[ZanooKu]

Originally Posted by eXcLusiVe

kaz u can do f1 split 2
f1 click minerals f1 click minerals f1 click minerals ect

WOW YOU ARE BAD. That's slower than doing a regular 3-3 split.

[Satu]

Originally Posted by EdgE

Just a thing i do every single 1v1 and 2v2, whenever you sneak lings in somoenes base, just shift deselect until you have 2 lings, hide them somewhere, and morph banes. Works like a charm.

Hide them behind the mineral patches. TLO once did that with a single baneling which resulted in killing a few extra workers once they returned to the minerals after he did an attack.

Other random stuffz:
Once you get lair up vs terran, make an overlord spew down creep in a random position in your base. Place a spire underneath it if you're going for muta ling bling which is what 95% of zergs usually do.

In a 2v2, if you're allied with a protoss or terran and are in very close spawning positions with a single ramp, it is still possible to spread creep early on without interfering with building placement. Yet again, make an overlord spew down creep in an area below the ramp to either side and place a creep tumor or two down. From there, you can create a creep highway that will help your own troops and scouting without leaving your mains wide open.

Some of that was a bit obvious but meh

[PantlessPete]

Originally Posted by ZanooKu

WOW YOU ARE BAD. That's slower than doing a regular 3-3 split.

WOW YOU'RE MEAN. It's only slower if you haven't practiced it. I don't think its worth the effort though, 3/3 is good.

But on that note, do you want to save more time splitting at the start? During the loading screen I hold ctrl+F1, and hover over Q. You'll instantly select all your workers, then you can right click a patch, split 3 off and right click another patch. Select your CC/Nexus/Hatch and make a worker straight away (unless you're zerg, or not using grid of course).

[x5_Potter]

My SCV's split themselves, knowing that the last one to a mineral patch becomes the scout >=D

Quick Comments

Insidious:

ahah I tried that approach with my probes they stopped mining :(

[Xeen]

Originally Posted by EdgE

Just a thing i do every single 1v1 and 2v2, whenever you sneak lings in somoenes base, just shift deselect until you have 2 lings, hide them somewhere, and morph banes. Works like a charm.

I can't believe I read this thread and you still pulled this off on me in that 2v2v2v2.

[user151]

Originally Posted by Maro

Thought I'd share this: Unsieged tanks deal more DPS (25 dps, unsieged, compared to 20 dps, sieged) to armored units.

(Damage / + Bonus Damage / Range / Cooldown)
Siege Tanks: 60 / Splash / 13 / 3s
Unsieged Tanks: 15 / +10 (Armored) / 7 / 1s

Yeah tanks have amazing DPS even w/o seige. I sometimes bring them in my early pushes if my opponent goes zealot/sentry heavy. They melt the zealots like crazy.

[Crankenstein]

Originally Posted by user151

Yeah tanks have amazing DPS even w/o seige. I sometimes bring them in my early pushes if my opponent goes zealot/sentry heavy. They melt the zealots like crazy.

Until this crazy iechoic stuff came out I did a 2 unsieged tanks + marines timing push as my go-to for TvT (similar to the one Adebisi does but I think he waits for a medivac). Watching replays of terrans it amazes me how fast some of them rush for siege, often even before getting a tank to use it on... unsieged tanks are definitely underutilised.

As for Knowledge: You can place landed Vikings into a medivac. It might sounds worthless and silly but if you do some late game harass in a TvT you can take a medivac with some units in it and a few Vikings. land the Vikings and drop the units, the units die, pick up the vikings and retreat, maintain air superiority. It worked for TLO:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNZnx...mbedded#t=825s

[Stroggos]

this is a really awesome idea for a thread!

got some random stuff

1) place your tech structures like templar and robo bay near the ramp of your base(entrance from main to nat) MMM drops are never dropped there so you wont have to worry about them getting sniped

2) put a high templar and a stalker where MMM drops come from, which is near your mineral line usually. 1 feedback plus stalker damage can usually take down a dropship before it fully unloads.

3) in late game MMM pvt, it's always important to have 2+ observers, so you can always have at least one over the enemies army. This is so you can pre-feedback enemy ghosts before you enter battles. remember observers are really cheap now 25/75!

[NvPinder]

If you put a piece of toilet paper in the toilet before you sit down, you'll never have that annoying feeling of water splashing into your anus when you take a shit ever again.

