Improvement specific for me ...

[ADX]

I know that for the most part you guys want replays in a standard folder which is the amateur replay thread...


I am hoping the mods will allow this thread for a track on how I am honing my starcraft skills and for you guys to advise me in the best way to improve my game.

I will post a replay every so ofter for comment and apprasial and hopefully this will enable me to become a better starcraft with the best community out there.

A little info about myself
ScreenName : Ele21
Gateway : USEast
Win Percentage as of now : 40%
APM :90
Race : Random

Alright so here we go and starting off with a replay and then i have to go to bed.

:sleep: :sleep: :sleep:

[SuperKiller]

you are better than you made yourself sound.....

you just didn't counter muta properly.. needed archons sooner, and more cannons.

[TwoTimer]

for know i feel u should use the replay thread, nobody's really posted in it cause nobody's really playing (among the vets) as of yet. i log on like 2x a week and i only play half the time i log on.

[FoxBlade]

I watched the replay...

I'm guess by the name you're out of practice?

I can kind of tell from the way you were playing as well, cause you missed a begining pylon but kept up on pylons and spent your money through out the game (which is more because of being rusty me thinks).

Anyways I found your building placement questionable, for example where you placed your forge. I wouldn't suggest putting it out there with your expansion cause it makes it an easier target for your opponent.

I didn't like where you placed your gates/pylon I thought it was too close to the ramp and makes it harder for you to deal with muta harrassment because your units have to walk around all those buildings (that made a big square) to deal with them. Because of that his mutas were able to pick off your dragoons. A better option might have been to make a straight line against the left side of your base (vertical line), just because your goons would have had an easier time dealing with the harrassment and it just keeps everything out of the way.

The major problem I saw with your building placement is where you put your cannons. I think it's much better to put them in your mineral line because even if he were to come at you with lings, you can run your zealots back to your expo so that your cannons are in range to hit them (2 hits from a cannon kills 1 ling).

Also putting them in your min line makes it harder to harass your mineral line cause you can surround them with your workers if you need be, plus in that game it would have protected against mutas and gave you some breathing room to tech.

Also I thought you played a bit too aggressively, after you lost your initial zealots I think you should have concentrated on moving up in the tech tree instead of making more gates to overwhelm him with zealot because once you did that he got to harrass you all day with muta. Though you did stop him at first with dragoon, problem is he had map control at that point cause you were playing purely defensive at that point, which allowed him to just expo, marco and harrass you with mutas, by the time you tried to counter with tech it was too late.

Also once you got your expo you didn't maynard your workers, you should have maynard about 8 to get your expo up and kicking faster. Though I loved that you went double gas after he gased your main (very smart thinking and a nice way to catchup really fast on gas).

Really though I think after about 2 weeks of practice you'll be just fine.

[ADX]

for know i feel u should use the replay thread, nobody's really posted in it cause nobody's really playing (among the vets) as of yet. i log on like 2x a week and i only play half the time i log on.

The reason for my own seprate thread is so that if at some point down the road I can go back and get all my replays in one succinct location... The other thing is that I hope to keep this updated and so I can get constant feedback on my playing not a whole bunch of other peoples playing....

Yet another replay of myself...

[TwoTimer]

i think the patch just pwned ur thread :(

well for the moment the reps work :(

1.14b anyone in a few weeks?

[ADX]

Here is another replay that I did today ..

Thought that it was a good game managed well and fought back hard...

Let me know your thoughts...

[FoxBlade]

You know…

Those next two reps made me wonder if I was even watching the same player (no offence) ><;

Okay first rep (Zerg)

When you play on Luna (actually just when you play ZvP in general) you should expand first and get a pool second unless you’re 9 pooling. Luna is a really safe map to fast expo on and the only time you need to worry about zealot rush is if your opponent is horizontal to you.

Either way you need to build your economy and out produce Protoss in units. If you pool first it’ll slow down your econ and on Luna zealot rushes aren’t very effective because of the long distance it’ll take for the Protoss to get to you.

