EPTThe small changes that come from the long drone travel times mess me up too much
The Zerg Help Me Thread - Page 372
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Monsyphon
Canada190 Posts
The small changes that come from the long drone travel times mess me up too much | ||
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Belial88
United States5217 Posts
On September 08 2012 10:47 AndySCWilson wrote: Also on Shakuras Plateu how do you guys handle pylon blocks at the natural - I find that taking the third as your natural puts you really far behind because it takes so long to get workers over there. And is super easy to cannon before lings can get there to stop it. I feel like if I take my natural there I'm just asking to be abused. Taking your third doesnt actually delay you that much, and I'd say economically, it's the better choice. Many Zerg pros recently would just not even bother attempting to take their natural and would send a drone straight to their third to take it blindly, because 1)they assume their opponent is going ffe (so yea if they went gateway, like into 4 gate or dt or anything they'd be screwed but it was a safe assumption a few months ago) and 2)they knew a probe would block the nat and pylon block it possibly. Nowadays toss doesnt seem to pylon block as much (because it delays them too) so we're seeing zergs just take their nat. But comparing those vods, DRG, and many other zergs, reached their high end supply caps just the same with taking their third first. The problem with going third first is though: 1. If the opponent isn't going FFE, you are screwed. You can make up for this by drone scouting, but we saw Naniwa vs Drg Whirlwind gsl s3 2012 where drg was screwed by doing this. It's pretty safe to assume FFE though, but just in case it isn't, yea, taking a third sucks. 2. It's SO much more susceptible to a hardcore cannon rush. If you only make 2 lings, or delay your initial lings (like after queen, or even after a few drones as some pros do), you will straight up lose because you can't realistically pull drones all the way from your main, to your third, to stop 5 warping cannons and pylons in nifty locations because it's more than your pulled drones can handle from having to travel so far (whereas at the nat it's not as far a pull and you'll have lings out from a pool first opener). Even if you make 4 lings right away, there's certain maps and locations where Toss can just cannon rush your third-taken-first and you won't hold it, and the only theoretical way to hold it was if you like blindly made 8+ lings right away, which would never happen. It's important to have overlord vision of your third if you take it first... but on a map like shakuras, even if you see the cannon rush going down, you won't have the larva to make enough lings, it's too far away, and he can put it in a spot like behind the minerals where you simply won't get there in time with enough. A cannon rush at your third-taken-first will simply be successful on a map like shakuras. On some maps, yea, it's safe to just take your third first. But personally, I would recommend you just make 4 lings, kill the pylon, and take your nat after that and then third afterwards. That way you don't lose to cannon rushes. It doesn't really delay you that much (i mean ~10 supply from a perfectly optimal opening, but you can still hit 70+, you just can't hit 80+ is all, but toss is also delayed too). Then simply, at ~31 supply, just take half the drones from your compeltely saturated main and transfer to your nat instead of rallying like you would if you took it on 16. but yea on shakuras, definitely, can't really take your third first. you just have to take down that pylon with 4 lings. Which is why I go 14 pool instead of 15 pool on that map. On some maps, you can maybe get away with taking your third safely, but it's really iffy. If you take your third first on like cloud kingdom, the drone pull distance is so large that I think the cannon rush will always work and you can't make enough lings to deal with cannon on certain locations. So I'd really recommend always taking your nat first. I think it's just too risky to go third first. I know some pros do it, but I would recommend against it, because they invest only ~300 minerals, and you would lose much more with the drone pull. | ||
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M4nkind
Lithuania178 Posts
To ilustrate I played as T vs some diamond Zerg. I was bad at not getting 20+ rax and making a bit too many scvs. But how as zerg can you keep up with 3/3 terran bio? When I play Z most of the time I don't have enough gass to get tier 3 units vs mmm. I dont have reps of me loosing vs it, but I will get some in a few days on ladder I bet. Here is the rep: http://drop.sc/248286 | ||
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Belial88
United States5217 Posts
but i'm actually kind of curious myself. When I face someone playing bio i am thoroughly confused on what to do. Ling/bane/muta imo is the best way to fight it, but if i open infestor, I can't exactly do that anymore. and so it's like, broodlords are too costly and aren't really that great against bio, and ultras, a good higher tech unit to get that 'oomph' that ling/bane/infestor alone isn't enough for, is actually countered completely by bio... Maybe ling/bane/infestor and then add corruptors? dat medivac.... i had no problem facing bio play about a month ago but since I converted to infestor play in ZvT instead of mutas, I have no idea what to do. i guess you just kinda keep up with 3/3, adrenal, and more ling/bane/infestor and i guess add corruptors? | ||
