I've been having trouble against Terran whenever they do a 3-rax pressure buikld Usually I can keep them out with forcefields, but I end up behind as my expansion will always be up later than theirs.
Overview
You indicated you're having problems with late game ZvP. What you should keep in mind - and this applies to all matchups - is that how you get to the lategame can often be what the problem is, rather than what actually happens during the later stages of the game. I think this game is a good example of this.
Things I Liked
You kept his expo's scouted. Not enough players do this. For awhile now the only thing I've been working on is consistently having ling scouts at all the expos. It helps immensely. Nice work.
Earlygame - FFE Response
The first thing I noticed was your reaction to his FFE - or in this case, a lack thereof. As a Zerg player, in most situations, you want to be a base up on your opponent. In most ZvPs you'll watch on IPL, GSL etc, you'll see one of two responses to FFE -
A quick third (essentially a double expand), or
Some kind of all-in/cheese/sexy Nydus rush (see Bboongbboongprime vs some Protoss scrub GSTL finals)
By not doing either of these things, you let your opponent cement an economic advantage with no opposition from you.
Earlygame - Tech Scouting
You had no vision of your opponents main base, and his tech, until 11min. This was a little terrifying for me; although you put down some blind spore crawlers, you actually had no idea what was coming out of his base.
While spore crawlers are the safe choice - they provide both detection and AA, covering Voids/Phoenix/DTs - you're Zerg. We don't play safe. We throw down hatcheries without any kind of protection, because we're freakin' baller.
Seriously though, you should be attempting to refine your play and trim any unnecessary expenditure from it - scouting will let you know if you need to put down spores or not. I find the 6-7 minute mark a good time to tech scout if you're facing off against FFE, the Grandmaster Manual or some clever folk will be able to elaborate more.
Midgame - Econ
Your econ wasn't great moving into the midgame for two reasons.
1) Your third was quite late. It came up around when you should have been thinking about a fourth, given a fast third as a response to FFE.
2) VoidRays took out your third, because you had no idea they were coming. Some extra Queens or a few Hydras would have taken care of that nicely. Refer to scouting above.
Lategame - Expansion Responses
You let your opponent expand without a response. Given you had no economic lead to speak of, you should have been thinking about denying the economic lead your opponent was trying to take. Nydus worms, baneling drops, roach drops, general harassment - all good things.
This is the same concept as the FFE response - your opponent is trying to take an economic advantage. Either deny it, or take an economic advantage yourself, thus nullifying his.
Lategame - Upgrades
At the end of the game, your opponent was on 3/1, and you were on 1/1 - no melee, no air. Your upgrades should have been a lot higher than this. While it didn't contribute too much to your loss, it will definitely matter in other matches. Upgrade early, upgrade often.
Lategame - Positioning
That first real engagement at 19minutes - your Brood Lords were way behind the rest of your army, attacking pylons.
Brood Lords are siege units. Think of them like tanks - you don't see Terran players wandering their marines around out of range of their tanks. Brood Lords force your opponent to either engage, or run the hell away - either way, you're dictating the terms and position of the engagement.
Positioning is critical in ZvP - you always, always, always need to attack the Protoss army from multiple angles. Brood Lords allow you to lure the Protoss army out of choke points and into open ground, where you can eat them. Nom nom, Protoss tears.
Overall
In short - you sat back and let your opponent get a deathball up, then got rolled. If you're going to be passive, make sure you have an economic lead. If you don't have an economic lead, you either need to take one, or take your opponents lead away from them. Attack, harass, whatever.
Don't forget to scout, don't forget your upgrades, but most importantly - get ahead, then get more ahead.
Hope that helps
___________________________________ Apth.767 SEA | NA | KR
Last edited by Apth; Sun, 9th-Oct-2011 at 8:44 PM.
Reason: I didn't like some of my punctuation.
I've been having trouble against Terran whenever they do a 3-rax pressure buikld Usually I can keep them out with forcefields, but I end up behind as my expansion will always be up later than theirs.
League :
Map : Shattered Temple
Length : 17:54
Version 1.4.1
Replay Analysis
6:01 : When Chronoboosting your drones, queue one more to avoid chronoing a building not producing.
