The Protoss Players Thread

This is, without question, the cheesiest game I have ever done. I do a cannon contain in his base, blasting several buildings and units and expanding my network to make sure nothing can get out. He gets Siege Tanks out and tears down my wall then pushes into my main, but a force of Zealots hold him off while moar cheese - Dark Templar - tear into his base.

A lot of fun. I should have made those cannons to target his geyser earlier though, and gone for the Gateway earlier. The plan was to Warp the DTs in on the pylons powering the cannons, putting them right at his base when I knew he wouldn't have detection, but unfortunately he scouted me, the gates didn't get up until after the wall was down and the first wave of DTs didn't do much. Also some fun early micro while my 4-HP probe dodges his SCVs until it regens shields and the cannons come up.

But mostly this was just fun, being so cheesy :p.

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Originally Posted by Drake Clawfang

This is, without question, the cheesiest game I have ever done. I do a cannon contain in his base, blasting several buildings and units and expanding my network to make sure nothing can get out. He gets Siege Tanks out and tears down my wall then pushes into my main, but a force of Zealots hold him off while moar cheese - Dark Templar - tear into his base.

A lot of fun. I should have made those cannons to target his geyser earlier though, and gone for the Gateway earlier. The plan was to Warp the DTs in on the pylons powering the cannons, putting them right at his base when I knew he wouldn't have detection, but unfortunately he scouted me, the gates didn't get up until after the wall was down and the first wave of DTs didn't do much. Also some fun early micro while my 4-HP probe dodges his SCVs until it regens shields and the cannons come up.

But mostly this was just fun, being so cheesy :p.

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You didn't do the most optimised cannon rush.:p Usually you send out the probe between 6 to 8 supply if you wanna hide the forge on the map (depending how far away you wanna hide it). Because at 0:59 you had the money for the pylon but you only made that first pylon at 1:39.

And really....for a Terran he really doesn't know how to deal with cannon rushes......seems like the typical lower league response of "Lemme get siege tanks so i can kill the cannons from afar". Good work I guess. But cannon rushing terran typically doesn't work out so well. Mostly because of bunker+repair and flying buildings.

Well as you rise up the leagues you'll find cannon rushing terran doesn't give you much of an advantage. And you need a better followup to the cannon rush. First gateway at 8:20 isn't particularly good followup to cannon rush. And no reason that after 4 minutes for your nexus to not be constantly making probes and having under 25 energy. You're only making buildings (cannons).

oh I have no interest in perfecting this build, I don't cannon rush and hate people who do, cheese is for noobs. I just did it for fun.

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Originally Posted by Drake Clawfang

cheese is for noobs.

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What about all the pro-gamers & grandmasters who use it?

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Originally Posted by Drake Clawfang

I just did it for fun.

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Maybe all the people who have ever done it to you on the ladder did it for fun.

I also didn't know DTs were cheese. Comes way after 5 minutes, isn't all-in, and it's the opponent's fault for not scouting & having detection. Should we just redefine cheese to be "any attack whatsoever done before 10 minutes"? :P

Maybe getting double gas before gateway to rush dt or something is considered cheese, but I don't know that because I would never do that xD I would instead semi fast expand and have the dt ready around when he tries to kill my expand since he will invest more in the army and less in the tech.

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Originally Posted by Gradius

What about all the pro-gamers & grandmasters who use it?

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Lucky noobs :)

It's ironic you mention that because I've seen HD's recent replays with Nachandir, or something like that, who uses mad cheese. He beat Idra 2-0, both times with two proxy barracks. And yeah, that type of playing doesn't impress me, it isn't a show of skill that you can use cheap strategies like that and win. I'm gold and I could do two proxy barracks, if I played Terran that is. If you have to rely on unfair cheese tactics to beat an opponent, then IMO you aren't all that skilled a player.

Well if you lose to cheese then you're not that skilled a player. You might like a macro style but it has to hold up against a variety of cheese and rushes. Cheese is just a way to punish a macro style or not being 100% safe. It's just the game. Whether cheese takes less skill is debatable. The best cheese makes your build look like standard macro play but isn't while denying scouting to the cheese.

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Originally Posted by Drake Clawfang

Lucky noobs :)

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You're entitled to your opinion as long as it's clear that these same lucky noobs could outmacro both of us combined. Nestea, MC, and White-ra, the best players in the world, do some cheese once in a while to stay unpredictable or exploit an opponent's weakness.

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Originally Posted by Drake Clawfang

It's ironic you mention that because I've seen HD's recent replays with Nachandir, or something like that, who uses mad cheese. He beat Idra 2-0, both times with two proxy barracks.

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Idra isn't a great player to begin with. He plays like a robot, and is only good because of superior mechanics. It doesn't surprise me he would lose to cheese.

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Originally Posted by Drake Clawfang

And yeah, that type of playing doesn't impress me, it isn't a show of skill that you can use cheap strategies like that and win. I'm gold and I could do two proxy barracks, if I played Terran that is. If you have to rely on unfair cheese tactics to beat an opponent, then IMO you aren't all that skilled a player.

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I agree it takes less skill, but I still think it's a valid tactic that's part of the game. Recognizing this fact will make you look like less of a hypocrite when you decide to cheese once in a while. I mean you just played a cheese game "for fun", but you hold yourself above other players on battle.net who cheese you? How do you decide which ones are doing it for fun and which ones are just cheesing noobs? It's kind of arbitrary. If you want to be a good player then start adapting your builds to survive cheese, and add some of your own to your arsenal.

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Originally Posted by Gradius

You're entitled to your opinion as long as it's clear that these same lucky noobs could outmacro both of us combined. Nestea, MC, and White-ra, the best players in the world, do some cheese once in a while to stay unpredictable or exploit an opponent's weakness.

