|
Hello all, this is a guide for the UMS Desert Strike on the “epic game” (80 round game, most popular) difficulty. I've been playing this game a lot when I'm eating because it's a pretty hands-off game in terms of required APM.
At first glance, you might wonder why I would write a guide for such a simple game, but strangely enough in the ~100 games I've played, I've only encountered 1-2 people who aren't terrible, so I thought a guide might be helpful for people who want to play an easy game, but can't be bothered with the analysis (the analysis is done for you!).
Basic Decision Making
Desert Strike is a game that looks like it presents a lot of choices, but in reality the number of “correct” choices are extremely limited. Throughout the game there are certain choices that simply are 100% better than others. Here are the general tenets that apply to all races on “epic game”:
1) Unless you spawn first on your team, always, always gas first. Rushing to kill the silo is NEVER worth it on epic game. Gaining 1,000 minerals is worthless, because every extra second you spend earning 10 minerals is one second less you aren't earning 22 minerals. In order to profit at all from an early silo kill, you will have to do it within the first 3 rounds of the game (do the math), and even then the profit you gain is negligible.
2) Always gas as soon as possible. There's a reason why the income increments from gassing are what they are. Extra gasses are always worth it. The enemy will never be able to kill you by “strategically” not gassing. That's why the silo monster and the cannons in front of the nexus are there, to protect you from idiots.
3) Defense structures suck. It's a one-time investment that's gone once killed. This is infinitely worse than investing in units that will repeatedly spawn for you every time.
4) Recognize the heavy hitters of your race. Tanks for Terran, Colossi for Protoss, Swarm Guardians for Zerg. There is a critical number of these units you should get for your race, every game. All other units only provide supplementary damage while meat shielding for these three precious units.
5) Air units suck. Get only enough air units to tank for your Swarm Guardians/Colossi/detectors while your ground units mop up their army. There is no merit in winning the air battle, especially since most air units can't shoot ground and are out-dps'd by ground units. God knows how many final battles I've seen where one side ends up with 3 swarm guardians that can't kill the enemy's 40 tanks before they razed the Nexus.
6) Prioritize on defeating the wave that spawns along with you. So get an anti-zerg army if your counterpart is zerg, anti-protoss if your counterpart is protoss, etc. Do not go out of your way to prepare for your allies' waves until the final battle is near, when you can check to see if your allies are missing something crucial.
7) Save at least one Boom until round 81. Otherwise if the enemy wins the round before spawning stops you'll just lose right before getting to the final battle.
8) Don't use a special unless the enemy has used all their booms and it's only round 60 or something. It's a one-shot 3,500 minerals that means you lose the potential to make a ridiculous amount of units.
The Races
Terran
Overview: Terran is arguably the most versatile self-contained race. It's the only race where building a little bit of everything while making slight adjustments creates an amazing army. Their tanks are easy to mass and with good meat shields can easily survive until they are reinforced by your ally's wave, creating a “stacking” of waves that is utterly devastating. Their only weakness, shared with the Zerg, is their detection, which is easily killed.
General composition: Tanks are pretty cheap (1800 for two). Get a critical number of at least 20 for your army, no matter what race you are facing. Marines and Marauders should make up the bulk of your meat shield, and they deal huge damage as well. Unit composition varies slightly depending on the race you are facing.
Vs Terran: Get Ravens and Thors. Ravens block a LOT of damage from marauders, vikings, and goliaths. Thors also can soak up a lot of hits, especially tank fire.
Vs Protoss: Get 6-8 Firebats, Predators, Ghosts, a few Goliaths, and Vikings. Protoss have an edge over armored units (Immortals and Dark Zealot) but are weak against light armored units. Predators have large HP, are lightly armored, and have 5 armor. Perfect to tank waves of zealots while your Firebats roast them. Vikings are a must against colossi, even if the Protoss eventually get scouts (that's what goliaths are for). Goliaths are great for providing fire support, and can shoot air and ground simultaneously. Ghosts are obvious, to snipe the gray zealots and EMP immortals.
