IgroMir 2009: imba.Adolf[RA] reports his SC2 opinions

[supersonic]

Supposedly Sigaty has been quoted saying beta will be in 2010. Any chance you could translate that or give it some context to confirm if he's saying a start date, and whether he's probably referring to any beta or just the Russian beta?

yeah I think so... I hate to link to other forums but, http://www.sc2armory.com/forums/topic/10755

Can anyone confirm this? I'm going to bed and I really don't wanna search around atm..

but it's not looking good: "Meanwhile, Chris Sigaty talked not only about the story that drives StarCraft II, but also about the many new Battle.net features that players will experience once the premium online gaming service is relaunched."

http://eu.blizzard.com/events/en/igr...rage.html#Day1

[pure.Wasted]

And so ends the second day of Igronom, when we finally got to test our mettle against live opponents -- that is, each other. The first victories, defeats, and impressions: all of this awaits you inside, along with a few photos. We asked the Blizz. Reps for the system requirements, but apparently they're not allowed to answer that question. Based on what we've seen, SC2's sys. req's seem to be, approximately, (recommended) Core Duo, 2GHz, 2 Gig and 256 MB video card. But remember, this is just a guess! Now, impressions of game balance, that's a topic where we can speak with a lot more certainty!

Again I'll try to divide my impressions by race, for readers' convenience. But to begin, I'd like to note the friendliness of Blizzard staff (the Russian tech support guys from France). All planned activities went off exactly on schedule, and we didn't have to participate in anything to partake in the tourney (even twice -- but without the possibility of winning a prize on the second time).


ZERG

Got to know all of their units personally, including the air. Mutastack is non-existent, but Mutas... [TN: Funny non-translateable joke goes here.] take care of workers pretty well with their splash, and remind me very much of Muta demonstrations from 2002 [?]. Taking out Marines is still doable, and although Hold only keeps them in a stack very briefly before they disperse, it's enough to hold off Terrans. The first BO I tried versus a Comp -- Mutas from one Hatch vs. Terran. To protect from an early attack you can set up Sunkens near the entrance. How? Elementary -- Ovie drops creeps wherever you like. Want to try a Sunken rush? Already dreaming of blocking a Nexus from going up vs. Toss, or hiding your buildings in random corners all over the map? All is do-able! The opportunities invented by this mechanic are simply amazing.

It's hard to get used to the fact that Overlords no longer detect cloaked units -- for that, you need to upgade them to Overseers. Overseers are pretty and brainy, capable of producing little puddles of goo that ooze around. If you click on an enemy unit, such as a Marine or Zealot, it turns into one, and can quickly file in the enemy's ranks to observe and report. I'll warn you now: this will be entertaining... but highly impractical. Blizzard keeps trying to throw in these inventive methods of surveilance into their games, and they keep failing. It's true that the unit is relatively free of charge, so it might have been handy to leave one around in key areas of the map... if Overlords weren't already so much better at standing around and doing nothing.

The Corruptor, oh my. I didn't get to see him in a firefight, so it's hard to judge, but he seems like an interesting enough fellow. It's him, and not the Mutalisk, that turns into the Broodlord using Hive Tech... and the Broodlord is the funniest unit in the game. It just floats in place, shooting down broodlings. Remember how you could throw worms around in Half-Life? It's the same principle, only now the ammo is infinite. Broodlings have 30 HP, a short life-span, and a small attack. But if there's many, the situation gets very hairy very quickly. For the most part, Zerg no longer need Hive for anti-air. There they'll find only heavy anti-ground.

The other impression of Zerg is that they're a very strong race, with a great deal of potential. If all of this potential is realized, the end will be nigh (unless the Zerg're fixed, of course). Playing them, on the one hand, is very simple: grow more Larvae, grow more units; but from the perspective of building a proper BO and taking into account the maximization of Larvae, and the timing, is sure to be complex. They're vulnerable to early rushes by Zealots -- most of the defeated Zerg in the tournament lost exactly to this. As for Inject Larvae? As things stand... let's put it this way: Hatcheries at expansions are built exclusively to gather resources. And so it goes.


