Starcraft II HotS Multiplayer Swarm-All

mrwynd wrote:
TheArtOfScience wrote:

Oh man, I can post from work again, wheee...

So, anyone want to play some matches this evening? I've yet to play and goodjers because I wanted a week of practice and finishing the single player before I got too heavy into MP. I'm currently near the top of my silver league probably about to get bumped up to gold. Record is sitting at 26-21 right now and I play zerg. I'd be happy for some fun matches, some *v*s with goodjer teammates, or some directed practice matches to test builds. I play zerg primarily but I'm getting a modicum of fluency with the other races now.

I'll add my info to the spreadsheet later on today.

I'd like to do some 1v1's if you're interested tonight.

If I'm on, I'm always up for a game as well. My info is on the spreadsheet.

Sounds good, I'll add peeps when I get home.

You play zerg don't you Wynd? I think my weakest matchup is ZvZ simply because I don't get matched up against zerg very often and when I do it seems like they 6 pool half the time. I'm surprised at the relative scarcity of zerg. Maybe its just my league/experiences though.

I played terran in my placement matches because I wanted to lose and I ended up surrendering games because I was up against a bunch of newbies. So I get placed in Bronze and then I get bumped up to silver within 10 matches. I have actually played more bronze leaguers since I got in silver league than when I was in bronze. THe matchmaker is really effective at weeding out people trying to farm lower leagues. I admit I wanted to hang out in lower leagues and get some practice under my belt without getting owned but the game has swiftly put me where I'm getting competitive matchups. I went on a streak on MOnday and I won TEN GAMES IN A ROW. By the end of the 10 games I was playing 3/4 matches against gold leagu even though I'm silver I imagine if I keep winning vs gold I'll get bumped up soon. I gotta admit, the feeling of winning 10 in a row with all pretty hard fought matches was awesome. My wife was laughing at how geeked I was acting.

I'm finding that I suck a lot less than I did in beta. I think it is a mixture of experience and a less hardcore pool of players.

TheArtOfScience wrote:

Sounds good, I'll add peeps when I get home.

You play zerg don't you Wynd? I think my weakest matchup is ZvZ simply because I don't get matched up against zerg very often and when I do it seems like they 6 pool half the time. I'm surprised at the relative scarcity of zerg. Maybe its just my league/experiences though.

I played terran in my placement matches because I wanted to lose and I ended up surrendering games because I was up against a bunch of newbies. So I get placed in Bronze and then I get bumped up to silver within 10 matches. I have actually played more bronze leaguers since I got in silver league than when I was in bronze. THe matchmaker is really effective at weeding out people trying to farm lower leagues. I admit I wanted to hang out in lower leagues and get some practice under my belt without getting owned but the game has swiftly put me where I'm getting competitive matchups. I went on a streak on MOnday and I won TEN GAMES IN A ROW. By the end of the 10 games I was playing 3/4 matches against gold leagu even though I'm silver I imagine if I keep winning vs gold I'll get bumped up soon. I gotta admit, the feeling of winning 10 in a row with all pretty hard fought matches was awesome. My wife was laughing at how geeked I was acting.

I'm finding that I suck a lot less than I did in beta. I think it is a mixture of experience and a less hardcore pool of players.

Yeah I'm a Zerg player. I've been dabbling in Terran as well but not in league play. I can beat a hard AI with Terrans so it might be time to try them in leagues. Zerg definitely seems to be the least played race but I think that will even out as multiplayer continues.

I've had a similar experience since release. After going 10W/4L in Silver I was bumped up to Gold and my win percentage is approaching 50%. Last night I was put up against a #1 ranked Platinum Zerg player and after a 45 minute match he managed to kill me with a superior unit composition (I went brood lords, he went ultralisk/hydra).

I'm really getting the macro side of the game down, I'm able to keep my mineral count down and my unit output high but I lack micro skills. I never use spellcasters and I generally split my army into two groups 1- ground attack and 2 - air attack. Sometimes I go into a third if I get a late game - brood lords.

I'm the same way when it comes to microing spellcasters WYnd. That's one of the more attractive aspects of zerg for me. I can macro and win through superior econ without relying on awesome micro. Seems like blink/storm are integral to toss play and stim/EMP are integral to terran play. The zerg "spells" aren't nearly as important towards victory.

