StarCraft 2

So I've been playing a number of games, both 1v1 and 2v2s on Iccup in recent weeks. I'm not a pro player by any stretch, but I do know my way (quite well) around Starcraft. It's also worth mentioning that I didn't realize you needed to play "One on One" in order to get actual points so I played and won a long list of games and couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting points. Muh fault, lesson learnt.

Anyway, playing against Protoss players they often opt to, at a certain point in the game, a lot of Carriers, which can be a very difficult thing to approach when your opponent has even a little bit of micro as you can fire and run at the same time and maintain all interceptors outside of the carrier, but under them. Keeping them moving means the interceptors don't dock so all your Carrier x 8 interceptors come flying out all at once and one shot everything you have.

Enter the Scout.

I was effing around with Dragoons, Archons and High Templars trying to clip some of these Carriers down then it hit me that a Scout is speedy and deals 28+2+2+2 damage to air. I managed to stall my opponent enough through attacking his expos (I was able to deny him a 3rd base all game long about 8 times ) and playing a losing game of tag with my units and his Carriers.

After the appropriate upgrades I was very impressed on how well I could stack my Scouts, moving, clip off a Carrier then run way. If I lost a single scout, which wasn't often, he lost more. I was impressed with the results of the unit despite hardly ever seeing it in pro play. At one pivotal point in the battle he was floating over space between two of my bases making short bursts of movements and interceptors surrounded by Dragoons and Photons trying to doge me and kill me while I was trying to doge him and kill him. I had a lone High Templar and managed a few good Psi Storms and through good micro via scouts and crappy micro via ground forces, managed to kill enough for him to give up.

This brings up a couple of things:

1. I hope the Carrier in SC2 is as reponsive and thrilling as SC1.

2. Is there a better solution to mass Carriers when your opponent is keeping a watchful eye on them or did I play my cards right?

3. The Pheonix is supposed to be fast and deadly, but must stop to fire. I hope you can run and shoot like the Scout with micro. Any more info on this unit?

This post has been edited by Flopjack: May 26 2009, 13:37 PM

omg I wrote a long and deep essay on the subject and GR lagged so it dissapeared

Scouts suck at everything except BC's and Carriers wich are never seen. They are also piss easy to counter for every race.

I think the Phoenix is a lot like the terran wraith atm. Idk what they will do with it and it will be interesting.

This post has been edited by Strategy: May 26 2009, 14:37 PM

Thx for insults.

I'm not D- and I'm not ignorant about Starcraft (link plz).

I'd ask you to re-write your essay but I don't know... If you can't figure out how to post should I be taking your advice on Starcraft? (ctrl+a, Ctrl+c, right arrow is your friend. While writing long posts I always am pressing that just in case.)

Edit: I've seen a few BCs and Carriers in Pro play in Starcraft regardless.

Another thing, even the bottom of iccup like D+ and Cs are not your every day RTS scrub. (unless they only know cheese strats) Starcraft in itself is a tricky game to play but being able to maintain a game in that level of play is someone who is pretty skillful, probably top 4% of RTS players in the world. Not to the level of Starcraft pro play, I realize that but I don't think it will kill you to get off that pedestal a little and address my post.

This post has been edited by Flopjack: May 26 2009, 15:31 PM

phoenix have a laser that hits ground and air units. they gave it overloads with would make them attack everthing (only air) in close range but they got low power afterwards. later they re-balanced them makeing them hit a maximum of 8 units.

I dont know if overload is still in but they got anti-gravity from the nullifer and 250 energy costing 3 energy (not sure) per sec and they cant shoot while using it. Hope overload comes back in his full glory

Scouts are pretty much shite though. I've only ever seen them used once to good effect (Kal vs some terran on Colloseum AND IT WAS OFF THE FUCKING CHAIN). If they're working for you on the low-ish level then your opponent probably sucks. Sorry to make your achievement sound like crap but that's basically how it is mate.

