[Malice]

Originally Posted by mGGReaver

http://drop.sc/286121
I did drops , put him quite behind in upgrades for a long time, but i still lost. I need help on what am I doing wrong here. Thank you

I remember seeing this, and saying I would do it, but I just never got around to it.

Oh well, I'll give you some advice now, despite the fact I'm a protoss player, I think I can give this one some decent insight.

A lot of your problems lie in base management. Base and income management is one of the very most important parts of the lategame. This means keeping your bases mining, and alive, and trying to destroy their bases.
This also includes taking bases at appropriate times, especially while being the aggressor.

During the course of this whole game, you're constantly in the opponents face. This is a good way to play, and definitely tasks your multitasking skills. But when you're running around destroying bases, and killing probes. You're looking to take an economic lead. In these cases, you're destroying bases, and killing probes, but you yourself are not taking bases, so the protoss can simply defend, and keep making expansions, and stay equal if not a better economy than you.

For example when you begin to do aggression on 2 bases, you are being aggressive with the units you have out on the map, but you start making your third expansion after your aggression is complete. You push out of your base at 11 minutes, and you're aggressive and float a fair amount of minerals whilst multitasking. Your expansion doesn't even start until 14 minutes. Why not make the expansion as you push out, so that whilst being aggressive, you can get it fully functional, and get yourself into an economic lead, rather than fight just to be even?
Your third base wasn't fully operational until 18 minutes, when this could have been around 13 minutes. This is an EXTREMELY hard hit to your economy.

You need to make a fourth base. Don't have that devil in the back of your mind telling you to just screw it, and you'll kill him soon. Play him for later, not for now. If you have the lead now, have it later, don't give it away. Even behind all the aggression you were doing, you could take a fourth base quite easily, and this protoss would be in a more terrible spot than he already was.
You were constantly trading better than this protoss player, and if you had the economy to sustain making these trades, you would overrun him eventually, very easily, but you got to the point where you just couldn't do it anymore, since your mineral patches all ran out (this is a problem with any terran that stays on low bases, MULES are harvesting minerals so fast, your minerals will mine out much faster).

Another major issue is how you're dropping. You have what I call "Suicide syndrome". Not one drop you did in that game, or any kind of aggression really, actually survived after its aggression. Sure you're doing some damage. But you're losing units too. The best kind of drops simply do a little bit of damage, and take any chance they can to escape. This means you're not trading at all, you're simply just doing damage in a good scenario. I absolutely despise any terran that can do some damage and just run off, because I know they'll be back with those same medivacs to do even more free damage. The way you play your drops is risky, and doesn't always pay off the way you want it to, and if you lose far too many units with multitasking drops, often the protoss can just build up a large army overtime and walk over your army at home after clearing medivacs, since they know they won't be dropped again. By keeping them alive, you leave that threat always there.

So my advice is:

1. Take bases behind aggression, not after it
2. Continue taking bases after 3, it's pretty good!
3. Get rid of drop "Suicide syndrome".
4. Continue rocking it on with that sick multitasking! ^.^

I hope this helped!

[Malice]

I have a problem of my own, and hopefully a protoss player better than me, or around my skill level can help

http://www.sc2sea.com/replays.php?do=viewreplay&id=2161

I have literally NEVER been able to hold this kind of phoenix allin. I've tried making immortals, 3 gate robo openings, going up to mass gateway, making a lot of probes, cutting probes, but it just doesn't seem to work, and I have no idea what to do.
What i've been told to do by a few people is go 2 gate robo expand then quickly up to 4 gates and mass gateway, but from this game it just doesn't seem to work, and I delayed the push pretty hard. It's starting to get frustrating now, because I can't just not expand, since if they're going for economic phoenix play, then I need a much earlier expansion than them, or I fall behind.

I even knew he was going phoenix from the start (probe scout 2 zealot + sentry opening), so I played quite greedy until I knew he was allining with the observer. This is 1200 masters on NA also.
Hopefully someone can help me >.< because I'm running out of ideas and patience in trying to hold this stuff.

