Dimaga vs Little OneHey guys,
Interenet is down at my apartment indefinitely so I can only update while at work. As such I will not be able to log on over the weekends for rounds. Know if you leave comments, I will visit you back as soon as I can.
Here is a replay from one of my favorite zerg players Dimaga. Part 2 is also available just look for link!
http://www.youtube.com/user/HuskyStarcraft#p/u/3/wqs760Fuo-Y
Monday, September 27, 2010
Friday, September 24, 2010
I'm back!
Hey,
Business trip went great, but I realized doing daily visits on a laptop computer is rather difficult. My work set up is much more conducive given a mouse/keyboard/dual monitors. I'll post later tonight and do my rounds now so hopefully I get everyone the support they deserve!
Thanks for visiting while I was away, much appreciated ^ . ^
Business trip went great, but I realized doing daily visits on a laptop computer is rather difficult. My work set up is much more conducive given a mouse/keyboard/dual monitors. I'll post later tonight and do my rounds now so hopefully I get everyone the support they deserve!
Thanks for visiting while I was away, much appreciated ^ . ^
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Maps
I was all ready to write an article about which maps favor us zerg players and I came to a realization... we get screwed pretty good in this respect. What I mean by this is that zerg players are without a doubt the most "reactive" race in SC2 and unfortunately no map is really made for us. Here's some good map tips for strategies:
Big Maps (Lost Temple)
Get the fast expand up ASAP as the rush distance is going to be very large. I usually do this even before my pool so a 15 hatch, followed by a 17 pool usually will give you an eco advantage in the long run. Train a few spine crawlers if fearing the quick 3gate or marine strategy. Don't forget your queens.
Smaller Maps (Metalopolis)
Not conducive to fast expands all the time, especially if your opp is aggressive. Short rush distance favors some early aggression with lings.
Wide open Spaces
This is the flaw of many of the maps. A good terran or toss player will take advantage of choke points to render speedlings all but useless. Without getting that good surround, their effectiveness is grossly reduced. Not many maps have wide open spaces so you need to coax your opponent with some trickery.
Ledges, High Ground, Island Expos, etc.
None of these help the zerg! Terran can abuse high cliffs with a fast thor-ship or siege tank drop. Protoss can ledge jump with blinked stalkers. Zerg need to react but cannot really take advantage of these terrains.
I'll get around to my visits tonight. Last night we stayed out late after the contract meeting so by the time we got back to the hotel all I wanted to do was sleep.
Swarm on!
Big Maps (Lost Temple)
Get the fast expand up ASAP as the rush distance is going to be very large. I usually do this even before my pool so a 15 hatch, followed by a 17 pool usually will give you an eco advantage in the long run. Train a few spine crawlers if fearing the quick 3gate or marine strategy. Don't forget your queens.
Smaller Maps (Metalopolis)
Not conducive to fast expands all the time, especially if your opp is aggressive. Short rush distance favors some early aggression with lings.
Wide open Spaces
This is the flaw of many of the maps. A good terran or toss player will take advantage of choke points to render speedlings all but useless. Without getting that good surround, their effectiveness is grossly reduced. Not many maps have wide open spaces so you need to coax your opponent with some trickery.
Ledges, High Ground, Island Expos, etc.
None of these help the zerg! Terran can abuse high cliffs with a fast thor-ship or siege tank drop. Protoss can ledge jump with blinked stalkers. Zerg need to react but cannot really take advantage of these terrains.
I'll get around to my visits tonight. Last night we stayed out late after the contract meeting so by the time we got back to the hotel all I wanted to do was sleep.
Swarm on!
Monday, September 20, 2010
Sorry Guys
Sorry guys,
I had one of my best friends wedding this weekend so I was out extremely late on Saturday. Food was great, music was better, and the open bar was without a doubt the best. Yesterday was a lazy day and I thought I would get my posts and support in, but alas my Internet was down =(
Here's a SC2 related picture while I regain my bearings. I'm travelling most of this week so should have down time in the hotel.
Swarm On!
I had one of my best friends wedding this weekend so I was out extremely late on Saturday. Food was great, music was better, and the open bar was without a doubt the best. Yesterday was a lazy day and I thought I would get my posts and support in, but alas my Internet was down =(
Here's a SC2 related picture while I regain my bearings. I'm travelling most of this week so should have down time in the hotel.
Swarm On!
Friday, September 17, 2010
Soon coming to a computer near you...
Hey guys, busy busy day today. Got a big contract I need to finish up some work on this morning and lunch this afternoon for somebody leaving the office. I'll try to get on here later and post up, but for now I want to make sure I visit the kind people who left me comments yesterday.
In the meantime, discuss what your favorite map is for SC2 and how you can abuse the terrain for the zerg. I'm going to center my next discussion around maps for SC2.
Swarm on!
In the meantime, discuss what your favorite map is for SC2 and how you can abuse the terrain for the zerg. I'm going to center my next discussion around maps for SC2.
Swarm on!
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Infestors
Infestors are an interesting SC2 unit. I have seen people do some pretty ridiculous "sneak attacks" with them I'll explain below, but as a whole I think this unit is drastically underused and is invaluable in tipping the tide in Zerg's favor. I'll break this down by skill and what it dominates:
Fungal Growth
I could write a novel about this skill alone but that wouldn't be the most interesting read. Over an 8 second time span, this 75 energy 9 range gem stops the army in the tracks as well! For this "stopping" effect along it is invaluable for catching units in transition, especially air units like medivacs on their way to harass. It is much more effective against biological terran units than it is against the shield heavy protoss. Many zerg players complain of having no solution to the "bio ball" that is 3M (Marine, Marauder, Medivac), but make no mistake, fungal growth is the solution. Cast and BACK UP letting the full damage take place and clean up with whatever troops you may have. Similar tactic can be used to tip a ZvZ battle in your favor. Did mention this comes standard on all infestors, no upgrade needed...
Neural Parasite
I myself am not the biggest fan of this spell, and since the beta has been over it doesn't get used all that often but this is a temporary mind control for all you SC BW fans. For 100 energy, you control the other unit so long as your infestor does not die or move out of range of the unit. You cannot burrow and use this ability (same for fungal above) so while controlling you are fairly vulnerable to attacks. I find it better to use this against an early rush when there are fewer troops to kill infestors. This of course is hard to do given the late acquiring of the tech. Target tanks, thors, and collosi and start attacking their own troops as soon as you gain control. Hopefully you can splash around some damage and make this worth it. IMO, throwing a fungal down and backing up will do far more damage...
Infested Terrans
A fun little parlor trick I have seen (but have not successfully carried out myself) is to get infestors with burrow and infested terrans, burrow a large group of 6-8 into an enemy base, and spawn a slew of infested terrans to cause harassment. If they have no detectors (at the stage you get them, most non-zerg players will, some zerg have been moving towards the overseer sooner but still rare imo) it can decimate economy and target tech. I find these far more useful to intercept air troops on the move in conjunction with fungal growth. Spawn 6-8 terrans and then lay down the fungal to make quick work of low hp troops.
Swarm on!
