** Official Star Craft 2 Multiplayer Thread **

[Kev]

Won 5 in a row last night! Fended off a zerg rush and a protoss "cannon rush!" I'm not the worst player in the universe anymore!

Currently ranked 13th in bronze. I lost 2 in a row to end the night but my rank didn't go down, I guess I was playing against higher level players?

 

[HopJokey]

Won 5 in a row last night! Fended off a zerg rush and a protoss "cannon rush!" I'm not the worst player in the universe anymore!

Currently ranked 13th in bronze. I lost 2 in a row to end the night but my rank didn't go down, I guess I was playing against higher level players?

Go to your match history page and view the profile of your opponents to see what rank/level they are at.

 

[Modular]

Won 5 in a row last night! Fended off a zerg rush and a protoss "cannon rush!" I'm not the worst player in the universe anymore!

Currently ranked 13th in bronze. I lost 2 in a row to end the night but my rank didn't go down, I guess I was playing against higher level players?

Good job! I was Silver in the beta but did poorly in my placements and was in Bronze for my first 25 games. Just last night I defended a cannon rush that took out my Nexus. Luckily I was able to spot it early enough to build an expansion. I two gated to keep pressure on his main, then 4 gated with blink Stalkers and Chargelots.

I was so far behind in economy (he built an expansion where my main once stood) that I was sure I was going to lose the game. He went for a 3-stargate Voidray rush that I was sure was going to seal my fate. But man, Blink Stalkers are powerful! I ended up taking out a total of 12 voidrays and 4 carriers with them. He literally had only one gateway that I saw in the replay, which I'm sure helped me a ton, plus he had built probably around 25 cannons at the start.

In the end I won the game and secured myself a Silver ranking again. It was probably the coolest, most exciting game I've had so far.

TL;DR - Had a great comeback from a cannon rush that moved me from Bronze to Silver.

 

[onza]

I'm a protoss player, and I will have to say void rays are extremely powerful. When you can time an attack where the opponent is pushing towards your base and have your void rays planted close to their main base, it's literally game over for them.

 

[beginner99]

How to you guys respond to cannon rush?

And with that I mean the obvious one, where he just places the pylon in pure sight next to your minerals.

Of course killing the probe should be the goal but that's not that easy if he is not a complete idiot.

Just wait for first units? the are normally not available fast enough. Kill pylon with probes/scv?

IMHO it's a little overpowered or i did somethign wrong. I had the impression it was much easier to defend against in sc1. (probes ha better attack?)

 

[Glitchny]

How to you guys respond to cannon rush?

And with that I mean the obvious one, where he just places the pylon in pure sight next to your minerals.

Of course killing the probe should be the goal but that's not that easy if he is not a complete idiot.

Just wait for first units? the are normally not available fast enough. Kill pylon with probes/scv?

IMHO it's a little overpowered or i did somethign wrong. I had the impression it was much easier to defend against in sc1. (probes ha better attack?)

I generally have an scv set to attack the probe just so that it follows it around and I can see what he is doing without having to pay attention to it and sometimes it kills it for me and I try to just get my units as I normally would. On maps with multiple spawns or a decently long travel time I can usually have my wall up, or have a marine or two to kill the probe and then get rid of the pylon.

Just got promoted to Gold 1v1 last night so I'm pleased, the MM timing push is pretty powerful.

 

[shortylickens]

How to you guys respond to cannon rush?

And with that I mean the obvious one, where he just places the pylon in pure sight next to your minerals.

Of course killing the probe should be the goal but that's not that easy if he is not a complete idiot.

Just wait for first units? the are normally not available fast enough. Kill pylon with probes/scv?

IMHO it's a little overpowered or i did somethign wrong. I had the impression it was much easier to defend against in sc1. (probes ha better attack?)

Remember that SCV's can attack.
Of course, they are weak, and it will take a long time to kill something, and they wont be harvesting for a bit. Thats why protoss has an advantage, they can just set down an item and run away. But remember you can be an early aggressor with the flying barracks. Send two near an enemy and spit out marines on the edge of their base. Of course, then you wont be defending your own, but still it can be fun.

 

[onza]

How to you guys respond to cannon rush?

And with that I mean the obvious one, where he just places the pylon in pure sight next to your minerals.

Of course killing the probe should be the goal but that's not that easy if he is not a complete idiot.

Just wait for first units? the are normally not available fast enough. Kill pylon with probes/scv?

IMHO it's a little overpowered or i did somethign wrong. I had the impression it was much easier to defend against in sc1. (probes ha better attack?)

1 on follow on the probe making structural units. Then 3 on the pylon warping in. WHILE building units and worker units. Micro has to be real good here though.

