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On January 14 2011 22:20 Garth wrote:
Thank you for posting this, my PvZ now has direction and im winning more than 10% of my PvZ's now (at 2700 diamond.)
One concern I had was that there seems to be a complete lack of earlyish game pressure and I'm worried that when I start shark mode he will just have droned so hard and all it takes is a couple lings and 3 spinecrawlers to defend vs my, at the time, sentry- heavy army.
Am I overestimating the zerg's droning abilities vs my probe production?
That's the weakness of the sentry expand. It's a very strong defensive build that has solid macro, but you don't have enough muscle to push through even smaller forces of roaches and spine crawlers until you have collosi+range. On a map like LT, Zerg can get 3 spines at his nat and a handful of zerglings and then rush creep out to the tower to move his spines up and take the gold super early. He then builds a small force of roaches and defends in the open area with his spines and P can't really do anything about it.
Zerg can respond to sentry expanding by being very greedy economically. The other good option Z has against sentry expanding is drops which make sentries almost useless.
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Hi Khaladas,
the video is great, but the replay links don't work...
ReplayFU says : "no data to parse" for each link...
Could u upload them to a site like "http://www.gamereplays.org" ?
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Canada13410 Posts
On January 15 2011 00:43 kcdc wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2011 22:20 Garth wrote:
Thank you for posting this, my PvZ now has direction and im winning more than 10% of my PvZ's now (at 2700 diamond.)
One concern I had was that there seems to be a complete lack of earlyish game pressure and I'm worried that when I start shark mode he will just have droned so hard and all it takes is a couple lings and 3 spinecrawlers to defend vs my, at the time, sentry- heavy army.
Am I overestimating the zerg's droning abilities vs my probe production? That's the weakness of the sentry expand. It's a very strong defensive build that has solid macro, but you don't have enough muscle to push through even smaller forces of roaches and spine crawlers until you have collosi+range. On a map like LT, Zerg can get 3 spines at his nat and a handful of zerglings and then rush creep out to the tower to move his spines up and take the gold super early. He then builds a small force of roaches and defends in the open area with his spines and P can't really do anything about it. Zerg can respond to sentry expanding by being very greedy economically. The other good option Z has against sentry expanding is drops which make sentries almost useless.
I've been finding the same thing but what I have started to do is once I get 5 sentries out and a zealot. I expand then warp in a few stalkers and a zealot, then I get another 3 sentries on the next cool down (or 2 depending on my gas - in plat no perfect macro here). Once I have these units I find I can still be defensive early on and am able to poke in to check on the Zerg as well. Being able to further warp in the sentries later on to get up to a larger number means I can choose to forego them or still let them build energy in the early mid game.
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Thanks a lot for this, all the tips and small things, are very essential, and its just great to have it being said. Its a good thing to keep in mind at all times. Very nice.
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still want to see those replays
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Yeah, me too ! 
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My first time watching iNcontrol coaching. In the past I have not been a fan of his analysis of the game but I gotta say I was quite impressed at his skills as a teacher. He is very pedagogical.
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On January 15 2011 04:23 REM.ca wrote:
My first time watching iNcontrol coaching. In the past I have not been a fan of his analysis of the game but I gotta say I was quite impressed at his skills as a teacher. He is very pedagogical.
+1
Mad props to Khaladas for posting this and iNcontrol for coaching - Not only has my PvZ gotten better (even though it's my best matchup personally) but I'm a new fan of iNcontrol. Well done guys!
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Ok I updated the original post to and put the replay pack on easy-share, hopefully you will have an easier time than before.
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Hey Khaladas, I appreciate you taking the time to do this. Thanks to Incontrol as well.
Im a 2300 point master leaguer, and have been using this build quite frequently on the ladder. And for the most part its quite nice.
However, I feel like like there are quite a couple things zerg can do to throw off your build here.
1) gas steal
- limits sentry production obviously
- makes the "magical number" of 8 sentries nearly impossible to get by the 40ish supply mark where you should be expanding
2) block your cybernetics core wall in (delays early sentries, throws off your build)
- delays sentry production
- delays wall in, making ling run by more of a threat
more importantly a fast tech to mutas by the zerg player, even if you sense it coming by seeing many speedlings, can harass you in your base endlessly.
I've noticed that many of the zergs I lose to choose to do this. They will see my sentry heavy build, and instead of over-commiting with lings, they allow me to do my "shark mode" (taking towers, picking off overlords, poking/prodding in general) knowing that I cannot outright kill them myself.
There have been numerous games where they let me expand, and simply drone like crazy even when im running around the map taking towers, killing fresh creep tumors. They've got 3 spines up and ling production is quick, from their point of view, I don't feel in danger either.
