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This is a great build to add to the playbook. It is in no way cheese for lower level leagues. Here is my current run opening with the 5RR, mostly Protoss and a few Terran and Zerg matches. Many of these games did not end with my 5RR push, but in every single one it at least provided enough mind games to push the Protoss or Terran player into a type of turtle mode and over commit minerals to units rather than economy. I like this opening for the mental games it plays, just as much as the damage it can do.
+ Show Spoiler +
To have been using the updated 13/13 version with 2 drones after the 5 roaches pop rather than before. I have never have an issue on timing as long as I send my scout out around 12-13 supply and no above-average harass happens.
Another piece I want to contribute is a tip against Protoss. With your 12ish scouting drone, go to your expansion and act like you are laying a hatchery. Protoss will waste time microing their probe that they THINK is denying your expansion while you are just laser focused on the roach opening. This not only slows the early timing of most the enemies, but also plays even more mind games on them making them feel like they have now "screwed" your build order and have some kind of edge if they push with early zealots. Which you of course counter perfectly.
EDIT: Since people will inevitably ask and I forgot to mention it. I am a 6xx.Diamond player, none of these matches had me favored as well.
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The FE example up there wasn't a good example cuz the roaches went in. What about a complete wall off with cannons + FE? I had a game where the protoss completed walled himself in and warped units outside. My roaches were useless cuz cannon was free hitting it and he had an economic advantage over me. I still won the game but it was from a come back and huge deficit. I'm afraid against a better protoss player I might not be able to come back from such a deficit. 2base zerg vs 2 base protoss gives protoss an edge. What will you guys do if he completely walled off with cannons and warping in stalkers? For sure he have nexus out before u or around same time.
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Totally agree with you, BiggestNoobEver. Opponents are starting to respect Z early game and prepare accordingly.
I'll post some replays soon, but the gist of it is if you see a toss/terran FE and you can't break it with the rush, take your 3rd immediately and out-power them. Use your lings/roaches to break rocks to get the gold expansion if applicable. Sounds stupid I know, but I've had a lot of success with it.
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On September 01 2010 13:09 BiggestNoobEver wrote:
The FE example up there wasn't a good example cuz the roaches went in. What about a complete wall off with cannons + FE? I had a game where the protoss completed walled himself in and warped units outside. My roaches were useless cuz cannon was free hitting it and he had an economic advantage over me. I still won the game but it was from a come back and huge deficit. I'm afraid against a better protoss player I might not be able to come back from such a deficit. 2base zerg vs 2 base protoss gives protoss an edge. What will you guys do if he completely walled off with cannons and warping in stalkers? For sure he have nexus out before u or around same time. Usually, you can see that with your scouting drone before you drop the roach warren, or at least before you morph the roach. When that happens, get Lair instead of roaches, expand as usual, and pump drones. Then scout, get the proper counter to whatever he's doing, and expand again.
I like this build a lot vs Toss.
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I've had a couple of losses with this, but I know its because I've screwed up.
Gonna keep trying so I can get the build and the follow-up perfect.
If fist is still using it every game then I'm just gonna do that as well until I've got it down like a clown.
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On September 01 2010 12:58 Fistdantilus wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2010 11:27 MrBitter wrote:
Fist: are you still watching this thread?
How much are you using this build now that you're up around 1100-1200 range? I started hitting some walls with it vP who wanted to 3 gate robo/4 gate around 1k. (I'm at like 920ish now after tanking several games)
I still use the 5RR vs every T and P as I'm comfortable with the dynamics it creates and enjoy the free wins now and again. It's also fun to watch my opponents who have died to this build and preemptively lay bunkers without even seeing the RW. =) If you're not comfortable with the resulting dynamics, by all means don't do it every game.
Thanks for addressing my question directly. Guess I just need to stick with it, and force myself to work out the kinks. On the whole, I love the build, and send all my newbie friends to this thread when they want Z advice.
That said, and I know you outline this in the OP to some degree, at what point vT and vP do you say "Ok, this ain't happening, I need to back up and change my gameplan".
