EPT[D] Safe Drone Pumping
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Randomaccount#77123
United States5003 Posts
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peon.power
Germany43 Posts
I dont see the point of the thread. If you know when to drone and when not, you shouldnt morph more zerglings then you need. If you dont know when to drone and when not, you can establish rules for yourself that let u play safe. Thats what you did by saying: Im going to do a 50/50 mix of lings/drones. It looks like you have a good gameplan and you should continue to use it if it works efficient. Against fast lighting air i suggest getting 4-5 queens instead of 2 if your lair is too late. They totally rape air, if you heal at the right time, youll need them later anyway for your third and fourth base, you can heal spinecrawlers, you can spread creep early on and you can use them as a healing station. I find this especially useful for healing mutas after they harassed so you wont loose them or if they survived till lategame for ultralisks. | ||
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Randomaccount#77123
United States5003 Posts
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sooch
Canada299 Posts
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Randomaccount#77123
United States5003 Posts
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sooch
Canada299 Posts
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Randomaccount#77123
United States5003 Posts
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csfield
United States206 Posts
In other words, it's always best to make as few units as you can to defend. The hard part is knowing eactly what you can get away with. In terms of winning a particular game, it's probably best to err on the side of making units but in terms of getting better as a player, it's better to ride that thin line as closely as possible. | ||
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sooch
Canada299 Posts
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Randomaccount#77123
United States5003 Posts
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kataa
United Kingdom384 Posts
Otherwise this build is awesome and pretty much a standard in most Asian replays I've seen lately. | ||
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Randomaccount#77123
United States5003 Posts
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eth3n
718 Posts
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rackdude
United States882 Posts
On September 05 2010 07:11 Barrin wrote: More efficient, yes. Safer? ... Before I became kind-of good, I used to use the extreme of your statement. I would spam drones, tech up while spamming drones, expand, spam drones, then like at X point in the game I have way more of Y unit than you could possibly have doing a standard build. That was very, very dangerous. From what I understand of current zerg style, it is very dangerous in the same way. This cuts more drones to keep you even safer. The other races really don't have an option to do this. Spam SCV's from one CC. Keep Spamming. Expand. Tech. More SCV's. Expand. Wtf kind of Terran or protoss ever does this? none of em. Just because you CAN make drones with almost every one of your larva doesnt mean you should. Go look at almost any replay with a zerg player who does this. Pause it pretty much anywhere from 3 to 6 minutes into the game. The P/T player is already working on an army. Sure the Zerg has two sets of larva injections that can be used if they see the Terran move out, but that's really nothing compared to what the P/T can do to back it up with. It's really quite uncanny in a lot of my matches, a push that would normally just straight up kill me when I try the full macro style exactly loses to the extra zerglings I make like this. You're just delaying drones. If can get away without the lings, don't you think it's better? Now you are noting you want the lings out the moment they leave their base, but I do not see the point of it. Zerg is best at fighting in the open field. The thing is, you should have a ling at their base to see when they move out, and at that moment swarm lings (and a few roaches). You can then kill off the attack (if done correctly) with about the same losses because it should be about the same number of lings you have with your build. However, the drone pumping build will have had more drones quicker, so it will be at the same spot but economically ahead. Not to mention the other perks. The drone pumping style puts the engagement on your turf. This means creep. You could have built a spine crawler instead of 3 lings, so now you're a drone ahead. Roaches early game 10x more efficient on creep, so you can count the lings you didn't have to build as more drones. It just all adds up to saying it's better to engage on your creep and built up right before it comes. The last reason why I have to disagree with your style is because you're building units without a purpose. Those early lings, what are their purpose? They sit in front of the enemy base. You know you cannot attack because he has forcefield and repair. 2-4 lings is enough to see any movement outside of his base. What are the extra 8-10 lings doing? Not looking scary, because that many lings doesn't look scary. If you do have enough to look scary, then you didn't build any drones and he will just tech to air and kill you. So what are they doing? Answer is, they didn't need to be there. Yes, you can play safer than many other drone pumpers, but remember that it's really to play safe but doesn't give an economic advantage nor much of a strategic advantage early game. How safe should you play? Well, that depends on how much you trust your scouting abilities and your ability to properly macro (if you're supply blocked when you see them begin to move out when you did a drone pump, or if you missed a spawn larvae, you can just gg). The big idea is: the safer drone pumping isn't "better", but it stops you from getting some stupid losses. | ||
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Cyclon
United States99 Posts
There is no 'Safer'. There is 'not safe' and 'safe'. If you are safe and you are producing more units then those units are useless unless you are using them to win immediately. Otherwise, you should have been making more drones because that ensures you are better off later. | ||
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Randomaccount#77123
United States5003 Posts
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teamsolid
Canada3668 Posts
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hadoken5
Canada519 Posts
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Randomaccount#77123
United States5003 Posts
