I think the image sums up why this topic exists. I've been having a bad time in PvZ and I can't quite suss out why. Last season I was sat at around about 60% winrate and feeling pretty happy about my PvZ as a whole but now I'm just frustrated and angry at myself for suddenly being so bad.
Just as a general overview of my PvZ style. I like to open forge first as I feel it's really flexible as an opener. I can easily expand behind it after scouting a hatch first or cannon rush. It also works nicely as a defensive opener in case of quick pools or baneling busts. From there I either transition into Robo or Stargate, depending on map and what I scout my opponent doing.
Now for the replays. My analysis isn't exactly great when I try to write it out, so I apologise for that.
http://ggtracker.com/matches/5887253 - Deadwing
Most recent match and honestly the one that broke the camel's back. I got so horribly slaughtered I almost just quit out the game for the day until I saw the stats, clearly the guy is a smurfing asshat but anyway.
As usual, especially on Deadwing, I go forge first. Originally I was going to cannon rush but a) I scout in the wrong direction first and b) when I do eventually get to his natural there's already a drone waiting for my probe so I decide to just grab my scouting info and expand.
I dislike cross spawns on Deadwing against Zerg, so I decide to go into Stargate tech because honestly, Robo tech kinda sucks in these positions and I've had the most success, at least last season by going Skytoss with mostly Void Rays.
I hallucination scout and see his quick 3rd base and his Roach Warren only just going down, figuring he was playing reasonably greedy I put down my own 3rd base to try and keep up economically and to make sure I can start to pump out my air army.
Then suddenly I find a sizeable army at my 3rd and absolutely no way to defend it. I try my best before tapping out wondering how the fuck he got an army that big that quick.
http://ggtracker.com/matches/5887257 - Overgrowth
Now this game is a bizarre one from both sides. I didn't play well even though I won and I know it.
It starts with me getting my usual forge, scouting, seeing no hatchery and then seeing the completed Spawning Pool. Instantly I throw down 2 pylons and a cannon, anticipating Zerglings turning up at my wall at any second. My probe escapes for the moment, and I change one of the pylons into a cannon just for extra security.
I expand after not seeing any lings appear thinking maybe he went for an expand after getting his pool scouted, go for another scout with my Probe. Still no hatch in his natural, poke into his base, see a Baneling Nest morphing in. Again instantly throw down more cannons to buff up my wall a bit more, due to me playing reasonably greedy vs what I was up against.
Now for the mistakes, I sort of forget upgrades for a long part of that game, luckily for me my opponent seemed to have forgotten that Evo chambers were a thing and didn't build a single one. When I killed the Hatch at the natural I felt certain that was his 2nd hatch as I'd thought I'd already scouted the gold base which I actually hadn't. If my opponent had played that a lot better I would've most certainly lost.
http://ggtracker.com/matches/5887260 - Vaani Research Station
Okay this game I successfully managed to cannon the Zerg natural, despite it being a pocket expansion, while getting my own expansion up. The cannons were mainly due to Mutalisks being really good on this map. I feel like my choice to go for a Dark Shrine instead of scouting and going straight into my Robo bay was probably what cost me the game.
http://ggtracker.com/matches/5887297 - Expedition Lost
In this game Crank murders me horribly with Swarm Hosts after I decide to not scout the gold bases and he takes one, also because he's a butt
General Points on my weaknesses in my play that come to mind for me:
My scouting could be better, more hallucinations, more often I tech too quick leaving me very open to sudden swells of units? I should harrass more, snipe key tech buildings where possible? Warp in more sentries? I'm atrocious at dealing with Muta/Ling compositions Also atrocious at defending speedling counter attacks and swells of speedlings.
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First off, 30 games are not that many to draw conclusions. Maybe you're being a bit unlucky.
In gold league, usually players make very general-basic mistakes, so you shouldn't focus on fixing specific things.
1) Deadwing game.
So the most important thing in this game is the good old probes and pylons. Probes: Your bookmarks with Forge-Nexus should be : 38 probes at 6:40, 44 probes at 7:30. If you're not going for gateway pressure, 6:40 is the first moment where you stop chronoing probes, as you will switch over to chronoboosting stargate/robo units. From the moment where you start your photon cannon to that point, you have to produce and chronoboost costantly probes. How you failed your bookmarks: you had 30 probes at 6:40 (8 behind) and 35 probes at 7:30 (9 behind). So this delayed you a lot, whereas your opponent had a fairly decent macro (almost too good for gold) reaching 67 supply at 7:40.