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Monsyphon
Canada190 Posts
instead of corruptors to shoot down medivacs, get Ov drop+speed and then have 2-3 OVs with the main army to drop queens and attack the medivacs in total, drop and speed is 300/300, and then the extra cost of queens (which you could have already if you went 6 queen opener) costs less than getting spire+a couple of corruptors Also, drop can diversify your play much more and I feel the OV queen combo is underutilized when spew creep>creep tomour is such a nice combo. Queens and drops can do much more than corruptors | ||
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Exoteric
Australia2330 Posts
On September 08 2012 13:01 Monsyphon wrote: Im gonna do some crazy theorycrafting about belials response instead of corruptors to shoot down medivacs, get Ov drop+speed and then have 2-3 OVs with the main army to drop queens and attack the medivacs in total, drop and speed is 300/300, and then the extra cost of queens (which you could have already if you went 6 queen opener) costs less than getting spire+a couple of corruptors Also, drop can diversify your play much more and I feel the OV queen combo is underutilized when spew creep>creep tomour is such a nice combo. Queens and drops can do much more than corruptors I highly doubt this is effective for the purpose of killing medivacs. Generally, when you open ling/bane/muta against this style, you will win the first engagement against terran when they move out to trade armies. The advantage in having mutas here is that they can chase down the retreating medivacs. With your proposed idea there simply won't be enough time for the queens to kill medivacs, unless you get infestors to hold them in place, and you may as well just skip drops completely until late late game to get out 2 more infestors for that. | ||
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734pot
Australia294 Posts
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Oboeman
Canada3980 Posts
I am terrified that eventually terrans will be bringing scvs along to repair medivacs so that you can't depend on whittling them down over time. It's important to win fights decisively and never lose infestors. If you lose and replace infestors, you will never have the energy pool to finish off medivacs when you need to. Yeah that's easy advice to follow "win fights better". You need more banelings than you would make against marine/tank. Which either delays your hive or cuts into your infestor count. I tend to make more infested terrans than you would normally expect. They are good against marauders, and they can kill medivacs while things are running away, or maybe focus fire medivacs. Fungal is pretty weak against a high medivac count if he is already spread out. It's terrible on marauders. You want to fungal while your lings close the distance, then hold him in place with lings while using infested terrans for damage, and aim the fungals at only the juiciest clumps of marines, especially if you can get medivacs as well. Fungalling a small group of spread out marauders does nothing, especially with multiple medivacs. There was an awesome gsl game a while ago, with yugioh vs MKP. Yugioh did a 6-8 queen opening, and just kept the extra queens with his army for the entire game, and was doing an awesome job of owning medivacs every time MKP stepped onto creep. but only on creep. For defense, it absolutely works. I don't know about shuttling queens around in your army, but it sounds fun. I use a nydus worm in ZvZ for bringing queens to my ultras, this may be possible in zvt, but I don't know if it'd be better than corruptors. Also, when they don't have tanks, you can be more ballsy with counterattacking. I always drop lings on terrans, and it is a bigger priority against pure bio. Interrupting their production directly is basically the only way you can hurt them. I haven't tried making a queen+overlord medivac, though. | ||
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ghost_face
Australia33 Posts
On September 08 2012 14:20 734pot wrote: Usually in ZvP i take my third after starting the second queen, is it still better to do this if I'm forced to take my third by a pylon block or should i take it earlier (21 instead of 24), before the second queen, in order to reduce mining time lost by marnarding workers to my third? I usually start my first and second queen once I have taken my third at 21. I'm curious, is getting 2 queens before a third more beneficial than getting the third earlier? | ||
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734pot
Australia294 Posts
On September 08 2012 14:36 ghost_face wrote: I usually start my first and second queen once I have taken my third at 21. I'm curious, is getting 2 queens before a third more beneficial than getting the third earlier? Well you generally want the first queen out as soon as possible, when you build the others depends on multiple factors of which i am unsure. | ||
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6xFPCs
United States412 Posts
