Topic
Huge problem with zerg
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Hi,
I have huge problem macroing... or just playing Zerg race. It doesn't really matter what my opponent is doing or what raze he is playing. Somehow I have less stuff... Here are 2 examples. I accidentally played against the same opponent twice on the ladder. First time he was turtling to mass thor, second - turtling for marines. I had way more bases, fancier tech (especially second game) but I cannot bare it... I just plainly loose. And I rage inside. http://drop.sc/215072 http://drop.sc/215073 My current win rate as Zerg is 38%, compared to Terran 47% and Protoss 61% and I want to do something about it... |
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Edited by CygnusX on 06/07/12 07:54 (BST)
Sure, he is better, I am worse.
But I rage when a turtling player, who gives up map control completely, just sends his army and wins. The question is what should I improve to get better... My current Zerg play is worse when compared to Terran or Protoss. |
here is my two cents. You were much better than the terran, and you should win against that player. look at your replays, and ask youself some questions: what did he do? when did you know he was doing it? where did you scout it? How did you respond? why did you do what you did? at 20 minutes in the second replay, you give him your infestors his 6 medivacs was left with 15 hp, and without them, he would have done nothing, but since they lived, he killed some of you main at 22 minutes you had 39 banelings, you spent them on: 17 banelings to kill 5 supply depots 16 banelings went after the marines, killing 13 marines two of those banelings killed 10 of the marines two tanks killed the rest of those banelings 6 banelings killed a few scv's, i forgot to check how many, but it was 4-5 at 23:50 he moved out again, using a-move, and two queens killed all 6 of those medivacs with 15 HP if you had "about" switched what you did in those two replays, you would have won both games. |
Hi, If you have less "stuff" than him you are obviously not hitting your injects on time, getting supply blocked or not building enough drones. Zerg mechanics are not so forgiving if you screw up as the other races. Perfect your mechanics and there is no way that they can have more stuff than you. |
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Edited by tomsa on 06/07/12 09:34 (BST)
I watched both from your perspective and camera locked.
Okay, first of all you seem to play a very ling heavy mid game but you don't build enough macro hatcheries so you don't have enough larvae to spend your minerals on. Condemned Ridge replay was a perfect example of this. I don't think you had a single macro hatchery during that game. Those hatcheries you threw down at the bottom of your side? All could have been inside your initial three bases and it would have been about as good. Not to mention you'd have been able to gain a MAJOR supply lead way early because the Terran seemed to be holding back for some reason. Tal'Darim altar game was kind of a shaky from the start (almost seemed like you were on a little bit of a tilt). I don't even know what your thought process was with those half-hearted baneling busts? The second one especially since you saw the tank with your first poke. Aside from those you at least made a macro hatcery this time (good!) but you still floated alot due to your ling heavy play. Nevertheless you got up to broodlord quite nicely but then your game fell apart pretty badly. You forgot to take gases at your expansion on the middle-right base base and because Terran managed to get your fourth and main with one swoop you were obviously left gas starved. I feel like you may have been able to save your broodlords had you not started morphing banelings but instead just sent the lings to draw fire while Broodlords mopped the marines in your base but now the marines were just having a field day killing your !@#$ (and in hind sight the baneling morphing was a bad idea anyways because you wasted a ton of gas on "useless" units that could have gone towards remaking a new brood+infestor army which I think would have definitely won you the game had you been able to mount a counter attack straight away). I hope you're not feeling too bad because I'm going to bash you a bit more, sorry ^^ You have a GLARING flaw in your scouting play. As in it's nearly non-existant. In neither of these games did you sac an overlord, not once. In the Ridge replay you had no idea what was coming: the initial hellions you saw first time when you finally decided to poke down your ramp with speedlings (you might as well have no-gas expanded till 3rd seeing how you didn't use speed for map control in the early game), banshees caught you entirely by surprise (thank the spaghetti-monster Terran didn't have cloak) and had that been an actual mech play by Terran he'd been ready to push you when you first ran into his bunch of thors which you knew nothing about. Condemned Ridge is one of the best maps to actually overlord scout EVERYTHING your opponent is doing so sacrifice those bloated supply-givers more often :D On the Tal'Darim replay I was just so sad you didn't hold the watch towers (you didn't in the other replay either in the early game when your speed has the most use btw)... Nearly broke my heart :'( You did FLOAT YOUR OVERLORDS above them to.. get.. shot by marines, possibly? Well, no, now I'm just being too mean but seriously you were using your 100 mineral supply giving units to do a job that a 25 mineral fast-runner could have done better. Force yourself to be more active with lings and towers. Other than that it looked pretty good. I mean, it seemed like you had a goal and you knew what you wanted to do and that's at least one of the foundations to performing well. You just got to make your execution more crisp and definitely cut down on most of the possible nasty surprises by scouting more actively and FORTHELOVEOFKITTENS make use of your ling speed early on if you decide to research it. |
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Edited by KaNwA on 06/07/12 12:34 (BST)
Sure, he is better, I am worse. I'm not going to watch the games. I'm going to give you the biggest key to ZvX. Production. Make an extra hatch for every 2 bases you have mining, make sure to have a macro hatch finished by 9 minutes, never miss an inject, and with the scouting I'm about to mention you'll have the production to hold anything with almost pure ling. Scouting:Have one ling at his base, some overlords scouting for drops, an overseer to scout what he's doing in the midgame. Reactions: With banelings you should have 12ish lings ready on the map by 8 minutes so you can react to any push with a baneling force along with several hatches producing only lings. Roachling it's kind of the same but you don't need as many lings produced but you should already have about 4 roaches out in ZvT by 6-7 minutes. |
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Edited by CygnusX on 06/07/12 16:39 (BST)
OZI, tomsa, KaNwA, thank you for your remarks!
