[G] ZvZ Hatch first vs a 14/14 - Page 9

On April 03 2011 19:36 sylverfyre wrote:

Get to ultras? They ignore the fungal stun - though that tends to be a "next step" for me when we're going back and forth in 200/200 roach infestor battles.

Burrow helps a ton vs infestor - the regen really messes up the damage.

I wanna discuss this further:
The advantage 14/14 has over this kind of roach defense is that with a much faster speed one has a lot easier time scouting, and with hatch first you are forced to make some blind roaches that may turn out to be useless giving time to catch up in economy.
The way korean zergs of the nestea school play this is massing slow roaches without lair and going for a timing attack that hits before the 14/14 player can get his own roach tech kickin in (or, forcing him to get roaches before closing the economic gap).

In my experience though you can't do this on the new larger maps, because they have enough time to spine up and stall while your roaches move their slow asses across the map. To me it seems that, paradoxically, this makes 14/14 stronger than hatch first on large maps. Have you found a hatch first opening that is
a) safe against pool first and,
b) can consistently kill a pool first build?

because if there is none, pool first seems to be less fragile and easier to play without any real weakness.

On April 22 2011 23:50 Chaos_SC2 wrote:
would you re-upload the replays? I cant download them...

Quite a great post, it's basically what I do every zvz too. I also got the idea that if u go straight to roaches, u have enough time to build them against a 14/14 ling allin/expand.

I have a masters friend who loves early game ling aggression, it took me around 10 games of getting ran over until I figured out how the timing works for the pure roach defense, but all in all, this definitely works.

From there, if he expanded, I normally drone up behind a couple roaches, if he didn't, then I still drone a bit and get more roaches to defend against the eventual allin.

Normally I try to end the game with +1 +1 speed roach, which works great now even with infesters on the field....Becuz by the time I atk there will only be 2/3 fungals, and +1 +1 roaches just rapes 0/0 roaches....

@blade: what do you think about a hydra/roach timing push before infestors come out? hydra is the fastest lair tech, while infestors are the slowest. i feel as if there exists a timing for 10 or so hydras to crush a player trying to invest in infestor tech.

i was thinking about this for awhile, and recently saw a zvz by idra that made me think there's some merit to it:

http://www.justin.tv/eg_idra/b/283858108

it's the very first game in the VOD.

Is this considered to be automatically better than 14/14 if you hold properly? I still prefer 14/14 to contain and then I take my natural at 21. Against fast hatch I can sometimes force a cancel but it seems like I can always prevent him from using his hatch until mine has completed. He's also waiting for my aggression to stop which means I get to drone up while he's trying to confirm what I'm doing.

Am I doing it wrong?

On April 23 2011 05:27 Moosegills wrote:
I'm curious to why you gas at 14, i feel that you don't need it that early.
I've been able to hold off all 14/14's (except metal close positions) with 15 hatch 15 pool 17 gas.
Have you tried going that style or have you always got the pool and gas at 14?

On April 23 2011 05:31 blade55555 wrote:


I don't anymore, I get it once I get it on 17 supply now. I thought I updated the OP but might have forgotten.

On April 23 2011 23:50 Chaos_SC2 wrote:
Um...I'm now looking into the replays. What I want to say is that I'm still a new zerg player(just bought the game a few days ago...) I dont think I can handle it...with an extremely low apm...(~30 oops), but, as you know, there are a number of bronze/silver zerg players do early pool...Should I sacrifice my points to try holding it with FE, for the sake of getting promoted to gold, whatever, one day? Or I should go 14/14, maybe 6-10 pool to fight against them...plz help...How can I increase my APM...OMG...frustrated now...

On April 24 2011 03:06 khaosis wrote:
Great writeup, and I'll definitely give it a shot in my next practice game/ ladder match. However, I personally find it difficult to hold off early zerg aggression in ZvZ. Either I'm not playing it right, but at times the mass zerglings seem to overwhelm me. I think it's key obviously to scout and decide the appropriate amount of lings or drones that need to produced.