Starcraft II

[Aphelion]

I wonder, does morphed units count as being a separate unit? Could we go templar/archon, zergling/baneling, or corruptor/broodlord?

[fwiffo]

I think the consensus is that they are counted as separate. So if you chose dark templar as your unit, you wouldn't be allowed to make archons out of them. However, if you chose archon, you would be allowed to make templar, but only for the purpose of making archons. You couldn't attack or anything with them.

[fwiffo]

Alright, the replays are finally up!

[fwiffo]

Who's gonna be on this evening? I've been thinking of some mothership combos...

Mothership+archons or mothership+banelings can be hilarious with vortex. Add in a horde SCVs or mules to auto-repair the mothership. You could throw in mass thor or battlecruiser, because they also work great with auto-repair and their slowness could be made up for with mass-recall.

[MountainGo]

Baneling / Thor / Mothership sounds amazing. I guess the Mothership player would be passing off a ton of resources to the other players.

[fwiffo]

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. They would probably want to bank some so they can rebuild the mothership as quickly as possible if it falls, but other than that, they could pass the rest along to boost everyone else's production. Same with chrono boost.

Actually, I want to be completely sure that chrono boost works on allied non-protoss structures and that SCVs can repair allied protoss mechanical units... But if it all comes together, it could be epic.

[Solomon]

Sigh, was hoping to do this but just came back from the hand surgeon and was told to wait one more week until stitches can be removed . I know I should be looking at my situation pretty damn positively, going from accident to full healing in <1 month but still...looks like I won't be able to join in this week. Also, I sent two US guest passes to you Tooveli via PM; I sent 2 cause one of them's already used and I can't remember which one .

[MountainGo]

Actually, I want to be completely sure that chrono boost works on allied non-protoss structures and that SCVs can repair allied protoss mechanical units... But if it all comes together, it could be epic.

I just tested it out, and all that works. SCVs can't repair Protoss buildings, though.

Sorry you can't join in the fun, Araban. That is unless you buy some million-dollar pointer that senses your eye movements on the screen. (Or is it your keyboard hand that's incapacitated? In that case, what about voice activation? That would kind of be hilarious. "Four four! Ee! Bee ee! Five zee ess!")

So have you all seen the big news (upcoming Zerg buffs)? I found the article sitting down at my kitchen table in front of my laptop, and when I saw they were increasing Roach range, I let out a spontaneous "oh!", confusing the innocent bystanders. I'm not sure if people realize just how much better that will make Roaches, even if they only increase it from 3 to 4 (which I have to assume, since increasing it any more than that would fundamentally change the unit). Hydras have to pay 150/150/80 for +1 range (and rightly so), and now Roaches are getting it for 0/0/0! I'll always be excited for any serious change, but I have to say I don't like it when the changes go against the basic nature of a unit or race. In my mind, the role of the Roach in an army is to soak up damage in the front lines, doing decent damage to everything; they're very similar to Zealots in that regard, although Zealots get better DPS to make up for having no range at all. So if you're going to buff Roaches, why not make them even better at what they're supposed to do, such as by increasing their armor or health or heal rate? I felt the same way when they increased Reaper build time. Reapers are supposed to be light hit-and-run units, so if you're going to nerf them, why not decrease their health?

The only change I honestly dislike is making Supply Depot a prereq for Barracks. This goes against one of the basic appeals of Starcraft for me, which is the freedom from the very beginning to make meaningful choices about your build. That said, it's not a big deal at all.

As for the Reapers, it looks like they're going to lose 90% of their use in the early game (especially against Zerg and their longer-range Roaches), which is fine with me. I hope some pros will be able to find use for them in the mid and late game now.

[Solomon]

Sorry you can't join in the fun, Araban. That is unless you buy some million-dollar pointer that senses your eye movements on the screen. (Or is it your keyboard hand that's incapacitated? In that case, what about voice activation? That would kind of be hilarious. "Four four! Ee! Bee ee! Five zee ess!")

Well the hand's not quite incapacitated; just the left index finger. I won't lie, I actually did play about a dozen or so team games with a couple of people I know and did reasonable. It just sucked using 5-7 for my army and having to use my left middle finger to reach for those >__<. I should be fine in a week though, so no need for voice activation...although that would be pretty fun.

As for the Reapers, it looks like they're going to lose 90% of their use in the early game...

Only 90%?

[fwiffo]

I think most of the changes are probably fine. I don't think the supply depot thing is that big a deal; Protoss has to make a pylon before gateway, after all. The roach buff seems pretty big; it'll probably make fast cannon-expands harder in PvZ, though I haven't worked out the geometry exactly. Blinking out of fungal growth is obviously unfair, so that's a good fix, and the building health thing makes sense too. The nitro pack upgrade change strikes me as a little strange... If they want to nerf reapers more, why not just increase the research time or cost?

It seems like a lot of complaints about the early game are that Terran has maybe too many options compared to the other races, and these changes seem to solve that by restricting those options. Maybe it would have made more sense to try to increase the number of options for Zerg instead.

[Solomon]

Maybe it would have made more sense to try to increase the number of options for Zerg instead.

They've got to save that for HotS though .

[Tooveli]

I really like the sound of the changes. There are three more things I'd like to see though:

1) Each race starts the game with an extra scout unit. This is effectively a worker that cannot mine or attack. This would mean that each race can do early scouting and would make the game more reactive and reduce a few options for cheese. I haven't thought it through completely and there may be some detrimental effects. Sometimes I think this sounds like a good solution to make the game more strategic and reduce cheese and other times it seems like an ugly solution to something that isn't really a problem. However, in general I like the idea. It would also give a little more to do at the beginning of the game.

