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Make sure you read the OP before asking a question. Asking a question already addressed in the OP will result in moderation action. Also, please put some effort into your questions. |
To answer all the people asking about ZvP midgame:
You can't do a good muta transition if you went for the roach max to deny his third. You've invested so much gas into roach that you'd be better off getting double upgrades, roach burrow move, and hive/spire asap. Mutas are so gas hungry that you won't be able to get enough of them to actually do damage to toss in that critical moment where he is still attempting to set up his defenses and get to stalker/zealot/ht.
I actually think mutas are a better response these days since so many protosses are making 4-5 immortals before they even bother trying to take a third base, and those units crap on roaches so hard that you may as well not even build them in the first place. I'm having way more success with heavy muta/ling midgames after opening 3 hatch gasless than any kind of roach max these days, I'd go so far as to say that the 12 minute max is sort of an allin build where if toss defends his third and doesn't lose his entire army then he wins. You've got a whole fckton of useless roaches now and your tech is also so far behind that it's really difficult to recover unless you just outplay the hell out of him.
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On May 02 2012 22:09 tehcaekftw wrote:
How am i supposed to counter cannon rushes? Two pylons behind mineral line, gg. I tried with 6 drones, dosnt work, they just place another pylon and keep running away from me.
Depends on how fast you react and the exact circumstance. For example, it takes 25 seconds for a pylon to go up, 100 seconds for the hatchery (assuming this is the natural), 40 per cannon. Also, you need to do 16 dps to a pylon to kill it before it pops, and only 7.5 to kill a cannon before it pops. A drone does an average of 3 dps (slight more to shields slightly less to armor, average of 3 dps). What you want to do is delay cannons until your hatchery finishes. I put 3 drones on each cannon as soon as it is placed. You need to keep drones behind the mineral lines so that you can get 3 drones per cannon. Keep in mind that he hasn't placed his nexus yet. Typically, if he goes nexus + forge into cannon rush you should have lings available to kill the pylons/cannons. So even if you are cutting mining time, you are ahead if you keep the natural.
If the probe locks him in behind the natural mineral line with pylons/cannons, go take your third. Send a few extra drones to delay and get time for lings. Since he FFE you would probably be going for a fast third anyway, clear natural with queens/lings as soon as you can.
The reason why many find it difficult to call the roaches an all in strat, is because it is so close to being finished on economy. At 12 minutes it has what, 60 drones? What would you call maxed on drones, 3 mining minerals and 4 base gas? So 72 drones? If you view the game as economy vs army vs tech, you have a better economy and a better army and slightly behind on tech. But your army makes you safe from most aggression, and your economy allows you to jump up in tech. As long as you don't lose your entire roach army for little gain, you can power tech up. IE, engage with roaches make them make good force field (if they don't you win), make sure they made enough units/simcity to defend (if they don't, you win), try to force cancel on third, or if you can't lose those cut off from force fields and pull back. Your army can still defend just fine in the open.
10 seconds ago you had an army that could only be defeated with sim city and force fields. Even losing a bit of your army you should be able to win in the middle now that they are down force fields and have no chokes (map dependent). So your bases are still safe.
The only way that the roach aggression can really lose you the game is if it is defended perfectly with little losses on the toss side, you don't cancel/kill the nexus, and you lose most of your army.
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I have a question about ZvP. At the moment there seems to be a lot of people doing FFE into 4gate zealot to kill the fast third. They come with 8 Zealots and perhaps +1.
Now my question is this: Should I scout for this (how?) or should my roach warren be early enough? I don't know which is the right way to look at this problem.
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Narfinger: check gasses at the natural. If he doesn't take gas, build your roach warren about ~6:30 and you should be good.
Edited to add: after you've deflected the attack, drone up!
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Just played a protoss who failed a three-gate proxy attack, moved into 4 void rays and then colossus/stalker and absolutely rolled me.
I think I overreacted to the number of voids I saw and threw down a hydra den. By the time I was ready to attack with the hydras, he had a couple colossus and observers, ready to force field and rape.
What do I do in this situation? The failed three-gate led into him walling off at home, so it's not like I could have really punished it. Corrupter/roach as a followup?
http://starcrafting.com/replays/sc2replay-download.php?key=kdKVxy
Any help would be appreciated. I know this is a diamond player and I'm gold, but is it really all about injects and APM?
As an aside, why can't I find myself in SC2ranks.com? I'm Vato, my profile number is 164. Can't see myself using that information or searching on my name alone on the NA server.