PROTOSS

Finally I managed to get all the way to Protoss air, and I'll be honest -- it's pretty darn good. The Void Ray is available right away, hits ground and air, can take a punch AND has decent range. An amazing instrument for laying seige. On a few of the maps you can attack the Refineries from out of retaliation's range (whilst floating over water, for instance). Phoenixes seem to be anti-air at first glance, but in reality have a wonderful tool for picking up ground targets... making them a serious anti-ground fighter. They don't simply pick the unit up, they disable it completely. A pack of Phoenixes will take down 6 Stalkers without taking a single casualty. Workers die equally fast at undefended expos. By the way, mana is expended to keep a target afloat, which means you're going to have to watch your energy as you get into engagements, and taking down tougher targets will empty your energy pool.

Carriers... are... Carriers. Their upgrade now speeds up construction of Interceptors, and little more. Really, even without it they're built fairly fast. For some reason they struck me as a little underwhelming and a tad less interesting than the original's counterparts, but they ARE good to go right out of the gate. Thirty seconds after construction on a pair completed, they were already tearing through the blockade my Protoss foe had set up outside my main. And of course, the Mothership, a monstrous and monstrously SLOW hunk of machinery. Slower than a Terran's Barracks! It's built from the Nexus, which is quite convenient as your Stargates are left for other tasks. It doesn't take much food, but the cost is hefty.

For a mere 25 mana it can teleport to any Protoss structure, and it seems it might work as a defensive measure. Here come in handy her other abilities: Black Hole, which is simply Stasis by another name, castable on either your opponent's saboteurs or your own workers, to keep them safe from a harass. It lasts about 25 seconds... but combined with the mana-recharge of a Dark Pylon, it's possible to keep units disabled for a veeeeerrry long time. Time-Bomb is a very neat looking effect that doesn't seem to be practically useful. But the Mothership does pack a punch with her own lasers. And last but not least, from her grandpappy the Arbiter, the Mothership gets to make everything around her invisible, no research required. The key question is whether a Mothership can port to a Warp Prism... otherwise, her intended battlefield applications are murky at best. Then again, having one lying around your base can't hurt.

Now I have to make a correction regarding High Templar. Their second ability does NOT allow one to save their own units from death. It can only be cast on enemy troops, making it a great counter to Thors, Colossi, Ultralisks and other guys that Storm won't deal with. At the moment the Protoss remain the most productive, in terms of winning Beta keys at the tournaments, race at Igromir. Zealots in early game, to Stalkers, Colossi, and GG, as early-game Zerg timing is thrown off too much and it's hard to know how to counter the rush. Former StarCraftians, take heed if you really want that Beta. Then again, waiting through the line-up at Igromir is an achievement worthy of praise. Just walking beside it is about a 2-minute's task, and at the line's speed it's something like 2 or 3 hours. But what won't we do for a chance to play SC2!

They say that Colossi and Warp Prisms are simply unstoppable: unload, WHOOSH, load; though I haven't tried it for myself. One guy mentioned that his brother saw someone destroy a pack and a half of Roaches using this method. I hope you're taking notes. Zerg's got no Scourge to patrol the friendly skies anymore.


TERRAN

Now I finally started to unravel their little secrets. First of all, I'd like to offer my sincerest apologies to the Hellions. I complained about their boring micro -- well, this turned out to be false. It just needed getting used to, as it's quite a bit... unfamiliar. You have to stop at precisely that distance, from your target, which it will be able to cover as the flames come out. That way, by the time the flames reach it, you've already retreated and are at it again. Lings and Zealots will fall back like nobody's business. But Lings come with their own set of difficulties -- when they're speedy, it's hard to maintain a mobility advantage... let alone all sorts of horrendous brush and other sight-blockers. Zerglings, leaping out of all sorts of nasty areas, will cleave through Hellions with frightening speed, so be warned.

Another characteristic which I judged unfairly -- the Ghost's Snipe ability. There's no cooldown and the cost is next to nil. A pair of snipers can, in the span of 4 seconds, turn a Zerg economy into a mass of all sorts of limbs and intestines. You just need to have the energy for it. Ghosts are the Terrans' future... unless they're 'fixed,' of course. This is a cheap caster with universal usefulness, which can single-handedly replace an armada of Tanks (via Nuke), force an entire Protoss army to displace (via EMP), and swiftly neuter a Zerg expansion (via Snipe). The Nuke is available VERY quickly, costs 100 by 100, and is HIGHLY effective. Take special care to note that since invisible units are now in tier 3, defenses against them are mostly lacking (Zerg need to make overseers, Terrans would rather spend their energy on MULEs, and so on), and this can cost a player very dearly. All it takes for Ghosts is a Tech Lab on top of a Barracks, and a Ghost Academy -- that's it! Just like the Banshee, really, which is an excellent anti-ground attacker.

