Starcraft II HotS Multiplayer Swarm-All

Just finished my placement matches. I got a drop-win so the game drops me into Gold League. Now, I'm kind of scared to keep playing.

I was worried when I won my first two, but the next two I lost against the same guy.

Going to try number 5 now and see where I end up. Maybe Mud level or something.

For those with anxiety about MP, the practice league is a great start. The game is set to a much slower pace, and there are rocks that protect each players' starting area so as to avoid a lot of the early game rushing that goes on later. The level of play is pretty unsophisticated, which is great if you're just starting out.

A second tip. I played my weakest races and strategies in my actual 5 placement matches. I wanted to ensure, frankly, that I was being placed based on my weakest game, because if you happen to do to well in those games, you are likely to get placed too high. It worked out well for me. After being placed in the Bronze league, I'm batting about .500 on my random matches.

Placed Bronze. I'm perfectly comfortable with mediocrity.

LarryC wrote:

Just finished my placement matches. I got a drop-win so the game drops me into Gold League. Now, I'm kind of scared to keep playing.

Don't fear. If you got misplaced, the system will adjust and give you opponents on your level after a few games.

MrDeVil909 wrote:

A couple of fun comp stomps with Luggage before I needed to break for lunch.

Easy AI we steamrolled, Medium was tough at first, but we planned our forced pretty well and we managed to win it.

I did struggle initially by not doing a Zealot rush which is my pretty standard MO, instead holding back and going for gas to build Sentries and Stalkers. Thankfully Luggage managed to cover my back against the first two attacks so we could go on to win it.

When MrDevil came back from lunch, we accidentally started a 2v2 practice league game. We were a little terrified and prepared to be destroyed by Diamond level players. Turns out we did pretty well. If we can do it, so can all of you.

IMAGE(http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-134730.jpg)

While I was waiting for MrDevil to return from lunch, I played two practice league games. End of story, I have a padawan now. xD The 1v1 below was after just two games of him playing Protoss, when he challenged me. I wanted to teach him the importance of scouting by getting Void Rays into the back of his base. Needless to say, being a wise ass almost blew up in my face.

IMAGE(http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-134735.jpg)

And yes, I know now that I don't belong in practice league. As soon as you know how to take advantage of the no-rush setup of the maps, you really should move on.
If you guys are interested, I can upload my two practice league games so you can see how an aggressive Terran or Protoss can give you a headache early on.

Luggage wrote:

When MrDevil came back from lunch, we accidentally started a 2v2 practice league game. We were a little terrified and prepared to be destroyed by Diamond level players. Turns out we did pretty well. If we can do it, so can all of you.

Well, we were terrified because we didn't realise it was a practice game until you found the barricade. Then the chills calmed down.

Was fun though, even my placement matches were cool, and the ones where I was outclassed were over in 5 minutes or less, so no time wasted.

And I saved the replays to try figure out how the hell a guy managed to build 3 photon cannons in my base before I had a Gateway.

Cannon Rushing works in SC2?!?! I'd be much obliged if you posted a replay of such a tactic here, MrDeVil909.

Apparently it works against total noobs.

I'm registering at gamereplays now, once I'm done I'll post it.

Yeah, I lost to a cannon-rushing Protoss yesterday too, but I caught on quick what he was doing and put up a decent fight until it was apparent that he'd leveraged a bigger economy and I was stuck. Gave him a verbal salute for a well-played gambit and offered to surrender.

Is there a league below Bronze? 'Cause I think that's where I belong.

Here's the cannon rush replay. I think it's the right one.

IMAGE(http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-134756.jpg)

MrDeVil909 wrote:

Here's the cannon rush replay. I think it's the right one.

IMAGE(http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-134756.jpg)

Got to love those cheap strats.

A win's a win. It's only cheap if you didn't lose to it.

LarryC wrote:

A win's a win. It's only cheap if you didn't lose to it.

I agree, I definitely wasn't sore about the loss. I even said, 'You've got to be kidding' when I saw what he was doing though.

And I learned a lesson, be careful of probes running around your base.

Yeah, that's dangerous at even high levels of play. In Day9's King of the Beta tournament a lot of the PvP games with Tester were basically him sneaking a bunch of pylons around his opponent's base and using warp gates to constantly stream in forces.

What I wanted to see was why a guy with a Pylon in his opponent's base would bother with Photon Cannons, when Warped-in units will do the job better. There must be some trick to it that makes it good on some level.

And yes, kill probes with extreme prejudice, MrDeVil909. If nothing else, they give your enemies vital information about you.

