Starcraft II Tips

Yea in lower levels of play you cant expect what you see the pro's doing to work. That style of play frankly only works if youve got fairly insane micro. Use the build orders as a starting block but expand from there. It takes time to learn and to become good at.

Also totally pop up a replay or two. Or hit me up in game Retto.553 love to play with you.

 

Please don't get frustrated, htwingnut!

Have you tried the single player challenges the game offers? Those can be pretty helpful.

Also, if you see me online, feel free to hit me up for some sparring! My info is in the friends list thread.

Also also, keep in mind that there are some jerks out there who are really really good but intentionally throw matches or play in practice rounds so they can noob stomp. You just have to remember that they're brainless drooling psychopaths who have no friends in real life. You will find people at your skill level, and the more you play, the more likely you'll be pitted against an equal opponent.

 

Starcraft 2 is like a sport and a game in one. It takes practice and experience to get better. You can join the NFL and just know how to throw a ball and run and compete with other players.

But if you keep trying and learn from your mistakes you will get better.

If your having trouble with a particular thing just ask how to counter it or google it.

The expert player replays you find on youtube with commentary are very nice to learn a few tricks.

 

So looking over your games on your profile im seeing a few things "wrong". Your resource counts are super low in everyone one of your games. Almost half the enemy in once case.

Part of this is your worker count is super low. In one case it was a 14 minute game, where you had 13 workers to your enemy's 42! Most 8 mineral bases need about 30 workers to be at 100% saturation(3 for each mineral and 3 in each gas). So never stop building those SCV's.

next up is your army building. While Marine/Marauder is a great terran move you seem to stop building at some points. In almost every game there gets to a point on your army graph where you flatten out and your enemy keeps going up. Now granted this can be credited to lack of funds due to low worker counts but never if you can stop building marines and marauders. If you notice you start to get extra cash, drop a factory and starport and get some Medivacs out. Then you really become a force to reckon with.

 

Yeah MM is the bread and butter build for Terran and can be hard to stop for any race.

Its a lot less risky than teching up to other things and until you learn to scout well and counter well its a good neutral build.

I plan to try MMG (Marine, Marauder, Ghost) next time I go up against protoss as a terran I hear that is is near impossible to stop (even MM is very hard to stop if your up against somebody equal skill or better) the ghost is just there for EMP. I imagine it would be worth spending 100/100 for a nuke too should the situation arise (like a cannon wall blocking a base)

Detectors are important too, I always seem to get owned when I use Terran mid game by invisible units because I forget to get detectors. A handfull of Dark Templar can make a very bad day for you, or Banshee too.

 

Dark Templars hiding amongst zealots are the worst for me I can never notice until it's too late. Now I always bring 2 Ravens with my main army for detection, backup detection and point defense drones.

Ghost really does make a huge difference in a fight against protoss. EMP effectively takes away half the enemy's health and removes the advantage of Immortals taking only 10 damage max on shields (They get dealt full damage if their shields deplete). Just need to be careful of High Templars feedbacking your ghost but you should be able to EMP or snipe them beforehand. It's hard to see where the ghost is among a huge ball of Marines and Marauders.

It's so sad I can't help HT practice just because I have the SEA region SC2 Heck it sounds like you're all having so much fun D:

 

lol = "why are those zealots doing so much damage? OMG they are one shoting all my units?!"


I had the CPU own my MMM bad one time, I was messing around got a big MMM ball and when I went to kill the CPU all I heard what "snipe, snipe, snipe, snipe, snipe, snipe, snipe, snipe. Like 20+ times in a row back to back all my marauders and marines popping like popcorn one after another.

I dont know if the AI was cheating or just had many ghost hiding in his attack force.

 

In the next few months, Blizzard should be giving us SEA players access to the NA server as well.

In the meantime, maybe we can play together one of these days Reizo

 

I look forward to it Cha

A zerg player yay someone i can learn from

 

I love Zerg! I'm no micro king but I'm slowly finding what works and what doesn't and it's making a huge difference. All the pros on youtube talk about how important positioning is especially for zerg and it sure is! I was trying the 1v7 insane ffa achievement and managed to save before I was unknowingly attacked by a protoss army. Now maybe it's because I knew it was coming but after getting destroyed the first time I reloaded, repositioned, and came out with more than half my army left this time.

There is so much more variability to this game thanmeets the eye and becoming a master of that is how the pros got to where they are.

 

I can never macro properly as zerg ._. I also have the rough idea of what to do but I usually can't pull off what I wanted to do It requires too much clicking for me

 

Thanks.

I flatten out because they've blown through and destroyed all my scv's. I build SCV's as fast as funds allow, but also am throwing up barracks, bunkers, and of course supply depots. If I just build SCV's they rush and destroy everything because I have no defense, heck they blow through the little defense I have to begin with. I don't know how I can build SCV's any faster if I want any defensive units/structures or upgrade structures.

 

There's pretty much almost no way of building the SCVs fast except for a second command center but by then you're looking at an expansion already. When do you get your orbital command? People usually get it by 14-16 supply so they can use the MULE calldown.

If you're really stressed out on zergling rushes, rush for a second command center and turn it into a planetary fortress Drastic i know but it keeps them away and is large enough that roaches can't shoot over it and aim at repairing SCVs behind. It also does splash damage so it kills zerglings nicely. Costly at 550 minerals and 150 gas total for that thing alone though

 

Ok, didn't realize replays were still saved temporarily even though you don't click "save". Here's four.

HTWingNut_RigorMortis_SC2_Practice1.zip

The other thing, someone mentioned its like playing in the NFL. I don't want to play in the NFL. I want to play flag football. I want to have fun, not be thoroughly stressed out every game. I don't remember being like that with the first starcraft. I had a couple strategies that worked fairly well. One of them was just amassing marines fully upgraded and it was actually quite successful. I think just a science vessel or two to detect cloaked units.

That's all I want, a couple reasonable strategies that I can use and be marginally successful, at least win ONE game.

 

Will take a look at it right away

Old brood war strategies still work quite well but you just have to change it abit to match the new units. Science vessel's replaced by Raven which can prove to be better than the old science vessel in terms of abilities that it has. Mass marines still work though not as well against zerg but still quite well early on against protoss. Just rush stimpak and maybe combat shields and you're fine

Just that SC2 has much more harsh counters compared to SC1 with certain units having crazy splash damage

Watching your Metalopolis game first I'll list out what you can do to improve

Edit: Alright for your Metalopolis game,

1. Note that you can set rally points for workers from your command centers so as soon as they spawn, they go to work on the mineral patch. To do this, select the command center and right click the mineral patch.

2. You went ahead and built a barracks sort of too early actually. But then again sometimes you'll have to do that. In that game, you can clearly see the ramp to your base is blocked by rocks and it's a 4 player map so you can think that you're quite safe from early rushes since your opponent doesn't know where you are. So building a late barracks is fine there. On 1v1 maps, a barracks that early is fine since people might go for a cannon rush or 6 pool zergling rush.

3. You send out most of your workers to build early game and that kind of hurt your resource intake early game which is really important. Not to mention some of the SCVs are standing still right after it builds and that's lost worker mining time in which it probably could have brought an additional 20-30 minerals or more.

4. Building supply depot early to prevent supply blocked is really good but if you're only on 10/18, a second supply depot isn't really needed yet. Build another one when you're approaching the limit. Say, at 15/18. As the game progresses, building multiple supply depots with 2 or more SCVs is fine since you'll have to keep up with the units you produce.

5. You used your first 50 energy on orbital command to scan. This isn't really a mistake in itself but rather, the location that you scanned is quite wrong. Before the game starts, at the loading screen, it shows those white square dots which shows the possible starting locations. Do scan there instead of their natural expansions

6. Sending reapers for an attack is good in itself. However, you should make priority to attack the workers early game. This will force them to spend resources on making more workers than an army, makes them have less workers to reduce their resource intake as well as possibly make them go into the defensive mindset which will allow you free roam expanding around the map.

7. You're producing units off a single barracks. Considering you have excess resources in the bank, it doesn't really hurt to make a second or third barracks to increase unit production rate. Also, you're queueing units to be produced. Making army is good but if you queue them, they will take the resources you have from the bank but will still be produced slowly. Say you have 4 marauders being made, one being trained 3 queued. If you only have 1 on queue instead of 3, that's 200 minerals and 50 gas which you could've used for something else such as a research or another unit/building. This takes time to get used to but it's best to make units as soon as the unit comes out from the building or just have 1 on queue at a time.

