-=Update For Patch 9=- Queen speed off creep has been reduced 38% requiring retesting of the builds timing. . . I am leaving the information for the moment as is, but be aware that it may no longer apply:
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This guide is from a theorycraft build that I put together about a week or so ago which I've Nicknamed the "Anthill Offense"
The core of the build revolves around Zerg Queens supporting Roaches in an attack on your opponent's base when the odds are in your favor. . .
Why Queens and Roaches you ask? Well lets look at a sample of the build in action:
Since Queens lack the "light" and "armored" type that all other Tier 1 units have they make for a solid game opener along side Roaches when you still don't know what kind of army your opponent is making yet.
That Protoss in last clip was unprepared, but how about someone who sees the attack coming?
Here is vid of a Zerg who canceled his Expansion after scouting me and was preparing for what clearly looked to him like an "All-In Roach"
Even with the bigger ground army and fast teching the counter the fight was not even close.
The reason for that is part of the game's dynamic of making casters more powerful the longer they have been in play.
While Queens are only about as strong as a Roach when they first come out their ability to instantly heal 125 health will allow you to face against armies sooner and when they outmatch you in positioning or strength.
The build itself is also very easy to learn and is recommended to players of any skill level.
You should place your Spawning Pool down between 13 and 15 drones, and get up 1 extractor. Once the pool finishes start production on a Queen, 1 batch of Zerglings to scout, and the Roach Warren. Keep one Queen spraying the Hatchery for extra Larvae, and from there, so long as you have 2 drones on each mineral patch, you simply build Roaches and Queens while keeping your eye on the Overlord count.
You can have 4 queens by the 6m30s mark in game and is the recommended time to attack in most cases, but it's also ok to push out sooner if the opportunity arrives. . .
Here's a sample of that earlier push at 5m30s with just 3 Queens against a Zerg who expanded very quickly. . .
More units were lost in that clip because of the lack of Queen energy, but it's still a very good time to attack since your opponent's army should be at a disadvantage.
Even if you can't break threw you'll wind up owning the whole map with a ground force that strong, allowing you to expand and tech without too much worry.
-=General Feedback=-
This is the response I've received so while testing the build:
ZvZ: Very Good Feedback (Recommended as an All-In) ZvP: Mostly Good Feedback (Recommended for early play with possibly a transition mid or late game) ZvT: Mixed Feedback (Currently recommended for only the early game)
-=Frequently Asked Questions=-
How long does the Queen take to get to an enemy base? Distance varies on maps, but on Scrap Station it takes 1m30s from ramp to ramp
Have you tried Nydus Canel or Overlords to shorten travel time? Yes, and they are worth using, but both come after Lair tech which will not be available on the initial push
When should I expand? The ideal time to expand is after the attack is in progress and the attention is drawn to your opponent's side of the map
Have you tried Mutalisks with the build? Yes, as the build only uses 1 gas geyser you can spend 4 larvae to start production from the other one early to save up for transition later
How does the build fair against a Protoss wall-off with cannons? Surprisingly well. . . The heals let you keep steady pressure on the buildings until you can bust in
What should I do against Protoss with a lot of Sentries who spams Force Field? "answer under construction"
Should I be worried about Speedlings when facing another Zerg? No, just keep leave extra defense in your base if you are unsure of your opponent's positioning when you attack. . . Also as a bonus I have a short clip of the build out healing a speedling ambush:
-=Tips N Tricks=-
Command your Roaches to follow the Queens when pushing out and attack move later so they don't run too far ahead
You can use the initial boost of gas before your Warren is finished to get +1 Missile Attack, a Baneling Nest, or Lair tech when you push out
The +1 Missile Upgrade will let you kill Zerglings in 2 hits with Roaches instead of 3
It's a good idea to build a Sporecrawler when you push out in anticipation of possible air harassment
Hiding an early Overlord near your opponent's base can be moved out when you attack to allow your army to see up cliffs
Laying a Single Creep Tumor from your Second Queen can pay off for long games or when the strategy becomes containment against a wall-off player
The walk is long so remember set a Rally Point to keep reinforcements coming
The first ZvP was retarded. The guy had massed Stalkers vs a Zerg with Roaches - he obviously doesn't know how to play. This strategy would fall to any half-decent player in my opinion.
5:30 push on scrap station is more like 7:00 min or longer push because queens take that long to reach opponent's base. In the first video you would have rolled over the toss's army without the queens, he was a newb. This build is also extremely all in, and your opponent is going to know something is odd when he scouts you making multiple queens on 1 base with a roach warren...
I liked your post, but like some people said, this is a strategy that is easily seen and scouted, so you might not encounter walled-in terran that are teching. Personnaly (I play Terran), seeing you rush without teching/Expand, i would make MMM and by 5:30 medivac should be out, stimpack also. If your push fails, you are totally dead, and I doubt you can win a 100%. But I would like to see further videos, especially vs T.
That last screenshot looks pretty sexy actually. . . I think I'll go watch the rest of that replay
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AcrossFiveJulys:
I'm not sure what scouting my queens is going to change since there isn't anything you can build in time to counter them before I get there.