A few words on MULEs -- these are the Terrans' achilles' heel. Time to change up expectations. The Terrans in SC2 have to expand much faster, maybe even faster than the other races. I understood why David Kim, in BR4, put down 2 Command Centers against his opponent. You see, the folks at Blizzard decided the Zerg should have Inject Larvae, the Protoss their Dark Pylon, and the Terrans -- MULEs. Consequently, the two alien races practically bathe in resources, but the Terrans have to ask themselves, "resources or ComSat?" I always chose ComSat and I think, in playing, you might have to do the same.

Although it might in some way be replaced by the Sensor-Tower, an extraordinary invention of the earthly pursuits. A word of advice: find on the map a location, any obscure high-ground location, by way of which passes the main road between your base and your opponent's. Even better is to place the towers in a circle around his base (dangerous against Zerg, as he'll eat it with Ovies and Mutas). Missile Turrets are expensive and, for this reason, not very effective, which means that as far as anti-air defense is concerned the Terrans are in pretty big trouble.

For the Battlecruiser you're going to need the Fusion Core -- the Terrans' most high tier structure. The problem is that your starship enters the world like a little babe, naked and defenseless. But all it takes is one upgrade at the Fusion Core [TN: blast, another untranslateable joke! This man clearly has too much fun at the expense of his international readership!] and you can immediately place on the ship any one of the three available upgrades: Defensive Matrix, Yamato, and Rockets. I've yet to try them. By the way, I had a go at Reapers. To make them truly effective you need to research TWO upgrades, and there's never enough resources and time for both, so the harsh choice will always be between D8 and Stimpacks. The bombs are effectful if not terribly effective. Throw them at a bunch of enemies and the bombs will be focus fired immediately and destroyed. Throw them at a bunch of workers -- they run way. Throw them at a building -- well, 8 bombs took a Spawning Pool down... to half. While the cooldown was still going (no energy cost for the bombs), the Reapers had to take off, as the Roaches showed up. They micro comfortably, but fight very poorly. They're super weak and blow up like pricked balloons. And you have to know when to build them, too, as plenty of maps don't take advantage of their cliff-hopping abilities at all. If between you and your enemy is some endless abyss, or there simply isn't any high-ground around the expo, the unit is pretty much useless.

Infantry versus Zerg. Again, honestly -- it's pretty effective, as long as the Zerg makes no Banelings. Banelings with upgrades punish infantry so hard it's scary. See, Inject Larvae really does spawn THAT MANY larva, and the Terran just doesn't have time to kill all of the Banelings as they roll on down to blow everyone up. Then again, without them, Zerglings, Roaches, and Hydras all together can't even put up a fight. Maybe Banelings will go down to more Marauders; I'm not sure. The problem lies elsewhere -- getting out the Medivacs for your infantry. This requires completely different techs. For Stimpacks (and JUST for Stimpacks!) you need a Merc Compound. For Shields -- a Tech Lab. For Medivacs -- a Factory, and then, a Starport. Anyone who tries this on only one expand has a death wish. It's a lot easier to start the game through mech, and if you're going to move into biomech, do that much later. Marauders are beasts, especially so because their attacks slow. Even the scouting Probe can't escape.

As for wall-building, it ought to be undertaken on a massive scale. This is absolutely not questionable. Most maps will allow a sound wall-in against Lings. A few will not, and this significantly impacts the flow of the game. Another important factor -- does the Planteray Fortress's attack range cover from your main to the entrance to your expand? [TN: not sure this is right...] This is a huge factor, because it will give you a lot more defensive options. In using Thors, bringing 5-6 SCVs into battle is absolutely essential. You can now set workers to auto-repair. Also, you can pre-emptively set this to workers at an expansion and they'll fix up any damaged units, buildings, etc, which is very convenient. [TN: is this a direct negation of WC3's worker priorities? It SOUNDS like he's pretty certain...] In whole, I've played the Terrans so far most of all, and they interest me the most of the 3 races... but they're not without their drawbacks.

