thebackalleys

LIST OF BATTLETAGS
DEATHFUNK#2367
Crabarms#1391
SeannyJ#1973
psi#1845
MEGABOSS#1624
cipher#1586
RichChap#1535 <- gay man without hots
LillySatou#551 <-friend code, not battletag

Q: Why are we using BattleTags when we just used friend codes before?
A: Because BattleTags allow you to communicate across games, so I can stalk and gank you in World of Warcraft.

jk it's just new and cool

Q: How do I add my BattleTag?
A: Post it in this thread and remind me


JOIN THE OFFICIAL THEBACKALLEYS IN-GAME GROUP.
In the bottom right corner of the screen you have friends, groups and menu. Open groups and find groups, then simply search for "TheBackAlleys". Join this, and if the chat window doesn't automatically open just use the groups function to open it manually. Try to stay in it while online, you know the drill.

------------

QUICK OVERVIEW

StarCraft II Heart of the Swarm is the second part of the StarCraft II trilogy, and the expansion to Wings of Liberty. It has a great deal of improvements and added features to make the game much more smooth to pick up on for new players, including training missions and some slightly tedious or confusing functions being automated.

As it is an EXPANSION to Wings of Liberty, you NEED TO OWN BOTH Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm in order to effectively play it online. As they have removed regional restrictions however, it no longer matters which region you play in as you will still be capable of logging onto whichever region you and your friends intend to play on, which in this case is most likely the North American server.


HELP, I'M AN IDIOT!
aka getting started

First of all you need a Battle.NET account. This is the platform Blizzard uses to distribute and connect their games, however it is self-contained within the game so you don't need a seperate client like Steam does for Steamworks. YOU CAN REGISTER AN ACCOUNT HERE. (http://www.battle.net)

Next, you have two options; you can either support your local retailer and buy a boxed copy of both games, or buy it online through Battle.net's store pages. You could order a boxed copy online, but unless it's something difficult to get or expensive like the Collector's Edition, you're better off saving yourself the trouble by just getting it straight through Battle.net.

Regardless of which path you choose, you can set your account up for the StarCraft II trial, which will allow you to download the full client but only allow you access to the first 3 missions of the Terran campaign as well as the ability to play as the Terran in a highly limited online environment. Quite frankly it sucks, but it's the closest thing you're getting to a demo.

Oh right, and finally, you need to make a BattleTag code in your Battle.NET account and post it here.

In summary;

- MAKE A BATTLE.NET (http://www.battle.net) ACCOUNT
- REGISTER A GAMEKEY
- DOWNLOAD THE GAME
- CREATE A BATTLETAG


A BASIC UNDERSTANDING PT 1: HOW TO BE A SPACE GENERAL AND/OR HUGE NERD (NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE)

There is no quick guide to getting good at this game instantly. There's all sorts of stuff you need to be able to grasp, and sometimes it's just a gamble if you're unable to scout or read your opponent. Much of the art of StarCraft comes from being able to rapidly interface with the game through effective and quick management, but we'll get to this soon enough.

First of all, there's one golden rule in StarCraft that is more important than anything else;
THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING FOR YOU TO DO!

If you're sitting around waiting for something to happen, you are doing something seriously wrong. There's always the tiniest little details you could be adjusting or otherwise paying attention to. If you're waiting for your units to finish, you're sitting around letting your other units go to waste or giving the enemy an edge. There is NEVER any dead time, not even at the very beginning game when you only have workers, because you can do tedious things like allocate them in the correct amounts to different resource patches to minimize downtime and plan out your base layout well in advance. Of course, this is an extreme example, the point is simply to see if there's something you can do at all times.

There are other 'rules' like don't get supply blocked, always make units, etc etc... but this is (mostly) covered by the multiplayer training missions, and is learned over time. You should get used to needless amounts of clicking, not because it is always the smartest thing in the world to be doing (less is more sometimes applies to combat as well) but rather it lets you stay on your toes and get used to the fast pace the game often finds itself in.

A BASIC UNDERSTANDING PT 2: RACES, RACISM, IT'S ALL THE SAME TO SPACE REDNECKS

Presuming you've completed all necessary prerequisites to play the game, you're now sitting with the hardest part of getting started; which species to play.

Without doubt you've probably already seen some sort of media depicting the different species in action, and have some personal preferences as to what you think is cool. If you have not, or aren't sure of the specifics of each race, there are a few Wings of Liberty era introductory videos, one for the Terran (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fmu8PsUDDtQ), Zerg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq74R7wWAnQ) and Protoss (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0g0MpllFCs) respectively. These are somewhat dated, and do as such not cover the new units introduced in Heart of the Swarm.

There are resident specialists and even a few wannapros in any species, so you can probably get any questions you have answered with bloated essays and tirades about stuff only vaguely related to whatever you wanted to ask in the first place.
However to help you out, here are some generally accepted pros and cons;

TERRAN
+ Flexible units
+ Rewards aggression
+ Incredible diversity in strategies
- Slow production
- Punished hard for mistakes
- Very space-hungry bases

ZERG
+ Unmatched production
+ Great mobility on creep
+ Powerful specialist units
- Require much more base maintenance
- Sub-optimal without creep across the map
- Can't make workers and warriors at the same time without crippling either

PROTOSS
+ Fewer units to manage, but more powerful
+ Very good at counter-attacking and reinforcing quickly
+ Easy to manage base construction
- Poor performance without casters or heavy units
- Buildings are powered down if you lose pylons
- Playing Protoss makes you uncool and has been proven to shrink your genitals

Overall, you're going to have your preferences, and you can try out any race you'd like for the training missions anyway. I would like to note however that the Zerg do not play the same in multiplayer as they do in the campaign. Basically, they dumbed the campaign down because Zerg is much more confusing to learn than Terran or Protoss.

CLOSING WORDS

raynor party is a horrible custom game and billy monks has a big jew nose

i bought it today i cant wait 2 mass hellbat LOL

psi#1845

oh and my battletag is SeannyJ#1973

Quote from: SeannyJ on March 13, 2013 10:59 PM
i bought it today i cant wait 2 mass hellbat LOL

people massed hellions before

and by people i mean me

it was kind of my thing

MEGABOSS#1624

LillySatou#551

In my first ladder placement match, my opponent attempted to cannon rush me and built 3 cannons before he realized he was rushing an empty base to the north of my main. I only noticed the cannons near the end of the game after I already had him beaten with mass marines and mines LOL FUNNY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

maybe he was just making sure you couldn't take that expansion

Quote from: Sinitron on March 14, 2013 08:10 PM
maybe he was just making sure you couldn't take that expansion

Maybe, but he made a forge really early and the base he "rushed" wasn't even my natural.

Quote from: SeannyJ on March 14, 2013 09:21 PM

Quote from: Sinitron on March 14, 2013 08:10 PM
maybe he was just making sure you couldn't take that expansion

Maybe, but he made a forge really early and the base he "rushed" wasn't even my natural.

stfu noob you just don't UNDERSTAND his mindgames he did it all to TRICK you because he is a very clever and skilled player and clearly knows his shit

jk he gay

[Copy/Paste from the other SC2 topic]

I created a group called TheBackAlleys on SC II:HotS, which I think is also accessible via WoL.
The purpose of that group would basically just be to have a group chat to discuss shit and more importantly, to play together. The first use of that group will probably occur during that little HotS party that is planned for the weekend.

To join, click the "Groups and Clans" button (to the right of the button for your friendlist), click on "Find" and search for TheBackAlleys. When I created the group, I put it to private but realized that I can only invite people who are currently online, so for the time being (until everyone joined), it'll be public.
As of now, Sinister, Crabarms and I are in the group.
I offered Horst to join the group as well, as a friend of TBA, and he said yes. Then he went offline. I'll be adding him later on.

