the world's all about ach

pat wrote:

No no, that would be confusing since you can clearly see immortals are able to shoot up when they target a building that lifts off
You can see them aim their cannons up at it as it lifts, maybe even get a shot off at it in the air, but then they are like "Eh... fuck it... the void rays can handle that, im too old for this shit" and they aim back down
Other units could shoot up too if they wanted, colossus, marauder, banshee, broodlords, roaches, so if there was a term like "able to shoot up" in the game then those units would have to have something like "able to shoot up (but refuses to do so)"
But marauders do shoot up, stim packs, so they would have to have "able to shoot up (but refuses to do so, unless its drug related)"
So you can see how it would get confusing

you know i still actually prefer this because its really fucking accurate
picture this
you're a marauder, the last man standing full health and there's a muta at 1 hp floating about you. you've got a rocket launcher on your shoulder and your hp is dropping quick but instead of throwing down some pot shots you choose to dance the tango as little glaive things keep ripping your skin apart.
in this situation i think "able to shoot up (but refuses to do so)" makes perfect sense. maybe its your religion, maybe you, the marauder, and the muta were brothers at birth but through tragic circumstances were torn apart and he just doesn't recognize you anymore but you will always know; but whatever it is, at least you have a reason youre being so fucking picky with your targets when you're about to die

Serenity09 wrote:

but whatever it is, at least you have a reason youre being so fucking picky with your targets when you're about to die

Blizzard should hire you to write their lore.

pat1487 wrote:

Im pretty sure when we first placed that you didnt, when we both first got hots, the first time we placed is what i meant, not this last time

did you place into plat when we first got hots?
Cuz so did i.
i won 4/5 of my placement matches and went straight into plat. it was only the last season and this one thats its refused to put me in there.

Quote :

you know i still actually prefer this because its really fucking accurate
picture this
you're a marauder, the last man standing full health and there's a muta at 1 hp floating about you. you've got a rocket launcher on your shoulder and your hp is dropping quick but instead of throwing down some pot shots you choose to dance the tango as little glaive things keep ripping your skin apart.
in this situation i think "able to shoot up (but refuses to do so)" makes perfect sense. maybe its your religion, maybe you, the marauder, and the muta were brothers at birth but through tragic circumstances were torn apart and he just doesn't recognize you anymore but you will always know; but whatever it is, at least you have a reason youre being so fucking picky with your targets when you're about to die

Marauders dont shoot up because terran equipment is very crappily put together, they are all afraid that if they shoot into the air that the rocket may backfire and explode in the barrel

Immortals, i already said why they refuse

Broodlords dont want to kill their broodlings (since they would die from the fall after being spawned in the air)

Colossus just arent programmed to do it and the protoss programmers lost the source code

Roaches are too lazy to put the extra effort into lobbing their acid upwards

Banshees are built from crappy/old parts (as i said above), all the cloaking devices were salvaged from old wraiths and are mounted right above the missile launchers, firing the missiles forwards has a high chance of causing the cloaking device to break

Quote :

did you place into plat when we first got hots?
Cuz so did i.
i won 4/5 of my placement matches and went straight into plat. it was only the last season and this one thats its refused to put me in there.

Yeah, ive always been in plat for 3v3 rt, i thought you were always in gold for 3v3 rt

I'll begrudgingly go along with those (except for banshees lol. you could just reference any bomber that currently exists now but instead you went with missiles that have variable amounts of kickback depending on direction fired) but what about corruptors. They shoot acid and fly via tentacles. There's no way they aren't capable of looking down or maintaining an attack downwards since they can use their ability on structures (or their old ability anyways)

Seren wrote:

but what about corruptors. They shoot acid and fly via tentacles. There's no way they aren't capable of looking down or maintaining an attack downwards since they can use their ability on structures (or their old ability anyways)

Or Phoenix's and vikings.

Like. who designed the weapons on a viking so it HAD anti ground weapons, but put them in a configuration that required the machine to go through a complex set of contortions before it would fire. Not that missiles fired at fast moving targets in the air shouldn't also work vs (slower) moving targets on the ground.

pat1487 wrote:

Yeah, ive always been in plat for 3v3 rt, i thought you were always in gold for 3v3 rt

Some times i feel like you say these things just to hurt me.
Its like you dont even care pat ;(

Funny, we were just talking about this. (only the beginning is really relevant)

But he says MMR decay is a real thing now. Which was the only thing i had thought of before that explained how it worked.

He was def up against 1 of those low tier bronze players i was talking about, i guess it is possible to decay that low, i wish i was that lucky, the people i went against knew how to make orbitals and addons

I didnt think it decayed, i thought it just reset to default after several seasons of not playing
And since default is higher then those low tier people i thought it to be impossible to get that low without trying
But if it decays that would explain it

So, i was thinking about MMR decay, and from what i've read the rational behind it is that since players get a rusty after periods of inactivity they should be matched up with people of lower skill levels.

I think thats a completely reasonable idea, but IMO they got really over zealous with how much MMR decay takes place.
Even if you completely stopped playing the game for a year and you play in the platnum - diamond range, like husky did, then at worst you're mechanics will be rusty enough that you play at a high gold level. Yet it bumps people alway back down to bronze/silver people. and force you to curb stomp a bunch of people that are still learning to play.

For people that already know how to play the game it doesn't matter much so long as you're willing to put in time to climb the ladder, but this seems really bad for people that are still learning the game, cuz they'll regularly get curbstomped by people that appear to be their level.

The system was already self correcting, because if peoples skill had decreased they would lose a proportional number of games and they're mmr eventually reflect their skill.

TLDR: the logic to decay peoples MMRs since peoples skill decreases from inactivity is presumably to save them from frustrating losses. However, the solution they've come up with is to increase the amount of frustrating losses for lower leagues.

Heres what i was talking about with the leagues
i just find it interesting.

ssssstttaaaaattttsss
you can see how for 1v1's, plat - GM is considerably less than 20% of players. and silver + bronze make up over 60% of the player base.
I feel so cheeted, cuz when i first started playing i looked these up and gold was almost exactly on the median number of players (half of gold league above and half below). and platnum started closer to where gold now starts

Then all the aranged teams (sept for 4v4 by half a percent) have 50% + of their players in bronze league.
And all the random team leagues have 40%+ of them in bronze.

Weird way to distribute players, IMO
I dont feel it makes sense to distribute over 50% of players in the 2 bottom leagues when you have 7 leagues to use.
I would think it makes it less fun for everyone thats not at least in gold.

Its a good thing you couldn't play pat.


Beat'n platinum players like it aint no thing.