Also this build is just an opener. . . you can transition into anything from there so long as you stop any expansion your opponent has made.
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VereZ:
I had some ZvT footage, but it was terrible. . . mostly just rushes or mass un-upgraded marauders.
I could probably just run the numbers quick if you want to show me a screenshot of a 1 base MMM at 8m since I already know the health and DPS of my army by then.
Alternatively in the last screenshot I posted for squ1d the Terran in that game had just gotten done researching Stim at 7m40s and had 10 marauders in play by 8m so without that expansion maybe 3 - 4 more?
Why the hell would you just mass stalkers and zealots in pvz...THAT late in the game no less...
Not to mention the queens weren't even needed. Lings in place of the queens would have been just fine in all cases. Also remember warp gates are easily done before then.
Does this work on other maps? Steppes of War seems better off for Queens because they can get there faster. Also can't you just attack the destructible rocks with roaches before queens pop out? I think that way you can arrive there faster.
I support this experimentation because I still feel queen aggression is completely unexplored by top players, just like creep tumors were and now they're mandatory
On April 12 2010 03:31 MaximumSquid wrote: This build is based loosely on Anthill's defensive build, but with the intention of attacking at critical times when the odds are in your favor. . .
It looks like it would be a lot similar to having a roach/hydra army. Queens taking the role of hydras. It seems very all-in-ish. I would definietly like to see more.
Calling any type of strat by your name is so damn terrible in beta, no offence but u must have small e-peen. It's like we would start calling baneling burst vs Terran 'Dimaga rush' or whatever.
On the topic, this strat is pretty much useless, I've tried it once and queens dmg/speed together with mana cost of healing ability is pretty bad. ZvZ you have good scouting early game, if u see those coming and have 0 units at all, there is more then enough time to prepare a solid defense ( sunkens included ) against this 'rush'.
That is odd. . . If your opponent takes an expansion it should be mathematically impossible to hold it against the push since you're spending mineral and larva on units instead of economy.
There is not much point to a 1 base build if it doesn't take map control so if you're struggling I'd recommend switching back to a more standard Zerg build that macros up or harasses instead.
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s031720:
Nydus means lair teching and then you're not producing queens. . .
It's more of an option after you've expanded. Nydus does work wonders for the build though since queens are so slow off of creep.
FE, defend with crawlers, lings, and multiqueens. Rush mutas, harass. Build nydus and bring queens, lings, and mutas over at the same time. Transition into broodlords.
Lets say you can make a build that times this so you instantly can spend the gas as you get it;
first 100 gas for lair. then next 200 gas for spire. then next 200 gas for nydus (while waiting for spire to finish) then all additional gas on mutas to go harass. Hive and greater spire when you get a window.
Superflous minerals for lings, base defence and a few extra queens for healing. (mainly crawlers and harassing mutas).
I dont know if this is quick enough. Might have to spend some gas on speedlings to make you more powerful at start. Might have to test out how many crawlers would be necessary to holed main and natural. Might be to light on ground.
On April 12 2010 22:21 MaximumSquid wrote: Defrag:
That is odd. . . If your opponent takes an expansion it should be mathematically impossible to hold it against the push since you're spending mineral and larva on units instead of economy.
There is not much point to a 1 base build if it doesn't take map control so if you're struggling I'd recommend switching back to a more standard Zerg build that macros up or harasses instead.
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Backup units? Imagine a queen running from ur base to oponnents expo on scrap station, gl with that ;D Queens are also slow, easy to hit and run with roaches and lings. And if I see push coming, do you think I will continue to make drones and eco? ;o
Going to try this out tonight since I enjoy smacking people with Queens but I'm curious where your drone production cuts out at and/or timing of the evo chamber you mention.
I think it's worth exploring, but just theorycrafting you won't have any extra gas after going Lair with only 1 Extractor and going 2 Extractor + Lair will set you back 4 larvae, plus an early Queen which the build rides on.
You can still make this work, but Going this route means that you'll have to push out much, much later
Teching delayed the attack a good 2 minutes, but the mutas let me hit both of his mineral lines at the same time which might have decided it if I ran into a wall of Spinecrawlers or if my opponent got an army up instead of saturating the mineral line immediately and had forced me to retreat: http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/9105/screenshot008at.jpg
It worked, but I was only able to try it because opponent expanded so late.
I'll see if I can come up with a decent build order for Nydus
I actually had two suggestions; one was to follow your original build but with nydus instead of walking over the map with the queen.
The other was to skip on roaches completely and spend all gas on quick-teching for mutas, relying on mineral-only units for defence. (ie queens, crawlers and lings). Then a transition into hydra/broodlords i guess. Probably best vs protoss, vs z you might want to get lingspeed first. But as you say, only theorycrafting .
Larvaes shouldnt be to much of a problem since queens dont take larvaes, right?
A speedling +1 attack army of equal army cost could own this imo. esp since the roach nerf. If i saw multi queens, roach tech no expo, that is how i would counter it. Not to mention there is the option of zipping the lings past that slow force to your base, either you'll lose that before he reaches your base, or you'll do sufficient damage before his army returns. Also, if the zerg player expands at high yield, his 2 bases are spread out enough to work up a defense at one before you can clean up the other. esp with the extra cashflow.
