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Hello. Im still kinda new to 1v1 in BW, but since the remaster was announced i'm playing a ton of games (300 so far) and i'm liking it.
I'm trying to play mostly macro style zerg, because I believe i have got the basic mechanics to be good at the game. I've grasped all the slight imbalances of ZvT, and can take games off better opponents but i struggle in ZvP against good opponents, and it's causing me frustration because everytime it seems the game goes the same:
-I go overpool and then 11 hatch at natural
-Opponent scouts me which can mess up my expansion, if he places pylon = feels like gg
-I slowly transition to 5hatch hydra while fending off corsairs.
-He gets his +1 deathball rolling and if i dont die to zealots it will probably be storms.
It seems like i have no idea when should i be getting units, and how to counter the HTs. In some games i tried muta but i feel it's too hard to micro against protoss units, especially archons and big amounts of dragoon. Please, can someone tell me how to react when toss plays like that I mean FFE into 1 stargate into HTs.
I'm also adding some replays in 1.18 format, i hope someone can review them.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzgtO7OwwYwdczlLd3Q1bldnTkk
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzgtO7OwwYwdOHRpT1dwdDBqWVk
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Practice Hydra split vs Psi Storms. And make Lurkers against Zealots.
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(only watched the first replay)
Seems like you were behind on economy all game long.
Starting with the build order- why overpool? Did you have reason to think he might rush you? As it is, he fast-expanded with just 1 cannon and didn't pressure you at all, so you gave up a lot of economy on the overpool for nothing. (In fact, with the way his cannon was open you probably could have just built 12 lings and killed him early on)
You had a drone at your main not mining. In general you seemed really light on drones- I think you had just 6 mining minerals at your main. Probably could have survived with fewer hydras early on and built more drones instead.
Then he took his 3rd and you didn't stop it, or take your own until much later. By the time he actually pushed out you were at a massive economic disadvantage. The lurker contain seemed to go pretty well but you just didn't have the numbers to really match him at that point.
In general if you want to play a macro-style game, you need to get by with fewer defenses early on and make more drones. Sometimes you die instantly to cheese, but it's better than always dying a slow death to someone with twice as many workers as you.
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Hmm the second replay was the opposite problem- you had enough economy but bad engagements. It helped that he went for early aggression so your overpool was actually useful. But then your hydras got caught out in the open where all his zealots could engage easily, just the opposite of what you want.
Also I think your simcity at your natural is wrong- you want to use buildings to guard the entrance to your main and your units, while the drone drill defends the other side. Like this: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Fighting_Spirit. Instead he was able to march straight up to your defending hydras while ignoring the drones (and a better P would have stormed them too so it's not like they're even really protected by having a building in front of them).
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Rep 1 (3lose protoss)
-You made nat hatch, now have 14 supply and 300+ minerals...there is no sign of 3rd hatch/base or a drone there to place it, when the hatch should already be making
-You ran 4 lings into his base because his cannon wasn't finished. Good move! What's less good is that it's now been 40s and you have made just one drone. 600 mins banked and still no drone going out for 3rd hatch, let alone a 3rd hatch. A few seconds late is no big deal...your hatch is already well over a minute late; that's really going to hurt.
-You've scouted he is just doing 1 gate expo, you got 4 lings at home and you're making a sunken against his single zlot pressure. Major over reaction.
- 4:00 you place in base 3rd. That's super late, not to mention it ought to be at third base.
- 4:05 you make more lings, like 6 more. When you already have a sunken and know protoss is on one gate. I can't stress how huge of an over reaction this is.
- 4:30 The only thing that's good for you is protoss totally freaked out and forgot to expand + built a cannon in his main. That's keeping you in the game a bit.
4:30 If you're trying to play 4 or 5 hatch no gas...you're okay, but if you're looking to play "standard" your gas is crazy late. Protoss would be building a stargate right now and you don't even have gas. 2:40 is typical gas timing.
4:30 Third base finally starts, unfortuantely the hatch in your main meant this is very delayed, and that you won't be able to sim city properly.
5:30 Looks like you're playing 4 hatch hydra. Is that the intent? If not, then why did you elect for it?
6:30 Judging from what you did, it looks like you made the den to get a few hydra for corsair. That's okay in this situation then. Getting both hydra ups before lair? Not so much...
7:00 5th hatch in main? DON'T DO THIS! Hatches need to go two at natural two at third base for sim city. You'll get wrecked by zlot timings without sim city. One other not is that your hatch placement in main is very scattered. They shouldn't really be there, but if you are going to do that at least group them nicely together to help make macro easy.
9:30 You're getting hydra +1. This suggests to me that you're planning to play aggressively with hydras. Is this the case? If not, +1 cara is usually a better upgrade. Moreover, if you're planning to deny the third with aggressive hydra play, you don't need to add on a spire, especially against a P without corsairs.