I wish i had gotten a not-zerg player, but oh well.
He 13 pooled with rushed speed. I 14 pool expanded, slower speed, but held off his lings only losing 3ish drones, and just massed my own speed lings cuz i knew my economy was gonna be stronger than his, and he probably wouldn't have time or money to get banelings.
----

HoTS players are definitely better than WoL players.
But there's also much less variance within my league in WoL.
What i mean is i tend to get matched with players of the same skill over and over. Whereas in HoTS ill get people that out match me, and also people that are pretty easy (alternating in no discernible pattern). Which makes it really frustrating to play since they all bare the 'gold' or 'silver' border. I think most of the silver players are because of mmr deflation. Idk why, but i get far fewer of the mmr deflated players in WoL.

---
One of the nicest things about zerg is that its almost impossible to one base them. Which to me, was one of the most distracting things about playing toss since they're so easy to be killed early.
Cus if ya dont see them expand, then you just throw down a couple spines, make an extra queen, start making lings,
and if they attack they're screwed,
and if they expand, you just go back to your economy, and are probably still ahead,
but now have units to be aggressive with, which is fun in its on way.

For instance, this toss did a proxy gateway zelot rush, which i've died to an infinity of times playing toss.
And even though i had gone 15 hatch and didn't scout anything but a lack of an expo, i had less trouble holding it off compared to when im one basing as protoss and had scouted it.


Also, protoss is so effing slow. Its nice to have map control and mobility for once.

---

Ultras have the most retarded pathing though. They belong in sc1.
I'll have 8 ordered to attack some pethatically small army. go back to macro cuz im obviously going to win that fight. 1 will be hitting them. and the other 7 are running into a wall for no effing reason. Letting themselves get focus fired.

Ultras should have colossus pathing.
In ach's chill-craft they will.
And workers will have 300 hp.
And overcharge will be 10x as powerful and last the whole game, but only in pvp.

Started from the bottom, now we're here.



I wanted to write my thoughts on a lot of the matchups, since im officially super gosu l33t sauce now.

But it turns out sc2 is kinda complex and it got way to long and i couldn't keep everything concise or comprehensive.
So heres my second draft:
PvZ is ez mode for protoss. Unless zerg gets a good read on what you're doing from they're scouting and macro's correctly in response. In which case zerg is bullshit and impossible.
PvT is again ez mode for toss. except theres some magical point where a player is actually better than you at multitasking, at which point MMM needs a nerf. like i need an in-game-nerf-button.
PvP is imbalanced. (but like seriously. void-rays too good)
From the terran perspective: i dont give a shit about terran. But also, from what the people i beat tell me, protoss is overpowered. i think zerg and protoss players are just the smartest and best at sc2, which is why terrans get the misconception that our races are better.
From the zerg side:
ZvZ is actually really effing interesting and idk why everyone is always hating on that matchup. ling, muta, bling, control takes real skill.
ZvP: Protoss is entirely bullshit all the time no matter what.
ZvT: Fuck widow mines. fuck em. And why cant my mineral dump be invincible and counter everything once i get 3/3
But at least they didn't get the shredder:
 

I was starting to think they didnt fix the ladder, im not convinced that they did since it still took you awhile to move up so its possible you wouldve moved up even without the changes they said they made

PvZ and PvT isnt easy mode for the toss

In PvZ if zerg opens with muta and harasses theres nothing the toss can do unless they opened with phoenix, and then you have to make the right number of phoenix or else youll either be overwhelmed on the ground if you make too many or overwhelmed in the air if you make to few
And if they opened with robo they are screwed pretty hard since stalkers arent fast or good enough to stop muta from killing probes
Also their ability to get spines and spores so early as well as queens make it nearly impossible for the toss to harass anything with small groups of units until later in the game when the zerg is spread out more, best you can do is hang out at the edge of the creep trying to pick off the queen(s) that are spreading creep, or hunt overlords that the zerg left out for you to kill

And in PvT, all terran has to do is a stim timing with a good number of marauders, go in before stim is done, let the toss use photon overcharge (if he doesnt overcharge terran will kill the expo without stim), back up until stim is done (try to time it so that stim and overchange ends at same time) then go in when overcharge ends and toss has to lose his expo, he will probably ff his ramp but at that point terran can do w/e they want and even if toss breaks the contain and expands terran will be so far ahead that it doesnt matter
Terran could even do marine tank rush and just sit tanks outside overcharge range and scan to shoot stuff until overcharge ends, then walk in with rines keeping them in range of tanks and picking off any immortals with rines, toss will have a really hard time stopping it

But if zerg/terran just lets toss do w/e then they will have a really powerful death ball that is very difficult for zerg/terran to beat



People dont like ZvZ cause it is roach v roach, no one does muta ling bling, and if they do they should lose since the person with the most roaches will win before muta can even get out and the person that went muta should have less roaches
There are maps were people go muta, usually really big maps, but other then that its always roach v roach

This ladder doesn't look fixed to you? http://www.sc2ranks.com/stats/league
I think they need to take it even further. 75% = bronze, 20 = silver, 5% = fighting for the last 5 leagues

oh em gee pat. i make a jokin post and you respond with all serious stuff.

Mothership core is better than you think.
Muta is shut down by micro super easily
Roach vs roach is not at all what people default to in zvz. what are you smoking.
its slightly less common than muta

I talked about all this in my first draft. but my pvt section was 3ish times as long as my actual post (but also with full pararaphs), so i was like "fuck this"

The mothership core is more effective than you're giving it credit for, for holding off pre stim or post stim pushes.

Let me reiterate: PvP = IMBALANCED
pvz & pvt = ez mode.
boom.
-------

i feel like everything you're saying has truth to it. i just also feel like theres other factors that come into play and tend to change the outcome in most situations.
i.e. MM push vs 2 mamaship core, and muta vs toss.
-------

pat wrote:

PvZ and PvT isnt easy mode for the toss

Not for toss. but for me as toss
most of the time that im talking about sc2 im leavin out the words 'for me'
but generally if im talking about any strategies, feelings, specifics, or balance, everything has the subliminal endfix 'for me.'

If i were to actually talk seriously about sc2 i'd say things like
"zerg has a vary narrow range of builds against terran and toss"
"protoss has the most diversity of cheese"
ya know, boring shit

When i talk about specific matchups. and maybe when anyone talks about them. i feel like its far more opinion than fact, so i some times i just say whatever i like the most, not what i think is the most truthful.

(pvt and pvz = ez mode)
---------

But i am gonna shoot down this whole muta thing. cus you've brought up muta opening the last few times we've talked about pvz.

The end point im making is that Muta in pvz is used as a tech switch when toss is not expecting it, not an opening strat for the early mid game.

If you mark down the times that the following openings hit the opponent:
2 base muta opening.
2 base robo all in
2 base 4 gate pressure
2 base 8 gate all in
1 base 4 gate
1 base 3gate immortal
and 2 base collosus push.
the only build that you actually get mutas before the toss push is at your front is the collosus push.

at best, when your mutas pop you drive back the army that was there.
But either you held back your army untill you had your mutas out, and now trade efficiently, but took big econ damage.
Or, you used your army to minimize econ damame, but traded poorly, and now you have mutas and cant fight off the army.