That said, the only thing my huge mid-game zerg ball fears more than collosi are well placed storms.

I want to do some Co-op achievement stuff, so if you see me on, I'm down for it.

I finished my placement matches last night, and learned that I really need a plan for countering a Protoss stealth build. My opponent went straight for Dark Templars, and caught me with no ability to uncover them. Besides just "build more turrets, n00b", do any Terran players have advice on good ways to prepare/counter this Protoss approach?

Upgrade your command center to orbital, in a pinch you can at least use its scan ability to see them in areas you dont have coverage.

ahrezmendi wrote:

I finished my placement matches last night, and learned that I really need a plan for countering a Protoss stealth build. My opponent went straight for Dark Templars, and caught me with no ability to uncover them. Besides just "build more turrets, n00b", do any Terran players have advice on good ways to prepare/counter this Protoss approach?

Speaking as zerg I get detection out as soon as I reach tier 2 tech. At least one overseer gets made as soon as I get a Lair.

One thing you can do as Terran is plant your turrets strategically. ALWAYS put one or two in your mineral lines and it helps immensely with air harassment as well.

Always keep enough powerin your CC to drop a scan if you are getting attacked by stealth units. If you know someone is going heavy stealth your best bet is probably a raven or two.

Like any other "countering" build you make sacrifices to cover your blnd spots. Your best bet is smart turret placement early with a scan in your pocket. If they do in fact go heavy stealth better get those ravens out.

Yeah, been researching a bit of Protoss tactics, Dark Templars are not popular, especially against Terrans because of the orbital scans. Teching up to them also takes resources away from more popular strategies.

And if you are playing Terran you need to scan his base periodically to look for the DT building, can't remember what it's called.

MrDeVil909 wrote:

Yeah, been researching a bit of Protoss tactics, Dark Templars are not popular, especially against Terrans because of the orbital scans. Teching up to them also takes resources away from more popular strategies.

And if you are playing Terran you need to scan his base periodically to look for the DT building, can't remember what it's called.

It's called "Dark Shrine" and it doesn't have any other use than allowing DT's to be built so it's a pretty clear indicator. Also it's a really tall skinny building that stands out like a sore thumb. To those Protoss players, try hiding your dark shrine as well as possible.

Ah, I knew it was something like that. Yeah, it's a big indicator of an intended strategy.

Happytime Harry wrote:

Upgrade your command center to orbital, in a pinch you can at least use its scan ability to see them in areas you dont have coverage.

I did this, but I didn't have enough power for more than 1 scan, and I couldn't kill all of them before the scan dissipated.

Scanning their base more frequently is something I'm trying to do, so that's probably going to show the best results. Had I known he had a Dark Shrine, I could have been more prepared. Of course, I also know next to nothing about Protoss, so I had no idea that DTs were cloaked. Forewarned is forearmed, and now I know.

Orbitals are so powerful, and cheap that every command center you have should have one (unless you want a little bit of defense for an expansion, then go planetary). But calling down multiple MULEs is great when you hit a new tier and want an influx of minerals.

Oh yeah, Orbitals are a given. 9 Supply, 11 Rax, 13 Orbital. I just need to fine tune my power use so that I'm getting both MULEs and scans.

A lot of people forget to orbital their expansions, which gives you double the amount of everything. I always use my first power for MULE, then 2nd one is a scan (or 2 scans if its 3v3, 4v4). Knowing an enemies strat is much more valuable than an extra 200 minerals (or however much it is)

Each MULE is worth about 300 minerals. Although, the MULE does harvest at an increased rate over an SCV.

MULE's are 250 minerals. So that's what the opportunity cost of a scan. That's why you see pros building Barracks (150 minerals) and floating them over the opponent's base in the late game.

Nice trick I now use, which for some reason I never thought of it, is building reactors or tech labs on the barracks, then lifting them off so i can use them for the starport/factory when they are up. So simple, yet just never thought of it.

Happytime Harry wrote:

Nice trick I now use, which for some reason I never thought of it, is building reactors or tech labs on the barracks, then lifting them off so i can use them for the starport/factory when they are up. So simple, yet just never thought of it.

A common tactic for Terrans playing against Zerg is to make a reactor on the barracks, make a factory and put it on the reactor, pump out 2 hellions and run to their mineral line as fast as they can. Zerg has to upgrade their zerglings with faster speed to compensate or they'll get destroyed by the hellion fire/step away micro.