10:15 You had a plenty big enough army, but you didn't dodge storms well at all, nor did you use the control group of hydra from your third. Very favorable engagement from protoss, and now with no tech you're on the back foot. Against zlot you can be kiting back and spreading from very far out. It should be difficult for his zlots to even hit you without straying far from the templar. That force was also out on the map forever, you could likely have sniped all three templar with hydra before he even reached your base. Zero macro during the battle has you even worse spot. 100% you die if protoss was a little better and reinforced. Gotta have those hatcheries on hotkeys and 4sh5sh6sh7sh8sh during battle. Don't have to look away, just spam those keys.
11:45 Nice spotting ling at protoss third
11:45 You've survived his attack but you know he is setting up a third base with a well placed scouting ling. There is no sign of lurkers coming, not of a 4th base. You cannot sit on 3 base, especially after falling behind in the initial hydra/zlot wars and expect to live against a 3 base toss, especially without lurkers. You absolutely need to be planning to either add a round of drones and 4th + lurker, or be planning a desperate killing blow at protosses natural.
12:15 You do go to take a 4th, but it's not the best one. Take another natural, that gives easy access to a 5th.
12:30 Muta swutch isnt a bad idea vs a stargateless toss.
13:00 Muta switch was looking good, but for reasons unknown you charge into the protoss army without using your muta to first snipe his templar, and during the fight eat storms, all the storms.
I think from the first game my main takeaways would be that:
1) This is the number one issue. Don't over react to toss to much. You went crazy being freaked out by a few one gate zlots. You basically shoulda made your 8 lings and droned. Maybe added one or two more ling rounds if youre micro wasn't going good or you know he was massing zlots at home. Combine that was the super late and in base third and you put yourself VERY far behind. Had you macroed normally with good 3rd hatch timing you would have had 3 groups of hydra before protoss had his first templar out. and 5-6 groups when he actually attacked you with storm.
2) Didn't really seem to have a gameplan without your hydras, or if you did it seemed to be thrown off by protosses easy zlot or two. You had many hydra but sat at home waiting for him to attack. Hydra spam off 3 bases is not a defensive build.
3) Micro. You ate tons of storms. I couldn't tell if it was just bad control or if you don't have a good technique for splitting hydras. You're control vs zlots was a bit unusual too. Its usually more of a spreading pieces or your arc back.
Replay #2
2:30 - Just as an FYI, if protoss makes an abomination of a wall like that...you can just make lings and call him.
3:20 - Uniterrupted from zlots, your gas and third base timing are much more typical. You're opting to take gas after 3rd hatch, nothing inherently wrong with that, but it's more common nowadays to gas around 2:40 before the third hatch is made.
4:10 - First 100 gas to ling speed? Unless you're planning a serious ling bust this is not good. Lair first! You're going to need either a hydra den or spores...else you're going to lose at least 3 OL.
5:20 - Looks like you went den + ups again on 3 hatches. Again, if you're already going for lair and spire this isn't good. Too late for a 3 hatch bust, but getting it so early is just killing your macro timings. You're losing out on 4th/5th hatch larva, plus not being able to make drones as constantly. If you really wanted hydra, just delay lair. You could have 35 drones, 5 hatches, and be starting full hydra production right about now if you just played directly for that. If you want to play with Lair and scourges for corsair defense + scouting...then it needs to come faster so you can actually defend corsair.
6:45 - You start spamming hydra on 3 hatch. Ouch. Goodbye economy.
7:45 - Seems like you're scared of his zealots and adding sunkens at your third. Rightfully scared of them, but his timing at 7:30 should have been a joke. This is really a good case of get a little behind and it just compounds. Late lair -> needed den on 3 hatches -> less drones, no 4th/5th hatches -> insufficient macro, 7:30 super late zlot timing forcing sunkens -> protoss got full tech and a big army at 8:30 and you just have 3 hatches running and a handful of hydras.
8:30 Basically GG here. You've got about nothing and he's got basically everything he wants.
8:30 I do like you went carapace, but I dislike the total absence of lurkers.
9:00 Spamming units and doing nothing. That works great if you're in a strong economic position compared to toss. When you're way behind and he's taking a third it's the worst of all decisions. You're very behind, but you should basically be looking either to secure a 4th/5th and pray to defend it, or be working desperatly for a lucky hanbang attack or to deny protosses third for as long as possible. Doing what you're doing is like saying "I see you're super far ahead, go ahead and get obscenely far ahead friend".
11:30 None of this really matters given how far behind you are, but I'll still offer some strategic thoughts. Nice to see you have lurkers here, and it's somewhat generous of protoss to be so zlot heavy and obless. However....why are you not double expanding! You've got a contain. With 3 base toss it's on borrowed time but you're behind and should be trying to do something! Breaking his main or third is not an option, so at least try to get back into the macro game.
14:00 Macro decisions have been fully realized and you're down over 80 supply. An average situation for zerg might be 20.
