Another game where I go last-ditch swarm hosts against a Terran who's basically killed me:



He left right after this, down to 1 mining base (I was about to kill the center gold). Turns out SH is pretty good against people who never transition to ravens. The 4 bases pictured were the only 4 bases I ever had the whole game.

FWIW, my clan went busto and I still suck at all MU. If anybody has a good active one, let me know. Sincerely, Dia Terran who still doesn't get this game.

Maybe we should just do a 2p2 tourney instead. That way I can be punished for my ineptitude.

Not meaning your game (since you said you were almost dead), but how do you ever get SH out vs bio/mine? I feel like the only times I see it, it dies before +3 weapons (whereas a heavy bane player gets to play an even game for quite a while). Is it just a transition for if your bane hits do extra well and Terran can't pressure hard enough anymore?

I should prob watch GM+ players who like to go for earlier SH vs bio. Who does that again?

FWIW, pretty sure Thors don't have any bonus vs light. Or, at least, if they do, I've been being an idiot playing Thors for a while now.

The flying locust is gonna be zoned by mine, pretty sure, at least over harass possible cliffs. As far as frontal sieges go, Raven PDD is gonna be a huge hit to Terran mech plays, but mines still make Zerg have to pre-spread units and think about formations that bait shots for minimal splash (staggering Locust vs mine cooldown, or even *gasp* controlling them). But making Thor/Banshee/Hellbat an even more viable early mid-game comp for Mech is prob not what Zerg needs (Thor dealing with SH Lair tech). If they do, I'm prob switching back to Mech and learning how to use Ravens better (they used to be so OP if you could get 4 out after Fax metal that control and maximizing usage wasn't important, just getting PDD on the field), since opening Banshee into single Armory 3 base +1 Thor is already so tempting given how Zergs at my level tend to play vs 2 base 2 gas openers in ZvT (read: tech greed toward muta with minimal gas spent to defend 3rd).

only one i watched, i guess that kid didnt get the idea after the first 4 times he walked his army into a surround for no reason.

lolgold tho how does he lose

The thing about hackers is, if you can get out of the early portion of the game without some sort of major deficit, they pretty much all fall apart in the early mid-game with any sort of 2-prong poke.

Their anti-air weapon does double damage vs light units, which is why they're so good vs muta. I assume that while locusts are flying, that same thing will happen.

Disclaimer: I'm bad, but usually I'll make like 8 of them against the type of biomine where players try to siege you up with mines outside your 3rd or 4th. They deny the Terran's ability to just dart in and run behind their minds as they wish. I think it winds up being a very efficient use of the 24 supply they take up compared to lings or banes that wind up being difficult to trade well against people who are aggressive at clearing creep and splitting their units.

I don't know of any good players who do that against bio, so it probably isn't very good and just works against bad players. (which, admittedly, still describes diamond Terrans)

That's something I feel like is kinda broken about the current meta, especially on maps where it's difficult to scout. Like, take cross spawns on Inferno Pools - you basically are not scouting a Terran for a long time while your overlords get over there, and you don't know if they're going greedy 3CC or hellbat-banshee and you need to prepare defensively in order to not die in case of the latter. The third base is super far away and hellion-reaper pressure can make your life miserable if you take it too fast before getting creep out there, so you basically have to do some kind of 2 base muta into 3rd opening to not die - meaning Terran can take a much faster third base than you do, and you can't do anything about it unless you're Life. And lol roach/bane all-ins with that much distance to cover and no roach speed.

The fact that Terran can kill Zerg very quickly if Z can't scout gives them the cover they need to be able to play much greedier than the Zerg player, who must be very safe.

lolgold

You're plat Random? We should practice.

Also, wtf Thor bonus to light in splash mode. I guess it was for Lings and Zealots at their feet, but they left it in there post-Hellbat. It will help vs Locust tho, but those things look so beefy that I'm imagining them taking HP damage from a Thor volley and just all living and killing everything anyways before disappearing.

