The Starcraft II multiplayer discussion thread
RULES OF WHAT TO AND NOT TO POST IN THIS THREAD
1) Multiplayer discussion. This is pretty much speaks for itself. All build order questions, unit descriptions, map discussions and so forth belong here.
2) Pro gaming and major tournaments. This includes all invitational events, Korean scene play, and so forth.
3) Discussions or rants about multiplayer techniques or unit balance. Here's the place to talk about Idra's BM, how unfair cheese builds are, spell usefulness, why SC1 is so much better, APM debates, on so on. Please keep the discussions logical and anger free.
4) Help improving your game. Make sure to attach a replay if at all possible. Many times a newer player will get frustrated and think he lost a game because of one reason, when in fact there could be several reasons. Having a replay can help other people in the thread help you more quickly and give better advice. Be warned: you may take some harsh advice before you get better. Make sure to upgrade "tougher skin" before posting replays.
4) Do NOT talk about single player campaign. There is a separate thread for all discussions about the campaign, cheat codes, and custom maps.
5) Do NOT talk about custom maps. You need someone to test out your map for balance or need advice about using the editor, take it to the above thread.
6) Don't be a dick.
4 simple steps to play with fellow PA people.1) Start by joining the master PA friend list. DO THIS FIRST. It also doesn't hurt to add your battle.net ID into your signature. If you can't do either of these, then we don't want to be your friend.
2) Bookmark the PA SC2 master list. This will help you find other players without begging in thread for other players to play against. It will also help you find other players to help practice with that are in your skill range. If you use the "view" -> "list view" options found at the top, you can reorganize the list to help you find what you need. On the list view page, you can click on the pull down tabs to look at just players of a certain race or rank. Whatever you want. Use this resource!
3) Sign up on The Starcraft 2 replay center. This is a site where you can upload your replays. The perfect way to share your replays with the thread and get advice on how to get better. Sign up today.
4) Download Mumble voice chat. Since the forum has been back and forth about having a large voice chat system in place but can't decide between Skype and Ventrillo, we've decided to go with Mumble instead. Download it via the link above, install it, and follow this information to get with the rest of us:
Connect to the server: vx36.commandchannel.com (or v.exosquad.net) port 31117
Password is: wang
Other PA related SC2 stuffThe official PA SC2 tournament thread! You too can sign up and play in our very own team based weekly tournament. Think the NFL meets Starcraft only with more violence, less off the field issues, and less bullshit holding calls. For best results, tell 'em Dover sent ya.
The campaign and custom map editor thread. A thread dedicated to discussions about the single player campaign and custom map editor. A fun place to check out when you've become frustrated with multiplayer and need a break from the action to unwind.
Livestream for our friend Exoplasm. Good quality. Watch it.
Livestream for our friend Trus. Beware of loud music.
PA SC2 Steam Group. A great place to meet up with other PA forum people and set up games, talk strats, or just bullshit around. This is the most common place for us all to meet before big tournaments and stuff. Very useful!
Comprehensive unit spreadsheet. A publicly editable spreadsheet that details all of the costs, build times, damage, and other unit specific information you could ever ask for. Make sure to read this first before asking how much damage hydralisks do versus air units. Special thanks to our very own Vin for making it.
The beginner's guide on how to play SC2 and tips to get better. If you are brand new to Starcraft or RTS games in general, start by reading this beginners guide written by our very own forum member, eeSanG. He is a Gold/Platinum level player who knows his stuff and was generous enough to take the time to write out this very informative piece on the basics of SC2. It's a long read, but quite worth it. (spoilered for size)
eeSanG's basics of Starcraft 2[/size] for all you new players to SC2.
I have written this to help anyone who is interested in playing but have little experience and no one to teach them.
There are many things in Starcraft that are so basic that no one mentions them. However, they’re also incredibly difficult to find out for yourself without a natural intuition for Real-Time Strategy. This makes it extremely difficult for people new to RTS’s to learn about them so they get trashed by everyone and everything; the entire process can be extremely demoralizing and leaves only a bitter taste in the neophyte as they quit in frustration. These basics are so fundamental that without them, every player is doomed to failure against someone with solid mechanics.
I am going to go over many of these basics. Here are some simple tips that apply to almost every RTS that involves resource management:
* Keep building workers/harvesters.
* Don’t let resources build up.
* Learn build orders.
* Don’t play blindly, scout often.
The slightly more advanced mechanics all branch off from these principles.
Why you want to keep building workers.
Workers in Starcraft are great investments; you spend time and resources building them and they’ll provide great returns on those investments. The most significant mechanic behind Starcraft is resource management: you need minerals and gas to do everything. The more you have, the more you can do; but, the reverse also applies: the less resources you have, the more limited you are in options. This is macromanagement.