Also, in Pr0 PvP games rarely turn into Carrier struggles, with more emphasis on early/mid game Dragoon vs Dragoon battles with some shuttle reaver sprinkled in followed up by way more tech units and speedlots. This is because Carriers require a few things to be effective:

1) Surprise. Carrier builds are usually only performed in PvT because the Terran can only use his comsat to try and find the carrier tech and if you hide the carrier tech in your base he can very easily miss it entirely. Against Protoss you've got enemy observers and against Zerg you've got their overlords and scourge flying everywhere.
2) Time. Protoss have it very sweet in the early/mid game vs Terran because if they terran goes for a 1 fac expand build of some sort then the Protoss has something of a map advantage (admittedly most Protoss will be sure to retreat back to their base in case of Starport shenanigans and that's ok too). Terran cannot go out and strike Protoss until they have a large enough army to mount a significant push and the time it takes to get that army allows you to get a bunch of carriers out.
3) Mass Effect. 1 Carrier ain't shit. Neither is 2-4. 6-8 is when they are something to be concerned about! This goes back to time and surprise too.

I dunno any games that feature pr0 carrier usage (this old map Katrina was full of Carrier play, deftly smashed by Flash in the gomtv season 1), but I can suggest a game that failed; Reach vs Flash game 2 gomtv recently.

OK, so in top level of play Carriers and BCs are moot because of whatever reason. At what level do they become moot though? I don't suck at RTS but he had a group of what I think was 12 and they were not easy to bring down.

I consider myself an amateur. If there was a non-koreanish tourney, I'd be a threat.

Another thing I noticed in different game about Zealots. My opponent moved in early in the game with about 15 or so and I barely had enough to stop them. I had a misc group of Zealots, Dragoons and a few Photons in misc places in my base. I attacked with a few Zealots against his than ran back then attacked his again and ran back again. Zealots pause when they put away their blades which enabled my Photons + Dragoons to continually fire. I just figured that out as I was doing it and managed to minimize my losses there greatly.

This post has been edited by Flopjack: May 26 2009, 16:12 PM

Your opponent was a D- with nothing but losses so far and the game dragged out for 30 min. No one would be on you if you didn't constantly tell everyone how well you know SC before describing a HUGE noob game.. Otherwsie it wouldn't have been mentioned. There are plenty of SC tournaments with no koreans all the time. Go sign up for some of them!

Carriers are used in late game PvT and PvZ at times, can also be carrier rush in PvP if it's an island map or similair with neutral buildings or TINY ramp. Not seen that in years however.

Post the replay if you want advice. Scouts are shit because they are good at ONE thing. Vs big aircrafts like BCs and Carriers. Neither BCs or Carriers are ever used vs Protoss. Also even if they were it's not socuts you would use to counter them it's other units. mind control, storm, dragoons and so on. Scouts are easily kileld by some corsairs. they have absoutely no use vs zerg as they aren't even cost effective at ocuntering devouers. Vs Terran no use and goliaths would pwn them in a few sec.

Phoenix was very imba in a previous build because it delt a lot of damage vs ground units. It was also fast and had lots of health. Bad combination considering how fast you could get it. I also want it to be able to move and shoot to allow more micro. Corsair was such an amazing unit that could od basically everything. It was the best socut unit because it was fast and cheap. It could harrass, support and fight battles on its own. I wonder waht role the phoenix will have.


That's D- don't try ot get away from that! It's a simple cooldown after their attack or attack attempt.

Anyway cheers, I don't want a fight but cut the crap and you won't get one

This post has been edited by Strategy: May 26 2009, 16:38 PM

Yes, I am "constantly tell everyone how well I know SC".

It'd be nice to get some advice without the douchness attached. So can we answer my previous question now? (It's apparent I'm not uber at Starcraft in your terms but it's also apparent you'd rather put my in my place then read my posts and answer what I'm asking.) At what level do BCs and Carrier essentially become pointless?

As far as the Zealot delay goes. That's a D- feature? So once I get to C or B that delay goes away or something??

OK, so how is that delay a D- thing only?

