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Hello TL. I am a struggling protoss player.
I am new to the site as well as SC2. This is the first RTS I've played online.
I have some WC3 LAN experience, but nothing significant.
I've practiced against the AI and I've gotten golds on all the challenges in order to prepare for the real game. After playing a few games in the practice league I decided to skip it since I figured this would probably wind up hurting my technique since the actual games are quite different from the practice league games.
Anyway, I did my placement games and somehow ended up in Gold league despite my lack of any real experience.
I've been reading this forum as well as watching various YouTube videos and basically trying to emulate what I see in the videos when I play. I guess that works pretty well to some extent as I was shocked to end up in Gold.
I feel I've got the basics down somewhat, of course there is room for improvement. I know what I need to be doing on the economy side, but can't quite execute it perfectly yet or I wind up forgetting in the midst of battle.
When it comes to scouting, I know I should scout early and see what my opponent is up to, and I do try to do this, but I don't know what to do with that information. Other times I wind up scouting perhaps too early and see nothing even built yet.
Then there are mid-game times where I see what my opponent has, and since I've invested so much into my own build it's difficult to transition into a counter army quickly.
The actual combat side is where I struggle the most. Even if I have an army built with counters to all their units I still get steamrolled; maybe I'm just out numbered.
I don't quite understand the 'micro' aspect of combat. I know I should concentrate on keeping units alive, but that's it.
This brings me to the online player vs player aspect. After my successful placement games and feeling of confidence, I get shut down 4 times in a row - even when I felt like I was playing smart and had the advantage. I honestly don't know where exactly I went wrong, which is why I'm turning to the pro's here at TL.
I have zipped my 4 losing-streak games since my placement games. I would appreciate if someone could comment on what I did wrong as well as what I did correct and perhaps gives some tips to improve my overall game.
Here is the link to my 4 replays in a .zip: http://www.mediafire.com/?kcev4ux1q7gh9ir
I apologize for the wall of text.
TL;DR - I placed gold league despite lack of online experience, now I am struggling. Based off of my replays, what am I doing wrong and right?
Thanks! 
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When it comes to scouting, I know I should scout early and see what my opponent is up to, and I do try to do this, but I don't know what to do with that information. Other times I wind up scouting perhaps too early and see nothing even built yet.
Then there are mid-game times where I see what my opponent has, and since I've invested so much into my own build it's difficult to transition into a counter army quickly.
The most an early scout can see is cheese/early aggression, gas timing, and possibly the first tech structure before its killed off. Its always important to CONTINUE scouting. Also, if you find it hard to transition after scouting something, it means theres something wrong with the build you're using. Most builds have a certain degree of flexibility to them that allow them to transition to counters for just about everything. Its a little early for you to be playing with builds that trap you in almost "all-in"ish positions. As day9 would say, 3 warpgate expand every game. That way when you scout you can transition to anything, robo, stargate, templar.
At your level, micro should play a very minor role in your games. If you're losing fights with superior composition, you probably are just behind in the macro. As a general rule, avoid the 1 ctrl group syndrome, and try and keep zealots in front of everything.
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1) Econ - having your base(s) in a control group and try to constantly make workers. At first it's hard but it'll get better as you improve
2) Scouting - useless unless you know what yo are looking for, you kinda need to learn the early signs of builds for each race and react accordingly. For instance if you see early tech lab prepare for reapers and possibly mm push. Early gas for zerg might mean blings. Try to always have an idea of what the opponent is going for, don't need to constantly scan or sacrifice 1 overlord a minute jsut to make sure.
3) That is probably because you don't have enough units or keep getting out of position. Try having only as many unit-producing structures as you can afford and try to constantly make units out of those.
