I still think zerg is at a disadvantage, due to the significant amount of base-micro needed early-mid game.

9/27/2010 4:51:28 PM

well the patch took away 2 gate being effective in a PvZ and made 6-10 pooling more effective.

9/27/2010 5:15:15 PM

So I'm at 1070ish points in my silver 1v1 league, next closest is at 860. I'm 66-47, the next closest is like 77-81. WTF promote me. On a good note, I think when I do get promoted I'll bypass gold. I'm constantly getting matched up against platinum/diamond. I think the system continues to give you harder matchups without promoting you to see where you balance out, then once you balance out it will promote you.

And I just recently started using the 5RR every now and then. Its super fun, forces me to practice my micro with the roaches and absolutely rapes any protoss air rushes. Just dominated some platinum toss who went for nony's phoenix

9/27/2010 5:52:38 PM

The promotion system is just messed up, along with the matchmaking system.

Actually the entire ladder system is really a complete joke. I mean the fact they basically have to blog the top 200 players each week should be an embarrassment for a company as big as blizzard that has already released several games that had an automatic top 1000+ ranking system.

9/27/2010 6:03:01 PM

nony's phoenix against a terran? i really don't like that play.

a lot of people on TL see potential for phoenix harass in PvT, problem is that terran can most easily defend it, and it leaves you defenseless against MM timing pushes.

you can maybe open with gate, core, gate, stargate, gate but if you get more than say 4 phoenix you're going to be weak against anything on the ground early. and of course if they get a reactor on a starport you better put a cannon in the mineral line ASAP.

also if you scout 3+ rax, you better stop producing phoenix ASAP.

[Edited on September 27, 2010 at 6:11 PM. Reason : asdf]

9/27/2010 6:10:11 PM

^By 5RR I meant 5 roach rush, not 5 rax rush or anything I'm not even 100% thats what he was going for - when I busted into his base he only had 1 phoenix out, but it looked like it (2 gates, core, stargate).

9/27/2010 6:13:09 PM

i thought that meant 5 rax reaper for a sec haha. but yeah, going nony's vs. a roach rush will leave you behind

a lot of people like to do things like gate core stargate stargate gate. if i remember correctly the way it was coined for nony he opened gate, zealot, core, warpgate tech, sentry, gate, stalker, stargate, then later a second stargate. allows you to protect your choke more easily from ling runbys and can keep roaches out long enough to get that extra stalker or two to deal with it. you definitely can't go straight into phoenix or lings/roaches will kill you.

[Edited on September 27, 2010 at 6:19 PM. Reason : asdf]

9/27/2010 6:15:30 PM

I'm so sad to see one of my favorite tricks get treated as an abuse! I think if you have the skill and knowledge to do this (doesn't take much), then you should get the benefits from it:

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/627978741

9/27/2010 6:57:11 PM

^^ Yeah actually when I got there I should've probably pulled back. I had 5 roaches, 2 lings, he had 3 zealots and 3 stalkers and warped in a bunch more stalkers as we went. Of course he was a moron and I microed my 5 roaches till reinforcements arrived to clean up the stalkers who had wandered out :p

9/27/2010 7:29:10 PM

you know he was bad if he didn't have the sentry.

9/27/2010 9:57:33 PM

Patch 1.1.1 incoming:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=156450

9/27/2010 10:08:59 PM

they fixed the ultra bug

9/28/2010 3:36:08 PM

And in the process nerfed ultras mega hard. Their aoe sucks really bad. I agree they shouldn't have been hitting non repairing scvs but I see no issue with them hitting repairing scvs. Think of it this way, if you are standing there hammering on a building that is being smashed to pieces by a giant horned monster, you probably are gonna feel some aftershocks no matter where on the building you are.

Anyways, on an equally shitty note I'm now ranked in the 99th percentile of silver players. WTF promote.

And I'm in the top 200 for silver zergs, weee

[Edited on September 28, 2010 at 5:44 PM. Reason : a]

9/28/2010 5:44:10 PM

i wonder pre-bug fix what it did to the ultra vs. thor battle.


because I think thors are supposed to beat ultras?

