Starcraft 2: 8 Medivac drop

[Silverraptor]

you can decide from this replay

Making Voidrays is a useful skill to have. Also, lol at the sentries winning the game.

[Kyeudo]

Yeah, but he practiced both that, and what to do after.

I don't know about the "what to do after" part. His follow up has always seemed lacking in finesse and usually amounts to a four-gate.

His success seems to lie in never needing an "after".

[ShneekeyTheLost]

The key to beating a cannon rusher is in the scouting. If he's got a Forge in his base, there's already a pylon going down in proximity to your base. Find and remove the probe and the pylon, while not neglecting your own macro.

Easier said than done, of course, and it taxes your Micro skills to pull it off. However, even delaying the cannons until you have units capable of dealing with them is often enough to give you the win. I've actually beaten a cannon rusher with six lings in his main base while still farting around with his probe trying to drop cannons. Granted, his probes *should* have easily handled them, but I guess he just panicked or something. Mostly, I sent them to his base to try and shake him up, get a few probe kills to drop his mineral harvesting and bleed him dry so he couldn't afford another bleedin' cannon.

Proxy Gate is slightly more annoying, but again, a very... fragile... tactical decision. A more serious threat would be proxy pylon with a three-gate opening, but that's a more traditional opening rather than a rush build.

Then there's those guys who think that Zealots suck and mass stalkers exclusively. If they had thrown in some Sentries, that might be a decent, if gas-hog, mix. But just stalkers by themselves? Don't really do so well. Granted, once you get Blink, they're okay for recon-in-force and harassment, but until then... Mmmm... tasty ling snacks.

[Gandariel]

I think proxy gating tends to fall in the "He's alive, now what?" category.

Terran is the only race that can pull it off without completely screwing up everything else IMO. (Two proxy barracks, start churning out marines and build a couple bunkers next to his natural).
It does usually delay his expo a lot, AND force some units out of him.
it needn't be an all-in.
Just put two bunkers and some marines inside. Even just 4.
it should delay the expo and force the enemy to, for example, spend all his larva and money on zerglings and kill your bunkers.

By that time, however, your 2 barracks can fly back home while you expand.
(Your expo is delayed as well of course, as well as scv production, but you should be ahead nonetheless)

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I think proxy gating tends to fall in the "He's alive, now what?" category.

Terran is the only race that can pull it off without completely screwing up everything else IMO. (Two proxy barracks, start churning out marines and build a couple bunkers next to his natural).
It does usually delay his expo a lot, AND force some units out of him.
it needn't be an all-in.
Just put two bunkers and some marines inside. Even just 4.
it should delay the expo and force the enemy to, for example, spend all his larva and money on zerglings and kill your bunkers.

By that time, however, your 2 barracks can fly back home while you expand.
(Your expo is delayed as well of course, as well as scv production, but you should be ahead nonetheless)

I dunno, proxy gate in your natural is an annoyance once he starts churning out zealots.But yea, there's no real zerg equivalent. Not that there really needs to be, zergling rush being what it is, and all.

Actually, that was one 'cannon rush' that was fairly annoying... it was a contain rush, dropped into my Natural with several cannons and a Gate. Exceedingly annoying, as it significantly delayed my second hatch. I had to rush my Roach Den to deal with it.

If he had rushed Stargate and a couple of VR's, he could've probably had me. I only had the one queen for anti-air.

[Gandariel]

The point i was making is that if you do proxy gate in their natural and the enemy repels (that is, DOES NOT DIE), you lose the gates and the pylon.

If you do this thing as terran and the enemy eventually repels, no big deal, fly the barracks back home.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

The point i was making is that if you do proxy gate in their natural and the enemy repels (that is, DOES NOT DIE), you lose the gates and the pylon.

If you do this thing as terran and the enemy eventually repels, no big deal, fly the barracks back home.

Only against zerg. Against Terran or Protoss, those rax are going down long before they make it back to your base. Marines and Stalkers both shoot air.

[Gandariel]

Yeah, it works best on zerg. Still pretty annoying though. (It may still work on other races, depending on where you build the barracks and when you lift them)

[Thiyr]

The key to beating a cannon rusher is in the scouting. If he's got a Forge in his base, there's already a pylon going down in proximity to your base. Find and remove the probe and the pylon, while not neglecting your own macro.