7:38 : You already knew your opponent was not doing gaz before his Orbital command, now you see 4 Barrack, a Marauder and a lot of marines. You're in close position on Temple, you're not going to hold your expo. You should not have made one and probably canceled it now. Better to try a Ninja Expo at the north. Your opponent is likely to throw all he has directly to your base and your likely to hold it with sentries but be contained, so get some more revenue from that Ninja base and stay in security in your main.
8:28 : You still engage as you guess that he has more army than you, and you're army is arriving in a line while his is in a perfect ball. From that point you have lost the game virtually. You will catch on latter because you have superior macro but against better opponent that's already a loosing situation.
9:10 : Force Fields like that are quite useless, use them in narrow places, not open, especially if you're defending outnumbered.
10:13 : As predicted, you loose your nat and the pylon and your army.
13:06 : You catch on but your expo is late now;
14:27 : As soon as you expo in Toss, make 2 gaz. Gaz is what you need first when teching like that;
15:59 : You now take that 3rd before your opponent. You're on par with him.
17:34 : Catastrophic push. 3 levels of errors (note that I'm writing this before seing the end of the fight, but I know only from what you see, that's you're in very bad situation with this) :
You have no stalkers, how are you going to manage his air (Vikings) ?
You're not preparing your push with advance pylon to reinforce ;
You see 3 bunkers and you still push without getting DeathBall yet ?
17:54 : You leave indeed without gg ...
Strong points
Very impressive macro (Diamond level I would say) ;
Valid and safe Build order (3 gate Robo into expand) perfectly executed;
You're not supply blocked, you're spending your resources, your chrono, warping units, teching in time, making drones. You were very superior to your opponent in macro.
Very good use of sentries.
What could be improved
Be smarter, adapt to your opponent: Don't expo in close po if opponent is going to All-In you !
Catastrophic army composition without stalkers with your Colossi. In general better manage your army.
Increase your map control with:
spread pylons to reinforce your army; Harass, flank, scout.
Hallucination since t=you have a lot of sentries.
Don't forget to gg. Your opponent has deserved his victory.
Overview
You indicated you're having problems with late game ZvP. What you should keep in mind - and this applies to all matchups - is that how you get to the lategame can often be what the problem is, rather than what actually happens during the later stages of the game. I think this game is a good example of this.
Things I Liked
You kept his expo's scouted. Not enough players do this. For awhile now the only thing I've been working on is consistently having ling scouts at all the expos. It helps immensely. Nice work.
Earlygame - FFE Response
The first thing I noticed was your reaction to his FFE - or in this case, a lack thereof. As a Zerg player, in most situations, you want to be a base up on your opponent. In most ZvPs you'll watch on IPL, GSL etc, you'll see one of two responses to FFE -
A quick third (essentially a double expand), or
Some kind of all-in/cheese/sexy Nydus rush (see Bboongbboongprime vs some Protoss scrub GSTL finals)
By not doing either of these things, you let your opponent cement an economic advantage with no opposition from you.
Earlygame - Tech Scouting
You had no vision of your opponents main base, and his tech, until 11min. This was a little terrifying for me; although you put down some blind spore crawlers, you actually had no idea what was coming out of his base.
While spore crawlers are the safe choice - they provide both detection and AA, covering Voids/Phoenix/DTs - you're Zerg. We don't play safe. We throw down hatcheries without any kind of protection, because we're freakin' baller.
Seriously though, you should be attempting to refine your play and trim any unnecessary expenditure from it - scouting will let you know if you need to put down spores or not. I find the 6-7 minute mark a good time to tech scout if you're facing off against FFE, the Grandmaster Manual or some clever folk will be able to elaborate more.
Midgame - Econ
Your econ wasn't great moving into the midgame for two reasons.
1) Your third was quite late. It came up around when you should have been thinking about a fourth, given a fast third as a response to FFE.
2) VoidRays took out your third, because you had no idea they were coming. Some extra Queens or a few Hydras would have taken care of that nicely. Refer to scouting above.
