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United States8476 Posts
On August 24 2011 02:56 syn_apse wrote:Hey all, really struggling against pushes from terran before I have enough tech to feel "comfortable" Heres some replays of losses that I just dont know how to stop. I would love some feedback on them. ![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-227860.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-227861.jpg) Thanks!
g1: You have no scouting at all after your inital probe dies and you don't even see if he got a first gas.
You also don't attempt to scout at all after, so there's no way to know what to prepare for.
You want 3 gates before robo if you at all suspect early bio pressure.
Also, you want mostly zealot/sentry to hold off a push like that.
g2: You have no scouting whatsoever again. Your opening is very funky and not optimal. You get your twilight and forge way too early. Any type of early pressure would have killed you. With the scouting you had, you need to either get a robo or blind cannons at your mineral lines or cloaked banshees will instantly lose you the game.
If you see a banshee, you should automatically suspect 1-1-1 allin. If you don't have a robo, you need to continuously poke his natural to see if he has one. Cut probes to around 32 until you see an expansion taken by your opponent.
You favor stalkers again way too much. The more stalkers you have, the more likely it is you will die to a 1-1-1 allin. Idealy you want zealot/immortal with around 2 sentries and just enough stalkers to fend off banshee harass.
Key theme in both games. Scout early game to find out what he has and to rule out possibilities.
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On August 24 2011 06:01 4kmonk wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2011 02:56 syn_apse wrote:Hey all, really struggling against pushes from terran before I have enough tech to feel "comfortable" Heres some replays of losses that I just dont know how to stop. I would love some feedback on them. Thanks! g1: You have no scouting at all after your inital probe dies and you don't even see if he got a first gas. You also don't attempt to scout at all after, so there's no way to know what to prepare for. You want 3 gates before robo if you at all suspect early bio pressure. Also, you want mostly zealot/sentry to hold off a push like that. g2: You have no scouting whatsoever again. Your opening is very funky and not optimal. You get your twilight and forge way too early. Any type of early pressure would have killed you. With the scouting you had, you need to either get a robo or blind cannons at your mineral lines or cloaked banshees will instantly lose you the game. If you see a banshee, you should automatically suspect 1-1-1 allin. If you don't have a robo, you need to continuously poke his natural to see if he has one. Cut probes to around 32 until you see an expansion taken by your opponent. You favor stalkers again way too much. The more stalkers you have, the more likely it is you will die to a 1-1-1 allin. Idealy you want zealot/immortal with around 2 sentries and just enough stalkers to fend off banshee harass. Key theme in both games. Scout early game to find out what he has and to rule out possibilities.
Thanks for the tips!
What exactly am I looking for with my scouting information, and how do I interpret that information for my build and unit comp?
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Question : vs the 1/1/1 build - has anybody tried the 3 stalker rush to put early pressure (since they're teching up insanely - they wouldn't have too many units to defend .. mainly Marines until the tanks pop out).
Would work on close-position maps such as Xelnaga Caverns maybe .. but not too sure about cross positions. while putting the pressure onto them - you can either expand, and then tech up .. just some theorycrafting at the moment.
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I was thinking of making a topic on this, but dont want to put forth the effort.
Anyone think Archons are better than HT's in PvZ? (Especially in the midgame) HT's just seem super vulnerable, and slow, and you really need perfect storms. Going HT in the midgame seems to require a lot of finesse which I think most of us don't have(at least I don't). Basically I think keeping templar for feedback against those damn infestors, and then morphing them into archons is the best answer. Anyone with me? I haven't really played enough games yet to determine if it is the best option.
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@Happyness - depends on their unit composition really.
If they're heavy Ling/Mutas - Archons do great against them with Zealots.
However, with Roach/Hydra composition - I think it would be better to use HT storms and then morph into Archon (or just get Collosus). Mass Roaches (with hydra support) do pretty good against Zealot/Archon composition.
@Syn_apse:
with Scouting information - some things to take note of:
- how many gases they have taken - if 2 gas; most likely a tech build. If none - possibly Rine Scv All-in or 1 rax FE. If they have 1 - possibly a 2 rax (tech lab + reactor) pressure expand, or a 3 rax all-in.
