I suck.
I mean, I'm really bad. I suck in ways previously not yet considered by mankind. I'm terrible.
The first step to improving is admitting you suck. Step one: done.
And don't give me any of that hoo-haw about me being in Plat. I'm trapped here and, as the title says, hurtling blindly towards Gold. I don't want to be in gold. Again.
Step two: be humble enough to ask for help. Well, help! Step two: done.
So, I'm not going to post any replays, because generally I'm doing so many things wrong all at once that you'd have to hire one of those people who write college essays for you to acknowledge it all. Essentially, I'm starting from scratch, or attempting to anyway. In my frustration about losing I've gotten myself so bass ackwards that I don't even know what "basic" build orders are anymore. That's what I'm seeking help for.
I would like one solid build order for each match-up: PvP, PvZ, and PvP, and maybe some links to where I could find some replays or VoDs of it being done and being successful.
Why not do your own legwork, you ask? I've tried, so I'm here now. I've stomped through the TL.net strategy forums, and it's pretty cluttered and everyone's just arguing over how much or how little everything that's suggested sucks, or why it only worked because the opponent was terrible, so I can never tell if I'm going to be picking up a good build or not. I've tried going to sc2builds.com, but generally they're kind of vague, don't detail what you're supposed to be transitioning to later in the game, and almost all of the Protoss builds have Tumba commenting on how much garbage the builds are and not offering any better alternatives, so that's no help. I've tried finding my own VoDs and replays, but I seem to have this knack for only finding ones in which the Protoss loses, or in which the observer focuses on the not-Protoss player the entire game, so I never quite figure out what the build was. I've also tried just watching over my own replays, but when you've lost as many games in a row as I have, you can generally find that you're doing everything wrong, and fixing everything all at once is both intimidating and pretty hard to do.
Also, I'm not looking for practice partners. While I understand that practice partners are an immense help, I'm not looking for two reasons: One, 95% of the practice partners I've found generally pop on, cheese me, harass me, or don't actually go over replays, then vanish (the 5% I've found that are helpful so vastly outskill me that I'm not any help to them, and they suggest fixes that I'm just too darn slow to execute at the moment, they try though, and I love them for it!), and two, I'm going to be gone next month for a good year and a half, so I'd rather not pile up a bunch of people expecting me to be there for them and poof! never be there again, because that's rude.
I'd like three solid builds because I know exactly what I fail at that's making me fail at everything else -- my macro is so unbelievably terrible all game long that it's a wonder I ever made it out of silver league. I end up so fixated on trying to get my build right, my unit comp perfect, remembering to scout, and remembering to attempt to be aggressive (which always gets me killed, not sure why I bother) that I forget to add gates, and expand, and throw down cannons, and do upgrades and blah blah blah. Told you, I'm bad.
What exactly am I looking for?
- Builds that don't require excessive micro to work. Remember, I'm trying to fix my macro, and I've already gotten myself so gummed up on micro that I've been killing myself, essentially,
- Replays that show good sim-city. I already have a terrible habit if being out of position at exactly the perfect moment and losing my Nexii, which, obviously, doesn't help my macro any.
- Builds that have strong openings. My crisis-management is nearly as awful as my macro, so if an opening requires being able to beat of an SCV all-in with 7 Probes, a Zealot, two figs, and a roll of duct tape, chances are I'm not going to be able to do it. However, if you're kind enough to explain how it is I'm supposed to do it, I'll give it a try. Can't lose any more than I already am.
- Longer replays are appreciated. I often don't know when/how/what to transition into after the mid-game has sailed on by, and end up floating massive amounts of money simply because I've been staring at my base for a good 60 seconds trying to figure out what to do. Replays with things like colossi openings into fluid, natural-feeling transitions into something else would be nice. I do quite enough fumbling on my own, thanks.
In short, I'd like simple stuff to work on. I've jettisoned myself so far past simple builds that you couldn't even hit me with a "Keep it simple stupid" sign on a 10 ft pole.
I'll also happily take your replays if you're a Protoss player that's Platinum+ and has been having good luck. I figure it'll be easier to tell me what your plan was when, you know, you were actually the one playing the game.
Thanks guys! Sorry for the wall of text, and if I can help anyone out who's willing to help me, I'll be glad to while I'm still here!
I'll try the FE. I've tried it before, but it usually falls apart after the FE part. I'm never sure how long I should be building up gateways and probes before I should start teching, so I end up with no tech when I need it.
