Using Blizzard's own top 200 lists, here are the cute charts promised.

,EUROPERULZ, EH?_____________________________,
|Top:|...10...|...20...|...100...|....200....|
|Zerg|.1(10%).|.2(10%).|.25(25%).|.49(24.5%).|
|Toss|.1(10%).|.5(25%).|.29(29%).|.66(33%)...|
|Terr|.8(80%).|13(65%).|.46(46%).|.85(42.5%).|
^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^
,KOREAN, PLX?__*_____________________________,
|Top:|...10...|...20...|...100...|....200....|
|Zerg|.5(50%).|.7(35%).|.27(27%).|.51(25.5%).|
|Toss|.1(10%).|.5(25%).|.34(34%).|.71(35.5%).|
|Terr|.4(40%).|.9(45%).|.38(38%).|.74(37%)...|
^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^
,TO ALL YOU US'ERS OUT THERE__*______________,
|Top:|...10...|...20...|...100...|....200....|
|Zerg|.2(20%).|.3(35%).|.17(17%).|.37(18.5%).|
|Toss|.3(30%).|.9(45%).|.37(37%).|.68(34%)...|
|Terr|.5(50%).|.9(45%).|.46(46%).|.82(41%)...|
^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^
,BY THE POWER OF CHARTS COMBINED_______________,
|Top:|...30....|...60....|...300....|....600...|
|Zerg|.8(27%)..|.12(20%).|.69(23%)..|.137(23%).|
|Toss|.7(23%)..|.19(32%).|.100(33%).|.205(34%).|
|Terr|.17(57%).|.31(52%).|.130(43%).|.241(40%).|
^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^

NOTE1: Draw for 20th leaves 21 people to "top 20" in both Korean and US charts. This multiplies to 2 Draws for powerchart. These charts have over 100% players in some brackets. There were draws for "top 100", too. CBA list them. Some in top 10's that I just noticed counting powerchart's top 30.
NOTE2: Random players are not listed. Europe had 0, Korea 4, North America 13. No random players made it to top 20 in their respective region.
NOTE3: Percents are rounded in powerchart.

Further, Blizzard has promised to give a hard glance at Terrans in an upcoming patch. Probably the nerfing kind. Now, what in your opinion would be good things to fix here. It seems that PvZ is fine, ZvT is heavily favoured for Terran and PvT is slightly favoured for Terran. My personal issues with Terrans are as follows:

A: They are too easy to play. When zergs fail to spit with queens, they have to deal with long cooldowns and delay their whole build order. When Terrans fail to use M.U.L.E, they just drop two the next time. When zerg wants to scout, they need to use Overseers/Changelings. When Terran wants to scout they click radar on your base. Zergs have to deal with basically one base more to macro at all times or they are going to lose anyway. Terrans can turtle to 200 supply of army and probably just end the game right there. Terrans defend building at correct spots, Protoss defends through using forcefields. Zergs need to spread out and flank to beat AoE/surround/get enough space to attack from, terrans can run against zergs in one giant ball. Terran AoE is about planting tanks down and letting them shoot on their own (They will spread their attacks when faced with small targets. They won't overkill.), Protoss AoE is about using ability every time, an ability on an extremely vulnerable unit. I figure terran really needs about 50 APM less than any other race for the same effectiveness.
B: They are too versatile and hard to scout. Scouting Terran effectively means suiciding a lot of overlords, and is very costly. At the same time, Terran players can switch strategies fairly effectively from MMM to Mech to Air. All of these strategies, if not prepared for, will completely and utterly decimate the opposition. Zergs being primarily reactive race does not help this. Terran only needs Airport/Factory/Rax and they have basically each unit in their army at their disposal. Ghosts are the only thing that require specific building. If zergs want to reach this level of versatility we are going to need: Baneling Nest, Spawning Pool, Roach Warren, Infestation Pit, Hydralisk Den, Greater Spire, Ultralisk Den. I might've missed a few, too.
C: Terran unit threat severely limits build possibilities for both Protoss and Terran. The simple threat of early reaper basically means Protoss players have to get early cannons or Stalkers, and Zergs have to make an early queen or two and probably a spinecrawler to boot. Further, the threat of Banshees forces Zerg players to make multiple queens if they fall behind in tech at all, since they have no real tier 1 unit available to counter early air.