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Well there's the difference. Cheese once in a while is fine, it's when you rely on it that you're noob.

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I agree it takes less skill, but I still think it's a valid tactic that's part of the game. Recognizing this fact will make you look like less of a hypocrite when you decide to cheese once in a while. I mean you just played a cheese game "for fun", but you hold yourself above other players on battle.net who cheese you? How do you decide which ones are doing it for fun and which ones are just cheesing noobs? It's kind of arbitrary. If you want to be a good player then start adapting your builds to survive cheese, and add some of your own to your arsenal.

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I don't know which ones do it for fun and which are cheesing noobs. Why I don't judge, usually. I'm making the general statement that if you have to rely on cheese to win all the time and can't play a macro game, you're not a good player. Way back during the beta I played Zerg and would often just 10 pool rush opponents. Did it work? Often. Does that mean I was good? No.

In other news, two more replays. This "Sense" one, I don't know why but I sensed Banshees, I saw a Barracks with a Reactor and two bunkers on his ramp but nothing else, seemed a bit fishy. So I got a cannon up by my minerals and got a Robotics Facility to pump out an obsever, and sure enough, there were Banshees incoming. From there, match wasn't too hard, he went Marines, Banshees and eventually takes against my Stalkers and Chargelots, and we held them off.

The "Immortal" one, opponent when full mech, Hellions, Tanks and Thors, I countered with Chargelots, Stalkers and Immortals, I think I had too many Immortals but ultimately they won the day. The decisive blow game with a quick drop into his mineral line, did some damage to his economy, then eventually did some DT harassment, he had no detection except for comsat sweeps and thus my DTs crippled him. The only point of note there is that I targeted his Refineries specifically, I knew he was going heavy mech build and if I could cut off his gas that would really slow him down.

PvT (Sense) on random new Blizzard map whose name I will never remember...
So let's just go through the logic behind your "sense".
-Your first scout saw a building barracks but a completed refinery. So he went refinery before barracks. Immediately anticipate a tech build. Factory or starport tech. Because as you can see just as his barracks finishes he has enough for a factory with that early refinery. So you can cross out any barracks pressure early on.
-Technically you shouldn't have let him scout the 3 gateways. By skipping the first zealot you basically signal wanting a quick second gas. That way when the stalker comes out you'll just have enough to make the 2nd and 3rd gateway. This denies the terran from scouting your 3 gate. What are the benefits of doing this?? Well you see the bunker terran made.....he made that after scouting you. Good terrans make that bunker blind to be safe. Quite a few terrans in lower leagues don't unless they specifically scout something to be scared about. So by denying him info on your 3gate you can randomly catch a terran without a bunker and just break his wall (I've done that before).
-The forge and the robo facility is double detection. You're overcompensating for lack of detection while "sensing" banshees.
-You made no move to run up terran's ramp to see what's going on either with the first stalker or the first 3 stalkers. If you did this and saw a bunker with lots of marines and knowing he took an early gas definitely be fearing the banshee.
-Really late expansion despite not seeing him move out at all and also knowing he's gone a tech build. If you know he's going cloaked banshee it's easy to do a 2gate robo straight into expand. You have a much earlier nexus and even if you lose some probes it's fine since you're making more probes than he can make SCVs.
-Your blink finishes and you have a bunch of stalkers sitting there. Getting blink that quick you'd want to be aggressive with it since you have a micro advantage. Even just sit on low ground and use the obs to help you snipe something. Or if you're really daring blink into his base using the obs and run around once sniping things then blinking out and running.
-After the initial scout your next scout went at 8minutes....really late.
-You saw the banshees and double starport with techlab at 8:55 but don't make a second observer until 9:32. Seeing that many possible banshees you know he's gonna invest in cloak and maybe a raven to snipe observers. So time to make more observers and if you want hard counter the banshees with the help of phoenixes. (The terran should have moved out with the banshees earlier. If he did the rally towards the bottom edge and attacked with 3 banshees with cloak your observer would be far away. He could kill the cannon and probes. Or could snipe pylons or sentries)
-Really a case of double detection. Minerals on cannons and gas on observers. Makes your overall army smaller. Nothing wrong with just picking one like relying on cannons and when you're just about to move out make observers for your army. Or just making observers to detect then when you wanna upgrade go for the forge. Then before leaving to attack make cannons.
-Problems macroing during battles which I wouldn't mind as much if you micro'd amazingly. With the double detection you were having your 4th and 5th gateway were way late. They should have been up in time to help with the terran push if you wanted to go gateway heavy.
-Micro you could have done....put the zealots at the expo. Forcefield between the marines and the cliff trapping some marines but blocking them from helping to defend the banshee (A lot of times you're trying to kill the banshees but the marines end up just firing on you nonstop with nothing to stop them). Blinking back individual stalkers that are getting hit. A lot of the time you were letting stalkers run around the back while letting terran have a nice arc where all his stuff is hitting you. Could be better about target firing banshees. The first banshee you killed got off 3 shots and the second banshee you killed got off 4 shots. With better target firing you could kill off those first two banshees without letting them make an extra shot each. Also when he moves for his expo if you target fired better before that he'd have 3 banshees not 4. [A much better micro way to handle it would be zealots at expo and send them in to attack the marines if you want or let them stay at expo. Stalkers and sentries together. Guardian shield before moving forward. Attack move. Micro the stalkers and sentries forward again and attack move. Forcefield below the cliff where marines are to push some out of range. Target fire banshees. Blink back weakened stalkers.]
-You also targetted a PDD that had run out of energy instead of hitting the banshees....you should have chased the single banshee and raven with the stalkers and the observer.
-Your warp in choice as he moved to the expo was...weird. If you warp in stalkers you can attack both marines and banshees and stalkers do pretty well against marines. Plus you can pull probes to help against the marines. He did a tech build so you can sack some probes knowing his expo is way later.
-Also your observer ran right in and you didn't make a second observer. He could have sniped the observer and killed your expo if he was better. Really even when you have 4 stalkers and not macroing you didn't individually blink back stalkers.
-Between 13mins to 15mins you didn't warp in anything despite having tons of money.
-Could have taken that third base way quicker. You just blocked his attack. You can either go for a counter attack kill move or just expand and be safe. Your third observer made (and second observer on the map at the time) only came out at 17mins. After that attack ended warp in more, make more observers, make probes, expo and since you're spread out make cannons to detect and hit banshees at your expo.
-You have a probe at the watchtower close to terran and you don't make any proxy pylons to reinforce your attack. Also your problem with observers comes back to bite you. You attack with only one observer knowing he's going 2 starport cloaked banshee. At least you managed to kill his expo but if the terran bunkered on low ground and sniped the obs you'd have lost a big part of your army without killing his expo letting terran back into the game.
-You don't reassign nexus rallies or transfer probes to the third base. Also no cannons to defend your expo or third from cloaked banshees.
-A lot of missed warpins. Didn't continue to upgrade regularly. Somehow you only like at most having two observers against mass cloaked banshee.
-Those stalkers blinked into the main should have retreated instead of basically suiciding. You killed a lot but it was still a risky move staying in there as long as you did.
-By the end of the game still no cannons. Very few observers. Lack of upgrades. Not immediately taking both gases at third. No other tech at all. No colossi or templar which I don't mind seeing as you go mass gateway. But in that case second forge for upgrades and make the kill move sooner. Lots of missed warpins even at times when you should be macroing (no battles happening).

