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This season has been my most active season in the ladder. I've set myself a goal for the future and trying to stop thinking anything less than a win is unacceptable. I have my build orders in the works and trying to practice as much as I can. Most people are always saying "practice your macro! Try 2 base builds!"
This is what I have been trying to do in every match-up. PvT I have my archon/chargelots or HT/Chargelots. PvZ I have collosi/phoenix and PvP I usually go for 1 base cause Bronze P are cheesy and 1 base themselves though, Archon/Chargelot is my 2 base build.
Gradually I've felt myself getting better, I've tilted a damn lot less in PvZ, kept my calm, practiced walling off and all that and although I still lose a lot I can feel myself being a lot less apprehensive about facing Zerg and not dying as fast.
PvT on the other hand, it's gone backwards. I felt comfortable in PvT for the longest time and I felt of all my match-ups it's the one I could best practice my macro and things like storms. Then I bumped into perhaps the trashiest build ever.
Everyone bitches and cries about Protoss with their 1 base/2 base all-ins and how we need nerfing, but in my opinion, the race with the worst 1 base build is Terran, mass marines from 3 reactored rax is a pain in the ass to beat. For one it's difficult to scout, you send in a probe, see them building a rax and walling off and think "ok pretty standard, not about to get cheesed" and then sometimes they're getting gas and I just "ok they're gonna try reaper opening, need to get MSC out asap"
Then when I'm expanding or just as my expansion finished, a fuckton of marines appear and I don't have the army to deal with it, it's just a constant stream of men coming to ruin my fun. Most don't even bother researching combat shields, just spam the ever loving crap out of marines.
Seeing this pisses me off immensely, I'm there trying to improve, trying to think out my gameplan, strategising, checking I'm not supply blocking myself and the Terran is just there going "HERP DERP MARINES" I'll admit I have a habit of BMing 1 base marine spammers, I shouldn't but I do.
It's actually hit a point where I've stumbled upon so many 1 base Terrans that my PvT has gone to shit completely. I actually came across a guy, ex-gold who played a very standard build and there was nothing I could do, I expanded too late, I had too many troops so I couldn't invest in a forge. With no forge I couldn't build photon cannons or upgrade shit. With no photon cannons I had no defence against the cloaked banshees that obliterated my economy. I knew exactly how I could've survived that attack and I was kicking myself, because normally I'd be ready for that kind of attack.
I probably would've lost regardless with the guy being ex-gold and therefore being vastly superior to me in micro and macro but I know I could've put up a better fight and lasted a tad bit longer than I did had I have just gone for my standard build.
Part of me wishes I was in silver/gold league right now, yes I'd get smashed every damn game but it'd be a better practice environment with less 1 base crap and a chance to actually macro and practice it >_<
Oh and I know what everyone is thinking right now: Why is this damn Bronzie constantly bitching in every blog they write? Well the simple, answer is this: It's been a long time since I've felt this passionate about anything, SC is one game that doesn't bring back memories from darker parts of my life I wish never happened. If something ruins my passion, I get incredibly angry, kind of a kneejerk reaction thing. I have to vent somehow, this is how I do it without breaking shit. But that's perhaps a tale for another time.
 
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Here's a tip: leave probes everywhere
At the xelnaga towers, outside their natural, outside your natural, between the path of their base and yours
It'll allow you to see when they push, what they have, and should give you enough warning to prepare adequate defenses.
Photon overcharge should crush 1 base marine plays, what are you using your MSC energy on?
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^ one probe on the map is sufficient. Just send your first stalker and harass with it, and then leave it outside their nat to scout for any pushes. once you see a marine force you should have enough time to warp in sentries and stall. Then when you get an obs you do the same thing and leave it outside their nat and scout for any incoming direct attacks
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I'm not sure exactly what's going on in your games but you can hold a 3 rax with sentries and a nexus cannon.
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Hi KatatoniK, reply to my message if u think it has been useful in any way or still need tips:
I thought you were diamond-masters untill I've read your cry about 1 base terran. My uncle played with your mentality before I coached him, when he took 1000 games to get from bronze to silver and literally raged after every single loss. After my coaching he went to platinum quite fast (he plays T). I'm pretty sure he would've quitted and/or smashed his PC before he reached plat if he didn't have friends to help him through the process.
