** Official Star Craft 2 Multiplayer Thread **

[Chriscross3234]

Finally did my 1v1 placements and I got into Gold, which I think is pretty good for someone who has no prior SC experience at all. I noticed that watching replays/commentaries is great for learning the game, especially for overall strategies and opening builds. The downside is that no amount of watching replays will teach you how to balance macro and micro during the mid/late game. My last game, I was so focused on pushing that I didn't keep a good supply of units pumping nor did I even try to expand, ugh. Hopefully more experience playing matches that will last to mid-game will help solve this problem.

 

[beginner99]

I whole-heartedly disagree about walling in. A wall built out of supply depots is very fragile, using banelings can bring it down in seconds as well as using Blink Stalkers and an observer to just jump into the base at a different entry point.

Happened to me in one of my first games, built the standard 2xDepot + Rax wall and all of a sudden banelings blew it up and in come the speedlings, GG. I've also had blink stalkers jump into my base from an angle with no defenses. It's not impossible to deal with.

Also with the speed that toss/zerg can get units out to rush with (which they all seem to do) the timing on making a fat-wall can be rough to get out in time.

Without the wall or bunker the 5 marines a Terran might have out by the time a toss has chrono-boosted zealots out will get shredded.

for blink you need a cybernetics core and twilight council + money for the tech itself. Also the research itself takes pretty long. You will also need an observer (or other air unit) to actually see the high ground to be able to blink.
Anyway I said the wall also needs a downside which is currently does not have.

 

[DangerAardvark]

Zs have fairly cheap scouts in the form of sacrificial overlords, especially if they get the speed upgrade. But yes, as a toss player I *HATE* that I can't scout what a Terran is going to do. I also hate the fact that Terran T1 always rapes toss gateway units, it's just not fair PvT is by far my worst matchup.

I've only done a handful of games so far, but I haven't lost to a Protoss yet. And haven't even fought a zerg.

 

[MikeyLSU]

Anyone care to critique my (lack of) game?

I'm the Terran player, I thought I was going to win easily when I camped outside his main base. Then he started destroying my completely unprotected base and I thought I was going to lose, so I said fuck it and sent my troops over to his base, which was weakly defended, I ended up winning.

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/59444-1v1-terran-protoss-steppes-of-war

first off, your barracks went up way too late. You would get slaughtered by any rush. I'd suggest blocking off your base and build a barracks before your second supply depot.

Next, when you were camping out of his base, you probably could have taken it early if you wanted. And instead of putting those bunkers down, you would have been better served to get some siege tanks to start taking down those cannons and gateways.

You won, which is the important part. Also, when you have such great map control like you had, you need to expand and utilize the map control.

 

[SpicyCurry]

for blink you need a cybernetics core and twilight council + money for the tech itself. Also the research itself takes pretty long. You will also need an observer (or other air unit) to actually see the high ground to be able to blink.
Anyway I said the wall also needs a downside which is currently does not have.

There is a minor downside to the wall-in, and that downside is it's difficult to defend your wall and your worker line at the same time. Since 99% of Terrans do a wall-in, I find it pretty effective to go Void Rays or Dark Templar in PvT. You can send one VR to hit the worker line, then send your main army to hit the wall right after he pulls his army back to fend off the VR. It forces the Terran player to split his forces, and many low/mid level players have huge trouble doing this. This kind of two-pronged attack usually won't win you the game, but it will definitely allow you to safely expand.

 

[Glitchny]

There is a minor downside to the wall-in, and that downside is it's difficult to defend your wall and your worker line at the same time. Since 99% of Terrans do a wall-in, I find it pretty effective to go Void Rays or Dark Templar in PvT. You can send one VR to hit the worker line, then send your main army to hit the wall right after he pulls his army back to fend off the VR. It forces the Terran player to split his forces, and many low/mid level players have huge trouble doing this. This kind of two-pronged attack usually won't win you the game, but it will definitely allow you to safely expand.

yep, it also slows down the Terran player when he turtles and generally gives the opponent map control.

I had a game last night where a zerg player tried to do that to me, he tried to go muta/ling but I had scouted it and had a fat wall of 2rax with a bunker to cover the side with the techlab. He tried to baneling bust(got my rax's red but I had an scv to repair) as he sent 3-4 mutas at my scvs. But I had literally just finished setting up 2 missile turrets at my minerals after I scouted the muta's and fended it off.

After that it was pretty much GG as I rolled out with 3 tanks a few Marauders and Marines. All he had was zerglings, and since he didn't expand i mopped those up and his next batch of 6 muta's finished as I blew up his hatchery and he GG'd.

I then had an hour long TvT game where I played like a retard, let him drop in my main, and didn't micro well at all and he killed a bunch. But I got control of both island expands and turreted in. After watching the replay I realized I could have won since I had 9 BC's at one point before he had any air, but I took too long.

