Starcraft II Tips

I think an easier solution might be banelings + zerglings for the SCVS + Marines, and then magic box a crap ton of mutalisks to kill off the thors and everything else. Thors' air splash is really negligible if you magic box correctly.

Just in case if you don't know what magic boxing is... It's when you let your mutas spread out like they normally do when they're not moving, and the moving them on top of the thors without telling them to attack. When they get to the proper position on top of the unit you want to attack, you hit "hold position" so they don't clump up again and attack a unit like they normally do. They will remain spread out so that they won't get splash damaged. Awesome trick against terran mech. =D Only they that rapes mutas still in that situation is... marines typically... But that's what banelings and zerglings are for... Zerglings to take the heat off your banelings, and the banelings to melt away the bio (aka marines/scvs).

 

I've faced thor hellion marine before, and speedling/baneling/infestor was enough to get rid of em. Maybe some mutas for the banshee and raven?

 

It's a mid-game push that kills me, impossible to get to hive in time. No time to get any more than 2 unit types as Zerg, not enough gas and larva really.

I try magic boxing, but the raven's PDD make muta useless. Also the 4 hellions kill SO many lings so fast, it's disgusting. Banelings are basically my only hope. But banshees and hellions kill banelings so fast. Thors and scvs do a great job absorbing blows and protecting the marines. Any competent player keeps marines in the back. They are just there to kill magic box muta. Also a lot of terrans change the unit mix if they scan and see my army into blue flamed hellions, grab 3 more and have no banshees.

I'll post some replays later.

 

Maybe the solution then is to catch them on the move and out of position =D Don't fight on terran's terms, back off when you see PPD and engage somewhere else?

 

It's tough because trying to catch hellions off creep with lings/banelings is impossible for me.

And creep spread is really limited even at that stage of the game, since I won't have ovie speed, and a good Terran player is constantly using hellions to poke and kill creep tumors. Just now I've been trying baneling/speedling/queen/muta with a practice partner. I magic box the muta and have 4 or so queens transfusing like crazy to try to snipe hellions as banelings run in there to kill marines. Most important thing is sniping hellions as soon as possible with mutas. Once hellions are gone, its doable.

Been working pretty well. It's still risky if I fail to kill enough marines with banelings. Also PDD is really unfair.

 

Have you tried running past the units a bit so you can get a proper surround with the speedlings?

 

Problem with "running past" hellions with zerglings is that 2-3 hellions can pretty much take out most of the zerglings attempting to surround in a shot with the pre-igniter upgrade so it won't exactly be a good exchange. Only method i can think of it surprise the helions with burrow ._.

 

I'm trying to learn how to play Protoss right now and was wondering if there was much of a difference between using a Colossus or High Templar (Psi Storm) against a Zerg swarm? (mix of zerglings, hydras and roaches) This is assuming that I have enough Zealots, Stalkers, Sentries, and etc to hold off the front line.

 

High Templars with well placed storms may prove to be better than colossus in the short term but if it's constant attacks in waves, colossus will be the better choice provided that you're capable of keeping it alive. High Templars is a quick source of damage and makes them retreat to run away from the storm. Colossus can dish out damage constantly without waiting for energy of the sorts.

Oh, Colossus can also spot high ground for you but it's easily snipe-able with corruptors

 

Thanks for the advice! Keeping them alive will be difficult for me since the Colossi make for big huge targets.

 

Burrowed Banelings =d =d

 

Yay! I finally pushed myself to lvl20, in my bronze league! (I dunno if that is good, lol).

EDIT: Oh wow... Bronze is the lowest rank

 

It doesn't really matter which rank you're in. There's always room for improvement Some people in the diamond league are actually less skilled than certain bronze level players

 

What are some good tips for a newbie protoss player?
At 9/10 probes: I build pylon.
Then at 150, I build one gateway.

That was from normal SC.
This one, I was watching a replay of my first practice match and some people went cybernetics core, forge, robotics facility, after gateway.
:/
Cybernetics core allows me to get warp gate. Forge for cannons to protect? But why robotics? :O

 

Robotics allows you to make an observer. It also opens up the tech for immortal which is really useful in case the opponent plans to pressure you with marauders, roaches or anything that's armored. You'll also get to build the robotics support bay which unlocks immortals which pretty much demolish smaller units from a long range like marines and zerglings.

The forge is optional after cybernetics. Some people get a 2nd gateway first or the robotics before the 2nd gateway.

