Starcraft II

[Ekkebus]

I think going hellion into tank/medivac gives you more options for tech transitioning.

[Wood]

Cool, I'll try to work out the kinks to get this build down. BTW, what's a good way to track down replays/players that use this build? Also are you excited for GSL May?

[Ekkebus]

Poke around on TeamLiquid I'd guess.

I'm actually most looking forward to Code A this month. Of course, MVP has to be the favorite to win it but there are some absolute bad asses in the lineup. Bomber finally made it through qualifiers and some great Slayers guys too. That should be awesome. Code S will be good too, I'm sure but its a lot of the same guys that have been battling at the top for a while now. I just think Code A will be more interesting overall. I'm also going to miss having more foreigners around from the World Championship.

Of course, there's also a LOT of other big tournaments going on. NASL and the ISL both start in the next week as well. Very exciting stuff.

edit:

So in my quest for improvement I think I'm really starting to nail some decent builds. I've started noticing that a lot of Protoss don't play very safe in the early game, in that they'll only get a couple of units to block their ramp and they don't start really building an army until their warp gates and/or robo finish. This means more often than not I can roll right up with a 5 Roach Rush and take them out before the warp gate rush starts. And if I see them expand before me I just start cranking zerglings. Against Terran I've been expanding behind baneling pressure though I've noticed a real lack of Terran play online lately for whatever reason. ZvZ is still a crazy crapshoot but usually roaching is the way to go.

double edit:

For strategy guides on just about everything:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=192233

[Ekkebus]

Patch 1.3.3 is going live on the test server. You could also call this patch the "fix the 4 warp gate rush" patch. Longer research time for warp gate, quicker non-warped Gateway unit training times and a smaller powered area from pylons. Of course with quicker Gateway training times I'm sure proxy rushes will become popular again but hey if it reduces the number of warp gate rushes I think I can deal. Also, a drastically quicker root time for spore crawlers makes me want to do backflips.

[Wood]

Yeah, I saw those patch notes. Terrans are now getting ghosts at 150/150. Might mean that fast tech to ghosts might become a smoother transition. Or it might mean absolutely nothing at all. But I'm actually excited to see what this patch does at the pro level. Yes, having warpgates can drastically drop down distances with gateway units. But, with faster training out of gateways, I don't think we'll see the insane micro battles play out in PvP. The defending player is simply going to get more units against a warpgate rush, and hopefully that means we'll see an actual end game between Protoss players.

Also, my 3v3 team just got Silver League! Fuck yeah team WRD!

[Ekkebus]

Ghosts are actually going to 200/100 from 150/150. So they will be less gas intensive which means, yes they'll be able to come out a bit sooner. I'm guessing this is going to mean cloaked ghosts sniping my queens early on. Course I also like them changing Salvage from 100% to 75%. At leas that way Terrans have some kind of a decision to make before throwing down bunkers all willie nillie. Might curtain bunker rushes a bit too. Also what I love about the new Spore rooting speed is it should mean it'll be much easier to defend against Void Ray and Banshee rushes.

Don't you love how as zerg I can think of nothing but how opponents will/won't be able to cheese me?

I don't know if this has happened to you (maybe its just TvZ) but I've noticed people starting to do BC rushes quite a bit since the last patch which is fun. Fun because I find them to be pretty easy to stop. Hydras own BCs so hard

[Wood]

I need to go into more 1v1's then, because I rarely run into BC's in 3v3's. It's hard for me to see when they become unstoppable, as they're still super expensive and take a long time to get out. I guess they can murder some things, but against hydra/marine/stalker, they'll drop. Though I think they probably excel with a good mix of other units, and can do aerial base siege.

Actually, Day 9's Funday Monday this week is 1 barracks and 1 factory all game long. Been thinking about how to transition to air and how to secure expansions, due to how heavy the gas commitment is. Thinking end game BCs in there somewhere, but do I siege expand to air or go straight banshee?

