Leveling Down

I’m quite familiar with this loading screen nowadays…

I’ve definitely been missing in action on Live for the last week or two, and that’s because I’ve put in nearly 60 games in Starcraft 2′s 3v3. Ever since the 3v3 and 4v4 options opened up in the Starcraft 2 beta, I’ve been firing up Starcraft 2 practically every night and having a great time. All my fears of not loving this game have been squashed. When I can play on the same single 3v3 map over 50 times and not get bored of it, the game must be doing something right. I’m also glad to see more of you guys playing these days, and while I’m far from an amazing player, I have some general tips that can probably help those of you that are newer to the game or need a refresher. These are more from a 3v3 perspective, as opposed to 1v1 or 2v2 so if you enjoy this mode, read on!

Have a Gameplan, But Be Prepared to Change It
When you start a match, you should already have an idea what you want to do based on what units you are skilled with, what strategy  you feel is effective, and what you expect your opponents to do (if you know their races). However, one trap that can sink players is going one direction, and even after the opponents see your direction, to continue going in that direction because you’ve already “committed” to it. Sometimes, this is OK if you can make so many of that unit that even if the opponent tries to make counter units, they have to make an obscene number of units to counter your 2 hotkeys of mutalisks. But the point is, the moment your opponents see your army, the smarter ones will build counters for it, and therefore you should be a little more flexible in thinking what you should be switching to if you believe it fails. This leads me to my next tip…

Scout, Scout, Scout
Starcraft 2, like the first game, is a game of counters. In order for you to beat your opponent, you need to know what your opponent is doing. If the opponent is massing ground units that can’t attack air, why not make air to beat his units? If the opponent decides to early expand at the beginning of the game, why not counter that with a rush? If you don’t scout, you won’t know what the opponent is doing and therefore will be building blindly on what you want to do.  Sometimes building blindly works, but it’s even better to know what your opponent is doing. One of the major things that differentiates lower level players from better ones is how often you scout. It’s not difficult either – just remember to send a worker to the opponents’ bases every once in a while. Sneakier players will hide buildings/units that they want to make (building them away from their main base) so that you can’t see what they’re doing. If you’re Zerg, you have tons of flying overlords and should be able to scout with them practically all the time. I myself forget to scout at times too, but we have to remember that scouting isn’t just a part of the early game – it should be all game long.

Always Scout About a Minute or Two into a Game
Scouting immediately is too soon, as you want to give your opponents time to build a couple buildings. From here, you can see if an opponent is making two barracks/gateways, going one or two gas early, cannons early, etc. All of this information allows you to make a decision with which to handle the early game. Two unit producers? Expect a rush. Defensive structures? Attack the partners since he can’t do anything to help. Early gas? Rush him. All about rock paper scissors!

Expand at the Right Time
Know when to expand. In early game 3v3, you should always attack early just to see what kind of resistance the opponents have. If you can win the match outright, just win it. But if you cannot cripple your opponents enough that pouring additional basic units into their base to win (say they cannon up like crazy or something), then your only other option is to expand. Keep in mind that to expand basically means you are investing hundreds of minerals that you could have used for more early game units. This expansion is an investment and you plan to go into the midgame with it. Ideally, you should always be pumping workers from your main so that when your expansion goes up, you can just send half your workers from your main to the expansion.

Align Your Timing With Your Teammates
To win team games, one of my best pieces of advice is to make sure that all of your teammates are on board to either attack early game, mid game, or late game. If two of you are building to rush in the early game, but the third player is teching to be strong in the mid game, both your early game and your mid game will be weaker than they could be since you won’t have all 3 players available. If your opponents can hold off the 2-person rush since they have 3 armies, guess what – that means they will counter and attack your base with 3 players’ worth of early game units to 2. If all of you want to tech, then it’s time to throw down defensive structures and turtle up so that mid-game, all three of you come out swinging with mid-game units together.

Align Your Units With Your Teammates
When playing 1v1, it’s rare for a player to mass any one type of unit. Not only is this because one type of unit is more easily counterable, but there is synergy in unit types working together. It’s silly for all three players to mass ranged ground units, for example. You ideally want all units on your side attacking the enemy. If all three players have ground ranged units, they may be struggling to move forward to attack the opposing team, etc. Well, I guess it depends on the map – but ideally, at least one player on your team should make air. I would even go so far as to argue that all three players make air (depending on the situation) due to the fact that units can stack in the air while they can’t on the ground. My point is though, to coordinate. Also, make sure you research upgrades for your units – they make a difference. Throw down two research buildings so that you can upgrade attack and defense for your units at the same time!

Personally, I love the Carrier + Hydralisk combo. If a player can mass Carriers, there are very few units that the other players can build to counter them – and those air units (Void Rays, Battlecruisers, Corrupters) will fall to mass Hydralisks if you just keep the Hydralisks below the Carriers.

