[PulseSPR]

Hello, this is a protoss player wanting to switch to terran.

Are there any improvements that I can make? What mistakes have I made? Just generally, how was my gameplay?

This is Terran vs Protoss on Tal'darim Altar, and I lost, Ghost is ranked 1st in masters division.

Thanks in advance!

[aLtMrFool]

Originally Posted by PulseSPR

Hello, this is a protoss player wanting to switch to terran.

Are there any improvements that I can make? What mistakes have I made? Just generally, how was my gameplay?

This is Terran vs Protoss on Tal'darim Altar, and I lost, Ghost is ranked 1st in masters division.

Thanks in advance!

PulseSPR vs Ghost

League: Unknown
Map: TDA
Length: 16:47
Version: 1.4.2

Replay Analysis

Overview of the game

You both speak Korean and I do not understand Wish I knew Korean , will probably start learning it when I have time, really packed life right now!

You go for 1 rax gasless FE while the toss goes for gate -> Nexus -> gas -> cybernetics core (weird build by the toss btw)

You go for 3 rax + 1 gas to transition into bio smoothly while the toss plays really greedily and transitions into a standard 3 gate robo

You poke and prod thinking of going for a stim timing push, smartly scans (revealing a ton of sentries) and smartly moves back. Gosu.

You go for +1 while he goes for double forge + charge + HTs

You both get a third and he has upgrade + tech advantage over you despite you having food advantage

He hides his colossus from you and you do not posses the tech required to attack head-on with his army , attacks head-on anyway and your army gets crushed. Until this point, you were playing well.

You gg and the game is over.

Now, let us analyse what could have been improved and the major mistakes that costed you the game.

3:43 Your scouting SCV reaches his base. Sees 1 gateway + a newly built assimilator + a cybernetics core going down after the nexus. Very greedy play. However, your SCV leaves too quickly



4:46 No stalkers / zealots to deny scouting and if you have stayed, you could've seen all the chrono boosts spent on Probes (very greedy play) , the amount of gas mined ( from 2 assimilators ). Information is actually really important and you should've either stayed to look out for these OR hide your SCV at the third/fourth base to do a sneak scouting after awhile.



5:44 The scv that would remain un-used for the rest of the game



6:36 He only had 1 stalker while you have 11 marines, if you've scouted before (above) you'd have known and could've put up some pressure and potentially crippling your opponent / ending the game!



9:04 Awesome gosu move, scanning even though your stim is complete and moving back just as quickly when you notice the amount of sentries



12:25 He's going for a double forge upgrade style that you did not notice with this scan but you saw something very important - the archon. By 9:04 the immortal + sentries should have prompted you to go for ghosts because generally a army with alot of immortals + sentries can be easily crippled by good emps! With the archon, it's a MUST to get ghosts or you'll be really behind.



12:39 You are already with ghost tech but it is a tad later than you'd have wanted it. Plus you should be noticing that this stalker in your vision has 1-1 at this timing which tells you the toss is going for double forge chrono upgrades. When you see this, you have to immediately throw down a 2nd ebay and armory to go for double upgrades too or else your upgrades will be too much behind for the rest of the game and it will require you insane micro to overcome the toss's army.



15:02 His view vs your view, you could have scanned to see what tech he has instead of constantly scanning his army at the top of the ramp which you already know pretty well what's there!




16:07 Finally a battle occurs and you pull off decent EMPs but you mismanaged your engagement + ghosts. You should have scanned the top before moving your ghosts in to EMP instead of moving up for vision before EMP-ing, you would've pulled off better EMPs and could have not lost the bulk of your ghosts! In this same picture, he's 2-2.



16:11 You 0-1, see what I meant when I say you need a double Ebay + armory immediately above?



16:26 Your vision. You have spent too much scans on his army instead of his tech + expansion decisions and thus with insufficient information, decided to attack up the ramp with 2-2 against 0-1 at his natural ( which is actually a very bad decision). By now the game is pretty much over because you do not have the raw biopower + tech to beat his army in a head-on battle but you still did go ahead. I guess this is due to inexperience in this matchup and I'm sure you will learn along the way and do much better! Afterall, you didn't do too much of a bad job against a rank 1 masters



16:47 As you gg, your initial scouting SCV has remained idle for way too long



Strong point

• Really good macro, you were ahead (food-wise for most of the game!)

• Good decision making with scans as to whether to engage or not (at least early-mid game)

• Good feel of the amount of production buildings you should have at early-mid game

• Decent Ghost control

What could be improved

• More scouting! You need to scout more in order to make better decisions! You got behind alot in the above game alot due to lack of scouting!

• When you see a sentry heavy army + immortals with little zealots / stalkers, you should consider tech switching to Ghosts, if you watch the replay, if you switch to ghost right as you see that army composition, there'll be an AWESOME timing around 11 minutes where there'll be high templars ( with insufficient energy for storms ) and generally very little zealots/stalkers where your MMM+ghost can do some insane damage to the protoss!