As for my placement, I've been in Platinum since before the end of Season 1, so at this point I figure I'm supposed to be in Platinum. I'm top 8 at the moment, but suddenly, for whatever reason, I've been losing all of my games. My macro's never been all that good, but I would like to think that I haven't suddenly gotten that bad at it. So, I just have to assume whatever I'm doing wrong now has something to do with something that's being exacerbated by my poor macro. I can't seem to pin point what I'm doing wrong, so I'm attempting to start on a clean slate by focusing on three standard builds and working on my macro. Once I've got my macro fixed, I figure I can start expanding to more complex builds.
If I get demoted again, it'll be the third time I've been in gold. Third! I may just cry if I get demoted again haha.
Thanks for the link to replayfu. I'd never heard of that site.
2You should always be making probes even while teching. I have to repeat over and over to myself "macro macro macro" which means I have to build probes constantly and I've found I've improved more than I was playing before.
Get your tech when you can afford it just don't skimp on having units in case you do get attacked but the better your macro is the more income you will get. Also if you do start floating A LOT of minerals and you don't want to expand then invest in gateways.
Also if you see your opponent have 2+ more bases than you then you really have to expand otherwise you won't catch up.
2Mm, yeah, I try so hard to remember that, but I really think my probe production falls apart not long before my first expansion into my natural.
My big problem feels like, before I expand, I have way too much gas and not enough minerals, and then when I finally do expand I have to choose between probes and units. I often get attacked by something or other either right before I expand or while the nat expo is building, which means I lose units that I have to replace or else I'm going to die if I get attacked again. After that, I just fall farther and farther behind because I'm now short both units and probes, which makes my tech fall behind and makes it so I can't afford enough gates to match up with the amount of units my opponent is making...
It's just generally a mess.
How many buildings should I be making per base? I get out-upgraded fairly often, too, but if overbuilding is my problem and that's why I'm so short on probes, if I can fix that I'll be able to afford the upgrades.
1Unless its pvp I do a 3 gate robo strat as my opener even if I tech to something else because I like having observers so I'm usually doing my 3 gates and pumping out sentries to use up gas (double gas at this point) once I've put down my nexus I'll put up my robo when the nexus is 25-50% complete so I can also get in a round of warpins before that. My play doing this strat is still sloppy because I don't play nearly enough to perfect it but it helps me having a clear idea of what I need to do.
Iirc it's 24 probes per mineral line for perfect saturation (might be a bit less can't remember now) so once you've got that on two bases you'll start floating and should consider investing in more gates or another expo since you don't want to stop making probes either. As long as you keep either chrono boosting out probes or using them on warpgates while still making probes your econ will be better and you'll have macroed better.
It's really just practice.
Another thing you could do is try playing as zerg against a friend, I personally found zerg macro harder to get to grips with and it could possibly help your macro skills overall if you try doing some games as Z.
2Yeah, it's about 24 probes per base. 3 probes per patch, 8 patches per base, then the 6 you need for gas, which makes for 30-ish probes per base, or a little over one page worth of probes if you were to select them all. Problem is, I never make that many haha. I do the transfer just before the nat expo finishes then get all caught up in fending off early aggression and choosing a tech path that my probe production pretty much dies. I also never remember to build cannons at my nat, but that's an entirely different bucket of worms.
I usually go colossus, so I actually think I'm building one too many gates on one base. I've gotten a little paranoid about early pressure, so I've just been opening defensive four gate for just about everything. While it's good for early defense, it's hard to transition out of. I also think I'm going for colossi before I have the economy to support it, which would explain where my upgrades are going.
1You should try and expand behind some aggression, I always thought I could expand and be ok with hardly anything, and that's the problem. Sending in some units (not all there is a chance of a counter) to attack means the opponent is staying in his base, so you're free to get the expansion down and macro some more and should a push come (in theory) you're able to defend it. I also suggest a postit on your monitor saying "PROBES" will probably help rite? ;p
As for cannons I usually just do 1 in a mineral line and 1 behind my cc/gateways at wall off if it's Z then go cannon crazy if I'm in further into the game with minerals to spend. Also rather than a defensive 4 gate just send in your first zealot you make to run around and wreak havoc and stuff. Not sure how you do upgrades but I'm usually +armor vs terran, weapons vs zerg/toss. Double forge eventually if I have spare cash.
1The upgrades, for me, are less of a what and more of a when. I never seem to have enough money to keep up with my opponents.
I do need a post-it note haha.