Fungal Growth
I could write a novel about this skill alone but that wouldn't be the most interesting read. Over an 8 second time span, this 75 energy 9 range gem stops the army in the tracks as well! For this "stopping" effect along it is invaluable for catching units in transition, especially air units like medivacs on their way to harass. It is much more effective against biological terran units than it is against the shield heavy protoss. Many zerg players complain of having no solution to the "bio ball" that is 3M (Marine, Marauder, Medivac), but make no mistake, fungal growth is the solution. Cast and BACK UP letting the full damage take place and clean up with whatever troops you may have. Similar tactic can be used to tip a ZvZ battle in your favor. Did mention this comes standard on all infestors, no upgrade needed...
Neural Parasite
I myself am not the biggest fan of this spell, and since the beta has been over it doesn't get used all that often but this is a temporary mind control for all you SC BW fans. For 100 energy, you control the other unit so long as your infestor does not die or move out of range of the unit. You cannot burrow and use this ability (same for fungal above) so while controlling you are fairly vulnerable to attacks. I find it better to use this against an early rush when there are fewer troops to kill infestors. This of course is hard to do given the late acquiring of the tech. Target tanks, thors, and collosi and start attacking their own troops as soon as you gain control. Hopefully you can splash around some damage and make this worth it. IMO, throwing a fungal down and backing up will do far more damage...
Infested Terrans
A fun little parlor trick I have seen (but have not successfully carried out myself) is to get infestors with burrow and infested terrans, burrow a large group of 6-8 into an enemy base, and spawn a slew of infested terrans to cause harassment. If they have no detectors (at the stage you get them, most non-zerg players will, some zerg have been moving towards the overseer sooner but still rare imo) it can decimate economy and target tech. I find these far more useful to intercept air troops on the move in conjunction with fungal growth. Spawn 6-8 terrans and then lay down the fungal to make quick work of low hp troops.
Swarm on!
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Discussion patch changes
Hey guys,
No strategy directly today, instead I have something from blizzard's website discussing the patch changes for 1.1 This looks good for us zerg since they might terran are finally getting nerfed a bit to make our race a bit mroe viable to play, heres the list and link, tell me what you think!
Balance Changes
Maps
We're going to be adding destructible rocks to the Desert Oasis map to make natural expansions easier to protect. In addition, the center map watchtower area is being narrowed.
Protoss
We have two key changes in mind for the zealot: the build time is being increased from 33 to 38 seconds, and the warpgate cooldown is being increased from 23 to 28 seconds. Zealot rushes are currently too powerful at various skill levels, particularly those that rely on rapidly assaulting an enemy base from nearby "proxy" gateways. We feel the window players have to scout for and fend off this rush is too small. We also want to address the problem of protoss being able to dump minerals a bit too quickly with the combination of warpgates and Chrono Boost.
Terran
There are several changes in the works for terrans. Reapers against zerg are stronger than expected. Due to the zealot build time increase, reapers would be a bit problematic in combination with proxy barracks, bunkers, and/or marauders against protoss. Therefore, we have decided to increase the build time of reapers as well from 40 to 45 seconds. Fast reaper + bunker, or fast marine + bunker rushes are problematic against zerg. Although this rush would never outright destroy the zerg player, we feel zerg suffers too much of a disadvantage from either having to cancel the fast expansion, or getting trapped inside the main base for too long, so we are also increasing the bunker build time from 30 to 35 seconds.
Siege tanks in large numbers are performing too well in all matchups. In the mid- to late-game, siege tanks are too dominant against all ground units. We want a small set of light and unarmored ground units to perform better against siege tanks. With this in mind, we're changing the Siege Mode damage of the siege tank from 50 to 35, +15 vs. armored; to correspond with this, damage upgrades will be changed from +5 to +3, +2 vs. armored. This change reduces the base damage of the siege tank against light and unarmored units, as well as the splash damage.
Battlecruisers currently lack good counters from the ground and still perform very well against a wide array of unit types. We're aware that it is not easy to get battlecruisers out for the cost, but at the same time, it is possible in both 1v1s and team games to create stalemate situations to bring them out. Overall, we feel that battlecruisers are too strong for their cost, and the terran-forced stalemate situations are causing less interesting gameplay. We will be lowering their damage against ground units from 10 to 8.
Zerg
Ultralisk damage is being decreased from 15, +25 vs. armored to 15, +20 vs. armored. This reduction is comparable to the changes being made to the battlecruiser and siege tank. Like the battlecruiser, ultralisks are simply too powerful for the cost, even though they are difficult to muster. Also, in combination with other units, ultralisks are difficult to counter from the ground. The ultralisk building attack (Ram) is being removed because the damage rate is too similar to its normal attack, which will be used against buildings instead. When ultralisks target tightly packed smaller buildings such as supply depots, the Ram attack is actually outputting considerably less overall damage than its normal attack, as Ram only hits a single target.
Link for those who want it:
http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/554901
No strategy directly today, instead I have something from blizzard's website discussing the patch changes for 1.1 This looks good for us zerg since they might terran are finally getting nerfed a bit to make our race a bit mroe viable to play, heres the list and link, tell me what you think!
Balance Changes
Maps
We're going to be adding destructible rocks to the Desert Oasis map to make natural expansions easier to protect. In addition, the center map watchtower area is being narrowed.
Protoss
We have two key changes in mind for the zealot: the build time is being increased from 33 to 38 seconds, and the warpgate cooldown is being increased from 23 to 28 seconds. Zealot rushes are currently too powerful at various skill levels, particularly those that rely on rapidly assaulting an enemy base from nearby "proxy" gateways. We feel the window players have to scout for and fend off this rush is too small. We also want to address the problem of protoss being able to dump minerals a bit too quickly with the combination of warpgates and Chrono Boost.
Terran
There are several changes in the works for terrans. Reapers against zerg are stronger than expected. Due to the zealot build time increase, reapers would be a bit problematic in combination with proxy barracks, bunkers, and/or marauders against protoss. Therefore, we have decided to increase the build time of reapers as well from 40 to 45 seconds. Fast reaper + bunker, or fast marine + bunker rushes are problematic against zerg. Although this rush would never outright destroy the zerg player, we feel zerg suffers too much of a disadvantage from either having to cancel the fast expansion, or getting trapped inside the main base for too long, so we are also increasing the bunker build time from 30 to 35 seconds.
Siege tanks in large numbers are performing too well in all matchups. In the mid- to late-game, siege tanks are too dominant against all ground units. We want a small set of light and unarmored ground units to perform better against siege tanks. With this in mind, we're changing the Siege Mode damage of the siege tank from 50 to 35, +15 vs. armored; to correspond with this, damage upgrades will be changed from +5 to +3, +2 vs. armored. This change reduces the base damage of the siege tank against light and unarmored units, as well as the splash damage.
Battlecruisers currently lack good counters from the ground and still perform very well against a wide array of unit types. We're aware that it is not easy to get battlecruisers out for the cost, but at the same time, it is possible in both 1v1s and team games to create stalemate situations to bring them out. Overall, we feel that battlecruisers are too strong for their cost, and the terran-forced stalemate situations are causing less interesting gameplay. We will be lowering their damage against ground units from 10 to 8.
Zerg
Ultralisk damage is being decreased from 15, +25 vs. armored to 15, +20 vs. armored. This reduction is comparable to the changes being made to the battlecruiser and siege tank. Like the battlecruiser, ultralisks are simply too powerful for the cost, even though they are difficult to muster. Also, in combination with other units, ultralisks are difficult to counter from the ground. The ultralisk building attack (Ram) is being removed because the damage rate is too similar to its normal attack, which will be used against buildings instead. When ultralisks target tightly packed smaller buildings such as supply depots, the Ram attack is actually outputting considerably less overall damage than its normal attack, as Ram only hits a single target.
