+10, but (1x25)+10 + (1x25)+10... 2 x 25 + 10 is the same as (2 x 25) +10 and i cannot believe that , the archon cannot hit once... Actually, it's 2x25 + 2x5. In other words, 2x(25+5), or 60.
Look at Marauders, they work the same way: Two hits, 6 damage apiece. Against armored, it's two hits, (6+6) damage for each hit. Same deal with Vikings with their air to air attack, Thors with their ground to air attack, Reapers and so on. You're just reading the stats wrong.
On September 27 2009 06:05 Tsagacity wrote: In standard math, multiplication is calculated before addition unless parentheses specify addition first. +1
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i speak about error...we are human so we make errors, you can't tell me that you will always use muta in the best way, and ALWAYS kill the archon without taking a blow from it...
per Zato-1 ..yeah, i was wrong, but they always have a uber 60 damage... two hit and bye bye MULTIPLE-muta
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On September 27 2009 06:11 Amph wrote: i speak about error...we are human so we make errors, you can't tell me that you will always use muta in the best way, and ALWAYS kill the archon without taking a blow from it...
Well that would contradict your original point that an archon's inability to stop harass might be due to poor protoss micro.
On September 27 2009 04:50 Amph wrote: archon now cause 70 damage+splash, i feel strange that they can't counter muta, maybe your opponent do not has a good micro... Also, in examples where good players do get caught by an archon, they're usually being very aggressive with the mutalisks in attempts to try to take out cannons or probes, valuable targets that the archon is typically very close to. The op talks about harassing other, easier targets.
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On September 27 2009 06:11 Amph wrote: per Zato-1 ..yeah, i was wrong, but they always have a uber 60 damage... two hit and bye bye MULTIPLE-muta I agree, Archons will completely tear up large muta flocks if they manage to get some good hits in- without Corsairs, Psi Storm and Archons seem to me like the way to go against a Zerg who's massing up mutas in an ever-growing control group. Sure, mutas can dodge an Archon or two, but if the Zerg has huge amounts of mutas, Protoss can get four or more Archons around his bases, and it becomes that much harder to dodge them all properly. If gas is a huge deal, you can choose to spend 200 gas per Archon rather than 300 by morphing DTs instead of HTs.
EDIT: Actually, it's 250 gas per archon if you use DTs, their gas cost seems to have gone up to 125 ><
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On September 27 2009 06:18 Tsagacity wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2009 06:11 Amph wrote: i speak about error...we are human so we make errors, you can't tell me that you will always use muta in the best way, and ALWAYS kill the archon without taking a blow from it...
Well that would contradict your original point that an archon's inability to stop harass might be due to poor protoss micro. Show nested quote +On September 27 2009 04:50 Amph wrote: archon now cause 70 damage+splash, i feel strange that they can't counter muta, maybe your opponent do not has a good micro... Also, in examples where good players do get caught by an archon, they're usually being very aggressive with the mutalisks in attempts to try to take out cannons or probes, valuable targets that the archon is typically very close to. The op talks about harassing other, easier targets.
it's much easy to make an error when you attack with muta, instead with an archon when you defend yourself is a bit harder.. anyway i do not contradict myself, they are both valid
the muta owner make an error therefore muta get damaged the opponent make good micro therefore muta get affected from archon
the fact that the owner of the archon has a bad micro does not imply that the muta's owner can't make an error... where is the contradiction?
for the second part: i can understand that, but does not always go in this way, something you are forced to blow hard target
one thing is to talk about the game and one thing is playing the game
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On September 27 2009 00:14 Sharp-eYe wrote: why didnt anyone write about Vikings T_T. I thought the Transforming ability from Air - Ground would be abused so much.
I think Blizzard should just bring back the defiler. Even for lore purposes the defiler sounds better (because its their only badass magic creature). I used them in my 3v1 game. (I posted battle reports in some sc2 thread after blizzcon) Basically they are good but mutas are better. They can hit and run the muta but they easily get overrun by a stack of mutas. They seemed pretty equally matched as far as skirmishes went between them though. And if you have like 5+ and you are harassing, you can just convert real fast, focus down a few workers and then convert back and fly away. They harass pretty well. But they don't do good damage to canons or spines.
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On September 27 2009 05:53 Zato-1 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2009 05:31 Amph wrote:On September 27 2009 05:01 Tsagacity wrote:On September 27 2009 04:50 Amph wrote: archon now cause 70 damage+splash, i feel strange that they can't counter muta, maybe your opponent do not has a good micro... No amount of micro is going to make your archon as mobile as a mutalisk. Also, 70 damage? Where did you hear that? in broodwar a player with an archon can always hit your muta at least one time...and with 70 damage you need just one blow to make them withdraw... stats are from sc2pod SC2pod's stats say Archons deal 50 damage, plus 10 damage vs. biological, or 60 damage per hit against mutas. That's a ton of damage, but not quite 70.
sc2armory gives the same stats but I have to ask them how much updated are their stats, I remember that Archons were supposed to get about +20 bonus for some amount of time right after summoning so it can be mistake done by both sources?
sc2armory also states Archons can be done from mix of Templars or DTs alone and I'm not sure if it wasn't changed to old HT merging method? Zatic?