Mm, I'm not so sure about using the initial Zealot as an attacking force. It does kind of disturb their opening, admittedly, but in PvZ you need the Zealot to finish your wall, against T, they occasionally still wall-in and you end up with a dead Zealot. If they didn't wall in, then you end up getting kited by Marines, since Zealots are just slow enough. In PvP at least, the initial Zealot and the Stalker are a common harass, but again, my APM is pretty slow in comparison to other people in my league, so I end up doing more damage to myself than I do to them haha.
1It's still worth having that initial zealot at the ramp to see what they move out if you aren't getting an observer anytime soon imo. You can also run it up and back down if its T to see the unit counts. Esp if they are expanding you can choose to expand yourself because you'll be safe or run in and attack.
Back when I chose toss as my race I made a bunch of post-its for my 3 gate robo but now I'm learning random I still find the pylon note I made useful.
1I usually do that with a probe, watching the ramp. I used to do it with a Zealot, but I found out that if you goof and lose the Zealot, it's pretty hard to hold early pressure with just the few units you have left sitting at home, especially if it's against Terran. I guess a Zealot would be better if you're poking to check a wall, though. They're more likely to see the add-ons on a Terran wall before they get blown to bits.
1replayfu.com is just for sharing single replays, there is no listing as far as i know so you cant search for pro replays on there, i recommended http://www.sc2rep.com/ or http://www.sc-replay.com/
If you just want 1 build for each match up then definitely just go for the 3 gate expo in PvZ, I cant' help with other match ups since i only play Zerg. There are lots of good follow ups after you safely get on 2 base just find a player you really like, download some of his reps and imitate his style ^-^V
1Aha. I have sc-replay bookmarked, but I'll browse around sc2rep, too.
And thank you for helping me despite being Zerg =D It's nice to learn from other points of view, but often one race doesn't want to help another beat it on ladder haha.
I'm going to watch the 3-gate expo one next. It's what I've been doing, but I think my timings are either horribly off, or my unit comp is bad. I end up pretty sentry heavy, which I guess would be okay if my APM weren't so low. I end up losing more units/probes than necessary to early aggression because my DPS is so low because I have so many sentries. I think I'm still using the old timings based on the shorter warpgate research time which is throwing my entire game off. I usually feel like I've lost my 3-gate expo games before my expo's even finished.
1Watch the replay and pick a time and check what units/buildings/probe count he has, then check it against your own. I think ~6:30 is a good time as that is when the 3 warpin of sentries happens so you should always have 1 zealot and 5 sentries at that point.
2I think there's a vengeful downvoting ghost haunting this thread. I'm not sure who keeps downvoting you as soon as you post. =/
Yeah. I think I'm much, much slower than that, even without looking at a replay of my own. I know the limit you're aiming for sentry-wise is 9, but I end up so gas heavy I end up with a whole bucket of the darn things lol. Though, if I'm expanding so slowly, and my probe count is low in general, if I expand faster my gas probably won't be such a problem.
Anywho, I'm going to go watch the replay now instead of speculating lol.
Edit!
Also, do you know how old the 3-gate expo replay is? It says it's from a different version, but if it's just pre 1.5.3 then the timings should be fine.
1I'm actually in a similar situation, I've been in Platinum for a long time but recently I play a lot of gold players and hardly any Diamonds. I think Gold just got a lot better. It's weird, I'll play a top Gold and he'll give me a good challenge or beat me and then I'll play a top Platinum and walk over him. I think the rankings are just a little fuzzy sometimes, don't sweat it too much. All the golds you're playing are probably due for promotion.
2Well, there is that. My losing streak did seem to coincide with the ladder lock, but that doesn't make it any more enjoyable lol.
Still, it can't hurt to fix whatever's broken. If I'm getting stomped by the golds who are, potentially, the new wave of plat players, I don't think I'll stand a chance of staying in plat much longer if I don't bother to fix it.
Also, I know ladder just doesn't like me. For a while I was beating all of the (very few) diamonds it was pitting me against, and as a reward, it would pit me against a 50th ranked plat or top 8 ranked gold who would cheese me, win, and then all I'd get is low ranked plats after that lol.
1Once you find these builds I suggest finding a practice partner or two who doesn't mind grinding out 10 or more games with you. You could grab some nice builds from day9's steal this build series. The one I personally use from that is tylers pvp, where it is designed for you to sit back and receive a four gate.
But my main advice is once you find these builds and get the frameworks down, find a practice partner and throw the ideas of "win" and "lose" out the window. You will be under less pressure to win and can start making a habit of those things you suck at and desperately need in your play.
