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the first one which is shown next to his drawing was pretty bad, pool delayed gas drones, and the sunken would delay the top 2,5 minerals patches + its harder to slide drones in the desired way around the sunken.
the 2nd one he is showing her ingame is pretty good (but u cant drone drill it in this location), because pool/gas is ling tight and the sunken is pretty close to the entrance of the base + its also hard to get sunken rushed.
i often use the 2nd one, but with the sunken 1 hex down, which makes it pretty impossible to get a good surface area on the sunken when my leftover lings are between the sunken and the minerals (blocking the way under the sunken with 1 ling, mostly only 2 enemy lings will attack the sunken that way)
(that was for zvz)
for zvp to stop drops, 1 sunken and 1 spore above/under the hatch should be ok (or both under hatch), if u have the space to fit both inbetween hatch gas and minerals, thats also good. regardless of what drop defence u choose, the purpose is mostly to buy time for your forces to get there, not to fend of all drops without help. (unless its only a very small drop, or u really make like 3 sunkens 1 spore as drop defence....)
btw thx for the video, didnt know it existed^^
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Very interesting guide. Ive been playing with Spaniard latly for practice and i offraced as Z a lot vs his P and was having massive amounts of trouble to know how to engage. I never actually thought of separating his army due to movement speeds... Thats helpfull, thou im not sure yet how :D.
About the tricks that you mentioned to keep an advantyge, the best I know is queens (no more than 4 in my case).
Parasite archons if its a zealot/archon heavy composition and then prepare good traps, or brooding HTs if its a heavy HT composition. Parasite shuttles, Observers Dark Archons... Basicly anything that is important for your enemy and that costs a lot to rebuild (time-wise or cash-wise).
I normally keep those in hotkey 0 and build them as soon as i have queen nest and i finished making a round of upgrades/units and still have some money left, normally I also make them at the Hive so I remmber its those 3 larva that will be queens after the Round of ups/hive started.
Also a few crackings droped in the main base of a Toss (even 8 lings) can cause a lot of trouble for a protoss as he will unlikely have canons defending every inch of his main. Its a nice way to get a player distracted right before you atack with a few cracklings+swarm at a canoned base, followed by a massive atack somewhere else. Very hard to keep track of so many places at once.
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This guide is good and hopefully more people will look at this guide for ZvP :D
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Netherlands4979 Posts
Scourge section has no mention of sniping observers?
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How long can I stay on hydra/lurker if I open 6 hatch hydra? What I've been doing is to start switching to hive around the time I put down my 7th hatch, so when my extra macro hatcheries are actually finished so is my hive, and I switch into crackling/lurker/defilier etc play. However, I've seen a few people go up to like 10 hatcheries with just hydra lurker and stick with it. Are both viable options, just stylistical variations, or should my choice be more reactive to what the protoss is doing?
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delete accidental 2nd post
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On September 04 2013 04:43 Dazed_Spy wrote:
How long can I stay on hydra/lurker if I open 6 hatch hydra? What I've been doing is to start switching to hive around the time I put down my 7th hatch, so when my extra macro hatcheries are actually finished so is my hive, and I switch into crackling/lurker/defilier etc play. However, I've seen a few people go up to like 10 hatcheries with just hydra lurker and stick with it. Are both viable options, just stylistical variations, or should my choice be more reactive to what the protoss is doing?
You should always have a plan on how you can quickly get to Hive. I usually get both ranged and carapace upgrades and when I start getting the second of both upgrades, get the Queen's Nest and add an extra evolution chamber. Having a large Lair-tech army is primarily good for controlling large amounts of the map, and forcing the Protoss player to engage. This is a good way to play if you are ahead of them (That is, if their harass has failed and your economy is booming) because the longer you deny them extra bases, the more time they have to spend fighting with lower-tier units and mining out their current bases. If you're behind because they had a strong harass, going hydra/lurker will not work because the size of the Protoss army will simply be too overwhelming to take on, so your best bet is to go straight to Hive and make a bunch of lurkers for defense. You will need to get your Hive quickly if you're behind because the Protoss will have much more breathing room to control the pace of the game, and will max out their population and then try to take you out with a ton of units, so you will need defilers and cracklings to support your lurkers, or else you'll just roll over and die.
