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Hey Fellow Zerg players , i'm looking for anyone who can help me out with improving my game as zerg , i do enjoy playing zerg , i watch alot of pro replays and do read up on strategies and play for a decent amount of time ,

after watching my play i noticed that my timings are generally off , i end up making soldiers when i should have made drones and vice versa , i end up sending the overlord too early or too late to scout the enemy , i build spines too early ( hurts econ) or spines to late ( gg ) i keep missing the injects at vital times , i'm not sure of reading a person's transitioning move , i have terrible macro when it comes to 4bases+ ( lack of macro practice )

i would appreciate anyone willing to help me out with my short comings , thanks for taking the time to read this

GL HF =)

I can't give coaching if that's what you're asking,(someone else will likely be able to) but I can give you a few pointers here, particularly reads in ZvT.

Before anything, I would suggest posting some replays of your games here, so that way we can advise you more effectively.

Most of the things you mentioned can only be fixed with practice (inject, lord positioning, drones/units, etc).
But here are a few tips to keep in mind:
When scouting terran, check his gas. If he has no gas by the time you are at roughly 15 supply, he is either 2 raxing, or doing a 1 rax fast expo. Poke up his ramp with lings early game - if you see a reactor on his rax, you can be 90% sure he's going hellions (if it isn't that, he is going straight up marine/tank, which you should be able to see with your overlord, which should be sent in between 5-6 minutes. Pay attention to the marine count on the ramp if he shows it, too. If it's a tech lab on the rax, he's either going reapers or fast blue flame hellions.

Never feel too hesitant to build spines - they are both more cost efficient and larva efficient at defending than lings. Always be suspicious of tech if he has not started a command centre by 6-7 minutes.

Be active with your units, particularly when they are speedlings. Keep the towers, stick 1 ling right outside his base so you can see when he is moving out a bit quicker, bash down rocks, anything you can think of.

A bunch of lings at your base doing nothing should be like an itch that needs scratching - and you scratch it by having the lings do something. They are very fast, so they are never out of position to defend a push if you see it coming (see above point), since your lings will easily be back in time (short of being on the far corner of Tal'darim altar :p).

Never hesitate to suicide a ling at your opponent's army to check his unit comp and his upgrades. 25 minerals is worth it.

I don't know if this is a problem for you in particular, but for the love of GOD - get upgrades. Upgraded lings are sick. As a matter of fact, several months ago, when I was placed in silver at about the start of season 2, I moved up to platinum within about a month by just going heavy upgraded ling focused builds. It worked because the people I faced in silver/gold were not upgrading their units. 3-3 lings will stomp any 0-0 ground army apart from mass collossi or blue hellions.

Do hellions give you a headache? I heard in another thread that it is possible to block off the bottom of your ramp with 1 evo chamber and 1 spine. That will stop meduim units (ie, hellions) from passing, but will still allow drones and lings to pass through (small units).

But like I said, Macro will come only with practice. Focus on macro, and you will likely find that micro will come naturally to you (since, with faster macro skill, that leaves more time to focus on your army.

Hope I was helpful.
Cheers. :)

EDIT:
I feel like I should clarify. Anyone is willing to give you advice, you may just need to be a bit specific on what is giving you trouble. If you think the problem is purely your macro, which it likely is, nothing but practice will help you improve that. I can't say "Inject moar" and then you will somehow magically inject better. Only you can make yourself better at that.
Cheers. :)

The Advice did help alot , Thanks Appreciate the help =)

to check your saturation of drones ctrl click a drone at your base you should have 2 full rows plus 4 in the next row i think that gives you perfect saturation at each base

i see , thanks for the tip , assuming you know , no enemy early aggression is going to come , how fast can you saturate 2 bases ? and how long does the 3rd take ?

08/20/2011 09:53 AMPosted by ReverseCure

i see , thanks for the tip , assuming you know , no enemy early aggression is going to come , how fast can you saturate 2 bases ? and how long does the 3rd take ?

If your opponent does something like a forge fast expand, you can take your third as early as 6 minutes. Put it down at 7 if you want to be safe. Unless they're doing a seven-gate all-in or something, you can easily get away with making no units apart from souting lings for about 10 minutes or so. But then that all boils down to your scouting ability, really.