My advice in general is to practice a build order you like offline and learn to execute it as well as possible, so when you get online you now exactly what you're doing and not just laying in the dark and reacting. Also obviously work on your macro/mechanics (i.e scouting, constantly build workers/units)
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ive only watched your Kulas ravine toss vs toss game and heres the first thing i noticed and the most major:
poor early scouting. you scouted him and only saw 1 pylon and didnt stick around to see anything else. im sure you rewatched the replay and noticed your opponents build order went something like this- make a bunch of probes, 3 pylons, 2 assimilators then forge. you could have easily killed him with more zealots. later you then ran a group of zealots into his door which was filled with cannons(shouldve just backed away unless you were sure u could break it). you then 4 gated but didnt make much with it, tried to switch to voidrays and this was where it all came apart. you sent 1 voidray into his base and tried to focus down his forge of all things. he sent 4 voidrays and easily killed yours since the entire time you're still trying to kill this 1 forge with 1 voidray not even running when you see 4 enemy void rays. it was basically GG shortly since he just had like 8ish voids and rolled your few stalkers.
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delta quadrant game ZvT:
very easy to see what the problem was. you got supply blocked. you chronod a zealot and he couldnt even be made since you were already at 18/18 food. 6 lings came, killed your pylon when your zealot was literally 1 second from popping out. you def needed a 2nd pylon earlier, also you had the gateway rallied next to your nexus, im assuming to kill that 1 drone. wouldve been fine if you didnt get supply blocked and put 2 zealots in your doorway to block lings and just eventually kill that drone with a 3rd unit(im pretty sure the opening in your wall would need more than 1 zealot it seemed kinda big of a hole)
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On August 11 2010 06:40 susySquark wrote:Show nested quote +When it comes to scouting, I know I should scout early and see what my opponent is up to, and I do try to do this, but I don't know what to do with that information. Other times I wind up scouting perhaps too early and see nothing even built yet.
Then there are mid-game times where I see what my opponent has, and since I've invested so much into my own build it's difficult to transition into a counter army quickly.
At your level, micro should play a very minor role in your games. If you're losing fights with superior composition, you probably are just behind in the macro. As a general rule, avoid the 1 ctrl group syndrome, and try and keep zealots in front of everything.
I think it's better to blink your stalkers in and then run your zealots in. I saw HuK doing this and it works great. It lets stalkers take some damage so your zealots can charge up to them.
Also, my advice to new players is always the same: mechanics, mechanics, mechanics. Find one simple, flexible build and use it EVERY game. Your first goal is to become fast with the keyboard and mouse. If you have no RTS experience I already assume you're too slow to keep up with players. Your micro, macro, and multi-tasking skills need to come before strategy. All the great players in StarCraft had one thing in common: they all pushed the boundaries in mechanics. Boxer with his micro, iloveoov with his macro, julyzerg with his micro, savior with his macro, micro, and timing; Bisu with his incredible multi-tasking, macro, and micro. Strategy is nice, but that should come second to having high APM. You need to just play, play, play and your game sense will come with all that playing too. A player with great mechanics will trump a player with poor mechanics every single time.
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susySquark: Since I am mainly a protoss player at this point, the obvious unit for scouting purposes is the Observer. Lets say I'm going for Void Rays or something, if my build does not normally include a robo, should I build it anyway to get an Observer out for continual scouting?
When you say avoid the 1+ctrl group, how else should I be grouping my units? That's (1+ctrl) exactly how I've been grouping my army thus far.
Keap: Having since watched a few of Day9's videos, I have begun to incorporate building control groups as well. Previously I was just control grouping my army. I have downloaded YABOT and will mess around with that.
Aeroz135: In regards to your first post - This was probably my most frustrating game. I felt like I went into this one with no plan whatsoever. Looking back at the replay I could see a lot of things I would like to have done differently. For example my lack of knowledge of the map. Watching the replay again, I noticed I was sitting next to rocks that I could have broken and entered his base from the back which would have avoided the cannons all together.
Thanks for the advice so far. I appreciate it.
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On August 11 2010 07:00 rushz0rz wrote:
Also, my advice to new players is always the same: mechanics, mechanics, mechanics. Find one simple, flexible build and use it EVERY game. Your first goal is to become fast with the keyboard and mouse. If you have no RTS experience I already assume you're too slow to keep up with players. Your micro, macro, and multi-tasking skills need to come before strategy....... rushz0rz: Thanks for the advice.
What simple, flexible build would you suggest for me as a Protoss player?