A standard "safe" build will be:
9 pylon
at 10 supply, just when pylon finishes, chronoboost out 2 workers.
12 gateway
13 assimilator
Keep making probes. Chronoboost them if you want.
15/16 pylon
Cybernetics as soon as gateway finishes or at 16/17
Place a second assimilator.
If you're playing against zerg, just make the first zealot and block off your ramp. Otherwise, wait til cybernetics finishes and chronoboost out a stalker first and also your warpgate technology.
Robotics Facility when you can. After that probably a second gateway and a pylon by 24 or 25.

After that it's all up to you. Scout and counter is the way to go since you'll have your observer out. If you see the opponent isn't being aggresive, plan to expand but first, pressure him and make him go defensive.

 

omg the 1 time i actually have time to play sc2 and bnet is down.

f my life and I hate bnet now

 

Bnet isn't down. I'm able to login just fine

 

I just did a 2v2. There was a big battle at the 23 minute mark that looked like it wasn't going well for us (other team had a bunch of battlecruisers). Luckily, I had some burrowed infestors, and a couple servings of fungal growth and infested terran spam cleared that problem right up.

Unfortunately, my partner ... a fellow NBRer who shall remain nameless ... had gg'd right before we won the battle.

Funnily enough, I didn't notice that he had actually left the game ... near the end, I was wondering why he wasn't doing much (i.e. anything), and I actually messaged him to get air (one Terran player was trying to hide his buildings in the corner of the map).

I ended up winning handily (32 minutes after my partner had gg'd), but I'm sure we could have won it sooner if he'd stayed.

Of course, this is not a criticism of my partner, just an observation.

 

I won 4/5 practice matches, but it doesn't mean anything cause I void ray rushed two of them, and then two of them dced and I dced.

 

Lol it sounds like an intense game Henry

I need to learn zerg more ._. I find them quite... fun

 

Ugh, had to go up against 5 rax reaper today as zerg and I did a good job fending it off I think, scouted it, managed to get a 2nd queen and start some roaches, but it took all my attention to fight it off.

Micro roaches, micro queens, transfusion, a couple of spine crawlers.

Finally as the last reaper falls, 10 marauders come knocking on the door and melt my roaches and queens and I lose.

OMG, there is almost no way to win as zerg against that 5 rax reaper unless you get a very early scout and have better micro than the Terran.

 

Is it even remotely possible to fund reapers from 5 rax off one base?

 

Yeah because you only need like 5 of them (reapers) to give the zerg player living hell.

Then you can quickly send support or go expand.

 

Ah you meant 5 reapers I thought you meant constant reaper production from 5 rax

 

no you start with one rax, get 2 or 3 reapers.

then about 15 supply later get 2 more rax. Then about 15 suplly later get 2 more rax.

So yes it is a 5 rax build, thus why its called 5 rax reaper.

Its so hard that is why they "nerfed it" last patch but its still hard.

Especially since the Terran even if he fails because you survive has easy hard counters to what ever you do.

You manage to get a spire in all the chaos? He can snipe it fast & easy with a few maruaders and own your muta with marines.


You went with roaches since it was the only fast bail out to survive? 5 Rax of Marauders is going to own your face very soon.

Speedlings? Just some marines and a few maruaders will take care of that and the reapers will still keep you semi under control so you cant send all forces to attack.


Here is a pro game that went some form of 5 rax reaper:



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Ha just found this youtube comment on a 5 rax reaper build strat video.

 

5 Rax Reaper is annoying indeed.

The key to stopping reapers is guarding the areas where he can "jump" into your base. They usually transition into marauders after. Going muta ling, after defending the reaper harass is highly recommended =)

 

Went to post my replay but its gone :/

It was a large base so I had to defend the center or i would have lost my workers or hatch. One more spine crawler and I maybe would have had a much easier time. I had one on the mineral line and one on the right side but that left my left side open and he just kept picking away at my roaches and queens taking almost no damage and I didnt have gas or time for seedlings since the gas was there and he picked off any workers on it easy so I was getting no gas.

 

5 Rax Reaper is pretty doable.

Just keep making speedlings, only about 3 or so roaches. Spread out overlords, spread creep, and tech straight to mutas and a banelings nest.

Only one or two spine crawlers are needed.

 

I'm able to confirm this, as I am a living example.

 

Keep in mind I don't watch replays or videos of professionals and such. And this is all off the top of my head, but here's what I do.

