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On May 05 2011 13:20 PR4Y wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2011 11:47 Bobster wrote:On May 05 2011 08:20 PR4Y wrote:
Hey TL, I've had a growing concern over the past two weeks or so.... and that is my PvZ (previously best MU) is now causing me great troubles.
I am all into the whole analysis thing with SC2Gears and analyzing my replays to try and see what went wrong and how I could of reacted better... but this is just getting out of control. Up until 2 weeks ago, my PvZ winrate was 73% over ~40 PvZ's. I know I'm not the best, and my mechanics are off, but my macro seems fairly solid. I say this because I have a bunch of practice partners (masters and up) that tell me my weaknesses are dealing with harass and early timing attacks. They also tell me that my macro and economic timings are very solid, at least for my skill level. Two weeks ago, I was on the verge of a promotion to plat. I was playing high ranked plat people every game... but NOW i'm facing off at mid-range gold opponents. I simply CRUSH these people in PvT / PvP... but PvZ has become quite a pain in my ass, where I used to PRAY for a zerg opponent. Just out of curiosity, what's your PvZ winrate for the last two weeks over how many games? According to SC2Gears, pre-2week time period was 73% over ~40 games (stating the previously stated due to nested quotes) and since then, i'm hovering around 20% for the past 15-20 games... I'm afraid to ladder at this point until I figure something out with my PvZ. I have a few Z practice partners that I'm going to test out some of these builds and ask them to do early roach / ling pressure builds. Show nested quote +On May 05 2011 11:43 Cocoba wrote:
I haven't looked at the replay as I'm watching NASL ^^ but a suggestion I would like to make (if you dont do it already), create a wall off between your ramp and your natural, so runbys will hardly occur. I prefer to create this wall off with a pylon, forge, gateway, and a cannon behind all of that so lings aggro will go toward that when you decide to push out and they decide to go for the mineral line, which should give you enough time to react and warp in units. Something I've been starting to do now is a delayed scout after my nexus finishes to check if the zerg is droning, or doing an all-in. Since you already have a forge up, add more cannons as you see fit. Also, as a protoss, your FF shoudnt be alright, they should be perfect. I admit hardly anyone has perfect FF's but improving your skills with them will be indefinitely helpful. But take my advice with a grain of salt as I'm only in diamond, but PvZ is my best match up atm. I always do some sort of SimCity, but the problem was with this particular replay that he pressured before I even had the time to get that SimCity operational. Also, the map was Tal'Darim, so there was NO ramp to back up to... just my gateway / core wall that can still be attacked as there is no high ground advantage. Perhaps I will start to (on Tal'Darim that is) Forge First, or at least make my initial wall at the choke of the natural. The only thing I see that is wrong with that is if a Zerg scouts that wall early, there is a timing for run-by's to occur and with a 3gate sentry opener, the lings will have pretty much free roam of my main / natural until I can get out stalkers.
High diamond random here. On Tal'Darim I've found it quite good to go nexus first versus Z. It's not terribly hard to hold, and if Z went hatch first, you're basically set. From here, a transition into pheonix and blink stalkers works really well. If you're worried about early pressure, you can always just start with a forge fast expand with an early cannon. Since the currently ZvP metagame seems to revolve around either roach or muta, stargate openings seem quite viable to me. Your first void ray will be able to deal with roaches that come out, and if you scout a spire with the Z stockpiling resources, you can always just add a second stargate and chrono out pheonix.
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I'm pretty much amazed at how many people didn't really watch the replay before giving advice.
Anyways here's my take on your play according to your replay.
Zerg gained a huge advantage by a Roach push at 9:00 game time. There were only 11 Roaches and you lost a Nexus, a pylon, 2 zealots, 4 stalkers and 3 sentries in the engagement while he lost only 5 roaches in the trade. Needless to say this is the critical part of the game which needs to be analyzed for you to improve your game.
