[mGGReaver]

Opponents League: Gold
My league: Gold
Matchup: Terran(me) vs Protoss

http://drop.sc/261305
Hey guys, I'm having trouble with the late game protoss, I dont know why but every time i play against protoss I would always lose to the late game army, gateways units , hts and collosus. My army had vikings MMM and ghost but I still lost to the toss at the end. So I need help to know what I did wrong. Need help! :O

[mGGAequitas]

Originally Posted by mGGTitan

http://drop.sc/253483

I think a big turning point was the battle at 21 minutes. You have a really nice concave but still manage to come out behind in that engagement.

Why?
- Your tanks were poorly positioned, if they were a bit closer they would have gotten off more shots and if you focus fire you may kill the ifnestors before the fungals are dropped but with them so far back the infestors could cast fungals without even getting into range of your tanks

- You had a good concave but not really spread out and as a result two fungals get cast hitting 90% of your marines as well as the banelings which hit a tonne of your marines

- Your upgrades were really behind, 1-1 on bio and 0-0 on tanks vs his 2-3 (and chitinous plating)


Also you are floating so many resources. Once you get to maxed try and trade off your army with lots of small multi prong attacks like the small army at his 4th a drop at the third a drop at the main and walk an army into his nat all at the same time. You aren't investing much but it's likeley that you will do some daamge. And the units you do lose you should be able to replace in a single macro cycle and you replace them with better units, like if you lose 2 supply in marines build a ghost to get your supply back to 200. So you are doing damage to him while simultaneously improving your army.


After that you get caught off guard and engage his army awkwardly on the right side of the middle of the map.
Again your upgrades are letting you down. Also it doesn't help that you had no answer to broods.
Make sure you unseige ur tanks to stop ur tanks killing your own units when it targets the broodlings.

Rest of the match is more of the same, you don't even start 3-3, keep getting owned by fungals, need to work on your splits, get your tanks in position to shoot the infestors or use ghosts to emp/snipe the festors

24:16 [All] mGGTitan: there's nothing i can do
24:22 [All] mGGTitan: the direct counter to broodlords
24:26 [All] mGGTitan: is coutnered by infestors

you had lost before he had even finished his greater spire so this doesn't come into it

[mGGPrometheus]

Thx Aequitas,
But if I put the tanks too far forward they get ripped apart immediately by ultralisks. I also tried drops but his 3rd and main were really fortified with spores and spines. I agree the engagement against broods wasn't optimal and my upgrades were lacking.

I had a decently sized army, was ahead on supply, and was on even bases when he got broodlords, so I don't get how I'd lost before the greater spire even finished?

[TheGentleman]

Replay link: http://drop.sc/258084
Stream Link: http://www.twitch.tv/thegentlemansc2/b/333507585

Hi guys,

I have lost to mutalisk harass twice now so I think it's time to get some help. Above I have provided a link to the replay as well as my stream. I play the game at 0:45:55 and analyse my loss at 1:00:25.

Mistakes I noted were:

• Not enough scouting (information with which I could have used to end the game early thanks to his poor use of spinecrawlers in mutalisk based play.
• Poor choice of tech, but tech based on poor scouting.
• I recognised the late 3rd hatch... yet I didn't react to it.
• I havn't analysed my macro yet but with the exception of occasionally forgetting probes I believe I was on top of it.

Thanks in advance

Edit: btw delete, since my coaching session with you I am handling PvP like a boss (very few losses), weakest links are now PvT and PvZ. TY for your help ^^

Quick Comments

	Mox:	TheGentleman --> TheGrandmaster ;)
	xGKingdelete:	glad to hear that, after hsc we'll work on those other two matchups as well :)

[xGKingdelete]

Originally Posted by TheGentleman

Replay link: http://drop.sc/258084
Stream Link: http://www.twitch.tv/thegentlemansc2/b/333507585

Hi guys,

I have lost to mutalisk harass twice now so I think it's time to get some help. Above I have provided a link to the replay as well as my stream. I play the game at 0:45:55 and analyse my loss at 1:00:25.

Mistakes I noted were:

• Not enough scouting (information with which I could have used to end the game early thanks to his poor use of spinecrawlers in mutalisk based play.
• Poor choice of tech, but tech based on poor scouting.
• I recognised the late 3rd hatch... yet I didn't react to it.
• I havn't analysed my macro yet but with the exception of occasionally forgetting probes I believe I was on top of it.

Thanks in advance

just from the replay alone,

First thing (which isn't really that important in this game) but I would scout close by ground (horizontal) spawns first because the rush distance is actually really low on this map.