Okay, so more workers mean more resource gathering, but where do you stop? You don’t. In Starcraft 2, every base has 8 mineral patches and 2 gas geysers. Maximum saturation is 3 workers per mineral patch and 3 per gas; however, the optimal amount of workers on minerals is actually 2. There are heavy diminishing returns after 2 workers per mineral patch and returns stop altogether after 3. So why don’t you only make 22 workers, 16 for minerals and 6 for gas? Because you will want to expand.
Expanding is a critical aspect of micromanagement. Two fully saturated bases have double the production of one: this means twice the upgrades and twice the units. That is an unfair advantage over your opponent if you’re playing 2 bases to 1. Expanding does require an investment though, you cannot recklessly place bases all over the map or you risk losing everything to an aware opponent.
So back to workers: Why don’t we stop at 22? Because you will want to expand and you will want your investment to make immediate returns once you do. How do you do this? By transferring several workers from your first saturated base to your second (For future reference, transferring of workers will be called maynarding, as that is the term used by competitive Starcraft players). So say you kept building workers and you have about 34 (6 on gas, 28 mining), 4 of your workers mining are actually doing absolutely nothing. You still want to produce this many workers because once you expand (which you should when you safely can) you can maynard 17 workers to your expansions and put 6 on gas with 11 on mining.
Doing this, you’re now fully saturated on gas in two bases and have 11 workers on minerals each base. This is clearly insufficient and suboptimal but now you have 2 worker producing buildings and by splitting evenly, you can hit optimization in both bases with 5 worker production cycles. Well, 11 isn’t an optimal amount, so why not only move 16 and have 16/6 on minerals? You could, but because you have 2 worker production buildings you would have to go through 0 and 10 worker production cycles to hit optimization and that is inefficient because you have only one building doing all the work instead of dividing it equally. This doubles the amount of time for your bases to hit optimized mining and every worker built at an optimized mineral line is worth less and less.
So to keep the first facet of macromanagement strong, worker production is required beyond optimization. You’ll want to keep producing workers at both bases after your first expansion because the late game phase is usually played on 3 or more bases and you will want to continue maynarding workers to new expansions.
Why you don’t want resources to build up.
Worker production is the first stage of macromanagement: actually getting the resources. The second facet of macromanagement is actually using those resources. As you gather resources, you use them to make units for fighting. Every resource hoarded is a potential investment you did not make. If you engage in a battle with 1000 minerals hoarded, that is 1000 minerals worth of units you could’ve had at the fight had you macromanaged better. 10 Zealots, 20 Marines, or 40 Zerglings can significantly change the outcome of a battle. Unused resources mean smaller armies and smaller armies usually mean battles lost. Having 10 Marines is not going to win against 10 Zealots; you need more Marines for it to be a fair fight.
To prevent yourself from running into unfair fights, you want to be continuously spending your resources on something. It can be workers, buildings, upgrades, or units. Just spend it. But! Don’t waste it on things you will never use. Don’t get speed upgrades on a unit that you never plan on using. Efficient spending is implicit. It is not obvious; it is not shouted at you when you lose. Players will have excuses on why they lost, but underlying all that is usually because they did not spend their resources efficiently.
Another bad habit that many players have is immense amounts of unit queuing. Yes, you are spending resources, but it is not being spent efficiently. You make absolutely no returns on unit production until those units are actually made. Filling a unit queue right as or before a fight starts means those are units you could’ve already had. How? By making more unit producing buildings. Learning how many unit producing buildings you can have per base is difficult to learn, precise amounts can only come from experience.
Using Protoss as an example: A single mineral line can support roughly 3 Gateways running full time with minimal ‘teching’ (unlocking upgrades or new units). It can support 2 with heavy tech investments and it can barely support 4 Gateways with absolutely no tech investment. Running 4 Gateways usually ends in disastrous results for the Protoss player unless the opponent is quickly killed or there are no tech investments left to make. This is because if the opponent can get severely ahead in tech, the Protoss is at a significant disadvantage due to a lack of viable options.
If you have resources piling up, you have two options: make more unit producing buildings or expand and then making more unit producing buildings. Being choked on unit production is an easy way to lose after trading armies with your opponent. Having too many buildings is better than not having enough.
There are two ways of losing via smaller army: not having enough or not spending enough resources. Both of these are easily avoidable.
Now that we’ve covered resource management, we continue onto build orders.
Learn build orders.
