Artosis has his 2nd LotV blog out, with some good thoughts again: http://scdojo.tumblr.com/post/115837...tv-beta-blog-2

He correctly points out why the Viper is OP, and makes a good case why the ravager thing probably shouldn't damage buildings, but falls victim to some balance whining with roaches and corruptors:

Roach tech was not "already good" against Protoss, and the only point you're making by saying "well Life won the GSL" is how good Life is. Investing heavily into roach tech puts Zerg on a timer where they need to do significant damage, or even better end the game, before Protoss built up to an army that would shred a roach-based composition and end the game themselves. That isn't any different in LotV - an army full of roaches, or ravagers, isn't going to be any better against an advanced Protoss composition if the Protoss can hold on long enough to build the kind of army they want. The change is that Zerg has some more tools now to pressure Protoss before they get to that point, instead of seeing 80% of roach-based all-ins fail to good force field micro + photon overcharge. I understand that's probably a lot for Artosis to take in right now.

The mut-mut problem is why he's justified in calling the viper OP, like the fact that the viper can just annihilate stacks of phoenixes that already have to be microed a ton if individual units aren't microed out at the same time that's happening is stupid, but being like "well bah humbug if Protoss can't make all blink stalkers when Zerg makes corruptors and leave them sitting in the air like a bunch of flying paperweights", gtfo, phoenixes still get to pick up ground units when the mutas die.


Also, RIP swarm host/Zerg day hasn't happened yet, the Blizzard guy who announced it on Twitter misspoke before. I wonder how they'll handle it given that Code A for Korea is already happening, it's a huge disadvantage for any Zergs whose qualifiers take place after they drop the patch, and it's kind of lol Blizzard for giving misleading hints and then no hints to the poor Korean pros that have qualifiers in the next week who still have no idea which patch version they should practice for.

marine tank to plat, auto lose vs protoss ~halfway through gold

got a basic build order for me?

I'm not even gonna attempt reaper expand, don't have the multitasking ability or micro ability and would horribly botch it. Really, pretend that I've never played before.

Do reaper expand, just make one reaper and use it to scout, don't worry about killing workers until your multitasking is better. Bring it home after your scout and try to use it again later to hop in and see what's going on in their main.

BibleThump

reaper really is quite nice if you are gonna be playing 75% cheeses and ****ty allins

otherwise just 1 rax fast expand, get marines to be safe and then make tanks to win. i got back to about plat before i even bothered learning how to use widow mines back in the day.

Valid points, I'll give it a shot

I posted one comment, just one, in maximusblack's chat a few days ago, it was exactly this:

"Is this where we overreact about units and balance??"

Perma-ban. lol. Twitch modding is serious business!

nope, we come to 2p2 to do that ldo

RIP swarm host day is today. lol Blizzard for only announcing it the day of, at least when they mis-announced it before it was a day or two in advance.

There are three TvZs tonight in Code A/SSL challenger, Gumiho is playing in one of them which means guaranteed mech I believe, so it will be interesting to see how Korean pros react.

I predict that zerg players won't win another game ever again

I was excited to check out the Zergs playing in Korea last night to see what happened, wasn't that exciting, results of mech games in spoilers for anyone who isn't planning to watch Code A or SSL Challenger:

Where is everyone? Nobody playing since the patch?

I played a bit last night, my hot take on the new swarm hosts is: they're really good as individual units, and really bad as part of your army.

The good: the new locusts have had their DPS increased from 15 -> 20, and they pack a major punch. With 5 SH with flying locusts, I sent them over a cliff into a Protoss natural and the ten locusts targeted down the nexus (albeit with no static defense or army present) before expiring. The SH is a lot more mobile than before (30% faster, don't have to burrow) so you can hit and run with your locust waves somewhat - it is pretty cool for harassment. I had some hellions chasing my SH down in one game yesterday and I spawned a locust wave on the move and killed most of them plus two thors and a tank that were a-moving along behind. It feels pretty great to not have them just die instantly when cornered like before.