Quick Comments

	jobmercy:	rofl! wtf was that for? haha!
	ToRsLeePiNz:

[DRFT]

probably no one knew this but if u use terran, once u get 150mins u can build a barracks

[ToRDeathsFang]

Originally Posted by JPMoney

If you put a piece of toilet paper in the toilet before you sit down, you'll never have that annoying feeling of water splashing into your anus when you take a shit ever again.

LOL that was uncalled for but still very hilarious.

ARCHON TOILET FTW!

Get a mothership in the late game, get templar archives, some HT, morph about 4-5 archons. Vortex the enemy army, throw in your Archons. The archons are gonna be like "Hey guys! Can we join the party? We do splash damage!" When the vortex finishes BOOM, everything dies to the archon splash damage.

You Tube

You Tube

Skip to the 17th minute. If you havent seen this before you will "WTF?", i guarantee it.

[Zanderax]

One thing that I have noticed that may help people who want to be able to receive messages and start games whole checking their Facebook, emails ect... When Starcraft 2 is slashed down, in game PMs will make the icon on the toolbar flash orange. If Starcraft 2 starts up a game while you are slashed down, it will automatically open Starcraft 2 back up again. Sorry if everyone already knows this but I find it rather helpful.

[Benji]

Windowed Fullscreen.

[iMSystem]

Originally Posted by Benji

Windowed Fullscreen.

This. I almost always play any game windowed.

But still thats a nice little feature.

[cruxis]

I use windows 7, and when I get a message in SC, I can see it though the task bar.

[DemisodaSPR]

ZvX scouting is a friggin hard problem, and is something that has engrossed me for a long time.

::ZvT scouting::

I used to feel this MU was pretty seedy w.r.t scouting but I soon realised this was just badness.

2:35-2:38 is 12 rax finish time. This means you can deduce the exact supplies of the 2 rax (11/11, 12/14, 12/12, etc), and also deduce gas first, which is very important because gas first hellions can start very early (4:21 for 11rax12gas instead of 4:38 for 12rax13gas) and the gas first banshee pops at 6:00, which is 33 seconds earlier than 12 rax 13 gas banshee!

Say you drone scout. Rax finish 2:35-2:38 like normal and no gas. ATM you know he's at least 12 rax 0 gas. You have to figure out if he's proxy rax. Go to his mineral line and count the SCVs. At the timing just preceding OC morph, if he has 13 then you know he isn't proxy (the 14th pops the moment OC starts basically). If he has 12 and an scv doesn't come and scout you at appropriate time, he's proxy. I find this is utterly critical due to the diversity of proxy locations, and you will outright die if he pools marines and scv pulls and you've droned till your 24/25 overlord like you should vs 1 rax CC. The only problem is you have to pull your drone at around 10 supply on mid sized maps otherwise he can wall you in with a 15 depot if he's 0 gas 12 rax or even 12 rax 13 gas (you need about 6 ingame seconds to count his scvs at the 2:30 mark).

You can figure if he's gas first or 12 rax 13 gas in the same fashion. Gas should finish a few seconds before rax, so if rax finish 2:35-2:38 and u see gas already done (and has 14 scv at OC morph or 13 just before) then by necessity he is 12 13. If you're hatch first and not 1414 then you will leave your drone in his natural and around 4 mins you will check to see if he's reactor hellion. This is important because the first 2 hellions finish at 5:08 off 12 rax 13 gas 2 marine reactor hellion (buildings switch at 4:34-4:36 and production starts at 4:38), and your first two lings off 1515 and even 1514 (yes this is faster lings than 1414) get there too late to put 2 spines in time. Hellions will be in your natural before the spines finish if you rely on this.

2:35-2:38 important because if terran is 2 rax and the first rax finishes non-trivially before 2:35 you know you need to invest much more in defenc(s?)e because he's more all in (11/11 depending on timing). This timing allows you to tell what type of 2 rax, or whether it's 1 rax (12 rax 0 gas), in close air meta/shattered without even checking the front - which can actually afford you some pretty awesome close air OL scouting patterns, considering some good terrans rely on the OL to go to the wall position after bouncing off the CC.
2:38 OC morph with 14 scv (or 13 before morph) is 12 rax 0 gas. 2:38 OC with 13 scv (or 12 before morph) is 12 rax 14 rax economic 2 rax. No OC at 2:38 with 15 SCV at 2:38 (or 14 with him scouting) is CC first. No OC but 13 SCV at 2:38 SCV finish timing hes 11/11 or 12/12 or 11/12 or something (earliest OC is going to be in about 20 seconds from here, common timing is 3:05 without marine cutting for 11/11). Awesome-o!

