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On February 23 2012 09:37 Olsson wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 09:12 mooseman1710 wrote:
in roach vs roach zvz when is it safe to get your third? how do you deal with Zergs in ZvZ mass spines with infestors?
mid masters Well the answer to the second question is obviously to outexpand him, get drops and nydus. Three spines = one lost expo. And spines can't be used offensively so you're free to drone. He can't possibly spine all the places so going drops or nydus is good to do some damage. Watch out for his tech switches.
I wouldn't recommend nydus. That is a huge gas dump and if you are only on two base you are going to fall behing in upgrades + roach/hydra/infestor battles. 300 gas is a lot (200 for nydus canal 100 for worm).
Nydus is fine late game but yeah would rather go roach/hydra/infestor with better upgrades if possible.
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On February 22 2012 16:46 sanddbox_sc2 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2012 16:10 6xFPCs wrote:On February 22 2012 00:03 Thraundil wrote:On February 21 2012 23:01 Zorkmid wrote:
I'm having a really hard time against mass blink stalkers play. I've tried most unit compositions against it:
Ling/Roach, Roach/Hydra (always with infestors)
Broodlords
Ultras
I'm at the point where I'm not really sure what to do when I scout 6-7 gates and a twilight council...
Any ideas about how to effectively play against this strat? I am willing to bet a lot that you fall for the biggest mistake of them all when you scout. This is based purely on assumption as you dont give much info but, here's a guess. You fly in your overlord(s)/overseer, you see a number of gates just finishing up and a twilight researching. And you imidiately panic and begin producing units. This is not the way to do it. Day[9] did a very nice daily (Rets super standard ZvP - it was this past sunday I believe) about a similar topic. Here's the deal. When warpgate is just finishing, and gateways morphing. The protoss has maybe 3-4 sentries which he made from his initial gateway. Subtract one from this number for every scouting zealot. And then a full warpin round from the newly morphed gates. Lets say you scout these gates morph at 8:30 (fairly standard timing iirc for 6 gate blink). This means at 8:30 he has 4 sentries and 6 stalkers. Likely not even with blink yet (most blink pushes want +2 attack before pushing, and this research is slower than blink so they line them up to finish at the same time). Can he push? Not really. Maybe he can if you let him have a safe proxy pylon. This means when you scout this build coming, make another 10 or so drones! It is vital that you are ahead in economy. THEN start making units. It is also vital your injects do not slip up. And vital that you're active with your upgrades - +1 melee and +1 ranged is golden vs blink. Follow up with +2 on whichever unit you seem to be building more. I personally like roach/sling slowly adding infestors (slowly! you dont wanna rush there at all). But 3 nearly-saturated bases, mineral wise, and 3 gas worth of roach + sling production. Maybe with a macro hatch or even two. Should hold 2-base blink play. When he expands, this is when you can start droning and teching again. Roach/ling with 2 control groups, mind. Attack with your roaches from the front and flank with your speed zerglings. The force of blink stalkers, as you know, is their ability to jump to the back, thus keeping the entire firepower of the army alive even though by rights the units should have died. Sling flank limits this, allowing you to decimate him swiftly. To sum up: DO NOT panic! Do not begin making units too soon! If you end up ~even on harvesters with him because you panic and make units too early, he has the advantage because of how dastardly cost efficient blink stalkers are. You will want to have your 3 bases saturated with mineral drones (this means 48 drones mining mineral and 9 on gas for 57 drones total as the very minimum. Aim for more like 62-65 so you have room to make a crawler or two if needed.) Remember, mineral saturation w/ 2 gas = doubleclick drones at a base. If there are exactly 2½ rows this means you're golden. If there are more than 3 rows, transfer the surplus. Abit of a long answer but I hope it helps. MORE DRONES! Being up a base means nothing if youre 50 vs 50 workers. 60 vs 50 is better. 65 vs 50 is what you will want to aim for in time. 70 vs 50 is the optimal scenario. Remember your scouting! If he somehow sneaks a third while you think he is all in, it could be game ending, as him taking his third either means you must end the game right there, or take a fourth and start your brood lord tech imidiately. (Roach/ling/infestor is so strong to push vs a primarily stalker blink army). I'm jumping in late here, but do you have a replay of this (the droning up to 70ish before pumping units)? What you say makes sense, in that having a superior econ means that you can out-trade his efficient army with sheer numbers over time, but I would like to see several things, including the roach/ling balance that works, how well-timed the injects need to be to pull this off (i.e., how much attention can I spare for micro?), and how bad cliff-blinking can be for this approach. I assume you're on three base with three hatches, no macro hatch? I will go watch that daily you mentioned. GM Zerg here - I would recommend you avoid that advice entirely. Drones are good units, but most zergs have a very simplistic "making some drones was good, so obviously making more is even more good!" mentality. In truth, stopping between 60-65 drones and just pumping roach ling off of 4 gas (3 bases + macro hatch) will a)give you enough units to hold any 2 base allin and b) allow you to deny a greedy third. In short, the Toss's only option is to sit on 2 bases and tech up which gives you the opportunity to tech up to infestors or whatever you want. Sometimes Stephano just maxes on roach ling and chills in a concave outside the Protoss' ramp, but that is vulnerable to really stupid things like not pushing out until the 20 minute mark. The reason you'll want to cut drones, especially vs a 6/7/8 gate, is because small numbers of units will get cost ineffectively obliterated. The more units you have, the more cost effective they'll be, making up for any loss in economy.
