Wasn't the last year (maybe not that long) of WoL unreal boring with the infestor/BL/corruptor turtling?

This was a good deal before WCS, the end of WoL was just terrible.

The concept of WCS is fantastic, just implemented terribly. There are probably a lot of things that could be improved, but the game was dying regardless of anything Blizz did.

It's not F2P, not as fun as MOBAs, not BW, these kinds of things Blizzard can't control, well not really. I can't see LotV going F2P, it seems like there is a divide between Blizzard's view of e-sports and Activision's view of it.

Whoah whoah whoah slow down there cowboy. MOBAs fun? Who are you, Karak?

I think it's way more fun than MOBAs. Guess I just don't get it with them. Microing one guy around for 45 minutes, always found it boring

So I had a long **** day at work and have some beer...what hilarious strats am I gonna try on unranked today?

The decline of SC2 is largely due to the popularity of LoL. Gamers don't just stop liking games -- they play new ones that fancy their interests. Not talking about professionals, but the fans. I doubt WCS in particular is at fault.

Played a game before going to work this morning, always risky cause **** ending sessions on a loss. Got a ZvT against a platinum on Derelict Watcher. He dropped my main with his first attack and I totally wasn't paying attention and lost literally every worker there, but managed to recover and get up on 4 bases. He opened bio-tank but switched into biomine after his first attack didn't work out and I killed all his tanks, and after that first drop hit me so hard I was really good about defending vs them and killing medivacs with my mutas.

Wound up being like a 45 minute game where every base got taken lol. I went up to standard ling-bane-ultra-muta, he stayed on biomine with a random late switch to having like 10 ravens with his army for seeker missiles. I lost a couple muta flocks to them, but he never dropped PDDs for some reason so I always did damage to his ravens, and after having to rebuild a lot of mutas I finally caught him low on energy where he was doing stupid **** like using seekers on ultras and killed every raven. After that I had pretty solid map control since his mining was super drying up (every base got taken but I killed his 5th a few times) and I was able to get a 5th and 6th mining and finally took the game when he made a final desperate attack on my 6th. Prob one of the closer games I've played.

Anyway, been playing pretty ****ty lately (happens when you only have time to play like 2x a week I guess) so felt good to get a solid win against a style I tend to struggle against.

game 1, scout a 4gate so prepare for it, he warps in a ton of DTs with his stalker attack that i don't spot and they kill my mineral line, gg.

game 2 reaper rush which ive never actually seen before. im not even sure how you scout this. throw down an expo and boom, 2 reapers in base. chase 'em, 4 reapers in base. chase 'em, 6 reapers...**** off

literally every game ive played in the past 2 weeks has been a former platinum player who hasn't played much at recently and bc of the deteriorating MMR thing and whatever got placed in silver. and since i can't beat any of these idiots i cant improve my own mmr and move up

Prob have to deduce from early gas + no factory. The typical way to do that type of build is 1 rax in front like normal, and then another rax either hidden in a corner of his base or proxied.

god **** me, quitting now

yeah 2 rax with 1 gas and no addons is a pretty huge tell. gonna be pretty tough to hold if you only have 1 rax and factory nearly done. at silver prob even just going 3 rax and a marine push while expoing would be good as their factory should be late with all the gas invested

Mice head to head: keeping it gangster at the office edition



Brought the MVP mousepad + Sensei in at work to get a feel for each of them next to each other. The TL mousepad is totally smooth, while the MVP has a rougher texture (the box calls it the "control edition"):



I actually feel like the TL pad is a better fit for the Logitech mouse, since it doesn't glide quite as well on its own as the SteelSeries and the extra texture on the MVP pad slows it down a little; you have to move it a little more forcefully on the MVP pad to navigate with it. Meanwhile, the Sensei feels like it floats on the wings of angels (despite being bigger and slightly heavier than the G300, maybe it's weight balancing or something, it feels ****ing perfect though), and on the smoothness of the TL pad it might just sail away into the heavens on its own if you aren't careful; the MVP pad suits it perfectly.

Precision test:


(Logitech on 1500CPI, SS either on 1500 or 1600)

Something def feels off about the sensor with the Logitech; you can see some errant squigglies here and there, which as best as I can tell are just the sensor kinda bugging out when you're being slow and precise (which I tried to be, obv I have bad mouse skills though). Both mice were a little easier to control on the MVP pad.

Anyway, while the G300 is a solid value for $30, it's hard to give it a huge recommendation as a gaming mouse when it lacks the kind of precision that I imagine you would find important. I complained about the small size initially but I've grown used to it and don't find it bothersome anymore. It's a shame about the precision though because it has the single best button layout of any mouse I've seen; alas, it shall stay my work mouse, and I guess I'll have try to get used to the thumb buttons on the Sensei (which, aside from those side buttons, is absolutely perfect).

Given that the "raw" version of the Sensei (no onboard memory/etc for storing+editing profiles on any PC) is currently $45 on Amazon (or cheaper if you can stand having super ugly CoD or Diablo or w/e branding on it), seems like a pretty excellent option for any setting, gaming or otherwise.

eta: **** it, gonna go buy a sensei raw for work, is $45 not worth it to GLIDE ON THE WINGS OF ANGELS all day?

Yeah but those are some of the only games I have been big into in recent times.

The MMR decay is a terrible idea. So you come back rusty and get owned who cares, its both more accurate that way and makes the least amount of people unhappy. If you are a silver player and keep getting raped by high plats who took 6 weeks off thats a lot less fun for you. I am 16-1 on AM this season I think, I haven't played for like a month, am I going to be like 30-1? Its ridiculous.