14:30 Protoss literally does the worst possible a move to deal with your contain...and rolls it easy because he has twice the stuff you do.
16:30 You're macro is WAY better this game. Nice! The big downside is that the 4th base you tried to take hasn't even had drones made or transferred to it. Macro is definitely the priority, but try not to get quite so Macro->Attack->Macro->Macro->Attack->Macro->Attack in your mindset. It's easy to fall into, but it's definitely a bad habit.
17:30 If you're going to defend with lurkers they don't go ON the bridge. Not only can protoss surround them instead of them funneling his units into your lurker spines (as would be the case with lurkers behind bridge) it clumps them all for juicy storms.
18:15 I have no idea what this attack was or why you did it. I'm pretty certain you didn't either. You also just ate every single storm with zero attempts to dodge. Maybe this was just a "ah fuck it I'm dead and don't want to spend 10 more minutes dying attack"?
Replay #2 Big Takeaways
1) Build stuff again. Decide how you want to play. Either you're going 3 hatch hydra all in, with low drones and no lair; or you're going for quick gas around 2:40 to get spire/scourge in time for sair; or you're going late gas/lair and going mass hydra, starting production after 5 hatches are done but in time to deal with first corsair. Both games I watched you were in a 10-20% win situation at best after 8 minutes only because of the build decisions you had made. Fix that and you'll start finding games to suddenly go ALOT better
2) Gameplan. Again, this may be because you didn't realize how behind your builds decision were putting you, but it doesn't seem like you have a clear gameplan for what you want to get unit wise and what the goals of those units are. Do you want to deny protoss 3rd with mass hydra? Make a few hydra and transition into lurker + drones + 4th base? Go allin with 3 hatch hydra for the kill?
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On June 18 2017 05:05 Luddite wrote:Hmm the second replay was the opposite problem- you had enough economy but bad engagements. It helped that he went for early aggression so your overpool was actually useful. But then your hydras got caught out in the open where all his zealots could engage easily, just the opposite of what you want. Also I think your simcity at your natural is wrong- you want to use buildings to guard the entrance to your main and your units, while the drone drill defends the other side. Like this: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Fighting_Spirit. Instead he was able to march straight up to your defending hydras while ignoring the drones (and a better P would have stormed them too so it's not like they're even really protected by having a building in front of them).
I kinda disagree he had enough economy in the second game. It was very, very suppressed from his over reacting. It turned out okay and looked evenish though because protoss totally over reacted, made a super late nexus, and was not good at making probes. So it might be fair to say he ended up okay in economy versus his opponent, relative to what his economy could have been it was quite weak/delayed.
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just turtle on 4 bases till Hive... crackling defiler counter attacks are protoss' worst nightmare...
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On June 18 2017 14:24 XenOsky- wrote:
just turtle on 4 bases till Hive... crackling defiler counter attacks are protoss' worst nightmare...
It's certainly what I have the hardest time with, but for a newer player than's way to much to worry about. I think it's nicer to develop mechanics and BW experience with something more aggressive, but macro oriented and then learn the really technical builds as you gain experience.
I do really wonder why the pros stopped playing 4 base hive. You literally never see that these days. Everyone just opens 3 hatch close base with hydra aggro. Not sure if that's a response to gate expand or what.
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Thank you all for the feedback, especially L_Master for breaking down my games, it is super helpful to have all my mistakes pointed out like this. It does seem like my main problem is decision making, and i think i need to play more and watch some good players play ZvP. I will try to play without building the sunken at nat, and expand faster cause i clearly don't have enough stuff.
Regarding my gameplan, I think i have it wrong because from watching koreans play it's hard to figure it out. They just seem to go mostly hydra/lurker/scourge and micro them in such a way that is currently impossible for me (storm dodging, lurker splitting and sniping units, I can do 1, maybe 2 of these but not 3).
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Zerg is hardest to understand. Managing your larvas and knowing what units to make takes time. Also, you need to be able to dictate when you can make drones and etc. I'll just give you a breakdown
Overall, I think you have some idea of what zerg eco should be ( ie 5 hat hydra)
5 hat hydra is probably one of the best bo because you can defend +1 speed zlot without any sunkens and pressure toss to make cannons(make their eco poorer). As soon as they make cannons what more can they do other thank make 4-5 hts to save energy? At this point you just need to drone up like 13-17.. and make one more hatch. Toss won't be able to take 3rd until they have few hts with enough energy. You will want to waste their energy or even snipe hts with maybe like 12 hydras Just keep pressuring the toss back and forth. He will come out when his attack hits +2/+3. Well.. what do you do? You need to defend until you have hive.. Also I forgot to mention that you can probably take a faster expansion than him when he takes a 3rd or go for hive 3 chamber 3 base 6 hat since your eco is full and you have enough hydras to fend off possible zlot/hts timing. Att his point, once you have plague its all yours. ZVP is basically simple. You just sdsdsdsd at right timing shshshsh at right timing.
