Author Archives: kevin

Quick report from the front, and a request

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First, thanks everyone who has been reading over the past 3 days. Google Analytics says that site visits have spiked orders of magnitude basically since Heart of the Swarm (HotS) came out. In particular, /r/allthingszerg, /r/allthingsterran, and /r/allthingsprotoss have all been tremendous in referrals and comments to refine the posts as well.

Second, I received my copy of HotS in the mail today! After dinner, I played the first campaign mission, which was very cool. To keep myself honest to practicing, I think I need to restrict myself to one campaign mission a day. After that, I have been playing unranked matches, with tremendous variance in my opponents’ ability. It’s been a mixed bag. I’m 3-2, but the losses were bad. Still, this is the most excited I have been to play StarCraft in awhile.

Third, I’m on a high right now from my readership, so I’m planning on updating this blog regularly with content again. If you would take a moment to fill in the survey below, it would be much appreciated. Sorry for you RSS readers out there (and double-sorry for Google Reader users; I feel your pain): you’ll have to make the jump onto my site.

What sort of content would you like to see?

  • Build Orders (lower level, general builds) (36%, 26 Votes)
  • Build Orders (advanced, refined builds) (28%, 20 Votes)
  • Practice Tips (14%, 10 Votes)
  • Me Rambling about StarCraft (10%, 7 Votes)
  • Pro Gamer Stream/Tournament Analysis (8%, 6 Votes)
  • zerglingdance.com, in the spirit of hamsterdance (4%, 3 Votes)
  • Other (comment) (0%, 0 Votes)

Total Voters: 34

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Finally, if you have any other thoughts or feedback for me (stuff you would like to see, pointing out mistakes I made, scolding me for overstepping my 3 days of internet exposure), I would love to hear it. You can comment on this post, or contact me via the half-dozen methods in the sidebar of my homepage, or you can email me on gmail (username kkleung89), or you can friend me on bnet (StoicLoofah#1461) if you want to see how bad I am.

Good luck in HotS! Remember, the best way to improve is to click “Matchmaking” and then “Play”!

qxc/MVP’s Terran bio build orders for HotS

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(Update: check out my updated guide for playing Terran for the maintained version of this post)

Having already written up a few Heart of the Swarm (HotS) build orders for Protoss and Zerg, I thought I would also write up a few Terran builds as well while I’m still waiting for my copy of HotS to arrive tomorrow (if Amazon is to be believed). For this batch, I watched qxc’s stream.

Despite not having many big results in tournaments, I am still a big qxc fan. He’s very thoughtful and shows what you can do with excellent control. The caveat is that these builds are probably more specific and advanced than what I wrote up for Zerg or Protoss. Still, they’re pretty cool builds that he is copying from watching MVP and other Terrans at IEM Hanover.

Before I get into all of that, let me write down a standard Wings of Liberty (WoL) Terran opening. I’m guessing this might not be so standard nowadays, but it’s a starting point for newer players.

Standard WoL Terran Build Order

  • 10 Supply Depot at Ramp
  • 12 Barracks at Ramp (scout with the 12th SCV)
  • 14 Refinery
  • 15 Orbital Command
  • 15 Marine
  • 16 Supply Depot to complete wall
  • 16 Marine
  • Factory with the builder SCV
  • Reactor on the Barracks
  • Swap the Reactor onto the Factory for 2 Hellions

Usual rules of reading build orders apply. I don’t write it in, but you should get Orbitals on your Command Centers as soon as they finish. Also, qxc stops SCV production at quite a few times to squeeze buildings out a little sooner. Just follow the supply counts and fill in the gaps, and you should be fine.

Note that all of the builds go into bio (Barracks units, not Factory or Starport units). qxc likes bio. If someone wants me to write up mech builds, I can find someone else to watch and look at that, too.