[xGKingdelete]

Originally Posted by Malice

I have a problem of my own, and hopefully a protoss player better than me, or around my skill level can help

http://www.sc2sea.com/replays.php?do=viewreplay&id=2161

I have literally NEVER been able to hold this kind of phoenix allin. I've tried making immortals, 3 gate robo openings, going up to mass gateway, making a lot of probes, cutting probes, but it just doesn't seem to work, and I have no idea what to do.
What i've been told to do by a few people is go 2 gate robo expand then quickly up to 4 gates and mass gateway, but from this game it just doesn't seem to work, and I delayed the push pretty hard. It's starting to get frustrating now, because I can't just not expand, since if they're going for economic phoenix play, then I need a much earlier expansion than them, or I fall behind.

I even knew he was going phoenix from the start (probe scout 2 zealot + sentry opening), so I played quite greedy until I knew he was allining with the observer. This is 1200 masters on NA also.
Hopefully someone can help me >.< because I'm running out of ideas and patience in trying to hold this stuff.

When you forcefield your natural to stop the attack, make sure you keep up the forcefields as if it were a 4gate, otherwise he can lift the sentries and just run in, like he did in that game.

A few things I would consider to beat this push are:
1. partially or fully walling off
2. cannons

1. the push isn't scary anymore if his zealots can't do anything
2. if you go for cannons, don't make as many stalkers (since they're so expensive). Sentries are nice because they're cheap mineral-wise.

hope that helps

Quick Comments

Malice:

Yeah, I haven't tried walling off yet, would be a pretty good idea. Thanks for the tips Delete :)

[ACX]

Hi,

Could someone analyse this replay and tell me where I went wrong? I don't understand why I lost the game. I'll mention in the last decisive engagement, the Protoss did land a few storms but they weren't "money" storms. I had an okay concavity in the engagement. The upgrades were pretty even, I was 3/3 with my vikings at 3/0 and he was 3/3/3. Did I lose because I missed my EMPS in the final fight?

I felt I was ahead or even in every aspect of the game except for the final engagement. I EMP'd all his HTs. I killed all his colossus. I was even on upgrades. I was ahead economically. I don't know why..

Replay: http://drop.sc/290422

I would really appreciate the help!

[xGKingdelete]

Originally Posted by Spirit

Hi,

Could someone analyse this replay and tell me where I went wrong? I don't understand why I lost the game. I'll mention in the last decisive engagement, the Protoss did land a few storms but they weren't "money" storms. I had an okay concavity in the engagement. The upgrades were pretty even, I was 3/3 with my vikings at 3/0 and he was 3/3/3. Did I lose because I missed my EMPS in the final fight?

I felt I was ahead or even in every aspect of the game except for the final engagement. I EMP'd all his HTs. I killed all his colossus. I was even on upgrades. I was ahead economically. I don't know why..

Replay: http://drop.sc/290422

I would really appreciate the help!

First fight at 18 mins:
You should have won right here. He had no stalkers (none, zero) with his army and you got off perfect EMPs. But you didn't have any vikings so he was able to push you back with collosus. At this stage of the game, when the Protoss has HT tech for 5 minutes and they're on 3base, you have to assume a colossus transition. You have to start making vikings in preparation. If you had vikings you could have just kited with your army while the vikings picked off the collosus.

Also, you didn't stim your army for half of the fight.


Dropping - less important
Watch the replay again and watch specifically your drops. If the drop was repelled, why? Were you dropping in an obvious spot? Maybe there was some other place that was undefended where you could have unloaded safely (like the bottom left part of his main base).

I think if you loaded 2 medivacs

Maybe you dropped too close to his main army so he could defend it as soon as you started unloading units. (around 21:30).

Maybe if your dropped pulled his army out of position you could have quickly killed his fourth and retreated.

Remember to be careful if your medivacs have too much energy, it's painful when an entire drop gets killed by a feedback.


second fight at 23 mins

Losing 4 vikings for free hurt a bit, just be careful I guess.

Even though you were maxed out here, technically 9 supply was still being trained in your barracks and starport. But that's not too big a deal.

This was actually a really good engagement and I'm not really sure why he won the battle. Maybe it's because your +3 armour wasn't finished, and +3 ship weapons (while he was on 3-2-3). Maybe because the EMPs didn't hit all of the archons (but they got the HT and most of the army so they were still good).