Once their lair finishes, they explode with a decent number of mutas rallied straight to my base and I have nothing to stop it.
I suppose I should time myself for a 6 gate warpgate timing push, but mutas will be out on the way there. They will kill your probes first, shutting down your warpgate reinforcements, and then mass speedling spinecrawler for defence, forcing me to gg.
Thanks to anyone who can offer some help. (cannot provide a replay at this time, but I'm at the level where following a build order is not a problem.)
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On January 15 2011 05:33 QTIP. wrote:
Hey Khaladas, I appreciate you taking the time to do this. Thanks to Incontrol as well.
Im a 2300 point master leaguer, and have been using this build quite frequently on the ladder. And for the most part its quite nice.
However, I feel like like there are quite a couple things zerg can do to throw off your build here.
1) gas steal
- limits sentry production obviously
- makes the "magical number" of 8 sentries nearly impossible to get by the 40ish supply mark where you should be expanding
2) block your cybernetics core wall in (delays early sentries, throws off your build)
- delays sentry production
- delays wall in, making ling run by more of a threat
more importantly a fast tech to mutas by the zerg player, even if you sense it coming by seeing many speedlings, can harass you in your base endlessly.
I've noticed that many of the zergs I lose to choose to do this. They will see my sentry heavy build, and instead of over-commiting with lings, they allow me to do my "shark mode" (taking towers, picking off overlords, poking/prodding in general) knowing that I cannot outright kill them myself.
There have been numerous games where they let me expand, and simply drone like crazy even when im running around the map taking towers, killing fresh creep tumors. They've got 3 spines up and ling production is quick, from their point of view, I don't feel in danger either.
Once their lair finishes, they explode with a decent number of mutas rallied straight to my base and I have nothing to stop it.
I suppose I should time myself for a 6 gate warpgate timing push, but mutas will be out on the way there. They will kill your probes first, shutting down your warpgate reinforcements, and then mass speedling spinecrawler for defence, forcing me to gg.
Thanks to anyone who can offer some help. (cannot provide a replay at this time, but I'm at the level where following a build order is not a problem.)
One question on this, when you are in shark mode and you see spinecrawlers and lots of lings, what are you doing in response?
Incontrol can back me up on this, but he definitely advocates going blink stalkers vs mutas. So after seeing spines and lots of lings, even absent of any other scouting from an observer i'd feel pretty confident he was going mutas. From there i'd probably do just as you mention above and look for a 6 gate timing push and just put a ton of pressure to slow them down. You may even need to think about building a cannon or two in your mineral line just to stop them from killing your econ while they have you at bay with spines/lings.
From what I gathered, Shark mode is for when you are building up and not ready to attack. Once you have a force, you are in a relentless pressure/attacking mode. So in this scenario, you can shark until you get 6 gates but from there it's time to press hard because you have a window where he won't have a critical mass of mutas yet.
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On January 15 2011 05:43 Khaladas wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2011 05:33 QTIP. wrote:
Hey Khaladas, I appreciate you taking the time to do this. Thanks to Incontrol as well.
Im a 2300 point master leaguer, and have been using this build quite frequently on the ladder. And for the most part its quite nice.
However, I feel like like there are quite a couple things zerg can do to throw off your build here.
1) gas steal
- limits sentry production obviously
- makes the "magical number" of 8 sentries nearly impossible to get by the 40ish supply mark where you should be expanding
2) block your cybernetics core wall in (delays early sentries, throws off your build)
- delays sentry production
- delays wall in, making ling run by more of a threat
more importantly a fast tech to mutas by the zerg player, even if you sense it coming by seeing many speedlings, can harass you in your base endlessly.
I've noticed that many of the zergs I lose to choose to do this. They will see my sentry heavy build, and instead of over-commiting with lings, they allow me to do my "shark mode" (taking towers, picking off overlords, poking/prodding in general) knowing that I cannot outright kill them myself.
There have been numerous games where they let me expand, and simply drone like crazy even when im running around the map taking towers, killing fresh creep tumors. They've got 3 spines up and ling production is quick, from their point of view, I don't feel in danger either.
Once their lair finishes, they explode with a decent number of mutas rallied straight to my base and I have nothing to stop it.
I suppose I should time myself for a 6 gate warpgate timing push, but mutas will be out on the way there. They will kill your probes first, shutting down your warpgate reinforcements, and then mass speedling spinecrawler for defence, forcing me to gg.
Thanks to anyone who can offer some help. (cannot provide a replay at this time, but I'm at the level where following a build order is not a problem.)
