official StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty

[Andre S. Veteran]

I like what they're doing for the zerg race. The new Viper seems insanely useful; the speed upgrade for hydralisks should make them less horrible at everything; and I can't wait to see the new "artillery" unit that shoots Locusts. Zergs got their own Siege Tanks now!

[PixilEyes]

The shredder on a mineral line drop looks kinda scary. :/

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

I like what they're doing for the zerg race. The new Viper seems insanely useful; the speed upgrade for hydralisks should make them less horrible at everything; and I can't wait to see the new "artillery" unit that shoots Locusts. Zergs got their own Siege Tanks now!

The viper is definitely scary. As a Protoss player, I'd be really angry if my colossus was pulled down a cliff or our of my ball of gateway units. The off-creep speed upgrade for hydralisks is also something to fear. Any good Protoss or Zerg player knows that they're quite effective against gateway units. The new Protoss units are good but as always, they're expensive.

I like the new Nexus abilities: Arc Shield and Mass Recall.

The first ability adds additional shields and armour to any targeted building as well as a weapon similar to the photon cannon. I read that it can only target light units but I don't know if that is confirmed. Also, it has huge potential for cheese tactics (e.g. arc shield on stolen vespene geyser/in-base pylon). The second ability allows the player to teleport units home.

For those that aren't in the loop with the new MP details for Heart of the Swarm, you can read about it here.

[iuerg87yerg879e0rg9erugjer]

The viper is definitely scary. As a Protoss player, I'd be really angry if my colossus was pulled down a cliff or our of my ball of gateway units. The off-creep speed upgrade for hydralisks is also something to fear. Any good Protoss or Zerg player knows that they're quite effective against gateway units. The new Protoss units are good but as always, they're expensive.

^ this, i am going to be rage quitting if my giraffes where being pulled down into zerg army :|

[YounGMessiah]

lol ^^

[trag3dy]

^ this, i am going to be rage quitting if my giraffes where being pulled down into zerg army :|

Someones a viewer of lagtv... :laugh:

I'm not sure how I feel about the new units though. The multiplayer in SC2 is way to infuriating for me so I'll hold off on buying this game until it's on sale.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

Here's a trailer for Blizzard DOTA. It looks like it could be a lot of fun.

[Shaun N.]

HAHA! The Blizz Dota looks GREAT! I wanna play it!

[trag3dy]

Lol I like it.

Seriously.

[threetonesun]

I hope Hogger is in DOTA. I see Stitches made it.

[gigapixels Veteran]

I was at BlizzCon again this year, and Blizzard DOTA is seriously amazing. I can't wait for it to be released.

I also came in here to share a link that I think may be useful to other SC noobs like myself: http://day9.tv/archives/?search=Newbie. Scroll to the bottom and just start watching them one by one. It's so great to have various aspects of the game or strategies explained completely. I've got some friends who are pretty skilled (one in Masters), but they just can't seem to explain as well as Day[9] does. And even though these are called "Newbie Tuesday," they're for players up to Gold.

Hope this helps ;)

[Andre S. Veteran]

Ok Season 4 is better than I thought. Despite originally saying that the map pool would remain untouched, they still removed Searing Crater (********* map ever made) and replaced it with Metalopolis (best Blizzard-made map). So that's one very nice touch.

Among other news, I finally got placed in Master league. :cool:

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

Very nice, Dr_Asik. (Y) I mostly play 2v2 with my friend and we're hoping to get placed into diamond league.

[S00N3R FR3AK]

My friend and I want to make plat but idk if that is going to happen. The highest I have placed is silver 1v1 but we do play well together, just played our first 2v2 placement matches in previous season when i was just starting.

[LittleNeutrino Veteran]

i play single player rather well however, against other people i am horrible. I have NEVER won a match :p

[+Mirumir Subscriber¹]

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

I wonder if Heart of the Swarm will encourage the use of tier 3 units. A lot of times, regular players and professionals alike will use tier 1, 1.5, and 2 units over tier 3 units because they're cheaper to produce (and take less time to produce as well). How often do you even see Battlecruisers, Carriers, or Ultralisks in a regular game? I'm currently in Diamond for 2v2 random and the last time I saw a tier 3 unit in a league game was months ago. My teammate and I went up against two macro-heavy Zerg players that used Ultralisks which were easily taken out by my Immortal/Colossi/Void Ray death ball. Anyway, I feel as though the new tier 3 Protoss unit will be just as useless as the Carrier it's going to replace.

