Protoss Early Expand. Is this a taboo?

Hi! I would like to propose something for you. Wait.. Let me take off my watch, so I don’t have to sweat like a really fat pig with mild colesterol problems. And I am also going to open up my windows slightly to get a little cold air in my room, and as I am doing that I find a peanut on my bed, which tasted fantastic, so that’s swab. I have only been playing Protoss in ladder, and I consider myself to know a bit more than a Bronze player. And as I am doing that I start listening to Bing Crosby – Hot time in the town of Berlin, which is an awesome song by the way.

I want to try to drag you out of one-basing as Protoss, we’ve all been there were you one-base 4-gate rush like 20 games in a row, and you get a really late expand, and by the time you do that, the snowball effect from your Terran swab opponent has expanded a long time ago, and he is owning you in unit count, as he sweeps in with the biggest Marine Marauder Medivac push you’ve ever seen, and you cry your little eyes out thinking about what went wrong. Don’t focus as much about getting gateways up quicker, or getting a better economy to support 4 gate. Right now I want you to try to play against a very easy AI and 2-gate expand as fast as possible, then adding on 4 gateways when the expand comes up and you transfer probes.

Fast expanding is sort of a taboo for Protoss players, and you feel confined in your 1-base for quite some long time. I want you to experiment a little more, and get out of the habit of one-basing every game at the start. Sure you can get pummeled to the ground by early rush, but the trick is to balance the timing between the expand and having enough units out fast enough. The little crack right there is so extremely hard to find, and that’s where refining your build, and really focusing on your macro comes in. Pro tip: Always build probes, and make sure not to get supply blocked. Those two things are so vital to any build what so ever, and using your chrono boost solely on your Nexus is going to make you a real baller, and everyone is going to think you are so swab with your amazing macro style play.

A great video about this subject is the newest ( per today ) video from Sean Day[9] Plott. You can look at that video here: http://day9tv.blip.tv/file/4065228/

Oh! Also, make sure you tune in to my 40’s 50’s and 60’s playlist on Spotify! *Shameless self promotion* Which can be found here: 40’s 50’s and 60’s

After you have watched that video, and getting sucked in by Day[9]’s pure awesomeness, you are beginning to feel what I am confronted with. Just try it out. Try experimenting with fast-expands as Protoss, it’s going to feel great not being confined to one build all the time. But alas, I have to wave farewell to you all, and have a lovely day/night/morning!

My replays.

If you want to watch my replays, they can be downloaded from http://www.thereall.com/starcraft/romis/

What do you think of proxy barracks/gateway/pylon etc?

I wanted to know what you guys thought of people who uses proxy rax, gateway, pylon(s) etc in every single game they are playing. Do you think they should try to learn a strategy without the need of trying to surprise the enemy, or do you think that everything is allowed in a game? Do you think the rules changes from ladder games to tournaments, if yes, then why?

Units that never see the light of day?

How many times have you played in a game, or watched a replay where Carriers, Mothership, Battlecruiser or Ultralisk played a huge part of the game, and was used more than 10 minutes continuously?

I have only played a few games where I have actually seen Carriers, and very few where I have seen ultralisk.  These units are really great in certain situations, but they almost never see the light of day. What do you think of this? Do you think Blizzard should change the units to make them a bit more common, or do you think they are great the way they are? Maybe you feel they need to be nerfed/buffed? I would love to hear your views on this, as it’s something I’m constantly thinking of. I really want to incorporate carriers to my gameplan, but that’s close to impossible. I myself feel that they should be made a little more common, and nerfed a little as well, so we get to see them more often.

Patch 1.1

Greetings, citizens of the Koprulu sector! StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is celebrating its one-month anniversary and we’re extremely excited to witness the amazing community that’s come together around the game. To that end, we want you to know we are hard at work on the first feature and balance patch, and expect to have it completed and available by the middle of September. Patch 1.1 will contain a number of improvements including additional mod features, Editor improvements and bug fixes, some custom game improvements, support for NVIDIA’s 3D Vision, and more. We’d also like to share some specific plans for this patch with you.
To begin, we’ve heard a lot of feedback from our global community about standardized hotkey options. We’re happy to announce that in patch 1.1 we are going to make the Standard (US) and Standard for Lefties (US) hotkey options available in all regions.

Balance Changes
We have several balance changes in store. One general change we’re making is that friendly units will no longer provide vision after being killed. Enemy units previously revealed will no longer be targetable. Now let’s break down the additional balance changes we’re implementing.

