The Protoss Players Thread

[Drake Clawfang]

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.

[JackhammerIV]

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).

[Drake Clawfang]

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?

[Twilice]

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

[JackhammerIV]

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...

[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.

[JackhammerIV]

PvZ on Tal'Darim (Stargate)....
-Yeah the zerg is bad. LOL. If i ever see zerg doing hatch first on Tal'Darim... 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.

[JackhammerIV]

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.

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.

[Drake Clawfang]

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.

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 . And yup, bit me in the ass.

[Drake Clawfang]

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. 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.