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If we assume that we go 14 gas 14 pool on maps where 3 gate expand is more likely (ST, xel naga for instance), one thing that has been working great for me is to make around 15 zerglings at the timing where he actually expands, to delay his expansion. it allows you to punish all 1 gate badly; and any 3 gate tech opening (with DTs or voids rays), cause he won't have enough sentries to defend it. against regular 3 gate, you can still put a bit of pressure, maybe catch him offguard and kill sentries; or more reasonably, showing that you are threatening and therefore that he cannot put pressure or you will straight counter him. you can use zerglings for map control and killing rocks.
i personally dont see something wrong with staying on 2 base till you have those saturated, then take a third while building some units, scouting him with an overseer and then deciding whether to drone more for when the third finishes or whether to build more units vs an incoming attack. you shouldnt forget that you will have an economic lead even on 2 vs 2 base temporarily.
Ah, so you recommend drone to about 50ish supply, make lots of units and just focus on saturating your 2 bases, and then take a much later third before lair. Thanks, I seemed to keep dying when I'd go 40ish supply third, then make units, because my econ would be so damn low since you really have to start making units when you only have about 35ish drones, and have to make a shitton of units.
How exactly do you time that lair though? I'm assuming you get lair like right after your third, and then taking more than 2 gas based on what you scout? I guess vs FFE, you have to have roach speed up or such gateway pushes will really hurt?
no, go for like 45-50 drones while teching to lair, and then as you start producing units take the third. take the remaining 3 gases on the way to lair and before you take your third. taking a third at 40 and then building lots of units is bad because if you think your opponent will allin you could just do the variation i pointed out which is better vs allins and doesnt sacrifice the eco that you sac for getting a not so useful 3rd hatch
If we assume that we go 14 gas 14 pool on maps where 3 gate expand is more likely (ST, xel naga for instance), one thing that has been working great for me is to make around 15 zerglings at the timing where he actually expands, to delay his expansion. it allows you to punish all 1 gate badly; and any 3 gate tech opening (with DTs or voids rays), cause he won't have enough sentries to defend it. against regular 3 gate, you can still put a bit of pressure, maybe catch him offguard and kill sentries; or more reasonably, showing that you are threatening and therefore that he cannot put pressure or you will straight counter him. you can use zerglings for map control and killing rocks.
Actually, I've done some testing and made posts about it (where I thought the same way and got critisized) - if you make 2 rounds of lings like that to deny a 3 gate expo, you will actually end up behind Protoss. Cutting 10-15 drones to make a bunch of lings and only denying/cancelling a nexus for just 1-2 minutes will actually end up hurting you more than it hurts toss. Check out the worker counts and econ from there and onward and you'll see zerg actually ends up behind.
well obviously there are pros and cons... and making lings slows down your eco. But you actually get a lot for this round of units. as basically it allows you to take third (most of the time a gold, so that compensates for having less drones), and gives you a nice 3 hatchs/3 queens structure. Plus a bit a safety, pressure on the protoss, you deny his scouting, any harass, so he has to guess; it gives you nice scouting of his unit comp, you kill rocks to prepare later attacks, not to mention the fact that you get some bo wins here and there, etc. Then, if you are convinced that it's worthless, up to you
im pretty sure its bad too, unless your opponent fucks up and loses sentries to the lings its not worth it. against 1 gate expo on open maps it can work tho.
On January 03 2012 23:23 kingsleigh wrote: I've just recently started and have been playing for 3 weeks and I've just been promoted to Platinum league, I'm just curious, am I doing fine?
Obvious brag post, but I'll bite.
The only one who can decide if you're doing fine is yourself. Platinum in 3 weeks is way better than a lot of players, but you're just past the group of players who have no idea how to macro. The difficult parts are ahead of you.
On January 03 2012 23:23 kingsleigh wrote: I've just recently started and have been playing for 3 weeks and I've just been promoted to Platinum league, I'm just curious, am I doing fine?
Obvious brag post, but I'll bite.
The only one who can decide if you're doing fine is yourself. Platinum in 3 weeks is way better than a lot of players, but you're just past the group of players who have no idea how to macro. The difficult parts are ahead of you.
Yeah, I'd be more impressed if you placed in Diamond after 3 weeks of playing with no other RTS exp.
