Hey everyone, in case you didn't notice I made a few changes to the way the site looks. I altered the banner a bit and changed a bit of the layout, but overall is the new background! I took various art clippings of units and photoshopped them together. Tell me what you think, and of course I take no credit for the drawings themselves.
I made the wallpaper widescreen as I expect most people have widescreen monitors nowadays. If it gets too cut off let me know and I can do some resizing.
Starcraft 2 tips and strategies delivered daily.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
Quick tips, video on the way tomorrow
Had my midterm today and hopefully I did well, if not then it would take more than a good lawyer to get my grade changed. Then I'll fail miserably in life and end up bankrupt. I wouldn't even be able to afford a bankruptcy lawyer at that point, just a bum on the street. Anyways... back to starcraft.
After this post goes up, I'll start working on a video and have it up by tomorrow. Here are a couple protoss tips:
Sentries are key to any protoss ground based army. Forcefields are amazing tools that can halve the effective size of any army when used properly. They're also great for an early ling block.
One tip you may want to utilize is to research hallucinate then send a hallucinated phoenix to scout.
After this post goes up, I'll start working on a video and have it up by tomorrow. Here are a couple protoss tips:
Sentries are key to any protoss ground based army. Forcefields are amazing tools that can halve the effective size of any army when used properly. They're also great for an early ling block.
One tip you may want to utilize is to research hallucinate then send a hallucinated phoenix to scout.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
110 Followers!
Thanks guys so much. Over 100 followers wow! I'm glad you all like my blog and everything and I'll keep providing fresh content. Gotta study today though. I'll try to get up a cast later today or tomorrow. Thanks again guys!
Friday, October 15, 2010
Idra vs Korean Terran - Pro Replay Cast! Finally here to stay!
Hey guys, it's the moment you've all been waiting for! The cast is now officially up and working! Go ahead and get started and watching. This should satisfy your appetite! This is the matchup between idra, a pro American SC2 player, currently in Korea playing and training, and a Korean player playing as terran. I do not know his name, as I don't read Korean, if anyone let's me know I'll be sure to update the title. Check back often and see all the new strats/casts/tips!
Sorry guys, part 2 is uploading right now. Part 1 is fully functional though!
Patch 1.1.2 Officially live!
So the new patch it out. I believe it came out sometime yesterday as I logged on and I was updated. I'll give you the release notes then follow up with my own thoughts and what this means for the meta game.
StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty – Patch 1.1.2
General
• Players will no longer receive achievement toasts while their status is set to "Busy."
• The messaging when attempting to load a saved game or replay from a previous version has been clarified.
• Adjusted the amount of points earned and lost by random team participants to properly reflect the strength of a player's teammates.
Balance
• PROTOSS
o Buildings
• Nexus life and shields increased from 750/750 to 1000/1000.
o Void Ray
• Damage level 1 increased from 5 to 6 (+4 armored).
• Damage level 2 decreased from 10 (+15 armored) to 8 (+8 armored).
• Flux Vanes speed upgrade bonus decreased from 1.125 to 0.703.
• TERRAN
o Buildings
• Barracks requirement changed from Command Center to Supply Depot.
• Supply Depot life increased from 350 to 400.
o Medivac
• Acceleration reduced from 2.315 to 2.25.
• Speed reduced from 2.75 to 2.5.
o Reaper
• Nitro Packs speed upgrade now has a Factory Requirement.
o Thor
• Energy bar removed.
• 250mm Strike Cannons is now cooldown-based on a 50-second cooldown. Ability starts with cooldown available (useable immediately after upgrade is researched).
• ZERG
o Buildings
• Hatchery life increased from 1250 to 1500.
• Lair life increased from 1800 to 2000.
• Spawning Pool life increased from 750 to 1000.
• Spire life increased from 600 to 850.
• Ultralisk Cavern life increased from 600 to 850.
o Corruptor
• Energy bar removed.
