**** Original Starcraft 2 Thread ****

[Alex74]

http://drop.sc/116477

...would you guys mind having a watch of this replay and giving me some feedback about my playing. That's one of the best games I've played in a while, really enjoyed it and felt I played pretty decent. Obviously though I've a long way to improve so what would you say I should have done different? (I am the Terran in the replay). I don't mean things like "shouldn't have got supply blocked" or "should have kept your minerals lower at time X" as I know these are flaws in my play. What I want tips on are things like my overall strategy, building and unit placement, tech choices and scouting, how I respond to things etc. Things I might not realise myself that I could be doing better. Thanks in advance

First point, congratulations on winning an XvZ on metalopolis

Ok i'm assuming you're not really too interested on basic build tightness, but your build couldve been a lot smoother. Assuming you werent just making it up as you went along it's definitely worth doing some practice games against the computer or anyone in a custom where you focus on executing your build perfectly. For example, in general you want to start that reactor on your barracks around the same time you start your factory if you want reactor hellions.

So basic mechanics aside, I'd definitely be looking to improve your unit control. When it comes to hellions in particular, you ended up basically sacrificing them for very little benefit. I'm sure you know now that running past the spines wasnt the best idea. When the front is that well defended, just rendezvous with your medivac and drop as many as you can into the back of their base instead. Once they're there, you do need to keep an eye on them. Yes they'll generally do a decent amount of damage, but if the zerg responds well then you'll be in a tough spot. Take care to ensure that you're ready to pack up and get out of their base at any time. Otherwise you're sacrificing 4-500 mins worth of units for not very much gain. Rememeber, you can always drop again once their lings have moved away. Dont think you have to do as much damage as is physically possible because your hellions are guaranteed to die, think instead how much damage you can do without losing anything yourself, and you'll be far better suited to chipping away at the zerg. In this instance your opponent didnt even have speed on his lings. Almost invariably they'll either have speed zerglings or roaches ready, so you have to be ready to act at a moment's notice.

Now an important point here is that you're not MVP, so microing your hellions perfectly and macroing at the same time isnt going to be that easy. But remember you can do the majority of your general macro without actually looking at your base. Try to practice just using hotkeys from somewhere else on the map to continue your production. That way you can always try to keep a better eye on your harassment and respond if necessary.

Moving on . Upgrades are becoming more and more important in TvZ imo, especially since more and more you see double evo ground forces and upgraded mutas being used. I personally like having double engibay on my marines and an armoury making mech attack upgrades. You went for vehicle armour in that game, but what's going to make your army better, especially against zerglings is the attack upgrades. If you can keep up your tanks' attack damage with the zerg's armour rating then you'll always be able to 1 shot zerglings, which goes a much longer way towards preventing them from destroying your tanks than armour upgrades. PL;DR - Get vehicle attack rather than armour

There's not really a lot more to say since you had a solid composition later on against not that much of an army. Yes there was a big run by and you lost the majority of your natural but that's just TvZ on metalopolis I'm afraid. Silly map

But yea you had the game won pretty early on. All I would say is, especially when dealing with more evenly matched armies, always be aware of your tank radius, and always be aware of how vulnerable you are when you unsiege. Otherwise I'd have to see a more evenly matched midgame to properly give you advice on your mid-lategame

GG

 

[PaddyMC89]

I'd add that when you're playing an opponent who doesn't seem to be using anything other than Zerglings and Banelings, as well as heavy defence back home he's very rarely going to go for a kill move. His attacks are all about wrecking your economy, so focus more on limiting their potency than just trying to kill him with your bigger army and you'll rocket ahead more than you already did.

The drops and the banshees were nice, but you'd have probably been better off keeping the majority of your marines and tanks back at home while securing a third and eventually having enough to just steamroll it.

 

[SheepBeast]

All valid criticisms, thanks for your advice .

First point, congratulations on winning an XvZ on metalopolis

Ok i'm assuming you're not really too interested on basic build tightness, but your build couldve been a lot smoother. Assuming you werent just making it up as you went along it's definitely worth doing some practice games against the computer or anyone in a custom where you focus on executing your build perfectly. For example, in general you want to start that reactor on your barracks around the same time you start your factory if you want reactor hellions.

