What do you hate the most?

[protoswarrior]

@ Protosswarrior

Demosquid's right when he said that you don't have to fast expand to keep up with Zerg. If a Zerg decides to fast expand, smashing their defence (even with spines crawlers) is very achievable off a single base.

It's the so-called 4-gate all-in, although as a Zerg player, I really don't feel that the attack is as 'all-in' as its name would indicate! A variation of this particular timing attack would be the 3-gate robo. Or it could be a 4-gate robo, I can't remember exactly .

I've lost to this my share of times, and it just packs such a punch that it can still kill fast-expanding Zerg even if they're aware that it's coming. Naturally, it's just off one base, but Immortals devour Spine Crawlers alive.

Zerglings only do 5 damage and Immortals have 1 armour, so even though the Immortals don't get a hardened shield bonus vs Zerglings, you'll find that Zerglings still take quite a while to bring down an Immortal, and your Immortals can really rip apart Spine Crawlers in the meantime.

You forget ze queenz (2 usually) and that makes the ling/spine/queen combo very strong esp with Transfuse.

I already accepted Demo's suggestions, but there are some specific situations where 1 base works vs 2 base zerg. In most cases, you HAVE to break or damage that expo before the econ kicks in. On 1 base, zerg can make a lot of speedlings and if microed right are quite hard to deal with.

Immortal pushes do work sometimes, but they fail a lot of times too. If he gets 4+ spines and a few lings and 2 queens, you can't break it even with 1 Immortal followed by a second close one. And, it is all in because if you fail, you can't hold the ramp long enough because the lings eventually kill your front door gate ('term' used loosely) by just swarming the front ramp. You can get a sentry and even FF but by the time the FF wears off and you get a second one, he has mutas and you have zealots and 2-3 sentries vs a mass of lings knocking at the front, and about 5-6 mutas harassing your probes. Spire builds really fast you know...

I know what I need to do, but I'm giving you the scenarios I encountered on ladder top Gold (rank#1-3).

[Gradius]

It is easy to go: "Yeah! Phoenix beat mutas with the right Micro! Dumbass!"

My phoenix post was more or less a joke btw. :P

[Mrjiggles]

Lag in 3v3 and 4v4, reaper rush, 4v4 against all terrans marine rush, mech, siege tanks, ultralisks since they suck, and 6 pool rushes.

[protoswarrior]

My phoenix post was more or less a joke btw. :P

:P Sorry, I wasn't really aiming that at you ^_^;;;
More of a general remark.

Realistically, getting Phoenix requires good timing to keep muta numbers down, and being able to tech switch to templar/Blink stalkers at the right moment to counter hydra-ling tech switching from pure muta-ling is very important... If the tech switch is not spotted early enough, you're really screwed.

That's what I am aiming to work on.

[Todie]

@ Protosswarrior

Demosquid's right when he said that you don't have to fast expand to keep up with Zerg. If a Zerg decides to fast expand, smashing their defence (even with spines crawlers) is very achievable off a single base.

It's the so-called 4-gate all-in, although as a Zerg player, I really don't feel that the attack is as 'all-in' as its name would indicate! A variation of this particular timing attack would be the 3-gate robo. Or it could be a 4-gate robo, I can't remember exactly .

I've lost to this my share of times, and it just packs such a punch that it can still kill fast-expanding Zerg even if they're aware that it's coming. Naturally, it's just off one base, but Immortals devour Spine Crawlers alive.

Zerglings only do 5 damage and Immortals have 1 armour, so even though the Immortals don't get a hardened shield bonus vs Zerglings, you'll find that Zerglings still take quite a while to bring down an Immortal, and your Immortals can really rip apart Spine Crawlers in the meantime.

You forget ze queenz (2 usually) and that makes the ling/spine/queen combo very strong esp with Transfuse.

I already accepted Demo's suggestions, but there are some specific situations where 1 base works vs 2 base zerg. In most cases, you HAVE to break or damage that expo before the econ kicks in. On 1 base, zerg can make a lot of speedlings and if microed right are quite hard to deal with.