Link for those who want it:
http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/554901
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Upgrades
Upgrading is something that many players neglect to do. This is often since threats are on the table and you have to spend resources to get your tech up and have a standing army. However, can upgrades sometimes be a game decision?
Like most of these questions, it really depends on the situation, and I think I'll break this down into the 3 matchups that occur, and make a special mention if it applies to a particular build for that matchup.
ZvZ
I might as well start off with the most important match to get upgrades in. ZvZ is often a roach v baneling battle, but every once in a while you get some great hydra/roach compositions duking it out. In this case, get your upgrades ASAP! Tech up to your roach warren and get them first to hold off early rushes (with your queen as well) and right about the time you are dropping a hydra den, get dual evo chambers and start pumping ranged and melee attacks. I recently saw a replay where an 8 roach 6 hydra army took out a 12 roach 10 hydra army, and still had 3 roaches and a hydra left in the aftermath. Upgrades > troop count for this case. Of course a 2000 mineral NOT upgraded army will devour a 1000 mineral army upgraded army any day of the week.
ZvT
This is probably the hardest matchup to write for since there will always be an argument for and against upgrades. In my opinion, ground carapace upgrades and air attack upgrades are the way to go. Against mech builds, your ground troops aren't going to be all that effective against leap frogging tanks, but at least if you have some armor you can get to "ground zero" next to tanks and have the friendly fire being. Against the bio ball upgrades are less important since they shell out damage so quickly, but I say ground armor upgrades are still effective. If switching to brood lords, go for the ground attack upgrades as broodlings will benefit from them. Air attack is nice if heavy muta (my personal favorite strategy) since they can pick off stray units more easily and do some tactical strikes against key buildings if need be.
ZvP
I haven't played too many protoss players where an upgrade was a make or break decision. Hydras deal fairly well with all the gateway units, so I usually go for ranged attack upgrades when I can. Once collosi hit the field, no amount of armor is saving you from those beams so I would stick with attack and stay aggressive in the early going.
Swarm on!
Like most of these questions, it really depends on the situation, and I think I'll break this down into the 3 matchups that occur, and make a special mention if it applies to a particular build for that matchup.
ZvZ
I might as well start off with the most important match to get upgrades in. ZvZ is often a roach v baneling battle, but every once in a while you get some great hydra/roach compositions duking it out. In this case, get your upgrades ASAP! Tech up to your roach warren and get them first to hold off early rushes (with your queen as well) and right about the time you are dropping a hydra den, get dual evo chambers and start pumping ranged and melee attacks. I recently saw a replay where an 8 roach 6 hydra army took out a 12 roach 10 hydra army, and still had 3 roaches and a hydra left in the aftermath. Upgrades > troop count for this case. Of course a 2000 mineral NOT upgraded army will devour a 1000 mineral army upgraded army any day of the week.
ZvT
This is probably the hardest matchup to write for since there will always be an argument for and against upgrades. In my opinion, ground carapace upgrades and air attack upgrades are the way to go. Against mech builds, your ground troops aren't going to be all that effective against leap frogging tanks, but at least if you have some armor you can get to "ground zero" next to tanks and have the friendly fire being. Against the bio ball upgrades are less important since they shell out damage so quickly, but I say ground armor upgrades are still effective. If switching to brood lords, go for the ground attack upgrades as broodlings will benefit from them. Air attack is nice if heavy muta (my personal favorite strategy) since they can pick off stray units more easily and do some tactical strikes against key buildings if need be.
ZvP
I haven't played too many protoss players where an upgrade was a make or break decision. Hydras deal fairly well with all the gateway units, so I usually go for ranged attack upgrades when I can. Once collosi hit the field, no amount of armor is saving you from those beams so I would stick with attack and stay aggressive in the early going.
Swarm on!
Monday, September 13, 2010
1 More day
Sorry but still need one more day of recovery. We lost the football game and to boot my throat is raw and I'm coming down with something, hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.
Leave comments and visit, and I'll be sure to visit a couple times for each tomorrow.
Leave comments and visit, and I'll be sure to visit a couple times for each tomorrow.
1 More day
Sorry but still need one more day of recovery. We lost the football game and to boot my throat is raw and I'm coming down with something, hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.
Leave comments and visit, and I'll be sure to visit a couple times for each tomorrow.
Leave comments and visit, and I'll be sure to visit a couple times for each tomorrow.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
No post
Sorry guys, no strategy post today. I'm hung over from my buddy's bachelor party last night, am working off of 4 hrs of sleep, and still have an end of summer party to attend today and football game in the morning. Not sure If ill be on to post but come Monday I'll be back!
Friday, September 10, 2010
Being a good scout
As a zerg, you have little to no excuse why you shouldn't be able to see a large majority of the map at any time. Starting with an air unit and constantly making more as the game progresses lets you see many areas the other races can't reliably see until the mid game. Tips for overlords;
1. Hover on the outskirts of your opponents base just out of harms way. This may seem obvious but so often I see zerg overlords cowering in the corner of the map and not doing any scouting at all!
2. Run your overlord from a terran base once they barracks goes down. Unless a tech lab is attached, you can be assured a marine is on the way. Get to safety before it kills you.
3. Research overlord speed. This doesn't need to be a top priority as often running back towards your troops is enough to deter some units from harassing. But once phoenixs and Valkyries hit the sky, be weary and stay mobile.
With SC2, we also have queens now who can turn creep into a valuable scouting tool. Creep tumors not only spread the creep, but give the zerg sight over wherever they expand to. Since creep tumors can spawn other creep tumors. Getting a fast one down and spreading out can increase troop speed and give sight on the outskirts of your base. Building your "Creep Highway" is a great scouting tool that costs no minerals or gas so do it often. I suggest assigning a tumor to a hot key and pressing it every so often to remind yourself.
Scout early and scout often!
1. Hover on the outskirts of your opponents base just out of harms way. This may seem obvious but so often I see zerg overlords cowering in the corner of the map and not doing any scouting at all!
2. Run your overlord from a terran base once they barracks goes down. Unless a tech lab is attached, you can be assured a marine is on the way. Get to safety before it kills you.
3. Research overlord speed. This doesn't need to be a top priority as often running back towards your troops is enough to deter some units from harassing. But once phoenixs and Valkyries hit the sky, be weary and stay mobile.
With SC2, we also have queens now who can turn creep into a valuable scouting tool. Creep tumors not only spread the creep, but give the zerg sight over wherever they expand to. Since creep tumors can spawn other creep tumors. Getting a fast one down and spreading out can increase troop speed and give sight on the outskirts of your base. Building your "Creep Highway" is a great scouting tool that costs no minerals or gas so do it often. I suggest assigning a tumor to a hot key and pressing it every so often to remind yourself.
Scout early and scout often!
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Nydus Worms
I'm going to talk about a drastically underused zerg tactic in my opinion. I was inspired after watching a shoutcasting of a ZvP on metalopolis. The players spawned close with the zerg spawning one in the 6/7 o'clock position and the protoss in the 9 o'clock position. The Zerg player tried to get out after catching the tip of the nexus, but a probe smartly caught sight of the overlord running back home and the match was on.