If your opponent is doing the bottom ramp wall in and all you see is 2:38 rax finish, you need to look for 2 pieces of information. The first marine pops at 3:05 and the next at 3:30, and so on. If he reveals a small batch of marines early on, COUNT THEM, and see if it's the correct number for 1 rax. If he just shows 1 rax worth of marines, this of course doesn't mean he's not 4 rax or something stupid, but it does help you narrow_his_build_range and you are playing towards are more defined and accurate distribution which only serves to improve your winrate assuming you react appropriately to his range.

Now this is just for 0 gas! Unfortunately, most of my very early game scouting knowledge ends here, but I'm sure there's a HUGE wealth of knowledge waiting to be discovered way beyond what I know just in the opening minutes of ZvT. I'm getting excited just thinking about what I can learn in the coming months!! The puzzle I'm now trying to get past right now is what to do in the face of a terran who ceases marine production at 3:05-3:08 (so he makes 1 marine). The range of a good terran in this situation, in my experience, is dominated by 1 rax 16 command, but have learned that 4-6 rax can follow off this but it is rare. My goal in the coming weeks is to find out when 17 marine starts after 16 command is laid down. (So how long it takes 15 scv to mine 450 mineral with average scv stacking). Not a 100% reliable tell, but again helps in my goal of narrowing the range i assign to my opponent, and it's good that super high level tricks like this (making 17 marine at exacting time when he's doing 4-6 rax) isn't part of the meta game, and probably will never be because terran has to assume zerg is the biggest sicko nerd ever.

For gas, there is things like rax finish 2:53 and already has gas then 11 gas 12 rax into 4:21 reactor hellion (17 seconds earlier than normal). 11 gas 12 rax banshee finishes 6:00. 12 rax 13 gas banshee finishes 6:33, and if he's 1 port then cloak finishes at 7:25. If you're one of those zergs who does quick 3 hatch without lair then against 12 rax 13 gas with no reaper or reactor hellion (so 1-1-1 str8 into cloak banshee becomes possible) , you'll need to start the evo at 6:20 so your spore finishes at 7:25 for the 1 cloak banshee that will be on your base at this timing (if he is 12 13 1 port cloak banshee).

I'm actually so excited about what I will learn in the next few months about zvt scouting!!! So much to learn! Especially w.r.t. builds that follow 12 rax 16 command. Only timing I know is the earliest blue flame possible off 12 rax 16cc into quick double gas is done at 8:10 (which happens to also be the time t hat the 5th and 6th hellion is finished), so I always make sure to have at least 2 spines done in my nat if he shows CC, only marine in natural, and especially if no gases are taken and his marines only have 45 hp (albeit I dunno the terran range that well when he doesn't show tech on wall in rax, so i take this tell very lightly).

::ZvP scouting::

Despite ZvP having more timings to learn, timings aren't as important as his range is betrayed by composition he shows in comparison to nexus and usually this with general gas timings and chrono allocation is enough. However, timings can be used to objectify scouting. Something like "Oh, I feel like he should have extra 3 sentry warp in 20 second ago and not now given he 2 gas normal time" is not an accurate way of going about things, and it requires conscious thought. Timings eliminate conscious thought. 5:09 nexus. BAM. You KNOW he is 1 gate expansion with only 32 supply in probes and no 34 pylon. There is 0 thought. You KNOW his range is dominated by this 1 build (You've scouted 14 gas 19 gas). There is no thinking and no second guessing. An individual who sticks to experience and intuition will be like "hmm.. 1 gate expo or 1 gate twilight into DT", because nexus timing for both these builds is very similar and both nexus timing is earlier than 3 gate expansion. BAD, even if 1 gate twilight nexus DT is much more uncommon vs 1 gate nexus. And please don't be like "but if 5:20 nexus u coudl get tricked!", no you simply use your brain and know that either build is possible, only 5:09 necessitates 1 gate nexus, 5:20 does not necessitate anything just leaves his distribution with more elements.

