Blizzard's thoughts on swarm hosts, specifically in ZvZ: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/star...on-swarm-hosts

The second change is LOL, sure let's make vipers unable to abduct colossi/tempests/mothership/thors, good one David Kim! I'm not sure if the first change would do what they're looking for, I guess we wait and see if Stephano starts abducting broods into a group of 10 hydras instead of a group of spores.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I thought about this at work today, and I decided I was wrong -- I think we actually haven't seen enough high level games (stephano isn't high level; I'm talking soulkey or soo or someone who actually plays ZvZ at a GSL level) to accurately determine if this strategy is actually something that needs to be nerfed. Mass tempest with mothership and Templar is unbeatable in a straight up fight PvT, but it wasn't nerfed because there are many ways to beat it, either by killing them before that, or attacking in other places.

We've seen what -- 5 games max of this, one of involving a borderline WCS America code a player, and one of them involving a player who wasted at least 5k in gas trying to kill the economy of a player using free units. Neither petraeus nor jaedong vs stephano was a remotely high-level game, and until we start to see soulkey or soo or life lose constantly to this, I don't think it's fair to say its a broken strategy.

Boring? Yes. Very tilting and stupid and relatively skill-less? Sure. But just because a strategy is stupid, doesn't mean it should be removed.

Basically I think that there's probably a way to crush this strategy, and once it's discovered, no one will do it anymore.

Just got back from cruse, highly recommend cruses.

Anytime Jaedong loses a ZvZ its a high level game.

I like swarmhost on swarmhost play. Winning strategical elements of it take very high apm & are micro intensive.

guess im back to lvl if this is a tr here

Just for fun, I'm trying out some double gas steal openings on my smurf to see what happens. Results:

Z: did double gas steal into 14/14 and speedling all-ined just as he was starting to get roaches out, won, just one game so far (it wasn't very fun cause lolzvz so I just started quitting out of them)
P: also just one game so far, he cannon rushed me in return (went forge first) and I dealt with it poorly and lost, so not a very good sample yet
T: five games, went 3-2:
- my drones get there and he's 8-8-8ing, already has gas down, so I abandon the plan and just don't expand, get fast ling speed, wait until I defend it before expanding, come out of it fairly ahead (I think, I double expanded once ling speed finished whereas he didn't take a third for a long time) and win a long mech game without toooooo much trouble
- he goes biomine against it on Waystation short spawns, I lose
- he goes biomine against it on King Sejong (which I normally veto because I think it's bad for Zerg), I was doing okay but take a bad engagement and lose my army and leave
- he tries a big marine attack in response ("big" as in like 8-10 marines pretty quickly), which I think is what I'm generally hoping my opponents will do, I scout it and hold easily with two queens + maybe eight lings, he then transitions into mech (???) which throws me off cause I was sitting on ling/bling/ultra but I think he never took a third base cause he was pretty contained after the early attack so I still won
- he tries to go mech off of it, basically mass thor/hellbat, super weird, once again I scout the mech late and don't prepare well and it becomes a super weird game where he keeps trying to go around my swarm hosts and lose his entire army to kill my base/tech, eventually I get brood lords and he has little to no answer for them and I win

I've been doing this against plats and diamonds. It's pretty stupid but kinda fun to try something different.

i can't imagine how much mining you lose double gas stealing vs P/T on >2 player maps

I have the non-2 player maps vetoed. Which is why I'm playing King Sejong which I hate. Just lost another ZvT on it to someone who expanded, massed marines, then dropped me with two full medivacs (so easy on that map) while attacking my front.

I think it would work best against P because they take the latest gas so I can send my drones later. Plus it means no mship core, no warpgate, etc for them for awhile which is hugely beneficial to you. But I've only gotten one Protoss

I think I got it out of my system now. I lost a really long and stupid game against a Protoss where I did the block, they went gateway into forge into cannon rush, I think I went hatch first? and pulled lots of drones and successfully stopped the cannon rush (killed lots of cannons/pylons) but the double steal + lost mining time really hurt me and it took forever to saturate my bases.

Looking at the end of the cannon rush, it was 2 hatches + 11 workers (he killed 3 drones) vs 1 base, 21 probes. I equaled him in workers around 9:00 when he already had a robo + 3 gates on two bases while I hadn't started my lair or a third yet.

Was fun to try but doesn't seem very good. In case anyone was wondering.

LOLLLLLLLLL

Gonna take a while. Prolly happen like tomorrow I guess. Have so many pics/videos.

So weird to still feel like your on the boat, as in my body is rocking left and right randomly.

He lost 3-2 to Sen Tough draw.

Game 1: Frost, loses to mass speedling all-in that I think was completely unscouted until it hit his wall
Game 2: Habitation Station, GC returns the favor with a speedling + baneling all in and wins
Game 3: King Sejong Station, GC starts off gasless and goes into quick-ish lair + 1/1 roach upgrades, while Sen both takes a fast-ish third and makes a bunch of slow roaches and speedlings to attack. GC cancels the armor upgrade to get as many roaches as possible out and holds with an advantage of roach speed and +1, and chases Sen's army all the way back, kills all the drones at his 3rd; then he basically maxes on roaches, gets burrow/burrow movement/+2, attacks and wins.
Game 4: Overgrowth, goes muta vs muta, Sen takes a slightly faster 3rd and then also cancels Guitarcheese's 3rd with a ling runby, GC is a little down in both lings and mutas for the rest of the game as a result and it snowballs as Sen constantly attacks at the 3rd
Game 5: Merry Go Round, GC goes for a big speedling/bane attack again but Sen scouts it, holds it off with his own banelings + a spine, winds up with basically every advantage (faster 3rd, faster lair -> faster roach speed, faster upgrades, more roaches) and GC can't hold the attack

He talked about switching races after WCS cause he isn't enjoying playing Zerg a lot anymore, we'll see if he goes through with it

lol yeah thats such a weird sensation. despite boating as long i can remember, the first time of vacation or on my moms boat i get that feeling always trying to sleep that night.

****ing sucks. Like try doing a push up under that sensation. It was a horrible workout today.

lol anytime we go to my friends parents boat(baby yacht? 42ft i think) i consider it a pure vacation, so while they do insanity and act like they care, i go full lax, so no pushups or anything more strenuous (on purpose..)

last time we went we took out a kayak with a hole in the back, friend tips it within minutes of leaving and cant get back in til i got out, when i realize the hole. prob took on >500lbs of water as we swim to the smallest boat we can get out of the water into. friend is carrying the kayak, i have both paddles, one sandal, one beer in my hands. spend a good 10 mins trying to pull it out of the water to no avail, then i have to hold it for 30 mins while he launches his jetski singlehandedly to come around and pull it to shore. we were gone ~2 hours and none of our friends at the beach noticed til we got back =(

Newb here. Does this ever go on sale? Does everyone have both HOTS and WOL? which one is better if I can only get 1

You have to buy WoL if you want hots

Just get the starter edition. You can play all the races and all arcade games+custom games are available.

did we ever reach a decision about whether people that lie about their race when going random are ****ty people or not?

i'm in the ****ty people category.

Or just scout 100% of the time?

i'm not talking about how it affects the game (i scout anyway), i'm talking about what they're doing

random players are garbage that just all in every game anyway; i'm not worried about losing to them

I think lying about what race you random in SC2 is one of the softest trolls ever. But it seems we disagree.

Guitarcheese should go random in tournaments. Like Balloon plans to.