Its time we parted ways...

Dear Inspiron,

You have been my companion and friend for four years. When we met, I thought it was love at first sight. We could play and work wherever we wanted! You were never shy and always were brave, and when you began to slow down and the quality of your work diminished, I stood by you and encouraged you to do better. With those new attachments you were better than ever and I was proud to call you mine.You helped get me through college, work, difficult times in my life, and much more. When you had that massive concussion when I dropped you on your head, I promised to stay by your side and nurse you back to health, but mostly because you had that 25 page Research paper you were holding for me. Sadly you remember nothing of it, but I forgave you and we moved on.

However, over the years you have again not been able to keep up with your peers. Younger models are coming out left and right and your age is beginning to show. I am a fickle creature who demands the best from my subjects and you have not been able to keep up like I had hoped. I promised I would always be there for you and when you saw me stare at those newer models at the store, I assured you I was only staring at the very exquisite marketing ploys. Now I must admit to you the truth. I was staring at those new models. Their sleek and smaller size was very attractive to me. When I found out the different positions they could be placed in, and they work faster and harder than you could ever dream, it took every ounce of my willpower to not buy one right then and their saying to myself, " I have a Promise to keep."

Our love was special and pure 4 years ago, it is nothing but regret and remorse now. The child we conceived, Microsoft Mouse, will be living with you for I cannot bring myself to look upon him and not remember all that we once had. My new Computer, LAN Warrior II is stronger, faster and more capable of protecting and helping me than you ever were (and his silent running drives me crazy with lust). He even has two kids whom I will love and cherish as my own.

So this is Goodbye my dear Inspiron, I will always remember what we shared so long ago.

-Wingweaver

P.S. I think I gave you Herpes

Zomg Hyrdras!!!!

So I have been pretty busy this week with work and projects and have had little time to sit down and even play Starcraft. I love writing these blogs, but if I havent played me some Starcraft matches recently, I feel like I don't know what I'm talking about in the blog. So I am going to pose a question out there and see what people do when encountering this unit mix.

Mass Hyrdralisks. How do you handle them? I played a Zerg player who did this to me, and in the past its also happened so lately its been bugging me on how to effectively engage a mass Hydralisk army. My best thought has been to mix some Archons with my unit mix to help absorb some damage while my zealots and Stalkers get into position, maybe even a collossus or 2. Zealots are very good against any unit when they get in range to attack.

What are some ways you have found to hit a MAss Hyrda Army?

Looking for a few good men...

Im looking for a high-Gold to mid-Platinum level Terran Partner to practice with.



Must be enthusiastic, energetic and able to handle the occasional customer coming in complaining about how Zerg are at a disadvantage because they look like the aliens from Starship Troopers.



Organization of building placement a must. Consistency also key, but also needs the ability to handle whatever is thrown at him/her.



Good communication of your workflow to the other team members is a must.



Required Education:


At least a 2 months degree in Day(9)'s School of Better Gaming and Pwnage


Must have Experience in the following: 

4 gate rushed Phoneix Rushed Dark Templar Rushed Void Ray Rushed Protiss Sniper Rushed..... Pylon Rushed Immortal Rushed Scouting

Compensation will be given but not limited too as followed: 

Colossus Lazers up the Ass Immortal Shields Up the Ass Free Zealot Slumber Party Free game of Hide and Seek with a Dark Templar Playing Keep away with a Phoneix Playing Tag with a Stalker A reservation at High Templar (dude look at me hands) Karis's Hookah Bar. The occasional usage of ,"Nerf Terrans" ,"Your mom goes to college", and ,"Why dont you love me?" can and will also be used as compensation for services rendered.

Medical Benefits include: 

Free Colonoscopy from a Void Ray. The longer hes there...well never mind. 1 free Vasectomy a year from Dr. Zealot's office. Usually once is enough though... $100 Laser Eye correction from Dr. Collossus, Once you get corrected, youll never have to go back!

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Ok seriously, im looking for a terran player gold-platinum level to help with my game. I primarily 4 gate and i want to break my habit of that to see whats the best way to hit a MM bio ball. with my schedule i can only play around 8-10pm on weekdays CST. f your avaialble around this time let me know.

Hit me up with your character code and ill add ya :) 

Plugging Leaks

So lately I have been on a win one lose one streak. Kinda good, kinda not. But I have noticed that the ones I lost, could have been avoided if I did some small changes, like make sure I had Pylons, robe Production didn't stop, I was scouting, getting information I could use and applying it to my build. These things I need to plug to fix the leaks.

So I have been paying against the medium AI over and over again doing the same thing, over and over again.  4 Gate build with a proxy pylon, and a backup in case he finds the first. It took me 8 games to get it down pretty well but I am still not comfortable with it. I think I'm going to avoid playing some match ups for a few days and work on getting my play up to par where it needs to be. Also, since I am a Achievement Whore(2000+ and growing) I found that playing against the AI will get you some points, may as well do it right? Im plugging my leaks and getting some achievements to boot!

