Starcraft II Races

Which race do you prefer and why?

 

Zerglewurgle

Because they are the most fun to play for me.

 

I pictured star craft Mario cart when reading the title.

I like protoss personally. Only cause of zeratul.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using Tapatalk

 

Brotoss....

........only because when I started playing, I tried out protoss because had the "need more pylons" stuck in my head.

 

Terran for me because it is the easiest to learn from all three. However, they aren't the strongest in my opinion (Zerg takes that in stride if you are very leet to use them well).

 

I pictured a Zealot with a sweat band on running lol.

 

Baka plays zerg.

Baka plays all 3 races actually but does not excel in any of them ._.

 

One thing at a time. Language first, then starcraft.

As far as the races, protoss is doing pretty well at the highest level right now, but the game is decently balanced across all skill levels. It's mostly a matter of how you relate to the strategy, because each race is stylistically different.

Terran might seem easier because terran tends to control the flow of the early game, and so if you want, you can make a choice to force the game to end in the earlier stages, and you might win a significant portion of those situations in lower levels. The problem is that the game does matchmaking, and so you'll end up stagnating at a skill level where they can stop that type of move about half the time, and you won't have the skills necessary to continue improving, or to be competitive against that level of player using other strategies.

Ultimately, Terran is about as difficult as the rest of the races. All of the races depend on expanding faster than your opponent, scouting, taking small victories with minimal losses and minimal risk, and finding other ways to get ahead slowly over time. Choosing when to tech, which direction to tech, and when to expand is based on game sense and scouting. These are the real skill attributes, and they are race independent.

You have to adjust your goal preferences with a game like SC2. It's not like a first person shooter with open servers where you can just win all the time. You're going to win about half of your games. Success is primarily measured by the apparent skill level of the opponents with which you are matched. In other words, the goal of playing on the ladder is to improve.

 

So far I've only tried Terran. I like the Marine Maurader (is that how you spell it?) combo. But I can definitely see how that would be useless endgame. I looked at the top 200 players for north america and it seems like Terran makes up around 40% of the list. Prot also take up around 40% and zerg seems to have like 20%.

I don't know if this will be relevant to the game, but to give you an idea of how I like to play, I really enjoyed playing the Dwarves in BFME2 (My record was 270-15 with dwarf) and I usually did a lot fo rushing in age 3 with Ottomans. Based on this, could you guys recommend a particular race? Or does it not even compare to SC2?

I'm basically a complete noobie with sc2, but I have a good deal of experience with RTS games. Since I'm new I would like to focus on learning 1 race to start off, then perhaps in time maybe I'll learn another.

 

Just a couple of thoughts:

1. The top 200 percentages are more indicative of race choice/popularity at the high levels than effectiveness. If you're trying to figure out "which race is best at the highest level" - you'd have to look at win/loss records at the highest level, not just choice frequency.

2. If you want to play rush strategies, I would pick terran. Generally, terran is the strongest in the early game, so if you want to end the game early, you should try terran. They have probably the widest variety of all-in rush strategies. That said, if you don't intend on playing longer economic oriented strategies, you'll end up floundering at whatever skill level players learn to stop your all-in.

 

Can Terran also be strong endgammers as well?

 

I chose the Protoss because I liked their look, style, and background music the best. Seriously.

 

Definitely, but not if you force a death-rush early and they hold. You'll have to play a totally different style.

 

Played protoss exclusively in the Beta, but for some reason when the game released, I switched to Zerg and never looked back.

for the swarm !

 

It is a tough choice. They all look cool to me but I would prefer to only focus on 1 race at least at the beginning. I am leaning towards Terr and Prot.

 

I really think focusing on one race is the way to go. It doesn't really matter which; choose which one you think has the coolest units or the best feel for you, and go with that.

I chose Protoss over Terran because (1) I tend to get very static when playing as Terrans (using high ground and stuff to my advantage), whereas playing with a continually-moving, dynamic style is easier with Protoss, and (2) observers rock my world. Keep me a step ahead of the enemy. I like to have one with my army, one over my base to help counter an attack by stealth units, and one on constant patrol of expansions so that I can immediately respond when an opponent drops an expansion.

