yeah, it's pretty important that you harass as a zerg IMO. if you can't get in with a 7 pool, or maybe some mutas, or whatever it'll be pretty difficult to win.

8/15/2010 10:23:19 PM

Yeah def either need a good harass or just flat out ending the game early. So tough to win long games with zerg. Seems like now if you early expand with zerg the other races don't have much trouble expanding quickly after and negating the advantage. I've found it better to just go one base hard ling/roach and hope to end the game early and catch a terran or toss teching. Since it seems like all the toss players go fast cyber core you can get there with some lings and 6-8 roaches right before they start to pump the stalkers.

8/15/2010 11:57:18 PM

the way i play protoss against zerg is best against a quick expanding zerg. after watching a lot of white-ra I starting trying to 2 gate everytime. 2 gating generally gives me a nice choke to keep lings out and it allows me to get enough zealots to stop that expand and put me in the advantage.

8/16/2010 12:32:36 AM

went 2-0 against some BKs in 2v2 with my friend tonight. (he's a platinum level)

8/16/2010 2:43:06 AM

^^ Ya I bet works very well vs. expanding zerg, can either hit early and take out the expand or just have the defense to keep right up and as long as you can stay close to zerg in the macro game it should be an easy win. I do think infestors are very underused by zerg right now and when people start using them more it will really help. I'm going to start trying to mix them in a lot more after watching some games with a few players using them rather successfully.

I'd love to 2 gate terran a lot more as well, but the threat of reapers really limits that. I really hate how the reaper affects the TvP matchup because you are really forced to go 1 gate cyber and get a stalker out. I don't like how the threat of one unit limits an entire match-up so much, at least the opening 5 minutes or so.

I beat a #10 ranked Diamond player last night, so that was a nice way to wrap up the weekend. Still in Plat though, I hope to get moved up soon been #1-3 in my plat division all week.

8/16/2010 10:33:24 AM

Reapers are one of the things i still have trouble with. I've pretty much inked out all my fears against zerg. I won't get beat by a 7 pool or mutas. As long as I don't screw up I get my collusi to stop anyone who goes mass hydra. PvP is a gay little match-up. While I'm not good enough yet to do what tester does (which is IMO the best way to play a PvP) I'm thinking getting blink stalkers quickly out of 4 gates would get the job done till my macro/micro is ironed out enough to find that perfect proxy pylon placement.

8/16/2010 3:41:52 PM

I've been liking 2gate/2robotics in pvp. Since I'm playing random I don't get to practice my 4 gate as much as someone who always plays protoss so I don't like to 4 gate because I know I won't be as good at it as someone who does it every game. 2 gates pumping stalkers and 2 robotics pumping immortals then after I expand start to mix in some collosi and either make a few more gates as the game goes on or more robotics just depending on what they do.

8/16/2010 6:13:10 PM

i end up feeling like i can't get units out fast enough if I don't have atleast 4 warpgates up by the 5 minute mark. as soon as i expand i get 8 warpgates up ASAP and that keeps my money low and gives me a safe feeling.

8/16/2010 9:02:15 PM

bnet is hosed up!!!

8/16/2010 9:06:33 PM

^ We're seeing it too. Damn.

8/16/2010 9:14:26 PM

^^^Give the 2 gate/2 robotics a shot in a few customs.

If it is a map with a small choke you can hold off the initial push with what you can get out of 2 gates, and it will time up where you should be getting 2 immortals around the time of the first attack and they clean up stalkers. I do like the 4 gate as well just finding that since it is probably the most used build of any race right now I've just been looking for alternatives. I'm sure you're having luck with the 4 gate but the 2/2 has been a fun change up.

8/16/2010 10:15:17 PM

HERE'S THE THING

I do not want to touch the two alien races. I'm trying to learn Terran first.

I can win 90% of the time doing a pure marine rush, but I don't want to play that way. It's not fun. And it will propel me to a league in which I have no business.

My opener is fine, I think. I cannot get out of the "mass" mindset. I watch replays of the pros and they have about 15 total fighting units at a time, and manage to play a 35 minute game that way.

I have tried duplicating their builds and timings, only to get annihilated by the enemy's "mass" army.

