This replay is a typical example of my ZvT and I feel that although I made plenty of errors(Bronze) I really should have been able to win here. I seem to have alot of trouble being cost efficient against MMM. I prefer Muta to Infestor, but if this is the way I have to go please tell me. It just seems that once medivacs come out unless I am like twice as good as my opponent I will eventually lose.
Problems with this game I see: Float heaps of money, but I was maxed a fair amount what to do? Very slow on upgrades(spent alot of my apm on pressuring) Missed alot of injects
I know I could macro better but aren't I at least on par with this guy macro wise? Do I need to tech switch, but then I can no longer harass with muta. Was I just to behind on upgrades? Still other games I have been equal upgrades and the medivacs just seem to allow him to stim continuously.
Any suggestions? Thanks in advance for taking the time.
You need to get it out of your head that it's a composition thing, you're in bronze - you do everything wrong. If you legitimately want to improve your game you need to get your macro right, Floating 1k minerals within the first 6mins isn't good enough (especially when nothing is happening).
Adressing the problems that YOU see
- Floating money (maxed) - this is when you should be trying to deny expansions. However it is quite often not smart to charge into chokes and lose a lot for not much (as was the case in this game). So attacking may not be an option... Hmmmmm.. What else can i spend money on that isn't units...
-Tech. There's absolutely no reason that you couldn't have had 20 broodlords with infestors out in this game (except that you are in bronze and can't macro). Your mutas were very late, they basically killed turrets and not much else, You somehow still had insane money even on mutas (which are probably the most expensive unit in the game for what they give you). Even if you like going mutas, you should still try and get an infestation pit down and start hive, thats the point of mutas - to buy time for hive tech.
- Upgrades. Sure they're really good at the top levels, but thats where the 2 extra damage that comes out of a marine actually makes a difference to every fight - bronze league you could probably have negative upgrades and still win comfortably with only lings (IF YOU MACRO WELL).
- Macro hatches/expos - You did have some, and you expanded reasonably well, maybe just start throwing down static defense if you have the money for it, Especially at the distanced expos where it's harder for your army to cover.
I'm not trying to sound nasty (well maybe a little). Until you start losing games where you manage to keep your minerals below ~1000 off of 3 base saturation for the entire game, you should ONLY be worried about macro. Tactical/strategic decisions just don't come into play until you get the basics down correctly.
Thanks for looking at the replay and commenting I appreciate it. Attacking into chokes; if I have an advantage economicaly isn't better to trade like this? I understand your point on upgrading and this is true, so is it always better to tech than maintain pressure via poor trade?
Your point on muta's; so your saying staying with them too long will leave me behind?
As to macro, I've been trying filter's zerg build and hitting the marks, roaches are certainly easier on larvae than lings;). Long way to go but seeing improvements. But all other discussion aside, equal food MMM will crush me, is there an efficient way to deal with it?
You need to understand, the thing first and foremost that you MUST improve your macro. That ALONE will dominate all bronze players. I could personally have double the resources lost of a bronze player and still win. You SHOULD lose to equal food MMM, Zerg should always be ahead in supply.
But again, I hate to be that guy. Macro, a combination of enough income, good injects, and careful expansioning will destroy all players through gold.
EDIT: You really just need to work on spending your money. If you are gas starved, take 2 more bases and mine only gas from them. When you're maxed, make 4 macro hatcheries. Spend that money!
Last edit: 2012-05-28 01:32:40
When in doubt, scout.
totalpigeon United Kingdom. May 28 2012 01:28. Posts 86
Terran bio has considerable damage output in a ball because all of the units can attack, even the ones in the middle, due to the fact that they are all ranged. This makes the dps of the bio ball considerably better than an equal sized ball of zerglings, where only the units actually in contact with the enemy can attack (not many of them, usually). Unfortunately for you, this means that once armies reach a certain size, zerglings become very ineffective on their own. Units in a ball can also only be attacked by one or two zerglings at most, meaning the potential damage they can take is often low enough for a medivac to keep them alive for a long time, especially if upgrades are in the favour of the Terran.
Essentially, this means that the final battle, where you rushed a huge mmm ball with nothing but maxed zerglings (with worse upgrades) ended with him losing essentially nothing while you lost everything. It was a case of your composition being far too inferior to overcome the odds. So yes, you are right, the point where you lost that game was definitely due to composition for you - not that the rest of your game is correct, but when you catastrophically lose a maxed supply fight, macro is much less relevant than knowing which units you actually need or how to use them. In this scenario, you actually had the tech you needed - 30 banelings in that zergling ball would almost certainly have won that game for you. In others, you will need different units - ling, bling muta is not going to beat everything, and figuring out what your opponent is doing, knowing what you need against it and how to get those units you need out safely is what this whole game is about.
Bearwidme is correct in that he says that you need to focus on your macro, tech and upgrades - getting them down is key to going up the ranks. But as zerg, you do need to learn which units, tech and upgrades you need to handle what your opponent is doing or you will struggle immensely - beating your opponent while using an inferior composition is not necessarily impossible, but it does generally require you to be a lot, lot better than your opponent - not too easy when you're at bronze level.