masters zerg agreeing with this guy. That guy's post was horrible. Even workers on 3 bases vs 2 bases is a huge difference, 16+16+16 workers is a huuuuge econ advantage over 24+24. I also think the guy doesn't understand worker saturation at all either... 24 is max number on a 8 patch mineral field, 3 per patch. You just have diminishing returns after 16, but 'optimal' is always whatever the situation calls for, and you of course want more, unless of course, you need to make units. Which you kind of do.
And going infestors against 2 base protoss is never a good idea, unless you've gained a lead (with which you could do whatever you wanted, not just infestors).
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Used to be masters zerg who just got demoted to diamond asking for help.....
Literally I got dropped from master league because of my ZvP. Right now I'm going 70% in ZvZ, 50% ZvT, 25% ZvP (literally, did sc2gears on all my games from this season). Been doing muta/ling/roach and can't ever seem to prevent protoss from getting to 200/200 and attack moving my army, losing maybe 5 food in the process. Tried hydras, they suck horribly versus literally any protoss unit (there's this cool thing called colossus that protoss makes, kind of shuts down any hydra play), tried baneling drops with infestors, and even diamond protosses can a-click on overlords before they can drop any banelings.
Is there some kind of style that doesn't involve allining or hoping that your opponent is hella terrible? I don't mind playing defensive styles, but seriously, I often get replays where I'm maxed on roach ling muta and protoss is around 130 food on 2 bases, and I feel like there must be something you can fucking do to prevent him from getting to 200/200 if you're 70 food ahead. It's not even like I'm losing to intelligent play, I've lost 6 games in a row to 2 base blink stalker immortal.
There must be something obvious that I'm missing about the matchup, and right now I have no fucking clue what it is.
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On February 23 2012 14:53 Belial88 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2012 16:46 sanddbox_sc2 wrote:On February 22 2012 16:10 6xFPCs wrote:On February 22 2012 00:03 Thraundil wrote:On February 21 2012 23:01 Zorkmid wrote:
I'm having a really hard time against mass blink stalkers play. I've tried most unit compositions against it:
Ling/Roach, Roach/Hydra (always with infestors)
Broodlords
Ultras
I'm at the point where I'm not really sure what to do when I scout 6-7 gates and a twilight council...
Any ideas about how to effectively play against this strat? I am willing to bet a lot that you fall for the biggest mistake of them all when you scout. This is based purely on assumption as you dont give much info but, here's a guess. You fly in your overlord(s)/overseer, you see a number of gates just finishing up and a twilight researching. And you imidiately panic and begin producing units. This is not the way to do it. Day[9] did a very nice daily (Rets super standard ZvP - it was this past sunday I believe) about a similar topic. Here's the deal. When warpgate is just finishing, and gateways morphing. The protoss has maybe 3-4 sentries which he made from his initial gateway. Subtract one from this number for every scouting zealot. And then a full warpin round from the newly morphed gates. Lets say you scout these gates morph at 8:30 (fairly standard timing iirc for 6 gate blink). This means at 8:30 he has 4 sentries and 6 stalkers. Likely not even with blink yet (most blink pushes want +2 attack before pushing, and this research is slower than blink so they line them up to finish at the same time). Can he push? Not really. Maybe he can if you let him have a safe proxy pylon. This means when you scout this build coming, make another 10 or so drones! It is vital that you are ahead in economy. THEN start making units. It is also vital your injects do not slip up. And vital that you're active with your upgrades - +1 melee and +1 ranged is golden vs blink. Follow up with +2 on whichever unit you seem to be building more. I personally like roach/sling slowly adding infestors (slowly! you dont wanna rush there at all). But 3 nearly-saturated bases, mineral wise, and 3 gas worth of roach + sling production. Maybe with a macro hatch or even two. Should hold 2-base blink play. When he expands, this is when you can start droning and teching again. Roach/ling with 2 control groups, mind. Attack with your roaches from the front and flank with your speed zerglings. The force of blink stalkers, as you know, is their ability to jump to the back, thus keeping the entire firepower of the army alive even though by rights the units should have died. Sling flank limits this, allowing you to decimate him swiftly. To sum up: DO NOT panic! Do not begin making units too soon! If you end up ~even on harvesters with him because you panic and make units too early, he has the advantage because of how dastardly cost efficient blink stalkers are. You will want to have your 3 bases saturated with mineral drones (this means 48 drones mining mineral and 9 on gas for 57 drones total as the very minimum. Aim for more like 62-65 so you have room to make a crawler or two if needed.) Remember, mineral saturation w/ 2 gas = doubleclick drones at a base. If there are exactly 2½ rows this means you're golden. If there are more than 3 rows, transfer the surplus. Abit of a long answer but I hope it helps. MORE DRONES! Being up a base means nothing if youre 50 vs 50 workers. 