- how many raxes do they have
- whether they get a tech lab or reactor on barracks
- keep poking up the ramp - do they have a marauder? if they do and the techlab is researching/finished researching - does it have marauder slow? If not - then its most likely stim timing attack
- Do they have a bunker walling off their ramp? Or a lot of marines - they most likely are doing a tech build/heavy aggression build. Should get a robo to scout and for observer for cloaked banshees.
That, i think, is the main things to scout for in the early game.
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Not so much a "help me" but:
Does anyone feel like PvT battles are like a coin flip and it is very hard to predict the outcome? Sometimes I'm maxed but still manage to lose 120 food worth of units literally in seconds while his army is still standing, more or less intact. Sometimes I roll him over (usually if my army is much bigger). Any way to maximize the odds in my favor (other than to just have more stuff)?
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^ without showing us a replay, no one is really going to be able to tell you anything useful.
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On August 24 2011 13:18 eugalp wrote:
Not so much a "help me" but:
Does anyone feel like PvT battles are like a coin flip and it is very hard to predict the outcome? Sometimes I'm maxed but still manage to lose 120 food worth of units literally in seconds while his army is still standing, more or less intact. Sometimes I roll him over (usually if my army is much bigger). Any way to maximize the odds in my favor (other than to just have more stuff)?
Yeah, replays would be nice for specifics. In general it probably feels this way due to the incredibly high dps that both armies output in larger sizes. The biggest reason is usually army positioning. Who has the better concave, are your zealots in front of your stalkers, are you fighting in a wide open area or a narrow choke, who engaged who first, etc. The easiest way to maximize this into your favor is to set up your army correctly before the fight happens. The second most common reason is unit composition. The wrong mix of units will vaporize to a significantly smaller army in some situations. For this you need to actively scout every so often to know what composition of Terran units you are facing. Last would probably be upgrades. A 2-2 upgraded 150 food army should smash a 0-0 170 food army. The time to start upgrades depends on your build, but generally once you start upgrading you should keep the upgrades going pretty constantly. Other than those probably army control, micro, and proper usage of spellcasters like sentries and HT. Once again, to get into specific problems with unit control you'll need to show replays.
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United States8476 Posts
On August 24 2011 09:22 SigmaX wrote:
Question : vs the 1/1/1 build - has anybody tried the 3 stalker rush to put early pressure (since they're teching up insanely - they wouldn't have too many units to defend .. mainly Marines until the tanks pop out).
Would work on close-position maps such as Xelnaga Caverns maybe .. but not too sure about cross positions. while putting the pressure onto them - you can either expand, and then tech up .. just some theorycrafting at the moment.
No, you can't do damage to a bunker with 3 stalkers.
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United States8476 Posts
On August 24 2011 10:45 SigmaX wrote:
@Happyness - depends on their unit composition really.
If they're heavy Ling/Mutas - Archons do great against them with Zealots.
However, with Roach/Hydra composition - I think it would be better to use HT storms and then morph into Archon (or just get Collosus). Mass Roaches (with hydra support) do pretty good against Zealot/Archon composition.
That, i think, is the main things to scout for in the early game.
It's a lot harder than this. You can't really make sweeping generalizations, because every situation is different when it comes to templar vs archon i pvz. However, if I had to, I'd say you prefer templar vs ling muta. Archons just don't have range to effectively stop muta harrass. Imo there's 3 situations where you'd want archons over templar. One is where you need to spend your gas immediately and can't affoard the time/money to research storm and wait for templar to regen mana. The second is where you already have enough templar to storm and thus you can make archons. The 3rd is versus either heavy ultralisk or heavy broodlord compositions. You'd prefer archons vs both these units but just a sprinkle of templar can't hurt too much either.
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I need help with High Templar control. I keep them hot-keyed in both my main army and on their own key so that I can pull them back, but I still tend to walk them into danger. Also, even when I am keeping them back from the immediate battle, I don't know how to judge exactly how far they are from the front and when the storm is going to hit. This makes me miss way too often or move them in too close while trying to storm. Beyond that... I don't know how to keep an eye on how much energy they have and thus have a poor concept of when to combine them into Archons. This is probably the biggest weakness in my game and, admittedly, it is a big one. But I just don't know what to do with my HTs. It's especially problematic versus Terran (where they are arguably most useful) because of the EMP. My macro is ok, but I don't have the micro to keep each Templar on it's own key so they will stay spread out.
