EPTThe game is coming along well. I got a few twinges of carpal tunnel as I went along so we've slowed down a bit to around ~250 APM (which is still pretty close to my career average). There's a lot to be said for superposition and quantum states storing data. For instance I can play some games with my youthful body and not experience carpal tunnel at all. On the other hand, if I play against players that I knew from way back when, sometimes the carpal tunnel triggers. Talk about psychosomatic, huh?
the first replay
We're getting into some PvP on Fish as it seems Korean players are becoming more interested in the matchup. It's a great break for me since I never played Corsair/Reaver PvZ for concentration reasons. Since my current style of PvT is pretty similar to Corsair/Reaver learning the mechanics is interesting--you've got to be present for a lot of situations and some of them unexpected. As we know from talks with pro players, a lot of PvP and in fact many Protoss matchups in general aren't like this. Usually the top level Protosses (or at least me) get most of the work done before the fighting starts--so the game is a positioning war that isn't anything like the rough and tumble Corsair/Reaver.
This is a great game. There were a lot of spikes during the game, so I know we were shifting the direction of play a lot. I can't really see opening any other way than ramp shield battery Robo in PvP because it hedges out so much stuff. We get to open into a fast expansion without much worry about the noisome early game pressure that can sometimes throw you off as Protoss. Of course there are still two Gate openings and so you'd have to scout these and get ready, but the shield battery might be plenty to ensure a hold--we only need to snipe one or two units before taking losses in order to ensure victory in these spots. Thus the shield battery giving us an extra 200+ health should be more than sufficient unless we're really overwhelmed.
The opponent is pretty erratic this game, and we see that sniping Nexuses may not be that good. He's obviously quite far ahead in that way of thinking, but necessarily throws away some army and doesn't get a lot of work done. It would be interesting to crunch these numbers since at least in theory he can throw away 10+ units to kill a Nexus and still come out pretty far ahead economically. We need to be more alert about getting stuff done with the Corsairs whether it's scouting or preventing drops. ~1500 resources for the dual upgrades on our Corsairs is pretty nice if we've got 7~8 full energy Corsairs. Since we're playing Zealot Archon we only need to micro so much and Disruption web may prove even better than Psi Storm for control reasons.
I can imagine playing a more passive style with this build also, to showcase some earlier ideas. Since we upgrade observer speed it's theoretically possible to deny expansions almost indefinitely with our Corsairs and a DT, but I'm not sure this is the route for us. It's reasonable but might cost a lot of concentration. The biggest realization is our opponent will need Dragoons to shoot down our Arbiters. Dragoons are really pretty terrible against Archon Zealot unless you have the leisure of killing Archons with your Dragoons. Depending on how structured the battles turn out to be, Disruption Web might be really clutch in this situation.
the second replay
This is a great game. We get an added bonus of discovering the robustness of 16 probes before Nexus. Protoss players from the old days will certainly appreciate this theory of simply building a Forge and then following with 16 probes before the Nexus. There are a great many PvZ games lost simply out of "confusion" in the very early game, which is in itself a sort of sore phenomenon for BW. BW, for various reasons is one of the highest stress games there is--and I think many players would agree that losing in the early game "to something ridiculous" is one of the most off-putting elements.
Personally I can recall a great many games debating 12 Nexus or 12 Forge, 12 Forge and 14 Nexus, or 12 Forge and Gateway to pressure. Basically there are a lot of varieties of good PvZ openings, and for whatever reason learning the fast expansion takes a lot of work. Here we start developing something more simple: 12 Forge and 16 Nexus into a Pylon, more Probes and an Assimilator. It's very important to recall that we have a Probe on the map, and a Probe at the expansion building structures (cannons and Gateway). Therefore it makes a big difference how we handle this. We can build a 12 Forge, and then Probes to 16, giving us 14 mining Probes plus the construction Probe and the scouting Probe. With the Assimilator in the main, we can reasonably support a 21 Probe economy on our first base, meaning that even with the 16 Nexus no mining time is lost. The biggest advantage to this is that with the stronger economy Protoss doesn't have to debate about spending extra resources on a second or third cannon depending on what the scouting probe sees. This could actually by itself make a big difference in the long term PvZ winrate.
Most of what's going on next is discussed in the reVOD. Since we open 16 Nexus we have a somewhat stronger economy going into our 4 Gate Zealot speed which means we don't have to debate about economy versus Zealots. The initial Zealot attack might be slightly slower or about the same, but as long as mass Hydra is the meta, having a very balanced approach to defending is probably best, and 16 Nexus seems to give us this.
As you can see from the replay, I try to do some different stuff. We open 2 Stargate Corsair into Fleet Beacon for D-web. I actually like this a lot after looking at the resource breakdown. D-web and 250 energy plus the Fleet Beacon only costs 600/500 which is not hugely expensive. We are also very strong against Mutalisk. It isn't obvious that we hit a nice timing against Lurkers--we might or we might not. If the Zerg is relying on Lurkers and sunkens for defense against our Zealots then we can d-web them and maybe take a Hatchery. We also have the option of hunting Overlords with more leisure as in the replay.
the third replay
We look at making a FPVOD, which I thought would be fun because I've never made one before. We're still running into some timing questions in the opener.
We had some problems this game. There's really no reason to give up the expansion early as you've seen in several of the reVODs. it is of course perfectly legitimate to just build 400 mineral Nexuses all over the map and send probes everywhere since the Terran won't have Vultures. other players might approach this differently.... We're slowing down our play a bit to help with overcoming carpal tunnel. I've been running into some ghosting issues with my left arm which has prevented some of the more elegant plays we might hope to see.
I don't think the Shuttle expand should be used willy nilly. It's definitely an option for this build from the standpoint of a more strategic player. There's not much to say about the game itself other than it requires a lot of commentary with the psychological aspects. It's a bad habit to look away at crucial moments, even to macro or keep spending down. Aggression pays seems to be a focal point in many exercises of this nature, even Chess. There are psychological reasons why players choose to be aggressive. But there are also psychological reasons to play defensively. It's important to think about the game, and to address minor issues as they arise.
Starcraft should be fun, and shouldn't require too much work. We'd like to play 10 games a day but that's a difficult schedule to keep. The most important part of life is outside Starcraft, which is important to keep in mind. It might not benefit us to play a lot of back-to-back games, however much fun this is. I don't live a regimented life, and I think it's important to be lazy. We don't want a bunch of Pyramid time of course where we lie around in coffins listening to waterfalls. If that's what it takes to be happy, then go for it, but remember to keep the first things first.
conclusion of thread music Video: this video explains why it is impossible for us to ever get along./
Deep South
