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Zealot
30 Aug 2010, 01:54pm
I'm just going to give a quick breakdown of the possible builds in Sc2. After witnessing most of the matches of the 1v1 tourney, some of you need to make some changes.

Disclaimer: Not guaranteed to be the best builds in every situation you get .

Firstly, almost all of you guys are not building enough workers. To efficiently mine from your base you need AT LEAST 2 workers on EACH mineral patch. With each starting location having 8 mineral patches that means you need at least 16 workers on minerals alone. Gas is pretty simple you can have a max of 3 workers to efficiently mine. I'd suggest you get about 22-24 Harvesters on minerals and of course 6 on gas making your total worker count for you base 28-30 (this applies to expansions).

Now as for openers/strategies with each race...

Zerg


You have 2 choices with zerg as to how you open; either 1-base play or fast expanding. Which ever you chose has different builds.
1-base consists of mass speedlings (Zerglings with speed upgrade) and/or Roaches.
Fast expand normally means your playing economically to tech up going for Mutas, infestors or hydras.
Baneling Bust = Best counter to terrans that wall off. It supply locks em and owns the infantry units. Make sure to get speed.


Protoss


Chronoboosted Stalker = Read below, its to stop early aggression from terran reapers/Overload scouts.
The 4 gate = Get 1 Gateway and gas, don't build that first zealot. When you can get the cybercore do so and when its done you should have enough gas for warpgate and a chrono boosted stalker. Proceed to get 3 more gateways and push with at least 2 waves of units from your gate.
1 gate --> Tech = Get your gateway followed by the cyber. From there you either tech to robo or stargate. Follow it up with a second gateway and warpgate upgrade.
2 Gate Rush = Get your pylon at 10 standard. Save chrono boost and 300 minerals. Throw down double gates and when they are done chronoboost 2 zealots out for early pressure. Follow up with either an expo or a 4 gate.
Forge fast expand = Wall off your choke with a forge and a gateway --> expand then tech up or rely on gateway units.


Terran

Reaper rush = Gas on 9, Racks on 10, have a max of 11 scv's before you get your supply (get supply when your building tech lab)
MMM = 10 supply, 11 racks, 12 gas. Throw down 1-3 more racks with at least 1 reactor. Factory (can be used to scout or build reactor for Starport) --> Reactor Starport
1/1/1 = Same as MMM cept you minus the 1-3 racks and get your factory instead. Also a second gas after your orbital command.
Bancheese = Same as 1/1/1, might wanna get gas earlier for cloak


Will continually update with strats and counters

Senior
30 Aug 2010, 02:08pm
To optimally harvest from a base you need 30 workers, 3 on each patch, not two.

Terran strat:

1. get m
2. get m
3. get m
4. win game.

Dracula
30 Aug 2010, 03:04pm
To optimally harvest from a base you need 30 workers, 3 on each patch, not two.

Terran strat:

1. get m
2. get m
3. get m
4. win game.

^

Bullet Wound
30 Aug 2010, 03:21pm
To optimally harvest from a base you need 30 workers, 3 on each patch, not two.


Well actually not quite, there are only 8 patches, so 3 on each would imply having 24, not 30.

Since I'm a Zerg player I guess I'll give some input too, I'll mainly talk about the basic mechanics of Zerg (after all zerg is quite different from the other two races).

Zerg

The Zerg are a reactionary race, this is very important to know, if you plan to play Zerg you must learn the units you choose to make will usually be based on what your opponent is making. Being a reactionary race implies everything you do is a result of what your opponent does.

Larva: Larva is the basis of all units the zerg can create, as such maintaining a "balance" of creating workers and fighting units is something you need to always keep in mind, unlike the other races you can't just mindlessly continue to pump out workers. As a general rule you should create drones only unless your opponent seems like they will attack soon, if thats the case you must build fighting units.