And I would propose the following fixes:

Basic:
Mineral Field: Reduce the amount of minerals from 1500 to 1300.
- This should reduce the effectiveness of turtling strategies in general, forcing Terran players to be more proactive throughout the game.
Terran:
Calldown: M.U.L.E: Add a cooldown of 15 seconds.
- This should force Terran players to be more careful with their energy levels, punishing for careless play. In a situation where the Terran player does watch over their energy, this should bear little to no effect on the game, only stopping Terran High-Yield turbomining.
Siege Tank: Make them overkill if not microed correctly.
- Seriously, no other effect this strong in the whole game works automatically. Templars, Infestors, Banelingdrops and even Ghosts need a lot more micro to be useful in combat. Steam tanks just click siegemode and are done with it. Would also reduce their effectiveness if massed, reducing them more to a support role like all other AoE units in the game.
Marauder: Marauder Vespene cost increased by 5
- This goes for all of the Protoss playes out there. Marauders are just a fair bit too cost effective versus Protoss at the moment. Infact, a bit too effective against every unit of their tier level at the moment.
Zerg:
Overlords: Overlord speed now requires Evolution Chamber rather than Lair. Still upgraded in Hatchery/Lair/Hive.
- This should allow Zerg players to actually scout the terran player without almost certain loss of an ovie, and in addition would allow Ovies to spread out earlier and still be able to survive.
Corruptor: Buffed somehow so that they are worth it against anything that isn't a Colossus.

What are YOUR thoughts on the subject, though?

Terrans turtle. Zerg players need to harass and use mobility to their advantage and establish map control. Protoss players need to use unit composition to beat a well balanced Terran army, and again, map control is important. Now, because the Terran player tends to turtle, effective containment will allow you to get ahead of the game, and thus win by outmacro or superior tech.

Fungal Growth is deadly on the infamous bioball. So is psionic storm, feedback and brood lords.
Scouting the Terran base with changelings is ridiculously easy. You plop it down, and it runs around. You gamble seeing a little bit or a lot, and that changeling can be deployed anywhere. Terran players that use scan lose out on 270 potential minerals, which is another loss.
Scouting the Terran base and their army is also very easy with an observer.


Banshee: Barracks (150), Factory (150, 100), Starport (150, 100), Tech Lab (50, 25), Banshee (150, 100), At least one supply depot (100). So one banshee alone (which dies to queen) costs 750 minerals and 325 gas.
Hydralisk: Spawning Pool (250), Lair (150, 100), Hydralisk Den (200, 100), Two Hydralisks (200, 100). So two hydralisks costs 800 minerals and 300 gas.
Mutalisk: Spawning Pool (250), Lair (150, 100), Spire (250, 200), Mutalisk (100, 100). So one mutalisk costs 750 minerals and 400 gas.
Spore Crawler: Evolution Chamber (125), Three Spore Crawlers (375). So three Spore Crawler costs 500 minerals.

Hey look at that. Instead of going for the two expensive options, you could throw down Spore Crawlers!

Early reapers can be held off temporarily with a zealot, and a chronoboosted stalker. Once you have the stalker out and the reaper is dead, it is generally assumed that because of a reaper rush, they are behind in economy (unless it was a late reaper rush, and in which case, should have done no damage). You can choose to push through their base, or take an expansion.

Speedlings > Reapers.
Roaches > Reapers.

I'm unsure about the MULE thing, but that might be a balance change. However, the queen's abilities and the Nexus' chronoboost do not have cooldowns, so that may have to follow suit.

Overkill tanks might be a balance change worth noting.

I beat Marauders with Zerglings, Hydralisks, Zealots and Immortals. Chargelots make waste to the slow-down effect.

Overlord speed would mean that zerg players could scout anyone at anytime they desire, without much setback. Too fast of an early scout.

Here's my opinion, mostly criticizing the above. Don't get personally offended, as my language might or will be profane.