 

[Aikouka]

. After watching the replay I realized I could have won since I had 9 BC's at one point before he had any air, but I took too long.

You know... Vikings are supposedly a counter to BCs, but fuck if I didn't get raped by 15 BCs last night with around 30-40 Vikings on my side (all focus firing of course) and my teammate even had Corruptors to help as well. I saw the BCs well before he even sent them and with all of my SPs popping out Viks I couldn't counter that :\.

EDIT:

Although, I did have a really fun game last night where I finally got around to using nukes for the first time in a long time . After I saw that the zerg player in the 2v2 wisened up after I annihilated his base with cloaked Banshees (and built spore cannons surrounding his nat), I just nuked the shit out of those cannons ().

His Terran teammate had pretty much nothing to detect me with (didn't even sweep...) and I nuked the hell out of his main base.

 

[SpicyCurry]

You know... Vikings are supposedly a counter to BCs, but fuck if I didn't get raped by 15 BCs last night with around 30-40 Vikings on my side (all focus firing of course) and my teammate even had Corruptors to help as well. I saw the BCs well before he even sent them and with all of my SPs popping out Viks I couldn't counter that :\.

EDIT:

Although, I did have a really fun game last night where I finally got around to using nukes for the first time in a long time . After I saw that the zerg player in the 2v2 wisened up after I annihilated his base with cloaked Banshees (and built spore cannons surrounding his nat), I just nuked the shit out of those cannons ().

His Terran teammate had pretty much nothing to detect me with (didn't even sweep...) and I nuked the hell out of his main base.

I'm curious about how to counter mass BCs as well. In Starcraft 1, massing capital ships wasn't too bad since the same minerals/gas pumped into Goliaths/Hydralisks/Dragoons can take on mass Carriers or BCs. Starcraft 2 seemed to be different for my one encounter with them.

I played against a ridiculously turtling Terran yesterday. He hunkered down with Tanks, Missile Turrets, and Supply Depot walls. He also had a medium-sized squad of Vikings that prevented any attempt at drops. I decided to counter this by expanding all over the map. I maxed out with an army of Zealots, Stalkers, Sentries, and High Templar. I decided to wait for him to move out, since I wasn't feeling confident charging head on into tanks. He went for mass BCs and moved out with those, supported by 10 tanks. I sent my army in, and I was able to kill all his tanks and half his BCs, but at the cost of my entire army. Even with Guardian Shield and mass Psi Storm, I still lost the battle. I was able to win the game since I could quickly replenish my army with my mass expansions, but losing all my units to the BCs was surprising.

Anyways, is there a hard counter to mass BCs? My Storms didn't seem to be super effective since BCs have so much hp. Would Feedback work better? Is the Feedback damage calculated in a 1:1 ratio between mana and damage?

 

[Aikouka]

Anyways, is there a hard counter to mass BCs? My Storms didn't seem to be super effective since BCs have so much hp. Would Feedback work better? Is the Feedback damage calculated in a 1:1 ratio between mana and damage?

Protoss have a somewhat easier counter than Terran with the Phoenix. While it deals increased damage to light targets ( making it very effective against mutas ), it has two other advantages... it is the fastest unit in the game (over 4 movement speed) and it can fire while moving. You'd have to micro the shit out of it, but you should be able to run-n-gun BCs with them.

I'm not sure if I could really do that well with Vikings since they aren't nearly as fast (around 2.7), but they are certainly faster than BCs ( which are slow as heck ).

 

[DangerAardvark]

I'm curious about how to counter mass BCs as well. In Starcraft 1, massing capital ships wasn't too bad since the same minerals/gas pumped into Goliaths/Hydralisks/Dragoons can take on mass Carriers or BCs. Starcraft 2 seemed to be different for my one encounter with them.

I played against a ridiculously turtling Terran yesterday. He hunkered down with Tanks, Missile Turrets, and Supply Depot walls. He also had a medium-sized squad of Vikings that prevented any attempt at drops. I decided to counter this by expanding all over the map. I maxed out with an army of Zealots, Stalkers, Sentries, and High Templar. I decided to wait for him to move out, since I wasn't feeling confident charging head on into tanks. He went for mass BCs and moved out with those, supported by 10 tanks. I sent my army in, and I was able to kill all his tanks and half his BCs, but at the cost of my entire army. Even with Guardian Shield and mass Psi Storm, I still lost the battle. I was able to win the game since I could quickly replenish my army with my mass expansions, but losing all my units to the BCs was surprising.

Anyways, is there a hard counter to mass BCs? My Storms didn't seem to be super effective since BCs have so much hp. Would Feedback work better? Is the Feedback damage calculated in a 1:1 ratio between mana and damage?

