Hey guys, it's me again with another help request.
I was wondering how exactly you're supposed to deal with 2 Hatch Lurker play as Protoss if you went for a FFE? The option of going for a quick one base play isn't there anymore, and if I'm not wrong, Sair/DT will come online too late to prevent the Natural break (Not enough Sairs that early to stop a few unmorphed Hydras from keeping their Overlords safe).
Is the idea to "just" get ranged Goons and Observers asap? And if so, how do you properly engage the Lurker line then, as your wall-in is most likely funneling your units into a nice little line to give Lurkers maximum value?
First of all, you have to scout it in time. You will scout a lair, 2 hatcheries and Hydra den with your sair and suspect lurkers with a drop or without. And I would suggest Robo bay for observers and at least some dragoons with range. Some might add a Support bay because reaver is safe when no scourge are around and it's a natural enemy of lurkers. Others would rush to a Psi storm coupled with observers. Idk which is more correct, it would depend on the map as well as positions. As for me, I lean towards reavers in this scenario but I love them so I might be biased. Supported with speed zealots they deal insane damage fast and when no mutas and scourge are there it's mostly party time vs lurkers and a few hydra ling.
I don't know if this works at like A level or S level, but if I suspect quick lurker timing, I prefer to mass goons (off 3-4 gates initially but more when you have better saturation) and make a robo for observer and then shuttle reaver. I also build 2 more cannons (for a total of 3-4) at my natural for defense.
With 2 hatch lurker i think they can get lurkers to your base by about 6 minutes so you definitely should have cannons by then, I think that since they have 2 hatcheries for a while, they will likely not have that many hydralisks. You could try making sairs and reavers with a shuttle and threaten harrass, or just use that reaver to pressure the lurker contain (the shuttle might help with that). I'm not exactly sure, since I almost never run into 2 hatch lurker in PvZ though. If zerg doesn't make that many hydras then going sairs and dts might also break the contain.
Easy to spot when you see 2 hatcheries and 2 gas with hydra den. Obvious lurker play is obvious, all you need to do is rush to robo by 5-6 minutes and get goons or heck even zealots will work this early until you get more economy and get more goons. If he goes lurker lings goons early will die easily.
If you scout a 2 hatch Zerg you would naturally build cannons wouldn't you? No matter what tech path you scouted. If you are worried the lurkers will break into your nat, build more cannons. After that, you can try edging forward with cannons or though it sounds really stupid, fight the lurkers one at a time with a dragoon. You aren't in any hurry to break out of any containment as your econ should be better so you have plenty of time to tech to reavers.
If you really must funnel your units through your wall, go through with the dragoons then sideways to form a line. Though lurkers counter mass zealots, against a small number of zealots they are not that good and can draw the lurker attack away from hitting multiple units.
If you are going sairs anyways, you should be able to have enough sairs to cause a lot of trouble for the Zerg. There's no way they will have enough hydras.
Sorry for the late reply, but thanks a lot everybody for the quick help!
Scouting and initial defense weren't the issue, yeah. As you guys said, spotting 2 base play, and having the initial cannons down are a "given" already anyway, I should've probably clarified that better
I was more curious about whether or not there is a "benchmark" for cannon numbers (such as for example 5+ needed to hold a Hydra bust off of 3 Hatches), and if there is a "best" tech path to go. Based off of your replies, it seems like Goon/Reaver or Sair/Reaver respectively are the most reliable answers, depending on whether or not I opened up with a SG first, yes?
To be honest, 2 hatch lurker isn't really seen against protoss. But there will surely be 3-5 lurkers, so 3-5 cannons will be more than enough. You seem to be worried about preventing the the natural from being broken, so naturally advice will be tailored towards that. Are you asking theoretically, or are you playing against someone playing with this strategy? If you are, give all the advice a go and see what's most reliable for you.
I would just play standard except get to storm and robo faster. All you need to do is hold your natural and the game is yours. Z will destroy it's economy.
I'm right around 2000 MMR and I don't ever run into this vs Z. Sometimes people do crazy early lurker drops, but again with decent scouting and a cannon or two in your mineral line it's an easy defense.
Don't freak out when you see cheese and try to do too many things at once.
On May 21 2020 19:59 Dangermousecatdog wrote: To be honest, 2 hatch lurker isn't really seen against protoss. But there will surely be 3-5 lurkers, so 3-5 cannons will be more than enough. You seem to be worried about preventing the the natural from being broken, so naturally advice will be tailored towards that. Are you asking theoretically, or are you playing against someone playing with this strategy? If you are, give all the advice a go and see what's most reliable for you.
yeah it was just a theoretical question, because I'm pretty new to BW, and the build I'm practising atm (4 Gate 2 Archon) for PvZ lists 2 Hatch Muta and 2 Hatch Lurker as two of the counters. 2 Hatch Muta has it's own counter-paragraph in the respective article, but 2 Hatch Lurker doesn't, that's why I took it to the forums
On May 21 2020 19:59 Dangermousecatdog wrote: To be honest, 2 hatch lurker isn't really seen against protoss. But there will surely be 3-5 lurkers, so 3-5 cannons will be more than enough. You seem to be worried about preventing the the natural from being broken, so naturally advice will be tailored towards that. Are you asking theoretically, or are you playing against someone playing with this strategy? If you are, give all the advice a go and see what's most reliable for you.