• At the start of the game, you put your marines diagonally near the ramp (nearer to your CC) instead of on the ramp and vertically. You should put the marines vertically on the ramp spread out to abuse the ramp sight advantage so that when stalkers try to poke your marines, they'll get hit first before they gain sight of the marines!

• Before you engage the enemy, consider making a concave formation instead of staying balled up as it may cost you the game!

Generally, I would say you are playing a very good TvP except that your scouting is insufficient and can be improved alot!

I can't say about your ability to micro/macro at the same time aka stutter stepping and being able to do perfect macro at the same time because it is not demonstrated in this game! But in any case, that is a very important skill to have!

Major points that costed you the game (aka when the game started to go in favour of protoss)

• Not scouting the major things that you needed to know and therefore not giving the correct responses like responding to

-Heavy sentry army
-Colossus transition
-His REALLY greedy playstyle that should've been punished by you

• Forgetting major upgrades

-Combat shield was forgotten until very late into the game! In alot of games, that could have saved you alot of marines if there was more engagements!
-Your Ebay was not upgrading for quite some time during the game, but that is minor compared to combat shields

• Incorrect decision at 16+ minutes, I assume you panic-ed as soon as you saw his army and is not really experienced at the TvP game decision making

-You should not have engaged at that ramp and scanned it multiple times
-Spend a scan at the third which I have posted a screenshot showing how you did not have any vision of it
-Once you see that base and his army positioning, what you could have done to gain an advantage would be to swing your army around to the third, prepare to carpet bomb EMP the choke from nat-3rd

* If he engages, your carpet bomb will give you an advantage + he would'nt be able to get your ghost because he does not have a ramp defensive advantage!
** If he does not engages, simply deny that third and go back to defend, get a 4th
*** Gosu move if you can pull it off - Get a nuke, hit the third, prepare the carpet bomb the choke from nat-3rd and place a nuke there, this'll give you the definite opportunity to deny the third, get back home to defend, get a 4th and secure your advantage for the rest of the game!

• You dont always have to use scans to scout an army composition, instead of that you should stim a marine foward (50 minerals only!) to gain a glimpse of the army composition! You could have had alot more resources if you spent less scans early-mid game.

-General rule of thumb for playing a terran --> Use more MULES at the early-mid stages to get resources to match inject larvae + chrono boost
--> Later stages of the game, use scans instead of MULES to gain sight to position army / scan cloaked enemy units/ scout hidden bases

In any case, I feel you've played a decent game against a rank 1 Masters player! Good job and continue improving and become a GOSU!

Hope this helps and give me some feedback as this is my first try! In any case, can anyone recommend me something that can edit the photos and actually have it appear? I tried photo bucket but the editing does not seem to stay when I post the photos here!

Quick Comments

xGKingdelete:

[Apth]

Originally Posted by Meganex

PvZ Lost temple
http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=65

IMO, the reason you lost this match was macro.
There were several points in this game where your minerals were sitting at 1200 while his were sitting at 200, with harvester counts fairly even.

Spending his money more efficiently allowed your opponent to have larger armies than you, given fairly even harvester counts. I would suggest starting a vs AI game with no opponent, and just practice keeping your money low.

Originally Posted by ZanooKu

http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=95

Tanks provide area denial, like you said. Because Steppes of War is such a small map, area denial is that much more of an advantage. IMO, finding a way around that area denial would probably give you the advantage. Warp Prism harass would force your opponent to either move his mobile units, leaving his Tanks exposed, or pick up his entire army and move it - because Tanks are slow, you would have the opportunity to do a ton of damage.

Your opponent did a lot of damage with those Medivac drops. That damage would have been done regardless of whether you were pinned to your base by Tanks, and I think contributed to the loss in a big way. As a Zerg player, I don't usually have too much trouble with drops because of Overlord vision and Zergling mobility, so perhaps some of the Protoss and Terran players could chip in on how to deal with drops.

[ZanooKu]

Alright so if it's not EMP Terran use to kill everything, It's Siege Mode.
I find early game they can have 1-2 which will stop any gateway units breaking in which brings me to mid game. Immortals have barely any range, and get chopped by Marines. Colossi cost more minerals/gas and supply. Are a higher tier and are more vulnerable to air units yet they have under half the range of a Siege Tank until upgraded which still has 4 less range. As the game goes on the tanks can slowly progress forward and use Medivacs for vision. Before I even get close to their units, they're already taking out at least half (if not more of my HP). This replay isn't the best example as I didn't get Immortals, but apart from that... well I'll just let you decide on how "balanced" tanks are...
http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=95

[ZanooKu]

Yea I thought about a warp prism drop etc, but then the though came to my head of If he see's a few units, he's gonna say "**** it!" and charge in gg'ing my whole base/army.

[Melchsee]

Originally Posted by ZanooKu

Yea I thought about a warp prism drop etc, but then the though came to my head of If he see's a few units, he's gonna say "**** it!" and charge in gg'ing my whole base/army.

try dropping 2 immortals + warping units in and he'll think twice about it.