Terran Versus Protoss

Like in Wings of Liberty (WoL), bio is still viable against Protoss. Widow Mines, however, are a nice addition to the army for extra map control and damage. To take advantage of that, this build uses an early Factory and Starport for Widow Mine drops. One quirk in the build is that the Refinery is delayed slightly. He makes a point of mentioning it in the video, so I trust him.

qxc/MVP’s TvP Widow Mine Drop into Bio

  • 10 Supply Depot
  • 12 Barracks
  • 14 Scout (look for gas and the 3rd Pylon to guess if there’s a proxy)
  • 15 Refinery
  • 15 Orbital Command
  • 15 Marine
  • 17 Supply Depot
  • 19 Reactor (constant Marine production)
  • 20 Command Center (in base)
  • 21 Factory (constant Widow Mine production)
  • 22 Marine, Marine
  • 24 Supply Depot
  • 30 Starport
  • 30 Widow Mine
  • 33 2nd Refinery
  • 43 ~6:20 Medivac (done around 7:00; load with 2 Mines and Marines to either drop or push. Thanks pball4ever)
  • Followup with Bio

Terran Versus Zerg

In TvZ, Reapers seem to be the standard opening. If Zerg gets greedy, or has poor Zergling micro, or doesn’t position their Queens well, you can do some damage. Using Reapers, Hellions, and Widow Mine, you can take map control and go up to 3 bases quite quickly. Note that this assumes your opponent is going up to 3 bases quickly, so if they don’t, you can delay the last CC.

I would explain it more, but qxc actually gives a really good explanation of it at the beginning of this video where it uses the build. I’ll shut up, and you can follow the link.

qxc/MVP TvZ Reaper Hellion into 3 CC

  • 10 Supply Depot
  • 12 Barracks
  • 12 Refinery
  • 15 Orbital
  • 16 Reaper (harass)
  • 16 Supply Depot
  • 18 Reaper (harass)
  • 19 Command Center
  • 20 Factory
  • 21 Reactor on Barracks
  • 22 Supply Depot
  • 24 Command Center
  • 25 Hellion, Hellion with Reactor on Facotry
  • 35 Supply Depot
  • 2 more Hellions for 4 total
  • 2 Widow Mines (placed aggressively)
  • Transition into Bio

Terran Versus Terran

TvT has also been changed by the presence of the Reaper. Similar to TvZ, you can use 2 Reapers to harass for scouting and catching your opponent being lazy. qxc goes for a very similar build to TvZ, except the CC is delayed. I’m not sure how standard this is, but he does this 2 games in a row. Again, watch him for the full effect.

qxc TvT Reaper Hellion (game 1, game 2)

  • 10 Supply Depot
  • 12 Barracks
  • 12 Refinery
  • 15 Scout
  • 15 Orbital Command
  • 15 Reaper (harass)
  • 16 Supply Depot
  • 17 Reaper (harass)
  • 20 Command Center
  • 20 Factory
  • 21 Reactor on Barracks
  • 23 Supply Depot
  • 24 Hellion, Hellion from swapped Reactor
  • Tech Lab on Barracks
  • 29 Starport
  • 30 2nd Refinery
  • 31 Hellions, Hellion (poke with all of the Hellions and Reapers
  • 37 Supply Depot
  • Stuff
  • 8:00 3rd Command Center
  • Transition into bio

I think that’s it for this post. Like the others, let me know if you see any issues, or want me to expand on anything. I’ll note that my knowledge of Terran is far behind that of the other races (which is admittedly still not great), so I’ll need to study more to get you answers.

EG IdrA’s Heart of the Swarm (HotS) Zerg build orders

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(Update: check out my updated guide for playing Zerg for the maintained version of this post)

I watched IdrA’s stream from about 1 till 3 last night (my copy of HotS is being shipped). And I saw he was streaming again today while he was at work. Now, I’m home from work, and he’s still streaming. I think he’s pretty excited about the game.

This is great news for Zerg players everywhere, because IdrA is a great person to learn from. He commentates on his stream, generally does the same builds over and over, and plays relatively safely (greedy, but safely). He’s also pretty entertaining as long as you’re not to annoyed by his attitude. As such, I took the opportunity to copy down a few builds he’s doing.

Zerg Versus Protoss

First up are his ZvP builds. I think there are a lot of Protoss players on the ladder right now, at least from the sample I saw him play last night. Grubby and WhiteRa made it look good during the launch party, I guess. Anyways, IdrA uses a pretty normal 3 Hatch gasless build against Protoss (I wrote about Stephano’s ZvP awhile ago with this opening). The big difference in the early game in this matchup is the Mothership Core, and as long as you’re diligent about building Queens (at least for 4 for 3 bases), you should be okay. Or at least IdrA thinks so.