60 vs 50 is better. 65 vs 50 is what you will want to aim for in time. 70 vs 50 is the optimal scenario. Remember your scouting! If he somehow sneaks a third while you think he is all in, it could be game ending, as him taking his third either means you must end the game right there, or take a fourth and start your brood lord tech imidiately. (Roach/ling/infestor is so strong to push vs a primarily stalker blink army). I'm jumping in late here, but do you have a replay of this (the droning up to 70ish before pumping units)? What you say makes sense, in that having a superior econ means that you can out-trade his efficient army with sheer numbers over time, but I would like to see several things, including the roach/ling balance that works, how well-timed the injects need to be to pull this off (i.e., how much attention can I spare for micro?), and how bad cliff-blinking can be for this approach. I assume you're on three base with three hatches, no macro hatch? I will go watch that daily you mentioned. GM Zerg here - I would recommend you avoid that advice entirely. Drones are good units, but most zergs have a very simplistic "making some drones was good, so obviously making more is even more good!" mentality. In truth, stopping between 60-65 drones and just pumping roach ling off of 4 gas (3 bases + macro hatch) will a)give you enough units to hold any 2 base allin and b) allow you to deny a greedy third. In short, the Toss's only option is to sit on 2 bases and tech up which gives you the opportunity to tech up to infestors or whatever you want. Sometimes Stephano just maxes on roach ling and chills in a concave outside the Protoss' ramp, but that is vulnerable to really stupid things like not pushing out until the 20 minute mark. The reason you'll want to cut drones, especially vs a 6/7/8 gate, is because small numbers of units will get cost ineffectively obliterated. The more units you have, the more cost effective they'll be, making up for any loss in economy. masters zerg agreeing with this guy. That guy's post was horrible. Even workers on 3 bases vs 2 bases is a huge difference, 16+16+16 workers is a huuuuge econ advantage over 24+24. I also think the guy doesn't understand worker saturation at all either... 24 is max number on a 8 patch mineral field, 3 per patch. You just have diminishing returns after 16, but 'optimal' is always whatever the situation calls for, and you of course want more, unless of course, you need to make units. Which you kind of do.
Did you even read his post ? Basically he's saying exactly the same thing as you...
Fyi : Double clicking drones on a base with 2 gas means you'd have to retire out 4 drones. So 2 row and a half means 2 drones per mineral patch (16 drones on minerals + 4 between gas and hatch (you're not counting the 2 drones inside the geysers)). That means he has fully saturated all of his bases. Where do you see that he's putting 24+24 ? Nor do he says to fully saturate them with 3 drones per minerals.
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On February 23 2012 16:04 HyperionDreamer wrote:
Used to be masters zerg who just got demoted to diamond asking for help.....
Literally I got dropped from master league because of my ZvP. Right now I'm going 70% in ZvZ, 50% ZvT, 25% ZvP (literally, did sc2gears on all my games from this season). Been doing muta/ling/roach and can't ever seem to prevent protoss from getting to 200/200 and attack moving my army, losing maybe 5 food in the process. Tried hydras, they suck horribly versus literally any protoss unit (there's this cool thing called colossus that protoss makes, kind of shuts down any hydra play), tried baneling drops with infestors, and even diamond protosses can a-click on overlords before they can drop any banelings.
Is there some kind of style that doesn't involve allining or hoping that your opponent is hella terrible? I don't mind playing defensive styles, but seriously, I often get replays where I'm maxed on roach ling muta and protoss is around 130 food on 2 bases, and I feel like there must be something you can fucking do to prevent him from getting to 200/200 if you're 70 food ahead. It's not even like I'm losing to intelligent play, I've lost 6 games in a row to 2 base blink stalker immortal.
There must be something obvious that I'm missing about the matchup, and right now I have no fucking clue what it is.
My match-ups are the opposite of yours, my ZvP is about 61%, so it's pretty decent. I feel like the biggest thing against protoss is knowing when you are safe to drone, since you absolutely need a superior econ against a protoss since z units are so disgustingly cost ineffective. Then, the important thing is to do with your economy is to bring the fight to the protoss. Get in his face and attack multiple places at once, because one good engagement for toss near your base is game over, since they can just camp your rally point and warp in. Protoss is all about trying to engage in chokes or behind walls, so never just attack into that, if you can get a flank on a maxed deathball, then you'd be surprised that a zerg army can actually win. I guess these are just really general 'concepts'.