The Zerg opened 10 pool and did nothing, so theoretically the zerg should be behind and you should be ahead. Whether you could decipher this from your scouting probe depends on how good your are at reading opponent builds. The zerg had no expansion and the gas was midway when your probe made it's mandatory catwalk behind the mineral line before dying. ( obviously it meant pool first build )
So analyzing why you lost to this early aggression ( if you can call 9:00 early ) ... it was because
1. Your scouting was inadequate
You scouted his base last ( tough luck ) but anyways you should send another one immediately and note expansion timing ( if he is expanding or not ) or if the zerg was going to 7 roach rush you or whatnot. ( there are plenty of nasty roach rushes that hit before the 5 minute mark )
Consider getting your observer out faster or opt for hallucination.
Occupy the towers aggressively instead of sending out a random probe to death by the zergling.
Send a suicide probe into the base of the zerg constantly to get information. ( constantly meaning if 1 probe fails send another )
2. Your defenses were inadequate
If I'm not wrong the 3 gate sentry expand is designed to hold off mass ling aggression/runbys by getting a lot of sentries in conjunction with a few zealots and some cannons. You only had 6 sentries and you didn't use them very well either. ( There's a thread where Incontrol coached a zerg how to 3 gate expand : they go up to 9 sentries to hold off aggression )
I feel you could have pumped more gateway units during the 9:00 minute period out of 3 gates. Also, you went 3 gate nexus robo .. you can consider 3 gate nexus forge gate gate robo to pump out more gateway units specifically for these types of pushes from the zerg. Getting a forge is a part of the 3 gate exp.and build for the early +1 attack anyways and you can plant a few cannons if any pending aggression is scouted.
In summary, I don't think the loss is the replay was because of a metagame shift/ trend .. the early ling roach aggression displayed by pros such as Losira and other zergs are on a different level in terms of scouting and build order than what this zerg in the replay displayed. Anyways I hope my 2 cents helped and hope it makes you a better gamer.
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entered this thread, expecting discussion about new PvZ styles including infestors, banelings, fast t3, whatever.
then saw some gold nap complaining he hasnt got enough apm for mutas and that zergs shouldnt complain
then left the thread immeadatly
User was temp banned for this post.
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On May 05 2011 08:32 dani` wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2011 08:26 isospeedrix wrote:
As a Z, the roach/ling all in is one of my most frequently used strats to combat the 3gate expand. I daresay the most effective counter to this build is a Stargate void ray before expansion. I have approximately a 0% win rate against 1base stargate first builds. I just hope that not too many people will shift to this build because I absolute hate combating 1base stargate. Why would you do a Roach / Ling all-in vs a 1-basing player? Just continue your droning and sacrifice an Overlord to see what he's up to and respond accordingly. The point of insane aggression early is to punish the relatively fast expansion of Protoss. It's actually quite hilarious seeing how Zergs would rage a *lot* not so long ago when Protoss would do very early attack vs Hatch first, calling it cheese, noobstrat and whatnot. Essentially they start doing it themselves because early rush > early expansion. Obvious, I know, but Zergs thought they should always be allowed to Hatch first anyway...
because as a protoss you don't go ALL-IN as a response to hatch first whereas you go ALL-IN with roach/ling as zerg. (refering to cannon block obviously)
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Zergs spent less time whining and more time finding better build orders, result?
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Gonna update this post when I get a chance to watch the replay, as it's a topic I'm very interested in. I just wanted to point out that the early ling/roach aggression doesn't have to be all-in. It's just the unrefined way that most zergs do it. If you do it properly you can be extremely economic with a pool/gas first build and give yourself the option of being aggressive if you scout that the protoss would be vulnerable to it, by knowing the correct timings. That's pretty much the opposite of an all-in imo. Analyze + Show Spoiler +Losira's game vs Alicia in the recent Code S game
It's very similar to how a Protoss can decide to punish a non-bunkering terran with heavy 3gate pressure instead of taking his natural after he scouts the front with his initial stalker/zealot. You sacrifice something to be aggressive, this is true, but you don't do it blindly - you make the decision based on what you scout.
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Can someone describe in a detailed way what is meant by "good forcefields" in the context of 3-gate expand? I don't think I ever get it right. It must mean something more than just keeping out lings, because if roaches get adjacent to your wall they have no trouble taking out any reasonable amount of cannons, and your units quickly run out of standing-room behind your wall where they can get free hits against the roaches.
