So... Starcraft 2?

[DakAttack]

Re: So... Starcraft 2?

Anyways, I've been doing pretty well with Terran lately.

Start with two Barracks until I start scanning. Marines are very versatile and pumping them out allows for an early harass or defense against one. Once I'm scanning I'll figure out what I'm doing next.

[MrMageo]

Re: So... Starcraft 2?

for some reason terran is all i seem to be able to play. I know the basics don't change much from race to race, but if I am zerg I get crushd so fast, and as toss I just can't seem to time my expo right, and If i am to late I fall behind unit wise, and If I am to early I can't defend against an early rush.

[Kailea]

Re: So... Starcraft 2?

Trying to find the info I see Blizzard corrected themselves, when this all started, they said that each game would be a separate full game, now they are calling the other race sets expansions. So I guess they wont be charging the full price for each one like they organically planned, figure they knew it would not fly. So yeah guess it would be 59.99 for the main game and 39.99 for the other two *shrugs*

I still feel like waiting though, that way I can play it all at once, and finish up the stuff I am playing now.... that and FFXIV and all that ;p

[Lmnop]

Re: So... Starcraft 2?

Is anybody playing? I could use some discussion on tactics. I've got a 2-man team with a friend of mine, and we're ranked 39th in the silver league, but he's not very good at giving me advice.

As far as I can tell there's three phases to any given match: rush, harass, and the finale. You've got to consider a rush depending on your opponents' races. This typically means walling, but depending on the opponent you would use different units. You've also got to consider how your opponent might harass you, because it's more possible now than in the original. Then, you've got the finale and you need to plan what your end goal is for unit production.

I'm still pretty bad at expanding while tech'ing, but I've had a few good matches tonight. I really suffer from building too much of a good thing. If something works I tend to stick with it, which is a problem because opponents tend to adapt.

Terran is my absolute worst race, first off (which is too bad, because I think they're the neatest).

I wouldn't wait 'til 11 to build a supply depot. I think 10 supply and then barracks as soon as you hit 150 minerals is better.

In my admittedly limited 2v2 (I tend towards 1v1) experience, I haven't experienced much in the way of very early cheese rushes, but I DO see a lot of timed all-ins. This is to say, both opponents build as big of an army as they can off of 1 base and run out together. If the attack fails, you can retaliate or (even better) expand w/out fear. With an expansion or 2 up and running and your opponents stuck 1-basing, you've already won (assuming you keep an eye on them and punish them if they try to expo). Trick is surviving their team all-in. Best of luck.

Some general tips:

-try not to queue up units to build. Some is OK, but never full. I try to limit myself to 2 units in a queue at a time (that's one actively building and one waiting). If you can have all your production structures with 3+ units queued up, you need to be building more production facilities!

-as a follow up to that, everyone in the starcraft community believes macro > micro and even macro > strategy. For the vast majority of the game, what you choose to build is secondary to having a strong economy and keeping your money low. As Day [9] says: when you try really hard to keep your money low, you tend to end up doing all the right things.

-As terran, particularly if you invest heavily in siege tanks, you can afford to expand TOWARDS your opponent instead of finding out-of-the-way expos. Terran Mech is king of screaming in the face of the opponent "I'm taking this base and there's not a damn thing you can do about it" as you crawl closer to them. The problem with grabbing an expansion tucked away somewhere is that you have to dedicate defenses to it that can't also double as part of your standing army. Units whose only job is to sit at base and prevent shenanigans make your main army exactly that much weaker than it should be.

-A friend of mine whose much better than me has a rule of thumb I'll pass on to you: for every base you have actively mining, you can support 4 "stuff". 2 barracks+factory+starport, 2 barracks+2 factory, etc. To a lesser extent, you can substitute tech in this rough rule of thumb. 2 barracks + factory + "lots of upgrades/research". It doesn't always work out perfectly (I wouldn't suggest 1-basing with 1 barracks + 3x factories unless you know what you're doing) but that's why it's just a rule of thumb. This formula carries over to protoss relatively well, too.

-Build more SCVs. It takes 30 to run an expansion optimally. If you have over 30, it doesn't mean you should stop building SCVs. It means grab an expo (if you don't have one already).

I probably have more...

[Malacite]

Re: So... Starcraft 2?

And I call bullshit. The only reason this first installment was 59.99 and not 39.99 or less was because it contains, the entire new battlenet client (that all blizz games will be moving to) it contains the entire online multiplayer, and it contains the Campaign Editor. You show me a nice linky where blizzard has it stated that the next 2 will cost as much as this one.

2 Words - Bobby Kotick.

EDIT: Oh, so they retracted what they said at Blizzcon about charging full price on all 3 then? Hmm, that's much better. I'd still rather wait for a Bundle, and preferably a used one at that as I'm loath to give Activision any of my money until that assfuck Kotick is out of there and they get back to a more consumer-friendly business model.(this is the same asshole who said creativity has no place in the industry, and that making as much money as possible from every franchise is all that matters...)

[DakAttack]

Re: So... Starcraft 2?

Terran is my absolute worst race, first off (which is too bad, because I think they're the neatest).