Players built up normally, nothing crazy, and eventually zerg was sitting on 3 base and toss on his main and natural expansion. This is where things go interesting. Zerg set up a contain with roaches/lings/hydras outside the main base, and then he spawned some creep by the tower and popped up a nydus worm (first one obviously built in base).
The zerg player then flew an overlord over near the toss mineral line and popped up another and all the forces from natural and main ran to neutralize the army emerging. 4 probes later and a ling gone, zerg loaded troops back in and popped up and harassed natural. 2 cannons, a warpgate and 6 probes got killed as toss ran to deal with threat. Meanwhile, a new worm went up in main base and the game of merry go round continued. Eventually, toss split force, zerg was stopped, but the economic damage was done and zerg threw up 2 more bases while attacking.
So what do you think, is the nydus worm more of a parlor trick or a viable tactic?
Swarm on brothers!
Players built up normally, nothing crazy, and eventually zerg was sitting on 3 base and toss on his main and natural expansion. This is where things go interesting. Zerg set up a contain with roaches/lings/hydras outside the main base, and then he spawned some creep by the tower and popped up a nydus worm (first one obviously built in base).
The zerg player then flew an overlord over near the toss mineral line and popped up another and all the forces from natural and main ran to neutralize the army emerging. 4 probes later and a ling gone, zerg loaded troops back in and popped up and harassed natural. 2 cannons, a warpgate and 6 probes got killed as toss ran to deal with threat. Meanwhile, a new worm went up in main base and the game of merry go round continued. Eventually, toss split force, zerg was stopped, but the economic damage was done and zerg threw up 2 more bases while attacking.
So what do you think, is the nydus worm more of a parlor trick or a viable tactic?
Swarm on brothers!
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Are ultralisks worth it?
This is more of a discussion that it is a set strategy. Ultralisks, as many may remember from SC1, were known more for there insane defense that offense. The chitinous plating upgrade gave +2 on top of the +3 most zerg players would amass from the evolution chamber making them a dream against low damage fast shooting troops like marines. Well, in SC2 they got even better since they do splash damage now and can really dish out the pain.
However, is the investment worth it? Consider the time of a game in which you are likely to get ultras. I'm talking using them as part of a viable attack component as well, not just popping out a couple to barrel into a turtling terran. Likely opponent zerg have teched to hive, protoss are probably running either 5/6 gate with high Templar, and terrans are either running a 3M strategy with boatloads of infantry, or doing some sort of mech build with leap frogging tanks and infantry support.
Now ultras, even in a group, will simply crumble to 3M without some sort of infestor support. Even lings/roaches will get mowed down quickly and mutas are probably a better bet depending on the number of marine in the army. Luckily protoss storming won't be too effective, and colossi are relatively slow, but mass stalkers prove a threat.
And the obvious is that any air support will severely weaken your forces. So how bout it, is the ultralisk worth its weight in minerals?
Swarm on brothers!
However, is the investment worth it? Consider the time of a game in which you are likely to get ultras. I'm talking using them as part of a viable attack component as well, not just popping out a couple to barrel into a turtling terran. Likely opponent zerg have teched to hive, protoss are probably running either 5/6 gate with high Templar, and terrans are either running a 3M strategy with boatloads of infantry, or doing some sort of mech build with leap frogging tanks and infantry support.
Now ultras, even in a group, will simply crumble to 3M without some sort of infestor support. Even lings/roaches will get mowed down quickly and mutas are probably a better bet depending on the number of marine in the army. Luckily protoss storming won't be too effective, and colossi are relatively slow, but mass stalkers prove a threat.
And the obvious is that any air support will severely weaken your forces. So how bout it, is the ultralisk worth its weight in minerals?
Swarm on brothers!
How to better manage zerglings
Hello,
This is going to be a short post and probably nothing ground breaking for the pros out there, but I have seen way too many people under utilize these gems in the replays I have been seeing. First off, they are the cheapest and some of the fastest units in the game. For a 50 mineral investment, the worst you have are scouts that can keep eyes on your opponent.
But they are so much more than that. Put a zergling at a xelnaga watch tower asap, keep one between you and your opponent to see when they are going to strike, camp out a future expansion quickly and hide in the corner to either prepare yourself or deny your opponent.
Zergling speed only sweetens the deal and unless you are going some crazy all in rush, you have NO excuse not to research this upgrade. It could be the difference between getting a full surround on an incoming army and losing half your lings up front and have the rest picked off. Be smart and use lings for strategy!
Swarm on Brothers!
This is going to be a short post and probably nothing ground breaking for the pros out there, but I have seen way too many people under utilize these gems in the replays I have been seeing. First off, they are the cheapest and some of the fastest units in the game. For a 50 mineral investment, the worst you have are scouts that can keep eyes on your opponent.
But they are so much more than that. Put a zergling at a xelnaga watch tower asap, keep one between you and your opponent to see when they are going to strike, camp out a future expansion quickly and hide in the corner to either prepare yourself or deny your opponent.
Zergling speed only sweetens the deal and unless you are going some crazy all in rush, you have NO excuse not to research this upgrade. It could be the difference between getting a full surround on an incoming army and losing half your lings up front and have the rest picked off. Be smart and use lings for strategy!
Swarm on Brothers!
Monday, September 6, 2010
Proxy Hatchery
Hi enthusiasts!
Sorry about the lack of post yesterday, was a busy busy busy day! Here is a cheese strategy that sometimes can work if you pull it off correctly.
What is it?
A proxy hatchery is a strategy that works best against an unsuspecting protoss. Terrans normally will be building their front door up in a hurry, whereas a protoss generally just starts to warp then either leaves to scout or goes back to mining. IN either case, the element of surprise is necessary for this to work.
You need to scout your opponent quickly and get a drone in their base without their knowledge. Get your spawning pool relatively early and sacrifice getting your first queen, you'll need the minerals. Pop up the proxy asap near the back of their mineral line and as soon as it finishes, pop out a queen. Time is essential since a smart opponenet will either start to see creep or scout you quickly. As soon as queen is out, get as many drones as possible to turn into spine crawlers. Keep the queen behind the crawlers and transfuse as neccesary.
How do we win?
If you can pop out a single spine crawler, chances out you will disrupt their economy enough to cause a gg. As a backup plan, you should get some defenses back at your main once you have a few crawlers up. Gauge what troops you will get by what your opponent has but keep in mind you will be rather gas light from the early commitment.
Swarm on brothers!
Sorry about the lack of post yesterday, was a busy busy busy day! Here is a cheese strategy that sometimes can work if you pull it off correctly.
What is it?
A proxy hatchery is a strategy that works best against an unsuspecting protoss. Terrans normally will be building their front door up in a hurry, whereas a protoss generally just starts to warp then either leaves to scout or goes back to mining. IN either case, the element of surprise is necessary for this to work.
You need to scout your opponent quickly and get a drone in their base without their knowledge. Get your spawning pool relatively early and sacrifice getting your first queen, you'll need the minerals. Pop up the proxy asap near the back of their mineral line and as soon as it finishes, pop out a queen. Time is essential since a smart opponenet will either start to see creep or scout you quickly. As soon as queen is out, get as many drones as possible to turn into spine crawlers. Keep the queen behind the crawlers and transfuse as neccesary.
How do we win?