yeah it was just a theoretical question, because I'm pretty new to BW, and the build I'm practising atm (4 Gate 2 Archon) for PvZ lists 2 Hatch Muta and 2 Hatch Lurker as two of the counters. 2 Hatch Muta has it's own counter-paragraph in the respective article, but 2 Hatch Lurker doesn't, that's why I took it to the forums
I think you can just cannon whore and tech, as long as you dont die or lose all your probes you should be miles ahead of zerg and able to just roll him pretty easily after the initial defense
Honestly speaking, you should just play the game instead of practicing for an eventuality that may never come. If you do play that 4gate Archon build in multiplayer, most likely the question you will want an answer to is "how do I defend 3 hatch hydras with this build" and "how can I tell whether he going to try to kill me with hydras or drone up instead?"
On May 21 2020 19:59 Dangermousecatdog wrote: To be honest, 2 hatch lurker isn't really seen against protoss. But there will surely be 3-5 lurkers, so 3-5 cannons will be more than enough. You seem to be worried about preventing the the natural from being broken, so naturally advice will be tailored towards that. Are you asking theoretically, or are you playing against someone playing with this strategy? If you are, give all the advice a go and see what's most reliable for you.
yeah it was just a theoretical question, because I'm pretty new to BW, and the build I'm practising atm (4 Gate 2 Archon) for PvZ lists 2 Hatch Muta and 2 Hatch Lurker as two of the counters. 2 Hatch Muta has it's own counter-paragraph in the respective article, but 2 Hatch Lurker doesn't, that's why I took it to the forums
i don't recommend 4 gate 2 archon. i don't think it's a very good build tbh. I recommend getting a fast templar archive and making 4 hts to bank storm energy.
On May 23 2020 08:17 Dangermousecatdog wrote: Honestly speaking, you should just play the game instead of practicing for an eventuality that may never come. If you do play that 4gate Archon build in multiplayer, most likely the question you will want an answer to is "how do I defend 3 hatch hydras with this build" and "how can I tell whether he going to try to kill me with hydras or drone up instead?"
That's a common issue I have in a lot of games. I need to have everything "sorted out" in my head before using it in practice dunno why I can't fix that, but that's just how it is.
And about the hydra busts, isn't the answer just "You have 6+ cannons, you get to play the game, if not, you die"?
On May 23 2020 12:28 Anc13nt wrote: i don't recommend 4 gate 2 archon. i don't think it's a very good build tbh. I recommend getting a fast templar archive and making 4 hts to bank storm energy.
I was mainly looking for an All-In or timing attack build to get used to 2-3 base economy in BW first before going for the "full" macro ones. Anything like this you could recommend instead?
I was mainly looking for an All-In or timing attack build to get used to 2-3 base economy in BW first before going for the "full" macro ones. Anything like this you could recommend instead?
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Try +2 weapons 2 base all in. You can open completely standard with FFE, corsairs, into 2 gate speed zeel pressure. Get storm behind it while you add up to 8 gates. Mass goons, get observers, and kill Z when +2 weapons finishes.....it's harder than it sounds hahaha. It's a good way to practice though.
I would watch this from jinjin if I were you
That's a great way to get started. Just practice the standard and make it as clean as possible. It will do you wonders.
On May 24 2020 09:32 MuNi wrote: Try +2 weapons 2 base all in. You can open completely standard with FFE, corsairs, into 2 gate speed zeel pressure. Get storm behind it while you add up to 8 gates. Mass goons, get observers, and kill Z when +2 weapons finishes.....it's harder than it sounds hahaha. It's a good way to practice though.
That's a great way to get started. Just practice the standard and make it as clean as possible. It will do you wonders.
Awesome, thanks a lot already for the video, I'll check it out when I'm awake tomorrow. Sair/Speedlot pressure into Storm, Ranged Goons and Observers is basically standard macro play (just minus the expansions obviously) if I'm not wrong?
On May 24 2020 09:32 MuNi wrote: Try +2 weapons 2 base all in. You can open completely standard with FFE, corsairs, into 2 gate speed zeel pressure. Get storm behind it while you add up to 8 gates. Mass goons, get observers, and kill Z when +2 weapons finishes.....it's harder than it sounds hahaha. It's a good way to practice though.
That's a great way to get started. Just practice the standard and make it as clean as possible. It will do you wonders.
Awesome, thanks a lot already for the video, I'll check it out when I'm awake tomorrow. Sair/Speedlot pressure into Storm, Ranged Goons and Observers is basically standard macro play (just minus the expansions obviously) if I'm not wrong?
Yeah it's standard. But there are a few timings in pvz in particular for protoss to win the game in the mid game with standard play. You can break the Zerg taking a fourth with ranged goons and storm and +2 weapons attack. You need to control it very well though. The protoss army in pvz is more difficult to manage than the other match ups (I'm sure you've experienced this).
