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First of all, yeah I know, typo in the title of the blog. There is no edit title function as far as I could tell.
Second, the meat of the topic, Timing Pushes.
I propose that the idea of a "Timing push" is too broad of an idea to be applicable in a real game. I propose that there are in actuality there are 3-4 kinds of timing pushes.
First, is the self-reflective push. These occur when you wait for a specific factor on your end of the push, i.e. stim is ready, or your raven has enough energy for a PDD.
Next is the compositionally-reflective push. These are when you push with a given composition based on what you know your opponent's army consists of. i.e. pushing with a mech army because you know your opponent has invested heavily in banelings.
Third, is the positionally-reflective push. These occur when you push when the opponent's army is either too far from the push to counter effectively, or they have taken up a disadvantageous position which you can use to punish them, i.e. either the opposition is off, busy clearing rocks from a gold expo, or your opposition has melee troops (especially effective against ultras) at the bottom of a ramp, which will funnel them into your concave.
The final, and most difficult push to time, is the larva-reflective push. These come in two flavors. First, they can occur when you notice your Zerg opponent spending larva on drones. If they spend larva on drones, they will be unable to... reinforce their army for however long it takes new larva to spawn, leaving their force lighter than would be expected, and vulnerable. Second, they can occur to force your opponent to spend larva on "useless" units. Air-based harassment can force the Zerg to invest (and hopefully over-invest) in hydralisks, which are terribly vulnerable to the actual army which consists of tanks/thors/collosi. This is applicable to a lesser extent when your opponent is Terran, and even less so, due to warpgates, when your opponent is Protoss. Suppose your opponent is a Terran. You see him massing marauders, and manage to notice that he has just started production on all his barracks. It is safe to assume that these barracks are producing more marauders, and that a push composed of units that either counter marauders (chargelots with forcefields), or units that completely avoid marauders, (any air at all) would be very effective at this particular moment, as there will be a period of time where the barracks will simply be producing more exploitable marauders. This length of time could be anywhere from an entire production cycle, to only a few seconds after the opponent cancels production and starts the new units.
 
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You forgot an important one......
You push when your opponent's expansion has just popped and has not been able to produce units from his unit producing structures yet.
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Nice terminology. I personally like to think of timing pushes as "I'm gonna beat you off while you're taking a dump". Not too accurate I know.
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Calgary25986 Posts
Timing is something done with forethought. You can't make up a timing attack on the fly. Well, you can, but then it's not really a timing attack. A counter-example would be scanning tech or scouting an expansion starting and hitting right when they finish - that would still be a timing attack. A timing attack is attacking at a time when your advantage is maximized. It's usually applied to a standard game too, since those are more fleshed out.
Your first one combined with a little part of the second one and fourth one is what a "timing attack" really is.
The second one isn't timing at all. It's just producing an army that beats his army.
The third one is definitinely not a timing attack. How are you going to base a strategy around his army being out of position? That's just basic tactics.
The fourth one is also not timing. It's applying pressure and forcing your opponent to waste minerals and mining time. That's not timing. The Larvae morphing to the wrong units is applicable, especially in Brood War ZvZ, but it's also not timing. It's the same as seeing someone teching or powering too hard and crushing them - that's not timing.
I think your desire to break them up into 5 subgroups stems from not fully understanding what a true timing attack is. Because "standard" hasn't fully been found in SC2 yet, true timing attacks are hard to see, but they will come shortly. They are much easier to see in modern Brood War.
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Yeah, the one Zergneedsfood mentioned is probably the most classic example of a timing attack. You had a timing window where the opponent was vulnerable because he had just invested in his third and didnt quite have the income kicking in to begin producing of 7-9 gateways.
I don't have any problem with this idea, probably would help people newer to the game better understand what was prompting one player to go attack; and posssibly help viewers if they cant clearly see minimap or whats going on, but with good camera control this shouldn't really be an issue.
Maybe its a lost cause, but most of these are timing attacks and not timing pushes. Honestly the two seem to be turning into synonyms but a timing push is literally supposed to be a push as in leapfrogging tanks slowly across the map.
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Calgary25986 Posts
On December 07 2010 08:33 L_Master wrote:
Yeah, the one Zergneedsfood mentioned is probably the most classic example of a timing attack. You had a timing window where the opponent was vulnerable because he had just invested in his third and didnt quite have the income kicking in to begin producing of 7-9 gateways.
I don't have any problem with this idea, probably would help people newer to the game better understand what was prompting one player to go attack; and posssibly help viewers if they cant clearly see minimap or whats going on, but with good camera control this shouldn't really be an issue.
Maybe its a lost cause, but most of these are timing attacks and not timing pushes. Honestly the two seem to be turning into synonyms but a timing push is literally supposed to be a push as in leapfrogging tanks slowly across the map.
I will fight to the death to protect our language.
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Chill you're slipping if you are gonna let him get away with calling them pushes
It's best to just separate the words and define each so there can be absolutely no misunderstanding.
Timing: the selecting of the best time or speed for doing something in order to achieve the desired or maximum result
Attack: the act of attacking; onslaught; assault
It's pretty much that simple a concept. Of course situations arise where it's always favourable for you to attack, like your opponent is terrible, or he just threw units away and you know you can win. You can't really call those timing attacks, because there's really no bad time to attack at that point, except perhaps never. I guess that's where the equally cliche phrase "timing window" comes into play. There has to be some beginning and end to your attack opportunity for it to be considered one of timing.