TLDR;
I made a TheBackAlleys group on Starcraft II. It's public, so just go and search for it and join.

ps. rtil, if you want me to transfer the owner status to you, feel free to ask and I'll be happy to do that.

I still go to the old channel, but I'm the only one hah. I'll still be around this weekend, but it might only be at night, might be a bit late for some people

i think the group will feel more 'official'

Quote from: rtil on March 15, 2013 03:56 AM
i think the group will feel more 'official'

As well as being more consistent than a chat. Another positive aspect is that you can just go to the members tab and add everyone you don't already have in your friend list. Just did that with SeannyJ.

The super fun TBA: Heart of the Swarm party

Hey everyone. As most of you who followed the previous topic know, I suggested that we could have a little 'after launch party' for the game, where those of us who are interested can come together and play some games of HotS. Whether it be Arcade maps, 1v1 (or 2v2/3v3/4v4), Mono-Battles*, King of the Hill or 1v1-Ops/Peek-Mode, there'll be something for everyone.

There's basically only one requirement to join the fun: you need to have a copy of Heart of the Swarm. That's it.
It would also be cool if you would join the TheBackAlleys group on sc2, since that would help us to begin making groups and deciding which maps/mods to play more easily.

An arbitrary starting time I decided on, so we can start somewhere, would be Saturday the 16th, 5:00 PM PST (GMT-7). If you're as lousy with time-zones as I am, use this (http://wwp.pacific-standard-time.com/) page to help you out.
The time I chose was chosen with both Americans and Europeans in mind and if you'd love to make suggestions about either the time or date, go ahead. But keep in mind that 6:00 PM PST is already midnight for both Sinister and myself (11:00 PM for people from the UK).

If you don't have the time to join us on either that time or that date, raise your concern and we'll try to figure out a date and time where we can have as many attendants as possible. The more the merrier!

It'd also be cool if you'd be able to join a skype conversation with the rest of us.

Sum up:
Date: Saturday the 16th of March (open for debate, of course)
Time: 5:00 PM PST (GMT-7), open for debate (Helpful page regarding timezones. (http://wwp.pacific-standard-time.com/))
Requirements: A legit copy of Heart of the Swarm
Extra: Joining the group "TheBackAlleys" on sc2 and being able to participate in a Skype-call would be beneficial!

My Skype name: Monknet <-If you have any questions or whatever, or just want to add me for the gaming evening already, feel free to do so.

*I personally hate Mono-Battles, if this is a sentiment shared by everyone else, I'd be happy to remove it from the list lmao.

EDIT:
Since the date I've picked is rather short-term, we could also move this little 'event' to the weekend of the following week (22nd or 23rd of March, that is), if you guys and gals are more comfortable with that.

Yeah I kind of expected it to be on friday or something. If it's saturday, I'll be able to go, I'll just probably be 1-2.5 hours late. Don't let that stop you though if others are available

if i can get team terran wins i'm good

Quote from: cipher on March 15, 2013 05:43 AM
Yeah I kind of expected it to be on friday or something. If it's saturday, I'll be able to go, I'll just probably be 1-2.5 hours late. Don't let that stop you though if others are available

We'll see. If others - especially the Europeans - are fine with the event being pushed by roughly 2 hours then I personally wouldn't have a problem with that.

And yeah, you're right. I initially wanted to host this event on Friday but I was hit by insomnia again unexpectedly (since the last time this happened is not even a month ago) and I'm currently still up after being awake for round-about 35 hours. So I probably couldn't attend the event if it was on Friday hah.

I might be able to change my plans either way.

also cipher #1586

I finally decided on what my favorite new feature of HotS is. Being able to easily change regions.
Before they added that, I had to have 2 clients (one EU and one NA) of SC II on my PC and have them both update separately and shit. Not to mention that the only reason why I was able to that was because Blizzard fucked up when transferring my account and then gave me two. Otherwise I would've had to buy 2 copies to play with friends on NA and my brother on EU.

That's basically what I did today, played with a few friends on NA, then played some 2v2s with my brother on the EU servers. So much better.

it should have been like that from the beginning, but ya. good for all those people who need it.

me, psi and crabs actually had a pretty fun game on EU when NA was down... against americans

they were talking a lot of shit so we committed to beating their asses, which we did

that's what you get mr "yoloswag420"

Quote from: Sinitron on March 16, 2013 05:55 AM
me, psi and crabs actually had a pretty fun game on EU when NA was down... against americans

they were talking a lot of shit so we committed to beating their asses, which we did

that's what you get mr "yoloswag420"

To be fair, it was more like Crabarms beating their asses, you giving him back-up and me kind of doing my own thing until you two had won the game for us lmfao.

Quote from: rtil on March 16, 2013 03:59 AM
but ya. good for all those people who need it.

Even for those who don't need it. Instead of having a single ladder to play on, you now have 4. You will even have 5 once Blizzard reactivates the "Global" region again.


Anyways, the main reason for me posting here again is that I have to announce that I won't be able to participate in today's HotS party.

I've been talking to Sinister and asked him if he can round those of you, who want to participate up at 5:00 PM PST and he said sure. Just in case it will be necessary or of use, I also promoted him to a general or whatever it's called on the TBA group on StarCraft.

At first I was considering to move this event but then I realized that we could just have another one at another time - I'm sure that quite a few of us will be on HotS during weekends anyways.

So yeah, I wish ya'll a lot of fun. If things turn out well for me, I may be able to drop by at some point during the party, but don't count on it.

Thanks and gl hf!

Alright, well I'll probably be getting on a little closer to 6 PST, but ill be around for the rest of the [local] night after that

fyi almost nobody showed up and i was dead tired so nothing really happened

anyway i go hellion/widow mine just about every game now because they are the shit

map control is king and i get a strong late-game presence with hellbats and tanks

although i still don't like how immobile most mech units are, hots was a huge boon for terran mech

immobility has to be mech's weakness. otherwise it would be too op

God I'm terrible. I lost like 4 games today after getting way ahead. I can't seem to handle more than 2 bases. I still don't use all the hotkeys, it's hard to break a 14 year habit. Fuck, it's just like my life.

just focus on improving one aspect of your game at a time for a week or so, and only that one thing. over time you will get better at multitasking

Quote from: SeannyJ on March 19, 2013 01:36 AM
God I'm terrible. I lost like 4 games today after getting way ahead. I can't seem to handle more than 2 bases. I still don't use all the hotkeys, it's hard to break a 14 year habit. Fuck, it's just like my life.

I assigned Q, W and E to all upgrade related hotkeys, like the upgrades in my evolution chamber, spawning pool, roach warren, infestation pit, etc. Since they're all things that you get only once (or 3 times in the evo-chamber, whatever) per game, and they're all different, I decided that assigning them to Q, W and E is a lot more comfortable.
And I was right, for me personally it works a lot better that way.

As for the buildings and units, I stick to the regular hotkeys cause I learned them all pretty early on.

