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Zurich15325 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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Zurich15325 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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Zurich15325 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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Zurich15325 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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EPT
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