Starcraft 2 Discussion Thread

I don't think I've seen one, so I'm gonna start one!
I just tried out the beta today, and I'd have to say, the game runs pretty smooth, except the scrolling, which sucks. I can't really say much against it though, 'cause it's just an early stage beta. I'm sure it'll get fixed.

I honestly thought they should've kept the old voices for the units, they were more... I dunno, I guess they stuck to me more than the new voices (especially Protoss voices, which sound waayyyy too distant and godly(?)).

Unit control is a bit funky for now, sometimes the units will wander off a bit, but it's nothing big.

Seems like they sped the mining up. I know I've VERY rusty at SC after years of not playing, so maybe it's just me being slow and not building enough units

The music is great, no disappointments there.

Overall, the beta's very solid. Some units still need to be nerfed imo (VOID RAYS HOLY CRAP!), but it'll all sort out soon

Soooo, let the discussing begin

 

I'm jealous you got the beta T_T No word here but then again I'm in Europe... The beta's for US and some other places isn't it?

Seems like the Zerg are getting a huge buff as opposed to the protoss and terran. Did they replaced the firebats entirely with those helions or something?

 

I want as much info about the Swarm!

I've only seen the battle reports, so there might be some differences now. Haven't seen any Medics either. Are Changelings available? Still don't know how they work...

 

The Swarm...
Roaches.
That's all I'll say. Roaches.

And yes, Hellions pretty much replaced bats. They pretty much do the same thing as bats though, just machines now. They're also quite the suck against buildings and units that are not clumped together (like Firebats). They eat melee units though.

Void Rays (new Protoss air unit) eat buildings. And that's an understatement.

 

Lol roaches heal very fast Refineries/extractors/assimilators costs gas after the first one now eh =0

 

Void Rays = Beam Cannons (C&C3) IMO
Nydus Worms. How do they work? Are they like Dropships/Shuttles? Or still like Nydus Canals, except no need for Creep? Ultralisks can burrow now, right?

 

Im jealous that you are in Beta; although isnt SC2 supposed to be out Q2 this year? Or is that too optimistic?

 

They said that it's expected to be out by summer this year iirc

My guess is about August/September

 

Not for me... I don't think they cost gas... I'd have to double check

Edit: No they don't cost gas after the first one...

I don't have a clue
I haven't used Zerg all that much yet, I'll get back to you on that

Edit: I just tried them out. They're still like Nydus Canals, but no need for creep now. Ultralisks can burrow, and they're much bigger than I thought they'd be... Nydus Worms are quite the surprise! They build fast, so just send a few mutalisks to scout out the area, build Nydus Worm, send in Roaches and stuff. Instant econ hit.

It's supposed to be released sometime in June? But Blizzard lives in a completely different dimension from us, so their June may be our December

 

I don't know why, but I'm just itching to try out the Terran Banshees. Must be because of how the Scorpion Gunships from Avatar resemble them so.

 

When are the next waves of beta keys supposed to be going out?? They don't have vultures anymore right?

 

Well the second wave went out on the 27th. And it launched on the 17th so i say another 10 days for the next wave

 

Vultures are gone

 

360 degree camera turning? How far can you zoom out? I'm guessing it's comparable to WC3.

 

So Nydus Worms make it just that more easier for me to make new strategies I rarely built Nydus Canals due to the need for Creep. Can Infestors also infest Terran buildings? Are there anymore Protoss Carriers? How about Dark Templars?

 

Carriers and DTs are still there

 

so can you do anything like vulture controls with any units in this game?

 

A Hellion is pretty much a firebat riding a vulture, if that helps

 

Needs more pylons.

 

but isn't hellion close ranged??

 

Well they have some range. Not a whole lot, but it's kind of like the old vulture range.

 

ah.. hope i can still take out bunch of close ranged guys with just 2 helions.

 

In the Starcraft Terran gameplay demo where they introduce units, didn't they use some sort of vulture like unit to circle around the thor and kill it?

 

I think that fast unit was deleted pre-beta, but I'm not sure.

How are the colossi?