At 9/10, build pylon.
Chronoboost 11th probe (11th and 12th probe will be boosted)
At 150, build gateway. This should be at 12/18.
Generally, you want the pylon+gateway to be at your ramp and allow for only one space in between.
Chronoboost 13th probe (13th and 14th probe will be boosted)
Build a gas at either 13/18 or 14/18 (when you get 75)
Keep building probes, and when you get 100, build 2nd pylon.
There should be another boost in there somewhere when you get 25 energy.

That should be the beginning for most matches. Build a zealot at 18/26 (or sooner) and place him at the choke point between your pylon and gateway. Your next building should be a cybernetics core, at around 18/26 or 20/26. This is because early stalkers are immensely useful to stop reaper rushes (which I don't see anymore) or just to kill those pesky scouts. Or to place behind your zealot on your ramp and shoot incoming zerglings.

Depending on how good you are, I'd stay away from warpgates. Theoretically, they're much better than gateways, but it's hard to consistently macro them and always produce units without much loss in downtime. At my level (and lower) I'd say gateways are better than warpgates, due to being able to queue. Remember to hotkey them all. I like to rally them to a stalker, so they always get to my army.

Also, if you're going mass gateways, it's important to have a decently even distribution of zealots/stalkers. Most people tend to go heavy stalkers, which I'd advise against. Zealots are needed to just take hits and die, whilst stalkers do damage. Pretty sure 12 marauders can kill 12 zealot OR 12 stalkers, but 6zealot/6stalker would win imo (I don't actually know).

 

Thanks goodness you lost your replay! Now my secret on how bad I am is safe forever mwhahahahaha

 

You're the said terran player? o_o

 

Nope, I was Vicious' teammate who basically died in two seconds and did pretty much nothing that game.

 

I would get used to using Warpgates at any level... they decrease build time by 10 seconds (a lot in SC time), have a dedicated hotkey for easy warp in where you have a pylon, and they don't even cost much to research.

Great for defending attacks, proxy pylon to reinforce your army in a few seconds, especially at any expansion.

If you're just queuing units, that's minerals that could be spent elsewhere. I don't find it hard to macro... just keep building probes/buildings/pylons, then spam 4 units of choice using hotkeys every 30 seconds or so until you feel your army is a good size for that point in the game.

 

Eventually, you develop a habit of spamming W every so often to check on your warpgates. No white dot? Build a unit. Queuing up units in any production building, especially for units as expensive as protoss has, locks up resources that might be used elsewhere. I never have the problem as Zerg due to the nature of the unit production system, but when I watch my old Terran and Protoss replays, I tend to lock up a ton of units thinking that it's good to ensure production. There are a number of times when I had an SCV/probe in position for an expo or a higher tech structure, but I didn't have the resources because they were locked up in a production building, so I kept delaying actions by 30 seconds, a minute, two minutes.

 

Looks like everyone prefers warpgates. I'll try to defend my gateways (but feel free to use warpgates if you prefer! )

1. Warpgates shave off 10 seconds. This is 10 seconds in Normal time. Note that ladder games are played in Faster time.

2. Someone needs to correct me if I'm wrong here (since I'm uncertain of this), but you can't chronoboost warpgates while you can chronoboost gateways. If you're doing 4gate, and all you have are 4gates, then chronoboost goes to waste.

3. If I have 4 gates, and want to build a mix of zealots/stalkers, I hate how the warpgate cooldowns aren't synchronized. (adding more issues to macro)

4. Warpgates require to hit W then hit Z then find an area with pylon power thingy, then click. Gateway, I just hit 4 (my gateways are hotkeyed to 4) then hit Z. The former takes much more thought/micro than the latter.

5. Point 4 becomes a huge issue for me when you're in the middle of a battle. I should note here that I'm always in a battle, and I prefer to micro my units than my warpgates/gateways. Not needing to worry about where to place them is a huge plus.

6. Regards to quick defend/quick attack, I find that I can snipe an incoming warping unit (they take 3 seconds to fully warp in with warpgate?) dead before it has a chance to attack if I've already got the larger army.

Again, this is all concerning my level of play. I'm sure if you're at a higher diamond level and have the APM to constantly use warpgates effectively, they're far superior. But at my level, I usually beat protoss in solo (which is usually 4gate vs 4gate) and I think it's because of all the downtime of my opponent not effectively using warpgates and thus having a smaller army size than me.

 

You can chronoboost warpgates. The cooldown time goes down.

If you select all the gates, whichever is ready first is the one to build the unit you want. There is no zealot-gate vs. stalker-gate. As far as timing goes, it's just a quick WZ-click Z-click or WS-click S-click to build the units.

