Starcraft II

[Aphelion]

Zerg doesn't even have a king on that board XD

[Solomon]

Poor zerg. I tried a few games as random, and got fed up fighting the terrans. Then one time I get matched against a zerg player, my `random' turns out to be `terran'... Well, at least I could try copying what my previous opponent just did to me. (I won, but both of us made some really terrible mistakes judging from replay --- I'm a total noob at this.)

Yeah, you have to feel for the Zerg...especially after reading this comic strip on how they came to be: http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/ae14 ... e2/1-1.jpg (it'll help if you know a bit of the SC1 storyline).

[Aphelion]

I don't feel for the Zerg at all. After all those years of BW PvZ, they deserve everything they get ^^. The terrans though, they seem to have all the luck.

[MountainGo]

I watched your replay, Fwiffo, and I agree that he must be maphacking. Why else would he keep looking at your main at the beginning like that? As for that weird section where he stared at the lower right corner of the map not doing anything, I think he must have had a knock on the door or something. By the way, I couldn't help but notice your proclivity for Stalkers. Have you tried getting more Zealots? I always preferred Stalkers like you, mainly because they cost more, so I felt like I was making better use of my money. But the DPS comparison may surprise you, as it did for me. Zealots actually do more damage than Stalkers, even against Armored targets! They have the same armor (1) and practically the same health (50/100 for a Zealot, 80/80 for a Stalker), but the Stalker has the Armored attribute, which seems like a major weakness in a game where seemingly everything under the sun gets bonus vs. Armored. I dunno, I still haven't had enough experience with Protoss to say anything for sure, so I was just wondering what you'd tried.

[fwiffo]

The main reason I don't use more zealots is because they're melee units and I hate melee units. Marauders get concussive shells and stim which means my zealots get kited, even with charge. They tank well, but once I get robo, I can get immortals to tank. They're also more micro intensive, IMO, and my micro is terrible. They'll probably feel more useful when I get better.

The reason I get lots of stalkers is because they are good against almost any air unit when massed and with focus fire, and since I usually don't get air units myself unless I have a particular need, I am careful about having anti-air. I also like to get colossus and they have great synergy with stalkers. Stalkers can ward off air units to protect the colossi, and the colossi give vision so the stalkers can blink up cliffs. With the range upgrade for colossi, it's very easy and natural to get the stalkers in front. They aren't super meat shields like immortals or zealots, but stalkers are less fiddly to maneuver and blink is very powerful.

There are other factors... I tend to get a surplus of gas at some point, and getting a lot of zealots would make it worse. Maybe taking guys off gas or spending it on different gas-heavy units would be better... I could do better with sentries (gas expensive but very mineral cheap), for instance; I usually get a couple, but then forget to use them. I'm also lazy when I'm warping in reinforcements. I find the closest pylon, hit w, s, then spam shift-click. Getting a mix of units requires more precision particularly if I need to hotkey them into different groups.

I may try more zealots in the future... They seem hard to use without charge, so maybe I need to be getting my twilight council sooner. Blink is pretty important for stalkers too, but they can get by more easily without it than can zealots without charge, IMO.

I was watching orb's stream the other night, and the way he used zealots combined with storm really impressed me. There was one game on Blistering Sands where he spotted a big MM ball headed towards his natural. He warped in zealots and HTs to add to the force he had there, then quickly carefully arranged an ambush/surround. Just as the attacking force arrived he landed storms while charging in with the surrounding zealots to keep the ball from dodging. It was a huge bloody electric butcher shop. It was so terrifying I actually felt sorry for the Terran.

[Solomon]

There are other factors... I tend to get a surplus of gas at some point, and getting a lot of zealots would make it worse. Maybe taking guys off gas or spending it on different gas-heavy units would be better... I could do better with sentries (gas expensive but very mineral cheap), for instance; I usually get a couple, but then forget to use them. I'm also lazy when I'm warping in reinforcements. I find the closest pylon, hit w, s, then spam shift-click. Getting a mix of units requires more precision particularly if I need to hotkey them into different groups.