9/28/2010 5:47:48 PM

No an ultra should take a thor 1v1, and in theory multiple ultras should win vs multiple thors unmicroed (so that they get hit by the aoe).

Check here - http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=156602

As you can see it is a big issue, especially with ultras vs smaller units too - look at the marines.

And they were working the same way in 1.1 that they were in 1.0, the only difference 1.1 made was to the planetary fortress. So in return they nerf them past that?

[Edited on September 28, 2010 at 5:50 PM. Reason : a]

9/28/2010 5:49:24 PM

Nexus Word Wars is my new favorite custom game. Between that and colonial wars i'm never gonna hit diamond.

Really though, I can only play so many 1v1's at a time, they are just so high focus that I can only do 2 or 3 before I have to take a break, my brain gets on overload.

9/28/2010 7:00:45 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NA2iRJFvKmk

If you haven't played it yet you need to. This game is so much fucking fun. Best way to do it is find at least one person to play with you (though you will need to use forcefields at the start to make sure you get on the same team), then one does top the other bottom. Save up till about 200 gold then send mass zealots, GG unless they nuke.

Anyways, great game, my 100wpm let me dominate all the games I played, I'm sure plenty of you guys can outdo me.

9/28/2010 10:48:20 PM

i was playing at about 90 APM for a good 8 minutes in a game today compared to my normal 40-60. it felt fast for me, and i wish i could keep that speed and improve on it. i'd love to play at >100

9/28/2010 11:17:03 PM

Yeah giving up on Ultras. Have to start working Broodlords into late game instead of the Ultras. Just not worth it, it should be a feared unit, such that if a Terran was to only have tier 1 units and you had Ultras it should be GG much like if you are zerg or terran up against Colosi with only tier 1 you are in big trouble. As it stands it is just a big slow target that you can take down pretty easily.

9/29/2010 12:06:52 PM

no dice, laptop still fubar with performance and the drivers were up to date, but reinstalled it for shits and giggles. Granted it's an old 7900gs, but it was working just find before 1.1 update.

9/29/2010 12:39:51 PM

Ultras seem stronger against protoss than against terran just because marauders are used so often. For protoss you really need immortals or void rays to deal with them, and good players tend not to get many of either (preferring to tech to either collusi, which do okay if you can keep them away from the ultras, or HT which are really ineffective)

9/29/2010 3:41:50 PM

In the first Semi final today Fruit Seller or whatever his name is used Ultra/Baneling/infestor against terran and it was pretty sick. This was his first game, I don't have the pass so I couldn't watch the rest of the games but hoping he won.

He got hit pretty hard with early reapers and even lost his expand but just had some crazy muta/queen play and finished with the Ultras. Watching the replay it is clear zerg isn't really under powered, you just have to have great timing and great micro/macro and with the other 2 races you can mess up in like 1 of the 3 or even 2 of the 3 and still win a game. Just not the case with Zerg, but when you are a pro you can pull it off.

9/29/2010 5:12:00 PM

He did indeed win, go go zerg!

9/29/2010 5:14:27 PM

FruitSeller is the man. By far my favorite zerg

9/29/2010 5:27:10 PM

^ I found a link I think it was on Ustream or youtube where someone was putting up all the GSL games for free but I couldn't find it again last night.

Does anyone have that? I'd love to see the rest of that ZvT matchup, FruitSeller was pretty fun to watch need to see more of that series.

Also, the announcers just crack me up. They really love their SC.

9/29/2010 6:22:47 PM

^I know the guy who had been doing it at the start of the GSL's got in trouble and got his youtube account suspended.

9/29/2010 7:15:40 PM

Link that shit

9/29/2010 8:11:38 PM

I never watched them on youtube myself. I just saw a thread about it on teamliquid. I'll try and find the thread again and see if anyone turned up another source of the replays.

http://www.youtube.com/lolforeignerz

[Edited on September 29, 2010 at 9:10 PM. Reason : there we go]

9/29/2010 9:07:40 PM

Fuck Battlenet garbage. It is lagging everyone out left and right. Just lost 2 would-be won games. Holy shit fuck battlenet.

9/29/2010 10:03:28 PM

Anyone got suggestions on a good website for buying a new computer?

