The StarCraft II thread

[Ellibereth]

What's wrong with a race having fewer options.
Look at brood war T.

[AGar]

Agreed on the Terran OP explanation.

Agreeing to disagree on points regarding BW pros.

[AGar]

Also, Fantasy sucks.

[Otolia]

Also, Fantasy sucks.

But he will probably be among the few BW pros that will be dominant.

[AGar]

No he won't.

He's a pure gimmick player who relied all too heavily on Oov and had no real upside of his own. He won't even be able to coast on his mechanics, because they're bad inherently.

[TheButtonmen]

Guys, can anyone give me some hints on how to deal with ultralisks in TvZ? In this matchup I usually do a very vanilla marine/tank/medivac build on 2 base - push - 3 base - try to contain, and this has been working ok if my macro is equal to my opponent's. However if they go ultra, specially in early/mid game, I usually lose, even if the macro levels seem the same.

Should I increase the tank/marine ratio? Any scouting tips for ultras? I suck at anything that is TOO micro intensive. Thanks for the input!

Ultras are actually pretty awful in ZvT about the only thing that they are good for is sending in 2-3 before your lings run in to absorb the tank fire; if you're having trouble with that then the solution is to manually tell the tanks to hit clumps of banelings or infestors. If you're issue is mass ultras then it's not the ultras that are the issue; it's macro. The solution to mass ultras is simply expand more / earlier and use drops to force the zerg to continually re-make drones / hatchs / queens.

But as for the ultras themselves; the first counter to anything that zerg makes is marines; now micro is required as you need to split well but between splitting, medivac healing and kitting marines can tank ultralisks for absurd amounts of time; the second is ghosts however as with all ghost builds in TvZ you need to work your way up to them.

Step 1: Marine or Hellion opening
Step 2: Heavy drop play or marine tank push.
Step 3: Heavy mech defense with drop play to slow zergs expansions.
Step 4: Transition into heavy ghosts once you are approching a split map scenario.

Once you start going ghosts it's important to A) don't stop making them, they are the bulk of your armies power not a support unit and B) still make marines or else ling/bling can still swarm you down.

Get a few maruaders. Stimmed marauders can kill ultras retarded fast given how much easier they are to get.

Ghosts are also good but maruaders will make the zerg call terran op before leaving.

Late game terran is OP. As is Pure Mech vs Zerg.

Other then marauder / hellion all ins I haven't seen a marauder in TvZ in a looooong time, speedlings are too good against them. Also any rax making marauders isn't making marines.

Pure mech vs zerg isn't cost effective enough or mobile enough in split map scenarios due to the reliance on thors, pure mech can work but only as a transition once you've switched to mass mule minining and have defensive PFs set-up and even then broodlords remain problematic. Ghosts have insane frontloaded damage to prevent broodling swarms from occuring, are much faster, cheaper and work with medivacs.

Remember, the first recognized "bonjwa"

Boxer

Savior, didn't arrive until about

2001-2002

2006.

Ftfy, bonjaw was a term invented much later when Savior was large, in charge and slaughtering everything that moved. It was then retroactively given to certain past pro's.

Terran is OP because they have the most options and their ability to tech switch efficiently. It is more expensive for Protoss or Zerg to tech switch (most difficult for Protoss I believe, as they sometimes need an entirely new line of buildings, while zerg generally just need a new building and their production is limited by the number of queens/hatcheries). When Zerg/Protoss get more options available, and they are easier to reach (either by simply more units, or better allocated units) a lot of "Terran is OP" will go away.

Terran tech swapping is the best early game not because of the ease / cost of which they can tech swap but because of the difficulty it adds to scouting them.

Zerg tech swapping is the best end game because it allows them to exploit their capacity to remax by simply making the counter to whatever you had left after their first army died (such as the broods/infestor/sling -> Ultra/Bling/Sling -> Pure Sling remax in ZvT).

Protoss lacks the ability to rapidly tech swap but make up for it by having the strongest deathball which means they aren't the ones needing to remax quickly (though mass warpgate play can allow them to play the aggro if they want).

Re: Terran OP right now a lot of the terrans issues come down to scouting differental (ability to quickly tech swap due to tech-labs/reactors which is compounded by how hard it is to scout terran vs how easily terran can scout you ((com sat vs slow overlord)), the other issue is that ghosts in small numbers were hugely cost effective vs protoss (the recent nerf to emp radius helps here) and the front loaded damage of large numbers of ghosts preventing broodling swarms from ocurring in end game ZvT (another tiny part of the issue there is the lack of light/armored status on ghosts making banelings / ultras more cost ineffective vs them)

Also, Fantasy sucks.

But he will probably be among the few BW pros that will be dominant.

