The Glade 4.0

This was a pretty wild game with Terran Vs. Zerg that I watched today. Very high APM for the Terran player. Both of them were Asian pro gamers.

[youtube]xRY9yflKTeY[/youtube]

[youtube]InG1qXJORBs[/youtube]

It's an early all-in from Terran; and it's problematic, because, as I said, Zerg is a Macro-Oriented Race.

Uinan that replay is pretty indicative of the problem with Terran Mech at the moment. 3M + Siege Tanks should be able to contain that easily on multiple fronts, even if STC is a godly player. And Planetary Fortresses just decimate anything short of Brood Lords and Mutas.

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I shall of course defer to you on that one Khross, I'm just a noob trying to learn my way. I thought it was a pretty intense game to watch.

On a plus side, I played 5 games this afternoon and won all 5. Quite pleased with my progress in my piddly bronze league. LOL

I had an interesting game earlier today. I'm trying to learn a bit of Protoss before leaving Practice League, although I want to specialize with Terran.

I had an excellent partner and I felt I did well myself; my partner played Zerg and in no time had an enormous army.. as in like a huge stream of red on the map. I had a fair number of Void Rays as well as a modest force of stalkers and zealots I'd formed for base defense early.

Our opponents came after me first and unfortunately my forces wouldn't have been enough to stop them, although he would have taken serious losses. My partner however came in with a well-timed mutalisk attack as well as some other kind of Zerg flyer I'm not familiar with.

I took some damage in terms of harvesters and pylons, but I already had 2 expansions, so I was able to recover and start making mroe void rays. I was just up to 6 and we were going to punch out an enemy expansion... and Talya sends me an IM on google talk and the game crashes!! ARRRGH!!

Not her fault, I should have turned it off. This computer doesn't tolerate little "notifications" during WoW or SC2 AT ALL; the game minimizes and can't be re-maximized. I have no idea why. Still, defeat snatched from the jaws of victory by Taly's message!! (We'd killed off a huge number of battlecruisers and vikings so we were sure he didn't have a lot of defense)

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I finally played a game where I got to use broodlords and ultralisks. It was pretty fun. I owned that terran so hard. But it got me thinking...both t3 units zerg get can only attack ground. WTF is up with that? Carriers and battlecruisers get to attack ground and air. I call shenanigans.

EDIT:

Rough night tonight, that's for damn sure. I only won 5 games and played maybe 15. At one point, I was rocking a 9 game loss streak. Jesus tapdancing Christ. I did unlock the 25 random wins achievement(with sentry portrait, no less) and the 10 terran wins achievement.

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Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick

It is rather odd. I play random, but I played a lot of tvp games last night when I got stuck with terran. There's something wrong here. Honestly, I'm not really sure WTF protoss can do against terran. I didn't even use ghosts, just marines,marauders, medievacs and 2-3 thors and I steamroll them no matter what they had. Zealots/Stalkers/Immortals? Just marched right over them. Void Rays? Marines are a serious hard counter, even if the void rays have ground support. The only thing that might have helped any of them would have been storm, but hardly anyone ever uses that. It was kinda pathetic, really.

But when I play as zerg, I can win against terran a good 60-65% of the time with mutalisks and speedlings. Yet, a void ray rush absolutely destroys me as zerg because by the time they have two void rays, I've been **** around with roaches and speedlings, leaving me with a couple of queens to deal with void rays. And it just doesn't work out well for the queens. I've started to bypass roaches to get to hydras against protoss because of the threat of void ray rush. Mutas would probably work just as well, though.

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Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick

I'm finding rays pretty much tear everything up, marines+medevacs included. Of course, I upgrade mine significantly. The only thing that seems to really do a number on them is vikings, which don't seem to need a lot of numerical superiority to beat them.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Colossi, Stalkers, couple of Immortals and a few Zealots. Two or more Colossi up I find I can chew up a pretty big sized bio ball of terrans.

I havent played in a week, hopefully will get some games in tomorrow.

