I've now played about a week of Starcraft II Beta, and thought I'd start a discussion thread on these forums to talk about game mechanics. I know there's plenty of GoG users in the beta, and I have a suspicion these forums might give a more leveled discussion due to the relative lack of blurbing morons and elitist dickwads who think that only PLATINUM PLAYARS like themselves should be allowed into discussion about game mechanics on these forums compared to the official ones.
So, here we go.
I've played about a week now and have a win-loss ration of 29-36, in the copper league, which isn't too bad for my first week ever of starcraft multiplayer. I specialize as Terran, and have developed a couple of strategies that work surprisingly well.
If I'm playing vs Terran, it's usually pretty easy to win - I win about 75% of games vs. terran now at this level. I simply start with getting two reapers out as quickly as possible and send them into the oppositions economy chain. If they are killed, they're quickly followed by two more reapers. This usually brings the opponents economy to it's knees unless the charge is countered by marauders. At any rate, if that doesn't win me the game outright, which it usually does, I get a starport up and produce 4-8 vikings. That almost always wins me the game, or at least very nearly so that a second wave of vikings will finish off whatever forces are remaining. This is a really simple and cheap tactic that works just .. amazingly well. I've never met with the same tactic and found my own supply line butchered, which I find weird even at copper level.
Vs. Zerg, it's the same basic tactic with a twist: I send three reapers in the first wave so I can hold my own for longer against any zerglings, and, as I've found to be very crucial, I block off the ramps to my own base either with depots or the barracks to prevent an early zergling rush. Usually I can get into his supply chain and cause enough ruckus so that he'll never catch up even with the insane build speed of some zerg units. All in all, I win about the same amount of matches vs. zerg as terran.
Vs. Protoss, I've almost given up hope. I've only won a very select few matches vs. protoss and never vs. a favored opponent. My rush tactic never really works vs. protoss due to the speed at which they can produce zealots, and anyway one needs to start the game more defensively focused to try and beat back that early zealot rush. If I do, I usually don't have enough forces to rush his base (more zealots are up by now), so I get a starport up and go with vikings again. The problem now quickly becomes Void Rays. If he can muster a big enough force of them, it's game over right there. The only times I've won in these scenarios is when I've managed to keep bugging the other player with coordinated reaper raids in his supply chain and vikings against small numbers of rays to hinder him from building up while I produce a large enough force to raid his base. If Protoss gets 10+ rays going, you might as well surrender right there.
All in all, protoss feels slightly overpowered to me right now. The standard zealot rush is by far the best rush in the game, and very deadly vs. Terran since not even Marauders are extremely good vs. multiple zealots. The versatility of Void Rays is insane, since they can attack both ground and air targets, meaning a strong ground force is as useless vs. rays as a strong air force. Medevacs + upgraded marines can work, but if it's late game the protoss player usually has a mothership, carriers, or both in support which quickly deal with any attempts to counter the rays. In addition, void rays are relatively cheap to produce and fast to summon. The mothership is also pretty easy to get up, and the other races don't really have anything like it.
I lose 8 out of 10 matches vs. protoss.
Also, zerg are a joke to be honest. A very very skilled player can make them work, but they just don't have much going for them unless you know most of the tricks. Zergling rush is good, but useless if the base is blocked (which it should be). Hydralisks are my biggest disappointment so far, they just feel gimped compared to the force they were in the original starcraft. Ultralisks are a complete waste of space and inferior to all other lategame units. Infestors are great if you get opportunities to use then properly but .. in most games you don't. Air however is very good with zerg, I have to admit that. Mutalisks harassing supply chains are a surefire way to gain map control and win games with zerg, the problem is though that it takes a skilled player to get that far before being overrun by the superior forces of the other two races, given that you didn't win the game with an early zergling rush.
All in all, I'm glad it's still a beta, because I think there's a good deal of balancing to go still before the game manages to be fair in most situations.