Secondly I noticed you spent money on things you didn’t need for example the sunken in your main and getting burrow…

Unless you’re worried about drops you don’t need that sunken in your main (besides you should have put that sunken in your mineral line so it’s protecting your workers and buildings) also if you’re getting sunkens you should place them behind buildings. Placing them behind buildings makes them more effective against zealots because zealots will have to walk around your buildings to get to the sunken, which means your sunkens get extra hits on those zealots when they walk around.

Also I don’t really understand why you got borrow if you weren’t really going to use it for a particular strategy right away. It’s a waste of time imho, otherwise you’d have been better off spending it on a quicker lair or hydra upgrades. Instead you just used it to burrow on the Protoss ramp when you could have just left a ling outside his main (unburrowed) to see if he was coming at you or not, if you didn’t burrow it then you’d get a warning when his zealots move out and attack that ling which helps alert you when he moves out.

Also you had a lack of workers, if you have a lot of them in your main Maynard some to your expo (6-8) and build up some economy and then mix in drones with your units. I’d suggest you use 2 larvae for attacking units and every 3rd larvae you get a drone at each hatchery.

Also you need to send all of your overlords out for scouting, I noticed you did that for your first few zealots then you quit sending your overlords out. I’d say keep one or two in around at your main and expo incase he comes at you with DTs but send the rest out packing.

Also I noticed you had a lot of trouble with macro this game. You need to constantly spend your money, btw zerg I think are much more dependant on gas than on minerals, so when you expo get gas faster and send the first 3 workers you build at your expo to mine gas and use the ones you Maynard for the minerals or send 3 of the ones you Maynard on gas as soon as it builds either way you need to get gas quickly at every expo you take.

Also I noticed you didn’t upgrade speed for your lings or your hydras. Getting speed makes your lings more effective because they can harass and surround units faster, hydras you need the speed to dance around the zealots and range helps you hydras harass from a further distance and start attacking sooner.

Anyways to help you macro more efficiently I think you should hotkey your hatches (I use 6-0 as my hatcheries and 1-5 for my units). If you’re having trouble spending your money, make more hatcheries (I don’t suggest you start out with more than 3 until you get your economy flowing and don’t get more than 5 if you have your main and 1 expo with gas).

Second replay…

Again you spent money on units you didn’t need (marines and the vultures), you could have just went right for goliaths/tanks or wraith/tank or something and done a lot better.

Oh yes and your wall-in at 9 you only need 1 depot and 1 rax to wall-in, your building placement there isn’t very effective (I’ll find a rep to show how to wall-in with 1 rax and 1 depot).

Also your opening for metal should be: 9 depot, 10 rax, 12 gas

Also when you get an ebay build a few turrets around your CCs to help protect them from drop harassment.

Anyways I’ll attach a few reps here to help you out…

Man I really wish I was on my own computer I have a lot more reps on it, don’t do what I did in the TvT game I’m just posting it cause I don’t have another rep where I’m at 9…

I'll attach another rep for typical TvT...

Btw if anyone else has some pro reps could you post those instead? I don't have any on this computer and my connection really blows ;/

[NaAani]

for know i feel u should use the replay thread, nobody's really posted in it cause nobody's really playing (among the vets) as of yet. i log on like 2x a week and i only play half the time i log on.
If I get to decide, posting replays with questions in separate threads is fine. We did that before, but for some reason twitt started sending all replays to the replay thread which I think is pretty dumb.
We don't have a problem with it beeing to many threads so it gets messy, so there is no real problem with letting people post replays with questions in separate threads. You also tend not to get as much help in the replay thread so I say go ahead to posting threads like this.

[TwoTimer]

oh that's who did it :D i knew there was someone :( but this week and next week i wont be posting much, im really gonna start trying to put this guide together now (got plenty of ideas, its just how to arrange them)

[ADX]

Well here is a current game of mine and I have decided to stick with the protoss as my race from here on out so you guys can start to give me specfic pointers as to what I need to learn and improve on...

