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On May 31 2012 17:56 FrogOfWar wrote:
This is probably a noob question, but I would appreciate some insight. Also did some searching but didn't find anything specific.
The issue: It seems to me that forge expand openings give the protoss an opportunity to go for heavy macro and at the same time do a cheesy early attack with cannons. As zerg, how am I not screwed when toss puts a pylon plus cannon in my natural? By investing 250 minerals he delays my expansion a lot and forces me to make quite a lot of units. It takes 8 lings to take down a cannon I believe. Roaches would delay my economy even more. Meanwhile, he can safely cannon up at home not worrying about the cost too much because he's a 2 base toss vs. a 1 base zerg.
What am I missing? How do I not get far behind when this happens? Why don't fe'ing protosses do this every game?
It needs some experience to know if he will canon rush you or not.
Basically, if he does this on your 2nd and 3rd base, you should immediatly double gas, and rush the nydus.
If you are able to go out of your base, get a hatch and some drones on it, and build mass of speedlings, get roaches/banes and try to kill most probes you can during your push. Its easier on maps where you can get a gold, since you can get a hatch and get so much mineralz that you will build too much speedling for him. (with banes to destroy the wall)
Get speedling while you are going to 2nd tier and RW. Build a nydus, and pump a lot of units in his base.
While doing this, you have to get some roaches to destroy the canons on your natural and put a 2nd base.
If he is just canon rushing you (like putting a canon and a pylon behing your minerals) just pull out drones. It needs some micro, mineralz walk and things like this.
The point is : 4 drones / canon or pylon.
Try to not have blocked drones.
When your pool comes out, build 4-6 zerglings and come with them to destroy canons.
If a canon spawns, then you cant do anything (if it doesnt have too much hitpoints, you can try to destroy it, but it you can loose a lot of units)
GL !
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^ I dont know how much I agree with your comment, i find it odd you say just all-in. Zerg is behind for doing that, and toss will know you are obviously 1 basing (and thus nydusing). But maybe you are right, i dont want to say anything for sure here - so can you please use a replay to back up what you say, as per the new forum guidelines? It would be really neat if it were as simple as "if toss invests ~300+ minerals in pylons/cannons, he will autolose to a 1 base nydus all-in"
Anyways...
First off, you need to go pool first in ZvP, because hatch first autoloses to a strong cannon rush (granted, you may not see that until very high masters, and even then, if you have good micro, you won't lose to it until you face super strong cannon rushes maybe, although by that point you are patrolling more workers than if you had just gone 14 pool)
Your 9 overlord looks over the natural, always, of course.
At 16 supply, you need to pull a drone to follow the probe, and patrol the ramp or choke. There's no way around that unless you play on tournament, balanced maps with a neutral depot.
If he places a suspect pylon, pull 4 drones to attack it immediately. If he makes a pylon in the open, like to block the hatch, don't worry about it, but if it's suspect, pull 4 drones. Any addditional buildings he makes, pull 4 drones per. He won't have enough money to plant more than maybe 3-4 buildings at most (and you should click on them, you want to attack cannons, not pylons). Then, with your 14-15 pool, you make lots of lings (try to pool larva as soon as you realize what's going on), and they will kill the cannons before he can make more than 15 drones can handle.
If he's just better than you, you will lose, because cannon rushing does take skill, as does defending it. you need to make sure to follow around his probe and don't let him do anything cute like block in the cannon behind the mineral field where only 1 drone can hit or something (see combat-ex's youtube video on cannon rushing, as an example).
But just reacting calmly, patrolling a worker at 16 and following his probe (so you need to pull 2 drones), and pulling 4 workers per building until lings pop should stop cannon rushes.
Read my zvp guide, there's a good replay example of nestea holding a cannon rush.
http://drop.sc/189090
Here's a good replay of me holding a cannon rush (i lose in the end to some bullshit and stupid decisions on my part, but disregard that, i was way ahead and threw away the game when the opponent was even talking about how imbalanced the match-up was because he 'knew' he lost).
By putting down pylons in his base, he is not using money. yes, he gets it back with a cancel, but 4 pylons down, for example, means he can't put down a nexus. Essentially, regardless of whether you cancel a building or not, it has the same cost. A pylon put down is 100 minerals, regardless if you cancel it or not - because it's money you can't spend. Think of it this way - if you have $100 in your wallet, and your friend borrows it all today, even if he pays you back tommorow, you can't go out and buy cigarettes. Similarly, Toss can't make workers or an expansion. Meanwhile, you are spending all of your money on useful things - drones, queens, and maybe 2-4 more lings than you normally would. Sure, Toss will cancel it all later maybe and get a nexus with it, but his nexus will be super late and delayed, while your production had continued nonstop (drones, gas, lings, whatever).
