Starcraft 2

I see a lot of random games on here, most of them I don't play due to my strong opinion against single-player or non-strategic games.

(I think single player games are a waste of time and I only play games if I'm playing them with other people. I am OK with Co-Op but don't really like it, because I dislike playing against AI. What I really enjoy is the trill of strategic competition with other human players that I can play mind games with.) [I have played Portal 1, and enjoyed it... but that is the only single player game I've ever finished, and it took me two years to get through it.]

That being said.... I am wondering if there are in SCII players on here. (Or perhaps even some Old-School Starcraft or Warcraft 3 players... I may start another thread for them if people seem to show interest.)

So... if you guys do play SCII, what are your favorite Races/Strats... or if you play SC or War3, feel free to post about that too... or just your experience with Blizzard RTS games in general.

I see a lot of random games on here, most of them I don't play due to my strong opinion against single-player or non-strategic games.

(I think single player games are a waste of time and I only play games if I'm playing them with other people. I am OK with Co-Op but don't really like it, because I dislike playing against AI. What I really enjoy is the trill of strategic competition with other human players that I can play mind games with.) [I have played Portal 1, and enjoyed it... but that is the only single player game I've ever finished, and it took me two years to get through it.]

That being said.... I am wondering if there are in SCII players on here. (Or perhaps even some Old-School Starcraft or Warcraft 3 players... I may start another thread for them if people seem to show interest.)

So... if you guys do play SCII, what are your favorite Races/Strats... or if you play SC or War3, feel free to post about that too... or just your experience with Blizzard RTS games in general.

I like sc2. I don't really play bw because i have a lazy (60) apm, which is while bad in sc2, is disgustingly horrible in bw.

Haha, cool. I don't really track my APM, and don't really ladder because I only like to play with friends/acquaintanceship (esp. while talking over Skype)... but I know someone who ladders and he says I should be at least Gold league... I beat him sometimes.

Haha, cool. I don't really track my APM, and don't really ladder because I only like to play with friends/acquaintanceship (esp. while talking over Skype)... but I know someone who ladders and he says I should be at least Gold league... I beat him sometimes.

1v1 can be lonely sometimes, but it is also challenging (if you like competition), and you can always have friendly talks after every match. Also, unless your slayers dragon, you have to spend some time looking up build orders and learning all the refinements reactions.
2v2 has potential, but blizzard kind of screwed up the map pool. And my normal 2v2 partners aren't on when i'm on. (work 12:30-9:30).
No really good customs imho.

TBH i don't really like the UI, blizzards constant "balancing" that only serves to water down the game, and how obvious blizzard is in encouraging everyone to allin. In Hots blizzard will be introducing new units which will either A)be useless be mirror versions of WOL units C) be completely broken or D) be nerfed into the ground so as to be useless. That is why once Hots is released i will probably end up switching to bw.

Also i am not smelly.

Edited by cyborgmosquito, 05 March 2012 - 06:04 PM.

I don't know... I much prefer the system of constantly balancing things.. it keeps things fresh and prevents any exploits or OP strategies (like MMM used to be) from being used to long... it keeps the meta from getting stale. Unlike in BW where they're are certian strategies that you ALMOST ALWAYS want to go.

If they're useless they will get buffs, if they are mirror versions, then that can get cool, if they are broken they will get nerfed, and if they get nerfed to uselessness they will be buffed again.

I don't really like the idea of keeping the game the same for prolonged periods of time, that gets stale (So I love balances changes). I don't have much comment on the UI, it's just a graphically upgraded version of BW's... I like it, but that is personal taste. As for all-inning, I feel playing a macro game is still pretty superior if you know whats going on. All-ining is fun, but it doesn't get you past gold league if you do it consistently.

Also, official updates were released at Blizcon... though it's not a final version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NMiKsAYpBI

It makes me happy to know that you're not smelly. ;3

Edited by sm3, 05 March 2012 - 06:33 PM.

I don't know... I much prefer the system of constantly balancing things.. it keeps things fresh and prevents any exploits or OP strategies (like MMM used to be) from being used to long... it keeps the meta from getting stale. Unlike in BW where they're are certian strategies that you ALMOST ALWAYS want to go.

If they're useless they will get buffs, if they are mirror versions, then that can get cool, if they are broken they will get nerfed, and if they get nerfed to uselessness they will be buffed again.

