Starcraft II Tips

Thing is, if you're too dependent on the auto-spawn or queueing units, you probably won't get better using the advantageous mechanics of warpgates and manual spawn larva. It all comes with practice that you become aware of the timings to warp in units. Eventually you'll be able to warp in units and set them to run towards your army within a few seconds as opposed to pressing the hotkey, queue them up and let them waste precious seconds running from a further distance while your main army gets decimated.

Besides, you also lose some army micro time pressing the gateway hotkey and pressing the keys needed for the army. Why not just retreat army for a bit going towards the nearest pylon, warp in units at the pylon and set them to run towards you army and then you go back to your army and continue fighting at a location slightly closer to your reinforcements and slightly further from theirs? Heck, if they're terran with siege tanks, you'd probably have some of their forces out of siege tank support range with that retreat maneuver.

 

Double tap 4 to center on the pylon, hit W, hold shift, press Z, and click to place units. If you're a numbers type of person:

Code:

Assumptions:
5 (warp)gates per player
Mining 1100 minerals/minute.
30 zealot build time (I can't recall the number atm)
pre-proxied pylon as applicable.
No supply cap issues.

Player 1 (numbnuts):
- No warp, never builds during battle.
After 1 min:
- 0 Zealots, +1100 minerals
After 5 mins:
- 0 Zealots, +5500 minerals

Player 2 (noobie):
- No warp, checks once per minute (for the sake of argument, at every *:30)
After 1 min:
- 5 zealots, +550 minerals
After 5 minutes:
- 25 zealots, +2750 minerals

Player 3 (newbie):
- No warp, checks every 30 seconds
After 1 min:
- 10 Zealots, +100 minerals
After 5 mins:
- 50 Zealots, +500 minerals

Player 4 (novice)
- Warp, checks every 30 seconds
After 1 min:
- 10 Zealots, +100 minerals
After 5 mins:
- 50 Zealots, +500 minerals

Difference between 3 and 4? They end at the same # of units and minerals, but 4's first set of units are on the field and already pushing the tide of battle in their favor while 3's were still building. The fight gets worse from there. If even one or two of the first set survive the first reinforcement wave, 4 will still have an advantage. If both armies retreat, 4 will have an advantage in numbers. If 4 is obsessively watching the gate count and catches cooldowns perfectly, minerals will be tighter but he'll also have more units on the field (perhaps 10% more), and in position.

The key is that you're able to constantly reinforce your army on the spot from a proxy pylon and continuously using the resources that are being mined. If you're so obsessed with micro that you can't build units during a battle and finish your fights sitting on over 1k or 2k minerals, regardless of your race, you've wasted very valuable build time that will never be recovered. If you think of each zealots in terms of 30 build time (like man hours), players 3 and 4 have each consumed 1500s (25 minutes) of build time. 2 has wasted 750s (12.5 min), and 1 is probably already dead. You will NEVER get that time back. You can build more production buildings to compensate, but that's a resource waste as well.

 

Congratulations on lucky number post 777

Also, I'd have to add that warpgate's cooldowns are 10 seconds lower than gateway's production time. If you include the 5 seconds warp-in time, you'll still have a 5 second extra time to look at warpgate as opposed to the person who uses only gateways. If the warpgate user keeps track of his warpgate cooldowns down to the last second, he'll be far ahead of the gateway user in a game with the accumulated seconds he shaved from the warpgate's perks of lower cooldown and able to warp in at a closer proximity to a fight.

 

I agree with Reizo's point on learning/practicing. Too bad I'm lazy *sigh*

I don't agree with your numbers/assumptions. It's hard for anyone to check warpgates once at every thirty seconds. You'll check it at 20 seconds once, 40 seconds another time, etc. It's extremely difficult to check it exactly 30 seconds apart.

Now suppose you're building a mix of zealots and stalkers. All the cooldown times won't be in sync. That causes a huge headache imo.

I have lots of arguments for everyone's "immediate reinforcement" points, but I have no idea how to explain it. I mean in theory, y'all are correct. In practice, that's another story...

So... anyone a good protoss 4 warpgate player wanting to 1v1 a few times with rules that we each build 4 gates as an experiment?

 

And also for the record, warpgates shave off ~7 seconds on ladder game speed. Not 10.

 

Sure, I would. Let's play some practice games and try it out.

