Some seen strats in Replays

[Wazzz]

I have seen many replays of the Starcraft 2 Beta now, and as I'm not sure how many of you know some of the strategies being developed atm, I shall post a list here and see what you do/don't know. Then we can all discuss some variations of the strategies, some new ones in general, and perhaps the revitalization and tweaking of some golden oldies. Sound fun? Good. Let us begin :3

ZERG

Zergling Rush: Yes, it's back. And badder than ever. With the new Baneling upgrade, the Zergling Rush can ultimately f*** up the other player's economy if all else fails. Without proper base defense, this tactics will most likely overrun you every time.

Roach Rush: A new unit for the Zerg, the Roach is a bulky short-range unit that regenerates extra fast while burrowed. Sporting 145 health and a nice attack dealing 16 damage per hit at 3 range, these are not to be taken lightly, and are extremely lethal when a line of about 6 Zerglings are taking most of the hits to begin with. Destroying Terran players is all I've seen this tactic do so far, but it's lethal nonetheless, especially considering these take up half the population of the Hydralisk. Nasty stuff.

Economic Boom: This isn't so much a tactic in itself as opposed to a helpful trick to really help you swarm with the Zerg. Basically, build a Queen. The Queens (which are now built from the Hatchery) sport the ability to add 4 Lavae to any target Hatchery. The catch? That Hatchery won't produce any more Lavae until you have less than 3 on it. So get your Minerals and Vespene Gas income up to a high and starting pumping this ability out!

Ground Assault: Ultimately, this often results in a mix of ground units, always involving the new, improved and dangerously op Ultralisks. Why are the Ultralisks so op? They're normal attack now deals sweeping damage. While this wouldn't be too much of an addition on its own, the Ultralisk also now has a Head attack which is used to attack buildings only, dealing 70 damage with each strike. Taking into considering how cheap these are in relation to the other race ultis, and you've got one heavily armoured unit with very little in terms of weaknesses. Swarm whatever you can to take the bulk of the opposing fire out ahead of your Ultralisks, including air units.

TERRAN

Blocking: Basically, this is just a very idealistic strategy that any Terran player worth his weight in binary does without being told about it beforehand. Essentially, most maps present one starting entrance to a player's actual base (sometimes more than one where the others are blocked by Destrucible Rocks). With the new ability to make Supply Depots deploy into the ground, the Terran player more than often builds a Barracks right at their entrance, ensures he has enough room to put an attachment on said Barracks, and then fills the gap with Supply Depots. This prevents most early rushes involving melee units, as you can now pump out Marines and have them fire from behind your Supply Depots. And with the new Reactor attachment, this can result in your having masses of infantry storing up in your base. Building Command Centers in your base will allow you to expand quickly, too, especially seeing as how you can now put up to 5 SCV's inside of the Command Center to drop them off at your next expansion point.

Hellion Massacre: Basically, Hellions are the counter to any form of infantry spam in the game for the Terran. These are essentially vehicle forms of the former Firebat, and they are f***ing nasty when en masse. Shooting a volley of fire causing damage in a line, these vehicles cause extra damage to Light targets. That ranges from the Zerglings to the Zealots to other Hellions. Nasty stuff, and bad news for most Zerg players during the early game, especially considering as how you can attach a Reactor to your Factory to double the building efficieny of these bad boys. These guys are even nastier once inside the base, as they will more than often be used to target your economy. That's pretty much how you should use them.

Marauderines: This tactic, while nothing too flashy, gets the job done. How's it work? Pump out a few Marines, get yourself a couple of Marauders, and lead with an SCV. Yes yes, the SCV isn't in the name, boohoo. Anyway, the point is that the SCV will take the early on damage, allowing your Marines and your Marauders to deal with all the messy work. What's a Marauder? It's a bulky infantry unit that deals extra damage to Armoured units. This includes buildings. Why is this desired? To get rid of their buildings early on. Namely their Barracks. That way, you have just stopped their unit production with a couple of Marauders, and the Marines will deal some rapid firing damage to any units that manage to get recruited. Afterwards, it's just a matter of sweeping up the rest.