Gas means banelings all in, roach all in, or mutas. Unless they are mindgaming you, which is very unlikely on ladder since people tend to just use one build only for each matchup.

If you don't see banelings or roaches at your natural by the time you have a sentry or two, you can assume it's mutas.

With your first zealot, make it a bit earlier, and check his third straight away. That's the most important bit of information you can get from a zerg both at 4:30 and later in the game. If you saw no third at 6 mins, you would have known mutas for sure (because your zealot didnt run into 100 speedlings or roaches).

I think that's pretty much all I need to watch.

So what you do is you scout that he's almost definitely going mutas, and then you do your response. If you can scout these signs earlier, you have more time to prepare. So I would go for a really fast +2 attack (zealots can 2shot lings even if they upgrade armour) and also really fast armour upgrades, and move out after that. Colossus isn't that bad of a choice unless you neglect gateway units for too long to get them. Because it's muta ling. If you get 2 colossi, suddenly it's just muta. Guardian shield + blink stalkers can deal with mutas.

So whatever 2 base timing you do will either end up in a base race (make sure you set up some defenses before you move out), or he will defend with entire army (including mutas) at a wall of spine crawlers. You won't be able to break 10 spines, lings, and mutas. So from there you can just deny his third and take your own, cannon up and suddenly it's 3base protoss vs 2base zerg.

The reason a 2base timing would be strong in this situation is because it's close by ground spawns. It's hard for him to run around your army and do a counter attack. And his mutas don't have that many places to attack from.


But anyway, that didn't happen this game. With your observer you saw no infestation pit or any sign of a transition, and also his muta flock kept on growing. So from this you know he's going mass mutas for sure. This means you really really really needed upgrades (you only had +1attack without any other upgrades on the way at 13:30). Also means you'll need high templar and/or archons. I tend to avoid going psi storm against mutas because it takes so long and I usually fail the storms anyway. Maybe in this game you could have gone dts, used 4 to harass him and scout around the map, and then use the rest for archons. Also since you had colossus tech there's no reason to get both AOE techs, you'll be too gas starved.

Anyway, main thing is, know the signs from your first probe scout / zealot harass and respond earlier. And upgrades. I think you needed upgrades. Armour especially. His lings were 0/0 the whole game, so if you got 1 attack and 2 armour that would have changed any army engagements so much.

Quick Comments

TheGentleman:

tyvm ^^

[Malice]

Delete or Aequitas always seem to beat me to these :P
Nice work though everybody. More reps, I want to help people!

Quick Comments

xGKingdelete:

doesn't mean you can't help, the more perspectives the more clearer the replay becomes

[mGGAequitas]

Originally Posted by sRreaver

http://drop.sc/261305

since it's a long game i'm gonna go straight to the 24 minute mark and start analysis from there.

ok so you seem to be in a very good position, nearly 3-3 while he is only halfway to 2-2

some massive problems i see are your saturation: you have 64scvs at 8 patches (your third) which is your only mining base. you have to try and conserve your main and natural by making sure that you mine more from your latest base as well as calling mules on this base. dont have so many scvs at a single base even if u have to long distance mine it is fine coz you will have more income and wont have to worry about transferring once ur new base finishes. the way to do this is once u have 16 scvs mining at one base u rally ur cc to ur next base.

The next problem you have is way too many scvs. it is 46 probes to 86 scvs + 2 mules. and you have 1800 to his 1600 resources income. and since you are both maxed armies this means ur army is a lot smaller. which it is: 12k protoss to 9k terran army value.
Make sure in late game you sacrifice some scvs and replace them with more orbitals.

The next problem i see at this point in time is your composition. I think you have just a few too many vikings for his collosus count. but the bigger problem is your medivac count. 3 medivacs is nowhere near enough. maybe more like around 8-10 would be a better number. also as i said before you just don't have enough marine and marauder either because too much of your supply is tied up in scvs. you should also have more marauder to marine ratio as well especially considering he is going stalker collosus.

and there is that engagement on the ramp which goes decently for you. not great. it could have been better if you kited with your mmm while ur vikings killed the collosus so you don't take as much damage.
Also if your losing the battle retreat with your remaining units. you just left your vikings there stacked on top of a storm.

Then you just lose because you don't have enough income to rebuild all that army in time to stop that counter attack. see how if you kept ur vikings alive you wouldn't have to rebuild them and could then spend all your money on mmm ghost.

you nearly get back in by killing all his ht's and emping half his army. but you don't stim for ages during that battle in the middle and you don't kite so you only trade evenely but you needed a REALLY good trade to stay in the game since it is 2 base to none.