First, the bare fundamentals:
- You first look at his cyber finish timing. This in turn leads to the deduction of gateway timing. If the core finishes at 3:42-3:50, then he did a 13 gate with 1 chrono preceding it. Why is this important? Easy. If 14 or 15 gate, don't you think you should know? What if he slips in gas first, are you just going to NOT notice? What if he does a 10 pylon 10 gate, notice! Timing is the efficient way of noticing, comparing to drone count is bad because every map has different drone run distance so you have to learn relative timings for what 8-10 maps, learning 1 timing is better. This timing was most important in previous patch, because he could have wg research done at 4:55 if hes doing the 10pylon 10gate 50-gas 18 probe zealot 4 gate (a script that has everything perfect and there is no 9 scout and builds everything close to nexus could actually complete research at 4:45!) or 5:15 for 20 probe 1 gas 4 gate but with the wg nerf it's not as crucial. At present it's most important in order to see if he's gas first. So the core finishes significantly after 3:50, what do you do?
- Check his first gas. Click on it. At 4:00, it should have 2355 if he went 9 pylon 1 chrono 13 gate 14 gas. But what if your drone isn't there at 4:00? Gas geysers mine at 116/minute (give or take 2-3 for more efficient geysers, such as the far one on metalopolis by the way!). So if you see this at a different time just click and do the arithmatic. Don't worry, just before you actually get in this situation do (2355) - (116/2) = ? and this is your 4:30 amount. Boom! You've solved a big part of gas first. Yes, I realise it is very rare among good protoss. It is still good to have. Why? Some pplz like huk will just not get gate for ages until he knows you're pool first and not hatch first. Others like adellscott will gas first your ass. You need to tell the difference as you have to play completeeeelllllly different vs both options.
- After this there's not much more to do with the drone. You of course do basic thing like check 2nd gas timing, and chrono save. If you want to save drone just leave via mineral walking before zealot+0:35 or zealot+0:25 (1 chrono on gate after zealot, this includes a 2s safety window. If he's stalker you have an additional 5 seconds).

After this point, you're mainly relying on your lings outside his base. For this portion of scouting, you have
- 5:31 nexus is pretttty much the earliest 3 gate expo. You have 33 in probes, no 34 pylon.
- 5:49 nexus is what you saw quite often in the last patch, where you have 34 supply. I really don't know what causes the 18 second disparity. I forget if 5:49 nexus has the 34 pylon before it.
- 6:09 is really the latest 3 gate nexus you're going to see. It's 34 pylon finished, 37 in probes, and 3 sentries made out of the first gateway.
All these compose the realistic 14 gas 19 gas timings 3 gate expansion nexus timing range. Before and after are possible, but quite rare, and you will know anyway.

After 6:10, if there's no nexus and he's 2 gas, you become very suspicious. After this timing, the following are common gas cheeses that you will face off 14,19:
- 6:45 blink research finish, full chrono
- 7:10 4th phoenix leaves stargate, full chrono
Unfortunately I know not the timing for 1 base VR plays.

If he is 14gas 19 gas, drone see saved chronos, and no chrono on core, and no nexus: he's one of this a huge amount of the time disregarding warpprism and other uncommon cheese. He's not DTs. DTs use chronos on nexus and then core. Further, the vast majority of DT builds involve nexus. I'm not sure the optimal response against this particular information. I'm feeling mass ling, as this is good vs both elements of his range and is necessatated pre-6:45 anyway. I'm not sold on mass droning after 6:55 when you know he's stargate (or if he's robo cheese or some BS you're safe because u already have like 30 lings anyway), as you could be playing a spastic who screwed up a chrono on his blink research, or you may have missed a proxy pylon.

A caveat, DTs:
These usually involve nexus as you can afford it. Nexus can be very early or very late, and it all depends on whether he 1 gate with dt nexus or 3 gate with dt nexus. Odd nexus timing is not a necessary condition for DT though. The tell is the lack of 3rd-5th sentry. A 14 gas 19 gas can fit 2 sentries and still have gas for 2 DT warp at 7:10 (this is a common dt warp time, mc v july, choya v nestea #1 and #2, but it can be done at 6:55 somehow i've seen it before). If ur lings and intiial drone see 2 chrono on core and hes doing usual 3 gate expo u would expect 3rd-5th sentry warp at 6:20 assuming he's not freaked about anything. So what you do is you keep checking for this and if not you put evo at 6:25. This means you have spore finished in both bases at 7:30. You've cleared everywhere of proxy pylons so you have the time because he has to run the DTs from hisd base to your base. (A worker takes 0:53 to traverse xel naga to give you some perspective). Sure he can hide sentries, but you have to respect the information.

The problem I'm having att he moment is distinguishing 6:09 nexus from 4 gate with 33 in probe (cancel strat) to 3 gate with 37 in probe (non-greedy 3 gate expansion). I'm thinking if there's no building wall I should be biased towards cancel.
I still haven't solved 3 gate nexus into 5 gate cancel or 1 gate expansion into 4 gate cancel.
So much to learn!


