what is about proxy barracks? serral, rogue and other top zergs was losing many games even when they find barracks and build spines, maybe we should also look at that strat? i think that proxy barracks are even more simplier than cannon rush
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You know, that’s a great point. What’s one of the number 1 facts of SC 2 life and a world renowned meme? “Proxy rax pretty good strat. Don’t think I’ve ever seen it lose against Zerg and I’ve been casting for 20 years.”
It’s like the can’t see the forest for the trees expression, to some degree. There’s all of this massive imbalance that people just view as “that’s just SC 2” or they completely miss it, yet they do stuff like nerf upgrade time for air weapons for Toss. To this day, not a single person understands why that happened or what the issue was in the first place.
You gotta have the blinders on to miss some of this stuff. If your job is balancing a game, how about start with the most egregious and community agreed upon imbalances. If 100% of the people in the world can tell you the infestor is imbalanced, odds are it needs more than a “1 damage nerf” to become balanced.
We need to start using more common sense and less “this is just how we do things around here mentality.” Cause it’s looking a lot more like a clown fiesta than a serious game with professional people behind it.
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well besides being the most fun unit to use, disruptors are siege breakers (batteries mean nothing) and they ignore upgrades/composition issues, which I like in PvP because when two big ground armies clash, one upgrade or a few of the wrong unit (e.g. too many archons) or a slightly worse concave and you lose that battle; there is micro there but mashing two big groups of immortal/archon/zealot/stalker feels a little bit a-move to me. Blinking around and shooting novas is rewarding, and I like to punish turtlers who think 10 batteries will keep them safe while they take a greedy Nexus. Back to cannon rush for a second tho; you’re supposed to send four probes per cannon; cannon rusher loses 25 minerals on cancelling; each probe mines 5 minerals per trip…I have to believe cancelling a cannon after four probes attack it for a while massively favors the cannon rusher
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Yeah, it’s definitely not magic why the cannon rushers rarely ever lose. It’s a rigged deal, through and through. Lose/lose proposition for the defender.
I watched the printf vs themouszero showmatch thing. Two cannon rushers. Themouszero tried to open with a 13 gateway in two of the games. The only two games he lost were the ones he didn’t go forge first.
It’s just funny watching the “cannon gurus” struggle so freaking bad when they have to play “normally,” and then it’s extra comedy when you see them in some group think together trying to figure out “hey… how do we beat this strategy without opening forge? Stumps me…”
Then, you gotta hear from bozo on the forum trying to tell you there’s a dozen ways to counter it. Gotta go the entire existence of SC 2 without hearing a peep from the balance team about it.
It’s just like… I’ve heard of the blind leading the blind… But, we rounded up all of the blind people and have had them try to lead those with 20/20 vision. It’s a mad house.
Disruptors. It’s kinda funny. I rush disruptors against Zerg and Terran. It’s the only freaking reason to prefer anything Toss related over HotS. That said, the max amount of disruptors I make in P vs P is one.
I absolutely refuse to get into those stupid freaking disruptor wars. I treat the colossus like he’s still king. Will win with lazers or die trying.
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lol watch the Puck v Printf showmatch series (on Winter’s channel I believe); I feel like they asked Puck to go Gateway first in every match (he went Forge first once in 9 games)…Printf won 5 games to 4…every Gateway game was a coin-flip, but felt favored for Printf every time…and Puck is the top Toss on NA!! That series really shows how broken cannon rushing is; nothing he did was impressive; 12 probe, wall himself in with three pylons and start dropping cannons; apparently this all you need to do to beat the #1 Toss on NA.
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Yeah, I skimmed that series. And that’s even with trying to pick maps that are bad for cannon rushing, lol. There isn’t a cannon rusher in the world that has any idea how to beat cannon rushes when going gateway first, lol.
Dude has a spreadsheet tracking cannon rushes from 2010, and even monitoring what color a guy chose in game, and he couldn’t tell you jack on how a standard player can counter it. He can’t do it himself, you know.
Then, in the series I just watched, they were saying that Printf told them that the defensive cannon guy will always lose to the aggressive one.
So… not only do we need to open forge, but… we need to out aggro a guy who only cannon rushes. I don’t see a problem MGT88? Do you? Only problem I see is… there’s still units in the game. RTS wasn’t meant to be played with units.