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

Marines + Medvacs are a flat Hard Counter to Void Rays. Each Ray costs them 5 Marines worth of Minerals and 2.5 Medvacs in Minerals and 1.5 Medvacs in Gas. It's really not even a contest. Stim and murder Rays.

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I thought you had a Blizz boycott, Khross?

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

maaan i love this game, i'm just getting to the first time we see queen of blades (on the monitor) and i've played against insane bots a few times and have had a few coop vs bots and no actual 1v1s yet. I mostly play Terran..beginning to flirt with 'toss.

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Ron Paul 2012

It's entirely dependent on whether the rays are pre-charged (if they snuck into your base while your army was elsewhere, no amount of marines will matter against, say, 6 void rays) and critical mass. You're both right, in some circumstances.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I discovered vikings are really wonderful on island maps.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
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If you make the mistake of concentrating on the medevacs first, maybe. If not, the Medevacs can only heal one marine at a time, and you rarely see more than 4 medevacs. Just let the rays target themselves rather than trying to concentrate the group like you would on a big target and it works a lot better. It also helps a lot to upgrade shields and armor rather than weapons for rays.

If you don't have a significant advantage in terms of numbers of rays to numbers of medevacs, then you're in trouble.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Fixed. Vikings are a fantastic unit for Terran, and are useful in almost any situation. They work really well as a "spotter" for Siege Tanks, as well.

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"I Live, I Love, I Slay, and I Am Content."
- Conan the Barbarian

200 Supply of Marines decimates 200 Supply of Rays. I play Mass Bio Ball Terran when I play Terran and ... it's hilarious. Fully Teched Rays, 50 or 60 at a time just fall down and my marines keep coming.

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Khross is right. Very little can stand against the bio ball. Like I said, you'll have to use storm or fungal growth+mass banelings to take it out. Storm is easier to avoid, fungal growth and banelings? A lot more difficult.

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Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick

When you guys say bio ball, do you literally mean marines, or are you talking the standard 3M?

It can be any combination. But if you toss 200 supply of marines against, say..200 supply of mutalisks, the mutalisks won't stand a chance. Neither will void rays.

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Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick

Who the hell ever makes 200 supply of any one unit? ****, by the time I have half that I figure I need to be punching out his expansion or it's game over.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

200 supply of speedlings can probably beat them.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

When I say 200 supply of marines, it doesn't mean sac all of your SCVs and build marines, it means you have about 70 SCVs and the rest marines. Which, if your opponent is going mutas or void rays, might not be such a bad idea.

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Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick

Once the game goes pure Macro, it heavily, heavily favors Terran simply because of unit numbers and reinforcement times.

Terran can produce Marines faster than you can produce Zerglings, even with 5 Hatcheries and 10 Queens. Banelings fall before the 6 siege tanks you have as ground cover. And if they go Roaches or Hydras, you just mix in Marauders.

Protoss is at a bigger disadvantage because you need Colossi and Immortals, which simply lose because of production time, cost and attrition. The 3M Bio Ball is Ridiculous, because you can hit 200 supply on one base faster than they can get Gas to put up a valid defense.

36 SCVs = 36 Supply
12 Medvacs = 24 Supply
6 Siege Tanks = 18 Supply
24 Marauders = 48 Supply
70 Marines = 70 Supply
2 Ravens = 4 Supply

Plus, you have turrets and scans, 8 Barracks, and 3 StarPorts to pump Reinforcements.

It takes a 3 Nexus Build or 5 Hatcheries to keep up with that production. And if the Marines get strapped for minerals? Planetary Fortress and move SCVs.

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With Protoss you've got to make use of that Chrono Boost ability the Nexus has to make up for that.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I've been practicing PvT against the computer on Very Hard setting and it's indeed hard to beat that initial MMM rush, they get units so quickly. I can beat it now but my build has to be tight and relentless.

So far in Gold league the terrans arent as good as the AI on Very Hard setting.

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe