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This was a TvP in which I got rolled by semi-early void rays despite me initially thinking that I did a good job of pumping out marines.
You can watch the replay/commentary here.
I started this commentary off not knowing how I lost. I begin with a marine/marauder army and generally keep things that way, with a few tanks backing them up. My opponent does a good job of putting out void rays in the back of his base at the same time that he produces sufficient stalkers to pressure me and hold off my armies. I was surprised when his void rays hit my base but was confident that I was producing enough marines to hold them off.
I was wrong. When he eventually runs through my base with the VRs, I’m thinking "How did he do that? I was making as many marines as I could". That’s where I was so very wrong. My minerals had gotten over 1000, apparently somewhere during the skirmishes. Needless to say, I didn’t have nearly enough marines to fight off the void rays alone, let alone the stalkers at my entrance.
Lessons learned:
1. Don’t let little skirmishes get in the way of production. Always be mindful of the need to constantly produce units.
PS – Next time I post a game, I’m going to do what someone on YouTube suggested. I’m going to 1) show health bars and, more importantly, 2) show the game from only my POV. I should have realized this, but that’s definitely the best way to show purely what was going on in my head during any given lost game.
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Marine's really do not counter voids that well, because even when they are stimmed, voids can run away really quick. If you see that stalker, voidray composition, then just switch your tech lab starport and reactor barracks and make more marauders and voidrays. Marines really just don't do very much in the TvP matchup, and building a higher ratio then 1:2 of reactor:tech lab barracks don't usually work out very well unless the opponent is going very very starport heavy.
Also, you do not need to micro your units at bronze. Just stim and amove, it doesn't really take that much to micro MM, and then go back. Pure constant unit production will win you games at bronze, saving a marauder in an attack bound to do nothing won't. Look back at your view, and if you spend more then half a second watching your little ball at any time, you're doing something wrong.
I think Chill or Day9 said this sometime ago: teching, attacking, or expanding. If you are not doing any of these, then you are wasting time. Attacking doesn't have to be an engagement, but just simply moving out and coming back will do more then just sitting there.
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Showing the health bars is a great if not essential practice to get into. I'll check out the replay tonight and see if I can give any feedback.
The best advice I can give at the moment is if you're not comfortable microing a battle and keeping production up, you need to choose your focus on one or the other, obviously. This means focusing on your macro and constant production rather than watching battles. Try just getting your units in place for the attack and then quickly swap to your production HK and spam (don't que 2 or more though) then pop back to your army, check the status, que some more etc.
Macro is king at low levels, once that's ingrained in your play you'll be set!
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Thanks Coodu and Whitelynx. Great advice. Question for WL, though: Do you really think marines aren't good against VRs? I've had massive success with them against VRs in the past. And they're usually not fast enough to make a retreat without getting chewed up.
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EPT