[Apth]

Originally Posted by ZanooKu

Yea I thought about a warp prism drop etc, but then the though came to my head of If he see's a few units, he's gonna say "**** it!" and charge in gg'ing my whole base/army.

That'd be a pretty good result, Siege Tanks suck when they aren't sieged. Catching a Terran army with unsieged Tanks is like Christmas for Zerg. Zergmas, if you will.

[ZanooKu]

well i have tried the immortal drops, however medivacs that are well placed can see when warp prisms are coming and move marines over. i remember trying this when i seen nexgenius do it at blizzcon ... however it was when there was only 2 tanks and small armies...

[shsh]

Im currently a 1700ish diamond (56% win rate), recently played 12 games. 2 win 10 loss. Most of them are terrans using thors/marines/mara(some used seige tanks). What is a good counter to thors. Is hydralisk useful? Cause i have never used them against terran.

Tried to play aggressive 2 base baneling bust, but when T spot my zerglings, they go hellion and baneshees. When I transit into mutalisk, they transit to thor.

Need some advice here.

[Torniquet]

Try posting some replays will make it easier for people to help you.

[Apth]

Originally Posted by shsh

What is a good counter to thors.

"Counters" are almost always situational. Posting replays allows people to give you advice based on the situation you were in, which is important.

[nirvAnA]

the counter to thors are mass roaches not hydralisks

[Apth]

Changed the thread title to (hopefully) encourage some higher-level players to post replays.
Even if there is only a small part of your game you want to improve, the rest of us can learn a lot from these small improvements.

Feel free to post replays for purely discussion purposes - whether or not something you did was the best response even if you didn't lose, etc.

Thanks guys

[nirvAnA]

i included a bonus game in the nirvana scopen#1 rep pack here

i was using zerg (my zvp has gotten quite good) had a super huge advatantage at the start vs tendersteak, but late game i cannot find any thing that can beat his army unit composition.

woud love some good zerg players to check out that replay. i mean i died with 6k minerals, i just coudlnt think of anything to make that would beat his composition!

imba sheep!!!

[Torniquet]

Do Glades Roach build vs everything. Tis what i do.

[Apth]

Originally Posted by Torniquet

Do Glades Roach build vs everything. Tis what i do.

Here are some replays of me using Glade's Roach build. To all you Diamond players - how the hell do you beat it? One day someone's going to use it against me, and I'm going to be a sad panda.
http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=117
http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=118

Originally Posted by nirvAnA

i included a bonus game in the nirvana scopen#1 rep pack here
i was using zerg (my zvp has gotten quite good) had a super huge advatantage at the start vs tendersteak, but late game i cannot find any thing that can beat his army unit composition.

When Zerg gets to 200/200, usually the idea is to throw down some macro hatches, store up as many larva and resources as possible, and then trade armies. You remax in under a minute, and in that time your opponent builds almost nothing. Not so much about unit composition.

That said, in your situation I probably would have gone Crackling/Mutalisk. Cracklings in first to draw the storms, Mutas snipe the HTs, reinforce with dirt cheap Cracklings. Voids and Archons not so great against Cracklings. Just my opinion though.

[QuestionMark]

Hiya,

Looking for some comment/feedback on this.
Got owned badly, even after denying zerg's expo. :/
Wondering if I should have gone for a base trade.
Thanks!

http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=126

[Apth]

Originally Posted by QuestionMark

http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=126

During the game you traded armies numerous times.
The last time, he took out your economy in the process; he was able to rebuild and you wern't.

There wern't any glaring holes in your gameplay. There are two suggestions I'll make:

1) Scouting. Your opponent was able to walk right up to your expo and take out half your total SCVs before you could react. He was also able to take out a substantial amount of your main with Brood Lords you didn't see coming.

2) Harassment. Trading armies isn't a good thing to do with Zerg; your opponent can rebuild his forces a lot faster than you can. If your frontal attacks aren't doing your opponent any economical damage (taking out a hatchery doesn't count if he has three more) you need to start considering other attack vectors. You *NEED* to do damage to your opponents economy with your attacks against a Zerg opponent.

[QuestionMark]

Thanks Apth >.< Both are your points are very correct. Guess I'll have to practice more drops for economy damage. >.> Initially I was wanting to go blue flame hellions but idk what happened. Lol.

[Apth]

Originally Posted by QuestionMark

Thanks Apth >.< Both are your points are very correct. Guess I'll have to practice more drops for economy damage. >.> Initially I was wanting to go blue flame hellions but idk what happened. Lol.

If you want a starting point, try this:
Every time you attack with your main force, grab a Medivac, fill it with Marauders, stim and take down an expo hatch. Even if you're forced to withdraw - withdrawing is preferable to losing your entire army - you've done economic damage. Win!

Originally Posted by FatHuntresS

Apth add me in game i will try beat glades roach prohuntress.117

Not sure a lowly Platinum player will show the build in it's best light, you'd be better off playing Glade :P I'm not going to turn down an opportunity for a match though, I'll add you when I get home from work.