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Hey TL.
Ok well the game is on Tau, we are both like 2600-3000 points on icup. I think this kid is a noob, and some how i lose to him. I don't get it. I had more resources, and i kept my upgrades going. This kid just slow pushed from 6 to my 9 and took the expos along the way. There was nothing i could do to stop his huge fucking ball.
I will admit that my army placement was a bit hap hazard, but the thing is- trying to control a 200/200 zerg army unit wise just isn't that feasible. My macro was good, and i destroyed his first push. Afterward I ran head long into his army a few times, and never managed to scratch it. I thought that i would have been ahead- after the mid game ball crush, but it never happened.
What did i do wrong? What could i have don better?
I want to say that my army composition was ok. I had muta/guard/ling/hydra all game- and yet never managed to do anything. It all seemed to melt under his ball of shit.
How could i have played this better? I just don't get it? I just could never find a way to counter attack him. I knew that i had to do something, but he would always have his giant fucking ball over his expos. He went the safe- slow push katrina style take expos as i go type of thing, and there was nothing i could do about it.
I was thinking crackling drops? idk...... Does anyone care to watch?
rep:
http://www.mediafire.com/?uj2mmiml4dy
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1. Massing mutas when he has no tanks from 10-12 min? not a good idea.
2. If he doesn't wall with mech, 12 lings with speed can kill him easy...
3. I don't know how you can lose with mass ground units if he doesn't have a single tank. You had the right army composition idea, but you have to vary based on his.
4. You can't just amove your army into his army. He won't last forever if he's on 4 base and you're on 7-8. Let him take those 4! when he unsieges, set up an epic flank.
5. I guess this could have been avoided by chipping away mid-game. I'm not sure why, but your midgame unit count seemed unusually low. Might be a result of too many mutas against pure goliath, which is a very bad idea.
6. Crackling drops would not at all have been a bad idea. Maybe late-game after he got the 4th base you could kill facs with guardians/mutas as well while his goliaths weren't around? He didn't have a TON of facs, so 2-3 dead would be a big deal.
edit: I'm only a C- player, and I'm prepared to be proven/told wrong, many apologies if I gave wrong advice! =(
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First of all, holy shit at your macro. I know I could never keep my minerals and gas that low off of 4-5 bases. That aside, I noticed several errors that allowed your opponent to overrun you, even with terrible macro.
The first mistake was when his two vultures were attacking your first expansion. You could have just spawned hydras from that expo instead of needlessly losing two hydras to mines. I also noticed that you didn't spawn drones right away after getting an expo up. You really need to power drones from all your hatches to fill your expos in order to utilize them as quickly as possible.
I also noticed that you made an absurd number of sunks at your second expansion (like 5 if I remember correctly). That's a ridiculous amount of sunks that you wasted guarding a MINERAL ONLY expansion. All of those minerals could have been used to take the entire map sAviOr style. It didn't help that at another one of your expansions, you made even more sunks (7-8). Holy shit why so many sunks, man?
You should have scouted his army better and seen that he had nothing but goliaths and vultures. An army like that would get shredded by pure hydras. You would have overrun him if you didn't get so many mutas.
Finally and most importantly, you got too aggressive in the end. I think you overestimated your opponent and didn't know how far you were ahead. Both his main and his natural were completely mined out, leaving him on 2 bases while you were still sitting comfortably on 3-4. You should have stalled him longer and waited for him to move out into the middle, where you could set up a flank instead of engaging his entire army in that narrow choke. Speaking of engaging, you engaged that first push perfectly. GJ. But your last engagement was ridiculously bad. You sent all your units in a straight line towards his heavily fortified base. I would have gone for drops to annoy him and force him to move his army back. And even if you wanted to engage him, you needed to engage him in open ground, where you'll have the advantage of flanking. So, to sum everything up, yes you were better than your opponent but you shouldn't have wasted your entire army at the end.
