More Terran Nerfs: Thor

David Kim of Blizzard had this to say about repairs:

“We are looking into it, but we haven’t made any decisions. We are looking into ways of decreasing the size of Thors further, since repairing them is so effective, or making the AI target repairing scvs with priority in order to kill them more easily. There are no decisions yet, we are keeping on eye on it.”

Source: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=163417

Yeah I guess terran is becoming a sinking ship as it’s gearing up to be blizzard’s whipping boy.

Trying Out Zerg

I’ve been playing almost exclusively terran for quite some time now.  I tried out protoss but felt it was too much like the protoss of Starcraft 1 and lackluster.  It simply did not fit my playstyle and was evidently un-fun.  So I’ve decided to give zerg a try.

I’ve played roughly 50 games so far as zerg.  So far I’ve been steamrolling protoss and terrans using some very basic strategies and very basic unit mixes.  Playing as zerg is insanely easy.  With my proper overlord placement I pretty much have vision on all the map but their base.  I always make the one token overlord to check out what they’re up to.

My favorite part of course is creep spreading.  I almost make it a game to try and take all the bases on the map.  I succeeded on Scrap Station.

I was facing a protoss player who decided to forge fast expand.  I built one expansion and got out some roaches, only a few.  I think used the roaches to pressure this expansion.  I was actually quite successful killing 10 zealots and a stalker with just 5 roaches.  I took this opportunity to do a triple expand, that is I held 5 bases total.  I used my roaches to break down the rocks and took those as well.  I macro-ed up hard for roaches, hydralisks and a few infestors.  I used my infestors to fungal growth his colossus in place so I could snipe them with my roaches while my hydralisks cleaned up all the gateway units.  His army was crushed.  However he wouldn’t leave the match.

While this battle was going on I transported some drones to the island and took the island expansion.  I pushed forward and continued to wreck mayhem and knocked out his expansion.  I tossed up a hatchery there.  Sort of just to rub in his face.  I’m building on an indian burial ground if you will.  I pushed into his main base which is absolutely LOADED with warp gates, maybe 11-12 of them.  I destroy his nexus and toss a hatchery there, once again to rub it in.  For whatever reason he decides not to leave so I just spend this time creeping up the map.  He spends this time complaining about how broken zerg is.

In my experience zerg is quite broken.  The increased build time on zealots makes it so you can always fast expand against protoss.  The rax-supply depot change makes it so zerg can always fast expand against protoss.

I don’t even really think it should be termed ‘fast expand” anymore.  I don’t think that term has been relevent for quite some time.  The new term should be “instant expand” because that’s exactly what it is.  When a terran fast expands he builds a rax and a bunker.  When a protoss fast expands he builds a forge and 2-3 cannons.  Zerg just goes, lol I had 15 workers time to make another facility.

I’ll probably be continuing to play zerg for a little while longer until I can figure out a way to beat it.

Stim Packs to be Nerfed

It seems the nerf boat isn’t quite over for Terrans just yet.  Despite utterly collapsing to zerg in a no-win scenario Dustin Browder had this to say:

“As for future developments, the team said that it feels there is some imbalance in the Protoss vs Terran matchup, which they plan to address. They also feel that Terran marines and marauders may gain a bit too much of an advantage from the Stimpack ability at its current levels”

Source: http://www.gamespot.com/events/blizzcon2010/story.html?sid=6282912&tag=latestheadlines;title;2

Yeah it seems that stim packs are too powerful and dominate TvP matchups.  Of course one thing that Mr. Browder fails to mention is that stim packs are also now a bread and butter of the TvZ match up.  Yeah thors and hellions are both gone and have been replaced by massive marines and siege tanks.

If there was ever a time for terran players to start learning zerg, now would be the time.