8. You mentioned previously that orbital sweep scan doesn't reveal cloaked units. It actually did reveal the dark templars (I was looking at your point of view but you were starting at the location you scanned while the dark templars were killing your workers slightly below. They're the white silhouettes(sp?). The dark templars were visible for a short time)

Also, I apologise for saying that sensor towers detect cloaked units before ._. They actually don't. I do recall in beta they did though but meh... Missile turrets were the ones that can detect cloaked units. You'll have to be careful about using sensor towers as they reveal your position to the opponent. What they do is give some sort of warning that enemy units are within the area that it covers.

Onwards to your other 3 replays! If you have any questions, just ask away.

 

Thanks, but I actually was going to try and rush him and get a jump on some of his structures, that's why I blew up the blocked ramp, if you watch, it was just dumb luck that he happened to appear the second I blew up the blockage. So while you state that its unlikely you'll be rushed, they did rush. I just happened to be oblivious that they were there.

It's just getting to be way too much micromanagement for me. I really don't recall SC1 being like that AT ALL.

 

heh SC1's actually worse in terms of microing. At least in SC2 you can select a whole bunch of units into one control group and workers go straight to mining as soon as they train up.

And yes, he tried to rush you but he couldn't find where you were until you erected that sensor tower which shows the huge radius with the center being your base. Do put units at the edge of your base before breaking it since you might catch him standing there and get some free shots at his units.

Another thing to do is constant worker production for a strong economy. I noticed you stop your worker production for a short while and then make another one before another pause on them. Also, keep your workers moving. Use F1 to catch the idle workers and get them to work. If not building, get them to mine or scout around.

I can upload you a few of my replays but I can't guarantee it being good at all. I'm not a great player but I do follow a standard build which you can follow for a good start You can probably get better replays from other NBR guys like Vicious and Random

Looking at your Tarsonis replay now. Seems like your opponent knows what they're doing but your ally... Had no clue what to do. He build a row of supply depots before making his first barracks lol

 

That metalopolis game is a bad example really. I thought sensor towers detected cloaked units, and against the protoss that's why I constructed it. Another game you see me constructing missile turrets which become quite effective.

Although in that tarsonis replay, my partner laid waste to the enemy units in no time. While I don' think building a ton of supply depots at start is that smart, it seemed to work for him.

I remember now with SC1 I used to flank the enemy a lot. I'd rush marines up the middle then while they were attacking them, I'd run a drop ship from behind, becuase usually there's no air defense there, and start destroying worker units and a few structures before they get wise, then I'd have a third group of marines off to the side that would come in and knock out critical structures. Really, it was about 3-4 full groups of marines fully upgraded that would just lay waste to the enemy. Maybe I should just try that tactic again. Simple but effective. This time I could have three groups of 40 marines and a little easier to manage with more firepower.

 

Well you'll have to learn to fend off early aggression if you need to do that now though. It is actually still a plausible tactic and possibly still effective. Just that the medivacs which acts like the dropship is sort of high in the tech tree (Barracks -> Factory -> Starport).

Now on your steppes of war replays

First Steppes of war replay, do retreat your army if you think you can't win. I'm talking about the huge amount of reapers there actually. They're not really built to fight armies but rather to harrass and snipe expansions or any buildings which are left undefended. For 50 minerals and 50 gas, they're quite... "expensive" considering they're sort of weak.

I also noticed your habit of walling off with only supply depots. Do note that even barracks can act as a wall. Heck, it's even sturdier than a supply depot with 650 more hp. To breach your base, only one supply depot needs to be destroyed so walling off with mass supply depots isn't really such a good idea since the opponent still needs to only take care of a single 350hp supply depot to get to you. Also, wall off at the top of the ramp not at the bottom. SC2 mechanics is such that if you don't have vision of higher ground units, you can't attack them. So walling off below the ramp will actually hurt you more than it hurt your opponents. Heck your opponents can hit your supply depot from above the ramp and get free building kills with you being unable to retaliate.

