Starcraft 2: Beta – PATCH 15

Three days before the end of Beta, Blizzard released the small patch above with a bunch of nerfs. Let’s get to it~

Zero protoss changes. Wasn’t even mentioned through the whole document :P The Zerg nerf stings a bit though, the Brood Lord’s weapon upgrade bonus was decreased from 3 per up, to just 2 per up. Take note that the Brood Lord’s broodlings actually gets its upgrades from the Evolution Chamber (and the spawned zerg use melee attacks) so a fully upgraded broodling deals 12 damage each instead of 15 before the patch.

The Terran was hit quite hard on this patch. Lotsa Nerfs :( Just like the Brood Lord, Helions and Thors also lost their Upgrade bonuses versus Light-armored units. The Helions are primarily anti-Light armored due to their line-to-splash attack type, while the Thor’s reduced anti-air damage makes it harder to defend against Mutas and Banshees. The Siege Tank was also nerfed by TEN points of damage, which is huge. The reduced damage meant that it would take four shots to kill a fully upgraded Zealot (from 3 shots before the patch). Instead of parking 3 tanks on your perimeter, you’d need four to defend unless you’re willing to gamble on the 3-second cooldown.

Some good news though, regarding the Reapers (which I just featured with video)- the Nitro Pack research cost went down to 50/50- that’s about 10 SCV roundtrips less than before the patch, so you can harass with the Reapers faster.

Ok, I guess that’s it. I’m going back to editing my Mutalisk Single Unit Strategy :D Ciao~

Up Next: Mutalisks!

Jumping Firebats: Reapers

The Terran Reaper

Role	Light Raiding Infantry	Cost	50 Minerals
Armament	P-38 Pistol		50 Vespene Gas
			1 Supply
Hitpoints	50	Build Time	40
Unit Type	Ground • Biological	From	Barracks
Armor Type	Light	Requires	attached Tech Lab
		Hot Key	R
Ground Attack	P-38 Pistol: 4 (+1/Upgrade), +5 vs Light (2 attacks) D-8 Charges: 30 (+4/Upgrade), used on Buildings only
Air Attack	None
Armor	0	Speed	Fast

Strategy

Good	Bad
• Always get the Nitro Pack upgrade from the Tech Lab	• Never send one or two reapers to harass, Send a group of four or more
• As you can see in the video above, A group of 8 to 16 Reapers demolishes buildings fast	• Reapers lose versus the Colossi, Speedlings, Roaches or any fast Air-to-Ground unit, such as Mutas and Banshees
• Try to stagger your attacks (eg. Move-Attack-Move-Attack) esp. when you know that you have the faster unit	• Choose between Reapers OR Hellions. Don’t do both
• Harass enemy mineral lines using the Jump Pack passive ability. All harvesters have light armor, which means you have bonus damage
• When wrecking buildings, focus on Pylons, Spawning Pools and Tech Labs

Starcraft 2: Beta – PATCH 14

I was about to record this day’s replay when the Starcraft Launcher suddenly downloaded Patch 14! Yey..? Anyways, this is the last patch for the Starcraft 2 Beta, and this week is the last week for playing starcraft 2 online on the battle.net. A week before launch, the Beta will be up again but in the meantime, the only way to play starcraft 2 will be against A.I :(

Ok, enough about that and let’s discuss Patch 14. The Protoss Archon received a nice buff, it seems that blizzard is trying to push Archons.. understandable since the unit rarely see tournament play- now with a build time of 12, i think its possible to merge two templars in the field just before they die and get a fresh archon out.

The Terran race was nerfed, but not by much: the Viking, one of Terran’s primary anti-air unit, got a reduced ground damage. But since no one in their right minds actually use the Vikings in their “Assault Mode” unless when cleaning up, I don’t think this will affect the terran build very much.

Now, we get to the Zerg. A lot of changes, most of them buffs. First up: Corruptors’ Corruption ability becomes less expensive to use. I still don’t think its worth it, but if your opponent likes Heavy Armor units, this is one way to soften them up.

Infestors & Ultralisks gets a huge buff: Their speed upgrades are removed, but they start with increased move/burrow speeds instead! I always thought that the speed upgrades are essential, and very rarely send out Ultras w/o them- now they’re researched by default! :D The Overlord/Overseer’s speed upgrade on the other hand, becomes doubly expensive, while the Infested Terran ability gets a 20% discount. The speed upgrade might be huge especially for the “doom drop” tactics, but still doable.

Another buff for teh zurg: Looks like blizz is trying to make Roaches viable again with a two-for-one upgrade. Basically, if you get the Tunneling Claws upgrade, you automatically get the Organic Carapace absolutely free! But Wait! There’s more!

The Ultralisk also get a small hp buff, rounding up his total to a whopping 500 hp. Ok, I guess that all of the balance changes, the bug fixes really matters little since after this week, Battle.net will be down for a couple of weeks. Ok, I guess that’s it for this patch update, stay tuned for my next post~!

Next Up: Terran Reapers, and How to Use Them Effectively

Protoss Units: Part One!