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I used to struggle against Terran mech too until I learned how to play against it, its actually not as bad as it seems. There are some principles you must abide by when you play against Terran Mech. First, I'll start off analyzing your replay then I'll follow up with some rules you should follow.
First thing, too many mutas. 1 group maximum and the only reason they should be used is to try and pick off tanks. Don't engage goliaths since they will just get owned, use hydras to take out goliaths.
Secondly, don't make zerglings, they get eaten alive by Goliaths. Instead used all that larvae strictly for hydras. All you really need is hydras imo. If you choose to make zerglings, I would save them to use drops on his main to target buildings.
Lastly, you should have overlord drop upgraded and do repeated drops with hydras on his base whenever his force moves out to attack, or guards an expo. The other important thing you should do is always have 2 groups of hydralisks just outside his main base so that you can delay his unit movement/attack whenever he decides to do his push. The guy you played didn't used tanks which imo is bad and a lot easier to beat. Without tanks in his unit mix, all you really had to do was mass hydras and A+move towards his group of goliaths. But say he had used tanks, you would use your 2 groups of hydralisk to stick and move (kinda like a boxer). You attack his goliaths and he'll siege his tanks, thats when you pull back just out of the tanks range. He'll unsiege his tanks to push up. You engage, when he sieges pull back, rinse and repeat. Basically you fight his goliaths but run whenever his tanks sieges. Eventually you'll lose most of your hydras and he'll just attack without sieging his tanks but the main thing you've done is delayed him. While this is all happening, you should be dropping hydras into his main base, preferabbly where all his supply depots are, destroyed all those clumped supply depots and you've slowed him down enough to where your in a good spot to win the game. Remember, Terran ball has slow mobility so that means when you do the drop, he'll have to pull back his forces to save his base.
Let's pretend you asked "But what if he's already set up just outside my base and is now plowing away at my base." That's why it's important to have those 2 groups of hydras just outside his base/chokepoint area. The Terran Ball is slow but if you let it move and set up just outside your main chokepoint, thats when your fucked because it'll kill anything that moves towards it. Thats another thing you did wrong in the replay. You let his goliaths/vulture move all the way up to your expo without engaging to slow it down or anything. Even though you countered and stopped his attack, i think a lot of it had to do with him not using tanks.
Just some rules you should try and follow
1. Avoid engaging the Terran ball if possible. Delay his push with 2 groups of hydras
2. Repeated drops on his base wherever his units are not set up. There should and will always be an opening, he cannot possibly cover his entire base. Say he is able to cover his main/natural and is turtling then just starve him.
3. Keep up with upgrades (which shouldn't be hard) and no more than 1 group of mutalisk
To sum this up, avoid fighting the ball, delay his troops movement and do drops on his base. If your delaying his units when he's pushing, your following rule #1. When he's at the midway point, halfway between your base and his, drop hydras into his base (rule #2). If he's covering his expo with his Ball, Drop on his natural/main. Hopefully this helps, I will upload a replay as soon as I can.
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Ok so- basically my problem is that i rushed into things? I should have just stayed back on my 6 base and let the game play out?
So i should NEVER attack a mechanic terran unless i am dropping the main, or i can have a 360 surround while i can catch his ball in open ground?
Thanks for the help guys!
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Here's the replay as promised. Some things you'll notice in the replay is me trying to follow those rules listed above. I avoid taking fighting his main force but have my 2 groups of hydra just to take a tab on where he is. As soon as he moves out I drop on him, (16 hydras i think, which isn't much) but the damage done is far greater. You'll notice he moves to save his base and thats when I attack his expo.
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As for your surround question, for me personally I'd rather not attack. Main reason being that it'll take more micro on your part. He just has to siege his tanks and then giggle away as his tanks autoblasts your units. You on the other hand will have to A+move several groups of units. I just dont think its worth it. But if you feel you can get him then go for it. Remember the main units to take out are his Tanks, they will do the bulk of the damage to your hydras. Once they are killed, the goliaths are easy to clean up.