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I've been using a tweaked build order (by "been using" I mean I played around in a BO tester for 2.5 hours, and then played some games, and enjoyed this build) which:
- has roaches popping out at 3:45 (real time), which is 5 minutes 15 seconds game time. (I should retest the 13/13... I did it with a 10 scout, and didn't have minerals for all 5 roaches... the 3 I could build as soon as everything popped were done at 3:39, which is 5:06/5:07 in 'game time' )
- but also has ling speed finishing as you are building your followup wave
- timings allow for a 10 scout. I REALLY dislike not scouting early to see what they are up to. Depending on what you see, you can transition out of this build. If you don't transition, you can make better decisions about the followup based on what you are seeing.
- slightly looser gas timing. Can pull off gas if you need more minerals (once you have enough for everything), but could leave on for quicker tech follow-up if you like, or to allow follow-up with more roaches if needed. On some maps though, the gas is a little farther away, and you will be short with the 13/13 build above. With the below, you won't be short (or will only be short by about half a second--just long enough for you to re-inject before you build the roaches (including the short wait for the queen's energy to hit 25)).
Anyway:
+ Show Spoiler +
9 OL
Send 10th-12th drone to scout. If you scout with 12 instead of 10, the mineral timings are kind of loose.
15 pool
14 gas (as soon as you lay down pool)
15 OL (the timing is such that if you did lay down the gas right after pool, then as soon as you hotkey the OL to build is when you need to move 3 to gas. This is a helpful timing for me, as I'm usually looking at my scout, so I know to go back to my base as I build my OL and send 3 to gas)
15 drone
16 queen
18 zling (can switch up the order of queen and zling if desired... the zling larvae should pop out right when the pool finishes)
19 drone
20 drone
21 RW (after chasing scout out. No rush here--so long as queen is <= 70% done, will finish @ or before the larvae from the first injection)
20 ling speed right after laying down the warren. (If you don't mind cutting it slightly close to your lings hatching, and if you sent the 10 scout, you can actually wait until after the next drone, in order to get an extra half or possibly a full mining cycle out of the drone)
20 drone
21 OL
21 5 roaches. If you are slightly short on anything (with 10 scout you can be maybe 1 drone mining wave short of minerals for 5 roaches, and on larger maps you can be just barely shy of 125 gas I think), then reinject first before building these.
21 reinject
31 drone
32 OL
CHOICE:
Depending on what you are scouting, you can either:
- Expand as the roaches roll out, and then build lings 1 at a time as you get minerals if you don't expect any resistance, or if you are going to have to just be defensive, or if you are going to go in the backdoor on maps that have one (since you have time while breaking down the rocks to let the lings trickle in). Alternatively, you can of course pump drones instead of lings after expanding, if you are going to have to be defensive.
- Pump 10 lings immediately as the 2nd inject spawns its larvae, rallying them to one of the roaches. Expand as you walk to enemy base. (If you want an even bigger rush force. If you are pretty sure you can bust in with the roaches, the 10 lings can run to mineral line and do decent damage faster than the roaches can get in there)
After that, I'll either follow up with more lings to finish them off (if the attack worked really well), or I'll switch over to drone production for a bit, and either start teching up, or mixing in more lings and possibly roaches, depending on what they have. (If I'm going to do anything other than more lings & roaches, I'll grab second gas after getting some more drones up. If just getting more lings and roaches, I'll wait longer before getting second gas.)
Note that I don't recommend using this vs other zerg--the extra bit of delay is deadly vs a baneling rush. With the normal build, you are still too slow (barely) vs a good baneling rush to be able to block your ramp (at least on smaller maps). With this tweaked build, you probably won't stop a mediocre baneling rush, as they have 6 or so extra seconds to get in there, unless you are on a larger map..
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Hello again all 
The upcoming patch (especially the siege tank changes) prompted me to think about upgrades in conjunction with this excellent build. Playing around with the numbers, it looked like +1 carapace could make a useful difference versus early Terran units. Roaches with 2 armour can soak up quite a few more marine shots, and lings benefit too - helpful for overwhelming a bunkered front, perhaps, as well as making a subsequent back-tech to lings more potent.
I tried some ideas out vs AI, and here's what I eventually came up with:
9OL
13 extractor
13 pool
Drone to 15
Evolution Chamber when you hit 60 gas
Drone OR wait for pool and make a pair of lings for scouting
Queen when pool pops
Carapace upgrade on 150/150
Warren on 150
Spawn larvae
Overlord
5 roaches when warren pops
Drone/lings
Drone/lings
Zergling speed at 100 gas. Take drones off gas
Drones/lings/hatch etc
With this build order the roaches spawn at around 5:10, and the carapace upgrade is done by the time they reach the enemy choke (on Blistering Sands). Zergling speed is done by the time the second wave of ling reinforcements arrive.