IdrA’s ZvP 3 Hatch

  • 9 Overlord
  • 15 Hatchery
  • 16 Spawning Pool
  • 18 Overlord
  •  Queen, Queen
  • Pair of Zerglings
  • 26 Hatchery (4:30ish)
  • 7:20 Lair, Evolution Chamber, Roach Warren

He also was also using a Speedling opening, which is kind of interesting. The early gas and speed definitely threatens the Protoss, and if they overreact, great. If they don’t react much, so be it: you have Speedlings and can punish them if they’re being too greedy.

IdrA’s ZvP 3 Hatch Speedling

  • 9 Overlord
  • 15 Hatchery
  • 16 Spawning Pool
  • 16 Extractor
  • 17 Overlord
  • 18 Queen
  • 20 Zergling
  • 22 Queen
  • 26ish Zergling Speed (out of gas)
  • 27 3rd Hatchery (4:45 – 5:00)
  • 27 Overlord
  • 3rd Queen
  • 6:00 back in gas, 2nd gas
  • 7:00 3rd gas, Lair, Roach Warren

From this, you have at least the usual options from Wings of Liberty (Infestors, mass Mutalisks, tech to Brood Lords, etc). One new thing is Roach-Hydralisk-Viper. Roach-Hydra-Corruptor was old school ZvP when Zergs though the matchup was impossible but couldn’t think of anything better. Instead of using mass Corruptors, this build goes for a fast Hive to get 3-4 Vipers. The hope is to engage before the Protoss player gets too many Colossi and use abduct to pick off the ones that they do have.

Zerg Versus Terran

In ZvT, the new thing to watch for is Reapers and Widow Mines, both of which can make an appearance early game. To ready yourself for Reapers, you can get early gas for Speedlings and go from there. Sorry this isn’t so detailed.

IdrA’s ZvT gas opening

  • 15 Hatchery
  • 16 Pool
  • 15 Extractor
  • 18 Overlord
  • Queen, Queen
  • 6 Zerglings (somewhere in there)
  • 5:45 2nd and 3rd gas

I’m not entirely sure what the best way to deal with Widow Mines is yet, but I’ll update if I see something good. IdrA was not dealing with them well using Muta Ling, so at least probably not that.

IdrA is also using a 3 Hatch opening against Terran, presumably, if he doesn’t feel threatened early. I might write that up as well.

You can also go Roach-Hydra-Viper in ZvT as well because Blinding Cloud is extremely powerful against Bio and Mech. Abduct single Siege Tanks and Blinding Cloud clumps of them for great effect.

Zerg Versus Zerg

In ZvZ, IdrA asserts that it’s basically all about Mutalisks: whoever has more wins, and to do that, you need your gas before your opponent. I thought, however, that his opening was particularly interesting. Specifically, everything feels late to me, but having watched him defend a 6 Pool with this build, I believe it works.

IdrA’s ZvZ Mutalisks

  • 9 Overlord
  • 15 Hatchery
  • 17 Spawning Pool
  • 17 Extractor
  • 17 Overlord
  • Zergling Speed with the first 100 gas
  • Baneling Nest with the next 50 gas

I’ll be maintaining this post as well as I watch more IdrA and converge on some core builds. It’s possible that things will change quickly as HotS is figured out over the next few weeks. If so, you might see a few updates. Also feel free to give me feedback on anything I got wrong or could clarify.

HotS Protoss Build Orders

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(Update: check out my updated guide for playing Protoss for the maintained version of this post)

I mentioned I was compiling a list of basic Heart of the Swarm (HotS) Protoss builds as a gift, and I think I have a decent set of them. They’re all safe, basic builds to explore how Protoss flows. They’re tested, but they aren’t completely optimized, so take this as a starting point for own play. Feel free to critique as well: I’m happy to maintain and update this post.