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I have a ZvZ question. Since he came back from Korea, I've seen Destiny play with a Pool-Hatch opening in ZvZ, which has me intrigued. The theory seems to be that you can hold 9-10 pools that will kill hatch first, you trade early game map control for larvae count against Gas-Pool and Pool-Gas openings, and you are roughly even to at a slight disadvantage against hatch first given that you get an earlier queen, but a later hatch.
I'm curious if anyone has experience with this opening and any ideas on the strengths and weaknesses it has in practice. My limited experience in playing it has been good, but I'm curious about the opinions of better players.
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Hey all, what do you think is the best response to heavy stargate opener with a lot of phoenix into fast third? Is it a good idea to just go for a roach max and deny it? I feel like the phoenix kill so many overlords that the max is significantly delayed.
Also, how do you even begin to deal with a mothership/carrier/archon/stalker ball? It's annoying because I feel like I need to go pure corrupter infesor to deal with it, but then toss can just add archons and stalkers to kill my air...
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On May 03 2012 11:35 KimJongChill wrote:
Hey all, what do you think is the best response to heavy stargate opener with a lot of phoenix into fast third? Is it a good idea to just go for a roach max and deny it? I feel like the phoenix kill so many overlords that the max is significantly delayed.
Also, how do you even begin to deal with a mothership/carrier/archon/stalker ball? It's annoying because I feel like I need to go pure corrupter infesor to deal with it, but then toss can just add archons and stalkers to kill my air...
I build try to protect myself from the air play and get up a full 3 base eco and then go into some sort of counter attack (most likely with roach/hydra/ling.
I have no idea >.>
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On May 01 2012 03:39 Flonomenalz wrote:Show nested quote +On April 30 2012 21:54 Belial88 wrote:
I got a question:
When is baneling bust ever like a solid idea, as opposed to a coinflip? Like, if you see someone going super fast third with an overlord scout, you can reactively go roach/bane rain all-in and win every time. But what about the standard bane bust where instead of going lair, at 40 supply you go 2nd gas baneling nest kill kill kill?
I felt like if they opened 2 rax, it was a surefire way to win the game afterwards, but I dont think it's that straightforward... so was just wondering. 1 rax FE --> fast third CC (would need to get a lucky OL scout) 2 rax FE --> marine tank (skips hellions) -- you'd need to hit either before siege mode or when there's only 1 tank. 1 rax FE --> delayed banshee --> fast third CC (again, reliant on OL scout) any time you see a fast third CC you can punish with baneling bust, but the timings are wonky because Terran timings are weird. Not to mention, some Terrans will blindly anticipate a bust when they go fast third CC and build a bunch of bunkers. Some Terrans also 2 rax (then don't pressure, and just expand, to make you overreact) then build a mediocre wall to tempt you to bust, but they have bunkers behind it. Busting a Terran is really situational these days... I very rarely do it.
Thanks.
I'll write off baneling busts as bad, and go with a roach/bane all-in if I'm lucky enough to scout T going fast third when I sac my ~35-40 overlord. It's been working every time so far.
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I need help!
I have been out of the game for 8 months! I was top masters player 8 months ago, now I struggle to get back into game. I play Zerg. Please someone tell me changes in metagame since I have been gone. I will summarize my former understanding of the game:
ZvP: Depending on map I will try to get fast 3rd base, or do 2 base. On 3 base, large maps I will take 3rd very early and do slow lair / 2 evo upgrades, and mass zergling / baneling bombs. Sometimes I will stay on 2 base and go infestor zergling. Roach build I use on small / medium maps, and follow with the standard corruptor / hydra added later, with sometimes drops throughout. Late game.. I usually use nydus and brood lord, and hope he dies.
ZvT: I get muta off 2 base and take 3rd, later add roach and infestor, tech and get broodlord. Other times open with infestor and get upgrades, then proceed to the same. Has anything changed in this matchup? I hear ghosts have been added for lategame, how does this work out and how to counter it?
ZvZ: I have no idea.. I would usually go roach infestor, now I am seeing new styles which confuse me. Rarely before would I make it to late game, as the game would end by then. Now it seems many make it to late game. What to do? What new things should I watch out for? Not just in ZvZ, but in ZvP, ZvT as well?
Also, the mass voidray colossus ball: How to kill this?
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Is there a hard counter to cloaked banshee expand?
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On May 02 2012 23:08 HyperionDreamer wrote:
To answer all the people asking about ZvP midgame:
You can't do a good muta transition if you went for the roach max to deny his third. You've invested so much gas into roach that you'd be better off getting double upgrades, roach burrow move, and hive/spire asap. Mutas are so gas hungry that you won't be able to get enough of them to actually do damage to toss in that critical moment where he is still attempting to set up his defenses and get to stalker/zealot/ht.