[Ekkebus]

Like anything, you need to properly scout before you put such an expensive unit on the field. Like if they're going heavy robo or heavy mech. Really they should be extremely effective against zerg since standard ZvT play is Ling/Bane/Muta and BCs will own up those unless you have a stupid amount of mutas.

I recommend going Banshee more towards midgame. Every zerg is paranoid about banshee rushing and looks for it straight off the bat but if you wait and suddenely bring out 5 banshees a bit later on it can really fuck shit up. Just gotta be careful if they have a lot of mutas.

[Wood]

Finally watched the GSL Code S Semi's. HOLY CRAP that was an amazingly close game! Definitely looking forward to the finals. Now to get caught back up on the Up-Down matches, and there's a lot to catch up on.

[Ekkebus]

Yes, the Nestea vs sC game 5 was absolutely crazy insane. It wasn't the best or most tactical game but it was just so dramatically close.

So immediately after singing the praises of Spanishiwa style last night I went and dropped 5 games, almost all to platinum players who used a specific rush that I wasn't ready to counter. Oh well, now I have that experience so I'll do better next time. Either way I'm finding it to be much more enjoyable and versatile than the standard speedling or roach builds I had been using, I mainly now need to work on transition out of it once I drop the 4 gas at 44 supply. I feel like I take too long to figure out how I want to pump up my army at the moment.

[Wood]

From what I can tell (as a Terran Player), it's the mid-game that's difficult to pull off in that build. I know Spanishiwa works that build insanely well, using stuff like nydus worm for fungal growth on undefended SCV's, and even using nydus to spread out expansions all over the place. I know Day[9] did a whole daily with him to discuss the build, and the guy sounds incredibly confident with the build, even when a layman like myself can't see it working.

Also, I think Day[9] recently did a whole discussion of how to do Zerg scouting without actually scouting, in response to a very heated debate he got with Idra on livecast.

[Wood]

Ok, I was really excited to see the finals today, but I made the mistake opening twitter first, and had Kelly spoil the shot out of the match. I'm not going to spoil it myself, but I no longer have that urgency to watch it.

Edit: You know what wasn't spoiled? The AMAZING TSL Finals! Jebus Titty Fucking, it was AWESOME! I'm definitely going to have to get the replays to steal ThorZaIN's builds. Though I haven't really seen games like this ever! What's your thoughts on this?

[Wood]

Ok, GSTL May really out did how awesome the matches can get. I didn't think the matches would get this close, and yet, that's exactly what happened. DOATrap did a great job casting this series, and really made the matches that much more exciting.

Also, I'm assuming both of us have ginormous nerd boners for MLG right now, considering there's 4 GSL players coming out, Tastosis and Day[9] are coming out as well, plus some of the awesome players I've seen at NASL and TSL will be there as well. Going to be awesome! That and I'm hoping for another "Don't worry, it's just Halo" line to come out.

[Ekkebus]

I think GSTL left most people thinking the same thing: Who the fuck is DongRaeGu and how the fuck did he get so good at Starcraft? He onyl barely lost to MMA (key mistake was when he blew all his zerglings and banelings on tanks about halfway through the game) but otherwise was owning up awesome players left and right. Clearly the best player on MVP and he's not even in Code A yet! WTF. Its Bomber syndrome all over again. Seriously though MVP, the team that noone thought deserved to be in over IM was so close to winning. Another key fuck up was when Violet and Keen totally blew their games against Frozen. In the Keen v Frozen game in particular Keen scouted the pylon but then didn't do anything about it! Not to mention that strategy is complete balls to the wall Protoss bullshit anyway and they should fix the map so they can't do that. And how about fOu almost knocking off Slayers in the semis? Loved all the taunting in the OGS vs Star Tale match too. All in all GSTL continues to kick ass and I'm sure you saw the big changes their making to the GSL schedule. GSTL now gets a full season that'll be going on over months and months while the individual leagues go on around them. There will certainly be no shortage of Starcraft to watch this summer. And Super Tournament starts Monday! MLG in two weeks! *BONER*

[Wood]

After a year of the game being out, I finally, FINALLY made it to silver league! One step closer to master! (Yeah right).