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Alright i've watched the replay.
there were a few big problems with your gameplay, and here they are
1) You do not proactively use chrono boost
- because of this, your probe count is significantly less than it could be (who doesn't want more workers?) not using chronoboost on your nexus early game is akin to a zerg that does not larvae inject. work on that. Note that u should be using most of the Chronoboosts on probes whenever u can.
2) You did not put down a forge at the ramp to your expansion.
- there are several reasons why this is important
a. simcity (helps you to defend against early roach/ling busts as well as zergling runbys later on in the game
b. helps u get detection in case of any super early roach burrow attacks
in your case, it was a. which u needed most. it is much easier to defend against roaches when u have good simcity.
3) You hardly scouted at all.
- i have a motto, don't scout? then don't win. keep in mind that whenever you're not scouting you are essentially playing in the dark. this is not how starcraft should be played, ever. and you are probably not at the stage where u can simply guess what the opponent is doing based on deduction so don't rely on that too heavily. there are many ways to get scouting done. probe scouts are the best (if u can pull it off) of course this is also the hardest way to scout, but u must sac a probe now and then to see what the zerg is doing. against what the zerg specifically did to u, which was some kind of weak delayed roach push (he got lair and a hydra den for this push... completely weird) if u had sent a probe u would have at least known that he had roaches, which u didn't until it was too late.
also u need to absolutely know when the zerg expands and where, but that topic is more advanced and i wont go into it in too much detail.
4) Forcefields.
-What are force fields good for?
a. keeping units out (denying range and or access)
b. keeping units in (trapping units inside)
the ideal usage is doing both a and b at the same time, ie denying ranged units (hydras or roaches) from being able to attack ur army while trapping a few of their units inside. this lets u back up your army slightly and kill the trapped portion of the army with ease while the units that are denied access must back off since they dont have the range to engage colossus or stalkers effectively. however u did not do either with your force fields. what u did was u ran right up the roaches (where they can all hit you !) and you force fielded behind them... trapping them in. well in the first place ur army versus his army your army loses. so there is no reason in trapping them in with you as your army is the one that will lose. what you should have done is forcefielded about 2/3 of the roaches out and 1/3 in and focus down the 1/3 with ur stalkers (while of course saving the sentries from dying).
so these are 4 basics that u need to work on otherwise ull die to these kind of pushes all the time. keep in mind that this push was not very deadly. when done properly, two base ling pressure attacks come very quickly and with more units than he attacked u with at that late time (around 9ish minutes) so it is very essential that u follow all 4 points above to be able to survive into midgame and transition to lategame.
well good luck
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On May 06 2011 00:30 galivet wrote:
Can someone describe in a detailed way what is meant by "good forcefields" in the context of 3-gate expand? I don't think I ever get it right. It must mean something more than just keeping out lings, because if roaches get adjacent to your wall they have no trouble taking out any reasonable amount of cannons, and your units quickly run out of standing-room behind your wall where they can get free hits against the roaches.
well in the context of which u speak, 3 gate sentry expand vs a 2 base roach speedling timing attack, good forcefields generally close off gaps in your wall off (the wall simcity that u made at your expansion) as well as keeping roaches away from range so that u can safely engage the speedlings. roaches in small-medium numbers are not that scary if u have good simcity and forcefields, but it is the speedlings that can truly do a lot of damage, so u want to engage the speedlings first. since u are fighting at the simcity that u made at your base, it should be very easy to kill many many speedlings, so what u do is u forcefield the roaches out and kill the speedlings, then u use your superior range (stalkers) to hit the roaches that are stuck outside the forcefields. unless u have immortals or a lot of stalkers it is not smart to forcefield roaches inside with you, as they have a ton of hp and can target your vulnerable sentries if in range, so rather than letting them inside your forcefields u should try to keep them out. if u are good and confident in your forcefields, then what u do is u let some of them inside close to you and keep most of them trapped outside the forcefield, and then u make a sort of donut around the units that u have brought inside, the units in the donut can be exploited by ur ranged stalkers quite easily without having to worry about the roaches inside the donuts running up to u and killing sentries.
