Author Archives: kevin

Roaches and Hydralisks have a melee attack w/ no delay or overkill

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http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/upr82/til_roaches_have_a_melee_attack_and_that_this/

No delay means that Stalkers can’t blink away. No overkill means that all of your Roaches won’t waste extra shots when you focus fire, say, an Immortal. Additionally, because it’s melee, it isn’t affected by Guardian Shield or Point Defense Drone and is packaged with a different animation. It does, however, still count range upgrades.

How did I not know about this? And I thought that the Roach surround was just to stop kiting. I now have a good reason to micro my Roach-Hydralisk balls even more than just getting them all in range.

Will Proleague change the metagame?

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Brood War pros may only be Masters league on the Korean server, but you have to admit, it is fun to watch them play in Proleague.

I watched the first night of Proleague and have caught a few games here and there before heading to bed, and I have constantly been wondering whether we’re going to see something new from the Brood War pros. Of course, it’s only a matter of time before their understanding of and familiarity with the game brings them up to a competitive level against the current StarCraft 2 pros, but will they converge to the accepted play style, or will they bring new builds and looks to the game? I’m hoping for the latter, and a few things are giving me hope.

First, I have seen some strange stuff. Maybe Motive is weird, but how do you play Protoss without Colossi? But what about these guys, playing PvP without Colossi? Phoenix v. Phoenix fights aren’t actually that much fun to watch, but it’s certainly a strange game state to end up in. And proxy reactored Hellions into a Viking-Siege Tank contain? In the end, the midgame looks normal and it doesn’t work, but that early game was more fun than most TvT I watch, which maybe has some Marine pressure that gets held off by a single bunker.

Second (which the last game I mentioned is a good example of), these guys are all about aggression. Call it cheesy if you want, but 2 base all-ins are fun, unpredictable, and possibly devastating. Some of it fails and makes the player look really bad (Jaedong’s Roach play in his first game comes to mind), but it’s refreshing. Artosis made the point that cheese can be the first step in learning to get better, and to be honest, I don’t really remember what people were trying when SC2 was first released and whether it’s the same stuff that we’re seeing in Proleague now.

But it is fun to watch, and you even get a bit of both worlds in Proleague to wield against the Brood War hipster. To show Julie, I played a game of Brood War the night before Proleague. Despite funky mouse acceleration problems in OSX, I impressed myself with my play: I’m way better than I ever was now that I’ve learned how to macro from SC2. If you haven’t in awhile, fire it up: it’s frustrating, but I think you’ll enjoy it.

Apollo’s analysis of a bad engagement

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I happened to catch the last game between Bomber and Stephano in the GD Studio SC2 Arena this morning. Forgive me if I’m a little stale on the metagame, but Stephano’s style felt very similar to his ZvP. His third comes later and his tech comes faster, but he depends on heavy upgrades and just enough ling/roach/infestor to carry him through the midgame.

I agree with Apollo that he rushed into things and didn’t commit. When he goes into the last engagement with 4 Brood Lords, some Infestors, and a few lings and roaches, he probably could’ve come out much more favorably had he gone for it. Stephano does a great job running his lings by, and between that and Broodlings, he could’ve gotten a surround and let tank splash damage mop up the army.

In the end, though, the better advice would’ve been not to take that engagement. He might have noticed the lack of Vikings and felt that he had a timing there, but without his 4th saturated, he would’ve been safer getting a few spines and using that as an anchor for a push.

qxc mentioned something about this in the last State of the Game, but Zerg is really pushing to get to the late game as soon as possible, which is a little strange. Stephano especially wowed a lot of people with extremely effective Zerglings in the early and mid game. Perhaps he found that other players were locking down better, but constant pressure feels like the right way to play Zerg.

But this is all theorycrafting on my part. I’m just proud I played a few games of random 2s last night. It turns out that playing random 2s instead of Zerg 1v1 is much less stressful, and now that I finished Mass Effect, I might be playing more StarCraft 2 until I pick up another game.

Done before even starting

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I’m about 4 weeks out of school right now, and like every time before, I overestimated how much time I would have after a major shift in my life. I had many things I wanted to do, and a few weeks in, I have needed to cut various plans. Unfortunately for this blog, practicing StarCraft is one of them.

There are a few different reasons why. First, there are other things I would rather do. If you read my regular blog, you might be aware that I’m currently trying to write a book, and even just the research for that is pretty menacing (though a lot of fun). I also have had a chance to get back into playing RPGs, which were a staple of my childhood. I currently own 5 and have another 4 that I have yet to get through and hope to do so soon. Right now, I’m loving my 2 hours of Mass Effect a week, and I think that’s a healthy point to be at.