[TwoTimer]

did u learn all the protoss build orders (see build order archive)

[FoxBlade]

If you're going to stick with protoss then remember this opening for PvT:

8 pylon, 10 gate, 12 gas, 14 core.

From this opening alone you can do alot of different strategies (as twotimer suggested check out the build order archive for more information), for example you can 2 gate, reaver drop, or dt rush.

Also you are lacking in scouting, so here's another suggestion: After you make your first pylon, send THAT probe out to scout. Once you find him your job is to keep that probe alive and look to see what he's up to, if you don't think you can keep it alive in his main, then have it sit outside his main at his nat.

Hope that helps
-FoxBlade

[PraetorKoronis]

Yep, gogo and memorize the BO's for Toss then :D

That opening isn't the only PvT opening though.

Heh, I've seen some very successful, but unorthodox builds, by koreans =)

[ADX]

Here is another currnet replay to start up some more conversaiton ...

I went z's and sairs but failed to defeat my oppenent so what would you have done ??

[FoxBlade]

on incubus I wouldn't have 1 gated...

Also if you're going to one gate you should have went 8 pylon (always 8 pylon, not 9 pylon), 10 gate, 12 gas, 14 core.

At any rate I think you would have been much better off doing a two gate build instead, 9/10 gate or 10/12 gate so you could pressure the zerg in the begining, and because the zerg was so close to you, 9/10 gate would have been much more effective.

[ADX]

Here is a replay in which I think that I did much better and actually did a good job of fighting even though I had a bad start...

I know the other player is not that good but I think it was a nice comeback..

[PraetorKoronis]

hmmm alright I'll look around for ya =P on battle.net

[ADX]

How come I can never seem to destroy terran metal//bunkering me in as a protoss player.. Even if I scout it and know that it is coming I can't seem to deflect it back.. Alright I am going to play a couple games and add the replays to the thread.. Another thing as a protoss player it seems on average a better idea to mass goon with zealots as support is that in general a good idea or which unit should i get more the goon or lot ??

[FoxBlade]

How come I can never seem to destroy terran metal//bunkering me in as a protoss player.. Even if I scout it and know that it is coming I can't seem to deflect it back.. Alright I am going to play a couple games and add the replays to the thread.. Another thing as a protoss player it seems on average a better idea to mass goon with zealots as support is that in general a good idea or which unit should i get more the goon or lot ??

I can't say for sure until you post a replay...

But it's probably due to a lack of scouting...

Also if he builds a bunker, goons + range will out range marines (if he metals he probably won't get the upgrade for m&m).

[ADX]

The problem is if he already has the bunker there before you scout it out you are in a rock and a hard place this happend to me in a recent game but I do not know if I saved the replay..

[FoxBlade]

The problem is if he already has the bunker there before you scout it out you are in a rock and a hard place this happend to me in a recent game but I do not know if I saved the replay..

He shouldn't... unless you scout really late...

If you scout with your probe that makes your first pylon (assuming you go 8 pylon) then you should be able to find terran before he even moves out...

[ADX]

ya thing is is that he built his bunker after I sent the first probe out and then by the time I sent another it was too late.. Let me see if I still have the replay.

[ADX]

So here is another new replay for you guys to analyze it is of me playing my new race now and I would like some input.. I will be posting more replays here either tonite or tommarow after i get the chance to play some more games... alright talk to you all later...

[ADX]

Bump..

I have decided to get more active in my starcraft playing but I still cannot figure out where I am going wrong In this game it was PvP and I decided to do a mirrior build... Can anyone please tell me where I am going wrong.. things i keep hearing and please verify if this is true or not is ...

1> not enough scouting-- of course in this game I think I did plenty of scouting did he just mircro better then me thence the win...

2> Not enough probes

Heres the replay ---

[FoxBlade]

You're right you still have a lack of scouting and it hurts you... you scout with your first probe and then you don't scout after that... you need to scout constantly (and keep that scout alive).

Secondly you're build orders are bad because they lack any sense of timing (you should also start using rally points).

