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On May 08 2011 16:17 Amarkov wrote:
So Carmine's being kind of a dick about it, but he's somewhat right.
What you have to realize is that we're not being deliberately unhelpful. We cannot help you if you want to learn to play more strategically in gold league, because we simply do not know proper gold league strategy. I know what to do about mutas in a diamond or masters game; cannons discourage mutas, blink stalkers punish greedy mutas, and amoving your army into his base punishes overproducing mutas.
But I know literally nothing about how to best deal with mutas in a gold level game. I imagine that one of the above solutions would work decently, but I don't know that, because games in gold league are fundamentally different. It may be that you don't have good enough blink stalker control for that to be an effective counter, or it may be that your opponents have bad enough muta control that it's all you need. Maybe your opponents are macroing well enough that you can't reflexively all-in when you see 30 mutas, and maybe you're macroing well enough that you can all-in when you see 7. High level players can tell you what we'd do in such-and-such situation, but it's important for you to realize that, it doesn't necessarily apply at all. Any strategy you get is going to fail in some situation where it should succeed, and there won't be anything we can tell you but "well, you have to have better mechanics.
Again, though, try to ignore him. He's saying what I'm saying in the most abrasive and least helpful way possible.
It's because there really is no strategy in gold league. Painuser put it very well on that show with DJ wheat, Idra, and Incontrol (I think inside the game or something). You can have plenty of cool ideas, builds, strategies, plans, etc, but if you don't have the mechanics to pull them off its completely useless. If you want to improve you need to improve the basic mechanics up to diamond level, or else you simply can't execute what you want to execute. That's why I find it a bit silly that the OP and many ppl helping him are focused so heavily on strategy and specific things like asserting map control or scaling your production buildings or w/e. This guys basic mechanics are simply terrible, and trying to improve anything except those mechanics right now isn't productive in my opinion.
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The way to stop that Zerg aggression is to get a forge ASAP, and i mean RIGHT after your nexus when you get 150 minerals. Also get the gateway after the forge to finish the wall off and put a cannon right as your forge finishes. You should get the cannon up in time and have 1 zealot 8 sentries and + 1 or 2 stalkers. You need to pull off good forcefields and its fairly easy to stop. I have a near 100% winrate vs it now.
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On May 09 2011 00:33 creamwolf wrote:
The way to stop that Zerg aggression is to get a forge ASAP, and i mean RIGHT after your nexus when you get 150 minerals. Also get the gateway after the forge to finish the wall off and put a cannon right as your forge finishes. You should get the cannon up in time and have 1 zealot 8 sentries and + 1 or 2 stalkers. You need to pull off good forcefields and its fairly easy to stop. I have a near 100% winrate vs it now.
I disagree. The push this Zerg did was really bad. Ironing out the build order a little, actually using chrono boost, not stockpiling that much money, and proper forcefield control would have been more than enough to crush that. If the Zerg is a higher level Zerg and does a well-refined roach / ling all in or something then yea you probably need the forge, but in this case it could have easily been held off
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you shouldnt say that strategy is nonexistant in lower levels. strategy is involved but at a lower complexity level than at masters. you can't just call a student unteachable simply because he's in 1st grade.
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I consider this game to be about efficiency.
The higher you go the more efficient everyone is at executing their builds of choice. (some are easier than others.)
the only exception would probably be the depths of bronze.
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On May 09 2011 01:16 JiYan wrote:
you shouldnt say that strategy is nonexistant in lower levels. strategy is involved but at a lower complexity level than at masters. you can't just call a student unteachable simply because he's in 1st grade.
You're not going to teach a student in the 1st grade algebra, matrices, calculus, vectors, and trig. because to do those you need to have the basics of math: multiplication, division, addition, subtraction. He's not unteachable, but you need to teach him the fundementals otherwise its kinda useless to go further.
Similarly, at gold league you really need to start learning mechanics because any strategy you attempt or thoughts your have are going to be meaningless until you're good enough with the basics to actually execute them.
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youre making a statement that goes along the lines of "there is no math in 1st-4th grade. improve your multiplication and division until 5th grade and then you can learn trig"
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On May 09 2011 04:09 JiYan wrote:
youre making a statement that goes along the lines of "there is no math in 1st-4th grade. improve your multiplication and division until 5th grade and then you can learn trig"
That's basically true lol. You focus on addition subtraction multiplication and division in the earlier grades until you get a good enough grasp of them to start moving to more complicated things (algebra or something)
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I'm not going to go in terms of strategy/mechanics, because if you watch your replay it should be pretty clear what you need to work on.