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sigh my ZvP is actually so horrible that I am thinking of switching to protoss, I cant do anything in this horrible matchup and the unit called the colossus is actually a joke. I feel your pain HyperionDreamer I am getting really tired of this matchup and tried anything to get my play up. Guess its back to the brainless muta play and roflstomp every a moving protoss out there...
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Damn my ZvZ is my worst matchup but asking for help idk even where to start lol. Is making like 8 mutas just for long term light harass good? Then I just go back to roaches and exposing while he deals with it? A better question would be what are pros and cons with small muta count?
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On February 23 2012 19:38 Mvrio wrote:
Damn my ZvZ is my worst matchup but asking for help idk even where to start lol. Is making like 8 mutas just for long term light harass good? Then I just go back to roaches and exposing while he deals with it? A better question would be what are pros and cons with small muta count?
Code A Leenock vs July first match, Leenock made like 10 mutas, took his third base while denying his opponents third with mutas, after that he just transitioned to roach, hydra, infestor. So mutas were just his way to get third while denying his opponents third.
I think this works kinda great on larger maps where it takes time for enemys roaches to counter attack you while you deny his third with mutas, so you have time to deny his third and then just attack his roach count if he tries to counter attack. On smaller maps your opponent can just attack you and go for kinda base race where he tries to snipe as many important buildings as he can before your mutas kill his roaches, you most likely loose on situations like this if he gets 2 hatches sniped. Just watch the Leenock vs July match 1 on Metropolis.
Here is link, its free to watch as its first set http://www.gomtv.net/2012gsls1/vod/66866/?set=1&lang=
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In ZvZ I know some pros like Idra and Dimaga play with Roach Hydra and then add on infestors. While others open really fast infestors like Zenio. Myself I go double ups with roaches and add on infestors when I get a third. I saw Dimaga do similiar to what I did (not saying he copied me just we're playing the same) but instead of infestors he got hydras and absolutely crushed a guy going roach infestor in ladder. Therefore I would just like to ask you guys that are better than me in ZvZ as it's not my best matchup I'm only decent at it and I'm falling between high and mid masters on EU.
Infestors or Hydras first?
- Infestors. Gives you more versatility ofcourse, you can play more defensive with it and on some maps you can really drone freely with infestors because of the chokes leading into the bases. You can also harass with infestors.
- Hydras. Straight up a more reliable tool in fighting than infestors.
Those are my thoughts on it though I'm not sure I'm correct. Thoughts about this?
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On February 23 2012 21:22 Olsson wrote:
In ZvZ I know some pros like Idra and Dimaga play with Roach Hydra and then add on infestors. While others open really fast infestors like Zenio. Myself I go double ups with roaches and add on infestors when I get a third. I saw Dimaga do similiar to what I did (not saying he copied me just we're playing the same) but instead of infestors he got hydras and absolutely crushed a guy going roach infestor in ladder. Therefore I would just like to ask you guys that are better than me in ZvZ as it's not my best matchup I'm only decent at it and I'm falling between high and mid masters on EU.
Infestors or Hydras first?
- Infestors. Gives you more versatility ofcourse, you can play more defensive with it and on some maps you can really drone freely with infestors because of the chokes leading into the bases. You can also harass with infestors.
- Hydras. Straight up a more reliable tool in fighting than infestors.
Those are my thoughts on it though I'm not sure I'm correct. Thoughts about this?
I would say if you can get fight on creep and you have better concave roach hydra wins against infestor roach. But if your opponent manages to fungal all your units while you are stacked you dont have any chances. it takes 3 fungals to kill hydras and 4 fungals to kill roaches.
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On February 22 2012 06:15 Clarity_nl wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2012 05:47 Guamshin wrote:3rd time im posting this T_T. Very standard zvt, i hatch first he goes for the hellion expand. My macro was good but around 10 min he goes a push just when i try to take a third which destroyed me i don't know why but i think i overdroned a little bit or engaged to early :/. http://drop.sc/115374 Well first off, you macrod well. I don't know what league you're in but that was pretty smooth. Also, nice overlord scout, you basically knew he was going marine tank. When your pool pops and you make your two queens, always make 1 set of lings. Take a tower, but more importantly: scout his front/natural. Didn't matter much in this case, but it can! As for why you lost, most of it is not seeing the attack coming before it hit the tower on your side of the map. This can be hard with hellions, but if you're staying on 2base you could've stopped droning a little bit earlier and made some more lings, spread out your creep a bit by moving 1 spine at a time with queen support etc. You had a ling on your tower when the hellions contained you, move it to HIS tower and morph banes the moment you see him coming. You did a good job with waiting as long as possible, got a bit unlucky with bane speed not finishing. What killed you is that his push arrived at your natural, meaning you couldn't flank it. I think you still could've held had you unrooted your spines and backed them up, and spread your lings/banes to the left and right of your nat before engaging (as opposed to all of them coming from the ramp). Short version: Try to always have a ling hidden so that when the hellions contain you, you have a way to see if he's moving out. If he's moving out you have to force the hellions back, or kill them. Then you morph banes in two locations (your natural and your flanking spot, your third for example) and crush the attack (still wait as long as possible, you dont want to stop his attack, you want to crush it), and most likely win with a counter seeing as he didn't have a wall at his natural. I hope this answered your question. ^^
Thank you for your post ^^.