Another thing I forgot to cover is the vulture harass early game, after terran fast expand, they'll pump about 4-6 vultures to check for expo and/or do run ins into your main. Having at least 2 hydras with a well placed sunken can prevent this. If your expanding, put 3 at a ramp and you'll be safe.
The 2nd replay, I struggled a bit, guy wasn't all that great but you can get an idea for how to take on the Mech.
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Pokebunny sez the true. The primary rule for zvt and zvp is that if u cant fight the enemy directly u start dropping everyvere and harassing expos ecc...
If no tanks the defilers smoke can be imba, also ultras can be used if no mines
just an opinion but i think pure mutas can be a good solution vs pure goliats. You have just to overexpand a bit keep massing mutas until 3 controls and do 2 spire for double upgrade. Muta mass > goliat mass at njub level cuz a njub terran do not know how to micro goliats well.
If u use a mixed army vs a pure goliat, upgrade mutas armor at 1. Goliats do just 50% dmg to mutas cuz of units size, but they have priority attack to mutas, fly around and hit a bit with mutas absorbing damage until hidra ling kills goliats.
(tau cross is a hard map for z vs metal t)
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I guess you are B zerg?
3 errors with your play:
1. Your build wasn't intended for fast mutas. The proper muta/hydra build starts off with a normal 3 hatch, with lair first, and you don't get a hydra den until after your first 9 mutas are out. It is reactionary to T 1 rax FE into mech.
Your build is a hydra/ling build, which is also very good. It reacts well to any T fast factory builds. Think for a second, in the muta/hydra build, you get lair first and straight to mutas, T gets cc first before gas, and he should still have a good defense when your mutas arrive. In your hydra/ling build, you get den first and hydra speed before lair, while T gets a factory before cc, it is theoretically impossible for your mutas to be fast enough for any damage. Your play was inconsistent with your build order.
2. Your upgrades were late. It probably didn't seem so since T messed up first, there was a huge lag between the finish of his +1 and the start of his +2, which allowed your late upgrades to catch up. I believe this happened because you saved up gas for mutas, so it was a side effect from your first mistake.
By the way you don't need to put down 3 chambers at once, better to put down 1st chamber with your spire, and get that carapace going. Then add second chamber when your carapace start, and third when your second upgrade start. It puts less stress on your economy and you can macro harder.
3. Your attacks were bad. It's not that you can never attack the T army, when you have enough units its fine to attack, but you have to send your units in continuous waves instead of separate waves. T's sheer fire power and range will always melt a couple groups of Z in the beginning of the fight. I recommend you to think of your first wave as purely suicidal just so that your second wave can touch the T, and think of your second wave as half suicidal as they will die before doing any major damage, it is really the third wave and afterward that starts to kill. This is of course assuming that there are no lags between your waves...
In your game there was too much delay between your waves. By the time your second wave arrived, your first wave was already gone, so your second wave became another "first" wave, similarly your third wave was too far behind your second, and by the time it got there your second wave was gone, so your third wave became another "first" wave. In this manner no matter how many units you send in, they will all melt without doing any damage, because you are basically sending in numerous single waves that can't even reach the enemy.
I guess on the side note, to engage a mech army with hadra/ling you must calculate whether you have enough units or not. Since the size of a wave depends on the size, upgrade, and unit combo of the T army. What I do is to first estimate how many units will die before I can touch the T, then I multiply that number by 4 for a conservative guess on how many units I need to have a decent chance to win.
This is for hydra/ling fights, muta/hydra work slightly different. I think someone posted before me on muta/hydra fights.
P.S. pure goliaths/tanks are not very good vs mass hydra/ling, you had the superior combo, I believe after the first battle if you simply sent in everything (not half of your army), you would have won the game right there.