I think, Siege Tanks don't need a nerf. They're f'ing expensive. Also, failing to spit as Zerg is retarded. That's not a proper excuse. Practice it if you think it's too hard. Plus it's not even that hard.
And for C, I just downright disagree. It's standard to go stalkers as P vs T. If you're making zealots, then you're probably out of your mind, because almost anything T would make would rape your zealots so hard, that it would equal being raped three times in a day by three separate people.
I don't know what god damn Terrans you guys are playing. But if you play Terrans that turtle, then they are f'ing retarded terrans. And if you're losing to them, don't criticize the game, criticize the game- because that just means you're horrible.
For siege tanks, and always has been for siege tanks, it had been a rule of thumb to pull fucking back when you directly face them if the force is larger or equal to yours in a match up. If you outmass your terran counterpart, maybe you could face them forward to forward, but in serious goodness haven't you heard of flanking.

Only a Terran with a skill level of my toe's dustball and the brain the size of a millionth of flea's hair would not go around, snipe your probes to compensate for economic losses in reaper rushing, and then pulling back at the time a stalker would come out.

Wrong again. Terrans turtled on SC1. Terrans don't turtle on SC2. You're playing retarded players if you are playing Ts who turtle. Terran is bound to stick to a certain fast attack technique, not a rush, but a timing strike which delivers most damage with the least amount of 'game resource' at risk. (I used the adjective game, because that is differentiated from the minerals and gases.)
It only feels like Terran is turtling because they tend to wall. And it would be true to horribad players if they wall, they tend to stay in. But in SC2, as a Terran, it's way more advantageous if you not turtle. Because Terran is fucking powerful at start. I mean literally. You don't have to wait for a siege tank to come out, to block a 4 dragoon rush from a one gate double. It's exactly the opposite. The Toss has to block a 3 marauder sticking at a critical moment.

Instead of nerfing T, it would be wiser to uberize other races. Much like the unused Ultralisk, it would be wiser to make them more useful.
Like Toss's Colossus. It shouldn't be affected by Marauder slow effect at all.

There's just way too many unused units. Instead of making units useless, it would be wiser to making units more useful. It adds more fun to the game instead of making the game go out of its way. Plus Siege tanks are the symbol of starcraft just like Marines are.

Except evidently this is not true even at high elo anywhere but in Korea, and even there it is only true for the top 10 players.


Broodlords are very high tech, though, and Fungal growth really only hits like fourth of the ball at once, and doesn't even kill the marines. Sure, it's still great, but it's nowhere near the capability of Psionic Storm masswipe.


In my experiences, Terran players quite often make one or two Vikings they use to hung down ovies/protect against such scouting. The Big 'ol blob is not necessarily going to make it there, and even if it does the changeling can be killed by anyone who is paying attention, which is a lot easier when you do not need as much APM for other actions.



And forfeit map control as zerg. I love your idea. Also, 2 Hydralisks do not beat the Banshees unless you also have a detector, and your prices seem to be off with zergs a lot. Spawning Pool is 200, Spore Crawler is 100 gold, Drone is 50. Do you even play zergs or do you just theorycraft? You also do need Spawning Pool and Barracks anyway, so they most probably should be removed from the equations. You also counter "At least one supply depot", but did not count "at least one Overlord.".

And yeah, Detectors + Queens take the banshees down with no real problems. Issue is that you have had to scout in advance, probably before you had Lair and overlord speed upgrade, to know and make these things.



This is map dependant. There are quite a few maps where the reapers are basically impossible to pin down, especially the ones where there is high ground near your base that you cannot get to. Further, Queen is probably the best and easiest answer to early reapers. You do not need any tech for it and it only costs 150 minerals. And you are going to make one anyway.


You cannot spawn larva to a hatchery already spawning larva, though, and that is what Queens are primarily used for. I don't mind if the heal gets a cooldown since you almost never have enough energy to use it that much anyway, unless you are massing queens against mass air.


Let me tell you, if the terran wants to optimally individually micro his tanks to divide focus on 100 zerglings, he is going to make at least a few misclicks and probably lose important actions from other troops. Just like he should.


Zerglings only really work if they do not have marines to run around the Marauders, or if they do and you have Banelings upgraded with speed (or burrow). Both Banelings with Speed (or burrow) and Hydras require tier 2 upgrade to work. Versus Marines and Marauders which are clearly t1 units.