Sc2 terran requires amazing bio play.

[AGar]

Ftfy, bonjaw was a term invented much later when Savior was large, in charge and slaughtering everything that moved. It was then retroactively given to certain past pro's.

Already gotcha covered there. But yeah.

Domination is when your team puts on showmatches JUST to flaunt around that "Hey, we have the baddest motherfucker in the game right now. Send anyone you have, they won't beat him."

[redFF]

How does one get ultras in early game?

[TheButtonmen]

Well that was a fun way to end the night.....

Millenium continues to be a fine, outstanding and professional team I see.

[AGar]

Of course!

[Otolia]

Oh I didn't have my share of french bashing already ...

[TheButtonmen]

I'd be bashing any team that did that, they left a set before it was finished letting down the casters, the sponsors, the organizers and the nine thousand people watching it live; nationality has nothing to do with it, don't try to portray anyone who objects to Milleniums actions as nationalist; they fucked up, hurt their already tarnished reputation and showed a lack of respect for IPL, Slayers and the viewers.

Now they deservedly get flak for it.

[AGar]

Tbm hit it on the head - any team would get shit on for something like this. Millennium only gets it worse because they have a track record of shit like this

[Kinetic]

I'd be bashing any team that did that, they left a set before it was finished letting down the casters, the sponsors, the organizers and the nine thousand people watching it live; nationality has nothing to do with it, don't try to portray anyone who objects to Milleniums actions as nationalist; they fucked up, hurt their already tarnished reputation and showed a lack of respect for IPL, Slayers and the viewers.

Now they deservedly get flak for it.

Tbm hit it on the head - any team would get shit on for something like this. Millennium only gets it worse because they have a track record of shit like this

This.

<3 Oto, but you have a blind spot here. It doesn't help that Mill was already under scrutiny because of their "questionable" conduct in the Stephano case.

Important to remember in all cases, while all (or most) of Mill is French, not all of people who are French act like Mill. We could debate whether it is more or less a culture issue, but that is beyond the scope here. I wouldn't want someone to say, "Well you're American, doesn't that mean you act like all the crazy Republican candidates?" so I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt to someone from another culture.

That all being said, this gives myself, and anyone else, more reason to not like Mill.

[Otolia]

It was replay casted so don't give me the bullshit of letting down the casters since that was their fault. If HD and CatsPajamas were surprise that's their responsibility.

You have no right to speak for SlayerS, they probably apologize to them. Even if not, you shouldn't speak for them.

So you are left with 'QQ they didn't field their new player who has been on the team for less than 2 weeks'. You don't know the reason. Maybe that kid (it's a 18 year old) had to go to school tomorrow, maybe his parents send him to bed because it was way past midnight. What kind of person you are if you can't accept that a team that couldn't play withdraw ? One of their player was asleep (Feast) and they couldn't post-pone so they withdrew. Nothing wrong in that.

Was the situation a problem for the show ? Yes. Is it a reason to start insulting people and question their professionalism when eSports is clearly not completely professional ? Hell no.

As for their track record, I won't come back to the previous discussions since you have obviously a way to consider business that is far from what I consider correct. Their flaming response to coL was certainly totally uncalled for and I am sure they regret it. coL did some mistakes too.

PS : The french bashing wasn't really a comment on yours. More a feeling of disgust after reading the the TL report.
PS 2 : If the Millenium team was that irresponsible and unprofessional they wouldn't have held 4 invitational monthly cup with top EU each time. That should be a mark of respect from the player itself that everyone should understand.
PS 3 : And yes that's a soft spot of mine because they are doing a lot of thing you can't see for the development of eSports in France that you never heard of. And that is eclipsing all the small accident that happens around.

[TheButtonmen]

What kind of person you are if you can't accept that a team that couldn't play withdraw ? One of their player was asleep (Feast) and they couldn't post-pone so they withdrew. Nothing wrong in that.

Yes, there is something wrong with that, if they want to be considered a professional team then they need to act like one; one of their players didn't want to play and another was asleep, that's a disgraceful. Send out the new player, even if he gets destroyed then this whole issue never happens it's just Slayers destroying another team in the IPL team league, but instead Mil decides to just withdraw without explaining themselves.

And yes if you sign up for a team league with a team of seven players, you're expected to be able to field five of them, hell at the very least field the coach or find a sub.

Losing is fine, taking your ball and going home isn't.

[AGar]

Seriously. EG used to field Colbi (a low-Masters level Terran in SC2 and like... a C level Terran in BW) if they were down a man so as to not come up short on lineups.