I know your counter point is "go kill the workers"
but you cant reliably kill workers with 2 base muta unless the toss is bad.
You're only going to have 9-16 with that first batch when your spire finishes. (which is the only time the tosses defenses are minimal/he's unprepared)
Because if i see you building speed lings without roaches (your only defense if your committing gas to muta) i KNOW to be ready for muta, im spamming cannons and switching to making stalkers (and right before 2 base muta comes out, is the time you can afford to spam cannons, it no longer slows down toss tech and army production enough to cripple toss in a relevant way).
You might think lings are going to shut down stalkers, but the problem is lings dont scale as well as stalkers, and also you dont have to make many +1 zelots to shut down lings, and with just a minimal amount of zelots to be replaced, the stalker ball will destroy lings effectively anyway.

Generally, this means the zerg just dies.

if the zerg survives, and stays on muta its even worse, because its very early in the game and the zerg's just committed to a very 1 dimensional tech path thats very week in straight on combat, and it makes it very easy for the toss to counter your army.
Whereas if you save muta for a tech switch, once the toss has already committed to collossus, doesn't have arcons, doesn't have blink. Then it can be extremely effective, cus you're not just popping out 9-16 mutas. you're getting 30+ mutas with 1 batch of larva, and at that point you can murder a lot of army compisitions, and you can murder probe lines cus that number of muta doesn't care about cannons.
However any number of muta you get as an opening is going to trade poorly against an early toss army, and its going to be easily shut down by cannons and stalkers.

the last time i lost to 2 base muta opening was when i just FORGOT mutas were a thing. i saw his huge number of lings, and any other game i woulda had stalkers and cannons prepared. but this game i was just like "zelots eff'ing rape lings" and i had pure zelot immortal, and had just killed his army and was about to kill his natural when 13ish mutas came out. and i was just like "well shit"
Any other game i would'a put pylons behind my minerals so that i could react with cannons. but i had just completely forgotten mutas were a unit. so i had to put the pylons up first, which ment that after the mutas had killed my army i had no real cannons prepared. and without cannons my stalkers couldn't trade effectively.

Even in that situation where i had made every mistake possible i still was *almost* able to hold off muta, cus focus fire with stalkers or marines is really damaging to a zergs ability to get a good cloud up.

Achilles.42 wrote:

Roach vs roach is not at all what people default to in zvz. what are you smoking.
its slightly less common than muta

Just try going roach on 2 base, get speed and missile attack +1 asap and attack when +1 finishes with a good number of roaches and you should just straight up win vs zerg unless they have an equal number of roaches or a huge number of lings (or like 6+ spines that can all attack at the same time)
Take your 3rd while attacking and make sure you have spores/queens if you see them teching up to muta
Even if you dont win you should be able to at least take out an expansion and from there able to do w/e you want from there with a huge lead (if they hold youll have to get muta)
I dont know how you havent seen this or encountered this before, its the most common zerg strategy, even in pro games

Here look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpI0FA9VkYo&t=23m32s
A game from like a week ago, and the map is a map that muta would be perfect for (tb and day9 talk about hearthstone at the beginning but they will eventually talk about the game lol)
Thats pretty much how it goes with less roaches from both sides since those guys have amazing macro but if both zergs make about the same number of roaches it will just be roach armies trading like you see there
Its so common theres even a term for it "the roach wars"

Achilles.42 wrote:

The mothership core is more effective than you're giving it credit for, for holding off pre stim or post stim pushes.

Once its out of energy its useless and all the enemy has to do is sit and wait for overcharge to end, it just buys you time to get your shit together to attempt to defend w/e is right outside your base, but toss cant really build anything that early that can defend against a good stim timing, at best it will buy you enough time to get out a colossus which is the 1 thing that will save you, but you would have to rush to colossus in order to get it
You can delay longer with enough sentries and well placed force fields, but while you're doing that terran can do w/e they want, and the delay doesnt work if they throw in a tank

Delay isnt an effective strategy since it doesnt solve the problem, it just gives you time to get something that is effective
Im not saying you shouldnt build the core against terran, since you need it to delay that kind of thing as its really your only option against it, but that doesnt mean that its effective

Achilles.42 wrote:

But i am gonna shoot down this whole muta thing. cus you've brought up muta opening the last few times we've talked about pvz.

The end point im making is that Muta in pvz is used as a tech switch when toss is not expecting it, not an opening strat for the early mid game.

If you mark down the times that the following openings hit the opponent:
2 base muta opening.
2 base robo all in
2 base 4 gate pressure
2 base 8 gate all in
1 base 4 gate
1 base 3gate immortal
and 2 base collosus push.
the only build that you actually get mutas before the toss push is at your front is the collosus push.

at best, when your mutas pop you drive back the army that was there.
But either you held back your army untill you had your mutas out, and now trade efficiently, but took big econ damage.
Or, you used your army to minimize econ damame, but traded poorly, and now you have mutas and cant fight off the army.

I know your counter point is "go kill the workers"
but you cant reliably kill workers with 2 base muta unless the toss is bad.
You're only going to have 9-16 with that first batch when your spire finishes. (which is the only time the tosses defenses are minimal/he's unprepared)
Because if i see you building speed lings without roaches (your only defense if your committing gas to muta) i KNOW to be ready for muta, im spamming cannons and switching to making stalkers (and right before 2 base muta comes out, is the time you can afford to spam cannons, it no longer slows down toss tech and army production enough to cripple toss in a relevant way).
You might think lings are going to shut down stalkers, but the problem is lings dont scale as well as stalkers, and also you dont have to make many +1 zelots to shut down lings, and with just a minimal amount of zelots to be replaced, the stalker ball will destroy lings effectively anyway.

Generally, this means the zerg just dies.

if the zerg survives, and stays on muta its even worse, because its very early in the game and the zerg's just committed to a very 1 dimensional tech path thats very week in straight on combat, and it makes it very easy for the toss to counter your army.
Whereas if you save muta for a tech switch, once the toss has already committed to collossus, doesn't have arcons, doesn't have blink. Then it can be extremely effective, cus you're not just popping out 9-16 mutas. you're getting 30+ mutas with 1 batch of larva, and at that point you can murder a lot of army compisitions, and you can murder probe lines cus that number of muta doesn't care about cannons.
However any number of muta you get as an opening is going to trade poorly against an early toss army, and its going to be easily shut down by cannons and stalkers.