I actually think mutas are a better response these days since so many protosses are making 4-5 immortals before they even bother trying to take a third base, and those units crap on roaches so hard that you may as well not even build them in the first place. I'm having way more success with heavy muta/ling midgames after opening 3 hatch gasless than any kind of roach max these days, I'd go so far as to say that the 12 minute max is sort of an allin build where if toss defends his third and doesn't lose his entire army then he wins. You've got a whole fckton of useless roaches now and your tech is also so far behind that it's really difficult to recover unless you just outplay the hell out of him.
This advice is sound. I view it as the two most effective way to delay the 3 base colossus push as long as possible. Roach max can kill third, trade well with his army and then transition into hive. Mutas can kill probes, force cannons, delay tech and then you take the choice to either stop mutas early or mass muta until you have 20+ of them. In the mass muta situation you pretty much have to base trade against a good opponent. If you make only 10-15 mutas you can tech out of it since you will have a lot of spare gas for hive + upgrades + infestors. The hard part is that at some point in the game close to when your broods will be done, you need to spend money ONLY on spines, lings and the odd infestor. You need to build up that gas count to prefferably 1.5k or so to get a good transition. Really good protosses force you to spend that gas early to defend though. Oh and spreading creep so that you can spine wall properly is incredibly important to be able to survive without broods. I shudder to think of the day when protosses has some kind of creep denying trick late midgame that really makes it hard to set up that spine wall.
In fact I would say the most important part of the transition to hive that many zergs seem to skip is the period when you make corruptors/spines/infestors. That composition can hold off a colossus based army especially if you do some ling counter to divert a small portion of his warp ins or army to his defense instead (assuming he's doing a standard 4th base behind the push).
Basically the method I use with the late game army before broods is to stay behind the spine wall, fungal the colossus when they start shooting the spines, attack the fungaled colossi with your corruptors and use any ground units to buffer shots / prevent stalkers from targeting down your corruptors. If you have sprare roaches they are really supposed to be sacrificed here to buffer damage as there is probably no more useful way to trade them out for better units. Also if you have quite a lot of infestors by this point I would recommend throwing out maybe 15 infested terrans right in front of your spine wall to make it even more hard for the protoss stalkers to do anything about the fungaled colossi. As long as you keep fungaling the colossus as close as possible to the spines you will be relatively safe vs an offensive blink in and you put a timer on the protoss because he knows he is going to lose all colossus. If you can get fungal on colossus within spine crawler attack range you have basically won the game, just stay back with ground forces, target colossus with corruptors and jump on everything when he inevitably blinks in.
I study Stephano and DRG mostly and they are both masters at this. Stephano especially can win a battle with only 10 or so corruptors, 10 infestors a good spine wall and some lings against a really good colossus push.
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On May 03 2012 12:57 chebhe wrote:
I need help!
I have been out of the game for 8 months! I was top masters player 8 months ago, now I struggle to get back into game. I play Zerg. Please someone tell me changes in metagame since I have been gone. I will summarize my former understanding of the game:
ZvP: Depending on map I will try to get fast 3rd base, or do 2 base. On 3 base, large maps I will take 3rd very early and do slow lair / 2 evo upgrades, and mass zergling / baneling bombs. Sometimes I will stay on 2 base and go infestor zergling. Roach build I use on small / medium maps, and follow with the standard corruptor / hydra added later, with sometimes drops throughout. Late game.. I usually use nydus and brood lord, and hope he dies.
ZvT: I get muta off 2 base and take 3rd, later add roach and infestor, tech and get broodlord. Other times open with infestor and get upgrades, then proceed to the same. Has anything changed in this matchup? I hear ghosts have been added for lategame, how does this work out and how to counter it?
ZvZ: I have no idea.. I would usually go roach infestor, now I am seeing new styles which confuse me. Rarely before would I make it to late game, as the game would end by then. Now it seems many make it to late game. What to do? What new things should I watch out for? Not just in ZvZ, but in ZvP, ZvT as well?
Also, the mass voidray colossus ball: How to kill this?
ZvP: 3 base is standard. Open with 3 bases before gas and get 3 queens (assuming he forge fast expands). How you get there is different each game because of pylon blocks etc. You will learn how to best grow your econ in time.