If you can pop out a single spine crawler, chances out you will disrupt their economy enough to cause a gg. As a backup plan, you should get some defenses back at your main once you have a few crawlers up. Gauge what troops you will get by what your opponent has but keep in mind you will be rather gas light from the early commitment.
Swarm on brothers!
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Not Much Time
Hello all!
Unfortunately I do not have much to say today and its going to be a busy day. I have a couple labor day picnics to attend and need to do some grocery shopping too. You ever notice you procrastinate heavily doing without certain things, until you wake up one day and realize you are almost out of everything!
I'll give a shout out to my favorite shoutcasters I watch on youtube.com Husky and HD Starcraft and pretty good at keep track of games adding quips here and there. Crota (Blizshouter) has a strategic view on every game and is invaluable to teh SC2 community.
Tune in tomorrow for more strategy!
Unfortunately I do not have much to say today and its going to be a busy day. I have a couple labor day picnics to attend and need to do some grocery shopping too. You ever notice you procrastinate heavily doing without certain things, until you wake up one day and realize you are almost out of everything!
I'll give a shout out to my favorite shoutcasters I watch on youtube.com Husky and HD Starcraft and pretty good at keep track of games adding quips here and there. Crota (Blizshouter) has a strategic view on every game and is invaluable to teh SC2 community.
Tune in tomorrow for more strategy!
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Mutaling
What is Muta-ling?
This is an oldie but a goodie that actually originated back in SC and BW days. As a zerg player, I know all too well the power this combination contains, although I argue that it is even stronger in BW since hydralisk are so high up on the tech tree and its often hard to target air units with zerg in SCII. As the name implies, this strategy is going to involve a combination of mutalisks and zerglings. The zerglings (with speed) will enable you to surround ground targets will relative ease, while the mutalisks are flexible and can help with ground support while maintaining air control and economy harassment strategies.
Getting this composition isn't too hard and I find this strategy to work particularly well against an unsuspecting terran player. Start things off with a normal build -- pump drones, get the initial overlord, 13 or 14 pool, followed by a fast expand. To fake out early scouts, only acquire 1 gas from the start and once the scout is dispatched or chased away, get a second one up and running. Queens should inject as often as possible and produce drones and lings. The zerglings in the early game are expendable to a degree and should be used to try and contain your opponent and discourage him from a fast attack. You want to expand ASAP and get a strong economy going. Get additional 2 gas at expansion early, but spend none of it (expecpt zergling speed) until you tech up to lair and spire. Do this quickly if your opp isn't attacking, but you may need to delay a bit if a strong rush comes at you.
After expansion is up and saturated heavily on gas, continue to build economy and stockpile resources. Ideally you want to pop 6 mutas as soon as spire goes up, and support with as many lings as possible. If your opponent hasn't seen the spires, go for a quick raid in their backdoor and go for the mineral lines and key tech.
How do we win:
Patience is important with this strategy as mutaling can be countered by a variety of tactics. I find it best to maintain good air control with mutas and draw the enemy forces thin. Pick off easy targets like straggling marauders or high cost units like High Templars and Sentry's. Mutas are one of the fastest movers in the game so micro them well and keep low energy mutas in the back. Most opponents will start to tech towards a counter as soon as they see mutas (Thors, Mass Marines, Stalker/Blink, etc) so to win, get your armor upgrades and use terrain to your advantage. If you can keep the enemy chasing you around, it should be easy to macro up more lings and mutas to win the fight.
Swarm on Brothers!
This is an oldie but a goodie that actually originated back in SC and BW days. As a zerg player, I know all too well the power this combination contains, although I argue that it is even stronger in BW since hydralisk are so high up on the tech tree and its often hard to target air units with zerg in SCII. As the name implies, this strategy is going to involve a combination of mutalisks and zerglings. The zerglings (with speed) will enable you to surround ground targets will relative ease, while the mutalisks are flexible and can help with ground support while maintaining air control and economy harassment strategies.
Getting this composition isn't too hard and I find this strategy to work particularly well against an unsuspecting terran player. Start things off with a normal build -- pump drones, get the initial overlord, 13 or 14 pool, followed by a fast expand. To fake out early scouts, only acquire 1 gas from the start and once the scout is dispatched or chased away, get a second one up and running. Queens should inject as often as possible and produce drones and lings. The zerglings in the early game are expendable to a degree and should be used to try and contain your opponent and discourage him from a fast attack. You want to expand ASAP and get a strong economy going. Get additional 2 gas at expansion early, but spend none of it (expecpt zergling speed) until you tech up to lair and spire. Do this quickly if your opp isn't attacking, but you may need to delay a bit if a strong rush comes at you.
After expansion is up and saturated heavily on gas, continue to build economy and stockpile resources. Ideally you want to pop 6 mutas as soon as spire goes up, and support with as many lings as possible. If your opponent hasn't seen the spires, go for a quick raid in their backdoor and go for the mineral lines and key tech.
How do we win:
Patience is important with this strategy as mutaling can be countered by a variety of tactics. I find it best to maintain good air control with mutas and draw the enemy forces thin. Pick off easy targets like straggling marauders or high cost units like High Templars and Sentry's. Mutas are one of the fastest movers in the game so micro them well and keep low energy mutas in the back. Most opponents will start to tech towards a counter as soon as they see mutas (Thors, Mass Marines, Stalker/Blink, etc) so to win, get your armor upgrades and use terrain to your advantage. If you can keep the enemy chasing you around, it should be easy to macro up more lings and mutas to win the fight.
Swarm on Brothers!
Friday, September 3, 2010
Free From College!
This isn't a Starcraft II post so feel free to skip it if you are only here for the strategy tips. If you would like to read a little more about the blog owner, feel free.
Well it's official, I recieved notification the other day that I am free from college (hooray, 6 years later and I got me my 2 degrees in Computer Science, a bachelors degree in CS with a Math minor, and a Master's Degree in CS with a concentration in Software Engineering). I am excited since now I have more free time to work full time and browse the web in the evenings without having to worry about homework.
Unfortunately, it also means that I need to pay off student loans. I was lucky and my student loans don't add up too high from college. I worked part time in a law office doing some web design stuff which was kind of neat since I often overheard our receptionist setting up appointments with various call ins. People have the strangest problems ya know? Everything from collecting money on flood insurance, asbestos damage to houses, car insurance claims, outstanding debt collections... you name it and somebody somewhere is suffering from it!
Back to my original grip about student loans, does anybody know of a good way of consolidating my debt? Most of the loans I took out were interest free for the first couple of semester (subsidized is what they are classified as, Stafford loans), but after my sophomore year they only subsidized half of them for a single semester, and completely unsubsidized from there till my 2nd year of grad school. This is unfortunate for me since I paid off interest as best as I could during school, but now would like to consolidate the remaining date into some monthly payment plan.
Compounding my money issues is that I am now apartment hunting (anybody know of a good place somewhere Sunny like San Diego or elsewhere in California, Arizona (phoenix would be nice)? I am getting sick of the snow on the east coast) I looked at a couple places locally and they suffer from water damage and in general are just run down. Car insurance is thankfully low here though as is property taxes -- probably won't be so lucky on the west coast but we'll see.
Thanks for listening to me rant, more strategy posts to come soon!