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On June 19 2017 02:54 Shinokuki wrote:
5 hat hydra is probably one of the best bo because you can defend +1 speed zlot without any sunkens and pressure toss to make cannons(make their eco poorer).
I just wanted to note, this assumes that Protoss goes for stargate first against late lair (like 5hat before gas), if they go straight into +1 speedzeals you will have to get sunken.
Also
On June 18 2017 16:15 L_Master wrote:
I do really wonder why the pros stopped playing 4 base hive. You literally never see that these days. Everyone just opens 3 hatch close base with hydra aggro. Not sure if that's a response to gate expand or what.
They still mix in 4 base play, at least Larva and JD do it quite often. They just get Hive after 8 hatches and some lair units instead of rushing Hive with just a few lurkers
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On June 18 2017 04:26 Luddite wrote:
(only watched the first replay)
Seems like you were behind on economy all game long.
Starting with the build order- why overpool? Did you have reason to think he might rush you?
First of all, you don't know what your opponent is doing. He might be building two gateways in the middle of the map, how would you know? If you went hatch first, it doesn't matter if you scout it, you probably have to cancel. If you scout, your overpool lets you defend it.
Second of all, overpool lets you punish nexus first somewhat because the cannons are not immediately done so you can kill probes that are blocking the cannons evening it out. If you hatch first or 12 pool you can't do this.
If you hatch first and he went forge expand, you get rekt by a cannon rush if you don't drill your drones perfectly through minerals. I saw Soulkey lose to Lancerx's cannon rush on Fighting Spirit, so it's not trivial to defend.
If you watch pro games, most of the time they go overpool vs. Protoss and it's for a good reason. Hatch first is a bit not safe and is actually behind vs. nexus first. The one thing it's good for is not letting your opponent pylon block your natural (you wouldn't go hatch first when you get scouted early anyway, just 11 pool or something when you see the probe enter your base).
But here's the thing - pylon block is only a small delay that does cost the Protoss money. You can send one drone to a third location and leave one drone to hit the pylon. If the pylon gets cancelled and the probe is not blocking you can just put it down in the nat still after a little bit of a delay. If the pylon doesn't get cancelled or the probe puts another one down, you take your third hatch first.
I just like to hide a drone behind minerals so when the scouting probe is going into my main I throw the natural down.
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On June 21 2017 03:21 iopq wrote:Show nested quote +On June 18 2017 04:26 Luddite wrote:
(only watched the first replay)
Seems like you were behind on economy all game long.
Starting with the build order- why overpool? Did you have reason to think he might rush you? First of all, you don't know what your opponent is doing. He might be building two gateways in the middle of the map, how would you know? If you went hatch first, it doesn't matter if you scout it, you probably have to cancel. If you scout, your overpool lets you defend it. Second of all, overpool lets you punish nexus first somewhat because the cannons are not immediately done so you can kill probes that are blocking the cannons evening it out. If you hatch first or 12 pool you can't do this. If you hatch first and he went forge expand, you get rekt by a cannon rush if you don't drill your drones perfectly through minerals. I saw Soulkey lose to Lancerx's cannon rush on Fighting Spirit, so it's not trivial to defend. If you watch pro games, most of the time they go overpool vs. Protoss and it's for a good reason. Hatch first is a bit not safe and is actually behind vs. nexus first. The one thing it's good for is not letting your opponent pylon block your natural (you wouldn't go hatch first when you get scouted early anyway, just 11 pool or something when you see the probe enter your base). But here's the thing - pylon block is only a small delay that does cost the Protoss money. You can send one drone to a third location and leave one drone to hit the pylon. If the pylon gets cancelled and the probe is not blocking you can just put it down in the nat still after a little bit of a delay. If the pylon doesn't get cancelled or the probe puts another one down, you take your third hatch first. I just like to hide a drone behind minerals so when the scouting probe is going into my main I throw the natural down.
Hmm... what you say makes sense, but it also confuses me. It seems like the same argument applies against *any* econ-heavy opening. If you go 12 hatch against Terran, and they proxy 2 barracks, you're also in deep trouble. But 12 hatch is still the standard, you just have accept the occasional loss from rushes, and mix up your build orders if you suspect they might try something like that. If you went overpool just in case they proxy 2 rax, you'd be behind against any "normal" FE opening.
So why is it different against Protoss? Like you said, hatch first is little behind against nexus first, so why do an opening that puts you even *further* behind? At least if you do 9 pool there's a good chance of killing them before they get cannons up, but an overpool just seems like the worst of both worlds... lings are too late to really threaten them (they'll scout you first and just make an extra cannon if they have to) but your hatch is also delayed (and like you said, can also be delayed even more if they pylon. and what if they pylon your 3rd as well?). I'd rather take some risks to get ahead, instead of being too cautious and slowly falling behind every time.
