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Previously 900 zerg here
After losing 90% of games against protoss' fast warpgate push I'm in serious need of help on how to defend a chronoboosted warpgate push with gateway started at around 10-11.
Not quite sure how you guys can get to hydras in time, if the push is done really fast (10-11 gate) and with 4x chronoboosted warpgate tech, first wave will come before you manage to get spine crawlers down at your natural with a 20-21 hatch (aka ridiculously fast, even if you build spine crawlers in main and transfer them down, the first wave comes just at the point you root them down), and long before you have any weapon / defense upgrade. It's so fast that even if you know it's coming, you cannot afford everything (ie, roach warren AND spine crawlers AND another queen). On top of that, a good protoss will not let you expand before you get first set of lings (pylon that gets cancelled or just moving around), so 15/16 hatch is out of option.
All that said, I am seriously starting to wonder how you can defeat this push without suffering much bigger losses than the opponent himself. I'm also starting to wonder if there is much point to FE against this. I would kindly ask for any replays of players being able to defend against such a fast push.
edit: just checked the in-game time it comes at, warpgate finishes at 5:40 and first wave comes at 6:00 if anyone wonders, and that's way before you can get hydras out
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Agree with Fistidanulus.
You just need to not try sneak in drones, if he's going 4gate you need to get as big an army as you can asap, throw down crawlers if its viable. As long as you hold that big push off you're okay, its all about holding that one massive push.
I usually get a mass of roach hydra, but i like the idea of the early +1 carapace. this means zealots need an extra hit to kill a ling.
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On August 26 2010 13:24 Subversion wrote:
I usually get a mass of roach hydra, but i like the idea of the early +1 carapace. this means zealots need an extra hit to kill a ling.
+1 zealots, right?
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So I was mulling this over on my way to work when it hit me, though I'm sure somebody else is already doing it.
Why not just mass +1/(+1) zerglings?
Here's the essentials.
First hundred gas on speed
Throw down an evo chamber
Next hundred gas on +1 melee
Next hundred gas on lair
Getting +1 carapace depends on if you see them going for a forge variant as +1 carapace on lings is useless unless P gets +1 attack, so I'd rather spend the gas on roaches or hydras.
The pros here are Zealots now take 30 hits to kill instead of 38 and stalkers take 32 hits instead of 40. That's 21% and 20% faster kills respectively. Lings are fast enough that I can intercept Ps army as he's leaving his base, and specifically target the probe to make warp-in reinforcement not an option, as well as break off 8 or so lings and backstab his base with my lings that now kill probes in 7 kills instead of 8, forcing P to at least warp in some units for defense, further weakening his push.
The cons are obviously FF is going to jack me up even worse, and if he moves down in a tight ball with his zealots on the outside and probe in the middle, my lings will be mostly ineffective at harassing him on the way over.
I haven't been able to try this out yet, but does anybody have any thoughts/experience on this?
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Does someone have some reps of breaking 4 gate push ?
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To delay the first push or at the very least damage him a little, hide 6-8 lings in his natural, then when he moves out to push for the first time, run into his base start picking of probes.
He'll either retreat or counter push, so keep adding army and spines. If you hold of his push now, you have severely damaged his economy and he won't be able to reinforce his push so hard or tech even.
You should also align overlords on the way to your base, so you can keep tabs on what he's doing with his army (retreating or just continue to push). He'll have a probe with him to reinforce (if he hasnt already build a pylon somewhere), so try to snipe that before he can build it.
If you're not comfortable with rushing to hydras, get a baneling nest and just go ling/ling against the first push.
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On August 26 2010 13:14 EonuS wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
Previously 900 zerg here
After losing 90% of games against protoss' fast warpgate push I'm in serious need of help on how to defend a chronoboosted warpgate push with gateway started at around 10-11.
Not quite sure how you guys can get to hydras in time, if the push is done really fast (10-11 gate) and with 4x chronoboosted warpgate tech, first wave will come before you manage to get spine crawlers down at your natural with a 20-21 hatch (aka ridiculously fast, even if you build spine crawlers in main and transfer them down, the first wave comes just at the point you root them down), and long before you have any weapon / defense upgrade. It's so fast that even if you know it's coming, you cannot afford everything (ie, roach warren AND spine crawlers AND another queen). On top of that, a good protoss will not let you expand before you get first set of lings (pylon that gets cancelled or just moving around), so 15/16 hatch is out of option.
