** Official Star Craft 2 Multiplayer Thread **

[ChaoZ]

Ugh, am on a 7 game losing streak.

The people that have really high APM in the beginning spam their actions a lot. It's usually to warm their hands up and get it up to speed, but some just doing to extend their epeen. If you have high APM average then that's pretty good. I hover around the 100-110 APM mark.

 

[imaheadcase]

You complain of rushing, and then give an example of tier 3 tech? 12 battle cruisers is not a rush. That is the complete opposite of rush, that is 100% tech. Building nothing but 1 type of unit is not a rush. Rushing is focusing on small units and ignoring any kind of tech up to attack your opponent quickly. Usually a good rush builds very few harvesters to focus on all combat units.

Nobody is in a hurry to win, but everybody is trying to win. If you do not build tons of units quickly and your opponent does...then GG. And if you do build and your opponent doesn't, why wouldn't you attack during a moment of weakness? This is competitive play, win at any cost. If you want nice slow friendly games, then you need to play custom games with an agreement not to rush etc.

Actually it is a rush, they rush to win with superior unit. Thats all they concentrate on.
Seriously to win with terran, all they do is make a dozen buildings at choke point. game over while they use one resource to build battle cruisers. You can't counter than in early game, you send in small foruces real fast to attack them, but they just need one harvester to repair them. All the while he is still building behind the wall. The only option is to build up yourself, but by then its to late since he is making BG.

Competitive games that i watch they don't even do that, they have lots of small skirmishes back and forth.

The only tactic people use in game is to mass build one unit and send it on a rampage. No real fun in it.

 

[beginner99]

Actually it is a rush, they rush to win with superior unit. Thats all they concentrate on.
Seriously to win with terran, all they do is make a dozen buildings at choke point. game over while they use one resource to build battle cruisers. You can't counter than in early game, you send in small foruces real fast to attack them, but they just need one harvester to repair them. All the while he is still building behind the wall. The only option is to build up yourself, but by then its to late since he is making BG.

Competitive games that i watch they don't even do that, they have lots of small skirmishes back and forth.

The only tactic people use in game is to mass build one unit and send it on a rampage. No real fun in it.

Well if he wall sin for 1 base it's easy. just get as many expansion as you think are suitable and then you can outmacro him. get 1 expansion and go mass void ray as example. Beats BC easly. Or just drop him before he has any meaningful army.

 

[rcpratt]

Actually it is a rush, they rush to win with superior unit. Thats all they concentrate on.
Seriously to win with terran, all they do is make a dozen buildings at choke point. game over while they use one resource to build battle cruisers. You can't counter than in early game, you send in small foruces real fast to attack them, but they just need one harvester to repair them. All the while he is still building behind the wall. The only option is to build up yourself, but by then its to late since he is making BG.

Competitive games that i watch they don't even do that, they have lots of small skirmishes back and forth.

The only tactic people use in game is to mass build one unit and send it on a rampage. No real fun in it.

You have no idea what you're talking about. As zerg, it's amusing simple to use banelings to bust the the wall. Or use roaches to *gasp* kill the workers and units behind the wall. As toss, just get stalkers and *gasp* kill the workers and units behind the wall. Or learn blink and bypass the wall. Or get warp prisms. Or get a few templar and lol at the battlecruisers as you take away half their health with feedback.

As for the APM thing, it's completely overrated. If you can pull 100+ in combat you're fine. As for the people that spam in the beginning, don't buy the "warming up their fingers" shit. They're boosting their APM so they can call it double what it really is.

 

[SlitheryDee]

What APM you guys normally have?

Mine is very low (like 40-50) especially compared to top players. I always wonder why they have 100+ APM even in the beginning? what are you doing?

What is an action? only clicks or moving the mouse/"scrolling"?

Mine seems to average around 40 now. I've noticed that my average apm has been going up steadily since I started reviewing my replays. It was about 25 when I first started. I also notice that it spikes up to 200-300 in tense situations where I'm doing a lot of troop movement and base management at the same time.

I think the pros' apm is so high in the beginning of games because they like to "warm up" by constantly selecting their workers and base, click the mineral patches, queueing and cancel worker production, etc. They're not really doing anything useful, but it allows them to set up a good clicking and hotkeying pace for when they DO do have something to do.

Personally, if I don't have anything to do, I don't do anything. Then again, I also make loads of errors in the form of forgetting to queue new workers, forgetting to build supply depots, forgetting to research crucial tech as soon as I can. Oh I get all that done eventually, but not until after my CC has been dormant for a minute or so, I've been supply blocked for a minute or so, or I've had to delay a push for a minute or so while marine shields or concussive shells or something researches. All that adds up. Maybe if I set up a clicking pace that encouraged me to constantly be looking for something I need to click or do I'd do better.

 

[Glitchny]

Actually it is a rush, they rush to win with superior unit. Thats all they concentrate on.
Seriously to win with terran, all they do is make a dozen buildings at choke point. game over while they use one resource to build battle cruisers. You can't counter than in early game, you send in small foruces real fast to attack them, but they just need one harvester to repair them. All the while he is still building behind the wall. The only option is to build up yourself, but by then its to late since he is making BG.