On September 27 2009 04:29 zatic wrote: Ghosts don't work against muta, too expensive to get enough.
I was thinking of them as support units staying behind Marines and avoiding direct hits... but getting both Merc Compound for Stimpacks and Ghost Academy does look expensive :/ Wait, I play Zerg >.<
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On September 27 2009 06:41 beetlelisk wrote: sc2armory also states Archons can be done from mix of Templars or DTs alone and I'm not sure if it wasn't changed to old HT merging method? Zatic? Pretty sure Archons can be formed by merging 2 HTs, 2 DTs, or 1 HT with 1 DT.
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The immortal wasn’t viable at all in the Blizzcon build
I really disagree with this. As I used most of my builds centering around this unit at blizzcon.
I highly viable pvt build I used, involved a one base 1 gate 2 robo push. Basically robos take the place of your gateways, its vulnerable to an early rush but its extremely powerful once the 2nd robo is up. Its a change in the way protoss works, and I really like this change. I actually talked later on in the day to the dev that was responsible for this change and I felt not only was it much needed considering the strength of the immortal, but also great fun to change up the way protoss plays. I might not have explained myself very well but I'd be glad to elaborate if someone doesn't understand.
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On September 27 2009 06:59 Archerofaiur wrote: Elaborate I agree! I really wonder if online stats are correct because if they are Immortals would just rape armored units
On September 27 2009 06:45 Zato-1 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2009 06:41 beetlelisk wrote: sc2armory also states Archons can be done from mix of Templars or DTs alone and I'm not sure if it wasn't changed to old HT merging method? Zatic? Pretty sure Archons can be formed by merging 2 HTs, 2 DTs, or 1 HT with 1 DT.
hmm again internet confirms but DTs cost 125/125 now? and have 40HP 80Shields? Well last thing good for Protoss since shields aren't going to take full damage anymore and are supposed to regenerate faster outside of battle right?
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Zurich15239 Posts
On September 27 2009 05:17 Tom Phoenix wrote: I asked this before and only CharlieMurphy answered so far. How APM intensive is the game currently? Also, did you play any mirror matchups (ZvZ, TvT) and if so, how did they turn out? I played a couple of ZvZ which were all very boring. Just make lings and get speed. Whoever can make more wins. PvP is pretty comparable to BW PvP except that there are no reavers. From previous SC2 events I know that TvT is a lot of fun though. At Blizzcon I think I only played one TvT on the map from BR#3 against Chill where we both floated our raxx over to the other guy and tried to surprise with marines in the main. That was fun. He won in the end with a tank drop. A-moving marines against tanks is not a good idea haha. They clump up perfectly and 2 tank shots kill an entire group.
The game is WAY less APM demanding. I can only guess a number but I would say I played at about 100 at Blizzcon, probably less. Sometimes you just want to spam to keep yourself alert.
Amph: You are the most ignorant poster on this forum. Every of your few posts is wrong and completely ignores what has been already said. Please reconsider your posting.
No, in BW you can not always hit muta with an archon. You can dance muta perfectly fine around an archon, and even kill it without getting hit - same in SC2.
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On September 27 2009 07:11 zatic wrote: The game is WAY less APM demanding. I can only guess a number but I would say I played at about 100 at Blizzcon, probably less. Sometimes you just want to spam to keep yourself alert.
A common theory is that you can use all that "free time" to better micro, do multiple attacks, etc...
Did you find yourself doing that or does it now work like that?
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Zurich15239 Posts
On September 27 2009 06:50 Retsukage wrote:I really disagree with this. As I used most of my builds centering around this unit at blizzcon. I highly viable pvt build I used, involved a one base 1 gate 2 robo push. Basically robos take the place of your gateways, its vulnerable to an early rush but its extremely powerful once the 2nd robo is up. Its a change in the way protoss works, and I really like this change. I actually talked later on in the day to the dev that was responsible for this change and I felt not only was it much needed considering the strength of the immortal, but also great fun to change up the way protoss plays. I might not have explained myself very well but I'd be glad to elaborate if someone doesn't understand. Any 1 gate tech build dies hopelessly against Terran infantry. Yes, it will work if T goes for straight tanks, but none of the T I played did that, it was always marines / marauder, which would completely rape a 1 gate 2 robo build. I tried exactly that to get immortals because they used to be so strong. And I just got 1 immortal out when I was overrun by 15 marines. The tech is just too late and they take too long to survive on 1 gate until then.