One question on this, when you are in shark mode and you see spinecrawlers and lots of lings, what are you doing in response? Incontrol can back me up on this, but he definitely advocates going blink stalkers vs mutas. So after seeing spines and lots of lings, even absent of any other scouting from an observer i'd feel pretty confident he was going mutas. From there i'd probably do just as you mention above and look for a 6 gate timing push and just put a ton of pressure to slow them down. You may even need to think about building a cannon or two in your mineral line just to stop them from killing your econ while they have you at bay with spines/lings. From what I gathered, Shark mode is for when you are building up and not ready to attack. Once you have a force, you are in a relentless pressure/attacking mode. So in this scenario, you can shark until you get 6 gates but from there it's time to press hard because you have a window where he won't have a critical mass of mutas yet.
Thanks Khala.
Yeah this seems like the most appropriate response. I suppose when I sense the mutas I should research blink asap. After all, my twilight council should be down anyway to ensure that my upgrades are on track.
One more thing, what do you think about the zerg gas steal early on? I feel like it just straight up kills the build by halving the number of sentries you can get.
Thanks again.
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On January 15 2011 05:33 QTIP. wrote:
Hey Khaladas, I appreciate you taking the time to do this. Thanks to Incontrol as well.
Im a 2300 point master leaguer, and have been using this build quite frequently on the ladder. And for the most part its quite nice.
However, I feel like like there are quite a couple things zerg can do to throw off your build here.
1) gas steal
- limits sentry production obviously
- makes the "magical number" of 8 sentries nearly impossible to get by the 40ish supply mark where you should be expanding
2) block your cybernetics core wall in (delays early sentries, throws off your build)
- delays sentry production
- delays wall in, making ling run by more of a threat
more importantly a fast tech to mutas by the zerg player, even if you sense it coming by seeing many speedlings, can harass you in your base endlessly.
I've noticed that many of the zergs I lose to choose to do this. They will see my sentry heavy build, and instead of over-commiting with lings, they allow me to do my "shark mode" (taking towers, picking off overlords, poking/prodding in general) knowing that I cannot outright kill them myself.
There have been numerous games where they let me expand, and simply drone like crazy even when im running around the map taking towers, killing fresh creep tumors. They've got 3 spines up and ling production is quick, from their point of view, I don't feel in danger either.
Once their lair finishes, they explode with a decent number of mutas rallied straight to my base and I have nothing to stop it.
I suppose I should time myself for a 6 gate warpgate timing push, but mutas will be out on the way there. They will kill your probes first, shutting down your warpgate reinforcements, and then mass speedling spinecrawler for defence, forcing me to gg.
Thanks to anyone who can offer some help. (cannot provide a replay at this time, but I'm at the level where following a build order is not a problem.)
1) Don't worry about it about gas steals. You don't need 8-9 sentries, it's not some magic number of sentries. I would say you need at least 5 or so however.
2) Bring 2 probes to make your core so you can quickly chase away any blocking drones.
2-base mutaling generally comes around 9-10 mins. Your 6-gate should hit just before that and it is just not possible to defend with just lings and crawlers on most maps (LT is an exception b/c of the easily defendable natural). So it sounds like you are doing something wrong here but w/ no replay I cannot offer any specific advice.
Also pushing with just a zealot and your sentries isn't a bad idea at all. You at least want to poke in and see if he has a bunch of crawlers up or roaches. If he's relying on mostly lings you can definitely do some damage with just your zealot and sentries, so don't be afraid to push.
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First of all, really helpful post... Also inControl seems like a really awsome guy whom you can learn from...
One thing about Khaladas' lack of aggression: I do think that it was partly due to him playing against incontrol, lol... I'm playing a match or two against a friend of mine who was like rank 2 diamond or something and now working up in master's league, and just because I knew who he was I always ended up playing worse against him that I play my average matches...
Incredible video though... I'd love to see more videos like this one!
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On January 15 2011 05:46 QTIP. wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2011 05:43 Khaladas wrote:On January 15 2011 05:33 QTIP. wrote:
Hey Khaladas, I appreciate you taking the time to do this. Thanks to Incontrol as well.
Im a 2300 point master leaguer, and have been using this build quite frequently on the ladder. And for the most part its quite nice.
However, I feel like like there are quite a couple things zerg can do to throw off your build here.
1) gas steal
- limits sentry production obviously
- makes the "magical number" of 8 sentries nearly impossible to get by the 40ish supply mark where you should be expanding
2) block your cybernetics core wall in (delays early sentries, throws off your build)
- delays sentry production
- delays wall in, making ling run by more of a threat
more importantly a fast tech to mutas by the zerg player, even if you sense it coming by seeing many speedlings, can harass you in your base endlessly.