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On June 21 2017 05:49 Luddite wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2017 03:21 iopq wrote:On June 18 2017 04:26 Luddite wrote:
(only watched the first replay)
Seems like you were behind on economy all game long.
Starting with the build order- why overpool? Did you have reason to think he might rush you? First of all, you don't know what your opponent is doing. He might be building two gateways in the middle of the map, how would you know? If you went hatch first, it doesn't matter if you scout it, you probably have to cancel. If you scout, your overpool lets you defend it. Second of all, overpool lets you punish nexus first somewhat because the cannons are not immediately done so you can kill probes that are blocking the cannons evening it out. If you hatch first or 12 pool you can't do this. If you hatch first and he went forge expand, you get rekt by a cannon rush if you don't drill your drones perfectly through minerals. I saw Soulkey lose to Lancerx's cannon rush on Fighting Spirit, so it's not trivial to defend. If you watch pro games, most of the time they go overpool vs. Protoss and it's for a good reason. Hatch first is a bit not safe and is actually behind vs. nexus first. The one thing it's good for is not letting your opponent pylon block your natural (you wouldn't go hatch first when you get scouted early anyway, just 11 pool or something when you see the probe enter your base). But here's the thing - pylon block is only a small delay that does cost the Protoss money. You can send one drone to a third location and leave one drone to hit the pylon. If the pylon gets cancelled and the probe is not blocking you can just put it down in the nat still after a little bit of a delay. If the pylon doesn't get cancelled or the probe puts another one down, you take your third hatch first. I just like to hide a drone behind minerals so when the scouting probe is going into my main I throw the natural down. Hmm... what you say makes sense, but it also confuses me. It seems like the same argument applies against *any* econ-heavy opening. If you go 12 hatch against Terran, and they proxy 2 barracks, you're also in deep trouble. But 12 hatch is still the standard, you just have accept the occasional loss from rushes, and mix up your build orders if you suspect they might try something like that. If you went overpool just in case they proxy 2 rax, you'd be behind against any "normal" FE opening. So why is it different against Protoss? Like you said, hatch first is little behind against nexus first, so why do an opening that puts you even *further* behind? At least if you do 9 pool there's a good chance of killing them before they get cannons up, but an overpool just seems like the worst of both worlds... lings are too late to really threaten them (they'll scout you first and just make an extra cannon if they have to) but your hatch is also delayed (and like you said, can also be delayed even more if they pylon. and what if they pylon your 3rd as well?). I'd rather take some risks to get ahead, instead of being too cautious and slowly falling behind every time.
I would say overpooling because you're afraid of proxy gates is not a compelling argument.
The other things iopq listed are pretty strong reasons. You mentioned why do an opening that puts you even *further* behind, but iopq already addressed that when he said it evens out a bit because if they do nexus first then cannons won't finish in time and you'll get some probe kills.
Then of course there is also the whole issue with gate expo. Overpool in most cases will force protoss to run home and hide.
The downside to overpool, especially on FS is that in certain positions, especially if your bot left and top right as protoss you can absolutely go forge nexus against overpool with no problems.
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On June 21 2017 05:49 Luddite wrote:
So why is it different against Protoss?
The main reason is that Terrans can go rax CC without really altering their build, while every cannon and its timing is important early game. Overpool will put you behind in a standard (1 rax CC)ZvT most of the time, but not in a standard (gate/forge expand) ZvP. Sure, Protoss can try to abuse you with 11/11 build (the only thing that could be considered a "counter" to overpool), but he is taking a risk, while Terran isn't since they put down CC after scouting.
This said, i don't think 12 hatch in ZvP is necessarily bad, it will give small advantages or disadvantages, like overpool will. And it's probably the best opener against one base builds(proxy gates excluded). But it's not like overpool is a "worse" opening by any means, or it would never become standard at the highest level. It is a worse opening in ZvT though.
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On June 21 2017 08:33 ortseam wrote: The main reason is that Terrans can go rax CC without really altering their build, while every cannon and its timing is important early game. Overpool will put you behind in a standard (1 rax CC)ZvT most of the time, but not in a standard (gate/forge expand) ZvP. Sure, Protoss can try to abuse you with 11/11 build (the only thing that could be considered a "counter" to overpool), but he is taking a risk, while Terran isn't since they put down CC after scouting. This said, i don't think 12 hatch in ZvP is necessarily bad, it will give small advantages or disadvantages, like overpool will. And it's probably the best opener against one base builds(proxy gates excluded). But it's not like overpool is a "worse" opening by any means, or it would never become standard at the highest level. It is a worse opening in ZvT though.
Good explanation, thanks. What's the 11/11 build?
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On June 21 2017 06:25 L_Master wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2017 05:49 Luddite wrote:On June 21 2017 03:21 iopq wrote:On June 18 2017 04:26 Luddite wrote:
(only watched the first replay)
Seems like you were behind on economy all game long.
