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Please help me analyse this long macro PvZ game so that I can further refine my play and start winning these.
Some background: I don't want to 2 base timing against Zerg every time. I decided to choose Hero's PvZ which gets a fast expand, 4 gates with a +1 zealot poke at the fast third (if there is one), a robo for scouting and WP harass, a fast TC for the option of quick blink, and looking to take a fast third if possible.
Based on scouting, get Immos if mass roach, two more gates at least, blink when mutas, and I prefer to go HT very fast instead of DT and then Robo Bay when I can or against a lot of hydra... overall a pretty flexible position, and good for macro style.
My own analysis: First, the FFE looks a little sloppy and is probably vulnerable with that second pylon... gotta work on that with the shorter space on Antigad.
Second, (and probably very important) epic fail on the zealot poke. I proabalby could have sniped the third if I have that ultra refined. 44/44 supply block was critical, and I didn't have enough hidden probes in the map for a proxy pylon. At least I put a little pressure on to force units.
Third, did well scouting and sniping the spire while taking a 9:30 base... maybe too many cannons? Also are the cannons why I have to much freakin gas at this point in the game? I only have three guysers running and a ton of gas. Should I get HT faster and just make archons?
From there some things to note were that I did half descent defending against mutas, partly due to making obs from the otherwise idle robo. Should have been more active with the WP to maybe scout that ninja top expo.
But forget about that, I still should have won. I kept losing the engagements! I think I have terrible HT micro because that's my AOE before late game colossi and I don't remember hardly ever storming! Should have at least used feedback on the infestors or something.
Anyway, that's enough of my talking, please people like Alej and other high level protoss with macro PvZ experience give this diamond level toss the next few things to really focus working on. I feel like I'm close to my ceiling at mid to high diamond but I'd like to be able to win my share of macro PvZ and I just need to know the refinements to make this build potent. Thanks in advance!
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Bump: I know it's a long replay and I know there's a lot I can improve on (I am diamond), but I'm looking for advice about which "holes" in my game are the biggest and in most need of attention before worrying about the subtle fine tuning.
Anyone with GOOD macro PvZ advice... preferable with a Hero-esque playstyle?
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United States8476 Posts
Your +1 zealot timing was VERY late, about 40 seconds +, mostly because you don't chornoboost your warpgates at all.
You also don't have a proxy pylon, which is very easy to get considering your positions.
I don't think you understand the purpose of that opening, which isn't to do a gateway heavy push, but rather to catch your opponent unprepared with very fast +1 zealots or at the very least force units at an early timing.
You want your 4th gas way way faster.
Way more sentry. You actually can't afford the sentries that you're required to get because of your very very late 4th gas.
Your building placement isn't as tight as it could be.
Your cannon placement could be a bit better and tighter, but that doesn't lose you the game.
Vs mass mutas generally, you want to leave at least 1 templar in each mineral line. Although in your scenario, if you somehow deduced that he wasn't committing to mutas, keeping all your templar with your main army is good.
Work on your gateway timings. You go up from 6 straight up to 12. Personally, I add gates in groups of 2s. 6 when i'm on 2 base, 8 as my 3rd is going up, 10 when I've secured my 3rd, and 12+ once I confirm mutas.
There was a timing you could have either killed him or done significant damage, before he had broods when you had 6 templar + gateway immortal army.
You had a very late reaction to his broodlord tech switch. You scout his hive morphing so you know he's going to go for broods. However, you neither do a timing or begin to preemptively prepare for broods in any way. Templar/gateway/immortal alone is one of the worst possible compositions you can have vs broodlords.
You don't keep up with upgrades.
Many times you don't reinforce your armies with gateway units.
You mass voidrays but never get air upgrades.
You had the game extremely won at around 30:00, but your deathball gets split up and you lose everything. This should never happen and you lose to the resulting muta switch.
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Monk has great points, here are my thoughts that I arrived at before reading Monk's:
First, I do a similar style that I've come up with that makes sense to me, and (god please don flame me) I don't believe HerO does it right. His 2 zeal poke can be done better simply because when he does it, he is accomplishing the same thing (scouting the 3rd) that he could have done with a probe. With 2 zeals and +1 not done, there is a very good chance that they will scout the third and just die without doing anything because of micro'd lings and:
1) A cb'ed forge or even a working forge early game says very blatantly that zealots are coming and is very easy to spot
2) Zerg has a lot of time to prepare for it
My approach is 4 zeals and cb weapons, because
1) Zerg has a degree of difficulty in determining how many lings to make, but if you make only 2 zeals, pretty much any amount of lings will be fine so there's less error possible.
2) the more zeals you have, the more you can micro with them, and at that point in the game you force Zerg to really deplete the larva he has because the number of lings required to defend goes up exponentially to the number of zeals. Also, if he makes an error and his first amount isn't enough, the second amount surely won't be, and he wil have to wait for the 3rd or 4th round of lings to actually have a chance at defending, which means among other things less drones, less larva, and a longer delay for saturation of his 3rd.
Anyway back to replay, which you played basically as you should play PvZ with that style up to the end:
-+1 is too late, about a minute or so. Since this opening is not a warpgate push, don't cb warpgate, put at least 5 cbs on +1 ground
- Even if it's a suicide mission for the zealot poke, send them and do damage. Especially with 2, only pull back if you see roaches.
- You got two geysers in beginning but weren't saturated for about a minute after they were done! That delays whole game for you if you are using HerO's opener.
