Starcraft II

[sketch]

awesome. i like how you actually rely on scouting - not enough players do that. they blindly build units and get mad when they lose (it typically so happens that their opponents scout them and then build the appropriate units to win). i find that most PvP matches that i see always end up in 4-gate vs 4-gate, whoever gets that immortal out first really has a major advantage....it tanks so well against standard gateway units and destroys stalkers.

i typically play terran and dabble in brotoss, occasionally play zerg or random in 4v4 randoms (somehow i'm in gold for that)
currently i'm gold, platinum, gold, gold (1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4) on my main account - saw that sc2 was on sale on amazon for $40 so i grabbed a 2ns copy for a smurf account, placed into diamond (1v1) & silver (2v2 - with the same partner i'm platinum with lol)

[BigTyla]

I like to scout a lot but I find that my macro drops when I do it, so I need to work on that a little more. I also tend to not be aggressive enough and at times that has cost me the game. I need to be more confident and recognize when I have a distinct advantage.

[venik]

I've been doing this new zerg build for a week or two now. It doesn't make sense until you play it. Ling, infestor, brood lord. I know wtf right? But it rapes marine/tank, any roach builds, and any stalker/col build. Which is what most people play these days atleast at my level.

The awesome thing about it, is how synergistic infestors and brood lords are. Brood lords have extremely long range, and if you can hold a group or army inside your range with fungal growth but outside of theirs, they're army is fucked. And you aren't taking any losses.

As zerg, it is almost impossible to deal with rine tank viking (and perhaps 1 raven) with: lings, roaches, mutas, hydras, any zerg unit. EXCEPT broodlord and corruptor. Your broodlord shoots a broodling down to the siege/rine. All the siege tanks then either unsiege, or shoot at the broodling taking the marine ball or siege tank with it. Suddenly the siege tanks are useless and you can bring in your speedlings to mop up the fleeing force.

The hardest part about this build is surviving until you get the first infestors out, which is like 6-7 mins. Most rushes come around 6 so it's tough to fend off with just lings. The solution is to put a ling/drone at their ramp and start pumping lings, and a crawler or two when you see that they are on their way. And ofcourse stop droning until you know you can make his army leave you alone.

Here's the build I use:

9 ovie
11 scout
15 pool
15 gas
15 ovie
3 drones on gas when finished
17 queen
first 100 gas get ling speed
inject when queen finishes
23 expand
22 OL
8 lings to 26 supply
second 100 gas get lair
8 lings every injection, drones/OL otherwise
queen/drone when expo finishes
infestor pit when lair finishes
infestor energy upgrade as soon as infestation pit finishes
3 infestors at 35/80 energy upgrade.
hive
attack speed
spire
evo chamber and constant meelee/armor upgrades
2-3 more infestors
in-base hatch/queen for lings
greater spire
dump gas on 5 corruptors
2-3 BL when greater spire finishes
more corruptors if he has air-to-air units.
continue to mass while you contain him to two bases. You can take the ramp when you have 5-6 broodlords, with infestors to fungal up with sight to kill any units. When the wall is down rush in with lings to each expo to kill workers and it's gg.

3rd and 4th expo when first and second mineral lines start depleting.

Another nice thing is that your tech line is very smooth, you don't feel like your hive upgrade went to waste, or your infestation pit. And you have the gas for it with the extra gas you naturally have from massing lings. And when you get dropped or mutaed you have a gas and a mineral dump to fix the disparage in minerals or gas. Any cheese play like banshees mutas phenixes or dts get handled nicely by infestors with most of the time no losses.

I can post some good replays if anyone wants, although I'm on break at work so i can't right now. Everyone I play against is usually high diamond, or top ranked plat.

venik - StarCraft II

Feel free to add me for 2s/3s/custom games/youvsme or questions.

[BigTyla]

I've been watching a lot of Zerg pros recently and I have to say I really like spanishiwa's style the most. I really think mass queen builds are the future of Zerg metagame. Only very recently has the power of infuse been realized.

[sketch]

spanishiwa's style is awesome. a few weeks or so before he exploded on the replay scene (HD, husky, day9, etc.) i started doing a marine "rush" play - i'd got out a lot of marines fast, attack early, and win. pretty close to TLO's 7 rax attack but a bit more smooth. i'm pumping out 1 marine at each barracks and 1 SCV at all points in time, and consistently building more barracks as my minerals allowed it. no gas until about 28-35 supply depending on the matchup/map. it was weakest vs protoss, but still a good opening. i refined that into a defended FE build: 2-3 bunkers filled with marines a the choke for my natural allowing me to get 30 supply relatively fast, 2 orbcomms with decently saturated mineral lines. drop 4 gas all together, gas income sky rockets. first factory, stim and level 1 bio attack all finish by the 8-9 minute mark. depending on matchup/map, combat shield, tech to vikings, etc. etc.

[venik]

Yea spanishwa is fun to watch, I like queen builds because they cost as much as a gateway/barracks which we don't need so it only seems natural to make 2-3 queens per expo/hatch.

I win in diamond vs people with 100+ with a 65 average apm. I guess it's more about how efficient you are with those actions. Granted 1 action a second isn't too slow.

Here's two replays with the fungal/broodlord build in 1v1 one vs zerg and one vs protoss
Shakuras Plateau - venik vs. jzo - Replays - SC2Replayed.com
This is a rank 23 diamond protoss, he went chargelot hightemplar and mixed in some dt harrass.
Metalopolis - venik vs. ilUvMiN - Replays - SC2Replayed.com
This is a rank 15 diamond zerg, he went roach/infestor

[BigTyla]

My APM hangs around 55-60 average. I know you can get to diamond with that. I never understood people incessantly clicking around to artificially increase their APM. It's wasted actions and IMO all of that time used adds up. There would be no need for all that clicking if you could hit your target the first time. I believe Day[9] talks about this in one of his Newbie Tuesday casts.

[BigTyla]

I need some character codes! Can't add friends without them.

[sketch]

I need some character codes! Can't add friends without them.

just add me via email address. gmail: sketch2186

On APM, i can't see anything higher than perhaps maybe 90-120 MAX (and that's stretching it, IMO) being useful. especially in early game when you're making only workers. i have no idea how you get up to 438 APM making workers only. i can see APM spiking when you're scouting, dropping your first rax/gateway, back to scouting, making another worker, back to scouting/worker harass (love killing that terran worker building the rax with my scouting probe), etc.

[venik]

My character code is 293, name is venik.

Yea I think my APM is actually highest while telling my first OLs where to go and switching between hatch and scout and larvae and drone just checking for new larvae while i scout.