Great thread you got there! Should really help us get better. :)
If anyone wants a game or two sometimes, add me (I play on the European servers): KavazovAngel.kavazovangel
Anyway, I am going to throw in few tactics I use sometimes.
Protoss Vs. Protoss, Cannon Rush:
How you should do it: First of all, concentrate on getting minerals. This tactic does not require gas. As soon as you have 9 probes, start building a pylon, then send that probe to your enemy's base. Make sure he does not see it, or if he does, circle around to make it look like you are leaving. Start building a forge. Then start building a pylon hidden in the dark somewhere in his base. Once the forge is up and running, build a few cannons. Then build another pylon closer to his base. Then another few cannons. And basically, its the same thing over and over again, until his base is full with cannons.
Things to watch out: your probe gets attacked early, your first pylon is discovered and destroyed, you do not fortify your base entrance for any rushes he may make.
Check out this example: http://www.mediafire.com/?ztwzzlqmhmi

If your Reaper rush works well against Terran and Zerg (lol) but fails against Protoss, then you're doing something wrong. Unless the Protoss is sacrificing an early rush for a fast Stalker, they're the best race to use Reapers against due to the lack of ranged defense (Marines, Queens). Two Reapers may kite melee units around forever while turning around once in a while to do damage.
If a P techs to Void Rays, his base defense or unit composition is usually lacking. Do not hesitate to push against his base with half a dozen Marines and a couple of Marauders. If he manages to get Rays out, do not counter with Vikings, but instead mass Marines. Also, don'T build a the edge of the cliff, but try to cluster your buildings so he can't snipe them from a safe distance.

After playing beta for ~10 hours, it seems that game demands fast reflexes and fingers more than shooters.

Ultralisks will be getting some love in the next patch.
I think the game is pretty much Protoss>terran>zerg>protoss as it stands right now.
I'm in copper and I haven't really devoted much time to it except a couple of ladder games and FFA's with friends, so i suck terribly at it. I know the mechanics of the game but I can't be bothered to learn all the hotkeys nor am i fast enough to expand properly and do coordinated attacks or timing pushes.
As far as I know, if you're playing against protoss, Ghosts are your friends. EMP will cut their shields down quickly. If you're having zealot issues have you tried putting a bunker in your ramp and getting reapers in it? Their one big weakness is how frail reapers are but once you get them in a bunker, anything flagged as light (zerglings, zealots, marines) simply can't take it. Hellions are also your friends if you've survived enough to build a factory and mass marauders to hit their stalkers. Against Void rays, it's mass marines. Pump them by two with reactors. Also, scouting what the protoss is going for (scouting what any race is going for) helps a ton.
edit: Forgot to mention MULES. Every race has a macro mechanic that they didn't have in SC1 and if you don't add it to your gameplay you're pretty much screwed.

I completely fall apart with Zerg. I've won just one game out of 15 with zerg and that was against a clearly clueless opponent. Just can't seem to figure out how to get the build priorities straight in early game. Early zergling rush is easy enough but most decent players anticipate it and then hit me back, leading to an early demise.
Zerg right now seems to be heavily biased towards early defense and expansion, and have several units that are just the best in the game at harassment will means easier map control going into the lategame. Basically, expand, harass, and force your opponent to turtle.
Honestly, I've seen this fail vs. void rays first hand. Might be that I was doing something wrong, not enough marines, not upgraded enough, wrong placement, etc, but my considerable army of marines + medevacs was absolutely butchered by 10-12 rays.
The problem is that the damage from the three-pronged attack no longer resets upon target switching, and also the rays have longer range than any ground unit meaning they can snipe. Oh, and they're also the fastest of the air units fully upgraded, which means they're great at hit and run tactics. And of course they do equally well vs. air as vs. ground, which means my 5-6 medevacs were quickly toast, and the marines followed suit.
Honestly the rays are way too versatile for a midgame unit right now. They absolutely laugh at everything except an equal number of countering rays, or perhaps a wicked medevac/stim-packed marine/thor setup. Vs. protoss I've taken to constant harassment to prevent them from expanding and pumping out rays, even if it means I lose a lot of forces early on.
I do realize that these tactics aren't really that prevalent in the higher leagues though, because they are pretty cheap and easy to counter. Still, complete noobcakes are able to do much more than they should right now just using rays.

God, just reading this thread makes me hate the multiplayer already, and I am sure it would hate me back right after joining...

Personally, I am having problems discovering what the enemy is going for. I still don't know what they are building, even though I scout with a probe early in the game. Also, my tactics change from game to game, so I don't really have a standard or two. I need to fix this!