And why do you keep ignoring the other parts of my post? Are you just reading the last paragraph/sentence of my post?

ok as you apparently doens't get it. It's a cooldown and it's not just for D-. The reason I quoted that part is becasue you say you arne't D- and the situation you described clearly show D-. Nothing ot od with cooldown. There isn't a line where thoose units become worthless, but I owuld tip on D level, cetainly D+. Because at that level people have started ot get the hang of the game.

What he means is that it is something done by simple D- players and is not an advanced move.

Also I think he gets irritated by comments like these:

Skip the pride shit and sc players will respect you much more when you ask for advice. I mean, how do you think a new cnc person who said that would get welcomed at a cnc section?

Also the deal with battlecruisers and carriers is that they are all but unstoppable if you get more than 10 of them, the issue is that when you are about to build that amount up your enemy will have a huge advantage against you since 1 battle cruiser or 1 carrier do not do much and it costs a ton to even just build up the infrastructure to be able to build that many ships in a short enough amount of time.
For that reason they do get useless even at D play since they are only useful if your enemy doesn't scout or if your enemy camps. Of course you can still win when you use them, it is just that you can win much more by using other units.

This post has been edited by Celebrimor: May 26 2009, 18:37 PM

I keep forgetting you were there watching my game and know exactly how I played, which is why I don't get it and am at D- level. Let's just stop debating my level on iccup and address my questions, shall we?

I'm assuming "those units" means Carriers and BCs. I don't know if I can take that seriously given the amount of times I see them in non D games and in pro play. Perhaps they aren't used often, but they are used none the less. They have harder counters due to their size/speed but their lethality makes up for it, or it can if used right, and I've seen enough vids of them being used.

Anyway, I want to be informed on the best way to approach both of those situations I've explained. More Zealots than you can handle or 12 Carriers as Protoss (specifically if MC isn't readily available)

If you weren't so busy telling us to asnwer your questions you would have noticed we already have asnwered them more then once. So go reread my answers but I will give you a few pointers.

First off if you expect ot be treated with respect you can't create a thread and say how well you understand the game and then go on describing something that only ever happens on D- level. It's like a CnC player being LAST in QUICKMATCH ladder tell you how great he is. Basically all your arguments and your described scenarios indicate that level, you're a D- player with D- level of understanding. You don't understand how I can tell that out of the little information you have given but as I have a lot better SC knownledge I CAN tell around wich level that is. You are nowhere near top foreign level, they are A- - A. Not D-...


I'm talking about TvP and PvP, pay attention please.


If they happen to suprise you use what ever you have, either try to counter or attack them if you can. In the mean time you tech as fast as possible to the counters you think you will be able to get fast. It's close to impossible to tell how the gmae lookeld ike by the time he got carriers withotu you noticing. But goons first and then templars and dark archons should be the way to go.

MOre zealots then you cna handle? well if there are more hytne you possibly cna handle then there isn't much to do. But I guess you mena lots of zealots. Try to get probes to block between your ranged units and his zealots. AI doesn't attack workers if there are enemy units nearby os he have to manually attack your probes to get to your troops.

There's a pretty rigid ranking system and it's a small community so you don't need to say something like that. Starcraft on the other hand doesn't have these as readily available.

I apologize if I came off as arrogant when I said I know my way around Starcraft. I felt like my questions were being avoided/not given a lot of detail. I think it's also worth mentioning that Starcraft skill levels compared to other RTS =

Starcraft
|----------------------------------|-------------------------------------------|
......................D-....D...D+................C.........................B.............A/pro gamer
cnc
|----------------------------------|
.......................................top 10

I see someone who is C or something as a very skilled. Are they a top gamer? No, of course not, but it's not easy to get up there. They are in fact worlds away from being A+ or whatever, but they aren't ignorant either. That's what I meant... anyway thanks for the info and I apologize.

no worries, I could need to work on my attitude too.

For the record, BC's are occasionally used in very late game TvT once each side has expanded about 50 times and there's a huge stalemate going on. Blue Storm had quite a bit of BC shenanigans because of the huge gap down the middle that was incredibly easy for a Terran to defend with a big arse Tank/Turret/Mine-line and incredibly difficult to be broken (unless you're Zerg and you have dark Swarm of course...). BC's break any Terran defence thanks to the Yamato gun.