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Zatic have you seen any Disruptors, BCs or Carriers in use? Can Nydus Worms go back underground?
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On September 27 2009 07:11 zatic wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2009 05:17 Tom Phoenix wrote: I asked this before and only CharlieMurphy answered so far. How APM intensive is the game currently? Also, did you play any mirror matchups (ZvZ, TvT) and if so, how did they turn out? The game is WAY less APM demanding. I can only guess a number but I would say I played at about 100 at Blizzcon, probably less. Sometimes you just want to spam to keep yourself alert.
This is worrying. If the game is no more APM intensive then before, it means that the macro mechanics in essence failed to achieve their purpose.
In any case, thank you for the response. Hopefully, something can be done about this.
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i knew reapers as a unit would essentially become useless as a unit with a solid purpose. i knew reapers would become a "cheese unit." the idea was good, but in a RTS with high skill level involved there is no room for trivial "tactical" units. it really is a silly concept. in game such as SC where ones mind must be exhausted to its full potential, where one finger slip can instantly lose you the game, there is no room for such units.
if its not rock paper scissors, scrap the unit already.
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On September 27 2009 08:05 Rebuke[SkyNet] wrote: i knew reapers as a unit would essentially become useless as a unit with a solid purpose. i knew reapers would become a "cheese unit." the idea was good, but in a RTS with high skill level involved there is no room for trivial "tactical" units. it really is a silly concept. in game such as SC where ones mind must be exhausted to its full potential, where one finger slip can instantly lose you the game, there is no room for such units.
if its not rock paper scissors, scrap the unit already.
After actually reading 1 of your posts and those quotes
On September 27 2009 07:25 Tsagacity wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2009 05:43 onmach wrote: This rebuke guy has been trolling multiple threads. Could someone ban him already? Seconded. Back when I visited the battle.net forums fairly frequently in June, this guy had several new troll threads a week in which all he did was talk about how much better he is than everyone else. I agree, you should be banned.
If you are not trolling explain what makes Reapers trivial. You self-contradict yourself in your own post, you bash a unit that adds factor of uncertainty and requires different care than other Terran units -> more causes to get "ones mind exhausted" and I mean harassment possibilities alone this far.
I can for 1 thing very clearly see D8 charges thrown in regular battles, after opponent deflects harassment for good so all that is left is to just keep Reapers that survived with main army.
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Pretty natural to me that your APM is way less in a game you are not as familiar with. You have to spend more time thinking about what to do, instead of actually doing stuff.
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Even when just playing a new map in SC1 your APM drops significantly. I don't expect anyone to be playing with anything even resembling high apm, not even if they've clocked up a couple of days play with it.
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On September 27 2009 07:11 zatic wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2009 05:17 Tom Phoenix wrote: I asked this before and only CharlieMurphy answered so far. How APM intensive is the game currently? Also, did you play any mirror matchups (ZvZ, TvT) and if so, how did they turn out? Amph: You are the most ignorant poster on this forum. Every of your few posts is wrong and completely ignores what has been already said. Please reconsider your posting. No, in BW you can not always hit muta with an archon. You can dance muta perfectly fine around an archon, and even kill it without getting hit - same in SC2.
yeah and you are the most stupid..., in BW progamers game, AT LEAST one time the archon hit some muta, it's impossible that so many muta dance around it, and never get shooted, i refused to believe to this...go watch some pro match
and this if we counting 1 archon, if there are 2 or 3 you are screwed, don't tell me that with 2-3 archon you can dance PERFECTLY and kill them all, without losing even a muta(i assume that you can not even touch one, that your stupid muta fall like flies)
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Sweden33719 Posts
You don't need to kill archons with mutas to be honest. Just ignore the slow-bastard and rape his probes ;p
Honestly, the biggest problem for Archons in defending vs mutas has always been how hard of a time they have moving through mineral lines / moving between buildings (coupled with their poor range). If the pathing has been significantly improved, then I could see them being more effective, as I somehow doubt you'll be able to perform the type of muta micro that you can in SC1.
They should give archons maelstrom back :D!!!
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Zurich15239 Posts
On September 27 2009 07:33 beetlelisk wrote: Zatic have you seen any Disruptors, BCs or Carriers in use? Can Nydus Worms go back underground? Saw disruptors often yes. They are a fun unit but really overhyped imho. Their attack is not that strong and the force fields very situational. but it's a good unit. Didn't see or use a carrier or cruiser at BC. Nydus doesn't "go" anywhere, you just place an exit where ever you want.
On September 27 2009 07:17 Archerofaiur wrote: A common theory is that you can use all that "free time" to better micro, do multiple attacks, etc... Did you find yourself doing that or does it now work like that? You have less to do with macro, definitely. Personally I found myself kinda spacing out and looking at the animations, not overly microeing.
On September 27 2009 14:15 JohannesH wrote: Pretty natural to me that your APM is way less in a game you are not as familiar with. You have to spend more time thinking about what to do, instead of actually doing stuff. I don't think this is a major factor. The game is less mechanically demanding, you can see that without having played it once. Plus it's not like you sit there and start wondering what is going on, the game plays very much like BW.
Keep in mind too that high APM is irrelevant. I was able to macro and spend my money in this new game with comparatively low APM, which is all that counts.
On September 27 2009 21:20 FrozenArbiter wrote: You don't need to kill archons with mutas to be honest. Just ignore the slow-bastard and rape his probes ;p Which is what I said in my original post. You keep dodging them and keep adding more and more muta until you can fly into the min line and take out the cannons without taking losses. The point is that there are no mobile hard counters that muta can't run away from. But even with definitely improved pathing you can still get hits off on an archon without getting hit yourself.
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On September 27 2009 19:29 Amph wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2009 07:11 zatic wrote:On September 27 2009 05:17 Tom Phoenix wrote: I asked this before and only CharlieMurphy answered so far. How APM intensive is the game currently? Also, did you play any mirror matchups (ZvZ, TvT) and if so, how did they turn out? Amph: You are the most ignorant poster on this forum. Every of your few posts is wrong and completely ignores what has been already said. Please reconsider your posting. No, in BW you can not always hit muta with an archon. You can dance muta perfectly fine around an archon, and even kill it without getting hit - same in SC2. yeah and you are the most stupid... Well, looks like someone here's asking for a ban.
Amph, I suggest you read TL.net's 10 commandments. While it is acceptable to behave like a dick and insult veteran members on other internet forums, it is not acceptable here. zatic is a valued and respected member of TL, and he's most definitely not stupid.
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Could someone tell me in what situation you would rather built lurkers than ultralisks once at t3?
little off topic:
Since i have no beta key and cannot wait to play sc2, i would like to know how fast/good inofficial wc3 servers have been? =)
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8716 Posts
On September 27 2009 19:29 Amph wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2009 07:11 zatic wrote:On September 27 2009 05:17 Tom Phoenix wrote: I asked this before and only CharlieMurphy answered so far. How APM intensive is the game currently? Also, did you play any mirror matchups (ZvZ, TvT) and if so, how did they turn out? Amph: You are the most ignorant poster on this forum. Every of your few posts is wrong and completely ignores what has been already said. Please reconsider your posting. No, in BW you can not always hit muta with an archon. You can dance muta perfectly fine around an archon, and even kill it without getting hit - same in SC2. yeah and you are the most stupid..., in BW progamers game, AT LEAST one time the archon hit some muta, it's impossible that so many muta dance around it, and never get shooted, i refused to believe to this...go watch some pro match and this if we counting 1 archon, if there are 2 or 3 you are screwed, don't tell me that with 2-3 archon you can dance PERFECTLY and kill them all, without losing even a muta(i assume that you can not even touch one, that your stupid muta fall like flies) In BW: If the archons are given an attack command on the mutas, the archons can die without attacking once because of muta micro.
If the protoss player micros the archons by giving move commands in unexpected directions, the archon can get in position to attack and will hit the mutas when commanded. But usually there are ground units, buildings, minerals and impassable terrain in the path of the archons, so it is not possible to move the archons in unexpected directions.
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On September 27 2009 23:02 Zato-1 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2009 19:29 Amph wrote:On September 27 2009 07:11 zatic wrote:On September 27 2009 05:17 Tom Phoenix wrote: I asked this before and only CharlieMurphy answered so far. How APM intensive is the game currently? Also, did you play any mirror matchups (ZvZ, TvT) and if so, how did they turn out? Amph: You are the most ignorant poster on this forum. Every of your few posts is wrong and completely ignores what has been already said. Please reconsider your posting. No, in BW you can not always hit muta with an archon. You can dance muta perfectly fine around an archon, and even kill it without getting hit - same in SC2. yeah and you are the most stupid... Well, looks like someone here's asking for a ban. Amph, I suggest you read TL.net's 10 commandments. While it is acceptable to behave like a dick and insult veteran members on other internet forums, it is not acceptable here. zatic is a valued and respected member of TL, and he's most definitely not stupid.
