My 2v2 partner and I have been doing pretty good, and got promoted to silver (I know its a joke to some of you better players ).

All of a sudden, its like I cant play protoss for shit. My armies just get mowed down, and I never feel like I can get enough units out.

I've switched to terran and seem to be doing much better, but I wish I knew why all of a sudden i have hit some kind of brick wall with protoss.

Im posting because I am assuming hitting the "wall" where you are all of a sudden playing decent people has happened to a lot of you guys, and wanted to know some strategies around how you overcame it. I already watch most of the day9 dailys, and try to catch some of the others I see popping up.

Some things I do know:

- My APM is not that great, but I don't feel the need to click around a lot I guess.
- I know I suck at rallying my troops to the right spot
- I really don't micro at all (unless I have the huge units, or want to focus fire)

9/24/2010 6:29:55 PM

are you constantly making worker units?

9/24/2010 7:49:39 PM

started out bad tonight: 1-6, then finally got in a groove and ended up 4-6. We keep losing to ~ 25 mins games where we try little attacks every few mins but somehow our opponents end up w/ 2x as many expansions as us and outmacro us, usually making all hydras, all stalker, or all viking.

9/24/2010 10:40:07 PM

Three keys to playing protoss.
1)Make workers
2)Make pylons
3)Never get supply blocked.

After that it just comes down to having a lot of stuff, making sure your stuff can do okay against their stuff (nothing like zealot spam against muta, so scout), not forgetting upgrades in mid-late game, and getting your stuff in a decent position with decent attack timing.

After all that is perfected, things like chronoboosting exactly what stuff you need to build and how you can transition out, the keen micro etc.

You get the first part downpact and you'll probably jump to gold/plat. Get that next part and you're plat/diamond. That last part is just what separates like 800 diamond from 1600+ diamond.

Also if you get the first part down and can learn a couple basic builds (how to 4-gate properly, Nony's Phoenix, a macro build) and can figure out when you need to use what, you can get plat/lower diamond no problem. I think Day9 said in a recent daily that just by 4-gating well you can get to like 1400 diamond if you play enough.

9/24/2010 11:11:33 PM

Quote :

"- I know I suck at rallying my troops to the right spot"

The place you want to rally your troops when you don't have map control is the area that is most convenient for defending all of your bases. So if you have your main and your natural, rally your troops at the choke between the 2 bases.

If you have map control, you can either just keep that same rally and manually move your troops up or rally directly to where your army is controlling the map.

9/24/2010 11:19:19 PM

dammit the dude I end up playing 2's with a lot is so fucking frustrating.

How can someone play over 1000 league games, be diamond in 1-3's and not know how to use warpgates? Can't play with this guy anymore.

9/25/2010 1:16:40 AM

Thanks for the tips, after I read them I went back and looked at some replays, and saw I was definitely getting behind on workers toward the mid of the game.

Gonna try a little harder to keep them up, and also to focus on my rally points and I'll see what that does today.

Thanks!

9/25/2010 9:52:52 AM

I suggest putting all of your unit producing structures (like warpgates) on a single hotkey, such as 5. That way you can just hit 5, and produce the units you want.

You can also just hit 5 and set all of their rally points at the same time.

9/25/2010 10:08:31 AM

This is gonna sound stupid, but I didnt realize you could have all of them on the same hotkey.

I was trying to keep every different type of unit producing building on a different key. I can see how that made actions that should have taken a second take 10 seconds.

9/25/2010 12:05:55 PM

in after you get warpgate tech you can just use W

9/25/2010 1:16:53 PM

When do you guys usually switch to the higher tier units?

I have started forcing myself to scout more to see what they are doing, so I can try to decide to go colossus or what, but find myself usually switching to them way later than the other guy.

9/25/2010 1:31:39 PM

As zerg? 3rd base as the 2 geysers go up. Must get that extra gas to fund T3

9/25/2010 2:20:27 PM

Siege tanks and Vikings.

9/25/2010 2:53:39 PM

Quote :

"When do you guys usually switch to the higher tier units?"

Sometimes never. Other times it really depends on my plan. If I can get enough done with my initial push and like what I'm seeing, I might be able to stick with a mostly zealot/stalker army and just add charge/blink and go again.

In a PvT my general plan is usually to get chargelots pretty early (sometimes i might delay a 4 gate push a little to get it) to deal with MMM pushes, and quickly move to high temp.

In PvZ one of the strats I use relies in quick stargate and while I harass teching to Collusi.

In a PvP it'll usually be over before because before you get to diamond level play you won't find people who can stop that push. You can win 75% of PvPs without building a higher tier unit. If they do stop my push, then I have to usually make the decision to tech toward collusi and get an expand up.

But in most matchups for everyone you don't wanna get higher tech units on one base.

