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[Esperath]

Anyway, done with campaign and done with a few test AI 1v1s, so it's time for me to get on the multiplayer train.

I never see anyone on b.net when I log in, so does anyone want to get a regular community SC2 night going?  We can play whatever depending on the turnout.

[Detonator]

Man, I am suffering from a bad case of the 2k monies whenever I'm on the attack.  I just can't split my attention like that.  I am usually limited by my gas, so I should probably just build a bunch more tier 1s to match my gas-heavy units.

I *could* expand with those extra mins, but again, the whole micro problem while in the middle of an attack.

EDIT: Actually, given the build time, it wouldn't be too much to hotkey a couple builders and have them ready to move to forward expansions.  Since I'm generally restricted by gas, just having the extra vespeneflow would be useful.

Watch the Day[9] Dailies, his tips are very helpful.  Just in the past few episodes he's given some helpful insight into this sort of situation.

Specifically about keeping up with your macro, he talks about how he got over the problem by obsessively keeping track of his buildings in every game and not really worrying about the other stuff.  Yeah, you'll probably lose, but eventually the macro will become second nature.  He didn't exactly recommend this course of action, but did note that it worked very well.

Some other general tips I picked up:

1. Have a plan.  Sum up your entire strategy in one sentence.  "Get fast 'lings and mutas, then tech to ultras" for example.  The point isn't to follow your plan obsessively, it's to keep in mind what you're trying to do and not trying to wing it or being sidetracked and forgetting to tech at all.

2. Watch high level replays.  Find a pro player of your preferred race and study his opening.  Then try to emulate that opening yourself.  Sure, you don't have the same APM they do, but most of the time the opening is a solid foundation for whatever else you want to do.  There's not much room for variation in the beginning anyways.

3. Watch your own replays.  Be tough with yourself, but fair.  Pick two or three things that you can improve on, and work on them until you get to a level you're satisfied.  Don't dwell on tiny things if you still have major stuff to work on.  If you lost, see where you fell behind and figure out what you should have done to prevent it.  If you won, see if there were any ways where you could have won quicker.

4. The most important thing (and hardest), of course, is to actually practice.  You're not gonna be great after 4 games, or 10, or probably 100.  You can read all the theory you want, but you won't actually get better until you try it out, experiment, and overcome your weaknesses.  Just go and do it.

I agree that we should have a SC2 night.  I don't really have a preference for a particular night, but if I see people online I'll try to play.

[Makaris]

I've been using a friends account until I can get my own.  Deadearth.

[Kayin]

(pssst, numbers)

[Makaris]

Pffft, numbers.  Ain't got no patience to be sit'n around, give'n out numbers to everyone who asks fer em'.

DeadEarth 107.  I GUESS.

[MadMAxJr]

I am slowly learning the gridkey layout for my hotkey actions.  Does anybody else use this?

[Detonator]

One last tip I forgot about.

5. Scout.  Scout constantly.  Knowledge really is power.  It can't be overstated how useful it is to know what your opponent is up to.  Playing with blinders on and oh hey where the fuck did those 12 zealots come from I'm dead isn't very fun.  I could list countless reasons why scouting is important so it's definitely something you should get in a habit of doing.

[Detonator]

Played more 1v1 games today than ever.  Placed into gold league, probably way over my head... however, I'm learning a whole lot each game.

I still need to control group much harder.

[Kayin]

Oh, speaking of learning things, I think after seeing my wall off and how I fumbled it, you should have gone for another base. I screwed a loooot up, but I just seemed to out macro you just because I had my natural early. After I killed your lings, there was no way I was going to run out and be all aggressive, especially since I'm going to be expecting another wave.

[Esperath]

Played my first couple of games as Zerg.  Plays totally differently than I expected.  I was initially turned off by hydras because of their low health, expense, and low apparent damage output, but apparently their attack speed is through the roof so they do mad amounts of damage.