I've seen before some websites that build pretty decent gaming computers at a solid price, I've google searched and found some options but didn't know if anyone had suggestions. I have to get a new computer anyway, mine is quite a few years old and I've done all the upgrading to it that I can. Tired of losing in 2v2s that go longer than 10 minutes because my computer locks up in battles with more than like 40 units on the screen.

9/30/2010 2:41:27 PM

I'll help you look if you give me a price range

tigerdirect and newegg generally have good prices on computers/parts if you don't wanna do manufacturer direct.

[Edited on September 30, 2010 at 2:55 PM. Reason : asdf]

9/30/2010 2:54:22 PM

^^ Go w/ the fastest clock speed you can afford. SC2 is more CPU-intensive than GPU. For GPU, I hear the GTX 460 and ATI 5870 are good choices

Also, right now SC2 is only optimized for 2 cores, so if you go for a quad-core, keep the clock speed thing in mind. Maybe one day they'll patch in better optimization for quad+ core processors (IDK if that's even possible, just saying it would me nice!)

[Edited on September 30, 2010 at 8:03 PM. Reason : cores]

9/30/2010 8:02:07 PM

No real price range exactly, just want to spend enough that it will get the job done but I know you can find really good deals out there if you know where to look and what to look for(which I don't).

I mean I've been told you can get a pretty solid gaming computer for around $500-600 off some websites but that seems cheap. I can keep my current computer and use it for work, so if I got another that was more gaming driven I could just use both.

9/30/2010 9:37:50 PM

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6729501&CatId=4149

that's a good start

^^Anything less than a GTX 480 is trash

[Edited on September 30, 2010 at 10:10 PM. Reason : ASDF]

9/30/2010 10:06:28 PM

Damn, 2,000... that hurts.

Gotta be less than that. I probably can't go about 1200 or so.

10/1/2010 12:06:38 AM

Only had time for one game last night, a 1v1 that of course was ZvZ. Lately like 50% of my games are ZvZ, I never get ZvP anymore. Anyways - discovered the usefulness of a roach wall vs an ling force. I built 7 roaches which I used to make a wall at my ramp and held off a force of about 50 lings and a few banelings long enough to get my mutas out to finish off his force.

And I'm such a damn Silver all star. 115th best silver player in the world, 53rd in the US, woo woo! promotion?

10/1/2010 6:27:46 AM

How do you think the 114 ahead of you feel??

wait your turn lowly silver!

10/1/2010 7:54:05 AM

Quote :

"Gotta be less than that. I probably can't go about 1200 or so."

Lil bro bought a $450 box, a $160 ATI card and a 21" monitor from tigerdirect. Runs SC2 flawlessly at max resolution and graphic settings.

10/1/2010 8:34:17 AM

I have a GTX 260 with an AMD Phenom II X4 965 and it runs SC2 extremely smoothly at the highest settings (1080p, etc). I can alt+tab between the game and my desktop with virtually no lag at all.

10/1/2010 9:45:21 AM

Well, donno what fixed it, but sc2 now runs just fine on my pos laptop again... plays fine on low setting. lol

Guess I don't need to buy the alienware 11x right away.

10/1/2010 10:09:55 AM

I'm fine 1v1 on low settings but like last night I was playing a 2v2 and it was late game and we were having a massive ling/muta/tank/mmm/stalker like game deciding battle at an expand and my teammate is yelling at me "MOVE YOUR TANKS!!!" and I'm just like "I CANTTTTT." I ended up giving him control and just trying to make forces. It also takes me about 3 minutes to alt+tab in and out of the game which stinks.

Looking through Tigerdirect seems like there are some good options. I think I can go with something in that 750-800 range and be ok. Going to look through more tonight and maybe post 3-4 of the options and those that know more can maybe take a look and help me out on this one.