I don't really like the idea of keeping the game the same for prolonged periods of time, that gets stale (So I love balances changes). I don't have much comment on the UI, it's just a graphically upgraded version of BW's... I like it, but that is personal taste. As for all-inning, I feel playing a macro game is still pretty superior if you know whats going on. All-ining is fun, but it doesn't get you past gold league if you do it consistently.

Also, official updates were released at Blizcon... though it's not a final version:

It makes me happy to know that you're not smelly. ;3

In BW there were only 4 balance patches, balance patches that actually had meaning. After that the game underwent numerous metagame shifts, with many players having made huge impacts on their respective races. Even today there is still ground to explore.

In Starcraft 0.2, while there were a few rare meaningful patches, too many patches only seem to hurt innovation.

I`m aware of the new units. I`ve played the Hots custom maps. All of the new units serve to either A) unstoppable 1 base allin negate strategical options C) completely break the game D) copies of WoL/BW units E) completely useless.

A good game is one that tests the limits of your multi-tasking/positioning/strategy. The reason I hate cheese is because it ends the game one way or another before that can happen (except for 3-4 of terran's allins). It is boring to play, and it is boring to watch. Yet the strongest strategies are 1-2 base allins.

And you can get very far with allins. The most famous examples being people like CombatEX (gm protoss allin every MU every game), and BadHabit (6 pool drone/ling rush allin every MU every game). There are many more, but people have easily gotten to the pinnacle of masters with cannon rushing alone.

Edited by cyborgmosquito, 05 March 2012 - 08:07 PM.

Uhm... first...

Cheese isn't the best thing ever, no. But I also don't like enforcing long games. You should be on your toes brawling with your opponent from square one, with one wrong move leading to a lost match. Without all-ins as a possibility, the game because a long boring thing where everyone's waiting until they can do exactly what they want.

Defending against an all in, in itself, is testing the limits of your reflexes, multitasking, and strategy.

I've never head of the players you just mentioned. I follow TLO (TLO is considered to be the best SCII player of all time ;P) and IdrA and Huk on channels like "HuskyStarcraft" and "HDStarcraft" and from that experience it seems like the pro's that WIN are the ones that can successfully defend against an all in and play a macro game. I've seen very few games end to all-ins early on, and when they did it was because of a blunder in their positioning or multitasking (or scouting).

I think that lots of patching is good... they NEED to change things. While BW only had a few meaningful patches, for me it quickly became stale because there was always on superior strategy... and with no patches, that strategy stayed put as it's 1! rank for years ;P At least with lots of patches, the dominate strategies change... and eventually, theoretically, we will reach the position where things are on equal foot.

Uhm... first...

Cheese isn't the best thing ever, no. But I also don't like enforcing long games. You should be on your toes brawling with your opponent from square one, with one wrong move leading to a lost match. Without all-ins as a possibility, the game because a long boring thing where everyone's waiting until they can do exactly what they want.

Defending against an all in, in itself, is testing the limits of your reflexes, multitasking, and strategy.

I've never head of the players you just mentioned. I follow TLO (TLO is considered to be the best SCII player of all time ;P) and IdrA and Huk on channels like "HuskyStarcraft" and "HDStarcraft" and from that experience it seems like the pro's that WIN are the ones that can successfully defend against an all in and play a macro game. I've seen very few games end to all-ins early on, and when they did it was because of a blunder in their positioning or multitasking (or scouting).

I think that lots of patching is good... they NEED to change things. While BW only had a few meaningful patches, for me it quickly became stale because there was always on superior strategy... and with no patches, that strategy stayed put as it's 1! rank for years ;P At least with lots of patches, the dominate strategies change... and eventually, theoretically, we will reach the position where things are on equal foot.

LoL, TLO is germany's incontrol. I watch Liquid Hero, Polt, Slayers Dragon (because pure ghost is fun), and a few low/high masters terran players, and CombatEX fpvods. Occasionally i'll watch others like Goody's tvp (which he no longer does), or some random diamond go 15 cc into mass nuke. I'll watch the GSL from time to time (#1 sc2 tourney, even Idra gets completely crushed by the code B (B<A<S) players).

Perhaps cheesy play should be viable, but it shouldn't be the only way to win. Games should be won by gaining small advantages overtime, not coinflip styles not 1 big flop. Blizzard is straight jacketing players to allin, which really hurts the game overall.