 

[Gothgar]

isnt there already a SC sticky?

 

[SlitheryDee]

Won 5 in a row last night! Fended off a zerg rush and a protoss "cannon rush!" I'm not the worst player in the universe anymore!

Currently ranked 13th in bronze. I lost 2 in a row to end the night but my rank didn't go down, I guess I was playing against higher level players?

I have a replay from yesterday where I survived a ling rush. It wasn't anything special, but it felt like the first time that some of the things I've been learning from watching pro matches and reading strategy guides came together in a usable way. I had to micro my workers a lot to avoid the first group of zerglings while I bought time for my first pair of zealots to finish. While I was doing that I kept a probe moving in and out of his base to see if he was teching up or sticking with the rush. When I saw him grab a geyser and an expansion I knew he would be vulnerable for a short period of time and I kept the pressure on him with my 2 gateways and a bit later 4 warp gates all making zealots. I was trying to set up a proxy pylon near his expansion when he GGed.

It just felt good to be reacting to pressure in a constructive way while coolly taking action to rectify the situation, utilizing scouting and micromanagement (something I hardly ever do) and looking ahead of the current dilemma. I won 4 in a row last night, in every one of them my opponent was apparently pretty heavily favored to win because they were all worth 40+ points. I might break into gold today or tomorrow *crosses fingers*

 

[Glitchny]

isnt there already a SC sticky?

ya know if you rtft this was already brought up and dismissed. If this thread has existed for this long it would appear the mods aren't too upset about it.

 

[Entity23]

Is it even worth doing the practice matchs or should I just skip them and play real games on real maps? And yes, VR are way powerful, especially PvP I am having trouble with them. Once they charge it's over.

 

[beginner99]

Is it even worth doing the practice matchs or should I just skip them and play real games on real maps? And yes, VR are way powerful, especially PvP I am having trouble with them. Once they charge it's over.

I've done 1 practice match and I think it's useless. slower speed and the maps suck (novice maps). All in all it results in a pretty different "game feeling". I would just go and play 1v1 custom games to train.

 

[beginner99]

I generally have an scv set to attack the probe just so that it follows it around and I can see what he is doing without having to pay attention to it and sometimes it kills it for me and I try to just get my units as I normally would. On maps with multiple spawns or a decently long travel time I can usually have my wall up, or have a marine or two to kill the probe and then get rid of the pylon.

Just got promoted to Gold 1v1 last night so I'm pleased, the MM timing push is pretty powerful.

killing the probe is only possible when he comes back to build a cannon against a decent player. I doubt you can have a barrack and rines before the first canon comes live?

That's what i don't like about 1v1 maps. you don't really need to scout. you always already now the position of your opponent. on 2v2 maps like lost temple cannon rush is already much less effecttive because the rusher must be lucky in scouting (findign the opponent) or else he will be too late.

 

[Glitchny]

killing the probe is only possible when he comes back to build a cannon against a decent player. I doubt you can have a barrack and rines before the first canon comes live?

That's what i don't like about 1v1 maps. you don't really need to scout. you always already now the position of your opponent. on 2v2 maps like lost temple cannon rush is already much less effecttive because the rusher must be lucky in scouting (findign the opponent) or else he will be too late.

well that's why I said on maps with long travel distances. On the straight forward 1v1 maps I try to kill the damn probe with some scv's and then get the pylon. I haven't run into it a lot yet though.

 

[DangerAardvark]

RTS's are such a different type of multi-player experience than FPS's or MMO's. The latter two require long periods of concentration on a very specific task. RTS's require your mind to be everywhere at once. Maybe that's why I feel like I'm having a panic attack every 5 minutes.

 

[beginner99]

I think I need to stick with toss. getting the best results with them.

One question: how do you counter void ray(s) especially as zerg?

I tried void ray harass vs zerg twice and it basically won the game twice. hydra arent exactly that easy or quick to get. just seemed a little too easy.

Another question:

where do I need to place force fields to acually separate the opponents army? in the middle of the pack? A diamond player as toss basically beat me with forcefields on my ramp.

 

[Pia]

I think I need to stick with toss. getting the best results with them.

One question: how do you counter void ray(s) especially as zerg?

Unless you are going fast mutalisk or hydras anyway, you must scout the rays. The key is not allowing the rays to charge up for free, your forces have to be shooting at them immediately. A good counter to an ultra-fast ray is adding an extra queen or two, microing and transfusing. If the toss keeps adding rays (and there's generally no way of knowing if this is the case) the zerg needs lair and either hydra or flyers.
Decent tosses combine their ray-rushing intelligently with the ground units they have, and then it gets really hard to deal with.
Terran is more vulnerable to fast rays than zerg IMO.