Competitive games that i watch they don't even do that, they have lots of small skirmishes back and forth.

The only tactic people use in game is to mass build one unit and send it on a rampage. No real fun in it.

You are so wrong, you sound like every other kid complaining on the official forums. if they are teching to BC's it is very easy to attack/harass early. You can go around the wall, expand to take over through economy, scout the BC's and I dunno make counters? 8-10 upgraded Marines can kill a BC, hydra's, stalkers, all the AA units... it's really not hard to deal with. Hell if you're toss build void rays and laugh as the bc's melt.

Bad players in bronze tend to mass more, or those in practice games, and some teams try to use it as a strategy, but it is incredibly easy to scout and leaves them open in the entire early game.

Also it's not a rush, you can't rush BC's unless the person you are playing just sits there with their thumb up their ass as it takes a lot of resources.

 

[Majes]

The term "rush" has long been a confusing term in RTS games... I would say the general definition would be something like this... "To coordinate and attack in force as early as possible." Sadly, this can mean a lot of things to different people. My advice is when you are playing RTS games and someone says "lets rush!" simply ask them what they want you to get...

I've had teammates scream at me for harassing when they said rush... I've had other teammates talk about rushing with high tier units when that is a "tech" not a "rush"...

To be honest once you get into higher levels of play the term becomes meaningless. Higher levels are all about harassing which is a much clearer term. Very few good players simply sit back in their base and wait for a certain number of units. You should be scouting and harassing. Even in 4v4 everyone should be harassing and scouting unless you all choose to immediately hit one person. Even then it is more harass than rush. I always chuckle when I get into an random team game and players are going on about rushing. I generally just ignore it and harass to try to win the game by myself...

 

[Barfo]

Actually it is a rush, they rush to win with superior unit. Thats all they concentrate on.
Seriously to win with terran, all they do is make a dozen buildings at choke point. game over while they use one resource to build battle cruisers. You can't counter than in early game, you send in small foruces real fast to attack them, but they just need one harvester to repair them. All the while he is still building behind the wall. The only option is to build up yourself, but by then its to late since he is making BG.

Competitive games that i watch they don't even do that, they have lots of small skirmishes back and forth.

The only tactic people use in game is to mass build one unit and send it on a rampage. No real fun in it.

You mad because people don't play the way you want them to? lol

 

[NYHoustonman]

As for the APM thing, it's completely overrated. If you can pull 100+ in combat you're fine. As for the people that spam in the beginning, don't buy the "warming up their fingers" shit. They're boosting their APM so they can call it double what it really is.

I'm pretty much in that boat, and am doing very well for myself playing as Random. I typically average 60 APM, and I don't generally see any correlation between an opponent's APM and whether or not they manage to beat me.

 

[Glitchny]

I'm pretty much in that boat, and am doing very well for myself playing as Random. I typically average 60 APM, and I don't generally see any correlation between an opponent's APM and whether or not they manage to beat me.

yea same here, Huk, one of the best toss players in the world averages around 100apm and he does just fine.

Also remember that the apm displayed in the game is "in game time" so on faster your actual apm is 1.4(i think that's right) times the number shown. On normal your apm is the actual number.

 

[SpicyCurry]

Personally, if I don't have anything to do, I don't do anything.

There is always something to do, especially after the first minute. And even in the first minute, there is a few things you can do depending on how much of a tryhard you want to be.

For Protoss and Terran, you can rally your first two produced workers to empty mineral patches. This will be slightly faster than simply setting some arbitrary rally point, then having the worker AI send them to an empty patch.

For Zerg, you can rally the morphed Drone egg to the closest mineral patch (doesn't have to be an empty patch). If there is currently a Drone mining it, send it to another empty patch after it returns minerals. This essentially makes it so that the closest mineral patch to your morphing Drone becomes an empty patch.

Obviously, these little things won't win you the game alone. However, the combination of this with twenty other little things gives you a big advantage, which may actually lead to a win.

 

[Glitchny]

There is always something to do, especially after the first minute. And even in the first minute, there is a few things you can do depending on how much of a tryhard you want to be.

For Protoss and Terran, you can rally your first two produced workers to empty mineral patches. This will be slightly faster than simply setting some arbitrary rally point, then having the worker AI send them to an empty patch.

For Zerg, you can rally the morphed Drone egg to the closest mineral patch (doesn't have to be an empty patch). If there is currently a Drone mining it, send it to another empty patch after it returns minerals. This essentially makes it so that the closest mineral patch to your morphing Drone becomes an empty patch.

Obviously, these little things won't win you the game alone. However, the combination of this with twenty other little things gives you a big advantage, which may actually lead to a win.

From what I remember reading TeamLiquid tested this and the whole splitting the scvs at start and the gain you get from it is more or less irrelevant. It was something like it gave such a small advantage that 1 single misclick or second of wasted time anywhere else during the game nullifies the advantage you may have gotten.

 

[evident]

thought this was pretty funny :
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/374720742

 

[bhanson]

From what I remember reading TeamLiquid tested this and the whole splitting the scvs at start and the gain you get from it is more or less irrelevant. It was something like it gave such a small advantage that 1 single misclick or second of wasted time anywhere else during the game nullifies the advantage you may have gotten.