Second Steppes of War video. You were long distance mining with some SCVs. I know you have one SCV per mineral patch but usually a minimum of 2 is good per mineral patch for more efficient mining. 3 SCV per mineral patch is saturated. If you have your main base minerals close to saturation, then it's finally time think about an expansion.

Done with your replays Nothing much to add there asides from your orbital scanner sweeps (Your scans). I noticed they're at random-ish locations. Twice, you did it in front of your army unit when it's only like 2-3 seconds away from reaching there. Scan in advance and not when your army gets there. Also, good spots to scan are near the mineral locations. That'll show you whether your opponent has expanded or not. Also, scan the middle of his base or near his ramp. That usually shows his army or unit production buildings so you can expect what he'll produce and at what rate.

Here are some replays of my placement matches They are not exactly great but it does show you the basic starting build and what to do in certain situations

Hope all these will help you

 

Thanks for all your input Reizo. I'd rep you but I have to spread it around some more.

Sounds like basically work on resource gathering and block off using barracks instead of supply depots. Nice thing about supply depots though is you can hide them right away, where you disrupt production of units at barracks if you lift them off.

btw you megaupload link says its dead.

 

Ht i keep messaging you online but you never reply! I'll be on later( on hopefully better wifi) and I'd love to do some 2v2s with you versus people, or computer and offer a helping hand

 

I haven't seen any messages.

 

Megaupload sometimes does that It's actually there but it says it's dead sometimes

Here's a Mediafire link

Regarding supply depots, they can still be attacked and destroyed if they're lowered. Lowering them just allow you to go in and out freely

 

Right, well I guess that's what I meant. You have to stop production in your barracks to lift off every time you want a unit to pass through, otherwise depots you just lower into the ground and it doesn't affect anything.

But I guess it's a good tactic up front if you want to defend and amass resources for an army.

 

I seem to slowly be coming along with my stragities! (Key word "slowly"). I'm by far the best with protoss, but I'm starting to play as random just because! The tips on here are very helpful and i've just reciently learned to hotkey/ micro a bit so im improving none the less!

I've learned to constantly build up a force of workers and manage to build a gateway/barracks/spawn pool/send out a scout and start pumping out units WAY before a rush is actually attempted by the enemy (Way points are my best friend). Soon after I drop another G/B/S usually followed by a forge and cybernetics core (at the same time). I then follow that up with a mass amount of pylons followed by a factory/starport and let the assult begin... I've reciently leaned how to expand, so my resources are always good.

Do I always win? Heck no, do I always lose? Sometimes, but its fun learning why I fail (although it is frustrating). I always used to turtle as GDI in C&C, but i've learned that turtling w/o harrassment is an auto lose in most cases (but if your scouting you can counter... right?).

I'm always looking for people to practice/ team up with for scrims and 2v2/3v3 (4v4 is a gimmic lawl).

If anyone wants to add me as a friend i'd love it! SC2 ID is bwazy. Hope to see you in game!

Also, if anyone has good tips for Zerg/Terrian and how to set paths for your scouts it would be much appreciated! Thanks.

 

Brian please do join the NBR Starcraft 2 Friends List Database Just add around the people in the list they'll be happy to play and practice with you

 

Thanks Reizo! Much appreciated!

 

Well just watched your 34 minute Steppes of War one which really seems to be your best overall and here are some points.

First 20 minutes

1. The long distance mining was a bit odd. Remember you can get three workers to one mineral patch at the max. You only had one per mineral then started long distance mining.

2. I know its satisfying to que up 5 units at once, but try to never do it. You did this with marauders and late game battle cruisers . With the marauders thats 400 minerals that wont get used right away. You could have applied them to an early expansion or another barracks. If you ever find yourself with the resources to que up that many units its time to build more production buildings.

3. No Reapers. I know they are fun, but man especially on that map they are very bad. Only one cliff line into their main and they will almost always have it covered.

