Hey all, I have bene playing the beta for 2 weeks now and I already have 125 games under my belt. I love this game! I always play as random so I get experience with all 3 races. I find it is easier to play against someone if you know about their race. But.... I do have some problems and questions to ask. 1. Are void rays OP? I have used them before but I have also had them come after me too. 6 void rays as a zerg or a terran sucks! I mean you would have to know they were coming to be ready for them. You need almost double the vikings to take them out and with zerg, you are pretty much SoL unless you went hydras cause its too late to do spore colonys now! 2. Do you play defense or all out offense? I am finding it hard to find a balance between the two. Typically if I plan on teching, I get a little defense but that delays me in expanding and getting tier 1 units. Protoss kind of have it easy in that field since the cannons own face early game. The zerg spine crawlers are good too but I hate sacrificing one of my workers. Terrans? .....well what do they have other than marines to start with until you can get some siege. 3. When do you say "Time to expand". I am also finding it hard to find a balance here too. When I am saving to expand, I have to cut back on unit production. I mean an expansion with workers costs probably about 1000 minerals. Thats a lot of units. It just seems like the minute I start to expand, I get smacked and since I was saving to expand....I have little defense. 4. When you do expand, do you protect it? Terran kinda have it easy in this field since they are so mobile but as a zerg or a protoss, do you put defensive structures at your expansions? I have been, but I wonder if they are a waste of time. Im really wondering if it just isn't better to only get a handful of workers 5-10 and let it go with the flow. 5. How do you handle getting a good mix of units? I have found that putting all your eggs in one basket and massing a particular unit is risky. If your opponet has the counter for it, you are screwed and there isn't anything you can do about it. So how do you get a good mix of units. Let me rephrase, getting the mix is easy, but how do you select what upgrades / enchancements to get? 6. What in the #$*@ counters protoss stalkers? Man, it seems like if my opponent masses these things, I get raped no matter what I decide to make. They have blink too so that rules out any kind of wall. They can shoot air. I dont know I just havent found a counter for them yet on any of the races that I can rely on unless its some niche unit that is only has one trick. I can handle a handful, but when they have 50+ stalkers, its GG for me. Im sure I will have more questions. I love these forums, I hope they get busier as the game gets released because I love reading about strats.
1. Void Rays aren't OP. But the point is that you should know they're coming. If any specialized unit catches you off guard like that you're likely going to lose because its tough to tech while they're knocking on your door. Make sure you scout and be able to counter them. Also, if you micro your units away from the Warp Rays as they start attacking you will have the upper hand since it will cut their attack short (Warp Rays do more damage the longer they're shooting, so if you run they can't do any damage at all). 2. Then best defense is a good offense. By keeping pressure on your opponent it's tough for him to attack. It's always better to fight him in his base than in yours (except in certain situations if you're Terran). You don't want too many defensive structures. One or two should give you the advantage you need early game without sacrificing your ability to produce later on. 3. You should only expand when you're fairly confident that you have control of the map. Otherwise it's risky. You usually want to expand right after you've had a somewhat successful attack (don't expand if you just failed hard), or you know that your opponent is teching hard and isn't going to be near you any time soon. If you see the guy is turtling up and isn't expanding, that's a good time to expand yourself. 4. Yup. Gotta protect it, but usually the best way to protect an expansion is to position it correctly. You should try to expand to your natural first as your units can protect it fairly easily. Build a couple cannons or a spine crawler, or make a Planetary Fortress, that's fine. But don't overdo it. Because static defenses have nothing on a mobile army. 5. Usually you go with a strong mix of units and you want to emphasize one unit in that mix. Usually that's your highest tech unit (often a caster, Ghost, Templar, etc.). But you also have to balance that with how many of what unit you have. For instance, it's a good idea to upgrade your Tier 1 units because often their upgrades make them incredibly useful on the battlefield. I would almost always suggest getting the HP upgrade for the Marine and the Charge upgrade for the Zealot because these upgrades cost very little for the benefit you get. You probably already have 1200 minerals invested in Zealots, another 100/100 is worth it to make those Zealots even more powerful rather than spending that 100/100 on psi-storm when you haven't built a single Templar. But you also have to look at the fact that maybe 20 Hydras are about to bear down on you and Charge isn't going to stop it, but Psi Storm will. 6. Lots of stuff. I haven't really figured out what your race is yet, but for Terran: Siege Tanks/Ghost/Marines, Zerg: Hydralisk/Roach/Baneling/Zergling, Protoss: Immortals/Stalkers/Zealots w/ Charge. However, I should note that you should really never let your opponent get 50 Stalkers. It's just asking for trouble. But if he does get that many, you're going to need a lot of whatever you need to counter it. You're not going to counter 50 Stalkers with 1 Immortal.