You make queens/spines/lings at start, make as few gas units as possible, make the roach warren like you normally would (make roaches if you really have too, but only if you have no choice, if they force you to make too many then abandon the muta plan and play roach/hydra), then get as many muta as you can afford, get hydra den as muta build, harass with muta when they are finished, go wherever the army/cannons arent, pick off tech and pylons if they are super prepared for it, go around to expos to make sure they are trapped in their base on 2 base (basically if they are prepared for it use them as map control), then build hydra ling roach like normal (if they arent prepared for it keep pushing out mutas, if they are then go with roach/hydra with corrupter if they get a lot of colossus, also get broodlords later)
Also do ling run bys the whole time

You will probably be able to do dmg with them, and even if you cant you at least force them to stay in their base allowing you to expand to your hearts content
Its the best opening vs a toss that doesnt open with stargate or some super aggressive play
The spines/lings will protect you from attacks before you get muta especially with queens to transfuse the spines and spread creep to position spines in best places
And if they go zealot heavy you have the roach warren like you normally would to fall back too if you need it

pat wrote:

Here look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpI0FA9VkYo&t=23m32s
A game from like a week ago, and the map is a map that muta would be perfect for (tb and day9 talk about hearthstone at the beginning but they will eventually talk about the game lol)
Thats pretty much how it goes with less roaches from both sides since those guys have amazing macro but if both zergs make about the same number of roaches it will just be roach armies trading like you see there
Its so common theres even a term for it "the roach wars"

I saw that game
its still less common than muta
The only strat that i think is super common is ling/bling aggression. then maybe mutas follow that, then roaches.
Roach wars are just memorable cus they end in a stalemate untill someone tech switches
and the only way you 'insta win' is if the other zerg didn't scount the roaches at all and is going muta or drowning up. Which almost never happens cus zerg knows how to scout each other.

pat1487 wrote:

Delay isnt an effective strategy since it doesnt solve the problem, it just gives you time to get something that is effective

Delay is hugely effective because you change your build to only need the delay that you're given (60 seconds).
Overcharge lasts for 60, which is all the time you should need to get out your collosus or storm. If there was no way to get up what was needed to defend the terran, than the terran was just better than the toss, or the toss was way too greedy.
I.e. If your macro build is "4 nexus before robo" and you die despite your mothership, then the flaw isn't in the mothership core's weakness but your own build.
The mothership core allows you to be very greedy up to a point, terran tries to find you for going past that point, but usually you can stay within it.
And the last 10 times i got hit by pre stim pushes i just overchared, chrono'd my collosus and gateways, and had a healthy stalker + collosus force that could kite infinity non-stim MM.

pat1487 wrote:

You make queens/spines/lings at start

You can make queens at the start. Except if you make them TOO early you can delay your third which is bad depending on what the toss is doing.
and spines are horrible to make if theres not an immediate need for them since useful numbers are very resource intensive. especially the earlier its being done. (no other race has to spend larva).

pat1487 wrote:

make roaches if you really have too, but only if you have no choice, if they force you to make too many then abandon the muta plan and play roach/hydra),

roaches dont trade well. even with a more costly army of roaches you get flattened by tosses pushes (even if you focus immortals).
i was playing with this in the unit tester, and the only way i was getting even trades (with micro on the zerg units and 0 micro on the toss) was with at least half hydras, or with several fungals to split the army.
So, reacting with roaches is going to be bad, since you'll have to commit more resources. And if you're going for standard fast mutas, that means you're on 2 base. Which means you now have a roach army that traded poorly and low econ.

This is why people default to opening roaches. Cus if you aren't worrying about Muta tech, you can get decent saturation on 3 bases, which allows you to commit so much more resources than the toss that you end up trading well, even tho normal roaches wouldn't.
Then the switch to hydra is much faster and smoother (you dont need as much gas, so its ok that you put gas into roaches. plus the build time is considerably shorter).

pat1487 wrote:

force them to stay in their base

if people dont think they're going to be able to shut down muta, or they aren't pickin off any mutas, then that forces them to base race. most people dont just sit and defend if things are going poorly.

If you like base races, then i guess thats a good strat
but i dont. especially with the weaker army. which mutas are.

pat wrote:

go wherever the army/cannons arent

That sounds like its going to be easy until you do it
because when you're actually trying to run to where the static defense isn't you run into the MOBILE defense, since its always running around where you cant see it. So if your opponent isn't terrible you'll constantly be losing muta. And it takes very few muta losses to completely ruin any beneficial trade you were getting. Mutas are expensive.
Obviously there will be times where there's weaknesses you can exploit and not lose mutas, but its not something you can relay on.
Effective mutas are heavily reliable on your opponent making bad decisions, not only you making good decisions.

pat1487 wrote:

pick off tech and pylons if they are super prepared for it, go around to expos to make sure they are trapped in their base on 2 base (basically if they are prepared for it use them as map control)

Mutas wont contain a toss to 2 base. toss's ground upgrades will outstrip what you could possibly have for air upgrades by the time the toss wants to expand, and upgraded stalkers stred mutas.
Mutas would work in low gold and below because people dont know to focus fire them. But even most people in gold do that reliably if you commit to them.
----

The other issue with mutas is they're so fragile, every time you make a mistake you're losing mutas, which is too costly.
I caught a terran once with no turrets, and was about to murder his workers, but 3 thors popped out of factories by pure chance, and their vollies killed around 15 mutas before i could fly away.
The same thing happens vs toss whenever you lose track of where the blink stalkers are, where the army is, and where they committed cannons.

Mutas are great.
But vs the people that i got used to playing against the micro that was required to make them effective was wwwaaaaaayyyy more than the micro required to make roach hydra effective
and since roach hydra requires less micro it means your macro will be stronger and your overall play will be stronger.

Also, containing and denying baseso is far more effective with roach hydra than muta.
Because with a roach hydra army you're often able to get good trades while you're denying bases, because toss will tend to run in to fight when they shouldn't (people panic when you attack bases).
However with mutas there's almost never a punishment to their army since mutas are such bad fighters.
and even with great muta harass, if you aren't finding ways to keep down their army supply, eventually that deathball is gonna roll over you.
-------

Idk why you're fighting me on the mutas thing.
if i could win by going mutas, then i'd open mutas every game.
I got very good at opening mutas cus it used to do huge amounts of damage.
But after awhile it just stopped working and it was far more reliably not to open with them.

I still do it vs terran, but even then it ends up being a waste often times.

Cus the map control and map vision is nice, but at the end of hte day if you dont do any direct damage, then you slowed your econ which hinders you for the rest of the game.