With no cost except 100/100 upgrade, pause in unit production and almost certainly lost 100 gold unit. And without it you cannot even scout terrans.

it's like some of us forgot that there is such thing called micro

Mostly agreeing with Dazed and Ahli here.

However, things I would like to mention are:
Is it not possible to kite Zealots with Marauders? YOu can at least mitigate damage, and Zealot charge CD isn't necessarily short.
Same goes for Zv_ with Infestors; can't you back off a bit after casting FG, then continue kiting with Infestors until they are out of energy, and then fight a (line) group of weakened enemies? Then factor in further micro and it's gg. Not to say it's easy, but it's pretty cost effective.

btw i tech ultras, ask ip

1) So people should start harassing. See?

2) Fungal growth immobilizes units, allowing Hydralisks to out range the marines, and soften up Marauders. (And yes, Broodlords is pretty much end game).

3) I guess I've been playing Terran players that suck.

4) Cloak = 200, 200; Overseer = 100, 100 (I think). Overseers also morph in faster, and don't use energy to detect. I also factored in the drone value into the building, and plopping down a spore crawler along with your queen isn't going to make you lose map control.

5) True. But speedlings are less micro intensive, and are often the "easier option".

6) I guess you could make the scan area smaller?

7) Tanks did get nerfed already though. They do more damage per second (vs single unit) in tank mode, and they cost 150, 125, 3 supply. You could say they become more cost-effective as time progresses.

8) You can toss in T1.5 roaches which are fairly easy to micro just to add pressure, and extra DPS/survivability.

9) Zerg units spawn from Larva, which are independent from the hatchery. Early fast overlord means I can put them everywhere, and see the whole map, without much danger. I remember doing this in the early beta when Overlord speed was cheaper, and you could virtually see the hwole map.

Arguably. Then again, a lot of the Terran players in Korea are more agressive than their European or American counterparts. It could be that the Zerg players there are just awesome, or that the mindset of koreans does not correspond that well with that of the Terrans.


Granted. It definitely helps, although tanks are still really annoying to deal with. No outranging those.


It's not all of them that do it. It's just the ones that cause problems that do.


150/100 for the latter. The issue is that unless I have mobile detectors, I cannot hold the map if the opponent has banshees. I really need to be able to contain the Terran, and once he gets Banshees, I really do need mobile detectors to do that. It doesn't make me lose the map control, but giving up the mobile options does. I'm not saying that it's a bad idea to get a few crawlers in addition to hydras/mutas, though. Less units spent in reserve for defending is more units spent harassing and containing.


Yeah. Then again, zerglings do not beat the Reapers once they reach the CriticalMass(tm). Roaches still do, though, and if they make more than the few reapers you basically win since the reapers are expensive. And not really effective against anything but Drones/Zerglings. And Queen if there's a lot of them, but at that point you'll have roaches or hydras anyway.


I suppose this should help. The problem is a lot about Zergs not being able to hide their buildings outside their base due to creep constraints, and until you get to spreading it like crazy the signal will cover basically all of your base.


It's still annoying as hell they can just park at high ground and shoot you to bits before you get even close, or that they can park next to your base and signal it for the barrage of doom.


Yeah, Marauders counter them but they are still pretty much necessary in ZvT because of their tank-ness. They are quite a safe bet, and should be able to hold out rather well.


Yeah, it's quite cool. Marines like to hunt them down before you get speed, though, since they are very vulnerable in that state. And yeah, Zerg units do spawn from Larva, but the Hatchery doesn't spawn larva infinitely fast. One larva spent for an overlord is one larva not spent on combat units.

I feel that TvZ is unbalanced in favor of the ZERG. It's so easy for the zerg to take map control and use a large force of mutalisks to raid Terran expansions and speedling/muta to prevent new expos. This forces the terran to split up his army (to take new expos/defend old ones) or allow the mutalisks to destroy his SCVs.

With zerg, it's easy enough to out-macro your opponents. If you have every tech building and five hatcheries, you can be producing dozens of counter-units to any attacking army (As opposed to Terran. For example, if Terran needs marines, he is limited by barracks and can't use factory/starport. If Protoss needs stalkers, he is limited by gateways and cannot use stargates/robo facility.)

