Good day everyone, I am a high silver Zerg who has only started playing the game a few weeks ago. While learning how to get better at the game, everyone says "macro better," and "probes and pylons," "drone timings," "injects," etc.
I played a ZvP just now and he FFE'd, so I went for a 3 base roach/hydra timing. Watching the replay, I don't think that my macro could've been any better without being too greedy, except for three things: 1. Forgot my roach warren + hydra range, got them late 2. Got +1 melee instead of range 3. Made 10 overlords at once (this was kind of for fun...also I figured that it won't be too bad considering my bases are saturated and my army's sizable enough to defend any push)
Here is the replay, please point out any macro mistakes, and I'm not too bothered about strategy.
I'd also like to point out that I had an extremely low APM, but still managed to crush his forces throughout the whole game.
Thanks!
Mavvie.439 ~ 2500+MMR [HOTS] Masters Zerg on NA ~ part of Bronze 3v3 team uwu ~ Feel free to add me to play some games ~~ Hyunstoppable?
I don't want to watch your replay but IF you actually would macro decently, you wouldn't be in silver league. That is fact. With decent macro you can a + click to victory in silver league because you got so much more stuff. Thats all people try to say with "macro better" or "probes and pylons".
'Macro better' is a saying that apparently worked like 1,5 years ago, these days it's just a stupid remnant of an 'advice' that never really did any help, only made lazy people think they were helping a lower league player get better ._.
I am the 4%, http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewpost.php?post_id=17208214 Also known as Heather~ a cancer to teamliquid and probably a terrible, possibly bed wetting, person.
MysteryMeat1 United States. May 12 2012 05:33. Posts 1214
SC2 is broken on my comp for the moment but if you look at your replay, do your queens ever go above 50 energy. Do your minerals ever get above 600 or so. if you had enough to build 10 more overlords at one time then you aren't spending your money as efficiently as you might think you are.
Also is your build order as tight as it can be. People have told me that for zerg you should watch a stream of a high level pro player that does the strat that you are practicing. How much stuff does he have at 5 minutes at 10 minutes. If you aren't hitting what he is hitting then there are definite improvements to be made in your macro.
I'm an egg breaker http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=363033 "MVP King of wings" #1 Choya Fanboi!!! <3
I was actually completely spot on with my injects--by 10:00 they had <10 energy after injecting, and I don't think it went much higher than that. I made 1 extra queen/hatch to deal with air harass, but should've used them to spread creep after.
I actually did a-click to victory. my apm spiked in a battle...because i was just re-maxing out on roaches in case he was hiding a second army or something.
I believe that I am still in silver because promotions aren't as easy as people say--it's hard to have a good win-rate when I'm being matched against high Gold/low Plat players.
MysteryMeat1, I definitely want to watch streams more, but don't have much time.
Thanks guys, if anyone could watch the replay you could see that my build is actually pretty streamlined, i do a 15p/16h. but at ~20 food i have an extra 300 minerals, usually for a roach warren or other T1 tech for early game
Mavvie.439 ~ 2500+MMR [HOTS] Masters Zerg on NA ~ part of Bronze 3v3 team uwu ~ Feel free to add me to play some games ~~ Hyunstoppable?
Jojo131 Philippines. May 12 2012 05:38. Posts 1308
On May 12 2012 05:30 Cokefreak wrote: 'Macro better' is a saying that apparently worked like 1,5 years ago, these days it's just a stupid remnant of an 'advice' that never really did any help, only made lazy people think they were helping a lower league player get better ._.
Yet ironically most lower league players have bad macro, what terrible advice to give from such lazy people.
On May 12 2012 05:30 Cokefreak wrote: 'Macro better' is a saying that apparently worked like 1,5 years ago, these days it's just a stupid remnant of an 'advice' that never really did any help, only made lazy people think they were helping a lower league player get better ._.
Yet ironically most lower league players have bad macro, what terrible advice to give from such lazy people.
