So, if you look below at the stats, you'll notice that ICCup appears to be populated by ~50% protoss, at least from games I've played. Unfortunately for me, ZvP is by far my worst matchup. I really need to work on this.
My winrate has improved of course as the better players moved out of D ranks. I'm bouncing around the 1200s right now, although I'd probably be going up if I didn't ask for re against anyone who beats me. But I'm trying to improve, and especially against protoss, I'm trying to find the build that works for me.
I listen to "trance" music or whatever it's called, ever since I saw ret's stream a while ago with some of that music playing. It can really pump you up while you're playing. Here's a couple songs on my list:
ZvZ: I'm falling in love with early pool openings again as I'm learning how to beat players who respond by building spores. I almost never make scourge... I wonder if that's good or bad.
ZvP: Seems like when I go the "standard" 3hatch scourge to 5 hatch hydra build, I do okay for a while, but then I either get run over by superior army and/or stormed to death. My assessment is that 5hatch production is fine for a while, but as Protoss' tech tree fills out and he adds to 8~12 gates (total), I can't keep up with my 5~7 hatches. I've been trying different builds, such as 5hatch before gas, which I feel a bit uncomfortable with because the lair is so late, but I may give it another try yet. Also tried a 4hatch lurker and got raped, although that guy was way better than me. The only build I've had some success with is 3hath muta into 5hatch hydra. Just like ZvT build 3hatch muta as far as BO, the idea is to destroy their mineral line if possible (9mutas+4/6 scourge is a strong force) otherwise just disrupt their shit. Kill templar (this is about the time they'll be produced from the gates) destroy pylons supporting the gates, etc. After the mutas, an immediate switch to hydras. I don't know if it's a good build though, but it's the only one that seems to work for me. Many tosses don't properly defend their mineral line, even when their first sair scouts 9 larva just before the spire finishes. As for now though, I'm still pretty lost in this matchup. I have lots of ideas, and none of them seem to work very well.
ZvT: I've run into only a couple games of standard play, a couple cheeses (poorly executed), and mostly mech play. I've gotten a lot more comfortable against mech, and I now build a sunk in my main standard when I scout mech. 3hatch drone-whoring + nat sunk + main sunk + 2 hydras seems to get me far ahead economically, then I control/harass with mutas and expo, etc.
Questions:
ZvZ: None here.
ZvP: 1. Is 5hatch before gas straight into 5hatch hydra a viable strategy, or does it get owned by DTs too badly to be useful? 2. When I go 3hatch spire into 5 hatch hydra, what should I be doing with my hydras? attacking? defending? preventing expos? 3. With the 3hatch scourge/5hatch hydra build, I my understanding is that I get ~30 hydra, then 9 muta for sniping, but then what? More hydra? Hive tech ultra/ling? Currently I've just been making hydra nonstop, and that's not working. But I don't like the idea of getting all these hydra ups, and then switching tech to unupgraded lings or whatever. 4. What are your thoughts on the build I outlined above? Good? Bad?
ZvT: 1. Does 3 base mech always beat 5 base muta/hydra? Seems like 3/3 mech is unstoppable compared to 2 base mech, which is a pushover. I suppose I should have gotten swarm eventually.
As always, comments and constructive criticism welcome.
On June 12 2009 18:41 Dromar wrote: So, if you look below at the stats, you'll notice that ICCup appears to be populated by ~50% protoss, at least from games I've played. Unfortunately for me, ZvP is by far my worst matchup. I really need to work on this.
ZvT: 1. Does 3 base mech always beat 5 base muta/hydra? Seems like 3/3 mech is unstoppable compared to 2 base mech, which is a pushover. I suppose I should have gotten swarm eventually.
Take my advice. Just avoid ZvP if you don't want to play it. But if you want to improve at it go ahead! I avoid protoss online and just play tvz and zvt
I'd think a 3 base meching terran would be near improssible to stop if you were on 5 bases. But i'm not sure
July is my favorite player. And I've watched a lot of his games, and his style seems to be revolving around 9pool speed, denying scouting (really well) and then some sort of aggressive strategy that the toss can't scout. I'm sure there are triggers he looks for (tech timings undoubtedly) to decide whether or not he goes through with like a hydra break or something, or if he plays macro. But I don't know that stuff. Ideally that's what I want my ZvP to be like, since IMO zerg has a huge advantage early because of all the aggressive options.
But I dunno. I mean, if I'm gonna 2hatch hydra every game, why not just 5pool every game? Or even avoid the matchup altogether (which is not something I want to do).