Starting with the build order- why overpool? Did you have reason to think he might rush you? First of all, you don't know what your opponent is doing. He might be building two gateways in the middle of the map, how would you know? If you went hatch first, it doesn't matter if you scout it, you probably have to cancel. If you scout, your overpool lets you defend it. Second of all, overpool lets you punish nexus first somewhat because the cannons are not immediately done so you can kill probes that are blocking the cannons evening it out. If you hatch first or 12 pool you can't do this. If you hatch first and he went forge expand, you get rekt by a cannon rush if you don't drill your drones perfectly through minerals. I saw Soulkey lose to Lancerx's cannon rush on Fighting Spirit, so it's not trivial to defend. If you watch pro games, most of the time they go overpool vs. Protoss and it's for a good reason. Hatch first is a bit not safe and is actually behind vs. nexus first. The one thing it's good for is not letting your opponent pylon block your natural (you wouldn't go hatch first when you get scouted early anyway, just 11 pool or something when you see the probe enter your base). But here's the thing - pylon block is only a small delay that does cost the Protoss money. You can send one drone to a third location and leave one drone to hit the pylon. If the pylon gets cancelled and the probe is not blocking you can just put it down in the nat still after a little bit of a delay. If the pylon doesn't get cancelled or the probe puts another one down, you take your third hatch first. I just like to hide a drone behind minerals so when the scouting probe is going into my main I throw the natural down. Hmm... what you say makes sense, but it also confuses me. It seems like the same argument applies against *any* econ-heavy opening. If you go 12 hatch against Terran, and they proxy 2 barracks, you're also in deep trouble. But 12 hatch is still the standard, you just have accept the occasional loss from rushes, and mix up your build orders if you suspect they might try something like that. If you went overpool just in case they proxy 2 rax, you'd be behind against any "normal" FE opening. So why is it different against Protoss? Like you said, hatch first is little behind against nexus first, so why do an opening that puts you even *further* behind? At least if you do 9 pool there's a good chance of killing them before they get cannons up, but an overpool just seems like the worst of both worlds... lings are too late to really threaten them (they'll scout you first and just make an extra cannon if they have to) but your hatch is also delayed (and like you said, can also be delayed even more if they pylon. and what if they pylon your 3rd as well?). I'd rather take some risks to get ahead, instead of being too cautious and slowly falling behind every time. I would say overpooling because you're afraid of proxy gates is not a compelling argument. The other things iopq listed are pretty strong reasons. You mentioned why do an opening that puts you even *further* behind, but iopq already addressed that when he said it evens out a bit because if they do nexus first then cannons won't finish in time and you'll get some probe kills. Then of course there is also the whole issue with gate expo. Overpool in most cases will force protoss to run home and hide. The downside to overpool, especially on FS is that in certain positions, especially if your bot left and top right as protoss you can absolutely go forge nexus against overpool with no problems.
so basically if you overpool you have to pressure them and either force cannons or get some probe kills? (which didn't happen in the first replay here)
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On June 21 2017 06:25 L_Master wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2017 05:49 Luddite wrote:On June 21 2017 03:21 iopq wrote:On June 18 2017 04:26 Luddite wrote:
(only watched the first replay)
Seems like you were behind on economy all game long.
Starting with the build order- why overpool? Did you have reason to think he might rush you? First of all, you don't know what your opponent is doing. He might be building two gateways in the middle of the map, how would you know? If you went hatch first, it doesn't matter if you scout it, you probably have to cancel. If you scout, your overpool lets you defend it. Second of all, overpool lets you punish nexus first somewhat because the cannons are not immediately done so you can kill probes that are blocking the cannons evening it out. If you hatch first or 12 pool you can't do this. If you hatch first and he went forge expand, you get rekt by a cannon rush if you don't drill your drones perfectly through minerals. I saw Soulkey lose to Lancerx's cannon rush on Fighting Spirit, so it's not trivial to defend. If you watch pro games, most of the time they go overpool vs. Protoss and it's for a good reason. Hatch first is a bit not safe and is actually behind vs. nexus first. The one thing it's good for is not letting your opponent pylon block your natural (you wouldn't go hatch first when you get scouted early anyway, just 11 pool or something when you see the probe enter your base). But here's the thing - pylon block is only a small delay that does cost the Protoss money. You can send one drone to a third location and leave one drone to hit the pylon. If the pylon gets cancelled and the probe is not blocking you can just put it down in the nat still after a little bit of a delay. If the pylon doesn't get cancelled or the probe puts another one down, you take your third hatch first. I just like to hide a drone behind minerals so when the scouting probe is going into my main I throw the natural down. Hmm... what you say makes sense, but it also confuses me. It seems like the same argument applies against *any* econ-heavy opening. If you go 12 hatch against Terran, and they proxy 2 barracks, you're also in deep trouble. But 12 hatch is still the standard, you just have accept the occasional loss from rushes, and mix up your build orders if you suspect they might try something like that. If you went overpool just in case they proxy 2 rax, you'd be behind against any "normal" FE opening. So why is it different against Protoss? Like you said, hatch first is little behind against nexus first, so why do an opening that puts you even *further* behind? At least if you do 9 pool there's a good chance of killing them before they get cannons up, but an overpool just seems like the worst of both worlds... lings are too late to really threaten them (they'll scout you first and just make an extra cannon if they have to) but your hatch is also delayed (and like you said, can also be delayed even more if they pylon. and what if they pylon your 3rd as well?). I'd rather take some risks to get ahead, instead of being too cautious and slowly falling behind every time. I would say overpooling because you're afraid of proxy gates is not a compelling argument. The other things iopq listed are pretty strong reasons. You mentioned why do an opening that puts you even *further* behind, but iopq already addressed that when he said it evens out a bit because if they do nexus first then cannons won't finish in time and you'll get some probe kills. Then of course there is also the whole issue with gate expo. Overpool in most cases will force protoss to run home and hide. The downside to overpool, especially on FS is that in certain positions, especially if your bot left and top right as protoss you can absolutely go forge nexus against overpool with no problems.