Excellent work, even if this is a non-standard strat, i'm glad to see queens being used offensively. Maybe if Ultras get changed to be more effective than broodlords, queen/ultra will be viable lategame.
A speedling +1 attack army of equal army cost could own this imo. esp since the roach nerf. If i saw multi queens, roach tech no expo, that is how i would counter it. Not to mention there is the option of zipping the lings past that slow force to your base, either you'll lose that before he reaches your base, or you'll do sufficient damage before his army returns. Also, if the zerg player expands at high yield, his 2 bases are spread out enough to work up a defense at one before you can clean up the other. esp with the extra cashflow.
I agree, I don't think this would be as effective after the patch since early-mid game players focus on massing speedlings.
I won three games with this build against high ranking gold, and I am platinum so I'm still not sure about its viability.
I'm using some mods atm so getting one of my replays to work might be a hassle. . . ( Even I can't get some of them to work )
If you are referring to the custom AI's, you cannot fix the replay if you played the game with the custom AI installed. Only way to view that replay would be to have the same AI files installed while viewing.
If you're not messing with custom AI's, just leave default ones on. Saves this exact headache of replays not working with other people (or even yourself).
I was always against using queens against zerg myself, but now that the roach only has 1 armor it might not be as bad.
I'm gonna try this against terran in a test match today. I think I might do an expo after pool build, start lair as soon as the first queen pops and continue to make queens out of second hatch. In the meantime, get your ovies set up in a path towards the enemy, and the second you hit lair make a creep highway and go.
With no upgrades roaches kill Lings in 3 hits, but after upgrade they do it in just 2. . .
Because of that fighting Zerglings head on have not been a problem just because almost nobody gets armor first, but I'm always worried about getting harassed the moment I leave my base. Building a Sporecrawler when I leave is standard, but If I haven't scouted my opponent's ground army in a while I also usually build 1 Spinecrawler.
That plus the Queen and any hatching eggs should hold off any harass, drops, or bust ins that might happen during the trek across the map.
I suppose watching my expansion get pounded on before canceling it might buy me some time too, but for most of the testing I've done so far I haven't thrown down the second hatch when pushing. . . usually in favor of more reinforcements.
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VelRa_G:
2 of the vids are post patch 8, but it probably doesn't matter much anyway. . . what the build will lose to isn't going to be decided by 1 armor.
Grats on the wins btw!
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zomgzergrush:
Yeah I figured, but it may not be so bad. . . If I let people experiment they might come up with something more efficient
Still though I'll see if I can get a replay together even if it is trashy
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Ronald_McD:
I haven't been doing leagues so I'm currently not ranked
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Antpile:
Hey let me know how that goes. . .
I still don't know if the build has enough power to bust in a Terran wall off, but there's also an entire geyser of gas that's not being tapped. . .
If you can't get in try spear heading with some banelings!
I tried this yesterday vs P, worked like a charm and made the P rage and call me terrible.
funny stuff
the guy was favored vs me and im top10 plat, so it wasnt versus some scrub either i think ovie speed/drop would be fun to test with this and fun to micro XD
I particularly liked this build of your quite a bit.
I was curious, though, when reading, about how you moved your queens up to the front of the opponents bases. After reading the build order post, though, it seemed to involve some sort of creep generation with that creep tumor use. But in the video I saw, against the zerg, there was no creep underneath your units, so I wondered if you used those tumors only for a short section of the path.
What I would like to propose (if you are not doing it already that is) is to use the initial overlords creep ability as best as you can to shorten the time it takes to make room for the range of the tumor (since it expands the creep very slowly) and creep the way to the enemy base faster.
Also, another thing (which would go along what I described earlier) would be to try a variation of this with less roaches and 1 or 2 extra spine crawlers, ideally constantly walking towards the enemy base alongside your units. Having a better creep pattern to the enemy base will allow you to build a small and very easily reinforceable(sp?) contain on him after either you can't break the ramp or you destroyed his expansion.
Everything else though looks exceptional, and the fact that you are using heal on the roaches is very optimal already I believe.
If anyone has a replay of this against an upgraded speedling build, please post. My theorycraft says that is a good counter =p but I could be wrong. Maybe I'll test it myself.
I tried this once against Protoss. The Protoss went stalker/immortal and by the time I was at his nat, he had enough to snipe my Queens with ease and stop the push :/
On April 12 2010 22:21 MaximumSquid wrote: Defrag:
That is odd. . . If your opponent takes an expansion it should be mathematically impossible to hold it against the push since you're spending mineral and larva on units instead of economy.
LOL if that was true then no one would fast expand. the point of an expansion is to barely hold out with positioning and travel time on your side in order to gain the benefits of the expansions.
its not "mathematically impossible" by ANY stretch of the imagination.
Actually this strat works better than i thought it would especially against Z. I already thought of that before but didn't bothered to check it thorougly (spelling ? T_T). Here are the reps (including +1 melee speed glings) : http://www.sendspace.com/file/hq0mk7 (1 zvz prepatch) http://www.sendspace.com/file/m87q05 (5 zvz post patch) Edit : currently 1400 plat.