I have no clue where to go from here. I have tried everything and it's gotten worse, not better. Suggestions?

[Edited on August 16, 2010 at 10:27 PM. Reason : ]

8/16/2010 10:20:32 PM

Yeah. Uninstall and format.

8/16/2010 10:29:47 PM

?

8/16/2010 10:31:42 PM

^I know what you mean. "Pro" games in a way are sometimes more finesse, and micro driven. The way you are playing is what is referred to as "Old School" which is basically pick a unit or two, mass and attack move. "New School" is more micro intensive, and if you get two new school players against each other especially when zerg isn't involved it seems like smaller armies. A lot more money is put into upgrades, abilities, etc. I've watched plenty of games though with top players massing armies it just depends on the game. Keep in mind what you can do with like 20 marines a pro can probably accomplish with quite a bit less because of their micro. They also generally have like 50 or 60 supply in SCVs which cuts the armies down.

However I doubt just going mass marines is going to propel you into some league you shouldn't be in(you'll hit a wall with it and start losing), I think just winning games is generally a good start and go with what works. If mass marines wins you games, start with that but then add in different elements as you go along. Can you do mass marine with a tank push? Maybe add in drops for harass, etc. Instead of trying to do some completely different strategy go with what you are having success with and then just tweak and try new units and work on your micro to make that strat more complete and effective. In the lower leagues should expect to see stats and builds that are just basic units and mass because it is easier then complicated micro with caster units or something like that.

Expect to lose a bit if you are going with a new strategy or build, but if you like it just keep working on it till you get it better.

8/16/2010 10:50:03 PM

Thx, I guess that makes sense. Walk before you run and all that.

8/16/2010 10:53:02 PM

Scouting is what seperates the bronze from the gold.

8/17/2010 12:31:59 AM

I need to get better at scouting nothing sucks worse than preparing for ground units with say collosi only to have mutas or vikings show up and be like well thats gg haha

8/17/2010 7:33:23 AM

Just looked at the list of top 200 North American players and recognized a name on there... turns out we played him (Fenix #6 in NA) in our placement matches for 2v2 and he won 1v2 as his opponent was pretty much instant killed as he had done barely anything 10 minutes into the game. I guess I dont feel too bad about that one now haha

8/17/2010 1:27:03 PM

So last night was a crappy night for sc.. this guy I got paired up with in a random 2v2 now like stalks me for games all the time. He isn't good(doesn't even know how to use things like mules, or queens) but we keep winning because I've basically managed to win 2v1.5, I'll give him a half because he at least knows how to siege tanks. After playing a ton of custom games and winning vs. terrible players he insists we do ladder matches. I agree and we end up getting into plat. division which is not where we belong, he is barely a silver player.

Our first game we win somehow, second game he gets crushed early and then lags out. I manage to get both bases going and win the match(or so I hoped). While finishing off the last nexus on the map and having just pulled off a nice 2v1 against double toss the screen just goes "You Surrender." Guess it was a drop hack, I was pretty pissed since it was a pretty long game and a tough win. After that I just played terrible, missed 2 cannon rushes, got proxy reapered, proxy void ray, it was like just cheese after cheese. Think there was even a guy who 6 pooled me in there too. Still mad about not getting the win after that 2v1, cause I know the dudes thought they had the game won easy.

8/17/2010 3:14:36 PM

Patch this morning got me excited about T nerfs.... =(

8/17/2010 5:01:42 PM

What is the best way to deal with a protoss player who literally puts 20-30 photon cannons around 4 stargates and masses up about 20 void rays. We tried to put pressure early but not much you can do against that many photon cannons even with a huge army.

This was zerg protoss against 2 protoss who were both walling in with cannons from the get go

I tried to mass stalkers which did a decent job but against that many it just wasnt enough. Tried dropping into their base and managed to eat up at least one of their probes once but by then they had rays to take that out and then walled in more.



[Edited on August 17, 2010 at 5:09 PM. Reason : .]

8/17/2010 5:05:40 PM

gotta scout and harass earlier.

i like to proxy pylon and warp in on that.

