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So I had become convinced that Bnet was biassed against me because I am only in Platinum in 4v4 despite being better than all my friends who are diamonds.
Then it occurred to me that my race could be the problem. I am the only Toss amongst us.
I bought two more accounts to off race with.
I have slight experience off racing with Zerg, where I have used it to show how to Trash Protoss in 1v1. I already map Space bar to nearest base so I can easily chrono all Nexus, so injects were pretty easy. After a few practice games I was able to trash my diamond friends (who were off racing as protoss) with Zerg. Anyway, that was my previous Zerg experience.
So I pick up Zerg which I have not played in months and go straight to Platinum. 11 wins later I am a #3 Platinum so I expect to promoted to diamond shortly.
I have already used up my bonus pool, so I am going to start Terran next.
I have about 0 experience with Terran, except that another friend who is a diamond Terran played complained that Protoss is OP in PvT, so I just did a 3 Rax where I built 9 marines just after the 5 minute mark and A moved pulling some SCVs to show up before Warp gates finish.
Easy win. Worked 3 times in a row. That is my entire experience!
This friend now always 3 Raxs.
Anyway, I started practicing vs the AI to get Reactor Hellion BO down because I hear it is good in 4v4, and Terran is a bit harder than I expected.
In the long run Terran has really easy macro because you do not have to worry about doing injects or warpins on time and you can quee, but right when Gateway finishes there is a lot to do.
I basically need to simulataneously start a Factory, start a Reactor and start Orbital Command.
For now I keep goofing up, but when I can execute the BO fairly cleanly I will start playing Terran.
 
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If you want to produce out of Terran buildings optimally, you DO have to time your Mules. If your income is not consistent, neither is your production.
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I find the premise of your post questionable. While balanced in 1v1, Protoss is OP in team games. Colossi / Blink Stalker / Chargelot = omg ownage. Don't be afraid to throw down some cannons! Really made my team game better.
I feel like my replay is too short 
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On January 05 2012 03:58 DisAstro wrote:I find the premise of your post questionable. While balanced in 1v1, Protoss is OP in team games. Colossi / Blink Stalker / Chargelot = omg ownage. Don't be afraid to throw down some cannons! Really made my team game better. I feel like my replay is too short
Do you have a BO with Cannons? I do have a build that I call the "Forge Gate" which I use against teams with no Terran which is basically my 4 Gate build, but I build a Forge and 2 additional Gates when I normally build 3 Gates and then I drop a Cannon in my mineral line ASAP.
It works well vs Ling runbys and DTs, but still leaves me vulnerable against Banshee, so it is less effective if there is a Terran. Also the cannon is too late to defend vs Cheese.
Is there a 14 Gateway, 15 Forge or something like that build I can use where I build a cannon instead of an early zealot?
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On January 05 2012 02:35 NeedsmoreCELLTECH wrote:
If you want to produce out of Terran buildings optimally, you DO have to time your Mules. If your income is not consistent, neither is your production.
This is true, but the delays do not compound like they do for Zerg.
If Zerg is late by larva by 10 seconds every time, then after 6 injects they are a minute behind in production.
If Terran is late with mules by 10 seconds every time then after 6 Mules they are still only 10 seconds behind in production.
I am not saying that Terran is easy. What I am seeing now that I am playing with them is you have a lot more production hotkeys to keep track of. With Zerg you have you hatches and your queens so like 2 hotkeys.
With Protoss you have W for warpgates so you really it is just your Robo and then maybe Forges later on hotkeyed so while you really need to stay on top of your micro and timing warpins is uber important, it is fairly easy to do and you can usually warp in all at once if you just do Stalkers and then Zealots since they synchronizes your warp gates.
With Terran you have Barracks, Factory and Starport and units finishing at different timings so it is technically more difficult to perform the macro, but terran is more forgiving of your mistakes.
Caveat: For Zerg if you have 1 Queen per base then you can "catch up" if you fall behind because it takes longer for the queen to get energy so you can sort of catch up by a few seconds with perfect in inject. With multiple queens then catching up is not possible.
With Protoss if you are 4 gating then you already have too many production structures anyway so you can catch up nicely.
Also in a battle you can macro with Terran without taking your eye off your army, but injects and warp-ins require moving your camera (unless your pylon is right there.)
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So I got to where I was only about 15 seconds off of "perfect" for getting my hellions out and I decided to play my placement matches with Terran. Note that with Toss and Zerg I am under 5 seconds from Perfect so I clearly still have room for improvement, but having Orbital, Factory and Reactor all depend on Rax is sort of tough.
Game 1: I get matched with total newbs. 3 Protoss opponents decided to defend with 3 Gates each and no Cyber Core and just make Zealots. I kite with Hellions and kill all zealots and all workers. Somehow my teammates never even notice I attacked (probably because it never said I was under attack since I was never even damaged) and one asks me if I am "ready to attack?" after I had already killed 3 probe lines. When the game ends I have over 80 units killed and 0 units lost.