The bad: good lord, 4 supply and 200 gas is A LOT for a unit that spends half the game doing nothing. It's a minute between locust waves but locusts only last 25 seconds, so even with perfect efficiency, a small number like 6 swarm hosts still represents 24 supply of your army (not an insignificant number!!) that is literally useless 58% of the time. I had one game go lategame against Protoss and I was struggling a lot with figuring out what composition to make, he had stalkers and colossi and high templar with storm and some void rays, and my comp was...ling-hydra into roaches (once colossi showed up) into corruptors into brood lords? It felt very awkward, because any Zerg army that includes a large quantity of roaches is worse and worse as the game goes on, but at the same time we can't exactly do much else with that supply and be cost-effective with it. Maybe we make roaches because we lose the smallest amount of resources when that supply dies. I didn't even make swarm hosts that game, which kinda leads to the problem with the new design: there's no point in making them unless you're already ahead, at which point it doesn't really matter what you make. If you're behind in a game, dropping 4 supply and 200 gas on a swarm host that only spawns locusts once a minute is a terribly dumb move. Like, you can sneak around and shoot them over a cliff and snipe a base, and then your opponent a-moves and you die because you have all that wasted army supply. If you're even with your opponent, it's risky. If you're ahead, cool, you could probably have just made brood lords instead for the same effect.

Basically, it's great for trolling bad kids on ladder. I had numerous people last night who were like "wtf there was a patch?" or my favorite, "WTF WHEN DID I START PLAYING LOTV". But I would be surprised if we see them in high-level ZvP or ZvT ever again.

Quite possibly the best article I've ever seen on TL. It looks at the economy aspect of the game with some alternative ideas to Blizzard's current LOTV approach to improve it (read: make it more like BW which isn't such a bad thing IMO)

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/lega...conomy-of-scii

I beat a guy tonight and he then proceeded to not leave the game and then tell me how lucky I got

SC2 salt is the saltiest salt. Sodium best element NA

HEYOOOOOOO

Other noteworthy comments from last night included "tanks like a wuss"

silver league is the best league

My tiny bit of skill that I once possessed has come back, with the addition of a bunch of bad habits. But I guess I've been playing well enough they matched me with a gold zerg - it was a close game but he was better than me. I felt good knowing that for the most part I can function and know what I need to work on.

I've been trying Reaper expand today and it has worked out well, I just scout with the Reaper(s) and I've caught some weird 1-base silver league marine push thing, a roach all-in, and other easy-to-defend stuff making for easy wins. Plus it's nice to be able to use them defensively, I kinda like it.

Be nice if the game ran smoothly too but that's certainly at the bottom of my issues

In which Yoda commits hard to the infamous proxy 1rax. (not reapers, just marines)

You should have posted the 5rax reaper game!

lol **** that game

More match fixing scandal potential: Pinnacle canceled bets on Soulkey vs. Creator in Code A last night. Soulkey was -219 to win the series yet somehow Creator got up to -290 to win map 1 (which he did in fact win).

Shouldn't the pro sc2 scene work to try to figure out how to even out the prize pool a bit so that players don't get this desperate? Like I understand that it's wrong regardless and don't want to make excuses, but I'm sure there are ultimate causes that could be addressed to help mitigate the problem and I'm sure that trying to scrape a living as a pro sc2 player takes its toll. Seems like just a handful, maybe a dozen guys are winning all the money. However, I'm not super in-tune with the Korean SC2 scene either, so anyone have some insight?

Yeah this would help. The prize distribution has always been super top heavy in Korean leagues for some reason.

The best way to deter matchfixing is to punish the players that get caught. How is Marineking still on a team and still allowed to play in proleague? In his case we strong evidence from the both the line movement and the actual gameplay. Okay maybe the evidence isn't strong enough to get him convicted of a crime, but there is no way he would ever play on my team or in my tournament after that. I hope kespa, blizzard, and everyone else in the Korean scene are taking this seriously because this isn't something that is going to go away on its own. As someone who loved Korean SC2, this stuff is so depressing. I used to stay up all night or wake up at 5am to watch code S live.

Maybe LOTV will rejuvenate things a bit

Still hard to see SC2 ever being a big thing in this lame MOBA world we live in