MrDeVil909 wrote:

And I learned a lesson, be careful of probes running around your base.

Ditto!

And today I actually won two 1v1 matches by forcing myself to scout as Zerg. So, lesson to the rest of you, be careful of long zerglings running around in your area! They probably have other lone zerglings at each of the vision artifacts watching your mid-map moves.

Seriously, both games I did that, and won purely because I saw what they were building and where they were expanding and responded faster than they could counter-respond. I've lost to people doing that to me, too, so I know how effective it is if you do it right.

I was lucky that neither player was aggressive; they were both turtlers, which I normally am too, and which are vulnerable to effective scouting. I'm learning quickly that turtling is really just delaying the inevitable loss!

Won my first 1v1 match in the practice leauge. The good old MMM blob won it for me by literally 1 Thor. He managed to kill everything else, but then there was a full life Thor running around his base unchecked. Picking off marines as they came out... BWHAHAHAHHA!!! The POWER... "I AM HERE, CLICK ON ME!" I love the Arnold impression!

SodaGremlin out!

Farscry wrote:

Seriously, both games I did that, and won purely because I saw what they were building and where they were expanding and responded faster than they could counter-respond. I've lost to people doing that to me, too, so I know how effective it is if you do it right.

Yeah, for a while in the beta, I didn't really have a strategy. I'd have a basic build order, and then I'd just scout them and respond to whatever they were doing. It worked pretty well most of the time.

I sort of lost the scouting habit though. Need to work on that.

Pikey and I played a couple 2v2 placement matches last night.

Game 1 on War Zone:
IMAGE(http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-134773.jpg)

Game 2 on Tempest:
IMAGE(http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-134774.jpg)

Hypatian wrote:
scribble wrote:

I had the most insane 3v3 game last night. We should not have won. My friends and I were laughing for a solid minute afterward.

It was like two separate games. One, where my friends were utterly crushed by mass marines and Stalkers while I ignored them and banshee rushed. The other, where we're all lifting off and hiding our new bases, and then my friend builds six BattleCruisers and wins.

Wow. Fun to watch. I might forward it to a couple of friends as an illustration of why it can be worth it not to give up early at our level of play. ;)

Never give up! Never surrender!

Glad you enjoyed.

Here's a 1v1 from today

IMAGE(http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-134780.jpg)

Stalkers beat Roaches
Hydras own Stalkers

Farscry wrote:
MrDeVil909 wrote:

And I learned a lesson, be careful of probes running around your base.

Ditto!

And today I actually won two 1v1 matches by forcing myself to scout as Zerg. So, lesson to the rest of you, be careful of long zerglings running around in your area! They probably have other lone zerglings at each of the vision artifacts watching your mid-map moves.

Seriously, both games I did that, and won purely because I saw what they were building and where they were expanding and responded faster than they could counter-respond. I've lost to people doing that to me, too, so I know how effective it is if you do it right.

I was lucky that neither player was aggressive; they were both turtlers, which I normally am too, and which are vulnerable to effective scouting. I'm learning quickly that turtling is really just delaying the inevitable loss!

From what I have watched on youtube they constantly say that zerg is a reactionary race, you have to know what the opponent is doing and respond to it. Basically I have seen the games go down like this build a few units, scout the enemy, build the counter units, wait for their attack, wipe the floor with them and finally push into their base and win.

breander wrote:
Farscry wrote:
MrDeVil909 wrote:

And I learned a lesson, be careful of probes running around your base.

Ditto!

And today I actually won two 1v1 matches by forcing myself to scout as Zerg. So, lesson to the rest of you, be careful of long zerglings running around in your area! They probably have other lone zerglings at each of the vision artifacts watching your mid-map moves.

Seriously, both games I did that, and won purely because I saw what they were building and where they were expanding and responded faster than they could counter-respond. I've lost to people doing that to me, too, so I know how effective it is if you do it right.

I was lucky that neither player was aggressive; they were both turtlers, which I normally am too, and which are vulnerable to effective scouting. I'm learning quickly that turtling is really just delaying the inevitable loss!

From what I have watched on youtube they constantly say that zerg is a reactionary race, you have to know what the opponent is doing and respond to it. Basically I have seen the games go down like this build a few units, scout the enemy, build the counter units, wait for their attack, wipe the floor with them and finally push into their base and win.

My post above yours has a replay showing exactly that. I have roaches for his zealots then see he's going heavy stalkers so I transition to hydras. I could have done it sooner if I'd been better about scouting though!

mrwynd wrote:
breander wrote:
Farscry wrote:
MrDeVil909 wrote:

And I learned a lesson, be careful of probes running around your base.