Quote from: rtil on March 18, 2013 11:29 PM
immobility has to be mech's weakness. otherwise it would be too op

it's the weakness of tanks, and a drawback to their range is fine

the problems stemmed from an inability to split up tanks for area control (reduced damage due to smartfire), effectively defending against mobile air assaults (thors are sluggish) and hellions being unable to stand up in prolonged firefights

as i mentioned previously, i used to solve this problem to an extent by taking golds and building extra structures to create artificial terrain both to defend my army and keep the enemy from effectively backdooring my base

the widow mine and hellbat solves the main problems of meching quite handily, with area control, cheaper anti-air and survivability in end-game fights

what doesn't sit right with me though is that there are two units that have to be deployed and stationary to have any effect and be of use

compared to the protoss tier 3 units which ignore terrain (colossus/carrier/tempest) or can reinforce your army anywhere on the map (warp-in storms, anyone?)

protoss has been a nightmarish matchup to mech in because no matter what you do they can just walk around your tanks, and in heart of the swarm can outrange them with highly mobile flyers

this is why i hate their shit so much because they have almost no downsides to their heavy-duty arsenal compared to terran

mech relies on your opponent being retarded and going head to head in an unfavorable position, or being able to brute force your way through the enemy defenses and forcing him to defend

with zerg and terran their mobile units have weaknesses like short range and squishiness, meaning it's fine to split up your army a little and you have a healthy tango that can go either way if both sides play smart, depending on the map of course

but protoss is just annoying because you have to put so much more effort into beating them than they have to put into beating you, and every time i've beaten protoss it's because they'd done something stupid like mass immortals vs mech which is fucking horrible since they have the same weaknesses (little mobility) but none of the strengths (splash/range) also EMP sucka

i like widow mines and find them to be highly effective in some scenarios, but i just find them to be a little gimmicky

widow mines could certainly be a more interesting unit. watching them in-game is not all that exciting, the fact that the unit decides what it wants to hit makes it a bit of a gamble for the terran player because , for example, if a pack of 30 zerglings and 1 muta go by it, the widow mine will hit the muta instead of taking the opportunity to kill 30 zerglings, which is a far better cost trade but it only gauges by individual unit target priorities.

this is why i was hoping they would retool the warhound instead of trying to make the widow mine a core terran unit. yes widow mines can be extremely deadly but the only skill involved in using them is where they are placed.

yes, this is exactly how i feel

it's not that they're 'bad' in and of themselves, they're just unreliable

the whole point of the warhound was to have a more mobile AA platform than the thor, more like the old goliath

widow mines 'synergize' with the current needs of a mech army but it has several flaws which make it an iffy unit

i am glad they didn't make the thor a super unit though, super units have no place in starcraft

i think they had scrapped that idea before they even tried it

i'm sure widow mines will be tweaked in the future. watching them during mlg it was made pretty clear how wonky they can be. sometimes they don't even fire when a pack of zerglings clearly run through them in range.

the problem though is that they're literally a "one-shot wonder" in engagements, and to zerg it can appear unfair because they aren't suicide units like banelings despite having a similar price tag and far higher destructive potential

in context, it's sort of a crutch for mech, similar to infestors for zerg or sentries for protoss

oh right and since they do friendly splash they can be used against you on the defense; imagine 2-3 widow mines in or behind a mineral line coupled with a few lings running in with a little space between them

yeah i've done that before, i decimated a huge bio blob by simply surrounding it with lings and widow mines dotted around the army. everything died. it was a better trade for me by far

For those of you who missed these games:

Bomber vs. Goswser (where Bomber nukes himself as seen in the .gif)
Bomber vs Goswser - Game 3 - Round of 32 - MLG Dallas 2013 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dujw4xtJ-pM#ws)

Flash vs. Ret (Flash showing that he is as good (or even better) at macro than Ret while still being very active on the battlefield as well) <-starts at 16:05
Flash vs Ret - Game 1 - Round of 16 - MLG Dallas 2013 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtjvMeaqj6A#ws)

Rain vs. Jjakji (Rain holds off a proxy 2-rax amazingly)
Rain vs Jjakji - Game 1 - Round of 16 - MLG Dallas 2013 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9-MRMMbgVc#ws)

bomber vs goswser was hilarious

Quote from: Sinitron on March 20, 2013 12:24 AM
bomber vs goswser was hilarious

First MLG game where all minerals have been mined out. I think towards the end there was either no gas or just a very small amount of gas left.
Probably one of the most exciting and interesting games I've seen in a while.

yeah flash vs life was kind of tame really, didn't help that they both did the same shit almost every game

i wanna play this game but im such a poor chap :(


my battletag is RichChap#1535 but i only have WoL

bamp

i just can't play atm because my connection is unstable

but i do have the new starcraft risk ce if anyone wants to come play it at my house

jk i wouldn't let any BRONY SCUM through my door

Quote from: ΨNicole on March 20, 2013 01:02 AM

Quote from: Sinitron on March 20, 2013 12:24 AM
bomber vs goswser was hilarious

First MLG game where all minerals have been mined out. I think towards the end there was either no gas or just a very small amount of gas left.
Probably one of the most exciting and interesting games I've seen in a while.

i know im really late to this party but i just watched that game and holy fuck it was incredible.

also, fun fact, the music that they were playing at the end of that video was done by someone i know (anyone remember sw2k from sheezyart?)

can anyone tell me (or link me) to one or a couple of standard openings for both protoss and terran? I tried to look for openings on the TL wiki, but they usually just have full builds and they're against specific things (either specific races or specific builds).

e. I don't even know the specifics of the very first few steps of toss/terran. I know the round-abouts of fast forge expand (but not the exact supply numbers) and I know the usual supply depot then barracks build, but nothing after that for terran. Thanks in advance.

well the whole point is to react, especially as terran

beyond the first barracks you do just about whatever the hell you want and flip the bird to your opponent

Most players are zergs here, but I bet with some very light googleing you could find whatever you need.

Anyways I plan to be on a lot these next few days now that finals are done, if anyone wants to play a few rounds or w.e

http://imbabuilds.com/ (http://imbabuilds.com/)

if you can't tailor a build because "it's too specific", you might as well quit now

(https://thebackalleys.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FV1QgfSG.gif&hash=3d2be495ce9c69b27b7d146080eee51f4921cb98)

>Add-ons count as buildings.
>You can capture add-ons in SCII.

didn't kno dis :O

it's very rare that it ever happens, much less wins you the game

Quote from: rtil on May 18, 2013 03:35 AM
it's very rare that it ever happens, much less wins you the game

its gonna be so cool when some pro does this and wins a game though. even if it only happens once.

The LoL Build (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnfu-9fm9UU#ws)

i hate LoL and dota in general

well, i hate protoss

more protoss magic
EXTREMELY High Level Protoss Scouting Techniques (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLYZGn_P6F8#ws)

one of the craziest zvz's i've played, on a really weird map
http://www.thebackalleys.com/dump/download.php?f=12605 (http://www.thebackalleys.com/dump/download.php?f=12605)

Quote from: rtil on May 24, 2013 08:43 AM
one of the craziest zvz's i've played, on a really weird map
http://www.thebackalleys.com/dump/download.php?f=12605 (http://www.thebackalleys.com/dump/download.php?f=12605)

that was weird. thought you were a goner in the beginning but then you took out his overlords and gave yourself tons of time to make a comeback. then those banelings really saved you against those hydras that made it look like the end for you again. gg

i think in a lot of ways i got lucky .. i should watch the game from his perspective. i think he made the right call with the hydras but didn't macro hard enough.

Quote from: rtil on May 28, 2013 04:36 AM
i think in a lot of ways i got lucky .. i should watch the game from his perspective. i think he made the right call with the hydras but didn't macro hard enough.

well he was supply blocked for a while so that kind of stopped him from macroing as hard as he could. he had all his drones and at that point it was pretty much a question of could you get your economy back as fast as he could get unsupply blocked.  honestly i would have probably focused fire on the banelings, and/or sacrificed a few hydras to get rid of those banelings before they destroyed all the hydras. the banelings were really the finishing move for him and without them you would probably have been fucked.

i forget when i put down the banes nest but i knew i needed one to win. he didn't even attempt to split his hydras from what i recall.. game probably would have been a bit closer if it weren't for that blunder.

