The Protoss Players Thread

[Drake Clawfang]

-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).

Okay.

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

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.

-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.

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

-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.

Okay.

-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.

....macroing during battles?

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.

I flat cannot micro that good.

-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.

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.

[JackhammerIV]

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.

[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.

[JackhammerIV]

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?"

[Drake Clawfang]

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.

I don't get it.

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?"

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

[JackhammerIV]

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

[Todie]

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)

[Drake Clawfang]

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.

[JackhammerIV]

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.

[Drake Clawfang]

I forgot Archons break FF. Thanks.