8/17/2010 6:33:13 PM

Yeah we went as soon as we both had units up and met a wall of cannons so no real way to harass early on as there was only one entrance to each base and both were walled off. I eventually did proxy pylon and was able to warp in some zealots and take out all of one guys drones who only walled in the entrance. Unfortunately the other guy walled in the entire base no real easy way in.

I probably should have just massed as many stalkers as I possibly could and tried to intercept the void rays in the open as opposed to when they showed up at my doorstep at least I could have thinned the numbers and hoped my base defenses could fend off the rest. Then simply keep them both from expanding anywhere past their natural and try to run them outta resources I suppose.

8/17/2010 6:43:18 PM

for mass stalkers, throw in a robotics bay and try and warp prism in some stalkers behind his mineral line. you should be able to do that reletively early. especially if the other guy is spending resources to rush void rays while walling off the ramp with cannons.

the other option is switching to phoenix production. mass phoenix will literally rape void rays.

8/17/2010 6:50:15 PM

Quote :

"What is the best way to deal with a protoss player who literally puts 20-30 photon cannons around 4 stargates and masses up about 20 void rays. We tried to put pressure early but not much you can do against that many photon cannons even with a huge army."

As Protoss: either mass stalkers with blink (so you can blink in range of the pylons and take them out quickly) or even better: get some immortals. immortals look at cannons and LOLOLOLOL.

As terran siege tanks out range the cannons when sieged and do good damage.

As Zerg I'm really not sure, bangling bust?

Mass Phoenix is fun. They do well against just about any air unit (minus carriers and BCs to a lesser extent) and using graviton beams you can really piss people off. <!--

[Edited on August 17, 2010 at 6:59 PM. Reason : --></ even though i can't ghost anymore]

8/17/2010 6:55:52 PM

Yeah he tried to baneling bust it but almost all of them got eaten alive before they got in there. Forgot about warp prisms that would have been a smart idea I probably could have gotten one or two of those into a good spot. Also blink would have helped a lot Im sure I could have intercepted the void rays midfield and tried to pick em off one at a time and then blink away and hope he kept chasing me. Didnt even bother looking at immortals so Ill keep that in mind thanks for the tips

8/17/2010 7:00:57 PM

blink is probably like the 2nd or third best upgrade in the game. 1st is thermal lance, i always get it as soon as my robo bay goes up. after that either blink, storm, or charge. if you use the respective unit past your initial push, you HAVE to get that upgrade. blink makes stalkers excellent AA units. most air units are armored, so they get that extra damage, focus fire the 15+ stalkers (more in the later stages of course) at some air units and they get one shot.

when i play 4v4s if there isn't a ton of rush action there's a high likelihood the protoss player is getting voids, carriers, and motherships, the terran will get thors and BCs, and the zerg player will be irrelevant. What works well against all that? stalkers with some void ray back up. move them into position and when they try to retreat blink toward them, or blink into them and get the quick kill.

[Edited on August 17, 2010 at 10:46 PM. Reason : sdf]

8/17/2010 10:41:41 PM

The problem with some of those solutions people gave is that you are spending your time and money worrying about the cannons which really aren't the problem.

Unless they have a hack that allows cannons to get up and move around they aren't what will beat you and shouldn't be your top concern. Lets say one of you do go immortals, and they are both going VRs... now you have one player with something that can't stop their air which makes it basically a 2on1 once they go on the offensive. You'd have to both get immortals really fast(only a few) and switch to pheonix/stalker and I think that is risky since you can get VRs pretty much as fast as the immortals. This isn't much different than a terran that walls in and gets siege tanks/turrets then goes bcs.

My suggestion would be prepare yourself for a longer game, get it out of your mind to try to do something to end it quickly(if they are walling with cannons they'll probably have a few by their minerals as well so the drop/warp ideas aren't going to work). Instead expand like crazy fast, using some cannons yourself(less than them) and take the map. Make sure you contain their expanding at the same time to whatever is inside their wall. If you are ahead in expansions both go with something that is a VR counter, maybe one blink stalker, one go pheonix or even VR's yourself. Terran should go viking, and zerg should do some combination of hydra/infestors. You'll have the money advantage, control the map, and then it is just about running them out of money. Eventually they'll have to expand hopefully you'll be able to stop it at that point. Once they are out of money and units whatever you have will work down the cannons and end the game.