Sentries are just amazing, force fields can influence a battle so much that I've seen armies that are almost half the size of another win it out simply by good force fields. A common tactic for instance is to have one sentry hanging out at the top of a ramp along with your army. If your opponent tries to push into your main by funneling through the ramp, you can land a force field as the army is coming in to split it in half so that you only really have to deal with half an army. And I don't think I need to explain why guardian shield is very important. I think hallucination is a severely underused ability that has a lot of potential...ideally, Blizzard will buff it so that the energy required to hallucinate is less, or the research cost is cheaper. Who knows, hallucinations alone could win you the game...:

[fwiffo]

No doubt, sentries are great, and pretty cheap. They just require more finesse to use than I actually have. I usually get one out as soon as I get my core to help hold the ramp from early rushes. But it's rare that I actually land the forcefield correctly. When those marauders stim their way up the ramp, you have a split second to act. And getting it wrong means trapping the bigger part of the force in with you. And when I have a bigger army later, I always forget the guardian shield and they end up just blocking my blinks because they appear first in the selected group and I forget to hit tab (yeah, they shouldn't be in the same group, but I'm always screwing up my hotkeys so some sneak in there anyway...).

I know that all falls under the category of l2p, but I'm still ling to p.

Frankly, mass stalker works pretty well for me. I never had a loss where I looked at the replay and gone "aw man, those stalkers were just totally the wrong thing!" It's usually:

"Oh, he had way better macro than me."
"I was way out of place when he destroyed me with those voidrays."
"If I had detection on hand those DTs/Banshees wouldn't have wiped me out."
"I shouldn't have expanded so soon without knowing what my opponent was up to."
"I didn't have enough units when he came at me with four-hundred-thousand concussive stim marauders two minutes into the game."
"I wish I hadn't fouled up my control groups so bad / screwed up my build / forgot to put guys in gas / forgot to build pylons / accidentally set my nexus's rally point to my opponent's mineral line."

[MountainGo]

hallucinations alone could win you the game...:

That was good for a quick laugh. But then maybe that Terran player knows what's up and is playing a counter-mindgame! (On second thought, I guess not, since there is under 10 seconds left in the replay... but on third thought, why is the mini-map blank? Fake!)

I'm amazed that you always seem to have a replay or screenshot for every occasion. What do you read/watch to find all this stuff?

[Solomon]

hallucinations alone could win you the game...:

That was good for a quick laugh. But then maybe that Terran player knows what's up and is playing a counter-mindgame! (On second thought, I guess not, since there is under 10 seconds left in the replay... but on third thought, why is the mini-map blank? Fake!)

I'm amazed that you always seem to have a replay or screenshot for every occasion. What do you read/watch to find all this stuff?

Mostly from lurking TL.net or reddit.com/r/starcraft .

Also, I just witnessed the greatest SC2 nerd rage on stream. I was watching -orb-'s stream for some good old nerd rage entertainment. Now I know his raging can get pretty bad, but nothing was even close to when he lost a PvT where he was winning handily (even had 4 bases against the opponent who was at 2), but ended up losing regardless to mass BCs. He literally sent 200/200 armies of various compositions at least three times, trying everything in the book (including casting feedback like mad on the BCs, the archon toilet, and VRs) and only to have them wiped out. He was practically spitting when he lost, and it didn't help that some of the people on stream were trolling him hard by telling him "hurrrrrr you should have 200/200 VRs". I had to turn down the volume to almost mute because he was just screaming. It was so dirty, but wow did I have a good laugh.

[schilds]

Heh, I followed my own suggestion and took a break for a week. Boy is this game not at all like go (well duh). I stop playing go for a few months and I return stronger (probably because I forgot all my bad habits :p). I stop playing starcraft and I feel so clumsy after.

[Tortue]

Hey everyone,

I am absolutely terrible at SC2.
I played through SC1 and WC3 campain but never enjoyed playing vs. games. For some reasons, I got somewhat hooked to the ladder games in SC2 and play a game now and then. I played like 20 games so far with a win/loss ratio around 3/17 or something. Needless to say, I am in copper league :p

My main concern is "groups" organisation for efficiency. I choosed to play protoss and I would love to know how you, more experienced players, organize your groups.
I tryed a few things, but halfway through the game, I am back to clicking on everything with my mouse.

I try to set up a group with my gateway, another with spaceport, another with robo etc ...
I set up a group with just one drone, so I can call it without clicking and build something.
Usually I set up a big group with my army, because I can't really manage more than one group at the same time for now anyway.

I read somewhere you can create a group with all your buildings and tab throug it, is it a good idea ?

How do you organize !?
And what is a good build order that "works" ok that I could concentrate on for now until I am confident and experienced enough to try more things ?