so he can call me a ignorant and i can't call him idiot...whoa! nice commandaments...ignorant for me is an insult, by the way
On September 28 2009 01:35 Liquid`NonY wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2009 19:29 Amph wrote:On September 27 2009 07:11 zatic wrote:On September 27 2009 05:17 Tom Phoenix wrote: I asked this before and only CharlieMurphy answered so far. How APM intensive is the game currently? Also, did you play any mirror matchups (ZvZ, TvT) and if so, how did they turn out? Amph: You are the most ignorant poster on this forum. Every of your few posts is wrong and completely ignores what has been already said. Please reconsider your posting. No, in BW you can not always hit muta with an archon. You can dance muta perfectly fine around an archon, and even kill it without getting hit - same in SC2. yeah and you are the most stupid..., in BW progamers game, AT LEAST one time the archon hit some muta, it's impossible that so many muta dance around it, and never get shooted, i refused to believe to this...go watch some pro match and this if we counting 1 archon, if there are 2 or 3 you are screwed, don't tell me that with 2-3 archon you can dance PERFECTLY and kill them all, without losing even a muta(i assume that you can not even touch one, that your stupid muta fall like flies) In BW: If the archons are given an attack command on the mutas, the archons can die without attacking once because of muta micro. If the protoss player micros the archons by giving move commands in unexpected directions, the archon can get in position to attack and will hit the mutas when commanded. But usually there are ground units, buildings, minerals and impassable terrain in the path of the archons, so it is not possible to move the archons in unexpected directions.
dancing around archon is not that easy as you think, is much more easy for the archon's owner to hit the muta(when there are 2-3 archon at least, i understand that with one archon become easy to dodge and kill it, but with 2-3 is much more hard, trust me...)
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On September 28 2009 02:20 Amph wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2009 23:02 Zato-1 wrote:On September 27 2009 19:29 Amph wrote:On September 27 2009 07:11 zatic wrote:On September 27 2009 05:17 Tom Phoenix wrote: I asked this before and only CharlieMurphy answered so far. How APM intensive is the game currently? Also, did you play any mirror matchups (ZvZ, TvT) and if so, how did they turn out? Amph: You are the most ignorant poster on this forum. Every of your few posts is wrong and completely ignores what has been already said. Please reconsider your posting. No, in BW you can not always hit muta with an archon. You can dance muta perfectly fine around an archon, and even kill it without getting hit - same in SC2. yeah and you are the most stupid... Well, looks like someone here's asking for a ban. Amph, I suggest you read TL.net's 10 commandments. While it is acceptable to behave like a dick and insult veteran members on other internet forums, it is not acceptable here. zatic is a valued and respected member of TL, and he's most definitely not stupid. so he can call me a ignorant and i can't call him idiot...whoa! nice commandaments...ignorant for me is an insult, by the way Show nested quote +On September 28 2009 01:35 Liquid`NonY wrote:On September 27 2009 19:29 Amph wrote:On September 27 2009 07:11 zatic wrote:On September 27 2009 05:17 Tom Phoenix wrote: I asked this before and only CharlieMurphy answered so far. How APM intensive is the game currently? Also, did you play any mirror matchups (ZvZ, TvT) and if so, how did they turn out? Amph: You are the most ignorant poster on this forum. Every of your few posts is wrong and completely ignores what has been already said. Please reconsider your posting. No, in BW you can not always hit muta with an archon. You can dance muta perfectly fine around an archon, and even kill it without getting hit - same in SC2. yeah and you are the most stupid..., in BW progamers game, AT LEAST one time the archon hit some muta, it's impossible that so many muta dance around it, and never get shooted, i refused to believe to this...go watch some pro match and this if we counting 1 archon, if there are 2 or 3 you are screwed, don't tell me that with 2-3 archon you can dance PERFECTLY and kill them all, without losing even a muta(i assume that you can not even touch one, that your stupid muta fall like flies) In BW: If the archons are given an attack command on the mutas, the archons can die without attacking once because of muta micro. If the protoss player micros the archons by giving move commands in unexpected directions, the archon can get in position to attack and will hit the mutas when commanded. But usually there are ground units, buildings, minerals and impassable terrain in the path of the archons, so it is not possible to move the archons in unexpected directions. dancing around archon is not that easy as you think, is much more easy for the archon's owner to hit the muta(when there are 2-3 archon at least, i understand that with one archon become easy to dodge and kill it, but with 2-3 is much more hard, trust me...) The guy you're talking to spent part of his life playing with progamers in Korea.
I think everyone here is allowed to call you ignorant if you're going to try to tell a former progamer to "trust you" on how muta/archon micro works.
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Zurich15239 Posts
On September 28 2009 02:20 Amph wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2009 01:35 Liquid`NonY wrote: In BW: If the archons are given an attack command on the mutas, the archons can die without attacking once because of muta micro.