I wouldn't wait 'til 11 to build a supply depot. I think 10 supply and then barracks as soon as you hit 150 minerals is better.

In my admittedly limited 2v2 (I tend towards 1v1) experience, I haven't experienced much in the way of very early cheese rushes, but I DO see a lot of timed all-ins. This is to say, both opponents build as big of an army as they can off of 1 base and run out together. If the attack fails, you can retaliate or (even better) expand w/out fear. With an expansion or 2 up and running and your opponents stuck 1-basing, you've already won (assuming you keep an eye on them and punish them if they try to expo). Trick is surviving their team all-in. Best of luck.

Some general tips:

-try not to queue up units to build. Some is OK, but never full. I try to limit myself to 2 units in a queue at a time (that's one actively building and one waiting). If you can have all your production structures with 3+ units queued up, you need to be building more production facilities!

-as a follow up to that, everyone in the starcraft community believes macro > micro and even macro > strategy. For the vast majority of the game, what you choose to build is secondary to having a strong economy and keeping your money low. As Day [9] says: when you try really hard to keep your money low, you tend to end up doing all the right things.

-As terran, particularly if you invest heavily in siege tanks, you can afford to expand TOWARDS your opponent instead of finding out-of-the-way expos. Terran Mech is king of screaming in the face of the opponent "I'm taking this base and there's not a damn thing you can do about it" as you crawl closer to them. The problem with grabbing an expansion tucked away somewhere is that you have to dedicate defenses to it that can't also double as part of your standing army. Units whose only job is to sit at base and prevent shenanigans make your main army exactly that much weaker than it should be.

-A friend of mine whose much better than me has a rule of thumb I'll pass on to you: for every base you have actively mining, you can support 4 "stuff". 2 barracks+factory+starport, 2 barracks+2 factory, etc. To a lesser extent, you can substitute tech in this rough rule of thumb. 2 barracks + factory + "lots of upgrades/research". It doesn't always work out perfectly (I wouldn't suggest 1-basing with 1 barracks + 3x factories unless you know what you're doing) but that's why it's just a rule of thumb. This formula carries over to protoss relatively well, too.

-Build more SCVs. It takes 30 to run an expansion optimally. If you have over 30, it doesn't mean you should stop building SCVs. It means grab an expo (if you don't have one already).

I probably have more...

I like to build 9 SCVs, build the Barracks, build another SCV, build the supply depot, and build the 11th while the depot is being built. Then I start pushing out marines while building over the geysers and most likely another barracks. At that point I'll upgrade the CC and scan.

To defend against a rush you've got to build like you're about to rush. Keep pushing out marines and maybe a handful of marauders while building five or six siege tanks. This way you can push up on anybody's base with the tanks while giving them LOS by removing the fog with the marines. If they attempt to defend with melee units, run back to the tanks to give them time to fire on them without hitting the marines.

[Malacite]

Re: So... Starcraft 2?

Tanks are much more expensive now aren't they?

As for early game units, I've been watching a lot of high level videos on youtube making very good use of early Reapers. They're nasty once they get that speed upgrade, wow.

[Lmnop]

Re: So... Starcraft 2?

Reapers have an exceedingly narrow range of usefulness. One Stalker in the mineral line can defend up to 4 reapers with little loss. If they attack with more reapers than that, you probably have a 2nd stalker by that time. A little scouting or simply seeing how big their standing army is can tell you when they've transitioned out of reapers, meaning you can recall the single Stalker over to the rest of your forces. In TvT, a single Marauder functions identically. Queens do somewhat decently at this for Zerg.

I did, however, recently see a player (lzgamer) using squads of them vs Zerg pretty effectively. But other than the early timing reaper rushes (not something you just decided to spit out every once in a while -- they rely on exploiting timings), I'd really encourage anyone to stay away from reapers until they know the game well enough to know when to diverge from the plan.

Tanks aren't much more expensive. I believe in Brood War, they were 150/100/2. Now they're 150/125/3. So 25 more vespene and an extra supply makes them harder to amass.

A lot of rushes can be foiled with early scouting if you know what you're looking for. If a Terran opponent is grabbing his gas before his barracks, he probably intends a reaper rush. But if a Zerg gets gas before spawning pool, he's probably just playing for an econ game. If your scouting worker can find a tech lab as soon as a barracks finishes, w/out any marines even, that's probably another sign of a reaper (not necessarily super reaper cheese, but 1 for early worker harass). Of course, the absolute biggest things to worry about are worker count and how much... stuff... is in his base. Just a pylon in his base when your barracks is just getting finished? PANIC. You're being cannon rushed or proxy gated. Start scouting and get ready to use your SCVs to help defend.

As a primarily protoss player (and therefore, owner of a ridiculously powerful tier 1 unit), I find cheese/rush strats aren't too imposing if you know they're coming.

[Malacite]

Re: So... Starcraft 2?