I think it's because he had a bank and 14 gateways. In the late stages of PvT, if you fight next to a pylon, they can just warp in half an army while the fight is happening. That's just how the game works. So when you fight a Protoss, you can't be trading evenly, you have to absolutely crush their army, otherwise the warp-ins will turn the battle around.


last fight 28 mins

You should have kited him into range of the planetary fortress. If both armies are maxed out, terran will always win if they fight next to the planetary. Also, half of your army wasn't stimmed.

When the protoss army has a lot of archons in it, you need to have lots of ghosts. 6 isn't enough. Also you want to start to phase out marines from your army because they just die too quickly.

And he had 26 more supply in army because you were killing his probes. I don't know exactly when, but eventually you have to sacrifice some SCVs to get a higher army supply. It's okay though, you have mules.



Protoss is very very hard to beat in the late game, mainly because of the warp in mechanic. So if I were you, I would focus less on the later battles and more on the first battle at 18 minutes, and mid-game harass before that. You want to win before they can get to the late game.

[ACX]

Thanks for the info, really helpful.

[onlywin]

Hi all, I'm having troubles dealing with Gold and Mid- to High-Silver players, shortly I'm really bad despite having a month or two practising the game already.

Watching the replay I see that although I took early bases compared to his, I didn't really have enough tech and good army composition (along with good positioning as well) to engage him. I also noticed the drop but didn't react at all thinking that it would be fine (actually it wasn't fine because it hit my economy real bad).

However I think there are still some more problems within my playing. Some feedback would be appreciated, thanks very much in advance.

http://drop.sc/295048

[Malice]

Originally Posted by onlywin

Hi all, I'm having troubles dealing with Gold and Mid- to High-Silver players, shortly I'm really bad despite having a month or two practising the game already.

Watching the replay I see that although I took early bases compared to his, I didn't really have enough tech and good army composition (along with good positioning as well) to engage him. I also noticed the drop but didn't react at all thinking that it would be fine (actually it wasn't fine because it hit my economy real bad).

However I think there are still some more problems within my playing. Some feedback would be appreciated, thanks very much in advance.

http://drop.sc/295048

So when I look at the length of this replay, I think lategame pvp.

Pvp is a pretty strange matchup, especially for players who are just learning the game. Stuff gets extremely weird lategame, and you really need to know what you're doing, and understand how everything in the matchup works to be able to make the best decisions.

I'm going to avoid talking about the earlier stages of the game, but it's definitely important to optimize your early game, since it's the easiest part of your game to do so.

Game mechanics:
A lot of your problems lie in not making the right decision when ahead. There's so many places where you're so far ahead you can just take the game, but you sit there. It's okay to sit there and confirm your win by mining your opponent out, containing them etc. But you did it completely wrong.
At around 18 minutes, you're around 180 supply, while he is at around 140. You've seen his army, and there is a judgement you need to make. Attack, or sit back, and take a base, and not allow him to take a fourth. With the way you're playing, you NEED to take bases. Getting ahead is one thing, but holding it is another. When in such a great position, think to yourself "What could absolutely screw up my lead?". In this case, what did it, was you not taking bases, and dt drops destroying you. If you're so far ahead, invest into things to blind counter what could happen. When I get to my third in pvp, when it's saturated, I actually put a cannon at each base, incase of dts. If dts do arrive, I get observer speed, and put an observer over every base. Because in your case, where there are large amounts of DTS being warped in, cannons would not be the only way to hold them off, but warpins, cannons, and a form of detection that won't be killed, is definitely a sure way to stop any kind of dt harass.

So game mechanic wise, when you get a lead, you take bases and defend them well, whilst you deny them from taking bases. Lategame is all bases and worker saturation. If you shut down your opponent taking bases or keeping bases mining while you still are, you cut off their way to bolster their army, and you will prevail EVENTUALLY. You need to be very patient, especially in pvp lategame, since a bad position on an army can mean you lose the fight pretty badly.