Staying on Lair when you're ahead makes sense because of the cost of getting the Hive tech -
100 gas - queen's nest
150 gas - hive
200 gas - adrenaline glands
100 gas - defiler mound
100 gas - consume
300 gas - 2 defilers
If you don't add the costs of the evolution chamber upgrades, it costs about 8 lurkers, or 38 hydralisks, for the gas required to get your Hive. Of course, it just depends on what your goal is at that point in the game. If you want to win a big engagement so you can take your 5th and 6th bases before the Protoss takes his 4th base, then you'll want to stay on Lair for a bit longer so your army can crush the Protoss force.
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For your go to 6 hatch style, I really recommend getting scourge, hydras and then lurkers while on lair, and going hive after the 8th hatchery. I recommend not getting mutas, and not doing the million scourge style.
The average pattern Ive put together from watching progames is:
overpool
3 hat spire
4th and 5th hatchery
6th hatchery
hydra den and evo
2nd gas
3rd gas
7th and 8th hatcheries
4th gas
2nd evo
queens nest
hive
3rd evo
defiler mound
nydus
9th 10th and 11th hatcheries
Once you have hive you want to be making cracklings, defilers and be very lurker heavy. A few hydra, scourge and overlord support this lurker heavy army. I recommend having 11 hatcheries on 4 base and STAYING on 4 base for quite a while.
This is the stage where you finally convert all your defensive management into offense and start directly damaging the enemy. Direct damage is not dealt to his army quite yet though, its done with mini 2 lurker drops to mineral lines, and with crackling defiler snipes on new expansions. This backstab style is low risk and high success. Its best to wait for plague and more units before engaging the enemy army directly. The protoss army is pretty much at its strongest relative to yours at this point, and a protoss at this point would much rather lose some units rather than lose his new bases as they come online. If you do the back stab style and fail, you have only lost a few lings and a few lurkers. But if you fight in a head to head with your army and lose, there is a chance he will break one of your sunken colony frontlines which is much more precarious.
So, you are on 4 base and defilers are out, your main army is still split into two but it is now spilling out of your naturals quite far. Your lurkers are spread out so that no two can be stormed at once. You have roughly half the map under your control but you are still a little closer to the corners than you are to the halfway line. Scourge are covering your air paths.
The absolutely ideal outcome is that your mini 2 lurker drops shutdown mining at 2 bases for quite a while, your cracklings manage to raze an expo completely, and the enemy chooses to commit to a futile counter, right into your prepared lurker and dark swarm front lines. If so, you are miles ahead and can win by staying on 4 base no problem.
Regardless of how successful your hive backstab attacks went, dont be tempted to take a 5th and 6th base too early. You have drones spread out over 4 relatively fresh bases (cus you took them so fast), and you can power off that for some time still.
You cant saturate more than 4 bases cus then you will have too many drones and your army is too small. You don’t get extra cash by spreading out your drones over 6 bases than over 4, and if you do, then you probably have too many drones.
You have a much bigger area to defend once on 6 bases, and if you expand to 6 bases before having a large army first, 2 things happen;
Drops become an unmanageable risk, its shocking how many drones can be killed by a speed shuttle and 4 hts when there are too many areas to defend,
The enemy army can easily attack the 5th and 6th base (cus of map architecture and cus of static defense) and therefore has a high chance of trapping a number of your drones and killing them (again cus of architecture). This situation is high risk and low success for the zerg. You either have a bunch of dead drones, or you manage to run them home in time but they are not mining for all this period, they are just running back and forth being useless. Its much better to just keep them at home on 4 base and let them work at a guaranteed rate.