I'm plat hurtling myself towards diamond, I hope you find yourself in the same boat soon enough!
2I know I need practice partners, but like I mentioned in my OP, I'm going to be leaving here relatively soon, so I don't want to gather up a bunch of people who expect me to be there for them to help practice when I can't be. I'd love practice partners, but I'm just not going to be available enough for them right now to be fair. I'll probably hunt some down when I get back, though, I'll need them haha.
Was the Tyler build the one with the early immortals? I don't think I quite ever got that build fast enough. If it's the one I'm thinking of, my friend in Master's totally demolished me with a 4-gate anyway haha.
And congrats on being so close to diamond! Hopefully I'll be drifting back in that direction relatively soon.
1yea its early immortals, it requires some army control and the opening itself requires a ton of attention to detail but you should stomp a four gate. If you notice your getting 2 gated you should have enough time to scout and drop sentries + 2 extra gateways instead of the robo. When you hold the aggression your expo will be way faster and the tech choices will be up to you! I personally go the blink/chargelot/immortal route. I do this frequently with my masters PvP partner and get into the late game with him.
More games is basically what it takes, there is no quick fix. Just get your crutch builds and grind them. If it takes falling down to gold to do it then maybe it will be perfectly suited for you to work on these crutch builds and have you soaring back upwards.
To the practice partner thing, just find a couple friends and game whenever they can. Doesn't have to be a set schedule or anything.
2The early immortals one kicked my butt. I worked with it for a good hour or so, just doing the build over and over again, and I was pretty consistently a good 10-15 seconds off each time. It seemed really good, I just personally couldn't get it tight enough. it was very frustrating.
Can you afford both blink and chargelot and enough immortals to kill a Protoss in PvP before they get that critical mass of Colossi? Every time I've tried non-War of the Worlds late-game builds in PvP I end up stupidly Zealot-heavy and just get roasted lol.
1you have to be active, its good to use obs to blink around the map and pick off tech structures then retreat guerilla style. Good for picking off cols when their numbers are in the 2's and 3's. It's not good if you sit back and receive a 200/200 colossi death ball. If the game goes long enough you can always get robo tech of your own if it isnt working out. You can also drop the blink all together and rush col's with your early robo bay. There is a ton of options. Just keep working on it. You'll start to notice things like when to optimize dropping your pylons etc. I still need to figure out where I can fit in upgrades myself.
Just keep playin man! Best advice you can get :)
2I play all the time! I just... lose most of them. XD Oh well.
Yeah, I'll try being more aggressive in PvP. I tend to kind of hide in my base and cower then lose when it comes time for the clash of the titans at the end of the game. I usually get +1 attack in PvP, but can never afford anything else.
1What I have to say isn't exactly what you wanted to hear, but the moments you'll make the most improvements are the moments in which you make simple, pinpointed improvements.
You want to get better, but you want to magically do it with build orders and unit compositions. You seem like an intelligent enough person to play around in a "unit test" map and figure that much out given a little trial and error, but what you really need is just someone to smack ya up a bit and tell ya to go back to the basics.
You always want to strive for this idea that you want to do more, with less. For example. If you can win a battle with 3 units vs 5 microd properly, when you would lose a straight up a-move fight, that can unlock a new pack of possibilities. You wouldn't make 15 gateways on one or two bases would you? No because you can't possibly afford that, you'd be wasting resources. Is a zerg roach/ling timing attack giving you grief? Maybe you need to be smarter with your sim city (placement) and also the timing and position of your initial 3 gateways/following units and unit type and timing (like getting sentries sooner rather than later(to build up energy), but getting stalkers in time for the roaches). You wouldn't build a gateway/cybernetics core in the corner of your base vs zerg and risk getting owned by zerglings would you? Always try to do more with less, while always aiming to get more and more until you win or kill.
So long as you're always making workers, you're always making units out of your existing production facilities, and use your extra money from continued Wrkr count to add more expansions and production facilities and make more stuff the whole game you will soon find yourself at least in diamond.
You say you don't want to use builds based on micro, but micro really isn't that hard. Make sure you're using a set-up you're comfortable with. Maybe try a few different mouses or move things around but when you practice be conscience about your accuracy and speed. Always try to be doing something, don't just scroll around and look at things.
The truth of the matter is, you don't need that much micro to get into diamond, or even master league. Think about the situation you're in. You're an intelligent person right? Even if you fell to gold you'd be better than at least 40% of the player populous. Just learning basic micro will open up new venues you might not have thought possible. I'd focus mostly on your unit positioning, trying to maximize the damage your units deal, while minimizing the damage they take at the same time.