- Work towards something. You got +1 attack, but never attacked within a window of time where it would have mattered. You got 3 bases, but never really did anything with them until much later than the window of time where they started giving you benefits. You sniped the spire, which made me laugh because I love to see Zerg struggle like that, but it had no purpose. That was a key moment where you could have attacked, or more properly, expanded again (watch the replay at taht point, your main army could have rolled his third then how would the game have gone?).
- Took 4th and 5th too late. Kiling spire should prompt you with that many minerals to set up 4th, even if it isn't saturated right away.
- You had map control when you had 4th/5th base, but never took advantage of it. As such, you were blind and roaches showed up to your 4th before you were aware of it. Be bold, take that tower and hold it as long as you can throughout the game.
- Great use of observers, I have something to learn here. But the one in Zergs base, be way more active with it and you would have played that game as if you were in front of a crystal ball, since all his tech structures were right there.
- When Zerg has muta, u have 3rd base templar immortal blink stalker, go attack. Just do it, there's no way at that point in the game that Zerg can have anything plus muta that can handle your composition and the number of gates you had.
- Your engagements cost you the game. You were ahead all game, but little by little you were whittled down and your costly (in both resources and time) units were taken out because you didn't pull them back; be greedy with those things they are some of the most expensive units in the game. Treat them all like motherships.
- Just assume Zerg will have 4, 5, 6, 7 bases when you have 3. If you do this, you will automatically send a probe or zealot to confirm. You would have won that game if you played exactly the same but did just this point. Send a zeal, probe, or blink stalker, that's all it takes.
- Tip, when his roaches attacked your 4th, and your blink stalkers were hurrying to defend, you had a probe up top. You could have shaved about 10-20 seconds off your response time if you had moved him to the edge and move-queued blink up there, and if you'll notice, that would have saved your nexus.
Takeaways:
hold the towers
work to something
engage better (treat every robo/sg unit as a mothership and DONT LET THEM DIE!!!)
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Thank you Monk and emperor for the advice, it's much appreciated.
Monk, I have a couple of things I'd like to clarify quickly:
Your +1 zealot timing was VERY late, about 40 seconds +, mostly because you don't chornoboost your warpgates at all.
I understand this is vital as it's one of the main points of the build. My question is do you only produce one zealot out of the first gate and then only sentries in order to get the other three gates up in time while chrono boosting the warp gate upgrade?
Also, do you think it's good to add a second forge after the third is secure for double ups?
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United States8476 Posts
On December 12 2011 03:14 OckhamzRazor wrote:Thank you Monk and emperor for the advice, it's much appreciated. Monk, I have a couple of things I'd like to clarify quickly: Show nested quote +Your +1 zealot timing was VERY late, about 40 seconds +, mostly because you don't chornoboost your warpgates at all.
I understand this is vital as it's one of the main points of the build. My question is do you only produce one zealot out of the first gate and then only sentries in order to get the other three gates up in time while chrono boosting the warp gate upgrade? Also, do you think it's good to add a second forge after the third is secure for double ups?
1. Hero produces more, usually 2, sometimes 3. They can be used for pressure and scouting. Sentries are a safer option if you can't rule out either a 1 base or 2 base roach ling allin. You usually cut probes to add those extra 3 gates while chornoing warpgates.
2nd forge after third is good. Not necessary but still good.
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I know you're not really supposed to upload a replay of you winning, but I just figured I'd show how well the above advice has been working. Granted, it doesn't happen like this every time now, but the crisper timings (especially with the zealot poke at the third) has really paid off.
Here's a replay of how my macro PvZ's have been going more recently.
Thanks again for the help, and feel free to leave more constructive criticism if you see something glaring... like me needing to be more active with the WP after the inital harass.
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it looks better id say.
first of all, i am not really convinved that you really lost that first game. i just had a quick look but you still had 93 probes and a full mining base whereas zerg was broke and had NOTHING but those 22 Mutas. so maybe save some minerals and get archons/stalker and you should be able to crush those mutas. but maybe i am mistaken.
the 2nd game you took your 3rd a bit later... almost 4 minutes? (13. minute instead of 9th?) i myself struggle with the 3rd timing the most so i want to ask if someone might comment on that? should he be able to take a 3rd while doing this zealot poke? or is it better to wait because the zerg had to cancel and didnt lose many units so he might retaliate? should he at least try and worst case he cancels? i really feel lost with these considerations.
in the 2nd game you didnt make as many observers and didnt send one to scout his tech/unit composition. again you didnt scout the other bases. if you see that he doesnt try to retake "his" 3rd (that you forced to be cancelled) you should immediately KNOW that he will or has taken his 3rd somewhere else... best is to really be paranoid about hidden bases.
when you have your 3rd you should add the dark shrine. DTs are always good, i would say. they are SO good to scout for hidden bases and deny them. sometimes, if you dont overdo it with DTs, the zerg wont pay too much attention and they mostly have 1 or 2 overseer with their army. so a few DTs in your army wreck havoc. the overseer can be sniped pretty fast and everything dies so fast to them. if detection is always present you can morph them to archons as they take only 250 gas with 2 DTs which is actually better in pvz as you have a huge surplus of minerals compared to the gas.
i dont know if there were serious consequences but i really dont like your switching the screen to your base to warp in units. of course your should do that but you did it right in that second, the roach/hydra army engaged you almost by surprise and without even really assessing the situation you switch away. in this case your army was big enough anyway but this might be punished some time. especially just selecting the colossi and pulling them back and placing ff. after the ff are down and your colossi wont get sniped there is plenty of time to warp in ^^
this all is just my opinion and maybe someone wants to disagree ^^
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EPT