Much has changed for Protoss in Starcraft 2. Most of the SC1 units have been removed from the game and replaced with some categorical substitutes. Only the Probe, Zealot, Archon, Observer, High Templar, Dark Templar and Carrier remained in the list

As I will be discussing these units I might as well enumerate and classify them according to build order Tiers

Tier 0: Probe

Tier 1: Zealot

Tier 1.5: Sentry, Stalker



Tier 2: Immortal, Observer, Phoenix, Void Ray, Warp Prism, High Templar

Tier 2.5: Colossus, Dark Templar

Tier 3: Archon, Carrier, Mothership

~~ Tier 0 ~~

Probe

Starting Stats:

Shields / Hitpoints	20 /20
Range / Type	Melee / Ground
Attack Power	5
Armor	0
Speed	Normal
Cost	50 Minerals, 1 Population

The Probe is Protoss harvester/worker, their basic mining and structure production unit. I believe that the Protoss are more time-efficient in both mining and building production than the Terran or the Zerg. Unlike the other harvesters, Probes can queue a lot of actions (using shift key) while other probes are consistently mining minerals and gas. This is not much different as Probes in SC1 except for the better graphics. You can only upgrade its shields and armors and the basic attack of the probe isn’t much to be even proud of. The Probe has a basic build time of 20 seconds.

~~ Tier 1 ~~

Zealot

Starting Stats

Shields / Hitpoints	50 /100
Range / Type	Melee / Ground
Attack Power	8 (x2)
Armor	1
Speed	Normal
Cost	100 Minerals, 2 Population

Ah, yes, the Zealot. Well, this guy is the only Tier 1 unit available in the Protoss army. Unlike Starcraft 1, today’s Zealot has only 50 shield compared to the first that has 60. But compared to build speeds, SC2’s zealot decreased from 40 secs to 33 seconds, and that’s still without Chronoboost! Upgrading the Gateway to a Warp Gate will mean a more insane production of Zealots. 

Now the Zealot has a better upgrade than SC1’s leg enhancement, called Charge. It can be either a passive ability or an active one depending on your preference. Charge allows Zealots to intercept nearby enemies and it outrageously increases their movement speed. This upgrade is researched at the Twilight Council. Catching up with a running squad is very easy with this upgrade. Definitely a must for those Zealot fans coming out of lots and lots of proxy pylons everywhere. The Zealot can also have upgrades for Ground Weapons, Plasma shields and Armor 1-3.

~~Tier 1.5:~~

Sentry

Starting Stats:

Shields / Hitpoints Energy	40 / 40 200
Range Type	(5) Ground and Air Ground
Attack Power	8 (Ground and Air)
Armor	1
Speed	Normal
Cost	50 Minerals 100 Vespene Gas 2 Population

The Sentry IMHO must have a minimum of 2 per every basic 10 unit squad that you have. The reason is because most of the combat macro will be coming from this mech unit. Support is the main objective of the Sentry and all of its abilities is a must have. Once a Warpgate is available, producing this unit is now easy. Normal building time for a Sentry is 42 seconds and you do not want any of that on queue style. Below is the list of its sick abilities both having advantage to ranged and melee attacks.

Force Field – A very flexible “wall” spell it creates a hexagon-shaped block that lasts for 15 seconds which impedes movement of ground units, used for evading, leading or trapping enemy melee rush. This is in combo with your ranged Stalkers that can also teleport over and back of these fields. As I have been using and watching Sentry in HDH tournaments, this ability is a must have for Protoss players. This uses 50 energy.

Guardian Shield – An ability vs ranged attack. It creates a range 4 aura that reduces incoming ranged damage to friendly units by 2. Lasts 15 seconds and uses 75 energy. Use it well.

Hallucination – Creates clones of a unit (Except for Carrier, Observers and Dark Templars), that last 60 seconds. At first look you can use this at your advantage making your army look like a big one, since hallucinations do not look different from other kinds of units in your opponent’s view. Mainly I use the hallucinations to create a phoenix and scout it like crazy, and that’s it. This skill uses 100 energy and I want my Sentry to utilize energy more on fields and shields. This also has to be researched at the Cybernetics Core.

You may also want to protect the Sentry from any kind of opponent unit. The Sentry is a caster unit and not an attacker. It’s very easy to kill and deal with, but with the right kind of use, it will be the most annoying unit your opponent may want to face beside from your Stalkers.

Stalker

Starting Stats:

Shields / HP	80 / 80
Range Type	(6) Ground and Air Ground
Attack Power	8 (Ground and Air) +6 vs Armored
Armor	1
Speed	Normal
Cost	125 Minerals 50 Vespene Gas 2 Population

Of course, the best types of your offensives are at the upper Tiers, but think again. Being in a real time match against an experienced opponent you may want to swarm your squads with units that’s easy on your resources, can attack both air and ground, have a decent attack, defensive stats and a tactical ability. The Stalker is the perfect spam of your resources to create a solid squad build of average Zealots and minimal Sentries. 

Luckily, Blizzard chose this unit to spawn from a Warp Gate, wherein a proxy pylon or a tactical use of a warp prism can give you lots of map control using the sentry harass. Having the active “teleporting” ability Blink, can also give you instant cliff advantage vs melee, evasion, Force Field leap and etc.