Lategame - Expansion Responses
You let your opponent expand without a response. Given you had no economic lead to speak of, you should have been thinking about denying the economic lead your opponent was trying to take. Nydus worms, baneling drops, roach drops, general harassment - all good things.
This is the same concept as the FFE response - your opponent is trying to take an economic advantage. Either deny it, or take an economic advantage yourself, thus nullifying his.
Lategame - Upgrades
At the end of the game, your opponent was on 3/1, and you were on 1/1 - no melee, no air. Your upgrades should have been a lot higher than this. While it didn't contribute too much to your loss, it will definitely matter in other matches. Upgrade early, upgrade often.
Lategame - Positioning
That first real engagement at 19minutes - your Brood Lords were way behind the rest of your army, attacking pylons.
Brood Lords are siege units. Think of them like tanks - you don't see Terran players wandering their marines around out of range of their tanks. Brood Lords force your opponent to either engage, or run the hell away - either way, you're dictating the terms and position of the engagement.
Positioning is critical in ZvP - you always, always, always need to attack the Protoss army from multiple angles. Brood Lords allow you to lure the Protoss army out of choke points and into open ground, where you can eat them. Nom nom, Protoss tears.
Overall
In short - you sat back and let your opponent get a deathball up, then got rolled. If you're going to be passive, make sure you have an economic lead. If you don't have an economic lead, you either need to take one, or take your opponents lead away from them. Attack, harass, whatever.
Don't forget to scout, don't forget your upgrades, but most importantly - get ahead, then get more ahead.
Hope that helps
Thanks Apth for a very informative review of my replay. I hope it will improve my gameplay in the future TYTY
The words of ALL the Feedback contributors is actually most wanted.
GLHF and thanks.
Day9 once said something like: when analysing why you lost, you should always go to the first mistake. Because most of the time, the problems that occur later in the game are a result of the first major mistake you've made. So I'll be talking a lot about your "crappy" concussive shell opening.
With early marauder against protoss, you have to be very crisp with your timings. 5 seconds could be the difference between being forcefielded out, or marching in and taking out a couple of units for free. Your tech lab rax was done at 3:25, but you were busy controlling a scout scv, and didn't start the marauder/conc shell upgrade until 3:40. You also cut scv production during those 15 seconds. It takes 17 seconds to train an scv, so that's pretty much one potential scv that you lost. It might not sound like a big deal, but over time, it makes a big difference. When setting rally points like that, you don't need to set them all at once. You can set 3 points, go back to making scvs and training units, then look back at the scv, and set some more points. Constantly switch back and forth from macro and micro, and make sure you have both under control.
The aim of the early marauder aggression is to take advantage of the timing window before protoss has warp gate tech complete, because there is only a stalker and a zealot to defend, maybe a sentry as well. Your first two marauders completed at 4:40, and his warpgate tech finished at 6:30. So you had a bit under 2 minutes to get to his base and do some damage, before his warp gates were done.
You have to get there as early as possible, with 2 or 3 scvs to lead the way up his ramp. So next time I suggest you take 2-3 scvs and push out as soon as your second marauder finishes, and go straight to the pylon, and straight to his base. Every second counts.
At 6:50 (after his warp tech is done), you do a kind of cute move and scan his base and take out a stalker. In my opinion, this was not worth the scan because you could have summoned a mule with that energy, and if he was paying attention, he would have pulled the stalker back. If you bring 2-3 scvs along for the ride, they can spot the high ground for the marauders and take the damage for your units. It takes 3 swipes from a zealot or 5 shots from a stalker to kill an scv. (during this time you had 3 scvs in the middle of the map, you probably were intending to bring them along, so I'm guessing that it's a mistake that you already know how to fix).
Also the timing of your upgrades were a bit off. Stimpack finished just after your army died. You should time your attacks for when your upgrades finish, and take advantage of the timing. So attack as soon as concussive shells are done, or attack as soon as stimpack is done. Not before.