Maps
We’re going to be adding destructible rocks to the Desert Oasis map to make natural expansions easier to protect. In addition, the center map watchtower area is being narrowed.
Protoss
We have two key changes in mind for the zealot: the build time is being increased from 33 to 38 seconds, and the warpgate cooldown is being increased from 23 to 28 seconds. Zealot rushes are currently too powerful at various skill levels, particularly those that rely on rapidly assaulting an enemy base from nearby “proxy” gateways. We feel the window players have to scout for and fend off this rush is too small. We also want to address the problem of protoss being able to dump minerals a bit too quickly with the combination of warpgates and Chrono Boost.
Terran
There are several changes in the works for terrans. Reapers against zerg are stronger than expected. Due to the zealot build time increase, reapers would be a bit problematic in combination with proxy barracks, bunkers, and/or marauders against protoss. Therefore, we have decided to increase the build time of reapers as well from 40 to 45 seconds. Fast reaper + bunker, or fast marine + bunker rushes are problematic against zerg. Although this rush would never outright destroy the zerg player, we feel zerg suffers too much of a disadvantage from either having to cancel the fast expansion, or getting trapped inside the main base for too long, so we are also increasing the bunker build time from 30 to 35 seconds.
Siege tanks in large numbers are performing too well in all matchups. In the mid- to late-game, siege tanks are too dominant against all ground units. We want a small set of light and unarmored ground units to perform better against siege tanks. With this in mind, we’re changing the Siege Mode damage of the siege tank from 50 to 35, +15 vs. armored; to correspond with this, damage upgrades will be changed from +5 to +3, +2 vs. armored. This change reduces the base damage of the siege tank against light and unarmored units, as well as the splash damage.
Battlecruisers currently lack good counters from the ground and still perform very well against a wide array of unit types. We’re aware that it is not easy to get battlecruisers out for the cost, but at the same time, it is possible in both 1v1s and team games to create stalemate situations to bring them out. Overall, we feel that battlecruisers are too strong for their cost, and the terran-forced stalemate situations are causing less interesting gameplay. We will be lowering their damage against ground units from 10 to 8.
Zerg
Ultralisk damage is being decreased from 15, +25 vs. armored to 15, +20 vs. armored. This reduction is comparable to the changes being made to the battlecruiser and siege tank. Like the battlecruiser, ultralisks are simply too powerful for the cost, even though they are difficult to muster. Also, in combination with other units, ultralisks are difficult to counter from the ground. The ultralisk building attack (Ram) is being removed because the damage rate is too similar to its normal attack, which will be used against buildings instead. When ultralisks target tightly packed smaller buildings such as supply depots, the Ram attack is actually outputting considerably less overall damage than its normal attack, as Ram only hits a single target.

And Beyond…
We are reading your posts on the forums and creating lists of features and bugs to address in future patches. We have mid- to long-term plans to further evolve the Custom Game experience, and soon, enhance our social features with the addition of chat channels. We will be sharing more specific information in the coming weeks. As with all of our previous games, we will support StarCraft II for many years to come. Your feedback and participation is critical in making this not only the best game it can be, but also the most engaged gaming community in the world. We look forward to the implementation of patch 1.1, as well as sharing our plans for our future gameplay and Battle.net features.
We’ll see you online!

What do you guys feel? As a Protoss player, I am worried about 6-pooling Zergs, and MMM balls from Terran. I felt the Siege Tanks from Terran deserved the nerf, though. Turteling Terran is way to powerful at this point in time with Siege Tanks.

IEM Grand Finals between Idra and Marrow.

I just wanted to quickly congratulate Marrow for winning the Intel Extreme Masters tournament! Thanks for putting Scandinavia on the map, Marrow!

How to improve?

I’ve been thinking of making this post for a while, and I finally got myself together to make it. So enjoy reading. 🙂

First of all, if you want to improve your gameplay, you need to look at your replays. You don’t need to exaggurate, but looking at your replay is the best way to look at what you can improve. I’ve learned so much from my replays, and I am so grateful for that.

There are also other ways to improve, and I will get into more of those in the post. So keep reading.

2v2: The best way to try out a new strategy, or a new race is playing 2v2 with a strong friend that can carry you to victory, if your strategy doesn’t work. I have developed a lot of great strategies by playing 2v2’s and it’s a great way to practice. But don’t get too caught up with relying on your team-mate when you are transitioning to 1v1 at a later stage.

1v1: The best way to improve a strategy is trying it out in 1v1 against real players. (Not bots)  1v1 is a little risky when you are trying out new strategies, but improving them is great in 1v1.

Cooperative: Playing against insane bots with a friend is a great way to benchmark yourself when you are around Platinum/Diamond. Remember that Insane bots are cheating. They know where you are at all times. So they have a map-hack basicly. ( They also have 2k APM. )

Replays: Watching your replays is a great way to fix those little things, like timing attacks, when you are not making workers etc. You learn so much when you are watching yourself play.

If you are Bronze/Silver league, and you are having trouble getting started with a strategy, you can look up several strategies online.

I will be writing much more about this subject later, so keep reading the blog every day. 🙂

What do you want me to write about?

I’m very curious to know what you want me to write about.

I can write about anything, strategies, how it is to play in Diamond League, my past, my experiences, my influences, my favorite player, etc. There are so many great subjects, but I would like to know what you think. 🙂

Drop me a line in the comment section to answer the question.

I am back!

Hi!

I’m back. Yeah, I know. It’s been a long time since I last made a post, and I got no other excuse than the fact that I have been very lazy about my blog, but if I want a serious blog, I need to continually make new posts. So I just wanted to update you a little bit about what’s going on in my life right now, even though some of you might not care for this, I will write it anyhow.

Well, for the last couple of days, I have been going to school. ( I’m becoming a Chef, for those who did not know. ) And I have been playing a lot of World of Warcraft, but I won’t pollute this blog with that crap. I have not played that much Starcraft II lately. I really don’t think 1-2 games a day is much at all. It has stagnated so much the last couple of days, and I don’t know why. All I know is that I have lost my will to play Starcraft. Right now, I am focusing on WoW, and it’s destroying my dream.

I am going to enter a program were I force myself to play 5 games a day, and when I can do that without having to force myself, I will up it to 10. I think 10 is a reasonable number. It’s not too much, and it’s not too few games a day. I really need to continue playing in order to maintain my level of play, and this is not how I want it to happen. But I got no choice, I need to force myself.

If you have some tips on how I can regain my will to play, it would be most appreciated.

I’m not dead.

I’m not dead, I have just had a lot of things going on right now, so bare with me. I will be adding more content to the blog very soon, so check back later.

If you have anything you would like me to change, use the comment section down below.

Romis.