FFA Masters League
General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Ugri2 on July 17, 2012, 01:55:57 pm
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So a month or so I discovered the game throught Lewis and I finally bought it. I wanted to share some thoughts and see what you guys think.
- Campaign
I felt it was a good place to start. The story was pretty good and easier to follow than wc3 (the wtf fight between Arthas and Illidan, never got it...).
The story is 90% centered on the terran story which is a shame. No way to handle zerg/protoss races throught the campaign, unless you wait for heart of Swarm for zerg and 2013 for protoss. Pretty bad.
I started to play in hard mode because you know, I am such a beast. It wasnt that hard except a few mission and in the end I could play Terran a bit.
- Challenges
They say it is helping for micro managing. Meh lol...
It is good to understand which unit counters which, that's about it.
After some hefty playtime, I could play a bit terran and I had no clue how to play zerg and protoss. I felt I was ready for playing ladder :icon_biggrin:
- ladder
No kidding I felt into the bronze division. Who could have guess?
I wanted not to do the mistake I made back in 2003 when I thought "lets pick a race and train it heavily to be good in at least one". I ended chosing the weakest one, not being that good, not able to play ne/orc after 10 years.
So I chose to play random ! :icon_razz:
Terran
I was ok with this race thanks to the campaign. Lots my fellow noobs are chosing terran for the same reason. They usually overexpand or make too many defensive structures. I just mass tanks and hellions and win in 12 minutes or so...
Zerg
OMG. I finally got to the point that I understand the building tree and can play some games. I won... 1 (played overall like 15 with 3 races) and got hard countered many times (usually banshees or mas muta or some imba protoss shit). My macro gets better, pretty good in fact (I can handle 4 bases ok) : only problem is that I lose all the battles LOL
Protoss
OMG I heard they were imba, like the new orc but their building tree is so messed up I'm still completely confused by it.
Only won 1 game when I discovered the little "Chrono boost button" which allow me to build stuff before I get rushed :D
Looks like a very strong race but I cannot use sentries efficiently yet, I dont know what to start with (zealots or stalkers?), when to use their air units (each time i built phoenix/void ray I get fucked harcore). I am struggling on this race more than any other.
Results :
Started with a hefty 1-10 start :icon_mrgreen:
After that I won 7 games, 5 T - 1 Z - 1P with like a 45% win ratio
Any tip on zerg army composition / protoss army composition and macro and anything you have in mind is welcome!
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Glad you're in the lower skill area of SC2 still. The games are still interesting while your opponents suck. Just wait till you get higher in divisions - you'll just get rushed every single game! And prob lose to most of it cause the rushes in SC2 are bullshit and hard as fuck to stop!
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WARCRAFT 3 FOREVER!
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don't bother with army comp/timings, anything where you are.
Just work on macro and macro only, nothing else matters in the lower leagues.
for terran/toss, just make sure you are always making probes/scv, and there is no delay between making them. I think it's every 16 or 17 seconds for workers. So get into a habit of making one every 17 seconds. (game time, which is like 11 seconds real time)
Try and never float above 500 minerals. You should always be spending. If you notice you cant spend fast enough, throw down some more production buildings.
Eventually, like after a lot of games/practice, macroing will become 2nd nature to you.
Zerg is completely different.
You make nothing but Drones, drones, and more drones.
The idea is to make nothing but drones, and have complete map control. Then when you see them coming, pump nothing but units out of your mass hatcheries and larva and pray you hold that push. If you do, you win, if you dont, you lose.
But work on macro for now, aka missing no workers, and not floating 2 much.
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You should go on skype with me on bnet and I can coach you a bit, but for the most part I agree with what persuade said. Work on your macro as hard as you can for now.
-With terran build workers, use your command center energy, and try to spend your money on your production without queing more then 2 units at a time out of your rax/fac/starport.
-With zerg build at least 1 queen at every hatchery, I prefer to have 3 extra queens in ZVT and 1 extra queen in ZVP (more if they go voidray/phoenix) and hit as many injects as you can with your queens. Every queen that you dedicate to a hatchery should at the most have 35-40 energy. When I play zerg I do it in cycles and by a cycle I mean I focus on certain things 1 at a time as quickly as possible.
Step 1 Inject, inject every hatchery that needs it, step 2 spread my creep tumors out, step 3 drones, 16 per mineral line per base, if I'm not at this point I make more drones, gas timings I'll inform you on when you get to gold/plat., step 4 overlords (getting supply blocked as zerg sucks ass because you can produce units extremely fast so make sure you always got room) step 5 upgrades make sure your upgrading carapace/attack and building tech tree structures when gas allows Lingspeed is an absolute must it should be your first upgrade in nearly every matchup especially at bronze level, step 6 do I need units? Your lings and overlords should be placed strategically to see if you need to make an army. Otherwise begin making an army after your current bases are saturated (16 drones per mineral line once again)
By the time you finish that cycle start over at step 1.