Pylons: it's important to not get supply blocked in the early game like you did. In order to do this, you need to know your build order, so that you know when to build pylons. After you've practiced it dozens of times, you will never get a pylon wrong (if you get supply blocked later on, it's not as important).
Your 3rd base was about 2minutes late considering what you did. When your opponent attack hit, at 11:50, you should have had full 3 base saturation, and at least 120 supply, while you had only 42 probes and 74 supply. Imagine if you had 120 supply against the 140 of the zerg player, in conjuction with forcefields, how pathetically easy it would have been to hold of that attack. And you don't need to do anything in particular, just build probes all the time in the early game.
Obviously you can't always build probes like that all the time, you need to scout. The 1st step is seeing if the zerg is playing gasless. With this I mean that he took his 3rd base before taking his gases. A 3rd base being planted down at 3:50 is a sign that your opponent opened gasless. Against gasless you don't need any defense on 2 bases other than your initial cannon and the sentry you're gonna build anyway, so you are free to chronoboost probes until 2 base saturation.
The next time you need to worry is when you take your 3rd. At that point the zerg player might try to pressure you. So you need to use hallucinations or air units to scout. In your case, it was too late because you were already outmacroed. But if you took a third at the right time (8:00, considering your opening), you would have seen that he didn't have anything and you would've been free to go up to 66 probes immediately, and hold off the attack comfortably afterwards.
2) Overgrowth game.
This should have been a free win from the start.
However, after holding the all in, you aren't doing anything. You are sitting in your base, and not building probes either. It's like you're playing extremely safe all the time against an attack that never comes. Personally I would have just gone for a gateway all in with sentries. No way that can fail. Even if he builds units all the time, he can't withstand 7 gateway production with ling/banes off of 1 base, and if he builds drones, then he won't have enough units to defend the initial attack. Even if you are scared, just send out hallucination scouts. You see he has nothing, and you know you can do whatever you want: you can even take a gold base, go up to 70 probes, build colossi and stalkers and amove to the win. But you didn't scout anything, and you didn't build probes, and you didn't attack either.
You waited until minute 24 to attack and win the game, when you could have done that around 15 minutes earlier. By the way, it's pretty clear you have problems at using your income. You can't have 7k/5k bank and be stuck at 100 supply. Once you've been on 3 bases for a while, you should go up to 12-14 gateways + robotics facility/stargate. You never went past 6 warpgates. The reaction to mutalisks scouted late like that is dropping down 2 stargates immediately, adding a few cannons (not as many as you did, and in more useful positions), and warping a few rounds of stalkers to hold off the initial attack (especially if you went for blink). Then get range and air upgrades asap while building phoenixes continuously.
3) Vaani game.
4 cannons at your natural for no reason whatsoever at 9:30? Really? If you're afraid of mutalisks, you need to scout, you can't build useless cannons like that. Obviously you need something to scout, that's why if you're not going stargate you need to get a sentry out ASAP (they're pretty good in general anyway, in particular you're not gonna immortal all in that late without sentries...), or at the very least build an observer as your first robo unit. Hell, you could have even warped in a zealot with your pylons at your opponent's natural.
The general issue in the game is that you sit in your 2 bases doing nothing for too long against Zerg. Either you attack immediately, or you take your third. Also, don't build stalkers for no reason in the early game. Sentries are always preferable even when going mass blinkstalkers as they build up energy and cost very few minerals, which allows you to get all the infrastructure you need (third base/mass gateways/probes) to have lots of units later on.
4) Expedition Lost game. This is similar to the other games. You played overly safe. After cannon rushing, you need to scout if your opponent is going all in or taking other bases, although the 2nd is more likely considering you didn't take control of the ramp. The easiest way to check this is by scouting your opponent's gases. No gases = either proxy hatch or your opponent took another expo. Had you scouted that, you wouldn't have needed any cannons at your backdoor rocks, and you didn't need to chronoboost anything but probes for a while.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To sum up: you need a much better scouting in order to understand if you can play greedy or aggressive. You tend to not scout and always play overly safe as if your opponent was going all-in against you, which he isn't 90% of the times. HotS protoss has all the tools it needs for scouting: against zerg, especially, you should rely on hallucinations and air units (oracle/phoenixes).
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