All that said, I am seriously starting to wonder how you can defeat this push without suffering much bigger losses than the opponent himself. I'm also starting to wonder if there is much point to FE against this. I would kindly ask for any replays of players being able to defend against such a fast push.
edit: just checked the in-game time it comes at, warpgate finishes at 5:40 and first wave comes at 6:00 if anyone wonders, and that's way before you can get hydras out
If he makes that push so early, he wont have much gas for sentries, and he wont have +1 attack for zealots. This can be defended quite ok with just mass speedling, or add some banelings/roaches while you get your spinecrawlers up. I think it is much harder to defend the later version with stalkers, a lot of sentries/zealots (sometimes +1) on maps where you have a backdoor. I guess you have to have hydras by then or it is gg, but it you already made banelings or roaches, and he just didnt push at the earlier timing, you sometimes have trouble getting hydras out fast enough...
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On August 26 2010 16:00 Jermstuddog wrote:
So I was mulling this over on my way to work when it hit me, though I'm sure somebody else is already doing it.
Why not just mass +1/(+1) zerglings?
you will probably lose vs void ray rush. Scouting is crucial here. I'm not sure about the timing. How fast can you get +1 attack? And the ultimate counter is FFs. Good FFs will rape mass ling.
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On August 27 2010 21:57 Cheerio wrote:Show nested quote +On August 26 2010 16:00 Jermstuddog wrote:
So I was mulling this over on my way to work when it hit me, though I'm sure somebody else is already doing it.
Why not just mass +1/(+1) zerglings?
you will probably lose vs void ray rush. Scouting is crucial here. I'm not sure about the timing. How fast can you get +1 attack? And the ultimate counter is FFs. Good FFs will rape mass ling.
We were clearly discussing defending four gates. Four gates with a voidray is a different build and even more all-in. And with scouting should be holdable.
In my desperation I have tried the +1 melee attack lings. BOY oh BOY was I pleasantly surprised.
I go 14 gas, 14 pool, 15 or 16 evo. Get melee attack first, then get speed. Speed will finish slightly before the melee attack does ( about a 10 second delay ). Massing lings will force him to either get lots of zealots or lots of sentries.
You can go agressive on his ramp, try and bait him to get some forcefields wasted. Scout if he has gone lots of zealots, if he did. Get banelings. About 7 or 8 should do the trick.
Attack the zealots with your lings first, keeping the banelings in the back. This will make sure all the zealots attack up front, letting you not waste banes on stalkers. As the zealots have a nice line, retreat the lings and move the banes in, the zealots will continiue to attack even though the banes will rip through them.
The upside of this is that you can chew through stalkers really fast. You can be agressive which plays a bigger mental part than letting him do everything at ease. You can pick off and surround stray units that wander away from the ball. You can threaten backstabs. You can pick your battleground. You don't rely purely on defenses and you aren't forced into tech you don't want. You can pick muta's, infestors, hydra's at your leasure with all the stray gas you have left over.
I would advise all of my fellow desperate zergs to try +1 melee zerglings out. All it takes is one game to try it out and see if it works for you or not. It definitely has for me and now is my standard opening against protoss who doesn't go 2 gate =).
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On August 25 2010 02:56 EnderCN wrote:No they won't, Protoss doesn't get any inherent advantage for resources that Zerg can't contend with.
Yeah they do. They don't lose probes everytime they make a structure.
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As it seems to be the norm to state your rating before you post, im at ~1300 diamond on europe
I really dislike hydras against 4 gate, i think you definitely need roaches. I personally play 14 gas 14 pool and take the drones off gas after 100 gas. then i expand after my first pair of lings spawns at ~20 supply. from then on i build drones, one more queen and maybe one more pair of lings till 34 supply (maybe 35 or 36 on larger maps). at around 30 supply i build a roach warren and put drones back into gas and try to suicide an overlord into his main to see what he is building. from then on i just build lings/roaches to hold off the 4 gate push if i scout that thats what he is doing. its important to have an overlord or ling at his natural so you can see once he builds a nexus there, then you have to pretty much stop army production and focus on drones again. also, if he plays some kind of late push and doesnt move out early, you can add a few more drones and also start to tech to t2.
if you dont scout that he is playing 4 gate i would definitely recommend to tech to t2 at around 40 supply and build a third queen in case of voidrays.
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On August 27 2010 22:40 Chaosvuistje wrote:Show nested quote +On August 27 2010 21:57 Cheerio wrote:On August 26 2010 16:00 Jermstuddog wrote:
So I was mulling this over on my way to work when it hit me, though I'm sure somebody else is already doing it.