Its the risky build
I like the safe roach/hydra vs toss

Also, if you're watching shoutcraft than idra is the most knowledgable caster that TB gets on there, and Idra repeated a lot of what i already thought about mutas not being a good way to open in pvz.
i'll post it if i find it, but i have no idea which vid it was, and they're all 1000 hours long

Achilles.42 wrote:

I saw that game
its still less common than muta
The only strat that i think is super common is ling/bling aggression. then maybe mutas follow that, then roaches.
Roach wars are just memorable cus they end in a stalemate untill someone tech switches
and the only way you 'insta win' is if the other zerg didn't scount the roaches at all and is going muta or drowning up. Which almost never happens cus zerg knows how to scout each other.

I didnt say going roaches in zvz was insta win, i said getting more roaches than the other guy would probably win you the game or at least do enough dmg to put you super far ahead
Even if they scout it they still might not be able to make as many roaches as you did and you would be ahead like i was saying, the only time it doesnt work is if you cant make more or as many roaches as the other person, and even then the upgrades you get should be able to balance it out if that happens (since they got more they probably skipped those upgrades) so theres no reason not to open with that unless you know that you cant macro well enough to get out enough roaches

And its not less common than muta, most of the games ive seen with zvz have been roach openings, many will tech switch because it ended up as a stalemate, since that can happen like you said (thats what you do in a stalemate you keep teching up behind it so you can switch), but it doesnt mean they didnt try to do what im saying, its just that neither side met the win condition of having more roaches

Achilles.42 wrote:

Delay is hugely effective because you change your build to only need the delay that you're given (60 seconds).
Overcharge lasts for 60, which is all the time you should need to get out your collosus or storm. If there was no way to get up what was needed to defend the terran, than the terran was just better than the toss, or the toss was way too greedy.
I.e. If your macro build is "4 nexus before robo" and you die despite your mothership, then the flaw isn't in the mothership core's weakness but your own build.
The mothership core allows you to be very greedy up to a point, terran tries to find you for going past that point, but usually you can stay within it.
And the last 10 times i got hit by pre stim pushes i just overchared, chrono'd my collosus and gateways, and had a healthy stalker + collosus force that could kite infinity non-stim MM.

You said what i said, you use core to delay until colossus to deal with the problem
That doesnt mean the delay was effective, it was necessary to prevent your death and didnt actually do any damage to the enemy, theres a difference between effective and required
Effective means you end up with a desired result, killing the threat to your base is the desired result, core is required to get you to that desired result, but not the thing that actually makes it happen, so its not effective just necessary

Its like if i chained your foot to an indestructible immovable object with an indestructible chain and the only item you had was a saw
Your only option to escape it would be to use the saw to cut off your foot, is that an effective way to escape, no but its the only way so you have to do it or youll die from dehydration or starvation

Achilles.42 wrote:

You can make queens at the start. Except if you make them TOO early you can delay your third which is bad depending on what the toss is doing.
and spines are horrible to make if theres not an immediate need for them since useful numbers are very resource intensive. especially the earlier its being done. (no other race has to spend larva).

You make like 3-4 queens at start, basically using the money you wouldve used on production buildings if you were playing a race that needed production building
And like 2 spines to start with, not right away, when i said at start i meant early game, so youd want like 4 by the end of the early game, and more after the muta hits, same with queens keep adding more with extra minerals

Achilles.42 wrote:

roaches dont trade well. even with a more costly army of roaches you get flattened by tosses pushes (even if you focus immortals).
i was playing with this in the unit tester, and the only way i was getting even trades (with micro on the zerg units and 0 micro on the toss) was with at least half hydras, or with several fungals to split the army.
So, reacting with roaches is going to be bad, since you'll have to commit more resources. And if you're going for standard fast mutas, that means you're on 2 base. Which means you now have a roach army that traded poorly and low econ.

This is why people default to opening roaches. Cus if you aren't worrying about Muta tech, you can get decent saturation on 3 bases, which allows you to commit so much more resources than the toss that you end up trading well, even tho normal roaches wouldn't.
Then the switch to hydra is much faster and smoother (you dont need as much gas, so its ok that you put gas into roaches. plus the build time is considerably shorter).

You dont make pure roach, you make mostly lings, you only make roach if they make a lot of zealot, roaches tear through zealot, and there only purpose is to kill zealots
And you would be making roaches as if you opened roach anyway if they forced a ton out of you, which is why i said switch to roach/hydra if that happened, if you scout aggressive stuff and dont think you can hold by doing muta then dont go muta, thats why i said make the roach warren like normal, so you dont have to commit to muta

Achilles.42 wrote:

if people dont think they're going to be able to shut down muta, or they aren't pickin off any mutas, then that forces them to base race. most people dont just sit and defend if things are going poorly.

Then they run into spines (you should have more then 4 if you made more after muta hit) queens (again you should have a good number) and lings (you can throw in some roaches it they have a lot of zealots (but again roaches are for killing zealots)

Instead of base racing, defend your base at the spines(this is the main reason you build them), focus the anti air with spines, once you kill most of that bring muta over (before that use muta to kill workers at his undefended base, unless hes using colossus, then use muta to carefully pick off colossus as he moves to your base) once you kill his army he will be so far behind you can do w/e you want from there

Achilles.42 wrote:

That sounds like its going to be easy until you do it
because when you're actually trying to run to where the static defense isn't you run into the MOBILE defense, since its always running around where you cant see it. So if your opponent isn't terrible you'll constantly be losing muta. And it takes very few muta losses to completely ruin any beneficial trade you were getting. Mutas are expensive.
Obviously there will be times where there's weaknesses you can exploit and not lose mutas, but its not something you can relay on.
Effective mutas are heavily reliable on your opponent making bad decisions, not only you making good decisions.

Toss ground is pretty slow, all they have for "mobile defense" is stalker (and sentry but those are even worse, though they should have some for the shield, but you can just pick them off) which wont be able to keep up with muta, they also dont kill muta that fast
And if they commit too much to their mobile defense (stalkers) just send in lings to clean house since lings are amazing against stalker

Achilles.42 wrote:

Mutas wont contain a toss to 2 base. toss's ground upgrades will outstrip what you could possibly have for air upgrades by the time the toss wants to expand, and upgraded stalkers stred mutas.
Mutas would work in low gold and below because people dont know to focus fire them. But even most people in gold do that reliably if you commit to them.

+1 stalker isnt enough to kill muta they need +1 and blink, even then they wont get too much, they need +2 and blink to do it well
Also like i said if they commit to stalker use lings to attack before they get that many upgrades
And if all you can do is contain them you shouldnt commit to muta, like i said, if they are prepared for it (which they would be if all you can do is contain) stop making muta and make corrupter/roach/hydra with the goal of getting broodlords

Achilles.42 wrote:

The other issue with mutas is they're so fragile, every time you make a mistake you're losing mutas, which is too costly.
I caught a terran once with no turrets, and was about to murder his workers, but 3 thors popped out of factories by pure chance, and their vollies killed around 15 mutas before i could fly away.
The same thing happens vs toss whenever you lose track of where the blink stalkers are, where the army is, and where they committed cannons.

