Starcraft II Tips

Yeah, the counter to battlecruisers is not letting your opponent build battlecruisers.

 

Isnt that ultimately the counter to everything? I always reaper rush zerg spires. Everytime

 

What's the purpose of Reapers? Maybe I'm just an old-school player, but I never use any of the new units... With Zerg it's always Zerglings, Hydras, Mutalisks, and very rarely Ultralisks; with Terran it's always Marines (wish Firebats were still here), Tanks, BCs; with Protoss it's always Zealots, Stalkers (Dragoons with less range), Dark Templars, and Carriers.

 

No, of course not. Sometimes if you know an opponent is getting a unit your race is especially good at countering, then you WANT him/her to commit his/her resources to building it, and then having you squash it completely. I.e. if a zerg is dumb enough to go mass roaches against Terran, then you just lolar-roll him with mass Marauder/Medics and then proceed to win the game.

If you start pressuring him prematurely after you find out he's getting roaches with only a handful of Marauders and fail to completely crush him, he might opt to tech mutas and your already-committed mass marauder/medic combo will fail and be completely useless against air.

But Histidine's common-sense statement still stands: Don't let your opponent get a sizable amount of BC's if you want to have an inkling of a chance at winning. I've won plenty of times while playing with a friend and having him tech BC's while getting epic-pwned early to mid game, and then proceeding to lolar-rofl-rolling over them with a bunch of BC's late game when they don't have much AA.

Do yourself a favour and play through the campaign--I know, I know, SC2's campaign is completely lame and lacklustre compared to SC1, but at least you'll get to know the new units for all 3 races (even though you don't get to play as Zerg, you are still introduced to new Zerg units through the campaign).

But to answer your question: Reapers are anti-infantry/light unit (i.e. zergling, rine, zealot and workers) that can LEAP over ledges, which makes for very easy early rush on workers, or for a mid-game reaper-base ownage (they do 30 damage vs buildings due to their "grenade" that they throw at buildings).

 

Exactly what i do, Usually as soon as i see a spire i start building a starport and mass Vikings. Then i start pumping out half a dozen reapers to go harass.

 

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like these games are very "single mindeed" orientated. Perhaps that's not the right choice of words. but what I'm trying to say is that it seems(especially at the higher leagues) each race has a few cookie cutter strategies...and that's it.

Maybe it's because I've never delved into competitve RTS like this before but doing the same things over and over again doesn't seem too appealing.


Also, roaches destroy

 

Reapers are for killing workers. Second, they counter certain cheese strats like bunker/cannon rush and zealot rush quite well.

Beyond that, I won't have them in any serious mid- or late-game force. They're too paper-thin, and just suck at stuff they aren't made to counter.

My comment on battlecruisers stems from the fact that there are basically no fail-safe counters against even a moderate amount of battlecruisers. Corrupters do alright, but are expensive and slower to build than cruisers, and void rays are pretty flimsy and have a hard time putting out enough damage. The same can't really be said about any other late-game mass-this-unit strategy. Even carriers go down pretty quick to vikings, corrupters, hydralisks, stalkers, and void rays if they're upgraded.

@Bluekornchips: Maybe I'm not in the right league (well, I *know* I'm in the wrong league - I'm gold league and I suck!), but I've never seen two games go the same way. The earlier strategies are a bit cookie-cutter, but once you and your opponent have successfully traded blows for a short while, it can quickly become a game of guessing what your opponent is going to throw at you and trying to counter that. Countering one or two units is usually easy, but when three or four unit types are used effectively, countering becomes a very dangerous mind game.

 

...what the heck. I won 3/5 placement games and it puts me in GOLD!? I'm going to get annihilated.....

 

Seems like 99.999% of the time the first 10 minutes are based solely on build order and defending or pushing a rush.

 

Templar counter BCs pretty damn well with feedback, as long as you don't give them enough time to fire the yamato cannons and use up their energy (which takes 3 seconds to fire).

 

Dont worry I am in there too

I lost my last 3 or 4 games

 

I almost can't play anymore. It's just not fun. I suck so bad at beating a rush. I tried to reaper-rush last game, and by the time my 3 reapers tore apart his mineral line, they were torn apart by 3 void rays. Said rays promptly proceeded to annihilate my worker line, along with the rest of my base, in a manner of seconds. My 10 defender marines were then taken down by his reinforcement of 3 more rays.