The ZvT problem is real. Most of the games at my level, the problem seems to be Zerg's not knowing how Terran works, though, as opposed to any sort of intrinsic problem with the MU. Easiest early game example: At Dia and even the Masters streams I watch, they don't know the differences between a 1/2/3 Reaper open and what it means for them (<10% of Zerg's use their OL well vs >1 reaper opens; read: no Marine coming, Rax building Reactor for Fax, OL should be hovering over Terran's base spotting 2nd gas timing and what the Rax and Fax builder do after the Fax finishes). When Terran goes 1gas/3cc, Zerg's seem to automatically think "Roach/bane" for their allin, but something like 4 gas/2 base Nydus rush with Roach works just as well sometimes on the type of maps you prob mean (looks like Muta to Hellion/Reaper prob, so Terran's mins tend to go toward fast Turret in the mineral line rather than fast Rax production after 1/1 starts). As far as 2gas Banshee with Armory support, if you know Terran's 2nd gas timing, it should be blockable with a handful of Roaches (how many depends on how many Queens you open) and by cutting tumors and saving a couple extra injects. If you didn't scout his gas timing, well, yeah, you might just lose. But OL is OP vs 2+ Reaper opens, and one Reaper lowground CC is soft against Pool first, so if you're really struggling vs the Banshee/Hellbat play at your 3rd, you could try opening 15 Pool and making 6 lings for a lowground CC cancel vs no SCV scout, and skipping the lings vs a SCV. That way if he opens 1 Reaper, your lings do damage if he goes low (if he doesn't without an SCV scout it's 90% hack and you can win from there vs a hacker since he's lower skill than you), and if he opens 2 or more Reapers your OL spots his gas timing for sure.

Either way, his Hellbat timing should be gone.

Should've said: If SCV scouts 15 Pool, Terran has to choose between going more than 1 Reaper, keeping Reaper at home, or building high ground CC. Or gambling that SCV scout forced no lings and just build low and send Reaper. Not a good spot to be in, honestly, esp that early in the game.

No, I'm plat Zerg (and regularly struggle against gold Terrans while streaming on low MMR smurfs, apparently). I would be down to practice though.

They aren't smurfs, goofy.

jk - I have no idea.

I miss this game. When's LOTV beta and ****?

I'm pretty sure, the best way not to lose to gold Terran, is to practice vs a scrubby dia Terran.

Oh man, I just made a mass raven player ragequit so hard. As soon as I figured out what he was up to I went up to 4-5 bases with no army and just massed mutas. He never took a third or got out of his base on Secret Spring. He never landed a single seeker missile against my maxed out muta army. After 3-4 failed attempts at taking a third he typed "god" and alt-f4ed out of Starcraft (when I got back to the menu and tried to msg him to talk **** he was already offline).

Felt amazing.

edit: click this http://imgur.com/9RqdPOG

LOL

Very nice. Early Raven players deserve to die TvZ.

If it was a fast ebay/Planetary play, he did it wrong (fast 3rd required). But I think you did, too. There's like, at least 3 ways to deny any chance of Ketroc winning a game (his strat is pretty terrible vs some one who's thought about it before), but I think taking 5 bases and going Muta from there off like 8 gas or something is prob an auto loss vs a good Raven player. I think...

PDD and AT just hold it down too well, and Mutas become useless very fast vs >4 gas. Seeker is prob the worst spell vs units with decent speed (Muta/Medivac/Pheonix) unless you KNOW they're off camera (and even then), since a decent player is just gonna friendly the crap out of you, or make you spend it on 1 unit (sometimes just HP) and then it's gone forever and time to retreat (as opposed to PDD/AT zoning for time and letting the Terran regain energy before its timer runs out; Durable is pretty hot).

Granted, when I meched I used to go 2/2 metal before more than 1 Raven hit the field, but if I got 6 Ravens up, it felt like the only way to lose was poor control or not making enough mineral defense for some reason.