It seems that someone has changed the title of my thread without permission. Fortunately for me I keep backups of everything I post online and I was easily able to restore the banner.
If there is a mod who can change the title back that would be helpful as this is not the only place that I've posted this build and I feel it would be far less confusing if the strategy retained it's name. . .
Likewise -orb-'s "Wombo Combo" is a lot easy to remember than if you called it. . . say. . .
The build attacks very quickly so there is only a little bit of time to expand the creep using tumors
Overlords don't get creep placement until Lair, but on the rare game that I tech that far I always use it.
Moving up crawlers would be a good call vs Zerg if you had creep laying, but would be riskier vs. Toss or Terran since they both can get Siege out faster than you
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EuroBlast:
haha wow. . . if you hadn't said anything I don't think I would have ever noticed that. . .
I never build Hydralisks. . . is the hotkey for the Hydralisk Den anywhere near the hotkey for Spinecrawler?
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Kinky:
By sniped do you mean your opponent shot your queens to death or did he pop them with feedback?
The queens transfusion range is 5 or 6 I believe so if there weren't any Anti-Armor units that the queens needed to take hits from then you should have easily kept them safe in the backline.
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mOnion:
I can't really think of a more opportune time to attack someone than when they are expanding. . .
Can you?
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Thanks for the feedback everyone. . . I think I will be updating the Original Post soon with this info.
No news on Terran yet, but it looks like reviews for ZvZ is very positive, and ZvP is mostly positive.
I had decent success in the 20-40 plat range last night with this.
Seems really strong vs. Protoss, especially those that try to FE w/ a forge build.
Really strong vs. most Zerg builds, but there were 2-3 games where I didn't scout early enough and got eaten by a 7pool rush (I was being greedy and going for a 15pool, never again!)
Against terran though I had more issues, as soon as they scouted the 2-3 queens they set up some bunkers on either side of their wall w/ fatties inside(marauders). Stymied my attack pretty succinctly. Saw this twice, first time I got raped by it, 2nd time I wanted to see if I could micro better and make it in, turns out that I couldn't. If this happens again I may just go for a contain and concentrate on macro and move on to mid-game.
By sniped do you mean your opponent shot your queens to death or did he pop them with feedback?
The queens transfusion range is 5 or 6 I believe so if there weren't any Anti-Armor units that the queens needed to take hits from then you should have easily kept them safe in the backline.
I meant that the Protoss was able to move in with stalkers/immortals and kill the queens first. He had about three immortals at the time because he was chronoboosting them, and that amount of immortals is just too scary for a small roach army.
I'll try this strat again some other time. It seems fun to pull off
I think this build is really interesting and should be experimented with more. I don't believe it would be very efficient against terran however. Most TvZ go in two directions that depend on whether the Zerg early expoed or not and from there it's decided if the Terran needs to play more defensively expecting a timing push or harass if the Zerg FEd. So while your unit compisition would be a surprise to the Terran (Queens+Roaches) the rush would definitely be expected.
On April 13 2010 18:58 RaiZ wrote: Actually this strat works better than i thought it would especially against Z. I already thought of that before but didn't bothered to check it thorougly (spelling ? T_T). Here are the reps (including +1 melee speed glings) : http://www.sendspace.com/file/hq0mk7 (1 zvz prepatch) http://www.sendspace.com/file/m87q05 (5 zvz post patch) Edit : currently 1400 plat.
Nice.. I watched all except the blistering sands one. I'm definitely gonna try this now. I want to see how this is countered, anyone have a replay where this loses to Z? maybe extreme turtling (6-8 spine wall) to fast mutas. But that would have had to been his plan from the start.. Interesting.
No FE just enough glings to hold the glings rush off if my opponent get early pool or something (i usually make 2 to 10 glings before the first roach), why would you get lair when you need your hatch to build queens constantly ? It's something like this : p10 11 12 13 depend of the map and how close the positions are extractor 15 (could get it later without problem if you need more minerals, the key here is to have queens and roaches, which will cost more minerals than gas) roach den at 15 16 17 hell even 20, we really need queens more than anything here. If i'm making the roach late, it's because of overly aggressive zerglings builds (but i guess we can easily make a roach den BEFORE the gas because need minerals more than anything) Attack with 2 or 3 queens and keep the 1st queen pumping larvaes and make roaches non stop.
The most important thing : always keep 1 drone with your army or put it somewhere far from the main to avoid getting backstabed and build another hatch either in his base or his expansion (only if the speedlings are backstabbing you and you think you can't hold it off because your roaches are already on the way to his base).
It seems that someone has changed the title of my thread without permission. Fortunately for me I keep backups of everything I post online and I was easily able to restore the banner.
If there is a mod who can change the title back that would be helpful as this is not the only place that I've posted this build and I feel it would be far less confusing if the strategy retained it's name. . .
Likewise -orb-'s "Wombo Combo" is a lot easy to remember than if you called it. . . say. . .
The build attacks very quickly so there is only a little bit of time to expand the creep using tumors
Overlords don't get creep placement until Lair, but on the rare game that I tech that far I always use it.