Easier said than done, of course, and it taxes your Micro skills to pull it off. However, even delaying the cannons until you have units capable of dealing with them is often enough to give you the win. I've actually beaten a cannon rusher with six lings in his main base while still farting around with his probe trying to drop cannons. Granted, his probes *should* have easily handled them, but I guess he just panicked or something. Mostly, I sent them to his base to try and shake him up, get a few probe kills to drop his mineral harvesting and bleed him dry so he couldn't afford another bleedin' cannon

I've actually got a friend who's gotten to fairly solid masters all around on the back of cannons. If you can follow up on the back of it, and if you know how to place your stuff, it can be a right pain to deal with him. Pylon on the high ground, cannon on the low works surprisingly well.


Edit: He actually posed the question after a fairly well done 2v match we had. "Is it really cheese if I don't try to hide it at all and am ready to follow it up with standard play?"

[Kyeudo]

A traditional cannon rush isn't cheese because its stable. You don't cut probes, you don't lose more than a pylon (which is like losing a zealot) and you force some behavior out of him with your scouting worker.

Now, a cheese cannon rush is one where you cut workers, go overkill on cannons, and end up losing because you committed too much to the cannons.

[Aotrs Commander]

Well, I finally finished HotS. I thought it was up to Blizzard's usual high standards overall, and once more, you certainly couldn't fault the creativity of the mission designs.

Though if I were to have one complaint (other than "do I have to wait another three years for the next one?"), it would be it seems so short. It only took me two Sundays to finish it - like the first part, it seems as though all the missions are geared up for 20-30 minutes or so and there isn't ever much leeway for taking your time (as I prefer). I think this was more noticable in HotS than WoL, but I guess some of that is Zerg are even less suited to turtling.

Trouble was, in the end, I never used half the units. I did the mutalisk evolution mission and then I don't think I built them again at all, relying on hydralisks, ultralisks, swarmlings and Kerrigan, mostly because I am not good at micro management and thus tended to build what was quick and easy. (I don't think I ever used the impalers, either.)

It's just a sobering thought that I've spent more time on some missions in say, Anno2070 (admittedly, when I'd screwed up quite badly!) than in the whole of HotS...

Mainly I think I just whinging a bit 'cos I would have played for ten times as long if the game had kept going at that level...!

[Traab]

Well, I finally finished HotS. I thought it was up to Blizzard's usual high standards overall, and once more, you certainly couldn't fault the creativity of the mission designs.

Though if I were to have one complaint (other than "do I have to wait another three years for the next one?"), it would be it seems so short. It only took me two Sundays to finish it - like the first part, it seems as though all the missions are geared up for 20-30 minutes or so and there isn't ever much leeway for taking your time (as I prefer). I think this was more noticable in HotS than WoL, but I guess some of that is Zerg are even less suited to turtling.

Trouble was, in the end, I never used half the units. I did the mutalisk evolution mission and then I don't think I built them again at all, relying on hydralisks, ultralisks, swarmlings and Kerrigan, mostly because I am not good at micro management and thus tended to build what was quick and easy. (I don't think I ever used the impalers, either.)

It's just a sobering thought that I've spent more time on some missions in say, Anno2070 (admittedly, when I'd screwed up quite badly!) than in the whole of HotS...

Mainly I think I just whinging a bit 'cos I would have played for ten times as long if the game had kept going at that level...!

No, you are pretty much on target. The campaign maps are just plain easy, and once you get roaches and hydras, you are basically set to clear the game. It IS short, and I dislike the lack of choices in missions. I really liked choosing to help ariel or not, or support tosh and was hoping for more of the same. They could have done that with the primal zerg. Give us the chance to ally with them, or subsume them entirely into the swarm, something like that. Maybe make us choose between actual units, not upgraded versions of them

[Thiyr]

No, you are pretty much on target. The campaign maps are just plain easy, and once you get roaches and hydras, you are basically set to clear the game. It IS short, and I dislike the lack of choices in missions. I really liked choosing to help ariel or not, or support tosh and was hoping for more of the same. They could have done that with the primal zerg. Give us the chance to ally with them, or subsume them entirely into the swarm, something like that. Maybe make us choose between actual units, not upgraded versions of them

I think the big issue with having choices in the game, at least insofar as plot choices like that, is answered here. Its a more nonlinear method of storytelling, and that's tricky to pull off. I kinda agree. It would take a ton of work to have a story that had choices (meaningful choices, specifically) but still could cohesively move into the next game. I mean, if helping nova changed more than that one line, that would have changed the whole story right there. Or, they have something else fill the spot, do the same thing, and it stops being meaningful.