You can go forge nexus cannon on any position in FS vs. overpool. You just have to probe block if they try to run 6 lings by. But if you go hatch first the Protoss can go forge nexus gateway cannon.
On June 21 2017 05:49 Luddite wrote:
It seems like the same argument applies against *any* econ-heavy opening. If you go 12 hatch against Terran, and they proxy 2 barracks, you're also in deep trouble. But 12 hatch is still the standard, you just have accept the occasional loss from rushes, and mix up your build orders if you suspect they might try something like that. If you went overpool just in case they proxy 2 rax, you'd be behind against any "normal" FE opening.
That's because Terran can throw down their CC on top of the ramp and float it down. Protoss is FORCED to put their nexus down at the bottom of the ramp. So Terran gets to defend for free by blocking their ramp, while Protoss has to defend at the bottom of the ramp by fighting with probes. Also note that it's pretty easy to kill 2 marines with 8 drones, but next to impossible to kill 1 zealot because of its much higher HP.
On June 21 2017 13:49 Luddite wrote:
so basically if you overpool you have to pressure them and either force cannons or get some probe kills? (which didn't happen in the first replay here)
When you make 3 eggs after pool is done Protoss has no way of knowing if it's 6 lings or 2 lings and 2 drones. Just having the pool should make them throw a cannon down. You should sometimes make the 6 lings (like when you didn't scout them first) and sometimes only 2. If you get 6 lings out, that forces probes to come off and block the runby which wastes mining time or it forces a second cannon which wastes 150 minerals.
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On June 21 2017 18:59 iopq wrote:
When you make 3 eggs after pool is done Protoss has no way of knowing if it's 6 lings or 2 lings and 2 drones. Just having the pool should make them throw a cannon down. You should sometimes make the 6 lings (like when you didn't scout them first) and sometimes only 2. If you get 6 lings out, that forces probes to come off and block the runby which wastes mining time or it forces a second cannon which wastes 150 minerals.
You kinda do. If all three morph at once then you're 99.9% expecting 6 lings, unless zerg is being on hell of a greedy little sucker. Any other combination tells you drones/lings because you can't simultaneously morph lings and drones. I guess if you wanted to be a little tricky you could make a ling pair, pause a sec, then make the other two ling pairs. I've yet to have a zerg do this to me though.
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As a Protoss player I thought I'd chip in with my 2 cents...
I think what is really important against any decent protoss is scouting.
Obviously I will be able to scout you early - and unless I fuck up, you shouldn't be able to kill my probe until ling speed.
As soon as you have ling speed make sure you get my probe (check the corners as well for a hiding probe) and then have your ling somewhere around my natural to make sure I don't get to scout you.
From toss perspective scouting is everything. If you do this right, the first time I'll be able to get a sense of you gameplan is with my first sair - in case you are aggressive this might even be too late... in case you go for a 3 hatch, 1gas hydra bust.
I would say what's really important to take away from this is:
- have a game plan. even if it's "defend until late game" to play a macro game. sometimes you will have to adjust, but go into a match with a defined strat.
- try hard to keep the protoss in the dark. zerg will be the aggressor or at least dictate the speed of the game in the majority of cases. if I don't know what you're doing until sair, I most likely have to delay a lot of my timings to be safe.
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On June 21 2017 23:52 L_Master wrote:
You kinda do. If all three morph at once then you're 99.9% expecting 6 lings, unless zerg is being on hell of a greedy little sucker.
Fine, then just morph one pair of lings, then select the other two larvae and morph two more pairs, then if the Protoss doesn't build a cannon in time go run by.
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On June 22 2017 00:44 iopq wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2017 23:52 L_Master wrote:
You kinda do. If all three morph at once then you're 99.9% expecting 6 lings, unless zerg is being on hell of a greedy little sucker.