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Originally Posted by JackhammerIV

-Technically you shouldn't have let him scout the 3 gateways. By skipping the first zealot you basically signal wanting a quick second gas. That way when the stalker comes out you'll just have enough to make the 2nd and 3rd gateway. This denies the terran from scouting your 3 gate. What are the benefits of doing this?? Well you see the bunker terran made.....he made that after scouting you. Good terrans make that bunker blind to be safe. Quite a few terrans in lower leagues don't unless they specifically scout something to be scared about. So by denying him info on your 3gate you can randomly catch a terran without a bunker and just break his wall (I've done that before).

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Okay.

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-The forge and the robo facility is double detection. You're overcompensating for lack of detection while "sensing" banshees.

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The Forge I made earlier in case he rushed Banshees. The Robo Bay I went a bit later because I would have ended up going robo anyway for Colossi or Immortals.

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-Really late expansion despite not seeing him move out at all and also knowing he's gone a tech build. If you know he's going cloaked banshee it's easy to do a 2gate robo straight into expand. You have a much earlier nexus and even if you lose some probes it's fine since you're making more probes than he can make SCVs.

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Okay. I admit I was a bit off-guard, I don't face a lot of fast tech often.

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-Really a case of double detection. Minerals on cannons and gas on observers. Makes your overall army smaller. Nothing wrong with just picking one like relying on cannons and when you're just about to move out make observers for your army. Or just making observers to detect then when you wanna upgrade go for the forge. Then before leaving to attack make cannons.

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Okay.

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-Problems macroing during battles which I wouldn't mind as much if you micro'd amazingly. With the double detection you were having your 4th and 5th gateway were way late. They should have been up in time to help with the terran push if you wanted to go gateway heavy.

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....macroing during battles?

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Blinking back individual stalkers that are getting hit. A lot of the time you were letting stalkers run around the back while letting terran have a nice arc where all his stuff is hitting you. Could be better about target firing banshees. The first banshee you killed got off 3 shots and the second banshee you killed got off 4 shots. With better target firing you could kill off those first two banshees without letting them make an extra shot each.

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I flat cannot micro that good.

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-You also targetted a PDD that had run out of energy instead of hitting the banshees....you should have chased the single banshee and raven with the stalkers and the observer.

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I didn't target anything, so dunno what you mean...

[quote]-Your warp in choice as he moved to the expo was...weird. If you warp in stalkers you can attack both marines and banshees and stalkers do pretty well against marines. Plus you can pull probes to help against the marines. He did a tech build so you can sack some probes knowing his expo is way later.[quote]

I went Zealots because I thought they would handle the Marines better. Okay though.