Mutas are great.
But vs the people that i got used to playing against the micro that was required to make them effective was wwwaaaaaayyyy more than the micro required to make roach hydra effective
and since roach hydra requires less micro it means your macro will be stronger and your overall play will be stronger.

Yeah, they are harder to use than roach/hydra thats for sure
But when used well they are more effective than roach hydra

Achilles.42 wrote:

Also, containing and denying baseso is far more effective with roach hydra than muta.
Because with a roach hydra army you're often able to get good trades while you're denying bases, because toss will tend to run in to fight when they shouldn't (people panic when you attack bases).
However with mutas there's almost never a punishment to their army since mutas are such bad fighters.
and even with great muta harass, if you aren't finding ways to keep down their army supply, eventually that deathball is gonna roll over you.

The point of muta isnt just to deny bases, its to harras bases they already have established like their main and natural which roach/hydra cant really do, denying other bases is just a bonus
And well used mutas will hurt their economy enough that they just wont be able to afford a huge deathball
Just attack with lings and mutas when you know you have enough to kill the army they already have, they shouldnt be able to afford enough reinforce and you should just win from there

Achilles.42 wrote:

Idk why you're fighting me on the mutas thing.
if i could win by going mutas, then i'd open mutas every game.
I got very good at opening mutas cus it used to do huge amounts of damage.
But after awhile it just stopped working and it was far more reliably not to open with them.

Im fighting you cause you're saying muta opening vs toss that didnt open with a stargate is bad when its not
Its just not your play style
Im not telling you to do it, just that its not a bad opening

Achilles.42 wrote:

I still do it vs terran, but even then it ends up being a waste often times.

Cus the map control and map vision is nice, but at the end of hte day if you dont do any direct damage, then you slowed your econ which hinders you for the rest of the game.

Its the risky build
I like the safe roach/hydra vs toss

Muta opening is good against a terran that opened with factory for hellion (with a reaper or 2), which most terran do against zerg
But thats harder to scout since you dont know that they will use the factory for hellions (also because scouting terran is harder)
So against terran its risky, but its not risky against toss if you have the micro to do it

Achilles.42 wrote:

idra is the most knowledgable caster that TB gets on there, and Idra repeated a lot of what i already thought about mutas not being a good way to open in pvz.
i'll post it if i find it, but i have no idea which vid it was, and they're all 1000 hours long

Im pretty sure i remember him saying roach v roach is the zerg standard but that he hates it
And the only reason he doesnt think opening muta vs toss is good is because toss almost always opens stargate in pro games against zerg and muta open vs stargate opening is bad, so he will just do his normal opening every time (the one that isnt weak to stargate) since thats the one hes practiced and knows best
But im certain ive seen him open with muta against toss in the past so he probably thinks muta opening is good when they dont open stargate like ive been saying otherwise he would never open with muta vs toss

Also hes heavily zerg biased so i wouldnt really take what he says as fact

Achilles.42 wrote:

Also, if you're watching shoutcraft

I didnt watch all of them, i skipped the parts where they talked after the games and only watched some of the games, mainly the ones that had protoss players (i like watching PvT or PvZ the most) or really good players, i avoided watching tvt cause i find tvt to be boring, unless its on alterzim stronghold because that map can give interesting games (like the 1 where it was mech vs mech and someone got bcs, that was a great game)

The only reason i could pull that game is cause i saw it right before reading your post
Which is why i was like "i cant beleive hes never seen the roach wars" since it really is more common than you think

pat wrote:

Im fighting you cause you're saying muta opening vs toss that didnt open with a stargate is bad when its not

I’m still saying muta opening is bad.
Cus you still haven’t addressed my main point.
Which is that you effing die 8/10 times if you open 2 base mutas vs toss.
(see above posts about how mutas dont come out in time)
(I guess you sorta addressed it by saying you could react with roaches and spines. But i believe my counter point was that if you're committing to muta, then you shouldn't have the economy to also produce enough roaches and spines: (Cite my comments about how much more resources you have to commit to roaches for them to be effective)

pat1487 wrote:

roaches tear through zealot

This is gonna blow your mind.
but without micro, a roach loses to a zealot.
And kiting/chokes becomes less effective the more immortals and stalkers are present (since they outrange roaches).

pat1487 wrote:

Toss ground is pretty slow, all they have for "mobile defense" is stalker (and sentry but those are even worse, though they should have some for the shield, but you can just pick them off) which wont be able to keep up with muta, they also dont kill muta that fast
And if they commit too much to their mobile defense (stalkers) just send in lings to clean house since lings are amazing against stalker

Ive already made the counter points:
1. Peoples micro is too good for you to Reliably pick off units.
2. focus fire = 1 dead muta every tiny mistake, which is hard to afford after awhile.
3. Lings don’t scale well against stalkers, and any amount of zealots with the stalkers starts shutting them down
Lings only win if the toss lets them get out of position and doesn’t micro them.

pat1487 wrote:

+1 stalker isnt enough to kill muta they need +1 and blink, even then they wont get too much, they need +2 and blink to do it well

Toss can have +3 (not 3/3, but probably some sort of armor) blink stalkers fairly early in the game compared to the zerg that will still be on +1 (MAYBE +2  or 1/1 won’t be far behind)
And if you open mutas, its easy to make those blink stalkers or arcons a priority in tech.

pat1487 wrote:

Also like i said if they commit to stalker use lings to attack before they get that many upgrades

And like i said, lings don’t scale. + too much shuts them down.
But also, attack where? zerg is the only race that keeps their army on the front of their creep where what you’re describing is possible, terran and toss huddle around their base until they choose to move out. The only time lings are going to get a surround is when the toss CHOOSES to move out, and the toss has to choose to move out with no zealots, arcons, or colossus in the army. So yes, if the toss is bad you win.
so long as the toss is in defense mode theres no opening for lings (overcharge + photon cannons + zealot warping + any AoE at all)

pat1487 wrote:

And if all you can do is contain them you shouldnt commit to muta, like i said, if they are prepared for it (which they would be if all you can do is contain) stop making muta and make corrupter/roach/hydra with the goal of getting broodlords
——
Yeah, they are harder to use than roach/hydra thats for sure
But when used well they are more effective than roach hydra

well, you at least said 2 things i can agree are true

pat1487 wrote:

Im not telling you to do it, just that its not a bad opening

its a bad opening.