Also, learn how to magic box with mutalisks.
Last edit: 2012-05-28 01:30:18
FlaminGinjaNinja United Kingdom. May 28 2012 02:53. Posts 866
Watching the game from your POV. Just general things to work on as i see them: + Show Spoiler +
1. You get supply blocked a lot at the start 2. You should scout and take the towers as soon as your lings are out 3. You get early 4 queens, just try to spread creep more 4. 8:30 you have no units, no vision and no scouting information 5. OK, you've scoutted and reacted to what you've seen but still no drones 6. 10mins, 2.5k minerals in the back, mass dem drones and get ahead! 7. 10:45, really late lair, ling speed and baneling nest only half way 8. 13mins, don't just A move ling bling, lings behind to stop them running, banes to give them hugs 9. Super late spire, still no vision anywhere on the map 10. Spire is done, muta harass does some damage, and finds the 3rd base for terran 11. X8 time now 12. 35min hive is way too late 13. He attacks and you die
OK, basic pointers, you have soooo much money that you don't spend, your tech in general is really slow and your map vision is non existent. Spread your overlords EVERYWHERE!! If part of the map is in the dark, send an overlord there.
Basically what lost you that game was bad enagements and your macro. If you have a load of ling bling you would have won, if you had hive you would have won, if you hadn't suicided a load of lings and mutas in the final battle and had instead morphed banelings you would have won
Out of interest why did you put [H][ZvT] Please help me deal with medivacs(Bronze) as your title? I was looking for drops then entire game, and there were none.......
Ling bling muta would have demolished that terran if you had spent your money on units, even if you ignore upgrades and scouting, just mass ling bling and swarm over the enemy would have won.
You might want to check this out, it helped me go from Gold to Plat in about 15 games > dignitasApollo Zerg Tutorial
GinjaNinja.661 EU server. I'd like to thank my sh*t keyyboard for always messing up my 'Y's
just as other people have already stated, maxed doesn't always mean you will win against a much smaller army which has the better tech/upgrades etc. Medivac wasn't all that important in the game
Muta imo is a difficult unit to use. you will need good decision making on when to commit with mutas, magic boxing, only works on some maps. You also need good multi tasking to make sure you aren't falling behind with your macro
In bronze, I reckon one of the best build to do is: open with ice fisher build, cheese proof and very macro orientated. Stay on 2 base after saturation, drop baneling nest instead of infestation pit and grab a third at the same time, then non stop ling baneling bust/pressure. Make sure the banelings hitting marines and keep injecting.
If you think you can't finish him off, continue droning, drop the 2 gas at 3rd and infestation pit. Tech to hive and ultras and a 4th if you can find any chance to. (broodlords will require good positioning, better to use ultras because they are more mobile)
This will help you to learn one of the most basic yet crucial micro you will need, splitting banelings to avoid tanks and chasing marines.
To sum up, if you think your macro is not bad (or just pooling a lot of resource in general but is quite ahead in resources and base), you can make tonnes of banelings and it works especially well in low league because: bioball needs to be splitted against them tanks need to focus fire onto banelings need appropriate amount of defense and building placement to stop triple hatch baneling bust
which is why banelings are a much better choice than muta or even hive tech in low leagues imo.
Thanks to everyone who helped out its been really good to get a bit of educated perspective. I've taken down all these ideas and have started to try them out and work them in, hopefully in time I can master a few of them. I have started watching DApollo basic vids and checking my replays for specific macro benchmarks. Thanks again.
ThePlayer33 Australia. May 28 2012 16:00. Posts 2377
you can totally ignore your army composition during that game, makes lots of drones and lots of lings. that can improve your horrible spending and inject, lings are cheap and need lots of larvae. especially in ZvT, lings are just generally a good unit, can attack/defend and its fast. that alone will improve your ZvT greatly
1) You stopped teching at all, 0-0 Mutas dealing with upgraded Thors and Marines, never got into Infestors, Broods, Ultras etc... never got enough upgrades etc... You've got to be progressing upwards.
2) If you're maxed like that, spend the army itself. Make him trade you, take bases forever. Just spend the money over and over. He cannot match the production and income of a 6 base Zerg.
3) You could have crushed his final attack by just going off to the side, morphing Banes and hitting him. Just be patient on those, start morphing, hit all your injects and slam him. He had some much map to cover and that was the only force he'd be producing, just take advantage of that.
So I made a video showing that game in more detail, a few cases where you could have done a lot more or had chances to advance.
-7 hatchery (plus queens) -10,000 minerals -5,000 gas
He was completely mined out.
There is no good reason for you to not win when you find yourself in this position in general, I agree completely with previous posters that your macro was heavily suspect in this game and was paramount in this loss. On a specific point, ender is bang on in his video when he highlights a moment after your opponent is mined out that the only thing standing between you and victory is his extremely fragile army and that you easily had the means to destroy his army if you had morphed those 100 or so lings into banelings (you easily had enough money to do so). If you find yourself in a similar situation in the future remember that while MASS banelings isnt the most efficient army, it certainly is better than having mass amounts of unspent resources and a pile of weak zerglings.