Problem with hydras is that they are essentially 2 marines, but cost 50 gas more, and have less health than two marines combined.  Yeah, hydras can get +1 range and do a bit more damage against armor, but marines can get stimpack/shield and medevac support.

Hydralisk: 100 min / 50 gas, 14.45 dps, 5 range, 80 health
2 marines: 100 min / 0 gas, 2x6.97=13.94 dps, 5 range, 2x45=90 health

Of course, a single hydra will beat 2 marines (first marine dies in four hits, halving the marine damage output).  Assuming that all units attack at the same time, marine 1 does 18 damage, marine 2 does 42 damage, leaving the hydra with 20 HP + however zerg regen works.

[Detonator]

If you mass hydras without any supporting unit (namely roaches), you are doing it wrong.  Roaches have less range and more HP, making them a perfect buffer between your hydras and the enemy.  Hydras are also your best bet for taking down an air-heavy opponent in the mid game.

Hydras are still very effective, but you can't use them as your bread and butter troops like you could in Brood War.

[Esperath]

Of course, you can say the same thing about using marines exclusively.  Marauders complement marines quite well and pop roaches, with the full contingent being less gas-heavy than a roach-hydra combo, and don't need to go tier 3 just to make them.

Basically, roach/hydra just strikes me as a shitty copy of terran bio, which can be duplicated at tier 1/2 instead of 2/3.

[Detonator]

Zerg armies are not meant to hold up to other races' armies in a straight-up battle.  Their units are not meant to be equal counterparts to them.  Zerg have to use their innate macro advantage to outplay the opponent, which usually does not involve throwing armies at each other.

If I see a pack of marines/marauders, I don't think "roach/hydra", I think "banelings".  Then use mutas to mop up the remainder and go straight for his base while his army is in shambles.

[Esperath]

Yes, and there's a straightforward terran counter to all of that, as there is for any given strategy.  By the time you've teched to mutas, your opponent will have more to offer than barracks units.

The point is that the hydralisk seems too little, too late.  By moving them up the tech tree, along with the roach nerf, there is so much more emphasis on ling/muta because roach/hydra takes too long and is too gas-expensive relative to other races' options at that point in the game.

[Detonator]

Sure, everything has a counter, that's why the game is relatively balanced.  I'm just trying to say that the zerg's merits don't come from their unit stats alone.

Don't get me wrong, I won't be complaining if they decide to give a buff to Zerg.  However, I don't think they're quite as underpowered as they're generally believed to be.

[Esperath]

Okay, just played another Zerg game.  Is "Worker rally point" currently broken?  I noticed that my resources were lagging like crazy, so I look at my worker line and there's a queue of like 10 dudes trying to harvest one mineral patch while four patches or so were totally untouched.  I manually selected all and clicked on a single min patch and then they redistributed.

It looks like the drones were trying to harvest exclusively off of the mineral patch at the rally point target.  This happened again when I was expanding out my nat.

EDIT: Screenshot of resource collection.  Over half of my mineral munchers were just queueing up.

[Esperath]

And yeah, Zerg is much more dependent on that early expand than other races are.  You really need the resource edge to be able to utilize all of those larvae that your queen can ejaculate out.  At that point, you really start reaping the macro edge from just mass unit spawn.

[Ziiro]

Just lost about 15 games in a row to various situations. I recognize my problems, try to fix them in the next game, and get continuously shit on by my own new mistakes or new strats.

[Esperath]

THIS JUST IN: NERF EVERYTHING

Highlights:

-Zealot build time increased, warp gate cooldown increased
-Reaper and bunker build time increased
-Battlecruiser ground damage dropped to 8 per shot
-Siege tank damage will be nerfed to 35 (+15 armored) in siege mode.
-Ultralisk building attack removed, regular attack nerfed

Edit: changes aren't in yet

[Detonator]

Zerg definitely benefit the most from this patch, but we'll see how much that actually changes.