Vs Zerg: Get Goliaths, Ravens, some Firebats, Vikings, a lot of tanks. Zerg corruptors are very strong anti-air but tend to stack at the front lines, meaning they can easily be taken out by Goliaths. Ravens provide a lot of protection against hordes of hydralisks. Vikings are a must to take out Swarm Guardians.
Early Game Tips:
There are exactly 3 optimal openings for Terran: reaper/vults, marine/firebat, and slow reaper/marine/marauder. Vults deal huge bonus damage to armored units and their spider mines slow enemy advance. Later in the game, your vults/reapers can partially reinforce your ally's wave before the rest of your army catches up. Very useful. The other two compositions will eventually become part of your main army anyways, and are a good start.
Protoss
Protoss lie somewhere between Terran and Zerg in terms of power, and have a huge advantage over large numbers of armored units due to dark zealots, which are basically zealot versions of immortals, and immortals. Their anti-air capacity is somewhat lacking.
General Army Composition: 10-12 Colossi, everything else is built around protecting and meat-shielding for them. Thus, lots of gray zealots mixed with dark zealots, lots of immortals, around 5 high templar.
Vs Terran: Dark Zealots, Grey Zealots, Immortals, Fades, Scouts, sentries. Ghosts are going to be a huge pain. Not much you can do except make a lot of gray zealots (dark shrine) and a lot of immortals to tank. 5+ high templars are a must to supplement your firepower. Luckily, Colossi rip apart the low-hp, high volume Terran meat shield. You will inevitably need 8+ scouts, since they tank a lot of damage that would otherwise be going to your colossi.
Vs Protoss: High Templar, Colossi, archon. Most good protosses will favor either a lot of immortals to tank, or a lot of zealots, with archons. Colossi are decent against zealot meatshields, but Templars are essential to deal with everything else, especially Archons, to which they have no answer to except more archons.
Vs Zerg: Archons, Scouts, Fades, Void Prisms, Grey Zealots, Templar, sentries. You will inevitably face lots of roach/hydra and corruptors to take out your colossi. Archons tank better than zealots late-game due to Swarm Guardians, which deal massive splash light damage. Ultralisks are not that big of a threat.
General openings: Pure Zealots take out almost everything except firebats early game, and can be switched into dark zealots later. I personally find gray zealots and archons to be useful early on, but Protoss openings are generally either weak or does not matter as much.
Zerg
Zerg is a support race. Their main purpose is to use 3-4 sluggalisks to rush across the map and reinforce the previous wave before its colossi or tanks are destroyed, then stack on top of it to push forward. Damage-wise, Zerg are the weakest race. Their siege unit, the Swarm Guardian, is the most expensive and least cost efficient. They are essential though, and the critical number is at least 8.
Vs Terran: Lots of Hydralisks, some Roaches, few Ultralisks, some corruptors, 5+ brood lords. Zerg can't do much to Terran in my opinion. The best bet is sheer numbers to tank while your brood lords and swarm guardians do the damage. Brood Lords are only useful against Terran because it wastes tank shots.
Vs Protoss: Aberrants are great tanks due to Protoss weakness vs lightly armored units. Do not have too many roaches, and have a lot of hydralisks. Corruptors are a must against colossi, though do not expect too much against scouts and psi storm. Swarm Guardians can shred the zealot wall and do decent against immortals.
Vs Zerg: Swarm Guardians are a must against inevitable hydralisk hordes. Not much to say here, do what your enemy does but do it better. Try to make adjustments between swarm guardians vs light units and hunter killers vs armored units.
General Openings: Roaches are very strong, but do not go overboard with them. My personal preference (which may be sub-optimal) is to open extremely weak, rushing to hive, getting an infestation pit and a slugalisk, before pumping hydras and then making a mid/late game roach switch.
Useless Units
Finally, there are some units in Desert Strike that just suck, but people keep making them (and losing, like idiots). Here are a list of units that you should either never make, or make only one of:
Zerglings: Past the first 5 minutes of the game, all armies end up revolving around large numbers of expensive units that can deal huge splash damage. Massing units that get killed 5 at a time without doing damage is stupid.
Void Rays: In the real game, Void Rays do decently against Corruptors. In this game, Corruptors are half the cost of Void Rays. 2 marines out-dps a voidray. Mass hydralisks, marines, and fade initiates also make this unit useless. They also tend to stack on the front lines, getting mauled by goliaths, storm, thor volleys, and everything else that can hit air.
Wraiths: Yes, they fire faster than vikings. But they have short range, low hp, and are armored. They suck.
Dark Templars: Detection is a no-brainer. Get 1 to harass early game.
Banelings: What the fuck? There's a unit called a “Swarm Guardian” zergs can make. Its damage output is literally 2 baneling's worth of damage per shot. Swarm Guardian shots also don't die to tank fire before they get anywhere close. These things are a recipe for suicide (lololol geddit).
Carriers: It is MAYBE worth it to get one against protoss to waste high templar storms. But they still suck for their cost.
Battlecruisers: Same thing as Carriers, except no tanking vs templars. They'd make good shields for vikings, if they weren't so slow.
Hellions: Hellions are situational enough in the real game when you can micro them. When you can't micro them, they are stupid.
Science vessels: Irradiate deals about 1 dmg per second or something stupid. Also, Terran mech don't have enough hp to live to get healed 3 hp before dying.
Stalkers: These things are decent in early-mid game, but are terrible at every other time in the game. They can't tank damage, they don't do damage, and they teleport behind your colossi when shot at, leaving them vulnerable. Also, Ravens.
***
So there's everything you and your allies need to know to win probably 99% of all games in Desert Strike. Questions and comments welcome!
|
I would have agreed with absolutely everything here (for epic game) a few days ago. You should play assuming the game will reach the final battle and having the best army to beat their's. And I am starting to think broodlords beat swarm guardians in that regard. Swarm guardians are really good, but broodlords are also good in the final battle (but useless everywhere else)
|
Something to consider: air superiority can lead to the destruction of the opposing team's detection. Colossi-heavy compositions, for instance, will not fare well against the kind of mass viking/banshee/wraith stuff terran can throw at you.
In my experience I have also found that zerg is the weakest race. This is especially true in the final battle, because zerg units simply take up too much space for their dps and (hydras especially) die easily to all the AoE attacks.
|
I'm curious what you think of diamondbacks. I see them a lot but I don't really see them as the scary part of any army.
|
I have to say, I just might take up Desert strike again, as this guide does seem to hit on some very good unit compositions. As protoss, I managed to wreck in a ZZP v P(me), with me winning the final battle with 92 units left. Archons and colossi are DEFINITELY the way to go with any protoss ball
|
On February 09 2011 15:02 gROOT.clever wrote:
Something to consider: air superiority can lead to the destruction of the opposing team's detection. Colossi-heavy compositions, for instance, will not fare well against the kind of mass viking/banshee/wraith stuff terran can throw at you.
I know what you're talking about, some Terrans go wraith/banshee/viking heavy to take out detection, or Zerg goes scourge. However, these builds only "appear" to work at certain points in the game (certainly not late-game where it matters most), and can easily be countered via small adjustments that do not sacrifice the strength of a strong ground army.
Air units just aren't cost effective, cloaked or not. I just add 1 more detector for a grand total of two, and a few more scouts/corruptors/vikings to distract the anti-air units while goliaths/brutalisks/thors/templar/fade initiates completely shred your stacked short-ranged air units. Scourge are a major menace until the final battle, when they just simply die to marines and stuff before taking down enough air units. Detection simply isn't an issue for a good build.
TL;DR Air units suck, can always be killed by an equivalent AA ground force + a few distraction air units worth half the cost.
On February 09 2011 15:49 Turgid wrote:
I'm curious what you think of diamondbacks. I see them a lot but I don't really see them as the scary part of any army.