Just my thoughts, I always try to focus on what can move and actually defeat you, since that is what is really the threat. You lost because you tried to figure out what would beat the cannons, not the VRs.

8/17/2010 10:48:15 PM

I dunno

zergling speed is pretty sweet

8/17/2010 10:48:47 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBybbpqQvRw&hd=1

Funniest replay I've watched in a while.

8/18/2010 1:21:53 PM

starve them out. take all the expo's around them and build build build counter units

8/18/2010 1:45:19 PM

Just wanna make sure you can keep the voids in their base too if you wanna super expand around them. Otherwise it'll be difficult to guard all your bases and you'd have to find a way into theirs.

8/18/2010 4:18:56 PM

So the other night I let the drop hack loss throw me off, tonight it was my first experience with a stalemate. We both went proxy, him barracks me gates. Took out each others bases, no money left, he flew away and had 2 scvs in his command center. Chased each other around the map for a while(I had a lot of zealots and probes, I had killed all his marines). I said fuck it and just left after an hour, he said he was gonna fly to the corner and just go to bed. I wanted to play more.

I was pissed he was a high rank diamond and I think I should have won, I had more units he was just a floating CC. Anyway, I left because I thought to myself "I'll just go win a few games fast and get the points back." Went on a 7 game losing streak after that. Finally won one just now and then got promoted to Diamond league? Go figure. Went 1-7 on the night, played horrible, and got promoted.

8/19/2010 12:50:50 AM

mmmm my das keyboard came in today!

8/19/2010 1:05:06 PM

Quote :

"What is the best way to deal with a protoss player who literally puts 20-30 photon cannons around 4 stargates and masses up about 20 void rays. We tried to put pressure early but not much you can do against that many photon cannons even with a huge army. This was zerg protoss against 2 protoss who were both walling in with cannons from the get go I tried to mass stalkers which did a decent job but against that many it just wasnt enough. Tried dropping into their base and managed to eat up at least one of their probes once but by then they had rays to take that out and then walled in more."

I've actually dealt with this before. My solution, at the time (right around the middle of the beta), was to have my partner mass VRs and I massed stalkers while we took the rest of the map. Pretty simple. Just keep throwing money at them until they are dead.

Another solution with your particular team of ZP would be zerg go corruptors/broodlords and protoss go phoenix/stalkers. The cannons shouldn't really be a problem. The VRs are really what you have to worry about. It should be pretty easy to out macro them since they are turtling. Just expand everywhere.

8/19/2010 1:22:13 PM

I lost a match the other night where a guy took off a CC after base trading as well and flew it to a corner and I had no air units left he still had a thor or two and managed to find all my expansions before I could manage to get one air unit out... really sucked

8/19/2010 5:21:54 PM

on the subject of zerg being underpowered earlier in this thread, my two cents is that hydralisks are WAY too expensive. should be 75 minerals instead of 100. hell, make it the same price as the roach. it has less HP, less attack, doesn't upgrade as well, is slower, and cant move while burrowed. the only advantage is a little more range and the ability to hit air units (which is crucial, i'll admit).

8/19/2010 7:33:23 PM

and hyrdas attack faster.

8/19/2010 9:27:30 PM

Anyone got a recommended site that has helpful tips on how to get better? There's lots on youtube, but all of those have served to make me worse.

[Edited on August 19, 2010 at 10:43 PM. Reason : ]

8/19/2010 10:43:13 PM

teamliquid

8/19/2010 10:49:50 PM

I agree Zerg could use a boost I think they could be balanced with just a few easy changes that would make sense compared to the other races.

I think they need to do the following :

1- A queen should use up a larva, not build on the hatch. This way you could make a queen and tech, you shouldn't have to pick one or the other. It would be like Terran not able to build a factory without a command center. Or make the queen build faster, either way.
2- The roach upgrades shouldn't need a lair. None of the tier 1 terran units need a factory or engineering bay so why does the roach upgrades need a lair? Getting the speed upgrade and move/borrow would give zerg an early game harrass they desperately need, and a fun unit to work with.
3- Hydras.. attack range upgrade is nice but where is the speed upgrade? And preferably make it just 1 upgrade, have it cost 50/50 more and give both speed and range. Off the creep their speed stinks.
4 - Mutas need a better splash effect.
5 - Wish they just had the regular guardians back. Broodlords although kindof cool aren't as good as the guardian. Would be nice if you could make them from either a muta or a corrupter.