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You can 3 gate sentry expand, and have atleast one cannon, and a forge pylon gateway wall/obstruction + your nexus along with 7 or 8 sentries and a zealot by 8ish minutes. Which would be fine for the game in question, since the zerg's attack hit at like 8:40.
As mentioned before, you need to use your forcefields to not only prevent escape, but also to prevent them from hitting your units and buildings.
The trick is to start building your wall off pylon at around 6 minutes, and build the forge immediately when you can. You start nexus at around 7 minutes.
Check this replay for a somewhat ideal 3 gate expand. (He stole my gas).
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/173131-1v1-protoss-zerg-xelnaga-caverns
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On May 06 2011 01:14 pandaBee wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2011 00:30 galivet wrote:
Can someone describe in a detailed way what is meant by "good forcefields" in the context of 3-gate expand? I don't think I ever get it right. It must mean something more than just keeping out lings, because if roaches get adjacent to your wall they have no trouble taking out any reasonable amount of cannons, and your units quickly run out of standing-room behind your wall where they can get free hits against the roaches. well in the context of which u speak, 3 gate sentry expand vs a 2 base roach speedling timing attack, good forcefields generally close off gaps in your wall off (the wall simcity that u made at your expansion) as well as keeping roaches away from range so that u can safely engage the speedlings. roaches in small-medium numbers are not that scary if u have good simcity and forcefields, but it is the speedlings that can truly do a lot of damage, so u want to engage the speedlings first. since u are fighting at the simcity that u made at your base, it should be very easy to kill many many speedlings, so what u do is u forcefield the roaches out and kill the speedlings, then u use your superior range (stalkers) to hit the roaches that are stuck outside the forcefields. unless u have immortals or a lot of stalkers it is not smart to forcefield roaches inside with you, as they have a ton of hp and can target your vulnerable sentries if in range, so rather than letting them inside your forcefields u should try to keep them out. if u are good and confident in your forcefields, then what u do is u let some of them inside close to you and keep most of them trapped outside the forcefield, and then u make a sort of donut around the units that u have brought inside, the units in the donut can be exploited by ur ranged stalkers quite easily without having to worry about the roaches inside the donuts running up to u and killing sentries.
Sorry, I still don't totally understand.
Let's say that I'm on XNC and have simcity from my ramp to my nat nexus with some cannons. I can certainly FF to seal off my nat, but between the simcity in front of my nat nexus and the two chokes that lead to the middle of the map is a huge expanse of empty space --- way too much space to form a wall of FF to keep roaches out of range from my wall.
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You put forcefields in front of your sim city so that the roach's 4 range can't hit it, you don't need to be forcefielding the 2 chokes.
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When you say mistakes, do u mean jus micro mistakes? or mistakes in any category? I have the same issue dealing with this from zerg players. It always seems to hit right before the expo starts to pay off. Its either roach lings or jus mass roaches. I seem to struggle whenever the ramp is a bit wide.
-Sorry to piggyback off your thread =p
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Okay, thanks, I think I get it: In order to beat this attack of roaches and lings, I need to do these things:
- See it coming with enough time to react before the roaches get too close to my simcity (like from a tower)
- As the zerg units approach, lay down a line of FF far enough away from my wall so that roaches can't get in range to hit my wall. This means that I need to have my sentries spread out and ready so that I can make a FF line of the necessary length. And I need to lay down this line of FF very quickly because the roaches are going to be running for my wall.
- FF closed my simcity so that lings cannot run in.
- Immediately warp in stalkers behind my wall to shoot roaches and lings.
No wonder I'm having trouble. Seems like it will require a pretty high APM and mouse accuracy to respond correctly to this a-move timing attack.
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On May 06 2011 07:33 galivet wrote:
Okay, thanks, I think I get it: In order to beat this attack of roaches and lings, I need to do these things:
- See it coming with enough time to react before the roaches get too close to my simcity (like from a tower)
- As the zerg units approach, lay down a line of FF far enough away from my wall so that roaches can't get in range to hit my wall. This means that I need to have my sentries spread out and ready so that I can make a FF line of the necessary length. And I need to lay down this line of FF very quickly because the roaches are going to be running for my wall.
