Simple Questions/Answers

[Loopah]

This thread will be used for any question that isn't extensive enough for it's on topic. Please use this thread to ask questions that can be answered easily and do not need to be debated about. Also, this thread is for simple, NOT stupid questions. As always, keep the discussion on topic.

[Xaleph]

Can we start a sticky-ed thread on sc2 resources (sites/strategy/info)?

I think it may be a good idea to have someone specifically assigned to update/moderate the site list - so if something is deprecated or simply a poor site it's not listed in the "drow recommended sc2 site list". Maybe that's what the thread could be called "Recommended Resource Sites" or something like that (recommended resources, recommended sites, etc).

[Zapron]

Question: As a zerg what is my general counter vs <insert unit here>.

IE: I know that Hydras are good counter vs most air

What counters siege tanks?
What counters Sentries?
What counters sentinels?
What counters Zealots?
What counters thors?
What counters Ultras?

I intend to learn this by experience, but it would be nice to have some idea going in so I don't have to burn and learn for every match up.

[solaxo]

Yo Zapron, been a while bro! Saw your question, and I had been thinking the same with protoss units. Dig some digging, and found a nice site that calculates the number of hits it would take to kill a unit. Looks like it factors in upgrades and extras which you can customize and simulate the battle to see the outcome. It seems like a good starting point to what you were looking for.


http://www.sinfulgaming.com/starcraft2/deathchart.php (http://www.sinfulgaming.com/starcraft2/deathchart.php)

[Talifey]

Firstly, I'd like to state Zerg has very few bonuses, so as far as 'counters' go we don't really have many true counters. But there are definitely units that do better against other units.



What counters siege tanks?


By far one of the hardest units to counter as Zerg. The only unit that will really make a big dent in tanks Sieged is Ultras. Ultras have a huge health pool, a lot of armor so they dont go down quickly to whats around the tank, an armor bonus and a cleave. However, Siege tanks will be out ages before you can get Ultras.

The second best unit is Roaches. Since roaches spawn with armor and have considerably more health than other zerg units they don't explode from one shot from a sieged tank. The important thing to do when using roaches against siege tanks is to move them in close trying to deadzone the siege mode and ensure that all the roaches are shooting since their range is only 3.



What counters Sentries?


If you mean Sentires themselves, pretty much anything. They are a pretty weak unit. If you mean forcefields, well, thats another story. Ultralisk will break forcefields, but again they take much longer to get. Sentries will be in play for probably 15 minutes before you're getting any serious Ultra play.

So what works against sentries is really anything that survives against the rest of the protoss composition. So if its was Sentry Zealot, Zerglings aren't going to do any good since zealots tear zerglings apart.

A few mutalisk can snipe sentries off fairly easily to and since Stalkers don't get the armor bonus against mutas you shouldn't lose much hp or units.

An important thing to do when attacking a composition with sentries is a tactical retreat. If the forcefields allow it, retreating is usually a pretty good option rather than letting yourself get further pinned.



What counters sentinels?


Not sure what unit you meant, there are no sentinels in SC2.



What counters Zealots?


The best counter to Zealots early game is Roaches. You can micro your roaches and kill the zealots without taking any damage. Simply move away, hit s, wait for them to shoot, and move away, and repeat. However roaches do take the bonus damage from stalkers, so if the Protoss player shows up with Stalker Zealot early you'll probably want zerglings + some spine crawlers, or zergling roach. It really depends on if you fast expanded, and whether they're doing a 4gate, 2 gate, 2 gate robo, so on.



What counters thors?


Thors are fairly easy for Zerg to take down. Since they come out pretty late though I wouldn't say there is a single counter to them, except maybe the Ultra which is our answer to all armored units.

Mass roaches works well against thors again because they have the large health pools they dont die in one shot like lings or Hydras do. But at this point in the game you'll want mixes of units. So Roaches, Ultras, Lings to balance your minerals with your gas, hydras in the back, even banelings are good to clean up the units around the thors, especially if the terran brough SCV's to repair.

Mutas are becoming more and more viable especially since the 'magic box' technique where you M-move your mutas spread over the thors and tell them to stop. Rather than A-moving or focusing, this maintains muta spread and prevents splash.



What counters Ultras?


Ultras are hard countered by air. Banshees, Voidrays, Carriers, Battlecruisers are the real hard counters to Ultras.

I've found Zealots to be iincredbily annoying against my Ultras as well. If they charge in, they'll keep the ultra at ranged. And since the ultra doesnt get the bonus against light zealots he'll be taking damage from collosi, stalkers, immortals while killing the silly zealots.

Immortals are amazing against Ultras, 50 damage while mitigating the first couple swings.

Siege tanks on high ground are good, and sieged tanks + stimmed mauraders can focus Ultras down pretty well. But against sieged tanks and mauraders you'll want to throw in a lot of Zerglings which if ignored will dish a lot of damage and otherwise draw fire off the ultras

[Aldriana]

I'm not sure what a Sentinel is - you might want to clarify that.