Quick Comments

	Nemo:	Great !
	mGGReaver:	Thank you so much for your help! :)

[Siq]

Immortal sentry again.

Been suggested ling muta by several protoss but I can't ever get it to work.
http://drop.sc/261547

Note: I felt like I couldn't find the money for it. I was spending all minerals on lings and never could dump the gas into mutas. I don't know why he didn't try to attack the third where I had defense. *sad*

Also, the quick warren and speed is because of his very late 3rd and 4th gases and spinning forge, I thought something quicker would come.
Thinking a max of 5 gases, maybe 4, at least not 6 for this in the future.

[ryrymanpie]

Hi guys,

My league: Gold
Opponent league: Platinum
Match up: TvZ

http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=794

Comments:

During the first 15 of this game i believe i was at an advantage army and macro wise however, i managed to let this advantage slip. During the first engagement i am aware my siege tanks (2) were not spread effectively allowing for a fast surround but i do not feel that this would have helped anyway.

After i saw this mutalisks out (quite a few) i was splurged on turrets; stopped drops and attempted to double expand due to my third being late. Please note, i am aware that during the time i was establishing my third and fourth i was floating in resources, however this was intentional as i was waiting for them to be established before i put down the extra production. I am aware my macro could have been better (working and army production being constant).

My upgrades were delayed/forgotten about an error i have acknowledged but i honestly do not feel as though any of this mattered i honestly felt like i would have had a 50+ army advantage but he could just move with his lings/bling army and walk through me while using his muta's to cause my army to split to defend....

Zerg is the only match up at the moment that i am having trouble analyzing myself as i can pick numerous mechanical errors in my play, but even if my mechanics were perfect i still feel i would lose against this composition due to my lack of army control.

Anyway, let me know what you guys think, this is starting to frustrate me as i am right on the cusp of getting a promotion (rank 1 gold and almost 100 points above rank 2 - however these match ups are just throwing it away)

Thank you in advance.

Ryrymanpie#822
i

[mGGAequitas]

Originally Posted by ryrymanpie

http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=794

ok so at around 11 minutes your macro starts to go quite poorly
engagement at 13 ish goes really badly for you, make sure you wait for your upgrades. and don't overextend your army. theres no need to use every single unit to kill creep. leave the rest of your army in a good position. and don't just make your army run all the way back. you have to stutter step. so you run a short distance back and then a move then run back again after they have shot a round. this is a very effective way of improving the cost efficiency of your army.
but i don't think you would ever have won that battle because your army was a lot smaller because of 1. your poor macro and 2. the fact that he had cut a lot of workers to get a bigger army up (if you scouted his third you would have seen no drones) in those situations it is better to just macro up. take your own third and play defensively; you are already ahead in econ because he made such a big army instead of drones.

you become way oversaturated, should take your third sooner. and again try to spend your money you are floating nearly 3k at 15 minutes
notice you have double his worker count (and mules) yet you are still only even on income, this is because of your saturation. at a certain point having too many workers mining at a base no longer returns additional income. make sure this doesn't happen by expanding and rallying your ccs to the new base. if you don't have a third yet then it is fine to long distance mine while you are getting it up. long distance mining returns a lot more income than oversaturation.

a poor engagement at 22 minutes. he caught u unseiged and you are just way too far behind before that but that was the nail in the coffin. there's no returning at this point.
So make sure you kill of creep and slowly leapfrog your tanks towards his base. don't just rush in you will get killed.

Also your upgrades were a bit slow. Try to remember to keep making them. maybe a second engi bay as well.

But yeh. Spend your money

[ryrymanpie]

Hi Equitas,

Just have a few questions regarding your replay analysis... when you said make sure you wait for upgrades what were you referring to? just like i was 0-1 should i be waiting to be 1-1 or something?

Also i like your idea of not sending in my entire ball to clear creep. However when you say to studder step, i was fighting on creep so i assumed that if i attempted to studder step against speedlings and fast banels i would just get overrun? (im not 100% that was actually the case but a question regardless).

I here so many conflicting arguments, people say, you have to harass zerg because if you leave them unpressured they will get a big death ball together and a move.. although i did ask a friend of mine who is a zerg player and he said the same sort of thing, that i should have scouted the third and realized his eco was deficient and then macroed.. but yeah... i know what you're saying i'll have to keep that in check next time.

How do you manage over saturation? 24 is the optimal right? how do you separate the excess from the 24 that need to continue?

Is there anything you could have suggested i did so i didn't fall behind? like if i had macroed up instead of pushing at 13 mins would i have been in a superior position? i know its hard to predict stuff like that but you know what i mean.