So the basic set of builds I think a Protoss player should have, from safest to riskiest, are:

  • 3 Gate Expand
  • 1 Gate Robo
  • 1 Gate Expand
  • Blink Stalker
  • Stargate
  • Forge Fast Expand (FFE)

If you’re unfamiliar with how build orders are usually written out, here’s a quick guide:

  1. Unless noted otherwise, you should be building probes continuously
  2. The numbers before the unit/building is what supply you should be at, not how many of those to build. For example, “9 Pylon” happens when you’re 9th probe is building, and it says “9/10” in the upper right
  3. Earlier pylons are noted in the build. Later pylon timings are left off and should be built maybe 4ish supply before you are supply blocked

Let’s start with a standard Protoss opening that is the starting point for almost builds:

Standard Protoss Opening

  • 9 Pylon (you won’t have enough minerals for your 10th probe immediately, but that’s okay)
  • 11 Chronoboost probes
  • 13 Chronoboost probes
  • 13 Gateway (scout around here)
  • 15 Assimilator (3 in gas)
  • 16 Pylon
  • 17 Cybernetics Core

From here, you can go 3 Gate, 4 Gate, Robo, etc. For example, your 3 Gate expand is the standard safe build, where you start with 3 Gateways, then take your natural expansion. This is maybe more useful for PvP, but in my mind, it’s strictly for team games. Everyone is obsessed with 6-7 minute attacks, so this should get you in a good spot to be ready for that, but also to set you up for the mid game.

3 Gate Expand

  • Standard opening
  • 18 Zealot
  • 21 Assimilator (you don’t have to put 6 probes in gas yet; use your judgment)
  • 23 Warpgate
  • 23 Stalker (Chronoboost)
  • 26 Mothership Core
  • 30 Stalker
  • 31 Gateway Gateway
  • 37ish Nexus

For the 1 Gate Robo, you can build the Robotics Facility just before the Mothership Core (MsC). The MsC builds quickly, especially with a Chronoboost. This build may be outdated because the Observer for scouting can be replaced with the MsC and free hallucinations, but the build is still useful in PvP against Blink Stalkers.

1 Gate Robo

  • Standard opening
  • 18 Zealot
  • 21 Assimilator
  • 22 Warpgate
  • 22 Stalker (Chronoboost)
  • 26 Robotics Facility
  • 28 Mothership Core
  • either another 2 Gateways or a Nexus, depending on the scout
  • 5:20ish Observer when the Robo is done

The 1 Gate Expand is from itsgosu and is used in PvT (and PvZ if you don’t want to FFE). You can 1 Gate Expand out of the same opening as the 3 Gate expand (up to the Msc), but the optimizations here are valuable and demonstrate how to refine a build. Note the very aggressive poke with the first 3 units: it’s a little odd but possibly valuable.

1 Gate Expand

  • Standard opening
  • 18 Zealot (rallied to enemy)
  • 22 Stalker (Chronoboost)
  • Mothership Core
  • 4:20 Nexus
  • Warpgate
  • Second Assimilator
  • Follow the guide (either air or Zealot/Archon)

Now things start to get real. The Blink Stalker and Stargate openings are both 1 base openings and mainly used in PvP. Admittedly, neither of these builds are perfectly optimized, but I wrote them up to be safe and easy. The Blink Stalker build starts out with a 3 Stalker rush and should get you ready for a 8-8:30 attack.

PvP Blink Stalker

  • Standard opening
  • 18 Assimilator (3 in gas)
  • 20 Gateway, Stalker, Warpgate
  • 25 Mothership Core
  • 26 Stalker Stalker (pressure with the Stalkers and MsC. Halt probe production around here if you’re all-in)
  • 30 Twilight Council, Stalker Stalker
  • 34 Gateway
  • 37 Blink

Remember when I said that these builds would be easy? Well, the Stargate build is identical, except you get a Stargate instead of a Twilight Council. From that, you can go into either Phoenix or Oracle. Either way, you can do it off of 1 Stargate and just chronoboost the units out.