4. Orbital scans/ Orbital command energy. While scanning is great alot of that energy could be better served as mules. 1 mule brings in an extra 300 mineral over 90 seconds.

last 15 min's

1. Overall you did pretty good up till the point where you counter attacked his base and ran into that wall of cannons. Good micro to take out the 2 pylons rather then the 6 cannons first. Your downfall was at this point you lose your entire army, and have nothing rebuilding back at your base. In fact the only thing you have is something like 5 battle cruisers que'd up and still an extra 600 minerals or so sitting around. While the battlecruisers were a good tech switch they have to be supported. Unless they are massed in numbers of 6+, mass voidrays or stalkers can still burn thru them.

2. At the end you were upto something like 2500 minerals and 1500 gas. Imagine if you had put alot of that into more marines and marauders. You would have fended off that zealot rush with ease then killed or driven off that voidrays that showed up late with your marines and battle cruisers.

All in all not horrible playing. just need to remember to keep building units. Especially marines and marauders. They are so key to just about any terran build. Except banshees.


Edit also STIM PACKS. They own protoss in the face.

 

^
Stim Packs also own lings and hydras

 

Stim packs are always useful, even before you get medivacs out.

In a straight up fight the increase in your own damage and mobility will far outweigh the damage your units take unless the stim damage will allow the enemy to one shot your units with an AoE attack or something.

In a losing battle it guarantees you can have enough speed to escape.

Just make sure you don't use it when it would be overkill, or when the enemy can easily escape, especially if you don't have medivacs yet or your medivacs are low on energy.

 

I could never understand stimpacks. Only good for what, 10 seconds or so? By the time I select my marines, stimpack them, they've already been half wiped out. Then if any are left they're damaged goods.

I didn't know you could have three SCV's per mineral. I don't know why it'd matter if you have enough SCV's mining to do a little long distance mining, it's still crystal coming in on a consistent basis, just delayed by an extra few seconds. At least until I have enough spare coin to build another base. That's the other thing, if I wait to mine the other crystals until I can get another base there, seems I run out of crystals at my main base and then I'm up the creek if I don't have enough minerals to build another base, and moving a base takes forever.

Regarding reapers, in earlier posts, people were telling me to build reapers to fend off against protoss early.

I think scanning is worthwhile to see where they're coming from and what units they're building. I haven't run any mules yet though. Didn't know they were very effective.

That's the thing too with replays, it's a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking. It's easy to see what they had, where and what their strategy was after the fact, but if you build to one strategy, seems they always use another, even if they don't know the units you're building, because its just their style. I build marauders, they build lots of air units. I amass marines, they push forward with their cloaked units.

 

Reapers are great for fending off the early protoss zealot rush. As soon as they get stalkers your reapers are effectively useless except for hit and runs on the enemy base.

 

Reapers shouldn't be dismissed ever. While true their viability is strongest beginning game, a pack of about 10 reapers micro'ed harassing their natural expo while using dropships for an attack on the main for a timing attack during mid game hasn't lost me a game once.

Also HTwing, stim pack is probably the single most powerful tool terran has besides MULES. You just need to get better at the timing of using stim, a good MMM stim will destroy any composition, anytime.

It's probably been mentioned before but one of the most useful things to do win games is to just make sure your money is spent all the time, I try to never be above 100 minerals beginning game, never above 300 mid, never above 500 late late game. There's always something you can spend your money on, I.E. having double upgrades on units throughout the entire game

 

Stim packs practically double your damage output in that time. This already makes it a really attractive ability. Add to that the shield upgrade for marines, and you get the first stim pack use free. Even better, when the enemy has mostly melee units like zerglings and zealots, you get to kill a few of them before they even reach your marines, actually saving you from taking damage. They take skill to use, and if you're not playing against gold league players or better then you probably won't ever need to use it, but it's one of those tactics that has awesome destructive potential.

I only ever have 2 SCVs per mineral - more than that and you get a lot of them waiting to find an open mineral patch. Your income will increase slightly, but you're also spending an extra 400 minerals on workers. With that money, you're better off building an expansion, or 8 more marines for defense.

Speaking of expansions, you should always have one by the time you start running out of resources at your main. Hopefully long before then. Timing when to build an expansion is a tricky business, and something that has certainly cost many a lost game. But the economic advantage is, well, priceless.