I usually do the usual 9 pylon and 12 gateway - from there I kind of freestyle it depending on what I scout. Since I don't really have a set plan/goal, I assume this is hurting me.
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Blistering sands game: PvP again:
it felt like your ramp actually worked against you while watching this. you had a similar amount of units to your opponent but he had a slightly better mix. more stalkers and as your zealots were in front of your stalkers they were the first to go down your ramp and the last back up making them easy prey to an opponent that was using some fairly decent hit and run tactics(also focus firing single zealots). eventually he just overwhelmed you mainly because he was 4gating while u were 3gating with a robo bay in the process of building. also you got a tad bit supply blocked when he killed 1 of your pylons near your gateways so it put you at 48/50 food. not a good position to be in when an almost equal/slighty bigger eventually army is pounding your wall.
just wanted to point out im a zerg player so the concept of walling off is something i see all my opponents do. however i notice most toss and terrans dont wall off when they arent playing a zerg, giving you a lot more breathing room for battle. this game in particular wouldve gone a bit better(i think you still wouldve been the underdog however) if your opponent came into your base and you wouldve been able to make better use of your zealots. the ramp really killed you imo.
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On August 11 2010 07:16 Aeroz135 wrote:
just wanted to point out im a zerg player so the concept of walling off is something i see all my opponents do. however i notice most toss and terrans dont wall off when they arent playing a zerg, giving you a lot more breathing room for battle. this game in particular wouldve gone a bit better(i think you still wouldve been the underdog however) if your opponent came into your base and you wouldve been able to make better use of your zealots. the ramp really killed you imo.
I never considered this actually. Like I mentioned in my original post, most of my gameplay/strategy is based off of what I've seen in YouTube videos. I usually see them attempt to wall off the base entrance to prevent rushes or scouting or whatever.
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On August 11 2010 07:02 spamhead wrote:susySquark: Since I am mainly a protoss player at this point, the obvious unit for scouting purposes is the Observer. Lets say I'm going for Void Rays or something, if my build does not normally include a robo, should I build it anyway to get an Observer out for continual scouting? When you say avoid the 1+ctrl group, how else should I be grouping my units? That's (1+ctrl) exactly how I've been grouping my army thus far. Keap: Having since watched a few of Day9's videos, I have begun to incorporate building control groups as well. Previously I was just control grouping my army. I have downloaded YABOT and will mess around with that. Aeroz135: In regards to your first post - This was probably my most frustrating game. I felt like I went into this one with no plan whatsoever. Looking back at the replay I could see a lot of things I would like to have done differently. For example my lack of knowledge of the map. Watching the replay again, I noticed I was sitting next to rocks that I could have broken and entered his base from the back which would have avoided the cannons all together. Thanks for the advice so far. I appreciate it.
You can scout with anything, probes, stalkers, phoenixes, observers. Hallucinations (phoenix) are great too. Even if you have to lose a probe, just send one into his base to get a glimpse of his composition. Take a potshot at a T's wall with a stalker, and make him chase you away. Fly a phoenix over his base, and leave before you take health damage. What you have to work on is figuring out his build with the smallest amount of information possible. Early double gas as P, probably a tech build. No addon on rax? Be prepared for marines + higher tech.
By avoiding 1 ctrl syndrome I mean keeping different units of your army in separate groups, like zealots on CTRL+1, stalkers and sentries on CTRL+2. While a T's army works well in a giant ball, P has a harder time because of the melee and ranged unit mix. Try and keep your army spread a little more to allow for a better concave to form more quickly when you engage.
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On August 11 2010 07:15 spamhead wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2010 07:00 rushz0rz wrote:
Also, my advice to new players is always the same: mechanics, mechanics, mechanics. Find one simple, flexible build and use it EVERY game. Your first goal is to become fast with the keyboard and mouse. If you have no RTS experience I already assume you're too slow to keep up with players. Your micro, macro, and multi-tasking skills need to come before strategy....... rushz0rz: Thanks for the advice. What simple, flexible build would you suggest for me as a Protoss player? I usually do the usual 9 pylon and 12 gateway - from there I kind of freestyle it depending on what I scout. Since I don't really have a set plan/goal, I assume this is hurting me.