Build orders are a prearranged order in which you construct your buildings. Good build orders are those that everyone uses; they are cookie cutter. Now, some might rant about how cookie cutter builds destroy innovation and creative play. No! Build orders allow innovation and creative play to be efficient. They are cookie cutter for a reason, because they are the most effective openings in regards to resources and time. Starcraft and Starcraft 2 are battles of resources, but they’re also battles for time. A few seconds difference can change the entire game through a delayed unit, a building, or an entire expansion. Many openings trade time for resources or resources for time. Time creates advantages in tech, resources, or army size.
Learning build orders is more difficult in Starcraft 2 because it’s so new, not everything has been discovered or tested. It’s your job now to create, adopt, or steal build orders that are the most efficient. Constructing a building 5 seconds earlier than normal can lead to enormous advantages but not learning or refining build orders can lead to constructing buildings later than necessary!
For Starcraft 2, there are two ways to create the opening Pylon as Protoss. You can either make it at 9 supply and have it finish at 10 so you can Chrono Boost or you can cut an early Probe to create a Pylon at 8 and Chrono Boost the 9th Probe immediately. The difference between these builds provides a difference of about a second in the first Gateway, so this is an extreme example. I myself enjoy placing the Pylon at 8.
The difference between a solid and shaky build order can mean living or dying during the early game.
Don’t play blindly, scout often.
Map hacking, the most prominent hack in Starcraft, provides perfect information on the map and the opponent. This third-party program is looked down upon by the competitive community because it provides such an unfair advantage and because it is cheating.
You can simulate these same advantages through proper scouting. A player’s first scout is usually their worker. Many beginners believe that they are sent out for the sole reason of finding where the opponent is. Naïve! Keeping your scouting worker alive reveals so much valuable information, but only through proper analysis that comes with experience.
The subtle things will tell you much: the progress on the spawning pool will tell you whether to expect early Zerglings or not. A 10pool (a spawning pool created after the 10th Drone but before the 11th) will most certainly make Zerglings while a 13pool may only make 2 or skip them altogether. A surviving worker can reveal a Protoss player’s entire tech tree if kept alive: 1 Gate into Cybernetic Core? 2 Gate? THREE Gate (3 means you are going to get rushed)? 0 Gates? You just got proxy’d, get ready for a fast rush. A scouting worker can easily dodge Zealots through proper micro, many will need to get a Stalker or Sentry to kill it if they don’t want you to see their tech tree and that means gas spent, unit created, tech delayed.
When the first scout dies, many no longer scout for the rest of the game. Foolish! Continue to send out scouts; they can be either workers, a fast and inexpensive unit (Zergling), or a unit that is concealed and difficult to kill (Observer). Knowing where your opponent’s army is, knowing what it’s made of, and knowing when they expand are all critical intel. Location allows you to set up flanks or ambushes. Composition allows you to create the correct counters to their units, and knowing when and where an expansion is built opens up an opportunity to attack before they make returns on such a heavy investment. However, don't needlessly sacrifice units into the maw that is your opponent's army. Scout often, but be conservative with them.
Scouting is much harder and is much more demanding on your multitasking than macromanagement. You shouldn’t let your macromanagement suffer for the sake of scouting, but neither should you forsake scouting altogether. Balance is key to consistent success, though knowing when to take risks is also important.
Combining these fundamentals together means that your armies will be as large as possible, your economy as efficient as can be, and the knowledge of your opponent’s play are as clear as crystal.
These basics are just that, fundamentals. A lack of fundamentals means that defeating an opponent with strong mechanics and safe play will be an impossibility. Real-Time Strategies incorporate strategic play but that is meaningless when lacking in basics. Smaller armies, weaker economy, and blind play are disadvantages the player only gives himself; they are completely unnecessary and preventable.
So here they are again so you can drill them into your head. The basics of resource based RTS’s are:
* Keep building workers/harvesters.
* Don’t let resources build up.
* Learn build orders.
* Don’t play blindly, scout often.
It can be difficult to do everything simultaneously at first, but it becomes more natural through practice!
Good luck and have fun. Until next time.
Other non-PA related SC2 stuffThe Day[9] Daily Live Stream. Sean "Day9" Plott is an 11 year Starcraft veteran, so he knows his shit. He does a live stream Sunday through Thursday that airs 7pm PST/10pm EST. If you miss a stream, you can watch it, and every other streams he's ever done,
in his archives. BOOKMARK HIS SITES! You will not be disappointed.
HD Starcraft. Good site for beginners to learn from and watch higher end players as well. Being Youtube videos, you can fast forward and rewind to help learn strategies and build orders.
HuskyStarcraft. The brother site of HD Starcraft. Another good site for watching videos of foreign tournaments and for general learning by watching pros.
