Starcraft II Tips

For all that keyspam and fast muta action, he had terrible intel. Could have ended it 3-4 minutes sooner if he'd been paying just a bit more attention to where and what he was attacking. Talking about the game as he played it couldn't have helped though.

 

Whoah.

I've watched replays of really good players, but never the over-the-shoulder style where I get to see where his screen is and where he's clicking! That was crazy!

 

Mothership rush in diamond tournament lol

YouTube - SC2 MOTHERSHIP RUSH WAT?

 

That video could make someone believe in god.

 

naw, kinda lame actually, he left his back door wide open for any aerial assault. Well at least those announcers got on my nerves.

 

not bad considering it was live casting. I would be be playing at 1/2 to 1/4 speed with live casting. But yeah.

 

Yeah, Drewbie made some mistakes, but still, the sheer amount of BALLS it takes to mothership rush, and the awesomeness to make it work. I'm a big fan of Hyperbole, I'm sorry if you took it any other way than jest, but still, that video made my morning.

 

HuK is my hero.

 

The question is would it have seemed so brilliant if he had his butt handed to him instead?

 

It wasn't brilliant. It was reckless, and that is what makes it so fantastic.

 

All this reaper play vs zerg really makes me angry, but happy when z actually defends it. Anyone seen the callmehg vs dimaga Go4SC2 games? CallmehG does the exact same thing every game... its got to be the most annoying thing i can think of.

All I know is dimaga won and hes a baller.

 

funny stuff roflmao XD

 

Sure. It's like James Dean... you live life on the edge, and it's awesome when you succeed, and horrible when you fail.

 

And I only thought he sold sausages!

 

I can't figure out for the life of me how to look up people's profiles who aren't on your friend's list. Can anyone please help me with this? Similar to a wowarmory basically, but with SC profiles.

 

@intenseIGFX after the match their name should have a drop down menu and click on view profile. of go to match history click on a match and their names. i think this is what you ment xD

 

In game you can go through your match history or ladders. And since you can look at other people's ladders once you get to their profile you can keep exploring that way.

Outside of game SC2 Ranks is king

My hero too, awesomeness.

 

How do you get your profile link for SC2sig.com? That's what I'm curious about.

 

That was pretty great lol.

 

On a 12 game losing streak atm.

Stinks really bad. D:

 

sometimes taking a break is needed for that next win.

 

My worst ever has been a 20 game losing streak, which really annihilates your points and ranking if you're up there in Diamond.

Honestly I find that the best thing to do if you start losing is just stop playing. That day where I lost 20 I just kept...on...playing... it was just pure stubborn digging in my heels and it did me no good. The most I lost the worse I played: self perpetuating cycle of doom.

Likewise if you are on a winning streak it's good to keep playing. If I win more than 4 or 5 in a row I stop taking breaks in between to watch my replays and just let my confidence and whatever positive mojo I have going that day keep me rocking. It's totally psychological of course, but that's not to say it isn't meaningful.

 

Completely agree with Poobah.

I've experienced exact same stuff when playing the beta. I went down from platinum to bronze in 2v2 because I wouldn't take a break on a losing steak and my hothead just got the best of me.

 

Been watching a lot of HuK. This guy is ballin. hopefully he makes it to korean team.

Also, Machine, his play style is totally different from any zerg ive seen.

Its pretty fun to mimic everyones play style to come up with ur own.

And you guys hear idRa has been playing terran? traitor!!

 

Yeah cause he's tired of zerg getting steam rolled by terran

 

Yeah, I just think its funny bc he told drewbie he didnt play terran bc he has self respect ahhaha, but im sure he will switch back after this patch who knows.

Ive seen some Z take care of T quite nicely, its just crazy sometimes.

 

Idra doesn't have too much self respect then

He's a good player, but swears like a sailor...or marine in this case

 

What a coward. =) But I shouldn't talk, I was a Z player, I just switched to toss... For Aiur.

 

I was zerg for awhile, no I'm doing random. It's making me a much faster thinker and adapter.

I never played SC1(flame on!), and everytime i try to load up brood war my graphically spoiled mind makes me alt f4 out. I know it's an old game but how should I get into it?

 

SC1 is worth the campaign storyline alone! One of the best written and delivered storylines in gaming history.

 

So, since I left Oxford and headed back up to Dundee this week for the imminent start of the next unviersity semester I can't play ladder games any more (craptop now instead of my desktop at home) and I've been doing some coop vs insane AI.

Actually been having quite a bit of fun min/maxing and perfecting my rushes with all three races (since that is the only way to win vs insane Ai as they cheat) though even rushing I see slowdown sometimes if the unit counts get up a bit. Bloody craptop, I guess I gotta find the one for me soon. It's getting painful to see my bonus pool go up while my ladder rank goes down as people's scores creep up

 

Finally got the 250 wins as random achievement.

Ugh that took forever.

Also the game of HuK someone posted earlier with the mothership rush is legit. I copied the build and I'm 10-0 with it.