For example: the standard TvP is to kill protoss or do very severe damage before protoss gets 3 bases, either through 1-2 base allin (remember the 1-1-1?), or do major damage through drops (extremely unsafe/greedy tech play) like sniping a nexus or double forge. This is because once protoss gets 3-4 bases, they basically become unstoppable. Terran needs 300+ apm to come out even with the mass aoe of collosus + ht, only to die to fact that protoss armies remax 35 seconds faster than the terran's. One might say "well if bio scales so badly, why not go for a different style". Well people have been trying since the beta, but whenever terran came somewhat close it gets nerfed to the ground. First reapers, tanks, thors, hellions, and most recently ghosts have made all non-mmmvg styles useless.

Another recent example: In TvZ, the best MU imo, Terran tried to constantly attack + harrass (while not allining) with greedy expos while zerg tried to mass expo while attacking with mutas. Eventually in the late game you had tank+thor+ghost+viking+raven (super cost-supply effecient that was hard to remax) vs massling infestor blord overseer (cost+supply effecient that was easy to remax) that was for the most part balanced. Despite how balanced it was, there was a imbalance based on length of the game, of all 3 races Terran had the hardest lategame (based on statistics from mlg). Naturally, this imbalance was unacceptable, so blizzard had to nerf snipe. Many Terrans see this hit to their lategame as an invitation to recklessly allin and cross their fingers in both TvZ (snipe those blords) and TvP (snipe those zlots).

Most of Blizzards patches either serve to A) straight-jacket players into 1 style or Force them to allin. This create a very boring, and stale MU in my honest opinion.

Edited by cyborgmosquito, 06 March 2012 - 03:05 AM.

I just played in day walker tourney, only made it to second round but whatever. I randomed terran both games, and played zerg both games. Won the first round because of money drops, but lost the second round cause I didn't scout double expand retaking his third and taking his 4th, so I never went to drop it/timing attack/take faster 4th.

Edited by cyborgmosquito, 06 March 2012 - 05:27 AM.

I'm sorry... I see a lot of balance changes that prevent certain stupid stratigies... I don't see how any of their patches "straitjacket" players into all ins. I'm not sure I see the snipe nerf as as a reason to all in, unless your looking for excuses to all in. But Terran has way better things to do late game than snipe stuff. (Sniping, as I've seen it, is really only used for aggressive contains or strictly as counters to something like Brood lords. Ghost are normally only gotten against Protoss for EMP.)

Also, I'm a Zerg Player. I don't really play terran because it's the one race I hate with a passion ;P

My view of games is pretty Bias, but literally ALL the pro games I've seen... a good MACRO player has been able to defend against an All in, given they didn't lack important scouting information and the like.

Edited by sm3, 06 March 2012 - 09:43 PM.

I'm sorry... I see a lot of balance changes that prevent certain stupid stratigies... I don't see how any of their patches "straitjacket" players into all ins. I'm not sure I see the snipe nerf as as a reason to all in, unless your looking for excuses to all in. But Terran has way better things to do late game than snipe stuff. (Sniping, as I've seen it, is really only used for aggressive contains or strictly as counters to something like Brood lords. Ghost are normally only gotten against Protoss for EMP.)

Also, I'm a Zerg Player. I don't really play terran because it's the one race I hate with a passion ;P

My view of games is pretty Bias, but literally ALL the pro games I've seen... a good MACRO player has been able to defend against an All in, given they didn't lack important scouting information and the like.

Snipe is very important in lategame TvZ. You need it to hold off the mass Broodlord + Ultralisk + Infestor waves. Despite Zerg being heavily favoured lategame, blizzard decided to make lategame TvZ much harder for Terran.

Also, in lategame TvP sniping zealots is a very effective strategy. Because hellions aren't that good against charge-lots, and marines die instantly/become useless, the only other option to dealing with them becomes the ghosts bonus to bio. Once again blizzard nerfing the lategame of the race with the worst lategame.

Note: Snipe is a lot easier when remapping left click to the scroll wheel.

I rarely 1 base cheese, except to throw off my opponents in a BoX match. I will however try my hardest to make sure that the game never enters the late-game stage in standard TvZ or standard TvP (which is the standard game-plan in TvX), unless I'm doing a gimmicky strat like pure-mech or sky-terran.

I play random, but my favorite race is terran. The different MU ordered from the best designed to the worse designed in my honest opinions are:
TvZ
TvT
ZvZ
ZvP
TvP
PvP

My view of games is pretty Bias, but literally ALL the pro games I've seen... a good MACRO player has been able to defend against an All in, given they didn't lack important scouting information and the like.