- FF closed my simcity so that lings cannot run in.
- Immediately warp in stalkers behind my wall to shoot roaches and lings.
No wonder I'm having trouble. Seems like it will require a pretty high APM and mouse accuracy to respond correctly to this a-move timing attack.
Yes, forcefields become exponentially more powerful as you get more apm. It's much the same as trying to execute a gasless defense when playing zerg; it relies on excellent scouting and excellent control, neither of which will be sufficient at low levels.
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If you let some roaches/lings get through and they snipe 1/2 building(s) that was part of the sim-city, it's okay as long as you defeat their army.
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zerg players become better and better everyday
how long did you think Toss winning everything would last
zergs will come out ontop one day!
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On May 06 2011 09:48 MadCatZ wrote:
zerg players become better and better everyday
how long did you think Toss winning everything would last
zergs will come out ontop one day!
These "OP trends" have been with SC2 from the day of the beta. Zerg: Roaches / Terran : Tanks / Protoss: High Templars.
ALLL NERFED.
Anyways, sim-city is really helpful, I won with sim-city vs a couple of aggressive zergs yesterday, too bad I played so many games that I can't find the replays.
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I think the issue lies in scouting and crisis management.
Since your initial scouting probe was picked off so early, you were a bit blind to what your opponent was doing. You might want to consider sending another probe later on or researching hallucination after warp gates to ensure that your opponent isn't massing an army. Your choice was to go straight for robo->observer which resulted in scouting that was a bit too late while also taking away time that could have been spent getting an immortal to help defend the roach push.
It feels that your expansion was quite vulnerable considering you lost your first probe so early. You didn't know for sure if he expanded, and yet you expanded with only 2 sentries and a zealot. After expanding, you didn't get a forge and cannons, despite still not knowing what your opponent was up to. Your buildings were all behind your first choke, which gives you less ability to constrict movement: this is important in case of zergling harass.
As for when the early roach pressure came, you have to know what are the appropriate decisions to make, and to make them instantly. The riskier your expansion timing is, the more precise and tight you have to be with your mechanics to ensure you stay alive. After getting to 6 sentries and 1 zealot, you spent 30 sec with idle warpgates before finally getting 2 stalkers and a zealot. After that warpin you had another 30 sec of idle warpgate time before the roaches hit. You didn't warp in for another 10 secs, at which point you became supply blocked. Your robotics bay sat idle for 40 sec after your observer finished. So, macro is certainly an issue here. You weren't able to get off any forcefields to delay your opponent, when you finally forcefielded later on, you cupped the roaches, which is not ideal since roaches want to get up close due to their poor range.
As a zerg, if I miss larva injections, leave larvae sitting idle, lose forward overlords without replacing them and get hit with a 4 gate, I will certainly lose the game.
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On May 05 2011 11:58 tooleman wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2011 11:53 Drowsy wrote:
3 gate expo isn't the best opener anymore. I've been using 2gate 1 star expo openings instead. You will have your expo slightly later, but you just build 1 void and 1 phoenix you can usually get a few overlords, a queen, and possibly a few drones. You will also force queens/spores, you'll be more than ahead even though you get your expo later. Finally, you get map control and control over the towers with just 1 voidray. The 1 voidray will also make early ling/roach aggression almost impossible.
Expanding with 4 gates is also getting popular. You'll have more units to deal with any early aggression and you can just decide to actually 4-gate. I know zergs are your level are really bad at scouting, but if his overlord scouts your 4gate and you after it dies, you're going to be way ahead as he overreacts. I really like the 2 gate 1 stargate expo idea! What level are you doing this at? And I'm guessing you cant make too many sentries before expanding due to the gas for stargate units, so what does your unit composition look like from your gateways?
Low masters, yes you'll have less sentries, but one of the main reasons we need sentries in the first place is to defend against early aggression. Voidray takes care of that just fine. I usually get only 6 with this opener. You can transition very easily into 2 stargate 1 robo void/colossi abusiveness, or just do the traditional stalker colossus sentry death ball.
The other obvious advantage to opening stargate is you can counter mutalisks much more easily.
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EPT