I think of them as "eh". They are potentially useful, but there are a lot of things that convince me otherwise (I never use them). They have huge bonus damage vs. light units, and good hp for their cost, making them potentially useful against Zergs who use lots of aberrants to tank. But hunter killers behind roaches/ultras can make short work of them, and their firing rate is slow. They are terrible against Terran and Protoss because marauders and immortals are just too strong against armor. Finally, in order to make a lot of diamondbacks along with your goliaths and tanks means a lot of ground vikings, which just aren't that great.
|
I like this guide. Its very informative for general strategy. I spawned as Protoss last night from Random (I always random) and was facing a Terran on my spawn. He opened standard bioball but late game switched to mass, MASS air and a had maybe 6-8 tanks. Lots of banshees and air vikings. I opened with lots of zealots, archons, grey zealots and sentries, eventually switching to some fades, immortals and colossi. I also had 9 high templar and 12 scouts, but was still getting beat. What should I have done differently?
|
My favorite part of desert strike is when your waves are owning them so you save up all your money so that whenever they start to push you can counter whatever they got perfectly, but then your allies boot you because they are 11 year olds.
also this game should really be rebalanced because basically just sitting there for 30min until the final battle where units behave totally differently than in the real game every single time is really boring and lame.
|
I've been playing DS quite a lot in the past few weeks and I must disagree with some of your points.
Points 1, 2 and 3. Those are only true in Epic mode. One thing that saddens me is that everyone always vote for epic (just because it's called Epic, if it was called Long-ass mode or ''prepare to waste 80 minutes'' mode, it wouldnt be so popular)
I love epic, but I'm just saying, strategies differ.
The point is, Gas up and don't feel the need to build bunkers in Epic mode. Defenses help, but ultimately, the ODDS are that you will lose the silo eventualy.
4. True for Tanks and Collossi, not as much for Guardians, get them if your enemies go mass Light armor.
As for diamondbacks, I found them particularly useful if I'm pitted against many abberations (light armor), predators (light armor, again) or Unseen Servants (guess what, light armor).
5. Not true. Not true at all. Just for kicks, next time you play terran. Once you finish your 6th refinery, mass wraiths until the end of the game. And I mean, 45+ wraiths. See what happens.
There's only 1 counter to that strategy, it will demolish everything else.
Sudden Death is ALL about winning the air battle. If you have ships that can shoot the ground, and they have no anti-air. It's automaticly GG. Even better, if you blow up all their detection, you now have flying AND invisible units that CANNOT be destroyed.
6. Yep
I wouldnt say Anti-Zerg though, I'd say, Anti-Whatever they are building.
There's a difference.
7. Yep
But there are exceptions where you can use booms to gain momentum, to get the other team to boom and end the game BEFORE sudden death.
8. Again, point 7. You can force the other team to use booms with specials, and your own booms. It's an offensive weapon.
What I love about DS is that even though you know your enemy's race, there is no definite counter until you actualy see what they build. Instead of doing a VS X race guide, I would do a ''what unit counters this unit'' guide.
Useless Units:
Zerglings: Yeah, they suck past 5 minutes. They only use I found is to catch up to your ally's spawn. They are the fastest unit, so they will run past the tanks, get owned and soak up damage until the REAL units arrive.
Thats all I noticed for zerglings.
Void Rays: Like Husky says in his replays, voidrays are a great source of DPS. If my enemy likes building archons, or capital ships, a few void rays never hurt (or in this case, yeah, they definitely hurt)
I also played ONE game, a 2v2, where my ally did nothing but mass Void Rays. Since there is no unit that does Air Armored splash damage, those 60 void rays demolished a SH*Tload of stuff before they got taken down.
Wraiths: I used to think they were useless. They are a game winner. If you don't beleive me ask me why.
Dark Templars: Owned by detection. Good DPS but not enough HP. Splash takes them out.
Banelings: Only useful in the begining. The odds are that later on they explode against non-light armored units and thus waste themselves.
Scourges: They work if you support them with other flying units.
Carriers: Too expensive, never found a real use for them. Flying damage soaker. But the Mothership is better for that.
BCs: A few for support is good, but it's like carriers. The Yamato is useful, but unreliable.
Hellions: They run too fast. Plain and Simple. Firebats do the exact same job but stick with your army.
Science Vessels: Very useful if you go mech. There are a LOT of units that suck ass unless you build a good handful of them. Try making 6 science vessels if your armor is full of thors, goliaths and BCs. They HELP a LOT! It's medicavs for mech.