How can you expect to learn "good builds" if you don't even understand the definition of a "build" to begin with? The best "builds" are builds in which cut every single corner possible while still being safe from what you scout (are up against), while sticking to your basic game plan (unit composition/attack timing/expansion timing etc).
-The less you know, the more safe you should play (on ladder) because unless you're in high masters/gm you're probably playing someone new all the time and you don't want to lose to stupid crap. Also the closer you are (spawn location) to your opponent, the shorter the rush distances are and the more likely/potent all in or pressure builds become. Are you close ground positions? Maybe you spawn in close by air positions? Account for the possibility of drops or abuse drops perhaps. Maybe you're cross map on a massive map? .. ok you can get away with a little extra maybe..
If you're asking for some "all powerful build" you're right in thinking that build orders do win players games against other equally skilled players with poorer builds(and at times lets nubs beat great players with the right luck), so stick with that, but if you seriously have the time and the patience to get better improve your mechanics or you'll find it hard to get out of the league you're currently in. Every single person who plays the game can improve their mechanics in some way or another, the lower your league the worse your core mechanics generally are.
Also, think about being ahead or behind. A big part of starcraft2 is being able to make efficient trades. This is also the general concept of micro, but for you to relate micro/unit composition and intel in making decisions to keep you ahead or catch up.
Think about, for yourself, the reasons why you attack (or don't) when you do. Do you randomly just go all-in on people? Do you panic after scouting something? Are you attacking at the right time/place?
Anyhow if you want to improve, start at the core. There are no shortcuts at bettering yourself, do it the hard and proven way, as if you were a body builder, you need the RIGHT NUTRIEEEENTS in order for those sweet sweaty workouts you do to yield results.
Do that and you'll find you lose less and less late game, and more of your losses will come straight up from gimmicky strategies that go all early in or use invisible units (cross fingers and hope). You'll understand that if you don't take a lot of damage from gimmick play, while being ahead otherwise (to do this you have your core plan, and to that plan you make adjustments to... well... ADJUST to what you see from your enemy (IE, dark templars, banshees, burrow roach play, a certain tech composition or not... etc)
It's like I said earlier, keep it simple (keep it safe) and watch many many replays and compare your play to someone else's you know is good. It may also help to see bronze level players in contrast to both so you can just comprehend level.
<- masters btw. I have a 13y/o brother who started off in copper league(beta?) and in under a few hundred games got rank 3 diamond last season in 1v1 following my advice.
2Well, micro isn't really my problem. I'm an old WarCraft 3 player with a 78.5% win ratio on 1v1 ladder. My micro's actually very, very good. I'm rather slow, but I tend to be precise. However, that was WarCraft, where macro wasn't really... a "thing". I have problems doing micro and macro at the same time, and if I get caught up in micro'ing, like fooling around with Phoenix harass, I may do a lot of damage because my micro is good, but my macro tends to suffer immensely from it. I'm fine with micro, but there's other things I need to be working on, so I'd rather it not be the utter absolute focus of a build, a la the only way you're going to win with this build is to never lose a dropship.
So, my goal was to go back to basics. But, the problem was that I couldn't really figure out what "basic" was anymore. The "basic" builds have kind of shifted for Protoss since the change to warpgate tech, and I wasn't sure which way or why they had. Browsing the forums just got me more confused as to what was considered standard now, because everyone else seems to have moved on to just experimenting with things.
All in all, I'm not looking for a "solve all" build, I'm just looking for some basic stuff to do so I can focus on my mechanics, which suck, instead of fancy build orders and making sure my timing isn't 0.5 of a second off. I figure once I fix my macro and my unit control (I'm far more accustomed to small packs of units than the huge 200/200 armies you mess with in this game), everything else will kind of fall into place with practice.
2The basic, optimal way to macro is to:
- Constantly produce workers
- Constantly produce units
- Never get supply blocked, keep money low
All 'builds' derive from these basic rules. 'keep money low' occurs when your queues are full, and you have sufficient supply moving forward - this is when you flesh out your production, econ or tech. Proceed in this manner, doing whatever the F you want.
It sounds like you just need to glance at your vitals in the top right more often; you have to force your focus away from whatever you're doing (micro) to observe your min/gas/sup/ply. Spending the money following the rules is simple, its just a matter of making yourself see and do it. As a protoss it might also be a good idea to bind a camera location hotkey (tilde perhaps?) to your nearest proxy pylon for quicker warp-ins.