If we assume that we go 14 gas 14 pool on maps where 3 gate expand is more likely (ST, xel naga for instance), one thing that has been working great for me is to make around 15 zerglings at the timing where he actually expands, to delay his expansion. it allows you to punish all 1 gate badly; and any 3 gate tech opening (with DTs or voids rays), cause he won't have enough sentries to defend it. against regular 3 gate, you can still put a bit of pressure, maybe catch him offguard and kill sentries; or more reasonably, showing that you are threatening and therefore that he cannot put pressure or you will straight counter him. you can use zerglings for map control and killing rocks.
i personally dont see something wrong with staying on 2 base till you have those saturated, then take a third while building some units, scouting him with an overseer and then deciding whether to drone more for when the third finishes or whether to build more units vs an incoming attack. you shouldnt forget that you will have an economic lead even on 2 vs 2 base temporarily.
Ah, so you recommend drone to about 50ish supply, make lots of units and just focus on saturating your 2 bases, and then take a much later third before lair. Thanks, I seemed to keep dying when I'd go 40ish supply third, then make units, because my econ would be so damn low since you really have to start making units when you only have about 35ish drones, and have to make a shitton of units.
How exactly do you time that lair though? I'm assuming you get lair like right after your third, and then taking more than 2 gas based on what you scout? I guess vs FFE, you have to have roach speed up or such gateway pushes will really hurt?
no, go for like 45-50 drones while teching to lair, and then as you start producing units take the third. take the remaining 3 gases on the way to lair and before you take your third. taking a third at 40 and then building lots of units is bad because if you think your opponent will allin you could just do the variation i pointed out which is better vs allins and doesnt sacrifice the eco that you sac for getting a not so useful 3rd hatch
In my experience, taking an early third against gateway expos while delaying hatch tech has it's own benefits. Especially against gateway-stargate expo builds that MC popularized. The earlier the third is, the easier it is to secure it against air agression. And I hate having to go hydra to get my third. Any heavy gateway aggression should be defendable with pure roach-ling-spine. The issues are that it can be hard to differentiate a "shark mode" pressure from an all-in. Also the delayed overseer and tech can be a real problem for defending some tech timing attacks (immortal-sentry or DTs). Teching to lair while getting a macro hatch (giving you the option of massing queens in case of stargate pressure and a quicker saturation of the later third) might be a good middle ground option.
As I see some blue posters hanging around, I got another question : During ZvZ banelings battles, how do you split 1 or 2 zerglings from your main control group to snipe an opponent bane ? I have seen Stephano focus banes with his whole zergling army and then quickly shift clicking in the unit selection pane to pull back at the last second in a torero fashion. When I try to do that I am often not quick enough and see my zerglings all dying in a giant green explosion (poor torero lings). I would like to keep my main army control group though because I always add eggs to it for a quicker rally (like Steph does).
In my experience, taking an early third against gateway expos while delaying hatch tech has it's own benefits. Especially against gateway-stargate expo builds that MC popularized. The earlier the third is, the easier it is to secure it against air agression. And I hate having to go hydra to get my third.
Well obviously if they go stargate or DT expand, then getting that fast third is the way to go. That's 'easy'. I'm talking about 3 gate expands - you have a really hard time getting a third against gateway pressure, and it either significantly delays lair or your third.
You can't use spines to defend your third, since creep won't be up against zealot/sentry pressure, and therefore you have to use roach/ling. On fast third, it's hard to make enough roach/ling to deny gd sentries.
if you think your opponent will allin you could just do the variation i pointed out which is better vs allins
I am not sure what you are referring to, but you are saying go lair, make units, be 2 base, and use the 3 gate sentry slower army buildup as an opportunity to take a faster third? I'm a bit confused though, if you go lair, it likely won't be up in time to defend against zealot/sentry pressure if you went third. I guess you are basically saying just play 2 base lair, drone up hard on 2 bases, and just take the third sooner rather than later, and delay mutas/infestors any sort of tech, and just go ling/speedroach off of 2 base lair and since you aren't getting tech, you can get lots of roaches to defend that third?
On January 03 2012 23:23 kingsleigh wrote: I've just recently started and have been playing for 3 weeks and I've just been promoted to Platinum league, I'm just curious, am I doing fine?
Obvious brag post, but I'll bite.
The only one who can decide if you're doing fine is yourself. Platinum in 3 weeks is way better than a lot of players, but you're just past the group of players who have no idea how to macro. The difficult parts are ahead of you.
Yeah, I'd be more impressed if you placed in Diamond after 3 weeks of playing with no other RTS exp.
In my experience, taking an early third against gateway expos while delaying hatch tech has it's own benefits. Especially against gateway-stargate expo builds that MC popularized. The earlier the third is, the easier it is to secure it against air agression. And I hate having to go hydra to get my third.
