awesome HotS zerg build

First of all, I’d like to thank Blizzard. I know I’ve reamed them in the past for not collecting good statistics on our game play. Well, clicking around in the game the other day, I saw that they’ve improved. A lot. Although the stats page isn’t exactly easy to find, it has a nice table for a numbers nut like me, to see exactly how he’s doing in each matchup. There’s even another section to see your percentages on each map.

I was happy to learn that I’m about 50/50 with toss, 55% win with zerg, and sadly, only 33% with terran.

Even though I play random, it’s no secret that zerg is my best race. But I was happy to learn exactly how good I was with zerg.

When I play HotS, I feel like my game opening theory is the best with Zerg. I’d like to share what is essentially, the same build I use in each matchup, to please Victory.

It might be called 2xbase ling bling. 15 Hatch, 15 Pool, 14 Gas. I get 2x queens as soon as the hatches pop, and ling speed upgrade as soon as I’ve banked 100 gas. The next 50 gas goes to a baneling nest. Queens should inject larva at about the same time on each base. Make a few more drones so that your main has 16 on minerals, 3 on gas, and your natural has about 3 on minerals. While you wait for your larva to pop, make 3-4 overlords, bringing your supply up to 44 or more. Then pump out non-stop lings, which will get their speed upgrade by the time they reach the opponent’s base.

Depending on your opponent’s scouting, you either attack immediately, or make a few banes and then attack.

It’s a great build because even if your opponent rushes, you’ll be able to defend. You’ll be able to bust nearly every terran or protoss defense this early. If they can defend against it, you can easily take map control, a third base, and drone up.

My win rate with this build is so good, I’m hoping a high level player would give some thoughts on this style play. How do they scout and counter it? Because right now its been giving me an obnoxiously high win rate.

Cheers!

Menu button lag, anyone?

I simply can’t be the only one getting a bit of lag every time he hits the menu button. Often times, in a game, I’ll click on the menu button to check the message log. Click the menu button, press E. It should be a simple task. I could check if my opponent had typed a greeting to me in a fraction of a second.

If there wasn’t lag. But there is. Literally, every time I click on the menu button during a game. If I lose half of my games, then I get lag half of my games, every time I click on Menu to then click surrender.

I’ve heard a lot of people talk about “Is HotS ready?” Most of them say that yes, the UI is ready, it’s just the balancing that needs work. But as long as I get this sort of delay after clicking on the menu button, I wouldn’t say that the UI is ready.

HoTS Beta = Smurf Academy

Every beta player will be a smurf upon the official release.

It just struck me the other day. After greeting my opponent with my customary, “May the best man win,” he replied with, “gg Marakai.”

I was surprised to see that my opponent was so polite. He called me by name, Marakai. But the name threw me off, because my usual name is Maulakai. I had to choose a different name for the HotS beta. I had to remind myself that none of the achievements, decals, or XP from Marakai would transfer over to the official HotS when released next month.

Nothing would transfer over?

Wait a minute. I thought the whole point of this next XP system was to give players a more accurate snapshot of their opponents. If I have my points reset when the game is released, if Marakai goes bye bye and Maulakai starts playing HotS from level 1, well, how are my opponents supposed to know I’m really a level 70 player?

They won’t.

By not allowing our accounts to transfer over, Blizzard is, essentially, creating a Smurf Academy. Every player lucky enough to have been part of the beta test will be a smurf upon the game’s official release. And the culprits, this time, are not the players, but the developers.