Reapers can do amazing damage against a zealot rush, but reapers are slower to build and more expensive than marines. They're also flimsy, so you have to micromanage. Really you're better off using them on offensive raids. They kill workers at a ridiculous rate. I'd only use them in serious defense if you're certain that a zealot rush is incoming (scout to see it!).

I almost never use MULEs. First of all, you should already have enough workers at your main mineral line that a MULE will just get in the way. They can be helpful when you're just getting an expansion, but that's the only time I use them.

On the other hand, scanning can easily be game-changing. To survive mid- and late-game, you need to know what your enemy is building, and counter it. Scouting is invaluable, and I can't stress that enough. Scanning is a free scout. If you know they're teching to void rays or mutalisks, you can counter it. If you know they're mass-producing zerglings or stalkers, you can counter it. It won't matter how many marauders you have if they end up taking to the air, so a scan can easily be a better use of energy than a MULE.

Not to mention, if you're against Dark Templar, you can scan to reveal them when your forces are in a position to shoot them down.

Hence, the importance of scouting.

 

No offense but this is not a good way of thinking if you get past 500 ELO diamond level.

Basically at that level the difference between one SCV or MULE can win you the game in early pushes in TvT. MULE's are the sole reason protoss must expand quicker then terran to keep up economically, as well as zerg to keep up economically because they essentially act as 2-3 SCV's in one for its mining ability.

 

I pretty sure a Mule can mine a mineral patch at the same time as a SCV. So it actually doesn't get in the way of the SCVs. However two mules can not mine the same mineral patch at a time.

 

So many things wrong here.... Mules dont work in PLACE of your scv's they work in addition. they dont take over a slot. So it's pure money, dropping 3 mules is 900 extra minerals where 3 scans does the same thing you could have been doing with a floating factory or medvac.

Reapers are fail in any game where your opponent is decent. Most players against terran will drop a couple stalkers or spine crawlers in their mineral line to effectively counter them.

Also the extra scv's is nice cause when you do expand youve got that many more scv's to transfer over.

Almost everything you said is kinda contrary to what the top players are doing right now.

 

I agree with the MULE criticism, as do I think most good players. I disagree with the reaper assesment, its an opening and unit thats still viable although undeniably hellions are becoming more popular and perhaps stronger as a harassment unit now.

MorroW is probably a top 10 world player and has made mid game reapers viable again, he uses them in the way I described pretty much above, but I just go advise checking out some of his games in youtube videos for yourself. I still don't really encourage people to use consistent reaper harass unless you posess serious APM management skills. Its really a unit only viable if you have the ability to manage two attacks at once all while continuing production management at your base.

 

I open up 4 rax reaper against Zerg, then I mass pump Marauders and win.

The strat is so imba that it isn't even funny.

 

LOL... see this is what I was expecting. Contradictions, differing strategies, inconsistencies.

I do thank everyone for contributing though. This is good info, although a bit confusing.

I guess right now I don't care about gold, platinum, or diamond status or whatever it's called. I just want to know some sure-fire basic strategy to greatly improve my chances of winning a round.

I think I will start by concentrating on resource gathering and using those resources more wisely, instead of queing up units. Those basic recommendations make sense and thanks for that input.

I also realize I need to study each race's units a little better and maybe play some games against AI as the other races to understand better how to counter them. Because other than the basic units I just don't have a clue.

I prefer Terran, I dunno, because I can relate to the units a little better I guess. Zerg has always been hard, but Protoss has been my second favorite, they just seem so powerful from the beginning but are weaker if you get into a late game. But what do I know. I'm a winless noob.

 

-Yawn-

I woke up and i see a reaper usage argument for a bit ._. All I can say is, if you have decent micro, reapers are viable at any point of the game. If you don't even micro, reapers are only good at the early stages of the game. They're too fragile to be in an army, cost 50 gas which could've been used for 2 marauders, takes slightly longer to build than a marine. However, do not forget that they're extremely strong against light units which makes them excellent against slow non-ranged light units or workers, extremely high damage to structures (Having about 5-6 of them, you can snipe a command center/nexus/hatchery with about 10 or so volleys of attack) and fast (Almost as fast as zergling with the speed upgrade?).