PvP Stargate

  • Standard opening
  • 18 Assimilator (3 in gas)
  • 20 Gateway, Stalker, Warpgate
  • 25 Mothership Core
  • 26 Stalker Stalker (you can cut these for an earlier Stargate, too)
  • 30 Stargate

Finally, a Forge Fast Expand (FFE). This is exclusively for PvZ. To see how it works, I recommend you watch Apollo work through a FFE. Really, the only twist with HotS is that the MsC is an amazing defensive unit, so you should get that ASAP if youp’re worried about all-ins. (for a more efficient take on this build, see Gemini_19’s comment)

Forge Fast Expand

  • 9 Pylon at the low ground (after building, send the Probe to scout, then leave at natural to watch for an expo)
  • 11 Chronoboost
  • 13 Chronoboost
  • 14 Forge (wall)
  • 16 Nexus (halt probe production here)
  • 16 Cannon
  • 16 Gateway (wall; finish the wall with a probe on hold position)
  • 17 Pylon
  • 19 Assimilator, Assimilator
  • 20 Cybernetics Core, Zealot (Zealot first if you’re really scared)
  • 28 Mothership Core, Stalker, Warp Gate (when Core completes)

So overall, things should feel very similar to WoL, where we’re just tacking the MsC on after Warpgate and Stalker. Hopefully, this is a good starting point for your own builds, which you can optimize and refine to your own playstyle.

Again, I’m open to any feedback you have. Since this is targeted to newer players, I’m also happy to give more details about the motivations and goals of various builds.

A few EGHuK PvP builds from his stream

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I was watching a bit of HuK (go watch and support him!) tonight because I’m putting together a set of Protoss build orders as a gift. I was writing down his builds as they were happening, and though it ultimately wasn’t that useful for me (I’m looking for HotS builds), maybe it’ll be useful for you.

In the first game, he used a sentry drop to block the ramp into the natural, busted the bunker, forced a lift of the CC. I think he ended up winning

Game 1: PvT on Akilon Flats

  • Standard protoss opening
  • 19 Stalker
  • 23 Nexus
  • 24 Assimilator
  • 25 Stalker
  • 27-29 Robo
  • 31 Sentry
  • More sentries in-between
  • 38 Warp prism
  • 40 Gate, Gate
  • 42 Gate
  • 47 Gate Gate
  • Attack

In game 2, he went for a Stalker/Phoenix push. He straight up lost to an expand-DT build

Game 2, PvP on Entombed Valley

  • 16 Assimilator
  • 19 Gateway
  • 19 Stalker
  • 23 Stalker, Stalker
  • 29 Stargate
  • 34 forward Pylon
  • (has 5 Stalkers at this point)
  • 37 Phoenix

In game 3, he goes for a similar build. This time, it works, but mostly on the strength of some good Stalker micro early on while “chat cheating” his opponent.

Game 3, PvP, also Entombed Valley

  • 15 Pylon
  • 17 2nd Assimilator
  • 18 Gateway
  • 19 Stalker
  • 23 Stalker Stalker
  • More stalkers; I’m guessing he cut probe production around here
  • 33 Stargate
  • 35 forward Pylon

Game 4 was a rematch. This time, his opponent goes 1 gate robo expand and manages to defend the Stalker rush. HuK tries for a Sentry drop in the main to block the ramp, but it fails.

Game 4, PvP on Daybreak

  • 14 double Assimilator
  • 16 Pylon
  • 17 Core
  • 19 Gateway
  • 20 Stalker
  • 24 Stalker Stalker (cutting probes?)
  • 28 Stalker
  • 31 Robo (for Warp Prism)
  • 31 Gate

So the 2 strategies for the evening were apparently a Sentry drop (forcefielding the ramp) and a Stalker-Phoenix push. Both are extremely aggressive and depend on HuK controlling better than his opponent.

Let me know if you want more details on the builds. I just kind of figured that the opening and pylon/probe timings should be easy enough to figure out.

Anyways, if you guys have any references on HotS Protoss builds or favorite streamers, feel free to comment. I’ll be playing around with things myself to get a good set of simple, safe HotS builds. I’ll probably post those when I have that figured out because a quick Google search revealed nothing helpful.

Playing Protoss in HotS

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This Thanksgiving has mostly been consumed by sleep, reading for book club, and playing Borderlands with friends, but I also got in a decent amount of StarCraft. About half of it was 4v4s, but I also played 3 ranked games as Protoss in HotS for placement, all of which I won. I think the last guy I played was silver (not sure how accurate HotS ladder is, though), so I guess this is just working up from the bottom.