I'd rather they just keep things the way they are.

Dunno. I'm still winning at a high rate (86%) against all races as T.

The issue here, ray, is that you are more or less the only one who thinks so. Like, seriously. Even Blizzard disagrees. Officially.

Sorry, but you're a very low level player that doesn't truly understand the game. Your losses or hardships are due solely to your lack of ability.

These numbers mean absolutely nothing without knowing what percentage of players play each race. More T in the top 200 could simply mean there are more T in general, or that most of the good players prefer to play T.

Say that again when you're microing zerglings, infestors, mutas, hydras, roaches, or pretty much ANY FRIKKIN ZERG UNIT IN THE GAME. And say it again when you have three bases (and thus have to spawn larva three times in a forty-second period) as well as four different situations happening across the map (reapers shredding a base's econ, you harassing with mutas, enemy terran trashing your expo, you trying to break through their siege-tank protected wall).

The micro and macro in SC2 is insignificant in comparison with SC1's macro and micro. Mind you, there's a reason why you can hotkey your hatchery and your larva queen. In SC1, as Z, you had to use all your hotkeys and had to use location keys for macro. In SC2, you only have to use 3~4 for units, 5~6 for buildings (Thats 4 hotkeys in total. You could probably use 1~2 for extra micro, but still, you can't call that truly hard). Thus, failing to prevent such basic mishaps is retarded.
Seems like you've never played SC1 melee seriously before. If you can't put up with retarded shit like that, then switch to an easier race. But then again, every mistakes like that affect your outcome. Even with mules.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Aug 31 2010, 7:36 am by BeDazed.

Yeah, SC2 really allows players to get away with having rather low apm. In SC1 high apm was an extreme necessity compared to SC2. In Brood war you were required to (as Protoss, as I'm only familiar with Protoss) hotkey each individual nexus, usually as 8-0. This would allow you to quickly hit 8p9p0p to order probes from each nexus. You also had to constantly move your probes from each nexus to the mineral line. There was also the 12 unit selection cap, which made most Protoss games use hotkeys 1-4 army hotkeys. Just to move your army you would need to hit 1a2a3a4a, with a click after each a key hit. In SC2 you can select multiple buildings at once, and there isn't really a selection cap anymore. These things make a world of a difference, and create a more streamlined user interface, so that players can focus their apm on whatever they like, rather than being forced to focus their apm on the same thing that everyone always had to in Brood War.

Just a real important lesson for you ImagoDeo.
1. Hotkey your hatcheries and queens in a single base.
2. Use that hotkey, in order to spit. Use tab, spit on your unit tab.
3. If you have multiple hatcheries, then shift and spit.

DERE. HAPPY? If you really thought that was hard, then I'd have to call you retarded. Atleast T has to look at his CC when he's mule'n.

Personal attack? I dare to be different and state my opinion, and you insult me. I'm in the diamond league for 1v1s. Look me up if you don't believe my words: I'm EnderWiggin (character code 244) on North America.

Diamond level isn't much. A single D+ player in ICCup could reach Diamond without much effort. And D+ was the lowest tier of all, except D or D-, who were considered 'nothing'. Sorry, but if you wanted to prove that you were a high level player, then you should do so with win rate. High level players win at a very high rate- especially C+ to B- players on Diamond league (More than 85% in all match ups.). I don't expect higher, since many still haven't switched from BW to SC2.

It isn't about being different, it's about you not knowing what you're talking about and me pointing it out. Nothing personal, and not that complicated. As Bedazed has said, diamond league isn't all that it might seem. Anything below diamond league in iCCup ranks would be similar to non-existant on iCCup (okay Platinum would be D-, but D- was really terrible).

Even though I'm in a low league, I understand Terran needs a nerf, it's pretty obvious actually. Most of the time I find myself rushing to kill his base and wall off entry to my base with a force field from sentry while cannons attack his ground troops and whittle them down, if I get lucky and it goes as planned I can just push out and quickly destroy his base.

What does everyone think about the 38 second buildtime for Zealots? And the 28 cooldown for warp gates. Honestly I find countering zealot rush fairly easy if you have proper choke.