The main aim of the 2rax pressure opening is to buy time so you can get up an expansion. The early attack picks off a few stalkers, and by the time the protoss can warp in enough units to attack, around 6, you will already have one or two bunkers in place, and an expansion behind them. Instead, you stayed on one base and teched to ghosts and medivacs. You didn't really need to attack him, if that was the unit composition you wanted. If you attack, you're delaying your tech for nothing.
So next time I suggest you do the same push (earlier), and throw down an expansion and a couple of bunkers behind the attack. Then add on a few more barracks so you can hold off any counter attack, and then you can proceed to get ghosts and medivacs. Or, you could abandon the push entirely, and just rush ghosts and medivacs off one base, without attacking.
And the things that happened after your opening are kind of irrelevant, because the reason they happened were because your opening didn't do enough damage. It was just 2base 96food vs 1base 51food. There was no way you could have won after that.
Harsh harsh words. You were right btw. I usually remember to at lest put down an expansion inside/throw down 1-2 bunkers in the natural opening but I didn't. Guess it was the nerves.
I would say the scan was for sniping sentries because some players tend to have em close enough at the edge you could snipe em. And yeah, those SCVs were there to be the meat shields but I kinda messed up (hence the reason why I say crappy conc shell opening).
Yeah, my upgrades are all off and I need to rework my macro-micro management.
Conclusion: Timing, Macro-micro management and Expansion.
Yes?
___________________________________
NA - ThePandarine.180 :: SEA - ThePandarine.180
Proud to be Nunquam redono, nunquam deditionem
Harsh harsh words. You were right btw. I usually remember to at lest put down an expansion inside/throw down 1-2 bunkers in the natural opening but I didn't. Guess it was the nerves.
I would say the scan was for sniping sentries because some players tend to have em close enough at the edge you could snipe em. And yeah, those SCVs were there to be the meat shields but I kinda messed up (hence the reason why I say crappy conc shell opening).
Yeah, my upgrades are all off and I need to rework my macro-micro management.
Conclusion: Timing, Macro-micro management and Expansion.
Yes?
sorry, I didn't mean to be harsh!
It's just the timings and the follow-up. Your macro/micro is fine, that improves with practise.
The logic behind the build is to put pressure on the protoss with the 2rax, because that makes it safe to throw down the expansion at home.
If you follow up the attack with one base tech, that kind of defeats the purpose of attacking in the first place, because you would be safe to tech up anyway.
That's the main thing you should learn from this replay. By the sound of it though, you already know everything you need to know. good luck
It's just the timings and the follow-up. Your macro/micro is fine, that improves with practise.
The logic behind the build is to put pressure on the protoss with the 2rax, because that makes it safe to throw down the expansion at home.
If you follow up the attack with one base tech, that kind of defeats the purpose of attacking in the first place, because you would be safe to tech up anyway.
That's the main thing you should learn from this replay. By the sound of it though, you already know everything you need to know. good luck
hahahaha...harsh words are good! well for me that is casue it give a sense of clairvoyance :P
now i get the point of 2rax pressure. Pressure to make it safe to expand. K. Better informed now lol. I used to think it was suppose to kill your opponents ability to produce units/force units to cause economic problems.
and i dont quite know everything yet I have this little mantra macro>army comp>timing>micro>positioning
tell me if theres something else too :P
GLHF
___________________________________
NA - ThePandarine.180 :: SEA - ThePandarine.180
Proud to be Nunquam redono, nunquam deditionem
I'm not a Terran player, so take this with a grain of salt.
Earlygame
That cute little Marauder pressure should have had something behind it - a quick expansion, some tech, something. There was no way you were going to kill him with that push. Don't just act - act with purpose.
Midgame
You wern't aware of his expansion timing, or his tech. Scans are cool. Stimming single marines across the map can be cool also.
You also left four SCVs at your ramp the whole game - don't do this. It hurts your econ, especially on one base. Move your SCVs out for repair when you see your opponent moving out across the map.
Lategame (ish)
That drop was too little too late, and you perhaps shouldn't have comitted to it so hard. You were aware - or should have been - that he had the superior army, so trying to engage with that drop rather than just harass wasn't the best idea.