2How do you bind a camera location hotkey? I've never heard of that :o
Also, I get supply blocked in the late game a lot, when a ton of things are going on. How many pylons should you build at a time? I usually build as many pylons in a set as I have bases after every warp-in (as in, if I have two bases I build two pylons), because I'm afraid of spending too many minerals on pylons too soon. At some point that stops working though, and I end up with a ton of floating minerals because i've been supply blocked for a geological epoch. Should I be measuring my pylons by how many gates I have? Or should I just get over the numbers and just... you know... build and hope it works out lol.
2global -> camera hotkeys - also be aware that you should never be clicking in the bottom right ability panel. You should be using 100% hotkeys, and the game is almost 100% customizable so there's no excuse to not find a set-up that works for and can evolve with you.
As for supply blockage - think about it, your supply usage is dependent on your production, so early on when you are constantly producing from just 1 nexus and 2 gates you will not need to expand on your supply as often as later game when you are churning units from 2 nexuses, 4 gates, a robo and a starport.
Never. Get. Supply. Blocked.
2Thank you very much for the hotkey! i didn't know you could mess with the camera at all. I used to just bind my farthest out pylon to some hotkey I never use for anything else, like 0, but a camera bind to tilda sounds much more convenient.
And I use Grid so everything's over on one side of the keyboard. I don't click anymore, thankfully, haven't done that since I got out of silver league, so at least that isn't a problem.
1If you haven't, rebind spacebar to something useful as well, a la 'base cam' (backspace)- always useful to grab a worker from, or return one to mining, as well as a quick way to run chronos on all your nexuses as P (akin to zerg injecting).
2...
I need to go through and look at what all you can do with hotkeys haha. Never really knew about this stuff. Is base cam the one that cycles through your bases every time you hit the key? I usually just have my nexii bound to a numerical, which makes it so I can double-tap back to my main, but I have to manually click the minimap to get over to my others.
1Yeah 'base cam' cycles through them all, you still need the hotkey to select them though. Using it often just cuts down on the amount of screen scrolling you have to do. On that note, I recommend binding drag-scroll to mouse4 or 5 if you have them - it's a lot easier to manipulate with a thumb button than a scroll wheel, and obviously faster/more precise than screen-edge-scrolling.
2alrite 3 quick builds i been using and when i do them CORRECTLY i win. i lose when i eff them all up lol. btw im only gold so im terrible as well so take everything i say with a grain of salt :)
PvP defensive 4gate. grab second gas AFTER 4th gate started. if ur not pressured by 6 min go attack him (so he dies if he's dt rushing or something stupid) and get a twilight and blink when you feel safe. you'll want blink because ur 4 gate probably wont kill him because you started it defensively (i havent lost a PvP in 4days when i managed to get blink finished). but be wary if he 3gate robos if you attack too late his immortals or colossus will crush ur stalkers. and when you get blink you'll probably have to cut stalker production briefly in favor of a few zeals to save gas. if he does hard 4gate you'll have advantage of more gas and more stalkers, and eventually blink.
PvZ 3gate sentry expo. you build pylon on low ground before you expand so you can use ur expo nexus and a couple other buildings to wall off your ramp around when warpgate finishes. build a forge on low ground to aid in the low ground wall. build a cannon once forge finishes to help with burrow roach timing attacks. get hallucination once warpgate finishes. when hallu finishes hallucinate pheonixes to scout his base and look for expos (probably will need 2 fake phoenixes). aim for about 8 sentries before you start getting stalkers. once your expo is up and running you can transition to colossus, templar tech, a bunch of gates, double forge, anything you want. colossi may be safest route as they take a bit less micro than some other compositions.
PvT 2gate robo. when robo finishes chrono out observer to scout. make units and decide when to expand based on what you see with obs. if you an all in coming and dont trust ur micro be rdy to forcefield ur ramp and SPLIT his forces everytime he runs up. ull want to warp in sentries gradually. probably 1 each warp in cycle. guardian shield is INVALUABLE against marines because it cuts the damage they do by 33%. and i recommend more zeals than stalkers because marauders crush stalkers. when you feel safe expand. after expansion i like to get charge and eventually storm against bio heavy armies. if he goes straight mech tho robo tech with stalkers might be a better choice. not sure cuz ive only faced mech once (i died miserably with a chargelot heavy army)
Also here's a link of these builds (basically) from a much better player than myself (it includes basic builds for other races as well) http://wellplayed.org/forum/strategy/thread/basic-build-order-tutorials
of course Day9 steal this build series is highly recommended. I wouldnt try Tyler's PvP however cuz its very unforgiving if you do ANYTHING slightly wrong or late.