Immortal pushes do work sometimes, but they fail a lot of times too. If he gets 4+ spines and a few lings and 2 queens, you can't break it even with 1 Immortal followed by a second close one. And, it is all in because if you fail, you can't hold the ramp long enough because the lings eventually kill your front door gate ('term' used loosely) by just swarming the front ramp. You can get a sentry and even FF but by the time the FF wears off and you get a second one, he has mutas and you have zealots and 2-3 sentries vs a mass of lings knocking at the front, and about 5-6 mutas harassing your probes. Spire builds really fast you know...

I know what I need to do, but I'm giving you the scenarios I encountered on ladder top Gold (rank#1-3).

i think you should listen to grunt, hes a good player iirc, and i agree with his overall assessment: i was thinking the same thing after reading your first posts here; i would like to elaborate on the reasoning behind it:

.... i have played zerg, and been in that position feeling very comfortable vs protoss IF and WHEN im able to get my FE + spire up in peace.
Lets get one thing clear: spire does not build fast. 100 esconds is the longest build time in the game to my knowledge; its just as long as a dark shrine.

climbing the ladders i increasingly realized that the better players were'nt gonna let me do that in peace, and while that neednt end the game for me, it did level the playing field.

That was months ago now, and protoss ability to deal with mutas has improved since then but i keep that mindset when playing zerg vs protoss: i need to deal with that timing push and unless i pull off some earlygame magic that delays him, i cant count on getting my mutas out before getting pushed.

.... when understanding why early pressure vs zerg is so important, it helps to understand the dynamics of zerg economy management / unit production: if you are not even threatening with aggressive movements, a good zerg opponent will see that and adapt to it by getting a higher ratio of drones sooner.

what this boils down to is that - especially at this point of the game - its quite hurtful for a zerg player to even get slightly inched towards any corner of insecurity; because he will be forced to make units - units that he'd rather make later (when he's powered his econ faster than you, to afford higher numbers than you!)

in any push or aggression, its obviously very beneficial to actually inflict economic or structural damage, but vs zerg , especially in that 'late earlygame' , you are in a sense doing that with the aggression itself: if he sees more units than he can currently handle - he will slow down drone production! mission accomplished!


dont get too caught up in the details: there are man different ways to do things, but if your FE vs FE philosophy is giving you trouble, try to incorporate some early pressure before / as you expand - in a shape that suits you.

i think the implementation of your early push(/es) becomes important here: im sure there are many ways to do it, i think the important thing is to commit o being aggressive - as in moving units close to him - threatening confrontation - however, you should be careful not to over commit; not be afraid of withdrawing. (because if he successfully kills much of your attack force, he'll be confident in powering drones yet again)

(arguments count for much more than the rank of who they're coming from - but if it matters to you, i was mid-rank diamond)



what i personally "hate teh most" ?

I didnt play much melee the last week or so before closing, but what i do remember getting annoyed by was random players going proxy or other hard-to-predict early cheese... the way you need to scout and build defensively early against random players, to be ready for a variety of cheese that might not arrive - which in turn is hard to turn into aggression and easily leaves you at a disadvantage, should they be playing more standardized openers.

[protoswarrior]

Thanks for the advice Todie, I welcome it. And no, rank is not my primary concern. I was just saying it to give people a sense of the level of play we're talking about here. There is a huge difference between top 5 gold and ranks from 10-6. The latter are closer to top Silver, whereas top 5 gold is closer to intermediary Platinum.

[whitefire]

Terrans. They really grind my gears. they were annoying in sc1 and they are even more annoying in sc2. all the beta maps favor terran in one way or another. And if you mis time your attack by just a little bit you will get slaughtered by tanks and bunkers. Terrans are way too versitile. Toss has to work alot harder to win against terran and it angers me.

[//MavericK\\]

So far, I don't have any major dislikes...

Not a real big fan of Void Rays, though...but learning to counter them effectively with Marines and stim has lessened that dislike.

[kyr200]

unsuspected cannon rush kills me and grinds my gears. then i have dreams of beating up the guy that did it to me.

[Gradius]

Ghosts.