[Malice]

Originally Posted by Apth

Hey dudes and dudettes, wouldn't mind a hand with this one.

I've recently switched to Toss so there will probably be a decent few holes, but what I'm most interested in is my decision making.

I feel like I should have done something fundamentally different that game - there are probably a bunch of things I need to improve on (and feel free to point them out), but I'd like to know what decision I made or didn't make that resulted in that loss.

Cheers yo.

Gold Toss: http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=796

Alright so considering you're in gold, I'll go over some real fundamental problems with your opening, building placement, and how you play in the EARLY stages of the game. Refining an opening is key to midgame success, and it doesn't take much effort at all when you compare it to playing during the mid and lategame.

So for each map, you want to be able to take a pretty fast nexus, and you're doing that fine, but your buildings after that, makes it look like you want to be aggressive. It is not necessary to create extra gateways, just to finish walling off, unless you are being pressured. That extra gateway you made, could have instead been a pylon, with a small gap to put a zealot there. This means that you're putting more money towards economy in the early game (where it's important), which can set you up to make more units later.



Pretty decent example of a walloff on condemned. Uses 1 cannon (put more down if aggression comes up, such as roach busts, or banes.) Uses 1 gateway in the wall, and it isn't a full wall. The only problems are the pylons in the wall, but with good early game scouting, you should be able to know if they're going banes of roaches. This means you're not making excessive gateways and cannons early in order to wall off, and using those minerals elsewhere. For other maps, refer to the forge fast expand section of this guide: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...d=383628#1.1.1, this guide has A LOT of good stuff in it you can use.

I did notice in this game you didn't actually scout for a third. Most of the time, zerg will take a third, and you'll be absolutely fine. But if they don't, and they're doing a much more aggressive strategy, you're going to have no idea it's coming, and you'll likely be put behind because of it. You always want to send a probe out to scout if a third is up by 4:30. Any later, and something fishy could be up. But anyway, with your robo opening, it's quite inefficient, because you're getting 3 extra gateways before you even put your robo down. Why do the gateway need to be so early? If you're not going to be aggressive with them, you may as well make your tech first, and get your tech out faster, rather than those simple gateways, which you can get later. Getting these gateways puts your robo significantly later, and means you're getting out your observer pretty late, and you can't scout as fast, as well as you'll have less immortals when it comes down to what this zerg's strategy was, and in this case, you need as many immortals as possible to be able to kill roaches effectively.

Your observer getting to your opponents base was extremely late, it got to his base at around 10:30, when it should be about a minute and a half earlier, this is due to that late robo, and this is where things start to get bad for you. What you're looking for with your observer, is when you send it straight to your opponents main, you find any kind of tech structure when the lair finishes. This means looking for the amount of gases your opponent is to take a read on how aggressive they will be. Your opponent sat on 4 gases for a while, the lack of gases at the third this late into the game is a telltale sign that the zerg is being aggressive with roaches, but if your observer actually makes it to the main on time, you should see that when the lair finishes, the roach warren will start doing a dance, meaning roach speed is coming, and the zerg wishes to be aggressive. In being able to analyse what your opponent is actually doing, you're halfway to fixing your problem.

Your next problem is actually making the correct decision on what units you're making to hold this off. This build is pretty allin nowadays, since if it doesn't work, protoss is free to tech pretty hard, or hit a stronger 3 base timing, so treat it that way. You don't want to be fighting it in a bad position ever, or you'll get owned. The key to beating this build is that as soon as you know it's coming, you just defend, make as many immortals as possible, have a good sentry count, and add stalkers gradually. Forcefields are your best friend in this situation, and without them positioned well, you simple die. This means getting in a good position where the zerg can't concave very well. This is why I do not like this map. The third is very open, and protoss do not like open thirds. Maps like cloud kingdom and daybreak have quite decent chokes at the thirds, and this is why they are great protoss maps. But as soon as the aggression came at you, you didn't handle it well. You attacked in a position where he had all the space in the world to move around and run away, and you have to put down an extremely large amount of forcefields just to not die, and kill a few roaches. Attacking as close as possible to your nexus ensures he needs to come at you. You are the defender, you are waiting for him to fight you, since he made all the units, it's up to him to use those units to do damage, you just need to sit back and not die. The advantage to this is that you use less forcefields, since it's much harder to get a concave for him if he's moving into your third, whereas the area you attacked at is quite circular, so it's extremely easy for the units to concave themselves. Your forcefields were very late also, this is an advantage also if you're sitting at your third waiting, what you can do, is have an observer sitting over the entrance to your third, and just wait and be ready to put forcefields down as soon as he attacks into you. Having late forcefields can cost you the game. It didn't make that much of a difference in this game, but what a good zerg will do, is they won't just a-move into you. They will move command ontop of your army if you're not looking, and then attack, so all the roaches can attack you right away, and do as much damage as possible.

So the keys to holding this sort of thing is by analysing what the zerg has, and concluding what the zerg is actually doing. Then making the right units, and positioning properly so the zerg can't just overrun you.

This is why you need a solid early game plan and build order, in this game, if your robo was ontime, and a bit earlier, you would have a much faster robo, and you would see what your opponent was doing much faster, which gives you more time to prepare for what's coming your way.

Sorry about the slabs of text, but I kinda get carried away when writing this sort of stuff. I hope it helps in some way at all, this build caused a lot of troubles a while ago, but most of us protosses know how to hold is properly by now, and hopefully you can soon too!

[Apth]

Originally Posted by Malice

Badass advice

Thanks for that man, much appreciated.

Don't remember why I put down some gates before my robo, but I agree that was probably a large part of the problem. I'm going to put it down to my brain doing something other than what I know I should be doing.

I'm not too worried about my late forcefields or positioning, that was a result of my crappy map awareness, which will get better over time. I was more concerned that I shouldn't even be trying to take a third - but it sounds like that was ok (if a bit late).

Scouting and Macro is all I'm working on at the moment, so it's good to hear the problems with that game are manageable.

Thanks again