The road to diamond day 2

Grijzeham

United Kingdom50 Posts

September 28 2010 14:13 GMT

Didn't get quite as many games done yesterday as usual, instead did a bunch of practice games with nttea (thanks to him) and some 2v2's (number 1 platinum yay!) but the games I did do turned out ok.

Starting rank: 42 platinum
Finishing rank: 33 platinum
Games played: 8
Games won: 5

Notes:
Overall: Supply blocking is still a huge issue but I focused mostly on trying to use hotkeys, stuff is already getting a bit easier though after being harrassed or during times of crisis I tend to forget my hotkeys a lot.

ZvZ: Did like 12 practice games with nttea in ZvZ where I was destroyed every time, decided in the end I'm gonna go with a Zergling / Baneling / Muta build though I'm still really struggling with microing against other banelings

ZvP: Only did 2 ZvP's neither of which my opponents where particularly good, held off a 2 gate quite nicely but failed on macro while countering.

ZvT: Played pretty poorly in both ZvT's on Xel'naga the guy pretty much had the game but he waited too long to move in so I got ultras and won. Other game I just didn't scout correctly, macro was off and build order was non existant.

Replays:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/b8l2ag7dknz784n/Daily replays 2.zip

Feel free to post any criticisms or suggestions.
Day 3 begins!

beetlelisk

Poland2276 Posts

September 28 2010 18:37 GMT

I've watched your ZvZs and I'd like to address games against aske and Gavi (both on B Sands).

Against aske, other than stockpiling resources (at some point you could have 20 mutas more!) and Queens' energy I don't get why were you so passive with your Mutas later in the game and once you've decided to attack with speedlings and banes why mutas were just left behind. You could win the game right there.

Also about banes, 1st during that attack where mutas stayed near your main:
I like to send them first with small group of lings to take damage 1st, allowing banes to get in splash range, but majority of lings staying behind banes. That way you can order move instead of attack moving (which allows them to get further and deal more damage) but my opponent still makes them explode himself. At the same time all of my other lings can surround what's left without any significant losses (banes take most of the damage during those few seconds).
Sending the initial group of lings may be tricky because they get far ahead of banes fast so they can easily die before banes arrive.

I think it's better solution than sending all of lings 1st and then moving in banes. In that situation you could see that hydras were engaging your lings so you had to a-move banes to detonate them at some point and it seemed too be late - lings suffered heavy loses.

Other situation was attack he made at the end of game that defeated you - it looked like you were so confident in your bane numbers you just a-moved them during defense, with majority of them getting simply wasted on Roaches. Thing that made it even worse was doing it at choke.

Last thing about that game is your upgrades compared to his. TBH I didn't even know 2-2 Hydras can be that ridiculous against Mutas. Roaches with that upgrades made lings simply useless, taking 2HP damage from them and killing them in 2 hits. That's probably the most important reason why you need to try to harass with Mutas constantly, and use the map control advantage to boost your eco faster, get much more stuff than him and end games faster.

I think that what makes you not do that is disbelief in their power and losing 1 each time you attack some overlords when Hydras are around.
Disbelief can be cured with better macro - once Mutas reach certain number they become really deadly against Hydras.
Not losing 1 about each time you attack something without killing it is just a matter of practice and better control.

And your unit control is what I'd like to focus on first in game against Gavi.
If you decided to open with Roach ling against pure Roaches then you should treasure your initial lings and always send your Roaches 1st so they can take at least initial shots. And you did that during 1st encounter except you should fall back immediately then because he had about as many Roaches as you had lings.
Later, you didn't do that after you destroyed the rocks leading to his main which resulted in zergling slaughter.

What I've noticed when fooling around with unit tester (I recommend this one or this one) and later confirmed that on ladder is how crucial even few lings can be for the battle outcome in Roach vs ling battles.
It's important to completely surround Roaches ASAP and keep complete surround for as long as possible.
Roach with 1HP is Roach still dealing damage to your lings but those of them who are alive may be focusing on other Roaches with much more HP.
Once you notice that during battle there are Roaches in red who aren't attacked you know that in 90% cases Roaches will win. You must be sure your forces will win every time in those battles because retreating always means lings lost in vain, in numbers that never are a good trade for Roaches you manage to kill.

About muta control at the end of this game, there was a major mistake when your mutas first took hits from his attacking hydras, then waited way too long somewhere deep on the map and once you pulled them back they attacked irrelevant lings and overlord, at last making it to your nat when most of your Roaches were dead.

What's more, in that game, adding Roaches to your lings probably wasn't the best answer if you planned to get Mutas. They delayed your tech and used precious gas.
I think that getting +1 for lings, even after Lair/natural expansion and going pure ling until Mutas is a better solution.
You scouted him, you saw that he didn't even start gas when his pool was finishing which always means the other zerg is going to be defensive and in most cases going Roaches.
As far as I know Blistering Sands is a map with the second longest distance between bases after Desert Oasis. Even the distance on Scrap Station isn't as long!
This means that as long as you scout and know when is he moving out (and watch where his army is with Xelnaga towers) you don't need number of lings exactly matching his number of Roaches. As long as your Queen(s) has low energy you can morph additional lings for defense while Roaches approach.
As defender you have the upper hand also because it's going to take much, much more time for his Roach reinforcements to get to you than your newly morphed lings to get to what he already has near or in your base.

I hope I didn't sound like condescending prick

edit: weeee 1st, proofreading that was tiresome ;d

Grijzeham

United Kingdom50 Posts

September 28 2010 20:35 GMT

So first of all thanks for the reply and watching the replays

Second these games where yesterday so I don't really remember much about what happened though I'll rewatch the 2 games you mentioned to get a better understanding of your advice.

third I was playing pretty horrible in the first game you mentioned, part way through the game I got a call on skype so was rather distracted with that and knew really the whole time I was doing pretty terrible, I have that alot sadly

another thing I just want to mention in my self defense, during the final battle where all my banes go boom on his roaches, if you watch my camera I was actually doing stuff with mutas at the time and so I didn't see his army comming, the banes suicided themselves because ... well thats what the ai does, was rather annoyed about that myself actually shoulda had my banes elsewhere to prevent such things from happening.

Don't really remember the second game like I said I'll watch it later to get a better idea of what you mean, but I don't doubt I made a lot of mistakes I still struggle quite a lot with actually knowing gas timings etc for each build (such as gas after pool means being defensive) so another thing I need to work on.

Again appreciate the advice and I guess I'll start working on that stuff lol.

beetlelisk

Poland2276 Posts

September 28 2010 21:29 GMT

I haven't practised a lot of stuff myself, good thing I have "vacation" till end of this week.
For example most of my experience with Mutas is from times when I still played BW from time to time. I could see you prefer to rush Lair and I know many Zergs do but I prefer to go speedling + bane and bit later add to that few Roaches if needed to finish my opponent before his Mutas even hatch or start to really matter.

I have similar problem to what you wrote about banes in OP, I think it's time to start using unused hotkeys to try to pull cute stuff off.

(such as gas after pool means being defensive)

Literally it means he is going to expand soon after pool or he is going Roaches. In both cases he shouldn't be an immediate threat. I remember a game though where my opponent went Roaches but hid few lings on the map and tried to harass my base with them once mine were out to get a bit more time to secure his main with enough Roaches.

1 more thing: watch out for 6 pool with proxy crawlers, they can be placed just at the edge of creep so your hatch can't see them. Some people become really talkative when they morph them

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