In terms of the Protoss units:

In the early game, the most reliably cost-effective way of dealing with zealots is probably roaches, though lings in sufficient quantity do fine as well and I've seen some players be effective with banelings against zealots. I guess the way I'd put it is that there's nothing you have that counters or is countered by zealots particularly strongly, but provided you have a reasonable amount (i.e., roughly equal food) of whatever unit you're building, you'll likely be okay. In the later game, the answer is, of course, "just about anything" - any air unit, hydras with any degree of meatshield, ultras, etc. etc. all do fine.

Sentries: in the early game, you rarely need to counter sentries in particular, as no one builds them as their entire army. Hence the question is more often "how do I deal with a zealot/sentry/stalker mix" or "how do I deal with a zealot/sentry/immortal mix". Basically, the answer sort of comes down to how you counter the specific push that your opponent is doing more than countering any particular unit in it. So, for instance, a good solution to a gateway/robo push (with or without sentries) is to get quick hydras - but if you try that against a 4gate, you'll likely get run over - beating that generally relies on a couple early spine crawlers and a lot of either lings or roaches.

The big thing to keep in mind is the tactical implications of sentries in terms of planning your strategy - i.e., an early midgame bust up a P's ramp will almost never work as they can forcefield to either block you out or split you up and thus decimate your army with a vastly cheaper force. Hence, don't plan a strategy that relies on such a bust to be effective.

In terms of the later game, if people are specifically abusing sentries, your options are basically ultras (to trample the force fields down) or air (which doesn't care about force fields). Both Ultras and Brood Lords are incredibly destructive to any mass ground strategy P can put together (I mean, mass immortals beats mass ultras but not a whole lot else does). I'd say the endgame unit mix I probably see most in the matchup right now is probably ultra/hydra with lings to soak the extra minerals, but that might be partly a function of my playstyle and/or the people I'm playing against.

[Zapron]

Sorry I meant stalker, not sentinel. Typo.

[Talifey]

For Stalkers you really want something light so their +armor bonus doesn't kick in. Generally for gateway units the go to unit is the Hydralisk. Hydra's are great against zealots, stalkers and blink stalkers, and sentries. But Zerglings and Mutalisk are both pretty good against stalkers to. Zerglings are not so good against blink stalkers because you can blink micro the ones in front to the back as their shields drop.

If you made Hydras though you need to have a spire ready to make Corruptors to respond to any Collossi the protoss makes. Hydras just evaporate to Collossi. So if you see him go gateway, and you respond hydras, good bet he'll respond collosi or templars for storm. If you see collossi you need corruptors and if you see storm...well personally I'm still working on this myself. The only thing I've beaten good storms with are Ultras and Broodlords cause they're just so tough.

Late game Ultras will tear through stalkers like paper if they get to them. But Immortals will also tear through Ultras. So unless your opponent is going like stalker collosi phoenixes, Ultras are a bit meh in the protoss match up.

[Aldriana]

I disagree on... basically all counts, really. Hydras don't do *badly* against stalkers, but by themselves they don't do exactly *well*, either. I've had surprisingly good luck taking mass stalkers against hydras in equal numbers - sometimes it wins, sometimes it loses, but it's very close either way. You really need some roaches for meatshield or lings for extra damage or *something* if you're going to kill mass stalkers in a cost-efficient manner. I beat hydra/corrupter with stalker/collosus almost every time.

In terms of Ultras - I don't see people do it that much, but judging by pro games that use them (see, Idra vs Huk in King of the Beta, for instance), they can be quite effective late game. Transitioning to them is of course a bit tricky, but they really do quite well against P ground armies. Immortals are a problem, but with hydra support you can focus down the immortals and generally be okay.

[Talifey]

Please use this thread to ask questions that can be answered easily and do not need to be debated about.


Firstly, I'd like to state Zerg has very few bonuses, so as far as 'counters' go we don't really have many true counters. But there are definitely units that do better against other units.

58587

[Mojache]

If you Neural Parasite an opponents Infestor, can you then Neural parasite another one of there Infestors? Can I start an Infestor rumba?

[Telos]

If you Neural Parasite an opponents Infestor, can you then Neural parasite another one of there Infestors? Can I start an Infestor rumba?

Hell to the yee-ahhhh brochacho.

[Mojache]

Hell to the yee-ahhhh brochacho.

I wish neural Parasite was permanent. That would be fantastic.

[Demolition]

Duban's guides are great for new players comming into the game trying to decide which race they want to play and how to pick up the basic game mechanics.

Linky:
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/106670678

[Tivia]

If you Neural Parasite an opponents Infestor, can you then Neural parasite another one of there Infestors? Can I start an Infestor rumba?

That is actually a really interesting question. What would happen if you NP and infestor and start a chain in effect and the first one times out? do you lose control of everything? or do you technically maintain control.

This requires further investigation.

[jonish]

That is actually a really interesting question. What would happen if you NP and infestor and start a chain in effect and the first one times out? do you lose control of everything? or do you technically maintain control.