One of them is the lack of any solid GtA. No one's turned up to replace our knight in shining armor, that's to say our Goliath. If you've got mass Factories and you run up against an air army, go ahead and write GG. Thors, Tanks, Hellions don't hit air. Marines aren't bad, but you need masses, and they need their upgrades. Plus, against Battlecruisers, Banshees, Carriers, Motherships, and plenty other clear and present dangers, they are completely useless. Reapers are expensive and ineffective, Marauders hit only the ground. Ghosts take a long time to produce and are ineffective as fighters. All that's left to hope is that you've got at least one Starport with a Reactor on top that'll pump you out a few sorely needed Vikings (for a Raven, you'd need a Tech Lab).

[pure.Wasted]

The second day we were allowed to play against live opponents. I played 6 games, and each time attempted different strats and builds. I'll attempt to write them out in as much detail as I can:

Terran vs. Zerg

Narrow ramp, yay! Started building a Barracks with a Supply and ordered an SCV to scout. Found the Zerg right away, he's rushing with an early Pool. Closed the exit, checked to make sure -- a fly wouldn't get through the cracks. The Zerglings gnawed on the Depot a bit and retreated. By now the Refinery was completed (I started teching right away), so I started the second right away. Then the Factory (on the second gas, not gathering right away with 3 SCVs), and went for Hellions while building a Starport. The first Hellion came out to harass, ran through a patch of brush, and this almost cost him his life. The Zerglings were lying in wait on the other side. I got him out and around, repaired him, and this time came out with 3 Hellions right away. Right then the Starport Reactor finished and I started simultaneously on 2 Vikings.

The Hellions chased the Lings back and found a Zerg expand defended by a Sunken. The Lings stood properly at the entrance so as to block passage into the main. Calling upon the spirit of UpMaGiC, I took my Hellions around the Sunken and packed them behind the expo mineral line. For the time being, this second expand was complely shut down. Attacking the blocked Hellions with Lings would have been even more foolish than if they'd been Vultures, because these guys are basically super-beefy Firebats. At this time two Vikings on rally were already flying above the Zerg base and with them I started Ovie-hunting. I killed two, sat down behind the minerals, wanted to kill some Drones -- but Hydras showed up and I had to turn and fly. By now I had my second expand and I started up the Armory.

I repaired the beat up Vikings, added another pair, and tried the trick again. I sat down behind the Minerals and started shooting up more Drones, which is something the Vikings do EXCEEDINGLY well. By this time, the Hellions at the second expand had already managed to burn down the Hatch while remaining out of range of all defenses, died to incoming Hydras, and barely witnessed the re-construction of another Hatch on top of the old one. The Vikings meanwhile were wreaking havoc. They hit for 14 damage with what seems like no cooldown. The incoming 5 Hydras, despite their range, were ground up into bloody pieces, as were the Zerglings. Only the Roaches seemed able to send my Vikings packing once more. My second expansion up and running, I just then got my first Thor. From the one Barracks came out Marauders, and from the Starport more Vikings. Started up the Ghost Academy and started up the Nuking upgrade [TN: I think he means he PURCHASED a Nuke].

I came out with the entire mass: 2 Thors, 3-4 Marauders, 5-6 Vikings, 2-3 Hellions, and a Ghost for good measure. I came up to the Zerg's Sunkens (about 3 or 4) and pointed the Nuke. I didn't even bother researching Cloak for the Ghost, because I planned to lob the Nuke right into the Zerg's face. The Nuke dropped, I came in and swept everything away nice and clean. Conclusion: good old classical build did not fail me! Vikings against the Zerg work wonders, getting past defenses does not require Tanks -- a Nuke will suffice. Hellions make for excellent harass, no worse than Vultures!


Terran vs. Zerg 2

The widest ramp imaginable. It's difficult to close off, if not impossible. I was very concerned about early Lings and for that reason started with 2 Barracks, in an attempt to get into Reapers after the pre-requisite 5-6 Marines. This was the BR3 map. Got into Reaper tech, simultaneously working on Factory and Hellions (and later a Starport). With this whole army came into battle. As between me and the Zerg there was a lot of empty space, the Reapers went mostly without any special treatment. Came up on the Zerg expand and found an army of Lings+Banelings+Roaches. I threw down all the Mines I could manage, but he picked each one off as it came out with no trouble. On an even-ground battle, the Reapers do nothing. I had to flee.