I encourage you, if your at this point where you notice small things you can do better, or lose to things you know you wouldn't lose too, take a break, do what I am doing and see if it helps. Doing your build order over and over agian can help you realize when you should be doing something. And its important to note, if you start having more trouble with your build order in matchups, than you are reaching a point where that one strategy you always used isnt going to cut it. It is now time to expand your horizons, think of ways to improve against that type of matchup, knowing what to look for in your scouting to expect it, and keeping an eye on him in general to know when hes making that push. At this point, the small things do matter.

Unofficial Patch Notes 1.1 Starcraft 2

I dont know if thhese are true or not, so lets assume they are, alot of sites, i know day9 mentioned some of these thins in a recent daily that WASNT on the situation report.

Some very intresting changes coming this week....

Im personally not thrilled about the Chrono Boost Cooldown.

http://www.mymym.com/en/news/19150.html

The Patrol

So i read this forum post on Patrol when using your probe to scout, i never knew this worked!

Battle.net

A lot of games , I notice players microing their scout probe with queued move commands around an opponent's base.

I have found the joys of the shift + patrol command. It basically works the same as the move command, except you press shift + p (for patrol) and you make a loose box, triangle... whatever, and preferably connect your last patrol point the the start of the first one, so there is a "route". I usually prefer an hourglass or a rough box.

This way, I don't have to micro that scout probe as frequently and I can focus more on my macro and responding to the intel I'm getting. The probe will not attack any enemy it encounters while on patrol.

I think you can queue up to 5 or 6 points before it maxes out.


I posted this because I mentioned this in an earlier post in another thread and it seems to have been overlooked.

Common Cheese and how to defend against them.

For me, Cheese is considered to be a strategy that will give you a win by taking advantage of the fact your opponent will not expect certain things that early in the game and will have no reasonable way of defending against it without a Spawning Pool, Gateway, or Barracks. People will argue that this includes early aggression, it doesn’t. Certain things just hit below the belt and I for one don’t like it, so I’ve come up with ways to defend against cheese so I don’t lose to it. Now just so you know, the cheese I mention here is what’s happened to me in matches, I’m sure there are more different kind of cheeses, but there is no point in me telling you how to defend against it when I’ve never experienced it myself.

Protoss 2 Gateway in your base.

This is one I’ve seen a few times. I hate this one the most. The thing that tips it off is the scouting probe. You need to keep an eye on it. The last time this was done to me, I noticed the probe a little early (I was on Desert Oasis, and the probe got there just as I was finishing my pylon). That did raise my awareness a bit, but what gave it away was the fact that he didn’t even scout me, he just went south, I let him go to make him think I wasn’t paying attention, I quickly made sure that the gateway I was making would get a zealot out ASAP. Sure enough when I pretended to discover the 2 Gateway and Pylons coming up I had a zealot on the way, but so did he. The most important thing to remember in this case is that even though he may have caught you off guard, his economy is pretty shot. It becomes a game of who can macro better. Buying enough time and splitting his forces up is key. Don’t try to take down the gateway, take his units down one by one, as soon as they are all down, he can only build 1-2 at a time. At this point his economy will catch up to him, but the key to winning this engagement is spotting that probe scout early on and keeping an eye on him.

Protoss Cannon Rush.

This has to be one of the easier ones to approach. Spotting that probe scout early on and keeping an eye on him is key, if you know he’s doing it, Continue as you were build a few early units, lings, zealots, marines, and send them at your opponent. His resources are being consumed by cannons, which are immobile and cost 1.5 zealots. His base will most likely be undefended leaving your small attack force to have some fun. Now the strategy isn’t over, he can simply decimate your mineral line and your Nexus/Hatchery/Command Center and it will end with him technically winning as your small force won’t be able to take down his cannons. So do your bst to conserve resources and get an expansion going as this will be your new main base. With his resources gone, and no units to defend, you can simply build up your base again. Get more units to finish him off, if he hasn’t already left after realizing your building an expansion.

Void Ray Rush

This has to be one of the more difficult strategies to deal with. Some people consider it Cheese, some don’t. There is a way I personally think that decides whether it is cheese or not. If the Protoss player was expanding and still getting ground units, I don’t consider it cheese. The player is preparing himself to go into the later stages of the game. A cheese play is meant to end the match soon, so all resources go into making those Void rays. The best way to counter this is to see if the player has walled himself in. Protoss do not completely wall themselves in unless they are buying time to get those Void Rays. One easy give away is a PvT match up. Terran players normal wall themselves in anyway so the Protoss player usually doesn’t. If you see him walling himself in, expect a Void Ray rush. Getting a lot of Marines can help counter this, or teching up to Vikings can also help. Keep an eye out for the common spots to place a Stargate, remember, you only need to take out the Pylon to render the Stargate useless.

6 Pool Zergling Rush

This has to be the most annoying as it causes you to change where you build. There is no realy way to spot this early on unless u send your probe over on 7 food. The only way to be safe is wall yourself in when you are up against a Zerg. Leave a small place for 1 zealot to fit and put him there on Hold Position, then tech to some Stalkers to hold off any advance until your economy and unit production are stable to push back. With this cheese his ability to tech up and macro well are shot. Hang in there and wait until you can push back.

If you notice, the key element is early spotting of these actions. If you don't take the effort to actively watch your base and his, then you only have yourself to blame.