 

Lol what is your 1v1 rank that that actually works? Seems like the only reason that worked for Huk was the guy was chronicly non-aggressive. If he hadn't have tried to FE and gone nutso bunkering up he could easily have destroyed the small defence force that HuK had.

 

I don't think anything's really kept up with Half-Life 1/2 yet.

 

I'm in diamond.

Also this build works really well against 4 warpgate in PvP, and on certain maps.

I only do it against Protoss on either Scrap Station or Desert Oasis.

 

Short air rush distance and long ground rush distance maps eh

I HAVE RETURNED >:]

For a short while ._. I miss this thread <3

 

I tried doing the expert level challenges, but my macro-micro skills are just not good enough. On the first one where you have to get 30 marines, 8 tanks and 8 ghosts, I did it with 2:20 left. I couldn't figure out how to gain 2 minutes for the gold 4 minute one.

I had 2 barracks, 1 with tech lab and a factory. I also had an orbital command, a second base, ~20 SCVs on minerals between both bases, 4 refineries.

Then I tried the one where you fend off early rushes and even the first zergling rush pwned me. There's no way to get a Barracks up and pump marines fast enough.

 

You are supposed to attack the lings with SCVs, Listen to the intro =)

 

Whered you go?

So I guess idRa did play as a secret identity as terran only on ladder matches. Which I believe he only did to understand the terran builds a little better. Anyone watching the huge starcraft II tourny in korea right now? Something like $80k is on the line for first place winner...

Pretty neat, except the first game was horribly commentated by tasteless and artosis...which made me think it was a mistake or some crap. I think tasteless thought the stream was running off his monitor, but it was actually running on artosis'

Whatev, check em out if ur interested at gomtv.net

 

And here I got excited that I just got the 50 wins as random over the long weekend...


and speaking of losing a ton in a row... I was like 30-4 and wondering why I wasn't getting into diamond, then lost like 5 in a row, got into diamond, then went another 2-18... but now I think I recovered and back to winning 2/3 of my games

 

I can't believe anyone doesn't have those horrible maps blacklisted.

 

EU Diamond Map-specific Race Win-%s

Terran strong maps: Lost Temple, Metalopolis, Steppes of War
Terran weak maps: Blistering Sands, Kulas Ravine
Protoss Strong: Desert Oasis, Xelnaga Caverns, Kulas Ravine
Protoss Weak: Scrap Station
Zerg Strong: Scrap Station, Blistering Sands
Zerg Weak: Delta Quadrant

 

I dont block or vote for any maps, just like how I play random I also am ok with random maps. I would rather not have any weak areas because I refuse to play a certain race/map.

I do seem to lose on scrap station a lot though, I dont like that map.

 

To say this would mean that everyone that plays these maps has to be perfect and kno exactly every advantage the map gives. No one plays perfect, so thats why you see a z pro, losing to t on blistering sands. You can say there are advantages for each race on every map, that doesnt mean the person playing the map knows them, even if they are diamond.

There's always going to be a map that maybe a certain race can do this or that to the other race. If everyone X's a map bc their race, everyone would be playing their own race.

 

When I have access to my pc and I'm laddering I also play random.

I do blacklist maps though because I think some of them are just dumb. The SC2 maps that blizzard shipped it with are mostly attempts to imitate and sadly simplify the SC:BW korean pro scene maps, which I am used to playing SC:BW on, since they are very well balanced. Unfortunately all of these maps are awful.

Scrap Station and Desert Oasis are the worst with their silly air distances, horrible natural expansions and stupid long land distances.

Delta Quadrant is pretty bad with its massive main, if you include the blocked backdoor expansion, backdoor expo is blocked and has a cliff to make matters worse, front 'natural expo' is wide open.

Blistering Sands has the large mains and their bloody backdoors, as well as a billion choke points and loads of small corridors of terrain with no space for flanking without having to split your army in half and move around half the map.

Metalopolis is OK, though it suffers from the small corridors of space issue which is just silly. Seriously did Blizzard not realise that they were making 90% of their ladder maps along the lines of "split the map up via height transitions, doodads and unpassable terrain into small corridors and smallish areas linked by choke points" because apparently actually being able to manoeuvre and flank would be bad... or it might make the rather more immobile Terran race weaker :O

Xel'Naga Caverns is generally very well regarded. The land is split up into the aforementioned small corridors but it's all well linked up so you can actually flank a bit and get some tactical movement going on. There are well placed expos. The mains are a nice size. The tactical features (grass/smoke and towers) are actually implemented well here, as are the obligatory gold mineral expos. Rush distances are medium for such a small map. In general it's good.

Lost Temple is OK, because it's based on a popular SCBW map. The middle is more divided up because again Blizzard seem to hate having open space to manoeuvre in. Cliffs at the natural are meh, but at least they need some air transport tech to get to. Towers are MEH. I'm not a fan of the Xel'Naga tower in general, as a terrain feature. Not amazing but not horrible.

Steppes of War is a pretty nice map all told. The middle is even reasonably open. The towers don't give instant vision of the entire map either. The natural is pretty nice. In general one of the best maps in the pool, along with LT and XC, with Metalopolis coming fourth.