• Corruption is now cooldown-based on a 45-second cooldown. Ability starts with cooldown expired (must wait for full 45-second cycle before usable).
o Infestor
• Fungal Growth now prevents Blink.
o Roach
• Range increased from 3 to 4.
So there ended up being quite a few changes actually with a bunch of game changing new attributes.
First off is Protoss. The Nexus shield boost seems warranted. The Nexus goes down pretty quickly if left undefended and a 250 shield boost seems fair. I don;t think this will make their expos or anything imba. I think the void ray fix is great. Sure the initial damage level is increased, but probably to help with an early harass or early battle as they are very weak against larger muta/viking armies possible by the same time. Level 2 decrease is also good as their damage was way too much in the later game.
The biggest change is definitely the speed decrease in the Flux vane upgrade. This will prove to be very critical I believe. It will be much harder for them to escape so easily when faced against an army that's too large. The speed of the void rays before made them too hard to track down and destroy. This will help in the much later game if someone goes mass void ray.
Next up is Terran. Like I said before, making supply depot a requirement for the barracks will really help against early proxy/reaper rushes. The increase in supply depot life will slightly increase the resistance hat a wall provides which will become more crucial as terrans will probably be more likely to turtle in from now on.
The speed and acceleration of the medivacs decreasing will change the drop game probably. It will be somewhat harder for people to get off early drops with mmm spam or even some tanks. IT will no longer be so easy to pick up and leave as quickly. This shouldn't affect the mmm army strategy though, because medivacs are already plenty fast enough to keep up with that army.
Reapers have been noticeably cut down in usefulness. Now with a later barracks, and nitro packs being so much later on, it will be much harder to get an effective reaper rush out. This will allow other races/enemies to gain a larger defense on their mineral line to protect against the reapers.
The thors also got an interesting change. Strike cannons are now cooldown based instead of energy based. This will allow immediate use of the strike cannon and will probably be used more often as it won't require a building of energy. We might see some major gameplay changes with the approach to Thors since this update.
And finally we get to zerg:
Virtually all important zerg buildings are getting a health boost. I think this is long overdue and will be a worthwhile update. Hatcheries I noticed died far too easily as well as the spawning pool and spire. The lair increase will give a bit of a boost and should help in protecting expos early on. The spire and spawning pool life are really critical because these are truly critical buildings that can be built (and destroyed) very early on. Ultralisk cavern was also a bit low on hp, but should be able to be amply protected at that late point in game, so I would say it's a bit moot.
Similar to the Thors, the corruptors now no longer have energy and is based upon a 45-second cooldown. This is actually something that could change the meta game quite a bit. Later on in the game, corruption becomes an extremely valuable tool, especailly being able to hit multiple targets with only a few corruptors. It will allow newly spawned corruptors to use corruption, but now we will probably be seeing a lot more micro trying to protect them as they wait for the cooldown.
Infestor restricting blink is a good point, but I feel like it should have been that way since the beginning, so all I have to say is that it's about time.
The roach range increase from 3-4 will actually probably be huge. This will allow roaches to tank even better against melee units and start attacking from farther out. It will allow roaches to hit walls from farther away and chip away at terran bases with more security. It will also help the later metagame in a hydra/roach strategy. This gives zerg a few more strategies later on and allow roaches to stay apart of the army instead of evolving past them. I have yet to play any games in this patch, but there will probably be a lot of changes in total gameplay. Once I have some more experience I might do another recap. Thanks for reading guys!
I'll try to have that cast up later. I was able to record it and apply the watermark, but it can't upload successfully for some reason. On youtube it just says upload failed once it hits 100% :(
StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty – Patch 1.1.2
General
• Players will no longer receive achievement toasts while their status is set to "Busy."
• The messaging when attempting to load a saved game or replay from a previous version has been clarified.
• Adjusted the amount of points earned and lost by random team participants to properly reflect the strength of a player's teammates.
Balance
• PROTOSS
o Buildings
• Nexus life and shields increased from 750/750 to 1000/1000.
o Void Ray
• Damage level 1 increased from 5 to 6 (+4 armored).
