When i see that kind of aggression i try to get a spine up while i defend with lings/drones/queen. And if possible maybe throw down a roach warren just in case

Mythol

Sweden24 Posts

December 06 2010 22:16 GMT

#42

Another thing i have started to experiment with is when my pool pops at around 16, instead of doing a queen, i do three sets of lings and try to snipe hes queen as it pops.

Is this to much of a setback to delay the queen or what do you guys think?

MobiusOne

United States106 Posts

December 06 2010 22:52 GMT

#43

You can watch my replays if you want, Im a 1500 Diamond zerg, but dont take them too seriously, theres alot of stuff to work on, but this might help

http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=member_replays&member_id=170652

Mythol

Sweden24 Posts

December 06 2010 23:02 GMT

#44

On December 07 2010 07:52 MobiusOne wrote:
You can watch my replays if you want, Im a 1500 Diamond zerg, but dont take them too seriously, theres alot of stuff to work on, but this might help

http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=member_replays&member_id=170652

thanks man, ill take a look!

FrostedMiniWeet

United States636 Posts

December 06 2010 23:05 GMT

#45

Macro dude. All it takes to be diamond is half decent macro, and in the case of Zerg, you will need to do scouting at key times to identify your opponents tech path and unit compositions so you know when you can pump drones, and when you will need to mass units, or what tech you will need so you don't die to DT's, Voids, Banshees etc..

Watch your replays, and look at Queen energy. Keep it as low as possible. This is a key indicator of poor macro, together with not building drones/units at the right times.

I got to diamond when I first got this game, knowing absolutely nothing about either Terran or Protoss tech trees, or good unit compositions or anything. All I did was make a ton of units with my half decent Brood war macro.

BigBossX

United Kingdom357 Posts

December 06 2010 23:09 GMT

#46

Macro and decision making for sure

Mythol

Sweden24 Posts

December 06 2010 23:13 GMT

#47

haha wtf, i got into diamond league. Then i got to play one game, and now my game keeps freezing on start

Neo.NEt

United States785 Posts

December 06 2010 23:26 GMT

#48

Just watch your replays on 8x and stare the the unit counter. If you aren't up 20 or 30 drones by the end you're probably doing something wrong. If you never get above 40 (or 70), then there's your problem.

More seriously, you're suppose to make only enough units to survive and just mass drones with every other larva (as many here have said). This obviously isn't easy... just make sure you know exactly when he's moving out and do everything you can to keep him in his base.

Shikyo

Finland33997 Posts

December 06 2010 23:32 GMT

#49

Well, I'm like mid-diamond right now.

I always play for macro, and I think that there's a few important things about being at diamond:

1. Scouting. Always know what your opponent is doing. Always think to yourself, do I know what he's doing? If not, send a ling to the front of their base. Do you now know? If not, suicide an overlord. Learn to recognize builds by what they have or what they don't. For instance, one barracks without add-on + bunker behind a wall-in = almost always Banshees.

2. Spawn larvae and good hotkey setup. It's incredibly important to manage your Queens in the early game. It'll probably slip a bit in the midgame and that's perfectly all right, but concentrate hard on managing your queens early on when not many things are going on. Good hotkeys help you with managing the Queens and your hatcheries.

3. Maintain focus. Even if you are being harrassed, always remember to make units, and remember which buildings you should get, and so on. You need to be able to think about multiple things at once and always remember the goal of your play.

4. Managing maxed armies. You will need to know what to do with your army when it's maxed, and what's a good composition for a maxed army. Sometimes, if the Protoss is getting Colossi and you're like 170 supply but your spire is only halfway done, it's a good idea to stockpile min/gas and wait until you get your spire to add in some corruptors. When your army is maxed you also can't just suicide it in, you need to fall back at a good time to reinforce your army to get a better unit mix and so on.

5. Creep spread. It's a good idea to start making a third Queen early on and making massive amounts of Creep tumors. It's going to help so much that the cost of 150 minerals is almost completely neglicible. Spreading creep all over the map gives you so much vision and mapcontrol that it'll make everything you do much, much easier.

6. Proper build order. Practice one or two for every match-up and learn it as well as you can. Use YABOT or something similiar and practice a build until 10 minutes again and again until you have the timings down. It'll be more than worth it when you'll have a 15-supply advantage by 7 minutes into the game.

7. Expand too much rather than too little. It's very common to get stuck at 3 bases as a Zerg, but
if you spread the creep well enough, you can easily control and hold additional expansions. It's pretty amazing how often they survive and how large of an advantage you can sometimes get when you go up like 5 bases to 3.

8. Drone timing. You have to be able to make a lot of drones, and to not be stuck without enough drones and enough excess minerals to expand. Watch the day9 daily.

9. Gas is amazing. Always in new expos start the double gas immediately. It also is a good idea to expand alot and even though you won't have many drones on all the mineral fields, if you have like 8-10 gas your army is going to be incredibly strong.

There's some things I can think of off the top of my head.

emc

United States3088 Posts

December 06 2010 23:40 GMT

#50

watching live casts are good, you can see how they play without the commentary. Idra is a good choice, I learned 100 things in about 10 minutes so it's definitely worth it. Good scouting is essential, there is nothing more key in this game than scouting because of the hard counters in this game. Blizzard even recognized that and is trying to make hallucinate and observers easier to obtain, this should be a hint that every race needs to scout to win, and it's true.

Grend

1600 Posts

December 06 2010 23:45 GMT

#51

spam apm to raise game awareness. Really helped my own play.

Mythol

Sweden24 Posts

February 07 2011 18:55 GMT

#52

On November 22 2010 02:44 Mythol wrote:
Hi there fellow starcraft 2 players. Lately i have been feeling like i dont improve my gameplay, its like i hit a brick wall at 1600 (Platinum Zerg) Im active in some starcraft communitys and read alot of strategy tips with good build orders etc. The problem is not that i dont know of a good build order or the games "unit counters"

I do often watch my own replays, and i always look at day9's videos but i dont seem to get better.

At the moment im around 350 wins / 350 losses with zerg as my main race. So i want to ask the forum, what makes a player diamond? Is it proper scouting, unit mixes? You tell me.

What difference have you learned from the platinum to the diamond?

sorry for the grammar/spelling.

**UPDATE thanks to you guys im currently at 2700 diamond!****

LINK TO THE NEW THREAD:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=191099