Rush v Macro

To rush, or to macro, that is the question. Whether victory will come to the first who is bold enough to attack. Or if she would prefer the patient player who maintains his defensible position?

When you consider that the current map pool is horrible, the maps all tiny, I think its clear that she prefers, at the moment, the rush.

There are some maps, Metalopolis, that are so rush favored, you really can’t play them any other way. As a random player, this can be confusing, simply because there are so many different combinations.

I always like to start with the most volatile and rush friendly matchup. The ZvZ. One of the reasons why I think so many people have trouble assessing a ZvZ is that there are both one base and two base rushes. But after playing many games, I’m happy to report that on smaller, two player maps, the one base rush is superior.

You won’t find many one base rush builds on imbabuilds.com and I think that’s a sad thing. Because it implies that nobody plays the one base rush anymore, and that simply isn’t true. I mean, even Jaedong played one base rushes in a professional tournament. I mean, he lost, but still he played it, and played it well.

But that also ties into the other factor that makes me say you almost have to one base rush. That’s skills. I understand that on the pro level, one base plays kinda suck. But they sure don’t at the platinum level. Because you have to be pro level gosu to be able to defend a one base rush when you open hatch first. I’ve seen players like Taeja do it. But it never works out for me.

Everytime you try and copy something that’s beyond you, you wind up falling flat on your face.

Let’s switch to Terran. Now, on any map, in nearly any game, I have no trouble playing a reaper expand with confidence. But these new map pools, has me going gas first into a 1-1-1 tank push (for TvT). It just wins games, it just feels right.

Protoss is another race where the conventional logic has always been that the first to expand will lose. Which means you can expect to see a lot more 4 and 5 gate attacks. I love to threaten a 5 gate, and if everything isn’t perfectly in my favor, add on a Robo Bay and turn it into a Warp Prism drop, while having an observer for DTs.

Of course, when you plays as protoss, Stargate plays is almost mandatory. The potential of the oracle to flat out win games is so good, you have to roll the dice on that attack. Even if it doesn't work, you can hold onto the oracle for scouting and protection against cloaked units.

I played a PvP the other day where my opponent went for a proxy Starport. I found it, and killed three pylons powering it, only to have the single oracle it produced rock me. I had been going for a Starport in base. I made a phoenix, which eventually killed the oracle. But it didn’t matter. The damage was done. The game was close after that, but ultimately I lost. That didn’t feel fair to me, because I scouted his proxy, and I countered his tech, but still despite throwing a rock to his scissors, the lost drones and mining time gave him compensation.

I guess the point of the post is that, nowadays you almost always have to rush. Because if you don’t and your opponent does, you’re going to outright lose. If you do and your opponent does not, he’s going to lose. And if you both do, it should be a wash, it should be even, or at least come down to skill. With that kind of logic, who would ever open up 15 expand anymore?

Hyun's Roach Build

I took a look at my win rate percentages this season. I’m doing horrible. Sure my Toss play still looks halfway decent. But my Terran play is terrible. And my zerg play is even worse.

I blame it on the map pool. I kind of hate blizzard now, for letting us pick the map pool. It would have been fun for lols for a week, maybe, but they’re assholes for keeping it this way. I think it’s pretty clear that every starcraft player would prefer to play on the same maps that the pros are playing on. Instead we get metalopolis. It’s insane.

To deal with these new maps, I realized I needed a new build. I found it on imbabuilds.com. I use Hyun’s quick roach build. Basically you 15 hatch, 17 gas, 16 pool, 15 overlord. When the pool is done, you make two queens and continue to drone up to 28/28 supply. Then you make a Roach Warren, three overlords, and burrough research. When the roach warren finishes, you max out to 51/52 on roaches and attack. Often times, it can win you the game. It wrecks 4 gate attacks. It denies naturals. It’s a fantastic build, and I don’t know how I survived without it.

In the World of WarCraft, I met up with an old high school friend yesterday. We visited each other’s Garrisons. That was a first for me. It was a bit difficult, figuring out how to do that. You have to be in a group with someone else to do it. Then, when you right click your portrait, you have the option to visit the group leader’s Garrison. I see this being the new way for guilds to meet. Because for the first time ever, we now have easily accessible and private spaces. Having your own castle is great for cybersex, too.

My friend was mainly concerned with doing stable quests. I didn’t know that when you do enough and upgrade to level three, you get 120% speed on your mount. Which is awesome, don’t get me wrong. But it’s more of a grind. And it’s a grind I don’t really want to do. I finished all the available raids yesterday, too. The Wall raid was really quick and easy.

In summary, I’m very close to canceling my WoW subscription. Probably, I’ll come back after they release a few new raids. Until then, I have to work on my micro to win that StarCraft tournament.

WoW

So I think this is the post where I change the blog to Maul’s Blizzard Blog. Or maybe Maul’s SC2  WoW Blog. I like the second better. Partially because I don’t play any other Blizzard games.

But this morning, I really want to type about the World of WarCraft. First thing, I have to say is that this is the best version of WoW ever made. It really is good. They’ve taken out so many annoying aspects of the game, and streamlined the fun.

But long ago, I made a rule about how I play WoW. The rule is that I’m not going to play the same game, the same quests, the same dungeons, over and over again. I’ll play it through once, maybe again on an alt. But I won’t grind for them, like some sort of game bot monkey.

So I leveled my Druid to 100. I leveled all of his professions. I upgraded my garrison. I got Nat Pagle and all the fishing related stuff. What’s left?

Well last night I tried out the raid finder. I que as a Tank/Healer. I got healer, which I’ve never really played. The raid was MC, Molten Core.

Fun fact, Molten Core was the only raid I ever did in Vanilla. I remember after the grind to 60, I was eager to see what the endgame content looked like. MC was the raid. I couldn’t even keep my assigned tank up. We wiped repeatedly on the first mob of the raid. It was so bad, I decided then and there that WoW wasn’t fun anymore, and that I would stop playing.

So in a way, it was nice to return to MC, as a resto Druid, and avenge that earlier loss from a decade ago. We wound up bulldozing through the entire raid, and I upgraded my helm. It was a great raid, and I’m happy that Blizzard has streamlined the game to a point where a player can casually raid.

But there’s only one raid left. Once I do that, I fear, it may be time to cancel my WoW subscription. Maybe I’ll bring it back after they release more endgame content. It’s hard to say, because I really like playing. But then, there’s that StarCraft tournament at the University.

I started using my Razer Naga again. I want to win a StarCraft tournament.