Pros:
+1 carapace for a counter-push ling swarm if one is needed
Enables a very rapid response to fast banshees (spore crawlers)
Cons:
Economic sacrifice greater than the original 5RR
Here's the thing: I'm nowhere near good enough to tell if this build is genuinely useful, so I'm posting it here for those who are to try, if they want
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I'm doing really well with this build when I execute it right, which granted as a lowly silver peon is only sometimes. It really punishes formulaic terran play where they wall up, have a beer, and try to either tech straight for banshees or drown you in reapers. In other words, those scrubs we all love to hate.
The only guys successfully defending against it are the ones that went minimal cheese and actually, you know, built T1 units. Those are the guys you don't really mind losing to anyway. Well, and ones that got 4-6 reapers off. Damn do they need to delete that unit.!!
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Hi,
I did try it with fast +1 carapace but it is not working, lings are too slow and upgrade is too late.
The original one works really well and i like to build the evochamber when i expand just for fast banshee.
Usually i follow up with hydra, my goal is to deny him his expo not really to take down his wall.
It is funny to see GT AI not knowing what to do :-)) , this AI will try to build units to counter yours :-)) but cannot keep up with Roach Ling Hydra order.
I do not know how well this does against a rush since i have low apm and poor micro :-(
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If you do get scouted somehow while the RW is building, should you stick with the BO or would it be a better idea to cancel the warren after scout is gone/dead and then switch to speed/bling bust?
If they're expecting a roach push, they might lower their guard against a bust in order to contain the roaches (i.e. slow reapers/zealots production to make marauders/stalkers).
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On September 01 2010 22:29 Phrencys wrote:
If you do get scouted somehow while the RW is building, should you stick with the BO or would it be a better idea to cancel the warren after scout is gone/dead and then switch to speed/bling bust?
If they're expecting a roach push, they might lower their guard against a bust in order to contain the roaches (i.e. slow reapers/zealots production to make marauders/stalkers). If they're in a position to not be able to stop 5 roaches, they'll probably throw down a bunker, which would hinder banelings as well, not to mention your banelings would be very late compared to a normal baneling all-in.
Like it's been said before, this is far from an all-in strat and you should still be fine. You shouldn't be able to win outright if they see this coming, but you can still pressure and expand.
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950ish diamond (150apm) here and I fail at 5RR 
Note that I'm only using it vs terrans.
Basicaly my timings are almost perfect in the build (thanks to a night with YABOT)... it just seems that every terran I play gets 2-3 marauders or 1 marauder + bunker before I actualy am able to do anything with my roaches. Note that I rarely let em scout they are just seeing the 13/13 timer and build accordingly. I also tryed to pump more lings early on before expanding but without any succesful play. To be honest the 5RR only worked once or twice over the course of maybe 10-15 games. All other games I've struggled to come back. I might do something wrong tho..
vs protoss I rarely use it unless I see some kind of 3 gates without gaz but else I prefer going banelings and speedlings since banes will kill zealots and speed will kill stalkers and sentries early game
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If they scout it, I'd recommend to still get 4-5 roaches, expand, power drone, and sac one or two OVs. As much as late game roaches suck, those early 4-5 roaches are really good against whatever harass they have in mind, and they save some larvae.
Congrats, you now have a chance at getting to the mid game in decent shape.
I find this build to be even more effective vs P though.
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On September 01 2010 13:09 BiggestNoobEver wrote:
The FE example up there wasn't a good example cuz the roaches went in. What about a complete wall off with cannons + FE? I had a game where the protoss completed walled himself in and warped units outside. My roaches were useless cuz cannon was free hitting it and he had an economic advantage over me. I still won the game but it was from a come back and huge deficit. I'm afraid against a better protoss player I might not be able to come back from such a deficit. 2base zerg vs 2 base protoss gives protoss an edge. What will you guys do if he completely walled off with cannons and warping in stalkers? For sure he have nexus out before u or around same time.
