Starcraft Report: Guide

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Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Starcraft 2 - Guide For Mastering the Zerg's Baneling

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Banelings are a must for a Zerg player, if you aren't using banelings then you are missing out on a major part of the Zerg attack. They are excellent for taking down groups of marines and marauders if you playing against Terran. If you playing against Protoss they are great against zealots. Banelings are also perfect for destroying builds or breaking through defensive walls like the supply depots the Terran players love to block off their base with. They are also very useful for killing off most of your opponent's workers in a single attack. So why aren't more Zerg players using them? I don't know but I'm going to explain how to use them effectively.

When going with an early baneling attack I always use zerglings with the speed upgrade from the spawning pool, also if you can, upgrade the baneling's speed as well. If you are playing against Terran they will must likely wall off their base, which is ok because you can use a few banelings to break though a supply depot without much trouble. Once you are through just use your zerglings to keep their army busy while you send your banelings straight for the SUVs. One good hit and you should take most of them out, you will lose your zergling army but that is ok because you basically halted his economy and while he is rebuilding his SUVs you are building up your zergling/baneling army for the game ending attack.

Of course this same type of attack can be used against Protoss players as well just go for the drones with your banelings while your zerglings keep the zealots and stalkers busy. You can also choose to just send your banelings after their army as well if for some reason you can't get to the workers. Make sure you target either the zealots or if you are playing Terran the marines and marauders, also try to hit a group of them and not just 1 or 2 standing off on their own.

Becoming an advanced Starcraft 2 player is very challenging and confusing. I purchased the Starcraft 2 Advanced Strategy Guide from Star2Pros.com and I have been very impressed with the strategies they teach. I would highly recommend it to any Starcraft 2 player who wants to get to the top of the Diamond Ladders, I think this guide might be the only one of its kind.

Anyways, good luck to all of you and I hope to see you on BattleNet!

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Starcraft 2 - Zerg's Nydus Network Guide

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In this guide I will show you how to effectively use the Zerg's nydus network. The nydus network is not being used very much on battlenet right now and the main reason is because most Zerg players don't really know how to use it. The nydus network is an attack tool but I recommend using it to harass our opponent and not for a full out attack. It only costs 150 minerals and is quick to build. The key to deploying the network is the overlord's ability to generate creep.

In short you will get a group of speed upgraded zerglings and/or banelings and then send an overlord to drop some creep in the enemy's base. Make sure you do it in a spot where they can't see you. As soon as the creep is down build the worm and send all your zerglings and banelings through. Go straight for the workers and ignore any attack units they have. You will end up losing all your zerglings and banelings but just take out as many workers as you can. The point of this attack is to cripple the economy of your opponent so that you will be able to overwhelm him with hydralisks and roaches while he is trying to build his workers back up.

A few things to watch out for, first, make sure the enemy doesn't see you as they can attack the worm and kill it before you get any units through. Second, don't use this strategy if he has his whole army sitting in his base or has a lot of base defense such as cannons or bunkers. Third, I would not recommend using this against Zerg players as it would be just as easy and cheaper to run the zerglings right in the front door of the base. That's about it, have fun!

Anyways, good luck to all of you and I hope to see you on BattleNet!

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Starcraft 2 Zerg Guide - How to Stop the Cannon Rush

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We've all been there, staring out the game and just trying to get our build order going correctly but then we realize all too late that the Protoss player has cannons inside our base and his building them closer and closer to our main. What should we do to avoid the inevitable? This guide will show you how to easily beat a Protoss cannon rush but it would also apply to a bunker rush from a Terran player.

The first thing that you need to do is build a few spine crawlers around your base to keep the cannons from getting any closer. After that you should focus on getting the cannons killers...banelings! Build a baneling nest and start pumping out zerglings to turn into banelings. After you have a bunch send them at either the cannons or the pylons if you think you can get them all. The cannons you fall pretty fast to a few banelings so it won't take too much minerals. Make sure you are alert to a possible void ray attack or some other cheese attack like that because the Protoss players like to distract you by building some cannons while they tech up to void rays.

