[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