so i've been trying to 2 gate pressure for a couple of games but it just seems to bite me in the butt. can anyone help me and tell me what i did wrong or what i should've done?
in the first one i was able to get into his base. got his queen to red but felt that i had to back off because he was making a lot of lings by then. i don't think i dealt enough damage to him unit wise / economy wise.
in the second one i was able to kill quite a bit of lings on his choke but then the number of zealots i lost was pretty much equal in cost for the number of lings lost. afterwards i was overwhelmed by an army of lings and pretty much lost the game there.
Im sorry I cant watch your replay one this computer but I will give some general tips.
1.Save up chrono boosts for the gateways 2. never get supply blocked 3. Dont over extend if it is no longer working make enough to wall your ramp and tech. 4. ALWAYS go for the workers or the FE (Fast expo) if he made one. 5. You should really ignore the queen unless you can make it chase you off creep and snipe it otherwise it will just kite you. 6. If lings are out put your back to the wall if you are going to engage him but you should really just ignore him and go for the workers like i said. 7.Hot key your gateways.
On October 05 2010 11:01 Pobbes wrote: wouldn't spine crawlers already be up if i try 4 gating?
Yes, but with a LOT of stalkers/zealots they are pretty worthless. Keep in mind when you 4 gate you'll have out maybe 6 stalkers for your first attack, which is plenty to focus down a crawler or two. If the zerg decided to make a lot of crawlers (i.e. 4+), then they are insanely far behind from the sheer mineral cost of doing that (in addition to sacrificing 4 larvae to making crawlers) and you should just throw pressure out the window and tech up to colossi and macro.
i've read that 2 pylon, cannon is effective as well. what's the placing of this build? do you block the exit of their ramp with the 2 pylons and put a cannon behind them? but then i'm wary of investing 350 minerals that will just get destroyed once the zerg has enough units.
On October 05 2010 11:42 Pobbes wrote: i've read that 2 pylon, cannon is effective as well. what's the placing of this build? do you block the exit of their ramp with the 2 pylons and put a cannon behind them? but then i'm wary of investing 350 minerals that will just get destroyed once the zerg has enough units.
Yeah a fast forge works well against Zerg. Zerg has a hell of a tough time off of one base, and putting 2 pylons at the base of their ramp and 2 cannons behind that is going to keep them pinned for a long time. You can tech up or expand afterwards and take a solid advantage.
Sure, it will die after Zerg gets enough units, but so would a 5 minute Colossus. It's all about how much damage you are able to do (and getting no kills but completely blocking expo and scouting is a ton of damage). Efficiency.
On October 05 2010 11:54 Shrinky Dink wrote: just build a couple bunkers and gg the game
disagreed
anyway, the 2 pylon cannon "rush" described above works very well. its hard to stop. it contains them inside their base and if they are careless and havent scouted it and decide to FE, they're way behind. they will also need to throw down sunkens to kill it which also means more minerals to use up
On October 05 2010 11:54 Shrinky Dink wrote: just build a couple bunkers and gg the game
disagreed
anyway, the 2 pylon cannon "rush" described above works very well. its hard to stop. it contains them inside their base and if they are careless and havent scouted it and decide to FE, they're way behind. they will also need to throw down sunkens to kill it which also means more minerals to use up
2 gate generally refers to 2 gate zealot pressure. You don't tech at all when you start off. Your BO is pylon, gate, gate, chrono'd zealots + pylons + probes. No initial assimilator or cyber core. Those will only slow down the push and make it that less effective. 2 gate has a timing window - once your opponent techs to roaches or sentries your push gets exponentially less effective as time goes on and they aren't dead.
The 4 second nerf affects 2 gate but it is still very viable in my experience.
When I 2 gate I am trying to secure an expansion because generally 2 gating will not win you the game by itself. So I follow up with something like nexus, cyber, gate, robo.
The most aggressive 2 gate build is 10 gate,12 gate (I think? Not sure). But I don't do that because it has to be done blind and gets countered by 1 base roach play. Generally if the Z is 1 basing I do not 2 gate because roaches > zealots.