By lazy I meant people not bothering to even read more than the topic title or not watch the replay provided, just answering with a generic 'macro better' thinking it would solve any problem a lower league player had, even when it was something like 'how to deal with a cannon rush' question.
I am the 4%, http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewpost.php?post_id=17208214 Also known as Heather~ a cancer to teamliquid and probably a terrible, possibly bed wetting, person.
ManBearPigNL Netherlands. May 12 2012 05:46. Posts 63
It's about using your resources to gain an advantage, and the player who can use his resources better/ more efficient will probably win. So first you need resources: this is where building workers constantly until ~75 comes in, more workers = more income. Then you need to spend those resources, if you have 10 zerglings and 250 minerals and your opponent has 20 zerglings with 0 minerals he had better macro, he used his resources more effectively. With zerg it's a bit harder to decide what to build, but if you get in the habbit of keeping your resources low, then you can learn when to make which unit. To help with always being able to use your resources you must never get supplyblocked, because you then can't use your resources to gain an advantage. Same with larvae injects, if you don't have enough larvae, you can't use your resources.
Maybe watching some Day[9] videos might help you with learning zerg (http://www.youtube.com/user/day9tv) noobie tuesdays are the shows you can look for.
Zrana United Kingdom. May 12 2012 05:48. Posts 674
No quick 3rd base vs FFE (that's quite a big macro error there) In general quite nice macro really, perhaps you overmake overlords just a little but thats np. Also you don't really spend your larvae as quickly as perhaps you could.
err you won? Macro seems to work then?
Basically just tweak the OV timings a little (check a pro stream like stephano) and spend those larva faster.
TheFrankOne United States. May 12 2012 06:04. Posts 666
On May 12 2012 05:26 Mavvie wrote: Good day everyone, I am a high silver Zerg who has only started playing the game a few weeks ago. While learning how to get better at the game, everyone says "macro better," and "probes and pylons," "drone timings," "injects," etc.
I played a ZvP just now and he FFE'd, so I went for a 3 base roach/hydra timing. Watching the replay, I don't think that my macro could've been any better without being too greedy, except for three things: 1. Forgot my roach warren + hydra range, got them late 2. Got +1 melee instead of range 3. Made 10 overlords at once (this was kind of for fun...also I figured that it won't be too bad considering my bases are saturated and my army's sizable enough to defend any push)
Here is the replay, please point out any macro mistakes, and I'm not too bothered about strategy.
I'd also like to point out that I had an extremely low APM, but still managed to crush his forces throughout the whole game.
Thanks!
Just watched your game, lower league players are also told to "play standard" and while you did macro well (and won, so the advice seems to be working) you did something quite weird. Also you did not get attacked before 19 minutes so your injects should be very good or else that is all you should be focusing on.
The "4 gas on two base into hydra strategy" vs ffe is not normal, another poster recommended streams, I would recommend dappollo's tutorials. Lower league players cannot benefit from a lot of advice about things like "timings" of what your opponents doing, a safe macro focused style is going to be a great plan, dapollo can help you with that.
(I'm not saying timings are unimportant at lower leagues but the idea of "standard" is foreign and you need to focus on your timings, and know that your opponent could be doing something totally nonstandard, like we see in this game)
Part one of zerg tutorial geared toward lower league players and way more useful than a lot of other advice because of that focus.
On May 12 2012 05:48 Zrana wrote: OK watching it though:
No quick 3rd base vs FFE (that's quite a big macro error there) In general quite nice macro really, perhaps you overmake overlords just a little but thats np. Also you don't really spend your larvae as quickly as perhaps you could.
err you won? Macro seems to work then?