Im gonna have to try opening muta now.
its gonna be so embarissing if i can make it work

pat1487 wrote:

Its just not your play style

i’ve been trying to avoid styles that cause insta losses

Its similar to opening double expand before pool. cus the only way you live in both of those situations is when the toss doesn’t touch you for the first 12 minutes of the game.

pat1487 wrote:

I didnt watch all of them, i skipped the parts where they talked after the games and only watched some of the games, mainly the ones that had protoss players (i like watching PvT or PvZ the most) or really good players, i avoided watching tvt cause i find tvt to be boring, unless its on alterzim stronghold because that map can give interesting games (like the 1 where it was mech vs mech and someone got bcs, that was a great game)

Yeah, i always skip through to find the games. i wish they’d cut out more dead time before posting them. Alterzim is a crazy map.
Psy had a good point about maps in one of his older videos, where he basically said casters overemphasize maps, and that they don’t change gameplay as much as people make it seem.
But alterzim makes games go crazy. I didn’t realize how big it was when i first started playing on it, but its so much bigger than frost and whirlwind.

pat1487 wrote:

Also hes heavily zerg biased so i wouldnt really take what he says as fact

Most of the time his analysis is solid though.
Then sometimes he’ll slip up and be like “but because protoss is bullshit…” and it makes me chuckle.

My fave is theres an episode of "state of the game" where he's talkin to incontrol
and incontrol is talking about how toss actually had the worst winrate at the time (i forget what set of pro players he used for that stat. it might have just been in tournament league of the time)
And idras response to "toss has the worst winrate" was: (paraphrased obviously): "if you look at how toss players play, then you'll see they have the worst decision making, and they also rely too much on cheese. so they have the worst win rate because they're the worst players"

Achilles.42 wrote:

I’m still saying muta opening is bad.
Cus you still haven’t addressed my main point.
Which is that you effing die 8/10 times if you open 2 base mutas vs toss.
(see above posts about how mutas dont come out in time)
(I guess you sorta addressed it by saying you could react with roaches and spines. But i believe my counter point was that if you're committing to muta, then you shouldn't have the economy to also produce enough roaches and spines: (Cite my comments about how much more resources you have to commit to roaches for them to be effective)

Spines only take minerals to make, and your mineral income on 2 base should be plenty high enough to support spines and queens if you make them like i was saying

The only thing your economy cant afford is gas heavy stuff, which is why i was saying you shouldnt make roaches unless they make a lot of zealots
Spines and speed lings are enough to stop anything that toss can send at you before muta pops, except zealot, which is what roaches are for

Holding against an early attack is the same as when you go muta as it is when you dont go muta, since the 3rd base econ doesnt kick in soon enough (it doesnt even pay for itself for awhile) to make a difference against early attacks (youll end up with less to defend with since you invested in another hatch and more drones), so i dont see why you think youll die so easily to early attacks

Achilles.42 wrote:

This is gonna blow your mind.
but without micro, a roach loses to a zealot.
And kiting/chokes becomes less effective the more immortals and stalkers are present (since they outrange roaches).

I knew that already, but its irrelevant since not microing them means youll lose so why would you not micro them, when properly microed they tear through zealots is what i meant
And the lings are there to deal with stalker/immortal, ignore the zealots with the lings, if they force field pull back to spines and use roaches to pick off any zealots that are behind the force field (also focus the sentries with the spines)

Achilles.42 wrote:

Ive already made the counter points:
1. Peoples micro is too good for you to Reliably pick off units.
2. focus fire = 1 dead muta every tiny mistake, which is hard to afford after awhile.
3. Lings don’t scale well against stalkers, and any amount of zealots with the stalkers starts shutting them down
Lings only win if the toss lets them get out of position and doesn’t micro them.

I feel like you just want an army that you can f2 and A with since you keep saying "with no micro" or "other people have better micro so why bother microing", and then just keep producing more stuff to keep f2 and A to eventually batter down the enemy with constant waves of stuff, but that not what muta opening is
Roach/hydra can win with f2 and A and probably win, im saying muta is more effective with proper micro
And im not saying an army you can f2 and A with is bad, everyone wants an army that can f2 and A to win, but just because muta cant do that doesnt make it bad

And the only time when ling scaling becomes an issue is later in the game, by that time you should have a large number of muta and lings where you can kill the stalkers and it wont matter if their zealot force kills all your lings cause without the stalkers he cant kill your muta

Achilles.42 wrote:

Toss can have +3 (not 3/3, but probably some sort of armor) blink stalkers fairly early in the game compared to the zerg that will still be on +1 (MAYBE +2  or 1/1 won’t be far behind)
And if you open mutas, its easy to make those blink stalkers or arcons a priority in tech.

And like i said, lings don’t scale. + too much shuts them down.
But also, attack where? zerg is the only race that keeps their army on the front of their creep where what you’re describing is possible, terran and toss huddle around their base until they choose to move out. The only time lings are going to get a surround is when the toss CHOOSES to move out, and the toss has to choose to move out with no zealots, arcons, or colossus in the army. So yes, if the toss is bad you win.
so long as the toss is in defense mode theres no opening for lings (overcharge + photon cannons + zealot warping + any AoE at all)

The toss will be sending his stalkers around to deal with mutas since they are the mobile defense as you said, and as they move around where wont they be? With the zealots/immoratls and w/e else is guarding the front, so fly away to those and pick off some zealots and any colossus you can before the stalkers move down, as he makes more stalkers to try to defend muta he will slowly lose his zealot numbers allowing you to do easy ling run bys, and stalkers cost a good amount of gas so his collusus count cant be too high if hes stuck on 2 base, especially if you pick off gas collectors
Send muta to main, wait for stalkers to come up, send lings to natural (at that point you may be able to kill his stalker army by flying over the lings and attacking the stalkers with your whole army)
And if he splits his stalkers your muta might be able to take them, just micro damaged ones away (they have more regen then stalker shields so even if you have to run away completely you can just come back later and finish off what you were attacking)

Achilles.42 wrote:

its a bad opening.

Im gonna have to try opening muta now.
its gonna be so embarissing if i can make it work

i’ve been trying to avoid styles that cause insta losses

Its similar to opening double expand before pool. cus the only way you live in both of those situations is when the toss doesn’t touch you for the first 12 minutes of the game.

Its no where near the same as double expand before pool
Your econ from a 3rd base doesnt help you right away, so having 2 bases to deal with early attacks is the same (slightly better with some timings) as having a newly made 3rd that your getting up and running
Two basing doesnt equal instant death with zerg, you dont even get your 3rd that much later with muta opening, it should finish around the same time the first colossus does (which is when youll need the extra income) unless they rushed to colossus, but if they did that they would be cutting stalkers so muta will be more effective

Achilles.42 wrote:

Yeah, i always skip through to find the games. i wish they’d cut out more dead time before posting them. Alterzim is a crazy map.
Psy had a good point about maps in one of his older videos, where he basically said casters overemphasize maps, and that they don’t change gameplay as much as people make it seem.
But alterzim makes games go crazy. I didn’t realize how big it was when i first started playing on it, but its so much bigger than frost and whirlwind.