Your expansion should have been behind that drop - a good time to expand is when you know your opponent isn't able to be aggressive. While he's fending off drop harass is a good time to get another base.
You didn't defend your expansion - when you expand, start putting up bunkers and moving your army down your ramp while your CC is flying down. As it stood, your opponent got your expansion CC for free.
Distance mining your nat while your opponent was sitting in it? Baller man, freakin baller.
Conclusion
The reason you lost the game; your opponent was on two bases for the vast majority of the game, you were on one. Thus, he had more stuff.
If you're going to knowingly stay behind in econ, you need to make up for it in other ways - tech, harass, aggression, whatever. You can't just sit in your base and let your opponent macro up a deathball.
Suggestions
Keep an eye on your opponents expansion timing, so you know if you are ahead or behind economically. If you see your opponent take an economic lead, either punish him for it, or take one yourself.
A good time to take an economic lead is behind an attack or harassment. Have a gameplan; for example, get those Marauders out, get quick drop tech, and harass while you get your natural expansion up. Or something. Ask someone who knows how to play Terran, I'm just making educated guesses.
Hope that helps
___________________________________ Apth.767 SEA | NA | KR
Last edited by Apth; Sat, 22nd-Oct-2011 at 8:55 PM.
Reason: Correct ALL the grammar!
So today I played a match where I felt the most comfortable I ever have, I know i made a few errors (not putting 3 scvs on gas), probably should have taken a 3rd since zerg was being so passive, paid closer attention and microed by marins when he transitioned into banes (although game was over at that point and very much a-move)
So today I played a match where I felt the most comfortable I ever have, I know i made a few errors (not putting 3 scvs on gas), probably should have taken a 3rd since zerg was being so passive, paid closer attention and microed by marins when he transitioned into banes (although game was over at that point and very much a-move)
1:56 : Don't cut your SCV during the begining of the game. They are priority before the buildings. For example you cut a SCV because you made your gas 1 SCV too soon.
4:00 : You're making a slow reactor hellion build. You also can make a more aggressive gas first hellion build;
After your first 4 hellions, you stop using your factory completelly. Then you go MMM only, I think that's not the best way to play vs as . You should play Marine, tank Medivac to begin with, adding Thors if a lot a mutas, Ghosts vs Infestors, Viking vs Broodlords, Marauders vs Roach and Ultralisks.
8:15 : In spite of your late hellions your opponent don't drone and let you kill 6 drones, don't stop your hellions from going behind his nat mineral line (don't put a spine there but a bigger building), going up the choke, attacking the main mineral line etc. That's the huge mistake of your opponent. Consider than late hellions are made for map control (clean all the 4 Xel Nagas) and not attacking the mineral lines, a good won't let you have any kill there.
After that runby, considering the drone count, your opponent has too far behind, you win from that point.
When arriving at the creep, scan to kill the tumors whenever you can.
Always attack the third when pushing, harder to defend for the
Strong points
Good executed build order;
Good timing for expansion, good macro production thorough the game;
Trying to split when seeing the banelings.
Very good drop.
What could be improved
Use your factory. Bio builds vs are not easy at lower levels;
Attack the third;
Clean the Xelnagas and try to control them anytime you can claim the map control.
Look at the production tab of all the screenshots I took, and note how many time there is no or only one SCV building at the moment. You should not stop building SCVs ! If both your bases are about to be saturated, take a third, then stop SCV only when 3 bases are completely saturated (with both gas).
I have a 57 minute TvT game that I feel was kinda close until the end where he just stomped me over with his Thors while I didn't perform my micro well enough as well as letting my macro slip and a bit earlier than that, not taking all the other bases. Though I am not sure whether this is the correct analysis so is there a kind soul who would sit through 57 minutes of a kind of passive game then ending up with BCs and Nukes?
I just got promoted into Plat in Season 4 though I think I still belong in Gold(the guy I played was a Gold himself)
I have a 57 minute TvT game that I feel was kinda close until the end where he just stomped me over with his Thors while I didn't perform my micro well enough as well as letting my macro slip and a bit earlier than that, not taking all the other bases. Though I am not sure whether this is the correct analysis so is there a kind soul who would sit through 57 minutes of a kind of passive game then ending up with BCs and Nukes?