PvT (Immortal) on Typhon Peaks..
-Again you see a barracks still building but an already complete refinery. So tech build incoming. This terran doesn't mind just showing you the factory and reactor. He doesn't even make a single marine before reactor. You scout no second gas as factory is making or when it completes so not starport tech. Seeing the factory with reactor helps. As well as the second factory near a barracks making techlab. Pretty much looks like blueflame hellions. (This terran is a retard giving you 100% scouting information. He must be 100% confident his race is IMBA even if you know what's coming.)
-You don't need a forge that quick for cloaked banshees. If he rushes for it cloak finishes after 7 minutes. In total forge+cannon takes 80 seconds. You can start that forge at like 5:30 and be 100% safe from cloak banshees. In most cases (especially cross map) can even start it at 6:00 to 6:30 and still be fine.
-You went 4 gateway, forge and 2 robos off one base. Uhhh...u mad?? You even made a cannon despite having 100% information seeing hellions incoming....also...did you know hellions don't kill buildings that fast. Can just let him see you expanding and not transfer probes. Focus on defending the ramp with sentries and some stalkers (preferably blocking any holes) and pushing back his hellions with some stalkers. Definitely by 7 minutes you can start an expansion safely against a hellion opener.
-Also....you saw him not make any marines....by 4:50 you have a zealot and stalker (could be faster even)...why didn't you just go attack with those 2 units. It'd be zealot+stalker vs supply depots and a factory. You could have messed him up bad and if you don't let your whole build slip cos you're focused on watching a zealot and a stalker kill a supply depot then you'd be way ahead.
-Here's a nice micro trick. Walk up all your stalkers next to his hellions then attack. In most cases they can't be looking at it all the time so usually they mess up and lose all their units. You're against tanks+hellions. The hellions won't do much do your stalkers. Just stutter step them forward and if you have the opening just run up next to the tanks. By the time you finally decided to run up to the tanks you lost so many stalkers when you didn't need to. There's only a couple hellions supporting the tanks so it's easy pickings.
-Also why make the two pylons on low ground if you see an attack coming. Also no attempt to move out and force a tank siege out of range of the nexus.
-You didn't even fully use the two robos you made. A lot of idle time. Really late on upgrades.
-Kinda....retarded warping in units on the high ground at a watchtower.....you realise if he stayed there he would have vision....
-That second attack from the rocks. If he's sieged don't attack into it. You've had double robo for over 5 minutes at this point but only 4 immortals. Seriously make more immortals and put them in front. You should have stutter stepped past the hellions. The tanks are the real damage dealers.
-Really slow with upgrading.
-No attempt to take a third. Against a mech style with hellions just take a third far away and put cannons all around the nexus. Hellions don't really kill cannons. Then don't attempt to move the probes if they get attacked so they don't stack up. I'd say take the 12 o'clock expansion or the top right expansion. If he tries to move there with his whole mech army you can take your whole army and kill his base.
-The drop didn't win you the game. Against a mech army you killed 9 siege tanks when he was making a thor switch. That won you the game. He needed to keep all those tanks alive.
-After you killed his tanks then you made enough immortals. Wasn't too much especially since you know he's going mech.
-Really late expansion at a bad location. Mech is mostly immobile but strong. Putting expansions close together means they're more vulnerable to one strong mech push. But seeing as you have both watchtowers it's alright. Super late 3rd though.
-Really bad on upgrades. Seems you kind of eventually get +2 attack then stop upgrading completely.
-Split up your DTs. They're all revealed by one scan.
-Do you know how to stutter step?? Your immortals have ones dancing at the back for a lot of the battle. I like the hold position stutter step. But you can do the attack move stutter step. You give an attack move command and once you see the front row attack you move the army forward for a brief second then attack move or hold position. Then repeat. You slowly creep towards the opponent while doing damage.
-You didn't make too many immortals. But also no other teching and lack of upgrades. I don't mind mass immortal+gateway army with tons of upgrades then an eventual colossus tech after third gets up.
-4 robos is excessive. You already had good immortal retention.
-Overall you won but could be better. Mech is immobile but hellions can gain map control. Still with two robos you can sneak in observers here and there and have a maphack like vision of the map.

Macroing during battles....examples
Situation 1
All my units on attack move. Ok none of them stuck at the back. MACRO TIME!!!! Macro done. Time to look at the battle again. Oh i can micro this thing. Ok nothing left to do. MACRO TIME!!! Macro done. Oh..battle over. My money under control and I have units left over.

Situation 2
Battle time. Now time to micro like a god. Nice splits and target firing. Ok queue up target firing. MACRO!!! Quick quick as fast as i can macro the bare minimum so i can micro the battle more. Micro like a boss....Queue up some more target firing. MACRO!!!!

KiwiKaki uses situation 2. A lot of WC3 pros as well. They're very used to microing so they can excel at that but they find a few seconds here and there to furiously macro.

I do situation 1. Maximise macro time whenever possible. This is because...my internet connection sucks and I have bad latency so ya can't really micro effectively.:D

Microing like a boss (i.e.micro so good it looks like a pro except you end up with a ton of minerals and gas by the end of the battle that you can never get it down)
Here's a story for you....mouzMorrow (one of the best zergs in Europe and used to be one of the best Terrans in Europe before switching) made a custom map on the EU server. It was a micro wars custom map and he and a bunch of his pro friends would play on it against random EU server players.

And notably even being in a lower league they could hold their own. Cases of Diamond players being able to keep up with Morrow and the other pros. The reason they could is simple...there's little multitask involved. You don't have to worry about macro at all. It's only micro. So as long as you weren't just stupidly staring at the battles but instead clicked around and told your units to do stuff (micro) it was alright. And if you learned all the techniques to micro well in battles you could be a strong opponent for any professional player on that custom map.

That's why i say if you don't like to macro during battles then screw it abandon macro during battles. SC2 is a game you play for fun so enjoy it. But in exchange there's no excuse for not being able to micro like a gosu. If your money ends up super high after the battle then screw it and plant down tons of gateways and mass warp in and mass chronoboost gateways to get your money down.

To summarise.....everytime you watch your replays and see points in a battle where you're not macroing well ask yourself either "How can i improve macro during a battle?" or "Why aren't I microing the crap out of my units?"

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Originally Posted by JackhammerIV

Macroing during battles....examples
Situation 1
All my units on attack move. Ok none of them stuck at the back. MACRO TIME!!!! Macro done. Time to look at the battle again. Oh i can micro this thing. Ok nothing left to do. MACRO TIME!!! Macro done. Oh..battle over. My money under control and I have units left over.