(These guys were Bronze/Silver/In Placement.
So far I am optimistic for Platinum.
Game 2: These guys are better, but I am still able to do terrible damage with Hellions. I kill all workers of 2 Zergs and then one Toss has Stalkers and another a Void Ray so thus ends my Pressure. From there I am mostly scared of Voids so I get Marines and Thors and just 3 Vikings for kiting. A long macro game ensues and we win.
These guys were Gold and Platinum. I had high score.
Still feeling good for Platinum.
Game 3: I kill all drones of 1 Zerg (who had FEed) with Hellions, but leave the Hatches alone.
I then go to next Zerg, but he has a Queen and Roaches blocking ramp. Terran and Toss walled in.
Around this time Stalkers come through the rocks near me and take me out. I should have had a depot there. I had helped wall the large middle ramp, and was assuming my Zerg teammate would send an ovie, but I never double checked that he sent one and was too tunnel vision on my Hellions and not aware of what else was going on. This is a common problem in my play style with all races. I can hyper focus on macro or kiting and even macro while kiting, but overall map/game awareness can suck.
I run with SCVs beg for money from teammates and take gold. From there they let me have gold, but I am a bit behind and we lose a macro game.
These guys were Masters
Basically my SQ with Terran is only around 65ish which is not good enough for me to compete with Masters. Also my teammates were mostly Platinum/Diamond.
Still feeling good for Platinum.
Next game begins with my Protoss teammate calling "dibs" on the safe expo in the back of our base. Unfortunately for him our Zerg teammate takes it first. This enrages the toss player who promptly uses his saved up money to build a pylon wall around the Hatch. From here the game devolves into 2 separate games. One is an epic backstab match between the Toss and Zerg over our own expo and the other is a surprisingly close 2v4.
I was able to kill a bunch of workers, but lost my hellions to stalkers and then we only had 1 player worth of armies.
My teammate that was actually helping (and better than me) said he thinks we could have won if the backstabbers had been bronze newbs, but when they did nothing we had no chance.
That sort of sucked so now I expect Gold, but I am holding out a little hope for Platinum.
Game 5: My Protoss teammate opens with a Cannon rush at the bottom of the main ramp of our opponent. He totally blocks the ramp so they cannot leave (and my Hellions cannot get in) He also spells a giant EZ, no doubt inspired by He Whom Shall Not Be Named. Anyway, there is a second side ramp which is small so I have no chance to get in there as it is walled off, but they eventually move out from the small ramp and crush us since we only have 3 armies and mine is made up of the fairly weak Hellions. My Siege transition (to counter stalkers) is an epic fail as I suck and the sieging and unsieging micro.
So only 2-3 in placement, but I hope the games were unusual.
I get placed in Gold. Since placement I have been winning and playing Gold/Plat mostly so maybe I will get moved up soon.
Although I am blaming weirdness on the Gold placement, there is no doubt that I am much worse at Terran than at Toss and Zerg. I think my Toss playstyle was already Zergish so my transition to Zerg was smooth. With Terran I feel much more out of my element and my SQ (80ish with Toss) has slipped down to around 65.
Playing Terran has definitely given me more appreciation for how hard Terran is. You really have to keep an eye on your army and macroing with 4 different kinds of production structures is tough.
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So I made Diamond with Terran on an arranged team. We had 2 Zergs and 2 Terrans. I went Reactored Hellions unless there were no Zerg in which case I did 3 Rax. Other Terran went 3 Rax. Zergs went 10 pool if vs 2 Zergs or one would hatch first if vs only 1 zerg. Both hatched first if no Zerg (keep in mind both Terrans were 3 Raxing so it was pretty safe.)
My teammates were Ranked Diamond, Diamond and Platinum. It was the other Platinum guys first Diamond team and one of the Zerg's first Diamond TEAM, although he was Diamond playing random.
What I have discovered recently is that transitioning into Thor/Marine is fairly seemless since I basically just need an Armory which I want to upgrade Hellions anyway and then I can add another Tech Lab to my inactive Rax and when that finishes swap the Rax with the Reactored Factory and now I can make 2 Thors and 2 Marines at once.
I used SC2Gears to analyze games and my win percentage with Zerg is at 77% (21-6) so I am surprised I am still in Platinum there. I expect to make Diamond soon.
Toss I am almost exactly 50-50.
Terran I still have a losing record overall.
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So I finally got around to playing on my Zerg account and went straight to diamond going 9-2 today. I am not #1 ranked diamond with 300ish points off of 16 wins and a few losses.
I am definitely at my best playing Zerg. I am just somewhat weak with Force Field micro and other stuff that Toss needs.
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I am now Diamond in 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4 with Protoss in the new season.
I only played one 1v1 the past few seasons (which I did win) so I might start focusing on 1v1 again to get that to Diamond.
I also want to keep playing a bit with Zerg and Terran.
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EPT