Well it's official, I recieved notification the other day that I am free from college (hooray, 6 years later and I got me my 2 degrees in Computer Science, a bachelors degree in CS with a Math minor, and a Master's Degree in CS with a concentration in Software Engineering). I am excited since now I have more free time to work full time and browse the web in the evenings without having to worry about homework.
Unfortunately, it also means that I need to pay off student loans. I was lucky and my student loans don't add up too high from college. I worked part time in a law office doing some web design stuff which was kind of neat since I often overheard our receptionist setting up appointments with various call ins. People have the strangest problems ya know? Everything from collecting money on flood insurance, asbestos damage to houses, car insurance claims, outstanding debt collections... you name it and somebody somewhere is suffering from it!
Back to my original grip about student loans, does anybody know of a good way of consolidating my debt? Most of the loans I took out were interest free for the first couple of semester (subsidized is what they are classified as, Stafford loans), but after my sophomore year they only subsidized half of them for a single semester, and completely unsubsidized from there till my 2nd year of grad school. This is unfortunate for me since I paid off interest as best as I could during school, but now would like to consolidate the remaining date into some monthly payment plan.
Compounding my money issues is that I am now apartment hunting (anybody know of a good place somewhere Sunny like San Diego or elsewhere in California, Arizona (phoenix would be nice)? I am getting sick of the snow on the east coast) I looked at a couple places locally and they suffer from water damage and in general are just run down. Car insurance is thankfully low here though as is property taxes -- probably won't be so lucky on the west coast but we'll see.
Thanks for listening to me rant, more strategy posts to come soon!
The Dreaded 6-Pool
What is it?
Going offensive in the early game as a Zerg can be a rewarding tactic if executed correctly. With the ability to create troops at a fast pace with limited resources in the early game, the Zerg make ideal pressure appliers to any race. This is especially useful against another unprepared Zerg player as they do not have an easy means of blocking off their choke point. Compound this with the fact that most Zerg players go for a fast expand even before properly scouting out their opponent.
The 6-pool strategy gets its name because you create a fast spawning pool at 6 supply (i.e. only 6 drones). After you start to construct pool, spawn 2 more drones in while waiting for it to finish. You are trying to time it so there are 3 larva waiting when the pool is finished. Hatch 3 pairs of zerglings and you will have 6 troopers ready to go!
Now if you really want to commit to the strategy, use a drone to achieve the "extractor trick" (by this I mean construct an extractor with a drone thus dropping your supply count by 1, then build either another pair of lings or a queen or drone and then cancel the extractor instantly (you shouldn't lose any resources if done quick enough). Regardless of what you get here, move out the 6 lings as soon as they are hatched. Hopefully you know where your enemy is located either by following their scout home, your overlord, etc. The element of surprise is key here.
How do we win:
Hopefully you can disrupt their economy quickly and cause a rage quit or set them back enough that the next round of troops will take them out. This may happen, but it is nice to have a fall back if it fails. My suggestion is to start powering out drones after 8 lings (6 from the first group of larva and 2 from extractor trick) and get a fast expand up asap. Grab a queen shortly thereafter, inject, and just build up your economy. The nice thing is with your opponent on their heels, counter attacking will not be on their list of things to do right away. Amass a large army of lings if you can break their choke and their unit composition is poor, or tech up to roaches. You will need gas for the latter however and the early rush doesn't get you any gas so BEWARE, this tactic may not work too well.
Swarm on Brothers!
Going offensive in the early game as a Zerg can be a rewarding tactic if executed correctly. With the ability to create troops at a fast pace with limited resources in the early game, the Zerg make ideal pressure appliers to any race. This is especially useful against another unprepared Zerg player as they do not have an easy means of blocking off their choke point. Compound this with the fact that most Zerg players go for a fast expand even before properly scouting out their opponent.
The 6-pool strategy gets its name because you create a fast spawning pool at 6 supply (i.e. only 6 drones). After you start to construct pool, spawn 2 more drones in while waiting for it to finish. You are trying to time it so there are 3 larva waiting when the pool is finished. Hatch 3 pairs of zerglings and you will have 6 troopers ready to go!
Now if you really want to commit to the strategy, use a drone to achieve the "extractor trick" (by this I mean construct an extractor with a drone thus dropping your supply count by 1, then build either another pair of lings or a queen or drone and then cancel the extractor instantly (you shouldn't lose any resources if done quick enough). Regardless of what you get here, move out the 6 lings as soon as they are hatched. Hopefully you know where your enemy is located either by following their scout home, your overlord, etc. The element of surprise is key here.
How do we win:
Hopefully you can disrupt their economy quickly and cause a rage quit or set them back enough that the next round of troops will take them out. This may happen, but it is nice to have a fall back if it fails. My suggestion is to start powering out drones after 8 lings (6 from the first group of larva and 2 from extractor trick) and get a fast expand up asap. Grab a queen shortly thereafter, inject, and just build up your economy. The nice thing is with your opponent on their heels, counter attacking will not be on their list of things to do right away. Amass a large army of lings if you can break their choke and their unit composition is poor, or tech up to roaches. You will need gas for the latter however and the early rush doesn't get you any gas so BEWARE, this tactic may not work too well.
Swarm on Brothers!
Thursday, September 2, 2010
How to Stop a Turtling Terran
The Player:
We all know the player, they block off their ramp almost instantly with a combination of supply depots and barracks with an addon. Your initial scout can usually make it past since the barracks takes a little bit of time to construct, but you often lose the drone after being walled in. So now what? Running lings up the ramp does no good as a single marine can take down a group of 6-8 lings easily, and a pair can decimate anybody trying to break through the choke. Compounding the problem is that an SCV will normally be sitting around repairing what little damage is being done.
Our Response:
Well in Broodwar we didn't have banelings, but thankfully now we do! If you come across a Terran who is heavily relying on his front door to keep out any sort of fast rush, a banelings nest is a great investment. Ideally you will want to start off with a typical overlord at 10 supply, followed by a spawning pool at 11 or 12 or a fast expand perhaps. Grab your dual gas as banelings are a costly gas investment in the early going. A good idea would be do get one gas like most Zerg players do anyways to trick an early scout and not let them onto your tech. After chasing out the SCV (or killing it with lings/drones) grab a second gas ASAP and build your baneling nest. Cut back on drone production to the point where you can comfortably train lings as fast as the larva is available (you are remembering to inject with your queen right?) and don't supply lock yourself. Amass a good army of lings (10-20) and camp outside the enemy base.
Some important notes so far: DO NOT, i repeat DO NOT morph your banelings until you are about to bust. The longer you can hide your tech, the less time your opp has to react. Only morph enough banelings to take out the building as they do less damage to troops. This shouldn't be an issue msot of the time anyways since your low supply of gas and minerals will prevent you from morphing your entire ling pool into banelings. Keep a good 6-8 zerglings out of harms way until the bust occurs.
This is often an all in strategy since your economy is already suffering due to the dual gas and constant army production so drone count will be lower. Aim for the weakest building at the choke (often a supply depot, but hopefully a barracks addon was poorly placed and you can snipe it off. Run the lings past any troops who may be stationed near the choke and go RIGHT FOR THE ECONOMY! I cannot stress this point enough. Your economy is suffering and their SCVs should be open for the killing. Snipe as many as possible -- remember, your goal is not to take out the Terran opponent (although if the opportunity is there, go for broke) you are just trying to disrupt him enough that he will need to rebuild.