I've noticed that many of the zergs I lose to choose to do this. They will see my sentry heavy build, and instead of over-commiting with lings, they allow me to do my "shark mode" (taking towers, picking off overlords, poking/prodding in general) knowing that I cannot outright kill them myself.
There have been numerous games where they let me expand, and simply drone like crazy even when im running around the map taking towers, killing fresh creep tumors. They've got 3 spines up and ling production is quick, from their point of view, I don't feel in danger either.
Once their lair finishes, they explode with a decent number of mutas rallied straight to my base and I have nothing to stop it.
I suppose I should time myself for a 6 gate warpgate timing push, but mutas will be out on the way there. They will kill your probes first, shutting down your warpgate reinforcements, and then mass speedling spinecrawler for defence, forcing me to gg.
Thanks to anyone who can offer some help. (cannot provide a replay at this time, but I'm at the level where following a build order is not a problem.)
One question on this, when you are in shark mode and you see spinecrawlers and lots of lings, what are you doing in response? Incontrol can back me up on this, but he definitely advocates going blink stalkers vs mutas. So after seeing spines and lots of lings, even absent of any other scouting from an observer i'd feel pretty confident he was going mutas. From there i'd probably do just as you mention above and look for a 6 gate timing push and just put a ton of pressure to slow them down. You may even need to think about building a cannon or two in your mineral line just to stop them from killing your econ while they have you at bay with spines/lings. From what I gathered, Shark mode is for when you are building up and not ready to attack. Once you have a force, you are in a relentless pressure/attacking mode. So in this scenario, you can shark until you get 6 gates but from there it's time to press hard because you have a window where he won't have a critical mass of mutas yet. Thanks Khala. Yeah this seems like the most appropriate response. I suppose when I sense the mutas I should research blink asap. After all, my twilight council should be down anyway to ensure that my upgrades are on track. One more thing, what do you think about the zerg gas steal early on? I feel like it just straight up kills the build by halving the number of sentries you can get. Thanks again.
Don't stress the gas steal. Know how far away his lings are from your base. In a lot of cases, you can afford to pull your first zealot from your ramp to kill the extractor. Otherwise, you can build 2 zealots at the start. Not a big deal. Also, if he's doing the build/cancel/build thing so that it never finishes, hit the extractor with a zealot plus a probe or 2. I believe a zealot and a probe DPS enough that you can kill the extractor while it's building. If 1 probe isn't enough, 2 certainly is.
Also, 8 sentries isn't a big deal. The resources just work out with the gas timing that you have 800 gas to burn through. If the 2nd gas is a little later, you'll wind up with 6 or so sentries and an extra zealot and stalker or something at the same timing. 6 sentries gives you plenty of forcefields to push around roaches and lings.
Also remember that there are 3-gate expand variants that run off of 1 gas that allow you much better aggression. Try going zealot sentry off of 1 gas and expanding behind a push. Zealot sentry is great for getting across the map because it's strong against speedlings. Then you can warp in stalkers at Z's base as you attack to deal with roaches and spines.
The goal isn't to get 8 sentries; it's to get your natural up on relatively even terms with Z while having enough sentries to combat roaches and lings. There's a lot of ways to get there.
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This is kind of off-topic but incontrols creep spread is sick.
About gas steal when I scout a pool 13 or sooner and they gas steal me, i throw down a forge, and a couple of cannons to expand sooner because roaches are coming, but not enough to break 2 well placed cannons a couple zealots and the 2 or 3 stalkers you can have off one gas. whatever you do, dont build a sentry off one gas or you auto-lose to early roaches.
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On January 15 2011 12:49 Jayrod wrote:
This is kind of off-topic but incontrols creep spread is sick.
About gas steal when I scout a pool 13 or sooner and they gas steal me, i throw down a forge, and a couple of cannons to expand sooner because roaches are coming, but not enough to break 2 well placed cannons a couple zealots and the 2 or 3 stalkers you can have off one gas. whatever you do, dont build a sentry off one gas or you auto-lose to early roaches.
What's crazy is his main is Protoss and he's super strong with the other 2 off races.
This just in, Pro players are good.
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Gas steal: instead of doing 1 zealot 8 sentries, start with like 3 zealots and 6 sentries instead. See how incontrol delays his 4th gas until he's ready to use a robo? Just take it earlier to compensate for the gas steal and then you're back to 8 sentries again.
Drone blocking your core: either put it somewhere else or send a 2nd probe.
