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So, you folks may or may not remember my previous blog postings on the Quest for the Platinum:
I: Humble Beginnings, where I set out for the plat and got demoted from gold to silver,
II: Back to Silver, where I actually got demoted and ranted about it,
III: Got the Builds, where I hoped I had the builds to stick with and just improve the execution.
Now is the time for IV. I got back to gold within a couple of days following demotion. However, I kept getting top ranked gold opponents and that was cool. I had win streaks. I then got plat opponents I lost to and started getting silver opponents I lose to. I don't understand this since I had gold opponents and could win but now I'm getting silver opponents and can't win.
I have the most success in TvP probably because I have an idea of what I'm doing in the matchup (want tough units to survive, want to prevent stalkers from doing too much damage, don't want zealots running around, need to kill army and strike pylons as priority targets), followed by TvT (I have no real game plan and I suck in terms of map control, expo prevention and whatever else makes silvers win against me but I know the units and have some tricks up my sleeve, I can generally win if there are no silly surprises or if any silly surprises are those I inflict on the opponent; I can still lose games after almost killing the opponent with harass).
My biggest problem is TvZ. Currently, it seems the Zerg answer to everything is more zerglings, more mutas, maybe some roaches. The zerglings always seem too many compared to what I have. The mutas always seem too agile to ever die. The roaches get right under my tanks and eat them. If not, then there are always ultras (like 8 at once) or some 10 infestors casting fungal on everything I have, to the point it's not even funny. If I survive that, the Zerg has the option to make one million banelings and blow me up in the air without any melee or ranged or any fighting whatsoever, just blow me up like that. And I'm not talking about zerg with comparable placement to mine. I'm talking about any zerg that puts up early crawlers.
Most of all, it seems that if I don't manage to inflict much damage early on, the zerg will inevitably win. It used to be possible to engage in minor harass but overall just produce units off 2-3 bases and make upgrades. Forget it in TvZ.
The most success I've had has been with skyterran. I can survive until I have like 10 banshees and 2 ravens and take down his main along with army, using PDD. Still, he will have enough larvae production to just blow me up with banelings (probably won't even try making army). The other potentially successful build is just making whatever units I can with various addons in a variation of 1/1 (no port) with addons and additional buildings coming up as I go, on close spot, which means I have a mix of rines, rauders, BFH and some tanks tagging along later as I go. But the latter build has no chance vs pure massing of one unit type from zerg.
This is detracting from my gaming fun, forget my chances of getting promoted, because I can't do a thing to defeat a zerg player that's supposedly on my own skill level or evenly matched according to MMR but a league lower (at least I wasn't favoured). It should also be so challenging to survive a-move attacks from millions of units of one single type.
Here's some replays:
Game 1
Game 2
Game 3
Please note I'm new to MM(M)T(V) vs Zerg. I've recently switched from a BFH into repair thors into whatever transition with which I had varied success (recently there's just been too many zerglings, too early spine crawlers, even wall-ins, even wall-ins supplemented by queens). I still feel like I shouldn't be losing so badly for merely trying not to cheese too much and play a normal game. I've never won a TvZ with MMT in my memory.
Also, please excuse the lack of customary short write-up of every game. I just don't currently feel like going through it again and in my understanding the games are lost because of the factors I wrote about above, i.e. the Zerg's apparent ease in denying map control and expansions and simply building one million of a mostly single unit type army and wiping you away because you can't compete if you haven't made him bleed with harass (while he can just sit there and build towers and be fine because even if you try to contain him, he can still make a hundred units in a short time and just erase you from the minimap.
Still, I'm open to constructive criticism but first of all I'd like to hear some ideas how to deal with this kind of losses, how to prevent them. Do I need a different build? Is there ever a Terran build that isn't gimped vs zerg? Is there any way not to die (particularly from 12 minutes, i.e. 20 mutas, onward) if you haven't harassed the zerg to death? Is there any way to play TvZ without needing constantly to drop his mineral mines in order even to survive?
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hmmm well I know I'll get yelled at for this but I didn't watch the replays because i am in class right now but I would like to help... So style wise you go bio v zerg correct?
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I used to have trouble with this matchup too. I don't like it going beyond midgame, zerg can really unload once they've set up shop. My solution was to make 6 barracks, skip gas, get a bunch of rines and attack. If he's turtling on an expo with spine crawlers, or if he gets a bunch of roaches (which you should be able to find out before the 6th barracks goes down), grab both your gas, 5 rax with tech labs and marauders will save the day 
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After watching the first game, I have some questions. Why did you attack at around the 11 minute mark? Zerg is always behind in equal base situations, so there's no reason to attack. Just go home, sit back and get your expansion going.
Also, you made a bunch of hellions and then didn't really do anything with them for a while. Whenever I see pros do hellion openings, they rally the hellions to the zergs front door. If they can, they'll run in and kill some drones, but for the most part, they just park them outside for scouting and map control.
Here's the build that I would recommend by the way. http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Reactor_Hellion_Expand_(vs._Zerg) It's basically the same thing that you're doing but without blue flame.
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When I switched from Toss to Terran I had huge issues with TvZ at first but now it is far and away my best matchup (tvp being second) I just do my best to make sure i am constantly even threatening aggression or doing little bits of aggression while keeping my units spread out over my base at home in case of muta harass and keeping a decent level of turrets up.
Late game sucks so i try to end it off 2/3 bases before Zerg go into overload mode, i mainly focus on using bombers 3/1/1 build, siege tanks/medivacs and mass rines. I try to always do attacks at 2 different points because at this level (i'm top 15 gold for most of s3) players don't have the best hotkey/reaction setup meaning they usually send their entire armies from A-> B to defend so if i drop the main while pushing expos they tend to defend the main push and leave me free to kill some tech structures/drones and most people will go on tilt from this.
In regards to Roaches i just try to keep active with sending an scv or a scan/stimmed marine out to check for a roach warren/roaches and if i spot any i will just pump a half dozen marauders as that + rine/tank dps with medivacs is usually enough to kite any number of roaches [to a point of course].
I dunno if this helps at all but that's how i usually look at TvZ
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@HackBenjamin: I really did that and won, even against Plat zergs but wanted a normal game, so stopped. I probably should do it again. But the point of the game seems to be to have fun, at least to a large extent, and doing this all-out marine cheese is so totally not it (I remember getting marine-rushed in TvT, it felt totally absurd).
@Korinai: I tried reactor expand in some of the games, as well as in custom games but the sad part is adding on rax and facts and making the rine tank. In the end, the zerg will always have enough of whatever to kill this, including always being able to spawn the 20 mutas the every zerg player mandatorily makes in every game these days.
I used to open with a hefty number of BFH made as early as possible (with some variation in terms of either swapping the addons for speed or teching behind the wall-in for security), and then transition to thors (with or withour more BFH for support), but nowadays every zerg seems to put up crawlers and even wall-in. It's so totally unfun how I now need to be on my toes throughout the whole game with zerg. Early (earliest sixpool zergs arrive before the normal time of completion of a wall-in such as e.g. against Terran or Protoss), mid (banes, roaches), late (whatever he does he wins). It seems impossible to prevent the Zerg from droning hard and turtling until mutas, at which point he has perfect map control and you aren't allowed to expand.
@darcevader88: If I overdo on marines the Zerg always finds a way to kill them off, at which point he has all the tech (including the ability to spawn 10 ultras when he throws away an army) and I have only basic facilities. I know it's possible to pwn Zerg consistently with MMT but I can't seem to approach it in my own TvZ with comparable MMR players.
***
Also, I've stopped laddering and am waiting for season lock. The game now seems intent to matching me only against silver opponents and I detect the same pattern I know too well: it's trying to demote me. Again. So I'll just wait until the season locks and then game away to my heart's content. At worst I'll place silver in Season 4. It's silly how the game keeps promoting and demoting me back and forth. I especially don't understand getting these silver opponents who beat me after my merry winning streaks against gold, including top ranked. Where the heck is the system taking them from? I had the same problem around the time of my previous demotions. As if my win percentage always gravitated towards settling at 49%, no matter which league I were in, leading to demotions.
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On October 11 2011 02:11 NewbieOne wrote:
My biggest problem is TvZ. Currently, it seems the Zerg answer to everything is more zerglings, more mutas, maybe some roaches. The zerglings always seem too many compared to what I have. The mutas always seem too agile to ever die. The roaches get right under my tanks and eat them. If not, then there are always ultras (like 8 at once) or some 10 infestors casting fungal on everything I have, to the point it's not even funny. If I survive that, the Zerg has the option to make one million banelings and blow me up in the air without any melee or ranged or any fighting whatsoever, just blow me up like that. And I'm not talking about zerg with comparable placement to mine. I'm talking about any zerg that puts up early crawlers.
You've just described the three main zvt strategies floating around the metagame: muta/ling/bane (most popular), infestor/ling/ultra (and yes, it's been around a LOT longer than Stephano fanboys would let you think), and something roach-centered.
If the zergling count seems like "way too many" then it's probably a macro problem on your end. You can limit muta harass by good sim city and turret placement as well as good stim micro. A solid tank line should hold off a zerg with lots of lings for quite a while. Muta/ling/bane will give the zerg map control meaning that your mistakes will be punished.
I'll comment on the replays a little later, but good macro should keep you ahead of z "standard" zerg army for at least 12 minutes.
Oh, and skyterran is only going to kill the zergs who don't scout and have no anti-air.
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My problems is I can't have enough tanks, rines, turrets etc. respectively to hold of like 20 mutas, 30 roaches, 60 lings, whatever. Perhaps I'm bad at macro, scouting and reacting to the Zerg's army composition, I don't know.
As for Skyterran, I meant the kind that can survive proper AA from zerg, other than mutas, which beat everything terran has in air. Suppose there aren't actually so many mutas in the field, you can wreak some havoc with like 10 banshees and 2 ravens for PDD, since PDD will deflect everything that is not infested terran. Meanwhile you have enough dps to deal away with everything that attacks the PDDs and if they all retreat, you can just shoot down the lair/hive and other buildings and run to PDDs for cover whenever needed. But in the end this is horribly cost-ineffective.
