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So for sometime I have been wanting to get better at SC2. I am currently stuck in (Zerg player) diamond and have been since beta. All though I don't have that much time to play other than in the weekends, I love this game and I would like to improve on my play, by having a better plan for my matchups. Most of the time I start with a general plan in my head and proceed to just wing it.
At some point I read some of CecilSunkure awesome guide on How to improve in 1v1, in which he states that it is good to have a flowchart. So I started looking for other peoples flowcharts, and to my dismay I really didn't find any. The strategy guides on liquidpedia are good and all, but I miss the easy overview a flowchart can give. I tried to make my own, but I always either put too much information in it, or simply not enough. There are so many things to consider when making a flowchart imo, do you put upgrade timings in? When shall I take my third? What about scout timings? And then what about reactions to what you scout?
All of the sudden you got a flowchart that looks something like this:
+ Show Spoiler [Holy flowchart Batman!] +
Which isn't that helpful to look at in the heat of battle.
So for a long time I just continued to wing it on ladder. But lately I have been having a lot of trouble against Protoss, so now I have decided to man up and make a flowchart for ZvP. (I plan to make one for ZvZ and ZvT aswell on a later date and post those here).
Now, as I said my ZvP isn't very good. I have perhaps at best a 30% win rate against Protoss, which is why I have made the first real flowchart in that matchup. I would love some feedback on my flowchart, are there anything I have overlooked etc.?:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/6uBuT.jpg)
I have tried to keep it as simplistic as possible. I found an open source program called Bonita Studio, and made the flowchart in this. It may have been easier to just use paint or photoshop, but I had fun with it.
And now to my discussion point: Do you use flowcharts? If so, how have you gone about making it, in regards to the amount of information?
And also I thought maybe we could pull our collective resources and compile a small knowledge base of flowcharts for the different matchups (not only for zerg). It could be useful for other players like me! If you have a flowchart you want to share, do post it here and/or PM me, and I will add it to the post.
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I can see this being much more beneficial for P/T in regards to when to expand, what buildings to add on and when and how to react to what you scout. However it looks very cool and it definitely would be useful for gold/platinum level players that haven't memorized these things.
Good work.
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What if the protoss goes FFE?
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I like this, it's a very sensible way of looking at the matchup.
If you got a bunch of highlevel players to give input, this could be a good starting point for approaching different MUs.
On December 10 2011 21:31 Licorices wrote:
What if the protoss goes FFE?
I think that's mislabelled as "Gateway1" on the flowchart, because that's what you do against it 
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United Arab Emirates1141 Posts
If I had to bet, you study some seriously hard uni subject, i.e. biochem, Medicine, Maths or something. Flowcharts makes me think of Biochem straight away, but anyway. Well done - I'm sure this is what Progamers do in their South Korean teamhouses
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On December 10 2011 21:31 Licorices wrote:
What if the protoss goes FFE?
Wooops, brainfart right there. But as SgtCoDFish said, its the mislabeled "Gateway1". Ill fix that and upload a new image.
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On December 10 2011 21:48 JesusOurSaviour wrote:
If I had to bet, you study some seriously hard uni subject, i.e. biochem, Medicine, Maths or something. Flowcharts makes me think of Biochem straight away, but anyway. Well done - I'm sure this is what Progamers do in their South Korean teamhouses
Thanks. Actually I don't, I'm a pedagogue/social educator and work with children in ages 6-12. 
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The thing I think you have to be careful with these sorts of charts is that sometimes people just suck... and what I mean by that is maybe you scout and see something... say a robo and you're on 2 base's. Most of the time spire tech isn't a bad bet, but what happens if he just builds the robo for a quick obs, expands and throws out a really quick stargate. While the chain of events I just did is unlikely and not the most 'optimal' way of playing, it can catch you off guard and possibly kill you.
I really enjoyed having a flow chart sort of mind when I practiced as zerg for a while, but you will get surprised if you rely on the graph too much! I hope you get heaps of success with it, it's a great tool for memoring stuff 
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I'm slightly confused. When you say 1 gate wall off ---> robo, does that mean gateway expand into robo or 1 base robo? 2 base spire is a pretty awful build vs 1 base robo.
Also, there are probably more branches off FFE than you can possibly think of and just going roach ling into deny third base is not going to be good vs a 2 base immortal push. The flowchart seems to only talk of unit compositions and only works with perfect scouting. Instead, you should talk about lair, evo and roach warren timings, enemy gas timings, sentry count. You will rarely scout a dark shrine, you will rarely scout a twilight council. Sometimes, you send 3 overlords in and you see nothing, so you have to include the 'i see nothing' flow chart as well.
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After forge fast expand you need to scout to see if the forge is upgrading/being chrono'd, and how early. Very early = +1 zealot pressure, a bit later, possible 6/7 gate. Pretty cool though. I remember seeing one for a fantastic PvT guide by a relatively high level guy that was really really good. A bit out of date now though i think.
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Amazing job. Hope to see similar flowchart for rest 2 races!
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i feel like there should be Another Line at the very top that defines your basic opening depending on the map.
e.g.
map where Protoss likes to FFE --> 11 Overpool 18 Hatch
map where he likes to 1 Gate Wall off ---> 15 Hatch
(atleast that's what i like to do)
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If you see a gateway at the top of the ramp, it's a good idea to steal a protoss's gas. If the protoss wants to take his natural safely they will need void rays or sentries after opening gateway. If Protoss doesn't have enough of these gas heavy units, and try to expand early, you can kill their nat with speed lings. If they don't try to expand zerg can drone up, either way zerg gets pretty far ahead.
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On December 10 2011 22:49 Reborn8u wrote:
If you see a gateway at the top of the ramp, it's probably a good idea to steal a protoss's gas. If the protoss wants to take his natural safely they will need void rays or sentries. If they don't have enough of these gas heavy units and try to expand, you can kill their nat with just lings.
Or, you could not waste the money stealing gas and use the money for a third base. Stealing the gas doesn't delay the Protoss much at all anyway. It certainly won't lose them as much as Zerg loses.
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On December 10 2011 22:21 Micket wrote:
I'm slightly confused. When you say 1 gate wall off ---> robo, does that mean gateway expand into robo or 1 base robo? 2 base spire is a pretty awful build vs 1 base robo.
Also, there are probably more branches off FFE than you can possibly think of and just going roach ling into deny third base is not going to be good vs a 2 base immortal push. The flowchart seems to only talk of unit compositions and only works with perfect scouting. Instead, you should talk about lair, evo and roach warren timings, enemy gas timings, sentry count. You will rarely scout a dark shrine, you will rarely scout a twilight council. Sometimes, you send 3 overlords in and you see nothing, so you have to include the 'i see nothing' flow chart as well.
That is a very good point, and exactly that kind of feedback I was looking for, thank you! I'll take that back to the drawing board.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/9DWvJ.gif)