Basically just tweak the OV timings a little (check a pro stream like stephano) and spend those larva faster.
so if they FFE i take my third before saturating other bases? seems...wrong
yeah i have a bad habit of "what's he making? i'll hold on to these larvae until i know"
Thanks TheFrankOne, but I find hydras are just so, so good at early defence. They counter any early air units, and eat up gateway units (especially with roach meatshield). You're right that I was lucky he didn't attack, not quite sure what he was doing haha I actually happen to know A timing vs FFE: 6-7 gate push hits ~10:30. I'll be sure to watch those tutorials, thanks again!
Mavvie.439 ~ 2500+MMR [HOTS] Masters Zerg on NA ~ part of Bronze 3v3 team uwu ~ Feel free to add me to play some games ~~ Hyunstoppable?
I'm a plat league zerg. My macro isn't perfect by any means, so take what I have to say with a grain of salt if you want.
Go go bullet points: * Early in the game, you built one queen in your main. Then, when your natural expansion was finished, you began building a queen there. It's actually better to your first queen, inject with it, and send it to your natural. Build another queen in your main while she crawls over. This might sound like a small change, but the difference is exponential since it's so early. Also you had 150 minerals just sorta lying around at the time, so why not?
* at 8:20 you had 34 excess supply. That's too much. Try to keep around 10-20 excess supply only.
* Your evo chambers sat around for a full minute before they began researching upgrades. You had the money to start the upgrades during this time as well. Try to begin the upgrades as soon as you can afford them.
* You were supply blocked around 110 supply, probably since you forgot to spend your larvae from the last inject. Don't let larvae sit around like that. You also didn't spend your larvae in the period prior to getting those 10 overlords
* I know you didn't want to hear about strategy - but on three bases it's a good idea to get a fourth hatchery for macro, along with a queen injecting. I think you spent that money going for tech. It's better to max out early with a macro hatch, then tech as you're attacking.
* You need to stockpile more gas before starting infestors.
Overall, the biggest piece of advice I have for you is: spend those larvae ASAP! Your opponent was a turtle in this game, so it didn't really matter. But against a 4gate, you need every last zergling you can get!
Hope that helped! Let me know if you have any questions
"The key to strategy is not to choose a path to victory, but to choose so that all paths lead to a victory" - Lois McMaster Bujold
On May 12 2012 05:48 Zrana wrote: OK watching it though:
No quick 3rd base vs FFE (that's quite a big macro error there) In general quite nice macro really, perhaps you overmake overlords just a little but thats np. Also you don't really spend your larvae as quickly as perhaps you could.
err you won? Macro seems to work then?
Basically just tweak the OV timings a little (check a pro stream like stephano) and spend those larva faster.
so if they FFE i take my third before saturating other bases? seems...wrong
yeah i have a bad habit of "what's he making? i'll hold on to these larvae until i know"
Thanks TheFrankOne, but I find hydras are just so, so good at early defence. They counter any early air units, and eat up gateway units (especially with roach meatshield). You're right that I was lucky he didn't attack, not quite sure what he was doing haha I actually happen to know A timing vs FFE: 6-7 gate push hits ~10:30. I'll be sure to watch those tutorials, thanks again!
you will be oversaturated on 2 base, you want you third base asap. hydras are very fragile and very expensive and instantly lose to colossus. you also cannot make them until lair tech, which means you will be stuck on speedlings to defend if you are caught unawares. you should be defending with spores and queens vs voids and phoenixes so that you can make as many drones as possible.
It includes an SQ calculator at the end of the post. Keep track of your SQ after each game, making it a personal goal to hit 100+ EVERY game. I was a high gold player when I started doing this - playing vs mostly platinums. I ranked back down to bronze purposely and started from the bottom up. This allowed me to focus ONLY on spending my resources. For a while its almost like a personal competition in which you try to get higher SQ every game - it doesnt even feel like your playing vs someone else. Eventually, your sooooooo used to ALWAYS spending your money, that it becomes second nature. Also, once you do this well, its incredible how easy it becomes to rank up. I was in bronze for a LONG time, struggling to get to silver and then finally to gold. Ranking down to bronze was like a bad heart break for me. I didnt want to do it, but forced myself to.