Stalkers: Good support, but don't rely on them to do anything useful. They shoot Air that will attack your collossi but Fades do a better job and I don't even build fades anymore. I go scouts just because you scouts will die instead of your collossi.
======
Unrelated but awesome point. My girlfriend started playing DS and she's loving it. I still can't get my mind around that one...
======
|
On February 10 2011 00:06 Krowser wrote:
I've been playing DS quite a lot in the past few weeks and I must disagree with some of your points.
Points 1, 2 and 3. Those are only true in Epic mode. One thing that saddens me is that everyone always vote for epic (just because it's called Epic, if it was called Long-ass mode or ''prepare to waste 80 minutes'' mode, it wouldnt be so popular)
I love epic, but I'm just saying, strategies differ.
The point is, Gas up and don't feel the need to build bunkers in Epic mode. Defenses help, but ultimately, the ODDS are that you will lose the silo eventualy.
4. True for Tanks and Collossi, not as much for Guardians, get them if your enemies go mass Light armor.
As for diamondbacks, I found them particularly useful if I'm pitted against many abberations (light armor), predators (light armor, again) or Unseen Servants (guess what, light armor).
5. Not true. Not true at all. Just for kicks, next time you play terran. Once you finish your 6th refinery, mass wraiths until the end of the game. And I mean, 45+ wraiths. See what happens.
There's only 1 counter to that strategy, it will demolish everything else.
Sudden Death is ALL about winning the air battle. If you have ships that can shoot the ground, and they have no anti-air. It's automaticly GG. Even better, if you blow up all their detection, you now have flying AND invisible units that CANNOT be destroyed.
6. Yep
I wouldnt say Anti-Zerg though, I'd say, Anti-Whatever they are building.
There's a difference.
7. Yep
But there are exceptions where you can use booms to gain momentum, to get the other team to boom and end the game BEFORE sudden death.
8. Again, point 7. You can force the other team to use booms with specials, and your own booms. It's an offensive weapon.
What I love about DS is that even though you know your enemy's race, there is no definite counter until you actualy see what they build. Instead of doing a VS X race guide, I would do a ''what unit counters this unit'' guide.
Useless Units:
Zerglings: Yeah, they suck past 5 minutes. They only use I found is to catch up to your ally's spawn. They are the fastest unit, so they will run past the tanks, get owned and soak up damage until the REAL units arrive.
Thats all I noticed for zerglings.
Void Rays: Like Husky says in his replays, voidrays are a great source of DPS. If my enemy likes building archons, or capital ships, a few void rays never hurt (or in this case, yeah, they definitely hurt)
I also played ONE game, a 2v2, where my ally did nothing but mass Void Rays. Since there is no unit that does Air Armored splash damage, those 60 void rays demolished a SH*Tload of stuff before they got taken down.
Wraiths: I used to think they were useless. They are a game winner. If you don't beleive me ask me why.
Dark Templars: Owned by detection. Good DPS but not enough HP. Splash takes them out.
Banelings: Only useful in the begining. The odds are that later on they explode against non-light armored units and thus waste themselves.
Scourges: They work if you support them with other flying units.
Carriers: Too expensive, never found a real use for them. Flying damage soaker. But the Mothership is better for that.
BCs: A few for support is good, but it's like carriers. The Yamato is useful, but unreliable.
Hellions: They run too fast. Plain and Simple. Firebats do the exact same job but stick with your army.
Science Vessels: Very useful if you go mech. There are a LOT of units that suck ass unless you build a good handful of them. Try making 6 science vessels if your armor is full of thors, goliaths and BCs. They HELP a LOT! It's medicavs for mech.
Stalkers: Good support, but don't rely on them to do anything useful. They shoot Air that will attack your collossi but Fades do a better job and I don't even build fades anymore. I go scouts just because you scouts will die instead of your collossi.
======
Unrelated but awesome point. My girlfriend started playing DS and she's loving it. I still can't get my mind around that one...