Protoss really wall in completely? Thats like, giving you a carde blanche to take a 3rd expand fast and go nuts with mutalisks. Oh, before blizzard finds out: Protoss only have 1 real counter to mutalisks, and thats a gazillion of carriers. Any other unit will end up short vs mass muta. Keep speedlings for early defense / maybe some spore crawlers to ward the lolrays that are bound to come sooner or later and start popping mutas in madness.
Had a funny game vs a toss a while back where I ended up actually sending my drones into his wall just for the sake of getting a 200 supply army of only 3/3 upgraded mutalisks.
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On September 02 2010 00:43 Thraundil wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2010 13:09 BiggestNoobEver wrote:
The FE example up there wasn't a good example cuz the roaches went in. What about a complete wall off with cannons + FE? I had a game where the protoss completed walled himself in and warped units outside. My roaches were useless cuz cannon was free hitting it and he had an economic advantage over me. I still won the game but it was from a come back and huge deficit. I'm afraid against a better protoss player I might not be able to come back from such a deficit. 2base zerg vs 2 base protoss gives protoss an edge. What will you guys do if he completely walled off with cannons and warping in stalkers? For sure he have nexus out before u or around same time. Protoss really wall in completely? Thats like, giving you a carde blanche to take a 3rd expand fast and go nuts with mutalisks. Oh, before blizzard finds out: Protoss only have 1 real counter to mutalisks, and thats a gazillion of carriers. Any other unit will end up short vs mass muta. Keep speedlings for early defense / maybe some spore crawlers to ward the lolrays that are bound to come sooner or later and start popping mutas in madness. Had a funny game vs a toss a while back where I ended up actually sending my drones into his wall just for the sake of getting a 200 supply army of only 3/3 upgraded mutalisks.
unless of course that they walled off their natural in which case you're on less than equal footing with the toss until you get your third running. This is very possible and almost standard on a few maps.
I can't say for certian as I haven't played anyone that held off the 5RR without taking some damage... but if you can keep the pressure and not make many lings, just drone hard and take a fast 3rd as the aboves says you should be ok...
(as for the muta, the counter is as with most units not letting you get so many of them, but even still storm isn't to bad at all, when they are pushing zelots in on you and forcing you to defend ... assuming we were not already not winning big in which case you can make just about anything they can manage)
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Wow. I'm glad to see this thread improved after the first few pages.
Some things I have noticed after going through this thread and the replays a couple of times:
The Wiki has two builds listed, however, the replays in this thread show the same build regardless of whether the opponent is Terran or Protoss.
The note at the bottom of the wiki page has a link to this thread. However, when I saw the intelligence of the responses on the first page and how long the thread was I immediately lost interest in reading further.
Fistdantilus' replays on page 1 all show an expansion going down and the updated build order still calls for this, however, few of the replays from pg 16 onwards show an expansion and the ones that do have Zerglings coming out first.
My suggestion for updating the Wiki:
1) Remove different build orders for Terran & Protoss, or have links to replays with different build orders.
2) Have the updated build order listed. Then a link to RampancyTW's perfect timing. Then links to various 'in real life' replays (scouting drone, Roach Warren built when enemy scout dead, gas steals etc).
3) Have replays grouped in tidy sections
E.g: These replays show no expansion because the game was won after roaches & zergling.... These replays show the timing of the expansion when the game has gone long. Fistdantilus' replays may be out of date but they are wonderfully consistent.
4) Have a history section with links to various parts of thread. pg 15 has the new build order. pg 18 to 21 has RampancyTW & Umpteen's discussion on resource timing. There may be further links if future patches change things. I think this would be better than a link to page 1 of a very long thread, especially since page 1 is such a poor example of what the Team Liquid forums are capable of.
I'd be happy to update/structure the wiki page myself but I first want to get some feedback from this forum (including, but not limited to, whether it's necessary and whether someone else would prefer to do it).
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Just wanted to share possibly the most satisfying victory ever using this opening - and something that might be a useful tip, too. Playing vs Protoss on Xel'naga caverns, I threw my first overlord over my ramp to watch for in-base pylons (I've noticed that if I send it across map, my second OL gets to my ramp just too late to catch probes sneaking in sometimes, and I have to take drones off to scout instead), and set about my build order.
What do my scouting lings find when they head down the ramp but a proxy 2-gate up and running at my natural! Two zealots are already hanging around and are presently joined by a third, all of whom head up into my base.