2 gate is especially popular pvz on blistering sands because you can wall off your natural with the 2 warpgates. Then you can put a photon cannon a bit behind the warpgate where neither roaches or zerglings can attack it because of the warpgates, and if they attack the warpgates the cannon gets free shots too. Anyway the whole point of the 2 gate is to secure the expand and pump probes while forcing your opponent to spend larvae on units he can only use defensively instead of drones.
Lol. Cannon contain is pretty fucking cheesy. Not very "sportsman-like" to kick around a race thats already suffering.
There are several versions of two gates, the one popularized by Tester is 13/15, which is a more econ-friendly push that allows a better transfer to Core tech if you run into a five Roach push, Day9 goes with a 10/11 that sacrifices a large part of our economy in order to severely damage the Z player, a 10/12 is only slightly better, giving you a probe or two extra though you are MUCH more likely to lose to a five Roach push and 12/14 is the compromise that the Liquipedia makes between Tester and Day9's BOs. I perfer the 12/14 since its more econ friendly and its a good feint should you kill/block the Z scout before you place the second gate.
The cannon contain isn't at all cheesy because it's not an all in attack. It's a solid strategy that has a few different possible follow-ups. It is lame but that doesn't make it cheese.
You can find replays of cannon contains if you look around as it is pretty popular, but it's basically as you said. Make a forge first instead of a gateway (it's good to proxy build it so the zerg doesn't see it) and then you make 2 pylons to wall off the zerg ramp and then a cannon behind the pylons. From there you can choose to add on more pylons behind the cannon and build one or two more cannons if you want in order to lengthen the contain time, or you can just leave it as is that's up to you. This basically denies the zerg any expansions until they can bust out and it takes awhile before they can cost effectively get out. They can either get creep around the ramp and build spine crawlers or they can baneling bust it (they can also do a one base play like muta or nydus but generally that doesn't work well). The most popular build to follow that is dropping a quick expansion and booming while going up to colossus (or you could just try to overwhelm with mass warp gates and that's tough to stop too). Just be weary of some kind of nydus play and be ready to drop extra cannons on your mineral lines if they go muta.
I would stay away from 2 gate zealot play, it's just too slow and you're really vulnerable to a roach counter attack.
If i'm not mistaken- the OP is asking for aggressive plays in PvZ besides the two-gate. there is the 4-gate, but it is really an all-in timing push, its has little consideration on what happens afterwords- big push and win or lose. what happens when zerg defends 4gate and now is up an expo/harvester count? GG
I'd like to comment also on the two pylon cannon contain- yes this is very frustrating towards a zerg trying to FE, (also note that its not cheese nor BM-just something to adapt too), but this isn't too effective against a gas opening by zerg- 13 pool 13 gas is completely unaffected by this 350 investment, and once we get a few roaches or a spine moved into position we actually come out on top then because our economic plan wasn't heavily impacted.
Also note, that if you have good understanding of a zerg's timing you can merely move you're scouting probe to the nat and block the 15 hatch that way. Worker War micro will be the key factor in blocking this expo- thats something small you can do to be aggresive
Now, lets examine aggressive openers that can harass a zerg- THESE strategies are the ones that let you gain the edge over the course of the game- not necessarily making you instawin. 1) Any stargate opening This is definitely a great way to make the zerg player experience fear. The early air pressure's success depends on how good a scouter the zerg is- saccing the ovie on the 7-9 minute mark is common, but If you can hide that early air facility, than you can catch the zerg with his pants down with not enough queens, maybe lucky enough so that they foolishly don't have lair or evo's incoming. In fact, this is what I highly recommend trying- VR's can demolish zerg but you have to act quickly with them or they'll get lair too fast and have enough AA. Or fast Phoenix means you can ovie snipe which is quite the heavy economic damage to zerg (it really is like blowing up pylons/ supply depots but easier) Getting fast phoenix count means you are now safer from muta harass- something a lot of zergs depend on.
Here's another: 2) Try going for a DT rush-unlike BW, zerg in SC2 are detection depraved! Again, this early pressure is dependent on how well prepared the zerg is- but a zerg getting delayed lair is ripe for DT rush. Day9 also would like to say that a DT rush transition awesome into HT's (TC and whatnot)- and with this tech advantage you can make the zerg go insane.