Situation 2
Battle time. Now time to micro like a god. Nice splits and target firing. Ok queue up target firing. MACRO!!! Quick quick as fast as i can macro the bare minimum so i can micro the battle more. Micro like a boss....Queue up some more target firing. MACRO!!!!

KiwiKaki uses situation 2. A lot of WC3 pros as well. They're very used to microing so they can excel at that but they find a few seconds here and there to furiously macro.

I do situation 1. Maximise macro time whenever possible. This is because...my internet connection sucks and I have bad latency so ya can't really micro effectively.:D

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I don't get it.

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Originally Posted by JackhammerIV

To summarise.....everytime you watch your replays and see points in a battle where you're not macroing well ask yourself either "How can i improve macro during a battle?" or "Why aren't I microing the crap out of my units?"

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Mostly the answer is "because I just didn't." During large scale battles I'm not good with micro.

LOL. Nvm then. Guess it's too complicated to understand unless you sort of already know or you get a visible demonstration.

if tehre is a point to be made about players that are pron to micro well adn laot compared to those that arnt, it mgiht be that those that arnt are, for better or worse, stuck on the notion of never over-prioritizing micro; rationalizing past most of what they deem 'non essential' micro mnagment as to make dam fucking SURE they dont miss out on anmacro-cycles (as this can arguably put a bigger dent in their game than doing sub-optimal micro)

.. for us mere mortals, its definatly a challange to walk the micr/macro line. i'd certainly recomend situation 1 to abuot anyone... but realyl, much of it comes down to trying to engage in predictable situatons where not alot can be lost by a-moving blindly for a few seconds... (for example, that isnt the case at all in endgame TvP, why i never can manage to land a cost effective engagment there adn if i did, my macro would probably be falling apart as a result)

Fun game, as you'll see by my little self-pity comment at the start I expected to lose. He got a huge army, took out my expo, FF'd me inside my base while he built up his forces - at this time I expected to be hit with a huge wave of forces. I began to warp in Zealots on the low ground outside my base to sneak attack when he pushed, and then got a couple DTs and sent them to his base.

Raped his probes and got a few pylons before he could counter. Later, sent my DTs to his expo, crushed his probes and got the Nexus, and realized his army was much smaller than I thought, so I sent out my forces and some time later, was able to push into his main and win.

So yeah, I fully expected to lose, but two timely DT raids were able to turn the tide.

Well for someone in plat he doesn't seem to have a good idea what he's doing. Your whole build had better direction and focus.

And even at the first DT attack you could try sending down one zealot or one probe to check the low ground to see if his army is still there.

You could have restarted that expo of yours earlier when you decided to attack him. And just long distance mining from there. Your main was getting really low.

If you're in panic mode remember you can chronoboost warpgates so that they can warp in the next round quicker.

You need some sort of idea of what you want to do as the game goes on. You get DTs and Charge. Eventually get blink. Seeing how much gas you end up with you can make a templar archives and go zealot+archon+stalker later in the game. Archons are useful at breaking forcefields, killing zealots and soaking up lots of damage.

The opponent was dead ages before the game actually ended. He should have just quit the game. He's just wasting time forcefielding and you have nothing to deal with those forcefields. He has observers so can easily place forcefields in time. If you had archons to break the forcefields he'd be dead long ago.

I forgot Archons break FF. Thanks.

A PvZ, I have only two words to say - fucking Brood Lords. I can never deal with them. Ever. I should have won, I could have, I think. I didn't. I blame the Brood Lords. Probably wasn't them, don't care, that's what I choose to believe.

PvZ (Broodlords)...
-You saw spawning pool and no gas. It's kind of typical to try and block where the hatchery would go at this point.
-If you look at around 5:30 mins you have 3 stalkers and he has 6 zerglings out. Also at around 3 mins you saw a spawning pool and no gas. Meaning he went pool-->hatchery. Late gas means late zergling speed. You could move out with those 3 stalkers and micro a bit. Maybe kill a queen if you're lucky but more importantly force him to make more units than drones. Then you can easily run away with how quick stalkers are.
-You made 70 probes on two bases....great number for late game when you're on at least 3 mining bases....not so great when you're on two base. Your third base is way way late. But kind of excusable i guess since the zerg isn't good enough to expand earlier.
-Much better with the upgrades. Good.
-Why get so many zealots?? You saw roach-hydra-corruptor deal with your warprpism. Zealots aren't particularly good against that.
-At the battle no guardian shield. No forcefield. His army completely caught you by surprise. Sadly your zealot saw his whole army so you should have been at least slightly prepared....
-You keep making zealots....they can't exactly shoot up to protect colossi. And they aren't that amazing against roach-hydra. You pretty much go for more zealots if zerg goes lots of zerglings.
-After the battle you're incredibly poor since you took that 3rd base so late. Generally by 13minutes if you don't have a third then you're not really aiming for the lategame.
-Be more active checking bases. Send out one or two probes with an air unit like an observer to keep checking at multiple bases at once. Like those two left bases zerg took. I would have a probe there on patrol between the two bases so it'd keep moving between them. I'd do the same on the rightmost bases.
-At the second battle at your third....there are no cannons to slow down the zerg at all. He just walked right up to the nexus. Your colossi were walking around too much. So much of the battle just walking around instead of attacking. Instead of moving the colossi to the stalkers you can blink to the colossi...as well as warp in more stalkers. Important to remember to make a few extra pylons over 200 in case some get sniped. Also note that basically 4 colossi died because you had them way up front and the roaches just walked up to them. Imagine if instead at 24:50 ish minutes your stalkers were in front of the colossi on top of that ramp.
-That second battle pretty much screwed you. Lost your third base. Also lost 6 colossi when it could easily have been just losing 2 colossi. You need better vision of where zerg could attack from. Those attack paths. At 25:30 ish minutes you had an observer on one attack path.
-Broodlords didn't kill you. Bad economy and bad battles killed you. You need to improve your micro. That second battle where you lost 6 colossi....that's usually where Protoss wins. End the battle with 3rd still alive. As many colossi as you can keep alive. Warp in more stalkers then go kill zerg's mining bases. Seriously his economy is right next to your third. Could have completely destroyed his income. At that point try to poke at his main base and if the unit count is low go for the kill. In terms of the bad economy..late 3rd and no move to take a 4th. By around 18-20ish minutes you should be thinking if you want a 4th or try to kill zerg.
-That final battle....your army split apart and the earlier bad economy of yours...wasn't the broodlords that killed you. If you had a better economy earlier on you could have and should have started stargates as you get close to maxed to make void rays.
-Overall bad economy and bad battles killed you. Realistically a better zerg would crush you but your opponents aren't even close to that level yet. Work on your micro during battles. You're looking at your army most of the time and you still let units wander off or run in solo to die. And work on economy.
-In terms of economy if you're aiming for the late game then you want to start a new expansion every 6-7 minutes. 6-7mins first expansion. 12-14mins second expansion. 18-21 mins third expansion. etc etc. That's what constant probe production aims for. You also need to find a rough time on when to stop probes. Usually that's when on 3 bases and you see you have good saturation on all 3 bases (while harvesting all the gas from all 3 bases).