You build your pylon when you have 100 minerals at 8 supply, you don't wait until you have 150 minerals and then build a pylon or you're building late.

Secondly you miss pylons which slows you down even further and throws off your sense of timing even more.

Also I really, really suggest that you look over the build order archive and experiement with those build orders. I'll post more later, but I'm hungry and food is cooking...

[Coca Cola]

about the replay: what did i do wrong (PvT)

-why did you build the cybernatic core instead vaspaine gas? you cant do a thing having that building without having gas

-then you started to chase the scv while you were getting minerals and you were not using them,no probe building,no structure building.You got the second gateway too late

-you waited to have around 800 minerals to start building something.When you moved the probes from the main to expo you moved around 12 probes,you should have moved just around 5 at once.

- you should have got faster robotic facility and the third even the fourth gateway.you need to get observers to see the gaps in terran`s base,see where to move the army,discover what your enemy intends to do

-at the end you left your 3 or 4 zealots and the 3 or 4 dragons to die instead of retreating them

about the building placement

i`d suggest not to build every pylon next to the other; try to have two pylons around the minerals so you can build there if needed a turret or two

try to build the closer to the nexus so it would be easier to defend

the 2 turrets from the expo are wrong built,if you have to turrets defending the minerals is ok,so you could have put the turret from the right on the same horizontal line as the one next to nexus

i think these may be the main mistakes you made

[ADX]

Well i have been praticing some more.. and my early game is alot better.. now it is my mid to late game that needs work.. I will play a couple and post the replays for you all to watch and comment on.. Alright thanks again for all of your help...

[NaAani]

How come I can never seem to destroy terran metal//bunkering me in as a protoss player.. Even if I scout it and know that it is coming I can't seem to deflect it back.. Alright I am going to play a couple games and add the replays to the thread.. Another thing as a protoss player it seems on average a better idea to mass goon with zealots as support is that in general a good idea or which unit should i get more the goon or lot ??

I guess you mean an early terran rush with a bunker, some vults and a few tanks?
If so, the most comon misstake protoss players do is not putting pressure on the T with your goons. If you have at least a few of your goons outside his base you can slow down the push ALOT and you'll easily be able to push it back.
Tbh, you should be fine as long as you don't let the T shut you inside your base (ie don't keep all your stuff in your base =P).

[Nytefish]

Something you could try:

If you can't help being contained because of the build order you chose, or because you made a silly micro mistake near the beginning, you can shuttle units out and either flank the contain or even counter the Terran's base. Attacking a contain head-on is almost never advisable.

Otherwise follow NaAani's advice of stalling the Terran as they move out.

[NaAani]

Shuttleing units our hardly ever works. If you actualy get contained like that you need to harras like a ugly crackwhore.

[Nytefish]

Well I only speak from games I've seen/played.
But even if you do harass really well, you probably need to break out eventually.
And you lose much more if you simply attack head-on.

[NaAani]

Well if you've doen stuff correctly you should have loads and he should have nothing so it isn't really much of a problem

[Nytefish]

Okay then.

[FoxBlade]

...what?

Nytefish has a good idea with toss, I think shuttle zealots are awesome especially vs. pushes :O!

They draw tank fire and attack the tanks, which gives your dragoons some relief.

Not just pushes either, you can drop zealots on tanks if you decide to attack (for example you want to destory your opponent's nat with your units and you drop zealots on tank to kill and draw fire so your other units can do the job easier).

Plus thier great to have around if terran drops your cliff or you see him expand to an island.

[SuperKiller]

i've shuttled out dts and won games because of it. they focused so much on the contain that nothing was at home.

but my pvt timing was so off that i got contained alot more than i should have so i'd have to win with it sooner or later :)

[Nytefish]

...what?

Nytefish has a good idea with toss, I think shuttle zealots are awesome especially vs. pushes :O!

They draw tank fire and attack the tanks, which gives your dragoons some relief.