[trag3dy]

Thors are used quite often, but only because they have to be to defend against Mutas.

[Andre S. Veteran]

I wonder if Heart of the Swarm will encourage the use of tier 3 units. A lot of times, regular players and professionals alike will use tier 1, 1.5, and 2 units over tier 3 units because they're cheaper to produce (and take less time to produce as well). How often do you even see Battlecruisers, Carriers, or Ultralisks in a regular game?

Battlecruisers are often seen in lategame TvT. Carriers are a useless unit, but only because the Colossus already fills the "siege" unit role better, and the Colossus is T3 as well (Robo + specific tech building). Ultras just suck, but Broodlords are a common occurence in all matchups especially ZvT.

To get T3 units you're supposed to have a solid T1-T2 army to support it. The problem is that players will usually try to end the game before that, and with uneven skill levels and the element of surprise, especially at lower levels, it usually works. I think the game is well designed if players of equal skill, who understand what their opponent is doing, often transition into lategame. And that's basically what we're seeing, at least at the pro level. Considering how immature the metagame is, it's really not bad I think.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

Battlecruisers are often seen in lategame TvT. Carriers are a useless unit, but only because the Colossus already fills the "siege" unit role better, and the Colossus is T3 as well (Robo + specific tech building). Ultras just suck, but Broodlords are a common occurence in all matchups especially ZvT.

To get T3 units you're supposed to have a solid T1-T2 army to support it. The problem is that players will usually try to end the game before that, and with uneven skill levels and the element of surprise, especially at lower levels, it usually works. I think the game is well designed if players of equal skill, who understand what their opponent is doing, often transition into lategame. And that's basically what we're seeing, at least at the pro level. Considering how immature the metagame is, it's really not bad I think.

When I said T3 units, I meant T3 air units. :pinch:

I've been playing some 1v1 league matches and so far, all I've seen is Brood Lords. I'll probably see Battlecruisers if I go against more Terrans and I doubt I'll see Carriers. Right now, Carriers seem like the most worthless unit for Protoss. It's expensive, slow, and it's easily taken out by lower-tier units.

[Razorwing]

If you guys don't have SCII WOL yet, you can get it for $29 at the Blizzard store. Due to the Black Friday Madness.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

It's definitely worth it for $29.99. Anyway, my friend and I finally made it into diamond league for 2v2. We're currently ranked 5 and it's about damn time. We actually went against masters league players. I'm also playing 1v1 league matches which is something I rarely do. I usually just play custom games to play maps that I like.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

StarCraft 2 on the news!

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

Patch 1.5 Is Coming

The upcoming 1.5 patch will be our most feature-laden patch to date. This patch represents the first steps towards the release of our first expansion for StarCraft II, Heart of the Swarm, and will include numerous upgrades and fixes throughout the game. One of the most significant additions will be the all new Arcade feature which includes improved custom game visibility, ratings, reviews, game instructions, screenshot support, and more. Patch 1.5 will also include significant improvements throughout the overall user interface, streaming support, antialiasing, editor and modding upgrades, new art tools, and more. We?ll go into further details about these features in future developer updates. In this update, I would like to provide some insight into the thinking and motivation behind a few of the upcoming changes.

Source: StarCraft II Blog

It's about time they added antialiasing support.

[PGHammer]

Source: StarCraft II Blog

It's about time they added antialiasing support.

Well, if you have a BattleNet account that includes StarCraft II (yes - that includes the Starter Edition) you can test out the 1.5.0 patch before it goes live, as a new installer has been built around it (it does NOT replace the existing Starcraft II install, if any). I just installed the new (beta) version and I'm looking to try out StarJeweled (since I'm an admitted Bejeweled 3 addict).

And by the way, it *will* install on Windows 8 Release Preview.