2) Random players can also choose Random (no mirror). They will get a random race that is not the same as their opponents. If it is R(nm) v R(nm) then I think mirror match-ups should still be avoided. This might make Random a more viable choice at higher levels and still keeps the random feel.

3) It's not my idea and has been discussed to death on TL but I think mules should have cooldown equal to the time it takes for an OC to get 50 energy. That funday monday with 30something probes vs 0 scvs and roughly the same income was shocking.

Other than that it's a pretty good game.

PS. Thanks Araban! I'm downloading now - looks like it's going to take a while.... 6.98gig to go.

[Aphelion]

Supply before Rax is total bullshit that is completely catering to noobs. Bunker /reaper rush is a non-factor at high levels, there are very stable ways to deal with them. Cheese has its role in the metagame, this change simply reduces complexity and creativity in the game.

[fwiffo]

We got in 6 games tonight, a couple were pretty epic, particularly #7 and #9.

Funday Monday #4 - uponurgirl silksauce Scarecrow vs Fwiffo tartuffe BillyBanana
Funday Monday #5 - Taylor Razare Roy Poet vs Fwiffo tartuffe KillerDucky BillyBanana
Funday Monday #6 - Rygel Executor thezanman franown vs BillyBanana tartuffe KillerDucky Fwiffo
Funday Monday #7 - KillerDucky BillyBanana Fwiffo tartuffe vs TWI Oscar TheAlchemist Hirtz
Funday Monday #8 - complement Kninja NichBot Gordon vs Fwiffo KillerDucky BillyBanana tartuffe
Funday Monday #9 - Daruk YodaStyle JAVIER Eternal vs Fwiffo tartuffe KillerDucky BillyBanana

Spoilers:
Game 4:

We went mothership, baneling, thor, but died pretty badly to drops and voidrays.

Game 5:

We got off the ground a little better, and Megaton was a good map for us to turtle on. We went mothership, baneling, marine, raven but weren't able to cope with the large flight of broodlords that eventually came.

Game 6:

We went raven, marine, baneling, mothership, but died pretty quickly to our rushing opponents.

Game 7:

We went mothership, baneling, thor, stalker and finally got some synergy going with our units. Our opponents were pretty much scrubs, but we did manage to pull off the mothership, baneling, vortex toilet-bowl of doom to wipe out a large contingent of stalkers and zerglings. KillerDucky got the repair achievement for keeping the mothership and thors alive with SCVs, and the mothership racked up a big kill count, eventually being the only unit capable of forcing victory when one of the opponents flew away with his buildings.

Game 8:

The vortex of death came back again in this game, but we were going mothership, archon, reaper, infestor instead. The mothership saved its own hide by vortexing a large group of enemy void rays, and the archons followed them in. When the vortex popped, so did all the voids. Unfortunately, we didn't have the forces necessary to defend against the stalkers, colossus and void rays the enemy was producing.

Game 9:

Switching it up, we went immortal, hellion, ghost, hydra. We spotted a very early scout probe, and somehow didn't notice that it was cannon rushing us. Fortunately, our opponent was very poor at cannon rushing, and I had happened to build an early forge, allowing me to protect all my key structures with cannons. However, BillyBanana wasn't so lucky, as the cannons got within range of his command center. He was able to use SCVs to repair it long enough for a number of immortals and hydras to come in and shut the cannons down for good.

We went on to quickly destroy our opponent's structures, only to have a couple command centers lift off and fly off to the corners of the map. Having no flying units, we were kinda screwed... But eventually the opponent made the mistake of flying within range of the ghosts, who were able to damage the buildings sufficiently with nukes to set them ablaze, securing the win.

[CSamurai]

Well, I'm officially Bronze.

One of my biggest problems is that while I build a fairly large force early, and defend against rushes, I don't really tech up as much as I should, and I forget to do minor things like, you know, counter attack.

I'm sitting here looking at a game I played against a terran in my league. After crushing his reapers, and stopping his marine/marauder push, I had about 15 units, mostly stalkers and a couple immortals. Had I grabbed that whole group, and chucked it at him, I would have won. Instead, I.. just stopped doing useful things. I don't know what I was thinking about. But I just stopped.

Well, that's not very useful, is it?

So, in the future, when using a 4 gate build, I will always attack after getting 10 military units, or counter attack after beating down their big rush. This pledge I make, as a Protoss.

In other news, it's weird to have a 3to7 win ratio, and be 19th in my league.

I'm kinda obsessing about this game right now.

Also note: Bad idea to tell people you're new. I was getting my ranking (whee, 4 losses, 1 win in the ranking games) and I was feeling chatty, so I told this guy I was new.
So he cannon rushed me. Wow, that pissed me off. I somehow missed the probe as it slipped into my base. I did manage to kill it before it got in range of any of my buildings, by sacrificing half my probes, but I was so flustered I never built any units to stop the probe from getting back in, and ended up letting him continue the rush 5 seconds later.

I'm not sure the best way to prevent a cannon rush, but I guess it's better to learn it sooner than later.

I've been 6 pooled a couple times. It's not as bad as I had feared, especially when I see it coming with an early probe getting eaten by a queen.

Of course, the 6 pool is much harder to deal with when they do it right next door, or on 1v1 maps where they know where you are. I was lucky enough that most of the zerg I've faced have been on 2v2 maps, leading to them having to scout for some time to find me.

Also, has anyone noticed, there is no macro/long term game in bronze? Everyone rushes, and if you survive their rush, you can pretty much run unopposed into their base and destroy them. Is it this way in higher levels? Tourney play doesn't look like this.

Anyway, enough, I have to go run errands before I pass out.