Moving up crawlers would be a good call vs Zerg if you had creep laying, but would be riskier vs. Toss or Terran since they both can get Siege out faster than you
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EuroBlast:
haha wow. . . if you hadn't said anything I don't think I would have ever noticed that. . .
I never build Hydralisks. . . is the hotkey for the Hydralisk Den anywhere near the hotkey for Spinecrawler?
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Kinky:
By sniped do you mean your opponent shot your queens to death or did he pop them with feedback?
The queens transfusion range is 5 or 6 I believe so if there weren't any Anti-Armor units that the queens needed to take hits from then you should have easily kept them safe in the backline.
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mOnion:
I can't really think of a more opportune time to attack someone than when they are expanding. . .
Can you?
first of all. mods dont need your permission to change the title of your thread. your name for the push sucks because when you say "anthill offense" noone knows what you mean because the term hasnt been coined. unlike something along the lines of "bisu build".
secondly. obviously the best time to attack is when theyre expanding. but you make it sound as if you will always win if you make units and they expand. which you wont.
You got hit HARD and didn't lose a single unit! Really phenomenal
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exit:
Heh. . . yeah I've been doing a lot of 13 pool myself. . . seems like everyone does early harass now
It looks like the build can put just about everything on the ropes except for a Terran Wall-in
I still need to test teching to banelings while keeping the enemy contained.
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scAre:
I've expanded a couple of times; the best time to expand is obviously going to be when you push
I've only done it a few times, but it's always against Terran. After the exp gets saturated I keep producing queens and roaches while hard tech to broodlords and attack about 5m later with the hopes of ending the game before the 15m mark ( The amount of heals I have by then are just ridiculous )
On April 13 2010 22:37 MaximumSquid wrote: Oh dear. . .
It seems that someone has changed the title of my thread without permission. Fortunately for me I keep backups of everything I post online and I was easily able to restore the banner.
If there is a mod who can change the title back that would be helpful as this is not the only place that I've posted this build and I feel it would be far less confusing if the strategy retained it's name...
I removed your "banner" which is really just your way of trying to name the thread what you want. I feel that the new name "Queen Offense" is more accurate and makes it much easier for people to identify what this thread is about. Also, I do not like the trend of naming strategies after users or after whoever made a thread about it first. Please do not put the banner back up or try to change the title in any other way, its best as it is.
I checked my PMs and e-mail and didn't see any messages from TL staff so I wasn't entirely certain if the name change was to just to reduce the nonconstructive posts or if it was in fact vandalism.
I do; however, appreciate you coming forward even if it was late
In the future when I post this on other forums would you have a problem with me linking back here even if I use the original name?
Also. . . For the sake of reference
Even after it was pointed out to me that I miss-named the build I did not change it on purpose and thus created a new and original entity that was not named after anyone.
On April 14 2010 07:08 MaximumSquid wrote: Hot_Bid:
I checked my PMs and e-mail and didn't see any messages from TL staff so I wasn't entirely certain if the name change was to just to reduce the nonconstructive posts or if it was in fact vandalism.
I do; however, appreciate you coming forward even if it was late
In the future when I post this on other forums would you have a problem with me linking back here even if I use the original name?
Also. . . For the sake of reference
Even after it was pointed out to me that I miss-named the build I did not change it on purpose and thus created that new and original entity that was not named after anyone.
why would you link this build to other sites? its a bad build. queens are too expensive, attack is weak, and take long to build.
stop talking about the name as if it was some sort of legal trademark. your new name was bad/confusing, which is why it got changed. pretend like antill's defense never even existed. your name is still bad.
I got onto Nony's stream as he was gg'ing against a zerg - it looked like the zerg had attacked with roaches/queen and Nony was saying he didn't understand something or other - I wonder if it was this build. ^^
Just saw this thread and thought I'd post a link to a game for people who are interested in seeing queen aggression vs T. This is done on kulas ravine in cross positions so it isn't as effective as a smaller map, but it works well vs 1 rax FE. This was done the day patch 8 hit (roach nerf / marauder nerf)
I've experimented with mass queen based builds in ZvZ and they are really strong. The weakness I feel would be that you are very very behind on your lair tech upgrades, so things like burrow or roach speed might negate this nicely. Also I think mass crawlers into muta tech might also work (even as a transition from ling openings.) The question of course is scouting. I definitely want to see strategies like this continued.
That replay is exactly what we were looking for. . .
Bubba ( playing Zerg ) pushes out at 5:30, which I offered to people as a strat against a Terran Wall-off, and succeeds!
LzGaMeR eventually pushes him out, but he then transitions into a second expansion for Muta / Ling which is what a lot of people in the thread have been asking to see.
I've been trying out this build, it seems to fail when protoss makes alot of sentries and blocks choke. Maybe I should wait until he pushes out to engage?
Heres a link of my [url blocked] following pretty closely the build order you provided, lemme know what you think.
Front page has been updated with a more thorough and complete guide. . .
*FAQ section Added *Tips N Tricks section Added *Entire Sections re-written to reflect forum feedback *Videos are now only links instead of hotlinks to help offset the larger size of the post
Also thanks for everyone who's supported or tested the build so far!