Another thing I would think is necessary for it to qualify is a cognitive intent on hitting that "timing"
For example, I was just watching a GSL game where Artosis said of Nestea that he's going to attack just as Rain's gold mineral finished, to which Tasteless affirmatively proclaimed "timing attack" but the truth is, he was going to attack because his opponent was so far behind it was the thing to do, he actually had no idea that he was taking the gold at that point since he had no Overlords around or anything, it was just coincidence.
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Calgary25986 Posts
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Whenever I think of the term "timing push" I think of it in kind of a one-sided way.. I'm playing against a terran and when he hit x amount of units he pushes out. If you scout a player hatching drones and decide to move out, I don't think of this as a timing push. I just think of it as a smart move combining scouting and effective decision making.
For the other ones described in the op and the replies, I see those more of capitalizing on timing windows rather than wanting to amalgamate them into the term "timing push"
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I wasn't a part of the Starcraft community until SC2, so I was unaware that push and attack were not synonyms.
The compositionally-reflective push/attack is still a timing thing as army composition is not a permanent thing. The composition is fluid, and varies over time. Likewise, you need to attack/push at timings at which your composition has the greatest advantage over your opponent's.
As for the positionally-reflective push/attack, it is also, in some occasions, a strategic decision as opposed to a tactical one. As the game enters lategame, harass and smaller attacks cease being directed towards a singular region of the map, as your opponent has likely spread bases and infrastructure all around the map. At this point, positionally-reflective pushes/attacks become a strategic decision, as you have multiple targets to choose from. It has effects on a much grander scale than positionally-based decisions earlier in the game, as you must choose what to attack. A very large factor in considering where to attack is the positioning of your opponent. For instance, no matter how valuable a target is, you would not try a drop on it if most of your opponent's army was right next to it. You would attack a less valuable, yet less defended target, which will have strategic implications on the outcome of the game.
Also, I'm not sure how timing an attack/push with your Zerg opponent spending their larva on either drones, or a unit which will lose to your composition does not qualify to be considered a timing attack/push.
I'm not trying to say that a push/attack is entirely this kind of push, or that kind of push, but rather that there are multiple varieties of timing attacks/pushes. The most effective pushes/attacks will combine all the varieties, with less effective pushes/attacks only employing one or two of the varieties. Sort of like how in geometry, all squares are quadrilaterals but not all quadrilaterals are squares.
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I always think of a timing attack as being an attack when your opponent has put resources into something other than army count for a later benefit (expansion, tech, upgrades, not enough of a unit to reach critical mass, etc).
An example that I keep using in SC2 is when a protoss expands while getting colossus tech. He puts too much money into the robo, expo, and support bay to have a big enough army to defend, and therefore I can attack and maximize an advantage.
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On December 07 2010 11:10 Sc1pio wrote:
I always think of a timing attack as being an attack when your opponent has put resources into something other than army count for a later benefit (expansion, tech, upgrades, not enough of a unit to reach critical mass, etc).
An example that I keep using in SC2 is when a protoss expands while getting colossus tech. He puts too much money into the robo, expo, and support bay to have a big enough army to defend, and therefore I can attack and maximize an advantage.
See, that's a very narrow view of a timing attack. In the way I've described it, it is a compositionally-reflective attack. You attack at that time because you know the Protoss will have a weaker composition, both quantitatively and qualitatively, than you. I also suspect you've arranged your build so that stim, or concussive shells, or some other upgrade finishes when the Protoss is at their weakest, so it's likely also a self-reflective attack. See, I do not believe we have completely conflicting views as to what constitutes a timing attack, simply that I believe there is use in further specifying exactly what kind of timing(s) the attack is based on.
If you attacked when the Protoss invested in robo, but did not have stim/conc-shells/+1 about to finish, it would still be a timing attack, just not a self-reflective timing attack.
If you look at professional games, you will see that the progamers try to catch as many timing windows with each attack as they can. To follow the robo example, a progamer may try to have infantry weapons upgrades finish right as the raven gets enough energy for a point defense drone. They may also use a drop to draw the Protoss out of position, and take advantage of 3 of the 4 kinds of timings I described. The point defense drone severely weakens the Protoss composition, as it aides in dealing with the collosi. The Terran can ignore the stalkers momentarily, stim up and kill the collosi while the stalkers are rendered ineffective. The attack takes advantage of the fact the drop drew the Protoss back to something that must be defended, likely their mineral line, which allows the Terran to move in and place said point defense drone in the best possible position.
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This sounds entirely complicated.
Let's just stick with Chill's post which has been around since the beginning of time instead of trying to recreate something and add more layers of complexity.
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Complication also allows more accurate discussions on specific instances. Timing attack is a general term, but a specific attack can be broken down into the kinds of timing attacks I explained above, and this aides in understanding why particular attacks succeed where other, seemingly similar, attacks fail, or at least are less effective.
An attack which takes advantage of multiple kinds of timings will be a more effective attack than a similar one that uses fewer kinds of timings. An attack that prepares a given upgrade or energy for a given spell, uses harass to draw its opponents away from the real attack, hits when either larva or production facilities are busy with ineffective units, and with units that deal well with, or avoid the opponent's army will do more damage than an attack that simply gets the correct army composition and a-moves in.
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No, you're taking an established definition and morphing it in something else, then adding more layers of complexity. Those familiar with the original definition will be confused.
It's like if I took zone defense and called it defense, then put man defense and zone-man defense into defense and full court presses into zone defense, then tell you that if you have all the defenses, it's a good defense.
No, it makes no sense. I don't even know what I wrote. That's how convoluted this whole thing is.
And what sounds more accurate?
"His attack worked because he distracted the opponent with a small force and then ran him over with a big one at the front door as soon as stim finished."
Or
"He combined a positionally-reflective timing along with technology timing and DDR RAM CAS timing which was why he was able to win."
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EPT