Army composition:
Army composition is EVERYTHING in pvp specifically. Colossus are kings of pvp, why else would they call it war of the worlds? Your army composition is not optimal, and pretty terrible to be honest, but that can be fixed very easily, and you will see an extremely large improvement in your results if you fix this. You're making a large amount of immortals, and stalkers. Stalkers are TERRIBLE units in pvp. You want to make as little stalkers as possible in pvp, since they do so little damage, and cost gas that can be used on better units, such as archons and colossus. Immortals aren't bad units, but you would much rather make a few immortals to defend the midgame, and then move straight into colossus production. What you're doing is going balls to the wall on immortals, but if colossus with thermal lance absolutely destroy immortals damage wise, especially when your opponent has chargelots which also destroy immortals.

The best composition you can get in pvp for an army would need to be mostly colossus focused. I'm not talking 4 colossus in a maxed army, I'm talking 12+ colossus, with a few immortals you had from the midgame, coupled with a large amount of zealots and archons, and a mothership. Stalker are only needed if your opponent goes for some kind of hidden voidray play, in which you can counter quite easily with stalkers and archons. These kind of head on head fights with these compositions are why pvp gets extremely weird, since the mothership can either vortex, or be hit by a feedback to burn its energy, but the fights require a large concave, and generally whoever makes a better concave wins the fight.

So to sum it up, do not make stalkers, the gas and minerals are much better spent elsewhere, since chargelots are much better. Immortals should be colossus, since colossus are in every way better than immortals in a large fight.

I watched probably half the replay, which is all that's needed to watch, since you're in a position to take the game, and you lose it, this is the point where your play needs to be fixed.

So some overall key pointers include:

• Army composition problems (Zealot, Archon, Colossus, Mothership) Stalkers and immortals are much better in the early game, this unit composition is optimal for lategame

• Ways to keep your lead, such as making lots of observers and finding out what your opponent is doing exactly to the point

• Denying bases while taking and defending your own properly.

• A very good resource is
  You Tube

  You Tube

  This is a pvp of CoLMinigun against RootToD. Minigun explains his thought process for his decisions and is extremely insightful. There are more commentaries made by Minigun on that channel.

Hopefully this helps, remember to play for fun, and stop caring about the rank of your opponents. The important thing is getting better, not how good you are. You are your only competition at this point. When you get better you can worry about competing against others. Play some more, and get better at the game ^^

Quick Comments

xGKingdelete:

nice

[onlywin]

Many thanks for the feedback, they're definitely wonderful. I think I just didn't have enough time to learn the basic game mechanics (I play only 5-6 games a week the 1st month) so when facing better opponents I don't have enough skills and experience.

Apparently I will come back to this thread for more replay analysis if you don't mind 'cause I still have a lot troubles (not only in PvP but in other matchups as well).

Again, thanks very much

Quick Comments

Malice:

No worries :)

[DarKcS]

Tell me where I'm going wrong against mech..and drone losses to blue flame sac seems inevitable...

http://drop.sc/297284
http://drop.sc/297283
http://drop.sc/297282

Quick Comments

Malice:

Can't do these :( I'm not good enough of a zerg player to be telling you how to do things :P

[onlywin]

http://drop.sc/297636

basically i didn't lose but believe my early and mid-game can be adjusted for improvement, I just simply don't know how.

I think my building placement wasn't good enough to hold the 1st attack, or the sentry count just too low due to forgotten Core ?

My late game kinda lucky because the opponent just didn't go for higher tech and had late expo.

[Malice]

Originally Posted by onlywin

http://drop.sc/297636

basically i didn't lose but believe my early and mid-game can be adjusted for improvement, I just simply don't know how.

I think my building placement wasn't good enough to hold the 1st attack, or the sentry count just too low due to forgotten Core ?

My late game kinda lucky because the opponent just didn't go for higher tech and had late expo.

First thing I spot is that you went cannon before nexus. Why do you need the cannon to be up so early? You don't need to defend anything at that time as you have scouted he has a normal pool timing. Make your nexus before your cannon, so your nexus comes up earlier. That's a small thing that can help your opener. If you're not actually going to use the building until a bit later, spend your money on economy, then get the defence later.