"I hope you're not feeling too bad because I'm going to bash you a bit more, sorry ^^" -- do not apologize. I am here to hear some bashing after all, and your remakrs are very helpful! I will try to pay more attention to those. To my defense, when I see a big number of hellions, I do expect Thors as a follow-up. But I should scout the hellions in the first place earlier. Anyway, even when I knew Thors were coming (either by big number of hellions or by seeing Thors during my Muta harras), I didn't really know what to do.
Tal'Darim was clearly a mistake. But the previous match - I sent zerglings twice but they were immediately roasted by the hellions and I didn't try more further. Just checked if he is not taking 4th south and was waiting with bunch of lings to counter-attack when he moves out. The counter-attack worked, but there was no base to return to either... banshees caught you entirely by surprise (thank the spaghetti-monster Terran didn't have cloak) The overlords over the empty space were meant to see detect any drops/banshee but I didn't pay enough attention to the minimap. Otherwise I would start morphing an overseer those xy seconds earlier just in time... at least in theory.... That was my way of thinking when putting the overlords there.
Rally point... :( Or some imprecise click to move clumped up overlords....
I must say, I was angry at that moment. I wanted to chain-fungal the loaded medivacs but somehow it didn't work and I was suddenly in a very bad position :( |
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Edited by CygnusX on 06/07/12 18:19 (BST)
Ech.... another match, another loss...
I tried to be more active in the center, know what is coming and also have a look at the creep spread... But my attacks on a turtling terran were rather mediocre. Also added up the macro hatch, but as my money wasn't so high I didn't see the point of adding more (not enough drones) 1. I did see hellion comings from the initial zergling scout 2. I did see double-engineering bay and concluded bio switch 3. I did see his move up north, but didn't handle it very well My drone count was suboptimal, but so was his SCV count. http://drop.sc/215556 As I loose more and more, I get stronger and stronger opponents who are actually placed lower in the league... Now I was totally outplayed in every aspect... Two days ago I was promoted to Platinium as Random player. Now that I am playing only Zerg I feel as going for a demotion back to Gold :( http://drop.sc/215582 |
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Bro, you really need to give the ladder a break... if things are going that bad, it's time to stop and practice until you feel more confident again.
What I really don't understand is why you decided to stop playing random and play only the race you have the worst results with. |
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Edited by CygnusX on 07/07/12 16:44 (BST)
Because otherwise the match result is dictated by the random roll of my race. If I get Protoss, I usually win and the game is boring, and when I get Zerg I get totally steamrolled thus making the game boring as well (and me raging). Yeah, I think I'll make a short break. That's a good tip! |
Why don't you just play terran then? With such a variety of strategies/techs/units I don't think you will ever be bored. And you should really consider sticking to protoss and try adding some variety to your game. Go look at master toss replays, I'm sure you haven't tried every single strategy out there. Set new goals, like improving your blink micro, your FF or storms casting, phoenix harassment, etc. Then you can have the satisfaction of achieving those things and won't be bored. Playing random I think it's normal to have a tendency to fall back on the same strategies repeatedly. I mean, you have 6 MUs, so 1 strategy for every MU is lot already!. But I am sure you can explore toss or terran a lot more if you start playing only that race. When I was choosing my race (a few weeks ago) a lot of people advised me to play random for a while until I started hoping to get race X. What is the race you are hoping for when you start a game? |
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Nice point, Azoryen, about understanding fewer matchups more in-depth. But my objective is to understand and experience each race, not just one. I accept that it is harder, but I do want to get better at it. That's why I am pushing the path where I am the weakest, rather than avoiding it and look where I am the strongest.
Besides - in the long run - I believe that being able to play your opponent's race can make you better at defeating it. |