Another PvZ, opponent didn't seem very good. Only point of note here is I went Stargate when I saw he had no anti-air except Queens, and i think that was the clincher, a fleet of Phoenix took out a ton of overlords and several queens and infesters. He attacked with burrowed roaches and took out both my expos, but I was able to eventually push him back while simultaneously pushing into his base. I didn't macro/micro very well in that push, focusing more on defending my base and trusting my army to take care of themselves. It worked, ultimately.

Also, because I found myself considering this, versus mass roach would Immortals be viable, or should I stick to the Colossus?

Definitely immortals, unless the protoss player got a ton of colossi or sentry roaches will do fairly good against a few colossi.

Stalker+sentry+immortal would completely wreck mass roach. But you mentioned stargate. It's always easier to start void rays if you're afraid of roaches coming in instead of waiting for the robo then making immortals. Time to check that replay...:p

Well I had the Robo first, Stargates were a spur-of-the-moment decision when I saw no anti-air. May or may not have been the smartest move, but it worked. :p

PvZ on Tal'Darim (Stargate)....
-Yeah the zerg is bad. LOL. If i ever see zerg doing hatch first on Tal'Darim...:D Time for some cannons and zerg tears. There's a reason professional zergs stick to pool first on this map. Really some zergs seem to think there's some hidden code of honour that stops Protoss from cannoning Zerg.
-LOL.....zerg hatch first only to get 15 drones to your 22 probes. Also he shouldn't have bothered taking your gas. It's already so late and you didn't try to take it anyways meaning you don't want it that early. You can really tell the zerg is much worse than you because you didn't even try to pressure him even though he went hatch first but his harvester count is lower than yours.
-Perfectly timed expo. Nice. Try to be more aware of dark areas inside your base. Zergs like to hide nydus worms on this map. Like one spot is the one behind your mineral line and the part between your main base and your walloff at the ramp.
-You let your money get too high by 12minutes. At the time you started your 3rd gas you could start a 4th gas as well. Keep those upgrades going. And if you rather not warp in then use that money to get other things quicker like robos, more gateways, etc.
-All that time where your stalkers are sitting there doing nothing. You can spend that time attacking the rocks to eventually take a 3rd base. If you're worried about an attack even sending 1 or 2 units to start attacking it is good. By 14mins you have over 2k minerals. No reason at all for you not to be trying to get a 3rd base.
-Your warp prism is weirdly timed. You only have 4 warpgates. You'd want a lot more to make that warp prism a big threat.
-You get charge first. Seems like a habit. You have so many stalkers and you see him going roaches. Meaning you'd rather not get too many zealots in your army. So probably better to get blink first. Also you might want to consider making a second forge after making the twilight council for double upgrades.
-Your third base is way way way late. You had more than enough money to get it earlier. You weren't attacking or doing any harass so ya start that 3rd base earlier. You're so low on gas you should build both assimilators at the 3rd. Even long distance gas mine would help you get more gas. Good with the two pylons at the ramp. You're thinking about defending that base. Nice. But you don't start gateways and cannons there right after the pylons finish. Again you have tons of money to do it. At that point in time the most important thing is getting gas from that 3rd base and putting defenses in place to protect it. Either way you have an amazing economy compared to the zerg.
-Overall the zerg is ridiculously bad and you could win with almost any strategy as long as you don't mess up. The only thing zerg is doing right is spreading overlords for map vision.
-At 23 minutes at the ramp to your third base. Imagine a full walloff with gateways and like 4-6 cannons behind it. Those roaches wouldn't be able to get through it before you can move your whole army to defend. Your 3rd base wouldn't die so easily. In this game it wasn't a case of "Should i make immortals or void rays to deal with mass burrowed roach?". In this game the question is "Why didn't I make cannons to defend the ramps before I decided to move out with my army??"
-Also no attempt at a 4th base despite how late it is and how your minerals are almost all gone. While defending don't warp in the units right in front of the roaches if there's no other units to distract them. You basically let them hit those warped in units while taking no damage. Should chrono those immortals and warp in tons of warp gate units next to the robo facilities. Chronoboost warpgates as well if you have the energy. Then when the immortals are done go and clean up the roaches.
-After the battle is done just make two nexuses with the second one being the base south of your 3rd.
-Also by the end of the game I want you to realise something. If you just go to your vision...you have no idea what's on the bottom half of the map. You can use one probe to randomly place a few pylons down there so anytime you're worried he hid a base down there you can warp in a few stalkers and have them check.
-Overall your main issue this game was macro and forgetting to put defensive structures down. If long before you decided to move out you used those extra minerals you had to block off the ramp at your third with gateways and cannons and you put cannons and extra pylons at the ramp at your 2nd base then his roaches would have done very little once you warped in defending units. So keywords for improving in this game....MACRO...MY MONEY GETS TOO HIGH AND THERE WERE A LOT OF THINGS I COULD SPEND IT ON BUT I DIDN'T, DEFENDING WITH CANNONS BEFORE I ATTACK, MAKING SURE ZERG DOESN'T HIDE EXPOS.