The best thing to do is after you have the cannons under control send all your zerglings and banelings at their main base. They will most likely have a few cannons gaurding the front but you should be able to handle that with your banelings. Go straight in, ignore his army and take out the probes, if he is making void rays try to halt them by taking out the pylons for the stargates. After this you pretty much have the game won, just build up some roaches and send them to finish off the foolish Protoss player, nice job!

Anyways, good luck to all of you and I hope to see you on BattleNet!

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Starcraft 2 - Zerg Infestor Guide

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If used right the infestor can be the Zerg's most powerful unit. Of course most Zerg players have no idea how to correctly use the infestor so they just don't make any. Infestors are the Zerg's perfect weapon for taking down big unit such as the thor or the colossus but they are also very effective at destroying groups of small units such as marines or zealots.

The infestor has two abilities that I want to focus on. The first is the neural parasite ability, which allows you to take control of an opponent's unit for a few seconds. This ability will completely annihilate a group of thors or tanks if you are playing against Terran and colossus and immortals if you are playing against Protoss. You will lose control of the unit in a few seconds but in most cases that is all the time you will need to destroy the enemy's army. The second ability is fungal growth and it is awesome against groups of small units, it will do 36 damage to an area of units, which will take a marine's health down to 4 with just one fungal growth. So as you can see the infestor is a huge weapon we have against Terran and Protoss.

However the Infestor can be very fragile and they die easy when under attack so you will need to protect them. I recommend using speed upgraded zerglings and hydralisks in case of an air attack. Make sure you keep the infestors at the back of your army and out of harms way but not to far back so they can use their abilities. It takes a little practice to use them correctly but when you have it down glory and power are sure to follow soon. Good luck and I hope to see you on battlenet soon!

Anyways, good luck to all of you and I hope to see you on BattleNet!

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Starcraft 2 Zerg Guide - How to Stop the Reaper Rush

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Every time you play against Terran you must be ready for the dreaded reaper rush. The reaper rush is being used like crazy on battlenet right and for good reason because most Zerg players have no idea how to defend against it. This guide will show you how to beat a reaper rush without any trouble.

The worst thing you can do is build some spine crawlers as the Terran player will just have his reapers run just out of range and pick off your drones and buildings. The key to beating a reaper rush is the speed upgrade for zerglings. The first thing you should do when you get 100 gas is start the speed upgrade at the spawning pool and then pump out a few zerglings. The reapers will come just in time to get run over by your speed upgraded zerglings. Make sure you chase the reapers until you kill them all as you will be faster and able to run them all down. You can also go straight to roaches but they are not as effective because they are slower then zerglings and roaches are very bad against marauders so that will not be good for you as the game progresses.

I would also recommend getting anti air as soon as you can because many Terran players like you harass you with reapers while they are teching to banshees and will attack your workers as soon as they get one. Get a few corruptors and stay away from mutalisks as marines make short work of a group of mutalisks. Take your corruptors and scout the Terran base to see if he is getting air or going ground. If you use these tactics you will no longer have to fear the dreaded reaper rush but instead invite it.

Anyways, good luck to all of you and I hope to see you on BattleNet!

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Starcraft 2 Zerg Guide - How to Stop the Zealot Rush

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Every time you play against Protoss you must be ready for the dreaded zealot rush. The zealot rush is being used like crazy on battlenet right and for good reason because most Zerg players have no idea how to defend against it. This guide will show you how to beat a zealot rush without any trouble.

The worst thing you can do is build some spine crawlers as the Protoss player will just run right by them and kill as many drones as he can. The key to beating a zealot rush is a lot of roaches. The first thing you should do after you build the spawning pool is build a roach warren and start pumping out roaches. The zealots will come just in time to get run over by your roach army. Make sure you chase the zealots until you kill them all as you will be faster and able to run them all down. Roaches are a good unit to use when playing against protoss because they do high damage and they are very cheap. However, they do very poorly against immortals because they are armored and the immortal does huge bonus damage against armored units. So if you see the Protoss player making immortals start pumping out some zerglings to handle them.