Freestyling doesn't work if you barely know what you're doing. From here, I can't give much advice. I'm not a great player, but I'm not bad either. I usually do exactly what you do, but I have more experience from BW on how to react to things.
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Netherlands1301 Posts
I only watched the toss vs toss game:
If you're playing protoss vs protoss in the gold league you can win simply by having your build order down nicely. It's good to do something like this:
9 pylon
when pylon finishes chrono nexus, and as soon as it wears off chrono again while constantly making probes.
at 13 you make your gateway
chrono again, make probes
gas when you can afford it
when gateway finishes make cybernetics core when you can afford it (ASAP)
then your scout is going to come in handy. If he already gets 2 gateways quick and has a zealot, make a zealot yourself and throw down a 2nd gateway
if he goes fast core, make gas before 2nd gateway.
When core finishes start pumping stalkers with 2 gateways (boost them if you want, else boost your nexus, but ALWAYS use chrono when your nexus has 25 energy.
After 2nd gateway make robotics facility. Make immortals with your robotics if he's going for stalkers, because immortals totally own stalkers at least 3 to 1.
you will find spending your minerals and gas easy with 2 gateways and a robotics.
Attack when you have like 5-6 stalkers and 1 or 2 immortals (and 1 or 2 sentry's if you think you can control them to throw shields/force fields)
If you win the middle of the map, go stand under his ramp and contain him (he has to run down and take hits so you're strong there).
if you're comfortable you have more units make an expand and upgrade warp gates and a pylon near his base to warp your units in. You can get a 3rd gateway to keep spending your money (since you should have enough probes now to support it).
Get your exp running and add gateways and maybe another robotics facility. Don't forget an observer to counter dark templar later on. If you can manage this and keep him in his base that long you have the upper hand.
Try it.. works reasonably well for me in the diamond league
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edit: sorry for the wall of text 
desert oasis game: PvT
like i said i dont play toss so im not exactly sure how well void ray rush works or how to even do it properly, but i noticed at one point you attacked his base with 3 rays, wisely avoiding the marines he had parked there but then you attacked a missle turret and lost a voidray just because you wanted to kill the turret so badly i suppose. this is where micro comes in, just move the voidray back before his shield goes down and thats 1 less unit lost. also i feel u underestimate what 3 fully charged rays can do when only up against about 7 marines. i did notice he had maybe 8 more by his blocked off ramp however this was a pretty new terran player and he didnt strike me as someone who would react fast enough to bring those extra marines over before your 3 rays murder his small marine defense.(wanted to point out he blocked his ramp with 3 supply depots).
i feel you shouldve stopped making vrays at this point because of 2 things: he had 8 missle turrets defending his base at this point, you saw he had vikings which he used i believe to kill a voidray, and he was continuing to make vikings, at this point you had 2 being made, while he already had 5 vikings sitting in his base. he clearly will have/already has a much stronger air force.
at the 14 min mark you have 2k minerals and 300gas, definately should use that to either expand and add more gateways at this point in the game. i feel you're too low on gas to really tech out of gateway at this current point in the game and the voidrays were a big investment that didnt pay off. you tried attacking his base but i noticed a lack of focus fire, especially the stalkers that couldve hit a tank on his ramp that wasnt sieged to begin with. honestly his bio ball was more than enough to kill your force, the tank was just extra.
at the 18:30 mark i noticed you had 3 zealots try to go into his base, since its blocked though the zealots have no method of getting in and wont even try to go up his ramp because the AI knows its blocked, he got some free shots on these zealots because at this point he had 12 turrents around his entire base giving him sight of the ground below. you then sent the zealots up the ramp, waste of 300 minerals and 3 zealots.
20min mark: same thing u sent 3 zealots to his front, waste of mineral and units again, even worse now that your base is mined out and the expansion isnt even up(about to finish though). still sitting on a ton of minerals and now gas, also arent using your warpgates off cooldown so your at a pretty big disadvantage army/food wise.