Also thank you for your analysis i greatly appreciate it!!

Regards,
Ryrymanpie

[mGGAequitas]

name's Aequitas clan tag is sR

Originally Posted by ryrymanpie

Just have a few questions regarding your replay analysis... when you said make sure you wait for upgrades what were you referring to? just like i was 0-1 should i be waiting to be 1-1 or something?

your combat shield and +1 (weps or armour cant remember) finished just after the engagement started. It wasn't too bad in this case but if he had engaged you sooner it would have been worse for you. Just make sure you haven't committed just before upgrades like wep/armour/seige/stim/combat shield etc etc. it's almost always better to wait up to like 30 seconds for upgrades before rushing in to kill the enemy .

Originally Posted by ryrymanpie

Also i like your idea of not sending in my entire ball to clear creep. However when you say to studder step, i was fighting on creep so i assumed that if i attempted to studder step against speedlings and fast banels i would just get overrun? (im not 100% that was actually the case but a question regardless).

the slings are faster than ur marine marauder army so they are going to do damage for free if you are on a move command so you don't want to do that. Yes if you stutter step you will take more damage from the lings as you have to slow down, but considering that it allows you to do damage instead of just taking it, it is well worth it to stutter step. and if you are worried about getting surrounded, yes it can happen but it can also happen if you don't stutter step. Just think that when you ran away you took damage from stim and had to stim again since you wasted a lot of time running away. you took damage from the slings, his army had gotten in your army's face and you have done no damage from your mm. it's not a good trade. you always want to be doing damage and you stutter because it allows you to do about the same dps as if you were standing still and shooting, it allows you to minimize damage because you can get into a better position and it takes longer for the ling to do damage since you are running away.
in short: don't move command while your army is getting attacked, stutter stepping is how you run away because it lets you shoot and runaway at the same time.

Originally Posted by ryrymanpie

How do you manage over saturation? 24 is the optimal right? how do you separate the excess from the 24 that need to continue?

2*n is optimal
2*n + f is max
(where n is the number of patches and f is the number of far patches)
so generally 16 is optimal and 20ish is max

so to saturate properly:

once you have optimal to max saturation you rally that command center to your natural. Once your natural has enough workers you rally all ur ccs to your third.

The more efficient way of doing it is:
once you have max workers at your main you rally to your natural. Once your natural cc is finished you transfer all but the optimal number of workers from your main to your natural until you have optimal at your natural as well then you rally your main cc to your main patches and your natural cc to ur natural patches. once you reach max at both you rally both to your third. once your third finishes you transfer all but the optimal from main and nat, etc etc.

Originally Posted by ryrymanpie

Is there anything you could have suggested i did so i didn't fall behind? like if i had macroed up instead of pushing at 13 mins would i have been in a superior position? i know its hard to predict stuff like that but you know what i mean.

yeh i don't think it was a good idea to 1. rush into that engagement, you need to try and get into a good position so the engagement is as cost effective as possible. and 2. attack into a bigger and more expensive army with better upgrades (i think his ups were better?)
If you noted that he was making a lot of units, there is no need to attack because the damage to his econ has already been done. Theres no need to cross the map and have an engagement which will unlikely turn out better for you than if you were at base (walls, repair, closer reinforcements)
To not fall behind you have to constantly make scvs and constantly make units. Floating 3k is not good, if you had spent that money on more units instead of floating the money and having idle raxes all the time, your army would have been double the size with that push you did and then it may have turned out better (but still would have been better to just defend)

Quick Comments

Nemo:

You're a hero !

[Next_rim]

MU: PvP
League: Master
Opponent: top8 diamond

Was playing in a tournament the other day, lost 1:2 to this guy. I used my warp prism 4-gate build against him in all three games, and both times he went phoenixes, I lost. Game 2 he went blink stalkers and I crushed him. Any suggestions what to do vs phoenixes with my build?

Game 1: http://www.sc2sea.com/replays.php?do=viewreplay&id=2042
Game 3: http://www.sc2sea.com/replays.php?do=viewreplay&id=2043

Quick Comments

mGGAequitas:

4 gate prism loses to every build, you just have to hope they make mistakes

[mGGPrometheus]

MU: TvZ
League: Master
Opponent: Master

Any tips on beating the kind of roach rush in my replay? It hits pretty early. I did all the scouting I could really do with my units, but regardless it just crushes hellion/banshee openers so hard.