Why not just mass +1/(+1) zerglings?
you will probably lose vs void ray rush. Scouting is crucial here. I'm not sure about the timing. How fast can you get +1 attack? And the ultimate counter is FFs. Good FFs will rape mass ling. We were clearly discussing defending four gates. Four gates with a voidray is a different build and even more all-in. And with scouting should be holdable. In my desperation I have tried the +1 melee attack lings. BOY oh BOY was I pleasantly surprised. I go 14 gas, 14 pool, 15 or 16 evo. Get melee attack first, then get speed. Speed will finish slightly before the melee attack does ( about a 10 second delay ). Massing lings will force him to either get lots of zealots or lots of sentries. You can go agressive on his ramp, try and bait him to get some forcefields wasted. Scout if he has gone lots of zealots, if he did. Get banelings. About 7 or 8 should do the trick. Attack the zealots with your lings first, keeping the banelings in the back. This will make sure all the zealots attack up front, letting you not waste banes on stalkers. As the zealots have a nice line, retreat the lings and move the banes in, the zealots will continiue to attack even though the banes will rip through them. The upside of this is that you can chew through stalkers really fast. You can be agressive which plays a bigger mental part than letting him do everything at ease. You can pick off and surround stray units that wander away from the ball. You can threaten backstabs. You can pick your battleground. You don't rely purely on defenses and you aren't forced into tech you don't want. You can pick muta's, infestors, hydra's at your leasure with all the stray gas you have left over. I would advise all of my fellow desperate zergs to try +1 melee zerglings out. All it takes is one game to try it out and see if it works for you or not. It definitely has for me and now is my standard opening against protoss who doesn't go 2 gate =).
Well +1 or not forcefield is going to give you a lot of trouble, and delaying your expansion that much results in a pretty weak economy too
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I watched this. It was 3 gate blink stalkers which you blind countered with mass +1/+1 lings. And he had 50 apm vs your 1xx. I want to see how that +1/+1 fares against a proper well executed 4/5 gate.
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first 3 are no crawlers and its not blind counter. i had a ling go up to see unit composition
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I'm a constant 4gate P user who got myself to these ranks with that strat alone
http://sc2ranks.com/ranks/all/diamond/2R
I can say that what i fear most vs zerg is the time between moving my first 3 units to my proxy pylon because thats a vulnerable timing window where i'm about to do my first wave of warped units, and if you have speedling upgraded by then, right when i move out of my base and am halfway to your base (you should have scouted this eaisly with overlords) you can sneak 6 lings into my base and attack probes. If you do this successfully, I will still do a lot of damage to you, but eventually will run out of money and can't afford to reinforce my attacks anymore and you'll be able to overrun me with the lings out of your 2 hatches (one of them with queens injecting larvae). I think the trick is to over-prepare for a 4gate push by cutting drones and massing zerglings a bit earlier than you normally would. Also at the 4 minute mark, you really should sacrifice an overlord to see what the P is building cus thats when the gates are coming up, not a lot of Z's do that.
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On August 23 2010 13:49 Fistdantilus wrote:
More zerglings, try to bait the force fields before you fully commit. The better I got/get at my injections, the less of a problem it becomes. Also, don't over-drone. If he's not making a move for an expansion and you see the 4WG, then you have to match his army.
The 4-gate is just a numbers game.
1100 Z.
about how much drones is over droning? can u give us a ballpark number with tolerances, or just a general range?
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Zerglings are not the answer since the protoss can just put down a few key forcefields and funnel them into zealots or block them in while stalkers and sentries shoot them. Roaches also don't do well since stalkers out range them. They can be kited around and taken out while the protoss takes minimal losses and keeps adding units to his ball.
Surviving with a few spinecrawlers (I know you don't want to build them but accept the fact that you probably have to), queens and lings and fast tracking hydras is the best answer as hydras completely decimate the ball. From there it can be tricky as the protoss could have expanded and be teching to either ht or colossus. As zerg you should probably try to aggressively expand, get an idea of the protoss tech path by sacrificing an overlord or two and go from there.
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well, if it's a rly fast one just pumping tonnes of speed roaches usually kills it...
That or ling/hydra, but that dies to collosi so hard D:
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My issue with the 4 gate is not knowing what composition he's going with the 4 gate. He can block his choke stupidly easy. If I go roaches and he goes stalker heavy I lose, if I go Hydra and he goes Zealot heavy I lose. Flip of a coin most of the time.
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EPT
