Starcraft 2 - Read Post #2 for a useful beginner guide

[OOBradm]

I watched a bit of the replay on 8x FFWD this morning (I was late for work). I noticed that you were a bit late expanding to your natural and you never seemed to adjust your unit composition in response to the units your enemy was sending against you. You were still mostly creating zealots and stalkers while your protoss opponent was massing void rays at first and then carriers after that. You and your partner should have devoted a healthy portion of your armies to void rays and vikings and the rest to ground troops to combat the specific units you were seeing from your opponents. That's something I've found to be key in starcraft 2 matchups. Actually pay attention to what your opponent is sending against you and/or is massing at his base and start making what you need to destroy them immediately. In that game you were sorely in need of anti-air measures, yet both of you kept pumping out ground units. If just you alone had devoted a bunch of resources to void rays you could have decimated the protoss carrier army and the few banshees your terran opponent had near the end of the game. Since your terran teammate already had enough seige tanks and ground troops to combat the terran opponent's army thor/marauder/marine army composition, he would have fared much better with the carriers being destroyed during that final push by your opponents. Alternatively your terran teammate could have gone viking-heavy to counter the carriers and you could have used immortals, archons, high templar, zealots, stalkers, or any combination of those to work on the opposing terran ground forces.

I think you could have won that match very easily if you had only recognized how one dimensional your opponents were getting. Nearly every powerful unit has an easy counter in SC2, so it's exceedingly dangerous to throw all your resources into one unit type, and it's a staggering blow to lose a large army of expensive units to a medium sized army of much cheaper units that are strong against them.

Thanks for the tips. I was building stalkers to counter the air, but it seems like I should build void rays to counter void rays?

 

[nanobreath]

Thanks for the tips. I was building stalkers to counter the air, but it seems like I should build void rays to counter void rays?

Void rays are the counter to carriers, phoenix is more of a counter to void rays. However I would prefer more of a mix, heavier on the void rays. Lead with the phoenixs and follow shortly behind with the void rays vrs other void rays, just be sure to do some micro to keep everything on the same target. A few void rays that get a chance to max out their charge can do a lot of damage quickly.

Ground isn't a very good counter to air units simply because it is usually too easy for the air units to kite since they typically have a longer range. Especially with the raised bases allowing the air to sit at max range from the edge of your platform and kill any ground units you have trying to attack back. Mutalisks have a short range so they can be a bit easier to kill with ground, but they also move pretty fast.

 

[SlitheryDee]

Thanks for the tips. I was building stalkers to counter the air, but it seems like I should build void rays to counter void rays?

Well,the void rays wouldn't have been especially effective against other void rays, but they would have been devastating when he transitioned to his mostly carrier army. Void rays eat carriers and battlecruisers. Stalkers probably would be a good defense against void rays alone, but not so hot against carriers. Scouting would be key to knowing when to transition there.

 

[darkxshade]

Anyone else play co-op custom maps instead? The TD kind? I can't seem to ever get a decent game where people can hold their own. I always end up having to pick up others slack or instead they all drop out because they get wiped and I'm stucking playing a co-op map all alone.

 

[bhanson]

I just went on a 10 win streak with a friend (silver 2v2).

We were rank 1 during the last 8 of those 10 matches, yet we still haven't gone to gold.

Every game was against gold/platinum players too.

We screwed up our placement matches (we were still noobs at the time) so we have worked our way up from bottom of bronze.

So far I'm 2-11 in platinum league, yet they havent seen fit to demote me yet.

wtf do I have to do beyond lose consistently to get into a league where its actually fun to play? I should probably just stop trying and completely throw the game from the start.

You guys have hardly played any games yet. Although the system initially matches you based on 5 games (which admittedly will be wrong a very huge percentage of the time), it doesn't make any hasty decisions when changing your league after that.

Your next promotion (or demotion) or 2 will be pretty accurate as far as putting you into the right league. If the promotions happened way sooner (say in <5 games) there would be HUGE variance in the ladders and that's really not a big enough sample size to come to any sort of conclusion.

It will keep you in the same league until your win percentage is somewhere between 50-75% which is indicative of you belonging in that league.

This isn't an exact science since only Blizzard actually knows the algorithm, but there's a ton of empirical evidence to support it. It's a valid conclusion over at TeamLiquid.

tl;dr: You'll probably have to start losing/winning games before you get promoted/demoted.

 

[Barfo]

You guys have hardly played any games yet. Although the system initially matches you based on 5 games (which admittedly will be wrong a very huge percentage of the time), it doesn't make any hasty decisions when changing your league after that.

Your next promotion (or demotion) or 2 will be pretty accurate as far as putting you into the right league. If the promotions happened way sooner (say in <5 games) there would be HUGE variance in the ladders and that's really not a big enough sample size to come to any sort of conclusion.

It will keep you in the same league until your win percentage is somewhere between 50-75% which is indicative of you belonging in that league.

This isn't an exact science since only Blizzard actually knows the algorithm, but there's a ton of empirical evidence to support it. It's a valid conclusion over at TeamLiquid.

tl;dr: You'll probably have to start losing/winning games before you get promoted/demoted.

I was promoted from silver to gold after winning 8 out or 14 or so, how do you explain that?

Almost everyone's kicking my ass in gold too :\

 

[bhanson]

I was promoted from silver to gold after winning 8 out or 14 or so, how do you explain that?

Almost everyone's kicking my ass in gold too :\

50% < 8/14 = 57% < 75%

If you note, in the above two examples their games consist almost entirely of wins or losses. As soon as the winning player starts losing and the losing player starts winning they'll change leagues.