I don't think you understand what I'm trying to say about cheese. A game should be won by gaining small advantages over time, and 2 different races should be balanced at any stage of the game. However lets say that a Zerg tries to 6 pool drone/ling allin a Protoss. Now either the Protoss loses everything right away and auto loses the 3:20 minute game, or the Zerg does no damage and auto loses the game. That's all there is folks. No GG, no small advantages, just one big flop that ends the game right then and there.

Uhm... I've almost always seen Terran go mech late game (And it's normally effective). Normally marines are for protecting Tanks from mutalisk snipes or filling extra space in your army. I've never seen hellions for anything other than harassing mineral lines or fighting mass zerglings. And yeah, I've seen Ghosts used as hard counters for BroodLord and Ultra, but when it comes to TvZ, I've only seen Snipes used on High Templars... other than that, the pro's I've seen use ghosts for their EMP.

Again, I don't play or like terran.

I love the ZvZ mirror match-up... soo much Macro everywhere. PvP is kinda weird, I agree, but It's still fun to watch, I think. I hate TvT, but that's probably because I hate the way that Terran plays... so watching two people play Terran is ridiculously boring to me. Unless it's TLO, I can watch him play anything all day.

I did misunderstand you. By all-in, I thought you meant all-in cheese tactics like cannon rushing or the classic ZvZ rushing for spine crawlers in their base. But you actually meant something broader. I'm not sure I agree that every game should be won by gaining small advantages over time... I think that players should be able to take large gambles if they want and that it detracts from the fun and seriousness of all the smaller encounters and battles if there isn't a serious chance that you could fuck up and get at a serious disadvantage. I think all-in strategies like that are GOOD for the game. And at some point in every game... if not every point in the game... the players should be putting all of their effort and resources into defeating their enemy.

Sometimes players are patient and it pays off, sometimes players put everything they have into a push and it pays off. That's part of a Good competitive game... reading your opponent and figuring out how to respond to what they're doing.

Edited by sm3, 07 March 2012 - 04:26 PM.

Uhm... I've almost always seen Terran go mech late game (And it's normally effective). Normally marines are for protecting Tanks from mutalisk snipes or filling extra space in your army. I've never seen hellions for anything other than harassing mineral lines or fighting mass zerglings. And yeah, I've seen Ghosts used as hard counters for BroodLord and Ultra, but when it comes to TvZ, I've only seen Snipes used on High Templars... other than that, the pro's I've seen use ghosts for their EMP.

Again, I don't play or like terran.

I love the ZvZ mirror match-up... soo much Macro everywhere. PvP is kinda weird, I agree, but It's still fun to watch, I think. I hate TvT, but that's probably because I hate the way that Terran plays... so watching two people play Terran is ridiculously boring to me. Unless it's TLO, I can watch him play anything all day.

I did misunderstand you. By all-in, I thought you meant all-in cheese tactics like cannon rushing or the classic ZvZ rushing for spine crawlers in their base. But you actually meant something broader. I'm not sure I agree that every game should be won by gaining small advantages over time... I think that players should be able to take large gambles if they want and that it detracts from the fun and seriousness of all the smaller encounters and battles if there isn't a serious chance that you could fuck up and get at a serious disadvantage. I think all-in strategies like that are GOOD for the game. And at some point in every game... if not every point in the game... the players should be putting all of their effort and resources into defeating their enemy.

Sometimes players are patient and it pays off, sometimes players put everything they have into a push and it pays off. That's part of a Good competitive game... reading your opponent and figuring out how to respond to what they're doing.

May I ask what is it you don't like about playing/watching terran? Do you hate playing against them as well?

The problem I have with cheeses designed to end the game outright is that most lead to very uninteresting games. Often-times ending the game over something as silly as a Zerg forgetting to patrol a drone at the bottom of the ramp to stop the 3-pylon block -> cannon rush.

The problem I have with game design is when either A) allining becomes too powerful; or the late game is incredibly imbalanced between two races. Consequently almost every game is cheese.

Are hyper-aggressive strategies good for the game? Yes. Should players have the option to allin? sure. Should allining be super coin-flippy and/or boring to watch? No. Should players be encouraged to allin 'every' game? Absolutely not.

If you look at the list of my favourite MU's I gave last post, you will see there's a sort of correlation (not perfect) between how much allining is encouraged in each MU and how much I like them.

I love watching Slayers Dragon more than any other. Nothing is more epic than him crushing plats and diamonds with mass scv.

Edited by cyborgmosquito, 08 March 2012 - 09:15 AM.