You're right I basically winged it lol. My usual build versus Zerg is the seige expand which I have down pretty tight but all other builds I just do what I hope will work out. I'll have a look at some build orders for reactor hellion into cloak banshee.

So basic mechanics aside, I'd definitely be looking to improve your unit control. When it comes to hellions in particular, you ended up basically sacrificing them for very little benefit. I'm sure you know now that running past the spines wasnt the best idea. When the front is that well defended, just rendezvous with your medivac and drop as many as you can into the back of their base instead. Once they're there, you do need to keep an eye on them. Yes they'll generally do a decent amount of damage, but if the zerg responds well then you'll be in a tough spot. Take care to ensure that you're ready to pack up and get out of their base at any time. Otherwise you're sacrificing 4-500 mins worth of units for not very much gain. Rememeber, you can always drop again once their lings have moved away. Dont think you have to do as much damage as is physically possible because your hellions are guaranteed to die, think instead how much damage you can do without losing anything yourself, and you'll be far better suited to chipping away at the zerg. In this instance your opponent didnt even have speed on his lings. Almost invariably they'll either have speed zerglings or roaches ready, so you have to be ready to act at a moment's notice.

Now an important point here is that you're not MVP, so microing your hellions perfectly and macroing at the same time isnt going to be that easy. But remember you can do the majority of your general macro without actually looking at your base. Try to practice just using hotkeys from somewhere else on the map to continue your production. That way you can always try to keep a better eye on your harassment and respond if necessary.

I'd say my unit control is good when I'm actually looking at them (**** up with the hellions aside), but I spend too much time back in my base leaving my army to do it's own thing. This is often ok if I have ~8 seige tanks seiged up in a safe spot but if it's something like hellions in his base, I know my attention should really be on them. Need to work on my multitasking skills.

Moving on . Upgrades are becoming more and more important in TvZ imo, especially since more and more you see double evo ground forces and upgraded mutas being used. I personally like having double engibay on my marines and an armoury making mech attack upgrades. You went for vehicle armour in that game, but what's going to make your army better, especially against zerglings is the attack upgrades. If you can keep up your tanks' attack damage with the zerg's armour rating then you'll always be able to 1 shot zerglings, which goes a much longer way towards preventing them from destroying your tanks than armour upgrades. PL;DR - Get vehicle attack rather than armour

AFAIK if you get +1 vehicle attack then you can 1-shot lings no matter what armour upgrade thy're on. Obviously banelings are also 1-shot kills so if the Z is just going ling baneling then there's no reason to get more than +1 attack, armour is better to protect against the lings. I've no idea why I didn't do this in that replay as it's my standard upgrade path. Just being an idiot I guess

There's not really a lot more to say since you had a solid composition later on against not that much of an army. Yes there was a big run by and you lost the majority of your natural but that's just TvZ on metalopolis I'm afraid. Silly map

But yea you had the game won pretty early on. All I would say is, especially when dealing with more evenly matched armies, always be aware of your tank radius, and always be aware of how vulnerable you are when you unsiege. Otherwise I'd have to see a more evenly matched midgame to properly give you advice on your mid-lategame

GG

Yeah. That was a close moment. If he'd had ~5 banelings with those lings and just busted the ramp up to my main he'd have won the game as I didn't have any tanks sieged at the time he struck. I should really leave 2 tanks and a few marines back at base to protect against things like that.

Cheers for the feedback. I've got another replay here which is against a better opponent. I was playing against a mate who's in diamond, and I'm high platinum. Felt I was doing pretty well most of the game (screwed up the build order in the first few mins though) and I came out ahead in most of the engagements. I just lost because he stopped my 3rd CC during construction and I waited way too long before starting to build it again. Also I failed to scout and prepare for the brood lords although in the end his unit positioning meant that didn't matter too much. http://drop.sc/116848

 

[SheepBeast]

I'd add that when you're playing an opponent who doesn't seem to be using anything other than Zerglings and Banelings, as well as heavy defence back home he's very rarely going to go for a kill move. His attacks are all about wrecking your economy, so focus more on limiting their potency than just trying to kill him with your bigger army and you'll rocket ahead more than you already did.