How the hell can I compete with a goddamn void ray rush!? Much less the zergling rushes that have my worker line pinned before I can finish a barracks or gateway!

 

Maybe I'll vs you some time...which reminds me i need to do that friends list thing

Stopping a ling rush as terran shouldn't be hard. Just block off. Though any smart player will use banelings to break through it does take some time to switch strategies but it will buy you much needed time.

 

I lost my last games because I tried the pylon/gateway rush.

the last 2 had there base walled in before I could get in there and had marines taking me out.

When I tried to come back with void rays they had some AA towers near the mineral line and with only 3 of them a small force of marines can do the job pretty well also.

You cant really "rush" void rays since it requires gateway --> cybernetics core --> stargate + lots of gas

If they go for early gas and focus on voids they can get them up decently quick but that means they have almost no force if any and are incredibly open to a rush of tier 1 ground forces.


My advice if your getting pwned in 1v1 and its stressing is to try some 2v2 or maybe even 3v3 even if you lose to me personally it does not seem as stressing since you are just playing and dont have to blame yourself for the loss

Im also going back into campaign for achievements and that is kind of a break (but also kind of stressing when your going for the hard ones)

Fear not this weekend we can get on late and team up and kill computer and take our anger and stress out on them but pretty much any 2v2 or 3v3 game I played when teamed up with NBR members we have won.

 

Ahh, I won 4 of 5 of my placement games, lost to the a team in platinum division, and I got put into bronze

Whenever it says "Extending search", its a good time to cancel your search
The buggers won 51 games and lost 19 in Platinum.

Wasn't too bad, my AT partner is 26th in Platinum 1v1, and I'm RTS_doug, but it still was a pounding.

You know... when he gets void rays its no longer a rush : |

Like the previous poster said, simply build your barracks and supply depots @ the entrance. The supply depots can be lowered, and the barracks can be airlifted. This provides you with a gate.

Always scout with your worker unit. If you're playing a zerg, look for an early spawning pool. It indicates a rush. Also, don't just counter roach rushes with marauders, counter them with the base scanner upgrade (something you should always get).

Void rays can be countered by marines, surprisingly. One of its plus point is increasing damage over time, so marines aren't affected as much. But you gotta pump them marines.

 

lol how is the campaign lame? is it jus me?

And you dont have to play the campaign to know the new units. In fact, a lot of the units in frikin campaign arent even in multiplayer.

So if you dont know how to a play a unit, do some research on it. Find out its strengths/weakness and then play with it til ur comfortable with it.

Dont play with the same tactic every game and dont be afraid to lose when trying a new tactic.

 

That why its better to lose intentionally. so when you start in cooper, your e-peen feels big.

 

Your sending your probe way to late then, Literally take one of your starting probes and sneak him him before he even starts his wall. So after he's built it and feels smug and safe you can smash him with a few zealots from within. Believe me i know its happened to me lol.

 

Don't just make marines versus void rays. You'll need some turrets or vikings. Marine range is 5 and Void Ray range is 6. When you get higher up, you'll encounter people with good control and they'll abuse that one range pretty hard if you're all marine.

All marine also sets you up for a loss against Zealot/Chargelost & Sentry (forcefield behinds marines & guardian shield). Even worse, Extended Thermal Lances Colossi.

For the proxy gate cheese, you don't need to send one of your first 6. Just rally your first probe made from the Nexus to their base and hope they don't find it until after the pylon is done.

 

I build outside the base not within so I dont get discovered but will try within the base next time if its a good map and I feel like rushing.

 

If I've implied to solely use marines, I didn't mean to.
As a counter to the so-called "void ray rush", marines are a fast and easy counter. As one can build 5 marines per void ray, and Void's damage output initially is comparable to a marine (6 vs 5, but the Void shoots slightly faster), Voids go down much faster against marines.

The main problem about kiting is that the Void ray's turn acceleration and inability to fire and move means you're giving the marine extra fire time for no tangible benefit. Flux upgrade you say? Stimpacks.

Stimpacks also gives the Terran the ability to chase and gun down fleeing Void Rays.

However, seeing unsupported marines is just about as common as seeing unsupported Void Rays (never). After early game, marines generally fill a niche in the Terran army, that is as a general damage dealer to something unexpected. Especially since marines are small, (attacking queuing) shift-click attack 15 of them with mosquitto-lisk takes around 3-5 seconds, a considerable investment in a minor skirmish. (Unless of course, if you attack-move. No one attack-moves). It is such a small investment that provides a contigency plan.