"why do all terrans play like a faggot"

-guy who lost to heavy drop harass after his 6 pool failed

top lel

i just played a game with a terran who literally only built marines for 99% of the game. there was one point where he tried to send some mines over but i had zerglings take those out mid map before they could do anything. i built tons of banelings and zerglings to deal with it and he just kept building mass marines despite this. he almost killed me somehow as i tried to tech up to broodlords and ultralisks, and after i totally outmined my first two bases he kept denying my other expos. once i got a few broods up at his third he was pretty much done for. he tried to baserace me but i still had lings so i kept killing his marine ball, and then he built A viking and took out my broodlords. i got more corruptors and broodlords and then just all in'd and won the game but it was close. it was really annoying that i was literally building a direct counter to his units the whole game but it was still really close.

fuck i am so bad at starcraft.

There's no counter to marines, silly.

Quote from: RichChap on May 31, 2013 04:38 AM
fuck i am so bad at starcraft.

if you post the replay we can tell you why :P but i'm sure you know what to improve on

Quote from: rtil on May 31, 2013 06:43 AM

Quote from: RichChap on May 31, 2013 04:38 AM
fuck i am so bad at starcraft.

if you post the replay we can tell you why :P but i'm sure you know what to improve on

yeah i dunno, i feel like i don't really play often enough to get better. i managed to get up to silver league once but recently got demoted :[


i watch a lot more games than i actually play and feel like i have a grasp of what i should be doing but i'm just too slow/clumsy to be able to orchestrate anything spectacular.

I had a similar issue back in sc2 beta (more or less). I found myself, no matter how much I focused, always having around 40 APM. Then I just made a decision to purposefully play as fast as I can, tons of spam clicking, etc. My goal was to keep my APM much higher, and over time it became less spamming and more micro and whatnot. And soon after I got promoted. This probably wouldn't work for everyone though.

I should also note this was for getting from gold (where I first placed) to plat, but that was back in beta and everyone was terrible, so now a days it's probably a bit more applicable to lower leagues too

for me, the most important things to improving were:
macroing as hard as i could - better to lose a game because you macro'd too hard, rather than too little
scouting fervently - always knowing what your opponent is doing and what they are up to. tech, # of bases, army location, etc
injection method and habit - i have a modified version of the backspace inject which binds hatcheries to space, allowing me to hold down shit, and spam spacebar and v repeatedly to inject every hatchery lightning fast.

micro doesn't become important until high plat when people start trying to take advantage of flanking, positions, high ground, etc. before this, all you really need is more shit than the other guy.

Quote from: rtil on May 31, 2013 11:24 PM
for me, the most important things to improving were:
macroing as hard as i could - better to lose a game because you macro'd too hard, rather than too little
scouting fervently - always knowing what your opponent is doing and what they are up to. tech, # of bases, army location, etc
injection method and habit - i have a modified version of the backspace inject which binds hatcheries to space, allowing me to hold down shit, and spam spacebar and v repeatedly to inject every hatchery lightning fast.

micro doesn't become important until high plat when people start trying to take advantage of flanking, positions, high ground, etc. before this, all you really need is more shit than the other guy.

thanks a bunch, this is definitely gonna help me out.

another part of the problem i think is that as the game lives longer people who play it get better so it gets increasingly difficult to get into higher leagues, but one of these days i'll sit down and try to get promoted.

i think the only thing you'd have to worry about is not being up with the new meta/familiar with what builds are currently popular and how to counter them. checking TL and sc2 forums usually gives you hints at what people are currently qq'ing about

if you use reddit there's an /r/allthingszerg board that usually has good stuff about the current meta game and whatnot

(and of course there are boards for terran and toss under the same name convention)

Quote from: rtil on May 31, 2013 11:24 PM
injection method and habit - i have a modified version of the backspace inject which binds hatcheries to space, allowing me to hold down shit, and spam spacebar and v repeatedly to inject every hatchery lightning fast.

Could you elaborate more on this? That went way over my head.

There's a few ways this can be done, but generally speaking, most zergs will modify a few keys to make their injects easier. The most common way to is to the link the function currently linked to the backspace button to space. What that function does is that on pressing it, it jumps to your hatchery, and if you have more than one, it will jump to the next one each time you press it. Just doing that alone will help a lot with injects.

What a lot of people then do is link queens to one key (usually 5) and hatcheries to another (usually 6, but it's not relevant). So with this hot key rebound to space, and all your queens in one control group, here's how you do injects. You select your queens, hold shift, and mouse over your hatchery. Then just press 'v space v space v' while clicking on your hatcheries, and you will inject larva into all of them in probably less than two seconds. If you have less queens than hatcheries, it'll get messed up though, so watch for that.

I would start with at least just rebinding space, then do the other step once you're used to it.

Sometimes I feel like this hotkey magic is cheating.

I will use it anyways.
Thanks for the explanation!

it is intended behavior with the game's functionality - the only thing you are changing is a key bind. definitely not cheating ;)

Quote from: rtil on May 31, 2013 11:24 PM
i have a modified version of the backspace inject which binds hatcheries to space, allowing me to hold down shit, and spam spacebar and v repeatedly to inject every hatchery lightning fast.

goddamn i started doing this today and holy shit my macro got so much better. whatever i was doing before was definitely not what i should have been doing.

Quote from: RichChap on June  5, 2013 05:29 AM

Quote from: rtil on May 31, 2013 11:24 PM
i have a modified version of the backspace inject which binds hatcheries to space, allowing me to hold down shit, and spam spacebar and v repeatedly to inject every hatchery lightning fast.

goddamn i started doing this today and holy shit my macro got so much better. whatever i was doing before was definitely not what i should have been doing.

THIS.
Also I can actually play as Terran now that I'm grouping with ctrl+(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9)
I swear I just went up a league in skill in one night.

http://www.thebackalleys.com/dump/player.php?f=12715 (http://www.thebackalleys.com/dump/player.php?f=12715)

a replay for your entertainment

Quote from: RichChap on May 31, 2013 04:38 AM
then he built A viking and took out my broodlords.

Rule of thumb, try to have a 1:1 ratio of brood lords and corruptors in a group together. I usually right-click target my corruptors onto a single brood lord so the group moves together, otherwise the corruptors will fly way ahead of the broods

Quote from: Lambdanaut on June 10, 2013 03:32 PM

Quote from: RichChap on May 31, 2013 04:38 AM
then he built A viking and took out my broodlords.

Rule of thumb, try to have a 1:1 ratio of brood lords and corruptors in a group together. I usually right-click target my corruptors onto a single brood lord so the group moves together, otherwise the corruptors will fly way ahead of the broods

i know i usually do but i had to move the corruptors somewhere else to deal with something i dont really remember but i almost always have at least as many corruptors as broodlords.


also i finally learned how to play this game. i always started third bases way too late as zerg. got promoted up to silver almost instantly after i realized this. this coupled with my new keybind and macro i'll probably be in gold at some point in the nearish future. ;)

richchap fighting~

(https://thebackalleys.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.minus.com%2FibAuHcrwdH9E8.gif&hash=d3124a04c73ce519dbb9ddeaf37323cb83c01df0)

so accurate

hahaha that gif

(https://thebackalleys.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fsc2gifs.com%2Fgifs%2Fsatisfying-pylon.gif&hash=0f6cb510f48c2d2639873902028434a8661a9024)

Quote from: rtil on June 16, 2013 07:32 AM
(https://thebackalleys.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fsc2gifs.com%2Fgifs%2Fsatisfying-pylon.gif&hash=0f6cb510f48c2d2639873902028434a8661a9024)

If this image is broken for anyone else too, go here: http://sc2gifs.com/archives.php?n=46 (http://sc2gifs.com/archives.php?n=46)

hahahahahahahaha

fuck protoss

wow they don't allow hotlinking what a bunch of babs

wow thats too good

also

Quote from: SeannyJ on June 16, 2013 05:03 PM
fuck protoss

(https://thebackalleys.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FSBUnd4A.jpg&hash=4341a5739ec10a195945823639c6997721858a30)

wow i didnt know the pyramids actually shot plasma

the aztecs were really ahead of their time

the bab cannon was their gift to mankind

just played a ranked ladder game as protoss. haven't played protoss in months and I won vs a terran effortlessly

protoss = babby mode

haha yeah i did that once. i went random and got protoss. sat on 2 base, teched to HT. feedbacked and instakilled a doom drop, a-moved into his base and stormed what was left. my apm was half of what it was when i play zerg.