I've thought about whether going 2 evo ranged and keep off geysers and shipping all the mins to Queens would work vs Ketroc, but I don't know enough to sim it in my head. It might, though. Tumors are usually not guaranteed obv vs Raven, but with enough Transfuse, the PDD energy might get worn, and Queens take more than 1 seeker I'm guessing so spamming transfuse might negate a seeker spam with PDD support, so I don't know. If you did manage to get a zillion Queen to get tumors past halfway, Inf/Ultra tech would prob end it. Seems kinda silly and gambly, though, when you have earlier options. But if it works every time, then obv it's just as good. Although, Raven players have a ridic amount of minerals once they get 3 bases, so dropping Rax and hitting stim prob isn't the hardest thing to switch into.

What's a good raven player, exactly? I doubt I'll ever play one in SC2. When you consider that Ke.tr.oc (he plays poker and reads 2+2, and was hilariously passive aggressive in kaitlyn's chat the other day about the fact that I've talked **** about him here) has like 40apm, no map vision/awareness, and doesn't cross onto your side of the map before 15:00, I think going up to like 80 drones on 10-12 gases and then maxing on mutas (at which point no amount of static defense stops your muta ball, esp after upgrades, and ravens can't be everywhere at once) before your opponent has enough ravens to be able to seeker/PDD/autoturret away your army is actually pretty ideal. Yeah, someone who isn't terrible won't let you do that...but when Ke.tr.oc is in diamond league (and has been masters before!!) with those skills, when do you start playing against the "good" raven players, GM?

I haven't been playing metal in TvZ, but I think a good Raven player usually gets 2/2 metal first.

Oh, I see what you mean. I don't know, really, since I've never tried to figure out how to tech directly to Raven, but I guess I'm assuming that once Terran gets 6 gases and is safe, the Raven player can actually control his way to victory (since PDD/AT is ridic), but I don't actually know if that's true. Muta controls vision and keeps units in base, but with PDD/AT, not really since they zone for so long, unless you're saying the Zerg can focus down any energy at that point. Terran's not supposed to care too much about killing off the Muta, so much as he wants to take another 2 gases and just wants to seal up against too much free damage. But slow pushes like that with no real creep push threat let Zerg bank so much that you're relying on them controlling poorly over the course of a 40m game or not knowing what game they're in earlier on and just throwing it away before it starts. I don't know. The strategy seems pretty... silly. I mean, if you're just playing for giggles, sure, but that guy has been playing for years and years and whenever I click on his stream, I'm ashamed to control the same race. His info gathering is zero, his Raven control consists of having 1-2 control groups and flying around in a clump and spamming AT (granted, he's pretty good at that part, knowing where to be and stuff), and his smugness after a win is almost embarrassing to behold, in a cringe-inducing empathetic way.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Can you even begin to comprehend how good Life is going to be on a kespa team?

No more Zerg buffs ever, even as the rest of Aligulac's top 10 is filled with Terrans and Protosses.

Blizz has a LotV development update today. Cliffs: in which they realize they suck at making RTS games!

link

Terran:
- HERC removed, because Blizzard sucks at making units
- Thor self-repair mode removed, because Blizzard sucks at making balance changes

Protoss:
- new unit added, they haven't named it but it's a core gateway unit with a ground-only ranged attack and has a weird ability where it sends out a "shade" of itself and after some time teleports to the location of the shade, which can independently be moved around (but not attack or be attacked). Knowing Blizzard and Protoss, it will probably be game-breaking
- Immortal damage barrier thing no longer requires an upgrade and the damage absorbed by the barrier is reduced from 200 to 100
- Tempest: they're considering removing whatever they changed to make it more similar to HotS tempests but without hard countering brood lords or cattlebruisers

Zerg:
- Infestor ability vs. mass air moved to viper; I have no idea what this ability they're talking about even is
- Roach burrow movement no longer requires an upgrade, takes effect as soon as burrow is researched

Gonna be sick to see what kind of builds Parting comes up with that revolve around throwing shade.

For the 3 people that still read this forum, I love you guys.

Not sure where to post this...

Ok
Back in the day, I bought NA key and EU key, before they allowed you to switch regions. Both are tied to my same account. Is it possible to get the EU one split off or get a new key to activate it on another account. Or am I asking for too much?