 

I just started playing Protoss recently and am trying to training myself to keep tabs on the little icon that appears in the mid-lower-right-hand-corner that alerts you when a warpgate is ready. Once it is I double-tap whatever key my gates are hot-keyed to and warp away.

 

Cool. I have time today between 4-8pm PST. Does that work for you?

 

I meant ingame time for the warpgate stuff I don't really know what the actually speed is compared to real time for "Fastest" speed setting

But yeah, I'm rethinking on the warpgate gateway argument myself too ._. Sure quick reinforcements sounds neat but it also depends if you even have the pylon nearby as well as whether you're defending or the one on offensive.

But well, at least warpgates provide the little icon that tells you if they're ready or not...

 

Been mentioned a few times, but you know that warpgates are already hot-keyed to W right? You should take advantage of that to freeup other hotkeys

 

Hmm, I'm at school right now, and I get off around 6 PST. So we'll have to play then.

 

Oooh I wanna spectate Even though that's like 2AM my time

 

Taking woofer00 player 3 vs player 4 scenario with 5 warpgates each... and assuming that there's a battle in the middle of the map, with a proxy pylon already built by player 4, and player 3 has a rally to the battle area, and that it takes 30 seconds for units to walk from player 3's base to battle area: player 3 will be down the initial 5 units. Every 30 seconds after that, you'll both be reinforcing 5 units every 30 seconds.

I mean, the first 5 units is huge, don't get me wrong. But I think one needs to really understand that after 30 seconds, the advantage is gone(ish). Player 3 should retreat to base until the 5 units catchup, then it's an even battle. This is all theoretical/hypothetical of course.

 

I shall be on =D
And spectators welcome

 

Nice! I'm going to try that now.

Can anyone save a replay of that and send it to me later?

 

I'll try to be on and save the replay

farful, point taken But really, in a battle of even amount of identical units, the first to reinforce will have the advantage in numbers as well as damage output. A live zealot with 1 hp will still dish out 16 damage per go

 

Definitely. The first to reinforce has a huge advantage.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that unless you're really good at keep track of stuff and at micromanagement, as the battle goes on, player 3 (warpgate) will either miss producing units (to the point where gateways are more advantageous time-wise) or not microing his units enough in the battle where player 4 (gateway) starts to show an advantage.

Eh, who knows. I really see arguments for both warpgates or gateways, and still think gateways are better for newbs (but I guess they should still go warpgates as it's good practice in many many ways)

 

I definitely agree that using gateways teaches better macro mechanics for newbies. Warpgate teaches bad macro mechanics.

But higher level, i.e. Gold and above, warpgate > gateway.

 

Let's just leave the warpgate gateway argument for now It really depends on the player itself. Gateways are newbie friendly whereas warpgates allows practice for awareness.

Also, Next planned patch will pretty much prevent major reaper rushes as well as buffing up the roach's range possibly by 1 or 1.5

 

Oooh could you copy/paste the planned patch? battle.net is websensed for me here at work They claim it's a "Game" site, and that we shouldn't be getting paid to surf "Game" sites. Thanks!

 

There you go They also gave the rough average of race's winning percentages. I can't see why they say Zerg's majorly underpowered since it seems to be keeping up just fine... Sorta...

Here's the win percentage:

IMO, from the numbers, it seems that Protoss is the one dominating.

Oh, and for the balance changes, we're going to see way more 6 pool now

 

Now if they could work on making early zergling rushes less effective...

 

I don't see how Blizzard thinks those win percentages really matter since matchmaking is naturally designed to try to place you into a level where you'll always get 50% win percentage.

I really dislike the roach buff, already Zerg is basically roach spam, but now its going to be more so. Hydras will be used even less. The buff also kills any kind of Protoss fast expand build, but it does make Zerg better equipped to survive 4 warpgate all-in.

The making the supply depot before barracks requirement is bad idea, kills all forms of aggressive play for Terran against Protoss. Also reapers will never be used in a serious build again.

I do like that Fungal will stop blink stalkers.

This is a bad patch in my opinion, if its only the stuff listed above.

 

Well we'll have to see what happens after the patch. Surely people will come up with different methods of harrassments and different uses for what seems to be a unit that's obsolete.

They're really going with the gimmick of pleasing the masses but not think the changes through though

 

Holy cow, if they push through with that patch, zerg will definitely have a much easier time against reapers.

But it kinda nerfed the reapers a lil too much. Giving the roach extra change is already huge, but with the depot required barracks and the factory required upgrade, I'd say this patch would make the reaper useless.