If you could do something with the primals, they'd have to account for that throughout the story at any point after the choice is made. Adds a ton of work for what amounts to a lot of confusion as to the "official" story.


edit: Forgot to mention. Each meaningful choice presented compounds the issues as well. The more choice there is, the more it affects all your other choices. If you have a notable branch, then you have twice as much writing to do. Another choice later, doubles it again. Sequel comes out and it has to account for all of those, and any more it adds multiplies further. How different would the game play out if kerrigan never went to Zerus? How would that affect Legacy of the Void? And, from a less product-oriented angle, how much longer would that take to create? how much space on the hard drive would it take?

[Aotrs Commander]

No, you are pretty much on target. The campaign maps are just plain easy, and once you get roaches and hydras, you are basically set to clear the game. It IS short, and I dislike the lack of choices in missions. I really liked choosing to help ariel or not, or support tosh and was hoping for more of the same. They could have done that with the primal zerg. Give us the chance to ally with them, or subsume them entirely into the swarm, something like that. Maybe make us choose between actual units, not upgraded versions of them

To be fair, I wouldn't have wanted the missions any harder on normal at that pace. "Harder" combined with "more time" or "progess at my own pace" I could have coped with. As it was, I felt plenty enough pressure to be going on with (just this side of making it feel too much like hard work (a line which, say, Mask of the Betrayer crossed)). A mission or two without any time pressure would have been nice though (well, the last mission was, but sorta by that point it felt kinda irrelevant).



Not so bothered about the lack of story choices though, personally; I'm quite happy to go on the train ride if the rails are pretty enough. (TIE Fighter, one of my all time favourite games had arguably very little choice, nor does C&C.) And like Thiyr says, branching stories dramatically increase the workload. I remember watching the Bioware folks saying by the time they'd got to ME3, they were tracking something daft like seventy thousand varies or something (it was certainly in the tens of thousands anyway).

[Draconi Redfir]

i'm gunna agree on the time limit thing, it's a running trend that the levels i hate most in starcraft 2 are those with time limits or pressures that result in failure if i don't go bolting out the door at the drop of a hat. Getting Tosh's gas, the burning planet, hijacking the Odin, feeding the ancient one, disabling Narud's temples, stopping the protoss shuttles, all pretty much keep me from doing things at a comfortable pace and taking some time to breathe between it all.


An even bigger shame is that with those levels that AREN'T time-limited, your base-limited, often having some invaluable treasure or prize in or near your base that you can't leave alone for ten minutes without it being destroyed. Personally i think it would be great if, in the event that your base is overwhelmed and unsalvageable, you had the option to pack up and book it, setting up a new base at another mineral field and having a moment to prepare yourself before the enemy found you again and started attacking once more. Heck this would have been easy to do in wings of liberty since so many Terran structures can just up and leave. What's the point in staying in a base that has no vespine gas and no minerals? there's a perfectly good mineral patch just ontop of that mountain that once housed an enemy base that we just wiped off the face of the earth, let's move there! We'll actually have resources to continue the fight with!

[Artanis]

You can be bad at protoss?

I was pretty bad at 'toss in WoL (haven't had a chance to go online with HotS yet). Most of my matches basically went like this:
1-Build Stalkerball
2-Find out the hard way that I'd completely forgotten to add Colossi again.
3-Panic.
4-Spend the rest of the match trying to survive long enough for the Colossi to come out and save me from my own incompetence.


And they were my best race.

Continuity alert: In WoL Stetmann studies a zerg sample and finds that it will never die of old age. Yet in HotS Kerrikan and Iesha both say that Zerg eventually age.

Who's right?