Overall, I didn’t get to play around with new units much. The first game was against Protoss, and I attacked with 3 gates, and he didn’t even have warpgate yet. The second was against Terran on Cloud Kingdom, and poor map awareness on his part (and decent awareness on mine) allowed me to see reaper harass and various widow mines coming in via watchtowers. The final game was against Zerg, which I will discuss soon.

I didn’t get any Oracles out, though I should try that soon. I did build a few Tempests, though I’m not really sure what the benefit of that was. And I did build Mothership Cores, but I didn’t use any of the abilities. I believe they’ve changed since I tried out the game months ago, and in a ranked match, I didn’t want to take the time to read.

One big improvement for me was that “x/24 workers” thing over the Nexus. Like most players, I do a poor job building workers; I think I often end up with about 10-15 workers on minerals per base in most of my matches, and I’m not very good at checking.  Having that dialog bit was a good reminder, though, and I think it evens the playing field for those without spectacular mechanics.

The last game I played against Zerg was particularly interesting because he went for a Swarm Host rush on Antiga Shipyard. My poor map awareness meant that I missed him taking over the space at the bottom of the ramp to my natural, where he had a few Swarm Hosts, Queens, Spines, and Spores. The Swarm Hosts continually spawned the Locusts, and when I tried to push down the ramp to take them out, the spore would snipe my observer before I could spot and hit them. Having never seen anything like this before, I got flustered and couldn’t figure out a good composition to beat this build. Regardless, I macroed well enough to rush down the ramp, break out, and get a 3rd.

Through the middle of the game, he used a lot of corruptors and overseers to kill any observers I had, and then planted the Swarm Hosts to slow me. This actually neutralized my Colossi really well, which was the best answer I got for the Locusts. Again, I managed to overwhelm him, control the center, and beat his late game composition of Brood Lord/Swarm Host with a lot of blink Stalkers and some blind storms over his Swam Hosts.

I’m glad I won on mechanics, though he clearly had a build that I didn’t know how to deal with. I guess these are the surprises to expect from a game in beta. You might be wondering why I’m playing Protoss, given that I started this blog as Zerg and mentioned that I recently switched to Terran. Since I’m planning testing all races, I thought it might be nice to make the circuit starting with the race I’m least likely to play in the long run.

The more honest answer, though, is that I’m getting ladder anxiety about HotS, too, despite the fact that I know that the game is incomplete and probably not very stable. To fight that, I’m trying to play with my weakest (well, least-emphasized) race so that I don’t feel like I need to be performing particularly well with it. Still, that hasn’t gotten me through placement yet on HotS.

In the meantime, I seem to have a spare HotS beta key as I won one with a bad joke and received another for preordering HotS from Amazon. I thought I might share it with a friend, but it turns out that NONE of my friends want the beta key (probably also a factor in my low motivation to ladder). As such, I guess I’ll hold a mini-contest here.

Leave me a one-sentence comment with a suggestion on how to overcome ladder anxiety, and if your suggestion helps, I’ll pass along the key. I say one sentence simply because I don’t trust myself to be reliable in this contest (e.g. giving it to another friend anyways), and I don’t want you to waste a lot of time crafting a response when I’m being unreliable.

HotS beta: the perfect reason to practice

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Thanks to a bad joke in a reddit HotS (Heart of the Swarm) beta key giveaway, I spent 2 or 3 hours this evening practicing StarCraft again. Yes, amidst all of the excitement of the new game, I didn’t play any games from matchmaking. I can explain, though, and this is really a good thing.

Julie and I were going to play HotS tonight since we’re both in the beta, but I didn’t know when she would be available. Not wanting to leave in the middle of a match, I instead just played some 1v1s against the computer, which is only available on very easy. This basically meant that I was practicing builds. Particularly, I have moved back into playing Terran recently, and with everything new in mech, I went mech.

After 5 games on different maps, I realized how much I needed to work on. Since playing with my friends a few weeks ago, I have been playing quite a bit of StarCraft: it’s all 2s and 4s, but still, I’m back to playing. It was rocky, and I had a sneaking suspicion that was macro was sloppy. Well, playing against a computer that doesn’t attack with more than 2 Marines was opportunity to focus on that alone, and it was bad. I

  • was not building workers constantly
  • was getting supply blocked a lot
  • was allowing my money to get really high
  • didn’t have nearly enough production buildings
  • forgot key structures

A few games in, I smoothed out a lot of this and was playing much smoother than before.