Well obviously if they go stargate or DT expand, then getting that fast third is the way to go. That's 'easy'. I'm talking about 3 gate expands - you have a really hard time getting a third against gateway pressure, and it either significantly delays lair or your third.
You can't use spines to defend your third, since creep won't be up against zealot/sentry pressure, and therefore you have to use roach/ling. On fast third, it's hard to make enough roach/ling to deny gd sentries.
if you think your opponent will allin you could just do the variation i pointed out which is better vs allins
I am not sure what you are referring to, but you are saying go lair, make units, be 2 base, and use the 3 gate sentry slower army buildup as an opportunity to take a faster third? I'm a bit confused though, if you go lair, it likely won't be up in time to defend against zealot/sentry pressure if you went third. I guess you are basically saying just play 2 base lair, drone up hard on 2 bases, and just take the third sooner rather than later, and delay mutas/infestors any sort of tech, and just go ling/speedroach off of 2 base lair and since you aren't getting tech, you can get lots of roaches to defend that third?
Well, if you take your third right after scooting his expo (around 6:10 against 3 gate expo) and morph spines at your natural to relocate them at the third when it's up they should be in time. Keep in mind that it's only to help holding against 5-6 gates transition with a delayed lair, you still need roaches and lings to defend an all-in.
Against an early zealot-sentry pressure from a three gate you should defend with a single spine and roaches at your natural while punishing him for not having a wall or cannon in place in his nat with a ling counter attack. A protoss can't really attack you safely right after putting down his nexus. He needs cannons and some sim-city to defend (unless he does the 4 gate nexus cancel thing, but the nexus timing is 20 sec later then, so you can play safer).
I am not sure what you are referring to, but you are saying go lair, make units, be 2 base, and use the 3 gate sentry slower army buildup as an opportunity to take a faster third? I'm a bit confused though, if you go lair, it likely won't be up in time to defend against zealot/sentry pressure if you went third. I guess you are basically saying just play 2 base lair, drone up hard on 2 bases, and just take the third sooner rather than later, and delay mutas/infestors any sort of tech, and just go ling/speedroach off of 2 base lair and since you aren't getting tech, you can get lots of roaches to defend that third?
You go 2 base Lair with Roach/Ling, and you oversaturate both bases, then take a third once you have Roach Speed done, then once your third is finished if you droned correctly you can almost insta saturate it, then immediately start responding to what Toss is doing. If he's trying to take a third, now you can mass units. If he's teching, you tech, etc. That's the best way to take a third on maps like you described.
Your scouting has to be top notch though. If he decides to do a timing while you're oversaturating, you need to see exactly when it moves out. You do not want to have to pull drones to stop any attacks (like you can do with 3 hatch vs 2) because you need those drones to be ahead once your third pops.
In my experience, taking an early third against gateway expos while delaying hatch tech has it's own benefits. Especially against gateway-stargate expo builds that MC popularized. The earlier the third is, the easier it is to secure it against air agression. And I hate having to go hydra to get my third.
Well obviously if they go stargate or DT expand, then getting that fast third is the way to go. That's 'easy'. I'm talking about 3 gate expands - you have a really hard time getting a third against gateway pressure, and it either significantly delays lair or your third.
You can't use spines to defend your third, since creep won't be up against zealot/sentry pressure, and therefore you have to use roach/ling. On fast third, it's hard to make enough roach/ling to deny gd sentries.
if you think your opponent will allin you could just do the variation i pointed out which is better vs allins
I am not sure what you are referring to, but you are saying go lair, make units, be 2 base, and use the 3 gate sentry slower army buildup as an opportunity to take a faster third? I'm a bit confused though, if you go lair, it likely won't be up in time to defend against zealot/sentry pressure if you went third. I guess you are basically saying just play 2 base lair, drone up hard on 2 bases, and just take the third sooner rather than later, and delay mutas/infestors any sort of tech, and just go ling/speedroach off of 2 base lair and since you aren't getting tech, you can get lots of roaches to defend that third?
kinda, just get roaches and roachupgrades while building the third to defend against weird gateway pushes. also you can immidiately morph an overseer after you hit t2 to see what techpath he is going for and then react accordingly.