i used to love zvt

fuck widow mines

Quote from: RichChap on June 20, 2013 03:41 AM
i used to love zvt

fuck widow mines

um window mines do more damage to terran in ZvT lol

Quote from: SeannyJ on June 20, 2013 05:08 AM

Quote from: RichChap on June 20, 2013 03:41 AM
i used to love zvt

fuck widow mines

um window mines do more damage to terran in ZvT lol

not if you use them right.

life, considered to be one of if not the best zerg player in the world, got wrecked by sjow, a relatively no-name terran player who went bio/widow mine and lost a series to him 2-1 in the quarterfinals of 2013 DreamHack Open Summer (game 3 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyRk46PpbMY) is the best example). sjow placed widow mines throughout reinforcement paths while being attacked, and life lost hundreds of units to them. sjow was usually not near them and generally didn't suffer any damage from their splash. he did what you're supposed to do - bait groups of offensive units in to their line of fire, and back off and let the sentinel missile do the damage.

i cri evry tiem ;_;

Hero Marauders (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5P2rlR3eR0#ws)

new patch:

BALANCE
Protoss

Warp Prism
Movement speed increased from 2.5 to 2.953.
Acceleration increased from 2.125 to 2.625.





and that's it! thanks blizz

They want protoss to be more active on the map and use actual strategy instead of just massing up the big ol babby ball.

they shouldn't be able to win by just massing up one big ol babby ball. if thats the intention its good, but giving them more options instead of forcing them to be more clever by making the babby ball less powerful doesn't seem like the best idea imo.

i approve of this patch

less deathball more skillz

Still though, I don't really think it will stop toss from doing deathball stuff if it's working, but it gives more options to players who, as suggested above, have skillz

i would rather deal with warp prism harass than sit around waiting for a protoss to max out on 3 bases and a-move

right now my strat vs toss is to NUKE EVERYTHING AT THE SAME TIME

Illusion vs Tilea - Game 3 - WCS America Challenger League Group D (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opgFN5MiUXY#ws)

tilea has a really cool style of playing zerg, building hatches all over the place and just taking tons of bases, getting tons of constant production and mining. in one of the games i think she loses like 500 units and still wins.

I have successfully one a game [against toss] by utilizing zerg forcefields, aka mass changlings on hold position. I'm going to try this more often




also fuck zvz


again

Quote from: cipher on June 23, 2013 01:43 AM
I have successfully one a game [against toss] by utilizing zerg forcefields, aka mass changlings on hold position. I'm going to try this more often




also fuck zvz


again

that is hilarious
you should post the replay

Quote from: RichChap on June 22, 2013 08:51 PM
Illusion vs Tilea - Game 3 - WCS America Challenger League Group D (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opgFN5MiUXY#ws)

tilea has a really cool style of playing zerg, building hatches all over the place and just taking tons of bases, getting tons of constant production and mining. in one of the games i think she loses like 500 units and still wins.

it's fairly normal for a zerg unit lost count to be much higher than the other 2 races. zerglings come in pairs of two and you might be surprised how many pop out of larva during a macro match.

also, tilea only built 2 macro hatches - one in the main and the nat. i wouldn't really call that building hatches "all over the place".. but it is good practice. more hatcheries = more larva, and that's never a bad thing.

fun fact - tilea plays random professionally. might be the only person in WCS who plays random.

Quote from: cipher on June 23, 2013 01:43 AM
I have successfully one a game [against toss] by utilizing zerg forcefields, aka mass changlings on hold position. I'm going to try this more often




also fuck zvz


again

Heheh, did you get that idea from the TL Attack episode?

Also yes ZvZ is abysmal. Come to think of it, one of the main reasons I play Terran is because it's the only race with an interesting mirror matchup. Hell, TvT is probably one of the best matchups there is.

Yeah I saw.. someone do it on reddit not too long ago, as well as a few other loose examples in the past. Might be able to find the replay, but I played a ton of games today so I dunno

so many babby zergs dyin to my mech lel

i want to use swarm hosts but i feel like it's hard to pull them off, allowing locusts to spawn enough to warrant the cost of them without getting them killed. I haven't been using drops as zerg in ages so maybe dropping swarm hosts with overlord speed and then picking them up would be a good way to get them around quickly.

overall though i'm pretty disappointed with the zerg units in this expansion, it's pretty difficult to pull off anything with vipers unless you're a really high level player, and i just never use swarm hosts, I feel like they're kind of crappy brood lords.

also I heard they aren't adding any new units to multiplayer in the next expansion which i find a bit surprising/hard to believe...

i'd be surprised if they didn't add at least one

swarm hosts are situational and should only be used if you plan on getting at least a dozen. then they need to be backed up by a defensive line for when they're on cooldown. it's a gambling unit.. if you invest heavily in to them and it doesn't pay off from the get go you're probably in a lot of trouble. you should also plan ahead for their inevitable tech switch in to whatever their swarm host counter is. and you should be expanding behind it if you're containing them. swarm hosts can be fun but people are getting better at reacting to them. there are definitely safer builds.

vipers are awesome and not that hard to use. i get about 4 or 5 in zvp and use the pull spell on colossus or any other high priority target unit. it significantly turns the tides of battles in my favor. binding cloud is good vs tanks in zvt and not much else. vipers with pull is basically the new fungal growth.. everyone should be using it and it's almost a crutch for winning the late game.

interesting, I'll definitely try to start making use of vipers more, although ive always been really bad at micro. I never got good at using infestors in WoL (so i dont feel like its worth it now), but ill try to focus on getting vipers (and learning to use them) for the inevitable protoss death ball in future pvz games

just keep them on a different hotkey from your army, and keep them out of fire as they are really fragile. if you want to use the pull spell, just shift click the spell on colossus, and keep the vipers away so that they will use their maximum pull range. once the colossus land, your army will attack it simultaneously as suddenly there's an enemy unit of high priority sitting in the middle of everything, and it will die in a split second

Quote from: rtil on July  6, 2013 10:41 PM
just keep them on a different hotkey from your army, and keep them out of fire as they are really fragile. if you want to use the pull spell, just shift click the spell on colossus, and keep the vipers away so that they will use their maximum pull range. once the colossus land, your army will attack it simultaneously as suddenly there's an enemy unit of high priority sitting in the middle of everything, and it will die in a split second

shift click? does that do something different from just clicking it?

and i don't need to tell my units to attack the colossus? that's handy. im not really sure how the ai system works but i guess that makes sense. this is making it seem easier.

what kind of units are best to have in this situation? usually i don't get hydras, my compisition against toss is generally something along the lines of ling muta, sometimes roaches, with ultralisks in the late game.

it's literally holding down shift while clicking. you're queueing commands to be done in that order

roach hydra viper is fine. don't overcommit on hydras though. should be a 2:1 ratio of roach hydra

Quote from: RichChap on July  7, 2013 04:48 AM
and i don't need to tell my units to attack the colossus? that's handy. im not really sure how the ai system works but i guess that makes sense. this is making it seem easier.

Usually you don't need to do anything, but if the colossus isn't dead within a few volleys of attacks (~3 seconds), then make sure to target it down. Every now and then I'll pull one and it will just sit on top of my army attacking, or just run away.