A mindset that will really help you is "I suck." It's pretty damn simple, and it is a realization that will help you improve. Instead of thinking that your basic skills are "fine", and that what is holding you back is "metagame" and "strategies", you just need to realize it is your execution and basic skills that are holding you back.
The reason 4 gate gets you to diamond is because fourgate is easy to execute in a competent manner; anything works well from bronze to plat as long as you do it in a competent manner. 4 gate is the most basic of these. This applies to most rushes; they are easy to execute competently, and compared to what other people in lower leagues do, they are done much more cleanly. Thus, they work.
Trying to play a standard game competently is much more difficult, and realizing you are bad at playing standard is essential to knowing you need to work on it.
Sorry if it is harsh, but it is the truth. If this was BW, you'd be going on battlenet and joining random melee matches, and just getting your ass handed to you over and over. You'd know "wow i suck". Blizzard sort of helps people's self esteem with points and leagues, so it is harder for peopel to realize they are bad.
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On May 08 2011 16:17 Amarkov wrote:
So Carmine's being kind of a dick about it, but he's somewhat right.
What you have to realize is that we're not being deliberately unhelpful. We cannot help you if you want to learn to play more strategically in gold league, because we simply do not know proper gold league strategy. I know what to do about mutas in a diamond or masters game; cannons discourage mutas, blink stalkers punish greedy mutas, and amoving your army into his base punishes overproducing mutas.
But I know literally nothing about how to best deal with mutas in a gold level game. I imagine that one of the above solutions would work decently, but I don't know that, because games in gold league are fundamentally different. It may be that you don't have good enough blink stalker control for that to be an effective counter, or it may be that your opponents have bad enough muta control that it's all you need. Maybe your opponents are macroing well enough that you can't reflexively all-in when you see 30 mutas, and maybe you're macroing well enough that you can all-in when you see 7. High level players can tell you what we'd do in such-and-such situation, but it's important for you to realize that, it doesn't necessarily apply at all. Any strategy you get is going to fail in some situation where it should succeed, and there won't be anything we can tell you but "well, you have to have better mechanics.
Again, though, try to ignore him. He's saying what I'm saying in the most abrasive and least helpful way possible.
I'm also not trying to be a dick, but what you are saying has literally NOTHING to do with what I'm having trouble with. My guess is you popped into this topic without having read anything on the first page, and jumped right into the debates. In fact the only thing you even commented correctly upon was my being in gold league... Thanks for being such a big help though... I'm sure I'll be much more prepared for Muta Harass now... (lol)... Muta's have nothing to do with my problem, so making your wall of text trying to help me with something I have no problem handling was quite... useless.
I'd like a mod to close this post, if possible please... I've gotten the help I need from the people who are actually willing to help and not just say "You are in gold, get better", and the arguments that spawned from nowhere are very counter-productive. I didn't make this post to spark debates on balance and have people spew garbage that isn't helpful at all just because I'm not in masters league like they are... I made it to get help on a very specific issue I'm having trouble with.
People are taking the title of this topic completely out of context, as well. All I meant with the "Trend Change" choice of words is that I've noticed zergs playing quite differently recently, and I'm having some trouble dealing with it. This post in no means was an attempt at saying ALL Zergs of ALL skill levels are doing a 2base roach allin... So stop treating it like I'm spreading misinformation around the forums about the current PvZ metagame.
I've gotten the help I need... so THANK YOU to the people who were ACTUALLY helpful. I played a 15 game marathon last night and won 3/5 of my PvZ's, so that alone is already a HUGE improvement.
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On May 09 2011 06:45 PR4Y wrote:Show nested quote +On May 08 2011 16:17 Amarkov wrote:
So Carmine's being kind of a dick about it, but he's somewhat right.
What you have to realize is that we're not being deliberately unhelpful. We cannot help you if you want to learn to play more strategically in gold league, because we simply do not know proper gold league strategy. I know what to do about mutas in a diamond or masters game; cannons discourage mutas, blink stalkers punish greedy mutas, and amoving your army into his base punishes overproducing mutas.
But I know literally nothing about how to best deal with mutas in a gold level game. I imagine that one of the above solutions would work decently, but I don't know that, because games in gold league are fundamentally different. It may be that you don't have good enough blink stalker control for that to be an effective counter, or it may be that your opponents have bad enough muta control that it's all you need. Maybe your opponents are macroing well enough that you can't reflexively all-in when you see 30 mutas, and maybe you're macroing well enough that you can all-in when you see 7. High level players can tell you what we'd do in such-and-such situation, but it's important for you to realize that, it doesn't necessarily apply at all. Any strategy you get is going to fail in some situation where it should succeed, and there won't be anything we can tell you but "well, you have to have better mechanics.