The reason it doesnt change gameplay is cause pro players stick to what theyve practiced, and what they know, many will play very robotically and will make stuff like muta bling ling against marine mine even though marine mine has an advantage against bling ling and muta

The best games are when people go against that practiced behavior (which they can do, im not saying all they can do is what they know, its just rare that they do cause what they know works for them) and do stuff like mass hellion on a map with wide open spaces against zerg or proxy thor against toss cause they see a bunch of sentries and want to be able to destroy force fields

A map like stronghold is so big that it kindve forces people to do different things since many normal things dont work with such huge distances to travel, which pro players hate (most of them veto that map) and i dont blame them, but it does make for really good matches to watch

Achilles.42 wrote:

Most of the time his analysis is solid though.
Then sometimes he’ll slip up and be like “but because protoss is bullshit…” and it makes me chuckle.

My fave is theres an episode of "state of the game" where he's talkin to incontrol
and incontrol is talking about how toss actually had the worst winrate at the time (i forget what set of pro players he used for that stat. it might have just been in tournament league of the time)
And idras response to "toss has the worst winrate" was: (paraphrased obviously): "if you look at how toss players play, then you'll see they have the worst decision making, and they also rely too much on cheese. so they have the worst win rate because they're the worst players"

Yeah he really hates toss and the people that play toss with a passion, its funny, even though he will sometimes say something like "race bias aside" and then gives an analysis that doesnt favor zerg, its still tilted towards zerg being the one that struggles to deal with w/e he is talking about, he never says anything like "zerg has a lead in this aspect in this situation" unless its a zvz match

So apparently in the same way it takes minimal improvement to get from silver-gold, but huge effort to get from gold to platinum, it also takes minimal improvement to get from platinum to diamond.

In reality, as good as blizzards ladder is, its not a real determinate of skill. Partly because they change where they set their boundaries season to season.
But it sure feels good anyway : P


I did this with Toss again.

I seem to have fallen off my zerg game. The last time i tried playing serious sets of games i went 4-17. i dont know what happened. hopefully its just not as bad as my terran is.
------------

Blizzard released a new balance patch also.

Protoss: Mothership core  vision reduced from 14 to 9

Terran:
Widow Mine splash damage increased from 40 to 40 +40 shields
From 1.25 radius, splash damage will increase from 40 to 40 +40 vs. shields.
From 1.25 to 1.5 radius, splash damage will increase from 20 to 20 +20 vs. shields.
From 1.5 to 1.75 radius, splash damage will increase from 10 to 10 +10 vs. shields.

Zerg: Hydralisk attack speed increased from .86 to .75


I dont really understand or mind the MS core nerf.
If they were going to nerf it, i would'a expected them to nerf overcharge or recall.
it makes it slightly worse at scouting i guess, but scouting was never its primary roll. And the only time i like the MS core for scouting is when you dont have sentries for hallucinations yet, which is usually in the early part of PvZ.
In pvt and pvp its a lot easier to use your first stalker, at least for me.

The widow mine buff makes sense, since no one uses widow mines in PvT, im hoping this doesn't bring back all the proxy factories and widow mine drops, cus those are soooooo frustrating.
But it makes sense widow mines should be able to do meaningful damage. Before they were really only good if you got a lucky shot off and broke an immortals shields. but who cares about immortals in pvt.
Im curious how the damage is actually applied though. like if my stalker already took 40 damage so its at 80Health / 40 shields, and it gets hit by a widow mine that does 40+40, does it deal the shield damage first, and then an additional 40 damage to its hp? or would it deal 40 regular damage, then not be able to do any more since the shields are gone.

i also like the hydra buff. cus 2 base all ins from protoss still feel too strong.
PvZ is the only matchup where all inning is more reliable for me than actually playing. which i dont like. hopefully this buff makes it easier to get out enough to shut down those 2 base plays.

I wish they'd buff the roach also.
idk how OP it was, but i feel like bringing back the 2 armor would be nice. Since that would make them more of a hard counter, instead of a soft counter, to zelots.
----------

They were also thinking of buffing the tempest to do extra damage vs buildings, and nerfing blink CD from 10 to 15.
Im glad they didn't nerf blink, cus i've only just started to use it more heavilly, and i really like it, but i cant believe they didn't buff my favorite unit
Theres already very few applications for them in 1v1 play
they should'a also buffed its attack speed to match the new hydras
WHATS THE WORST THAT COULD HAPPEN?  : P

Personally, I'd like to see the tempest buff versus buildings; Blizz said they were considering it because of the long and boring games swarm hosts created. With tempests hammering away at the wall of spines, zergs couldn't sit back anymore; and if they went for a brood lord transition, they were boned with the massive amount of tempests already out.

At least in my opinion, the roach doesn't need any buffs. It's strengths are in its sturdiness and its massability(on what other unit can I get maxed out in 12 minutes off two bases?). In large enough numbers, it can crush most immortal-free armies. Zealots with +1 and immortals shut down both zerglings and roaches, which is why Toss all-ins with this composition are so strong, if they hit before the zerg can get hydras out.

Pretty sure Blizz nerfed the MSC's vision to make it a little harder to blink onto high ground versus terran. Where before the MSC could almost sit back in the Toss' main base and spot, now it has to risk it life a little bit more.

Congrats on getting to platinum! I myself have been only seriously playing SC2 since the start of this season, where I started in bronze; I'm hoping to get up to Diamond/Platinum this season, but we'll see what happens.

I guess the roaches main problem is immortals, not zelots and stalkers. And 2 armor wouldn't do any good vs immortals.
Roaches are a weird unit. When i was playing with them in a unit tester you could have matched resource armies (gateway + immortal vs roach) and the roaches would get crushed, and most of the toss army was still around. but with just a few more you'd get critical mass and crush the toss army without many losses.
I dont really have a point, other than the roach is a weird unit.

that MSC nerf does make sense for blink all ins. Blink play didn't seem that reliable for me, but when the situation was right, it felt really good.
It still seems weird that they would nerf that before overcharge, since overcharge is what allows the greedy macro that leads to more blink stalkers faster, or any other tech path.
And its not like expanding was impossible in pvt without overcharge in WoL

MrJoe223 wrote:

I myself have been only seriously playing SC2 since the start of this season, where I started in bronze; I'm hoping to get up to Diamond/Platinum this season, but we'll see what happens

I only started 2 or 3 seasons ago. It feels very difficult to get a solid grasp on the game since so many of the people we play against have far more experience with the game (years vs months). So its often hard to tell whether im losing because of mechanics or because im not making the right decisions.

it finally happened
a tie.

how?

marksoccer wrote:

how?

The only tie I've ever seen is when a terran killed off all the nexi of the protoss, and then flew his buildings to a corner of the map which the protoss couldn't attack.

So, draw.