Watching Starcraft is boring these days, there's not enough diversity and creativity in builds and strategies. TvZ is sometimes fun to watch since Terran can go mech or bio, but all other combinations are stale, besides maybe TvT as well.

TvP is always terran expanding, scouting with reaper into bio+medivac. Protoss will get Colossus then switch into high templar.

PvZ is protoss getting ~8 gates on 2 or 3 bases and then going for a sentry + immortal push. What ever happened to nidus canals? Those made for an interesting game. No zerg ever goes for overlord drops either.

PvP is always a battle of the Colossus. Unless you're Huk in which case you four-gate all in every time in every matchup. Sometimes a weaker player will go DTs instead, so it's a matter of spotting that to win.

That sounds a lot more like WoL PvZ.
- Protoss takes 3+ bases a lot more since nexus cannon makes bases more defensible, usually techs up into lots of colossi and/or templar/archon and/or skytoss
- Not that OL drops/nydus were ever super popular, but mothership recall ability makes them less powerful now

But yeah, not a ton of variety unless it's Hyvaa playing, seems the best you can hope for is competitive/exciting games.

Haha, Gaulzi the Icelandic cannon rusher has added a new element to his builds in HotS:



Too bad that shortly after this screenshot was taken he lost to nydused roaches + offensive spines lol

In Memoriam: Previous goofyballer gaming mice

pic of the comp this was attached to?

You have used a trackball mouse ALWAYS? What in **** goofy do you have a weird deformed hand?

That last one does not look comfortable at all.

Streaming again: http://www.twitch.tv/needle77

I'm self-banning from going 3 hatch before pool, ever (unless it's to do a troll hatch block).

Last night, ZvP vs a gold leaguer, my first game in several days. Also it's late at night and I'm tired, I'm sure this will go well.

OL sees no probe coming to scout me so I go hatch first. I drone scout him, see gateway w/ fast pylon at natural indicating expansion, go 3 hatch before pool for the ULTRA ECONOMY OPENER ldo.

So, where does this get me?

- 6:00: I have 22 drones, 6 lings, 2 queens to his 28 probes
- 8:00: I guess at some point I was like "oh, this is where I usually die to gateway openers because I have no units", so I'm still at 22 drones but now have 28 LINGS AWWWW YEAH. Doing things like "scouting" to see if an attack is actually coming is clearly way beneath me. He has 35 probes.
- 9:00: I'm up to 38 drones (still down in worker count), still 28 lings, 5 queens, he's going for some +1 immortal + zealot attack and warps in a bunch of units w/ two immortals but retreats when I snipe his warp prism.
- 10:00: All the way up to 45 drones! And I even added another ling. Lair is finished, I have +1 attack barely started (he has +1 done, working on +1 armor).
- 11:00: All the way up to 52 drones! Spire halfway done but it doesn't matter because zealots ate all my lings and I'm dead.

Just pathetic, pathetic play. So yeah, since I'm too terrible to make enough drones for having three early bases to even be useful, I'm not doing it anymore.

shoulda included minerals you were floating at all times too

Actually wasn't that high, probably because I didn't make any drones to actually mine the minerals

Studying some 3hatch games from WCS:

Scarlett vs. Bomber, Whirlwind

15 hatch
18 hatch
18 pool
18 ovie

4:00: 20/20, two hatches done, 3rd in production, pool in production

23 queen x2, ovie
27 lings

3rd hatch finishes: queen

5:40: gas x2
when 2nd/3rd queens finish, queen x2

6:00: 33 drones

6:30: hellions out on map, 8 lings
6:30: 3rd gas
@ 100 gas (6:50): ling speed
7:00: evo chamber x2
7:40: 1/1 started
7:40-8:20: 15 workers lost to hellion harass

8:00: 60 drones (if not counting workers lost)

8:30: lair
8:45: gases 4 & 5
9:20: macro hatch, baneling nest, gas 6
@lair: spire

10:00: 70 drones, 5 queens, 14 lings


Losira vs. Hurricane, Star Station

15 hatch
18 hatch
18 ovie
18 pool
18 gas

4:00: 19/28

22: queen x2
26: lings
28: queen
@100 gas: ling speed & pull out
32: lings x2

6:00: 26 drones, 9 lings, 3 queens

40: queen (replacing lost one)
~7:00: sentries spotted moving out, 20 lings made
7:30: back into gas

8:00: 46 drones, 27 lings, 4 queens, 68/86

8:30: lair
8:40: double evo
8:45: roach warren

spots move-out; spines, roaches, burrow





Goofyballer practicing on his own against no opponent:

10:00: 67 drones, 5 queens, 18 lings, 86/86

played a couple more 1v1s against my friend, won the first with literally 3 hellions that kill at least 20 probes. was gonna do the proxy starport elevator build, but reconsidered cause hes terrible and mostly only allins.

scout early on, no zealot, core not done, ebay block nat, proxy banshee and put the tl where his 3rd would be. he pokes with 4-5 stalkers/msc against 3 rax, dt followup is scouted by banshees, save scans, ebay, etc. he leaves

g2, open reaper, gets 4 probes lol, stay alive. he proxy stargates oracles, doesnt do much. follows up with 3 gate void allin which i reaaaaally should have held as i already had stim/tl fact/react starport. end up not having enough marines to kill voids in the first pust, leave a tank too far out, dont think to make any static defense. end up with basically enough to not die, load up a medivac to counter and then am too weak to hold. really a horrible game by me.

tryin to get more goin tonight. told him i'll stop asking when he admits im the master. 4-1 so far

Is there any key thing I should look for to spot a roach all-in