Anyway, it seems MMTV is the only cost-effective Terran thing in this game and the only thing I can't do right, no matter how I try. I always get beaten by any silver Terran if the game comes to M(M)TV on either side (or both). This is why I've been experimenting so much with Skyterran, bioballs, Echoic, everything, but MMTV easily beats all of it. Except when I'm trying to do MMTV, then everything beats it.
Edit:
Game 4
(Shattered temple my win with a one-time somewhat persistent hellion harass into expanding plus constant BFH/thor production)
This is a TvZ I actually didn't lose. The problem is the opponent was silver. I do lose to silver MMR Zergs but they seem to be less capable of getting lots of mutas fast and using them to keep the Terran running. I don't think I'd have won against a high gold opponent with this kind of thing.
I could probably skip the addons and blueflame to have the same number of hellions faster, possibly doing more damage (likely fewer spine crawlers to worry about too), to save resources for earlier thors and additional hellions to guard them from zerglings and make the real push hit faster. Opinions?
I feel comfortable doing this because 300/200 is a huge chunk of money and pumping reactored hellions is just a matter of dumping minerals as long as the number of factories is all right. Unit management is also simpler (even with repair SCVs and mules) than M(M)T(V). Could add a raven for creep busting but it would reduce the number of thors available (however, PDD does deflect roaches). Opinions?
Tried deathballing too:
Game 5
(Tal'Darim, my win with essentially hellion/thor and minimal use of marines)
Annoyed the heck of him with hellions and marines after surviving a bane bust. He made crawlers, I expanded and made facts. On three bases, I could pump upgraded thors as long as I had gas and hellions when I didn't. Reminded myself to make hellions because I've seen horrible losses of lone thors. I saw infestors, I decided not to worry, with a larger number of units than from thor massing, I'd be able to hold it off. And I was, although my micro could have been better.
What I like about Tal'Darim, is the ability to mine the heck out of three bases as long as you can defend yourself or keep the opponent occupied. It worked this time.
Problem is the opponent was silver again.
And here's a good example of a good game that I still manage to lose despite leading:
Game 6
Basically, I had more expos, more stuff, more upgrades (4 armouries at peak point), still managed to lose.
My TvT always ends up this way. I make some kind of mistake like that (he dropped mules on my tanks and I then tried to bust his tanks with my army because I thought I had much more) and I lose. This feels horrible because 40 minutes of playing is wasted. I can't make myself not make such mistakes, generally things always go this way. What sucks even more is the opponent was silver, again.
Game 7
Abyssal caverns, not so far spots, my win. Finally against a gold Zerg. I saw him expand, so I knew there wouldn't be that much aggression, so I could pull off three facts. And so I did, while preparing to expand. I somehow managed to slip through before he walled off and there was a huge killing of drones. I don't think I had blueflame back then, probably only researched it later while waiting for armoury to build. I saw a roach warren, so I knew there wouldn't be much econ game and I felt comfortable with my three fact thor production. My awareness was poor when his roaches went past my bunkers to harass my expo but I lost no workers. Lost a thor, maybe two, he lost all roaches. I had some upgrades but I seem to have forgotten about them later on.
Please be honest and tell me if things improved on my part or I just got worse opponents or was merely lucky.
At least I can keep playing without fearing demotion. Since I still get gold opponents and win against them, I believe demotion isn't a likely prospect.
Wish list:
— some refinement to my three-fact zerg build (whether micro or macro based) to make sure I can keep winning with it and don't die to anything stupid;
— any build that works against Terran and is not MM(M)T(V)... especially a way to transition into Skyterran and not die in the long run due to low cost effectiveness of Terran air;
— a build that works against Protoss and is not Olorin's one base banshee thor raven push... or a suggestion as to how early to make the push timing vs a Protoss that expands and makes colossi (when I arrive in his base at circa 15 minutes, it's sometimes too late but I fear that showing up too early could leave me with few units... then again, since trading armies with Protoss works, I probably shouldn't worry too much when this first push dies... in fact I've won despite having my first early push die).
— alternatively, some solid advice as to how exactly to make the darn MM(M)T(V) work, such as not losing to inferior numbers and upgrades because of some stupid thing in positioning, or mules dropped on me, or some lucky vision. Banshee harass to provoke him into all-inning would be my prime choice but not really against someone who has a heckload of turrets. That would require a huge chunk of supply to go into banshees and any lucky wing of vikings with enough scans would murder them).
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So I've watched a couple more games and your macro is really failing you. You claim to not be able to have enough stuff, but the earliest I saw you expand was around the 10 minute mark, which is pretty late. Also, most of the time, you're sitting at around 20-30 scvs on two bases which is sometimes not even enough to saturate your mineral line, let alone your gas. How do you expect to keep on par with a zerg that is getting twice your worker count?
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EPT