Blocking the Enemy: Here's a little strategy I devised from all the footage I've seen of the Terran. Basically, what you want to do is do a standard scout out using an SCV. But instead of hanging around inside of their base, go back outside and lurk around there for a while. Do what you would normally do for your own base (Build a Barracks, attach an add-on and Supply Depot the gaps), only to theirs. That way, you will be blocking their base, preventing all but another Terran player from expanding early in the game, you will be pumping out Marines and Marauders for the ranged fire power, so any unit they send to deal with your expansion will be slaughtered, and finally, you will be expanding all the while you're doing this. As if this wasn't nasty enough, you will then go on to build a Factory close by and start pumping out Siege Tanks. Pause for the Rage Quit, and then pat yourself on the back. You earned it.

PROTOSS

Stalking Zealots: With a few Zealots in the front, you can cause a lot of havoc with the new Dragoon-inspired Dark-Templar-based Stalker unit. When upgraded to do so, the Stalker has a Blink ability which can be used to great effect by players with good enough micro. However, before you get this ability, let's take a look at what else they can do. They deal bonus damage to Armoured units. Hmm... a good Terran counter, perhaps? As most Terran players will be wetting themselves at the idea of being able to block off their base and STILL dominate the battlefield, I would say that this tactic most certainly is a good counter to any Terran players. Simple, yet effective. Send in the Zealots to take the bulk of the hits and destroy their buildings with both the Zealots and the Stalkers. Perhaps even keep a few Zealots behind to charge in once you've opened up the Terran base, just to deal with the backline infantry. You kind of want to keep the Stalkers alive more than the Zealots just so you can sweep through their Barracks and Command Centre.

Sentry Force Field: Okay, I'm kind of fishing here for Protoss strategies as I haven't really seen too much of them, but anyway, here goes. The Sentry has an interesting new ability called the Force Field (as any diehard fan of Starcraft would have already seen while they were researching the game). This can be used in as many ways as one can possibly imagine, as it ultimately blocks units from traversing a small area for a short duration of time. This can be used to set up traps so the enemy can't escape, block a path to avoid the enemy reinforcing, protect your base from an incoming attack in order to buy some time... the list goes on. And probably ends where I left it. But that's still a lot for one ability to be able to do. Check it out, you won't regret it


...and that's about all I have for now. So... COMMENCE DEBATE!

 

[Darkness-4ever]

Ok time to comment on the strategies you've listed:
Zergling Rush: Had its uses in SC1 but from what I've seen its died down, in my opinion a good thing.
Roach "Rush": I wouldn't call it a rush really... since its not really obtained early game, but whatever, very useful tactic if used correctly, from what I've seen it can really hit Terran hard if they don't have siege tank or some air units backing them up.
Economic Boom: To be honest I don't know... I just don't know...
Ground Assault: Applicable to any race that has ground units in my opinion, but on a note THEM ULTRALISKS LOOK BADASS, if for nothing else get them as a way to strike fear into the hearts of your enemy on the field with 2 huge blades mounted on 600 hit points worth of whip-ass.
I'll add to your Zerg strategy with some of what I've seen:
Early Expansion: In short instead of getting a Spawning Pool you simply expand, works really well for zerg from what I've seen in the replays against both Terran and Protoss as Spine Crawlers and smart use of Zerglings deterred any early attacks on the expansion, the early boost in resources eventually spelled victory for the Zerg.
Mutalings: Its back, from Starcraft 1 in short mass up zerglings then mass up Mutalisks and go behind enemy lines to harass their workers with the speed and bouncing attack of the Mutalisks.
Corruption: Corruptor and Brood Lord combination of air units, this has worked insanely great for the games I've seen it used in, Brood Lords takes down most ground units with ease, and Corruptors back them up with pretty good Anti-Air.
Now the Terran strategies:
Blocking: Even more useful with the Supply Depots able to go undergound, and used by just about every Terran player I've seen... well every good one that is.
Hellion Massacre: Okay these units seriously need to be toned down, they're pretty much Vultures with a long ranged flamethrower placed on top, its likely Blizzard might alter this unit in some way, just my opinion though... its been used far far far far too much in the games I've seen.
Marauderines: Don't really know what to say, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, from what I've seen the outcome of the battle using this strategy is usually favoring the person with the most units.
Blocking the Enemy: Haven't seen it, saw a Protoss do this though... Pylons Gateways and Cannons.
Now to add to your strategies:
... The only thing that comes to mind is the anger and hatred I have for Hellions.
Now for Protoss strategies:
Stalking Zealots: Not much to say, no one I've seen has used Stalkers and their blinks effectively, too many players are treating them like Dragoons.
Sentry Force Field: Okay what Pro player replays have you been watching? I'm lucky to see someone build one of these things, much less find a way to use their Force Fields strategically.
Now to add to these strategies:
Early DTs: On terran, the Dark Templars always seem to just catch them by surprise, and usually 2 -3 of their units are dead before they end up using their scanner sweep for detection and build Missile Turrets for sensors.
PS: Psi storming, it was in SC 1 but I don't see High Templars valued as much, but when it is used, the player using it usually ends up the victor.
Thats all I've seen really, I'm very very disappointed in the lack of use in the Warp Gate... very very disappointed indeed. As well as the lack of Reapers...