I would not suggest getting vikings at all. With Flux vanes, vikings loses their kite and flight option, and two vikings fall prey to one Void Ray.

If you remember team Liquid (the guys who got hundreds of beta keys), they've complied some plus points that are relatively accurate.

Here's an extract:

 

Trying to learn some tips here from you but didnt understand this part

Did you mean set a rally point near a battle and que up 15 marines to be sent in?

Thats the same as attack move though, so what do you mean "nobody attack-movies"

99% of the time thats how i move dont want to just walk past enemies and die.

I think maybe you were saying in battle no to just attack move and let the marines have free will but rather shift que a attack order from one enemy unit to the next so that they focus fire and hit priority targets first. Is that what you meant to say?

 

If you let your opponent get Flux Veins, then you should have way more Marines and Vikings than he does Void Ray in terms of cost. Marine are not a quick answer at all unless you have reactors or enough rax. Early on, if you weren't already making marine off the bat, you will need Turrets and Viking. Vikings also handle Colossi. Void Rays are often hidden, both tech building and unit, by good Protosses.

You're thinking too linearly, which is ironic since you yourself say, "However, seeing unsupported marines is just about as common as seeing unsupported Void Rays (never)." A Void Ray is never solely made. It's extremely common to go primarily Stalker to get your opponent to make more Marauders. Marines are not very good against Stalkers, especially pre-stim and especially if the extra 1 range is abused (White-rA). Then there's also Zealot/Sentry and later Colossi/High Templar. Two vikings do not lose to a Void Ray if you utilize their range advantage and if the Void Ray doesn't have Flux Veins (A majority of the time they don't, or shouldn't rather). You can get up close with Vikings then bait them into marines and happily pick them off behind your marines.

Not to mention it's also very common, when a high level Protoss sees a bunker-less wall, for them to send their initial Stalkers up to it (Particularly on ramp-less maps) and pick off the wall safely beyond a Marine's range.

Properly micro'd Void Rays also aren't limited to kiting. In fact, I never even mentioned kiting. Void Rays are far more mobile, as they are air and aren't restricted by any terrain. You need to keep the Terran in his base and pick off badly placed buildings/units. Void Rays also allow you to get map control as the Terran can't easily leave his base if you're diligent enough.

Another tactic is to use Marine stimpack on itself. You can simply just pop in, bait stims, and run out. Prior to medivacs, this is a huge deal if you can punish accordingly. This is also another reason you need Vikings and Turrets, to control space beyond Marine range 5.

In high level play, particularly diamond, you'll see players do all of this without hesitation. Marines aren't bad versus Void Ray but in a large battle or terrain limitations, you will need Viking, Turret and other support. Vikings are also great scouts and sometimes great harassment tools.

He meant shift queue your attacks so you can focus and select which targets to focus down afterwards.

 

I'm sorry but I'm not a big fan of the campaign... All the upgrading and mercenaries and stuff are cool and all, but the story isn't. Maybe it's because I hate games like Oblivion where you are given too much option on what you can do at one time, but I don't feel there's a force pushing me to finish the campaign. Then you get missions like where you have to kill 1500 Zerg units but not lose your own base...

 

If you're talking about the toss mission, I think you have to lose your base =)

 

took a really long time for me

I ran out of all minerals/gas and still put up a fight for a while. Id hate to do that mission on brutal/hard though I was just on normal.

 

How long did you last? I got destroyed by that wave that comes at 1950 kills so I made it to only 1998

 

I did it on Brutal and was already holding out at my ramp by 1,300 kills

On normal I went up to 2155 D: So close to getting the other achievement but meh... Broodlords and tons of ultras and hydras hurt

Easy method for the early waves is to make a wall of dark templars hold position at the bridge chokes just enough that hydras won't be in range of cannons Do it on the side bridges and army on middle bridge

 

I made it way further, the holdout was what 20 minutes? I made it like 50% past the holdout point.

Then suddenly it got WAY WAY harder in almost an instant lots of those "special units" in mass.