But you need to pull drones immediately, and you need to have your initial overlord spotting your natural, to which you promptly move it towards your third when your lings pop. (or send that overlord to his main to scout later on, and rally your ~17 overlord to the third, either one works, but one of those has to spot your third to spot for cannons possibly going up against your third).
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Hello gentlemen.
I am a Bronzie (Don't burn me with fire) and I'm doing great in the ladder, but there's one thing that's beating me: Timing attacks. I'm not sure if the problem is in my scouting or preparation, but it's basically the only thing I'm losing to now; If I can get into a macro game, I'm winning 100% of the time.
Here is a replay where I lost to a terran marine attack, despite having scouted it: http://drop.sc/189091
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On May 31 2012 19:09 PandaGuns wrote:Hello gentlemen. I am a Bronzie (Don't burn me with fire) and I'm doing great in the ladder, but there's one thing that's beating me: Timing attacks. I'm not sure if the problem is in my scouting or preparation, but it's basically the only thing I'm losing to now; If I can get into a macro game, I'm winning 100% of the time. Here is a replay where I lost to a terran marine attack, despite having scouted it: http://drop.sc/189091
Hi, I always 15 hatch in zvt. Your speed was very late. You fought off creep with slow lings, should have waited for your banes and just stayed on creep, no need to go off it. Could have also had a spine down. You need more practice  That was easy to hold. All the best!
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I'm high diamond on the verge of masters but I'mhaving serious issues with zvt, when is best to take a third and macro hatch, I usually throw down my third at 6:30 with a macro at 7 but I seem to die to any push, could this be over droning too much? also how do you best Meech, I rush give and take my 4th and 5th for.gas but they usually.push out when they see give and kill me before broods
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On May 31 2012 19:28 b0rt_ wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2012 19:09 PandaGuns wrote:Hello gentlemen. I am a Bronzie (Don't burn me with fire) and I'm doing great in the ladder, but there's one thing that's beating me: Timing attacks. I'm not sure if the problem is in my scouting or preparation, but it's basically the only thing I'm losing to now; If I can get into a macro game, I'm winning 100% of the time. Here is a replay where I lost to a terran marine attack, despite having scouted it: http://drop.sc/189091 Hi, I always 15 hatch in zvt. Your speed was very late. You fought off creep with slow lings, should have waited for your banes and just stayed on creep, no need to go off it. Could have also had a spine down. You need more practice That was easy to hold. All the best!
Thanks for that, I had a terran friend do the build on me and it was a great success for me.
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On May 31 2012 19:09 PandaGuns wrote:Hello gentlemen. I am a Bronzie (Don't burn me with fire) and I'm doing great in the ladder, but there's one thing that's beating me: Timing attacks. I'm not sure if the problem is in my scouting or preparation, but it's basically the only thing I'm losing to now; If I can get into a macro game, I'm winning 100% of the time. Here is a replay where I lost to a terran marine attack, despite having scouted it: http://drop.sc/189091
If you die to a timing attack then the attack did it's job.
With that being said, you faced a 3 rax. It's a short-sighted build designed to kill you or do crippling damage in the early part of the game. I don't think you scouted the raxes explicitly, but you DID scout the clump of marines gathering in the middle of the base.
Your preparation was the biggest problem in this instance. You attacked a hair too early and the marines kited to many of your lings. Ideally you want to 15 hatch, get a couple spines, and don't attack him until you have a superior force. Now you know your 12 or so lingsplus 2 banelings wasn't enough. Next time you see this get more lings before attacking.
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What's the best anti allin for ZvP with the new immortal sentry imba strat where mass ling or mass roach gets crushed ?
Lair tech seems a little meh since it takes at least 12:00~ish for it to kick in whether you go mutas/burrow/infestor and it seeems to hit around 10:00 (may not understand all the timings properly).
I wonder if ling hydra or roach hydra is any good?
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2nd time asking this:
ZvT both diamonds. http://drop.sc/188408
Pretty standard game i went hatch first with the 4 queen build, he went some sort of really safe hellion expand that you don't see alot anymore. Up untill around 20 minutes in the game i felt that i was playing pretty decent but then when i was being aggressive the battles didn't go well at all( i had a short timing where i could have killed him) and eventually he came out ahead, took his 3rd base and i decided to go infestor brood lord, but my army never really became big because of somehow lacking gas(blocked my gold base with creep tumor T_T) he also abused my immobile army and my engagements were bad too, i just couldn't get enough units. GG
Now those are my thoughts, but im not sure if i should have stopped using muta ling bane after all i didn't have enough gas? should i have continued to just max out and attack? I also felt i had too many mutas and too little lings/banes. I find it hard too see the crucial mistakes other then the ones i've already mentioned
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On June 01 2012 02:05 DarKcS wrote:
What's the best anti allin for ZvP with the new immortal sentry imba strat where mass ling or mass roach gets crushed ?