Their playstyle as I can tell is not exactly direct confrontation but rather, raid when the opponent is out of position (You can tell they barely have anything to defend their base if you're fighting their army or you see a huge mass of units moving around the map through sensor towers).

Though you won't get to snipe a lot of the huge buildings in the small timeframe of their raid, you probably can take down one large important building or multiple smaller buildings or just used as a diversion for another raiding group (I noticed you love dropship play ). Taking out pylons powering up warpgates or supply depots will delay the opponent's army production. Taking out Command centers will cause them to waste 400 minerals as well as lose efficient mining time. If you're going against zerg, taking out a unit production building (Say opponent masses hydralisk, take out the hydralisk den) and they'll have to use one drone to make another hydralisk den which takes time to morph. Lower level zerg players WILL wait for the hydralisk den to finish rather than make other units like zerglings since they have the mindset of "Hydralisks are the best units and all the rest are a waste of resources".

Regarding stimpak, it basically doubles (Not sure about this but description in campaign says 50% increase in attack speed for 15 seconds) their attack speed further increasing their damage output. Heck they also get a nice speed boost. Use it right before a sure engagement and just attack them. With the increased speedboost, your units WILL get into the nice concave for maximum coverage of fire on enemy units faster than the opponent as well as you taking out maybe a few of their melee units which further lowers the opponent's total damage done on your army. Heck, don't think you only can use stimpaks on fighting enemy units. If you're raiding their base, use it as you please to quickly take down the enemy building before their army shows up to kill you. After taking down the building, hop into the medivac and take a safe route back to base. Medivacs can be repaired and units which lost some hp from stimpak gets healed by medivacs. End result, opponent loses a building, you leave without receiving much damage

And about the long distance mining, here's one way to test your income. One game (preferably with AI), you do the long distance mining thing with one SCV at each of the main mineral patch. Another game you have at least 2SCVs per mineral patch and none long distance mining. Watch replay with the income tab open and you'll see the difference. At the long distance mining one, you'll get constant 300s minerals per minute (Let's go with MpM) and a spike of it going up to the 500s MpM. The one with 2 SCVs per mineral patch, you'll see constant 500s MpM all the way.

 

Anyone got a midgame strat for a failed marine rush (9 racks, 10 depot, 11 racks, 13 racks)?

 

Transition quickly to marine marauder and rush for siege tanks to defend the early incoming waves of counter attack? Bunkers help a lot to defend before you get the siege tanks.

From there, do drop plays

Aw heck actually I don't do any strategies. I just go for whatever works xD

 

Isn't MMM a viable midgame strat?

 

It's actually viable til the end if you add in ghosts in the mix and maybe siege tanks. Just that it's kind of easily countered by infestor fungal growth, psi storm and colossi and also highly dependent on medivacs to keep the healthy. They also take quite a bit of time to reach a critical mass for them to be extremely effective IMO.

 

I swear there is foreshadowing in real life. I just destroyed by MMM(the third m is medivac right?) and stimpack. just rolled over my roach and hydras

 

Lol. Yes, third M is medivac. If you're a zerg, get infestors (About 3) to fungal growth them and you should be fine. You'll need to run in as soon as the fungal growth ends with mass zerglings though just to take down most of the weakened units before the medivacs actually heal them back to full health and made you waste 75 energy. Broodlords also works wonders if you have about 5+ of them and lots of roach hydra to soak up the damage.

 

I will try that... sigh, but now that these stacked mineral maps are back, I barely play any more Blizzard maps

 

First MMM push comes before infestors.

If you're zerg just get banelings and mutas. The banelings will instant kill any marines, and the mutas will clean up the marauders.

I do 14 Pool 16 FE Hatch, into 2 base muta. Does wonders again MMM Terran.

Honestly MMM Terran is the weakest build Terran has.

 

Well, I just played a coupe rounds with Vicious and other NBR members and I have to say I was able to amass a lot of resources pretty quickly, but its clear I don't have the reflexes to spend the money as quickly as I get it. Sad thing is that while I thought I was gathering resources like mad, in the end, I was 5 of 6 for resource gathering, and only because one other member got demolished right away.

Gathering resources doesn't mean much if you can't build quickly enough. The game pace is just too fast for me I guess. I better just look forward to Civilization 5...