4/25/2010

So this week I think I'm going to try pushing Reapers first as part of my build since I'm walling anyway and Reapers are better than Marines straight out of the gate. Should give an increased harassment ability early and hopefully won't affect the M&M midgame build...

See how it goes...

On a side note the 5 placement matches are getting on my nerves. If you get cheaped in a match or two (Nydus, Reaper rush, etc.) you have no way of recovering. It should be based on the quality of the opponents, not an arbitrary win/loss ratio. One loss, Gold, two losses, Silver. It's dumb, seriously.

Blizzard, change it.

I'm also really frustrated by the whole beta process at this point. They gave SC2F 5 staff keys to play with. Then they give all these keys to places like Kotaku and then all of a sudden they just release keys like they're candy, even giving them to Gamestop of all people. Get out!

Whatever happened to the closed beta? *Sigh*.... frustrated.

4/12/2010

Played quite a bit of 1v1 last night (as well as some 2v2) but I've found that this Marauder nerf is just ridiculous at a high level of play. Terran is not exposed to a whole slew of strategies at early to mid-game that are completely unstoppable against Protoss. Zerg isn't as much of a problem because of the Roach nerf and the fact that Marauders still counter Roaches easily even with the Nerf.

But the fact that Zealots are no longer slowerd without a 100/100 upgrade is just ridiculous. While your Protoss opponent is researching Warp-In (for 50/50) and has Chronos Boost for an even more effective economic and research counter to the Terran, it's just impossible to stop certain pushes.

There was a reason that Marauders were so strong, and now that protection is gone. The only option to counter Protoss from an infantry standpoint is now to go for Ghosts. You just have to. And you have to pray that your Ghosts get out fast enough. It's almost a requirement to build Ghosts before you build any Marauders. The EMP is just necessary.

3/29/2010

Not much to report other than that since the reset I've ranked Platinum in 1v1 instead of Gold. w00t w00t!

I also found these short tip videos on YouTube that actually are very helpful and insightful. All players should check these out:














3/25/2010


So you're a Terran player in StarCraft 2. Maybe you never were in SC1. Maybe you like the challenge of a race that's been a bit neglected. We're underpowered and we're proud, right? Or maybe you're one of the other two races that are trying to keep us down and you just want to learn what makes us tick. Well, we'll have our day. You'll see! The easiest race to learn and the hardest to play, this is your Terran's Guide to the Universe! It'll teach you everything you need to know at this stage of the beta to win and do it in style.


Unfortunately the article just has too much good stuff in it to read on the front page, so you'll just have to read the rest here! Good luck Terrans!

3/23/2010

There's really not that much to report tonight other than that Dan (Crazy) of LiveWire Hosting is much better at SC2 than I gave him credit for. Way to go!

Even if he beat me at 1v1 only because he was watching my stream during the match. He still bested me! And as Protoss! That's gotta be a first.

Anyway later on we played some 2v2 and let me tell you. Zerg is going to be the most OP race as players learn to use it. We got beat on the ground by a combination of 2 Zerg players using only Zerglings, Roaches, and Hydralisks. Sure, they upgraded their armor to +3 (giving the Roaches 5 armor which is INCREDIBLY OP) but I also had +3 attack on my tanks. GTFO. They destroyed us. They just plain and simple overwhelmed us. There was nothing I could do.

How do you counter a Zerg that is beating you on the ground with nothing but Zerglings, Hydras, and Roach? There is no option. All you can do is pump siege tanks and pray.

More tomorrow!

3/22/2010

Well it's been interesting. The site's servers were down last week so I spent the majority of my time on that, and on my digital reel for grad school and job hunting next year. You can see all that stuff on my youtube channel if you're interested.

Anyway since the 7th my StarCraft 2 experience seems to be all about the 1v1. I haven't found a real, steady 2v2 partner (whom yCH is supposed to be but he keeps disappearing).

But I have had quite a few awesome games. I'm going to try to put up some of the replays on the site once I get a chance so some of you can take a look (of course, only those of you with the legit beta, right? heheheh).

Don't forget to keep watching my livestream which I try to do every day. You can watch games on there too even if I'm not playing at the moment. I'm usually on battle.net at around 9-10 pm EST until about 2 or 3 am EST. Sometimes I play irregularly other times, but you can see my indicator in the forum. It looks like this:



As far as my games go, I do want to point out that I feel that Kulas Ravine unfairly favors the Protoss because of the positioning of the cliffs which allows for absolutely effortless movement of Colossus and gives an unfair advantage to the Stalkers' blink over a Terran player. Don't start me in a pit, man! Here's an image if you don't know what map I'm talking about:



Also, I still feel that Mutalisks do not have a proper counter although I have found a strategy that sort-of puts it off and allows me to at least compete against the Zerg perpetrator. As he goes Mutalisk I quick-tech Hellions to prevent any attacks on the choke and then go immediately to Marines + Medivac. As I'm teching the Medivac I grab the Hellions and drop them behind the mineral line for a little harassment. This seems to adequately delay the Mutalisk. At the same time I build some Vikings to do a little supply harass on the enemy's Overlords (usually the Zerg player is relying on Roaches to keep him alive at this point so he has almost no anti-air except for the Queen).

