On June 03 2025 09:34 FyRe_DragOn wrote: edit: forgot also that vs tank pushes, having the sunkens placed forward is important as well because you dont want terran to be able to siege down your main hatchery or hit spawning defilers withou first killing all the sunkens in the way, so its essential the sunkens be placed at least somewhat forward. Thats probably more important that the other stuff i mentioned even
it could be unoptimized for the current meta
as in, Zergs learned fifteen years ago that against the 3 tank push you want your sunkens up front
but vs. two hatch muta meta 3 tank 1 vessel pushes are pretty weak since you must both not get your marine ball killed and still kill the hatch before swarm
so the placement meta probably evolved over time, where it's more optimal now to be closer to the hatch, especially vs. vulture run by where they go behind your expansion minerals
against marine busts it's good to build an evo chamber messing up the marine pathing to your sunkens and choke, so if they try to run by you have an extra second to drone pull back to your main
A similar thread might be titled "progamers always do this better"
When Sea was highly active in SOSPA days (pre-remastered, pre-dancing-semi-nude-female-university-balloon-trawler days, and arguable the best terran at the time), he always placed his CC perfectly at expansions, without having to check if it was the correct distance from the mineral patches. He is only progamer ive ever seen who is 100% confident in placement. Everyone always move town hall close to mineral patch (so that the building is "red") and then move it into "green" space to ensure accurate placement.
Could be wrong since i dont main zvt but i think pros are placing sunkens that way because drops are not a priority early game, defending vs the first group of mnm is. And if you place the sunkens touching the hatchery like that then you give them an opportunity to potentially just stim and runby into your main in some situations.
Yes, those sunks are usually placed vs the first group of MM on the map, but this doesn't change the fact that they might be more useful later on vs drop as well. When playing vs 2rax or academy rush, you also need a few lings as well and also need to be ready to pull drones. The change in sunken placement doesn't affect the threat of run-by at all imo.
Also its more difficult to place additional sunkens behind if youre doing stuff like muta+ling counter base trade there, and also theres less space to have a nydus behind the sunkens.
Somewhat true but minor. Obviously larva can get in the way, so sometimes you won't have time or attention to deal with that and need to place sunks ASAP.
The main tech buildings are placed tightly together around the main hatchery so you can more easily defend with fewer dark swarms, having chokes between the buildings isnt the biggest issue there.
This is not true at all...
If all pros are using similar building placements theres probably a good reason for it, as goes for any of their other habits. I dont think they are infallible but they will be doing stuff that works best for them, after optimizing over many thousands of games.
The argument you're making could be made at basically any point in the history of the game. I think it can take a while until some ideas are cemented in the meta. To give an example, if you watch a PvZ from the last few months, whenever the spawns allow it, the Protoss will pretty much always "tuck in" their forge, which is a bit better vs hydra builds: + Show Spoiler +
. If you went back one year (or further), this was much less standardized. Neither the maps, nor the meta changed much since then.
edit: forgot also that vs tank pushes, having the sunkens placed forward is important as well because you dont want terran to be able to siege down your main hatchery or hit spawning defilers withou first killing all the sunkens in the way, so its essential the sunkens be placed at least somewhat forward. Thats probably more important that the other stuff i mentioned even
tank pushes are almost non-existent in todays meta... its true that vs tank push one needs to make sunks and spread them forwards, but this is not affected that much by the placement of the initial sunks.
Sometimes it may seem they are not microing a battle optimally, but it's also important to pay attention to what else they are doing while this is going on. For example, goons and zealots might've been attack moved into the terran army WHILE gateways are re-macroed or a storm drop is happening somewhere else. Progamers and very high level players often use attacks to disguise their move somewhere else. And at some point you try to weigh in your options which is better in that specific moment - do i micro my army for better trades or do i trade some of it to gain advantage elsewhere? My observation when i've watched progamers play PvT is they would often trade a lot of units to keep the terran army defensive and in smaller numbers. That way they are buying time to expand, mine for longer and eventually (fingers crossed) beat the army when it comes out.
On May 23 2025 07:06 Kraekkling wrote: Sunken placement zvt - when built close to the hatch sunkens provide coverage behind the mineral line and for most of the back side of the natural expansion. On some modern maps like Dominator all of the area in the back is covered.
But also general building placement in zvt - a common layout you'll see lategame Zerg end up with in their main is something like this + Show Spoiler +
, which is very disadvantageous for defense with lings and lurks vs MM drops due to chokes between the buildings.
are at least somewhat protected by the sunks and there is no potential for terran units to kite backwards.
There's pros and cons to most things in SC and this sunken placement is a perfect example.
It may be slightly better for drops (drops will still mess you up) but it's worst vs tank pushes. If a Terran goes for a tank / bio push / bust, It's easier to delay having room for sunkens to be built in the back. This is important in plenty of scenarios where you want to allow time for your mutas to widdle down a super quick tank / bio push or if you need to delay a tank / bio push for a defiler to come out.
But again, there's pros and cons to most things in SC. It's just where you want to set your priorities and where you think the best EV is.
EPT
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