Second, I have actually drifted out of the game while having more free time. Particularly, I’m watching much less than I was during school because I don’t need to procrastinate anymore. Before, I knew I needed to be back to schoolwork soon, and it was easy to flip on a stream to relax for a few minutes. Now, if I want to do something possibly in-depth, I can.

Finally, practicing just wasn’t fun for me. Like anyone else, I have ladder anxiety. That in itself is nasty enough to deal with, but when I realized that I didn’t really want what was on the other side of practicing (in the form of laddering), it didn’t seem worth it to try to get past it.

After practicing for a few months, what would I have? Well, I would probably still only be winning 50% of my games because of the design of the ladder, so day to day, I wouldn’t feel any better. I’m sure I would be much better, but that talent isn’t particularly transferrable, and it would actually make it even harder to play with my friends, most of whom play only casually.

So this is largely the end of the spirit of this blog, which never really got started. I was waiting for the time to practice, but now I have the time, I don’t really want to practice anymore. Despite that, I’m fairly proud of my skill level and understanding of the game now. I’ll still be watching tournaments, browsing /r/starcraft, playing casual games with my friends, and maybe even updating this blog as I do those things.

But don’t let this demoralize you if you’re still practicing and working at StarCraft. This game has had a tremendous effect on me, and as I mentioned, I’m not completely dropping out. Feel free to comment on what I’ve written so far, send me messages to try to change my mind (I’m easy to find: @warstrekkid on Twitter is one of many online presences I have), and keep building probes and pylons.

Trying to play like Stephano

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Replay Here

Like usual, I have managed to over-promise on the amount of free time I have after a major change. So far, I’m 2 weeks out of school and into working full-time, and I think I’ve only managed maybe 2 non-trivial StarCraft play sessions so far. I’m enjoying life quite a bit right now and have managed to do many different things, though I’ll try to stay dedicated to this game as best I can.

This morning, I played the linked game first. It’s a ZvP on Metalopolis, and it went pretty well. I tried out the Stephano style (described in my post here), which involves a quick gasless 3 base opening into spine crawlers in the midgame to get to Brood Lord/Infestor as soon as possible. My opponent opened Gateway first on the high ground, so I didn’t take my third immediately, but I did soon after. Overall, the game went as well as I could’ve hoped: I got to the late game quickly, had my initial, poorly balanced army smashed, fell back to the spine crawlers, and used my huge trust fund to put together the perfectly composed army. In short, it worked.

The game, however, was altogether quite passive. My opponent didn’t really ever put much pressure on me, and I should done a few more run-bys. I think that sort of play is more in my mechanics than the build itself: I just don’t have the multi-tasking and decision-making to execute run-bys along the path of my strategy.

Still, a win is a win, and afterwards, I managed to go 4-1 playing random on random 2v2 ladder. Even better, I won with all 3 races. Playing random and playing multiplayer are both much less stressful than laddering 1v1 Zerg, and I recently have considered playing random again to deal the my ladder anxiety that has largely kept me out of the game for the past 2 weeks. The most important thing, I think, is that I just play more, so we’ll see if I can muster up the will without changing the conditions.

Prioritizing mechanics on the mental checklist

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In Day[9] Daily #345, Day[9] suggests a process for improving mechanics: prioritize it at the top of the mental checklist at the expense of other things, see what it earns you, and slowly assimilate it into regular play. For Zerg, here are a few things I can think of that might work:

  • Creep spread
  • Overlord spread
  • Larva inject (as discussed in the Daily)
  • Expanding every 5 minutes
  • Never supply blocked
  • Army always split into 2 control groups
  • Constantly scouting
  • Keeping minerals below 400 at all times
  • Paying attention to alerts

Stephano late game transition ZvP

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Whenever we’re talking about interesting, innovative Zerg play, it always ends up being about Stephano. A lot of that has to do with his success and the desire to emulate his playstyle, but it does often seem like he’s just ahead of the curve. Particularly, he was asked by Nony on the last State of the Game about what problems he had in ZvP, and his answer: none. In fact, he said that Protoss needed a buff. Who else has ever claimed that their own race was imbalanced?

Anyways, there’s a lot of fascination with his play. I just discovered a new blog, Zergology, which has a really good primer on Stephano’s Roach midgame push ZvP. And Day[9] recently had a Daily about Stephano’s late game transition. I’ll reiterate the main points of that, then throw together the build order from it. But really, you should get it straight from the horse’s mouth first and watch the Daily.