Protoss use your chrono boost, use it on probes, use it on upgrades, use it on your production. Just make sure your using it as it'll make everything you do that much more efficient. Make a fuckload of warpgate gateways if you can afford it. Protoss is able to build an army very efficiently. When your on 2 bases its good to have at least 5-8 warpgates and I believe an additional 4 per base is a good number. Collosus are going to be your best friend in any league up to diamond. With protoss if you can build a good collosus with range and warpgate unit armies you will have no problem until at least diamond level. Remember to build walls vs zerg. And if you suck with forcefields I advise not moving out vs zerg untill you can get a good 2 base collosus timing.
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I cant fathom any RTS player placing into bronze.
Sc2 for me was boring until I became able to beat the best players. If you cant split maps with the best players you seem to be able to lose to any bad player aswell.
I don't think any of the races would suit you 2bh... Terran you need to have split marine micro and be able to target certain units at certain times.
Protoss is broken but only insofar as you can forcefield and blink well, and I don't trust you on that one either.
Zerg might be your best bet with a ton of practice as I hope you know how to macro from FFA, but they are open to a lot of gay all ins and you need to have duck like hacks to sense or in a non hackers case scout what they are doing. This I also see you having problems with.
In ladder follow ducks tips and ignore anything else you hear and you will be a guaranteed pro!
- Play massive amounts of ladder however you normally do it. Only watch your replays and no1 elses, no vods, nothing. You need to know why your builds are working or not working and if you copy a build you are just being a robot. Now if you can't beat a certain strat then it's ok to find a replay to get an idea of how to hold whatever off.
-Always macro in ladder. If you've taken macro economics there is one of the guys i forgot his name has some curve or w/e, basically if you play macro now and lose you will win more in the long run because you will improve. If you think you are about to get 4 gated? Make 4 extra drones and then try to hold it off, worst case scenario next time you get 4gated you have 8 more lings to hold it off and it also will help you gauge exact number of drones you can get away with, etc.
-Always make workers if you are protoss or terran. Generally you want to stop ~60 as terran and ~70-80 depending the time of the game as protoss, however you wont have to worry about that so always make them.
When you get better I will give you the remaining tips
-TLDR: Quit Now
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Ducks 0:1 to me in Starcraft 2 as a side note. I used one of dem gayass all in's as he calls them back in the day :D
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ty 3 for the insights, very usefull. FFA will certainly help me for the macro part.
I guess that's why some call this game boring since you tend to make only workers all game until the one fight you win or lose. So far I'm enjoying myself.
Duck you are right Terran is certainly not for me since it relies on splitting armies and managing coordinated fights. I have no other ambition so far to understand what I am doing anyway.
I started to get sick of wc3 and needed something else to do. I have always been a gamer and I need one game to play on ;).
I like the sc2 ladder system better. There is no smurfing allowed and it is good. People dont see how many games you lost so no one needs to give up on an account to try to get better stats on another.
Your opponent are more or less at your skill level all the time : such an improvement not to face a pro smurfing guy .
There is no (or few) hacking, I can play whenever I want and find games in 25 sec.
Never gotten myself a gross asshole trashtalker opponent yet
I will probably play more heavily when I'll be back from vacations. Then we can play a bit of cg together lewis if you want.
Anyway thks again guys
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more important than tips: friend me! MogSkynet.534 :D
I used to be good, now I'm baddie after not playing a lot....
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@ wpx/lewis : the achievement i've goten is "centurion queen"cause i made 100 larvae.
And you will be proud to know that I am in fact in silver, not bronze!
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My brother loved the challenged, and he told me all about how it was improving his micro and all.
And how he lost all his game after that, because he was so focused on his ^@$#%3 micro that was always forgetting his macro.
Macro ftw~
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ZERG OP
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hehe i've beaten a protoss in my last game massing marauders and marines like you told me!
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It's a good build to beat fast expanding protoss or protoss who don't forcefield ramps, that build will be your friend till at least platinum.
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I've been playing SC2 on and off and am top master, and I have sort of a love-hate relationship with the game. Honestly, though, if WC3 had the same level of hype going for it I would probably never have switched. A lot of what attracts me to SC2 is simply how big it is. The actual game is kind of broken in many ways I think, and not all that fun.
I got a chance to play Heart of the Swarm and it didn't live up to my expectations and so I'm not too hopeful that it will fix everything wrong with the game.
Anyway, as far as picking a race it goes like this, imo:
Protoss is the dumbest race to pick because you are so limited. You can't do anything but a-move and 2/3 of your matchups consist of all-inning every single game off 1-2 bases. I honestly can't fathom why progamers who play 12 hours a day would pick such a race.
Zerg is broken at the moment, and will be until fundamental changes are made to the game (and they won't be made). You have the best macro, the best defense and the best late-game. You also have the easiest macro in terms of making workers and production capabilities. Though I'd hesitate to play Zerg now because they are bound to get a ton of nerfs in the near future.
Terran was an amazing race but has been consistently nerfed since the beta and now it's just a pain to play and very limited. TvT is the only saving grace, because it is by far not only the best mirror matchup, but the best matchup in the game, imo. PvP and ZvZ is so godawful it keeps me from switching races.
I play both Terran and Zerg, but mostly Terran these days. I won't play Terran in HotS, though, since they don't really get anything new whereas the other two races get some pretty cool stuff.
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Sounds like you just suck at terran