======
I dunno if you really read the guide close enough. Half of your "disagreements" are agreements and the other half argues for strategies that work only against newbies.
1-3: My guide is written ONLY for epic mode, and says so at the beginning.
4. Zerg units have short range. You need Swarm Guardians in all cases to stack on top of your ground units to reliably deal ground splash damage. Otherwise 600 zerg ground units WILL die to a 250 unit Terran ground army.
5. No. Just no. Winning a couple of games against people who suck by going mass air does not make it a viable strategy. Air units are expensive and take a long time to mass. Any half-decent player will see it a mile coming and rape it hard. Here's why:
Mass Wraith/Banshee/Viking:
Terran: Wraiths and Banshees both have short range and will stack together. I'll get 6-8 Ravens as customary against Terran, and 12 or so vikings. Thors do light damage, but when your wraiths stack like that a few volleys will demolish all of your wraiths along with Goliath fire.
Zerg: Hunter Killers and brutalisks with enough corruptors to tank. Not even close to being a threat.
Protoss: Again, wraiths stack. A bunch of templar, 12 or more scouts, some archons (which do splash btw) and enough fade initiates.
Voids are dealt with in much the same way except are also weak to EMP. Just because they're good in the real game doesn't mean their good in DS. The cost differentials makes any comparison useless.
8. Booms are free. Specials cost 3500. Why would you trade away specials for booms -_-
You special, they boom, their waves are now 3500 minerals more powerful than yours.
|
broodlords are great for final battle. nothing mucks up things more then tons of broodlings to cause tanks to splash their own forces, waste psi storms, prevent colossi and thors from moving, etc. Just are MEH at best before final battle due to how retardedly slow they are
|
On February 10 2011 04:07 Newbistic wrote:Show nested quote +On February 10 2011 00:06 Krowser wrote:
I've been playing DS quite a lot in the past few weeks and I must disagree with some of your points.
Points 1, 2 and 3. Those are only true in Epic mode. One thing that saddens me is that everyone always vote for epic (just because it's called Epic, if it was called Long-ass mode or ''prepare to waste 80 minutes'' mode, it wouldnt be so popular)
I love epic, but I'm just saying, strategies differ.
The point is, Gas up and don't feel the need to build bunkers in Epic mode. Defenses help, but ultimately, the ODDS are that you will lose the silo eventualy.
4. True for Tanks and Collossi, not as much for Guardians, get them if your enemies go mass Light armor.
As for diamondbacks, I found them particularly useful if I'm pitted against many abberations (light armor), predators (light armor, again) or Unseen Servants (guess what, light armor).
5. Not true. Not true at all. Just for kicks, next time you play terran. Once you finish your 6th refinery, mass wraiths until the end of the game. And I mean, 45+ wraiths. See what happens.
There's only 1 counter to that strategy, it will demolish everything else.
Sudden Death is ALL about winning the air battle. If you have ships that can shoot the ground, and they have no anti-air. It's automaticly GG. Even better, if you blow up all their detection, you now have flying AND invisible units that CANNOT be destroyed.
6. Yep
I wouldnt say Anti-Zerg though, I'd say, Anti-Whatever they are building.
There's a difference.
7. Yep
But there are exceptions where you can use booms to gain momentum, to get the other team to boom and end the game BEFORE sudden death.
8. Again, point 7. You can force the other team to use booms with specials, and your own booms. It's an offensive weapon.
What I love about DS is that even though you know your enemy's race, there is no definite counter until you actualy see what they build. Instead of doing a VS X race guide, I would do a ''what unit counters this unit'' guide.
Useless Units:
Zerglings: Yeah, they suck past 5 minutes. They only use I found is to catch up to your ally's spawn. They are the fastest unit, so they will run past the tanks, get owned and soak up damage until the REAL units arrive.
Thats all I noticed for zerglings.
Void Rays: Like Husky says in his replays, voidrays are a great source of DPS. If my enemy likes building archons, or capital ships, a few void rays never hurt (or in this case, yeah, they definitely hurt)
I also played ONE game, a 2v2, where my ally did nothing but mass Void Rays. Since there is no unit that does Air Armored splash damage, those 60 void rays demolished a SH*Tload of stuff before they got taken down.