Scouting: Scouting is very important, especially for a Zerg player. Like I said Zerg are a reactionary race, but unless you scout properly how can you react? You can't react to something you know nothing about, for that reason scouting is extremely vital. Zerg have 3 mains ways to scout:

Using an overlord
Using Zerglings
Using an Overseer


Overlords and Zerglings are by far the best method, however later in the game you might be required to use an overseer for its changeling. As a general rule fly your first overlord to your enemies base, either get it right inside (usually results in it dying) or park it close to their expansion. After that send the rest of your overlords to the other expansions in the map.

After getting zerglings, take a few of them and park them in your enemy's natural (the expansion closest to their start), this way you get a heads up if they ever decide to attack you or take their expansion, also send zerglings to the other expansions in the map as well, provided you don't already have an overlord there.

Eventually your enemy will have defenses making it too hard to see into their base without getting killed, well this is were you use a sacrificial overlord. Its just as it sounds, run the overlord (make sure it has speed) into their base and see what they have. Base what you're going to make on that knowledge, don't let his noble sacrifice be in vain!

Map Control: Map control implies that your opponent is contained in their base, while you are free to roam the map as you please, usually you also have vision of most of the map as well. This is something the Zerg excel at, Zerglings are great at gaining early map control, run them just outside of your enemies base and kill whatever tries to come out, this is a good thing to do for 4 reasons:

You deny them from taking their expansion without a fight
You know when they move out, giving you time to react
You deny them easy scouting
You know what their army composition is


Advice:
As a zerg you always want to have at least 1 more expansion than your opponent, this allows you to create more men quicker as well as maintain an economic edge, which is necessary since Zerg are the least cost effective race
Always have 1 queen per base, and try and use larva inject whenever you can
Never run into a battle you think you will lose, if the battle looks hopeless run away and regroup, its much smarter than just allowing your men to die a pointless death
Creep is a great thing to spread, it gives you vision over the area its in and it allows your troops to move faster, this is especially good for slow units like hydralisk, also creep tumors require detection to be seen, so if you can spread creep to all the expansions you deny them from being able to build there unless they bring detection, it also provides you with sight of that expansion
Do not build tech buildings without first knowing what you opponent is going, thers nothing worse than teching to something and finding out its useless against what your opponent has
Rely on your army rather than static defenses to defend yourself, this is because every defense you make costs you 1 drone, which means less mining, it also means you'll have to spend money to replace that drone and the defenses won't be able to help on offense later on as opposed to an attacking unit



General Strategy Advice

Name may be a bit misleading but here I'll just quickly say what units to build in order to counter your enemies. Like I said Zerg are a reactionary race, sure you can scout and see what your opponent is making, but unless you know how to counter it, the info is pretty useless.

Against Terran Armies:

MMM (Marine + Marauder + Medivac) - Banelings and Speedlings are what you need here, generally you should divide your army in two, and have them attack from two fronts, this way you surround them much easier. Its vital you scout this though, as if you get roaches instead you'll lose, and if you only have Zerglings you'll lose, Hydras or Mutas will also result in a lose. If you are able to, teching to infestors and using fungal growth is devastating to a Terran bio composition.

Mass Marine - Banelings take of of mass marines fairly easily the only issue is seeing that hes going mass marines and teching to banelings in time to stop him, because if he gets to your base before those banelings come out its over. Also make sure to research baneling speed if he continues to go mass marine, this will ensure they get to the marines more often and do more damage. Once again though, infestors with fungal growth will destroy marines only, its just a matter of getting to them better the Marines get you first.

Thors + Hellions + Marines - You want to get lots of Roaches, Speedlings can help if you flank him, Banelings as also useful since both hellions and marines are light. Get the roaches to tank damage, and banelings come in (preferably from behind) and tank out the rines and hellions, leaving the thors alone vs the mass of roaches, in which the roaches will quickly dispose of them.