I think these changes wouldn't be anything really drastic and would make a world of difference. I look at these and think they all should have been in the game to begin with anyway...

8/19/2010 11:28:40 PM

Eff.

SOMEHOW I got put into Silver 2v2. I'm gonna get annihilated.

8/20/2010 1:03:55 PM

silver is easy

8/20/2010 4:15:51 PM

Nope. Getting destroyed. I think I may end up just sticking with the single player.

8/21/2010 10:01:42 PM

just practice and watch pro gamers and learn from them


i finally played my first 1v1 game for placement. lost temple against a complete n00b. P(me)vT

9 plyon, 13 gateway then scouted. finally found his base, scouted around, harrassed his mineral line, went out and dropped a proxy plyon, and scooted around his base harrass his mineral line again. kill one of his scvs and then cause all of his scvs to be pulled off mining. backed out, he puts a supply depot near where I dropped the pylon (which was well placed IMO), so he takes that one out. my probe is still in his base and I haven't gotten warp gate yet so i just find another good place to put one. he puts a supply depot near that too, but I finally get warp gate tech up so i spam in zealots from 3 gates. I kill a lot of his shit, he lifts it up and moves, I find it, he ggs. fucking bad kids. i know i'm probably good enough to be at least gold placement because I have a lot of things smoothed out, but i would have liked to play someone better so I could have actually gauged if I'm ready to hit the ladder in 1v1.

I don't want to be placed lower than gold, and really would prefer plat, so I don't wanna play too many placement matches before I'm ready for that. I know I don't have the handspeed/micro to be diamond and probably at high gold/low plat on that.

My biggest weakness is that I for whatever reason neglect sentry and templar.

8/21/2010 10:13:49 PM

I dunno, you seem to know what you are talking about Diamond isn't that great all across the board I don't think. I don't consider myself great at the game, I make a ton of mistakes, not very high APM, etc. but am diamond 1v1 and 2v2. Maybe I'm better at it than I realize relative to the people playing the game, but I'm pretty shocked to be in those leagues so you'll probably do better than you think.

8/22/2010 12:05:19 AM

i need to work on scouting. i always fuck up and get supply blocked when i scout. or put my second gateway too late. or forget something like a forge completely. i still think too much when i micro, and don't effectively use my control groups.




my hand speed is getting a lot better. 20% faster over the last week, and i haven't even been spamming APM. i'm probably like 10 legit APM from being where I wanna be though.

my best friend just got diamond as terran not too long ago. it does make me feel a little good that my protoss is better than his.

[Edited on August 22, 2010 at 12:46 AM. Reason : asdfg]

8/22/2010 12:44:06 AM

Yeah same issues I have. My problem is sometimes forgetting to make worker units non stop I'll miss a minute here or there where I won't have them building. I also suck at using control groups and hotkeys in general. Use them fine for buildings but not great for units. At the least I'm working to make sure I keep all my casting units on hotkeys so I can get to them fast which is like basic hotkey 101 to do that.

I don't pay much attention to APM, I don't click around a lot all ADD like to get the average up high but I spike above 100 during confrontations so I guess that works. Insane that there are guys that do more than double that for an entire game.

8/22/2010 2:59:05 AM

haha during battles and what not my APM usually gets into the 100s sometimes if i feel like being really micro intensive (focus firing everything, blinking guys back, blinking up, move-attackmove-move-attackmove) i've been able to go 200s

basically during battles which I actually micro well, my APM looks pro, the rest of the time, looks pretty slow.

i try to have different units on different hot keys, but too often i'll just have a 1a going on. I usually keep things like phoenixes, collusi, voids, and high temp on different hot keys from my main stalker/zealot/immortal/sometimes sentry army. i do a lot of things really well, but I don't have the smoothness I'd like yet. might just be because i compare what i do to your huk/tester/white-ra level player instead of your typical gold/platinum level or even lower diamond level guy.

8/22/2010 2:31:02 PM