GLHF!!! ^.^
*EDIT: ignore the word "quick" in the first sentence sry for wall of txt :(
2Thank you very much!
I've been doing the defensive 4-gate, but I was doing it standard 1-gas, stop probe production at 20, etc. My friend was telling me something about getting something like 24 probes, but I don't think I've tried it. My 4-gate is okay, but again, I've been building it on timings that coincide with the old Warpgate tech research time, which I think has been throwing it off. With the extra time, I'm sure an extra gas and more probes is certainly doable. I think I've also been waiting about a minute too long to be aggressive with a defensive 4-gate, since I got DT rushed last night and got my ass kicked lol. I've been waiting until 7:20 to move out, since I thought the new 4-gate culminated around the 7:05 minute mark, but I guess I was off.
As for the 3-gate sentry expand, I watched a few replays of how it's supposed to be done by HuK and a few others and I discovered I was opening with too few sentries and too many stalkers, which was generally leading to me sitting on warpgates that couldn't make anything. I've already won a few games with it and my macro's a bit more on the mark with this build. My mid-game macro is still kind of shaky, since I tend to attack around this time, before a 3rd base can go up, but I'm sure the multi-tasking will come to me eventually.
I'll try the 2-gate robo against T. I've been doing 3-gate robo since I'm so paranoid about early pressure, but getting the robo out earlier might help with that, or I'll just swap my third gate and the robo for their order and see what happens.
I'll go through the Day9 'Steal This Build' series again. The only one that really clicked with me was the Tyler one, and I was pretty consistently a good 10-15 seconds off with it every time I did it, despite about an hour and a half of work with it. I'm sure there's new ones up by now, though.
Edit!
No problem haha. If you haven't noticed, I'm pretty prone to walls of text myself.
1glad to help a fellow toss! btw the reason you go 2gate robo against terran is so that you can expand. if you go 3gate robo and use all those structures it becomes an all in (note you wont rly have enough money to warp in 3 units AND make immortals consistently). if your looking for a toss all in you may as well 4gate instead. i think with a 2gate robo ur supposed to start ur expo around 42 food. but mine is usually a little later cuz i dont feel safe lol. and note if you see him expanding at any point then its probably safe to do the same.
and a hard 4gate hits a little before six min. the earliest ive gotten my first warp in to start is 5:45-5:50ish. if you're doing a defensive 4gate id recommend waiting till the 6min mark and if he's not attacking then move out immediately. dont have to kill him just attack to make sure he's punished if he's teching too hard. btw with the nerf to warpgate research time use only 1 chrono on probes. use ALL the rest of warpgate research. and if you're doing a defensive 4gate you don't need to cut probes at 20 because ur not trying to straight kill him. id keep making probes till he attacks or till you have about 30 (counting the ones on gas). If at any point you see he expanded, you should be able to kill him unless your macro is off or you lost an engagement horribly already.
1I'm in Plat and was in the same situation. I used to do 1 build per matchup but it was slow going.
So instead I switched to one build for ALL matchups. Its helped a ton because I've gotten very familiar with my own timings, so I can focus on my mechanics and macro (which is what everbody says you need to do below masters)
Of course you need to make sure your build is verstile enough to take on all matchups. You do sacrifice some raw power for verstility, but I think its worth it.
Personally my build is 2 Rax pressure FE into 2 Fact Tank into double expand with Ghosts.
For a P player I image something similar would be 3 Gate expo into 6 gate Robo into double expand with double Forge.
2I've been fooling around with archon builds against T and Z, since they're both heavy bio groups, but I haven't quite gotten the whole Broodlord problem figured out, and I was already pretty okay with PvP after figuring out what the timings were for a 4-gate (which took a whole other thread to figure out haha).
1I watched the Forge FE build that fenner was kind enough to link me (haven't gotten to the 3-gate expand yet), but would anyone like to discuss the game? I'm not really good enough to definitively say why someone won or lost a game, and as the Protoss lost, talking about it would be a big help.
To me, the FE itself felt like it got off the ground a little slow. I understand that Tal'Darim is a very large map and generally dissuades things like 6 or 10 pools, but it felt like it sat there unit-less for a long time. Is this kind of a side-effect of the build? I like that the sim-city makes for easy movement between the main and the nat, though. Like I mentioned, I'm prone to losing nexii to stupid things, so being able to get between the two bases is nice.