I don't recall the HotS conversation off the top of my head, so ignore the following if it's invalidated by what they actually say:

Maybe it's both? Maybe Zerg do age, but won't actually die from it. It could be like that one Greek myth where a guy was immortal but kept aging, and just kept getting older and older until he was so shriveled up and decrepit that he turned into a grasshopper. Of course, a Zerg doing the equivalent would've long since been offed and turned into 'ling kibble, but still.

[The Glyphstone]

The time-pressure missions are my least favorite, I really dislike being forced to rush. It makes me sloppy, and only the campaign being easy to play saves me there.

[Traab]

The time-pressure missions are my least favorite, I really dislike being forced to rush. It makes me sloppy, and only the campaign being easy to play saves me there.

What I DO like about them is its a handy way to teach myself to hurry the hell up and not take my time building up my base. I am the worst zerg player ever. I think protoss take less time to build up an army than i do. lol. But in general, yeah, being forced to rush right out of the gate sucks. I dont mind the "last x minutes" type missions, those are fun, but, "If you dont do x in under 5 minutes, you lose" is much less so.

That one mission with the scourge nests is my least favorite for this, as its not really obvious until the second time through, that you want to waste as much time as possible with that first battlecruiser so you can build your base, and extend your creep well past the first nest and towards the next couple. If you rush for the first nest right away you find yourself in a lot of trouble by the end. I think I was ducking and dodging around the ships the last three nests because they were pathing right over where I had to go next.

[Gandariel]

[being bad at toss]

I improved a lot when i realized that stalkers aren't that big of a deal.

Their DPS is the same of an unstimmed MARINE.
(of course they have mobility and blink and lots of hp, but still)
Try more chargelots =)

[Karoht]

What I DO like about them is its a handy way to teach myself to hurry the hell up and not take my time building up my base. I am the worst zerg player ever. I think protoss take less time to build up an army than i do. lol. But in general, yeah, being forced to rush right out of the gate sucks. I dont mind the "last x minutes" type missions, those are fun, but, "If you dont do x in under 5 minutes, you lose" is much less so.

That one mission with the scourge nests is my least favorite for this, as its not really obvious until the second time through, that you want to waste as much time as possible with that first battlecruiser so you can build your base, and extend your creep well past the first nest and towards the next couple. If you rush for the first nest right away you find yourself in a lot of trouble by the end. I think I was ducking and dodging around the ships the last three nests because they were pathing right over where I had to go next.

My second play of that mission was stellar. I had my creep tumors surrounding the first 3 nests before I was forced to pop one. I'm sorely tempted to build up an army of Mutas and Frenzy Hydras and see if I can murder one of those gorgons with Kerrigan's help.
Kerrigan + 5 Queens as the core of your army (keep Queens on a separate hotkey so that you can easily select them and drop tumors if need be), with a bunch of roaches to back you up and lings for flavor will really really take you far on that map. A few Swarm Hosts or Spine/Spore Crawlers for defence and you're golden. Maybe some Muta's seeing as very few things on that map can hit air in the first place beyond the odd missile tower and the small groups of marines you will run into. I used my Muta group to go after the terran bases while my core group pushed objective. They met very little in the way of resistance, and when they did, I just pulled them back and made use of the fast heal out of combat upgrade.


@Toss
I am a huge fan of Chargealots and Immortals (with some Colossi support mostly because they are cool and minimal Stalker support) and I keep to Phoenix's until I really need the firepower in the air. And if I need air damage firepower, I tend to stick to Stalkers anyway.
Typically warp in Stalkers tend to be my quick response unit of choice VS Air or non-lings, and Chargealots against lings and most times marines if there is no marauder support.

Something I've noticed about most replays. Very few players will bother targeting a Medivac. Why? It's an easy enough kill with a good Stalker ball, if you blink right you can cut off the marines from retreat AND kill the Medivac, heck I've seen muta flocks fly in and ignore the medivacs. Am I missing something?

[The Glyphstone]

IIRC, the Gorgon explicitly says somewhere, or it's in the briefing, that the ship is immune to the attacks of your units, you can only hurt it with the scourge nests.

[Gandariel]

I actually prefer High Templars to Colossi

HTs are much more versatile, being able to hit air as well, being able to Feedback important units (infestor, medivac, thor/BC) AND morph in an Archon if need be.

Also, vs Zerg Colossi force Corruptors from the enemy, and that's just helping the enemy tech towards broodlord.