 

[Dumac]

You guys have hardly played any games yet. Although the system initially matches you based on 5 games (which admittedly will be wrong a very huge percentage of the time), it doesn't make any hasty decisions when changing your league after that.

Your next promotion (or demotion) or 2 will be pretty accurate as far as putting you into the right league. If the promotions happened way sooner (say in <5 games) there would be HUGE variance in the ladders and that's really not a big enough sample size to come to any sort of conclusion.

It will keep you in the same league until your win percentage is somewhere between 50-75&#37; which is indicative of you belonging in that league.

This isn't an exact science since only Blizzard actually knows the algorithm, but there's a ton of empirical evidence to support it. It's a valid conclusion over at TeamLiquid.

tl;dr: You'll probably have to start losing/winning games before you get promoted/demoted.

Haven't played any games?

I have about 50 league wins, 25 losses, and those are all against players in upper leagues.

I just beat 4 diamond teams in row (both players diamond)

The matchup even said "teams even" against the last set of diamond players

YET I'M STILL IN SILVER!

 

[bhanson]

Haven't played any games?

I have about 50 league wins, 25 losses, and those are all against players in upper leagues.

I just beat 4 diamond teams in row (both players diamond)

The matchup even said "teams even" against the last set of diamond players

YET I'M STILL IN SILVER!

When you get promoted you'll probably move to diamond.

What's your handle?

 

[Dumac]

When you get promoted you'll probably move to diamond.

What's your handle?

They just moved us to gold rank 2.

And the win was against a bronze team who double 6 pooled.....

 

[JulesMaximus]

I actually switched to normal in the campaign. I'm more interessted in the story than trying certain missions several times. I mean I know I could beat it on hard but it's exactly sometimes a PITA and not fun. Best example is the mineral collection missions or now the one with the mercenaries.
I like was killing of his base with a huge army and then something "I have a surprise for you" and bang my army is nuked. 0 warning or time to react. that's just retarded.

And MP, well I suck. I mean I can beat noobs and somewhat mediocre players but anyone with soem advanced knowledge no chance. It shows I played like 99.99% on fastest possible in sc1.
And toss still seems to be the most straight forward race and zerg the one I don't get. Zerg on fastest is cool but on low... I actually build like 5 hachteries and a nice opponent (gold league) in custom game told me that queens are now used for that.

I was playing 2vs2 the other day and one of our enemies kept hitting me with nukes, he had a ton of air defense around his base so we went in with ground troops, everytime I heard 'nuclear launch detected' I'd go move my troops out of the area they were in because I knew he was launching against my troops. We eventually wiped him out though.

 

[Glitchny]

They just moved us to gold rank 2.

And the win was against a bronze team who double 6 pooled.....

lol dbl 6pooling is a good way to rape your own econ. I assume you ended this game quickly.

 

[Dumac]

lol dbl 6pooling is a good way to rape your own econ. I assume you ended this game quickly.

I actually scouted it way too late (after I dropped my 9 pylon). I should have known with double zerg to scout earlier.

As a result, my own based got fracked.

But I held them off long enough that my partner could get quick quick stargate up, push out a couple phoenixes (which he graciously let me micro) so we could cut their overlords, kill their queens, and just stop them. After a few phoenixes he gave me a voidray to play with, and it was over. The only AA they had was queens and spore crawlers.

He did all this while they were trying to baneling bust down his wall.

 

[Aikouka]

What's double six-pooling?

 

[RapidSnail]

What's double six-pooling?

A 6-pool is when a zerg player does not build any drones and mines with his starting six until he has money for a spawning pool. He then waits for the pool to finish and builds six zerglings to rush with. It can be effective if used in the right situation, but it will screw up your economy if it fails. It's considered cheese play.

It was know as 4-pool in BW when players only started with 4 workers.

 

[Glitchny]

What's double six-pooling?

what rapidSnail said. the double six pool was just because both zerg players did it. In general the # before the building/unit is the supply count.

For example most toss players do 9lon which refers to 9supply build pylon. And if you see a terran player with 9rax + gas he is most likely going for an early reaper harass.

 

[Barfo]

I lolled.

 

[shortylickens]

I lolled.

THATS where they got the sound effect. Munching a bag of Doritos.

 

[evident]

wewt, just got a bunch of achievements w/ trident

 

[Alienwho]

wewt, just got a bunch of achievements w/ trident

LOL I got a bunch with him earlier today too. Which ones did you guys get?

 

[onza]

Scary trident plays this game.

Did a 3v3 last night and it was a fun back and forth game, the turning point was definitely when the mothership came out and for a few seconds we had the cloak advantage to kill their pushing army.

 

[rcpratt]

Any platinum-ish level people (pref. not terran) want to do some semi-serious 2v2 or 3v3?

 

[Xed]

Lol, worst 2v2stretch ever. 5-15 last 20 games or so and ratings gone to hell. /wrists

 

[evident]

LOL I got a bunch with him earlier today too. Which ones did you guys get?

yamato blast one, ghost snipe, raven mine one, and a few others. i had no idea you could even get the achievements playing an easy CPU.

 

[TridenT]

yamato blast one, ghost snipe, raven mine one, and a few others. i had no idea you could even get the achievements playing an easy CPU.

Yeah, and they all took fucking forever.

Fucking CPU wants to rape me. It took me like 10 nukes before I could get 40 kills on my ghost. Fuckers kept going, "Aahh... you trying to get achievement? NO ACHIEVEMENT FOR YOU!" *CPU Flys detector over my ghost, ghost dies to kekekeke zerg*

I don't think I ever got the raven blast one. Fucking SCVs...