A walloff at the ramp can help hold these pushes much easier. Your wall is fine, but it's much easier to hold roach ling allins, but its definitely possible. The most important part about holding this push is scouting it. It is an absolute must that you scout their third base. By confirming a third base, you can write off a lot of possibilities for a zerg player. When a zerg player is on 2 base, allins become very hard to hold if you don't know they're coming. When I see that a zerg player doesn't take his third by 4:30, I think it's either roach ling allin, ling bane allin, or 2 base muta. So to hold this, I can put down extra cannons in around a minute, and go stargate. By going stargate, you can counter 2 base muta by getting a bunch of phoenixes, and open voidray so that hopefully by the time he shows up at your base with either of those two allins, you can have a voidray coming out soon to stop it, since nothing can attack up.
This is EXTREMELY vital information for a protoss player in pvz. Knowing if a zerg has taken a third or not can be the difference between dying to an allin and completely crushing it.

Going for two gateways that early is also a bad idea, it delays your core for too long. You need that core up asap, and the extra gateway isn't really needed, even if you plan on being aggressive, this map is far too big to run gateway units across off 2 gateway aggression, because it will get shut down quite often.

Build a zealot while your core is building, and then use it to plug the whole on hold position below the pylon.

By walling off this way, you can continue to build cannons further behind the wall so that when this allin hits, you can hold it with ease, as well as if you go stargate, you can capitalize on your opponents low tech when his allin doesn't work, and deny a third base possibly with your stargate units.
I didn't watch further than you holding the allin. By holding it and not losing your natural, you are in a very good position, since he has been sitting on 2 base for so long with a lower drone count than your probe count, and with little to no tech. You are extremely far ahead in this position.

Hope this helped

[Master Cosgrove]

Hi could someone look at my replay and tell me how I can defend this zelaot push? Thanks

http://drop.sc/298730

[Malice]

Originally Posted by Master Cosgrove

Hi could someone look at my replay and tell me how I can defend this zelaot push? Thanks

http://drop.sc/298730

Okay so this Protoss player put his gateway down at 10 supply, which isn't usual, and then chrono'd out a fast zealot.
The reason why it's extremely uncommon to do this is that it NEEDS to do damage, or you're behind, and it is simply blind countered by someone walling at their top of their ramp with 1 barracks and 2 supply depots.
If you decide not to wall off, what you need to do is get around 2 marines out, and pull a few scvs to tank damage from the zealot while the marines do the damage, whilst you get a bunker up at your natural or at the top of your ramp. You'll lose scvs from this if you don't wall off, if you do wall off, to these attacks you will lose absolutely nothing, you just get a small clump of marines and then you can overrun any kind of small pressure to secure the natural. Meanwhile he took his gateway at 10, severely crippling his early game economy.

In this game, you panicked and didn't react correctly. You were pulling scvs off and putting them back on. Until the zealot is gone, keep around 5 scvs off the line to fight, and use your marines. Do not let the marines die, they are what keeps your scvs alive. Losing a few scvs is completely okay if you don't wall off.

I'd take the walling off idea since you're quite a low level player. Playing it safe at that level is always a good option. As you get better you'll learn to hold this sort of stuff easily even when you don't wall off.

[ToRLuneth]

Hey Guys I've been having trouble lategame in PvP. If you could give me some tips or point out where I made mistakes I would be grateful.
http://drop.sc/302537
Thanks!

[mGGAequitas]

Originally Posted by ToRLuneth

http://drop.sc/302537

+ [not important] +

it's good that you're aware that he could be cannon rushing you, but don't pull off workers untill he actually lays down a pylon. when he does you pull off 6 or so and attack the pylon (dont attack move) and then grab another bunch of probes and attack the 2nd pylon. theres enough time to stop the rush if you react within a few seconds of him putting it down so don't harm your econ my preemptively pulling workers.

Your build is very dangerous to any early pressure since you have no early units, he could have attacked you with his first 3 stalkers and done some damage so be weary of that.

keep up your probe production and chronoboost them. you have killed quite a few probes but have only a very small worker count lead since you have gaps.
you have killed 9 workers to his 1 worker but still have 50 probes each. If you are going to be investing money into the stargate and phix's to kill probes you need to capatilize on it by making probes well.

so despite all that you go into the late game about even

then you lose 40 workers to dts
make sure that there is always a cannon or 2 at every base maybe a few more at the further away ones. because late game zealot and dt harass is common.

After losing so many workers and him throwing away a good chunk of his army away I think the best choice is to go attack. It looks like you try to do that but then another group comes in and you move your entire army to defend it. and then he just attacks another spot. you can't try to defend all your bases with one big army you have to split up your army so you can more effectively deal with the harass. or with cannons you don't need many units at all or even a warp in is usually fine to deal with it.