Then as his Mutalisks come out I try to trim them as much as I can with the Vikings. This usually forces the Zerg player to go for Corruptors as well which divides his resources so that he's not producing just Mutalisk which would be pretty devastating to my Marines. So with that combination I'm kind of able to pressure him well (with the addition of some tanks) so my final combo comes out as a Viking/Marine/Medivac/Tank/Hellion build which seems to be somewhat effective. However, it is still highly reliant on timing. And if you let the Zerg get Brood Lords it's pretty much over unless you have enough Vikings to overcome the Mutalisks and the Corruptors to get to the Brood Lords. Ground is just about useless against them.

I'm still rooting for the Thor to get splash damage. It needs it bad.

I've also found another glitch it seems. I've been experimenting with the Ghost as a support unit against Protoss. Well, it turns out it doesn't make that great a support unit, but it does okay as a caster. It's better to push to tanks rather than Ghost immediately because you just don't have enough firepower to make use of the EMP strike once it's gone. So go tanks first then try to push the Ghosts out (and of course nukes will follow).

However, in relation to the Ghost's EMP, if the EMP is used on a caster unit which has already been commanded to cast a spell, the caster will still do the spell even if it has been EMP'ed prior to initiating it (so in effect it's casting a spell while it has 0 energy). I learned this one the hard way after I EMP'ed some High Templars and thought I was safe from the incoming Psi Storm. BZZZZT Not so!

But the Ghost does do rather well against Protoss as a caster. It completely negates the Immortal's hardened shield so they're suddenly very vulnerable to tanks, and it basically eviscerates any units that are coming under tank fire. But you have to keep in mind that it does only 100 damage to shields, so it won't clear the shields of larger units like the Colossus in one hit. It'll take two or more.

And while I like Snipe I'd kind of rather have lockdown because Snipe is only useful against tier 1 units (and Mutalisks) and if you're seriously microing against tier 1 units when you're at tier 3, there's a serious issue. Maybe the Ghost should get some kind of immobilizer that works on all units, not just bio. But that might be OP. Mechanical would do just fine.

I'll look to get you guys a more thorough update tomorrow!

3/7/2010

Okay, yeah. I need to update this more. What a moron.

So this week has gone pretty well as far as StarCraft 2 is concerned. I've got some kind of bronchitis or something so that's been limiting my play a bit. I'm going to the doctor on monday so we'll get that taken care of.

I've done quite a bit of 1v1 and 2v2 as usual. I'm churning out a LOT of games. I'd say overall I've played about 150 matches so far. Probably 60% are wins. Most of my records are something like 31-22, etc.

As far as strategies go, I've really become attached to Terran. They're very versatile and have a lot of firepower. Don't take me on from the front, baby!

But a few things have become apparent:

1. Mutalisks are woo-hoo overpowered in groups. Good jesus. There is no Terran counter for mass Mutalisks. Period. The only option is the Raven's Heat-Seeking missile and, come on, that's not an option. It's too easy to dodge.

2. Mineral sharing is hilarious. If we're T/Z I just give all the money I can spare to my Zerg partner and he goes to town with Mutalisks. Unless they press him very early it's GG.

3. Siege Tanks are the Terran's kryptonite. The only counter is Siege Tanks and air. And Banshees don't do that well against Marines en masse. I don't even bother building Marauder against Terran I just grab two tech labs off my first two barracks, swap them for factories and get reactors and start pumpin' rines and tanks. It's pretty much over. I killed both opponents in a 2v2 after my partner was killed early going mutalisk.

4. I found a glitch for Terran when a building is landing to produce an add-on and Marines are ordered to move on a path that could take them under it, the Marines will move under but stop like the building is there and then get stuck moving back and forth. And the building will not land until the units are commanded away.

So that was pretty much this week in Jon's world of StarCraft 2. I not have 2 new 2v2 partners (yCH and Tribal). I'm now Gold with Tribal and still working on placement with yCH. We should get to platinum soon.

I've also submitted my first series of suggestions (and glitches) to Blizzard. Read them here.

3/1/2010

Whew! Fallin' a bit behind! Damn school and getting in the way of StarCraft 2 achievement!

I played quite a bit of 1v1 on yesterday and took back my higher Gold ranking. I think all I have to do to reach Platinum is beat one Platinum player and I'll move up. Who knows though it took us forever in 2v2.

I hope you guys are enjoying the coverage we have so far. We've added FFenixM to the lineup. He's my current 2v2 partner and we're rankied #11 in Platinum 2v2.

In any case I do have a really good replay of a 1v1 TvT match which basically turned into a slug-fest. I'll be putting that one up on YouTube soon or I may have someone commentate that match because it's just ridiculous. Tank battles all over!

Later on March 1...

I played a pretty solid 1v1 against SlayerS TvZ. He for some reason decided not to rush or pressure at all so I basically just started building big balls of Terran death and throwing them at him. He kept me contained for a little while but eventually made the fatal mistake of attacking a well-defended Planetary Fortress and lost a good number of his Hydras... You can watch the match here.