July is my favorite player. And I've watched a lot of his games, and his style seems to be revolving around 9pool speed, denying scouting (really well) and then some sort of aggressive strategy that the toss can't scout. I'm sure there are triggers he looks for (tech timings undoubtedly) to decide whether or not he goes through with like a hydra break or something, or if he plays macro. But I don't know that stuff. Ideally that's what I want my ZvP to be like, since IMO zerg has a huge advantage early because of all the aggressive options.
But I dunno. I mean, if I'm gonna 2hatch hydra every game, why not just 5pool every game? Or even avoid the matchup altogether (which is not something I want to do).
The message here is zerg has to be crafty and don't go cookie cutters.
General feeling: 5 hatch doesn't have to stay 5 hatch. I get this feeling later on you gotta add up to 8+ hatch, mass drones and prefer minerals over gas to build HUGE hydra army while taking more bases. Eventually toss' army will nto be managable with 5 hatch hydra alone, u gotta change it up
On June 12 2009 18:41 Dromar wrote: I listen to "trance" music or whatever it's called, ever since I saw ret's stream a while ago with some of that music playing. It can really pump you up while you're playing.
On June 12 2009 18:41 Dromar wrote: ZvZ: I'm falling in love with early pool openings again as I'm learning how to beat players who respond by building spores. I almost never make scourge... I wonder if that's good or bad.
As I understand it you should generally have a few scourge. If your opponent made scourge and you didn't and you get into a muta battle either you will get hit by the scourge and lose the battle or you will have to micro your mutas against the scourge, and during that time your opponents mutas will get free hits on yours.
hmmm your zvp is lacking maybe because you don't understand the principle behind the build.
you get the 3 hatch lair spire to deny sairs. at this point the P doesn't have any army to hurt you. so you pump more drones until around 36 drones. then mass hydras. those hydras will stop anything the P has at this point. he will not have mass temps, and seeing your spire will force him to put down a few cannons, or morph archons. so at this point he again, can not beat your army. unless you let 1 temp take down your army, which shouldn't happen. like a previous user said, avoid battle. and you should be getting 3rd gas during the hydra massing stage. then get a good # of mutas, at this time, (10 min or so), your opponent has enough to move out and harrass/take 3rd.
the key is, snipe temps with the mutas, while not losing your dra army. i use to be noob at engaging during this phase of the game, i tend to lose units to temps and get rolled over or lose my army trying to kill his 3rd. point is, if he takes 3rd, then you take your 4th gas of possible. 4 gas zerg > 3 base P. u can just try to delay 3rd base by sniping some temps and run in with the mass hydras.
now, you need to macro up at the same time. don't keep making dras and not drones. lets say he moves out with a decent size army and some temps, you run in and snipe 3 temps and push him back with dras, denied 3rd base. NOW you gotta drone up instead of keep making dras. the key is have enough army to defend, never more. because the P's economy is still growing as you mass dras. 2 base P at 10 minutes might have the same econ as you, but u give him a few more minutes he will be producing out of 10 gates from 2 bases and roll you over if you don't improve your own econ. and the next push out of him you should have lurks.
I'm a D protoss and I can tell you that reaver drops seem to be very effective at this level and it can apply to mutas. Most players will not defend their mineral lines unless they see your mutas with an observer or a scouting probe. Once you get a handful of mutas attack his main since his units will be gaurding his natural. Then once all his dragoons slowly get to his main swing your mutas around to his natural and kill more probes. This should give you the advantage to expand again, and if you stay ahead of the Protoss in bases youshould be fine as long as you out macro him.
This may not be very effective if he FE with cannons put I would expect that there should be an angle where you can get away with a few probe kills.
On June 12 2009 18:41 Dromar wrote: So, if you look below at the stats, you'll notice that ICCup appears to be populated by ~50% protoss, at least from games I've played. Unfortunately for me, ZvP is by far my worst matchup. I really need to work on this.
ZvT: 1. Does 3 base mech always beat 5 base muta/hydra? Seems like 3/3 mech is unstoppable compared to 2 base mech, which is a pushover. I suppose I should have gotten swarm eventually.
Take my advice. Just avoid ZvP if you don't want to play it. But if you want to improve at it go ahead! I avoid protoss online and just play tvz and zvt
I'd think a 3 base meching terran would be near improssible to stop if you were on 5 bases. But i'm not sure
That's absolutely horrible advice. All these protoss players aren't going anywhere. You just have to keep playing the matchup until you start to understand what is going on. And don't rely on cheesy BOs that rely on quick speedlings to deny scout, then some sort of all in. It will give you alot of wins early on, but your ZvP will suck so badly in the future.