On a more positive note i have tomsay you certainly werent awful at acquiring resources (5 bases and 80ish drones), you just need to work on spending them. When it comes to lower level players learning to macro, your problem is far easier to fix than those that cant get those resources in the first place. Love the macro hatches, just need to focus more on injects and using up your larva.
P.s.
I find learning to use mutas while in the lower leagues is one of the hardest things you can do. As a fellow zerg noob may i suggest you focus that attention on other aspects of your game. Always keep in mind that APM (and attention in general) is a resource in this game to be spent as efficiently as possible, The "return on investment" from focusing on injects and spending will almost always be far greater than any muta harass you can do.
Best wishes
My mom has been sleeping around with the european ladder - InControL
First of all, your basic mechanics and macro are too horrendous for any tactics/strategy to help much BUT in the even that you fix that- here are some ways to deal with medivacs.
1. Good mini-map awareness. If you notice the drop coming in before they are slaughtering your drones, you can quickly pull drones away and bring in the lings/mutas/infestors/whatevertroops. 2. You can keep overlords and lings in possible drop routes to see it coming even earlier. 3. Mutas are really good at killing medivacs, you can patrol with mutas to kill drops before they even get close. 4. In the event that they manage to drop you, pull the drones away and bring in the speedlings as fast as possible. Then they might pick the marines back up and run away. When they do this, you can 1) chase down them with muta(s) 2) fungal the medivac so it can't escape. 5. If you have the money to spare, put 2 or 3 spore colonies around the perimeter of the base.
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Zerg OP | CreansRNub | k-Poop | Zerg OP | Sea lions | \\m//
On May 30 2012 14:16 superbarnie wrote: First of all, your basic mechanics and macro are too horrendous for any tactics/strategy to help much BUT in the even that you fix that- here are some ways to deal with medivacs.
1. Good mini-map awareness. If you notice the drop coming in before they are slaughtering your drones, you can quickly pull drones away and bring in the lings/mutas/infestors/whatevertroops. 2. You can keep overlords and lings in possible drop routes to see it coming even earlier. 3. Mutas are really good at killing medivacs, you can patrol with mutas to kill drops before they even get close. 4. In the event that they manage to drop you, pull the drones away and bring in the speedlings as fast as possible. Then they might pick the marines back up and run away. When they do this, you can 1) chase down them with muta(s) 2) fungal the medivac so it can't escape. 5. If you have the money to spare, put 2 or 3 spore colonies around the perimeter of the base.
Did you watch the Replay? I don't think there was a drop in this whole game and He was on a 6 base economy vs a Turtling terran.
Dropping random advice without watching is one thing, but don't begin with a sentence calling the guy 'Horrendous' if you didn't even look at the damn thing.
Hit your injects and mass roache/hydra until platinum. If you just make a ton of stuff and attack/defend, you'll be fine. There isn't a non-smurf below gold who can beat a guy who has alright mechanics. Even bronze/silver cheese is poorly executed. If it were well executed, they'd be in Diamond/masters, where I have to deal with them now... hah.
Endersword thanks so much for taking the time to cast the replay it was immensely helpful, not to mention painful . Its pretty obvious where I've gone wrong and Im working on it, especially the tech element. I've since won a few games that I know I would have lost previously through keeping my money low via tech and expanding, and really focussing on injects. The ones I've lost have been the ones where I started floating money again. I think at this stage that Muta is too distracting from my macro so I'm tending to stay away.
Adrenaline1001 United States. May 31 2012 08:30. Posts 3
I agree with everyone here about you needing to macro more, as a bronze player you shouldn't even really be focusing on the opponents and what they could be doing, you should be focusing on you and what you could be doing. AS long as you macro like crazy you'll push your way out of bronze fairly quickly. I suggest going to youtube and check out FilterSC. He's great at teaching mechanics and helping you build your macro skills.
This is his first video of the Zerg series. I watched all of his Terran videos and jumped from gold to plat in 2 weeks. (after being stuck in gold for months)
On May 30 2012 22:15 Applemiester wrote: Endersword thanks so much for taking the time to cast the replay it was immensely helpful, not to mention painful . Its pretty obvious where I've gone wrong and Im working on it, especially the tech element. I've since won a few games that I know I would have lost previously through keeping my money low via tech and expanding, and really focussing on injects. The ones I've lost have been the ones where I started floating money again. I think at this stage that Muta is too distracting from my macro so I'm tending to stay away.
I find that to be the case, Mutas just consume your attention so much, they're good, but if you don't have basics down its so time consuming.
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ThePlayer33 Australia. May 28 2012 16:00. Posts 2377
. Its pretty obvious where I've gone wrong and Im working on it, especially the tech element. I've since won a few games that I know I would have lost previously through keeping my money low via tech and expanding, and really focussing on injects. The ones I've lost have been the ones where I started floating money again. I think at this stage that Muta is too distracting from my macro so I'm tending to stay away.