Team Liquid. Team Liquid is the biggest Starcraft related fan site out on the Internet today. They follow everything Starcraft related including the pro scene. Many great articles, forums, and information can be found here. A must bookmark for any Starcraft fan.
Starcraft II Liquipedia. Team Liquid has created a wikipedia site for everything SC2 related. This will be updated as time goes on and all information found here should be legit as possible.
Posts
From what I saw on the SC2 Wiki, Lurkers are still in the single player game, as well as a couple of other units...
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
I've played a bunch of TvT recently, it every game has come down to air support. Either the other guy tries to Seige Tank me to death and I banshee/BC his ass (seriously, BCs vs Marines is hilariously one sided), or we both go air and have a white-knuckle harrassment game.
Also, I tried auto-unburrow for the first time last night, on some Banelings with Roaches just behind. I completely missed a group of marines stim themselves and run up my ramp.. because they dissolved as soon as they reached the top of the cliff. Hilarious. I'm gonna do that every game I can now.
If you right-click on the burrow icon, it sets to auto-unburrow. You can use this to set up, basically, baneling mines. As soon as someone walks over them, BAM unburrow and acid bath. It's pretty damn awesome.
Wow can't beleive I didn't know about that. This'll make banelings even more fun!
Battle.net: Fireflash#1425
Steam Friend code: 45386507
Oh you have like 50 zerglings? I'll just send in one baneling and ohhhhh noooooooo Now my 10 zerglings can smash your mineral line like nothing.
Oh, heavy marines to counter my mutalisks? Well I'll just fungal growth and ohhhhh nooooo my good friend baneling is here.
You walled in with like 4 supply depots? Here comes the kool-aid man. But instead of kool-aid he has acid.
Lurkers, firebats, medics, are for sure in.
There are multiplayer portraits for lots other units to, like protoss scouts. I wonder if the SP will evolve from SC1 units to SC2.
Salvation.252. I'm silver/zerg.
"Starcraft 2 is an amazingly fun game that can be enjoyed by new players and veteran players alike."
Surely?
Steam: adamjnet
I am a freaking nerd.
PSN: Robo_Wizard1
I really need to start incorporating banelings into my doom drops. It's hilarious how effective overlord transports are in silver/bronze. No one ever seems to really take them into account and I've won my last five or so games by dropping off two dozen speedlings into mineral lines.
I fixed it. Happy Grammar Nazi Man?! :P
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
Not until the final grammar solution. Then he'll be happy.
...and don't call him surely.
If anyone has photoshop skills, a Baneling/Kool-Aid man mashup would be AWESOME.
OOOH YEAAAAH
SC2 NA: exoplasm.519 | PA SC2 Mumble Server | My Website | My Stream
I've never been happy
Steam: adamjnet
Boom Drops.
I called it.
Steam: adamjnet
Nope, there was no reason, I simply forgot to make anything with it.
Also I'm definitely going to try Baneling mines when I get home. That could be very amusing when I play Random and roll Zerg.
Doing a bust and then seeing a tank sitting right in the middle of the terran base on my way to the drones is a big big big bummer.
Though I did lose to a terran who had the surprisingly effective strategy of having his SCVs in front of his marines in an all-in attack to absorb the banelings. That was weird. And totally worked.
what?
yer doin it wrong!
kind of scary how many immortals they throw at you if you tank up. luckily, i had cannons, tanks, and stalkers to fight them off
Well to be fair, the lost roaches were because I hadn't upgraded the speed, and chargelots could get surrounds, but even then I almost came out of that one winning, I think I lost 8 roaches and took out 14 Zealots or so. And the half army I lost was after it took out his main Zealot-stalker army, his just building void rays, and his natural, and were marching up to the main when all of a sudden SURPRISE DTs. Then I brought an overseer with the army and just steamrolled the crap out of him.
o_O
Nerf Terratoss
It is mostly because the AI is rather limited, outside of rushing it really doesn't have much in the way of tactics. The thing I discovered is that the AI seems far more capable when it is playing terran than anything else since at very hard and insane it will just go MMM and that initial marine/marauder force it sends tends to be dangerously large. If you fuck up the placement of the forcefield to split the force in two at the ramp it goes bad fast.
this is the greatest thing i have ever read
yesterday i baneling dropped my friend in 2v2
and then his partner siege dropped my partner who subsequently ragequit
honestly, fuck siege drops
pretty sure that in order to make them autoblowup on buildings you need to right click the building explode spell to make it autocast THEN a-move them, otherwise banelings in their base would be wasted on pylons n' shite
Quit beating the gold players then.