Honestly, once you learn to spend all your resources and it becomes as easy as breathing, you can focus on other things like micro and strategy and other cool shit like that. I consistently go on 15-20 game win streaks now and the common factor in all my games is that i spend more money than my enemy does. the occassional losses usually come from either smurfs who are masters or higher on their main accounts or someone who has perfected cannon rushing like gaulzi.
The reason I recommend you start from bronze is because you dont need to micro or anything like that. Your only goal and purpose in every game is to spend your money and a-move units to the back of your enemies base. Once you have this down you can incorporate other things like scouting, reading your opponent, microing units, harrass, ect. I know it sounds stupid but give it a try. I ranked back up in one day (had gotten my points down to 0 - was placed like 75 in bronze).
In short - Spend all your resources on army so you consistently get over 100 SQ. Once your doing that, then add things like upgrades and tech while maintaining over 100 SQ. You will be SUCH a better player, and its so easy to do.
Ok I've watched the replay. Don't know why I'm saying this because it's pretty obvious haha.
~2:00 Your scouting drone isn't really necessary. If you sent the first overlord towards his main choke, you would have scouted the lowground pylon and forge. It would still be in time to see the high ground gateway too (if he went gateway first), then you can adjust your build accordingly.
3:35 You don't need an early gas in ZvP against a FFE. The gas you mined won't do anything for a while. If it's a gateway expand, grab gas because you'll need ling speed and possibly roaches if he goes 1 base. You should be grabbing a third instead, but you can still play off 2 bases relatively fine.
These two things are what set your economy back in the early game. Macro is also optimizing builds. The execution is pretty good.
~5.00 You actually have very nice saturation. 16 drones in main, transferring the rest to the natural.
7:20 Why hydras.... Just mass a ton of roaches. You put down the hydra den even before scouting stargate. If you scout the stargate, just put down 2 spores per hatch, and get 2 more queens. If there's 2 stargates, add more. Hydras not necessary.
10:30 Why get melee upgrades when you're getting only hydras? Your evos were also idle for a long time.
15:00 You didn't scout that warp prism, which almost dealt serious damage. You also need better overlord spread. Send them everywhere. When you're building them, just rally them individually. On daybreak there's those nice little blue squares. Park an overlord on top of every single one of them.
In the early game, you constantly use up your larva stockpile which is good. However, your larva spending not optimal. You wait until you have 5+ larva before building stuff. Just constantly use them to build drones. Again, these things add up. However, later in the game, your larva begins to stockpile.
If you want a simple way to play ZvP, get a quick third if he's going FFE. Spam roaches, and a-move. Easy. No micro required.
Couple of quick things, your lair timing made no sense and the speedling timing made no sense (especially going for roach hydra), two evo chambers and getting your upgrades rolling would have made more sense in that situation.
You had 30+ drones at 6 minutes which is great, but at 8 minutes you only had 46 with none in production and larva to spend. Couple that with a slow third (and a risky timing being that 8 minutes is generally when you see some zealot pressure) and things will quickly fall apart. You don't actually break 50 drones until the 9:38 mark and you don't get your 60+ until 11:30, that's way too late. 60+ in a zvp going with a roach style should happen by 8 minutes, and you were on track to do that at 6 minutes so you really need to look at the game from 6-8 minutes to see where your macro essentially fell apart.
You did it backwards too, going for hydra's first then roaches. What happens if your opponent sends an obs out, sees all the hydras and quickly goes for 2-3 colossus? Your injects also start to fall apart later on, and there's no sign of a macro hatch even getting started.
Mechanically you were fairly solid, but there was no plan and no thought out timings for when you made your structures and units. Some small adjustments to your build and you'll rip through silver, gold, plat etc.
The problem with your build is that it doesn't make much sense in terms of gas and tech timings.