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Originally Posted by Drake Clawfang

Well I had the Robo first, Stargates were a spur-of-the-moment decision when I saw no anti-air. May or may not have been the smartest move, but it worked. :p

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Given how bad the zerg was as long as you didn't screw up too badly you could easily demolish him given your skill level now. In a "perfect game" scenario where the zerg is playing a strong style that basically copies a pro...then it'd be a bad idea to go from double robo to double stargate.

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Originally Posted by JackhammerIV

Good with the two pylons at the ramp. You're thinking about defending that base. Nice. But you don't start gateways and cannons there right after the pylons finish. Again you have tons of money to do it. At that point in time the most important thing is getting gas from that 3rd base and putting defenses in place to protect it. Either way you have an amazing economy compared to the zerg.

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This is the only point in particular I wanted to respond to. Indeed, the plan was a wall-off with gateways and cannons, I just plain forgot :p. And yup, bit me in the ass.

This game was fun, an early push with Stalkers and Zealots got me a win. The early game was perhaps the best scout micro I've ever done, my scouting probe killed off two SCVs, one in the process of building his rax and another building his second depo, thereby not only getting two worker kills but delaying both. Awesomesauce. :p I tried to pick off a third but he had a marine out by that time and my probe died. Other point of note is when I did my push, I brought along two Sentries, used one for Guardian Shield and the other to FF his bunker to push away support SCVs and Marines behind it. I went earlier expo than normal too, figured if I was gonna be pressuring him he wouldn't be moving out any time soon, so I could try for an early economic advantage.

A couple errors though, I cronoboosted my gateway at one point instead of my cy core, and got spawn blocked once or twice. Oops.

PvT (Push) on Antiga Shipyard....
-Always remember using hotkeys. You could just look at the probe tell it to move somewhere further away and quickly use the nexus hotkey to make probes. You were a bit late doing this.
-Really nice work with the probe. Sad you lost it but it did a good job.
-Like you said some problems with supply blocks.
-Really nice work expanding and preparing to pressure the terran. You could start that expansion sooner just when you reach 400minerals.
-When terran came down the ramp you could do a better job microing back stalkers. You could have saved two stalkers from dying.
-Really nice moving. Retreating back to collect warped in reinforcements before continuing.
-But one thing to improve is remembering to hotkey the second nexus while it's building so you can keep staring at the battle but make two probes at once. The kind of move you made isn't to kill him but just kill some units and pressure him while you expanded.
-Nice stutter step micro with those stalkers.
-Good job overall with the probe harass and the attacks. Important to remember though the use of forcefields. If you had one more FF you could have cut his army in half when it tried to go down the ramp. If you had another one later on you could have FF his SCVs trapping them below the ramp for your stalkers to kill while his marines can't do anything.
-Also think about the pylon placement. You put it so you retreat right then up. If your pylon was behind the mineral line at the natural then you keep a nice arc to attack him if he runs down the ramp while you retreat. Like when he ran down with marines and a tank he could make a nice line to face you. If you put the pylon behind the mineral line the attack would happen at the bottom of the ramp and so he'd have a lot more units sitting at the back unable to attack.
-Overall the terran was doing a very bad version of the 1-1-1. He didn't do it anywhere near perfect which says a lot for his skill considering it's an easy build for terran to do. At least he's smart enough to make a bunker.

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Originally Posted by protoswarrior

TRD, (hey man :) ) don't you find 13 gate a lil late esp in PvZ? Isn't 12 gate better in that you can get the zealot out faster?

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12 gate is standerd. 13 gate is ok if you want that extra probe for extra minerals and if you confident enough in your micro. Personally i don't suggest going for the 13 gate vs zerg cuz of zergling rush. Most of the zerg players will send 2-4 zerglings to your base at the beginning of the game, and if your are not walled off then you're in trouble.

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Originally Posted by olegavi

12 gate is standerd. 13 gate is ok if you want that extra probe for extra minerals and if you confident enough in your micro. Personally i don't suggest going for the 13 gate vs zerg cuz of zergling rush. Most of the zerg players will send 2-4 zerglings to your base at the beginning of the game, and if your are not walled off then you're in trouble.

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Well actually PvP you should go for the 12 gate since everything is on a razor's edge in that matchup early game. PvT and PvZ it's perfectly fine to go for 13 gate. You have a chrono saved up anyways and in those matchups it's a bit more forgiving in the early game. The only reason you'd want a 12 gate in those matchups is you want a thin timing where a few seconds count for your warp gate research completion, i.e. 4 gate.

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Originally Posted by olegavi

12 gate is standerd. 13 gate is ok if you want that extra probe for extra minerals and if you confident enough in your micro. Personally i don't suggest going for the 13 gate vs zerg cuz of zergling rush. Most of the zerg players will send 2-4 zerglings to your base at the beginning of the game, and if your are not walled off then you're in trouble.