Again, though, try to ignore him. He's saying what I'm saying in the most abrasive and least helpful way possible. I'm also not trying to be a dick, but what you are saying has literally NOTHING to do with what I'm having trouble with. My guess is you popped into this topic without having read anything on the first page, and jumped right into the debates. In fact the only thing you even commented correctly upon was my being in gold league... Thanks for being such a big help though... I'm sure I'll be much more prepared for Muta Harass now... (lol)... Muta's have nothing to do with my problem, so making your wall of text trying to help me with something I have no problem handling was quite... useless. I'd like a mod to close this post, if possible please... I've gotten the help I need from the people who are actually willing to help and not just say "You are in gold, get better", and the arguments that spawned from nowhere are very counter-productive. I didn't make this post to spark debates on balance and have people spew garbage that isn't helpful at all just because I'm not in masters league like they are... I made it to get help on a very specific issue I'm having trouble with. People are taking the title of this topic completely out of context, as well. All I meant with the "Trend Change" choice of words is that I've noticed zergs playing quite differently recently, and I'm having some trouble dealing with it. This post in no means was an attempt at saying ALL Zergs of ALL skill levels are doing a 2base roach allin... So stop treating it like I'm spreading misinformation around the forums about the current PvZ metagame. I've gotten the help I need... so THANK YOU to the people who were ACTUALLY helpful. I played a 15 game marathon last night and won 3/5 of my PvZ's, so that alone is already a HUGE improvement.
Look at this kid! Even when you try to explain it nicely he snaps at you. That's why I got mean in the first place, to mimic his response. My first post was very straightforward and nice, but he was all like "herp derp blind leading blind!"
To PR4Y: There is no need to be afraid to post because of fear of being ridiculed for being gold. You do need to learn some humility though, as most that have been gold and are now a higher level will tell you that they won games by learning better mechanics and understanding the game better...not dealing with specific gold strategy A. (watch him snap at me)
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On May 09 2011 06:45 PR4Y wrote:Show nested quote +On May 08 2011 16:17 Amarkov wrote:
So Carmine's being kind of a dick about it, but he's somewhat right.
What you have to realize is that we're not being deliberately unhelpful. We cannot help you if you want to learn to play more strategically in gold league, because we simply do not know proper gold league strategy. I know what to do about mutas in a diamond or masters game; cannons discourage mutas, blink stalkers punish greedy mutas, and amoving your army into his base punishes overproducing mutas.
But I know literally nothing about how to best deal with mutas in a gold level game. I imagine that one of the above solutions would work decently, but I don't know that, because games in gold league are fundamentally different. It may be that you don't have good enough blink stalker control for that to be an effective counter, or it may be that your opponents have bad enough muta control that it's all you need. Maybe your opponents are macroing well enough that you can't reflexively all-in when you see 30 mutas, and maybe you're macroing well enough that you can all-in when you see 7. High level players can tell you what we'd do in such-and-such situation, but it's important for you to realize that, it doesn't necessarily apply at all. Any strategy you get is going to fail in some situation where it should succeed, and there won't be anything we can tell you but "well, you have to have better mechanics.
Again, though, try to ignore him. He's saying what I'm saying in the most abrasive and least helpful way possible. I'm also not trying to be a dick, but what you are saying has literally NOTHING to do with what I'm having trouble with. My guess is you popped into this topic without having read anything on the first page, and jumped right into the debates. In fact the only thing you even commented correctly upon was my being in gold league... Thanks for being such a big help though... I'm sure I'll be much more prepared for Muta Harass now... (lol)... Muta's have nothing to do with my problem, so making your wall of text trying to help me with something I have no problem handling was quite... useless. I'd like a mod to close this post, if possible please... I've gotten the help I need from the people who are actually willing to help and not just say "You are in gold, get better", and the arguments that spawned from nowhere are very counter-productive. I didn't make this post to spark debates on balance and have people spew garbage that isn't helpful at all just because I'm not in masters league like they are... I made it to get help on a very specific issue I'm having trouble with. People are taking the title of this topic completely out of context, as well. All I meant with the "Trend Change" choice of words is that I've noticed zergs playing quite differently recently, and I'm having some trouble dealing with it. This post in no means was an attempt at saying ALL Zergs of ALL skill levels are doing a 2base roach allin... So stop treating it like I'm spreading misinformation around the forums about the current PvZ metagame. I've gotten the help I need... so THANK YOU to the people who were ACTUALLY helpful. I played a 15 game marathon last night and won 3/5 of my PvZ's, so that alone is already a HUGE improvement.