If the protoss player micros the archons by giving move commands in unexpected directions, the archon can get in position to attack and will hit the mutas when commanded. But usually there are ground units, buildings, minerals and impassable terrain in the path of the archons, so it is not possible to move the archons in unexpected directions. dancing around archon is not that easy as you think, is much more easy for the archon's owner to hit the muta(when there are 2-3 archon at least, i understand that with one archon become easy to dodge and kill it, but with 2-3 is much more hard, trust me...) You tell him!
Seriously Amph, stop posting nonsense. Every one of your posts has either been blatantly wrong, ignorant of what has been discussed previously, or, predominately, both.
If you don't like the commandments I suggest you leave this site. Kennigit is merciless.
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you must not play on east much
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On September 27 2009 22:40 zatic wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2009 07:33 beetlelisk wrote: Can Nydus Worms go back underground? Nydus doesn't "go" anywhere, you just place an exit where ever you want.
I mean yeah I know it works pretty much like Nydus Canal in BW but wanted to confirm it can be placed only once and can't be moved, new one made in Nydus Network is needed right?
What was the animation for arriving Worm, was it still cocoon? Is creep still needed to be able to place it? Did dropping creep by Overlords cost anything, was there any prerequisite for it?
BTW, I read Warp Rays did terrible terrible damage again but were most effective against pretty slow or stationary targets? Could they follow their targets shooting at the same time?
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Anyone at Blizzcon tried the Mutalisk stacking thing? If you can control more than 12 units in a group, imagine how much damage you can do with Mutalisks? You can basically pretty hold position, let the damage spread out and destroy a whole ground force!
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Well I was lucky enough to actually play starcraft 2 at blizzcon (a lot), so I feel I should let everyone know what I thought. I ended up playing over 100 games by the end. In all, I only lost 2 out of 3 to someone once. First of all, I LOVED zerg, by far the most powerful race of any of them. I personally felt that terran was the weakest, however I am a horrible SC1 terran player so that may have played a part in it.
The key to owning as zerg (as most others have said), is the 1 hatch -> queen build. My most common build order would be 10 pool, (while waiting for pool to finish) overlord, as soon as the pool finishes 6 lings and then start building a queen. Your lings hit the opponents base and you get to scout. (the really nice thing about this build is how perfectly the food works out, you get exactly enough to build the queen and the 6 lings without an additional overlord).
If they are teching, or FE, or anything other then spamming low tier units, just hit em hard with lings, especially on that first spawn larva. When you got 6 lings initially, and then hit them right afterwards with 14 lings EVERYONE dies.
If they wall in or look to be creating a lot of low tier units (or like 3+ gateways/raxes), just back off and wait (spawn a 4-6 extra lings, but mostly drones and start going to tier 2 and try to get your natural). If they look like they are going aggressive and not defense try to backstab with the first set of lings, while your others stay at base with some spine crawlers. Spine crawlers a few lings and a queen is plenty to take out any kind of early game aggression.
Assuming you make it to tier 2 (happens a lot against people rushing you), you usually want to hit them hard right as mutas come out. Ideally you should have 2 bases at this point (no more is needed). You want to time your spawn larva when the spire is half done, so that right when it finishes you can hit them with 14 mutas. If they are very smart they will have enough defense at their scv/probe line. (and by enough defense usually means 3+ turrets or cannons at all mineral lines). Pick off what you can, but stop building mutas at this point (late game mutas suck).
After your mutas, just lings and roaches mixed work well. Roaches are freaking cheap! (200 min only no gas), and they are quite good tanks (damage soaks), but they cant hurt anything. Use that nadus canal if you can at this point. Dropping 2-3 in different parts of someones main and there is no way they are going to kill them all before one finishes, then your whole army is in their main. Eventfully ultra owns, but I only got to this point if I was playing around with someone and not finishing them off.
I lost once to someone (won zerg, lost toss and lost zerg). I really want to talk about the last fight. In this case I started as I usually do, but I couldn’t find him (searched almost the whole map), so I figured I would expand and hope for the best. He turned out to be like right next to me, and his siege tanks could hit my expansion from his main, not good. So I tried to transition into mutas, but viking’s are nasty anti-air, and even with corruptors I couldn’t stop his push, ah well.
As to the other races. DTs, HT and tanks are as nasty as ever (even more so with dt’s against zerg). The new banshee rocks! (massive damage, extremely mobile, and cloaks). I wish I had used ghost more. For terran I found it nice to get 2-3 tech labs on raxes early game to get some marauders, use those same tech labs on factories to get tanks, then use the tech labs again to get banshees (adding quite a few viking’s to counter any air we face).
As far as toss goes, warp-in is critical, every build must have it. And if you have it you might as well get a proxy pylon as well. Zealots do well early game, but the meat of a toss army is the stalkers. Throw in an occasional dark templar rush, and then mix with a few HT and archons when they done storming. And you got to go robo at least to get observers. Carriers while strong, take way too long, and warp rays and phoenix’s just don’t do enough damage.