I can read the liquipedia entry, and I can practice and die all day, but I just don't get it. As one of the most powerful Protoss units, I'd really like a thorough explanation of how to use HTs. They are just so expensive to simply march to their deaths... after maybe missing a storm or two. And don't even get me started on feedback. I simply don't have the micro for it! I can barely even storm!
There has got to be an easier way besides switching to Terran -- whose primary spellcaster has a natural attack and can cloak (in addition to multiple spells which out-range the Templar's)!
Help me Team Liquid, you are my only hope!
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United States8476 Posts
g1: You don't scout at all so you have no idea what he's doing until it's too late. Poke up his ramp and check his natural. Cut probes if you don't see an expansion. You also need either an early forge + blind cannons in your mineral lines or a robo if you don't scout.
You don't cut probes early enough and try to add too much tech, adding a forge + twilight + templar archives right when he pushes.
The ideal unit composition is zealot/immortal with a few stalkers to hold off banshee harrass and 2-3 sentries mainly just for guardian shield.
g2: You scout much better this game but you didn't get the right building/unit combination. You want 3 gates and a robo and initally you want mostly zealot/immortal.
Don't not attack when you're on 2 base vs 1. Huge mistake there
You want chargelot/immortal/templar versus thor/marine/scv. Collosi and sentries are fairly useless.
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I don't know if it's been discussed, but how do you guys deal with drops?
Lately I've been going heavy gateway style (1 gate FE > 2 more gates > forge/twilight > +1armor/charge > 3 more gates > templar (or vice versa depending).
Pre-templar I honestly do nothing about it as I rarely have more than 1 stalker (I just make zealot/sentry). I usually get hallu to scout if I see no gas or a marauder, else a robo for 1 basing. If just hallu I don't really feel comfortable not having my army at the front, should I be OK with this?
After templar I put my warped in templar in my mineral lines or in the path of a drop for feedback on hotkey 3 and then after some random time (haven't really figured this out, when they have more energy) I switch them to hotkey 2 with my army and warp in new templar for drop defense on hotkey 3 again. It's a bit hard to manage though and its tough if double medivac drops come.
Are templar the best option? Or would 4 blink stalkers be preferable?
I guess I can split my army in my mineral lines once I have an obs on his army (he's not attacking), is this a good idea?
What is your opinion on cannons? I usually get them if he's got banshee and like 90% if cloak because having 4 obs (base/base/army/his army) is no fun. Otherwise it randomly depends how annoying his harass is, if im floating, etc. Also the placement? I saw Oz vs. Rain at mlg and oz had his cannons with templar in the path of the drop, I guess to kill the medivac. Is that better positioning than the mineral line?
How many obs should I make? I keep getting caught with my pants down by cloaked ghosts =/ (1 for his army, 1 for his base, 1 for my army, another in the late game?) Often I only make 1.
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On August 24 2011 19:06 NihiloZero wrote:
I need help with High Templar control...
This really comes down to micro and your control groups. Irrespective of how good your micro is, you are giving yourself more to do by having the templar in your main army control group; more to do in battle can easily lead to 'more I forgot to do' in the battle such as moving your templar back.
Personally I only ever have my templar in their own dedicated control group (for me it's group 3) and I direct them independently.
So as an example in my late game composition I may have my slow units (zealots, sentries, immortals etc) except the templars in group 1, my stalkers in group 2 and my templars in group 3. When a-moving I then issue the same command to the 3 groups in that order, or sometimes send groups 1 and 2 off in different directions to do a pincer move, with group 3 going up the middle after a short delay to land some storms on a 'hopefully' trapped army.
Other variations really vary by skill level... I've experimented with keeping my templars split in two groups (3 & 4) so that I can keep them separate to avoid EMP's, fungal's etc, but that’s a bit more micro intensive and my APM isn’t great.