I just got promoted into Plat in Season 4 though I think I still belong in Gold(the guy I played was a Gold himself)
League : and
Map : The Shattered Temple
Length : 57:08
Version 1.4.1
Replay Analysis
4:01 : That's a strange build you do, gas first, then instead of a reaper, a Marauder ? 2nd gaz. 3rd depot too late, gonna be supply block.
5:00 : I get it, you're using your Marauder to defend reapers and Hellions, that's shrewed.
9:39 : You're expanding too late since you don't pressure and you don't get pressured. Opponent has a Second orbital command you don't even have started your CC.
11:24 : CC started after you scouted his expand, you should have push before this moment. If you one-base, then be aggressive. Now he catch you on army food and you're very behind 1 base vs 2.
12:32 : In consequence, you have 4 tech buildings, not all producing and you're broke. A tank is blocked by your own Simcity
13:00 : Your opponent is preparing his 3rd and your CC is done but not moving to your expo and not morphing into OC. You're falling too much behind in macro.
16:48 : Good drop defense with vikings
20:00 : good runby by hellions but you're now quite behind in army and not ahead in SCV
21:00 : 5 bases vs 3 for him
21:30 : You have Tank - Viking vs Tank - Thors, that's a loosing composition since Thor > Vikings
24:23 Another Hellion runby that gives you the lead in worker. You're opponent don't build enough SCV
26:25 : Don't fall behind in upgrades. Put your armory in a shortcut to include them easilly in your production cycle
27:25 : Your opponent is ahead in Tech and is rightfully using nukes to break your tank line. Scan to kill them
28:46 : Your opponent loose patience and attack you. Your tanks destroy him. It was time to counter !
36:23 : You switch to Battle cruser that's a excellent idea since he does not have starports but he has a big load of Thors;
50:19 : You losse Air Battle, that's your doom
56: He destroys your mining base, you're mined out, that's over.
Strong points
Quite good Harass
Good defense on nukes
Good transition to Battle Cruser. But don't engage the thor army head on. Take your fleet to attack the side bases. Your tanks will keep the center of the map for you.
Good use of PDD in air battle.You can also use the missile
What could be improved
Expand more. You lost because you were behind in bases.
That marauder was suppose to be either a reaper or marine but somehow my fingers pressed the button in between them(use Grid settings) =P. I did use missiles though didn't have enough ravens to get a good amount of missiles out.
It's a FFE into a +2 timing attack. Lost to it twice in a row, no idea how to beat it.
Tips? Advice?
(I know at one point I seem to have 1000 minerals or something that's one mistake so you can skip on that. Probably should start mining gas on the 3rd base)
I thought my droning was alright till the push came, so... what was the problem? Did I have to get spines? or another unit comp?
Hey crAzerk, Ill let the pros help out more but ill give ya my 2 cents anyway.
Definitely need a queen injecting that 3rd. Couldve had an extra 20 /30 lings. I personally prefer ling infestor (because everyone is blink stalker heavy more often than not, and infestors can snag all the sentries) while getting double evo upgrades so I have 1/1 when he has 2/0. I think Hydra range was a waste of gas when you only have 5 hydras out. Better spending that gas on 3 more hyrda or +1 carapace early.
I find against FFE its about powering up with 1/1 upgrades and drones. Then hitting a point, then just making units, basicly keep hitting injects. Doing exactly what the Protoss is doing but getting quicker drones. Same upgrades, then more units.
But other than that, pretty brutal positions, if u had cross positions, your spines couldve helped instead of being split from army and a few more lings popping close by. I also like doing a early macro hatch w queen instead of expanding so far away in positions like that. So many toss just do that timing and if you expand after holding it off, your not really behind because you have 3 hatch's producing and upgrades that are even(or equivalent) with theirs.
Obviously I know a few things I did wrong like not bringing my overseer in both engagements. But yeah I named the replay WTF cos yeah, WTF?? I think I shouldve just made ling bane and busted his ass after he got such a late 2nd.
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