I am not sure what you are referring to, but you are saying go lair, make units, be 2 base, and use the 3 gate sentry slower army buildup as an opportunity to take a faster third? I'm a bit confused though, if you go lair, it likely won't be up in time to defend against zealot/sentry pressure if you went third. I guess you are basically saying just play 2 base lair, drone up hard on 2 bases, and just take the third sooner rather than later, and delay mutas/infestors any sort of tech, and just go ling/speedroach off of 2 base lair and since you aren't getting tech, you can get lots of roaches to defend that third?
You go 2 base Lair with Roach/Ling, and you oversaturate both bases, then take a third once you have Roach Speed done, then once your third is finished if you droned correctly you can almost insta saturate it, then immediately start responding to what Toss is doing. If he's trying to take a third, now you can mass units. If he's teching, you tech, etc. That's the best way to take a third on maps like you described.
Your scouting has to be top notch though. If he decides to do a timing while you're oversaturating, you need to see exactly when it moves out. You do not want to have to pull drones to stop any attacks (like you can do with 3 hatch vs 2) because you need those drones to be ahead once your third pops.
i wouldnt oversaturate and i wouldnt wait with taking the third till roachspeed is done.
In my experience, taking an early third against gateway expos while delaying hatch tech has it's own benefits. Especially against gateway-stargate expo builds that MC popularized. The earlier the third is, the easier it is to secure it against air agression. And I hate having to go hydra to get my third.
Well obviously if they go stargate or DT expand, then getting that fast third is the way to go. That's 'easy'. I'm talking about 3 gate expands - you have a really hard time getting a third against gateway pressure, and it either significantly delays lair or your third.
You can't use spines to defend your third, since creep won't be up against zealot/sentry pressure, and therefore you have to use roach/ling. On fast third, it's hard to make enough roach/ling to deny gd sentries.
if you think your opponent will allin you could just do the variation i pointed out which is better vs allins
I am not sure what you are referring to, but you are saying go lair, make units, be 2 base, and use the 3 gate sentry slower army buildup as an opportunity to take a faster third? I'm a bit confused though, if you go lair, it likely won't be up in time to defend against zealot/sentry pressure if you went third. I guess you are basically saying just play 2 base lair, drone up hard on 2 bases, and just take the third sooner rather than later, and delay mutas/infestors any sort of tech, and just go ling/speedroach off of 2 base lair and since you aren't getting tech, you can get lots of roaches to defend that third?
kinda, just get roaches and roachupgrades while building the third to defend against weird gateway pushes. also you can immidiately morph an overseer after you hit t2 to see what techpath he is going for and then react accordingly.
I am not sure what you are referring to, but you are saying go lair, make units, be 2 base, and use the 3 gate sentry slower army buildup as an opportunity to take a faster third? I'm a bit confused though, if you go lair, it likely won't be up in time to defend against zealot/sentry pressure if you went third. I guess you are basically saying just play 2 base lair, drone up hard on 2 bases, and just take the third sooner rather than later, and delay mutas/infestors any sort of tech, and just go ling/speedroach off of 2 base lair and since you aren't getting tech, you can get lots of roaches to defend that third?
You go 2 base Lair with Roach/Ling, and you oversaturate both bases, then take a third once you have Roach Speed done, then once your third is finished if you droned correctly you can almost insta saturate it, then immediately start responding to what Toss is doing. If he's trying to take a third, now you can mass units. If he's teching, you tech, etc. That's the best way to take a third on maps like you described.
Your scouting has to be top notch though. If he decides to do a timing while you're oversaturating, you need to see exactly when it moves out. You do not want to have to pull drones to stop any attacks (like you can do with 3 hatch vs 2) because you need those drones to be ahead once your third pops.
i wouldnt oversaturate and i wouldnt wait with taking the third till roachspeed is done.
Wait, really?
The reason I would oversaturate is because what if he decides to play passive macro and takes a third as well? You can't stop that on 2 base vs 2 base as far as I know... and the reason I wait for Roach Speed, or at least for it to be halfway done is because if he attacks it while it's building, slow roaches are just silly against FFs.
Against an early zealot-sentry pressure from a three gate you should defend with a single spine and roaches at your natural while punishing him for not having a wall or cannon in place in his nat with a ling counter attack. A protoss can't really attack you safely right after putting down his nexus. He needs cannons and some sim-city to defend (unless he does the 4 gate nexus cancel thing, but the nexus timing is 20 sec later then, so you can play safer).
You can't really afford that if you took your third. That's the thing - if you took third, you are vulnerable to pressure, if you didn't take third, you aren't vulnerable, but start to lose out the macro game. Lose lose
I understand what you guys are saying though. Go 2 base lair, and play macro by not teching and instead massing speedroaches, so you can better deny his third and defend yours, and get third before roach speed, but get lair during the meantime so you aren't doing nothing.