::Screensaves::
Use screensaves, and rebind them to easier to access keys such as F1-F4 and your side mouse buttons (idle worker can become CAPS). Some of the applicatoins:
- Go to your production rally point without dragging you screen cursor there or clicking minimap (saves at least what 10 minimap clicks per game and tonnes of 1-2seconds it takes to drag ur screen there when ur nearby?).
- Flick between bases if your queens die or you have all queens grouped for some defence, if you're one of those that hotkey queens.
- Transfer drones from main and nat to third without having to drag your mouse over the screen between each base (because whilst using shift you can't 55 66 77).
- Each new hatch you set up, bind it to a screen save. Each time you set up a new base as zerg, you have to go there to plant the hatch, put gases, transfer drones, make spines (vs some style of zvt) and maybe spore as well (zvp mid-late). This is A LOT of minimap clicks in a long game where you end up on 6 bases. Further, in late game zvt or zvp, depending on compositions in use and the nature of the game, you may end up with 2/3 or more macro hatches. In this instance, if your macro key is "4", it's much easier to shift 4 then SMB1 right click mineral SMB2 right click ground, instead of having to drag the screen or click minimap to rally point and set unit rally then click minimap on your latest base and set drone rally.

I feel screen saves are crucial and not simply something of personal preference. (ofc u can be great without them but hard to argue that they do anything but increase efficiency once you're familiar).

A side recommendation, simply something that's helped me, is completely altering layout of zerg. I think you should rebind 890 to more accessible keys ~, leftAlt, and A for me. I recommend making A the key for all your hatches, and E your key for zerglings for the following reasons.
ASE is much more efficient than 4SZ, with A being adjacent to S and E being adjacent to S. ASV ASR AST ASD etc is also more efficient than the 4S-X counterpart. This saved time can stack up when your goal is to have no idle larvae (maybe you press 4S-X a few hundred times each game or more?). Attack move can be rebound to Tab, which is not needed for zerg because we only have one caster, the infestor. 1tab 2tab 3tab is more efficient than 1a 2a 3a anyway. It'll just take about 2 weeks to not mess up in fights.

Quick Comments

	nirvAnA:
	Xenomorph:	U need to maybe ladder to help u learn :P
	PiG:	Dude this wall of text really deserves its own thread! Would give alot more incentive for people to have a read!
	nGenLight:	Bachelor of Zerg
	ToRDeathsFang:	OMFG What is it with these Zerg's and their essays! FML
	NvJazBas:	Making a rax about 10seconds late will **** this guy up lol jokes!
	Nemo:	Impressive, awesome Oo

[FSDarkNemesis]

One small tip from me as a Protoss:

Your Chrono Boost is your friend. Use it whenever you have the opportunity.

Chrono Boost for Probes
Chrono Boost Key Upgrades (e.g. Forge Upgrades, Warp Gate, Thermal Lance, Blink and Psi Storm)
Chrono Boost your Robo or Stargate especially Expensive Units like Carriers and Colossi to crank them out faster.
DON'T Chrono Boost Gateway/Warp Gate Units. If you have Warp Gate which you should absolutely have, just build more Warp Gates to spam out a large Army in seconds. This ability is less important if you're going more on Gateway Units.

[nGenLight]

Transferring workers into expansion with gas geysers ready:

Select all the workers your transferring, send them ALL to the geyser, shift-deselect 3, send them all to the other geyser, shift deselect 3, send them all to the minerals. If you only have 1 gas geyser then just shift deselect 3 once.

Quick Comments

Nemo:

I saw all pro do that and it helped me a lot

[BioTech]

turret tip v mutas:

there is a way you can place 2 unupgraded turrets such that they both hit enemy mutas whilst one doesnt suffer bounce/splash damage. You place them in an L-shape as per how the knight moves in chess. See below where T = turret, G = empty ground. Both the T and G spots are 2x2 squares. This arrangement can kill 6 mutas if you micro the turrets or usually does if you let the AI do it. Easily kills 5 standard mutas.

TGG
GGT

Quick Comments

Nemo:

[bswhunter]

Sorry if this is noob, but this has saved me quite afew times.
If your 15 hatching as Z, place ur 2nd OL over where u plan to place ur hatch, as aposed to sending out scouting. Because buildings being built have a limited sight range, P/T can place buildings around ur hatch without you knowing. With the OL above it, they cannot!