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RoL:
I've added your question to the FAQ and will review your replay a little later this morning when I get time.
With regards to PvZ queens are quite crap as they have a low damage high attack speed attack. This makes them very weak against guardian shield which any good toss will be using against you, their relatively short range and slow speed also makes them iffy against forcefield spam. I can see use for 1 or 2 extra queens as extra non-larvae costing defense against toss (especially against air) but that's it really. If you just make a 3rd or 4th queen they will have uses later at extra expansions, making too much though is a bit of a waste because of guardian shield and their slow speed. Healing is decent, so a few extra can help with that but thats about it really.
ZvZ the whole queen massing might be a lot more interesting since the roach nerf though, they basically gotten a 50% damage boost against them (4-2 vs 4-1) so that definately matters. I guess if you have the micro to heal with them a few could find their way in your army, but again mostly when playing defensive.
Funny enough I have the best success with this strat against Protoss.
Sure the Queens aren't doing a ton to guardian shielded, but the queens are your support. The 8-12 roaches are the real workers here. If they wall their choke with bubbles I just wait them out and start teching/sending more roaches. Eventually I'll get through and they *never* have enough defense. Any money they spent on Zealots is practically wasted, only a high amount of stalkers/sentries and good micro sniping high energy queens is effective.
Then again I'm certain your theorycrafting is correct. You've obviously played this or against this before and can relate from experience.
You would of been at his door with a force almost double his size. . . basically no chance he would have held you off.
Pushing with 5 Queens is fine, but is harder to manage a battle at a choke. After seeing that your opponent did not expand at 9m I would have tried breaking threw the destructible rocks on that map instead of the front door.
The last thing, and this is very important, is to make sure no unit dies until your Queens have run out of energy. I noticed that you had literally 8 unused heals in that fight and almost a 9th before all your forces fell.
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Markwerf:
Guardian shield only reduced incoming ranged attacks by 2. . . I know the queens melee attack has a range of 3, but I was unaware it was actually considered a missile attack.
Can anyone confirm this?
I usually have the +1 Missile Upgrade by then anyway to cancel it out for my Roaches, but it would be interesting to know.
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Mirhi:
Might just be a timing issue. . .
Toss are the easiest to catch off guard with the 4 Queen push since they are usually just getting done teching to robotics bay when you start moving out.
I've never seen more than 2 immortals by the time I'm at their ramp I posted some earlier snapshots of what an 8m Toss looks like in my second reply on page 1. . .
The screenshot of RoL's game is almost exactly what I would expect to see
been using this queen-roach build for a few games now and have been pretty successful but i am only in the gold league rank 1. posting a replay of a game i just played. ZvZ matchup. my opponent went speedling and transitioned into roach/hydra. i lost a overlord and my roach warren at the start to the speedlings and had 4 queens and a few roachs at about the 7min mark.
By the time you would get 4 queens off a single base against toss, they tend to either have 3+ immortals (which insta kill 1 roach, hard to heal then) or started out with some mass sentry stuff. I can't say how this fares against the mass sentries yet, might be decent as heal could counteract force field I guess, but toss can delay a huge bit. As for guardian shield reducing queen attack im 99% sure they do. Queens also benefit from ranged attack upgrades and it sais it's a missile attack as well. Given that alot of protoss units have 1 base armor , guardian shield can make it go from 4-1 to 4-3, which is virtually nullifying their damage. I understand their role is partially as a healer but I'm sure more roaches is much more dangerous then queens + roaches.
Against T or Z queens are sweet though, just dont use em aggresively against P
ya i agree. using this against protoss is hard. i think ive lost mostly against protoss. i still like the build though. its fun. =) so ill continue to use it and hope to find a way to beat protoss with it. i remember one game where i had the same unit composition against protoss. i lost that match but i think i couldve had it if i transitioned into speedlings after breaking his wall. what i shouldve done was start upgrading zergling speed as i make my way to the protoss base. i was able to break his defense and make it into his base. queen healing at his choke allowed me to do so but like you said he continued to produce immortals and some stalkers. i chose to keep making roaches but they were too slow to reinforce. if i had switched to speedlings i couldve had a dozen or more to help with the 1-2 immortals he had. although i lost, i thought it was a fun game.
http://sc2calc.net/ got updated to the most current patch recently and they list a Queen taking 30 attacks to kill a Guardian Shielded Sentry which I also confirmed in game. ( +1 Upgrade helps a lot in this case since you basically double your DPS while the shield is up )
Now I'm used to getting early harassed by Zealots with the Robotics Facility coming later, but if a Protoss player stays in their base they can have it out as early as 5m ( All-be-it a Risky Move )
If that is the case and you scout it when no rush happens you probably would want to run the 5m30s push with the 3 Queens going in first to absorb hits. I do agree with you though that once your opponent gets 3 Immortals it becomes very hard to heal and 4 is almost impossible if they are targeting Roaches
Maybe this worked because the protoss and zerg were both bad?
Especially the ZvZ video. The zerg was on one base, had a spire, hydra den, and a roach warren, yet was only making roaches. Maybe this is because he's too dumb to realize you need 4gas to support hydra/roach? And wtf is with the spire????