 

More like zerg instantly goes to become the new overpowered race

 

I agree with everything you said except the matter of barracks. Proxy reaper is still ridiculous in team games. Also proxy marauders can be deadly vs P. I like the change. As it is, Protoss already requires pylon before gateway, why shouldn't the same be for Terran? As it is, it wouldn't affect most Terran players anyway, as they do build a supply depot before a barracks. Proxying should still work semi-effectively with Terran, but with the barrack building just a few seconds later.

The Blizzard matchmaking system is designed to get the player a 50% win ratio, irregardless of the races you play (against). I don't really see how you think those win % don't really matter My guess from how protoss is over powered in Gold makes me think 4gating needs to be nerfed

Edit: In SC1, barracks didn't need a nerf because there was nothing deadly to train like SC2 has (reapers/marauders). Maybe if there was a way to delay a tech lab instead...

 

If you're playing Braveheart style where you amass 20 zealots + 20 stalkers + 20 immortals in an essentially no-rush game, yes, Gateways are very convenient for learning the basics of the game. Any micro that occurs at this level is a waste imo, because you're trying to save one of twenty of the same unit out of an army of fifty. If you want to move beyond the medieval armies-clashing-in-a-blood-soaked-valley strategies, continuous production during the numerous skirmishes becomes an essential factor, and micro to snag a victory over a larger force.

As far as noticing ready warpgates, it becomes important to constantly scan over the edges of the screen to view the minimap for troop motion, the health of the units selected, warpgate status, then onto supply and resources. The close games I lose tend to be where I was tired and didn't really keep track of the fact that I was supply capped, my buildings were ready, or I had unused resources. The other player will have a comparable unit composition, but a slight edge because his unused resources are constantly lower and production is continuous. Whether it's pressing W to look for ready gates or 2 for idle barracks, ongoing knowledge of more than just the battle on your screen is essential.

Note: all this comes from watching replays of my close games and the ones where the other guy beat my pants off. Reviewing your losses is far more instructional than going over your wins or playing more games.

Re: upcoming changes.
I LOVE the blink counter. The unit skills in the game are way to damage-centric, not enough crowd control or disabling imo.
Not a fan of all the reaper nerfs. They're barely even single purpose if they still only have 45(?) hp? Change the armor type or increase the HP if that happens to give them more viability. They're no longer an early, mid, or late game unit if all the planned changes are effected.

 

Thing is, if you get 6 pooled or anything, you won't have an answer to that as terran. In fact, a very quick early rush will destroy Terran's early game much easier now if the rush comes before the barracks finishes building.

Say for the 6pool, the protoss can block off with buildings fully by warping in a pylon quickly. For terran if you try to build a supply depot to finish the block, it'd just slowly get mowed down by the zerglings and not be allowed to finish since the zerglings will aim for the worker building it. You can't even repair a building that's in mid construction ._.

Even if you can get a marine out, it won't really be enough. A zealot can hold since it kills zerglings in 3 hits and takes a lot of beating. A marine? 2 zerglings will chew him to shreds.

 

I remember a rumor back for 1.1, that they were gonna put like a 10-20 sec cooldown for MULEs and chronoboost (since queens kind of have a cooldown on their spawn larvae). Idea was that you can't just forget about not sending a MULE or chronoboost, and then later on when you remember, sending 3 or 4 MULEs/chronoboost at once. I still like that idea.

 

But the thing is, the queen needs to have cooldown on their spawn larva or else it would really be imbalanced to just mass queens and then spawn tons of larva at once.

Chronoboost helps in unit production but not as much as spawn larva. MULE isn't for making an army but it helps to get the funds for the army quicker. Larva on the other hand...

 

Well:


If you spawn larva, it takes a while for the larva to spawn, anyways. So you cannot just cast it 5x over the same hatch.

If you have multiple hatch in base, well, you are down 300minerals, and not only that, one queen doesn't have enough energy to always feed two hatch at the same time.

If you have an expo, not only does the above appply, the queen is dead slow off creep - and you would need queen energy to spawn creep tumours.


I dunno if I completely misinterpreted, but this is why a cooldown on the queen wouldn't matter (IMO).

 

I hate creep tumours. Zerg mobility upgrades and all the sight provided by the tumours turn hit and runs into big losses.

 

... I have to say, that patch looks kind of dumb.

The roach buff is not terrible, though personally, I'd rather a different Zerg buff ... like increase they hydra off-creep speed a bit and/or make them cheaper.