Lair tech seems a little meh since it takes at least 12:00~ish for it to kick in whether you go mutas/burrow/infestor and it seeems to hit around 10:00 (may not understand all the timings properly).
I wonder if ling hydra or roach hydra is any good?
Mass ling/roach should be perfectly viable as long as the zerg player has decent enough control. From my experience and watching pro's I can think of several important things you must do to not die to this (indeed very strong) all-in.
First, don't let him get close to your 3rd or natural with all his energy and a forward pylon. You will lose if this happens. You _must_ force engagements as far away from your base as possible, preferably on open ground and away from chokes. If you have the time to set up a flank - do it. You should also try to bait forcefields all the way from his base to yours if you cannot engage favorably. The protoss has a limited amount of forcefields (about 2/ 3 per sentry, which makes for about 24-28 forcefields total) so it is entirely possible to make him waste at least half of that. Finally, you must stay on top of your injects and keep making roach/ling/overlord for as long as the push is not stopped. Spine crawlers can be utilized as a last line of defense but keep in mind that if the protoss gets in that favorable choke near your 3rd with full energy and enough immortals you will have a very hard time defending.
EDIT:
Also as the protoss warps in units his army gets more and more cost efficient vs roach/ling which is another argument in favor of engaging as soon as possible.
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Hihi, switching to Z (probably) so I would appreciate if someone linked here some good guides with the exception that I have seen dApollo's YT videos. Any written guides on ZvEverything around here? I am sure everything will help me at this point Thanks a lot!
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On June 01 2012 04:19 AshenCZ wrote:Hihi, switching to Z (probably) so I would appreciate if someone linked here some good guides with the exception that I have seen dApollo's YT videos. Any written guides on ZvEverything around here? I am sure everything will help me at this point Thanks a lot!
Check out Belial's guides! They helped me a lot!
ZvP
ZvT
ZvZ (countering early pool builds)
Good luck
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On June 01 2012 03:22 nlight wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2012 02:05 DarKcS wrote:
What's the best anti allin for ZvP with the new immortal sentry imba strat where mass ling or mass roach gets crushed ?
Lair tech seems a little meh since it takes at least 12:00~ish for it to kick in whether you go mutas/burrow/infestor and it seeems to hit around 10:00 (may not understand all the timings properly).
I wonder if ling hydra or roach hydra is any good? Mass ling/roach should be perfectly viable as long as the zerg player has decent enough control. From my experience and watching pro's I can think of several important things you must do to not die to this (indeed very strong) all-in. First, don't let him get close to your 3rd or natural with all his energy and a forward pylon. You will lose if this happens. You _must_ force engagements as far away from your base as possible, preferably on open ground and away from chokes. If you have the time to set up a flank - do it. You should also try to bait forcefields all the way from his base to yours if you cannot engage favorably. The protoss has a limited amount of forcefields (about 2/ 3 per sentry, which makes for about 24-28 forcefields total) so it is entirely possible to make him waste at least half of that. Finally, you must stay on top of your injects and keep making roach/ling/overlord for as long as the push is not stopped. Spine crawlers can be utilized as a last line of defense but keep in mind that if the protoss gets in that favorable choke near your 3rd with full energy and enough immortals you will have a very hard time defending. EDIT: Also as the protoss warps in units his army gets more and more cost efficient vs roach/ling which is another argument in favor of engaging as soon as possible.
It's great advice. If you want an example, I suggest you watch that VOD of Intimate ZvX with Stoic where David explain how to deal with this (indeed very strong) push. It's a great serie overall, so don't hestitate to watch any episode ^^
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On May 31 2012 17:54 Insoleet wrote:
Hello there,
I'm having a really simple problem against tosses pressuring the 3rd with a bunch of zealots.
The point is, ok, i know if he is going to pressure my 3rd when he is going out of his base with a probe.
But when the opponent is not an idiot, he comes out with a zealot to kill my gling in front of his base. So that i cant know if he is going to pressure my base.
How would you do to know if he is going to push with a bunch of zealots or not ?
Thanks !
This is a new protoss style that has come out recently.
There are a couple variations:
1. This one has a gate before forge (its usually on the highground). It hits really quick. I'm not sure about the exact timings of these. This one probably hits anywhere from 6-7 minutes with +1. This build has a higher vulnerability to busts because of the late forge, and thus later cannons.
2. The other one, looks like a normal FFE, and just hits at around 8 minutes.
3. This is just a common 4gate, +1 attack, stargate attack. There are guides elsewhere.
The best way I've found to deal with this, is just to build your roach warren earlier, at around 6:15ish.
Also, if he sends a zealot out, just run your zergling in circles and don't get him killed; it takes some micro. It's also nice to keep your first overlord in front of his FFE to see probes leaving, until you need to check his gasses.