I would also recommend getting anti air as soon as you can because many Protoss players like you harass you with zealots while they are teching to void rays and will attack your base as soon as they get a few. Get a few corruptors and stay away from mutalisks as salkers make short work of a group of mutalisks. Take your corruptors and scout the Protoss base to see if he is getting air or going ground. If you use these tactics you will no longer have to fear the dreaded zealot rush but instead invite it.

Anyways, good luck to all of you and I hope to see you on BattleNet!

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Starcraft 2 Zerg Guide - The Mutalisk Rush

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This guide will show you how to perform a mutalisk rush with the intent of taking out your opponent's workers before they have any decent anti air. This strategy will work best against a Zerg player but it is also possible against Protoss. However, I would not recommend using it against a Terran player because marines do very well against mutalisks.

The key to this strategy is only building zerglings while you save all the gas you mine for the mutas. You will need to use the zerglings for early protection and to keep the enemy busy while you tech up to mutas. Try to keep your opponent from scouting your base so he doesn't know you are fast teching.

Start the game off with a normal 14 pool build but upgrade to a lair as soon as you have the gas. Make sure you are running both the extractors, as you will need a lot of gas. Pump out zerglings while you wait for the upgrade to finish and send them to harass the enemy. As soon as the lair finishes build a spire and try to build it behind your minerals so the enemy will not see it. When the spire finishes make as many mutalisks as you can and send them to the back of your opponents base where the workers are. Take out as many workers as you can. If all goes well you should be able to cripple his economy and then you can switch to either roaches or hydralisks to finish him off. Just make sure you don't let him expand. If your mutalisk attack fails then you must switch to roaches or hydralisks right away as mutas do very poorly as a main fighting unit. This strategy will not always work but when it does you will win the game pretty quickly and easily.

Anyways, good luck to all of you and I hope to see you on BattleNet!

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Starcraft 2 - Terran Unit Counter Guide

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So you're playing Terran, in the middle of a 1v1 game. You've scouted your opponent pretty well and you have a decent idea of what kind of strategy he's using. Then you suddenly draw a blank. You realize you have no idea how to win this game. You're not sure what units to build or how many, or when you should expand or when to attack... We've all been there. This kind of situation familiar to everyone. One thing that will make you a successful Starcraft 2 player is your ability to counter your opponents units. I've put together a list of my favorite Terran counters.

Let's say your opponent is Zerg: If he Techs to Mutalisks I almost always go straight Vikings and Marines. This combination has no problem with Mutalisks. If he uses Speedlings, counter with Hellions and Banshee's. Against Hydralisks you'll probably want to stay away from air. Hellions, Siege Tanks, and even Mauraders will be much more effective.

Now against a Protoss Opponent: If they use a Zealot, Sentry, Stalker combo, I usually counter with Mauraders, Hellions and Tanks. Against Immortals it's best to go back to more basic units. I would recommend Stimmed Mauaraders and even Marines considering how cheap they are. Finally against an army of Colossus, Vikings will be the most effective, accompanied by Siege Tanks.

As far as Terran V Terran goes you generally have two options. You can either make the same units your opponent is making but just make more of them and do upgrades, or you can try to strategically use counters. I've used both ways and seen several different results. Generally though I'll try and counter my opponents units. If I see him going Bionic (Marines, Mauraders, Ghosts) I love to counter with Hellions and Tanks. In the same way if he uses Tank and Hellions, I'll try to get some Banshees and Vikings.

Anyways, good luck to all of you and I hope to see you on BattleNet!

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Starcraft 2 - Terran Micro Guide

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OK so one of the big things that helped me improve my game was learning to micro efficiently. It gave me a huge advantage in battles over opponents who hadn't quite figured out how to command their units correctly. For example I still see way too many players simply setting all their attack units too ONE single hotkey and sending them all out a battle at the same time. This is not good! And I can promise you that you'll never become a good Starcraft 2 player doing this. You want to organize your units in combat so as to give yourself an edge. So I've written down a few things about microing that I've learned over the past couple months of playing beta. Note: I pretty much exclusively play Terran so this is kinda geared for them more so.