You eventually go and attack and your army is a lot stronger then his but because you have no reinforcements you end up losing the battle. He warps in a bunch of zealots which decimate your collossi. you needed to have your own pylon to warp in your own zlots to counter his.

you could also try sending your own harass with zealots/dts, since his fringe bases are not very well protected

[ToRLuneth]

Thanks for the advice ^_^ had more success with PvP today alone than I have in the last 3 days combined

Macro is hard x.x

[mGGPrometheus]

Hi, could someone give me some help with this replay?

It is TvT on Ohana. I open 1rax FE into Bio while my opponent opens 1/1/1 Siege Tank + Banshee. I use my natural orbital's first scan and upon seeing the tech lab on the factory and tech lab on starport, I have no doubt what is coming. I set up turrets in each mineral line, and get ready to intercept the army as it comes across the map.

Despite pulling SCVs, I still get steamrolled. I have no idea how to deal with this kind of push out of a Bio opening. I can't just bunker up because with the help of banshees my opponent can keep pushing. I can't actually defend until I have both siege tanks and vikings which are a long way away, and even if I do somehow defend I'll be hard-contained. What do?


http://drop.sc/304368

Thanks

[ToRRedemption]

Originally Posted by mGGTitan

Hi, could someone give me some help with this replay?

It is TvT on Ohana. I open 1rax FE into Bio while my opponent opens 1/1/1 Siege Tank + Banshee. I use my natural orbital's first scan and upon seeing the tech lab on the factory and tech lab on starport, I have no doubt what is coming. I set up turrets in each mineral line, and get ready to intercept the army as it comes across the map.

Despite pulling SCVs, I still get steamrolled. I have no idea how to deal with this kind of push out of a Bio opening. I can't just bunker up because with the help of banshees my opponent can keep pushing. I can't actually defend until I have both siege tanks and vikings which are a long way away, and even if I do somehow defend I'll be hard-contained. What do?

http://drop.sc/304368

Thanks

I think it is really hard defending that kind of 1/1/1 push with 1 rax fe. Especially with the one you used, what i like to do if i want to 1 rax fe is scout if they take gas with the first scouting scv. I then follow up with a double gas delayed 1/1/1 and get those tanks and vikings out asap. You also need a bunker and repair with about 6-8 scvs for a while to delay the push. You still need the turrets and you would have 1 reactor rax to run the banshees away as much as possible.

The 1 rax fe into 3 rax opening is harder with tanks but easier with banshees, you need to get siege tanks and siege mode as fast as possible, if you scouted the tank push get the factory out as fast as possible to form a line so they cant just keep pushing, all the while working on your viking on the time being and stop banshees as much as possible with your marines. Ill edit more once i watch the replay, but yeah thats just what i like to do . Personally i llike the 1/1/1 follow to 1 rax fe anyway because of the tank count you are competeing with when they 1/1/1.


Edit: Yeah so as i thought yours was a variation of the 3 rax marine medivac build, it is extremely hard to hold off pushes with that build, you have to pull scvs and catch them unsieged like you tried and get maruaders and try hit in more of a concave. The alternative is doing what i sugggested above and do a 1 rax fe into 1/1/1 then adding the 2 rax after when you have money. With this build i forgot to mention you also want a few more turrets then what you build in that game because you dont have enough marines. The viking should come out at around 6:30 when you dont get it an add on. Siege tech and siege tanks is done by the time that timing happens cos he hit at around 9, that is plenty of time for you to get at least a tank or two out plus the bunker is always there so you can hold position scvs around it and delay with auto repair for a very long time because they can not just run up the ramp and the high ground advantage is very powerful.

Response to titan: Yeah bio expands aren't the best but going the 1/1/1 after 1 rax fe is pretty good then you can add your 2 rax after that and still get the same kind of bio mixture only your bio force is a little more small same with your medivacs, but you have a higher tank count.

Quick Comments

mGGPrometheus:

Thanks Redemption, so I'm thinking going bio expand vs gas opening might not be good

[Annie]

i acut need help on hots now stragey's for zvt zvp