 

[Wazzz]

Yea, you're entirely right that no one has used the Stalkers, Force Shields or... anything to great effect so far. When I did see these used properly, I was watching a battle between two of the best Starcraft players in the world lol, so you're quite accurate in saying 'what kind of pro battles have you been watching?'
I also saw the Force Field used to great effect to stop a group of Zerg for their Stalkers to shred. The Stalkers were used to such great effect, it simply amazes me that someone could get so skilled simply by spending all their time playing the same game

And yes, I have not seen a single Reaper been built yet... I was really looking forward to seeing them used. As for the Warp Gate, it doesn't surprise me that no one's thought of using that to great effect yet. After all, I reckon I'd need to practice it against some AI first to get the basic jist of it

As for what you've added to the strats, I entirely agree with you on every point you raise

Let's get some moar strats!

 

[Fingolfin]

I have a few coments to this aswell.

First of all, the SCV in front of the "marauderines" seems a bit stupid, since it's assuming that the opponend will just mechanically target the first unit in the stack. If i was facing a blob with a dozen marines and an scv, the marines would be my priority.

Second, the classic zerg rush is apparently stalled due to supply depots AND the destructible rocks blocking the shortest paths. This calls for more creative tactics from the zerg player.

Finally, i have some additions to tactics that i have read and observed so far:

*Queens are effectively used to still the need for a second hatchery with their spawn larvae ability. Also, the creep tumours can be used to create paths between expansions for fast transportation.

*Nukes are much more accessible for the terrans. Now, you wont need a new command centre everytime you want another nuke, and it is neither a final tier asset. I'd expect some intense nuking in starcraft games.

*I've seen koreans using early void rays, something that works greately against most players in the early game, save perhaps terran.

*The "macro mechanic" that was recently added to protoss, works on allied structures aswell - thus it is good to stack both your own gateways, aswell as allied terran barracks (in a 2v2) near your nexus to boost marine production. Imagine this with a reactor!

*Reapers are great in the early game in a TvP. Zealots can't catch up, and probes will get smashed if you're lucky. This requires a quick gas build though, and is virtually useless against zerg.

About the force fields, i've seen them a billion times used in pro games! The sentries are also usefull for their large bubble shield aura that reduces incoming damage to affected units. They work perfectly for blocking entrance onto ramps and such - something that is vital when facing melee units.

 

[MGCǂSpectre]

Can I say... NO THX I prefer to watch Koreans and other top players + count on my own melee skill for all these years. Good that you post for others though. My way is replays only, not posts.

 

[Wazzz]

Then, in that case, couldn't you simply not post here TheTerran? It's not really contributing anything more than an opinion piece where it is neither required nor desired.

Okay, a little more about the Zerg Ultralisk. They look bad ass, but let me tell you, their combat abilities are even more bad ass. They are now able to, for example, Burrow. They deal sweeping damage with their Kaiser Blades, causing massive damage to ground units all around it. They use a Head Attack to deal even more damage to buildings. And, as if that wasn't enough, they can endure massive amounts of damage before they finally fall down. But who honestly attacks with just one Ultralisk? You pretty much just spam them in the end game :/