Scouting TvZ

Orizio

Can someone tell me how the **** I am supposed to see this attack coming?

magicianz

You have to poke the front, the start of mid-game scout isnt just in his base for tech, you need to have info on army size and composition too.

I dont know what the regular thing for terran is but for zerg, with the first 4 zerglings you have 2 on towers 1 at natural and 1 to poke, and you poke every 45 sec - 1 min to see whats up.

Laisurg

I assume your terran, not trying to be a smartarse but scan his army every now and again or if early game just poke as the guy above said.

Khazidhea

Dont leave with your scouting scv until you absolutely have to - learn the timing when the lings pop out. If it is too much hastle just let it die to lings and lings only. Meanwhile scout how much gas zerg has harvested and is he still getting gas or not. The standard gayser is 2500 gas, the speed upgrade is 100 and the rest has to go somewhere. Now, most of the time you wont know as these days zerg get somewhat delayed speed. But if you see speed started and he is still collecting gas - fast layer or roaches or banelings.

If you wanna be super safe scan main at 6:30 and 8:30. Check for tech structures and count gas again. Does he have lair?

I always used hellion openers (or 2 rax, but that's different story) - so I was always out on the map, holding watchtowers, denying creep spread. Notice how zerg did not even check the top tower, you could have easily saw it coming. And I would see when zerg moves out. I wont poke - it is rather useless, it is easy to hide most of your army for zerg. Put a unit on the 3rd location for zerg. If by 8 minutes - this a rough estimate, I dont really know the current metagame to well, but if say by 8 minutes zerg doesnt have a 3rd you scan, if he doesnt have a lair => 2 base allin.

Lastly. Build a wall with your supply depos in front. Build walls everywhere. Main ramp, natural ramp, around the 3rd. Helps tremendously vs zerg\toss. Pull scvs to repair tanks\bunkers and fight. And I dont really like your build. You had no upgrades for your stuff. No siege, no shields, no stim. Nothing.

What about gg?

magicianz

Khazidhea wrote: »

Dont leave with your scouting scv until you absolutely have to - learn the timing when the lings pop out. If it is too much hastle just let it die to lings and lings only. Meanwhile scout how much gas zerg has harvested and is he still getting gas or not. The standard gayser is 2500 gas, the speed upgrade is 100 and the rest has to go somewhere. Now, most of the time you wont know as these days zerg get somewhat delayed speed. But if you see speed started and he is still collecting gas - fast layer or roaches or banelings.

If you wanna be super safe scan main at 6:30 and 8:30. Check for tech structures and count gas again. Does he have lair?

I always used hellion openers (or 2 rax, but that's different story) - so I was always out on the map, holding watchtowers, denying creep spread. Notice how zerg did not even check the top tower, you could have easily saw it coming. And I would see when zerg moves out. I wont poke - it is rather useless, it is easy to hide most of your army for zerg. Put a unit on the 3rd location for zerg. If by 8 minutes - this a rough estimate, I dont really know the current metagame to well, but if say by 8 minutes zerg doesnt have a 3rd you scan, if he doesnt have a lair => 2 base allin.

Lastly. Build a wall with your supply depos in front. Build walls everywhere. Main ramp, natural ramp, around the 3rd. Helps tremendously vs zerg\toss. Pull scvs to repair tanks\bunkers and fight. And I dont really like your build. You had no upgrades for your stuff. No siege, no shields, no stim. Nothing.

What about gg?

Just one thing about the walls, if blings are included in the push and you have a wall of just supply depots, minimum 2 depots will fall with the bust which could leave you quite supply blocked and unable to reinforce. I have played a few games where just a simple bust where the guy has has supply depot walls or the weirdest where he had a barracks and 3 supply depots in a diagonal line (It was weird), where all the depots die to the banelings and if the Zerg keeps collecting gas as he expands first or anything then the bane count will plough through the front of the base as well.

Basically all Im saying is bunkers can be your friends too :P and you shouldn't be trying to pin your opponent to a build. You should be trying to say what he CANT be doing, not what he can be doing. AKA against terran, if he doesn't have gas up by a 12 drone scout timing then he probably isn't going reapers so speed can be slightly delayed in favour of mineral gathering. Vs Protoss if theres no gas down at scout then chances are there's not going to be a four gate coming as standard timing for a four gate is 14 assimilator.

Khazidhea

The only protoss build without gas that I know is nexus first.

Its better to have banelings blow up depos than your marines. Reinforce? If he wasted banelings on depos and than still killed you he had SO MUCH MORE STUFF than you did. If you know its coming, ofc build bunkers. And I would still spread out bunkers behind the wall, so they wont ALL blow up from the same banelings AOE. Basically I am forcing zerg to waste a lot of banelings if he wants to bust me. Then, when half of my **** dies and I can reinforce.

I dont know about the last one. Sounds like Day[9]. And I love him but right now I dont see much difference. In fact I would think something like he has no lair, has a lot of gas, has no third - he cant be going muta, borrowed roach, infestor (ultra, broodlord, nydus, hydra - LOL) - so he is probably all-ining me - i need to defend. It doesnt really matter what he does as zerg. But for example toss with double gas might be going dts, and you know its not a 4gate ... but you need a turret vs dts2. But it might be immortal bust and you dont need a turret. Its like one more step in the thought process and I dont understand how is it better.

Orizio

I spent much of the weekend playing TvZ customs and focusing on scouting a bit more. I still find these kind of all-ins extremely hard to not die too but in hindsight I should have seen it miles away (tech he didn't need, no third, no gas at natch iirc). Anyway I had enough info to see it coming just a lack of knowledge.

Orizio

Thanks for the replies btw.

As an aside I don't ladder anymore so I just play customs, and need as many practice partners as possible (I only play at the weekend as well). Add me Feanor.980 :pac: