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51117 Posts
Let's face it, I'm not that great at this game. Despite my Artosis-level knowledge of BW progaming, my actual gameplay isn't that amazing.
That's why I've decided to try and improve my play by doing commentary while streaming, since it's something I somewhat enjoy doing. In this thread I will outline what my plans are for each day of streaming and goals to achieve.
This is where the BW strategy forum comes in. If you guys can help me with analysis I'd much appreciate it as I can only do so much myself.
Anyway...
Day 1 Goals - None, first day of practice. + Show Spoiler +
Day 2 Goals - Improve micro in general (especially dragoon micro vs FD pushes) - Try and understand game situations better Builds: PvP - 1 Gate Robo, PvZ - 5 Gate +1 Speedlot, PvT - 1 Gate Nexus + Show Spoiler +
Day 3 Goals - Improve mechanics (F Keys, hotkeying units quicker) Keep working on that dragoon micro. Builds: Same as previous day
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51117 Posts
blegh, temporarily fixed the problem.
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Thanks for the videos, I've been trying to watch your streams but always have problems with it, not sure if it's on my end or not.
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51117 Posts
Probably your end. My stream is 3500 kbps so maybe your internet can't handle it. Maybe I should reduce the quality since I guess 3500 kbps is a bit overkill for BW.
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Watched PvT #2 Pretty sure you need to start 2nd gate before 2nd goon with that build. Then you'll have 3rd and 4th out at the same(and reaching your nat at about the time terran FD reaches your nat). With 2nd gate after 2nd goon you'll only have 3 and 4th coming somewhat late. The benefit of having 2nd goon a bit faster isn't worth getting 4th goon only by the end of the fight.
*Your range should finish when they start to move out of their natural. Firing at marines and delaying the tank is pretty good.
**watching Bisu/Jangbi FPVod's, they cut only one probe from gas, not 2(but for same duration as you do). You might lack gas for observer+goons if you cut two.
***transferring only 5 probes to natural doesn't make much sense, IMO it is at least 7. It is 21-22 nexus, not 12.
****it wasn't a strong FD that he did, just a regular FD
*****it is good to get next pylon after nexus finishes at your nat in blocking position. Then if you get some vision on your 3rd you can probe-drill to minerals there. Useful for defending to 2facts, although too late for defending against FD.
******it is hard to do while microing, but you need to be adding extra gates(or shuttle/bay) by the end of that fight, not going up to 500-700 minerals. That, and non-stop probe production. You skipped a lot of probes there despite having resources for them; I think at least 10 were skipped by the end of the fight.
*******the "I probably could break him right now" might be appropriate for that player, but usually, you can't do much, even if you killed the FD without losing a single dragoon. Mines and scv pulls are good, and they should have more than 2 tanks by the time your observer reaches them. Hell, they can have 4 tanks and 3rd CC building - you should be concerned about delaying 3rd CC if possible(IMO, at least).
This build should defend an FD without getting mine-contained on your natural until observers, if you're crisp on your build.
My comments are based on watching Bisu and Jangbi streams a lot. But your main problem is that gate/goon order, defending with 4 is much easier than with just 3 goons. That, and not getting any free shots on marines.
EDIT: It goes pretty much like this - either you go gate->goon->nexus->gate->goon->3rd, 4th goon, with nexus around 21-22 supply(depends on when you scout), or you go 1gate ->goon -> goon -> goon -> nexus(getting it around 28) -> gate(robo if you think you're not facing fac cc fac or strong fd)
Your 5th PvT was some weird variation of 1gate goon non-stop production but with gettning nexus at 25 and being pylon blocked(and you wouldn't have money for both goon and pylon with nexus that early)
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Nice ! Thanks for sharing GTR, will def. be watching over the videos, will be def. interesting to see your progression!
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Analysis on the day 2 PvZ game:
your opening FE scouting pattern needs a lot of improvement. I recommend scouting with 2probes on 4player maps, otherwise you risk either lose to early pools, falling behind in macro, or both. Here is the opening I used to use in pvz: 8pylon, send 1st probe scout 10forge, send 2nd probe scout forge finishes, probes see at least the zergs natural If no hatch @ natural then make 1 cannon immediately. 2nd cannon if 9pool, gateway block if 6/5pool, pylon in main if 4pool, save for nex if overpool. If 12hatch @ natural then 15nex, 16gate, 17pylon, 18cannon, 18gas. After your defense is secured against early pools (you will have to bring 3probes to block against 6ling overpools because you are only making 1cannon ever) go nexus, gateway, pylon, gas in that order
This insures that you will pretty much never die to early pools unless u mess something up, and you will also never be at a disadvantage against a greedy zerg opening. The way you opened you would have lost to any 9/6/5/4pool, and you were also at a disadvantage against 12hatch because you placed the cannon before nexus. Ignoring the misplacement, if youre going cannon before nexus, you might as well place it immediately so you dont die to early lings. I also saw you replaced the cannon after nexus when you had seen the 12hatch build (im assuming it was 12hatch, its been a while since i played bw so could b wrong) which put you at a further disadvantage - you can place the gateway and gas before cannon and you will still be safe from the lings. A good timing to look for is to put down your cannon when you see zerglings morphing (this applies to any zerg opening, not just 12hatch). If you build a cannon while the pool is still building, you most likely couldve afforded to make another more important tech structure first, so thats bad. If the lings pop and you havent made the cannon yet, it will be a few seconds too late and you will lose if zerg attacks right away. In the case of 6/5 pools, you can buy time by pulling most of your probes in order to let the cannon finish. 4pools can still win even if you pull probes to your natural, so its best to pylon+cannon in your main instead. As a last note on the opening, you also got your 1st gas before 2nd pylon, which resulted in your having to halt probe production, so I recommend gateway/pylon/gas for constant probes.