So, as an veteran WOL zerg player (high master/low-grandmaster), allow me to give you some general tips:
- You will lose, and through losing you will allow yourself to become better.
- You will not improve unless you accept that losing is part of the system (blizz 50% win ratio)
- You will not improve unless you accept that 1 base terran is the easy shit to handle as HOTS toss
- You will not improve unless you accept that there's little to no race unbalance, that you can easily conquer with practice (especially at your skill-level).
- You will never improve if you don't learn to macro. Easiest way to learn it? Learn nexus timings, and learn from pro replays when they should be saturated. Keep pumping probes. Set a benchmark for yourself.
- Builds (or better said: properly executed builds) are very non-existent at your level, your so-called strategy is non-important w/o proper macro to set it up.
- In my time everyone under grandmaster/pro couldn't properly macro, there is always room for improvement (end of WOL), I highly expect it's the same for masters and under in HOTS.
- Stop bashing/BMing other people. They won't become better if they cheese, you suck if you lose to cheese. period.
- It's OK to "suck". If you accept this, then you allow yourself to improve faster. At top of my ladder peak, I still thought I sucked.
That being said:
I can't really exactly help you precisely to stop derp 1base reactor-marines because I haven't touched HOTS. Although I haven't played HOTS, it's still very very easy for me to identify how to take care of bronze (up to masters) cheese builds, while preparing to move leagues up to play "better, non-cheese" players (lol, everyone cheeses, maybe even more in higher leagues).
First of all, LEARN TO MACRO! Most, if not ALL bronze players (up to Diamond/Masters??), don't know how to properly macro. What is macro? To set a goal for yourself PRE-GAME for certain scenarios, AND try to effeciently set yourself up to that goal. This doesn't only mean: probes, nexus, probes, nexus into HT/Colossus/Archon/etcetc.
A) Your goal could also be as simple to 1 base all-in every race (though I would guess that it sux even more than in WOL). The important idea is that you become efficient in reaching that goal, e.g. get X probes at Y time, X units at Y time, and crush opponent at Y time before he gets Z units to stop you.
B) Slightly more complicated are properly executing 2 base builds and timing-attacks that are still a very very strong arsenal for protoss. If that's what you want (still easy to execute, but much higher win% than 1base builds), then learn how to macro (efficiently plan and execute) for that! E.g. expand behind single gateway/cybercore at 6:00 time, get 32 probes at 8:00 time, attack with units composition X at 11:00 time with x/x upgrades, etc etc. LOOK FOR BUILDS at strategy section AND BENCHMARK YOURSELF. (timing-numbers are pulled out of my ass).
C) The last and ultimatily superior, but much harder, alternative would be to learn how to macro with late-game goals. Knowing a global plan from early-game to end-game.
Whatever you choose, you will need to fail and practice to become better. It's an excuse to say that you lose due to herp-derp 1base reactor marines unless it's proven by that it's unstoppable. It was very easy to handle in WOL, so why wouldn't it be in HOTS with Photon overcharge? From what I've heard and seen it's called a planetary nexus for good reasons. Go look up some guides on PvT on teamliquid and learn to always go for gameplan A, B or C for every matchup.
Feel free to ask tips. Everyone starts as a noob. Or as I see it, almost everyone is still a noob and it's perfectly fine. Most important is to enjoy the game.
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Just build photon cannons. The game has been diluted to the point where the player with the most photon cannons can photon cannon key photon cannon. Upgrade your photon cannons and just accept the fact that photon cannons are the new meta. It's a matter of truth that without photon cannon you cant photon cannon another photon cannon.... Photon cannon.
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I hate to contribute to the somewhat useless advice that you are already getting, but I really have a hard time believing that pvt could be giving anyone trouble at this point.
I think the important things for protoss to do are to leave your stalker outside of terran natural to see any move outs. Have it on a hotkey so that you can retreat as needed. If you see as attack coming, do whatever you need to do to prepare. cannons, immortals, and as many stalkers as you can manage kill marines pretty handily.
Nexus overcharge should also be able to deal with early marine timings, if you want to post some replays I would be happy to help.
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EPT