About scouting, it really takes someone of the other race telling you what it is you should be looking for. Either that or actually learning their build orders by heart. But honestly, the single most important thing to watch for unless they are doing a cheese (aka they have no Rax/Gateway in their base when you scout) is when they get their Gas.
Being Zerg, I tend to steal their second gas pretty much every game. It keeps their Zealots off doing early attacks on me, it delays their second gas, it could even open up their ramp for my Zerglings to get in if it's not a very good player. What you need to do is cancel the extractor right before it finishes, then rebuild it instantly. Then you can just scoot your drone off when they out-damage your extractor's build time and scout around until they get ranged units, or as long as you can avoid the Marine fire if he's T.
What I urge low-level players to do is just learn a (preferably well thought out) build order and simply stick to that exact same build order every single game you play. You'll get better at an astronomical rate compared to just improvising. Not because the build order itself is beastly against everything (they all have counters) but because it actually allows you to focus on the mechanics of the game rather than worrying about what to build. Also, learn the shortcut keys for your race! This game is completely unplayable if you don't.
Anyway, here's two basic openers for Zerg that you can try out:
9/10 (with Extractor trick) Overlord
13 Spawning Pool
15 Extractor
15 Overlord
Queen as soon as the Pool finishes
Lair as soon as the Queen finishes
You will notice that you will have EXACTLY 100 Gas once your Queen pops, and any time you see things like that, it's an indication that the build order is doing at least something right. Anyway, this one-base build let's you get early Mutalisks vs Terran (which often lets you expand into three bases while containing him with harrassment) or Hydralisks along with some Roaches/Lings as meat shields to push a Protoss down. Just make sure you don't run into a 4-Gate, in which case you need to mass those Hydras and defend :)
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This next opener let's you expand on large maps in a really safe way.
9/10 Overlord, scout with a Drone (you need to scout early with this build)
14 Hatchery
13 Spawning Pool
Whatever you need to build based on scouting information
This should work especially well in the lower leagues assuming players there don't know how to respond to it. Either way, the strength of this build is the very early creep coverage you get. It really let's you deal with any Reapers or Zealots much easier than a earlier Pool + later Hatch would because of the mobility your Lings get on creep. It requires a little bit of micro with the Lings but it's a great opportunity for small-scale micro practice.
The biggest flaw with this build is that any Proxy cheese will completely demolish you, that and a 2-Gate Zealot Rush. This is the reason you need that early scout. If you see any Proxy or all-in Rush build, you NEED to put down your Spawning Pool asap, forget about building that Hatchery on your expansion, it'll definitely die if it goes up.
Aside from build orders, Zerg is mostly focused around only building drones, drones, drones for as long as you can. Don't build any units whatsoever unless you have to. This, of course, is very risky since you can't build up a large enough force to stop a large push even with perfect Macro. What separates the truly great players from horrible players like me (who keep dying to silly pushes) is that the great ones know the exact timings of different pushes and know how to scout them, so they always prepare just enough of an army to stop the push right on time, thus getting the maximum amount of Drones up without dying.
Phew, that felt like a really long post, I hope someone gets some use out of it.

I'm not sure I follow the ... nomenclature here. What do you mean by 9/10 Overlord, 13 Spawning Pool, etc.?
The extractor trick sounds really nice though, and it would be devastating against my usual terran tactic of getting vikings out early as they need copious amounts of gas. I usually have a second gas up within the first two minutes.
Oh, and I enjoy long posts about game mechanics. :)
I actually got hit by this just now. It's a really nasty tactic. I didn't even have a chance to block off the entrance before he had a drone in my base, and with that drone he spawned 4 pylons behind my mineral line. I didn't have any defensive units up at the time, and before my first marine could kill the drone he'd gotten a cannon spawning. That was basically game over. I could have moved the command center but that would just let him rush my new, undefended base with zealots.
Are there any effective counters against this, apart from being faster at closing the ramp? Obviously getting a marine out early is key against protoss when they have this kind of capability, as is keeping an eye out near your ramp for any attempts to sneak a drone in.

The numbers means at what supply you start building (9 Overlord means that when you are at supply 9 you start building an overlord)

Watch the map. Get a marine / zergling / zealot out as soon as you can to kill my probe. If you don't to that, I win. I keep popping out pylons and cannons all over your base, it will be too late if a cannon becomes operational. You'll concentrate on killing that one, while the others are being built.
I played around 15-17 games today. Won around 8-9 with this cannon rush alone. Maybe the players weren't exactly platinum, but still, I am quite happy how I handled the games. I can upload some more replays if anyone wants.

Source

Why? Why!? Whyyy!?
The exact same freaking day I finish the year (university), the system goes bye-bye... :(
By the way, new patch coming tonight...
StarCraft II Beta -- Patch 12.1 (version 0.14.1.15392)
Bug Fixes:
(Mac Only) Fixed an issue introduced in patch 12 where unusually large error logs were being produced when crashes occurred. Crash logs can be found here: /Users/<username>/Documents/Blizzard/StarCraft II Beta/GameLogs/