Blink – Teleports the Stalker to a nearby target location. 10 seconds cool-down. Has to be researched at the Twilight Council for only 150 minerals and 150 gas. Research time of 110 seconds (w/o Chronoboost yet)

The best thing that was given to the Stalker is the production cost aside from its very flexible ability and stats. 80/80 is not so bad, considering the population cost of only 2 and a starting base attack of 8 on both ground and air, and that +6 vs armored! Not only that, 4 units of Stalkers can fit into a Warp Prism, unloading its units and using it as a pylon for the WarpGates and that can give you more Gateway forces for retaliation or resource harass. 

Combined with the Sentry’s Force Field, the Stalker can still attack from behind being unharmed to Zerglings and other melee. This is I believe the most number of unit type that you should produce.

And yes, the Stalker's my favorite (^^)

Next up: Protoss Tier 2 Units!

Starcraft 2: F.A.Q

So, what do we know about Starcraft 2? Well first of all, we have insider info confirming that Starcraft 2 is officially the most awesome game ever. Few of our sources (who refused to be named) also leaked more data that confirms that Starcraft 2 is REALLY friggin’ awesome :D

Ok, those facts aside, here are the confirmed data (with references):

Q: What is Starcraft 2?
A: The most awesome game ever.

Q: Seriously, what is Starcraft 2?
A: According to Wikipedia: StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is a military science fiction real-time strategy video game currently under development by Blizzard Entertainment as a sequel to the award-winning 1998 video game StarCraft.

Also, it is the first of the three installments to be released, with the next two expansion packs Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void on the works.

Q: When and How Much?
A: Blizzard said that Starcraft 2 will be in stores starting July 27, 2010. It will probably be available in the Philippines in a month’s time or so, with the suggested retail price of 59.99 USD, or roughly 2,800 PHP (which includes a lifetime Battle.net account for the region)

Q: How come some people are playing the game right now?
A: The Starcraft 2 Beta has been ongoing for a few months now. In fact, there has been a total of 13 patches as of May 20, 2010. If you want a Beta Key though, you would have to preorder the game on GameStop.

Q: What are the similarities & differences between the first starcraft and Starcraft 2?
A: There are still three races: Terran, Protoss and Zerg, and the gameplay is still fast-paced real-time startegy game. Also there are still three resources: Minerals, Vespene Gas and Population.

The unit lineups, however are vastly different (and I daresay, much improved). Each race still retains much of its character: the Zerg still overrun with vast quantities, the Protoss still has their iconic shields and psi powers while the Terran still has all their tech- cloaking, nukes and all.

Oh, and Starcraft 2 looks a lot more awesome.

Q: What about the new mechanics?
A: A quick rundown then~ You can queue multiple buildings to build as well as interact with the terrain (destructible rocks, watchtowers). There are high yield minerals on non-defensible parts on most maps, and you can set the harvester’s rally point directly to minerals (and they will mine automatically). Also, there is now line of sight which prevents targeting of units that you can’t see.

That, plus two big mechanics:  1) When you select multiple buildings, the game queue build commands intelligently- Selecting 5 gateways and clicking the build Zealot command five times will distribute the build command equally through the 5 gateways. This means that those 5 zealots would now appear at the same time. 2) The same is true with unit abilities- Selecting 5 Infestors and using the Fungal Growth ability once will make one of the Infestor use the ability once- not all five of them. This conserves energy and reduces accidental misclicks.

Ok, I know that you’ve got a lot more questions, but I just passed the 550 word limit on my Writer, so until next time, this is Gaius Sensei, signing out~

Up Next: Battle.Net & LAN F.A.Q

Hey, noojster™ here!

Stalker: My favorite unit!

Hi there, my name is Nooj and welcome to the Philippine Starcraft 2 League. Until the full game is released we will first discuss a few beta tests against A.I to give you a sneak peek at the changes, new techs, new units and the definitely better maps. Its hard to find Filipino players right now when playing the beta, but we (Me and my colleague and long-time best friend Gaius "Sensei") will do our best.

As one of the contributors here I’ll be commenting and discussing most of Protoss gameplay. Protoss unit production style may not be as fast as Zerg or Terran but they really excel in both offensive and defensive capabilities. Building production can still be done by one probe and the Protoss is fast when it comes to mining resources, that’s why the costs are high too. The usual “pylon power” is still important in creating your base especially now that Warp Gates (an upgrade to the gateway) can easily deploy units from any location with power.

I have been playing SC2 for some weeks now and I may say this game is more addictive than the first. Practice, practice, practice. That’s all there is to it.

 

For the Terran and the Zerg, a lot of things have been improved too. The Terran are now on even grounds with the other two races (because seriously, I think that Terran is quite weak in SC1). As for the Zerg, unit production is still very speedy. Expert Zerg players can easily have some serious map control mid-game. Upgrading those units optimally is the blade of Zerg’s  fast unit production.

Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty will be released this July 27, 2010 and by that time we we'll be on full in-depth discussion of the game.

Next up: Protoss Units Discussion!