~40 food - Double Gas
~7 minutes - Roach Warren
~7-8 minutes - One Evo Chamber (depends on if hes going Stargate, DT or other builds)
@100 gas - ling speed (or lair if you are certain of late 2 base all in), get the other upgrade after obv
@Lair start - 3rd and 4th gas
@300 minerals (while droning) - Macro Hatch (early if he does a late attack like 7gate +2 stalkers, the 2 base immortal all in or expands, later if he does 4gate +1 zealots or stargate +1 zealots pushes. You will learn to spot the differences between all these with good scouting and timings.
~8.30-9 minutes - Make 6 or so roaches from your third base hatch to defend a fast +1 4 gate or +1 stargate pressure. It's very important that these are made from the larvae at that hatchery since he will gear his entire build on killing your third. Don't make these roaches vs a delayed 2 base timing or an expansion build (basically if he doesn't attempt to forward pylon or pressure. Instead make drones for that larvae.
@100/150 gas - +1 ranged or +1 carapace. I preffer ranged because you can go for +2 ranged quickly with the roach max build.
@Lair finish - Roach speed and Burrow
After this you can do 3 things imo.
#1 - 12-13 min Roach Max: Get like 60 drones (you will get a feel for this) and max out on roaches at 12-13 minutes. Deny protoss third and kill some of his army. Take 4th and prepare for his 2 base all in and win. Or if he tries to re expand just keep trading units, slowly drone up your 4th get all your tech and win with a superior economy.
This works well vs someone that tries to take an early third on a map that is fairly open. It's also the go to style vs almost all 2 base all ins.
#2 - Muta Harass: Go light on the roaches. Don't make more than you need to defend. Instead try to rely on lings earlier in the game to stockpile gas. Take earlier 5th and 6th gas. Build a second evo timed to when your +1 ranged finish So you can get +1 melee and +1 carapace at the same time. Build a spire and perhaps some spines if he is likely to push you. Take an early 4th and take only the 2 gas. Muta harass and either tech into hive or go for a mass muta/ling base trade game.
This works well vs someone that is massing immortal/zealot to defend his third but is skimping on stalkers and doesn't have blink tech.
#3 - Hive Rush: Go light on roaches. Get a pretty early infestation pit and a slightly later spire. Spread creep to centre of map as far as you can. Get an extremely fast 4th base. Get up to 8 gas very fast. Spine wall places to defend all your bases. Get to hive while making infestors + corruptors + lings + drones. Your goal is to hold off any push with the spine wall. See my earlier post. Get second spire @ hive start. Eventually go for the mass broodlord/infestor/corruptor/spine. Your supply is going to be maybe 60-70 workers 20 lings and the rest just mass brood/infestor/corruptor. The trick is to go up to 90 or 100 drones quite early to stockpile minerals. Then you use that mineral bank to mass spines in the middle and later in your main and expos that are vurnerable to warp prism harass.
This works well vs someone that takes an early third, tries to go many different tech routes at the same time and camps behind cannons. Also its good vs people that take a late 4th.
Scouting:
You determine what the opponent is doing with 2 moments of scouting. The first one is to have your first overlord over his natural prefferably in range of forge but more importantly in range of his natural gasses. If you spot chrono boosting on gateway and / or forge you can deduce a +1 zealot pressure build. If you see only chrono on the forge and no pressure coming you can deduce +2 stalker delayed 2 base all in.
The most reliable thing though is his natural gas timing. Since a protoss allways double gasses his main you know that if he takes one gas at natural he has 3, if he takes both he has 4 etc. You need to have your overlord at his natural gasses at about 7 minutes onward for as long as you can. When you scout no gas that most likely means gateway all in after +1 or an really early gateway pressure. Alternatively the very new super early third base they sometimes do. If you scout 3 gas you are most likely going to see stargate play. If you scout 4 gas you are most likely going to see DT play or some kind of delayed 2 base push with +2 or 1-1 upgrades. 4 Gas can also be things like 2 star mass voidray, 2 base colossus with a large number of sentries.
When I scout no gas at natural I like to delay my evo to 8 minutes or so. When I scout 3 gas I make it slightly after 7 minutes since air is the earliest thing that can hit you which you need spores vs. When I scout 4 gas I get it slightly after
7.30 because DT tech takes a long ass time to get. I also get faster lair vs 4 gas to have access to overseers and faster tech vs the delayed all ins.
Mass colossus/voidray is not popular anymore but if you do face it you should make roach/ling/infestor and add pretty fast corruptors. Then when his army gets bigger you need the spine/spore wall. He cannot walk into a spine/spore wall with infestors and corruptors behind it if he has voidrays. They will get stuck in a fungal and spore + mass infested terran will destroy them.