• Damage level 2 decreased from 10 (+15 armored) to 8 (+8 armored).
• Flux Vanes speed upgrade bonus decreased from 1.125 to 0.703.
• TERRAN
o Buildings
• Barracks requirement changed from Command Center to Supply Depot.
• Supply Depot life increased from 350 to 400.
o Medivac
• Acceleration reduced from 2.315 to 2.25.
• Speed reduced from 2.75 to 2.5.
o Reaper
• Nitro Packs speed upgrade now has a Factory Requirement.
o Thor
• Energy bar removed.
• 250mm Strike Cannons is now cooldown-based on a 50-second cooldown. Ability starts with cooldown available (useable immediately after upgrade is researched).
• ZERG
o Buildings
• Hatchery life increased from 1250 to 1500.
• Lair life increased from 1800 to 2000.
• Spawning Pool life increased from 750 to 1000.
• Spire life increased from 600 to 850.
• Ultralisk Cavern life increased from 600 to 850.
o Corruptor
• Energy bar removed.
• Corruption is now cooldown-based on a 45-second cooldown. Ability starts with cooldown expired (must wait for full 45-second cycle before usable).
o Infestor
• Fungal Growth now prevents Blink.
o Roach
• Range increased from 3 to 4.
So there ended up being quite a few changes actually with a bunch of game changing new attributes.
First off is Protoss. The Nexus shield boost seems warranted. The Nexus goes down pretty quickly if left undefended and a 250 shield boost seems fair. I don;t think this will make their expos or anything imba. I think the void ray fix is great. Sure the initial damage level is increased, but probably to help with an early harass or early battle as they are very weak against larger muta/viking armies possible by the same time. Level 2 decrease is also good as their damage was way too much in the later game.
The biggest change is definitely the speed decrease in the Flux vane upgrade. This will prove to be very critical I believe. It will be much harder for them to escape so easily when faced against an army that's too large. The speed of the void rays before made them too hard to track down and destroy. This will help in the much later game if someone goes mass void ray.
Next up is Terran. Like I said before, making supply depot a requirement for the barracks will really help against early proxy/reaper rushes. The increase in supply depot life will slightly increase the resistance hat a wall provides which will become more crucial as terrans will probably be more likely to turtle in from now on.
The speed and acceleration of the medivacs decreasing will change the drop game probably. It will be somewhat harder for people to get off early drops with mmm spam or even some tanks. IT will no longer be so easy to pick up and leave as quickly. This shouldn't affect the mmm army strategy though, because medivacs are already plenty fast enough to keep up with that army.
Reapers have been noticeably cut down in usefulness. Now with a later barracks, and nitro packs being so much later on, it will be much harder to get an effective reaper rush out. This will allow other races/enemies to gain a larger defense on their mineral line to protect against the reapers.
The thors also got an interesting change. Strike cannons are now cooldown based instead of energy based. This will allow immediate use of the strike cannon and will probably be used more often as it won't require a building of energy. We might see some major gameplay changes with the approach to Thors since this update.
And finally we get to zerg:
Virtually all important zerg buildings are getting a health boost. I think this is long overdue and will be a worthwhile update. Hatcheries I noticed died far too easily as well as the spawning pool and spire. The lair increase will give a bit of a boost and should help in protecting expos early on. The spire and spawning pool life are really critical because these are truly critical buildings that can be built (and destroyed) very early on. Ultralisk cavern was also a bit low on hp, but should be able to be amply protected at that late point in game, so I would say it's a bit moot.
Similar to the Thors, the corruptors now no longer have energy and is based upon a 45-second cooldown. This is actually something that could change the meta game quite a bit. Later on in the game, corruption becomes an extremely valuable tool, especailly being able to hit multiple targets with only a few corruptors. It will allow newly spawned corruptors to use corruption, but now we will probably be seeing a lot more micro trying to protect them as they wait for the cooldown.
