I'm pretty sure I lost this game due to horrible mechanics in general, but I'd like to get some skilled players to comment on what I need to improve (obv. everything, lol) and how a better reaction would be to this.
You need to do a self analysis according to the guidelines, but I'm gonna say a few hints.
He tried to do hatch first, but instead went for gas and pool, if he takes ANY gasses before 6 min you should react by adding canons etc, he did however just play "bad" or very safe.
You basically didn't scout at all, so you didn't know it was coming, what do you mean by that comment=? You should also scout for a third, (which he took very late) and you tried to do an all in versus a very early third.
Also you shouldn't make pylons a part of your wall, he can just snipe your pylons and your canons are gone.
Realisticly he could have all inned you after he took his gas, since you didn't scout or react at all.
I watched. Here's my advice (I play in master league).
First, your comment at the end wasn't particularly "bad manner" in the sense of being disrespectful to your opponent, but it's definitely an example of bad attitude. What your opponent did was not a particularly powerful attack, and you had more than enough units to defend it easily. You threw away a battle you should have been able to win. So it does not make sense to blame circumstances (e.g., "that kind of attack is just so hard to hold" -- implying that there's something unfair at work here). With practice, you can easily win in that situation, but your attitude will hold you back from achieving that improvement.
Ok, more specific points:
1. As the poster above me pointed out, you knew he had gas early but you essentially had no reaction. That is the most important piece of information you could possibly have at that stage of the game, but it seems not to have played any role in your decision-making process. Generally a second cannon, at a minimum, is a safe response to early gas play.
2. I don't recommend pylon-blocking before you've placed a structure at home (either your forge or your nexus--actually, if you nexus first, I don't personally recommend the pylon block at all).
3. You didn't check for his third. At a minimum you need to check for a third at around 5 minutes. He didn't have one. If you had, you'd have known at 5 minutes that aggression was incoming. It's true that it took him a bizarrely long time to bring that aggression, but that just means you could have had many minutes to prepare with an additional cannon or two, more sentries, and a better defensive position with your units.
4. I like your forward pylon, but not your use of it. You sent two zealots into his third when you had no reason to think it wouldn't have defenses capable of dealing with that. Then, later, you're getting attacked by a large roach force--that would have been the perfect time to warp in a round of zealots and a-move them into his third. You might have forced a partial retreat even just by doing that.
5. Your observer should be in a better position to see his army composition and when it moves out. Parking it over his third doesn't tell you much.
6. Finally, in the ultimate engagement: at 10:30 you see his large roach force moving out toward you. You then proceed to place your third nexus, and move your army from a very secure location at the top of your ramp to the open field in front of your third (where there isn't a wall, and you won't have time to build one). You see his army approaching your ramp and you move further out into the field to engage it. This isn't the worst decision because you could have forcefielded a bunch of his roaches on the ramp and given yourself a nice little engagement. Instead, you wait for his roaches to come off the ramp to meet you, and in fact let them run right up to melee range, and then forcefield in a line that stretches away from your army. These forcefields do nothing for you--with an immortal sentry composition, the forcefields are used to keep the roaches away from your army (which is why a defensive/protected position is so important in this situation), but you've got roaches on top of your army now, focus-firing your shit. You have enough energy on your sentries even after the initial volleys from the roaches kill several that you could have kept forcefielding, even made a forcefield donut. But you don't--the result is that the roaches are again able to approach and get a full surround on your army. At that point you're dead--no more sentries, immortals getting focused, plenty of roaches still streaming in.
7. Your macro in terms of probe production is good--I think you should now try to focus on tightening your builds so that you get more stuff when you need it (buildings earlier, tech earlier, production facilities earlier).
Hope this helps--I don't mean to be harsh, so please don't take it that way. I think you'll probably make a big jump in skill soon, because a lot of your mechanics seem very solid, so with better decisions and tactical awareness you'll be able to completely roll players like the zerg you faced here.
On August 19 2012 21:29 Viter wrote: You need to do a self analysis according to the guidelines, but I'm gonna say a few hints.
He tried to do hatch first, but instead went for gas and pool, if he takes ANY gasses before 6 min you should react by adding canons etc, he did however just play "bad" or very safe.
You basically didn't scout at all, so you didn't know it was coming, what do you mean by that comment=? You should also scout for a third, (which he took very late) and you tried to do an all in versus a very early third.
Also you shouldn't make pylons a part of your wall, he can just snipe your pylons and your canons are gone.
Realisticly he could have all inned you after he took his gas, since you didn't scout or react at all.
Ok, what I meant by knowing it's coming is that I saw the high roach amount, and no third (which was pretty awkward cause he threw it down a second after I left my probe, but that's right, I should've scouted for it much earlier.
Thanks anyway, though!
And threshy, thank you very much for the time of typing such a long and critical post, will think of this much and try to improve!
Sthlm
EnderSword Canada. August 20 2012 08:05. Posts 553
I took a look at the replay, and I think the slow beginning was largely an issue, Pylon blocking the Zerg natural really slowed everything down, you got supply blocked, Gateway was really late, making the Cybercore really late, making warp gates really late..
The Zerg never had a reason to feel like he might be attacked, and you were completely wide open to any form of attack until about 9 minutes in, just a slow development and very passive opening.
The ending itself though, you could have won that fight through positioning, forcefields and continuing to use your Robo.
Store