Alright so for starters I always hot key my Command Center(s). This way you can make SCV's without being at your base. But almost more importantly so many times in a game you need a quick scan and having CC on hotkey really makes it easy. I usally set my Command Center at Hot Key (4). This way I can leave keys 1,2, and 3 for specific unit groups. This generally is enough for me but sometimes if I use more units I have to readjust. Hot Key (5) I use for my Barracks. 6, and 7 I set for my Factories. Yes I set one for my Factories with Reactors and the other for the Tech Labs. This leaves me with 8,9. Usually I designate these for my Starports. But so many games I don't even go Starport so it really leaves it open for my choosing.

When I play Protoss I love to have a specific hot key just for my ghosts since their emp is so valuable against the protoss shields. It's important to memorize every single hot key for each units function. For example know which key it takes to siege your tanks or to Stim your Mauraders without even looking.

Anyways, good luck to all of you and I hope to see you on BattleNet!

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StarCraft 2 Zerg Guide - Mastering the Zerg Economy

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The Zerg economy is pretty different then the Terran and Protoss economies and a good Zerg player will use this to his advantage. Terran and Protoss are generally a little stronger at teching up then we are so we have to find another way to get the advantage. This guide will show you the basics of mastering the Zerg economy.

The first thing we need to realize is that the only way to keep up with a strong Protoss or Terran player is to have a larger mineral and gas intake then they do because our units will not be able to stand toe to toe with them so we must out produce our opponents. StarCraft 2 gives us some advantages in this area and makes it easier for us to expand. The hatchery only costs 300 minerals where with Protoss and Terran it costs 400 minerals to expand. Also, we make all our units at the hatchery so there is no need to build a bunch of new barracks or gateways like our enemy will have to when they expand.

I recommend expanding very early on in the game when you are just starting to build a few zerglings. You should have some extra minerals at this point and you can either use them to upgrade to a lair or expand. In some cases it would be wiser to upgrade to a lair if you need to get some anti air quickly or you are doing a muta rush but most of the time I would not recommend a fast upgrade. Again the key to winning as a Zerg player is out producing our enemy, which means we must expand fast and often while at the same time keeping our opponent from expanding. If you can master this part of the Zerg game then the rest is easy.

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Starcraft 2 Zerg Guide - Ultralisk Strategy

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Ultralisks are the ultimate unit a Zerg player can get in a game. They are very time consuming to tech up to and build but once you have them the game will turn in your favor. This guide will show you how to use them correctly and when it is a bad idea to build them.

Ultralisks cost 300 minerals and 200 gas so they are not cheap and of course they take forever to tech up to because you must be upgraded to a hive before you can build the ultralisk cavern. They can also burrow which is very cool and they have a speed upgrade so they can run pretty quickly with that. Their attacks are area of effect attacks, which just means that they hit a lot of targets at the same time.

Now lets talk about when to get ultralisks and when to stay away from building them. Ultralisks only hit ground targets and do very well against groups of small units so naturally they are very good against groups of marines and marauders or zealots and stalkers but all in all they do pretty well against any ground unit the enemy will through at you. So it's a good idea to build them if your opponent doesn't have any air units. Of course on the flip side don't build them if you are being attacked from the air, unless you have a lot of corruptors to handle the air.

I would also recommend getting the armor and attack upgrades for the ultralisk as they are definitely worth spending the minerals and gas on. A group of upgraded ultralisk is a sight that will make your enemy tremble in fear, unless of course he has air units in which case he would probably just smile. Good luck and I hope to see you on battlenet!

Anyways, good luck to all of you and I hope to see you on BattleNet!