By the way bear in mind that these are the most standard builds and the ones I personally have focused on. I'm sure there are some ling/bane styles that can work vs some builds etc but if you want to play the current metagame you wouldn't really use them.
ZvZ is a garbage coinflip matchup but I'd like to help you with terran aswell. This post became quite long however so I might add it later.
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^ I don't think zvz is a garbage coinflip ;/
I got a question about zvz though:
1. How do you play against mutas, and how do you take your third against mutas if you go the non-muta route?
2. How do you decide to take your third?
Unlike the other match-ups, where you always take your third or whatever, in ZvZ, it seems it's so based on what composition the opponent is going, in order to get your third ;/
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On May 03 2012 14:55 Belial88 wrote:
^ I don't think zvz is a garbage coinflip ;/
I got a question about zvz though:
1. How do you play against mutas, and how do you take your third against mutas if you go the non-muta route?
2. How do you decide to take your third?
Unlike the other match-ups, where you always take your third or whatever, in ZvZ, it seems it's so based on what composition the opponent is going, in order to get your third ;/
It is a garbage coinflip matchup because of the double inject randomness. There is actually no way to scout with accuracy unless you sneak lings into his base which he can easily deny if he's a skilled player. So many early game all ins can beat even the best pros. One inject cycle can be 8 drones, 8 roaches or 16 lings. Once you scout what it is he either allready has the advantage or disadvantage depending on what you did with your larvae. I think this is why you see so much ling/bane in top korean games, Because they know they are forcing a certain unit composition when they do it. So they can't be surprised by a sudden all in.
That being said. There is a lot of skill involved in the matchup if it takes a standard route. Most games though are roach/bane all ins vs a muta rusher. Sometimes you see fast 3 base vs 2 base muta. 3 base player then gets fast infestors and tried to hold on without roaches (costs too much gas) long enough to get his econ uop. He then goes for something like a 1-1, 2-1 or 2-2 timing with infestor/roach/hydra. The muta players goal is to keep 3 base player in his bases. Get up to 4 bases and rush to ultras and infestors. Thus he spends very little gas for a very long time. Muta player wants to make as few banes early game as possible to get a good muta count fast. Muta player also wants to go for the 3rd base and possibly kill it if possible before the infestors get up and to a good count. If he kills it he will most likely do the tech switch to infestors off of 3 base instead of 4.
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Every terran is going mass BFH/Thor against me... I'm trying Infestor/Ling and Infestor/Roach and nothing is working. The hellions are easy to deal with but the thors with scv repair are just ridiculous to get rid of! I've lost every game so far.
What can I do?
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On May 03 2012 16:09 IronManSC wrote:
Every terran is going mass BFH/Thor against me... I'm trying Infestor/Ling and Infestor/Roach and nothing is working. The hellions are easy to deal with but the thors with scv repair are just ridiculous to get rid of! I've lost every game so far.
What can I do?
Roach/bane.
Around 170 supply of roaches, add in banelings. The banes are not for hellions, they are to surround the clumped thor, softening and splashing them, making cleaning them up with roaches quite easy.
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Can someone tell me how to not get angry everytime i face a protoss ? I can play ZvZ and ZvT all days even with long losing streak but when it comes to protoss, i always get so mad that even 1 fucking lose is just unbearable...
It just feels like the margin of errors is so fucking slim when you play against them, and relies a lot of P's errors in order to win...
Don't get me started with all this 12 min max out roach timings, or Belial's guide and his benchmark cauz it doesn't work (i'm often doing more than 70 supply @ 8 min). Been training it for 1 fucking whole year and everytime i lose to a protoss it always feels like i did an error or 2 but they were fatal every time compared to 100 errors on the protoss' side.
It's just so fucking frustrating, this matchup is seriously getting on my nerves. My mind everytime i play against them is just so low that i want to puke and don't want to waste my time and quit right away (actually already happened a few time)...
But then i get to face terrans that i outplay them so hard it's not even funny. I wish i could get more wins against protoss so that i can start to play seriously...
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How do you scout a 2 rax? When do you send the drone and what exactly are you looking for?
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Best way to know if a 2 rax is coming is to scout for the gas, if terran has none he is either 2 raxing or going 1 rax epo (some do 2 rax expo too). Best way to be sure is to have to drone scout hang near the xel naga to spot for incoming marines. You can send a early drone scout to be sure you get in his base to check gas timings, or you can just scout when you are taking the hatchery (if he blocks you have 2 drones), and if you can't get in the base you stay at the xel naga and use the drone to try to spot for incoming units.
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EPT