Is this copper league or what?
Also i noticed that in the second video there was no macro going on at all, so your opponent must have been complete garbage
I don't mean to double post but I think I deserve it since this awful thread got REMADE.
This is a garbage all-in strat. Queens first off, are not very good at attacking or defending, they just can do it. They're good at fending off maybe a single air unit or helping defend a ling rush, but attacking? please.
You're making 5 queens??????? 150 minerals and just about the longest build time of any zerg unit and you think this is a viable strategy? that's a 750 mineral investment to an attack, not to mention while you're attacking, guess what? YOU HAVE NO QUEENS IN YOUR BASE. Therefore you're completely giving up your macro ability while you're dedicating yourself to this attack.
Think about this: instead of making 5 queens for 750 minerals, make 10 roaches. Then, like an intelligent person, use the correct(read 1 per base) amount of queens to spawn larvae so you can make MORE roaches or actually macro and get up to 2base 4gas so you can add on hydralisks.
I really cannot stress how absolutely awful this idea sounds, and how awful those replays are.
By the way, the protoss in your replay could've easily had 3 sentries at that time if he wasn't a terrible player and he could've walled you out until he had immortals
On April 12 2010 03:35 squ1d wrote: The first ZvP was retarded. The guy had massed Stalkers vs a Zerg with Roaches - he obviously doesn't know how to play. This strategy would fall to any half-decent player in my opinion.
here's idra getting owned by mass stalkers when he has roaches. oh wait, you're better than idra i guess.:
LOL if that was true then no one would fast expand. the point of an expansion is to barely hold out with positioning and travel time on your side in order to gain the benefits of the expansions.
its not "mathematically impossible" by ANY stretch of the imagination.
Think before you type. One-Base play is made to break peoples expos. If you one-base and can not dent the opponent, you are far behind.
As for the build a Queen is always in the production queue when attacking so depending on when you last sprayed for larvae you may not lose any macro.
Also to my knowledge this strategy already utilizes all available larvae so 5 Queens will not translate simply into another 10 Roaches. To do this you would need a second hatchery and the gas from another extractor which would set you back 575 mineral + 5 larvae (A maneuver that would be both costly and risky in the early game)
With regards to your disrespect to the people I tested against I suppose I could pass on your criticism
All I would need is your Beta Account Name so they could follow you up with any additional questions they might have. . .
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bountyface:
Good video showing a very under-used strat. . .
One of the things that I've discussed about this build with people elsewhere is that because of the Stalkers superior speed and range to Roaches off of Creep it is possible to get ambushed in transition to the enemy base leaving a window of about 40 - 50 seconds where the Toss player has free rein to harass until Zerglings arrive to force the battle.
LOL if that was true then no one would fast expand. the point of an expansion is to barely hold out with positioning and travel time on your side in order to gain the benefits of the expansions.
its not "mathematically impossible" by ANY stretch of the imagination.
Think before you type. One-Base play is made to break peoples expos. If you one-base and can not dent the opponent, you are far behind.
ya. thats the point. how bout you think before YOU type kk? i get your new so try being a little nicer around here, and you'll get farther.
I understand one base play is made to break fast expo. but OP said it would always win. which it wouldnt. dont be a jerk when my point is true.
On April 12 2010 03:35 squ1d wrote: The first ZvP was retarded. The guy had massed Stalkers vs a Zerg with Roaches - he obviously doesn't know how to play. This strategy would fall to any half-decent player in my opinion.
Stopped to watch after idra fast expanded. Seriously nex time try to follow the build closely before arguing. We're talking about a queen/roach non fast expand build ffs.
On April 15 2010 22:58 Stropheum wrote: I don't mean to double post but I think I deserve it since this awful thread got REMADE.
This is a garbage all-in strat. Queens first off, are not very good at attacking or defending, they just can do it. They're good at fending off maybe a single air unit or helping defend a ling rush, but attacking? please.
You're making 5 queens??????? 150 minerals and just about the longest build time of any zerg unit and you think this is a viable strategy? that's a 750 mineral investment to an attack, not to mention while you're attacking, guess what? YOU HAVE NO QUEENS IN YOUR BASE. Therefore you're completely giving up your macro ability while you're dedicating yourself to this attack.
Think about this: instead of making 5 queens for 750 minerals, make 10 roaches. Then, like an intelligent person, use the correct(read 1 per base) amount of queens to spawn larvae so you can make MORE roaches or actually macro and get up to 2base 4gas so you can add on hydralisks.
I really cannot stress how absolutely awful this idea sounds, and how awful those replays are.
By the way, the protoss in your replay could've easily had 3 sentries at that time if he wasn't a terrible player and he could've walled you out until he had immortals
First of all the queens aren't here to attack or defend. They're here to HEAL ! big fucking deal. They can also tank, which is really good if they're focused by a few roaches (not too much though, just enough to heal the queen without letting it die to quickly) Having no queens in our base is perfectly understandable as long as we have the spawn larvae already on the hatch and we're waiting the next queen to do an another one.
