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I really need help with ironing out my play. I don't understand what I am supposed to do at a lot of stages of the game.
http://ggtracker.com/matches/5253515
Just played this match, ended up losing after have bases destroyed constantly and not knowing how to apply pressure. Please help me!
I don't know when to attack, I don't know when I have the advantage in this matchup. It felt like I never did in this game.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
EDIT: Also I don't know what I'm supposed to spend gas on in the later stages of the game.
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User was warned for this post
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First, your nat is off centre :D
Anyways, this moving out issue seems like something you could fix just by having crisper macro, like at 12 minutes you're floating 1500/500. I'm noticing you're a bit late adding on infrastructure and especially your double ebay. A minor thing is I think you could do with fewer tech labs, like 2 max, maybe even 1. You don't really need marauders vs what he's making.
If you don't know what he's got, just scan the front or scout with a marine or something.
Your starport was WAY late, you could've had 4 medivacs by the time your starport finished.
So all in all, the issue seems to be caused by you not quite having enough stuff.
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That answers one question, but the question I think he's concerned about is when do I move out? How do I find the rught time?
The answer to that is provided by your efforts to get vision. Sacrificing your reaper is worth finding the 3rd base drone count, or the gas amount, pre-queens.
I will look at your replay tonight when I get home. Hard to type on mobile.
EDIT: LOOKING AT WORK BRB #DEDICATION
[Content Edit]:
GO THROUGH THE REPLAY AS YOU READ THIS, PAUSING AND TABBING. DON'T JUST READ THIS!
Overarching theme that seems to be missing from your game: INFORMATION. TVZ (any match up, really) is largely knowing what your opponent is doing (game knowledge) and responding in the right way (mechanics).
Potential errors/mistakes I'm worried about:
Overextension with hellions early on (Kinda happened).
- This can lose you the game all by itself. You were aggressive and put the hellions forward, which is not a bad thing, but you cannot lose them. If you lose everything in that group, you don't know if he's making drones (you'll lose later on), or if he's making units (you'll lose right now). You need them alive to know what he's doing. Super granular: fight a bit with the hellions, then leave them at the tower as you macro and look at the map. Being aggressive is what you're trying to do, but when you saw the evolution chamber(s) at the front (both! not just one), you can assume he's going to be playing a long game, and not busting you early. Again, information is king.
Ebays after barracks 2,3 (Build order mistake).
- This should be reversed and have the ebays come first, especially considering two things:
- He has 2 evos - You have a third CC (it's an early one)
If he's busting you, (you scouted this with your hellions) you make the barracks first, kick his ass, and then proceed to build ebays and sit until 150 food, and then steamroll him.
Lack of pressure (lack of game knowledge).
There was no pressure after the initial hellion harass. This is not OK! Luckily for you, there are tons of way to pressure Zerg after the initial barrage. However, all of them involve having a Korean build order. Use this:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/461729-the-return-of-the-hellbats
That's how you know when to pressure. They're all designed around Zerg weakpoints, which are easier to learn by experience than playing the game.
(In fact, making up your own build is almost suicide, unless you live in a Korean pro team house. Look up "How to Improve" by Ver (On this site!) for more information as to why this is the case.)
This lack of pressure is what leads Zerg to attack you at 12~ minutes. Your forces were also nowhere near the base, and so he sort of took it for free.
At this point, you might feel like you would have died anyway if you had moved down. This is where the "macro better" from the rest of the thread comes in. That will make you have a few more troops, and as you use a K-build order to pressure zerg and force earlier units, Zerg will also have less. After that, it's up to your micro :D
Bad Recovery/playing from behind (Lack of game knowledge, don't forget that this point only exists because of previous mistakes, and when ahead, you won't need this information):
After losing your third at 14-15 min, it's a matter of getting back into the game with drops. You are losing, and therefore can no longer attack head-on without some kind of advantage, positional or otherwise.
Instead of attacking like you did across his main line of creep, send 2 dropships to his main, and the rest of your army across to his third. In doing this, you would have discovered a building 4th, and killed it off EZPZ as he ran into his main to deal with the drop. All subsequent attacks went to his natural, but they should have been drops to the main or 3rd (hit it from the left side, with the main army wrecking new expansions or scanning and killing creep, but then nothing else.