2/25/2010

Played a lot more 1v1 today (you can watch a few of the matches on my Livestream page). I lost a few but won for the most part and suddenly jumped from Bronze #1 to Gold #10. I have no idea how that happened but I jumped just about everyone on my friends list who is in Silver. So I was trapped in Bronze for almost a week and then skipped 150 spots to hit Gold. Weird.

I found a couple of glitches:

1. When the Thor fires his 250mm Cannon ability he seems to not fire again unless you command him to move position first. He'll just sit there staring at the enemy and not firing. I've lost a few Thors to this glitch.

2. When Terran units are ordered to focus fire on a Carrier some of them do not maintain that command and will instead start firing at interceptors even before the focus fired Carrier is killed. I actually lost an entire match because of this glitch.

3. EMP needs to have extended range and it should be at LEAST 50% reduction in shields and 100% reduction in mana.

4. The Brood Lord needs a nerf. I think it would be fine if the broodlings it spawned only did 1 or 2 damage, but the current 4 damage they do is ridiculous and OP against Terran. You simply can't fight them with ground units which is kind of lame. You basically have to overwhelm them with Vikings and they'll still do a lot of damage.

Then later on Karune and I played a few 2v2 games. We're winning probably 60% of them but only if we win prior to mid-game. These players we're facing in Platinum are just so good at macro that we just get overwhelmed by 15 minutes. Skill gap FTL! But our early rushes are proving pretty deadly and will win us the match 40% of the time.

Good news for my livestream watchers, I think I finally figured out how to end the choppiness you guys are getting while watching.

2/24/2010

Just a quick update for today. Played a lot of 1v1 and moved myself up to #1 Bronze. Still don't know why I haven't been placed in Silver yet... whatever!!!

Also played a new 2v2 position with Karune (Blizzard's Community Manager) and we won 9 of our placement matches in a row and then lost the tenth. Damn. But we immediately got placed into Platinum Rank #29 in Division 5. My other 2v2 ranking is Platinum #7 in Division 7.

So movin' up in the world. But we didn't really have any crazy games today, but here's what I learned:

1. Mothership is OP. Needs to be nerfed. I mean sheesh. I tried everything possible.

2. Nukes are useful, sure. But they suck most of the time. Don't even try using them on units. Their range is tiny.

3. EMP sucks and the AI pathing for it is worse. It has a small radius and is very dangerous to cast. You can easily wipe your own mana. AND the range on it is terrible. You have to be standing practically in the middle of the enemy army. Not cool.

4. Karune loves to rush! LOL We kept slamming people with REALLY early Zealot and tech rushes. Good lord.

5. Platinum people are scary good. We were just outclassed our last few matches. Sheesh.

Night guys!

2/23/2010

Had another fun few rounds of 2v2 with FFenix. This matchmaking system is just plain ridiculous. It has us down to a T. It's like looking in the mirror every match, sometimes literally (because it's a mirror match: Z/T v Z/T). These players are SO close to our skill level. We're winning matches by the skin of our teeth. Or losing by the skin of our teeth as well. Although we're definitely positive in win loss. As it stands now we're 27-14 in 2v2s. That includes a few drop losses. But we're doing pretty good.

To top the night off in our last match we were ranked #1 in the Gold Division on the ladder and we were matched up against the #6 team from the Platinum Division (a step higher). We'd been trying to break into Platinum since Friday. I was Terran (again) and FFenix was Zerg as usual. We were facing T/Z as well. Anyway, we got going and I got ambushed early by a bunch of Roaches who had destroyed the rocks behind my base. I countered it with some Marauders which dealt with the threat and FFenix came to my aid and we pressed toward Z.

Reinforcements didn't come to the Zerg player but instead countered to FFenix. There was no hope for him to survive. So we pressed on Zerg to make it a 1v1. We managed to cripple but not kill him. I retreated and started fortifying for a 2v1. I built out three expansions with Planetary Fortresses... heheheh. I put one at the expansion between the crippled Zerg and myself and backed it up with Marines + Marauders. I held that position for ages and went back and forth with the Red Terran's forces in the crippled Zerg (blue)'s base.

Finally Red mounted a massive frontal attack which my dead ally detected and warned me of. I put some Siege Tanks on my cliff of my natural in defense of my Planetary Fortress at my natural and waited... Sure enough Red came barreling up my ramp to be met with 6 tanks shelling him from on high. I think he lost around 25 Marauders and 5 tanks as well as some Medivacs. That battle put me ahead for sure.

I went on an expansion frenzy and started trying to finish blue Zerg. Red Terran came back with freaking Battlecruisers and Thors. Thankfully I had somehow thought to build a crap-ton of Vikings so I had the BCs mostly under control. But the Thors... I had to build my own!!

The rest of the match turned into an epic Thor battle. I had Tanks, Thors, Marines and Marauders. He had Thors, BCs, and Marines. It went back and forth for about 15 minutes with him destroying almost all my expansions and finally I pressed through Blue Zerg (leaving my expos to be sacrificed) and took Red's natural expansion. I then mopped up his remaining Thors and BCs and cut him off from other expansions. They GGed at 36 minutes. w00t!

So now we're ranked Platinum #17!