25min mark: you have 5minerals, about 1700 gas, and 2 carriers. also earlier you put 6 cannons around your base which was a bit of a waste imo, he didnt have any units that would make you think an air attack was coming, vikings most def are not scary enough to make u want to cannon up since if they want to kill you they have to land. you also did another zealot attack on his front door and the only reason you broke in was because his army was finally gone, unfortunately he did have 4 marines and 2 banshees so it wasnt a big loss for him to lose 1 depot and a few marines. your expo was killed and you have no minerals to remake another nexus and are contained in your base, only income you'll get is from mining minerals from a farther base and having them bring them back to your main. it was pretty much guaranteed GG around the 20min mark.
i feel like the longer the game went you had less idea what to do. obviously the more you play the more used to what you should build will come to you. in all honesty i think you were the better player, you had an idea what u wanted to do, actually seemed to have a build order, just didnt execute properly and became a little lost. the terran on the other hand was just herp derp lets make some marines/marauders/tanks and he only won because he had a bigger army. you were MORE than capable of matching his army and even making a bigger one. terran played sloppy but was able to capitalize because of some of your few mistakes. also dont do anymore "cute" plays trying to send 3 zealots at his wall constantly, it does nothing, you know it would do nothing. just play more and remember your mistakes and try to clean up your play.
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Aeroz135 thanks for analyzing the replays.
In the desert oasis PvT game, I was pretty aware that my opponent was turtling and massing an army, I just didn't know how to go about cracking his base. He had his choke walled off, so my zealots were useless, and after my attempt at a VR harass he put up a ton of static anti-air nulling those as well. Meanwhile he kept whittling down my army.
At that point I really didn't know what is was going to take. He took out my expo, so in a panic made a few carriers with what minerals I had left and then it was over.
How do I handle a turtler like that?
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i feel that if you just had a big enough army(you certainly had the resources) you couldve just broke his army, waltzed up his ramp and kill him. he played pretty passive and just adapted to what he saw from you. it wasnt til the end he got some random bright idea to spend the time to get banshees when he couldve just kept making tanks and a MM ball. i didnt really see much aggression from you other than the voids + that one push you did at his ramp which was at the 14min mark i believe from my recap of your game up above. pretty sure he got scared, decided to turtle, and eventually pushed out. honestly the voids really screwed you up, you spent the time to early tech them(even got the +1dmge upgrade before warpgates), also you got shields at forge before attack which like i said im no toss pro but shield upgrades are usually some of the last upgrades i see.
like i said i really feel it just comes down to not spending your resources and maybe lack of game experience. perhaps you tried to be a bit fancy with the voids when you shouldve stuck to what you were previously doing(4gating) and just overwhelming him. he played pretty slowly, i mean he did spend the resources to make 12 turrets around his base. also as you play you'll incorporate other types of units. this was most def your longest game out of the 4 you posted, and maybe your longest game to date so far? Eventually you'll work things into your build such as collosus. actually a few collosus from all those resources you had probably wouldve been great, id go as far to say game winning unit in this game specifically. yes he did have some vikings but he literally didnt touch them for like 20minutes after you stopped making voids(i only mention vikings because they can hit collosus if you didnt know). also theres things like templar tech or council tech so u can get charge on your zealots.
edit: also you dont always have to 4gate, liquidspy mentioned 2gate robo is certainly viable sometimes. basically theres a lot of things you can do, the question is should you do it? will it work? what will i do if it fails?
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one thing i learned about turtling terrans is not to attack them at their entrance because that's just suicide.
What i do is camp my army outside his base and TRY to prevent him from grabbing expos (at this time you should have ur own expo and macroing hard). Eventually he will run out of resources in his main and his army will have to come out.
That's when you can engage him and you need to have an army that can match up to it. If you don't have good micro like me, be prepared to lose most or all of your units. If you win thats gg. If you lose, its ok as long as most of his army are also wiped out. You need to have a proxy pylon nearby to make fast reinforcements. Warp in zealots/stalkers/sentries once/twice and try to push out again. At this point his resources will be low and can't make enough units to counter yours.
One bad thing about this strat is when they dropship you back at your base and you'll need to have to send ur army back if you need more units to defend the harass. Scouting is really important so you can buy time to prepare for these type of things.