Note they will most likey have a dt waiting at your 5th and 6th base, so you have to clear them out with some hydra and an overlord before sending a drone.
Also, dont be tempted to make loads of ultralisks, if any at all. Its best to only have a handful at any one time.
Lastly, dont necessarily drop lurkers straight away. Be aware that if your mini 2 lurker drops and/or crackling snipes are successful, that this can cause the enemy to immediately commit to a counter attack. Therefore, make sure you have prepared your frontlines properly (spread out lurker fields, and defiler ready to cast) before initiating this decision point.
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On September 05 2013 08:43 CardinalAllin wrote:
For your go to 6 hatch style, I really recommend getting scourge, hydras and then lurkers while on lair, and going hive after the 8th hatchery. I recommend not getting mutas, and not doing the million scourge style.
The average pattern Ive put together from watching progames is:
overpool
3 hat spire
4th and 5th hatchery
6th hatchery
hydra den and evo
2nd gas
3rd gas
7th and 8th hatcheries
4th gas
2nd evo
queens nest
hive
3rd evo
defiler mound
nydus
9th 10th and 11th hatcheries
This is pretty much what I would recommend. The 6-Hatch Hydra build isn't mine though, I just kind of kind of found it, wanted to try it, liked it, and then a bunch of people, including myself put it on Liquipedia, although, I didn't touch the actual build that much because I don't feel like I have the expertise to do something like that.
The opening builds I provide are not very explicit on when to add the extra hatcheries, because that is too deep into the game to give an exact timing, and saying something like "@ 53 drones, add hatchery" because if you're a noob, there's no way in hell you're going to know how many drones you have, so I didn't include extra hatcheries in a set build order, but gave as a general rule to add them when you have extra money as a result of having a strong economy.
The 3rd gas is something I also talk about in the guide, but since it's kind of a ridiculously long read, I'll just say this here - 3rd gas and Lurker Aspect go together like peanut butter and jelly. If you're getting Lurker Aspect, you need to get your 3rd gas. If you go 6-Hatch Lurker, the rule changes a bit, with Lurker Aspect requiring the second gas, and third gas for Hive. But that's mainly because you don't need the huge amount of gas immediately for a bunch of hydras and lurkers.
As far as mutalisks go, if you get the +1 air carapace, they can be really quite strong, and I've been meaning to add a section on how to do that as an opening, however, for a beginner, I also wouldn't recommend a mutalisk opening because it is very difficult to control without proper practice.
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Awesome!
Ive read this guide twice. Thankyou for doing it ninJazerg 
I was in the middle of writing a TvT guide thingy when you posted this mammoth and it killed my motivation, which is a backhanded compliment haha.
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On September 06 2013 08:51 CardinalAllin wrote:Awesome! Ive read this guide twice. Thankyou for doing it ninJazerg I was in the middle of writing a TvT guide thingy when you posted this mammoth and it killed my motivation, which is a backhanded compliment haha.
To be honest, when you posted asking about a TvT guide, it made me wonder why there haven't been more guides. I knew a lot of guys who were playing Zerg or switching to Zerg that were having a hard time with Protoss, so I figured I'd compile a lot of information and put it together. I was thinking about writing a TvT guide next just because of what you posted, but it would be quite a big task for me to do the research and write a decent guide. So yeah, you helped make this guide happen, so you shouldn't be demotivated at all.
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Plz excuse the noob question, but what should you do when the toss pylon blocks your 12 hatch? Do you just 12 pool? Back when I played bw alot i always overpooled cuz I was too scared to hatch first.
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On September 11 2013 11:45 Megaliskuu wrote:
Plz excuse the noob question, but what should you do when the toss pylon blocks your 12 hatch? Do you just 12 pool? Back when I played bw alot i always overpooled cuz I was too scared to hatch first.
It's kind of a calculated risk, going 12 hatch, because there *is* the possibility of being blocked by a pylon. If the Protoss is on one base, it's not a huge deal, because you can still place the hatchery at your natural in some other spot, and then build your spawning pool, and then place your natural hatchery at 13 population.