I got another replay, a zvp.
He goes FFE i go 3 hatch before gas. I forgot to overlord scout untill very late which was pretty bad but anyway I was thinking to go Mutalisks untill i saw like 5 phoenixes, so i basicly fell into a very weird position. I didn't know how to respond. So i went more aggresive since he took his third(roach hydra composition), attack made me lose my whole army and he got his third base while i was still on my third.
Then he just got a deathball and rolled over me. What's the right response to this?
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On February 23 2012 18:40 KimJongChill wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 16:04 HyperionDreamer wrote:
Used to be masters zerg who just got demoted to diamond asking for help.....
Literally I got dropped from master league because of my ZvP. Right now I'm going 70% in ZvZ, 50% ZvT, 25% ZvP (literally, did sc2gears on all my games from this season). Been doing muta/ling/roach and can't ever seem to prevent protoss from getting to 200/200 and attack moving my army, losing maybe 5 food in the process. Tried hydras, they suck horribly versus literally any protoss unit (there's this cool thing called colossus that protoss makes, kind of shuts down any hydra play), tried baneling drops with infestors, and even diamond protosses can a-click on overlords before they can drop any banelings.
Is there some kind of style that doesn't involve allining or hoping that your opponent is hella terrible? I don't mind playing defensive styles, but seriously, I often get replays where I'm maxed on roach ling muta and protoss is around 130 food on 2 bases, and I feel like there must be something you can fucking do to prevent him from getting to 200/200 if you're 70 food ahead. It's not even like I'm losing to intelligent play, I've lost 6 games in a row to 2 base blink stalker immortal.
There must be something obvious that I'm missing about the matchup, and right now I have no fucking clue what it is. My match-ups are the opposite of yours, my ZvP is about 61%, so it's pretty decent. I feel like the biggest thing against protoss is knowing when you are safe to drone, since you absolutely need a superior econ against a protoss since z units are so disgustingly cost ineffective. Then, the important thing is to do with your economy is to bring the fight to the protoss. Get in his face and attack multiple places at once, because one good engagement for toss near your base is game over, since they can just camp your rally point and warp in. Protoss is all about trying to engage in chokes or behind walls, so never just attack into that, if you can get a flank on a maxed deathball, then you'd be surprised that a zerg army can actually win. I guess these are just really general 'concepts'.
I find that as soon as I can get the game past the stage where I'm on 3 bases and protoss is doing a 2 base timing, my win rate is a LOT better, since my mechanics and decision making are a lot better than protosses in diamond league. But there's such a huge variety of 2 base allins that protoss can do it throws me off a lot. I just need to sit down and watch a whole bunch of protoss replays and get all the timings in my head, I guess.
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its the same for me, if i can get in a real macrogame, i win more than vs silly 2base stuff (or even 1base if i scout his wall but i dont scout if he really built his nexus ...)
whats the best way to fend off +2 blinkstalker? roach ling with burrow?
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On February 24 2012 02:14 Zeon0 wrote:
its the same for me, if i can get in a real macrogame, i win more than vs silly 2base stuff (or even 1base if i scout his wall but i dont scout if he really built his nexus ...)
whats the best way to fend off +2 blinkstalker? roach ling with burrow?
Mass roach/ling off of 3 bases/4 gas. I like to grab +1 range and speed, I guess burrow if you have the extra gas. Carefully work towards infestor and try to engage only on creep and kill proxy pylons, while trying to prevent toss from getting critical death mass. The biggest thing imo is to identify the all-in and immediately drone up to at least 60 drones on three base--you can probably get even more--since the toss probably won't attack until like 10 min.
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On February 24 2012 02:34 KimJongChill wrote:Show nested quote +On February 24 2012 02:14 Zeon0 wrote:
its the same for me, if i can get in a real macrogame, i win more than vs silly 2base stuff (or even 1base if i scout his wall but i dont scout if he really built his nexus ...)
whats the best way to fend off +2 blinkstalker? roach ling with burrow? Mass roach/ling off of 3 bases/4 gas. I like to grab +1 range and speed, I guess burrow if you have the extra gas. Carefully work towards infestor and try to engage only on creep and kill proxy pylons, while trying to prevent toss from getting critical death mass. The biggest thing imo is to identify the all-in and immediately drone up to at least 60 drones on three base--you can probably get even more--since the toss probably won't attack until like 10 min.