Wraiths: I used to think they were useless. They are a game winner. If you don't beleive me ask me why.
Dark Templars: Owned by detection. Good DPS but not enough HP. Splash takes them out.
Banelings: Only useful in the begining. The odds are that later on they explode against non-light armored units and thus waste themselves.
Scourges: They work if you support them with other flying units.
Carriers: Too expensive, never found a real use for them. Flying damage soaker. But the Mothership is better for that.
BCs: A few for support is good, but it's like carriers. The Yamato is useful, but unreliable.
Hellions: They run too fast. Plain and Simple. Firebats do the exact same job but stick with your army.
Science Vessels: Very useful if you go mech. There are a LOT of units that suck ass unless you build a good handful of them. Try making 6 science vessels if your armor is full of thors, goliaths and BCs. They HELP a LOT! It's medicavs for mech.
Stalkers: Good support, but don't rely on them to do anything useful. They shoot Air that will attack your collossi but Fades do a better job and I don't even build fades anymore. I go scouts just because you scouts will die instead of your collossi.
======
Unrelated but awesome point. My girlfriend started playing DS and she's loving it. I still can't get my mind around that one...
====== I dunno if you really read the guide close enough. Half of your "disagreements" are agreements and the other half argues for strategies that work only against newbies. 1-3: My guide is written ONLY for epic mode, and says so at the beginning. 4. Zerg units have short range. You need Swarm Guardians in all cases to stack on top of your ground units to reliably deal ground splash damage. Otherwise 600 zerg ground units WILL die to a 250 unit Terran ground army. 5. No. Just no. Winning a couple of games against people who suck by going mass air does not make it a viable strategy. Air units are expensive and take a long time to mass. Any half-decent player will see it a mile coming and rape it hard. Here's why: Mass Wraith/Banshee/Viking: Terran: Wraiths and Banshees both have short range and will stack together. I'll get 6-8 Ravens as customary against Terran, and 12 or so vikings. Thors do light damage, but when your wraiths stack like that a few volleys will demolish all of your wraiths along with Goliath fire. Zerg: Hunter Killers and brutalisks with enough corruptors to tank. Not even close to being a threat. Protoss: Again, wraiths stack. A bunch of templar, 12 or more scouts, some archons (which do splash btw) and enough fade initiates. Voids are dealt with in much the same way except are also weak to EMP. Just because they're good in the real game doesn't mean their good in DS. The cost differentials makes any comparison useless. 8. Booms are free. Specials cost 3500. Why would you trade away specials for booms -_- You special, they boom, their waves are now 3500 minerals more powerful than yours.
Well, yeah, I did say I disagreed with SOME of your points. I'm not trying to got Internet Bashfest on you. Your guide has some good points.
Did you ever try mass broodlords? After playing so many games I got tired of the usual build. I tried them a few times. They work really well if you're against a tank heavy terran.
5. I'm not here to argue, but I think you're exagerating when you say air is completly useless. You even say in your guide that Medivacs, Guardians and ravens are good.
Think about it. I have 40 wraiths, they each do 20 damage in AA. That tallies up to 800 damage. Which means they will 1-shot anything that flies. Any flying unit will tank some damage but SOONER rather than later, with this amount of wraiths, they will blow up. At this point, the support flying units will get owned, ravens, medivacs, guardians, collossi. AND once those guys are dead the wraiths have served their purpose but the AA units will still focus them down while the rest of the army fights the actual fight. The only real, efficient way of dealing with mass wraiths is psy storm.
YES the wraiths will all explode, but not before they take down everything that flies (crazy damage) and mess up the AI of any unit that can shoot in the air. That's why mass wraiths works.
I've tried this more than once and it works every single time, at least up to a certain degree. If your enemy is very dependant on air units, mass wraiths. Or even mass scouts. They cost 500 minerals a pop so I don't know why you're saying they arent cost effective.
Void Rays though... yeah, not a fan. They should be cheaper. The more you make the less chance they have of charging up so you only get half the damage you should.