Another good opener to practice is two gate. A lot of zergs respond poorly because they're so use to FFE so for ladder it's a good build or you can throw it in once in a series or something. It's not a build that would work vs a good player over and over again though.
On May 24 2020 22:17 MuNi wrote: Yeah it's standard. But there are a few timings in pvz in particular for protoss to win the game in the mid game with standard play. You can break the Zerg taking a fourth with ranged goons and storm and +2 weapons attack. You need to control it very well though. The protoss army in pvz is more difficult to manage than the other match ups (I'm sure you've experienced this).
Another good opener to practice is two gate. A lot of zergs respond poorly because they're so use to FFE so for ladder it's a good build or you can throw it in once in a series or something. It's not a build that would work vs a good player over and over again though.
Awesome, thanks a lot again! Out of curiosity, two more PvZ questions: I've read in the article about the Bisu build (Sair/DT) is that it's not viable anymore since the introduction of 3 base Spire into 5 hatch Hydra, and should only be used, quote: "as one out of multiple responses to older openings".
In regard to that:
1) What openings does this mean specifically? From what I understood in the article, neither 2 Hatch Muta/Lurker openers, nor spire-less 3-5 hatch Hydra builds allow you to play the build the way it was used around ~2007, so... what's exactly left to use it against? :D
2) I downloaded a Bisu replay pack from 2015 (so way after the introduction of the neo sauron opener) from this website and went through some of his PvZ replays. There are a quite a lot of games actually where he did play corsair/dt ANYWAY, even though he had confirmation about the 3 base spire 5 hatch hydra opener from the Zerg players, although he did it in a slightly different way than described on liquipedia (he gets +1 air weapons instantly after putting down the SG, +1 ground after the citadel, and stays on only a single Gateway for a pretty long time until after his templar archives were put down). Is this just Bisu experimenting, saying "fuck it, i can beat them anyway", or does this mean this updated version allows the build to be played against modern Zerg openers again?
Really sorry for all this theorycrafting, but I really appreciate the help from you guys <3
On May 24 2020 22:17 MuNi wrote: Yeah it's standard. But there are a few timings in pvz in particular for protoss to win the game in the mid game with standard play. You can break the Zerg taking a fourth with ranged goons and storm and +2 weapons attack. You need to control it very well though. The protoss army in pvz is more difficult to manage than the other match ups (I'm sure you've experienced this).
Another good opener to practice is two gate. A lot of zergs respond poorly because they're so use to FFE so for ladder it's a good build or you can throw it in once in a series or something. It's not a build that would work vs a good player over and over again though.
Awesome, thanks a lot again! Out of curiosity, two more PvZ questions: I've read in the article about the Bisu build (Sair/DT) is that it's not viable anymore since the introduction of 3 base Spire into 5 hatch Hydra, and should only be used, quote: "as one out of multiple responses to older openings".
In regard to that:
1) What openings does this mean specifically? From what I understood in the article, neither 2 Hatch Muta/Lurker openers, nor spire-less 3-5 hatch Hydra builds allow you to play the build the way it was used around ~2007, so... what's exactly left to use it against? :D
2) I downloaded a Bisu replay pack from 2015 (so way after the introduction of the neo sauron opener) from this website and went through some of his PvZ replays. There are a quite a lot of games actually where he did play corsair/dt ANYWAY, even though he had confirmation about the 3 base spire 5 hatch hydra opener from the Zerg players, although he did it in a slightly different way than described on liquipedia (he gets +1 air weapons instantly after putting down the SG, +1 ground after the citadel, and stays on only a single Gateway for a pretty long time until after his templar archives were put down). Is this just Bisu experimenting, saying "fuck it, i can beat them anyway", or does this mean this updated version allows the build to be played against modern Zerg openers again?
Really sorry for all this theorycrafting, but I really appreciate the help from you guys <3
I would say at this point going DT after ffe is stylistic. Some people go for the dt to run around the map, pick things off, and have general map presence / scouting.
I find it much better to use your limited gas to get storm and two HT's right away. A lot of Zerg meta especially right now is about Hydra rushing or faking hydra rushes. A decent Zerg will have the ovien in your nat and guard it like crazy.
Bisu does what bisu does because his multitasking is a level above most people's. So he can do what he wants. For us mortals I find it better to not try and copy pros exactly.
I would say at this point going DT after ffe is stylistic. Some people go for the dt to run around the map, pick things off, and have general map presence / scouting.
I find it much better to use your limited gas to get storm and two HT's right away. A lot of Zerg meta especially right now is about Hydra rushing or faking hydra rushes. A decent Zerg will have the ovien in your nat and guard it like crazy.
Bisu does what bisu does because his multitasking is a level above most people's. So he can do what he wants. For us mortals I find it better to not try and copy pros exactly.
That it's a stylistic choice was my initial thought as well, but the fact that he delayed his 2nd gate for so long, got more than just a single dt AND only got psistorm really late (not just "delay it by 1 dt", but actually at least a minute later) made me think it had some strategy behind it agree though about the pro copying, i just like DT builds in general, so not being able to play them at all in a matchup is a bit of a downer for me
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