Starcraft 2 Replays / Matches Discussion Thread

Psi-storm was always easy but now it's catastrophic especially for zerg. it's a little unfair..

I've heard somewhere that in a recent batch bannelings could explode underground . Idk if this is still in the game

 

@Aurora: I'm talking about in the first two or three minutes. i.e. when the players are scouting or possibly about to rush. The things you've mentioned are not possible at that time. Like I've said, there's thousands of ways to counter the block and each race has something to balance it out either offensively or defensively. Additionally, I don't think the block means as much as it did in the original because of this. I'm not saying blocks are imbalanced or hard to deal with. I even said that in my original post. All I'm saying is that a Terran is almost always going to block in the beginning and that can hinder some of the fun early strategies like probe harassment and scouting.

Where did I say Psi Storms were hard to cast? I don't remember saying that. The only thing I remember saying close to that was that, in order for a Protoss player to have psi storms be as effective as in the original, they're going to have to it in conjuction with the environment and Force Field. I don't remember saying anything about either version of the psi storm being too strong, too weak, too hard or easy to use. Whereas, in the original, you could be in a wide open area and a psi storm could still wreak havoc on Zerg even if the Zerg is quick to react in moving the units. In StarCraft 2, the units are much faster and easier to control. Even Roaches are practically immune to them.

I disagree about psi storms being catastrophic. In one of the videos I was watching, two psi storms were placed directly on a large group of Hydralisks. Only a few them died because of how fast they were. This wasn't even on creep either. Psi storms will be even less effective, given proper spacing, on creep.

So, I think it balances out. The High Templars aren't all that useful other than for storming if comparisons to the original are at all accurate. So, the effectiveness of the storm was balanced by the weakness and slowness of the unit.

 

Why wouldn't the Storm be harder to cast? I mean, it's smaller and more easy to avoid. On top of that, you'll need to at least use an ability such as Force Field if you want it to come close to the effectiveness of the original. So I really don't see how it's just as easy to cast.

And about the block thing: that's what I said. The Zerg can't block as easy as others. Especially not in early game. Thought that mentioning later tier units as the most effective would make that pretty clear. :/

 

What I was saying was that the ease of smart casting is countered by the things you and I have both mentioned. I like that. In the original, all you had to do was follow the Zerg, get them in a position where they cannot be fully mobile, storm them and watch them all burn as you said. Now, it appears you have to use the environment more and abilities like Force Field. I like this addition because it requires more skill thus allowing gamers to demonstrate their skills and make up for some removed macro. This is just one of the ways in which I feel Blizzard is making StarCraft 2 require as much or more skill than the original even if the UI and pathfinding is so much easier to control.

 

What I meant, and thought to see in your post, is that Psi Storm on its own is less effective.

But er, care to elaborate on the smart cast stuff? Never really got into naming every tactic in such a Team Liquid-ish way. To many terms to remember for a single game. (gave up on it after staring at their wiki index for 3 hours)

 

http://sc2pod.com/wiki/Smart_Casting

This is a UI change for StarCraft 2 that allows casting spells easier. Smart casting is where you select a group of High Templar and cast each spell individually. Meaning, you can select six High Templar, storm a group of Hydralisks, and then continue to use the other five by hitting shift and the psi storm hot key. This way, you don't have to select each High Templar and you can cast multiple storms quickly without much effort. It also allows you to psi storm with multiple High Templar without making them all psi storm the same place thus wasting a lot of their effectiveness.

It's similar to how a player can now set a order of buildings to be made. Meaning, a person can select an probe and quickly have it warp multiple buildings in different spots in order without having to wait for it to come to its spot, being the warp, and then wait for the probe to get to a new location. Or how a player can get a worker into a base and have it do circles around the base instead of having to give the unit an input each time it changes direction.

 

So that's how those people keep ruining my armies. I hope it also works on my Dark Swarms. I'm still disappointed that Blizzard took it out of the new game.

 

Did you mean StarCraft 2? I didn't know you played it Anyways, just to clarify, this was not in the original. These are new changes for StarCraft 2.

 

I meant that I keep getting many Storms quickly after each other in the original. It sucks. I thought it would become more easy to avoid them now and was already was thinking about new tactics to handle them. Now it seems that Protoss players can defeat Zerg with the same effectiveness again this time around.

(I need to stop posting vague stuff which only contains half of my thoughts. I know. Just way to sleepy. Think I'll go to bed early and see what this thread has to offer tomorrow.)

 

I hate to tell you but the act itself of psi storming is going to be a thousand times easier given that now it has smart cast. Blizzard will give the Zerg plenty of ways to survive though.

 

*grumble*
I might give them all a try anyway. Terran first for a while, then Zerg for a while when their campaign comes out. The same goes for Protoss. Then maybe I can pick a race to stick with. This game is going to last for at least 5 years anyway.

Also: is it just me, or are the Terran buildings faster each build? Expected them to be about as slow as in Brood War. Look at them go now. The CC is like, 5 times as fast now.

It seems that it gives Terran a big advantage over the Zerg already. Other Terrans can do the same, Protoss get Blink pretty fast, but the Zerg can only rely on Overlords for quite a while. Wish we had some more Nydus action.

 

I've noticed a difference between the apparent speed of floating objects like buildings and Overlords but it's hard to compare given the extra dimension. When I first saw unupgraded Overlords, they appeared to be a bit faster. However, this could be an illusion because of it now being 3D or it could be a tweak to counter the (again, apparent) increased map size.

---

Unfortunately, I seem to have lost my comments on some of the matches that I made yesterday. it's quite unfortunate because they length was about the same as my other post. Oh well ... Here's what I was able to find.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIunQUE-cB4

- Are there any videos of the Changeling actually being useful? To me, it seems pretty useless in most situations.

- God, I love Utralisks so much. Remind me to never attack them with Marines. They're completely badass Marine annihilators. In StarCraft 2, it appears that a Terran blockade won't be as scary to a Zerg. They can even burrow. Hot damn.

- I wonder why the Terran didn't lift the Command Center when the Ultralisks were attacking in the end.

- In conclusion, I'd like to reiterate my glee for these videos showing the Zerg rippin' **** up!

 

Yeah, if I saw such a force coming: load up all SCVs and lift off the building. It's east enough to escape to an expansion. Best would be an island map for this, but this match was probably to messed up already. :/

 

The Planetary Fortress cannot lift up!

 

I changed that comment in the future revisions that I lost.

 

I didn't notice that.

 

It can be hard to tell that it's firing the cannon given the angle and quality if you aren't already looking for it or feeling extremely observant.

 

You really don't want to know how crappy my streaming quality is. Let's just say that it's more of a smudge then a clear image whenever there's much movement on the screen. I think my firmware and codecs aren't installed correctly. But only those guys at the phone store can upgrade that, which destroys my warranty. And my new pc is still 2 weeks away. >_<

 

Not only their construction, but also their speed while flying and moving.

 

I'm pretty sure he was talking about their speed flying. When he said "each build", I believe he meant "each new version we see of the game".

-- Since Blizzard's working on so many doodads, as just now reconfirmed on Twitter, I wish they would use a bit more in the melee.