Hope these strats helped - I just betrayed my own race :p lol
2 gating was already pretty skimpy due to the fact that spine crawlers or roaches would completely shut down zealots. Now with the shiny new 5 second nerf, there is absolutely no reason to do so. What I've been trying lately is 2 stargate phoenix after FE. You can harass a lot with it. It keeps zerg in his base and delays further expansions because he needs to spend money on spore crawlers. It also shuts down any mutalisks, and is awesome for scouting, so you are never caught off guard. From there, I usually just go chargelot and blink stalkers, because they are quite good against mass hydra, which is what he will get in order to counter phoenix. While you are at it , you can get a couple void rays after you get 8 or so phoenixes to backdoor the zerg like they do to you with mutals when they move out. You have to gain map control and expand a lot while you are stopping zerg from doing so. I've also theorized about transition into carrier zealot, but haven't tested it out.
All of this is wonderful, but you do need pretty decent apm to pull it off, since if you can't micro the phoenixes and tech/expand at the same time, you will have a great early/mid game and just get steamrolled lategame.
i used to open with 2 gate - stargate and it has been very effective but ever since 1.1.1 i've stopped using it because of the phoenix bug.
i've then resorted to the 2 gate forge FE and i admit it works sometimes but going on an 11 game losing streak makes you want to rethink your strategies and openings you know? lol.
I like to go cannon first, throwing up my pylon and forge to help wall off my main and link up with the nexus at my nat to wall off there. From there I move into a cannon contain on the zerg with 2x pylons at the ramp and a cannon behind it. If that goes off it's basically GG for him since I will have my FE going up before he can even get out of his base.
A lot of people aren't looking at 2 gating from a proper perspective. Using a 2 gate opener against a zerg you don't have to kill units equal to your zealot cost to deal damage.
If you build 4 zealots and force your opponent to build 12 lings you're temporarily halting his drone production completely while you have constant probe production (potentially backed by chrono boost). If he goes roaches he's down 150 minerals on tech, possibly has to invest more in gas, and you're still temporarily halting drone production. If you kill a queen (even at the cost of zealots) you directly cost him 150 minerals and permanently delete up to 5 larvae (depending on how close to finished his current inject is).
It's less common but another poster also addressed spine crawlers shutting down 2 gate pressure.. And it usually will, but you need to keep things into perspective again. Every spinecrawler is 100 minerals and a drone deleted from the game. It's not as flashy as killing 3 drones, but it's just as effective.
Really the only way 2 gate can go wrong is if you lose all of your zealots and die to a counterattack. The solution to this is be a little more cautious with your zealots or to have a forge follow-up. On maps where you can do a tight wall, you can make a forge while moving out with your zealots. Completely wall off, and make cannons 1 square behind all of your buildings** if you're concerned about a counter.
** Cannons that are placed 1 square behind another building can attack roaches without being attacked themselves.
Note that I'm not able to watch the replays at this time to pick out any execution issues, but my advice in neat list form is:
1) Place all of your buildings on time. If you're making your first gate on 12 supply, then drop it immediately when you have 150 minerals and not any later. Getting a unit out 5 or 10 seconds late is a very long time, especially when it comes to early pressure. Those 5 seconds could be the difference between roaches being hatched and completely blocking your pressure, and you killing a queen.
2) Try to realistically quantify the damage you've dealt. If you don't kill a hatchery it doesn't mean your pressure failed. Poking and prodding just to pressure your opponent into overreacting is perfectly fine. It's sometimes acceptable to just leave if you know you can't get anything else done. You'll only learn make these judgements by playing a lot and reviewing your games.
3) If you're going to go for it, then just go for it. You mentioned in one game that you nearly killed a queen but backed off prematurely. This is going to sound obvious, but: a queen at 1 health injects just as well as a queen at full health, so you basically deleted time and gained nothing. In a situation like that it most likely would have been better to just risk the losses and kill the queen (again, without having seen the replay).
4) Always have a follow-up. When you're doing a 2 gate it forces your opponent to make an army, so you need to have a way to deal with it. Whether it's cannons and a wall or stalker and sentry support for the inevitable lings/roaches, you need to be preparing your follow-up while your attack is in progress.
EPT