I don't like Terran because they feel slow, and it's difficult to take expansions. (When I play Zerg, I normally 16 hatch... since I see a lot of Pro's do it and it normally is super effective.) Most of the reasons I don't like Terran are flavor reasons (I don't like the visual appearance or voices of most of the units, and the music isn't as good as in BW.) I also don't like how Terran do a lot of turtle-ing until they death ball. I'm a very aggressive player and I like constant action, but with Terran it's very easy to just slow things down by blocking a ramp properly, ect, ect. To me, they're just too sturdy and hard to be really aggressive with... so I rarely play them. When I do play them, I do stupid cheesy stuff, like Thor-Drop. Who doesn't love a good thor drop? A lot of people. But It's a lot more fun than a lot of the other things people do with Terran are. (I also have this thing against playing the 'human' race in a 'fantasy' game, because it detracts from the fantasy for me, but yeah.) I don't hate playing against them, but I don't like it as much as I like a nice, volatile, ZvZ.

I think that the game is very uninteresting if it there aren't things that will win the game outright that you have to watch out for all the time. Without the threat of messing up and being at a severe disadvantage, it's hard to make take your moves seriously, and thus detracts from the interest and entertainment of the game.

It depends what you mean by "all-in" ... If you mean "cheese," no, players should NOT be encouraged to cheese every game. If you mean simply having "all" of your resources and units being put "in" to ending the game now, that should happen at SOME POINT every game (Even if it is really really late)... If it doesn't happen, then It's either a really one sided game where someone can win without devoting all of the effort (one sided games are not really fun to watch or play in), a dead-end stalemate game where they mine everything on the map and still end up decimating each-other, or a "chicken fight" to see who won't surrender.

Also, All-in's aren't super coin flippy. This is the point where I think I really disagree with you. Yes they change everything really fast, and turn the tides of battle either or way, but they are not chance based. Whether or not they are successful is, in my experience of playing and watching pro games, 99.999999998% always determined by the strategic methods of executing it vs the strategic methods of executing the defense... including proper scouting and the like.

I don't like Terran because they feel slow, and it's difficult to take expansions. (When I play Zerg, I normally 16 hatch... since I see a lot of Pro's do it and it normally is super effective.) [...]] I also don't like how Terran do a lot of turtle-ing until they death ball. I'm a very aggressive player and I like constant action, but with Terran it's very easy to just slow things down by blocking a ramp properly, ect, ect.

Depends a lot on style of play. Personally i think playing "spooner terran" is kind of fun, where you beat your opponent to death with a spoon and never actually attack, ever. You just use 'constant harass' to force them to attack into your prepared defenses and lose their army for nothing and leave. Such as trolling low level zergs with 15 cc into mass nuke. Goody style Mech, just make a shit-load of tanks, with some hellion + viking + thor support and attack while you're 4th. Mech styles tend to be passive-deathbally styles, while bio/sky styles tend to be more about the constant aggression + expanding. The most standard variation of terran play though is to be hyper aggressive from the very start, while aggressively expanding. Especially in TvZ. TvZ and TvT are the only MU's where i might see a good 40 minute game with constant battling of attrition and/or guerrilla warfare and still get to 6 base vs 6 base.

Watching Polt's stream is so intense as he reactor hellion fast expands using hellions to delay zergs third while taking his own third before zerg. Than using 1 base infrastructure on 3 base economy he does multi-pronged attacks into zergs mineral lines while microing against infestors + banelings. All while taking his 4th base, when most normally take their third. After that he holds off the ensuing lingblingmuta attack with stellar micro, than loads up the 16 of the remaining 18 marines to drop the zergs main while trying to take his 5th. That is pure sexy.

Most of the reasons I don't like Terran are flavor reasons (I don't like the visual appearance or voices of most of the units, and the music isn't as good as in BW.)

That's sc2 in general.

When I do play them, I do stupid cheesy stuff, like Thor-Drop. Who doesn't love a good thor drop? A lot of people. But It's a lot more fun than a lot of the other things people do with Terran are.

Thorship allin TvZ is pretty fun, but i don't have the mechanics to do it. Basically make a thor and a medivac off 1 base, than use the thor to snipe Zergs Queens to control her larvae supply. After a period of gaining small advantages (in the form of larva), you do a timing push to kill them. You need like at least 80 apm to properly do it though.