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Starcraft 2 Protoss Guide - The Power of Immortals

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The key to winning as a Protoss player is our ability to counter the units that the enemy throws at us. In this article we will look at the immortal and discover just how powerful they can be in the right situations. I will show you when to use immortals and when to stay away from them.

Immortals have two unique things about them that we need to understand before we go any further. The first is that the immortal has a special shield that will only allow it to take 10 damage and anything over 10 will be deflected. The second is the immortal's huge bonus damage to armored units. When you combine these two things together you get a unit that is perfect for killing large units such as thors or ultralisks. However the immortal will die quickly to groups of smaller units such as marines or zerglings.

So when you playing against a Terran player you would use immortals if you see a lot of thors or tanks. But don't make any immortals if the Terran player is using a lot of marines and marauders. Now when you are playing Zerg there is something that most Zerg players don't realize but roaches are an armored unit and they do a slow attack of 16 damage, which means they take massive damage from immortals and 6 points of their attacks on immortals will be deflected. So to sum it up, immortals will simply dominate roaches and do very well against hydralisks as well as ultralisks. However, zerglings take immortals out pretty fast so watch out for that and use colossus to handle the zerglings instead of immortals. So now you can see and understand why the immortal is such a useful unit in certain situations and should never be left out of your build order.

Anyways, good luck to all of you and I hope to see you on BattleNet!

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Starcraft 2 Terran Guide - How to Counter Terran Units

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So as a Terran I have to admit that the race I least like playing is, in fact, Terran! The reason being is that sometimes it's so difficult to figure out how to counter Terran units when you are playing the same race. And since countering is so so important in Starcraft 2 this can lead to a frustrating predicament! But believe it or not there is a way to counter your Terran opponent other than simply making the same units as him and trying too win through superior numbers. Lets take a look at the best counters out there.

How to Counter Marines

1. Siege Tanks- They deal a ridiculous amount of damages.

2. Hellions- They deal

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Zerg Guide - Early Expansion Strategy

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As a Zerg player we need to realize that our strength is in out gathering and out producing our opponents. We have a hard time keeping up with the higher tech units of Terran and Protoss. So to counter this we need expand faster and more often then our enemy while at the same time keeping them from expanding. This guide will teach you the basics of the Zerg early expansion strategy.

There is a trade off with the early expansion because instead of upgrading to a lair we must use those minerals to build the new hatchery. This will leave us very open to an air attack since we will basically have nothing to attack air. So we need to keep the enemy busy so he will not be able to tech and will also be focused on playing defense and not attack our base. Use zerglings to harass the enemy and keep them busy while at the same time building up your second base.

As soon as you have upgraded to a lair you should have 2 bases up and running while our opponent will only have one. At this point you need to get hydralisks so you have some anti air. Use your army to keep him from expanding and just wait him out. When he starts to run out of minerals he will have no choice but to attack you. At that point it should be no trouble winning the battle, which will effectively end the game.

Anyways, good luck to all of you and I hope to see you on BattleNet!

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Zerg Guide - Using Roaches Effectively

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The roach can be a very powerful unit if used right but it can also be a very poor choice against certain units. A good Zerg player must know when to use roaches and when to stay away from them. This guide will show you how to correctly use the roach when playing against Terran and Protoss.

The roach has a few unique things about it that we need to talk about. The first thing you need to know is that the roach is an armored unit unlike the hydralisk or zergling. Also the roach does very high damage but its attack speed is slow. This is important because the Terran marauders and the Protoss stalkers both do extra damage to armored units. So this means if you see either marauders or stalkers then stay away from making the roach and tech to the hydralisk instead, roaches also do very poorly against an immortal.

However, if you don't see any of the previous units in play then the mass roach army can be a very good early attack. In most cases you can win the game very early with a mass roach attack. The reason this is so effective is because you don't need very much gas to make roaches so you can pump them out much faster then hydralisks. Also with the speed upgrade they can move pretty quickly and can be used to do "hit and runs". Use this strategy to win any game where you don't see a marauder or stalker.

Anyways, good luck to all of you and I hope to see you on BattleNet!

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