Mech (Thors + Tanks + Hellions) - Mech is quite easily destroyed by mutas, provided you do a technique called "The magic box". The magic box means rather than the mutas being in a small ball (in which the thors would destroy them) they spread out, nullifying the splash damage of thors.

How to do the "Magic Box" : Click your group of mutas, tell them to stop, move to just above the Terran's army, tell them to stop, this will cause them to stay spread apart (do not click on any of the thors, this will cause the mutas to clump). Watch as the mutas destroy the army.

Mech + Bio (Tanks + Thors + Marines + Marauders) - This one is a pretty hard one to counter, mainly just because of how diverse the composition is, as such you need to be creative. As such I will say this, your best chance is a mix of Mutas, and speedlings + banelings. What you're hoping to do is to have your speedlings distract the army, the banelings kill the marines and then the mutas kill whatever remains. You'll have to attack this army from as many angles as possible for this to be effective. Also if you are high enough in the tech tree, ultralisk can really help with this composition. Add ultras to the baneling, speedling and muta and you should be able to destroy this composition. In fact if you add ultras you can usually leave out the banelings, however i'd still recommend having them.

Put more up again tommorow

Senior
30 Aug 2010, 03:27pm
Well actually not quite, there are only 8 patches, so 3 on each would imply having 24, not 30.



Well actually yes quite. Not anywhere in my post did i mention anything of what you would be harvesting. If you want to optimally harvest from your base you need 30 workers, 3 on each 8 patches and 3 on each geyser.

Also, fuck that pussy bullshit about zerg being a reactionary race, take control of the match and make your opponent react to YOU, like a true boss.

Bullet Wound
30 Aug 2010, 03:32pm
Well actually yes quite. Not anywhere in my post did i mention anything of what you would be harvesting. If you want to optimally harvest from your base you need 30 workers, 3 on each 8 patches and 3 on each geyser.

Also, fuck that pussy bullshit about zerg being a reactionary race, take control of the match and make your opponent react to YOU, like a true boss.

I'd love to see you play as zerg against any competent protoss or terran like that.


To optimally harvest from a base you need 30 workers, 3 on each patch, not two.


Also lol'd when I looked back and saw this.

Senior
30 Aug 2010, 03:38pm
I'd love to see you play as zerg against any competent protoss or terran like that.

Get at me bro.

b0red
30 Aug 2010, 04:17pm
Do the white ra strat where you get a zealot or two out than get one single void and harass all day with it. Than get a bunch of warp gates so you can warp in while he wastes money on anti air because he is anticipating a void rush.

Zealot
30 Aug 2010, 07:40pm
To optimally harvest from a base you need 30 workers, 3 on each patch, not two.

Terran strat:

1. get m
2. get m
3. get m
4. win game.

I said that...The first paragraph ends with me saying to have 22-24 workers on minerals alone. Although 24 is over saturation unless your zerg, who needs to sacrifice a worker to make a building. It's just a safe bet with terran cause you'll most likely always be building. Protoss max workers you'll ever need on minerals is 22.

And no.




Also, fuck that pussy bullshit about zerg being a reactionary race, take control of the match and make your opponent react to YOU, like a true boss.

Can you really say that without playing vs bullet wound in the first place? He's in diamond so I'm sure he knows how to play his main race.


I'd love to see you play as zerg against any competent protoss or terran like that.



Also lol'd when I looked back and saw this.
I'm down for it tonight.

Do the white ra strat where you get a zealot or two out than get one single void and harass all day with it. Than get a bunch of warp gates so you can warp in while he wastes money on anti air because he is anticipating a void rush.
Thats what the Tech explanation was for in my protoss section.

Matt
30 Aug 2010, 08:44pm
wow detailed from everyone I like to play terran and sometimes reaper rush :D

Zealot
30 Aug 2010, 09:17pm
wow detailed from everyone I like to play terran and sometimes reaper rush :D

It's really simple but you need to get the timings down to avoid the first queen/stalker