If the Protoss is going to fast expand, you can go 12 pool, and then send your drone to your second expansion area. You also have the option to off-place the hatchery, and then go 4-hatch gas or 3-hatch hydra, but if you go 4-hatch gas, and your timing is screwed up, you can find yourself behind very quickly, and if the Protoss did something greedy like 12 nex straight into 4-gate +1 speed zealots, omitting stargate play, the timing can really hurt you. Remember though, if you're behind, you don't have to commit to building a huge hydralisk army, because it's just going to get crushed. You can go lurkers first and go straight for your hive, but you basically are forfeiting map control and probably won't be able to deny the Protoss third. I prefer to go 12 pool though, even though it kind of sucks if the Protoss goes 12 nexus, because they can quite literally go nexus, then forge, then gateway before cannon on certain maps, and by certain maps, I mean Fighting Spirit.
That being said, overpool is not a bad option for an opening, because it kind of forces them to get at least 1 cannon before their gateway, so you're not necessarily "behind", because your Spire timing will still come in ample time to make scourges vs the corsairs, unless something goes horribly wrong. That being said, you have to get all 6 lings, and look threatening enough to make them think twice about being too greedy. If you just get 2 slowlings, or even 4, they will see that with their probe, and will know they have time on their side to get a gateway before cannon. Someone even said once "You can just go 10/9 pool with no gas to force two cannons", but a nub player will see no gas and probably interpret your build as an overpool, so if you don't attack and do some damage, the Protoss guy will probably still only build one cannon.
If all fails, demand on a rematch on a weird map where they can't wall off, go 9pool speed and kill them and then type "Man, cheap wins are fun." and he'll be all like "I only do that stuff cuz zerg imba" and you just go "Learn to play kid." and yeah.
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Thx 
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Wonderful guide, very informative and well researched (and presented in a humorous way)
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I made some much-needed updates:
- Prettier graphix
- More links to resources
- A new section for theory against 1-base play
- Some small corrections
I'm also going to eventually add a new (not really new, but new to this guide) strategy sometime soon which involves flying units.
On August 29 2013 08:52 s.Q.uelched wrote:
Scourge section has no mention of sniping observers?
also fixed that.
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Thanks for the updated graphics, I didn't understand anything until that fix.
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Ms. Ninazerg,
In your build orders you place the den and evo right after the 5th or 6th hatch. I agree with placing them right away to get hydras up asap in case you need them. However, I have seen some players delay getting the den and evo for a long time, even once the 6th hatch is down. Can you tell me what they are waiting for and why they do this? Also, why do some players get one hatch at 27, instead of getting two around the 35 supply mark? Is there a reason behind this difference in build order? Thanks!
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On November 12 2013 14:57 Golgotha wrote:
Ms. Ninazerg,
In your build orders you place the den and evo right after the 5th or 6th hatch. I agree with placing them right away to get hydras up asap in case you need them. However, I have seen some players delay getting the den and evo for a long time, even once the 6th hatch is down. Can you tell me what they are waiting for and why they do this? Also, why do some players get one hatch at 27, instead of getting two around the 35 supply mark? Is there a reason behind this difference in build order? Thanks!
It depends on the players. I like to get the sunken colony at each entrance, and then placing the evo chamber and hydra den for added simcity. Some players like to get two sunkens at each and wait a bit longer to get their upgrades so they can make more drones.
I've very rarely seen someone take their 4th hatchery at 27 population, but I suppose it depends on the circumstances. The sooner you place your hatcheries, the sooner you have access to additional larva that you can use, so it's possible that those particular players planned a 27 hatchery. However, if they messed up somewhere along the line, and have an excess of minerals, they may just make a hatchery earlier so that their timing won't be so off.
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Need a PvZ guide to counter the malice that this thread has produced!
A very interesting guide from a P perspective!
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EPT