Your opening is 2 base fast lair with a fast 4 gas. Since the lair comes before your third, you're essentially trading the superior economy of a fast 3rd base for the faster lair tech and the gas to afford it. From the opposite perspective, you'll have to justify having a poorer economy with whatever extra damage you can do with the lair tech you rushed towards. Generally the economy route is a more robust and flexible opening which is not as easily hard countered.
Now, roach/hydra is a composition that relies on having superior economy so you can throw huge number of units at him in the midgame. So, going for a fast tech type opening doesn't synergize well with that kind of strategy. The current popular opening in ZvP hits a max with roach/ling by 12 minutes; this can be followed up with a maxed roach/hydra army at 13-14 minutes after trading away a portion of the first army. As a contrast, because of your expansion/gas/tech timings not working together you've yet to hit your first maxed army at 14 minutes.
Another thing to note is that your build has huge vulnerabilities to timings. At silver your opponents will have horribly optimized builds (i.e. the 2 base stargate 6 gate robo double forge with zealot charge your opponent did this game) so you won't be punished too much, but eventually you'll need to work in a few safety measures into your build. For instance, if he attacks you before your hydras are out, you'll be forced to defend a 6 gate with lings only because you didn't get your roach warren or spine crawlers (6 gate hits at 8:30 with good macro btw). Supposing that you did have a roach warren done, you would be constantly depleting your minerals while banking extra gas, meaning you wouldn't be spending your resources efficiently and that you're limiting your ability to produce enough roaches to defend properly. Alternatively, let's say he turtles like he did but goes straight for colossus tech while gathering energy with sentries. Suddenly that fight that won you the game could go entirely the opposite way despite having a 50 food advantage, which is why most zergs tend to avoid hydra play.
To summarize, generally you'll want to delay taking gases in the early game and delay going for lair in order to build more drones earlier, and take a faster 3rd (15p, 16h, 24h, 44 double gas is quite a standard opening these days against FFE). Learn the common builds your opponents can do against you, and time things out so you get defenses up just in time. For instance, a 7:00 evo chamber should get you spores up in time against dts, assuming that you're denying his ability to get a proxy pylon on your side of the map. By delaying your evo chamber, you have more minerals early on to make more drones, and you'll be able to make more units later on.
On May 12 2012 05:48 Zrana wrote: OK watching it though:
No quick 3rd base vs FFE (that's quite a big macro error there) In general quite nice macro really, perhaps you overmake overlords just a little but thats np. Also you don't really spend your larvae as quickly as perhaps you could.
err you won? Macro seems to work then?
Basically just tweak the OV timings a little (check a pro stream like stephano) and spend those larva faster.
so if they FFE i take my third before saturating other bases? seems...wrong
yeah i have a bad habit of "what's he making? i'll hold on to these larvae until i know"
Thanks TheFrankOne, but I find hydras are just so, so good at early defence. They counter any early air units, and eat up gateway units (especially with roach meatshield). You're right that I was lucky he didn't attack, not quite sure what he was doing haha I actually happen to know A timing vs FFE: 6-7 gate push hits ~10:30. I'll be sure to watch those tutorials, thanks again!
Well, it's not wrong. Zergs should always want a base over terran or protoss unless they are doing a specific build. If terran is going for a 1 rax epand, you should be greedier and going for a quick third, if protoss is going FFE you should be greedier and getting a quick third. Now if he was doing an one base play then you stay on 2 base to defend it if you want.
NrG.ZaM United States. May 12 2012 08:01. Posts 254
You reduced your income by sending out a scouting drone when you opted for a pool first build anyway, which is completely unnecessary, the scouting overlord can easily see everything your drone saw anyway.
You took your gas really quickly and got ling speed, but had no real map vision and built 0 lings so speed wouldn't have helped you if he just attacked you at any point since you wouldn't have seen it coming in time to build anything.
Your third was super late, vs forge expand its pretty common to throw down the 3rd hatchery like 3 minutes before you did.