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On February 01 2009 19:25 w3jjjj wrote:
Before battle I first position the 3 hotkey groups close to the enemy, then I manually send in the rest of my units, just select and A-move on the minimap, when these units get close to the enemy, I send in my hotkey groups really quick 1a2a3a, then I go back and A-move the rest of my units. This way I have at least 4 groups of units arriving at the same time, usually with a flank, then the rest of my army goes in non-stop, with no lag in between waves.
I do the same too! This really helps. Before, i tried to scroll a move and the terran ball was making my units look like air.
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So when i see that the terran is going fast expand, i should not try and counter with a slower muta harass? Instead i should have just put down the chambers and begun the upgrading. Do muta play any role in a zv mechanic terran? I had always thought that they were an essential part of your unit composition- regardless of mass golies. It had always seemed to me that guardians were killer against golies and mech in general.
Basically i am asking- should i have gone for filers and cloud instead of guardians, when i knew that he had little tanks and mass golies?
If that is the case, then i guess i have to start looking at the game this way:
1. don't muta harrass/ mass muta
2. no greater spire
3. Filers adn cloud, against mass mgolies only or is cloud still viable against mass tank?
4. Against mass tank should i be switching to more of a muta ling play?
Basically if i am understanding this right- Depending on his army composition, hydra/ling> mass golies and muta/ling > mass tanks?
Thanks for the time and help everyone, it is really appreciated.
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dont use guardians in all cases, when u use gards in zvt(bio) or in zvp u use guardians range to take an expo or scvs or some units that are near a cliff (you stay up)
goliats have same range and cost rally less, so cuz of a cost/effects guars vs goliats are not a good option.
i am a terran maybe a terran look to the situation will help you. When i go for a standard mech build (not fantasy) with cca 90% goliats and 10% tankiers i want to fast upgrade +1 and go fore some sort of 5 fakt puping until i dont take mine 3rd gas and mass again. Usually tvz mech is one strong goliat push in late midgame or early lategame. What can stop this? nothink (: u had to dely mine 3rd so longer, go in economical advantage and try to trade units as most as u can. Dont let me ball, if i had to pump goliats non stop and i dont go to 150 supply or near i will add 1-2-3 more fakts to be able to do the strong push. The problem is that fakt adding goliat pumping from 6-7 fakts and upgreiding is impossible from 2gas. So you have more hidras they are more upgraded and some you have a better economy, its 90% of what you have to do to win.
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On February 02 2009 01:17 Misrah wrote:
So when i see that the terran is going fast expand, i should not try and counter with a slower muta harass? Instead i should have just put down the chambers and begun the upgrading. Do muta play any role in a zv mechanic terran? I had always thought that they were an essential part of your unit composition- regardless of mass golies. It had always seemed to me that guardians were killer against golies and mech in general.
Basically i am asking- should i have gone for filers and cloud instead of guardians, when i knew that he had little tanks and mass golies?
Basically if i am understanding this right- Depending on his army composition, hydra/ling> mass golies and muta/ling > mass tanks?
Fast mutas or not depends on your opening build. This game your opponent made a fast factory, not fast cc. Your response was good, but transition to "fast" mutas was bad, because your build order dictated that your mutas were slow.
This is not to say mutas are bad, it's a case by case thing. You should play opening strategies consistent with your build order.
Later on in the game you respond to the T's army composition. Some T neglects goliath, and make a billion tanks with vultures when they see you hydra/ling, so massing some mutas can really kill the T with suprise. Even in a hydra/ling opening, you can double spire later and switch to mass air, it depends on T's army composition.
Regardless of mass golies? No, hydra/ling is superior to mutas vs mass golies any day.
Defiler? In this case, yes. Pure ground hydra/ling play should always go for defilers.
Guardians? In this case, no. Your opponent was heavy on goliath with not that many tanks. If he were tank/vulture heavy, guardians may work very well.