I'm seeing a lot more zerg now as well. I've been working on a new build where I've gone 15 hatch/15 pool but I haven't been putting my hatch at the expansion but at the top of my choke. I'll then put 2-3 spine crawlers at my choke and start to expand the creep outward. Go roaches, and build up my economy on one base, I can then move the 2-3 spine crawlers down to the natural expand area and expand behind that and end up 3 hatch, 2 expands. Seems to also lessen the blow if I get behind on larva with that extra hatch plus 2 queens can keep 3 hatches infused well and your economy can support it. I've even gone so far as to drop an evo chamber w/ a spine crawler to completely wall off the choke, defend with roaches behind that and when I need to move out just move the crawler. This isn't anything earth shattering or new, but I've found that when I do the straight up early expand it is just to risky and I'm not able to hold that early all in MM/4 gate push. Doing this seems like it might be a solution, better than just straight up 1 base, but less risky than fast expand. Also works against zerg but instead of defending behind the crawlers so baneling can get to them I shift and put the roaches at the top of the choke, move the hatch back a bit and put the crawlers behind.

10/1/2010 1:03:00 PM

15 hatch/pool is kinda pushing it IMO if you dont have spine crawlers, couldnt a 6-pooler make it into your base before you have units out?

10/1/2010 1:46:50 PM

I mean I can get hit w/ a 6 pooler with my normal build, which is 14 gas/14 pool. I'll do that against zerg all the time and never been hit with a 6 pool in quite a few games now. You just don't see a 6 pool in games against 1000 point diamond players, and the few times I've seen it I can often hold with the number of drones I have and hope that my economic position is better off than his after the 6 pool.

My normal build in zvz has been 14 gas/14 pool, get drones to 15, OL, queen/lings/ling speed, baneling nest when ling speed is halfway, and then hit w/ lings and banelings around 28 supply. That has won me a lot of games but I'm finding that a lot more zergs are getting better at blocking the choke with the roaches.

You can modify the above build and do a 13 pool, 15 hatch at choke. Just delays the hatch a bit and you'll need more lings to defend. Usually people won't hit w/ lings until speed upgrade is done, and that timing lines up with being able to get that choke hatch up w/ spine crawlers and a few lings to slow things up going into roaches. Again idea being 3 hatches which help get your economy going quicker when you do expand, and the key is to keep building up your economy and still have enough roaches/crawlers in your one base to hold off that initial timing push from toss/terran. Using that choke to your advantage helps a ton. Expand right after that push and you'll have the expand up and going in no time because you can get drones on it fast w/ 3 hatches pumping drones.

10/1/2010 3:20:42 PM

You can probably find something with an i5 and a decent graphics card in that range.

And yeah, I don't see many good zergs 6-pooling.

I think Cool does a lot of 15 pool 16 hatch

[Edited on October 1, 2010 at 3:26 PM. Reason : asdfg]

10/1/2010 3:24:02 PM

I really want to get an 11x laptop for an ultra portable gaming laptop, but kind of worried about the size, since it's like mega thick and the fact that it's a good 1.5lbs compared to others in it's class; still a small 4.5 lbs. Also been researching about the defective hinge issue and for the price, the LCD screen kind of sucks and not very bright.

Really want to see the performance difference between the R1 & R2 in terms of all the CPU's that they have to see if going from C2D, i5, i7 chipsets. I could swing $700 for a system if it worked like I expect it to.

10/1/2010 4:29:07 PM

I could swing 700 just to quit losing games where there are more than 50 lings on the screen.

10/1/2010 4:32:49 PM

everyone has said even their low line R1 with the older C2D cpu still plays SC2 just fine at the "HD" 1366x768 res on medium to high settings; might bog down in larger battles down to 20fps, but that's still considered playable in my book. The i7's are better, but of what I've seen, it doesn't add that much to the fps of what you'd think considering theres a big price difference, also you end up loosing quite a bit of battery life with the i7, like 20-25% compared to the R1.

A decked out R2 with i7 can cost more than 1k, a little pricey for a 12" mobile pc IMHO considering a decent 14 or 15" laptop with similar specs can be had around 700-800ish range.

10/1/2010 4:50:24 PM

of course i wanna be a baller and drop ~1400 on an Asus G53JW after I get my enlistment bonus in a few months

10/1/2010 4:54:57 PM

Dog sitting for the gf's parents tonight/tomorrow. Brought my PC with me and planning to play a marathon session of SC2 tonight If anyone wants to play some 2's or anything shoot me a message!

10/1/2010 6:18:38 PM

i'll probably get on for a game or two. I need to work on my 2 gate robo huk style.

10/1/2010 11:57:46 PM