Mhm this is the best way 100%.
Another question, when do you prefer to take your 3rd/4th gas? (zvp off gasless 3 hatch)
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I'm not sure if this is a valid question, but I was watching a pro stream recently, and I noticed that when he was producing units as a zerg player, he was able to hold his keys and it would go much faster than when I do he same. I was just wondering how to change it so it would go faster.
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I'm not sure if this is a valid question, but I was watching a pro stream recently, and I noticed that when he was producing units as a zerg player, he was able to hold his keys and it would go much faster than when I do he same. I was just wondering how to change it so it would go faster.
Hello,
Go to: Control Panel => Keyboard.
As you see in the "Speed tab", you can change the delay between the keystrokes. If you drag the pin to max, you'll be able to make units faster. Also take note that this will help spell spamming (forcefielding, storming fungals etc.) aswell.
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On February 23 2012 17:01 RaiZ wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 14:53 Belial88 wrote:On February 22 2012 16:46 sanddbox_sc2 wrote:On February 22 2012 16:10 6xFPCs wrote:On February 22 2012 00:03 Thraundil wrote:On February 21 2012 23:01 Zorkmid wrote:
I'm having a really hard time against mass blink stalkers play. I've tried most unit compositions against it:
Ling/Roach, Roach/Hydra (always with infestors)
Broodlords
Ultras
I'm at the point where I'm not really sure what to do when I scout 6-7 gates and a twilight council...
Any ideas about how to effectively play against this strat? I am willing to bet a lot that you fall for the biggest mistake of them all when you scout. This is based purely on assumption as you dont give much info but, here's a guess. You fly in your overlord(s)/overseer, you see a number of gates just finishing up and a twilight researching. And you imidiately panic and begin producing units. This is not the way to do it. Day[9] did a very nice daily (Rets super standard ZvP - it was this past sunday I believe) about a similar topic. Here's the deal. When warpgate is just finishing, and gateways morphing. The protoss has maybe 3-4 sentries which he made from his initial gateway. Subtract one from this number for every scouting zealot. And then a full warpin round from the newly morphed gates. Lets say you scout these gates morph at 8:30 (fairly standard timing iirc for 6 gate blink). This means at 8:30 he has 4 sentries and 6 stalkers. Likely not even with blink yet (most blink pushes want +2 attack before pushing, and this research is slower than blink so they line them up to finish at the same time). Can he push? Not really. Maybe he can if you let him have a safe proxy pylon. This means when you scout this build coming, make another 10 or so drones! It is vital that you are ahead in economy. THEN start making units. It is also vital your injects do not slip up. And vital that you're active with your upgrades - +1 melee and +1 ranged is golden vs blink. Follow up with +2 on whichever unit you seem to be building more. I personally like roach/sling slowly adding infestors (slowly! you dont wanna rush there at all). But 3 nearly-saturated bases, mineral wise, and 3 gas worth of roach + sling production. Maybe with a macro hatch or even two. Should hold 2-base blink play. When he expands, this is when you can start droning and teching again. Roach/ling with 2 control groups, mind. Attack with your roaches from the front and flank with your speed zerglings. The force of blink stalkers, as you know, is their ability to jump to the back, thus keeping the entire firepower of the army alive even though by rights the units should have died. Sling flank limits this, allowing you to decimate him swiftly. To sum up: DO NOT panic! Do not begin making units too soon! If you end up ~even on harvesters with him because you panic and make units too early, he has the advantage because of how dastardly cost efficient blink stalkers are. You will want to have your 3 bases saturated with mineral drones (this means 48 drones mining mineral and 9 on gas for 57 drones total as the very minimum. Aim for more like 62-65 so you have room to make a crawler or two if needed.) Remember, mineral saturation w/ 2 gas = doubleclick drones at a base. If there are exactly 2½ rows this means you're golden. If there are more than 3 rows, transfer the surplus. Abit of a long answer but I hope it helps. MORE DRONES! Being up a base means nothing if youre 50 vs 50 workers. 60 vs 50 is better. 65 vs 50 is what you will want to aim for in time. 70 vs 50 is the optimal scenario. Remember your scouting! If he somehow sneaks a third while you think he is all in, it could be game ending, as him taking his third either means you must end the game right there, or take a fourth and start your brood lord tech imidiately. (Roach/ling/infestor is so strong to push vs a primarily stalker blink army). I'm jumping in late here, but do you have a replay of this (the droning up to 70ish before pumping units)? What you say makes sense, in that having a superior econ means that you can out-trade his efficient army with sheer numbers over time, but I would like to see several things, including the roach/ling balance that works, how well-timed the injects need to be to pull this off (i.e., how much attention can I spare for micro?), and how bad cliff-blinking can be for this approach. I assume you're on three base with three hatches, no macro