Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty

[Enidigm]

I finally got promoted to diamond in 1v1.
I just wanted to brag, because I had to work up from the copper league in beta. I should prolly just retire now. I don’t have the micro skills to compete at this level.

Awesome. I got to Diamond 2on2 first to learn the game, though i don’t know if i can get that high in 1on1.

[Ender]

My friend and I are in diamond 2v2. We’ve had to reinvent our strategy more often than Tiger has to reinvent his swing. Team 2v2 is really fun because every game is challenging.

[McKnight]

Thanks for the hotkey stuff - I’ve been looking all over for that! Useful to know. I am very good at mechanically pumping out workers every by pressing 55q every time I hear SUV ready… until I have to do something involving my army. Like you say, I can work on it. If I can be bothered. It often starts feeling a bit like work. Which I suppose it is, in a way. I should have got being shit at RTS out of the way when I was a teenager, so I can use my much more valuable time now being decent and having a good time like I do with pretty much every other genre.

You don’t have to double tap to produce them. You can just hit the hotkey once and still watch you army. Same goes for all your unit producing structures.

[Staff_Sergeant]

Back on the multiplayer front, has anyone figured out a reliable counter for Protoss to beat terrans massing fast infantry?

High Templars.

I played a 2v2 the other day that was TPvTP, my partner went for air domination and I went for zealots and HTs. A good amount of HTs simply eat right through a bio ball and a stalker ball if they don’t micro really well. We pressed up to their base and I held the front ramp while my teammate harassed with vikings and banshees to keep their production down and we simply played containment until they each only had their base and natural mined out and we both had the golds and a couple more expansions. Eventually they just said fuck it and threw everything they had at my templar wall, I think I got like 300 kills in that game.

Bonus of HTs: Feedback on anything with energy like Banshees, BCs, or uncloaked ghosts.

[sinnick]

High Templars.

I played a 2v2 the other day that was TPvTP, my partner went for air domination and I went for zealots and HTs. A good amount of HTs simply eat right through a bio ball and a stalker ball if they don’t micro really well. We pressed up to their base and I held the front ramp while my teammate harassed with vikings and banshees to keep their production down and we simply played containment until they each only had their base and natural mined out and we both had the golds and a couple more expansions. Eventually they just said fuck it and threw everything they had at my templar wall, I think I got like 300 kills in that game.

Bonus of HTs: Feedback on anything with energy like Banshees, BCs, or uncloaked ghosts.

This sort of gameplay just scares my pants off. I don’t have the micro skills to pull off something like that.

[Staff_Sergeant]

It’s just <select all templars>, <move them into range behind zealots>, shift-X-clickclickclickclickclickclick RETREAT TEMPLARS.

[rossm]

7. What’s the best way to actually attack? Pressing T seems to make everyone divide their attack inefficiently, right-clicking stuff focuses it but also makes everyone who can’t hit whatever I’m clicking amble around uselessly.

Put units of different utility in different command groups. For example melee units in group 1, ranged in group 2, air units in group 3. That way if you want to focus down a guy on the ground, use group 2. Everybody will keep attacking fine. If a couple units can’t get to the target, it’s probably dead in a second or two anyway.

[Ender]

Collosi are better than HT vs bio ball usually. Collossi can be easier to micro as they are big and very mobile. HT will run forward and be in front of your army because they move at a weird speed.

[sinnick]

7. What’s the best way to actually attack? Pressing T seems to make everyone divide their attack inefficiently, right-clicking stuff focuses it but also makes everyone who can’t hit whatever I’m clicking amble around uselessly.

I would also like advice on this. My worst placement match was against a Terran who turtled. He had Siege tanks, Bunkers and Missile Turrets set up all around his base, and then managed to do it around the gold base in the center as well.

No doubt I wasn’t building fast enough too, but in general this seems to me like it will counter any army that comes at it. So what do you do? I don’t understand how you would penetrate this.

[Wallapuctus]

Collosi are better than HT vs bio ball usually. Collossi can be easier to micro as they are big and very mobile. HT will run forward and be in front of your army because they move at a weird speed.

By the time you’ve teched up to Colossi the Terran has either overrun your base or sucks at Starcraft.

I’ve only run into the latter once.

My problem is gas. If I save the gas for HTs and the terran pushes early I’m dead. If I get sentries and stalkers I have no gas for HTs.

Admittedly I’m terrible at the game so maybe it’s just me and no one else has this problem.

[Rob_O_Boston]

I would also like advice on this. My worst placement match was against a Terran who turtled. He had Siege tanks, Bunkers and Missile Turrets set up all around his base, and then managed to do it around the gold base in the center as well.

No doubt I wasn’t building fast enough too, but in general this seems to me like it will counter any army that comes at it. So what do you do? I don’t understand how you would penetrate this.

I am NO expert, but my favorite unit, the cloaked banshee, could handle this. The key would be to pick away at the turrets, focus firing them down until the tanks are revealed, and then you could burn them down.

I have been building marine balls to defend my base, putting them near my mineral lines with some detecting turrets to hold off reavers/void rays/mutas, and then getting a couple of starports up to create a banshee attack force. It works well about half the time in the bronze league.