You said you were aiming for a roach/hydra attack, but your army was 100% hydras for a really long time, they're too fragile to have alone, you either need a buttload of lings supporting, or roaches, and if you go that route you'd want more roaches than hydras.
You built extra queens everywhere after seeing phoenix when you already had hydras on the map, then did nothing with the queens.
It was a really weird choice to go for hydras first, you could have had a much larger army much faster if you'd gone for roaches first instead, got a faster third, and churned out upgrades and lings if needed to defend against aggression while sitting on 2 gasses.
Post better replays for better advice, this game was pretty much over after the 9 minute mark, the protoss wasn't doing anything, and never had any intention of countering your unit composition, it was just 10 minutes of waiting for the a-move. Try to post ones where you lose, they're often FAR more revealing than a game where you won.
Servius_Fulvius United States. May 12 2012 08:24. Posts 947
On May 12 2012 06:36 Mavvie wrote: so if they FFE i take my third before saturating other bases? seems...wrong
This is actually an acceptable response. The idea behind this is that the toss is taking a very fast expansion themselves and spending a lot of time on economy and their desired tech route. They turtle in with a good sim city, so you respond to their fast economy and tech with your own fast economy and tech.
I'm struggling to understand your overall game plan. Were you going hydra/roach or a more stephano-style roach? Or were the hydra a response to scouting a few phoenix?
As for your macro - it needs some work. The 8:00 benchmark is when a zerg should have 65-70 supply in workers, queens, and a few lings. Granted, this benchmark is for a 3 base zerg, but in the games where I go two base (as a response to one base protoss play) I'll have about 60 supply with room for improvement. You had 50, so it should be a priority to raise that number with drones.
yeah i have a bad habit of "what's he making? i'll hold on to these larvae until i know"
I call this "playing the counter game". You wait to see what your opponent has and then you build its counter. This works well in the lowest leagues. In higher leagues this puts you behind.
A couple scouts of building and unit compositions will tell you if you need to react. Usually players react to stargate play with a couple spores and extra queens and only build hydras if toss builds a lot of air (say, 3-4 voids and 5-8 phoenix). You just needed to scout once and see the stargate to know what was coming. In one case you scouted a bunch of warpgates finishing. This tells you toss will be making a lot of ground forces. Belial's guide contains a lot of common scouting situations and how to interpret what you see. Additionally, poking the front with a few speedlings or roaches will give you an idea of composition so you can better tailor your army.
I find hydras are just so, so good at early defence. They counter any early air units, and eat up gateway units (especially with roach meatshield).
Hydras are also countered extremely easy by chargelots and colossus. They're hardly used in the pro scene against protoss (and when they are that player tends to lose). Don't get me wrong, they're pretty good against a standard protoss army until enough colossus are out, but after that it becomes extremely difficult to trade efficiently. If you really enjoy them THAT much I'd recommend stealing the build in this daily: http://blip.tv/day9tv/day-9-daily-422-p1-liquidret-zvp-5969774 (It's a quick third that's similar to stephano roaches, only you get hydra and 2/2 upgrades for ranged...dialy #285 gives a good method for stealing replays). The max happens at 13 minutes with a standard 14 pool/16 hatch. The replay for this daily and others are available on TL's weekly replay packs: (http://www.teamliquidpro.com/news/2012/02/17/this-week-in-replays-22-ret). Realize that a good toss will punish you for staying on hydra longer than necessary. I'm top 8 plat and play a mix of plats and diamond and almost all of the tosses are good enough to punish this.
For the record, your inject rate of 5.4 is FANTASTIC! You can view this number using sc2 gears' main building control. As your play starts to develop you'll find yourself adding new things constantly. Try to keep this awesome injects consistent!
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Mavvie Canada. May 12 2012 05:26. Posts 850
TheFrankOne United States. May 12 2012 06:04. Posts 666