God that's why i hate posting reps, there'a always someone that know everything and need to criticize our build just because it's far from perfect... We're not here to talk about the leaks but to see how viable it is.
It looks strong on ZvZ period. I keep winning with this strat. If you aren't convinced, then just try it before saying anything because i'm 99% sure you haven't played this build order at least 10 times. Yeah you read it right, 10 fucking time in order to fully grasp it.
I didn't say always. . . my reply still implied doubt, but regardless I'm glad you brought it up again. . .
Enough testing has been done that hard counters have been found for each race that can be used against this build and are effective enough to allow you to hold off the push and eventually get an expansion out.
This is good news since I'll be able to experiment with some of the strategy's natural transitions when before they felt too artificial.
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I'll be posting the Counters and Transitions in the next major update that I make to page one, and hopefully also with some replays or videos that are less blurry.
On April 16 2010 04:40 MaximumSquid wrote: mOnion:
I didn't say always. . . my reply still implied doubt, but regardless I'm glad you brought it up again. . .
Enough testing has been done that hard counters have been found for each race that can be used against this build and are effective enough to allow you to hold off the push and eventually get an expansion out.
This is good news since I'll be able to experiment with some of the strategy's natural transitions when before they felt too artificial.
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I'll be posting the Counters and Transitions in the next major update that I make to page one, and hopefully also with some replays or videos that are less blurry.
as you can tell from my last post using the [quote][quote] function which you havent figured out how to use yet, i wasnt talking to you. i was talking to the person who insulted me for being right ^_^
and you're right that you didnt say always, but you did say mathematically impossible. which is close right?
I've been doing this in gold / plat but I make a quicker attack so the toss doesnt have too many ranged units. Best timing IMO is 2 queens 8 roaches... they'll have like 3-4 zealots and 2 stalker or sentries. If the toss opens 2 gate this is almost an instant win.
A protoss player handled me by massing stalkers and focus firing queens/roaches while blinking his weakened stalkers to the back of his bunch. Was pretty nice.
I actually played against a player who went for the queen/roach rush, countered with a 16 zergling attack when he hit midfield and was able to get 2 spine crawlers up. He may have had me if he had pushed but i was able to keep pressure up and get to mutas shortly after.
It's still a viable strat against some openings, just like everything, requires you to scout well.
I actually have not tried a 2 Queen push yet, but you make it sound fairly good when there is no chance that a Protoss player will have any Immortals out yet.
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exit:
I think people are becoming wiser to the strat too. . .
Zerg, I believe, has the most scouting options available to them figuring out when to transition out of the opener shouldn't be too much of a problem like you say.
The guy cancels a Hatch to lay down a Tumor before all the Creep vanishes.
While it is time consuming and costs a little bit of Mineral to cancel the build it means that you can potentially place Tumors anywhere on the map before Lair tech
I can have a robo facility up by 4:40 with one zealot out an economy focused build. My obs will pop at 5:10, reach your base at around 5:30-40 (I'm building an immortal in the mean time, I always do). I'll then have an immortal every 30 seconds until I run out of chronoboost. A 7 minute push will end up meeting 3-4 immortals + zeals + sentries. An 8 minute one can expect 1-2 more immortals. You would have absolutely no chance, as I'd be one shotting your roaches with my 3+ immortals (or just dealing so much DPS your run out of heals ridiculously fast).
PS. With zerg i'd have either out macro'd you to the point where heal is meaningless, or I'd have hydras up (once again making heal more or less meaningless).
As terran... Well i'd have scanned it with my 3rd scan for sure. Since I didn't see you expo, I'm going 3 rax anyway to defend the inevitable attack, or do a timing push when you do expo. 2 TL 1 reactor MMM is going to completely obliterate your build. Roaches have very little chance of beating marauders without overwhelming numbers or hydra support.
I think you'll find a Robo-Rush to be in the minority of Toss openers as I have already tried to find a patch 8 replay where it was used in PvZ for reference, but was unable to find one.
We could try some theory crafting quick though. . .
Since the first skirmish ( Which for reference was a sneak attack up my ramp when I was trying to walk across the middle) 100% of his gas has gone into Immortals. I was actually in full retreat, but decided to face him as running meant losing all my Tumors and 2 Overlords.
So a terrible fight breaks out at his Natural's Choke, where half my forces can't get into range to attack, my Queens are out of position to tank, and the damage is coming in so fast that I can't micro transfusions properly.
The Toss didn't have the resources for a Sentry, but this was also a rare game where I did not have the +1 Missile Upgrade so the fight would have remained the same.
This reply is already getting very long so I'll skip the stats I have on this vs Stim+MMM and Hydras, but I trust that there is enough info here that you could probably formulate and test your own results.
I was wondering that myself Normally I'd be honored with a nerf like this, but I can't rule out the possibility that the advent of proxy tumors also had something to do with it.
Queens basically will be limping with the 38% speed decrease on top of their already slow speed off creep.
Immortals build 28% slower which I guess helps a little, but just theory crafting I would say that this would no longer be viable as an offense in the Terran matchup before Teir 2.
Looks like I might be re-writing the first page as this may no longer be a 1 base build. -
EPT