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This is bullshit.

13 gate/scout is standard, because it will let you have constant probe production, while also CB'ing after the pylon and gate finishes.
Also, if you're playing PvZ, you will have a gate+core+zealot finished by the time the first pair of zerglings arrive. That is, if the zerg did a standard build.

I go for a 14 gate, always. I don't think it will matter much.

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Originally Posted by Twilice

I go for a 14 gate, always. I don't think it will matter much.

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It can be vital, when trying to achieve some kind of 1 base timing ( 4 gate ;D ) as Jhammer mentioned above

14 gate is pretty much only needed, if you pylon scout ( at 9 ), and want constant probe production.

Just a note to you Jackhammer, that Platinum stuff won't last, I'll be in Gold again come next weekend. Keep losing, mostly to shit I don't know how to deal with because I've nevr experienced it before.

I see Zerg going early expo, I see no Roach Warren, think "he's expoed early, one gas, he won't have many roaches, let's send some stalkers over". Nope, he has ling speed, I'm crushed.

Protoss, two gate lot rush, I lose several probes and pylons but hold him off. I see from the probe I had in his base he only just began gas when the rush failed, think "okay I've got six or seven stalkers, he invested a lot in that rush. Let's expand and strengthen the eco, he'll either fall back to a standard build or try to send more lots, which I can micro". A few minutes later, a dozen stalkers down my throat with lot backup.

Terran, tech to Banshee, but when I try to attack he's got a dozen marines and a tank guarding his base, I'm crushed, expo to try and get an economic advantage and build up my army, still crushed.

So yeah, I moved up a league and discovered I suck. To quote the Matrix, "disappointing, but not unexpected".

Replay. I try to keep building stuff, I keep my upgrades pumping, I expand well, I hold off early marauder push (mostly because opponent was dumb enough to run them by the cliff, hello stalkers), and in anticipation of such when I saw two rax and a tech leb, I went for early tc to get charge. Also in my final push, since I had such a mass of stalkers and immortals, I staggered them. Shoot, move closer, shoot, move, etc.

Only problem is once again I kept supply blocking myself. GR!

Also, that sensor tower that lets him see half my base - uber cheese.

EDIT - Though watching it, wow, he sucked. His army was pathetically small, I expected to run into a MM ball with tanks, instead I found a MM dust bunny with tanks. I should and could have pushed out sooner.

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Originally Posted by Drake Clawfang

Just a note to you Jackhammer, that Platinum stuff won't last, I'll be in Gold again come next weekend. Keep losing, mostly to shit I don't know how to deal with because I've nevr experienced it before.

I see Zerg going early expo, I see no Roach Warren, think "he's expoed early, one gas, he won't have many roaches, let's send some stalkers over". Nope, he has ling speed, I'm crushed.

Protoss, two gate lot rush, I lose several probes and pylons but hold him off. I see from the probe I had in his base he only just began gas when the rush failed, think "okay I've got six or seven stalkers, he invested a lot in that rush. Let's expand and strengthen the eco, he'll either fall back to a standard build or try to send more lots, which I can micro". A few minutes later, a dozen stalkers down my throat with lot backup.

Terran, tech to Banshee, but when I try to attack he's got a dozen marines and a tank guarding his base, I'm crushed, expo to try and get an economic advantage and build up my army, still crushed.

So yeah, I moved up a league and discovered I suck. To quote the Matrix, "disappointing, but not unexpected".

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The Terran sounds like he's doing 1-1-1 to you. That shit is scary and super noob friendly for Terran to do.

Protoss....depends how much damage he did and who is left behind in warpgate tech. Sounds like he just did 2 gate zealot rush then a late 4warpgate.

Zerg.....expo early but still having ling speed. So meaning you didn't really check the gas timing. If he went pool hatch or hatch pool then ling speed is way way late finishing and you should be able to pressure him with 3 stalkers and him still not having ling speed. Personally I go for zealot+stalker since it attacks earlier.

Well it's good to realise you suck. Everyone sucks. As Artosis says everyone is horrible. MVP is the least horrible of all and might be close to being really good sometimes. Just keep playing and keep trying to improve and eventually you'll just get better.

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Originally Posted by JackhammerIV

The Terran sounds like he's doing 1-1-1 to you. That shit is scary and super noob friendly for Terran to do.

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Yeah, I was at a loss for what to do. I got obs out in time to chase off the Banshees, but should have gone for Photon Cannons sooner than I did. Especially since it was on Metalopolis and thus the Banshees just flew up and down the cliff at my natural leaving stalkers to run after them. How do I handle this build then?

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Protoss....depends how much damage he did and who is left behind in warpgate tech. Sounds like he just did 2 gate zealot rush then a late 4warpgate.

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Yeah. An unexpected error on my part turned out to help a lot, a Stalker got pinned between my buildings the cliff, so he had to whittle down a pylon to get to it while it provided support fire safely. I also didn't build back-up pylons so all three gateways and my core went unpowered for several seconds, and of course i was supply blocked after.

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Zerg.....expo early but still having ling speed. So meaning you didn't really check the gas timing. If he went pool hatch or hatch pool then ling speed is way way late finishing and you should be able to pressure him with 3 stalkers and him still not having ling speed. Personally I go for zealot+stalker since it attacks earlier.

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Check.

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Well it's good to realise you suck. Everyone sucks. As Artosis says everyone is horrible. MVP is the least horrible of all and might be close to being really good sometimes. Just keep playing and keep trying to improve and eventually you'll just get better.

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I've watched some of MVP's matches on HDStarcraft's channel. The dude is the definition of "Crazy Enough To Work".