Here's some posts from the SC Forums that for some unknown reason i thought
ya'll might find useful/interesting.

Info about the Zerg (from a beta tester) By Weblar

Well, after playing since Monday, I've finally decided that my favorite race is the Zerg, for a number of reasons.

(1) The Zerg have a great early scouting advantage with the Overlords. You start with one at the beginning, and need another real soon (if you are creating the right number of drones), so you can find the other players in a matter of minutes -- usually before they even have their gas extractors built. Also, I love having mobile "farms" so my bases aren't cluttered.

(2) Since all the Zerg units mutate from the larve of a hatchery, you don't need to have "unit buildings" at every outpost to quickly get units to the front lines. For example, in my last battle I had one main base and three outposts. All the buildings needed for the better units were built, and kept well defended, at my main base. The outposts, which were closer to the front line, could then pump out units and quickly get them into battle with rally points (a feature I'm quickly falling in love with). Of course, if my oponents had breached my main base, I would have quickly been in trouble, but it was the risk I took. (I actually built two Ultralisk Caverns at different bases just in case one was breached. Can't lose my favorite ground unit, ya know.)

(3) Another plus of the larve is the ability to build units in parallel from the same building. The other races have unit queues, but only one is built at a time, unless you have multiple "unit" buildings. With the Zerg, if you have enough resources, you can highlight up to three larve and have them all "growing" at the same time -- very helpful in the midgame when you need to replenish your base defense during/after a raid on an enemy base.

(4) The Zerg require a different strategy in building, which is refreshing. Since the Zerg drones actually mutate into the buildings, you have to think ahead when you want a building. Unless you have surplus drones, you must first mutate a larve into a drone, and then mutate the drone into the building. Once the building is done, you need another drone to make another building, unlike the other races which can queue their peons to build multiple buildings. Afterwards you find yourself with one less drone, so you really need to think ahead.

(5) The Zerg have the early game advantage if they can catch their enemies off guard. Frankly I don't rush with Zerglings early in the game because I'm not all that good of a rusher. :)

Personally I don't think the Zerg are unbalanced, as some testers claim. If you see an Overlord hovering over your base, you should start rallying a defense. If the other races can survive the early Zerg advantage, they can beat back the Zerg in the mid-late game. Granted, I'm no expert RTS player (and by far not the best Zerg player; I've lost twice as many full games as I've won.) so these are just my opinions. I'm learning new things daily, and welcome new strategies or challenges.

Since I'm sure someone will ask, my favorite unit is the Ultralisk. I don't know how it compares expense-wise to the other "big" units (300 crystal, 200 gas, 4 supply, I think), but I know one Ultralisk is the equal of one Archon (in melee, at least), and I haven't tested Ultralisk v. Goliath or Seige Tank. I find that they are great front line units, as they can take quite a beating while Hydralisks and Mutalisks attack the distracted air units. Hrm, I need to experiment to see how many Mutalisks are needed to take out a Carrier or Battlecruiser. I think I'll try to test that tonight.

Well, these are my thoughts. I welcome any intelligent responses, questions, comments, and flames. :)
Weblar of Zerg

Remarks from Pat N. (Blizzard)

Weblar, When you're testing out the Mutalisk against Carriers and Battlecruisers, also try out the Scourges -- a pack of them work great against enemy air forces! Pat N.

Rushing, new patch, et al by Jeffrey Vaughn (Blizzard)

There's a new patch up for the beta; you can get it automatically from Battle.net or at http://www.battle.net/patches/betapatch4.exe

Among other things, the patch increases the build time for the Zerg Spawning Pool (the building that allows Zergling to be produced) and Zergling to make them roughly equal to the time it takes the Terrans to build a Barracks/Marine.

I'd like to take a moment to clarify "rushing", since there's been quite a lot of discussion on it today. There are two basic types of "cheese" rushing: the "Grunt rush" and "Tank rush", and they are distinctly different.