(NOTE: This is the hardest part of TvZ by far. Dropping, attacking/stimming/splitting, and macroing at once, making as few mistakes as possible. This simply comes with time.)
The main idea here is that once behind, stem Zerg's flow, and prevent him from getting additional bases using drops. Don't move out until you've seen some significant part of his army. Protect your main army at all costs if you want to win the game.
Learning from the opponent:
His attack at 20:00 is exactly what you want to do with your drops/main army after the harassment/build order stage. Hit with one part, move away, and then hit somewhere else. His attack is an overexaggerated example, simply because he was already far ahead after multiple failed Terran attacks.
This is OK, and you can over come it :D GLHF
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you need to clean up your macro. practice in a build order trainer or something.
moving out that early with your first two hellions is super dangerous because you have no wall. its ok to scout around outside your base a bit for morphing banelings but its more safe to wait till atleast 4 hellions and your wall is closer to completing. losing them was a pretty big hit, if you can keep them alive your next push is going to be alot stronger.
once you have completed your 6 hellions lift your factory and start a new reactor with it. your next two rax wont need to build reactors because u can lift onto the ones the fact built.
you want your medivacs by around 11 min! this secures your 3rd base, and can go clear creep/pressure 4th base if the 3rd is not threatened. focus on cleaning up your build up to the 1130 push with 2 medvacs. watch pro replays and follow their timings.
edit - also watch your own replays, he has only 3 bases. if you defended the pure ling pressure he was doing because your macro was better and you didnt lose the hellions, you would have won. your 3 base economy>his 3 base economy.
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Canada8157 Posts
I'll list things as I see them happen:
- You don't need to SCV scout when you are opening reaper, that's what the reaper is for.
- Your reaper sat idly in his base for ~10 seconds, that could have been 2 more drone kills potentially
- Losing all of those hellions early on is a massive blow. This opens up the possibility for him to do a massive baneling bust, and also leaves your ability to scout very limited. When playing vs speed, you should wait until you have 4 hellions to move out, rather than 2. It's very important to keep your focus on these, and you can even use them to great effect later when you go for a timing, just morph them into hellbats.
- The third base you took was the wrong one imo, it's farther away from your rally points, more open for runbys etc etc, in general you should take the adjacent base to the right and bunker wall it.
- As others have pointed out, your starport was extremely late and so were your upgrades. Vs a gas opening its ok to make your 2nd/3rd barracks before your 2x ebays, but they should still go up before the 8 minute mark and your upgrades should start right after they are done.
- Preventing losing your bases is as simple as lifting them off.
Some advantages you had in this were there were no mutalisks from him for a long time, so going for drops would have been exceptional. This forces him to bring back his army so you don't lose anything at home. His creep spread was nonexistent at his third base, so you could have set up a point of contention there and try to gain an advantage that way.
Just before 2/2 finished there was a fight near his pocket base, this would have been a great opportunity to get an advantage. Clearing the creep is fine, just don't let your entire army sit on it. Have a pack of 8-12 units clear the creep while the rest of your army is on the outside of it, and when your 2/2 finished that was the time to go. You had about a 14 second upgrade lead and that's plenty of time to gain the upper hand in a fight.
In general, try to hit the Zerg when your upgrades finish and don't take a fight on creep. Try to keep the fight at their side of the map with your marine parade. Get turrets in your mineral line too; when the mutalisk count is that high they won't prevent the mutalisks from coming in, but it will buy you time to save your SCVs and lift off your CC and get your marines there to help. Widow mine production was a little low, they help are a good support for your army.
To summarize this post:
- Keep your hellions alive
- Start your upgrades earlier
- Take the easier to defend base
- Hit when your upgrades finish
- Drops are good, even if there are mutalisks
- Keep the fight on his side of the map
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Italy12246 Posts
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Thank you. To all of you especially those of you who have provided me with a wall of text on things I can approve on. Amazing to read. Thank you I will work on it!
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