-Obsid
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Zurich15239 Posts
You should check out the previous posts about Zerg here. Glad you felt the same way about them. Can you explain why you stopped making muta? Especially when I managed to inflict just some damage with my initial ~10 muta I would keep adding more and keep attacking. At one point turrets or cannons just won't be of any use against that.
Build-order wise I (and everyone I played with) would go 12 pool -> queen -> larvae, and use that larvae to make lings if needed.
+ Show Spoiler +Over 100 games lol. That would be over 20 hours non-stop play time. The venue wasn't even open that long. I understand though it felt like a 100 to me too but it was probably more like 50.
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+ Show Spoiler +I watched the semi and finals of the sc1 tourney and the exhibition match. I played 2 games of Diablo 3. So in all probably about 15 hours of starcraft 2 (of 18.5 possible). Remember I said games, not matches, so that’s only like 30 different people I played. I spent several games trying out the various races, and different tech. Once I decided on which felt stronger to me, and refined by game at those. I always played one game with my strongest race to start (incase I lose that), and then a game of one of the two weaker races, and if I get to a 3rd game, with my strong race again. Once I had my zerg down my games lasted about 9 min per game (most people tend to lose fairly quickly against 20 ling rush), I would say I ended about 50% of my zerg games in under 5 min. The rest lasted usually about 15 min. It takes 3 minutes to transition from lings to muta (after you get the gas). I am sure I probably left myself open for a bit of a timing attack just before I hit muta, but as no one knows the timings yet, so that seems fine.
Why I stopped going muta, well the only people I didn’t win automatically when I got muta (which happened like 80% of the time when I got mutas) were spending A LOT of resources on anti air stuff (phoenixes, viking’s, corruptors), along with static defense at their mineral lines. When I see that much anti-air, it just makes sense to me not to even try and fight it. Better to attack at what they are weak against.
The key with the new zerg is defiantly to drone until you spike spam units fast with some new tech that they arnt prepared for, spawn larva just makes that strat so powerful.
I’m sorry I didn’t say how many drones I was doing where exactly. I go 10 drones->pool->overlord ->13 drones->queen (and 6 lings)->spawn larva->overlord. It’s the fastest way to get a queen out without cutting drones, with just enough drones, before you need to start saving larva for when the pool finish’s, and just enough food (18 total with 1 overlord).
PS. About roaches, a single roach does about as much damage as a single zergling against non-bio, but costs 8 times as much and 4 times as much supply and is a tier 2 unit. So why use them? They have 4.5 times as much hp, 1 point more armor, and they regen like crazy (somewhere around 30 hp a sec I think or about 1 zerglings hp per sec, and that’s not including the upgrade to make them regen faster). And I hear they can now move while burrowed (although I didn’t try that out). Basically they are the meat shields for the lings, so run them in first.
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konadora
Singapore66060 Posts
damn, so awesome. hoping for beta (and release of game!) soon D:
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On September 28 2009 17:42 obsid wrote: PS. About roaches, a single roach does about as much damage as a single zergling against non-bio, but costs 8 times as much and 4 times as much supply and is a tier 2 unit. So why use them? They have 4.5 times as much hp, 1 point more armor, and they regen like crazy (somewhere around 30 hp a sec I think or about 1 zerglings hp per sec, and that’s not including the upgrade to make them regen faster). And I hear they can now move while burrowed (although I didn’t try that out). Basically they are the meat shields for the lings, so run them in first. They sound more like meat shields for Hydras to me. Having a ranged unit tank for a melee unit seems... ineffective to me. Having a unit with a short attack range tank for a unit with a longer attack range makes more sense to me (such as Zealots tanking for archons).
Then again, maybe roaches can tank for the lings against ranged units like stalkers and the entire Terran army.
Did anyone try a roach / hydra combo, and if so, how'd it work?
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I think by tanking for lings he means Roaches as Mutas in BW (in for example muta vs hydra zvzs), to tank with them till lings reach enemy units.
Qs:
I read Thor can be transported, it compacts itself and attaches below Medivac? x)
I know playing as much as you could was obviously most important but could you save replays and check out new replay features like rewinding them backwards or I think there was supposed to be something like marking specific points in time in replays?
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On September 29 2009 07:46 beetlelisk wrote: I know playing as much as you could was obviously most important but could you save replays and check out new replay features like rewinding them backwards or I think there was supposed to be something like marking specific points in time in replays?
They only let us play the multiplayer section or the single player sections, all were wrapped in a custom UI with just a few buttons. We didnt get to see the normal "out of game" experiance. I did however get it to crash once (just as a game ended when coming out of the game back to the lobby). When they restarted it, it seemed to go right back to where it left off in the lobby. So they customized these exe's specificly.