Storm doesn't do full damage against air units. But feedback will cut a BC's HP in half if he doesn't Yamato ASAP.

 

[MikeyLSU]

You know... Vikings are supposedly a counter to BCs, but fuck if I didn't get raped by 15 BCs last night with around 30-40 Vikings on my side (all focus firing of course) and my teammate even had Corruptors to help as well. I saw the BCs well before he even sent them and with all of my SPs popping out Viks I couldn't counter that :\.

EDIT:

Although, I did have a really fun game last night where I finally got around to using nukes for the first time in a long time . After I saw that the zerg player in the 2v2 wisened up after I annihilated his base with cloaked Banshees (and built spore cannons surrounding his nat), I just nuked the shit out of those cannons ().

His Terran teammate had pretty much nothing to detect me with (didn't even sweep...) and I nuked the hell out of his main base.

with that many vikings you probably shouldn't focus fire actually. Unless your group is split into 2 or 3 smaller groups to focus with. Otherwise you end up with 30 vikings shooting a BC and most shots end up being wasted.

I just did a test run on unit tester with 15 BC and 35 Vikings(which BC still are a ton more in gas) and with focus fire, the BC won, without any micro, 12 Vikings survived.

 

[Aikouka]

with that many vikings you probably shouldn't focus fire actually. Unless your group is split into 2 or 3 smaller groups to focus with. Otherwise you end up with 30 vikings shooting a BC and most shots end up being wasted.

I just did a test run on unit tester with 15 BC and 35 Vikings(which BC still are a ton more in gas) and with focus fire, the BC won, without any micro, 12 Vikings survived.

How would the shots end up wasted? Do you mean because of the need to crowd around the unit that they end up having trouble positioning?

 

[Dangerer]

How would the shots end up wasted? Do you mean because of the need to crowd around the unit that they end up having trouble positioning?

40 vikings focusing on one BC at a time will take down 15 BCs slower than 2 sets of 20 vikings focusing on 2 BCs at a time.

 

[Glitchny]

How would the shots end up wasted? Do you mean because of the need to crowd around the unit that they end up having trouble positioning?

the shots are wasted because the BC's will die from half the shots, basically all the shots after it died are wasted since they don't change target in air. Also vikings can counter BC's through kiting, the vikings have the longest range and are faster so they can be picked apart, just takes awhile.

 

[BornStar]

BornStar.647

I haven't finished playing the placement matches yet but I'd guess that I'm somewhere in the Silver or Gold levels.

So I just finished playing my placement matches and it turns out I'm Platinum with Zerg. I'm not sure how I feel about that since I played a Gold Terran and got crushed and then I played a Gold Protoss and handily won. I have a really hard time playing against Terran but I still don't like losing as badly as I did against him. Also, I don't think I have the APM to sustain Platinum level, I'd wager that most players on the same level will have probably double the APM that I do.

 

[Ika]

Protoss have a somewhat easier counter than Terran with the Phoenix. While it deals increased damage to light targets ( making it very effective against mutas ), it has two other advantages... it is the fastest unit in the game (over 4 movement speed) and it can fire while moving. You'd have to micro the shit out of it, but you should be able to run-n-gun BCs with them.

I'm not sure if I could really do that well with Vikings since they aren't nearly as fast (around 2.7), but they are certainly faster than BCs ( which are slow as heck ).

phoenixes seem like a shitty counter to BCs. void rays and stalkers are much better, both doing extra damage to armored.

 

[Aikouka]

phoenixes seem like a shitty counter to BCs. void rays and stalkers are much better, both doing extra damage to armored.

Wouldn't stalkers be way too easy to abuse given that they're land based units? It's very easy to simply use cliffs to create distance and screw over a land-based unit.

I thought about VRs since they aren't as dependent on fighting light units as Phoenixes are... but I'd guess that with a smaller contingent of Phoenixes, the benefits far outweigh the downsides to their damage. They're freakin' fast and can fire while moving. Although, I guess that wouldn't be too terribly helpful unless you engage them away from your own base... doesn't make sense to run away when you're trying to defend (unless you're training them toward cannons or whatever).

 

[Glitchny]

Wouldn't stalkers be way too easy to abuse given that they're land based units? It's very easy to simply use cliffs to create distance and screw over a land-based unit.

I thought about VRs since they aren't as dependent on fighting light units as Phoenixes are... but I'd guess that with a smaller contingent of Phoenixes, the benefits far outweigh the downsides to their damage. They're freakin' fast and can fire while moving. Although, I guess that wouldn't be too terribly helpful unless you engage them away from your own base... doesn't make sense to run away when you're trying to defend (unless you're training them toward cannons or whatever).