Fine, then just morph one pair of lings, then select the other two larvae and morph two more pairs, then if the Protoss doesn't build a cannon in time go run by.
I did say that right after the part you quoted, just that I never see zergs actually do so :D
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On June 22 2017 01:09 L_Master wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2017 00:44 iopq wrote:On June 21 2017 23:52 L_Master wrote:
You kinda do. If all three morph at once then you're 99.9% expecting 6 lings, unless zerg is being on hell of a greedy little sucker.
Fine, then just morph one pair of lings, then select the other two larvae and morph two more pairs, then if the Protoss doesn't build a cannon in time go run by. I did say that right after the part you quoted, just that I never see zergs actually do so :D
well, if you throw down hatch before lings, you end up squeezing lings out one by one anyway because you don't have 150 minerals exactly
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Ok so since I posted my replays my winrate in ZvP went way up, and it wasn't even so hard. It turned out that i misunderstood the build. I always knew that the standard macro play was 5 hatch hydra, but somehow never heard of 5 hatch before gas. When I got it right I started demolishing almost every protoss on EU bnet, and now since i'm getting enough stuff to actually fight I can actually micro my units correctly and snipe HTs and obs.
I have only one question left, how to react when toss decides to be agressive and sends like ~5 first zealots splitting them across my expansions? I instantly make lings when i see him move out, but often I wont't have much larva so I have to use drones to defend. So I lose mining time, I lose lings, which could be drones, and if the toss has really good micro I'll just gg out after losing many, many drones.
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when you reach about 25 supply, make a few extra lings up to 27, that's usually the timing when Protoss sends 4 zealots out - if you saved the initial 6 lings that would put you to 10 lings - you can't kill 4 zealots with them (especially if he microes), but if he actually commits to moving out you can probably get a few more out while he's walking and you'll be fine
I usually still go 3 hatch spire for scourge and potential muta if I feel like it - some Protoss players will make an annoying super fast speedlot attack before I am set up to defend with hydra. I've been hit with a +1 speedlot rush (AFTER one corsair) at 7:15 before which totally messed up my economy.
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On June 22 2017 03:53 iopq wrote:
when you reach about 25 supply, make a few extra lings up to 27, that's usually the timing when Protoss sends 4 zealots out - if you saved the initial 6 lings that would put you to 10 lings - you can't kill 4 zealots with them (especially if he microes), but if he actually commits to moving out you can probably get a few more out while he's walking and you'll be fine
What do you do if he doesn't move out? I feel like they can move out almost at any time, with any number of zealots (although that might just be because I'm playing against noobs who don't have a polished build order). How many zerglings do you need to make if he hasn't pushed out yet and you can't see his army?
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with 3 hatch spire vs FFE, you start with few lings, protoss harasses with 1-3 zealots, you constantly have so many lings, that if he "commits" his harass, you can make enough to kill the zealot. after that, your ling speed should finish and protoss should stop the zeal harass, until he has a 2nd cannon in nat and zeal speed/+1. in that time, you dont make any more lings, place your speedlings outside his nat and drone only. build order wise you get 3 hatch spire, 4th and 5th hatch and if he start movng out with zealots again (because of 2nd cannon/zealspeed/+1) you defend it with sunkens and/or your 2nd step unit (muta/lurker/hydra), depending on what build/style you want to play.
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-You started with a really aggressive opening with lots lings so the burden is on you to deal damage with them and you did great! Got a few probes, forced a cannon in his main, delayed his nexus, and held off his harassment yourself.
-Your natural lacked any sort of sim city which would've been useful for holding off pure zealot comps.
-Whenever Protoss attacks, he's gonna expand. You held off the attack with Hydras to spare so those could have been pocket speedlings used to deny him the expansion and force him to allocate part of his army to guard it.
-So you made your 4th and 5th hatch in your main but they are spread really far apart for some reason. Keep them compact and Shift + F2 them. Then you can allocate your number hotkeys on the remaining hatcheries. Your late game macro should look something like: 5sh6sh7sh8sh9sh0sh F2-(click)sh (click)sh (click)sh.
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On June 22 2017 01:09 L_Master wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2017 00:44 iopq wrote:On June 21 2017 23:52 L_Master wrote:
You kinda do. If all three morph at once then you're 99.9% expecting 6 lings, unless zerg is being on hell of a greedy little sucker.
Fine, then just morph one pair of lings, then select the other two larvae and morph two more pairs, then if the Protoss doesn't build a cannon in time go run by. I did say that right after the part you quoted, just that I never see zergs actually do so :D
well, I never see toss skip the cannon either.  )
To Luddite: vs 12 hatch if toss does not want to go cannon rush, they can also just cancel the forge and go nexus and gateway before rebuilding it. This of course requires scouting after first pylon and sending second probe right when you scouted empty base with your first scout.
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EPT