Repeating basically the same mech build 5 times was also a good way to learn to refine the build. As it turns out, a lot of my macro problems were related to minor hiccups in my play. Money can get high if I’m low on gas because I don’t know when to build geysers. Supply blocks happen because I tied up all of my money at the wrong moment. In the course of working on my build, I made some small tweaks and discoveries that really helped:

  • figured out when I needed to pay attention and not in the first few minutes so I could scout without forgetting a building
  • learned when I would hit gas shortage later and built refineries earlier for that
  • sequenced add-on building more optimally for the units I wanted
  • played around with the timings (absolute and relative) for Starport/Raven, vehicle upgrades, and another Factory for production

It’s been quite awhile since I have hammered out games against the computer, and I don’t think I ever quite did it for mech. The ironic part of this is that the focus on macro meant that I didn’t really figure out how to use the battle hellions or widow mines. That hopefully will happen soon.

Hopefully, I’ll also do some matchmaking as well. There are a lot of good things going for HotS right now that aren’t true for WoL (Wings of Liberty):

  • unranked matchmaking is less stressful
  • the metagame and balance are shifting rapidly, so expectations should be low
  • the novelty is just that much more exciting

I’ll report back on how that’s going if there’s anything interesting. In the meantime, let me know if you’re on the HotS beta and want to play. Preorders are now giving out beta keys for a lot of vendors, so they should be easy to come by.

Also, there’s a ton of good pro StarCraft happening until the end of the year. Specifically, the Battle.net World Championship starts tomorrow night, and I’ll definitely be tuned in. It really looks like WoL has matured, and I’ll report on anything interesting I see in the games.

Why I play StarCraft

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I mentioned in my last post almost 2 months ago that I wanted to come back to the game. Well, that didn’t happen for most of the time until now. I can blame it on a major transition in my life since then, but the truth is that I just didn’t really have the motivation to play. Well, I finally found it last Monday and got back into StarCraft when I played some Brood War with 4 of my friends from high school.

The experience wasn’t really optimal. We had an odd number of people, Brood War bnet has a lot of issues with latency for unknown reasons, and we were all very rusty. Despite that, we had a ton of fun playing as we sat in a Skype call together and trash talked and caught up over a few games. Afterwards, a few of us talked for awhile longer on Skype, and then David and I played 6 games of 2s in SC2, placing us into silver (while playing platinum-level players: go figure).

Earlier this evening, David and I played another 4ish games on the ladder together, which I think we mostly won. Our skill levels aren’t a perfect match, but we’re close enough that it’s fun just to play and find something to do together having not really talked much since high school.

So hooray, I’m playing again, though without the intensity I desired from before, which I’m okay with. The big point I want to make with this post, though, is about why I play StarCraft. If reddit is to be believed, the StarCraft esports scene is crumbling to pieces as inferior games become more popular, and Blizzard is oblivious to and unhelpful in fixing the situation. I don’t think it’s that bad, but one possible root of all problems is that people just aren’t playing that much SC nowadays. Anecdotally, /r/starcraft doesn’t actually play that much StarCraft, and if that’s true, it’s inevitable that a reasonably accessible game like League of Legends will win over players and subsequently, the esports scene.

So where did I get off the bandwagon and stop playing? Mainly because it wasn’t actually that much fun. Somehow, SC ended up being a solitary pursuit for me where the UI was setup to make me play stressful 1v1 ladder games. I played a ton of Brood War back in the day with my friends, though, and for a long time. I played:

  1. a lot of big team games with my friends (3v3 or 4v4)
  2. BGH (Big Game Hunters: a “money map” of standard SC but where you didn’t really need to expand)
  3. a lot of UMS (Use Map Settings or “Custom Games”)

Somehow, none of this quite happened and sustained itself for me in SC2. The big team games never happened since I didn’t quite manage to find my friends in-game early on, and frankly, a lot of my friends have moved on from RTS. I don’t think I’ve found a similar experience to BGH, and the new setup for custom games just killed the environment for it early on.