The Terran nerf is just stupid. Are reaper rushes really that hard to deal with? Granted, I'm playing at a lower level, but I find that the only time I am unprepared for reapers is if I'm being lazy or going for really early, really aggressive play. Other than that, yeah, they can be a pain, but they're generally not that difficult to deal with.

Yeah, the depot before barracks change won't really impact most players, but it is a totally unnecessary change.

From the numbers - taking into account that Blizzard has acknowledged "some issues" with Protoss - I think it's clear that Zerg is actually pretty good at most levels.

 

At the time, it seemed pretty intense, but looking over the replay, I see just how sloppy I really was, against two not-very-good players.

Particularly galling was my mismanagement of my overseers - I lost a lot of units to DTs for no good reason. That replay may be one of my most instructive yet.

 

The comparison with queen larvae isn't so great because, if you forget to use or don't need the queen-spawned larvae, they build up, so "later on when you remember" you can train a ton of units all at once.

And no, the answer is not to nerf the spawn larva.

 

It was ME! I can deal with it, lol. I wasn't in as bad of shape as I thought I was. Actually I bailed about halfway through that game after looking at your replay. The terran player seemed too strong, and I was almost out of crystals since they destroyed my gold crystal expansion. One more push and I could have probably destroyed his expansion. I'll have to watch again if I had enough resources to do it. It was a premature exit I'll admit. I usually keep pushing until the last SCV is down though. But sometimes you're just too tired to keep it alive. I'm up for a game or two this evening if all goes well.

I did win my last 5 1v1, but since I lost my first 7 or 8, I think it pitted me against lower level players. But early expansion, and gold if you can manage it, as dangerous as it is, seems to be the key, at least for me so far.

And supply depot required for barracks is fine with me, that's what I do anyhow, max out my SCV's, send one to build a depot followed by a barracks, granted sometimes I'd build both almost simultaneously if I managed my initial crystal and gas appropriately, but only if against zerg usually to hold off the initial zergling rush.

 

... I was talking to myself? Ridiculous ... I kept thinking to myself, "Why the f- doesn't he scan those DT?!"

But yeah, I get trying to cut your losses ... me, too often I drag a lost cause out far too long.

Congrats on the wins. 1v1 definitely makes you better. If you have almost two hours to spare, check this out:

YouTube - My Life of Starcraft - Day[9] Daily #100

If you don't care for Day[9] when he's talking strategy, this almost definitely won't be your thing, but I watched it over a couple of days. It was kind of inspirational, hearing about what a sh!tty player he used to be.

 

Yeah I quit about 23 minutes in. For some reason seems my clicking wasn't working. I was trying to get my medivacs to retreat, but they ran right into the line of fire and lost four medivacs filled with marines. I also got a little anxious, if I had scouted a little better before attacking, I had a prime landing zone for my marines just to the west of their expansion and could have done some serious damage that way. I had another proabably 20+ maxed out marines ready to go to battle too. I think I was just frustrated after losing four medivaces filled with maxed out marines.

Plus for some reason I thought zerg was enemy too, so thought I was being attacked by them too when it was jsut you helping defend, d'oh! See what being tired does to you? lol.

If you're on tonight I'd like to do another 2v2 if you're interested?

 

I didn't get to play last night, and I might not get to play Friday () so yeah, I'm definitely up for a game tonight.

 

I'm a bit tired again, just smack me and don't let me do anything stupid. Like bail on the brink of victory!

 

About when should I start playing ranked? When I use all my practice matches? So far as protoss, I think I am void ray rushing people and I have no defense after, I can post my replays on YouTube later today or tomorrow.

 

Whenever you think you're ready?

By the sound of what you're doing, you're not ready yet

 

Should I fraps some of my practice match replays?

 

I scared Divine off

 

No, you didn't. :O Play with me some time!

Frapsing my replay videos. And Vdubbing them.

 

I'm on right now and playing with farful fun games

 

Oh okay. I'm on right now.

Edit- Last popup dced me. :/

 

Had some fun awesome games gg guys

 

Farful and I managed to get a match in to test 4 gateway vs 4 warpgate.

Both of us pretty much all-in'ed. Honestly I think Farful might just as well go 6 gateway instead of 4. Also I fail at using chronoboost, I play Terran too much.

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Also I definitely have to say I lol'd at the mass infestor play UserEgo did in our 2v2. Too bad our opponents were so BM at being owned.