So... Starcraft 2?

[Aeni]

Re: So... Starcraft 2?

Oh wait, Marines do that too.....

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00n18vZ_ewA]YouTube - TheLittleOne vs Nada - Game 1 - TvT - Blistering Sands - StarCraft 2[/ame]


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yueRyfCPXso[/ame]

[DakAttack]

Re: So... Starcraft 2?

Ugh Colossi could use a nerf. They hard counter half of the entire game, how is that fair? Oh wait, Marines do that too.....

Anyways, Terran need whatever lab creates two of something at once permanently removed from that game. I think that'll solve a lot of the problems with Terran basically out-massing both Zerg and Protoss. Luckily for Protoss, they have the Colossi, but Zerg have nothing. Ultralisks are pointless, useless, and terrible. Zerg can combat bioballs with banelings pretty well, but they have nothing but air units to combat Colossi. Not really a problem unless there's Terran around, because they can mass produce Vikings and shut down Zerg's air. Sure, Mutalisks own Vikings, but there's no way Zerg can match Terran's production.

Clearly, Blizzard's testing is lacking. I don't think they know how to brainstorm and test edge cases correctly, which, in this game, would basically be critical mass.

[Aeni]

Re: So... Starcraft 2?

Fungal Growth + Banelings = GG Bio Ball.

Speaking of which... if you want to see how a pro that does not adhere to standards play zerg, then you really ought to check TLO's play. He has a Korean account now and is showing Korean players how to own.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WEpP2qpslU]YouTube - TheLittleOne vs NesTea - Part 1/2 - ZvZ - StarCraft 2[/ame]

Taking the zerg play right to the playas. I think that's a true definition of PRO.

[Malacite]

Re: So... Starcraft 2?

Fungal Growth + Banelings = GG Bio Ball.

[DakAttack]

Re: So... Starcraft 2?

Zealots are pretty awesome under the right circumstances. In a match, last night, I realized the entire enemy team was going ground units, so I began teching ground upgrades and decided to warp in purely zealots. I would have been better off building collossi, but this was still hella fun. I swept across the map with about 28 zealots destroying expansions and running right through hydras, stalkers, and marines. It felt pretty good to completely melt their armies, and I was able to fuel mine with two gold mineral patches. Oddly enough, it was 3v3, and I was pretty much doing all the work while one teammate turtled and the other did mostly nothing. I exhausted most of the resources on the map and eventually ran out of zealots, but, luckily, the teammate turtling had about a dozen each of Battlecruisers, Vikings, and Banshees. GG.

[Lmnop]

Re: So... Starcraft 2?

Marine max dmg is 9 right with +3?

Ultras, IIRX, have 7-9 armor with chitinous plating and +3 ground armor so... yeah, you're gonna need a lot of marines.

Yeah, the "idea" is that an ultralisk can ignore marine fire and take out the marauders, tanking all the fire while your other units kill the marines (fungal growth, plz). Marine damage is 6-9, Ultralisk armor is actually 1, +2 for unique upgrade, +1-3 from carapace upgrades. A grand total of 6 armor. What's nice about this is that a meching Terran player probably won't have super high infantry attack upgrades. But obviously, if you see tons of 9 damage marines, expect your ultralisks to take a beating (3 damage/shot, whereas 6 armor vs 6 damage = .5 damage/shot).

Zealots with Charge function a lot like well-placed force fields, as far as psi storm goes. Sure, they get hit, but they zip in and begin wrapping around bioballs. Every side zealots are on is one less side Terran can run to in order to escape psi storm. And pulling back exposes the medivacs more often than not.

Dimaga (zerg player) has a really interesting play I like and may have already talked about: normal ling into mutalisk play, which tends to force high marine count. Then when Terran pushes out with their anti-ling/muta composition, they run into BANELINGS EVERYWHERE which are sooo good against marines.

[DakAttack]

Re: So... Starcraft 2?

Last night I won a game simply with marines. I probably had about twelve of them, and I walked into a zerg expansion and killed a queen and four mutalisks before the fifth finished off my last marine. My partner was rolling banelings into some of the other bases. All of a sudden we're watching the timers count down on the entire enemy team. Seems like they were playing on a network and pulled the plug for the entire network.

Anyways, the moral of the story is that I could field marines faster than he could field mutalisks. My upgrades are cheaper than his, and require much less investment to get them started. Granted, completely upgraded marines don't really stand much of a chance against other completely upgraded units, but the point is to get in fast before they can upgrade. It shouldn't be too difficult. Mix in a few marauders for their slow, and shazam.

[Malacite]

Re: So... Starcraft 2?

Still doesn't seem like the brightest thing the world to do, especially if you got banelings coming your way or even worse brood lords.

Marauders are a much better option. 3M is pretty mean against Zerg. Not as much as it was before the patch, but still way, way worse for Z to deal with than P.

[DakAttack]

Re: So... Starcraft 2?

Marine max dmg is 9 right with +3?

Ultras, IIRX, have 7-9 armor with chitinous plating and +3 ground armor so... yeah, you're gonna need a lot of marines.

Yea, that's the plan. If you're Terran, just spam marines out the wazoo.

[Malacite]

Re: So... Starcraft 2?

Marine max dmg is 9 right with +3?

Ultras, IIRX, have 7-9 armor with chitinous plating and +3 ground armor so... yeah, you're gonna need a lot of marines.

[DakAttack]

Re: So... Starcraft 2?

.... except for the fact that Ultras have so much freaking armor the marines may as well be spitting on it. Marauders are another story entirely, but to say Ultras are bad vs marines... well, those marines better be on the high ground.