Kulas Ravine was designed to show Terrans how they could annihilate everything in sight with siege tanks. Easy access cliff at the natural. Cliffs at the gold mineral expos. Loads of cliffs in the middle of the map with towers on them so those tanks can shoot extra far. Towers all over the map in any MU allow a pretty much legal maphack since they give you vision of 80% of the map. All this on a huge map with no open space.

That said, at the moment the only 2 maps I have blacklisted are Scrap Station and Desert Oasis because I think they are cheese magnets and horribly designed. I'm willing to play on Kulas and Delta because they at least allow standard play and don't actively promote cheese.

 

Megalopolis is probably the best balanced map in the current map pool for all match-ups. Every point besides the main has more than one avenue of attack, which actually allows flanking and positioning, rather than 1a syndrome.

Steppes is too small to be considered a good map. Tanks barely have to go anywhere to leap frog and hit the opponents main. Too Terran and Protoss favored against Zerg. In TvP, the matchup is almost balanced but again, the distance is too short, making 3 rax/rine tank builds way too good. Overall Terran favored.

Lost Temple has the worst designed natural cliff ever. A single siege tank with a bunker of 3 marines, scv and a turret is basically impossible to stop as Zerg. Again too Terran favored. PvT is a much better, and really close to balanced.

Xel'Naga caverns is pretty nice map, natural is a little exposed, but overall a decent map. A little Zerg favored in my opinion.

Delta Quadrant is decent, the in-base expo has threat of cliffs, while the outside natural is harder to defend. These kind of decisions are great for maps. I actually think Delta Quadrant is Protoss favored just because of the expansion design. Blink Stalkers and voidrays are so annoying on this map.

Desert Oasis is a weird map. I dislike playing on it, but I have some the most epic games ever on it and that is the reason I don't blacklist it. It encourages cheese in some ways, but if you can get past that phase, the map is really cool. Tons of avenues of attack, and ways to harass. No race really has an advantage. Although Protoss cheese seems to dominate it.

Scrap Station is definitely the only true Zerg favored map. Most of my games end pretty early since getting a third is nigh impossible on it. Terran thor/tank/marine is very potent on it as well. Protoss will probably have the most difficulty just because Protoss has the worst ground Anti-Air ever.

Kulas Ravine is a map that is way to hard for Zerg to win on. Protoss and Terran basically dominate Zerg on it really easily. In PvT, Protoss definitely has the advantage. Since the entire main is on the same level as the outside, any warpgate plays can easily kill off a Terran player since there is no ramp advantage Terran can use to stay alive.

Blistering Sands is the only map where Terran has trouble in against both P and Z. The backdoor rocks just make it really hard for Terran. PvZ is fairly balanced, although 2 gate into FE is an extremely strong build on this map. Although Blizz is going to alter this map in the next patch, not sure how its going to effect the match-ups.

I don't blacklist any of the maps in the current map pool. Only because I like to really experiment my play, either way I barely play ladder since 50% of diamond players just allin all the time. Playing with my practice players is much more engaging and a bigger challenge since all of them played SC1 fairly seriously, and play SC2 seriously as well. Most of them are ranked 1200+ atm, but they play way more than me and actually ladder.

I miss the ICCUP maps. Most of the current map problems could be fixed by just making them larger. Large maps encourage more macro orientated plays, and maybe we'll go back to SC1 style where 3 bases were standard in mid-game rather than 1 base madness that is in SC2.

 

Ooops. Missed that. Went back through. I wasn't sure at first how to destroy the protoss structures without going over 9 units lost, then I got an idea:

 

So I need some help. Here's a replay from a game I just had and I won, by apparently cheap as f tactics?
MEGAUPLOAD - The leading online storage and file delivery service
last 5 seconds are one word explicit

 

Oh man I wish so much.

Did you play on ICCUP? I kind have to remind myself that I'm probably not better at SC2 than I was at SC, even though I'm diamond now and I was like... IDK C+ on a very good day on ICCUP and mostly hovering around C level. Diamond is a strange league with a massive skill variance.

SC2 definitely has too much 1 basing.

Moose: TBF that guy is one to speak. He's void ray rushing you and he calls you cheap? Also he totally could have won if he used his rays well as soon as he had you revealed. Once your base was screwed and you couldn't get enough forces back in time to save it you made the right decision to get into a base trade with him and you made it pretty fast too so that's good, but you could have avoided the whole situation by scouting his base. It seemed kinda clear that he was going for something... non standard based on the forge+cannon and lack of gateways etc. You could have defended against those rays with some stalkers or something. Generally avoiding base trading is the way to go, especially against void rays. If you hadn't have had some other pylons on the map you'd have lost that, void rays kill buildings hella fast.

 

Yeah, I am the same as you. I was at C+ at my best, hovered around C, C- level afterwards. Stopped playing ICCUP because of school though for about 2 years.

Also this is why I think Delta Quadrant is Protoss favored. One of friends does this exact same build and exact same strategy. So annoying to deal with.

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Plus as a bonus, watch me do a fast expand build vs a Terran diamond player at 1000 points who's better then me.