On June 13 2009 00:44 BabyRhino wrote: hmmm your zvp is lacking maybe because you don't understand the principle behind the build.
you get the 3 hatch lair spire to deny sairs. at this point the P doesn't have any army to hurt you. so you pump more drones until around 36 drones. then mass hydras. those hydras will stop anything the P has at this point. he will not have mass temps, and seeing your spire will force him to put down a few cannons, or morph archons. so at this point he again, can not beat your army. unless you let 1 temp take down your army, which shouldn't happen. like a previous user said, avoid battle. and you should be getting 3rd gas during the hydra massing stage. then get a good # of mutas, at this time, (10 min or so), your opponent has enough to move out and harrass/take 3rd.
the key is, snipe temps with the mutas, while not losing your dra army. i use to be noob at engaging during this phase of the game, i tend to lose units to temps and get rolled over or lose my army trying to kill his 3rd. point is, if he takes 3rd, then you take your 4th gas of possible. 4 gas zerg > 3 base P. u can just try to delay 3rd base by sniping some temps and run in with the mass hydras.
now, you need to macro up at the same time. don't keep making dras and not drones. lets say he moves out with a decent size army and some temps, you run in and snipe 3 temps and push him back with dras, denied 3rd base. NOW you gotta drone up instead of keep making dras. the key is have enough army to defend, never more. because the P's economy is still growing as you mass dras. 2 base P at 10 minutes might have the same econ as you, but u give him a few more minutes he will be producing out of 10 gates from 2 bases and roll you over if you don't improve your own econ. and the next push out of him you should have lurks.
You need alot more than 36 drones for 5hatch hydra, unless you are trying to cut drones to do some sort of timing attack against a P's 3rd. Against 4gate archon/speedlot you can usually get 42-45 drones if you are getting your hatcheries down at the right times.
if you want a quick and easy way to get to D+/C- level ZvP play a map with a fairly good sized choke/map that forces protoss to expand(python, medusa) not (destination)
all these noobs just copy the sair/dt build nowadays or whatever so scout 9 drone and make sure he is going FE. then you build 2 hatches before pool(be wary of cannon rushes) and then add a 4th hatch at a 3rd base. keep overlord at his choke and watch zealot production while you mass drones and get a 4 hatch hydra build going. You will eventually develop a timing where you attack right around overlord speed that should come before storm unless they rushed for it. At D/D+ most of the time this will just roll them if you macro'ed correctly. if not, get lurker aspect and take more bases while adding a spire and contain for the win.
*important - do not let a protoss get there 3rd going at all costs.
On June 13 2009 00:44 BabyRhino wrote: hmmm your zvp is lacking maybe because you don't understand the principle behind the build.
you get the 3 hatch lair spire to deny sairs. at this point the P doesn't have any army to hurt you. so you pump more drones until around 36 drones. then mass hydras. those hydras will stop anything the P has at this point. he will not have mass temps, and seeing your spire will force him to put down a few cannons, or morph archons. so at this point he again, can not beat your army. unless you let 1 temp take down your army, which shouldn't happen. like a previous user said, avoid battle. and you should be getting 3rd gas during the hydra massing stage. then get a good # of mutas, at this time, (10 min or so), your opponent has enough to move out and harrass/take 3rd.
the key is, snipe temps with the mutas, while not losing your dra army. i use to be noob at engaging during this phase of the game, i tend to lose units to temps and get rolled over or lose my army trying to kill his 3rd. point is, if he takes 3rd, then you take your 4th gas of possible. 4 gas zerg > 3 base P. u can just try to delay 3rd base by sniping some temps and run in with the mass hydras.
now, you need to macro up at the same time. don't keep making dras and not drones. lets say he moves out with a decent size army and some temps, you run in and snipe 3 temps and push him back with dras, denied 3rd base. NOW you gotta drone up instead of keep making dras. the key is have enough army to defend, never more. because the P's economy is still growing as you mass dras. 2 base P at 10 minutes might have the same econ as you, but u give him a few more minutes he will be producing out of 10 gates from 2 bases and roll you over if you don't improve your own econ. and the next push out of him you should have lurks.
You need alot more than 36 drones for 5hatch hydra, unless you are trying to cut drones to do some sort of timing attack against a P's 3rd. Against 4gate archon/speedlot you can usually get 42-45 drones if you are getting your hatcheries down at the right times.
36 drones is a good number, if you drone too hard you will need a 6th hatchery to support your uneven mineral/gas distribution, not to mention you are more vulnerable to speedzeals and sairs.
against D/D+ levels a few more drones is not a big deal since their macro isn't that good to hurt you if you slip in a few more drones for a faster 6th hatch.
EPT