Stalkers with blink negate the cliffs though, well most cliffs. With good micro blink stalkers are very hard to get away from with BC's

 

[beginner99]

There is a minor downside to the wall-in, and that downside is it's difficult to defend your wall and your worker line at the same time. Since 99% of Terrans do a wall-in, I find it pretty effective to go Void Rays or Dark Templar in PvT. You can send one VR to hit the worker line, then send your main army to hit the wall right after he pulls his army back to fend off the VR. It forces the Terran player to split his forces, and many low/mid level players have huge trouble doing this. This kind of two-pronged attack usually won't win you the game, but it will definitely allow you to safely expand.

Dark Temps vs terra? Don't think that's pretty useful. You will have to sacrifice at least 1 to a scan. Depending on how much energy he has for scanning even more.

Plus going VR and Dark Temps, you will have no other meaningful units and can easly be overrun before you ever get that far.

They key vs terra probably are forcefields and unit composition. The point is, it's easier for the terra than for his opponent to counter. Map control? Don't thinkg you. you can always send out your units or scouts if you wish so as terra.
In Sc1 it was more difficult. lifting barracks led to less production and tock much moe time than lowering supply depots.

 

[RapidSnail]

I'll probably be on later tonight if anyone is up for some games. Just finished finals yesterday, so I have a week of relaxation before school starts again.

 

[Barfo]

first off, your barracks went up way too late. You would get slaughtered by any rush. I'd suggest blocking off your base and build a barracks before your second supply depot.

Next, when you were camping out of his base, you probably could have taken it early if you wanted. And instead of putting those bunkers down, you would have been better served to get some siege tanks to start taking down those cannons and gateways.

You won, which is the important part. Also, when you have such great map control like you had, you need to expand and utilize the map control.

Thanks. I do have problems with fast rushers so my current goal is learning to block my base's entrance and getting the first marines out fast. I always have trouble taking someone's base, I usually back off if I see a couple cannons or bunkers in there, I need to learn how to determine whether my current forces are enough or I will get wiped out. Thanks for your comments

 

[Ika]

Dark Temps vs terra? Don't think that's pretty useful. You will have to sacrifice at least 1 to a scan. Depending on how much energy he has for scanning even more.

Plus going VR and Dark Temps, you will have no other meaningful units and can easly be overrun before you ever get that far.

They key vs terra probably are forcefields and unit composition. The point is, it's easier for the terra than for his opponent to counter. Map control? Don't thinkg you. you can always send out your units or scouts if you wish so as terra.
In Sc1 it was more difficult. lifting barracks led to less production and tock much moe time than lowering supply depots.

A scan costs a terran player potentially 300 some minerals over 90 seconds. So a few DTs tossed at his front door, one at a time, will force him to waste his scans until he builds a missile turret. Even if he gets a turret up at his wall, if he doesn't do a good job protecting his base perimeter you can do DT drops or proxy pylon warps and waste even more of his minerals.

 

[beginner99]

A scan costs a terran player potentially 300 some minerals over 90 seconds. So a few DTs tossed at his front door, one at a time, will force him to waste his scans until he builds a missile turret. Even if he gets a turret up at his wall, if he doesn't do a good job protecting his base perimeter you can do DT drops or proxy pylon warps and waste even more of his minerals.

I don't really play terra, so mules are that important? My base gets scanned by terra all the time. Probably kind of habits from sc1 one where scans were for free.

But DT's take forever to tech to. hard not to be overrun by a bioball by then. could also send few zealots with DT's and hope he doesn't notice?

 

[Aikouka]

I don't really play terra, so mules are that important? My base gets scanned by terra all the time. Probably kind of habits from sc1 one where scans were for free.

But DT's take forever to tech to. hard not to be overrun by a bioball by then. could also send few zealots with DT's and hope he doesn't notice?

I use MULES quite often and usually bind my CCs to 0 and drop mules in decently guarded expansions if my main base is getting low on minerals.

Stalkers with blink negate the cliffs though, well most cliffs. With good micro blink stalkers are very hard to get away from with BC's

I considered that but also wondered if it's possible to find a good spot where you can force them to blink often to get back to you (which runs them out of energy) or not worry because they didn't even tech into it . I think I've seen someone use blink once in MP so far.

 

[Glitchny]

I considered that but also wondered if it's possible to find a good spot where you can force them to blink often to get back to you (which runs them out of energy) or not worry because they didn't even tech into it . I think I've seen someone use blink once in MP so far.

Yea there are probably locations where you can exploit the terrain. I've had a few games where toss have used blink. That stupid desert map, where the two bases are close but the ground travel path is long as hell, is where they can be very effective. I had forgotten to have a detector at the back of my base and he got sight up there with an observer and jumped(blinked) the gap right into my scv's