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best thing for you to do at that level is to simply watch a day9 daily everyday. even if you barely play, you will improve your game dramatically just by learning from day9. 'Back to the basics' is a very good video that goes over the core of playing solid starcraft
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There is this Korean Pro called "testER" watch his games, he is the BEST protoss player in the world.
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On August 11 2010 12:46 seDt wrote:
best thing for you to do at that level is to simply watch a day9 daily everyday. even if you barely play, you will improve your game dramatically just by learning from day9. 'Back to the basics' is a very good video that goes over the core of playing solid starcraft
yep, this guys is a genius when it comes to teaching people about Starcraft
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=104154
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Well since practicing a build order a bit and watching some of day9's videos, I have ended my losing streak!  (til next time!)
I didn't play as well as I would have liked to however. I tried to take day9's advice about using production building control groups and things like that, but I found myself fumbling over using them efficiently. Kind of got me confused, but I assume as I become more accustomed to them things will improve.
I was also trying to make an effort to keep my resources low, but when our armies clashed I was distracted and my resources skyrocketed. I need to work on that still.
Unfortunately the build order I was practicing didn't go exactly as planned since my opponent came at me with some early zerglings so I tried to adapt. As a result, this made everything get a little sloppy.
He dropped in on my mineral line while I was getting my expo saturated, fortunately I still had an income from the expo after I cleaned up his army. Having not scouting an expansion, I figured he was low on units and minerals at that point so I pushed and ultimately won from there.
Anyway, here's the link to the replay: http://www.mediafire.com/?8d8la1ygg4udrs1
Ignore the ending. I really wanted to kill everything. 
If anyone could give me some feedback on where I was doing well and where I could improve that would be awesome.
Thanks for everyone's input!
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Until you have atleast 25 up to 50 games played, expect to go on winning and loosing streaks, because the matchmaking system does not know how good or bad you are till you have played a number of games.
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spamhead your latest game was pretty decent, the zerg was pretty bad though. one mistake was at your ramp the zerglings got a surround on your blocking zealot, them getting the surround defeats the purpose of blocking it properly. i know the space is a little tricky because theres a giant damn tree at the ramp on the top base so i suppose its hard to see how big the gap in your defense really is. also you may want to put a pylon near your backdoor, both bases have destructable rocks. he couldve just as easily broken that door as opposed to doing such a poor doom drop. youll notice higher level players usually place pylons/supplydepots/OL in a few key places around there base so they arent caught off guard by these types of plays. other than that just need to work on some micro, i notice zealots goings around his goofy sim city wall placement of building to hit the spinecrawlers in the back, while your sentry/immortals are just attacking whatever pops up near em.
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Aeroz135, thank you again for checking out my replays. I appreciate it.
I suppose another building at the ramp would have blocked it better, but I panicked when I saw all those zerglings and I only had one zealot. I threw down another gateway as soon as I could and it was faster to build it near the Nexus.
In previous games I built a pylon near the rocks on that map. I will try to make it a habit. I guess it just slipped my mind this time.
On August 12 2010 05:49 Aeroz135 wrote:
other than that just need to work on some micro, i notice zealots goings around his goofy sim city wall placement of building to hit the spinecrawlers in the back, while your sentry/immortals are just attacking whatever pops up near em.
When you say this, what is the ideal thing to do in this situation? Should I be focus firing on certain things?
As you can probably tell, this was just an A-Move attack. I'm not sure what I should be doing to improve in the micro aspect.
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im gonna assume you can still block that hole with 1 zealot possibly, sort of putting him in a "sweet spot" that technically has small gaps but not enough for zerglings to get through. for the zealots perhaps on the final attack id suggest using them against that force of enemy units that your immortal/sentries cleaned up while also being mindful of the spinecrawlers.
you had the game in the bag so no worries, but against a stronger zerg opponent he will make you pay for losing units like that in his base, especially if you just A-move, also by the time the game was won you actually did had a pretty low amount of units(i think maybe 3 sentries and 2 immortals?) so if he had the larva he couldve just q'd lings and taken care of that force assuming he couldve made maybe 12+ lings.
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EPT