It is a commitment, and whether HD or CatsPajamas knew about it beforehand is irrelevant - they have 7 players on their roster, and the fact that one was sleeping and the other "didn't want to play" and Mill makes NO attempt to make them commit, then not only should those players be blackballed, but Mill should be taking a pr shellacking as well. Could you imagine what would happen if IdrA just decided he didn't feel like playing in an event his team signed up for?

PS 2 : If the Millenium team was that irresponsible and unprofessional they wouldn't have held 4 invitational monthly cup with top EU each time. That should be a mark of respect from the player itself that everyone should understand.

Congrats, they did something right. For all the shit EG got about a situation that actually got blown WAY out of proportion because Milkis likes to get randomly butthurt - look at the amount of shit they do for the community, and do it right.

PS 3 : And yes that's a soft spot of mine because they are doing a lot of thing you can't see for the development of eSports in France that you never heard of. And that is eclipsing all the small accident that happens around

eSports is a global deal. Developing it strictly in one country is pointless, as it does nothing for the overall big picture. This is why the LXP is a step in the right direction, why co-ordination between MLG and IEM needs to happen next year to avoid things like the Orlando-New York clash. Why organizers need to start brainstorming to avoid ridiculous schedules for top players (China-NJ-Orlando-France in a 4 week period is ridiculous for any player, and clusterfucks like this should be avoided in the future, especially when months like July and August went fairly underpopulated in terms of major events).

[Kinetic]

You have no right to speak for SlayerS, they probably apologize to them. Even if not, you shouldn't speak for them.

For 1, I haven't heard from anyone claiming to speak for SlayerS, however, just because I'm not directly hurt, doesn't mean that I wasn't indirectly effected by it and doesn't mean that I can't say something.

Is it a reason to start insulting people and question their professionalism when eSports is clearly not completely professional ? Hell no.

I haven't heard anyone insulting someone else, but hell YES is it appropriate to question their professionalism. There is a LOT of professionalism in eSports. The fact that you ignore that doesn't mean that it is suddenly not so. Mill has continuously acted unprofessional, so yes I'm going to question their professionalism. The only "major" team so clearly unprofessional is Mill. Have you heard anything like this from EG, Liquid, Dignitas, Complexity, Quantic, Slayers, IM, MVP, FXO, Startale, Prime, TSL???? Yes there have been some issues, (EG vs TSL, sometimes InControl, etc) but people rightfully called them out, and since then it has become much more cordial and professional. The fact that people are calling Mill out is because right now they are a disgrace. After Stephano people have been trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, but this is another failure on their part. They need to STEP IT UP. I know I am, and others are, willing to give them more chances, but frankly they need to reach for it.

As for their track record, I won't come back to the previous discussions since you have obviously a way to consider business that is far from what I consider correct. Their flaming response to coL was certainly totally uncalled for and I am sure they regret it. coL did some mistakes too.

Mill's mistakes:
Intentionally obstructed a contract,
convinced a player to break a contract,
publicly attacked CoL personally and professionally,
flaunted their disrespect for law and professionalism.

CoL's mistakes:
Trusting Stephano (that he was negotiating with Mill, that he would in good faith execute his contract).

If there was more, please tell me, but if the answer is "They didn't follow this obscure French law" that isn't an answer.

[redFF]

LESS DRAMA, MORE MLG

[Otolia]

Arguing with you is like hitting your head on a wall made of arrogance.

[AGar]

Fact: When I catch IPL Team Arena, I expect each team to field 5 players and to be able to watch a full series to it's conclusion.
Fact: Millenium still had two players on their roster - presumably under contract. Meaning they should've done everything in their power to force one of these two players to play. Since, y'know, that's what they get paid to do.
Fact: Millenium fielded 4 players then called it in.

[Kinetic]

I've written 4 or 5 big posts and deleted them again because nothing gets through to you on this blind spot Oto.

I'm not being arrogant. I'm not being unreasonable.

You take everything said against Mill personally. Stop that. Yes, some people are being idiots and making this a France vs the World thing, but those people are idiots. Pay them no mind.

Mill is being unprofessional, disrespectful, and acting entitled. That needs to be fixed. ASAP.

Maybe it is just a complete disregard and disrespect for the "international" market, and they're less so to people in France, but that is unacceptable and unprofessional. Period.

This is becoming a pattern and no one is willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. They need to build up some credibility and good will before they can expect to get that back, but this is not the way to do that.

[Knight of Cydonia]

NesTea vs. Boxer on the MLG Red stream about to start, gonna be a hell of a series hopefully.

[TheButtonmen]

Slush vs Nestea G1 was basically SC:BW ZvZ, so glad the matchup has evolved from herpderp make roachs until someone dies.

[Nuwen]

I don't think I've ever seen Otolia make a sensible post.