I think, right now, the Phoenix opening is a little too micro intensive for me on top of what I need to fix. It seemed to work well in keeping the Zerg from going for mass Roach, which seems pretty prevalent in my league, but is there another acceptable unit opening to attach to a Forge FE? I lose fairly often to mass Roach because I get out-upgraded -- would a blink stalker/immortal and double forge be okay? Or is that a little too gas heavy and low-tech? I'm fairly good at blink micro already, and I think I can manage it while paying attention to my macro, as it isn't something I'd have to learn.
It felt like not being able to get his fourth base up and losing his pack of Phoenixes to the infestors plus never having a very large ground army attributed to the Protoss's loss. Is there a better base to take as a 4th on Tal'Darim? Or perhaps a means of building a wall? Both 4ths, the one that's a short walk from the 3rd and the one behind the nat, are pretty open. I assume they're supposed to be hard to hold. Since I don't feel up to going for Phoenixes due to my rather low APM, would going DTs to deny expos be a better investment?
The build itself looks good, and I'm going to watch the opening a few more times to see when everything went down exactly, but I'm trying to make the transitions after as noob-friendly as possible, since that's not what I'm working on right now.
1Also, also, does anyone have any replays of people winning against mass Marauder as Protoss? It's the comp I'm having the most trouble against right now, and I suppose chargelot/archon may work, but I have no idea how to get to that comp without dying first.
I've tried looking on my own, but replay sites don't seem to list "marauder" as a unit comp, so I can't seem to find any lol.
Edit!
I lied. sc2replayed now has a "marauder" category. Never mind haha.
1Watched the 3-gate expand one.
I am doing it very slow. The very beginning of my opening is a little faster (9 pylon, 12 gate, 14 gas, 17 cyber, as opposed to 9 pylon, 14 gate, 14 gas, 18 cyber), but I can see where delaying it could help, HuK didn't have to cut any probe time to make those timings. I've also been waiting to expand until after the final 2 of my 3 gates are finished, because I think I was building my second gate too early, which made it so I couldn't afford my expo after warpgate finished.
I'm also getting about 4 too few sentries for the opening and building my forge and colossi way too early, it seems.
The only thing I'm questioning is how well this build would do against early Zerglings. HuK had a few more Zealots than I do normally, and way more sentries, but no Stalkers. I, fairly frequently, get hit by mass Zerglings about the time my nat Nexus is about halfway done, end up having to sac my expo to hold my ramp, and it all kind of falls apart from there. Should I just be FFing despite the fact that the space around the nat is very open? My FFs are a little slow, so I'll just have to practice if that's the case.
Also, I noticed that HuK went for Immortals. How many Immortals should I be trying to get? And, if the Immortal/Stalker mix doesn't break a group of defending roaches, how long should I be going Immortals? They're kind of expensive, though not as expensive as a colossi, so I'm curious of they're just a gap-filler unit or the goal of that portion of the transition (such as get 9 immortals before transitioning to something else).
I think, for now, I'll stick to the 3-gate expand and see if I can do it correctly and macro properly off of it. The Forge FE and having two nexii so early, I think, would have a lot of potential for me to screw up and end up with a lot of floating minerals pretty early in the game.
1Yes, I realize I'm talking to myself at this point. I'm just going to drop some replays here that I find and like so other people can use them and/or tell me why I should/shouldn't be using them. I'll just keep editing this post and adding stuff to it.
PvT - Marauder Lastimelarry vs Cato (Master - Protoss Victory)
1
You need to practice more and stop worrying. Do not worry about going down to gold, if you go down to gold you probably got placed above your level. There is no need to worry because every game you play the more knowledge you gain, you never get worse at the game, you can only get better.
Focus on one thing at once...
Think your build orders suck? Go to sc2reps.com and steal some solid openers and practice them.
Nexus always on 100 energy? Spend a day on spending Nexus energy not worrying about winning, scouting, reacting or anything else that may take your mind off it.
edit:
Ok I looked for some reps with standard openings in PvZ but you can do this yourself quite easily by checking any replay site for top player replays.
PvZ Forge FE: http://replayfu.com/r/T3tjnf PvZ 3 Gate Expo: http://replayfu.com/r/rjTL0g
Forge FE is the best on maps with chokes to the nat Shakuras, Taldarim, Shattered
5Jul 25th 2011 1:25 AM3 Gate expo is the best on maps with wide open naturals, but it is VERY viable on tight chokes too, its not that much worse than forge FE and it is much safer