[ToRSpookToR]

Ok papasmurf asked for help on a replay in chat box so i am going to just post what i got from it here, in case others have a use for it.
http://www.sc2sea.com/replays.php?do=viewreplay&id=2055 replay link!

I did this in about 5 mins so its very rough please excuse.
scouted to early vs zerg - scout at 14 supply
@4 mins got gas not sure why should follow this up with a command center
scv production could be better
never puts scvs on gas
ok 4cc now crazy stuff
not getting supply blocked very nice
@ 10mins bunker should be closer to cc no use putting it there
good macro still not supply blocked
saturation is bad 16 (2 lines of workers) on minerals per base
need medivacs omg also shields and 2/2
@12 mins push makes no sense you need medivacs with this and combat shields
work out armoury timing for your 2/2
important!!! MEDIVACS!!!! for bio 100% need them.

Titan ill have a look at your replay too you are probs better than me anyway so take what i say with a grain of salt...

[ToRSpookToR]

TiTan!
You saw he went gas first which means he will have speed around 5.40ish(i think) you also saw him take his drones of gas so that means he could be
1. going mass speedling
2. getting fast speed to be safe
3. putting back on gas when you leave
so you should get a bunker because 1 and 3 are hard to stop without a bunker... if zerg opens gas i like to save my scv and if possible rescout at 6.20 if he doesnt have any queens spreading creep then it is likely he is doing an aggressive build however if he has 1 or 2 queens spreading creep it means you are safer for a little while longer, banshee pops @ 7.30 (i think) if you go gas before 2nd depot and id imagine 7.50~ if you take gas after (thats a guess) so you need to delay repair the bunker until you get a banshee out you will still lose 7-9 scvs if you defend it correctly.

text book lucifron vs lowely.

**** punctuation and if i got anything wrong please correct me!!!!

[mGGPrometheus]

Thx spook. The queen count thing is pretty cool never really thought of that. I guess you're sorta destined to lose a heap of scvs until the banshee's out huh...

I was thinking instead of that I should do some forward scouting with scv like u said and when I see the roaches put down a second bunker at the top of my ramp and pump out marauders (banshees take way too long). That MIGHT work better than waiting forever for banshees

And until my win/loss against you is positive I count you the better player ;p

[ToRSpookToR]

you can do that too you arnt waiting that long for banshees i think you need banshees as a follow up anyway to kill the third etc put pressure on.
EDIT you are now 50% vs me lets never play again and agree to be equal

[ryrymanpie]

Hi guys,

Name: Ryrymanpie
League: Gold
Match up: ZvT

I have recently posted in the strategy forum regarding appropriate timings for droning and creating an army. Here is the post http://www.sc2sea.com/showthread.php?t=6317 if anyone is interested.

Long story short, i have recently being watching some day 9 to try and improve my zerg macro and game play and one of the most important things he mentions is that you drone until you know a push is coming and that if you JUST get units out in time to defend the push that you're playing zerg perfectly. Also that basically zerg players should always be trying to win at hive tech so any army created prior to a hive tech composition is merely to delay the opponent until such time.

ANYWAY!!! in this replay i have posted: http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=795.

I feel as though my macro was decent (i know my injects are not perfect; i know that should be the first thing i work on im hoping that sooner rather than later the mental clock in my brain for this will click!), creep spread good, drone saturation good, upgrades pretty late so not good...

What happened in this match up IMO is that i scouted his army leaving his base late AND i got supply blocked when i had to build my army in response to his push. Here is my query for all you zerg players and anyone who knows about zerg. Am i playing this correctly? Is the primary reason why i lost this is because of my failed scouting and getting supply blocked? I am really trying to find my feet with solid zerg play at the moment toying around with lots of different fundamentals.

Anyway, i look forward to your reply!!

Regards,

Ryrymanpie

[mGGAequitas]

Originally Posted by ryrymanpie

ANYWAY!!! in this replay i have posted: http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=795.

Originally Posted by ryrymanpie

I feel as though my macro was decent

No, no it wasn't. You really need to improve your macro. Floating 5k resources is not a good idea. Imagine how well you would have crushed his attack if those resources were invested into your army. Make sure you either make a bit of an army or have some way to see if he is pushing out so you can preemptively make a huge swell of army. Take the gases at your nat and third a lot sooner. Don't make so many spines for no reason at your nat and third it's a lot of wasted money + lost income that the drone would have made.

Focus on 1. Injecting right and 2. keeping your money low.
just practice doing that, getting to 80 drones as fast as you can and then making an army. If you die beforehand don't worry about it because you are trying to improve your macro. Once your macro is up to a good standard then you worry about reacting to pushes and what not.