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The infestor was just a huge mistake ever since the beginning. It should never have been made. Or if it did, have darkswarm instead of mind control. Mind control is just a worse version of the Dark Archon's ability, since now it is only temporary. That ability just got copy/pasted from Diablo III. Even the graphics for it are the same as the Witch Doctor's ability. lame. -_-
I would love to see some games played by zatic. Until now we could barely see muta action (my favourite units!) and now that zatic tells me they're practically unstoppable i'd love to see them used in zatic's games.
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Thanks for the write-up. I appreciated the TvP perspective you gave, as I had not read that from anyone else yet.
I wonder if Blizzard is finding it frustrating to balance SC2. If I were them, I'd be shaking my head every time I read a write-up like this one. I am confident that they'll get it pretty well balanced, though, even if it takes the entire Beta phase as well.
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On September 28 2009 14:44 obsid wrote: The key to owning as zerg (as most others have said), is the 1 hatch -> queen build. My most common build order would be 10 pool, (while waiting for pool to finish) overlord, as soon as the pool finishes 6 lings and then start building a queen. Your lings hit the opponents base and you get to scout. (the really nice thing about this build is how perfectly the food works out, you get exactly enough to build the queen and the 6 lings without an additional overlord).
Whats the comparative timing of overlords getting to the enemy base, compared to the six lings from the 10 pool? If its about the same time, if I am reading the unit information correctly, you can spawn creep from the overlord to make a spine colony with a drone as well... 50 seconds to make the spine colony, compared with 33 for a protoss zealot or 20 for a terran marine, so 1.66 zealots per gate or 2.5 marines per barracks if you wait for a spine to morph to break a wall-in.
Speaking of wall-ins, did you have to break many of them?
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On September 30 2009 04:54 FakeKisser wrote: ... I am confident that they'll get it pretty well balanced, though, even if it takes the entire Beta phase as well. That'll be the fun of beta, breaking and exploiting the game.
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On September 30 2009 05:00 decemberscalm wrote:Show nested quote +On September 30 2009 04:54 FakeKisser wrote: ... I am confident that they'll get it pretty well balanced, though, even if it takes the entire Beta phase as well. That'll be the fun of beta, breaking and exploiting the game.
Exactly. I want to see if a 6pool ling + overloard + proxy spine colony(s) is completely broken on small enough two player maps.
edit: apparently overlord creep requires lair. Never mind then, too slow.
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On September 30 2009 04:54 ThrustVectoring wrote: Whats the comparative timing of overlords getting to the enemy base, compared to the six lings from the 10 pool?
Speaking of wall-ins, did you have to break many of them?
Depends on the map. One map it stupidly placed me RIGHT next to my opponent (I think it was designed for a 2v2). Most maps my lings get there a bit before my overlord.
I didnt realy even try to break wall-ins. If they were smart enough to build a wall-in, and enough troups to defend, I just let them be and droned up and expanded. Using the queen for early game defense. 7 additional drones, is alot. It didnt usual work out for them if they tried to wall-in in front of their expansion (too many lings too quickly), but if they do it at the top of a ramp or whatnot, not much I can do to stop them. The nice thing is you dont sac econ doing this build, if you switch to drones once spawn larva goes.
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On September 28 2009 21:58 Zato-1 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2009 17:42 obsid wrote: PS. About roaches, a single roach does about as much damage as a single zergling against non-bio, but costs 8 times as much and 4 times as much supply and is a tier 2 unit. So why use them? They have 4.5 times as much hp, 1 point more armor, and they regen like crazy (somewhere around 30 hp a sec I think or about 1 zerglings hp per sec, and that’s not including the upgrade to make them regen faster). And I hear they can now move while burrowed (although I didn’t try that out). Basically they are the meat shields for the lings, so run them in first. They sound more like meat shields for Hydras to me. Having a ranged unit tank for a melee unit seems... ineffective to me. Having a unit with a short attack range tank for a unit with a longer attack range makes more sense to me (such as Zealots tanking for archons). Then again, maybe roaches can tank for the lings against ranged units like stalkers and the entire Terran army. Did anyone try a roach / hydra combo, and if so, how'd it work?
Roach/Hydra is the combo which Dustin first hinted at when discussing the new Roach role, so it should be pretty solid.
As for Roach tanking lings and other melee units, it should work very well. Especially now that they can move while burrowed. You run at the enemy with Roach in front, burrow and creep away from the battle while the lings do their thing. You can even get in position to escorte the next wave in since they heal while burrowed.
Edit: I think you will find that the range of Roach attack is based on the Hydras range to allow a-move to place Roaches in front of Hydras automatically. It will probably be 1-2 smaller than the Hydra range.
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