I’m not really sure how to get the magic back. For me, the key is the social experience of playing games with my friends, and maybe the problem is us, not the game: in high school, there really wasn’t anything better to be doing, but 8 years later, our lives are a little different and not as conducive to playing.

People seem really down about HotS and the changes its making. Maybe they aren’t that big or exciting to people anymore, but I think that’s okay. A big release will get people back into the game, at least for a week, and with an improved arcade, maybe we’ll be able to drive the network effect a little stronger and create a stickier social experience for players. I myself am thrilled about a good reason to see all of my friends on my buddy list come back to the game and play with them for a bit.

So /r/starcraft, don’t worry: a lot of players still have the passion, and there’s still hope as long as we have that. Let’s hope that HotS comes sooner than later and let the game get big again.

Quick thoughts after an hour of HOTS

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I personally wasn’t blessed with a Heart of the Swarm beta account, but Julie was, and we played around with it today for an hour or two. Julie played 2 games against the AI with Protoss, and I played a Zerg and a Terran game against the AI. Then, I played an unranked TvT.

The units were largely as described. Admittedly, the experience was somewhat underwhelming. The units are interesting, but they weren’t mindblowing to use after having seen them in action.

The graphical and interface tweaks are nice. The weirdest part for me was the workers being automatically sent to mine at the beginning of the game. It’s a nice touch since a lot of games will lag on entry, though I don’t know why Blizzard hasn’t introduced an in-game counter at the beginning instead. That also helps with the sometimes surprising start. Otherwise, I’m mostly fine with things.

The TvT was interesting. I went 2rax Reaper into mech since that’s where all the action is at, and yes, the Warhound appears to be the real winner here. I ended up losing after a really good start, mostly because of poor control on my side, but I was disappointed that mixing in Hellions was pretty worthless, and Thors even melted to the Warhound.

When I think about it, it all feels beta-ish and underwhelming, but I can’t deny that I’m excited about playing StarCraft again. After playing that TvT, I thought that I might try laddering WoL again to get my skills back in shape. And being able to play unranked games will do wonders for ladder anxiety. If I get back into it, I’m sure you’ll hear about it here. In the meantime, enjoy all the pros coming out of the woodworks to stream again.

Observations about the KeSPA Exhibition, MLG Spring Championship, and Heart of the Swarm

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Hopefully you didn’t miss the yet again biggest weekend in StarCraft 2 eSports, which was this time held in Anaheim. I actually managed to watch quite a bit of it, so here are some thoughts.

Stephano v. MKP in the Championship Bracket

Phenomenal. Now, it seems difficult to not be a Stephano fan because he consistently delivers great series of games. In my mind, this series showed how pro SC2 has become truly refined. It was slight mistakes in a single major engagement that really determined 2 of these games. In the first game, Stephano attacked from 3 sides but didn’t quite get the tanks killed fast enough or fungal enough Marines to death. In the second, MKP got too far onto creep without sieging and cleaning it up and got trapped. The final game went back and forth with trades and sacrifices. Great games.

KeSPA Invitational Tournament

I watched all of Flash’s games and the 2nd and most of the 3rd of Jaedong v. Bisu. Sadly, I dozed off for the apparently embarrassing parts of Jaedong’s play, but overall, I thought the games were solid. Flash was sometimes clumsy with small groups of units, but his micro in big engagements looked good, and he maintained his macro throughout the matches. I thought the early game was quite interesting, with the Marauder rushes and quick Mutas. The builds seem almost too straightforward to be used professionally, but there’s apparently some merit to them, and the games ended up playing out more normally. I’m looking forward to where they are in a few more months.

Heart of the Swarm

Watch the unit update, Battle Report 1, and Battle Report 2 if you get a chance. Overall, I like the changes they’ve made since the Blizzcon announcement and am actually quite excited to play post-expansion. The Battle Reports are somewhat silly as I think it’s clear that they were playing to show off the new units and how overpowered David Kim is. The race I’m least excited about is Protoss: the Oracle looks more annoying than anything else, and the Tempest doesn’t seem like it adds much to micro control. In any case, it’ll totally be worth playing when it’s released. Hopefully it brings a few more friends into (or back into) StarCraft 2.