Stick with Your Teammates
I’ve played in some matches where we’ve lost purely because all three members of our team don’t stick together. Had all three of us been together, our “aligned” units would have slaughtered whatever the opposing team had. Instead, our air units were in one area, our ground units were in another, and the opponents had their anti-air units destroy everything we had in the air. Had our ground units been with the air units, we would have won the match. Poor coordination can end a match unfavorably for your side.

Learn the units and counters
For those players sticking with one race, I honestly don’t think it makes the game much easier for you because you have to learn every unit in the game anyway since you need to learn how to deal with them. If you know how to mass hydralisks but don’t know what a Terran Banshee is capable of, you’ll still be in trouble. (Terran Banshee is the helicopter like unit that can cloak, but can only attack ground).

Learn What Buildings & Units Can Detect Cloaked
For Protoss, cannons will detect cloaked, but you will need to make Observers if you want a cloaked unit detector. Zerg can build Spore Crawlers, which are anti-air defensive structures that have detection, and Zerg can also upgrade Overlords to Overseers at Lair level to gain a unit detector. Terran has the most detection, with their missile turret, the ability to scan with their main, and finally an air unit called the Raven.

Don’t Let the Wall-In Lure you into a False Sense of Security
I’ve played some matches where players think that by walling in, they are enforcing some sort of 15 minute no-rush rule. This is far from the case. The wall-in is supposed to really only be to prevent the initial Zergling rush if it lacks bunkers and cannons. As the waller, you should still be making units. I’ve played against players that wall-in, make a few tier-1 units, and then tech away. Well guess what – my six zealots will break that supply depot relatively quickly and still get into your mineral line. Also, Terran players sometimes will rush Reapers, allowing them to jump right over your walls/ledges and destroy your workers. This leads me to my next tip…

Place cannons/defense at your main
You don’t need to start cannoning right away (cannoning right away in 3v3 simply tells your opponents to attack one of your two partners with their three armies), but once the initial opportunity of an early rush has subsided, try to have at least two defensive structures at your main. This is because after the initial early rush (or lack of one), you can expect more powerful faster units – and they will go after your workers. This includes Reapers, Hellions, Stalkers with Blink, Dark Templars, and Mutalisks. I have lost a couple games now due to a Dark Templar rush, but if I simply had detection at my main, that wouldn’t have been a problem.

General Race Tendencies for 3v3
Here is generally what I’ve seen from each race in all my 3v3 games. Consider these and the counters to them when you decide on what units you want to build. And of course, scout to confirm!

Zerg
Zerg almost always opens with zerglings. They can get 6 Zerglings before any other race can make more than 1-2 units, and while 2 Protoss Zealots can handle 6 Zerglings early on, 2 Terran Marines cannot so they wall in. After the initial “mini rush”, Zerg players will generally either mass a lot more Zerglings, or move to Hydras or Mutalisks. End game is generally mass Hydras or mass Zerglings with the tier 3 upgrade and potentially Ultralisks thrown in. Against Zerg, determine whether they are massing Zerglings, Hydras, or Mutalisks and build the counters accordingly.

Protoss
Protoss players will either open with 1 Gateway, 2 Gateways. Most Protoss players will cannon up defensively and tech straight to Void Rays. More than 50% of the time I’ve played against a Protoss player in 3v3, he’ll generally rush to and mass Void Rays. The remaining 50% of the time, the Protoss player will go mass Stalkers 30%, mass Dark Templars 10%, and mass Carriers 10%. If you rush early, avoid the Protoss if you can tell he is teching because his base will be well defended with Cannons.

Terran
Terran always wall in so they basically never rush. They will always tech to something. But unlike the Zerg and Protoss players, I’ve seen Terran players explore many more different options. Terran won’t rush with marines. Instead, they’ll wall in, get gas early, and mass Reapers or Hellions and then rush your mineral line once they get a sizeable amount. If the Terran player doesn’t feel like rushing, he will generally mass Marines, Marauders, and Medivacs against Zerg. Against Protoss, Terran will mass Marauders. I don’t see Siege Tanks very often, but I do see basically every other Terran unit in mass. The more popular mass unit I see Terran players make is massing Thors. Those things are monstrous Goliath replacements, and seem more popular as Terran’s endgame unit than the Battlecruiser. I do see Battlecruisers massed once in a while, but more often, I see Terran players massing either Banshees or Vikings. Banshees are cloaked and ground only, whereas Vikings are air-to-air but can transform to ground mechs for ground-to-ground combat. Oh – and once in a while a Terran player will make Ghosts with Nuke. But as you can see, Terran seems to be less easier to figure out than the other races, so it’s very important to scout them throughout the game.

That’s All For Now!
I think I’ve exhausted my list of general tips for you guys. At some point later I may start diving into more specific tips and race-specific strategies, but with this phase of the beta coming to a close this coming Monday, I may have to wait a bit on that writeup. Have fun enjoying the last weekend of the Starcraft 2 beta before we get to try it one more time closer to release!

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