I'll try my best here.. 1. Well, you do have to scout, it's the same if protoss goes dark templar, then you need detection up in time. In Starcraft 2, scouting is the most important. As zerg, don't hesitate to waste an overlord to spot tech. Same goes with terran and scan and protoss and observers. In the early game Void rays are strong, but I feel that even if you mass them up you won't take down a marine army with stim, or a hydralisk army. I woudn't say it's OP... I've had a lot of good counters towards it (2-3 more queens with transfusion etc) 2. Well if you're only defense, you can't win the game. You have to make pushes sometime. Best when your opponent is either tech'ing or exapanding. A strong timing attack (right when your weapon attack finishes for example) can really be worth it. Map control is important, and in my opinion you should always play depending on what you are facing and when you want to end the game. Some people macro up an army in their base to then push out and win the game with their huge army, others rely on harass with an earlier spawning pool for example... I don't think there is a "set" way of playing starcraft... 3. You say "time to expand" when you're making a push with your army into your opponents base. If both your armies die, your opponent must macro up a new army, while you do the same but with an extra base. You say "time to expand" once again, when you're seeing your opponent having very little map control and lots of defence. And lastly you say "time to double expand" when you realize that your economy has just been f***ed in the butt. 4. When you have a bigger and better army and better tech, protecting your expansion is the best option. Your opponent must either expand himself or attack you to not fall behind in macro. If he expands you'll have your expansion up much earlier, and a slight advantage imo. But if your opponent expands you usually just march in and kill him.. Also, If you transfer workers you don't have the problem of making them once your exp is up. 5. Well it depends on what your opponent gets.. starcraft is about counters, and you should have a gameplan and build in your head before the game has begun along with transitions. You get upgrades depending on what army composition you are getting and as I've said: what your opponent is getting. Some upgrades are escential, like the overlord speed (in my oppinion) perhaps the You should never get all the upgrades you can, you should only go for upgrades that benefit your army to counter your enemy.. If I see your marine maurader and I can go range for collosi, or psy storm depending on the tech I have. Late game, the standards for protoss would be things such as blink and zealot legs, upgrades that make your T1 army stronger with time. +1 attack or def. upgrades like these are the most standard and do much more than you think. Don't go for uncesassary upgrades like reaper speed or turret range if you're not using reapers or encountering air harass.. blarg I hope this is an ok answer. 6. Well as a protoss you can go immortals, as terran you can go mauraders and marines with stim, as zerg you can go zerglings. I'd prefer an army that is mixed.. because in the long run a mix of dps and units that tank (zeealots) is the better choice. As he gets tech for blink you can get a ghost academy for a ghost to emp.. It's hard to explain, but with 50+ stalkers only your opponent seems raped if you have stalkers/zealots/imortals/collosi and sentries (doing the gaurdian shield that reduces ranged damage!).. Your zealots will run in and do massive damage to the poor stalkers. While the stalkers attack your tanks (zealots) you have your support (collosi, immortals) in the back to figh back..
Awesome help, thanks guys. Yeah my main problem is ....well luck? If I try to expand early, I get raped by tier 1 units that the opponent has massed. If I go tier 1 units and I just barely fail, I may as well give up cause he already has an expansion. LOL! Its a learning process for sure but I appreciate the help and advice. Let me ask, how do you scout as a zerg? Overlords are slow until they are upgraded and even then, if you lose a couple of them, you can be in a pinch in the supply side. Burrowed roaches that can move?
Early game you should use a COMBINATION of your Overlords and a scouting drone. Don't assume that your slow overlord is seeing your opponent's base. You should always scout with a drone when you can. Also, Overlords are one of Zerg's weak points. That's just part of the game. Protect them or die. I always try to Overlord harass against a Zerg player as it forces them to macro better and every Overlord lost is one more they have to build and one less fighting unit they can acquire. As Zerg, the Overseer (upgrade to the Overlord) has an ability called Spawn Changeling. It spawns a unit with very low HP which automatically morphs into a tier 1 unit of your opponent. The opponent can't click your unit and it looks identical to their unit. Unless they notice it and kill it manually you can walk straight into their base and see what's up. Just don't be obvious about it.
i hate that you have to get lair with zerg to get any kind of decent scouting. its really a problem with void ray/banshee cheese
Let me tell you: As terrans it's WORTH taking 50 energy to scan for scout than to mule. As a zerg it's WORTH flying your overlord over your opponents base once you have speed or overseer. As a protoss player it's WORTH getting the observer out..
As a zerg, you should try to run a zergling into their base. If they have a lot of ground forces or an expansion or both, then they aren't teching to something dangerous so you don't have to worry about it until later. But if they have walled off and don't have much to defend otherwise, then something is up and you should just run a slow overlord into their base, sacrificing 100 minerals to see if they are going void rays or DTs. At the same time you should also get a lair ASAP as soon as they realize they might be teching, so you can be ready with the correct counter in time.