No, you don't understand. I wrote a big post reviewing your game on the last page to try and make this point but you still don't seem to grasp it. Here, I'll be as blunt as possible, even if it means being rude (keep in mind im trying to help, I wouldn't read ur post, watch the rep, and give u advice if I wasn't actually trying to help you improve) :
You're terrible. Not sorta bad, not "need improvement in some aspects". You're really really really fucking bad. You're gold league, and gold league is terrible. Why are you so terrible? Because your mechanics are awful.
That's the point carmine and I, and the post ur responding to, are trying to make. Our posts have everything to do with what you're having trouble with, but you yourself don't realize what you're having trouble with. The most usefil advice IS "you're gold, get better".
See what you lack isn't an ability to deal with Zerg aggresion, 2 base timings, etc. You're bad simply because your basic mechanics (macro, micro, scouting) are severely lacking in every way. The point we're trying to make is that when you have gold level mechanics, its unproductive to improve anything except for those mechanics because when your mechanics are terrible, you can't execute the ideas and strategies you want to execute. Watching the replay, I can trace every reason you lost that game to your mechanics. You executed the build terribly, you didn't use chronos at all, you microed terribly, and you stockpiled money. It had nothing to do with how the Zerg was playing, it was all on your faulty execution.
So to tl;dr, you're not going to improve to the extent you want to improve until you can accept that you suck and work on what actually needs to be worked on ( YOUR MECHANICS)
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Wtf is going on with this thread? I see a perfectly good OP, one of the better [H] OPs I've seen. The analysis is very detailed, and you can tell a lot of effort was put into it. Then I see a lot of troll posts saying "lolol you're in gold you suck."
Here's how things work around here:
1. OP posts a good OP asking for help
2. You watch the replay and tell him how he can improve
Is that so hard to do? Why do you find it necessary to berate him on mechanics and being in gold league and whatever else you can nitpick? It's completely possible to post good advice without being a dick. It's also possible to write the advice in a way that will grab the OP's attention without being a dick. You can even write in bold/caps "HEY OP, YOU SHOULD REALLY LOOK AT THIS ADVICE IF YOU WANT TO IMPROVE BECAUSE IT'S WHAT'S HOLDING YOU BACK." But what kills me is when you write gems like this: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=219373¤tpage=4#79 under the guise of "I'm so much better than you. You suck why are you even wasting my time with a thread like this?" (The post itself wasn't even that bad in that respect, but it encourages the thread to derail into a discussion about gold mechanics, which is exactly what we don't want). I mean, you and I know the importance of clean execution of a build order - that it makes the difference between leagues. But not everyone does. It may not even have crossed their mind that this is the case. But that doesn't mean you have to be a dick to them about it.
I'm going to close this thread soon because enough good advice has been given and so many of you feel the need to be pretentious assholes and derail the thread. Since this is the first time I've had to close a thread like this, I'll let it slide. But in the future, I'm going to hand out extended Strategy Forum bans. And if you want to be unbanned, you'll have to beat me in a BoX, and I'll edit in all said reps of you losing into whatever condescending post you make with detailed analysis of why you lost.
It doesn't matter what league a player is in. Don't be a condescending dick.
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On May 07 2011 11:57 Swazi wrote:
I'm a high-diamond low masters player and i have been having a lot of success with a 2gate stargate expo against zerg where i push out with around 4 phoenix at 7 minutes while taking my expansion with a forge 3-4 zealots 1-2 sentries and 1-3 stalkers depending on the pressure im taking.
What i pretty much do is open up standard
9 pylon
12 gate
cycore asap
zealot
early second gas
stalker
i throw down my stargate once the stalker gets out to kill the drone scout and patrol for the overlord scout. i chrono boost out 4 phoenixes and push out (4 is enough to one shot drones and kill queens in one lift) i do as much damage as possible while taking my natural and throwing down a forge for cannons (detection) and upgrades. I keep making phoenix depending on how successful i am being,I transition into what i need whether it be colossus, lots of gates or what have you. I have had no trouble holding off roach pushes because i kill so many overlords and queens usually their push is very delayed. If it is a 7 roach rush you can easily chrono boost out a VR and hold it off.
If my stargate gets scouted by a zerg because i forget to watch for the scouting OV i can cancel stargate and easily transition into 3 gate expo or 4 gate heavy pressure (neither which they are expecting)
I have had very high success against zerg and have been beating masters opponents. I would say give this build a try i have had a lot of success with it.
P.S. the one build that kicked my ass when i did this was a hyrda drop because i reacted very poorly i haven't had much practice against this build but i make sure to patrol my phoenixes for overlords if i am not harassing the zerg base so i can stop a drop before it happens.