On September 08 2012 12:30 Belial88 wrote: ^ i'd like to say that good for you, you can win in diamond, you are doing it right, keep it up. but i'm actually kind of curious myself. When I face someone playing bio i am thoroughly confused on what to do. Ling/bane/muta imo is the best way to fight it, but if i open infestor, I can't exactly do that anymore. and so it's like, broodlords are too costly and aren't really that great against bio, and ultras, a good higher tech unit to get that 'oomph' that ling/bane/infestor alone isn't enough for, is actually countered completely by bio... Maybe ling/bane/infestor and then add corruptors? dat medivac.... i had no problem facing bio play about a month ago but since I converted to infestor play in ZvT instead of mutas, I have no idea what to do. i guess you just kinda keep up with 3/3, adrenal, and more ling/bane/infestor and i guess add corruptors? I posted awhile back (months ago) about issues with ling/bane alone vs MMM. You guys suggested infestors, making sure to try and take down medivacs, but it definitely did not work well as well as I had hoped. So I eventually found a weird spine transition to switch back to mutas (since I normally put down a infestation pit), kind of BW-style, but also based on the same principle as spine transition to broods. Description below (I wrote the below stuff before this, that's why it may sound funny)). Anyway, my temporary solution this season (high diamond-low masters) has been to just keep pumping ling-bane and avoid engagements--similar to how you don't really want to engage an immortal-sentry attack head-on. Instead of focusing on gas and getting infestors out, I put down a few spines, and attempt counterattacks, and I try to pick off reinforcements if he's trickling across the map. With a few spines at the natural and third, they may start dropping, in which case I fend it off as normal, and I add a spore at each base. If they insist on attacking your front, the spine support is usually enough added dps to take down the army. At least, that's what I aim for, starting with 2-3 at both natural and third in time for the first two medivacs. If I injected recently (within 10 seconds of the attack), I pull all queens and focus on attacking medivacs. I hate medivacs. In the meantime, I just drop a spire instead of using the infestation pit for infestors, and continue to pump ling-bane with upgrades. Eventually, your standing army will be large enough that you can force him to lift out (you'll never get a real full army kill), or he keep reinforcing and you keep adding spines until mutas pop and you can start playing tag, preferably on creep. I really think infestors just get easily picked apart by MMM, and banes already provide the anti-marine AoE you need, so infestors are just redundant and a waste. I actually tried corruptors, too, and I think they work well but only later on. If you invest into some corruptors instead of mutas or infestors or just ling-bane at the mid-game transition, you have too much useless supply that can't even kill one medivac before the rest of your army evaporates. So I don't add them until about when mutas start to feel like they're losing value, and at which point I already have a few infestors for the threat of fungals. They're hardy enough to stay on the same hotkey as the rest of your army, and it means medivacs don't have free reign (I hate when they have so many that they have one tailing your army everywhere). Don't forget to corrupt, too--it can be the difference between two- and one-shotting medivacs. All that said, I've actually been going spire before infestation pit in the past few weeks. But I do think the spine thing works. | ||
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TheManInBlack
Nigeria266 Posts
I don't want to keep massing roaches on 2 base and then a-moving at 11 minutes because I've learnt most of the mechanics I can from that build. I need to learn advance Zerg play, preferably with Ling openings. But it keeps getting me killed!!!! | ||
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734pot
Australia294 Posts
On September 08 2012 15:09 Sacred Reich wrote: Help me please. Anytime I go fast 3rd vs Protoss FFE or Terran 1 rax expo I autolose. They just come to my base with a tonne of units (terran) and kill me. Or in the case or Protoss, they get their 200/200 army with high upgrades faster than I can and I get 1 shotted. I don't want to keep massing roaches on 2 base and then a-moving at 11 minutes because I've learnt most of the mechanics I can from that build. I need to learn advance Zerg play, preferably with Ling openings. But it keeps getting me killed!!!! You should post some replays, it will make it much easier to help you after looking at specific examples. | ||
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Belial88
United States5217 Posts
Usually in ZvP i take my third after starting the second queen, is it still better to do this if I'm forced to take my third by a pylon block or should i take it earlier (21 instead of 24), before the second queen, in order to reduce mining time lost by marnarding workers to my third? I usually take my third before second queen. Who says which way is better than the other? Based on what I've seen when DRG hit 80+ supply, he took his third before second queen, and got his third queen by starting it at the third, when the third finished. The order in which you do these things doesn't really make much difference I think. Very minute, I'm sure there is a 'best' way to do it but it all really doesn't matter. If you take your third base first, you can still get your original queen to it before it finishes, and before your 2nd queen finishes up in your main. When I get pylon blocked, I let lings take out the pylon and I'll stick take my natural first (cannon rushing the third is too strong imo, pulling drones all the way from your main against that is ridiculous and 4 lings won't be enough and potentially won't get there in time, depending on the map and cannon rush