By now I got my first Medivac and started churning out infantry and expanding. The Zerg came around, attacked, and was successfully pushed back. I set down an Armory for Thors and got Stimpacks. Resources were running astronomically low. Another skirmish with the Zerg and I realize I'm economically suffocating. My infantry+Thors simply cannot stop Banelings... I need something else -- but what, I don't yet know. I guess that Tanks might help, and so plop out 3 and put up a hidden expand at a yellow mineral patch, in a lower corner of the map.

Now he comes at me with Muta! The only thing that can help now is Vikings or Turrets, but in the meantime I'm barely making by. But there's no real hope. No money, no critical mass army -- it builds and is summarily annihilated. I'm not being permitted to live at the yellow mineral expand, so I lift up to an island... I'll live there. I try to finish up some Factories, Barracks at an expo, and then the Zerg attacks. He's got Mutas in the air and just about everything else on the ground. The last Thor falls apart -- my first defeat at SC2 =). Right away it gets me to analyze, draw conclusions... I want to try something different.


Terran vs. Protoss

The same map with the same giant ramp. I'm starting to wall-up, then scowl and plop down a Bunker at the entrance instead. That'll be safer. Factory, Starport, drop three Hellions. Simultaneously getting a Tech Lab by the Factory. Racked up some good Probe kills, but the Hellions all die in the attempt, and the Medivac returns alone. Start an expansion, first tank, and Siege. At the same time I'm getting a Tech Lab on the Barracks and starting production of Marauders. I take the second expand comfortably under cover of Tanks, get an Armory, and start a second drop. This time 2 Marauders and a Tank. Marauders distract him at the main (he fights back with Stalkers, and I even kill one) while the Tank lands at his second.

A few minutes later, a mix of Thors, Tanks, Marauders and a pair of Medivacs come out looking for blood. Word of warning: look after your Medivacs. If you throw in 1-2, your Marauders will always be good as new. And if you take 5 SCVs along, too, so will your mech units. The Protoss already lost economically, so he loses the battle, too.


Terran vs. Terran

Played on the dueling map from BR2. Barracks+Supply at the entrance, early gas, for early tech. I closed down the entrance with a Tech Lab, which may be necessary if you're going for early Maraudres (a distinct possibility on many MUs). The Terran tried to place a Rax in my base, which I promptly burned down. The first marauders went on his base while I started a Factory. Marauders pushed his Marines into his main all the way onto the ramp, but past that ramp they couldn't go. Later I understood what I needed to do -- just build a nearby Engineering Bay, lift it up for sight, and destroy the Supplies with Marauders from below. Infantry can't do anything in this situation and Tanks come out much later. Thinking with my other brain, I left my Marauders sitting around the enemy base doing absolutely nothing.

Back home the Starport had finished up, so I started a second CC at an expansion. An add-on to the Factory, Armory, Ghost Academy. A productive Hellion drop into his base revealed Starports and plenty of infantry. Cloak, Nukes, I run my invisible Ghost past his expand right into his main. Pin-point the Nuke... and in one fell swoop his entire economy is kaput. Is the red dot really that difficult to spot? I gather my forces and confidently start the advance on his base. When I'm just about halfway across the map I notice he's got his own drop of infantry plowing through my base. Here I found another drawback of the Terrans, perfectly translated from the original game: they are SLOW. I was cursing the entire way back to my main, and by the time I got back I'd lost plenty of plenty. Luckily, he wasn't aiming too well.

Maybe the beta doesn't have these settings, but here, units kept to the speed of the slowest in the group. Who is that? The Thor, of course. I assume it will be possible to turn off later, just like in WC3, but at the moment it's very difficult to get somewhere in time to save anything. I can only imagine how the Zerg will punish Terrans with the mobility afforded by Nydus Worms. The only speedy counter the Terrans will have will be Vikings and Ravens. Worse comes to worst you can always use your Medivacs to ferry infantry. You can't pick them all up, of course, but it's better than the alternative. [Confusing passage about units loading into Medivacs.] If you lose a Medivac carrying a Thor, the Thor blows up, too. This makes sense, of course, but is very unfortunate... but, anyway. Thankfully this drop was too little too late and the opponent was soundly thrashed.