I tried void ray harass vs zerg twice and it basically won the game twice. hydra arent exactly that easy or quick to get. just seemed a little too easy.

Void rays are well and truly overpowered between mediocre players due to how much less skill they take to use than to beat. I play random, regularly get wins with rays (not always, it can blow up in your face pretty bad like all rushes) and regularly lose against rays.

where do I need to place force fields to acually separate the opponents army? in the middle of the pack? A diamond player as toss basically beat me with forcefields on my ramp.

There isn't one correct spot. It depends on your intent and what kinds of armies are clashing. You might be forcefielding to funnel the enemy through a small choke, to shield your own army entirely, to force the enemy to go the long way around and waste time, to prevent escape. As a general rule, you want forcefields in front of the enemy's melee so they don't do damage, and behind the enemy's ranged so they can't micro backwards.

 

[Entity23]

It takes 2 Hydras to 1 Void Ray if the VoidRay is solo. If there are a pack of VoidRays and they get charged, it's pretty much game over for anything. Mess around with the Multiplayer > Custom Map > Unit_Test_Map to make a scenario. I just found out about it last night. Tried to figure out how many of one unit it took to kill other units.

 

[HendrixFan]

AlbnoSquirrl.118

I'm in the gold ladder for 1v1 and diamond for 3v3. I prefer the 3v3 matches as they are more dynamic.

beginner99, I exclusively play toss (have since the beta) so I can answer those questions. Void rays will destroy almost anything in mass, but the problem is they take forever to build. If a zerg is going against voids, first they need to use the early attack to slow down or prevent building voids. Assuming the stargate is already up, mutalisks will defeat void rays. Mutas are nearly half the cost of a void and come out almost twice as fast. You see a stargate go up (scouting is important) then you should be able to put out two mutas for every void, and that will win in a battle everytime. Massed hydralisks also do well against void rays, and are even cheaper and faster to spit out than mutas. Void rays are also very slow in action, so if you run into a mismatch you can't escape in time to salvage the units.

With forcefields, in general, keeping ground units confined to a small area is bad strategy as ranged units can tear them apart. Make sure you build more buildings so you can spawn new units from different places on the map as needed.

 

[hans030390]

I've not yet finished my 1v1 placement matches, as I've been too busy doing 2v2 with a friend (both Terran). Got placed in silver there, so I'd likely get placed in silver or gold with 1v1. I'm better at 1v1 than 2v2, and my friend isn't quite to my skill level yet.

I could always use some practice in 1v1 or another teammate to play with in 2v2: Tyler.958 (I believe)

 

[Magusigne]

Magusigne.724

 

[Pia]

Void rays will destroy almost anything in mass, but the problem is they take forever to build. If a zerg is going against voids, first they need to use the early attack to slow down or prevent building voids.

This is bad logic. The zerg player is not omniscient, and you need time to build an attack strong enough to break through a protoss wall. Unless you rush every match (and probably lose most of your games) there is no way to stop rays from being made. It comes down to having to defend them or lose.

Assuming the stargate is already up, mutalisks will defeat void rays. Mutas are nearly half the cost of a void and come out almost twice as fast. You see a stargate go up (scouting is important) then you should be able to put out two mutas for every void, and that will win in a battle everytime.

Typically, if you scout the gate at all, you scout it when it's already chronoboosting a ray. Mutas are completely out of the question for first-line defense unless you were already going for fast muta. They aren't even a particularly good unit against rays until you have a decent number of them, which you might not have gas for.

 

[HendrixFan]

This is bad logic. The zerg player is not omniscient, and you need time to build an attack strong enough to break through a protoss wall. Unless you rush every match (and probably lose most of your games) there is no way to stop rays from being made. It comes down to having to defend them or lose.

With most players, especially at his level, you can send in some harassment units with zerg to slow down toss players. An overlord can scout to see the voids coming if you are unable or unwilling to get past a wall.

For toss is takes 3 minutes to build a stargate and two void rays, at the cost of 650 min and 450 gas. In 2 minutes to build a spire and spawn mutas, you can have 3 mutas at the cost of 500 min and 500 gas. From that time you can spit out 3 more mutas every 30 seconds versus 1 void ray every minute. Mutas are faster and can hit and run versus voids.

Edit:Also like to add, at his skill level mutas are extremely effective in wiping out workers and cannot be chased down by voids.

 

[Glitchny]

Terran is more vulnerable to fast rays than zerg IMO.

not really sure where you came up with that considering Terran T1 units(Marines) in mass counter voidrays easily and as soon as you scout the stargate you can pump out vikings much cheaper and with micro they can dominate VR's