The Grunt rush is when a player starts out by building up military units at the cost of worker units (ie building a Barracks instead of a Town Hall in Warcraft II.) While this strategy normally only works in 1 on 1 games, since it leaves the rusher without any economy, it is quite devastating and makes for a quick, brutal, BORING game. The "Town Hall First" rule is a simple solution, and it's built into Starcraft.

In any RTS game, the player who advances quickly through the tech tree and builds/expands faster will have an advantage. That's a huge part of the game, and that isn't going to change. The key is to make sure that there isn't a Grunt rush-type strategy that will ALWAYS win a two-player game. Previous to this patch, the Zerg were able to build a large, powerful force of combat units before either of the other species, and this essentially gave ANY Zerg player an advantage. Increasing the build time of the Pool and Zergling should equalize things, so that it requires -proper management- to beat your opponent to the punch.

The other cheese rush, the Tank rush, is when a player can win a game with two units-- their worker, and one combat unit. Strategy means nothing-- whoever builds up to the superunit first stands the best chance of winning. Once the player reaches a certain point in the game's tech tree, they don't need to advance any more.

We're taking great pains to give every unit certain advantages and disadvantages, so that building one type of unit exclusively will lead to defeat. This is quite possibly the most difficult part of play balancing, especially with three distinct sides, and you can expect to see a lot of minor (and major) changes over the course of the beta test. Lowering the Goliath's ground attack is one change, and we're looking at making air units more effective (but not so effective that ground units become useless!)

I've been trying to post fairly often on this forum to foster discussion among the beta testers about valid (and cheese) strategies. I will try to continue posting, explaining new changes and the reasoning behind the changes, but I do have other tasks at hand (like the Protoss page ;) so I must leave it up to you, the beta testers, and our other fans, to keep the discussions running. (And civil, please.)

Bunkers By Jeffrey Vaughn (Blizzard)

On Thu Jan 8 10:00 AM, ImageDemon wrote: What does the bunker do and are there any improvements on them availiable??? I understand Missle Turret can only attack air units. I guess the damage the bunker do on ground units is not noticable. An SCV attacked my bunker and destroyed it.. What can I do to avoid this?

You need to put soldiers inside the Bunker. ;) Usually, three Marines and a Firebat is a great combination-- the Marines provide ranged firepower, while the Firebat can evaporate any close combat units that attack the Bunker.

What is with the bloody broodling spell? By ScottM (Blizzard)

On Mon Jan 12 13:39 PM, Wild Hunt wrote: I've read that it only affects living units. But I've been told twice that it also affects: Battlecruisers, Mechs, Dragoons. Why does it affect those of all things? And don't tell me it affects the crews in the ships because the loss of a pilot does not constitute the explosion of a 50 ton mech.

Wild Hunt

It doesn't affect flying units at all (so no battlecruiser broodlings), but it does affect:

All Terran Infantry All Zerg Ground Units Terran Goliaths Terran Siege Tanks Terran Vultures

Protoss Zealots Protoss Dragoons Protoss Templars Prooss Archons

The "pure" Protoss robotic units like the Probe or Reaver are not affected.

ScottM Blizzard Technical Support

Tactical Groups in StarCraft? By Pat N. (Blizzard)

On Mon Jan 12 1:41 AM, Jaime wrote: Does StarCraft have ways of assigning groups into a tactical squad similar to that of Dark Reign? Jaime

Jaime, If you have a group of units selected (you may select up to twelve units in a group), you can hold down the CTRL key then hit a number from 0 to 9. That group of units is now linked to that number key -- hitting the key will reselect those units and hitting it again will center the screen on them. This CTRL grouping can also be done on buildings, which can be useful to check on your production queues, or to quickly get to your ComSat station.

Regards, Pat N.

Rant time. Read at your own risk.

Hey all.

After a very intense "discussion" last night in one of the Beta channels (which I would not have been able to keep up with, had I not been a mudder in my college years. 12 conversations at once...), and after coming in this morning and reading the night's posts, I felt I'd use one of my alotted(sp?) posts this hour to do a little rant. Before I begin, let me put up a disclaimer.