This worked for me until a couple days ago. Now zerg just throws down spore colonies as soon as they see that you're not early expanding and you're not revealing your strategy. Shuts down both DT expand as well as phoenix expand.
The spanishwa build suggests 4 queens, which also shuts down phoenix if the zerg doesn't overreact (chases the phoenix with his queens).
Forge fast expand doesn't work too well for me either except on the few maps that happen to allow it.
And no, zerg isn't strong in just gold right now; I'm in diamond, having no trouble against toss or terran but I haven't won a game against zerg in a long, long time.
Frustrated 
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3 gate expand is still viable and the best build to learn PvZ. Just delay your robot if you see roaches earlier than normal. Standard Zerg player builds Roach den while transitioning to lair.
I really don't recommend these gimmicky builds such as fake expo/DT rush. 2 base Roach/Speedling timing attack is only ONE possible response to a 3 gate FE protoss. If the zerg player takes a quick third while teching to lair, it will be an autoloss for you.
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On May 09 2011 10:37 Saracen wrote:Wtf is going on with this thread? I see a perfectly good OP, one of the better [H] OPs I've seen. The analysis is very detailed, and you can tell a lot of effort was put into it. Then I see a lot of troll posts saying "lolol you're in gold you suck." Here's how things work around here: 1. OP posts a good OP asking for help 2. You watch the replay and tell him how he can improve Is that so hard to do? Why do you find it necessary to berate him on mechanics and being in gold league and whatever else you can nitpick? It's completely possible to post good advice without being a dick. It's also possible to write the advice in a way that will grab the OP's attention without being a dick. You can even write in bold/caps "HEY OP, YOU SHOULD REALLY LOOK AT THIS ADVICE IF YOU WANT TO IMPROVE BECAUSE IT'S WHAT'S HOLDING YOU BACK." But what kills me is when you write gems like this: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=219373¤tpage=4#79 under the guise of "I'm so much better than you. You suck why are you even wasting my time with a thread like this?" (The post itself wasn't even that bad in that respect, but it encourages the thread to derail into a discussion about gold mechanics, which is exactly what we don't want). I mean, you and I know the importance of clean execution of a build order - that it makes the difference between leagues. But not everyone does. It may not even have crossed their mind that this is the case. But that doesn't mean you have to be a dick to them about it. I'm going to close this thread soon because enough good advice has been given and so many of you feel the need to be pretentious assholes and derail the thread. Since this is the first time I've had to close a thread like this, I'll let it slide. But in the future, I'm going to hand out extended Strategy Forum bans. And if you want to be unbanned, you'll have to beat me in a BoX, and I'll edit in all said reps of you losing into whatever condescending post you make with detailed analysis of why you lost. It doesn't matter what league a player is in. Don't be a condescending dick.
This is the greatest post I have ever seen and restores my faith in humanity.
I just wanted to emphasis the importance of trying to hide a scout probe if you go in and see that roach warren or better yet a decent number of roaches then you know what you are in for. A lot of zergs lately seem to like to also spam it with a bunch of lings in the hopes of getting you to cancel the nexus as well. In this situation make good use of your forcefields, just wanted you to know that as it is also pretty popular.
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On May 05 2011 08:44 Drock wrote:
PvZ is by far my wost matchup. I'm a plat player and have recently been losing to silver level zergs. I win probably90% of my PvP and probably 75% of my PvT's (although i rarely ever play against T's lately, literally 1 out of my last 20 games was against a T.
Honestly, I just gg right off the bat most times against Z as I just cannot beat them. If I manage to make it to the mid game (only if they don't 2base all-in) they then switch to muta's then it's gg for me.
Super frustrating. I just don't have the apm to defend Muta harrass, even if I have blink stalkers. And they always get muta's way before I even think about HT's. And honestly, I hate using HT's, they take forever to tech to.
I honestly don't know why Z is always bitching about imbalance.
Silver level zergs? I had a silver level zerg go1-base ultralisk on me. Either you're really bad at PvZ or you're running into the greatest silver players in the world (Or you're the king of hyperbole). I'd like to see some replays of that though. Never seen a silver zerg do anything but stupid strats.
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On May 10 2011 17:16 MayorITC wrote:
3 gate expand is still viable and the best build to learn PvZ. Just delay your robot if you see roaches earlier than normal. Standard Zerg player builds Roach den while transitioning to lair.
Not sure I understand this one. Delay the robo if you see roaches early? Wouldn't you want a fast robo for burrow detection and scouting?
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You should have a cannon that will keep burrowed roaches from walking into your base. If you see roaches early, you have to prepare for a roach/ling allin, and a robo is just too much of an investment when you're trying to defend that.
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EPT