 

The strafing unit was taken out a long time ago.

Colossi are beasts, basically siege tanks that can walk in siege mode and scale cliffs. The range upgrade to give them 9 range is a must have and they are strong against just about any ground army if you keep them protected. Vickings and Corrupters should be pretty good against them because of the vulnerability to anti Air.

Nydus worms are kind of slow to attack with though since they take 10 seconds to pop up and unload the units one at a time (bad for trying to unload lots of zerglings). If the enemy has good vision over his own base then they can see it coming and have time to react and can even kill the worm before you get anything out (it has 200hp). Two big advantages over dropships though are that your units inside wont die if the enemy kills the worm as long as the first half of the worm at your base is still alive (they can load and unload at either end), and it's easier to retreat after a raid cause you just have to make it back into the worm and you're home free. Curiously, a nydus worm can hold well over 200 units but there is a limit! Takes a loooong time to unload a really large force though.

Nothing can infest buildings anymore but corruptors can corrupt buildings which is basically the same as disruption web but not AoE.

Carriers and dark templar are pretty similar to how they were in starcraft 1 but the the interceptors behave better and don't pull back to the carrier if the carrier moves as long as the enemy is still in range. Carriers also spawn with 4 free interceptors and a max capacity of 8 (no up needed). There is also an upgrade that lets the carriers launch their interceptors faster for quicker initial strikes. Dark templar's only real change is they can merge with other DTs or HTs and form blue archons (dark archons are gone).

 

That's just like a normal Nydus Canal. I'm used to it's speed of releasing units anyway. It does have 50hp less though...

I haven't heard anything about Zerg air units though. Are Mutalisks still able to evolve into Devourers and Guardians? Also, are Defilers no longer available?

 

I have doubts on them removing defilers. That unit has a lot of strategic ways that it can be used for

 

Defilers are gone entirely.

Mutalisks can no longer evolve into guardians or devourers. Otherwise they're still just like in starcraft 1.

Devourers have been replaced by corruptors which can be built from larvae, and guardians have been replaced by brood lords which can be evolved from corruptors.

Corruptors are a pretty simple anti-air unit, they're attack doesn't have a special effect like devourers did but they do have an ability to corrupt buildings which works like a single target disruption web. They do extra damage against massive units like battlecruisers, carriers, or even colossi.

Brood lords are just beasts. They are tougher and have a bit more damage and range than guardians (though are more expensive), and they also spawn 2 broodlings at the location the shot hit every time they attack. Each broodling is almost as strong as a zergling and even though they have a short lifespan the damage from them really adds up (especially if you upgrade melee damage) and they are very good at soaking up damage to help protect the rest of your units.

 

holy crap brood lords sound OP'ed, what abilities do that queen ground unit have? And can you only create one?

 

What no defilers T_T So sad I loved them

Though Brood Lord indeed does sound overpowered

 

The queen can spawn creep tumors, which are tiny buildings that work like creep colonies and extend the range of your creep and tumors can spawn more tumors for free after a certain amount of time. She can also heal any zerg unit or building for 125hp at a time. But most importantly she can spawn eggs on a hatchery that will turn into 4 larvae after 40 seconds. Basically if a queen is constantly devoting all her energy into creating larvae it's like having an extra hatchery.

Each queen requires a spawning pool, and builds inside a hatchery, not from larvae. You can build as many as you want, supply permitting (they take 2 supply). They are not very strong in combat and are prime targets for raids but they can attack ground and air. Having more queens than you have hatcheries doesn't make sense though because you can't spawn larvae twice on the same hatchery until the 40 seconds is up, however if a queen has extra energy she can spawn larvae on multiple hatcheries.

 

Brood Lord is late game though, when everyone has pretty strong units, so they're not that imba. The main imba unit from the Zerg is the Roach. It's an early unit that has more armor, hp and attack than pretty much everything else. It also heals ridiculously fast when burrowed, so it's pretty much invincible early on. Roach rush is one of the most often used strategies =/

 

So if a zergling rush fails, go with roach rush next? Wow Zergs really love their rush

 

Roach Rush is killer.