A MULE is that many minerals in the short term. The amount of minerals on the map is fixed though so in the late game it doesn't matter as much. Using MULEs on your mineral patches just means you're going to mine those patches out that much sooner. If you give your opponent time to catchup then in the long run those MULEs did nothing. Also remember that the cost of building a barracks is 150 minerals + the missed mining time of the SCV building the barracks, and those 150 minerals are sunk into that barracks forever while the lost mining from the MULE can be made up with time. The barracks can be more effective than the scan in other ways, it can last longer for example, but it's not necessarily more cost efficient.

Day9 recently analyzed a bizzare TvZ game in Daily #157 where he talks a little bit about how with very late game resources things get counter-intuitive. The game was bizzare because...

Spoiler:

It's a two hour long game that ends in a stalemate.

That's an awesome Hellion trick, I'll have to try that out.

Latrine, do you have a link to that match? I would like to see how resource harvesting/spending changes as the game goes on, because it's something I'm not very good at yet.

drdoak wrote:
ranalin wrote:

I suck.

That is all.

Then we need to play!

"For Money!"

2-1 in placement matches so far. I'm afraid to win anymore. I think I just played bad people the first 2 games, and I don't want to get placed too high! Cuz I'm bad.

Dyni wrote:

2-1 in placement matches so far. I'm afraid to win anymore. I think I just played bad people the first 2 games, and I don't want to get placed too high! Cuz I'm bad.

You won't get placed too high. In my 3v3 team, we went 4-1 for our placement matches, and landed in Bronze. I went 3-2 for my 1v1 placements, and also landed in Bronze. I highly suspect you'll land in Bronze no matter what.

TheArtOfScience wrote:

THe matchmaker is really effective at weeding out people trying to farm lower leagues.

For which I am hugely grateful, because it's precisely that which has enabled me to actually enjoy the competitive multiplayer for once. I mostly play against other people who suck about as badly as I do, so even when I lose, I feel like I at least had a chance at winning.

Being a housecat pitted against a tiger just isn't any fun.

Farscry wrote:

Being a housecat pitted against a tiger just isn't any fun.

So where does a Bilge Cat rank in that hierarchy? Higher than a house cat? Perhaps on par with a Bilge Tiger?

Attention EriktheRead, Sinnkwater, Tomaytohead, MonoCheli, and Xeknos. I am about to friend you up for comp stomps. I just HATE it when I play random people and they drop from the game :-/

It's been happening 40% of the time

mrwynd, feel free to abuse your build orders on me anytime I need to get better at zerg and the info you posted has helped A LOT.

I still suck though

checkm-8 wrote:

Attention EriktheRead, Sinnkwater, Tomaytohead, MonoCheli, and Xeknos. I am about to friend you up for comp stomps. I just HATE it when I play random people and they drop from the game :-/

It's been happening 40% of the time

mrwynd, feel free to abuse your build orders on me anytime I need to get better at zerg and the info you posted has helped A LOT.

I still suck though :P

I'm really up for any gametype but I'll probably coax you into a tougher AI than you feel comfortable. That's how you improve!

ahrezmendi wrote:
Dyni wrote:

2-1 in placement matches so far. I'm afraid to win anymore. I think I just played bad people the first 2 games, and I don't want to get placed too high! Cuz I'm bad.

You won't get placed too high. In my 3v3 team, we went 4-1 for our placement matches, and landed in Bronze. I went 3-2 for my 1v1 placements, and also landed in Bronze. I highly suspect you'll land in Bronze no matter what. :)

That's good to hear! I've watched enough high level replays to know my macro skills are far too awful to be in anything but bronze atm.

mrwynd wrote:
checkm-8 wrote:

Attention EriktheRead, Sinnkwater, Tomaytohead, MonoCheli, and Xeknos. I am about to friend you up for comp stomps. I just HATE it when I play random people and they drop from the game :-/

It's been happening 40% of the time

mrwynd, feel free to abuse your build orders on me anytime I need to get better at zerg and the info you posted has helped A LOT.

I still suck though :P

I'm really up for any gametype but I'll probably coax you into a tougher AI than you feel comfortable. That's how you improve!

I as well am game for anything, and I haven't done any comp stomps yet, so that sounds like fun.