Zerg vs. Protoss

I decided to spice things up and played Random. I got Zerg. I remembered my earlier game against a Computer, where I went one Hatch to fast-Muta (though it was against Terran, not Protoss!). So that's what I did. My Zerglings ran freely around his base, attempting to kill off his workers as usual. This is now very awkward and unfamiliar -- everything is so smooth, nothing gets stuck on anything and doesn't slow down. Zealots chase down Lings, workers escape... buut the Lings escape, too. At this time a few Zealots make their way to my base and, spending my Larva a bit impractically, I lose a few workers. I make, in my main, an absolutely unnecessary second Hatch, and more Lings.

We continue to go back and forth for some time, but the Zealots eventually overpower my Zerglings, and the Toss's economy is more robust. Big fat lose. The Zerg needs a thought-out, worked-out build. You can't "just play" -- you have to know what to do, and when, and how. I think that against Protoss the standard expand will be necessary, and maybe a later Queen. That's not quite as critical here. But defending with Sunkens against Zealots, instead of with Zerglings, may be necessary... losing Lings hurts too much. You have to keep building your economy, after all. Take an expand, Sunken up with some Lings, and only then you can do whatever you like. Either the Roach tech or the Muta tech or just mass hydras. With one expand it's all very impractical, Inject Larvae or otherwise. But maybe I'm not entirely right. After all, Ovies provide an excellent opportunity to rush! Just stubbornly mass Lings, get an Overlord to plop down some Creep outside of the Toss's base, and start up a few Sunkens! Or start somewhere nearby on some pre-formed creep. And then with heavy Ling support, throttle the Protoss under the weight of encroaching Sunkens! Yep, StarCraft 2 turns everything on its head.


Protoss vs. Protoss

Decided to try an experimental strat. I walled-in my entrance with Zealost, built one Stalker and gung-ho'ed all the way into two Stargates. The first unit to come out is the Void Ray, which goes to harass the economy of the Toss who is at this moment attempting to break down my blockade. Meanwhile I'm making Phoenixes, the Void Ray is massacaring his workers, and my line of Lots is just about to go down... With a little micro, I lose 5 Probes and a Gateway. Two Phoenixes help tremendously. One Phoenix is almost completely useless, as he can only pick a unit up, but two, that's a force to be recknoed with. One lifts, the other pummels. Later, when the first runs out of mana, the second starts to do the heavy lifting. Slowly but surely I beat him back, while the Void Ray racked up a kill count of 28, just flying back-and-forth through his base, killing Probes, then the Assimilator, then a Photon Cannon, then a Stalker, and so on and so forth.

Then the Toss came at my gate again, and beating him back was difficult, especially as he closed me off with Photon Cannons and started making Stalkers. Little by little I teched over to Carriers (even with one expand this is possible), beat back with Phoenixes a large Stalker attack, and used them to crush his economy completely. Lift a Probe, destroy the Probe. Rinse, repeat. Carriers changed the course of the match, and they're still just as tough.





SLOW REAVER'S impressions:

[Blah blah blah, translating Russian is a pain.]

I played more than a few games and devised a few Toss builds: [TN: note, this is all vs. Computer on first day.]
1 and the most effective -- 2 gate Zealot push. It's pretty simple -- 9 Pylon, 11 Gateway, Zealot, Pylon, Zealot, Gate, attack =) Tech in this build is pretty late (I had something like 8-10 Zealots when I started my gas) but it makes up for it by handily pressuring Zerg and Protoss (Terran walls, unfortunately, are not breached).
2 much better against Terran, and decent against Protoss -- 9 Pylon, 11 Gate, Zealot, Pylon, Zealot, Gas, Cybernetics (150 Minerals now), Zealot, Gate, Stalkers. Zealots are plenty enough to deal with Marauders, and Stalkers take care of Marines no problem.