 

It's what the Zerg do best

Oh also, there's a Zealot Chronogate rush now, it's very dangerous.

 

Is there anything defensively that would keep any rush at bay temporarily? I hate playing rush games, it's just like a sprint to who can click the fastest and/or guessing what's coming.

What I'm talking about is like in C&C Generals Zero Hour, the laser general can build laser turrets that can defend pretty much against any early rush.

Sorry, I haven't played Starcraft much in the last ten years, only on occasion, but I did a lot after it was released initially.

 

there is no need to worry about balance, given blizzard's reputation. it will be balanced out after a patch or two, or even on release.

how is the new battlenet? any discernible lag?

 

I cannot wait!!

 

Are colossi really that tall, or do you mean if they're hit with antigrav (There's an antigrav offensive ability, right?)

And I'm in Wingnut's camp. I hate the rush.

Hmm. I shold youtube some gameplay videos.

 

Yes please please please you lucky butt!

(btw no CPU yet. )

 

They're really that tall, any anti-air attack can hit them, such as missile turrets.

There is an anti-grav ability that phoenixes get (protoss air-to-air unit, strong vs light). The anti-grav stuns a ground unit and floats it into the air so it can be hit by anti-air attacks (like from other phoenixes), but it doesn't work on massive units. I think the only massive ground units are thors, colossi, and ultralisks. It DOES work on siege tanks, even when they are in siege mode.

 

Oh yea definitely. Terran by far is the best anti-rush race. They're as good as it gets. Supply depots now can be, get this, instead of lifted up like most Terran buildings, buried underground, and raised at will. This creates a sort of supply depot wall that allows units to walk over it, and then raise the depots so that the enemy can't get through! Bunkers can now be upgraded to hold 6 units, and Helions are a good anti rush unit, because they spit on melee units. They're terrible later on though

 

Wait, what? I don't speak W1ngNu7.

And hopefully it comes soon. My T9900 is starting to look inadequete. Stupid Worst Buy mobo.

Now that's just scary. I hope those things can tank pretty well, since you'll have anti-air spamming them.

I took a look at some videos (from an uploader named HDStarcraft, who records his beta matches and commentates on them) on Youtube. I saw how well a "gated" ramp covered by marines and Ares can stop even a mad zealot rush.

The more I watch, the more I know it's going to annoy me. I'm fairly good at macromanagement, but my micro sucks fierce.

Oh, and do ultralisks have splash damage now?

 

We might be fine, im hoping we will .

Starcraft 2 Beta: CPU benchmarks

I wonder how will mobile i7 will do vs high clock i5-520/540 or the i7-620m.

 

Im running this on my G51J on Ultra settings with no frame drops at all in full res

 

My CPU sucks something awful, and I can run it fine. Don't worry about your CPU, besides, I'm sure Blizzard would tweak the game out for maximum performance, given that this is still very early in the beta.

 

Dragoonx, I'm very curious about how your machine does SC2, it is very similar to M15x, which I have 820 proc, 4gb 1333mhz ram. What's your RAM, and Proc? Can you check out the framerate using the internal framerate counter inside SC2 beta? What's the range? Does it drop pretty bad when things get real busy? and Lastly, big favor! *on my knee* please post some external HD videos of your gameplay, so we can get some ideas how i7qm+260m does with SC2!! You lucky .....(you get the idea)...

 

I'm not worried about my own CPU. On the of chance that 3.06 GHz with 6MB L2 can't run it fluently, there's always overclocking.

Just saying that lots of people have quads now, and I'm stuck with C2D.

And roaches look pretty epic, and void rays suck against marines.

EDIT: I noticed I got filtered. Hmm. I said "Arklite", but with the K being a C in the original message. What could be so bad about the company that made the siege tanks. "A-R-E-S" were the leftover letters.

Oh, now I see it. Haha.

 

Hm... Can infestors mind control air units or is there a separate unit for that?

Are corsairs still around or did they get replaced by the phoenix?

 

Corsairs are replaced by Phoenix.