Your pylons should be distributed. If you have placement issues, build an isolated pylon as a landing zone for incoming units. If you can, place a proxy pylon adjacent to the field of battle. Proxy pylons warping in blink stalkers off high ground can create a world of hurt, as get zealots w/charge down a blind ramp. MM ball? HT time. Warp gates give protoss flexibility mid-battle that no other race can match. Zerg can come close with Nydus worms, but they have to deal with unit build times vs. the immediacy of warped-in units. Having a set of warpgates ready to provide a quick warp-time beats the time it takes to build, then walk over for any other race fairly handily.

Fair point, but do you also find yourself sitting on thousands of minerals after a moderate length battle? I'd rather take a few seconds to build my standing army back up during the battle than maneuver red health units. Also, see point 4 as to reinforcing your army mid-battle.

Incoming units are a nice distraction to an auto-attacking army that can save a building.

 

No. 3 is so helpful. Even when you are fighting your opponent, keep building and don't go pooling (excess minerals).

And watch replays

 

They SOOO need to make a "Starcraft Lite" for us dummies out there that can't compete on any level, like me. I just die die die die die die die.

 

The reason warpgates are better is because of the fact you can proxy pylons everywhere. This lets you reinforce your army much quicker since they will have to travel less and be out faster. In PvT, without being able to warp in HTs constantly to proxy pylons, I'd die to mass bio balls. An easy way to keep macro up with warpgates is too keep a proxy pylon as a control group so you can constantly be warping and not miss cycles.

At even the lowest level I feel that warpgate > gateway, just because of how production cycles work. Although it does teach bad macro habits, its still too much of an advantage not to use warpgates.

 

Pretty sure warpgate's cooldown is the same all throughout (28 seconds wasn't it?) regardless of which unit you warp in so you won't exactly have the problem of some units spawning later than you need ._. Besides, just press the key of the unit you want to mass warp in, hold shift and left click around a pylon power field and there you go, quick warp-ins

Besides, you can just select them while they're still warping in and set them to move towards your army. This all can be done fairly quickly in about 2-3 seconds

 

Wrong, Warpgate CD's are longer depending on the unit it last warped. Says so right on the tooltip.

 

Really? I never really noticed that :s TESTING TIME

 

I think he is right. I never noticed, since I always slack off on my macro... so every time I access it, it's always all synced up, again.

 

Oh he's right The warpgate units all have their respective cooldowns. They are 10 seconds shorter compared to their gateway build times though. If you include the 5 second warp in time, it's about 5seconds faster than making them off gateways.

Apologies for mis-information then

 

So, suppose i control grouped a proxy pylon as 4. Then I have to hit W then 4 then Z then click, correct? Then I have to select the unit and move it to where your army is currently engaged (assuming the proxy pylon isn't RIGHT there - most of the times I assume it's not).

How do you constantly warp and not miss cycles if the warp gates aren't synced? I feel like there's way too much micro being missed out on in the battle if you're worrying about missing cycles. Too much time on unit production, not enough time in battle.

I'm curious how many seconds (on faster speed) y'all would miss warping in units with warpgates in a five minute on again/off again battle. Do y'all think you'd miss less time than the time penalty for gateways?

 

Eh... You'll slowly get the hang of warping in to the point that you keep the warpgate ready count to 0 most of the time soon enough It comes with practice

Just press w every few seconds and if it changes to the warpgate panel means some of them are ready. If it doesn't change, means the warpgates are still on cooldown.

 

Here's a similar question.

I believe a queen can spawn 3 additional larvae every 40 seconds. If you had a choice, would you prefer the way it is now or an automatic spawn of 3 additional larvae every 50 seconds? What if you had two hatcheries? Three hatcheries?

It's definitely a different question, but something to consider...

 

Clearly the answer would be automatic spawn since you'll only lose one larva as opposed to the manual cast. However, keep in mind that the larvas stack and warpgates/gateways don't. It's really an unfair comparison with the gateway and warpgate gateway mechanics. For the zerg, the autocast will do them a favour if they reach 200/200 the larva accumulates. For protoss, gateways won't let you build 30+ units at once if you only have 5 of them after you lose your whole army in a fight from being 200/200.

Gawd I can't phrase what I have in mind so I hope you get it

In fact, what are we arguing about again? I forgot

 

Well, right. I know there are huge differences... I was hoping to kind of get the point across that better players would prefer to manually spawn their larvae with a 10 second advantage, whilst the notsogood players like myself would prefer the automatic spawn.

But yeah, perhaps larvae vs warpgates aren't very comparable