Reapers have an exceedingly narrow range of usefulness. One Stalker in the mineral line can defend up to 4 reapers with little loss. If they attack with more reapers than that, you probably have a 2nd stalker by that time. A little scouting or simply seeing how big their standing army is can tell you when they've transitioned out of reapers, meaning you can recall the single Stalker over to the rest of your forces. In TvT, a single Marauder functions identically. Queens do somewhat decently at this for Zerg.

Check out HD Starcraft's channel for epic Reaper harassment. 1 Stalker ain't gonna cut it. It might kill the reapers, but the reapers will take out at least 3 workers.

[Ufgt]

Re: So... Starcraft 2?

Ugh, reapers. So annoying to defend against.

[Lmnop]

Re: So... Starcraft 2?

1 Stalker ain't gonna cut it.

Yes it does. Against a player of equal skill, if you play expecting your opponent to go reapers, you will shut it down with very minimal losses. And if Terran is devoting enough reapers to overwhelm said stalker then Protoss a) has more stuff he can feasibly reroute and b) can take advantage of the opportunity cost of reapers.

See, here's the problem: Vespene is way more precious than it was in BW. This makes the 50 gas investment hefty. But more importantly, build time. Marines take 25 seconds to train (at default game speed; adjust accordingly) and reapers take around 40. That doesn't seem significant, except in the early game, if you have 8 reapers, that means you tied up your barracks for the amount of time that you COULD HAVE made over 12 marines -- in addition to how much you've set back your tech tree progression due to high vespene cost. If and, remembering the "against player of equal skill" caveat, I do mean IF, your Reaper squad doesn't completely shut down the opponent, it's possible to outright lose the game when your opponent walks into your base despite a ruined economy. That's why, as of now, Reapers are right up there with Motherships for "units no one would mind seeing deleted" -- they are a risky play every time that have very little value outside the surprise of seeing the 1st attack with them.

That said, I'll admit to having taken severe damage from reaper rushes before. But that's because those players were just plain better than me and I wasn't smart enough to anticipate. Also: some maps favor reapers. Some completely shit on them.

[Malacite]

Re: So... Starcraft 2?

Yes it does. Against a player of equal skill, if you play expecting your opponent to go reapers, you will shut it down with very minimal losses. And if Terran is devoting enough reapers to overwhelm said stalker then Protoss a) has more stuff he can feasibly reroute and b) can take advantage of the opportunity cost of reapers.

Put up, or shut up. I've seen Reapers in the hands of high/top level players do horrific damage. Yeah they're not invincible, but ONE Stalker? I don't think so.

Like I said, check out HD Starcraft's youtube channel. LzGamer & Painuser are crazy good @ Terran, and they love Reapers.

[DakAttack]

Re: So... Starcraft 2?

Repears are definitely not that difficult to defend against, but they can shit all over you if you're not prepared. All it takes is a few marines at whatever cliff they'll most likely jump up. Or, better yet, a few marauders; they eat Repears for breakfast.

They're a hefty investment, though, and situational at best. You can pump marines out and still harass just as well.

I'm currently in the silver league, and I'm winning most of my games through harassing. People don't seem to recover too well from it, or they simply think they can't, and end up leaving. Terran have a few ways to harass, my favorite being Ravens, so far. All you need is one and you can throw a turret into their supply lines and cause a little havoc. Two Ravens and you can really mess somebody up. Banshees, under the right situation, work extremely well.

[MrMageo]

Re: So... Starcraft 2?

Put up, or shut up. I've seen Reapers in the hands of high/top level players do horrific damage. Yeah they're not invincible, but ONE Stalker? I don't think so.

Like I said, check out HD Starcraft's youtube channel. LzGamer & Painuser are crazy good @ Terran, and they love Reapers.

Reapers are good against Zerg in a limited role, in the event a zerg player goes early pool to speedlings your reapers are next o useless, in the event he fast expands pre pool than your reapers will have a field day. It is a heavy timing attack and is akin to an all in. You see a few videos that the event worked, how many other times has it not worked?

Against toss, it is a little different, yes a stalker sucks, it can mess with reapers, but you should be able to one shot probes with 4-5 of them, in which case a couple quick fly by's between main and expo;s can rake in some good kills. However, the real advantage is forcing a player to change his momentum. I have used reapers to delay Stargate tech by essentially requiring the toss player to build several stalkers. This allows me to dictate what units I want to see and when early on.

Not to mention reapers are only decent on certain maps. Long distance maps suck, they take to long to get there, maps with minimal routes in and out of the base using ledges suck, thebest map IMO is Metolopolis, simply do to the positioning of the natural mineral line and the main mineral line.

Ive watched every terran video on HD Starcrafts page, and reapers are always the least common unit, and HD himself is usually surprised when they get fielded on mass. They require very tedious micro and are akin to going all in. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don't. Just like a Zergling rush, and a cannon rush.

[Malacite]

Re: So... Starcraft 2?

Reapers are good against Zerg in a limited role, in the event a zerg player goes early pool to speedlings your reapers are next o useless

lmfao now I KNOW you people are full of shit. Your micro must be really bad.


[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FV49FKutcf0&playnext=1&videos=tUjaHQWK920"]YouTube- HD Starcraft 2 Machine v LzGaMeR p1/1[/nomedia]