How do we win?
While attacking either tech up to Mutalisks (gas flow should be plentiful anyways) or grab your expansion if you haven't already. While the Terran rebuilds their front door, you have the leniency to expand and rebuild your suffered economy.
Swarm on brothers!
We all know the player, they block off their ramp almost instantly with a combination of supply depots and barracks with an addon. Your initial scout can usually make it past since the barracks takes a little bit of time to construct, but you often lose the drone after being walled in. So now what? Running lings up the ramp does no good as a single marine can take down a group of 6-8 lings easily, and a pair can decimate anybody trying to break through the choke. Compounding the problem is that an SCV will normally be sitting around repairing what little damage is being done.
Our Response:
Well in Broodwar we didn't have banelings, but thankfully now we do! If you come across a Terran who is heavily relying on his front door to keep out any sort of fast rush, a banelings nest is a great investment. Ideally you will want to start off with a typical overlord at 10 supply, followed by a spawning pool at 11 or 12 or a fast expand perhaps. Grab your dual gas as banelings are a costly gas investment in the early going. A good idea would be do get one gas like most Zerg players do anyways to trick an early scout and not let them onto your tech. After chasing out the SCV (or killing it with lings/drones) grab a second gas ASAP and build your baneling nest. Cut back on drone production to the point where you can comfortably train lings as fast as the larva is available (you are remembering to inject with your queen right?) and don't supply lock yourself. Amass a good army of lings (10-20) and camp outside the enemy base.
Some important notes so far: DO NOT, i repeat DO NOT morph your banelings until you are about to bust. The longer you can hide your tech, the less time your opp has to react. Only morph enough banelings to take out the building as they do less damage to troops. This shouldn't be an issue msot of the time anyways since your low supply of gas and minerals will prevent you from morphing your entire ling pool into banelings. Keep a good 6-8 zerglings out of harms way until the bust occurs.
This is often an all in strategy since your economy is already suffering due to the dual gas and constant army production so drone count will be lower. Aim for the weakest building at the choke (often a supply depot, but hopefully a barracks addon was poorly placed and you can snipe it off. Run the lings past any troops who may be stationed near the choke and go RIGHT FOR THE ECONOMY! I cannot stress this point enough. Your economy is suffering and their SCVs should be open for the killing. Snipe as many as possible -- remember, your goal is not to take out the Terran opponent (although if the opportunity is there, go for broke) you are just trying to disrupt him enough that he will need to rebuild.
How do we win?
While attacking either tech up to Mutalisks (gas flow should be plentiful anyways) or grab your expansion if you haven't already. While the Terran rebuilds their front door, you have the leniency to expand and rebuild your suffered economy.
Swarm on brothers!
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Don't Fear the Reaper (Continued)
PART2
I ran out of time yesterday to finish explaining the counter to quick reapers. Please see the post from yesterday if you don't know what I am referring to.
Counter Attack:
As previously outlined, you should be in fairly good position to counter attack after the shenanigans they tried to pull. Hopefully seige tank research has not begun yet (and with all the reapers taking the gas it probably won't have) so busting down the front door shouldn't be too bad. Let lings go first and follow up with roaches for support. Change RALLY POINT to their base and keep the troops coming.
Swarm on Brothers!
I ran out of time yesterday to finish explaining the counter to quick reapers. Please see the post from yesterday if you don't know what I am referring to.
Counter Attack:
As previously outlined, you should be in fairly good position to counter attack after the shenanigans they tried to pull. Hopefully seige tank research has not begun yet (and with all the reapers taking the gas it probably won't have) so busting down the front door shouldn't be too bad. Let lings go first and follow up with roaches for support. Change RALLY POINT to their base and keep the troops coming.
Swarm on Brothers!
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Don't Fear the Reaper
Hello fellow Zerg!
I am going to break this into 2 parts as I have to run soon:
PART1:
I know I said I would be starting things up with some basic strategy but after playing a bit today I am becoming enraged with how badly Terran players can play and still come close to getting a victory over a zerg player. Now granted balance is something that is debatable and going on a losing streak tends to put even the best players into a "whine mode" but all said I think the current map pool is largely favoring Terran as far as terrain is concerned. I hope to analyze each map a little more closely in later posts but reaper harrasment and tank drops have been tearing me up lately despite having a counter plan in mind for these situations!
Enough gripes however, here is a scounter to a popular terran strategy and why:
Quick reaper harassment - more and more lately I have been seeing aggressive Terrans getting a quick gas followed by barracks with fast tech lab. As soon as tech lab is done, the first reaper pops up and begins making its way to your base (any reasonable zerg will have scouted your location by now). Soon after the second gas has been constructed, nitro packs will be on the way, along with additional barracks and tech labs for more reapers.
The general strategy (variations exist of course) of a smart Terran will be to do a little harrasment on either a fast expand hatchery (a popular zerg strategy) or the economy by sniping drones with the first reaper ASAP. He won't be looking to end the game, just keep the zerg knocked back so no counter occurs and all the while maintain that first reaper. Reaper number 2 will often enjoy the same tactic while waiting for friends. Depending on the build strategy, nitro packs will be finished sometime soon after the second reaper and soon a gaggle of them will be harrassing your mineral line(s) and sniping zerglings.
So whats a zerg to do?! We are supposed to be the aggressor and keep Terran on their toes and instead we are microing around our base like crazy trying to keep these buggers out. Here's a couple suggestions:
1. Research Zergling Speed ASAP! This is just good practive for any zerg player in general as zerglings are cheap and effective scouts and a small group can make mincemeat of attacking marines or poorly micro'd hellions. This is not enough to counter a large group of reapers however since as they grow in number they can kite your troops and 1 shot lings with ease (2+ reapers). Whats worse is that the reapers often come before the speed is done so rarely can you chase off the early reaper with lings alone.
2. Queen Queen Queen - Zerg should be getting that first queen as soon as that pool is up (unless you are doing some crazy in all zergling rush or suspect you can catch you opp off guard with some early troops) and your first queen should be able to manage 1 and even 2 reapers in the early go. Keep her on the creep and near the mineral line since this will often be their prime target. They will try to kite your queen and force her off the creep but don't bite, just stay calm and micro her well. Getting 2 queens in the early going will often discourage a reaper harrass all together as they can dish out damage fairly well and fast (on the creep) and transfuse one another if the pressure keeps up.
3. Roches - This is the best strategy IMO since not only does it provide a hard counter to the reapers, but it also sets you up for a counter attack after holding off the rush. This is not an easy strategy to acheive and often will involve getting your queen(s) and holding on to them as they repel the early rush. Tech up quick and get these guys since the reapers won't do their bonus damage to these "heavy" units and a well managed group of 4 - 8 of these guys should be able to protect your main and expo pretty easily with queen support.
I find getting a quick expo up, keeping queen number 1 at your main while a couple zerglings intercept and hold off the first reaper to be a good strat. Pump queen 2 out with additional lings (not many, use your judgment based on the reaper squad size) and transfer her to expo ASAP. Tech up as quick as possible to roaches and produce them as quick as you can.