I think I missed an opportunity to troll the fuck out of someone here, oh well. Behold, the Lomion Saga

(https://thebackalleys.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thebackalleys.com%2Fdump%2Ffiles%2F1830%2F3773Ui_lomionSaga.jpg&hash=817b0a4ef0547f41d8cf805c2ff9b1c0eef63d4a)




:wile:

HAHA wow, that's great.

my god he was so mad

can you post the replay?

that's what you get for expecting something of a zvz

After that conversation, he presumabely saw the replay, and saw that he was wrong. Then he stopped talking to me heh


anyways, I thought I was going to lose this game for a while, did some pretty sloppy maneuvers at times, but overall it was an interesting game (it's a long one)

http://www.thebackalleys.com/dump/player.php?f=12955 (http://www.thebackalleys.com/dump/player.php?f=12955) (I don't know how to do a direct link)

(I should also note it was actually ZvT, the burrow I mentioned was widow mines)

oh

well uh



that's what you get for gettin mad at vidya

(https://thebackalleys.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thebackalleys.com%2Fdump%2Ffiles%2F281%2F263nK7_Screen%2520Shot%25202013-07-15%2520at%252011.36.57%2520AM.png&hash=62a423afa6b728217197cec089d678aea410fd62)


promotion wooooooooooo~

Quote from: RichChap on July  6, 2013 09:04 PM
I haven't been using drops as zerg in ages so maybe dropping swarm hosts with overlord speed and then picking them up would be a good way to get them around quickly.

IMO It's almost always better to do a nydus worm drop than an overlord. Let them eat  lings.
From bronze-gold league you can usually find an unprotected ledge in the opponent's base to spawn your worm. I usually nydus shortly after getting  an overseer.

apparently there's a dude inside the missile turret. i always thought it was automated. here he is
(https://thebackalleys.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2F4ly6IkQ.jpg&hash=efbb15d602614ead36c7327510e8f9fd5e319686)

old news

(https://thebackalleys.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mocpages.com%2Fuser_brickshelf_resized%2Fgallery%2Ftotalimmortal182%2FOther%2FStarCraft%2Fstarcraft_turret.jpg_THUMB.jpg&hash=64f234d5da5ab64e533c633c3a833c97c7ce1b41)

Quote from: rtil on July 17, 2013 06:02 AM
apparently there's a dude inside the missile turret. i always thought it was automated. here he is

... thats really strange, especially since the its just built by an scv.

weird zvp on one of the new maps: http://ggtracker.com/matches/3933759 (http://ggtracker.com/matches/3933759) <- btw this website is the first really good replay parser i've seen

i want to play this map with someone
IMBA LEAGUE - ALL UNITS RETURN AS ZOMBIES - Episode 10 - Babyknight vs Bunny (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sZEvl8QrIk#)
IMBA LEAGUE - ZOMBIES PART 2 - EPISODE 11 - TLO VS QXC (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-2p5xLBNJ4#)

I'd be down. Are they public yet though? (I haven't watched them yet, but they're next in my sc2 matches queue).

yeah apparantly it is published on NA under a map titled something like "Allmerge". Once you go into it you're supposed to be able to select what "imba" things you want to turn on.

honestly I think the zombies one is really dumb

the blink one was hilarious though

i think the zombie one could be better, i'd like it if the zombies got a base that they would start mining and using production facilities, and maybe move around some more in packs. but the mechanics of how it works are hilarious imo. i'd love to see some brood lords, carriers and battleships get in on the action as well.

in any case, the Allmerge map is supposed to have all these different mods on it, including the blink one. so it's easy to find them all in one place.

some lovely rage from a barcode terran
(https://thebackalleys.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2Fdoks4Xv.png&hash=f9d44926ab8bcbac7fb5649cff78c2bcc116aefc)

this is why i hate multiplayer communities

also this
Greatest Will Cheese Fail Ever! Probe/SCV War (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOvGCrilWik#ws)

i don't get messages like that very often, but it's usually fine when i do cuz people rage at you if you beat them so it just becomes funny

Quote from: Stu4U on September 28, 2013 06:21 PM
this is why i hate multiplayer communities

I'd say more like this is why I love multiplayer communities.

sc2 at least

i don't play sc2 often so i wouldn't know. either way i'd rather not have anything to do with poor sportsmanship... if you can even call it that.

there's always going to be poor sports in mp games. it's better to judge the community as a whole. a bad community for example is LoL. a good one is a supportive one that helps new players. sc2 is good in that sense.

a note of encouragement to anyone laddering and feeling like they are much worse than they used to be..
(https://thebackalleys.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FfJV8fBv.jpg&hash=1470d7f34c695a68f02c3a8c6f436655103eceed)
this is the league distribution last january and now. blizzard screwed something up when they implemented the "new" ladder, and now bronze and silver make up 70% of players. because of this, players who the ladder system would have originally never pitted against you are now stuck in lower leagues and playing against others who legitimately belong in their former league, but are not of the same skill level. consequently, many legitimate bronze-diamond players are finding themselves playing against former master league players, and there are so many of them that they also come across other master league players in those leagues, and get stuck in them because their win/loss stays consistent enough that they can't move up, either.

blizzard is aware of the problem, and their original goal was to have bronze and silver make up 40% of the ladder and gold make up 30%, with masters being 2% aka harder to get in to. they say they're doing something about it, but for now, bronze and silver are slowly eating up the ladder. if you're having trouble getting out of it, don't worry about it right now.

i'm in high plat and i'm trying really hard to get back into diamond, but i'd have to consistently beat master league players in order to do it, and my mechanics and macro just aren't that good.

While I finished last season in high plat I can't even get out of low plat this season. I admit I'm not playing much, but it's been pretty discouraging for when I do play. Hopefully they'll unfuck it soon.

On a side note, I've been messing around in the map editor, might post a map design or two in the coming week or so, see if anyone has opinions.

i'd love to play on a custom map someone here made. last time i did that was with bp7. he made a fucking huge map that took like 2 minutes to cross.

i also want to play imba league again with the new wandering minerals, shooting banelings and huggerlords

i'm in silver but i'm actually masters :^)

i am unranked =^]

a lot of people play unranked cuz of this now actually

also it means no ladder anxiety which i don't really get but a lot of people seem to have

yeah i got ladder anxiety in the first two seasons

when i was climbing from silver to gold (https://thebackalleys.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.duckponddesigns.com%2Fwpimages%2FCross-eyed.png&hash=4e0013bc9ca1cd02c07cc6ad5c13ae0a85bb4d50)

Map in progress (I haven't really add much in regards to art/ textures yet). 1v1 only, size is around average for that.

(https://thebackalleys.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thebackalleys.com%2Fdump%2Ffiles%2F1830%2F942k8R_sc2map.png&hash=6842798759542650768dfaced03d2808a64dc1a0)

Opinions? I'm not trying to do anything too crazy, just going for something that's mostly balanced. Not sure about the corner areas, and I feel like the center needs something, but I have yet to find something that works. Maybe a ring of trees or something to block sight, I dunno

i'd do more with the black tileset to even out the green one. the middle seems too open perhaps, but it's hard to tell based on the size, so maybe it is not .

Quote from: rtil on December 26, 2013 11:04 PM
the middle seems too open perhaps,

that can be easily balanced out with some high-yield, high-ground minerals, i'm thinking.

i'd also suggest that where the are two towers are at should be a bit larger, and put some minerals there, instead- shove the towers closer to the middle, on the lower ground, and maybe cover 'em with some grass while you're at it.

just some idearzs

i do quite like the paths and rocks for the first expo, and the black tileset. i agree with rtil, that they should be a bit more balanced with the green, maybe make the higher-ground purely with the black textures.

Current pass. Forgot to delete the watch tower in the upper left before I took the screen shot. A few things to note - there are some bushes around the now relocated watch towers. I also did a lot texture work, but when you zoom out it's a bit hard to tell. In-game the highground is pretty clearly differentiated, the textures for the pack I chose all seem kind of the same, so it's a little hard.