Marines should haven't that much trouble with Ultras, but mostly because of their pathing. With a few upgrades, Marines should stand a decent change, but with a ramp, the Ultras might as well lay down and die.

[Malacite]

Re: So... Starcraft 2?

A quick note: Ultralisks are a horrible choice against mostly-marine compositions. Their vs non-armored damage is pretty weak -- I believe it's 15/hit to un-armored and 35/hit to armored. That means with +1 attack, it takes just as many hits to kill a Combat Shields marine as it does a siege tank.

.... except for the fact that Ultras have so much freaking armor the marines may as well be spitting on it. Marauders are another story entirely, but to say Ultras are bad vs marines... well, those marines better be on the high ground.

[Aeni]

Re: So... Starcraft 2?

I've never had trouble with HTs. I suppose part of the problem is that they spray and run away, which causes my a-move units to follow and leave the storm's area of effect. Other than that, the storm never does much damage to my units, and I can easily chase the HTs down and kill them.

Maybe you have better control over your units than Platinum/Diamond level players.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt2cGNq_Wvg]YouTube - Merz vs NightEnd - Game 3 - Part 1/2 - StarCraft 2 Craft Cup Finals[/ame]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohTqi9p-lJc]YouTube - Merz vs NightEnd - Game 3 - Part 2/2 - StarCraft 2 Craft Cup Finals[/ame]

---------- Post added at 07:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:12 PM ----------

I wonder why protoss players forget about the lil sentires ... you know, the units that put bioballs into a corner where HTs can do their job? Sentries make a difference between a 2 colossi, 6 stalker push succeeding or failing against a mass ball of speedlings.

[DakAttack]

Re: So... Starcraft 2?

They only have 2 charges (mid-beta change). The level 1 damage went from 5 to 6, dude. That's not "a whole lot more dangerous". Their level 2 damage went from 25 to your command center they're sniping to 16. And the speed upgrade does very little now (about 60% of its prior strength). If you can't see what these changes will do for fighting single, harassing VRs as well as mass VRs, I think you should run some math.



A quick note: Ultralisks are a horrible choice against mostly-marine compositions. Their vs non-armored damage is pretty weak -- I believe it's 15/hit to un-armored and 35/hit to armored. That means with +1 attack, it takes just as many hits to kill a Combat Shields marine as it does a siege tank.

As for the other stuff, I'll just say protoss can handle them fine. The problem with toss is that, when I'm teching to my HTs and such, I have to move carefully and spend a lot of time/resources protecting every expansion because the opponent likely has banshees everywhere.

Before the Zealot nerf, I did find out that 4-gating and waiting for Warpgate tech to attack always hit before banshees could come online. >.> So I guess I could go back to that to win. Too bad 4-gating is cheap.

Final note: yes, HTs are fantastic against bioballs. Things to remember: an aggressive P will build pylons near the combat. High Templar get an upgrade to start with 75 energy. Psi Storm costs 75 energy. Put it together: when I decide to engage bioballs, I have reinforcements warping in 1 screen away, psi-storm ready. It's NASTY. I've had people raging at me that HT are OP before leaving the game in an angst-ridden path.

The only problem is surviving until both HT upgrades are online.

I've never had trouble with HTs. I suppose part of the problem is that they spray and run away, which causes my a-move units to follow and leave the storm's area of effect. Other than that, the storm never does much damage to my units, and I can easily chase the HTs down and kill them.

I thought VRs were gaining a little more damage on their first charge than that, but I guess that's still an improvement. They weren't exactly slouches at their first charge, and their third/second/last was just too powerful.

[Lmnop]

Re: So... Starcraft 2?

I've yet to see how much of an impact the Void Ray nerf has had. If I remember correctly, they have three charges, so making the first one stronger, the second one weaker, and leave the third alone, doesn't do much. If they do only have two charges, then I don't really see this as being a fix at all. Now they're a whole lot more dangerous before they've completely charged, at which point they're still pretty dangerous.

They only have 2 charges (mid-beta change). The level 1 damage went from 5 to 6, dude. That's not "a whole lot more dangerous". Their level 2 damage went from 25 to your command center they're sniping to 16. And the speed upgrade does very little now (about 60% of its prior strength). If you can't see what these changes will do for fighting single, harassing VRs as well as mass VRs, I think you should run some math.

Bioballs

A quick note: Ultralisks are a horrible choice against mostly-marine compositions. Their vs non-armored damage is pretty weak -- I believe it's 15/hit to un-armored and 35/hit to armored. That means with +1 attack, it takes just as many hits to kill a Combat Shields marine as it does a siege tank.

As for the other stuff, I'll just say protoss can handle them fine. The problem with toss is that, when I'm teching to my HTs and such, I have to move carefully and spend a lot of time/resources protecting every expansion because the opponent likely has banshees everywhere.

Before the Zealot nerf, I did find out that 4-gating and waiting for Warpgate tech to attack always hit before banshees could come online. >.> So I guess I could go back to that to win. Too bad 4-gating is cheap.

Final note: yes, HTs are fantastic against bioballs. Things to remember: an aggressive P will build pylons near the combat. High Templar get an upgrade to start with 75 energy. Psi Storm costs 75 energy. Put it together: when I decide to engage bioballs, I have reinforcements warping in 1 screen away, psi-storm ready. It's NASTY. I've had people raging at me that HT are OP before leaving the game in an angst-ridden path.

The only problem is surviving until both HT upgrades are online.