DISCLAIMER: Yes, I am a beta tester. Yes, I have played RTS games before. No, I'm not an expert RTS player, I just like them and play them alot. Yes, I lose more times than I win. Yes, I love playing as the Zerg, but no, I don't rush (I'm terrible at rushing anyway). Yes, I'm male and I'm 23. Yes, I do make spelling and grammatical errors, but I can't help that; I'm from Louisiana. There. I hope that covered all the bases that people whine/flame about. :)

Now sit back, relax, grab a Coke, and read my rant. :) I'll try my bestest to keep it organized.

(1) Balancing things out. Okay. We all want things to balance out so that no one race has the upper hand. But do we want this to happen at the expense of some races having advantages? I have a prediction (and it's only a prediction, so it's my opinion, i.o.w. don't flame it as fact) of what's going to happen.

"Okay, the Protoss are way to strong, let's weaken them a bit."
"Hrm, you know the Zerg can rush real early, let's make them slower."
"Gee wiz, that Protoss mind control is terribly strong, let's kill it."
"Oh, man! Those Seige tank rushes are the worst! Let's make them equal in strength to lower units of other races."
"Hrm, you know, it's getting hard to balance three races, let's drop the Protoss, and just have two."
"Man, those Zerg and Terrans are so different, let's make each unit a perfect complement of the other."
"You know, those Zerg could be considered 'Orcs'..."
"Heck, let's just call it WarCraft3."

Please note the heavy sarcasm in the above quotes.

Look. Each race has a strength that the other two races whine about. That's why it is called a "strength." Every race also has weaknesses that are only whined about by the race players, and exploited by the other races. What is the problem here? Every race needs to have strengths and weaknesses, or the three races will be identical, and we don't want that. We (and I include myself when I say "we") need to come to grips with our race's weaknesses and use strategy to overcome them. The simple fact is that you cannot (or it is harder) to use the enemies tactics back in their face. Stopping the Zerg brute force numbers with brute force numbers is hard for the Protoss to do. Stopping the Terran's great ground force is hard to do with just a Zerg ground force. Stopping the Protoss's air attack with the Terran's weaker air units is a chore. Blizzard set up a huge game of Paper-Rock-Scissors, we all (and once again, I include me) need to learn how to strategically stop these attacks (I get pelted alot when I play the Zerg).

It is obvious that there is no fully superior race. In WarCraft2, alot of people played Orcs because of the blood-lusted Orge attack. If the Zerg are so powerful, why don't I see every player and their little brother playing as the Zerg? Okay, it may be because people think they are disgusting, and prefer the other roles, but when I'm on the chat, I constantly hear things to the order of "The Protoss are too strong," "The Zerg are too strong," "The Terrans are too strong." They are right. They are "too strong" in certain areas. They are also too weak in certain areas, but noone complains about weaknesses except the guys (and gals) that play that race.

Frankly put, the races have three different "roles/strategies." Right now (since we are still beta testing) these may not be totally fulfilled.

Zerg: malicious Overmind. Wants to assimilate the universe. Very agressive, attacks in numbers.

Protoss: ancient, intellectual race. Superior technology. Strong, devoted army.

Terran: rough and ready. Forced to make it on their own. Hardy, tough to conquer, people.

Now, I will admit that these roles are not fully in place in the beta. Personally, the Protoss are lacking in the "spell" department compared to the Zerg. I think that, not only should a toned down mind control be put back in, I think they need more, or more powerful, abilities. They are the intellectual psi race. I think if they can get more "spell" power EARLIER in the game, they can use that against the Zerg numbers. Heck, give the Zealots some kind of "spell." The marines have stim packs, and the zeglings can burrow. Give the Zealots something. I would also not be opposed to making those photon cannons cheaper or quicker to make, since they are the main base defense. I've also heard a great recommendation of making them stronger against smaller units, or giving them splash damage. I'm also not against making the Zealots cost a tad bit less... maybe 75 crystals.

Hey, just out of curiousity, are you Protoss guys pressing your advantage in that probes can start a building and walk away? I hope you guys realize that. You never have to drop your production cycle. :)

And please DON'T remove that ability, Blizzard. It is nearly equivalent to the Zerg "parallel" unit making. Maybe the Terrans need a counterpart....