It depends what you mean by "all-in" ... If you mean "cheese," no, players should NOT be encouraged to cheese every game. If you mean simply having "all" of your resources and units being put "in" to ending the game now, that should happen at SOME POINT every game

What I mean by "1-2 base allin" or "cheese" is a "1-2 base timing attack" designed to win/lose the game outright or do significant amounts of damage. This includes strategies such as cannon rush PvZ, 15 nexus -> 6-8 gate allin PvZ/PvT, 3 rax marine scv allin, 1/2 base baneling bust allin, dt rush, 1 rax reactor expand -> 4 factory marine tank hellion allin TvP, one base roach-ling allin, 3-1-2 allin, 3-1-1 allin, 6 rax allin, battle-cruiser rush TvZ, 4 gate pvp on taldarim, 6 pool, marine tank banshee allin, 1 rax expand into 5 rax stim pressure TvP, warp-prism 4gate allin, proxy 2 gate, immortal bust PvT, and many many more.

What I mean by hyper aggressive play, is a strategy which involves harassing + attacking + army trading to get ahead/not fall behind/catch up. This includes almost all standard Terran play, almost all non-standard Terran play, warp prism play, mass muta ZvT and ZvP, overlord drop play, etc. A lot of hyper aggressive play doesn't have to end the game outright, it just creates excitement whether you are a player or spectator.

(Even if it is really really late)... If it doesn't happen, then It's either a really one sided game where someone can win without devoting all of the effort (one sided games are not really fun to watch or play in), a dead-end stalemate game where they mine everything on the map and still end up decimating each-other, or a "chicken fight" to see who won't surrender.

You mean where you beat them to death with a spoon?

Also, All-in's aren't super coin flippy. This is the point where I think I really disagree with you. Yes they change everything really fast, and turn the tides of battle either or way, but they are not chance based. Whether or not they are successful is, in my experience of playing and watching pro games, 99.999999998% always determined by the strategic methods of executing it vs the strategic methods of executing the defense... including proper scouting and the like.

Often-times the victor is decided over something silly, like not stopping the warp prism as it starts warping in from 4 gates behind your bunker line, scouting last base against 6 pool, forgetting to sacrifice 3 drones (to patrol bottom of ramp, behind mineral line) whenever you scout forge fast expand, losing to voids cause you walled off, losing to dts because you didn't walloff etc.

Is cheese boring to watch/play? yes. Is cheese an essential component to the metagame? maybe. Should almost every game be cheese? no.

I think you would hate terran even more, if every terran went bitbybit on you every game.

I think that 20 minutes is a perfectly good game length... to me a game needs to be basically epic in every way to deserve being 40 minutes long. That does sound pure sexy, and I don't see a problem with that.

Meh, I always like Zerg flavor. I freaked when I first saw the Brood Lords revealed.

Thor drops are fun, even if you don't pull them off. I don't always play to win... sometimes I just play for the mind games or for some sillyness.

I think one sided battles where only one person is really devoting anything into it are stupid, and boring to watch... I've never heard the phrase "beating with a spoon" but I think that in a game where one person has the ability to win by not investing their effort into the battles, then they should just invest effort into their battles and win sooner. If the game is one sided to the point where one person can just kind of sit back and not worry that much about losing a battle or something that would screw them over, and the other person has a bunch of resources invested into the battle, then the game should just be ended. Battles like this are at least 200% more boring and stupid than cheese. <<-- redundant and repetitive much?

I think you need to differentiate between cheese and a 1-2 base all in. Cheese is a tech-rush-push(fast DTs), a 6 pool, a proxy-something, a cannon rush, fast drops, ect. A 1-2 base all-in is putting all of your efforts into an early push of relatively normal caliber (maka rax, 2 base timing attack). A 1-2 base all-in is a normal facet/strategy of play. Should almost every game be cheese? of course not... should almost every game have a 1-2 base all in? sure if that's whats popular in the meta.

Is cheese boring to watch? I think not... I see some of the BEST strategic maneuvers made by Pro players when they are put under the pressure of a cheese tactic (The game where... I think it was oGs.ensnare or something... proxied a hatchery for the win as a counter cheese tactic to a proxy barracks was one of the best games I've ever seen).

Is cheese boring to play? Not in my experience... but I don't play in the pro scene, so IDK.

Is it essential to the metagame? I think it should be.

I've never seen any pro player sacrificing drones to patrol anywhere (though I've seen I've my diamond-tier friend do it once or twice)... pro's have the insight to see what is coming and when based on proper scouting information... I've seen pro's know where a drop is going to happen before it happens and respond to it properly off of pure instinct... never wasting drones to scout. DT's are easy to play

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lskNTCzdLNE