Cheers !
Raph (from France if anyone wants to play a game this evening or tomorrow evening ! GMT +1)

[schilds]

Hmm, well your grouping seems normal. I do much the same. If you're grouping that way and finding yourself using the mouse instead of hotkeys, I suggest that it's a matter of disciplining yourself and not a matter of changing how you group things.

This is what I do as Protoss:

probe
probe
probe
pylon

scout with a probe

probe
probe
probe
gateway

After that, for a mixed starting army (stalkers, sentries, zealots), roughly (it's not in my head :p, so I may have the order slightly wrong) something like:

probe
assimilator
probe
probe
probe
pylon
cybernetics core

Essentially, you keep building probes, the 2nd pylon is placed at around 15/16 supply, the cybernetics core almost straight after the gateway is finished and warp gates researched the moment the core is finished. The timing of all these things usually depends on exactly how fast you want to get to stalkers/sentries. Against early reapers you usually want to build the core the moment the gateway is finished. Early zerglings or zealots mean early zealots for you too (and maybe a 2nd earlier gateway). Around the time you have 26 probes, you should have 4 production queues (not including the nexus), which could simply be 4 gateways. The first gateway usually builds one each of a zealot, stalker and sentry (in that order) and by the time you have two units out you should either have built or be building your next production building (usually a second gateway).

After the first gateway, it all depends on what you think your opponent is doing.

Also, early on in the game, do not queue up units until just before the current unit is about to finish. Instead, keep a watch on your resources and be aware of how much each thing costs. If you're going to build a building, try to have your probe in place just as you get enough minerals for it.

You can basically get to diamond (on the se asian server at least) doing roughly this and making the rest up as you go along :p.

[Tooveli]

I'm not sure what to suggest as a simple build - I would just browse a list (http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Protoss_Strategy#Builds_3) pick one you like the idea of and then just practice it until it's smooth.

Regarding using hotkeys and control groups, a simple method of learning to use them (as suggested by day9) - literally don't let yourself click to produce any units/buildings during the game. Hover your mouse over the button to learn the hotkey if you need to but don't click it, push it on the keyboard anyway. This will feel horrible and slow, and will probably make you lose some games, but eventually (and it won't take all that long) you will get used to it and it will be much faster than clicking on the button could ever be.

Another little trick, say you've hotkeyed your nexus to 5, hit 5-e to build a probe even when you've already got your nexus selected. That way you'll soon find your fingers building probes in the middle of battles with little input from your brain.

As protoss I like to hotkey my nexus to 5, my gateways to 4 (and use 4 even after warpgates are finished) and then I hotkey robo or stargates depending on feel during the game (sometimes to 6, sometimes to 4 and hit tab it depends). I don't think it matters too much whether you use tab to cycle or use seperate keys, it should be whichever feels more comfortable. I don't like using control groups 7-0 because I tend to lose my hand position to press them so if I'm starting to fill up then I put my production buildings together.

I've started hotkeying a lot more stuff recently (from playing on the multitasking trainer too much). I like to hotkey my first pylon (if it's at 9 supply) so I can see exactly when it finishes and chrono boost on time. I like to hotkey my warping in pylon. I like to give an individual hotkey to any structure I want to be continually chronoboosting. I don't like to pick a 'building drone' because I find it better to manually select one that's close to the building site. I think, as long as you're using your hotkeys, it's all just personal preference.

[Tortue]

Thanks ! I will try to follow those lines. I must shamefully precise that I never use warp gates as I don't know how to use it (strategicaly speaking).

Do you block the ramp ?

[fwiffo]

Take everything I say with a grain of salt given my gold/silver rating.

I block the ramp against Zerg to fend off early pool rushes. Using the first pylon and gateway (or gateway and cyber core if you think you have enough time), you block it all except for a one space gap, in which you will place a zealot set to hold position. You don't want to do a complete wall-off because you don't have a submergable/floatable buildings like Terran. It takes a little practice and knowledge of the maps before you get wall-offs right.

If zerglings get in before your zealot gets there, you have to surround them with your probes. If you do it right, you can kill them off giving you time to get a zealot in place to fend off the next batch of zerglings. You'll use a few probes, but if you're careful and don't lose a lot and they did a 6/7/8-pool you'll still have a crushing economic advantage.

Wall offs are less useful against other races. All-ins from Protoss tend to have pylons right next to your base allowing them to warp in past the wall, or even pylons and gateways (or cannons) inside your base. An early reaper from Terran, of course, can just cliff-jump to bypass the wall. Early marines or marauders can blast through a blocking zealot or pylon really easily, so you really need sentries to hold them off.