A blurb on new features:
1. Protoss Warp Gate -- a great addition, in my eyes, which makes normal Gates completely obsolete. Costs a measely 50/50 at a Cybernetics Core to upgrade, and the Core won't be doing anything else useful in the early-game anyway.
2. Idle Gate button -- if a Gate isn't doing anything, or a Warp Gate's cooldown is up, on the right hand side an icon appears alerting you to the quantity of idle Gates. Unfortunately I didn't notice if it did the same for other production buildings.
3. Dark Pylon -- a pretty convenient thing. Recharging shields is pretty much useless as armies are highly mobile and rarely fight in the base (and in those cases, everything tends to die very quickly -- either for one side or the other). But the Probe buff... well, that's highly usable. As there's a lot of freed up control groups, I set the DP to 5, and the expansion's DP to 7.
4. Warp Prism, or should I say Portable Base Where Your Opponent's Main Should Be (: -- despite the fact that the pylon-radius it provides is very small, even four Warp Gates activated will make putting pressure on your opponent very easy.
5. Dark Templar -- complete and total disappointment. They're pushed to the last tier (Twilight Obelisk, which they require, can only be built after Templar Archives and Twilight Council (pre-req for Archives)). As they appear VERY late, they do VERY little... Marines by now have had their HP upgrade for a very long time and now take two hits to kill (not counting upgrades). Drones die much faster to 1-2 Colossi, SCVs also take two hits to kill... in all, I couldn't find anything to do with them.
6. Colossus, aka new Reaver -- takes a VERY long time to build, but he's worth it... as he doesn't wait before attacking, combining him with a Warp Prism makes him into a Weapon of Mass Destruction. If there's no anti-air to combat this threat, then you might as well have no army at all. Two clicks (unload, load) means one very powerful blast which hits at minimum two units for, just about, half of their HP (tested on Marauders, Roaches, and Lings). I once used a Colossus and Prism to take down a pack and a half of Zerg ground units.

Unfortunately, I just didn't have the time to test out all units. Usually the game didn't get past Stalkers, or, max, Warp Prisms.







And that covers everything up to and including Adolf's page 2 comments (which offer nothing new). I hope I didn't screw anything up terribly... I might give it another look-over tomorrow to fix up bad grammar and such. Thinking in both languages simultaneously seems to neuter my ability to speedily tell when the grammar is way off. Well, at least past midnight it does.

Mods are welcome to combine all of this into as few posts as works best, or whatever else suits your fancy. If there's any questions or anything was unclear, ask away and I'll double check!

[RamiZ]

Great Translations Pure.Wasted! Keep going man, and thanks a lot

[spychi]

um, the AI was very hard at BlizzCon 09 build, on normal difficulty it was like I was playing with a real good player, so I don't know on what experience the based their claims

[Kimera757]

All your translations should be added to the front page article. I was just reading the exact same thing at another forum.

[sandwich_bird]

Cool, tux pure.

I like the fact that Terrans can A move with the thor. I think that tanks will now be more used in tvz than tvp but we'll see. I'm a bit worried about the stalkers though. They sound imba the way he describe them. Knowing that terrans have the most expensive defense (bunker + marines), it will be so annoyig to take back some of your troops to defend while the p keep harassing with stalkers.

[Extranjero]

Major props on the translation!

[Norfindel]

Excellent! Thank's pure.Wasted!!

I seen the comment on the Stalker, and i'm not convinced of it's role vs everything early game. The Dragoon used to be a lot less effective vs light targets, and that was an interesting tradeoff in Dragoon/Zealot build.

This is false, there's a key, that let's you build all select larva or production buildings with 1 key press. I can't recall where I read it from though, but I do remember clearly it was stated somewhere.

He's a little confused. First, the 5, 6, 7 keys aren't required anymore, as you can select all your Hatcheries in one group, then just press H. Also, i did the math several times, and the amount of keypresses is nearly the same:

BW: (hatch hotkey + s + h) for every 3 hydras.
SC2: all hatches hotkey + s + [h once for every hydra]

There's a 2 key difference. In BW, it's one keypress per hydra, and in SC2 it's one keypress per hydra + 2 extra keys that you press only once, and that's assuming you have one hotkey per hatchery.

[RamiZ]

From the article, I see that Overlords now can Drop Creep without Lair upgrade, or maybe it is just a mistake? Cause it will be way too powerful...