The little things can matter in the right situations.

I played a ZvZ the other day which turned into a base race. At the end we had 8-9 zerglings trying to finish each others pool/bling nest. His building placement was slightly superior (allowed less surface area) and was going to win the rush down. I had an extra drone that I wanted to send somewhere to build an extractor at the last minute but alas, I only had 20 minerals. One extra mineral trip from one drone and I would have won that game. I probably could have gotten that extra 5 minerals by selecting better initial mineral nodes for new drones. I only had about 20% of his spawning pool left.

Imagine if this was tournament game how stupid it would feel to lose by 5 minerals.

 

[zylander]

Lately my friend and I have been doing 2v2 quick match games with random other people. Finally gotten down a system that protects us from stupid ass reaper rushes. Lately however we have encountered players rushing void rays. He plays terran and can counter with lots of marines but what is a good protoss unit to counter void rays? Ive been chasing them with stalkers but is there anything else? I tried hitting his rays with the phoenix but they barely made a dent.

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

try dragoons.

 

[Glitchny]

Lately my friend and I have been doing 2v2 quick match games with random other people. Finally gotten down a system that protects us from stupid ass reaper rushes. Lately however we have encountered players rushing void rays. He plays terran and can counter with lots of marines but what is a good protoss unit to counter void rays? Ive been chasing them with stalkers but is there anything else? I tried hitting his rays with the phoenix but they barely made a dent.

Stalkers or your own void rays is pretty much it. As to the topic of reapers they just posted new patch notes and reapers are one of the things getting changed... as well as zealots and warp gates.

check the stickied thread (last page) for the notes.

 

[rcpratt]

Two replays, because somebody asked.

TvP, MM/Ghost vs 3gate/robo (terran win) - http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/65812-1v1-terran-protoss-lost-temple
TvP, MMM/Ghost vs 4gate/colossi (toss win) - http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/65799-1v1-terran-protoss-blistering-sands

 

[JTsyo]

Lately my friend and I have been doing 2v2 quick match games with random other people. Finally gotten down a system that protects us from stupid ass reaper rushes. Lately however we have encountered players rushing void rays. He plays terran and can counter with lots of marines but what is a good protoss unit to counter void rays? Ive been chasing them with stalkers but is there anything else? I tried hitting his rays with the phoenix but they barely made a dent.

In a 2v2, my friend tried to rush with 3 reapers. For some season the reapers were just dying. Then we realized the guy had a planetary fortress. Guess it was good vs the rush but not having MULES is a big sacrifice.

 

[SlitheryDee]

In a 2v2, my friend tried to rush with 3 reapers. For some season the reapers were just dying. Then we realized the guy had a planetary fortress. Guess it was good vs the rush but not having MULES is a big sacrifice.

I always just send my first marauder or two into my mineral line. So far it's completely nullified every very fast reaper rush I've encountered. You can generally get your first marauder out around the same time it takes him to make a reaper + travel to your base. Making a planetary fortress in your main is giving up too much too early IMO.

 

[Glitchny]

In a 2v2, my friend tried to rush with 3 reapers. For some season the reapers were just dying. Then we realized the guy had a planetary fortress. Guess it was good vs the rush but not having MULES is a big sacrifice.

yea but it's a pretty awesome counter if he saw you teching to reapers, he must have gotten that Engineering bay super fast.

 

[NYHoustonman]

thought this was pretty funny :
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/374720742

Awesome .

 

[DangerAardvark]

God fucking damn mutas. WTF am I supposed to do, nothing in my army is that mobile. If I turret up, I'm way behind on production/expansion. And all they do is find the gaps in the turret coverage.

 

[SpicyCurry]

For Protoss and Terran, you can rally your first two produced workers to empty mineral patches.

For Zerg, you can rally the morphed Drone egg to the closest mineral patch (doesn't have to be an empty patch). If there is currently a Drone mining it, send it to another empty patch after it returns minerals. This essentially makes it so that the closest mineral patch to your morphing Drone becomes an empty patch.

From what I remember reading TeamLiquid tested this and the whole splitting the scvs at start and the gain you get from it is more or less irrelevant. It was something like it gave such a small advantage that 1 single misclick or second of wasted time anywhere else during the game nullifies the advantage you may have gotten.

Was never talking about the worker split. I read that same article on TeamLiquid, so I agree it's probably not worth it to manually split the initial 6 workers.

My original post above was only about the first two workers that you build. Since you start with 6 workers and the standard Blizzard maps now have 8 mineral patches, you'll want to rally your first two produced workers directly to the empty mineral patch. This does not require fast nor accurate clicking, so it's something everyone can do.

 

[Aikouka]

My original post above was only about the first two workers that you build. Since you start with 6 workers and the standard Blizzard maps now have 8 mineral patches, you'll want to rally your first two produced workers directly to the empty mineral patch. This does not require fast nor accurate clicking, so it's something everyone can do.

I do that with my first two workers... pretty simply since there ain't much to do lol.