Hydra/ling > mass golies and muta/ling > mass tanks? Yes and no. Depends on upgrades. For example, mutas are usually good vs tanks, but not if they have too big of an upgrade difference. If you opened your game with a hydra/ling build, and you neglected air attack until T gets +3 armor, mutas would not be good cuz they take forever to kill those armored tanks, even a suprise attack would not deal damage fast enough, T can just retreat with minimum loss while pumping goliath. It's important to get both ground and air upgrades, no matter which combo you are using, cuz combo switch for Z is easy as long as you have good upgrades.
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OMFG AGAIN I JUST LOST AGAIN!!!!!!! HOLY SHIT- I WAS SO FAR A FUCKING HEAD OF THIS NOOB- AND HIS PUSH KILLS EVERYTHING I CAN POSSIBLY THROW AT HIM. collo v2 he takes his 3 bases of course, and i take 6. He runs me over. OMG WHAT THE HELL IS THIS SHIT AGGGGGGGGGGGGG
rep:
http://www.mediafire.com/?mjngw0ozgjm
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That was a nice surround you did on him still i dont see why you dont just do drops on him, doesn't take that many hydras to be effective plus half the time your hydras just sat there. His natural was pretty much open all game and he had 4 or turrets defending it. Maybe its just me but as a Zerg player I have this mentality of engaging the opponents units head on but I learned early on that that just doesn't work against Terran mech or I felt that I lost more than I really gained. It took me a while to get out of that mode against Mech.
heres a game i played today, maybe the opponents not as good and im not as good but you can still apply some basic principles
[url blocked]
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*sigh* thanks for the help guys.
Guess i should just switch over to squall mass drop style of play.
Fuck this. Mech is too god damn good on some maps
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lol, its not because of imbalance, you just really fucked up on that 2nd push. Also getting bottom left would have been smarter, he would have had to go through the mid to attack it. And you didnt upgrade mutalisks at all, which you want if you wanna face those tanks. And you were poorer than you could have been before his first push, too many hatcheries, very few drones, you had like 3.5 bases vs his 3, the terran had an awful push but he could have just turtled, grabbed another expo and he would be better econ wise. Basically, a heavy ground army is pretty weak vs upgraded mech, hydras will melt against tanks, especially if you try to move squeeze through chokes towards the tanks.
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Same mistake as before, you kept sending in small waves, losing 2-3 groups each time without doing damage. When you fight you have to throw everything at him at the same time.
You missed two good opportunities.
First, when you won the first fight with so much left over, you should have attacked his third. I mean, he lost his entire army, and he only has 5 factories, how many units can he possibly have? Every time you win battle you have a window to take down 1 of his bases.
Second, after you lost 3 groups of hydras for nothing in the middle, and he moved to kill 5, you had a good chance to counter him with everything you have. If he comes back to save himself, you do a lot of damage and your base at 5 is safe, if he sac his main, he loses. Instead, you tried to save your 5, and threw 2-3 groups at him in single waves, doing little damage.
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i guess i just need to think through my late game army movement and all that.
Once again thanks for your time guys. Sorry im such a noob- and cannot figure this out myself. 
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On February 02 2009 10:35 w3jjjj wrote:
Same mistake as before, you kept sending in small waves, losing 2-3 groups each time without doing damage. When you fight you have to throw everything at him at the same time.
You missed two good opportunities.
First, when you won the first fight with so much left over, you should have attacked his third. I mean, he lost his entire army, and he only has 5 factories, how many units can he possibly have? Every time you win battle you have a window to take down 1 of his bases.
Second, after you lost 3 groups of hydras for nothing in the middle, and he moved to kill 5, you had a good chance to counter him with everything you have. If he comes back to save himself, you do a lot of damage and your base at 5 is safe, if he sac his main, he loses. Instead, you tried to save your 5, and threw 2-3 groups at him in single waves, doing little damage.
pretty much sums it all up. Plus this maybe just my preference, but you should have changed all your hatch rally points to the front of your choke. It would have drove me nuts if all my units were rallying to the top of that cliff, in a game like this where you want to engage him in the middle I like having my units starting in the middle.
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EPT