Ditto!

And today I actually won two 1v1 matches by forcing myself to scout as Zerg. So, lesson to the rest of you, be careful of long zerglings running around in your area! They probably have other lone zerglings at each of the vision artifacts watching your mid-map moves.

Seriously, both games I did that, and won purely because I saw what they were building and where they were expanding and responded faster than they could counter-respond. I've lost to people doing that to me, too, so I know how effective it is if you do it right.

I was lucky that neither player was aggressive; they were both turtlers, which I normally am too, and which are vulnerable to effective scouting. I'm learning quickly that turtling is really just delaying the inevitable loss!

From what I have watched on youtube they constantly say that zerg is a reactionary race, you have to know what the opponent is doing and respond to it. Basically I have seen the games go down like this build a few units, scout the enemy, build the counter units, wait for their attack, wipe the floor with them and finally push into their base and win.

My post above yours has a replay showing exactly that. I have roaches for his zealots then see he's going heavy stalkers so I transition to hydras. I could have done it sooner if I'd been better about scouting though!

I just watched well played game dude.

mrwynd wrote:
breander wrote:
Farscry wrote:
MrDeVil909 wrote:

And I learned a lesson, be careful of probes running around your base.

Ditto!

And today I actually won two 1v1 matches by forcing myself to scout as Zerg. So, lesson to the rest of you, be careful of long zerglings running around in your area! They probably have other lone zerglings at each of the vision artifacts watching your mid-map moves.

Seriously, both games I did that, and won purely because I saw what they were building and where they were expanding and responded faster than they could counter-respond. I've lost to people doing that to me, too, so I know how effective it is if you do it right.

I was lucky that neither player was aggressive; they were both turtlers, which I normally am too, and which are vulnerable to effective scouting. I'm learning quickly that turtling is really just delaying the inevitable loss!

From what I have watched on youtube they constantly say that zerg is a reactionary race, you have to know what the opponent is doing and respond to it. Basically I have seen the games go down like this build a few units, scout the enemy, build the counter units, wait for their attack, wipe the floor with them and finally push into their base and win.

My post above yours has a replay showing exactly that. I have roaches for his zealots then see he's going heavy stalkers so I transition to hydras. I could have done it sooner if I'd been better about scouting though!

Zerg still feels one unit short though. Or maybe Banelings aren't used right yet. I don't know.

Since I am playing random, I get Terran occasionally. And I have to say, I am pretty uninspired when playing them. Haven't gotten past MMM yet. One game against the above mentioned Protoss, I played a strange Marine/Marauder+Tanks+Vikings mix and didn't put on aggression early enough. Needless to say he crushed me with a dozen Void Rays and three or four times that many Stalkers. Any tips, how to get comfortable with Terrans? Primarily early to midgame.

MMM should do fine against Zerg as long as they don't use Defilers or Banelings. But I am not yet sure, what counters Void Rays as Terran (seemingly 80%+ of Protoss rush for those things). Mass Marines with Medivacs should be the easiest to pull off, but when he combines the Rays with Charge-Zealots, things get ugly. Vikings are no good, once the Void Rays are charged (if they are uncharged however, they are toast). That leaves Thors, which fall quite fast against Stalkers and Zealots.

Dunno if these have been linked yet, but build order tester stuff is here:
BOT
YABOT

Protoss stealthly do kill...

Just finished my first 2v2 game. We had a good thing going with the zerg/marine pair vs. protoss protoss... Should have expected the stealth and built a tower. O well, next time.

So who has a good defense for protoss stealth? Terran advise for now. Still working on my zerg build order.

You should get an Orbital Command as soon as possible. Not just for the scans but MULEs are essential for Terran economy. The best defense for tricky things like cloak is knowing about it ahead of time through scouting. If you're heavy defending you can build a missile turret at your choke for detection. The best detector that Terrans have is the Raven which is a mobile unit but it's high up the tech tree.

Finally got the balls to finish my placement matches. Bronze. Too bad I won't be able to play a lot this month, f*cking summer and everyone taking vacations and time off from work. In other words, just subscribing.

I'm starting to get comfortable with Protoss now. Uploaded a couple of replays from 2v2 play with a buddy. In the first one I'm eating while playing and make a horrible mistake early by failing to redirect my trained probes to the mineral lines, but manage to recover. In the second, I exhibit some pretty awful micro but we pull off a good contain and win by map control and economy.