After the opening, the rest of your build was pretty sloppy and unfocused, but there were two huge mistakes not build related that lost you the game. #1 was not placing your buildings in a way that you allow yourself room for additional rows of cannons behind your wall, and the farther back the better. #2 was not keeping your probe alive around his base at the key timing.
If both of you execute your openings optimally, his first wave of hydras will be moving across the map as your corsair is moving across the map to scout him. Pretty similar to what happened in your game, except that your timings were late due to your less than optimal opening, so I must assume that his opening was equally inefficient. Anyway, this means that your corsair scout is useless in helping prepare you against 3hatch hydras. It means that you rely on your probe scout 100% to be safe against it, and it means that you need to pay attention to the probe when you go in to scout his base again (you were macroing in your base and completely missed the crucial look in his natural). Your probe scout was good, it was just a bit late and you didnt actually make use of it. A good timing to go in to scout for hydras is when you start making your 1st corsair. Then if you see hydras, immediately put down at least 2 cannons before any other tech structures.
Then when you actually put down the cannons, you want to have room for at least 7 total cannons behind the wall, otherwise zerg can just continue pumping hydras and keep pushing you back. Im not saying that you always need to make 7 cannons, but 7 is the minimum needed to defend a complete all in if i remember correctly, so its better to plan ahead than to get to a situation where you cant prevent yourself from losing. I believe your gateway and forge could be placed further to the left so as to leave more room behind for more cannons, and you should also build a 2nd pylon in the natural when you first see hydras to support additional cannons (above the nexus in this case) and prevent yourself from losing to an all in where the zerg snipes your 1 pylon powering everything.
When the hydras get to your front door, your cannons should be finished in time if you placed them immediately with the correct probe scout timing. However, often times zerg will be able to deny your probe scout, or delay it with good zergling micro. Its more of a problem the higher level you play at, but also at a lower level you can just miss the window or something can happen to delay the cannon timing anyway, like what happened in your game. So, as an alternate defense, or just as an additional backup, what most pro gamers do is they will build their cannons even further behind the gateway+forge wall, so that hydras without range upgrade cant attack them until the gateway or forge goes down. (zergs must upgrade speed first if they want to attack, otherwise they cant micro and reinforcements are too slow) Then they will use their first 3 zlots, plus an additional pylon if necessary, to completely wall off their front, allowing no hydras in until the gateway or forge is destroyed. The time it takes for the first building to go down will buy just enough time to save themselves if they immediately place more cannons behind. Something else to keep in mind. Your first cannon was 1 space behind the gateway, which is far enough behind that it cant get sniped, but then you didnt have enough room to place more cannons behind, and the zerg attacked when he already had built up 8 hydras so it was too late for you by then.
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Also if you want to do some practice games, msg me. I havent played in about a year but i kind of feel like playing now. I can give u more tips if u want, should b fun
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Wow really nice post dragon.
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Great post dragon, also nice to see from the ex-zerg perspective. Btw. would you like to play some 1v1/2v2 games?
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some good posts here!
you will need more than a single day of practice on each of these aspects to actually improve in any single aspect though...
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On February 20 2015 18:20 kogeT wrote: Great post dragon, also nice to see from the ex-zerg perspective. Btw. would you like to play some 1v1/2v2 games?
sure, but it might take some practice b4 im able to compete with u again lol. If youve got skype msg me there cuz i wont be online a lot, mine is alex.empey
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Nice to see someone trying to improve at this game. What was your highest Iccup rank btw GTR?
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51117 Posts
i played to d+ but i reckon if i played actively during my peak i could have gotten to c+/b-. anyway... didnt really do much yesterday or today since i had some stuff. hopefully i can get some games in tomorrow.
edit: i added two games from day 2 (a pvp which was really stupid - i went 12 nexus vs random p and won against a 2 gate) and a pvt (where guy played weird) so they aren't really good watching material.
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51117 Posts
So recently, I've been losing to dumb shit such as 2 base lurker drops and 3 fac 1 base tank all-ins. How does one play super safe so they don't lose to such crap like that?
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On February 22 2015 21:16 GTR wrote: So recently, I've been losing to dumb shit such as 2 base lurker drops and 3 fac 1 base tank all-ins. How does one play super safe so they don't lose to such crap like that?
deductive reasoning
Figure out what he can do, and what you can lose to, and only care about the possibilities that he can do and that you can lose to
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