Maybe they can reduce the hit points of a nexus or increase the range of cannons. I mean, if the strat doesn’t need to be nerfed, you gotta ask yourself… maybe… it’s under powered. Think about that one.
The goldilocks zone. Cannon rushing is just right! I don’t think so.
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Maybe I should just ignore my base and cannon rush him right back/proxy nexus somewhere; should have a bit of an advantage if he drops his first pylon outside my base (which they always do); it will be 100% coin-flip at this point but I guess that’s better than giving them the satisfaction of cannoning a normal gateway opener. I was thinking today about dropping a Nexus with 12 probe as soon as I see Forge but I feel like it will be too slow; I have tried the proxy Nexus before (later timing, McCanning style) but it never really works out; he could also send probe after my 12 probe and I’d be pooched
The way I see it is, their lives are cannon rushing other people, and if they don’t have a clue in the world on how to counter it, when opening gateway, then why am I being tasked with this stupid mission when everyone in the world hates this strategy with a passion.
You know, Printf didn’t win a single game against the fellow cannon rusher in cannon vs cannon games. Lost like 4-0 in those games. Man, printf can’t even beat cannons no matter what he does.
I hate every possible “counter” there is. It’s all a bunch of trying to get lucky and hoping for f ups. Take a nexus somewhere else and just hold your breath that they don’t scout it and cannon that one, too, or steal your gas.
Printf couldn’t even stop guy from cannoning his “proxy expo” despite having a forge. It’s crazy.
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yep, being on the defence is tougher because you have to shadow his moves, and he has more moves to play than you; will he let that pylon finish or not? if he lets it finish is going to drop four cannons around it? did he expo and is he just taking me for a ride? if I take a gas will I have enough minerals to counter his future cannons? combined with probe pull mathematically profiting him…probe pulls are the silent killer too…so many times I’ve fended off a cannon rush but my probe situation was so wild that I feel like my eco was totally wrecked while his were at home just mining peacefully
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Exactly right. Then… like you’ve alluded to before… He can just trap you in your base while you’re busy consulting a magic 8 ball.
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the more I think about it, the probe pull is the killer as I mention in my last post; someone should do a technical analysis on this, I guarantee probe defence is favourable for the attacker regardless; there is just no way they can profitably attack a cancelled cannon…25 mineral loss must be lower than the mining loss, it has to be
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That’s part of why doing a fake cannon rush is so strong. If you can get a guy to pull probes, you’re already counting your points.
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I have actually done this (fake CR) a few times to punish the other guy for not scouting; I have had games where I drop a single pylon near their ramp or whatever and watched 8 probes surround it, then I cancel and repeat, and abuse this until he scouts to see I have no Forge or kills my probe…it’s sad
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If cannon rushing wasn’t so imbalanced, I’d assume this would be some kinda game theoretical optimal stuff. Cannon rush x percent of the time, fake cannon rush the other times. But, given just how strong cannon rushing is… may as well just do it every game.
I would have beaten some guy who was 40-1 on NA or something. I believe it was ShaDoWn. He was like ranked number 1 ladder at the time. I opened with a fake cannon rush. I maxed out and had way better comp, yet managed to lose due to just bad positioning.
After game, he’s like… man… you really f’d me up. Smart opening/start. So yeah, you can get far ahead against anyone.
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most Toss I play scout pretty early nowadays tho; not uncommon to pass a probe 3/4th across the map (pylon scout)
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Hey man I’d been using proxy hatch spine for years before Rogue used it in IEM to beat Hero. I do have to admit that his execution was far crisper than mine. Still, no way to know for sure where he got the build from.
Yeah. But I actually play these guys… It wouldn’t be a big deal. It just becomes magnified/eye brow raising when the only macro builds you hear about are the only builds I was doing for years. I dunno Kev…
To be fair, though… I’ve never opened with 2 gateways before cyber. So, I mean, copying the meta has to count for something.
It was kinda humorous. I played Rotti a few games a few weeks ago. He actually ended up abandoning the old version after realizing what I was doing was a hard counter to it, imo. May as well use the most updated version. Gotta update your windows.
And obviously people can come to the same conclusion, even though you’ve played them… and are always playing streamers they’re watching… I just think it’s silly to be like 7 years later… “omg… the maxpax is a new idea/thing.” It’s like… come on man.
I’m sick of instavetoing maps just because of Cannon Rush abuse potential.
Please do you have the link??