execution). In that case, I'll actually make my second queen before taking my third (given that I always take my third after nat). It's not really a big economic hit to maynard your drones to your third if you take it first. One way or another drones will have to cross that distance to get there. But, if you can take your next base ~16-18, you should rally drones to it, not maynard. Maynarding is worse than rallying. The only time you should maynard is if a pylon block happens and your next base taken is relatively much later, and you are basically on complete 1 base saturation before it finishes (basically, over 16 workers, where each additional worker has decreased marginal return, you want all bases to be below 16 drones for as long as possible). So if you take your third first, you should rally to it, unless you got pylon blocked there or something and took it much later. Like since I take my natural, always, as my second hatch, when I get pylon blocked, i have to get lings to deal with it, so given that it takes so long, I have exactly 24 workers in my main when my natural will finally finish, so I maynard half of them. But that's the only time I maynard drones. Generally, all this stuff (taking third or nat first, 2nd queen before or after 2nd base, 3rd queen before or after third is done) really doesn't matter. You'll figure it out, and if you watch your reps in-depth and do testing on it, you should figure out what is best. It's all very minute. I do what I do because I personally think it's the best way to do it (since I believe cannon rushing the third is just too strong if you take a hatch at the third ~16, ie before 4 lings are out). Help me please. Anytime I go fast 3rd vs Protoss FFE or Terran 1 rax expo I autolose. They just come to my base with a tonne of units (terran) and kill me. Or in the case or Protoss, they get their 200/200 army with high upgrades faster than I can and I get 1 shotted. Check out my guides and reps, linked in my profile... your question is terrible and way too generic. What you post doesn't make any sense at all. So when going fast third, you survive just fine against FFE... so Toss gets 200/200 deathball and kills you? okay? There's a huge gap here where you probably lost way before this happened. You need to have broodlords out against a 3 base 3+ colossus army. Are you able to have broodlords out? If you don't, why? Are you making more than 1 roach and thus your hive, broodlords are way too delayed? Are you able to get broods out 10-20 seconds too late, and thus not getting enough spines or spamming IT properly and holding the stalker/colossus ball with ling/spine/infestor for 30 seconds while the corruptors turn to broods? I doubt upgrades are your problem. Toss will generally be ahead, it's okay. If you have broodlords, you are in an okay position, you just catch up on upgrades. And terran coming at you with a ton of units? After 1 rax expo? Check out my zvt guide, it's been very recently updated to show fast third before pool and 6 queen opener vs hellion/banshee openers and such. | ||
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M4nkind
Lithuania178 Posts
On September 08 2012 14:20 734pot wrote: Usually in ZvP i take my third after starting the second queen, is it still better to do this if I'm forced to take my third by a pylon block or should i take it earlier (21 instead of 24), before the second queen, in order to reduce mining time lost by marnarding workers to my third? my way of doing things vs toss is like this hatch > pool > hatch > 1st queen > 3rd hatch at 21 supply > start 2nd queen as soon as first finishes and move first queen to your new hatch > get 3rd queen and move 2nd queen to your latest base. Start tumors at each expo after first injects are done. | ||
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tehcaekftw
Denmark138 Posts
I also see that if i run double upgrades from early on ( ZvT usually ), is it better to start hive about 14:00 to get 3-3 quicker? | ||
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Monsyphon
Canada190 Posts
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M4nkind
Lithuania178 Posts
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sCCrooked
Korea (South)1306 Posts
Replay: http://drop.sc/248452 I made spines, I made lings, I used my queens and I tried to transition out of it, but anyone who really knows what they're doing will be able to tell I have absolutely no clue as to what to do. | ||
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M4nkind
Lithuania178 Posts
On September 09 2012 03:23 sCCrooked wrote: Ok I can't seem to figure out how to come out ahead when a Protoss on close positions cannon rushes hardcore. Replay: http://drop.sc/248452 I made spines, I made lings, I used my queens and I tried to transition out of it, but anyone who really knows what they're doing will be able to tell I have absolutely no clue as to what to do. I watched the rep, you did vs cannon rush very well in defense, but it threw you off from making injects/units and when push came you just didn't have enough. If you had stopped droning at ~10-11 mins and made mass units you could have held it easy. And when you saw voidray you should have added additional queens. 6 queens + tier 1 units just massacre that early push of his, he was behind so far, you were just a bit too greedy with droning Tbh I would have canceled that 3rd and went 2 base muta vs that guy, and added 3rd on the left expansion in time. With muta+ling defence would have been easy. | ||
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