My main concern is that too much is going to be taken out of this game so that when it goes public, the people not in the beta test aren't going to get the game they were expecting. Sure, some things still need to be toned down.

Wheh, that section was longer than I thought it would get. Please, someone respond. Correct me, discuss with me.

(2) Rushing. Okay, now, as I said above, I am not an expert rusher, so I really cannot comment much here. The Zerg are good at the early game rush, the Terrans good at the mid game rush (Seige tank + Goliath), and the Protoss are good at the end game rush (Archons + Cruisers). It all has to do with the players doing the rush, and the players defending the rush, and how good each is. Frankly, in both scenerios, I'd lose rather quick. :)

(3) Map size/style. You know, one of the main problems right now is that the four original maps catered to the Zerg play style. They are all smaller, land based fights, which the Zerg excel at. Has anyone tried the two new maps? Let me give you a preview:

Two Rivers: This map is 256x256. We are talking HUGE. I think that the Protoss and Terrans would have an easier time on this map, since it takes SO LONG for the Zerg to find them. Great map for long games.

Dire Straights: This map is 128x128, but it is an island based map. This was a really fun map to play as the Zerg with, because it forces you to think differently. I played against my friend who used the Terrans, and boy, was it an interesting battle of tactics.

Frankly, the first four maps are Zerg-friendly. They aren't big enough for the Protoss to press their end game advantage. I think I'll make another post about this, just to let more people see it.

Well, this has taken me a half hour to type. I'll let you guys start picking away at it. (once i proofread it, of course.)

Yours truly, Weblar of Zerg

Re: burrowing and the Zerg

On Mon Jan 26 20:49 PM Smoke wrote: Any cloak detection can see burrowed zerg. If you can see them you can attack them. Therefore:

1. Scouting and Recon is a major part of Starcraft. YAY!!! This will make the game much more strategic than it's competitors I think.

2. Cloak detection units are MAJOR targets. If you have alot of zerg that need burrowing or a lot of cloaked units in the area you may want to take out the detectors BEFORE you take out the fighters.

3. Don't forget zerg still regenerate when burrowed. This makes them extremely hard to wipe out.

4. It is a disadvantage that they can't run but if your visible why not shoot instead of running. zerg have the advantage because even though they have about 2wice as many units that can cloak without help. And it doesn't require power like the terran cloak.

Just some thoughts for ya

SMoke (CWAL) <*^*>

Build Order

you know how all those strategies and tips that everyone give you tell you to build like 8scvs aSAP before EVERYThing else. This strategy works with great success for me. What I do is make sure I have a good defense and I ALWAYS wait out and ward off the enemies first attack(not necesarily a rush)and then I find it suitable to gear towards offense. Here it is:

1. use your 50 starting minerals to immidiately build a peon and send your 4 starting peons to mine minerals.
2. when your peon is done training send him right away to mine minerals. Then as soon as you get 150 minerals, send a peon out to build a barracks ( if you are protoss as soon as you get 100 minerals, build a pylon of course first and a barracks ASAP )
3. While the barracks is being made, make another peon ,and send him working at minerals.
4. When your barracks is finished, make another barracks ( BTW, you shouldn't need to wait any time to have the required minerals for the buildings )
5. with the second barracks finished. make a farm, and then another, and another and so forth, but while doing this CONTINUALLY make lots of workers now sending them into minerals. when you have lots(enough) peons, continually make a sufficient amount of farms.
6. not start making lots marines/zealots/zerglings/ using both of the barracks, and while doing this start gathering gas. Its also a good idea if you are terran to make some bunkers.
7. Now just make a good defense and keep creating warriors and you should DEfinetly be able to ward off any first attack EVEN rushes, if done corectly.

GOOD LUCK =)
Protoss01

You may also want to try:
Red Crosses Strategy guide at GameSpot - Online strat guide
Why the Protoss don't suck (Parts I & II) - Insight by Blizzard's Jeffrey Vaughn
General Strats and Analogies of SC by Blacklizard ( #1 player in Beta Ladder System )
Unique Name Account System - Info on the new account system