This requires further investigation.

does it have a "time out" outside of the campaign? Or is it just like the campaign and you only lose control when you move the unit out of range of the infestor

[Tivia]

Ok I am tired of slamming my head into a wall here, hopefully some of our better zerg can answer this. As protoss I have no issue with anymore, but as Zerg there is one timing push that just rolls me everytime and it seems to be the only thing T does on small rushy 1v1 maps.

The timing push with 3 rax MM just as stim hits.

I simply do not know how to deal with this as Zerg. I have tried pure speedling, ling/bane, ling roach, bane/roach, 10 pool, 12 pool, 14 pool no expo, 14 pool expo. Nothing I do seems to work. It just seems like no matter how I drone, mules outpace me by way too large of a margin and they just stim and roll over my army like it wasn't even there. If I get into a good macro game, my macro/micro mechanics are solid enough that I win fairly decently. It is just this early game push that I am struggling with that I cannot counter to save my life.

[Talifey]

There's an interesting build by a guy named PrinceXizor that is really great at holding off an 8:15-8:45'ish 3 rax push (any later and it will destroy the push even harder.) The key is fast Infestors. Without medivacs Infestors absolutely demolish MM.

If your terran does 0 harrass, the MM push should come around 8:30'ish. By 8:30 if you do an Infestor rush properly you should have 2 hatches, 1 queen, 3-4 Infestors who spawned with the energy upgrade, and anywhere between 20-30 lings.

The key to this build is gas management, you'll need to practice when to build your geysers, when to pull drones off, and when to put them back on because everything needs to happen perfectly. As soon as your pool finishes you need to have gas for lair, as soon as lair finishes you need to have gas for infestors pit, as soon as pit finishes you need gas for the upgrade and halfway through the upgrade you need enough gas for 3-4 Infestors. Because its SO gas heavy you'll end up putting around 9 drones in gas. Also delayed queen works really well in this build because you slap down a lair so quickly. Or just wait to make the queen at your expo.

But if you have 3-4 Infestors and that MM push comes, 1-2 fungals, run away. If they try to run, you attack with Zerglings (depending on the time they may, or may not have speed but you can probably pick a few units off.) If they keep pushing fungal again, watch as all the marines die and marauders are at less than 50% and then go Zerglings. If you have the money you can also throw in spine crawlers.

Its a rough build though, cause if he goes reapers, you don't have speedlings or roaches, and need to rely on spine crawlers and a singular queen. Its good against Banshee rush because you can fungal and queen the banshees. Its not very good against helions so again defending against helions with A queen and crawlers.

But it will absolutely destroy that 3 rax push!

[Tivia]

hmm, interesting.

I may have to test this out because I am more then a little tired of getting rolled by this. Infestors I hadn't tried yet, I was going on the thought process of teching that high was an almost guaranteed loss. It does make sense though now that I think about it. Yea i am not too worried about the banshee/reaper builds as the maps this happens on reaper play isn't too worrisome and banshee i can scout easily enough.

[SoulShatter]

How do you train your APM? I am getting every game, 45 to 50 APM. Does anyone have any suggestions, on how to learn to increase it? I cycle through my unit producing buildings, add units, try not to Que stuff, I build SCV's non stop, and its still so low. Even though I am winning slightly over half my games, I am thinking if I can do more stuff, I might win a bit more. What else is there to do? I see the top end pro's have like 250-300 APM, I would like to see mine around 100. What have you done to increase your APM?

[Tivia]

APM in sc2 is a bit of a misnomer. It is not in any way an indication of skill. I know several very good streamers who have sub 100 apm average because they don't spam. It is more how effective you are when you start getting the number of units/structure that require higher.

That said, for training my speed and accuracy I play osu. This requires me to constantly increase the speed of my mousing while keeping accurate without me mucking up build orders trying to force myself to be faster.

http://osu.ppy.sh/

[SoulShatter]

Holy shit man. That thing is nuts. If I don't have a seizure, my hand is gonna fall off.

[Tivia]

Holy shit man. That thing is nuts. If I don't have a seizure, my hand is gonna fall off.

But it works :D

Check out my Pro Hands from playing Osu!

http://www.intenseexperiences.com/images/GiantHands.jpg

[Demolition]

How do you train your APM? I am getting every game, 45 to 50 APM. Does anyone have any suggestions, on how to learn to increase it? I cycle through my unit producing buildings, add units, try not to Que stuff, I build SCV's non stop, and its still so low. Even though I am winning slightly over half my games, I am thinking if I can do more stuff, I might win a bit more. What else is there to do? I see the top end pro's have like 250-300 APM, I would like to see mine around 100. What have you done to increase your APM?

Girl With Very Fast Hands&nbsp;Video@@AMEPARAM@@http://embed.break.com/182901@@AMEPARAM@@182901 (http://www.break.com/index/girl_with_very_fast_hands.html)

[SoulShatter]

Tivia, any way you can zip some (all?) of your songs? Its only letting me download 1 every 10 minutes, and im getting sick of the same few songs lol. Doesn't matter what kinda music they are, since im just doing it for the coordination.

[Tivia]

Download the beatmap packs

http://osu.ppy.sh/p/packlist

You can get them that way, far faster then I could upload. 6-10 songs per pack.