In essence, the plan appears to be to get to late game as soon as possible, which is Brood Lord-Infestor-Spine Crawler. To do that, Stephano just drones for the first 8 minutes (while Protoss is hiding behind a FFE), goes relatively Roach-light in the midgame while getting Spines up early, stays with Infestors, then gets Hive just before the Protoss deathball would hit around 17-19 minutes.

Here are the rough build orders from the 3 games that Day[9] showed:

Stephano ZvP Game 1

  • 16/2:00 Spawning Pool
  • 16/3:00 Hatchery
  • 24/4:30 3rd Hatchery
  • 45/6:00 2 Gas
  • 60/7:00 Lair, Evolution Chamber, Roach Warren (in time for 8:00 Warp Gate)
  • 7:30 Zergling Speed
  • 8:15 starts building an army (16 Zerglings, 5 Roaches)
  • 8:30 3rd & 4th Gas, Roach Speed
  • 9:15 4th Hatchery
  • 9:30 Melee attack upgrade
  • 9:45 Spine Crawlers
  • 10:30: Infestation Pit
  • 11:50: Infestors started, last Roaches built
  • 13:00 Spine Crawlers (in time for 17-19 minute deathball)
  • 15:00 Hive, double Spire

Stephano ZvP Game 2

  • 15/2:00 Spawning Pool
  • 16/3:00 Hatchery
  • 24/4:15 3rd Hatchery
  • 54/6:30 triple Gas
  • 7:00 Roach Warren, Evolution Chamber
  • 8:00 Zergling Speed
  • 8:15 4th Hatchery, +1 Melee Attack
  • 9:00 Roach speed, Spore Crawlers, army started
  • 9:15 Infestation Pit
  • 10:00 10+ Spine Crawlers
  • 13:30 Hive, double Spire
  • 15:00 Corruptors

Stephano ZvP Game 3

  • 15/2:00 Spawning Pool
  • 16/2:50 Hatchery
  • 23/4:20 3rd Hatchery
  • 46/6:00 double Gas
  • 63/7:00 Lair, Roach Warren, Evolution Chamber
  • 70/7:30 3rd Gas, Zergling Speed
  • 70/8:00 army started
  • 100/9:00 +1 Melee attack, 2nd Evolution Chamber, 4th Hatchery
  • 9:30 Roach Speed
  • 10:00 Infestation Pit
  • 10:30 4 Spine Crawlers, no more Roaches
  • 12:00 more Spine Crawlers
  • 14:00 Hive

I think smart players would tell you not to worry too much about the exact build orders, but when you don’t have the time to invent and learn these build orders, it can be hard to understand what other players are doing without something concrete, so hopefully it helps you to learn this style.

One caution, though: Stephano did lose 2-1 ZvP to Inori to get knocked out of the MLG Winter Championship earlier today, and Idra promptly beat Inori 2-0 right after that. I didn’t watch the games, but maybe Stephano doesn’t have the matchup perfectly figured out as he thought.

A new mouse incoming

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I’m on a bit of hiatus right now as I’m headed into my last finals week ever, but a week and a half from now, I’ll be free from classes and hopefully will play a bit more.

As a bonus for that, I just ordered a Logitech G400 to replace my Logitech MX700. You can read more about that process on my main blog, but in any case, I’m looking forward to it. To jump on the bandwagon, I also switched up my mouse settings in Windows according to the consensus best practices. I tried it the other day, and it really screwed with me, but I can see how FPS players care for the extremely precise control. Thankfully, I do regular computing in Mac OS and gaming in Windows, so it isn’t affecting my regular work.

Now anyone can be a StarCraft Master

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If you haven’t heard, Blizzard has released StarCraft Master, a custom map with 30 challenges involving intense micro and knowledge of a few tricks. I beat it yesterday over the course of maybe 2 hours, most of which was spent on scoot-and-shoot and tank-pickup.

My review? It’s a lot of fun and helpful if you’re unaware of a few tricks. I clearly obsessed enough about beating it that I played it over the course of 3 sessions in one day for one of my heavier StarCraft days, though overall, I feel like I didn’t gain much from it. Having watched enough StarCraft, I mostly knew the tricks, and although cool, most of the micro is too intense to be worth the attention except in the most dire of circumstances.

But I definitely recommend it if you have the time. It’s not too stressful, and as important as macro is, I think the coolest and most fun part of StarCraft is the little micro stuff anyways (Brood War pimpest plays anyone?).

If you’re really looking for micro training, though, check out Darglein’s Micro Trainer. It’s generally well-done and a lot of fun to ramp up the difficulty on.