They head for my queen, which I back off, and then turn their attention to my spawning pool. Here's the potentially useful tip: vs Protoss I've been placing my spawning pool out front, as far away as possible from my roach warren. It's a very tempting target for early zealot aggression compared with chasing a queen or drones around on creep, and if my opponent takes the bait there's a good chance this kind of no-scout rush won't even see the warren. With 3 roaches about to spawn and 4 more now on the way, killing the pool didn't actually achieve anything. Losing a queen or some drones (or the warren) would have been much worse. I was able to chase him out of my base, blow up his proxy and grab my expansion. (I was a bit stupid and only knocked out the pylons at first, forgetting the remaining buildings gave him vision. He sent some zealots back and I had to cancel and remake the expansion more securely).
Credit to him, after his rush failed he pulled back, macroed up and came out with a really sweet zealot/templar/phoenix... nah, I'm shitting you, he put five cannons on his ramp and made three Void Rays. Which I killed with the large force of Roach/Hydra I'd made off two bases (to be fair the roaches were mostly there for moral support). So he put ten more cannons on his ramp and built eight more Void Rays. Which managed to take down an extractor and a couple of the even larger force of Hydra I'd massed off three bases. So he made a robotics bay, a warp prism, a robotics support bay and a fleet beacon (for some reason), six more void rays and sent them in as a distraction while he built an expansion. Which was promptly overrun by the swarm of lings I'd had patrolling every mineral line on the map for the last ten minutes. So he spent his last resources on three more Void Rays. Then he left.
Hilarity aside, I think one reason I like the 5RR so much is that it's not a debilitating crutch like in-base pylons or 2-gate proxies. If the guy I played had won, what would he have learned? Based on what he did when it failed, not a hell of a lot. On the other hand, every time I've lost with 5RR I've felt like I learned something useful, because it wasn't the build that lost me the game.
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On September 01 2010 22:29 Phrencys wrote:
If you do get scouted somehow while the RW is building, should you stick with the BO or would it be a better idea to cancel the warren after scout is gone/dead and then switch to speed/bling bust?
If they're expecting a roach push, they might lower their guard against a bust in order to contain the roaches (i.e. slow reapers/zealots production to make marauders/stalkers).
If they scout the warren (it hasn't happened often) I tend to wing it. This usually involves taking the expand early, making no roaches (but making speedlings as they will have made stalkers or marauders) and scouting them again. The warren itself is a 150 investment only and the build is perfectly viable as a speedling into expand build. They will usually overreact to that 150 investment (by being very marauder/stalker heavy). Remember to drop lair right after the expand in this case as you will have extra gas and need to account for fast void rays or banshees.
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Platinum Zerg, trying to move into Diamond. (Hurgh.)
Observations/thoughts. Please let me know what you think/encounter and how to deal with accordingly.
ZvP. Works exceptionally well. Sometimes, I'll see a VR by the time I move in, and I'll already have another queen, maybe a Spore. I'll have already moved to building a Spire by then as well. Early Stalkers/Zealots can't do much to stop good Roach micro. The only thing I really fear here is maybe unscouted proxy gates, or the somewhat random proxy cannon. A transition into Lair tech and Mutas following after this usually works wonders. How does this fare against a decent 4 gate?
ZvT. A bit more problematic, especially when they decide to pump out more Marauders than Marines. This requires a bit more precision on my part, as more than once, I'll breach but I'll fail to keep up the Zergling pressure in subsequent waves. Once they rebuild that Depot, it'll be tough to get back in. At that point, I'll have taken the my expansion, and eventually move onto macro up from there. Map control and mobility will usually net me the win, but I hate dragging matches out like this. For heavier numbers of Marauders, do you all just give up and pull back your Roaches, or keep going in?
ZvZ. I usually scout for a 6 pool early on, and look out for the almost universal response of spling/bling. I'll keep up with the Roach build, crank out the Roaches and block my choke. Waves of splints/blings can't crash through this wall. Fast tech to Spire for Mutas, and usually it's gg from there, unless they immediately respond with their own fast Mutas. Does anyone have anything else to contribute here?
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EPT![[image loading]](http://lh4.ggpht.com/_OsPdrOn6kFc/TH2-bTBtCOI/AAAAAAAAADU/V1kqrlJpvUQ/None.jpg)