[Ender]

Collosi are better than HT vs bio ball usually. Collossi can be easier to micro as they are big and very mobile. HT will run forward and be in front of your army because they move at a weird speed.

[Ender]

Collossi and HT are the same amount of tech. You can choose one or the other and be in the same place at the same time.

[Staff_Sergeant]

Zealots with leg speed are faster than HTs, I’ve never had HTs accidentally become the frontline of my army. In fact my problem with them is that they lag far behind and sometimes get picked off by a flank with no support. If you have upgraded your units to +3/0/+3, turning a bunch of templar into archons after using up their energy is a great way to continue the attack if you’ve gained the advantage with the storms. I like colossi, they’re probably my favorite unit in the game, but I’ve had more success countering the bio ball with HTs. Now vs Zerg? I absolutely will go for Colossi, they burn through pretty much every zerg ground unit except Ultras.

EDIT: Also, HTs can storm air pretty effectively if you run into that. If you run into air with Collosi you better hope you built enough sentry/stalker support.

[Hunty]

I have been building marine balls to defend my base, putting them near my mineral lines with some detecting turrets to hold off reavers/void rays/mutas, and then getting a couple of starports up to create a banshee attack force. It works well about half the time in the bronze league.

I’m totally not an expert either (see above), but I feel like this could be even more effective if those marines were attacking his front door just as a shitload of banshees uncloak on his mineral line, rather than chilling out with some beers next to your command centre -which must be the easiest tour of duty ever given their usual 95% attrition rate!

[Rob_O_Boston]

I’m totally not an expert either (see above), but I feel like this could be even more effective if those marines were attacking his front door just as a shitload of banshees uncloak on his mineral line, rather than chilling out with some beers next to your command centre -which must be the easiest tour of duty ever given their usual 95% attrition rate!

I only send my marines if the banshees are very successful. My marine ball has no anti-armor capability and no upgrades, so there is a good chance they won’t break through against a typical Terran turtle’s front gate. Plus, defending the mineral line seems paramount to me, as that is where the enemy raids in most games, which can happen any time from either reavers or banshees, sometimes at the same time I’m attacking.

Where I fail badly is transitioning to the next unit after my banshees attack. If they do a decent job then I’ve slowed my opponent’s economy, and I should be able take advantage of that moment. But at this point in the game my base is a little too big, my counter knowledge is still weak, and I struggle coming up with a late game offensive force.

[Staff_Sergeant]

I only send my marines if the banshees are very successful. My marine ball has no anti-armor capability and no upgrades, so there is a good chance they won’t break through against a typical Terran turtle’s front gate. Plus, defending the mineral line seems paramount to me, as that is where the enemy raids in most games, which can happen any time from either reavers or banshees, sometimes at the same time I’m attacking.

Where I fail badly is transitioning to the next unit after my banshees attack. If they do a decent job then I’ve slowed my opponent’s economy, and I should be able take advantage of that moment. But at this point in the game my base is a little too big, my counter knowledge is still weak, and I struggle coming up with a late game offensive force.

There’s nothing wrong with just building a whole lot of tier 2 units that have been working out for you if you are having trouble coming up with a good late game strategy, especially if harassing has put you at an economic advantage.

[Enidigm]

Collossi and HT are the same amount of tech. You can choose one or the other and be in the same place at the same time.

Sort of. It takes a lot of research to make Colossi effective, a lot of upfront cost, and you really need two of them to be effective. Colossi are also expensive and very slow to build. I’ve never been able to “rush” to them to hold off mass marines.

HTs have similar upgrade costs but are a bit faster to deploy.

[Arbit]

This mission really seems like a misstep in what otherwise was a good job of providing a new unit and showing it’s usefulness. This mission should have been the Meet-The-Reaper mission.

There have been a couple like this. The Goliath mission (grab the terrazine gas before the protoss seal the shrines/vents) was much easier with marines + medics. The attacks came too frequently and goliaths produce too slowly to achieve critical mass, not to mention stimmed marines haul ass. Even when colossi and high templar showed up, it was easier to fall back momentarily and heal up rather than try to constantly retreat and repair goliaths. Same with the viking mission - goliaths with the range upgrade do a fine job of destroying the colossi (with their GROUND-to-air attack) and destroying the carrier groups without even getting damaged. One of the biggest advantages of vikings is they can shoot and scoot pretty effectively, but then they match you up against void rays and carriers, both of which can fire on the move. I’m playing the wraith mission now and I’m thinking that upgraded vikings are going to be better than vanilla wraiths.

On another note, holy shit that “wave of fire” level was a bastard. I eventually ended up going pure air, using SCVs in a medivac to occasionally repair. There was no way I could maintain any ground forces at all when they kept swarming me with zealots, sentinels, immortals, and archons. I sneaked around the very top of the map with about 10-12 each of viking and banshees and destroyed the artifact building that way… amusingly enough, the little in-game cutscene showed all sorts of terran ground forces surrounding the ruins of the building.

[Staff_Sergeant]

Void Rays cannot fire on the move. I say this as a Protoss only player who has built his fair share of VRs. I’m not sure about carriers though, you don’t see those used too often unless it’s a 4v4 and one player just builds a massive carrier swarm. I’d have to load up SC2 and play around a little to verify that.