I don't really build banshees. They move faster than the army so they are always in front and banshees are really weak.
Air Vikings I find are expensive, so it depends on the game.
As for booms and specials:
Sudden death is the way the game ends if it drags on and on, so technically you're supposed to end it before round 81. And with people reluctant to use specials, if they use one boom and you're quick enough with your teammates, it can spell GG.
You push, They boom and build momentum
You boom back
They boom back
You boom back
They use their last boom.
Ult and push. IF they ult, use your last boom. So on so forth.
It makes the game more interesting than taking a nap until round 78 to mass whatever is missing.
IMHO
|
what is the xp for? ive been getting some, but i don't know what's the point of them.
|
XP is for some system that hasn't been implemented yet.
|
So here is the ONLY problem with the [G] tag...
Epic games are a joke. It is an hour long game building up to a final battle that is more dependent on your allies than you.
Expert demands strategy and cost-benefit analysis. You can't even take the 6th gas and earn it back. The 5th is barely worth it. In Expert? A Silo kill is all but priceless if you can hold yours because of how short the match is. Most of my games end with a silo kill for me and none for them. The faster enemy gas ONLY counts until I gas, because I gain the same income. At early levels its a different of 60-80 minerals, maybe 150 MAX because of the 3 gas bottleneck until 41. That means that a fast Silo kill is ALWAYS better than gas'ing. Gas'ing a 6 spawns late is only 1/3rd the value of a silo kill. Unless you are talking about gas'ing 10+ rounds late, the Silo is the CORRECT choice.
|
People play expert games? I've never seen anyone vote for it.
|
Oh man I saw this thread title and got super excited because I thought this would be a UMS remake of the classic Genesis game. Too bad, I'll have to check this out though.
|
On February 11 2011 08:21 Sleight wrote:
So here is the ONLY problem with the [G] tag...
Epic games are a joke. It is an hour long game building up to a final battle that is more dependent on your allies than you.
Expert demands strategy and cost-benefit analysis. You can't even take the 6th gas and earn it back. The 5th is barely worth it. In Expert? A Silo kill is all but priceless if you can hold yours because of how short the match is. Most of my games end with a silo kill for me and none for them. The faster enemy gas ONLY counts until I gas, because I gain the same income. At early levels its a different of 60-80 minerals, maybe 150 MAX because of the 3 gas bottleneck until 41. That means that a fast Silo kill is ALWAYS better than gas'ing. Gas'ing a 6 spawns late is only 1/3rd the value of a silo kill. Unless you are talking about gas'ing 10+ rounds late, the Silo is the CORRECT choice.
I wrote the guide for epic games because I play pubbie, and only about 5 percent of pubbie games are Expert. I frankly don't have the experience in expert games to make solid statements on how it should be played. My experience tells me you'd have to be much more careful about your early game compositions so you do not lose your silo early.
Also, Expert demands more cost-benefit analysis than epic, but not as much as you think. The general rule is just to gas ASAP whenever you think you can get away with it. The 6th gas isn't worth it, but you can figure that out yourself through a bit of math, you don't need "strategy" to tell you that.
Gassing in expert is less about economy and more about whether or not you can survive the period of not earning income during the cool down.
P.S. I did the math for the first 3 gasses. If you are rushing, you come out ahead if you kill the silo and are still able to get the 3rd gas at least within 2.5-3 rounds of the enemy. Otherwise, they will come out ahead in terms of net income in the first 41 rounds, and will become even more ahead if they manage to kill YOUR silo.
|
I was about to ask the same thing about what exp is used for. Great map btw, I just started playing it not to long ago and am really interested in it. I lost my first 2 or 3 games, but won the next one in a very memorable round. Our ally left early on and our Nexus was about to be destroyed when the spawns ended and the epic battle/slideshow began. It came down to the opponent having nothing but Siege Tanks left and just a few Broodlords on our team. The Siege Tanks were cleaned up and we won! I have the replay if anyone wants to see it. Thanks for the guide I am sure it will help many.
|
I usualy vote for casual, but it always ends up on Epic.
Has anyone found a good use for Phase Prisms?
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