[Edited on September 25, 2010 at 4:48 PM. Reason : asd]

9/25/2010 4:47:22 PM

I am sick of SHITnet deciding to drop my team in the middle of a win. Complete bullshit

9/25/2010 4:54:53 PM

^Yeah happened to me going for my 10th win in a row just as i was marching on the one base protoss who just lost his entire army while mine was at 200/200 . Then of course my next game was a viking/hellion/thor terran who raped me. Thats probably my worst matchup, i absolutely hate hellion/thor/viking.

And in regards to teching to 3 - to be honest i rarely do. 90% of my games end before I need to and I tend to forget to do it often as im just pumping mutas/lings/roaches all day

9/25/2010 8:01:03 PM

Just got the "You were dropped" screen... wasn't lagging, internet connection is fine. Didn't get a countdown either, just instantly dropped before an epic battle. Blizzards servers are sucking dick

9/25/2010 8:15:08 PM

fun play tonight playing 2v2s. lost first 2, but won the last match and it was soooo worth it! He was a BM, BK protoss who semi-raged throughout our game. Probably my hardest rager yet. Makes me lol every time!

9/25/2010 10:38:12 PM

Still stuck in silver, still very rarely losing, but now I'm playing platinum folks. When can I buy a promotion!

9/26/2010 2:57:40 PM

about to get on, if anyone wants to play hit me up on b.net

9/26/2010 5:02:01 PM

Sigh, played my first diamond player in 1v1 ladder (I'm still silver, wtf). It was zvz - he went for early lings, I made a couple banelings and romped his initial army while I fast expanded into mutas. So I send my first 6 mutas to his base and cleared out his couple mutas, two queens, a bunch of drones but didnt realize that he had run his lings back to my base, right past my lings/blings into my main and were absolutely raping my main. My sound was off Last game I ever play with my sound off, thats for sure.

9/26/2010 8:40:31 PM

I've been liking roaches in ZvZ lately. Spend 150 gas on 6 roaches and stagger them in pairs on hold position to block your ramp and then tech to mutas. It takes an ungodly amount of banelings to break through that wall and they are just wasting tons of gas that you will spend on mutas. Doesn't work on maps with giant ass ramps like scrap station but works on most of the others.

9/26/2010 9:04:20 PM

^ If in ZvZ you see the fast roach then you scrap the baneling and just go mass lings and muta tech.

One thing I'm going to start using as a zerg is baneling drops on mineral line, especially for mid-late game when I've already got the banelings. Works great and pretty hard to stop.

9/26/2010 9:09:12 PM

went like 5-0 in 4v4 today

mostly because of taking the 4 gate aggression to a 4v4 game. also managed to stop a cannon rush

I've also been working on getting templar into my game since I under use them. 4v4 is a lot of fun and i get to try things/builds i don't normally do.

9/26/2010 9:29:19 PM

^^^If I saw anything like that then I would just drone hard while teching to mutas, typically as soon as I see a roach warren I'll scrap blings.

Most zvz's come down to whoever gets the most mutas first, or whoever wins before mutas come out. If I go blings and he techs to roaches then I'm ahead in the muta race, if he goes roaches to bunker down then I'll have expanded and out droned him and I'll be ahead in the muta race.

Had the easiest 1v1 vs a platinum zerg to start the day today (I'm still silver. 18-3, playing gold, platinum, diamond people. motherfucker). We were on scrap station, I put my OL at the base of his ramp and saw him go for the FE just as I was about to do mine. Rather then use my inject that I would've filled with drones I instead just sent a bunch of slings out. When I got to his base his 3 roaches had just popped but I managed to kill those, his queen and get the drone count even. Next batch of slings ran into his FE, killed the hatch and as soon as the roaches came walking down the ramp to take out my slings I ran right past and killed all but 5 of his drones or so. At this point he had about 15 roaches, my 5 mutas hit in time to kill the rest of his drones and make it back to my base in time to help finish off the roaches, gg :p

9/27/2010 7:56:25 AM

I tried out a random strategy Terran vs Zerg 1v1 when I was bored, it actually worked twice on diamond/plat zerg players.

Lifted off right away to an island (scrap station and agria valley) and teched up to vikings immediately. Since you can only carry 5/6 workers I used the other one to build a proxy rax to distract his scout. By the time his roaches and lings checked what used to be my main, it was too late.

They both tried to build spires but without overlords you can't make anything lol...

9/27/2010 9:58:15 AM

Haha thats pretty good. I know thats the kind of shit that would irritate me endlessly as zerg. I can't stand when vikings/phoenix go overlord sniping . I would just put up a fake walloff with the last SCV and build a marine or two, I'm sure that would buy you all the time you need. Unless of course he goes super fast expand and builds masses of mutas.