(https://thebackalleys.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thebackalleys.com%2Fdump%2Ffiles%2F1830%2F071c8Q_sc2Map_sc3.png&hash=5ca40adab78d46210a4730d3c004ec8703bef231)

"Patch" Notes
•Added new bases to top left / bottom right corner
     -Moved watch towers inward
     -Made those highground areas bigger, deleted one of the ramps
•Added random holes in the middle so it was a little less open. Still not sure about it though. There isn't really enough room to do much with more bases / highground
•Lots of more textures, and a few more art assets

I already see a few alterations I want to make, but I thought I'd post a new version otherwise. Thank you for the previous suggestions.

lookin goooood~

definitely a big improvement from the first iteration

with patch 2.1 coming out today, the entire sc2 arcade is now f2p, meaning the only thing f2p sc2 players won't have access to is the ladder and campaigns. so if you're interested  in sc2 for the custom games  then you can download it for free (https://us.battle.net/account/sc2/starter-edition/) now.

MKP is back
[SPL2014] MarineKing(PRIME) vs soO(SKT1) Set4 Habitation Station -Esports, SPL2014 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMNXPOwoMuo#ws)

blizzcon hypeu~

StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void - Oblivion (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUMSMDX5iQc#ws)
Legacy of the Void - Multiplayer Update: Terran (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaKT0YQSJ9I#ws)
Legacy of the Void - Multiplayer Update: Zerg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkVMd1-ZyM8#ws)
Legacy of the Void - Multiplayer Update: Protoss (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tKHSrkilGY#ws)

>only 1 new unit
>immortal nerf

LOL PROTOSS BTFO

Quote from: zwimmy on November  9, 2014 09:51 AM
LOL PROTOSS BTFO

for once

and it's a fucking energy ball

like seriously you think they'd try to make something cool

oh and another thing is that the new terran units seem like they would be very APM intensive and only useful in very specific circumstances. we'll have to see what happens in the betarino

better yet the energy ball is a mostly recycled model of the scrapped replicator unit from the HotS pre-alpha that never even made it to test

david kimba said there's another protoss uniter they're considering for the beta but no guarantees yet. they should just give the reaver already so people stop whining about it

the new units were shown off during the exhibition matches after the ro8. the Herc and Ravager make micro a lot more interesting. Lurkers didn't get to do a whole lot besides area denial, and Cyclones are just straight up OP and not that hard to use. the protoss shit still just felt like burst damage deathball bs. oh and swarm hosts are even more annoying but they did do what they intended was make them an aggressive unit instead of defensive

hey guys does anyone have the beta for LOTV??? lets play!!!

I stopped caring about Starcraft ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

i juuuuuust got back into it because of lotv. it seems like a lot of people have stopped caring. that said this game is a way better expansion than heart of the swarm was (at least multiplayer wise which is the important part). i love the new zerg units :>

definitely had the most fun with this game when i was playing with the tba crew though!!

Quote from: RichChap on August  4, 2015 07:37 PM
hey guys does anyone have the beta for LOTV??? lets play!!!

me and @Binary_2 (http://www.thebackalleys.com/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=1752) have LOTV beta

i have you on bnet friends list

Quote from: rtil on August  5, 2015 12:14 AM

Quote from: RichChap on August  4, 2015 07:37 PM
hey guys does anyone have the beta for LOTV??? lets play!!!

me and @Binary_2 (http://www.thebackalleys.com/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=1752) have LOTV beta

i have you on bnet friends list

omg omg omg omg can we play please

Quote from: RichChap on August  5, 2015 04:16 AM

Quote from: rtil on August  5, 2015 12:14 AM

Quote from: RichChap on August  4, 2015 07:37 PM
hey guys does anyone have the beta for LOTV??? lets play!!!

me and @Binary_2 (http://www.thebackalleys.com/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=1752) have LOTV beta

i have you on bnet friends list

omg omg omg omg can we play please

we can

we did

and we will again

Quote from: Sinitron on March 13, 2013 04:37 PM
LIST OF BATTLETAGS
RichChap#1535 <- gay man without hots

lol


rtil you should change this to "legacy of the void" thread.


very excited to play archon mode again weeeeee~!

crazy new patch seriously changes macro (makes it way simpler) I wonder how this will be.

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/19875306/legacy-of-the-void-beta-balance-update-preview-august-20-8-20-2015 (http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/19875306/legacy-of-the-void-beta-balance-update-preview-august-20-8-20-2015)

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/19850026/legacy-of-the-void-beta-patch-255-8-20-2015 (http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/19850026/legacy-of-the-void-beta-patch-255-8-20-2015)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8tbPRRnRAk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8tbPRRnRAk)


rtil come play this with me plzzzzzzzz

Having a bit more fun with legacy of the void than I had with Heart of the swarm.
I like the ravager and lurker so far and i'm sure they will get nerfed because they are pretty strong.

Quote from: Crabarms on September  4, 2015 09:25 AM
I like the ravager and lurker so far and i'm sure they will get nerfed because they are pretty strong.

ravager has actually already been nerfed pretty hard, but it's been buffed a little since then as well

lurker used to have a range upgrade from 6 to 9, but now comes with 9 range by default

i think instead of nerfing these units, other units will be buffed to compensate. for example, the colossus has 9 range again

release date november 10th. woo woo~!

what do you guys think of the recent changes to the patch that removed chrono/mule/manual inject?

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/19897909/legacy-of-the-void-beta-balance-update-september-17-2015-9-17-2015 (http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/19897909/legacy-of-the-void-beta-balance-update-september-17-2015-9-17-2015)


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rtil said he might switch to terran if they didn't remove the autocast inject so i'm interested to hear what he thinks now

What good of a change is that, that's exactly like auto cast except you just have to queue up multiple casts for an annoying chance to miss queuing them all up again.

But I guess it's closer to manual inject though, so that'll be better maybe.

Quote from: RichChap on September 17, 2015 11:01 PM
release date november 10th. woo woo~!

what do you guys think of the recent changes to the patch that removed chrono/mule/manual inject?

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/19897909/legacy-of-the-void-beta-balance-update-september-17-2015-9-17-2015 (http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/19897909/legacy-of-the-void-beta-balance-update-september-17-2015-9-17-2015)


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rtil said he might switch to terran if they didn't remove the autocast inject so i'm interested to hear what he thinks now

i think november 10th is too early. lotv meta isn't in a good place yet, and i think they need more time to mess with economy stuff. hopefully the release doesn't stop them from doing more ambitious changes.

i suspect kespa tournaments may stay on hots for a little while longer

i don't mind the queuing injects thing, as long as it has a cap. this still requires skill so it's fine

Quote from: Binary_2 on September 17, 2015 11:11 PM
What good of a change is that, that's exactly like auto cast except you just have to queue up multiple casts for an annoying chance to miss queuing them all up again.

But I guess it's closer to manual inject though, so that'll be better maybe.

it's actually nothing like autocast, because there's no longer autocast. you still have to manually inject, and you are punished for missing injects - just less than you were in hots. you also have the choice now to store up queen energy or spend it on injects instead of tumors or transfuses.

now that MULEs are on a cooldown and chrono is less powerful it seems like the macro mechanics are all in a better place.

edit: nevermind they reverted terran's entire macro mechanic back to hots. disappointing

this just came out. anyone tryna play this or has the world given up on it? we can finally do 2v2s and more ~

i think i'm about 3/4ths of the way through the campaign. haven't had a chance to play with anyone yet so i've mostly just been doing 1v1. meta is still pretty shit

This campaign is way harder than the last ones on brutal I feel like. Still undecided if I'll be getting back into multiplayer much though, especially if it sucks currently.