With regards to keeping track on energy it's comes down again to APM and micro (unless there is another trick that someone can clue us all into... by having your templar in a dedicated group you can jump to them by quickly pressing the group hot-key twice, manually select 2 with low energy and then merge them.
As a side note on that last point, you will also want to think about removing the newly created archon from the archon group and adding it to one of the other groups so that it joins your main army.
Edit: With regards to getting the storms to land, it just comes down to practise. I tend to start walking my templar into the battle, wait a few seconds until they 'look' close enough (9 units iirc, the same as the extended collosus range; it just takes some practise to guage it correctly) and then start dropping storms. You can tell if they are close enough at that point by the amount of time it takes for the storm to go off... the further away, the longer the delay. The important thing there is to start them moving towards the bettle first... that way each storm will get progressivly closer to the mark with less of a delay. If you dont walk them in you will have to wait for the templar to close the distance every single time.
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Anyone have experience doing 1 gate expand but you build stalker, sentry sentry (gas at 19 or 18) before building nexus and then the gateways?
Is this supposed to hold any 2 rax shenanigans on close positions?
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United States8476 Posts
On August 24 2011 21:16 Huntz wrote:
I don't know if it's been discussed, but how do you guys deal with drops?
Lately I've been going heavy gateway style (1 gate FE > 2 more gates > forge/twilight > +1armor/charge > 3 more gates > templar (or vice versa depending).
Pre-templar I honestly do nothing about it as I rarely have more than 1 stalker (I just make zealot/sentry). I usually get hallu to scout if I see no gas or a marauder, else a robo for 1 basing. If just hallu I don't really feel comfortable not having my army at the front, should I be OK with this?
After templar I put my warped in templar in my mineral lines or in the path of a drop for feedback on hotkey 3 and then after some random time (haven't really figured this out, when they have more energy) I switch them to hotkey 2 with my army and warp in new templar for drop defense on hotkey 3 again. It's a bit hard to manage though and its tough if double medivac drops come.
Are templar the best option? Or would 4 blink stalkers be preferable?
I guess I can split my army in my mineral lines once I have an obs on his army (he's not attacking), is this a good idea?
What is your opinion on cannons? I usually get them if he's got banshee and like 90% if cloak because having 4 obs (base/base/army/his army) is no fun. Otherwise it randomly depends how annoying his harass is, if im floating, etc. Also the placement? I saw Oz vs. Rain at mlg and oz had his cannons with templar in the path of the drop, I guess to kill the medivac. Is that better positioning than the mineral line?
How many obs should I make? I keep getting caught with my pants down by cloaked ghosts =/ (1 for his army, 1 for his base, 1 for my army, another in the late game?) Often I only make 1.
Slow down a bit. You ask a billion questions within the span of a post. You're more likely to get a response if you're not all over the place.
I'll address the your main theme of the drop issue. The best way to stop drops is vision. Watch towers, observers and pylons. With vision you can where his army is or where it isn't. You can then optimally position your army to where it needs to be. Watch common drop paths; if you don't see units pass by those paths, you don't need units there. If you see his main army, judge how big it is versus how big it should be. You can then make a guess if there's a drop on the map.
Without a robo, you'll have more trouble with vision. An alternative solution in this scenario would be to pressure the terran front so he feels he can't commit to a drop.
Unit composition to defend drops actually doesn't matter as much. You can use blink stalkers or chargelots + templar or dts. All can work.
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United States8476 Posts
On August 24 2011 22:27 Xahhk wrote:
Anyone have experience doing 1 gate expand but you build stalker, sentry sentry (gas at 19 or 18) before building nexus and then the gateways?
Is this supposed to hold any 2 rax shenanigans on close positions?
No, not consistently.
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On August 24 2011 22:27 Xahhk wrote:
Anyone have experience doing 1 gate expand but you build stalker, sentry sentry (gas at 19 or 18) before building nexus and then the gateways?
Is this supposed to hold any 2 rax shenanigans on close positions?
Yes, this is my main build. AFAIK, you cannot hold a 2 rax in close positions. Even in medium positions, it's pretty hard already (no zealot, warpgates finish after he attacks).
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EPT
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