9/27/2010 10:09:26 AM

Had someone do that to me, I fast expoed, got some extra queens to hold off vikings, and with the extra gas exploded into mutas, was easy win once I contained to 1 base. Mass Muta >>>>> Mass viking. Zerg just has to realize he can go eco heavy at start with some extra queens and hes fine.

9/27/2010 10:25:16 AM

Quote :

"Mass Muta >>>>> Mass viking"

Vikings are actually the stronger unit. Since they cost less vespine their usually easier to mass than mutas too

9/27/2010 11:39:26 AM

H2H you have to have a lot more vikings to beat the Muta. Vikings have the range 9 but IIRC Mutas are much faster and do splash damage. You can easily outnumber the Muta though if you have a couple starports with reactors though out of some sort of 1-1-2 build.

9/27/2010 11:50:07 AM

Notice I said mass. The bounce favors mutas heavily.

9/27/2010 11:50:28 AM

Yeah ZvZ I never early expand and hope he does and it usually is an easy win.

A lot of people are now fast roaching in ZvZ as well, which is a nice change from the bling/sling battles that are intense but get old fast.

Things I've learned as I've played more and more zerg and have been metioned -
1 - Extra queens not only don't hurt but are well worth it. For 150 minerals and no gas they are a steal. They do great vs. Banshees and VR rushes and 4-6 of them with heal and expanded creep can hold off quite a bit.

2 - Can't be afraid to make several spine crawlers when early expanding against an all in T or P going MM or 4 gate. I've been hesitant to do that wanting to put the money toward units/drones but I've been watching replays were I've seen zerg make 6 of them. Since they can move they aren't really a waste because as your creep expands you can actually bring them into battle. Need to just keep the mentality that if I can hold off that initial 1 base all in timing push I'll be so far ahead with 2 bases it is an easy win, even if that means it takes me an extra min or two to get back the drones/money spent on the defense. It is better than just losing.

3 - Still trying to figure out where Ultras fit into the equation. Good meat shield and all, but their lack of range seems to me like they are generally dead before they even get to the fight. A few of them are fine but more than 2-3 is a waste it seems. Just not finding that this unit is anywhere near as effective as a thor or colosi as it stands now.

4 - Banelings are great. The longer a game goes, the more banelings I should have. Since both protoss and terran seem big on "balling" units vs. zerg this is a great counter and cheap.

Anyway, some of this is obvious, but just my thoughts especially since it seems a lot of people play zerg here.

9/27/2010 12:13:06 PM

Quote :

"Notice I said mass. The bounce favors mutas heavily."

No vikings still win with equal or slightly less numbers

9/27/2010 12:25:47 PM

Roaches in ZvZ isn't that much better, they are usually just used to wall off for fast mutas which just turns into another micro battle but in the air instead of on the ground.

I always get banelings against Terran but not really against Protoss. It takes like 4 banelings to kill a zealot instead of 1 baneling killing 4 marines. Just doesn't seen worth the tradeoff. I prefer roaches against Protoss ground.

BTW, in case anyone doesn't know, you can right click autocast unburrow on banelings that are underground to automatically unburrow and detonate when a unit gets near them. Pretty hilarious to see an entire Terran ball get destroyed on it's way to you.

9/27/2010 12:59:15 PM

'x' marks the spot

9/27/2010 1:10:34 PM

b.net has been sucking lately. I think the latest update killed the performance on my old 1705 dell laptop to where it's basically a slideshow. Donno what they changed, but I was able to get playable frame rate at 1920x1200 with low settings before; it chocked during semi huge battles, but now it just slows down at opening the map.

Even downsized the res and killed all the background programs, still a pathetic 0-1 fps in simple renderings.

9/27/2010 1:41:12 PM

Quote :

"No vikings still win with equal or slightly less numbers"

aaaannnnnd you are wrong. http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HHABJ7O0

9/27/2010 1:44:48 PM

Quote :

"3 - Still trying to figure out where Ultras fit into the equation. Good meat shield and all, but their lack of range seems to me like they are generally dead before they even get to the fight. A few of them are fine but more than 2-3 is a waste it seems. Just not finding that this unit is anywhere near as effective as a thor or colosi as it stands now. 4 - Banelings are great. The longer a game goes, the more banelings I should have. Since both protoss and terran seem big on "balling" units vs. zerg this is a great counter and cheap. "

3 - Ultras + Nydus worms can be extremely effective. Take out their base with say 5-6 of them, and when the army comes just hop in the nydus worm and go somewhere else.

4 - Banelings can be great against zerg/terran, but most protoss units just have so much health it isn't really worth it IMO. it takes like 4 to kill one zealot, it really isn't very cost effective. Should they have a bunch of stalkers/collusi, there's a good chance most of them will die before they can do any damage. And of course I like banelings against terran, but i like infestors even more.

Speaking of banelings, any terran players here incorporate StaLife drops?