The drops and the banshees were nice, but you'd have probably been better off keeping the majority of your marines and tanks back at home while securing a third and eventually having enough to just steamroll it.

I'm not sure I agree tbh. I managed to destroy his 3rd twice and his natural once (or twice can't remember) just by pushing out with my marine tank army. If I hadn't kept him so far behind economically he would have just sat back and macroed up and we would have been on a much more even footing. Especially early on when he baneling dropped my mineral lines. If I hadn'd already killed a lot of his workers, and pushed out straight after the baneling drop with my army, he would have had a huge economic lead.

 

[iviv]

Started playing again this evening, using a forge fast expand build now. Its extremely messy at the moment, but thankfully I'm silver (Or I was when I stopped, going through placement at the moment but stomped a couple of bronzies pretty easily). Its working well just due to how fast you can get a good economy up, though in my last game I forgot to put guys in gas at my natural (Doh!) so researched charge and went with a zealot heavy army since I didn't have anything else to spend the minerals on, and had no gas! Still, it worked!

 

[SheepBeast]

Started playing again this evening, using a forge fast expand build now. Its extremely messy at the moment, but thankfully I'm silver (Or I was when I stopped, going through placement at the moment but stomped a couple of bronzies pretty easily). Its working well just due to how fast you can get a good economy up, though in my last game I forgot to put guys in gas at my natural (Doh!) so researched charge and went with a zealot heavy army since I didn't have anything else to spend the minerals on, and had no gas! Still, it worked!

The key with a FFE is to have decent scouting and not just sit in your 2 bases and build whatever you feel like. At least, if you want to get beyond gold or so. I learned this when I tried playing protoss earlier in a 1v1 custom obs game. Got roflstomped 4 times by a silver/gold zerg player (I am plat, guess that's what happens when I off-race). Kept on forgetting to put guys on gas for ages so like you I just bought tons of zealots and gateways. Couldn't tech or get anything decent at all until it was way too late. Glad you're getting ok though, on ladder I'm having a lot of trouble with one matchup in particular (TvT). Just dunno what to do. CBA with seige tank vikings wars I'd rather just instaquit every TvT than resort to that.

 

[iviv]

Yeah, not had the chance to properly work it all out yet. Once my placement matches are done then hopefully I'll be in silver and properly able to start playing it well. I'm enjoying it so far because, at least from what I've gauged from playing it, it seems to be fairly cheese proof. My first game the guy had an early pool, though not on 6, ran 6 lings into my base but the two cannons I had killed them all as they ran past. If I'd done my normal build I'd probably only have one, maybe two zealots up at that point, so would have lost a couple of probes to it.
Just need to work out what to do against T now, since marauders would rip through the cannons. Or just do the FFE anyway and aim to have some zealots up before any marauders arrive, and use the better economy to counter attack.

 

[PaddyMC89]

I've found players that are new to FFE seem to think there's a period where they are a lot weaker than if they 1-base, and must turtle to get their two bases up and running. Watch any higher level player and they will be moving out as soon as warpgate finishes, and often before with an early stargate (against zerg in particular). By the time warpgate research is up you should be 2/3 to 3/4 of the way to saturating both bases, having maybe 4 gates and a +1 upgrade, so the longer you delay the weaker your first push will be. Against zerg especially you want to at least be putting pressure on his third if not denying it completely.

Only if you're being cheesed or have scouted an all-in would I suggest you stay at home. Any kind of heavy harrassment like Mutalisks, Nydus or drops is still some way off so you shouldn't be afraid to get out on the map.

Wouldn't suggest FFE against Protoss or Terran myself. It probably can work in some situations, but you're better off with a 1 gate expand vs Terran (plop down the Nexus after your first stalker, don't bother trying to wall off your expand) and opening something like 2-gate robo against Protoss, as no matter what type of super early expand you try in PvP, a 4-gate will probably kill you.

 

[xlnc]

Id really like to get into a game like starcraft ive even watched streams and stuff with interest, but I read some of these posts and wonder if it would be too steep a learning curve for me

 

[PaddyMC89]

The learning curve itself isn't steep. You can very easily jump into the game and learn enough through playing the very good campaign and the challenges to be able to fend for yourself when you first step onto the ladder. The excellent thing about Starcraft 2 is the broad range between its simplicity and its complexity. There is so far to climb from being a lowly bronze player and a high level masters, but the great feeling you get when you know you are improving makes you believe you can keep on going up.