Oh, and storming is SO much fun

[Karoht]

I actually prefer High Templars to Colossi

HTs are much more versatile, being able to hit air as well, being able to Feedback important units (infestor, medivac, thor/BC) AND morph in an Archon if need be.

I compltely agree they are the better unit, and more fun, but Colossi are more... fire and forget.

Also, vs Zerg Colossi force Corruptors from the enemy, and that's just helping the enemy tech towards broodlord.

Also agreed, but everything gives the zerg enemy a reason to tech towards Infestors and Broodlords, so what is one more reason really?

Oh, and storming is SO much fun

And how!

[Gandariel]

well in Wings of liberty Infestor+Broodlord was the "only" possible endgame composition.

Now Hydras and Ultralisks are more powerful, and also Protoss air got buffed.
Broodlords remain very strong, but i don't think every zerg player will tech to that in every single game.

If you do "push" them to build corruptors with your Colossi, you're just making sure that they do eventually get broodlords.

Those broodlords are really hard to beat though, as Protoss.

Except for the now-gone Archon Toilet, there was no realiable way to deal with them.
Blink stalkers.. kinda sorta kill a couple of them before dying horribly? At least that's my experience.
Storm does kind of work, if you do get to them.
In wings of liberty Protoss rarely went air, so that was right out.

Void rays beat both corruptors and broodlords, and they even got buffed in HotS. So that's pretty cool



EDIT: Elaborating on
"Also agreed, but everything gives the zerg enemy a reason to tech towards Infestors and Broodlords, so what is one more reason really?"

If you build a ground army, the enemy gets corruptors, they are useless for a while cause the enemy has no air, then get broodlords, then attack.
If you have colossi, the enemy gets corruptors and USES THEM, then morphs them into Broodlords.
Not having colossi means that, for that short while, the money invested in Corruptors is wasted money and supply

[Silverraptor]

I actually prefer High Templars to Colossi

HTs are much more versatile, being able to hit air as well, being able to Feedback important units (infestor, medivac, thor/BC) AND morph in an Archon if need be.

Also, vs Zerg Colossi force Corruptors from the enemy, and that's just helping the enemy tech towards broodlord.

Oh, and storming is SO much fun

I liked when I was playing gold/ silver league, I psyched out so many opponents when I was playing protoss. Since everyone at that level at the time blindly built Collosi because "You're suppose to", every one of my opponents blindly, without scouting, built Vikings and corruptors. So when their big push comes, those units hover over (Or land, in case of Vikings) and get torn to shreds when the bio balls get FF in storms.

God that was hilarious.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Protoss can deal with broodies easily. They're called Phoenix. Which can harass with their pickups. You could also do Scouts, if you wanted, but I'm not sure how useful they are otherwise.

[Thiyr]

Protoss can deal with broodies easily. They're called Phoenix. Which can harass with their pickups. You could also do Scouts, if you wanted, but I'm not sure how useful they are otherwise.

In WoL, that was very much emphatically not the case at all. Corruptors beat phoenix in a straight up fight. "But micro!" some may cry (like some kind of crazy, micro-obsessed scarecrow that i have just made up. SHENANIGANS!) to which I reply "But fungal!". At which point you've got no phoenixes, and they've still got their death ball you have no way of dealing with. Voids had a similar issue, but it was more likely to be just chain fungals and letting queens do their thing.

Now? Yea, broods are far easier to deal with. Tempests were, yknow, designed specifically for such shenanigans, and fungal being far less insane means you have at least a chance to get close enough to the broods to do some damage. I'd still not want to use phoenix unless they skipped all the important steps and just tried to go straight to broods, though. And even then, I'd prefer to just use skillrays at that point. pyew pyew laser!

[Silverraptor]

Protoss can deal with broodies easily. They're called Phoenix. Which can harass with their pickups. You could also do Scouts, if you wanted, but I'm not sure how useful they are otherwise.

Scouts? What is this foolishness your talking about?

[Thiyr]

Scouts? What is this foolishness your talking about?

He's playing too much Campaign Unit Fastest Map Possible

[Mutant Sheep]

He's playing too much Campaign Unit Fastest Map Possible

I did that once! Mass lings>still best option.