9/27/2010 2:26:57 PM

Stalife drops only work if the zerg 1As the banes. They might work in lower leagues but I know I personally haven't 1Aed a Bane since beta. Goal of banes is to just go up and hug marines =)

9/27/2010 2:51:48 PM

Quote :

"They might work in lower leagues "

You realize that Stalife is a pro right? It works in every league.

9/27/2010 3:23:19 PM

No, it does not. It only works if the banes are 1Aed. The point of that drop is to take advantage of a Z being lazy.

9/27/2010 3:25:01 PM

Even if they aren't 1a ing and aren't going to attack the banelings, concussive shell slows them down.

The point of it is to gain an advantage. even if they don't 1A and attack the marauders instead of the marines, doing it splits the zerg's forces and slows the banelings allowing you do deal with them more easily. It's effective at EVERY level.

[Edited on September 27, 2010 at 3:30 PM. Reason : asdfg]

9/27/2010 3:27:54 PM

That is not the point of the stalife drop though. Here I'll quote him since you like to throw names around so much

Quote :

"Basically in "Stalife drop", you load up marauders in medivacs and drop them in between lings/banelings so the marines can kill the zerglings, while the marauders soak up the damage from banelings. This really punishes zergs who do not micro properly with banelings. as well as marauders forming a wall (acting as force fields to split up zerg army). "

Yes they will shoot the things in closest proximity to them which if you are good will be the banelings but those marauders will also not be shooting during the whole fight as they will be in medivacs for some of it. The drop is designed, in stalife's own words, to take advantage of lazy zerg micro.

9/27/2010 3:31:28 PM

prolly from that same post

Quote :

"yes, I realize "90% of zergs would not 1a and move them", but with the slow down of banelings, it certainly makes a huge different in battles. (see my replay vs bubba for game-deciding battle)"

It's all about just gaining an advantage.

It's more effective if they don't micro, but then again, Micro > no micro in all cases.

[Edited on September 27, 2010 at 3:36 PM. Reason : asdfg]

9/27/2010 3:35:54 PM

Quote :

"aaaannnnnd you are wrong. http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HHABJ7O0"

noooooooooooo im not. You can run the exact same test and get different results, but 90% of the time vikings will win. I've run the same test on the same map. It all depends on random unit targeting and which ones focus fires better.

If both sides focus fire at max efficiency, vikings win.

http://www.sinfulgaming.com/starcraft2/deathchart.php

9/27/2010 3:38:54 PM

I've had a few 1300ish Terrans do it to me and it's usually ended up in free marauder kills since they are so easily surrounded compared to being in the ball. I could see that "ff" working if you attacked in a choke but ZvT is all about positioning. If I attack into a choke I know I've lost already as Z. I just can't see the main point of that drop being viable. If the zerg isn't controlling his banes seperately I doubt you need a trick to beat him lol =)

9/27/2010 3:40:27 PM

Quote :

" 4 - Banelings can be great against zerg/terran, but most protoss units just have so much health it isn't really worth it IMO. it takes like 4 to kill one zealot, it really isn't very cost effective. Should they have a bunch of stalkers/collusi, there's a good chance most of them will die before they can do any damage. And of course I like banelings against terran, but i like infestors even more."

I agree against toss not as good as terran but still useful, especially in long games. The cost + low supply and the damage you can get from that really makes it a great bang for the buck. The key is to not just run them in right at first but to start attacking and try to flank with them. Early game vs. toss not useful, but late game I've found trading 40 supply of say roaches for 40 supply of blings is well worth it for the amount of damage you'll do to a colosi/stalker ball. Comment was more in regards to the fact that I tend to forget about blings the longer a game goes when they are just as useful late game.

9/27/2010 3:45:33 PM

you gonna be on later? might wanna fit in some starcraft before chuck comes on at 8.

9/27/2010 3:52:07 PM

Quote :

"b.net has been sucking lately. I think the latest update killed the performance on my old 1705 dell laptop to where it's basically a slideshow. Donno what they changed, but I was able to get playable frame rate at 1920x1200 with low settings before; it chocked during semi huge battles, but now it just slows down at opening the map. Even downsized the res and killed all the background programs, still a pathetic 0-1 fps in simple renderings."

I got a new dell laptop and SC2 was near unplayable much like you're describing. I updated my video card graphics and it fixed everything. Same thing happened to a buddy who got the same machine I did. So give updating the graphics drivers a shot.

9/27/2010 4:10:18 PM

Quote :

"Displays the combat statistics for Attacker vs. Defender. (Glaive, AOE not implemented) Assumptions: Mass unit battles based off focus firing each unit down"

I can't believe you are quoting a simulator that doesn't account for the glaive bounce as proof of anything.

Edit: lol even that simulator shows that after a certain number the mutas will win even without the glaive bounce. Try equal numbers of anything above 26, mutas win.

9/27/2010 4:16:38 PM