Not just pushes either, you can drop zealots on tanks if you decide to attack (for example you want to destory your opponent's nat with your units and you drop zealots on tank to kill and draw fire so your other units can do the job easier).

Plus thier great to have around if terran drops your cliff or you see him expand to an island.

Well that's not really what I was talking about, but that's also really good.
And I still think shuttling out units for a flank is good at least at my level.

[ADX]

I guess my problem now is knowing when to attack.. as far as attacking terrans should i not let them get strong and go after them right away.. I just cant seem to deflect vult//tanks.. I have thought about swithching races for a while just to give myself a break from the toss and to go to terrans for a while..

[PraetorKoronis]

when i TvP, unless the opponent has completely outmassed me, I am never contained ;P

I don't see why people would leave their units sitting so near their ramp, or close to their base, when they could be farther up--with no real disadvantage.

I do hate pushes though, they could be tricky to counter; if you have enough obs, you can tell when he unsieges.

When he does that...just after he startes moving [if he had mines, he should be either past or ON them now] I rush in. Usually zealots result in a lot of casualties, especially if he's ON the mines now ;]

Works like a charm--and obs doesn't even need to be ON the whole group, so even if they have a turret, all you need to do is see a small area.

[Nytefish]

I don't see why people would leave their units sitting so near their ramp, or close to their base, when they could be farther up--with no real disadvantage.


You mean when people rally units to their natural expansion?

It's usually because it's clumsy trying to walk a bunch of units down a ramp.
Also it's closer to the battlefield.
And in PvT if you always leave goons there you don't need cannons to defend against vulture harass.

[ADX]

Is it a good idea in TvP to get early carriers.. ??

[Nytefish]

Usually not, but if he sucks then yeah you can go 3 gate Carrier off 2 base for a laugh.

[ADX]

Thanks for that info.. Now here is another question for you guys.. Should I try to gosu-

Meaning play only one race. Or should i random and that way i can play all three equally.

[Nytefish]

Isn't it obvious?

Generally:-
More games = better skill

Therefore if you practice less match-ups, you play more games of those match-ups.

There are also many race-pickers, which is pretty good also.
But if you're going for serious improvement sticking to one race is best, but can be dull.

[ADX]

again thank you for your insights .. I will post some new replays here in a little while...

[ADX]

Here are the promised replays again any tips would be helpful :)

[ADX]

I could really use pointers at this point..

I think my build is solid but yet I cant seem to attack properly.. Help .. Please guys.. I am in a tourney right now and want to win at least a couple of the games..

[SuperKiller]

1. your build isn't solid

2. you have to scout better. seriously, you have to know what he's doing, where his army is, the size of his army, what his units are in his army, his defenses, where he expands, ect.. that's all a part of scouting. you could have harassed space dominator with zerglings because of his pathetic bunker placement, and lack of marines, but you didn't do anything.

3. mutalisks don't counter science vessels. vessels kill mutalisks. learn your unit counters. his entire vessel group would have been killed if you just made some scourge instead.

on that second game, you got gas but didn't need it at all, expanded too early (he rushed you and you expanded instead of building an army..) didn't attack at all, and got 2 stargates for corsairs you didn't need. maximum of 1 corsair for scouting purposes unless its an air map

[Master.Bates]

Go for one race. Don't forget right now you are trying to memorize 3 times more stuff than you probably would have to do. When i started playing serious Starcraft, i sticked with Zerg and i started learning BOs, timing, macroing and microing very fast. When i " mastered the race " ( meaning my timing were good, my micro was decent and my macro wasnt shitty ) , I could move on to Toss/terran and still have decent showing ups because of my experience with Zerg, instead of being clumsy learning 3 times more content at the same time.

I noticed everyone is saying to scout more. If you can't scout properly you will never win against anyone serious, just won't happen, even if your macro/ BOs/micro gets better, having a " good " Build Order doesn't server any purpose when you don't even know what's knocking at your door.

[ADX]

Well I will play some games next week after my exams and let you guys know how I do.. Thanks for all the input and see you on b.net :)