On January 04 2012 01:14 Belial88 wrote: I understand what you guys are saying though. Go 2 base lair, and play macro by not teching and instead massing speedroaches, so you can better deny his third and defend yours, and get third before roach speed, but get lair during the meantime so you aren't doing nothing.
This is almost exactly what I meant earlier on by getting out speed roaches with burrow to defend your third base. There are just way too many variations of 3 gate expand to take an early third against, generally they revolve around one power unit or one key upgrade on 2 bases, that takes advantage of the fact you only have hatchery tech units. (1-2 colossus, dt, stargate, blink, charge, etc....)
I think I have a replay from sc2rep that shows this perfectly (it's not me playing, I was just browsing around there for some ZvP stuff and found this really well executed macro game that involved using speed roaches with burrow to hold a 2 base colossus timing while the third hatch is going up on shakuras), I'll PM it to you if I can find it - my replay folder is really really disorganized and this one is from the korean server so it'll be hard to find the right one.
darkforce, I have a question for you about macro style in high level ZvP (mid-high masters NA). I often find myself with the standard roach hydra corruptor on 4 bases, maxed in food, and wanting to get to hive tech units to compete with P in late game. However I don't really know how to effectively trade down my roaches and hydras without immediately losing the game. Often I find myself attempting to engage protoss, trade down and reduce the colossus count so I can remax on infestor/corruptor/brood with a few ground units to fill out the army, but often I'm completely getting crushed and losing to the ensuing push where my units are trickling out of hatcheries and dying in small groups.
How do you go about trading effectively with protoss and keeping their army manageable? This is what bugs me the most about ZvP, I often lose games that I'm 40+ food ahead in the midgame since I am shitty at attacking protoss and trying to keep them down.
I lose my roaches because he manages to siege just in time, I'm lost with mech, I destroy his first comp but he is still equal and able to come roll me.
This is a high diamond game.
Additionally, vs Protoss, I feel I have enough units for their first push (don't have replays on this computer) but forcefields result in my army being destroyed, any tips for this? My comp for their push is speedling/roach.
I literally have not played a lot in a good 3 or 4 months (2 seasons) and my timings are terrible. So in general has the metagame change drastically since season 3? And also, what is the build for the two base roach-ling all in against toss again? I was going with a 14 pool w/ fast speed variation but I always seem to be getting the timings wrong QQ
Sorry for asking such general questions and thanks for any help!
darkforce, I have a question for you about macro style in high level ZvP (mid-high masters NA). I often find myself with the standard roach hydra corruptor on 4 bases, maxed in food, and wanting to get to hive tech units to compete with P in late game. However I don't really know how to effectively trade down my roaches and hydras without immediately losing the game. Often I find myself attempting to engage protoss, trade down and reduce the colossus count so I can remax on infestor/corruptor/brood with a few ground units to fill out the army, but often I'm completely getting crushed and losing to the ensuing push where my units are trickling out of hatcheries and dying in small groups.
How do you go about trading effectively with protoss and keeping their army manageable? This is what bugs me the most about ZvP, I often lose games that I'm 40+ food ahead in the midgame since I am shitty at attacking protoss and trying to keep them down.
Well, there are a couple of options, you can research drop kinda early for example, with drops you will generally trade units better than with just a frontal attack, especially coz u can drop groups of 4 roaches behind minerallines and burrow them if your opponent warps in units.
Or you attack when he takes his third.
Or, what i personally prefer, you just tech to t3 faster, and if you need to free up supply once you have the greater spire, either try to make runbyes/small attacks with small groups of units, or just kill your own roaches, so your opponent doesnt notice youre freeing up supply. having spines to buffer a bit against a push also help when youre maxed.
oh, and being 40 supply ahead of your opponent in the midgame is normal, that doesnt mean youre ahead. depending on composition that can actually mean youre behind.
overall you need to make your own experiences with those variations, depending on map and situation one or the other might be better. i dont know that perfectly myself. but especially against an inferior opponent i like going fast t3 when i feel like im a bit ahead.
Platinum Zerg, quite competent at the other MU except vs. P. They take a 3rd and I lose, regardless of my army comp, upgrades, and number of bases. If they game ends before then I'm in good shape. It seems like I always find myself in these situations where there's nothing I can do to hurt their end game army composition. Is there any common mistake or something I just don't know about? In day 9's terms, this is giving me a lot of "chemicals".
EPT