hatch? I will go watch that daily you mentioned. GM Zerg here - I would recommend you avoid that advice entirely. Drones are good units, but most zergs have a very simplistic "making some drones was good, so obviously making more is even more good!" mentality. In truth, stopping between 60-65 drones and just pumping roach ling off of 4 gas (3 bases + macro hatch) will a)give you enough units to hold any 2 base allin and b) allow you to deny a greedy third. In short, the Toss's only option is to sit on 2 bases and tech up which gives you the opportunity to tech up to infestors or whatever you want. Sometimes Stephano just maxes on roach ling and chills in a concave outside the Protoss' ramp, but that is vulnerable to really stupid things like not pushing out until the 20 minute mark. The reason you'll want to cut drones, especially vs a 6/7/8 gate, is because small numbers of units will get cost ineffectively obliterated. The more units you have, the more cost effective they'll be, making up for any loss in economy. masters zerg agreeing with this guy. That guy's post was horrible. Even workers on 3 bases vs 2 bases is a huge difference, 16+16+16 workers is a huuuuge econ advantage over 24+24. I also think the guy doesn't understand worker saturation at all either... 24 is max number on a 8 patch mineral field, 3 per patch. You just have diminishing returns after 16, but 'optimal' is always whatever the situation calls for, and you of course want more, unless of course, you need to make units. Which you kind of do. Did you even read his post ? Basically he's saying exactly the same thing as you... Fyi : Double clicking drones on a base with 2 gas means you'd have to retire out 4 drones. So 2 row and a half means 2 drones per mineral patch (16 drones on minerals + 4 between gas and hatch (you're not counting the 2 drones inside the geysers)). That means he has fully saturated all of his bases. Where do you see that he's putting 24+24 ? Nor do he says to fully saturate them with 3 drones per minerals.
24 is full mineral saturation, not 16... All that happens is after 16 drones, you get marginally diminishing returns. But you still get additional returns. So the 15th drone gives more additional income than the 19th than the 24th, but they all still give additional income. And, the income boost by going 3 hatch is not necessarily by having more workers, but by saturating better.
Hence, why 16 drones on base 1, 16 on base 2, and 16 on base 3, is a huge econ advantage over 24 workers each on 2 bases. Even 14 drones on each of 3 bases is better than 24 on 2.
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In this ZvP I just played the guy FFE'd and cannoned my natural http://drop.sc/118578. How do I stop that and should I have gg'ed there?
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On February 24 2012 07:07 Belial88 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 17:01 RaiZ wrote:On February 23 2012 14:53 Belial88 wrote:On February 22 2012 16:46 sanddbox_sc2 wrote:On February 22 2012 16:10 6xFPCs wrote:On February 22 2012 00:03 Thraundil wrote:On February 21 2012 23:01 Zorkmid wrote:
I'm having a really hard time against mass blink stalkers play. I've tried most unit compositions against it:
Ling/Roach, Roach/Hydra (always with infestors)
Broodlords
Ultras
I'm at the point where I'm not really sure what to do when I scout 6-7 gates and a twilight council...
Any ideas about how to effectively play against this strat? I am willing to bet a lot that you fall for the biggest mistake of them all when you scout. This is based purely on assumption as you dont give much info but, here's a guess. You fly in your overlord(s)/overseer, you see a number of gates just finishing up and a twilight researching. And you imidiately panic and begin producing units. This is not the way to do it. Day[9] did a very nice daily (Rets super standard ZvP - it was this past sunday I believe) about a similar topic. Here's the deal. When warpgate is just finishing, and gateways morphing. The protoss has maybe 3-4 sentries which he made from his initial gateway. Subtract one from this number for every scouting zealot. And then a full warpin round from the newly morphed gates. Lets say you scout these gates morph at 8:30 (fairly standard timing iirc for 6 gate blink). This means at 8:30 he has 4 sentries and 6 stalkers. Likely not even with blink yet (most blink pushes want +2 attack before pushing, and this research is slower than blink so they line them up to finish at the same time). Can he push? Not really. Maybe he can if you let him have a safe proxy pylon. This means when you scout this build coming, make another 10 or so drones! It is vital that you are ahead in economy. THEN start making units. It is also vital your injects do not slip up. And vital that you're active with your upgrades - +1 melee and +1 ranged is golden vs blink. Follow up with +2 on whichever unit you seem to be building more. I personally like roach/sling slowly adding infestors (slowly! you dont wanna rush there at all). But 3 nearly-saturated bases, mineral wise, and 3 gas worth of roach + sling production. Maybe with a macro hatch or even two. Should hold 2-base blink play. When he expands, this is when you can start droning and teching again. Roach/ling with 2 control groups, mind. Attack with your roaches from the front and flank with your speed zerglings. The force of blink stalkers, as you know, is their ability to jump to the back, thus keeping the entire firepower of the army alive even though by rights the units should have died. Sling flank limits this, allowing you to decimate him swiftly. To sum up: DO NOT panic! Do not begin making units too soon! If you end up ~even on harvesters with him because you panic and make units too early, he has the advantage because of how dastardly cost efficient blink stalkers are. You will want to have your 3 bases saturated with mineral drones (this means 48 drones mining mineral and 9 on gas for 57 drones total as the very minimum. Aim for more like 62-65 so you have room to make a crawler or two if needed.) Remember, mineral saturation w/ 2 gas = doubleclick drones at a base. If there are exactly 2½ rows this means you're golden. If there are more than 3 rows, transfer the surplus. Abit of a long answer but I hope it helps. MORE DRONES! Being up a base means nothing if youre 50 vs 50 workers. 