 

I did that on Hard, but replayed it on normal for the 2 achievements, wasn't easy to get the +750 zerg kills (hybrids don't count )
I'm gonna start the first "Final mission" soon, so far I did every map on hard (first 4 on Brutal) and have all achievements

 

nice I got to about 1850 kills normal

 

I can never get myself to bother getting all those achievements D: Some of them are simply beyond my skill level

 

I got somewhere above 2000 kills on normal and just got bored, so I let the enemy win.

Two things make that level extremely easy: psi storm, and phoenix gravity thingy. Gravity thingy any large units (the "special" guys, maybe a few hydras or roaches) and keep a constant psi storm as they're all bunched up on the narrow ramp. I think if I didn't let the enemy win by refusing to produce any more units (and I had TONS of resources to do so), I coulda held out for a real long time.

 

F12 in-game displays a list of units and their strengths/weaknesses

 

Oh.... I didn't know I was supposed to lose to my base, I didn't know what the heck was going on, and was on that same mission forever. Silly me. I just massed Carriers and DT. Those hybrids are a pain in the butt though.

 

Yeah, if you back 'em up with voids, that's a useful counter. It'll easily take out 100+ HP (unless the BC's don't have mana... then you're kinda shafted--oh well, you can still AOE psi-storm, and BC's are pretty slow).

Anyone that has played SC1 can instantly tell you that the story in SC2 (so far) is completely predictable, cliché, with no character development and a bunch of useless side characters and baby-sitter missions that doesn't push the story forward at all. The only useful missions in regards to the storyline were the Zeratul mission and possibly the "secret" mission.

Everything else were complete garbage fillers.

 

You, sir, get as much rep as I can give you for this post. My greatest lament is that I can't give you more than 7 points, but you earned every last one of 'em!

 

Thanks for the rep, and it's good to see not everyone has fallen for Blizzard crap- tactic of "Oh look, it's a STARCRAFT game by BLIZZARD, it HAS TO BE GOOD! And we're telling you to like it, whether your really like it or not!"

 

The important thing is to not despise Blizzard/SC2 team/Activision for screwups that affect SC2, but instead to see them in context. SC2 is NOT what it could be, nor even close to what it should be. But it is still better than the original Dawn of War campaign. It still has a fully functional and fun multiplayer (even if the matchmaking system sucks turtle testicles at judging skill level). There will still be fun custom games with annoyingly devious addictiveness, and we will all continue to play it.

But it isn't a 10/10 game. I'd give it a 7 or 8.

 

Oh, for sure. I'll definitely be playing it--heck, I paid good money for it. It's a huge shame that it's no where close to what it should've been, like you said.

I'll add you to my friend list once I get around to logging onto SC2 some time this coming weekend .

 

I'm slowly losing interest in the campaign... My friend said that the main story line is revolved around Tychus's missions? Is that true? If so I'll just finish all of those and be done with it so I can spend more time on multiplayer.

 

God I'm really getting pissed off with my slow internet >:[ First it DCed me when I'm halfway winning the 1v7 FFA Insane AI. Second try it crashed on me when I was wiping out the last remaining insane AI.

 

yeah, finding the artifacts is pretty much the main plot, but unless you completed x missions you dont get the next mission available to you yet

 

I stopped doing to campaign after a handful of missions. Its just so boring compared to online

 

Completion of the challenges to at least silver, if not gold, is far more important to multiplayer success than completion of the campaign. The campaign will skew your play in favor of medics and wraiths and firebats that you simply don't get in SC2 mp. But the challenges force you to learn the following essentials: micro, macro, counters, rush build strats, hotkeying, unit skill and energy management, detection avoidance, among others. I feel like some of the complaints I've read on this forum and in this thread are very well addressed by those challenges. You should be able to maintain a gold league rating if you can get gold on all the challenges.

 

I cant get a gold on the first challenge but do pretty good in the gold league.

 

I only managed to get gold at the terran basic challenge and silver on protoss :/ Zerg is just plain tough to keep em alive...

 

Here's a tip for you..burrowed banelings... Here's .gif of my last match:
http://i.imgur.com/L2yDE.gif

 

After way too many hours I've managed to gold all but psionic assault and the rush defense. Frustrating as to keep stuff alive / get the build down to a matter of seconds.

 

Yay and boo at the same time! My account is getting reset after much struggling over authentication. I get to replay the campaign on insane in one go, and maybe start out lower than the gold league.

Oh I'll need to update my stuff in the friends database Vicious