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rackdude
United States882 Posts
On September 05 2010 08:28 Barrin wrote: not always. So you're saying if you want to fight them out in the open field, it's ok to not start making units until they're entering the field? No. Just no. This is where I highlight the problem with such logic. Sure, in theory you have more minerals and therefore can make more zerglings. But zerglings do not cost only minerals. They also cost Larva. If you spend your LARVA on zerglings before you need them AND when you need them, you will most certainly have more zerglings than had you only made zerglings right when you needed them. And yes, you do have the money to spam all the extra zerglings with the build I said. Plenty of money. You're pretty confusing bro. The last paragraph I quoted you say that you want to fight in the open field, but now you're saying you want to fight in your base. The thing is, I haven't said either. ...... Purpose.... ? Are you even reading the thread? Not looking scary? Sure. It tells them they can just sit in their base for the next few minutes. But guess what, it also tells you that you can do the same thing. The same thing as in pumping workers. Do the other races pump workers better than zerg? (hint: no) Tech to air and kill me? You have no idea of the timings of my build do you? Lol. I actually get a relatively fast Lair. You do realize that people better than me use this against people that are better than me WITH throwing in a roach warren that slows down your anti-air, right? Well maybe you did read it. But did you really think about it? And that differs from other builds.... how? Preventing you from stupid losses is clearly worse? Wrong! This is just so wrong. I understand why everyone thinks this and even I did at one point. It's just wrong (and kinda fundamentally the point of this post). Yes later. Let me define later for you: at least 2 minutes from now. During those two minutes, you could have been SAFELY pumping drones. And during those 2 minutes if you were instead drone pumping you could have been attacked, even though you could have already had lings. The thing that I really get from all of this is why everyone thinks Zerg is a "reactionary" race. You sit back, and you sit back. They have an army and you do not, therefore you have to react to their army. But when you get out extra lings early, YOU take the ball and you roll it around. You control the pace of the game. They are countering YOU which means you can counter their counter instead of simply countering. You will have the larvae if you macro. Your base should be set up so it's open you can get a surround. Have your lings set, some outside, some inside. Set up a spine crawler. That is the best place to hit: a nice open spot right in front of your base where your good macro placed down a lot of creep, can get a lot of surrounds, have a few spine crawlers close by, and can reinforce quickly. Now does the location make sense? "Yes later. Let me define later for you: at least 2 minutes from now. During those two minutes, you could have been SAFELY pumping drones. And during those 2 minutes if you were instead drone pumping you could have been attacked, even though you could have already had lings. " 2 minutes earlier, you could've been pumping drones. If you saw the attack coming, then you would have switched to lings so it's just as safe. "The thing that I really get from all of this is why everyone thinks Zerg is a "reactionary" race. You sit back, and you sit back. They have an army and you do not, therefore you have to react to their army. But when you get out extra lings early, YOU take the ball and you roll it around. You control the pace of the game. They are countering YOU which means you can counter their counter instead of simply countering." This is all "So what? Who cares?". Both Tarrans and Protoss know you cannot hurt them. They see the lings. "So what? I have forcefield. I have zealots blocking". There is no "Oh crap, I've gotta make zealots", it's just a "hey, he made some lings. Sup lings. I'm still safe". He doesn't have to react at all, there's no tension. The only reaction he could do is get a few more zealots which is not beneficial to you. It's not the same as "oh crap, he has hellions" because hellions can hurt you. Your few lings outside his base cannot hurt him. Don't believe the difference? Play Protoss for a bit, and you will be happy every single time you see 14 lings come to your 2 zealot block and think "sweet, I'm ahead and I didn't have to do anything!" The most I can say it, what some top level Zerg games from Idra and the like, and just analyze it. Especially Idra. He drone pumps, but is safe by making lings and roaches the moment the push is coming. Maybe a spine crawler early, but none of this "get a ball". Try to understand what they are doing. I think the main difference you will see is just that Idra has better macro, and therefore has the larvae for the zerglings at the right time. That's why it works better for him than it did for you. That's why most of us should play a little safer than he does. However, to think that those early lings give you more of an advantage is the part that's not correct. Just because a prevents you from stupid losses doesn't mean a build is better. Clearly, a 10 pool would be a much better build than a 14 pool if you'd like that because it stops cheese cold. But what we have to do is go "ok, theoretically (and practically if done correctly) a 14 pool stops the cheese rushes that would occur at that time, and it also puts me in a better position economically, therefore the 14 pool is the better build". Building the lings at the last second to stop those early pushes is theoretically possible. Idra does it all the time. Since he can stop the same early pushes, his build is just as safe as yours, but it has a better economy, and is therefore a better build. The problem with drone pumping in the early game is not that it's not safe, it's that it can be hard to pull off correctly and can lead to some stupid losses of you just messing up. PS: Throwing down the roach warren doesn't slow down the anti-air. Making the roaches does. Since they are making the roaches at the last second, they can go Lair upgrade then roach. However, it's safe play that goes roach then Lair upgrade, and that's why it would get delayed. PPS: Your defense of saying "Did you really read it?" doesn't get anywhere. Did you really think about your build? Come on, please be more mannered and be delighted someone has decided to give a constructive argument against your build. That's why you posted here, isn't it? | ||
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