60 vs 50 is better. 65 vs 50 is what you will want to aim for in time. 70 vs 50 is the optimal scenario. Remember your scouting! If he somehow sneaks a third while you think he is all in, it could be game ending, as him taking his third either means you must end the game right there, or take a fourth and start your brood lord tech imidiately. (Roach/ling/infestor is so strong to push vs a primarily stalker blink army). I'm jumping in late here, but do you have a replay of this (the droning up to 70ish before pumping units)? What you say makes sense, in that having a superior econ means that you can out-trade his efficient army with sheer numbers over time, but I would like to see several things, including the roach/ling balance that works, how well-timed the injects need to be to pull this off (i.e., how much attention can I spare for micro?), and how bad cliff-blinking can be for this approach. I assume you're on three base with three hatches, no macro hatch? I will go watch that daily you mentioned. GM Zerg here - I would recommend you avoid that advice entirely. Drones are good units, but most zergs have a very simplistic "making some drones was good, so obviously making more is even more good!" mentality. In truth, stopping between 60-65 drones and just pumping roach ling off of 4 gas (3 bases + macro hatch) will a)give you enough units to hold any 2 base allin and b) allow you to deny a greedy third. In short, the Toss's only option is to sit on 2 bases and tech up which gives you the opportunity to tech up to infestors or whatever you want. Sometimes Stephano just maxes on roach ling and chills in a concave outside the Protoss' ramp, but that is vulnerable to really stupid things like not pushing out until the 20 minute mark. The reason you'll want to cut drones, especially vs a 6/7/8 gate, is because small numbers of units will get cost ineffectively obliterated. The more units you have, the more cost effective they'll be, making up for any loss in economy. masters zerg agreeing with this guy. That guy's post was horrible. Even workers on 3 bases vs 2 bases is a huge difference, 16+16+16 workers is a huuuuge econ advantage over 24+24. I also think the guy doesn't understand worker saturation at all either... 24 is max number on a 8 patch mineral field, 3 per patch. You just have diminishing returns after 16, but 'optimal' is always whatever the situation calls for, and you of course want more, unless of course, you need to make units. Which you kind of do. Did you even read his post ? Basically he's saying exactly the same thing as you... Fyi : Double clicking drones on a base with 2 gas means you'd have to retire out 4 drones. So 2 row and a half means 2 drones per mineral patch (16 drones on minerals + 4 between gas and hatch (you're not counting the 2 drones inside the geysers)). That means he has fully saturated all of his bases. Where do you see that he's putting 24+24 ? Nor do he says to fully saturate them with 3 drones per minerals. 24 is full mineral saturation, not 16... All that happens is after 16 drones, you get marginally diminishing returns. But you still get additional returns. So the 15th drone gives more additional income than the 19th than the 24th, but they all still give additional income. And, the income boost by going 3 hatch is not necessarily by having more workers, but by saturating better. Hence, why 16 drones on base 1, 16 on base 2, and 16 on base 3, is a huge econ advantage over 24 workers each on 2 bases. Even 14 drones on each of 3 bases is better than 24 on 2.
Noone argues against that 16x3 drones is far superior to 24x2 probes. If you jump back and read my post again, what you will see me write is that "48 drones mining mineral". Of course I should have clarified that I meant "48 drones mining mineral spread equally amongst 3 bases" - but this is what I did indeed mean.
Nor does anyone argue that 16 drones is, infact, full saturation. But, I think it is very much so implied in all of the above quoted posts that "drone until saturated then swap to next base" means "get 16 drones on mineral per base, and you are now saturated with income to handle any 2-base play". Of course you want more drones as the game proceeds, and you probably do want something in the likes of 18-20 drones mining mineral depending on how many close patches there are (as optimal drone saturation depends heavily on this! Do NOT automatically assume that 3x8=24 and then get 24 drones. Its 2xC+3xF where C is amount of close patches and F is amount of far patches, it varies from map to map and even sometimes from expo to expo).
To sum up; stop nitpicking. 3 bases with 16 drones on mineral each = awesome. 3 base with 20 drones on mineral each = probably overdoing it if you want to hold the typical 2-base timings. Hence the number 16.
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EPT