I can usually saturate 2 bases (which brings me to roughly 50 supply, including queens and lings) by about 8 minutes, while spending gas on tech.

i see , i'm improving slowly =) , what about a macro hatch ? when do you get it ? do you need it if your going for a 3rd ?

You get a macro hatch pretty late. Generally after your third. It helps when your going heavy on the lings.

best advice would be to play more games and practise, thats how you will improve the most. you understand alot of your flaws in your game which is good. as you play more you will realise what you can do differently in each game to improve on them.

i usually get macro hatch after two saturated bases, the goal is to saturated bases up to 9 min if u can, while maintaining total map control with overlords and lings, poking at ramps to try to see what going on there.

I provide u with couple of replays that i uploaded, hopefully u can see what i was doing and u can see what u can or want to improve :D

http://sc2rep.com/replays/%28P%29Cynthesis_vs_%28Z%29PhenomFX__sc2rep_com_20110819/12642 ZVP

http://sc2rep.com/replays/%28Z%29PhenomFX_vs_%28P%29POGSFORKEEPS_shakuras_plateau_sc2rep_com_20110810/12319 ZVP

Another ZVP http://sc2rep.com/replays/%28P%29Evandar_vs_%28Z%29PhenomFX__sc2rep_com_20110809/12275

By far, the last replay was the best out of those 3, ZVP wise

Thanks a lot for your help everyone =) , guess its time to play ladder more =)

pretty much mate. sounds like you got a good grasp of what you SHOULD be doing. Just a matter of praticing

Ok here is an another question which is probably highly based on the situation ,

when your opponent takes a late 2nd and you already have 2 bases saturated , do you generally have take the 3rd and macro up ?

or try to quickly build up and attack him while he is saturating his Natural ?

or do you have do a little bit of both ?

well the safer answer maybe to take the 3rd but its tempting when you can finish the game earlier , the more basses i have the harder i find to manage it , that can be worked on though ,

what indicators do you look for when deciding when to expand or push out

What exactly do you mean by "late second"? 10mins? 12 mins? The almighty 20 minute natural build popular in bronze? :p jkjk.

For a general indicator, the safest option would indeed be take the third. But if you think there is a weakness in defenses (like, he did an all-in or even a semi-all-in and didn't do much damage) and you suspect a vulnerable timing window, then make a ton of units and go for it.

That all comes down to game sense, though.

NEVER try to do a bit of both. If you do, the push will fail, the third's saturation will be delayed, and it will all become wasted or semi-wasted money.

Makes sense , if he fails a all-in or a semi-all-in , it would be a good idea to finish him off , and if he doesn't show any aggression he will probably be well defended and its better to take the 3rd ,

i know the All ins , what would be Semi-all ins ?

semi-all-in is a pretty loose term. There is a fine line between it and an all-in. They are fairly similar terms, though. Don't worry too much. Basically, if you think he had to shoot his economy in the foot in order to do whatever he did, then you should make some pressure with what should be a superior economy.

An obvious example of this is a six pool. He attacks, doesn't do much, you should immediatly respond with pressure, as your economy severly exceeds his, and he wont be able to put up much of a fight.

Mid-game semi-all-ins such as 2 port banshee or thor rush are basically the same thing, except everything is more complex, simply because more units are on the field, thus complicating things. They are the same thing when you get right down to it, though. The player shoots his own eco in the foot to do something inane like 2 port banshee or 1 base thor, and relies on it doing damage to make the build worth it. Exactly the same basis as a six pool.

The reason that they are called semi-all-ins is because since they push later in the game, they can somtimes be recovered from. But like I said, they are the same basis as a six pool. Defend, counter, win.

Cheers. :)

nice read guys, just one question, whats a macro hatch? sorry about the noob question havent played in a while and couldnt find what it is on search

08/27/2011 09:16 AMPosted by Cursent

nice read guys, just one question, whats a macro hatch? sorry about the noob question havent played in a while and couldnt find what it is on search

A macro hatch is a hatchery that you build inside your own base, not in place to harvest resources. The macro hatch is used for the sole purpose of gaining additional larvae. Macro hatches are useful in almost all builds, and are essential in speedling heavy builds.

Thanks for the help again , as always =)

ok i think i'v been improving , but now iv right into a slight problem

most of the protoss i'v gone against i'v been doing 1 base timing attacks , and now when a toss does a forge fe i really have no idea how to react to it ,

also

is there any corruptors : colossi ratio ? i always end up making too few corruptors or too many ,