That said, I'm a bronze league player, so you probably shouldn't be listening to me.

 

No bad information in here, except possibly overproduction of observers.

 

Depends on my mood. Mostly Terran, but I can do Protoss. Marine rush or mass Stalkers + Zealots.

 

I choose Terrans because Marines are all dat.

 

Initially I planned to play Zerg, but I ended up playing Terran in the beta because of the lower APM requirement. I never bothered trying to learn the other races properly. Can't say I regret sticking with Terran though.

 

I chose and prefer terran.

Because in my games, I like to play as human characters.

 

Man. Reading this thread makes me want to leave work early to go home and play a few matches. Haha.

Speaking in terms of early game, I feel that protoss can stop the terran early rush effectively. I've been in matches where all I needed was my first zealot and stalker to stop the few marines rallied to my base and then counter-attack it with a push with 4gate proxy pylons (maybe even a 3gate robo for a few immortals). By that time, I normally have enough stalkers and zealots to match their marine/marauder combo and enter their base....that is, only if they haven't already teched to concussion shells (is that what it's called).

 

Rawr yeah I have SC2 on the brain too. I cant sleep so I was productive...


<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/nXtNKU3yucc?version=3&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="480" width='853'>

 

Racist.

10 char

 

I'm not racist, I hate everyone equally.

 

started as protoss, now i play both terran and protoss. terran when im aware, protoss when im tired. played zerg also but i dont really like the race mechanics. i can compete in na masters with all 3 races though.

 

Ha no, its just merely important to identify with your character.

 

Terrans because of their strong economic advantage (MULES!) and wide variety of options...dirt cheap marines, cloaked banshees, siege tanks, etc.

 

I found a basic build order for all 3 races (From that Huskey SC2 guy on youtube) So I guess what I will do is practice the order against the AI. Then once I can beat the AI on hard I will go to practice league using random, then whichever race I like most I will focus on from then on. =)

 

I played the rest of my placement matches yesterday and I have no idea how I placed in silver league.......my last login before playing again was July 2011! Now I look dumb losing to these highly ranked bronze leaguers. haha.

BTW, is there an NBR-SC2 community thread on here? If not, we should get one going. Discuss builds, counters, post up replays, and all the like.

 

you might as well just play ladder. the AI is a waste of time. plus, if you put off playing on the ladder, it'll make it this stressful thing when you start doing it. You want ladder to be a calm, easy, experience.

your ladder ranking is heavy influenced by your most recent games anyway, and you're going to end up with about an even win loss record no matter what you do

 

Ladder is never a calm, easy experience. It's a stress pool from the beginning. Especially now, most of the newb newbs are gone, and it's filled with advanced players primarily.

 

I will agree with this. It's hard to be calm with ladder because if you ever relax for 30 seconds, you've lost the game. It's that fast-paced and you can NEVER stop your macro. And you're right that most of the easy players are gone. I was mid-level bronze when SC2 was new, and I'm mid-level bronze now, but my ability, and the ability of other mid-level bronze players now, is vastly superior to what bronze was when the game was new. If someone doesn't have a solid idea of build orders and an appropriate emphasis on macro, they'll get massacred even in frickin' bronze league nowadays.

 

Yea, I've taken a long break from sc2 laddering because its just too damn stressful. Its too intense!

 

So far I have to say I am leaning towards Protoss. They look pretty cool.

 

And even if you want to play with a relaxed attitude, you just can't, game's over right away. It is great for a very competitive player who is willing to invest the time to learn how to play. Unfortunately it's a game that requires lots of time to invest to be decent, and I mean decent, not even good or great (unless you're ViciousXUSMC )

It's most fun, however, when playing with friends just to goof off. Heck I've had fun with 2v2 or 3v3 with a couple of friends as good (bad) as me. It's just too bad you can't do a ladder game against your friends, it has to be anonymous. And the modded games are great fun too. It can't hurt to try your hand at ladder, worse case is you lose, and lose a lot... oh well. But it eventually isn't as much fun as it is work if you actually try to play to win.

 

Do you guys know how ranking works or rather, how the placement works?

Like I mentioned, I did my 5 placement matches and I did quite poorly. I think I one only one of those games, yet I got placed in silver league? When I played back in summer 2011, I couldn't get passed rank 28 bronze. That was my highest rank.

 

That's the other thing, the ranking system is FUBAR. I was in bronze the hundred or so games I played (yes that many) and was even like rank 16 or something. But could never make it to silver. And most of these bronze players were great, even when I put my best game on (ok, you guys can laugh) I still had to work like a horse to even come close to a win. And I heard of a lot of people placing silver or gold with 5 losses out of the gate. Not to mention I'd lose like 90% of the games where it said I was "strongly favored" to win.

 

I do a lot of for-fun team games. They are great.

That said, I am able to compete and take a relaxed mindset on the ladder. I used to get really stressed out playing on ladder, and it was because I put a lot of self-pressure on my performance, because it was for the record.

 

Yeah man. I heard something that it might be based off of skill-matching or something like that. But I was beginning to believe that because the last match I played, I played against a high level bronze, I think he was top 10. I was ahead for most of the game, but I over-committed to an attack and I couldn't defend against his counter attack and I lost. When the game results came up, it showed that I was much ahead of him as far as resources and units go. I guess it brought me into silver cuz of that....?

 

Meh, I don't guess how they do it. Just because you can resource gather faster shouldn't have a bearing because someone that can win with less is the better opponent imho. They don't divulge the formula, so it's all just a guess, almost some randomness to it. I have fun with all aspects of the game except ladder. The SP campaign is a bit of a grind, but I have to commit to finish that too.

 

HT You Must FACE ME!!

 

Silver Terran here, I feel that terran is one of the more easier races to play and Zerg is the hardest. Protoss is somewhere in the middle but i have plenty of problems with protoss in the early game, especially against terran players.

 

As a protoss player against terran players, I generally go stalkers + sentries with guardian shield. But nevertheless, I'm generally in the process of getting bent over a table when I get my first immortal out, and that helps turn the tide. It's hard to beat marines+marauders until you get immortals into your mix, so I just tech like hell for tier 2 units when I'm against terrans. Once I've got some immortals and observers out, though, I can scout and act/react much more dynamically then terrans can. I then deny them expansions instead of wasting units trying to crack the fortress that their original base inevitably is.

What makes zerg so hard for me is the economy and unit production mechanic. It seems to require much more attention than Terran or Protoss.

 

Challenge (although not much for you) accepted!

You'll have ten war of the worlds robot things before I have 3 marines...

Meet your maker!

 

[tangent] Having even a couple colossi with the extended-range lasers when an opponent masses Marines is one of the most viscerally satisfying things that can ever happen in SC2. [/tangent]

 

The ranking system and the matchmaking system aren't the same thing. Wingnut was saying that the ranking system is messed up (which it is). The matchmaking system is actually really solid.

The matchmaking system details aren't publicly available, but the general consensus is that you have a matchmaking rating (tracked by the game) which is not visible to you, based on the ELO rating system. Your matchmaking ranking (MMR) changes based on the MMR of your opponent, and the results of each match. It's a sound system, and Blizzard uses this type of system in their other games. This game seems to use a similar system. It's not much of a reach to assume that it does. Your MMR is not based on how well you played or game statistics. It's just based on the MMR of your opponent, and whether you won or lost. The point is that the game will always try to match you up against someone with a very close MMR.

The ranking system, however, is foobar. (Keep in mind that's completely separate from the matchmaking). Your league and your rank within your league only has a loose relationship to your MMR. You might find that, while in gold, you end up playing a lot of silver players, or a lot of platinum players. It depends on your MMR. That's just an artifact of the fact that your league doesn't mean much. You just have to try to enjoy the game and get better, and trust that the matchmaking is doing its job.

 

It's not even matchups if you lose all the time, now is it? Or when you're "strongly favored" to win but lose 90% of those matches? The ranking system makes zero sense to me based on the games I played. It's unbalanced.

 

My life for Aiur!

 

Hey regarding ladder, do they keep track of your wins and losses or only your wins? Just curious. And if you get into one league, how long does it take to get out of that league and into the next league?