 

[HummuH1]

Id really like to get into a game like starcraft ive even watched streams and stuff with interest, but I read some of these posts and wonder if it would be too steep a learning curve for me

Nah, seriously, it does cater for all levels of play. I was totally new to it and had to work up though the respective leagues but that's half the fun tbh.

 

[RiseAgainst]

If you have watched some pros and then just play working with a few build orders you can get the basics pretty fast. For instance i started just before Christmas and now I am high silver ( nothing amazing but i would say i have the basics ) so its not as bad as you think

 

[xlnc]

See i love playing games online and used to get a great buzz from playing cs:s clan matches, sadly I have fairly hectic RL nowadays but miss the buzz from truly competiting in a game rather than just playing random sessions on bf3, cheers for the input, think I'll give it a go

 

[booyaka]

T v T now just seems like a banshee rush everytime!!

Did lol today when I spotted the banshee rush but managed to push out a raven and viking just as his 2 cloaked bashees arrived!

 

[Tune]

Banshees are easy to deal with imo, either spend 250minerals getting a turret, which is better than losing 7 scv and some marines, or 1/1/1 and go into a viking raven. Either way works.

 

[Greenja]

What resources do you guys use to improve your play? I've recently started playing and i'm looking for all the help I can get.

I asked a similar question a couple pages back and got a link to a team liquid wiki which is pretty good, just seeing what else people come up with

Things like specific forums, youtube channels, strategy sites etc is the kind of thing i'm thinking.

 

[MikeHunt79]

What resources do you guys use to improve your play? I've recently started playing and i'm looking for all the help I can get.

I asked a similar question a couple pages back and got a link to a team liquid wiki which is pretty good, just seeing what else people come up with

Things like specific forums, youtube channels, strategy sites etc is the kind of thing i'm thinking.

Have a look at dApollos YouTube channel

 

[Bloomfield]

What resources do you guys use to improve your play? I've recently started playing and i'm looking for all the help I can get.

I asked a similar question a couple pages back and got a link to a team liquid wiki which is pretty good, just seeing what else people come up with

Things like specific forums, youtube channels, strategy sites etc is the kind of thing i'm thinking.

Check out Day9's "Newbie Tuesday" videos here .

He also shows some pro matches while talking with the pros about what they're doing and stuff, as well as some tournament stuff so check out his other videos after the Newbie Tuesday ones .

His "Funday Monday" episodes are good to watch too, not really for learning (although you will still probably learn some stuff from these, just no where near as much as watching his other stuff) but they can be pretty entertaining. He basically asks viewers to play using various stupid tactics/unit comps, like "Monobattles" where you play a 2v2/3v3/4v4 and everyone on your team has to pick a single unit and announce it at the start of the game, then they can only build that single unit for the entire game.

 

[iviv]

For lower level players, I enjoy LagTV's shows. They are aimed at lower level players, and they have a load of less serious shows they do too (When Cheese Fails/Will Cheese Fail, Novawar Says and Say Cheese). When Cheese Fails is people submitting replays of failed cheeses, especially funny ones. Such as this:

Novawar says has Maximus Black playing on the 2v2 ladder, with a certain constraint, kind of like what you get on a Funday Monday. Things like 'you can only use artosis pylons', 'only build queens', 'no warpgates', and 'Microwave' (Nukes and ghosts only). Say Cheese is them just cheesing, because.
All good fun. Though really, day9 gives you all the proper learning.

 

[SheepBeast]

Wouldn't suggest FFE against Protoss or Terran myself. It probably can work in some situations, but you're better off with a 1 gate expand vs Terran (plop down the Nexus after your first stalker, don't bother trying to wall off your expand) and opening something like 2-gate robo against Protoss, as no matter what type of super early expand you try in PvP, a 4-gate will probably kill you.

Agreed with this. Send your first stalker to go and irritate the enemy's marines and give you free scouting and meanwhile expo and macro up. Pull back as soon as you see a marauder. If there aren't any marauders he's probably going cloak banshee or something.