Muta: If you can scout the spine crawlers by sneaking a probe behind your shark mode, you can skip the robo and go 6 gates instead. It's almost impossible for a muta build to hold off 6 gate with +1 weapons.
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On January 15 2011 09:11 kcdc wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2011 05:46 QTIP. wrote:On January 15 2011 05:43 Khaladas wrote:On January 15 2011 05:33 QTIP. wrote:
Hey Khaladas, I appreciate you taking the time to do this. Thanks to Incontrol as well.
Im a 2300 point master leaguer, and have been using this build quite frequently on the ladder. And for the most part its quite nice.
However, I feel like like there are quite a couple things zerg can do to throw off your build here.
1) gas steal
- limits sentry production obviously
- makes the "magical number" of 8 sentries nearly impossible to get by the 40ish supply mark where you should be expanding
2) block your cybernetics core wall in (delays early sentries, throws off your build)
- delays sentry production
- delays wall in, making ling run by more of a threat
more importantly a fast tech to mutas by the zerg player, even if you sense it coming by seeing many speedlings, can harass you in your base endlessly.
I've noticed that many of the zergs I lose to choose to do this. They will see my sentry heavy build, and instead of over-commiting with lings, they allow me to do my "shark mode" (taking towers, picking off overlords, poking/prodding in general) knowing that I cannot outright kill them myself.
There have been numerous games where they let me expand, and simply drone like crazy even when im running around the map taking towers, killing fresh creep tumors. They've got 3 spines up and ling production is quick, from their point of view, I don't feel in danger either.
Once their lair finishes, they explode with a decent number of mutas rallied straight to my base and I have nothing to stop it.
I suppose I should time myself for a 6 gate warpgate timing push, but mutas will be out on the way there. They will kill your probes first, shutting down your warpgate reinforcements, and then mass speedling spinecrawler for defence, forcing me to gg.
Thanks to anyone who can offer some help. (cannot provide a replay at this time, but I'm at the level where following a build order is not a problem.)
One question on this, when you are in shark mode and you see spinecrawlers and lots of lings, what are you doing in response? Incontrol can back me up on this, but he definitely advocates going blink stalkers vs mutas. So after seeing spines and lots of lings, even absent of any other scouting from an observer i'd feel pretty confident he was going mutas. From there i'd probably do just as you mention above and look for a 6 gate timing push and just put a ton of pressure to slow them down. You may even need to think about building a cannon or two in your mineral line just to stop them from killing your econ while they have you at bay with spines/lings. From what I gathered, Shark mode is for when you are building up and not ready to attack. Once you have a force, you are in a relentless pressure/attacking mode. So in this scenario, you can shark until you get 6 gates but from there it's time to press hard because you have a window where he won't have a critical mass of mutas yet. Thanks Khala. Yeah this seems like the most appropriate response. I suppose when I sense the mutas I should research blink asap. After all, my twilight council should be down anyway to ensure that my upgrades are on track. One more thing, what do you think about the zerg gas steal early on? I feel like it just straight up kills the build by halving the number of sentries you can get. Thanks again. Don't stress the gas steal. Know how far away his lings are from your base. In a lot of cases, you can afford to pull your first zealot from your ramp to kill the extractor. Otherwise, you can build 2 zealots at the start. Not a big deal. Also, if he's doing the build/cancel/build thing so that it never finishes, hit the extractor with a zealot plus a probe or 2. I believe a zealot and a probe DPS enough that you can kill the extractor while it's building. If 1 probe isn't enough, 2 certainly is. Also, 8 sentries isn't a big deal. The resources just work out with the gas timing that you have 800 gas to burn through. If the 2nd gas is a little later, you'll wind up with 6 or so sentries and an extra zealot and stalker or something at the same timing. 6 sentries gives you plenty of forcefields to push around roaches and lings. Also remember that there are 3-gate expand variants that run off of 1 gas that allow you much better aggression. Try going zealot sentry off of 1 gas and expanding behind a push. Zealot sentry is great for getting across the map because it's strong against speedlings. Then you can warp in stalkers at Z's base as you attack to deal with roaches and spines. The goal isn't to get 8 sentries; it's to get your natural up on relatively even terms with Z while having enough sentries to combat roaches and lings. There's a lot of ways to get there.
I like this point kcdc. Thanks!
I definitely need to look at being a little more flexible and realizing that 8 sentries isn't the do-or-die of this strategy.
thanks to all those who replied to my post as well.
All very useful information. ^^
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I had a lesson with InControl yesterday on PvT, and I can't explain how helpful it was. I've played one PvT on ladder since then, and I ROLLED him. Where I had 4 bases on his 2, thanks InControl!
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EPT