A replay would be nice too.
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On May 31 2012 17:54 Insoleet wrote:
Hello there,
I'm having a really simple problem against tosses pressuring the 3rd with a bunch of zealots.
The point is, ok, i know if he is going to pressure my 3rd when he is going out of his base with a probe.
But when the opponent is not an idiot, he comes out with a zealot to kill my gling in front of his base. So that i cant know if he is going to pressure my base.
How would you do to know if he is going to push with a bunch of zealots or not ?
Thanks !
There are a lot of little tells when scouting a Protoss. For instance chronoboosting the cyber core and forge for +1 attack timing. Or not taking the gas in the natural. If you have enough zerglings on the field killing the zealot and probe before the proxy pylon is a good option.
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sorry about the post, i just solved my question.
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On May 31 2012 18:59 Belial88 wrote:
Your initial overlord looks over the natural, always, of course.
<...>
But you need to pull drones immediately, and you need to have your initial overlord spotting your natural...
I assume by "initial overlord" here you mean the one you make on 9 rather than the one you start the game with? That's what your guide says anyway.
Just wanted to clarify, as I think some people would call this the second overlord.
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Hi guys,
I've been wondering the best response to a protoss player placing cannons at either my natural expo or 3rd expo
I've realized to place vision over the surrounding area, and I should assume to do it with overlords?
Any comments would be appreciated thanks <3
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On June 01 2012 09:26 Monsyphon wrote:
Hi guys,
I've been wondering the best response to a protoss player placing cannons at either my natural expo or 3rd expo
I've realized to place vision over the surrounding area, and I should assume to do it with overlords?
Any comments would be appreciated thanks <3
In ZvP you really should be going 14/15 pool before expanding. If he builds cannons at your natural or third, you should have lings out in time to stop them from going up, unless he has some really map abusive cannon placement, or walls you in (stupid blizzard, no depots...)
As for overlords, I send my starting overlord to his natural to scout, and then send my next 2 overlords to my natural and third. It helps if you keep an eye on his probe too, just make sure its not hiding in your base or similar location, maybe see if its headed towards your third.
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You really need to make 4 lings from a pool first in zvp, else you risk toss putting pylons (and even cannons, like incontrol does) at your third and you can't take your third without making a ton of lings, or being significantly delayed. A good example of this is in the GSTL, ZENEXsuhosin vs Slayers protoss on whirlwind (i think third to last set, its the game on whirlwind though) - the toss puts a pylon block at the third, and suhosin is unable to take a third until about 15 supply late, all because he tried to be greedy and only made 2 lings (which works out in your favor if toss doesnt pylon block, but if he does...). He ends up behind by about 10-15 supply by the 8 minute mark because of this.
I've also had it in my own personal play where I made 4 lings, but sent them straight across the map. I was actually playing a pro in this particular game, FXOasd on his NA account, and he made a pylon in my third, and it straight fucked me, especially when he chronoboosted out a stalker reactively to pressure my third because he knew due to how late my third was, there would be no creep, queens, or spines there. He pretty much beat me with a zealot and stalker 9 minutes into the game, all because of this, and some really good decision making and micro on his part (meanwhile, at home he played macro mode, by the time my third was good and safe, he had a huge 2 base immortal/sentry push with a fast third attacking me when i didnt even have roach speed, due to my delayed econ).
You need to place your ~9 overlord over your natural to spot for cannons, and then you need to send an overlord ~17 supply to your third (either the 2nd one you make, or send the one at the natural to your third once lings pop).
You NEED to make at least 4 lings (2 won't break a pylon quickly enough or deal with warping in single cannon in a cute spot, like behind mineral field on cloud kingdom, you can which the ladder game Idra vs Minigun where destiny 'casts' it as an example of why you need at least 4 lings). Making anything less than 4 lings is just being greedy, and sure, sometimes Toss won't punish it or put down pylon blocks followed by a single cannon at your third, but you run a huge risk doing so.
Your 4 lings need to go straight to your third, to protect it from a pylon block or cannon rush shenganingans (cant exactly pull drones from your main all the way to the third). Having 1 ling to chase the probe while the other 3 work the pylon is fine too though. You just need to send them towards the third to make sure it doesn't get pre-emptively cannon rushed, so you can plant the third, and then keep an overlord there spotting to make sure no pylon+cannons go up while your lings run around the map looking for probes (if its a map like shakuras where he HAS to pass by watch towers, and you KNOW you killed the only probe on your side of the map by the time you take the towers, obviously, do whatever, but you should still make sure Toss didn't send a second probe to hide in the fourth, to cannon your third, even after you clear it, so you always needs an overlord watching over your third until it pops).
My ZvP guide discusses this. It says exactly where to send all of your overlords.
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