When I was platinum I won 800-900 diamonds almost all the time, but since I was promoted I even lose to 800-900 plats.

My builds are
zvt: 15 hatch 14 pool 13 gas into lings/bling/mutas
zvp: 14 pool look for any proxy then decide between 15-16 hatch or roach warren and then pumps couple of lings. fast tech to mass hydra and timing attack before colossus comes out
zvz: 12 gas 12 pool mass lings/blings

check out some of my replays.

any criticisms are welcomed

ghermination

United States2851 Posts

September 27 2010 02:38 GMT

I'll check out the ZvP one now, i'll post some advice in a few minutes.
Edit: Now that i've watched it i'll tell you the glaring problems that i saw.
1.No scouting. After your first OL flew over his base you kind of left him to his own devices. Zerglings are really good at scouting and sacing one at the ramp would have shown you his low unit count, so you would have thrown down your hydra den. Zerglings are useless when they're just standing around doing nothing, you have to be active with them and scouting. Similiarly, you lost to his 4gate follow up because you didn't have an OL at the destructible rocks. It's right next to your base, you might ass well park one there.

2. You didn't throw down the hydra den for quite awhile even though you had a lot of money saved up. You would have been able to keep his void rays from doing any damage at all (probably wouldn't even have sniped your queen) and you would have had the numbers to stop that push, if you had scouted it.

3. No Spine Crawlers. Seriously these things are soooo gay against toss. They melt every unit except the immortal, so when you're fe'ing and you scout a 2 gate always throw down a spine crawler or two regardless of what map you're on.

While it's not specific to the game, i feel you need to work on your macro a bit. With your two hatcheries you should have been able to spend all that money you had saved up - be it on drones or lings or hydras or whatever. You've just got to get rid of that big chunk of money sitting in your bank.

BnK

United States538 Posts

September 27 2010 02:58 GMT

thx a lot ghermination!

I also have as weird habit of panicking when I've just won a big battle cuz I dont know if I should counterattack or just expand.

ZapRoffo

United States5544 Posts

September 27 2010 03:08 GMT

Game 1 vs. Terran on LT

having watched the first half your biggest problem is not making drones. Your order should be drones first, then lings when you need them. You started making lings with a couple drones thrown in, and then he does a real aggressive attack forcing you to make only lings. You forced him back but even though he brought a bunch of SCVs with the attack, he's still ahead of you in SCVs at the end of it. You would have been fine if you made only drones and then switched to lings/a crawler or two when you saw him moving out (which you did see).

You get to lair and don't even have enough minerals to use your larvae, let alone get good lair tech stuff going.

Next almost game-losing mistake: when your first mutas came out, he was totally unprepared. He had like 4 marines and was just building his e-bay (and he didn't even throw turrets right when it was done). But you sat with mutas (actually flew around in circles a little bit) for over a minute while he just built up marines and some turrets. Use them!

I would revise your build, since your opening will die to almost any kind of pressure put on by a good player, you tech to lair fast but can barely afford to use it, while sitting on non-speed lings as your only defense for a long time. If you had speed earlier, you would be safer, and you wouldn't really lose any benefit to a later lair.

Later in the game:
Macro becomes an issue, despite the fact that you have plenty of larva and supply room and a small economy. You are still not making drones, falling far behind him in workers despite him being 1 base, and being safe with mutas harassing for a while. During muta harass since you basically have map control, add drones. 18 minutes into the game, you have 6 drones mining minerals at your natural.

BnK

United States538 Posts

September 27 2010 03:18 GMT

Thank you ZapRoffo!

But really he had like 4 marines right there?? I thought there was like 8-10 marines.

Deathfate

Spain555 Posts

September 27 2010 03:23 GMT

I saw the game on scrap, you did an all-in more or less and it failed (maybe if you had attacked with the rest of your lings it could have succeced), then he comes with a bansee and kills you (its normal if you go for a baneling bust and it fails).

I recommend you to play more standard besides in maps like scrap its super easy to do. Just go 15 gas 14 pool, or 14 hatch 13 pool and you should do fine, forget about banelings till you have mutas out and play a normal ling muta baneling game. In those maps the only thing you have to do is to stop the harras of your oponent which isnt too dificult (banshee = 3 queens, hellion reactor = roach or creep tumor + 2 spines in the bottom of your ramp + 8 lings or so, factory without reactor, 1 spine in each mineral line + 3 queens + 8 lings or so to hold drops, banshee and so on).

ZapRoffo

United States5544 Posts

September 27 2010 03:26 GMT

On September 27 2010 12:18 BnK wrote:
Thank you ZapRoffo!

But really he had like 4 marines right there?? I thought there was like 8-10 marines.

He might have had 8 by the time you got there if you went, but you can still force stims (without medivacs out), make him move scvs, build panic turrets, kill some scvs, without suffering losses, so why wouldn't you want to?

sylverfyre

United States8298 Posts

September 27 2010 03:43 GMT

Yeah, when it's mutas vs marines and he doesn't have stim yet, just turn around every time the marines come into range, and go shoot something else in his base. Miners, Depots, addons, building SCVs. If he stims just back off until it wears off. If he has 8-10 marines and they all are stimmed down to half health or lower, your mutas can just kill them all - muta splash works wonders against 5HP marines!

StorkHwaiting

United States3465 Posts

September 27 2010 09:28 GMT

Have not seen the reps, so sorry for that. But as a high level diamond Z, I would say that those build orders you're using are very rudimentary. In no way should you be basing your build order solely on what race you're vsing. Some maps ZvP you want to 8 pool, other times you want 13 pool, other times you want 15 hatch, no gas, and go 3x queens before you even take gas. It's all dependent on what you see the other player doing. I know some people like to just focus on a very few builds and get them down perfect, so maybe that's what you're trying to do. But I think a big part of playing zerg well, other than the obvious mechanics, is picking smart builds and responding very quickly to what you see. Zerg units don't mesh very well like Terran's, so if you have the wrong unit composition you will die horribly.

BnK

United States538 Posts

September 27 2010 11:42 GMT

#10

thanks Battle, ZapRoffo, sylverfyre and StorkHwaiting !

@StorkHwaiting is it ok to experiment builds on ladder? or do you have better ideas to find the best build in certain situations.

BnK

United States538 Posts

October 14 2010 02:07 GMT

#11

sry for necroing the blog but I have a new replay that I wanna know what I could have done better this game