The prologue missions i thought were pretty hard, wasn't sure if that was just because i have never touched protoss before but it took me a bunch of failed attempts before switching to normal difficulty and beating it on that :/

not really sure if i wanna play the campaign though. dont care enough about protoss and its just not that rewarding for me.

well that is just my personal opinion, zerg is apparently OP right now but i disagree

and yes the campaign is much harder than hots and just as hard or harder than WoL. i like it. hots was way too easy to beat on brutal.

Quote from: RichChap on November 18, 2015 03:03 AM
not really sure if i wanna play the campaign though. dont care enough about protoss and its just not that rewarding for me.

protoss is my least favorite race but the campaign is actually fucking sick. i actually like protoss lore a lot more now that i've played it. it's well structured, the missions are fun and the upgrade customization is huge. also the writing is so much better, and there's some new characters that keep things interesting. it might be less kerrigan that's making me feel this way. i didn't really like how they wrote her story. although she is still very important in LOTV - just not around as much.

Yeah, this is cool. I still don't like the way protoss play compared to zerg but this is actually pretty neat. Excited to be able to explore the huge protoss ship and get upgrades and stuff, I just finished the mission where that was unlocked.

I really liked the stuff with abathur and the primal zerg in the hots campaign but kerrigan is a super annoying character. Didn't really mind how easy it was personally.

it's all about making an overpowered as fuck deathball in the campaign but it's still quite challenging and does require micro in the harder difficulties. structuring your army and the spear of adun the way you want with the calldowns too makes it more like 'your' protoss instead of the multiplayer protoss.

abathur was the best part of hots. he's getting his own voice pack soon :)

Quote from: rtil on November 18, 2015 03:27 AM

Quote from: RichChap on November 18, 2015 03:03 AM
not really sure if i wanna play the campaign though. dont care enough about protoss and its just not that rewarding for me.

protoss is my least favorite race but the campaign is actually fucking sick. i actually like protoss lore a lot more now that i've played it. it's well structured, the missions are fun and the upgrade customization is huge. also the writing is so much better, and there's some new characters that keep things interesting. it might be less kerrigan that's making me feel this way. i didn't really like how they wrote her story. although she is still very important in LOTV - just not around as much.

I guess on par with the writing, what the LotV campaign has going for it is that no characters have any significant downsides. Character design has always been good in sc, but I think the protoss lore specifically sort of lends itself to this format. As a result though, no one is really breaking the mold and standing out too much. With HoTs for example, we had multiple new characters who are incredibly memorable, with Kerrigan kind of being the least interesting. WoL was more like a hybrid of the two I guess in that regard.

Quote from: cipher on November 18, 2015 08:04 AM

Quote from: rtil on November 18, 2015 03:27 AM

Quote from: RichChap on November 18, 2015 03:03 AM
not really sure if i wanna play the campaign though. dont care enough about protoss and its just not that rewarding for me.

protoss is my least favorite race but the campaign is actually fucking sick. i actually like protoss lore a lot more now that i've played it. it's well structured, the missions are fun and the upgrade customization is huge. also the writing is so much better, and there's some new characters that keep things interesting. it might be less kerrigan that's making me feel this way. i didn't really like how they wrote her story. although she is still very important in LOTV - just not around as much.

I guess on par with the writing, what the LotV campaign has going for it is that no characters have any significant downsides. Character design has always been good in sc, but I think the protoss lore specifically sort of lends itself to this format. As a result though, no one is really breaking the mold and standing out too much. With HoTs for example, we had multiple new characters who are incredibly memorable, with Kerrigan kind of being the least interesting. WoL was more like a hybrid of the two I guess in that regard.

besides abathur and maybe izsha i didn't find hots characters all that memorable. most of them were nothing more than plot devices (narud). in lotv it's cool to see the various factions of protoss working together despite their clashing ideals, especially the crudely pragmatic and pessimistic Alarak accusing the good-natured idealism of Artanis as being naive, constantly accusing him of wasting time and being inefficient. plus Alarak is super snarky and tsundere and i found that hilarious. [spoiler]clone Fenix[/spoiler] and Karax together in the solar core was cool, and i enjoyed listening to their conversations. i think all around it's way better than hots in terms of content, customization and writing.

Quote from: BluPhoenix on December 24, 2013 03:27 AM
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actually really liking this campaign, some of the missions are super fun and the story and stuff is pretty good. really enjoyed the mission where i had to hold off the zerg as long as possible, and the one where i got to control kerrigan and artanis together. the progression of the story is neat but tbh i dont really think any of the characters are that interesting, especially compared to abathur, the big primal zerg dude from hots, and the infested terran guy. wanting to get to the end though so i can see what happens with the xel'naga tho.

really wanna play some of the co op missions and do more of archon and stuff with people though.

Quote from: RichChap on November 20, 2015 07:14 AM
actually really liking this campaign, some of the missions are super fun and the story and stuff is pretty good. really enjoyed the mission where i had to hold off the zerg as long as possible, and the one where i got to control kerrigan and artanis together. the progression of the story is neat but tbh i dont really think any of the characters are that interesting, especially compared to abathur, the big primal zerg dude from hots, and the infested terran guy. wanting to get to the end though so i can see what happens with the xel'naga tho.

really wanna play some of the co op missions and do more of archon and stuff with people though.

Yeah that sort of goes along with my point about the characters. I mean I like them all, but ones previously offered (abathur, dehaka, stukov) just felt way more unique and interesting. However I do like the current ones, but there's not as much individuality (as you would expect from protoss).

anyone beat the mission where you're supposed to [spoiler]protect the keystone[/spoiler] on hard? i've tried and failed 3 times. trying to think of the perfect unit comp. might try colo/stalker/vr next because it's the zerg swarm that always overwhelms me

Quote from: rtil on November 20, 2015 11:39 AM
anyone beat the mission where you're supposed to [spoiler]protect the keystone[/spoiler] on hard? i've tried and failed 3 times. trying to think of the perfect unit comp. might try colo/stalker/vr next because it's the zerg swarm that always overwhelms me

Beaten it yet? Anyways, took me a few tries, but here's what I did. Initially I was trying various comps of units and things, but eventually went for the cheap strategy..

[spoiler]Aka mass voidrays, the regular kind. I also made some corsairs as well. Take base 2 real fast, eventually you should be able to support 4-5 stargates at once. With your extra minerals, just start building a mix of both cannon types and shield generators around the keystone, and at the base of both stair cases (wall yourself in). Once I hit pop cap I rarely dropped below even 180 until the very end. The keystone might have taken a few hits, but it was mostly at full HP when I won, and 2/3 of my allies bases were still up. Although at that point my army was mostly dead.

I bet it you have excess minerals, and the micro to spare, I would have made a bunch of gateways to make DTs and things at the end. For ship abilities, I had pylon, the strafe laser things, auto-assimilator, fenix, purifier beam, and the health recover thing. [/spoiler]

i haven't tried it since that night. my mistake was [spoiler]not building stuff around the keystone[/spoiler]. my units could not keep up with the sheer amount of bullshit swarming around it.

i've read a couple strategies that have worked, destiny even managed to not lose a single allied nexus on brutal, but i haven't seen the VOD yet.

Yeah my first few attempts I lost pretty horribly, pretty quickly. Honestly, I think I could have saved the one nexus that was lost. It's much more vulnerable than the other two, but I bet if you did the cannon wall around it as well it would be possible

Just finished the campaign and it was really cool overall. the ending was a litttttle weak but I thought it was neat that [spoiler] they finally introduced the xel'naga [/spoiler]

Quote from: RichChap on November 30, 2015 05:23 PM
Just finished the campaign and it was really cool overall. the ending was a litttttle weak but I thought it was neat that [spoiler] they finally introduced the xel'naga [/spoiler]

[spoiler]and now they're all dead :^)[/spoiler]