Infestor restricting blink is a good point, but I feel like it should have been that way since the beginning, so all I have to say is that it's about time.
The roach range increase from 3-4 will actually probably be huge. This will allow roaches to tank even better against melee units and start attacking from farther out. It will allow roaches to hit walls from farther away and chip away at terran bases with more security. It will also help the later metagame in a hydra/roach strategy. This gives zerg a few more strategies later on and allow roaches to stay apart of the army instead of evolving past them. I have yet to play any games in this patch, but there will probably be a lot of changes in total gameplay. Once I have some more experience I might do another recap. Thanks for reading guys!
I'll try to have that cast up later. I was able to record it and apply the watermark, but it can't upload successfully for some reason. On youtube it just says upload failed once it hits 100% :(
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Idra vs Korean Terran - Pro Replay Cast!... Down for maintenance.
Hey guys, I just got a chance to actually review the videos and found out that they're kind of screwed up. For professionalism sake, I'm going to take them down for right now and redo the cast. The video should be back up by tomorrow. Sorry about that guys.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
More Tips for today!
Terran:
-Make sure you get orbital command as soon as possible without hurting for resources. Then be sure to spend your energy wisely! Don't let it buildup overtime and go unused, and likewise don't spend it too rashly. The first 50 energy is often well utilized for a mule. The extra resources help a lot. Be sure to scan for scouting purposes as well as protecting against cloaked invaders. Make sure you upgrade your expo to orbital or planetary as well!
Protoss:
-If you use a stalker army, use blink to your advantage. A couple tips to offer here. With blink and some intensive micro, you can blink your hurting stalkers to the back of the line as their shields start to run low. This will increase the attack time of your army by the amount of rows of troops you have!
-Also for stalkers blink, use cliffs and backdoors to your advantage. Get an oberserver or an ally to give you vision while you blink up the backside of a base! Practically just as effective as a terran drop, but stronger units and easy to escape as well.
Zerg:
-Queens have a multitude of uses. Not only as larvae spawners, but can spread creep tumors as well as transfusion! Creep tumors you only need to make 2-3 of them and just be on top of the micro and keep spreading them. Use overlords to your advantage to drop creep and plop a tumor down. Creep highway is amazingly effective and useful!
-Also, don't forget about transfusion. If you have two queens in the early game, you can transfuse each other to hold off an early banshee or phoenix attack. Also, in later game, transfuse heavy units like ultralisks or broodlords if you're low on resources!
Stay tuned for the video guys! It's in 3 or 4 parts.
-Make sure you get orbital command as soon as possible without hurting for resources. Then be sure to spend your energy wisely! Don't let it buildup overtime and go unused, and likewise don't spend it too rashly. The first 50 energy is often well utilized for a mule. The extra resources help a lot. Be sure to scan for scouting purposes as well as protecting against cloaked invaders. Make sure you upgrade your expo to orbital or planetary as well!
Protoss:
-If you use a stalker army, use blink to your advantage. A couple tips to offer here. With blink and some intensive micro, you can blink your hurting stalkers to the back of the line as their shields start to run low. This will increase the attack time of your army by the amount of rows of troops you have!
-Also for stalkers blink, use cliffs and backdoors to your advantage. Get an oberserver or an ally to give you vision while you blink up the backside of a base! Practically just as effective as a terran drop, but stronger units and easy to escape as well.
Zerg:
-Queens have a multitude of uses. Not only as larvae spawners, but can spread creep tumors as well as transfusion! Creep tumors you only need to make 2-3 of them and just be on top of the micro and keep spreading them. Use overlords to your advantage to drop creep and plop a tumor down. Creep highway is amazingly effective and useful!
-Also, don't forget about transfusion. If you have two queens in the early game, you can transfuse each other to hold off an early banshee or phoenix attack. Also, in later game, transfuse heavy units like ultralisks or broodlords if you're low on resources!
Stay tuned for the video guys! It's in 3 or 4 parts.
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