The great thing about your opp goign reapers is that their economy will be suffering, there's no way around this. With all the resources being pumped into reapers, the SCV count will be lower than yours (of course this assumes you don't allow opp to pick off all your drones) and once you find off the initial rush, you can macro up a mix of roaches and lings to strike back. If you're lucky, they may have expanded already and you can set them back on the eco even more by denying some mining time
I am going to break this into 2 parts as I have to run soon:
PART1:
I know I said I would be starting things up with some basic strategy but after playing a bit today I am becoming enraged with how badly Terran players can play and still come close to getting a victory over a zerg player. Now granted balance is something that is debatable and going on a losing streak tends to put even the best players into a "whine mode" but all said I think the current map pool is largely favoring Terran as far as terrain is concerned. I hope to analyze each map a little more closely in later posts but reaper harrasment and tank drops have been tearing me up lately despite having a counter plan in mind for these situations!
Enough gripes however, here is a scounter to a popular terran strategy and why:
Quick reaper harassment - more and more lately I have been seeing aggressive Terrans getting a quick gas followed by barracks with fast tech lab. As soon as tech lab is done, the first reaper pops up and begins making its way to your base (any reasonable zerg will have scouted your location by now). Soon after the second gas has been constructed, nitro packs will be on the way, along with additional barracks and tech labs for more reapers.
The general strategy (variations exist of course) of a smart Terran will be to do a little harrasment on either a fast expand hatchery (a popular zerg strategy) or the economy by sniping drones with the first reaper ASAP. He won't be looking to end the game, just keep the zerg knocked back so no counter occurs and all the while maintain that first reaper. Reaper number 2 will often enjoy the same tactic while waiting for friends. Depending on the build strategy, nitro packs will be finished sometime soon after the second reaper and soon a gaggle of them will be harrassing your mineral line(s) and sniping zerglings.
So whats a zerg to do?! We are supposed to be the aggressor and keep Terran on their toes and instead we are microing around our base like crazy trying to keep these buggers out. Here's a couple suggestions:
1. Research Zergling Speed ASAP! This is just good practive for any zerg player in general as zerglings are cheap and effective scouts and a small group can make mincemeat of attacking marines or poorly micro'd hellions. This is not enough to counter a large group of reapers however since as they grow in number they can kite your troops and 1 shot lings with ease (2+ reapers). Whats worse is that the reapers often come before the speed is done so rarely can you chase off the early reaper with lings alone.
2. Queen Queen Queen - Zerg should be getting that first queen as soon as that pool is up (unless you are doing some crazy in all zergling rush or suspect you can catch you opp off guard with some early troops) and your first queen should be able to manage 1 and even 2 reapers in the early go. Keep her on the creep and near the mineral line since this will often be their prime target. They will try to kite your queen and force her off the creep but don't bite, just stay calm and micro her well. Getting 2 queens in the early going will often discourage a reaper harrass all together as they can dish out damage fairly well and fast (on the creep) and transfuse one another if the pressure keeps up.
3. Roches - This is the best strategy IMO since not only does it provide a hard counter to the reapers, but it also sets you up for a counter attack after holding off the rush. This is not an easy strategy to acheive and often will involve getting your queen(s) and holding on to them as they repel the early rush. Tech up quick and get these guys since the reapers won't do their bonus damage to these "heavy" units and a well managed group of 4 - 8 of these guys should be able to protect your main and expo pretty easily with queen support.
I find getting a quick expo up, keeping queen number 1 at your main while a couple zerglings intercept and hold off the first reaper to be a good strat. Pump queen 2 out with additional lings (not many, use your judgment based on the reaper squad size) and transfer her to expo ASAP. Tech up as quick as possible to roaches and produce them as quick as you can.
The great thing about your opp goign reapers is that their economy will be suffering, there's no way around this. With all the resources being pumped into reapers, the SCV count will be lower than yours (of course this assumes you don't allow opp to pick off all your drones) and once you find off the initial rush, you can macro up a mix of roaches and lings to strike back. If you're lucky, they may have expanded already and you can set them back on the eco even more by denying some mining time
Monday, August 30, 2010
First Things First...
Allow me to start this off by giving a little credit where credit is due. Blizzard, a lovely little company who intrigued me with Starcraft and the Brood War expansion, took a long time to develop and finally get Starcraft 2 to the state it is currently in today. One could argue not much has changed from the original SC and BW expansion and the only thing the SC2 has succeeded in doing is forcing gamers to drop more $$$ to get up and running with the pros on Battle Net (BNET). Oh, and they also succeeded in making playing against a terran player even less fun than the turtling strategies we faced in BW!
Well there may be something to say about Terrans, but more on that at a later time. The amazing thing to me is that after all these years, Blizzard could produce yet another Real Time Strategy (RTS) game that at first looks so much like SC of the past, but added subtle differences that enhance the gaming experience for everyone. The way resources are gathered, troops are trained, map doodads, and viable strategies for all the resources all play into what makes SC2 not just another RTS game, and certainly not just a "more expensive" starcraft. Blizzard has created something magical here and hopefully after doing a little research (or hopefully reading some more information here) you will agree!
For those not yet swarming (pardon my pun) to join the rush, please take a look at the official website and find a retailer near you.
http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/games/sc2/
Another thing I will hope to do in this blog is to leave you with some arbitrary quotation that strikes me while writing in hopes you will find meaning and a way to connect it to SC2, your life, or anything else you may find interesting. This isn't a copy paste job from Google, these will be unique!
"When you can anticipate exactly what an enemy is thinking, there should never be the need to have as strong an army."
ZergItUp!
Well there may be something to say about Terrans, but more on that at a later time. The amazing thing to me is that after all these years, Blizzard could produce yet another Real Time Strategy (RTS) game that at first looks so much like SC of the past, but added subtle differences that enhance the gaming experience for everyone. The way resources are gathered, troops are trained, map doodads, and viable strategies for all the resources all play into what makes SC2 not just another RTS game, and certainly not just a "more expensive" starcraft. Blizzard has created something magical here and hopefully after doing a little research (or hopefully reading some more information here) you will agree!
For those not yet swarming (pardon my pun) to join the rush, please take a look at the official website and find a retailer near you.
http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/games/sc2/
Another thing I will hope to do in this blog is to leave you with some arbitrary quotation that strikes me while writing in hopes you will find meaning and a way to connect it to SC2, your life, or anything else you may find interesting. This isn't a copy paste job from Google, these will be unique!
"When you can anticipate exactly what an enemy is thinking, there should never be the need to have as strong an army."
ZergItUp!
Soon To Come
Hello Starcraft Enthusiasts!!
I am hoping to make this blog an interesting read for anybody looking for some Starcraft 2 stories, tips, and general theory. I will probably mention many races for discussions, but I will focus on the zerg in particular since they are without a doubt the most challenging and rewarding race to play as.
I will try to start posting material ASAP and will most likely start with some general strategy tips about various zerg units, beginner strategies, and how to react to various builds that will be thrown at you. Stay tuned and feel free to leave comments on content you would like to see, or simply post a link to your blog since I would like to network as well with other RTS blogs
I am hoping to make this blog an interesting read for anybody looking for some Starcraft 2 stories, tips, and general theory. I will probably mention many races for discussions, but I will focus on the zerg in particular since they are without a doubt the most challenging and rewarding race to play as.
I will try to start posting material ASAP and will most likely start with some general strategy tips about various zerg units, beginner strategies, and how to react to various builds that will be thrown at you. Stay tuned and feel free to leave comments on content you would like to see, or simply post a link to your blog since I would like to network as well with other RTS blogs
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